The Halfling’s Gem frid-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  “And to survive now, ye’re going to tell us the way in,” Bruenor said. “The safe way in.”

  “The place is a fortress,” Dondon shrugged. “No way is safe.” Bruenor started slipping closer, his scowl deepening.

  “But, if I had to try,” the halfling blurted, “I would try through the sewers.”

  Bruenor looked around at his friends.

  “It seems correct,” Wulfgar remarked.

  Drizzt studied the halfling a moment longer, searching for some clue in Dondon’s darting eyes. “It is correct,” the drow said at length.

  “So he saved his neck,” said Catti-brie, “but what are we to do with him? Take him along?”

  “Ayuh,” said Bruenor with a sly look. “He’ll be leading!”

  “No,” replied Drizzt, to the amazement of his companions. “The halfling did as we bade. Let him leave.”

  “And go straight off to tell Entreri what has happened?” Wulfgar said.

  “Entreri would not understand,” Drizzt replied. He looked Dondon in the eye, giving no indication to the halfling that he had figured out his little ploy within a ploy. “Nor would he forgive.”

  “Me heart says we take him,” Bruenor remarked.

  “Let him go,” Drizzt said calmly. “Trust me.”

  Bruenor snorted and dropped his axe to his side, grumbling as he moved to open the door. Wulfgar and Catti-brie exchanged concerned glances but stepped out of the way.

  Dondon didn’t hesitate, but Bruenor stepped in front of him as he reached the door. “If I see yer face again,” the dwarf threatened, “or any face ye might be wearin’, I’ll chop ye down!”

  Dondon slipped around and backed into the hall, never taking his eyes off the dangerous dwarf, then he darted down the hall, shaking his head at how perfectly Entreri had described the encounter, at how well the assassin knew those friends, particularly the drow.

  Suspecting the truth about the entire encounter, Drizzt understood that Bruenor’s final threat carried little weight to the wily halfling. Dondon had faced them down through both lies without the slightest hint of a slip.

  But Drizzt nodded approvingly as Bruenor, still scowling, turned back into the room, for the drow also knew that the threat, if nothing else, had made Bruenor feel more secure.

  On Drizzt’s suggestion, they all settled down for some sleep. With the clamor of the streets, they would never be able to slip unnoticed into one of the sewer grates. But the crowds would likely thin out as the night waned and the guard changed from the dangerous rogues of evening to the peasants of the hot day.

  Drizzt alone did not find sleep. He sat propped by the door of the room, listening for sounds of any approach and lulled into meditations by the rhythmic breathing of his companions. He looked down at the mask hanging around his neck. So simple a lie, and he could walk freely throughout the world.

  But would he then be trapped within the web of his own deception? What freedom could he find in denying the truth about himself?

  Drizzt looked over at Catti-brie, peacefully slumped in the room’s single bed, and smiled. There was indeed wisdom in innocence, a vein of truth in the idealism of untainted perceptions.

  He could not disappoint her.

  Drizzt sensed a deepening of the outside gloom. The moon had set. He moved to the room’s window and peeked out into the street. Still the night people wandered, but they were fewer now, and the night neared its end. Drizzt roused his companions; they could not afford any more delays. They stretched away their weariness, checked their gear, and moved back down to the street.

  Rogues Circle was lined with several iron sewer grates that looked as though they were designed more to keep the filthy things of the sewers underground than as drains for the sudden waters of the rare but violent rainstorms that hit the city. The friends chose one in the ally beside their inn, out of the main way of the street but close enough to the guildhouse that they could probably find their underground way without too much trouble.

  “The boy can lift it,” Bruenor remarked, waving Wulfgar to the spot. Wulfgar bent low and grasped the iron.

  “Not yet,” Drizzt whispered, glancing around for suspicious eyes. He motioned Catti-brie to the end of the ally, back along Rogues Circle, and he darted off down the darker side. When he was satisfied that all was clear, he waved back to Bruenor. The dwarf looked to Catti-brie, who nodded her approval.

  “Lift it, boy,” Bruenor said, “and be quiet about it!”

  Wulfgar grasped the iron tightly and sucked in a deep, draft of air for balance. His huge arms pumped red with blood as he heaved, and a grunt escaped his lips. Even so, the grate resisted his tugging…

  Wulfgar looked at Bruenor in disbelief, then redoubled his efforts, his face now flushing red. The grate groaned in protest, but came up only a few inches from the ground.

  “Suren somethings holdin’ it down,” Bruenor said, leaning over to inspect it.

  A “clink” of snapping chain was the dwarf’s only warning as the grate broke free, sending Wulfgar sprawling backward. The lifting iron clipped Bruenor’s forehead, knocking his helmet off and dropping him on the seat of his pants. Wulfgar, still clutching the grate, crashed heavily and loudly into the wall of the inn.

  “Ye blasted, fool-headed…” Bruenor started to grumble, but Drizzt and Catti-brie, rushing to his aid, quickly reminded him of the secrecy of their mission.

  “Why would they chain a sewer grate?” Catti-brie asked.

  Wulfgar dusted himself off. “From the inside,” he added.

  “It seems that something down there wants to keep the city out.”

  “We shall know soon enough,” Drizzt remarked. He dropped down beside the open hole, slipping his legs in. “Prepare a torch,” he said. “I will summon you if all is clear.”

  Catti-brie caught the eager gleam in the drow’s eyes and looked at him with concern.

  “For Regis,” Drizzt assured her, “and only for Regis.” Then he was gone, into the blackness. Black like the lightless tunnels of his homeland.

  The other three heard a slight splash as he touched down, then all was quiet.

  Many anxious moments passed. “Put a light to the torch,” Bruenor whispered to Wulfgar.

  Catti-brie caught Wulfgar’s arm to stop him. “Faith,” she said to Bruenor.

  “Too long,” the dwarf muttered. “Too quiet.”

  Catti-brie held on to Wulfgar’s arm for another second, until Drizzt’s soft voice drifted up to them. “Clear,” the drow said. “Come down quickly.”

  Bruenor took the torch from Wulfgar. “Come last,” he said, “and slide the grate back behind ye. No need in tellin’ the world where we went!”

  * * *

  The first thing the companions noticed when the torchlight entered the sewer was the chain that had held the grate down. It was fairly new, without doubt, and fastened to a locking box constructed on the sewer’s wall.

  “Me thinking’s that we’re not alone,” Bruenor whispered.

  Drizzt glanced around, sharing the dwarf’s uneasiness. He dropped the mask from his face, a drow again in an environ suited for a drow. “I will lead,” he said, “at the edge of the light. Keep ready.” He padded away, picking his silent steps along the edge of the murky stream of water that rolled slowly down the center of the tunnel.

  Bruenor came next with the torch, then Catti-brie and Wulfgar. The barbarian had to stoop low to keep his head clear of the slimy ceiling. Rats squeaked and scuttled away from the strange light, and darker things took silent refuge under the shield of the water. The tunnel meandered this way and that, and a maze of side passages opened up every few feet. Sounds of trickling water only worsened the confusion, leading the friends for a moment, then coming louder at their side, then louder still from across the way.

  Bruenor shook the diversions clear of his thoughts, ignored the muck and the fetid stench, and concentrated on keeping his track straight behind the shadowy figure that darted in and out at the front edge o
f his torchlight. He turned a confusing, multicornered intersection and caught sight of the figure suddenly off to his side.

  Even as he turned to follow, he realized that Drizzt still had to be up front.

  “Ready!” Bruenor called, tossing the torch to a dry spot beside him and taking up his axe and shield. His alertness saved them all, for only a split second later, not one, but two cloaked forms emerged from the side tunnel, swords raised and sharp teeth gleaming under twitching whiskers.

  They were man-sized, wearing the clothes of men and holding swords. In their other form, they were indeed humans and not always vile, but on the nights of the bright moon they took on their darker form, the lycanthrope side. They moved like men but were mantled with the trappings—elongated snout, bristled brown fur, and pink tail—of sewer rats.

  Lining them up over the top of Bruenor’s helm, Catti-brie launched the first strike. The silvery flash of her killing arrow illuminated the side tunnel like a lightning bolt, showing many more sinister figures making their way toward the friends.

  A splash from behind caused Wulfgar to spin about to face a rushing gang of the ratmen. He dug his heels into the mud as well as he could and slapped Aegis-fang to a ready position.

  “They was layin’ on us, elf!” Bruenor shouted.

  Drizzt had already come to that conclusion. At the dwarf’s first shout, he had slipped farther from the torch to use the advantage of darkness. Turning a bend brought him face to face with two figures, and he guessed their sinister nature before he ever got the blue light of Twinkle high enough to see their furry brows.

  The wererats, though, certainly did not expect what they found standing ready before them. Perhaps it was because they believed that their enemies were solely in the area with the torchlight, but more likely it was the black skin of a drow elf that sent them back on their heels.

  Drizzt didn’t miss the opportunity, slicing them down in a single flurry before they ever recovered from their shock. The drow then melted again into the blackness, seeking a back route to ambush the ambushers.

  Wulfgar kept his attackers at bay with long sweeps of Aegis-fang. The hammer blew aside any wererat that ventured too near, and smashed away chunks of the muck on the sewer walls every time it completed an arc. But as the wererats came to understand the power of the mighty barbarian, and came in at him with less enthusiasm, the best that Wulfgar could accomplish was a stalemate—a deadlock that would only last as long as the energy in his huge arms.

  Behind Wulfgar, Bruenor and Catti-brie fared better. Catti-brie’s magical bow—loosing arrows over the dwarf’s head—decimated the ranks of the approaching wererats, and those few that reached Bruenor, off-balance and ducking the deadly arrows of the woman behind him, proved easy prey for the dwarf.

  But the odds were fully against the friends, and they knew that one mistake would cost them dearly.

  The wererats, hissing and spitting, backed away from Wulfgar. Realizing that he had to initiate more decisive fighting, the barbarian strode forward.

  The ratmen parted ranks suddenly, and down the tunnel, at the very edge of the torchlight, Wulfgar saw one of them level a heavy crossbow and fire.

  Instinctively the big man flattened against the wall, and he was agile enough to get out of the missile’s path, but Catti-brie, behind him and facing the other way, never saw the bolt coming.

  She felt a sudden searing burst of pain, then the warmth of her blood pouring down the side of her head. Blackness swirled about the edges of her vision, and she crumbled against the wall.

  * * *

  Drizzt slipped through the dark passages as silently as death. He kept Twinkle sheathed, fearing its revealing light, and led the way with his other magical blade. He was in a maze, but figured that he could pick his route well enough to rejoin his friends. Every tunnel he picked, though, lit up at its other end with torchlight as still more wererats made their way to the fighting.

  The darkness was certainly ample for the stealthy drow to remain concealed, but Drizzt got the uneasy feeling that his moves were being monitored, even anticipated. Dozens of passages opened up all around him, but his options came fewer and fewer as wererats appeared at every turn. The circuit to his friends was growing wider with each step, but Drizzt quickly realized that he had no choice but to go forward. Wererats had filled the main tunnel behind him, following his route.

  Drizzt stopped in the shadows of one dark nook and surveyed the area about him, recounting the distance he had covered and noting the passages behind him that now flickered in torchlight. Apparently there weren’t as many wererats as he had originally figured; those appearing at every turn were probably the same groups from the previous tunnels, running parallel to Drizzt and turning into each new passage as Drizzt came upon it at the other end.

  But the revelation of wererat numbers came as little comfort to Drizzt. He had no doubts to his suspicions now. He was being herded.

  * * *

  Wulfgar turned and started toward his fallen love, his Catti-brie, but the wererats came in on him immediately.

  Fury now drove the mighty barbarian. He tore into his attackers’ ranks, smashing and squashing them with bone-splitting chops of his war hammer or reaching out with a bare hand to twist the neck of any who had slipped in beside him. The ratmen managed a few retreating stabs, but nicks and little wounds wouldn’t slow the enraged barbarian.

  He stomped on the fallen as he passed, grinding his booted heels into their dying bodies. Other wererats scrambled in terror to get out of his way.

  At the end of their line, the crossbowman struggled to reload his weapon, a job made more difficult by his inability to keep his eyes off the spectacle of the approaching barbarian and made doubly difficult by his knowledge that he was the focus of the powerful man’s rage.

  Bruenor, with the wererat ranks dissipated in front of him, had more time to tend to Catti-brie. He bent over the young woman, his face ashen as he pulled her thick mane of auburn hair, thicker now with the wetness of her blood, from her fair face.

  Catti-brie looked up at him through stunned eyes. “But an inch more, and me life’d be at its end,” she said with a wink and a smile.

  Bruenor scrambled to inspect the wound, and found, to his relief, that his daughter was correct in her observations. The quarrel had gouged her wickedly, but it was only a grazing shot.

  “I’m all right,” Catti-brie insisted, starting to rise.

  Bruenor held her down. “Not yet,” he whispered.

  “The fight’s not done,” Catti-brie replied, still trying to plant her feet under her. Bruenor led her gaze down the tunnel, to Wulfgar and the bodies piling all about him.

  “There’s our chance,” he chuckled. “Let the boy think ye’re down.”

  Catti-brie bit her lip in astonishment of the scene. A dozen ratmen were down and still Wulfgar pounded through, his hammer tearing away those unfortunates who couldn’t flee out of his way.

  Then a noise from the other direction turned Catti-brie away. With her bow down, the wererats from the front had returned.

  “They’re mine,” Bruenor told her. “Keep yerself down!”

  “If ye get into trouble—”

  “If I need ye, then be there,” Bruenor agreed, “but for now, keep yerself down! Give the boy something to fight for!”

  * * *

  Drizzt tried to double back along his route, but the ratmen quickly closed off all of the tunnels. Soon his options had been cut down to one, a wide, dry side passage moving in the opposite direction from where he had hoped to go.

  The ratmen were closing on him fast, and in the main tunnel he would have to fight them off from several different directions. He slipped into the passage and flattened against the wall.

  Two ratmen shuffled up to the tunnel entrance and peered into the gloom, calling a third, with a torch, to join them. The light they found was not the yellow flicker of a torch, but a sudden line of blue as Twinkle came free of its scabbard. Drizzt was upon t
hem before they could raise their weapons in defense, thrusting a blade clean through one wererat’s chest and spinning his second blade in an arc across the other’s neck.

  The torchlight enveloped them as they fell, leaving the drow standing there, revealed, both his blades dripping blood. The nearest wererats shrieked; some even dropped their weapons and ran, but more of them came up, blocking all of the tunnel entrances in the area, and the advantage of sheer numbers soon gave the ratmen a measure of confidence. Slowly, looking to each other for support with every step, they closed in on Drizzt.

  Drizzt considered rushing a single group, hoping to cut through their ranks and be out of the ring of the trap, but the ratmen were at least two deep at every passage, three or even four deep at some. Even with his skill and agility, Drizzt could never get through them fast enough to avoid attacks at his back.

  He darted back into the side passage and summoned a globe of darkness inside its entrance, then he sprinted beyond the area of the globe to take up a ready position just behind it.

  The ratmen, quickening their charge as Drizzt disappeared back into the tunnel, stopped short when they turned into the area of unbreakable darkness. At first, they thought that their torches must have gone out, but so deep was the gloom that they soon realized the truth of the drow’s spell. They regrouped out in the main tunnel, then came back in, cautiously.

  Even Drizzt, with his night eyes, could not see into the pitch blackness of his spell, but positioned clear of the other side, he did make out a sword tip, and then another, leading the two front ratmen down the passage. They hadn’t even broken from the darkness when the drow struck, slapping their swords away and reversing the angle of his cuts to drive his scimitars up the lengths of their arms and into their bodies. Their agonized screams sent the other ratmen scrambling back out into the main corridor, and gave Drizzt another moment to consider his position.

  * * *

  The crossbowman knew his time was up when the last two of his companions shoved him aside in their desperate flight from the enraged giant. He at last fumbled the quarrel back into position and brought his bow to bear.