Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(74)

In his good hand, the drow still held the onyx figurine, and he still called out silently for his friend who would not answer.

Entreri’s door opened before the drow reached it, and the red-haired woman called Arunika walked out. She paused and flashed a disarming smile at Drizzt, then threw a wink at Dahlia, who stood behind him.

Drizzt caught Dahlia’s gaze with a questioning stare.

“She is a strange one,” Dahlia remarked.

“One of the leaders of Neverwinter, I believe.”

Dahlia shrugged as if it did not matter and pushed past Drizzt and into Entreri’s room.

The assassin stood at the room’s small bar, stripped to the waist and looking quite exhausted as he poured some fine brandy into a small glass. This had been Alegni’s room during his brief tenure as Neverwinter’s self-appointed lord, and the tiefling warlord had decorated it and stocked it quite well.

Dahlia entered the room before Drizzt, and the drow was given pause by her sudden stop. She turned and looked back over her shoulder at the receding Arunika, then, barely muting her scowl, turned back on Entreri.

Drizzt winced.

“You are . . . healed?” the elf woman asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Ready for the road,” Entreri answered, and he downed the brandy in one swig.

Drizzt moved to the bar and took a seat. Entreri poured himself another drink and slid the bottle Drizzt’s way, staring at the drow intently.

That surprised Drizzt for just a moment, before he realized that Entreri wasn’t staring at him, but at the great sword strapped diagonally across his back, in a harness given him by a leatherworker of Neverwinter.

Drizzt blocked the sliding bottle and left it sitting idle, but Dahlia was fast to the stool beside him, and quickly grabbed the brandy and another glass.

“Ready for the road?” she echoed. “And what road does Artemis Entreri desire?”

Entreri took a sip of his drink and nodded his chin toward the sword.

“Gauntlgrym?” Dahlia asked.

“Of course.”

“You will be free?”

“I will be dead, I am sure,” Entreri said. “So, yes.”

Dahlia shook her head. “How can you know?”

“I am tied to the sword,” Entreri answered. “My longevity is due to the sword— it alone has kept me in a state of perpetual youth . . . or middle age, perhaps. I have known this for a long, long while.”

“And still you would destroy it?” Dahlia said.

“I will find no peace until Charon’s Claw is no more.”

“You will be dead!”

“Better that than enslaved,” Entreri said. “It is long past time for me to be dead.” He looked past Dahlia to Drizzt and smiled wickedly. “You would agree, of course.”

Drizzt didn’t respond in any way. He did not know whether he preferred such an outcome or not. Entreri was his tie to a past much missed. Just having Entreri around brought him a strange sense of peace, as if his friends were out there, waiting for him to return home.

But was that enough? He knew Entreri’s deadly history, and expected that this killer’s reputation would remain well-earned going forward.

It was the same dilemma Drizzt had faced with this particular man in the past, such as when they had walked out of the Underdark side by side. On more than one occasion, Drizzt could have killed Entreri, and never had he been confident that staying his blade had been the correct choice. What about Entreri’s victims, if there were such, after Drizzt’s acts of mercy, after all? Would they appreciate Drizzt’s eternal optimism, and his rather foolish hopes for redemption?

“We do not know that the primordial will destroy it,” Dahlia warned.

“At the least, we know that it will be someplace where no one can retrieve it,” Drizzt said.

“Sentient weapons have a way of being found, and wielded,” said Dahlia.

“The primordial will destroy it,” Entreri replied with conviction. “I sense the sword’s fear.”

“Then we go, straightaway,” Drizzt said.

“Are you so interested in killing this man, then?” Dahlia accused, turning sharply on Drizzt.

The drow leaned back, caught off guard by the elf woman’s intensity.

“I am,” Entreri interjected, and both turned to regard him.

Entreri shrugged and drained his glass, then moved to retrieve the bottle.

“There is a time for all of us to die,” Drizzt said, matter-of-factly, callously, even. “Sometimes, perhaps, past time.”

“Your concern is touching,” Entreri remarked.

“It is, of course, your choice to make,” Drizzt offered. He tried to keep the coldness out of his tone, but he couldn’t. Drizzt silently berated himself. He was angry and agitated about Guenhwyvar’s absence.

And there was more to it than that, Drizzt knew deep in his heart, whenever he glanced at Dahlia, to find her staring at Entreri.

He felt irrelevant, like there was some bond between these two greater than his own bond with Dahlia.

And without Guenhwyvar, what did he have left other than his companionship with Dahlia? Drizzt took a deep breath.

Entreri suddenly threw his glass against a wall across the room. The assassin scooped up the brandy bottle and took a long swallow.