Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(97)

Drizzt glanced at Dahlia, then, and despite himself, shook his head.

“I will not kill her,” Entreri promised. “Nor you.”

Drizzt eyed him with clear doubt.

“I hate my master, while you merely bore me,” Entreri said.

“And Dahlia?”

“She’s my counterpart, the champion of my master’s enemy, as I am my master’s champion. And so we were tasked with our battle, a proxy battle. It really is nothing personal.”

“So you would say,” Drizzt started to reply—started, but the words caught in his throat as Artemis Entreri came forward suddenly, reaching to his belt as he lunged. That buckle became a knife and that knife beat Drizzt to the drow’s throat.

A heartbeat later, Entreri looked into Drizzt’s lavender eyes, stepped back, and dropped his knife, which showed no blood. He held up his hands. “Now you can trust me,” he said.

It took Drizzt several heartbeats to even sort out what had just occurred, and he silently chastised himself for allowing his guard to slip, for forgetting the continuing danger presented by the skilled Artemis Entreri. He could have been murdered, then and there, because his heart had been looking backward, and no doubt doing so with a stilted view of what had once been.

He looked at Entreri then, standing unarmed and at ease. He looked down at Entreri’s buckle knife, an ample weapon with which Entreri might have cut out Drizzt’s throat.

Drizzt chuckled and turned away from Entreri once more to follow Dahlia. He chastised himself again for being so foolish, but he applauded himself, or was greatly relieved at least, that he’d been right. The fact that he was still drawing breath proved he’d been right.

This man from his past was not his enemy.






Artemis Entreri.

Artemis Entreri!

The name resonated deeply within the soul of the assassin. His given name, that long ago moniker that had seemingly been lost to the ages, as the person who had once been Artemis Entreri had likewise been lost to the ages.

His thoughts went back to a long-ago day in Calimport, a day Entreri had come to cherish as the moment of his escape. Not from Drizzt Do’Urden, whom he’d thought dead. Not from Jarlaxle and the drow elves, for he was certain they would return for him, and they had. Not an escape from Herzgo Alegni, surely, a tiefling who likely wasn’t even born at that time.

Nay, on that long-ago day, Artemis Entreri had escaped from the man who had proven to be his greatest enemy, his most dangerous foe.

On that long-ago day, Entreri had found a moment of mercy, and mercy on a priest no less, in exchange for a promise that the priest would behave according to his professed tenets, which promised benefit to the poor of the desert port city.

On that long-ago day, Artemis Entreri had escaped from himself, his past, his self-loathing.

And he’d come to look at life differently, for just a short time, until the drow mercenaries of Bregan D’aerthe returned.

All of those memories flooded through him in a burst of confusion.

The irony that it had been Drizzt Do’Urden who had revived the name of Artemis Entreri, and who had revived something else, something far more profound, was not lost on the assassin.

He noted that the drow kept his hands on the hilts of his blades as he walked off to catch up to Dahlia, and Entreri had no doubt that, should he retrieve his own blades now and go after Drizzt, he would again face that legendary barrage of spinning scimitars.

But Entreri had no such intention, of course. He’d assured Drizzt of his intent by surrendering the lethal advantage, and even before that, Entreri had known from Drizzt’s eyes, from the moment of the drow ranger’s recognition of him, that Drizzt had not been saddened by the sight of him.

Artemis Entreri was glad of that expression, and not simply because his own foolish plan had failed, and if Drizzt had thought different of their meeting, or had not recognized him, he would surely have been killed. No, it was more than that, much more. Indeed, Drizzt couldn’t begin to know the level of relief that flooded through the tormented man even then.

And as an added benefit, a plan was truly formulating in Entreri’s thoughts, a way to be rid of Sylora, then use the moment of joy to facilitate an introduction between Herzgo Alegni and Drizzt Do’Urden, and with the lovely Dahlia thrown in against Alegni as well.

In that moment, Artemis Entreri, a man who had for decades been known as Barrabus the Gray, felt something he’d not experienced in those same decades:

Hope.





HE’S JOINED WITH MY ENEMIES?” HERZGO ALEGNI ASKED WITH obvious doubt, and he half-drew his sword, trying to find some hint of confirmation from the sentient blade. He stood on his namesake bridge in Neverwinter, the sun low in the western sky in front of him.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Effron replied cryptically, drawing a glare from Alegni, who was in no mood for such games.

“Barrabus has joined forces with the drow and Dahlia,” Effron said. “It would appear the Thayan sorceress’s champion returns as her mortal enemy.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Why would you send me to follow Barrabus if you weren’t going to believe my report?” the warlock shot back.

On Alegni’s command, Effron had used his spells to covertly follow the assassin into the forest. A creature of shadow, both because of his heritage and training, even the clever Barrabus failed to notice the surveillance. And from afar, Effron had witnessed the exchange between Barrabus, the elf, and the drow.