She retreated as fast as she dared, not wanting to put her feet down with any weight on a floor lined with deadly traps.
And they were deadly, she knew now, for her punctured foot began to grow numb, and it took considerable concentration with each step for Dahlia to stop it from rolling under and buckling.
Beniago pursued, smiling as if his kill was surely at hand.
Dahlia forced herself through it all and shook her head against the unnerving and unholy power of that wicked dagger. She broke her long staff into two, then snapped those two four-foot lengths into flails and sent them immediately spinning, up and over and out at her pursuer.
With her wounded foot, time was against her, she feared, so she went on the attack, striding forward, lashing out with the flails one after the other. Her assassin opponent ducked and dodged left and right, and tried to keep her at bay with his long sword, all the while holding that awful dagger cocked at his side, ready to strike like a poisonous serpent. Dahlia quickly realized that Beniago was making the same mistake of so many before: He was trying to parry her spinning sticks in such a way as to cut the ties between the poles.
She launched her right-hand flail in an arcing, downward-diagonal attack, and Beniago backhand parried with his sword, forcing the blade in against the handle-pole of Dahlia’s weapon. As she followed through, Beniago slid his sword quickly up and out, hoping that the countering weight of her swing would create enough resistance for him to slice the binding tie cleanly.
But this was Kozah’s Needle, imbued with great and powerful magic, and no blade in existence had the edge to accomplish such a feat. To his great credit, Beniago was quick enough not to fall into the obvious trap, at least, retracting his blade before Dahlia could catch the swinging pole of her weapon and twist his sword from his grasp.
Instead the elf shifted her left foot forward and turned her hips, her second weapon coming in hard, driving Beniago back in full retreat.
Dahlia shadowed his every step, imagining his boot prints and filling them with her own feet.
“Well done!” Beniago congratulated after a few such rounds had him all the way back near the shadows where he’d first appeared. He’d barely finished speaking, though, when he darted out to the side, springing away and even turning his back on the pursuing Dahlia as he executed a series of darts left and right, combined with seemingly wild leaps. He jumped up onto the broken diamond case and sprang far away, and with that visual barrier between himself and Dahlia, he moved even faster, spinning sidelong in one leap so that he could disguise his landing.
Dahlia came over the case as quickly as she could manage, but there was too much room between her and Beniago now, and she couldn’t gauge his exact steps.
“Have you discerned the pattern of the floor traps?” Beniago teased. “But wait, how could you, since there’s no pattern?”
As he continued to laugh at her, the woman glanced, ever so slightly, over her shoulder, back at the broken case and the hanging rope. Her punctured foot throbbed, and the burning sensation began creeping up her leg.
Beniago grinned, apparently catching on to her distressed look, and he moved into position to intercept should she try to escape up the rope.
“You disappoint me,” he said. “You would leave our well-fought battle?”
“Well fought?” Dahlia echoed. “On this field of your choosing? In this place of devilish traps, which you know and I do not?”
“You will learn it soon enough,” Beniago taunted her, and Dahlia came on then fiercely.
Beniago had moved, seemingly inadvertently, to a place where she could get at him over floorboards she’d already tread.
Her flails worked in wide circles, diagonally, her momentum growing, and Beniago didn’t retreat. He fell lower into a crouch, blades ready to defend. Dahlia flipped a forward somersault, just to hide her attack angles, and landed in a full sprint at the man.
Or tried to.
The floorboards were no longer solid, no longer safe, and as Dahlia touched down, a board beneath her boot gave way. She managed to hold her footing and felt no sting of a spike this time, and hoped she’d passed it by quickly enough.
But something lashed out at her, whipping at her trailing ankle and wrapping around it. Unable to stop, she wrenched her hip and knee, and went down hard.
And Beniago was moving as well, leaping back up to the case, towering over her and coming down hard from on high.
Dahlia rolled to her back and kicked up with her free foot, and untangled her flails to ward away the assassin’s blades, particularly that awful dagger. She had no choice now and unloaded Kozah’s Needle’s pent up lightning energy with each connection, buying herself time by forcing Beniago back and away, stinging him with sharp crackles of power.
She tried to get her free foot under her, but the leathery lash snaring her trailing foot more than held her, it was dragging her! She heard a grinding sound from the displaced floorboard behind her.
“It’s not too late, Lady,” Beniago said, his teeth chattering with Kozah’s Needle’s residual energy. “Ship Kurth desires your services.”
Dahlia threw herself into a sitting position and grabbed at the lash, to find that the obviously magical cord had wrapped over upon itself, knotting around her ankle. She thought to go for her small knife, but her instinct told her that her meager utility blade would be of no use against the tendril. She flipped the end of one flail up high and snapped her wrist hard, flipping it and driving it straight down. She released lightning energy as it connected on the floorboard and blew a clean hole with the force and the magic, sinking the pole deeply into the wood. She threw herself against that pole, gripping and pulling for all her life.
But the gears of the trap kept turning, kept dragging her. She wriggled her foot, trying to extricate it from the boot. Her arms stretched out inexorably from her body, and she hadn’t the strength to resist the pull.
Her arms stretched above her head as she stubbornly held on to her anchoring flail pole. She wriggled and jerked her foot every which way. Her frustration mounted-she almost had her foot free when Beniago’s dagger flashed in front of her eyes.
“Last chance, Dahlia,” he said, the blade poised to strike and with Dahlia having no way to prevent it.
So Lady Dahlia did the only thing she could: She spat in his face.
With a growl of protest, Beniago slashed that awful knife toward the woman’s extended arms, and Dahlia instinctively recoiled, letting go.
“The pit take you then!” the assassin said, and there seemed as much regret in his tone as anger.
As if on cue, the grinding stopped.
Dahlia didn’t waste a heartbeat in rolling around and up to her knees, facing the assassin, her remaining flail whipping wildly as if she expected him to come charging in.
He didn’t, though, apparently too perplexed by the failure of the trap.
The riddle was soon answered as a dark form moved out from the side of the room, from the same area where Beniago had first appeared. The newcomer didn’t waste a word of introduction, just came out hard and fast, curving blades leading the way in a mesmerizing, dizzying dance.
Beniago turned and fled. He reached into a pouch and pulled forth some small ceramic globes and began throwing them down with each step. They hit and exploded with brilliant, blinding flashes, one after another, allowing Beniago to get to the door and out into the street.
Drizzt lost ground with each blinding flash-bomb. As Beniago shouldered his way out, the drow swung around and rushed to Dahlia. He leaped past her and drove Twinkle down hard on the magical lash, severing it cleanly.
He reached for Dahlia, but she didn’t take his offered hand. She leaped to her feet and kicked away the remaining length of enchanted tendril then strode indignantly to her planted flail and pulled it free of the floorboard. Her proud demeanor took a bit of a misstep, though, as she moved toward the broken display, for she stumbled on her now fully numb foot and burning leg, and nearly pitch
ed headlong into the case.
Drizzt was right beside her, propping her.
She cast him a hateful look and pulled away, and indeed, Drizzt fell back a step, caught by surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Dahlia said, shaking her head against the wounded expression on her lover’s face. She reached out for him and tugged him to her. “I feel so much the fool,” she whispered into his ear as she hugged him tightly.
“Let us be gone,” Drizzt replied. “Don’t underestimate these people.” He reached for the rope hanging over the broken case.
“Without securing enough treasure for our life outside the city?” Dahlia quipped, and Drizzt turned back on her, his expression hard.
“Why, are you afraid of these foolish high captains and their scalawag armies?” she asked with feigned surprise.
Drizzt spent a long while digesting that, his expression moving to an inquisitive one, prying into Dahlia to discern her intent. The elf also noted a flicker of pain on the drow’s strong features, a revelation and a reminder to her-he was saying, clearly but without words, that he’d fought these men before, their ancestors at least, and to great loss and pain.
Dahlia didn’t want to push it any further. Drizzt’s pain resonated with her and she found, to her surprise, that she didn’t want to inflict any more on him.
“I had a plan to escape the lash,” she said, taking the rope from Drizzt and lifting herself up to the top of the case, and trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her unease as she planted her wounded foot on the metal rim. “I would have escaped, and Beniago would have dropped into the pit.”
Drizzt nodded, but obviously only to grant Dahlia her pride.
“I straightened my leg and felt the grip of the lash lessen,” the elf explained. She hooked her flails into her belt and began to climb. “When Beniago came back at me, I would’ve moved to the pit, freeing my foot.” She left it at that, for even in her ears, her words sounded inane.
Up on the roof, the couple scouted the city, looking for their best route out. All around them came sounds not typical in the sleeping city: doors creaking open, footfalls on a slate roof, a sharp whistle badly disguised as the call of a night bird.
Ship Kurth had awakened.
They climbed down and sprinted from shadow to shadow across the marketplace. At first, hints of pursuit came in the same curious sounds, the footsteps and the creaking doorways, but very soon, they could hear their pursuers clearly behind them, chasing them stride for stride.
Drizzt reached into his pouch and produced the onyx figurine, calling Guenhwyvar to his side. The panther, though tired from her exploits of the previous day, didn’t growl, but took his orders and leaped off into the shadows.
A chorus of shrieks informed Drizzt and Dahlia that Guenhwyvar had greeted the minions of Ship Kurth.
By the time they made the city wall, many enemies had revealed themselves, left, right, and behind. Up on the city parapet a handful of pirates raced to guard the ladders they could use to climb the wall. Drizzt started to pull out Taulmaril, his intent clearly to shoot those enemies blocking the ladders, but Dahlia held him back.
“Do you think I trained you at the apartment balcony for no good reason?” she asked, and when Drizzt looked at her quizzically, she executed her pole vault, easily bringing herself to the eight-foot parapet, though she nearly tumbled right back down when she tried to plant her numb leg.
She dropped the staff down to Drizzt and he wasted no time in joining her. When he got up beside her, he pulled out Taulmaril and skipped an arrow along the wall to the left and to the right, driving back the closest pursuers.
Someone from the shadows below responded with an arrow that nearly hit Dahlia. Drizzt replied with a shot of his own, the lightning arrow of the Heartseeker lighting up the man’s horrified expression just an instant before it blew him to the ground.
Drizzt and Dahlia ran off into the night, just a short way to the trees, where Drizzt called forth Andahar. He pulled Dahlia up behind him, and off the unicorn thundered, hooves pounding and bells singing a teasing melody to pursuers who couldn’t hope to catch them.
They kept up a swift pace down the south road, and when Drizzt finally slowed Andahar to a brisk trot, he struck up a conversation about the road ahead, about Neverwinter Wood and their waiting adversary, Sylora Salm. It didn’t take him long to recognize that it was a one-way dialogue.
He pulled Andahar up to a walk and felt Dahlia lean more heavily against him.
He turned to look over his shoulder, to stare into Dahlia’s open, empty eyes. She slid down, rubbing her face against his shoulder, leaving a trail of vomit. Too shocked to react, Drizzt didn’t catch her before she tumbled hard from Andahar’s back. She landed heavily upon the hard ground.
Drizzt leaped down beside her, called to her frantically, cradled her head, and stared into her eyes only to realize that she was not looking back.
Small bubbles of white foam rolled out her open lips.
7
Barrabus, his female prisoner slung across his shoulders, moved around the courtyard within the walls of Neverwinter. The battle was fast ending, the defenders victorious. Out in the field behind him, however, the fight raged in full force. Though with Valindra gone and the Ashmadai caught by surprise, it had become more of a massacre than an actual battle.
The city gates swung open and those warriors freed of defensive duties moved for the portal, hungering for more blood.
“Who are these shadow warriors, Barrabus?” one voice rose above the others of the Neverwinter garrison as they poured through the gates onto the field.
Barrabus met the gaze of Jelvus Grinch. “Keep your forces within the city,” he warned. “Secure your walls and seal your gate.”
“Who are they?”
Barrabus cast him a disapproving glance and walked past into Neverwinter. He felt Jelvus Grinch’s hard stare following him every step.
“Heed my words,” Barrabus warned one last time, and he nodded only slightly when he at last heard Jelvus Grinch recalling his forces and ordering the gate closed and barred.
Barrabus moved to a pair of guards inside and near the closest structure, a barracks. He rolled the unconscious Ashmadai off his shoulder, easing her into the grasp of two soldiers nearby. “Chain her in a secure cell,” he said.
One soldier nodded, his smile revealing much-too much.
Barrabus’s sword flashed out, its tip landing against the soldier’s chin. “If you harm her in any way, I will find you,” he promised. “You will chain her and lock her cell so she cannot escape. And then you will stand guard outside that door.”
“I’m no filthy gaoler!” the man replied.
“Would you prefer to be a gaoler or a corpse, because either path is within your grasp?” asked Barrabus, quietly, evenly.
The soldier looked to his companion, who took a step away. They had just witnessed Barrabus the Gray at play on the field of battle, after all, and the whispers of his prowess had echoed across the battlefield. No one in Neverwinter was eager to witness his prowess from the perspective of an enemy.
The first soldier turned back to glare at Barrabus for just a moment, then slung the woman over his shoulder and started away, his friend in tow.
“When I seek her out, presently, if she reports any wrongdoing on your part, we will speak again,” Barrabus said.
Barrabus heard a chuckle behind him. He turned to face Jelvus Grinch.
“You presume much in this city, which is not yours,” Jelvus Grinch said, his burly arms crossed over his chest, and half the Neverwinter garrison standing behind him.
“She’s my prisoner, fairly taken in defense of Neverwinter,” Barrabus answered without a flinch. “It would disappoint me greatly to learn that Neverwinter would not allow me the use of a single prison cell-”
“And a pair of guards.”
“You should thank me for getting those fools out of your sight.”
Jelvus Grinch couldn’t hold his defiant pose or h
is stern expression. A great smile widened on his bearded face and he reached out and slapped Barrabus on the shoulder. “Well fought, Barrabus the Gray!” he cheered, and the garrison behind him erupted into a great “huzzah!” for the hero of the battle of Neverwinter.
The whole thing, of course, did nothing more than annoy and perhaps embarrass Barrabus. He was only there, after all, on behalf of Herzgo Alegni, who in turn was only there because of his master’s nefarious designs on Neverwinter, and he cared not a whit about the city or any of its inhabitants.
“I’ll interrogate my prisoner after she has sat in the darkness, and in fear, for some time,” Barrabus explained to Jelvus Grinch, and started away.
Jelvus Grinch held out an arm to stop him. “Master Barrabus,” he said politely, withdrawing the arm as the gray man fixed him with an icy stare.
“We’re fighting for our lives out here, for the very existence of Neverwinter,” Jelvus Grinch went on. “Against the forces of chaos and… insanity, it seems! Against these wretched and shriveled undead, who rise unbidden against us.”
“Not unbidden,” Barrabus assured him.
“You know!” Jelvus Grinch cleared his throat, composing himself. “You know,” he said more quietly. “You know what’s been happening here. You understand our plight… more than we do, perhaps?”
“Surely,” Barrabus corrected.
Jelvus Grinch started to laugh. Then, in front of scores of warriors and battle mages who looked to him for leadership, the first citizen of Neverwinter bowed low before Barrabus the Gray. “And that’s why we need you,” he said, coming out of the bow.
Barrabus stared at him noncommittally.
“You helped us defend the city this night. You have come to us in a dark hour and helped us carry on. Without your warning, without your blades-”
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