The Crystal Shard(The Icewind Dale Trilogy 1)(77)

The people on Bryn Shander's dock wept at the continued screams of the dying. Cassius, though, consumed by his quest to seek out and understand the apparent weakness that Kessell had just revealed, had no time for tears. In truth, the cries affected him as deeply as anyone, but, unwilling to let the lunatic Kessell view any hints of weakness from him, he transformed his visage from sorrow to an iron grimace of rage.

Kessell laughed at him. "Do not pout, poor Cassius," the wizard taunted, "it is unbecoming."

"You are a dog," Glensather retorted. "And unruly dogs should be beaten!"

Cassius stayed his fellow spokesman with an outstretched hand. "Be calm, my friend," he whispered. "Kessell will feed off of our panic. Let him talk - he reveals more to us than he believes."

"Poor Cassius," Kessell repeated sarcastically. Then suddenly, the wizard's face twisted in outrage. Cassius noted the abrupt swing keenly, filing it away with the other information he had collected.

"Mark well what you have witnessed here, people of Bryn Shander!" Kessell sneered. "Bow to your master, or the same fate shall befall you! And there is no water behind you! You have nowhere to run!"

He laughed wildly again and looked all about the city's hill, as though he was searching for something. "What are you to do?" he cackled. "You have no lake!"

"I have spoken, Cassius. Hear me well. You will deliver an emissary unto me tomorrow, an emissary to bear the news of your unconditional surrender! And if your pride prevents such an act, remember the cries of dying Targos! Look to the city on the banks of Maer Dualdon for guidance, pitiful Cassius. The fires shall not have died when the morrow dawns!"

Just then a courier raced up to the spokesman. "Many ships have been spotted moving out from under the blanket of smoke in Targos. Newsbearer signals have already begun coming in from the refugees."

"And what of Kemp?" Cassius asked anxiously.

"He lives," the courier answered. "And he has vowed revenge."

Cassius breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't overly fond of his peer from Targos, but he knew that the battle-seasoned spokesman would prove a valuable asset to Ten-Towns' cause before all was through.

Kessell heard the conversation and growled in disdain. "And where shall they run?" he asked Cassius.

The spokesman, intent on studying this unpredictable and unbalanced adversary, did not reply, but Kessell answered the question for him.

"To Bremen? But they cannot!" He snapped his fingers, beginning the chain of a prearranged message to his westernmost forces. At once, a large group of goblins broke rank and started out to the west.

Toward Bremen.

"You see? Bremen falls before the night is through, and yet another fleet will scurry out onto their precious lake. The scene shall be repeated in the town in the wood with predictable results. But what protection will the lakes offer these people when the merciless winter begins to fall?" he shouted. "How fast shall their ships sail away from me when the waters are frozen around them?"

He laughed again, but this time more seriously, more dangerously. "What protection do any of you have against Akar Kessell?"

Cassius and the wizard held each other in unyielding glares. The wizard barely mouthed the words, but Cassius heard him clearly.

"What protection?"

* * *

Out on Maer Dualdon, Kemp bit back his frustrated rage as he watched his city tumble in flames. Soot-blackened faces stared back to the burning ruins in horrified disbelief, shouting impossible denials and openly crying for their lost friends and kin.

But, like Cassius, Kemp converted his despair into constructive anger. As soon as he learned of the goblin force departing for Bremen, he dispatched his fastest ship to warn the people of that distant city and to inform them of the happenings across the lake. Then he sent a second ship toward Lonelywood to beg for food and bandages, and perhaps an invitation to dock.

Despite their obvious differences, the spokesmen of the ten towns were in many ways alike. Like Agorwal, who had been happy to sacrifice everything for the good of the people, and Jensin Brent, who refused to yield to despair, Kemp of Targos set about rallying his people for a retaliatory strike. He didn't yet know how he would accomplish the feat, but he knew that he had not had his final say in the wizard's war.

And poised upon the wall of Bryn Shander, Cassius knew it, too.




Drizzt crawled out of his hidden chamber as the last lights of the setting sun began fading away. He scanned the southern horizon and was again dismayed. He had needed to rest, but he couldn't help feeling pangs of guilt when he saw the city of Targos burning, as though he had neglected his duty to bear witness to the suffering of Kessell's helpless victims.

Yet the drow had not been idle even during the hours of the meditative trance the elves called sleep. He had journeyed back into the underworld of his distant memories in search of a particular sensation, the aura of a powerful presence he had once known. Though he had not gotten close enough for a good look at the demon he had followed the previous night, something about the creature had struck a familiar chord in his oldest recollections. A pervading, unnatural emanation surrounded creatures from the lower planes when they walked on the material world, an aura that the dark elves, moreso than any other race, had come to understand and recognize. Not only this type of demon, but this particular creature itself, was known to Drizzt. It had served his people in Menzoberranzan for many years.