Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(29)

“You’re both wanted,” he said.

Drizzt studied Beniago carefully. He’d never met this one, but the man’s easy posture warned him that he was no novice with the blade. He and Dahlia were certainly and undeniably caught.

Still, Drizzt looked for weakness, for some seam in the leather armor, for some option should the need arise.

His scan ended at the man’s belt, at the hilt of that distinctive blade. Memories of a distant past flooded Drizzt’s thoughts.

It couldn’t be the same blade, the drow told himself.

But the enemy he’d known who had carried such a dagger had likely been in Luskan, with Jarlaxle, perhaps even at the time of his death.

It was possible.

“Forthwith,” Beniago repeated, forcefully drawing Drizzt from his contemplation. The drow looked up at the tall man, almost expecting to see an old enemy standing in front of him. But this man was taller, lighter skinned, with curly red hair … and a hundred years too young!

Beniago motioned to Drizzt to follow Dahlia, who had moved several steps away. He did so, with a grin on his face.

Perhaps one of the problems of living so long a life, he mused, was the jumble of memories—too many memories!—which inevitably found their way to his consciousness at the slightest provocation. He glanced again at the dagger and laughed at himself, certain now that it was a different blade.

But only because it had to be. The world had moved on.





HADENCOURT PAUSED OUTSIDE OF ASHENGLADE TO ADMIRE ITS construction, and though he knew it had been created magically, it still seemed impossible to him that so much had been built in so short a time. Hadencourt wasn’t quite as committed to Szass Tam, and by extension Sylora Salm, as he was to the Ashmadai zealots, but he had to give credit where credit was due.

Ashenglade was not the work of Asmodeus or any other denizen of the Nine Hells. It was the work of the Thayan Dread Ring.

As he approached the gates of the fortress, he faced a phalanx of grim-faced Ashmadai guards and a host of zombie minions, but all he had to do was flash his smile—his real smile and not the fa?ade he wore for the peasant bandits in the north. The resistance melted away, and the gates were thrown wide.

“Dahlia and the drow were heading north, to Luskan, they said,” Hadencourt reported when he stood beside Sylora Salm on the second floor of her treelike tower.

“Greeth! Ark-lem!” Valindra shrieked from the corner.

Hadencourt stared at her incredulously.

“Ignore her,” Sylora told him.

That was no easy thing to do, though, and Hadencourt’s gaze lingered over the lich for some time. Valindra stared back at him with a crooked grin.

“The farther they go from here, the better, though I’d love to burn Dahlia to ashes,” Sylora Salm replied to the original point.

Valindra’s expression disappeared and she cocked her head as she studied Hadencourt. She’d noted the great deference in Sylora’s tone, Hadencourt realized, and that, he deduced, was something rarely heard.

“You may get your opportunity,” he replied, turning back to the sorceress. “Dahlia made a point to mention Neverwinter Wood as her intended destination, though her immediate road headed the opposite way. She said there was adventure to be found here. I assume she was referring to you.”

“And her companion?”

“Tried to deflect her from revealing their future path.”

“He was wary of you?” Sylora asked suspiciously, and she turned around to view the hollowed tree trunk she’d excavated and hauled into the back of the chamber. Years before, Sylora had created of the trunk a scrying pool.

Hadencourt shook his head doubtfully. “He was more reserved than she, I would expect. But then, who isn’t?”

Sylora turned back to regard Hadencourt directly, her look as suspicious as her previous question. Hadencourt was a newcomer to Neverwinter Wood, one of the more recent Ashmadai reinforcements. He wouldn’t have known Dahlia from his time there, as she was long gone by the time he’d arrived—that was why Sylora had chosen him to serve as a scout on the northern road.

“I know all about Lady Dahlia,” Hadencourt admitted.

“Who are you?”

The tall man smiled as he’d done outside, revealing long, pointed teeth. He furrowed his brow and a pair of horns sprouted from his forehead.

“I thought you were Ashmadai,” Sylora said, trying to keep her calm fa?ade—no easy task when confronted by a mighty malebranche devil.

“Oh, my lady Sylora, I surely am!” Hadencourt replied. “More devoted than these tieflings and humans, of course. After all, they merely worship Asmodeus, while I witness his glory personally. And let me assure you that he’s every bit as impressive as his hordes of worshipers would have you believe.”

“Does Szass Tam know of your—?”

“Do you think me foolish enough to try to hide something this important from the archlich?”

“And he sent you here anyway,” Sylora remarked.

“Fear not, my lady Sylora,” Hadencourt said with a deep bow. “In this endeavor, I am subservient to Sylora Salm. I am no spy, unless it’s your spy. Such were my orders from Szass Tam, and I honor them with relish.”

Her expression reflected her skepticism.

“Greeth! Greeth!” Valindra chimed in.