Chapter 15.

By Carycomic

BALDUR'S GATE, PLANET ZEIST

(EIGHTEEN HOURS EARLIER)

Ethan Rayne shimmered into view with his reluctant traveling companion. Their point of reappearance being a cavern where a large group of duergar were brewing mushroom-wine from violet fungi! When 'Shandalar' looked at him quizzically, the chaos worshipping Kiasyd just grinned.

"Beneficiaries of your spiked whiskey," he explained. "As no dwarfs in their _right_ minds would ever get near those things!"

He then half-dragged/half-led the nervous innkeeper into a slightly smaller cave adjoining the larger one. There, Ethan made introductions.

"Lord Frostrune and Lady Imsa the Green; Runemasters of the Twisted Rune," he said, gesturing to the pair at the head of a rectangular stone slab. "To their left? Sir Drommel Borngray; Eldritch Knight of the Eldreth Veluuthra; Cultist of the Dragon; and szarkai draa-zebyl of the Jaezred Chaulssin! And, in between them? The late, lamented Commander Soth; Knight of the Flaming Fist."

The one-eyed, white-haired, ebon-cloaked albino drow glowered at Rayne, impatiently.

"Enough of your prattling! Let's get this over with."

"Certainly," replied Frostrune. "Do you have the necessary item?"

"What do you think?" Borngray growled, as he hefted a cylindrical-looking object, lengthwise, in his arms. "One lance made of darksteel and enameled with powdered scale of black dragon, as requested."

The erstwhile Endrek Sahr looked at Rayne even more intently.

"What goes on here? 'One simple reanimation,' you said. Yet, either one of these Runemasters would be more than capable of creating a Death Knight from this corpse!"

"True," replied Ethan. "But, tonight's reading is from one of the long-lost Tomes of Sahu... which is written in Netherese! And you're the only bloke I know, hereabouts, can read, speak, and translate it. Which is what you're gonna do for us, here, aloud. Because we have a little task for Commander Soth up north in Zendikar. One that no mortal knight-errant, in his right mind, would _voluntarily_ undertake. The slaying of a gold dragon... called Nicobolas!"

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PIRATE ISLES

(THE PRESENT)

The first wave of cloakers came swooping down like falcons in a power dive. With half of them immediately winding up impaled by blessed iron quarrels! The remainder narrowly evaded those projectiles before resuming their original courses in order to wrap themselves around the iron golem crossbowmen. Knocking the latter flat on their metallic backs. This, in turn, allowed their vampirate masters to attack the second line of defense. Although, once again, half of them wound being decimated by point-blank volleys of blessed iron pellets.

The more agile ones jumped over these iron golems to confront the third line of defense.

"Let 'em have it!" yelled Kaulder, just before he was forced to lift his shield to fend off the clawed wing-fingers of his first vampirate.

For Helene Frisson, this was little different to what she did back in her beloved eighteenth-century France. As there, she had had more-than-one occasion to slay 'lycanthropires': the Abominations resulting from the mating of dhampirs with werewolves, which she regarded these so-called 'werebats' as little better than. She even managed to haltingly say as much! But her fellow combatants did not bother to reply. Captain Damati, for example, would parry a claw swipe with her left-handed dagger. She would then either behead or dismember with her glasteel cutlass.

Logar Ythm, on the other hand, had suddenly revealed that his mace was also a morningstar! The spiked ball at the top of the handle suddenly flying upward from it and wrapping itself around the neck of the first vampirate that tried to take a bite out of the dwarf Harper's throat! As a result, he wound up dragging it down to his level... where he impaled its brain with the switchbladed handle of the mace. That, in turn, caused the other vampirates to circle around him, trying to get past the whirling obstacle of that spiked ball on a mithril chain.

It was by this point that the first line of iron golems managed to throw off the cloakers pinning them down... by throwing them into the cloakers in the front row of the second wave. Consequently, the vampirates behind them wound up getting cleaved in two- -literally, from head to foot- -by blessed iron great swords. Broad swords so heavy that they required a two-handed grip on their hilts! And any vampirate nimble enough to evade them only wound up placing themselves within range of the great swords being wielded by the second-row iron golems. Unfortunately, their sacrifice served to distract attention from the incoming third wave. Allowing the lead vampirate of that contingent to swoop down towards Drenax and Blue Bart! Yet, in his overconfidence, that vampirate made one fatal mistake.

He assumed Coucou the Pooka was merely an ordinary dog.

"ROWRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" roared the latter, as he transformed into a ten-foot-tall silvertip cave bear. Subsequently standing up on his hind legs and trapping the vampirate by its werebat wings. Quite literally biting its head off, the very next moment. As a result, the remainder of the third wave became so initially panic-stricken that Coucou was able to knock some of them (along with their pet cloakers) out of the air with his massive forepaws.

It was at that moment that Kaulder, in cutting off the head of his last vampirate, suddenly got a good view of the incoming airjammer known as 'The Dire Shark'.

"Brace for impact!"

BALDUR'S GATE (17 HOURS/55 MINUTES EARLIER)

"Slay Nicobolas?!" echoed Shandalar in disbelief. "Are you mad?"

"It would be even greater madness..." replied Lord Frostrune. "...if the Witch-Queen of Pylea is allowed to marry and consummate."

"She must be slain beforehand," added Imsa. "Yet, we all know that is virtually impossible so long as she wears the Silmarils in her tiara."

"Thus, our only other alternative," finished Borngray, "is to slay Nicobolas and then reanimate him as a dracolich under our control. For as the eldest of gold dragon elders, he is the only being in this world roughly her equal in inherent power."

"Which means," Ethan summarized, "by siccing his undead arse on her, we'll make her focus most of her attention- -and power- -on him! Thereby leavin' her vulnerable to a nice little stab-in-the back. Sweetness and light all around!"

The erstwhile Endrek Sahr shook his head. "I was right. You are definitely _all_ mad!"

"And you, mate, have outlived your usefulness."

Whereupon, the chaos-worshiping Kiasyd shifted to his vampiric visage. Blood-sucking fangs and all! A minute later, the last of the mages of Netheril was no more. But, his blood-memories lived on in Ethan Rayne.

"Alrightey, then," he commented as he rubbed his fangs cleaned with his left sleeve. "Let's take a gander at that spellbook. Shall we?"

Technically, the Dire Shark had two kinds of merrows aboard her when she rammed into the port side bow of the Black Rose. The half-orc kind -more correctly known as 'mer-ogrillons'- who looked like wingless gargoyles with putrid green skin. And the true merrows: bipedal mermen with catfish-like barbels sprouting from their facial cheeks.

It was the former who swarmed aboard the Black Rose, first. Each of them armed with a massive war club made of barnacle-encrusted coral. Close behind them came the seawolves: shapeshifters who were now transformed into their web-footed worg mode. And riding atop them were the scrags! Sea trolls wearing sealskin gauntlets studded with shark teeth. Last, but not least, came the true merrows. Each of them armed with a serrated short sword made from a sawfish bill fixed with algae-made twine to a hilt of petrified driftwood.

"We'll never hold them off here, amidships," said Kaulder when he and the others regained their feet.

"Everyone to the stern!" yelled Captain Damati. "Bart! You and Drenax get upon the bear."

The transformed pooka looked at Helene, who nodded. Therefore, he let the tinker gnome and the para-genasi climb on to his fur-covered back. Whereupon everyone retreated aft. Blue Bart used his ferrokinesis to make the iron golems cover their retreat. When they could go no further, however, the pursued turned to face their pursuers.

"Alright, people," said Marchesa. "These sons of liches might take my ship! But, let's make it costly for them."

No sooner had she said this then the front row of mer-ogrillons crashed into the iron golems. Naturally being cleaved in two by the great swords of the latter! Much of the second row met the same fate. But, the third row pressed in, hot on their heels. Thereby toppling some of the iron golems flat on their backs. That, in turn, led to their being pounded into scrap metal, with the mer-ogrillons' war clubs, while the scrag-mounted seawolves leaped over them.

Helene and Kaulder went after the latter. Her brace of silver hunting swords and his elfin-made battleax beheading and dismembering the sea-going lycanthropes almost effortlessly! This, of course, caused the scrags riding them to be hurled off on to the increasingly blood-stained deck. But, being shorter of stature, they were momentarily below the point of view of the understandably preoccupied duo. Logar Ythm, however, being a dwarf, was perfectly eye-to-eye with them. So, the first half dozen or so who tried to punch him with the shark-toothed gauntlets wound up with broken skulls, courtesy of his (once-more short-handled) mace. While those who managed to get around him wound up stabbed in the throat, or beheaded, by the left-handed dagger and cutlass of Marchesa Damati.

Either that... or disemboweled by the bear claws of Coucou the Pooka.

The enemy, however, had superior numbers. A fact that swiftly became evident when the third row of mer-ogrillons made it over the last of the collapsed iron golems, alongside the true merrows. And that is when it happened. Someone blew upon a hunting horn! Producing a note highly similar to the one Kaulder himself had blown, back in Mystara, during the battle with the Redfang gnolls.

Only, this time, it was not him. And the sound was coming from behind him. He risked turning to look.

"Hit the deck!" he yelled.

The others did not question him, fortunately for them. For a veritable cloud of arrows suddenly passed over their heads! Embedding themselves in the throats, hearts, and chests of the surviving merrows, mer-ogrillons, scrags, and seawolves.

tbc

Szarkai: an albino caste of the drow often employed as spies among surface-dwelling elves.

Draa-zebyl: drow who can shapeshift into the form of shadow dragons, which is a black dragon subspecies).

Jaezred Chaulssin: a sect of drow assassins who do not worship Lolth.