Charon's claw

HUNTING SIDE BY SIDE

Your step has become halting,” Entreri whispered to Drizzt, so softly that Dahlia, who was only a couple of steps behind them, had to crane her neck to hear.

“You sense it, too?” the drow asked.

“Not as clearly as you do, obviously.”

“Sense what?” Dahlia asked.

“We’re being tracked,” Drizzt replied. “Or more fittingly, we’re being shadowed.” Dahlia straightened and looked all around.

“And if they’re watching, they now know that we know,” Entreri said dryly and he looked at Dahlia and shook his head and sighed.

“There is no one about,” the elf woman replied, rather loudly. Both Drizzt and Entreri stared at her, the drow shaking his head helplessly. He, too, heaved a sigh and moved off to the side, deeper into the forest brush.

“You think there are Shadovar? Or Thayans?” Dahlia asked Entreri. “He thinks so,” the assassin replied, nodding his chin toward the drow, who was then crouched beside a bush inspecting the leaves and the ground. “Shadovar, it would seem.”

“And you trust his judgment over your own?”

“It’s not a competition,” Entreri replied. “And don’t underestimate the woodland skills of our companion. This is his domain-were we in a city, then I would take the lead. But out here in the forest-to answer your question-yes.” He finished as Drizzt came walking back over.

“Someone was here not long ago,” the drow explained. He glanced back the way they had come, leading their eyes to a fairly clear vista of the trails and roads along the lower ground they had left behind. “Likely watching for our approach.”

“Shadovar, Thayans, or someone else?”

“Shadovar,” Drizzt answered without hesitation.

“How could you know such a thing?” Dahlia asked, again with her voice full of obvious doubt.

“I know that we are being trailed.”

“Even so, have you seen our pursuers?”

Drizzt shook his head, and as he did, he stared hard at Dahlia.

“Yet you conclude that they are Shadovar,” Dahlia pressed. “Why would you believe such a thing?”

Drizzt stared at her, seeming quite amused, for some time, before saying, “The sword told me.”

Dahlia, a retort obviously at the ready on the tip of her tongue, started to reply, but gulped it back.

“It’s excited,” Drizzt said to Entreri. “I feel it.”

Entreri nodded, as if such a sensation from Charon’s Claw was not unknown or unexpected. “The young and twisted warlock, likely,” he said.

“What do you know of him?” Drizzt asked.

“I know that he is formidable, full of tricks and spells that cause grievous wounds. He does not panic when battle is upon him, and seems much wiser than his youth would indicate. He’s deadly, do not doubt, and doubly so from afar. Worse, if it is Effron shadowing us, then expect that he’s not alone.”

“You seem to know much of him,” Dahlia remarked.

“I hunted your Thayan friends beside him,” Entreri replied. “I killed your Thayan friends beside him.”

Dahlia stiffened a bit at that remark, but relaxed quickly, for really, given her parting of the ways with Sylora, how could she truly be angered at such an admission? She, too, had killed many Thayans of late.

“He was very close to Herzgo Alegni,” Entreri went on. “At times, it seemed as if he hated his fellow tiefling, but other times, they revealed a bond, and a deep one.”

“A brother?” Drizzt wondered aloud.

“An uncle?” Entreri replied with a shrug. “I know not, but I’m certain that Effron is not pleased at our treatment of Alegni. And he’s an opportunist-an ambitious one.”

“Regaining the sword would be a great boon to his reputation,” Drizzt reasoned.

“We don’t even know if it is him,” Dahlia remarked. “We don’t even know if there are Shadovar hunting us. We don’t even know if anyone is hunting us!”

“If you keep speaking so loudly, we’ll likely find out soon enough,” Entreri replied.

“Is that not a good thing?”

Dahlia’s stubbornness drew another sigh from Drizzt, and a second from Entreri, as well.

“We’ll find out,” Drizzt assured her. “But not on our hunter’s terms. We’ll find out in a place and time of our choosing.”

He turned on his heel and walked off along the path, slowly scanning the forest left and right and ahead, searching for enemies, for ambush, and for a place where they might turn the pursuit.

“Must we always play this game?” Effron asked, and though he tried to resist, he found himself spinning around to see the latest incarnation of this strange illusionist-or perhaps it was really her this time, he dared to hope.

But the Shifter’s voice replied to him from behind, yet again.

“It’s no game,” she assured him. “Many are my enemies.”

“And many are your allies.”

“Not so.”

“Perhaps you would find more allies if you were not so cursedly annoying,”

Effron offered.

“Allies among people like yourself, who wish to employ my services?”

“Is that so outrageous?”

“But are these allies not also soon to be my enemies when I am employed by one opposed to them?” the Shifter asked, and as Effron turned, her voice turned with him, always remaining behind the flustered young tiefling.

Effron lowered his gaze. “Perhaps both, then.”

“Better neither,” the Shifter replied. “Now tell me why you have come.”

“You cannot surmise?”

“If you’re expecting that I will return to Faerun to steal back Herzgo Alegni’s lost sword, then you are a fool. That realization would sadden me, for always have I thought your foolishness because of your age, and not a defect in your reasoning powers.”

“You know of the sword?”

“Everyone knows of the sword,” the Shifter replied casually, her tone almost mocking Effron’s seriousness. “Everyone who pays attention to such things, I mean. Herzgo Alegni lost it to those whom you hired Cavus Dun to hunt. Your failure led to his failure, so it would seem.”

“My failure?” Effron asked incredulously. “Did I not send you, along with Cavus Dun-”

“ Your failure,” the Shifter interrupted. “It was your mission, designed by you, and with the hunting party selected by you. That you did not properly prepare us, or did not send enough of us, rests heavily on the broken shoulders of Effron.”

“You cannot-”

“You would do well to simply acknowledge your mistake and move on, young tiefling. Cavus Dun lost valued members to this unusual trio. They have ordered no vengeance or recriminations upon you… yet.”

Effron surely needed no trouble with the likes of Cavus Dun! He doubted the Shifter’s description of the ramifications, doubted that any among Cavus Dun’s hierarchy were holding him responsible-they had given their blessing for the hunt, after all, and had assured him that his money, no small amount, had been well spent. More likely, he knew, the Shifter was bargaining for a better position in whatever deal Effron might offer her, and was also acting under orders from Cavus Dun to keep him back on his heels, as she had done, so that no blame for the failures in Neverwinter, from the disastrous battle against Dahlia and her cohorts to the loss of Charon’s Claw to the near-death of Lord Alegni himself, could ever be whispered in their direction.

“Let’s talk about future gains instead of past losses,” the tiefling offered.

The Shifter’s laughter echoed all around him, as if without a point of origin. Just floating freely in the air-or was it even audible, he wondered? Might she be imparting the chortles telepathically?

Effron looked down again, trying to find his sense of balance against this interminably aggravating associate.

Many heartbeats passed before the laughter subsided, and many more in silence.

“Talk of them, then,” the Shifter finally prompted.

“What glory might we find if we regain the sword?” Effron asked slyly.

“I don’t desire glory. Glory brings fame, and fame brings jealousy, and jealousy brings danger. What glory might you find, you mean.”

“So be it,” Effron said. “And what treasures might you find?”

“That’s a more interesting question.”

“Five hundred pieces of gold,” Effron announced.

The Shifter-the image of the Shifter-did not appear intrigued. “For a Netherese blade as powerful as Claw?” she scoffed.

“You are not creating it, merely retrieving it.”

“You forget that I have dealt with this trio of warriors before,” she said. “With powerful allies beside me, some of whom are dead, and none of whom would wish to return to face those three again. Yet you expect me to do so alone, and for a paltry sum.”

“Not to face the three,” Effron corrected. “Just one.”

“They are all formidable!”

“While it pleases me to see you afraid, I am not asking you to do battle. Not against three, not against one.”

“To simply steal a sentient sword?” Again her tone was incredulous, which made sense, of course, given such a proposed task as that!

“To simply make a deal,” Effron corrected. He reached into his pouch and produced a small glowing cage of magical energy, one that fit in his palm, one that contained a tiny likeness of a panther the Shifter had seen before, right before she had fled the fight in the forest.

“No, not a likeness,” the Shifter said aloud, and she leaned in to better inspect the living creature trapped within the force cage-and it was indeed her, Effron realized at that moment, and not an image.

“Magnificent,” she whispered.

“You cannot have her.”

“Better her than the sword, I expect!”

“Except that she is untamable,” Effron explained.

“You are quite young and inexperienced to be proclaiming that so definitively.”

“So said Draygo Quick.”

The mention of the great warlock lord had the Shifter standing straight immediately, and staring hard, not at Guenhwyvar, but back at Effron.

“You come to me with the imprimatur of Draygo Quick?”

“At his insistence, and with his coin.”

The Shifter swallowed hard, all semblance of that confident trickster flown away. “Why didn’t you tell me that when first you contacted me?”

“Five hundred pieces of gold,” Effron stated.

The Shifter disappeared, then reappeared beside him-only it was again an illusion, he suspected, as was confirmed when she answered from the other side as he turned to face her image.

“To trade the panther back to the drow in exchange for the sword?”

Effron nodded.

“Herzgo Alegni has already taken his hunters after the blade,” the Shifter explained.

Again Effron nodded, for he knew of Alegni’s departure for Neverwinter Wood, a posse of Shadovar beside him. He wasn’t too concerned about that, however, for Alegni had told him that they were merely going to pick up the trail. Herzgo Alegni was no fool, and after the beating he had received on his coveted bridge, one given despite his trickery with Artemis Entreri, he would not soon again take such a risk where Dahlia and her cohorts were involved-particularly not while they held Charon’s Claw. For more than a few, Draygo Quick included, had warned Alegni that the weapon might not so easily forgive his failure, and might even go over to the side of Artemis Entreri against him.

Could Claw control Alegni the way it had tormented the man known as Barrabus the Gray?

The thought proved not as amusing to Effron as he had suspected and so he pushed it away quickly, returning to the situation at hand.

“The drow’s friends might not appreciate such an exchange, particularly Lord Alegni’s former slave,” the Shifter remarked.

“If I thought they would, I would go to them myself,” Effron replied. “You are clever enough to find a way, and to get away if the need arises.”

The Shifter, her image at least, seemed intrigued. Effron and others always thought that the current image’s expressions and posture matched that of the host, though, of course, none knew for certain. As she considered the information, a long while passed before she said, “One thousand gold if I return with the sword.”

“Draygo Quick…” Effron started to reply.

“Five hundred from him and five hundred from Herzgo Alegni,” the Shifter interrupted. “It’s worth at least that to him, is it not?”

Effron didn’t blink.

“Or did you think to exact that sum from him for yourself?” the Shifter asked slyly.

“I have no desire for the coins.”

“Then you are indeed a fool.”

“So be it.”

“So be it? That you are a fool, or that you agree to my terms?”

“One thousand pieces of gold.”

“And five hundred if I return without it, for my troubles.”

“No.”

The image of the Shifter faded away to nothingness.

“One hundred,” Effron quickly said, trying hard, but futilely, to keep the desperation out of his voice. “If you return with the panther.”

The image of the Shifter reappeared.

“If you lose the panther, but do not regain the sword, then you will find no gold, but surely the wrath of Draygo Quick.”

“And if I bring back both?” she asked.

“The wrath of Draygo Quick, who desires no conflict with this or any other drow,” Effron said. “Make the deal.”

“Ah, the ever-present wrath of Draygo Quick,” the Shifter said. “It seems that you have added a measure of danger to the bargain.” Her image suddenly grabbed the cage from Effron’s hand, but it did not appear in that image’s hand, but rather, seemed to simply disappear. “How, then, can I say no?”

Effron nodded and watched the image melt away again to nothingness, and then he knew that he was alone.

He collected his wits, always so scattered after dealing with this annoying creature, and started away, hoping that Herzgo Alegni would not claim the prize first.

Because to Effron, Charon’s Claw was not the prize. He would procure it and use it to prompt Herzgo Alegni to the true victory, the one he and the tiefling warlord both badly wanted: Lady Dahlia, helpless before them, in all her shame, to answer for her crimes.

Drizzt Do’Urden sat in the crook of a thick branch, tight against the trunk of a large tree, trying to make himself as small as possible. He pulled his ragged forest green cloak around him as tightly as possible, and told himself that he would need to replace this garment soon enough, perhaps with some elven cloak, or another drow piwafwi if he could find some way to procure one.

That thought, of course, led him back to the last time he had seen Jarlaxle, when the drow had gone over the lip of the primordial’s pit after Athrogate, only to be obliterated, so it seemed, by the primordial’s subsequent eruption.

Drizzt closed his eyes and forced himself to let it all go. Too many questions accompanied thoughts of Jarlaxle, as they did with Entreri. Too many inconsistencies and too many needed excuses. The world was much easier when viewed in black and white, and these two, Jarlaxle most poignantly and pointedly, surely injected areas of shadow into Drizzt’s view of the world as it should be.

So did Dahlia, of course.

Below Drizzt’s perch, Entreri and Dahlia went about their business, acting as if they were putting together a camp for the night. They moved half-heartedly, hardly playing their roles, as the time dragged along.

Finally, Drizzt spotted some movement in the shadows a short distance behind them.

No, not a movement in the shadows, he realized, but a movement of the shadows. Arunika’s warning about the Netherese and their fanatical grip on their artifacts rang clear in his mind.

The drow gave a little whistle, a series of high-pitched notes like the song of a wren, the previously agreed-upon signal. Both Entreri and Dahlia glanced up toward him, and so, fearing that the Shadovar might be close enough to view any arm waving, he whistled again to confirm.

While the two went back to the camp-building, more determinedly and convincingly this time, Drizzt quietly slipped the Heartseeker into position and set his magical quiver on a web of branches in easy reach. Even as the first arrow went to his bowstring, the drow picked out the advancing forms again, noting at least three of the gray-skinned pursuers.

Their determined and clever movements told him that they knew of his companions at least.

Drizzt whistled again, this time a longer chain of wren-song, to communicate this new observation, and ended with three short tweets to let the others know the enemy count.

He tweeted a short fourth whistle, then a fifth and sixth, as more Shadovar, or at least, as more movement indicative of approaching Shadovar, came visible to him.

The drow licked his lips, his eyes scanning intently. If these enemies meant to attack from afar, by spell or by missile, then he would provide the only warning and the only initial defense for Entreri and Dahlia.

Behind the approaching shades and beside the magical gate that had brought them to this place, Herzgo Alegni paced anxiously. He badly wanted to lead this charge, but he had not yet fully recovered from the beating on the bridge. He could not lift his left arm, and he knew no healer with the power to restore his right eye. He wore an eye patch over that broken orb now.

Another trio of shades came through the gate, and Alegni directed them forward-and it took all of his willpower not to rush off after them.

How he hated these enemies! How he hated Dahlia and her heinous betrayal! How he hated Barrabus and his treachery!

He hoped that those two would be captured alive, so he could torture them until they begged for the sweet release of death.

Another shade came through, a wizard, and one very loyal to Effron, Alegni knew. With a curt and almost dismissive nod to the tiefling warlord, he hustled away to join the impending battle.

A low growl escaped Alegni’s lips. He needed to get the many priests working harder, needed to be back in the fight, back in command, in short order. Out of stubbornness, he tried to lift his arm, and growled louder through his grimace.

He looked to the distant hillock, atop which his enemies prepared their camp, and muttered, “Soon, Dahlia, very soon,” and then again, substituting the name of Barrabus.

The first shades burst into the opening, two charging in with leveled spears, the third with an axe spinning up above his head.

But the elf and human were not unprepared. As the shades had appeared, both turned, weapons in hand, to meet the charge.

From up above, Drizzt watched as Entreri swept aside the spears with a sudden rush across from Dahlia’s left to her right, and Dahlia waded in behind him expertly, her flails smacking at the weapons, so that the spear-wielders had to retreat a step and reorient. As her spinning weapons drove the blades out wider with backhanded movements, the elf warrior spun them around and over, then in fast figure-eights before her to hold the axe-wielder at bay.

Drizzt lowered his bow, looking for a clear shot to take out the woman holding the spear to Dahlia’s unprotected left flank, but he pulled up fast when he saw movement from a bush not far away. It was just the flicker of a hand that had come visible, but a telling one.

It was a spellcaster, he realized, and up came Taulmaril and off went a silverstreaking arrow, then another, and more in rapid succession, each burrowing through the brush like a lightning strike, leaving wisps of smoke, even small fires on the branches as they drove through. Sparks exploded from behind, for the spellcaster had obviously enacted some magical wards against such attacks.

But Drizzt kept up the barrage, confident that Taulmaril would prove the stronger. More missiles whipped through, and the spellcaster staggered out backward, coming into clearer view. Other shouts rose up around him, and Drizzt knew that he’d be facing arrows and spells as well soon enough.

But he kept up his devastating rain of lightning arrows, and the sparks came fewer and the mage’s screams came louder. He staggered back, now with wisps of smoke rising from his robes, and tried to turn and run off, clutching at his belly, clutching at his burning leg.

Drizzt’s next arrow caught him just under the ear and lifted him from the ground, throwing him down on his face in the dirt, where he lay very still.

The drow rolled around to the other side of the tree trunk, and just in time to avoid a line of magical fire from a second sorcerer. He came up shooting again, but not in a concentrated manner this time, for he could not afford that, as shade archers and spearmen began to launch their missiles his way.

In the heat of battle, his own situation worsening by the heartbeat, Drizzt still managed to glance down at his companions. One spearman was down, writhing on the ground with blood spilling from his side, but two other shades had joined the battle.

Entreri, in particular, seemed hard-pressed.

Drizzt started to lower his bow for a shot at one of the shades below.

But he didn’t, and focused instead on the distant enemies.

Their precision and coordinated movements had only grown in the days since the fight at the bridge in Neverwinter, with both of these fine warriors coming to understand each other better, both physically and emotionally.

Artemis Entreri knew when he went spinning across to defeat the initial spear thrusts that Dahlia would be ready to step into the void left in his wake, and ready to take full advantage of their off-balance opponents. And so she had, driving back the axe-wielder and ably keeping the spearwoman over to the left fully engaged.

That left Entreri one-against-one with the other spearman.

He drove the spear out to his right even farther with a backhand slash of his sword. His opponent did well to hold on, and even to cleverly reverse his momentum, lifting his leading left hand up over his shoulder and punching out with the right down low in an attempt to butt Entreri hard with the back end of the spear.

It would have worked, too, except that Entreri’s dagger came across right behind the sword’s backhand to catch the spear’s shaft down low, and with Entreri’s arm at such an angle to hold his opponent’s weapon firmly in place.

Entreri looked the shade straight in the eye, then pressed upward with the dagger.

The shade should have leaped back to disengage, and likely would have had he understood the skill of his opponent, but he stubbornly pressed on, even trying to reverse once more and bring the spear tip slashing down from on high.

But Entreri had it securely locked with his dagger, rolling the blade deftly to prevent the disengage, and turning it to use the shade’s momentum to his own favor, driving the spear up slightly.

Enough so that he was able to slip the tip of his sword under the butt of the weapon.

Still staring into the shade’s eyes, Entreri put on just the hint of a wicked grin and thrust his sword upward, catching the shade just under the ribs. The shade let go of the spear with one hand, trying desperately to spin away, but the assassin’s sword dug in, tearing through flesh and into a lung.

The shade fell away-and Entreri smiled wider when Dahlia, deep into her spinning dance and keeping the other two engaged, managed to crack the fool across the head as he tumbled, just for good measure.

Entreri understood the level of satisfaction the elf woman took in delivering that blow.

Though he noted two more enemies charging in, he crossed by Dahlia, sword slashing in a wide angle to drive the axe-wielder back a few steps, then crossing down hard to crack into the shaft of the thrusting spear, catching it just below the tip and nearly shearing that blade off.

Dahlia responded perfectly, intercepting the two newcomers with a barrage of spinning flails that surely defeated their momentum-and likely their appetite for this fight.

Entreri noted that, and marveled at it, and silently congratulated the woman for the clever move.

The magical bolt, green energy smoking with anger, whipped in at Drizzt too quickly for him to duck aside. He took it in the shoulder and his grip wavered, but only for a moment.

Then he responded back at the mage with a new stream of lightning arrows. One after another, they blasted into the tree behind which the mage had dived, chipping bark and cracking into the hardwood. Drizzt grimaced against the burning pain running through his arm, but he stubbornly held on and kept up the barrage, telling himself that if he let up, the mage would come out and lash at him again.

A slight movement to the side caught his attention and he swiveled the bow reflexively and let fly.

Good fortune more than skill aided him in that moment, he silently admitted, for his arrow flew true, throwing a shade archer to the ground, a line of smoke rising from the hole in her chest.

Back toward the mage went the bow, more arrows flashing away, thundering into and all around the tree, throwing sparks and wood chips.

An arrow clipped the tree very near to Drizzt’s face. He hadn’t even seen it coming, and from the angle of the shot, he recognized that he was vulnerable. He let up on the mage and turned quickly to the new threat, down and to the side and just past the continuing fight on the ground below him. Another arrow whipped in, missing badly, and Drizzt spotted the archer. Off went the silvery flash of Taulmaril’s next arrow, exploding into a large stone.

Up from behind that stone appeared not one, but two archers, both ready to let fly at Drizzt.

But he beat them to it, skipping his next shot off the stone between them, the flash stealing their eyesight, the resounding retort stealing their nerves. One never even got off her shot before she yelped and ducked, and the second missed so wildly that his arrow didn’t even cross within the wide reach of the tree’s branches.

Drizzt couldn’t count that as a victory, though, not with the wizard likely crawling out from behind his tree barricade and preparing the next magical assault. He started to turn, thinking to unleash another volley that way, but paused.

Down below he noted the fight, noted the back of Artemis Entreri, open and inviting. He could lower the Heartseeker but a finger’s breadth and let fly and be rid of Entreri once and for all.

It would be so easy.

And wouldn’t the world be a better place without this murderer? How many lives, perhaps innocent lives, might Drizzt save with just that one shot?

He had actually started to draw back on the bowstring when the magical bolt struck him hard in the side, blasting the breath from him and nearly knocking him from the tree.

And up came the two archers behind the stone, both letting fly.

Drizzt, eyes hardly open as he squinted against the pain, pumped his arm repeatedly, sending a near-solid line of lightning their way. He scored one hit, he believed, from the pitch of the ensuing cry, but he knew not how solid.

He expected that he would die up there, then, in the nook in this tree.

But couldn’t he take Artemis Entreri along with him?

And wouldn’t the world be a better place if he did?

More enemies appeared.

Between parries, Entreri managed to glance at Dahlia and mouth, “Go.”

The elf was already moving, with her hands at first, turning flails into four-foot bo sticks, then, as she rushed forward, deftly striking with them to align them properly for a full joining. Her long staff returned, Dahlia continued her charge, then abruptly planted the end and leaped over the surprised shades, landing lightly behind the pair and sprinting off into the thicker brush.

Reflexively, stupidly, the shades spun around and followed-or one followed, as the other stumbled, Entreri’s belt knife driving deep into his kidney.

The pursuer, apparently oblivious to her companion’s fate, kept running, until the end of Dahlia’s staff appeared, lined up perfectly just below her chin. She couldn’t stop, and Dahlia had reversed direction and was coming at her anyway, and the combined momentum drove the long staff spearlike against the soft skin of the shade’s neck. Her legs flew out from under her as she tried futilely to recoil, and she landed hard on her back, gagging and choking and gulping for air that would not come. She flailed pathetically, but Dahlia just leaped past her, back toward Entreri.

None of this was lost on the two Entreri battled. The swordsman to the left of the assassin motioned for his companion to hold back Dahlia.

He should have kept his focus on the assassin instead, for as his friend turned, Entreri charged in at him. Obviously startled by the sudden boldness of the move, the shade leaped and scrambled back.

But Entreri veered and caught the turning shade instead, and that axe man heard him coming and whipped around with a mighty sidelong swing.

One that went high as Entreri skidded low to his knees, his sword disemboweling the shade.

The remaining swordsman leaped for the vulnerable assassin, and caught instead a furious Dahlia, now with flails once more, spinning and cracking him all around the head. He got pummeled a dozen times in that flashing moment, but really only felt the first burst of fiery pain as his skull shattered.

Dahlia hardly slowed as she ran past, moving through the camp and out the back side, as Entreri used his sword to drop the axe man off to the right, between him and the new group just coming through the brush. He sprinted almost directly opposite Dahlia, to where she had gone after her vault, bending, not pausing, only to yank his belt knife from the wounded Shadovar male.

He crashed through the brush in a full run, turning left as he knew-just knew-that Dahlia would spin right, that they could link up once more deeper into the woods.

More arrows flew off from Taulmaril. Drizzt scored a hit, a kill, and then a second kill in rapid order as the companion of his first victim tried to get up and run off.

Still the drow grimaced in pain, his muscles clenching against the burns of the two magical bolts, but at least he had lessened the missiles flying in at him. Below him the fight intensified. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dahlia springing away.

Which would leave Entreri even more vulnerable to him, he realized. Another arrow skipped through the branches, narrowly missing Drizzt’s face, and stealing all thoughts of the battle below. He wheeled around to spot the archer, who was diving behind a fallen log, and drew back, but out of the corner of his eye, Drizzt noted the pesky sorcerer, casting yet another spell. Before he could train his bow on the shade, a pea of flame left the mage’s hand, soaring his way.

Drizzt knew all too well what that foretold.

He let fly the arrow, missing badly, for he was already moving, scrambling up from his perch, as he let go of the bowstring. In truth, he let fly the arrow as much to clear it from the bow as anything else.

He rushed out along the branch, nimbly balancing as he flipped the magical quiver and then the bow over his shoulders, and by the time he got out on the limb, the thinner wood beginning to bend under his weight, he had his scimitars in hand.

The tree exploded behind him, the mage’s fireball turning twilight into noontime. It was not a concussive blast, though Drizzt wished it had been, for the air around him instantly began to simmer and sting with licks of flame. Now he used the elasticity of the branch, springing up and away with abandon.

Only his magical anklets had saved him from grievous wounds from the intensity of the blast-no novice, this mage! Without the magic speeding his steps, that fireball would have caught him fully, to no good end.

Though he had escaped the bulk of that blast, he found himself more than twenty feet in the air, flying free and clear of the branches, with nothing to grasp and only the hard ground to cushion his fall.

He took some comfort, or enjoyment, in the look of horror upon the mage’s face as he descended from on high. He noted the terrain, and took heart that it was mostly clear before him.

The drow turned himself over in mid-air, landing in a forward roll, coming up with a desperate swing as he passed by the mage before going into another forward roll, and a third to absorb the momentum. He crashed through some brush, painfully, but managed to come up to his feet relatively unscathed.

The same could not be said of the mage, who spun around in circles with blood spurting from the gash Drizzt’s scimitar had sliced across his throat.

Drizzt tried to orient himself, to figure out where his companions might be. An image of his blades diving in at Entreri’s back flashed in his mind, and brought forth a surprising amount of anger-rage he quickly focused on the situation at hand. He charged off at full speed, moving from cover to cover, from tree to brush to boulder, then even up into the lower branches of another tree. Shouts rang up all around him as the enemy tried to get a bead on him, tried to coordinate against him.

He reversed his course, then cut out again, springing from the tree branch to a clearing behind some underbrush, then speeding through at full speed to surprise a pair of Shadovar who were still pointing at the tree he had climbed, yelling out directions.

They almost got their weapons up to block.

Drizzt ran on, leaving the two writhing on the ground. Anger grew with his speed, fueled by images of Entreri and Dahlia sharing that intimate moment.

He heard a cry from in front and knew he had been spotted, knew that those ahead would put up a better defense-against his scimitars, at least.

So he sheathed the blades as he sprinted and drew out his bow, and burst into sight of the trio. One, two, three went his arrows, blowing one shade away, lifting him into the air, cutting a second down with a glancing blow that still opened her skin from shoulder to shoulder, and sending the third diving away in panic.

Drizzt rushed through, crossing their position and disappearing into the brush so quickly that the unwounded shade wasn’t even sure where he had gone.

“We cannot catch him,” the Netheril commoner admitted to Lord Alegni when he rejoined the tiefling at the magical gate. “He moves like a ghost-into the trees as quickly as we run along the ground.”

“You have sorcerers,” Alegni replied, and he looked past the soldier to a few other shades now approaching, more than one of them glancing back over his shoulder with clear alarm.

“Two are dead, slain by the drow!” the shade replied, and as his voice rose, he could barely suppress his terror.

“What of the other two?” Alegni asked-asked all of them as the others came scurrying up. “Tell me that you fools have killed Dahlia or Barrabus!”

It was all bluster, for Herzgo Alegni didn’t believe any such thing, nor did he desire any such thing. Not here, in this time or place or manner. The tiefling found himself a bit surprised by his feelings concerning this obvious abject failure. The lords of Netheril, after all, were never easy or merciful regarding failure.

“Nay, my lord,” the commoner admitted. “I fear they have eluded us.”

“The sword,” Alegni asked. “Did Barrabus wield my sword?”

The commoner considered that for a moment. “The drow carried it, but on his back. He fought with smaller blades.”

Alegni didn’t quite know what to make of that. Why had the trio fled into the wilds? He looked to the northeast, toward a broken mountain, the same one that had blown up and buried the old city of Neverwinter a decade earlier. “Where are you going?” he quietly asked the empty air.

“My lord?” the commoner asked.

Alegni waved him to the portal. There was no use in trying to turn the Shadovar around for another futile fight. They had failed.

But this wasn’t his failure. He had argued loudly against this course of action, begging Draygo Quick and some others that they would do well to wait until he had recovered enough to personally see to this. He had argued, more subtly, that he would need many times this number, and in a place more of his choosing.

He would likely be admonished for this failure, certainly, but not in any way that would damage his designs.

He would still be the one tasked with retrieving the sword, and he felt confident that he could convince Draygo Quick to let him do it his own way.

As these ragged and defeated shades returned to the magical portal emptyhanded, other than their dead comrades they couldn’t simply leave behind, Draygo Quick would find himself enmeshed in what had been wholly perceived as Herzgo Alegni’s failure.

Yes, the tiefling wasn’t upset as the rest of the defeated band returned to him, and he had to work hard to keep any measure of sarcasm or enjoyment out of his voice when he ordered them to return through the gate.

But he was worried, quite so, when he thought of that broken mountain and the beast he knew lurked beneath its battered slopes. He felt a silent call on an unseen breeze, as if Claw was reaching out to him, pleading with him. He didn’t know if that was actually the case, or if it was simply his imagination, but he suspected the former.

Claw was calling to him, because Claw was afraid.

With a last look to the north, the forest where Dahlia, Barrabus, and the drow had once again escaped, Herzgo Alegni, too, returned to the Shadowfell.

Taulmaril in hand, Drizzt rushed around a thick briar patch, cutting back between two wide-spreading elms. He knew that the shade fled before him, he could hear the panting, could smell the woman’s desperation. Confident that she would not turn back in ambush, Drizzt sprinted on almost recklessly, his focus purely on covering ground.

He crossed through a pair of large, half-buried boulders, like stone sentinels framing the entrance to a great building, that structure being a grassy ridge line. A great leap brought him atop that ridge, where he at last spotted his quarry.

He leveled the Heartseeker, his arms turning slowly to just lead her movement as she scrambled along, running and falling and crawling on all fours until she could regain her footing. She moved up the side of a hill and when Drizzt let his gaze move out to anticipate her course, he understood her route, for there sat a shimmering black sphere, lined in magical purple-a gate, he knew, and he could guess easily enough where it would lead.

Drizzt lowered Taulmaril, forgetting about the shade woman and staring at that portal.

Guenhwyvar had traveled through such a gate, and had then been lost to him. Might he go through? And if he did, would that re-establish the connection between the panther and the figurine?

Could he do it? Enemies would await him, in droves, likely. But might he rush through, summon Guen, and return at once with her at his side?

He was startled from his contemplations as the shade woman rushed into view, then was gone, diving through the shadow gate.

It was worth a chance, Drizzt decided, and he dropped a hand reflexively to the pouch that held the figurine and sprinted off for the hill. He had barely gone ten strides, though, when he pulled up, for he had lost sight of the gate. He stood there and glanced all around, wondering if the angle had changed.

But no, he recognized the tree beneath which the shadow gate had been.

He ran to the side to change his viewpoint, but there was nothing to be seen. He was too late-the gate had closed.

With a resigned groan, Drizzt closed his eyes and steadied himself, then started back the way he had come, glancing over his shoulder every few steps. His resolve to go through such a gate if one could be found again only grew as he continued on his way.

If Guenhwyvar couldn’t come to him, he would go to her. Would she do any less for him if the situation was reversed?

The words of Arunika rang in his ear, though. The red-haired clairvoyant had thought Guenhwyvar dead.

Drizzt glanced back one last time, staring up to where he had seen the magical gate. If he went through and there remained no connection to Guenhwyvar, then what?

Perhaps he wouldn’t go through.

Drizzt stopped and paused at that errant thought, and wound up laughing at himself. He had played such a fool’s game once before, when he was out in the wilds around Mithral Hall, not daring to return to the dwarf homeland because he was nearly certain that his friends had been killed in the collapse of a tower.

He would not make such a mistake ever again.

He picked up his pace, returning back near the tree where he had been perched. Smoke still poured from several spots along its blackened trunk, and orange embers glowed in more than one recess.

He heard voices and moved slowly through the fake encampment, and silently through the first bit of brush.

He recognized Entreri’s voice, speaking quietly, and he moved up beside a tree and peered around.

There stood the assassin, his back to Drizzt, Dahlia beyond him and to the side.

Drizzt clutched Taulmaril, his other hand going to an arrow in the magical quiver.

An easy shot, and one he could explain. All he need do was draw out that arrow and aim true. One shot, and Artemis Entreri would be no more, and the world would be a better place, and Dahlia…

Drizzt shook it all away, surprised by how his mind had wandered-yet again. If he meant to kill Entreri, then would it not be more honorable to challenge the man openly and be done with it?

He imagined that-and it was not an unpleasant thought-but as the battle played out in his mind’s eye, Dahlia intervened… on behalf of Entreri.

Drizzt grabbed an arrow and nearly drew it.

“Drizzt!” Dahlia called, noting him.

Artemis Entreri turned around and motioned to him, and the assassin and Dahlia walked over.

“A few less Shadovar to trouble the world,” Dahlia said with grim satisfaction.

“And a few more will follow,” Entreri added. “They will return. They want the sword.”

“Perhaps next time, we will see them before they see us,” said Drizzt, and that brought a puzzled look to both his companions.

“We did,” Entreri said.

“I mean, before they are even on our trail,” Drizzt said. “That we might learn their point of entry.”

Still the two looked confused.

“A shadow gate,” the drow explained. “I almost got to it, but it dissipated.”

“A door to the Shadowfell?” Entreri asked skeptically. “Why would…?”

Drizzt held up his hand, in no mood to explain.

Dahlia came over to him, then, and gently touched the wound in his side. “Come,” she said, taking his hand. “Let’s tend to those.”

“Wizards,” Entreri muttered, shaking his head.

They set their camp not far from that point. Drizzt and Dahlia sat off to the side, across the low-burning, shielded fire from Entreri, and behind some brush as well. The drow was stripped to the waist, Dahlia tending his several wounds with a cloth dampened with water and a healing salve.

Soon enough, the stars glittering above them, Entreri snoring from across the way, her touches became more intimate and suggestive.

Drizzt looked into her pretty eyes, trying to measure her emotions. She still wore her hair in the soft shoulder cut, her face still clear of the woad. Even in the fight, she had remained in this guise.

But even wearing her softer appearance, Drizzt recognized something in his heart, and his eyes only confirmed it. She was not looking at him with the warmth of love, but with the heat of passion.

Would she have been any less aggressive with any attractive partner, he wondered? Did it matter that it was him? Was there more of a bond here than the satisfaction of physical needs?

He felt himself a plaything at that moment. That bothered him, but what bothered him even more was that he felt Dahlia a plaything, as well, as if he was using her for her obvious charms.

She bit him on the neck then, lightly, then leaned back and stared at him, smiling mischievously. He noticed that her white shirt was unfastened, quite low and revealing.

Drizzt pushed her out to arms’ length. He tried to say something, to explain his feelings, his confusion and fears. But all he could do was shake his head.

Dahlia looked at him curiously at first, then with disbelief as she pulled back from his grasp with a clear edge of anger.

“When I caught up to you outside of Neverwinter, you were engaged in a serious conversation with Entreri,” Drizzt said, glad to move along to some other issue, one likely related to his emotions, but still removed from the immediate sense of rejection. “What were you talking about?”

Dahlia stepped back even farther, out of his reach, staring at him incredulously, and asked, “What?” sounding as if she had just been slapped.

Drizzt swallowed hard but knew that he had to press on. “I came out from Neverwinter to your camp, and from the brush, witnessed your discussion with Entreri.”

“You were spying on us? Did you expect me to throw him on the ground and ravish him?”

“No,” the exasperated drow replied, his thoughts spinning as he tried to figure out how to better communicate the turmoil within him.

“I didn’t even want him along!” Dahlia snapped at him, harshly and loudly, and across the way, Entreri’s snoring broke cadence as if her words had disturbed his slumber. She paused for just a moment, waiting for the rhythmic breathing to resume, but never let her glower leave her face. “You invited him, and then accepted him back again after he deserted us-and for all we know, he betrayed us in his time away.”

Drizzt shook his head.

“How do you know?” Dahlia asked skeptically. “He was gone and suddenly we were found.”

“And he returned to aid us when we needed it,” Drizzt reminded.

“Or he set the whole thing up so he could become a hero to us.”

She was deflecting him, he realized, and he shook his head forcefully and waved his arms before him, at last silencing her. “We were beaten by Alegni on the bridge,” he stated flatly. “It was not deception that brought Artemis Entreri back to us, but his own hatred of Herzgo Alegni.”

His mention of the tiefling, his reminder of the tiefling’s demise, seemed to calm Dahlia down a bit.

She looked at Drizzt slyly, as if it had been her intent all along to bring him around in this circle. “Now you defend him?” she asked.

The simple question made Drizzt’s initial statements-accusations? — toward Dahlia seem rather idiotic.

He brought his hands up to his face and took a deep and slow, steadying breath, feeling very much off guard. Entreri’s snoring distracted him. It occurred to him that if he crossed the camp and hacked the assassin to death in his sleep all of his concerns here would be resolved.

Yes, a dozen strides and a single swing, and he and Dahlia could go along their way without a worry, without the need to return to Gauntlgrym, the tomb of Drizzt’s dearest friend, a place he did not wish to go.

A single swing-perhaps with Entreri’s own sword!

He shook the thoughts away and refocused on Dahlia, to see her refastening her shirt, her expression showing many shifting emotions, but surely nothing amorous.

“You had a serious conversation with a very dangerous man,” Drizzt pressed anyway. “I would like to know about it.”

“Be very careful not to press too far into places that are none of your concern,” Dahlia replied, and walked away.

Drizzt stood there in the dark for a long while, watching Dahlia as she moved near to the low fire and settled, half-sitting, half-reclining against a log. She lowered her wide-brimmed black hat over her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

What was it between them, Drizzt wondered? When they entwined, was it lovemaking or recreation?

And if it was not lovemaking, then why did he care so much about her seemingly intimate conversation with Artemis Entreri?

Because it was Entreri?

Perhaps Drizzt’s nostalgia for what once had been could carry him only so far in his dealings with the assassin. Perhaps their long battle, the taking of Regis’s fingers by Entreri’s dagger so long ago, the many innocents Drizzt knew Entreri had wounded and killed… perhaps all of that dark past of Artemis Entreri was now invading on that wistful nostalgia, reminding Drizzt that, while his personal circle might have been greater in the time that had been a hundred years before, the world at large was not so kind a place.

Once again, it occurred to Drizzt that he might be doing an act of great good for the world if he crossed the encampment and put an end to Artemis Entreri.

Once again, his desire for such violence surprised him and revolted him.

But there it remained, hovering within his consciousness.