"After you," Jarlaxle invited Entreri.

"Where?"

"Why, in there, of course."

"Not that where," Entreri growled. "Where does it lead?"

"Where does it look like?"

"A place I do not wish to go." As he spoke the words, the truth of them assaulted the human assassin. It was time to leave Gareth and the Bloodstone Lands, so Jarlaxle had said, and that was a sentiment Entreri shared. But to leave with Kimmuriel and the Bregan D'aerthe soldiers implied something entirely different than what he had in mind.

"But the choice has been made," said Jarlaxle.

"No. That is the Underdark."

"Of course."

"I will not return there."

"You act as if there's an option to be found."

"No," Entreri said again, staring at the portal as if it was the gateway to the Nine Hells. His memories of Menzoberranzan, of his subjugation to twenty thousand cruel drow, of his understanding that he was no more than iblith, offal, and that anything he might do, anyone he might kill, would be completely irrelevant in altering that recognition of his worth, flooded back to him at that terrible moment.

And he thought of Calihye, the first woman he had loved both emotionally and physically, the first woman with whom the bond had become complete. How could he desert her?

But what choice did he have?

He took a step toward the doorway, and paused as he saw its lines waver, as he saw that the magic was fast diminishing.

During that pause came a second wave of memory, of pain, of regret, of anger.

The doorway wavered again.

"No," said Entreri, and he put his hand on Jarlaxle's shoulder and guided his companion. "Go quickly. The magic is fading."

"Be not a fool," Jarlaxle warned.

Entreri sighed and seemed to deflate before the obvious indictment. He looked at Jarlaxle and nodded—just enough to get the drow to relax his guard.

In the blink of an eye, Entreri had the red blade of his sword up high, held in both hands over his front shoulder. He gave a growl and went into a sudden spin, bringing the blade around at waist height, an even slice that would have cut Jarlaxle in half.

The drow had no way to defend.

He offered a sneer as he fell away the only way he could, tumbling more than running into the gate. Jarlaxle winked away just ahead of the cutting blade.

Entreri stood there staring at the shimmering extraplanar opening for a few moments longer, but even had its magic not then dissipated, there was no way Artemis Entreri was returning to the Underdark, to Menzoberranzan.

Not even to save his life.

As the castle fell quiet, the horns on the field began to blare and a great cheer swept through the line. "King Gareth!" the enthusiastic soldiers chanted, and nowhere was that cry more energetic and grateful than among the contingent from Palishchuk.

As heartwarming as it was, though, Gareth Dragonsbane was not amused. They had not lost a single man, and hundreds of monsters lay dead on the field, almost all of them felled before combat had even been engaged.

"That was not an assault, it was mass suicide," Emelyn the Gray commented, and none of the friends could disagree.

"It accomplished nothing, but to wipe a bit of the stain of goblins and kobolds from the world," Riordan said.

"And to strengthen our resolve and cohesion," Friar Dugald added. "A free moment of practice before a joust? Are our enemies so inept?"

"Where is the second assault?" Gareth asked, as much to himself as to the others. "They should have struck hard at the moment of our greatest diversion."

"Which was never so great at all, now was it?" asked Emelyn. "I expect that Kane was correct in his assessment—they were clearing out fodder to preserve their supplies."

Gareth looked at his wise friend and shook his head.

They waited impatiently as the moments slipped past, and the castle only seemed more inert, more dead. Nothing stirred behind the high walls. Not a pennant flew, not a door banged open or closed.

"We know that Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle are in there," Celedon Kierney remarked after a long while had passed. "What other forces have they at their disposal? Where are the gargoyles that so threatened Palishchuk when first the castle awakened? Gargoyles that regenerate themselves quickly, so it was reported. An inexhaustible supply."

"Perhaps it was all merely a bluff," Friar Dugald offered. "Perhaps the castle could not be reanimated."

"Wingham, Arrayan, and Olgerkhan saw the gargoyles fluttering about the walls just days ago," Celedon replied. "Tazmikella and Ilnezhara clearly warned us that Jarlaxle has Urshula the Black, a mighty dracolich, handy at his summons. Is the conniving drow trying to draw us in now, where his magical minions will prove more deadly?"

"We cannot know," King Gareth admitted.

"We can," said Kane, and all eyes turned his way. The monk squared himself to Gareth and offered a slow and reverential bow. "We have been in situations like this many times before, my old friend," he said. "Perhaps this will be a matter for our army, perhaps not. Let us forget who we are for a moment and remember who we once were."

"You cannot expose the king," Friar Dugald warned.

Beside him, Olwen Forest-friend snorted in derision, though whether at Kane or Dugald, the others could not yet discern.

"If Jarlaxle is as wise as we fear, then our caution is his ally," said Kane. "To play the games of intrigue with a drow is to invite disaster." He turned to face the castle, compelling them all to look that way with his set and stern expression.

"We have been in this situation before," Kane said again. "We knew how to defeat it, once. And so we shall again unless we have become timid and old."

Friar Dugald began to argue, but a smile widened on King Gareth's face, a smile from a different time, a decade and more past, when the weight of all the Bloodstone Lands was not sitting squarely on his strong shoulders. A smile of adventure and danger that wiped away the typical frown of politics.

"Kane," he said, and the sly edge in his voice had half his friends grinning and the other half holding their breath, "do you think you could get over that wall without being seen?"

"I know my place," the monk replied.

"As do I," Celedon quickly added, but Gareth cut him short with an upraised hand.

"Not yet," the king said. He nodded to Kane and the monk closed his eyes in a moment of meditation. He opened them and gently swiveled his head, taking in the whole scene before him, absorbing all of the angles and calculating the lines of sight from any hidden sentries on the castle walls. He dropped his face into his hands and took a long and steady breath, and when he exhaled, he seemed to shrink, as if his entire body had become somehow smaller and less substantial.

He held up one hand, revealing a small jewel that glowed with an inner, magical fire, one that could flash to light at the wielder's desire. It was their old signal flare, a clear indication of Kane's intent and instructions, and the monk went off in a trot.

The friends watched him, but whenever any of them turned his gaze aside, even for a moment, he could not then relocate the elusive figure.

Sooner than anyone could have expected, even those six men who had spent years beside the Grandmaster, Kane signaled back to them with the lighted jewel from the base of the castle wall.

Kane moved like a spider, hands sweeping up to find holds, legs turning at all angles to propel him upward, even sometimes reaching above his shoulder, his toes hooking into the tiniest jags in the wall. In a matter of a few heartbeats, the monk went over the wall and disappeared from view.

"He makes you feel silly for using your climbing tools, doesn't he?" Emelyn the Gray said to Celedon, and the man just laughed.