They met in the middle of the road, both turning back to the house that served as battleground between the wizard and his pet. Booms of magical thunder accompanied the crackle of burning beams. The roar of flames, given voice by the elemental, howled alongside the screams of the terrified wizard. The outer wall froze over suddenly, hit by some magical, frosty blast, only to melt and steam almost immediately as the fire elemental’s handiwork won the contest.

It went on for a few moments before the house began to fall apart. The wizard staggered out the front door, his robes aflame, his hair burned away, his skin beginning to curl.

The elemental, defeated, didn’t come out behind him, but the man could hardly call it a victory as he toppled face down in the road. Regis and Drizzt ran to him, patting out the flames and rolling him over.

“He won’t live for long without a priest,” the halfling said.

“Then we must find him one,” Drizzt replied, and looked back to the southwest, where Deudermont and Brambleberry assaulted the bridge. Smoke rose along with dozens of screams, the ring of metal, and the booming of magic.

Regis blew a long sigh as he answered, “I think most of the priests are going to be busy for a while.”

CHAPTER 11

THE ARCHMAGE ARCANE

T he building resembled a tree, its arms lifting up like graceful branches, tapering to elegant points. Because of the five prominent spires, one for each compass point and a large central pillar, the structure also brought to mind a gigantic hand.

In the centermost spire of the famous Hosttower of the Arcane, Arklem Greeth looked out upon the city. He was a robust creature, rotund and with a thick and full gray beard and a bald head that gave him the appearance of a jolly old uncle. When he laughed, if he wanted to, it came from a great belly that shook and jiggled with phony but hearty glee. When he smiled, if he pretended to, great dimples appeared and his whole face brightened.

Of course Arklem Greeth had an enchantment at his disposal that made his skin look positively flushed with life, the epitome of health and vigor. He was the Archmage Arcane of Luskan, and it wouldn’t do to have people put off by his appearance, since he was, after all, a skeletal, undead thing, a lich who had cheated death. Magical illusions and perfumes hid the more unpleasant aspects of his decaying corporeal form well enough.

Fires burned in the north—he knew them to be the largest collection of his safehouses. Several of his wizards were likely dead or captured.

The lich gave a cackling laugh—not his jolly one, but one of wicked and perverse enjoyment—wondering if he might soon find them in the netherworld and bring them back to his side, even more powerful than they had been in life.

Beneath that laughter, though, Arklem Greeth seethed. The Luskar guards had allowed it to happen. They had turned their backs on law and order for the sake of the upstart Captain Deudermont and that miserable Waterdhavian brat, Brambleberry. The Arcane Brotherhood would have to repay the Brambleberry family, to be sure. Every one of them would die, Arklem Greeth decided, from the oldest to the infants.

A sharp knock on his door broke through the lich’s contemplation.

“Enter,” he called, never looking back. The door magically swung open.

In rushed the young wizard Tollenus the Spike. He nearly tripped and fell on his face as he crossed the threshold, he was so excited and out of sorts.

“Archmage, they have attacked us,” he gasped.

“Yes, I am watching the smoke rise,” said an unimpressed Greeth. “How many are dead?”

“Seven, at least, and more than two-score of our servants,” the Spike answered. “I know not of Pallindra or Honorus—perhaps they managed to escape as did I.”

“By teleporting.”

“Yes, Archmage.”

“Escape? Or flee?” Greeth asked, turning slowly to stare at the flustered young man. “You left without knowing the disposition of your superior, Pallindra?”

“Th-there was nothing…” the Spike stuttered. “All was—was lost…”

“Lost? To a few warriors and half a ship’s crew?”

“Lost to the Mirabarrans!” the Spike cried. “We thought victory ours, but the Mirabarrans…”

“Do tell.”

“They swept upon us like a great wave, m-men and dwarves alike,” the Spike stammered. “We had little power remaining to us in the way of destructive magic, and the hearty dwarves could not be slowed.”

He kept rambling with the details of their last stand, but Greeth tuned him out. He thought of Nyphithys, his darling erinyes, lost to him in the east. He had tried to summon her, and when that had failed, had brought from the lower planes one of her associates, who had told him of the betrayal of King Obould of the orcs and the interference of that wretched Bruenor Battlehammer and his friends.

Arklem Greeth had long wondered how such an ambush had been so carefully planned. He had feared that he had completely underestimated that Obould creature, or the strength of the truce between Many-Arrows and Mithral Hall. He wondered if it hadn’t been a bit more than that strange alliance, though.

And now the Shield of Mirabar in Luskan had surprisingly joined into a fight that the Luskar guards had avoided.

A curious thought crossed Arklem Greeth’s mind.

That thought had a name: Arabeth Raurym.

“They will be compensated,” Lord Brambleberry assured the angry guard captain, who had followed the Waterdhavian lord all the way from Blood Island to the Upstream Span, the northern and westernmost of Luskan’s three Mirar bridges. “Houses can be rebuilt.”

“And children can be re-birthed?” the man snapped back.

“There will be unfortunate circumstances,” said Brambleberry. “It’s the way of battle. And how many were killed by my forces and how many by the Hosttower’s wizards with their wild displays of magic?”

“None would have died if you hadn’t started the fight!”

“My good captain, some things are worth dying for.”

“Shouldn’t that be the choice of him what’s dying?”

Lord Brambleberry smirked at the man, but really had no response. He wasn’t pleased at the losses incurred around the Harbor Cross Bridge. A fire had broken out just north of their perimeter and several homes had been reduced to smoldering ruin. Innocent Luskar had died.

The guard captain’s forward-leaning posture weakened when Captain Deudermont walked over to stand beside Lord Brambleberry.

“Is there a problem?” the legend of Luskan asked.

“N-no, Mr. Deudermont,” the guard stammered, for he was clearly intimidated. “Well, yes, sir.”

“It pains you to see smoke over your city,” Deudermont replied. “It tears at my heart as well, but the worm must be cut from the apple. Be glad that the Hosttower is on a separate island.”

“Yes, Mr. Deudermont.” The guard captain gave one more curt look at Lord Brambleberry then briskly turned and marched away to join his men and their rescue work at the site of the battle.

“His resistance was less strident than I’d anticipated,” Brambleberry said to Deudermont. “Your reputation here makes this much easier.”

“The fight has only just begun,” the captain reminded him.

“Once we have them driven into the Hosttower, it will go quickly,” Brambleberry said.

“They’re wizards. They won’t be held back by lines of men. We’ll be looking over our shoulders for the entirety of the war.”

“Then make it a short one,” the eager Waterdhavian lord said. “Before my neck stiffens.”

He offered a wink and a bow and hurried away, nearly bumping into Robillard, who was coming Deudermont’s way.

“Pallindra is among the dead, and that is no small loss for the Hosttower, and an even greater one for Arklem Greeth, personally, for she was known to be fiercely loyal to him,” Robillard reported. “And our scout of questionable heritage…”