00.1 - The Blood Price Read Online Free PDF Page A

route.”
    “Or it might have seen us and is running for help,” Master Gul interjected,
his teeth glinting coldly.
    “All right,” Malus said. “What do we do?”
    Lhunara spoke first. “We have to catch it. We can’t take the chance that it
didn’t see us.”
    “Or we could give up this fool’s errand and turn back now!” Gul urged. “The
enemy won’t give chase. This is our only chance to escape.”
    “Escape?” Malus growled. “ That ship there is trying to escape,” he
said, pointing off at the receding elven ship. “And with good reason. Lhunara,
can we catch it?”
    The first mate nodded. “The wind is with us. I believe we can.”
    “All right then. Lower all the sails, or start rowing, or whatever it is you
do,” he replied, waving in the general direction of the masts. “And prepare the
crew for battle.”
    And with that, the chase was on. Red hides crackled in the wind as Manticore put on full sail, and boots drummed over the deck as the crew
readied their weapons and counted the distance between them and their prey.
    For a time, it seemed as though nothing changed between pursuer and pursued.
The sun rose into the cloudy sky, and Malus could see little more than the
fleeing ship’s sail, an angular chip of white on the horizon. But slowly,
steadily, as the hours wore on into the morning, the elven ship took shape.
Malus moved forward to the citadel deck, where the bowmen and the reaper bolt
thrower crews waited for action.
    Then, at mid-morning, the corsair’s luck turned with the wind. It shifted
from north-east to north-west, blowing towards the Blighted Isle, and the
fleeing patrol ship lost some of her headway. The distance shrank quickly after
that, until Malus could clearly see the outline of the enemy vessel. She was low
and sleek like Manticore, with three masts and angular sails. Her twin
hulls were painted a rich blue and her ship’s fittings were golden. Sunlight
glinted coldly off the points of spears and silver helmets arrayed at the stern
of the ship.
    “Gul is an odious bastard, but he was right this time,” Lhunara said quietly,
just over Malus’ shoulder. The young highborn felt his heart leap into his
chest, but struggled not to show it.
    “How’s that?”
    “With every minute we draw closer to Ulthuan,” she said. “That ship could be
leading us right into a trap. Ulthuan’s patrol ships frequently work in pairs.
We could very easily be getting into something we have no way of getting out
of.”
    “Are we going to catch them?”
    “As long as the wind holds and nothing drastic happens.”
    Just then Malus caught a glint of light flash from the stern of the fleeing
ship. A slender shape blurred through the air and plunged into the sea barely
twenty yards from the corsair. A moment later another bolt splashed down, this
one five yards closer.
    “Something like that?” Malus asked.
    Lhunara stepped beside the highborn and grinned like a wolf. “Here’s where
things get interesting,” she said. The first mate gave Malus a searching look.
“We’re past the point of no return now. If we live long enough to reach Ulthuan,
you do have a plan for getting inside whatever village we find, right? There
will be a garrison, a wall and a barred gate. You’ve thought of that, right?”
    Before Malus had to lie to her the reaper bolt thrower crew cut in. “Do your
jawing somewhere else,” the chief bowman yelled as the weapon swung their way.
“Unless you want to get to that ship a whole lot faster than you planned.”
    The two druchii ducked out of the way, and the reaper bolt thrower banged
against its mount. After a moment the corsairs in the citadel let out a cheer.
Malus squinted at the enemy ship. Had they hit it? He couldn’t tell.
    The highborn turned to Lhunara and was about to ask her what happened when
there was a humming sound in the air and an elven shot struck the forward rail.
The yard-long bolt smashed the wooden rail to splinters