Gauntlgrym

THE HERITAGE, THE FATE

DRIZZT LEANED AGAINST THE WALL OF A DEFENSIVE ALCOVE ALONG THE ten-foot-wide corridor. Dahlia stood across the way, in a similar alcove. They heard the pursuit and knew it to be elemental minions of the primordial. The drow glanced back the other way, where the corridor spilled into a square room, its door too broken to be used to slow the pursuing beasts.

“Hurry,” Drizzt whispered, aiming the remark at Bruenor and the others.

Bruenor had determined that that particular room held the first installation for one of the magical bowls, one of the magical connections to the tendrils of the Hosttower.

Drizzt glanced along the corridor, at the many metal placards evenly spaced along the wall, all decorated with various dwarven images, and none with an apparent clue as to which might be the correct choice. Then a noise back down the corridor brought Drizzt from his thoughts. He glanced across at Dahlia and nodded.

The woman, holding her tri-staff, eagerly grinned back at him. That grin disappeared almost at once, though, and Dahlia lifted her hand and worked her fingers through an intricate series of movements.

Your sword.

Drizzt looked down as his belted scimitar, Icingdeath, and discerned at once the cause of her concern. At the crease where the blade’s hilt sat on the scabbard, a line of blue light glowed. Icingdeath always had a bluish tint to it, and often glowed more powerfully, particularly when facing a creature of fire. The scimitar was one of the ancient frostbrands, after all, a weapon built to battle creatures of fire, a weapon hungry for fire elemental blood.

But Drizzt had never seen it glow while in its scabbard. He grasped the hilt and brought it forth just a bit, and his alcove was bathed in blue light.

He slid it back into the scabbard and took a deep breath, and told himself that it was just because of the nearness of the ultimate of fire creatures, the primordial.

He looked back at Dahlia and lifted his hand to respond, but before he did, he realized something quite amazing and unexpected: Dahlia had spoken to him in the intricate drow hand cant. Drizzt had never met anyone other than a drow who could use that sign language.

How do you know the cant? he flashed back at her.

Dahlia’s pretty face screwed up as she tried, unsuccessfully, it seemed, to follow his movements.

Slowly, Drizzt signed, You speak as a drow.

Dahlia held her hand out horizontally and waggled it back and forth, indicating that she had only a cursory knowledge of the language. She ended with a self-deprecating grin and shrug.

Drizzt was impressed anyway. Few who were not drow, who were not trained from their earliest days at the Academy, could form even the most rudimentary words in the intricately coded language.

Down in the corridor, a door banged open and Dahlia tightened against the wall, her hands wringing on her magical staff.

Drizzt slid an arrow out of his enchanted quiver and set it to Taulmaril’s string. He crouched down on one knee and peeked out into the corridor to see a host of red-skinned salamanders slithering down his way.

“Be quick, dwarf,” Jarlaxle said, glancing nervously at the hallway door. “I do believe our enemies are fast upon us.”

Bruenor gave a hearty “harrumph” and stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the chamber’s side wall. No less than ten metal placards lined that wall, with an equal number across the way.

“Just pull ’em all,” Athrogate prodded.

Bruenor shook his head. “Got to be the right one. Rest’re trapped and sure to kill ye dead.”

Athrogate had neared one of the plates as Bruenor spoke, and was even reaching out for one. He retracted his hand quickly, though, and sucked in his breath, turning to look back at Bruenor.

Bruenor pointed two placards down from where Athrogate stood. “That one.”

“Ye for certain?”

“Aye,” Bruenor said, and Athrogate moved that way. He hooked his fingers on the plate and pulled, but nothing happened.

Cries erupted out in the hallway.

Athrogate grabbed on harder and tugged with all his considerable strength, but the plate would not budge. He let go with a growl and hopped back, spat in both hands, and moved in again-or started to, until Bruenor intervened. The dwarf king walked up to the placard, reached up with one hand, and began talking in a language that sounded like Dwarvish-so much so that it took Athrogate several moments to realize that he couldn’t really understand a word Bruenor was saying.

Bruenor gave a slight tug and the placard, the door to the secret compartment, swung open.

“How in the Nine Hells?” Athrogate complained.

“Tied to the throne’s magic?” Jarlaxle wondered aloud. The drow was fast to Bruenor’s side, to set the bowl on the base of the deep, narrow compartment. He fumbled with his sack for just a moment before producing a small vial, which he handed to the dwarf.

“To enact the magic of the bowl…” the drow began, but Bruenor held up his hand to silence his companion.

He knew how to do it. Somehow, he knew the words. He pulled the stopper from the small vial and poured the magical water into the bowl, then gently began swishing it around and chanting softly.

The water seemed to multiply as it swirled around the shallow bowl, growing in volume and in shape. Its form rose up above the rim of the bowl, like a watery humanoid swelling with power, and for a moment, it seemed outraged at being called from its home plane.

It continued to swell until it was too large to fit in the alcove, growing out of the hole and towering over the dwarf. Jarlaxle walked back, and Athrogate called out a warning to Bruenor and pulled out his morningstars, though how they might do damage to such a creature, he did not know.

But Bruenor remained unbothered. He had brought this creature through the magic of the bowl, and he commanded it. He reached right past the elemental as if it were no more bothersome than a potted plant, and slid the bowl deeper into the alcove. He pointed down the narrow tunnel, willing the elemental to retreat into the darkness, for at the other end of that compartment lay an open tendril of the Hosttower, a place designed to be filled by just such a creature.

The elemental swelled in protest, and thick, armlike appendages reached out to either side, great watery fists ready to pound at Bruenor.

But the dwarf just growled and pointed, compelling the elemental to obey. As soon as it retreated into the hole, Bruenor grabbed for the placard. He paused for a moment to consider the sounds within the alcove, like the breaking waves of a seashore.

He took a deep breath then, revealing his relief that the creature had indeed followed his command, and he closed the placard and turned to find Jarlaxle guarding by the door.

“We must be on our way,” the drow called to him, but Bruenor shook his head.

“The second one’s in here,” the dwarf explained, pointing to the opposite wall.

Out in the hall, the tumult grew.

“Oh, good dwarf, do be quick,” Jarlaxle said, and he drew out a pair of slender wands and moved to the wall at the side of the door.

One after another, Taulmaril the Heartseeker let fly, arrows trailing silver lightning as they shot off down the corridor. Crouched on one knee, Drizzt leaned out of the alcove and kept up the barrage as long as he could, dropping salamanders with every shot, sometimes two for one mighty arrow, and once even three.

But the losses only seemed to infuriate the monstrous creatures, and Drizzt knew he couldn’t drive them all away. They were fighting for the primordial, for their god. The bodies piled in the corridor, but more salamanders slithered over them. And when the drow cut those down, the enraged creatures behind used a different tactic, pushing the pile in front of them instead of scrambling over it.

The drow grimaced and kept shooting-what else could he do? He drew back Taulmaril’s bowstring as far as he could and let fly into the center mass, the lightning-arrows drilling holes into the pile and jolting bodies, occasionally breaking through to sting at the living elemental-kin behind.

The press continued, though, and Drizzt was about to put Taulmaril up and draw his swords when a pair of true lightning bolts shot down the corridor from behind him, startling him, blinding him temporarily, and forcing him back into the alcove. He came to the edge and peered around quickly to see a jumble of body parts, blackened and smoking, salamanders scrambling behind the blasted front ranks to rebuild their moving wall.

Drizzt went back to efficient work again with his deadly bow. Behind him, from the doorway of the room, Jarlaxle put his wands to use once more, angling the twin lightning bolts up high so they would rebound off the ceiling and dive down behind the wall of salamander corpses.

“Glob it!” Drizzt cried, for lack of a better word.

“Clear!” Jarlaxle yelled back, and Drizzt fell into the alcove.

A glob of green paste flew past him to strike the floor right in front of the corpse wall.

But still the salamanders came on, tearing asunder their macabre fortification and rushing over. A flying wall of spears led their charge, skipping and bouncing around the corridor.

“They’re close!” Dahlia called from across the wall.

“Follow the line!” Jarlaxle yelled from the doorway, and a double flash, one-two, of lightning rumbled past the pair, the reports shaking the stones.

“Now!” Dahlia shouted as soon as the blasts had shot past, and she leaped out into the corridor, brandishing her tri-staff.

Swords in hand, Drizzt joined her, and just in time to flash Icingdeath out to his right, in front of Dahlia, and deflect a thrown trident.

The monsters pressed in three abreast, stabbing furiously at drow and elf.

Drizzt’s scimitars worked in circles in front of him, parrying every thrust-sometimes one, sometimes two, depending on the target of the middle creature. The reach of those long spears and tridents prevented him from going forward behind any parries, though. He didn’t want to surrender his position beside Dahlia. Together they formed a mighty defensive wall-and more than merely defensive, Drizzt realized as they fell into a side-by-side rhythm. Dahlia’s amazing staff, sometimes whole, sometimes twin bo staves, sometimes a tri-staff, sometimes a pair of flails, afforded her all kinds of varying reaches and counters. Drizzt worked more pointedly on defense, easily picking off the strikes of the salamander directly in front of him, and executing continuous blocks on the one in the middle as well.

“Aye!” Dahlia cried, apparently understanding his intent, and she dropped back one step as Drizzt shot by, sidelong, deflecting spear after spear after trident in rapid succession. Wall to wall, the drow worked, his feet a blur as he sidestepped, his hands a blur as he worked his blades to deflect any and every attack.

He went back and to his left, and heard a snap beside him. Yet another incarnation of Dahlia’s amazing weapon-four equal lengths of stick, joined end to end in a line so that she used them almost like a whip. And to great effect, as the salamander on Drizzt’s far right discovered, the end pole turning over powerfully and perfectly to knock a hole in its forehead.

Even as it fell dead, a spear flew in from the next in line, but Drizzt was there with a clean deflection as Dahlia reeled in her staff. He worked back the other way quickly, leaving no hole in their defense.

“Over!” Dahlia called from behind him, and he instinctively ducked just as the warrior elf pole-vaulted over him, landing lightly on her feet inside the reach of spear and trident. Even as she landed, though, her staff whole and cumbersome in the tight quarters, she yelled, “Over!” again.

Her leap had been a diversion and nothing more. She went up again, vaulting backward. Three spears reached high to chase her, but none caught its mark.

Drizzt went quickly forward, under Dahlia, appearing as if out of nowhere in the midst of the salamanders. His scimitars flashed left, right, and a devastating double stab in the middle, slashing the beasts aside. Then he blocked a thrown spear, and a second and a third, and more creatures charged up with shields as if they meant to bull rush him back toward the room.

“Over! Bow!” Dahlia yelled, and Drizzt didn’t quite understand how that might work out. He didn’t question her, though, and simply fell back in a roll as Dahlia planted the end of her staff beside him and went up high.

He angled his tumble for the alcove, and sheathed his blades and scooped up Taulmaril as he came around, immediately setting an arrow.

Dahlia had not come down. She remained up high, hand grasping the top end of the planted eight-foot staff, feet kicking out repeatedly, unpredictably, and wildly at her enemies. Even when they managed to get a shield in her path, she merely stomped her foot on it and used it to maintain the high ground.

And Drizzt started shooting under her, his arrows clipping under the upraised shield of one, tearing through the creature’s torso, and blasting clean through the shield of the one beside it.

Dahlia let out a cry and kicked hard against a shield, throwing herself backward as spears arced up at her from behind the nearest row of creatures. She came down in a controlled roll beside Drizzt, her eyes wide.

“Just run!” she told him, and before he could ask her why, she scampered away toward the room.

Another arrow flashed away, and another, and Drizzt had to fall into the alcove to avoid a wall of thrown spears. He came right back to shoot some more, though, thinking to cover Dahlia’s retreat, but when he popped back out, he saw the ranks of his enemies thinned, salamanders diving aside and pressing against the wall to clear a path.

And Drizzt saw what Dahlia had seen from up high, and the same thought, just run, came screaming to mind.

“Two!” Bruenor announced, sliding the second bowl deep into its alcove and shutting the placard after it. From behind the metal door they heard the rush of water as the elemental tapped into the tendrils of the Hosttower. The dwarf nodded in satisfaction, and declared, “Two o’ ten!”

“Be quick, and lead on,” Jarlaxle bade him, words that hardly seemed necessary given the ruckus in the corridor just beyond the broken door. All three-Bruenor, Jarlaxle, and Athrogate-turned and looked that way, then, to see Dahlia diving into the room in a soaring somersault. She planted her staff just to the side as she rolled farther in, and pushed off, throwing herself out the other way, away from the three onlookers.

“What-?” was all Bruenor managed to say before a great rush of flames poured through the door with a dark form, Drizzt, within them, being carried along by the sheer force of the blast.

The drow landed in a short run as the flames dissipated, and looked to his friends, wisps of smoke rising from his cloak, Taulmaril in one hand, Icingdeath in the other, glowing fiercely.

“Oh, joy,” Drizzt deadpanned. “They have a dragon.”

Bruenor’s eyes went wide, as did his mouth, as did Athrogate’s features as well, and both let out a howl and ran off for the back side of the room, Dahlia angling to join them.

Jarlaxle put another lightning bolt into the open doorway for good measure, and wisely launched another magical glob into the opening as well, thinking to slow the pursuit. That sticky substance caught a trio of flying spears as an added benefit.

“Two elementals in place,” Jarlaxle assured Drizzt when the pair came together, bringing up the rear of the retreat. “Eight more and we’re nearly done!”

Drizzt didn’t glance back, focusing instead on Bruenor, who stood in the exit at the far end of the room, ready to slam the heavy door.

“You heard me when I told you they have a dragon,” the drow replied, and he shook his head and glanced back.

“Not a large one!” the other drow replied.

Drizzt was still shaking his head as they passed by Bruenor, who slammed the heavy stone door behind them. Nearby stood Athrogate, a heavy iron locking bar in hand, and the two dwarves had the portal quickly secured.

“I seen cooked cow, I seen cooked sow,” Athrogate sang, “Now thinking for sure that I’d be seein’ cooked drow! But ye don’t smell roasted and ye don’t look toasted, and it’s making me ask meself, ‘How, now, drow?’ Bwahaha!”

“A fine question, if asked stupidly,” Jarlaxle concurred as the troupe started swiftly away.

Drizzt didn’t answer. He sprinted out in front of the other four, taking up the point, slinging Taulmaril over his shoulder as he went and drawing out his second scimitar.

“Damned good blade,” Bruenor explained to the other three a short while later.

“Icingdeath…” Jarlaxle realized, catching on.

“Damned sword kept the flames away?” Athrogate asked.

“Carried it once, as I rode a burning dragon,” Bruenor remarked.

“A burnin’ dragon?” Athrogate asked, at the same time Jarlaxle fell a stride behind and silently mouthed the exact same three words.

“Aye, cooked it meself.”

The drow mercenary could only smile then and shake his head, knowing better than to disbelieve any of the outrageous stories those two old adventurers, Drizzt Do’Urden and Bruenor Battlehammer, might tell.

His grin disappeared as he looked ahead to Drizzt, though, seeing even in the way the drow moved the edge that had come to him. Drizzt had often seemed the carefree fighter, enjoying the battle, and Jarlaxle couldn’t deny the charm of that. But whatever remained of that carefree attitude had changed, and not subtly. Perhaps it was barely discernable to one who did not know the truth of Drizzt Do’Urden, but for Jarlaxle in particular, the change glared at him. He excused himself from the dwarves and Dahlia and quick-stepped far ahead to catch up to Drizzt.

“One battle after another,” he remarked.

Drizzt nodded and seemed bothered not at all.

“But all worth it because of the good we might accomplish here, yes?” Jarlaxle added.

Drizzt looked at him as if he was insane, and replied, “I have spent half a century in search of this place, for the sake of my friend.”

“And you care not that our work here may save a city?”

Drizzt shrugged. “Have you been to Luskan lately?”

Jarlaxle shook that comment off and asked, “Would you have come here if not for Bruenor?”

A flash of anger spiked in Drizzt’s eyes, and Jarlaxle didn’t wait for an answer. He charged into Drizzt, grabbing him by the front of his leather vest and driving him back up against the wall.

“Damn you to Lolth’s webs!” he said. “Don’t you dare pretend it doesn’t matter to you!”

“Why do you care?” Drizzt growled back at him, and he reached up to pull Jarlaxle’s hands aside-but so angry was Jarlaxle that he growled through that attempt and pressed all the harder.

“No one who has ever made a difference?” he asked, his face barely an inch from Drizzt’s.

Drizzt stared at him.

“That is what you said, back in the Cutlass. How you described yourself to me. ‘No one who has ever made a difference.’ ” Jarlaxle closed his eyes and finally let go, stepping back. “Do you believe that?” he asked more calmly.

“What do you want from me, son of Baenre?”

“Just the truth-your truth. You believe that you have never made a difference?”

“Perhaps there is no difference to be made,” Drizzt replied, and he seemed to be spitting every word.

“None permanent, you mean.”

Drizzt considered that for a moment, then nodded his acceptance of the caveat.

“Because they all die anyway?” Jarlaxle went on. “Catti-brie? Regis?”

Drizzt snorted and shook his head, and started off down the corridor, but Jarlaxle caught him by the shoulder and pushed him back against the wall, and so full of anger was Jarlaxle’s face that Drizzt’s hand went to the hilt of his scimitar.

“Do not ever say that,” Jarlaxle said to him, spittle flying with every word.

Drizzt’s hands came up inside Jarlaxle’s grasp, and as the mercenary began to loosen his grip, Drizzt shoved him back.

“Why do you care?” Drizzt asked.

“Because you were the one who escaped,” Jarlaxle replied.

Drizzt looked at him as though he had no idea what Jarlaxle could possibly be talking about.

“Don’t you understand?” Jarlaxle went on. “I watched you-we all watched you. Whenever a matron mother, or almost any female of Menzoberranzan was about, we spoke your name with vitriol, promising to avenge Lolth and kill you.”

“You’ve had your chance at that.”

Jarlaxle went on as if Drizzt had said nothing. “But whenever they were not around, the name of Drizzt Do’Urden was spoken with jealousy, often reverence. You do not understand, do you? You don’t even recognize the difference you’ve made to so many of us in Menzoberranzan.”

“How? Why?”

“Because you were the one who escaped!”

“You are here with me!” Drizzt argued. “Are you bound to the City of Spiders by anything more than your own designs? By Bregan D’aerthe?”

“I’m not talking about the city, you obstinate fool,” Jarlaxle replied, his voice lowering.

Again Drizzt looked at him, at a loss.

“The heritage,” Jarlaxle explained. His voice lowered still as they heard the approach of the others. “The fate.”