R. Salvatore - The Last Threshold

A sharp left jab sped past the warlock’s uplifted arm, snapping his head back. A right cross followed, but much of its weight was blocked, inadvertently, by the rising arm of the staggering Effron. It hardly mattered, though, for Afafrenfere threw the right simply to half-turn Effron and open a hole in his defenses, and to get Afafrenfere’s own right foot forward. Now came the real attack, a sweeping left hook that flew around the warlock’s uplifted arm and cracked him across the side of the jaw, snapping his head to the side.

Afafrenfere spun a tight circuit, lifting his trailing right leg up high, nearly clipping the beams of the low hold’s ceiling, and he brought that leg down and across, chopping the warlock across the collarbone, dropping him to his knees.

The monk didn’t dare relent, understanding that a single spell from Effron could quickly reverse his fortunes. For some reason, though, Effron didn’t seem to be fighting back. Perhaps it had been the speed and brutality of the attack, but there seemed something more to Afafrenfere, some deeper resignation.

If he had paused to consider that, Afafrenfere would have sorted it out, of course: the tiefling had been as overwhelmed by the confrontation with his mother as was Dahlia.

Afafrenfere wasn’t about to take the chance that such apparent surrender would hold. He waded in, slapping away the meager attempt to block, then backhanded Effron in the forehead, driving the tiefling’s head back, opening a clear strike at the exposed neck. In the same movement, Afafrenfere set himself powerfully and lifted his right hand up behind him, fingers locked claw-like for the killing blow.

Effron couldn’t stop it.

Effron didn’t appear as if he wanted to stop it.

The gentle curvature of the watery horizon greeted every view from Minnow Skipper ’s crow’s nest. Three days out of Baldur’s Gate, the ship found fair winds and following seas, and no land in sight and none wanted.

None that Drizzt wanted, at least. He sat far above the deck, losing himself in the rolling waters, letting them take him gently into his own thoughts.

He wanted to help Dahlia. He wanted to comfort her, to guide her through these days, but in truth, he had no idea what to say that would make any difference to the emotionally battered woman, particularly not with Effron tied to a chair in a sectioned-off part of the hold.

Dahlia seemed a different person to Drizzt after Afafrenfere’s gallant rescue, and Effron seemed a different enemy. Neither showed much sign of life, the young warlock not offering anything in terms of resistance, the elf warrior not offering much of anything at all. Dahlia’s capture by her son and their long meetings had drained both of all energy, it seemed.

Drizzt figured that if pirates boarded Minnow Skipper , both would simply surrender without lifting a hand to fight, and he could well imagine the shrug either might offer on the last steps off the plank.

That notion had the drow glancing down at the deck. Dahlia was there among the crew, by the starboard rail, ostensibly stitching a torn sail, though at the rate she was going, a finger’s length tear might occupy her for the rest of the journey to Memnon.

Drizzt’s gaze drifted farther aft, to the open bulkhead, where Ambergris had just appeared. The dwarf reached back and bent low, grabbing hold on Effron and helping him up into the open air, with Afafrenfere closely following.

Amidships, Dahlia glanced back to look at the young tiefling, but she quickly looked down and went back to her task.

Making busy work, Drizzt could see, trying to pretend that Effron wasn’t on the deck, or that he wasn’t on the boat at all.

But Drizzt could see even that wouldn’t prove enough emotional insulation for Dahlia. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then gathered up her things and moved to the forward bulkhead, never looking back.

Never looking back at Effron.

“Effron,” Drizzt whispered from on high, and then it hit him, the simplest answer to the questions and doubts that had been pounding him for these many days. This wasn’t about the relationship he had with Dahlia, whatever that might be. This wasn’t about him at all. It was about that twisted tiefling leaning over the taffrail of Minnow Skipper .

Drizzt couldn’t begin to decipher the many emotions that must be running through Effron and Dahlia, wrenched from hidden corners of their hearts by circumstance and the abrupt turn of events. But in this moment, finally, the drow came to realize that it was all right that he couldn’t understand.

Because this wasn’t about him.

Drizzt hopped out from his seat, catching a handhold and wrapping his ankles around the guide rope, then half sliding, half hand-walking his way quickly to the deck. With a last glance at the bulkhead through which Dahlia had gone-and brushing away his certainty that she was belowdecks speaking with, or at least sitting with, Artemis Entreri-Drizzt moved aft along the deck.

“Hey now!” Mister Sikkal yelled at him. “Get yerself back at the lookout!”

Drizzt didn’t even turn to regard the old first mate. He moved easily around the captain’s quarters and to the back, where the dwarf called a greeting to him.

“Take my place at the crow’s nest,” he said to Afafrenfere when the monk also turned to greet him. “I won’t be long.”

Afafrenfere glanced at Effron, who hadn’t even turned away from the sizzling foam in Minnow Skipper ’s wake, who hadn’t even shown the slightest interest in anything other than the empty dark water. With a nod, the monk moved past Drizzt.

“You can go with him,” the drow said to Ambergris.

“I ain’t for climbin’ no durned dead tree pole!” the dwarf insisted.

“Stay at the mast’s base, then.”

Ambergris offered him a little grin. “Our deal with Cannavara says two’re to be with this Effron boy at all times, including meself and me silencing spells.”

Drizzt motioned with his head in the direction Afafrenfere had gone.

“I’ll be just around the corner, then,” the stubborn dwarf replied, and she walked past Drizzt and around the edge of the captain’s cabin, but there plopped down noisily and made a point of beginning a song, an old dwarf ballad of deep mines, thick silver veins, and a host of goblins in need of a bit of dwarf-style relocation.

Drizzt moved up to Effron, but faced back at the captain’s cabin as he leaned against the taffrail.

“Where will this go?” Drizzt asked Effron-asked his back, actually, since the tiefling was still leaning out over the taffrail, staring at the empty sea.

“Do you know or do you care?” Drizzt pressed when Effron didn’t respond.

“Why do you care?” came the curt reply.

“Because I care for Dah … I care for your mother,” Drizzt replied, deciding to go there with Effron, straight to the relationship that was obviously causing him so much pain.

The young tiefling’s response came as a derisive snort, which was not quite what Drizzt had expected.

“Why would you doubt that?” Drizzt asked, still trying to remain calm and reasonable, trying honestly to coax Effron from his defensive shell. “Dahlia and I have been traveling together for many months now.”

“Traveling and coupling, you mean,” Effron said, still not turning around.

“That is our business.”

“Is it Artemis Entreri’s?” the young tiefling asked, and now he did turn around, an unsettling grin spreading wickedly across his face.

Drizzt couldn’t quite find the words to respond, not sure where Effron was going with this, yet afraid of where that might be.