Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(44)

Slowly the young warlock rose from the seat into which Alegni had dropped him, eyeing the hulking tiefling with every movement, and ready to drop back down in an instant if he thought he was angering the volatile warrior. Even after he got to his feet, Effron moved tentatively, but if Alegni had any residual desire to punish him, the tiefling wasn’t showing it.

Effron started slowly for the balcony door. Alegni fixed him with a stare and he froze, expecting an attack.

But Alegni’s expression was surprisingly sympathetic. He stared at Effron, slowly nodded, and said, “We will get her.”

After her run-in with Jelvus Grinch, Arunika was in no mood for the sour Brother Anthus who came rapping at the door of her cottage south of the main city late that evening.

“Arunika!” he called loudly, and banged hard on the door.

Arunika pulled open the door, catching the young monk in mid-swing.

“Arun—” he started, and stopped abruptly.

“Do announce our liaison at this late hour to the world,” Arunika replied, every syllable dripping with sarcasm. She grabbed Anthus by the wrist and tugged him hard. “Get in here,” she ordered, and she slammed the door behind him.

“You said that he would get no further help from Netheril!” the monk growled, and pointed his finger at Arunika’s face.

It took all of the tired and angry devil’s willpower not to bite that digit off. “It didn’t seem likely.”

“You were wrong!”

Arunika shrugged and held her hands up as if that hardly mattered for anything. “Had I foreseen Herzgo Alegni’s reinforcements, would we have been able to change anything?” she asked. “What actions would you have taken, would you have had me take, to prevent Alegni from strengthening his hold?”

“We could have gone to the ambassador earlier,” Anthus fumed, almost incoherently. “We could have convinced the Sovereignty—”

“Of nothing!” Arunika interrupted. Her patience had reached its end. “No!” Anthus flew backward through the air, launched by an open-palmed thrust into his chest. He slammed hard against the back wall, and were it not for the wall, he surely would have tumbled to the ground.

Gasping for breath, Anthus stared back at Arunika, whom he had known as merely a simple human woman—daring in her subterfuge and espionage and surely forceful sexually—but no more than a human woman.

He was wondering about that right at that moment, Arunika realized. She’d hit him hard—harder than any human woman of her stature ever could. Had she just compromised her true identity?

For a moment, Arunika thought it might be prudent to walk over and simply snap the fool’s neck.

Just for a moment, though. Brother Anthus might be a fool, but in the end, he was her fool. His contacts with the aboleth ambassador had saved her from any personal dealings with the otherworldly creatures. She could easily manipulate him and control him. That counted for something.

“We could have done nothing had we guessed correctly that the Netheril Empire would strengthen Herzgo Alegni’s forces,” she said calmly. “With the Thayans in retreat and the Sovereignty gone, we have little leverage against the Netherese.”

“Then what are we to do?” Anthus asked, or tried to, for he had to repeat himself several times until his breath at last came back to him. He pulled himself up and straightened his robes. “Are we to simply allow this dominance of the Netherese?”

“If they overstep, they will attract the attention of Waterdeep,” Arunika said, and she knew she sounded less than convincing. “But there are other possibilities afoot,” she quickly added when Brother Anthus started, predictably, to argue. He looked at her, clearly intrigued and clearly skeptical.

“So for now, we are to observe,” Arunika instructed. “There will be holes in Alegni’s defenses—there always are, after all. Find those holes. Find his weaknesses. When his enemies make their appearance, whoever those enemies might prove to be, let us, you and I, be ready to help them exploit those weaknesses.”

“What enemies?” Anthus demanded.

“That, too, is for us to learn,” Arunika said cryptically, unwilling to play her hand fully in the fear that the weakling Anthus would break to the interrogation of Alegni, should that come to pass. And given his screaming at her door and his open agitation, it did seem quite likely to Arunika that the fool might well turn unwanted curious gazes his own way soon enough.

As if to prove that very point, Anthus started to growl and yell at her again, even coming forward a stride, but again, Arunika had tolerated too much already.

She didn’t strike out at him physically this time, but reached out with her mind, assaulting Anthus with an overpowering blast of willpower, imparting images of her tearing his beating heart right out of his chest, and other such pleasantries, and the monk stumbled to a stop, staring at her incredulously.

“I too have learned some tricks from the Sovereignty,” Arunika lied. “Herzgo Alegni has made temporary gains in a game as fluid as the sea. The waves will again crash against him.”

“You underestimated him,” the obviously humbled Anthus said quietly. “You underestimate me,” Arunika warned. She said it so forcefully, the succubus almost believed her bluff. Alegni might win here, or he might lose, and while Arunika preferred the latter, simply in case the Sovereignty did return, she intended to find her preferred place in either instance.