Dahlia winced, and Drizzt recognized that he’d hit on some painful memory, yet another unknown facet of this elf.
“Come,” she said, and she walked away swiftly.
When Drizzt caught up to her, he found her expression very tight and closed, and so he said no more.
From a far corner of the tavern, two assassins watched the couple depart, one rolling a dagger eagerly in his grimy hands under cover of the table.
“Are ye sure it’s her then?” asked a skinny fellow with a face full of black stubble and one eye no more than a dull white orb.
“Aye, Boofie, I saw her come through the gate, I did,” answered the dagger-roller, Tolston Rethnor, the same guard who had watched Dahlia enter Luskan’s gate earlier in the day.
“Hartouchen’s to be paying well for she what killed his father,” said Boofie McLaddin, referring to the new high captain of Ship Rethnor, the heir of Borlann the Crow. “But so’s his anger to be great if we’re starting a fight with them damned drow elves over a mistake.”
“It’s her, I tell ye,” Tolston insisted. “She’s even got that staff. I’m not to forget Borlann’s lady friend-none who seen Dahlia forget Dahlia!”
“Half the reward, ye say?”
“Aye.”
“Well I’m wanting half o’ th’ other half, too.” When Tolston balked, Boofie went on, “Ye thinking just the two of us to fight them then? After what ye been telling me o’ Dahlia all the way here? She killed yer uncle to death, hey? And he was the boss, and got there by killing all them what stood afore him, hey? I’m to bring in me boys, a whole bunch and a wizard besides. They’ll be wanting their cut.”
“They’ll be buying Hartouchen’s gratitude,” said Tolston.
“That and a finger o’ silver’ll get me a meal,” Boofie replied. “And I ain’t thinking much o’ the gratitude when me belly’s growling. Half and half o’ th’ other half, or go and kill ’em yerself, Tolston Rethnor, and then hope yer bravery puts ye in line for Hartouchen’s seat. More likely, though, I’m thinking yer foolishness will just get yer ripped body buried in the family crypt, and a few might call ye brave, but most’ll name ye as stupid.”
“Half and half o’ th’ other half,” Tolston agreed. “But get yer crew quick afore others figure out that Dahlia’s back in Luskan.”
Upon the tavern’s staircase, not far from Tolston and Boofie, a small girl-by all appearances a human child-played with a wooden doll and only glanced up as Drizzt and Dahlia left the tavern.
Then she went back to talking to her doll, though her words were aimed more directly at the wizard she knew to be watching her in his crystal ball, and with the high captain of Ship Rethnor beside him, most likely.
Dahlia moved with purpose and kept up her pace across the city. Sometime later, she turned down a side street, her swift strides soon bringing them to an unremarkable two-story building.
“Jarlaxle and Athrogate made their Luskan home on the second floor,” she explained. “There’s a stair behind the building and a separate entrance there.”
She started around the building, but Drizzt hesitated.
“Perhaps we should find the landowner to inquire-”
“If you had rented a house to the likes of Jarlaxle and he was late in returning, would you be quick to throw wide its doors and rent it out to another?” Dahlia interrupted.
It was a good point, Drizzt had to admit, and so he shrugged and followed the elf around the back and up the wooden staircase to a porch and the back door. Dahlia fumbled with it for a bit, obviously seeking any traps the clever drow mercenary might have left in place. Finding nothing, she stepped back and motioned to Drizzt.
“Because there might well be magical traps that you could not detect,” he reasoned, and she didn’t disavow him of his line of thinking.
Drizzt moved up and gripped the doorknob, then gave a twist-it wasn’t locked-and he pushed it open. Daylight spilled into the small apartment, a place of sparse furnishings and even fewer supplies.
“No one has been in here for some time,” Drizzt said, glancing around. There was a plate on the table, but it was covered in dust.
“Not since Jarlaxle and Athrogate fell in Gauntlgrym,” Dahlia replied. “Could we have expected any differently?”
Drizzt’s dark face grew very tight.
“You thought they might somehow have escaped,” Dahlia remarked.
“Jarlaxle is known for such things.”
“You hoped they had escaped.”
“Is that an accusation? What a sorry friend I would be…”
“A friend?” Dahlia asked, and she didn’t hide her amusement in the least. “Drizzt Do’Urden a friend to Jarlaxle? So at last you admit it! How does that comport with those tenets that guide your life?”
“I’ve shared many adventures with Jarlaxle,” Drizzt replied. “And he has proven to be… surprising.”
“At the least,” Dahlia said, still grinning. “But that’s all in the past now. He’s dead, as we saw.”
“I never argued otherwise.”
“Not with me,” Dahlia replied.
“Not with anyone.”
“Not with Drizzt?” She paused and let that hang in the air for a few moments, clearly enjoying Drizzt’s obvious consternation. “You knew we wouldn’t find him, despite your hopes to the contrary. You owed your friend that much, at least. But take heart, for coming here has not been totally in vain.” She pointed to the plate on the table. “We know now that Bregan D’aerthe’s power in Luskan has waned greatly, for surely they would’ve come here to investigate their missing associate.”
“We don’t know that they haven’t come here. They are excellent at their craft-they might be watching us at this very-”
He stopped and cocked an ear.
Dahlia heard it, too, a slight creak like a footfall on an old wooden stair. She slipped silently toward the door. Drizzt pulled an object from his belt pouch and whispered something she couldn’t hear. She crouched at the side of the door and cracked it open then fell back fast.
A spinning hammer hit the door with great force and knocked it open wide.
Dahlia broke her staff into flails and moved to exit, thinking to strike before the next missile could come her way, but she fell back again as something flew at her from behind. Six hundred pounds of angry panther soared past and out the door. She didn’t yell out, but her eyes opened wide indeed.
But not as wide as the eyes of the two pirates who had the misfortune of leaping to block the doorway at that very moment.
Guenhwyvar sent them flying with hardly a break in her momentum. She skidded out onto the porch, her claws digging in deeply to slow her slide.
Dahlia went out right behind her. She broke fast to the left, away from the stairs, and straight at one of the pirates Guenhwyvar had sent flying. Half over the railing, the man somehow managed to catch himself and come around with a fairly balanced and powerful swing of his sword.
At the last instant, Dahlia managed to duck under the blow. Inside his reach for the moment, she sent her flails out and around, striking him hard in the ribs from left and right. He grunted but kept fighting, retracting his blade for a second strike, but with a deft snap of her wrist, Dahlia sent her left hand up, smacking the pirate’s wrist hard with the handle of her weapon. The man yelped, his arm going out wide, but not too far. The momentum of the strike sent the top pole flipping over the pirate’s arm.
Dahlia wasted no time in driving her weapon hand straight down, the cord tethering the poles twisting the pirate’s arm as the flail’s initial momentum battled the reverse tug.
Dahlia went down into a low crouch. When the flail flipped back hard, freeing the man’s sword arm, Dahlia leaped high into the air and spun in a soaring circle kick. Her hard boot crunched against the pirate’s jaw, snapping his head back and to the side, and Dahlia didn’t disengage, extending her leg farther, driving him back and over the rail.
He tried to grab at her, and when that faile
d, to slash at her. But it was too late. He dropped the dozen feet to the cobblestones below.
Dahlia landed and spun into a defensive crouch, expecting an attack. And indeed several came at her, but not from across the porch-not from the porch at all but from the roof. A trio of spears flew down.
Dahlia couldn’t see them in time to dodge.
“Guen, the roof!” Drizzt yelled, charging out the door. He leaped in front of Dahlia. Icingdeath slashed up high to clip a pair of the falling spears, with Twinkle following fast to clip the third, barely deflecting it.
The spear thumped down hard into the wooden decking just beside Dahlia, the shaft vibrating from the force of the strike.
Dahlia didn’t pause long enough to thank him. She dived into a roll right past Drizzt toward a pair of thugs, her weapons working furiously and seemingly independently to parry and counter their sword thrusts.
Drizzt spied Guenhwyvar leaping to the far railing. The drow winced as he heard the crunch of splintering wood, but the railing held enough for the panther to spring away, easily clearing the edge of the roof.
Drizzt charged out to join Dahlia, but then he saw a motion to his side. He dropped his blades and slipped his bow from his shoulder, drawing and setting an arrow and letting it fly in one fluid movement.
He didn’t hit the archer on a balcony across the way, but the man was too busy diving aside to make an honest return shot.
Drizzt let another arrow fly, then heard Dahlia cry out, “Leap aside!”
So he did, trusting her.
A pirate crashed down, slamming into the deck with enough force to splinter a couple of boards. He managed to force himself upright.
But Dahlia slipped away from her two opponents long enough to swipe across with a flail, shattering the poor fool’s cheek and jaw.
He dropped face down on the porch.
Drizzt ignored the fallen thug in front of him and drew a bead point blank on one of Dahlia’s opponents.
The last slanted rays of daylight shone on the pirate’s face, perfectly framing his look of sheer terror.
“Run,” Drizzt whispered. The man threw down his sword, turned, and fled.
Drizzt swung back around, letting his arrow fly at the concealed archer on the porch across the way. The missile drove into a large water barrel, punching a clean hole in its nearest side. Drizzt could barely see the opposing archer, just his face behind the bow he held atop the barrel, poised to fire.
The twist of his face, reflecting shock and most of all pain, told Drizzt that his arrow had crossed through the barrel and reached its destination.
The archer was trying to shoot-Drizzt could see that-but he couldn’t seem to let go of the bowstring. He grimaced and held his pose for a few heartbeats, then just dropped his head atop his drawn bow, the movement knocking the arrow clear.
Water poured out of the barrel in front of him.
They had to move from the exposed porch, Dahlia thought. And how could Drizzt let one of the thugs escape? She wasn’t sure which thought made her more angry.
No matter. She made short work of the other pirate, her spinning weapons eluding his defenses left and right, each turn sending a flail smashing into him. His parries hit nothing but air for quite some time, until the cumulative battering of Dahlia’s weapons took its toll at last. The poor fool just slumped to the ground, curling up and half rolling aside, where he lay groaning, apparently unaware of his surroundings.
Dahlia had no time to finish him. She turned and flicked her wrists, reverting her weapons to a pair of short staves, and then joined them into a single eight-foot staff as she neared the front railing. She thrust the staff out in front of her, planted the leading end, and leaped out into the growing twilight.
In the alleyway almost directly across from the battle-scarred porch, Therfus Handydoer watched with amusement. The top-ranking wizard in Ship Rethnor, Therfus had served the last four high captains to don the mantle of the Crow-and to don the magical cape-though the current leader, Hartouchen, didn’t possess that particular item.
“Because of you, murderess,” Therfus whispered, watching Dahlia flip her flails back into a long staff.
So much trouble, this elf woman, Therfus mused, and he thought of Borlann-he’d liked that high captain the most of all.
“I wonder, dear girl,” he whispered, though of course she couldn’t hear him, “might Hartouchen reward me more greatly if I can bring him the Cloak of the Crow along with your pretty head?”
Seeing Dahlia moving to the nearest rail and planting her staff, Therfus threw a line of lightning from his hand. Rushing the distance to Dahlia, the bolt took the form of a serpent, and just as she reached the high point of her vault, it struck with the force of thunder.
Drizzt saw Dahlia’s leap out of the corner of his eye. He knew her instincts were correct. As Dahlia had finished the last of the pirate brawlers, Drizzt had noted more trouble from afar: archers lining the rooftop of the adjacent building.
“Guen!” the drow yelled. He raised Taulmaril and let fly a series of shocking arrows, sparking as they blew away large pieces of the roof’s decorative crest. “Guen!” he yelled again. “To my missiles!”
Up above him, the panther roared, and another archer shrieked in reply.
Drizzt glanced to his left, to the front edge of the porch and the vaulting Dahlia-and took in the lightning serpent.
He started to cry out, but his voice was lost in a great blast that seemed to lift the entire porch before dropping it back in place. Drizzt stumbled into the wall then tumbled through the doorway into the apartment before his legs gave out under him.
“Dahlia,” he whispered, his voice thick with pain.
He watched as she hung in midair atop her upright staff for many heartbeats. Forks of lightning arced out all around her. Slowly she descended to the porch, but she didn’t fall. Instead she staggered to her feet, holding and waving her staff as if she couldn’t let it go.
Dahlia waved the crackling staff and her hair danced wildly. She growled in defiance and denial, but her voice cracked with jolting energy and, Drizzt knew, with pain.
An arrow shot down and grazed her bare thigh, drawing a line of bright blood. She tried to turn away, but she had little control of her muscles. Jolts of electrical energy continued to arc into the air around her. Another arrow whipped past her, barely missing.
“To me!” Drizzt cried. He fell out the door, leveling Taulmaril as he went and letting a barrage of arrows fly at the adjacent rooftop. “Quickly!”
His grimace lessened a bit when he saw a black form leap from his roof to the archer’s nest.
Arrows rose up to meet the flying Guenhwyvar, most missing but one pair struck home. They did little to slow the great cat. She hit the tin roof with a scrabble of raking claws, catching a hold on the slope and charging at the scattering group.
One fleeing archer paused long enough to aim at Dahlia.
Just before his arrow left the bow, though, Drizzt’s lightning missile blew him backward, lifting him over the crest of the roof to fall to the cobblestones below.
Therfus Handydoer couldn’t see all of the unfolding battle from his angle, but he found the whole thing amusing anyway. He didn’t really care if some of the mercenary pirates, or even some of Ship Rethnor’s crew, were cut down. They were mere warriors, after all, and none of them very good ones at that.
Still, the fight was going on too long for Therfus’s liking. Too long and too loud, and that could only attract unwanted attention.
He meant to end it.
He began another spell, pausing only to wince as one of those devilish lightning arrows blasted into an archer and drove him up and over the crest of the roof.
Shaking his head, Therfus released his magic. At the last moment, he added a little touch of his own, planting a black storm cloud twenty feet in the air above the porch.
Still fighting against the jolts of energy, Dahlia heard hail drum against her leather hat before she fe
lt its pelting sting.
A pellet slammed into her shoulder, tearing her skin so deeply she felt it crack against bone. She forced herself toward Drizzt. He stood in the cover of the doorway, driven back by the hail. Another step brought her closer to him. He reached out for her, holding his arm out despite several painful ice strikes.
Dahlia reached for him, but another jolt of energy sent her suddenly flailing. The slick porch threw her off balance and she crashed hard against the corner of the railing where it met the stairs, and slipped down to her buttocks.
More ice pelted her. She tried to get up, but she kept slipping.
More ice bashed against her.
So Dahlia threw herself down the stairs.
As she bounced and tumbled, she grabbed at the railing to try to slow her descent. At last she spilled out into the cobblestone street in a roll, but thankfully, she’d escaped the ice storm.
With great effort, she forced herself back to her feet and managed to stagger a few steps, though she didn’t really know where to go.
And then it didn’t matter, for out of every alleyway, the pirates came, brandishing swords and axes and gaff hooks.
Dahlia, still fighting simply to maintain her balance, understood she had no chance of defending herself.
Even if Drizzt reached the edge of the porch then, where the ice storm still raged, he couldn’t cut them all down in time.
Even if Guenhwyvar leaped down, in all her roaring fury, by the time the pirates even realized their peril, many would already have finished her.
Dahlia resigned herself to death.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Drizzt had barely crossed the threshold in pursuit of Dahlia when the pelting ice drove him back.
With a growl he threw up the hood of his cloak and leaped out once more, but the slick ice sent him sliding to the middle of the porch, unable to turn and get to the stairs.
He yelled for Guenhwyvar. He put up Taulmaril and began launching arrows once more.
A pellet of ice smacked him hard and dropped him to his knees, so he continued to shoot from his knees. He searched for the wizard-if he could just get a shot at the wizard!
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