Charon's claw tns-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  He knew. He heard the thunder of the approaching Shadovar. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He wanted to fight at least, to offer some last and fitting expression of Drizzt Do’Urden. If this was his end, as surely he believed it to be, then it should match the way he lived his life.

  He wondered about the afterlife, and hoped there was one, and a just one. One where he would find again his friends lost, find his love, Catti-brie, and he even managed a grin in the magical darkness as the strength left his knees, as the scimitars fell from his grasp, in imagining the meeting between Catti-brie and Dahlia.

  The grin was gone before it even began. Catti-brie and Dahlia

  … and Drizzt.

  He hoped he would find Catti-brie, for the thought of spending eternity beside Dahlia…

  He was on the ground then, though he felt nothing. He resisted the drow poison enough to remain awake and somewhat cogent, but his physical abilities were absent, and not to soon return.

  “Bregan D’aerthe!” he heard Artemis Entreri cry, and Drizzt hoped that perhaps this was Jarlaxle’s band, that perhaps they might survive.

  Entreri clarified, “We’re agents of Bregan D’aerthe!”

  Clever, Drizzt thought. Ever was Artemis Entreri clever-that is what made him doubly dangerous.

  He sensed forms passing by him, moving over him, but he could not lash out at them, and thought that he should not lash out at them.

  The irony of a drow rescue was not lost on the groggy and fast-sinking dark elf ranger, nor was the notion that it would indeed be a very short reprieve.

  The room’s door burst open under the weight of ranks of Shadovar pressing forward.

  A wall of poisoned crossbow bolts came at them. The room blackened before them. A second magical darkness engulfed their front ranks, and a third magical darkness hit the throng behind that one.

  And in that confused frenzy, a fireball erupted, biting flames curling Shadovar skin, blistering Shadovar hands as they tried to hold to metal weapons. Turning and thrashing, disoriented in the darkness, tripping over the bodies of their front ranks lying helpless on the ground under the spell of drow poison, the charge abruptly halted.

  “Press on!” Herzgo Alegni screamed from the back when he recognized the stall.

  “Drow!” came the responding shouts. “The dark elves have come!”

  “Effron!” Herzgo Alegni shouted. He hardly knew what to make of that, and certainly he didn’t want a battle with a drow force. But neither would he let that sword, or his hated enemies, Entreri and the wretched Dahlia, escape! He spotted the twisted warlock by the entrance to the tunnel in the room ahead of him.

  “Fill the room with deadly magic!” Alegni yelled at the warlock.

  “There are Shadovar in that room, my lord!” a shade lieutenant near to Alegni dared to argue.

  Hardly thinking of the movement, hardly even registering his own reaction to the lieutenant’s words, Alegni punched the shade in the jaw, and the shade dropped to the floor in a heap.

  “I will have them!” Alegni bellowed, and all around him cowered under the power of his voice and the very real threat behind his demands. “I will have that sword!” He regarded the shade he had hit. Normally, the warlord refrained from such public corporeal punishment of his charges, other than his open torment of Barrabus the Gray, of course. He put a hand out to help hoist the shade back to his feet, but when the lieutenant hesitated, staring at him suspiciously, Alegni retracted the hand and quietly warned, “The next time you so openly oppose my orders, I will answer with my sword.”

  He moved forward to find Effron and his magic-wielding forces filling the room at the far end of the corridor with blazing lightning, clouds of acid, balls of fire, and bubbling poisonous ooze. Prodded by a continually yelling Alegni, their barrage of deadly magic went on and on, shaking the stones of Gauntlgrym.

  They could see none of it, of course, as the drow darkness lingered, and finally as both barrage and darkness began to thin, the Shadovar forces pressed on.

  To find an empty room, with not a body to be seen and the back door closed and sealed once more.

  “They could not all have escaped,” Effron remarked when Alegni entered the scarred battlefield. “Some of our enemies were slain here, I am certain.”

  “You’re guessing,” Alegni growled back at him.

  “Reasoning. None could have withstood our concentrated assault.”

  “You know little of the drow, I see.”

  Effron shrugged, that curious motion with one of his shoulders always behind him.

  “So some were killed,” Alegni mused. “Dahlia, do you think?”

  Effron swallowed hard.

  “You would not wish such a thing, would you, twisted boy?” Alegni teased. “To think her dead, but gone from you. To think her dead without you being able to witness the last light leaving her blue eyes. That would hurt most of all, wouldn’t it?”

  Effron stared at him hatefully, not blinking. “Do you speak for me or for yourself?”

  “If she is dead, then so be it,” Alegni said as convincingly as he could manage.

  “And Barra-Artemis Entreri?”

  “If he is dead, I will take up Charon’s Claw and bring him back, that I might torment him for another decade to repay him for his insolence and treachery.”

  “He resisted the sword before. Could you ever trust him, or in your ability to control him, even with Claw back in your grasp?”

  Alegni smiled at that, but didn’t really have an answer. In any case, both Dahlia and Entreri were gone, either still fleeing or dead. Or captured, Alegni mused, and under the control of these dark elves that had so suddenly appeared before his forces.

  The tiefling warlord couldn’t hold to his smile, for the arrival of a sizable drow force, if it was indeed that, certainly complicated his quest.

  “If they’re alive, and these were their allies, then they continue toward the primordial beast,” Alegni said to Effron and all of those nearby. “That is the worst potential, so continue our march. Fill these tunnels with Shadovar. Find that beast!”

  “If they are dead and the drow have taken the sword, they will likely bargain its return,” Effron remarked quietly as the forces organized and set out once more.

  Alegni nodded. “But we prepare for the more immediate potential.”

  “We have lines of warriors strung out far ahead in the corridors,” Effron assured him. “We have found the main stair to the lower levels.”

  “Send word of this new enemy, then,” Alegni ordered.

  “We do not know them to be an enemy,” Effron reasoned.

  That rang as curious in Alegni’s ears-hadn’t they just fought a vicious and quick exchange, after all? — but as he considered the suddenness with which the two alert and powerful forces had met, perhaps there was some truth to Effron’s claim. Perhaps the drow had inadvertently happened in the way of the Shadovar advance, and had reacted to force with force, as Alegni surely would have done.

  Perhaps, but the desperate tiefling wasn’t about to take any chances.

  “Get us to the primordial,” he told Effron, “with all haste and without mercy for any who stand in our way.”

  Drizzt still had his scimitars and still had his bow, but they wouldn’t do him any good, even though his physical senses and abilities were beginning to return. Magical tentacles had grown out of the stone and grabbed him-and Entreri and Dahlia, who were seated back to back with him-fully immobilizing them all.

  He heard Dahlia groan, only then beginning to awaken. Entreri was perfectly conscious, and Drizzt doubted that any of the bolts had even struck him.

  “Bregan D’aerthe?” a finely dressed drow warrior standing before Drizzt remarked, his voice clearly full of doubt. “What’s your name?”

  He was speaking in the high tongue of Menzoberranzan, a language Drizzt had not heard in a long, long time, but one that he recognized, and one that returned to him with amazing speed and clarity.


  “Masoj,” Drizzt answered without hesitation, pulling out a name from his distant past.

  The drow, a warrior noble if his dress and fine swords were to be believed, looked at him curiously.

  “Masoj?” he asked. “Of what House?”

  “Of no House he will admit,” Artemis Entreri put in, also speaking perfect Drow.

  A soldier beside the noble drow stiffened and moved as if to punish the man for daring to speak out, but the noble held him back.

  “Do continue,” he prompted Entreri.

  “Masoj, of a House that offended the Spider Queen,” Entreri explained. “None will admit it, save Kimmuriel, who leads Bregan D’aerthe.”

  “You are of House Oblodra?” the warrior noble asked Drizzt, bending low to look Drizzt in the eye.

  In the lavender eye, Drizzt knew, and he feared that his reputation and strange eyes might precede him and ruin everything.

  Drizzt shook his head. “I will admit no such thing,” he said, the proper response.

  “You are related to Kimmuriel, then?” the warrior noble pressed.

  “Distantly,” Drizzt answered.

  “Jearth,” came a female voice from the side, “the Netherese flank us. We have no time to tarry.”

  “Kill them and be done with it?” Jearth, the warrior noble, replied.

  “It would seem prudent.”

  “They are of Bregan D’aerthe, they claim,” Jearth replied. “If Kimmuriel’s forces are around, I would have them on our side, would you agree? It should be easy enough to facilitate their aid, particularly with Tiago Baenre among our ranks.” Drizzt’s thoughts whirled as he tried to place the names. Jearth sounded somewhat familiar to him, but he knew of Tiago not at all. But Baenre! Of course, the mere mention of that powerful House sent Drizzt’s memories spinning back to his decades in Menzoberranzan.

  “Bregan D’aerthe?” the female echoed incredulously. She started around to Drizzt’s left. “A drow, an elf…” She paused just long enough to spit upon Dahlia, and Drizzt winced, considering what might soon happen to poor Dahlia, given her heritage and the hatred between the elf races.

  “And a human,” the female continued as she walked, but she bit off that last word, and Drizzt craned his neck enough to see her, to notice the surprised expression on her face as she looked over Artemis Entreri.

  “Priestess,” Entreri said to her with proper deference.

  The female continued to stare at him with obvious curiosity.

  “I know you,” she said quietly, and seemed unsure and tentative.

  “I have been to Menzoberranzan,” Entreri replied to that look. “Before the Spellplague, beside Jarlaxle.”

  Drizzt held his breath, for Entreri had left Menzoberranzan beside him, and after they had wrought great damage. Reminding this priestess of that time might also remind her of the escape, and the identity of Entreri’s companions during that escape!

  “You would be long dead then, human.”

  “And yet I’m not,” Entreri replied. “There’s magic in the world, it would seem.”

  “Do you know him?” the noble warrior asked the priestess.

  “Do you know me, human?” she asked. “Do you know Berellip Xorlarrin?”

  There came a long pause. Drizzt craned his neck even farther, catching a glimpse of Entreri as the seated man studied the drow priestess before him. Drizzt knew the name, the surname at least, and it brought him little comfort. For House Xorlarrin had been among the greatest of Menzoberranzan, potent with magic and formidable. Drizzt swallowed hard yet again, for he recalled then this warrior noble, Jearth Xorlarrin, who had been through Melee-Magthere, the drow academy, not long before him. He considered it great luck indeed that Jearth had apparently not recognized him, for though a century and more had elapsed, few dark elves had eyes the color of Drizzt’s.

  This whole thing seemed so perfectly absurd to Drizzt-until, of course, he considered that Jarlaxle had been involved. Whenever Jarlaxle was involved, absurdity was soon to follow.

  “I do,” Entreri replied to the priestess, and Drizzt just sighed helplessly.

  “Where, then?” the female demanded.

  “On a ledge on the edge of the Clawrift,” Entreri answered without hesitation, though there was a bit of a question in his voice, as if he wasn’t completely sure and was afraid-rightly so! — to get it wrong.

  Berellip began to laugh.

  “How could I ever forget?” Entreri asked with more confidence. “Did you not use your powers to dangle me over the abyss in the moment of my ecstasy?”

  “It was about pleasing me, human,” she answered. “Your discomfort mattered not at all.”

  “As it must be,” Entreri replied.

  “Berellip?” asked the incredulous warrior noble, who was clearly more flummoxed even than Drizzt. “You know him?”

  “If he is who he claims to be, he was my first colnbluth lover,” Berellip answered, using the drow word for anyone who was not drow. She laughed. “My only human lover. And quite skilled, if I recall correctly, which is why I didn’t drop him into the Clawrift.”

  “I was there to please you,” Entreri said.

  Drizzt could hardly believe what he was hearing, but he resisted shaking his head or wearing a stupefied expression and being obvious-if he was to be taken seriously as a member of Bregan D’aerthe, after all, then such news should not be so shocking to him.

  “He was brought to Menzoberranzan by Jarlaxle,” Berellip explained to Jearth. “And graciously put at the disposal of those among us who were curious about the prowess of a human.”

  “He is who you believe him to be?” the warrior asked skeptically.

  “On the edge of the Clawrift, indeed,” Berellip said, and her voice revealed that it had probably been a pleasant experience-at least from her perspective.

  Drizzt didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or scream at the absurdity of it all. He chose-wisely-to remain silent. Once again, images of his escape from Menzoberranzan, Entreri beside him, had him holding his breath. If Berellip or Jearth put the pieces together, if they had learned that Entreri had fled Menzoberranzan beside Drizzt Do’Urden, the result would be catastrophic indeed.

  “They’re Bregan D’aerthe, then,” Jearth declared.

  “So it would seem,” Berellip answered, and Drizzt breathed just a little bit easier.

  “An elf?” Jearth asked incredulously. “I would not suffer her to live.”

  “Take her as you will,” Berellip started to answer, but Entreri interrupted.

  “She is Jarlaxle’s consort,” Entreri blurted to Drizzt’s continuing surprise. “His most valuable spy, as you can imagine, for she navigates the villages of the elves and Eladrin with ease.”

  Simply in looking at Jearth, Drizzt realized that his assassin companion had just saved Dahlia from a certain fate of rape, torture, and ultimately, murder.

  “You let iblith speak for you?” Berellip asked Drizzt, moving around to stand before him.

  Drizzt held his breath yet again. She had recognized Entreri-what might happen if she recognized him? Certainly she was old enough to know the stories of Drizzt Do’Urden, traitor to his people.

  “He is Jarlaxle’s colnbluth,” Drizzt explained at length. “I serve Kimmuriel.”

  “And which leads Bregan D’aerthe?” Berellip asked.

  “Kimmuriel,” Drizzt said without hesitation, though he was flailing blindly, for he had no idea of what he was talking about, and had even less of an idea of what Berellip and Jearth might know of the inner workings of Jarlaxle’s band.

  “Then why do you allow him to speak?”

  “In deference to Jarlaxle,” Drizzt replied. “That is our edict from Kimmuriel. All deference to Jarlaxle. I am here to serve as Kimmuriel’s eyes, as Jarlaxle’s colnbluth and his elf consort scout out this most curious place.”

  “Weapons master,” came a voice from the back of the room, out of Drizzt’s sight. “The Shadovar move to flank us. We must move at once.
”

  Jearth looked to Berellip.

  “Free them,” the priestess said. “We will need their blades. Put them in a tunnel where the fighting will be especially fierce. My memory is that Jarlaxle’s toy was exceptionally fine with the blade, as well as his spear.”

  She leaned in close to Entreri and said quietly. “If you fight well, you may survive, and if you do, I will allow you to please me once more.”

  To that point, the groggy Dahlia had been perfectly still and perfectly silent, but she gave a little gasp at that remark, Drizzt noted with more than a passing interest.

  “She must have been an amazing lover for you to remember her after all of these decades,” Dahlia said to Entreri when the three were moving together and alone a short while later.

  “I don’t remember her at all,” Entreri replied.

  “But… you mentioned the incident,” Dahlia protested. “This Claw…?”

  She held up her hands helplessly.

  “The Clawrift,” Drizzt explained. “A chasm in the drow city.”

  “And he remembered it, and the encounter with her beside it,” Dahlia said. Drizzt didn’t look at her, figuring that it would only confirm the intrigue he clearly heard in Dahlia’s voice. Again came those flashes, images of Dahlia and Entreri entwined in passion. But now Drizzt understood the source of them- partly, at least-and so he pushed them away and silently warned Charon’s Claw to shut up.

  If it was Charon’s Claw, and that was the rub. For in his heart, Drizzt understood that the sentient sword was not planting the whole of his feelings regarding Dahlia and Artemis Entreri. The sword had sensed some jealousy within him and was fueling it, likely, but Drizzt would be lying to himself to pretend that he was not honestly bothered by the level of intimacy between Entreri and Dahlia, a level that far exceeded his own with this elf woman who was his lover.

  “Not at all,” Entreri said.

  “I heard you!” Dahlia protested.

  “That was the chosen place,” said Entreri. “For all of the noble priestesses who were curious about the prowess of a human.”

  “You said she magically dangled you over the ledge,” Dahlia protested. “They all did.”

  Both Dahlia and Drizzt stopped and stared at him.