"What is it?" he managed to whisper.
Calihye had no answer. She moved to the room's one window and pulled aside the drape. Out on the street below her, she saw the fighting, where a trio of half-orc guards slashed and rushed wildly after the short hops and flights of a single gargoyle. Calihye watched for a while, mesmerized by the strange sequence and dance.
Then she gave a shout and fell back as a gargoyle crashed through the window, scattering shards of glass, its clawed hands reaching for her throat.
The woman let herself fall over in a backward roll, and she came up lightly to her feet, reversing her momentum and leaping forward as the foolish gargoyle charged ahead, impaling itself on her blade.
But another was at the window, ready to take its place.
"Help me," Davis Eng cried out.
Calihye ignored him, except to think that if the situation got too desperate she might be able to use the man as an offering to the beasts while she made her escape out the door.
She was a long way from that unpleasant possibility, however, and she went forward to meet the newest invader, working her sword with the skill of a seasoned veteran.
"Be reasonable, my friend," Canthan said as he backed away.
Artemis Entreri, his face perfectly expressionless, walked toward him.
"The girl is dead?"
No answer.
"Be reasonable, man," Canthan reiterated. "She was the source of power for this place—her life-force was feeding it."
No answer. Soon Canthan had a wall to his back, and Entreri was still coming on, sword and dagger in hand.
"Ah, but you fancied her, did you not?" Canthan asked.
He laughed—a sound he had to admit to himself was for no better reason than to cover his sincere discomfort. For Canthan didn't have many spells left to cast, and if Entreri had found a way to defeat Athrogate, he was a formidable foe indeed.
Still no answer, and Canthan cast a quick spell that sent him in an extra-dimensional «blink» to the other side of the room.
Entreri did nothing but turn and continue his determined approach.
"By the gods, don't tell me that you slew Athrogate?" Canthan said to him. "Why, he was worth quite a bit to the Citadel—a favor I do for you in killing you now. However we might talk, I cannot forgive that, I fear, nor will Knellict!" He finished with a flourish of his arms, and launched a lightning bolt Entreri's way.
But it wasn't that easy. Entreri moved before the blast ensued, a sudden and efficient dive and roll out to the side.
Canthan was already casting a second time, sending a series of magical missiles that no man, not even Artemis Entreri, could avoid. But the assassin growled through their stinging bites and came on.
Laughing, Canthan readied another blast of lightning, but a dagger flashed through the air, striking him in the chest and interrupting his casting. The wizard was of course well warded from such mundane attacks, and even the jeweled dagger bounced away. He quickly refocused and let fly his blast at the man—or at what he thought was the man, he realized too late, for it was naught but a wall of ash.
Growing increasingly fearful, Canthan spun around to survey the room.
No Entreri.
He spun again, then stopped and muttered, "Oh, clever."
He didn't even have to look to understand the assassins ruse and movement.
For in that moment of distraction from the dagger, in that reflexive blink of the wizard's eye, Entreri had not only swiped the sword and put forth the ash wall, but he had leaped up, catching himself on Canthan's webbing.
The wizard glanced up at him. The assassin was in a curl, legs tucked up tight against his chest, his hands plunged into the secure webbing. He uncoiled and swayed back, then toward Canthan. As he came forward, he flicked something he held in one hand—a simple flint and steel contraption. The resulting spark ignited the web and burned the entire section away in an instant, just as Entreri came to the height of his swing.
He flew forward, falling over into a backward somersault as he went, extending his legs and arms to control the fall. He landed lightly and in perfect balance right in front of the wizard, and out came his sword.
The skilled wizard struck first, a blast of stunning lightning that crackled all over Entreri's body, sparks flying from his sword. His jaw snapped uncontrollably, his muscles tensing and clenching, the fingers of one hand curling into a tight ball, the knuckles of the other whitening on the hilt of Charon's Claw.
But Entreri didn't fly back and he didn't fall away. He growled and held his ground. He took the hit and with incredible determination and simple toughness, he fought through it.
When the lightning ended, Entreri came out of it in a sudden spin, Charon's Claw flying wide. Given the sheer power of that blade, beyond the defenses of any wards and guards, Entreri could have quite easily killed the horrified wizard, could have taken the man's head from his shoulders. But Charon's Claw came in short in a diagonal stroke, cutting the wizard from shoulder to opposite hip.
Stunned and falling back, Canthan could not get far enough away as Entreri, his face still so cold and expressionless that Canthan wondered briefly if he was nothing more than an animated corpse, leaped high in a spin and came around with a circle kick that snapped Canthan's head back viciously.
Entreri retrieved his prized dagger and wiped the blood from his nose and mouth as he again stalked over to the prone Canthan. Face down, the man squirmed then stubbornly pulled himself up to his elbows.
Entreri kicked him in the head and kicked him again before Canthan settled back down to the floor. The assassin put his sword away but held the dagger as he grabbed the semiconscious wizard by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back to the corridor.
"Surely you'll be reasonable in this regard," Jarlaxle, on his hands and knees and peering over the edge of the hole, said to Athrogate. "You cannot get out without my help."
Athrogate, hands on hips, just stared up at him.
"I had to do something," Jarlaxle said. "Was I to allow you to kill my friend?"
"Bah! Well I wouldn't've fought him if he hadn't've fought meself."
"True enough, but consider Olgerkhan."
"I did, and I killed him."
"Sometimes acts like that upset people."
"He shouldn't've got in me friend's way."
"So your friend could kill the girl?"
Athrogate shrugged as if it did not matter. "He had a reason."
"An errant reason."
"What's done is done. Ye wanting an apology?"
"I don't know that I want anything," Jarlaxle replied. "You seem to be the one in need, not I."
"Bah!"
"You cannot get out. Starvation is a lousy way for a warrior to die."
Athrogate just shrugged, moved to the side of the hole, studied the sheer wall for a moment, and sat down.
Jarlaxle sighed and turned away to consider Arrayan. She was still cradling Olgerkhan's head, whispering to him.
"Don't you dare leave me," she pleaded.
"And only now you realize your love for him?" Jarlaxle asked.
Arrayan shot him a hateful look that told him his guess was on the mark.
Noise from the corridor turned Jarlaxle's head, but not the woman's. In came Entreri, muttering under his breath and dragging Canthan at the end of one arm. He moved around the hole to Arrayan and Olgerkhan.
The woman looked at him with a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and horror.
Entreri had no time for it. He grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her aside, then dropped Canthan before Olgerkhan.
Arrayan came back at him, but he stopped her with the coldest and most frightening look the woman had ever seen.