Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(142)

Artemis Entreri’s sudden expression revealed to Drizzt that he understood that place and those sounds, and the drow had to admit that such recognition from Entreri stung him.

The assassin spun away from Drizzt and charged into the room, falling over Dahlia, hugging her arms in close to her sides as he dragged her away—and even then, in her thrashing, she managed to lift her foot and kick the tiefling warlord in what was left of his face.

Drizzt moved to the edge of the chamber and tried to sort out the curious sights before him. Alegni was dead, of that there could be no doubt. He knelt upright, but only because in the barrage of blows left and right, he simply hadn’t fallen over. His head had been mashed to pulp, there was no life showing in his remaining eye, just the dull haze of death.

Entreri continued to drag Dahlia aside, to Drizzt’s left. Beyond them, a familiar female dwarf rushed about, laughing crazily and beating at the stone floor with a large mace. She rushed past another shade, one Drizzt recognized from an earlier fight in the forest. This one just stood perfectly still, magically immobilized.

And another shade, the twisted warlock, appeared not far from Drizzt. The drow grabbed for his scimitars, but the broken tiefling paid him no heed and staggered to fall over Alegni in a desperate hug as he screamed, “Father!”

At the sound of that, Dahlia gave a sudden cry, and Drizzt watched her melt into Entreri’s arms, as if all the strength had just been yanked out from within her. She just went limp, shaking and crying and gasping for breath.

The suddenness of that moment took Drizzt’s breath away, as if a gigantic thunderclap had just stunned them all. Even the crazed dwarf skidded to a stop and simply stared.

“Curse you!” the twisted warlock shouted at Dahlia. “Murderess! Damn you and curse you! Once you tried to kill me and now you killed him!”

If his every word had instead been a punch into Dahlia’s face, she would not have been more staggered or wounded. Drizzt wanted to leap over and silence this broken tiefling forever, but something held him back, some understanding that there was so much more to this story that he did not know.

“I will find you, Mother,” the twisted warlock said, and Drizzt, too, felt as if he had just been slugged. “Oh, I will,” the shade promised, and he began to fade, stepping back to the Shadowfell.

Entreri hugged Dahlia closer.

“Ye’ve got no’ much time,” the dwarf said then, addressing Drizzt. She lowered her mace and paced toward the drow. “I put a spell o’ silence in that hall,” she explained, pointing to the corridor to the forge room, “but they’ll be comin’ along anyway, don’t ye doubt.”

“Who are you?” Drizzt demanded as he tried to sort it out, and indeed, there flickered some recognition. “You were in Neverwinter . . .” He recalled this grinning dwarf indeed, though her skin hadn’t been this particular shade of gray, from the inn where he, Entreri, and Dahlia recovered from their wounds with help from the clerics, including this very dwarf. Drizzt looked past her to the immobilized shade, her companion now, and her companion before, in the forest fight.

“You were there,” he accused.

“Aye, Amber,” the dwarf happily replied. “Castin’ me spells to fix yer wounds.”

“In the forest,” Drizzt clarified. “In a fight.”

The dwarf sobered immediately.

“Ah, so ye seen me then, did ye.”

Drizzt’s hands went to his blades.

“Aye, and I saved yer life, drow, when ye was hangin’ upside down on the side o’ the hill. Was meself that pushed that one”—she nodded toward the immobilized human shade—“aside when he wanted to leap upon ye for killin’ his dearest.”

“As I asked, who are you?”

“Amber Gristle O’Maul, o’ the Adbar O’Mauls, as I telled ye in the town,” the dwarf said with a bow. “Ambergris to me friends. When I heared in the Shadowfell that ye was the target o’ this hunt, I figured any good dwarf ’d owe King Bruenor to see what good I might be doing.”

“You’re a shade,” Entreri said from the side, where he still held the sobbing Dahlia. He had finally managed to get her back to her feet, at least.

“Aye, a bit, and right back to yerself, gray one.” She looked to Drizzt. “I’ll be tellin’ ye all about it if we’re gettin’ out o’ here, and I be thinking that we should be gettin’ out o’ here.”

The other shade stirred a bit, the magical hold lessening its grip.

“What of him?” Drizzt asked as the dwarf walked up to stand right before the dark man.

“Brother Afafrenfere,” Ambergris said to Drizzt, and she focused on the shade fully. “I know ye’re hearin’ me now, me monk friend,” she said, nudging Drizzt aside. “We’re setting out through that burned tunnel. Yerself ’s going through one hole or th’other.” As she said that, she pointed back over her shoulder at the primordial pit. “No other choices for ye.”

Ambergris looked around him to Drizzt and offered an exaggerated wink. “He’s a good enough sort,” she explained. “And not so dumb that he’d be goin’ against us. Come on, then.”

She grabbed the monk and began sliding him along toward the room’s exit.

Drizzt turned back to his companions, just in time to see Artemis Entreri press close to Dahlia and kiss her intensely, passionately. He spun away to face Drizzt, smiling widely.