Charon's claw

A COMPANION'S TRUST

Herzgo Alegni stepped through the shadow gate, arriving in a small chamber built into a stalactite hanging above a vast underground cavern. It had been only two days since the disastrous fight in the forest, but the tiefling warlord was feeling much better. He had used Draygo Quick’s failure to force the withered old warlock into redoubling the efforts to heal him, and to give him more reinforcements.

Herzgo Alegni knew they couldn’t fail again. Not now. Not here. Too much was at stake, and this time, failure would mean the end of his coveted sword and the end of his reputation.

Effron was already in the portal chamber, staring out a small window beside the chamber’s one exit, an open door leading to a landing and a circular stair that ran around the rock mound.

Alegni walked up beside the twisted warlock and pushed him aside. Effron stuck his face into the window opening and tried to hide his surprise.

There before Alegni, across a dark underground pool, loomed the front wall of the ancient dwarven complex of Gauntlgrym, like the facade of a surface fortress, but tucked into the back of the cavern, the castle wall coming up right near to the ceiling. There were parapets up there, Alegni could see; that wall, this whole cavern, including the stalactite in which he stood, had been prepared for defense of the complex.

“Directly below,” Effron said, and Alegni leaned out and looked down, to see another landing just below his position, an ancient war engine set upon it.

“Ballista?” he asked, not quite sure of what he was viewing. It looked like a great mounted crossbow, a ballista, except that it was covered on top with a large fanlike box. A pair of Shadovar moved around down there, working on the contraption.

“An unusual design,” Effron explained. “They are set all around the cavern. Balogoth the historian called them volley guns.”

Alegni looked back from Effron to the ballista, and held up his hand as Effron started to explain what he had meant by that title. For there was no need-the name alone described the purpose of that fanlike box all too well.

“Will it throw?” he called down to the Shadovar on the ledge below.

The pair looked up and fell back a step at the unexpected sight of their warlord.

“Will it throw?” Alegni demanded again when neither answered.

“We do not know, my Lord Alegni,” one replied. “We have replaced the bowstring, but the arms are so ancient, they likely have little tension left in them.”

“Attempt it.”

The two looked at each other, then scrambled to a crate lying nearby-one they had brought from the Shadowfell-and began pulling forth long arrows. One by one, they loaded the fanlike box, sliding the bolts in from behind. Then one shade grabbed the huge crank and slowly pulled back the string.

The throw arms creaked in protest.

“It won’t work,” Effron said, but Alegni didn’t even bother to glance back to look at him.

When the crank was set, the second shade took hold of a lever. This one didn’t move easily, and it took him a long while of trying before he looked to his companion helplessly, and obviously desperately afraid.

They wouldn’t want to fail their warlord, Herzgo Alegni understood, and he liked that show of fear.

After much tinkering, with one shade even crawling under the edge of the box and digging at the wooden catches with a small blade, they finally managed to ease the cartridge into place.

Herzgo Alegni held back a mocking chuckle when they fired the ballista, for only one side, one throwing arm, moved with the release. Out the front came the arrows, barely thrown, more falling off to tumble straight down than actually flying free. And those that did come forth barely cleared the stalactite-the shades could have hand-thrown them farther.

Down below on the cavern floor came a couple of curses and shouts of protest.

“The wood is too old,” Effron said.

“I know that,” Alegni replied. “It is an interesting design.”

“In their day, the many ballistae set in these towers could have filled the air with swarms of arrows,” Effron explained. “It is a design worth copying, I believe, as does Balogoth, who is hard at work in diagramming the crossbows and those curious hoppers.”

Herzgo Alegni swept his gaze around the cavern. “We do not have enough soldiers,” he surmised. “It is too large, and too filled with cover. They will slip through our ranks.”

“There is only one door, as far as we can determine,” Effron replied.

Alegni looked to the vast wall and the single opening in its center. Rails came through that door and a couple of carts, ore carts likely, lay discarded in the sand before the cavern pool.

“As far as we can determine,” he echoed. “Dahlia and her drow companion have been here before, have been inside the complex. If there are other entries, they will know of them.”

“I sent only a single patrol inside the door for that reason,” Effron replied. “Should our enemies get to the door, they will be held by our warriors that we can catch them from behind. The rest of the forces are scattering out among the cavern, trying to cover every angle of approach.”

Effron paused for just a moment as Alegni stared out the window, but there was something remaining, the warlord knew, and so he turned back on the twisted warlock.

“If they are even coming here,” Effron said.

“They are,” Alegni said without hesitation. He knew it to be true, and feared it to be true, for he knew, too, what primordial beast lurked in that ancient complex across the dark pond. “Do you doubt your own hirelings?”

Effron could only shrug at that, for indeed it had been Glorfathel, acting on information from Ambergris, who had informed Herzgo Alegni of the trio’s destination. The Shifter had confirmed to Effron that the three were in the outer tunnels of this region just a short while before, immediately after her failure to barter the panther for the sword, though that bit of information had not been disclosed to the warlord.

Herzgo Alegni scanned the vast cavern, picking out groups of his forces here or there setting positions for the ambush. He noted that all of them were on the near side of the dark pool, though, opposite Gauntlgrym’s wall.

The tiefling licked his lips. It seemed a solid enough plan, for even if the trio managed to get through to the lake, how would they cross and get into the complex before pursuit, in the form of javelins and arrows and magical spells, caught up to them? Still, the thought of them doing just that nagged at Alegni. He had underestimated these three before, to a disastrous outcome.

“Send more into the complex,” he said.

“We can barely keep watch over the cavern approaches with our forces out here now,” Effron replied. “If we thin the ranks further…”

“If they get in ahead of us, or enter through another door we have not discovered, will we ever find them?” Alegni replied.

“How many?” Effron asked.

“What is inside the door?”

“A large audience hall with several tunnels, some to the mines far below, it would appear, for they have rails as if for ore carts. And some to the upper levels. We have not explored them in any depth.”

“Why not?” the aggravated tiefling demanded.

“My lord, we have been here for only a short while.”

Herzgo Alegni glared at the twisted little tiefling warlock. Effron was correct, of course, and Alegni had to admit that the fact that they had even located this place and had now spread out to put some semblance of an ambush posture into place was indeed impressive. He had to admit it, indeed, but not openly, and never to Effron.

“From where will they enter?”

“There are at least four entry tunnels opposite the wall,” Effron replied.

Alegni’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared, his balled fists clenching at his sides.

“I have dispatched patrols along all four!” Effron quickly added, and he seemed to shrink before the specter of Alegni. “We are trying to discern which of them might lead to the surface.”

“Trying?”

Effron didn’t seem to know what to say, or how to react. He held his good hand up plaintively before him, then dropped it and shrugged and shook his head.

“I am not surprised,” Alegni said, turning away. “And I have not forgotten your failure on the bridge in Neverwinter, I assure you.”

“I battled the cat,” the twisted warlock replied, but softly, his voice lost as he tried to maintain some semblance of steady breathing.

“I am used to you disappointing me,” Alegni went on, ignoring his reply. He moved for the door to exit the chamber, but stopped just outside and turned back on Effron, just long enough to add, “You have disappointed me since the day I first saw you.”

Effron fell back as Alegni exited the chamber and, mercifully, moved out of sight-mercifully, because wouldn’t the hulking tiefling have driven his point home even more cruelly had he noted the moisture gathering around Effron’s curiously unmatched eyes?

The hand of Shadovar hunters moved with practiced precision, leap-frogging their way along the lichen-lit corridor. One strong young tiefling huntress rushed up to a jag in the wall, fell flat against it, and peered around and ahead, then held up her fingers-one, two, three-signaling the others.

Zingrawf Bourdadine, a burly male of considerable reputation, glided past her silently into the next position, followed closely by a sorcerer and another fighter, a halfling shade. As they got into their respective positions, they signaled back to the huntress, who held up her fourth finger, clearing the way for the last of the hand, another female tiefling, to move past her.

The huntress eagerly leaned out a bit more, waiting for her companions to call her into the lead. They weren’t ready for her yet, as the last of the band had barely caught up to the next position in line. She stood straighter once more, leaned back, and took a deep breath, preparing for her next dash.

It wasn’t until she put her head back that she realized that something was unusual, that this section of wall wasn’t quite what it had seemed, for it wasn’t just a jut in the wall, but an alcove behind it, one she hadn’t really noticed because it was… occupied.

A hand reached around her and slapped against her mouth. A second came around from the other side, holding a knife that went fast against, and across, her throat.

Artemis Entreri eased her down without a sound.

Alfwin the sorcerer crouched lower and peered ahead more intently, cursing the near absence of light. He had thought the next stretch of corridor clear, and had signaled as such, but now something had the hair on the back of his neck standing.

He focused his senses. Had he heard a slight sound? Had he caught a tiny flash of movement? His upraised hand became a fist, the signal to hold, but it was too late, for the last of this leapfrog cycle, the second tiefling female, was already too near to him, and without cover other than the rubble he had taken as his position.

She crawled up beside him and followed his gaze ahead, to where the corridor bent slightly to the left.

A few heartbeats passed.

The woman pointed to the left-hand wall, right where it curved, and a low overhang that might provide her with some cover. With practiced ease and perfect silence, the skilled warrior moved to that point, and the sorcerer came out behind her, easing along the right-hand wall, trying to get a view beyond his companion.

All seemed clear and quiet. He motioned for her to continue.

She crept beneath the overhang and turned the corner.

A movement farther to the left had her standing faster and turning to defend, but too late as the spinning weapon cracked her against the side of her head and sent her staggering into the middle of the corridor.

Alfwin called out for his trailing companions and stepped forward, wand extended. He tried to sort out the blur of shadowy movement before him, two forms of similar size entangled and crossing the corridor left to right.

He was about to shoot into that tangle, hoping he would hit the right target, when a third option showed, a bit farther along.

As he let fly, so too did his opponent, countering the warlock’s black bolt with a lightning strike.

No, not a bolt of lightning, but a missile sizzling with lightning energy, the sorcerer realized as the streaking arrow burrowed clear through his shoulder to explode against the wall behind him.

He yelped in pain and shock and leveled the wand again. Then he was blind.

The sorcerer’s fiery bolt had stung him, bubbling the skin of his leading forearm, but Drizzt held his ground without flinching and called on his innate drow powers, a remnant of magic from the emanations of the deep Underdark, to fill the corridor before him, the region around the warlock, with a globe of absolute darkness. He kept Taulmaril level, methodically setting a second arrow and letting fly, the glowing arrow seeming to blink out of existence as it disappeared into the darkness.

He had to win, and he had to win fast, he knew, for these tight confines could surely favor a wizard. His enemy might fill the whole of the corridor with a wall of biting flames, or send forth a plague of insects.

Drizzt wouldn’t give him the chance.

He drew back and fired again.

When the fighting broke out up ahead, Zingrawf and his halfling companion signaled back and called back for the tiefling huntress, then turned and advanced, seeing the form fast approaching.

They had no idea that the form was not their female companion, for she lay dead in an alcove.

Entreri rushed to catch up, and he, unlike the burly tiefling in front of him, didn’t hesitate when the corridor brightened suddenly in a flash of lightning.

The halfling warrior separated then, running ahead to join the duo up front, and almost caught up to the spellcaster when they both disappeared into absolute blackness.

Again the burly trailing tiefling stopped, and again Entreri did not, for he knew well the tricks of Drizzt Do’Urden and had seen similar globes of darkness many times in his battles beside and against the drow.

He could have simply skewered the bulky fighter with his sword then, but he saw little fun in that.

“Well met,” he said instead.

The burly male froze for a third heartbeat, then, finally figuring it out, it seemed, and spun around fiercely, sweeping the breadth of the corridor with his large battle-axe.

Entreri, far too clever to be caught by such a clumsy and obvious move, let the weapon harmlessly pass, then waded in behind and thrust his sword into the tiefling’s shoulder. Mocking the lumbering brute with laughter, the assassin easily stepped back to avoid the backhand slash.

Entreri could have gone in again-so many openings presented themselves in the tiefling’s awkward posture-but a streak of silver flashed over the tiefling’s shoulder and had Entreri ducking for his life.

He started to call out for Drizzt to cease, but another arrow cracked against the stone, showering Entreri and the tiefling in sparks. Entreri dived to the far side desperately, and knew he was vulnerable to the tiefling now, to that heavy axe.

But his opponent seemed no longer interested. The brute lurched forward and half-turned, showing Entreri a smoking hole in his back where an arrow had struck.

From the darkness globe came the other warrior, backstepping, arms up defensively, and futilely, before him.

A lightning arrow blew right through him and flew on to drive into the chest of the burly tiefling.

Drizzt’s right hand moved in a near-perfect circle, reaching back over his shoulder, accepting an arrow from his enchanted quiver, and coming around to nock, pull, and fire, before beginning its circuit anew.

A line of arrows streamed out, Drizzt swaying the bow, left to right and back again, shooting low and shooting high.

He glanced only once at Dahlia, who crouched atop the warrior she had felled.

An image flashed in Drizzt’s head then, of Dahlia reclining with Artemis Entreri, of Dahlia entwined with Artemis Entreri, locked in passionate play.

Drizzt’s face, so calm and determined until that moment, struck an angry grimace and he stepped forward.

“He is done,” he heard Dahlia say, but he kept firing.

The elf reached up to grab at his arm, but Drizzt pushed past her and increased the barrage, skipping arrows off the stone, left and right, and off the ceiling as well.

“He is done!” Dahlia insisted, but she was speaking of the sorcerer, and Drizzt was aiming past the sorcerer, to the other Shadovar enemies behind his darkness globe, and at a companion he knew to be there.

The corridor flashed like a raging thunderstorm, stone smoking and cracking, the air sizzling with lightning energy.

The burly tiefling warrior somehow continued to stand, though likely more because the repeated blows were holding him aloft than out of any sense of balance or even consciousness.

Against the wall, Entreri called out for Drizzt to stop, but his words seemed thin indeed against the thundering cacophony of the barrage.

The stone right before his face fractured as an arrow skipped past, shards stinging his eyes. He rolled out from the wall and swept the feet out from under the tiefling, then flattened out, accepting the crashing weight as the brute fell atop him.

But could even this burly blanket stop a shot from that devastating bow?

“Heavily enchanted,” Glorfathel warned as Ambergris edged toward the magnificent, gem-studded throne on the tiled stone dais.

“Cast protections, then,” Afafrenfere said, eyeing those marvelous baubles hungrily.

Glorfathel laughed at the monk. “No mage in the Shadowfell or on Toril would be foolish enough to touch that throne. It is imbued with the power-”

“Of dwarf gods,” Ambergris finished for him, and she was very near to the throne. She glanced past it, to a small graveyard of cairns. A curious sight indeed, for who would put such monuments so near to such a throne in the middle of an audience hall? Two of the cairns were larger than the others, and as she focused on the grandest of them, Ambergris realized yet another mystery: these were new. They hadn’t been placed in the last tenday, perhaps, but the graves were certainly not nearly as ancient as everything else they had seen in the complex.

“What secrets might ye be keepin’ here, Clangeddin?” she asked softly. “And what powers, mighty Moradin?” She reached her hand out tentatively.

“Dare not,” the elf warned, and Afafrenfere swallowed hard.

Ambergris stiffened immediately as her thick fingers touched the burnished arm of the great chair, as if some bolt of power had shot down her spine. She sucked in her breath and held the pose for a long while, the other two staring on incredulously.

They could not begin to understand the rush of power traveling through the dwarf at that time. She saw flashes of the last disciple of the dwarf gods who had touched this throne, and then a clear image of him sitting there. She noted his red beard and one-horned crown, and her lips moved to form the name of “King Bruenor?”

She held on a bit longer, but the energy proved too great. She focused on the vision, as if trying desperately to convince this famous dwarf king that she, too, was of Delzoun heritage, that she truly was of the Adbar O’Mauls! But Ambergris carried no royal blood, and so the throne rejected her, but kindly, energy building until she could hold on no longer.

The dwarf staggered backward.

“It canno’ be,” she mumbled, but she knew that it had been, indeed. This was no deception.

“What?” Afafrenfere asked, stepping up beside her. His arm slipped out toward the throne.

“It’ll eat ye,” Ambergris warned.

Afafrenfere turned on her. “Then you do it,” he said. “Pluck a gem or two!”

Ambergris stared incredulously, then laughed at him. “Not in ten elf generations,” she said. “I’d rather be pluckin’ a gem from betwixt a red dragon’s back teeth.”

“Well, what are we to do with it, then?” the exasperated monk asked. “It’s a king’s treasure and more.”

“Much more,” said Ambergris.

“We’re to leave it alone,” Glorfathel said. “As anyone who’s ever been here has left it alone, or suffered deadly consequences, no doubt.”

Not everyone, Ambergris thought, but did not say.

“The graves, then,” the monk suggested.

“Touch a stone and I’ll be making another one for yerself,” Ambergris said, without leaving a hint that she was interested in any debate. Her nostrils flared and her eyes widened, almost maniacally, and Afafrenfere backed down.

“You can never take the pride from a dwarf,” Glorfathel said with a laugh. “No matter how much you might darken her skin.”

Ambergris nodded, glad that the elf had justified her level of rage.

As Glorfathel led the way to the tunnel they had been tasked with guarding, Ambergris let her stare linger on that wondrous throne, and once more she pictured a red-bearded dwarf sitting there, king of kings. Her last look before they left was back to the graves, to the grandest of the group, for she figured who might be buried there.

She managed a slight and inconspicuous bow as she departed.

“Drizzt!” Dahlia yelled, and grabbed at the drow’s arm. “It’s over!”

He shoved her away and began anew, the image of her coupling with Entreri burning in his thoughts.

He would sweep clear this corridor all the way to Gauntlgrym!

An arrow flew free, but its lightning glow was stolen even as it left Taulmaril. A second went similarly dark, and even a third before Drizzt even realized it, even noted Dahlia, crouched to the side with her magical staff extended, the energy of Kozah’s Needle absorbing the magic of Taulmaril with each release.

She was protecting him!

Drizzt’s eyes widened with rage. Instead of reaching for another arrow, he took up the bow as a club, thinking to bash Dahlia aside.

The darkness dissipated then, and both paused and looked to the corridor.

The sorcerer sat awkwardly against the wall, legs and arms splayed wide, chin on his chest and wafts of smoke, even a bit of flame, rising from several holes in his torso. Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, had lived up to its name. Beside, curled into a defensive ball, lay the smoking husk of a halfling shade, and a larger form lay very still farther along. The walls were pitted with holes, smoke rising from them, and shards of broken stone lay all around.

“What have you done?” Dahlia demanded, rising up.

Sobered by the scene, confused indeed, Drizzt lowered Taulmaril and stepped past her, peering into the quiet, smoky corridor.

He almost set another arrow and let fly when the third body in line shifted suddenly, but he had no time as out from under it came Artemis Entreri, a knife flying before him, and blades drawn in a desperate charge.

Drizzt deflected that thrown knife by dropping Taulmaril in its path, and out came his scimitars to meet that charge.

Entreri barreled in, sword thrusting once and again, leading him into a turn that brought his dagger around from on high, chopping down at the drow.

But Drizzt, too, rolled, and opposite the assassin, outpacing that dagger. The drow came around with a sidelong swipe of Twinkle, which Entreri expectedly parried.

Drizzt stopped in mid-turn and burst forward, thrusting Icingdeath, and had Entreri simply executed a block on Twinkle, the drow would have found a clear opening.

But the assassin was too clever for that, and had fought this particular opponent before. Instead of merely meeting the leading slash with a block and bat to drive it out wide, the parry had rolled Entreri’s blade over the scimitar.

Entreri let Drizzt’s momentum carry Twinkle out harmlessly wide, disengaging his blade and coming forward with a thrust of his own.

Both could have scored a killing blow, but to do so would have meant accepting a similar fate.

So both crossed to block instead, sword and scimitar meeting with a heavy crash and locking tight between them.

“Stop!” Dahlia yelled out, her voice strained and teeth chattering for some reason that neither combatant understood, or cared to even notice.

Entreri’s dagger stabbed for Drizzt’s throat. Drizzt’s free scimitar flashed across to block, then the drow punched straight out at Entreri’s face.

The assassin ducked the blow and the two went into a clench, arms tangled.

So Entreri found another weapon and head-butted.

As did Drizzt, their foreheads cracking together between them, and both fell back a couple of staggering steps.

And both meant to leap right back in and be done with this.

But a long metallic staff knifed between them like a blocking bar, its tip slamming into the far wall, and with that impact, Dahlia released the energy of three of Taulmaril’s enchanted arrows, and a bit from the staff as well, lighting the corridor with a stinging, explosive blast.

Nearly blinded, the woman still caught the motion as the two leaped away, two who seemed as one warrior leaping back from a mirror. Both half-twisted in the air, executing a barrel roll, turning and diving into a headlong roll then coming back to their feet at exactly the same moment and in exactly the same turn to spin around to face each other once more, at the ready, feet wide, blades leveled.

“Are you brothers, then?” the stunned Dahlia asked.

“He would have me dead!” Entreri yelled at her.

“I will,” Drizzt replied.

“I will join against he who makes the first move,” Dahlia warned.

“First move was his,” Entreri accused.

“Last move will be mine, as well,” Drizzt promised.

“Desist!” Dahlia demanded.

“No!” they both shouted back.

Dahlia leaped between them more directly, looking from one to the other with clear confusion. “You need him!” she implored Entreri. “That you might be rid of the sword!”

The assassin backed and straightened, and so did Drizzt. “The sword?” they both said together.

A horrified Drizzt threw his scimitars to the ground and reached over his left shoulder, drawing forth Charon’s Claw and taking it up before him in both hands.

“The sword,” he said again, figuring it all out.

All of it.

The suspicions, the images of Entreri and Dahlia locked in passion, the urge to kill Artemis Entreri…

With a growl, the drow leaped to the side. He started to yell and didn’t stop as he repeatedly bashed Charon’s Claw against the corridor wall.

“Drizzt,” Dahlia gasped and started to go to him, but Entreri came up and held his arm before her to block her in place.

“The sword is telling him to kill me,” Entreri quietly explained.

Drizzt played out his energy, his rage, scraping and chipping stone but not marring the fabulous red blade of Charon’s Claw at all. Still, he was making his point to the sentient and wicked weapon: He was the master, Charon’s Claw the servant.

Finally, he stopped, and with a last look of disgust at the sword, he slid it back into its scabbard across his back. He retrieved his scimitars and similarly slid them away, then looked to his companions, looked past his companions, to the carnage in the corridor, a trio of bodies that could easily have been four.

He let a few heartbeats pass, to let the tension dissipate a bit, before meeting the gaze of Artemis Entreri. He didn’t apologize-what would be the point? — but he offered a nod to assure the man that he, and not Charon’s Claw, was back in control.

Artemis Entreri returned his sword and dagger to their holsters.

Behind Drizzt, the woman warrior whom Dahlia had overwhelmed groaned and rolled, and even tried to prop herself up on her elbows. Dahlia was there at once, delivering a strong kick to the shade’s side, and as the woman tried to curl up, Dahlia stomped down hard on the back of her neck, pinning her in place.

“If you move again, I will shatter your neck,” the deadly elf warned.

Drizzt came up beside and grabbed Dahlia by the arm, trying to pull her away. She resisted at first, but the drow looked at her plaintively and tugged more insistently.

As soon as Dahlia lifted her foot from the woman’s neck and stepped back, and before Drizzt could reach down to assist the captive shade, Entreri shoved past him and grabbed the warrior by the hair and arm, and roughly yanked her from the floor.

“Your sword?” he asked, noting her gaze, for indeed, her long sword lay on the floor not far away. “Yes, do retrieve it, that I might finish what should already have been done.” With that, the assassin shoved the shade to the side and back to the ground, near her weapon.

She looked at the weapon, then back to Entreri, who had drawn his weapons once more and stood waiting, and beckoning.

Drizzt watched the spectacle in dismay, a telling reminder to him of who this man, Entreri, was, or he had been at least. Lost in the nostalgia of better days, had he deceived himself? Had he allowed that which he wanted so badly, a return to a time and place, to blind him to the reality of Artemis Entreri?

He glanced the other way, to his other companion, who watched eagerly, and with a grin. And Drizzt understood that expression; Dahlia wanted to see this fight, wanted to see Entreri cut the shade to pieces.

Drizzt swallowed hard and reminded himself that Dahlia had good reason to hate the shades, and that these were his sworn enemies-they had been in the tunnel looking for him and the sword, no doubt.

“Pick it up,” Entreri said to the shade. “Pick it up and stand. My companions will stay to the side. You against me, and if you win, perhaps they will let you go.”

“Hardly,” Dahlia remarked, drawing a smirk from Entreri.

Drizzt caught the silent exchange between the two. They were of like mind, and following desires that he did not, could not, share.

Once again, an image of Entreri and Dahlia in an embrace, a passionate kiss, flashed through his mind, but he growled it away and answered Charon’s Claw with a wave of anger and an image of his own: a deep pit, its sides swirling with the rush of powerful water elementals, its bottom the fiery maw of the primordial.

“I know you, Barrabus the Gray,” the shade said, still on the floor and propped again on her elbows. “I will not fight you.”

“Coward.”

The shade shrugged. “I know you. I once fought beside you.”

Entreri tilted his head, regarding the woman more closely, but Drizzt saw no flash of recognition there.

“As I know this elf, Dahlia, champion of the Thayans.”

“Then you know that you will die here,” Dahlia replied, and Drizzt winced once more. He almost wished that Entreri would just step over and end this torment, for the shade and for him.

He stepped over instead, between Entreri and the shade, and he reached his hand to her. When she took it, he helped her to her feet, her weapon still on the ground.

“Your patrol came looking for us,” Drizzt said.

“No,” the shade said, and shook her head.

“Do not lie to me or I will let my companions have you. Answer my questions and-”

“And what?” the shade and Entreri asked together.

“And Drizzt will let her go,” Dahlia said with a mocking chortle.

“Will he, then?” asked Entreri.

“I will,” Drizzt said to the shade directly. “Answer my questions and run away the way you were going, the way from which we came.”

The shade glanced past Drizzt to Entreri, then to Dahlia. “I do not believe you,” she said, looking back directly into Drizzt’s lavender eyes.

“It’s all you have,” he calmly answered. “And it’s not so difficult a question. Your friends are in the entry cavern to Gauntlgrym, it would seem. I would know their numbers.”

“You ask me to betray Herzgo Alegni, as Barrabus betrayed him!” the woman snapped.

“Alegni is dead!” Dahlia declared, and the woman looked at her curiously, as if her statement was purely ridiculous.

“Speak that name again and I will bash in your skull,” Dahlia promised, and spat at the shade’s feet.

Strangely, that threat seemed to bolster the shade. She stood taller, as if accepting her fate, and so, no longer afraid. Drizzt had seen this before, indeed had felt such feelings of his own in times past, and so he understood that his moment to garner any useful information was fast passing.

“You cannot escape,” the shade said to him.

“They’re in the cavern,” Drizzt replied.

The shade smiled and nodded. “They’re waiting for you, and if you don’t come to them, they will find you. And kill you.”

Her smile was sincere, Drizzt understood, for she had gone past the point of fear and fully into acceptance. His thoughts spun-he recalled the cavern, the stalagmites and hanging pillars, so much like Menzoberranzan. He considered the layout of the place, the shallow underground pond and the beach before the great wall of Gauntlgrym.

“Go, then,” Drizzt said, stepping aside and motioning back down the tunnel, not toward the surface as he had first indicated, but back the way the Shadovar patrol had come. “Go back to your dark friends and deliver my word. They will not find us. They will not retrieve this foul sword. There are many tunnels in the Underdark. They are the ways of the drow, not the Netherese.”

The shade stared at him. He could feel Entreri’s glare burning into his back.

“You will not do this,” Dahlia said.

Drizzt turned a stern look her way, a silent warning.

“Go,” he said to the shade, though he didn’t look back at her. “I will not offer again.”

The shade started tentatively, looking around at the three, not knowing from which would come the killing blow. She eased past Drizzt, who turned to stare at Entreri, then sidled past the assassin.

Entreri moved to the side a step, turning as the shade passed, and Drizzt pointedly moved up as well, putting himself between the assassin and the shade.

She broke into a run, nearly tripping over the corpse of one of her companions.

“I have witnessed many stupid things from you, drow,” Entreri remarked, moving around behind Drizzt and bumping him as he did, “but nothing more foolish than this.”

Drizzt slowly turned, first to see Dahlia, who stared at him hatefully, as if he had just betrayed her, then, as he came around to see Entreri… Entreri, who had retrieved Taulmaril from the floor, and who had only bumped into Drizzt to cover the fact that he had taken an arrow from the quiver on Drizzt’s back!

The assassin drew back on the bowstring, leveling the shot at the shade, who was still in easy range.

And Drizzt couldn’t get to him in time.

“Entreri, no!” the drow said, and he was pleading as much as commanding.

Entreri did pause at that, at the curious timbre in Drizzt’s voice, likely, and he glanced over.

“Do not, I beg,” said Drizzt.

“That she will go and warn her allies of our approach?” The assassin ended with a growl and set his sights on the fleeing shade woman once more.

“Kill her,” Dahlia agreed.

“That she will go and tell them we discovered their ambush,” Drizzt replied.

Entreri did let fly, and Drizzt winced, but the assassin had turned the bow a bit, and the lightning arrow flashed in the corridor, cracking into stone with a solid retort, and the uninjured shade yelped in surprise and scrambled along.

Artemis Entreri stood straight and stared at Drizzt, recognizing that the drow had something in mind, some plan that would use the fleeing shade to their advantage. He tossed the bow back to Drizzt, never blinking, never unlocking his stare from that of Drizzt.

More passed between the pair in that moment than the potential practicality of sending the shade on her way. Drizzt saw something else in Entreri’s eye.

And Drizzt understood something quite profound: Artemis Entreri had trusted him.