Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(99)

He crept along the branch, as silent as a hunting cat. He saw his prey below him, oblivious to his presence. Barrabus the Gray was shocked to discover that his daring plan had seemingly worked.

He knew that the Thayan champion, the dangerous Dahlia, had gone out to the north, with her many Ashmadai, and knew that Sylora’s eyes had turned that way, too, toward the rising mountain. Barrabus wondered if he might get past the wards and guards, if he might get nearer to this ultimate enemy.

If he could be rid of Sylora Salm, perhaps Alegni would allow him to leave forsaken Neverwinter and return to his work in the comforts of a true city.

He moved out farther on the branch, over the impromptu encampment set below. Sylora was barely a dozen feet in front of and below him, with her back to him as she bent forward, staring into the stump of a large tree.

Barrabus figured he could crouch and spring, and reach her from there, but his curiosity got the better of him and he crept out just a bit farther until he could see over Sylora’s shoulder into the top of the stump, which was filled with water.

And images moved about in the impromptu font—a scrying bowl.

Barrabus couldn’t resist. He inched out and moved his head low to the side of the branch, peering intently.

He noted the movements of a fight in that pool of clairvoyance, tiny figures weaving and striking. He recognized some of the combatants as Ashmadai, and their movements showed them to be uncharacteristically on the defensive, not nearly as aggressive as Barrabus had come to expect of the fanatics. Then he saw one of their opponents and he understood their hesitance, though the image otherwise added to his confusion. The spinning flail, the acrobatic movements—it had to be Dahlia.

But why would Dahlia be fighting against Ashmadai?

Perhaps it wasn’t her. Perhaps there were more warriors like her, Barrabus wondered, and that thought didn’t sit well with him. One Dahlia was more than enough for him.

He didn’t understand.

The flails spun together in front of her and seemed to fuse together, and what had been two separate weapons comprised of two separate lengths suddenly became a single long staff.

Yes, it was Dahlia, Barrabus knew then without doubt. He watched her stop abruptly before a trio of Ashmadai, who lurched back. She planted the tip of her staff and leaped up high, but instead of going forward into her enemies, she went backward.

And another, apparently her ally, charged into the void.

He saw black skin—and a pair of scimitars spinning in devastating precision.

Barrabus the Gray froze on the branch—to attempt anything other than that would have had him simply falling out of the tree. He couldn’t draw breath in that surreal moment, and the world around him seemed to simply stop.

All thoughts of Sylora flew from him—even more so when he heard the newest foe, another elf female, but undead, announcing her presence with the thump of a thunderbolt.

Barrabus didn’t want to go up against the sorceress Sylora in a fair fight, and the thought of facing Valindra Shadowmantle was even less appealing.

He held his breath, but couldn’t help himself. He looked back to the scrying pool, but it had gone mercifully blank.

The trance broken, a very shaken Barrabus the Gray slithered back to the tree and disappeared into the forest.



Drizzt darted out to the right, cutting in front of Dahlia. He fell into a roll, underneath her spinning flail, and his sudden appearance between the elf and her opponent had the tiefling Ashmadai distracted just enough for Dahlia to crack him on the side of the jaw and send him tumbling away.

Drizzt came back to his feet right in front of a pair of fanatics, his blades going to work parrying and deflecting their furious onslaught. In a matter of a couple of heartbeats he had them both on the defensive. His blades came faster and faster, soon moving from counters to initiating strikes.

He worked around them as well, to gain a look at his fighting companion, and he was caught by surprise to see that Dahlia was no longer wielding a flail, and neither was she carrying the staff. She had something he could only describe as a tri-staff, with a longer center piece and two smaller poles spinning furiously to either side. For just a moment, Drizzt considered the strange weapon she carried, which could be put into so many combinations seemingly at will.

Of course, he had no time to really contemplate the unique staff just then, particularly as a third Ashmadai joined the pair he was already fighting. He had to keep moving, as did Dahlia. They couldn’t afford to get caught and surrounded.

Drizzt backed toward Dahlia, moving fast.

“Over,” he heard behind him, and he reflexively worked his scimitars in for low strikes, forcing the attention of the trio downward. Drizzt was not surprised when Dahlia vaulted over him—planting one foot on his set back and leaping out again, soaring past—but his opponents surely were, as their expressions showed.

Dahlia came down on them, kicking one in the face, then a second, and bringing her staff—no longer a tri-staff, but a single long pole—in fast behind her, sliding it through her grasp just enough to jab out with it like a spear, right into the throat of the third opponent. She cut away fast, planted the end of her weapon, and vaulted again.

And so it went for a time, with Drizzt down low, sprinting all around, and Dahlia working vertically above him, leap after great leap.

But even with that new twist, their initial momentum was beginning to fail, the Ashmadai drawing together into better defensive groups. Drizzt and Dahlia couldn’t win—they’d known that from the beginning, and it was time to create an exit for themselves.