She was slim-hipped and long-haired, as small as the man was large. Her face looked elven, but Jherek wasn't sure. She wore dark clothing, a rider's outfit, one used to rough handling. A light breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders in a fluttering halo, and wiggled the fletchings of the quarrel nestled in the groove of the crossbow she held.
Jherek saw her hand clench, letting him know she'd fired. With Malorrie's training, he knew there was a chance of avoiding the bolt as it leaped from the bow. A speeding quarrel couldn't change course in mid-air unless it was magical in nature. All he had to do was move, but when he did, it was already too late.
The woman's beauty surprised him, making him wonder how anyone so pretty could cold-bloodedly feather someone she didn't even know.
The heavy bolt crashed into his chest, burying deep just below his left shoulder. His arm went numb at once even as his chest seemed to catch on fire. The impact knocked him backward and he stumbled as he tried to regain his balance. The numbness spread down his spine, stilling his legs. He fell.
"Vyane!" the big man yelled again.
"Silence, Croess," the woman said with an accent that Jherek couldn't place.
"The little bastard nearly killed me. Look what he's done to my leg."
Jherek lay on his back and tried to breathe. He couldn't. It was like the crossbow bolt had nailed his chest closed. He lay still, staring up into the sky, at the stars he'd gotten so accustomed to while on watch in Butterfly's crow's nest. He couldn't even blink or move his eyes as he watched the woman approach.
"Your own fault," she told the big man without sympathy. "You moved on him from out of the shadows. He should have been dead before he even knew you were there."
"You saw how quick he was," Croess protested. "Fanged demons take me if I'm lying, but he's hardly more than a boy and he fights like a damned whirlwind."
"You knew he would be something different. We were told that." She stared down at Jherek with empty eyes and said, "A crossbow bolt did for him just fine." She glanced across Jherek and added, to someone, "You said there was gold?"
"Aye," a man said.
Jherek strained to hear better, but the numbness filling his body seemed to affect his ears as well. He was certain he knew the voice.
"Old Finaren, he's soft on his people. Always puts something aside for them. Knew he'd give it to this boy even with him being what he is."
The elf woman knelt and went through Jherek's clothing. Her practiced fingers found the leather pouch Finaren had given him. She tossed it, seeming to weigh its worth in that single motion. "So young," she said, standing. "Pity."
"We should take his head," Croess said. "Prove to that damned wizard that we did what we set out to do."
"No," the woman replied. "He'll take our word."
"His foot, then," the big man said. "We'll make it look like the ghost that's supposed to haunt this place was responsible for killing him."
"After you've gone and bled all over the place?" the woman taunted. She shook her head. "No, I'll not have him mutilated. The old woman who raised him will be allowed to bury all of him."
"Maybe that's not your choice," the big man grated. "It was me that got hurt. I'll do as I damn well please."
"Try, and he won't be the only one who dies here tonight," the woman promised.
Silence filled the court for a moment, then Jherek heard the big man limp away. His hearing dwindled, making it impossible for him to hear anything else that might have been said. His vision blurred, then finally turned dark. He felt stilled, buried in the icy core of his own shadow, wearing it like a shroud.
Through it all, even though the fear and anger burned through him, he wondered where the voice was. Why wasn't it commanding him again, telling him to live so that he could serve?
The darkness crept in and stole even his thoughts away.
VIII
Laaqueel paused at the top of the wooden steps leading up to Fishgut Court. The battle taking place out in the harbor was drawing all of Waterdeep's attention. More sailors and shopkeepers ran toward the harbor. Several of them brushed past Iakhovas and his wererat group, letting her know his spell still masked them. She studied the harbor, amazed that the attack had made it this far. Even when Iakhovas had made his plans, she'd had her doubts.
Another fiery salvo came from Waterdeep Castle's catapults, painting flaming lines through the dark sky for a moment, then splashing down in the water in a violent flash of sparks and hisses that overrode even the screaming fear and rage and disbelief coming from the surface dwellers. Fingers of oily fire splayed out over the waves stirred up by Iakhovas's wizard's storm. The waves crashed ten feet high now, slopping over the sides of many vessels at anchor and shoving them into each other.
A Waterdhavian Watch wizard rode a flying carpet out over the harbor toward a floundering raker besieged by sahuagin boarding from the water. The malenti watched the wizard start his gestures to unleash a spell. Her instinctive fear was of fire, knowing how quickly her people perished when fought with that element. She said a quick prayer to Sekolah to spare the sahuagin warriors because the dead could not fight and she knew the Great Shark would understand that. The sahuagin didn't see him, and she wished she could call out a warning.
Despite the howling winds being stirred up by the storm, the flying carpet held steady. It even held steady when the brine dragon's head erupted from the uneven water. The dragon was nearly thirty feet in length and had a triangular, wedge-shaped head filled with sharp teeth. Covered with ridged and craggy scales that didn't fit well together, the creature was a virulent green. Yellow tufts ridged its head, running from between its eyes and becoming standing scales as they went on down its back. It had flippers instead of claws. Snapping its wide mouth open, it clamped down over the wizard, swallowing him and the carpet whole. The dragon disappeared below the surface again just as quickly.
"Laaqueel," Iakhovas called in a harsh voice.
She turned to face him.
"We're not here to win, little malenti," the wizard told her. Lightning suddenly savaged the skies, a forked white-hot sword that sheathed itself in purple umber, then winked out. In the brief, eye-stinging flash of light, Iakhovas's tattoos stood out harshly against his skin. "But neither then shall your people lose more than the surface dwellers."
Knowing it was the best she was going to get, she nodded. As she turned to take another look at the action in the harbor, a dragon turtle surfaced. It stretched his ponderous head out, unveiling the scaled armor protecting its neck, and breathed a cloud of scalding steam over sailors manning a nearby cargo ship. The men died instantly, their corpses throwing off gray smoke as they cooled in the night. Maybe the sahuagin wouldn't win this battle, but the malenti knew that this night would never be forgotten in the history of the City of Splendors.
"Haste, little malenti," Iakhovas told her. "Even now, with all the strength I've gathered, I'm not without limits. Should I not get what I've come for this night, the sahuagin sacrifices will indeed be for naught. I am their savior whether you wish it so or not."
Laaqueel tightened her grip on her sword. Was he lying, or was he telling the truth about his limitation? She didn't know. She gazed into his black eye, knowing the patch over his other eye was a silent promise that he wasn't infallible, unless it was a sacrifice he'd willingly made at some time in exchange for something he wanted more.