R Salvatore - Neverwinter

“Last chance, Dahlia,” he said, the blade poised to strike and with Dahlia having no way to prevent it.

So Lady Dahlia did the only thing she could: She spat in his face.

With a growl of protest, Beniago slashed that awful knife toward the woman’s extended arms, and Dahlia instinctively recoiled, letting go.

“The pit take you then!” the assassin said, and there seemed as much regret in his tone as anger.

As if on cue, the grinding stopped.

Dahlia didn’t waste a heartbeat in rolling around and up to her knees, facing the assassin, her remaining flail whipping wildly as if she expected him to come charging in.

He didn’t, though, apparently too perplexed by the failure of the trap.

The riddle was soon answered as a dark form moved out from the side of the room, from the same area where Beniago had first appeared. The newcomer didn’t waste a word of introduction, just came out hard and fast, curving blades leading the way in a mesmerizing, dizzying dance.

Beniago turned and fled. He reached into a pouch and pulled forth some small ceramic globes and began throwing them down with each step. They hit and exploded with brilliant, blinding flashes, one after another, allowing Beniago to get to the door and out into the street.

Drizzt lost ground with each blinding flash-bomb. As Beniago shouldered his way out, the drow swung around and rushed to Dahlia. He leaped past her and drove Twinkle down hard on the magical lash, severing it cleanly.

He reached for Dahlia, but she didn’t take his offered hand. She leaped to her feet and kicked away the remaining length of enchanted tendril then strode indignantly to her planted flail and pulled it free of the floorboard. Her proud demeanor took a bit of a misstep, though, as she moved toward the broken display, for she stumbled on her now fully numb foot and burning leg, and nearly pitched headlong into the case.

Drizzt was right beside her, propping her.

She cast him a hateful look and pulled away, and indeed, Drizzt fell back a step, caught by surprise.

“I’m sorry,” Dahlia said, shaking her head against the wounded expression on her lover’s face. She reached out for him and tugged him to her. “I feel so much the fool,” she whispered into his ear as she hugged him tightly.

“Let us be gone,” Drizzt replied. “Don’t underestimate these people.” He reached for the rope hanging over the broken case.

“Without securing enough treasure for our life outside the city?” Dahlia quipped, and Drizzt turned back on her, his expression hard.

“Why, are you afraid of these foolish high captains and their scalawag armies?” she asked with feigned surprise.

Drizzt spent a long while digesting that, his expression moving to an inquisitive one, prying into Dahlia to discern her intent. The elf also noted a flicker of pain on the drow’s strong features, a revelation and a reminder to her-he was saying, clearly but without words, that he’d fought these men before, their ancestors at least, and to great loss and pain.

Dahlia didn’t want to push it any further. Drizzt’s pain resonated with her and she found, to her surprise, that she didn’t want to inflict any more on him.

“I had a plan to escape the lash,” she said, taking the rope from Drizzt and lifting herself up to the top of the case, and trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her unease as she planted her wounded foot on the metal rim. “I would have escaped, and Beniago would have dropped into the pit.”

Drizzt nodded, but obviously only to grant Dahlia her pride.

“I straightened my leg and felt the grip of the lash lessen,” the elf explained. She hooked her flails into her belt and began to climb. “When Beniago came back at me, I would’ve moved to the pit, freeing my foot.” She left it at that, for even in her ears, her words sounded inane.

Up on the roof, the couple scouted the city, looking for their best route out. All around them came sounds not typical in the sleeping city: doors creaking open, footfalls on a slate roof, a sharp whistle badly disguised as the call of a night bird.

Ship Kurth had awakened.

They climbed down and sprinted from shadow to shadow across the marketplace. At first, hints of pursuit came in the same curious sounds, the footsteps and the creaking doorways, but very soon, they could hear their pursuers clearly behind them, chasing them stride for stride.

Drizzt reached into his pouch and produced the onyx figurine, calling Guenhwyvar to his side. The panther, though tired from her exploits of the previous day, didn’t growl, but took his orders and leaped off into the shadows.

A chorus of shrieks informed Drizzt and Dahlia that Guenhwyvar had greeted the minions of Ship Kurth.

By the time they made the city wall, many enemies had revealed themselves, left, right, and behind. Up on the city parapet a handful of pirates raced to guard the ladders they could use to climb the wall. Drizzt started to pull out Taulmaril, his intent clearly to shoot those enemies blocking the ladders, but Dahlia held him back.

“Do you think I trained you at the apartment balcony for no good reason?” she asked, and when Drizzt looked at her quizzically, she executed her pole vault, easily bringing herself to the eight-foot parapet, though she nearly tumbled right back down when she tried to plant her numb leg.

She dropped the staff down to Drizzt and he wasted no time in joining her. When he got up beside her, he pulled out Taulmaril and skipped an arrow along the wall to the left and to the right, driving back the closest pursuers.

Someone from the shadows below responded with an arrow that nearly hit Dahlia. Drizzt replied with a shot of his own, the lightning arrow of the Heartseeker lighting up the man’s horrified expression just an instant before it blew him to the ground.

Drizzt and Dahlia ran off into the night, just a short way to the trees, where Drizzt called forth Andahar. He pulled Dahlia up behind him, and off the unicorn thundered, hooves pounding and bells singing a teasing melody to pursuers who couldn’t hope to catch them.

They kept up a swift pace down the south road, and when Drizzt finally slowed Andahar to a brisk trot, he struck up a conversation about the road ahead, about Neverwinter Wood and their waiting adversary, Sylora Salm. It didn’t take him long to recognize that it was a one-way dialogue.

He pulled Andahar up to a walk and felt Dahlia lean more heavily against him.

He turned to look over his shoulder, to stare into Dahlia’s open, empty eyes. She slid down, rubbing her face against his shoulder, leaving a trail of vomit. Too shocked to react, Drizzt didn’t catch her before she tumbled hard from Andahar’s back. She landed heavily upon the hard ground.

Drizzt leaped down beside her, called to her frantically, cradled her head, and stared into her eyes only to realize that she was not looking back.

Small bubbles of white foam rolled out her open lips.

Barrabus, his female prisoner slung across his shoulders, moved around the courtyard within the walls of Neverwinter. The battle was fast ending, the defenders victorious. Out in the field behind him, however, the fight raged in full force. Though with Valindra gone and the Ashmadai caught by surprise, it had become more of a massacre than an actual battle.

The city gates swung open and those warriors freed of defensive duties moved for the portal, hungering for more blood.

“Who are these shadow warriors, Barrabus?” one voice rose above the others of the Neverwinter garrison as they poured through the gates onto the field.

Barrabus met the gaze of Jelvus Grinch. “Keep your forces within the city,” he warned. “Secure your walls and seal your gate.”