Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(74)

Staring hatefully, Hadencourt melted away from the Prime Material Plane, back to his haunt in the Nine Hells.





JELVUS GRINCH WAS NOT A MAN TO SHY FROM A CHALLENGE. He’d risen to become one of the leading voices in Neverwinter through his toughness, his courage, and his indomitable will. But he shied away now, flinching and all but covering his head with his strong arms, for the angry reaction had caught him by surprise, a complete inversion of what he’d expected. And Herzgo Alegni was not one even stout Jelvus Grinch wanted as an enemy.

Nor did the other citizen leaders of Neverwinter, all sitting behind Jelvus, as Herzgo Alegni had commanded them.

“The Walk of Barrabus?” Alegni repeated over and over again, shaking his head and moving from a helpless grin to an outraged grimace with every syllable.

“We thought it fitting,” Jelvus Grinch dared to reply.

“I think it idiotic,” Alegni snapped back.

“Barrabus the Gray’s work in the assault inspired us,” Jelvus said.

“And all of it was choreographed by … me,” said Alegni, poking his finger against his own massive chest. “Have you so soon forgotten the role I played? Go out,” he bade the man, pointing to Neverwinter’s gate. “Go among the scar of battle and view the many bodies cleaved fully in half. Only one blade on that field was mighty enough to do that, and only one arm strong enough to wield that blade.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Jelvus Grinch. “And your actions are neither unknown nor unappreciated.”

“I will find my name attached to some great structure in Neverwinter?”

“If you wish, of course. A market square, perhaps.”

“That bridge,” Alegni insisted.

“Bridge? The Walk of Barrabus?”

“Never speak that name again,” Alegni replied, calmly, too calmly, the threat obvious and undeniable. “Once it was called the Winged Wyvern Bridge, then, too briefly in the days before the cataclysm, the Herzgo Alegni Bridge.”

Jelvus Grinch’s face screwed up with surprise. Few alive knew of that brief moment of Neverwinter lore.

“Yes,” Alegni explained, “because the Lord of Neverwinter in the day of the cataclysm knew well the friendship and alliance of Herzgo Alegni, and he was so grateful for my service to his city that he changed the name of Neverwinter’s most notable and famous structure. I didn’t immediately explain this indiscretion to you. It’s a new day in Neverwinter, and so I decided to show my value to you who have come here to rebuild. Barrabus the Gray is my man, who serves at my pleasure and my suffrage. A man I can kill with merely a thought. He came to you because I sent him to you, and of no accord of his own. Do you understand that?”

Jelvus Grinch swallowed hard and nodded.

“He’s my man, not his own,” said Alegni. “If I tell him to kill himself, he will kill himself. If I tell him to kill you, you will be dead. Do you understand?”

Another hard swallow preceded the next nod.

“I command a sizable Shadovar force,” the tiefling said, lifting his gaze from poor Jelvus Grinch to address all of the gathering. “You have met our wretched enemies, these Thayans and their ghoulish minions with ghoulish designs. I alone can protect you from the withering fingers of Szass Tam, and I will do so.”

He paused and turned his glare back to Jelvus Grinch directly, and finished with a simple edict, “The Herzgo Alegni Bridge.”

“A bright day will dawn for this land in a time of darkness,” came a voice from the gathering, and all eyes turned to see a disarmingly comely woman with curly red hair and a warm and open face.

Several others whispered, “The Forest Sentinel,” with great reverence, prompting Alegni to regard this innocuous-looking woman more carefully.

“We have hoped and prayed that one would stand above, and lead us to banish the old evil and open a path to new horizons,” the woman, Arunika, went on. “Are you that one, Herzgo Alegni?”

Herzgo Alegni straightened and his massive chest swelled with confidence that he was indeed, or surely could be.

“The Herzgo Alegni Bridge!” another man from the gallery shouted, and many others chimed in their agreement.

Alegni looked to Jelvus Grinch, who eagerly nodded.

The Netherese lord paced around, basking in the glow of approval, then assured them all, “Szass Tam’s agents will be driven from this land at the end of my sword. Your city will thrive again. I’ll see to that, but on your lives, you will not forget my role.”

It started as a small clap, a single set of hands—the red-haired woman’s hands, Alegni noted, this one they had called the Forest Sentinel—then joined by a second, and within a few heartbeats, the leaders of Neverwinter called out for Herzgo Alegni with a full-throated “huzzah!”






Jestry stood in the firelit chamber, naked and sweating, covered in hot oil. He didn’t cry out in pain, for the aboleth was in his mind and wouldn’t allow him to feel that pain. The creature chased down every sensation of pain before it could come to fruition, numbing Jestry, distracting him, keeping him in a state of emptiness.

These mental bindings were much easier, after all.

Not far from Jestry, a cauldron hissed and bubbled. A pair of gray dwarves hustled around it, stoking the flames, pouring in more oil. A third dwarf slave, wearing thick gloves and carrying long tongs, scrambled up and down a small ladder near the cauldron, reaching in to pull forth the treated, leathery strips.