his favor, was the bragging right that Artemis Entreri owed her a favor, a claim that would drain the blood from the faces of the majority of Calimport's street folk.
The question for Entreri now was, did he really care if he ever got the information Dwahvel offered? He thought it over for another minute, then nodded his accord. Dwahvel brightened immediately.
'Come back tomorrow night, then,' she said. 'I will have something to tell you.'
Outside the Copper Ante, Artemis Entreri spent a long while thinking about Dondon, for he found that every time he conjured an image of the fat halfling stuffing pie into his face he was filled with rage. Not disgust, but rage. As he examined those feelings, he came to recognize that Dondon Tiggerwillies had been about as close to a friend as Artemis Entreri had ever known. Pasha Basadoni had been his mentor, Pasha Pook his primary employer, but Dondon and Entreri had related in a different manner. They acted in each other's benefit without set prices, exchanging information without taking count. It had been a mutually beneficial relationship. Seeing Dondon now, purely hedonistic, having given up on any meaning in life, it seemed to the assassin that the halfling had committed a form of living suicide.
Entreri did not possess enough compassion for that to explain the anger he felt, though, and when he admitted that to himself he came to understand that the sight of Dondon repelled him so much because, given his own mental state lately, it could well be him. Not chained by the ankle in the company of women and food, of course, but in effect, Dondon had surrendered, and so had Entreri.
Perhaps it was time to take down the white flag.
Dondon had been his friend in a manner, and there had been one other similarly entwined. Now it was time to go and see LaValle.
Chapter 4 THE SUMMONS
Drizzt couldn't get down to the ledge where Guenhwyvar had landed, so he used the onyx figurine to dismiss the cat. She faded back to the Astral plane, her home, where her wounds would better heal. He saw that Regis and his unexpected giant ally had moved out of sight, and that Wulfgar and Catti-brie were moving to join Bruenor down at
the lower ledge to the south, where the last of the enemy giants had fallen. The dark elf began picking his way to join them. At first, he thought he might have to backtrack all the way around to his initial position with Wulfgar, but using his incredible agility and the strength of fingers trained for decades in the maneuvering skills of sword play, he somehow found enough ledges, cracks, and simple angled surfaces to get down beside his friends.
By the time he got there, all three had entered the cave at the back of the shelf.
'Damned things might've kept a bit more treasure if they're meanin' to put up such a fight,' he heard Bruenor complaining.
'Perhaps that's why they were scouting out the road,' Catti-brie replied. 'Might it have been better for
ye if we went at them on our way back from Cadderly's place? Perhaps then we'd've found more treasure to yer liking. And maybe a few merchant skulls to go along with it.'
'Bah!' the dwarf snorted, drawing a wide smile from Drizzt. Few in all the Realms needed treasure less than Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth King of Mithral Hall (despite his chosen absence from the place) and also leader of a lucrative mining colony in Icewind Dale. But that wasn't the point of Bruenor's ire, Drizzt understood, and he smiled all the wider as Bruenor confirmed his suspicions.
'What kind o' wicked god'd put ye against such powerful foes and not even reward ye with a bit o' gold?' the dwarf grumbled.
'We did find some gold,' Catti-brie reminded him. Drizzt, entering the cave, noted that she held a fairly substantial sack that bulged with coins.
Bruenor flashed the drow a disgusted look. 'Copper mostly,' he grumbled. 'Three gold coins, a pair o' silver, and nothing more but stinkin' copper!'
'But the road is safe,' Drizzt said. He looked to Wulfgar as he spoke, but the big man would not match his stare. The drow tried hard not to pass any judgment over his tormented friend. Wulfgar should have led Drizzt's charge to the shelf. Never before had he so failed Drizzt in their tandem combat. But the drow knew that the barbarian's hesitance came not from any desire to see Drizzt injured nor, certainly, any cowardice. Wulfgar spun in emotional turmoil, the depths of which Drizzt Do'Urden had never before seen. He had known of these problems before coaxing the barbarian out for this hunt, so he could not rightly place any blame now.
Nor did he want to. He only hoped that the fight itself, after Wulfgar had become involved, had helped
the man to rid himself of some of those inner demons, had run the horse, as Montolio would have called it, just a bit.
'And what about yerself?' Bruenor roared, bouncing over to stand before Drizzt. 'What're ye about, going off on yer own without a word to the rest of us? Ye thinking all the fun's for yerself, elf? Ye thinking that me and me girl can't be helpin' ye?'
'I did not want to trouble you with so minor a battle,' Drizzt calmly replied, painting a disarming smile on his dark face. 'I knew that we would be in the mountains, outside and
not under them, in terrain not suited for the likes of a short-limbed dwarf.'
Bruenor wanted to hit him. Drizzt could see that in the way the dwarf was trembling. 'Bah!' he roared instead, throwing up his hands and walking back for the exit to the small cave. 'Ye're always doin' that, ye stinkin' elf. Always going about on yer own and taking all the fun. But we'll find more on the road, don't ye doubt! And ye better be hopin' that ye see it afore me, or I'll cut 'em all down afore ye ever get them sissy blades outta their sheaths or that stinkin' cat outta that statue.
'Unless they're too much for us. …' he continued, his voice trailing away as he moved out of the cave. 'Then I just might let ye have 'em all to yerself, ye stinkin' elf!'
Wulfgar, without a word and without a look at Drizzt, moved out next, leaving the drow and Catti-brie alone. Drizzt was chuckling now as Bruenor continued to grumble, but when he looked at Catti-brie, he saw that she was truly not amused, her feelings obviously hurt.
'I'm thinking that a poor excuse,' she remarked.
'I wanted to bring Wulfgar out alone,' Drizzt explained. 'To bring him back to a different place and time, before all the trouble.'
'And ye're not thinkin' that me dad, or meself, might want to be helping with that?' Catti-brie asked.
'I wanted no one here that Wulfgar might fear needed protecting,' Drizzt explained, and Catti-brie slumped back, her jaw dropping open.
'I speak only the truth, and you see it clearly,' Drizzt went on. 'You remember how Wulfgar acted toward you before the fight with the yochlol. He was protective to the point of becoming a detriment to any battle cause. How could I rightly ask you to join us out here now, when that previous scenario might have repeated, leaving Wulfgar, perhaps, in an even worse emotional place than when we set out? That is why I did not ask Bruenor or Regis, either. Wulfgar, Guenhwyvar, and I would fight the giants, as we did that time so long ago in Icewind Dale. And maybe, just maybe, he would remember things the way they had been before his unwelcome tenure with Errtu.'
Catti-brie's expression softened, and she bit her lower lip as she nodded her agreement. 'And did it work?' she asked. 'Suren the fight went well, and Wulfgar fought well and honestly.'
Drizzt's gaze drifted out the exit. 'He made a mistake,' the drow admitted. 'Though surely he compensated as the battle progressed. It is my hope that Wulfgar will forgive himself his initial hesitance and focus on the actual fight where he performed wonderfully.'
'Hesitance?' Catti-brie asked skeptically.
'When we first began the battle,' Drizzt started to explain, but he waved his hand dismissively as if it did not really matter. 'It has been many years since we have fought together. It was an excusable miscue, nothing more.' In truth, Drizzt had a hard time dismissing the fact that Wulfgar's hesitance had almost cost him and Guenhwyvar dearly.
'Ye're in a generous mood,' the ever-perceptive Catti-brie remarked.
