“Aye,” said the other, and they started off, the captured thugs before them and following the same line as Regis and his two captives.

Despite the enormity of the calamity around them—the streets around Deudermont’s new palace were thick with fighting, as both Baram and Taerl, at least, had come against the governor fully—Drizzt couldn’t help but chuckle, particularly at Regis and his effective tactics.

That grin was blown away a few moments later, however, when Drizzt ran to the far end of the alleyway, arriving just in time to see the less subtle Robillard engulf an entire building in a massive fireball. Screams emanated from inside the burning structure and one man leaped out of a second story window, his clothing fully aflame.

Despite his and Deudermont’s hopes to keep the battle as bloodless as possible, Drizzt understood that before the fight was over, many more Luskar would lie dead.

The drow rubbed his weary eyes and blew a long and resigned sigh. Not for the first time and not for the last, he wished he could rewind time to when he and Regis had first arrived in the city, before Deudermont and Lord Brambleberry had begun their fateful journey.

CHAPTER 31

THE PROVERBIAL STRAW

D eudermont, Robillard, Drizzt, Regis, and the others gathered in the governor’s war room shared a profound sense of dread from the look on Waillan Micanty’s face as he entered the room.

“Waterdhavian flotilla came in,” the man said.

“And…?” Deudermont prompted.

“One boat,” Micanty replied.

“One?” Robillard growled.

“Battered, and with her crew half dead,” Micanty reported. “All that’s left of the flotilla. Some turned back, most are floating empty or have been sent to the bottom.”

He paused, but no one in the room had the strength to ask a question or offer a response, or even, it seemed, to draw breath.

“Was lacedons, they said,” Micanty went on. “Sea ghouls. Scores of ’em. And something bigger and stronger, burning ships with fire that came up from the deep.”

“Those ships were supposed to be guarded!” Robillard fumed.

“Aye, and so they were,” Waillan Micanty replied, “but not from below. Hundreds of men dead and most all of the supplies lost to the waves.”

Deudermont slipped into his chair, and it seemed to Drizzt that if he had not, he might have just fallen over.

“The folk of Luskan won’t like this,” Regis remarked.

“The supplies were our bartering card,” Deudermont agreed.

“Perhaps we can use the sea ghouls as a new, common enemy,” Regis offered. “Tell the high captains that we have to join together to win back the shipping lanes.”

Robillard scoffed loudly.

“It’s something!” the halfling protested.

“It’s everything, perhaps,” Deudermont agreed, to Regis’s surprise most of all.

“We have to stop this warring,” the governor went on, addressing Robillard most of all. “Declare a truce and sail side-by-side against these monstrosities. We can sail all the way to Waterdeep and fill our holds with—”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Robillard interrupted. “You think the four high captains will join an expedition that will only secure your power?”

“For their own good as well,” the governor argued. “To save Luskan.”

“Luskan is already dead,” said Robillard.

Drizzt wanted to argue with the wizard, but found no words to suffice.

“Send word to the high captains for parlay,” Deudermont ordered. “They will see the wisdom in this.”

“They will not!” Robillard insisted.

“We have to try!” Deudermont shouted back and the wizard scoffed again and turned away.

Regis sent a concerned look Drizzt’s way, but the drow had little comfort to offer him. They both had spent the previous day battling in the streets around Suljack’s palace, and both knew that Luskan teetered on the brink of disaster, if indeed she wasn’t already there. The only mitigating factor seemed to be the wealth of supplies streaming up from Waterdeep, and if most of those were not to arrive….

“We have to try,” Deudermont said again, his tone and timbre more quiet, even, and controlled.

But there was no mistaking the desperation and fear embedded in that voice.

Baram and Taerl wouldn’t come to him personally, but sent a single emissary to deliver their message. Kurth and Kensidan didn’t even answer his request for a parlay.

Deudermont tried to put a good face on the rejection, but whenever he thought that Robillard or Drizzt weren’t looking his way, he sighed.

“Twenty-seven?” Robillard asked in a mocking tone. “A whole day of fighting, a dozen men dead or near it on our side, and all we’ve got to show for our work are twenty-seven prisoners, and not a one of them pledging to our cause?”

“But all agreeing that they’re out of the fight, so if we win…” Drizzt started to reply.

Robillard cut him off with a smirk and said, “If?”

Drizzt cleared his throat and glanced at Deudermont, then went on, “When we win, these men will join with us. Luskan need not be burned to the ground. Of that much, I’m sure.”

“That isn’t much, Drizzt,” Robillard said, and the drow could only shrug, having little evidence to prove the wizard wrong. They had held Suljack’s palace that first day, but the enemy seemed all around them, and several of the adjoining streets were fully under the control of Baram and Taerl. They had indeed lost at least twelve fighters, and who knew how many more had been killed out in the streets near the palace?

Deudermont couldn’t win a war of attrition. He didn’t have thousands behind him, unlike when he’d gone against Arklem Greeth. The supplies might have renewed that faith in him, but the main source had been destroyed at sea and nothing else had arrived.

Regis entered the war room then to announce the arrival of Baram and Taerl’s ambassador. Deudermont sprang out of his seat and rushed past the other two, urging Regis along to the audience chamber.

The man, a scruffy-looking sea dog with a hairline that had receded to the back of his scalp, wild gray strands hanging all about him, waited for them, picking his nose as Deudermont entered the room.

“Don’t waste me time,” he said, flicking something off to the floor and staring at Deudermont the way a big dog might look upon a cornered rodent—hardly the usual look Captain Deudermont of Sea Sprite was used to seeing from such a bilge rat.

“Baram and Taerl should have come and saved you the trouble then,” Deudermont replied, taking a seat before the man. “They had my word that no harm would befall them.”

The man snickered. “Same word ye gived to Suljack, not a doubt.”

“You believe I was involved in the death of Suljack?” Deudermont asked.

The man shrugged as if it hardly mattered. “Baram and Taerl ain’t no fools, like Suljack,” he said. “They’d be needing more than yer word to believe the likes of Captain Deudermont.”

“They project their own sense of honor upon me, it would seem. I’m a man of my word,” he paused and motioned for the man to properly introduce himself.

“Me own name ain’t important, and I ain’t for tellin’ it to the likes o’ yerself.”

Behind Deudermont, Robillard laughed and offered, “I can discover it for you, Cap—Governor.”

“Bah, no one’d tell ye!” the ambassador said with a growl.

“Oh, you would tell me, and do not doubt it,” the wizard replied. “Perhaps I would even etch it on your gravestone, if we bothered to get you a gravesto—”

“So much for yer word, eh Captain?” the sea dog said with a broken-toothed grin, just as Deudermont held up his hand to silence the troublesome Robillard.

“Baram and Taerl sent you here to hear my offer,” said Deudermont. “Tell them…”

The filthy ambassador started laughing and shaking his head. “Nothing they want to hear,” he interrupted. “They sent me here with theiroffer. Their only offer.” He stared at Deudermont intensely. “Captain, get on yer Sea Sprite and sail away. We’re givin’ ye that, and it’s more than ye deserve, ye fool. But be knowing that we’re givin’ ye it on yer word that ye’ll not e’er again sink any ship what’s carrying the colors o’ Luskan,”