Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(9)

Sitting nearby were a handful of Shadovar—Netherese soldiers who had come through from the Shadowfell soon after Effron, at Effron’s secret bidding, but who had not yet pledged their allegiance to Alegni.

When the twisted warlock shambled into their midst, they all stood up, not quite at attention but still with some modicum of respect.

“You have the globes?” the warlock asked one shade, a tall human male named Ratsis.

In response, Ratsis flashed a crooked-toothed smile and reached under the open collar of his shirt to produce a silver chain necklace set with two shadow-filled translucent globes, each the size of a child’s fist. In the swirling shadowmists within each globe crawled a spider, small and furry, like a tiny tarantula. Ratsis grinned.

“For the elf woman,” Effron reminded him.

“And what of her companion?” Ratsis asked.

“Kill him,” Effron replied without hesitation. “He is too dangerous to capture, or to allow to escape. Kill him.”

“We are seven,” insisted Jermander, another of the group, a fierce tiefling warrior who wore both his pride and his unrelenting anger openly. “They are but two!”

“Eight,” Ratsis the spider-keeper quietly corrected. He paused for just a moment, smiling as he rolled the globes of his necklace around, eyes glowing as he viewed his pets, and reconsidered. “Ten.”

Jermander’s expression showed that he did not appreciate those particular allies, which only drew a laugh from Ratsis.

“Do not underestimate these two enemies, my fighting friend,” Ratsis warned.

“Do not underestimate us,” Jermander retorted. “We are not fodder, pulled from the Shadowfell for the pleasure of Effron the Twisted, or even Lord Alegni.”

Effron matched the warrior’s stare, but he did not disagree. These particular shades were not Netherese nobles, perhaps, but neither could they be considered commoners. They were mercenaries of great reputation, the famed Bounty Hirelings of Cavus Dun, and they came at a high price indeed.

“My apologies, Jermander,” Effron said with an awkward, twisted bow.

“Capture the elf woman,” Ratsis said with great emphasis. “Sheathe your blades.” He rolled the spider globes around his fingers again and smiled victoriously. “Be lethal with the drow, gentle with the elf.”

The exchange of looks between Jermander and Ratsis revealed more than a little competition between the two, and no shortage of animosity either. Neither of those truths was lost on Effron.

“Do not fail me in killing the drow,” the warlock, who also carried the weight of a Netherese noble, warned. “Fail me in capturing Dahlia alive, and you will beg for your death for eternity.”

“A threat?” Jermander asked, seeming amused.

“Draygo Quick,” Effron reminded him. The warrior lost his bluster at the mention of that truly powerful Shadovar. “A promise.”

Effron ended with a hard stare, shifting his gaze from one mercenary to the other, then slowly walked away.

“Get the Shifter,” Ratsis said as soon as Effron was gone. The Shifter had been the reason he had corrected Jermander’s count when he had insisted that they were eight and not seven.

Jermander stared at him doubtfully.

“The drow’s blades will pose challenges and dangers to our capture of Dahlia,” Ratsis said. “I don’t wish to explain Dahlia’s untimely death to the likes of Draygo Quick!”

“I can move him,” insisted another shade, a wiry and muscular tiefling wearing few clothes and carrying a short spear.

“As can I,” declared another, one of human heritage and Shadovar skin, who was similarly armed and armored only in a fine cloth suit. He stepped up beside the tiefling and both puffed out their slender, but quite muscular, chests, seemingly in practiced unison. On this human, more than on the tiefling, such a pose seemed a jester’s parody. With a mop of curly blond hair and cherubic cheeks, he appeared almost childlike, despite his honed muscles.

Ratsis wanted to laugh at these two Brothers of the Gray Mists, an order of monks that had gained some notoriety of late among the Netherese. He wanted to laugh, but he knew better than to do so. For Brothers Parbid and Afafrenfere were particularly zealous and undeniably reckless.

“I had expected that you two would be primary in killing the drow,” Ratsis said to appease them, and indeed, the monks both showed the edges of a smile at his compliment. “With your quick movements and deadly fists, I would expect even one of Drizzt Do’Urden’s reputation to be overwhelmed.”

“We are disciples of the Pointed Step,” Parbid, the tiefling, replied, and stamped his spear. “We will do both: move him and then kill him.”

Ratsis glanced at Jermander, who was obviously equally amused. Jermander’s look showed that their little spat had been left behind, suppressed by the almostcomical puffery of Parbid and Afafrenfere.

“I am the catcher. You are the killer,” Ratsis said to Jermander. “What is your choice?”

“An eighth would suit us well,” Jermander replied, to the disappointment— and apparent deflation—of the two monks. “I would take no risks here. Not at this time.”

“The Shifter will demand three shares!” said Ambergris, another of the band, a dwarf convert to the Shadowfell, part shade but not quite wholly one as of yet. Her real name was Amber Gristle O’Maul, but Ambergris seemed a better fit, for she surely looked and smelled the part, with long black hair, parts braided, parts not, and a thick and crooked nose. She didn’t quite look the part of a Shadovar yet, appearing more like the offspring of a duergar and a Delzoun. She’d only been in the Shadowfell for a little more than a year. But her prowess with her exceptional mace and her divine spellcasting had not gone unnoticed. Despite her lack of credentials among the Shadovar, the Bounty Hunters of Cavus Dun had taken her in and had promised to sponsor her for full admission into the empire—extraordinarily rare for a nonhuman—if she proved herself.