The Servant of the Shard Page 17

  The assassin took a deep breath and shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

  “Sharlotta could be mistaken,” the assassin did say. “She would have reasons of her own to wish to be rid of troublesome Domo.”

  “We will know soon enough,” Jarlaxle replied, nodding in the direction of a tunnel, where the wererat leader, in the form of a huge humanoid rat, was approaching, along with three other ratmen.

  “My dear Domo,” Jarlaxle greeted, and the wererat leader bowed.

  “It is good that you came to us,” Domo replied. “I do not enjoy any journeys to the surface at this time, not even to the cellars of House Basadoni. There is too much excitement, I fear.”

  Entreri narrowed his eyes and considered the wretched lycanthrope, thinking that answer curious, at least, but trying hard not to interpret it one way or the other.

  “Do the agents of the other guilds similarly come down to meet with you?” Jarlaxle asked, a question that surely set Domo back on his heels.

  Entreri stared hard at the drow now, catching on that Crenshinibon was instructing Jarlaxle to put Domo on his guard, to get him thinking of any potentially treasonous actions that they might be more easily read. Still, it seemed to him that Jarlaxle was moving too quickly here, that a little small talk and diplomacy might have garnered the necessary indicators without resorting to any crude mental intrusions by the sentient artifact.

  “On those rare occasions when I must meet with agents of other guilds, they often do come to me,” Domo answered, trying to remain calm, though he betrayed his sudden edge to Entreri when he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The assassin calmly dropped his hands to his belt, hooking his wrists over the pommels of his two formidable weapons, a posture that seemed more relaxed and comfortable, but also one that had him in touch with his weapons, ready to draw and strike.

  “And have you met with any recently?” Jarlaxle asked.

  Domo winced, and winced again, and Entreri caught on to the truth of it. The artifact was trying to scour his thoughts then and there.

  The three wererats behind the leader glanced at each other and shifted nervously.

  Domo’s face contorted, began to form into his human guise, and went back almost immediately to the trapping of the wererat. A low, feral growl escaped his throat.

  “What is it?” one of the wererats behind him asked.

  Entreri could see the frustration mounting on Jarlaxle’s face. He glanced back to Domo curiously, wondering if he had perhaps underestimated the ugly creature.

  Jarlaxle and Crenshinibon simply could not get a fix on the wererat’s thoughts, for the Crystal Shard’s intrusion had brought about the lycanthropic internal strife, and that wall of red pain and rage had now denied any access.

  Jarlaxle, growing increasingly frustrated, stared at the wererat hard.

  He betrayed us, Crenshinibon decided suddenly.

  Jarlaxle’s thoughts filled with doubt and confusion, for he had not seen any such revelation.

  A moment of weakness, came Crenshinibon’s call. A flash of the truth within that wall of angry torment. He betrayed us … twice.

  Jarlaxle turned to Entreri, a subtle signal, but one that the eager assassin, who hated wererats profoundly, was quick to catch and amplify.

  Domo and his associates caught it, too, and their swords came flashing out of their scabbards. By the time they’d drawn their weapons, Entreri was on the charge. Charon’s Claw waved in the air before him, painting a wall of black ash that Entreri could use to segment the battleground and prevent his enemies from coordinating their movements.

  He spun to the left, around the ash wall, ducking as he turned so that he came around under the swing of Domo’s long and slender blade. Up went the assassin’s sword, taking Domo’s far and wide. Entreri, still in a crouch, scrambled forward, his dagger leading.

  Domo’s closest companion came on hard, though, forcing Entreri to skitter back and slash down with his sword to deflect the attack. He went into a roll, over backward, and planted his right hand, pushing hard to launch him back to his feet, working those feet quickly as he landed to put him in nearly the same position as when he had started. The foolish wererat followed, leaving Domo and its two companions on the other side of the ash wall.

  Behind Entreri, Jarlaxle’s hand pumped once, twice, thrice, and daggers sailed past Entreri, barely missing his head, plunging through the ash wall, blasting holes in the drifting curtain.

  On the other side came a groan, and Entreri realized that Domo’s companions were down to two.

  A moment later, down to one, for the assassin met the wererat’s charge full on, his sword coming up in a rotating fashion, taking the thrusting blade aside. Entreri continued forward, and so did the wererat, thinking to bite at the man.

  How quickly it regretted that choice when Entreri’s dagger blade filled its mouth.

  A sudden second thrust yanked the creature’s head back, and the assassin disengaged and quickly turned. He saw yet another of the beasts coming fast through the ash wall and heard the footsteps of a retreating Domo.

  Down he went into a shoulder roll, under the ash wall, catching the ankles of the charging wererat and sending it flying over him to fall facedown right before Jarlaxle.

  Entreri didn’t even slow, rolling forward and back to his feet and running off full speed in pursuit of the fleeing wererat. Entreri was no stranger to the darkness, even the complete blackness of the tunnels. Indeed, he had done some of his best work down there, but recognizing the disadvantage he faced against infravision-using wererats, he held his powerful sword before him and commanded it to bring forth light—hoping that it, like many magical swords, could produce some sort of glow.

  That magical glow surprised him, for it was a light of blackish hue and nothing like Entreri had ever seen before, giving all the corridor a surrealistic appearance. He glanced down at the sword, trying to see how blatant a light source it appeared, but he saw no definitive glow and hoped that meant that he might use a bit of stealth, at least, despite the fact that he was the source of the light.

  He came to a fork and skidded to a stop, turning his head and focusing his senses.

  The slight echo of a footfall came from the left, so on he ran.

  Jarlaxle finished the prone wererat in short order, pumping his arm repeatedly and hitting the squirming creature with dagger after dagger. He put a hand in his pocket, on the Crystal Shard, as he ran through the gap in the ash wall, trying to catch up with his companion.

  Guide me, he instructed the artifact.

  Up, came the unexpected reply. They have returned to the streets.

  Jarlaxle skidded to a stop, puzzled.

  Up! came the more emphatic silent cry. To the streets.

  The mercenary leader rushed back the other way, down the corridor to the ladder that would take him back up through the sewer grate and into the alley outside the neighborhood of the Copper Ante.

  Guide me, he instructed the shard again.

  We are too exposed, the artifact returned. Keep to the shadows and move back to House Basadoni—Artemis Entreri and Domo lie in that direction.

  Entreri rounded a bend in the corridor, slowing cautiously. There, standing before him, was Domo and two more wererats, all holding swords. Entreri started forward, thinking himself seen, and figuring to attack before the three could organize their defenses. He stopped abruptly, though, when the ratman to Domo’s left whispered.

  “I smell him. He is near.”

  “Too near,” agreed the other lesser creature, squinting, the tell-tale red glow of infravision evident in its eyes.

  Why did they even need that infravision? Entreri wondered. He could see them clearly in the black light of Charon’s Claw, as clearly as if they were all standing in a dimly lit room. He knew that he should go straight in and attack, but his curiosity was piqued now and so he stepped out from the wall, in clear view, in plain sight.

  “His smell is thick,” Domo agreed. Al
l three were glancing about nervously, their swords waving. “Where are the others?”

  “They have not come but should have been here,” the one to his left answered. “I fear we are betrayed.”

  “Damn the drow to the Nine Hells, then,” Domo said.

  Entreri could hardly believe they could not see him—yet another wondrous effect of the marvelous sword. He wondered if perhaps they could see him had they been focusing their eyes in the normal spectrum of light, but that, he realized, had to be a question for another day. Concentrating now on moving perfectly silently, he slid one foot, and then the other, ahead of him, moving to Domo’s right.

  “Perhaps we should have listened more carefully to the dark elf wizard,” the one to the left went on, his voice a whisper.

  “To go against Jarlaxle?” Domo asked incredulously. “That is doom. Nothing more.”

  “But …” the other started to argue, but Domo began whispering harshly, sticking his finger in the other’s face.

  Entreri used their distraction to get right up behind the third of the group, his dagger tip coming against the wererat’s spine. The creature stiffened as Entreri whispered into its ear. “Run,” he said.

  The ratman sped off down the corridor, and Domo stopped his arguing long enough to chase his fleeing soldier a few steps, calling threats out after him.

  “Run,” said Entreri, who had shifted across the way to the side of the remaining lesser wererat.

  This one, though, didn’t run, but let out a shriek and spun, its sword slashing across at chest level.

  Entreri ducked below the blade easily and came up with a stab that brought his deadly jeweled dagger under the wererat’s ribs and up into its diaphragm. The creature howled again, but then spasmed and convulsed violently.

  “What is it?” Domo asked, spinning about. “What?”

  The wererat fell to the floor, twitching still as it died. Entreri stood there, in the open, dagger in hand. He called up a glow from his smaller blade.

  Domo jumped back, bringing his sword out in front of him. “Dancing blade?” he asked quietly. “Is this you, wizard drow?”

  “Dancing blade?” Entreri repeated quietly, looking down at his glowing dagger. It made no sense to him. He looked back to Domo, to see the glow leave the wererat’s eyes as he shifted from ratman, to nearly human form. Likewise his vision shifted from the infrared to the normal viewing spectrum.

  He nearly jumped out of his boots again, as the specter of Artemis Entreri came clear to him. “What trick is that?” the wererat gasped.

  Entreri wasn’t even sure how to answer. He had no idea what Charon’s Claw was doing with its black light. Did it block infravision completely but apparently hold a strange illuminating effect that was clearly visible in the normal spectrum? Did it act like a black camp-fire then, even though Entreri felt no heat coming from the blade? Infravision could be severely limited by strong heat sources.

  It was indeed intriguing—one of so many riddles that seemed to be presenting themselves before Artemis Entreri—but again, it was a riddle to be solved another day.

  “So you are without allies,” he said to Domo. “It is you and I alone.”

  “Why does Jarlaxle fear me?” Domo asked as Entreri advanced a step.

  The assassin stopped. “Fear you? Or loathe you? They are not the same thing, you know.”

  “I am his ally!” Domo protested. “I stood beside him, even against the advances of his lessers.”

  “So you said to him,” Entreri remarked, glancing down at the still-twitching, still-groaning form. “What do you know? Speak it clearly and quickly, and perhaps you will walk out of here.”

  Domo’s rodent eyes narrowed angrily. “As Rassiter walked away from your last meeting?” he asked, referring to one of his greatest predecessors in the wererat guild, a powerful leader who had served Pasha Pook along with Entreri, and whom Entreri had subsequently murdered—a deed never forgotten by the wererats of Calimport.

  “I ask you one last time,” Entreri said calmly.

  He caught a slight movement to the side and knew that the first wererat had returned, waiting in the shadows to leap out at him. He was hardly surprised and hardly afraid.

  Domo gave a wide, toothy smile. “Jarlaxle and his companions are not as unified a force as you believe,” he teased.

  Entreri advanced another step. “You must do better than that,” he said, but before the words even left his mouth, Domo howled and leaped at him, stabbing with his slender sword.

  Entreri barely moved Charon’s Claw, just angled the blade to intercept Domo’s and slide it off to the side.

  The wererat retracted the strike at once, thrust again, and again. Each time Entreri, with barely any motion at all, positioned his parry perfectly and to a razor-thin angle, with Domo’s sword stabbing past him, missing by barely an inch.

  Again the wererat retracted and this time came across with a great slash.

  But he had stepped too far back, and Entreri had to lean only slightly backward for the blade to swish harmlessly past before him.

  The expected charge came from Domo’s companion in the shadows to the side, and Domo played his part in the routine perfectly, rushing ahead with a powerful thrust.

  Domo didn’t understand the beauty, the efficiency, of Artemis Entreri. Again Charon’s Claw caught and turned the attack, but this time, Entreri rolled his hand right over, and under the outside of Domo’s blade. He pulled in his gut as he threw Domo’s blade up high, and brought forth another wall of ash, blackening the air between him and the wererat. Following his own momentum, Entreri went into a complete spin, around to the right. As he came back square with Domo he brought his right arm swishing down, the sword trailing ash, while his left crossed his body over the down-swing, launching his jeweled dagger right into the gut of the charging wererat.

  Charon’s Claw did a complete circuit in the air between the combatants, forming a wide, circular wall. Domo came ahead right through it with yet another stubborn thrust, but Entreri wasn’t there. He dived to the side into a roll and came up and around with a powerful slash at the legs of the wererat still struggling with the dagger in its belly. To the assassin’s surprise and delight, the mighty sword sheared through not only the wererat’s closest knee, but through the other as well. The creature tumbled to the stone, howling in agony, its life-blood pouring out freely.

  Entreri hardly slowed, spinning about and coming up powerfully, slapping Domo’s sword out wide yet again, and snapping Charon’s Claw down and across to pick off a dagger neatly thrown by the wererat leader.

  Domo’s expression changed quickly then, his last trick obviously played. Now it was Entreri’s turn to take the offensive, and he did so with a powerful thrust high, thrust center, thrust low routine that had Domo inevitably skittering backward, fighting hard merely to keep his balance.

  Entreri, leaping ahead, didn’t make it any easier on the overmatched creature. His sword worked furiously, sometimes throwing ash, sometimes not, and all with a precision designed to limit Domo’s vision and options. Soon he had the wererat nearly to the back wall, and a glance from Domo told Entreri that he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of getting cornered.

  Entreri took the cue to slash and slash again, bringing up a wall of ash perpendicular to the floor then perpendicular to the first, an L-shaped design that blocked Domo’s vision of Entreri and his vision of the area to his immediate right.

  With a growl, the wererat went right with a desperate thrust, thinking that Entreri would use the ash wall to try to work around him. He hit only air. Then he felt the assassin’s presence at his back, for the man, anticipating the anticipation, had simply gone around the other way.

  Domo threw his sword to the ground. “I will tell you everything,” he cried. “I will—”

  “You already did,” Entreri assured him and the wererat stiffened as Charon’s Claw sliced through his backbone and drove on to the hilt, coming out the front just below Domo’s ri
bs.

  “It … hurts,” Domo gasped.

  “It is supposed to,” Entreri replied, and he gave the sword a sudden jerk, and Domo gasped, and he died.

  Entreri tore his blade free and rushed to retrieve his dagger. His thoughts were whirling now, as Domo’s confirmation of some kind of an uprising within Bregan D’aerthe incited a plethora of questions. Domo had not been Jarlaxle’s deceiver, nor was he in on the plotting against the mercenary leader—of that much, at least, Entreri was pretty sure. Yet it was Jarlaxle who had prompted this attack on Domo.

  Or was it?

  Wondering just how much the Crystal Shard was playing Jarlaxle’s best interests against Jarlaxle, Artemis Entreri scrambled out of Calimport’s sewers.

  “Beautiful,” Rai-guy remarked to Kimmuriel, the two of them using a mirror of scrying to witness Artemis Entreri’s return to House Basadoni. The wizard broke the connection almost immediately after, though, for the look upon the cunning assassin’s face told him that Entreri might be sensing the scrying. “He unwittingly does our bidding. The wererats will stand against Jarlaxle now.”

  “Alas for Domo,” Kimmuriel said, laughing. He stopped abruptly, though, and assumed a more serious demeanor. “But what of Entreri? He is formidable—even more so with that gauntlet and sword—and is too wise to believe that he would be better served in joining our cause. Perhaps we should eliminate him before turning our eyes toward Jarlaxle.”

  Rai-guy thought it over for just a moment, and nodded his agreement. “It must come from a lesser,” he said. “From Sharlotta and her minions, perhaps, as they will be little involved in the greater coup.”

  “Jarlaxle would not be pleased if he came to understand that we were going against Entreri,” Kimmuriel agreed. “Sharlotta, then, and not as a straightforward command. I will plant the thought in her that Entreri is trying to eliminate her.”