Troy Denning - The Siege

Khelben pushed her back down and rolled astride her body. "I hear nothing but the fervid drumming of my heart, beating its joy in anticipation of our first night together-our first undisturbed night together-since all this began."

Laeral smiled. To everyone else, Khelben might be the stern and dour Blackstaff, Lord Mage of Waterdeep and founder of the Moonstars. To her, he was a hopeless romantic, given to outrageous professions of love and a touch so gentle it wouldn't break soap bubbles. She whispered, "Come here, you."

Deciding the fluttering sound had probably just been a hippogriff patrol trying to duck a flight of veserabs- Aelburn's scouts had learned the hard way that the things had a taste for anything with feathers-Laeral pulled Khelben down on top of her. "I want to feel that heart drumming," she said.

Khelben kissed her again, then slipped off to the side and set to work on her laces with his dexterous fingers. By the time the next sound came-this time the distinctive crackle-boom of a lightning bolt-he had Laeral out of her doublet and her trouser laces untied. "That, I heard," he growled, rising.

Laeral jumped to her feet and, throwing her cloak around her shoulders, followed him out the door of the tent. Scattered across the plain at the foot of their rise were hundreds of campfires, by the light of which it was possible to see thousands of silhouettes milling about in confusion, pulling on armor and buckling sword belts. Though no one seemed to have any more idea what was happening than Laeral and Khelben, an increasing number of figures appeared to be looking toward the area of inky darkness that marked the Shadovar camp.

Laeral turned to call for a messenger and found two of Khelben's Vaasan escorts, Kuhl and Burlen, rushing up fully armored-as always. Vaasans, as far as Laeral could tell, slept in armor. The third of their number, Dexon, was back in Evereska with Keya Nihmedu, recovering from his wounds. "They're gone!" Burlen exclaimed.

"Gone as in 'departed'?" Khelben asked, not even bothering to clarify that the Vaasan was talking about the Shadovar. "Or gone as in 'dead?' "

"Gone is in 'not there,' " Kuhl growled. "What's the difference? An Uthgardt lookout noticed that the Shadovar tents were empty, and when he went to check on the veserabs, they took a fright and flew off." "Weren't they hobbled?" Laeral asked.

"Not even a piece of twine," Burlen confirmed. "At least not on the one Yoraedia's sentry bolted down."

Laeral exchanged a worried glance with Khelben. The sound of arguing voices drifted up from the middle of the dark camp, and dancing lines of torches began to stream in from all sides. Khelben extended a hand and summoned his staff, and Laeral did the same for her broadbelt. Then, while Khelben sent the Vaasans to check on the night pickets and call the companies to alert, she tied her trouser laces and belted her cloak closed.

Once she had her clothes tied, she extended a hand to Khelben and said, "Shall we, my dear?" Khelben sighed and took her hand. "If we must."

Laeral eyed a spot near the center of the converging torch streams and used a spell to open a small translocational door. She and Khelben stepped through into a tumult of shouting voices and bobbing torches. So belligerent was the argument that, during the moment it took the afterdaze to clear, she grew convinced she had emerged into the middle of a tavern brawl. She drew a fighting wand from her belt.

Khelben was even more alarmed. He began to whirl his staff around them in a practiced defensive pattern that sent a pair of elves and a Waterdhavian sergeant tumbling to the ground.

A pair of the sergeant's subordinates came rushing up, "You there, wizard!" Instead of stopping to help their superior, they stepped over his groaning figure and split up to come at Khelben and Laeral from opposite sides. "Who do you think you're batting around with that thing?"

Laeral's assessment of the situation took a decided turn for the worse. She leveled her wand at the nearest figure and said, "Hare."

The man took one more step, then curled to the ground and began to sprout fur. She pointed the wand at the second fellow, who was still trying to dance past Khelben's whirling staff, and said, "Ass."

He dropped to all fours, his nose and ears already beginning to lengthen.

Laeral waved the wand past the others in the growing knot of warriors. "Has our arrival offended anyone else?"

When no one else stepped forward, Khelben said, "Good."

He lowered his staff and led the way past half a dozen empty Shadovar tents to the assembly square in front of the command pavilion, where Lord Yoraedia was standing nose to belly with Chief Claw, his face twisted into a very unelflike scowl.

"Will someone tell us what's going on here?" Khelben asked.

Both leaders turned their gazes on Khelben and Laeral and began to speak at once, gesturing wildly and pointing at the other.

"One at a time," Laeral ordered. "You first, Lord Yoraedia."

The elf cast a superior smirk at Claw, then said, "This oaf's sentries fell asleep and allowed the Shadovar to slip past them unseen."

"Liar!" Claw deliberately stepped into Yoraedia, bumping the elf with his stomach and sending him stumbling half a dozen steps back. "My lookouts only found that the camp was empty. Your watchers are the ones who fell asleep." "Elves," Yoraedia sneered, "do not sleep." "Then they are blind!" Claw bumped the elf with his belly again. "The Shadovar did not leave by our side."

Yoraedia caught himself after three paces and stepped back toward the barbarian, his hand dropping toward his dagger. "One more time, walrus, and I'll slit that gu-"

"That's quite enough, Lord Yoraedia." Laeral stepped between the two. "The Shadovar were not prisoners. No one is to blame for their departure."

"You will both be to blame if this continues," Khelben said, stepping to Laeral's side and using the butt of his staff to push Yoraedia back. "What madness has taken hold of you two?"

The solemn glance he cast in Laeral's direction was hardly necessary. She had already guessed the reason behind the group's anger and was searching her cloak pockets for a spell component

Khelben continued, "No one could have stopped the Shadovar from sneaking away. As soon as it was dark, the cowards probably melted into the shadows and walked off."

Skarn Brassaxe and his dwarves marched into the assembly square, shouldering past elves and barbarians alike.

"It's bright enough to blind Lefthander!" Skarn complained. "Are you all this stupid, or are you fools trying to light yourselves up for enemy long-casters?"

"Be careful who you call stupid, Belt watcher," said Aelburn, stepping into the light from the opposite side of the gathering. "Some of us need the light Not everyone has goblin blood running in their veins."

"Goblin blood!" Skarn stormed, reaching for his axe. "I'll show you gob-"

Khelben's staff crashed down, knocking the dwarf to his seat and causing his arm to go limp. Claw and Yoraedia continued to trade insults, with most of their followers adding their own voices to the tumult, and the dwarves and hippogriff scouts were starting in as well. It would have been a simple matter for Laeral and Khelben to start dispelling whatever magic was causing this madness, but until she knew whether the casters were Shadovar or phaerimm, it was better to let them believe their tactic was working.

Laeral found what she was looking for and unobtrusively began to sprinkle diamond dust in each direction, at the same time mouthing an incantation and running her fingers through the gestures of her most powerful spell. As the magic took effect, she had to bite her tongue to keep from gasping.

On the western side of the square, Sharn’s dwarves were stomping in from their own camp flanked by the silvery blurs of well over a dozen invisible phaerimm. The scene was much the same on the north side, save that it was Waterdhavian volunteers and Aelburn's scouts who were being marched in. The situation to the east and south was even worse. With most of the barbarians and elves already in the square, the thornbacks had already formed themselves into battle ranks. "Uh, Khelben?" "Yes?"