Charon's claw tns-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  Against the wall, Entreri called out for Drizzt to stop, but his words seemed thin indeed against the thundering cacophony of the barrage.

  The stone right before his face fractured as an arrow skipped past, shards stinging his eyes. He rolled out from the wall and swept the feet out from under the tiefling, then flattened out, accepting the crashing weight as the brute fell atop him.

  But could even this burly blanket stop a shot from that devastating bow?

  “Heavily enchanted,” Glorfathel warned as Ambergris edged toward the magnificent, gem-studded throne on the tiled stone dais.

  “Cast protections, then,” Afafrenfere said, eyeing those marvelous baubles hungrily.

  Glorfathel laughed at the monk. “No mage in the Shadowfell or on Toril would be foolish enough to touch that throne. It is imbued with the power-”

  “Of dwarf gods,” Ambergris finished for him, and she was very near to the throne. She glanced past it, to a small graveyard of cairns. A curious sight indeed, for who would put such monuments so near to such a throne in the middle of an audience hall? Two of the cairns were larger than the others, and as she focused on the grandest of them, Ambergris realized yet another mystery: these were new. They hadn’t been placed in the last tenday, perhaps, but the graves were certainly not nearly as ancient as everything else they had seen in the complex.

  “What secrets might ye be keepin’ here, Clangeddin?” she asked softly. “And what powers, mighty Moradin?” She reached her hand out tentatively.

  “Dare not,” the elf warned, and Afafrenfere swallowed hard.

  Ambergris stiffened immediately as her thick fingers touched the burnished arm of the great chair, as if some bolt of power had shot down her spine. She sucked in her breath and held the pose for a long while, the other two staring on incredulously.

  They could not begin to understand the rush of power traveling through the dwarf at that time. She saw flashes of the last disciple of the dwarf gods who had touched this throne, and then a clear image of him sitting there. She noted his red beard and one-horned crown, and her lips moved to form the name of “King Bruenor?”

  She held on a bit longer, but the energy proved too great. She focused on the vision, as if trying desperately to convince this famous dwarf king that she, too, was of Delzoun heritage, that she truly was of the Adbar O’Mauls! But Ambergris carried no royal blood, and so the throne rejected her, but kindly, energy building until she could hold on no longer.

  The dwarf staggered backward.

  “It canno’ be,” she mumbled, but she knew that it had been, indeed. This was no deception.

  “What?” Afafrenfere asked, stepping up beside her. His arm slipped out toward the throne.

  “It’ll eat ye,” Ambergris warned.

  Afafrenfere turned on her. “Then you do it,” he said. “Pluck a gem or two!”

  Ambergris stared incredulously, then laughed at him. “Not in ten elf generations,” she said. “I’d rather be pluckin’ a gem from betwixt a red dragon’s back teeth.”

  “Well, what are we to do with it, then?” the exasperated monk asked. “It’s a king’s treasure and more.”

  “Much more,” said Ambergris.

  “We’re to leave it alone,” Glorfathel said. “As anyone who’s ever been here has left it alone, or suffered deadly consequences, no doubt.”

  Not everyone, Ambergris thought, but did not say.

  “The graves, then,” the monk suggested.

  “Touch a stone and I’ll be making another one for yerself,” Ambergris said, without leaving a hint that she was interested in any debate. Her nostrils flared and her eyes widened, almost maniacally, and Afafrenfere backed down.

  “You can never take the pride from a dwarf,” Glorfathel said with a laugh. “No matter how much you might darken her skin.”

  Ambergris nodded, glad that the elf had justified her level of rage.

  As Glorfathel led the way to the tunnel they had been tasked with guarding, Ambergris let her stare linger on that wondrous throne, and once more she pictured a red-bearded dwarf sitting there, king of kings. Her last look before they left was back to the graves, to the grandest of the group, for she figured who might be buried there.

  She managed a slight and inconspicuous bow as she departed.

  “Drizzt!” Dahlia yelled, and grabbed at the drow’s arm. “It’s over!”

  He shoved her away and began anew, the image of her coupling with Entreri burning in his thoughts.

  He would sweep clear this corridor all the way to Gauntlgrym!

  An arrow flew free, but its lightning glow was stolen even as it left Taulmaril. A second went similarly dark, and even a third before Drizzt even realized it, even noted Dahlia, crouched to the side with her magical staff extended, the energy of Kozah’s Needle absorbing the magic of Taulmaril with each release.

  She was protecting him!

  Drizzt’s eyes widened with rage. Instead of reaching for another arrow, he took up the bow as a club, thinking to bash Dahlia aside.

  The darkness dissipated then, and both paused and looked to the corridor.

  The sorcerer sat awkwardly against the wall, legs and arms splayed wide, chin on his chest and wafts of smoke, even a bit of flame, rising from several holes in his torso. Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, had lived up to its name. Beside, curled into a defensive ball, lay the smoking husk of a halfling shade, and a larger form lay very still farther along. The walls were pitted with holes, smoke rising from them, and shards of broken stone lay all around.

  “What have you done?” Dahlia demanded, rising up.

  Sobered by the scene, confused indeed, Drizzt lowered Taulmaril and stepped past her, peering into the quiet, smoky corridor.

  He almost set another arrow and let fly when the third body in line shifted suddenly, but he had no time as out from under it came Artemis Entreri, a knife flying before him, and blades drawn in a desperate charge.

  Drizzt deflected that thrown knife by dropping Taulmaril in its path, and out came his scimitars to meet that charge.

  Entreri barreled in, sword thrusting once and again, leading him into a turn that brought his dagger around from on high, chopping down at the drow.

  But Drizzt, too, rolled, and opposite the assassin, outpacing that dagger. The drow came around with a sidelong swipe of Twinkle, which Entreri expectedly parried.

  Drizzt stopped in mid-turn and burst forward, thrusting Icingdeath, and had Entreri simply executed a block on Twinkle, the drow would have found a clear opening.

  But the assassin was too clever for that, and had fought this particular opponent before. Instead of merely meeting the leading slash with a block and bat to drive it out wide, the parry had rolled Entreri’s blade over the scimitar.

  Entreri let Drizzt’s momentum carry Twinkle out harmlessly wide, disengaging his blade and coming forward with a thrust of his own.

  Both could have scored a killing blow, but to do so would have meant accepting a similar fate.

  So both crossed to block instead, sword and scimitar meeting with a heavy crash and locking tight between them.

  “Stop!” Dahlia yelled out, her voice strained and teeth chattering for some reason that neither combatant understood, or cared to even notice.

  Entreri’s dagger stabbed for Drizzt’s throat. Drizzt’s free scimitar flashed across to block, then the drow punched straight out at Entreri’s face.

  The assassin ducked the blow and the two went into a clench, arms tangled.

  So Entreri found another weapon and head-butted.

  As did Drizzt, their foreheads cracking together between them, and both fell back a couple of staggering steps.

  And both meant to leap right back in and be done with this.

  But a long metallic staff knifed between them like a blocking bar, its tip slamming into the far wall, and with that impact, Dahlia released the energy of three of Taulmaril’s enchanted arrows, and a bit from the staff as well, lighting the corridor with a stinging
, explosive blast.

  Nearly blinded, the woman still caught the motion as the two leaped away, two who seemed as one warrior leaping back from a mirror. Both half-twisted in the air, executing a barrel roll, turning and diving into a headlong roll then coming back to their feet at exactly the same moment and in exactly the same turn to spin around to face each other once more, at the ready, feet wide, blades leveled.

  “Are you brothers, then?” the stunned Dahlia asked.

  “He would have me dead!” Entreri yelled at her.

  “I will,” Drizzt replied.

  “I will join against he who makes the first move,” Dahlia warned.

  “First move was his,” Entreri accused.

  “Last move will be mine, as well,” Drizzt promised.

  “Desist!” Dahlia demanded.

  “No!” they both shouted back.

  Dahlia leaped between them more directly, looking from one to the other with clear confusion. “You need him!” she implored Entreri. “That you might be rid of the sword!”

  The assassin backed and straightened, and so did Drizzt. “The sword?” they both said together.

  A horrified Drizzt threw his scimitars to the ground and reached over his left shoulder, drawing forth Charon’s Claw and taking it up before him in both hands.

  “The sword,” he said again, figuring it all out.

  All of it.

  The suspicions, the images of Entreri and Dahlia locked in passion, the urge to kill Artemis Entreri…

  With a growl, the drow leaped to the side. He started to yell and didn’t stop as he repeatedly bashed Charon’s Claw against the corridor wall.

  “Drizzt,” Dahlia gasped and started to go to him, but Entreri came up and held his arm before her to block her in place.

  “The sword is telling him to kill me,” Entreri quietly explained.

  Drizzt played out his energy, his rage, scraping and chipping stone but not marring the fabulous red blade of Charon’s Claw at all. Still, he was making his point to the sentient and wicked weapon: He was the master, Charon’s Claw the servant.

  Finally, he stopped, and with a last look of disgust at the sword, he slid it back into its scabbard across his back. He retrieved his scimitars and similarly slid them away, then looked to his companions, looked past his companions, to the carnage in the corridor, a trio of bodies that could easily have been four.

  He let a few heartbeats pass, to let the tension dissipate a bit, before meeting the gaze of Artemis Entreri. He didn’t apologize-what would be the point? — but he offered a nod to assure the man that he, and not Charon’s Claw, was back in control.

  Artemis Entreri returned his sword and dagger to their holsters.

  Behind Drizzt, the woman warrior whom Dahlia had overwhelmed groaned and rolled, and even tried to prop herself up on her elbows. Dahlia was there at once, delivering a strong kick to the shade’s side, and as the woman tried to curl up, Dahlia stomped down hard on the back of her neck, pinning her in place.

  “If you move again, I will shatter your neck,” the deadly elf warned.

  Drizzt came up beside and grabbed Dahlia by the arm, trying to pull her away. She resisted at first, but the drow looked at her plaintively and tugged more insistently.

  As soon as Dahlia lifted her foot from the woman’s neck and stepped back, and before Drizzt could reach down to assist the captive shade, Entreri shoved past him and grabbed the warrior by the hair and arm, and roughly yanked her from the floor.

  “Your sword?” he asked, noting her gaze, for indeed, her long sword lay on the floor not far away. “Yes, do retrieve it, that I might finish what should already have been done.” With that, the assassin shoved the shade to the side and back to the ground, near her weapon.

  She looked at the weapon, then back to Entreri, who had drawn his weapons once more and stood waiting, and beckoning.

  Drizzt watched the spectacle in dismay, a telling reminder to him of who this man, Entreri, was, or he had been at least. Lost in the nostalgia of better days, had he deceived himself? Had he allowed that which he wanted so badly, a return to a time and place, to blind him to the reality of Artemis Entreri?

  He glanced the other way, to his other companion, who watched eagerly, and with a grin. And Drizzt understood that expression; Dahlia wanted to see this fight, wanted to see Entreri cut the shade to pieces.

  Drizzt swallowed hard and reminded himself that Dahlia had good reason to hate the shades, and that these were his sworn enemies-they had been in the tunnel looking for him and the sword, no doubt.

  “Pick it up,” Entreri said to the shade. “Pick it up and stand. My companions will stay to the side. You against me, and if you win, perhaps they will let you go.”

  “Hardly,” Dahlia remarked, drawing a smirk from Entreri.

  Drizzt caught the silent exchange between the two. They were of like mind, and following desires that he did not, could not, share.

  Once again, an image of Entreri and Dahlia in an embrace, a passionate kiss, flashed through his mind, but he growled it away and answered Charon’s Claw with a wave of anger and an image of his own: a deep pit, its sides swirling with the rush of powerful water elementals, its bottom the fiery maw of the primordial.

  “I know you, Barrabus the Gray,” the shade said, still on the floor and propped again on her elbows. “I will not fight you.”

  “Coward.”

  The shade shrugged. “I know you. I once fought beside you.”

  Entreri tilted his head, regarding the woman more closely, but Drizzt saw no flash of recognition there.

  “As I know this elf, Dahlia, champion of the Thayans.”

  “Then you know that you will die here,” Dahlia replied, and Drizzt winced once more. He almost wished that Entreri would just step over and end this torment, for the shade and for him.

  He stepped over instead, between Entreri and the shade, and he reached his hand to her. When she took it, he helped her to her feet, her weapon still on the ground.

  “Your patrol came looking for us,” Drizzt said.

  “No,” the shade said, and shook her head.

  “Do not lie to me or I will let my companions have you. Answer my questions and-”

  “And what?” the shade and Entreri asked together.

  “And Drizzt will let her go,” Dahlia said with a mocking chortle.

  “Will he, then?” asked Entreri.

  “I will,” Drizzt said to the shade directly. “Answer my questions and run away the way you were going, the way from which we came.”

  The shade glanced past Drizzt to Entreri, then to Dahlia. “I do not believe you,” she said, looking back directly into Drizzt’s lavender eyes.

  “It’s all you have,” he calmly answered. “And it’s not so difficult a question. Your friends are in the entry cavern to Gauntlgrym, it would seem. I would know their numbers.”

  “You ask me to betray Herzgo Alegni, as Barrabus betrayed him!” the woman snapped.

  “Alegni is dead!” Dahlia declared, and the woman looked at her curiously, as if her statement was purely ridiculous.

  “Speak that name again and I will bash in your skull,” Dahlia promised, and spat at the shade’s feet.

  Strangely, that threat seemed to bolster the shade. She stood taller, as if accepting her fate, and so, no longer afraid. Drizzt had seen this before, indeed had felt such feelings of his own in times past, and so he understood that his moment to garner any useful information was fast passing.

  “You cannot escape,” the shade said to him.

  “They’re in the cavern,” Drizzt replied.

  The shade smiled and nodded. “They’re waiting for you, and if you don’t come to them, they will find you. And kill you.”

  Her smile was sincere, Drizzt understood, for she had gone past the point of fear and fully into acceptance. His thoughts spun-he recalled the cavern, the stalagmites and hanging pillars, so much like Menzoberranzan. He considered the layout of the place, the shallow un
derground pond and the beach before the great wall of Gauntlgrym.

  “Go, then,” Drizzt said, stepping aside and motioning back down the tunnel, not toward the surface as he had first indicated, but back the way the Shadovar patrol had come. “Go back to your dark friends and deliver my word. They will not find us. They will not retrieve this foul sword. There are many tunnels in the Underdark. They are the ways of the drow, not the Netherese.”

  The shade stared at him. He could feel Entreri’s glare burning into his back.

  “You will not do this,” Dahlia said.

  Drizzt turned a stern look her way, a silent warning.

  “Go,” he said to the shade, though he didn’t look back at her. “I will not offer again.”

  The shade started tentatively, looking around at the three, not knowing from which would come the killing blow. She eased past Drizzt, who turned to stare at Entreri, then sidled past the assassin.

  Entreri moved to the side a step, turning as the shade passed, and Drizzt pointedly moved up as well, putting himself between the assassin and the shade.

  She broke into a run, nearly tripping over the corpse of one of her companions.

  “I have witnessed many stupid things from you, drow,” Entreri remarked, moving around behind Drizzt and bumping him as he did, “but nothing more foolish than this.”

  Drizzt slowly turned, first to see Dahlia, who stared at him hatefully, as if he had just betrayed her, then, as he came around to see Entreri… Entreri, who had retrieved Taulmaril from the floor, and who had only bumped into Drizzt to cover the fact that he had taken an arrow from the quiver on Drizzt’s back!

  The assassin drew back on the bowstring, leveling the shot at the shade, who was still in easy range.

  And Drizzt couldn’t get to him in time.

  “Entreri, no!” the drow said, and he was pleading as much as commanding.

  Entreri did pause at that, at the curious timbre in Drizzt’s voice, likely, and he glanced over.

  “Do not, I beg,” said Drizzt.

  “That she will go and warn her allies of our approach?” The assassin ended with a growl and set his sights on the fleeing shade woman once more.