With another roar, Jeggred threw more dead or unconscious rats off him and leaped at Raashub, bringing all four of his hands up, ready to shred the uridezu captain. Raashub shrank away from the draegloth, holding up his hands and straining against his bonds.

"No!" Quenthel shouted, her voice hoarse and feral. "Not that one, damn it! Kill this one!"

Jeggred whirled, his eyes flashing across the scene of the ongoing struggle between Quenthel and the second uridezu.

The rat-demon, taking full advantage of Quenthel's momentary lapse in attention, slipped in and raked claws across her midsection, digging deep furrows across her armor and drawing blood. Quenthel grimaced and gritted her teeth against the pain but answered in kind with her scourge. Both of them staggered a bit, their footing treacherous amidst a pile of bone fragments from the shattered railing and pools of blood from the wounded ship.

Jeggred's lips curled back to reveal a monstrous row of vicious fangs, and the draegloth entered the fray.

Danifae sat on the floor of the gatehouse for what felt like a very long time. She hadn't allowed herself to think too much about her life before her captivity. There were only a few ways to survive as a battle-captive, including convincing yourself that you've always been one.

Before the raid that put her in the hands of House Melarn, Danifae had been taking lessons from the Yauntyrr House Mage. Zinnirit was a capable and detail-oriented teacher, and Danifae had learned much from him, especially in the fields of teleportation, translocation, and dimensional travel. They hadn't actually begun her study of the arcane Art before her House was overwhelmed, but Zinnirit had familiarized the young daughter of House Yauntyrr with a variety of enchanted items.

Danifae touched her mother's ring, feeling the cold metal warming against her skin. The ring could bounce her across the Underdark—but just her and one other. Danifae had plans that required more than that.

Her eyes settled on the still hand of the dead wizard.

"More rings," Danifae whispered, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

All she had to do was remember how to work them.

Even as the uridezu was bringing his tail around for another hard slap at Quenthel, Jeggred pounced on him. The draegloth caught the heavy appendage in his larger set of hands. The tail's momentum, stopped so abruptly by the draegloth's grip, staggered the uridezu and it toppled in a heap onto the ruined rail. Jagged bits of bone cut deeply into the demon's already bleeding body. At the same time, all five of the vipers from Quenthel's scourge bit into sensitive areas, released, then bit again. Waves of agony pulsed through the demon's body, and it coughed out phlegm and blood.

"We. ." the demon gasped. "We will see you in the Abyss. . drow bitch!"

We? Pharaun thought, stealing a glance at Raashub, who was watching with keen interest.

"Kill it now, Jeggred," Quenthel commanded, her voice still husky and mingled with deep, panting breaths. "Kill it before it goes home."

Feral light flashed in the draegloth's eyes and he brought a single claw across the uridezu's midsection. The daggerlike talon disappeared into the demon's flesh, burying itself six inches deep. Jeggred cut the thing's belly open wide enough to spill a pile of ropy yellow intestines, steaming with the demon's hot blood, onto the deck of the ship of chaos.

The demon screamed, the sound echoing unnaturally then fading even as the uridezu itself began to evaporate into nothingness. It was returning to the Abyss while it still lived.

Pharaun had to admit that he wasn't sure how long a demon might live after it had been disemboweled, but more than one breed of them could regenerate completely from even so grievous a wound.

As the demon began to fade, though, Jeggred quickly withdrew his claw and grabbed the uridezu's head in both his larger, stronger hands. The draegloth twisted and pulled, hard enough that Pharaun could see veins protrude against his straining muscles.

There was a sickly wet cracking sound and a sicker wet pop! and the uridezu's head came off in Jeggred's hands.

The rest of the demon's body disappeared, but the head and entrails remained. The black eyes stared, dead, at nothing. The demon's guts slowly sizzled away, being absorbed, Pharaun noted, by the ship itself. The wizard realized that most of the fragments of bone from the shattered rail had gone as well. The ship was feeding on itself, repairing the damage bone by bone.

Jeggred, obviously taking no notice of the ship of chaos's convenient regenerative capacities, tossed the uridezu's head overboard as he turned to face the captain.

Raashub, already backed away as far as his bonds would allow, put his hands up in supplication and looked away.

Jeggred, a low growl rumbling in his throat, started forward, stalking the bound uridezu with unveiled intent.

"I don't know, nephew," Quenthel said, her voice and breathing slowly returning to normal. She was bleeding but paid her injuries no heed. "I have yet to make up my mind."

The vipers seethed at the end of her whip, and Quenthel glanced at one of them as if she'd heard it speak—and certainly she had, though Pharaun was still not privy to that communication.

"Wait," the wizard said, stepping closer but not foolish enough to move between Jeggred and the uridezu. "I'm afraid we still need him."

Jeggred growled, not looking at Pharaun, but he did hesitate.

"It was to be expected," Pharaun said. "You've both worked with demons before, haven't you? So he tried to kill us and failed."

Quenthel's head snapped to look at him. The abrupt motion caused the vipers in her whip to shudder and turn on the wizard as well.

"You can't control him," she said to Pharaun. "How can you stop him from doing that again?"

"It wasn't me, Mistress," Raashub pleaded, his voice reedy and dripping with false humility. "The Lake of Shadows is home to many of my kind."

Pharaun lifted an eyebrow at that obvious lie then began to cast a spell.

"Let me eat his kidneys," Jeggred growled, his eyes still locked on the uridezu. "Maybe just one kidney."

Pharaun, ignoring the draegloth, finished his spell.

Raashub screamed.

The sound was so sudden and so loud that even Jeggred stepped back from it. Wild horror passed through the captive uridezu in visible waves. Raashub threw up his hands and clawed at the air in front of him, whimpering, sobbing, and shrieking in different combinations as Pharaun, Quenthel, and Jeggred looked on.

"What are you doing to him?" Jeggred asked, confused.

"Showing him things," Pharaun replied.

He looked at Quenthel, who obviously wanted a more detailed explanation.

"Even demons have nightmares, Mistress," the Master of Sorcere explained. "My spell is letting a few of those play out for him. I assure you both, it is an experience our dear friend Raashub will not soon forget, and he knows I can do it again."

Jeggred sighed so heavily Pharaun could smell his rancid breath. The draegloth moved toward Raashub.

"Hold, Jeggred," Quenthel ordered.

The draegloth hesitated before doing so, but he did stop.

"Raashub still serves a purpose," the high priestess said as she began to assess her injuries.

Jeggred turned to look at her, but she ignored him.

"Who told you that?" the draegloth asked in a low growl. "The dandy?" — he nodded at Pharaun—"or the snakes?"

Quenthel ignored the question, but Pharaun thought long and hard about it.

It took Danifae somewhat longer than she'd intended to remember Zinnirit's favorite command words and determine which of them powered which of the rings. Then she turned her attention to studying the finer points of the portals she had «inherited» from the late Yauntyrr House mage. Not only had she lost all track of time as she studied Zinnirit's collection of scrolls and tomes on the subject, made a few exploratory scans through open portals, and ignored a summons from Valas, but she had exhausted the limits of her own familiarity with the arcane Art. Danifae was no wizard, but fortunately she didn't have to be to use many of the features of Zinnirit's gatehouse.