Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(15)

The light snow continued to fall, though it seemed as if it could not touch the brooding and hulking dark figure that was Herzgo Alegni as he stood on his namesake bridge in the heart of darkened Neverwinter. This was his favorite place now, a symbol of his successes, and here he believed he was invincible. Here, he was truly Lord Alegni.

“I would express surprise in seeing you,” he said as a tall and broad tiefling warrior approached. “Of course, it would be feigned, for you always seem to appear where you are least wanted.”

“You have not seen me in more than a decade,” came a sarcastic reply. “Not long enough.”

“My Lord Alegni, I never go where I’m not invited,” Jermander replied. “Indeed,

I never go where I’m not paid to go.”

Alegni looked past him, to the smaller form, that of Effron.

“You know why they have come,” Effron answered his questioning look.

“The Bounty Hirelings of Cavus Dun are more effective in dealing with such . . . problems as those which we seem to now have before us.”

Alegni had been asking for more soldiers for a long while, but this group was surely not what he had in mind. For this mercenary band owed fealty to the person with the purse, and since Alegni had not invited them or hired them, that meant someone other than himself. It wasn’t hard for him to figure out who that person might be.

“I am here in support of your mission,” Effron said with a bow, conceding the point before Alegni could even make it.

“But not to follow my commands, it would seem.”

“Draygo Quick suggested Cavus Dun,” Effron retorted, once more pulling rank by invoking his powerful mentor, who was one of the few Netherese lords Herzgo Alegni feared.

Alegni moved to the rail, his customary spot, and stared out at the dark river and the distant sea. “If you get in my way, I will kill you, Jermander,” he said matter-of-factly. “Do not doubt that.”

“I would expect . . .” Effron started to interject, but Alegni fixed him with a threatening stare.

“You do not hate her more than I do,” the twisted warlock remarked, then he spun on his heel and shuffled away.

Alegni shifted his gaze to Jermander, who did not shy from it.

“There are many moving parts,” the mercenary said. “Neverwinter is akin to a gnomish contraption.”

“Too many moving parts, perhaps,” Alegni agreed. “And you are but one more.”

With that, Jermander grinned, bowed, and walked off after Effron.

Alegni stayed on the bridge for quite a while longer, wondering how he could parlay all of this to an even greater advantage. He didn’t like having Cavus Dun around, for they were too much of a wild card, but he had to admit—to himself, of course, for he would never speak aloud any such thing!—that there were indeed a very troubling number of moving parts. Dahlia was formidable, and much more so, apparently, with this drow companion fighting beside her. And Barrabus?

He put his hand on the pommel of his great blade, taking comfort in its obvious energy. Claw reassured him. The sword remained alert. Barrabus the Gray remained Claw’s to command.

Still, too many moving parts spun like a giant gear works above him.

He thought of the clever Arunika, his lover, his ally with the foolish settlers, and likely his enemy. Whenever he thought of the night he had spent with the woman, and the many more he intended to spend lying beside her, he had to remind himself that she was much more than she seemed, that she, this supposedly innocent woman, was also friend to Valindra Shadowmantle, and was actually helping the lich clear her jumbled mind.

With Sylora dead, Valindra seemed to stand as Alegni’s greatest rival.

What did that make Arunika?

The tiefling grinned as he considered the possibilities.

He was Herzgo Alegni, after all, Lord of Neverwinter. He would take them, any of them, as he wished, and kill any of them as needed, Effron included.





“Greeth, Greeth,” Arunika muttered as she walked through the forest, and she shook her head in disgust. She had hoped that the Sovereignty ambassador had used its influence with Valindra to prepare the lich to take over where Sylora Salm had left off. The Thayans might again serve as foil to the Netherese threat, but this time with a leader who was, ultimately, under control of the ambassador.

Thus, Arunika’s disappointment had been paramount upon meeting up with Valindra at the remains of Ashenglade, Sylora’s fortress created out of the magical coalescing ash of the Dread Ring. As Ashenglade had diminished, its binding forces dissipating, its ashen walls crumbling, so, too, had Valindra’s clarity diminished. Just a short meeting with the confused lich had shown Arunika the truth: The aboleth had abandoned Valindra, had perhaps even thrown in an added bit of jumble to the lich’s already-scrambled brains for good measure. Certainly Valindra had regressed. She seemed less lucid than when Arunika had first met her, and that was before Arunika had arranged the introduction between the lich and the aboleth.

“Ark-lem! Greeth! Greeth!” Valindra had shouted, the name of her mentor, Arunika believed, or a long-lost lover, or both, perhaps.

The succubus let the thoughts of Valindra melt away as she came to her destination. Standing on the edge of Sylora’s Dread Ring, Arunika found herself surprised and disappointed yet again. She knew that the Dread Ring had been injured—its weakness was apparent in the diminishment of Sylora’s fortress construct—but never had she imagined so dramatic a change as this. Where once had been a field of death, a black ashen scar tingling with nether energy, now seemed more a place that had, perhaps, been witness to a recent fire. The blackness remained, the stench of ash hung thick in the air, but nothing like before, with nowhere near the intensity that promised power to challenge Herzgo Alegni’s forces.