The dwarf’s swings didn’t come any slower as he rejoined battle against Drizzt. And Drizzt quickly realized that the dwarf wasn’t even breathing hard. Using his anklets to speed his steps, Drizzt pushed the issue, scampering to the left, then right back around the dwarf, and out and back suddenly as the furious little creature spun to keep up.
The drow worked a blur of measured strikes, and exaggerated steps, forcing the stubby-limbed dwarf to rush every which way.
The flurry went on and on, scimitars rolling one over the other, morningstars spinning to keep pace, and even, once in a while, to offer a devious counter-stroke. And still Drizzt pressed, rushing left and back to center, right and all the way around, forcing the dwarf to continually reverse momentum on his heavier weapons.
But Athrogate did so with ease, and showed no labored breath, and whenever a thrust or parry connected, weapon to weapon, Drizzt was reminded of the dwarf’s preternatural strength.
Indeed, Athrogate possessed it all: speed, stamina, strength, and technique. He was as complete a fighter as Drizzt had ever battled, and with weapons to equal Drizzt’s own. The first morningstar kept coating over with some explosive liquid, and the second head leaked a brownish fluid. The first time that connected in a parry against Icingdeath, Drizzt was sure he felt the scimitar’s fear. He brought the blade back for a quick inspection as he broke away, angling for a new attack, and noted dots of brown on is shining metal. It was rust, he realized, and realized, too, that only the mighty magic of Icingdeath had saved the blade from rotting away in his hand!
And Athrogate just kept howling, “Bwahahahaha!” and charging on with abandon.
Seeming abandon, because never, ever, did the dwarf abandon his defensive technique.
He was good. Very good.
But so was Drizzt Do’Urden.
The dark elf slowed his attacks and let Athrogate gain momentum, until it was the dwarf, not the drow, pressing the advantage.
“Bwahahahaha!” Athrogate roared, and sent both his morningstars into aggressive spins, low and high, working one down, the other up in a dizzying barrage that nearly caught up to the dodging, parrying drow.
Drizzt measured every movement, his eyes moving three steps ahead. He thrust into the left, forcing a parry, then went with that block to send his scimitar out wide but in an arcing movement that brought it back in again, sweeping down at his shorter opponent’s shoulder.
Athrogate was up to the task of parrying, as Drizzt knew he would be, bringing his left-hand morningstar flying up across his right shoulder to defeat the attack.
But it wasn’t really an attack, and Icingdeath snuck in for a stab at Athrogate’s side. The dwarf yelped and leaped back, clearing three long strides. He laughed again, but winced, and brought his hand down against his rib. When he brought that hand back up, both Drizzt and he understood that the drow had drawn first blood.
“Well done!” he said, or started to, for Drizzt leaped at him, scimitars working wildly.
Drizzt rolled them over each other in a punishing alternating downward and straightforward slash, keeping them timed perfectly so that one morningstar could not defeat them both, and keeping them angled perfectly so that Athrogate had to keep his own weapons at a more awkward and draining angle, up high in front of his face.
The dwarf’s grimace told Drizzt that his stab in the ribs had been more effective than Athrogate pretended, and holding his arms up in such a manner was not comfortable at all.
The drow kept up the roll and pressed the advantage, driving Athrogate ever backward, both combatants knowing that one slip by Drizzt would do no more than put them back at an even posture, but one slip by Athrogate would likely end the fight in short order.
The dwarf wasn’t laughing anymore.
Drizzt pressed him even harder, growling with every rolling swing, backing Athrogate back down the alley the way Drizzt had come, away from the palace.
Drizzt caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, a small form rolling limply off the roof. Without a whimper, without a cry of alarm, Regis, tumbled to the ground and lay still.
Athrogate seized the distraction for his advantage, and cut back and to his right, then smashed his morningstar across to bat the drow’s chopping scimitar out far to the side with such force—and an added magical explosion—that Drizzt had to disengage fully and scamper to the opposite wall to simply hold onto the blade.
Drizzt got a look at Regis, lying awkwardly twisted in the alleyway’s gutter. Not a sound, not a squirm, not a whimper of pain….
He was somewhere past pain; it seemed to Drizzt as if his spirit had already left his battered body.
And Drizzt couldn’t go to him. Drizzt, who had chosen to return to Luskan, to stand with Deudermont, couldn’t do anything but look at his dear friend.
At sea, it’s said that danger can be measured by the scurry of the rats, and if that model held true, then the battle between Robillard and Arklem Greeth in the hold of Sea Sprite ranked right up alongside beaching the boat on the back of a dragon turtle.
All manner of evocations flew out between the dueling wizards, fire and ice, magical energy of different colors and inventive shapes. Robillard tried to keep his spells more narrow in scope, aiming just for Arklem Greeth, but the lich was as full of hatred for Sea Sprite herself as he was for his old peer in the Hosttower. Robillard threw missiles of solid magic and acidic darts. Greeth responded with forked lightning bolts and fireballs, filling the hold with flame.
Robillard’s work on the hull with magical protections and wards, and all manner of alchemical mixtures, had been as complete and as brilliant as the work of any wizard or team of wizards had ever put on any ship, but he knew with every mighty explosion that Arklem Greeth tested those wards to their fullest and beyond.
With every fireball, a few more residual flames burned for just a few heartbeats longer. Every successive lightning bolt thumped the planking out a bit wider, and a little more water managed to seep in.
Soon enough, the wizards stood among a maelstrom of destruction, water up to their ankles, Sea Sprite rocking hard with every blast.
Robillard knew he had to get Arklem Greeth out of his ship. Whatever the cost, whatever else might happen, he had to move the spell duel to another place. He launched into a mighty spell, and as he cast it, he threw himself at Greeth, thinking that both he and his adversary would be projected into the Astral Plane to finish the insanity.
Nothing happened, for the archmage arcane had already applied a dimensional lock to the hold.
Robillard staggered as he realized that he was not flying on another plane of existence, as he had anticipated. He threw his arms up defensively as he righted himself, for Arklem Greeth brought in a gigantic disembodied fist that punched at him with the force of a titan.
The blow didn’t break through the stoneskin dweomer of mighty Robillard, but it did send him flying back to the other end of the hold. He hit the wall hard, but felt not a thing, landing lightly on his feet and launching immediately into another lightning bolt.
Arklem Greeth, too, was already into a new casting, and his spell went off right before Robillard’s, creating a summoned wall of stone halfway between the combatants.
Robillard’s lightning bolt hit that stone with such tremendous force that huge chunks flew, but the bolt also rebounded into the wizard’s face, throwing him again into the wall behind him.
And he had exhausted his wards. He felt that impact, and felt, too, the sizzle of his own lightning bolt. His heart palpitated, his hair stood on end. He kept his awareness just enough to realize that Sea Sprite was listing badly as a result of the tremendous weight of Arklem Greeth’s summoned wall. From up above he heard screaming, and he knew that more than one of Sea Sprite’s crew had fallen overboard as a result.
Across the way, beyond the wall, Arklem Greeth cackled with delight, and in looking at the wall, Robillard understood that the worst was yet to come. For Greeth had offset it on the floor and had line
d it along with the length and not the breadth of the ship, but he had not anchored it!
So as Sea Sprite listed under the great weight, so too leaned the wall, and it was beginning to tip.
Robillard realized that he couldn’t stop it, so he found a moment of intense concentration instead and focused on his most-hated enemy. The wall fell, clearing the ground between the wizards, and Robillard let fly another devastating lightning blast.
So intent was he on his stone wall tumbling into Sea Sprite’s side planking, crashing through the wood, that Arklem Greeth never saw the bolt coming. He flew backward under the power of the stroke and hit the wall even as the side of the hull broke open and Luskan Harbor rushed in.
Robillard beat the rush of water, launching himself upon Arklem Greeth. Energy crackled through his hands, one electrical discharge after another.
Arklem Greeth fought back physically, tearing at Robillard with undead hands.
They held their death grip on each other as the sea turned Sea Sprite farther on her side, taking her down into the harbor. Spell after spell leaped from Robillard’s fingers into the lich, blasting away at his magical defenses, and when those were finally beaten, as was his very life-force, still Arklem Greeth merely held on.
The lich didn’t need to breathe, but Robillard surely did.
The pitch of the sinking ship sent them out through the hole in the hull, tumbling amidst the debris, rocks, and weeds of Luskan Harbor.
Robillard felt his ears pop under the pressure and knew his lungs wouldn’t be far behind. But he held on, determined to end the struggle at whatever cost. The sight of Sea Sprite, the wreckage of his beloved Sea Sprite, spurred him on and he resisted the urge to break free of Arklem Greeth and focused instead on continuing his electrical barrage on the lich—even though every powerful discharge stung him as well in the conducting water.
It seemed like a dozen, dozen spells. It seemed like his lungs would surely burst. It seemed like Arklem Greeth was mocking him.
But the lich simply let go, and the face the surprised Robillard looked into was dead, not undead.
Robillard shoved away and kicked off the bottom, determined not to die in the arms of the hideous Arklem Greeth. Instinctively he clawed for the surface, and saw the water growing lighter above him.
But he knew he wouldn’t make it.
“Sea Sprite!” more than one sailor of Thrice Lucky, and of every other ship moored in the area, cried out in astonishment. To those men and women, friend and enemy of Deudermont’s ship alike, the sight before them seemed impossible.
The waves took Sea Sprite and smashed her up on a line of rocks, just one rail of her glorious hull and her three distinctive masts protruding from the dark waters of Luskan Harbor.
It could not be. In the minds of those who knew the ship as friend or foe, the loss of Sea Sprite proved no less traumatic than the disintegration of the Hosttower of the Arcane, a sudden and unimaginable change in the landscape that had shaped their lives.
“Sea Sprite!” they cried as one, pointing and jumping.
Morik the Rogue and Bellany rushed to Thrice Lucky’s rail to take in the awful scene.
“What are we to do?” Morik asked incredulously. “Where is Maimun?” He knew the answer, and so did many others echoing that very sentiment, for their captain had gone ashore less than an hour earlier.
Some crewmen called for lifelines, to weigh anchor to rush to the aid of the crew in the water. Bellany did likewise and started for a lifeboat, but Morik grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her to face him.
“Make me fly!” he bade her, and she looked at him curiously.
“Give me flight!” he screamed. “You’ve done it before!”
“Flight?”
“Do it!”
Bellany rubbed her hands together and tried to focus, tried to remember the words as the insanity around her only multiplied. She reached out and touched Morik on the shoulder and the man leaped up to the rail and out from the ship.
He didn’t fall into the water, though, but flew out across the bay. He scanned, trying to figure out where he was most needed, then cut across for the downed vessel herself, fearing that some of the crew might be trapped aboard her.
Then he crossed over a form in the water, just under the surface but sinking fast, and willed himself to stop. He slapped his hand down, plunging it through the waves, and grabbed hard on the fine fabric of a wizard’s robes.
“Ah, the glorious pain,” Kensidan taunted. Deudermont again tried to pull himself up and the Crow pecked him hard on the forehead, slamming him back to the floor.
The room’s door banged open. “No!” cried a voice familiar to both men. “Let him go!”
“Are you mad, young pirate?” the Crow cackled as he turned to regard Maimun. He spun back and slammed Deudermont hard again, smashing him flat to the floor.
Maimun responded with a sudden and brutal charge, flashing sword leading the way. Kensidan beat his wings and tried to extricate himself from the close quarters, but Maimun’s fury was too great and his advantage too sudden and complete. The wings battered around the perimeter of the fight, but Maimun’s sword cut a narrower and more direct line.
In the span of a few heartbeats, Maimun had Kensidan pinned at the end of his blade, and when Kensidan tried to turn the sword with his beak, Maimun got the blade inside the Crow’s mouth.
Given that awkward and devastating clutch, Kensidan could offer no further resistance.
Maimun, breathing hard, clearly outraged, held the pose and the pin for a long breath. “I give you your life,” he said finally, easing the blade just a bit. “You have the city—there will be no challenge. I will go, and I’m taking Captain Deudermont with me.”
Kensidan looked over at the battered and bloody form of Deudermont and started to cackle, but Maimun stopped that with a prod of his well-placed blade.
“You will allow us clear passage to our ships, and for our ships out of Luskan Harbor.”
“He is already dead, fool, or soon enough to be!” the Crow argued, slurring every word, as he spouted them around the hard steel of a fine blade.
The words nearly buckled Maimun’s knees. His thoughts swirled back in time to his first meeting with the captain. He had stowed away onSea Sprite, fleeing a demon intent on his destruction. Deudermont had allowed him to stay. Sea Sprite’s crew, generous to a fault, had not abandoned him when they’d learned the truth of his ordeal, even when they discerned that having Maimun aboard made them targets of the powerful demon and its many deadly allies.
Captain Deudermont had saved young Maimun, without a doubt, and had taken him under his wing and trained him in the ways of the sea.
And Maimun had betrayed him. Though he had never expected it to come to so tragic an end, the young pirate captain could not deny the truth. Paid by Kensidan, Maimun had sailed Arabeth to Quelch’s Folly. Maimun had played a role in the catastrophe that had befallen Luskan, and in the catastrophe that had lain Captain Deudermont low before him.
Maimun turned back sharply on Kensidan and pressed the sword in tighter. “I will have your word, Crow, that I will be allowed free passage, with Deudermont and Sea Sprite beside me.”
Kensidan stared at him hatefully with those black crow eyes. “Do you understand who I am now, young pirate?” he replied slowly, and as evenly as the prodding blade allowed. “Luskan is mine. I am the Pirate King.”
“And you’re to be the dead Pirate King if I don’t get your word!” Maimun assured him.
But even as Maimun spoke, Kensidan all but disappeared beneath him, almost instantly reverting to the form of a small crow. He rushed out from under the overbalanced Maimun and with a flap of his wings, fluttered up to light on the windowsill across the room.
Maimun wrung his hands on his sword hilt, grimacing in frustration as he turned to regard the Crow, expecting that his world had just ended.
“You have my word,” Kensidan said, surprising him.
“I have no
thing with which to barter,” Maimun stated.
The Crow shrugged, a curious movement from the bird, but one that conveyed the precise sentiment clearly enough. “I owe Maimun ofThrice Lucky that much, at least,” said Kensidan. “So we will forget this incident, eh?”
Maimun could only stare at the bird.
“And I look forward to seeing your sails in my harbor again,” Kensidan finished, and he flew away out the window.
Maimun stood there stunned for a few moments then rushed to Deudermont, falling to his knees beside the broken man.
His first attacks after seeing Regis fall were measured, his first defenses almost half-hearted. Drizzt could hardly find his focus, with his friend lying there in the gutter, could hardly muster the energy necessary to stand his ground against the dwarf warrior.
Perhaps sensing that very thing, or perhaps thinking it all a ploy, Athrogate didn’t press in those first few moments of rejoined battle, measuring his own strikes to gain strategic advantage rather than going for the sudden kill.
His mistake.
For Drizzt internalized the shock and the pain, and as he always had before, took it and turned the tumult into a narrowly-focused burst of outrage. His scimitars picked up their pace, the strength of his strikes increasing proportionately. He began to work Athrogate as he had before the fall of Regis, moving side to side and forcing the dwarf to keep up.
But the dwarf did match his pace, fighting Drizzt to a solid draw strike after thrust after slash.
And what a glorious draw it was to any who might have chanced to look on. The combatants spun with abandon, scimitars and morningstars humming through the air. Athrogate hit a wall again, the spiked ball smashing the wood to splinters. He hit the cobblestones before the backward-leaping drow and crushed them to dust.
And there Drizzt scored his second hit, Twinkle nicking Athrogate’s cheek and taking away one of his great beard’s braids.
The Pirate King t-2 Page 37