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Men shouted around Laaqueel, but none tried to attack her as they manned posts along the harbor. She assumed that the illusory glamour Iakhovas was using remained in place. Turning, she sprinted to catch up to him, making it easily since he wasn't traveling fast.

"What are we here for?" she demanded when she drew even.

"Fear not, my little malenti, my reasons for being here coincide with your own," he answered. "To properly fight a war, weapons require careful choosing. In my studies, I have unearthed the fact that one is here, one that I desire greatly."

"You staged this invasion, sacrificed my people, to get something that belonged to you?" Laaqueel, even after the fifteen years she'd seen him in action, couldn't believe it.

He turned his dark eye on her, glaring. "Don't ever presume to question my methods or my reasons, little malenti, otherwise you'll never grow to be the sahuagin you want to be so badly. I no longer require your services these days as much as would benefit you. Do not be foolish enough to disregard that. It is a true fact." He continued walking, turning onto an alley off Dock Street and heading east.

She fell into step at his side and slightly behind him, following in silent protest. It wasn't the first time he'd intimated that he could change her into a sahuagin. Judging from his power, she assumed it was possible.

Possible, but only if he didn't get them all killed while foraging through Waterdeep. She tightened her grip on her sword and trailed him into the waiting darkness of the alley.

VII

12 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

Jherek's heart hammered as he poised on the balls of his feet, the cutlass naked in his fist. The heavy humidity from the sea left a sheen of sweat across his body from his run. No one else had responded to the woman's shrill screams for help, but it was possible no one else had heard her over the noise from the docks.

Seven Cuts Court occupied a wide space in the street leading to Drake Gate and to the wooded coastal trails to Murann and Tordraken. Sandwiched between a building that had once housed a bakery but now stood vacant since a string of unsolved murders had begun there and a leather goods shop specializing in used overland travel gear, Jherek gazed out at the court. The only sound now was the gurgle of the fountain, fed by the artesian well, in the court's center.

Shadows draped the area. No lights burned there after the sun went down. Every mayor to hold office in Velen since the murders started tried to find a means of lighting the court and ending the curse there, but none had ever been successful. Torches and lanterns were lit, but mysteriously extinguished as soon as full dark had claimed the city.