“And the Shadovar?” Gol’fanin asked.
“We have found signs of their march to this place, but none of their retreat. Yet they are not to be found.”
“Back to the Shadowfell, then.”
“And so Gauntlgrym is ours.”
“Counsel Ravel to proceed cautiously,” the blacksmith advised.
“But you will continue your work?”
“Of course.”
“Then I hold no sense of urgency.”
The five companions rested in Gauntlgrym’s great entry hall, far to the side of the great throne and the graves.
“Touched it,” Ambergris said to Drizzt when he walked up beside her, to find her staring across at the throne.
“Come,” Drizzt bade her, and he started that way. He led her right past the throne, though, to the small group of graves.
“King Bruenor,” he explained, pointing to the largest. “Here in Gauntlgrym, he fell.”
“Word was that he died in Mithral Hall,” Ambergris replied. “We held a great drunk in his honor.” She paused and laughed. “But we knowed, elf, we knowed,” she said.
The way she addressed him, “elf,” had Drizzt back on his heels, for it was a nickname he had heard before, and spoken with similar inflection and affection.
“Glad that he found his road,” Ambergris said solemnly. “His reputation always called him as one for the road and not the throne.”
“His shield dwarf,” Drizzt explained as they paced to the other larger cairn.
“The Pwent,” Ambergris mumbled, and that came as a bit of confirmation to Drizzt that this one could indeed be trusted.
“And the others who fell in the fight for this place,” Drizzt explained of the other graves. “Battlehammer dwarves from Icewind Dale.”
Ambergris nodded and quietly whispered a prayer for them all.
Drizzt patted her on the shoulder and led her back to the others. He paused before he got there, though, and looked the dwarf straight in the eye. “Geas?” he asked, his voice full of suspicion.
Ambergris looked at him stupidly.
“Your shade friend,” Drizzt clarified, and the dwarf snickered.
“Chalk,” she explained. “Blue chalk and nothing more… well, a bit o’ magic suggestion to convince the dolt.”
“So if this Afafa… Afrenfafa…”
“Afafrenfere,” Ambergris explained.
“So if this Afafrenfere tries to kill me, I’ll not find Dumathoin coming to my rescue?”
The dwarf showed a gap-toothed smile. “He won’t try,” she assured Drizzt. “That one’s a flower, but he ain’t hopin’ to be a daisy. Not the smartest, not the bravest, but a gooder heart than them Netherese butchers e’er deserved. Ye got me personal guarantee on that.”
For some inexplicable reason, that seemed more than good enough to Drizzt.
R. A. Salvatore
Charon's Claw
I n the dark of Gauntlgrym’s throne room, a shifting stone stole the quiet.
Then came a grunt, and more sounds of rocks sliding against each other. A black-bearded dwarf crawled from under the pile, then reached back and grabbed at something he had left behind, grunting with exertion as he tried to extricate it. “Durned thing’s stuck,” he muttered, and with a great tug, he pulled free a most curious helmet, one set with a long and oft-bloodied spike. His effort sent him flying over backward to crash against the stones of the nearest cairn, where he lay on his back as the dust settled.
“Durn it,” he cursed, seeing the trouble he had caused, and he rolled to his feet and began replacing the dislodged stones. “Don’t mean to be desecratin’ yer tomb…”
The words caught in his throat, and the rocks fell from his hands. There in the disturbed tomb before him was a curious helm, with a single curving horn, the other having long before been broken away.
The dwarf fell to his knees and dug the helm free, and saw too the face of the dead dwarf interred within.
“Me king,” Thibbledorf Pwent breathed.
Nay, not breathed, for creatures in the state of Thibbledorf Pwent did not draw breath.
He fell back to his bum, staring in shock, his mouth wide in a silent scream. If he’d had a mirror, or a reflection that would actually show up in a mirror,
Thibbledorf Pwent might have noticed his newest weapon: canine fangs.
Arunika’s imp, released from its duties by the succubus, loped around the swirling mists of the lower planes, seeking its true master.
It found the hulking balor seated atop a mushroom throne, clearly expecting the visitor.
“The devil is done with you?” the great demon asked.
“The threat to her domain is ended,” the imp replied. “The enemies have moved along.”
“The enemies?” came the leading question.
“The Shadovar.”
“Only the Shadovar? I grow weary-”
“Drizzt Do’Urden!” the imp spat, a name it, Druzil, hated as much as anything in all the world. “He has left Neverwinter.”
“And you know where?” the demonic monster roared.
Druzil shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“You can find him?” the beast demanded.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Druzil squealed, for a hint of anything but that response would have surely gotten the wretched little imp squished flat by the merciless balor.
The demon began to utter a sound that seemed a cross between a purring giant cat and an avalanche.
Druzil understood that, for it had been near to a hundred years, at least, and Errtu, twice-banished by this dark elf, Drizzt, was, or soon would be, free to carry out his revenge.
More than a tenday passed before Berellip and the other priestesses joined Ravel and the others in the forge room. The lower reaches of the complex had been fully scouted, and some drow had even gone up to the top levels, though the stair remained folded, with no signs of Shadovar to be found.
Now the work had begun in earnest to secure and repair the forge room, while a team of goblin masons worked to seal the strange second tunnel leading from the primordial chamber to the outer corridor.
And Gol’fanin’s work on Lullaby and Spiderweb proceeded with all speed. Tiago was at his side, as usual, when the Xorlarrin nobles caught up to him. “It was Masoj and his companions who killed Brack’thal,” Ravel said, before they had even exchanged proper greetings.
“Truly?” Tiago asked.
“Truly,” Berellip said, her tone showing that she didn’t appreciate even being questioned on this matter, for it was she who had spoken to the spirit of her dead brother. Such conversations were usually vague and often unreliable, they all knew, but Berellip seemed quite confident.
“Masoj?” Gol’fanin dared to ask, for it was not his place to interrupt the conversation of nobles.
“Masoj Oblodra,” Tiago explained. “Of Bregan D’aerthe.”
“Oblodra?” Gol’fanin said with surprise, before he could bite back the further indiscretion. “That is a name not often spoken among the folk of Menzoberranzan. Not since the Time of Troubles.”
“An Oblodran captains Bregan D’aerthe,” Jearth reminded, referring to Kimmuriel.
Gol’fanin seemed satisfied with that, and he went back to his work, but he muttered “Masoj?” repeatedly under his breath, as if trying to recall something.
“There are implications here,” Berellip warned, staring at Tiago.
“If the agents of Bregan D’aerthe killed your brother, then they did so in a battle of Brack’thal’s choosing,” the young Baenre answered evenly. “Bregan D’aerthe does not go against nobles of a major drow House.”
“Without the permission of House Baenre,” Berellip added, making her suspicions clear.
Tiago laughed at her. “If I had wanted your crazy brother dead, dear priestess, I would have killed him myself.”
“Enough,” Ravel put in. “Let us continue our work and our exploration. We will discover soon enough why this happened.
And we already know,” he added, looking hard at Berellip, “that Brack’thal almost surely initiated it.”
“It was Brack’thal who sabotaged the forge room and drove us out,” Tiago said. “If it was Bregan D’aerthe, I should pay them well for saving us the trouble.”
Berellip and Saribel both glared at him for that remark, but Tiago wasn’t about to back down.
“Need I remind you of your brother’s… shall we say, instability?”
Berellip huffed and swung around and swept out of the forge room, Saribel in her wake. With a helpless shake of his head to the impertinent Tiago, who was not making his job of keeping his sisters under control any easier, Ravel followed.
“They are brilliant,” Jearth remarked a moment later, and Tiago turned to see the Xorlarrin weapons master admiring the half-finished sword and shield.
“You met this Masoj… Oblodra?” Gol’fanin asked, never looking up from his work or indicating which of the warriors he was addressing.
“Yes,” they both answered.
“An agent of Bregan D’aerthe?”
“So he claimed,” said Jearth. “So claimed his companions as well, a human and an elf.”
The blacksmith gave a little laugh and did look up at that remarkable information.
“A human who once came to Menzoberranzan, beside Jarlaxle,” Tiago added.
“I knew of a Masoj once, though not an Oblodran,” said Gol’fanin, who didn’t hide the fact that he suspected much more than he was letting on, something that was not lost on the two warriors. “He was a wizard?”
“A warrior,” said Tiago.
“Carrying three blades,” Jearth added. “A great broadsword strapped across his back and a pair of scimitars.”
The blacksmith nodded and went back to his work. With the conversation apparently at its end, Jearth excused himself and went back to his duties.
“Do you think that Bregan D’aerthe will cause us trouble here?” Tiago quietly asked. “Surely Kimmuriel and Jarlaxle understand that the Xorlarrin move to Gauntlgrym was sanctioned by Matron Mother Quenthel…”
“Bregan D’aerthe is no worry of yours,” Gol’fanin assured him. “But Masoj… ah, Masoj.”
“What are you speaking of?” Tiago demanded.
“Do they not teach history at Melee-Magthere any longer?” Gol’fanin asked.
“You try my patience,” Tiago warned.
“I make your weapons,” Gol’fanin retorted.
“What, then?” Tiago demanded, or begged. “What do you know?”
“I know only what you have told me. But I suspect more.”
“What?” the exasperated Tiago shouted.
Gol’fanin chuckled a bit more. “Scimitars? A drow carrying scimitars and traveling near the surface with iblith.”
Tiago held up his hands, completely lost by the leading statement.
“What more can you tell me about this curious rogue?” the blacksmith asked.
Tiago snorted.
“What color were his eyes?” Gol’fanin asked.
Tiago started to answer “lavender,” but choked on the word. His eyes widened in shock and he gaped at Gol’fanin and breathed, “No.”
“Is it possible that a noble drow of House Baenre, surely soon to ascend to the rank of weapons master of the First House of Menzoberranzan, came face to face with Drizzt Do’Urden and didn’t even realize it?” Gol’fanin asked.
Tiago glanced all around, as if to ensure that no others had heard that statement. His thoughts were whirling as he tried to recall all that he knew of the history of that traitorous rogue named Drizzt, among the most coveted outlaws ever known in Menzoberranzan. Drizzt Do’Urden, guardian of another dwarven complex, Mithral Hall, where Matron Baenre herself had been killed! Drizzt Do’Urden, who had slain Dantrag Baenre, Tiago’s grandfather.
Gol’fanin held up the unfinished sword and tapped it on the shield. “These prizes will make you a weapons master,” he said. “But the head of Drizzt Do’Urden? That prize will make you a legend.”
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Charon's claw tns-3 Page 45
