The waters of the strait were devoid of boats, as the filth of pollution now spread thick across the surface. In the far distance, he could vaguely make out the bulk of Oman's Isle, faintly outlined through the haze. The sun had passed into afternoon, but many hours of daylight remained.
The cleric spent several minutes exploring the hilltop, finding a jumble of rocks that marked its highest point. He walked in a tight circle around this summit, chanting a careful litany and dropping a powder made from finely crushed diamonds. As he cast, a glowing pattern of lines formed across the rocks, until he had inscribed a circle of magic around the crest. The lines seemed to have been carved into the rock itself, and they shimmered with a silvery cast, enclosing the cleric in a circle of enchantment.
His glyph of warding cast, Hobarth could now prepare his major spell in security. He knew anything trying to interrupt him would be stopped by the glyph, or surprised very rudely if it tried to penetrate the magical barrier.
Finally Hobarth sat upon the summit and closed his eyes. He called upon all the faith in his black heart and all of the knowledge in his twisted mind, then began the spell of summoning. For long minutes, he sat as motionless as a statue,
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his face wrinkled in concentration, his eyes tightly closed. Only the flaring of his wide nostrils gave visual proof that he still lived.
But if an observer could have looked beneath the veneer of optical senses, he could have seen the real proof of Hobarth's vitality. Concentrated in the invisible employment of magic, the cleric's spirit sent out a call deafening in strength to those who could hear it, and compelling in nature to those same listeners.
Beneath the brackish waters of the Strait of Oman swam one listener who heard and immediately moved to obey the summons. Ysalla, high priestess of the sahuagin and devoted cleric of Bhaal, had long awaited the call from her human counterpart.
Ysalla hovered in the upper reaches of the sea, where the sun's illumination penetrated dimly. The water here was shallow, and the smooth bottom was heavily layered with silt, but the priestess took no notice of this. She drifted slowly between the surface and the bottom, waiting.
All around her waited the legions of the sea. Standing abreast upon the bottom stood the rank of ogre corpses that had perished in battle, only to be reanimated by her priestesses and the power of Bhaal. The fat bodies resembled monstrous maggots, swollen from their immersion. The blue-black water swirled around them, but the stolid corpses remained immobile, awaiting the command of the priestess and the black power of her god.
Behind the ogres came the dead of the sea, the thousands of drowned sailors, fishermen, and soldiers who had also been animated from death to serve Bhaal and his minions. Only after these vast ranks of undead came the sahuagin themselves, the Claws of the Deep. They would swarm ashore in the wake of the dead army and complete the annihilation of the foe. Glory to Bhaal and his legions!
And to his legions across the strait, where King Sythissal and more of the sahuagin warriors massed in similar might. As Ysalla sent her charges onto the shores of Gwynneth, Sythissal would send his own fighters, lusting for blood, into the human settlements on Oman's Isle. When the
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coastal communities had been ravaged, the two armies would combine to enter Iron Bay and bring the great keep there to ruin.
Now the summons came, and Ysalla sensed its source. The great yellow fins along her spine bristled, and the priestesses of her order saw the signal. Their own spines bristled in silent acknowledgment, and the legions surged forward.
The dead marched stolidly across the silt, climbing the sloping shelves toward the beach. The sahuagin swam slowly behind them, the entire mass gliding through the water like great, sinister fish.
Then the broad ogre heads broke through the listless surf, and eyeless sockets fastened upon the shore. The bloated bodies lumbered from the shallows, their clubs, axes, and great hammers held high. The skin of the lifeless monsters had bleached to milky white during the long immersion, and the waterlogged bodies moved slowly, heavily forward.
They were indeed slow梑ut they could not be stopped.
Roll's heart pounded as he left the tiny inn and walked the few steps to the pier. The Starling bobbed prettily at dock-side, even amid the scum that had coated the water lately. Though small, the little sailboat was the perfect setting for his purpose.
And here came his purpose. Gwen walked to the boat with just enough eagerness to excite his hopes and just enough restraint to calm his nerves. For weeks, he had been trying to get her to go off alone together with him.
Now she smiled at him, her brown eyes sparkling with a secret promise that inflamed his passion. She was not overly pretty, was Gwen, but she had a lively manner that had caught KoU's attention when he had first purchased a shield and jerkin from her father, the leather-worker of Codscove.
Short and slightly plump, Gwen greeted him with a shy smile. Her red-brown hair was cut short, and Koll liked the way it framed her round, smiling face. Indeed, as he was unusually tall even for a man of the north, they made an
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oddly matched couple. His soft beard had finally covered his chin the past spring, and now he stroked it selfconsciously as she made her way to the dock.
He helped her into the boat, enjoying the unsteady moment when she lost her balance and leaned on him.
"Sit here," he offered, towering her to the bowseat. The line came easily free from the dock, and he pushed the Star-tingaway, as if worried that someone would come along and stop him. The breeze was sluggish at best, but the little craft caught what little wind blew, and they pulled steadily away from shore.
For some time they didn't speak. Roll tried to ignore the lifeless brown of the sea, without complete success. Indeed, fish were dying in whole schools; catches were nonexistent or diseased. Even these placid northmen of Gwynneth were once again talking of raiding as a means of survival.
Koll tried to banish such thoughts, knowing that Gwen was of a family of native Ffolk, while his ancestors were the plundering northmen who had claimed these lands as their own a century before. Instead, he concentrated on his passenger's eyes as she demurely looked away. Such pretty eyes they were! Shy, but not afraid. Gwen had always fascinated him with this air of demure courage, so unlike the women of the northlands.
He finally pulled in the sail and drifted calmly. Codsbay was a distant mark on the shoreline, though Koll could still distinguish individual buildings. With the easy grace of the sailor, he moved to the bowseat and took Gwen's hand.
She giggled briefly, but she did not turn away as he bent to kiss her. She was warm and soft, her slight plumpness filling his arms as he embraced her. Suddenly he felt her grow rigid, and he saw her eyes open in shock, staring at something over his shoulder.
Gwen screamed as Koll spun around, his own eyes widening. The most horrible creature he had ever seen slithered over the transom, flicking a forked tongue toward him. Its pale eyes bulged, and rows of sharp wicked teeth gleamed in its widespread mouth. Its vaguely humanlike body was completely covered with green scales, and it used clawed
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hands, with webbed fingers, to pull itself into the bottom of the boat.
In the instant of his turning, the northman froze in panic. What could he do? He gaped in terror as the manlike form slithered forward. Suddenly his fear galvanized into action, and he reached for one of the long oars. He lifted the oar from its lock and brought it crashing down onto the creature's head as the monster tried to stand. It slumped to its knees, and he crashed the oar down upon it again, snapping the wooden shaft in two but dropping the creature senseless into the hull.
"What梬hat is it?" gasped the maid as Koll slumped weakly to the bench.
For a moment, he could not speak. Bile rose in his throat, and he feared he would lose his breakfast, but finally his tongue freed itself from his terror. "I桰've heard tales of the fish-men, dwellers of the deep. Sometimes they struck ships, but only far at sea," The northman spoke slowly as he regained his breath.
"Look . . . Codsbay!" cried Gwen, pointing to shore. They watched in horror as a wave of huge white bodies plodded menacingly from the surf and entered the town, striking down any humans who did not flee before them. And then another wave of invaders rose from the sea, and still more hastened in their wake.
Koll pulled the sail taut as they watched, and soon the wind pushed them slowly toward the strait.
"Where are you going?" cried the distraught young woman as she saw his course. "My family's there. We've got to go back!"
Koll nodded at the town. Flames had already begun to flicker upward from the buildings. "They've either fled, and are safe, or they did not flee. ... In either case, we will not be able to help them."
She turned with a sob to watch the shore, seething in chaos behind them.
"We'll go to Oman's Isle," he promised. "There we can get help and sail home as soon as possible!"
Of course, he couldn't know that Sythissal and the
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sahuagin already swarmed across the length and breadth of Oman's Isle, and that the survivors were already fleeing toward the cramped security of the Iron Keep.
They rode steadily toward the Darkwell, each immersed in private thoughts, but they all shared the common purpose now. Nothing else mattered until they could confront the root of the evils that plagued the land and had slain their friend.
Tristan wondered what Robyn would do when they reached the well. Some secret with the scrolls, she had indicated. Why had she refused to give him more details? This, he realized, was just another evidence of the depth of the change between them. She no longer confided in him or sought his advice. He realized with sharp clarity just how much he missed her. For the thousandth time, he cursed himself, cursed the red-haired woman, cursed all the circumstances of that fateful night.
All he could do now was strive for atonement, and so he would. Tb start, he would see that the companions all reached the grove of the Great Druid, and the goal of their quest, alive.
For a while, they rode in silence, all of them sharing their grim purpose. Even Newt seemed to sense their resolve. He sat forlornly ahead of Robyn in the saddle, curled against her stomach, silent for once. Behind her, lashed to the saddle, rested Daryth's silver scimitar. Tristan had offered it to her as they buried their friend and, reluctantly, she had accepted the gift.
All the riders looked nervously this way and that, sharing a grim apprehension yet seeing no visible threat. Tristan took a measure of comfort from the fact that the sharp-eyed halfling rode at the rear of the party. Then a blackness gripped him, and he thought of how much more secure they would have felt with Daryth's keen senses protecting their flank.
He shook off the thought and looked again toward Can-thus. The moorhound led the party as they advanced care-
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fully into the heart of Myrloch Vale. Yazilliclick sat before the king on Avalon's broad back. The little sprite held his tiny shortbow ready, with one of his silvery, dartlike arrows nocked in the weapon. His antennae quivered, and the king wondered if they helped him to search the woods for enemies. He hoped that they did.
Though the season was autumn, the chill in the air and the low, leaden sky bespoke more of winter. No snow had fallen here yet, but the bleak wind blew off the highlands with an icy bite that penetrated their cloaks and clothes and flesh, cutting right to their bones. Shivering, Tristan pulled his woolen cape more tightly around himself, but even that offered little comfort.
They followed a faintly visible trail through the black trunks. Though fallen leaves, now rotting, covered parts of the path, Canthus seemed to have no doubts as to the trail's location. Their route took them on a gradual decline into the flat basin of the vale.
Soon they came to the shore of a bleak and stagnant fen. The vast marsh reeked with an air of death and disease, and Tristan nearly gagged as the trail moved along the fringe of the swamp. This must, very recently, have been a thriving wetland, teeming with ducks and otters and other creatures. Now it lay brown and still, a lifeless smear upon the land. A few barren tree trunks jutted from a vast swamp of brown, stagnant water. In other places, patches of thick scum covered the surface.
He felt relief as the trail again returned to the woods, climbing gradually away from the fen. The return to the forest was only a slight improvement, for still there was no sign of greenery or animal life, but at least the abhorrent stink of the swamp grew more faint in the air. Still, the whole vale, forest and fen alike, gave him a chilling sense, as if they were all cloaked in a blanket of death.
The king watched as Canthus stopped and sniffed nervously at the ground. He saw the hackles rise on the great dog's neck, and he quickly dismounted.
"W-Wait for the others! B-Be careful梒areful!" squeaked Yazilliclick.
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Tristan looked back, surprised to see how far the rest of the party had fallen behind. "Watch my back," he ordered. "I want to see what's bothering Canthus." He saw Robyn spur her mare into a fast trot as he turned back to his dog.
Canthus stood at a bare spot in the trail, turning his huge head this way and that. Abruptly he growled and began to back toward the king. The hound's body, stiff with tension, poised like a coiled spring as he bared his great teeth at a threat that remained, to Tristan, unseen.
Suddenly the ground began to convulse under Tristan's feet, and he crashed to his back, the wind knocked from his lungs. Gasping, he saw Canthus leap backward with a prodigious bound that took the dog clear over his master's body. Then came an awful ripping sound, as of a body being torn asunder, and he felt the ground quiver beneath him again.
Suddenly the firmament beneath him fell away. For a sickening split second, he felt himself hang in the air. In that same instant, a stinging wave of gas exploded from the yawning space below him, sending fiery fingers into his chest as he gasped for air. Great roots dangled from the broken ground, hanging into the hole, and Tristan felt poised, for a moment, at the brink of doom. And then he started to fall.
A great fissure had opened in the ground along the trail, and now the stunned king lay at its lip, sliding into bottomless darkness. Noxious fumes rushed upward from the chasm, again biting into his lungs, and then blackness claimed him.
