The assassin set off, but he wasn’t walking this time. He had suffered the pain and trekked back to the city on foot because he expected that it would loosen up his injured hip and also in the hopes that he might find Effron along the way.
Yes, finding Effron before the fool had returned to Alegni’s side had been his deepest desire, Claw’s magic and certain punishment notwithstanding.
He dropped his obsidian figurine to the ground and called forth his hellish steed. The black nightmare materialized in front of him, angry as always, pawing the ground with its fiery hooves. Still favoring his left arm, Barrabus climbed into the saddle and thundered away, following the cobblestones around the city to the northern road. The sun was just peeking over the horizon to his left when he found the small trail and turned back to the west, his long shadow standing out in front of him.
Among the trees on the smaller path, he dismissed the nightmare and began to track-an easy enough task given the heavy-footed Alegni.
“Sylora Salm’s champion returns,” he heard Alegni say a short while later.
“She has two champions, then,” came the reply from a raspy, whispering voice Barrabus surely knew. “The one who killed the fool Barrabus was quite formidable.”
Barrabus crept up in sight of the pair.
“Barrabus is not dead,” Alegni insisted. “I would know of such an occurrence-indeed, I would summon him back to life.”
“The sword has the power to do even that?” Effron asked with a wide smile.
“He will not so easily escape his eternal indenture,” was all that Herzgo Alegni would admit, but Barrabus knew the truth of it anyway.
“The strange Ashmadai-perhaps it was indeed a true mummy-had him beaten, I’m certain,” said Effron.
“And you left him?”
The warlock shrugged crookedly. “I had used the majority of my repertoire, since it was left alone to me to defeat the entire Ashmadai force, save that one.”
The assassin stepped out of the brush then, pacing steadily across at Effron and drawing his sword. “Good, then,” he said. “Just what I was hoping to hear.”
“Barrabus,” Alegni remarked, but the assassin paid him no heed.
“Far enough!” the tiefling warrior ordered, but the assassin again paid him no heed.
He did hear Alegni then, however, and in no small way, as that awful sword reached forth into him and twisted his guts into agonizing knots. Stubbornly Barrabus continued, one step, then after what seemed like many heartbeats, another.
“Barrabus…” Herzgo Alegni warned.
“You hate him as much as I do,” the assassin managed to spit through his gritted teeth.
“That’s not the point.”
“Let… me… do… this,” Barrabus struggled to demand.
“Yes, do,” said Effron. “I have enough of my repertoire left to dispatch this lowly idiot.”
Herzgo Alegni shot the warlock a hateful glare then turned his attention fully back to Barrabus. He drew out Claw and stated, “Enough!” and such a wave of disjointing pain swept through Barrabus that he staggered to the side and fell over.
“Such a wonderful blade!” Effron said with exaggerated glee, and he clapped his one good hand against his chest. “Do let me borrow it, that I might play with Barrabus as well!”
Alegni silenced the warlock with a look, Barrabus noted, and he stubbornly pulled himself back to his feet.
“Enough of all of this,” Alegni warned them both, and he slid his sword away.
Barrabus closed his eyes and breathed easier, released from the grip of Claw. He knew the sword still watched him, though, in his thoughts, knowing his movements before he executed them. He wouldn’t get near that troublesome Effron.
So be it, Barrabus decided. He would find himself alone with the insufferable warlock soon enough. He’d make sure of that. He opened his eyes again and turned his attention back to the situation at hand, with Alegni poking around the bodies of four Shadovar.
“Sylora’s champion returns,” Alegni said to him when he arrived at the tiefling warrior’s side.
Barrabus considered the bodies, their positioning, and quickly concluded that more than one opponent had battled this group. He focused on one dead Shadovar particularly, noting six long cuts across the bloody torso, and he could visualize the brilliant maneuvers that had so fully torn the dead warrior.
He was quite sure he knew the attacker, and in this particular case, it couldn’t have been Dahlia and her blunt weapon, of course.
“She’s not alone,” he said to Alegni, and when the tiefling looked to him, he led Alegni’s gaze to the torn corpse, even prodded the body with his foot to accentuate the scimitar cuts. “No staff, not even Kozah’s Needle, did this.”
“Dahlia is a formidable one,” Alegni said, but Barrabus shook his head.
“I know this warrior, Drizzt Do’Urden by name, a drow ranger of great renown. He has sided with Sylora’s champion, it would seem, and that should be of no small concern to you.”
“I’ve heard the name,” said Alegni. “It’s spoken often in Neverwinter. This ranger is one of the great heroes of the North, so they say.”
Barrabus shrugged, conceding the point.
“And he would side with Sylora Salm?” the tiefling asked doubtfully. “He of goodly name and reputation would side with the unmitigated evil of Szass Tam?”
“He’s often misguided,” Barrabus dryly replied. “It’s his way.”
“And you think him as formidable as Dahlia?”
“More so, and I’ve battled both. And Drizzt is often accompanied by powerful friends-dwarf warriors and other drow, even more deadly than he.”
Alegni nodded grimly.
“Sylora surrounds herself with powerful allies, then,” Effron chimed in. “These two, and perhaps some friends, and the Ashmadai beast we battled in the forest, and this Valindra creature.”
Both Alegni and Barrabus looked at the warlock curiously, their expressions making no secret of the fact that they thought Effron to be rambling about things he didn’t understand.
“But I would say, Lord Alegni, that this returning elf warrior and her staff are the most dangerous to your cause,” Effron finished.
“You would say?” Alegni replied doubtfully.
The warlock didn’t back down from the claim.
“She’s a champion of no small accomplishment,” Effron insisted.
“I know of her,” Alegni replied.
“Dahlia Sin’felle.”
“Yes.”
“Except that’s not her name, Sin’felle,” said Effron, and even Barrabus’s interest was piqued by the confidence in the warlock’s tone. “Sin’felle is the name she gave herself, a mockery, a joke, a title of shame.”
“How do you know this?” Herzgo Alegni demanded.
“We are enemies with the Thayans and the wretched Szass Tam, of course, and so I made it my task to learn all that I might of these foes.”
“How do you know this?” Alegni asked again, his voice lower and stronger.
“We share allies with Szass Tam and his devil-worshiping zealots,” Effron explained. “With our heritage and their devotion, we share allies in the lower planes, do we not? I know of Dahlia and Sylora because I searched for an answer among Netheril’s spies within the Nine Hells, and I was particularly curious about this young and powerful elf warrior who fights so well with the strange weapon known as Kozah’s Needle.”
“Whose name is not Dahlia Sin’felle,” Alegni said sarcastically.
Effron nodded, letting the derisive tone slip past. “Half true, though. Her birth name is Dahlia, but the joke of her surname is clear to see, even for a dullard.” He looked squarely at Barrabus as he finished, “Yes?”
Barrabus narrowed his eyes and focused on happy thoughts of being alone in the forest once more with Effron the warlock.
“So you say, and I have no reason to doubt you, it seems, and less reason to care,” said Alegni.
“Her true name is Dahlia Syn’dalay,” Effron announced, crossing his good arm over his skinny chest defiantly as if that proclamation should carry great importance, which confused Barrabus.
Until he looked over at Alegni.
He’d never seen the Netherese lord blanch in quite that way.
“Syn’dalay?” Alegni echoed.
“Yes, of the Snakebrook Syn’dalay clan,” Effron replied.
Something seemed to be passing between the two that Barrabus couldn’t decipher.
“I would guess that she is…” Effron paused and assumed a pensive expression. “Perhaps in her early thirties.” His grin showed confidence that he now held the upper hand in the discussion. “Would you agree?”
Herzgo Alegni continued to stare hard in Effron’s general direction, but it seemed clear to Barrabus that he looked right through the warlock, as if his thoughts were focused on another place-likely another time, given Effron’s last comment. The powerful muscles on Alegni’s arms twitched, his jaw tightened noticeably, and his breath came in forced heaves. Barrabus almost believed that if the morning birds would stop chirping and the wind would stop rustling through the leaves, he would be able to hear Alegni’s heart thumping in his massive chest.
“You cannot know this,” Alegni said at last.
“Dahlia Syn’dalay,” Effron repeated, “who was barely more than a child those two decades ago.”
“Who?” Barrabus started to ask, but he realized it might be better to remain outside of this increasingly private discussion.
Neither Alegni nor Effron noted his interruption, though, and neither seemed about to speak any further.
“I will kill her,” Barrabus announced instead. “I will kill them both.”
Herzgo Alegni and Effron both turned to him, and he noted a quick flicker of appreciation on Alegni’s face, though it lasted no more than an instant. “The elf alone nearly killed you,” he reminded.
“Nearly, but I understand her tactics better now.”
“You just claimed her partner is likely more powerful than she.”
“And he is one I know well, and one I know how to kill.” Barrabus filled his mind with images of his battles with Drizzt, and remembered his long-ago hatred of the drow, for Claw was still there, hovering around his thoughts, and though his plans were nowhere near to clear in his own thoughts, he had an idea just beginning to brew, and one of which Herzgo Alegni surely would not approve.
Alegni stared at him a bit longer, and Barrabus stood firm, even nodded slightly.
“Take Effron with you,” Alegni instructed.
“No!” Barrabus replied, and he turned a hateful stare at the young warlock. “If you wish me to kill Dahlia, then so be it. But I will not go after such a foe with that one beside me.”
“He fears that my skills will upstage him once more,” Effron quipped, but Barrabus and Alegni paid him no heed.
Barrabus continued to shake his head, slowly, determinedly.
“If you kill her, I’ll reward you,” Alegni said. “Perhaps I’ll even grant you your wish to return to the southlands.”
Barrabus nodded.
“But if you bring her to me alive,” Alegni continued, his voice thick with anticipation, “I’ll reward you more greatly than you ever imagined possible.”
“Alive?”
Alegni nodded and issued a little growling noise, so… hungry, that his intensity sent a shudder down the unshakable Barrabus’s spine.
15
Barrabus the Gray was surprised at how easily he caught up to Sylora’s allies-to Dahlia, at least. When he found their camp that night, soon after sunset, the drow was nowhere to be seen. Barrabus encircled the camp quietly a few times, wondering how Drizzt’s absence might affect his plans-designs still only just beginning to form. He wondered how he could he work the arrival of Drizzt Do’Urden to his favor, but the answer remained just out of reach.
Not sure how he would react when confronted by the drow ranger, he was glad he saw no sign of Drizzt. Theirs was an antagonism of another era, a bitter bloodlust, never quite a rivalry, never quite an alliance. The mere thought of Drizzt sent Barrabus’s thoughts cascading across the years to a time that seemed so long ago, to a place that seemed so far removed from the shadows and ruin of present day Faerun.
The assassin shook away those distractions and refocused his thinking on the situation at hand. With only an unsuspecting Dahlia standing in front of him, he dared hope he could finish his mission and be gone before Drizzt returned.
Or did he?
Perhaps he truly wished to face Drizzt again. Didn’t a small part of the man who had become Barrabus the Gray want to be back in that other time and place? Again, he shook the distraction away.
“This is your chance,” he whispered under his breath, and that reminder put him fully back in the present.
He took a deep breath and considered his options. If anyone could defeat Herzgo Alegni, it was surely Drizzt, after all.
So if Barrabus could capture Dahlia and take her back to Alegni, that would likely bring Drizzt against the Netherese lord. Surely Drizzt Do’Urden would never abandon a companion to such a fate.
Of course, a captured Dahlia wouldn’t last very long with Alegni. Barrabus winced as he considered the Ashmadai woman he’d captured outside of Neverwinter. He’d brought her back in, put her in a secure place, and given orders to the guards not to harm her.
And that was the last Barrabus had ever seen the woman alive, or even in one piece, for the guards had informed Alegni of his demands. Simply because Barrabus had claimed the captive as his own, Herzgo Alegni had made her death particularly cruel.
He’d do the same with Dahlia, of course-perhaps even more so because she brought the added weight of being Sylora Salm’s murderous champion.
So be it, and such an event might even work more to his benefit, Barrabus mused. If the drow understood that Alegni had killed Dahlia in a most horrible way, Drizzt would exact swift vengeance on Barrabus’s hated master.
That was Barrabus’s hope, then, as he sat just outside the firelight of the small encampment, watching Dahlia’s movements as she set the bedrolls and performed other mundane tasks. Yes, a capture would be best. He focused on that as he watched her building a fire, and reminded himself of the difficulty presented by either task, capture or assassination, though the latter seemed much easier.
He reminded himself that this elf, Dahlia, was fearless and could fight.
He had to take her fast, without a struggle. He scanned the camp, noting that Dahlia had her weapon broken into flails and within easy reach on her hips, looped under her sash belt. To the side lay a fallen tree, propping the backpacks and bedrolls, and farther beyond that, slung over a low branch were saddlebags-rations, likely-and beside those, hooked on a broken limb, a green cloak, one side of it fairly shredded.
Barrabus glanced around and stealthily moved to the side. He retrieved an armful of kindling first, then got the cloak, apparently without attracting any attention. He donned the cloak and pulled the hood low over his face.
Still, fearing that wasn’t enough, he went into the firelight, bent low, and turned sidelong, even walking backward more than forward, clutching the pile of kindling up high to help shield his identity.
“Drop it there,” Dahlia instructed, pointing to the side of the fire and showing little interest in what seemed to be her returning companion.
Once he’d set events into motion, Barrabus rarely second-guessed himself. But he was doing so now, trying to anticipate every moment, and fearing that his desperation to be rid of Alegni had made him reckless. This was Drizzt Do’Urden and Dahlia he’d tracked down, not a pair of ridiculous Ashmadai zealots!
The whole plan seemed absurd to him suddenly, and he wondered if he should drop the kindling and run off into the forest night.
He did drop the kindling, but then he struck, sword and dagger out and swinging.
To his surprise, Dahlia was ready, her weapons comi
ng into her agile hands and going into sudden blocks and counters. He had the initiative, but not the surprise!
How could that be?
He went at her furiously, knowing that his advantage, slim as it might be, would prove short-lived.
In those few heartbeats of battle, his desperation to win multiplied a hundred-fold because of the implications it held against Alegni, Barrabus the Gray fought better than ever he could remember. He worked his sword in a brilliant overspin, dodging Dahlia’s blocking flail, and bore forward, accepting a stinging hit from the elf’s other weapon but getting in close in exchange. His dagger moved up for a finishing position against the elf’s throat. He would have her surrender, or he would have her life.
Except that a dark form dropped from above, landing just behind him. Even as his dagger climbed up to score the victory, a scimitar crashed atop his skull, staggering him to the side. Before he could come up straight and offer a defense, Drizzt worked that blade and the other inside Barrabus’s arms, one tip coming in against the would-be assassin’s throat.
So he would die, and Alegni would bring him back and torment him all the more. Or perhaps, Barrabus wondered in that last breath, the Dread Ring would catch him first and animate him as a zombie.
Better that!
Dahlia had warned Drizzt quite succinctly and repeatedly about the Netherese champion, the stealthy killer. That was why Drizzt had doubled back several times after they’d entered the area, and particularly after their battle with the Shadovar patrol.
So when Drizzt had ostensibly gone off that night to gather firewood, which they didn’t need, the drow had actually climbed a tree and slipped from branch to branch to get back near the campsite.
He saw the sudden movement of the murderer executing a brilliant overspin defense, and saw Dahlia taken back and nearly overwhelmed.
Perhaps she would have been beaten, but Drizzt wasn’t about to let it come to that.
In short order, he turned the tables, and had Barrabus the Gray helpless and about to die.
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