"When I noticed you missing, I knew I'd find you here." Corran's voice did not surprise her. Though she could tell he'd tried to move silently, she'd heard him approach. "Are you nearly finished robbing the dead? The others are waiting."

She did not bother to look up from her task. Her back still to him, she slipped the key into a hidden sheath in her right sleeve. "I happen to be searching for clues to what this cult is all about-something you seem to have forgotten in your haste to save a half-witted halfling from himself."

"Uh-huh."

His tone of sarcastic disbelief pushed her over the edge. She whirled to face him. "What in the Abyss is your problem?"

He regarded her stoically. "My problem?"

She glared at him, her face hot with anger she could no longer hold in check. "You have done nothing but judge and insult me from the moment we met."

"You represent everything I abhor."

"How can I? You don't even know me."

"Are you not a thief? I have yet to encounter one who wasn't a selfish opportunist. Your behavior thus far has done little to change my mind."

Her behavior? She had been selfish to try talking the party out of a quest that amounted to a suicide pact? She had been opportunistic in helping them defeat Preybelish? Sir Sanctimonious would do better to examine his own conduct.

"I have yet to meet a paladin who wasn't judgmental and self-righteous," she snapped. "Seeing only my actions and hearing only my words, you presume to know my motives. Well, you don't know as much as you think you do, Corran D'Arcey."

He raised his brows patronizingly. "No?"

"No. You're a weak leader, a spiritual hypocrite, and a lousy human being." Expecting him to dismiss her reproof as he usually dismissed her, she tried to push her way past him.

He grabbed her arm, forcing her to stay. "It reflects poor breeding, Kestrel, to walk away in the middle of a conversation. On what do you base those criticisms?"

Why did his insults still hold the power to rankle? Their frequency should have rendered her immune by now. "You've appointed yourself the leader of this mission, yet you allow your prejudice to cloud your decisions, ignoring or underusing my skills to the detriment of the party." Despite her ire, her voice held steady. "For someone who professes humility in the service of his god, you have demonstrated precious little of it among your fellow mortals. And for someone who seeks to better understand the ways of the divine, you know very little about the human condition. I doubt very much that the third son of Baron Whoever-the-hell has ever wanted for anything or can comprehend what desperation can drive a person to do."

There-she'd said it all, and her heart hammered in her chest with the rush of having finally confronted him. To her delight he looked as if he'd been slapped. She shook her arm loose, turned her back on him, and went to join the others.

With minimal travel time, the party descended to the dungeon's lowest level and found the old dwarven treasury. The stone door stood ajar, its engraved glyph-a circle within an arch-desecrated. Through the graffiti, however, Kestrel noted that the original symbol matched that on the key she'd taken from the dead cult sorcerer.

A muffled voice, unmistakably Nottle's, came from within, promising riches in exchange for release. "Gems… I got a nice collection o'gems. Or if it's weapons ye want-"

"Oh, stuff a sock in it," responded another voice, this one gruff and just inside the door. A few low chuckles indicated that several men stood guard.

Durwyn nocked an arrow. After the surprisingly easy defeat of the mage upstairs, they'd decided to launch more conventional missiles during their initial volley and hold Jarial and Ghleanna's magic in reserve until they saw how many opponents they faced. Emmeric, armed with Corran's sword, fingered the hilt impatiently, eager to strike back at the cult for slaying his companions.

The paladin gripped his warhammer. He had not spoken to Kestrel since their confrontation. When she'd suggested that she sneak into the room after combat began-in an attempt to disguise their number and attack one of the guards from behind-a shrug had been the only indication that he'd heard her.

At Corran's nod, Durwyn stepped into the doorway and fired, a second shot quickly chasing the first. "One down-five more!" He jumped out of the way to let Corran and Emmeric charge past, then grabbed his axe and followed them into battle. Next, Ghleanna and Jarial entered.

Kestrel withdrew her twin daggers from her boots and waited in the corridor as sounds of combat erupted. She counted to sixty, then slipped inside.

It was a huge room, at least one hundred feet on each side, filled with chests, crates, and emptied sacks. Had Kestrel the time, her thief's mind would have loved to calculate the riches the chamber had held during Myth Drannor's peak. Now a more serious task occupied her attention.

The three warriors had engaged five guards in combat A sixth guard lay on the floor, one of Durwyn's arrows through his heart. At first Kestrel thought their opponents were cult sorcerers, for they all had claws for right hands and wore red leather boots, loincloths, and bracers. These adversaries, however, had no hoods to hide their heads and shoulders, and she gasped at the sight of their deformed features. Their skin, though still flesh-colored, resembled a scaly reptilian hide from the tops of their heads to their upper chests, and their eyes burned red with battlelust. Where the scarred mages had tattoos to broadcast their cult affiliation, the fighters had three razor-sharp blades piercing each thigh. The guards wielded wicked-looking double-bladed halberds with spikes at their heads and hooks at their bases.

Durwyn battled two of the cultists. His second arrow protruded through the shoulder of one. He landed a blow on the arm of his injured foe, then managed to parry the other's strike. Corran also fought two opponents. His warhammer easily deflected the attacks that came his way, but he appeared unable to gain the offensive. Emmeric, though fighting with an unfamiliar weapon, seemed to be holding his own.

Ghleanna gazed balefully at one of Corran's adversaries, her fingers tracing ancient runes in the air. A moment later the sorceress uttered a single command word. The cult fighter shrieked, but Kestrel could discern no physical damage. His blows, however, lost their precision. When Corran's other foe caused the paladin to shift his position, the spellbound cult fighter swung wildly, apparently trying to hit anything within reach of his weapon.

He's blind, Kestrel realized. With one of Corran's opponents thus disabled, she darted around the room's perimeter to aid Durwyn. As she moved, she kept one eye on the unfolding combat.

Emmeric, gaining familiarity with the weight and balance of Corran's sword, backed his opponent against an open trunk. The cult fighter's calves bumped into the chest, knocking him off balance. As he struggled to regain his equilibrium, Emmeric seized the moment and scored a hit. The thrust opened a deep gash in the cultist's shoulder. Undeterred by the blood oozing down his arm, the fighter lunged forward to return the blow. Emmeric anticipated the strike but not the handful of diamond dust the fighter grabbed from the open trunk with his free hand and threw in his face. The distraction lasted only a moment, but that was long enough for the cultist to open a wound in Emmeric's sword arm.

A glance at Durwyn indicated that the large warrior still managed to fend off both of his opponents, so Kestrel elected to aid the injured Emmeric. She maneuvered behind the cult fighter, planning to stab him in the back. Just before moving in for her strike, she glanced toward Jarial and Ghleanna in the doorway to make sure they saw her and didn't inadvertently direct any magical attacks her way.