Night of the Hunter

CHAPTER 18

Hanging in his iron cage, Artemis Entreri didn’t know what to make of any of it. Something had happened to Dahlia, obviously. Something awful, something perpetrated by that horrid mind flayer.

She wasn’t crying about Effron. She wasn’t tight with anger or pacing with excessive anxiety and frustration. She wasn’t speaking, not even to answer Artemis Entreri’s soft calls. She wasn’t looking at him, or at anything, it seemed.

She was just sitting there, uncaged, unguarded, broken. She had one shackle around her ankle, chained to a metal ball, but it hardly seemed as if her captors needed it.

“Dahlia!” he called again, as loudly as he dared. He really didn’t want to give any of the dark elves moving around the Forge any excuse to walk over and beat him some more-not that they really needed an excuse; many paused to and from their respective forges to stick him with a small knife, or a heated poker, or to toss some hot ash up toward his face, just to see him try reflexively and futilely to turn away.

The woman made no movement to indicate that she had heard him, or that she even cared to listen, in any case.

She was broken, perhaps beyond repair, he realized, and he couldn’t deny, as much as he wanted to, that the thought of Dahlia’s grim fate gnawed at him.

Gnawed at him and tugged at his heartstrings, more than he ever could have imagined.

Knowing where this would inevitably lead, Entreri tried to block out the train of thought, but he could not.

In his memories, he saw Calihye again, and he imagined her in Dahlia’s place. She, too, had been taken by the dark elves, by Jarlaxle’s band of Bregan D’aerthe.

Taken from him.

Had he really loved Calihye? To this day, he wondered, and for this man, who for most of his life was certain that love did not exist, the conundrum truly echoed through his thoughts. Perhaps he had loved Calihye, perhaps not, but surely his relationship with her was the closest he had ever come to knowing love.

Until now? Until Dahlia?

Entreri stared down at her from his cage.

This could not stand.

Very slowly and deliberately, Entreri manipulated his shoulders, twisting and turning and flexing the powerful muscles along his side until his left shoulder blade had moved downward, in effect shortening his arm. More turning and twisting and stretching at last brought his left hand into view.

He noted his exceptionally long thumbnail. He kept it that way on purpose.

He grimaced with the last painful twist, turning his arm practically out of socket so that he could turn it in around the outside of the cage and bring that fingernail to his mouth.

He sucked that thumb for some time, softening the nail with his spit, then he bit and slowly peeled, taking the top of the fingernail in one long strip.

Activity in the room forced him to twist the arm aside before he could put that nail back into his hand, so he used his tongue to tuck it deep to the side of his lower gum, out of sight and leaving his tongue clear in case he needed to speak.

Out of the tunnel that led to the primordial pit floated High Priestess Berellip, sitting comfortably on a magically glowing summoned disc. Entreri thought that surely meant he was in for another round of torture. But that diminished quickly when more notable drow came out of the tunnel right behind Berellip, including Tiago Baenre and the other Xorlarrin priestess in the second rank, followed closely by the House wizard and weapons master, the priestess upon a similar floating disc, the males all riding battle lizards.

And many others followed, all outfitted for battle, clearly, and with a contingent of driders bringing up the back of the long line.

Entreri considered their course, and traced them back to the chamber that had become, he had heard in whispers, the chapel of this new drow settlement. They had come forth with Lolth’s blessing, then, and had come forth prepared to go to war.

They were marching out of Gauntlgrym again, Entreri realized, as they had gone to Port Llast. More prisoners, more slaves, more dead, more blood. It was the drow way.

They came very near to his cage and to Dahlia, and Berellip halted the march with an upraised hand and guided her disc to the side, hovering near the broken elf woman.

“Darthiir,” she said with a sneer and shake of her head. “Know that I would pull your limbs off on the rack, were it my choice. And I would keep you alive and find more ways to wound you. I would give you hope, and then I would feed you to Yerrininae, and I would watch with joy the unspeakable things he would do to you for killing his beloved Flavvar.”

“Priestess,” Jearth dared to interrupt, and Berellip turned a sharp stare upon him. She didn’t look at him for long, though, Entreri noted, but settled her glower at the male sitting beside her sister, the warrior Entreri knew to be Tiago Baenre.

A large bit of bluster left Berellip’s features as she matched stares with the noble of House Baenre.

The archmage had told her to leave Dahlia alone, Entreri realized from that silent exchange. From his time in Menzoberranzan, Entreri knew well that few would dare cross Gromph Baenre. Even Jarlaxle offered that dangerous wizard more than a bit of deference. Despite the tight press of the cage, Entreri managed to cock his head to the side just a bit with curiosity. The archmage and House Baenre were protecting Dahlia?

The second disc floated closer to him.

“You should force Yerrininae to come with us,” the younger Xorlarrin priestess said to Berellip.

“He is grieving-I did not know that driders were possessed of such emotions,” Berellip answered.

“He hates the darthiir above all others.”

“He will not disobey me,” Berellip assured her. “Go now, to the glory of Q’Xorlarrin. Return to me with the head of Drizzt Do’Urden.”

Him again!

After the initial shock, Entreri found an epiphany: none of this was coincidence. He and his friends had not been misfortunate in being in Port Llast when the drow had attacked. Nay, the drow had attacked because he and his friends had been in Port Llast. They were still obsessed with Drizzt, after all these years. Were they keeping Dahlia alive as bait, then?

That thought hit Entreri almost humorously as he recalled the last bloody meeting between Dahlia and Drizzt.

Almost humorously, for in his current predicament, he really couldn’t find humor in much of anything.

Below him, Berellip waved her sister back to Tiago’s side, then motioned for the procession to be on its way. The force moved by swiftly and steadily, exiting the Forge in short order.

Entreri hung motionless and expressionless, trying not to stare too intently at Berellip and Dahlia, trying to seem as if he was far beyond any concerns of the world about him, too walled up within his own pain and misery. Indeed, he showed no interest at all, and showed himself to be too beaten and broken to even care.

But he cared indeed. By his estimation, well over half of the Xorlarrin garrison had just departed the complex, and with all of the nobles save Berellip, a good portion of the goblinkin slave force and many of the monstrous driders with them.

He would get his chance.

The Forge lay quiet, the stillness interrupted only by the occasional ping of the hammer of the lone drow blacksmith still at work and the snorts and chortles of sleeping slaves.

Dahlia, too, was fast asleep, lying on the stone floor right in front of Entreri’s cage.

The assassin used her as his focus, staring at her, thinking of what these wretched dark elves had done to her, and what they would likely do to her going forward.

He focused on that as his one hand reached up and worked deliberately, fingernail in hand, on the tumblers within the cage’s lock. Entreri had contorted himself enough to stick a finger from his other hand into his ear, blocking the sound, while he rested his open ear against the same metal bar that ran up to the lock.

He heard and felt the subtle vibration as a tumbler clicked.

Nothing mattered to him beyond that sound, then. With perfect concentration, the skilled assassin tuned all of his senses to his work, feeling and learning the intricate mechanism, listening for the tell-tale sounds.

A second tumbler was soon defeated.

Entreri fell deeper into his trance, blocking out all distractions. Pure focus.

Click went the third, then the fourth.

And then came an unexpected sound indeed as the lock opened and the leaning assassin inadvertently pressed the door open, just a bit, just enough to set off a lightning glyph that crackled about him, stinging him painfully and alerting those in the room.

He dropped his arms and hung there, seeming unconscious, but still the drow blacksmith approached, hot poker in hand. The drow called out as he did, and another pair of dark elves ran into the room from the corridor beyond, rushing to join their kin.

They came up to Entreri, glancing about nervously.

The cage door moved imperceptibly and another shock rattled the assassin. He groaned and lolled his head to the side.

He understood the drow language enough to recognize the obvious question, and he did well to hide his smile at the answer.

“His weight has loosened the door enough to set off Priestess Berellip’s traps!”

Entreri unclenched his muscles enough for his weight to shift the door the tiniest bit yet again, to jolt him with magical lightning yet again.

He groaned.

The dark elves laughed.

The two guards were still laughing when they went back to their posts. The blacksmith was still laughing when he lifted his hammer once again.

Entreri let the cage shock him again, and several more times after that, at varying intervals, and for varying periods of time, sometimes through several painful heartbeats.

The blacksmith stopped even looking back his way.

The cage sounded again, for a long while, then fell silent as Entreri, on the floor, quietly closed the door.

Dahlia sprawled before him, and how he wanted to go to her! He slithered off into the shadows instead, crawling by the sleeping goblins, where he appropriated a long shovel.

Like a whisper of wind he moved, forge to forge, shadow to shadow, pile to pile. None were better at hearing the quiet than the drow, but none were better at being the quiet than Artemis Entreri.

He came up behind the drow craftsman, leaning the shovel diagonally against the tray of the workplace. In one fluid movement, Entreri stepped up beside his intended victim, lifted the hot poker, and brought it in against the drow’s belly. The shocked blacksmith instinctively threw his hips back, and Entreri helped him avoid the press of the poker by grabbing the hair at the back of the drow’s head and driving forward with all his strength. Already bending forward to avoid the poker, the surprised blacksmith offered little resistance as Entreri slammed his face down on the edge of the metal tray in front of him.

Up came the dazed and bleeding dark elf to Entreri’s strong pull, and down he went again, even harder.

Entreri kicked down hard on the leaning shovel, cracking the handle in half, and before the broken top piece could fall, he snatched it out of the air with his free hand.

The drow craftsman finally reoriented himself enough to start to call out, but around came Entreri’s arm and makeshift weapon, the now sharp end of the broken handle stabbing up under the drow’s jaw and stealing his words in a gurgle of erupting blood.

A third face slam had the craftsman falling limp, barely conscious. Still holding him fast by the hair, Entreri set down the spear and drove his free hand up against the drow’s crotch. With the strength of a warrior, muscles hardened by decades of fighting, Entreri hoisted his victim from the ground and tossed him into the oven, feeding the forge with drow flesh.

Primordial fire ate the poor drow immediately, consuming flesh and charring bones before he could even truly cry out.

Still, the dying dark elf issued enough of a sound to remind Entreri that he had to move fast. He slid the halves of the broken shovel back together, using the splinters of the wood to make the piece appear whole at a cursory glance. He noted a narrow nail on the tray and collected it, thinking it a far better lockpick than a thumbnail, after all. Then he quickly dabbled some ash on the floor at the base of the forge and rushed off into the shadows, crossing by the sleeping goblins just long enough to replace the shovel among their utensils.

Back at his cage, he accepted another painful sting of the lightning glyph as he swung the door open and leaped back into place, then shut the door with his arms and shoulders positioned carefully to make it look as if it had never opened. He twisted around and reached up, using his new and better lockpick to engage one of the tumblers before setting it into his mouth, tight beside his gums.

The assassin fully relaxed and fell back into place. He leaned his face on the iron band and cried out suddenly, sharply, and very briefly, just enough to stir the goblins and to alert the guards outside the room.

And then he appeared to be, to all who might look, no more alive than the monk in the cage beside him, hanging limply against the press of the cage.

Just a heartbeat later, Entreri noted one goblin standing and looking around curiously. The creature kicked another nearby sleeper, and so on down the line until several were up and about, scratching their ugly heads and pointing to the still-fired forge, where the drow had been at work.

The group moved there, filling the ash Entreri had sprinkled with their footprints, and looked all around until one of them noted the charred remains inside the oven. Then how they jumped, falling all over each other to get away from the murder scene.

They scrambled and went for their tools, makeshift weapons to use against whatever intruder had murdered the drow craftsman.

In came the dark elf guards at the sound of the commotion, and when shown the murder scene, they called in many more.

Watching through one half-closed eye, Artemis Entreri enjoyed the spectacle indeed as the drow demanded answers from the goblins. He had only one moment of fear, when the goblins pointed to Dahlia, gibbering that she must be the culprit.

It was precisely that moment, however, when one of the ugly little creatures lifted the shovel Entreri had borrowed. It noted the stains on the handle only then, and when it moved to inspect the blood, the shovel fell in half, revealing the makeshift spear.

Leaving the goblin holding the murder weapon.

And with goblin footprints all around the ash near the crime scene.

The goblins kept pointing at Dahlia, who seemed unaware of anything going on around her, but the dark elves ignored them.

And beat them, and stabbed them, and threw them into the oven, one by one.

Entreri did well to keep a wry smile off his face as he watched the unfolding massacre. It had been a good night’s work.

“Take her and flee!” Entreri heard a drow call out to another.

The assassin’s thoughts whirled, for they were speaking of Dahlia, obviously, and the nearest two drow, a male soldier and a priestess, rushed for her. Entreri rolled his lockpick around in his mouth, thinking he might need to put it to quick use. Something was happening, some excitement, some tension.

Might he use this sudden distraction to break free and be away?

He looked at Dahlia and winced. She seemed hardly aware of the rising tensions. She just sat there, her expression void. He didn’t think he could convince her to flee beside him, and if he had to drag her along, he knew he could never escape the drow.

His eyes scanned upward to the approaching dark elves, and he steeled his resolve. Perhaps he wouldn’t escape, but he’d surely take a few drow to the grave beside him.

His confusion increased a moment later, when the source of the tumult came into view, in the form of a huge drider.

“You are supposed to be with Priestess Saribel!” one drow screamed at him.

“Silence!” the drider-Entreri had heard this one called Yerrininae before-growled back. “Where is the vile darthiir?”

“She is not your concern!” said the priestess then standing over Dahlia. “On the word of Priestess Berellip!”

Obviously spotting Dahlia, the drider approached, eight spider legs scratching the stone floor, a heavy mace swinging easily at the end of one of his huge, muscled arms.

Entreri knew that mace, Skullcrusher, was the weapon of Ambergris, and he allowed himself just a heartbeat of grief at the loss of the fine dwarf.

Just a heartbeat, though, as he tried to sort out his movements. He would exit that cage and rush to the nearest forge to secure a weapon, then …

“Yerrininae!” he heard, and he knew the voice.

As did the drider, obviously, for the behemoth stopped and swung around to face the speaker, Priestess Berellip, as she rushed to stand before him-before him and between him and the captive Dahlia.

“The darthiir lives at the suffrage of Archmage Gromph,” Berellip said.

Yerrininae offered a low growl in response.

“You know what he will do to you,” Berellip warned, and when Yerrininae continued to lean forward aggressively, she added, “You have met his companion!”

It struck Entreri profoundly that the mere mention of a mind flayer could so diminish a creature as obviously powerful as this one. The drider backed off, the blood draining from its drow face.

“I have not forgotten you, murderess!” the drider roared at Dahlia, and it lifted its club, and as Berellip yelled for him to halt, Yerrininae swung anyway.

But not at Dahlia.

Skullcrusher slammed the side of Entreri’s cage with bone-rattling force, stinging the surprised man profoundly and sending his prison into a wild, spinning swing. Before Entreri could even register the hit-and the sheer power of it awed him-the cage was struck again.

And Berellip was cheering, along with all the other drow and goblins in the room.

“Take this one out, that I might feast upon his beating heart before the eyes of the darthiir!” the vile drider begged.

“Do not kill him,” Berellip intervened. “Not yet.”

“I will pull off his arms, then, and just eat those!”

Berellip began to laugh, and Entreri thought the hour of his doom was surely upon him, and once more his thoughts began focusing on how he could cause the most devastation before his inevitable demise.

“I do want his arms intact,” Berellip replied to Yerrininae. “Maybe just one leg …”

And Dahlia began to laugh.

Entreri looked at her incredulously as each spin of his cage flashed her into his view, and he noted that he wasn’t the only one gawking at her.

“Yes, a leg,” Dahlia said giddily. “Like a farmer’s plucked chicken!”

A long while passed and the cage settled back to its original position, leaving Entreri to stare at Dahlia, and at the stupefied Yerrininae, who stood perfectly still, mace held sidelong as if he meant to hit the cage again.

“Well, that is an interesting turn,” Berellip whispered.

“I promise you that I will avenge Flavvar,” the drider said, moving its sneering face very close to Dahlia, who stared back at him blankly, as if she had no idea what he might be speaking of.

Berellip motioned to the drow soldier and priestess who had been first on the scene. “Take her,” she instructed, and her fingers flashed some message to them that Entreri could not make out, likely the location she had in mind.

The assassin did share a parting gaze with Dahlia, but he could not tell if her expression was one of sympathy, antipathy, or utter disinterest.

The dark elves hustled her away, the male carting the metal ball, the female all but holding up the unsteady Dahlia, and Berellip waved the other onlookers back to their duties.

“If it was my choice …” she lamented to Yerrininae.

The drider nodded and turned its angry glare back over Entreri.

“One more,” Berellip offered, and the drider took up Skullcrusher in both arms and rattled Entreri’s cage, and rattled Entreri’s bones. The assassin had been hit by the club of a giant before, almost squarely, but this was something even beyond that experience.

By the time the cage had stopped its wild swings and spins, Berellip and Yerrininae had moved away.

The cage settled fully again, but Entreri could not.

His side ached, his hips seemed as if on fire, and he could only hope that there were no serious wounds.

He would have to get out of this cage very soon.