“He has eyes,” the man said, and the woman glowered at him.
The group moved away and Drizzt let them go, reconsidering his own course. He glanced back at Closeguard Isle and the tower, but went the other way, into the city, heading for the dock section, where ruffians roamed for their “drinking and whoring.”
He knew that he’d need luck on his side, but knew, too, that this was not a section of indoor taverns behind closed doors. Most of the establishments near the docks were open-front bars, with patrons wandering up and down the street.
Drizzt paused again when he neared the area, which was well lit and quite boisterous even at this late hour- particularly at this late hour. Some of the many people on the street would recognize him, and given his recent encounter with both Ship Rethnor and Ship Kurth, that might not be such a good thing. He wouldn’t be the only drow down there, at least, he noted, as he spotted one tattooed dark elf walking with others of his crew.
Drizzt pulled the hood of his forest-green cloak up over his head and pulled the cowl low. He wrapped the cloak around his body, as well, to hide his distinctive blades.
He went down among the crowd, keeping his head low, his eyes constantly scanning.
He caught more than one man staring at him curiously, and knew that his time here would be short indeed when one such fellow then turned to a companion and whispered something, and the companion rushed away. To gather allies, no doubt.
Drizzt shook the notion away and focused on Dahlia, reminding himself that she needed him here and needed him to be quick. He picked up his pace, moving along, studying the faces.
Beniago.
The man seemed to be alone, walking with a mug of ale in one hand, a half-eaten loaf of bread in the other. Drizzt surveyed the area then moved fast. He cut across Beniago’s path, perhaps ten strides ahead of the man, and only briefly glanced at him, making sure that Beniago noticed him as well.
But only for that fleeting instant.
He didn’t want the assassin to be sure that it was him. The hint was his tease.
He crossed the narrow street and moved between a pair of taverns and down a shadowy alley, picking up his speed as soon as he was out of sight. The drow skidded to a stop and picked his way up the side of a building to a rooftop. He crept along the alleyway, and he watched.
Beniago turned into that alleyway a few heartbeats later, drink and bread gone, weapons drawn. The assassin of Ship Kurth moved down cautiously, twenty steps into the alley, then around a corner at the backside of the building into a shorter alley that exited onto a far less bustling street.
The man stayed near to a wall, his gaze darting all around. He was out of sight of the street now.
Drizzt dropped into the alley behind him, his cloak open, his hood back.
Beniago spun to face him, gave a gasp, and thrust his sword at the drow’s midsection.
A scimitar picked it off cleanly, and even as Beniago brought his long weapon back to bear, the drow came on fiercely, both of his blades out and high in front of him, his wrists rolling over each other in a devastating and straightforward assault.
Beniago fell back and repeatedly batted his sword up horizontally in front of him. He kept his other arm, holding his prized dagger, cocked at his side.
Drizzt noted it, of course, and so he pressed all the harder, his scimitars beating a steady rhythm against Beniago’s sword. He found an opening, Twinkle hitting the sword at just the right angle to move it aside, and Icingdeath coming in right behind, with an open path to Beniago’s shoulder.
But Drizzt didn’t take the opening to score a hit, and altered his angle just enough so that Beniago could adjust his sword and block that blade, too.
Drizzt came on harder, recklessly it seemed, and he stumbled past and crashed hard against the alleyway wall as Beniago threw himself to the side.
With a growl, apparently thinking victory imminent, Beniago’s other hand stabbed out, but that growl turned to a gasp as Drizzt’s blade came down in a swift backhand slash, intercepting the thrust and gashing Beniago’s forearm.
The assassin cried out and his dagger went flying away.
Beniago turned to his right and leaped away, his left sword hand, slashing back to fend off the drow.
But the drow dropped below the swipe, executing his own cut, and Beniago had to leap up to avoid getting his ankles chopped out from under him. He landed off-balance, trying to throw himself back against the wall enough to catch his balance, but that twisting movement slowed him.
Drizzt tumbled past him with amazing quickness, his magically-enhanced anklets providing a burst of speed. He came to his feet farther along the first alleyway, blocking the escape.
Beniago skidded to a stop, his cut arm tucked under his sword arm, his blade waving defensively in front of him. He began to backstep immediately, and glanced over his shoulder.
“My panther is out there,” Drizzt warned-and lied, for he’d already overtaxed Guenhwyvar and had not dared summon her back to the Prime Material Plane. “If you try to flee, she will destroy you.”
“I’m second to the high captain of Ship Kurth,” Beniago warned. “If you kill me-”
“They will seek to kill me in response?” Drizzt mocked him. “Is that not already the case, Beniago?”
“More so!” the assassin promised, and he seemed to grow more confident then, for a din had begun on the street behind them.
Drizzt heard it, too, and he reached into his innate powers, last remnants of his days in Menzoberranzan, and placed a magical globe of darkness halfway down the alley between himself and the street.
“Ship Kurth will hunt you to the ends of Faerun!”
Drizzt put up his blades. “If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead,” he said. “You left an opening against my overhand spin. Don’t deny it, for you noted it and tried to correct your block, and only were able to do so because I allowed it.”
Beniago fumbled for a response, but had none.
“Dahlia is poisoned,” Drizzt went on. “I need the antidote to the jeweler’s trap, and I need it now, or she will surely perish. I go now to that shop.” He started to climb the wall, for now a shout went up from the street behind him. “Come to me with the antidote.”
“Why would-?”
“You will be high captain one day,” Drizzt said as he neared the roof. “You’ll want allies.”
“You ask me to trust you and Dahlia?” Beniago asked incredulously, but Drizzt was already gone from his sight.
Not gone from the alleyway, though, as he found another perch and watched Beniago.
A gang of pirates finally prodded through the darkness globe, then came charging down the alley as Beniago moved to retrieve his dagger. The assassin regarded his allies with a disgusted shake of his head and roughly shouldered past them.
A semi-conscious Dahlia thrashed as Ben the Brewer’s hot knife cut deeply into her foot. The farmer woman holding her down nearly got a knee in the face for her efforts.
“Ah, but it’s an ugly thing,” she said as green and white pus flowed from the wound. “Viper juice?”
“Aye, and we’ve all seen the withering o’ that bite.”
“Then she’s a dead one.”
“Should be already, but not a lot went in,” Ben the Brewer replied. He cut again, drawing an X on Dahlia’s foot, and more pus flowed forth. “And she’s a tough one, I’m thinking.”
Dahlia cried out, perhaps in pain, but it wasn’t a response to his knife, they both knew. She was lost in her fevered dreams once more, and obviously, those dreams were not proving to be a pleasant experience.
Ben the Brewer reached up to Dahlia’s thigh and pulled tighter on the slip-knot he’d set there. “I’d take her leg,” he said. “The foot at least. But I’m not thinking she’d live through the cutting.”
“She’s doomed anyway,” the farmer woman replied, and she looked to the wide-bladed axe and the long serrated knife he’d brought.
“If High Captain Kurth learns of this…” Beniago started to say, holding his hand out to Drizzt.
Drizzt took the phial. “He’ll thank you when Dahlia and I offer him our allegiance,” he finished for Beniago. “If Kurth is still high captain when we meet again, I mean,” the drow added, a clear implication that he believed that Beniago might find a way to rise to that seat of power.
