gases escaping the dark tunnel.
“We need not,” he said to her, and he nodded his chin to the north. “We could take the road to Luskan instead. Or past Luskan to Ten-Towns, though we’d not beat the onset of winter in Icewind Dale.”
“Or the eastern road to Mithral Hall,” Dahlia retorted, clearly not amused.
The bar came free in Entreri’s hand, which seemed to surprise him. He stared at its rusted end, then tossed it aside to splash into the water. He crouched lower and washed his hands in the salty liquid. “Decide now,” he said. “This way lies Alegni.”
Dahlia pushed past him and hopped up into the tunnel on her bare knees, then quickly rose into a standing crouch as she glanced back at the other two. “Light a torch,” she instructed.
“It will blow up in your face,” Entreri replied with a derisive snort.
“We’ll need a light source,” Dahlia argued, because she needed to say something at that point. Artemis Entreri had just gained the upper hand on her, had just diminished her in front of Drizzt. Dahlia could not let that stand.
“I came through without one,” the assassin replied glibly, and Dahlia could only scowl.
She put her hands on her hips and glared at the man, but Drizzt drew forth Twinkle. The magical sword answered his call and glowed a soft blue-white hue. The drow hopped up into the tunnel and squeezed past Dahlia, the blade out before him, dimly lighting the way.
Cut unevenly through the stone, the sewer was sometimes high enough for Drizzt and the others to stand straight, but often they crouched as they moved along. The floor was concave, lower in the center, and a flow of dark water trickled past, sometimes pooling ankle deep or even past their knees, which was quite alarming. Everywhere, just at the edges of their vision, critters slithered or crawled or scurried aside.
At first the sword light seemed meager, but as they got deeper into the tunnel system-a maze of angles, turns, and indistinguishable stones-and the daylight receded behind them, Twinkle’s glow seemed brighter by far. More rats huddled in the shadows at the side of the tunnel, more snakes slithered away into the water, and a multitude of insects, flying and stinging and spidery things hanging on slight webs, looked on.
None of the three spoke the obvious truth: the sword could illuminate a few feet around them, but to someone or something far away, it no doubt shined like a warning beacon.
Drizzt, born and raised in the near lightless Underdark, was most conscious of this, of course. A drow carrying a light source in the corridors around Menzoberranzan would soon enough be murdered and robbed. Holding the glowing blade now was anathema to everything he had learned as a young warrior. With his superior vision, he could navigate these tunnels well enough without the glow.
“I can see in the dark,” Entreri said behind him, surprising him, and he turned on the man.
“You wore a cat’s eye circlet,” Drizzt agreed, and he held up Twinkle, confirming that Entreri was not wearing any such thing at that time.
“Innate now,” the assassin explained. “A gift from Jarlaxle.”
Drizzt nodded and moved to sheathe the sword, but Dahlia caught his arm. He looked at her curiously, and she shook her head, her face a mask of discomfort.
“I don’t like snakes and I don’t like spiders,” she said. “If you sheathe that, then know that you’ll be carrying me.”
That brought a laugh from Entreri, but a brief one, as Dahlia, deadly serious, fixed him with a glare telling him in no uncertain terms that he was crossing a dangerous line.
Drizzt started away, and Dahlia splashed along behind him. “A gentleman would carry me,” she muttered under her breath.
“Because you’re such a lady?” Entreri asked from behind.
Up in front, Drizzt stopped and took a deep breath. An image of the two locked in a passionate embrace flitted through his thoughts and he nearly growled aloud as he dismissed it.
With the light of Twinkle leading the way, the trio moved farther along the main passageway, and soon enough came to a honeycomb network of more impressive and hand-worked side tunnels. They knew that they were underneath the outskirts of the city-the old city, at least. Their choices were limited at first, for these were still much smaller tunnels, almost all impassable and with a couple that they might have traversed by belly- crawling… something none of them wanted. But a short while after that, they came to a network of passages larger still, many as navigable as the one they now traveled and a couple even larger than that.
“Do you remember the way?” Drizzt asked Entreri. He whispered the words, for other sounds echoed across the wet and slimy stones.
Entreri moved up beside the drow, who stood at a five-way intersection, and surveyed the area. Hands on hips, he at last shook his head. “It was long ago.”
“Not so long,” Dahlia argued, clearly impatient.
Both Entreri and Drizzt looked at the elf woman.
“When I last came through here, I simply followed the water’s flow,” he explained. “I cared for that which was before me, not behind.”
“You would have been far cleverer had you marked your passing, or at least, had you returned and mapped it after you had escaped,” Dahlia continued.
Entreri stared at her hard. “I didn’t intend on returning through this route. Ever.”
Dahlia waved at him dismissively. “You disappoint me,” she said. “A true warrior always prepares.”
Drizzt studied Entreri closely, expecting the man to explode and to fall over Dahlia in a murderous rage. But he just stood there, staring at her for a bit longer, before turning back to face Drizzt and look to the tunnels once more. “Left, I would guess,” he said. “The river is to our left and I entered the sewers along its bank. It is the source of the running water that flushes these passages, and so…”
“Flushes?” Dahlia prodded a thick pile of muck and feces with the half-staff she carried, her face a mask of disgust.
The pile shifted aside and out from under it came a serpent, black and thick and coiled, and easily as long as Dahlia was tall. It flew out from its position, lifting into the air, so fierce was its strike at Dahlia.
Dahlia recoiled and tried to fall away as the snapping toothy maw closed for her face.
A descending line of light flashed before her, but more importantly to her at that time, the bulk of the snake crashed into her. How she screamed and thrashed! All discipline flew from her as she worked purely in reaction to get that horrid thing away from her. And even after it fell aside, it took the woman quite a few heartbeats to sort it all out, to realize that she had not been bitten, to understand that the light marked the descent of Drizzt’s scimitar, and that she had been met by nothing more than the snake’s headless body flying from momentum and thrashing in its death throes.
Drizzt grabbed Dahlia and held her arms by her sides, trying to calm her as Entreri walked by.
“Did it pierce me? Am I poisoned?” she asked over and over again.
“Perhaps, and no,” Entreri answered, and both looked at him, and Dahlia’s face crinkled with disgust. He held the severed snake head, stuck on the end of his sword. “It is a constrictor, not a venomous serpent,” he said. “It won’t kill you with a bite, but would wrap you instead and crush the breath out of you, all the while trying to swallow the top of your head.”
Now it was Drizzt’s turn to flash a glare at Entreri. “It is-was not poisonous,” he said calmly. “And it did not bite you, in any case.”
That seemed to steady Dahlia a bit more. She kicked the thick, strong body of the snake farther away from her, and the body jerked spasmodically once more. Dahlia gasped and hopped away.
“You really don’t like snakes, do you?” Entreri said, and he flicked his blade, launching the snake head far away. He walked back past Drizzt and Dahlia. “Come along, then. The sooner we are out of these smelly sewers, the better.”
Neither Dahlia nor Drizzt was about to argue with that statement and they rushed to catch up, Drizzt again taking the lead-but this time, Dahlia stood right beside him.
Entreri handed her the other half of Kozah’s Needle. Dahlia looked at it doubtfully, not taking it.
“If it serves as we had hoped, then it has shown me no contact by Charon’s Claw in the time I have carried it,” he explained. “If the sword has sought me and found me, then your weapon didn’t notice. Either way, better for you to be armed now.”
“What do you know?” Dahlia asked.
