"There is a saying in the desert that bold is once removed from foolish," he said in a dialect far more cultured and reminiscent of Calimport than the open sands.
"Your sentries appeared to have dropped their protestations," Jarlaxle replied. "We had thought a deal struck. Water for stories."
"I have no need of your stories."
"Ah, but they are grand, and the water will not be missed."
"I know a story of a man named Artemis Entreri," the boss said. "A man who served with Pasha Basadoni."
"He is dead," said Entreri.
The boss eyed him curiously. "Did he not name you as…?"
"Artemis," Entreri confirmed. "Just Artemis."
"Of Pasha Basadoni's guild?"
"No," Entreri said, at the same time Jarlaxle replied, "Yes." The pair turned and looked at each other.
"I claim no allegiance to any guild," Entreri said to the boss.
"And yet you dare to walk into my oasis—"
"It is not yours."
"Your diplomacy skills are amazing," Jarlaxle muttered to Entreri.
The fat man held his scepter out before him horizontally. "Bold," he said and he tipped one end up slightly. "Foolish," he added, and he more than reversed the angle, as if weighing his words with a scale.
"My friend is weary from many days on the road, and in the hot sun," said Jarlaxle. "We are traveling adventurers."
"Blades for hire?"
Jarlaxle smiled.
"So you would offer your services in exchange for my water?"
"That would be quite a bargain for…?"
"I am Sultan Alhabara."
"Quite a bargain for Sultan Alhabara, then," said Jarlaxle. "I assure you that our services are quite formidable."
"Indeed," said the fat man, and he gave a slight chuckle, which brought a response of laughter from the six men fanned out about him. "And what fee would be deemed appropriate for the services of Artemis and…?"
"I am Drizzt Do'Urden," said the drow-turned-elf.
"By the balls of a castrated orc," muttered Entreri and he heaved a great sigh.
"What?" Jarlaxle asked, feigning innocence as he turned to him.
"We could not have just ridden by, could we?" Entreri replied. "Very well, then."
"Easy, Artemis," Jarlaxle bade him.
"Our fee is more than fat Alhabara can afford," Entreri said to the man. "More than stupid Alhabara can imagine. The water is free, in any case, by edict of Memnon and of Calimport. Can the criminal Alhabara understand that?"
Alhabara flashed a fierce scowl and the men around him sputtered with outrage, but Entreri didn't relent.
"And so I take what is free, without asking the permission of a common thief," he said and he swept his gaze out at the others as he finished, "And the first of you to lift blade against me will be the first to die this day."
The man in the middle of the trio to Entreri's left did draw on him, tearing a khopesh from his belt and waving it menacingly in Entreri's direction. The man even came forward a step, or started to, but a look from Entreri held him in place.
Alhabara, meanwhile, fell back several steps and lifted his scepter defensively before him.
"Rulership," Jarlaxle whispered to Entreri, correctly identifying the magical rod the sultan held, for it was one he had seen before, many times, among chieftains and tribal leaders. If it was akin to any of the similar rods Jarlaxle had known, such an item could enable its wielder to impose his will on his would-be subjects—those of weak mind, at least.
A moment later, both the drow and the assassin felt a wave of compulsion wash over them, a telepathic call from Sultan Alhabara to fall to their knees.
The pair looked to each other, then back at the man. "Hardly," Entreri said.
To either side of the companions, weapons came forth. Jarlaxle responded by plucking the feather from his cap and tossing it to the ground him. The item transformed into a gigantic, twelve-foot-tall creature known as a diatryma, a great flightless bird with short wings tucked in close to its sides, and a thick, strong neck and powerful triangular beak.
The six closest men screamed and fell back. Alhabara scrambled away and cried out, "Kill them!"
The man nearest the bird on the right tried to rush past it to get at the man and the elf, but the diatryma's powerful neck snapped as he passed, driving the beak into his shoulder with such force that it snapped bone and dislocated his shoulder so badly that it left his arm swinging numbly several inches down from its previous position, and far to the back. The man yelped and tumbled to the grass, howling pitifully.
Charon's Claw and his jeweled dagger in hand, Entreri leaped at the trio on the left. Back-to-back with him, Jarlaxle snapped his wrist, bringing a magical dagger into his hand from his enchanted bracer. A second snap elongated that dagger into a slender sword, which the drow flipped to his left hand and used to parry the nearest khopesh in the same movement.
His right hand snapped again and the bracer answered. While working his sword brilliantly and fluidly to keep that troublesome khopesh at bay, he retracted and flung the dagger at the last in line. Hardly slowing, he wrist-snapped, retracted, and threw again, and again.
The man was good with his blade and quite agile. After five throws, he only had one dagger-wound in one thigh, and that had been no more than a glancing blow. His friend tried to press the attack on Jarlaxle, but the agile drow easily held him at bay, even working his sword around the khopesh to stick him lightly in the ribs.
And all the while, Jarlaxle kept up the flow of daggers, spinning end over end and coming at the man high, low, and center with no discernable, thus no defensible pattern. The man couldn't anticipate, he could only react, and in that state, another blade got through, grazing the side of his face, then a third—a solid strike into the shoulder of his sword arm.
Worse for him, and for his friend, Jarlaxle's pet bird intervened, trampling the man as he pressed in on Jarlaxle. The man managed to bang his khopesh off the giant creature's leg, but the bird stomped him, then jabbed down with three hard pecks.
Jarlaxle sent it off after Sultan Alhabara, as he turned his attention to the remaining man. His next dagger came forth and he did not throw it, but snapped his hand to elongate it into a second, sister blade.
He stalked at his wounded opponent.
A trio of arrows soared in from the side, shot from a tree across the oasis.
Jarlaxle saw them too late to avoid them.
Entreri turned left, then went went that direction and forward, moving to the flank of the trio so that they all couldn't get at him at once. He led with an underhanded sweep of his dagger, one that, because of his bold stride forward, caught the swinging sword up near the hilt and allowed him the leverage to turn it out with just that small blade. Without room to maneuver his own sword, he came across with a right-hand punch instead, cracking Charon's Claw's pommel into the man's cheek.
He followed through with the punch past the man's broken face, extended his left arm, taking both the khopesh and the man's arm out wide with him, and rolled his sword arm over that extension then down and under.
Feeling pressure from a second attacker coming in behind him, Entreri rolled right over the arm, a complete flip that left him on his feet, and he came up strong, lifting his sword arm high, gashing the bandit's arm in the process. A twist had the man rolling over Entreri's hip, flailing helplessly.
"You are dead," Entreri promised, for the man had no defense at all. "Except…"
Entreri reversed his grip as he dropped his sword arm, and he stabbed out behind him as he did a sudden reverse pivot.
The blade drove into the gut of a second bandit, the one who had been in the middle of the trio, the one who had drawn first.