from the Sea Sprite, cutting across the bow of the caravel, and then a fireball from Robillard exploded high in the air before the rushing ship. The caravel, not agile and no longer equipped with an able wizard, rushed right into the explosions. As the fireball disappeared, both masts of the square-rigger were tipped in flames, giant candles on the open sea.
The caravel tried to respond with its catapult, but Catti-brie's arrows had done their work and the throwing beam split apart as soon as the crew cranked too much tension on it.
Drizzt rushed back to the wheel. "One more pass?" he asked Deudermont.
The Captain shook his head. "Time for only one," he explained. "And no time to stop and board."
"Two thousand yards! Two ships!" Catti-brie called out.
Drizzt looked at Deudermont with sincere admiration. "More of Pinochet's allies?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"That caravel alone could not defeat us," the seasoned captain coolly added. "Carrackus knows that and so would Pinochet. She was to lead us in."
"But we were too fast for that tactic," Drizzt reasoned.
"Are you ready for a fight?" Deudermont asked slyly.
Before the drow could even answer, Deudermont pulled hard and the Sea Sprite leaned into a starboard turn until it came about to face the slowed caravel. The square-sailed ship's topmasts were burning and half her was crew busy trying to repair the rigging, to at least keep her under half-sail. Deudermont angled his ship to intercept, to cut across the prow, in what the archers called a "bow rake."
And the wounded caravel couldn't maneuver out of harm's way. Her wizard, though blinded, had kept the presence of mind to put up a wall of thick mist, the standard and effective defensive seaboard tactic.
Deudermont measured his angle carefully, wanting to turn the Sea Sprite right against the edge of that mist and the whipping water, to get as close to the caravel as he could. This was their last pass, and it had to be devastating or else the caravel would be able to limp into the fight with its sister ships, which were closing fast.
There came a flash on the square-rigged ship's deck, a spark of light that countered Drizzt's darkness spell.
From her high perch above the defensive magic, Catti-brie saw it. She was already training on the darkness when the wizard emerged. The robed man went immediately into a chant, meaning to hurl a devastating spell in the path of the Sea Sprite before she could cross the caravel's bow, but only a couple of words had escaped his lips when he felt a tremendous thump against his chest and heard the planks of the ship's deck splinter behind him. He looked down at the blood beginning to pour onto the decking and realized that he was sitting, then lying, and all the world grew dark.
The wall of mist the wizard had put up fell away.
Robillard saw it, recognized it, and clapped his hands and sent twin bolts of lightning slashing across the caravel's deck, slamming the masts and killing many pirates. The Sea Sprite crossed in front of the caravel, and the archers let fly. So, too, did the ballista crew, but they did not hurl a long spear this time. They used a shortened and unbalanced bolt, trailing a chain lined with many-pronged grapnels. The contraption twirled as it flew, entangling many lines, fouling up the caravel's rigging.
Another missile, a living missile, six hundred pounds of sleek and muscled panther, soared from the Sea Sprite as she crossed by and caught the caravel's beam.
"Are you ready, drow?" Robillard called, seeming excited for the first time this fight.
Drizzt nodded and motioned to his fighting companions, the score of veterans who comprised the Sea Sprite's crack boarding crew. They scrambled toward the wizard from all sections of the ship, dropping their bows and drawing out weapons for close melee. By the time Drizzt, leading the rush, got near to Robillard, the wizard already had a shimmering field-a magical door-on the deck beside him. Drizzt didn't hesitate, charging right through, scimitars in hand. One of them, Twinkle, glowed a fierce blue.
Out the other end of Robillard's magical tunnel he came, arriving in the midst of many surprised pirates aboard the caravel. Drizzt slashed left and right, clearing a hole in their ranks, and he darted through, his feet a blur. He turned sharply, fell to the side and rolled as one archer shot harmlessly above him. He came back to his feet, darted straight for