She came to a stop just above the case and set the candle atop the glass. She had a glass-cutter and a suction cup in her pack, and was considering whether to use it or take a more straightforward route when a voice made up her mind for her.
“You so disappoint me,” Beniago remarked, coming out of the shadows at the side of the room.
Dahlia reacted as soon as the first word had left his mouth. She poked down with Kozah’s Needle in one hand, shattering the top sheet of glass on the case. At the same time, she flipped the latch on the eye-hole of her harness, freeing herself from the rope, and caught the rope enough with her free hand to spin herself over, dropping to straddle the case with one foot atop either side of its metal skeleton.
“I’ll try to do better,” she replied coolly, as if she’d expected the man all along. She went into a defensive crouch, setting her boots more firmly on the narrow rim of the case and turning her eight-foot staff slowly in her hands in front of her.
Beniago came closer, walking a zigzag path as if expecting Dahlia to throw some missile his way. Barely five strides from her, he looked at her then down at the broken case, and shook his head.
“The diamond,” he said, “offered to you by High Captain Kurth as a gift.”
“There’s no such thing as a gift.”
“Cynical, pretty lady.”
“Taught by bitter experience. Gifts have conditions.”
“And would those conditions have been such a bad thing, particularly in light of your relationship with Ship Rethnor, a formidable foe?”
“They don’t frighten me.”
“Obviously not.”
“Nor does Ship Kurth.”
“But still, I would be remiss in my duties to High Captain Kurth if I didn’t once more put forth our offer. Take your chosen diamond—”
The words had barely left his mouth when Dahlia exploded into motion. She pulled her staff into two four-foot lengths and turned them down like great pincers. With practiced control, she squeezed the velvet wrapping and the diamond between them and with a flick of her wrists, sent the stone flying up into the air in front of her. She snapped her staff back together, let go with one hand, and deftly used her free hand to redirect the stone as it descended right into her pocket. And all the time, even in the moment it took to execute the entire maneuver, Dahlia kept her gaze locked on Beniago.
The assassin showed his amusement, and perhaps amazement, with a grin and a shake of his head.
“Take your chosen diamond,” he repeated, chuckling beneath the words, “and I’ll even pay for the repair of the case—and glass is not so cheap in Luskan this time of the year! So you see? You have created a better bargain for yourself already. Join us …”
“No.”
“My good lady …”
“No.”
“Then I must take back the diamond.”
“Please try.”
A sword appeared in Beniago’s left hand, his jeweled dagger in his right—and for a moment, Dahlia thought that a strange combination, since her previous observations of Beniago had made her think him right-handed.
“No matter,” she whispered.
She leaped from the case, landing halfway between it and her opponent, setting her feet as she touched down perfectly to sweep her long staff out in front of her. She halted her subsequent backhand mid-swing, retracted it, and stepped forward, thrusting the staff as a spear for Beniago’s belly.
A lesser opponent might have been clipped by the swing and prodded hard by the thrust, but she got nowhere near to hitting Beniago—nor did she expect to. What Dahlia had hoped was that Beniago would slap at Kozah’s Needle with his sword perhaps, so that she could share a bit of lightning energy with her opponent, perhaps even jolting his sword from his grasp.
But Beniago not only avoided any such incidental contact, he smiled at Dahlia as if to show her that he knew what she was trying to do.
That didn’t concern Dahlia, though. Quite the opposite. She preferred her opponents capable and well-schooled. She stabbed again with the staff and jumped forward to drive Beniago back, and indeed he did retreat, but the aggressive elf warrior discovered something in that attack: Beniago had not disabled the floor traps!
The floorboards collapsed beneath Dahlia’s lead foot and only her agile reaction stopped her from sliding into the suddenly-revealed pit. Still, her foot did go in enough to tap the nearest of the many spikes within, wicked and pointed