He looked back at Dahlia and lifted his hand to respond, but before he did, he realized something quite amazing and unexpected: Dahlia had spoken to him in the intricate drow hand cant. Drizzt had never met anyone other than a drow who could use that sign language.
How do you know the cant? he flashed back at her.
Dahlia’s pretty face screwed up as she tried, unsuccessfully, it seemed, to follow his movements.
Slowly, Drizzt signed, You speak as a drow.
Dahlia held her hand out horizontally and waggled it back and forth, indicating that she had only a cursory knowledge of the language. She ended with a self-deprecating grin and shrug.
Drizzt was impressed anyway. Few who were not drow, who were not trained from their earliest days at the Academy, could form even the most rudimentary words in the intricately coded language.
Down in the corridor, a door banged open and Dahlia tightened against the wall, her hands wringing on her magical staff.
Drizzt slid an arrow out of his enchanted quiver and set it to Taulmaril’s string. He crouched down on one knee and peeked out into the corridor to see a host of red-skinned salamanders slithering down his way.
“Be quick, dwarf,” Jarlaxle said, glancing nervously at the hallway door. “I do believe our enemies are fast upon us.”
Bruenor gave a hearty “harrumph” and stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the chamber’s side wall. No less than ten metal placards lined that wall, with an equal number across the way.
“Just pull ’em all,” Athrogate prodded.
Bruenor shook his head. “Got to be the right one. Rest’re trapped and sure to kill ye dead.”
Athrogate had neared one of the plates as Bruenor spoke, and was even reaching out for one. He retracted his hand quickly, though, and sucked in his breath, turning to look back at Bruenor.
Bruenor pointed two placards down from where Athrogate stood. “That one.”
“Ye for certain?”
“Aye,” Bruenor said, and Athrogate moved that way. He hooked his fingers on the plate and pulled, but nothing happened.
Cries erupted out in the hallway.
Athrogate grabbed on harder and tugged with all his considerable strength, but the plate would not budge. He let go with a growl and hopped back, spat in both hands, and moved in again-or started to, until Bruenor intervened. The dwarf king walked up to the placard, reached up with one hand, and began talking in a language that sounded like Dwarvish-so much so that it took Athrogate several moments to realize that he couldn’t really understand a word Bruenor was saying.
Bruenor gave a slight tug and the placard, the door to the secret compartment, swung open.
“How in the Nine Hells?” Athrogate complained.
“Tied to the throne’s magic?” Jarlaxle wondered aloud. The drow was fast to Bruenor’s side, to set the bowl on the base of the deep, narrow compartment. He fumbled with his sack for just a moment before producing a small vial, which he handed to the dwarf.
“To enact the magic of the bowl…” the drow began, but Bruenor held up his hand to silence his companion.
He knew how to do it. Somehow, he knew the words. He pulled the stopper from the small vial and poured the magical water into the bowl, then gently began swishing it around and chanting softly.
The water seemed to multiply as it swirled around the shallow bowl, growing in volume and in shape. Its form rose up above the rim of the bowl, like a watery humanoid swelling with power, and for a moment, it seemed outraged at being called from its home plane.
It continued to swell until it was too large to fit in the alcove, growing out of the hole and towering over the dwarf. Jarlaxle walked back, and Athrogate called out a warning to Bruenor and pulled out his morningstars, though how they might do damage to such a creature, he did not know.
But Bruenor remained unbothered. He had brought this creature through the magic of the bowl, and he commanded it. He reached right past the elemental as if it were no more bothersome than a potted plant, and slid the bowl deeper into the alcove. He pointed down the narrow tunnel, willing the elemental to retreat into the darkness, for at the other end of that compartment lay an open tendril of the Hosttower, a place designed to be filled by just such a creature.
The elemental swelled in protest, and thick, armlike appendages reached out to either side, great watery fists ready to pound at Bruenor.
But the dwarf just growled and pointed, compelling the elemental to obey. As soon as it retreated into the hole, Bruenor grabbed for the placard. He paused for a moment to consider the sounds within the alcove, like the breaking waves of a seashore.
He took a deep breath then, revealing his relief that the creature had indeed followed his command, and he closed the placard and turned to find Jarlaxle guarding by the door.
“We must be on our way,” the drow called to him, but Bruenor shook his head.
“The second one’s in here,” the dwarf explained, pointing to the opposite wall.
Out in the hall, the tumult grew.
“Oh, good dwarf, do be quick,” Jarlaxle said, and he drew out a pair of slender wands and moved to the wall at the side of the door.
One after another, Taulmaril the Heartseeker let fly, arrows trailing silver lightning as they shot off down the corridor. Crouched on one knee, Drizzt leaned out of the alcove and kept up the barrage as long as he could, dropping salamanders with every shot, sometimes two for one mighty arrow, and once even three.
But the losses only seemed to infuriate the monstrous creatures, and Drizzt knew he couldn’t drive them all away. They were fighting for the primordial, for their god. The bodies piled in the corridor, but more salamanders slithered over them. And when the drow cut those down, the enraged creatures behind used a different tactic, pushing the pile in front of them instead of scrambling over it.
The drow grimaced and kept shooting-what else could he do? He drew back Taulmaril’s bowstring as far as he could and let fly into the center mass, the lightning-arrows drilling holes into the pile and jolting bodies, occasionally breaking through to sting at the living elemental-kin behind.
The press continued, though, and Drizzt was about to put Taulmaril up and draw his swords when a pair of true lightning bolts shot down the corridor from behind him, startling him, blinding him temporarily, and forcing him back into the alcove. He came to the edge and peered around quickly to see a jumble of body parts, blackened and smoking, salamanders scrambling behind the blasted front ranks to rebuild their moving wall.
Drizzt went back to efficient work again with his deadly bow. Behind him, from the doorway of the room, Jarlaxle put his wands to use once more, angling the twin lightning bolts up high so they would rebound off the ceiling and dive down behind the wall of salamander corpses.
“Glob it!” Drizzt cried, for lack of a better word.
“Clear!” Jarlaxle yelled back, and Drizzt fell into the alcove.
A glob of green paste flew past him to strike the floor right in front of the corpse wall.
But still the salamanders came on, tearing asunder their macabre fortification and rushing over. A flying wall of spears led their charge, skipping and bouncing around the corridor.
“They’re close!” Dahlia called from across the wall.
“Follow the line!” Jarlaxle yelled from the doorway, and a double flash, one-two, of lightning rumbled past the pair, the reports shaking the stones.
“Now!” Dahlia shouted as soon as the blasts had shot past, and she leaped out into the corridor, brandishing her tri-staff.
Swords in hand, Drizzt joined her, and just in time to flash Icingdeath out to his right, in front of Dahlia, and deflect a thrown trident.
The monsters pressed in three abreast, stabbing furiously at drow and elf.
Drizzt’s scimitars worked in circles in front of him, parrying every thrust-sometimes one, sometimes two, depending on the target of the middle creature. The reach of those long spears and tridents prevented him from going forward behind any parries, though. He didn’t want to surrender his position beside Dahlia. Together they
