Charon's Claw

The newcomer, a smallish but well-muscled man, jerked the sword free and started Jermander’s way. Ichor dripped from his long blade. He held a smaller dirk in his left hand.



Jermander was no cowardly commander hiding in the bushes, however. Noted for his skilled blade work, the shade didn’t shy from many fights. He brought his fine silver sword up in a salute and stalked in.



“You are with Dahlia, then?” he asked as he neared, his sword waving before him.



“No,” came the curt reply, the small man’s sword slapping hard across to drive Jermander’s leading thrust aside.



Jermander rolled his blade free deftly, re-angled, and went straight back in with the sword—only to have a backhand roll of the dirk move the strike harmlessly aside.



Which Jermander had expected, of course, and so he worked fast, suddenly— retract and stab, retract and stab, retract once more, turning the sword up and over in a diagonal downward slice. He didn’t expect to land a blow, and he didn’t come close, but was merely trying to get a measure of this unexpected and unknown opponent.



“Yet you leaped in to defend her?” the shade remarked.



“I don’t like spiders.”



“How do you feel about elf women?” Jermander said with a light grin—one that was wiped away immediately as this newcomer raged forward suddenly, his feet moving fast, his blades a blur of circling and stabbing.



Jermander worked furiously with his fine sword, and more so with his feet as he found himself in the unusual position of full retreat! This warrior of Cavus Dun was well known in many regions of the Shadowfell. Long and lanky, deceptively fast and carrying a light and thin mithral blade that glowed with magical energy, Jermander had risen high in the ranks of the hireling hunters as much for his fighting skills as his organization and leadership qualities—and more so in the beginning.



He needed every bit of that skill now to fend the speeding strikes of his adversary, and though he could hardly take the time to sit back and consider the moment, or his opponent, a thought did occur to him.



“You are Alegni’s man!” he shouted between the ring of metal on metal. As he spoke the words, he knew them to be true; this one’s complexion and reputation had indeed preceded him.



Artemis Entreri didn’t even smile in response, just kept up his impeccable offensive barrage, kept Jermander on his heels.



Ratsis was just about to order his remaining spider to shift its webbing attack to the newcomer when he and the Shifter heard Jermander’s claim that this unexpected addition to the fight was Alegni’s man.



The two glanced at each other and Ratsis swallowed hard.



“We are not in accordance with the wishes of a Netherese Lord?” the Shifter whispered breathlessly.



Her answer had to wait as a low feline growl filled the air.



The Shifter’s eyes widened as she looked past Ratsis, her expression prompting Ratsis to turn likewise, affording them both the view of a large black panther standing atop the ledge where the drow had flown. A large black panther seeming very intent on them.



“Guenhwyvar!” Dahlia cried, her voice somewhat muffled by the stubborn webbing.



Ratsis’s gaze darted from the cat to Dahlia to Jermander and Alegni’s man and back to the Shifter, who was shaking her head.



“I will expect my payment in full,” she said, and she hustled away into the shadows—and back to her homeworld.



Ratsis glanced around again. Three of his mercenary group lay dead, and the value of Dahlia had therefore increased to him personally. But caught between health and wallet, Ratsis soon enough realized the price he would almost surely pay if he tried to follow the enticing course of his greed.



He sent his remaining spider to intercept the cat, but held no reasonable hope that the arachnid would slow this powerful beast.



He glanced again at Dahlia, wrapped and ready for delivery.



So close.



But not now, Ratsis realized, and he was glad that he, too, had learned the difficult art of shadow-stepping.



“Alegni’s man!” Jermander yelled again, barely dodging a sword thrust that got past his own blade and almost took him in the hip.



“You keep saying that as if you know what it means,” Entreri teased and taunted.



“I know Alegni!”



“You know what he wishes you to know.” Across came the sword, taking Jermander’s blocking weapon aside, and in stepped the small killer with a halfturn and wide slash of his dagger, and then a backhanded stab back across which almost got Jermander in the face as he tried to counter.



“Effron employed me!” Jermander argued, and he tried to keep the panic out of his voice—though unsuccessfully, he realized by the grin on the face of Alegni’s champion.



“Effron employed me as well,” said his opponent, “to kill you.”



Jermander stared at him dumbfounded, but not before wisely backing out of reach.



“He is in love with Dahlia,” Entreri explained and leaped forward, leading with a wild, circular flurry of his long sword which had Jermander flailing all around to keep up.



And the small man tossed his dirk—he didn’t throw it at Jermander, but merely tossed it up before him, close enough for Jermander to snatch it from the air. The shade warrior almost did just that, but realized the diversion for what it was and protected against a sword thrust instead.



He should have protected from something else, though he couldn’t know it, for indeed Entreri came forward with the expected thrust, half-turning once more, but only, Jermander soon realized, so that he could hide the movement of his free hand, down to his belt buckle and suddenly forward.



At first, Jermander thought he had been punched in the chest, and he staggered back a few steps, working his sword defensively. Only when he realized that Entreri wasn’t pursuing, only when he noted the smug look on the small man’s face, did he begin to understand, and he glanced down at his chest to see a small knife buried up to its hilt.



He tried to speak out, but found that he had no air in his lungs.



Jermander fought against the dizziness and breathlessness. Strangely, he felt no pain. He steadied himself and assumed a posture to continue, but as he expanded his focus once more and looked to his opponent, he saw that the man had his dirk in hand once more—had he caught it before it had ever hit the ground?—and now cocked his arm, ready to throw.



Jermander tried to clutch up into a smaller target and readied his sword for a block.



Entreri pumped his arm and the warrior dodged, then dodged again with a second fake.



Each movement brought on more dizziness, waves of disorientation. Jermander told himself that it was time to flee, and he, too, started that shadowshift, to return to the other world, the Shadowfell.



But shadowshifting took concentration, and this time, Entreri didn’t fake.



Jermander felt the profound thud as the dirk plunged in beside the knife. He saw the man stalking in at him as his body went numb, and then a gray mist filled his vision.



For a moment, Jermander thought he was slipping away into the Shadowfell. The sensation and the view seemed much the same.



A blinding flash ended that thought, ended all thought, as a sword creased his skull.



Chapter 5: The Gender Oppressed



Driders are not the quietest of creatures, particularly when a score of them, armed and armored and anxious for battle, scrabble along rocky cavern floors and walls.



Something was afoot, Yerrininae believed. He could feel it, and it was a tangible sensation, not just a gut instinct.



The air was colder—unnaturally colder.



The drider leader drove his charges on, rushing around blind bends in the corridor recklessly. He had sent two scouts up front, and he knew now—he just knew—that the pair were soon to encounter . . . something.



So focused was the large mutant that he nearly passed through a remarkable juncture in the otherwise unremarkable corridor.



Yerrininae skidded to a stop, his eight legs clacking and scraping on the stone. Behind him, several driders pulled up fast, frantic to avoid a collision with their merciless leader.



“What is it, my commander?” one dared ask, as the others wandered around in confusion.



Yerrininae continued to look to the wall instead of the open corridor ahead. He moved over slowly, almost reverently, and eased his great spear out wide with his left hand, the other reaching tentatively for a peculiar crease in the wall. A smile widened upon his face as the drider ran his fingers along that peculiar groove.



“My commander?” the other drider asked again.



“This is no natural crease in the stone,” Yerrininae explained. “This is a worked juncture—once, long ago, likely a portal . . . a door of some sort.”



The other drider dared move up, and on Yerrininae’s bidding, lifted his hand to also feel the straight lines of the worked stone. “What does it mean?” he asked.



Yerrininae straightened and looked all around, considering the caverns and corridors they had traversed that day. “It means that this was the outer waypoint.”



“Of?”



Yerrininae looked at the drider and grinned.



A shriek stole the moment, echoing off the stones, bouncing all around them as if a hundred drider warriors were suddenly under great duress. Yerrininae leaped sidelong down the corridor, legs working perfectly to spin him as he landed in full stride, charging along, spear at the ready.



Only a few bends later, they found their scouts, though the driders were only barely visible beneath a mound of flailing semi-translucent ghostly dwarves.



No, not ghostly, but actual spirits, Yerrininae realized, and he commanded his charges forward, into the morass.



The large drider led the way. Yerrininae was never one to view a battle from afar. He crashed into a small horde of the ghosts, his fine drow great spear stabbing and slashing every which way.



But to little effect, for these creatures were only partially bound to the material plane. He could barely hit them, with weapon or with appendage. Similarly, their reciprocating swings did not connect solidly.



When a dozen other ghosts leaped away from one of the unfortunate scouts to charge his direction, though, Yerrininae understood that those seemingly insubstantial attacks could surely combine to great effect, for that drider scout from which they had crawled slumped right to the floor, its face a ghastly mask of missing eyes and torn lips, its head all twisted around as if it had been squeezed between heavy stones. The creature lolled around, propped by the symmetry of its eight legs, but hardly alive.



“Close ranks!” the drider leader demanded.



As the valuable drider warriors fell back, Jearth ordered his shock troops past them and into the enemy.



Goblins, orcs, and bugbears surged forward along the corridor and into the wider cavern beyond, fighting every instinct in them which told them to turn around and flee—for those who did so, those who even hesitated slightly, felt the bite of a drow crossbow bolt.



“Dwarf ghosts!” Ravel said happily from the back. “Gauntlgrym! It must be! Right before us. We have found the dwarven city.”



“We cannot be certain,” Berellip said beside him.



“I can feel the power of the place,” Ravel argued. “Primordial power.” He wasn’t bluffing, nor was he imagining anything due to the appearance of dwarf ghosts. The sense of bound magic was powerful and primal. He could feel it under his feet. Ravel had done a lot of work with elementals during his tenure in Sorcere. Gromph Baenre was quite fond of summoning them by the dozen, all different types, merely to torment them.