Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(52)

Certainly the six slaves who had accompanied this strange creature had not thrown aside their allegiance. A pair of humans scrambled and leaped for Guenhwyvar, who kicked out with a rear claw, driving them both away, cutting one grotesquely, chin to shoulder.

The other four charged past to intercept Drizzt, who spun to his right, coming around to plant the pommel of a scimitar right on the nose of one pursuing man, dropping him in a heap. He didn’t want to kill this group, understanding that they did not act of their own will, but when a shade following that human leaped in with a deadly sword thrust, Drizzt’s instincts had him parrying and responding before he had even realized the instinctive riposte. He did shorten his strike, taking the shade under the ribs but not driving the blade home, but when that didn’t even slow the attacker, who apparently felt no pain in his possessed state, Drizzt had no choice but to strike again, harder and repeatedly.

He had no time to dawdle, and down went the shade, and when the human stubbornly rose against him once more, the drow laid him low by cutting his legs out from under him with a great swipe of his scimitars. He tried not to dig in the blades too deeply, and winced with a bit of regret, but could do little more than that when he saw the blood spilling.

Hoping that he had inflicted no permanent damage, Drizzt joined Guenhwyvar at the aboleth—for indeed, this was one of those strange and little-understood creatures, a young aboleth left behind by the Sovereignty as a sentry and scout for a place they had not abandoned forever.

Drizzt struck hard and he struck fast, and even more so when he rolled around the fishlike beast and caught a glimpse back at his friends. Guenhwyvar’s attack had freed them, and the two of them worked brilliantly and ferociously against the remaining slaves. Drizzt tried to keep his focus on the creature before him. It was physically weak, true, but with the potential to fell him, or paralyze him at least, with one suggestion. He had to keep his mental guards up and had to drive his blades home quickly.

He couldn’t help but grimace when Dahlia, flails spinning in perfect coordination, came face to face with one of the Shadovar slaves. He knew what was coming, and could only look away, renew his focus on the aboleth, as Dahlia’s deadly weapons cracked repeatedly against the slave’s skull, tearing skin and cracking bone, and bashing the shade’s brains to pulp.

Entreri was no more merciful, reminding Drizzt keenly of the true disposition of this man he viewed as a link to his past, shattering any nostalgic notions floated before him by the reappearance of his old nemesis. The drow gasped audibly when Entreri’s sword came right through the torso of one human slave, stabbing out the man’s back. Entreri retracted the blade almost instantly, but fell into a sudden spin that brought it back around and down, across the falling man’s throat.

Even with the threat defeated, the vicious Artemis Entreri could not resist that killing blow.

Too many doubts pressed in on Drizzt then, doubts about his road and his companions, but he pushed them away, even told himself that these were mere implantations by the insidious psychic beast. He turned that disappointment, rage even, into more focused anger on his oppressor, the aboleth.

Down came Twinkle with a smash, crunching bone, and down came a stabbing Icingdeath right behind, plunging through that opening to find the creature’s brain.

Always the brain, the source of the beast’s strength.

Drizzt leaped astride the struggling, flopping creature, alternately plunging his scimitars into the opening, and when one went in deep, the drow turned his wrist and slid it out to the side, left and right, severing the internal connections.

He saw the remaining slave, a Shadovar, rushing at him in a last desperate attempt to save its beloved master.

But too late. Guenhwyvar continued to tear and rend and Drizzt’s blades found their mark.

The aboleth flopped to the stone fully, and lay deathly still.

The approaching Shadovar skidded to a stop and stared at Drizzt in abject confusion, and the drow immediately wondered if he might have found an ally in their quest to get past Alegni’s defenses; he could well understand the profound sense of gratitude anyone in such a state of slavery might feel toward his rescuers.

Before Drizzt could even explore that, though, before he could even further study the Shadovar’s face for hints, he was distracted by a form rushing up from behind the freed slave.

“Dahlia, no!” he shouted, but between his words came the crack of Dahlia’s flail spinning in from the side to cave in the Shadovar’s skull. That powerful strike alone would likely have proven fatal, but Dahlia left little to doubt as she followed with a barrage of heavy blows.

“Did you even pause to consider that he might have supplied us with important information?” Drizzt asked the elf.

Dahlia seemed unimpressed. She looked down at the dead Shadovar and spat on him for effect. “He’s a Netherese dog,” she said, as if that explained everything. “He would have simply lied to us anyway.”

“He might have known Alegni’s defenses,” Drizzt argued. “We do not know how long he was enslaved . . .”

“What’s done is done,” Entreri said. When Drizzt and Dahlia glanced his way, he motioned to two of the humans, the one Drizzt had dropped and one other. They were both alive, though wounded, but neither injury appeared mortal. A third, too, seemed alive, though her wounds looked far more grievous.

Drizzt pulled off his pack and rushed to the wounded woman first. He produced some bandages and a poultice of mixed and mashed herbs and quickly stemmed the blood flow. As soon as he had the bleeding under control, he looked to his companions, both staring at him incredulously.