The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(133)

“Your lover and a friend, you mean,” said Dahlia.

Drizzt nodded, but corrected, “My wife. And yes, a friend. They were taken from us in an extraordinary manner—”

“I know the story,” Dahlia said, biting through each word as it escaped her lips, and never blinking.

“You brought us to this forsaken land to chase a ghost?” Entreri asked, still seeming more amused than concerned.

“I have heard nothing of Iruladoon for many years until this very meeting,” Drizzt protested. “Not in many years. Not since before I first ventured to Gauntlgrym.”

“But you mean to go now,” Dahlia said. She stood up and headed for the door, leaving Drizzt to stare blankly, overwhelmed and confused by the reaction.

“You truly are an idiot,” Artemis Entreri said, laughing still some more.

Drizzt rose and started to follow Dahlia, and heard Entreri remark, “As you are about to prove yet again,” as he moved away. That gave the drow pause, but only for a moment, and he hustled out the door.

Dahlia stood on the street with her back to him, her arms crossed over her chest as if she were chilly, though the night was quite warm. Drizzt moved up behind her and gently touched her shoulder.

“Dahlia,” he said, or started to say, for she wheeled around and slapped him hard across the face.

“Why?” he managed to ask before her right arm swung again, and this time, the agile and strong Drizzt caught her by the wrist.

Across came her slapping left hook, and Drizzt caught that one, too.

“Dahlia,” he pleaded.

She head-butted him, her forehead smashing into his nose, and as he staggered back, letting go of her wrists. She kicked up at him, aiming for his groin. He managed to turn his hip in and catch the foot on his thigh, but still it stung.

Dahlia pursued—in the moonlight, he could see tears streaking her cheeks.

A form rushed past Drizzt and intervened as Artemis Entreri cut off her advance and held her back, trying futilely to calm her.

“Fine, then, we’ll go find your ghost!” Dahlia said. “And oh, but you can hug your dear dead Catti-brie, and would that her corpse freezes your heart forevermore!”

Drizzt held one arm out to the side helplessly, his other hand pinching his bleeding nose, as he tried vainly to begin to understand this outburst.

“Well, we leave in the morning, then,” Entreri said, glancing back as he bulled Dahlia away. “A wonderful summer journey, I expect!”

Dahlia rode with Entreri upon the nightmare that next morning, leading the way back to Kelvin’s Cairn to retrieve their other companions.





SCRIMSHAW AND QUIET DREAMS



THE SIX COMPANIONS MOVED OUT OF BRYN SHANDER’S EASTERN GATE THE next morning, traveling the Eastway, a fairly smooth and straight cobblestoned road running from the main city of Ten-Towns to the easternmost of the area’s communities, aptly named Easthaven. Ambergris drove the small wagon they had rented, Afafrenfere and Effron on the bench seat at her side, while Drizzt led the way upon Andahar, with Entreri and, notably, Dahlia following astride Entreri’s nightmare.

They anticipated an easy day’s ride to Easthaven, some dozen miles away, and understood that their road would grow more perilous and difficult after that, after they forded the swollen channel that ran between the two lakes of Lac Dinneshere and Redwaters. They wouldn’t take the wagon past Easthaven, for the tundra beyond would undoubtedly prove too muddy, and Drizzt even hinted that Andahar and the nightmare might not fare well plodding around the unstable ground.

They spent only one very short night in the town of Easthaven, renting just a single room where they could store their supplies and take a short nap. They’d learned in that town that there was a ferry to take them from the town docks to the banks of Lac Dinneshere opposite the river, but alas, the captain would only offer the service before dawn.

“Too much fishin’ to get done early in the morning,” he explained.

So they were out before the dawn, the dark mound of Kelvin’s Cairn looming before them as they boarded the wide and shallow boat tied to Easthaven’s dock. The mountain shifted behind Drizzt’s left shoulder as the ferry caught the morning breeze and glided to the east. The morning sun was just beginning to peek over the flat plain stretching before them when the ferry dropped its long gangplank, and the six companions walked off the boat to the eastern bank of Lac Dinneshere.

“We’re going all the way to them mountains?” Ambergris asked, pointing to the south, to the Spine of the World range, the snow-capped peaks shining brilliantly in the dawn’s light.

“Eventually,” said Drizzt, and that surprising answer had all eyes turning his way. The drow guided those looks the other way, to the north along the large lake’s shoreline.

“The Tribe of the Elk?” Dahlia asked. “Were you not seeking them to keep your pretty dreams of Catti-brie alive?”

Her tone had Entreri rolling his eyes, Afafrenfere and Effron looking on incredulously, and Ambergris sucking in her breath as if expecting an outburst to follow.

“Aye, and they be in the foothills, so ye said,” the dwarf added, and she put a bit of jollity in her voice, something that was not lost on Drizzt.

He smiled appreciatively at the dwarf and nodded. “They will be in or around the foothills for a month or more,” he explained. “But we seek them to confirm rumors, or their place in those rumors, at least.” He looked back to the north again and nodded. “We can confirm a lot more in a day or so.”