“You are perceptive,” Sydney replied coolly. “You have judged Dendybar’s character well. He would have killed you simply to avoid any possible complications. But you have not considered my own role in this. On my insistence, Dendybar put the decision of your fate into my hands.” She paused a moment to let Entreri weigh her words. He could easily kill her right now, they both knew that, so the candor of her calm admission of a plot to murder him halted any immediate actions and forced him to hear her out.
“I am convinced that we seek different ends to our confrontation with the dwarf’s party,” Sydney explained, “and thus I have no intention of destroying a present, and potentially future, ally.”
In spite of his ever-suspicious nature, Entreri fully understood the logic in her line of reasoning. He recognized many of his own characteristics in Sydney. Ruthless, she let nothing get in the way of her chosen path, but she did not stray from that path for any diversion, no matter how strong her feelings. He released her arm. “But the golem travels with us,” he said absently, turning into the empty night. “Does Dendybar believe that we will need it to defeat the dwarf and his companions?”
“My master leaves little to chance,” Sydney answered. “Bok was sent to seal Dendybar’s claim on that which he desires. Protection against unexpected trouble from the companions. And against you.”
Entreri carried her line of thinking a step farther. “The object the wizard desires must be powerful indeed,” he reasoned.
Sydney nodded.
“Tempting for a younger mage, perhaps.”
“What do you imply?” Sydney demanded, angry that Entreri would question her loyalty to Dendybar.
The assassin’s assured smile made her squirm uncomfortably. “The golem’s purpose is to protect Dendybar against unexpected trouble … from you!”
Sydney stammered but could not find the words to reply. She hadn’t considered that possibility. She tried logically to dismiss Entreri’s outlandish conclusion, but the assassin’s next remark clouded her ability to think.
“Simply to avoid any possible complications,” he said grimly, echoing her earlier words.
The logic of his assumptions slapped her in the face. How could she think herself above Dendybar’s malicious plotting? The revelation sent shivers through her, but she had no intention of searching for the answer with Entreri standing next to her. “We must trust in each other,” she said to him. “We must understand that we both benefit from the alliance, and that it costs neither of us anything.”
“Send the golem away then,” Entreri replied.
An alarm went off in Sydney’s mind. Was Entreri trying to instill doubt in her merely to gain an advantage in their relationship?
“We do not need the thing,” he said. “We have the girl. And even if the companions refuse our demands, we have the strength to take what we want.” He returned the mage’s suspicious look. “You speak of trust?”
Sydney did not reply, and started again for their camp. Perhaps she should send Bok away. The act would satisfy Entreri’s doubts about her, though it certainly would give him the upper hand against her if any trouble did come to pass. But dismissing the golem might also answer some of the even more disturbing questions that weighed upon her, the questions about Dendybar.
The next day was the quietest, and the most productive, of the ride. Sydney fought with her turmoil about the reasons for the golem’s presence. She had come to the conclusion that she should send Bok away, if for no better reason than to prove to herself her master’s trust.
Entreri watched the telltale signs of her struggle with interest, knowing that he had weakened the bond between Sydney and Dendybar enough to strengthen his own position with the young mage. Now he simply had to wait and watch for his next chance to realign his companions.
Likewise, Catti-brie kept her eye out for more opportunities to cultivate the seeds she had planted in Jierdan’s thoughts. The snarls that she saw the soldier hide from Entreri, and from Sydney, told her that her plan was off to a grand start.
They made Silverymoon shortly after noon on the following day. If Entreri had any doubts left about his decision to join the Hosttower’s party, they were dismissed when he considered the enormity of their accomplishment. With the tireless magical steeds, they had covered nearly five hundred miles in four days. And in the effortless ride, the absolute ease in guiding their mounts, they were hardly worn when they arrived in the foothills of the mountains just west of the enchanted city.
“The river Rauvin,” Jierdan, at the front of the party, called back to them. “And a guard post.”
“Pass it by,” Entreri replied.
“No,” Sydney said. “These are the guides across the Moonbridge. They will let us pass, and their aid will make our journey into the city much easier.”
Entreri looked back to Bok, lumbering up the trail behind them. “All of us?” he asked incredulously.
Sydney hadn’t forgotten the golem. “Bok,” she said when the golem had caught up to them, “you are no longer needed. Return to Dendybar and tell him that all goes well.”
Catti-brie’s eyes lit up at the thought of sending the monster back, and Jierdan, startled, looked back with growing anxiety. Watching him, Catti-brie saw another advantage to this unexpected turn. By dismissing the golem, Sydney gave more credence to the fears of an alliance between Sydney and Entreri that Catti-brie had planted upon the soldier.
The golem did not move.
“I said go!” Sydney demanded. She saw Entreri’s unsurprised stare from the corner of her eye. “Damn you,” she whispered to herself. Still, Bok did not move.
“You are indeed perceptive,” she snarled at Entreri.
“Remain here, then,” she hissed at the golem. “We shall stay in the city for several days.” She slipped down from her seat and stomped away, humbled by the assassin’s wry smile at her back.
“What of the mounts?” Jierdan asked.
“They were created to get us to Silverymoon, no more,” Sydney replied, and even as the four walked away down the path, the shimmering lights that were the horses faded into a soft blue glow, then were gone altogether.
They had little trouble getting through the guard post, especially when Sydney identified herself as a representative of the Hosttower of the Arcane. Unlike most cities in the hostile northland, bordering on paranoia in their fears of outsiders, Silverymoon did not keep itself hemmed within foreboding walls and lines of wary soldiers. The people of this city looked upon visitors as an enhancement to their culture, not as a threat to their way of life.
One of the Knights of Silver, the guardsmen at the post on the Rauvin, led the four travelers to the entrance of the Moonbridge, an arcing, invisible structure that spanned the river before the main gate of the city. The strangers crossed tentatively, uncomfortable for the lack of visible material under their feet. But soon enough they found themselves strolling down the meandering roadways of the magical city. Their pace unconsciously slowed, caught under the infectious laziness, the relaxed, contemplative atmosphere that dissipated even Entreri’s narrow-visioned intensity.
Tall, twisting towers and strangely shaped structures greeted them at every turn. No single architectural style dominated Silverymoon, unless it was the freedom of a builder to exercise his or her personal creativity without fear of judgement or scorn. The result was a city of endless splendors, not rich in counted treasures, as were Waterdeep and Mirabar, its two mightiest neighbors, but unrivaled in aesthetic beauty. A throwback to the earliest days of the Realms, when elves and dwarves and humans had enough room to roam under the sun and stars without fear of crossing some invisible borderline of a hostile kingdom, Silverymoon existed in open defiance of the conquerors and tyrants of the world, a place where no one held claim over another.
People of all the good races walked freely here and without fear, down every road and alleyway on the darkest of nights, and if the travelers passed by someone and were not greeted with a welcoming wo
rd, it was only because the person was too profoundly engaged in meditative contemplation.
“The dwarf’s party is less than a tenday out of Longsaddle,” Sydney mentioned as they moved through the city. “We may have several days of wait.”
“Where do we go?” Entreri asked, feeling out of place. The values that obviously took precedence in Silverymoon were unlike those of any city he had ever encountered, and were completely foreign to his own perceptions of the greedy, lusting world.
“Countless inns line the streets,” Sydney answered. “Guests are plentiful here, and are welcomed openly.”
“Then our task in finding the companions, once they arrive, shall prove difficult indeed,” Jierdan groaned.
“Not so,” Sydney replied wryly. “The dwarf comes to Silverymoon in search of information. Soon after they arrive, Bruenor and his friends will make their way to the vault of Sages, the most reknowned library in all the north.”
Entreri squinted his eyes, and said, “And we will be there to greet them.”
his was a land of blackened earth and misted bogs, where decay and an imposing sensation of peril overruled even the sunniest of skies. The landscape climbed and dropped continually, and the crest of each rise, mounted in hopes of an end to the place by any traveler here, brought only despair and more of the same unchanging scenes.
The brave Riders of Nesmé ventured into the moors each spring to set long lines of fires and drive the monsters of the hostile land far from the borders of their town. The season was late and several tendays had passed since the last burning, but even now the low dells lay heavy with smoke and the waves of heat from the great fires still shimmered in the air around the thickest of the charred piles of wood.
Bruenor had led his friends into the Trollmoors in stubborn defiance of the riders, and was determined to pound his way through to Silverymoon. But after only the first day’s travel, even he began to doubt the decision. The place demanded a constant state of alertness, and each copse of burned-out trees they passed made them pause, the black, leafless stumps and fallen logs bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to bog blokes. More than once, the spongy ground belneath their feet suddenly became a deep pit of mud, and only the quick reactions of a nearby companion kept them from finding out how deep any of the pits actually were.
A continual breeze blew across the moors, fueled by the contrasting patches of hot ground and cool bogs, and carrying an odor more foul than the smoke and soot of the fires, a sickly sweet smell disturbingly familiar to Drizzt Do’Urden— the stench of trolls.
This was their domain, and all the rumors about the Evermoors the companions had heard, and had laughed away in the comfort of The Fuzzy Quarterstaff, could not have prepared them for the reality that suddenly descended upon them when they entered the place.
Bruenor had estimated that their party could clear the moors in five days if they kept a strong pace. That first day, they actually covered the necessary distance, but the dwarf had not foreseen the continual backtracking they would have to do to avoid the bogs. While they had marched for more than twenty miles that day, they were less than ten from where they started into the moors.
Still, they encountered no trolls, nor any other kind of fiend, and they set their camp that night under a guise of quiet optimism.
“Ye’ll keep to the guard?” Bruenor asked Drizzt, aware that the drow alone had the heightened senses they would need to survive the night.
Drizzt nodded. “The night through,” he replied, and Bruenor didn’t argue. The dwarf knew that none of them would get any sleep that night, whether on guard, or not.
Darkness came suddenly and completely. Bruenor, Regis, and Wulfgar couldn’t see their own hands if they held them inches from their faces. With the blackness came the sounds of an awakening nightmare. Sucking, sloshing footsteps closed in all about them. Smoke mixed with the nighttime fog and rolled in around the trunks of the leafless trees. The wind did not increase, but the intensity of its foul stench did, and it carried now the groans of the tormented spirits of the moors’ wretched dwellers.
“Gather your gear,” Drizzt whispered to his friends.
“What do ye see, then?” Bruenor asked softly.
“Nothing directly,” came the reply. “But I feel them about, as do you all. We cannot let them find us sitting. We must move among them to keep them from gathering about us.”
“My legs ache,” complained Regis. “And my feet have swelled. I don’t even know if I can get my boots back on!”
“Help him, boy,” Bruenor told Wulfgar. “The elf’s right. We’ll carry ye if we must, Rumblebelly, but we’re not staying.”
Drizzt took the lead, and at times he had to hold Bruenor’s hand behind him, and so on down the line to Wulfgar in the rear, to keep his companions from stumbling from the path he had picked.
They could all sense the dark shapes moving around them, smell the foulness of the wretched trolls. Clearly viewing the host gathering about them, Drizzt alone understood just how precarious their position was, and he pulled his friends as fast as he could.
Luck was with them, for the moon came up then, transforming the fog into a ghostly silver blanket, and revealing to all the friends the pressing danger. Now with the movement visible on every side, the friends ran.
Lanky, lurching forms loomed up in the mist beside them, clawed fingers stretching out to snag at them as they rushed past. Wulfgar moved up to Drizzt’s side, swatting the trolls aside with great sweeps of Aegis-fang, while the drow concentrated on keeping them going in the right direction.
For hours they ran, and still the trolls came on. Beyond all feelings of exhaustion, past the ache, and then the numbness in their limbs, the friends ran with the knowledge of the certain horrible death that would befall them if they faltered for even a second, their fear overruling their bodies’ cries of defeat. Even Regis, too fat and soft, and with legs too short for the road, matched the pace and pushed those before him to greater speeds.
Drizzt understood the futility of their course. Wulfgar’s hammer invariably slowed, and they all stumbled more and more with each minute that passed. The night had many hours more, and even the dawn did not guarantee an end to the pursuit. How many miles could they run? When would they turn down a path that ended in a bottomless bog, with a hundred trolls at their backs?
Drizzt changed his strategy. No longer seeking only to flee, he began looking for a defensible piece of ground. He spied a small mound, ten feet high perhaps, with a steep, almost sheer, grade on the three sides he could see from his angle. A solitary sapling grew up its face. He pointed the place out to Wulfgar, who understood the plan immediately and veered in. Two trolls loomed up to block their way, but Wulfgar, snarling in rage, charged to meet them. Aegis-fang slammed down in furious succession again and again, and the other three companions were able to slip behind the barbarian and make it to the mound.
Wulfgar spun away and rushed to join them, the stubborn trolls close in pursuit and now joined by a long line of their wretched kin.
Surprisingly nimble, even despite his belly, Regis scampered up the tree to the top of the mound. Bruenor, though, not built for such climbing, struggled for every inch.
“Help him!” Drizzt, his back to the tree and scimitars readied, cried to Wulfgar. “Then you get up! I shall hold them.”
Wulfgar’s breath came in labored gasps, and a line of bright blood was etched across his forehead. He stumbled into the tree and started up behind the dwarf. Roots pulled away under their combined weight, and they seemed to lose an inch for every one they gained. Finally, Regis was able to clasp Bruenor’s hand and help him over the top, and Wulfgar, with the way clear before him, moved to join them. With their own immediate safety assured, they looked back in concern for their friend.
Drizzt battled three of the monsters, and more piled in behind. Wulfgar considered dropping back from his perch halfway up the tree and dying at the drow’s side, but Drizzt, periodically looking back over his s
houlder to check his friends’ progress, noted the barbarian’s hesitation and read his mind. “Go!” he shouted. “Your delay does not help!”
Wulfgar had to pause and consider the source of the command. His trust of, and respect for, Drizzt overcame his instinctive desire to rush back into the fray, and he grudgingly pulled himself up to join Regis and Bruenor on the small plateau.
Trolls moved to flank the drow, their filthy claws reaching out at him from every side. He heard his friends, all three, imploring him to break away and join them, but knew that the monsters had already slipped in behind to cut off his retreat.
A smile widened across his face. The light in his eyes flared.
He rushed into the main host of trolls, away from the unattainable mound and his horrified friends.
The three companions had little time to dwell on the drow’s fortunes, however, for they soon found themselves assailed from every side as the trolls came relentlessly on, scratching to get at them.
Each friend stood to defend his own side. Luckily, the climb up the back of the mound proved even steeper, at some places inverted, and the trolls could not effectively get at them from behind.
Wulfgar was most deadly, knocking a troll from the mound’s side with each smack of his mighty hammer. But before he could even catch his breath, another had taken its place.
Regis, slapping with his little mace, was less effective. He banged with all his strength on fingers, elbows, even heads as the trolls edged in closer, but he could not dislodge the clutching monsters from their perch. Invariably, as each one crested the mound, either Wulfgar or Bruenor had to twist away from his own fight and swat the beast away.
They knew that the first time they failed with a single stroke, they would find a troll up and ready beside them on the top of the mound.
Disaster struck after only a few minutes. Bruenor spun to aid Regis as yet another monster pulled its torso over the top. The dwarf’s axe cut in cleanly.
Too cleanly. It sliced into the troll’s neck and drove right through, beheading the beast. But though the head flew from the mound, the body kept coming. Regis fell back, too horrified to react.
Streams of Silver Page 17
