The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(18)

Part bear. Part fowl.





“So we go north,” Afafrenfere remarked. “You know this place?”

Artemis Entreri tossed his full sack over the back of the saddle and leaped astride his nightmare. “Only an hour’s ride up the road,” he explained.

“Aye, and me friend here can run like no other,” Ambergris said. “But with me short legs, I’m thinkin’ I best be riding.”

Entreri nodded, then merely walked his mount away and said over his shoulder, “A pity you’ve got no horse then, or pig.”

Ambergris put her hands on her hips and stared up at the man. “It’ll be takin’ us longer to get there, then,” she said.

“No, it will take you longer,” Entreri corrected, and he kicked his mount into movement and leaped away, charging out Neverwinter’s northern gate.

Brother Afafrenfere snorted and chuckled helplessly.

“Aye,” Ambergris agreed. “If I had a better road afore me, I’d be walkin’ away.”

“Better than … what?” the monk asked. “Do we even know what adventure Drizzt might have planned for us?”

“We need to be keepin’ him close,” Ambergris explained. “Dahlia, and aye, that one, too,” she said, nodding toward the now-distant Entreri. “If Lord Draygo or Cavus Dun comes a’huntin’, I’ll be wantin’ the blades o’ them three between me and the shades.”

Afafrenfere considered her words for a few moments, then nodded and started toward the northern gate.

“Don’t ye outrun me,” the dwarf warned. “Or I’ll put a spell on ye and leave ye held and helpless in the forest.”

The reminder of the unexpected assault in the bowels of Gauntlgrym had Afafrenfere turning around, glowering at the dwarf. “That worked once,” he replied, “but not again. Never again.”

Ambergris laughed heartily as she came up beside him. “Best spell what e’er found ye, boy,” she said. “For now ye’ve got a finer life ahead o’ ye! A life of adventure, don’t ye doubt. A life o’ battle.”

“Aye, and probably a life of battling my own companions,” he said dryly, and Ambergris laughed all the harder.





That beast, an owlbear, didn’t rise up to meet them, and Drizzt calmed quickly, recognizing that it was quite dead.

“Well now,” Dahlia said, sliding down from the unicorn’s back to stand beside the slain behemoth. And it was a behemoth, as large as a great brown bear, but with the head and powerful beak of an owl atop those powerful ursine shoulders.

“Indeed,” Drizzt agreed as he slid down.

Dahlia bent low beside the beast, ruffling the fur—the bloody fur—around its neck. “I expect that we’ve found our vampire’s most recent kill.”

“A vampire killed an owlbear?” Drizzt asked skeptically and he, too, bent low and began inspecting the corpse, but not its neck.

“So you admit that it was a vampire?” As she asked, Dahlia used both hands to pull the beast’s thick fur aside, to reveal the canine puncture wounds.

“So it would seem,” Drizzt replied. “And yet—” He put his shoulder to the owlbear and nudged it over just a bit, then similarly parted the fur, to reveal a larger hole, a much deeper puncture. “I know this wound as well.”

“Do tell.”

“A helmet spike,” Drizzt could hardly get the words out. He thought again of the grisly scene beside the lever, thought of Pwent.

“Perhaps a vampire and a battlerager are working together?”

“A dwarf allied with a vampire?” Drizzt asked doubtfully. He had another explanation, but one he wasn’t ready to share.

“Athrogate traveled beside Dor’crae.”

“Athrogate is a mercenary,” Drizzt said, shaking his head. This wasn’t just any battlerager he was considering. “Battleragers are loyal soldiers, not mercenaries.”

Dahlia stood and pointed her wand toward the forest once more. The mist reappeared and snaked away through the trees.

“Well, let’s find out what’s going on, then,” Dahlia said.

Drizzt dismissed Andahar and they moved into the forest on foot. For many hours they searched fruitlessly, Dahlia expending charge after charge of her wand. Many times, Drizzt put his hand to his belt pouch, but he knew that he shouldn’t bring in Guen, not for another day at least.

“If we wait until nightfall, perhaps the vampire will find us,” Dahlia remarked later on, and only then did Drizzt realize that the sun had already passed its zenith and was moving lower in the west. He considered Dahlia’s words and the thought did not sit well with him. Guenhwyvar would be with them in the morning, and she would find their prey.

So intrigued had Drizzt been by the possibilities swirling before him that he had forgotten one other detail of the day’s plans. He looked to the north, where their three companions waited, at his request. Artemis Entreri would not be pleased.

“Where to now?” Dahlia asked.

Drizzt turned back to the west. They were too far out, having passed into reaches of the forest that neither of them knew. “Back to Neverwinter,” the drow decided.

“You would leave Entreri and the others out alone in the forest with a vampire about?”