The crow screeched in alarm and pecked at Kelemvor, who barely managed to raise an arm and save his eye.
“Leave me alone, dung-eater!” Kelemvor flailed and came away with a handful of feathers.
The crow squawked, then fluttered to Blackstaff’s other shoulder. Peering nervously around the wizard’s head, the crow croaked what sounded like a sentence.
“Do you know this avian messenger?” Blackstaff asked Kelemvor.
“As well as any man can know the worm that would eat his corpse,” Kelemvor responded, glaring at the bird.
“Crow apologizes,” Blackstaff said.
When Kelemvor made no move to accept the apology, the bird squawked twice more.
“He says you’d have done the same thing if you were hungry.”
“I don’t eat crows,” Kelemvor replied. “And I don’t talk to them, either.” He turned away and started for Blackstaff’s tower.
Fifteen feet below Kelemvor, in the dark sewer under Rainrun Street, Myrkul suddenly stopped moving. Behind him, twelve zombies also halted, though fetid water continued to slosh around their legs.
“The tablet’s in the street, my friends,” the Lord of the Dead whispered, as if the zombies actually cared what he was saying. None of his worshipers were with him. Over the past few weeks, the Lord of the Dead had sacrificed his entire Waterdeep sect to provide energy for his magic.
Myrkul stared at the ceiling of the dark passage and absent-mindedly touched the saddlebags slung over his shoulder. The saddlebags contained one of the Tablets of Fate—the one his zombies had stolen at Dragonspear Castle.
An hour and a half ago, via the locate object spell he had placed on it, Myrkul had sensed that Midnight had brought the other one to Waterdeep. Immediately, he had set out after the mage, intending to recover the tablet before assuming leadership of the host of denizens he expected to besiege the city at any moment.
But things had not proceeded according to plan. It had taken him far longer than expected to lead his zombies through the labyrinth of Waterdeep’s sewers. Now that he had finally arrived, the tablet was being moved. His original intention had been to attack while the tablet was inside a building, where the battle would not be observed by the city watch.
He did not think it would be wise to alter his plan and attack in the streets. Already, he had destroyed one patrol, and the watch commanders would soon grow curious about what had happened to it. Tangling with another did not seem smart, at least not until his denizens gave the commanders something else to worry about.
Unfortunately, something was wrong. The denizens should have arrived right on the heels of the woman. But it was evident that she had spoiled his plan and prevented his subjects—and all the spirits of the dead—from following her to Waterdeep.
Just then, Myrkul sensed that the tablet was moving again. “Let’s see where they are taking this tablet,” he said to nobody in particular. “Then we will decide what to do.” The Lord of the Dead turned and started sloshing back the way he had come.
A hundred feet down the tunnel, Cyric heard the zombies reverse direction and cursed under his breath. He had been in the absolute darkness and stinking water of the tunnels for half a day, following the zombies and their master. His nerves were beginning to feel the effect of close call after close call.
Once, right after he’d entered the sewers, he had come close to stealing the tablet. The zombies had attacked a watch patrol. By the light of the patrol’s torches, the thief had seen the tablet slip into the rank water when a watchman had hacked an arm off the zombie carrying the saddlebags. Cyric had ducked beneath the surface and swam through a jungle of legs after it. Two hands had snatched the saddlebags away just as he reached it.
The thief had drawn his sword and surfaced with the idea of attacking whoever had the tablet, but had seen Myrkul casting a spell, then smelled a caustic odor. He had ducked back beneath the water and swam away while a cloud of poison killed the patrol. Since then, Cyric had been following the Lord of the Dead through the sewers, waiting for another opportunity to take the tablet.
As he heard the zombies come closer, Cyric moved up the tunnel ahead of them until his hand touched one of the intermittent ladders that led up to an access hole. The thief climbed up the ladder and remained perfectly motionless as the zombies passed beneath him. He did not come down until the sound of sloshing was a hundred feet away.
Unaware that he was being followed, Myrkul concentrated solely on maintaining contact with the tablet. He followed it through a twisting maze of sewer tunnels. Sometimes he had to pause while Midnight and her company passed through a tangle of streets and followed no direction in particular. Sometimes he had to backtrack when the tunnels took an unexpected turn.
Eventually, however, the tablet stopped moving, and Myrkul was satisfied it had reached its destination. He went down the tunnel to an access ladder, then climbed up and raised the iron cover just enough to see the building into which his enemies had gone.
It was a large tower with no windows or doors—one that had come to his attention in the past. The tower belonged to Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunsun, one of Waterdeep’s most powerful mages.
Myrkul descended back into the cloaca. “We will leave the tablet with Blackstaff for now,” he said to his uncaring zombies. “Recovering it would draw attention to us, wouldn’t it?” He paused and smiled a rictus grin. “We’ll go to the Pool of Loss now, and see what is keeping my denizens. Then, perhaps, we’ll worry about the other tablet.” The Lord of the Dead turned and led his zombies into the darkness.
A few moments later, when he was confident Myrkul would not see him, Cyric climbed the ladder and looked at Blackstaff’s tower. At least one being in the tunnel had been paying attention to Myrkul’s words.
The thunder of five hundred hobnailed boots on cobblestone ended a slumber as deep and as restful as any Midnight could recall. She rolled over and buried her face in the feather bed, cursing the city for its noise. An officer barked an order and the soldiers rumbled to a stop outside her window.
Her dim room suddenly seemed as quiet as a graveyard. The silence woke her more fully and quickly than any clamor. At once both curious and frightened, Midnight leaped from her bed and threw her cloak over her shoulders.
At the base of Blackstaff’s tower, a voice asked, “Whom may I say is calling?”
“Mordoc Torsilley, Captain of the Company of the White Wyvern, of the City Guard of Waterdeep, for Khelben ‘Blackstaff’ Arunsun. And be quick about it!”
Midnight threw open her window shutter, which was magically hidden to people on the street. In the courtyard below, over two hundred troops stood at strict attention. Their commander was facing the blank wall at the base of Blackstaff’s tower. Each man wore black scale mail embossed with an upturned crescent moon of gold encircled in nine silver stars. The entire company was fully armed, with halberds in hand and daggers and bastard swords on their belts.
Though all of them kept their attention fixed directly ahead, their faces were far from expressionless. The older men had the grim look of veterans returning to battle, while the younger men could barely keep themselves from trembling.
Midnight’s door opened and Kelemvor rushed into the room.
“What’s happening?” the raven-haired mage asked.
“I don’t know,” Kelemvor replied, leaning out her window to study the troops. Though he was no longer a soldier and had no desire to become one again, his heart stirred at the spectacle of a company fully dressed and ready for battle.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, hoping the answer would give her some clue as to the excitement’s cause.