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With his mail, shield, spear, and other weapons, Aoth looked like a warrior and had hoped the citizens of Luthcheq would take him for that and nothing more. But almost immediately they’d started whispering behind his back and making signs to avert the evil eye. He suspected that Luthen or Zan-akar had put out the word that he was actually a war-mage.

He stopped leading foot patrols thereafter. No point agitating the locals more than they were already. Instead, he and Jet had taken to monitoring the city from the sky.

An easterly wind carried them to the religious quarter, where the gilded dome of the temple of Waukeen, goddess of trade, gleamed at one end of a mall. At the other stood the colonnaded house of Amaunator, lord of the sun, with an enormous sundial out in front.

Drumming and chanting, Tchazzar cultists paraded past the instrument. Some carried crimson banners. Others had combined forces to animate a dragon made of red cloth. Capering inside it, they made it weave back and forth in serpentine fashion.

At first no one seemed to mind. Then half a dozen priests in yellow robes strode forth from Amaunator’s temple. The stout sunlord in the lead, his vestments trimmed with gold and amber, started haranguing the marchers.

“Fly lower,” said Aoth. “Let’s hear what he’s saying.”

Jet swooped and set down on the roof of the Red Knight’s house, a comparatively small box of a building that, with its battlements and barbican, looked more like a fortress than a shrine. Aoth hoped the patron of strategists would forgive a fellow commander the intrusion.

Nobody mortal appeared to notice his descent. The sun priests, and the dragon cultists’ reaction to them, had already captured everyone’s attention.

“Dragons aren’t gods!” insisted the chief sunlord, his voice raised so everyone could hear. “And your display, in these sacred precincts, is an affront to the true gods!”

“Tchazzar saved his people,” replied the skinny adolescent girl at the head of the procession. She’d daubed scarlet symbols on her forehead and cheeks, and had a fervid, feverish cast to her expression. Someone had given her a fine vermilion mantle to throw on over the shabby garments beneath. “He also rose from the dead. That’s what gods do. And now that we need him, he’ll come back again. We only have to believe.”

“Child, you don’t understand these matters. You can’t. You lack the education.”

“I’m glad. Because I see that all learning does is blind you to the truth.”

The high priest took a breath. “Put your faith in the Keeper of the Yellow Sun and the other powers of light. And in the war hero they’ve appointed to rule us. That’s who will save you.”

“When?” called a man with a pox-scarred face. “Threskel and High Imaskar and the filthy wizards are destroying us! What are your gods and Shala Karanok waiting on?”

“Perhaps,” the cleric said, “they’re waiting for their people to stop behaving in a manner that’s both blasphemous and treasonous.”

The marchers shouted back, jeering at him.

“My children,” said the priest, “I tried to counsel you. As you refuse to heed me, I’ll have to resort to more drastic measures.”

He beckoned for the lesser sunlords to gather in. A couple hesitated or looked alarmed, but they all obeyed. Their master started chanting, and they joined in.

“They’re not,” said Jet in disbelief.

But apparently they were. Trying to perform some ritual of chastisement with the targets standing unrestrained just a few strides away. Did they imagine Tchazzar’s worshipers would simply wait idly for them to finish?

If so, they were doomed to disappointment. The thin girl—the cultists’ prophetess, apparently—shrilled, “Stop them!” She lunged forward, and the marchers surged after her.

Jet perceived what Aoth wanted through their psychic link, or else he simply recognized himself what was required. As he sprang into the air, he gave a screech that froze some of the folk below in their tracks. Aoth pointed the long spear that served him both as warrior’s weapon and mage’s staff, rattled off words of command, and cast a wall of leaping, crackling yellow flame between the cultists and the priests. That brought the rest of the rushing men to a sudden, stumbling halt. It startled the sunlords into falling silent too.

Then Jet made a couple of low passes over the crowd, like he was deciding whom to snatch up in his talons and devour. Scowling, Aoth tried to look equally intimidating.

When he judged that their little pantomime had done as much good as it was likely to, he had the griffon land on top of the sundial. Evidently it was just his day to take liberties with the property of the gods.

“Captain!” called the chief sunlord.

Aoth dismounted. “If anyone makes a move,” he said, ostensibly to Jet but loud enough for everyone to hear, “kill him!” The griffon crouched and glared as if he’d like nothing better than to pounce over the blazing barrier and down into the marchers. Aoth then strode to the edge of the sundial and looked down at the man who’d hailed him.

“I’m Daelric Apathos,” said the sunlord, “steward of the Keeper’s house. Thank you for holding back the rabble.”

To Aoth, the fellow sounded more stiff than grateful, but it seemed best to take the statement at face value. “That’s why I’m here, Sunlord. To keep the peace.”

“Hold them back for a few more moments, and my clergy and I will complete the malediction.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Daelric blinked. “I assure you, I only intend a mild rebuke. It won’t be that much worse than the average sunburn.”

“And I assure you, if you start praying again, I’ll snuff the fire, climb back on my griffon, and leave you and the Church of Tchazzar to sort things out for yourselves.”

The high priest sneered. “I should have known better than to expect piety from one of your kind. The war hero will hear how you denied me in my hour of need.”

“I bet she will.” Aoth paced to the front of the sundial. Peering out across the wall of hissing flame, still burning hot and bright with no fuel but magic to sustain it, he located the prophetess. “As long as I’m collecting names, I may as well get yours.”

She drew herself up even straighter, as though to assert that she wasn’t afraid. “Halonya.”

“Well, Halonya, you and your friends go march somewhere else.”

“It’s our city as much as it is that priest’s. We have the right to walk the street. Any street, including this one.”

“I’m an officer of the watch, which means you have the right to walk where I say. Now go, or the next fires will drop right on your heads.”

Halonya held his gaze for another moment, then nodded curtly. She pivoted and started to lead her fellow cultists away. They followed, but not without some glaring, spitting, and obscene gestures to demonstrate their dislike of Aoth.

The sunlords were more restrained about it. But their stony faces conveyed the same sentiment.

“This is nice,” said Jet. “At least they agree on something.”

*    *    *    *    *

Gaedynn spotted three lights shining close together in the dark street below. He sent Eider, his griffon, named for a love of swimming unusual among her kind, swooping lower.

The lanterns belonged to a patrol, but not one of the Brotherhood’s. The men were locals. Their lights revealed an eviscerated corpse. A circle of spectators, some in their nightclothes, had assembled to gawk at it. A couple cried out when Eider touched down. The griffon gave them a disgusted look.

As Gaedynn dismounted, he caught the smells of spilled blood and waste. Judging from the fallen wooden bucket and the communal well just a stride or two away, the dead man had ventured out for water. The killer had left a green handprint on the brickwork surrounding the hole.

Gaedynn looked for the sergeant in charge. That appeared to be a blunt-featured man who was evidently putting on weight, since even with the bottom buckles left unfastened, his leather cuirass was too tight for his flabby body. His face pale in the lantern light, swallowing repeatedly, he stood and stared at the dead body.

“When did this happen?” Gaedynn asked.

The pudgy man shook his head. “Who knows?”

Gaedynn stooped to examine the remains. He’d spent most of his youth as a hostage among the elves of the Yuirwood. It had been an alarming experience at times, particularly when his father’s continued misbehavior made his captors think they really ought to kill him in retaliation, or what was the point of having a hostage in the first place? But it had taught him woodcraft, and to him it looked like claws rather than a blade had ripped the victim. Which didn’t necessarily mean that a human wasn’t responsible for the crime.

Gaedynn rose and waved a hand at the gawkers. “Have you questioned them?”

“If any of them had seen the murderer, they’d be dead too.”

“Not if the killer didn’t see them,” Gaedynn said. “Now, have you questioned them?”

“No.”

“Well, someone should start, or at least make sure no one wanders off. The rest of us need to try to pick up the killer’s trail. I’ll look from the air …” He belatedly noticed the watchman’s scowl. “What’s wrong?”

“Maybe your flying beasts and fancy gear impress Nicos Corynian. But you’re no better than us, and we don’t take orders from you.”

“My friend, I realize I’m not your commanding officer, and I would never presume to tell you how to proceed, except that you don’t appear to be proceeding. And how will that look when you report to those who do command you?”

The sergeant somehow managed to look nettled and sheepish at the same time. “It’s just … we’re used to dead bodies, but not like this.”

“I understand.” Gaedynn glanced around, taking in the several streets and alleys snaking and forking away from the central point, then turned his gaze on the rest of the watchmen. “We’ll need to split up to have any hope of catching the murderer.”

“We don’t all have lights,” a watchman said.

“Then commandeer them,” Gaedynn said. “Quickly! For all we know, the killer is only a few moments ahead of us.”

And that, he realized, was what they were afraid of. No one actually wanted to catch up with the fiend. Not by himself and in the dark.

“The whoreson probably headed back to the wizards’ quarter,” said another man. “We’ll have the best chance of spotting him if we all head in that direction.”

“We have no idea where he’s headed.” Gaedynn turned back to the sergeant. “But search as you think best. Just look somewhere, and we’ll rendezvous back here.”

He hurried back to Eider and swung himself into the saddle. The griffon trotted, lashed her wings, and sprang skyward.

Gaedynn laid an arrow on his bow and, guiding Eider with his knees, flew a spiral course away from the well. He looked for motion atop the roofs and in the air.

For a while he was optimistic about spotting it. As he understood matters, the sole witness claimed the killer had fled the scene of his first atrocity by traveling over the housetops, even if said witness wasn’t clear whether he’d jumped like a squirrel or flown like a bird.

But all Gaedynn found were bats, owls, scurrying roof-dwelling rats, and an elderly astrologer leaning on a gnarled cane as he studied the moon and her trailing cloud of glittering tears. And when Eider had wheeled her way over a good quarter of the city, it was time to admit their quarry had eluded them.

He hoped the watchmen had had better luck. But he doubted it, and when he returned to the well, he found them loitering around empty-handed.

“Useless,” sneered an onlooker to his companion, just loud enough for Gaedynn to overhear.

*    *    *    *    *

“We need to run them off,” Randal said.

“Yes,” and “Right,” said some of the other boys.

But Theriseus asked, “Why?” Towheaded and gangly, not much good at games, he was just like that, always asking questions. Sometimes it made him seem clever, and sometimes stupid.

Either way, Randal had an answer for him, because he’d listened to his father talk—well, yell, really—about that very subject.

“They strut and push people around like they conquered the city or something. But they’re just sellswords, which means they’re just animals who kill for coin.”

Theriseus shrugged. “That doesn’t sound too different from the regular watch. They clubbed that one drunkard to death after he wouldn’t put down the knife.”

“Oh, it’s different,” Randal said. Even if he was vague on exactly how. “So, are you up to it, or are you too scared?”

“I’ll help,” Theriseus said, as Randal had known he would. The lanky blond boy might think a little differently than his fellows, but he prized his membership in the Black Wasps just as highly. In the rookeries where their families lived, if you weren’t in a gang, you weren’t anything. And you couldn’t belong to the Wasps if you were scared to take a dare.

Randal led his fellows down an alley choked with slippery, ripe-smelling refuse. Up ahead, the passage met a street. Having studied their routine, he knew a sellsword patrol would march across the intersection in just a little while.

Sure enough, here came the clink of armor and the thump of feet striding in unison. The other Black Wasps pulled stones from their pockets and the bags and pouches on their belts.

Randal could go them one better because his father had taught him to use a sling, and he’d borrowed it from the chest where the old man kept it. And a sling could throw a stone hard. His father said it was a genuine weapon of war, although Randal suspected that had been truer in olden times than it was today.

The soldiers tramped into view. A dwarf with a spear in his hand and some sort of axe strapped to his back was in the lead.

Randal’s father said dwarves were as evil as wizards. They practiced the same sort of diabolical arts. So Randal whipped his rock at the small warrior, and his friends threw theirs too.

The missiles clattered on shields, helmets, and mail. Some of the sellswords staggered, although to Randal’s disappointment nobody fell down.

“There they are!” said the dwarf. He reversed his grip on the spear—so he could strike with the butt, presumably. Then he and several of the human soldiers charged.

Randal and his friends turned and ran. He felt excited, not scared, because he was sure they’d get away. They weren’t carrying the weight of armor, and they knew the back alleys of the ropemakers’ precinct like no outsider ever would.

They rounded several turns, and then he glanced back. The sellswords were nowhere in sight. He waved the hand with the sling over his head and gasped out that the others should stop.

Everybody grinned and, once they caught their breaths, slapped their comrades on the back. Even Theriseus, who also asked, “What now?”

“What do you think?” answered Randal, pushing sweaty hair back from his forehead. “The same again!”

They sneaked through the alleys, staged a second ambush, and once again escaped. If anything, the new assault was even more exhilarating, yet still not entirely satisfactory. Because even after two volleys, some of the armored warriors were bruised and bloodied, but every one of them was still on his feet. Surely the sling could do better. In practice, it had smashed chips loose from a stone wall.

“Once more,” Randal said.

“Are you sure?” Theriseus asked. “This time they’ll be expecting us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Randal said. “We’re smarter and faster than they are.” And that really did seem to be the case. It made you wonder how these Brotherhood of the Griffon ever won a battle.

He and the other Wasps crept through the narrow, shadowed space between two tenements. Up ahead, the first rank of outlanders prowled into view. Randal kissed his stone and offered a curt, silent prayer to Loviatar, goddess of punishment, for luck, then let the missile fly.

His target clapped a hand to his eye. Blood welled between the soldier’s fingers, and then he pitched forward.

Randal whooped. He and the other Wasps whirled to flee, then faltered. Somehow the dwarf and three of his men had sneaked up right behind them.

It would be useless to turn back around, because the rest of the sellswords were blocking the other end of the passage. All the Wasps could do was try to dart by the dwarf and his allies.

Theriseus and another boy made it. The outlanders beat others to the ground. Some swung the same sort of truncheons as the regular watch. The rest struck and jabbed with the shafts of their spears. It seemed unfair that they wielded the long weapons so nimbly in the crowded space.

Randal faked left, then lunged right, but the sellsword in front of him wasn’t fooled. He kept himself in the way, dropping his cudgel and snatching a long, thin dagger from his belt.

He and Randal slammed together. A sort of shock jolted Randal. His legs gave way and dumped him on his back in the dirt. He heard a rattling, whistling sound. Something wet was in his throat and mouth, choking him, and he coughed a glob of it out.

The dwarf discarded his spear and shield, kneeled down, and pressed his hands against Randal’s torso. Randal, whose thoughts seemed murky and slow, realized the human sellsword had stabbed him, and the dwarf—the evil, magic-loving dwarf!—was trying to stanch the bleeding.

“Curse it!” snarled the dwarf. “They’re just boys. How do you think the town will react to this?”

“That’s the little bastard who put Fodek’s eye out,” said the warrior gripping the bloody blade. “He had a sling, and a sling is a deadly weapon.”

As he retched more blood, Randal was glad that his father had been right about something.

*    *    *    *    *

Jhesrhi tossed and turned until she couldn’t bear it anymore. Then she cursed, rose from her narrow, sagging bed, winced at the chill that pervaded her room, and dressed quickly.

Now what? The shabby little house was silent except for the snores of one of the family who had billeted her at the war hero’s command. Jhesrhi hesitated to busy herself inside their home for fear of waking them. Her presence was enough of an inconvenience without that.

But the only alternative was to go outside, and the prospect made her mouth go dry and her fingers tremble. And then she hated herself for her fear.

Luthcheq was a genuinely dangerous place despite all the Brotherhood was trying to do to keep the lid on. And it despised her kind. But she wasn’t a helpless child anymore. She was a master wizard and veteran soldier who’d survived the horrors of Thay itself, and she wouldn’t let this miserable cesspit daunt her.

She put on her tabard, wrapped herself in her cloak, and picked up her blackwood staff with its inlaid golden runes. Then she took a deep breath and opened the door.

Scar, her griffon, slept curled beneath an overhang on the side of the house. She felt an urge to wake the steed and go flying, but she realized that would be a way of hiding just like cringing inside the house. And she was done cringing. She meant to walk the streets all by herself until they didn’t frighten her anymore.

She set forth beneath a brilliant scatter of stars that made the shuttered grime and decay of the wizards’ quarter seem even sadder. The iron cap on the butt of her staff thumped almost inaudibly against the frozen mud. She asked the wind to warn her of anyone moving around outdoors anywhere nearby, and it whispered that it would.

And after another heartbeat or two, it did. It didn’t speak in any mortal tongue or even think in mortal concepts, but after years of practice, Jhesrhi had no difficulty understanding it.

And she liked what it had to say. Because while it might be a sad commentary on human nature, one effective remedy for fear was instilling a dose of it in someone else.

The wind led her to a narrow three-story house at the edge of the wizards’ precinct. Two dark figures were just climbing out a gable window.

Some might have thought it odd that the burglars of a town that supposedly feared mages would choose them for their victims. But the skilled professionals of Luthcheq’s thieves’ guild likely knew which residents of the quarter wielded true power and which only possessed enough to turn them into outcasts. They also knew that the city’s homegrown watchmen rarely investigated crimes against wizards with any particular zeal.

Standing unnoticed in the darkness, Jhesrhi was eager to strike. But she recognized that a three-story fall could kill or cripple a man. So she waited for the burglars to climb partway down the wall before telling the wind to gust hard enough to knock them from their perches.

One of the thieves squawked as he fell. They both thudded down hard, lay still for a moment, then started clambering to their feet.

Jhesrhi murmured a charm, twirled two fingers in a circle, and wrapped herself in a shroud of silvery light. It ought to turn a thrown dagger or a dart from a blowpipe, but she mainly wanted it for the glow. She knew that with her willowy frame, amber eyes, tawny skin, and golden tresses—often stirred by a breeze that no one else could feel—she cut a reasonably impressive figure. Perhaps impressive enough to persuade a pair of robbers to surrender without any fuss, provided they could see her clearly, along with a manifestation of her power.

But no. They turned and ran, and she realized she was glad. Now she had a reason to knock them around a little more.

She leveled her staff, and a pair of blue-white beams leaped from the tip, diverging to catch each thief in the back. They staggered and fell.

She walked closer as, shaking uncontrollably, they tried to stand up again. “You aren’t badly hurt yet,” she said, her aura of protection fading, “but my next spell will freeze you to the marrow.”

“F-f-f-filthy w-witch,” said the thief on the right, a scrawny specimen with a black goatee, a sharp nose, and the hint of cropped ears just visible inside his cowl.

“I guess not everyone can be as worthy and upright as the two of you,” she answered. “Now, did you hurt anyone inside the house?”

“N-no.”

“Lucky for you. So this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to drop your weapons and return your plunder, and then I’m going to march you off to jail.”

At first it happened just that way. The burglars were sullen, but she thought she had them properly cowed. Still, she maintained a safe distance between herself and them, and stayed watchful lest they spin around to rush her or simply try to run.

They did neither. But when they passed beyond the confines of the wizards’ quarter, the knave with the cropped ears abruptly shouted, “Help us!”

A dozen figures pivoted in their direction. Intent on her prisoners, Jhesrhi hadn’t quite realized how many people were out roaming that particular section of street, nor was she certain why. Maybe there was a tavern or festhall nearby.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m an officer of the watch. These two wretches tried to rob a house, and I’m going to lock them up.”

“She’s a wizard!” said the bearded thief. “Just look at the staff! She attacked us for no reason, and she means to feed us to her demons!”

“I am a wizard,” Jhesrhi said, “but also a member of the watch.” She pulled open her cloak to display her tabard. “See?”

“That wasn’t there a moment ago!” cried the thief. “It’s an illusion! She’s making you see it!”

The onlookers muttered to one another.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jhesrhi said. She flicked her fingers, and the wind moaned and blew back the thief’s hood, revealing his mutilated ears. “You can see that this rogue has faced the war hero’s justice twice already.”

The thief peered around wildly. “What is she talking about? What did she do to me?”

Jhesrhi had to admit it was a good imitation of confusion. But she thought she’d demonstrated her credentials and the trickster’s duplicity to any reasonable person’s satisfaction, and despite the city’s prejudice against mages, she expected the bystanders to lose interest and turn away.

They didn’t. In fact, though it was difficult to be certain in the dark, it looked like their expressions had hardened. It belatedly occurred to her that her demonstration of her powers, petty and harmless though it had been, might have heightened their mistrust.

A woman bigger than most men shouldered a man aside as she stepped to the front of the crowd. Judging from her buckler and her short, heavy cleaver of a sword, she might have been a member of Luthcheq’s underworld too, or conceivably even a sellsword. “Let these fellows go,” she said in a startlingly sweet soprano voice.

“I told you,” Jhesrhi said, “they’re robbers, I belong to the watch, and it’s my duty to turn them over for judgment.”

“If you are a part of the watch, you shouldn’t be. Not when your kind are skulking around murdering decent people. And we’re not going to let you take these lads off to who knows where, and then maybe they turn up torn to scraps before the night is through.”

“If that’s what you’re worried about,” said Jhesrhi, “you can tag along and watch me hand them over.”

“Don’t!” said the thief. “For your own sakes! For all we know, there are more of them lurking in the dark! She could lead you into a trap!”

“Oh please,” sighed Jhesrhi, addressing herself to the crowd. “Surely you people know where the guard station is. It’s just a couple of blocks farther on.”

“Who’s to say they’ll do justice there?” demanded a dandy with a rapier at his hip, a mail glove on his off hand to catch and hold an opponent’s blade, and a brooch adorned with a red wyrm pinning his cape. “The folk in charge of the watch—and the folk over them—are stupid or worse. That’s why they can’t catch the Green Hand. That’s why the realm is falling apart.”

“I think,” said the enormous woman to Jhesrhi, “you’d better let these fellows go and slink back to where you belong.”

Not moving her head, just her eyes—she didn’t want to appear apprehensive—Jhesrhi glanced up and down the street. There had to be a watch patrol somewhere in the vicinity, but none was in sight.

“The thieves are going to the guard station,” she said. “And if you people don’t want to join them in their cell, you’ll disper—”

A clay flowerpot smashed at her feet, dashing shards, dirt, and the twiggy, leafless remains of a dead plant across the ground. Someone had thrown it from an upper-story window.

Startled, she recoiled a step. Her prisoners bolted. She pivoted and pointed her staff at them. The huge woman lunged and cocked her fist.

Jhesrhi glimpsed the threat from the corner of her eye. She dodged and the punch only glanced across her cheek, although that was enough to sting and to infuriate her as well.

She jabbed the head of her staff into the big woman’s stomach and spat a word of command. A burst of force like the kick of a mule flung her attacker back and dumped her on her rump.

But by then, the dandy’s rapier was whispering clear of its scabbard. He extended his arm and charged.

Jhesrhi jabbered rhyming words. Sleep claimed her assailant, and his momentum smacked him down on his belly.

Still, that wasn’t the end of it. The huge woman clambered up and drew her sword. With fists clenched or with knives and cudgels in hand, the other meddlers spread out to flank the object of their hatred. More missiles showered from overhead.

Jhesrhi raised her staff high and cried out to the wind. Howling, it exploded out from her in all directions, like she was a bonfire shedding a tempest instead of heat and light. Her attackers reeled, unable to make headway. Some fell down. The missiles raining from the windows blew off course.

Now she had to decide what to do next. The gale wouldn’t last forever. She surveyed her adversaries, and the answer came to her.

She snarled an incantation in an Abyssal dialect and jerked her staff through short, stabbing passes. Hate buttressed her will and lent additional power to the magic taking form around her, swirling green fumes that stank like carrion.

Because she’d hated Chessenta for her entire adult life, and now she knew she’d been right to do so. Certainly she had every right to despise the idiots before her, brutes and bullies every one.

She was almost at the end of the incantation before something—perhaps the pure concentration required to perform a complex spell with the necessary precision—cooled her fury a little. Then she remembered that she hadn’t gone to war, and that her employers didn’t consider these folk to be their enemies. She mustn’t slaughter them wholesale for fear of repercussions.

Even then, it was difficult to alter the spell so close to completion. The magic was eager to manifest the pattern the opening phrases had defined, and the final words were flowing automatically. Straining, she regained control of her tongue, then recited a line that completed the conjuration—but in an attenuated form, like music played an octave lower.

With the last of its strength, the wind she’d made caught the malodorous vapor seething around her and blasted it into the faces of her foes. Those who had somehow remained on their feet doubled over or collapsed, and then they all started puking their guts out.

The sickness wouldn’t kill them. The diluted poison was too weak. But they were likely to wish it would.

She tried to enjoy their misery, but she couldn’t. Except for their retching, the street suddenly seemed too quiet and too empty. At first glance, she didn’t see any watchers peeking down at her from the windows or the rooftops, but she felt the pressure of their stares.

Her instincts told her what was coming, and she retreated toward the wizards’ precinct. She’d only gone a few yards when, as though evoked by a spell potent as any at her command, the first shadowy figures swarmed out of the doorways. Her heart thumping, she whispered a message for the wind to carry to her comrades.

*    *    *    *    *

Working as fast as they could, Khouryn and his spearmen hauled furniture out of the houses—or just tossed it out the windows—then piled it across the street to make a barricade. The householders with their tattooed palms stood watching in distress, either because they disliked seeing their meager belongings so mistreated or because they understood the reason for it.

If it was the latter, then that made them shrewder than some of the sellswords. “I don’t think anything is going to happen,” grumbled Numer, a beak-nosed fellow with a limp, a missing finger, dozens of scars, and a clinking collection of “lucky” amulets that never left his grubby neck. “We’re doing all this work for nothing.”

“If Jhesrhi says it’s going to happen,” Khouryn answered, “then it will. Didn’t you see the crowds gathering as we rushed over here?”

“I’ve seen plenty of crowds since we came to this stinking town. Marching around with their dragon banners or whatever. Doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything.”

Khouryn scowled. “Just keep stacking.”

They had time to make the barricade a little stronger. Then a mob surged into the mouth of the street. Forged by All-Father Moradin for life underground, dwarves saw well in the dark, and Khouryn had no difficulty making out the faces of the newcomers. He almost wished it were otherwise. He didn’t like the wildness, the edge of hysteria, that he found there.

“Present!” he snapped, and, acting as one, his men leveled their spears over the top of the makeshift fortification. Khouryn hoped the martial precision of the action—and the rows of rocksteady, razor-edged points reflecting Selûne’s light—would give the insurgents pause.

He climbed up on top of the barricade. “You see how it is,” he called. “We’re trained men-at-arms, and we’re ready for you. Go home, or you’ll wish you had.”

“Give us the wizards!” someone shouted back.

“Go home,” Khouryn repeated.

“The spears don’t matter!” cried another voice. “There are only a few of them, compared to all of us! Just get them!”

The mob didn’t respond with an eager shout. Instead, it gave an odd collective sigh, as though accepting a wearisome chore. But then it charged.

“Clubs!” Khouryn bellowed, because the spears had been a bluff. Aoth said they had to protect the wizards’ precinct without killing too many of those who hoped to butcher the residents. Khouryn understood the reason, but even given the Brotherhood’s advantages of training, discipline, and armor, it was going to make the job a lot harder than it should have been.

He jumped back down behind the barricade, unsheathed his truncheon, and settled his shield more comfortably on his arm. Then the first howling rioters tried to scramble over the barricade. It was tricky for a dwarf to fight behind an obstruction as tall as he was, but he stabbed up with the end of his club and caught an attacker in the mouth. Broken teeth pattered down on his hand.

*    *    *    *    *

To his irritation, Gaedynn’s archers were still climbing onto the rooftops when the mob—or mobs, really, since they didn’t seem to be acting in a coordinated fashion—converged on the wizards’ precinct from three directions. The bowmen could have formed up on the street, but then it would have been difficult to obtain a clear shot at the rioters.

A pair of hands reached up from below the eaves to grip the edge of the roof, and then, as the sellsword started to clamber up, the left one slipped. Gaedynn dived down the pitch and grabbed the loose, flailing arm, risking a fall himself to keep his man from plummeting.

Well … boy, actually, for when he pulled the lummox up, it turned out to be Yuirmidd, a half-grown, pimply youth who’d joined the Brotherhood during their brief time in Aglarond. As usual, Yuirmidd wore a tawdry assortment of trinkets in seeming imitation of his superior’s fondness for adornment.

“How difficult is it to climb onto a roof?” Gaedynn asked.

“I’m a bowman, not a mountain goat,” Yuirmidd replied.

Gaedynn suspected he might be the model for the lad’s impudence as well, and he had yet to make up his mind on how he felt about it. “You’re not much of anything yet. Perhaps after a few more years’ campaigning, in the unlikely event you live that long.”

“It’s starting!” someone shouted.

Gaedynn scrambled up and looked to see for himself. Sure enough, rioters were rushing the barricades Khouryn’s spearmen had erected across the streets and alleys leading into the precinct. It was an idiotic, suicidal thing to do—but then, this was the City of Madness, wasn’t it?

Aimed in a sensible way, a few volleys of arrows would do wonders to blunt the mob’s enthusiasm. Such a tactic would also slaughter them by the dozen.

“If it looks like they’re breaking through anywhere,” Gaedynn shouted, “kill them! If you see someone who looks like a ringleader, kill him! Otherwise, discourage them! Put your shafts into the ground in front of their feet or the walls above their heads!”

“You’re joking,” growled Orrag, a half-orc with the hulking frame and jutting lower canines characteristic of his kind.

“Just do it.” Gaedynn nocked an arrow, pulled the fletching back to his ear, and let it fly. It punched deep into a rioter’s torso, and he dropped.

“You shot that one,” Orrag said, his tone accusatory.

“He had a torch.” Gaedynn laid another shaft on his bow. “If we let them set fire to the wizards’ precinct, they win. Now, are you going to start fighting, or are you waiting for the captain himself to pay you a call and humbly beseech your assistance?”

*    *    *    *    *

Straddling Scar’s back, Jhesrhi wheeled above the wizards’ precinct. Other griffon riders soared to either side.

Most of the rioters probably hadn’t even noticed the sellswords swooping and gliding through the darkness overhead, and the vast majority had no bows or crossbows anyway. The aerial cavalry were relatively safe.

Jhesrhi couldn’t say the same for her comrades on the ground, repelling wave after wave of attackers. Is this my fault? she wondered. If I’d known the right words to say to calm those idiots in the street, could all this have been avoided?

But it was useless to speculate, especially when she had work to do. She hurled spells into the masses of rioters, forcing them to keel over fast asleep or snaring them in gigantic spiderwebs.

*    *    *    *    *

Before the mob arrived, Khouryn had hurried from barricade to barricade, overseeing all the warriors under his command. Once the enemy appeared, it had been necessary to stay in one place, even though that limited him to directing the men in that location.

Now he wasn’t leading anyone at all. He was too busy catching blows on his shield and swinging his club, and couldn’t spare a glance or a thought for anything but the next attacker rushing in at him.

Someone on his right yelled, “Watch out!” The men on either side lurched backward, and a bench fell off the top of the barricade to crack down beside his boot. Both layers of the Brotherhood’s defense—the tangled mass of furniture and the lines of sellswords behind it—were giving way before the ferocious pressure of the mob.

It shouldn’t have been happening. Not to expert soldiers. But Aoth had forbidden them to fight to best effect, and perhaps the Foehammer had seen fit to remind them that in battle, nothing was certain.

Dripping sweat, his chest heaving, Khouryn sucked in a breath to bellow new orders. But just then, the barricade shattered. Stools and tables tumbled and slid, knocking soldiers off balance and fouling their legs as they tottered backward.

A wooden box with brass corner guards crashed down on Khouryn’s head. Then he was on his hands and knees amid a scatter of furniture, with a fierce pain under his steel and leather helmet and no recollection of falling down. The mob was racing at him, and his men were nowhere in sight. Because they’d dropped back. Presumably only a couple of paces, but they might as well be sailing the Trackless Sea for all the good they were likely to do him in the next few heartbeats.

He heaved himself to his feet. It made his head throb, and he gasped.

The stains on her leather armor reeking of vomit, a truly enormous woman cut at Khouryn with a short, heavy, single-edged sword. He blocked with his shield, tried to riposte with his truncheon, and discovered his hand was empty. He must have dropped the weapon when he fell.

His opponent attacked again. A well-dressed man armed with a rapier and a mail gauntlet maneuvered to flank him. Other foes, mere shadows in the dark and confusion, were surging forward too.

Khouryn kept warding himself and snatched a dagger from his belt. He would much rather have grabbed his urgrosh, but it took two hands to wield. If he discarded his shield, his foes would kill him in the naked instant before the axe was ready.

They stood a fair chance of doing that anyway, but a warrior could only select what seemed the proper strategy, then fight his best. He sidestepped to keep the enemy from encircling him and looked for an opening that would enable him to shift in close and use the knife on someone.

Behind him, two voices roared. Lightning flared above his head. It crackled over the faces of the big woman and her comrade with the rapier, charring flesh and making them shudder in place. A blast of white vapor painted other rioters with frost.

All the foes in the immediate vicinity halted, either because they’d just been hurt or simply because they were startled. It gave Khouryn a chance to unlimber the urgrosh and retreat.

Which put him between the two dragonborn who’d just spit their breath weapons at his assailants. From the white studs pierced into their faces, he recognized Medrash and Balasar from the tavern brawl.

He wondered what they were doing here, but now was not the time to ask. He had a battle to salvage. “Make a new line!” he shouted to his men. “And get out your blades!”

*    *    *    *    *

Peering down from Jet’s back, Aoth cursed. One barricade had already given way, although the Brothers who’d manned it were still fighting to hold the rioters back. Another was on the verge of collapse. And there was no sign of any of Luthcheq’s homegrown watchmen. Evidently they’d decided to sit out this particular confrontation.

If the insurgents got inside the perimeter of the wizards’ quarter, they’d be impossible to stop. They’d loot, burn, and murder the residents at will.

“And so,” said Jet, discerning his thoughts, “you know what you have to do.”

“Yes, damn it.”

He’d kept the griffons out of the fight for one reason. No matter how well trained the beasts were, if you took them into combat, they were going to kill. But because they were so frightening, they might only need to slaughter a few rioters before the rest turned tail. And in any case, the situation on the ground suddenly looked uncertain enough that he was no longer willing to trust the outcome to half measures.

He unstrapped the ram’s-horn bugle from his saddle, lifted it to his lips, and blew the signal to attack. Jet screeched, communicating the same message to his kindred.

*    *    *    *    *

The sellswords were now wielding spears, axes, and swords. Morric would still have fought them if necessary, but he was glad it wasn’t. Once the barricade and their initial battle lines had broken, the soldiers had formed a couple of ragged little circles to keep anyone from striking them from behind.

As far as self-protection went, it was a sound tactic, but it left an opening between the sellswords and the row of houses on the right-hand side of the alley. People were scurrying through the gap, and Morric figured he might as well be one of them. The outlanders were scum—that went without saying—but why waste time on them when it was mages he’d come to kill?

A fool in a tavern had once jeered that Morric didn’t even know why he hated wizards. He answered the taunt with his fists and boots, but after he sobered up, he realized he could have used his tongue if he’d wished. For of course he knew.

Wizards trafficked with demons. It was the source of their power. They spread disease and misfortune to amuse their evil masters. They used their secret arts to control all the merchants and guilds and steal a dragon’s share of all the coin, and as a result, a simple man couldn’t earn a decent wage.

They must be spying and otherwise aiding Chessenta’s enemies too. Nothing else could explain why the news from the north and east was so bad, even though the war hero’s troops were the bravest in all Faerûn.

And obviously, the Green Hand slayings were the vilest crimes of all and made retaliation a matter of simple self-preservation. The honest people of Luthcheq had to get the mages before the mages got the rest of them.

Morric had noticed arrows falling from overhead, and the fear of them kept his head down and his shoulders hunched as he darted through the opening. But no shaft whizzed out of the dark to pierce him—or any of his companions either. The bowmen must be looking elsewhere.

Which meant they’d missed their chance at Morric. Once he broke into a mage’s house, no sellsword would even know where he was, let alone have any hope of stopping him. He glanced around, deciding where to start—and then, above his head, something shrieked. Shadows swept across the ground. He froze.

A winged beast plunged down in front of him, right on top of one of his fellow avengers. The creature’s talons stabbed deep into its victim’s body, its weight smashed him into a crumpled heap, and he died without making a sound.

The griffon flapped its wings and leaped onto a second man. That one did manage a truncated yelp, but only because he saw death hurtling at him. The beast ripped him to pieces a heartbeat later.

As it did, Morric noticed the armored warrior on its back. In other circumstances, the sellsword likely would have seemed fearsome, or at least formidable. Astride his eagle-headed steed, he was inconsequential.

Morric’s adz slipped from his grip. He’d brought it to serve as his weapon. Still, now that he was numb and slow with dread, it didn’t seem to matter that he’d dropped it. He couldn’t imagine such a puny instrument hurting the griffon.

But it mattered in a different sort of way. The adz clanked when it hit the ground, and the noise made the creature’s head with its gory, dripping beak snap around in his direction.

Morric still couldn’t move. Or scream. He needed to, but the cry felt jammed in his clogged throat and dry mouth.

The griffon gathered itself to pounce. Then a madman ran at its flank with a leveled spear. The beast spun to defend itself.

When the beast turned away, it broke Morric out of his paralysis. It occurred to him that he could try to help the man with the spear as the fellow had saved him, but the thought was just a chain of words that scarcely even seemed to have a meaning. He whirled and ran.

Others did the same. Tripping and trampling over fallen bodies he couldn’t see, but only felt thrashing beneath him, he struggled to bull his way through the press. A griffon dived and slammed a man to the earth. The creature was almost close enough for Morric to reach out and touch, and as it ripped its victim apart, warm blood and gobs of flesh spattered him.

He was so frantic to avoid the griffons that he nearly flung himself onto the point of an outlander’s sword. But he somehow twisted away from the thrust and floundered onward, and then people weren’t packed together quite as tightly. He could run faster, and he did.

He started feeling his exhaustion not long afterward. Still, he wouldn’t allow himself to halt until the wizards’ precinct was several blocks behind and he’d separated himself from everyone else who’d fled the battle.

Then, legs leaden, heart hammering, he flopped down in an alley and wheezed. He remembered the man who’d saved him—and whom he in turn had abandoned—and felt a pang of shame.

But curse it, it wasn’t his fault the wretch was dead! It was the fault of the despicable Thayans and the war hero who’d given them authority. Who’d sent them to slaughter her own people when they’d risen up to cleanse Luthcheq of a canker.