“This is no snakebite,” the farmer woman said, inspecting the single puncture in the bottom of Dahlia’s foot.
“A poisoned spike.”
“Then you should seek the one who coated the spike,” the woman said. “Few would play with such a mixture if they had no antidote, eh? Or get us a dose, aye, for we … you, will need the poison to counter the poison.”
Drizzt nodded and spent a long moment staring at Dahlia. Other than the angry leg, she looked quite serene, though very pale.
“I’ll return before the next dawn,” the drow pledged.
He started for the door, but even as he reached it the farmer woman cried out. Drizzt spun around to find her backing away from Dahlia, her hand over her open mouth, a look of horror on her face. The dark elf rushed to Dahlia, but found nothing amiss.
“What?” he asked, turning to their host.
“Her face!” the woman cried. “It’s bruising again, like before!”
Drizzt looked back to the elf and he understood. The magical powder Dahlia had applied was wearing off, and her woad was returning. He breathed a sigh of relief and gave a little laugh.
“It’s all right,” he explained, standing back up and moving for the door. “Beware that her hair might change as well.”
“She’s a doppelganger, then?” the woman asked with horror.
“Nay, just a bit of magical disguise.”
The woman, a simple creature, shook her head at such nonsense, and Drizzt managed a smile, then ran out of the house, leaping onto Andahar’s back and setting the unicorn off in a full gallop along the road to the north.
Images of Dahlia’s foot haunted him with Andahar’s every running stride.
They stood around her in a circle, bloody and battered. All of them, from Bengarion to Dor’crae, the nine lovers she had killed.
“You cannot escape us,” Dor’crae promised her. Half of his skin was missing, blasted free from the force of the rushing water. “We await you.”
“You think we have forgotten you?” asked another.
“You think we have forgiven you?” asked another.
They began to laugh, all nine, and to pace in unison, circling Dahlia as she spun around every which way. She had nowhere to run. Kozah’s Needle could not help her this time.
A tenth form joined the marching nine; a tiny form; a baby, half elf and half tiefling. He didn’t say anything, but stared at Dahlia hatefully then smiled a wicked smile to show a mouth full of sharpened teeth.
Dahlia cried out and fell away from him, but that only put her closer—too close!—to those on the other side. She cried out again and stumbled back to her original spot.
They taunted her and laughed at her. Desperate, she charged at the line, fists balled, determined to fight to the bitter end.
But she was grabbed by others, by Shadovar, and was thrown down and held.
Her mother cried out for her.
Herzgo Alegni fell over her.
When he finished, he walked away, laughing, along with his guards. To kill her mother, Dahlia knew, but Dahlia was not there anymore, was back in the midst of the circling ten she’d murdered.
She was naked, and she fell to the ground, crying.
They laughed at her all the more.
“We have not forgotten,” they chanted.
“We have not forgiven,” they chanted.
“We await you,” the baby taunted. “The time is near.”
Drizzt went over Luskan’s wall with no more noise or notice than a shadow in the starlight. He knew the city well, and made his way from structure to structure, alley to alley, roof to roof, to the base of the bridge to Closeguard Isle.
He could see the balcony where he and Dahlia had stood beside High Captain Kurth, as Kurth had explained to them the layout of the city. After a short while, watching the movements of the soldiers on Closeguard, Drizzt figured he could get to that balcony unnoticed.
But then what?
Was he to put a scimitar to the throat of a high captain? Would the man then surrender the antidote? Did Kurth even have any information regarding the poisoned traps in the jeweler’s shop?
Frustration almost had Drizzt stomping his boot. His thoughts wrapped in on themselves, leading nowhere. He knew that time was against him, was against Dahlia, but what was he to do?
“Go to Kurth,” he whispered and nodded, for that seemed the only option. He crouched beside the railing and took his first step on the bridge, but slipped back quickly when he saw several forms approaching from the other end.
The men and women walked right past him. He heard their general comments, talk of trouble with Ship Rethnor, and with one woman blaming Beniago for the current state of affairs.
“Beniago was so taken with that murderess,” she said.
“The trouble with Ship Rethnor will pass,” another woman insisted. “None o’ their leaders were killed by Beniago’s group—just a pair o’ hired scalawags. All the rest fell before the elf and the drow.”
“And when Ship Rethnor decides to kill a few of us?” the first woman replied angrily.
“Ye’d do well to temper yer wrath when it’s aimed at Beniago,” a man said.
“Bah, but he’s out drinking and whoring.” The first woman waved her hand.
“He has eyes,” the man said, and the woman glowered at him.
The group moved away and Drizzt let them go, reconsidering his own course. He glanced back at Closeguard Isle and the tower, but went the other way, into the city, heading for the dock section, where ruffians roamed for their “drinking and whoring.”
He knew that he’d need luck on his side, but knew, too, that this was not a section of indoor taverns behind closed doors. Most of the establishments near the docks were open-front bars, with patrons wandering up and down the street.
Drizzt paused again when he neared the area, which was well lit and quite boisterous even at this late hour—particularly at this late hour. Some of the many people on the street would recognize him, and given his recent encounter with both Ship Rethnor and Ship Kurth, that might not be such a good thing. He wouldn’t be the only drow down there, at least, he noted, as he spotted one tattooed dark elf walking with others of his crew.
Drizzt pulled the hood of his forest-green cloak up over his head and pulled the cowl low. He wrapped the cloak around his body, as well, to hide his distinctive blades.
He went down among the crowd, keeping his head low, his eyes constantly scanning.
He caught more than one man staring at him curiously, and knew that his time here would be short indeed when one such fellow then turned to a companion and whispered something, and the companion rushed away. To gather allies, no doubt.
Drizzt shook the notion away and focused on Dahlia, reminding himself that she needed him here and needed him to be quick. He picked up his pace, moving along, studying the faces.
Beniago.
The man seemed to be alone, walking with a mug of ale in one hand, a half-eaten loaf of bread in the other. Drizzt surveyed the area then moved fast. He cut across Beniago’s path, perhaps ten strides ahead of the man, and only briefly glanced at him, making sure that Beniago noticed him as well.
But only for that fleeting instant.
He didn’t want the assassin to be sure that it was him. The hint was his tease.
He crossed the narrow street and moved between a pair of taverns and down a shadowy alley, picking up his speed as soon as he was out of sight. The drow skidded to a stop and picked his way up the side of a building to a rooftop. He crept along the alleyway, and he watched.
Beniago turned into that alleyway a few heartbeats later, drink and bread gone, weapons drawn. The assassin of Ship Kurth moved down cautiously, twenty steps into the alley, then around a corner at the backside of the building into a shorter alley that exited onto a far less bustling street.
The man stayed near to a wall, his gaze darting all around. He was out of sight of the street now.
Drizzt dropped into the alley behind him, his cloak open, his hood back.
Beniago spun to face him, gave a gasp, and thrust his sword at the drow’s midsection.
A scimitar picked it off cleanly, and even as Beniago brought his long weapon back to bear, the drow came on fiercely, both of his blades out and high in front of him, his wrists rolling over each other in a devastating and straightforward assault.
Beniago fell back and repeatedly batted his sword up horizontally in front of him. He kept his other arm, holding his prized dagger, cocked at his side.
Drizzt noted it, of course, and so he pressed all the harder, his scimitars beating a steady rhythm against Beniago’s sword. He found an opening, Twinkle hitting the sword at just the right angle to move it aside, and Icingdeath coming in right behind, with an open path to Beniago’s shoulder.
But Drizzt didn’t take the opening to score a hit, and altered his angle just enough so that Beniago could adjust his sword and block that blade, too.
Drizzt came on harder, recklessly it seemed, and he stumbled past and crashed hard against the alleyway wall as Beniago threw himself to the side.
With a growl, apparently thinking victory imminent, Beniago’s other hand stabbed out, but that growl turned to a gasp as Drizzt’s blade came down in a swift backhand slash, intercepting the thrust and gashing Beniago’s forearm.
The assassin cried out and his dagger went flying away.
Beniago turned to his right and leaped away, his left sword hand, slashing back to fend off the drow.
But the drow dropped below the swipe, executing his own cut, and Beniago had to leap up to avoid getting his ankles chopped out from under him. He landed off-balance, trying to throw himself back against the wall enough to catch his balance, but that twisting movement slowed him.
Drizzt tumbled past him with amazing quickness, his magically-enhanced anklets providing a burst of speed. He came to his feet farther along the first alleyway, blocking the escape.
Beniago skidded to a stop, his cut arm tucked under his sword arm, his blade waving defensively in front of him. He began to backstep immediately, and glanced over his shoulder.
“My panther is out there,” Drizzt warned—and lied, for he’d already overtaxed Guenhwyvar and had not dared summon her back to the Prime Material Plane. “If you try to flee, she will destroy you.”
“I’m second to the high captain of Ship Kurth,” Beniago warned. “If you kill me—”
“They will seek to kill me in response?” Drizzt mocked him. “Is that not already the case, Beniago?”
“More so!” the assassin promised, and he seemed to grow more confident then, for a din had begun on the street behind them.
Drizzt heard it, too, and he reached into his innate powers, last remnants of his days in Menzoberranzan, and placed a magical globe of darkness halfway down the alley between himself and the street.
“Ship Kurth will hunt you to the ends of Faerûn!”
Drizzt put up his blades. “If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead,” he said. “You left an opening against my overhand spin. Don’t deny it, for you noted it and tried to correct your block, and only were able to do so because I allowed it.”
Beniago fumbled for a response, but had none.