Robillard looked to the north where one of Brambleberry’s boats eased a bit closer against the strong currents of the Mirar.

“Sails!” Robillard cried, and Sea Sprite’s crew flipped the lines, unfurling fast.

From the rocks of the northwestern tip of Cutlass Island, a pair of lightning bolts reached out at Brambleberry’s ship, scorching her side, tearing one of her sails. With the strong and favorable current, though, the ship was able to immediately reverse direction.

Even as Sea Sprite leaned and splashed to life, Robillard and Arabeth filled her sails with sudden and powerful winds. They didn’t even take the time to pull up the anchor, but just cut the line, and Sea Sprite turned straight in, bucking the currents with such jolting force that all aboard had to grab on and hold tight.

Arklem Greeth’s wizards focused on Brambleberry’s boat for far too long, as Robillard had hoped, and by the time the Hosttower contingent noticed the sudden charge of Sea Sprite, she was close enough so that those on her deck could see the small forms scrambling across the rocks and ducking for whatever cover they could find.

From a more southern vantage on Cutlass Island, a lightning bolt streaked out at Sea Sprite, but she was too well warded to be slowed by the single strike. Her front ballista swiveled and threw a heavy spear at the point from which that attack had emanated, and as Sea Sprite began her broadside turn, her prow bending to straight north in a run up the coast, the crack catapult crew on her aft deck had another ball of pitch flying away. It splattered among the rocks and several men and women scrambled up from the burning ground, one engulfed in flame, all screaming.

And those weren’t even the primary targets, which were to starboard, trying to hide as a bank of archers the length of Sea Sprite’s main deck and three deep lifted and bent their bows.

Three separate volleys went in, enchanted arrows all, skipping off the stones or striking against the defensive magic shields Greeth’s minions had raised.

But as Robillard had predicted, more arrows found their way than could be defeated by the enchantments, and another Hosttower wizard fell dead on the stones.

Lightning bolts and arrows reached out at Sea Sprite from the rocky coastline. Boulders and balls of pitch flew out from the ship line in response, followed by a devastating barrage of arrows as Sea Sprite veered due west and sped away with the fast current.

Robillard nodded his approval.

“One dead, perhaps, or perhaps two,” said Arabeth. “It’s difficult work.”

“Another one Arklem Greeth cannot afford to lose,” Robillard replied.

“Our tricks will catch fewer and fewer. Arklem Greeth will teach his forces to adapt.”

“Then we will not let him keep up with our evolving tricks,” Robillard said, and nodded his chin toward the line of ships, all of whom were pulling up anchor. One by one, they began to glide to the south.

“Sea Tower,” Robillard explained, referring to the strong guard tower on southern Cutlass Island. “It would cost Arklem Greeth too much energy to have it as fortified as the Hosttower, so we’ll bombard it to rubble, and destroy every other defensible position along the southern coast of the island.”

“There are few places to land even a small boat in those rocky waters,” Arabeth replied. “Sea Tower was built so that defenders could assault any ships attempting to enter the southern mouth of the Mirar, and not as a defense for Cutlass Island.”

Robillard’s deadpan expression quieted her, for of course he knew all of that. “We’re tightening the noose,” he explained. “I expect that those inside the Hosttower are growing more uncomfortable by the hour.”

“We nibble at the edges when we must bite out the heart of the place,” Arabeth protested.

“Patience,” said Robillard. “Our final fight with the lich will be brutal—no one doubts that. Hundreds will likely die, but hundreds more will surely perish if we attack before we prepare the battlefield. The people of Luskan are on our side. We own the streets. We have Harbor Arm and Fang Island fully under our control. Whitesails Harbor sides with us. Captain’s Court is ours, and Illusk has been rendered quiescent once again. The Mirar bridges are ours.”

“Those that remain,” said Arabeth, to which Robillard chuckled.

“Arklem Greeth hasn’t a safehouse left in the city, or if he does, his minions there are huddled in a dark basement, trembling—rightfully so! — in fear. And when we have bombed Sea Tower to rubble, and have chased off or killed all of his minions he placed in the southern reaches of Cutlass, Arklem Greeth will need to look south, on his own shores, as well. Unrelenting bombardment, unrelenting pressure, and keep clear in your mind that if we lose ten men—nay, fifty! — for every Arcane Brotherhood wizard we slay, Captain Deudermont will claim victory in a rout.”

Arabeth Raurym considered the older and wiser wizard’s words for some time before nodding her agreement. Above all else, she wanted the archmage arcane dead, for she knew with certainty that if he wasn’t killed, he would find a way to kill her—a horrible, painful way, no doubt.

She looked south as Sea Sprite came around Fang Island, to see that the other ships were already lining up to begin the bombardment of Sea Tower.

Sea Sprite’s bell rang and the men tacked accordingly to slow her as a trio of ammunition barges from Whitesails Harbor turned around the horn of Harbor Arm Island and crossed in front of her. Arabeth looked over to regard Robillard and could almost hear the calculations playing out behind his eyes. He had orchestrated every piece of the day’s action—the bombardment, the trap and attack, and the turn south, complete with supply lines—to the most minute detail.

She understood how Deudermont had gained such a glorious reputation hunting the ever-elusive pirates of the Sword Coast. He had surrounded himself with the finest crew she had ever seen, and standing beside him was the wizard Robillard, so calculating and so very, very deadly.

A shiver ran along Arabeth’s spine, but it was one of hope and reassurance as she reminded herself that Robillard and Sea Sprite were on her side.

From his eastern balcony, High Captain Kurth and his two closest advisors, one the captain of his guard and the other a high-ranking commander in Luskan’s garrison, watched the gathering of thousands at the small bridge that linked Closeguard Island to the city. Deudermont was there, judging from the banners, and Brambleberry as well, though their ships were active in the continuing, unrelenting bombardment of Cutlass Island to the west.

For a moment, Kurth envisioned the whole of the invading army enveloped in the flames of a gigantic Arklem Greeth fireball, and it was not an unpleasant mental image—briefly, at least, until he considered the practical ramifications of having a third of Luskan’s populace lying dead and charred in the streets.

“A third of the populace….” he said aloud.

“Aye, and most o’ me soldiers in the bunch,” said Nehwerg, who had once commanded the garrison at Sea Tower, which was even then crumbling under a constant rain of boulders.

“They could have ten times that number and not get across, unless we let them,” insisted Master Shanty, Kurth Tower’s captain of the guard.

The high captain chuckled at the ridiculous, empty boast. He could make Deudermont and the others pay dearly for trying to cross to Closeguard—he could even drop the bridge, which his engineers had long ago rigged for just such an eventuality—but to what gain and to what end?

“There’s yer bird,” Nehwerg grumbled, and pointed down at a black spec flapping past the crowd and climbing higher in the eastern sky. “The man’s got no dignity, I tell ya.”