Servant of the Shard ts-1 Read online

  Back and forth it went, the humans wisely holding their position, not following any of the individually retreating dark elves and thus weakening their own defenses. Blade rang against blade, and the magical swords Kohrin Soulez had provided his best-trained soldiers matched up well enough against the drow weapons.

  The dark elves exchanged words the humans did not understand. Then the three drow attacked in unison, all six swords up high in a blurring dance. Human swords and shields came up to meet the challenge and the resulting clang of metal against metal rang out like a single note.

  That note soon changed, diminished, and all three of the human soldiers came to recognize, but not completely to comprehend, that their attackers had each dropped one sword.

  Shields and swords up high to meet the continuing challenge, they only understood their exposure below the level of the fight when they heard the clicks of three small crossbows and felt the sting as small darts burrowed into their bellies.

  The dark elves backed off a step. Tonakin Ta'salz, the central soldier, called out to his companions that he was hit, but that he was all right. The soldier to Tonakin's left started to say the same, but his words were slurred and groggy. Tonakin glanced over just in time to see him tumble facedown in the dirt. To his right, there came no response at all.

  Tonakin was alone. He took a deep breath and skittered back against the wall as the three dark elves retrieved their dropped swords. One of them said something to him that he did not understand, but while the words escaped him, the expression on the drow's face did not.

  He should have fallen down asleep, the drow was telling him. Tonakin agreed wholeheartedly as the three came in suddenly, six swords slashing in brutal and perfectly coordinated attacks.

  To his credit, Tonakin Ta'salz actually managed to block two of them.

  And so it went throughout the courtyard and all along the wall of the fortress. Jarlaxle's mercenaries, using mostly physical weapons but with more than a little magic thrown in, overwhelmed the soldiers of Dallabad. The mercenary leader had instructed his killers to spare as many as possible, using sleep darts and accepting surrender. He noted, though, that more than a few were not waiting long enough to find out if any opponents who had resisted the sleep poison might offer a surrender.

  The dark elf leader merely shrugged at that, hardly concerned. This was open battle, the kind that he and his mercenaries didn't see often enough. If too many of Kohrin Soulez's soldiers were killed for the oasis fortress to properly function, then Jarlaxle and Crenshinibon would simply find replacements. In any case, with Soulez chased back into his house by the sheer power of the Crystal Shard, the assault had already reached its second stage.

  It was going along beautifully. The courtyard and wall were already secured, and the house had been breached at several points. Now Kimmuriel and Rai-guy at last came onto the scene.

  Kimmuriel had several of the captives who were still awake dragged before him, forcing them to lead the way into the house. He would use his overpowering will to read their thoughts as they walked him and the drow through the trapped maze to the prize that was Soulez.

  Jarlaxle rested back in the crystalline tower. A part of him wanted to go down and join in the fun, but he decided instead to remain and share the moment with his most powerful companion, the Crystal Shard. He even allowed the artifact to thin the eastern wall once more, allowing more sunlight into the room.

  "Where is he?" Kohrin Soulez fumed, stomping about the room. "Yharaskrik!"

  "Perhaps he cannot get through," Ahdahnia reasoned. She moved nearer to the tapestry as she spoke.

  Entreri knew he could step out and take her down, then go for his prize. He held the urge, intrigued and wary.

  "Perhaps the same force from the tower-" Ahdahnia went on.

  "No!" Kohrin Soulez interrupted. "Yharaskrik is beyond such things. His people see things-everything- differently."

  Even as he finished, Ahdahnia gasped and skittered back across Entreri's field of view. Her eyes went wide as she looked back in the direction of her father, who had walked out of Entreri's very limited line of sight.

  Confident that the woman was too entranced by whatever it was that she was watching, Entreri slipped down low to one knee and dared peek out around the tapestry.

  He saw an illithid step out of the psionic dimensional doorway and into the room to stand before Kohrin.

  A mind flayer!

  The assassin fell back behind the tapestry, his thoughts whirling. Very few things in all the world could rattle Artemis Entreri, who had survived life on the streets from a tender young age and had risen to the very top of his profession, who had survived Menzoberranzan and many, many encounters with dark elves. One of those few things was a mind flayer. Entreri had seen a few in the dark elf city, and he abhorred them more than any other creature he had ever met. It wasn't their appearance that so upset the assassin, though they were brutally ugly by any but illithid standards. No, it was their very demeanor, their different view of the world, as Kohrin had just alluded to.

  Throughout his life, Artemis Entreri had gained the upper hand because he understood his enemies better than they understood him. He had found the dark elves a bit more of a challenge, based on the fact that the drow were too experienced-were simply too good at conspiring and plotting for him to gain any real comprehension… any that he could hold confidence in, at least.

  With illithids, though he had only dealt with them briefly, the disadvantage was even more fundamental and impossible to overcome. There was no way Artemis Entreri could understand that particular enemy because there was no way he could bring himself to any point where he could view the world as an illithid might. No way.

  So Entreri tried to make himself very small. He listened to every word, every inflection, every intake of breath, very carefully.

  "Why did you not come earlier to my call?" Kohrin Soulez demanded.

  "They are dark elves," Yharaskrik responded in that bubbling, watery voice that sounded to Entreri like a very old man with too much phlegm in his throat. "They are within the building."

  "You should have come earlier!" Ahdahnia cried. "We could have beaten-" Her voice left her with a gasp. She stumbled backward and seemed about to fall. Entreri knew the mind flayer had just hit her with some scrambling burst of mental energy.

  "What do I do?" Kohrin Soulez wailed.

  "There is nothing you can do," answered Yharaskrik. "You cannot hope to survive."

  "P-par-parlay with them, F-father!" cried the recovering Ahdahnia. "Give them what they want-else you cannot hope to survive."

  "They will take what they want," Yharaskrik assured her, and turned back to Kohrin Soulez. "You have nothing to offer. There is no hope."

  "Father?" Ahdahnia asked, her voice suddenly weak, almost pitiful.

  "You attack them!" Kohrin Soulez demanded, holding his deadly sword out toward the illithid. "Overwhelm them!"

  Yharaskrik made a sound that Entreri, who had mustered enough willpower to peek back around the tapestry, recognized to be an expression of mirth. It wasn't a laugh, actually, but more like a clear, gasping cough.

  Kohrin Soulez, too, apparently understood the meaning of the reply, for his face grew very red.

  "They are drow. Do you now understand that?" the illithid asked. "There is no hope."

  Kohrin Soulez started to respond, to demand again that Yharaskrik take the offensive, but as if he had suddenly come to figure it all out, he paused and stared at his octopus-headed companion. "You knew," he accused. "When the psionicist entered Dallabad, he conveyed…"

  "The psionicist was drow," the illithid confirmed.

  "Traitor!" Kohrin Soulez cried.

  "There is no betrayal. There was never friendship, or even alliance," the illithid remarked logically.

  "But you knew!"

  Yharaskrik didn't bother to reply.

  "Father?" Ahdahnia asked again, and she was trembling visibly.

  Kohrin Soulez's breath
came in labored gasps. He brought his left hand up to his face and wiped away sweat and tears. "What am I to do?" he asked, speaking to himself. "What will…"

  Yharaskrik began that coughing laughter again, and this time, it sounded clearly to Entreri that the creature was mocking pitiful Soulez.

  Kohrin Soulez composed himself suddenly and glared at the creature. "This amuses you?" he asked.

  "I take pleasure in the ironies of the lesser species," Yharaskrik responded. "How much your whines sound as those of the many you have killed. How many have begged for their lives futilely before Kohrin Soulez, as he will now futilely beg for his at the feet of a greater adversary than he can possibly comprehend?"

  "But an adversary that you know well!" Kohrin cried.

  "I prefer the drow to your pitiful kind," Yharaskrik freely admitted. "They never beg for mercy that they know will not come. Unlike humans, they accept the failings of individual-minded creatures. There is no greater joining among them, as there is none among you, but they understand and accept that fallibility." The illithid gave a slight bow. "That is all the respect I now offer to you, in the hour of your death," Yharaskrik explained. "I would throw energy your way, that you might capture it and redirect it against the dark elves- and they are close now, I assure you-but I choose not to."

  Artemis Entreri recognized clearly the change that came over Kohrin Soulez then, the shift from despair to nothing- to-lose anger that he had seen so many times during his decades on the tough streets.

  "But I wear the gauntlet!" Kohrin Soulez said powerfully, and he moved the magnificent sword out toward

  Yharaskrik. "I will at least get the pleasure of first witnessing your end!"

  But even as he made the declaration, Yharaskrik seemed to melt into the stone at his feet and was gone.

  "Damn him!" Kohrin Soulez screamed. "Damn you-" His tirade cut short as a pounding came on the door.

  "Your wand!" the guildmaster cried to his daughter, turning to face her, in the direction of the floor-to- ceiling tapestry that decorated his private chamber.

  Ahdahnia just stood there, wide-eyed, making no move to reach for the wand at her belt. Her expression changing not at all, she crumpled to the floor. There stood Artemis Entreri.

  Kohrin Soulez's eyes widened as he watched her descent, but as if he hardly cared for the fall of Ahdahnia other than its implications for his own safety, his gaze focused clearly on Entreri.

  "It would have been so much easier if you had merely sold the blade to me," the assassin remarked.

  "I knew this was your doing, Entreri," Soulez growled back at him, advancing a step, the blood-red blade gleaming at the ready.

  "I offer you one more chance to sell it," Entreri said, and Soulez stopped short, his expression one of pure incredulity. "For the price of her life," the assassin added, pointing down at Ahdahnia with his jeweled dagger. "Your own life is yours to bargain for, but you'll have to make that bargain with others."

  Another bang sounded out in the corridor, followed by the sounds of some fighting.

  "They are close, Kohrin Soulez," Entreri remarked, "close and overwhelming."

  "You brought dark elves to Calimport," Soulez growled back at him.

  "They came of their own accord," Entreri replied. "I was merely wise enough not to try to oppose them. So I make my offer, but only this one last time. I can save Ahdahnia- she is not dead but merely asleep." To accentuate his point, he held up a small crossbow quarrel of unusual design, a drow bolt that had been tipped with sleeping poison. "Give me the sword and gauntlet-now-and she lives. Then you can bargain for your own life. The sword will do you little good against the dark elves, for they need no magic to destroy you."

  "But if I am to bargain for my life, then why not do so with the sword in hand?" Kohrin Soulez asked.

  In response, Entreri glanced down at the sleeping form of Ahdahnia.

  "I am to trust that you will keep your word?" Soulez answered.

  Entreri didn't answer, other than to fix the man with a cold stare.

  There came a sharp rap on the heavy door. As if incited by that sound of imminent danger, Kohrin Soulez leaped forward, slashing hard.

  Entreri could have killed Ahdahnia and still dodged, but he did not. He slipped back behind the tapestry and went down low, scrambling along its length. He heard the tearing behind him as Soulez slashed and stabbed. Charon's Claw easily sliced the heavy material, even took chunks out of the wall behind it.

  Entreri came out the other side to find Soulez already moving in his direction, the man wearing an expression that seemed half crazed, even jubilant.

  "How valuable will the drow elves view me when they enter to find Artemis Entreri dead?" he squealed, and he launched a thrust, feint and slash for the assassin's shoulder.

  Entreri had his own sword out then, in his right hand, his dagger still in his left, and he snapped it up, driving the slash aside. Soulez was good, very good, and he had the formidable weapon back in close defensively before the assassin could begin to advance with his dagger.

  Respect kept Artemis Entreri back from the man, and more importantly, from that devastating weapon. He knew enough about Charon's Claw to understand that a simple nick from it, even one on his hand that he might suffer in a successful parry, would fester and grow and would likely kill him.

  Confidant that he'd find the right opening, the deadly assassin stalked the man slowly, slowly.

  Soulez attacked again with a low thrust that Entreri hopped back from, and a thrust high that the assassin ducked. Entreri slapped at the red blade with his sword and thrust at his opponent's center mass. It was a brilliantly quick routine that would have left almost any opponent at least shallowly stabbed.

  He never got near to hitting Entreri. Then he had to scramble and throw out a cut to the side to keep the assassin, who had somehow quick-stepped to his right while slapping hard at the third thrust, at bay.

  Kohrin Soulez growled in frustration as they came up square again, facing each other from a distance of about ten feet, with Entreri continuing that composed stalk. Now Soulez also moved, angling to intercept.

  He was dragging his back foot behind him, Entreri noted, keeping ready to change direction, trying to cut off the room and any possible escape routes.

  "You so desperately desire Charon's Claw," Soulez said with a chuckle, "but do you even begin to understand the true beauty of the weapon? Can you even guess at its power and its tricks, assassin?"

  Entreri continued to back and pace-back to the left, then back to the right-allowing Soulez to shrink down the battlefield. The assassin was growing impatient, and also, the sounds on the door indicated that the resistance in the hallway had come to an end. The door was magnificent and strong, but it would not hold out long, and Entreri wanted this finished before Rai-guy and the dark elves arrived.

  "You think I am an old man," Soulez remarked, and he came forward in a short rush, thrusting.

  Entreri picked it off and this time came forward with a counter of his own, rolling his sword under Soulez's blade and sliding it out. The assassin turned and stepped ahead, dagger rushing forward, but he had to disengage from the powerful sword too soon. The angle of the parry was forcing the enchanted blade dangerously close to Entreri's exposed hand, and without the block, he had to skitter into a quick retreat as Soulez slashed across.

  "I am an old man," Soulez continued, sounding undaunted, "but I draw strength from the sword. I am your fighting equal, Artemis Entreri, and with this sword you are surely doomed."

  He came on again, but Entreri retreated easily, sliding back toward the wall opposite the door. He knew he was running out of room, but to him that only meant that Kohrin Soulez was running out of room, too, and out of time.

  "Ah, yes, run back, little rabbit," Soulez taunted. "I know you, Artemis Entreri. I know you. Behold!" As he finished, he began waving the sword before him, and Entreri had to blink, for the blade began trailing blackness.

  No, not trailing, t
he assassin realized to his surprise, but emitting blackness. It was thick ash that held in place in the air in great sweeping opaque fans, altering the 'battlefield to Kohrin Soulez's designs.

  "I know you!" Soulez cried and came forward, sweeping, sweeping more ash screens into the air.

  "Yes, you know me," Entreri answered calmly, and Soulez slowed. The timbre of Entreri's voice had reminded him of the power of this particular opponent. "You see me at night, Kohrin Soulez, in your dreams. When you look into the darkest shadows of those nightmares, do you see those eyes looking back at you?"

  As he finished, he came forward a step, tossing his sword slightly into the air before him, and at just the right angle so that the approaching sword was the only thing Kohrin Soulez could see.

  The room's door exploded into a thousand tiny little pieces.

  Soulez hardly noticed, coming forward to meet the attack, slapping the apparently thrusting sword on top, then below and to the side. So beautifully angled was Entreri's toss that the man's own quick parry strikes, one countering the spin of the other, gave Soulez the illusion that Entreri was still holding the other end of the blade.

  He leaped ahead, through the opaque fans of the sword's conjured ash, and struck hard for where he knew the assassin had to be.

  Soulez stiffened, feeling the sting in his back. Entreri's dagger cut into his flesh.

  "Do you see those eyes looking back at you from the shadows of your nightmares, Kohrin Soulez?" Entreri asked again. "Those are my eyes."

  Soulez felt the dagger pulling at his life-force. Entreri hadn't driven it home yet, but he didn't have to. The man was beaten, and he knew it. Soulez dropped Charon's Claw to the floor and let his arm slip down to his side.

  "You are a devil," he growled at the assassin.

  "I?" Entreri answered innocently. "Was it not Kohrin Soulez who would have sacrificed his daughter for the sake of a mere weapon?"

  As he finished, he was fast to reach down with his free hand and yank the black gauntlet from Soulez's right hand. To Soulez's surprise, the glove fell to the floor right beside the sword.