The Last Threshold tns-4

by R. A. Salvatore

  Dahlia was about to yell out exactly that to him, but held her tongue as she came to understand that Entreri’s whole play was naught but a ruse, his waving sword demanding the sahuagin’s attention. Lurching and hissing, the sea devil followed the sword’s movements with its trident, and remained completely oblivious as Entreri threw his dagger into its face.

  The sea devil staggered back a couple of steps. The dagger hadn’t flipped around properly to dig in and had merely bounced off the sahuagin’s forehead, but still had the creature surprised and off-balance. By the time it recovered and re-focused, Entreri stood on the roof before it and a fine sword dived for its chest.

  It tried to turn, it tried to parry.

  But all it could do was grunt as the weapon struck home.

  Entreri pressed it in all the way to the hilt, moving up close so that the dying creature couldn’t begin to bring its long trident to bear.

  Dahlia’s opponent squealed an awful sound and angled its trident to jab at Entreri, but the elf was having nothing of that. She countered with a heavy barrage of thrusts and chops, always just ahead of the trident as the sea devil tried to recover and fight back to even footing with her.

  Finally the frustrated creature simply threw its trident at her, which she easily dodged, then threw itself at Dahlia, biting at her and raking with its claws.

  Or trying to, for the elf warrior hit it several times, Kozah’s Needle punching hard and repeatedly, and on the last strike, Dahlia released the staff’s lightning energy, the blast hurling the sea devil backward, flinging it from the roof with enough force to send it crashing into the wall of the other building.

  Dahlia looked at Entreri, who swung around and flung the impaled sahuagin from his blade so that it, too, would fall dead into the alleyway, his free hand quietly retrieving his belt knife from its belly as it departed.

  “Four,” he announced, going for his dagger, which lay on the roof.

  Dahlia growled at him and started off.

  Started, but didn’t get far, as a stone clipped her across the temple and drove her down to her knees, dazed.

  Entreri stared, bewildered, then looked north toward the wall and figured out the sudden turn of events, for the air filled with flying stones, a barrage of missiles from the townsfolk who couldn’t distinguish a sea devil from an ally in the darkness!

  The sahuagin bit down at her, and Ambergris snapped her head up to meet its attack, her forehead slamming the sea devil’s upper jaw. She got gashed badly as the dazed creature retracted, but she accepted the pain for the gain she had made.

  Then Afafrenfere’s foot flashed in, kicking the stunned sea devil in the side of its jaw. Ambergris saw at once that the monk wouldn’t be her savior here, though, as he leaped away to meet another sahuagin coming out of the cottage.

  As the sea devil atop the dwarf lifted up a bit to regroup and collect its spinning thoughts, Ambergris managed to tuck her legs up under her. She kicked out, straight upward, and tugged the monster’s arms as she did, lifting it right up and over her. Her powerful legs drove hard and the strong dwarf lifted her butt right from the ground, rolling up to her shoulder blades, and launching the sea devil right over so that it landed hard on its back.

  Ambergris arched her back and snapped the muscles of her upper back, throwing herself right to her feet. She swung around immediately, and realizing that her mace was too far away, pulled her small round shield off her back and leaped at the fallen creature. She took up her small shield in both hands and drove its edge down with all of her considerable strength against the prone sea devil’s neck.

  The creature’s legs lifted from the ground under the force of the blow, then began to twitch as the sahuagin thrashed about, gulping for air that would not come.

  Ambergris glanced over her shoulder to watch her companion in action. He had a sea devil on its knees before him, helpless against a barrage of punches that snapped its head left and right.

  “Behind ye!” the dwarf yelled, seeing yet another enemy, trident leading, coming out of the door. She needn’t have bothered, for the battle-skilled monk was quite aware of the creature, obviously, and was even goading it to charge by appearing so distracted.

  Afafrenfere rolled backward as the trident prodded for him, going right behind and around the thrusting tip. He grabbed the long pole with his left hand, and down chopped his right, a powerful blow that snapped the trident’s handle cleanly. Afafrenfere wasted no time in bringing his left hand sweeping across, flipping up the trident’s pointy end as he did to throw it into the sea devil’s face.

  The monk jumped up in the air behind that missile, snap-kicking the sea devil in the face. He landed and spun on the ball of his foot, leaping again into a circle kick that slammed the sahuagin’s chest and sent it flying backward to slam against the cottage wall.

  The monk dropped to one knee, grabbed the fallen trident half, and came up in a full spin, facing the sea devil with the missile lifted up high behind his ear.

  Afafrenfere’s hand snapped forward, the broken trident whipping into the sahuagin’s chest. It grabbed at the handle, but Afafrenfere was there as well, tearing the three-headed trident free of the scaly creature then thrusting it again, angling up to put it into the sea devil’s throat. He tore it free again, and thrust it back into the chest, poking three new holes above the three from the throw.

  He gave a short cry with each movement, his energy enhanced by the sharp calls of his order, his chi focused like the tip of a spear.

  Or the tip of a trident.

  Drizzt’s mithral shirt deflected the javelin, lifting it higher so that it couldn’t dig in to his shoulder. Its tip cut across the side of his neck, drawing a painful cut, but one not serious or debilitating.

  And not as painful as the hit from the other missile, Drizzt realized as he turned with the blow to see that the previous javelin had driven deep into the thigh of the creature that had leaped down from the roof beside him. Still that stubborn sea devil came on, limping badly, the javelin hanging from its leg.

  Drizzt darted at it, kicking out at the javelin. The creature lurched in pain and the drow raced past, slashing with Twinkle. The stubborn creature tried to turn to keep up, but Drizzt skidded to a stop and spun on it directly, his twin blades battering the sahuagin before it began to formulate some defensive posture.

  The drow had to jump back as the other two bore down on him, and still, amazingly, the stubborn, wounded sea devil came at him. A dozen deep wounds dripped blood about its arms and torso. The javelin hung more awkwardly from its leg. Drizzt’s kick had widened the wound. But with that pole flapping, trailing several lines of blood, still the sea devil pursued.

  Drizzt ran away from it, circling wide to charge in at the other two, meeting their pursuit with a fierce blur of movement, spinning and slashing, sliding down low and turning to cut at their legs, leaping up high and similarly spinning and slashing. To an unskilled onlooker, it would have seemed pure chaos, but to a seasoned warrior, every turn, every dip and rise, every slash and stab by the drow ranger would chime as harmonious as the notes of a sweet and perfect melody. Each move led to the next, logically, in balance and with power. Each strike, whether a straight thrust or a wide slash, found its mark.

  And every angled retraction of those blades defeated a sahuagin’s raking claw, or a kick, or a sudden rush. It went on for only a matter of a few heartbeats, but when Drizzt darted and rolled away from that frenzied melee, he left both of the sea devils staggering and bleeding and disoriented, giving him plenty of time to dive down and retrieve his bow.

  He rolled around back to his feet, turning and setting an arrow as he rose.

  The nearest sahuagin flew away in a flash of lightning.

  The second stood straight, piscine eyes going wide.

  Drizzt blew it to the ground, its skull exploding under the weight of the shot.

  That left the third, still limping for him, impaled javelin waving, blood streaming. Drizzt put up another arr
ow and leveled the bow with plenty of time to spare. He stared down the length of that missile at the creature, looking for some sign of fear, some recognition that it was about to die, some understanding that it could not hope to get near to him.

  He saw nothing but determination and hatred.

  He almost pitied the thing.

  Almost.

  He blew the sea devil away.

  “Rest are runnin’ for the sea,” Ambergris reported, the dwarf and monk hustling back around the building across the way from Drizzt. “We might get ye a couple more shots if we’re hurryin’.”

  “Let them run,” Drizzt answered. “We’ll come back tomorrow after sunset, and the next night. Sting them and sting them. They’ll grow weary of this and we’ll help the folk reclaim Port Llast to the sea.”

  “Heroes,” another voice chimed in sarcastically, and the three turned to the street to see Entreri and Dahlia moving toward them, the elf woman barely upright and leaning heavily on the assassin, who showed wounds of his own, including an eye swollen enough so that the others could see its disfigurement even in the starlight.

  Drizzt ran to Dahlia and took her from Entreri’s side, and immediately noted that her hair was sticky and matted with blood.

  “Amber!” Drizzt called, easing Dahlia down.

  “Looks like yerself might be using a spell or two o’ mine, as well,” the dwarf remarked, kneeling beside Dahlia, but considering the line of blood on Drizzt neck.

  When Drizzt regarded the dwarf, her forehead bloody and gashed, he realized that she might be saying the same of herself.

  “We should retreat to the higher reaches beyond the wall,” Afafrenfere offered. “The sahuagin might return in force and formation.”

  “Yes, let’s,” Entreri offered. “I have a few words to offer those grenadiers.”

  His tone had all eyes looking his way.

  “Be warned,” Entreri grimly added, “we might be on the road soon after.”

  Chapter 6

  THE BATTLE OF PORT LLAST

  The cheering followed the five companions all the way back to Stonecutter’s Solace, and even inside the tavern, where their table was visited repeatedly by proud Port Llast villagers, clapping their backs and promising that their gold would never be good in the seaside town.

  “They’ve been starved for such a night as we have given them,” Drizzt remarked in one of the few moments when the five found themselves alone. “And starved for a bit of hope. For too long, this town has been in retreat, the minions of Umberlee in advance.”

  “Bah, but won’t it go right back to that?” Ambergris asked.

  “Only if we allow it,” Afafrenfere interjected before Drizzt could, and the drow nodded and smiled at the monk in agreement and appreciation.

  Others came over to them then, each bearing a fistful of foamy, spilling mugs, and the conversation widened to swallow the many notes of “huzzah” being thrown their way. The dwarf took it all in with a gap-toothed smile, enjoying the accolades, but not as much as she enjoyed the ale.

  Afafrenfere, too, reveled in the glory, though he wouldn’t partake of alcohol, pushing the mugs placed in front of him to the dwarf, which of course only made Ambergris all the happier.

  Truly, Drizzt enjoyed watching his companions’ reaction to the celebration more than the joy of the townsfolk, which he found satisfying, and the libations, of which he would only modestly partake. It did his heart good to watch Ambergris, who reminded him of so many old friends he had known in his decades in Mithral Hall, and Afafrenfere, who appeared to be validating the dwarf’s belief in the goodly bent of his disposition. What warmed Drizzt most of all, though, was the reaction, the sincere smile, of Dahlia. She deserved that smile, he thought.

  The journey to Gauntlgrym had battered this woman. Even attaining her most desired victory in killing Herzgo Alegni had taken more from her than it had given, Drizzt knew. On the road to Gauntlgrym, before they had known that Alegni had survived the fight at the winged bridge, Entreri had posited that perhaps the expectation of revenge had sated Dahlia’s unrelenting anger better than the realization of that revenge. The way Entreri had explained it to Drizzt was that a person could always pretend that some future event would solve many more problems than the realization of such an event could ever bring.

  Drizzt winced slightly as he watched the young elf woman now, and weighed that image against the sight of Dahlia mercilessly pounding dead Herzgo Alegni’s head with her wildly-spinning flails. The tears, the horror, the unrelenting anger … no, not anger, for that word hardly sufficed to describe the emotions pouring forth from the outraged Dahlia.

  Drizzt had come to understand that rage, of course, for Dahlia had painted for him a very dark scene indeed. Herzgo Alegni had murdered her mother, and that after he had raped her, though she was barely more than a child at the time.

  And now, in addition to the complicated emotions swirling within Dahlia due to her exacting revenge, there came a second rub, an even deeper, or at least, an even more confusing and conflicting issue: that of the twisted tiefling warlock, Dahlia’s son. What turmoil must be coursing within that deceivingly delicate frame, Drizzt wondered? What questions, unanswerable, and what deep regrets?

  Drizzt could only imagine. He could equate nothing in his past to the storm swirling within Dahlia. While he had faced his own trials and trauma, even the betrayals of his own family seemed to pale compared to that which this young elf had faced-and indeed, that only reminded Drizzt that she was barely the age he had been when he had left House Do’Urden to serve his time in Melee-Magthere.

  He wanted to empathize, to understand and to offer some advice and comfort, but he knew that any words he might say would surely sound hollow.

  He couldn’t truly understand.

  Which had him turning his head toward someone who, apparently, could. Bound by trauma, Artemis Entreri and Dahlia had found comfort in each other. That much seemed undeniable to Drizzt. He understood now their quiet words, and what a fool he felt himself to be given his irrational jealousy and anger. True, the wicked Charon’s Claw had magnified his response, and had prodded him incessantly with images of the two entwined in passion, but still it felt to Drizzt as if, blinded by his own needs and pride, he had failed an important test in his relationship with Dahlia.

  And where he had failed, this man Entreri had succeeded.

  He watched the assassin now, sitting calmly, accepting the drinks, and even pats on the back, but with a distant, detached expression.

  Drizzt leaned over and whispered to Entreri when he found a break in the stream of congratulations, “You must admit some satisfaction in what we have done this night, in the good we have wrought.”

  Artemis Entreri looked back at him as though he were the offspring of an ettin. “Actually,” he corrected, “the way I see it, we helped them and they threw rocks at us.”

  “They didn’t know it was you on the roof,” Drizzt argued.

  “Still hurts.”

  But even Entreri’s unrelenting sarcasm couldn’t dull the night for Drizzt. He had led his companions to this place hoping for exactly this situation and outcome. No, that description didn’t fit, the drow thought, for this night exceeded his wildest hopes for their venture to Port Llast.

  And it was only the beginning, Drizzt Do’Urden vowed, lifting a mug in toast to Artemis Entreri.

  The assassin didn’t respond, but Ambergris did, heartily, and Dahlia joined in, and even Afafrenfere put aside his aversion to alcohol and lifted a mug.

  “Only the beginning,” Drizzt mouthed silently between foamy lips.

  “The Thayans are not a threat,” Effron told Draygo Quick. “They are disjointed, few in number, and led by this undead creature, Valindra Shadowmantle, who has become a babbling idiot.”

  “A very powerful babbling idiot,” Draygo Quick reminded. He sat in his chair, striking a pensive pose, with his fingertips touching and tapping before him, and a superior expression etched on his weath
ered old face, as if he were looking at this from on high, and with an understanding that his minions on the ground far below him couldn’t quite comprehend.

  At least, that was how Effron viewed it.

  The twisted young tiefling tried to keep a tight hold on his emotions here. He knew that he was already on shaky ground with Lord Draygo and didn’t want to complicate that potential morass with an outburst.

  But he truly wanted to scream. He had gone to Neverwinter Wood and had observed the Thayans, whose numbers had been reduced to disorganized pockets of Ashmadai zealots. These were independent bands now, clearly lost, with no coordination from higher powers, particularly not Valindra, who roosted in the same treelike tower Sylora had taken, but seemed incapable of spouting anything other than gibberish.

  When Draygo Quick had given him this assignment, he had thought it an important mission, but soon into his scouring of Neverwinter Wood, Effron had come to wonder if the withered old wretch had simply moved him to the side of the more important matters.

  “You appear as if you believe your words should comfort me,” Draygo Quick said.

  “The Thayans are no threat,” Effron replied as if the logic should surely follow.

  “Valindra Shadowmantle is undeniably powerful and dangerous.”

  “She’s an idiot.”

  “Which makes her doubly dangerous.”

  “She will never recover the faculties to organize the scattered remnants of the Thayan force into a spear aimed at Neverwinter, nor even as a capable hedge against any advances we might again make into Neverwinter Wood.”

  “I care nothing for either at this time.”

  Effron started to reflexively argue, but held his tongue and instead digested Draygo Quick’s words and let them sink in as he tried to follow the old Shadovar’s reasoning. Why would Draygo Quick say such a thing in the context of Thayan power? Or more specifically, in the context of the relative volatility and danger presented by Valindra Shadowmantle? If he didn’t care about returning to Neverwinter Wood or in trying to regain the city, then why would Valindra and the other Thayans matter at all?