Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(81)

That steed charged right into the hulk, slamming the monster hard and knocking it back a stride. The nightmare reared and kicked its fiery hooves into the beast’s face, and the umber hulk clawed and swatted with abandon, finally driving the hellish horse aside.

Just in time to catch a flying Barrabus.

The man leaped up at the beast, stabbing hard with his sword and scoring a hit right between the umber hulk’s snapping mandibles. Barrabus fell short of the monster, as he’d planned, and darted out to the left, stabbing the creature hard in the side with his dirk as he passed.

The umber hulk swung around, batting at him, but never quite catching up to him. Its heavy arm connected on the nearest building, smashing the wall and sending chunks of stone tumbling.

Barrabus avoided them and used the tumult to run back out the other way, where he launched a flurry of strikes against the distracted brute’s back. He hit the umber hulk a dozen times, but could score only minimal damage against the thick hide and sheer bulk of his enemy.

More importantly, though, Barrabus had made the creature furious and it pursued him with a singular purpose. He wouldn’t allow it to catch up to him to join in battle once more, however, for when those settlers nearby saw that one of their comrades had the umber hulk’s full attention, and noted, too, that it was Barrabus, their hero from the previous battle, they found their courage and came on in support.

Like a hive of stinging bees, they nipped and stabbed at the umber hulk, over and over again. Following Barrabus’s lead, and heeding his commands, they stayed ahead of the monster’s increasingly desperate lunges and swings.

On and on it went, and finally, the umber hulk dived down to the ground and burrowed away, digging deep through the cobblestones and into the soft earth below. Barrabus actually went into the hole after it, scoring many more vicious stabs at the retreating monster’s feet and legs.

When finally he simply let the umber hulk burrow away, leaving him in a trench a dozen feet below the city square above, Barrabus blinked many times and wondered what in the Nine Hells he might have been thinking.

As he ascended, he did so to a growing chorus of elation, and indeed, when he exited, he found that some of the folk were cheering him for his actions in the square.

Mostly, however, they cheered for Herzgo Alegni, and despite Barrabus’s hatred for the tiefling, he couldn’t honestly claim that those cheers were misplaced. Not at that moment, at least.

Alegni fought a second umber hulk, his mighty sword hacking at the beast with abandon. Its skin hanging in torn flaps, the umber hulk tried to keep up with the relentless cuts, tried to turn around in pace with the surprisingly quick Alegni.

But the tiefling had gained an advantage and he would not surrender it. Claw, that terrible sword, inflicted heavy damage with each strike, damage that went beyond the torn skin and muscle, broken bones and spurting blood, damage that reached right to the heart of the umber hulk’s existence, the core of its soul.

The creature turned, and turned some more, and turned yet more as it screwed itself down to the ground, where Alegni finished it off with a great overhead chop, splitting the beast’s skull in half.






“You should have finished the task with the cataclysm,” Szass Tam scolded Sylora. The sorceress had just informed him of the new information Arunika had supplied regarding the heroic exploits of Herzgo Alegni. “He gains strength and alliance with the villagers.”

“I struck at them hard,” Sylora countered.

“You?”

“The Abolethic Sovereignty—and I count their alliance as my victory.”

“Fair enough,” Szass Tam admitted, but he chucked his disgust with every word. “Some villagers were killed, but once again, the Netherese became their heroes, did they not?”

Sylora lowered her eyes. She couldn’t answer that.

“It was a good attack,” Szass Tam unexpectedly concluded. “Many of the villagers were killed—I sense their souls feeding the Dread Ring now. And not one of our zealots was slain, not a zombie destroyed. Now we must convince the settlers that the reason you attack them is their alliance with the Netherese.”

“Arunika,” Sylora reasoned, and Szass Tam nodded.

“She can be quite persuasive, I’m told,” the archlich said.

“I need more Ashmadai,” Sylora dared to remark, and to her surprise, Szass Tam nodded once more.

Sylora breathed easier, her mind already concocting the lies she would feed through Arunika, already thinking of new ways to wound the settlers, to turn them against the Netherese.

But her relief proved short lived.

“You took from the Dread Ring,” Szass Tam stated.

Sylora looked up at him with surprise.

“I feel its power diminished, stolen by you.”

The sorceress shook her head, trying to make sense of it, for Szass Tam’s tone had taken a darker turn—and that usually meant someone was going to die, horribly.

“I didn’t …”

“Into a scepter, perhaps?” Szass Tam remarked, and Sylora understood then.

“J-Jestry’s weapon … yes,” she stammered.

“You took from the Dread Ring.”

“I asked the Dread Ring for strength,” Sylora protested.

“Strength it provided, to its own detriment.”