Starlight Enclave

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Well, unless Pelican is set with secret holds, all remaining are up on that poop deck,” Jarlaxle said loudly. “What say you, Captain Arrongo? Are you ready to surrender yet?” As he finished, he nodded to a group of Bregan D’aerthe fighters, and a score of crossbows clicked, sending a swarm of quarrels tipped in sleeping poison through the wall of darkness.

  “A dozen fireballs could follow, Arrongo,” Jarlaxle called a moment later. “You’ve nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.”

  When all of the prisoners were dragged together near the prow, secured and guarded, Jarlaxle gave Bonnie Charlee a signal, and on her ensuing call, the darkness disappeared, revealing the holdouts. A few wizards, a pair of priests, a handful of human pirates, and a dozen gnolls crowded together on that higher deck.

  “Come on, then!” challenged one large, black-bearded man with a great hat and so much jewelry that even Jarlaxle thought it gaudy. “Ye got the bones for the fight?”

  “It won’t be much of a fight,” Jarlaxle answered him, stating the obvious.

  The man, who was surely Captain Arrongo, spat and glared. He looked to a nearby wizard and nodded.

  “Wait!” Jarlaxle added, fearing some magical retreat to be imminent. “For I do prefer a challenge . . . and a wager. Your reputation precedes you, mighty Captain Arrongo. It would be a great shame to so unceremoniously send you and this fine vessel to the depths. Your ship is beaten—that much is obvious—and we have what we came for, the prisoners in your hold. So I offer you this: single combat between you and one of my choosing. If he wins, you’ll get the end you richly deserve, the only one you ever thought you’d get, of course. And if you win . . . I’ll let you take your remaining crew and sail away on Pelican, but only on the condition that you never darken Luskan’s horizon again.”

  “What?” Entreri, and several others, all said, some more quietly than others.

  “He knows the outcome already,” Zak assured him.

  “Now,” Jarlaxle continued, “I find that most charitable, and more so than you deserve. So what say you?”

  The large man looked all about, seeming confused, as did the others of his crew, with many of them also flashing expressions of hope, fleeting though they were.

  “Pick yourself, then,” Arrongo countered.

  “I would, but I don’t like to get blood on me, yours or mine,” Jarlaxle answered. “Do you think your wizards will get you away before mine cut them down? Do you think they’ll put you far enough away that I won’t find you again, and with more ships than this? So fight my champion and I’ll promise you that Luskan will never again hunt for you, no matter your crimes, as long as they are not committed in Luskan waters or against ships flying her flag.”

  Arrongo spat again.

  “No matter my pick, you must agree these are better odds than what you now face,” Jarlaxle told him. “Decide.”

  Arrongo put his hand on his sword hilt, a most beautiful orange and gold design of an avian creature. He came forward smiling, to the rail and down.

  Bonnie Charlee pulled her crew back. Jarlaxle dismissed his diatryma as it came out the cabin door, startling Arrongo.

  “Go earn it,” Jarlaxle said to Zaknafein, who stepped forward to face the brutish pirate captain.

  “I knew it’d be a damned drow,” Arrongo said. “Killed many o’ yer kind. One more for good luck, eh?”

  “There isn’t enough good luck in the world for you right now,” Zak assured him, the two locking stares, barely three strides apart on the starlit deck.

  “So they all thought,” Arrongo replied, suddenly drawing forth a blade that seemed perfectly plain, given the beauty of the hilt.

  Quicker than Arrongo’s attempted thrust, Zak’s blades came into his hands, his right slapping across to deflect the attack, left ready to stab in over the lowered sword.

  To Zak’s surprise, the blade of Arrongo’s sword simply went flying away. Zak was too strong in balance to stumble in the absence of resistance, but he did hesitate, just for an eye blink, and in that fleeting moment, another blade—a shaft of light, brilliant and blinding—shot up from Arrongo’s now empty hilt.

  Eyes stinging, Zak could only retreat, falling off to his right, cutting his left-hand blade behind to barely parry Arrongo’s stab. The drow felt the heat of the blade as it came within a finger’s breadth of his chin.

  “Ha!” Arrongo bellowed, pursuing with a cunning series of thrusts and sweeps, some one-handed, some two. He bore on, obviously confident that he had the drow half-blinded and unprepared.

  Zaknafein knew it, too.

  Gasps arose all about as Zaknafein dove and rolled, leaped up and threw himself aside, then came back in at the closely pursuing captain with a desperate flourish, swords waving to block and to try to get him back to even ground. He didn’t quite succeed, but he did slap a cleverly thrown dagger out of the air before it could reach him.

  Captain Arrongo was full of tricks indeed.

  Across the way, Artemis Entreri moved up beside Jarlaxle. All about them, humans and drow reacted with every movement of the duel, thinking Arrongo would finish the weapon master.

  “Easy,” Jarlaxle told his friend, holding up his hand to keep Entreri back—for indeed, the man was leaning forward, hands clutching his sword and dagger hilts tightly. “Faith, my friend.”

  “Darkness, Zak!” one drow called, and others quickly joined in, for the obvious move by Zaknafein then would be to create a darkness globe about himself and the captain, negating the advantage of the brilliant sword light.

  “Why doesn’t he?” Entreri asked after a few more attacks and counters, Arrongo keeping Zak on his heels, not surrendering the advantage at all.

  “Because you wouldn’t, either,” Jarlaxle said.

  “I cannot,” Entreri reminded.

  Jarlaxle looked at him and smirked. “You wouldn’t if you could, whether it be stupid pride or confidence.”

  Entreri wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t. He looked back to the fight, which seemed dire for Zaknafein as the weapon master was being pressed toward the rail by the huge captain, with only the sea behind him.

  When Entreri looked lower at Zaknafein’s feet, though, he found himself nodding approvingly.

  Captain Arrongo’s gleeful expression silently screamed Over the rail ye go! as he pressed in those last two strides, his powerful attacks forcing Zaknafein back.

  And Zak was gone, and Arrongo’s shout started out as one of glee. He cut it short and wildly spun right, however, cutting his blade across at waist height—for somehow, this clever drow had not fallen over the rail, but had back-hopped up against it and sprung away to the side in the space of an eye blink.

  Now Zak was coming back in.

  Now the initiative was his.

  Now he had acclimated to the unexpected brightness.

  He leaped above the captain’s slicing sword, even managing to put the sole of his boot against it and kick it down and out. And his swords came in hard and fast.

  To his great credit, Captain Arrongo managed to quick-step away to minimize the bite, and to his armor’s credit, his resulting wounds were not significant.

  But magnificent Zaknafein was hardly done. He landed leaning forward and threw himself in that same direction, and now it was Arrongo working his sword frantically, trying to keep the weapon master’s nipping blades at bay.

  Jarlaxle watched it all with a growing smile.

  “Zaknafein is toying with him,” Entreri whispered at his side.

  Only an expert swordsman would recognize that, Jarlaxle knew, and Entreri, of course, was as fine as any.

  Zaknafein’s swords worked as if they were wielded by two different warriors, independent and yet still in perfect coordination. The blades came at Arrongo from so many different angles, all working to make him move his own sword, or turn his substantial body, with maximum effort.

  Arrongo, too, was a fine warrior, a veteran of a hundred battles at sea and on land, but even those onlookers not s
o skilled could see that he had to greatly change the new equation of the fight here, and quickly.

  Zaknafein’s movements were fluid and easy, while Arrongo had to jerk and leap. The brilliant light of his blade showed the sweat gathering about his face, droplets shining on his wild and huge black beard. His breath came faster and harder.

  Zaknafein had him cornered in the angle where the rail met the wall of the captain’s cabin. Arrongo had nowhere to run.

  Arrongo had to change the flow of the battle.

  He knew it.

  Everyone watching knew it.

  And Zaknafein knew it.

  Zak’s right-hand sword swept out over the rail and came in from the side. Arrongo blocked it hard with a two-hand parry, then sent his sword back the other way and up high to deflect Zak’s second blade.

  Arrongo had his opening!

  As his arms came across, he dropped his upper hand—his right hand—to his right hip, still having enough control and strength to surely push aside the drow’s descending blade with his left. That freed right hand went for a dagger on his belt, thinking to throw it fast, which should at least break him out of the corner.

  Only his parrying sword did not connect with any meaningful weight, which meant this wasn’t an opening at all. The clever drow warrior had led him into a trap.

  For Zaknafein was turning to his left even as Arrongo began the parry, turning and rolling his right elbow to bring that blade stabbing in again, and for the spot where he knew Arrongo’s right hand would go.

  The captain howled in agony as Zak’s sword plunged between Arrongo’s thumb and pointer finger, then into his hip between the seams in his leather waistcoat.

  Zaknafein rolled to his left some more, toward the middle of the deck, leaving the sword stuck right there, pinning Arrongo.

  The captain staggered out from the corner, left hand coming down, still holding his sword as he tried to gingerly brush Zak’s out of his hip and his hand.

  But Zak was already moving, leaping forward to the captain’s side, running up the cabin wall and springing away, inverting and twisting right above the captain, landing in a spin and coming around fast and hard, both hands on his remaining blade.

  Arrongo’s severed sword arm fell to the deck, hand still grasping his blade of light.

  The man staggered.

  Zak stabbed him in the belly, retracted, and sent his sword tip up, cutting beard, splitting chin. The drow tugged his second sword free as his right-hand blade descended to scrape against the shoulder of Arrongo’s stubbed arm.

  In stabbed the left blade, once and again, and Zaknafein went into a great swirling spin, dipping low, then coming up diagonally with both swords, forcing Arrongo to turn and stagger to his left.

  Zak rolled with the cut, and took another circuit to leap and circle-kick Arrongo square in the back, pitching the bleeding captain headlong over the rail and into the shark-infested waters.

  The deck was perfectly silent, a great hush of shock, admiration, and confusion.

  “Really?” Jarlaxle asked, holding his hand out toward the water, his expression one of disgust. “He had some fine jewelry.”

  Zak shrugged, wiped his swords with a quick crisscross along the sleeve of the severed arm, and sheathed them in an easy and impossibly fast movement. He stood straight and held his hand out toward the deck.

  “I didn’t lose the sword.”

  Jarlaxle shrugged and snorted. “True.”

  Chapter 4

  The Unacceptable Consequence of Trust

  “Ye understand what ye’re askin’ of me, do ye?” King Bruenor said to the two drow priestesses sitting across the table from him. “Ye saw the looks on the faces o’ me boys when ye walked up from the low gate.”

  The drow who had introduced herself as High Priestess Minolin Fey Baenre leaned forward and replied, “Those looks were no less suspicious and angry than those Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre encountered on our journey back to Menzoberranzan, I assure you, good King Bruenor. I hope you appreciate the courage of the matron mother and of Priestess Yvonnel. Their action on the field of battle was a high sacrilege against Lady Lolth, and the Spider Queen is not a merciful goddess.”

  Bruenor looked around at his advisors: Regis and Donnola Topolino of Bleeding Vines; his queens, Mallabritches and Tannabritches Battlehammer; his three captains of the newly established Grymguard, Ivan Bouldershoulder, Athrogate, and Thibbledorf Pwent; and his adopted daughter, Catti-brie. He let his look linger on Catti-brie, for he had been both surprised and saddened when she had come to the meeting, late, without Drizzt by her side.

  He meant to speak with her about that, certainly.

  “Yer own—their own—fealty and devotion to the cursed Spider Face isn’t me concern,” he said, rather harshly and purposely rudely.

  Neither drow blinked at that, nor seemed put off at all, which pleased Bruenor.

  “The consequences of their actions will reach back to Gauntlgrym, of course,” said the other drow, First Priestess Saribel Xorlarrin Do’Urden. “Of course, you see that. Are we to be partners in trade, or enemies?”

  “Got to be one or th’other, eh?”

  “If our side wins, we hope for the former,” Saribel continued. “If Matrons Mez’Barris Armgo and Zhindia Melarn prevail, you can be certain that it will be the latter. Perhaps far in the future, but without doubt, at some point, they will march on Gauntlgrym again.”

  “Wins what?” Bruenor asked. “Been hearing about yer intended civil war for two years. Ain’t heared a thing about drow blood in the streets o’ Menzoberranzan, though.”

  “There have been many skirmishes, King Bruenor,” said Saribel.

  “There’re always small fights in yer town, so I been telled. Yer skirmishes tell me nothing new.”

  “Are you so eager to have the smell of spilled drow blood wafting up the corridors to fill your long and crooked nose, dwarf king?” Minolin Fey Baenre said, eliciting a chorus of gasps from Bruenor’s side of the table.

  Not from Bruenor, though. Not even a scowl from Bruenor, just a knowing, sly grin. He looked at Catti-brie, whose face was a mask of surprise at least, perhaps even angry shock, but instead of matching it, Bruenor diffused it all with a sudden and boisterous laugh. “This one’s got spunk!” he told his daughter. He turned back to Minolin Fey. “Ye’d make a good dwarf, elf!”

  “We need the weapons and the armor,” Minolin Fey replied. “Armaments forged in Gauntlgrym would secure House Baenre as Matron Mother Quenthel leads us to a better future—for us and for you.”

  “It’s been two years,” Bruenor reiterated.

  “The houses have not all aligned,” Saribel explained. “Will it be House Baenre and House Do’Urden against Houses Melarn and, quite likely, Barrison Del’Armgo? Will the other major houses side with Baenre and so break the will of our enemies? Or will they side with our foes, and leave things uncertain?”

  “It is difficult, King Bruenor,” Minolin Fey added, her voice calmer now. “We are asking our kin to repudiate all that they have learned throughout their lives, to repudiate the church of Lolth itself. To accept as allies the other peoples of Toril we have known only as enemies beyond the memories of the longest living drow. This is no easy thing, and the courage of Matron Mother Quenthel and Yvonnel cannot be understated. They crossed a line that cannot be backtracked. Outside your halls, in the sunlight of the forest, they enacted the greatest of all heresies. It is forbidden without exception to reverse the curse of the fallen spider, to revert a drider to her drow form.”

  “I know, and I’m not for understating that,” Bruenor answered. “But ye’re askin’ me to fire up me forges and put me smithies to work to make a pile o’ mail and weapons that might come marching back against us.”

  “They won’t,” Saribel said. “With your help, we will start the war. And with your help, we’ll end it. We have eight hundred former driders, large and strong drow from another era.”

  “From an era when they hat
ed dwarfs,” Bruenor reminded her.

  “Better than any, they know the truth of Lolth, and that truth is a lie, always a lie,” Saribel continued. “They will sooner die opposing her than live in comfort worshiping her. To a one. Wearing the mail from the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym, carrying the weapons forged in primordial fire, and with both arms and armor enchanted in the Underdark by great Baenre priestesses and great Xorlarrin wizards, they will shake the walls of Menzoberranzan’s cavern and bring the other houses to the side of Baenre, and to the side of truth: the enmity of Lolth.”

  It was a pretty speech, and an even prettier vision of the future, Bruenor had to admit. He leaned back in his chair and put his red-bearded chin in his palm, studying the two drow visitors.

  “Aye, and then when ye’re done with your rivals, might that ye’ll march to get back that what ye paid for them armaments and more, aye?” a sour Athrogate chimed in, drawing all eyes his way. “I been a friend o’ Jarlaxle for a long time. I’m knowing the ways o’ the drow.”

  “You have witnesses to the events on the field,” Minolin Fey protested. “They saw the enchanted web. They saw the heresy to Lolth. You!” she said, pointing to Thibbledorf Pwent. “I am told you were there, were you not?”

  “Aye,” Pwent replied.

  “Course!” Athrogate boomed. “And it proves nothin’.”

  “How can you say that?” Minolin Fey countered. “Before the action of the Matron Mother and Yvonnel, Gauntlgrym was doomed, and you know it.”

  “Ye might take care with yer words there, drow lady,” Queen Mallabritches interrupted.

  “Do you doubt it?” Minolin Fey asked, not backing down. “Had we joined with Matron Zhindia and her demon army, and with eight hundred huge driders still in her ranks, do you really believe that Gauntlgrym would have remained in the control of King Bruenor and his clan? You were pinned above and below, with nowhere to run. Your magnificent portals were not fired then, and they wouldn’t have been in time, and would not have been at all had not a drow, Gromph Baenre, realized the gravity of that which was happening here and himself taken a great risk.” She turned back to Bruenor. “You know this, surely. King Bruenor is a veteran general.”