Servant of the Shard: The Sellswords

by R. A. Salvatore

  “The drow and your race have been allied many times in the past,” Rai-guy remarked, “and rarely have we found reason to do battle. So it should be now.”

  The wizard wasn’t trying to talk the illithid out of any rash actions out of fear—far from it. He was thinking he might have, perhaps, made another powerful connection here, one that could be exploited.

  The screaming in his mind, Crenshinibon’s absolute hatred of the mind flayer, made that alliance seem less likely.

  And even less likely a moment later, when Yharaskrik lit the magical lantern and aimed its glow Crenshinibon’s way. The protests in the drow wizard’s mind faded far, far away.

  The artifact will be brought back before the dragon, came Yharaskrik’s telepathic call. It was a psionically enhanced command, and one that had Rai-guy involuntarily taking a step toward the main chamber once more.

  The cunning dark elf had survived more than a century in the hostile territory of his own homeland, and he was no novice to any type of battle. He fought back against the compelling suggestion and rooted his feet to the floor, turning back to regard the octopus-headed creature, his red-glowing eyes narrowing threateningly.

  “Release the Crystal Shard and perhaps we will let you live,” Rai-guy said.

  It must be destroyed! Yharaskrik screamed into his mind. It is an item of no gain, of loss to all, even to itself. As the creature finished, it held the lantern up even higher and advanced a step, its tentacles wriggling out, reaching for Rai-guy hungrily though the drow was still too far away for any physical attack, but not out of range for psionic attacks, the drow found out a split second later, even as he began casting his own spell.

  A blast of stunning and confusing energy washed over him, reached into him, and scrambled his mind. He felt himself falling over backward, watched almost helplessly as his line of vision rolled up the wall, and to the high ceiling.

  He called for Crenshinibon, but it was too far away, lost in the swirl of the magical lantern’s glow. He thought of the illithid, of those horrid tentacles burrowing under his skin, reaching for his brain.

  Rai-guy steadied himself and fought desperately, finally regaining his balance and glancing back to see Yharaskrik very close—too close, those tentacles almost touching him.

  He nearly exploded into the motion of yet another spellcasting, but he recognized that he had to be more subtle here, that he had to make the creature believe he was defeated. That was the secret of battling illithids, as many drow had been trained. Play upon their arrogance. Yharaskrik, like all of its kind, would hardly be able to comprehend that an inferior creature like a drow had somehow resisted its psionic attacks.

  Rai-guy worked a simple spell, with subtle movements, and all the while feigning helplessness.

  It must be done! the illithid screamed in his thoughts. The tentacles moved toward Rai-guy’s face, and Yharaskrik’s hand reached for the Crystal Shard.

  Rai-guy released his spell. It was not a devastating blast, not a rumble of some great explosion, not a bolt of lightning nor a gout of fire. A simple gust of wind came from the drow’s hand, a sharp and surprising burst that snapped Yharaskrik’s tentacles back across its ugly face, that blew the creature’s robes back behind it and forced it to retreat a step.

  That blew out the lantern.

  Yharaskrik glanced down, thought to summon some psionic energy to relight the lantern, and looked up and thought to strike Rai-guy with another psionic blast of scrambling energy, fearing some second spellcasting.

  As quickly as the illithid could begin to do either of those things, a wave of crushing emotions washed over it, a Crenshinibon-imparted flood of despair and hopelessness, and, paradoxically of hope, with subtle promises that all could be put right, with greater glory gained for all.

  Yharaskrik’s psionic defenses came up almost immediately, dulling the Crystal Shard’s demanding call.

  A jolt of energy, the shocking grasp of Rai-guy, caught the illithid on the chest, lifted it from the ground, and sent it sprawling backward to the floor.

  “Fool!” Rai-guy growled. “Do you think I need Crenshinibon to destroy the likes of you?”

  Indeed, when Yharaskrik looked back at the drow wizard, thinking to attack mentally, he stared at the end of a small black wand. The illithid let go the blast anyway, and indeed it staggered Rai-guy backward, but the drow had already enacted the power of the wand. It was a wand similar to the one Jarlaxle had used to pin down Hephaestus’s tail and momentarily clamp the dragon’s mouth shut.

  It took Rai-guy a long moment to fight through this burst of scrambling energy, but when he did stand straight again, he laughed aloud at the spectacle of the illithid splayed out on the floor, held in place by a viscid green glob.

  The mental domination from Crenshinibon began on the creature anew, wearing at its resolve. Rai-guy walked to tower over Yharaskrik, to look the helpless mind flayer in the bulbous eye, letting it know in no uncertain terms that this fight was at its end.

  She had no apparent weapon, but Entreri knew better than to ask for her surrender, knew well enough what this skilled warrior was capable of. He had battled fighting monks before, though not often, and had always found them full of surprises. He could see the honed muscles of Danica’s legs twitching eagerly, the woman wanting badly to come at him.

  “Why do you hate me so?” the assassin asked with a wry grin, halting his advance a mere three strides from Danica. “Or is it, perhaps, that you simply fear me and are afraid to show it? For you should fear me, you understand.”

  Danica stared at him hard. She did indeed hate this man, and had heard much about him from Drizzt Do’Urden, and even more—and even more damning—testimony from Catti-brie. Everything about him assaulted her sensibilities. To Danica, finding Artemis Entreri in the company of dark elves seemed more an indictment of the dark elves.

  “But perhaps we would do better to settle our differences when we are far, far from this place,” Entreri offered. “Though our fight is inevitable in your eyes, is it not?”

  “Logic would so dictate to both,” Danica replied. As she finished the sentence, she came forward in a rush, slid down to the floor beneath Entreri’s extending blade, and swept him from his feet. “But neither of us is a slave to wise thinking, are we, foul assassin?”

  Entreri accepted the trip without resistance, indeed, even helped the flow of Danica’s leg along by tumbling backward, throwing himself into a roll, and lifting his feet up high to get them over her swinging leg. He didn’t quite get all the way back to his feet before reversing momentum, planting his toes, and throwing himself forward in a sudden, devastating rush.

  Danica, still prone, angled herself to put her feet in line with the charging Entreri, then rolled back suddenly and with perfect timing to get one foot against the assassin’s inner thigh as he fell over her, his sword reaching for her gut. With precision born of desperation, Danica rolled back up onto her shoulders, every muscle in her torso and legs working in perfect coordination to drive Entreri away, to keep that awful sword back.

  He went up and over, flying past Danica and dipping his head at the last moment to go into a forward roll. He came back to his feet with a spin, facing the monk, who was up and charging, and stopping cold in her tracks as she faced again the deadly sword and its dagger companion.

  Entreri felt the adrenaline coursing through his body, the rush of a true challenge. As much as he realized the foolishness of it all, he was enjoying this.

  So was the woman.

  The sound of a voice came from the side, the melodious call of a dark elf. “Do slay each other and save us the trouble,” Berg’inyon Baenre explained, entering the small area along with a pair of dark elf companions. All three of them carried twin swords that gleamed with powerful enchantments.

  Coughing and bleeding from a dozen scrapes, Cadderly pulled himself out of the rockslide and stumbled across a small corridor. He fished in a pouch to bring forth his light tube, a cylindrical object with
a continual light spell cast into it, the enchantment focused into an adjustable beam out one end. He had to find Danica. He had to see her again. That last image of her, the dragon’s fiery breath falling over her, had him dizzy with fear.

  What would his life be without Danica? What would he say to the children? Everything about the life of Cadderly Bonaduce was wrapped inextricably around that wonderful and capable woman.

  Yes, capable, he pointedly told himself again and again, as he staggered along in the dusty corridor, pausing only once to cast a minor spell of healing upon a particularly deep cut on one shoulder. He bent over and coughed again, and spat out some dirt that had gotten into his throat.

  He shook his head, muttered again that he had to find her, and stood straight, pointing his light ahead—pointing his light so that it reflected off of the black skin of a drow.

  That beam stung Kimmuriel Oblodra’s sensitive eyes, but he was not caught unawares by it.

  It all fell into place quickly for the intelligent priest. He had learned much of Jarlaxle in speaking with the drow and his assassin companion and had deduced much more with information gleaned from denizens of the lower planes. He was indeed surprised to see another dark elf—who could not be? —but he was far from overwhelmed.

  The drow and Cadderly stood ten paces apart, staring at each other, sizing each other up. Kimmuriel reached for the priest’s mind with psionic energy—enough energy to crush the willpower of a normal man.

  But Cadderly Bonaduce was no normal human. The manner in which he accessed his god, the flowing song of Deneir, was somewhat akin to the powers of psionics. It was a method of the purest mental discipline.

  Cadderly could not lash out with his mind, as Kimmuriel had just done, but he could surely defend against such an attack, and furthermore, he surely recognized the attack for what it was.

  He thought of the Crystal Shard then, of all he knew about it, of its mannerisms and its powers.

  The drow psionicist waved a hand, breaking the mental connection, and drew out a gleaming sword. He enacted another psionic power, one that would physically enhance him for the coming fight.

  Cadderly did no similar preparations. He just stood staring at Kimmuriel and grinning knowingly. He cast one simple spell of translation.

  The drow regarded him curiously, inviting an explanation.

  “You wish Crenshinibon destroyed as much as I,” the priest remarked, his magic translating the words as they came out of his mouth. “You are a psionicist, the bane of the Crystal Shard, its most hated enemy.”

  Kimmuriel paused and stared hard, with his physical and his mental eye. “What do you know, foolish human?” he asked.

  “The Crystal Shard will not suffer you to live for long,” Cadderly said, “and you know it.”

  “You believe I would help a human against Rai-guy?” Kimmuriel asked incredulously.

  Cadderly didn’t know who this Rai-guy might be, but Kimmuriel’s question made it obvious that he was a dark elf of some power and importance.

  “Save yourself, then, and leave,” Cadderly offered, and he said it with such calm and confidence that Kimmuriel narrowed his eyes and regarded him even more closely.

  Again came the psionic intrusions. This time Cadderly let the drow in somewhat, guided his probing mind’s eye to the song of Deneir, let him see the truth of the power of the harmonious flow, let him see the truth of his doom should he persist in this battle.

  The psionic connection again went away, and Kimmuriel stood up straight, staring hard at Cadderly.

  “I am not normally this generous, dark elf,” Cadderly said, “but I have greater problems before me. You hold no love for Crenshinibon and wish it destroyed perhaps more passionately than do I. If it is not, if your companion, this Rai-guy you spoke of, is allowed to possess it, it will be the end of you. So help me if you will in destroying the Crystal Shard. If you and your kin intend to return to your lightless home, I will in no way interfere.”

  Kimmuriel held his impassive pose for a short while, and smiled and shook his head. “You will find Rai-guy a formidable foe,” he promised, “especially with Crenshinibon in his possession.”

  Before Cadderly could begin to respond, Kimmuriel waved his hand and became something less than corporeal. That transparent form turned and simply walked through the stone wall.

  Cadderly waited a long moment and breathed a huge sigh of relief. How he had improvised there and bluffed. The spells he had prepared this day were for dealing with dragons, not dark elves, and the power of that one was substantial indeed. He had felt that keenly with the psionic intrusions.

  Now he had a name, Rai-guy, and now his fears about the truth of Hephaestus’s breathing had been confirmed. Cadderly, like Jarlaxle, understood enough about the mighty relic to know that if the breath had destroyed Crenshinibon, everyone in the area would have known it in no uncertain terms. Now Cadderly could guess easily enough where and how the Crystal Shard had gone. Knowing that there were other dark elves about, compounding the problem of one very angry red dragon, didn’t make him feel any better about the prospects for his three missing friends.

  He started away as fast as he dared, and fell again into the song of Deneir, praying for guidance to Danica’s side.

  “Always I seem doomed to protect those I most despise,” Entreri whispered to Danica, motioning with his hand for the woman to shift over to the side.

  The dark elves broke ranks. One moved to square off against Danica, and Berg’inyon and one other headed for the assassin. Berg’inyon waved his companion aside.

  “Kill the woman, and quickly,” he said in the drow tongue. “I wish to try this one alone.”

  Entreri glanced over at Danica and held up two fingers, pointing to the two that would go for her, and pointing to her. The woman gave a quick nod, and a great deal passed between them in that instant. She would try to keep the two dark elves busy, but both understood that Entreri would have to be done with the third quickly.

  “I have often wondered how I would fare against Drizzt Do’Urden,” Berg’inyon said to the assassin. “Now that I will apparently never get the chance, I will settle for you, Drizzt’s equal by all accounts.”

  Entreri bowed. “It is good to know that I serve some value for you, cowardly son of House Baenre,” he said.

  He knew as he came back up that Berg’inyon wouldn’t hesitate in the face of those words. Still, the sheer ferocity of the drow’s attack nearly had Entreri beaten before the fight ever really began. He leaped back, staying up on his heels, skittering away as the two swords came in hard, side by side down low, then low again, then high, then at his belly. He jumped back once, twice, thrice, then managed to bat his sword across those of Berg’inyon on the fourth double-thrust, hoping to drive the blades down low. This was no farmer he faced, and no orc or wererat, but a skilled, veteran drow warrior. Berg’inyon kept his left-handed sword pressing up against the assassin’s blade, but dropped his right into a quick circle, then came up and over hard.

  The jeweled dagger hooked it and turned it aside at the last second. Entreri rolled his other hand over, the tip of his own sword going toward Berg’inyon. He didn’t follow through with the thrust, though, but continued the roll, bringing his blade down and around under the drow’s, and stabbing straight ahead.

  Berg’inyon quickly turned his left-hand blade across his body and down, disengaged his right from the dagger and brought it across over the left, further driving Entreri’s sword down. In the same fluid motion, the skilled drow rolled his right-hand blade up and over his crossing left, the blade going forward at the assassin’s head, a brilliant move that Berg’inyon knew would be the end of Artemis Entreri.

  Across the way, Danica fared no better. Her fight was a mixture of pure chaos and lightning fast, almost violent movement. The woman crouched and dropped, sprang up hard, and rushed side to side, avoiding slash after slash of drow blades. These two were nowhere near as good as the one across the way battling her compan
ion, but they were dark elves after all, and even the weakest of drow warriors was skilled by surface standards. Furthermore, they knew each other well and complemented each other’s movements with deadly precision, preventing Danica from getting any real counterattacks. Every time one came ahead in a rush that seemed to offer the woman some hope of rolling past his double-thrusting blades, or even skittering in under them and kicking at a knee, the companion drow beat her to the potential attack zone, two gleaming swords holding her at bay.

  With those long blades and precise movements, they were working her to exhaustion. She had to react, to overreact even, to every thrust and slash. She had to leap away from a blade sent across by a mere flick of a drow wrist.

  She looked over at Entreri and the other drow, their blades ringing in a wild song and with the dark elf seeming, if anything, to be gaining an advantage. She knew she had to try something dangerous, even desperate.

  Danica came ahead in a rush, and cut left suddenly, bursting out to the side though she had only three strides to the wall. Seeing her apparently caught, the closest dark elf cut fast in pursuit, stabbing at … nothing.

  Danica ran right up the wall, turning over as she went and kicking out into a backward somersault that brought her down and to the side of the pursuing dark elf. She fell low as she landed and spun around viciously, one leg extended to kick out the dark elf’s legs.

  She would have had him, but there was his companion, swords extended, blade driving deeply into Danica’s thigh. She howled and scrambled back, kicking futilely at the pursuing dark elves.

  A globe of darkness fell over her. She slammed her back against the stone and had nowhere left to go.

  He ran along, with the less-than-corporeal Kimmuriel Oblodra following close behind.

  “You seek an exit?” the drow psionicist asked with a voice that seemed impossibly thin.