slowly drawn out into the water, leaving deep furrows behind in the sand. The water roiled and heaved as their battle raged. Great stone arms tangled with thrashing kraken limbs for many long moments before both sank beneath the silent waves.
Lord Arunsun did not look pleased by this victory. 'We are winning,' I ventured.
'When there is so much death no one wins,' he muttered. Too much corruption in the harbor… this sort of victory could destroy the city.'
A terrible scream sliced through the air. Somehow I knew the voice, though I had never heard it raised in such fear and pain. I spun toward the sound. Finella Chandler, a lovely wench who was nearly my equal in the art of creating fire, had apparently grown too tired to control her own magic. A fireball had exploded in her hand, and she flamed like a candle. She rolled wildly down the slope of the inner wall and ran shrieking through the streets, too maddened by pain to realize that her best hope was among her fellow wizards.
A second shriek, equally impassioned, rang out from a young fellow I knew only as Tomas. He was a shy lad, and I had not known that he loved Finella. There was no doubting it now. The youth spent his magic hurling quenching spells after his dying love, but her frantic haste and his made a poor match. I shuddered as I watched Finella's last light fade from sight.
Khelben gave me an ungentle push. To the north the sahuagin have nearly broken through.'
For a moment I stood amazed. This possibility ha not once occurred to me. I had no idea how I woul fight sea devils in the streets of Waterdeep. The god had gifted me with a nimble mind and a talent for th Art, but I was not a large man and I was unskilled i weapons. My fire spells would not serve in the city. All timbers and thatched roofs blazed like seasoned kirdling, and as Finella had learned to her sorrow, fire were far easier to start than to quench.
New urgency quickened my steps, and with new striousness I reviewed the spells remaining to me, prayed they would suffice. The sea devils had to be stopped now, here.
I ran past Hughmont and seized his arm. 'Com with me,' I said. 'Frighten them with your sparkle and purchase me time.'
He came along, but his hand went to his sword be! rather than his spell bag. I was alone in the possession of magic, and I spent my spells freely as we pushed northward. I tried not to contemplate what I might d when my purse was emptied.
When we reached my assigned post two dire thing occurred in one breath. Just as exhaustion dwindlei my last fireball into harmless smoke, two enormous webbed, green-black hands slapped onto the rim of th guard wall directly before me.
Six fingers, I thought numbly. The sea devils hav six fingers. The malformed hands flexed, and the crea ture hoisted itself up to eye level.
I forgot everything else as I stared into the black ness of those hideous eyes. They were empty, endless merciless, and darker than a moonless night.
So this is what death looks like, I mused, then all thought melted as mindless screams tore from my throat.
The hairless wizard began the undulating chant of a spell. It was a fearsome noise-more ringingly powerful than I would have thought possible without water to carry it. For a moment fear froze me.
A moment of weakness, no more, but the wizards were quick to exploit it. A second wizard, this one pale as a fish's underbelly, ran forward with upraised sword. This was a battle I could understand.
My first impulse was to spring onto the parapet, but I remembered that none of the humans seemed to carry my particular mutation. They all had but a single pair of arms. I held my place until the fighting wizard was almost upon me, but with my unseen hands I reached for two small weapons hooked to my harness.
He came in hard, confident. I lifted a knife to catch his descending blade. The appearance of a third arm startled him and stole some of the force from his attack. It was an easy thing to throw his sword arm high, so simple to slash in with a small, curved sickle and open his belly.
The sweet, heavy, enticing scent of blood washed over me in waves. I heaved myself up and lunged for the proffered meal. Strictly speaking, this was still an enemy and not food, but that was easily resolved. I thrust one hand deep into the human's body and tore loose a handful of entrails. Life left him instantly, and I tossed the food into my mouth.
'Meat is meat,' I grunted between gulps.
Blessed silence fell as the hairless wizard ceased hi keening chant. He began to back slowly away. His eyei bulged and ripples undulated through his chest am throat. A moment passed before I recognized this strange spellcasting for what it was: sickness, horror fear. In that moment, my personal battle was as gooc as won.
Nor was I alone. Other sahuagin had breached the walls and were fighting hand-to-hand with th‹ humans on the wall. Some wizards still hurled weap ons of magic and flame, but most of them seemed tc have emptied their quivers.
Triumph turned my fear into a shameful memory. 1 gulped air and forced it into my air bladder to fuel speech. 'Where is your magic fire, little wizard? It is gone, and soon you will be meat.'
The wizard-now nothing but a human-turned and fled like a startled minnow. For a moment I hesitated, frozen with surprise that any warrior would turn tail in so craven a fashion. This was what their magic-wielders came down to in the end. They were as weak and as soft as any other human. This pathetic coward was the monster I had feared?
The irony of it bubbled up into laughter. Great, gulping, hissing laughter rolled up across my belly in waves and shook my shoulders. I chuckled still as I followed the cowardly not-wizard as he half ran, half fell down a winding flight of stairs.
Despite my mirth, my purpose was set. I would eat my fear, and thus regain my honor.
Sweet Mystra, what a sound! Next to that hideous laughter, everything else about the battle cacophony was as sweet music. I ran from that sound, ran from the death in the sea devil's soulless black eyes, and from the memory of brave Hughmont's heart impaled upon a sea devil's fangs.
In the end, all who fought and fell at West Gate would find the same end, the same grim and lowly fate. Be he shopkeeper or nobleman wizard, human or sahuagin, in the end there was little difference.
Behind me the sounds of booming thunder rolled across the sands. I sensed the flash of arcane lighting, the distinctive shriek of a fire elemental, but I no longer cared what magical wonders Khelben Arunsun might conjure. I no longer thought. I was animal, meat still living, and I was following animal instinct and running from death.
Death followed me through the city, running as swiftly as the sea devil behind me. The cataclysm of defensive spells had sparked more than one blaze. To my right a corduroy street caught fire, and flames licked swiftly down the row of tightly-packed logs. On the other side of the street a mansion blazed. There would be nothing of it come morning but a blackened shell, and the charred bones of the aged noblewoman who leaned out of the upper floor window, her face frantic and her hands stretched out imploringly. These things I saw, and more- more horrors than I could fit into a hundred grim tales. I noted them with the sort of wordless, mindless awareness that a rabbit might use to guide its path through a thicket as it flees the fox. Screams filled the city streets, and the scent of death, and the crackle of fire.
Fire.
For some reason, a measure of reason returned to me as my benumbed mind took note of the rising flames. I remembered all I knew of sea devils, and how it was said that they feared fire and magic above all things. That was why I had been chosen for the West Gate, why I had been summoned to the walls to fight beside the archmage. I possessed a number of fire spells. There was still one remaining to me, encased in a magic ring I always wore but had in my fear forgotten.
But where to use it? There was fire enough in the streets of my city. Ah, there was the answer. The building beside me already blazed-I could not harm it more. I tore up a set of stairs that led to a roof garden, and I could feel the heat through my boots as I ran. The sea devil followed me, its breath coming in labored, panting little hisses.
When I reached the roof I whirled to face the sahua-gin. It came at me, mindlessly kicking aside blackened stone pots draped with heat-withered flowers. All four of its massive green hands curved into grasping claws. Its jaws were parted, and blood-tinged drool dripped from its expectant fangs.
I would not run. Hughmont-the man whom I had regarded so smugly and falsely-had stood and fought when he had no magic at all remaining. I tore the small ring from my finger and hurled it at the sea devil.
