“With the Shadovar haunting the streets and alleyways?” Dahlia replied, her tone harsh.
Drizzt didn’t quite know how to reply, so he just hugged her a bit closer.
“They are in the city, among the settlers, so said Barrabus-the man you call Artemis Entreri,” Dahlia replied.
“A foothold likely gained only because of the greater threat of Sylora Salm. If that threat is diminished, I expect that the Shadovar-”
“When their leader is dead, the threat of the Shadovar will diminish,” Dahlia interrupted bluntly and coldly. “And their leader will soon be dead.”
Drizzt tried to hug her closer, but she pulled away from him. She took a couple of steps closer to the edge of the bluff and rearranged her blanket around her.
“Time is not his ally, it is ours,” Drizzt said.
Dahlia turned on him sharply, her gaze stern-and intensified by the threatening patterns of her war woad.
“He will know the truth,” Drizzt insisted. “He will learn from Entreri of what transpired with Sylora Salm, and will know that we will come for him-Entreri admitted as much to us when he told us that he was enslaved and that he could not join us in your vendetta.”
“Then the foul Netherese warlord should be very afraid right now,” Dahlia replied.
“And so he will be very alert right now, with his forces pulled in tightly. Now is not the time-”
Again, Dahlia cut him short. “It is not your choice.”
“As the Thayan threat diminishes, so too will our opponent’s guard, and so too will his standing within the city,” Drizzt pressed on against her anger. “I have met these settlers and they are goodly folk-they’ll not suffer the Netherese for long. This is not the time to go after him.”
Dahlia’s blue eyes flashed with anger, and for a moment, Drizzt thought she might lash out at him. Even knowing her designs and determination to get Alegni, the drow ranger could hardly believe the level of intensity in that rage! He could not imagine her angrier if he had admitted to her some heinous crime he had committed against her family. He was glad that she did not have her weapon available to her at that moment.
Drizzt let a long silence pass between them before daring to continue. “You will kill Alegni.”
“Do not speak his name!” Dahlia insisted, and she spat upon the ground, as if even hearing the name had brought bile into her mouth.
Drizzt patted his hands in the air, trying to calm her.
Gradually, the angry fires in her eyes were replaced with a profound sadness.
“What is it?” he whispered, daring to move closer.
Dahlia turned around but did not refuse him as he put his arms around her once more. Together, they looked down at Neverwinter.
“I’m going to kill him,” she whispered, and it seemed to Drizzt as if she was speaking to herself more than to him. “No delay. No wait. I will kill him.”
“As you killed Sylora Salm?”
“Had I known she named him as her enemy, I would have helped her. Had I known the identity of the Shadovar leader, I never would have left Neverwinter for Luskan or Gauntlgrym. I never would have departed the region until he was dead by my hand. ”
She said those last three words with such clarity, such intensity, such venom, that Drizzt knew he would get nowhere in reasoning with Dahlia at this time.
So he just held her.
In the skeleton of a dead tree, peering through a crack in the rotting wood, Effron the Twisted watched the couple with great interest. The misshapen warlock heard every word of their conversation and wasn’t surprised by any of it. He knew of Dahlia, knew more of her than anyone else alive, likely, and he understood the demons that guided her.
Of course she would try to kill Herzgo Alegni. She would be happier if she died trying to kill him than if they both remained alive.
Effron understood her.
The warlock couldn’t deny his own emotions in looking at this elf warrior woman. Part of him wanted to leap out from the tree and destroy the couple then and there. Good sense overruled that impulse, though, for he had heard enough of the reputation of this Drizzt Do’Urden creature to realize that he ought to play this game cautiously.
Besides, he wasn’t sure he wanted Dahlia killed-not immediately, at least. There were some things he wanted to know, needed to know, and only she could provide the answers.
The Shadovar warlock shade-shifted away from the spot, but did not immediately return to Herzgo Alegni’s side to report his findings. Effron was nobody’s slave, after all, and was not without his own resources.
He went instead to a forest region of dells and rocky ridges outside of Neverwinter. The sky was still very dark, with low clouds, and a light snow had begun to fall, but Effron knew this area well and moved unerringly to an encampment set in a shallow cave.
Sitting nearby were a handful of Shadovar-Netherese soldiers who had come through from the Shadowfell soon after Effron, at Effron’s secret bidding, but who had not yet pledged their allegiance to Alegni.
When the twisted warlock shambled into their midst, they all stood up, not quite at attention but still with some modicum of respect.
“You have the globes?” the warlock asked one shade, a tall human male named Ratsis.
In response, Ratsis flashed a crooked-toothed smile and reached under the open collar of his shirt to produce a silver chain necklace set with two shadow-filled translucent globes, each the size of a child’s fist. In the swirling shadowmists within each globe crawled a spider, small and furry, like a tiny tarantula. Ratsis grinned.
“For the elf woman,” Effron reminded him.
“And what of her companion?” Ratsis asked.
“Kill him,” Effron replied without hesitation. “He is too dangerous to capture, or to allow to escape. Kill him.”
“We are seven,” insisted Jermander, another of the group, a fierce tiefling warrior who wore both his pride and his unrelenting anger openly. “They are but two!”
“Eight,” Ratsis the spider-keeper quietly corrected. He paused for just a moment, smiling as he rolled the globes of his necklace around, eyes glowing as he viewed his pets, and reconsidered. “Ten.”
Jermander’s expression showed that he did not appreciate those particular allies, which only drew a laugh from Ratsis.
“Do not underestimate these two enemies, my fighting friend,” Ratsis warned.
“Do not underestimate us,” Jermander retorted. “We are not fodder, pulled from the Shadowfell for the pleasure of Effron the Twisted, or even Lord Alegni.”
Effron matched the warrior’s stare, but he did not disagree. These particular shades were not Netherese nobles, perhaps, but neither could they be considered commoners. They were mercenaries of great reputation, the famed Bounty Hirelings of Cavus Dun, and they came at a high price indeed.
“My apologies, Jermander,” Effron said with an awkward, twisted bow.
“Capture the elf woman,” Ratsis said with great emphasis. “Sheathe your blades.” He rolled the spider globes around his fingers again and smiled victoriously. “Be lethal with the drow, gentle with the elf.”
The exchange of looks between Jermander and Ratsis revealed more than a little competition between the two, and no shortage of animosity either. Neither of those truths was lost on Effron.
“Do not fail me in killing the drow,” the warlock, who also carried the weight of a Netherese noble, warned. “Fail me in capturing Dahlia alive, and you will beg for your death for eternity.”
“A threat?” Jermander asked, seeming amused.
“Draygo Quick,” Effron reminded him. The warrior lost his bluster at the mention of that truly powerful Shadovar. “A promise.”
Effron ended with a hard stare, shifting his gaze from one mercenary to the other, then slowly walked away.
“Get the Shifter,” Ratsis said as soon as Effron was gone. The Shifter had been the reason he had corrected Jermander’s count when he had insisted that they were eight and not seven.
