Jarlaxle didn't even try to get out of there, and Entreri realized, he had expected the attacks all along, had baited them.
Down low, his left leg far in front of his right, both arms and blades fully extended before him, Jarlaxle somehow managed to reverse his grip, and in a sudden and perfectly balanced momentum shift, the drow came back up straight. His left arm and blade stabbed out to the left. The sword in his right hand was flipped over in his hand so that when Jarlaxle turned his fist down, the tip was facing behind him, cocking straight back.
Both charging wererats halted suddenly, their chests ripped open by the perfect stabs.
Jarlaxle retracted the blades, put them back into their respective spins, and turned left, the whirling blades drawing lines of bright blood all over the wounded wererat there, and completing the turn, slashing the wererat behind him repeatedly and finishing with a powerful crossing backhand maneuver that took the creature's head from its shoulders.
Thus disintegrating Entreri's ideas about the weakness of the swashbuckling technique.
The drow rushed past into the path of the first wererat he had struck, his spinning swords intercepting his opponent's, and bringing it into the spin with them. In a moment, all three blades were in the air, turning circles, and only two of them, Jarlaxle's, were still being held. The third was kept aloft by the slapping and sliding of the other two.
Jarlaxle hooked the hilt of that sword with the blade of one of his own, angled it out to the side and launched it into the chest of another attacker, knocking him back and to the floor.
He went ahead suddenly and brutally, blades whirling with perfect precision, to take the wererat's arm, then drop the other arm limply to its side with a well-placed blow to the collarbone, then slash its face, then its throat.
Up came Jarlaxle's foot, planting against the staggered wererat's chest, and he kicked out, knocking the creature to its back and running over it.
Entreri had meant to get to Jarlaxle's side, but instead, the drow came rushing up to Entreri's side, uttering a command under his breath that retracted one of his swords to dagger size. He quickly slid the weapon back to its sheath, and with his free hand grabbed Entreri by the shoulder and pulled him along.
The puzzled assassin glanced at his companion. More wererats were piling into the tavern, through the windows, through the door, but those remaining farmers were falling back now, moving into purely defensive positions. Though more than a dozen wererats remained, Entreri did not believe that he and this amazingly skilled drow warrior would have any trouble at all tearing them apart.
Furthermore and even more puzzling, Jarlaxle had their run angled for the closest wall. While putting a solid barrier at their backs might be effective in some cases against so many opponents, Entreri thought this ridiculous, given Jarlaxle's flamboyant, room-requiring style.
Jarlaxle let go of Entreri then and reached up to the top of his huge hat.
From somewhere unseen in the strange hat, he brought forth a black disk made of some fabric Entreri did not know and sent it spinning at the wall. It elongated as it went, turning flat side to the wooden wall, then it hit… and stuck.
And it was no longer a disk of fabric, but rather a hole-a real hole-in the wall.
Jarlaxle pushed Entreri through, dived through right behind him, and paused only long enough to pull the magical hole out behind him, leaving the wall solid once more.
"Run!" the dark elf cried, sprinting away, with Entreri right on his heels.
Before Entreri could even ask what the drow knew that he did not, the building exploded into a huge and consuming fireball that took the tavern, took all of those wererats still scrambling about the entrances and exits, and took the horses, including Entreri's and Jarlaxle's, tethered anywhere near to the place.
The pair went flying to the ground but got right back up, running full speed out of the village and back into the shadows of the surrounding hills and woodlands.
They didn't even speak for many, many minutes, just ran on, until Jarlaxle finally pulled up behind one bluff and fell against the grassy hill, huffing and puffing. "I had grown fond of my mount," he said. "A pity." "I did not see the spellcaster," Entreri remarked. "He was not in the room," Jarlaxle explained, "not physically, at least."
"Then how did you sense him?" Entreri started to ask, but he paused and considered the logic that had led Jarlaxle to his saving conclusion. "Because Kimmuriel and Rai-guy would never take the chance that Gord Abrix and his cronies would get the Crystal Shard," he reasoned. "Nor would they ever expect the wretched wererats ever to be able to take the thing from us in the first place."
"I have already explained to you that it is a common tactic for the two," Jarlaxle reminded. "They send their fodder in to engage their enemies, and Kimmuriel opens a window through which Rai-guy throws his potent magic."
Entreri looked back in the direction of the village, at the plume of black smoke drifting into the air. "Well thought," he congratulated. "You saved us both."
"Well, you at least," Jarlaxle replied, and Entreri looked back at him curiously, to see the drow waggling the fingers of one hand against his cheek, showing off a reddish-gold ring that Entreri had not noticed before.
"It was just a fireball," Jarlaxle said with a grin.
Entreri nodded and returned that grin, wondering if there was anything, anything at all, that Jarlaxle was not prepared for.
Chapter 20
BALANCING PRUDENCE AND DESIRE
Gord Abrix gasped and fell over as the small globe of fire soared past him, through the doorway, and into the tavern. As soon as it went through, Kimmuriel dropped the dimensional door. Gord Abrix had seen fireballs cast before and could well imagine the devastation back in the tavern. He knew he had just lost nearly a score of his loyal wererat soldiers.
He came up unsteadily, glancing around at his three dark elf companions, unsure, as he always seemed to be with this group, of what they might do next.
"You and your soldiers performed admirably," Rai-guy remarked.
"You killed them," Gord Abrix dared to say, though certainly not in any accusatory tone.
"A necessary sacrifice," Rai-guy replied. "You did not believe that they would have any chance of defeating Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle, did you?"
"Then why send them?" the frustrated wererat leader started to ask, but his voice died away as the question left his mouth, the reasoning dissipated by his own internal reminders of who these creatures truly were. Gord Abrix and his henchmen had been sent in for just the diversion they provided, to occupy Entreri and Jarlaxle while Rai-guy and Kimmuriel prepared their little finish.
Kimmuriel opened the dimensional door then, showing the devastated tavern, charred bodies laying all about and not a creature stirring. The drow's lip curled up in a wicked smile as he surveyed the grisly scene, and a shudder coursed Gord Abrix's spine as he realized the fate he had only barely escaped.
Berg'inyon Baenre went through the door, into what remained of the tavern room, which was more outdoors than indoors now, and returned a moment later.
"A couple of wererats still stir but barely," the drow warrior informed his companions.
"What of our friends?" Rai-guy asked.
Berg'inyon shrugged. "I saw neither Jarlaxle nor Entreri," he explained. "They could be among the wreckage or could be burned beyond immediate recognition."
Rai-guy considered it for a moment, and motioned for Berg'inyon and Gord Abrix to go back to the tavern and snoop around.
"What of my soldiers?" the wererat asked.
"If they can be saved, pull them back through," Rai-guy replied. "Lady Lolth will grant me the power to healing them… should I choose to do so."
Gord Abrix started for the dimensional doorway, and paused and glanced back curiously at the obscure and dangerous drow, not sure how to sort through the wizard- cleric's words.
"Do you believe our prey are still in there?" Kimmuriel asked Rai-guy, using the drow tongue to exclude t
he wererat leader.
Berg'inyon answered from the doorway. "They are not," he said with confidence, though it was obvious he hadn't found the time yet to scour the ruins. "It would take more than a diversion and a simple wizard's spell to bring down that pair."
Rai-guy's eyes narrowed at the affront to his spell- casting, but in truth, he couldn't really disagree with the assessment. He had been hoping he could catch his prey easily and tidily, but he knew better in his heart, knew that Jarlaxle would prove a difficult and cagey quarry.
"Search quickly," Kimmuriel ordered.
Berg'inyon and Gord Abrix ran off, poking through the smoldering ruins.
"They are not in there," Rai-guy said to his psionicist friend a moment later.
"You agree with Berg'inyon's reasoning?" Kimmuriel asked.
"I hear the call of the Crystal Shard," Rai-guy explained with a snarl, for he did indeed hear the renewed call of the artifact, the prisoner of stubborn Artemis Entreri. "That call comes not from the tavern."
"Then where?" Kimmuriel asked.
Rai-guy could only shake his head in frustration. Where indeed. He heard the pleas, but there was no location attached to them, just an insistent call.
"Bring our henchmen back to us," the wizard instructed, and Kimmuriel went through the doorway, returning a moment later with Berg'inyon, Gord Abrix, and a pair of horribly burned, but still very much alive, wererats.
"Help them," Gord Abrix pleaded, dragging his torched friends to Rai-guy. "This is Poweeno, a close advisor and friend."
Rai-guy closed his eyes and began to chant, and opened his eyes and held his hand out toward the prone and squirming Poweeno. He finished his spell by waggling his fingers and uttering another line of arcane words, and a sharp spark crackled from his fingertips, jolting the unfortunate wererat. The creature cried out and jerked spasmodically, howling in agony as smoking blood and gore began to ooze from its layers of horrible wounds.
A few moments later, Poweeno lay very still, quite dead.
"What… what have you done?" Gord Abrix demanded of Rai-guy, the wizard already into spellcasting once more.
When Rai-guy didn't answer, Gord Abrix made a move toward him, or at least tried to. He found his feet stuck to the floor, as if he was standing in some powerful glue. He glanced about, his gaze settling on Kimmuriel. He recognized from the drow's satisfied expression that it was indeed the psionicist holding him fast in place.
"You failed me," Rai-guy explained opening his eyes and holding one hand out toward the other wounded wererat.
"You just said we performed admirably," Gord Abrix protested.
"That was before I knew that Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri had escaped," Rai-guy explained.
He finished his spell, releasing a tremendous bolt of lightning into the other wounded wererat. The creature flipped over weirdly, then rolling into a fetal position, fast following its companion to the grave.
Gord Abrix howled and drew forth his sword, but Berg'inyon was there, smashing the blade away with his own, fine drow weapon. The warrior looked to his two drow companions. On a nod from Rai-guy, he slashed Gord Abrix across the throat.
The wererat, his feet still stuck fast, sank to the floor, staring helplessly and pleadingly at Rai-guy.
"I do not accept failure," the drow wizard said coldly.
* * * * *
"King Elbereth has sent the word out wide to our scouts," the elf Shayleigh assured Ivan and Pikel when the two dwarven emissaries arrived in Shilmista Forest to the west of the Snowflake Mountains. Cadderly had sent the dwarves straight out to their elf friends, confident that anyone approaching would surely be noticed by King Elbereth's wide network of scouts.
Pikel gave a sound then, which seemed to Ivan to be more one of trepidation than one of hope, though Shayleigh had just given them the assurances they had come here to get.
Or had she?
Ivan Bouldershoulder studied the elf maiden carefully. With her violet eyes and thick golden hair hanging far below her shoulders, she was undeniably beautiful, even to the thinking of a dwarf whose tastes usually ran to shorter, thicker, and more heavily bearded females. There was something else about Shayleigh's posture and attitude, though, about the subtle undertone of her melodious voice.
"Ye're not to kill 'em, ye know," Ivan remarked bluntly.
Shayleigh's posture did not change very much. "You yourself have named them as ultimately dangerous," she replied, "an assassin and a drow."
Ivan noted that the ominous flavor of her voice increased when she named the dark elf, as if the creature's mere race offended her more than the profession of his traveling companion.
"Cadderly's needin' to talk to 'em," Ivan grumbled.
"Can he not speak to the dead?"
"Ooo," said Pikel and he hopped away suddenly, disappearing briefly into the underbrush, and reemerging with one hand behind his back. He hopped up to stand before Shayleigh, a disarming grin on his face. "Drizzit," he reminded, and he pulled his hand around, revealing a delicate flower he had just picked for her.
Shayleigh could hardly hold her stern demeanor against that emotional assault. She smiled and took the wildflower, bringing it to her nose that she could smell its beautiful fragrance. "There is often a flower among the weeds," she said, catching on to Pikel's meaning. "As there may be a druid among a clan of dwarves. That does not mean there are others."
"Hope," said Pikel.
Shayleigh gave a helpless chuckle.
"Ye get yer heart in the right place," Ivan warned, "so says Cadderly, else the Crystal Shard'II find yer heart and twist it to its own needs. It's a big bit o' hope he's puttin' on ye, elf."
Shayleigh's sincere smile was all the assurance he needed.
* * * * *
"Brother Chaunticleer has outlined a grand scheme for keeping the children busy," Danica said to Cadderly. "I will be ready to leave as soon as the artifact arrives."
Cadderly's expression hardly seemed to support that notion.
"You did not think I would let you go visit an ancient dragon without me beside you, did you?" Danica asked, sincerely wounded. Cadderly blew a sigh.
"We've met one before and would have had no trouble at all with it if we had not brought it along with us across the mountains," the woman reminded.
"This time may be more difficult," Cadderly explained. "I will be expending energy merely in controlling the Crystal Shard at the same time I am dealing with the beast. Worse, the artifact will also be speaking to the dragon, I am sure. What better wielder for an instrument of chaos and destruction than a mighty red dragon?"
"How strong is your magic?" Danica asked. "Not that strong, I fear," Cadderly replied. "All the more reason that I, and Ivan and Pikel, must be with you," Danica remarked.
"Without the aid of Deneir, do you give any of us a chance of battling such a wyrm?" the priest asked sincerely. "If Deneir is not with you, you will need us to drag you out of there and quickly," the woman said with a wide smile. "Is that not what your friends are supposed to do?"
Cadderly started to respond, but he really couldn't say much against the look of determination, and of something even more than that-of serenity-stamped across Danica's fair face. Of course she meant to go with him, and he knew he couldn't possibly prevent that unless he left magically and with great deception. Of course, Ivan and Pikel would travel with him as well, though he had to wince when he considered the would-be druid, Pikel, facing a red dragon. They did not want to disturb the great beast any more than to borrow its fiery breath for a single burst of fire. Pikel, so dedicated to the natural, might not be so willing to walk away from a dragon, which was perhaps the greatest perversion of nature in all the world.
Danica cupped her hand under Cadderly's chin then and tilted his head back up so that he was eyeing her directly as she moved very close to him.
"We will finish this and to our satisfaction," she said, and she kissed him gently on the lips. "We have battled worse, my love."
&nb
sp; Cadderly didn't begin to deny her words, or her presence, or her determination to go along on this important and dangerous journey. He brought her closer and kissed her again and again.
* * * *
"We are too busy elsewhere," Sharlotta Vespers tried to explain to Kimmuriel and Rai-guy. The pair were not pleased to learn that Dallabad had somehow been infiltrated by spies of great warlords from Memnon.
The dark elves exchanged concerned looks. Sharlotta had insisted repeatedly that every spy had been caught and killed, but what if she were wrong? What if even one spy had escaped to tell the warlords in Memnon the truth about the change at Dallabad? Or what if other spies had now discerned the real power behind the overthrow of House Basadoni?
"Every danger that Jarlaxle has sown may soon come to harvest," Kimmuriel said to his companion in the drow tongue.
While Sharlotta understood the words well enough, she surely didn't catch the subtleties of the common drow saying, one that referred to revenge taken on a drow house for crimes against another house. Kimmuriel's words were a stern warning, a reminder that Jarlaxle's involvement with Crenshinibon may have left them all vulnerable, no matter what remedial steps they now took.
Rai-guy nodded and stroked his chin, whispering something under his breath that the others could not catch. He stepped forward suddenly to stand right before Sharlotta, bringing his hands up in front of him, thumb-to-thumb. He uttered another word, and a gout of flame burst forth, engulfing the surprised woman's head. She slapped at the fire and screamed, running around the room, and dived to the floor, rolling.
"Make sure that all others who know too much are similarly uninformed," Rai-guy said coldly, as Sharlotta finally died on the floor at bis feet.
Kimmuriel nodded, his expression grim, though a hint of an eager grin did turn up the edges of his thin lips.
"I will open the portal back to Menzoberranzan," the wizard explained. "I hold no love for this place and know now, as do you, that our potential gains here do not outweigh the risk to Bregan D'aerthe. I do not even consider it a pity that Jarlaxle foolishly overstepped the bounds of rational caution,"
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