Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(126)

“Ain’t no drow friend o’ Drizzt Do’Urden,” she said. “If they runned into a drow patrol, then that one’s likely dead already.”

“How do you know that?” Alegni asked suspiciously.

“Amber Gristle O’Maul, o’ the Adbar O’Mauls,” Ambergris answered with a bow. “The name o’ Drizzt Do’Urden’s well known in Citadel Adbar, don’t ye doubt. And he ain’t no friend of his kin. They come to catch him afore. They started a war about him. Nah, Warlord, if Drizzt runned into them drow, and them drow figured out ’twas Drizzt, then Drizzt is caught or dead, don’t ye doubt.”

“Then the other drow might not even know what they have,” Glorfathel offered. “Perhaps there is hope for a parley.”

“We don’t even know if they have him, or the sword,” Effron argued.

Herzgo Alegni closed his eyes and listened for that silent call once more, listened for the telepathic voice of Claw, his beloved sword.

“They may still be in the upper levels,” Effron went on, speaking to him directly and drawing him from his contemplations.

The warlord shook his head confidently. “It does not matter,” he said.

“If we wish to catch them . . .” Effron started.

“We wish to stop them first,” Alegni declared, and all four looked at him curiously. “They seek the primordial,” he explained. “They look to destroy Claw. That is why they have come,” he added, looking at Ambergris, who had first posited such an opinion.

“You cannot know that,” Effron replied, even as Ambergris nodded her agreement with Alegni.

Alegni’s glare came as a clear warning to the twisted warlock. “The sword calls to me. Press on with all speed. We must find the beast quickly and secure the area around it. They will come to us, or they will flee and the threat to the sword will be diminished.”

“There are other drow about,” Glorfathel reminded him.

“If we encounter them, and they have captured or allied with our enemies, let us tell them what they have and who they have,” Alegni replied. “If they cooperate, then the fighting in the tunnels above will be forgiven. If not, then let us pay them back for those we lost. In the aftermath of such a battle, so will be declared war between Netheril and the drow, and the Empire will send us an endless line of soldiers.”

“I can find the primordial,” Glorfathel assured him. “Its magic resonates all around us.”

Alegni nodded and motioned to his nearby commanders to tighten up the ranks, that they could press on with all speed.

The giant crow swooped down from on high, one end of a fine elven rope in her beak. She alighted atop the highest remaining stair, near the hinge that had allowed the clever denizens below to fold half the stairwell down over the lower half. It was a marvelous design, but Dahlia had no time to consider it at length then. She reverted to her elf form and tied off the rope as tightly as she could, then waited as the two up on the landing pulled it even tighter and tied it securely above.

Drizzt went first, sliding down under the line, a leather belt pouch looped over the cord as a makeshift handle. Entreri came close behind, and even as he started, and before Drizzt had set down on the stairs, Dahlia became a crow again and flew back up.

She understood Entreri’s impatience when she arrived at the landing, given the unmistakable sounds of an approaching force. She didn’t even revert from the crow form, using her beak to pull free the knots.

And quickly she was gone, swooping again from on high, soaring past her two friends as they scrambled along the stair, and down to the bottom to ensure that the large chamber was indeed empty.

The three companions entered the tunnels quickly and made for the forge, and for the pit of the great beast. Dahlia couldn’t help but notice that Drizzt grew quite agitated. He kept dropping his hand into his belt pouch—where he kept the panther figurine, she knew.

“What is it?” she quietly asked him as Entreri moved out ahead.

He looked at her curiously, but she grabbed his wrist, for his hand was again in that pouch.

Drizzt winced, his expression full of anger. “She is worth the lives of fifty Artemis Entreris,” he stated.

“What?”

He muttered something undecipherable and pushed past her to catch up to the assassin.

Hustling to be done with Entreri, once and for all, Dahlia presumed, and it struck her then how greatly, how viciously, her drow lover wanted Entreri to die. Perhaps it was the call of the sword again, or maybe, she mused, Drizzt simply hated Entreri that much.





FIRE GOD





Brack’thal breathed a sigh of relief that his invisibility spell lasted long enough for him to get through the small tunnel from the forge room and into the primordial’s chamber. He had lost his elemental pet, sending it down a corridor after some Shadovar, he believed, though he had not seen them. Without it, the drow wizard felt naked indeed.

So he had quietly slipped back to the forge room, and had entered invisibly, but to his dismay, had found no ongoing breaches, no little fiery creatures rushing around. The one forge that had not yet been repaired had been fully shut down.

Even worse, during his invisible creeping around, Brack’thal overheard Tiago Baenre telling his blacksmith friend that all of the drow would be retreating from the forge and into the deeper tunnels in light of the Netherese advance.