TACTICS AND FIREBALLS

Brilliant thought, this battling against wizards!" Regis said, ending in a shriek as he dived aside and behind a water trough. A lightning bolt blasted out the distant building's open front door, digging a small trench across the ground just to the side of where Regis had been.

"They are annoying," Drizzt said, accentuating his point by popping up from behind a barrel and letting fly three arrows in rapid succession from Taulmaril. All three, magically sizzling like lightning bolts of their own, disappeared into the darkness of the house and popped loudly against some unseen surface within.

"We should move," Regis remarked. "He - or they - know where we are."

Drizzt shook his head, but dived low and cried out as a second bolt of lightning came forth. It hit the barrel in front of him, blasting it to kindling and sending out a thick spray of foamy beer.

Regis started to cry out for his friend, but stopped when he discovered that Drizzt, moving with speed enhanced by magical anklets, was already crouching beside him.

"You may be right," the drow conceded.

"Call Guenhwyvar, at the least!" Regis said, but Drizzt was shaking his head through every word.

Guenhwyvar had fought beside them throughout the night, and the Astral panther had limitations on the time she could spend on the Prime Material Plane. Exceeding those limitations rendered Guenhwyvar a feeble and pained companion.

Regis glanced back down the road the other way, at a column of black smoke that rose into the late afternoon sky. "Where is Deudermont?" he lamented.

"Fighting at the Harbor Cross bridge, as we knew he would be."

"Some should have pushed through to our aid!"

"We're forward scouts," Drizzt reminded. "It was not our place to engage."

"Forward scouts in a battle that came too swiftly," Regis remarked.

Only the day before, Drizzt and Regis sat in Deudermont's cabin on Sea Sprite, none of them sure there would even be a fight. But apparently, over the course of the afternoon, the captain had communicated with one or more of the high captains, and had received a reply to his and Lord Brambleberry's offer. They'd received an answer from the Hosttower, as well. In fact, had not the ever-vigilant Robillard intercepted that reply with a diffusion of magical energies, seaman Waillan Micanty would have been turned into a frog.

And so it was on, suddenly and brutally, and the Luskan Guard, their loyalties split between the five high captains, had made no overt moves to hinder Deudermont's circuitous march.

They had gone north first, past the ruins of ancient Illusk and the grand open market of Luskan to the banks of the Mirar River. To cross out onto the second island, Cutlass by name, and assault the Hosttower directly would have been a foolish move, for the Arcane Brotherhood had established safehouses and satellite fortresses all over the city. Deudermont meant to shrink Arklem Greeth's perimeter of influence, but every step was proving difficult indeed.

"Let us hope we can extract ourselves from this unwanted delay," Drizzt remarked.

Regis turned his cherubic but frowning face up at Drizzt, recognizing from the drow's tone that his words were a not so subtle reminder of why they had been spotted by the wizard in the house in the first place.

"I was thirsty," Regis muttered under his breath, eliciting a grin from Drizzt and a sidelong glance at the shattered beer barrel that had so lured the halfling scout into the open.

"Wars will do that to you," Drizzt replied, ending in another yelp and shoving Regis down beside him as a third lightning bolt shot forth, skimming in across the top of the trough and taking out one of the higher boards in the process. Even as the ground shook beneath them from the retort, water began to drain out onto them.

Regis rolled one away, Drizzt the other, the drow coming up to one knee. "Drink up," he said, putting his bow to use again, first through the open door, then shattering a glass window and another on the second floor for good measure. He kept drawing and letting fly, his magical quiver forever replenishing his supply of enchanted missiles.

A different sort of missile came forth from the house, though, a trio of small pulses of magical light, spinning over each other, bending and turning and sweeping unerringly for Drizzt.

One split off at the last moment as the retreating drow tried futilely to dodge. It veered right into Regis's chest, singeing his vest and sending a jolt of energy through him.

Drizzt took his two hits with a grimace and a growl, and turned around to send an arrow at the window from which the missiles had flown. As he let fly, he envisioned his path to the house, looking for barriers against the persistent magical barrage. He sent another magical arrow flying. It hit the doorjamb and exploded with a shower of magical sparks.

Using that as cover, the drow sprinted at an angle to the right side of the street, heading behind a group of barrels.

He thought he would make it, expecting to dive past another lightning stroke, as he lowered his head and sprinted full out. He felt foolish for so over-balancing, though, as he saw a pea of flame gracefully arc out of the second floor window.

"Drizzt!" Regis cried, seeing it too.

And the halfling's friend was gone, just gone, when the fireball exploded all around the barrels and the front of the building backing them.

Sea Sprite tacked hard against the current at the mouth of the Mirar River. Occasional lightning bolts reached out at her from the northern bank, where a group of Hosttower wizards fought desperately to hold back Brambleberry's forces at the northern, longer span of Harbor Cross, the westernmost bridge across the Mirar.

"We would need to lose a score of men to each wizard downed, you claimed, if we were to have any chance," Deudermont remarked to Robillard, who stood beside him at the rail. "But it would seem that Lord Brambleberry has chosen his soldiers well."

Robillard let the sarcasm slip past as he, too, tried to get a better summation of the situation unfolding before them. Parts of the bridge were aflame, but the fires seemed to be gaining no real traction. One of Brambleberry's wizards had brought up an elemental from the Plane of Water, a creature that knew no fear of such fires.

One of the enemy wizards had responded with an elemental summoning of his own, a great creature of the earth, a collection of rock, mud, and grassy turf that seemed no more than a hillside come to life, sprouting arms of connected stone and dirt with boulder hands. It splashed into the river to do battle, its magical consistency strong enough to keep the waters from washing its binding dirt away, and both sides of the battle seemed intent on the other's elemental proxy - or proxies as more wizards brought forth their own otherworldly servants.

A trumpet sounded on the southern end of Harbor Cross, from Blood Island, and out from Brambleberry's position came a host of riders, all in shining armor, banners flying, spear tips glistening in the morning sun.

"Idiots," Robillard muttered with a shake of his head as they charged out onto the wide bridge.

"Harder to port!" Deudermont shouted to his crew, recognizing, as had Robillard, that Brambleberry's men needed support. Sea Spritegroaned under the strain as she listed farther, the river waters pounding into her broadside, threatening to drive her against one of the huge rocks that dotted the banks of the Mirar. She couldn't hold her position, of course, but she didn't need to. Her crack catapult team had a ball of fiery pitch away almost immediately, cutting through the wind.

A barrage of lightning bolts, capped by a fireball, slammed the bridge, and the riders disappeared in a cloud of smoke, flame, and blinding flashes.

When they re-emerged, a bit fewer in number, battered and seeming much less eager and much less proud, they were heading back the way they'd come.

Any sense of victory the Hosttower wizards might have felt, though, was short-lived, as Sea Sprite's shot thundered into the side of one of the structures they used for cover, one of several compounds that had been identified as secret safehouses for the Arcane Brotherhood. The wooden building went up in flames, and wizards scrambled for safety.

Brambleberry's men charged across the bridge once more.

"Fight the current!" Deudermont implored his crew as his ship groaned back the other way, barely holding her angle.

A second ball of pitch went flying, and though it fell short, it splattered up against the barricades used by the enemy, creating more smoke, more screaming, and more confusion.

Deudermont's knuckles whitened as he grasped the rail, cursing at the less-than-favorable winds and tide. If he could just get Sea Sprite's archers in range, they could quickly turn the tide of the fight.

The captain winced and Robillard gave an amused but helpless chuckle, as the leading edge of Brambleberry's assault hit a stream of evocation magic. Missiles of glowing energy, lightning bolts, and a pair of fireballs burst upon them, sending men writhing and flailing to the ground, or leaping from the bridge, which shook under the continuing thunder of the earth elemental's pounding.

"Just take her near to the wharf and debark!" the captain cried, and to Robillard, he added, "Bring it up."

"You wanted to hold our surprise," the wizard replied.

"We cannot lose this battle," Deudermont said. "Not like this. Brambleberry stands in sight of the Luskan garrison, and they are watching intently, knowing not where to join in. And the young lord has the Hosttower behind him and soon to awaken to the fighting."

"He has two secured bridges and the roads around the ruins of Illusk," Robillard reminded the captain. "And a busy marketplace as buffer."

"The Hosttower wizards need not cross to the mainland. They can strike at him from the northern edge of Closeguard."

"They're not on Closeguard," Robillard argued. "High Captain Kurth's men block the bridges, east and west."

"We don't know that Kurth's men would even try to slow the wizards," Deudermont stubbornly replied. "He has not professed his loyalty."

The wizard shrugged, gave another of his all-too-common sighs, and faced the northern bank. He began chanting and waving his arms. Recognizing that the Hosttower kept several safehouses in the northern district, Robillard and some of Brambleberry's men had set up a wharf just below the waves, but far enough out into the river for Sea Sprite to get up beside it safely. As Robillard ignited the magical dweomers he had set on the bridge, the front poles of the makeshift dock rose up out of the dark waters, guiding the helmsman.

Still, Sea Sprite wouldn't have been able to tack enough to make headway and come alongside, but again, Robillard provided the answer. He snapped his fingers, propelling himself through a dimensional gate back to his customary spot on the raised deck behind the mainsail. He reached into his ring, first to bring up gusts of wind to help fill the sails then to communicate with his own elemental from the Plane of Water.Sea Sprite lurched and bucked, the river slamming in protest against her starboard side. The elemental set itself against the port side and braced with its otherworldly strength.

The catapult crew let fly a third missile, and a fourth right behind.

On the bridge, Brambleberry's forces pushed hard against the magic barrage and the leading edge managed to get across just as Sea Spriteslid in behind the secret, submerged wharf, a hundred yards downriver. Planks went out beside the securing ropes, and the crew wasted no time in scrambling to the rail.

Robillard closed his eyes, trusting fully in his detection spell, and sensed for the magic target. Still with his eyes closed, the wizard loosed a searing line of lightning into the water just before the wharf's guide poles. His shot proved precise, severing the locking chain of the wharf. Buoyed by a line of empty barrels, free of its shackles, the wharf lifted up and broke the water with a great splash and surge. The crew poured down.

"Now we have them," Deudermont cried.

He had barely finished speaking, though, when a great crash sounded upriver, as a span of the century-old Harbor Cross Bridge collapsed into the Mirar.

"Back to stations!" Deudermont yelled to those crewmen still aboard. The captain, though, ran to the nearest plank and scrambled over the rail, not willing to desert his crewmen who had already left the ship. "Port! Port!" he cried for his ship to flee.

"By the giggling demons," Robillard cursed, and as soon as Deudermont hit the wharf running, the wizard commanded his elemental to let go the ship and slide under it to catch the drifting flotsam. Then he helped free Sea Sprite by pulling a wand and shooting a line of lightning at the heavy rope tying her off forward, severing it cleanly.

Before the crew aft could even begin to free that second heavy rope, Sea Sprite swung around violently to the left, and a pair of unfortunate crewmen flipped over the rail to splash into the cold Mirar.

Sputtering curses, the wizard blinked himself to the taffrail and blasted the second rope apart.

The first pieces of the shattered bridge expanse swept down at them. Robillard's elemental deflected the bulk, but a few got through, chasingSea Sprite as she glided away toward the harbor.

Robillard ordered his elemental to rush up and push her along. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw his friend Deudermont get off the makeshift dock, right before a large piece of the fallen bridge slammed against it, shattering its planking and destroying its integrity, as it, too, became another piece of wreckage. Barrels and dock planks joined the sweep of debris.

Robillard had to stay with the ship, at least long enough for his summoned monster to assist Sea Sprite safely out of the river mouth and into quieter waters. He never took his eyes off of Deudermont, though, thinking that his dearest friend was surely doomed, trapped as he was on the northern bank with only a fraction of Brambleberry's forces in support, and a host of angry wizards against them.

Drizzt saw it coming, a little burning ball of flame, enticing as a candlelight, gentle and benign.

He knew better, though, and knew, too, that he couldn't hope to get out of its explosive range. So he threw his shoulders back violently and kicked his feet out in front of him, and didn't even try to break his fall as he slammed down on his back. He even resisted the urge to throw his arms out wide to somehow mitigate the fall, instead curling them over his face, hands grasping his cloak to wrap it around him.

Even covered as he was with the wet clothing and cloak, the darkness flew away when the fireball exploded, and hot flames bit at Drizzt, igniting a thousand tiny fires in his body. It lasted only an instant, mercifully, and winked out as immediately as it had materialized. Drizzt knew he couldn't hesitate - the wizard could strike at him again within the span of a few heartbeats, or if another wizard was inside the house, a second fireball might already be on its way.

He rolled sidelong away from his enemy to put out the little fires burning on his cloak and clothing, and even left the cloak smoldering on the ground when he leaped back to his feet. Again Drizzt ran full out, leaning forward in complete commitment to his goal, a tight strand of birch trees. He dived in headlong, rolling to a sitting position and curling up, expecting another blast.

Nothing happened.

Gradually, Drizzt uncoiled and looked back Regis's way, to see the halfling still crouched in the muddied ground behind the damaged water trough.

Regis's little hands flashed the rough letters of the drow silent alphabet, approximating the question, Is he gone?

His arsenal is depleted, perhaps, Drizzt's fingers replied.

Regis shook his head - he didn't understand.

Drizzt signaled again, more slowly, but the halfling still couldn't make sense of the too-intricate movements.

"He may be out of spells," the drow called quietly, and Regis nodded enthusiastically - until a rumble from inside the distant house turned them both that way.

Trailing a line of fire that charred the floorboards, it came through the open door, a great beast comprised entirely of flame: orange, red, yellow, and white when it swirled more tightly. It seemed vaguely bipedal, but had no real form, as the flames would commit to nothing but moving forward, and with purpose.

When it cleared the door, leaving smoking wood at every point of the jamb, it grew to its full, gigantic proportions, towering over the distant companions, mocking them with its intensity and its size.

A fiery monstrosity from the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Drizzt sucked in his breath and lifted Taulmaril, not even thinking to go to his more trusted scimitars. He couldn't fight the creature in close; of all the four primary elemental beasts, fire was the type any melee warrior was least capable of battling. Its flames burned with skin-curling intensity, and the strike of a scimitar, though it could hurt the beast, would heat the weapon as well.

Drizzt drew back and let fly, and the arrow disappeared into the swirl of flames.

The fire elemental swung around toward him and roared, the sound of a thousand trees crackling, then spat forth a line of flames that immediately set the birch stand aflame.

"How do we fight it?" Regis cried, and yelped as the elemental scorched the trough he hid behind, filling the air with thick steam.

Drizzt didn't have an answer. He shot off another arrow, and again had no way of knowing if it scored any damage on the creature or not.

Then, on instinct, the drow angled his bow to the side and let fly a third, right past the elemental to slam into, and punch through, the wall of the structure housing the wizard.

A cry from inside told him that he had startled the mage, and the sudden and angry turn of the fire elemental, back toward the house, confirmed what the drow had hoped.

He fired off a continual stream, then, a volley placed all around the wooden structure, blasting hole after hole and without discernable pattern. He judged his effect by the motions of the elemental, gliding one stride toward him, then one back at the wizard. For controlling such a beast was no easy feat, and one that required absolute concentration. And if that control was lost, Drizzt knew, the summoned creature would almost always take out its rage upon the summoner.

More arrows flashed into the house but to less effect; Drizzt needed to actually score a hit on the mage to turn the elemental fully.

But he didn't, and he soon recognized that the creature was inevitably edging his way. The wizard had adjusted.

Drizzt kept up the barrage anyway, and began moving away as he fired, confident that he could turn and outdistance the creature, or at least get to the water's edge, where the Mirar would protect him from the elemental's fury. He turned and glanced to the water trough, thinking to tell Regis to run.

But the halfling was already gone.

The wizard was protected from the arrows, Drizzt realized as the elemental bore down on him with renewed enthusiasm. The drow fired off a pair of shots into it for good measure then turned and sprinted back the way he'd come, around the edge of the building hit by the same fireball that had nearly melted him, which was burning furiously.

"Clever wizard," he heard himself muttering as he almost ran headlong into a giant web that stretched from building to building in the alleyway. He spun to see the elemental blocking the exit, its flames licking the structures to either side.

"Have at it, then," Drizzt said to the beast and drew his scimitars.

He couldn't really speak to a creature from an elemental plane, of course, but it seemed to Drizzt as if the monster heard him, for as he finished, the elemental rushed forward, its fiery arms sweeping ferociously.

Drizzt ducked the first swing then leaped out to his right just ahead of the second, running up the wall - and feeling that its integrity was diminished by the fires roaring within - and spinning into a back somersault. He came down in a spin, scimitars slashing across, backhand leading forehand, and both sent puffs of flame into the air as they slashed against the life-force that held those flames together into a physical, solid creature.

That second weapon, Icingdeath, sent a surge of hope through Drizzt, for its properties were not only affording him some substantial protection from flames, as it had done against the wizard's fireball, but the frostbrand scimitar took a particular pleasure in inflicting cold pain upon creatures with affinity to fire. The fire elemental shook off Twinkle's backhand hit, as it had all but ignored the shots from Taulmaril, but when Icingdeath connected, the creature seemed to burn less bright. The elemental whirled away and seemed to shrink in on itself, spinning around tightly.

Its flames burned brighter, white hot, and the creature came out enraged and huge once more.

Drizzt met its charge with a furious flurry of whirling blades. He shortened Twinkle's every stroke, using that blade to fend off the elemental's barrage of punches. He followed every strike with Icingdeath, knowing that he was hurting the elemental.

But not killing it.

Not anytime soon at least, and despite the protection of Icingdeath, Drizzt felt the heat of the magnificent, deadly beast. More than that, the power of the elemental's swings could fell an ogre even without the fiery accompaniment.

The elemental stomped its foot and a circular gout of flames rushed out from the point of impact, sweeping past Drizzt and making him hop in surprise.

The creature came forward and let fly a sweeping right hook, and Drizzt fell low, barely escaping the hit, which smashed hard into the burning building, crushing through the wooden wall.

From that hole came a blast of fire, and as it retracted, Drizzt leaped for the broken wood. He planted his foot on the bottom rim of the opening and came up flat against the wall, but only for the brief second it took him to swing his momentum and leap away into a backward somersault and turn, and as he came around, climbing higher across the alleyway, he somehow managed to sheathe his blades and catch on to the rim of the opposite building's roof. He ignored the stun of the impact as he crashed against the structure and scrambled, lifting his legs just above another heavy, fiery slug.

As fast as he went, though, the elemental was faster. It didn't climb the wall in any conventional sense, but just fell against it and swirled up over itself, rising as flames would climb a dry tree. Even as Drizzt stood tall on the roof, so did the elemental, and that building, too, was fully involved.

The elemental shot a line of flames at Drizzt, who dived aside, but still got hit - and though Icingdeath helped him avoid the brunt of the burn, he surely felt that sting!

Worse, the roof was burning behind him, and the elemental sent out another line, and another, all designed, Drizzt recognized, to seal off his avenues of escape.

The elemental hadn't done that in the alley, the drow realized as he drew out his scimitars yet again. The creature was smart enough to recognize a web, and knew that such an assault would have freed its intended prey. This creature was not dumb.

"Wonderful," Drizzt muttered.

"To the bridge!" Deudermont ordered, running from the collapsing wharf to the collection of rocks and crates, stone walls and trees his crewmen were using as cover. "We have to turn the wizards from Brambleberry's men."

"We be fifteen strong!' one man shouted back at him. "Or fifteen weak, I'm saying!"

"Two fireballs from extinction," said another, a fierce woman from Baldur's Gate who, for the last two years, had led almost every boarding charge.

Deudermont didn't disagree with their assessments, but he knew, too, that there was no other choice before them. With the collapse of the bridge, the Hosttower wizards had gained the upper hand, but despite the odds, Brambleberry's leading ranks had nowhere to retreat. "If we flee or if we wait, they die," the captain explained, and when he charged northeast along the river's northern bank, not one of the fifteen sailors hesitated before following.

Their charge turned into a series of stops and starts as the wizards took note of them and began loosing terrible blasts of magic their way. Even with the volume of natural and manmade cover available to them, it occurred to Deudermont that his entire force might be wiped out before they ever got near the bridge.

And worse, Brambleberry's force could not make progress, as every attempt to break out from the solid structures at the edge of the bridge was met with fire and ice, electricity and summoned monsters. The earth elemental was finally brought down by the coordinated efforts of many soldiers and friendly wizards, but another beast, demonic in nature, rushed out from the enemy wizards' position to take its place before any of Brambleberry's men had even begun to cheer the earth beast's fall.

Deudermont looked downriver, hoping to witness the return of Sea Sprite, but she was far into the harbor by then. He looked forlornly to the southeast, to Blood Island, where Brambleberry and the bulk of his forces remained, and was not encouraged to see that the young lord had only then begun to swing his forces back to the bridge that would bring them to the south-bank mainland and Luskan's market, where they could march up the riverbank and cross along the bridge farther to the east.

This would be a stinging defeat, the captain reasoned, with many men lost and few of the Hosttower's resources captured or destroyed.

Even as he began to rethink his assault, considering that perhaps he and his men should hunker down and wait for Brambleberry, a shout to the north distracted him.

The mob rushing to enter the fray, men and dwarves with an assortment of weapons, terrified him. The northwestern section of Luskan was known as the Shield, the district housing merchants' storehouses and assembling grounds for visiting caravans from Luskan's most important trading partner, the city of Mirabar. And the marchion of Mirabar was known to have blood connections among the Hosttower's highest ranks.

But the rumors of a rift between Mirabar and the Arcane Brotherhood were apparently true. Deudermont saw that as soon as it became obvious that the new force entering the fray was no ally of the Hosttower wizards. They swept toward the wizards' position, leading with a volley of sling bullets, spears, and arrows that brought howls of protest from the wizards and a chorus of cheers from Brambleberry's trapped warriors.

"Onward!" the captain cried. "They are ours!"

Indeed they were, at least those poor lesser mages who didn't possess the magical ability to fly or teleport from the field. Enemies closed in on them from three sides, and the wizards fleeing east, the only open route, could not hope to get past the next bridge before Brambleberry swept across and cut them off.

The fire elemental reared up to its full height, towering over the drow, who used the moment to rush ahead and sting it with Icingdeath before running back the other way as the great arms flashed in powerful swipes.

Thinking pursuit imminent, Drizzt cut to the side and dived headlong into a roll, turning halfway into the circuit in case he had to continue right over the edge of the building.

The elemental, though, didn't pursue. Instead it roared off the other way, burning a line over the front edge of the building, then down into the street where it left a scarred trail back to the house from which it had emerged.

"It's a pretty gem," the wizard agreed, staring stupidly at the little ruby pendant the halfling had spinning at the end of a chain. On every rotation, the gem caught the light, bending it and transforming it into the wizard's fondest desires.

Regis giggled and gave it another spin, deftly moving it back from the wizard's grabbing hand. "Pretty, yes," he said.

His smile disappeared, and so did the gem, scooped up into his hand in the blink of an astonished wizard's eye.

"What are you doing?" the mage asked, seeming sober once more. "Where did it...?" His eyes widened with horror, and he started to say, "What have you done?" as he spun back toward the door just in time to see his angry elemental rushing into the house.

"Stay warm," Regis said, and he fell backward out of the same window through which he'd entered, hitting the alleyway in a roll and running along with all speed.

Fire puffed out every window in the house, and between the wooden planks as well. Regis came back into the street. Drizzt, smoke wafting from his shoulders and hair, emerged from the front door of the house behind the battered water trough.

They met in the middle of the road, both turning back to the house that served as battleground between the wizard and his pet. Booms of magical thunder accompanied the crackle of burning beams. The roar of flames, given voice by the elemental, howled alongside the screams of the terrified wizard. The outer wall froze over suddenly, hit by some magical, frosty blast, only to melt and steam almost immediately as the fire elemental's handiwork won the contest.

It went on for a few moments before the house began to fall apart. The wizard staggered out the front door, his robes aflame, his hair burned away, his skin beginning to curl.

The elemental, defeated, didn't come out behind him, but the man could hardly call it a victory as he toppled face down in the road. Regis and Drizzt ran to him, patting out the flames and rolling him over.

"He won't live for long without a priest," the halfling said.

"Then we must find him one," Drizzt replied, and looked back to the southwest, where Deudermont and Brambleberry assaulted the bridge. Smoke rose along with dozens of screams, the ring of metal, and the booming of magic.

Regis blew a long sigh as he answered, "I think most of the priests are going to be busy for a while."