gunwale. Midnight looked up at Cyric and saw that he was still fighting with one oar, using it as a rudder. The boat was now more than halfway around the outside of the whirlpool, but it hadn't seemed to descend any deeper into the vortex.
Midnight grabbed the other oar. 'What can I do?' the mage screamed. 'How can I help?'
Cyric nodded toward the southern edge of the vortex. There the Pool of Yeven opened onto the Ashaba again. 'We've got to break out of the curve!' Cyric yelled. 'It's either that, or we die right here!'
The mage plunged the oar into the water. Adon grabbed the end of the shuddering oaken oar with Midnight, and together they held the second makeshift rudder in place. Together the three heroes forced the craft to break free from the ring of the whirlpool. In a moment, they had passed through another wall of froth and were moving downstream, away from the Pool of Yeven, toward Scardale.
The whirlpool had apparently somehow corrected the misdirected current, and now the river was running as it should, though it was still dangerously swift. As they moved farther away from the Pool of Yeven, Midnight gave a hearty yell, happy just to be alive. The others didn't seem to share her enthusiasm, however. Cyric simply scowled at Adon and turned away from the cleric, who sat quietly in the bow.
This partnership has to end soon, the thief thought. I was wrong to believe I needed these fools to make it to Tantras! Cyric glanced over his shoulder at Midnight. In fact, he growled to himself, they practically killed me in that whirlpool with their whining, while I risked my neck to save them!
The heroes continued down the Ashaba for several hours more, Midnight lounging happily in the stern, Adon silently staring at the water from the bow, and Cyric moodily handling the oars. Finally Cyric spotted a huge wooden bridge spanning the river in the distance. 'Blackfeather Bridge!' Midnight called.
'Perhaps we can rest here,' Adon said softly as he turned to gaze at the bridge.
As they approached the bridge, however, a flicker of movement alerted Midnight. She quickly called a fireball spell to mind, but when she saw that the figures were men and not some strange creature lurking on the bridge, she hesitated to cast it. The spell could fail and destroy the skiff. Or it could succeed, and Midnight might learn that she had harmed an innocent group of fishermen or travelers like themselves.
The hesitation proved costly.
Cyric, too, saw the movement on the bridge, but he had also glimpsed sunlight glinting from steel. The three men standing on the structure were joined by two more. All had weapons. The thief turned quickly and shouted for Midnight to cast her spell.
On the bridge, Kelemvor and the group of dalesmen stood waiting, arrows nocked, ready to fire at the skiff.
V
The surviving members of the hunt were lined up in a row upon the bridge, their bows ready. Kelemvor stood next to Yarbro, and the two men looked out onto the Ashaba. A skiff rushed toward them, three people frantically scrambling about inside it.
'Look at them!' Yarbro snarled, the muscles in his lean arms tensing as he prepared to loose an arrow. 'They're trying to turn around. They'll never be able to do it in this part of the river. The current's too fast.' The young guard's flesh was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. His lips pulled back in a grimace, the guard trembled with anticipation.
The killing time had come.
'I can see them,' Kelemvor snapped. Below, on the river, Midnight, Cyric, and Adon struggled to turn their boat to shore. The fighter glanced across the bridge. The men were all like Yarbro, barely hiding their glee as they held their bows ready to fire. 'No one shoots without my order!' Kelemvor shouted.
A few of the dalesmen laughed. Yarbro turned sharply to the fighter. 'You don't command us any longer. The men follow my orders now!'
Sweat was streaming down Kelemvor's face. 'Our orders are to capture the prisoners, not to kill them on sight.'
'Unless there's no other choice,' Yarbro growled bitterly as he turned back to face the river. 'Unless you want me to have you shot full of arrows, I suggest you either grab a bow or get off the bridge!'
The small boat rocked violently in the fierce current as the escapees tried unsuccessfully to turn their shuddering craft. Kelemvor silently stared at Midnight and felt a strange pressure upon his chest.
I can't do this! the fighter cursed to himself. I simply can't let these lunatics hurt my friends… and my love.
A few feet away from Kelemvor, Jorah laughed. 'Let them get to shore… if they can. I don't want the river to sweep them away after we shoot them. We can have them stuffed and hung like scarecrows on the road to Zhentil Keep.' Bursus and Cabal chuckled and nodded.
'That'll let any Zhentish scum who might plan to attack the Dales again know exactly what we'll do to them,' Bursus agreed. The wounded archer hobbled to Jorah's side and patted the younger, auburn-haired man on the shoulder.
'Let's just kill them now,' Mikkel suggested. As he looked down at the fishing skiff, images of the countless days he had spent on that boat with his partner flooded into his mind.
The skiff was within range now. The hunters watched as Adon stood up and grabbed Cyric's arm. The thief lashed out at the cleric, and Adon fell. The young cleric hit the side of the skiff hard, and Midnight and Cyric were unable to maintain their balance as the boat careened wildly and capsized.
Midnight screamed as she struck the water and sank as if a heavy weight had been attached to her body. Adon also plummeted into the Ashaba and vanished beneath the surface of the river. Cyric fell in the opposite direction, and the current grabbed him and began to pull him downstream.
'Fire!' Yarbro shouted, and a rain of arrows struck the river around the capsized boat.
'No!' Kelemvor screamed, but it was too late. Midnight and Adon had disappeared from sight, and Cyric was bobbing up and down in the strong current. The thief tried to plunge under the surface of the water, but he was helpless in the tide. The skeletal branches of a large, dead tree that had fallen into the river reached out from the shoreline, and the thief managed to grab a limb as he rushed past. As the thief hung there, suspended in the rapid flow of the Ashaba for a moment, an arrow struck the water mere inches from his face. Cyric let go of the branch instinctively, then sunk beneath the surface of the water.
Beneath the river's surface, Midnight flailed her arms and legs in a frenzied panic. Suddenly a large shape approached her out of the darkness. The cleric held one of their canvas bags in his left hand as he swam toward the mage. His eyes were wide with fear.
We're going to drown unless I do something! Midnight realized. The mage reached out, trying to grab anything on the bottom that would stop her from tumbling down the river. She came up with a handful of reeds. Unconsciously a spell thrust itself into Midnight's mind.
Pushing back her fear, Midnight recited the brief incantation in her mind as she plucked a reed from the riverbed. Before she could turn and cast the water breathing spell on Adon, a huge sphere filled with air flashed into sight around her. The shell surrounded Adon as well, who now lay on his stomach, soaked and gasping.
'Thanks, Midnight,' the cleric groaned and rolled over onto his back. 'I owe you my life… again.'
Midnight smiled weakly, then looked shocked and fell to her knees as the bubble lurched into motion and quickly rose to the surface of the river. 'Mystra, help me!' the mage cried as she looked up and saw the bridge only about twenty yards away. Arrows rained down from the bridge again, and she heard the curses of the dalesmen as the arrows glanced harmlessly off the sphere.
On the bridge, Kelemvor stepped back from the other men. The fighter watched as Yarbro swore and stamped around on the bridge in frustration, screeching orders at the other dalesmen. The group had degenerated into a band of killers, differing little from the orcs they had encountered near the Standing Stone. The fighter relaxed slightly. Midnight had managed to save herself, and in doing so, she took the need to act away from him.
As the sphere passed beneath the bridge, close to the southern bank, one of the archers ran to the shore to
