Attack of the Jaaith

Captain Culran looked up sharply. "What was that?" he asked, and Mehmet and Skaven's expressions told him they'd heard the muffled thump too. Lifting his cutlass from the table, the captain headed for the door as the two half-bloods gathered their weapons. Across the room, Avin'utherdar looked up, interested, and rose to follow them.

Cautiously opening the door, Mehmet peered out, then stepped cautiously out onto the deck, followed by Skaven. Scanning the ship, he narrowed his eyes as he noticed Denuon sprawled on the aft gangplank and Morluth lying on the deck near the top of it. Something bad was afoot, and magic was called for. He cast a Mindspeech and linked himself with Skaven, silently indicating they should take one side each and investigate. Skaven cast his Fireblade and headed down the port side with Avin'utherdar in tow, while Mehmet and Culran went down the starboard side.

Squinting along the deck, Mehmet noticed some indistinct humanoid forms moving near the forward end of the fore deckhouse. He gestured to Culran and the pair advanced, but not unseen. Something tiny and sharp pinwheeled out of the darkness, narrowly missing Culran to stick in the bulkhead behind with a thunk. Both accelerated, charging down the deck towards the intruders. It was a nasty shock when four more sprang out of the shadows between the aft deckhouse and the mainmast.

On the other side, Skaven and Avin'utherdar had run almost headlong into two opponents. Skaven engaged immediately, his flaming blade beating down a feeble parry by his foe and scything his head clean off. From behind, he heard a swift incantation in the fluid qhalur tongue and the other foeman toppled onto his face, twitching and quivering helplessly. Skaven glanced back; "What did you do to him?" he asked. "He's incapacitated," replied the full-blood casually. Skaven, impressed, set to tying the man up.

On the starboard side, Culran defended himself desperately, but this was not Mehmet's way. Disdaining defence, he hurled himself at his opponents, the curved scimitar of the Archen whispering through the night air. He clove one to the teeth and wounded another, but looking up could see the original two hurrying down the deck to join the fray; the numbers didn't look good.

Sprinting across the quayside, Percinious Nutbolter, gasping slightly, drew magic from the Magure Claw and cast a Mystic Vision. Instantly, everything leaped into a new perspective. As well as the visual, he saw the soul auras of each man on the ship, clearly outlining the hard-to-see intruders. Tossing the crystal matrix to Gilbert, he grinned and ran up the gangplank.

Next to him, Gilbert stopped, caught the Claw, cast a Multimissile and opened fire. A blizzard of arrows flashed across the water and between the mast and the deckhouse, wounding two of the intruders fighting Mehmet and Culran. Mehmet took advantage of this to strike off yet another head. A moment later, Gilbert's next deadly volley killed two more, knocking one completely overboard, as the remaining two defended themselves against Mehmet. Culran cut down another, and the final foeman, already wounded, succumbed to Mehmet's suggestion (in Dorlan) that he surrender or die like the others. A moment later the four crewmen who'd been asleep in the foc'sle arrived and subdued the man.

Percinious, reaching the deck, was immediately embroiled with two more foes. He engaged them with Hadraes, empowered only with normal magic, and for the first time found himself relying on his sorcerous Damage Resistance instead of the more common Protection. To his delight it worked well, and he was only mildly wounded despite two unsucessful dodges. His situation was better improved when Gilbert shot the legs out from under one of his foes, allowing him to slay the other and end the battle.

The surivors spread out to search the vessel. Apart from the three prisoners and one known overboard, there were seven bodies, all dressed in strange, enfolding dark clothes and equipped with short, dull-bladed swords and wicked throwing triangles. Around each neck was a black pendant, bearing a word in the qhalur langauge. The word was Jaaith, but only Avin'utherdar knew what it meant; historically, a brotherhood of assassins, spies and saboteurs dating back to the days of the qhalur empire. None had been seen on Mereval for more than a thousand years. Skaven was outraged at the idea of mere humans daring to ape their betters in this way.

Morlum, Denuon and Ellerand were all dead, but Losgar was barely alive and was easily saved with a Heal spell. Once he was sorted out, Percinious drew him quietly aside and sent him below to impound all Ellerand's possessions; he didn't want the fullblood getting hold of them! The gangplanks were withdrawn and the half-bloods set to questioning their prisoners.

After around an hour, Percinious and Mehmet had broken one each and were getting useful answers, but Gilbert and Skaven's joint effort had been overenthusiastic, and their prisoner was dead.

The new Jaaith, it emerged, were created by Academy Hadragan, and equipped with skills of stealth, espionage and murder as well as sorcerous magic, which their service bought them the right to learn more of. They had been sent to steal the raker and take it back to Academy Hadragan's headquarters on the small island off the coast of Neudorn. Success would be indicated by the flying of a flag bearing Hadragan's insignia - this was carried by their leader, one said.

None of the bodies had had a flag. "How many of you were there?" asked Gilbert. "Twelve," was the answer, and this sparked a fresh and fruitless search - one had got away, the leader, no less! How was a puzzle, as there was no sign or practical way he could have escaped to seaward, and the gangplanks had been covered from the moment Gilbert and Percinious arrived.

The flow of information had dried up, so Mehmet thanked the prisoners without a shred of irony, and rewarded them with a quick painless death....