Only when she stood on the edge of the Dread Ring did Sylora Salm understand the depth of her error, the travesty she’d wrought. Basking in the power of the wand and the connection it offered her, Sylora had taken more than the life force of a few ashen zombies. Indeed, those rings of woe, and maintaining that magical shield against the barrage of arrows, had stolen power from the Dread Ring itself, and no inconsiderable amount.
Blood oozed from her shoulder. The drow’s arrow had wounded her critically, perhaps mortally. She needed the Dread Ring’s power again, she knew, to heal herself.
But dare she pull more from it? Could she?
The implications of the depleted grayness before her struck the sorceress profoundly. She could almost picture Szass Tam within that smoking ring, could almost see the look of unmitigated anger on his withered face.
He wouldn’t forgive her this time, she knew. After more than a decade, she had at last failed him.
Perhaps she could retreat belowground. Perhaps the Sovereignty would take her in.
Her thoughts spun as she sought a way out, and the desperation of her situation was brought home vividly when she heard the sound of approaching riders.
She turned and put her back to the Dread Ring. Whatever fears she had of Szass Tam’s response seemed distant then, as the immediate necessities became clear. Sylora closed her eyes and tried to connect to the power behind her, asking the Dread Ring for still more.
Entreri eased up on his nightmare’s pace as he noted the form in the clearing beyond the last tangle of trees. Drizzt did the same as he brought his unicorn up beside the nightmare, though neither steed seemed overly comfortable with the other so near.
It was indeed Sylora, all three riders saw.
“The Dread Ring is right behind her,” Dahlia warned.
They crossed through the tangle and into full view of the sorceress Sylora, and the smoky tendrils of darkness behind.
Drizzt let fly an arrow, but alas, the sorceress once more had enacted a magical shield in front of her.
Not so great a shield, Drizzt and the others realized, though, as the sorceress winced in discomfort and staggered back a step.
Drizzt broke Andahar to the left and set another arrow to Taulmaril, but behind him, before the unicorn had gone three running strides, Dahlia struck next.
As Entreri pulled his nightmare up short, Dahlia cried out for Sylora to “Defeat this!” and used all the momentum of the stopping mount to hurl Kozah’s Needle, spearlike, at her foe.
His jaw hanging open in surprise, Drizzt watched as the long staff slammed into Sylora’s thin bubble shield and exploded into such a display of arcing lightning and thunderous reverberations that the night itself was momentarily stolen.
Andahar neighed, pawed the ground, and reared up, but Drizzt clamped his legs tighter and held his balance.
And when the explosion of pure energy roiled and coiled and slammed Sylora, sending her flying backward through the air, the drow was ready. Another lightning arrow soared off, flying true to its target. Then a second missile from the right flank joined the first, a large black missile, as Guenhwyvar leaped high and long and crashed into Sylora as she descended into the smoking Dread Ring.
They landed out of sight, within the black fumes, with a roar and a shriek, both primal, followed by … silence.
Drizzt looked to Entreri and Dahlia, Andahar and the nightmare pawing the ground.
And all three companions breathed easier when Guenhwyvar walked back out of the ring.
Dahlia slipped down from the nightmare’s back and walked forward to retrieve Kozah’s Needle, which lay on the ground right in front of the blackness. She picked it up and casually continued, not even looking back, but walking right into the intimidating smoke.
“Dahlia!” Drizzt called.
“I’m not following her,” Entreri said.
Dahlia found Sylora Salm some dozen long strides into the Dread Ring. She lay on the black ground, twisted weirdly with one leg up behind her head and one of her arms beneath her. Blood flowed from her left shoulder where Drizzt’s first arrow had struck her, from her right side where his more recent missile had struck, and from deep claw marks on the side of her face and throat.
But those were the least of her wounds, for Kozah’s Needle had broken through that magical shield to open the center of her chest. Even in the dim light, Dahlia could see the woman’s heart. It still beat, just once, then again after a long pause.
“Finish me,” Sylora said, her voice thick with pain.
Dahlia bent over so her face was very near to Sylora’s.
“Please,” the doomed sorceress mouthed. “Finish me.”
Dahlia reached down as if to comply and Sylora closed her eyes.
But Dahlia instead just roughly pulled the crow cloak out from around Sylora, jarring her to the side and drawing a gasp of profound agony.
With a last smirk at Sylora, Dahlia threw the cloak around her own shoulders and walked back out the way she’d come.
“She’s dead,” Sylora Salm heard Dahlia announce to her companions, followed soon after by the clip-clop of hooves receding into the forest.
They ran on for a long while, putting leagues behind them, Entreri’s nightmare and Drizzt’s unicorn gliding effortlessly through the forest night. Finally, in one moonlit clearing, Entreri pulled up his fire-breathing, fire-stomping mount and slipped down from the saddle.
“So, in the end battle, we didn’t need your help at all,” Dahlia pointed out, flipping down to the ground beside him. She grinned as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“You’d prefer to be dead outside Sylora’s tower?” Entreri asked. “I understand.”
Andahar trotted into the clearing then. Drizzt dropped from his mount and walked over to join the pair, leaving the unicorn a safe distance from Entreri’s nightmare. He wore a curious expression—jealousy perhaps?—as he scrutinized Dahlia and Entreri.
“We’re done here,” Dahlia announced to Drizzt.
“Valindra Shadowmantle remains—”
“I don’t care. Not for her, not for this war. This was a personal grudge between me and Sylora Salm, and Sylora Salm is dead.”
“And I don’t care about Sylora Salm, other than how killing her might benefit me,” Entreri replied.
He and Dahlia exchanged intense stares.
“And me?” Dahlia asked. “Would you still wish to bring my head to your master?”
“You just said you were leaving, so what would it matter?”
“It might matter to me,” Dahlia replied, and Entreri laughed. He never stopped staring into Dahlia’s blue eyes.
“What’s your next move?” Drizzt asked the assassin, abruptly and pointedly. “Where will you go?”
“Back to Neverwinter, as I am bound,” Entreri replied, and he gave a helpless shrug. This was a critical moment, he realized, and he knew he hadn’t thought any of it through quite thoroughly enough. He had no idea how to pivot now, how to coax Drizzt and Dahlia to go back with him and rid him of his burden.
“Perhaps with Sylora dead and Dahlia gone, Alegni will be done with me, and I can return to the south in peace,” he said.
“Who?”
Dahlia’s voice, like her expression, went stone cold. It caught Entreri by surprise.
“Who?” Entreri echoed.
“Who will be done with you?” Dahlia said.
“Alegni.”
“What is his name?” Dahlia demanded.
“Aleg—”
“His whole name.”
“He’s a Netherese lord, a tiefling Shadovar named Herzgo Alegni,” Entreri slowly replied, enunciating every syllable clearly, scrutinizing Dahlia as he spoke.
He saw it, then, the profound pain that flickered behind Dahlia’s eyes—primal, beyond anything any physical cut could ever inflict.
“What is it?” Drizzt asked, and Entreri glanced his way just long enough to realize that the drow didn’t recognize the depth of Dahlia’s profound agony.
Dahlia swayed and seemed as if she might fall over.
“What?” Drizzt asked again, coming up to support her.
“Apparently she’s acquainted with my master,” Entreri started to say, but Dahlia cut him short by spitting in his face.
Drizzt grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back. “Dahlia, what is it?” he insisted, keeping his face right in front of hers, trying to bring her back from whatever emotional ledge she’d walked out onto.
“Speak his name again,” Dahlia said to Entreri.
“Herzgo Alegni.”
“Your master, your friend.”
“Hardly. My slaver, my hated enemy,” Entreri assured her as she pressed against Drizzt, trying to get at Entreri.
That seemed to calm Dahlia, so much so that when Drizzt shook her and forced her to look at him again, she said, “Had I known that Aleg …” She stopped and swallowed hard, and seemed incapable of even speaking the name.
Entreri couldn’t believe his good luck. He did indeed recognize the profound pain in Dahlia’s eyes and knew that in simply speaking Alegni’s name, he’d inadvertently made the important pivot needed to lure these two into his personal battle.
“Had I known he led the Netherese, I would have remained at Sylora Salm’s side,” Dahlia said to Drizzt.
Drizzt glanced over his shoulder at Entreri with obvious concern.
Entreri hardly noticed, and didn’t return the look, for now it occurred to him that even being here at this time might well be aiding his hated master. Alegni had the sword, and the sword had Entreri. It could access his innermost thoughts and memories at any time.
Entreri leaped back up upon his nightmare steed. “I’m not your ally in this,” Entreri announced to them. “Though I would love to see Herzgo Alegni dead.”
Drizzt started to respond, but Entreri didn’t wait, kicking his nightmare into a leap and gallop, off into the forest night.
Drizzt spun to face Dahlia, who all but collapsed into his arms.
“I’ll kill him,” she said coldly, without emotion, but when Drizzt lifted her face to his, he saw tears flow down her delicate cheeks.
She was still alive. She couldn’t be! No one should have suffered this amount of pain without expiring.
So much pain, indeed, that Sylora Salm had not even realized that she was still alive for a long, long while. But now she realized the truth of it, and that alone made her realize her pain had subsided a bit.
Sylora gasped and coughed. The Dread Ring was healing her!
She moved her leg back under her, straightening once more, and as her body shifted, she saw her guardian, Valindra Shadowmantle, standing just to the side, holding Sylora’s crooked wand, aiming it Sylora’s way. Valindra called upon the powers of the Dread Ring to heal Sylora’s mortal wounds.
“Valindra,” she mouthed, barely audible, though the lich smiled and seemed to hear. “Thank you.”
Valindra cackled loudly. “Thank you?” she echoed. “I only keep my enemies from having the pleasure.”
Sylora looked at her curiously—more curiously when another form moved up beside Valindra.
The Thayan sorceress understood her doom, in Jestry’s eyes—or eye, for Artemis Entreri’s dagger remained deeply embedded in the other. That one visible eye socket, the orb gouged out by the knife the assassin had later retrieved, flickered with red flame, with the energy of undeath. Sylora had attuned him to the Dread Ring with the scepter she’d created for him, and now the ring had done its job, had brought him back into a state of powerful undeath.
And the creature wasn’t looking upon the broken sorceress fondly.
Valindra cackled louder and spun away, gliding into the dark and smoky night.
Jestry towered over Sylora, reaching down to grab her roughly. He easily lifted her into the air.
Then the powerful undead creature bent her in half backward, shattering her spine, folding her like a brittle parchment. She screamed with her last dying breath, before Jestry slammed her broken form down into the ground and began to stomp on her with his heavy wrapped feet, a thousand times.
The imp growled and twisted and pushed, but to no avail against the strong strands of the magical web that held it up high on the wall.
“You didn’t think I would allow a creature such as yourself to fly in and out of Neverwinter freely, did you?” Effron said, pacing in front of the diminutive devil.
“You err, warlock,” the imp insisted. “My mistress—”
“Arunika,” said Effron, and his recognition seemed to put the devil back on its clawed heels a bit.
“My mistress is powerful, and intolerant of—”
“Shut up,” Effron said quietly, but with such a threat in his voice that the imp complied.
“I don’t intend to hurt you,” Effron explained. “As long as you understand that you now work for me, and for Herzgo Alegni, as well as for your mistress.”
“I am of the Nine Hells, not the Abyss,” the imp said with a little snarl.
“And I can send you back there, in pieces.”
The two stared at each other for many heartbeats then Effron said simply, “Tell me of the events in Neverwinter Wood.”
Later on the next morning, Effron found Herzgo Alegni on his namesake bridge, as usual, and recounted the strange but promising news of the previous night’s events.
“Sylora Salm is no more,” Alegni said smugly when the warlock was finished. “Perhaps Draygo Quick will allow me to leave this place at long last.”
“Our enemies have been dealt a serious wound, but they are not gone,” Effron pointed out.
“Led by an insane lich,” said Alegni.
“More sane every day, from what I can determine, and she’s being aided, perhaps by Arunika.”
Herzgo Alegni looked at him curiously.
“I don’t know all of the details,” Effron admitted.
“Then learn them!”
Effron nodded.
“Now Barrabus rides with Sylora’s champion and her powerful drow ally,” Alegni mused.
“Artemis Entreri,” Effron corrected, and when Alegni looked at him with surprise, the twisted warlock clarified, “His name is Artemis Entreri.”
Herzgo Alegni laughed and walked to the bridge railing, staring out over the running river as it wound its way to the sea. “I’d forgotten that name,” Alegni admitted. “I’ve not heard it in decades. Nor had he, I would assume.” He glanced over his shoulder at Effron. “He’s still mine, you understand, and so his name remains Barrabus.”
“They’re unpredictable, and powerful,” Effron warned.
“Quite predictable,” Alegni corrected. “Barrabus will try to get his new friends to come after me.”
Effron grinned as he mouthed “Dahlia Syn’dalay” with open malice.