“An elf?” Jearth asked incredulously. “I would not suffer her to live.”
“Take her as you will,” Berellip started to answer, but Entreri interrupted.
“She is Jarlaxle’s consort,” Entreri blurted to Drizzt’s continuing surprise. “His most valuable spy, as you can imagine, for she navigates the villages of the elves and Eladrin with ease.”
Simply in looking at Jearth, Drizzt realized that his assassin companion had just saved Dahlia from a certain fate of rape, torture, and ultimately, murder.
“You let iblith speak for you?” Berellip asked Drizzt, moving around to stand before him.
Drizzt held his breath yet again. She had recognized Entreri-what might happen if she recognized him? Certainly she was old enough to know the stories of Drizzt Do’Urden, traitor to his people.
“He is Jarlaxle’s colnbluth,” Drizzt explained at length. “I serve Kimmuriel.”
“And which leads Bregan D’aerthe?” Berellip asked.
“Kimmuriel,” Drizzt said without hesitation, though he was flailing blindly, for he had no idea of what he was talking about, and had even less of an idea of what Berellip and Jearth might know of the inner workings of Jarlaxle’s band.
“Then why do you allow him to speak?”
“In deference to Jarlaxle,” Drizzt replied. “That is our edict from Kimmuriel. All deference to Jarlaxle. I am here to serve as Kimmuriel’s eyes, as Jarlaxle’s colnbluth and his elf consort scout out this most curious place.”
“Weapons master,” came a voice from the back of the room, out of Drizzt’s sight. “The Shadovar move to flank us. We must move at once.”
Jearth looked to Berellip.
“Free them,” the priestess said. “We will need their blades. Put them in a tunnel where the fighting will be especially fierce. My memory is that Jarlaxle’s toy was exceptionally fine with the blade, as well as his spear.”
She leaned in close to Entreri and said quietly. “If you fight well, you may survive, and if you do, I will allow you to please me once more.”
To that point, the groggy Dahlia had been perfectly still and perfectly silent, but she gave a little gasp at that remark, Drizzt noted with more than a passing interest.
“She must have been an amazing lover for you to remember her after all of these decades,” Dahlia said to Entreri when the three were moving together and alone a short while later.
“I don’t remember her at all,” Entreri replied.
“But… you mentioned the incident,” Dahlia protested. “This Claw…?”
She held up her hands helplessly.
“The Clawrift,” Drizzt explained. “A chasm in the drow city.”
“And he remembered it, and the encounter with her beside it,” Dahlia said. Drizzt didn’t look at her, figuring that it would only confirm the intrigue he clearly heard in Dahlia’s voice. Again came those flashes, images of Dahlia and Entreri entwined in passion. But now Drizzt understood the source of them- partly, at least-and so he pushed them away and silently warned Charon’s Claw to shut up.
If it was Charon’s Claw, and that was the rub. For in his heart, Drizzt understood that the sentient sword was not planting the whole of his feelings regarding Dahlia and Artemis Entreri. The sword had sensed some jealousy within him and was fueling it, likely, but Drizzt would be lying to himself to pretend that he was not honestly bothered by the level of intimacy between Entreri and Dahlia, a level that far exceeded his own with this elf woman who was his lover.
“Not at all,” Entreri said.
“I heard you!” Dahlia protested.
“That was the chosen place,” said Entreri. “For all of the noble priestesses who were curious about the prowess of a human.”
“You said she magically dangled you over the ledge,” Dahlia protested. “They all did.”
Both Dahlia and Drizzt stopped and stared at him.
“Lovely ladies, these priestesses of Lolth,” Entreri mouthed dryly. “Not very imaginative, but…” He just shrugged and moved along.
Drizzt thought back to those long-ago days, when Jarlaxle had taken Artemis Entreri to Menzoberranzan, and there the assassin had been like a slave-not necessarily to Jarlaxle, but to any and all of the drow who deemed to use him as they would. Drizzt had learned of some of Entreri’s trials in those days, for Drizzt, too, had gone to Menzoberranzan at that time to surrender, and had been promptly imprisoned there until a dear friend had come to get him. He had left the city beside Artemis Entreri, a daring escape.
Beside Entreri and Catti-brie.
She had come for him, daring the deep Underdark, defying the power of the drow, risking everything for the sake of a foolish Drizzt, who truly hadn’t appreciated the value and responsibility of friendship.
Would Dahlia have come for him, he couldn’t help but wonder? He had to let it go, he scolded himself. Now was not the time to consider the past, or the reliability of his present companions. They could fight, and fight well, and now, with the tunnels full of deadly enemies, that was enough.
Indeed, in short order, the three companions found themselves alone and hard-pressed once more, for the Shadovar were all about the upper levels of the complex, like a creeping and pervasive darkness.
“We have to get down below quickly,” Drizzt explained as he hustled beside Entreri, Dahlia just behind them, along a corridor lined by many rooms on either side. These had been dwarven living quarters in ancient times, obviously, the residences of Gauntlgrym.
“There is only one descent that I know of,” Dahlia agreed. “Alegni will move to block it.”
“If he even knows of it,” said Drizzt. As he spoke, he noted that a door ahead of Entreri on the right-hand side of the corridor was slightly ajar, and it seemed to him as if the cracked opening had just shifted slightly.
Drizzt called upon his magical anklets to speed his movements. He darted across in front of Entreri, barreling into the door full speed, bursting it wide and charging into the side room. A group of four shades awaited him, or more accurately, had planned to spring out at him and his companions. The first fell away, slammed by the door. The second instinctively reached for his tumbling companion, then spun back and threw his arms up to defend, but too late as Drizzt’s scimitar cut across his throat, the drow rushing past. “Right!” he heard Dahlia cry as he engaged the remaining two, and he understood that this ambush had been coordinated from more than one room. No matter, though, his task lay before him.
He batted down a pointing stave with a backhand right, and the flummoxed sorcerer couldn’t even finish his spell. Drizzt’s left scimitar went across the other way, batting aside a thrusting sword. Without even turning his hips, the drow deftly rolled his weapon over that sword and came back in the other way, neatly parrying a thrust of the attacker’s second sword.
Only then, in recognizing the two-handed fighting style, did Drizzt come to understand, too, that this shade was of elf heritage, perhaps even dark elf heritage. Again, no matter, for he hadn’t the time to ask a question. He stabbed out with that left hand, forcing the shade back, then retreated himself a few fast steps. He reversed his grip on Icingdeath in his right hand and stabbed it out behind him, perfectly timing the strike to halt the charge of the shade who had been slammed by the door. Axe up high for an overhead, two-handed chop and coming in fast, the fool had no defense. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t stop, couldn’t dodge, and couldn’t get his weapon or even an arm down for a block.
He took the stab in his gut, the curving blade working upward, through his diaphragm and into his lung.
The shade staggered back, the blade sliding out, and he gasped and tried to find his balance.
But Drizzt turned even as he retracted the blade, a spinning circuit that gave him a forehand slash with Twinkle that chopped the shade to the ground. As he came around, Drizzt darted out and leaped high, crashing down atop the mage, who was again trying to enact some spell. Drizzt yelled in his face, trying to disorient him, and unleashed a barrage of blows, left and right, tearing at the mage’s robes, bashing him around the skull.
He hit the shade a dozen times or more in the heartbeats he had before the swordsman leaped at him, and then he had to hope it would be enough as he found himself engaged with the skilled warrior.
The very skilled warrior, Drizzt realized almost immediately, as those swords came in at him from a multitude of angles, seemingly all at once, so fast and perfect was the execution of the elf shade.
Entreri started into the room right behind Drizzt, but on Dahlia’s call, the assassin leaped into the air and turned sidelong. He planted his feet against the door jamb and launched himself back the other way, falling to the
