“Lovely ladies, these priestesses of Lolth,” Entreri mouthed dryly. “Not very imaginative, but…” He just shrugged and moved along.
Drizzt thought back to those long-ago days, when Jarlaxle had taken Artemis Entreri to Menzoberranzan, and there the assassin had been like a slave-not necessarily to Jarlaxle, but to any and all of the drow who deemed to use him as they would. Drizzt had learned of some of Entreri’s trials in those days, for Drizzt, too, had gone to Menzoberranzan at that time to surrender, and had been promptly imprisoned there until a dear friend had come to get him. He had left the city beside Artemis Entreri, a daring escape.
Beside Entreri and Catti-brie.
She had come for him, daring the deep Underdark, defying the power of the drow, risking everything for the sake of a foolish Drizzt, who truly hadn’t appreciated the value and responsibility of friendship.
Would Dahlia have come for him, he couldn’t help but wonder? He had to let it go, he scolded himself. Now was not the time to consider the past, or the reliability of his present companions. They could fight, and fight well, and now, with the tunnels full of deadly enemies, that was enough.
Indeed, in short order, the three companions found themselves alone and hard-pressed once more, for the Shadovar were all about the upper levels of the complex, like a creeping and pervasive darkness.
“We have to get down below quickly,” Drizzt explained as he hustled beside Entreri, Dahlia just behind them, along a corridor lined by many rooms on either side. These had been dwarven living quarters in ancient times, obviously, the residences of Gauntlgrym.
“There is only one descent that I know of,” Dahlia agreed. “Alegni will move to block it.”
“If he even knows of it,” said Drizzt. As he spoke, he noted that a door ahead of Entreri on the right-hand side of the corridor was slightly ajar, and it seemed to him as if the cracked opening had just shifted slightly.
Drizzt called upon his magical anklets to speed his movements. He darted across in front of Entreri, barreling into the door full speed, bursting it wide and charging into the side room. A group of four shades awaited him, or more accurately, had planned to spring out at him and his companions. The first fell away, slammed by the door. The second instinctively reached for his tumbling companion, then spun back and threw his arms up to defend, but too late as Drizzt’s scimitar cut across his throat, the drow rushing past. “Right!” he heard Dahlia cry as he engaged the remaining two, and he understood that this ambush had been coordinated from more than one room. No matter, though, his task lay before him.
He batted down a pointing stave with a backhand right, and the flummoxed sorcerer couldn’t even finish his spell. Drizzt’s left scimitar went across the other way, batting aside a thrusting sword. Without even turning his hips, the drow deftly rolled his weapon over that sword and came back in the other way, neatly parrying a thrust of the attacker’s second sword.
Only then, in recognizing the two-handed fighting style, did Drizzt come to understand, too, that this shade was of elf heritage, perhaps even dark elf heritage. Again, no matter, for he hadn’t the time to ask a question. He stabbed out with that left hand, forcing the shade back, then retreated himself a few fast steps. He reversed his grip on Icingdeath in his right hand and stabbed it out behind him, perfectly timing the strike to halt the charge of the shade who had been slammed by the door. Axe up high for an overhead, two-handed chop and coming in fast, the fool had no defense. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t stop, couldn’t dodge, and couldn’t get his weapon or even an arm down for a block.
He took the stab in his gut, the curving blade working upward, through his diaphragm and into his lung.
The shade staggered back, the blade sliding out, and he gasped and tried to find his balance.
But Drizzt turned even as he retracted the blade, a spinning circuit that gave him a forehand slash with Twinkle that chopped the shade to the ground. As he came around, Drizzt darted out and leaped high, crashing down atop the mage, who was again trying to enact some spell. Drizzt yelled in his face, trying to disorient him, and unleashed a barrage of blows, left and right, tearing at the mage’s robes, bashing him around the skull.
He hit the shade a dozen times or more in the heartbeats he had before the swordsman leaped at him, and then he had to hope it would be enough as he found himself engaged with the skilled warrior.
The very skilled warrior, Drizzt realized almost immediately, as those swords came in at him from a multitude of angles, seemingly all at once, so fast and perfect was the execution of the elf shade.
Entreri started into the room right behind Drizzt, but on Dahlia’s call, the assassin leaped into the air and turned sidelong. He planted his feet against the door jamb and launched himself back the other way, falling to the ground in a roll and coming back up right beside the opening right-hand door. He flipped his dagger into his right hand as he went, and stabbed out hard behind his hip, catching a shade in the gut as it crossed the threshold into the corridor. Even as the dagger plunged in, Entreri flipped his grip on the hilt and ripped it back out, then rolled his arm up and over, stabbing behind over his right shoulder, this time plunging the small blade into the lurching shade’s eye. As that one fell, more poured out.
“Drow, we need you!” Entreri yelled.
“Drizzt!” Dahlia foolishly added.
Even Entreri was too engaged, however, to understand the possible implications of shouting out that particular name in these tunnels. The second shade out the door, heavily armored and with sword and shield, came at him fiercely, driving him back.
And he heard another door, one at least, opening behind him.
The shade had gained the advantage at the start of the fight and showed no intention of letting it dissipate, working his blades ferociously and with deadly precision, keeping Drizzt on his heels, his scimitars spinning to block and deflect.
He tried to come up even, but the shade pressed harder.
Drizzt began to see the patterns in his opponent’s movements. His warrior instincts took over, his vast experience led him to more careful and controlled parries, and soon enough he was managing a counter with almost every block.
Eventually he would fight himself back to even footing, and then, he knew, he could soon enough gain the upper hand on this lesser, though very good, fighter.
A cry from the hallway told him that “soon” was likely too long, and his pause nearly cost him as the shade pressed wildly. Twinkle and Icingdeath caught the thrusts and turned them out, and blocked the heavy slash, but Drizzt understood that it would take him many back-and-forth exchanges to even get back to where he was before Dahlia had cried out.
He managed a glance to the side as he turned his opponent, circling to his right to face the door, and that quick glance told him that Entreri and Dahlia-and he, stuck in this room-were surely in trouble. The hallway was filling with enemies.
A third shade rushed out of the room-or tried to until Dahlia stabbed the woman hard in the face with the end of her staff.
Entreri noted it and started to call out to her, for he knew the enemies were entering the hall behind him, and the armored shade before him pressed him hard. Dahlia didn’t need his prompt, though, understanding well the dilemma. She quick-stepped forward and prodded ahead with Kozah’s Needle, thrusting it into the lower back of Entreri’s opponent. There, too, the shade was armored, and Dahlia hit a metal plate.
So she let loose a burst of lightning energy from her magical quarterstaff.
The arcing energy leaped across the metal plates, curling and biting at the warrior, coming together from either side in a blinding and bursting dance across the bars of his full-faced helmet.
His next swing came awkwardly, as the lightning crawled around him like an angry swarm of biting insects, and Entreri easily dodged, rolling under the blade. As the nimble assassin came around, stepping behind the lurching sword and passing on the shade’s right, he managed to bash his sword across that faceplate,
stunning the armored warrior.
Entreri rushed past the open doorway, where another shade loomed, and past the door to Drizzt’s room, catching a quick glance as he went.
Reflexively, Entreri tossed his dagger into the air and swept his left hand across and back again past his belt buckle, extending it out as he crossed Drizzt’s room.
“Drow, be quick!” he called to Drizzt, and he caught his dagger and fell into another roll to avoid a sweep of a Netherese axe. He turned as he rolled over, coming up beside Dahlia.
“Drow!” they yelled together.
Drizzt heard their summons, and he surely understood, but again, had no idea how he might extricate himself-until his opponent lurched strangely and turned stiffly to keep up with the dancing drow.
And Drizzt understood from that look of pain on his enemy’s face, that Entreri had thrown his belt knife into the elf shade’s side.
The shade’s right arm drooped. He fought to keep his defenses in place, but the spasms of pain denied him.
Drizzt winced as the shade winced. His sense of honor screamed out at him that this was not a fair fight, and against a truly worthy opponent. Only for a moment, though, as he realized the foolishness of such a lament, particularly given that he had gone in there one against four.
He worked his scimitars more furiously, mostly down-angled for his parries, for he noted that the lower angle brought more pain to his opponent.
The ring of metal on metal and a surge of movement in the hall reminded him that he needed to be quick, and so he fell back with his left foot, inviting a thrust from the shade’s injured right, and when that blade came forward, instead of picking it off with Twinkle, Drizzt swept Icingdeath across and under, coming back fast after hooking the sword and driving it with his own blade back across to his right.
He stepped left as he did, dodging his hips to avoid the stab of the shade’s lefthand blade until Icingdeath and the hooked sword could fully intercept the thrust.
Which cleared the opening for Drizzt’s left hand, and Twinkle struck hard and true, and the shade fell away, throwing his swords as he went, hands reaching for a torn throat.
“Drizzt!” Dahlia yelled.
“We can’t hold the door!” Entreri added, and then more quietly asked Dahlia, “Will you quit calling his name?” He barely got the warning out and expected no reply, for the press was too great, with too many enemies blocking the corridor before them. Entreri’s words to Drizzt rang true, for they had to retreat.
Both started to call out again, and both gasped in surprise as a bolt of lightning exited Drizzt’s room and slammed into the shade facing Entreri.
Not a lightning bolt, they both realized, but a lightning enchanted arrow, and it drove right through that shade and burrowed into the one in front of Dahlia. Before that pair had even fallen away, another arrow exploded into the side of the first one’s head.
Dahlia stabbed her staff into the face of the mortally wounded shade still standing before her, driving him back and to the ground.
“More!” she cried, and on cue, a third lightning arrow screamed out into the corridor.
And simply disappeared.
And then came a fourth, and Dahlia’s teeth started chattering and her thick braid began to writhe with energy as if it was a living serpent.
“Hold!” Entreri cried as the third came out to be absorbed. He rushed across the body of the fallen shade, driving hard into the next rank, forcing them back with a flurry of stabs and thrusts.
Dahlia leaped past him as he cleared the immediate corridor, and thrust her staff down against the stone floor, releasing the pent up lightning energy.
The whole of the corridor seemed to leap under the power of that retort, shades twisting and falling, staggering aside in shock, mental and physical.
“Go! Go!” Entreri yelled, grabbing her and spinning her around and pushing her back the way they had come. He moved right behind her, Drizzt coming fast on his heels. The drow didn’t continue, though, spinning around and falling low and letting fly a stream of lightning arrows at the confused enemies.
“Forward!” the drow ordered to his companions, turning them around.
The shades scattered and fled, the trio in close pursuit-until they crossed a side passage that rang out as familiar to Drizzt and Dahlia, one they both believed would take them to the lower chambers.
Off they ran, Drizzt sealing the end with a globe of magical darkness. Then he paused as Entreri and Dahlia spread out beyond, seeking the proper routes.
The drow held perfectly still, craning his neck in concentration. He heard the slightest of footfalls, and sent a line of arrows into and through the magical darkness.
He ducked out of sight around a corner, and not a heartbeat too soon as a Shadovar wizard responded with a stream of magic missiles, and a second mage added a line of biting fire.
On charged the shades, and Drizzt leaned out and drove them back once more, the Heartseeker’s arrows cutting holes through rank after rank, three shades dropping with the first shot alone.
Drizzt ran off.
Only a heartbeat later, the area where he had been crouching exploded in a fireball, then a second and third.
“Keep running,” he warned Entreri and Dahlia as he crossed by them, and he tossed something at Entreri.
The assassin caught it: his buckle knife.
On they ran.
THE SHIFTING WEB OF ALLIES AND ENEMIES
Brack’thal stood in the orange-glowing chamber, staring down past the swirling water elementals to the bubbling lava maw of the primordial beast. The mage rubbed his thumb across the ruby band on his index finger, for through that ring, he could hear the call of the primordial, and could understand it.
Parts of it, at least, for this being was truly beyond Brack’thal’s comprehension, even with the assistance of the ring. This was a most ancient power, a god beast. Though it was quite above him, its primary call carried a simple enough message: the beast wanted to be freed.
Brack’thal looked down to his right, to the narrow mushroom stalk bridge that had been put in place to cross the pit.
His gaze moved out through the continual mist across the pit to the archway, barely visible through the fog, and the small antechamber beyond. He pictured the lever, and spoke the word for it-not in the drow tongue or in the common tongue of Faerun, but in a language he knew from his ring, the language of creatures of the primal plane of fire.
The primordial roiled hopefully, far below.
Ambergris hustled to the door ahead of the rest of her hunting band. This portal opened into the main corridor, she knew, and knew, too, that her band of Shadovar hunters had arrived in time to intercept the trio. She didn’t waste any time, sprinkling some powdery substance down on the floor and drawing it into specific shapes as she quietly chanted her spell.
“What is it?” Afafrenfere said, coming in through the room’s other door.
“Keep yerself back,” the dwarf warned, holding up one hand. “There be a powerful ward placed on this portal.”
By the time she rose and turned around, several others had entered, including the sorcerer who had been designated as the patrol’s leader.
“Glyphed,” Ambergris explained, moving toward them.
The shade wizard looked at her curiously. “This one, you check?” he asked suspiciously, for they had come through a dozen such doors.
“I been checking most,” Ambergris replied, to a doubtful look.
“Check for yerself then, fool,” the dwarf said. “Meself ’s looking for another way about.”
“Go to the door,” the wizard ordered Afafrenfere.
“Don’t ye move,” Ambergris remarked, drawing the wizard’s icy stare.
The dwarf returned that with a grin, and looked knowingly to Afafrenfere, who indeed was making no movement toward the portal. The others didn’t know about Ambergris and Afafrenfere’s allegiance to Cavus Dun, but Afafrenfere had not forgotten it, nor the fact that such affi
liation superseded any orders he might be given here, other than those coming directly from Lord Alegni himself.
“Dwarf says it’s glyphed,” the monk replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Do not delay!” the wizard commanded, turning all around. He focused on another of the shades, a female standing beside him, and threw the woman forward. “Go! Go! Before they pass us by!”
The woman glanced at Ambergris only momentarily before easing toward the door. She neared tentatively, sliding one foot before the other.
She almost made it, and was even reaching for the door handle, when the glyph of lightning exploded, throwing the poor shade through the air, the thunderous retort shaking the floor and walls.
“Well done!” Ambergris congratulated the sorcerer, and the others fell back, except for the poor victim, of course, who went crashing aside, her hair dancing, her teeth chattering, blood running from her eyes.
The sorcerer stared at the dwarf hatefully.
“Our enemies know we’re here now, I’m guessing,” the dwarf taunted. “But if ye’re not sure, ye might want to set off another alarm or two.”
“Now we go through!” the sorcerer demanded.
Ambergris huffed at that. “Another glyph or two remaining,” she warned with a shake of her hairy head, and she walked past the sorcerer, muttering, “Idiot,” as she went.
That proved more than he could tolerate, and he reached out and shoved the dwarf… who didn’t budge. Ambergris did move, though, sweeping her large mace across and swatting the sorcerer aside. The shocked mage grunted as he slammed into the side wall, then groaned and slumped to the floor.
“Gather the idiot,” Ambergris instructed Afafrenfere and one other. “We got to backtrack and with all speed if we’re hoping to catch them three afore they get on much more.”
Ambergris, of course, was hoping for no such thing.
She turned to another pair of shades. “The two o’ ye bring her along,” she ordered, pointing to the lightning-wounded woman. “Might be that I can save her. Might not.”
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