Read Online Under Fallen Stars by Mel Odom - Free Book Online

had prevented it from being lethal, but was the Ravager weakened now? Or was it from that time in the future?
    Ildacer looked at him worriedly, crossing over to the older man. “What is it?”
    “The sea,” Reefglamor stated with hoarse effort. “The sea was burning!”
    III

4 Kythorn, the Year of the Gauntlet
    Jherek stood on the twilight-shadowed docks of Baldur’s Gate and drew in the dank air from the River Chionthar. He missed the salty tang of the ocean, but it was the first time he’d felt close to home since leaving Athkatla.
    He stood nearly six feet tall, a lean youth of nineteen heavily muscled in the arms and shoulders from years of hard work. Dust still covered his breeches and shirt under the cracked leather armor he wore. Sweat and grit had plastered his light brown hair to his head, causing it to hang heavily to his shoulders. Pale gray fire lighted his haunted eyes.
    Baldur’s Gate occupied a crescent shaped section along the river. Four dry-dock slips held skeletons of ships under construction. Normally the crews knocked off at eveningfeast, only working occasionally on late jobs or specially commissioned ones.
    Now, work crews filled all four slips. Jherek had heard they were working night crews by lanterns as well, trying to meet the demand for ships from merchants who’d lost vessels to sahuagin and pirate raids. The watch had taken over one of the slips as well, turning out ships for the navy.
    The river lapped at the dock pilings and the cargo boats at anchor in the harbor. Men worked the ships steadily, cursing in loud voices while cargo chiefs and harbormasters yelled at them as well. The cacophony of sound made him feel homesick, made his heart ache, and twisted his stomach in sour bile.
    His home lay upon the sea even more so than in the house where Madame litaar read her divinations and had given an orphan boy hearth and love. He missed her, and missed Malorrie as well. Now, with the harsh traveling behind him for the moment and no threat of goblinkin roaring down on him, he felt that loss more strongly than ever. More than that, he felt lost.
    As long as I have a home, you’ll have a home.
    Madame litaar had told him that shortly before she’d sent him packing on Breezerunner, a cargo ship bound for Waterdeep. Only the ill luck that had marked him since his birth had continued to follow him, and events had gone awry in the City of Coin. He’d gotten kicked off Breezerunner for fighting with a crew member, and was forced to join up with a caravan to make his way to Baldur’s Gate. All that to follow the destiny that lay before him. Madame litaar had seen in a vision that he was supposed to go to Baldur’s Gate. Now that he was here, he had no idea what to do next. In Athkatla, he’d had a goal. Now there was nothing, only the emptiness and uncertainty stretching before him.
    He watched the boats plying the river. The smaller cargo vessels managed the docks with ease while barges worked the larger ships, off-loading the cargo then ferrying it to the docks. Lights from lanterns reflected from the dark waters, held by sailors moving across decks and hung from pole arms.
    There weren’t as many ships as Jherek remembered from other trips to Baldur’s Gate. With the sahuagin activity still at a frenzied peak, though, that was to be expected. From the moment he’d arrived in the city with the caravan, he’d heard reports of ships that had been taken, and how Waterdeep was rebuilding from the attack on her harbor. Everyone held the opinion that the sea was quickly becoming an unsafe place. Many people swore they’d never venture there again.
    Jherek couldn’t imagine never again sitting in a crow’s nest or hanging in the rigging with an ocean spread out around him, being pushed by the wind while fighting it at the same time. Yet, for now, that seemed to be his fate. For a moment anger burned away the heaviness in his heart, but it didn’t last. The anger was never enough to burn