The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(137)

Tiago turned to his companions, Ravel, Saribel, and Jearth, and all four wore perplexed expressions.

“To the east,” another guard explained, and he turned back and pointed down the boulevard straight into the heart of the city. “Straight through and straight out Bryn Shander’s eastern gate, to the east.”

“Night is upon us,” the woman explained. “You’ll be wanting lodging.”

Tiago shook his head. “I have arrangements elsewhere. This road, the Eastway, runs out from the other end of this city?”

“Aye,” several answered.

Tiago turned and started back the way he had come, the other three drow moving in his wake, not one of them offered a parting word, or looking back, except for Jearth, whose duty it was to keep the rear guard watch.

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” an excited Tiago whispered when they were out of earshot of the guards.

“Only days ahead of us,” Ravel agreed.

“With nowhere to run,” Saribel remarked, and all four dreamed of the glory they would soon know.





The small, flat-bottomed boat lurched and rolled, and the nervous captain looked at his three passengers, fearing they would punish him severely for the uncomfortable journey. But the seven of them, drow all, didn’t appear at all bothered by the rolling; so dexterous and balanced were they even in this unfamiliar environment that they barely shifted as the deck was jolted repeatedly by the shock of uneven waves.

The captain glanced at the drow more than they regarded him, which gave him some comfort at least. These were proclaimed friends of Drizzt Do’Urden, but something about their demeanor didn’t fit that description. Not that the captain knew Drizzt well, of course, having met him only once on this same ferry route, but the tales of the rogue drow were common about Ten-Towns, particularly Easthaven, which looked out onto the open tundra. Drizzt had been instrumental in forging the peace between Ten-Towns and the barbarian tribes a century before, and that peace held to this day, to say nothing of his legendary exploits in defeating the minions of the infamous Crystal Shard.

Even though few alive in Ten-Towns knew much of present-day Drizzt—indeed, only a couple of elves remaining in Lonelywood were even alive back in the time of Akar Kessell and the Crystal Shard—most would swing wide their doors for him. The nervous captain could hardly believe the same would be true for this particular group of grim-faced drow adventurers.

He was glad then, as he turned his craft around the last stony jut and into the shallow and somewhat protected cove on the lake’s eastern shore. He dropped the single sail and let the current take them, locking the wheel and moving to the anchor and long gangplank set forward. He could typically secure the landing very quickly, having years of practice, but this day, despite the frothing waters, the captain had them in place and with the bridge to the shore up and steady faster than ever before.

He moved far aside, to the front corner of the craft, as the contingent of drow headed away.

“This is the exact location where you left Drizzt?” asked Tiago, coming near the end of the line, with only Jearth behind him.

“Same spot,” the captain replied.

“A tenday ago?”

“To the day, sir.”

“You will await our return in this very place.”

The captain nearly choked on that. He had agreed to, and been paid for, taking them out here, but even with the rough weather, he wanted a day of knucklehead fishing. Indeed, in weather such as this, knucklehead trout were more likely to bite.

“But—” he started to argue, but the drow fixed him with such a stare that he knew that any contrary word from him would likely get him murdered, then and there.

“You will await our return,” Tiago said again.

“H-how long?” the captain stammered.

“Until you die of old age, if need be,” said Tiago. “And then you will return us to Easthaven’s dock, or you will begin a circuitous ferry from that dock to this place as the rest of my force is brought forth.”

The notion that there were more of these dangerous folk around had the hairs on the back of the captain’s neck standing up. What had he stepped into here, he wondered and imagined a drow invasion force burning Easthaven to the ground!





Later that same day, the sun setting low, the captain breathed a sigh of relief when Tiago and the others stepped off his boat again, this time onto Easthaven’s docks. They had found no sign of Drizzt out in the east, and had quickly realized the fool’s errand of trying to pursue the rogue, who knew the region so much better than they, into the open tundra.

So instead, Tiago and a select few remained at the inn in Easthaven, with the bulk of their thirty-warrior force camped in an extra-dimensional space created by Ravel and the other spellspinners, ready for fast recall.

And they waited.

Another tenday passed. Tiago sent out tendrils—Saribel’s priestesses—to Bryn Shander, and hired indigenous scouts to widen his network to encompass the whole of Ten-Towns, including the Battlehammer contingent living under the lone mountain. Ravel and his spellspinners, meanwhile, utilized their divination magic, while Saribel and her kind called out to Lolth’s handmaidens for guidance in their search.

A month slipped by. Tiago hired locals to reach out to the barbarian tribes for word on the missing drow.