and Shar fell backward in the street. They saw the tentacle retreating, the guard's foot from the ankle down still clutched in its grasp. The guard looked down at his footless leg and promptly fainted.
'Come on!' Shar yelled to Noph. Between the two of them, they got the man up and half carried, half dragged him a hundred yards up the street. Trandon knelt by the guard, whose leg was spouting blood. He pressed his hands gently about the wound and murmured a few words. The flesh around the stump knit together, and the bleeding stopped.
'That's the best I can do,' Trandon told Shar. 'You'll have to help him along.'
'No!' snapped Entreri. 'He can't fight, and hell impede two others. He's useless to us now. Leave him.'
Garkim drew himself up. 'You will not leave one of my men behind, Master Entreri.'
The assassin glared at him. 'I give the orders.'
'And I know the location of the bloodforge.'
Entreri turned and with bad grace stalked along the way they were following. Garkim followed without another word. Shar put her arm around the guard, who had now recovered consciousness, and helped him limp along, while Noph rejoined Trandon and Kern.
The smell of the sea grew stronger in Noph's nostrils. He realized they must be drawing near the dock area. All at once, the party reached the end of the narrow street they had been traversing and beheld before them the Great Sea and, glimmering in the sun, a temple.
Before them was a broad plaza, along which were drawn several fishing boats. From the dock, a narrow causeway led across the water, perhaps fifty yards, to a building, constructed of black basalt, that sat amid the waves like a brooding spider.
Garkim gestured toward it. 'The Temple of Umberlee.'
Ingrar, standing beside him, nodded. 'Yes. That's where they've taken the bloodforge.'
The others crowded around them, standing in a shadow cast by one of the buildings that ringed the plaza. They could see various hooded figures moving along the docks and the causeway. Garkim gazed at them thoughtfully.
'Those are not the robes of the True Believers of Umberlee,' he observed.
Kern snorted. 'I didn't know the word 'true' could be mentioned in the same breath with the bitch goddess,' he remarked to Trandon.
'Silence!' said Garkim sternly. 'Umberlee is a deity widely worshiped in Doegan, as well as in other parts of the Five Kingdoms. It is not for outsiders such as yourself to denigrate her.'
Kern shrugged. 'All right, fine. The bloodforge is in the Temple of Umberlee. Let's go get it.'
He was two steps onto the plaza before Trandon's hand on his arm yanked him back. 'Wait,' urged the fighter. 'This isn't a situation for a frontal assault.' He looked at Garkim. 'You said those people'-he motioned toward the hooded figures-'don't look like Umberlee's worshipers. To me, they look like disciples of the Fallen Temple.'
Garkim nodded grimly. 'Precisely. The adherents of the Fallen Temple have evidently used the confusion to install themselves and the bloodforge in Umberlee's sanctuary.'
Entreri had been carefully taking a visual survey of the plaza and dock area. Now he stepped back and tapped Trandon and Shar. 'You two come with me. The rest of you wait here.' Without another word, he was gone, stealing back along the way they'd come. Garkim looked after him, puzzled.
'What's he doing?' the chancellor asked Kern.
The paladin spread his hands in a gesture that indicated dissociation. 'I've no idea, and I don't want to know. Right now, let's get out of sight.' He examined the open door of a nearby house carefully, and beckoned the others inside. Noph helped the footless guard whom Sharessa had been aiding. Once inside, the man sank to the ground and rested against the wall.
'That woman… who is she?' the guard asked Kern.
'Shar? She's a pirate.'
'She's the most beautiful pirate I ever saw.' The guard managed a grin. 'Something to make a man wish he'd chosen to follow the sea.'
Noph settled himself beside the guard. 'Don't expect too much from her. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that you can't trust women. Love 'em and leave 'em, that's what I say.'
The guard looked at Noph's hairless face and slender wrists. Along the youth's upper lip was a dark line of fuzzy down, where he'd been trying to grow a mustache. 'Right. I'll remember that. Coming from a man of your experience.' He sighed and stretched a hand down to scratch at his stump of a leg. 'Damn thing itches.'
The company was silent until Kern, who had been watching from the door, gave a low whistle. A moment later, Entreri, Shar, and Trandon entered, bearing a pile of shapeless rags.
'What are those?' asked Kern.
Shar held up a robe, identical to the ones they'd seen on the members of the Fallen Temple. 'Here's one just your size, paladin.'
The big knight drew back as if the garment were riddled with disease. 'I can't wear that.'
'Why not?'
'It's dishonorable to go into battle in disguise. And especially to disguise myself as a member of that disgusting bunch of-'
'Fine. Then you don't go,' Entreri said briskly. 'The rest of you get these on quickly. There's some sort of ceremony about to start, and we may be able to take advantage of it.'
Garkim's dusky face paled. 'Ceremony?'
'Yes. We heard chanting and drums, and there was a long line going to the temple.'
Garkim hastily drew a robe over his head. 'It must be the Rite of Investiture. We cannot allow this to happen!' He turned to the paladin. 'Do you not see the terrible danger? Imagine those monsters of the Fallen Temple-the temple of your god Tyr-with the power of the bloodforge at their command! Do you think for a moment they would stop at the shores of the Five Kingdoms? This plague will spread across all realms. It will drive out all other gods. We must stop it!'
Kern stood, holding a robe loosely in one hand, indecision written upon his forehead. 'It's… dishonorable to go into battle disguised in this way.'
'Oh, come on, Kern,' said Noph sharply. 'Think about what he said.' He struggled into a robe that was somewhat too long for him. 'What does honor mean, if by your actions you endanger everybody and everything worth fighting for? It's a question of weighing profit and loss. Whatever loss there is to your honor, the profit we gain by saving Faerun is greater.'
Kern looked at him in astonishment and then burst out laughing. 'By Tyr himself, Freeman Kastonoph, you're a true son of Waterdeep. Always counting coins in the back of your mind. Your father's a lumber merchant, isn't he?'
Noph flushed a deep red. 'That's not the point. I'm not like my father.'
'Never mind, never mind.' Still rumbling with suppressed laughter, the paladin slipped the robe over his head. The others were already attired, except for the wounded guardsman. Entreri turned to him. 'Stay here, out of sight.' He nodded to the others, and the party stepped into the street and crossed the plaza toward the temple.
Other hooded figures were still making their way to the ceremony. Considering what Garkim had told them of the conspiratorial nature of the Fallen Temple, Noph was astonished to see so many of them. There must be nearly a hundred worshipers, he thought. Crossing the causeway, over which waves splashed, spraying the devotees with spume, the company, taking care to stay close to one another, entered the temple.
'Here,' murmured Garkim softly, drawing them into a small alcove in which they were partially shielded from the sight of the crowd within. Ingrar, whom Noph had guided across the causeway, now turned away from the youth and began to examine the walls of the temple, stroking the stone gently with his fingers. The others looked cautiously around the corner and into the main room.
The interior was a domed circle. In the center was an altar surrounded by candles. As in the underground room, a pedestal stood behind the altar. Several niches around the edges of the room had formerly held images of Umberlee, but these had been wrenched from their positions by the Fallen Temple priests and lay shattered on the floor. To one side were the bodies of two men who, from their clothing, Garkim recognized as a priest of Umberlee and his acolyte. They had been slashed and stabbed many times, their corpses kicked aside in blood-soaked clothes.
At present, the attention of everyone in the temple was focused on the altar. From an antechamber came a
