R Salvatore - Gauntlgrym

“What is the witch’s fascination with the Hosttower of the Arcane?” Sylora asked, talking more to herself as she turned away from Themerelis. “It has been nearly a century since that monstrosity tumbled, and the remnants of the Arcane Brotherhood have shown no indication that they intend to rebuild it.”

“Nor could they,” Themerelis said. “The dweomers of its bindings were far beyond them even before the Spellplague. Alas for magic lost to the world.”

Sylora looked at him with open mockery. “Something you heard in the library while spying on Dahlia?” She held up her hand as her consort started to reply. The man was too dim to understand the insult. “Why else would you be in a library?” she asked, and she rolled her eyes in disgust when he looked at her with obvious puzzlement.

“Do not mock me, Lady,” the warrior warned.

Sylora turned on him sharply. “Pray tell me why?” she asked. “Will you take out your greatsword and cleave me in two?”

Themerelis glared at her, but that only evoked a burst of laughter from the Thayan sorceress.

“I prefer other weapons,” Sylora said, teasing him, and she let her hand come up to stroke Themerelis’s powerful arm. The man started toward her, but she moved her palm before him to halt his advance.

“If you earn the fight,” she explained.

“They are leaving this day,” Themerelis replied.

“Then be quick to your work.” She gave him a little push backward then waved at him to be gone.

Themerelis offered a frustrated snort and spun away, stomping back through the trees and up the distant hill toward the castle gate.

Sylora watched him go. She knew how he was so easily getting near to the wary and dangerous Dahlia, and she wanted to hate him for that, to murder him even, but she found she couldn’t blame the young man. She narrowed her eyes into hateful slits. How she wanted to be rid of Dahlia Sin’felle!

“Those thoughts do not serve you well, my pretty,” came a familiar voice from within the Dread Ring-and even if she hadn’t recognized the voice, only one creature would dare enter so new a ring.

“Why do you tolerate her?” Sylora said, turning back to stare into the fluttering wall of blowing ash that marked the circumference of the necromantic place of power. She couldn’t actually see Szass Tam through that opaque veil, but she could feel his presence, like a blast of a winter wind carrying sheets of stinging sleet.

“She is just a child,” Szass Tam replied. “She has not yet learned the etiquette of the Thayan court.”

“She has been here for six years,” the woman protested.

Szass Tam’s cackling laughter mocked her anger. “She controls Kozah’s Needle, and that is no minor thing.”

“The break-staff,” Sylora said with disgust. “A weapon. A mere weapon.”

“Not so ‘mere’ to those who feel its bite.”

“It is just a weapon, absent the beauty of pure spellcasting, absent the power of the mind.”

“More than that,” Szass Tam whispered, but Sylora ignored him and continued.

“Swashbuckling trickery,” she said. “All flash and dazzle, and strikes a child should dodge.”

“I count her victims at seven,” the lich reminded her, “including three of considerable renown and reputation. Could I not bring them back to my side in a preferable form,”-the manner in which he so casually referred to his reanimation of the dead sent a freezing shiver along Sylora’s already cold spine-“I would fear that the Lady Dahlia might be thinning my ranks too quickly.”

“Count it not as her skill,” Sylora warned. “She coaxed them, every one, into vulnerable positions. Her youth and beauty fooled them, but now I know, now we all know.”

“Even Lady Cahdamine?” said Szass Tam, and Sylora winced. Cahdamine had been her peer, if never really her friend, and they had shared many adventures, including clearing the peasants from the land for the very Dread Ring she stood before-clearing the peasants’ souls, at least, for their rotting flesh had fed the ring. During that pleasurable time, three years before, Cahdamine had spoken often of Lady Dahlia, and of how she had taken the young elf under her wing to properly instruct her in the arts carnal and martial.

Had Cahdamine underestimated Dahlia? Had she been blinded by her arrogance to the dangers of the heartless elf?

Cahdamine had become the middle diamond on Dahlia’s left ear, the fourth of seven, Sylora knew, for Sylora had caught on to the elf’s little symbolism. And Dahlia wore two studs on her right ear. Dor’crae was one of her lovers, of course, and-Sylora glanced toward the distant castle, along the path Themerelis had taken.

“You will not have to suffer her here for some months-years, more likely,” Szass Tam remarked as if reading her mind. “She is off to Luskan and the Sword Coast.”

“May the pirates cut her to pieces.”

“Dahlia serves me well,” the disembodied voice of Szass Tam warned.

“You speak so to keep me from destroying her.”

“You serve me well,” the lich replied. “I have told Dahlia as much.”

Outraged, Sylora spun away and departed. How dare Szass Tam elevate the wayward waif to her level with such an insinuation!

An important night, she knew, and so she had to look the part. It wasn’t vanity that drew Dahlia to the mirror but technique. Her art was a matter of perfection, and anything less would be a death sentence.

Her black leather boots rose up above her knees, touching her matching black leather skirt on the outside of her left thigh. Nowhere else did leather meet leather, though, for the skirt was cut at a sharp angle, climbing up well above the mid-point on the thigh of her other shapely leg. Her belt, a red cord, carried leather pouches on each hip, both black with red stitching. She wore a puff-sleeved white blouse of the finest silk, cinched with diamond cuffs to allow her free movement. A small black leather vest provided some padding, but her real armor came from a magic ring, an enchanted cloak, and small magic bracers hidden under the cuffs of her blouse.

As with all of her outfits, Dahlia left the top of the low-cut vest unbuttoned, and the stiff collar turned up to frame her delicate head. It would not do to be along the road under the sun with no hair to protect her pate, though, so she wore a wide-brimmed black leather hat, pinned up on the right, revealing her black and red braid, banded in red silk and stylishly plumed with a red feather.

When she bent her right leg and turned it out just so, striking an alluring pose, what man could resist her?

But what she saw in the mirror did not quite match the reality of her beauty.

They caught her easily and threw her down, but didn’t pile one after another atop her as they had with the others. Dahlia caught the gaze of one burly barbarian, the Shadovar of huge size and strength who had led the raid. While most of the raiders appeared as dusky-skinned humans, the leader was obviously a convert, a horned half-demon-a tiefling.

The young and delicate captive, barely a woman, was his, he decreed.

They stripped her down and held her for the sacrifice, and for the first time, Dahlia truly understood her foolishness in running back to the village, understood what she, and not just what her People, had to lose.

She heard her mother screaming for her, and from the corner of her eyes, saw the woman running at her, only to be tackled and sat upon.

Then he stood over her, the huge tiefling, leering at her. “Loosen and ease, girl, and your mother will live,” he promised.