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."They crippled Godsbane so she couldn't tell me the Keep was under siege." Gently he lifted the blade from the floor and cradled it in his palms.The sword pulsed with a faint pink glow.My love, Godsbane whispered.I failed you."They've not beaten us yet," the Prince of Lies said."Jergal, muster the denizens, unleash the hell hounds.We'll drive the dragons and the giants from Zhentil Keep.I'll lead the charge myself."This realm needs your valor first, my liege, the seneschal replied.The denizens you just banished-"Yes, yes.Part of another petty uprising, no doubt," Cyric scoffed."I'll deal with them after I've slaughtered the creatures storming my holy city.Now be quick about gathering up a suitable force, Jergal, or I'll use your yellow blood to give Godsbane back a little life."The denizens had no part in a revolt.They came here seeking your protection.Jergal bowed his head.This time the souls of the False and the Faithless rise up against you, Magnificence - and they are led by the dead men you imprisoned in the Gearsmith's unholy armor.* * * * *The City of Strife was burning.Blankets of flame wrapped themselves around the weird, ten-story structures that dominated the city's skyline.Thick clouds of soot wafted over the fields of rubble, blinding everything that came in contact with them.The River Slith bubbled and steamed in the furnace-hot air.Atop a huge pile of debris, Gwydion the Quick faced a dozen skeletons wielding razor-bladed pikes.The skulls of fifty of their kind, the broken shafts and twisted blades of an equal number of weapons, lay heaped before the undead soldiers, urging caution.Though he appeared too heavily armored to move quickly, the knight had proved time and again that his plate mail was far less encumbering than it might seem.And so the skeletons advanced slowly up the slanted mound of bricks and riven metal.Their prudence didn't help them in the least.One skeleton, braver or more foolhardy than the rest, stabbed at Gwydion with its pike.The armored shade sheared the blade off the pole with a single stroke of Titanslayer then lunged forward to shatter the soldier's rib cage.The shattered bones tumbled back down the hill, clattering like stones rolling off a tin roof.The other warriors took their fellow's sacrifice as a signal to strike.Yet the Gond-forged armor turned aside the pikes as if they were blunted wooden toys.Gwydion whirled around, bringing the enchanted blade in a windmill arc through the skeletal soldiers.Bones cracked and skulls toppled from fleshless necks.The undead warriors retreated - those that could still run anyway - and Gwydion paused to look out on the battlefield.Gangs of shades roamed the square.Some carried blades or cudgels or barbed whips wrested from the denizens.Others had crafted weapons from the debris.Gwydion and his fellow knights had found that releasing the False from their tortures was a simple enough matter.Rallying the downtrodden souls had proved even easier.Cries of "Down with Cyric!" and "Long live Kelemvor!" rang through the streets, the latter slogan born of Gwydion's speech that day on the banks of the River Slith.Even though the shades knew nothing of the long-lost hero, Kel was a bitter foe of their oppressor.Those were credentials enough to cast him in the unlikely role of savior.The denizens, unorganized and prone to fighting amongst themselves, had yet to mount any serious counterstrike.Overwhelmed by the sheer number of False rebelling in the city, many of Cyric's faithful had retreated to the diamond walls of Bone Castle.They were the lucky ones.The denizens caught outside the safety of the keep found themselves facing rough justice, indeed.Even now, across the square from Gwydion, a group of renegade souls flushed a denizen from the detritus of a ruined building.The little creature tried to flap away on yellow bat's wings, but two of the shades tackled him before he could flee.Like all the other battles between the newly freed False and their former jailors, this skirmish was bloody and brief.Neither the damned souls nor the denizens possessed the magical might necessary to destroy one another.Because of this, their battles tended to follow a gruesome, vicious pattern.Once the scuffle ended, the victors chopped the vanquished into a dozen pieces or more, enough so it would take days for the fingers and legs and arms to come together again and regenerate.Such was the case now, as the shades scattered sun-yellow bits of denizen flesh across the square.The creature's head was left atop a pole, shouting curses at the False as they abandoned the square in search of other quarry."We'll feed the whole lot of you to the Night Serpent when this is over, slugs!" the head cried."We'll sink you all to the bottom of the Slith!"Gwydion recognized the thick, hissing voice.He hurried down from the heap of bones.Sure enough, the bruised and battered head gazed back at him with familiar contempt."Well," the denizen muttered, "what are you looking at?""You're better off than Af was, Perdix.When this is over, you'll still be here to serve the realm's new lord."The little creature narrowed his eye, darted his forked tongue over gory, split lips."Cyric's black heart! You've come back!"Gwydion slipped his helmet from his head.The shadows from the dozens of small fires burning in the rubble nearby made him look distinctly ominous as he smiled and said, "You said an uprising would never succeed here." He wiped the sweaty hair from his eyes."You were wrong
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