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"After you've gone and bled all over the place?" the woman taunted. She shook her head. "No, I'll not have him mutilated. The old woman who raised him will be allowed to bury all of him."

"Maybe that's not your choice," the big man grated. "It was me that got hurt. I'll do as I damn well please."

"Try, and he won't be the only one who dies here tonight," the woman promised.

Silence filled the court for a moment, then Jherek heard the big man limp away. His hearing dwindled, making it impossible for him to hear anything else that might have been said. His vision blurred, then finally turned dark. He felt stilled, buried in the icy core of his own shadow, wearing it like a shroud.

Through it all, even though the fear and anger burned through him, he wondered where the voice was. Why wasn't it commanding him again, telling him to live so that he could serve?

The darkness crept in and stole even his thoughts away.

VIII

30 Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet

Laaqueel paused at the top of the wooden steps leading up to Fishgut Court. The battle taking place out in the harbor was drawing all of Waterdeep's attention. More sailors and shopkeepers ran toward the harbor. Several of them brushed past Iakhovas and his wererat group, letting her know his spell still masked them. She studied the harbor, amazed that the attack had made it this far. Even when Iakhovas had made his plans, she'd had her doubts.

Another fiery salvo came from Waterdeep Castle's catapults, painting flaming lines through the dark sky for a moment, then splashing down in the water in a violent flash of sparks and hisses that overrode even the screaming fear and rage and disbelief coming from the surface dwellers. Fingers of oily fire splayed out over the waves stirred up by Iakhovas's wizard's storm. The waves crashed ten feet high now, slopping over the sides of many vessels at anchor and shoving them into each other.

A Waterdhavian Watch wizard rode a flying carpet out over the harbor toward a floundering raker besieged by sahuagin boarding from the water. The malenti watched the wizard start his gestures to unleash a spell. Her instinctive fear was of fire, knowing how quickly her people perished when fought with that element. She said a quick prayer to Sekolah to spare the sahuagin warriors because the dead could not fight and she knew the Great Shark would understand that. The sahuagin didn't see him, and she wished she could call out a warning.

Despite the howling winds being stirred up by the storm, the flying carpet held steady. It even held steady when the brine dragon's head erupted from the uneven water. The dragon was nearly thirty feet in length and had a triangular, wedge-shaped head filled with sharp teeth. Covered with ridged and craggy scales that didn't fit well together, the creature was a virulent green. Yellow tufts ridged its head, running from between its eyes and becoming standing scales as they went on down its back. It had flippers instead of claws. Snapping its wide mouth open, it clamped down over the wizard, swallowing him and the carpet whole. The dragon disappeared below the surface again just as quickly.