Servant of the Shard: The Sellswords

by R. A. Salvatore

  It leaped at the seemingly vulnerable man, a flying tackle aimed for Entreri’s waist. Two quick steps took the assassin out of harm’s way, and he swished his sword down onto the orc’s back as it flew past, cracking the powerful weapon right through the creature’s backbone. The orc skidded down hard on its face, its upper torso and arms squirming wildly, but its legs making no movement of their own.

  Entreri didn’t even bother finishing the wretched creature. He just ran on. He had a direction sorted for his run, for he heard the unmistakable laughter of a drow who seemed to be having too much fun.

  He found Jarlaxle standing atop a boulder amidst the largest tumult of battling orcs, spurring one side on with excited words that Entreri could not understand, while systematically cutting down their opponents with dagger after thrown dagger.

  Entreri stopped in the shadow of a tree and watched the spectacle.

  Sure enough, Jarlaxle soon changed sides, calling out to the other orcs, and launching that endless stream of daggers at members of the side he had just been urging on.

  The numbers dwindled, obviously so, and eventually, even the stupid orcs caught on to the deadly ruse. As one, they turned on Jarlaxle.

  The drow only laughed at them all the harder as a dozen spears came his way—every one of them missing the mark badly due to the displacement magic in the drow’s cloak and the bad aim of the orcs. The drow countered, throwing one dagger after another. Jarlaxle spun around on his high perch, always seeking the closest orc, and always hitting home with a nearly perfect throw.

  Out of the shadows came Entreri, a whirlwind of fury, dagger working efficiently, but sword waving wildly, building walls of floating ash as the assassin sliced up the battlefield to suit his designs. Inevitably, Entreri worked his way into a situation that put him one-on-one against an orc. Just as inevitably, that creature was down and dying within the span of a few thrusts and stabs.

  Entreri and Jarlaxle walked slowly back up the mountain slope soon after, with the drow complaining at the meager take of silver pieces they had found on the orcs. Entreri was hardly listening, was more concerned with the call that had brought the creatures to them in the first place—the plea, the scream, for help from Crenshinibon. These were just a rag-tag band of orcs, but what more powerful creatures might the Crystal Shard find to come to its call next?

  “The call of the shard is strong,” he admitted to Jarlaxle.

  “It has existed for centuries,” the drow answered. “It knows well how to preserve itself.”

  “That existence is soon to end,” Entreri said grimly.

  “Why?” Jarlaxle asked with perfect innocence.

  The tone more than the word stopped Entreri cold in his tracks and made him turn around to regard his surprising companion.

  “Do we have to go through this all over again?” the assassin asked.

  “My friend, I know why you believe the Crystal Shard to be unacceptable for either of us to wield, but why does that translate into the need to destroy it?” Jarlaxle asked. He paused and glanced around, and motioned for Entreri to follow and led the assassin to the edge of a fairly deep ravine, a remote valley. “Why not just throw it away then?” he asked. “Toss it from this cliff and let it land where it may?”

  Entreri stared out at the remote vale and almost considered taking Jarlaxle’s advice. Almost, but a very real truth rang clear in his mind. “Because it would find its way back to the hands of our adversaries soon enough,” he replied. “The Crystal Shard saw great potential in Rai-guy,”

  Jarlaxle nodded. “Sensible,” he said. “Ever was that one too ambitious for his own good. Why do you care, though? Let Rai-guy have it and have all of Calimport, if the artifact can deliver the city to him. What does it matter to Artemis Entreri, who is gone from that place, and who will not return anytime soon in any event? Likely, my former lieutenant will be too preoccupied with the potential gains he might find with the artifact in his hands even to worry about our whereabouts. Perhaps freeing ourselves of the burden of the artifact will indeed save us from the pursuit we now fear at our backs.”

  Entreri spent a long moment musing over that reasoning, but one fact kept nagging at him. “The Crystal Shard knows I wish to see it destroyed,” he replied. “It knows that in my heart I hate it and will find some way to be rid of the thing. Rai-guy knows the threat that is Jarlaxle. As long as you live, he can never be certain of his position within Bregan D’aerthe. What would happen if Jarlaxle reappeared in Menzoberranzan, reaching out to old comrades against the fools who tried to steal the throne of Bregan D’aerthe?”

  Jarlaxle offered no response, but the twinkle in his dark eyes told Entreri that his drow companion would like nothing more than to play out that very scenario.

  “He wants you dead,” Entreri said bluntly. “He needs you dead, and with the Crystal Shard at his disposal, that might not prove to be an overly difficult task.”

  The twinkle in Jarlaxle’s dark eyes remained, but after a moment’s thought, he just shrugged and said, “Lead on.”

  Entreri did just that, back to their horses and back to the trails that would take them to the northeast, to the Snowflake Mountains and the Spirit Soaring. Entreri was quite pleased with the way he had handled Jarlaxle, quite pleased in the strength of his argument for destroying the Crystal Shard.

  But it was all just so much dung, he knew, all a justification for that which was in his heart. Yes, he was determined to destroy the Crystal Shard, and would see the artifact obliterated, but it was not for any fear of retribution or of pursuit. Entreri wanted Crenshinibon destroyed simply because the mere existence of the dominating artifact revolted him. The Crystal Shard, in trying to coerce him, had insulted him profoundly. He didn’t hold any notion that the wretched world would be a better place without the artifact, and hardly cared whether it would be or not, but he did believe that he would more greatly enjoy his existence in the world knowing that one less wretched and perverted item such as the Crystal Shard remained in existence.

  Of course, as Entreri harbored these thoughts, Crenshinibon realized them as well. The Crystal Shard could only seethe, could only hope that it might find someone weaker of heart and stronger of arm to slay Artemis Entreri and free it from his grasp.

  CHAPTER

  RESPECTABLE OPPONENTS

  18

  It was Entreri,” Sharlotta Vespers said with a sly grin as she examined the orc corpse on the side of the mountain a couple days later. “The precision of the cuts … and see, a dagger thrust here, a sword slash there.”

  “Many fight with sword and dirk,” the wererat, Gord Abrix, replied. The wretch, wearing his human form at that time, moved his hands out wide as he spoke, revealing his own sword and dagger hanging on his belt.

  “But few strike so well,” Sharlotta argued.

  “And these others,” Berg’inyon Baenre agreed in his stilted command of the common tongue. He swung his arm about to encompass the many orcs lying dead around the base of a large boulder. “Wounds consistent with a dagger throw—and so many of them. Only one warrior that I know of carries such a supply as that.”

  “You are counting wounds, not daggers!” Gord Abrix argued.

  “They are one and the same in a fight this frantic,” Berg’inyon reasoned. “These are throws, not stabs, for there is no tearing about the sides of the cuts, just a single fast puncture. And I think it unlikely that anyone would throw a few daggers at one opponent, somehow run down and pull them free, then throw them at another.”

  “Where are these daggers, then, drow?” the wererat leader asked doubtfully.

  “Jarlaxle’s missiles are magical in nature and disappear,” Berg’inyon answered coldly. “His supply is nearly endless. This is the work of Jarlaxle, I know—and not his best work, I warn both of you.”

  Sharlotta and Gord Abrix exchanged nervous glances, though the wererat leader still held that doubting expression.

  “Have you not yet learned the proper respect for the d
row?” Berg’inyon asked him pointedly and threateningly.

  Gord Abrix went back on his heels and held his empty hands up before him.

  Sharlotta eyed him closely. Gord Abrix wanted a fight, she knew, even with this dark elf standing before him. Sharlotta hadn’t really seen Berg’inyon Baenre in action, but she had seen his lessers, dark elves who had spoken of this young Baenre with the utmost respect. Even those lessers would have had little trouble in slaughtering the prideful Gord Abrix. Yes, Sharlotta realized then and there, her own self-preservation would depend upon her getting as far away from Gord Abrix and his sewer dwellers as possible, for there was no respect here, only abject hatred for Artemis Entreri and a genuine dislike for the dark elves. No doubt, Gord Abrix would lead his companions, wererat and other wise, into absolute devastation.

  Sharlotta Vespers, the survivor, wanted no part of that.

  “The bodies are cold, the blood dried, but they have not been cleanly picked,” Berg’inyon observed.

  “A couple of days, no more,” Sharlotta added, and she looked to Gord Abrix, as did Berg’inyon.

  The wererat nodded and smiled wickedly. “I will have them,” he declared. He walked off to confer with his wererat companions, who had been standing off to the side of the battleground.

  “He will have a straight passageway to the realm of death,” Berg’inyon quietly remarked to Sharlotta when the two were alone.

  Sharlotta looked at the drow curiously. She agreed, of course, but she had to wonder why, if the dark elves knew this, they were allowing Gord Abrix to hold so critical a role in this all-important pursuit.

  “Gord Abrix thinks he will get them,” she replied, “both of them, yet you do not seem so confident.”

  Berg’inyon chuckled at the remark—one he obviously believed absurd. “No doubt, Entreri is a deadly opponent,” he said.

  “More so than you understand,” Sharlotta, who knew the assassin’s exploits well, was quick to add.

  “And yet he is still, by any measure, the easier of the prey,” Berg’inyon assured her. “Jarlaxle has survived for centuries with his intelligence and skill. He thrives in a land more violent than Calimport could ever know. He ascends to the highest levels of power in a warring city that prevents the ascent of males. Our wretched companion Gord Abrix cannot understand the truth of Jarlaxle, nor can you, so I tell you this now—out of the respect I have gained for you in these short tendays—beware that one.”

  Sharlotta paused and stared long and hard at the surprising drow warrior. Offering her respect? The notion pleased her and made her fearful all at once, for Sharlotta had already learned to try to look beneath every word uttered by her dark elf comrades. Perhaps Berg’inyon had just paid her a high and generous compliment. Perhaps he was setting her up for disaster.

  Sharlotta glanced down at the ground, biting her lower lip as she fell into her thoughts, sorting it all out. Perhaps Berg’inyon was setting her up, she reasoned again, as Rai-guy and Kimmuriel had set up Gord Abrix. As she thought of the mighty Jarlaxle and the item he possessed, she came to realize, of course, that there was no way Rai-guy could believe Gord Abrix and his ragged wererat band could possibly bring down the great Entreri and the great Jarlaxle. If that came to pass, then Gord Abrix would have the Crystal Shard in his possession, and what trouble might he bring about before Rai-guy and Kimmuriel could take it away from him? No, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel did not believe that the wererat leader would get anywhere near the Crystal Shard, and furthermore, they didn’t want him anywhere near it.

  Sharlotta looked back up at Berg’inyon to see him smiling slyly, as if he had just followed her reasoning as clearly as if she had spoken it aloud. “The drow always use a lesser race to lead the way into battle,” the dark elf warrior said. “We never truly know, of course, what surprises our enemies might have in store.”

  “Fodder,” Sharlotta remarked.

  Berg’inyon’s expression was perfectly blank, was absent of any sense of compassion at all, giving Sharlotta all the confirmation she needed.

  A shudder coursed up Sharlotta’s spine as she considered the sheer coldness of that look, dispassionate and inhuman, a less-than-subtle reminder to her that these dark elves were indeed very different, and much, much more dangerous. Artemis Entreri was, perhaps, the closest creature she had ever met in temperament to the drow, but it seemed to her that, in terms of sheer evil, even he paled in comparison. These long-lived dark elves had perfected the craft of efficient heartlessness to a level beyond human comprehension, let alone human mimicry. She turned to regard Gord Abrix and his eager wererats, and made a silent vow then to stay as far away from the doomed creatures as possible.

  The demon writhed on the floor in agony, its skin smoking, its blood boiling.

  Cadderly did not pity the creature, though it pained him to have to lower himself to this level. He did not enjoy torture—even the torture of a demon, as deserving a creature as ever existed. He did not enjoy dealing with the denizens of the lower planes at all, but he had to for the sake of the Spirit Soaring, for the sake of his wife and children.

  The Crystal Shard was coming to him, was coming for him, he knew, and his impending battle with the vile artifact might prove to be as important as his war had been against Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the dreaded Chaos Curse. It was as important as his construction of the Spirit Soaring, for what lasting effect might the remarkable cathedral hold if Crenshinibon reduced it to rubble?

  “You know the answer,” Cadderly said as calmly as he could. “Tell me, and I will release you.”

  “You are a fool, priest of Deneir!” the demon growled, its guttural words broken apart as spasm after spasm wracked its physical form. “Do you know the enemy you make in Mizferac?”

  Cadderly sighed. “And so it continues,” he said, as if he were speaking to himself, though well aware that Mizferac would hear his words and understand the painful implications of them with crystalline clarity.

  “Release me!” the glabrezu demanded.

  “Yokk tu Mizferac be-enck do-tu,” Cadderly recited, and the demon howled and jerked wildly about the floor within the perfectly designed protective circle.

  “This will take as long as you wish,” Cadderly said coldly to the demon. “I have no mercy for your kind, I assure you.”

  “We … want … no … mercy,” Mizferac growled. Then a great spasm wracked the beast, and it jerked wildly, rolling about and shrieking curses in its profane, demonic language.

  Cadderly just quietly recited more of the exaction spell, bolstering his resolve with the continual reminder that his children might soon be in mortal danger.

  “Ye wasn’t lost! Ye was playing!” Ivan Bouldershoulder roared at his green-bearded brother.

  “Doo-dad maze!” Pikel argued vehemently.

  The normally docile dwarf’s tone took his brother somewhat by surprise. “Ye getting talkative since ye becomed a doo-dad, ain’t ye?” he asked.

  “Oo oi!” Pikel shrieked, punching his fist in the air.

  “Well, ye shouldn’t be playin’ in yer maze when Cadderly’s at such dark business,” Ivan scolded.

  “Doo-dad maze,” Pikel whispered under his breath, and he lowered his gaze.

  “Yeah, whatever ye might be callin’ it,” grumbled Ivan, who had never been overly fond of his brother’s woodland calling and considered it quite an unnatural thing for a dwarf. “He might be needin’ us, ye fool.” Ivan held up his great axe as he spoke, flexing the bulging muscles on his short but powerful arm.

  Pikel responded with one of his patented grins and held up a wooden cudgel.

  “Great weapon for fighting demons,” Ivan muttered.

  “Sha-la—” Pikel started.

  “Yeah, I’m knowin’ the name,” Ivan cut in. “Sha-la-la. I’m thinking that a demon might be callin’ it kind-lind-ling.”

  Pikel’s grin drooped into a severe frown.

  The door to the summoning chamber pulled open and a very weary Cadderly emerged—or tr
ied to. He tripped over something and sprawled facedown to the floor.

  “Oops,” said Pikel.

  “Me brother put one o’ his magic trips on the doorway,” Ivan explained, helping the priest back to his feet. “We was worryin’ that a demon might be walkin’ out.”

  “So of course, Pikel would trip the thing to the floor and bash it with his club,” Cadderly said dryly, pulling himself back to his feet.

  “Sha-la-la!” Pikel squealed gleefully, completely missing the sarcasm in the young cleric’s tone.

  “Ain’t one coming, is there?” Ivan asked, looking past Cadderly.

  “The glabrezu, Mizferac, has been dismissed to its own foul plane,” Cadderly assured the dwarves. “I brought it forth again, thus rescinding the hundred year banishment I had just exacted upon it, to answer a specific question, and with that done, I had—and have, I hope—no further need of it.”

  “Ye should’ve kept him about just so me and me brother could bash him a few times,” said Ivan.

  “Sha-la-la!” Pikel agreed.

  “Save your strength, for I fear we will need it,” Cadderly explained. “I have learned the secret to destroying the Crystal Shard, or at least, I have learned of the creature that might complete the task.”

  “Demon?” Ivan asked.

  “Doo-dad?” Pikel added hopefully.

  Cadderly, shaking his head, started to reply to Ivan, but paused to put a perfectly puzzled expression over the green-bearded dwarf. Embarrassed, Pikel merely shrugged and said, “Ooo.”

  “No demon,” he said to the other dwarf at length. “A creature of this world.”

  “Giant?”

  “Think bigger.”

  Ivan started to speak again, but paused, taking in Cadderly’s sour expression and studying it in light of all that they had been through together.

  “Let me guess one more time,” the dwarf said.