Charon's claw

INTERSECTION

Drizzt started around the corner, but fell back abruptly and turned to his companions, his expression one of concern and surprise.

“What?” asked Entreri, who was growing more impatient and agitated with every step. Even as he finished the question, though, he and Dahlia both understood the drow’s hesitance, for a wall of steamy fog rolled along the perpendicular corridor. The temperature in the area climbed dramatically, the air growing so humid that the greenish tendrils of the Hosttower above began to sweat and drip almost immediately.

“It is passable,” Drizzt informed them.

“Then go,” Entreri snapped back.

Drizzt continued to hold his position. He glanced around the corner again, and when he turned back, beads of sweat showed on his face.

“This tunnel continues to bend around the forge room,” Drizzt replied. “Perhaps there would be an easier way in.”

“Or a less obvious advance than the main corridor,” Dahlia agreed. Entreri started to argue, clearly wanting to be done with all of this, wanting to be done with everything, but when Drizzt held up his hand, the assassin went quiet, for he, too, had heard a distant rumble. On Drizzt’s motion, they backtracked quickly the way they had come, taking up a mostly concealed position some twenty strides back.

The unmistakable sound of an approaching force grew around them, then rumbled down the corridor against the rolling steam. The first forms, ghostly in the fog, crossed the corridor. Even before a couple happened out into their side tunnel, in clear view, the three companions understood the composition of the force. These were Shadovar, making directly for the forge room.

“We could have gone in before them,” Entreri whispered, his jaw clenched, the veins standing out on his forehead.

But both Drizzt and Dahlia, who knew the layout of the forge room, knew of the small archway and single tunnel leading to the primordial pit, understood the futility of that argument. Had they gone in, they would have had to flee immediately out another exit of the forge room, or would have surely found themselves trapped in the primordial chamber.

“We go in behind them, then,” Entreri said.

“We would never make it to the archway,” Dahlia replied, and though he didn’t know the specifics of what she might be talking about, her point was clearly made. “What, then?” he asked.

“We go past the steam corridor,” Drizzt suggested. “Let us learn the layout of this entire region, and learn it well. We’ll find our way in, but we can’t rush in there behind the shade forces and hold any hope of getting to our goal, to say nothing of getting back out.”

Even though that last part of the statement seemed to hold little persuasion to Entreri, Drizzt noted, the assassin didn’t argue. If they went in there and were stopped by the multitude of shades, Entreri would find himself right back in the position of Barrabus the Gray, or worse.

They had to wait a long while for the Shadovar forces to pass by, then they moved quickly, crossing the steamy corridor and moving with all prudent speed. Drizzt again took the lead, opening a wide distance between himself and his two companions. He dropped his hand into his belt pouch and quietly called out for Guenhwyvar again and again, hoping against hope that the Netherese forces had been foolish enough to bring her along, and that she would hear his call and appear to him. He thought of the strange woman he had met, with her enticing offer. Nay, not enticing, for in truth, Drizzt could not put a man, any man, even Artemis Entreri, back into slavery again, whatever his gain. He simply couldn’t do it. And in his heart, Drizzt knew that he wouldn’t get Guenhwyvar back that way, anyway. The trickster would never have willingly given the magnificent panther to him. He could not bargain in good faith with the Netherese.

He thought of the shadow gate he had seen in the forest. His answer lay there, he believed. He would have to go to the Shadowfell when he was done with this ugly business, when Charon’s Claw-and Artemis Entreri-was destroyed.

Flanked by Effron and Glorfathel, Herzgo Alegni glimpsed the forge room through a thick cloud of steam. Fires burned all around the place as the battle of the opposing elemental monsters raged.

“Destroy them,” he instructed his spellcasters.

“Not easily done,” said Effron.

“A slow process,” Glorfathel agreed.

“Bah, but I’ll be turnin’ the tide for ye,” said Ambergris from behind, and she pushed her way through the trio, even daring to shove past Alegni himself.

He looked at her curiously, too surprised to lash out, and more curiously still when he saw what the cleric held: a small jug of curious design. It seemed to be polished from one piece of wood, its thick neck offset from center, and stoppered with a large cork fastened to the decanter with a gold link chain. Circles and triangles of red and green ran around the circumference of the jug in a repeating, but hardly perfect, pattern, as if this item had been crafted by some village woman in a remote jungle.

Ambergris whispered something under her breath, talking to her magic item, it seemed, and she pulled out the cork with a loud popping sound. A few more words and a stream of water poured forth, splashing the floors before her.

“What is that?” Effron asked before Alegni could.

Glorfathel just laughed, having no definitive answer. “Always full of surprises is that one,” he explained. “It is why Cavus Dun so quickly accepted her.”

Ambergris continued to walk out from the doorway, her magical decanter spraying in wide sweeps before her. The others watching from just outside the room all gasped in unison as a large fire elemental rushed through the steam to meet her, reaching at her with flaming limbs.

The dwarf laughed at it. She had already fortified herself with resistance spells, and when the stream of water became a geyser, the weapon she carried proved effective. Ambergris staggered back a step just trying to control the powerful flow.

The elemental, too, staggered back, diminishing before their eyes as the geyser assailed its fiery core, cooling it, shrinking it.

The dwarf laughed all the louder.

“Where is the primordial?” Herzgo Alegni asked.

“Nearby, surely,” said Glorfathel.

“Get me to it,” Alegni ordered.

“Let’s hope we’re not too late,” Effron said.

Herzgo Alegni closed his eyes and opened his mind, and heard again the whisper of Claw, of the sword that was still very much intact. “We’re not,” he stated with confidence.

Thanks to the magical sprinklers of the curious tendrils above, the remaining water elementals, and the dwarf with her perpetual decanter of water, the Shadovar secured the forge room in short order. They couldn’t stop the occasional outbursts from the forges, or the appearance of fire beasts now and again, for they knew nothing of the sub-chamber that controlled the flow of primordial power.

They found the small corridor and the primordial pit, and soon enough, there stood Herzgo Alegni, Effron, and the trio from Cavus Dun. Like all who had entered this place, they lingered at the side of the pit, staring in awe at the swirling water and the rumbling of the godlike primordial from far below.

Other concerns did not allow them to linger, however, for they noted the second exit from the room, a small tunnel still glowing with streaks and puddles of red lava. “Newly cut,” Glorfathel remarked. “The work of the primordial, I would guess.”

“What happened here?” Alegni asked. “Did the dark elves do this as they retreated?”

“Perhaps this is why they fled,” said Effron. “They could not control this power.”

“But did they take the sword with them?” Glorfathel asked, and no one had an answer.

“Set a perimeter around the room,” Alegni ordered as he stared down this curious tunnel. It looked as if a ball of fire had just rolled through the stone, melting and disintegrating it as it went. “Secure the halls and corridors, and determine proper emissaries to send to find these unexpected dark elves. Let us determine their intent.”

“Ye’d bargain with drows?” Ambergris asked skeptically.

“If they have Claw, they will return it for a price, likely,” the warlord replied. “The drow don’t want war with us.”

“A hefty price,” said the dwarf.

Alegni stared hard at her and for a moment almost gave in to the urge to strike the annoying dwarf. But he calmed and let it go. She was speaking the truth, likely.

“Cross that small bridge,” Alegni told Afafrenfere. “Ensure that these are the only two exits from the chamber. I’ll take this room as my own for now, and you four shall remain with me.” He turned to Glorfathel and Effron. “Find other warlocks or sorcerers or some type of wizard who can help to secure the pit.”

“Secure it how?” Glorfathel asked. “There is a beast below beyond all of our power, Lord Alegni.”

“Secure its edge,” the warlord explained. “I’ll not have our enemies throw the sword over the side.”

“We mustn’t let them get near to the pit in the first place,” the elf insisted. “I know of a few potentially helpful dweomers against such an attempt, but we cannot secure it as you would demand, certainly.”

“Send scouts along this tunnel, then,” Alegni replied. “And we’ll make our camp right here, before the pit and the primordial. Let them come to us and let us be done with them.”

He would take all precautions, but Herzgo Alegni truly doubted that his enemies would come to him in that place. They had joined with, or been taken by, these other drow. Likely the latter, for these dark elves had been in this place for some time, judging by the work Alegni and his minions had seen in their charge through the lower levels. The expertly crafted and repaired, and purposely dropped stairwell alone showed that Alegni and his force had stumbled upon a determined dark elf settlement.

Had this curious ranger, Drizzt, known about that, he wondered, and not for the first time? Had Drizzt led the other two here to find reinforcements?

He turned to the dwarf as he considered the pressing question, for she had insisted that could not be the case. She claimed to know of Drizzt, quite a bit of his history, actually, since he had settled in a dwarven citadel near to her own place of birth. Drizzt would not willingly fall in with others of his race, she had assured Alegni. He was a rogue, an outcast, and his head would be a greater trophy than Claw even, in the eyes of the Spider Queen’s followers.

In that case, the dark elves, not Drizzt and his two companions, likely now had the blade, and likely had the three Alegni pursued, as well, either dead or wishing they were.

He hoped that was not the case, even if he could bargain to get back the sword and the three living prisoners. He wanted more than that. He wanted a fight.

He wanted to pay back the traitor Barrabus, and most of all, he wanted to defeat Dahlia yet again, to pull her into his grasp, battered and terrified.

Oh, that one he would pay back most dearly, he fantasized, and he looked at Effron as he did, crystallizing his hatred.

Drizzt, Dahlia, and Entreri moved quietly and cautiously, but with all considerable speed, for time was against them, they knew. The Shadovar force had entered the forge room, and so the shades controlled the small tunnel to the primordial chamber, and it was a force the three of them couldn’t hope to fight their way through.

Perhaps the Menzoberranyr would return to battle the Shadovar, perhaps not. To Drizzt, that point was almost moot in any case. They had fooled the dark elves for the time being, but it would not hold, he feared. And what might happen to him and his companions if those dark elves learned of his true identity?

To Drizzt’s thinking, then, they would follow this corridor around the forge room and see if they might have a way to slip in and quickly be done with the sword. He didn’t think it likely, for though he hadn’t fully explored the region the last time he was there, he was fairly confident that there were no secret tunnels that he and the dwarves of Icewind Dale had missed.

What, then?

They would leave, and with all speed. Entreri would have to wait for his freedom from Charon’s Claw. Perhaps they would travel to Waterdeep to find better guardians for the weapon. Perhaps they would learn of another way to be rid of it-maybe they would ride a merchant ship far off the Sword Coast and drop it deep into the cold ocean. Perhaps they would leave this place and return at a later date for a second try at the primordial-though, given the arrival of the drow in force, and now the advent of the Shadovar in Gauntlgrym, Drizzt didn’t see how that might happen without an army marching beside them. The ranger put it all out of his mind. He had to focus on the immediate situation if they hoped to survive.

That situation changed abruptly as Drizzt rounded a steamy corner to find an unexpected intersecting tunnel, one crossing both left and right. He stopped and looked both ways, trying to make sense of it, for this was no ordinary corridor, nor was it of any conventional construction, nor was it very old.

Dahlia and Entreri caught up to him, and both seemed equally at a loss as they stared into the red-veined tunnel, which seemed as if it had just been melted through the stone.

“Could it be the beast?” Dahlia asked.

“It’s some mighty magic, and some fire,” Entreri replied.

“A small side eruption?” Drizzt asked, for surely he noted lava among the darker stone. One orange pool of it glowed brightly not far away, and even as the three looked on, it cooled to black.

“We caught a bit of luck,” Entreri said, and he started in to the right, which seemed the logical direction heading back toward the primordial.

Drizzt grabbed him by the shoulder almost immediately, though, and held him back. “The floor won’t be consistent or safe. Let me lead. My sword will protect me if my foot breaks through a cooling crust and into the molten lava.” He rolled Icingdeath in his hand and put its blade into the nearby lava, which cooled all the faster as the frost brand stole its heat energy.

“The other way,” Dahlia whispered behind them, and both turned, and both figured that the elf had lost her direction sense in the dark tunnels.

But Dahlia wasn’t talking about their course to the primordial chamber, she was warning them of movement in the other direction. Far down the tunnel there came a flash of light. It seemed as if the fiery creature digging the tunnel had swerved back to the other side to flicker into view.

Drizzt sheathed Twinkle, but held Icingdeath as he started off, quick-stepping all around to find the most solid footing for his following friends. More than once, his foot broke through thin crust and tapped into still-hot lava, but Icingdeath protected him and he quickly readjusted to mark out a path for his less-protected companions.

He feared that they were wasting too much time, and almost told his companions to go back to the intersection and wait for him to scout out the movement up ahead.

Almost.

He picked up his pace as the corridor swung a bit to the right, then slowed greatly when he came back to the left, and saw the tunneler, a fiery monstrosity that appeared as if some wizard had conjured a fire and earth elemental to the same spot, joining them as one melded monster. And there was the wizard, a drow, moving along right behind the beast.

Drizzt put an arrow to Taulmaril, unsure of how to proceed.

Dahlia and Entreri came up beside him.

“Go back the other way,” Entreri whispered.

“Bregan D’aerthe?” Drizzt whispered back. Perhaps they had found a powerful ally, or at least someone who could better inform them of the path ahead of them.

Drizzt stepped out from the wall and gave a short whistle.

The drow ahead stopped and spun around, and Drizzt held up his hand and flashed the signal of alliance. But to his surprise, the wizard cried out and fell away, and waved frantically for his companion elemental to turn back and attack.

“Bregan D’aerthe!” Drizzt called out, but it hardly seemed to matter.

“Wonderful,” Entreri remarked.

Drizzt growled against the cynicism and stepped out, drew back, and let a lightning arrow fly into the chest of the approaching monstrosity. The creature staggered just a bit, but then came on. Drizzt fired again and again, but he had no idea of whether his enchanted arrows were having much of an effect on this fiery stone beast.

“Run,” Entreri said.

But Drizzt didn’t. He kept up his line of arrows, and when he heard the wizard behind the beast beginning the chanting of a spell, he angled his bow and began skipping arrows off the side walls.

A line of fire appeared from behind the elemental, rushed right through the beast, and swept down at Drizzt and his companions.

“Run!” Entreri called more frantically from behind, and this time, Drizzt heeded the assassin-but not in the direction Entreri had intended. Icingdeath in hand even as he held his bow, trusting in the frost magic to protect him from the bulk of the fire and minimize the flames as they passed him by, for the sake of his companions, Drizzt charged. He got off one more arrow, aiming for the elemental’s face, trying to blind it or distract it, then flung the bow and his quiver back toward Entreri and Dahlia. In the same motion, he drew out his second scimitar, and sped on even faster, closing the ground quickly and, at the last instant, cutting right to the wall and flattening out to shinny past the beast.

It swung out at him with a heavy and glowing limb, and Icingdeath slashed at it and bit at it hard-and not just with its fine diamond edge, but with its magic, its enchanted hatred of creatures of fire. The elemental roared, like boulders against boulders, and thrashed around as the powerful scimitar grabbed at its very life essence, and Drizzt had to resist the urge to charge in closer and strike again and again to bring the elemental down.

He went past it instead, still using the wall of fire to cover his movements, and burst free at the mage. He came through the end of the fire just strides from the drow, who shrieked in surprise and lifted his hands, thumbs touching, and sprayed forth a fan of fire.

This, too, Icingdeath minimized. Those fires stung Drizzt, but they did not truly hurt him, nor did they slow him, and he raced past and the mage ducked aside. He was too close to effectively stab or cut, but he punched out with his left, the pommel of Twinkle crunching into the drow wizard’s face and staggering him backward. He fought hard to hold his balance as Drizzt fell back over him-and surely Drizzt could have finished him then, for the wizard clearly wasn’t prepared for an enemy to so quickly circumvent his powerful pet.

Drizzt rushed in close, preventing any somatic spellcasting movements. Again the wizard flung a fan of fires at him-and Drizzt noted that the drow focused on a curious ring as he did-and again Drizzt’s scimitar minimized the effect. He closed further and loosed a barrage of punches at the drow, driving his pommels all around the wizard’s head and chest.

He had to be done with this quickly, he knew, and he attacked all the more furiously, expecting that monstrous elemental to come charging in from behind.

“Run!” Entreri said to Dahlia, and he grabbed her hard as she started off after Drizzt. “Run!”

“No!” she shouted, then both jumped as the bow and quiver bounced down in the diminishing line of fire before them.

“Grab it!” Dahlia ordered.

“I’m no archer!”

The elemental issued an earthquake roar and thrashed around, then charged at them.

“Grab it!” Dahlia yelled again, setting her long staff out before her. “Just shoot!” Spitting curses, Entreri took up the bow, grabbed an arrow from the quiver, and let fly at the approaching monster. The arrow barely got away before Dahlia’s magical staff swallowed it.

“What are you doing?” Entreri yelled at her.

“Just shoot!” she yelled back through chattering teeth.

He did, and again, and Kozah’s Needle ate the bolt, and arcs of lightning magic danced all around the metallic staff, stinging Dahlia’s hands as she stubbornly held on. She rushed forward and thrust the end of the staff against the charging fiery behemoth, and in a great flash of lightning, the monster was thrown back a step. Another arrow almost hit the beast, but Dahlia’s staff got it at the last instant. She struck again, a lesser blow, but one that stole the monster’s momentum. They worked in rhythm, Entreri putting arrows into the air and Dahlia’s weapon absorbing them and redirecting the magic against the elemental with brutal, enhanced strikes. Shards of stone and bursts of flame accompanied each hit as the elf warrior chipped away at the elemental’s magical form. Never did Dahlia more need that extended reach, for she had to stay out of the sweeping radius of those explosive, rock and fire arms.

She had to be perfect in her dance and in her strikes.

But still the lethal behemoth came on, and Dahlia and Entreri had to give ground.

Drizzt had gained a great advantage with his desperate charge, catching the wizard by surprise, and he was experienced enough against spellcasters to understand that he needed to press that advantage through to a swift victory.

The mage flailed, trying to block, but the blows came too swiftly and from too many angles. One got through cleanly to crunch the mage’s skull, and he staggered back against the wall, waving his hands out defensively before him.

And calling again on the ring, Drizzt recognized, and across came Icingdeath, cutting that hand in half, fingers flying. The mage howled and crumbled, and Drizzt spun and circle-kicked him hard in the side of the head, laying him low.

The ranger spun back the other way, just in time to see the flash and hear the report of thunder again as Dahlia struck the behemoth and Kozah’s Needle released its lightning charge. He took a quick step but pulled up short, for there before him lay the severed piece of hand, four fingers intact, and a ruby band on one. Reflexively, the drow dropped and pulled off the ring, hardly thinking as he slipped it onto his own finger.

He felt strange. The ring sang to him as if in accord with his scimitar… but there was something more.

Drizzt staggered under the weight of that magical burden. He eyes blurred as if he was looking at the world suddenly through a haze of fire.

And in his mind, he heard the elemental’s confusion, its anger, its desire to destroy and consume, and a sense of particular hatred

… for him.

“Keep shooting!” Dahlia prompted, and Entreri did, one after another, each missile being eaten by the magical staff. She kept thrusting it forth; she had to, or the magical energy would throw her aside.

The staff ate an arrow, then a second as she jabbed at the beast. But the beast turned and ran away.

The staff ate a third. Dahlia tried to call out for Entreri to stop, but the lightning energy had her jaw clenched so tightly, she couldn’t speak.

The staff ate a fourth.

A fifth.

She had to slam it down and release the blast, but the beast was getting away.

The beast was charging Drizzt!

Dahlia threw Kozah’s Needle like a spear. It hit the elemental with a tremendous explosion, jolting the whole of the corridor with such power that it lifted Dahlia right into the air, to fall back down and stumble.

And the elemental swung back and charged, and hardly seemed hurt. “Oh, by the gods,” Entreri mumbled, thinking that he and Dahlia were surely doomed. He put up Taulmaril and pulled back for one last shot, one last desperate and angry act of defiance.

And he saw a form in the air behind the elemental: a leaping ranger, cape flying behind him, one scimitar grasped in both hands, up high over his head.

Drizzt slammed into the beast, plunging Icingdeath through its back, the magical, fire-hating blade diving deep into the creature’s core being, the very magical energy that gave it form.

How it thrashed and swung around, Drizzt holding on desperately, legs flying wildly.

But he held on, and Icingdeath feasted.

The elemental spun and thrashed in frenzy.

And then it died and melted in on itself, a pile of smoking rock and lava in the middle of the corridor.

“Well, that was fun,” Dahlia remarked as Drizzt pulled himself off the pile and staggered back a couple of steps.