“Shadovar-” Drizzt started to say.
“I know. I smell them,” Dahlia said.
“A handful,” Drizzt explained, nodding his chin toward the distant camp. “Just over those hills. We can swing off to the west, down near to the coast and…”
He stopped talking when Dahlia simply walked away from him into the forest, straight as a killing arrow in the direction of the Shadovar encampment.
Drizzt watched her curiously. “We need not fight them,” he called after her, but she didn’t slow.
“Aren’t the Netherese the enemies of the Thayans?” he asked when he caught up to her.
“Mortal enemies,” Dahlia replied, but she didn’t stop her march.
“So Sylora Salm would wish us to do battle with this group?” Drizzt asked, hoping to shake Dahlia free of the almost trancelike state that had come over her. Even in the dim light, he could see the rage simmering in her sparkling eyes. She had her weapons off her belt by then, and clutched them so tightly that her skin, appearing pale even in the starlight, seemed brighter around the knuckles, as if white hot with anger.
“If we battle with the shades, do we not do Sylora’s bidding?” he asked again.
Dahlia stopped and turned to face him directly. “The Netherese and the Thayans vie for control of Neverwinter Wood,” she admitted. “Yes-are you pleased with yourself?-Sylora Salm would want this group slain, would want all these foul grayskins slain.”
“Then let’s go the other way,” Drizzt took a step back toward their own camp, already a considerable distance behind them.
But Dahlia’s chuckle denied him. “Not everything in my life is about the desires of Sylora Salm,” she said, continuing on her way.
Again Drizzt caught up to her, to find her expression no less resolute than before.
There would be no reasoning with her, Drizzt realized. Over the hills and through the valleys, Dahlia’s path remained straight in the direction Drizzt had pointed, toward the Shadovar encampment.
Drizzt had little first-hand knowledge of the Empire of Netheril and little experience with the minions of Shadowfell. He tried to sort this out, for he knew he wouldn’t let Dahlia go into this fight alone. He was more than glad to accompany her in her mission to kill Sylora Salm, both because of the devastation Sylora had wrought on the city of Neverwinter and for the loss of Bruenor. Given that decision, did it matter if Drizzt and Dahlia’s actions now would be to Sylora’s temporary benefit?
Drizzt had no love, no friendship, and not even the benefit of the doubt for the Shadovar and their foul designs.
“There are at least four,” he whispered to Dahlia.
They were getting fairly close to the camp. Dahlia stopped and looked down at his scimitars. She smiled when Drizzt drew them, then she nodded and started to run.
Over the hill, they spotted the campfire, and Dahlia didn’t slow.
Drizzt remained a few strides behind, easily pacing her with his anklets and superior lowlight vision, and because of both, he was even able to match her strides while keeping himself fairly well concealed. He put away his scimitars and took up Taulmaril instead.
He spotted one Shadovar in the low branches of a tree, but apparently Dahlia didn’t. She continued right under the perch.
The Shadovar leaped down at her and flew aside with a shocked and pained shriek as Drizzt drilled him with a lightning arrow.
Dahlia skidded to a stop and spun around just long enough to snap a double-strike, left and right, into the face of her wounded attacker, cracking his skull.
On she ran, the camp in sight and now full of activity.
“Down left!” Drizzt called to her.
Into the firelight went Dahlia, to learn that Drizzt’s estimate of their enemies had been low, for even with the fallen Shadovar outside the camp, five Shadovar stood in front of her.
She did as Drizzt had instructed, a sidelong roll to her left, and a pair of arrows soared past her, cleanly removing the middle opponent from their rough semicircle.
Dahlia came up engaged with the pair on the left, and as the two from the right moved to surround her, another arrow flashed through, driving them back, and a dark form came leaping in, scimitars glowing and spinning.
Dahlia furiously pressed her momentum at the pair in front of her, her flails whirling out wide and slamming in powerfully at her opponents. She had them on their heels and meant to keep them there, relentlessly assaulting, left and right, overhand and underhand.
The Shadovar to her left flank managed to stab at her, but her left-hand flail intercepted with a backhanded block, the top pole flipping right over to wrap the sword. Her right hand came across to similarly slap and wrap the sword, and before the Shadovar could retract, Dahlia yelled and threw both her hands out wide, each flail pulling free in the same rotation, spinning the blade and thus tearing it from the swordsman’s grasp.
Dahlia rotated her left wrist, sending the flail in a spin, and clipped the Shadovar in the face as it came around.
Dahlia retreated from the other Shadovar at the same time, half-turning and dropping her right foot back behind her left, and with her new alignment, she brought her right hand across in front of her, bending her wrist once, twice, thrice, and snapping that second flail like a whip, the flying pole biting forth to jab the Shadovar hard in the face.
At the same time, Dahlia shifted her left hand under the right, working her weapon in a circular defense, right to left then back to the right, keeping the other Shadovar at bay.
She whip-snapped three times again, but only the first two connected as the dazed Shadovar tumbled away.
Dahlia came up straight against her lone opponent, and just to keep him off balance, reverted her two weapons into one long staff again. She noted then the recognition on her enemy’s face. This Shadovar knew her, knew Dahlia as Sylora’s champion.
And so he knew, too, that he was doomed.
Drizzt swept the two swords aside, his own blades ringing a tune on the one to his left with a backhand block then a forehand, and back and forth.
“Dahlia!” he called as he drove farther out that way, past the woman’s back.
The fighter to Drizzt’s right pursued him, and was caught completely by surprise as Dahlia threw her staff out behind her, catching it high along the shaft and stabbing back hard, jabbing the Shadovar squarely in the throat.
Drizzt finished his drumbeat on the sword of his other foe by stepping forward suddenly as he struck one last time, his blade slashing the Shadovar’s forearm. His sword went flying wide and the Shadovar fell back, grasping its arm.
But Drizzt didn’t follow, leaping back to his right, a sweeping backhand slashing out in front of him to bite at the other dazed warrior. His forehand followed, right below the level of the first strike, and the drow ranger threw himself around in a complete circuit. Once again, the backhand led the way, now just below the last strike, then a forehand, lower again. And around Drizzt continued to a third double strike.
Drizzt leaped back to the left. The other Shadovar had recovered his sword. To the drow’s right, his last opponent stood very still, arms stretched out wide. This Shadovar, too, dropped his weapon, though he was obviously not aware of the motion.
Six lines of blood appeared from his neck to his belly.
He sank to the ground.
The remaining Shadovar in front of him turned and fled.
Drizzt glanced back at Dahlia and winced at the sight. She had that last Shadovar down by then, and drove her staff like a spear against the fallen warrior’s head, again and again.
“Dahlia!” Drizzt called. He’d never seen her acting so viciously. “Dahlia!”
She finally glanced at him, but quickly looked past him to see the fleeing Shadovar moving into the forest.
“No,” the elf said with a growl.
She charged past Drizzt, shouldering him aside and nearly to the ground in her haste.
“Let him go,” Drizzt implored her, but too late.
Then Drizzt spotted the fleeing Shadovar, some distance away and running through the trees, stumbling often.
The Shadovar came up straight then leaned forward in a sprint, but too late.
Dahlia dropped upon him.
Drizzt shook himself from his spectator’s trance, glanced around quickly to confirm that the four Shadovar in the camp were all dead, and sprinted off, calling for Dahlia to spare that one that they might garner some information.
He stopped calling out as he neared the scene and saw Dahlia bending over, her flails pumping furiously. By the time he came up beside her, he had to look away. She’d beaten her enemy’s head to a misshapen mess of blood and gore.
“Dahlia,” he said, loudly but not sharply.
A flail hummed in the air, spinning and striking down, pulverizing bone.
“Dahlia!” he yelled.
She couldn’t hear him. Drizzt looked for an opening so he could get near to her without getting clipped, and quickly enough so he wouldn’t give her the opportunity to turn on him with those battering weapons. Dahlia seemed beyond rational to him at that moment, her face a mask of rage, and indeed, she grunted and growled with every vicious beat.
Drizzt truly believed that she might lash out at him.
He slid his blades away, measuring her movements, recognizing her rhythm. Down went her left arm, to the other side from him, and up went her right.
Drizzt dived across her back, slipping his right arm underneath Dahlia’s raised arm and clamping his hand behind her neck. As he landed on her back, driving her to the side, she instinctively tried to slap back at him with her free left, and that gave Drizzt the chance to loop his left hand under her left elbow.
He had her trapped, one arm up high, the other pulled back like a chicken wing, and as she continued to stagger to her left under the weight of his assault, it was an easy enough task for Drizzt to slip his left foot to the side of Dahlia’s left foot and trip her up. He made the fall as easy as he possibly could, but he had to keep his weight upon her as she thrashed and screamed in protest.
“Dahlia,” he kept saying against her insistent chorus of “Let me go!”
“He’s dead,” Drizzt assured her. “They’re all dead.”
“I want to kill him more!”
Drizzt blinked in shock and tightened his hold, fully immobilizing the woman. He brought his lips to her ear and whispered, “Dahlia.”
“Let me go!”
“They’re dead. You killed them. Dahlia!”
He kept whispering, and finally, after a long while, Dahlia relaxed beneath him.
Drizzt eased his grip, inch by inch, then slid off her and jumped to his feet, reaching a hand down in an offer of aid.
Still on her belly, Dahlia looked up at him but refused the hand. She rolled to the side, twisted, and put her feet under her. Then she stalked past Drizzt, back the way they’d come. She did slow enough to spit on the mound of gore that had once been a Shadovar head.
Drizzt winced again and stared, dumbfounded.
Such were Dahlia’s demons.
But how, and why, and to what end, he had no idea.
14
The less you say, the more I ’ll tolerate you,”Barrabus the Gray said to his hunting companion.
The misshapen warlock replied with a crooked, condescending grin, an expression that was becoming more and more typical of the young tiefling, and one that greatly annoyed Barrabus. The assassin had never been fond of spellcasters-priest or wizard. He didn’t understand them, and certainly didn’t like fighting them. He’d fought hundreds of duels against warriors, and usually escaped untouched. But whenever he battled a wizard, he knew he was going to get stung. Even the puniest of spellcasters had clever dweomers that would sift through his defenses to bite at him.
Even more than that, Barrabus had never met a wizard who wasn’t arrogant, as he’d never met a priest who didn’t justify the most heinous of actions by hiding behind his god.
He had no use for either.
Yet here he was, out in Neverwinter Wood beside this Effron creature, whose dead arm hung behind his back and waggled like a boneless tail, and whose strange eyes seemed a testament to a mixed breeding gone absurd. To make his sheer physical ugliness even more profound, Effron was a tiefling, and Barrabus had come to know he’d rather couple with an orc than partner with one of the devil spawn. Truly, this one seemed possessed of everything Barrabus the Gray didn’t like, and that only reminded him all the more that he was no longer possessed of free will, that the awful sword, which he’d carried-and foolishly believed he’d dominated-for decades, would truly torment him for eternity.
“Are you afraid I’ll alert the zealots to our presence?” Effron said with a snicker. “Ah yes, as Lord Alegni explained to me, you’re only truly deadly when you catch your victim by surprise.”
Barrabus stopped and turned around to face Effron, his expression grim-but that did little to douse the tiefling’s taunting grin.
“I take it you expect me to attack you, then,” the assassin said dryly.
“I’m never off guard,” the warlock replied.
Barrabus laughed, but coldly. How many times had he heard such a proclamation? How many times had such a claim been the last words ever spoken by a victim?
Oh, but how Barrabus wished that to be the case now! He would love to cut this one’s throat out.
“And you cannot attack me anyway,” Effron went on. “Lord Alegni wouldn’t allow it, would he?”
At what point would Effron’s taunting lead him to the breaking point, where recklessness overruled reason, the assassin wondered? He understood the torment he would receive if he killed Effron. The awful sword had made it perfectly clear to him. He hadn’t forgotten his turtlelike posture on the bridge-the Herzgo Alegni Bridge-and the unbelievable agony accompanying, indeed facilitating, that humiliation.
But this one…
It had occurred to Barrabus more than once that morning, their first day out in the forest together, that Alegni had placed Effron at his side just to provoke him. Perhaps Alegni, who seemed equally disgusted by Effron, knew the warlock would be too much for Barrabus’s limited patience, the sword’s threats be damned. Perhaps Alegni wanted Barrabus to slay Effron and thus rid him of the troublesome warlock. Then, as an added benefit, he would torture Barrabus-perhaps to death-as punishment.
The tiefling warlock seemed to revel in annoying Barrabus or Alegni, or any of the others at the Netherese encampment, for that matter. He was always flashing that crooked grin.
To what end?
Barrabus saw pain in the young tiefling’s face, but he didn’t care enough to look deeper.
He did widen his scrutiny of Effron, though, examining the shattered, badly dislocated shoulder and that ridiculous limb hanging limply behind the tiefling. Someone might have done Effron a great favor and killed him in the course of whatever trauma had caused those injuries.
He caught something else then, just a whisper of sound in the distance-the snap of a fallen twig, perhaps. Effron, oblivious, started to speak, but Barrabus waved him to silence with such intensity that even the obstinate tiefling quickly shut up.
Barrabus turned and moved behind the nearest tree, drawing his weapons as he went. When he looked back, he could only sigh, for Effron had not moved, and just stood there, looking at him curiously, and with a bit of amusement, it seemed.
So be it, Barrabus decided, and he turned his attention to the forest beyond. He was glad he was allied with the Shadovar at that moment, because the zealots he easily spotted might have been invisible in the shadows if they’d been minions of Herzgo Alegni.
He turned back again to the warlock, waving to get his attention, then warning him with sharp hand signals that four enemies approached.
Barrabus narrowed his eyes and wished he had enough time to run back there and throttle the idiot. But again, so be it, he decided, and he felt even better about that choice when he considered that perhaps these zealots would kill Effron and save him the trouble. That pleasant thought didn’t hold, however, for when Barrabus turned back to the approaching Ashmadai patrol, he realized they’d already noted Effron, and what had seemed like a simple ambush for Barrabus suddenly transformed into something much more complicated.
One large Ashmadai began waving one of those scepters-only this weapon appeared more black and streaked with red than usual-to direct the other three. One of those three slung a bow over his shoulder and scrambled to a climbable tree, while the other two began their approach, moving defensively from tree to tree and brush to brush. One forged ahead, ducking for cover, then motioned for his companion, who sprinted past him to the next point of cover.
They were well trained and well practiced, Barrabus saw that simply from their coordination. He glanced back at Effron again, who maintained his oblivious posture, and shook his head.
Barrabus weighed the movements of the approaching zealots, weighed his options, and found his opportunity. He always preferred to cut the head off the serpent, so as the three continued toward him, two on the ground and one in the trees, Barrabus slid out to the side and began his own advance-but around the foot soldiers.
The one in the back acted like the leader, and so that one became the primary target. Determinedly, stubbornly, even spitefully, Barrabus wouldn’t let concern for Effron deter him, particularly since the idiot warlock seemed unconcerned for his own safety.
Barrabus continued to watch the first three for some time, moving past them carefully but soon recognizing that they had spied Effron as their prey. But he knew he needn’t be too concerned. Long experience had shown him that once locked in on a potential foe, these zealots practiced pure recklessness, and if Barrabus had been walking upright and singing a song of a Calimport brothel, those leading three wouldn’t likely have paid him any heed.
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