Read Sea of Death: Blade of the Flame - Book 3 for Free Online

birds surrounding them. The gulls might not have been able to fly, but the creatures continued to cry shrilly and peck at anything near them that moved, including each other.
    “I tried,” Solus said. “But their minds were too simple, the rage that engulfed them too strong.”
    “That’s all right,” Hinto said. “I heard you tell Diran you didn’t know what caused the gulls to go crazy. You can’t counter magic if you don’t know anything about it, right?”
    “I said didn’t know
what
power affected the birds, but I do know
something
about it. I know where it originated from.”
    Solus pointed sternward and everyone turned to look in the direction the psiforged indicated.
    There, off in distance, lay the harbor of Kolbyr.

A s
Welby’s Pride
headed into port, Diran healed the wounded crew members while Solus used his telekinetic abilities to remove the gulls from the deck. The psiforged placed the birds into the water, where the dead would become food for other scavengers and the wounded would have a chance for survival, slim though it might be.
    Once the shallop was settled into a berth and tied down, Asenka paid the captain the rest of his fee, and the companions disembarked. Ghaji found the docks of Kolbyr to be quite a change from those in Perhata. Instead of using wood for pillars and planking, the Kolbyrites had fashioned their docks entirely from gray stone. The surfaces were worn smooth by decades of exposure to the elements as well as by the thousands of feet that had trod upon the docks over the years. Patches of moss clung to the stone everywhere, making the docks look more green than gray, as if they had grown from the sea floor rather than having been constructed with hammer and chisel.
    The stink of fish hung heavy on the air here—no doubt due to all the fishing boats berthed at the docks—and Ghaji was grateful that a strong breeze was blowing to cut the stench, though gale-force winds would’ve been even better. He hadn’t said anything to the others, but the smell of fish reminded him far too much of the stinkof Karrnathi undead, which in turn reminded him of the months he’d spent serving as a mercenary on the Talenta Plains during the Last War. When he thought of those days, he thought of Kirai, and since
those
thoughts were too painful to recall, he did his best to cast them out of his mind. Doing so would’ve been easier if the damned air didn’t stink like a horde of Karrnathi zombies, though.
    Asenka led the way. Not only was she more familiar with Kolbyr as a citizen of the Gulf of Ingjald, she was also the representative of Baron Mahir, which meant she carried all the bribe money. Diran and Ghaji followed closely behind Asenka, while the others brought up the rear. Ostensibly their mission was a secret one, but Kolbyr had many spies in Perhata, just as Perhata had its own spies here. Often, these spies were one and the same, men and women who worked “both sides of the gulf,” as the saying went. Thus the chances were excellent that word of their mission had preceded them to Kolbyr, and Asenka was authorized to play the role of official ambassador from Perhata—and spread Mahir’s money around as liberally as necessary—should the need arise.
    “Do you sense it, Ghaji?” Diran asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
    Ghaji glanced sideways at his friend. “I assume you’re not talking about the fish smell.”
    “Hardly. I sense the same sort of evil I did aboard the fishing vessel when the gulls attacked. Only it’s stronger here, more focused.”
    Ghaji had traveled with Diran ever since the two had met when the half-orc had been working as a brothel bouncer in Kartan. Though not a worshipper of the Silver Flame himself, Ghaji had joined Diran’s crusade against evil, and he had fought alongside the priest against threats so dire that just to stand in their presence was to risk one’s sanity. They owed each other their lives a dozen times over, and there was no