Robert Salvatore: Servant of the Shard

"An opening!" the drow mercenary cried, letting fly one, two, three more daggers.

Entreri sent his sword back the other way but knew that his opponent's assessment was correct. He dived into a roll instead, tucking his head and his arms in tight to cover any vital areas.

"Oh, well done!" Jarlaxle congratulated as Entreri came to his feet after taking only a single hit, and that a dagger sticking into the trailing fold of his cloak instead of his skin.

Entreri felt the dagger swing in against the back of his leg as he stood up. Fearing that it might trip him, he tossed his own dagger into the air, then quickly pulled the cloak from his shoulders, and in the same fluid movement, started to toss it aside.

An idea came to him, though, and he didn't discard the cloak but rather caught his deadly dagger and set it between his teeth. He stalked a semicircle about the drow, waving his cloak, a drow piwafwi, slowly about as a shield against the missiles.

Jarlaxle smiled at him. "Improvisation," he said with obvious admiration. 'The mark of a true warrior." Even as he finished, though, the drow's arm starting moving yet again. A quartet of daggers soared at the assassin.

Entreri bobbed and spun a complete circuit, but tossed his cloak as he did and caught it as he came back around. One dagger skidded across the floor, another passed over Entreri's head, narrowly missing, and the other two got caught in the fabric, along with the previous one.

Entreri continued to wave the cloak, but it wasn't flowing wide anymore, weighted as it was by the three daggers. "Not so good a shield, perhaps," Jarlaxle commented. "You talk better than you fight," Entreri countered. "A bad combination."

"I talk because I so enjoy the fight, my quick friend," Jarlaxle replied.

His arm went back again, but Entreri was already moving. The human held his arm out wide to keep the cloak from tripping him, and dived into a roll right toward the mercenary, closing the gap between them in the blink of an eye.

Jarlaxle did let fly one dagger. It skipped off Entreri's back, but the drow mercenary caught the next one sliding out of his magical bracer into his hand and snapped his wrist, speaking a command word. The dagger responded at once, elongating into a sword. As Entreri came over, his sword predictably angled up to gut Jarlaxle, the drow had the parry in place.

Entreri stayed low and skittered forward instead, swinging his cloak in a roundabout manner to wrap it behind Jarlaxle's legs. The mercenary quick-stepped and almost got out of the way, but one of the daggers hooked his boot and he fell over backward. Jarlaxle was as agile as any drow, but so too was Entreri. The human came up over the drow, sword thrusting.

Jarlaxle parried fast, his blade slapping against Entreri's. To the drow's surprise, the assassin's sword went flying away. Jarlaxle understood soon enough, though, for Entreri's now free hand came forward, clasping Jarlaxle's forearm and holding the drow's weapon out wide.

And there loomed the assassin's other hand, holding again that deadly jeweled dagger.

Entreri had the opening and had the strike, and Jarlaxle couldn't block it or begin to move away from it. A wave of such despair, an overwhelming barrage of complete and utter hopelessness, washed over Entreri. He felt as if someone had just entered his brain and began scattering all of his thoughts, starting and stopping all of his reflexes. In the inevitable pause, Jarlaxle brought his other arm forward, launching a dagger that smacked Entreri in the gut and bounced away.

The barrage of discordant, paralyzing emotions continued to blast away in Entreri's mind, and he stumbled back. He hardly felt the motion and was somewhat confused a moment later, as the fuzziness began to clear, to find that he was on the other side of the small room sitting against the wall and facing a smiling Jarlaxle.

Entreri closed his eyes and at last forced the confusing jumble of thoughts completely away. He assumed that Rai-guy, the drow wizard who had imbued both Entreri and Jarlaxle with stoneskin spells that they could spar with all of their hearts without fear of injuring each other, had intervened. When he glanced that way, he saw that the wizard was nowhere to be seen. He turned back to Jarlaxle, guessing then that the mercenary had used yet another in his seemingly endless bag of tricks. Perhaps he had used his newest magical acquisition, the powerful Crenshinibon, to overwhelm Entreri's concentration.

"Perhaps you are slowing down, my friend," Jarlaxle remarked. "What a pity that would be. It is good that you defeated your avowed enemy when you did, for Drizzt Do'Urden has many centuries of youthful speed left in him."

Entreri scoffed at the words, though in truth, the thought gnawed at him. He had lived his entire life on the very edge of perfection and preparedness. Even now, in the middle years of his life, he was confident that he could defeat almost any foe-with pure skill or by out-thinking any enemy, by properly preparing any battlefield-but Entreri didn't want to slow down. He didn't want to lose that edge of fighting brilliance that had so marked his life.

He wanted to deny Jarlaxle's words, but he could not, for he knew in his heart that he had truly lost that fight with Drizzt, that if Kimmuriel Oblodra had not intervened with his psionic powers, then Drizzt would have been declared the victor.

"You did not outmatch me with speed," the assassin started to argue, shaking his head.

Jarlaxle came forward, his glowing eyes narrowing dangerously-a threatening expression, a look of rage, that the assassin rarely saw upon the handsome face of the always-in-control dark elf mercenary leader.

"I have this!" Jarlaxle announced, pulling wide his cloak and showing Entreri the tip of the artifact, Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, tucked neatly into one pocket. "Never forget that. Without it, I could likely still defeat you, though you are good, my friend-better than any human I have ever known. But with this in my possession… you are but a mere mortal. Joined in Crenshinibon, I can destroy you with but a thought. Never forget that."

Entreri lowered his gaze, digesting the words and the tone, sharpening that image of the uncharacteristic expression on Jarlaxle's always smiling face. Joined in Crenshinibon?… but a mere mortal? What in the Nine Hells did that mean? Never forget that, Jarlaxle had said, and indeed, this was a lesson that Artemis Entreri would not soon dismiss.

When he looked back up again, Entreri saw Jarlaxle wearing his typical expression, that sly, slightly amused look that conferred to all who saw it that this cunning drow knew more than he did, knew more than he possibly could.

Seeing Jarlaxle relaxed again also reminded Entreri of the novelty of these sparring events. The mercenary leader would not spar with any other. Rai-guy was stunned when Jarlaxle had told him that he meant to battle Entreri on a regular basis.

Entreri understood the logic behind that thinking. Jarlaxle survived, in part, by remaining mysterious, even to those around him. No one could ever really get a good look at the mercenary leader. He kept allies and opponents alike off-balance and wondering, always wondering, and yet, here he was, revealing so much to Artemis Entreri.

"Those daggers," Entreri said, coming back at ease and putting on his own sly expression. "They were merely illusions."

"In your mind, perhaps," the dark elf replied in his typically cryptic manner.

"They were," the assassin pressed. "You could not possibly carry so many, nor could any magic create them that quickly."

"As you say," Jarlaxle replied. "Though you heard the clang as your own weapons connected with them and felt the weight as they punctured your cloak."

"I thought I heard the clang," Entreri corrected, wondering if he had at last found a chink in the mercenary's never-ending guessing game.