The first nodded back as they watched the drow in action. One of Baram’s boys took an awkward swing, apparently trying to cut the drow’s legs out from under him, but Drizzt nimbly jumped, snapping a kick in the man’s face as he came over.
The second thug came in hard with a straight thrust from the side, but the drow’s scimitars beat him to the mark. One blade crossed to easily drive the thug’s sword out wide, the other stabbed straight out, driving right against the man’s throat. Drizzt then swept his free blade back across in time to loop it over the other ruffian’s blade as it came up from its low position. A twist and flick of the drow’s wrist had that one flying free and the suddenly unarmed ruffian, like his friend who stood immobilized with a sharp tip against his throat, was caught.
“The fight is done for you,” Drizzt announced to the pair, and neither was in a position to disagree.
The two men rushed down the alley to join the drow, skidding to an abrupt stop as Drizzt turned a wary eye on them.
“We’re with Deudermont!” they yelled together.
“Just signed up,” one clarified.
“These two are fairly caught,” Drizzt explained, and turned to his prisoners. “I will have your words of honor that you are out of the fight, or I will spill your lifeblood here and now.”
Baram’s boys looked at each other helplessly, then offered undying oaths as Drizzt prodded with his blades.
“Take them to the eastern wing of the first floor,” Drizzt instructed the new Deudermont recruits. “No harm is to come to them.”
“But they’re with Baram!” one protested.
“Was them what killed Suljack!” said the other.
Drizzt silenced them with an even stare. “They’re caught. Their fight is ended. And when this foolishness is done, they will again become a part of Luskan, a city that has seen far too much death.”
“Oh yes, yes, Mister Regis, sir,” a voice interrupted, and all five at Drizzt’s encounter glanced to see Regis entering the far end of the alleyway. A pair of thugs—Taerl’s boys—trailed him stupidly, their eyes locked on a particularly fascinating ruby that Regis spun at the end of a chain.
“No more fightin’ for me,” said the other hypnotized fool.
Regis walked right by Drizzt and the others, offering a profound sigh at the inanity of it all.
“We win by preserving the heart and soul of Luskan,” Drizzt explained to the thoroughly confused new recruits. “Not by killing everyone who’s not now with our cause.” Drizzt nodded to the still-armed ruffian to drop his blade, and when he didn’t immediately respond, the drow prodded him again in the throat. His blade fell to the cobblestones. With his scimitars, Drizzt then guided the pair to the new recruits. “Take them to the eastern wing.”
“Prisoners,” one of the new recruits said, nodding.
“Aye,” said the other, and they started off, the captured thugs before them and following the same line as Regis and his two captives.
Despite the enormity of the calamity around them—the streets around Deudermont’s new palace were thick with fighting, as both Baram and Taerl, at least, had come against the governor fully—Drizzt couldn’t help but chuckle, particularly at Regis and his effective tactics.
That grin was blown away a few moments later, however, when Drizzt ran to the far end of the alleyway, arriving just in time to see the less subtle Robillard engulf an entire building in a massive fireball. Screams emanated from inside the burning structure and one man leaped out of a second story window, his clothing fully aflame.
Despite his and Deudermont’s hopes to keep the battle as bloodless as possible, Drizzt understood that before the fight was over, many more Luskar would lie dead.
The drow rubbed his weary eyes and blew a long and resigned sigh. Not for the first time and not for the last, he wished he could rewind time to when he and Regis had first arrived in the city, before Deudermont and Lord Brambleberry had begun their fateful journey.
CHAPTER 31
THE PROVERBIAL STRAW
D eudermont, Robillard, Drizzt, Regis, and the others gathered in the governor’s war room shared a profound sense of dread from the look on Waillan Micanty’s face as he entered the room.
“Waterdhavian flotilla came in,” the man said.
“And…?” Deudermont prompted.
“One boat,” Micanty replied.
“One?” Robillard growled.
“Battered, and with her crew half dead,” Micanty reported. “All that’s left of the flotilla. Some turned back, most are floating empty or have been sent to the bottom.”
He paused, but no one in the room had the strength to ask a question or offer a response, or even, it seemed, to draw breath.
“Was lacedons, they said,” Micanty went on. “Sea ghouls. Scores of ’em. And something bigger and stronger, burning ships with fire that came up from the deep.”
“Those ships were supposed to be guarded!” Robillard fumed.
“Aye, and so they were,” Waillan Micanty replied, “but not from below. Hundreds of men dead and most all of the supplies lost to the waves.”
Deudermont slipped into his chair, and it seemed to Drizzt that if he had not, he might have just fallen over.
“The folk of Luskan won’t like this,” Regis remarked.
“The supplies were our bartering card,” Deudermont agreed.
“Perhaps we can use the sea ghouls as a new, common enemy,” Regis offered. “Tell the high captains that we have to join together to win back the shipping lanes.”
Robillard scoffed loudly.
“It’s something!” the halfling protested.
“It’s everything, perhaps,” Deudermont agreed, to Regis’s surprise most of all.
“We have to stop this warring,” the governor went on, addressing Robillard most of all. “Declare a truce and sail side-by-side against these monstrosities. We can sail all the way to Waterdeep and fill our holds with—”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Robillard interrupted. “You think the four high captains will join an expedition that will only secure your power?”
“For their own good as well,” the governor argued. “To save Luskan.”
“Luskan is already dead,” said Robillard.
Drizzt wanted to argue with the wizard, but found no words to suffice.
“Send word to the high captains for parlay,” Deudermont ordered. “They will see the wisdom in this.”
“They will not!” Robillard insisted.
“We have to try!” Deudermont shouted back and the wizard scoffed again and turned away.
Regis sent a concerned look Drizzt’s way, but the drow had little comfort to offer him. They both had spent the previous day battling in the streets around Suljack’s palace, and both knew that Luskan teetered on the brink of disaster, if indeed she wasn’t already there. The only mitigating factor seemed to be the wealth of supplies streaming up from Waterdeep, and if most of those were not to arrive….
“We have to try,” Deudermont said again, his tone and timbre more quiet, even, and controlled.
But there was no mistaking the desperation and fear embedded in that voice.
Baram and Taerl wouldn’t come to him personally, but sent a single emissary to deliver their message. Kurth and Kensidan didn’t even answer his request for a parlay.
Deudermont tried to put a good face on the rejection, but whenever he thought that Robillard or Drizzt weren’t looking his way, he sighed.
“Twenty-seven?” Robillard asked in a mocking tone. “A whole day of fighting, a dozen men dead or near it on our side, and all we’ve got to show for our work are twenty-seven prisoners, and not a one of them pledging to our cause?”