Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(100)

The needed distraction appeared on the ridge high above them a moment later. As always, the dependable Guenhwyvar entered the fray right on time. With a roar that shook the stones and had every eye turned her way, the great panther leaped out far and high, flying down upon the most concentrated group of Ashmadai.

As they scattered, screaming and diving, Drizzt and Dahlia retreated back through the narrow ravine and out the other end, scrambling over stones toward the cave opening where Bruenor and the others waited.

“Friend of yours?” Dahlia asked with a nod back at the cat, and a wicked smile.

Drizzt smiled back, even wider when he heard the wild tumult behind them.

He let Dahlia get ahead of him and he trusted her to keep the way clear as he watched for pursuit. When they at last neared the rocky vale immediately preceding the caves, Drizzt called upon his enchanted anklets and sprinted to catch up to her.

They crossed a small battlefield, several Ashmadai down, a couple moaning. One off to the side hung inverted from a tree, calling for help, held fast by the legs by whatever that was that shot from Jarlaxle’s magical wand.

Dahlia veered for the victim and Drizzt winced, thinking she would surely crack open the trapped Ashmadai’s skull. To his surprise and relief, she merely patted the trapped woman on the side of the face as she skipped past her with a laugh.

Just past the battlefield, they scrambled over a rocky mound, revealing a small vale below dotted with several cave entrances.

“Here!” Bruenor called from one, and Drizzt and Dahlia moved to join him.

“Your panther,” Dahlia said, glancing back.

“Guenhwyvar has already returned to the Astral Plane, awaiting my next call,” Drizzt assured her.

She nodded, and skipped into the dark cave, but Drizzt paused to watch her, pleased by her concern for the great cat.

They, even Bruenor, had to belly-crawl to get out of the first chamber of the cave, but they moved with all speed, with sounds of pursuit echoing behind them. They came out of that low channel into a smaller, but higher-ceilinged space, in which Athrogate and Jarlaxle waited. As Dahlia came out, she tapped her staff, in the form of a four-foot walking stick, and a blue-white light glowed from its top end.

“This is the way?” Drizzt asked.

“I hope,” said Jarlaxle. “We checked the caves as quickly as we could and this was the only one that seemed promising.”

“But there could be other caves in the area that we haven’t yet discovered?” an uneasy Drizzt asked.

Jarlaxle shrugged. “Luck has always been on your side, my friend. It’s the only reason I asked you along on this journey.”

Dahlia reacted with alarm to that, until she glanced at Drizzt to see him smiling.

The five companions moved through a maze of tunnels and crawlspaces, even splashing through a shallow underground stream for a bit. They hit many dead ends, but many more tunnels broke off into multiple passageways, and they had nothing to guide them but their instincts. Dahlia appeared completely bewildered, but few could navigate dark tunnels better than dwarves, and among those few were the dark elves.

Soon enough, they heard sounds far behind them in the tunnels, and knew that the Ashmadai had continued the pursuit into the Underdark.

At one point, the five came into a long, fairly straight tunnel, which Athrogate rightly identified as a lava tube. It traveled in the correct direction, and at a gentle downward slope, so they eagerly rambled along it. Eventually, though, a cold mist wafted past them, and Dahlia sucked in her breath and turned her head, watching it depart up the tunnel behind them.

“What d’ye know?” Bruenor asked, catching her concern.

“Deathly cold,” Drizzt said.

“Was it?” Jarlaxle asked the elf warrior.

Dahlia nodded. “Dor’crae,” she said.

“The vampire,” Athrogate explained, and Bruenor snorted and shook his head in disgust.

“He will bring them to us,” Dahlia said, and they all suspected then how the Ashmadai had come to know so much about their location.

“Perhaps he’s returning from Gauntlgrym,” Drizzt interjected. “If so, this is indeed the correct path.”

With that hopeful thought in mind, they pressed on with all speed, and for a long way, hours of walking, the lava tube continued with the same agreeable slope. But then they came to an abrupt end, where the tunnel turned downward sharply, a near vertical descent into seemingly bottomless darkness. There was no way around that hole, and they had seen no side tunnels throughout the last hours of their march.

“Let us hope your luck holds,” Jarlaxle remarked to Drizzt, and from an obviously magical pouch, the drow mercenary produced a long length of fine cord. He tossed one end to Drizzt and the other to Athrogate, ordering the dwarf to brace it well.

Without hesitation, Drizzt tied it off around his waist and went over the lip, quickly disappearing from sight. As he neared the end of that length, Drizzt called up, “It levels off to a sharp, but traversable slope.”

A moment later, there came a flash and a sharp retort.

“Drizzt?” Jarlaxle called.

“I’ve set a second rope,” Drizzt called from the darkness. “Move!”

“No going back,” Jarlaxle said to Bruenor, apparently deferring to the dwarf.

“Then that’s the way,” Bruenor decided, and he was next to the rope.