Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(84)

“Instead of me?”

The suddenness of her question again threw the drow off-balance. He had to think about the answer—and wondered how he might phrase his impulsive thoughts even if he could sort them out.

Dahlia laughed again, relieving the tension. “Beside me, perhaps?” she offered.

“I’ll tell you of him and let you decide,” Drizzt replied, glad for the out.

“And of your lover?”

Drizzt felt his face grow tight.

Dahlia reached down and retrieved her wide leather hat and plopped it on her head, adjusting her braid so that it curled around her shapely neck and ended at the top of her cleavage.

“Come,” she said as she rose. “The road lies before us and I wish to hear your tales of King Bruenor.”

Drizzt moved down to the stream and vigorously shook his wounded arm in the cold water. He hustled to catch up to Dahlia, drawing a bandage from his pouch as he went. By the time they reached the road and he lifted his whistle to summon Andahar, he’d wrapped the arm from above the elbow all the way to the wrist. For the rest of that day as they rode, he clenched and unclenched his fist, battling the tingles of the residual devilish poison, and his bandage soon enough showed more than one red stain from the renewed blood flow.

Drizzt didn’t care about that inconvenience, however, for he told the tales of Bruenor, as Dahlia bade him. Those stories, happy and thrilling and filled with love and friendship, forcibly battled a different type of poison within the heart and soul of Drizzt Do’Urden.

They set their camp long after the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and were off again before the light of dawn. Andahar carried them effortlessly. Soon enough, they came to the northern reaches of Neverwinter, but on Dahlia’s insistence, they didn’t venture into the settlement. They set their camp just northeast of the town.

While looking for some wood for their small fire, Drizzt heard a rustle of leaves, a footstep. That alone didn’t concern him too greatly—the Neverwinter Guard was likely around the area, and they were not enemies, after all. But as he moved around to investigate, using all the stealth that marked the night as the time of the drow, Drizzt quickly grew more concerned, for whomever he followed showed himself to be quite practiced at the art of avoidance.

The drow at last spotted his quarry, and when he did, he understood why it had taken him so long to locate the source of the noise that had brought him deeper into the forest. The moon was full and bright, after all, and Drizzt’s drow eyes could cut through the shadows on a night like this as easily as in full sunlight. Any normal traveler, even a city guard, should have been easy to spot. But now, finally, when Drizzt discovered the source of that footstep, he forgave himself for not locating this one earlier.

The man—or woman, he couldn’t tell—was of the Shadowfell, a shade who blended into the darkness beneath one wide-spread elm so easily Drizzt for a moment wondered if he were watching a Netherese lord shift back into that dark realm.

He spotted his prey again, and knew then that it was indeed a man, heavyset and powerfully built. Again Drizzt took up the silent pursuit, moving as invisibly as the other, and far more quietly with his practiced steps and full understanding of the forest floor. He smelled the campfire before he spotted it, and moved more quickly. He counted at least three more shades, all in armor and strapped with weapons.

He recalled what Dahlia had told him of the turmoil in the wood and recognized the war party for what it was.

Drizzt soon enough melted into the night and trotted back the way he’d come.

To his surprise, he found Dahlia on the edge of their camp, her staff already broken into flails and looped over her sash belt on either hip, within ready grasp.

“Shadovar—” Drizzt started to say.

“I know. I smell them,” Dahlia said.

“A handful,” Drizzt explained, nodding his chin toward the distant camp. “Just over those hills. We can swing off to the west, down near to the coast and …”

He stopped talking when Dahlia simply walked away from him into the forest, straight as a killing arrow in the direction of the Shadovar encampment.

Drizzt watched her curiously. “We need not fight them,” he called after her, but she didn’t slow.

“Aren’t the Netherese the enemies of the Thayans?” he asked when he caught up to her.

“Mortal enemies,” Dahlia replied, but she didn’t stop her march.

“So Sylora Salm would wish us to do battle with this group?” Drizzt asked, hoping to shake Dahlia free of the almost trancelike state that had come over her. Even in the dim light, he could see the rage simmering in her sparkling eyes. She had her weapons off her belt by then, and clutched them so tightly that her skin, appearing pale even in the starlight, seemed brighter around the knuckles, as if white hot with anger.

“If we battle with the shades, do we not do Sylora’s bidding?” he asked again.

Dahlia stopped and turned to face him directly. “The Netherese and the Thayans vie for control of Neverwinter Wood,” she admitted. “Yes—are you pleased with yourself?—Sylora Salm would want this group slain, would want all these foul grayskins slain.”

“Then let’s go the other way,” Drizzt took a step back toward their own camp, already a considerable distance behind them.

But Dahlia’s chuckle denied him. “Not everything in my life is about the desires of Sylora Salm,” she said, continuing on her way.