The goblin on the dwarf's right lifted its glaive, howled, and charged.
Just the answer Athrogate was hoping for.
Artemis Entreri slipped behind a dressing screen when he heard the dwarf pushing through the door. Never an admirer of Athrogate, and never quite trusting him, the assassin was glad for the opportunity to eavesdrop.
"Ah, there ye be, ye elf-skinny pretender to me throne," Athrogate bellowed as he pushed into Calihye's room.
The woman looked at him with a sidelong glance, seeming unconcerned— and a big part of that confidence, Entreri knew, came from the fact that he was within striking distance.
"So ye're thinking that ye got yerself a title here, are ye?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Lady Calihye, leading the board," Athrogate replied, and Calihye and Entreri nodded in recognition.
At the Vaasan Gate, a contest of sorts was being run by the many adventurers striking out into the wilderness. A price had been put on the ears of the various monsters roaming the wasteland, and to add to the enjoyment, the gate's commanders had put up a peg board listing the rankings of the bounty hunters. Almost from the start, Athrogate's name had topped that board, a position he had held until only a few months previous, when Calihye had claimed the title. Her fighting companion, Parissus, had been only a few kills back of the dwarf.
"Ye think I'm caring?" the dwarf asked.
"More than I am, obviously," replied the half-elf.
Behind the screen, Entreri nodded again, pleased with the response from the warrior who had become so dear to him.
Athrogate harrumphed and snorted, and roared, "Well, ye ain't for staying there!"
Entreri paid close attention to every inflection. Was the dwarf threatening Calihye?
The assassin's hands instinctively went to his weapon, and he dared move a bit farther behind the screen so that he could peek around the edge closest to the door, the angle of attack that would bring him in at the powerful dwarf's flank, if it came to that.
He relaxed as Athrogate brought one hand forward holding a small, bulging sack—and Entreri knew well what might be in there.
"Ye'll be looking at me rump again, half-elf," Athrogate remarked, and gave the bag a shake. "Fourteen goblins, a pair o' stupid orcs, and an ogre for good measure."
Calihye shrugged as if she didn't care.
"Ye best be winter huntin', if ye got enough dwarf in ye," Athrogate said. "Meself, I'll be goin' south to drink through the snows, so if ye're having some good luck, ye might get back on top—not that ye'll stay there more than a few days once the melt's on."
Athrogate paused there, and a wry smile showed between the bushy black hair of his beard. "Course, ye ain't got yer hunting partner no more, now do ye? Unless ye're to convince the sneak to go out with ye, and I'm not thinking that one's much for snowy trails!"
Entreri was too distracted to take offense at that last remark, however honest, for Calihye's wince had not been slight when Athrogate had referred to Parissus. The wound was still raw, he knew. Calihye and Parissus had been fighting side-by-side for years, and Parissus was dead, killed on the road to Palishchuk after she fell from the wagon Entreri drove from a horde of winged, snakelike monsters.
"I have little desire to go out and hunt goblins, good dwarf," Calihye said, her voice steady—though with some effort, Entreri noted.
The dwarf snorted at her. "Do as ye will or do as ye won't," he replied. "I'm not for carin', for I'll be takin' me title in the spring, from yerself or anyone else who's thinkin' to best me. Don't ye doubt!"
"Not to doubt and not to care," Calihye said, taking some of his bluster.
Indeed, Athrogate hardly seemed to have an answer for that. He just nodded and made an indecipherable sound, and shook the bag of ears at Calihye. Then he nodded again, said, "Yeah," and turned and walked out the door.
Entreri didn't note the movement at all, for he stayed focused on Calihye, who held her composure well though the weight of the dwarf's remarks surely sat heavily on her delicate shoulders.
CHAPTER 2
THE ROAD TO BLOODSTONE
The companions could not have appeared more disparate. Jarlaxle rode a tall, lean mare, seventeen hands at least. He was dressed all in finery—silk clothing, a great sweeping cloak, and a huge wide-brimmed purple hat, adorned with the gigantic feather of a diatryma bird. He seemed impervious to the dust of the road, as not a smudge or stain showed on his clothing. He was lean and graceful, sitting perfectly upright, appearing as a noble of great stature and breeding. One could easily imagine him as a prince of drow society, a dark emissary skilled in the ways of diplomacy.
The dwarf riding next to him, on a donkey no less, could never have been accused of such delicacies. Stocky and brutish, many might have confused Athrogate for the source of the road's dirt. To the obvious irritation of the poor donkey, he wore a suit of armor, part leather, part plated, and covered with a myriad of buckles and straps. He hadn't bothered with a saddle, but just clamped his legs tightly around the unfortunate beast, which poked along stiff-legged, giving the dwarf a jolting and popping ride. His weapons, a pair of gray, glassteel morningstars, rose up in an X from his back, their spiked heads bouncing with each of the donkey's jarring steps.
And of course, Athrogate's considerable hair, too, was so unlike the cleanshaven drow, whose head shone smooth and black beneath the rim of his great hat—and indeed, those occasions when Jarlaxle lifted the hat showed him to be completely devoid of hair on his head, save a pair of thin, angled eyebrows. Athrogate wore his mane like a proud lion. Black hair, lots of it, lifted wildly from his head in every direction, blending with an abundance coming out of his ears, and he had once more braided his great beard, with its customary part in the middle, each braid secured with ties that featured blue gemstones.
"Ah, but ain't we the big heroes," Athrogate said to his traveling companion.
Ahead of them on the trail rode Artemis Entreri and Calihye, with a couple of soldiers leading the way. Behind the drow and the dwarf came more soldiers, leading a caisson that held the body of Commander Ellery, the young and once-promising knight, niece of King Gareth Dragonsbane and an officer in the Army of Bloodstone. The people of the Bloodstone Lands mourned Ellery's loss. The heroine had been cut down in the strange castle that had appeared in the bog lands of Vaasa, north of the half-orc city of Palishchuk.
Jarlaxle was glad that no one other than he and Entreri knew the truth of her death, that it had come at Entreri's hand during a fight between Ellery and Jarlaxle.
"Heroes, indeed," the drow finally replied. "I prophesied as much to you when I pulled you out of that hole. Holding fast to your anger about Canthan's unfortunate demise would have been a rather silly attitude when so much glory was there for our taking."
"Who said I was angry?" Athrogate huffed. "Just didn't want to have to eat the fool."
"It was more than that, good dwarf."
"Bwahaha!"
"Your allegiances were torn—legitimately so," Jarlaxle said, and glanced at Athrogate to try to measure the dwarf's reaction.