“A new pet?” Valindra asked when she caught up to Sylora just outside the perimeter of the Dread Ring. Beside the sorceress, flipping somersaults in the air and waggling its arms stupidly, was a small imp, a bat-winged little hellion whose smile might have been meant as disarming, but seemed more of a warning, somehow.
“A messenger from Arunika,” Sylora explained. “I assume that your meeting with the Sovereignty ambassador went well.”
“You assume? Or you already know?” Valindra asked, looking to the imp, who grinned wider still, that pointy-toothed smile almost taking in its batlike ears. It flapped its leathery wings and flipped over backward, landing easily back in place.
“I’ve been told that my champion is well prepared for the trials ahead.”
Valindra nodded. “And you have heard that the ambassador plans to support our cause with a strike at Neverwinter?”
“It pleases Arunika greatly,” Sylora explained with a wry smile. “Apparently the Netherese have now claimed a leadership role in the city. They’ll fill the role as the great protectors of Neverwinter, so they say. The new citizens are even naming landmarks after them.”
Valindra smiled at the delicious irony. Right after these Netherese proclaim themselves as protectors, the city would be battered to its core.
“They will find their city is built upon less than solid ground,” Sylora said.
“Will we join in this attack?”
“Only as a diversion,” Sylora replied, “to lure the Netherese from within the city.”
She turned away from Valindra then and back to the Dread Ring. She whispered a few words, then bent low, reaching into the ashen circle. When she turned back around, she held one of the Ashmadai scepters, a spear-staff, except that this one was more black than red, coal-colored and shot through with red steaks that appeared like living veins.
“An enchanted weapon?” Valindra asked.
“It draws power from the ring,” Sylora answered.
“For your champion.”
“Of course. A little added pain for Jestry’s opponents.”
Jestry appeared, hulking toward her. He wore a cape and a kilt, but his mummy wrappings were all too clear to see. He wasn’t moving as awkwardly as before. The wrappings had melded more fully with his skin, and the tightness and stiffness of the treated hide gave way to a more normal gait. He walked right up to Sylora and stared at her, unblinking, those parts of his face that were visible betraying no emotion.
“Does it hurt?” Sylora asked him, and she sounded compassionate. Jestry shook his head.
“Do you understand how powerful you have become?” Sylora asked.
The mummified champion smiled.
“You will kill her,” Sylora assured him. “You will serve as my great champion. All will fall before us—the Netherese will be driven from the forest. Szass Tam will know of your exploits, I assure you.”
“When we are done, will you restore me?” Jestry asked, struggling with each word as if the wrappings on his face had not loosened enough for him to properly formulate the words.
“I’m told that it won’t be necessary,” Sylora reached out and gently stroked Jestry’s face. “You will grow fully into your new skin. All of the sensations will return.”
Jestry’s hand snapped up to catch Sylora by the wrist, and he held her hand against his face for a long while.
“I have another gift for you.” Sylora held up the enchanted staff-spear.
Jestry’s eyes gleamed with hunger. He let go of Sylora’s arm and stepped back, taking the weapon in both hands.
“Go and practice with it,” Sylora bade him. “Learn of its new powers.”
Jestry looked at her curiously.
“Go,” she repeated. “Valindra and I have much to discuss.”
Jestry nodded obediently, turned, and ran off.
“You know his wrappings will not become like his old skin, of course,” Valindra said when he was gone. “The process is lethal. Jestry has barely months to live, if he’s fortunate. A year or so if he’s unfortunate.”
“He will serve me well long after that,” Sylora assured her.
Valindra looked at her, then at the Dread Ring. “The scepter,” she reasoned. “You’re attuning him to be fully raised into undeath.”
Sylora looked to the forest into which Jestry had disappeared. “I already have,” she replied.
Barrabus the Gray didn’t scream out, and that was a victory. The wracking pains had him doubled over. Only his white-knuckled grip on the bridge’s railing kept him from falling onto the cobblestones and writhing uncontrollably.
“The Walk of Barrabus,” Herzgo Alegni said for the twentieth time, and he twanged his fork against the blade of Claw, heightening the sword’s punishing waves of retributive energy. The large tiefling walked over and tugged Barrabus’s hand from the railing, then threw the man to the ground.
“Crawl!” he demanded. “Crawl the length of the bridge, and perhaps I’ll rename it again—no, another one, perhaps. Yes, we’ll call it the Grovel of Barrabus. How much more fitting that will be!”
Barrabus could only look hatefully at his master, and couldn’t respond because he simply couldn’t pry his own teeth apart.
“How dare you?” Alegni asked, and he kicked Barrabus in the ribs.
The man hardly reacted to that impact, though, for the pain of the blow was nothing compared to the vibrations of that awful sword.
Alegni stepped back, sighed, and grabbed the tines of the fork, silencing it and halting the waves. The pain immediately ceased. Sweating, Barrabus crumbled lower to the bridge, gasping for breath, his face pressed against the stones.
“What am I to do with you?” Alegni said, his voice full of regret and sadness—and how Barrabus wanted to cut out his heart for that phony empathy! “I bring you glory and power, and you repay me with this treachery.”
Barrabus growled and forced himself over onto his back.
“Ah, yes, I know,” Alegni went on. “Don’t bother repeating your excuse that the citizens insisted. You knew, and you allowed it. You knew my designs on this magnificent bridge. You were the agent who first facilitated the name change I desired. No, deny not the truth. You wanted to wound me. You knew your barb wouldn’t stand, but you decided to play the game anyway.”
All signs of empathy gone, the angry tiefling kicked Barrabus hard in the ribs once more. The man grunted in reply, rolled up to his side, and curled defensively.
“Was it worth it?” Alegni asked him.
Yes, Barrabus thought.
“Was it?” Alegni asked again, and when no reply came, the tiefling turned and started away. “Come along,” he ordered coldly.
Barrabus rolled onto his back and took a few deep breaths. Then, before he could think it through—to do that would have been to warn the awful red-bladed sword—he threw himself over backward, tucking and rolling, coming to his feet and launching himself after Alegni.
He flipped his belt buckle free, the magical implement instantly transforming into a dagger, and moved to throw. He thought himself successful, thought his rash actions had eluded Claw just long enough to allow him one strike at that wretched Alegni.
But the wall of agony came on like a charging bull, stopping him in his tracks, freezing his muscles in place—and he realized he hadn’t come close to letting fly the knife.
Claw caught him, inside and out, and mocked him with its power. All strength flew from his every muscle and he simply crumpled where he stood. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t roll over, he couldn’t breathe. Nothing worked—he couldn’t even blink. It was as if all that was Barrabus mentally had been decoupled from all that was Barrabus physically.
This is death! he hoped. Oh, how he hoped.
But it wasn’t, and Barrabus gradually felt himself becoming whole again. He rolled onto his back and looked up to see Herzgo Alegni staring down at him. Before he knew what he was doing, Barrabus’s knife hand went up to hover above his own face. He felt the compulsion, and couldn’t deny it.
He brought the blade down to stab at his cheek, and when the blade slipped into his skin, he dragged it down to his chin.
Images of cutting off his fingers, his toes, his genitals, flitted through his thoughts, and he knew he couldn’t deny Alegni’s sword if it had ordered him to do any of those things.
His hand inched down toward his crotch, his bloody blade moving with purpose. He lifted his arm, blade pointed down, as if to plunge it home.
Under command of the sword, Barrabus held that humiliating and terrifying pose for many, many heartbeats.
Herzgo Alegni laughed and walked away.
The tiefling had barely gone a couple of strides when an explosion rocked Neverwinter. As the noise dissipated, cries from the wall told them that the city was once again under attack.
“Come along!” Alegni demanded.
The man pulled himself up from the ground. He felt drained, as if much of his life force had been stolen from him, and in his thoughts, he heard the voice of Herzgo Alegni’s sword, You are alive at my suffrage alone.
Barrabus instinctively countered that it was not a blessing, but a torment, but sarcasm was wasted on Claw.
He should have died many years before. He’d lived two lifetimes, but he hadn’t died. He remained vibrant, strong, and quick as ever.
The sword wouldn’t let him die. That weapon, which could steal a life force with the slightest cut, which could drive a spirit into oblivion, denying an afterlife, could reverse its murderous tendencies. He was alive at the suffrage of that sentient magical weapon.
But the cost!
He staggered along after Alegni, gradually regaining his agile gait. He caught up with the tiefling in sight of the wall, and another fiery explosion ignited just in front of that barrier, showing the dark silhouettes of ducking guardsmen.
“It would seem that our friends have returned,” Alegni muttered to Barrabus and the others who had gathered near him.
“Out by the trees!” one woman on the wall called out. “The zombies have returned!”
“Along with the lich,” said a quieter voice, and Effron appeared then as if materializing out of the shadows. “Valindra Shadowmantle,” he explained.
“How many?” Alegni asked.
“A veritable horde of the zombies,” Effron explained. “And Valindra and Sylora Salm and a handful of Ashmadai.”
“Sylora has come to face me?” Alegni grinned wickedly at that thought. “Does she really believe her magic can withstand the power of Herzgo Alegni?”
“I don’t know she knows who Herzgo Alegni is,” said Effron, drawing a scowl from the tiefling.
Alegni reached into his pouch and produced a gauntlet, black and red, and slid it onto his sword hand. This was Claw’s matching piece, designed to dull magic to protect the wielder of the powerful sword from the weapon’s telepathic intrusions. Alegni preferred not to wear it, for it dulled his mental connection with the magical Claw, and he believed that his closeness with his weapon helped to keep him alive, particularly when the dangerous Barrabus was around.
But the gauntlet also worked to minimize external magic, and the sorceress Sylora would be hard-pressed indeed to truly wound Alegni while he wore such an artifact.
The tiefling looked to Barrabus, his face showing his eagerness for battle.
“It’s a ruse,” the battered and bleeding Barrabus said.
Alegni scowled in reply.
Barrabus shook his head. “They want us to come out after them, to be sure,” he said. He called up to the wall, “Do the zombies approach?”
“At the trees!” came the shout back.
“They’re luring us out there,” Barrabus said to Alegni.
“What do we care?” the tiefling replied. “More likely, they’re trying to lure the feeble citizens of Neverwinter, who wouldn’t be able to win if not for their strong walls. Sylora Salm doesn’t understand the power that’s arrayed against her.”
Neither do you, Barrabus thought, but wisely didn’t say.
“Let’s go and slaughter some zealots,” Alegni called, and he started for the gate, Effron beside him. Barrabus and the handful of Shadovar who had accompanied them to Neverwinter followed in close order.
“Go out to the camp,” Alegni bade Effron. “Tell our warriors to come on in full. Swing them wide of Sylora’s position, so she will not escape.”
Effron nodded and melted back into the shadows.
“I do not wish to send my forces outside our walls,” Jelvus Grinch said to Alegni, hustling to catch up to the tiefling.
“No one asked you,” Alegni snapped back at him. “Stay within and cower. I’ll rid you of this menace.”
The men at the gate worked fast at Alegni’s approach, swinging one of the two doors wide, and Alegni and his entourage went through without fanfare.
“They’ll throw their magic at us all the way,” the tiefling leader explained to his forces. “Do not waver, do not falter.”
He’d barely finished speaking when the ground beneath them rolled suddenly and black tentacles sprang forth, grabbing at their ankles and legs.
Alegni swept them aside with his mighty sword. Barrabus took a different tactic and pulled forth his obsidian figurine, tossing it to the ground at his feet. The statue became a steed, a nightmare, and Barrabus wasted no time in vaulting atop the skeletal horse’s back. Knowing that Effron and the others would come in from the south, his right, Barrabus ran the nightmare off to the left in a wide circuit.
Alegni just kept walking, his foot soldiers in his wake. Claw swept aside the tentacles with ease. When eldritch missiles came soaring out of the tree line at him, the tiefling just held up his gauntleted hand and absorbed the magic with no more than a slight sting, as if he’d caught and crushed a bee.
“Come out, Sylora,” he taunted as he approached the tree line.
Instead of Sylora, Barrabus, riding his nightmare, burst out of the trees, bidding him to turn around.
Alegni looked at his slave curiously for just a moment then realized Barrabus had figured something out.
A ruse.