Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(112)

“No!” they both shouted back.

Dahlia leaped between them more directly, looking from one to the other with clear confusion. “You need him!” she implored Entreri. “That you might be rid of the sword!”

The assassin backed and straightened, and so did Drizzt. “The sword?” they both said together.

A horrified Drizzt threw his scimitars to the ground and reached over his left shoulder, drawing forth Charon’s Claw and taking it up before him in both hands.

“The sword,” he said again, figuring it all out.

All of it.

The suspicions, the images of Entreri and Dahlia locked in passion, the urge to kill Artemis Entreri. . . .

With a growl, the drow leaped to the side. He started to yell and didn’t stop as he repeatedly bashed Charon’s Claw against the corridor wall.

“Drizzt,” Dahlia gasped and started to go to him, but Entreri came up and held his arm before her to block her in place.

“The sword is telling him to kill me,” Entreri quietly explained.

Drizzt played out his energy, his rage, scraping and chipping stone but not marring the fabulous red blade of Charon’s Claw at all. Still, he was making his point to the sentient and wicked weapon: He was the master, Charon’s Claw the servant.

Finally, he stopped, and with a last look of disgust at the sword, he slid it back into its scabbard across his back. He retrieved his scimitars and similarly slid them away, then looked to his companions, looked past his companions, to the carnage in the corridor, a trio of bodies that could easily have been four.

He let a few heartbeats pass, to let the tension dissipate a bit, before meeting the gaze of Artemis Entreri. He didn’t apologize—what would be the point?—but he offered a nod to assure the man that he, and not Charon’s Claw, was back in control.

Artemis Entreri returned his sword and dagger to their holsters.

Behind Drizzt, the woman warrior whom Dahlia had overwhelmed groaned and rolled, and even tried to prop herself up on her elbows. Dahlia was there at once, delivering a strong kick to the shade’s side, and as the woman tried to curl up, Dahlia stomped down hard on the back of her neck, pinning her in place.

“If you move again, I will shatter your neck,” the deadly elf warned.

Drizzt came up beside and grabbed Dahlia by the arm, trying to pull her away. She resisted at first, but the drow looked at her plaintively and tugged more insistently.

As soon as Dahlia lifted her foot from the woman’s neck and stepped back, and before Drizzt could reach down to assist the captive shade, Entreri shoved past him and grabbed the warrior by the hair and arm, and roughly yanked her from the floor.

“Your sword?” he asked, noting her gaze, for indeed, her long sword lay on the floor not far away. “Yes, do retrieve it, that I might finish what should already have been done.” With that, the assassin shoved the shade to the side and back to the ground, near her weapon.

She looked at the weapon, then back to Entreri, who had drawn his weapons once more and stood waiting, and beckoning.

Drizzt watched the spectacle in dismay, a telling reminder to him of who this man, Entreri, was, or he had been at least. Lost in the nostalgia of better days, had he deceived himself? Had he allowed that which he wanted so badly, a return to a time and place, to blind him to the reality of Artemis Entreri?

He glanced the other way, to his other companion, who watched eagerly, and with a grin. And Drizzt understood that expression; Dahlia wanted to see this fight, wanted to see Entreri cut the shade to pieces.

Drizzt swallowed hard and reminded himself that Dahlia had good reason to hate the shades, and that these were his sworn enemies—they had been in the tunnel looking for him and the sword, no doubt.

“Pick it up,” Entreri said to the shade. “Pick it up and stand. My companions will stay to the side. You against me, and if you win, perhaps they will let you go.”

“Hardly,” Dahlia remarked, drawing a smirk from Entreri.

Drizzt caught the silent exchange between the two. They were of like mind, and following desires that he did not, could not, share.

Once again, an image of Entreri and Dahlia in an embrace, a passionate kiss, flashed through his mind, but he growled it away and answered Charon’s Claw with a wave of anger and an image of his own: a deep pit, its sides swirling with the rush of powerful water elementals, its bottom the fiery maw of the primordial.

“I know you, Barrabus the Gray,” the shade said, still on the floor and propped again on her elbows. “I will not fight you.”

“Coward.”

The shade shrugged. “I know you. I once fought beside you.”

Entreri tilted his head, regarding the woman more closely, but Drizzt saw no flash of recognition there.

“As I know this elf, Dahlia, champion of the Thayans.”

“Then you know that you will die here,” Dahlia replied, and Drizzt winced once more. He almost wished that Entreri would just step over and end this torment, for the shade and for him.

He stepped over instead, between Entreri and the shade, and he reached his hand to her. When she took it, he helped her to her feet, her weapon still on the ground.

“Your patrol came looking for us,” Drizzt said.

“No,” the shade said, and shook her head.

“Do not lie to me or I will let my companions have you. Answer my questions and—”