Nor could he block, for he rightly feared that Athrogate might tangle one of his weapons in the morning star chain and tear it free of his grasp. Or even worse, might that rusting sludge that coated the dwarf's left-hand weapon ruin Charon's Claw's fine blade?
Entreri used his speed, darting this way and that, feigning a strike and backing away almost immediately. He was not trying to score a hit at that point, though he would have made a stab if an opening presented itself. Instead, Entreri moved to put the dwarf into a different rhythm. He kept Athrogate's feet moving sidelong or had him turning quickly—both movements that the straightforward fighter found more atypical.
But that would take a long, long time, Entreri knew, and with another glance at Arrayan, he understood that it was time she didn't have to spare.
With that uncomfortable thought in mind, he went in suddenly, reversing his dodging momentum in an attempt to score a quick kill.
But a sweeping morning star turned Charon's Claw harmlessly aside, and the second sent Entreri diving desperately into a sidelong roll. Athrogate pursued, weapons spinning, and Entreri barely got ahead of him and avoided a skull-crushing encounter.
"Patience… patience," the dwarf teased.
Entreri realized that Athrogate knew exactly his strategy, had probably seen the same technique used by every skilled opponent he'd ever faced. The assassin had to rethink. He needed some space and time. He came forward in a sudden burst again, but even as Athrogate howled with excitement, Entreri was gone, sprinting out across the room.
Athrogate paused and looked at him with open curiosity. "Ye running or thinking to hit me from afar?" he asked. "If ye're running, ye dolt, then be gone like a colt. But be knowing in yer mind that I'm not far behind! Bwahaha!"
"While I find your ugliness repellant, dwarf, do not ever think I would flee from the likes of you."
Athrogate howled with laughter again, and he charged—or he started to, for as he began to close the ground between himself and Entreri, an elongated disk floated in from the side, stretching and widening, and settled on the floor between them. Athrogate, unable to stop his momentum, tumbled headlong into the extra-dimensional hole.
He howled. He cursed. He landed hard, ten feet down.
Then he cursed some more, and in rhymes.
Entreri glanced at the tunnel entrance, where Jarlaxle stood, leaning.
The drow offered a shrug and remarked, "Bear trap?"
Entreri didn't respond. He leaped across the room to Arrayan and quickly tore the magical dart from her stomach. He stared at the vicious missile, watching with mounting anger as its tip continued to pump forth acid. A glance back at Arrayan told him that he had arrived in time, that the wound wasn't mortal, but he could not deny the truth of it when he looked into Arrayan's fair face. She was dying, with literally one foot in the nether realm.
Desperation tugged at Entreri. He saw not Arrayan but Dwahvel lying before him. He shook the woman and yelled for her to come back. Hardly thinking of the movement, he found himself hugging her, then he pulled her back to arms' length and called to her over and over again.
Lying on the floor to the side, the dying Olgerkhan saw the fleeting health of Arrayan and understood clearly that much of his dear companion's current grief was being caused by her magical binding with him. As the rings had forced Olgerkhan to share Arrayan's burden, so they had begun to work the other way. Olgerkhan knew his wounds to be mortal, knew that he was on the very edge of death.
And he was taking Arrayan with him.
With all the strength he could muster, the half-orc pulled the ring from his finger and flicked it far to the side.
His world went black at the same time Arrayan opened her eyes.
Entreri fell back from her in surprise. She still looked terrible, weaker than anyone he had ever seen before, more—he could only describe it as thin and drained of her life energy—frail than any human being could be, much more so than she had been before the fight.
But she still had life, and consciousness, and so the assassin learned, rage.
"No!" the woman cried. "Olgerkhan, no!"
The tone of her voice showed that she was scolding the half-orc, not denying his wound. That, combined with her sudden return from the grave, had the assassin scratching his head. Entreri looked again to Jarlaxle, who studied the pair intently but seemingly with just as much curiosity.
Arrayan, so weak and drained and sorely wounded, dragged herself past Entreri to her half-orc companion "You took off the ring," she said, cradling his face in her hands. "Put it back! Olgerkhan, put it back!"
He didn't, couldn't answer.
"You think to save me," Arrayan wailed, "but don't you know? I cannot be saved to watch you die. Olgerkhan, come back to me. You must! You are all I love, all that I have ever loved. It's you, Olgerkhan. It was always you. Please come back to me!"
Her voice grew weaker, her shoulders quivered with sobs, and she held on dearly to her friend.
"The ring?" Jarlaxle asked.
Arrayan didn't answer, but the drow was figuring it out anyway. He thought of all the times the two had seemed to share their pain and their weariness.
"So the castle does have a king," Jarlaxle remarked to Entreri, but the assassin was hardly listening.
He stood staring at the couple, chuckling at himself and all of his foolish fantasies about his future beside Arrayan.
Without a word of explanation, Artemis Entreri ran out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY
JUST BECAUSE
Though he was confident that his job was done regarding Arrayan and Olgerkhan and that Athrogate would dispatch the assassin, Canthan glanced back many times as he ran down the descending corridor. Though his gaze turned to what lay behind him, his thoughts were on the future, for he knew that there was a great prize to be found in the pages of the Witch-King's book. His perusal of the tome had shown him possibilities beyond his imagination. Somehow within that book loomed the secret that would grant him ownership of the castle, without it taking his life-force as it had Arrayan's. He was certain of that. Zhengyi had designed it so. The book would trap the unwitting and use that soul to build the castle.
But that was only half the enchantment. Once constructed, the fortress was there for the taking—for one wise enough and strong enough to seize it.
Canthan could do that, and certainly Knellict, among the greatest of wizards in the Bloodstone Lands, could too. Had the Citadel of Assassins just found a new home, one from which they might openly challenge King Gareth's claim of dominion?
"Ah, the possibilities," Canthan muttered as he approached the next door.
The castle was either dormant or soon to be, he believed, or at least it was beyond regeneration given the fall of its life sources. Still the wizard remained at the ready.
He threw a spell of opening that swung the door in long before he physically entered the room. In the large chamber beyond, he saw movement, and he didn't even wait to discern the type of creature before he began his spellcasting.
A gnoll mummy came to the threshold. It served as the first target, the initial strike point.
A bolt of lightning arced onto its head then shot away to the next target, and on again. It diminished with each successive strike but jumped about several times. That first mummy smoked and unwrapped into a pile of smoldering rags, and Canthan was fast to the point, next spell ready. A quick survey of the large room showed him the course of his first strike, the chain bouncing across five targets, mummies all. The healthiest remaining creature had been the last hit, so Canthan reversed his line and made that one the first.
In the instant it took the second lightning chain to leap across the remaining mummies, all four went down, reduced to smoking husks.