The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [159]
Slowly and warily they came on as Beldar winced at the chill still clinging to him and retreated reluctantly into the choking stench behind. He'd rather attack and meet his death with sword in hand, but wasn't certain his numbed fingers could hold a blade.
He was going to die here in the darkness, somewhere beneath the hurrying boots and rumbling cartwheels of unwitting, uncaring Waterdhavians. He'd go down, hacked and stabbed, destiny unfulfilled, not even knowing who'd ordered his death.
This was no chance encounter. Three slayers wouldn't simply find the alley leading to the Dathran's lair by chance. These were assassins sent for him.
Beldar smiled grimly. It was the first indication that his graft had resulted in a rise in his status. Cold comfort indeed!
His three pursuers were in the mouth of the passage now, crouching against the walls to shield themselves against any attack from him. They knew about his wounding eye, so there'd be no more surprises.
A door swung open almost beside his nose, startling him almost into heart-stop. Beldar sprang back, giving way to a tall and very wide man with shoulders almost as broad as the doorframe-and a familiar face.
Hoth of the Amalgamation was coming through the door with a hot shuttered dark-lantern in one hand and an iron staff bristling with vicious-looking spikes in the other. Judging from the sound of hurrying boots, he'd brought others with him.
Hoth looked at Beldar with something in his eyes that just might have been respect, and growled, "Stand aside, Lord Roaringhorn, and leave the vermin to us."
Beldar stumbled back to let the burly man stride past. Two men in leathers followed at his back, swords out. One of them had a wrist encircled by half a dozen coiling eels that held daggers ready in their jaws for the human hand to pluck and throw. The other had a forearm that bristled with a row of long, sharp fangs that lengthened as Beldar stared at them, sliding forward out of sheathing flesh in preparation for battle. The hand at the end of that wrist was no longer human, but a head-sized knob of bone studded with well-worn bony spurs, like a great mace.
The half-dragon stepped away from the passage wall and strode to meet Hoth, one of its hands reaching to pluck daggers from hidden sheaths as it came. The two humans moved, too, spreading wide to gain sword-room.
"Kill the humans," Hoth told the two Amalgamation believers. A thrown dagger flashed from the half-dragon's hand, and a swift movement of Hoth's dark-lantern sent it clanging aside.
Then Hoth tossed his lantern behind him. Beldar's jaw dropped in astonishment as it halted to hover in midair, casting its light over suddenly rushing men. Steel rang on steel, men snarled and grunted, and the sewer-passage was alive with blood and men seeking to spill it.
Beldar glared at the half-dragon again, seeking to harm it with his eye as he snatched out his sword, leaping high to avoid two rolling, struggling men-
Too high. Something cold and very, very hard slammed into his head, or he slammed into it, and all Faerun went away into darkness amid a sudden, fading roar…
* * * * *
Beldar's neck ached, and there was a fire in his head that made him wince and groan whenever his boots came down just a trifle too hard on uneven cobbles. He had vague memories of finding a rusting ladder, shoving aside a rotting trapdoor that had spilled squeaking rats in all directions, and staggering through a warehouse that sported more of the same, to find himself in the lamplit darkness of last twilight.
Shortly after sunset, which meant his fellow Gemcloaks would be at the clubhouse.
Well, this wasn't going to be one of his more triumphal entries, to be sure. Setting