"Damn the formal readings and be on with it!" Kemp growled. "By what right do
you order us in from the lakes, Cassius? Even as we sit around this table, the
merchants in Luskan are preparing for their journey!"
"We have news of an invasion, Spokesman Kemp," Cassius answered calmly,
understanding the fisherman's anger. "I would not have summoned you, any of you,
at this time of the season if it were not urgent."
"Then the rumors are true," Kemp sneered. "An invasion, you say? Bah! I see
beyond this sham of a council!"
He turned on Agorwal. The fighting between Targos and Termalaine had
escalated in the past few weeks, despite Cassius's efforts to diffuse it and
bring the principles of the warring towns to the bargaining table. Agorwal had
agreed to a meeting, but Kemp was steadfastly against it. And so, with
suspicions running high, the timing of this urgent council could not have been
worse.
"This is a pitiful attempt indeed!" Kemp roared. He looked around at his
fellow spokesmen. "A pitiful effort by Agorwal and his scheming supporters to
bring about a favorable settlement for Termalaine in their dispute with Targos!"
Incited by the aura of suspicion that Kemp had infused, Schermont, the new
spokesman from Caer-Konig, pointed an accusing finger at Jensin Brent of
Caer-Dineval. "What part have you played in this treachery?" he spat at his
bitter rival. Schermont had come into his position after the first spokesman
from Caer-Konig had been killed on the waters of Lac Dinneshere in a battle with
a Dineval boat. Dorim Lugar had been Schermont's friend and leader, and the new
spokesman's policies toward hated Caer-Dineval were even more iron-handed than
those of his predecessor.
Regis and Bruenor sat back quietly in helpless dismay through all of the
initial bickering. Finally Cassius slammed his gavel down, snapping its handle
in two, and quieting the others long enough to make a point.
"A few moments of silence!" he commanded. "Hold your venomous words and
listen to the messenger of grim tidings!" The others fell back to their seats
and remained silent, but Cassius feared that the damage had already been done.
He turned the floor over to Regis.
Honestly terrified by what he had learned from the captive orc, Regis
passionately told of the battle his friends had won over the verbeeg lair and on
the grass of Daledrop. "And Bruenor has captured one of the orcs that was
escorting the giants," he said emphatically. Some of the spokesmen sucked in
their breath at the notion of such creatures banding together, but Kemp and some
of the others, ever suspicious of the more immediate threats of their rivals,
and already decided on the true purpose of the meeting, remained unconvinced.
"The orc told us," Regis continued grimly, "of the coming of a powerful
wizard, Akar Kessell, and his vast host of goblins and giants! They mean to
conquer Ten-Towns!" He thought that his dramatics would prove effective.
But Kemp was outraged. "On the word of an orc, Cassius? You summoned us in
from the lakes at this critical time on the threat of a stinking orc?"
"The halfling's tale is not an uncommon one," Schermont added. "All of us
have heard a captured goblin wag its tongue in any direction it could think of
to save its worthless head."
"Or perhaps you had other motives," Kemp hissed, again eyeing Agorwal.
Cassius, though he truly believed the grim tidings, sat back in his chair and
said nothing. With tensions on the lakes as high as they were, and the final
