Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(55)

Ben the Brewer reached up to Dahlia’s thigh and pulled tighter on the slip-knot he’d set there. “I’d take her leg,” he said. “The foot at least. But I’m not thinking she’d live through the cutting.”

“She’s doomed anyway,” the farmer woman replied, and she looked to the wide-bladed axe and the long serrated knife he’d brought.






“If High Captain Kurth learns of this …” Beniago started to say, holding his hand out to Drizzt.

Drizzt took the phial. “He’ll thank you when Dahlia and I offer him our allegiance,” he finished for Beniago. “If Kurth is still high captain when we meet again, I mean,” the drow added, a clear implication that he believed that Beniago might find a way to rise to that seat of power.

As he heard the words leave his mouth, Drizzt had to work hard to hide his own surprise. Though born in Menzoberranzan, Drizzt was hardly a master of subterfuge, hardly a player in the realms of shadow and murder. When before would he have even considered such an interaction with a man like Beniago? When before would he have even considered any alliance with one of the high captains of Luskan? Drizzt wasn’t merely tossing that possibility out in order to garner the antidote, he was actually thinking that he and Dahlia might do well to ally themselves with Kurth, or Beniago. There was, after all, a practical side of the matter: He had the antidote in hand!

A shout came from one of the nearby alleyways.

“Ship Rethnor has awakened to your presence,” Beniago warned.

“And Ship Kurth?”

“Possibly, but I can stand them down,” Beniago replied. “There’s little I can offer you against the rage of Ship Rethnor.”

Drizzt lifted the whistle on the end of the chain and blew into it, and with great running strides, Andahar came to him, leaping through the dimensions. Drizzt motioned for the unicorn to keep running past him.

“Farewell, Beniago,” the drow said, grabbing Andahar’s flowing mane and leaping up atop the steed. “If this is the antidote, know you have made a friend. If not, then know without doubt that my blades will find your heart.”

And with that warning, Drizzt Do’Urden was gone, Andahar galloping across the market square, hooves clap-clapping on the cobblestones. A shout came up from a rooftop and Drizzt turned the unicorn sharply down an alleyway. He dodged a crate, leaped another, and swerved hard at the last instant to avoid some rubble.

In full gallop, Andahar came out onto the next street over, and cries went up and faces appeared in darkened windows. Drizzt heard the shouts along the rooftops, trying to track his progress, no doubt in an attempt to ready some archers or some other ambush up ahead.

So Drizzt turned Andahar again, and again, street by street, alley by alley. Galloping hard, he took out Taulmaril and set an arrow to the magical bowstring.

Movement on the roof ahead and to the left caught his attention, so he put up the bow and drew back. His legs clamped hard around the unicorn, holding him steady as he let fly, again and again, a barrage of lightning arrows streaking for the roof’s facing, blasting holes in the wood and shale, and brightening the night in a shower of multicolored sparks.

On they ran, Drizzt bending low over Andahar’s strong neck, whispering encouragement into the unicorn’s ear. He knew that enemies were all around, intent on stopping him. He knew that if he failed, Dahlia was surely doomed.

But he wasn’t afraid. There wasn’t the slightest fear in him that he wouldn’t get there in time, that these thugs would stop him. He couldn’t believe that, or fear that, not at this moment, not in this …

Exhilaration.

That was the word for it, the only word for it. He was alive, his every sense honed and sharp-edged, relying on his warrior instincts.

Exhilaration. Drizzt had no time for fear or doubt.

Andahar snorted as if sensing the drow’s thoughts, and ran on harder, plowing along the lanes and alleyways in the zigzag maze Drizzt had determined to get them to the gate.

An arrow reached out from the side, grazing Andahar. Drizzt responded with a lightning missile that revealed the archer, who promptly ran away.

To the other side, a large pirate rushed out of a doorway, spear in hand, and aimed for the approaching unicorn.

Drizzt’s arrow threw the fool back through the door before he’d even cocked his arm.

Unicorn and rider thundered down a decline and turned a sharp corner, heading up another street, this one leading straight to the opened west gate. Arrow after arrow reached out from Taulmaril, streaking the night with silver, slamming against the walls of the guard tower or slashing into the cobblestones at the feet of the wide-eyed guards. They shouted warnings and they called to each other for help.

And Drizzt kept shooting, arrows slamming into stone and wood, showering sparks and lighting beams with licks of flame. He scored no further hits on the scrambling guards—he wasn’t trying to cut any of them down—but he kept them running and diving and shouting for help, too confused and surprised to organize a valid counter, or even to shut the gates.

Andahar never slowed, thundering up the road, and finally, a sentry found his wits enough to rush to one of the gates.

Drizzt’s arrow splintered the wood barely a finger’s breadth from the sentry’s face, and he shrieked and fell away.

Out into the night leaped Andahar, charging down the road.