Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(116)

Drizzt rushed beside him, then behind him, moving along the wall away from the tunnel mouth—and just in time, as some burst of black magical energy soared in through the opening, an aimed cloud of burning, biting smoke. It split the shade line in two, those in the middle of the formation falling back and falling away, flailing in pain.

As he came free behind the assassin, Drizzt again called upon his dark elf powers, and reached forth at the enemy battling Dahlia. Purplish flames erupted around the shade, outlining him in dancing faerielike fire. Caught by surprise, the Shadovar nearly dropped his pike, and did drop his guard.

He recovered almost immediately, trying to realign his weapon.

Too late.

Dahlia’s flail swiped across and shattered his jawbone, and as he lurched, the elf warrior turned a circuit, bringing her second spinning weapon around in a powerful backhand. This one cracked the back of the fighter’s skull and launched him head over heels in a flip that left him on his back on the stone floor, twitching and shuddering uncontrollably.

Again, Drizzt called on his innate magical powers, the powers wrought of his deep Underdark homeland, bringing forth a globe of impenetrable darkness right before the entry tunnel, and right in front of those enemies coming in pursuit.

“Go, go!” he yelled at Entreri, coming up on the man’s left and adding his spinning scimitars to the fray.

Entreri rolled behind him and came around clear of the tangled flank, and sprinted after Dahlia in a dead run across the vast hall, and Drizzt, with his magical anklets speeding his every step, disengaged from the pikemen and went in swift pursuit.

The three easily outran the more heavily encumbered Shadovar, making a straight line for an exit tunnel ahead and to the right.

But more shades came in from the side, and once again, arrows and javelins flew their way.

With speed and acrobatics and more than a bit of luck, they all got into the cover of that tunnel, and ran along, Drizzt and Dahlia both trying to sort out their way to the lower levels, Entreri just keeping pace.

They went around a corner and Drizzt pulled up short, motioning for the other two to continue. He went down low to one knee and slipped back around the corner with his bow in hand, and he mowed down the incoming shades with a line of deadly missiles.

“Here!” he heard Dahlia call for him, and he ran off, thinking he had bought them some time, at least.

But not much time, he realized as a powerful explosion wracked the corridor behind him. He glanced back to see sparks arcing along the walls of the corner where he had just been kneeling, and heard the renewed pursuit.

They passed through a series of chambers, guessing more than knowing which doors to burst through. They turned another corner, and another beyond that, speeding for a heavy, partially ajar metal doorway. Entreri shouldered it, crashing through, Drizzt and Dahlia close behind, and as the large room opened into view before them, all three saw and heard a similar door opposite them slam shut.

Entreri made for it with all speed, Dahlia close behind, as Drizzt slammed the door behind him. He looked for a locking bar, but none was to be found. But some furniture still remained, including a heavy stone chair frame, so he pulled it into place before the door and propped it at an angle to somewhat secure the portal.

Across the room, Entreri tugged at the other door and banged on it, but whoever had exited had already secured it.

“Now where?” Dahlia asked, leaping around and scanning for other doors.

But there were none to be seen.

“Now where?” she asked again, more insistently.

“Now we fight,” Entreri replied. “That was Alegni’s voice,” he added, and spat on the floor.

“Kill him, at least, before we die, then,” Dahlia said, and Entreri nodded grimly.

“Whatever you do, Drizzt, get me to him,” Entreri said. “I will salute you with my final moments of life, for whatever that might be worth to you.”

Drizzt regarded the two, standing so easily beside each other, both seeming perfectly comfortable with their fate—as long as they could get to Herzgo Alegni. He couldn’t imagine the hatred that drove them, and once again he was reminded of their unspoken bond, their sharing of something deeper, something he couldn’t comprehend, let alone partake.

Drizzt did recognize that either of them would die happy if that death came after the killing blow upon Herzgo Alegni. How could someone hate another so much, he wondered? What had happened, what violation, what violent betrayal or continued torture, to facilitate such venom?

A thunderous retort hit the door behind him, and Drizzt scrambled to set the chair frame back in place. He heard the report as a hail of missiles hit the door, and heard too the calls for pursuit and the multitude of footsteps.

He turned to view his friends, equally doomed, but found himself looking behind them, at the other door, which had silently opened.

Dahlia grunted, looked curiously at Drizzt, then collapsed to the ground.

A bolt of lightning hit the door behind Drizzt, crackling as it climbed around the metal and once more throwing the chair aside.

Drizzt started for Dahlia; he turned for the door.

Then he was blinded.

The drow had come.





“BREGAN D’AERTHE!”

Drizzt knew. He felt the sting of a crossbow bolt, and another and a third, and the ensuing, almost immediate burn of drow poison, familiar from so long ago, coursing through his veins.