Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(56)

And off they went, the wind blowing in Drizzt’s white hair, and he felt free and alive. He knew that Dahlia would survive—he simply knew it in every corner of his soul. He couldn’t be wounded again, body or heart, so close to his most recent, brutal loss. Nay! He denied the possibility. He was free and he was running through the chill night on his mighty, magical steed. He was alive, the warrior, the thief, who had slipped into the heart of hostile Luskan and pulled from their foes the answer to Dahlia’s dilemma.

“On, Andahar!” he cried, and he fired an arrow high into the night sky, a sizzling silver streak, an expression of his leaping heart.

He set the bells of the barding to ringing.

Exhilaration.

They never slowed, running hard for hours, all the way back to the distant farmstead. Drizzt noted a single candle glowing from within as the structure at last came in sight, and he took that as a hopeful sign that Dahlia was still alive. He skidded Andahar to a stop and flung himself over the unicorn’s back as if it was all a dance.

Just then, a murderous scream came from the farmhouse.

He froze in place, his world collapsing, his mood, his feeling of invincibility, seeming so suddenly, a cruel joke. He was invincible or he was doomed, and the choice didn’t feel like his own, not that night, not then, not with Dahlia beside him.

The scream—it had to be Dahlia’s scream—reminded him all too clearly of his own cry those many years ago when he’d awakened to find his wife lying cold beside him, his friend screaming, too, in the hallway for another lost to the mists of time.

Drizzt crashed through the door, drawing his blades.

The farmer woman huddled in the corner, her hand still muffling the last gasps of her scream.

Dahlia half-sat, half-knelt on the bed, sweating and swaying side to side as if she would fall to the floor at any moment. She held Kozah’s Needle in tri-staff form, one end out in front of her and swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

Drizzt stared at the floor in front of Dahlia, where a serrated knife lay, then kept turning to see a man sprawled upon the floor, face-down.

“She killed him!” the farmer woman cried.

“He tried to cut off my foot!” Dahlia yelled back, in a voice surprisingly strong.

Drizzt ran to the fallen man. He groaned as soon as the drow touched his shoulder. “He’s alive.” Drizzt gently rolled Ben the Brewer over onto his back.

“Give me a moment to find my balance and I’ll rectify that,” Dahlia said.

Drizzt shot her an angry glare and motioned for the farmer woman to join him. She ran a wide circuit around Dahlia and fell down to the floor beside her wounded friend.

Ben the Brewer opened his eyes and shook his head.

“Now, that’ll leave a mark,” he said, rubbing the lump on his skull.

Dahlia swooned and fell back on the bed, banging her head on the wall as she tumbled.

Drizzt and the farmer woman helped Ben the Brewer to his feet.

“Thought she was near dead,” Ben explained. “And she might well be. We’ll need to take that foot, but I’m not going near to that one unless she’s tied well!”

In reply, Drizzt held up the phial. He rushed to Dahlia and cradled her head.

“Kill him,” Dahlia whispered, opening one eye.

“Drink,” Drizzt said. He knew that Beniago might have double-crossed him, might have given him nothing other than more of the same poison.

But it was too late for him to change his mind.

Dahlia began to cough and tremble almost immediately. She pulled herself away from Drizzt with a sudden convulsion and rolled to her side, where she vomited over the edge of the bed.

Drizzt fell over her and tried to hold her still.

“What did you do?” the farmer woman asked.

“The antidote,” Drizzt tried to explain. His thoughts were whirling as he wondered if he’d just finished off his lover.

“Aye, that’s what I’d expect,” said Ben the Brewer. “It’ll clean ‘er out, but won’t be a pretty sight.”

He staggered over and picked up his knife, but when he stood straight, he found Drizzt staring back at him hard.

Ben the Brewer dropped the blade back to the floor.





“I just realized that I don’t even know your name,” Drizzt said to the farmer woman a couple of mornings later. They stood outside the house. It was his first time away from Dahlia since administering the antidote. The elf rested easily, at last, her fever broken, the swelling in her foot and leg at last receding.

“Meg,” she answered.

“Meg?”

“Just Meg. I had more of a name once, when it mattered. Now I’m Meg, just Meg, and Ma to my kids. Nothing more.”

“We owe you much,” Drizzt said.

“You owe me a clean floor, to be sure!” Meg said with a sad laugh.

Drizzt smiled at her. “Your generosity …”

“I did what any person would do, or ought to do, or once upon a time outside Luskan would do,” Meg replied, her voice sharp.

“Still, I would like to show my appreciation, to you and to Ben the Brewer.”

“I want nothing from you, other than that you’ll be long gone from my house, not to return.”

The chill in the woman’s voice surprised Drizzt. He thought perhaps their time there had forged a bond. He thought wrong, apparently.