Drizzt finally did bend and retrieve his weapons, feeling more secure as he belted them on. He knew that the odds in this room were impossible, whether he had the scimitars or not, but he was experienced enough to realize that opportunities were fleeting and often came when least expected.
Entreri drew his slender sword and jeweled dagger, then crouched low, his thin lips widening into an eager smile.
Drizzt stood easily, shoulders slumped, scimitars still in their sheaths.
The assassin's sword cut across, nicking Drizzt on the tip of his nose, forcing his head to flinch to the side. He reached up casually with his thumb and index finger, pinching the flow of blood.
'Coward,' Entreri teased, feigning a straightforward lunge and still circling.
Drizzt turned to keep him directly in front, not bothered at all by the ridiculous insult.
'Come now, Drizzt Do'Urden,' Jarlaxle intervened, drawing looks from both Drizzt and Entreri. 'You know you are doomed, but will you not gain any pleasure in killing this human, this man who has done you and your friends so many wrongs?'
'What have you to lose?' Entreri asked. 'I cannot kill you, only defeat you-that is my deal with your sister. But you may kill me. Surely Vierna would not intervene, and might even be amused, at the loss of a simple human life.'
Drizzt remained impassive. He had nothing to lose, they claimed. What they apparently did not understand was that Drizzt Do'Urden did not fight when he had nothing to lose, only when he had something to gain, only when the situation necessitated that he fight.
'Draw your weapons, I beg,' Jarlaxle added. 'Your reputation is considerable and I would dearly love to see you at play, to see if you are truly the better of Zaknafein.'
Drizzt, trying to play it calm, trying to hold fast to his principles, could not hide his grimace at the mention of his dead father, reputably the finest weapons master ever to draw swords in Menzoberranzan. In spite of himself, he drew his scimitars, Twinkle's angry blue glow sincerely reflecting the welling rage that Drizzt Do'Urden could not fully suppress.
Entreri came on suddenly, fiercely, and Drizzt reacted with warrior instincts, scimitars ringing against sword and dagger, defeating every attack. Taking the offensive before he even realized what he was doing, acting solely on instinct, Drizzt began turning full circles, his blades flowing around him like the edging of a screw, every turn bringing them in at his opponent from different heights and different angles.
Entreri, confused by the unconventional routine, missed as many parries as he hit, but his quick feet kept him out of reach. 'Always a surprise,' the assassin admitted grimly, and he winced jealously at the approving sighs and comments from the dark elves lining the room.
Drizzt stopped his spin, ending perfectly squared to the assassin, blades low and ready.
'Pretty, but to no avail,' Entreri cried and rushed forward, sword flying low, dagger slicing high. Drizzt twisted diagonally, one blade knocking the sword aside, the other forming a barrier that the dagger could not get through as it cut harmlessly high. Entreri's dagger hand continued a complete circuit— Drizzt noticed that he flipped the blade over in his fingers-while his sword darted and thrust, this way and that, to keep Drizzt busy.
Predictably, the assassin's dagger hand came about, dipping down to the side, and he whipped the dagger free.
Ringing like a hammer on metal, Twinkle darted into the missile's path and batted it away, knocking it across the room.
'Well done!' Jarlaxle congratulated, and Entreri, too, backed off and nodded his sincere approval. With just a sword now, the assassin came in more cautiously, loosing a measured strike.
His surprise was absolute when Drizzt did not parry, when Drizzt missed not one deflection, but two and the thrusting weapon slipped past the scimitar defense. The sword quickly recoiled, never reaching its vulnerable mark. Entreri came in again, feigning another straightforward thrust, but snapping the weapon back and around instead.
He had Drizzt beaten, could have ripped the drow's shoulder, or neck, apart with that simple feint! Drizzt's knowing smile stopped him, though. He turned his sword to its flat edge and smacked it against the drow's shoulder, doing no real damage.
Drizzt had let him through, both times, was now mocking the assassin's precious fight with a pretense of inability!
Entreri wanted to scream out his protests, let all the other dark elves in on Drizzt s private game. The assassin decided that this battle was too personal, though, something that should be settled between himself and Drizzt, and not through any intervention by Vierna or Jarlaxle.
'I had you,' he teased, using the rocky Dwarvish language in the hopes that those drow around him, except, of course, for Drizzt, would not understand it.
'You should have ended it, then,' Drizzt replied calmly, in the Common surface language, though he spoke the Dwarvish tongue perfectly well. He wouldn't give Entreri the satisfaction of removing this to a personal level, would keep the fight public and ridicule it openly with his actions.
'You should have fought better,' Entreri retorted, reverting to the Common tongue. 'For the sake of your halfling friend, if not for yourself. If you kill me, then Regis will be free, but if I walk from here…' He let the threat hang in the air, but it grew less ominous indeed when Drizzt laughed at it openly.
'Regis is dead,' the drow ranger reasoned. 'Or will be, whatever the outcome of our battle.'
'No-' Entreri began.
'Yes,' Drizzt interrupted. 'I know you better than to fall prey to your unending lies. You have been too blinded by your rage. You did not anticipate every possibility.'
Entreri came in again, easily, not making any blatant strikes that would make this continuing charade obvious to the gathered dark elves.
'He is dead,' Drizzt asked as much as stated.
'What do you think?' Entreri snapped back, his snarling tone making the answer seem obvious.
Drizzt realized the shift in tactics, understood that Entreri now was attempting to enrage him, to make him fight in anger.
Drizzt remained impassive, let fly a few lazy attack routines that Entreri had little trouble defeating-and that the assassin could have countered to devastating effect if he had so desired.
Vierna and Jarlaxle began to speak in whispers, and Drizzt, thinking they might grow tired of the charade, came on more forcefully, though still with measured and ineffective strikes. Entreri gave a slight but definite nod to show that he was beginning to understand. The game, the subtle and silent undercurrents and communications, were getting personal, and Drizzt, as much as Entreri, did not want Vierna intervening.
'You will savor your victory,' Entreri promised uncharacteristically, a leading phrase.
'It will come as no gain,' Drizzt replied, a response the assassin was obviously fully beginning to expect. Entreri wanted to win this fight, wanted to win it even more badly because Drizzt did not seem to care. Drizzt knew that Entreri was not stupid, though, and while he and Drizzt were of similar fighting skills, their motivations surely separated them. Entreri would fight with all his heart against Drizzt just to prove something, but Drizzt honestly felt that he had nothing to prove, not to the assassin.
Drizzt's failings in this fight were not a bluff, were not something that Entreri could call him on. Drizzt would lose, taking more satisfaction in not giving Entreri the enjoyment of honest victory.
And, as his actions now revealed, the assassin was not completely surprised by the turn of events.
'Your last chance,' Entreri teased. 'Here, you and I part company. I leave through the far door, and the drow go back down to their dark world.'
Drizzt's violet eyes flicked to the side, to the alcove, for just a moment, his movement revealing to Entreri that he had not missed the emphasis on the word 'down,' had not missed the obvious reference to the cloth- covered chute.
Entreri rolled to the side suddenly, having worked himself around close enough to retrieve his lost dagger. It was a daring maneuver, and again a revealing move to his opponent, for with Drizzt's fighting so obviously lacking, Entreri had no need to take the risk of going for his lost weapon.
'Might I rename your cat?' Entreri asked, shifting his waist to reveal a large belt pouch, the black statuette obvious through the open edges of its bulging top.
The assassin came in fast and hard with a four-strike routine, any of which could have slipped through, had
