Boundless

by R. A. Salvatore

  Zaknafein did get in a stinging hit across Duvon’s shin, the drow’s armor saving him from too serious a wound.

  But Duvon fell into rhythm quickly, his blades working down low, defending. Zaknafein, though holding the low ground, played along, for he had the initiative here, had Duvon moving frantically side to side, had him working his blades from an awkward bend.

  Finally, Duvon managed to go even higher on the stalagmite, and Zaknafein started up.

  Only a step, though, and from there he pushed off and backflipped, landing toward the middle of the alleyway, facing his opponent and motioning for Duvon to come on.

  Duvon glanced to the side, just briefly, but Zaknafein caught it.

  Duvon leaped out at him from on high. Zaknafein felt a tickle, like a feather somehow passing harmlessly through his forehead.

  That was all.

  Just as Jarlaxle had promised.

  Zaknafein stood very straight, blinking absently, his swords lowering.

  Duvon bore down on him, swords working in circles at either side, back and up, over and down. He ended that furious rhythm perfectly as he closed the last steps, the blades coming over, halting in perfect alignment, and diving for the chest of the helpless Zaknafein. The weapon master of House Fey-Branche, the former elderboy and weapon master of House Tr’arach, cried out in victory . . .

  Too soon.

  For Zaknafein was not there, so suddenly, and Duvon’s swords stabbed the empty air.

  And a leg cracked across the front of his leading ankle, and a second leg came scissoring in hard against the back of his trailing knee, then his leading knee, too, as his legs came together.

  Duvon pitched headlong to the alleyway, bouncing, then rolling about and turning, desperately coming up to his knees, facing back, weapons slashing to fend off the expected approach.

  But again, Zaknafein was simply not there, not in line with Duvon’s defense, at least.

  No, he was up in the air, a great leap and turn, his swords presented before his chest, tips straight down. He landed behind Duvon, just behind, and kept falling, his weight driving those swords straight down, the momentum and strength of Zaknafein battling the fine armor. On the right side of Duvon’s head, the sword tip was turned, but still gashed Duvon, collar to breast.

  The sword on the left side caught more fully, and Zaknafein was quick to adjust his weight to drive it down, finally pushing it through the stubborn armor and into the soft flesh at the hollow of Duvon’s collarbone.

  Down slid the blades, a bright line of red showing on the doomed drow’s right breast, blood fountaining from the wound in the left.

  The onlookers screamed, cheered, yelled denials for lost bets, and above them all, Zaknafein heard the voice of Jarlaxle: “Bah!”

  Chapter 6

  Squaring Up

  “He surrenders!” priestess Dab’nay yelled, rushing forward from the alley wall and already beginning to cast a spell of healing.

  Zaknafein turned to regard her and smiled wickedly. His blade had cut Duvon’s artery, clearly, although that would not likely prove fatal with a powerful cleric at hand. But Duvon was helpless to defend, and the tip of that sword was already at the man’s lung, Zaknafein knew, and with only a slight press, he could drive it right through and down to Duvon’s heart, killing him before any spell could help.

  He gave a little press, and Duvon gasped.

  Dab’nay skidded to a stop, and stopped too her spellcasting. “No, please, I beg,” she implored Zaknafein. “He will not challenge you again. You have won. I pledge my fealty! Please.” She inched forward.

  Zaknafein stared at her, then snapped his free right-hand sword up suddenly, the tip coming in against Dab’nay’s soft throat.

  “Perhaps I should kill you instead,” he said, and added with venom, “priestess.”

  She swallowed hard, but did not reply.

  “Perhaps both,” Zaknafein said.

  Dab’nay merely shrugged, thoroughly defeated.

  Zaknafein pulled the sword out of Duvon, who toppled over, the blood still flying from the wound. He lifted Dab’nay’s chin with his other sword, smiling.

  “Your loyalty is unusual,” he said, “and unexpected.”

  Dab’nay said nothing.

  “And your word is meaningless,” said Zaknafein.

  “Mine, then?” asked another, Jarlaxle walking over.

  Zaknafein lowered his sword. “Try your spell,” he told Dab’nay, the sword still dangerously close. “I dare you.”

  She stared at him hard, but began to recite her spell, stubbornly.

  Zaknafein laughed at her.

  Jarlaxle held his breath—this was a priestess of Lolth accepting the dare of Zaknafein, who loved nothing more than killing priestesses of Lolth!

  “Zaknafein,” he said, and when the weapon master glanced at him, he subtly shook his head, begging restraint.

  Zaknafein flashed that smile, one promising that this was not over, but walked away.

  Jarlaxle got the weapon master back in his sight almost halfway across the city. He slowed his approach and faded down one alleyway, though, when he realized that other eyes were on Zaknafein, and on him, at that time.

  He figured it to be the handiwork of Matron Byrtyn Fey, perhaps ensuring that Zaknafein did not return to Matron Malice, whatever the outcome of the duel. He sprinted to the end of the alley and threw his portable hole out before him, then rushed through the opening and pulled the magical item out behind him, solidifying the wall once more. He was in a training gym, where only a pair of warriors stood in a face-off, though both were now looking incredulously at him.

  He flipped them a jaunty salute, and then was across the gym, deploying the portable hole again, disappearing out the other side.

  On and on he ran, cutting corners by moving through walls, surprising many, until he at last came out on the main street out of the Braeryn.

  Where Zaknafein came strolling around a corner before him.

  “What?” the weapon master asked, initially startled. But this was Jarlaxle, after all, and Zaknafein calmed quickly, a stark admission that he should not be surprised.

  “Quick, follow,” Jarlaxle said, and he threw the magical hole against the same wall he had just exited and moved for it, waving for Zaknafein to follow.

  Zaknafein did not.

  “Quickly!” Jarlaxle harshly whispered. “You are in danger.”

  Zaknafein crossed his arms over his chest but did not approach. Behind him, atop a low roof, Jarlaxle saw some movement, a hand crossbow raising before a drow sniper.

  “Down! Down!” Jarlaxle cried, and he took a fast step and threw himself back through the hole, taking cover.

  “Are you okay, weapon master?” Jarlaxle heard from the rooftop.

  “He is,” said yet another. “That is just Jarlaxle, as expected.”

  Confused, Jarlaxle peeked above the rim of the magical hole. There stood Zaknafein, arms still crossed over his chest, a hint of a smile stamped upon his face. Behind him, the drow had lowered the hand crossbow and watched closely.

  Jarlaxle stood up and stepped back through the hole, then pulled the magical item from the wall, closing the opening.

  “You think I would be foolish enough to come out alone this night?” Zaknafein asked him.

  “These are Do’Urdens?”

  “Of course.”

  Clever Zaknafein, Jarlaxle thought, but did not say—he didn’t want to give Zaknafein an even bigger ego than he surely had after the fight. He started to smile, but could not hold it when he noted another Do’Urden, Malice’s rather nasty and vicious daughter Briza, moving toward them from the side. He felt very vulnerable then, and even naked, for a priestess could use spells to see into his thoughts or detect if he was lying, and he wasn’t wearing his magical eyepatch, but this imposter piece of normal leather instead!

  Your head is itchy, Jarlaxle’s fingers subtly flashed to Zaknafein.

  “What?”

  Itchy!
Jarlaxle signaled more vehemently.

  Zaknafein chuckled, but he did reach up to scratch the side of his head. And in that movement, he secretly slipped the eyepatch off his head, taking care to conceal the only visible part, the back band, within his closed fist. He brought the arm down between himself and Jarlaxle and dropped the item, which Jarlaxle caught.

  With a subtle movement, Jarlaxle dipped the magical eyepatch into a secondary belt pouch, one he had filled with a disenchanting liquid that removed the magical invisibility salve from the item.

  Priestess Briza neared, and Jarlaxle dropped a low and graceful bow, using the movement to lift his hand to his face, where he seemed to adjust his eyepatch to his other eye, as he was known to often do. Using quick hands and dipping even lower as a distraction, he actually replaced the benign covering entirely with the magical one.

  “Matron Malice will speak with you,” the brutish eldest daughter and first priestess of House Do’Urden told Jarlaxle when she arrived before him and the weapon master. “I think her not pleased.”

  She stared at him curiously then, and Jarlaxle suspected that she was trying to use some probing spell on him.

  “From all that I am told, Matron Malice is only pleased in certain moments,” he replied.

  Briza’s face tightened at the obvious reference to Malice’s sexual appetite. “Men have been killed for less biting words,” she reminded.

  Jarlaxle merely smiled and replied, “Inform her that I will come to visit soon.” He gave another polite bow and started to turn as if to leave, but found drow soldiers coming at him from every direction.

  “You can tell her that yourself,” Briza replied, and off they went.

  “Did you really believe that you could put Matron Malice’s valuable weapon master in such peril without evoking her anger?” Briza asked the mercenary leader as they walked along toward the cavern’s West Wall, which held House Do’Urden.

  “It was against Avinvesa Fey-Branche,” Jarlaxle replied. “Do you think that Zaknafein was ever really in danger?”

  “Many of the onlookers were agents of House Do’Urden,” said Briza. “So, no, we would not allow that.”

  And many of the others were agents of House Fey-Branche, which is more powerful than House Do’Urden, Jarlaxle thought, but again did not say.

  It was all such a silly game, these house rivalries and wasteful animosity, but at least Jarlaxle could usually find a way to make some gain in the battles. He just needed to figure out how to do so with Matron Malice this time.

  “You have already collected the coin?” Matron Malice Do’Urden asked Jarlaxle when he placed a hefty bag of silver and gold at the foot of her grand seat in the throne room of House Do’Urden.

  “Oh, hardly,” he replied. “But it would not do to make a matron wait for her gains.”

  “Wise choice.”

  “One taught to me since I was old enough to understand who was on the other side of a snake-headed scourge,” Jarlaxle replied, and bowed low.

  Malice snorted but let it go. “I took a great risk in allowing my weapon master to leave the house for this little game you arranged,” she said.

  “Not so great,” Jarlaxle assured her, but paused and rethought his direction here when she scowled at him.

  “It is true that there was danger, yes,” he said instead. “But I watched closely, and really, Zaknafein could not lose to the inferior weapon master of House Fey-Branche as long as there was no untoward outside influence. And I assure you, as I did when we made this . . . side arrangement, that I had many agents guarding against that possibility. The bet was better than the offered odds.”

  “Two-to-three?” she asked.

  Jarlaxle stiffened a bit and shrugged. “They actually moved closer to three-to-four,” he admitted.

  “Unacceptable,” Matron Malice replied, too calmly.

  “I cannot control—”

  “Unacceptable, given the risk that House Do’Urden took to allow this.”

  Jarlaxle nodded. “I know, Matron.” He gave a sly little smile. “You will find in that sack that I covered you at one-to-one.”

  He caught her off guard, he realized when she sat up straight and seemed for a moment like she might topple from her throne. Which was Jarlaxle’s whole point in lying to her, after all. The odds really hadn’t changed as he had said, and in fact had moved closer to even, but Jarlaxle was buying goodwill here, and Matron Malice wouldn’t waste her resources digging into the murk to see what odds might have been offered at the time one of Jarlaxle’s unannounced agents had secretly placed her rather substantial bets.

  “Matron Byrtyn’s weapon master is dead?” Malice asked.

  “He lived, I believe. At least, a priestess was tending him when I left him, and his wound seemed to be diminishing.”

  Malice let out a little growl.

  “It would not have mattered,” Jarlaxle quickly added, not wanting her to run down a tangent issue here. “Avinvesa will not serve Matron Byrtyn in that capacity for much longer, in any case. He is merely keeping the sword handles warm for a proper Fey-Branche noble.”

  “She will still retain a fine blade.”

  Jarlaxle shrugged, then shook his head. “If she doesn’t kill him, I will buy him out of her house, I think. No doubt Matron Byrtyn lost a considerable amount of coin on this fight and so she will have little use for Avinvesa going forward.”

  That seemed to mollify the vicious little matron a bit, Jarlaxle was glad to note. Once again, he had to hope that Malice wouldn’t take it upon herself to check the veracity of his assertion—or at least, that he had created enough plausible deniability so that his erroneous claim could be construed merely as a mistaken, though logical, assumption.

  “This could have ended badly for Zaknafein, and so, for you,” Malice said.

  Jarlaxle shrugged. “Not too badly for me, altogether.”

  “You would have surrendered your band to another. I had your word. Matron Mother Baenre would not side with you.”

  Jarlaxle gave a little laugh. “Dear Matron Malice, if Zaknafein had fallen, I assure you that I would have lived up to our bargain to serve House Do’Urden as its weapon master. I do not wish that, no, but I thought it an easy concession to offer you, since I knew that Zaknafein could not lose. He is magnificent—I don’t know that I would bet against him no matter his drow opponent.”

  He had hoped to lighten the mood with his sincere approval and assessment of Zaknafein, but Malice’s scowl only deepened.

  “You do not wish that?” she echoed in low and threatening tones.

  Jarlaxle stood confused for a moment, until he realized that Matron Malice wasn’t talking about Zaknafein’s formal role here, but rather, he gathered, other services Zaknafein provided.

  “Only the weapon master part,” he blurted inelegantly.

  “You will prove that,” Malice replied, sounding very much like a cat with a cornered mouse.

  Jarlaxle wanted to shrug, but was wise enough to keep anything that might be construed as ambivalence out of his voice or posture at that delicate moment. He couldn’t deny that this woman before him was alluring, even more so given her reputation, but neither could he dismiss that Zaknafein was his friend. It didn’t much matter, he supposed, because he was indeed a cornered mouse.

  “Truly, Matron?” he asked brightly, eagerly. “You would so honor me?”

  Her eyes never leaving the mercenary, Matron Malice began to undo her robes.

  A disheveled and exhausted Jarlaxle—Malice’s reputation was not exaggerated, he had learned at last—arrived at the court of Matron Byrtyn Fey some time later, dropping before her throne a bag of gold and silver nearly as large as the one he had given to Matron Malice.

  He had told Malice that Byrtyn would be upset at her weapon master’s failure because she likely had lost considerable money on the fight, but the truth was quite the opposite. Heeding Jarlaxle’s advice, Matron Byrtyn had bet quite heavily against her own combatant.

&n
bsp; She had done so sourly, however, and still was not thrilled with the outcome of the battle—but her anger was not directed toward Jarlaxle, who had begged her to hedge any losses in stature or in the position of weapon master by taking advantage of the probable outcome.

  Especially when Jarlaxle had promised to cover her losses if Avinvesa had somehow prevailed.

  “I have already begun the whispers that the fight was not fair,” Jarlaxle assured her. “Some strange force was used to stun Avinvesa Fey-Branche and that Oblodran agents were seen near to the Oozing Myconid.”

  “Those rumors will gather no real credibility.”

  “They do not have to,” Jarlaxle replied. “A seed of doubt is enough for House Fey-Branche to avoid any fall of reputation. That seed is being planted all about Menzoberranzan, as we agreed.”

  “You should have let him die,” Matron Byrtyn said with obvious disgust.

  “I, too, am amazed that his sister from House Tr’arach maintained enough loyalty to him to bother with spells of healing,” he lied. He was doing that—lying—quite a bit this day, and to quite powerful women. How glad Jarlaxle was that he had regained his magical eyepatch!

  “He is an embarrassment to my house,” Byrtyn said.

  Jarlaxle pulled another bag of gold from his magical belt pouch, a marvelous satchel that could hold a roomful of goods. He held it up and gave it a little shake.

  “Then sell him back to me. Same price as you paid for him.”

  Matron Byrtyn cocked her head at that. “You did quite well in your betting this day,” she said.

  Jarlaxle didn’t deny it.

  “Enough so that perhaps Jarlaxle made sure that he could not lose, yes?”

  The mercenary swallowed hard. “I did nothing to impinge upon the rules of the fight,” he stated flatly. “And I would say that under your divining eye.”

  She motioned for him to remove his eyepatch and began casting a spell. Jarlaxle did so but couldn’t help but sigh as he moved to obey. The matrons were all coming to understand the powers of that magical eyepatch, and he feared that this might be a request—nay, a command—he would hear often in the future.