Neverwinter

16

He’s joined with my enemies?” Herzgo Alegni asked with obvious doubt, and he half-drew his sword, trying to find some hint of confirmation from the sentient blade. He stood on his namesake bridge in Neverwinter, the sun low in the western sky in front of him.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Effron replied cryptically, drawing a glare from Alegni, who was in no mood for such games.

“Barrabus has joined forces with the drow and Dahlia,” Effron said. “It would appear the Thayan sorceress’s champion returns as her mortal enemy.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Why would you send me to follow Barrabus if you weren’t going to believe my report?” the warlock shot back.

On Alegni’s command, Effron had used his spells to covertly follow the assassin into the forest. A creature of shadow, both because of his heritage and training, even the clever Barrabus failed to notice the surveillance. And from afar, Effron had witnessed the exchange between Barrabus, the elf, and the drow.

“Perhaps Lady Dahlia seeks alliance,” Effron offered.

“Dahlia, who murdered my patrol,” Alegni reminded him sourly, and Effron quickly backed away. “Barrabus has joined forces with Dahlia after she murdered my patrol! And more than a dozen other Shadovar besides.”

“I didn’t mean that the fool Barrabus should go unpunished,” Effron was quick to reply. “Perhaps after he kills Sylora, you can remind him of his failings.”

Herzgo Alegni turned away and walked to the edge of the bridge to regard the last colors of daylight. The simple truth of it was that if Barrabus brought him the head of Sylora Salm, he would hardly punish the man.

A grin widened on Alegni’s face as he considered his stealthy champion, and remembered all of those times over the last decades when Barrabus the Gray had exceeded expectations so completely Alegni had to work hard to keep from openly marveling at the man.

If Barrabus returned to him bearing the head of Sylora, and the head of her champion, Dahlia, as he expected would likely happen, then Alegni would surely reward the assassin.

Of course, if Barrabus failed him, whether he was killed or not in the attempt, Herzgo Alegni could use Effron’s startling information as an excuse to torment the man even more.

For an instant, Alegni almost hoped Barrabus would fail. Only an instant, though, for defeating Sylora Salm was surely the greatest prize of all, and one that would gain him accolades from his superiors in Shade Enclave, would perhaps silence even the wretched Draygo Quick for a while.

The Netherese lord glanced back at Effron as the light diminished in the west, and that dimness seemed somehow to help complete the crooked and misshapen warlock’s form, to make him seem more substantial and less… defective.

In that moment, Herzgo Alegni wished he didn’t have to loathe this one so greatly, wished that the mere sight of Effron didn’t turn his stomach so.

When Herzgo Alegni walked onto the bridge that bore his name, the villagers of Neverwinter typically avoided that route. There were two other bridges, after all, though neither matched the grandeur and width of this one, and even though Alegni and his band had been declared heroes of the city, few were comfortable around the tiefling, and fewer still would dare to interrupt him in any case.

So when a small form, a woman it seemed, bending low against the wind and with her red cloak and hood pulled tight, stepped onto the bridge and headed his way, Alegni eyed her curiously, then with grinning recognition.

She didn’t slow.

“Take a different bridge,” Effron called out, and lifted his wand at the approaching figure.

Herzgo Alegni grabbed the young warlock by the forearm and forcefully pushed his arm back down. Effron looked over at him in shock, but Alegni shook his head.

The woman neared, and pulled back her cowl, showing her curly red locks.

“Welcome, Arunika,” Alegni greeted.

“What news, Herzgo Alegni?” she replied. “Your posture tells me that the word is good.”

Alegni laughed at that. Arunika had told him she was an observer, after all, and that knowledge was her true power.

“Have you met Effron?” Alegni asked, deflecting her inquiry. “A warlock strong beyond his years.”

Arunika glanced at him with that inviting, disarming smile of hers, and Alegni’s face screwed up with surprise when he saw Effron-Effron the insufferable!-return that look with a sincere smile and open expression of his own.

Alegni glanced back at Arunika and scrutinized her in a different light then.

“What news?” Arunika pressed. “You just came in from the forest, I’ve been told, and came straight to speak with our guardian here.” She motioned at Alegni, and flashed him a rather wicked smile and a wink.

Effron seemed truly flustered, and that, too, had Alegni off-balance. When ever before had this cynical and smart young tiefling ever teetered in disarray?

“It’s no news as of yet,” Alegni answered, and Arunika looked at him doubtfully, and a bit, he understood, as if she’d been wounded by his lack of trust.

Herzgo Alegni thought back to the night before, to their amazing tryst.

“Hopeful signs, though,” he said. He glanced over at Effron and waved the warlock away, then turned to face Arunika more directly. When Effron didn’t immediately depart, Alegni cast him a sour glance.

“We may have found unexpected allies in our battle with the Thayans,” Alegni admitted to Arunika as Effron shambled off the bridge. “Her champion returns from the north.”

“Her champion? Would that not bolster-”

“ Former champion,” Alegni corrected. “This warrior, Dahlia, returns with a vendetta against Sylora, it would seem, and brings beside her a drow ranger of great renown.”

“A drow ranger? Drizzt Do’Urden?”

“Yes, and now my man Barrabus has joined with them on their path to rid us of Sylora Salm. If they succeed, if they can behead this Thayan beast that has infected Neverwinter Wood, we will claim a great victory.”

Arunika stared at him for a few moments, then matched his hopeful grin. “That’s quite a trio of power,” she said. “And likely, Sylora’s champion will know of the Thayan defenses and how to get through them.”

“Barrabus almost rid me of the witch by himself,” Alegni agreed. “With those two beside him, I’ve no doubt that Sylora Salm will soon be dead. Barrabus is an annoyance, to be sure, but a useful one, else I would have destroyed him long ago.”

“It’s good that you didn’t, then,” said Arunika. She paused for a few heartbeats then smiled once more and turned to leave. As she lifted her hood back in place, she whispered, “Will you join me later that we might celebrate this hopeful news?”

Herzgo Alegni had every intention of doing just that, whether Arunika invited him or not.

Sylora sat in her chamber in the tree-tower, impatiently tap-tapping the crooked wand on the chair’s arm. She looked across at Arunika’s messenger, the imp hopping back flips in front of the hearth for no apparent reason.

The sorceress had already known that Dahlia and the drow ranger were on their way. She’d communed with devils of her own, and so had learned of Hadencourt’s fate. Sylora understood the power of the malebranche and its ever-present allies, and so she understood that Dahlia had found a capable companion indeed to have so defeated that troupe.

But now, with the news from Arunika, Sylora understood that the danger had grown substantially.

The sorceress stood up quickly, and the imp responded by halting its spinning for a bit and staring at her curiously. “Where is she?” Sylora asked, pacing over and throwing another log on the fire.

“In Neverwinter, silly wizardess,” the imp replied.

“Not Arunika!” Sylora snapped back, though she realized the imp already knew that and was just being clever.

“Dahlia on her way…” the imp started, but Sylora cut the tiny creature short with a glower.

“Not Dahlia,” Sylora said evenly. “I know where Dahlia is. You just told me where Dahlia is.”

“Then why ask, Lady of Silly?”

Before Sylora could respond-and she intended to respond with a killing bolt of Dread Ring energy-there came a shuffling noise from the stairwell, and both the sorceress and the imp turned to watch Valindra enter the room. Another form lurked behind her on the stairs, in the shadows.

“We should strike the city this night,” Valindra said, her voice surprisingly clear, her eyes remaining focused. “They’re battered from our first assault and even more so by the damage and carnage caused by the ambassador’s umber hulks. They’re vulnerable and we shouldn’t let them get their footing back on solid ground.”

As impressed as she was by Valindra’s clarity of thought and expression, Sylora shook her head throughout the speech. “Not yet.”

“Delay favors the Netherese.”

“It cannot be helped. We have more pressing business.” Sylora looked over at the imp.

“Dahlia again?” Valindra asked with clear exasperation.

Sylora had to pause and consider that for a bit before responding.

Valindra’s mental instability seemed fast fading. The ambassador had been working on Valindra quite extensively, helping her as the drow psionicist had aided her in the early days of her affliction. Only more effectively, Sylora knew. She was thinking in leaps now, instead of merely reacting to the situation in front of her, and more importantly, she sold her advice with more than mere words but with emotion and even cleverness, like the dramatic effect in her response to Dahlia.

“Don’t underestimate her.”

“As Hadencourt did?” Valindra asked. She’d been at Sylora’s side when they received the news of the malebranche’s defeat. “He’s a devil, Sylora, and so thought himself so elevated above the mere mortals he could act foolishly. So he did, and so he’s paid for his mistake.”

“As you do now,” Sylora warned.

“Not at all,” Valindra replied with confidence. “I’ve witnessed Dahlia’s martial prowess and know it to be considerable. I also know I can defeat her. Magic is stronger than the blade… or than that stick she spins with such abandon. I would think Sylora Salm would know that.”

“She has an ally, a ranger of great reputation.”

“And you have me.”

“She has another ally,” Sylora went on, again turning to the imp. “The Netherese champion has joined with her. Those three, at least, are coming for us, and we must expect that Barrabus the Gray will bring along Shadovar reinforcements.”

“I do not fear them,” Valindra announced.

“But nor will I ignore them,” said Sylora. “They are coming. They are likely nearing our position even now. And so we’ll prepare for them. Keep the Ashmadai close-double the guards at the walls and let the zombies roam the forest near to Ashenglade. You watch them, Valindra. You see through their eyes. We’ll know when these would-be assassins come into our fortress, and we will destroy them. How much weaker will the Netherese be when their champion’s head is returned to them?”

“Or when their champion is raised by the power of the Dread Ring and turns to fight against them?” Valindra replied, and that brought a grin to Sylora’s face.

Valindra turned back to the stairwell and lifted her hand and beckoned, silently calling. “As you requested,” she said when the crinkled ashen zombie crept in through the door.

Sylora had indeed asked Valindra to bring along one of their undead pets, and she suppressed her revulsion at having the diminutive thing in her private room. With every step, the wretched little creature left ashen footprints, and the smell of burned flesh was a perpetual condition for these monsters. A decade had passed since the cataclysm, and still the zombie legions reeked with the foul aroma.

Behind the sorceress, the imp snorted and let out a little shriek.

Sylora ignored the tiny devil, focusing on the zombie and the sensation in her wand because of the proximity of the creature. She’d felt this before, but from afar, and now with Ashenglade’s first round of construction completed, the wand, the Dread Ring, had compelled her to further investigate.

She reached out to the zombie and closed her eyes.

Soon she was seeing through the undead creature’s eyes.

Sylora could inhabit it at will, could see through it, could hear through it, could control its every movement. She almost unleashed the creature’s continual fury, then, for in looking back at herself, in looking past her meditating form, she noted the imp, its face a mask of disgust, its long and pointed tongue hanging out and flicking with distaste. Through the zombie’s ears, Sylora heard the curses muttered under impish breath.

Sylora moved back fully into her own consciousness, and slowly turned to face the impudent little imp. “You don’t approve of my pet?”

“Wretched disgusts me, it does,” the imp whined.

“This is a child of the Dread Ring,” Sylora explained.

“Let it fall dead and bury it deep!” said the imp.

“You try my patience,” Sylora warned. “Only because of Arunika’s favor do I not punish you for such words.”

“Arunika! Arunika is not my mistress! I’m indebted to her, but I’m free when done with you!”

A wry smile widened on Sylora’s face, telling the imp that perhaps it should not have admitted such a thing. “You insult the zombie, you insult the Dread Ring,” she said.

“Wretched disgusts me!”

“And if I allow the zombie to act on your insults?” asked Sylora. She felt the wand thrumming in her hand, the power building with her intent and her understanding now that she didn’t have to put up with the impudent little beast.

The imp’s long tongue flicked and sent a line of spittle at Sylora’s feet. “I go!” it announced.

“You do not!” Sylora demanded sharply. “First you must battle and defeat this child of the Dread Ring you have so callously insulted.” She glanced over at Valindra, letting the lich see her grin, but that brought more puzzlement to Valindra’s expression than anything else.

Sylora recognized that and wasn’t surprised by the lich’s reaction, given that Valindra hardly understood what was happening either. But something surely was happening, within the wand and deep in her subconscious, and the sensation she received from the Dread Ring was of power and pleasure, like a building climax.

The imp spat on the floor again and cursed Sylora.

She invited the release.

The ashen zombie beside Valindra exploded into a puff of black smoke and ashes, and before any could spread wide or descend to the floor, the wand drew them in, hungrily eating the zombie’s remains.

Sylora’s eyes closed in a fit of power and pleasure, and she let the decomposed zombie flow through the wand, bursting back out in a black spray that struck the imp and sent it flying backward into the wall. It howled in pain as wafts of smoke began rising from all around it.

“What have you done?” Valindra asked happily, but Sylora ignored her, couldn’t be bothered with her at that moment as she, too, tried to sort out the magic she’d just enacted.

The imp came forward, but slowly, its movements sluggish as if it was in thick mud or tar. It was the ash, Sylora realized, hardening around its joints and skin. The imp tried to spit, attempted to stick out its tongue, but Sylora saw the black goo covering the creature’s mouth press forward.

The magic fully encased the creature except for one eye the imp had managed to close before being struck, and that the imp had opened quickly enough to avoid the hardening black coating. That eye revealed the creature’s hatred for Sylora, a red gaze of sizzling and seething flame.

The diminutive beast kept approaching, and Sylora was too mesmerized to even realize she should retreat, or strike again.

But it didn’t matter. The imp turned aside and dived into the fireplace. It rolled around on the logs and slid its limbs under the hot coals, burning the black goo from its body. The fire didn’t bother a creature of the lower planes, after all. In moments, it was free, and it shot one last hateful look at Sylora, full of indignity and dire threats, then rushed up the chimney and out of Ashenglade entirely.

“That show was worth the cost of a zombie,” Valindra said coyly.

Sylora turned to her and held forth the crooked, blackened wand Szass Tam had given her. “There’s more,” she said with both conviction and confusion, for she knew there were indeed more and varied catastrophes she could conjure with the magical energy of the ashen zombies, though she wasn’t quite sure what those disasters might be.

Sylora’s eyes sparkled at the possibilities.

“You can channel the power of the Dread Ring,” Valindra reasoned, and Sylora nodded.

“It’s intoxicating,” the sorceress admitted.

“More powerful than your own practiced magic?”

Sylora considered that for a few moments, then nodded once more. “I had thought my time here near its end,” she admitted. “One last strike at the Netherese and the settlers of Neverwinter, one added massacre to complete the Dread Ring, and I would move along to another place, another mission.”

“But now?”

Sylora was too lost in the sensations of the wand to catch the undertone of concern in Valindra’s voice, or to even consider that she hadn’t made her impending departure a secret, or that her departure would place Valindra Shadowmantle as her heir apparent in Neverwinter Wood.

Valindra’s question remained unanswered as Sylora fell deeper into the connection to the Dread Ring, trying to sort out the powers it might now afford her. She wasn’t quite sure.

But she intended to find out.

It’snew to me,” Dahlia whispered. She lay on a grassy knoll , Drizzt to her right and the man she’d known as Barrabus the Gray farther to her right, beyond the drow.

“It’s a very recent addition,” Entreri replied, though Dahlia had aimed her remark at Drizzt. She hadn’t spoken a word to Entreri since the fight of the previous day. “I’ve been scouting Sylora Salm for some time-all through your journey to Gauntlgrym. I’ve been near to her, looking over her shoulder, and I’ve seen nothing like this fortress before. Not a hint that any such thing existed.”

“It reminds me of my homeland, strangely,” Drizzt added.

He couldn’t help but make that comparison. The centerpiece of the grand fortress was a treelike tower, obsidian colored, set on the side of a rocky hill. If some wizard graced that tower with purple faerie fire, it could well be set in Menzoberranzan to hide among the stalagmite mounds that served as homes for the various drow families.

The whole of the fortress also showed that same otherworldliness as Menzoberranzan. The obsidian-black walls were not of mortared bricks, but seemed as if they’d simply lifted up from the ground, pressed forth by magic, in a single piece. Gate towers-perhaps they were gate towers-showed at various points, looking much like smaller versions of the treelike tower on the rocky hillside that dominated the place. Other structures showed, usually abutting the walls, and those, too, were obviously created and not constructed: large blackened boulders, roughly shaped to resemble squat stone buildings, like barracks and other necessary structures. One on the far side of the fortress was open faced, a forge burning within. Another appeared as no more than a stone lean-to, and under its sheltering wall lay a rack of bows, piled quivers of arrows, and a host of those Ashmadai staff-spear scepters.

“The Dread Ring did this,” Dahlia said, nodding as she figured it out. “Sylora, or perhaps Valindra, has found a way to tap its power.” She looked over at the other two. “That’s no small thing.”

Her companions looked at her with curiosity.

“I lived in Thay for most of my adult life,” Dahlia explained. “I’ve witnessed a fully thriving Dread Ring-several, in fact. It was no secret among we who served Szass Tam that the archlich derived his power from that primary source, and his power was beyond anything you have witnessed, I assure you.”

“She’s trying to scare us,” Entreri deadpanned to Drizzt. “Are you so certain she’s truly allied with us against Sylora Salm?”

Drizzt’s amused snort disarmed Dahlia’s angry retort before she could begin to utter it. In response, the elf woman narrowed her eyes even more and shifted her gaze from Entreri to Drizzt, allowing him to be the source of her ire if that was what he so desired.

“If you’re scared, then please do leave us,” she said.

“I’ve been many things in my long life,” Entreri replied. “I don’t believe that ‘scared’ has ever been one of them.”

“Until now,” Dahlia said.

“Including now.”

“Then you’re a fool,” said Dahlia.

“If you’re scared, then please leave us,” Entreri shot back. “I’m going over that wall to find Sylora Salm, and finish her at last.”

He shifted up into a crouch and moved along the ridgeline to view the fortress from other vantage points. Dahlia started to follow, but Drizzt held her back and let Entreri get some distance away.

“He’s not our enemy in this,” the drow reassured her.

“How do you know? He’s a long-lost friend, then?”

Drizzt almost fell over at the sheer irony of that statement, given his turbulent past with Artemis Entreri, a man he’d battled, had hunted, and who had hunted him, both with the intent of killing the other.

But there were other times, Drizzt recalled whenever he came to question the assassin’s motives. Trapped beneath Mithral Hall before King Bruenor had reclaimed and civilized the place, Drizzt and Entreri had fought side-by-side for their common good. Trapped in Menzoberranzan, slaves to the drow, Drizzt, Entreri, and Catti-brie had likewise fought together for their common good.

Artemis Entreri was a violent man, hardly a friend to Drizzt Do’Urden, but he also was, above all else, a pragmatic survivor. It was in Entreri’s interest to see Sylora Salm fall. Drizzt believed that, so he didn’t doubt Entreri’s loyalty to him and Dahlia in this matter. And hadn’t Entreri proven that when he’d surprised Drizzt in the first moments of their meeting, when he’d lunged forward, bringing his knife to a hair’s breadth from Drizzt’s throat? If Artemis Entreri had meant to kill Drizzt, Drizzt would have died then and there.

But still, despite that moment and despite his instincts even before the further evidence of alliance, the thought had occurred to Drizzt more than once in the last day that he was fooling himself, that his judgment was clouded because Entreri represented the last shred of that distant past of which Drizzt didn’t want to let go. The Companions of the Hall were gone, Thibbledorf Pwent was gone, Jarlaxle was gone, and only Drizzt remained-only Drizzt and Artemis Entreri.

That notion came to him again in that moment, on the knoll overlooking the impressive fortress of Sylora Salm, and again, as with every time previous, Drizzt allowed the reasoning to play through its logic in his thoughts. But even before he came to the same conclusion as the previous times, Drizzt knew in his gut that it was so. He glanced over at the assassin, lying low again and studying the fortress and the many Ashmadai zealots moving around inside of it.

Drizzt knew he would be glad to have Artemis Entreri fighting beside him when he, too, went over that wall.

“When the sun sets,” Drizzt promised Dahlia, and a quick glance to the west told them that was nearly upon them. “We would do well to determine where Sylora will be found before all daylight has flown. The tower, I would guess.”

“The tower,” Dahlia answered without hesitation. “Sylora is vain above pragmatic, and confident above cautious. She wouldn’t allow anyone to gain a seat above her, whatever the risk of identifying herself.”

“Unless she was trying to ensure that she could not easily be found,” Drizzt replied. “She’s surrounded by enemies. Wouldn’t she be wise to-”

“If Sylora was the slightest bit afraid of the Netherese, or any others, she wouldn’t have built this… place,” Dahlia interrupted, shaking her head.

“Vanity above prudence?” the drow asked.

Dahlia nodded. “She’s in that tower.”

They lay in wait while the shadows lengthened around them, the light quickly fading.

“The darkness won’t protect us from those guards,” Entreri said some time later, the night growing thick. The assassin slid over to join the other two and pointed down at the wall. Drizzt and Dahlia could just make out the forms, a group of sentries. In the dim light, Drizzt at first thought them goblins, or kobolds, perhaps. But as he watched them more closely, he realized they didn’t move in the least. They just stood there, perfectly still, not swaying, not moving their arms, nothing.

“The ashen zombies,” Drizzt said.

“Darkness won’t slow them,” said Entreri.

“They sense life, and need no daylight to see us,” Dahlia agreed.

“Where do we want to breach the wall to find the best route to the tower?” Drizzt asked of Entreri, who had been sliding all around, after all, studying the black-walled fortress from many different angles.

“Very near to where that bunch is gathered,” Entreri replied.

Drizzt glanced down the other side of the ridge, then brought forth his onyx figurine and summoned Guenhwyvar to his side. He whispered to the panther, and Guenhwyvar sprang away. Drizzt drew his blades and motioned for Dahlia and Entreri to follow him back behind the ridge.

There, the drow climbed a skeletal tree, high enough to see the wall, and the panther, as Guenhwyvar approached the cluster of zombies. The cat growled and struck, tearing the head from one, then darted back up the hill with the others in pursuit. There followed a bit of commotion atop the wall, as living guards tried to see what was happening.

As Drizzt had instructed, Guenhwyvar circled back around to ensure that she would be clearly seen by the guards. She growled at them before running up the knoll and over the ridge, past Drizzt as he dropped down from the tree, past Entreri and Dahlia.

The scrambling zombies came in pursuit, and right into three waiting warriors, four blades, and a pair of spinning flails.

Only heartbeats later, the trio lay at the ridge-top again, looking down at the wall, which had gone quiet once more, the Ashmadai resuming their patrol routes. Again Drizzt whispered his instructions to the panther.

“It’s a dozen feet, perhaps,” Entreri said. “No more.”

Drizzt produced a fine elven cord from his pack and tossed one end to Entreri. “I’ll brace,” he explained.

Sylora Salm opened her eyes and was almost surprised to find herself back in her chamber in the tower. She’d been watching the fight in the forest through the eyes of one of her zombie minions-a creature that had met a sudden and shocking end at the decapitating swing of a scimitar. She started to shake her head, but nodded instead, conceding a bit of respect for what she’d witnessed.

“They’re coming,” she explained to Jestry and Valindra, who were in the room waiting for her to return. “They’re in the forest nearby, already fighting our minions.”

“All three?” Jestry asked.

“It’s rather amazing,” Sylora admitted, “and somewhat amusing.” Her expression revealed her honest surprise. “Truly, I believe Dahlia the least of these three warriors, and by no small margin.”

Valindra seemed as if she didn’t know what to make of that, but Jestry nodded, though he seemed a bit removed from appreciating the weight of that statement.

Yes, they wouldn’t truly understand, Sylora reminded herself. Jestry had little personal knowledge of Dahlia’s considerable martial prowess, and while Valindra had witnessed Dahlia fighting in Gauntlgrym, that was in the midst of a larger, frenetic battle, and at a time when the lich was hardly in her right mind.

“True, they’re formidable,” Jestry replied at length. “We know the reputation of Barrabus the Gray, of course, though few thought him the equal of Dahlia from what I’ve heard.”

“I would disagree,” said Sylora. “She’s quite his equal. But, yes, they are quite formidable. More than I expected.”

“Then why would you let them get so close?” Jestry asked.

Sylora shot him a glare.

“It’s a valid question,” Valindra put in, and Sylora turned her glower her way.

“We’re surrounded by warriors,” Sylora said, “but understand that I hope Dahlia and her two companions get much closer.” She held up the wand as she spoke. “You have brought a group of zombies close by, for my… use?” she asked Jestry.

“More than a dozen,” he replied. “Just to the side of the hill, as you instructed.”

“Yes, I can feel them,” said Sylora, and she brought the wand up to tap it against the side of her head. She whispered something the others couldn’t hear, and waved the wand.

“An even dozen remaining now,” she explained as a burst of ash came through the wand and filled the air around Sylora.

Rather than fall to the ground, the individual ash particles dissipated and became a grayish, translucent cloud that encircled Sylora, forming a semicircular, bubblelike shield in front of her.

“Valindra, call some more zombies nearer to the tower, so that I can access their life forces as needed,” she commanded, and Jestry looked at her as though wounded that she’d not assigned him the task.

“You will wait in the cave near the entrance to the tower,” Sylora said to him. “You are not to leave. You will meet Dahlia if she gets close.”

“I’ll kill all three!” Jestry declared.

“You were constructed to defeat Dahlia,” Sylora replied sharply. “Do not forget that. Your ring, the wrappings, the weapon I’ve given you…”

“You just claimed her to be the least of the three,” Jestry argued.

“When you’re done with Dahlia, then you may destroy the others,” Sylora agreed. “But only when Dahlia is defeated and dead.”

Jestry straightened and didn’t reply.

“Do you understand?” Sylora prompted, and she tapped the wand against her face again to convey a clear threat.

The mummy-wrapped zealot nodded. “Dahlia will die.”

Sylora responded with a wide grin. “Oh, they all will,” she replied.

Sylora waved them away and moved back to the small, descending stairway to the balcony, heading down so that she could look out over Ashenglade. She reached into the wand again, seeing the world through the eyes of various zombies, looking for a vantage point from which she might again spy her enemies.

She didn’t find anything then, but no matter.

They were close, and they were coming.

The trio of would-be assassins spent another few moments watching the patrols along the wall top, looking for the optimal moment of approach. Just a few moments, though, for none of these three had ever been known as overly cautious.

Drizzt led the way down the slope and across the open ground. He ran right to the wall, spinning around and throwing his back against the lava stone, crouching and cupping his hands down low as he did.

Just a few running strides behind, Entreri sprinted right up to the drow, planted his foot in his cradled hands, and leaped as Drizzt threw him, easily grabbing the wall top and scrambling up.

Drizzt went right back into position, expecting Dahlia next, but she hardly needed him, charging the wall with her long staff held out in front of her. Even as Drizzt turned and began to climb, with Entreri bracing the rope from above, Dahlia vaulted beside him and rose above, landing on the wall top with a graceful inversion and roll, catching the crenellation with her hand and setting her feet firmly on the parapet. She spun around and broke down her weapon into the more manageable flails before Drizzt gained the wall only a couple heartbeats later.

Artemis Entreri pointed to a building to his left, then to his right, then dropped, caught the wall with his hand, and swung down, hanging for just a moment before silently dropping to the ground. Similarly, Drizzt dropped to his right, and headed for the back wall of the structure Entreri had indicated, as Dahlia went off to the left.

Entreri split the middle, moving along the wall of the left-hand building, which looked quite like a blackened and enlarged boulder. Drizzt moved to the corner and watched him, and heard, as Entreri no doubt heard, some talking from in front of Dahlia’s position.

Drizzt motioned to Dahlia to hold her place, and glanced back at Entreri.

The assassin put a hand up, open, signaling for Drizzt to stay put, then folded his fingers one at a time into a fist, and Drizzt understood he was calling for a five-count pause.

Then he disappeared around the corner.

By the time Drizzt had silently counted to five and moved to the spot where Entreri had been, the assassin came back around the corner, dragging the body of an Ashmadai woman.

Drizzt slipped around the front corner and retrieved the assassin’s other victim, dragging him, too, out of sight.

Dahlia came by him as he did, moving to the next structure in line.

Silently, signaling with their hands, the deadly trio hop-scotched, structure to structure, to the inner wall. They almost made it without further resistance, but as Drizzt sprinted out in front across the small clearing between the last structure and the wall, he noted movement far down to his right. For a moment, he sucked in his breath, thinking their stealthy approach at an end. But then he saw that the pair were not Ashmadai, and weren’t raising an alarm. The withered, charred zombies were hardly interested in proper tactics.

Instead of throwing his back to the wall, the drow dug in, pulling Taulmaril from his back and setting an arrow in one fluid motion. He thought better of taking the shot, though, figuring the flash would surely alert any and all Ashmadai in the bailey, perhaps even those within the second wall. When he considered his companions, who even then came out to join him, weapons drawn, he realized he didn’t need the bow.

He put it back and drew out his blades instead. “Zombies,” he whispered to his companions. “Only zombies.”

Both Dahlia and Drizzt understood the meaning behind that remark. Like Entreri, they used misdirection, deception, and deceptive coordination to throw their opponents off balance.

Such tactics were pointless on zombies.

But these three didn’t need them.

The horde of undead came on, outnumbering the companions five to one at least, a host of withered, charred arms reaching to grab their intended prey.

Those arms went flying to the ground as Drizzt and Entreri waded in, blades flashing. Dahlia followed them into the mob, her long staff stabbing between them, or rolling over and outside one or the other to drive back a zombie that had moved too close. Her weapon wasn’t as effective on these particular creatures as those of her companions, and so she found her place in setting the enemies up for the other two: batting aside a blocking arm so that Entreri’s sword could stab home or lifting up one zombie shoulder high, the creature grabbing the staff as she went, so a sidelong slash from Drizzt’s scimitar could disembowel the undead beast.

They tried to be as quiet as possible, and indeed they were, other than the sound of metal cracking on bone, or the splat as Dahlia’s staff crunched down on a rotting face.

Not quiet enough, however. Soon, they heard a commotion from the other side of the wall, a call to arms.

“They’ll be waiting for us,” Entreri said, cutting down another undead monster.

“Perhaps,” said Drizzt, and he fell back from the fighting, motioning for Dahlia to take his place.

The drow pulled out his bow again and rushed back to the spot between the last two structures they had crossed between. He dropped down to one knee and leaned forward, turning Taulmaril sidelong and bringing it as low as possible. He took aim at the first wall, many strides away, angling his shot so the lightning arrow flew just above it as it exited the bailey.

He rushed back, shouldering his bow. Seeing Entreri finishing off the last of the zombies, he threw his back against the wall and produced his fine rope once more.

He held Entreri and Dahlia back for just a few heartbeats, however, until a greater commotion began to stir far down to the other side of the compound.

“The cat,” Entreri said, for indeed, Drizzt’s shot had been the predetermined signal for Guenhwyvar to join in the fray, and far to the side so that she would serve as a powerful distraction.

The panther flew over the wall with a great leap, clearing it cleanly. The sentry she’d targeted only noted her at the last moment, for barely a heartbeat had passed between the time Guenhwyvar had first charged from the brush and sprang.

That sentry almost got his arm up to block, though of course such a defense would have afforded him no protection against the power of the panther anyway. The cat was past him too quickly for that raising arm to even touch, and the Ashmadai flew from the wall, his head and throat ripped ear to opposite collarbone, as Guenhwyvar continued past. He hit the ground in a heap, not even crying out, other than a strange gasping groan as the air was blasted from his dying body.

Guenhwyvar twisted around in her descent, fast approaching a stone building. With great agility, she managed to swing sidelong, planting her claws and scrabbling wildly so that she barely brushed that structure as she ran along.

Shouts rose up all around her. Answering those, a group of Ashmadai guards rushed out of an alleyway, leaping into the path of the charging panther.

Guenhwyvar roared, the low rumbling of the cry echoing all around the fortress and the forest beyond, and guards fell all over each other trying to get out of the way. Guenhwyvar blew through them, biting one, clawing a second, and knocking two others aside. Several running strides later, the panther still had one zealot clamped in her jaws, and only then felt the strikes as the frantic woman pounded her scepter down against the great cat’s muscled shoulder.

Guenhwyvar let her go, then, and she fell away, rolling and grabbing at her mauled thigh.

The panther cut down the next alleyway right in front of a group of zombies. With a twitch of her powerful muscles, she leaped over them and continued on, calls of warning and sounds of pursuit mounting all around her.

From the balcony of her tower, Sylora knew the location of the trio. Even then she looked through the eyes of another zombie, one down the wall from the three. She controlled this one and wouldn’t let it advance to be chopped apart.

She saw the drow with his back to the wall, holding Dahlia and the Netherese champion back-no doubt waiting for the mounting distraction they had summoned on the other side of Ashenglade. There, too, Sylora had noticed the large black panther, but paid the cat little heed.

The panther was a diversion, nothing more. The real threat lay here, with these three.

The drow cupped his hands, signaling the other two to move.

The sorceress thought to consume her zombie and create a new trick, a ring of woe, on the ground at the drow’s feet, to sting him and the others, to show them that they were puny creatures indeed against the might of Sylora and her Dread Ring.

She resisted the urge.

“Not yet,” she whispered aloud, though she was the only one up there on the balcony. “Let them come closer, where they cannot turn back.”

She watched them go over the wall, Dahlia with her staff, the Netherese champion with help from the drow.

Then she released the zombie and sent her thoughts careening around the inner wall, seeking a new host from which to view the continuing battle more clearly.

Dahlia flew over the wall, this time beating Entreri. Both were on the ground in the inner bailey by the time Drizzt scrambled over. This area was more open, with only a couple of small structures between the companions and the treelike tower that stood beside a cave opening on the side of a rocky hill, the place they suspected to be Sylora’s abode.

“Be quick!” Dahlia warned. “Sylora may strike at us from afar!”

Her words seemed prescient indeed, for at that very moment, they all noted a form in the branchlike balcony of that treelike tower, one Dahlia surely recognized, even from afar.

She started to sprint for Drizzt and Entreri, but pulled up short, taken aback and genuinely surprised as the pair ran off, shoulder-to-shoulder, across the open ground and straight for the tower. Dahlia felt like an outsider suddenly, as if her two companions shared some bond she couldn’t understand.

And indeed they did, for not only had the unlikely pair battled against each other so many times in the long distant past, they had battled side-by-side, as well. A century might have passed, but it hardly seemed to matter in that desperate moment. For time had not blurred the reflection each of these warriors saw in the other. They, their skills, their challenges, and mostly their fears, remained inexorably linked, Drizzt to Entreri and Entreri to Drizzt.

They understood each other, they knew each other, and most of all, they knew each other’s fighting maneuvers.

Like one four-armed, four-legged beast, Drizzt and Entreri charged out into the open, and they were set upon immediately by a host of Ashmadai zealots.

Just before they met the lead of that counter-charge, Drizzt stopped fast and Entreri rushed past him, right-to-left.

So, too, did the nearest Ashmadai ahead and to Drizzt’s right, one who had been coming in straight at Entreri, turn to follow the assassin’s cut, and so when Drizzt rolled around Entreri’s back, the enemy wasn’t ready for him.

Drizzt hooked his right scimitar inside the man’s left arm, pulled it free of the scepter, then stabbed with his left and brought the right one back with a sudden backhanded slash.

The drow kicked the wounded zealot back into those coming in behind, and reversed his rush, ducking low.

Entreri back flipped right over him and the two zealots he’d intercepted both came on, but both looked up at him as he somersaulted-so neither were prepared for the drow, coming out of his crouch with upraised blades.

Despite her urgency, Dahlia almost stopped short again at the sight, and when Entreri landed in perfect balance and came around just in time to cut a backhanded parry with his sword, step forward, and dispatch the next zealot with his dagger, the elf woman heard herself gasp.

Dahlia prided herself on her fighting skills, and indeed they were magnificent. She’d respected the skills of both of these warriors individually, of course-that was more than a small part of why she’d chosen Drizzt Do’Urden as the next diamond stud to grace her ear-but now, amazingly, the two together seemed even greater than the sum of their considerable parts.

Dahlia kept close enough to the pair to enjoy the reprieve offered by their destructive wake as they waded across the field. When one zealot ran out wide to flank Entreri, Dahlia was there, meeting him with the blur of her flails. She slapped at him, left and right, above and below, and had him dodging and twisting every which way to try to keep up with her movements. He didn’t even realize how off-balance he’d become until Dahlia sent one of her weapons spinning up under his extended arm, caught its flying pole as it came around with her other hand, and sent her victim flipping head over heels to land hard on his back.

He made the mistake of trying to get right back up instead of curling defensively on the grass. The woman, who couldn’t have remained behind to finish him off had he so curled, took that one opening to smack him across the skull and lay him low.

Dahlia turned back to see Sylora up on the balcony lifting her wand.

Drizzt saw the sorceress as well. “Dahlia, to me!” he yelled, then called to Entreri for cover.

The assassin moved in front of him in a blur, sword and dagger spinning wildly, driving back the nearest zealots with pure fury.

Trusting that Entreri could hold the line as Dahlia rushed forward to replace him, Drizzt fell back fast into a backward roll.

Drizzt managed a wry grin as Dahlia reacted perfectly, leaping over him as he extricated himself.

He was still grinning as came around, with his bow in his hands and with an arrow already set on the bowstring.

The sorceress above couldn’t have anticipated such a movement, and with the stunning grace and realignment of the drow, she seemed to interrupt her spellcasting for just a heartbeat.

That momentary delay gave Drizzt all the time he needed to beat her to the strike. In the blink of an eye, he launched an arrow at her face.

But Sylora smiled and barely flinched. The shot soared true, but the lightning arrow fell short of the mark, slamming into some shield the sorceress had around her. Sparks flew, arcing out to the sides and up and down, but none going forward into Sylora.

Despite the failure, Drizzt wouldn’t let up, and so he sent bolt after bolt at the balcony, the sheer fury of the assault driving the powerful sorceress back.

The line of devastation held true for several shots, but then Drizzt was forced to alter his tactics, bringing the bow down lower with every other shot to blast aside an advancing Ashmadai.

Still, Drizzt grinned all the wider as he did. Dahlia and Entreri had begun a dance of their own. They went back to back, blades and poles working brilliantly to open paths. They turned shoulder to shoulder in perfect unison to overwhelm one zealot who found herself out alone as her comrades moved to try to flank the devastating pair.

Drizzt rushed to catch up, calling for them to keep him clear. His focus was back above again, and had to be, his missiles crashing into the balcony, ricocheting around the overhang to keep the mighty sorceress at bay.

More zealots came in at them, but Dahlia and Entreri proved up to the task of driving them off. Their coordination improved with each new turn, and as they came too far under the overhang for Sylora to pose much of a threat, Drizzt, too, could join in.

He shouldered his bow and drew his blades, thinking to do just that, trying to sort out how he might best complement the fighting pair, when the puzzle solved itself.

Dahlia, too consumed by her hatred of Sylora, apparently, seemed less than interested in the zealots. Entreri executed a crossover strike, moving in front of her and stabbing an Ashmadai hard with his sword. As that one crumbled, the appropriate action for Dahlia would have been to fall back to her right, around the assassin, to protect his right flank.

But as the zealot in front of her fell away, the others posturing and angling for a better lane of attack, Dahlia saw the path to the cave clear in front of her and charged from the throng.

Entreri let out a yelp, for he was left obviously vulnerable. Only Drizzt’s quick action saved him. The drow, legs speeded by his magical anklets, rushed up beside Entreri just in time to parry a stabbing scepter, and even then he had to lunge so far forward that had the Ashmadai been a more proficient warrior, he could have retracted and changed his angle of attack to hit the drow instead of the assassin.

But that zealot wasn’t so good, and Drizzt was able to get his feet balanced back under him in short order. Then it was the zealot who was still off-balance from the hard parry. He did manage to realign his scepter in some semblance of defense, but he needed much more than “some semblance” against the likes of Drizzt Do’Urden.

The drow’s blades smacked at the scepter left and right, went over and under and back around in such a dizzying blur that the zealot couldn’t seem to distinguish one from the other.

In a few heartbeats, the overmatched Ashmadai swung his scepter haphazardly, awkwardly, so busy trying to keep up with the whirling scimitars he seemed to forget the purpose of the dance. Eyes down at the blades, trying to sort out the movements, the poor fool didn’t even see the killing blow, and his eyes went wide with shock indeed when Icingdeath came in hard against the side of his neck.

Other zealots replaced him, but they found themselves against Entreri instead of Drizzt as the two quickly rotated around.

In that turn, Drizzt caught sight of Dahlia at the cave opening, and he sucked in his breath to see her locked in battle with a strange-looking Ashmadai, wrapped like a mummy in some grayish hide and holding a scepter that showed as much black as the typical red. His worry only multiplied.

Entreri caught sight of her as well.

“Not that one, Dahlia,” the assassin whispered.

Dahlia didn’t recognize Jestry. She did guess from his initial attack and defense routines that this opponent was more skilled than the vast majority of Ashmadai, though she almost immediately realized he was no match for her. She worked her flails furiously, slapping them hard against the scepter every time the strangely-armored Ashmadai tried to come at her, or simply to keep him on the defensive. Impatiently, she found an opening and took it, expecting her strike to finish him. Hard against the side of his head went her right-hand flail, a solid blow that should have snapped the zealot’s head to the side.

Should have.

And in anticipation of exactly that consequence, Dahlia put her left hand into a high, backhanded roll up and over her head so her other flail would score a second strike following the first.

That first strike didn’t jolt the Ashmadai as she had expected. Indeed, the man’s head barely moved, and his attention wavered not at all. But his hands moved, taking advantage of Dahlia’s overconfident follow-up maneuver by stabbing his scepter straight ahead.

The agile elf managed to twist to her right behind that backhand to avoid the brunt of the blow, taking just a grazing touch and barely drawing a scratch. In exchange for that, Dahlia managed a third strike, again against the side of the zealot’s head, and again, to no avail. Even caught by surprise, she thought she’d won the round.

She went right back to her furious spins and strikes, trying to get back to level footing with the zealot and figure out a better method of striking him. She couldn’t believe the strange hide wrapping had so utterly defeated three solid hits by Kozah’s Needle.

Then she found a second problem, a far worse one. The muscles where she’d been grazed contracted suddenly, painfully, causing her to lurch back and to her left. She staggered and stumbled, right back to her original position, where she managed to stand straight once more, wincing against the pain.

Her left hand led, the flail spinning up and over, down against the scepter, while she rolled her right-hand weapon over top to bottom, catching the pole in her armpit. And there she held it, tightening her muscles expertly while pulling mightily against the hold.

She bided her time, left hand working furiously, and the left side of her ribs aching profoundly. On one such spasm, Dahlia lurched.

The zealot leaped forward, stabbing hard.

But Dahlia’s lurch had been voluntary, and enticing. She side-stepped and the zealot missed badly, opening his defenses in the process.

Out snapped the right-hand flail, a sudden and brutal, spearlike thrust that drove into the zealot’s chin with tremendous force. The man’s head snapped to the side, and he staggered away under the sheer weight of the blow.

But he didn’t fall, and if the strike had seriously injured him, he didn’t show it. With a feral growl, he came right back after the woman, fighting wildly, seeming more angry than hurt.

And now Dahlia was angry, too, for she heard Sylora up above, calling out-to Valindra, it seemed-and the sound of that voice surely drove Dahlia on, her frustration mounting against this zealot who was preventing her from reaching her prize!

She took a different tack then, repeatedly cracking her flails together as she worked them furiously around and against the scepter. She felt the tingle of power with each strike as Kozah’s Needle began to build its charge. In a matter of heartbeats, she’d cracked the metal poles together more than a dozen times, and her hands began to feel the prickles of mounting power. But she held on and continued to grow that explosive energy, determined to reduce this fool to a smoking husk. Again and again the flails clanged together.

A second zealot dashed in at her from the side, but Dahlia noted the movement and merely flipped her wrist over, her right-hand weapon cracking against the thrusting scepter, driving it back behind her. And she turned as it did, her left hand coming around to crack the zealot in the head. Unlike the mummified opponent in front of her, this one wasn’t so well-armored, and the heavy blow opened his skull and sent him flying away.

Knowing the strange one to be coming fast in pursuit, Dahlia finished her spin, her hands working furiously as she did. She came to face him once more, and held not a pair of flails, but a single eight-foot staff.

“Drizzt!” she called, fending off the Ashmadai’s attacks. “Drow! Lend me an arrow!”

“Entreri!” Drizzt called to his nearest companion.

But even as he spoke the name, the assassin yelled back, “Go! Go!”

Entreri rushed in front of him, sword and dagger working in a blur to drive back the attackers, giving Drizzt the room to disengage just long enough to draw Taulmaril once more and set an arrow. He leveled and let fly, the lightning missile speeding just past Dahlia’s shoulder, aiming for her opponent’s face.

It never got there, intercepted by the power of Kozah’s Needle, drawn into the staff, which was already tingling with energy.

Dahlia wasted no time, spinning the staff up above her head and around, and promptly thrusting it into the chest of the mummified zealot. That physical blow did little damage, of course, but Dahlia cried out in victory, the win all but assured, as she let loose the tremendous lightning energy pent up in the weapon.

Drizzt nodded grimly as crackling arcs rushed along the length of the staff, diving into the zealot, cascading along his form with sharp crackles. All around him the lightning danced, gradually coalescing down his right arm and at his right hand-more specifically, at a ring he wore on his right hand. The lightning sparked and snapped and rolled around the circle.

And turned around.

Scimitars back in his hands, Drizzt’s eyes widened with surprise and shock as Dahlia went flying backward, arms and legs flailing, staff flying from her smoking grasp.

“Go! Go!” the drow yelled at Entreri.

Drizzt stepped in front of the assassin, his scimitars intercepting the scepters of the two Ashmadai pressing in, opening just enough of an avenue for Entreri to run free to the cave.

He heard Sylora above him, but pressed from every side now, Drizzt could only grimace against the implications of her chant. His hands worked in a blur, over and around, as he spun to drive back the two he’d been fighting. Drizzt dropped low and kicked out to painfully straighten the leg of one of Entreri’s foes as the woman tried to come at him from behind.

Up Drizzt sprang, his blades spinning horizontal circles up high and out wide, working down to block, working back up high to drive one or another of the four back yet again. He found his rhythm and when one of the frustrated zealots threw his scepter at Drizzt, the drow’s blade was in line, not to block, but to deflect the weapon. It flew into the face of the zealot behind him.

That one fell away and the one who threw the spear followed it by leaping wildly at Drizzt, trying to tackle him to the ground. That zealot did indeed hit the ground, face first, clutching at the five stab wounds the drow had expertly inflicted before nimbly ducking aside-and doing so with such control that he used the falling Ashmadai to block the view of the zealot opposite. He came over that descending form so quickly and so furiously that the surprised zealot never got her weapon up to block the scimitar thrusting true for her throat.

She did manage to scream, at least, but that was abruptly cut short.

As more Ashmadai rushed to crowd in around him, Drizzt found a moment to glance at Dahlia. She was on her feet again, her braid dancing like a living serpent atop her head. She’d retrieved her staff, but was obviously shaken and confused. The strange Ashmadai bore down on her with great advantage.

And Entreri had not gone to her!

Drizzt spied the assassin scrambling off to the side, along the rocks at the base of the tower, apparently seeking a way in. The dark elf called out to him, but didn’t finish the thought before the ground around him roiled suddenly, turning black and with a strange smoky ash wafting from it. The Ashmadai nearest Drizzt cried out first from the burning pain.

And Drizzt felt it too, acutely, such a sting as if his pants had been lit on fire. Only his bracers saved him then, his feet working fast enough to extract him from the devilish black ring of ashen energy.

Hardly thinking of the movement, the drow had simply leaped out of the ring of woe as efficiently as possible, and that moved him farther from Dahlia, back out from the cave entrance and the rocky hill. He got a better view of Sylora Salm at least, standing above him, twenty feet above on the balcony.

She held a strange wand, a broken branch, it seemed, and she smiled wickedly. In that moment, Drizzt felt as if all of this had surely been for naught, as if he and his companions had been fools indeed to think they could go against the magnificence that was Sylora Salm.

Back at the smoking ashen ring, a pair of zealots burst from the growing cloud of withering blackness, reaching for Drizzt.

Their faces were no more than skinless skulls, their reaching hands skeletal, and both crumpled dead to the ground before they ever got near.

But Sylora kept smiling.

Dahlia’s skills and warrior instincts superseded her surprise and got her back to her feet and back in a fighting pose before the mummified champion could truly exploit the explosive turnaround.

But it was worse than mere surprise. The blow had hurt her, and her muscles trembled so violently she could hardly hold onto her long staff. Dahlia wanted to break her weapon back into flails, or perhaps into a tri-staff, that she might pry the zealot’s weapon away, but she didn’t dare, for fear of dropping Kozah’s Needle altogether.

The wound inflicted by the zealot’s scepter had not abated, either, her gut muscles tightening painfully. She didn’t know how long she could fend off this ferocious opponent. She was beginning to understand that she was beaten.

That understanding only got worse when, in one parry and dodge, she looked past her opponent to the back of the cave and saw a grinning Valindra Shadowmantle looking back at her. The lich held her larger, redder scepter, and more than once pointed it Dahlia’s way. But she didn’t enact any of its powers, or her own. She simply seemed to be enjoying the show.

Valindra didn’t intervene because she knew she didn’t have to, Dahlia thought, for even though her sensations were returning, her grasp growing steadier on the long staff, she could hardly hope to defeat this strange Ashmadai.

In a single fluid movement, Drizzt sheathed his blades, took up his bow, and sent a stream of arrows at Sylora Salm.

They struck that strange shield in front of her and burst into myriad multi-colored sparks, one after another. The drow could only hope he was doing some damage to that magical defense, at least, wearing it thinner with each explosive strike.

He caught sight of Sylora moving her hand, her wand, behind that barrage, and he fell back as the two Ashmadai who’d fallen dead at his feet leaped up suddenly, animated by the sorceress.

Drizzt turned his bow at them, but before he could fire off an arrow, the two leaned toward the balcony and seemed to elongate, then to fly off as they became insubstantial black smoke.

Drizzt spun his bow up and let fly, filling the area in front of Sylora with yet more sparks. From that field of explosion, though, came a responding missile, black and large and flying fast at Drizzt. Again the magical speed of his anklets saved him as he threw himself aside, both from the missile and from yet another Ashmadai coming in at him from behind.

That unfortunate woman caught Sylora’s missile instead, and it covered her in what seemed like thick soot. In moments she began to writhe and scream out, throwing herself to the ground as if on fire.

Drizzt sent an arrow, then a second and third, up at Sylora, then turned and shot dead the screaming Ashmadai, purely out of mercy.

He moved with every shot, having no intention of catching any return fire from Sylora.

All the dead Ashmadai around him began to rise up, and all the remaining living Ashmadai backed away.

The zombies didn’t come at him, though. One after another they leaned toward the balcony and were stretched upward, reduced to black smoke, and absorbed into Sylora’s wand.

Another missile flew down from on high, striking the ground in front of Drizzt, creating another ring of woe, perhaps ten feet in diameter.

The drow moved aside and kept up his fire. Then he moved again from a third ring of woe, then a fourth. He recognized that Sylora was surely cutting him off from the cave, from Dahlia, with an overlapping line of rising ash energy. The powerful sorceress didn’t stop there but created more deadly rings, driving Drizzt back, herding him like an animal to the slaughter.

He growled and continued his missile response, increasing the speed of his shots so incredibly that it seemed as if the bow reached forth with one long missile. The balcony exploded and sizzled with such a rain of sparks that to a distant onlooker, it might have appeared as if all the wizards of Faerun had joined in a great fireworks celebration.

Drizzt kept glancing at Dahlia, wanting to help her, but not daring to interrupt his flow of arrows, not wanting to even allow Sylora to see the battlefield in front of her.

He was almost out of room to move.

On the rocky hillside at the base of the tower, Artemis Entreri quickly deduced that there was no way into that treelike structure. He also found a host of enemies waiting for him, a cluster of ashen zombies, standing and swaying.

To his surprise and relief, they didn’t attack, and to his further astonishment, one after another burst into smoke and flew up at the distant balcony lip, as if it had been dismantled and sucked in by some giant vortex.

Not one to pause and reflect on good fortune, Entreri scrambled up the front of the hill, and was nearly stabbed as a zealot appeared from behind one of the many large rocks, spearlike scepter thrusting hard.

Across came the assassin’s sword, just quick enough to drive aside the thrust. But the Ashmadai tiefling rose up above him, on the rock he’d been scaling, and thus gaining the advantage.

Except that this was Artemis Entreri.

Entreri cried out and fell back, turning to run, and the predictable zealot leaped at his back.

Entreri spun and swept his sword across, deflecting the scepter. He fell aside as he did, the man frantically trying to twist and grab at him, and catching instead a stabbing dagger right in the heart.

With a groan, the Ashmadai continued by, and Entreri cut him chest to groin, gutting him as he tumbled past.

A second Ashmadai replaced the first, coming straight up in front of Entreri, who had his back to the open drop now. The zealot stabbed wildly as if trying to force Entreri from the ledge, and at one point, the man cried out, thinking victory at hand as Entreri bent far backward, balancing precariously.

But when the zealot dropped his shoulder and bulled forward to finish the task, even diving so he would go with his victim, Entreri twisted to the side and dropped into a low crouch. He came up fast, shouldering the man from the ground, and turned and launched him into the open air.

Then he ran on, up the hillside, angling for the top of the cave.

He ran out of room, but mostly, Drizzt was just running. He sprinted to the edge of one ring of woe, and having no choice as another ashen black missile streamed out from the balcony at him, he leaped over it.

The smoking strands reached up at him and bit at him hard, stinging his legs, and he landed wobbly, but still managed to snap off another ineffective shot at Sylora.

But now Drizzt was back in open ground, and as he shook off the latest burns, he started to run around, buying himself more time. First he concentrated on those Ashmadai nearby, lowering Taulmaril and sending out a stream of arrows to drive them away.

Then he went back to Sylora, continuing his spark barrage to keep her from spotting him clearly. Finally, he turned his attention to poor Dahlia, who fought frantically, but lost ground against the strange opponent she faced.

Drizzt winced as she barely dodged a high swing of the Ashmadai’s scepter, then shook his head in frustration as Dahlia properly responded and slammed the man-to no visible effect.

The zealot’s next swing clipped her, just a bit, as she spun, and she even turned around enough for Drizzt to catch her profound grimace of agony.

He couldn’t get to her. He had no clear shot, but he had no choice, either. He leveled the bow and let fly as Dahlia spun to the side, and to his relief, she didn’t come right back the other way, and to his greater relief, her staff didn’t catch that missile.

The arrow struck true, square in the chest of the mummified Ashmadai, slamming him hard, and he staggered backward, almost into the cave.

Only then did Drizzt see another figure deeper within the shadows, and he surely recognized Valindra Shadowmantle!

He let fly again, and a third time, though he had to roll aside to avoid another ring of woe, then had to dive again as a more direct missile nearly caught him from above. Both of his shots soared past Dahlia and the Ashmadai and into the cave, though he couldn’t tell if he’d scored any meaningful hit on Valindra or not.

What he did see, to his dismay, was that his earlier direct hit on the Ashmadai apparently had inflicted no serious damage. The man again pummeled Dahlia, who kept cringing and lurching, and seemed barely able to block his barrage.

Drizzt couldn’t help her!

He had no choice but to turn his attention back to Sylora, to match her assaults with an overwhelming volley. The sparks, even if they did no more than somewhat blind the sorceress, were his only defense, and eventually getting through that magical shield, his only hope. As it was, Sylora had already littered the field with the black circles of destruction. The Ashmadai at the perimeters of the fight began throwing rocks, and a few even had bows.

For a moment, Drizzt considered that he might have to flee the field, and if Dahlia fell near the cave, the drow expected he would have no choice but to run away.

Drizzt knew they’d been baited, brought to a place in which he and his friends could not win.

Their enemy was, perhaps, too powerful for them.

But the despair could not take hold. Unexpectedly at that dark moment, Drizzt felt as if he was upon Andahar, riding from Luskan through the dark night. Exhilaration replaced dismay, and pure energy replaced fear.

He moved faster, diving and rolling, coming around to let fly behind to drive back an Ashmadai, then back forward, one, two, three shots to blind Sylora, if not actually hurt her. On one turn, he noted a host of zombies and he let fly at the group as well. But then he noted that they were not approaching, and a heartbeat before another black volley came at him from the balcony, one of those charred little creatures broke apart into flying ash and soared up to Sylora, as if it was one of her arrows.

He didn’t understand, and he didn’t have time to sort it out. Better to shoot the zombies, perhaps, or the Ashmadai?

He just kept his stream of shots and his continual movement, dodging rings and stones and arrows, trying not to wince when he glanced at Dahlia and her desperate struggle.

They would win, he believed. He was riding through the dark Luskan night and he would prevail.

There was no other choice.

“How do I hurt you, you beast?” Dahlia asked, accentuating her question with a spin of her staff and a straight, hard stab that jabbed the zealot in the chest, again to little or no effect. Her voice was raspy, her abdomen knotting and clenching from the withering wound.

But she wasn’t twitching from the residual effects of her own lightning anymore, at least, though her braid had unwound itself in the process, leaving a thin shock of long black and red strands splayed around her otherwise bald head. Worse for Dahlia, she couldn’t feel several of her fingers, and worse still, one of her eyes flickered and closed from the newest wound wrought by the zealot’s powerfully enchanted scepter.

Despite all of that, the elf warrior broke her staff in half as she retracted it, then spun out those two poles, one in either hand, and broke them fast into flails. She didn’t expect the weapons to be any more effective than the long pole, but she hoped her whirling display would buy her more time.

She couldn’t win. She knew that.

“Shoot him again, Drizzt,” she whispered desperately.

She ducked low as the scepter whipped across up high, then cut her counter short as the zealot retracted and stabbed for her belly once more. Then she jumped up high as his real attack swept in, a low cut aimed at Dahlia’s legs.

She’d expected it. If he could but touch her legs with that withering scepter, the resulting cramping muscles would likely render her incapable of escaping.

And that’s exactly what Dahlia was thinking about: escaping. As the scepter passed beneath her tucked legs, she still maintained enough of her balance to spin her weapons up and over, smashing them down atop the zealot’s wrapped head.

He ignored the strikes and brought his scepter sweeping back the other way.

Dahlia moved as if to jump again, but instead stepped back-and it was a good thing she took that second route. The zealot stopped his swing midway through and lifted the scepter straight up. Had Dahlia leaped as before, she would have surely collided with it on her inevitable descent.

Now he faced her again, his eyes shining, his smile peeking out between the tight wrappings.

It occurred to Dahlia then that either of those places, eyes or mouth, might prove to be her best opportunity, but before she could even think through that proposition, she let out a cry of surprise and fell back as a form came leaping down.

She recognized it as Barrabus, as the man Drizzt named Entreri, and for a moment thought he was leaping at her. His hands were up high and wide, one holding his dagger, the other a knife. He crashed onto the zealot’s back, and even that didn’t bring the monstrous Ashmadai to the ground.

But down came those hands, faster than the zealot could react, dagger plunging into one eye, knife into the other.

How the zealot howled and spun around, feet moving every which way, arms waving crazily. The scepter fell from his grasp as his sensibilities fled.

Entreri hung on, riding him like a wild horse.

Around and around the zealot spun, slapping and lurching, and finally throwing the assassin aside.

Out came the knife with Entreri’s tumble, though he’d lost his grip on the dagger.

There it stuck, protruding from the mummified zealot’s left eye.

Entreri hit the ground in a roll and drew his long sword as he came back around to his feet.

“Come along!” he ordered Dahlia, and he rushed right past the still-spinning zealot and into the cave, not even pausing to retrieve his dagger.

Dahlia followed, slowing only long enough to glance back at Drizzt and to smack the zealot one last time across the side of his head. Convulsing weirdly now in his death throes, he fell to the ground as she passed him by.

“Valindra first!” Dahlia cried when she saw Entreri cut to the left, to the base of the tower.

But when she entered the cave, she blinked. It was a shallow cave with no apparent exits or hiding spots, but the lich was nowhere to be found.

Drizzt cheered and almost laughed when Entreri came down upon Dahlia’s foe, and the precision of the assassin’s strike reminded Drizzt all too keenly of how deadly a foe Artemis Entreri could be. The killing blow had to be perfect, and so Entreri had been perfect.

The drow took immense satisfaction in his decision to be merciful, to allow Entreri to travel beside him and Dahlia.

Still, his own situation remained precarious. He was fully thirty paces out from the treelike tower, nearer to the wall than he was to Sylora or his companions, who had disappeared into the cave.

Ashmadai enemies lined the wall, and the continual volley of stones and arrows had Drizzt paying them more heed than Sylora-something he knew would certainly spell his doom.

He had to leave, to move to the side enough, at least, to get out of Sylora’s line of sight. But then what good would he be to his companions?

A familiar roar sent shivers through his spine, and sent the Ashmadai opposing him into a desperate frenzy.

Guenhwyvar-always and ever Guenhwyvar-arrived on the field just opposite the wall from Drizzt, charging at the Ashmadai line with abandon, ignoring the slings and arrows and chasing the zealots from their perches.

With full confidence in his panther companion, confidence built on a century or more of experience, Drizzt turned back to the distant sorceress with full force. As he dismissed those enemies behind him, he navigated the ground to move nearer to the tree. Sylora could fill in the few safe spots, he understood, but he saw, too, that the initial rings of woe were dissipating, leaving behind blackened areas of absolute death, but areas, perhaps, that he might cross.

If he could pick his way carefully and prevent the sorceress from filling in the gaps in the outer areas of agony, he might indeed get to the cave.

His hands worked in a blur then, a solid line of missiles flying forth, nearly every shot true. He could no longer see Sylora, so great was the spark shower. When no further black missiles reached out in response, it occurred to him that she might even have retreated into the tower.

Or dare he hope that one of his arrows had penetrated the strange bubble and struck her?

Drizzt nodded, but didn’t slow the barrage for another few heartbeats.

He started forward tentatively, picking his way across the field.

Even as he entered the short stairwell leading up to the base floor of the tower, Entreri was met by a howling Ashmadai guard, stabbing at him furiously with the sharp end of his scepter.

Such straightforward ferocity was no way to battle Artemis Entreri. He easily deflected the thrust aside with his sword then expertly snapped that sword back out straight, taking the man in the shoulder. And when the Ashmadai overreacted, spinning aside and throwing his weapon up and over-and missing badly as Entreri swiftly retracted the sword ahead of the parry-the assassin calmly stepped forward and drove his dagger under the man’s ribs.

The zealot howled and lurched over, and was surely doomed, except that neither Entreri nor his companion cared at all about him. The assassin slammed him on the back of the head as he bent, then grabbed his collar and yanked him forward and down the stairs.

Dahlia added a crack with a flail as he tumbled by, but like Entreri, her focus remained in front of her, not behind.

Up they went into the first floor then rushed along the stairway to the second. From there they could see the balcony, now empty, and the spark shower from Drizzt’s continuing barrage as the missiles struck the shield Sylora had left behind.

Despite that explosive assault, Entreri moved toward the balcony, and the small stairway leading to the tower’s third floor. There he fell back, dodging a blast of black ash as Sylora filled the space with a ring of woe.

The assassin tested it, but backed off again as the smoke bit at him painfully.

“The other way,” he told Dahlia, nodding to the stair across the second level.

“She’s up there?” Dahlia asked, not moving other than to reform her singular long staff.

Entreri looked at her curiously, and tried to push her toward the stair.

But Dahlia avoided him and moved toward the balcony instead, though she motioned for him to continue across the room.

The assassin glanced back as he reached the stair, and smiled wide. Dahlia rushed to the edge of the smoking area, planted her staff against the base of the wall opposite the short stair, and leaped forward, twisting and pushing off as she came even with the opening. With great agility and strength, the elf woman hung there, her momentum lost, and as she started to descend, she lifted her legs higher to the side and pushed off with all her strength, lifting herself up the side stair.

Entreri sprinted up the short stairwell and burst through the door, to find himself facing Sylora Salm and her crooked wand.

Dahlia was there, too, having cleared the blackened area.

“All my enemies in one place,” Sylora said. “How convenient.”

Dahlia responded by thrusting the end of her staff at the woman’s mouth. The attack seemed true, but the weapon hit a barrier, a brown semicircle glowing in front of her at the impact.

Sylora laughed and whipped her small wand in front of her, and from that wand came a series of black darts, spinning through the room.

Both Dahlia and Entreri curled defensively, but both got hit. Many darts flew, and those small missiles brought forth painful bites indeed.

“Go!” Entreri demanded of Dahlia. He leaped at Sylora, as did Dahlia, sword, knife, and staff stabbing hard.

And all, weapons and attackers, were easily repelled by the barrier.

Down below, from the balcony, they heard a different cadence of explosive missiles.

“The barrier can be broken!” Dahlia surmised, and though Sylora hit them again with a rain of darts, on they came, their only defense a brutal forward assault.

Indeed, behind the globe, Sylora appeared genuinely concerned, and a bit disoriented by the sheer ferocity of their attacks.

The strikes didn’t diminish until something flew past Dahlia, making her instinctively duck. She called out to Entreri as she did, and he, too, had to dive aside, his dagger not quite catching up to the small fiend as it fluttered past him. The devil’s strike, however, did score, its whiplike tail lashing out at the assassin and cutting him painfully across the shoulder.

Up into the air went the creature, above the next rain of Sylora’s darts-and that barrage had Dahlia and Entreri staggering back under the weight and sting of the assault.

But Arunika’s imp hadn’t been hit. Its skin hanging in burned strands from Sylora’s earlier encasing ash, it understood the sorceress’s defenses more keenly than the others.

Sylora hardly even seemed aware of the creature as it flipped over the top of the bubble and dropped down upon her extended arm. With clawed feet and hands, it grabbed at her forearm and hand, at the wand, and when she pulled back against it and slapped at it with her other hand, the imp bared its fangs and bit down hard on her weapon hand.

It lifted its head, two severed fingers hanging from its mouth, and tore the Dread Ring wand from Sylora’s weakened grasp. Away it leaped, stinging her with its tail as it flew free of her desperate grabs.

Time seemed to stop then, a sudden, shocked pause from the three remaining in the tower room.

“Oh, now you die,” Artemis Entreri promised, rising from his knees against the far wall, Dahlia beside him.

But Sylora Salm wasn’t out of tricks. She threw her cloak up over her head, and as it descended, she transformed into the likeness of a giant raven.

Dahlia yelled in protest and struck at her. Entreri, too, managed a stab.

But neither scored a mortal, or even a serious hit, and the raven dived from the room, down the short stair, and out the tower balcony.

Drizzt leaped high, clearing the last line of still-smoking rings, on his way to the cave.

As he landed, though, he heard a sound from above, a peculiar sound given the circumstance and location: the whinnying of an angry horse.

That noise turned his attention back the other way, where he saw a large crow, a human-sized bird, fly out from the balcony, soaring into the night.

Drizzt leaped back the other way, drawing an arrow in mid-flight, and he landed and dropped to one knee, leveling his bow and letting fly.

The lightning arrow streaked off into the dark night, and sparks flew along with feathers as it struck home. But the crow kept gliding, disappearing over the wall and into the night beyond the strange fortress.

A second form came out from the balcony, and Drizzt nearly shot it, until he recognized it as Entreri’s nightmare steed, the assassin and Dahlia astride it.

The amazing hell horse dropped down gracefully from twenty feet, and somehow landed gently enough so that its two riders weren’t launched from its back.

Drizzt’s jaw hung open, his stunned expression reflected on the faces of a pair of Ashmadai watching from the wall, as the nightmare thundered away in pursuit, flames flying from its hooves. It ran along the wall to the open gate then charged across the outer ring, Drizzt following its progress by the shouts of the defenders still out there.

Drizzt started back toward that wall, but noticed Dahlia’s wide-brimmed leather hat and paused just long enough to scoop it up and put it on. Then, blowing his whistle loudly, the drow leaped the next ring, and sprinted around a third. He lined himself up with Andahar’s approach, and waved the mighty unicorn past him. He leaped up and grabbed Andahar’s mane as the galloping steed charged on.

In a few heartbeats, Drizzt was out of the fortress, with no pursuit apparent other than a growling panther leaping over the wall down to his right. He spotted Entreri’s steed, the flaming hooves bright in the night, and bent low over Andahar’s strong neck, urging his mount along, and gaining ground with every stride.

As he neared, it became apparent to Drizzt that Dahlia was guiding the mount in front of him. Entreri sat in the saddle, but she whispered into his ear continually. Entreri’s nightmare ran with conviction, as if they knew where they were going, though the raven was nowhere to be seen.

Drizzt didn’t question it. He put Andahar in line behind Entreri’s nightmare and instructed the unicorn to follow.

Dahlia glanced back at him and nodded. When the trail cleared a bit and allowed for it, she held her staff out wide and up high, and again motioned to Drizzt.

The drow ranger grinned as he figured it out. He clamped his legs tight around Andahar’s flanks, stood tall, and took up Taulmaril.

Kozah’s Needle swallowed his first lightning arrow. Dahlia nodded, and kept the staff up high and out wide.

Drizzt let fly again, then a third time, the powerful staff feasting on the lightning energy. Drizzt could see little arcs of power jumping along its length, and Dahlia grasped it with her other hand as well.

Still she kept the staff up high, though, and pumped it emphatically. Drizzt let fly again, then a fifth time, and sparks leaped higher and thicker along the weapon’s length. Dahlia’s mostly-unwound braid once more began to dance with residual energy.

But she called for one more, and so Drizzt let fly again.

The trees thickened around them and Dahlia wisely brought the staff in closer, and lower. Drizzt settled in his seat, placed his bow across his lap, and urged Andahar on.

Valindra Shadowmantle slipped out of the crack in the stone at the back of the shallow cave and reverted to her normal three-dimensional form. The drow and his shining white unicorn were out of sight by then, but Valindra followed their progress out of Ashenglade by the tumult of Ashmadai zealots calling out their locations.

Valindra glided out of the cave and onto the ravaged field. A few of the rings of woe still smoked with dark energy. The lich moved to one and dipped her toe in. As she suspected, it was Dread Ring energy, necromancy, and so to Valindra it felt like a warm bath in oil-scented waters.

The cries around her muted. The drow was out of the fortress then, she knew, and galloping away in pursuit of Sylora the Crow.

Valindra knew where Sylora had gone, and expected that Dahlia did, as well.

She pondered her next move, but became distracted when a small form flew down at her and landed on the ground beside her.

“Wretched creature!” Arunika’s imp snarled, waving the crooked wand. “I hope they make her suffer before they kill her!”

Valindra grinned at him then held her hand out for the wand.

The imp shifted away.

“Give me the wand now… Greeth! Greeth!” Valindra ordered.

Her eyes spun crazily and the imp’s bulbous eyes widened. Suddenly the diminutive creature couldn’t scramble fast enough to hand the wand over to the terrifying lich.

Valindra took it and brought it up in front of her eyes, issuing a little mewling sound as she did, as she connected to the comforting power of the Dread Ring.

“Shall I inform my mistress that you’re the new Thayan leader in Neverwinter Wood?” the imp asked.

Valindra didn’t even hear the creature, her focus locked on the sudden sensations of the roiling power. Sylora’s overreach had hurt the ring, she knew, and badly.

“Shall I inform my mistress that you’re the new Thayan leader in Neverwinter Wood?” the imp repeated.

“Be gone,” Valindra replied, staring at the wand the whole time, feeling its power as she rolled it around her fingers. “Tell her-Ark-lem!-that I’ll speak with her presently.”

The infusion of power tickled her, and mostly tickled Valindra’s thoughts. Images of Arklem Greeth flooded her. With this power, surely she could reclaim her beloved. And surely, once she’d resurrected him, he would help guide her from the tumult within her head. Maybe she wouldn’t need the Abolethic Sovereignty’s ambassador anymore. Valindra hated letting that piscine creature into her deepest thoughts, emotions, and secrets.

The imp fluttering up in front of her eyes pulled the lich from her contemplation, and as it sped away, sputtering curses, Valindra realized that it had likely asked her a question, likely repeatedly, before leaving in such a huff.

Valindra dismissed the creature from her thoughts-her increasingly scrambled thoughts. So much possibility! So great a promise of power! And the notion of Arklem Greeth at her side once more!

“No, no, I mustn’t,” the lich told herself.

Then she nodded as she considered her course and knew where she must go, and what she must ensure. She fell into her magical powers, preparing to leave, but stopped short and considered one other thing she might want to bring along.

There he was, crumpled on the ground just off to the side.

Only when she stood on the edge of the Dread Ring did Sylora Salm understand the depth of her error, the travesty she’d wrought. Basking in the power of the wand and the connection it offered her, Sylora had taken more than the life force of a few ashen zombies. Indeed, those rings of woe, and maintaining that magical shield against the barrage of arrows, had stolen power from the Dread Ring itself, and no inconsiderable amount.

Blood oozed from her shoulder. The drow’s arrow had wounded her critically, perhaps mortally. She needed the Dread Ring’s power again, she knew, to heal herself.

But dare she pull more from it? Could she?

The implications of the depleted grayness before her struck the sorceress profoundly. She could almost picture Szass Tam within that smoking ring, could almost see the look of unmitigated anger on his withered face.

He wouldn’t forgive her this time, she knew. After more than a decade, she had at last failed him.

Perhaps she could retreat belowground. Perhaps the Sovereignty would take her in.

Her thoughts spun as she sought a way out, and the desperation of her situation was brought home vividly when she heard the sound of approaching riders.

She turned and put her back to the Dread Ring. Whatever fears she had of Szass Tam’s response seemed distant then, as the immediate necessities became clear. Sylora closed her eyes and tried to connect to the power behind her, asking the Dread Ring for still more.

Entreri eased up on his nightmare’s pace as he noted the form in the clearing beyond the last tangle of trees. Drizzt did the same as he brought his unicorn up beside the nightmare, though neither steed seemed overly comfortable with the other so near.

It was indeed Sylora, all three riders saw.

“The Dread Ring is right behind her,” Dahlia warned.

They crossed through the tangle and into full view of the sorceress Sylora, and the smoky tendrils of darkness behind.

Drizzt let fly an arrow, but alas, the sorceress once more had enacted a magical shield in front of her.

Not so great a shield, Drizzt and the others realized, though, as the sorceress winced in discomfort and staggered back a step.

Drizzt broke Andahar to the left and set another arrow to Taulmaril, but behind him, before the unicorn had gone three running strides, Dahlia struck next.

As Entreri pulled his nightmare up short, Dahlia cried out for Sylora to “Defeat this!” and used all the momentum of the stopping mount to hurl Kozah’s Needle, spearlike, at her foe.

His jaw hanging open in surprise, Drizzt watched as the long staff slammed into Sylora’s thin bubble shield and exploded into such a display of arcing lightning and thunderous reverberations that the night itself was momentarily stolen.

Andahar neighed, pawed the ground, and reared up, but Drizzt clamped his legs tighter and held his balance.

And when the explosion of pure energy roiled and coiled and slammed Sylora, sending her flying backward through the air, the drow was ready. Another lightning arrow soared off, flying true to its target. Then a second missile from the right flank joined the first, a large black missile, as Guenhwyvar leaped high and long and crashed into Sylora as she descended into the smoking Dread Ring.

They landed out of sight, within the black fumes, with a roar and a shriek, both primal, followed by… silence.

Drizzt looked to Entreri and Dahlia, Andahar and the nightmare pawing the ground.

And all three companions breathed easier when Guenhwyvar walked back out of the ring.

Dahlia slipped down from the nightmare’s back and walked forward to retrieve Kozah’s Needle, which lay on the ground right in front of the blackness. She picked it up and casually continued, not even looking back, but walking right into the intimidating smoke.

“Dahlia!” Drizzt called.

“I’m not following her,” Entreri said.

Dahlia found Sylora Salm some dozen long strides into the Dread Ring. She lay on the black ground, twisted weirdly with one leg up behind her head and one of her arms beneath her. Blood flowed from her left shoulder where Drizzt’s first arrow had struck her, from her right side where his more recent missile had struck, and from deep claw marks on the side of her face and throat.

But those were the least of her wounds, for Kozah’s Needle had broken through that magical shield to open the center of her chest. Even in the dim light, Dahlia could see the woman’s heart. It still beat, just once, then again after a long pause.

“Finish me,” Sylora said, her voice thick with pain.

Dahlia bent over so her face was very near to Sylora’s.

“Please,” the doomed sorceress mouthed. “Finish me.”

Dahlia reached down as if to comply and Sylora closed her eyes.

But Dahlia instead just roughly pulled the crow cloak out from around Sylora, jarring her to the side and drawing a gasp of profound agony.

With a last smirk at Sylora, Dahlia threw the cloak around her own shoulders and walked back out the way she’d come.

“She’s dead,” Sylora Salm heard Dahlia announce to her companions, followed soon after by the clip-clop of hooves receding into the forest.

They ran on for a long while, putting leagues behind them, Entreri’s nightmare and Drizzt’s unicorn gliding effortlessly through the forest night. Finally, in one moonlit clearing, Entreri pulled up his fire-breathing, fire-stomping mount and slipped down from the saddle.

“So, in the end battle, we didn’t need your help at all,” Dahlia pointed out, flipping down to the ground beside him. She grinned as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“You’d prefer to be dead outside Sylora’s tower?” Entreri asked. “I understand.”

Andahar trotted into the clearing then. Drizzt dropped from his mount and walked over to join the pair, leaving the unicorn a safe distance from Entreri’s nightmare. He wore a curious expression-jealousy perhaps?-as he scrutinized Dahlia and Entreri.

“We’re done here,” Dahlia announced to Drizzt.

“Valindra Shadowmantle remains-”

“I don’t care. Not for her, not for this war. This was a personal grudge between me and Sylora Salm, and Sylora Salm is dead.”

“And I don’t care about Sylora Salm, other than how killing her might benefit me,” Entreri replied.

He and Dahlia exchanged intense stares.

“And me?” Dahlia asked. “Would you still wish to bring my head to your master?”

“You just said you were leaving, so what would it matter?”

“It might matter to me,” Dahlia replied, and Entreri laughed. He never stopped staring into Dahlia’s blue eyes.

“What’s your next move?” Drizzt asked the assassin, abruptly and pointedly. “Where will you go?”

“Back to Neverwinter, as I am bound,” Entreri replied, and he gave a helpless shrug. This was a critical moment, he realized, and he knew he hadn’t thought any of it through quite thoroughly enough. He had no idea how to pivot now, how to coax Drizzt and Dahlia to go back with him and rid him of his burden.

“Perhaps with Sylora dead and Dahlia gone, Alegni will be done with me, and I can return to the south in peace,” he said.

“Who?”

Dahlia’s voice, like her expression, went stone cold. It caught Entreri by surprise.

“Who?” Entreri echoed.

“ Who will be done with you?” Dahlia said.

“Alegni.”

“What is his name?” Dahlia demanded.

“Aleg-”

“His whole name.”

“He’s a Netherese lord, a tiefling Shadovar named Herzgo Alegni,” Entreri slowly replied, enunciating every syllable clearly, scrutinizing Dahlia as he spoke.

He saw it, then, the profound pain that flickered behind Dahlia’s eyes-primal, beyond anything any physical cut could ever inflict.

“What is it?” Drizzt asked, and Entreri glanced his way just long enough to realize that the drow didn’t recognize the depth of Dahlia’s profound agony.

Dahlia swayed and seemed as if she might fall over.

“What?” Drizzt asked again, coming up to support her.

“Apparently she’s acquainted with my master,” Entreri started to say, but Dahlia cut him short by spitting in his face.

Drizzt grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back. “Dahlia, what is it?” he insisted, keeping his face right in front of hers, trying to bring her back from whatever emotional ledge she’d walked out onto.

“Speak his name again,” Dahlia said to Entreri.

“Herzgo Alegni.”

“Your master, your friend.”

“Hardly. My slaver, my hated enemy,” Entreri assured her as she pressed against Drizzt, trying to get at Entreri.

That seemed to calm Dahlia, so much so that when Drizzt shook her and forced her to look at him again, she said, “Had I known that Aleg…” She stopped and swallowed hard, and seemed incapable of even speaking the name.

Entreri couldn’t believe his good luck. He did indeed recognize the profound pain in Dahlia’s eyes and knew that in simply speaking Alegni’s name, he’d inadvertently made the important pivot needed to lure these two into his personal battle.

“Had I known he led the Netherese, I would have remained at Sylora Salm’s side,” Dahlia said to Drizzt.

Drizzt glanced over his shoulder at Entreri with obvious concern.

Entreri hardly noticed, and didn’t return the look, for now it occurred to him that even being here at this time might well be aiding his hated master. Alegni had the sword, and the sword had Entreri. It could access his innermost thoughts and memories at any time.

Entreri leaped back up upon his nightmare steed. “I’m not your ally in this,” Entreri announced to them. “Though I would love to see Herzgo Alegni dead.”

Drizzt started to respond, but Entreri didn’t wait, kicking his nightmare into a leap and gallop, off into the forest night.

Drizzt spun to face Dahlia, who all but collapsed into his arms.

“I’ll kill him,” she said coldly, without emotion, but when Drizzt lifted her face to his, he saw tears flow down her delicate cheeks.

She was still alive. She couldn’t be! No one should have suffered this amount of pain without expiring.

So much pain, indeed, that Sylora Salm had not even realized that she was still alive for a long, long while. But now she realized the truth of it, and that alone made her realize her pain had subsided a bit.

Sylora gasped and coughed. The Dread Ring was healing her!

She moved her leg back under her, straightening once more, and as her body shifted, she saw her guardian, Valindra Shadowmantle, standing just to the side, holding Sylora’s crooked wand, aiming it Sylora’s way. Valindra called upon the powers of the Dread Ring to heal Sylora’s mortal wounds.

“Valindra,” she mouthed, barely audible, though the lich smiled and seemed to hear. “Thank you.”

Valindra cackled loudly. “Thank you?” she echoed. “I only keep my enemies from having the pleasure.”

Sylora looked at her curiously-more curiously when another form moved up beside Valindra.

The Thayan sorceress understood her doom, in Jestry’s eyes-or eye, for Artemis Entreri’s dagger remained deeply embedded in the other. That one visible eye socket, the orb gouged out by the knife the assassin had later retrieved, flickered with red flame, with the energy of undeath. Sylora had attuned him to the Dread Ring with the scepter she’d created for him, and now the ring had done its job, had brought him back into a state of powerful undeath.

And the creature wasn’t looking upon the broken sorceress fondly.

Valindra cackled louder and spun away, gliding into the dark and smoky night.

Jestry towered over Sylora, reaching down to grab her roughly. He easily lifted her into the air.

Then the powerful undead creature bent her in half backward, shattering her spine, folding her like a brittle parchment. She screamed with her last dying breath, before Jestry slammed her broken form down into the ground and began to stomp on her with his heavy wrapped feet, a thousand times.

The imp growled and twisted and pushed, but to no avail against the strong strands of the magical web that held it up high on the wall.

“You didn’t think I would allow a creature such as yourself to fly in and out of Neverwinter freely, did you?” Effron said, pacing in front of the diminutive devil.

“You err, warlock,” the imp insisted. “My mistress-”

“Arunika,” said Effron, and his recognition seemed to put the devil back on its clawed heels a bit.

“My mistress is powerful, and intolerant of-”

“Shut up,” Effron said quietly, but with such a threat in his voice that the imp complied.

“I don’t intend to hurt you,” Effron explained. “As long as you understand that you now work for me, and for Herzgo Alegni, as well as for your mistress.”

“I am of the Nine Hells, not the Abyss,” the imp said with a little snarl.

“And I can send you back there, in pieces.”

The two stared at each other for many heartbeats then Effron said simply, “Tell me of the events in Neverwinter Wood.”

Later on the next morning, Effron found Herzgo Alegni on his namesake bridge, as usual, and recounted the strange but promising news of the previous night’s events.

“Sylora Salm is no more,” Alegni said smugly when the warlock was finished. “Perhaps Draygo Quick will allow me to leave this place at long last.”

“Our enemies have been dealt a serious wound, but they are not gone,” Effron pointed out.

“Led by an insane lich,” said Alegni.

“More sane every day, from what I can determine, and she’s being aided, perhaps by Arunika.”

Herzgo Alegni looked at him curiously.

“I don’t know all of the details,” Effron admitted.

“Then learn them!”

Effron nodded.

“Now Barrabus rides with Sylora’s champion and her powerful drow ally,” Alegni mused.

“Artemis Entreri,” Effron corrected, and when Alegni looked at him with surprise, the twisted warlock clarified, “His name is Artemis Entreri.”

Herzgo Alegni laughed and walked to the bridge railing, staring out over the running river as it wound its way to the sea. “I’d forgotten that name,” Alegni admitted. “I’ve not heard it in decades. Nor had he, I would assume.” He glanced over his shoulder at Effron. “He’s still mine, you understand, and so his name remains Barrabus.”

“They’re unpredictable, and powerful,” Effron warned.

“Quite predictable,” Alegni corrected. “Barrabus will try to get his new friends to come after me.”

Effron grinned as he mouthed “Dahlia Syn’dalay” with open malice.