Gauntlgrym (18 page)

The eyes of the gem flared red.

Nervous, Dor’crae glanced back at the door, and if he had any breath, he would have held it.

“She comes,” he whispered to the spirit in the skull gem, “with our allies for the journey to the source of power.”

The skull gem’s eyes flared. “Szass Tam watches,” a woman’s voice replied, and it sounded tinny and thin through the magical conduit. “He would not have this opportunity pass us by.”

“I understand,” Dor’crae assured her.

“He will blame one, I will blame the other,” the voice of Sylora assured him.

“I understand,” Dor’crae dutifully replied, and the flaming eyes went quiet.

Dahlia entered the chamber, and as soon as Dor’crae saw her, he noted the new ratio of her earrings, nine to one.

Valindra, too, noted the entrance of Dahlia, but more because of the drow and dwarf that followed not far behind her. The lich gave a little hiss as Athrogate showed himself, but managed enough of her composure to wish Jarlaxle well.

“It has been too long, Jarlaxle,” she said. “I am lonely.”

“Too long indeed, dear lady, but my business has kept me away from your fair city.”

“Always it is business.”

“Just lie down and die, ye rotten thing,” Athrogate muttered, the dwarf obviously having little regard for Valindra.

“Is this a problem?” Dahlia asked Jarlaxle. “You knew that Valindra would be accompanying us.”

“My little friend has a particular distaste for the walking dead,” Jarlaxle replied.

“It ain’t right,” muttered the dwarf.

Jarlaxle looked to Dor’crae and asked Dahlia, “This is your associate?”

“Korvin Dor’crae,” she replied.

Jarlaxle studied the vampire for just a moment before grinning in understanding. “And this is my associate, Athrogate,” he said to Dor’crae. “I expect you two will get along wonderfully.”

“Yeah, well met and all,” Athrogate added with a slight nod, though he glanced again Valindra’s way, his expression sour, revealing that he was, in all likelihood, oblivious to Dor’crae’s true nature.

“Let us be on our way,” Dahlia instructed. She moved to usher Valindra toward the other exit, waving for Jarlaxle and Athrogate to lead the way.

As soon as the four had moved out the door, the vampire began to follow, taking a roundabout course to pass the skull gem. He quietly dropped it into his pocket. The eyes flared as he did, showing that his unseen ally was still there, in the extra-dimensional pocket of the phylactery, and the vampire could have sworn the inanimate gem smiled at him as it disappeared into the folds of his clothing.

ANOTHER DROW AND HIS DWARF

B
RUENOR STOOD THERE, STARING AT THE WELL, A STONE TAKEN FROM ITS
base in his hand.

Drizzt didn’t know what to expect. Would Bruenor throw the stone in rage? Or would he insist that it didn’t matter and that they press on anyway, deeper into the unstable—and not as ancient as they’d first believed—underground complex.

The dwarf heaved a sigh and tossed the stone to the ground, its lettering—a
human
alphabet—clear to see. The well bore the signature of its all-too-human builder, and the mark of his barbarian clan. Bruenor had found the well before the earthquake had driven them out, and cost them days of digging to get back to the spot.

“Well, elf,” the dwarf remarked, “got us a hunnerd more maps to follow.”

He turned to face Drizzt and Guenhwyvar, hands on his hips, but there was no anger and little disappointment showing on his hairy face.

“What?” Bruenor added, seeing Drizzt’s obvious surprise at his measured reaction.

“You show great patience.”

Bruenor hunched his shoulders and snorted. “Ye remember when we was looking for Mithral Hall? Them months on the road, through Longsaddle, the Trollmoors, Silverymoon, and all?”

“Of course.”

“Ever knowing better months, elf?”

It was Drizzt’s turn to smile, and he conceded his friend’s point with a nod.

“Ye telled me a million times, it’s the journey and not the ending,” said Bruenor. “Might be that I’ve come to believe ye. Come on, then,” the dwarf
added, and he walked between the pair, throwing a suspicious glance at the ever-troublesome panther. “I got more journeyin’ in me old legs yet.”

They came out of the cave under a perfect blue sky, with the rolling hillocks of the Crags tightening the horizon around them. It was late summer, almost fall, and the cool winds had been fairly comfortable of late. They figured they had about three more months of easy exploring before them until they had to retreat to a town for the winter—perhaps Port Llast, but Drizzt had suggested a journey out to Longsaddle to visit the Harpells. The strange clan of wizards had been decimated by the Spellplague, but after more than six decades they were finally rebuilding their ranks, their mansion on the hill, and the town beneath it.

That was a decision for another day, though, and the trio went back to their small encampment and Bruenor opened his pack and produced a pile of scroll tubes, parchment, and a mound of skins and tablets, all maps to the many known caves in the Sword Coast North. He also produced several ancient coins minted in the days of Delzoun, a very old smith hammer’s head, and some other suspicious and obviously ancient artifacts tumbled out as well. All had been procured across the North, from barbarian tribesmen or small villages, and the coins had come from Luskan. They were proof of nothing, of course. Luskan could trace her history as a trading port as far back as most dwarf scholars put the time of Gauntlgrym, and if that was the case, then one would expect a few Delzoun coins in the various coffers of the City of Sails.

To Bruenor, though, those artifacts represented confirmation, and a heartening lift to his tired old shoulders, so Drizzt didn’t dissuade him from that.

Not if it would make the journey more interesting, after all.

Bruenor sorted through the scroll tubes, one after another, reading the notes he had scribbled on their sides. He selected two and tossed them aside before stuffing the rest back into his pack. A similar pile of the parchment produced yet another promising map, before the rest of those, too, went into the pack.

“Them three’re closest to us,” the dwarf explained.

To Drizzt’s surprise and amusement, Bruenor finished filling his bag then slung it over his shoulder and started collecting the rest of his items, and breaking their camp.

“What?” the dwarf asked when Drizzt made no move to do likewise. “We got a few more good hours o’ sunlight, elf. No time for wastin’!”

Laughing, Herzgo Alegni walked out from behind the tree and onto the forest path before a pair of surprised tieflings. One had horns similar to Alegni’s, rounded back and down, while the other sported only a pair of nubs on her forehead. Both wore leather vests left open to reveal jagged brands, layered lines combining the symbols of their god and some other devilish patron. Alegni had come to know the symbol well in his time in Neverwinter Wood.

Both carried red scepters, fashioned with clever facets to look like crystal, though they were in fact made of solid metal. Around three feet in length, they could serve as club, short staff, or spear, with one end tapered to a nasty tip.

“Brother.…” the male said, startled by the sudden appearance of the larger tiefling.

“Nay—Shadovar!” the female quickly corrected, even as she leaped back into a defensive posture.

She set her weight back on her right leg, and her left arm extended, palm toward Alegni, her weapon drawn in tight against her right breast, pointing the Shadovar’s way as a sword or spear might.

The male reacted in much the same way, crouching with his legs wide and his scepter up over his right shoulder, as if to swing it as a club.

Herzgo Alegni smiled at them both and didn’t yet draw his magnificent sword, the red blade hanging easily along the side of his left leg.

“Ashmadai, I presume,” he said, referring to the cultists of Asmodeus, a group he had never heard of until recently, when they had begun to trickle into Neverwinter Wood.

“As you should be, devil brother,” said the female. Her eyes, solid silver orbs, widened with lustful excitement.

“Devil brother who has embraced the shade,” the male added, “and the Sharran Empire of Netheril.”

“Who sent you?” Alegni asked. “Whose hand guides this cult of misbegotten zealots?”

“One who is no friend of Netheril!” the female retorted, and she came forward suddenly, thrusting her spear at Alegni’s massive chest.

But Alegni moved first, drawing his sword and lifting the blade up and left to right as it came free of its belt loop—and more, something neither of his opponents could have expected—as the blade rent the air it left an opaque trail of ash.

Through that veil prodded the female’s spear, but behind the wall of ash,
Alegni had already dodged off to his right, letting the momentum of the sword carry him.

As the female retracted, he said from just off the path, “Here.” And just before the male leaped forward to swing his club, and both turned their horned heads to regard him, and even started to re-orient their feet, the ash wall exploded. A slender figure leaped through, flipping in mid-air as he passed between the Ashmadai couple, easily avoiding their attempts to align their weapons to the new threat. He landed behind them, though facing them, having twisted around in the air.

“Blow the horn!” the male cried, spinning to meet the challenge, but even as he spoke, the female stumbled a step or two to the side, her free hand slapping against her throat—against a puncture wound inflicted by the newcomer’s dagger. Her silver eyes went wider still, in shock at his precision, perhaps, or in fear that she was mortally wounded.

“Makarielle!” her companion cried, and he leaped at the knife-wielder, leading with a great swing of his club.

The pallid human leaned away from the first cut and ducked the backhand. On the third attempt, he leaped at the weapon, accepting the shortened hit against the side of his chest as he landed. The club hooked under his armpit, and he spun out to the side with such force, confidence, and balance that he took the weapon from his opponent’s hand.

The disarmed tiefling hissed and rushed to follow, more than capable of doing battle with his fists and teeth.

But even as he moved out to the side, Barrabus the Gray drove his right elbow, the arm trapping the scepter, up and out in front of him, flipping the weapon into the air. He caught it mid-shaft with his right hand then stopped and reversed, throwing his right hip back and around. Cupping the back end of the scepter with his left hand for balance and power, he thrust it out behind him.

He felt the heavy impact with his pursuer’s chest and didn’t continue around to his right, but rather stopped and brought the scepter back in front of him, flipping it easily and catching both hands low on one end as he turned to his left, stepping toward the retreating tiefling as he brought the club to bear.

To his credit, the tiefling managed to get his arm up to block the blow—and break his forearm in the process—but before he could even shriek out from the explosion of pain, Barrabus went back around the other way and reversed his hands as if to launch a tremendous blow, up-angled for the tiefling’s head. Even as
the tiefling began to react accordingly, Barrabus revealed the feint, dropping and kicking out with his foot instead. He connected solidly with the tiefling’s knee, driving the leg out wide, and again his hands moved quickly along the scepter, so his right hand gripped the middle, his left low on the back end. Barrabus drove the weapon forward and upward from his crouch, and the off-balance tiefling had no defense as the tip slammed hard into his groin.

“Well done,” Alegni congratulated Barrabus, walking up beside the female, who was on one knee then, both hands tight against her punctured throat, her weapon on the ground beside her. “Will she live?” he asked.

“No poison,” the man confirmed. “Not a mortal wound.”

“Good news!” Alegni said, stepping past her toward the stunned but stubborn male, who stood, his face locked in a tight grimace. “Well, not for you,” the Shadovar corrected, and his sword came across suddenly, brutally, nearly cleaving the poor fellow in two.