“A gesture of good will,” she said. “To seal our alliance.”
“I thought we’d just done that,” Sylora replied seductively, and Arunika laughed.
The succubus bent low in front of the sorceress and slowly opened the box, revealing a copper ring with an empty gemstone setting.
“A stormcatcher band,” the devil explained.
Sylora looked at it, and back at Arunika.
“It will catch the magic of Kozah’s Needle and turn it back on Dahlia,” Arunika explained.
Sylora’s smile widened. She gingerly reached for the band and pulled it from the box, holding it up in front of her eyes.
“I’m sure that my alliance with Brother Anthus will provide more to help you build your champion,” Arunika said.
The devil was right, Sylora knew. She wasn’t looking at Jestry as a man, a free-willed human being. He was her champion, or soon to be, and she would construct him as such, with armor, with a superior weapon, with this stormcatcher ring. He was an instrument, not a companion. Even in their sexual encounters, Jestry was no more to her than a means to an end, and woe to him if he failed in that role. He had purpose only in those goals Sylora determined.
Something stirred deep within the sorceress, some regret that she’d allowed herself to move to such a place of callousness. What forks in her road had she chosen? What decisions might she have made to alter this destination in her life?
Sylora let these questions fly away as she glanced back at the ring, reminding herself of how badly she wanted to see the corpse of Lady Dahlia. Perhaps she would raise the witch as a personal zombie servant. Perhaps, with Valindra’s help, she might even be able to allow Dahlia to retain enough of her former self so that her continuing torment at Sylora’s hand would wound her all the more profoundly.
Sylora peered through the ring at Jestry and considered the many tools she could bestow upon him to give him the edge he needed. What a fine beginning this ring would offer! Sylora grinned wickedly as she imagined Dahlia hurled backward by the lightning burst of Kozah’s Needle. She remembered the elf’s pretty face so very well, and in her mind, she twisted it into a look of sheer shock and stinging pain. That was how Dahlia would recognize the last moments of her life.
Delicious.
“So, once again, I’m needed to save the pitiful Barrabus the Gray from certain doom,” Herzgo Alegni announced loudly when Barrabus entered the Netherese encampment not far from the gates of Neverwinter.
“All hail Herzgo Alegni!” one of the Shadovar saluted, and others took up the cheer.
Every laughing face that met the gaze of Barrabus went stoic immediately, though, for the assassin obviously wasn’t taking the joke very well.
“Saved me?” Barrabus remarked to Alegni, stepping up in front of him.
“Why, my small friend, it was obvious,” the tiefling replied. “They had you flanked—an army of zealots against one small man.”
“Do you believe that I would’ve been foolish enough to go out amid that swarm had I not known of your impending arrival?” Barrabus replied.
“You deny your predicament?”
“I served you up a feast of zealots,” Barrabus said, and he took great satisfaction in seeing the doubt spreading on the faces of the gathered Shadovar—and all of Herzgo Alegni’s charges had gathered and were listening intently by this point. “I could have remained within the city walls, of course, destroying zombies. But to what end?” He turned around, appealing to the crowd as if they were a greater and more important judge than Herzgo Alegni.
“To what end?” he said again, more loudly. “The zealots had recognized that they couldn’t breach the wall, and seemed content to let their zombie fodder do what damage they may. But I, of course, could not allow that, and so I ventured out. I knew that the zealots couldn’t resist the chance to defeat the Gray. I knew they would find comfort in their numbers and would come forth from the forest. What a prize they might have scored—”
“Enough!” Herzgo Alegni shouted.
“And this is the gratitude I’m shown for taking such a risk?” Barrabus continued, spinning back on Alegni. “You mock me when I’m the cause of your vic—”
He ended with a growl of pain as Herzgo Alegni drew his red blade just enough to tap the tuning fork in his hand. Answering the call, Claw sent forth its devastating magical energy—powers attuned to the life force of Barrabus the Gray.