R Salvatore - Neverwinter

“Nearly, but I understand her tactics better now.”

“You just claimed her partner is likely more powerful than she.”

“And he is one I know well, and one I know how to kill.” Barrabus filled his mind with images of his battles with Drizzt, and remembered his long-ago hatred of the drow, for Claw was still there, hovering around his thoughts, and though his plans were nowhere near to clear in his own thoughts, he had an idea just beginning to brew, and one of which Herzgo Alegni surely would not approve.

Alegni stared at him a bit longer, and Barrabus stood firm, even nodded slightly.

“Take Effron with you,” Alegni instructed.

“No!” Barrabus replied, and he turned a hateful stare at the young warlock. “If you wish me to kill Dahlia, then so be it. But I will not go after such a foe with that one beside me.”

“He fears that my skills will upstage him once more,” Effron quipped, but Barrabus and Alegni paid him no heed.

Barrabus continued to shake his head, slowly, determinedly.

“If you kill her, I’ll reward you,” Alegni said. “Perhaps I’ll even grant you your wish to return to the southlands.”

Barrabus nodded.

“But if you bring her to me alive,” Alegni continued, his voice thick with anticipation, “I’ll reward you more greatly than you ever imagined possible.”

“Alive?”

Alegni nodded and issued a little growling noise, so… hungry, that his intensity sent a shudder down the unshakable Barrabus’s spine.

Barrabus the Gray was surprised at how easily he caught up to Sylora’s allies-to Dahlia, at least. When he found their camp that night, soon after sunset, the drow was nowhere to be seen. Barrabus encircled the camp quietly a few times, wondering how Drizzt’s absence might affect his plans-designs still only just beginning to form. He wondered how he could he work the arrival of Drizzt Do’Urden to his favor, but the answer remained just out of reach.

Not sure how he would react when confronted by the drow ranger, he was glad he saw no sign of Drizzt. Theirs was an antagonism of another era, a bitter bloodlust, never quite a rivalry, never quite an alliance. The mere thought of Drizzt sent Barrabus’s thoughts cascading across the years to a time that seemed so long ago, to a place that seemed so far removed from the shadows and ruin of present day Faerun.

The assassin shook away those distractions and refocused his thinking on the situation at hand. With only an unsuspecting Dahlia standing in front of him, he dared hope he could finish his mission and be gone before Drizzt returned.

Or did he?

Perhaps he truly wished to face Drizzt again. Didn’t a small part of the man who had become Barrabus the Gray want to be back in that other time and place? Again, he shook the distraction away.

“This is your chance,” he whispered under his breath, and that reminder put him fully back in the present.

He took a deep breath and considered his options. If anyone could defeat Herzgo Alegni, it was surely Drizzt, after all.

So if Barrabus could capture Dahlia and take her back to Alegni, that would likely bring Drizzt against the Netherese lord. Surely Drizzt Do’Urden would never abandon a companion to such a fate.

Of course, a captured Dahlia wouldn’t last very long with Alegni. Barrabus winced as he considered the Ashmadai woman he’d captured outside of Neverwinter. He’d brought her back in, put her in a secure place, and given orders to the guards not to harm her.

And that was the last Barrabus had ever seen the woman alive, or even in one piece, for the guards had informed Alegni of his demands. Simply because Barrabus had claimed the captive as his own, Herzgo Alegni had made her death particularly cruel.

He’d do the same with Dahlia, of course-perhaps even more so because she brought the added weight of being Sylora Salm’s murderous champion.

So be it, and such an event might even work more to his benefit, Barrabus mused. If the drow understood that Alegni had killed Dahlia in a most horrible way, Drizzt would exact swift vengeance on Barrabus’s hated master.

That was Barrabus’s hope, then, as he sat just outside the firelight of the small encampment, watching Dahlia’s movements as she set the bedrolls and performed other mundane tasks. Yes, a capture would be best. He focused on that as he watched her building a fire, and reminded himself of the difficulty presented by either task, capture or assassination, though the latter seemed much easier.

He reminded himself that this elf, Dahlia, was fearless and could fight.

He had to take her fast, without a struggle. He scanned the camp, noting that Dahlia had her weapon broken into flails and within easy reach on her hips, looped under her sash belt. To the side lay a fallen tree, propping the backpacks and bedrolls, and farther beyond that, slung over a low branch were saddlebags-rations, likely-and beside those, hooked on a broken limb, a green cloak, one side of it fairly shredded.

Barrabus glanced around and stealthily moved to the side. He retrieved an armful of kindling first, then got the cloak, apparently without attracting any attention. He donned the cloak and pulled the hood low over his face.

Still, fearing that wasn’t enough, he went into the firelight, bent low, and turned sidelong, even walking backward more than forward, clutching the pile of kindling up high to help shield his identity.

“Drop it there,” Dahlia instructed, pointing to the side of the fire and showing little interest in what seemed to be her returning companion.

Once he’d set events into motion, Barrabus rarely second-guessed himself. But he was doing so now, trying to anticipate every moment, and fearing that his desperation to be rid of Alegni had made him reckless. This was Drizzt Do’Urden and Dahlia he’d tracked down, not a pair of ridiculous Ashmadai zealots!

The whole plan seemed absurd to him suddenly, and he wondered if he should drop the kindling and run off into the forest night.

He did drop the kindling, but then he struck, sword and dagger out and swinging.

To his surprise, Dahlia was ready, her weapons coming into her agile hands and going into sudden blocks and counters. He had the initiative, but not the surprise!

How could that be?

He went at her furiously, knowing that his advantage, slim as it might be, would prove short-lived.

In those few heartbeats of battle, his desperation to win multiplied a hundred-fold because of the implications it held against Alegni, Barrabus the Gray fought better than ever he could remember. He worked his sword in a brilliant overspin, dodging Dahlia’s blocking flail, and bore forward, accepting a stinging hit from the elf’s other weapon but getting in close in exchange. His dagger moved up for a finishing position against the elf’s throat. He would have her surrender, or he would have her life.

Except that a dark form dropped from above, landing just behind him. Even as his dagger climbed up to score the victory, a scimitar crashed atop his skull, staggering him to the side. Before he could come up straight and offer a defense, Drizzt worked that blade and the other inside Barrabus’s arms, one tip coming in against the would-be assassin’s throat.

So he would die, and Alegni would bring him back and torment him all the more. Or perhaps, Barrabus wondered in that last breath, the Dread Ring would catch him first and animate him as a zombie.

Better that!

Dahlia had warned Drizzt quite succinctly and repeatedly about the Netherese champion, the stealthy killer. That was why Drizzt had doubled back several times after they’d entered the area, and particularly after their battle with the Shadovar patrol.

So when Drizzt had ostensibly gone off that night to gather firewood, which they didn’t need, the drow had actually climbed a tree and slipped from branch to branch to get back near the campsite.