Night of the Hunter

CHAPTER 4

A muddy gang of five crossed into the northern end of the pass that led south through the Spine of the World. Their trip from Ten-Towns across the tundra had been uneventful, but hardly easy in the days of the early spring melt, where bottomless bogs hid cleverly among the patches of ice and sludge, where sinkholes opened suddenly to swallow a rider and his mount whole, where mud bubbles of trapped gasses grew like boils as the ice of winter relinquished its hold. Such bulbous sludge mounds appeared all about the trail, sometimes blocking it, and were known to explode, sending forth a shower of cold mud.

This group had found more than their share of those natural mud bombs, particularly the three walking beside the tall mount that carried the man and the woman. They appeared almost monochrome, head-to-toe layered in brown, where even their smiles, on the rare occasions they managed one, showed flecks of mud. Heavy boots pulled from the grabbing ground, sucking sounds accompanying each step.

“Sure but I’m not to miss this foul land,” said the dwarf, and she lifted her boot and turned her leg, scraping at the mud pack. Her effort cost her balance, though, and she stumbled to the side, crashing against the large steed, which snorted in protest and stamped its fiery hoof hard, splattering mud and sending the dwarf and her two cohorts ducking.

“Ah, but control yer smelly nightmare!” the dwarf bellowed.

“I am,” Artemis Entreri casually replied from his high perch. “It did not stomp you into the ground, did it? And believe me when I tell you that the hell horse would like nothing more.”

“Bah!” Amber the dwarf snorted in reply, and she wiped a patch of mud from her shoulder, then snapped her hand out at Entreri, throwing the mud his way.

“It is not the best season to be crossing the tundra, I expect,” said Brother Afafrenfere. The monk had trained in the Bloodstone Lands, in the mountains of Damara, right beside the frozen wastes of Vaasa, so he was the most experienced of the troupe in the manner of terrain found in Icewind Dale. “Another tenday in one of the towns would have served us well.”

Afafrenfere never looked up as he spoke, just kept his head low under the cowl of his woolen hood, and so he did not see the scowl from the woman riding on the nightmare behind Entreri.

“Another tenday deeper into the spring would have meant more monsters awake from their winter nap, and prowling around, hungry,” Entreri said, and the others all recognized that he made the remark merely to calm Dahlia, who had been in a foul mood since they left Drizzt Do’Urden on the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn a dozen days before. None of the five hardy adventurers were afraid of such monsters, of course, and indeed, they were all itching for a fight.

They had awakened from a sleep in an enchanted forest, a slumber that had seen the passage of eighteen years, though had seemed no more than a night’s sleep to the band. After their numb shock at the revelation, they had tried to look on the bright side of their magically created dilemma, for, as Amber had pointed out, they had gone to sleep as fugitives, with many powerful enemies searching for them, yet had awakened in freedom, in anonymity even, if that was their choice, likely more so than any of them had known in decades.

But since that night on Kelvin’s Cairn, the mood had turned sour, particularly with Dahlia, and none had found much relief from the dismal pall while tramping through the endless mud of Icewind Dale.

“We’re not yet in civilized lands,” warned Effron, the fifth of the group, a small and skinny tiefling warlock with a broken and twisted body, his collar and shoulders mangled so that his right arm swung uselessly behind him.

All eyes turned his way. These were among the first words he had spoken since their departure from the mountain.

“You have seen them, then?” Entreri asked.

“Of course, shadowing us, and it frightens me that I travel with companions who have not noted the clear signs.”

“Ye think ye might be talkin’ less in riddles for the rest of us?” Amber asked.

“We are being followed,” Afafrenfere answered. “For more than a day now. Large forms, bigger than goblins, than hobgoblins, even.”

“Giants?” the dwarf asked with a glint in her eye.

“Yetis,” Afafrenfere replied.

“Do tell.” Entreri crossed his arms on the neck of his conjured nightmare steed and leaned forward, seeming amused.

“Vaasa is known for such beasts,” the monk explained. “They are quite ferocious, and a mere scratch of their claws is known to cause disease and a lingering death-that is, if you are fortunate enough to avoid being eaten alive by them.”

“Never heared o’ them,” said the dwarf.

“Nor I,” Dahlia added.

“Then let’s hope they remain no more than the warning of a tired monk on a muddy trail,” Afafrenfere said, and started away.

“Well, since you two are up high and not crawling in the mud like the rest of us, perhaps you should keep your eyes to the horizon,” Effron said. There was a clear undertone of disdain in his voice, underlying the general discontent that had followed the quintet out of Ten-Towns, an argument that had become particularly virulent between the twisted tiefling warlock and his mother, Dahlia.

Dahlia returned his words with a sharp glare, but Entreri continued to lean, and to wear his amused grin.

They climbed a narrower trail through a maze of tumbled boulders, which had them all on edge since the huge stones provided fine cover to any would-be ambushers. The path soon leveled off, then began a descent into the gorge cutting through the towering mountains. Any who ever crossed this way could not help but imagine enemies far above, raining death upon them in the form of arrows or stones.

Entreri and Dahlia led the way on the nightmare, and it was a fortunate choice. Barely had the group returned to level ground, walking amid a boulder-strewn, wider section of the trail, when the ground before them exploded. A large and thick, hairy creature leaped up from the concealment of a puddle of mud.

Seeming like a cross between a tall man and a burly bear, the hulking creature lifted up to its full height in the blink of an eye, heavy arms raised high above its head, dirty claws ready to swipe down.

The nightmare reared and snorted puffs of black smoke from its wide nostrils, but it was not afraid as a normal horse surely would have been. Hellsteeds did not know fear-only anger.

Dahlia went with the movement, gracefully rolling off the back of the mount as its forelegs rose up into the air. She landed on her feet, though the mud nearly took them out from under her, and skidded aside quickly, scrambling away from the dangerous rear legs of the battling nightmare. She started as if to charge around the horse and Entreri, her magical quarterstaff at the ready, but no sooner had she landed than Amber called out from behind. Reflexively glancing that way, Dahlia saw that this tundra yeti had not come after them alone.

As surprised as he was, for the tundra yeti had blended perfectly into the muddy tail ahead, Entreri managed to hold his saddle, although only barely, tightly gripping the reins against his chest with all his strength.

The nightmare lashed out with its forelegs as the yeti brought its claws sweeping down, both monsters striking hard, both crying out in response-the yeti with a heavy grunt as the blow from the hoofs sent it skidding backward, the nightmare with an otherworldly shriek that sounded of pain, perhaps, but more so of anger.

The steed fell to all fours and tugged back against Entreri with such power that it almost flipped him forward over its head, and indeed, he smashed his face into the nightmare’s neck. He felt the warmth of blood trickling from his nose, and a wave of pain that again had him holding on desperately as his mount leaped forward to engage.

Entreri shook the dizziness away and, wanting no part of this monstrous tangle, threw himself off the side of the nightmare right before the powerful combatants collided. He hit the ground in a roll, sloshing through puddles and mud, and came around to one knee just as the area behind him uplifted in a spray of mud and stones, a second yeti lifting up from concealment, towering over the kneeling, seemingly helpless man.

At the back of the line, Effron spun around to see a yeti leap up from behind a boulder to stand high atop the rock. It beat its powerful chest and issued a great roar.

“Yell louder,” Effron quietly implored it as he lowered his bone staff and lashed out with a bolt of dark magic that shot from the eyes of the small skull that topped the powerfully enchanted weapon.

The ray hit the yeti in the belly, sizzling its brown coat, and indeed it roared all the louder, nearly falling off the back of the rock from the impact.

Effron, hardly about to wait around for the creature to regroup, cast a second spell, one he always kept ready, and his body flattened, becoming two-dimensional, more like a shadow than a living being; and the yeti roared all the louder, in protest then, when the twisted warlock slipped down into the ground.

“Where ye goin’? Amber cried out as he disappeared. Just before her, Afafrenfere joined Dahlia, the two sprinting off across the trail from the yeti Effron had hit, at yet another beast that had appeared between a pair of flat-topped rocks, each about waist-high to the monk.

“Wait, what?” the dwarf called, hopping all around, looking for Effron, who was gone, then turning to the yeti the twisted warlock had stung, which was clearly outraged, then turning to the pair running off the other way.

She chased Dahlia and Afafrenfere. Three against one, she thought, and liked the odds.

But then two more yetis appeared, one rising up behind each of the rocks flanking the trio’s intended target.

“Oh, by the gods,” the dwarf muttered, and she skidded up against a nearby boulder and cast a spell that made her sink right into it, melding with the stone.

“Find a strike behind my move!” Afafrenfere instructed, and he sprinted in front of Dahlia, fearlessly bearing down on the three hairy behemoths. He leaped atop the stone to the left, right before one startled yeti, and right beside the initial target.

The yeti behind the stone roared and swung hard, but Afafrenfere moved ahead of the blow, leaping above it into a back flip that also brought him above the reach of the yeti in the middle. That centering beast watched him rise, and so it didn’t take note of the heavy follow-through of its companion, and caught the swipe of the first yeti right in the face.

The monk landed lightly on the other stone, launching immediately into a circle-kick that smacked the third yeti right in the face. But even with that tremendous force behind it, the kick did little to drive the monster back, and it responded with a slash of its claws that had the monk diving back for the center of the trail.

The yeti half-leaped, half-rolled over the boulder, in close pursuit. So focused was it on the human that had kicked it in the face that it hardly noticed Dahlia rushing past it the other way.

She thought that a good thing.

In she charged at the tangled other two, leading the way with a straightforward stab of her powerful staff, Kozah’s Needle, driving its tip right into the torn flesh of the yeti standing between the stones. That strike alone would have brought forth a howl of agony, but Dahlia made it all the more devastating, releasing a blast of lightning through the staff.

With a crackle of energy and a puff of gray smoke, the yeti fell away.

“Hold them!” Afafrenfere cried from far behind her.

“Of course,” she replied dryly, as if in agreement that holding back two giant-sized hulking monsters would obviously be no problem at all!

The yeti, of course, thought it had the man helpless. Any onlooker would have believed the same.

Unless that onlooker understood the skill of the monster’s intended victim.

From his half-kneeling position, Entreri threw himself over wildly, spinning out to the side ahead of the descending yeti claw. The beast tried to keep up, stomping its foot in an attempt to pin him down or crush him.

But Entreri stayed ahead, and his sidelong spin turned into a forward roll that brought him back up to his feet. He broke aside immediately, dodging the lunging yeti, and whirled around, his momentum strengthening the stab of his sword, the blade tearing through flesh to nick off the thick rib of the beast.

With a frightening howl, the yeti spun around to face him.

But Entreri was already gone, out the other way, and he struck again with his sword, but did not plunge it in deeply this time. He stayed ahead of the turning beast, sticking it again, goading it around and around. And as soon as he seemed to become predictable, Entreri stopped abruptly and ducked low, the turning yeti sweeping its grasping arms up over him as he cut back the other way.

From the other side, he leaped up and drove his dagger hard into the yeti’s right armpit, the vampiric weapon slicing through tendon and muscle with ease. And Entreri let his magical dagger drink deeply, stealing the very life force of the huge creature.

How it howled!

It swung back violently, swinging arm clipping Entreri, who was already diving out and away, and the force of the blow helped him along as he put several strides between himself and his beastly enemy. He rolled back up in perfect balance and turned around, facing the beast.

In came the yeti in a running charge, but with one arm now hanging dead at its side. Entreri charged as well, and at the last second, the beast lunging wildly, he dived aside, managing a slash as the monster tumbled past. A quick turn had him in pursuit, behind the yeti, and he struck with sword and dagger now, chasing it and sticking it repeatedly, never giving it the chance to stop and turn back. His sword bashed against the beast’s remaining good arm, but Entreri stabbed with the dagger, poking little holes, inconsequential wounds except that with each bite, the vampiric dagger fed.

But then the yeti turned the tables back. It was gone so quickly it took Entreri a long heartbeat to even realize it had leaped straight up into the air. He ran past and the beast landed heavily behind him, and pursued him.

Entreri angled for the wall, knowing he could not stay ahead of this foe for long and in no position to try a blind and desperate dive to either side.

He could hear the breaths of the monster so close behind. In front of him, the mountain wall climbed high, barely five strides away.

But he didn’t slow.

Instead he leaped, throwing his shoulders back, running up the stone, one step, two steps, then leaping higher and inverting, back-flipping high in to the air. He threw his sword as he did, as high as he could, and he came over above the yeti, which had bent low to grab at him at the last moment. He crashed down atop the yeti’s back, legs straddling, both hands grasping his dagger hilt and all of his momentum driving that vicious blade straight down atop the yeti’s head. A boulder split asunder by a stroke of lightning would have sounded no louder than the crack of that skull, and the yeti’s legs simply gave out under it.

Entreri caught his descending sword and rolled aside, far from the tumble as the beast thrashed crazily in its death throes, the jeweled dagger’s hilt still sticking like a unicorn’s horn from the top of its head.

Entreri took a deep breath and tried to reorient himself, turning back to view the battle. A quick glance to the side showed him his nightmare and the other yeti locked in a death grip, smoke and blood and torn hair all around them. The nightmare had been pulled down to its front knees, but bit hard at the yeti’s arm as the beast clamped around the steed’s head, trying to twist its neck apart. Entreri rushed to retrieve his dagger from the now-dead beast, thinking to go to the nightmare while the yeti was so vulnerable, but a horrid cry sounded from behind, demanding his attention.

He whirled around to see another of the yetis, the one on the same side of the trail as he, frantically thrashing around, tearing its own skin with its claws as spiders climbed out of a gaping wound in its belly. Entreri had witnessed Effron’s handiwork before, and he held faith that this yeti, too, was out of the fight for the time being.

He scanned out toward the center of the trail to see Afafrenfere in full retreat, a yeti in close pursuit.

Entreri yanked his dagger free and started out to help his companion, but before Entreri had gone two steps, the monk cut before one large boulder and as the yeti crossed it in pursuit, a form materialized from out of the rock.

Ambergris, her melding spell ended, came out swinging. She had both hands on Skullcrusher, her huge mace, and it was obvious that she had seen the yeti coming from within her meld with the rock, for the level and angle of her sidelong swipe was perfect, sweeping across to crunch the yeti’s knee and sending it sprawling to the ground.

Clearly anticipating the move, Afafrenfere was already turning, and was fast back to the spot, leaping with a double knee drop onto the back of the prostrate yeti’s head. The monk sprang up and stomped again, then leaped out before the yeti as it started to rise, demanding its attention.

And so the beast never saw Amber coming as the dwarf landed on its back and executed a tremendous overhead chop with Skullcrusher, the weapon once more living up to its name.

One on one, Dahlia figured she might have a chance against a tundra yeti, even though her weapon was not particularly effective against their tough hides and thick bones. When the second beast climbed back to its feet and came forward, though, the elf woman knew that she was in trouble.

She banged her staff against the stone before her nearest opponent several times in rapid succession, building a charge, then thrust it out against the returning yeti and released the energy, driving the monster back a couple of steps.

Dahlia thought to turn and flee. Indeed, she started to do just that, but then another form materialized before her-and behind the yetis-as her half-tiefling son slipped out of a crack in the mountain wall and became again three-dimensional. He was already into spellcasting as he reformed, Dahlia noted, so she redoubled her efforts at holding the yetis in place with a series of jabs and sweeps of Kozah’s Needle.

A cloud appeared, sickly green and steaming with putrid aromas, its stench forcing Dahlia back, though it was not aimed at her. It sat in place up above and in front of her, engulfing the heads of the tall beasts. Their arms flailed more at the gases than forward at Dahlia. She heard them choking, half a roar and half a cough, though she could no longer see much of their heads within the steamy, opaque veil of the spell.

Dahlia fell back another step, broke her staff into a tri-staff and sent it into a spin. Clutching the middle pole, she launched into a twirling dance, exaggerating her movements to enhance the spinning flow of the outer poles. Her hands lifted and thrust alternately on the center pole, angling the spinning side bars to crack against the stones and occasionally against each other, throwing sparks that were immediately gobbled up by the enchantment of Kozah’s Needle.

Within the stinking cloud, the yetis flailed. One finally found the good sense to duck low out of the gases, but when it came clear, it began to jolt and roar and twist all around-behind it, the warlock sent forth black bolts of stinging magic. The whole of the beast burst into flame then, magical darkfire eating at its flesh and hair.

Down that yeti went, streams of smoke rising. The second came forth, though, from the cloud, tumbling over the rock, its chin and chest covered in vomit, but with claws stubbornly raking at Dahlia.

She got in a hard blow, and let forth her lightning burst to doubly sting the beast. She dropped her hands to the outermost pole and twirled the other two around, whip-like, gathering momentum and speed, then snapping it like a biting snake, again and again as the beast stubbornly rose up on its hind legs once more.

She felt as if she were beating the dust from a hanging tapestry, and so doing no real damage to the tapestry itself!

Dahlia cursed and wished for a broadsword.

She cursed some more when the second yeti stood once again, still burning and smoking, but no longer bothered, it seemed, by the roiling putrid cloud. When it, too, came forward, moving between the rocks, the elf woman began her retreat, her nearest opponent pacing her, the second closing in.

But not closing in on her, she only realized when that trailing yeti scraped a clawed paw across the back of her opponent’s head, and when the leading beast spun around to react, the second leaped upon it, bearing it to the ground.

Dahlia fell back, unable to decipher the riddle-until she spotted Effron once more, moving around the putrid cloud and the stones, his bone staff extended, the eyes of the staff’s skull glowing red with inner fire. She figured out then that this second yeti was quite dead, and in death, it served Effron!

Her son had done this.

She watched, mesmerized, overwhelmed, half-proud but more than half-horrified.

The otherworldly shriek of Entreri’s nightmare broke that trance and had Dahlia spinning around to see Amber and Afafrenfere standing around another dead yeti. Another beast, still alive, retreated back to the north and tore at its stomach as it went, a trail of spiders crawling behind it in pursuit. And finally, to see Entreri bashing in the skull of the yeti in the middle of the trail, the first of the beasts to appear, as it continued to twist and tear at the throat of the nightmare. The hellsteed now lay on its side, beginning to dissipate into black nothingness.

Amber and Afafrenfere rushed up to join Dahlia, and all three turned to regard the nearby struggle. Effron’s zombie seemed no match for the living yeti, but it served to keep the beast engaged as Effron once more began to throw his blackfire magic. The living yeti finally managed to extract itself, the zombie falling still, quite destroyed, but the wounded beast had no more heart for the fight, obviously, and it ran off to the north, one last bolt of energy reaching forth from the warlock’s bone staff to bite at it as it fled.

“Formidable,” Afafrenfere remarked as Entreri finished off the last of the enemies.

“Thank you,” replied the warlock.

“All of us, I mean,” said the monk. “A capable band of five.” Effron just chuckled as he walked past the trio.

“Let us not tarry,” Entreri called out to them. “Let us be far from this place before those two return, and likely with more friends.” He ended by leaping to the side, in seeming alarm, and his motion and gaze had Dahlia, the monk, and the dwarf beside her turning fast.

The yeti Amber had killed stood up once more, brains dripping from the back of its exploded skull. It lumbered after Effron as he went on his way to the far side of the trail. A moment later, the eyes of the tiefling’s bone staff flared yet again and the yeti Entreri had killed by the wall shifted and stiffly rose to its feet.

“I’m not much liking this,” Amber remarked, and the dwarf priestess lifted her holy symbol.

“Get used to it,” Effron replied without humor, and indeed, with a clear warning in his tone that he would not much appreciate any attempts the dwarf might make to drive his new pets away. The twisted warlock looked to Entreri and bade him, “Lead on.”

Entreri’s eyes never left the warlock, or his two new pets. The assassin moved in front of his latest kill and retrieved the obsidian nightmare statuette. He could not summon his mount again, so soon after the fight, so he tucked the figurine away into his pouch and waited for Dahlia and the others to catch up.

“Ye keep yer beasties far back,” Amber ordered Effron as she and Afafrenfere fell into line behind Dahlia and Entreri. “I’m only tellin’ ye once.”

Effron only gave a cynical little laugh.

Despite the protests of the dwarf, and the clear uneasiness of the others, when they made camp that night, the zombie yetis stood guard. Indeed, Effron kept the beasts beside them all the way through the mountain pass and onto the rolling hills south of the Spine of the World, only releasing them back into death when the towers of Luskan came into sight, for even in that scurvy town, such monstrous undead guards would not likely find a warm welcome.

They made their way to the city outskirts north of the River Mirar, where a group of the city garrison stood guard at the north gate.

“What business have you in the City of Sails?” asked one. He looked at Dahlia as he spoke, but with apparent lust, not recognition. She had been a fugitive in Luskan, of course, and quite high in profile, having murdered one of the high captains and taken his enchanted cloak, which she now wore openly.

But none of the group seemed to recognize her, or any of them, reminding them of the benefit of their multi-year sleep. They had gone to Icewind Dale as fugitives, with many powerful enemies in pursuit, but now nearly two decades had passed.

“Passing through,” Amber replied, and she moved in close and offered a handshake, cleverly slipping a gold coin into the guard’s hand as he accepted her grip. “Or might be stayin’, or might be signing on with a ship. Who’s to say?”

The guard nodded and glanced back over his shoulder, pointing to a structure not far down the road. “One-Eyed Jax,” he said. “That’d be the place for you.”

“One-Eyed Jax?” Entreri echoed suspiciously, holding out his arm to bar any others from walking past him.

“Aye, a fine inn and a common room for postings, ship or caravan,” the guard replied.

“Jax?” the assassin pressed.

“That’s what he said,” Amber interjected, but Entreri ignored her. “The proprietor?”

“Aye, that’d be a shortened version of his name,” the guard replied hesitantly.

“Jarlaxle!” Ambergris blurted, catching on.

The guard and his companions all blanched and looked around nervously, for such was clearly not a name to be spoken openly and loudly in Luskan!

Entreri moved back, signaling his group around him. “We go around the city,” he told them quietly.

“Been wantin’ a warm bed,” Amber argued.

“No.”

“Bah, but I’ll meet ye on th’other side after one good night!” the dwarf bargained.

“No,” Entreri flatly answered and he pointedly turned away from the guard and mouthed silently to his companions, “Would you so quickly tell all the world that we have returned to the land of the living?”

That gave Amber, and the others, pause. Entreri moved them away, motioning for the guard to remain behind.

“You don’t believe we can trust Jarlaxle?” Dahlia asked quietly when they were off to the side.

Entreri snorted as if the question itself was perfectly ridiculous.

“He saved us,” Dahlia reminded him.

Entreri snorted again. “Yet another reason for me to hate him.”

“We were statues, we three,” Afafrenfere put in, indicating himself, Entreri, and Dahlia, all three who had been turned to stone by a medusa in the dark environs of the Shadowfell, in the House of Lord Draygo Quick. “Trapped forever in nothingness, unable to even go on to our afterlife.”

“Sounds like heaven,” Entreri said dryly. “We go around the city, all of us, and not another word.”

“Are you deigning to speak for the whole group now?” Dahlia asked.

“As you did in going to battle against Drizzt, you mean?” Entreri quickly retorted, and the woman backed off.

The dwarf, the monk, and Effron exchanged glances.

“Well, lead on then, ye dolt,” Amber said. “Next city in line-Port Llast if she’s still standing. I’m in need of a beer and a bed, don’t ye doubt!”

“And a bath,” Afafrenfere added.

“Don’t ye get all stupid,” grumbled the dwarf, and with a farewell nod to the confused Luskan guard, the band turned east, around the city, and moved off down the road.