Gauntlgrym

A DROW AND A DWARF

YE KNOWED IT WAS HIM ALL ALONG,” BRUENOR CONCLUDED WHEN IT became obvious that Drizzt intended to follow the thief’s trail all the way to the City of Sails.

“I knew it was a drow who raided our camp,” Drizzt said.

“I telled ye that.”

Drizzt nodded. “And I knew he wanted us to follow him. The trail he left was far too obvious.”

“He was in a hurry,” Bruenor argued, but Drizzt shook his head. “Got to be him, then,” the dwarf muttered, and when Drizzt didn’t reply, he added, “Wantin’ us to follow him, eh?” He glanced over at Drizzt, who nodded.

“He won’t be wantin’ that when I find the rat,” Bruenor declared, and shook his fist in the air.

Drizzt just smiled and turned his thoughts away as Bruenor launched into a typical tirade, promising all sorts of pain upon the thief for stealing his treasured maps.

And Drizzt was certain the thief was Jarlaxle, or someone working for him. Jarlaxle, above all others, knew of Bruenor’s passion for Gauntlgrym, and whoever had raided the camp had come specifically for those maps, had waited until the exact moment when they were most vulnerable.

But why? Why would Jarlaxle reach out to them in such a manner?

Drizzt considered the mountains towering over them to the north, and expected that they would make Luskan the next day, probably before the midday meal.

They camped that night by the side of the road, their rest undisturbed until very early in the morning, when the ground began to tremble and shake.

“The way is blocked,” a voice said from the side, and Dahlia spun, surprised indeed.

“Jarlaxle,” she mouthed, though she couldn’t really see the drow in the shadows of an alley.

“Your scouts tell you truthfully. The way to Gauntlgrym is no more, from crumbling Luskan at least.”

Dahlia moved slowly, trying to gain a view of the dark elf. It was indeed Jarlaxle’s voice-melodic and harmonious, as would be expected of an elf, particularly a cultured dark elf-but the truth of it was that Dahlia only guessed it was he. She hadn’t heard Jarlaxle’s voice in a decade, and even then…

“I know you,” the voice said. “I know your heart. I trust you will find a proper use for this when the opportunity presents itself.”

“What do you mean?” the elf asked, and when no reply came forth, even after she asked again, Dahlia rushed down the alley to the spot where she estimated the drow had been standing.

On an empty, overturned cask she found a cloth, and on the cloth, a small box, and in the small box, a glass ring.

She closed the box and wrapped it in the cloth before stuffing it into a pouch, and all the while, she glanced up and down the alley, surveyed the roofline, searching for some clue, any clue.

“Jarlaxle?” she whispered again, but it occurred to Dahlia then just how ridiculous her hopes truly were, just how much she had allowed herself to fantasize about something so very unlikely.

She rushed out of the alley and down the garbage-strewn street toward the inn and her room, thinking then that her encounter had more likely been with an agent of Sylora.

For the Thayan sorceress would ever test her, and never trust her, and woe to Dahlia if ever Sylora found her loyalty to be less than absolute.

No matter how many times they approached Luskan from that direction, Drizzt and Bruenor always paused on the same hill south of the city’s southern gate to take in the view of the harbor. Though other ports like Waterdeep and Calimport had far larger docks, longer wharves, and always had more ships in port, nowhere was there to be found such a diversity of sailing vessels as in the so-called City of Sails. They might have been the dregs of the Sword Coast-pirates, smugglers, and only the most daring merchants-ruffians who outfitted their vessels ad-hoc, with sails of stitched clothing and maybe a catapult that had been designed for a castle’s tower strapped onto the aft deck for good measure.

Coastrunners bobbed against the shallower docks, with rows of oars standing skyward. Single-mast schooners and square-sailed caravels dominated the second tier of docks, with many more open-moored farther out, and a trio of three-mast vessels, large and wide, were moored near the outermost docks.

The City of Sails indeed-though Drizzt couldn’t help but note that though those ships were in port, there were fewer in all than he remembered.

“Our friend better be here,” Bruenor grumbled, stealing the moment. “And better have me maps. Every one, and don’t ye think I’ll not know if even one’s missin’!”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Drizzt promised.

“We’ll know now,” Bruenor growled in reply.

“Jarlaxle, tomorrow,” Drizzt promised, and started down the road toward the city. “The hour is late. Let us find an inn for the night and shake off the dirt of the road.”

Bruenor started to argue, but stopped short and shot Drizzt a glance and a grin. “The Cutlass?” the dwarf said, almost reverently, for what a grand history those two, particularly Drizzt, had with that establishment.

It was in the Cutlass where Drizzt and Wulfgar had first met Captain Deudermont of Sea Sprite, one of the most legendary vessels ever to sail out of Luskan. The Cutlass was where a broken Wulfgar had gone when, returned from the Abyss, he found himself mired in the mud of self-pity and strong drink. Delly Curtie, for a while Wulfgar’s wife-and thus, Bruenor’s daughter-in-law-had been a barmaid there, working for the jovial and well-informed…

“Arumn Gardpeck,” Bruenor said, recalling the tavernkeeper’s name.

“A good man with a fine tavern,” Drizzt agreed. “Aye, when the wealthy came to Luskan in the years before the pirates took hold, they stayed in the far fancier inns higher on the hills, but they would have found better lodging in Arumn Gardpeck’s beds.”

“Not to doubt,” said Bruenor. “And who was that skinny one, with the rat face? The one what stole me boy’s hammer?”

Drizzt could easily picture that miscreant sitting on a stool at Arumn’s bar. He was always there, always talking, and he had an unusual name, Drizzt remembered, a silly one.

But the drow couldn’t quite recall it, so he just shook his head.

“Arumn’s kin still got the place, or so I hear,” Bruenor recalled. “What was that girl’s name, then? Shibanni?”

Drizzt nodded. “Shivanni Gardpeck. Claims to be Arumn’s great-great-great grandniece, I believe.”

“Think it’s true?”

Drizzt shrugged. All that mattered to him was that the Cutlass remained. Shivanni may or may not have been Arumn Gardpeck’s descendent, but if she wasn’t, she had to have come from a similar bloodline, and if she was, then fat Arumn would be glad to know it, and to know her.

The pair crossed through the open gate, many eyes turning their way. There were only a scant few guards manning the walls and none visible on the towers. They might have been soldiers of one or another of the High Captains who ruled Luskan, but looked more like thugs serving themselves first-a ragtag band of knaves bound by no uniform, no code, and no notion of the common good of Luskan.

The city gates were always open. If Luskan began discriminating about who they let in, they would probably find the city deserted in short order. Even the scurvy dogs who wandered in through the gates paled under the glow of angelic halos compared to the rats who crawled off the ships that put into port there.

“ ’Ere now, a dwarf an’ a drow,” one man said to the pair as they passed under the gate.

“Be ye more impressed by yer eyes, or by yer sharp mind that sorted such a sight?” Bruenor shot back.

“Not a usual pairing, is all,” the man said with a chuckle.

“Give him that much, Bruenor,” Drizzt said so only the dwarf could hear.

“And what is the news in Luskan, good sir?” Drizzt asked the man.

“Same news as any day,” the guard replied, and he seemed in good spirits. He stood and stretched, his back making cracking sounds with the effort, and took a step toward the pair. “Too many bodies cloggin’ the waterways, and too many rats blocking the streets.”

“And pray tell, what captain do you serve?” asked the drow.

The man looked wounded, and put his hand over his heart. “Why, dark skin,” he replied, “I’m livin’ to serve the City o’ Sails, and nothin’ more!”

Bruenor shot Drizzt a sour look, but the drow, far better versed in the ways of the chaotic and wild town, smiled and nodded, for he had expected no other answer.

“And where’re ye off to?” the guard asked. “Might I be directin’ ye? Ye lookin’ for a boat er an inn in particular?”

“No,” Bruenor said flatly, aiming it, obviously, at both questions.

But to the dwarf’s wide-eyed surprise, Drizzt answered, “Passing through. For tonight, good lodging. For tomorrow, perhaps the road north.” He saluted and started away, then said to Bruenor, and not quietly, “Come, Shivanni awaits.”

“Ah,” the guard said, turning them both back to regard him. “Good ale to be found in Luskan, to be sure. Boatload o’ Baldur’s Gate pale brew come through just two days ago.”

“To be sure,” Drizzt answered, and he led Bruenor away.

“When’d ye get a waggin’ tongue, elf?”

Drizzt shrugged as if he didn’t understand.

“He might’ve knowed the name.”

Again, Drizzt shrugged. “If Jarlaxle wishes to find us, why would we make it difficult for him?”

“And if he ain’t lookin’ for us?”

“Then we would never have known it was a drow that raided our camp, and would never have found a trail so obvious leading us here.”

“Or the trail’s a fake. Leadin’ us here so we’re just thinking it’s Jarlaxle.” Bruenor nodded repeatedly as he considered his own words, as if he had just had a moment of epiphany.

“In that case, too, I would speak with Jarlaxle, for any so sending us in this direction surely concerns him as well. And a fine ally he will make, in that case.”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted.

“We have no enemies here that I know of,” the drow said. “We walked in openly, with nothing to hide and no ill intent.”

“Now ye’re friends to the High Captains, are ye?”

“Assuming there are any left, I’d kill every one of them if the opportunity presented itself-if they in any way resemble those who defeated Captain Deudermont, decades ago,” Drizzt admitted.

“I’m sure they’d be glad to hear that.”

“I don’t intend to tell them.”

“A dwarf an’ a drow, just like ye asked,” the guard said to the alluring woman who had hired him to watch for that very thing.

The woman, an Ashmadai serving in Dahlia’s band, nodded. “This very day?”

“Not an hour past.”

“You are certain?”

“A dwarf an’ a drow,” the guard deadpanned, for how could anyone get something like that wrong?

The woman licked her lips and pulled out a small purse. She turned as she opened it, shielding its contents from the guard’s eye, then turned back to toss him two pieces of gold.

“Which way did they go?”

The guard shrugged. “Didn’t bother to watch ’em.”

The Ashmadai sighed and gave a little growl of frustration. With a disgusted look and a shake of her head, she started away.

“Why would I, when I know right where they’re goin’?” the ruffian asked.

The woman spun, hands on hips, glowering at the grinning man. She waited a few heartbeats, but he said nothing. “Well?” she prompted.

“Ye paid me to watch the gate for a dwarf an’ a drow. I watched the gate and saw yer dwarf an’ drow.”

She narrowed her eyes threateningly, but the guard appeared unconcerned.

With another sigh, the woman grabbed up her purse.

“One piece o’ gold for the name o’ who they’re goin’ to see,” the guard said, grinning all the wider. “Two’ll get ye the name o’ the place. Three, how to get there.”

She tossed two gold coins at his feet. “All of it,” she said.

The guard considered the coins, shrugged, and accepted the bargain.

“The skinny one,” Bruenor prompted, leaning on the bar, his gray and orange beard lathered with foam.

Shivanni Gardpeck stood opposite him with one hand on her hip and the other tapping at her chin. She was an attractive woman, nearing forty, full-bodied with considerable curves and long dark brown hair that bunched thickly at her shoulders. She didn’t remind Drizzt of her distant uncle Arumn in her appearance, but her mannerisms bespoke a family resemblance.

“A long way removed, was Arumn,” she mumbled.

“A long time ago,” Bruenor agreed. “But the tales came down through yer family?”

“To be sure.”

“The tale o’ Wulfgar’s stolen hammer?”

Shivanni nodded and chewed her bottom lip as if the forgotten name was right there, begging release.

“Ah, by the beards o’ gnomes,” Bruenor lamented when the woman held up her hands in defeat. He lifted his flagon and drained it, belched for good measure, and nodded to Drizzt that he was ready to go to their room.

Halfway up the stairs, the pair were stopped by Shivanni’s call. “I’ll remember it, don’t you doubt!” she said.

“Rat-faced man with a hammer that weren’t his own,” Bruenor called back, a light tone in his voice as if the conversation had brought him back across the decades to a place he far preferred. Indeed, his voice was filled with relief, and he grinned widely and threw up his hands, as if all the world had been made right.

Two hours later, Bruenor was deeply sunk into a chair and snoring loudly. Drizzt contemplated whether or not he should disturb his friend, but he knew that if he let Bruenor sleep, the dwarf would likely awaken him in the middle of the night, grumping about a grumbling belly.

Bruenor stopped his snoring with a grunt and a chortle, and opened one lazy eye to regard the dark-skinned hand touching his shoulder.

“It’s time for evenfeast,” Drizzt said, quietly but forcefully, for it appeared to him that Bruenor was about to bite his hand.

The dwarf shrugged him away and closed his eyes again, smacking his lips as he settled down deeper into the chair.

Drizzt considered the slight for just a moment, then walked around to the other side of the chair, bent low, and whispered into the dwarf’s ear, “Orcs.”

Bruenor’s eyes opened wide and he hopped from his chair in a great explosion of movement, lifting right into the air before landing in a ready, fighting crouch.

“Where? What?”

“Forks,” Drizzt said. “It has been a long time since you’ve used one.”

Bruenor glowered at him.

“Evenfeast?” Drizzt suggested, motioning toward the door.

“Bah, but our talk earlier put some old thoughts in me mind, elf, thoughts what turned to dreams. And ye stole ’em.”

“Memories of Wulfgar?”

“Aye, me boy and me girl.”

Drizzt nodded, knowing full well the comfort such dreams could impart. He offered his friend a sympathetic smile, and bowed in apology. “Had I known, I would have gone for my meal without you.”

Bruenor waved that away with one hand and rubbed his grumbling belly with the other. He grabbed up his one-horned helm and plopped it on his head, slung his shield over his shoulder, and took up his axe.

“Don’t need no damned fork,” he said, showing Drizzt his axe, “and if it is an orc, we’ll chop it up to bite-sized pieces, don’t ye doubt.”

Something struck Drizzt as odd by the time he and Bruenor were only halfway down the stairs to the common room. Shivanni wasn’t behind the bar, which was unusual though hardly suspicious, but it was more than that, something he couldn’t quite sort out. They continued down and found a small table off to the side of the bar, with Drizzt continuing his scan of the room and its patrons.

“Does something seem wrong to you?” he quietly asked his companion as Bruenor sorted himself out, resting his axe against one chair and carefully resting his shield against the axe, so he could comfortably sit.

The dwarf glanced around, then turned back, clearly perplexed.

Drizzt could only shake his head, but then his discomfort registered more clearly: there were no elderly people in the tavern, and no unshaven and grubby-looking characters who looked like they’d just climbed out of a rum bottle and from the deck of a pirate ship.

There was something too… uniform, about the tidy crowd.

“Keep your axe close,” Drizzt whispered as a barmaid-one he didn’t recognize, though, since he was so rarely in Luskan of late, he didn’t know them all-came over.

“Well met,” she greeted.

“And to yerself, lass, and what might yer name be?” Bruenor asked.

She smiled and turned her head demurely, but not a hint of a blush came to her cheeks, Drizzt noted. And he noticed, too, in the sweep of her half-turn, that she bore a painful-looking burn scar between her left breast and collar bone.

Drizzt again scanned the room, focusing on one tall man bending across the way, the movement opening a gap between the man’s shirt and breeches, and revealing a similar scar. Then he spotted a woman seated at a table directly across the way, and from his angle, he could see the neckline of her dress, and enough under it to note a scar-not a scar, a brand-identical to the barmaid’s.

He turned his attention back to Bruenor and the barmaid, to find the dwarf ordering a pot of stew and a bottomless flagon of Baldur’s Gate Pale.

“No, hold,” Drizzt interrupted.

“Eh? But I’m hungry,” Bruenor protested. “Ye waked me up and I’m hungry.”

“As am I, but we’re late for our meeting,” Drizzt insisted as he stood.

Bruenor looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“I am confident that Wulfgar will have venison aboard his boat,” Drizzt reassured the dwarf, and Bruenor looked at him with blank confusion for just a moment before catching on.

“Ah, so’d be me hope,” the dwarf said and rose to his feet.

As did everyone else in the Cutlass.

“Interesting,” Drizzt said, his hands resting on his scimitar hilts.

“Be reasonable, drow,” said the barmaid. “You have nowhere to run. We wish to speak with you two, privately, and in a place of our choosing. Hand over your weapons, and less of your blood will be spilled.”

“Surrender?” Drizzt asked casually, and with a hint of a snicker.

“Look around you. You are sorely outnumbered.”

“Yerself ain’t met me friend, I see,” Bruenor interjected, and he grabbed up his axe and banged it against his shield to set the shield firmly in place on his arm.

The barmaid tossed aside her tray and stepped back, but not quick enough. Drizzt’s weapons came out in a flash, Twinkle’s blade knifing in to stop at the side of her neck.

“I’m bettin’ first blood spilled to be yer own,” Bruenor told her.

“It matters not,” the woman replied with a strange smile. “You’ll not get to Gauntlgrym, whatever my fate. You can abandon that thought peacefully, or we will ensure that fact by killing you. The choice is yours.”

Bruenor and Drizzt exchanged glances, and nods.

The drow’s scimitar flashed, but away from the woman’s neck, tearing the shoulder of her barmaid’s dress and dropping the fabric down off her shoulder. She reacted instinctively, grabbing for the material, and just as Drizzt had anticipated. He stepped forward and punched out, smashing Twinkle’s pommel into her face, the impact throwing her to the floor.

All around the room, from under tables or cloaks, the others pulled their weapons, mostly curious-looking scepters, half staff, half spear.

Bruenor swept his axe across down low, bringing it under his table, hooking it by the leg, and with a great heave and follow-through, sent the table flying at the opponents standing nearby, driving them back.

“Fight or flee?” he called to Drizzt as he rushed behind his friend to intercept a trio coming in.

He saw his answer in Drizzt’s eyes, simmering with eagerness-and in the dark elf’s actions. The drow rushed forward over the fallen, squirming barmaid to meet the swings of the next two in line with a series of powerful parries and twisting counters. In the blink of an eye, Drizzt had both men reversing direction, back on their heels and working furiously to keep up with his darting scimitars.

Bruenor lifted his shield arm high, accepting the heavy blow of an Ashmadai’s clubbing scepter. He swept his axe across under that upraised arm, but the human woman managed to duck out of reach, and two tiefling warriors to her right rushed in at the apparent opening.

But Bruenor was too seasoned and too crafty to make such an obvious gaffe. His swing was genuine, and he added to its weight and momentum purposely, lifting up on the ball of his leading left foot and spinning a perfectly-timed full pivot to bring his shield right back in alignment with the new attackers. The foaming mug held strong against the stab of a sharpened scepter end, and it took only a slight lift for the dwarf to effectively deflect an overhead club from the other.

He went forward, driving his shield and the tieflings’ weapons up and out as he did, barreling right under his uplifting shield. Bruenor launched a second slash with his axe, which brought blood, catching the thigh of the tiefling on the far right, and brought a howl of pain as the half-devil fell back and over, holding his torn leg.

Bruenor ran right over him, kicking him in the face for good measure. As he passed, the dwarf skidded down low, sliding right under a table, and there he turned and stood powerfully, lifting the table with him and throwing it and its many mugs and plates, both full and empty, back in the faces of the remaining two pursuers.

With a violent flurry, Drizzt rushed between his own pair of Ashmadai, a lumbering half-orc and a dark-skinned human who might have been Turmishan. Both fell aside with multiple cuts on their arms and torsos, shielding themselves defensively though the drow looked past them, eagerly wading into the next enemies in line.

Drizzt knew that speed was his ally. He and Bruenor had to keep moving ferociously to prevent an organized line of attack against them, and that was just the way he liked it.

He ran to a table, jumped up on it, jumped off again, blades flashing with every step, cracking against staff and spear, slicing clothing and skin. Howls and screams, cracking wood and breaking glass marked his passing, like a black tornado cutting a swath of absolute destruction. More than once he abruptly stopped and spun, defeating pursuit with a flurry of parries and thrusts.

On one such turn, Drizzt brought both his blades in from opposite directions and at different angles, scissoring the thrusting spear with such force that he tore it from his pursuer’s grasp. The woman threw her hands up, expecting an onslaught of scimitars, but Drizzt knew that those behind him were closing fast.

He jumped and set his feet on chairs, one left and one right, then sprang up again, tucking a tight back flip as he wound his way over the pursuer, who barreled right under and past him and inadvertently stabbed his own ally. That fact hadn’t even set in, Drizzt knew, by the time he landed behind the stumbling man, Icingdeath sweeping across to slash the back of the man’s legs, just below his buttocks.

How he howled!

Drizzt whirled, slashing long and wildly to keep the others at bay; no less than five of the enemy had formed a semi-circle around him. He set himself low, unwilling to commit and ready to react, forcing them to make the first move.

He managed to glance at Bruenor, to find his friend standing atop the bar, similarly surrounded.

“Die well, elf!” Bruenor called.

“Always as intended!” Drizzt yelled back, not a hint of regret in his voice. But before either could put words to action, another voice rose above the din.

All eyes went to the door, where a most unusual creature had entered the Cutlass, an elf woman dressed in black leather, high boots, and a short, seductively angled skirt, and with a wide hat and a metallic walking stick.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“Dwarf and a drow!” one man yelled back.

“Not these two!”

“A dwarf and a drow-how many could there be?” another man yelled back at her.

“I can think o’ one other pair,” Bruenor interjected.

“That would be… us,” came a voice from the staircase-Jarlaxle’s voice-and all eyes turned that way to see a second drow and dwarf on the stairs.

“A drow and a dwarf, a dwarf and a drow, a hunnerd times better’n a fox and a cow! Bwahaha!” Athrogate added with unbridled enthusiasm.

The cultists cast about for guidance, obviously caught way off their guard. “Surrender, then, all of you!” one of them demanded. “You are not to return to the beast!”

“The beast?” Jarlaxle replied. “Oh, but we are-and yes, King Bruenor, he is referring to your coveted Gauntlgrym. I have quite a tale to tell to you.”

“When we’re done smashin’ some fools, he means,” Athrogate roared, and he came over the rail in a great leap, morningstars spinning out to the sides. He was fairly high up, and so, though his plummeting charge was a bit of a surprise, the cultists below had time to move aside.

Athrogate landed flat on the top of a table, sending plates and glass flying and flattening the wood straight to the floor, where he landed with a great grunt. Anyone doubting that dwarves could bounce would have had those doubts removed, though, as Athrogate, spitting bits of food, various beverages, and broken ceramic and glass, rebounded right back to his feet. Even more astonishingly, he kept his morningstars somehow spinning at the ends of their respective chains.

“Bwahaha!” he roared, and the Ashmadai backed off in shock. Only for a moment, though, then a pair charged at him furiously.

Both were airborne a heartbeat later, one launched sidelong by the weight of one enchanted morningstar-Athrogate having enacted the magic of that one to coat the head with oil of impact-and the other hooked by the ball and chain around one arm as he tried to block. A twist, a turn, and a throw by the dwarf sent the poor cultist into a flying somersault, at the end of which he, like the dwarf, crashed through a table.

“Bwahaha!”

“Go,” Drizzt bade Bruenor.

Those two dwarves had fought side by side before, and to great effect. Without the slightest hesitation, using Athrogate’s distraction to his advantage, Bruenor charged across the floor, kicking chairs and tables as he went, sweeping glasses and plates, furniture and utensils with his battle-axe, launching them into any and every nearby Ashmadai, just adding to the confusion.

Athrogate saw him coming and likewise cut a path of devastation, seeming more than happy to get beside King Bruenor again for a good row.

Ashmadai rushed the bottom of the staircase, but Jarlaxle paid them no more heed than to toss the feather from his wide-brimmed hat down at them. That feather quickly transformed into a gigantic, flightless bird. The beast cawed, its huge call befitting its stature, echoing off the tavern’s wall. It began beating its small wings furiously, its long, thick neck snapping its powerful beak down at nearby enemies, its heavy legs stomping and cracking the floorboards.

But Jarlaxle wasn’t watching. He tossed the feather and forgot about it, knowing that his dependable pet would buy him all the time he needed. His focus was on the front door, on Dahlia, the last to enter. He tried to get a gauge of the elf woman, looked for a hint of disconnect in her movements. He replayed her words and tried to picture again her face as she’d spoken them. Did her expression match her words?

Jarlaxle reminded himself that it didn’t matter as he drew out his favorite wand and leveled it Dahlia’s way.

The fight was on in full below, with Bruenor and Athrogate battling right below him, and Drizzt weaving into that devastating dance of his across the way, yet Dahlia didn’t yet move to react. Perhaps that was because there were still more than a dozen of her minions between her and the enemy, or maybe it was an indication of something else, Jarlaxle dared to hope.

But the choice was hers, not his.

He spoke a command word, releasing the power of the wand. A thick green-colored glob of some unspeakable semi-liquid flew forth from the tip, sailing down the stairs and across the room to slam against Dahlia, who seemed to disappear under the splatter of the goo as it fastened itself to the doorjamb and wall.

A second blast was on the way before the first had even connected, further burying Dahlia, completely covering her so that anyone looking to the door for the first time at that moment would have never known an elf woman had stood there a moment before.

Jarlaxle stared at the blob on the wall, and wondered.

Below him, at the base of the stairs, his giant bird shrieked in protest, and an Ashmadai howled in pain as the bird repaid him for the stab of his scepter.

Jarlaxle’s grin disappeared as he turned his attention to Drizzt. He watched the fury of the drow unleashed. Jarlaxle had seen Drizzt in action many times before, but never like that. The ranger’s blades dripped with blood, and his swings were not so carefully measured.

As in the battle with the ash zombies in the forest, Drizzt Do’Urden fell into himself, let all of his frustration, fear, and anger curl in on itself. Now he was the pure fighter, the Hunter, and it was a role he had cherished for decades, since the Spellplague, since the unfairness and callous reality of the world had shattered his delusions, and his sense of calm.

Bruenor used the tables as missiles, hooking them with his axe or his foot and throwing them into the faces of nearby enemies. For Athrogate, the furniture was merely a nuisance and nothing more, something to smash and overturn, all for the pure love of destruction.

But for Drizzt, the chairs and tables, the long bar and the railing, were props, and welcomed ones. His dance would have been far less mesmerizing and effective on an empty, flat floor. He charged to the nearest upright table, leaped atop it, then sprang off it so gracefully that not a glass, mug, or platter moved. He touched down, one foot on the back of a chair, the other on the seat, his momentum carrying him forward, driving the chair over backward.

He reversed his weight and the chair moved back upright, bringing the drow backward to avoid the stab of an Ashmadai’s weapon.

Then he reversed again, quickly, shifting the chair over backward and walking to the floor with it, leaning back as he went to avoid that same Ashmadai as he retracted his thrust and swung his scepter at Drizzt’s head like a club.

It went over the bending drow at the same time his left arm straightened, Twinkle stabbing hard into the man’s gut. As Drizzt rushed past, he retracted and sent the scimitar in a quick spin, slashing the bending man’s leg and sending him howling and thrashing to the floor.

By that time, Drizzt was atop the next table in line, where he leaped and tucked, landed and kicked, and stabbed out repeatedly, scoring hit after hit on the several enemies who had surrounded him. They stabbed and swung with abandon, but the drow was always one leap, one duck, one leg-tucking hop ahead of them. One by one, they fell away, wounded.

But more rushed in to take their places, as they seemed to have the drow trapped.

Seemed.

But Drizzt saw the oncoming explosion, and as Bruenor and Athrogate roared toward the table, Drizzt rushed to the side and leaped away, a somersault that cleared the gathered Ashmadai. All of them watched Drizzt, trying to turn and catch up to him, when the two dwarves plowed through their ranks, shield and axe and twin morningstars working as extensions of the real weapons, the dwarves themselves.

The table flew and the Ashmadai scattered. The dwarves roared and plowed on, burying all enemies beneath the weight of their charge.

And Drizzt was back to his run and his dance, his feet and hands a blur. He slashed both his blades down to the left, batting aside a thrusting scepter. Then back to the right they went, both reaching out in that arc just enough to stick an Ashmadai woman as she departed, sending her, too, falling aside.

Drizzt skidded to a stop, seeing another potential enemy coming toward him: Jarlaxle’s bird. The drow went into a flurry with his blades, more show than effect, and he grinned wickedly as the two Ashmadai in front of him watched that flourish too long to sense the monstrous diatryma coming in at them from behind.

The drow darted away, and the Ashmadai turned to follow. One got pecked on the skull with bone-shattering force, and the other found himself flying in an unintended direction as a three-toed foot slammed him on the hip with tremendous force.

What had been twenty against two, then twenty against four-five with the diatryma-had turned much more even. And with their leader lost in a pile of whatever-that-was, the remaining Ashmadai suddenly seemed more intent on getting away to fight another day than in continuing along a losing course.

And Jarlaxle’s bird chased them right out of the Cutlass and down the street.

“Surrender!” Drizzt demanded of an enemy he cornered opposite the door.

He accentuated his demand with a devastating flurry that knocked her weapon left, right, and up in the blink of an eye. She was obviously overmatched, and easy to kill, should the drow choose that course.

But she was Ashmadai.

She moved as if to drop her weapon, her other hand held open before her-and she attacked instead.

Or tried to.

She leaped forward with a scream and a mighty thrust, but hit nothing but air, overbalancing and hardly even aware of the fact that the drow had sidestepped. The woman stiffened as a scimitar entered her side. It slid up toward her lung then stopped and twisted. Her scepter fell to the floor. She stood up on her toes, teeth clenched, hands grabbing at empty air.

Drizzt pulled his blade back out. The woman turned to regard him, grasping at her torn side. Her mouth moved as if she meant to curse him, but no sound came forth as she sank to one knee then eased herself down to the floor where she curled and clenched.

Drizzt scanned the room, just in time to see Bruenor and Athrogate slam into each other, shoulder to shoulder, as they tried to exit the tavern. They jostled for a moment before Athrogate demurred, shoving the dwarf king out first and quickly following.

Behind them came Jarlaxle, his expression deadly serious as he looked back at Drizzt.

“What?” Drizzt asked of him.

Jarlaxle’s eyes shifted just a bit to regard the woman who lay crumpled beside the ranger. He shook his head and sighed, but continued on. He didn’t follow the dwarves out of the tavern. Instead, he stood facing the goo planted on the wall just to the side of the door.

“She’s suffocating,” Drizzt said as he walked over. He had once been the victim of that oozing web, himself, and knew well its deadly effect.

“You would prefer to kill her with your blades, I suppose,” Jarlaxle flippantly replied, and Drizzt stared at him hard.

Jarlaxle brought his hands down with a snap, his magical bracers depositing a dagger in each. He looked at Drizzt, again grim-faced, and snapped his wrists again, elongating the daggers into long, narrow-bladed swords. With an uncharacteristic growl, he drove one sword into the goo and through it to hit the wall on the other side. He retracted the sword and studied its blade, still clean save a bit of the greenish substance no bigger than a fingernail.

“No blood,” Jarlaxle said, and shrugged at Drizzt. He lined up the blade again, this time more to the center of the mass, a certain hit. And again, he glanced at Drizzt with an eyebrow raised.

The ranger didn’t blink.

Jarlaxle sighed and lowered the blade. “Who are you?” he asked, staring at Drizzt.

Drizzt met his accusing glare with an impassive look.

“The Drizzt Do’Urden I know would have called for mercy,” Jarlaxle said. He pointed about the room with his sword, to the Ashmadai fallen to the drow’s scimitars. “Shall we call a priest?”

“That they will be healed and attack me once more?”

“Who are you?”

“No one who has ever made a difference,” Drizzt replied.

The apathy, the self-pity, and mostly the callousness hit Jarlaxle like a wall of foul acid. A sneer erupted on his face and he spun back to the glob on the wall and stabbed hard with his sword, then harder with the second, and back and forth in an outraged flurry, over and over, so that anyone caught behind it was surely dead.

“Impressive,” Drizzt said. He flipped his scimitars over in his hands, aligning them perfectly with their sheaths, and slid them away. “And you decry my lack of mercy?”

“Look at them!” an angry Jarlaxle shouted at Drizzt, presenting the bloodless blades before him.

“How did you know?” Drizzt asked.

“I know everything that goes on in Luskan.”

“Then ye’re knowing where me maps might be,” said Bruenor, coming back in through the door.

Jarlaxle acknowledged him with a nod then looked around at the fallen Ashmadai, some of whom were squirming and kneeling, and with more than one watching the trio at the door.

“We have a lot to discuss,” the drow mercenary said. “But not here.”

“I would know the fate of Shivanni Gardpeck before I leave,” Drizzt replied.

“She’s safe,” Jarlaxle assured him. “And will return soon with a host of soldiers.” He paused and eyed Drizzt. “And priests to tend to the wounded.”

“She knew there would be such a battle in her tavern this night?” Drizzt asked, looking around at the devastation.

“And with enough payment for her troubles to put things right, I promise,” said Jarlaxle.

“Put things right?” Drizzt retorted with a snicker to show how ridiculous he found that notion. He led Jarlaxle’s gaze across the room, over the destruction, the carnage, the wounded, and the dead.

The two drow locked stares then, each trying to scrutinize the other, each seemingly trying to make sense out of the nonsensical.

“Can coin unwind time?” Drizzt whispered.

Jarlaxle’s gaze became the more judgmental, a look of frustration and disappointment, even anger on his face-one that only heightened as Drizzt remained so stoic and unblinking.

“Damned bird’s chasin’ ’em right to the docks and into the water!” Athrogate announced then, breaking the moment. The two turned to see the dwarf bobbing up beside Bruenor at the Cutlass’s door.

“Come,” Jarlaxle bade them all. “We have much to discuss.”

He snapped his wrists up instead of down, and his swords became daggers, which he flipped up into the air. They hit the ceiling and stuck fast.

“What about her?” Bruenor asked, motioning to the blob on the wall.

“We shall see,” Jarlaxle replied.

With Athrogate leading, the four rushed away, sprinting down the street and turning into an alley. The shouts and calls of guards soon followed them. Jarlaxle flipped a portable hole from his hat and flattened it against the wall at the alley’s end.

Athrogate jumped through, and when Bruenor hesitated, the other dwarf reached back from the blackness, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him through as well. Drizzt jumped nimbly through after his friend, with Jarlaxle following, and from the other side, he pulled the hole from the wall, leaving it impassable, as it had been before.

So ended the pursuit, but the four kept up a swift, though not desperate pace back to Jarlaxle’s apartment.

“Ye give me back me maps!” Bruenor insisted as they came to the door.

Just inside the small but lavishly furnished flat, Jarlaxle reached to a side table and tossed Bruenor his stolen pack.

“All but one are in there,” Jarlaxle explained. “Perhaps they will lead to great treasures and mysterious places-adventures for another day.”

“All but one?” Bruenor growled.

“All but this one, good dwarf,” the drow explained, reaching into a drawer and producing a tightly rolled and tied parchment. “This one, which will lead to that which you most desire. Yes, King Bruenor, I speak of Gauntlgrym. I have been there, and though I cannot retrace my steps since the explosion collapsed the tunnels, I know where Gauntlgrym lies.” He brought the map up in front of him. “And this is the way.”

Bruenor fumbled for words. He looked to Drizzt, who just returned his shrug with a like movement.

The dwarf king looked back to Jarlaxle, licking his lips, which had gone dry. “I’m not for playin’ yer games on this,” he warned.

“No game,” Jarlaxle replied in all seriousness. “Gauntlgrym.”

“Gauntlgrym,” Athrogate said from the side, and Bruenor turned to regard him. “I been there. I seen the forge. I seen the throne. I seen the ghosts.”

That last proclamation had Bruenor, who had so recently met those very ghosts, sucking in his breath in a futile attempt to steady himself.

Drizzt looked at Bruenor with a look of some satisfaction then, but also an unsettling detachment.

Jarlaxle didn’t miss that last part, and he found to his surprise that it bothered him profoundly.