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“And stupid. Who jumps into water wearing a mail shirt and boots?” Vokoun shook his head. “Now that might be a story worth telling. If we live to tell any stories at all.”

Two of the halflings were dead, and the necrotic magic of the death knights’ weapons was working in every wound. Remy could see the flesh beginning to die even around the small nick across the back of his knuckles. Most of the others, cut much more deeply, were groaning and sick with the death rot. “Lucan’s going to die soonest,” Keverel said. “I have to see to him first. Anyone with a healing draught, what are you saving it for?”

Remy had one and gave it to Obek, who was wounded deeply in the side. There were three others for Paelias, Biri-Daar, and Keverel, whose head wound had exposed the bone of his skull just above the ear. The two remaining oarsmen were struggling against the current, which quickened as the river grew narrower and poured through a chute into another spot of flat water between sheer stone walls. “I need more oars,” Vokoun said. Remy sat down at one of the benches and picked up an oar. Obek took another. Paelias joined Keverel at the prostrate Lucan, who was muttering and gasping in a burn fugue.

“If he catches a chill, he’ll die,” Obek said. “Elf or not.”

One of the halfling oarsmen shrugged and said, “One less elf.”

Remy looked at him. “You don’t like elves?”

“He doesn’t have to like elves,” Obek said.

“I don’t have to like him.”

“Oarsmen!” Vokoun called out. “Shut up and row!”

“Whatever you want to call him,” the halfling said, “if he catches a chill he’s going to die.”

Keverel knew that too, and kept Lucan under two heavy blankets while he brought all of the power of his healing arts to bear. Lucan’s hair was mostly gone, his hands and face were badly burned and his chest and stomach were scorched where metal buckles had touched his skin as his clothing burned. Lucan shivered and muttered under the blankets, and Keverel muttered Erathian prayers and blessings back. Eventually Lucan subsided into an uneasy sleep. “Will he live?” Biri-Daar asked.

“I think so,” Keverel said. “I’ll keep doing everything I can.” The cleric looked exhausted. Yet he went from person to person on the boat, making sure that the necrotic effects of the death knights’ blades were arrested and that natural healing could begin. He spent extra time with Obek, who had been hurt more seriously than anyone knew. When he had made a round of the boat, Biri-Daar commanded him to get some rest. Keverel was asleep almost at once.

The banks of the river were lower around them, hilly and dark under the light of a gibbous moon that picked out occasional brighter rock features. “We shouldn’t tie up again,” Biri-Daar said. “In this wilderness, the only thing we’re likely to see is more of Philomen’s minions.”

Remy watched the banks slide by, his oar across his knees, waiting for Vokoun’s next order. Lucan would live, probably. And Remy had saved him from the two death knights, who would surely have killed him in the tree. I put an end to Gouvou as well, Remy thought. He was proud of himself even though he knew that he had done only what was expected of a warrior. He was proving himself worthy. Biri-Daar would accept him.

Another thought occurred to him. What need had he of Biri-Daar’s acceptance? She had saved his life, yes, but he had long since repaid that obligation, and was now with them of his own free will. He had the chisel, and his personal errand was to make sure that it was never used … and also to make sure that Philomen received the death he had earned.

“Do you think the devil you saw in Sigil marked you out to carry the chisel?” Obek asked quietly.

Remy thought about it. “Perhaps. How would I know?”

His brief sojourn in the Crossroads of the Planes had happened shortly before Remy had come to the vizier’s attention. That much was true. Whether one thing had caused the other … that was a question Remy could not answer.

“What else might devils have marked you for, Remy?