Disclaimer: The recognizable characters in this fanfiction were created by R. A. Salvatore in association with the legal entity Wizards of the Coast, who owns relevant copyrights to additional Forgotten Realms material referred to herein. The characters are used without permission but no material profit of any kind is being made from the following work. WotC reserve rights to Forgotten Realms material, but all of the characters and situations unique to this work of fan fiction are property of the writer. Not only am I not making money, I'm actually giving up social life, other pursuits, dating, and a lot of sleep. All I'm gaining is weight.
Author's mindless chittering: Last chapter had a few errors which have since been corrected. Also, forgot to thank Neven for providing me highly detailed info on Chondath. This chapter is 1K words longer than I originally intended because there was such an interest in Jaka; I decided to let him share the spotlight for a bit. (And please forgive me for using 'pig latin' in this chapter; it was a moment of extreme weakness.)
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
-Stephen Crane, War is Kind
in the flat field
Unlike Charon's Claw, Entreri's jeweled dagger was highly reflective. In the dark of the night, the assassin had found this could present a problem; all it took was a misplaced flash from the large moon to tip off spectators to his dark work. Conversely, on the rare occasions he found himself working with another, such as Jarlaxle, the reflective surface could be used to catch rays from the sun or moon to convey a signal. In a pinch, he could even use the dagger as a mirror to glance behind him.
On one side of the dagger, the jeweled dagger had captured the image of Entreri's intense cold gray eyes. On the other side, a pair of blasé yellow eyes stared back in the opposite direction. Drops of blood were scattered across the blade and black skinned face and quickly washed away by the pervasive downpour. Slightly pink drops of diluted blood dripped from a smooth chin.
It was their second day of following the bandits, making it almost seven days since Jarlaxle and Entreri had stepped off the boat in Iljak and began on their self-imposed mission to capture Casteja Vektch. They had come a long way, trading insults as they were wont to do. Not only did they have an idea of where the man was located, but they had a direct line before them through following the bandits they had run into on the road through Chondalwood. Additionally, they had a new tool at their disposal: the laconic Jaka Mi'iduor who could implant and engrave an invitation in the mind of the bandit closest to Casteja.
Entreri had many reservations about the young drow, despite Jarlaxle's failure to draw him into conversation on any topic other than the local flora and fauna. To the lad's credit, he stubbornly refused to have anything to do with Jarlaxle's outrageous garb, even refusing to attempt patching the monstrous purple hat. On that count, Jaka had nearly warmed the assassin's bitter heart.
The rain had not let up for more than a few hours at a time since it began. Were Entreri not worried about the possibility of flooding, he might have hoped for the downpour to continue. He understood the oppressive humidity they had experienced before the rain would pale in comparison when next the sun revealed itself.
The rain had come with the night and new recruit. It began as a steady downpour that drowned small animals and noise alike and remained throughout the following days in various incarnations of density and wildness.
Their clothes were proof against much of the rain, but over time the moisture encroached beyond the travelers' many precautions. The hole in Jarlaxle's hat, for example, had guided water around his neck and down his back to soak the inside of his vest and slide against his black shirt. On Jaka's first day above ground, the solemn drow looked around with such interest that he failed to notice a tree root and tumbled straight into deep standing water. He had almost triggered the breathe water spell on his house insignia. The only one of them almost completely unaffected by the rain was Entreri who had the experience to know better and the preference for functionality that kept him prepared against even the elements.
The assassin found the lad quite curious for such a soft spoken creature. More than once, Entreri had caught him examining animals caught with his mental power. On one occasion, Jaka had been involved in plucking feather off one of the forest's jewel-toned birds before releasing its mind and letting it leave in a burst of panic and pain. The latest incident was less morbidly innocent.
"It is dead," Jaka remarked needlessly in his uniquely accented version of the common tongue, finally tearing his eyes from the dagger and the serpent pinned to the tree.
"No more specimens," Entreri warned the young drow. "Keep this up and Jarlaxle will have you cooking more of your catches with your mind power. Collect things after the mission, not a moment sooner."
Standing as close to the drow as he was, Entreri noticed Jaka's eyelashes were the same color as his hair. Previous in the rain-filled journey, he had realized the lad's fingernails were black, as if he had painted them to match what he assumed was dyed hair. It didn't take long for him to see the boy's teeth were yet another homage to unremitting blackness.
When he had asked Jarlaxle about the psionicist's odd coloration, the mercenary had stated that the lad's bones were the same. All drow from the boy's extinct volcanic city had become that way as part of their adaptation to the poisonous habitat. The drawback, he explained, was poor infravision; long term exposure to extreme heat was hard on heat sensitive vision. Molten rock, fire, and the like had lit the city of Ilchathm, in both meanings of the term.
"I advise you to make that an order," the young male commented flatly, obviously chafing badly under Entreri's typical commanding language and tone. Jaka was no different from many drow, but possessed of a penchant to view all nondrow as potential skin-bearing herd animals alongside the normal racism. There was a curious lack or arrogance for all that and the way the lad refused many of Jarlaxle's outrageous requests kept the assassin from hating Jaka outright.
The assassin narrowed his eyes, glaring at the shorter male with an impressive amount of frigid intensity. He wrenched the dagger from the tree and the huge tree snake's body, dropping the bleeding creature to the ground where it splashed bloody water up Jaka's legs. "If you can handle Kimmuriel's insufferable attitude, you can deal with mine as well."
The lad averted his face from Entreri, at first shocking the assassin into thinking the drow was giving him the show of respect he normally gave Jarlaxle. Then he saw the lad's yellow gaze was actually traveling up from the blood running down his boots to the rain diluted blood on his water resistant piwafwi. The assassin restrained a wicked smirk and turned abruptly to join Jarlaxle.
Entreri listened for the sound of barely audible splashing behind him; the telltale sounds of Jaka's steps. The lad was a quiet as he could be, but he didn't have Entreri's training or Jarlaxle's magical boots. He was confident in the boy's tread when he found Jarlaxle waiting for them in the relative shelter of a pine found at the edge of the wood.
Earlier in the morning, Jaka had led them out of the forest, having followed the bandits off the road and along the tree line. According to what Entreri had memorized of the map he had looked over in Iljak, they were heading for the wetlands and rice fields near the Arran River. The stray thoughts Jaka had picked up from the seven militants were mainly concerns about massive conflicts raging through the area.
"I found him about to become lizard food," the assassin reported, joining the mercenary near the pine's trunk. "Are you certain he should continue to learn about the bandits before implanting that suggestion?"
Jarlaxle nodded and took his hat off to knock rain from the brim and shake off the diatryma feather. "The better he knows their minds, the easier it will be for him to implant suggestions without getting caught. Think of it as casing a mark's home before breaking into it. However, the time is quite near at hand; take a look at what the fog revealed."
Entreri followed the dark elf's instruction and looked out over the vast fields of farmland to the far off structures where the locals made their residence and housed their farming equipment. Most of the structures were humble domiciles and barns made of sturdy wood taken from the forest and stones found whilst tilling their fields. In the rain the houses were brown or gray, depending on the age and type of lumber used.
All the houses the assassin could see, among the faded ground fog and gray veil of rain, were blackened ruins.
Somewhat perplexed, Entreri presented his hand, palm up, to the dark elf. His silent request was transparent enough and quickly filled. Jarlaxle reached into a belt pouch and withdrew a brass cylinder. He dropped the thing nonchalantly into the assassin's demanding grip. "Don't smudge the lenses."
Entreri ignored the comment and opened up the spyglass in order to take a closer look at the distant farm houses. He was careful to avoid the water dripping from the hem of his cloak's hood and the large drops that spattered around them from the pine's branches and needles. What he saw did not shock or horrify him; he was a man well-used to the sight of death and atrocity, if not the occasional participation in such.
The farm house and barn had been put to torch with most of the inhabitants pinned to the outside walls by their farming implements. The corpses were so blackened and ruined by fire that Entreri could not tell which were male or female or even their relative age. He counted fifteen corpses still affixed to the barn's outer wall by scythe, tiller blade, pitch fork, or other pointed objects. The majority of corpses were tall and their remains were understandable the worst charred. It was the shorter, child-sized, corpses that were the least damaged by the fire, for all their soft upper bodies had been nearly all consumed.
A sneer slowly pulled back Entreri's lips as he continued to investigate the scene. The farm animals had been slaughtered and were lying where they had fallen, bodies beginning to bloat from a build up of gases in their internal organs.
"Recent," the assassin stated. "The rain is keeping the scent of death down, so the animals from the wood haven't found the bodies yet. I don't see any signs of scavenging beyond a few crows. "
"I can't imagine it was orcs," Jarlaxle reasoned calmly; he had already gone through every possible scenario, but he allowed Entreri to put the puzzle together himself.
Continuing to observe the scene, the assassin saw quite a bit of the field had been trampled. He noted dead horses and bulls, but few dead cows. The chicken coop was also burned, though many of the birds had escaped the inferno and were wandering their cage. The lack of cows tipped him off. "They've taken the cows as supplies. Vektch's work or General Ashrei's?"
Jarlaxle smiled over Entreri's shoulder at Jaka's curious expression; he was satisfied the young drow was present to hear the assassin's swift pronouncement of the situation. "At least one division of Ashrei's army. I'm satisfied that Casteja's popularity stems from keeping excellent relations with the common people. If this was his work it would work against him."
Casting a mischievous glance at Jaka, the mercenary added, "When we leave here, run over there and fetch us some of the bird eggs; the farmers certainly have no further use for them."
Feigning ignorance of Jarlaxle's order, the assassin lowered the spyglass, snapping it shut with an air of finality. He handed it back to Jarlaxle without turning his dark gaze from the far off atrocity. "They were stupid to get involved," he stated coldly.
The dark elf stowed the spyglass, a mysterious look on his face. "Swift is the judgment of the hired hand! What makes you think they had anything to do with Casteja's people? Armies crawl on their bellies; they probably missed fresh meat. And eggs."
Entreri shrugged, disinclined to continue the conversation. "How will they eat if they kill all their farmers? Now we see the bandits were right to worry about militants in the area." He didn't care about the farmers, either set of soldiers, or the bloated corpses of blameless animals. He began to walk on from the fragrant pine tree, heading along the unseen trail Jaka continually updated them on, following the bandits to their ultimate quarry.
"They were trying to inspire fear," Jaka said, only heading forward when Jarlaxle ducked out from under the pine's shelter. "When other humans find out about the destruction, they will not stand in the way."
Jarlaxle did not dismiss the lad's notion; it was the knee-jerk extrapolation of any drow. Fear and intimidation were the main weapons in every dark elf's extensive psychological arsenal. "Or perhaps this is just what happens when the armies from Arrabar are denied the fresh meat they desire? Or do they think all peasants are aligned with Casteja? If it is the latter, I think I would leave the countryside, but either way Casteja is the only beneficiary."
"Even the peasants in Chondath know how to fight," Entreri returned. "Half of them or more are retired mercenaries, settling down to raise the next generation. They're not the type to let anyone get away with making demands on their land or livestock. Still, it hardly matters."
It was with that pronouncement Entreri found Jarlaxle's sly reasoning. He snorted and glanced over his cloaked shoulder at the knowing smile on the dark elf's face. "I see it now. Arrabar is wiping out the farmers to feed the army in the short run and because he wants to take out a valuable source of Vektch's support. The young farmers come trained to fight and they're already predisposed to be grateful to Vektch because of his work to help their families after the last war. Wianar must see all the peasants as potential enemies."
Jarlaxle nodded, smiling deviously. "This plays into Casteja's hands. Wianar makes the peasants into enemies with this kind of behavior. Ashrei is simply thinking a display of power will move them into her favor through intimidation. Casteja doesn't have to defend the farmers in order to win them over now. They will side with him in opposition to the government in Arrabar."
"Shouldn't they side with Arrabar?" Jaka asked, his head cocked slightly to the side within his piwafwi's cowl. "Isn't Arrabar much stronger than the bandit's forces?"
A tsking noise heralded Jarlaxle's amused response. "You're thinking like a drow. These humans don't understand their own people. This might be a land of mercenaries who are usually quite easy to be bought, but they're smart enough to know that if enough of them side with Casteja, the Shining Lord of Arrabar can be taken down. And Casteja's staying power is more than enough to inspire them to do so."
Following Jarlaxle's logic was sometimes difficult with his capacity to lay down several lines of reasoning all at once, but Entreri understood well enough. He shook his head, always impressed with the dark elf's ability to get into the minds of his opponents and calmly plot their moves. It was no wonder the drow male had been able to build himself an empire amid the darkness of Menzoberranzan's fanatical priestesses. He always knew what every player wanted before they wanted it; often inspiring those desires through ingenious stratagems. Additionally, the strength of his personal charisma and empathy was such that he drew in followers by droves.
The male was, indeed, the epitome of the perfect charismatic leader. Thinking back to the day the centaurs attacked, he recalled his own statement about the dark elf's cult of personality. Was even cold-hearted Entreri a victim? The assassin smirked at the thought, realizing that even if he was, Jarlaxle was just as much a victim; such consummate extraverts could not bear life alone. In that, he decided, the two of them were on equal footing.
Inclined to be amused despite the grim situation, both Jarlaxle and Entreri smirked slightly when they heard Jaka's soft splashing footsteps as he bounded through the rain. They turned their heads to watch the slim black shadow slip through myriad transparent veils of rain toward the farm house to fill Jarlaxle's request. No matter the youth's somber attitude, he moved with the effortless enthusiasm and grace indicative of all young adults; humanoid or otherwise.
"Did you choose him just to make me more aware of my age?" Entreri asked, feeling a certain amount of unprofessional envy.
"I'm not so cruel," Jarlaxle returned with a laugh, "at least not to my friends. I chose him because he is both more available and more expendable than Kimmuriel. His city's culture ingrained in him a high respect for teamwork, which will cause him to support us despite risks to his own life. When he deems the risks too great, he will abandon or betray us in order to secure his own survival."
Entreri took the information stoically, without making any judgments. "What you're saying is that you chose him because he's expendable and like-minded."
Casting the human fighter a wicked smile, Jarlaxle agreed with a brief comment. "You catch on quickly."
It was afternoon when they stopped to allow Jaka time to look in on the group's progress. The lad sank down to his knees in the tall grass to center himself and concentrate on locating the bandits again. The omnipresent grass bowed all around him under the weight of the rain water an organic cage of sparkling green glass. Ground water came up over his shins as he knelt, sinking slightly into the spongy earth.
Jarlaxle and Entreri listened attentively for the boy's voice as he worked with his mind's eye to find and report on their quarry. His voice was always quiet, but even more so in trance. In the subdued roar of the spring rainstorm his words were almost indiscernible.
Entreri watched Jaka's closed eyes closely; he had noticed that when the young drow performed searches his eyes moved under his eyelids as if in deep sleep. When he found the bandits, his eyes would cease the rapid movement.
"I have them," the boy whispered in drow, his lips barely moving. "They have come to a stop at a burned structure. It continues to smolder."
Jarlaxle and Entreri exchanged interested looks before the older drow asked, "Have you contacted any of their minds enough to build a stable link?"
The lad nodded minutely, "Shall I implant the suggestion while they are distracted?"
Jarlaxle nodded back, momentarily forgetting Jaka was not looking at him. "Yes and try to get a sense of what your target is thinking while you're at it."
While the boy did his work, Entreri switched between keeping an eye on their surroundings and watching the lad's unguarded face. During the Jaka's previous mental scouting mission, the assassin had tested his black and red gauntlet by running it through the air near the lad. He had made certain Jarlaxle's face was averted, of course. Jaka's face had remained utterly impassive throughout the experiment, making it clear the glove had no effect on his mind power. The assassin was disappointed, but he wasn't the type to give up easily.
As the assassin looked toward the tree line for a third time, he saw Jaka's lips thin in a frown followed by a subtle flinch. Gaze drawn back to the psionicist, he caught an intrigued look from Jarlaxle's uncovered red eye. Something was obviously not going according to plan.
A moment later, the lad's eyes were open and he seemed to deflate from his rigid posture into a slumped position. His face was typically unreadable. "He felt my intrusion."
A curse fortunately foreign to Jaka hissed between Entreri's teeth while Jarlaxle calmly asked; "Did you cover for it?"
Jaka shook his head just enough to spill rain water from his piwafwi's generous gathers of soft, wooly silk. "No, he did."
Both assassin and drow mercenary found the boy's comment beyond noteworthy. How or why would a psionic victim cover the intrusion without prompting from the offending psionicist?
Though the young male often needed prompting to explain himself, he began to speak freely. "He thought I was somebody named Vritra. He was scared, but that's nothing out of the ordinary; most creatures have an irrational fear of mind powers. I used his surprise and fear as cover to send the impulse deeply into his psyche; he suspects nothing. He also relayed information to me." Jaka shook his head again, but this time in subdued confusion.
"He wanted me— Vritra to tell Casteja that they have the potions of healing and… a spice called cumin." Yellow eyes glanced up at a chuckling Jarlaxle. "Is he a wizard? What spell requires this cumin? Is it dangerous?"
The question, asked with such serious earnestness proved too much for an already amused Jarlaxle. The dark elf's chuckle grew into a full laugh. Unimpressed, Entreri glared murderously at the wet grass, which failed to wither or dry despite the heated intensity of his ire. "I fail to find the joke in this. First I have drow sprouting from every point conceivable, now psionicists. If the gods do bother with us at all, they have an unimpressive lack of imagination."
"Then it must be the surface deities," Jaka murmured, if anything, the lad seemed to shrink in on himself with the comment, "for the great lady Lolth's creativity and imagination cannot be equaled."
The assassin rolled his eyes, about to make some very unkind remarks about deities in general and the Spider Queen in specific when Jarlaxle preempted him by slapping the lad's shoulder with great gusto. "You've done well, Master Mi'iduor! Kimmuriel should be pleased to hear how useful you have been."
Jaka did not expect the forceful, if good natured, attack; he rocked forward under the blow. He was saved sprawling face first in the grass by thrusting his hands forward, bracing himself wrist-deep in mud. Uninsulted and unphased, he pushed up from the ground, shaking off mud and grass from his slender hands.
"Ixnay on the Olthlay," Jarlaxle snorted under his breath for Entreri's benefit, using the silly language modification many human children preferred for telling their ridiculous secrets. Entreri didn't know where the dark elf had learned it. They found it undeniably effective the first two or three times used on a non-native speaker but it never ceased to disgust or amuse the human fighter. This time he went with disgust. Considering the need to keep Jaka around and interested in his well-being, Entreri let the opportunity for blaspheming pass over.
While the lad cleaned his hands in the wet grass, Jarlaxle began a new line of questioning. "What else did you get out of the man?"
The lad's answers came steadily and with the strict efficiency Entreri appreciated. "His name is Tan; he's a cleric of Chauntea and one of Vektch's leaders. He was supposed to provide blessings to many of the fields along the way, but has decided to let things stay the way they are to acerbate the farmers' anger. He's greatly annoyed with a faerie called Narbeli; he thinks she's causing them problems with an Emerald Coalition because of a relationship with Vektch."
"Really! A lover's quarrel?" Jarlaxle was typical in his interest in matters of the romantic. Entreri had to restrain himself from gritting his teeth in impatience. "I knew a man with such a handsome face had to be the sort that toyed with hearts. It is a wonder you haven't left miles of pining women behind you, too, Artemis."
"And why no one mourns your departure from every town we encounter," Entreri replied, though his heart wasn't in the insult. He was much more interested in the issues at hand that affected him the most. "What of this Vritra? What else did you learn of them?"
"I sensed a tendency to think of Vritra as male." The young dark elf straightened up from cleaning his hands and looked at Jarlaxle, his body language as formal as when Kimmuriel brought him two days prior. "I'll need to meditate before we meet Casteja; I'll need to be as mentally prepared as possible. If possible, I would like to have an hour and a half of sleep instead of Reverie."
Jarlaxle cast a quizzical look at the boy. "Is that it? Do you believe we'll find the bandit encampment so soon?"
As vague and difficult to read as Jaka's face could be, he could not restrain himself from biting his lower lip at Jarlaxle's question. Entreri read the look as slight embarrassment or consternation. "I did not mention the conflict?"
A pair of rolled eyes and an amused smirk was all the answer the young drow needed. "The burned out structure is providing them some cover and a better view than the tree line while they observe a battle. The battlefield is huge, flat, and muddy. Arrabar's forces can't bring their ballista to bear because of the mud. Their horse riders are held back and the remaining foot soldiers are up to their shins in muck while bandit slingers and archers pepper them from across the river. The bandits we're following plan to slip into the tree line, cross the river, and fall back deep in the wood near a pagan shrine."
The information supplied Jarlaxle's swift mind a plan of action appropriate to the situation. He simultaneously noted Jaka's choice of wording was typical in its drow nature. Who else but Underdark denizens would refer to a wetland area as flat? All wetlands were flat, it was the nature of an area where water had ineffective drainage (doubtless where all the horrid insects came from). And who else would refer to cavalry as horse riders? It was quaint, almost cute.
Such details were unimportant to Entreri; he was working on the psionicist angle and the conflict simultaneously. They had planned the capture of Vektch carefully two night previous, but Entreri knew his partner was one to trust in improvisation. Unplanned elements did not worry the assassin, but the thought of Jaka's workload suddenly doubling did not set well with him. For a moment he wondered if it would take anything less than a life-and-death struggle with Jarlaxle to seize his protective eye patch.
Opting to take up cover near the tree line, the small group got underway. As they walked, the rain finally let up and the sky brightened though the clouds didn't immediately burn off. The result was a muggy atmosphere that grew unbearable when the sun came through the clouds in the early afternoon.
The initial burst of sunlight on the saturated fields elicited a full body cringe from their tailor. The lad reacted to the bright light as he did the lightning the first night; his arms instinctually crossed in front of his face for protection. The lad's yellow eyes squinted against the direct rays as well as the millions of refractions from trembling drops of moisture hanging onto grass, leaf, and bough alike.
As if the blinding light was not enough, the heat that came with the sun began to evaporate the rain at an incredible rate, quickly filling the land with a thick and torturous haze. Jarlaxle found this even less enjoyable than the mosquitoes that continued to bother him despite the Calishite garlic remedy. With the rain the insects had been less numerous, but without it in a wetland area he realized they would be worse than ever. There was standing water on all sides.
Their clothes began to dry in the sun, but their skin quickly became damp from humidity and glistened in the light like the fading drops of crystalline rain. The three of them lost no time losing what layers they felt they could do without. Entreri removed his cloak, both his leather shirt and the sleeves of the shirt Jaka had sewn for him. Jaka's tunic was already sleeveless and he had no intention of removing his protective piwafwi, but he managed to fold his high boots down and his leggings up to his thighs where straps and simple double ring buckles were waiting to hold the modification in place.
Convertible garments made great sense to Entreri, but he was neither young enough nor drow enough to fancy showing an excess of skin in dangerous territory. It wasn't modesty, of which he no use, but nagging common sense. He glanced at Jarlaxle, who was trying to roll up his shirt to expose his stomach again, and decided showing skin in hostile environs was a decided dark elven thing to do; he almost put his leathers and cloak back on.
He was satisfied that the drow had no apparent advantage in the miserable weather. Sweat and beaded humidity rolled down necks and foreheads equally and dripped, stinging, into their eyes. In the assassin and psionicist's cases, their hair hung in damp tendrils, many of which clung to their faces. As far as Entreri was concerned, it was the worst weather to endure aside from the flesh peeling sand storms of the Calimshan or Anauroch desert.
Thoughts about the heat and humidity soon left their minds when the sounds of battle pierced the smothering haze. Despite the scalding humidity, the three rushed forward, skimming the tree line to see what lay ahead. Both Entreri and Jarlaxle were excited to see Vektch's forces in action, let alone a possible first glimpse of their wanted man. As they jogged through the long grass at the edge of the rice fields, Jarlaxle already had his spyglass in hand.
When the field of battle became apparent, the drow mercenary came to a stop and lifted the spyglass to his eye. Without the aid of the device, Entreri reached up to a nearby tree branch and climbed up for a better view of the ground maneuvers. What he saw didn't seem seminal or especially brilliant; what he saw was typical battlefield tactics.
General Ashrei's well-armed and armored divisions clearly had the less structured and less equipped Chondathan Liberation Forces in retreat. As Jaka had told them, many of Vektch's militants had already crossed the river and were felling as many of the general's troops as came into range. Those troops were lured easily by the sight of the so-called Liberation Forces' backs as the rearward divisions fled toward the high waters of one of the Arran River's two local tributaries.
The size of the conflict was on an impressive scale, immediately erasing the notion that Casteja Vektch was actually a bandit captain. For all intents and purposes, if this was only one part of Vektch's military power, for he had several military actions raging of varying size and complexity raging across Chondath at any one time, Vektch was a leader of a sizeable insurgency. Bandits were much less sophisticated and certainly never worked on such a large and complex scale. No, Vektch was no bandit.
Beyond the trampled rice fields, the ground was ripped and scarred by horse hooves and more than a thousand combatants' hobnailed boots. Grass, rain, blood and limb had churned the marsh area into a gigantic soupy mud pit. The only sure footing to be found was over the bodies of the dead and still dying; footholds few of the soldiers or insurgents had any qualms using. With the cessation of the rain, the smell of rent grass and death wound together under the sun's rays.
The terrible scene was punctuated with battle cries, the clash of armaments and armor, shrieks, and the occasional roar of various forms of battle magic. Without the rain to wash away the ruddy mud, soldiers on both sides were taking on the added physical burden of mud that weighed down their limbs. They were already used to the soft ground sucking at their legs.
On the ground, Jarlaxle was searching the conflict with little success, thanks to the nature of the terrain. Snorting in irritation, he triggered his innate levitation and rose into the tree branches near the assassin. Below, Jaka had little interest in the goings on and had dropped into a crouch to poke at a vividly green caterpillar's plump body as it undulated across a spray of leaves. The assassin shook his head at the lad's continued fascination with the surface world and its variety of colorful denizens.
Entreri turned to Jarlaxle: "Are you looking for him?"
"General Ashrei first," Jarlaxle admitted with a wicked grin. "I want to see if she looks as I imagine. Then I'll find—Ah! There she is. My, not exactly as I thought but very similar; such revealing armor on an impressive figure. Ah, turning our man in may be sweeter than I thought." The dark elf changed direction, looking across the river with great interest. "And our handsome, brilliant, articulate bandit… Where oh where can he be? If Ashrei's on the field, Casteja must be also."
At this, Entreri found himself leaning forward in interest. Compared with hunting down Regis, this jaunt was shaping up to be exceedingly brief. Most of their bounty hunting jobs had been far less challenging and quickly completed. Capturing Vektch was getting more interesting and complicated by the day. Regis had been simple to separate from his wretched friends, even his hated enemy Drizzt Do'Urden couldn't stop the focused assassin. He supposed Vektch's capture would be no easy thing, but with Jarlaxle at his side, it would prove twice as entertaining.
"There!" the dark elf exclaimed in excitement. "Ah, the notices do him no justice! He is quite a handsome man. And the blade he wields, such a huge topaz! It really is chained to his wrist, Artemis. I'd like just the topaz, chained to my own wrist or to pin up one side of my hat."
"I've known few creatures as enamored of their own voice as you," Entreri sneered at the nearby drow. Unsatisfied with Jarlaxle's commentary, Entreri seized the spyglass from the dark elf's grip. It was a feat made easy considering the patch over Jarlaxle's eye and the spyglass held to the other. Jarlaxle made the beginnings of a testy remark, but felt his ire melt away and turn into an amused expression. He studied the assassin's face as the man brought the spyglass to bear.
It didn't take Entreri long to find Casteja Vektch; he had closely marked the angle Jarlaxle had held the spyglass at when he announced his discovery. Vektch was standing knee deep in the river, which had run over its banks on the Liberation Force's side. The man was a contrast of ferocity and strange calm overlaid with an intensity few men or women ever seemed to project. Unlike the typical Chondathan, his skin was pale and his features much less earthy. Entreri did not consider himself a credible judge of masculine looks, but he could see where the man's bone structure, high cheek bones and clean jaw line, would be considered attractive.
Vektch was shouting at a floundering group of soldiers that were trying to make it across the rushing river without being swept away into the Arrabar army's arrow range. An expert at reading lips, Entreri could see Vektch was encouraging the band of soldiers to swim harder. One hand gestured in a series of beckoning circles while the other arm was held at an angle slightly behind him, gripping a long sword that trailed a chain from hilt to wrist. Due to the angle, Entreri had no idea how huge the topaz was, but he noted the blade's crosspiece looked unconventional.
"The sword looks interesting," Entreri admitted, intrigued. "I imagine it is worth at least Vektch's weight in gold. Do you have a buyer in mind?"
From beside him Jarlaxle sighed. "Several. Pity I'm not particularly disposed to keep willful, psionic magic items anymore."
The comment confirmed Entreri's suspicions that Jarlaxle was still smarting after being badly used by the crystal shard, Crenshinibon. Uncomfortable with a sudden foreign urge to sympathize with his partner, the assassin moved the conversation forward and past thoughts of the shard. "Call him up here so he can get a look at that thing."
"I am here."
The assassin lowered the spyglass in deliberately slow motion and saw the lad standing in the air, not far removed from Jarlaxle's position. He was concerned with the silent approach, but reasoned there was little to be done when it came to levitation. "I want you to tell me what you think of the blade."
The lad's left hand came up to take the spyglass and the brass tool was slapped into his palm with an audible smack. Jaka judiciously wiped off the eyepiece with a square of black cloth, oblivious to the bunching muscle in Entreri's jaw. Satisfied with the relative cleanliness of the implement, he raised it to one pale eye and aimed it to the overflowing river.
When the spyglass stopped moving, they felt reasonably certain the lad had found Vektch and the weapon in question. They were not surprised to see Jaka's brow knit in concentration as he stared with one eye squinted shut, the other held close to the eyepiece. "It looks… disturbing."
Disturbing was not how Entreri wanted a dark elf to refer to anything unless said dark elf had been raised far away from the pervasive wickedness and horror of drow society. "Can you tell if it has mind powers?"
"Not by looking with my eyes," the lad admitted, taking the spyglass from his eye. He looked as if he was about to volunteer more, but then closed in on himself. He wiped the eyepiece off again and promptly handed the item back to Entreri. There was a carefully blank mask on Jaka's youthful face that the assassin assumed meant he was thinking about the situation. Entreri handed the spyglass back to Jarlaxle with a subtly exasperated look.
The dark elf wasn't worried about their interaction; he knew the lad would not risk irritating him. The once houseless Jaka didn't need to be reminded how important it was to stay on the elder drow's good side.
Curious for one more look before heading off to prepare the site where they would be meeting Tan in the evening, Jarlaxle went back to the vision of the intriguing Casteja Vektch. He looked less wicked in person than the wanted notices had depicted him. A purveyor of all kinds of wealth, he could appreciate what he saw physically, socially, and economically; and what he saw pleased him.
Inevitably, he trained his crimson gaze on the long sword and the huge orange topaz set within strangely organic coils. The stylized ropes looked almost like tentacles and were sculpted to look as if they wrapped around and were also impaled by the sharp, curving spikes of the crosspiece. He guessed the large gem was the relative size of his palm. He stared at the topaz for a moment of greedy fantasy, imagining all the things he could do with it provided it could be removed from the sword.
His fantasies almost moved him to a point of no return, where he was on the threshold of planning the various ways of neutralizing the sentience that could be contained in the gem, when he noticed the flaw. He had stared long and lovingly at the gem until he had gained a far clearer view of it than he had Casteja's face. The view revealed a line that ran down the center of the vividly orange stone, bisecting it vertically. Disappointment tightened his striking features briefly, before the next shock obliterated the fleeting emotion completely.
As he watched, the line widened instantly to a pointed ellipse. Beside him, he heard Jaka's sharp intake of breath and a stuttered noise. Jarlaxle's jaw slackened slightly in sudden horror as the black shape thinned, just as instantly, to an innocuous line. He slammed the spyglass shut hard.
Concerned by both the look of shock on Jaka's normally inexpressive face and the horror he had few occasions to see on his partner, Entreri's hands instinctively seized the hilt of his dagger and powerful sword. "What is it?"
The assassin's question was not about the sword, of course, but a general inquiry into what was wrong. Jarlaxle answered the question as he thought it was asked. "It isn't a topaz at all." He turned his head to hold Entreri's dark gaze. "It's an eye."
Staring blankly into the distance, Jaka whispered, "Not even that; it's Vritra."