Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(77)

By the time Belwar and Clacker exchanged disbelieving stares, Drizzt was gone, running to and then up the wide stairway. Atop it, the spirit-wraith stood among a mound of victims, mind flayers and slaves alike, who had found the great misfortune of getting in his way. Farther along the higher tier, several illithids had taken flight from the undead monster.

Zaknafein started to pursue them, for they were running toward the stone castle, following the course the spirit-wraith had determined from the beginning. A thousand magical alarms sounded within the spirit-wraith, though, and abruptly turned him back to the stair.

Drizzt was coming. Zin-carla’s moment of fulfillment, the purpose of Zaknafein’s animation, at last had arrived!

“Weapon master!” Drizzt cried, springing up lightly to stand by his father’s side. The younger drow bubbled with elation, not realizing the truth of the monster standing before him. When Drizzt got near Zak, though, he sensed that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the strange light in the spirit-wraith’s eyes that slowed Drizzt’s rush. Perhaps it was the fact that Zaknafein did not return his joyful call.

A moment later, it was the downward slice of a sword.

Drizzt somehow managed to get a blocking scimitar up in time. Confused, he still believed that Zaknafein simply had not recognized him.

“Father!” he shouted. “I am Drizzt!”

One sword dived ahead, while the second started in a wide slice, then rushed suddenly toward Drizzt’s side. Matching the spirit -wraith’s speed, Drizzt came down with one scimitar to parry the first attack and sliced across with the other to foil the second.

“Who are you?” Drizzt demanded desperately, furiously.

A flurry of blows came straight in. Drizzt worked frantically to keep them at bay, but then Zaknafein came across with a backhand and managed to sweep both of Drizzt’s blades out to the same side. The spirit-wraith’s second sword followed closely, a cut aimed straight at Drizzt’s heart, one that Drizzt could not possibly block.

Back down at the bottom of the stairway, Belwar and Clacker cried out, thinking their friend doomed.

Zaknafein’s moment of victory was stolen from him, though, by the instincts of the hunter. Drizzt sprang to the side ahead of the plunging blade, then twisted and ducked under Zaknafein’s deadly cut. The sword nicked him under his jawbone, leaving a painful gash. When Drizzt completed his roll and found his footing despite the angles of the stair, he showed no sign of acknowledging the injury. When Drizzt again faced his father’s imposter, simmering fires burned in his lavender eyes.

Drizzt’s agility amazed even his friends, who had seen him before in battle. Zaknafein rushed out immediately after completing his swing, but Drizzt was up and ready before the spirit-wraith caught up to him.

“Who are you?” Drizzt demanded again. This time his voice was deathly calm. “What are you?”

The spirit-wraith snarled and charged recklessly. Believing beyond any doubt that this was not Zaknafein, Drizzt did not miss the opening. He rushed back toward his original position, knocked a sword aside, and slipped a scimitar through as he passed his charging adversary. Drizzt’s blade cut through the fine mesh armor and dug deeply into Zaknafein’s lung, a wound that would have stopped any mortal opponent.

But Zaknafein did not stop. The spirit-wraith did not draw breath and did not feel pain. Zak turned back on Drizzt and flashed a smile so evil that it would have made Matron Malice stand up and applaud.

Back now on the top step of the stairway, Drizzt stood wide-eyed in amazement. He saw the gruesome wound and saw, against all possibility, Zaknafein steadily advancing, not even flinching.

“Get away” Belwar cried from the bottom of the stairs. An ogre rushed at the deep gnome, but Clacker intercepted and immediately crushed the thing’s head in a claw.

“We must leave,” Clacker said to Belwar, the clarity of his voice turning the burrow-warden on his heel.

Belwar could see it clearly in the hook horror’s eyes; in that critical moment, Clacker was more a pech than he had been since before the wizard’s polymorph spell. “The stones tell me of illithids gathering within the castle,” Clacker explained, and the deep gnome was not surprised that Clacker had heard the voices of the stones. “The illithids will rush out soon,” Clacker continued, “to the certain demise of every slave left in the cavern’”

Belwar did not doubt a word of it, but to the svirfneblin, loyalty far outweighed personal safety. “We cannot leave the drow,” he replied through clenched teeth.

Clacker nodded in full agreement and charged out to chase away a group of gray dwarves that had come too close.

“Run, dark elf!” Belwar cried. “We have no time!” Drizzt didn’t hear his svirfneblin friend. He focused on the approaching weapon master, the monster impersonating his father, even as Zaknafein focused on him. Of all the many evils perpetrated by Matron Malice, none, by Drizzt’s estimation, were greater than this abomination. Malice somehow had perverted the one thing in Drizzt’s world that had given him pleasure. Drizzt had believed Zaknafein dead, and that thought was painful enough.

But now this.

It was more than the young drow could bear. He wanted to fight this monster with all his heart and soul, and the spirit-wraith, created for no other reason than this very battle, wholly concurred.

Neither noticed the illithid descending from the darkness above, farther back on the platform, behind Zaknafein.