Dawn of Night (28 page)

“Now the half-orc,” said Cale.

Jak looked to Cale and remembered then the words that Cale had said to him many times before: Only an assassin knows an assassin. His friend-his best friend— was separated from Drasek Riven by no more than the edge of a blade, if that.

With nothing but ice in his expression, Riven put his foot into the back of the corpse and shoved it at Ergis. The body collapsed in a heap at the half-orc’s booted feet. The pirate’s feral eyes showed fear.

“I’m leaving,” the half-orc said, and took a single step backward. He lowered his blade and held up his other hand. “All right?”

He looked past Riven to Cale, Jak, and Magadon as though for support.

“I’m sorry, Felwer,” he said to the innkeeper. “I won’t be back.” To Riven, he said, “Umberlee’s arse, man. It’s just a dog.”

Riven eyed Ergis with a gaze devoid of emotion. He

ominously tapped the blade of the bloody punch dagger against his palm. He looked back at the wounded dog, which was licking the dirty hands of the innkeeper and whining.

Jak saw a ripple of anger run the length of Riven’s body.

The assassin turned back to Ergis and said, in a tone so low that Jak could barely hear him, “And you’re ju a number. There ain’t no walking away from this, Captain.”

The half-orc paled, turned, and ran. But he couldn’t move quickly on his wounded calf.

Riven bounded after him, would have closed on him, but Cale’s voice stopped the assassin cold.

“Let him go,” Cale ordered.

Hearing those words, Jak almost grinned in relief. Cale and Riven might be separated by only a blade’s edge, but that edge was keen and clear. Cale showed mercy. Riven did not.

The assassin stopped his pursuit but did not otherwise acknowledge that he had heard Cale. Ergis vanished into the darkness of the street. For a moment, Riven simply stood with his back to them, a bloody punch dagger in his fist, anger written clear in the bunch of his back. After a moment, he turned, picked up his daggers, and stalked over to the innkeeper and the wounded hound. With surprising gentleness, the assassin knelt, let the dog sniff his hand and scratched it behind the ears.

“The gods smile on you,” said the innkeeper, taking Riven’s other hand.

Jak caught Riven’s sneer.

The assassin muttered words under his breath, entwined shadows around his fingers, and touched them to the dog. The little hound yelped as its leg bone twisted back into place and reknit.

Riven gave the dog one last pat, stood and said to the innkeeper in a cool tone, “Gods smile on the strong, grandfather. Go back inside and mind your dog.”

The old man’s thankful smile grew uncertain. Visibly confused. tie turned and walked back into the tavern, trailing his hound.

Riven spun on his heel and marched up to Cale, still holding the punch dagger, still wearing that emotionless expression. Cale gave no ground and shadows leaked from his skin.

“Don’t ever tell me what to do, Cale,” Riven said. Cale’s eyes narrowed.

“Then don’t make me. You made your point.” He nodded at the two corpses cooling in the street and added, “The dog was safe.”

Riven replied, “You save whores, I save bitches, and we both let someone walk away. Those are bad habits, Cale.”

The shadows around Cale’s head and hands intensified.

“Those are my habits,” he replied. “You don’t like them, walk away. And don’t ever call her a whore again in my presence.”

Riven’s eye narrowed and his voice lowered.

“Softness for women is another of your bad habits, First of Five.”

Jak had no idea what woman they were talking about and he dared not ask, at least not just then.

Cale answered with a cold stare and colder silence. For a moment, they stood there glaring into each other’s faces, priest and assassin, saying nothing, saying everything.

Magadon broke the tension.

“Let’s get to where we’re going and get off the street,” the guide said, eyeing the passersby.

Jak realized that he had been holding his breath. He blew it out. Cale and Riven could go from working as smoothly together as interlocking cogs one moment, to grating against one another like flint and steel the next. The constant underlying tension was exhausting to Jak.

“A good idea,” Riven said. “And this may as well be where we’re going.” He indicated the Pour House. “Likely the old man will give us free room and board. Meantime, I’ve got to get ready for my meet.”

With that, he spun on his heel and walked away.

Cale stared daggers into Riven’s back as the assassin walked away.

As they passed through the curtain of seashells that served as the doorway of the Pour House, Jak looked back to see several skinny humans in tattered clothing emerge from nearby alleys and begin to strip the dead sailors of valuables like a pack of dogs stripping a kill of meat.

The moment Cale and Magadon had procured a room from the innkeeper-Riven had been right; the old man insisted on providing them free lodging—Cale said to him, “Little man, stay here for this. We’ll be back within two hours. Mags, you’re with me.”

*****

From a rope bridge suspended a dagger’s throw above the street, Azriim had watched the confrontation between Cale and the one-eyed assassin. He hadn’t been able to hear their words, but he could see the genuine tension between them, and could sense the latent anger.

When the assassin stalked off and Cale and his comrades entered the inn, Azriim sped off down the hemp highway. Azriim-as-Thyld had arranged a meeting with the assassin within the half hour. After the confrontation with Cale, he knew the assassin would come alone.

Azriim watched the one-eyed assassin stalk into the common room of the Crate and Dock. The human moved with a grace, a predatory sinuousness that reminded Azriim of his brood-mate Serrin. The human’s efficiency too—at least to judge from the fight with the sailors in the street-was also reminiscent of Serrin. No wonder Azriim’s brood-mate hated the human so. Serrin and Azriim had nearly come to blows over Serrin’s insistence that he be allowed to attend the meeting with the human. Azriim had refused, concerned that his brood-mate’s hostility for the assassin would have shown through even a changed form. Instead, he’d stationed Dolgan on the street outside, in the big slaad’s habitual form of a street drunk, and left Serrin back at the storehouse.

Anything unusual? Azriim projected to his brood-mate. He was alone, Dolgan responded.

Dressed in a nondescript gray cloak over leathers, the human wore his sabers-magical sabers, Azriim saw—with practiced ease. The assassin’s one eye quickly swept the candlelit, hazy common room, and the dozen or so laborers sitting at the worn tables—the Crate and Dock was a favored eatery of dock laborers. When he spotted Azriim, in the form of Thyld, the human’s eye narrowed.

Rather than sit at the table in the center of the common room that Azriim had chosen, the human nodded Azriim over and sat at another table in a dark corner, one with a view of the rest of the space. Azriim smiled as he rose. The human was choosing the battlefield, in case Azriim had set him up, and forcing Azriim to put his back to the door.

Limping along as Thyld, Azriim crossed the common room and slid into the chair opposite the assassin. For the meeting, Azriim grudgingly had changed his eye color to match Thyld’s dull brown.

“Speak,” the assassin said. “You know what I want to hear.”

Azriim placed his hands on the table and interlaced his fingers.

‘First, my price,” he said, playing his part.

“If what you offer is of value to me, you’ll be treated well,” the assassin said with a sneer. -If what you offer is lies, you’ll be treated quite differently.”

Azriim rubbed the back of his neck, making a show of worried consideration, then said, “Very well. You wanted to know about a duergar with eyes of two different colors. Here is what I know. Without embellishment, of course.”

Azriim began to tell the assassin a fiction about the duergar slaver and his two human companions who had hired a troop of armed guards to escort a caravan into the northern tunnels of the Underdark. Apparently, they were transporting valuable cargo.

As he spoke his lies, Azriim thought all the while of how the appearance of Cale and his comrades in the midst of a slaver gang war would only increase the likelihood of a rapid and overwhelming response by the Skulls. It was beautiful really. The timing could not have been better.

*****

Cale and Magadon cowled their faces with the hoods of their cloaks and used side streets to approach the Crate and Dock. Cale would have preferred to have included Jak, but as much as possible he wanted to spare the halfling the sights of Skullport. He knew the vileness of the city affected Jak more than the rest of them. Skullport was combination slave pen, slaughterhouse, charnel pit, and general store. Even Cale found it hard to stomach.

Across the street from the front door of the Crate and Dock, Cale and Magadon lurked in an alley so narrow that Cale could h.tve held his arms outstretched and touched both sides. The air smelled of urine, vomit, and the general musty odor that permeated all of Skullport. An open sewer a dagger toss away emitted an unspeakable stink. A few street torches near the eatery’s door provided the only light in the immediate vicinity.

Drow, serpent men, orcs, and worse stalked by, dragging slaves and speaking quietly in their alien tongues. Periodically, the muffled roar of a crowd sounded from within a large stone building down the street, outside of which a crowd milled. Cale figured the place to be some kind of fighting arena. The smell of cooking meat carried from somewhere on the hemp highway high above.

Do you make that drunk? Cale projected to Magadon.

Down a bit, on their side of the street, an unshaven drunk lay against the wall of what looked to be a brewery, his dirty shirt too small to cover his fat belly, his double chin pressed into his chest. Passersby stepped over him, on him, and occasionally spat at him.

Magadon peered into the darkness. Cale knew the guide couldn’t see as well as he could in the pitch darkness, despite his demonic heritage.

I see him, Magadon said.

He’s not drunk, Cale said.

Cale had noted the man the instant he’d scanned the street, and had been watching him since. With regularity, the apparent drunk looked up from under hooded eyes and surveyed the street. He was watching the entrance to the Crate and Dock. Likely, he worked for the person with whom Riven was meeting.

One of the slaadi? Magadon asked. Or just a lookout for Riven’s contact?

Cale shook his head. He had no way to know without closing to use a divination spell, but that would risk his being noticed. He could have turned himself invisible to approach the drunk, but he remembered well the fight in the alley back in Selgaunt when Azriim had seen and captured an invisible Jak. From that, he assumed that the slaadi-if the drunk was indeed a shapechanged slaad-could see invisible creatures. He didn’t want to tip his presence.

“Mags, link us to Riven,” he said.

The guide nodded and closed his eyes. After a moment, Cale felt as though another window had been opened in the room of his mind.

Riven? he projected.

A pause.

I hear you, the assassin responded. Didn’t expect to, after our little disagreement. Think I’m untrustworthy, First of Five?

Cale ignored Riven’s venom and asked, What’s your assessment?

Another pause. Likely the assassin’s attention was focused on whatever the contact was telling him.

Eyes are normal, Riven finally answered, his tone more moderated. He looks right and talks the talk. But he offers too much for too little. He’s either stupid or one of our slaadi.

Hearing that, Magadon shifted on his feet. Cale too felt

adrenaline charge his muscles. He doubted stupidity to be the explanation.

Keep him talking, Cale said to Riven. To Magadon, he projected, Back in Starmantle you said you could put yourself behind someone’s eyes and see what they see.

Magadon nodded, immediately grasping Cale’s point. The slaad or Riven? Magadon asked.

The slaad, answered Cale.

I can do that, the guide answered. But I need to see the target first, to plant the first hook. After that, he can be anywhere. He paused, then added, Also, he might sense the mental intrusion.

Cale nodded. They would have to take that chance. How long can you maintain it?

Magadon answered, As long as I wish, though it will drain me somewhat. The connection is latent and requires little mental energy until I activate it to see what the target sees. Each time I activate it, though, we again risk him sensing my presence.

This is a waste of time, Riven said. Let’s just put him down right now.

Cale shook his head, though he knew Riven couldn’t see him.

No, he answered. He’s only one of the three slaadi. Another may be out here in the street. We need to learn their play and put all of them down at once. Stopping them doesn’t necessarily stop the Sojourner.

Riven fell silent, though Cale could sense his irritation through the mental connection.

Cale thought about having Magadon connect to the drunk down the street but decided against it. If the drunk was a slaad, he was not the leader. The leader would be the one talking to Riven.

Riven, Cale projected, we need to see the one you’re talking with. Hear what he says and walk out with him. If he detects Magadon’s psionic attach, you’ll get your chance then. If that happens, Mags and I will take the watchman out on the street.

Riven projected acquiescence and the connection went quiet.

*****

Riven stared across the table, hearing what the false human was saying, wondering what the slaadi were planning, and fighting down the desire to draw steel. Despite his inner turmoil, he had no trouble keeping his expression neutral, even vaguely friendly. Riven had so often sat across tables from men he intended to kill that he had long ago mastered the ability to keep his face expressionless even while choosing between blade, garrote, or poison. No moral crisis ever rose from Riven’s conscience to trouble his expression. For him, murder was business. For him, everything was business. The critical point was that he be on the winning side in the end.