Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(89)

It would be so easy.

And wouldn’t the world be a better place without this murderer? How many lives, perhaps innocent lives, might Drizzt save with just that one shot?

He had actually started to draw back on the bowstring when the magical bolt struck him hard in the side, blasting the breath from him and nearly knocking him from the tree.

And up came the two archers behind the stone, both letting fly.

Drizzt, eyes hardly open as he squinted against the pain, pumped his arm repeatedly, sending a near-solid line of lightning their way. He scored one hit, he believed, from the pitch of the ensuing cry, but he knew not how solid.

He expected that he would die up there, then, in the nook in this tree.

But couldn’t he take Artemis Entreri along with him?

And wouldn’t the world be a better place if he did?

More enemies appeared.





Between parries, Entreri managed to glance at Dahlia and mouth, “Go.”

The elf was already moving, with her hands at first, turning flails into four-foot bo sticks, then, as she rushed forward, deftly striking with them to align them properly for a full joining. Her long staff returned, Dahlia continued her charge, then abruptly planted the end and leaped over the surprised shades, landing lightly behind the pair and sprinting off into the thicker brush.

Reflexively, stupidly, the shades spun around and followed—or one followed, as the other stumbled, Entreri’s belt knife driving deep into his kidney.

The pursuer, apparently oblivious to her companion’s fate, kept running, until the end of Dahlia’s staff appeared, lined up perfectly just below her chin. She couldn’t stop, and Dahlia had reversed direction and was coming at her anyway, and the combined momentum drove the long staff spearlike against the soft skin of the shade’s neck. Her legs flew out from under her as she tried futilely to recoil, and she landed hard on her back, gagging and choking and gulping for air that would not come. She flailed pathetically, but Dahlia just leaped past her, back toward Entreri.

None of this was lost on the two Entreri battled. The swordsman to the left of the assassin motioned for his companion to hold back Dahlia.

He should have kept his focus on the assassin instead, for as his friend turned, Entreri charged in at him. Obviously startled by the sudden boldness of the move, the shade leaped and scrambled back.

But Entreri veered and caught the turning shade instead, and that axe man heard him coming and whipped around with a mighty sidelong swing.

One that went high as Entreri skidded low to his knees, his sword disemboweling the shade.

The remaining swordsman leaped for the vulnerable assassin, and caught instead a furious Dahlia, now with flails once more, spinning and cracking him all around the head. He got pummeled a dozen times in that flashing moment, but really only felt the first burst of fiery pain as his skull shattered.

Dahlia hardly slowed as she ran past, moving through the camp and out the back side, as Entreri used his sword to drop the axe man off to the right, between him and the new group just coming through the brush. He sprinted almost directly opposite Dahlia, to where she had gone after her vault, bending, not pausing, only to yank his belt knife from the wounded Shadovar male.

He crashed through the brush in a full run, turning left as he knew—just knew—that Dahlia would spin right, that they could link up once more deeper into the woods.





More arrows flew off from Taulmaril. Drizzt scored a hit, a kill, and then a second kill in rapid order as the companion of his first victim tried to get up and run off.



Still the drow grimaced in pain, his muscles clenching against the burns of the two magical bolts, but at least he had lessened the missiles flying in at him. Below him the fight intensified. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dahlia springing away.

Which would leave Entreri even more vulnerable to him, he realized. Another arrow skipped through the branches, narrowly missing Drizzt’s face, and stealing all thoughts of the battle below. He wheeled around to spot the archer, who was diving behind a fallen log, and drew back, but out of the corner of his eye, Drizzt noted the pesky sorcerer, casting yet another spell. Before he could train his bow on the shade, a pea of flame left the mage’s hand, soaring his way.

Drizzt knew all too well what that foretold.

He let fly the arrow, missing badly, for he was already moving, scrambling up from his perch, as he let go of the bowstring. In truth, he let fly the arrow as much to clear it from the bow as anything else.

He rushed out along the branch, nimbly balancing as he flipped the magical quiver and then the bow over his shoulders, and by the time he got out on the limb, the thinner wood beginning to bend under his weight, he had his scimitars in hand.

The tree exploded behind him, the mage’s fireball turning twilight into noontime. It was not a concussive blast, though Drizzt wished it had been, for the air around him instantly began to simmer and sting with licks of flame. Now he used the elasticity of the branch, springing up and away with abandon.

Only his magical anklets had saved him from grievous wounds from the intensity of the blast—no novice, this mage! Without the magic speeding his steps, that fireball would have caught him fully, to no good end.

Though he had escaped the bulk of that blast, he found himself more than twenty feet in the air, flying free and clear of the branches, with nothing to grasp and only the hard ground to cushion his fall.