The goblins, more confused and terrified than bloodthirsty, could not pull up in time, and burst into flame as a wave of fire erupted from the wizard's hands, fanning out before him.

"Archers fire a volley over the wall!" Gareth called, and the order echoed down the line. Indeed, with the monstrous ranks so depleted, there was no need for another, point-blank barrage.

Out rode Gareth with Celedon, Olwen and Riordan beside him, and, amazingly, the monk Kane sprinted before the charging horses and was the first to engage. He leaped and fell straight out, feet leading, as he neared a goblin and kobold duo, taking the smaller, doglike kobold with a snap kick to the face and slamming the five-foot goblin with a solid hit to the chest.

Both shot back as surely as if a horse had kicked them.

Kane landed on his back, but moved so quickly and fluidly that many onlookers blinked and shook their heads. For he was up again, in perfect balance, almost as soon as the trailing folds of his dirty robes touched the ground. He stomped on the downed kobold's neck for good measure, then leaped ahead and to the side, spinning as he landed beside a surprised goblin. The creature took an awkward swing with its mace, one that Kane easily pushed up into the air as he came around. Not breaking the momentum of his turn, the monk snapped his arm back to the right angle and followed through with a jarring elbow, catching the goblin right below the chin and fully crushing its windpipe.

"He does steal all the fun," Celedon remarked to Gareth.

Gareth began to reply that there were plenty of enemies to be found, but he didn't bother. The infantry came on hard, and Emelyn's wizards continued their devastation, and the paladin realized that he would have to be quick if he intended to stain his brilliant sword, Crusader the Holy Avenger, in that initial battle. A quick glance at his friend Kane told him to veer in a different direction if he hoped to find a target.

Gasping for breath from the perfectly aimed, driving elbow, the goblin fell away, and before it had even hit the ground, Kane had already engaged another, his hands working furiously in the air before him, like great sweeping fans.

And it was all a ruse, designed to get the goblin leaning forward, to get its weapon shifted out just a bit to the side. As soon as that happened, Kane sprang forward, high and turning a somersault as he went. He hooked his leading forearm under the goblin's chin then planted his shoulder against the goblin's back as he came around and over. The monk landed on his feet back-to-back with the dizzy goblin, and as he continued forward, he pulled his arm up and over the goblin, forcing its head back and up.

Hearing the snap of the creature's neck bone, Kane quickly released, let the limp thing fall dead to the ground, and charged on.

The battle, the slaughter, was over in minutes, with the charge stalled and crushed, the goblins and kobolds lying dead or dying, other than a few who knelt on the ground, their arms up in the air, pleading for their lives.

Across the field, the portcullis had already fallen back in place and the gates had swung closed.

"Beware the following wave!" Dugald and others cried out. "Beware the gargoyles!"

But there were none. Nothing. The castle sat before them, enormous and deathly quiet. Goblin statues set along the wall leered out, but merely as unmoving, unthreatening stone. No figures moved behind them.

Another volley of arrows went over that wall, then a second, but if they hit anything other than the interior walls or the empty ground, no confirming cries of alarm or agony indicated it.

"Hold fire!" Gareth called as he and the other warriors turned back to reform their previous ranks. The paladin king cast a disparaging glance at the castle of King Artemis the First as he rode, thinking that Kane's observation had been quite on the mark.

But knowing as well that he had neither the patience nor the supplies to support such a siege.

Entreri and Jarlaxle heard the arrows cracking on the front door of the main keep, and the assassin was glad that he had thought to close the repaired portal behind him as he had entered.

Inside the main room of the ground level, Kimmuriel and several other dark elves waited for the pair, and Entreri couldn't contain a sour expression at the sight of the hated creatures.

"They will not wait long," Kimmuriel told Jarlaxle in the drow tongue, and it bothered Entreri that he still understood that paradoxically lyrical language. How could creatures so vile sound so melodious? "Gareth will show no patience with the winter winds blowing. As soon as they come to believe that our assault was not merely a diversion for a greater attack, expect that they will come on. They've dragged war engines across the miles, and they will not let the catapults remain silent."

"We are well prepared, of course."

"We are the last," Kimmuriel replied. "The gate is held fast in the lower chamber. It is time to choose, Jarlaxle."

"Choose what?" Entreri asked his companion, using the common tongue of the surface world.

That didn't exclude the fluent Kimmuriel in the least. "Choose between flight and awakening the full power of the castle," he said in the same language, his inflection perfect. He seamlessly went back to the drow tongue as he added to Jarlaxle, "Will you awaken Urshula?"

Jarlaxle thought on that for a short while. Another volley of arrows streamed into the castle, some cracking against the keep's doors.

"We might fight a great battle here," Jarlaxle said. "With Urshula and the gargoyles, with the undead who will come to my call, we could inflict great misery on our enemy. And with Bregan D'aerthe's full power, there is no doubt that we would win the day."

"The gain would be temporary, and not worth the price," said Kimmuriel. "We have no reinforcements, yet Damara is a country of King Gareth's minions, who will not sit idly by. And Gareth likely has many treaties that would bring other nations against us in time."

Jarlaxle looked to Entreri. "What say you?"

"I say that I have traveled with an idiot," the assassin replied, and Jarlaxle merely laughed.

"Many dead dark elves have said the same," Kimmuriel warned, and Entreri shot him a threatening look.

But Jarlaxle's laughter defeated all of the tension. "It was a good attempt," he decided. "But now that we've seen the response, it is time to take our leave of King Gareth and his Bloodstone Lands."

He motioned for Kimmuriel and the others to lead the way into the tunnels, then waited for Entreri to walk up beside him before following. As they passed the mushroom throne, Jarlaxle tossed a rolled scroll, bound with two strings of gold, onto its seat.

Entreri turned as if to retrieve it, but Jarlaxle put a hand on his shoulder and guided him along.

They moved through the tunnels, to the room where Mariabronne had fallen to the daemons, then farther down the winding way. Dust fell from the ceiling as the bombardment began above in full. Finally they entered the chamber of Urshula, the scars of the battle bringing that deadly encounter clearly back into Entreri's thoughts.

And reminding him that, in his darkest hour, Jarlaxle had abandoned him.

At the back of the huge chamber, beyond the sprawled, bony corpse of the dracolich, its head and neck blackened from the fire of Entreri's killing trap, an ornate portal, a glowing blue doorway, loomed. While the walls of the chamber could be seen all around its edges, within the frame of the jamb there was only blackness.

One after another, the dark elf soldiers of Bregan D'aerthe walked through and disappeared.

Soon there were only three left, and Kimmuriel nodded to Jarlaxle then stepped through.