The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(103)

She brought her staff down and in a horizontal swing at one skeleton that had slipped past Entreri’s defensive spins to come at her, and her aim proved perfect, catching the monster against the side of its helm and launching it sideways—where Entreri’s sword and dagger waited. Following through with the spin, Dahlia stabbed up into a diving gargoyle, and now let loose the building charge, the air above her exploding with crackling lightning, the gargoyle exploding into several pieces. Out arced the bolt, and several of the tiny dragons dropped like dead birds.

They had an opening now, and so they could find a more defensible spot, but when Dahlia looked ahead, she saw Ambergris running her way, staggering her way, head down and arms up shielding the dwarf’s face. She saw Afafrenfere beyond the dwarf, standing absolute still in perfect defensive posture, hands raised before him.

And she saw past Afafrenfere, to his opponent …

“No!” Entreri cried out, and he leaped against Dahlia, trying to knock her to the ground, trying to do something, anything to turn her gaze.

But too late. He crashed against solid stone. The Dahlia statue slid only a bit, and Entreri crashed down hard to one knee and reflexively glanced where he should not glance, and this time, the medusa’s magic found him.

He too became a statue, his flesh turning to stone, and he knelt and leaned there, joined with Dahlia, the last desperate try of a friend.

Ambergris wailed and stumbled past the pair, still ducking and covering, not daring to slow to swing up at the gargoyle assaulting her from above. She had resisted the medusa’s devastating gaze in those first moments, but she knew that such an assault would reach out at her again, and she might not be so lucky the next time!

So she didn’t dare slow, and surely didn’t dare turn, accepting the clawing strikes of the gargoyle all the way back to the door from which she had come.

She went through, and the gargoyle went through right behind her, and the dwarf went for the door most of all, and took several more brutal hits for her efforts, one opening her skin from her shoulder to her ear.

She kept her back to the door, but put up her heavy mace, trading blow for multiple blows against the well-armed creature. The gargoyle hopped, its wide wings holding it aloft, as clawed hands and clawed feet raked in at the dwarf.

Ambergris accepted the gouging hits and focused instead on a single, heavy, two-handed down-strike.

Skullbreaker once more lived up to its name.

Blood dripping from multiple wounds, the dwarf had no time to pause and cast any healing, for the door at her back rattled with the press of castle defenders.

She darted away, through another door, then crashed through a third, again retracing her route. This door had a locking bar, which she promptly dropped in place, but she held no illusions that it would hold for long, or that the castle’s defenders wouldn’t have other routes to get at her.

Where had Drizzt and Effron gone? She couldn’t do anything for the three turned to stone—there were spells of restoration to counter such magic, but they were far beyond Ambergris’s power!

So she fled—not just the castle, for where might she go?—but fled the plane of Shadowfell itself. Ambergris couldn’t shadowstep, and creating a gate as Effron had done was also beyond her experience, but she had her enchanted brooch, her Word of Recall, and she had set her sanctuary far, far away.

In the blink of an eye, the dwarf stumbled from Draygo Quick’s castle into the room reserved for her at Sailor’s Solace in Port Llast.

She spent many heartbeats just trying to even out her breath, and then many more trying to figure out her course. She reflexively turned east, toward the Silver Marches, her home and Mithral Hall. Perhaps she could go to Clan Battlehammer with news of Drizzt Do’Urden, who had once been their favored guest. Perhaps she could rally them to assault the castle in another plane, to launch a daring rescue.

The dwarf laughed at the absurdity of it. Three of her companions, including Afafrenfere, were gone, and the other two …

Ambergris thought of Draygo Quick; she knew much of his reputation. In that reflection, it seemed to her that Entreri, Dahlia, and Afafrenfere had been the fortunate ones.

A page in her book had turned, Ambergris realized, and with that, she took a deep and steadying breath and left the past behind, ready to find a new road.

But her old escapades might not so quickly let her go. Cavus Dun wanted her, and had the resources to find her and kill her.

Sometime later, after expending all of her magical energies to close the worst of her many wounds, she looked out her window at the small seaport opening below her balcony.

Cavus Dun would find her here, and easily, for she would surely stand out among the lesser folk of this small community. And here, she would find no allies powerful enough to ward such attacks.

She thought of Luskan, of Beniago and Ship Kurth. He would welcome her back. Perhaps he would put her aboard another of Kurth’s merchant ships, out to sea. She found herself nodding. What better place for a fugitive dwarf to be?

The next day, Ambergris secured a pony and supplies and started out from Port Llast, traveling north.

Beginning the next chapter in a life gone mad.




CURIOSER AND CURIOSER



WHY’RE YE WALKIN’?” ATHROGATE ASKED. “BACK AND FORTH AND BACK again. If ye’re meaning to dig a trench in the floor, get me a pick!”

“There’s something afoot,” Jarlaxle answered Athrogate.