I couldn't count the number of ships massed before our harbour. In the lights of the burning flares their foreign build was plainly visible from the lines of mast and prow. Some of our ballistae were down, splintered; and there was a sulphuric, chemical smell that took me a moment to realise must be black powder, from Lantanese gonnes that can be used in place of catapults or crossbows. And breaking flames, as if potions of explosion were being flung, even amidst all the people here...
I saw a row of Fist archers atop one of the docks, and then by a chant from a figure upon the ships froze them in place. Arrows slammed into their bodies in turn, killing easily.
The Amnians had landed. I could see two of their ships in our docks, one of them wrecked and ruined already. By their uniforms they fought their way through, and there was one cowled figure by them, a spellcaster protected by a glittering purple-blue shield like that of Davaeorn of the mines.
Imoen dropped to her knees, catching her breath. Flare-lights flickered across her pale, mud-stained face. We'd lost it; muscles seized up, desperate in thirst and hunger. I dropped down beside her. There was no Shar-Teel to yell at us and bring us to try.
"—Useless," she said. "No—I could get another fire one if I wanted—but if anyone comes close..."
In the chaos Scar and his group would be there: protecting the city. It would be good for Imoen for us to find them, even if they could offer little help—and had offered little help, while we'd been trapped in the very Fist compound, for days at least. The invasion— Gorion's supposed friends who wanted to see Imoen safe.
The ground below us shook; something exploded none too far in the distance. The roof above us shifted, stony tiles flying down like iron balls. I pulled her sharply to the right away from them before they smashed into the cobblestones.
She stood with me; we limped together. We were small enough, perhaps, that the invasion would not care. I heard the names of Helm and Tyr and Ilmater chanted by casters who sought to heal the wounded, and as I watched a wizard in dark purple robes sent a stream of pale blue light from his hands. A Fist commander raised his sword in the air to order archers to loose again. There were blue-robed Umberlant casters led by Jalantha Mistmyr's unmistakable fishnet-clad and pearl-ornamented figure, lit by streaks of lightning that shimmered around them, chanting for control over a storm in the distance. The Amnian gonnes went off with an ear-shattering explosion, and in horror I saw most of the Fist in that line falling, broken-bodied. A female mage's twisted body lay in a tangle of robes. Then the storm struck down upon one of the Amnian ships and the water boiled around it; Umberlee's ways of the treacherous seas.
They deserve it, Amnian bastards. No— I thought better—in the end it's not their fault...
A wizard's fireball bloomed on our docks. There were fewer shouts and screams—fewer deaths this time; but then I saw that it had hit a docked skyship. The Fist were calling for water; they would have been ordered to protect that even at the cost of human life— And a lightning bolt spat from the fingers of the shielded Amnian wizard, though I saw a platemailed caster had moved to engage him. There was another shaking below our feet, and bolts and flares of brilliant colour that hurt our heads and blinded us.
Imoen's grip tightened on my arm. "Look with the Umberlants!" she hissed in my ear. "That's Faldorn!"
She was the second shortest within their circle; that must be Tenya beside her. And her patterns of gesture were slightly different to the priestesses around her, her leather armour brown rather than the blue-ornamented vestments of the Umberlants proper, and there was a small squirrel's shape by her feet rather than a sea snake or unusually large crab. We struggled forward; patterns of dangerous light gleamed from the armour of the men fighting in the harbour. Civilians must have left for safety, going deep into the city. One of the ballistae swung a burning cylinder through the air; it smashed on the decks of an Amnian ship, and our enemies ran in panicked abandon over burning planks and sails. Some fell to the waves; some wearing armour.
The docks shook. Another Amnian ship had rammed its way into our port. The Flaming Fist ran past us to fight them; this ship disgorged many armoured soldiers, glinting with clerical protections chanted by another man behind them. Imoen grimly pointed, and missiles whipped from her hands for a spell-disruption of him; then she pulled me back into hiding with her, below the dark shadows of debris.
"There's so many of them," she said. "I really don't have the spells—"
Amn has a huge population. "Their own caster's responding," I said, and a Fist with a mage's sigil on her cloak began the fight with a cloud of stinking air across the heads of the invaders. We ran on across the splintered wood.
"Faldy!" Imoen called to her; she was barely six feet away from us, and her face took on a look of surprise.
"Idiot city-dwellers!" her mouth shaped, though her casting was not interrupted. She gestured with her wrists as if to sweep the winds, and a dark silhouette suddenly appeared on one of the Amnian ships. Below it, in the water, the shapes of women rose from the waves and gestured up at the vessel. "So you live! If truly—"
Imoen raised an arm and pointed to bruises; "Shifters wouldn't be hurt. Where's the others?"
The Umberlants had started to glance and glare; Faldorn returned to the chant.
"Ajantis south-east!" she mouthed to give help. Tenya raised her voice next to her in a shriek, and some of the harbour defences I'd only read about before activated. There was a gleaming pale shield across the full waters, shimmering now with only Amnian ships set in its arc; and it moved to crush them. A Cowled Wizard's bolts flew across and shook it; but it was still there, its glasslike substance closing in upon wood that splintered. More than the Umberlants chanted to preserve it; almost all the clerics of Baldur's Gate must have come to its aid, a gathering of Sunites and Tempusians and Helmites and Sharessans and Umberlants and Ilmatari as if no differences existed...
There was nothing we could do for that. We could find where Ajantis fought; we struggled down past the breaking docks. Then another cry rang out: Cowled Wizards who cast in a circle, floating in air; lightning bolts whirled past them, but they canted and the Lantanese gonnes fired. Ships had cracked and split in the harbour mage-defence, but four had slid through that shield. Two warships of our own were visible further out in the sea, fighting, seeking to board another Amnian craft. It was impossible to take it all in.
My city. My beautiful city.
A group of militia in rough civilians'-gear fought the Amnians that had spilled from a ship rammed into our piers. We could see Ajantis' form, striking with Varscona, his armour covered by a featureless black tabard. Lightning flashed; a cloaked man who fought with impressive motions of his blade raised his head, and we saw it was Scar. His movements were masterful, not by pure strength but careful speed and craft, letting the enemy he fought trip on loose fish and uneven planks and splinters.
Imoen drew Balduran's sword. "If'n we stay behind them..." she managed weakly. I stood in front of her, and the Burning Earth's glare lit up the darkness as if it were another magefire to threaten.
Then there were more cries to gods to come to aid, but the cries were to no god I knew of. These priests were hidden below dark robes, lined with yellow-gold cloth that glistened bright in this darkness; and they had just summoned a symbol to the air above them. It glowed fearsomely, stronger than moon or stars or flare: it was the shape of Sorrel's medallion. The golden skull surrounded by swordlike thorns, blazing like a sun.
People took hope from it, and Sarevok Anchev himself had come. Imoen and I dropped back, for there was no need of us. A path was cleared before him and his heavy armour by—perhaps even by simple instinct instead of the true calculation that he would slay anything in his way, the same that made a human tense when a chill wind blew over their grave. His acolytes chanted a beam of gold down from the heavens, and one of the remaining Amnian ships split entirely from it. Men fell to the sea, and whatever lack of mercy the Umberlants requested.
Surely...they could not do that more than once. Surely...they were not quite as...
The cadence of their chanting did alter itself; then the lead of them pointed to Amnian soldiers of a landing-party, and most of them stilled in place, notwithstanding a caster who accompanied them. They died helplessly. I looked again to Sarevok—his sword whirled and not even Shar-Teel could have defeated him. His eyes glowed yellow and he caused death. Then I thought, he was vampire, he was ghoul; he could feel each departure of a soul in blood and fed upon that, he had become death—
People died and their screams were heard; people died in the sea, mouth and nose burning from their silent deaths, fingers on the clasps of heavy armour that would not part for them. They died in large numbers, and I fancied that I could feel it too as Varscona's distant blade slit a man's shoulders open and then stabbed coldly through the collarbone deep to the lungs, in Ajantis' hands below...
"I know him," Imoen said, her voice as cold as if transmuted to a blade itself. "Glowing, yellow eyes. He was the one who murdered my uncle Gorion, and I don't remember you telling me so."
At that time Sarevok Anchev was only a merchant's son. He had become much more. Imoen was gone then, leaping forward with revenge on her mind. I grabbed the sleeve of her mage's robe.
"Now-is-not-the-time-Imoen-please!" He'd kill her— She turned; gave a nod.
"But if we get closer—a fire under his heels—"
He was on the docks above the water, the docks damaged greatly from Amnian fire, and wore heavy armour. Even were the priests of Umberlee truly well-disposed to him... We had a plan.
But it was impossible to get too close to him, I kept reminding myself. Time spent all through the Cloakwood doing nothing but want to kill him, and that still rose inside me; I have to kill Sarevok Anchev. For everything.
If caught Shar-Teel's daughter will be killed. Imoen ought to think of that; she would think of that more quickly than me. She stalked him through the shadows of battle. I sheathed the Burning Earth to follow her quietly.
Shar-Teel could kill with single strokes and punch a wolfwere or ogre with one hand. Sarevok could kill by sweeping a spiked hand and break swords and armour alike. His yellow-glowing sword arced through three that dared attack—as it had once through Gorion, a long time ago—and they were too slow to defend from it. One raised a shield and the sword sheared through nonetheless; one lost his head; one was parted in two halves through the waist. The sword went forward again at inhuman speed; he was faster than Shar-Teel in armour than she was without. His very steps shook the docks as if the weight of his armour would have crushed ogres.
A young Amnian man fell close to Imoen; we smelt fresh blood, and then Sarevok Anchev had turned to the next soldier. It was relief that he was away; Imoen dropped to her knees over the Amnian, seeing the deep wound in the enemy's chest. He called for his mother.
"I'm here, kiddo," she said quietly, touching his forehead. "It's all right. You're not alone."
She closed his eyes when he stopped breathing, and looked up at Sarevok. Twenty, perhaps, had fallen to him alone already; and in the harbour another Amnian ship was lost and burned, and yet another boarded by our navy. The battle had come to us and the symbol of the skull was still brighter than before; like fireworks suspended in time. The acolytes of the golden skull chanted and pointed. An Amnian mast splintered, rotted, and fell over its own deck to drown men in its wide sails. I saw what remained of their forces turning to flee our shores.
The militia, the Fist patrols, the priests, Sarevok; they had beaten back the Amnians who had dared land in our city. Some ran back to their ship, seeking to flee; then smaller bolts of gold lanced down upon them, and a swarm of small bright meteors from some Baldurian caster. In the area Ajantis fought it seemed they had won, and his large shape was clear enough against sputtering flares and torches; he still lived. Sarevok advanced as if he would much rather the remnants fall to his blade than to seawater. Imoen and I managed to approach; and he stepped out onto a wide plank that stood alone, and perhaps could be burned in half to send him to the deep waters below, while one of the last of the Amnian invaders fell bleeding...
But that was when they came from the seas below, and scattered the Umberlant priestesses first. Six feet and more high; green-scaled; finned; trident-wielding; sharp-toothed; surrounded by deepwater sharks that churned in the waves around them. I had only heard of them in tales of past disaster.
Sahuagin.They are called sea devils. One reared up by where Sarevok stood; and I would have sworn that even he was surprised, though his sword whirled in the air and cut it down. He stepped back to higher ground. Below Imoen's feet something shook the docks, and then strong arms ripped open the wood to rise up by us. It opened a seaweed-stinking mouth, and its coral spear whirled along with the threads of its net—
I'd drawn the Burning Earth in time; the fire hurt it and cut through the strands of the water-net. Then Imoen and I ran back, although Sarevok had been caught by a group of the creatures and was still killing them all. Sahuagin would invade and eat humans; cause their priests to rain down desperate attacks and seek to force the whole city undersea...
It was no coincidence they attacked now; the Amnians made this happen.
Faldorn had been there; I couldn't see her any more. Ajantis would be safer—and that had to be Scar calling orders, fighting the sahuagin as he had done the Amnians. The burning blade itself helped to put off the sea-monsters; Imoen had the same idea as I did to go to Faldorn. I could hear the sahuagin battle-cries now: Sekolah, Sekolah, Sekolah, the name of the shark-deity they served, and sea-priestesses with necklaces strung by teeth chanted their evil spells. Sarevok's sword carved through still more of them; but their deaths were not the same, this hurt and frustrated him— Against sahuagin all were united.
"Faldorn!" Imoen cried out, and then the fire came from her hands into the neck of a sahuagin warrior. It screamed; I stabbed the Burning Earth through the scales, a downward blow to spare energy. We charged through it to where the Umberlants were attacked. Little Tenya— But she was alive by Jalantha Mistmyr's side, dark sea-fog erupting from her hands, blinding her enemies. Aquerna clung to the docks with small claws, escaping underfoot and warning of the direction of attacks as much as she could. Faldorn tried to fight with her club; the Burning Earth sweeping through the air made the sahuagin turn on us, and Imoen struck with Balduran's own sword. Perhaps it brought luck, to defeat those invaders that Baldur's Gate had fought against for many times Sarevok's lifetime.
"—We bear the sword of Balduran!" I called aloud, for the sake of the Umberlants—Sarevok would not know of that, surely; ought not to recognise or even hear where he fought. "In Balduran's name!"
"Baldurran," hissed a sahuagin as if he knew that name, and then fire scorched him. Faldorn had her chance to summon her flaming blade, and used it grimly against these creatures outweighing her by at least a hundred pounds. One of their priestesses chanted close to us. Some of the Umberlants had fallen already; one was dragged down in the sahuagin's net, and then in the water there were sharks' fins— I didn't look. The sea devils fled flame, and for a moment it made up for Imoen's and my weakness.
Tenya chanted in the direction of the waters. It seemed nothing happened; Jalantha gestured with a bright sapphire ring on her right hand, and two of the sahuagin turned to thrust their tridents through the hide of their priest. Imoen sliced awkwardly through a net in a sahuagin's right hand, then turned to avoid its spear now the wire strands were too broken to capture her. The Burning Earth's hilt was warm in my hands; a trident point struck my side. There would be blood below in the water and the sharks would churn through it. Faldorn had finished chants of her own and moved forward, bark-skinned and shielded, easily better than either of us while her prayers lasted. Her fire sizzled against a sahuagin's scales and clouds of steam rose in the air.
Tenya laughed in triumph, a frightening sound for all she was a child. The gigantic thing in the waters before her had—a sort of black beak, a maw amidst a slimy and formless pale head; long tentacles with darker suckers that clung to them; one single white eye that looked as if what it could see was only on the bottom of the sea—
It lashed out to take the scales of a sahuagin by a tentacle; then lowered it into that void space. A kind of squid—a jellyfish kraken—something that didn't belong in the harbour of Baldur's Gate— The sahuagin sharks tore at it in the waters, and their warriors attacked it as if they knew what it was and the deep seas it inhabited.
I could see one of those sahuagin they called malenti, the shape pink and like an elf, but with the same trident spear and weaponry as its fellows. Our soldiers fell to them, and they rose tall on our docks. They would raid human homes and kill what they could.
Down below a bright blue sphere spun around two robed wizards, conjured by the taller of the pair. I could recognise the slight figure of Emerie Jannath's apprentice as the second. Blue lightning flowed out of the sphere, though the sahuagin beating upon it with swords could not break within. The apprentice tried a fire arrow, much weaker than one of Imoen's. A sahuagin priestess, decked with the shark-teeth and trident of their symbols, came from the waters and pointed a clawed hand at the mages. In our own battle we let as much fire spill as we could, Faldorn's blade and mine and Imoen stabbing into the fish-scales.
The acolytes of the golden skull had finished a chant; and it felt as if the docks were suddenly as bright as day. A wall of fire seethed around them, and cut down as many sahuagin as Sarevok had done by himself. It continued to burn; it was devouring our own docks for fuel, and if they did not keep it contained then it would find the skyships—
I saw the mages' sphere brought down and the sahuagin rushing them. They'd die. I sliced the Burning Earth widely across those that tried to fight the Umberlants. Imoen cried out:
"Water? But she's— Salt! That's really clever!" A wall of water summoned up from the seas had risen before the mages, which would not shield them from sea creatures; but it had whitened, then plastered itself to the gills of the enemy in the red-hot glow of the flames. The hands of the apprentice were those moving it.
Imoen stepped back. "Out of fire spells—out of everything—if'n transmutation separation on a cantrip. C'mon..."
Her mage hand dipped water from the seas, made odd gestures to mix it, and then she forced that concentration of salt to the gills of two sahuagin at once. They paused in pain, and Faldorn took one to kill and an Umberlant by a sling bullet the other.
There was one sahuagin larger than the others, who glowed with the force of the prayers of his servants; some sort of chieftain, and he had torn through the militia and Fists alike. I'd lost sight of Ajantis; if he was dead or not... The cloaked Scar stood and fought. Not far from him Sarevok sought out the most powerful of those killing our city. The spear of the chieftain glimmered like blue bones below the sea, and when Sarevok raised his sword he actually blocked it. Anchev was huge but the sahuagin chief was still bigger; and for a moment they seemed to battle as equals.
(...if one kills the other...)
Scar stood his ground despite Sarevok's presence; for the sahuagin had wanted to see Baldur's Gate destroyed long before Sarevok's existence. Invaded for years, a constant threat even if dormant under some periods. Anchev and the leader of those who opposed him fought almost side by side, now. Scar's sword moved to disrupt the spells of a priestess even while the edge of his shield was enough to send down another sahuagin. I burned the scales of another of the creatures while Tenya chanted a spell. Faldorn gloated to kill another.
Jalantha Mistmyr gestured her charms to the sahuagin, and she and her remaining, battered Umberlants were left safe when the last two drove claws into each other's throats. The wall of flames had grown below the skull in the night; it seared and made the sahuagin fall, but uncontrolled devoured our city. A Fist mage, injured by the blood on her shirt, conjured water up from the sea below to try to contain it. Her wall of water rose up by the skyships. The sahuagin chieftain and his guards had been cut off from the seas by a battered group of the Fists; they still killed people. The golden-eyed figure swung the yellow sword too quickly for eye to follow.
Sarevok...fought like Shar-Teel, but far worse, I couldn't help see clearly. Stronger than her—all ferocity and power and supernaturally glowing eyes. He was as terrible as he had been the night he had killed Gorion; more so. Like everyone else, I could believe he was strong enough to defeat the sahuagin in the city. As if he deserved to be hero, saviour, saint.
"He killed Gorion," Imoen said again, and I kept a hand on her arm.
Scar had more skill, perhaps; more experience, at any rate. Even in the thick of fight he called orders to his militia. was careful, pragmatic, using anything at all around him to find weaknesses, one moment treading on a loose plank to overturn the enemy standing on it, the next taking up a coil of rope to loop around the neck. He was the true city's saviour, leader of those who stood against Sarevok's war; and because they fought together perhaps they would both live...
Then the sahuagin chieftain fell, spattered by blue-green blood, and did not rise again. His priestesses howled in despair. Then Sarevok spoke, and he made his voice somehow rise above the sounds of battle: low, deep, and so far removed from the rather tedious ballroom conversationalist who talked to me about the weather. (He...never trod on toes when he danced.)
"Traitor and rebel to the city," he spoke, "you are another who will fall this day."
Arrows thudded into the heads of the sahuagin who lived; Sarevok himself faced only Scar. And no—tricks; no clevernesses; nothing could stop his strength when he'd begun a blow; if I'd bow to hand I might have seen if arrowshaft could somehow pierce his armour, if Imoen had spells remaining she might have hurt him with ingenuity—
Missiles did whirl into Sarevok, from one of the Jannath mages. But then Imoen and I both saw they harmed him not at all, as if he was shielded entirely. There was a shout as the—attack on the Grand Duke—was witnessed; there must have been pursuit of them from behind.
"The fool will allow himself to be killed," Faldorn said, her hands moving for a spell. I saw her fling seeds in the direction of the ground where Sarevok fought; vines grew at her will, but they were not against him. In fact she held Ajantis where he stood. Aquerna beside her seemed to nod in agreement. Because if he tried to fight Sarevok he would die; better he slip away as one of the defenders of Baldur's Gate, if it were possible...
Scar's blade had scraped several times against the armour Sarevok wore, and had even pierced it in a thin line. He had tried to send Sarevok down below into the waters, too, moving back to where the docks thinned. But it was over in seconds. Sarevok stabbed forward, it went through the dark cloak into Scar's side, then a Fist archer had fired a crossbow bolt into the head of one daring to attack the Grand Duke— Another shadowed figure had come to Sarevok's side, chanting prayers in an accent of Kara-Tur.
Scar was dead, and Imoen and I were moving forward, running from Faldorn before she could cast another spell. She leapt past growing vines with ease, Balduran's sword naked in her hand; I followed her without thinking. We would find him, do something, anything, try to kill him—
"No, my dear, I don't want you to do that. Take the arms of your good friend there. Good girls. Exactly right."
He was a tall red-haired man in the uniform of a captain of the Flaming Fist, and he was my new best friend. I held Imoen, and though she struggled I was strong enough to keep a grip on her upper arms.
"It's not that I care if anything should—happen—to you upon a short swim."
Shar-Teel's eyes were brown, as were her daughter's; his were grey and cold. The beautiful and kind man gestured, and I dived down from the edge of the docks and forced Imoen into the sea.
No—what have I—
Saltwater filled my nose and mouth; I was burning, drowning, Imoen's arms crushed in my fists. Then our heads broke the surface of the dashing seas below the splintered docks. Imoen gasped and spluttered:
"—Bufflehead! So cold—" I let go of her; she supported herself despite her robes, kicking in the waters. We'd been ready to kill—Shar-Teel's red-haired father—
Grey fins still cut through the waves. I wrenched out the Burning Earth to find that seawater still did it no harm; in fact it still shone brightly, and it stopped retreating sharks from chasing us. We could see the waves continue to be summoned up to the docks, the crackling and burning of the flames above. When we struggled to cling to barnacle-encrusted rocks by the shore we waited, shivering in weakness. There had always been nothing we could have done.
How many had died this night?
—