night, soon after sunset, the drow was nowhere to be seen. Barrabus encircled the camp quietly a few times, wondering how Drizzt’s absence might affect his plans—designs still only just beginning to form. He wondered how he could he work the arrival of Drizzt Do’Urden to his favor, but the answer remained just out of reach.
Not sure how he would react when confronted by the drow ranger, he was glad he saw no sign of Drizzt. Theirs was an antagonism of another era, a bitter bloodlust, never quite a rivalry, never quite an alliance. The mere thought of Drizzt sent Barrabus’s thoughts cascading across the years to a time that seemed so long ago, to a place that seemed so far removed from the shadows and ruin of present day Faerûn.
The assassin shook away those distractions and refocused his thinking on the situation at hand. With only an unsuspecting Dahlia standing in front of him, he dared hope he could finish his mission and be gone before Drizzt returned.
Or did he?
Perhaps he truly wished to face Drizzt again. Didn’t a small part of the man who had become Barrabus the Gray want to be back in that other time and place? Again, he shook the distraction away.
“This is your chance,” he whispered under his breath, and that reminder put him fully back in the present.
He took a deep breath and considered his options. If anyone could defeat Herzgo Alegni, it was surely Drizzt, after all.
So if Barrabus could capture Dahlia and take her back to Alegni, that would likely bring Drizzt against the Netherese lord. Surely Drizzt Do’Urden would never abandon a companion to such a fate.
Of course, a captured Dahlia wouldn’t last very long with Alegni. Barrabus winced as he considered the Ashmadai woman he’d captured outside of Neverwinter. He’d brought her back in, put her in a secure place, and given orders to the guards not to harm her.
And that was the last Barrabus had ever seen the woman alive, or even in one piece, for the guards had informed Alegni of his demands. Simply because Barrabus had claimed the captive as his own, Herzgo Alegni had made her death particularly cruel.
He’d do the same with Dahlia, of course—perhaps even more so because she brought the added weight of being Sylora Salm’s murderous champion.
So be it, and such an event might even work more to his benefit, Barrabus mused. If the drow understood that Alegni had killed Dahlia in a most horrible way, Drizzt would exact swift vengeance on Barrabus’s hated master.
That was Barrabus’s hope, then, as he sat just outside the firelight of the small encampment, watching Dahlia’s movements as she set the bedrolls and performed other mundane tasks. Yes, a capture would be best. He focused on that as he watched her building a fire, and reminded himself of the difficulty presented by either task, capture or assassination, though the latter seemed much easier.
He reminded himself that this elf, Dahlia, was fearless and could fight.
He had to take her fast, without a struggle. He scanned the camp, noting that Dahlia had her weapon broken into flails and within easy reach on her hips, looped under her sash belt. To the side lay a fallen tree, propping the backpacks and bedrolls, and farther beyond that, slung over a low branch were saddlebags—rations, likely—and beside those, hooked on a broken limb, a green cloak, one side of it fairly shredded.
Barrabus glanced around and stealthily moved to the side. He retrieved an armful of kindling first, then got the cloak, apparently without attracting any attention. He donned the cloak and pulled the hood low over his face.
Still, fearing that wasn’t enough, he went into the firelight, bent low, and turned sidelong, even walking backward more than forward, clutching the pile of kindling up high to help shield his identity.
“Drop it there,” Dahlia instructed, pointing to the side of the fire and showing little interest in what seemed to be her returning companion.
Once he’d set events into motion, Barrabus rarely second-guessed himself. But he was doing so now, trying to anticipate every moment, and fearing that his desperation to be rid of Alegni had made him reckless. This was Drizzt Do’Urden and Dahlia he’d tracked down, not a pair of ridiculous Ashmadai zealots!
The whole plan seemed absurd to him suddenly, and he wondered if he should drop the kindling and run off into the forest night.
He did drop the kindling, but then he struck, sword and dagger out and swinging.
To