And then the first of his pursuers came in at him. One slipped to his back before he even got close. Another held her footing and slid toward him on the slick grass. She held out her scepter to parry Barrabus’s swinging sword.
Barrabus neatly sidestepped and the sword went high above her. In the same movement, he reached his dagger hand through the opening at the crook of the woman’s left elbow. She tried to bring her scepter into position for an offensive strike. But as her hand went behind her, he brought it up hard and swung it back over. He turned sidelong to the woman and over she went, unable to resist the throw.
She landed on her feet and even managed to turn enough in mid-air so that she almost faced him. But it did her little good. Barrabus’s dagger arm stabbed out, driving the blade deep into her chest.
At the same time, Barrabus aimed his sword down at the second attacker. The sword slipped into the Ashmadai’s gut, angled to slice through his diaphragm and into his lungs.
Barrabus didn’t pause long enough to consider whether he’d finished either of those opponents. He leaped away in another sidelong somersault, his black cloak flying wide to obscure his form. He landed on slick grass. He leaped again in the same direction then a third time in rapid succession, until finally, he found solid footing.
Another pair of Ashmadai rushed at him, jabbing their weapons, just as the woman he’d stabbed climbed back to her feet and came at him. With a disgusted look, Barrabus brought his sword down and around in front of him, and on the upswing, tossed it into the air so that his hand could grasp and activate his belt buckle dagger.
He flicked his wrist, launching the knife, and caught his sword so fluidly that neither of the two battling him even realized that he’d tossed the sword free of his hand, let alone thrown a knife.
Until the blade stuck deep into the woman’s throat. She crumbled to her knees but kept crawling, praying to her beloved arch-devil with every movement.
Barrabus, heavily engaged with the other pair, didn’t find her zealotry admirable or amusing. Just stupid.
He worked his new opponents into just the right angle. When the crawling zealot reached him, he simply shifted his foot and half-turned, dropping a heavy sword chop on the back of her head.
She fell to the ground as surely as if a large rock had fallen on her from on high, and Barrabus went back to stabbing and parrying and slashing at the other two.
The woman groaned, pulled herself back to all fours, and started crawling again.
One of the zealots battling Barrabus cried out in ecstasy, “Asmodeus!”
He should have concentrated on Barrabus instead, for his distraction gave the agile assassin all the opening he needed. He darted in between the pair, turned, and shoved out, sending the fool stumbling to the side and right over the crawling woman’s back.
He brought his arms back in close, one elbow driving back to hit the other opponent under the ribs, lifting him up on his toes. Barrabus dropped to one knee as the man lurched forward. He brought his dagger hand up over the man’s head, driving him down.
Barrabus hopped back to his feet and stabbed his sword into the hollow of the man’s throat. Behind the crawling woman, the other Ashmadai tried to spring up, but Barrabus’s dagger flew toward him and stuck in his chest, sending him back to the ground, gasping.
The woman stubbornly came at him again. On her knees, head lifted to face the assassin, she cried out, “Asmode-!”
Before she could finish the word, Barrabus decapitated her. Her head spun long into the empty air. It landed facing Barrabus and showed no look of horror there, just defiance.
He rushed past, kicking her kneeling, headless corpse to the ground, and finished off the other attackers. As he bent to retrieve his dagger from the Ashmadai’s chest, he spit on the man’s body.
He sensed others near him, so he leaped around, landing at the ready.
It was not a group of Ashmadai standing in front of him, but a trio of Shadovar.
“Well done, Barrabus the Gray,” one of them remarked. “Master Alegni requests that you return to the city at once, as we will win the field.”
Barrabus glanced across at the Netherese lord.
He trotted to the wall, pausing to collect his belt buckle dagger from the corpse of the decapitated woman, then veered over to scoop up the first Ashmadai he’d defeated this night, the woman still very much alive.
He set her over his shoulder and ran to the base of the wall, calling up for a rope.
When he climbed a few moments later, he took the captured Ashmadai with him. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, except that he knew he didn’t want to leave Herzgo Alegni such a trophy.
6
High Captain Kurth was widely regarded as the most impressive of the five leaders of Luskan. Standing in front of him, it wasn’t hard for Drizzt and Dahlia to discern why. Unlike the other four leaders of the City of Sails, Kurth had not inherited his station. He’d fought for it and won it, both in a tournament of combat and sailing skills, and in a subsequent vote of the many crewmembers of Ship Kurth. Upon his victory, he, like those before him since the time of Deudermont’s fall, had abandoned his birth name and taken the title of the proud Ship.
“An interesting dilemma Beniago has presented me with, wouldn’t you say?” Kurth asked Advisor Klutarch, the man he’d bested for the position of high captain.
The older man grinned his gap-toothed smile and stroked the sharp gray stubble on his cheeks and chin, nodding all the while. “Beniago angles for his turn at high captain,” Klutarch answered. He turned to face the red-haired Beniago, who stood in front of Drizzt and Dahlia. “Don’t ye, ye sea dog? Or might that ye’d’ve been better off killing the dark-skinned one, as ’twas the light-skinned lady ye was sent to retrieve?”
Drizzt and Dahlia looked at each other with not a small bit of confusion, for the pirates spoke so cavalierly of them, as if they were not present-or still armed.
“Lady Dahlia travels with the drow,” Beniago replied. “High Captain Kurth made clear that he wished to engage Lady Dahlia on good terms, and I didn’t think that a likely outcome were I to kill her companion.”
“Not if all the guards of Luskan fought beside you, idiot,” Dahlia muttered under her breath, and Drizzt flashed her a grin. Beniago heard her too. He glanced back and gave the woman a cold stare.
“Better not to anger Bregan D’aerthe,” High Captain Kurth remarked. “You are of that band, are you not?” he asked Drizzt.
“I’m a well-known companion of Jarlaxle of Bregan D’aerthe,” Drizzt bluffed, the implication a lie though the literal words were true enough.
“Well, where have he and Bregan D’aerthe been?” Kurth asked, not hiding his impatience. “Every month there are fewer sightings, and I fear the whole of the drow presence quickly fades into myth.” Kurth came forward in his chair, his face growing serious. “There are rumors that they plot with one of the five, to elevate him as their puppet ruler of all of Luskan.”
Drizzt did not reply, for while he had no knowledge of any such thing, of course, he couldn’t deny it was a distinct possibility where the drow mercenary band was concerned, with or without Jarlaxle leading them.
“Perhaps you will prove to be an important prisoner, then,” Kurth went on. “Or, better for yourself, a fine spy.”
“Why would Bregan D’aerthe desire such an outcome?” Drizzt asked innocently.
“Do tell.”
“Five weaker high captains are more malleable than a single powerful leader, surely,” Drizzt explained. “Too involved in matters of their own Ships to join in common cause… We saw that even in the long-past war against Captain Deudermont, did we not?”
Kurth and Klutarch glanced at each other and smiled.
“A single powerful ruler, or even if the five could be of one mind, would be better positioned to bargain more for the benefit of Luskan, yes?” Drizzt went on. “But fortunately, we outsiders rarely had to fear the five high captains being of one mind or purpose. And always, we can count on one having a price to shift his fealty. Other than the war against Captain Deudermont, I cannot think of a time when they’ve all come together for anything more than a shared dinner.”