The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(93)

“Form around me,” Ambergris ordered the others and she stood before the fire, hoisting her huge mace, Skullbreaker, up onto one shoulder.

“The fire?” Dahlia asked, for surely the light marked their position.

“We’ll be needin’ it,” Ambergris replied.

“The walking dead,” Effron explained to his mother, and Afafrenfere, on the other side of the dwarf, handed the nun’chuk back to Dahlia and nodded his agreement with that assessment.

The passing moments seemed an eternity before they finally heard some movement out in the dark swamp, the rustle of grass and the splash of a running footfall on muddy ground.

“Ghouls,” Effron remarked.

Even as he spoke, a great stench washed over them, overpowering the heavy marsh aroma.

“They’ve likely got a ghast or two among ’em,” said the dwarf. She reached into a pouch and brought forth her holy symbol then, and held it up questioningly before her eyes. She rolled it about in her thick fingers, the silvery image of mountains flashing in the firelight with each turn.

“Will Dumathoin grant you such strength?” Afafrenfere asked, obviously understanding the dwarf’s skeptical expression.

“Me god’s been closer as me skin’s grown lighter,” Ambergris replied, but she could only shrug meekly beyond that assurance.

Artemis Entreri rushed back into the light then, startling them all. “Back to back!” he warned. “A horde of ghouls, and with wights among them!”

The four warriors formed a box around Effron as the warlock prepared his spells.

“Wrap yer hands, monk,” Ambergris told her friend. “Don’t want to be touching them beasties with your open skin!”





Stealth wouldn’t help him much, Drizzt knew, for the undead could smell him, could sense his life-force, and no measure of hiding behind a shrub or a stone would mitigate that. He relied on speed instead, constantly moving, constantly shifting directions.

He noted the approaching hunters, a pack of hunched and emaciated creatures, once human, but now hardly resembling the form they knew in life. Bobbing and scrabbling with every step, their movements seemed that of an animal, and their faces locked in a grimace of perpetual anger, or hunger, with their jaws hanging open, showing teeth that apparently had kept growing in the grave, or perhaps it was that their gums had greatly receded.

Drizzt drew back on Taulmaril, leveling the bow at the nearest creature. He glanced around, plotting his escape route, and thinking that his best course would be to draw off as many of these ghouls as possible, to buy his friends more time.

Just before he let fly, he realized that not all of the creatures before him were the same, for among the ghoulish ranks loomed other creatures, standing more upright, appearing less driven by rage and hunger, perhaps, and more measured in their approach toward the firelight. And while the ghouls scrabbled, these few seemed more to float above the muck of the swamp.

Drizzt was not well-versed in the distinctions of undead creatures, but it seemed clear to him that this second version, less visceral and animalistic, was likely more dangerous.

He swiveled the bow around, leveled and let fly, his lightning streak stealing the night in a blinding flash of sharp and crackling energy. It struck the wight in the shoulder, the force of the blow spinning the screeching beast around, spiraling in a full circle, stumbling, before regaining its balance.

Just in time to catch the second arrow right in its emaciated and horrid face. The creature’s head exploded under the weight of that blow, and it flew back and to the ground.

And Drizzt saw another wight, a larger one, an armored one, and holding a greatsword out toward him, and the ghouls, following that direction, swarmed his way.

It was time to run, but Drizzt hesitated, staring at what he thought to be the leader of this horde of monsters. He tried to discern a route to get to the armored wight, for if he could decapitate the band, the fight might fast dissolve.

But then he realized that even this impressive being was not in command of his enemies, for behind the armored wight came a crackling flash of deep blue light, just long enough to illuminate another monstrosity. Part wraith-like, the creature appeared as if someone had placed a second and third skull on the shoulders of an emaciated corpse. It carried a staff that seemed more like bone than wood in the brief instant Drizzt had glimpsed it, and it wore a crown on its central skull.

“What?” Drizzt muttered, and indeed he wondered what he and his friends were up against.





They came in running, fearlessly, ravenous, mostly from the west, but already flanking north and south. The companions stood to face them, most of all Ambergris, who didn’t hoist her huge mace, but stepped forward and presented instead her holy symbol.

“By Dumathoin’s grace, be gone!” she roared, her voice clear and melodic, full of resonance and godly power, which manifested itself in a supernatural glow, a light shining from the dwarf herself.

The press of creatures immediately before Ambergris threw up their spindly arms and clawed hands defensively, a horrid communal shriek filling the air. Some fell to the ground, thrashing, and others, many others, fled, turning back the way they had come, running with all speed from the bared power of the dwarf cleric.

“Redemption!” Afafrenfere congratulated at the dwarf’s side, but that was all he had time to say, for though Ambergris had improved the odds, the numbers still dramatically favored the enemy.