Indeed, as the warrior tried to strike at Effron, that shadowy snake reappeared as a shadowy strangler around the man’s neck. He gasped and gagged, his eyes bulging both with surprise and from the brutal force of the tightening magical coil.
Stubbornly, the zealot swung again, his scepter banging against Effron’s mangled shoulder. The blow stung the warlock and forced him a step to the side.
But the shadow strangler struck again, and this time the Ashmadai vomited blood. He lifted his scepter to strike again, but it fell from his dying grasp, and he stared at Effron with confusion and hatred, then tumbled over to the side, quite dead.
The strange, mummified warrior charged around the tree, unafraid. He paused just long enough to look ahead, left and right, to try to find his quarry, and when his head turned right, Barrabus came out from behind the tree to his left.
With all his strength, the assassin smashed his sword down atop the back of the warrior’s head, and this time, the zealot did move forward—and it was not a ruse—under the weight of the blow. In went Barrabus for a second strike, and a third and a fourth, and a kidney stab with his dagger.
When his rage played out and the Ashmadai warrior managed to stagger far enough away from him, Barrabus didn’t pursue. In that confusing frenzy, Barrabus had been tapped again by the awful scepter, this time on the left shoulder. Now it, too, began to spasm. His dagger fell from his grasp and the pain jolted him every few heartbeats.
A few strides away, the zealot turned around, grinning, unhurt by Barrabus’s attacks.
Barrabus’s leg clenched in a vicious spasm as he bent to retrieve his dagger, and he nearly tumbled to the ground. It appeared as though he’d completely lost his balance, his sword, too, falling from his grasp.
The Ashmadai came charging in.
But despite the pain, Barrabus was not off-balance and helpless. He reached for his sword, or so it appeared, but came up again with a handful of dirt, which he flung into the eyes of his pursuer.
The zealot groaned and fell back. Barrabus retrieved his sword—his other hand, numbed and writhing with spasms, wouldn’t let him get the dagger back—and turned and fled, running as fast as he could manage, throwing his right foot forward and fighting for all his life not to let that numb limb buckle beneath him.
A barrage of screams demanded Barrabus’s attention, and he winced in revulsion as he noted the Ashmadai archer tumbling down from the tree. The frenetic man clawed and slapped desperately at his own skin as a horde of tiny spiders poured forth, biting their way through from inside the poor man.
“Effron …” Barrabus muttered, and shook his head in disgust.
He came into the clearing just as another black bolt flew from the warlock’s wand into the male warrior, who was on the ground and seemed already dead.
“Effron!” Barrabus called. He heard the mummy Ashmadai closing in behind him. He turned to meet the charge, fighting defensively, not wanting to be touched by the scepter again. “Effron!”
“I killed three already, and you haven’t even finished your one?” the warlock called back, his voice filled with an oh-if-I-must sigh.
Barrabus growled and muttered a stream of curses under his breath. He parried furiously against the spinning and thrusting scepter. Every now and then, he countered with a strike, but he saw little chance of hurting this … creature.
“Effron!” So distracted was he by his anger at the warlock, Barrabus nearly took a hit in the head, and one that would have surely killed him, he realized.
A series of black and purple darts spun and danced in the air past Barrabus, diving into the zealot—and the mummified creature staggered just a bit.
“More!” Barrabus yelled, and he took the opportunity to come forward and crack his sword atop the zealot’s forehead just for good measure.
“Oh, I’m quite depleted,” Effron replied. His voice came from farther away and continued to diminish as he spoke.
A wave of panic nearly swept over Barrabus. The good news was that at last his leg spasms seemed to have ended, though his left arm continued to jolt and jerk wildly.
He needed another diversion, something so he could break away and flee …
Even as he thought of that, the zealot in front of him exploded, or seemed to, with black and purple energy flying forth from every orifice. That energy slammed Barrabus, hurting him far more than it hurt the zealot. But at least the magic had blinded the Ashmadai, albeit briefly, but enough for Barrabus to break off and flee.
The zealot came in pursuit, and Barrabus glanced back just in time to see the contagion Effron had put in the warrior explode yet again, and once more the Ashmadai warrior had to pause and take a moment for his sight to clear.
By that time, Barrabus the Gray had melted into the forest, and few were as adept at hiding as he.
Particularly when his life depended on it.
Barrabus was still limping when he finally returned to the Shadovar encampment on the western side of Neverwinter, just an hour before dawn. He stormed past the guards, ignoring their confused expressions, and moved right up to the small home Herzgo Alegni had taken as his own. The assassin didn’t even bother knocking, but just pushed through the door—or started to.
“He’s not in there,” a guard called to him.
Barrabus spun on the man, and nearly toppled over from the shooting pain caused by the sudden movement of his hip. He twisted his grimace into a scowl and forced himself forward to confront the man.
“Where is he?”
“Gone north,” said a second guard, coming fast around the corner. “We found a patrol, one of our own, slain in the forest.”
Barrabus looked at him skeptically. Shadovar were dying almost every day in the continuing battle with the Thayans, so why would Alegni go out personally to investigate?
“This is different,” the first said.
Barrabus looked from one to the other. “Where is that miserable Effron?” he asked.
“With Herzgo Alegni,” the first replied. “He arrived two hours ago, and claimed that you had been lost in battle.”
“That was his hope,” Barrabus muttered.
“He arrived just as the first report of the deaths in the north came back to us,” the other explained.
“Where?” Barrabus demanded.
“The fourth patrol route, near the northern road,” replied the guard, referring to a location that Barrabus knew well, since it had been Barrabus, after all, who had determined the most appropriate positions for the patrols.
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 reali
zed 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.”
Neverwinter: Neverwinter Saga, Book II Page 28
