Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(66)

The assassin kept coming.

“Free man or slave?” Drizzt yelled, and it sounded almost like a cry of final despair in Drizzt’s ears as his tone turned to a near-shriek, as the assassin’s sword came in fast for his heart.

Every swing of that red-bladed sword had Dahlia moving desperately, diving aside, ducking or leaping.

He was laughing at her.

Herzgo Alegni, her rapist, her mother’s murderer, laughed at her.

She kept slapping her flails together between blocks, during dives and leaps, trying to build a powerful charge, trying to find something, anything, to bring this foul tiefling to his knees.

The sword slashed down at her left, then up and over and down past her right side, and both cuts filled their path with a veil of black ash.

Dahlia went forward, even managing a slight strike on Alegni by flicking her wrist and throwing one flail out straight before her.

It hardly bothered him, though, and he rushed aside, his sword slashing every which way, bringing in veils of ash.

“You are alone, little girl,” he taunted, and Dahlia understood that he was creating the ash fields not for any tactical advantage, but simply to add to her sense of despair.

Was he giving her a chance, she wondered? Was he shaping the battlefield to better suit her advantages of speed and agility?

She burst through a hanging sheet of ash, diving down low, then leaped up through a second one, and there Alegni stood before her, but not facing her directly. She rushed in, flails spinning, striking, one after another.

But his single elbow jab as he turned weighed more heavily on Dahlia than her handful of strikes had inflicted on him, and once more she found herself bursting through sheets of hanging ash, but this time involuntarily, launched yet again through the air. She landed in a roll and came up once more right before the railing of the bridge, turning and setting herself for the incoming Alegni, preparing her stance to send her out to the right or left as needed.

But she couldn’t see him behind the remaining ash walls.

She took a deep breath, or started to until she felt the sharp pain that doubled her over.

She knew then that she had a broken rib.

She knew then, once more, that she could not win.

Drizzt Do’Urden hardly dared to breathe.

“Free man or slave?” he asked in a whisper, Entreri’s deadly sword touching his chest and with no way for him to prevent the assassin from plunging it into his heart.

He saw the struggle on Entreri’s face.

“Are you Artemis Entreri or Barrabus the Gray?” Drizzt asked.

Entreri winced.

“I know you. I remember you,” said Drizzt. “Deny the call of Herzgo Alegni. No mere sword can control you; no artifact can steal that which is yours.”

“How long have I wanted to kill you,” the assassin stated, and Drizzt recognized that he was trying to justify that which the sword compelled him to do.

“And yet you paused, because you know the truth,” Drizzt countered. “Is this how you would kill me? Is this what would satisfy Artemis Entreri?”

The assassin grimaced.

“Or would it, instead, perpetuate Barrabus the Gray?” Drizzt asked.

Entreri spun away, and Drizzt nearly swooned with relief.

And disbelief, for before him, shaking his head with every stride, Artemis Entreri walked up the bridge expanse, sword and dagger turning over in his hands, determinedly toward Herzgo Alegni and the maze of ash walls.

The drow started to follow, and only then did he understand how badly he had been wounded, how badly that wound had drained him, for he stumbled down to one knee and had to fight hard to collect his balance.

The warlock didn’t even fully materialize—to do so would have given Guenhwyvar the certain kill. He faded straight back into the stone and came up far away, running for the Shadovar reinforcements, flailing his good arm, his broken one swinging of its own accord, and crying out to Glorfathel to help him.

Guenhwyvar had sprung away as soon as her claws screeched on the empty stones once more, and had leaped back the other way, toward the bridge. In mid-flight, she heard the warlock’s cries, far back the other way, and knew that she had guessed wrong.

And now before her knelt Drizzt, wounded, and perhaps mortally, it seemed, for Artemis Entreri had left him there.

To die?

He thought of the days of his youth, running the streets of Calimport—running freely because he was respected, even feared.

He was feared because of a reputation earned, because he was Artemis Entreri.

That was before Barrabus, before the betrayal of Jarlaxle and the enslavement by Charon’s Claw. Rarely could Artemis Entreri recall those days now, particularly when he was around Alegni and that awful sword. Claw wouldn’t allow it.

Claw had told him to kill Drizzt.

Now Claw insisted that he turn around and kill Drizzt.

His steps came more slowly. He couldn’t believe that he had denied the intrusion this long, but even pausing to be incredulous at that thought cost him ground.

In a daring move, Entreri had allowed the citizens of Neverwinter to name this bridge “The Walk of Barrabus.” How that had infuriated Herzgo Alegni! And how Alegni had punished him for his insolence!

Punished him through the sword.

He remembered that pain keenly now.

He used that memory of pure agony in a manner opposite its intent. The punishment had been to warn him, but now Entreri used it to reinforce his hatred of Claw and of Alegni, and most of all, to reinforce his ultimate hatred . . . of Barrabus the Gray.