Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(61)

“Now, wizard,” Drizzt warned. From the ladder, Guenhwyvar issued a long and hungry growl.

“Oh, very vell, very vell!” the wizard spouted, throwing up his hands in disgust. “Wretched pech!” He pulled an immense book from of a pocket much too small to hold it.

Drizzt and Belwar smiled to each other, thinking victory at hand. But then the wizard made a fatal mistake.

“I shood have killed him as I killed the others,” he mumbled under his breath, too low for even Drizzt, standing right beside him, to make out the words.

But hook horrors had the keenest hearing of any creature in the Underdark.

A swipe of Clacker’s enormous claw sent Belwar spiraling across the room. Drizzt, spinning about at the sound of heavy steps, was thrown aside by the momentum of the rushing giant, the drow’s scimitars flying from his hands. And the wizard, the foolish wizard, padded Clacker’s impact with the iron ladder, a jolt so vicious that it bowed the ladder and sent Guenhwyvar flying off the other side.

Whether the initial crushing blow of the hook horror’s five-hundred-pound body had killed the wizard was academic by the time either Drizzt or Belwar had recovered enough to call out to their friend. Clacker’s hooks and beak slashed and snapped relentlessly, tearing and crushing. Every now and then came a sudden flash and a puff of smoke as another of the many magical items that the wizard carried snapped apart.

And when the hook horror had played out his rage and looked around at his three companions, surrounding him in battle-ready stances, the lump of gore at Clacker’s feet was no longer recognizable.

Belwar started to remark that the wizard had agreed to change Clacker back, but he didn’t see the point. Clacker fell to his knees and dropped his face into his claws, hardly believing what he had done.

“Let us be gone from this place,” Drizzt said, sheathing his blades.

“Search it,” Belwar suggested, thinking that marvelous treasures might be hidden within. But Drizzt could not remain for another moment. He had seen too much of himself in the unbridled rage of his giant companion, and the smell of the bloodied heap filled him with frustrations and fears that he could not tolerate. With Guenhwyvar in tow, he walked from the tower.

Belwar moved over and helped Clacker to his feet, then guided the trembling giant from the structure. Stubbornly practical, though, the burrow-warden made his companions wait around while he scoured the tower, searching for items that might aid them, or for the command word that would allow him to carry the tower along. But either the wizard was a poor man-which Belwar doubted-or he had his treasures safely hidden away, possibly in some other plane of existence, for the svirfneblin found nothing beyond a simple water skin and a pair of worn boots. If the marvelous adamantite tower had a command word, it had gone to the grave with the wizard.

Their journey home was a quiet one, lost in private concerns, regrets, and memories. Drizzt and Belwar did not have to speak their most pressing fear. In their discussions with Clacker, they both had learned enough of the normally peaceable race of pech to know that Clacker’s murderous outburst was far removed from the creature he once had been.

But, the deep gnome and the drow had to admit to themselves, Clacker’s actions were not so far removed from the creature he was fast becoming.





CHAPTER 15

POINTED REMINDERS


“What do you know?” Matron Malice demanded of Jarlaxle, walking at her side across the compound of House Do’Urden. Malice normally would not have been so conspicuous with the infamous mercenary, but she was worried and impatient. Reported stirring within the hierarchy of Menzoberranzan’s ruling families did not bode well for House Do’Urden.

“Know?” Jarlaxle echoed, feigning surprise.

Malice scowled at him, as did Briza, walking on the other side of the brash mercenary.

Jarlaxle cleared his throat, though it sounded more like a laugh. He couldn’t supply Malice with the details of the rumblings; he was not so foolish as to betray the more powerful houses of the city. But Jarlaxle could tease Malice with a simple statement of logic that only confirmed what she already had assumed. “Zin-carla, the spirit-wraith, has been in use for a very long time.”

Malice struggled to keep her breathing inconspicuously smooth. She realized that Jarlaxle knew more than he would say, and the fact that the calculating mercenary had so coolly stated the obvious told her that her fears were justified. The spirit-wraith of Zaknafein had indeed been searching for Drizzt for a very long time. Malice did not need to be reminded that the Spider Queen was not known for her patience.

“Have you any more to tell me?” Malice asked.

Jarlaxle shrugged noncommittally.

“Then be gone from my house,” the matron mother snarled.

Jarlaxle hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should demand payment for the little information he had provided. Then he dipped into one of his well-known low, hat-sweeping bows and turned for the gate.

He would find his payment soon enough.

In the anteroom to the house chapel an hour later, Matron Malice rested back in her throne and let her thoughts roll out into the winding tunnels of the wild Underdark. Her telepathy with the spirit-wraith was limited, usually a passing of strong emotions, nothing more. But from those internal struggles of Zaknafein, who had been Drizzt’s father and closest friend in life and was now Drizzt’s deadliest enemy, Malice could learn much of her spirit-wraith’s progress. Anxieties caused by Zaknafein’s inner struggle inevitably would increase whenever the spirit-wraith got close to Drizzt.