The Last Threshold tns-4

by R. A. Salvatore

  The crowd cheered wildly, and even more so when the big man tried to rise and simply fell back to the floor, clutching his smashed hand as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

  Jingling coins and sputtered curses, wild cheers and calls for more, filled the air as the tavern took on an even greater festive atmosphere.

  And amidst it all, Drizzt and Dahlia focused on Ambergris, pulling forth her holy symbol as she moved to the fallen pugilist. “I’ll be fixin’ yer hand for ye,” she said, and added, “for a few coins.”

  “Brilliant,” Drizzt muttered helplessly, and behind him, Dahlia laughed again.

  “I grow bored,” Afafrenfere said to Ambergris. The two stood off to the side as another match took center stage.

  “Bah, not to worry,” said the dwarf. “After that last one, I ain’t to get anyone to challenge yerself anyway.”

  As she spoke, a burly man in the current brawl hoisted his opponent up over his head and threw him across the room, to smash down among the chairs and tables.

  “More coins for a healer,” Ambergris whispered. She started away, but stopped abruptly, considering the victor, who stood with his large arms upraised, roaring and prancing about.

  “Might that that one’ll want a try at ye,” the dwarf said to the monk.

  “He is a lumbering fool,” Afafrenfere replied.

  “Aye, but a proud one.”

  The monk shrugged.

  Soon after Ambergris had cast a healing spell upon the latest loser, Afafrenfere squared up against the large man, who seemed to have a bit of ogre blood, so tall and wide was he.

  Of course, that only made him a bigger target.

  He came on brazenly, swiping his thick arms across one after the other, while Afafrenfere ducked back, then under, then off to the side.

  The cheers began to quiet, shouts of complaint arising as many twists and turns resulted in not a blow being landed.

  Afafrenfere kept glancing at Ambergris, who held a bag of coins, for which she could find no takers.

  The big man came at him, hands open, and Afafrenfere did not dodge then, but stepped forward and punched the man in the face.

  The move cost him dearly, though, as the big man grabbed him around the neck with both hands and lifted him off the ground. Afafrenfere kicked out at him, but so long were the man’s arms that the monk couldn’t get any solid hits.

  He glanced over again at Ambergris, who was arguing with several patrons who were demanding that she honor her offer and place her bets.

  The dwarf convincingly argued-too convincingly and for far too long, Afafrenfere thought, as the big man choked him and jerked him side to side like a doll. Finally, Ambergris relented and handed over the coins.

  She noted the monk’s glance her way and tossed him a wink.

  Afafrenfere grabbed the big man’s thumbs and held on tight then kicked out at him with both feet but pulled them back in close before they connected. He used the momentum to go right over, lifting his legs above him and thus breaking free of the hold.

  He landed back a stride or so, but the big man kept up in pursuit, as Afafrenfere had hoped, and grabbed again at the monk’s throat. Before the behemoth could come close and hoist Afafrenfere from the floor again, however, the monk grabbed at his hands, hooked his thumbs under the big man’s thumbs and folded his legs under him, dropping straight to the floor.

  The big man lurched forward, but before he realized what was happening, the monk landed in a kneeling position and used the momentum of that drop to drive his hands down and over with sudden and brutal force, bending the big man’s thumbs back over the large hands.

  The dull thud of the monk’s knees hitting the floor fast became the sharp crack of finger bones breaking.

  The big man made a strange sound, half growl, half howl, and pulled his hands away. Up came the furious monk, leaping forward to strike a quick left and right into the man’s face. And up came the broken hands and Afafrenfere came on even harder, letting fly a tremendous right into the man’s gut. He staggered back to crash into the back and lurched over, arms crossed over his belly.

  Afafrenfere’s left hook cracked him across the face, whipping his head to the side. He brought his hands to block, and the monk’s tremendous right-handed uppercut hit him in the gut with enough force to lift him off the ground.

  Down went the big man’s hands and across came Afafrenfere’s left hook, again snapping his opponent’s head to the side. Up went the man’s hands defensively and another uppercut lifted him from his feet.

  The devastating cycle repeated a third time, which left the big man out on his feet, his arms just hanging there helplessly. Still angry about the choke hold, Afafrenfere leaned right against the big man and his right hand pumped repeatedly, each blow hoisting the brute from the floor and dropping him back in place.

  “Enough!” came a cry from the crowd.

  “Aye, ye’re to kill him! Enough!” shouted another.

  Brother Afafrenfere turned around and put up his hands unthreateningly. He stared into a score of amazed expressions, many shaking their heads in disbelief.

  The monk looked at Ambergris and gave a helpless shrug and a crooked grin, and the dwarf, recognizing the intent behind that look, shook her head and grimaced.

  Just as Afafrenfere spun a sudden circuit up on his the balls of his feet, coming around with great speed and force, a spinning left hook that chopped the side of the big man’s jaw and sent him flipping and flopping over and down, to land heavily flat on his back on the wooden floor.

  The whole room seemed to stand in place and time, cheers and jeers and shouts becoming a sudden frozen silence, all eyes locked on this shocking, wiry man with his thunderous hands.

  The big man groaned and shifted, showing that he wasn’t dead at least, breaking the spell, and several patrons near to Ambergris began shoving the dwarf and yelling. Afafrenfere moved quickly to her side.

  “What magic, dwarf?” one man asked.

  “None,” answered a woman from behind, unexpectedly, and the crowd parted and turned to see a red-haired woman well known in Neverwinter.

  Arunika moved up to the dwarf and monk and scrutinized Afafrenfere carefully. She took him by the wrist, and when he didn’t object, she turned his arm over, revealing a tattoo of a yellow rose inside his forearm.

  She gave a knowing laugh.

  “No magic,” she said to those others around. “A fair win, though I’d not be betting on this one’s opponents.”

  “Ah, ye gamed us, ye wretched little dwarf!” a particularly dirty patron grumbled.

  “Ah, so’s yer sister,” Ambergris yelled right back at him. “Ye weren’t for givin’ me a bet, and then yer boy looked to be a winner and ye called me on me coin!”

  “Ye set it up that way!” the patron declared.

  “I set it up to get the life choked out o’ me friend?”

  “He’s looking alive to me!”

  “Aye, but if we’re to be agreeing with what ye’re sayin’, then yer champion there ain’t much o’ nothin’! Think about it, ye dolt!” As she built momentum, Ambergris moved very near the man and poked her thick finger right in his face, driving him back before her. “Yerself’s arguing that I let me boy get himself choked half to death knowin’ that he could then break out and pound yer boy to the floor. Says nothing good about yer boy, and I’ll be sure to tell him o’ yer confidence and praise”-she looked over at the man lying flat out on the floor “-soon as he’s waking up.”

  That had the aggressive man back on his heels.

  “Pay her,” Arunika told the patrons. “Coin won fairly. And if you’re to bet, then you’re to pay your losses.”

  Much grumbling ensued, but Ambergris and Afafrenfere walked out of the tavern with several small bags of gold.

  “We won’t be winning anymore that way,” Afafrenfere remarked. “We should have stopped after two.”

  “Bah! They’ll bet again. Can’t help themselves, the dolts.”

&nbs
p; “They will bet on me, so where is your win?”

  “Ye might be right,” Ambergris said, and she grinned wickedly and winked at him. “Unless ye’re thinkin’ ye can take a pair o’ them.”

  Afafrenfere started to respond, but just sighed instead. More likely, he knew, Ambergris would put him in a match against three opponents.

  “There is your seer,” Dahlia remarked to Drizzt.

  The drow reflexively put a hand to his belt pouch, but he moved it back immediately. He didn’t need Arunika, for Guen was back beside him.

  But then another idea came to him, and he smiled at Dahlia and waved to Arunika to join him.

  “You look well,” the red-haired woman remarked when she came over and took a seat beside the two.

  “He found his panther,” Dahlia explained. “And now we seek-” Drizzt put his hand on her forearm, cutting her short, something Arunika surely noticed.

  “Barrabus-Artemis Entreri, is here,” Drizzt said. “He is in the third private room upstairs. Would you go to him for me? I will pay.”

  Dahlia’s eyes widened and she turned to stare at Drizzt, her expression full of surprise and anger.

  “I am no whore,” Arunika replied with a laugh.

  “No,” Drizzt replied with a laugh of his own, “not like that. Entreri has agreed to accompany us to the north, but now has fostered second thoughts. His best course is to the north, I insist, and I would like you to confirm that for him.”

  “On your word?” the woman asked skeptically.

  “Use your powers then,” Drizzt bade her. “I know where to find something he wishes returned to him.”

  “The sword?”

  “Is destroyed,” Dahlia interjected.

  “Ah,” said Arunika, and she seemed impressed.

  “This is something different, but no less important,” Drizzt assured her.

  Arunika stared at him for a while, and whispered some words-a spell, he realized-under her breath.

  “An item, or an epiphany?” the seer asked slyly.

  “Yes,” Drizzt answered.

  Arunika started to rise and Drizzt reached for his coin purse. But the woman deferred and promised, “I will go to him.”

  ***

  “What do you want?” Artemis Entreri asked from behind the cracked door. He was stripped to the waist-and Arunika made certain that he noted her appreciative stare at his muscled torso.

  “Barrabus,” she replied.

  “That is not my name-never again my name.”

  “Artemis, then,” she said. “Speak with me. We’re great players amidst a sea of peasants. We shouldn’t be strangers, or enemies.”

  Her words were weighted with more than a little magical suggestion, but she needn’t have bothered. For most males, and Entreri proved no exception, the magically disarming and enticing affect of her spell-enhanced appearance sufficed. Entreri stepped back and opened the door, and Arunika happily entered his den.

  “It’s good that you’ve returned,” she said, taking a seat on his ruffled bedding and demurely crossing her legs. It occurred to her that she should abandon Drizzt’s request and convince Entreri to remain in Neverwinter. Could she make him an informant, perhaps, another great cog in the network she’d fostered? She knew the exploits of Barrabus the Gray, after all, and he was a man of no small danger and power.

  Too much danger, she decided not long into her conversation with Entreri, not long after looking into his cold eyes. Yes, she did remember Barrabus the Gray, and had always understood that he was one of the few mortals she had ever met capable of defeating her.

  Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be useful to her, and in a number of ways.

  Despite her protests earlier, the redhead did engage in a bit of overpowering seduction, to indulge herself as much as to please Entreri. She didn’t leave his room until the sky was beginning to lighten with the dawn, and she left Entreri quite exhausted, indeed fast asleep.

  She had shown him great pleasure, and he had reciprocated. An added bonus, the succubus thought, for the purpose of her seduction had not been her own pleasure. Not this night, though it had come as an added bonus, surely! No, in the midst of their entwining, Arunika had placed an enchantment upon this dangerous assassin, a dweomer of clairvoyance. And when they were done, collapsed in each other’s arms, the red-haired succubus, a whispering demon, had lived up to the reputation of her kind, offering quiet encouragement into Entreri’s ear, assuring him that his best road forward lay beside Drizzt and Dahlia.

  Her reputation as a seer wasn’t wholly unearned, after all, and now Artemis Entreri, marked by the dweomer of Arunika, would spy for her.

  Chapter 4

  MY FRIEND THE VAMPIRE

  The change in perspective was quite disorienting for Draygo Quick. First he was standing in his room, watching the panther turn to mist, then he was traveling the ether, swirling and spinning, his sensibilities secretly carried along with Guenhwyvar.

  Soon he was beside the drow ranger and Dahlia on Toril, but low to the ground, stalking. He could hear the pair but he couldn’t turn to regard them. Not having command over the cat’s muscles, but rather just seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling through her created a strange, out-of-body, and more importantly, out-of-control, experience for the old warlock.

  An altered reality, actually, for the panther’s eyes did not view the world as a human would. Everything seemed elongated, with distances more clearly defined. The crystal clarity led to a dizzying, almost magnifying effect on the grasses and branches and fallen leaves, as if a hundred mirrors had taken the sunlight and magnified it many times over to completely alter the color of the world.

  Sounds filled Draygo Quick’s mind-some were soft, like the call of a distant bird, then became suddenly loud as the panther turned her ears. In that turn, other sounds were muted. It seemed to Draygo that the cat could lock her hearing directionally, this way or that, amplifying regions of sound almost to the exclusion of other areas.

  She was moving then, swiftly, in pursuit of something, and the ground and low brush sped by so wildly that Draygo reflexively closed his own eyes to try to block it out. But he could not close Guenhwyvar’s eyes and so his actions had no effect. He almost broke the connection, but then Guenhwyvar’s prey suddenly came into view.

  Humans and tieflings-Ashmadai zealots-scrambled in alarm, gathering up their war scepters, shoving each other aside.

  A blinding flash ripped the air above him, and an Ashmadai man went flying away.

  Then the warlock felt as if he were flying, too, as Guenhwyvar leaped. He saw a woman dive aside, another turn and shriek, and he flew past them both, crashing hard against the chest of a burly tiefling warrior. Draygo Quick felt the impact as that warrior tried to bang his scepter against the panther’s flank, but more keenly, Draygo Quick tasted the sweat and flesh as Guenhwyvar bit down. His vision failed him. The cat had closed her eyes, but he heard, keenly, the tearing of flesh and the crunch of bone, and the smell-oh the smell! — overwhelmed him. Coppery and warm.

  The scent of gushing blood.

  He felt as if he were flying again, and his vision returned suddenly. He saw the drow spinning by, scimitars humming through the air. Dahlia vaulted past and he heard a grunt and a groan and the slapping of her staff against the skull of a woman. The panther crashed into another man, tackling him to the ground, breaking branches and flattening the brush. As soon as they landed, Guenhwyvar spun around and sprang away. Draygo Quick didn’t even realize that he was pawing and clawing the air reflexively to mimic the feeling of Guenhwyvar’s claws ripping the flesh from the man.

  Back into the sprint they went, an Ashmadai spinning down before them. A scimitar flashed out, right before Draygo Quick’s vision, and he shouted and threw his arms across his face, trying desperately to retreat from the overwhelming sights, sounds, and smells.

  He felt as if he were falling, falling, into a vast and dark hole.

  “… it led us here because there was s
omething here.” Drizzt’s voice reached out to him, drawing him from the darkness and back into the senses of the panther. “Something powerful …”

  The last word faded away as Guenhwyvar turned her ears to focus on a distant shout. Had some of the Ashmadai band escaped?

  “… working with the vampire?” Dahlia asked.

  The cat sprang away, running up the side of a tree, and all Draygo Quick could catch of Drizzt’s response was, “… it’s much worse than that.”

  Oh, go back, you idiot cat! the warlock’s mind screamed futilely.

  The elf and the drow continued to talk below, but the panther focused off into the distance, and Draygo Quick heard the breathing of a fleeing Ashmadai warrior more keenly than he heard their voices. His thoughts pleaded with Guenhwyvar, but of course, the panther could not hear them.

  The panther jumped down from the tree, and Draygo Quick cried out in horror to see the ground rushing up at him. The sheer shock broke his connection with Guenhwyvar, but as his consciousness returned to his room in the Shadowfell, he heard the voice of Drizzt saying, “What do we know of the fate of Valindra Shadowmantle?”

  “Lord Draygo?” Effron asked quietly, moving into the old warlock’s private chambers. He glanced all around. The place seemed quite empty. By all accounts, though, Draygo Quick was in here. The old warlock had summoned him, even.

  He moved slowly and cautiously, always as if walking on tiles of blown glass when around this most dangerous and vindictive wretch. Effron had not leaped with joy when Draygo Quick’s messenger had arrived with the summons.

  He passed the side room, where Guenhwyvar was kept, and resisted entering it, for fear that he would be discovered and accused of trying to steal the panther yet again.

  “Lord Draygo?” he repeated as he entered the main chamber.

  Still empty. Effron again turned to the side room. He summoned his courage and moved to the door, gently turning the handle and shouting out, louder now, “Lord Draygo!”