Drizzt had barely crossed the threshold in pursuit of Dahlia when the pelting ice drove him back.
With a growl he threw up the hood of his cloak and leaped out once more, but the slick ice sent him sliding to the middle of the porch, unable to turn and get to the stairs.
He yelled for Guenhwyvar. He put up Taulmaril and began launching arrows once more.
A pellet of ice smacked him hard and dropped him to his knees, so he continued to shoot from his knees. He searched for the wizard—if he could just get a shot at the wizard!
He looked up at the adjacent roof for Guenhwyvar. An archer was in view, desperately trying to set an arrow as another form, a woman, came running across the rooftop, brandishing a long knife. She barreled into the archer, her leading arm sweeping aside his bow, her knife striking hard.
Drizzt could have shot her down, but was she an enemy or an ally?
He lowered the bow and threw himself into a slide to the railing overlooking the street, overlooking Dahlia, overlooking the thugs closing in on her.
He could only yell out for her. He lifted his bow and tried to decide which one of these killers he would stop.
And, by default, which of the others he would allow to get to Dahlia.
Therfus Handydoer laughed a bit as he watched the scene unfolding in front of him, the female elf tumbling out into the streets, still staggering foolishly from his lightning serpent.
He knew the drow was trapped in his area of icy punishment. He’d defeated the feared Dahlia and her drow companion so easily! He almost pitied warriors.
Almost, but how might he pity one foolish enough to lift a sword when a spell was so much more powerful?
It occurred to him to finish Dahlia then, to take the kill as his own before the surrounding thugs could close in, and so he began to whisper his next spell.
The tip of a deadly dagger came in tight against his throat.
“This is not your time to kill, son of Ship Rethnor,” a quiet voice intoned. “Is it your time to die?”
Therfus’s mind whirled. How could he escape this? For a brief moment, his sneering contempt for those who chose the blade over the spell was shaken.
“You would kill the noble second of a high captain?” he asked, hoping his station would save him where his spells obviously could not.
The man behind him snorted.
“Do you not understand that significance?” a suddenly defiant Therfus said with strength returned to his voice. “I am a noble second!”
“As am I.”
Therfus managed to turn his gaze down to the dagger, along its silvery blade to the beautifully jeweled and distinctive hilt. Suddenly he understood.
“Beniago of Ship Kurth!” he declared. The recognition of his would-be killer brought as much relief as fear, particularly since he knew the reputation of that deadly dagger.
The knife moved away from his throat and the assassin shoved him a step forward. Therfus wheeled around. “This is no business of Closeguard Isle!”
“Obviously, we disagree.”
“You walk on dangerous ground, son of Ship Kurth.”
He meant to finish with an imposing point of his long and crooked finger, but as he reached out, the ground jolted with such force that it was all Therfus could do to hold his footing. Even Beniago, so graceful and feline in his movements, lurched forward.
Anger rose up to bury Dahlia’s fear—anger that her end would come at the hands of such peasants, anger that she couldn’t explore this relationship with a companion who, at long last, might prove worthy of her, anger that Sylora Salm would outlive her.
And anger that Kozah’s Needle, her powerful staff, had eaten the lightning serpent and was apparently multiplying its power and dumping that power back into Dahlia in a debilitating way. She wanted to throw the staff aside, but she couldn’t begin to release her grip on it.
But there was one thing she could do, she realized.
As her attackers closed in, she drove the end of Kozah’s Needle down hard upon the cobblestones and bade the staff to release its energy.
An explosion of lightning lifted her up, the ground itself rolling, turning large stones free of their settings and hurling the pirates into the air.
Drizzt yelled for Dahlia as the porch above her came tumbling down. Dahlia couldn’t turn to look. She felt the energy flowing through her, focusing through her staff, releasing into the ground. Like a great exhale, the lightning energy drained her as it departed, so fully consuming her every thought that she was hardly aware of the devastation around her.
When it had all died away, Dahlia stood calmly, a solitary figure, her eyes closed, holding Kozah’s Needle upright as it continued to throw the occasional spark.
Eventually, she was able to open her eyes. Some of the pirates crawled, others squirmed, one grasped an ankle he’d painfully turned in his fall.
None of them seemed to hold any further interest in Dahlia, unless it was in getting as far away from her as quickly as possible.
To the side lay the ruined porch, a dark form curled under a pile of splintered wood.
“By the gods,” Therfus mumbled, staring dumbfounded below.
“I offer you the chance to flee this place,” Beniago said.
“In the name of Kurth?” the wizard snapped back at him.
“In any name you please.”
“Do you know who this is?” the wizard spat.
“A mercenary of Bregan D’aerthe, I assume,” Beniago replied, and his grin showed that he was well aware that he was taunting Therfus.
“Not him, the female,” Therfus stated flatly.
“We know.”
“Then you know of Dahlia’s history with my Ship. She’s a murderess, and Borlann Rethnor her victim!”
Beniago nodded.
“She murdered my friend! My captain!” Therfus said with a growl. “You would deny me this retribution?”
Beniago brandished that terrible jeweled dagger, and given the reputation of both the blade and the assassin holding it, Therfus understood well the depth of that threat. Beniago could stab him before he could begin to defend, physically or magically, and with that blade, it would only take one wound to kill him.
Therfus glanced all around. He heard the black panther and followed the sound of the roar to the roof, where new warriors—men serving Kurth, no doubt—had taken control.
He looked back to Beniago and his knife.
“Closeguard Isle will pay for this outrage,” Therfus promised as he took several quick steps away from the assassin. “This is a grave betrayal, I warn!”
Beniago merely shrugged.