Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(27)

Arrows rose up to meet the flying Guenhwyvar, most missing but one pair struck home. They did little to slow the great cat. She hit the tin roof with a scrabble of raking claws, catching a hold on the slope and charging at the scattering group.

One fleeing archer paused long enough to aim at Dahlia.

Just before his arrow left the bow, though, Drizzt’s lightning missile blew him backward, lifting him over the crest of the roof to fall to the cobblestones below.





Therfus Handydoer couldn’t see all of the unfolding battle from his angle, but he found the whole thing amusing anyway. He didn’t really care if some of the mercenary pirates, or even some of Ship Rethnor’s crew, were cut down. They were mere warriors, after all, and none of them very good ones at that.

Still, the fight was going on too long for Therfus’s liking. Too long and too loud, and that could only attract unwanted attention.

He meant to end it.

He began another spell, pausing only to wince as one of those devilish lightning arrows blasted into an archer and drove him up and over the crest of the roof.

Shaking his head, Therfus released his magic. At the last moment, he added a little touch of his own, planting a black storm cloud twenty feet in the air above the porch.





Still fighting against the jolts of energy, Dahlia heard hail drum against her leather hat before she felt its pelting sting.

A pellet slammed into her shoulder, tearing her skin so deeply she felt it crack against bone. She forced herself toward Drizzt. He stood in the cover of the doorway, driven back by the hail. Another step brought her closer to him. He reached out for her, holding his arm out despite several painful ice strikes.

Dahlia reached for him, but another jolt of energy sent her suddenly flailing. The slick porch threw her off balance and she crashed hard against the corner of the railing where it met the stairs, and slipped down to her buttocks.

More ice pelted her. She tried to get up, but she kept slipping.

More ice bashed against her.

So Dahlia threw herself down the stairs.

As she bounced and tumbled, she grabbed at the railing to try to slow her descent. At last she spilled out into the cobblestone street in a roll, but thankfully, she’d escaped the ice storm.

With great effort, she forced herself back to her feet and managed to stagger a few steps, though she didn’t really know where to go.

And then it didn’t matter, for out of every alleyway, the pirates came, brandishing swords and axes and gaff hooks.

Dahlia, still fighting simply to maintain her balance, understood she had no chance of defending herself.

Even if Drizzt reached the edge of the porch then, where the ice storm still raged, he couldn’t cut them all down in time.

Even if Guenhwyvar leaped down, in all her roaring fury, by the time the pirates even realized their peril, many would already have finished her.

Dahlia resigned herself to death.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.






Drizzt had barely crossed the threshold in pursuit of Dahlia when the pelting ice drove him back.

With a growl he threw up the hood of his cloak and leaped out once more, but the slick ice sent him sliding to the middle of the porch, unable to turn and get to the stairs.

He yelled for Guenhwyvar. He put up Taulmaril and began launching arrows once more.

A pellet of ice smacked him hard and dropped him to his knees, so he continued to shoot from his knees. He searched for the wizard—if he could just get a shot at the wizard!

He looked up at the adjacent roof for Guenhwyvar. An archer was in view, desperately trying to set an arrow as another form, a woman, came running across the rooftop, brandishing a long knife. She barreled into the archer, her leading arm sweeping aside his bow, her knife striking hard.

Drizzt could have shot her down, but was she an enemy or an ally?

He lowered the bow and threw himself into a slide to the railing overlooking the street, overlooking Dahlia, overlooking the thugs closing in on her.

He could only yell out for her. He lifted his bow and tried to decide which one of these killers he would stop.

And, by default, which of the others he would allow to get to Dahlia.





Therfus Handydoer laughed a bit as he watched the scene unfolding in front of him, the female elf tumbling out into the streets, still staggering foolishly from his lightning serpent.

He knew the drow was trapped in his area of icy punishment. He’d defeated the feared Dahlia and her drow companion so easily! He almost pitied warriors.

Almost, but how might he pity one foolish enough to lift a sword when a spell was so much more powerful?

It occurred to him to finish Dahlia then, to take the kill as his own before the surrounding thugs could close in, and so he began to whisper his next spell.

The tip of a deadly dagger came in tight against his throat.

“This is not your time to kill, son of Ship Rethnor,” a quiet voice intoned. “Is it your time to die?”

Therfus’s mind whirled. How could he escape this? For a brief moment, his sneering contempt for those who chose the blade over the spell was shaken.

“You would kill the noble second of a high captain?” he asked, hoping his station would save him where his spells obviously could not.

The man behind him snorted.

“Do you not understand that significance?” a suddenly defiant Therfus said with strength returned to his voice. “I am a noble second!”