Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(107)

There was no doubt that Slow Spout could accomplish the task, though, if that task was to dull the senses.

“A strange choice of celebratory drink,” Tiago remarked, holding his hand out to refuse Ravel’s offer of a cup. So as not to be rude, the young Baenre drew a small flask from under his coat, unscrewed the top, and took a small swig.

“Why did I let him live?” Ravel asked before Tiago could.

“That is the question most formed by drow fingers at this time, yes,” Tiago replied.

Ravel looked aside, his expression very somber and very sober, despite the libations.

Tiago caught the significance of that look and suppressed the burning urge to prompt the spellspinner as his own curiosity began to bubble.

“Brack’thal’s claims,” Ravel said, shaking his head.

“What of them?”

Ravel looked his Baenre friend directly in the eye. “He was not wrong.”

Tiago tried hard not to reveal his shock, but still he fell back a step.

“I feel it,” Ravel explained.

Tiago shook his head, too emphatically, perhaps. “There is some trick at play here with Brack’thal, some secret item or one old spell returned. His work with the elementals . . .”

“Impressive work,” Ravel said.

“And you’re fooled by it.”

Ravel took another gulp of Slow Spout. “Let us hope that is the case,” the spellspinner said, and he sounded less than convinced.





A COMPANION'S TRUST





Herzgo Alegni stepped through the shadow gate, arriving in a small chamber built into a stalactite hanging above a vast underground cavern. It had been only two days since the disastrous fight in the forest, but the tiefling warlord was feeling much better. He had used Draygo Quick’s failure to force the withered old warlock into redoubling the efforts to heal him, and to give him more reinforcements.

Herzgo Alegni knew they couldn’t fail again. Not now. Not here. Too much was at stake, and this time, failure would mean the end of his coveted sword and the end of his reputation.

Effron was already in the portal chamber, staring out a small window beside the chamber’s one exit, an open door leading to a landing and a circular stair that ran around the rock mound.

Alegni walked up beside the twisted warlock and pushed him aside. Effron stuck his face into the window opening and tried to hide his surprise.

There before Alegni, across a dark underground pool, loomed the front wall of the ancient dwarven complex of Gauntlgrym, like the fa?ade of a surface fortress, but tucked into the back of the cavern, the castle wall coming up right near to the ceiling. There were parapets up there, Alegni could see; that wall, this whole cavern, including the stalactite in which he stood, had been prepared for defense of the complex.

“Directly below,” Effron said, and Alegni leaned out and looked down, to see another landing just below his position, an ancient war engine set upon it.

“Ballista?” he asked, not quite sure of what he was viewing. It looked like a great mounted crossbow, a ballista, except that it was covered on top with a large fanlike box. A pair of Shadovar moved around down there, working on the contraption.

“An unusual design,” Effron explained. “They are set all around the cavern. Balogoth the historian called them volley guns.”

Alegni looked back from Effron to the ballista, and held up his hand as Effron started to explain what he had meant by that title. For there was no need—the name alone described the purpose of that fanlike box all too well.

“Will it throw?” he called down to the Shadovar on the ledge below.

The pair looked up and fell back a step at the unexpected sight of their warlord.

“Will it throw?” Alegni demanded again when neither answered.

“We do not know, my Lord Alegni,” one replied. “We have replaced the bowstring, but the arms are so ancient, they likely have little tension left in them.”

“Attempt it.”

The two looked at each other, then scrambled to a crate lying nearby—one they had brought from the Shadowfell—and began pulling forth long arrows. One by one, they loaded the fanlike box, sliding the bolts in from behind. Then one shade grabbed the huge crank and slowly pulled back the string.

The throw arms creaked in protest.

“It won’t work,” Effron said, but Alegni didn’t even bother to glance back to look at him.

When the crank was set, the second shade took hold of a lever. This one didn’t move easily, and it took him a long while of trying before he looked to his companion helplessly, and obviously desperately afraid.

They wouldn’t want to fail their warlord, Herzgo Alegni understood, and he liked that show of fear.

After much tinkering, with one shade even crawling under the edge of the box and digging at the wooden catches with a small blade, they finally managed to ease the cartridge into place.

Herzgo Alegni held back a mocking chuckle when they fired the ballista, for only one side, one throwing arm, moved with the release. Out the front came the arrows, barely thrown, more falling off to tumble straight down than actually flying free. And those that did come forth barely cleared the stalactite—the shades could have hand-thrown them farther.

Down below on the cavern floor came a couple of curses and shouts of protest.