Gauntlgrym

A DARK ROAD TO A DARKER PLACE

BAH, I LET IT OUT AND I’LL PUT IT BACK!” ATHROGATE GRUMBLED AS HE roughly collected the plates from their breakfast.

Three days out from Luskan and moving swiftly, Jarlaxle was certain they would arrive at their destination-the cave that would lead them to Gauntlgrym, at least-before the sun set.

The night had been punctuated by occasional tremors, but more ominous still, Mount Hotenow-the mountain’s second peak, blown away in the first explosion years before-was once again visible. And it grew by the day, swelling under the mounting pressure of the awakening primordial.

“Are ye to beat yerself up on that every heartbeat o’ every day?” Bruenor asked Athrogate, helping break the camp.

Athrogate looked at him with an expression somewhere between wounded and self-loathing.

“What?” Bruenor growled at him.

“Ye’re a Delzoun king,” Athrogate said. “I know I’ve spent most o’ me life pretending that don’t matter nothing to me, and most times it don’t… beggin’ yer pardon.”

Bruenor offered a slight tip of his head in forgiveness.

“Done a lot o’ things I’m not thinking’d be seen as proper for a Delzoun dwarf, Moradin knows,” Athrogate went on. “Been a highwayman-err, highwaydwarf, and some o’ me own kin’ve felt the thump o’ me morningstars.”

“I’m knowing yer history, Athrogate. What with Adbar and all.”

“Aye, and I’m thinking that when me time’s done here in this world-if it e’er happens with this damned curse on me head-that Moradin’s going to want to be talking to me, and not all he’s got to say’s to be friendly.”

“I ain’t a priest,” Bruenor reminded him.

“Aye, but ye’re a king, a Delzoun king, with royal blood back to Gauntlgrym. I’m thinking that’s to mean something. And so ye’re the best I got to help me keep me promise. I let the damned thing out, and I’ll put it back. I can’t be fixin’ what I done, but I can be making it hurt the less.”

Bruenor considered the tough, black-bearded dwarf for a bit, taking a measure of the sincere pain that shone in Athrogate’s eyes-something so unusual for that particular dwarf. The dwarf king nodded and put the plates back on the ground, then stepped over and patted Athrogate on the shoulder.

“Ye hear me good,” Bruenor said. “I know yer tale o’ Gauntlgrym, and if I weren’t believing that ye was tricked to pull that lever, then know that I’d’ve split yer head wide with me axe already.”

“I ain’t the best o’ dwarfs, but I ain’t the worst.”

“I know,” said Bruenor. “And I know that no Delzoun, not a highwayman, not a thief, not a killer’d be wanting to wreck Gauntlgrym. So ye quit beating yerself up on it. Ye did right in having Jarlaxle get me and Drizzt, and did right in vowing to go back and put the beast away. That’s all Moradin can ask of ye, and more’n meself’s asking o’ ye.” He patted Athrogate’s strong shoulder again. “But know that I’m glad to have ye with me. Just meself and three elfs and I’m thinking I’d throw meself into a chasm if we found one!”

Athrogate looked at Bruenor for just a moment, then, as the words digested, burst out in a great “Bwahaha!” He patted Bruenor hard on the shoulder, and explained, “Not afore this and not after it, I’m thinking, but know that for this journey, me life’s for ye.”

Now it was Bruenor’s turn to once more put on a puzzled expression.

“For this trip, to Gauntlgrym, to the home of our father’s father’s father, then ye’re me king.”

“Yerself follows Jarlaxle.”

“I walk aside Jarlaxle,” Athrogate corrected. “Athrogate follows Athrogate, and none else. Except this time, just this time, when Athrogate follows King Bruenor.”

It took Bruenor a while to digest that, but he found himself nodding in appreciation.

“Like ye’re other friend o’ old,” Athrogate went on. “The one what throws himself on anything he can eat and half o’ what he can’t.”

“Pwent,” Bruenor said, trying hard to make sure his voice didn’t crack, for he hated to admit it, even to himself, but he sorely missed the battlerager.

“Aye, the Pwent!” said Athrogate. “When we fought them crawly things up by Cadderly’s place, when we fought the Ghost King, cursed be the name, ’twas the Pwent aside me. Might a king be knowin’ a better shield dwarf?”

“No,” Bruenor said without the slightest hesitation.

Athrogate nodded and let it go at that, managing a grin as he went back to packing up the camp.

Bruenor, too, went to his chores, feeling a bit lighter in the heart. The conversation with Athrogate had reminded him how sorely he missed Thibbledorf Pwent, and it occurred to the old dwarf king that he might have been kinder to Pwent in all those years of loyal service. How much had he taken the tough and loyal dwarf for granted!

He looked at Athrogate now in that light, and scolded himself for his sentimentality. He wasn’t Thibbledorf Pwent, Bruenor told himself. Thibbledorf Pwent would have died for him, would have happily thrown himself in the path of a spear flying for Bruenor’s chest. Bruenor remembered the look on Pwent’s face when he’d left his friend in Icewind Dale, the abject despair and helplessness at the realization that there had been no way for him to continue beside his king.

Athrogate would never, could never, wear such an expression. The dwarf was sincere enough in his expression of regret for the events at Gauntlgrym, and likely meant every word in his pledge of fealty to Bruenor-for that one mission. But he was no Thibbledorf Pwent. And if it came to that moment of crisis, that ultimate sacrifice, could Bruenor trust Athrogate to give his life for the cause? Or for his king?

Bruenor’s thoughts were interrupted by some movement off to the side of the camp, and through the trees, he saw Jarlaxle and Dahlia talking and pointing to the south.

“Eh, Athrogate,” he said when the other dwarf moved near him. When Athrogate looked his way, Bruenor nodded his chin toward the couple. “That elf there with Jarlaxle.”

“Dahlia.”

“Ye trust her?”

Athrogate came up beside Bruenor and replied, “Jarlaxle trusts her.”

“Ain’t what I asked.”

Athrogate sighed. “I’d be trustin’ her a lot more if she weren’t so damned mean with that stick o’ hers,” he admitted. When Bruenor looked at him curiously, he clarified. “Ah, but don’t ye doubt that she’s a mean one. That stick o’ hers breaks all different ways, into weapons I ain’t ne’er seen afore. She’s fast, and with both hands. Meself, I can swing me flails pretty good, left and right, but she’s more’n that. More akin to yer dark friend, in that her hands work as if they’re two different fighters, if ye get me meanin’.”

Bruenor’s expression grew even more puzzled. He had never noted anything like humility from Athrogate before.

“I fought yer friend, ye know,” Athrogate said. “In Luskan.”

“Aye. And what’re ye sayin’? That this one, this Dahlia, would be beating Drizzt square up?”

Athrogate didn’t answer outright, but his expression showed that he believed exactly that, or at least, that he harbored serious doubts about the outcome of such a fight.

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “So ye’re afraid o’ her?”

“Bah!” Athrogate snorted right back. “I ain’t afraid o’ no one. Just, I’d be thinking Dahlia less a threat if she weren’t so damned nasty.”

“Good for knowin’,” Bruenor said, and he lowered his voice when he noted Jarlaxle and Dahlia fast approaching.

“We are not alone,” Jarlaxle announced when he neared. “Others are about, likely seeking the same cave as we.”

“Bah, but how’d they be knowin’ about it?” Bruenor asked.

“The Ashmadai at least are all over the Crags, I’d bet,” Dahlia replied. “Sylora knows the approximate location of Gauntlgrym.”

“We’re nowhere near the mountain,” Bruenor replied, somewhat harshly. “Going in from the far side…”

Dahlia’s eyes narrowed for a just a moment, and Bruenor recognized that he’d hit on something there, which was confirmed when Dahlia turned to Jarlaxle.

“Sylora suspected I would go after the primordial, now that we know it’s awakening,” the drow explained. “That is why she sent Dahlia and the others to Luskan-to confirm, and to stop us.”

“By now, she knows that failed,” Dahlia said. “Szass Tam’s minions are possessed of various magical means of communication.”

“And she’d think yerself dead,” Athrogate reasoned.

“No more,” Bruenor replied, and again his voice was thick with suspicion. “If they’re here, they’re watching us, and they’re watching Dahlia.”

The elf woman nodded, but didn’t appear pleased by that prospect. That only put a smirk on Bruenor’s face.

“So ye’re a traitor now, and to be punished if they’re catching ye,” the dwarf reasoned.

“It gives you pleasure to say that?” Dahlia asked.

“Or ye’re a double-traitor,” Bruenor said. “And maked us think ye’d maked them think yerself was killed to death in the fight.”

“No,” Jarlaxle said before Dahlia could.

“No?” Bruenor echoed. He dropped the pack he was holding and drew his axe from off his back, slapping it across his open palm.

“Ye don’t want to be doin’ that,” Athrogate warned, his voice more filled with concern than any threat.

“Listen to your hairy friend, dwarf,” Dahlia said, and she sent her walking stick in an easy swing, which brought it across her open palm so that she was holding it similarly to Bruenor with his axe.

Bruenor did relax at that, mostly because a dark form slipped silently out from around a tree behind Dahlia.

“Lady, ye can’t help but expect a bit o’ suspicion, now can ye?” Bruenor replied, and smiled disarmingly. “Ye come to us for a fight, and now we’re to think yerself on our side?”

“Had I joined the fight in the Cutlass, your mission would have ended there, good dwarf,” the elf warrior replied. “And you can tell that to your drow friend who is standing behind me.”

Behind Dahlia, Drizzt stood up straight, and in front of her, Bruenor’s face twisted up at her bravado.

“Telled ye,” Athrogate muttered at Bruenor’s side.

It occurred to Bruenor then just how young this elf female was. He hadn’t really thought of that before, since everything had been such a jolt and a rush from the moment he and Drizzt had entered Luskan. But she showed it. She stood before a dwarf king, and with a legendary drow warrior behind her, and not a hint of worry showed on her face.

Only someone quite young could feel so… immortal.

She had never experienced loss, was Bruenor’s initial thought, and couldn’t comprehend its possibility.

He studied her more carefully for a few moments, though, and saw through the calm confidence just enough to realize that he was probably way off the mark with that last thought. More likely, Dahlia had experienced loss, great loss, and didn’t care if that was again a possibility. Perhaps her bravado even invited it.

Bruenor glanced at Athrogate, thinking the other dwarf’s warning about Dahlia quite prescient at that moment.

She was dangerous.

“If you’re all so anxious for a fight, you’ll find one soon enough,” Jarlaxle remarked, obviously trying to break the tension.

Despite her outward confidence, Dahlia wondered if she’d played her hand correctly. She stared at the dwarf a few moments longer, trying to rid herself of the nagging notion that the crusty old warrior saw right through her.

She dismissed that concern out of hand. Dahlia had no time for that.

She turned to find Drizzt leaning easily against a tree, his weapons sheathed, his forearms resting on them with his hands crossed in front of him.

“Do you share your friend’s concern?” she asked.

“The thought has occurred to me.”

“And has it found root?”

Drizzt looked past her to Bruenor before offering a smile and answering, simply, “No.”

Dahlia’s stare grew intense, and Drizzt matched it. Once again, as it had just been with Bruenor, it seemed to her as if one of her companions was trying to see right through her. But she had her footing back-thanks to Drizzt’s last answer. She eased her walking staff down beside her and leaned on it, but didn’t relent with her stare, didn’t blink, didn’t allow the legendary warrior, Drizzt, any sense that he’d gained the upper hand.

But neither did Drizzt blink.

“We should be on our way,” Jarlaxle said from the side, and he pointedly walked between the two, breaking their line of vision.

“Did you notice our adversaries?” Jarlaxle asked Drizzt.

“Coming from the south,” the ranger replied. “I noted several groups.”

“Focused?”

“Searching,” Drizzt replied. “I doubt they know our exact location, and I’m certain they’re oblivious to the caves we sighted to the east.”

“But are those the right caves?” Jarlaxle asked. “Once we enter, we can expect our enemies to seal us off.”

A long and uncomfortable silence followed.

“We move quickly,” Dahlia said at length, and unexpectedly, for all thought that Drizzt, who had been extensively scouting the area, would make the call.

“Bah, but yer friends’re trying to flush us, and ye’re leaping from the grass afore their huntin’ dogs,” Bruenor argued.

But Dahlia was shaking her head with every word. “They’re not trying to flush us. They know for certain that we’re here,” she explained, turning back to Drizzt. “You said there were several groups.”

Drizzt nodded.

“Sylora Salm is in a desperate struggle with the Netherese in Neverwinter Wood,” Dahlia explained. “She has few Ashmadai to spare. If she’s sent more than a handful to the Crags, then she’s confident we’re here.”

“She wants us to lead her to the cave,” Bruenor grumbled.

“She would rather none of us even reach the cave,” Dahlia replied without turning back to him. “All she desires is that no one interfere with the primordial.”

“Would she not wish to aid in aiming the beast’s outburst?” Drizzt asked. “To ensure the catastrophe she craves.”

“There is malevolence in the primordial,” Dahlia replied. “It is not an entirely indifferent force, and not entirely unthinking.”

“There is some debate about that,” Jarlaxle replied, but again, Dahlia shook her head.

“How precise was its first attack? The easy and nearest target…” she reasoned. “Had it blown to either the west or the east, few would have been killed. No, it sensed the life in Neverwinter, and buried it.”

“There’s life in Neverwinter again,” Bruenor said.

“That would be a victory for Sylora,” Dahlia answered, finally turning to regard the dwarf. “But not her preferred outcome.”

“Luskan,” Jarlaxle reasoned.

“The primordial has had a decade to test its prison,” Dahlia said, “to recognize the magic that held it, to feel the residual power of the Hosttower, to perhaps send minions along the tendrils to better locate the city.”

“So Sylora believes that the beast will facilitate her goals without her aid,” Drizzt interjected, and when Dahlia and the others turned to regard him, he added, “The longer we delay, the more we play to her strength.”

Dahlia couldn’t suppress her grin, glad for the support-support that conveyed a measure of trust not only in her reasoning, but in her sincerity.

“Our best choice is to be aggressive,” Dahlia said, nodding.

So, too, did Drizzt nod, and so it was decided.

Dahlia sprinted down the side of a ravine, leaping from stone to stone. The ground was uneven and she realized she was moving dangerously fast-but he was beating her. And Dahlia didn’t like to lose. Particularly not with Ashmadai zealots down below in the small canyon, with battle waiting to be joined.

She and Drizzt had come over the high ridge after doubling back to flank the Ashmadai pursuit, their goal to sweep down on the distracted cultists from on high. To the northeast, the dwarves and Jarlaxle had dug in, and Drizzt and Dahlia had barely crested the canyon side when the shouts of the approaching devil-worshipers echoed off the stones.

Without hesitation, the pair had leaped away, but Drizzt had quickly outpaced Dahlia, sprinting ahead with amazing grace-grace Dahlia believed she could match-and even more amazing speed. His feet seemed a blur, fast-stepping forward, leaping from side to side, picking a path that Dahlia might follow, but certainly not at that pace.

So she had taken a steeper route, but still Drizzt moved ahead of her. She simply couldn’t believe it.

A silver streak flashed out of the brush down below and to the side. Not only was the drow running at an incredible pace, he was shooting that fabulous bow of his as he went.

Dahlia put her head down and ran on, concentrating on merely finding a solid place to put her feet as she quick-stepped through one particularly uneven stretch. She would get down there right beside him, if not ahead of him, she told herself.

Then Dahlia realized that she no longer had any choice in the matter, that she had let her pride cloud her judgment. She realized to her horror that she couldn’t slow down if she wanted to, that if she didn’t simply keep throwing one foot out in front of the other, she would stumble and skid down the rest of the slope on her face.

She crashed through some brush and tried desperately to grab on, but the plant came free in the loose soil and Dahlia continued on her barreling way. And that way led to a sudden drop, she realized, as she neared a stony channel some ten feet deep or more, and a like distance wide.

Dahlia didn’t even think as she came to the edge. Purely on instinct, she ducked her head and thrust her long staff down below. She kicked off as she planted the end and somehow managed to secure her grip enough on the top end of that staff to cartwheel over and across the channel. With perfect muscle control, Dahlia came right over and back to her feet on the other side of the channel, and managed to wipe the shocked look off her face almost immediately when she noted Drizzt down below, scimitars drawn, staring at her in disbelief.

Dahlia winked at him to reinforce the notion that the gymnastics had been a part of her plan from the beginning, and as she pulled the staff up behind her, she broke it fast into her flails and ended her cartwheel with a spinning move that had her new weapons immediately into the flow.

Much to the chagrin of an Ashmadai cultist, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere to charge in at her.

From a wider opening to the north, Drizzt was surprised to see Dahlia cartwheeling over the narrow chasm, gracefully inverted and coming to her feet with easy and complete balance. Aside from the dramatic and effective move, which was remarkable enough, Drizzt was shocked to see that the elf warrior had so nearly paced him on his descent-his movements were magically enhanced by the anklets he wore, after all.

He watched her go spinning above and past, heard the sound of battle engaged right after, and wanted to scramble up the side of the channel to join her, or at least to witness her fighting.

But the drow had his own problems pressing in on him, with more than a dozen enemies trying to flank him left and right, and he set his focus accordingly. He rushed for the narrower channel, speeding ahead of the Ashmadai and the stones they threw at him. He spun and backed farther in as he entered, the bottleneck of the narrow ravine forcing his pursuers to stumble, practically falling over each other to get at the drow.

It was one against three instead of one against a dozen, and those three found themselves hindered by the vertical stone walls, which reduced the warriors on each end of the line to more straightforward thrusting attacks rather than wide swings.

Drizzt backed quickly, and when the three took the bait and lunged forward, he reversed his movements and darted in, his scimitars sweeping out wide and down, behind the thrusting spears. With hardly a twist, Drizzt deflected those spears inward, nearly crossing them before the Ashmadai in the middle.

The drow disengaged his blades immediately, and in the jumble of his three enemies, he struck hard and fast, rushing forward and stabbing left, right, and center. The Ashmadai tried to cover, tried to retreat, tried to keep some semblance of coordinated defense. But Drizzt was too quick for them, his blades avoiding their parries with ease, scimitar tips poking and stabbing.

The three backed into the next Ashmadai in line and their tangle only worsened.

Relentlessly, Drizzt drove on.

One Ashmadai managed a coordinated throw at the drow, the spear flying in for Drizzt’s chest. Before Drizzt could move to block, something landed beside him, distracting him and costing him his defense.

A flail flashed before him, cleanly picking off the spear, and the drow was relieved indeed to find Dahlia standing beside him.

She noted his relief with a wink, and side by side, they pressed forward, whirling blades and spinning flails.

Their enemies knew Dahlia, and some called out her name, and their voices were filled with fear. Ashmadai poured back out of the narrow ravine and into the wider clearing.

“Retreat?” Drizzt asked Dahlia, for that seemed the obvious course. With their enemies stumbling and disoriented, they could run out the other end of the ravine, run toward their companions, who neared the cave openings.

But Dahlia’s smile showed a different intent.

That grin! So full of life, and full of fight, reveling in the challenge, wholly unafraid. When was the last time Drizzt Do’Urden had seen such a grin? When was the last time Drizzt Do’Urden had worn such a grin?

His thoughts flashed back to a lair in Icewind Dale, when he had accompanied a young Wulfgar against a tribe of verbeeg.

The sensible move was retreat, but for some reason he didn’t quite comprehend, Drizzt dismissed that out of hand and rushed out beside Dahlia into the wider clearing, where they could be flanked, surrounded even, by their enemies’ superior numbers.

They didn’t fight side by side, really, nor did they move back to back. There seemed no organization at all to Drizzt and Dahlia’s dance. The drow let Dahlia lead the way, and merely reacted to her every turn and leap.

She charged ahead, and he cut across her wake to protect her flank. She cut in front of him, and he went out behind her the opposite way then stopped fast and reversed his course so that when Dahlia stopped her movement, he came out beyond her, extending their line of devastation far to the side.

And both of them kept their weapons working fast through every step, blades and flail spinning and reaching out to cut, to sting, to drive back their enemies. The Ashmadai shouted at each other constantly, trying to coordinate some defense against the duo, but before anything could begin to form, Drizzt and Dahlia moved in some unexpected manner or direction, so that the whole of the fight, both sides, seemed nothing more than a series of impromptu reactions.

He crept along the branch, as silent as a hunting cat. He saw his prey below him, oblivious to his presence. Barrabus the Gray was shocked to discover that his daring plan had seemingly worked.

He knew that the Thayan champion, the dangerous Dahlia, had gone out to the north, with her many Ashmadai, and knew that Sylora’s eyes had turned that way, too, toward the rising mountain. Barrabus wondered if he might get past the wards and guards, if he might get nearer to this ultimate enemy.

If he could be rid of Sylora Salm, perhaps Alegni would allow him to leave forsaken Neverwinter and return to his work in the comforts of a true city.

He moved out farther on the branch, over the impromptu encampment set below. Sylora was barely a dozen feet in front of and below him, with her back to him as she bent forward, staring into the stump of a large tree.

Barrabus figured he could crouch and spring, and reach her from there, but his curiosity got the better of him and he crept out just a bit farther until he could see over Sylora’s shoulder into the top of the stump, which was filled with water.

And images moved about in the impromptu font-a scrying bowl.

Barrabus couldn’t resist. He inched out and moved his head low to the side of the branch, peering intently.

He noted the movements of a fight in that pool of clairvoyance, tiny figures weaving and striking. He recognized some of the combatants as Ashmadai, and their movements showed them to be uncharacteristically on the defensive, not nearly as aggressive as Barrabus had come to expect of the fanatics. Then he saw one of their opponents and he understood their hesitance, though the image otherwise added to his confusion. The spinning flail, the acrobatic movements-it had to be Dahlia.

But why would Dahlia be fighting against Ashmadai?

Perhaps it wasn’t her. Perhaps there were more warriors like her, Barrabus wondered, and that thought didn’t sit well with him. One Dahlia was more than enough for him.

He didn’t understand.

The flails spun together in front of her and seemed to fuse together, and what had been two separate weapons comprised of two separate lengths suddenly became a single long staff.

Yes, it was Dahlia, Barrabus knew then without doubt. He watched her stop abruptly before a trio of Ashmadai, who lurched back. She planted the tip of her staff and leaped up high, but instead of going forward into her enemies, she went backward.

And another, apparently her ally, charged into the void.

He saw black skin-and a pair of scimitars spinning in devastating precision.

Barrabus the Gray froze on the branch-to attempt anything other than that would have had him simply falling out of the tree. He couldn’t draw breath in that surreal moment, and the world around him seemed to simply stop.

All thoughts of Sylora flew from him-even more so when he heard the newest foe, another elf female, but undead, announcing her presence with the thump of a thunderbolt.

Barrabus didn’t want to go up against the sorceress Sylora in a fair fight, and the thought of facing Valindra Shadowmantle was even less appealing.

He held his breath, but couldn’t help himself. He looked back to the scrying pool, but it had gone mercifully blank.

The trance broken, a very shaken Barrabus the Gray slithered back to the tree and disappeared into the forest.

Drizzt darted out to the right, cutting in front of Dahlia. He fell into a roll, underneath her spinning flail, and his sudden appearance between the elf and her opponent had the tiefling Ashmadai distracted just enough for Dahlia to crack him on the side of the jaw and send him tumbling away.

Drizzt came back to his feet right in front of a pair of fanatics, his blades going to work parrying and deflecting their furious onslaught. In a matter of a couple of heartbeats he had them both on the defensive. His blades came faster and faster, soon moving from counters to initiating strikes.

He worked around them as well, to gain a look at his fighting companion, and he was caught by surprise to see that Dahlia was no longer wielding a flail, and neither was she carrying the staff. She had something he could only describe as a tri-staff, with a longer center piece and two smaller poles spinning furiously to either side. For just a moment, Drizzt considered the strange weapon she carried, which could be put into so many combinations seemingly at will.

Of course, he had no time to really contemplate the unique staff just then, particularly as a third Ashmadai joined the pair he was already fighting. He had to keep moving, as did Dahlia. They couldn’t afford to get caught and surrounded.

Drizzt backed toward Dahlia, moving fast.

“Over,” he heard behind him, and he reflexively worked his scimitars in for low strikes, forcing the attention of the trio downward. Drizzt was not surprised when Dahlia vaulted over him-planting one foot on his set back and leaping out again, soaring past-but his opponents surely were, as their expressions showed.

Dahlia came down on them, kicking one in the face, then a second, and bringing her staff-no longer a tri-staff, but a single long pole-in fast behind her, sliding it through her grasp just enough to jab out with it like a spear, right into the throat of the third opponent. She cut away fast, planted the end of her weapon, and vaulted again.

And so it went for a time, with Drizzt down low, sprinting all around, and Dahlia working vertically above him, leap after great leap.

But even with that new twist, their initial momentum was beginning to fail, the Ashmadai drawing together into better defensive groups. Drizzt and Dahlia couldn’t win-they’d known that from the beginning, and it was time to create an exit for themselves.

The needed distraction appeared on the ridge high above them a moment later. As always, the dependable Guenhwyvar entered the fray right on time. With a roar that shook the stones and had every eye turned her way, the great panther leaped out far and high, flying down upon the most concentrated group of Ashmadai.

As they scattered, screaming and diving, Drizzt and Dahlia retreated back through the narrow ravine and out the other end, scrambling over stones toward the cave opening where Bruenor and the others waited.

“Friend of yours?” Dahlia asked with a nod back at the cat, and a wicked smile.

Drizzt smiled back, even wider when he heard the wild tumult behind them.

He let Dahlia get ahead of him and he trusted her to keep the way clear as he watched for pursuit. When they at last neared the rocky vale immediately preceding the caves, Drizzt called upon his enchanted anklets and sprinted to catch up to her.

They crossed a small battlefield, several Ashmadai down, a couple moaning. One off to the side hung inverted from a tree, calling for help, held fast by the legs by whatever that was that shot from Jarlaxle’s magical wand.

Dahlia veered for the victim and Drizzt winced, thinking she would surely crack open the trapped Ashmadai’s skull. To his surprise and relief, she merely patted the trapped woman on the side of the face as she skipped past her with a laugh.

Just past the battlefield, they scrambled over a rocky mound, revealing a small vale below dotted with several cave entrances.

“Here!” Bruenor called from one, and Drizzt and Dahlia moved to join him.

“Your panther,” Dahlia said, glancing back.

“Guenhwyvar has already returned to the Astral Plane, awaiting my next call,” Drizzt assured her.

She nodded, and skipped into the dark cave, but Drizzt paused to watch her, pleased by her concern for the great cat.

They, even Bruenor, had to belly-crawl to get out of the first chamber of the cave, but they moved with all speed, with sounds of pursuit echoing behind them. They came out of that low channel into a smaller, but higher-ceilinged space, in which Athrogate and Jarlaxle waited. As Dahlia came out, she tapped her staff, in the form of a four-foot walking stick, and a blue-white light glowed from its top end.

“This is the way?” Drizzt asked.

“I hope,” said Jarlaxle. “We checked the caves as quickly as we could and this was the only one that seemed promising.”

“But there could be other caves in the area that we haven’t yet discovered?” an uneasy Drizzt asked.

Jarlaxle shrugged. “Luck has always been on your side, my friend. It’s the only reason I asked you along on this journey.”

Dahlia reacted with alarm to that, until she glanced at Drizzt to see him smiling.

The five companions moved through a maze of tunnels and crawlspaces, even splashing through a shallow underground stream for a bit. They hit many dead ends, but many more tunnels broke off into multiple passageways, and they had nothing to guide them but their instincts. Dahlia appeared completely bewildered, but few could navigate dark tunnels better than dwarves, and among those few were the dark elves.

Soon enough, they heard sounds far behind them in the tunnels, and knew that the Ashmadai had continued the pursuit into the Underdark.

At one point, the five came into a long, fairly straight tunnel, which Athrogate rightly identified as a lava tube. It traveled in the correct direction, and at a gentle downward slope, so they eagerly rambled along it. Eventually, though, a cold mist wafted past them, and Dahlia sucked in her breath and turned her head, watching it depart up the tunnel behind them.

“What d’ye know?” Bruenor asked, catching her concern.

“Deathly cold,” Drizzt said.

“Was it?” Jarlaxle asked the elf warrior.

Dahlia nodded. “Dor’crae,” she said.

“The vampire,” Athrogate explained, and Bruenor snorted and shook his head in disgust.

“He will bring them to us,” Dahlia said, and they all suspected then how the Ashmadai had come to know so much about their location.

“Perhaps he’s returning from Gauntlgrym,” Drizzt interjected. “If so, this is indeed the correct path.”

With that hopeful thought in mind, they pressed on with all speed, and for a long way, hours of walking, the lava tube continued with the same agreeable slope. But then they came to an abrupt end, where the tunnel turned downward sharply, a near vertical descent into seemingly bottomless darkness. There was no way around that hole, and they had seen no side tunnels throughout the last hours of their march.

“Let us hope your luck holds,” Jarlaxle remarked to Drizzt, and from an obviously magical pouch, the drow mercenary produced a long length of fine cord. He tossed one end to Drizzt and the other to Athrogate, ordering the dwarf to brace it well.

Without hesitation, Drizzt tied it off around his waist and went over the lip, quickly disappearing from sight. As he neared the end of that length, Drizzt called up, “It levels off to a sharp, but traversable slope.”

A moment later, there came a flash and a sharp retort.

“Drizzt?” Jarlaxle called.

“I’ve set a second rope,” Drizzt called from the darkness. “Move!”

“No going back,” Jarlaxle said to Bruenor, apparently deferring to the dwarf.

“Then that’s the way,” Bruenor decided, and he was next to the rope.

When he reached the bottom, where Drizzt had been, Bruenor found the second line, drilled deep into the angled ceiling across the way, set firmly into the stone by one of Taulmaril’s enchanted arrows.

The tunnel continued, sometimes a drop, sometimes a gentle slope, and the five managed it fairly well. They were near the end of their endurance, but dared not stop and set camp, and yet, there seemed no end in sight.

But then they went down a small shaft and under a low archway where the tunnel turned sharply and showed them the glow of Underdark lichen. A few moments later, they came out onto a high ledge on a great cavern. Giant stalagmites stood quietly around a still pond, and both Drizzt and Bruenor blinked in disbelief, first at the worked tops of those mounds-guard towers-then at the great castle wall across the way.

Bruenor Battlehammer swallowed hard and glanced at the other dwarf.

“Aye, King Bruenor,” Athrogate said with a wide grin. “I was hoping this cavern survived the explosion, that ye might see the front gate.

“There’s yer Gauntlgrym.”