Neverwinter ns-2
Page 34
Drizzt nodded, but didn’t slow the barrage for another few heartbeats.
He started forward tentatively, picking his way across the field.
Even as he entered the short stairwell leading up to the base floor of the tower, Entreri was met by a howling Ashmadai guard, stabbing at him furiously with the sharp end of his scepter.
Such straightforward ferocity was no way to battle Artemis Entreri. He easily deflected the thrust aside with his sword then expertly snapped that sword back out straight, taking the man in the shoulder. And when the Ashmadai overreacted, spinning aside and throwing his weapon up and over-and missing badly as Entreri swiftly retracted the sword ahead of the parry-the assassin calmly stepped forward and drove his dagger under the man’s ribs.
The zealot howled and lurched over, and was surely doomed, except that neither Entreri nor his companion cared at all about him. The assassin slammed him on the back of the head as he bent, then grabbed his collar and yanked him forward and down the stairs.
Dahlia added a crack with a flail as he tumbled by, but like Entreri, her focus remained in front of her, not behind.
Up they went into the first floor then rushed along the stairway to the second. From there they could see the balcony, now empty, and the spark shower from Drizzt’s continuing barrage as the missiles struck the shield Sylora had left behind.
Despite that explosive assault, Entreri moved toward the balcony, and the small stairway leading to the tower’s third floor. There he fell back, dodging a blast of black ash as Sylora filled the space with a ring of woe.
The assassin tested it, but backed off again as the smoke bit at him painfully.
“The other way,” he told Dahlia, nodding to the stair across the second level.
“She’s up there?” Dahlia asked, not moving other than to reform her singular long staff.
Entreri looked at her curiously, and tried to push her toward the stair.
But Dahlia avoided him and moved toward the balcony instead, though she motioned for him to continue across the room.
The assassin glanced back as he reached the stair, and smiled wide. Dahlia rushed to the edge of the smoking area, planted her staff against the base of the wall opposite the short stair, and leaped forward, twisting and pushing off as she came even with the opening. With great agility and strength, the elf woman hung there, her momentum lost, and as she started to descend, she lifted her legs higher to the side and pushed off with all her strength, lifting herself up the side stair.
Entreri sprinted up the short stairwell and burst through the door, to find himself facing Sylora Salm and her crooked wand.
Dahlia was there, too, having cleared the blackened area.
“All my enemies in one place,” Sylora said. “How convenient.”
Dahlia responded by thrusting the end of her staff at the woman’s mouth. The attack seemed true, but the weapon hit a barrier, a brown semicircle glowing in front of her at the impact.
Sylora laughed and whipped her small wand in front of her, and from that wand came a series of black darts, spinning through the room.
Both Dahlia and Entreri curled defensively, but both got hit. Many darts flew, and those small missiles brought forth painful bites indeed.
“Go!” Entreri demanded of Dahlia. He leaped at Sylora, as did Dahlia, sword, knife, and staff stabbing hard.
And all, weapons and attackers, were easily repelled by the barrier.
Down below, from the balcony, they heard a different cadence of explosive missiles.
“The barrier can be broken!” Dahlia surmised, and though Sylora hit them again with a rain of darts, on they came, their only defense a brutal forward assault.
Indeed, behind the globe, Sylora appeared genuinely concerned, and a bit disoriented by the sheer ferocity of their attacks.
The strikes didn’t diminish until something flew past Dahlia, making her instinctively duck. She called out to Entreri as she did, and he, too, had to dive aside, his dagger not quite catching up to the small fiend as it fluttered past him. The devil’s strike, however, did score, its whiplike tail lashing out at the assassin and cutting him painfully across the shoulder.
Up into the air went the creature, above the next rain of Sylora’s darts-and that barrage had Dahlia and Entreri staggering back under the weight and sting of the assault.
But Arunika’s imp hadn’t been hit. Its skin hanging in burned strands from Sylora’s earlier encasing ash, it understood the sorceress’s defenses more keenly than the others.
Sylora hardly even seemed aware of the creature as it flipped over the top of the bubble and dropped down upon her extended arm. With clawed feet and hands, it grabbed at her forearm and hand, at the wand, and when she pulled back against it and slapped at it with her other hand, the imp bared its fangs and bit down hard on her weapon hand.
It lifted its head, two severed fingers hanging from its mouth, and tore the Dread Ring wand from Sylora’s weakened grasp. Away it leaped, stinging her with its tail as it flew free of her desperate grabs.
Time seemed to stop then, a sudden, shocked pause from the three remaining in the tower room.
“Oh, now you die,” Artemis Entreri promised, rising from his knees against the far wall, Dahlia beside him.
But Sylora Salm wasn’t out of tricks. She threw her cloak up over her head, and as it descended, she transformed into the likeness of a giant raven.
Dahlia yelled in protest and struck at her. Entreri, too, managed a stab.
But neither scored a mortal, or even a serious hit, and the raven dived from the room, down the short stair, and out the tower balcony.
Drizzt leaped high, clearing the last line of still-smoking rings, on his way to the cave.
As he landed, though, he heard a sound from above, a peculiar sound given the circumstance and location: the whinnying of an angry horse.
That noise turned his attention back the other way, where he saw a large crow, a human-sized bird, fly out from the balcony, soaring into the night.
Drizzt leaped back the other way, drawing an arrow in mid-flight, and he landed and dropped to one knee, leveling his bow and letting fly.
The lightning arrow streaked off into the dark night, and sparks flew along with feathers as it struck home. But the crow kept gliding, disappearing over the wall and into the night beyond the strange fortress.
A second form came out from the balcony, and Drizzt nearly shot it, until he recognized it as Entreri’s nightmare steed, the assassin and Dahlia astride it.
The amazing hell horse dropped down gracefully from twenty feet, and somehow landed gently enough so that its two riders weren’t launched from its back.
Drizzt’s jaw hung open, his stunned expression reflected on the faces of a pair of Ashmadai watching from the wall, as the nightmare thundered away in pursuit, flames flying from its hooves. It ran along the wall to the open gate then charged across the outer ring, Drizzt following its progress by the shouts of the defenders still out there.
Drizzt started back toward that wall, but noticed Dahlia’s wide-brimmed leather hat and paused just long enough to scoop it up and put it on. Then, blowing his whistle loudly, the drow leaped the next ring, and sprinted around a third. He lined himself up with Andahar’s approach, and waved the mighty unicorn past him. He leaped up and grabbed Andahar’s mane as the galloping steed charged on.
In a few heartbeats, Drizzt was out of the fortress, with no pursuit apparent other than a growling panther leaping over the wall down to his right. He spotted Entreri’s steed, the flaming hooves bright in the night, and bent low over Andahar’s strong neck, urging his mount along, and gaining ground with every stride.
As he neared, it became apparent to Drizzt that Dahlia was guiding the mount in front of him. Entreri sat in the saddle, but she whispered into his ear continually. Entreri’s nightmare ran with conviction, as if they knew where they were going, though the raven was nowhere to be seen.
Drizzt didn’t question it.
He put Andahar in line behind Entreri’s nightmare and instructed the unicorn to follow.
Dahlia glanced back at him and nodded. When the trail cleared a bit and allowed for it, she held her staff out wide and up high, and again motioned to Drizzt.
The drow ranger grinned as he figured it out. He clamped his legs tight around Andahar’s flanks, stood tall, and took up Taulmaril.
Kozah’s Needle swallowed his first lightning arrow. Dahlia nodded, and kept the staff up high and out wide.
Drizzt let fly again, then a third time, the powerful staff feasting on the lightning energy. Drizzt could see little arcs of power jumping along its length, and Dahlia grasped it with her other hand as well.
Still she kept the staff up high, though, and pumped it emphatically. Drizzt let fly again, then a fifth time, and sparks leaped higher and thicker along the weapon’s length. Dahlia’s mostly-unwound braid once more began to dance with residual energy.
But she called for one more, and so Drizzt let fly again.
The trees thickened around them and Dahlia wisely brought the staff in closer, and lower. Drizzt settled in his seat, placed his bow across his lap, and urged Andahar on.
Valindra Shadowmantle slipped out of the crack in the stone at the back of the shallow cave and reverted to her normal three-dimensional form. The drow and his shining white unicorn were out of sight by then, but Valindra followed their progress out of Ashenglade by the tumult of Ashmadai zealots calling out their locations.
Valindra glided out of the cave and onto the ravaged field. A few of the rings of woe still smoked with dark energy. The lich moved to one and dipped her toe in. As she suspected, it was Dread Ring energy, necromancy, and so to Valindra it felt like a warm bath in oil-scented waters.
The cries around her muted. The drow was out of the fortress then, she knew, and galloping away in pursuit of Sylora the Crow.
Valindra knew where Sylora had gone, and expected that Dahlia did, as well.
She pondered her next move, but became distracted when a small form flew down at her and landed on the ground beside her.
“Wretched creature!” Arunika’s imp snarled, waving the crooked wand. “I hope they make her suffer before they kill her!”
Valindra grinned at him then held her hand out for the wand.
The imp shifted away.
“Give me the wand now… Greeth! Greeth!” Valindra ordered.
Her eyes spun crazily and the imp’s bulbous eyes widened. Suddenly the diminutive creature couldn’t scramble fast enough to hand the wand over to the terrifying lich.
Valindra took it and brought it up in front of her eyes, issuing a little mewling sound as she did, as she connected to the comforting power of the Dread Ring.
“Shall I inform my mistress that you’re the new Thayan leader in Neverwinter Wood?” the imp asked.
Valindra didn’t even hear the creature, her focus locked on the sudden sensations of the roiling power. Sylora’s overreach had hurt the ring, she knew, and badly.
“Shall I inform my mistress that you’re the new Thayan leader in Neverwinter Wood?” the imp repeated.
“Be gone,” Valindra replied, staring at the wand the whole time, feeling its power as she rolled it around her fingers. “Tell her-Ark-lem!-that I’ll speak with her presently.”
The infusion of power tickled her, and mostly tickled Valindra’s thoughts. Images of Arklem Greeth flooded her. With this power, surely she could reclaim her beloved. And surely, once she’d resurrected him, he would help guide her from the tumult within her head. Maybe she wouldn’t need the Abolethic Sovereignty’s ambassador anymore. Valindra hated letting that piscine creature into her deepest thoughts, emotions, and secrets.
The imp fluttering up in front of her eyes pulled the lich from her contemplation, and as it sped away, sputtering curses, Valindra realized that it had likely asked her a question, likely repeatedly, before leaving in such a huff.
Valindra dismissed the creature from her thoughts-her increasingly scrambled thoughts. So much possibility! So great a promise of power! And the notion of Arklem Greeth at her side once more!
“No, no, I mustn’t,” the lich told herself.
Then she nodded as she considered her course and knew where she must go, and what she must ensure. She fell into her magical powers, preparing to leave, but stopped short and considered one other thing she might want to bring along.
There he was, crumpled on the ground just off to the side.
Only when she stood on the edge of the Dread Ring did Sylora Salm understand the depth of her error, the travesty she’d wrought. Basking in the power of the wand and the connection it offered her, Sylora had taken more than the life force of a few ashen zombies. Indeed, those rings of woe, and maintaining that magical shield against the barrage of arrows, had stolen power from the Dread Ring itself, and no inconsiderable amount.
Blood oozed from her shoulder. The drow’s arrow had wounded her critically, perhaps mortally. She needed the Dread Ring’s power again, she knew, to heal herself.
But dare she pull more from it? Could she?
The implications of the depleted grayness before her struck the sorceress profoundly. She could almost picture Szass Tam within that smoking ring, could almost see the look of unmitigated anger on his withered face.
He wouldn’t forgive her this time, she knew. After more than a decade, she had at last failed him.
Perhaps she could retreat belowground. Perhaps the Sovereignty would take her in.
Her thoughts spun as she sought a way out, and the desperation of her situation was brought home vividly when she heard the sound of approaching riders.
She turned and put her back to the Dread Ring. Whatever fears she had of Szass Tam’s response seemed distant then, as the immediate necessities became clear. Sylora closed her eyes and tried to connect to the power behind her, asking the Dread Ring for still more.
Entreri eased up on his nightmare’s pace as he noted the form in the clearing beyond the last tangle of trees. Drizzt did the same as he brought his unicorn up beside the nightmare, though neither steed seemed overly comfortable with the other so near.
It was indeed Sylora, all three riders saw.
“The Dread Ring is right behind her,” Dahlia warned.
They crossed through the tangle and into full view of the sorceress Sylora, and the smoky tendrils of darkness behind.
Drizzt let fly an arrow, but alas, the sorceress once more had enacted a magical shield in front of her.
Not so great a shield, Drizzt and the others realized, though, as the sorceress winced in discomfort and staggered back a step.
Drizzt broke Andahar to the left and set another arrow to Taulmaril, but behind him, before the unicorn had gone three running strides, Dahlia struck next.
As Entreri pulled his nightmare up short, Dahlia cried out for Sylora to “Defeat this!” and used all the momentum of the stopping mount to hurl Kozah’s Needle, spearlike, at her foe.
His jaw hanging open in surprise, Drizzt watched as the long staff slammed into Sylora’s thin bubble shield and exploded into such a display of arcing lightning and thunderous reverberations that the night itself was momentarily stolen.
Andahar neighed, pawed the ground, and reared up, but Drizzt clamped his legs tighter and held his balance.
And when the explosion of pure energy roiled and coiled and slammed Sylora, sending her flying backward through the air, the drow was ready. Another lightning arrow soared off, flying true to its target. Then a second missile from the right flank joined the first, a large black missile, as Guenhwyvar leaped high and long and crashed into Sylora as she descended into the smoking Dread Ring.
They landed out of sight, within the black fumes, with a roar and a shriek, both primal, followed by… silence.
Drizzt looked to Entreri and Dahlia, Andahar and the nightmare pawing the ground.
And all three companions breathed easier when Guenhwyvar walked back out of the ring.
“Dahlia!” Drizzt called.
“I’m not following her,” Entreri said.
Dahlia found Sylora Salm some dozen long strides into the Dread Ring. She lay on the black ground, twisted weirdly with one leg up behind her head and one of her arms beneath her. Blood flowed from her left shoulder where Drizzt’s first arrow had struck her, from her right side where his more recent missile had struck, and from deep claw marks on the side of her face and throat.
But those were the least of her wounds, for Kozah’s Needle had broken through that magical shield to open the center of her chest. Even in the dim light, Dahlia could see the woman’s heart. It still beat, just once, then again after a long pause.
“Finish me,” Sylora said, her voice thick with pain.
Dahlia bent over so her face was very near to Sylora’s.
“Please,” the doomed sorceress mouthed. “Finish me.”
Dahlia reached down as if to comply and Sylora closed her eyes.
But Dahlia instead just roughly pulled the crow cloak out from around Sylora, jarring her to the side and drawing a gasp of profound agony.
With a last smirk at Sylora, Dahlia threw the cloak around her own shoulders and walked back out the way she’d come.
“She’s dead,” Sylora Salm heard Dahlia announce to her companions, followed soon after by the clip-clop of hooves receding into the forest.
They ran on for a long while, putting leagues behind them, Entreri’s nightmare and Drizzt’s unicorn gliding effortlessly through the forest night. Finally, in one moonlit clearing, Entreri pulled up his fire-breathing, fire-stomping mount and slipped down from the saddle.
“So, in the end battle, we didn’t need your help at all,” Dahlia pointed out, flipping down to the ground beside him. She grinned as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“You’d prefer to be dead outside Sylora’s tower?” Entreri asked. “I understand.”