“Then it cannot be him, and we should …” Drizzt started to say, but his eyes widened as he considered the scene at the lever immediately following the demise of Dor’crae. He recalled Bruenor’s last words to him, sweet and sad and forever echoing in his mind, of Bruenor fast dying, the light leaving his gray eyes, and of Thibbledorf Pwent …
Thibbledorf Pwent.
Drizzt thought of the torn tent in the goblin camp, the recognizable carnage. Vampire or battlerager, he and Dahlia had debated.
All of those nagging thoughts coalesced, and Drizzt had his answer. He was right in his guess, and so was Dahlia.
Without another word, he turned around and urged Andahar forward.
“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear, but she needn’t have, for if he had been alone, Drizzt would have taken this very same course.
They slowed when they entered the tree line, Drizzt picking his way carefully through the trees and tangled branches. They had barely entered the thicket when Dahlia’s wand glowed brighter and a wisp of blue-gray fog reached out from it, wafting into the forest before them.
“Well, that is interesting,” Drizzt remarked.
“Follow it,” Dahlia instructed.
The foggy coil continued to reach out before them like a rope, guiding their way through the trees. They came past a stand of oaks, and near what they thought to be a boulder.
Andahar pulled up suddenly and snorted, and Drizzt gasped in alarm, for it was no rock before them, but a large and strange beast, a blended concoction of magic run afoul.
Part bear. Part fowl.
“So we go north,” Afafrenfere remarked. “You know this place?”
Artemis Entreri tossed his full sack over the back of the saddle and leaped astride his nightmare. “Only an hour’s ride up the road,” he explained.
“Aye, and me friend here can run like no other,” Ambergris said. “But with me short legs, I’m thinkin’ I best be riding.”
Entreri nodded, then merely walked his mount away and said over his shoulder, “A pity you’ve got no horse then, or pig.”
Ambergris put her hands on her hips and stared up at the man. “It’ll be takin’ us longer to get there, then,” she said.
“No, it will take you longer,” Entreri corrected, and he kicked his mount into movement and leaped away, charging out Neverwinter’s northern gate.
Brother Afafrenfere snorted and chuckled helplessly.
“Aye,” Ambergris agreed. “If I had a better road afore me, I’d be walkin’ away.”
“Better than … what?” the monk asked. “Do we even know what adventure Drizzt might have planned for us?”
“We need to be keepin’ him close,” Ambergris explained. “Dahlia, and aye, that one, too,” she said, nodding toward the now-distant Entreri. “If Lord Draygo or Cavus Dun comes a’huntin’, I’ll be wantin’ the blades o’ them three between me and the shades.”
Afafrenfere considered her words for a few moments, then nodded and started toward the northern gate.
“Don’t ye outrun me,” the dwarf warned. “Or I’ll put a spell on ye and leave ye held and helpless in the forest.”
The reminder of the unexpected assault in the bowels of Gauntlgrym had Afafrenfere turning around, glowering at the dwarf. “That worked once,” he replied, “but not again. Never again.”
Ambergris laughed heartily as she came up beside him. “Best spell what e’er found ye, boy,” she said. “For now ye’ve got a finer life ahead o’ ye! A life of adventure, don’t ye doubt. A life o’ battle.”
“Aye, and probably a life of battling my own companions,” he said dryly, and Ambergris laughed all the harder.
That beast, an owlbear, didn’t rise up to meet them, and Drizzt calmed quickly, recognizing that it was quite dead.
“Well now,” Dahlia said, sliding down from the unicorn’s back to stand beside the slain behemoth. And it was a behemoth, as large as a great brown bear, but with the head and powerful beak of an owl atop those powerful ursine shoulders.
“Indeed,” Drizzt agreed as he slid down.
Dahlia bent low beside the beast, ruffling the fur-the bloody fur-around its neck. “I expect that we’ve found our vampire’s most recent kill.”
“A vampire killed an owlbear?” Drizzt asked skeptically and he, too, bent low and began inspecting the corpse, but not its neck.
“So you admit that it was a vampire?” As she asked, Dahlia used both hands to pull the beast’s thick fur aside, to reveal the canine puncture wounds.
“So it would seem,” Drizzt replied. “And yet-” He put his shoulder to the owlbear and nudged it over just a bit, then similarly parted the fur, to reveal a larger hole, a much deeper puncture. “I know this wound as well.”
“Do tell.”
“A helmet spike,” Drizzt could hardly get the words out. He thought again of the grisly scene beside the lever, thought of Pwent.
“Perhaps a vampire and a battlerager are working together?”
“A dwarf allied with a vampire?” Drizzt asked doubtfully. He had another explanation, but one he wasn’t ready to share.
“Athrogate traveled beside Dor’crae.”
“Athrogate is a mercenary,” Drizzt said, shaking his head. This wasn’t just any battlerager he was considering. “Battleragers are loyal soldiers, not mercenaries.”
Dahlia stood and pointed her wand toward the forest once more. The mist reappeared and snaked away through the trees.
“Well, let’s find out what’s going on, then,” Dahlia said.
Drizzt dismissed Andahar and they moved into the forest on foot. For many hours they searched fruitlessly, Dahlia expending charge after charge of her wand. Many times, Drizzt put his hand to his belt pouch, but he knew that he shouldn’t bring in Guen, not for another day at least.
“If we wait until nightfall, perhaps the vampire will find us,” Dahlia remarked later on, and only then did Drizzt realize that the sun had already passed its zenith and was moving lower in the west. He considered Dahlia’s words and the thought did not sit well with him. Guenhwyvar would be with them in the morning, and she would find their prey.
So intrigued had Drizzt been by the possibilities swirling before him that he had forgotten one other detail of the day’s plans. He looked to the north, where their three companions waited, at his request. Artemis Entreri would not be pleased.
“Where to now?” Dahlia asked.
Drizzt turned back to the west. They were too far out, having passed into reaches of the forest that neither of them knew. “Back to Neverwinter,” the drow decided.
“You would leave Entreri and the others out alone in the forest with a vampire about?”
“If we’re not at their camp by twilight, they’ll return to the city,” Drizzt said absently. He could not focus on the others. This hunt, so suddenly, was more important. “Vampire.…” Dahlia said again, ominously.
“We will find it tomorrow.”
“You indulge me,” Dahlia remarked. “I like that.”
Drizzt didn’t bother to explain his own interests, particularly when Dahlia moved closer, wearing an impish grin.
“Vampire,” she said again with a wide smile, her eyes sparkling.
Drizzt considered that grin, and wanted to share in her mirth at that moment, but found it impossible, for he was too troubled by the possibilities.
Dahlia moved right in front of him and casually draped her arms around his shoulders, putting her face very close to his. “No argument this time?” she asked quietly.
Drizzt managed a chuckle.
“Vampire,” she said and her smile turned in a lewd direction. She shifted to the side and lunged for his throat, biting him playfully on the neck.
“Still no argument?” she asked and she bit him again, a bit harder.
“You are hoping for a vampire, I can see,” Drizzt replied, and it was hard for him to keep his thoughts straight at that particular moment. It was the first time they had touched, other
than riding, since they’d left the darkness of Gauntlgrym. “I would hate to disavow you of your wishes.”
Dahlia moved back to stare him in the eye. “Hoping?”
“Hoping to be one, then,” Drizzt said, “apparently.”
Dahlia, laughing, hugged him close. She brought her lips to his ear and kissed him softly, then asked, “Have you forgiven me?”
Drizzt pushed her back to arms’ length and studied her face. He couldn’t deny his attraction to her, particularly when she wore her hair in this softer style, and with the war woad barely visible.
“I had nothing to forgive.”
“My kiss with Entreri?” Dahlia asked. “Your jealousy?”
“It was the sword, playing on my insecurities, pressing my imagination to dark places.”
“Are you sure that’s all it was?” she asked, and she reached over and brushed Drizzt’s long white hair from in front of his face. “Perhaps the sword was only exploiting that which it saw within you.”
Drizzt was shaking his head before she had ever finished. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he repeated.
He almost added, “Have you forgiven yourself?” but he wisely held that thought, not wanting to open anew the wound inflicted by the appearance of the young and twisted warlock.
“Let’s go to Neverwinter,” Drizzt said, but now Dahlia was shaking her head.
“Not yet,” she explained, and she led him to a mossy bed.
Dahlia tapped Drizzt on the arm and when he looked up from his bowl of stew, nodded toward the tavern door.
Drizzt was not surprised to see the three enter, nor was he caught off guard by Artemis Entreri’s dour expression. When the assassin noticed him, he led the other two straight through the crowd to the table.
“Winter fast approaches,” Entreri said, pulling up a chair across from Drizzt.
“The night is cold,” he added when Drizzt didn’t respond.
“Good, then, that you decided to return to the city,” the drow replied casually.
“Oh, grand,” Afafrenfere remarked to Ambergris off to the side. “I will so enjoy watching these two beat each other to death.”
The dwarf snorted.
Drizzt, seeming unbothered by it all, went back to his stew, or tried to until Entreri’s hand snapped across the table and grabbed him roughly by the wrist.
The drow lifted his gaze slowly to regard the man.
“I don’t appreciate being left in a cold forest,” Entreri said evenly.
“We got lost,” Drizzt replied.
“How could you get lost?” Entreri asked. “You were the one who named the place of rendezvous.”
“Our road took us to the east, to unfamiliar ground,” Dahlia interjected.
“What road?” asked Entreri, still staring at Drizzt.
Drizzt sat back in his chair as Entreri let go of his wrist. The drow glanced to the side and motioned to the other two to take a seat. He wondered where he should take this. He was pretty certain now who and what Dahlia and he were hunting. The question was: Did he want Artemis Entreri along on that hunt? The encounter, should it happen, was going to be difficult enough to control as it was, and how much more difficult would it become with the unpredictable and merciless Artemis Entreri in the mix?
“What is your plan, drow?” Entreri asked.
All four of the others, even Dahlia, looked to him for exactly that answer, and it was a good question.
“You escorted me to the bowels of Gauntlgrym to be rid of that cursed sword,” Entreri said. “For that, I owe you.”
Entreri looked to Dahlia, pointedly so. “Or owed you,” he clarified. “But no more. I waited where you asked, and you did not arrive.”
“A great sacrifice,” Dahlia said sarcastically.
Afafrenfere giggled and Ambergris snorted.
Entreri turned his gaze from Dahlia to the other two before settling back on Drizzt.
“You owed me nothing,” Drizzt answered that look. “Not before and not now.”
“Hardly true,” said Dahlia.
“To be rid of Herzgo Alegni, to be rid of Charon’s Claw”-he paused and looked directly at Dahlia“-to be rid of Sylora Salm-all of these things were good and right. I would have undertaken them had I been alone and the opportunity had come before me.”
“Drizzt the hero,” Entreri muttered.
The drow shrugged, unwilling to engage the assassin on that level.
Artemis Entreri stared at him a few moments longer, then placed both his hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. “We do not part as enemies, Drizzt Do’Urden, and that is no small thing,” he said. “Well met and farewell.”
With a last glance at Dahlia, he turned and walked out of the tavern.
“And where is that leaving us?” Brother Afafrenfere asked Ambergris.
The dwarf looked at Drizzt for an answer. “Which road are ye thinking to be more excitin’?” she asked. “Yer own or Entreri’s? For meself, I’m itching for a fight or ten.”
“Ten, and ten more after that,” Afafrenfere added eagerly.
Drizzt had no answer, and when they looked instead to Dahlia, the elf woman could only shrug.
Drizzt, too, looked at Dahlia, her crestfallen expression stabbing deep into his heart. Not a stab of jealousy, however, and he found that curious.
“Well we’re not to solve it here, then,” Ambergris declared, and she too leaped up from her seat. “And me belly’s grumblin’ to be sure!” At the sound of a crashing plate, she looked over to the bar where a band of ruffians began jostling for position.
“House covers the bets,” the bartender announced.
“Oh, but I’m startin’ to like this Neverwinter place,” Ambergris said. “Come along, me friend,” she added to Afafrenfere. “Let’s go earn a few coins.”
She turned to Drizzt and Dahlia and offered an exaggerated wink. “Don’t look like much, does he?” she asked, indicating her rather small and scrawny companion. “But bare-fisted, ain’t many to be standin’ long against him!”
She gave a great laugh.
“We’ll be about, if ye find a road worth walkin’!” she said. She glanced back at the bar, where two large men were stripping down to the waist to begin their battle, and where others passed coins and shouted their odds and bets.
“Ye might just find us in the most expensive rooms to be found in the city,” Ambergris offered and started away, Afafrenfere in tow. As they left, Drizzt and Dahlia heard the dwarf remark softly to her monk companion, “Now don’t ye drop any o’ them too quick. Keep the next one hopin’ that he can beat ye, that we might be playin’ it out for all it’s worth.”
Dahlia’s chuckle turned Drizzt back to her.
“We seem to attract interesting companions,” he said.
“Amusing, at least.” She immediately sobered after the remark, and gave Drizzt a serious look. “What is our road?”
“Right now? To find our vampire, is it not?”
“Battlerager, you mean.”
“That, too.”
“And then?”
Drizzt wore a pensive look as he sincerely tried to sort out that very thing.
“Find an answer quickly or we’re to lose three companions,” Dahlia remarked. “Or two more, for it seems that one is already gone.”
Drizzt considered that, but shook his head. The allure of the jeweled dagger would keep Entreri beside him, he believed, for at least a bit longer. Despite Entreri’s parting words and obvious anger, Drizzt knew that he could get the man on the road beside him, as long as they started that journey soon.
“You wish to keep them by our side?” Drizzt asked, nodding toward the monk and dwarf.
“The world is full of danger,” she replied. She looked past him, then, to a commotion beginning to brew, and she nodded for him to turn around.
There stood Afafrenfere, stripped to the waist, his wily form seeming puny indeed against the giant of a man he faced.
The hulking fighter took
a lumbering swing, which the monk easily ducked, and Afafrenfere quietly jabbed the man in the ribs as he did so. A second wild hook by the large man missed badly, and the crowd howled with laughter.
The third punch, though, caught Afafrenfere on the side of the jaw and he went flying to the floor, and the crowd howled again.
“It hardly touched him,” Dahlia remarked, and with respect in her voice indicating that she had recognized the monk’s feint. Drizzt had seen it as well. Afafrenfere had turned with the blow perfectly, always just ahead of it enough so that it couldn’t do any real damage.
The monk got up to his feet, appearing shaky, but as the hulking man fell over him, Afafrenfere found a perfectly balanced stance and tore off a series of sudden and vicious strikes at the man’s midsection-again, subtly, in close, and few noticed that the big man leaning over him was too tight with pain to offer any real response.
Afafrenfere slipped out of the hold to the side and struck repeatedly, his open hands slapping against the man’s ribs.
“He’s pulling his strikes,” Drizzt remarked.
“Now don’t ye drop any o’ them too quick,” Dahlia said in a near-perfect Ambergris impression. She ended abruptly, though, and winced, and so did Drizzt, when the big man spun around with a left hook that seemed to come all the way from his ankles, a wild and powerful swing that might have ripped Afafrenfere’s head from his shoulders had it actually struck.
But the monk ducked, again so easily, and the fist sailed over him to crash into one of the tavern’s support columns so forcefully that the whole of the building shuddered.
And how the big man swooned as he pulled in his broken hand, his eyes crossing, his knees wobbling, and it seemed like he was doing all he could manage to prevent himself from vomiting.
Afafrenfere slipped around to the side of him with great speed, bent low, and spun a circuit on the ball of his right foot. He grasped the bar, planting himself firmly as his lifted left foot set against the large man’s back, giving him full balance and brace as he kicked out. He launched the man through the air to crash face first into a table, sending plates and glasses and splintering wood flying, and patrons dancing aside.
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