It was the look on Drizzt’s face as he turned the back side of that circle that alerted Regis to trouble, for the drow suddenly broke concentration on his primary target, his eyes going wide as he looked Regis’s way.
Purely on instinct, Regis snapped out his mace and spun, swinging wildly.
He hit the thrusting sword right before it would have entered his back. Regis gave a yelp of surprise, and still got cut across his left arm as he turned. He fell back against the wall, his desperate gaze going to Drizzt, and he found himself trying to yell out, “No!” as if all the world had suddenly turned upside down.
For Drizzt had started to sprint Regis’s way, and so quick was he that against almost any enemy, he would have been able to cleanly disengage.
But that dwarf wasn’t any enemy, and Regis could only stare in horror as the dwarf’s primary hand weapon, the one that had blown so gaping a hole in the building, came on a backhand at the passing drow.
Drizzt sensed it, or anticipated it, and he dived into a forward roll.
He couldn’t avoid the morningstar, and his roll went all the faster for the added momentum.
Amazingly, the blow didn’t prove lethal, though, and the drow came right around in a full run at Regis’s attacker—who, spying his certain doom, tried to run away.
He didn’t even begin his turn, backstepping still, when Drizzt caught him, scimitars working in a blur. The man’s sword went flying in moments, and he fell back and to the ground, his chest stabbed three separate times.
He stared at the drow and at Regis for just a moment before falling flat.
Drizzt spun as if expecting pursuit, but the dwarf was still far back in the alleyway, casually spinning his morningstars.
“Get to Deudermont,” Drizzt whispered to Regis, and he tucked one scimitar under his other arm and put his open hand out and low. As soon as Regis stepped into it, Drizzt hoisted him up to grab onto the low roof of the shed and pull himself over as Drizzt hoisted him to his full outstretched height.
The drow turned the moment Regis was out of sight, scimitars in hand, but still the dwarf had not approached.
“Could’ve killed ye to death, darkskin,” the dwarf said. “Could’ve put me magic on the ball that clipped ye, and oh, but ye’d still be rollin’! Clear out o’ the streets and into the bay, ye’d still be rollin’! Bwahahahaha!”
Regis looked to Drizzt, and was shocked to see that his friend was not disagreeing.
“Or I could’ve just chased ye down the hall,” the dwarf went on. “Quick as ye were rid o’ that fool wouldn’t’ve been quick enough to set yerself against the catastrophe coming yer way from behind!”
Again, the drow didn’t disagree. “But you didn’t,” Drizzt said, walking slowly back toward his adversary. “You didn’t enact the morningstar’s magic and you didn’t pursue me. Twice you had the win, by your own boast, and twice you didn’t take it.”
“Bah, wasn’t fair!” bellowed the dwarf. “What’s the fun in that?”
“Then you have honor,” said Drizzt.
“Got nothin’ else, elf.”
“Then why waste it?” Drizzt cried. “You are a fine warrior, to be sure. Join with me and with Deudermont. Put your skills—
“What?” the dwarf interrupted. “To the cause of good? There ain’t no cause of good, ye fool elf. Not in the fightin’. There’s only them wantin’ more power, and the killers like yerself and meself helpin’ one side or the other side—they’re both the same side, ye see—climb to the top o’ the hill.”
“No,” said Drizzt. “There is more.”
“Bwahahahaha!” roared the dwarf. “Still a young one, I’m guessin’!”
“I can offer you amnesty, here and now,” said Drizzt. “All past crimes will be forgiven, or at least…not asked about.”
“Bwahahahaha!” the dwarf roared again. “If ye only knowed the half of it, elf, ye wouldn’t be so quick to put Athrogate by yer side!” And with that, he charged, yelling, “Have at it!”
Drizzt paused only long enough to look up at Regis and snap, “Go!”
Regis had barely clambered two crawling steps up the steep roof when he heard the pair below come crashing together.
“Scream louder,” the Crow ordered, and he twisted his dagger deeper into the belly of the woman, who readily complied.
A moment later, Kensidan, giggling at his own cleverness, tossed the pained woman aside, as the door to the room crashed open and Captain Deudermont, diverted by the screams from his rush to the kitchen service door of Suljack’s palace, charged in.
“Noble to a fault,” said Kensidan. “And with the road of retreat clear before you. I suppose I should salute you, but alas, I simply don’t feel like it.”
Deudermont’s gaze went from the injured woman to the son of Rethnor, who reclined casually against a window sill.
“Have you taken in the view, Captain?” Kensidan asked. “The fall of the City of Sails…It’s a marvelous thing, don’t you think?”
“Why would you do this?” Deudermont asked, coming forward in cautious and measured steps.
“I?” Kensidan replied. “It was not Ship Rethnor that went against the Hosttower.”
“That fight is ended, and won.”
“This fight is that fight, you fool,” said Kensidan. “When you decapitated Luskan, you set into motion this very struggle for power.”
“We could have joined forces and ruled from a position of justice.”
“Justice for the poor—ah, yes, that is the beauty of your rhetoric,” Kensidan replied in a mocking tone, and he hopped up from the window sill and drew his sword to compliment the long dagger. “And has it not occurred to the captain of a pirate hunter that not all the poor of Luskan are so deserving of justice? Or that there are afoot in the city many who wouldn’t prosper as well under such an idyllic design?”
“That is why I needed the high captains, fool,” Deudermont countered, spitting every word.
“Can you be so innocent, Deudermont, as to believe that men like us would willingly surrender power?”
“Can you be so cynical, Kensidan, son of Rethnor, as to be blind to the possibilities of the common good?”
“I live among pirates, so I fought them with piracy,” Kensidan replied.
“You had a choice. You could have changed things.”
“And you had a choice. You could have minded your own business. You could have left Luskan alone, and now, more recently, you could have simply gone home. You accuse me of pride and greed for not following you, but in truth, it’s your own pride that blinded you to the realities of this place you would remake in your likeness, and your own greed that has kept you here. A tragedy, indeed, for here you will die, and Luskan will steer onto a course even farther from your hopes and dreams.”
On the floor, the woman groaned.
“Let me take her out of here,” Deudermont said.
“Of course,” Kensidan replied. “All you have to do is kill me, and she’s yours.”
Without any further hesitation, Captain Deudermont launched himself forward at the son of Rethnor, his fine sword cutting a trail before him.
Kensidan tried to execute a parry with his dagger, thinking to bring his sword to bear for a quick kill, but Deudermont was far too fast and practiced. Kensidan wound up only barely tapping the thrusting sword with his dagger before flailing wildly with his own sword to hardly move Deudermont’s aside.
The captain retracted quickly and thrust again, pulled up short before another series of wild parry attempts, then thrust forth again.
“Oh, but you are good!” said Kensidan.
Deudermont didn’t let up through the compliment, but launched another thrust then retracted and brought his sword up high for a following downward strike.
Kensidan barely got his sword up horizontally above him to block, and as he did, he turned, for his back was nearing a wall. The weight of the blow had him scrambling to keep his feet.