The body of the corrupted Genna Moonsinger, however, rose from the place where she had been sitting for many days and walked to the water’s edge. Her eyes, flashing red, then fading to black, stared ahead at nothing. Then she heard her master’s command and turned to leave. Retaining the form of the Great Druid’s body, she disappeared into the forest to the south of the well.
Bhaal, meanwhile, used his rage to add form to his body.
The cord of substance connecting his presence here to his realm of Gehenna had now grown strong and unassailable. He was nearly ready to project himself beyond the Darkwell.
The form he had chosen for this projection was appropriate, given the nature of the Forgotten Realms. He would emerge from the well in the body of a man. But it would be no ordinary man. Instead, it would be a creature of awesome, looming size, and a visage terrible to behold.
And very soon now it would be ready to emerge.
obarth sighed in a moment of wistful regret. How simple this plan would be, he thought, if only he could cast the simple mage’s spell allowing one to charm another person into performing those tasks the caster found useful or desirable. Instead, he was forced to resort to guile and trickery—effective tactics, to be sure, but so much more complicated.
In the next moment, he forgot his regrets. He would never exchange the spiritual depth and multi-planar accomplishments of his clerical skills for the cheap light and fire shows of the wizards. Indeed, he reminded himself—and Bhaal, should his master be listening—Hobarth had often before scorned the chicanery of his sorcerer allies, even while accepting and using their aid.
The cleric looked toward the door of the dingy inn as the hour approached noon. If the man, Pontswain, was true to the nature the lords in the Inn of the Great Boar had ascribed to him the previous night, Hobarth felt certain he would respond to his summons.
Indeed, he recognized the man as soon as he passed through the door of the inn. Lord Pontswain was handsome, with a luxurious spill of brown hair, but he had a tightness in his smile and a narrowness of gaze that told the cleric this certainly was the man for the task.
“My Lord Pontswain, would you care to join me?” The cleric rose and bowed humbly, gesturing to the vacant chair at his table. The man looked suspicious, but he came over and sat down. Good, thought the cleric, pleased. He fits the role perfectly!
“What do you want? My time is valuable, and I dislike these mysterious arrangements.”
“Please forgive me. It would not be politic for me to come directly to the castle itself. You see, I am no friend of the Kendricks.”
Pontswain’s eyebrows raised at the admission, and he waited for the cleric to continue.
“This is no blood feud, I assure you, but years back the father of the current king, on a voyage to the Sword Coast, embarrassed my own father in quite a nasty scene. The details are far too unpleasant for me even to recount.
“Suffice to say that I desire to embarrass the son of that king, and I am willing to pay a handsome sum to do so. No one shall be hurt by this … prank, but it is hoped the king will be caused some discomfort.”
“What is a ‘handsome’ sum?”
“You are interested, then?”
“Perhaps. Answer my question, man!”
“Gold … in the hundreds. Shall we say two hundred gold pieces upon agreeing to the deal, and an equal sum to be paid upon its completion?”
The lord could not conceal the flash of greed suddenly illuminating his eyes, though he tried to look as if he was carefully considering the offer. Hobarth suspected, correctly, that the sum exceeded the annual tax income that a cantrev lord on Corwell could expect to collect.
“And what do I have to do to collect this gold should I accept?”
“I understand your king has gained a proud symbol of his rank—a crown, or sceptre, or something. All you need do is remove it from his castle and take it to a place of hiding for a time. When he returns, he will be enraged to find it gone. You can arrange to have it returned some time in the future, as you wish. As I explained, I merely desire to cause him some momentary discomfort.”
“Why did you seek me for this offer?”
Hobarth silently damned the man’s curiosity. He had hoped the coin alone would be enough to remove all doubts. “I have stayed in this town for several days. All around I see signs of slavish devotion to this upstart king, as if he is a god descended from the Outer Planes! You, on the other hand, have the reputation of being a free thinker, a man who is no man’s lackey. Now answer; will you do this thing?”
Another suspicion lit the lord’s eyes. “How do I know you do not wish to steal the crown for yourself?”
Hobarth shrugged. “Take it wherever you wish. I have no desire to see it. I simply want you to remove it from the castle.”
“I know just the place,” chuckled Pontswain, growing enthusiastic. In fact, he began to embellish the plan on his own. Perhaps the crown would not have to be returned for a very long time … “I shall take it to my own cantrev, where I can be sure it will remain safe.”
“Splendid,” said the cleric, nodding. “That would be superb!”
“Now, about the gold …”
“Of course.” Hobarth reached under the table for the sack he had claimed as his share from the plundering of the Iron Keep. He had barely more than two hundred gold, but that was of no matter. This fool would never collect the second payment. “Here. I suggest you take it somewhere private to count it.”
Pontswain’s eyes widened at the size of the pouch, and his hands trembled as he reached forward to sweep it into his hands. “Yes, of course. But I’m certain you’ll have the correct amount, for I have not yet performed your task!” He seemed pleased with his clever deduction, but then his eyes clouded again.
“And where will you meet me with the second payment?”
“You say you will go to your cantrev. Why not there? But one other thing … you must do this task within the next two days.”
“Two days! But I will need time to plan, to cover my tracks!”
Hobarth shrugged and reached for the sack. “Then I shall have to find someone else.”
“No! Very well, in two days! Meet me at Cantrev Pontswain four days from now.” The lord described the road to his cantrev, which lay perhaps thirty miles away, along the southern shore of Corwell Firth. Hobarth listened patiently, nodding as if he would actually make the trip.
“Now, good luck to you. You’d best be off, before we are observed talking.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” the lord replied, nodding and taking a furtive look around the empty inn. Only the unshaven innkeeper shared the room with them, and he was busily scrubbing the bar. “Four days, then.”
“Yes, four days.” Hobarth smiled, Pontswain thought because of their arrangement. In reality, the cleric was contemplating the pleasant knowledge that, before four days passed, Caer Corwell would be a heap of rubble, joining the Iron Keep at the bottom of the sea.
Once again black night descended around the companions in Myrloch Vale. They were no closer to their destination than they had been at the height of the day. All afternoon they had marched along the vast fissure, moving steadily eastward as they sought a place to cross. But the gap was too wide for even the tallest tree to bridge, seeming to mark an eternal scar across the face of the earth. Now, as darkness fell, they sought a place to make camp in the dead forest, surrounded by the towering proof of the potency of their foe.
The sudden loss of the four sister knights had quelled their rising optimism with brutal abruptness. The long afternoon’s march had been glum and silent, aggravated by the frustrating knowledge that their objective lay only a day’s march to the north, but every step they took moved them farther away.
Tristan saw Tavish stumble and lean weakly against the firbolg. The bard grew numb with fatigue, and he knew that she wouldn’t be able to make it much farther. Only Yak’s solid arm and apparently tireless muscles had kept her going this far.
“Very well.” Brigit, now in the lead, agreed and turned toward the south. After another ten minutes, they judged themselves safely removed from the pit.
Robyn leaned against a tree and slowly sank to the ground. Her pale face seemed frozen in a look of bleak determination, but the redness in her eyes belied her apparent stoicism. Tristan pulled his tattered cape from his shoulders and spread it on the snow beside the tree. “Sit here. It’ll help keep you dry,” he said.
The other companions set about making camp in the snowy forest as Robyn moved to sit beside him. When she looked at him, he had never before seen such despair in her eyes.
“What’s the use? I don’t think we’ll ever get there. We might as well turn around and go home!”
“You don’t mean that. You can’t! We’ve faced greater obstacles than this before, and we’ve always overcome them!”
“But I’ve always had the goddess beside me!” Robyn put her hands over her face so that Tristan could not see her weeping. “She’s gone now … I know it! This blackness has killed more than the trees and the animals. It’s killed the Earthmother herself!”
“Robyn, I know I’ve never fully understood your faith, but I have always trusted in it. Your faith is still the fiber that holds us all together, that compels us to go on! You may be right … perhaps the goddess is gone. But we aren’t gone! I have seen you, even in the absence of the Earthmother, call a stream from the bare rocks and light a fire with no fuel that kept us all alive through a killing night!”
Tristan reached an arm out to Robyn, but she turned harshly away. The rejection struck through all the layers of his soul, knifing into his heart. In this, her moment of greatest despair, he was powerless to comfort her. He himself had destroyed the bond of trust that had once drawn them together.
He swore a silent, agonized oath. If only he could take back that blurry night in the castle, erase it from his memory, from hers! Tristan would do anything, he vowed, could he but right that wrong. But all this time, Robyn’s back, trembling from cold or tears, mocked his good intent.
He recalled his own self-pity and how she had directed his thoughts away from his troubles to their combined hopes. He spoke softly to her, trying to do the same for her.
“You’ve said that the fourth scroll is the key to freeing the druids from their petrified forms. Well, there’s no reason that scroll shouldn’t work as well as the others. All we have to do is reach the grove, and I know we will do that!
“I don’t know if you can believe me anymore, but I love you more than ever. If that love, whether you return it or not, can help you reach the end of this quest, please accept it. I ask nothing in return.” Hesitantly Robyn looked into his eyes and smiled. At least, he thought it was a smile. Actually, it was more a faint twisting of her lips below her tearstained cheeks and her reddened eyes, but he decided that it counted.
“Let’s make camp,” she said, very softly.
“Tomorrow we’ll cross the fissure,” he promised, “and that day, or the next—but soon—we will triumph!” He didn’t explain how, and he was relieved that she didn’t ask, for of course he didn’t know the answer. Nevertheless, he believed in the truth of his words.
The wind from the north blew fair, though the gray clouds threatened a winter gale. Even had a storm roared through the bay in full force, Grunnarch the Red would still have put to sea, so compelling was the combination of his own promise, the prophecy, and the miracle of this floating castle that had sailed to the wharf of his town.
That town lay far behind him now, and once again his horizon was defined by the rolling gray swells of the Sea of Moonshae. This time he did not sail alone, however. The bright sails of his countrymen blazed across the gray water, beneath the glowering sky, to all sides. Twenty proud longships sliced through the waves in an arrowstraight course to the south.
Before them, its proud spires knifing through the cloud-laden sky, sailed Caer Allisynn. The great stone edifice seemed to coast over the surface of the sea, calming a wide patch of heaving surface by its passage.
The Red King expected another ten ships to join him as they passed the southern tip of his island, for the lords of western Norland had ridden at full speed from the council to their own towns to raise their crews and prepare to put to sea. Then the thirty sleek warships of Norland would sail behind their king to go once again to war on Gwynneth. This time, however, they would fight with the Ffolk, not against them.
“It’s a splendid sight, my lord.” Koll, the young man from Gwynneth, joined the king in the prow. He had begged to accompany the expedition, and Grunnarch could not turn down such a courageous offer.
“And they will fight a splendid fight, to be sure! Can you wield an axe, lad, as well as you sail a castle?”
Koll grinned sheepishly. “I have yet to blood my blade, but I have been taught by the greatest fighters on the north coast.”
“You speak bravely. I like that in a man!” Grunnarch paused, remembering the scene at the dock as they had prepared to sail. “Your woman, Gwen—she did not understand that war is a man’s task?”
“No, sire. The Ffolk are odd that way. They allow their women to perform all manner of tasks best left to men. Perhaps that is why we have beaten them so many times.”
The Red King looked sternly at the youth. “Never think that way, lad! With such overconfidence comes arrogance, and with arrogance comes failure. Besides, the last time we fought the Ffolk, it is we who were defeated.”
Koll looked down, abashed. “I am sorry, my lord. I wished to make amends for the embarrassment she caused on the docks when she refused to leave the warriors. I fear that it was bad luck to have her dragged away like that.”
“Bad luck, good luck. These things mean little. It is the courage in our hearts that counts for much, and the skill in our minds and our hands when we meet the foe.
“To that end, tell me what you know of the enemy that ravaged your coast.”
Koll described the battle at Codsbay as he had seen it, including the fish-man that had climbed into their boat. He told of the destruction of the Iron Keep and the horde that had emerged from the sea to pour through the breach.
“It is as I feared … an enemy of great fighting strength coupled with supernatural might. We can only hope that the powers that watched over Corwell in the past retain their potency. If that can counter the supernatural, the blades of the North will surely overcome the fighting strength of the foe!”
Koll nodded, unsettled by the notion that they might need help to win this fight. He turned quietly and walked back to his bench in the open hull of the longship.
Neither he nor the Red King noticed the short, smooth-skinned sailor sitting quietly near the bow. The youth—for such the warrior must have been, as no beard grew from his pink and slightly plump face—looked down as Koll walked past. A soft hand, unusual for a man, went to the hilt of the sailor’s shortsword, where its knuckles tightened in very warlike determination.
Ysalla swiveled her bulging fish-eyes to look at the vast army floating and marching around her. The gleam of gold caught her eyes, here and there marking the presence of her priestesses. They marched in great adornment now, for the sacking of the Iron Keep had yielded treasure beyond her wildest imaginings.
Now the ranks of the sahuagin, hundreds strong, swam easily through the middle reaches of the gray sea, a hundred feet below the surface and an equal distance from the bottom. Below them, in vast numbers, marched the Dead of the Sea in a dull, plodding pace.
They had fought well, those corpses, though she had known they would. Unburdened by any of the emotional baggage of living warriors, this army could know no fear, nor despair, nor fatigue. They would follow the commands of the priestesses—commands which were, of course, the orders of Bhaal himself—unto and even beyond death. This made them an army mightie
r than any that could be mustered by the humans and other breathing creatures that would oppose them, for their power emanated from a dark and omnipresent god.
The army had marched through the Strait of the Leviathan in rapid time, never stopping for rest or sustenance. Now, as they entered the shallower regions of Corwell Firth, they turned their faces to the east. They would proceed along the bottom of the firth into gradually shallower water until they emerged from the sea on the very shore of Corwell Town.
There the cleric would be waiting to perform his magic, as he had at the Iron Keep. The human, Ysalla coldly acknowledged to herself, had proven most useful there. No doubt he would do so again.
And thus they would work the will of Bhaal.
The fire crackled as the dead wood slowly burned to coals, spreading welcome warmth among the companions gathered around it. The little blaze flickered like their own hopes, surrounded by an all-encompassing blackness but refusing to die.
The group had trampled the snow flat over a small space in the woods, and now they sat in uneasy exhaustion. The night closed about them, as black and forbidding as ever, and seemed to warn away sleep.
The sisters had spread their heavy furs on the snow a short distance from the fire. Brigit and Colleen, however, now sat before the low flames. Tavish rested quietly opposite them, staring as if mesmerized at the dancing blaze. Yak squatted beside her, using her shortsword to carve a tree limb into a heavy, knob-ended club. Meanwhile, Pawldo worked arduously with his dagger and some long sticks, carving them into flat boards.
Robyn curled up on the far side of the blaze, with Newt sleeping on the druid’s lap. Tristan sat beside her, using an old stump as a backrest. They all enjoyed each other’s comradeship for a time without speaking.
The king remembered other fires, other camps during adventures that never, in retrospect, seemed so bleak and so painful as this one. He recalled the bristling fur of his great moorhound as Canthus slumbered beside a blaze, ignorant of the steaming hiss of his soaked fur. Or Daryth, leaning casually back in his bedroll, telling stories of Calimshan.
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