Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(59)

“Here?”

Alegni shook his head again. “They’ll not escape the sewers before dawn’s light,” he explained.

“The bridge,” Effron breathed.

“Go to our minions,” the tiefling warlord instructed. “Block every escape route from the bridge.”

“You intend to meet them?” Effron asked.

“I intend to enjoy this spectacle to the fullest,” Alegni replied.

“They are three to one against you,” the warlock warned.

“Are they?” Alegni asked with a wry grin as he pulled his sword out of the floor. “Are they indeed?”

“I would help you kill Dahlia!” Effron demanded, and even he was a bit surprised at the stridency in his tone.

“I suppose that you have earned that,” Alegni replied, and Effron held his stern gaze, but was truly relieved, having feared that his outburst would get him punished yet again by the merciless brute. “But first, you will help me to get her companions under control. If we are careful, we might get Dahlia alive.”

“She dies!” Effron insisted. The words surprised him, though, particularly the conviction he heard in his own voice. For a long time, he had been telling himself that he wanted to speak with this elf woman, wanted to ask her questions that only she could answer. But then, in the moment of truth, he had felt no sense of mercy.

“Eventually,” Alegni replied.

That thought, so obviously pleasant to Alegni, strangely had Effron off his guard. He wanted Dahlia to die—more than anything in the world, Effron wanted to be the one to deliver that killing blow—but now the notion of something more than simply killing her, of capturing her and torturing her . . .

It should have been a pleasant thought to him, and yet, surprisingly, it was not.

“Go!” Alegni said to him, and when he looked at the tiefling and considered the explosive tone, Effron realized that Alegni had repeated that command, likely several times.

Effron ran from the room, almost tripping down the stairs and almost running over a trio on the first landing, a man and woman dressed in nightclothes and the owner of the inn.

“Here now, is there trouble?” the innkeeper demanded.

Effron glanced back up the stairs to Alegni’s door. “Go ask him,” he said, and he laughed.

For he understood Alegni’s agitated state, for he shared Alegni’s agitated state, and he knew that if the innkeeper and these other two fools went up there to complain about the broken ceiling, Herzgo Alegni would cut them into pieces.





The eastern sky was just beginning to lighten, but already it was promising to be a lovely and memorable day.

“The sun is soon to rise,” Drizzt remarked from around the corner of the crawl tunnel he had entered. The others could barely hear him, for the sound of the rushing water echoed all around them.

“He will be at his bridge, then,” Entreri said. “He is always at the bridge at sunrise. He faces the sea to the west and casts a long shadow upon the river. It probably makes him feel dominant over the city, or some other foolish symbolism.”

Dahlia didn’t reply, didn’t even look at him, just started up to the tunnel, whose entrance was chest-high to her. To her obvious dismay, she had to back out immediately as Drizzt slid back to them. He came out feet-first, settling on the wider corridor beside them.

“Do you think you can get him through?” the drow asked the three former aboleth slaves.

The two bearing their badly-wounded companion looked doubtfully at each other.

“They don’t need to,” Entreri interjected. “I remember this region now. If they just follow this wider tunnel, they will find an easy exit, farther along and near the city’s northern wall.”

Drizzt looked at the assassin curiously, but Entreri didn’t wait to return that gaze and slipped up into the crawl tunnel.

“We go with them, then,” the drow said. “There are other dangers down here—”

“You go with them if you so choose,” said Entreri, who sat on the lip of the crawl tunnel, looking back. He offered his hand to Dahlia, who took it without a second thought, and sprang up without hesitation as Entreri pulled her into the small entrance beside him, even let her into the crawl tunnel before him.

“This is our chance at Alegni,” he said. “Likely our only chance to find him without a powerful escort.”

“We cannot leave them on their own.”

“I can,” Entreri replied. “Dawn is coming.” He glanced down the tunnel, and indeed, even though he wasn’t around the bend, it was clearly lighter in there. “And coming fast. Alegni will wait for it and then he will leave. We haven’t the time to travel underground all the way to the north wall and double back to catch him, nor could we exit up there and not draw the attention of a dozen Shadovar sentries.”

“They have no weapons,” Drizzt complained.

“Then give them yours,” Entreri growled back, and he started down the crawl tunnel after Dahlia.

Drizzt looked to the three humans.

“Go,” the man bade him. “Do what you must. You have done enough for us already, and know that we are grateful and will not forget.”

“We’ll make it out,” Genevieve added.

The drow rubbed his face and looked deep inside, seeking some alternative. Ultimately, though, he jumped up into the crawl tunnel and rushed along.