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with speed enhanced by magical anklets, was already crouching beside him.
"You may be right," the drow conceded.
"Call Guenhwyvar, at the least!" Regis said, but Drizzt was shaking his head through every
word.
Guenhwyvar had fought beside them throughout the night, and the Astral panther had limitati-
ons on the time she could spend on the Prime Material Plane. Exceeding those limitations rende-
red Guenhwyvar a feeble and pained companion.
Regis glanced back down the road the other way, at a column of black smoke that rose into the
late afternoon sky. "Where is Deudermont?" he lamented.
"Fighting at the Harbor Cross bridge, as we knew he would be."
"Some should have pushed through to our aid!"
"We're forward scouts," Drizzt reminded. "It was not our place to engage."
"Forward scouts in a battle that came too swiftly," Regis remarked.
Only the day before, Drizzt and Regis sat in Deudermont's cabin on Sea Sprite, none of them
sure there would even be a fight. But apparently, over the course of the afternoon, the captain
had communicated with one or more of the high captains, and had received a reply to his and
Lord Brambleberry's offer. They'd received an answer from the Hosttower, as well. In fact, had
not the ever-vigilant Robillard intercepted that reply with a diffusion of magical energies, se-
aman Waillan Micanty would have been turned into a frog.
And so it was on, suddenly and brutally, and the Luskan Guard, their loyalties split between
the five high captains, had made no overt moves to hinder Deudermont's circuitous march.
They had gone north first, past the ruins of ancient Illusk and the grand open market of Luskan
to the banks of the Mirar River. To cross out onto the second island, Cutlass by name, and assa-
ult the Hosttower directly would have been a foolish move, for the Arcane Brotherhood had es-
tablished safehouses and satellite fortresses all over the city. Deudermont meant to shrink Ark-
lem Greeth's perimeter of influence, but every step was proving difficult indeed.
"Let us hope we can extract ourselves from this unwanted delay," Drizzt remarked.
Regis turned his cherubic but frowning face up at Drizzt, recognizing from the drow's tone
that his words were a not so subtle reminder of why they had been spotted by the wizard in the
house in the first place.
"I was thirsty," Regis muttered under his breath, eliciting a grin from Drizzt and a sidelong
glance at the shattered beer barrel that had so lured the halfling scout into the open.
"Wars will do that to you," Drizzt replied, ending in another yelp and shoving Regis down be-
side him as a third lightning bolt shot forth, skimming in across the top of the trough and taking
out one of the higher boards in the process. Even as the ground shook beneath them from the re-
tort, water began to drain out onto them.
Regis rolled one away, Drizzt the other, the drow coming up to one knee. "Drink up," he said,
putting his bow to use again, first through the open door, then shattering a glass window and
another on the second floor for good measure. He kept drawing and letting fly, his magical qu-
iver forever replenishing his supply of enchanted missiles.
A different sort of missile came forth from the house, though, a trio of small pulses of magical
light, spinning over each other, bending and turning and sweeping unerringly for Drizzt.
One split off at the last moment as the retreating drow tried futilely to dodge. It veered right
into Regis's chest, singeing his vest and sending a jolt of energy through him.
Drizzt took his two hits with a grimace and a growl, and turned around to send an arrow at the
window from which the missiles had flown. As he let fly, he envisioned his path to the house, lo-
oking for barriers against the persistent magical barrage. He sent another magical arrow flying. It
hit the doorjamb and exploded with a shower of magical sparks.
Using that as cover, the drow sprinted at an angle to the right side of the street, heading behind
a group of barrels.
He thought he would make it, expecting to dive past another lightning stroke, as he lowered
his head and sprinted full out. He felt foolish for so over-balancing, though, as he saw a pea of
flame gracefully arc out of the second floor window.
"Drizzt!" Regis cried, seeing it too.
And the halfling's friend was gone, just gone, when the fireball exploded all around the barrels
and the front of the building backing them.
 Sea Sprite tacked hard against the current at the mouth of the Mirar River. Occasional light-
ning bolts reached out at her from the northern bank, where a group of Hosttower wizards fought
desperately to hold back Brambleberry's forces at the northern, longer span of Harbor Cross, the
westernmost bridge across the Mirar.
"We would need to lose a score of men to each wizard downed, you claimed, if we were to ha-
ve any chance," Deudermont remarked to Robillard, who stood beside him at the rail. "But it wo-
uld seem that Lord Brambleberry has chosen his soldiers well."
Robillard let the sarcasm slip past as he, too, tried to get a better summation of the situation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]