“Smell?”
The vampire growled.
“Pwent!” Drizzt said sharply.
“Yer blood!” Pwent explained. “Ah, but the sweetest o’ smells.”
“Then go ahead of us!” Drizzt said, his voice raising in a bit of desperation and his hands going to his blade hilts again, as he clearly saw that Pwent was about to throw himself into battle once more.
“Go ahead and mark the way for us!” Drizzt continued. “Scrape the wall at every intersection! Lead us to the drow, to Entreri and Dahlia and the others!”
“Girl’s gone,” Pwent managed to grumble. “Drow killed her to death, I’m guessin’. Fed her to the spiders …”
Drizzt felt an enormous lump in his throat, but he managed to say, “Lead us,” right before the area lit up with the magic of an enchanted light.
Pwent went into his half-gaseous, half-corporeal swift step once more, rushing at Drizzt so quickly that the drow could not react and thought himself surely doomed.
But the vampire went right past him, hustling away down the corridor and around a bend, and a moment later, Drizzt heard Bruenor call out, “Elf?”
And a moment after that, Drizzt heard a metallic scrape against the stone wall from the other direction, and knew that Pwent was guiding them.
“I envy you,” Artemis Entreri said to Brother Afafrenfere, who hung motionless beside him.
Despite his words, though, the assassin could not bring himself to join Afafrenfere in the long sleep of death. He could have easily accomplished that end if he truly so desired. He could pick the lock and hold the door just a bit open and let the lightning magic of the glyph eat him. Or he could just sneak out and murder another drow, take his weapons and battle until they overwhelmed him. Yes, that would be a fitting end, he thought.
Several times, Entreri told himself to do it.
Several times, he lifted his hand and the small metal scrap he had secured near the cage’s lock.
But every time, the hand came back down.
Dahlia was out there somewhere, and she needed him to find a way, Entreri told himself. He couldn’t give up. Not yet.
Even as he tried to convince himself of that, though, his hand drifted back up toward the lock. What did it matter? Dahlia wouldn’t even talk to him—how could he begin to convince her to leave even if he discovered the impossible and found a way to facilitate such an escape?
But no, he decided. There was no way. So he’d get out and find a weapon and kill a few drow and be done with it all. His hand actually made it to the lock this time and he had just slipped the metal scrap in when a sudden noise made him instinctively retract.
He looked out across the way, to see the great drider, Yerrininae, rushing along, his eight legs scraping loudly against the stone floor. He carried Skullcrusher in one hand, his great trident in the other. A trio of driders followed him along the opposite wall of the long and narrow room, moving past the portal to the primordial chamber, the now-ornate mithral door with its new adamantine border, then past Entreri’s position. They paused to confer with some drow, blacksmiths and guards, the great drider issuing orders, it seemed.
The driders moved on, turning out of the last side corridor exiting the room, diagonally and far to Entreri’s right. That tunnel ran behind the primordial chamber, he knew, and to the outer tunnels of this low level. In the Forge, the dark elves scurried about, motioning to goblins who rushed to close the forge oven doors and smother the open fires.
The room darkened, then grew blacker still as dark elves cast their magical darkness where the hot orange light slipped through the creases about an oven door.
“Dahlia?” Entreri asked quietly, wondering if perhaps she had somehow managed to escape.
He heard a sound, a scuffle, off the other way, back toward the near end of the room. He craned his neck to see, but it was too dark. He heard a goblin shriek, and with such terror that it surely startled the assassin.
The ugly little creature came by him then, very near, near enough for him to make it out, and to note the drow draped around it, tearing at it, biting at it.
Biting? Entreri couldn’t make sense of it, but there it was, right in front of him.
More noise erupted back from where the two had come, the sound of fighting, of goblins crying out in fear, of dark elves calling out for help and damning their enemies. Had the goblins revolted, Entreri wondered?
But only briefly, for there came a cry, a dwarven cry, and it was followed almost immediately by the scream of a dark elf, one quickly muffled.
Another pair of combatants rolled past Entreri, actually banging against his cage and sending him into a swing. His hand went up immediately to the lock, thinking that he might have to quickly get free here, but he froze in amazement as he noted the combatants, a pair of dark elves. And one seemed unarmed, while the other slashed at her wildly.
Again and again, the fine sword struck, drawing deep gashes. But the victim didn’t seem to care. She just grabbed at him and bit at him, her hands raking deep wounds in the male’s face. He hacked mightily, frantically, and an arm fell to the floor, but still she came on, throwing herself over him and bearing him down and biting hard at his face as they rolled away into the darkness.
Entreri didn’t know what to do, or what might be going on around him.
It made no sense.
A bright light exploded back the other way, past the Great Forge that centered the chamber, filling that far area of the room with its brilliant shine. The dark elves in that illuminated region threw their hands over their eyes and fell back—one waved her hands in spellcasting, squinting with every word, clearly stung by the light. Her darkness spell countered the brightness, but only briefly as another burst of light appeared.
The drow female fell back, and was assailed by an attack that Artemis Entreri surely recognized, as the sizzling, blue-white streak of a lightning arrow chased her back into the shadows, and stole those shadows with a flash as it blasted into the drow and sent her flying away.
Another arrow flew off, and Entreri anticipated it and so could follow it to its source. He noted the archer in the form of a drow crouched near the mithral door. For a brief instant, Artemis Entreri wondered how he might have possibly gotten there in the midst of his wary and deadly enemies. But the assassin dismissed that question before it could even register, for he knew this drow, Drizzt Do’Urden, the Hunter, and with that recognition, the assassin could not be surprised.
Another burst of light erupted, and this time Entreri managed to better note the attackers: a dwarf, a halfling, and a giant of a man, forming a wall before an auburn-haired woman who twirled in spellcasting movements, her white gown and black shawl flying out with each turn like ghostly wisps of a partly ethereal form. Blue-glowing mist swirled out of the voluminous sleeves of her gown, curling around her arms like some physical manifestation of the magical energies she collected around her.
“No,” Entreri breathed as all three raised their hands and threw forth some small objects, tiny stones, they seemed. But no, they were ceramic balls, which broke open when they crashed down, freeing more globes of magical light to fill the room.
“It cannot be,” Entreri mouthed silently.
A pea-sized lick of flame flew from the woman’s hand off to the side of the room, where it exploded into a tremendous fireball, immolating a group of goblins and sending a couple of dark elves running off into the small bits of remaining darkness, covering their heads and diving into rolls and frantically patting at the biting flames.
And on came the invading foursome, their determined advance led by a sudden barrage of lightning arrows that tore through the defensive line being formed to block them.
They were using the light as the dark elves might use the darkness, Entreri realized, blinding their foes as surely as a drow’s darkness dweomer would steal the sight from a surface dweller.
And this small group was not alone in the fight, obviously, for back the other way, a wilder
battle had joined, drow against drow, goblin against drow, and with a single dwarf thrashing furiously among the wild tumult, a dwarf wearing a huge head spike and gauntlet spikes and spiked armor all around, a dwarf covered in blood and reveling in it.
Back the other way, the cry of “Tempus!” echoed off the stones and the forges, and a spinning warhammer sent a dark elf flying, dead long before she hit the ground.
“It cannot be,” Artemis Entreri whispered again, now watching as the warrior trio met their foes.
A great horn sounded, melodic and rumbling, harmonic and cold, as if it had bellowed from the very halls of a barbarian god.
“It cannot be,” he said a third time, and then came the rumbling growl of a giant hunting cat and he knew that it was indeed.
The others had come down here at the behest of Drizzt, more than willing to help him in his quest, even if that mission meant rescuing a man who had been a nemesis to the Companions of the Hall, indeed, a cruel man who once long ago had cut a finger from Regis’s hand!
Yet Regis was here in the line, fighting bravely, for the sake of Artemis Entreri, for the responsibility of his friendship to Drizzt.
Bruenor did not miss the significance of that, reinforcing the bond of this troupe, the true measure of friendship. He thought himself a fool once more for ever thinking of abandoning his oath to go to Kelvin’s Cairn on the appointed night, and he was glad to be here for the Companions of the Hall, for his dear friend Drizzt.
But there was indeed another reason, another impetus, powering the dwarf ahead, and he centered the line between Wulfgar and Regis and drove them on furiously, his many-notched axe cracking through goblin shields and goblin skulls, tossing aside the fodder that he could catch up to the dark elves who had taken this place.
This was Gauntlgrym, the ancient home of the Delzoun dwarves. These were the forges, particularly the Great Forge, which had brought Bruenor’s people wealth and commerce and high reputation.
The damned drow did not belong here!
Bruenor felt the spirits of the dwarven gods within him, the wisdom of Moradin, the strength of Clangeddin, the secrets of Dumathoin. In his last battle in this place, he had become as those gods and had battled a pit fiend, among the mightiest devils of the Nine Hells, a great monstrosity that should have been far above his ability. But he had won. With the wisdom, the strength, and the secrets, he had overcome that foe, and so it would be now, he decided flatly.
A goblin came up before him and up went his axe, and up went the goblin’s shield.
The power of Clangeddin flowed through Bruenor’s arms as he brought that axe down, and though the goblin’s shield, forged in this very room, held firm, the sheer weight of the blow stunned the creature and drove it to its knees.
And Regis was there suddenly, beside Bruenor, stabbing the goblin through the ear.
Bruenor kicked the dying creature aside and charged at a pair of dark elves.
A hammer flew in over him, a magical arrow shot in from the side and a barrage of bolts of magical energy swerved around the dwarf’s stout frame and stabbed ahead at his enemies to lead him in.
“Bah!” he snorted in disappointment, with one drow struck dead by Wulfgar’s hammer, the other hustling back the other way, calling goblins in around her to defend her limping retreat.
“Bah!” Bruenor shouted again, swatting aside a pair of goblins. “Ye’re stealing all me fun!” His axe cut deep into the side of one goblin and drove the victim hard into the other, knocking it aside. Still focused on the dwarf, that goblin squeaked in surprise when it found the waiting grasp of Wulfgar, who hoisted the flailing creature up above his head and launched it hard into the side of the nearest forge.
“Get me something big to hit!” Bruenor cried, and no sooner had he spoken the words than it seemed as if his wish would be granted, as a quartet of monstrous driders came onto the battlefield. They seemed to want nothing to do with Pwent and his vampire minions, and rushed past that skirmish, heading straight for the Companions of the Hall.
“Well now!” Bruenor said, enthusiastically.
When magical darkness countered the light of his thrown pellet, Drizzt knew that his position had been compromised. He got off one last aimed shot, the arrow screeching across the metal mail of the dark elf standing before Bruenor, then turned to the middle of the battlefield, the drow and goblin position between Pwent’s force and the advancing companions, and let fly a barrage of bolts, one after another.
He took no pause to aim, though more than one goblin and even another drow went down under his explosive assault. He was more interested in causing confusion, preventing any coordinated movements by the enemy.
Somewhere in the background of the thunderous battle sounds, the ranger heard the click of hand crossbows and he reflexively covered, and just in time against a concerted volley aimed his way.
Still, Drizzt felt the sting of a quarrel, then another, and a third, finding seams in his armor and crouch to bite at his flesh. The wounds were not serious, nor, Drizzt hoped, would be the poison.
He silently thanked Regis when his arms did not go heavy. The halfling had given them all potions to drink before entering this room, magical elixirs that would counter drow poison, so Regis believed, and so they all had hoped.
Drizzt broke from his crouch and came up strong, scimitars flashing into his hands to meet the charge of a pair of dark elves, and he felt no sluggishness, no weight of sleep poison at all, as his blades worked in and out, ringing with parries against all four swords that came in at him.
He ducked fast before he had even disengaged to avoid a javelin flying between his foes and straight for his face.
“Guen!” he called as that drow woman behind the fray lifted another javelin his way.
Her arm went back to throw, but did not come forward. Nay, it went fast to the side instead, as she went fast to the side instead, buried under the raking claws of six hundred pounds of fighting panther.
Drizzt had no time to watch that show, his scimitars snapping all around, working across before him and back out wide on sudden backhands. He tried to take a measure of his opponents, to see which was the weaker, the more vulnerable. But these drow were not strangers to battle, he soon realized, and had fought side-by-side before, likely many times, and it was all Drizzt could do to keep them at bay.
He needed help to break away, he realized, and he looked to Guenhwyvar and started to call out for her to be quick to his side.
But then he saw the driders, one in particular rushing for Guenhwyvar, and his call transformed into one of warning.
The chamber door banged open, startling the drow females inside. As one they jumped and turned around, spells already begun, but they saw that it was one of their own, the priestess they had sent scouting. “The Forge, lady!” that young drow cried to Berellip.
Berellip Xorlarrin chewed her lip and silently cursed her ambitious brother and that fool Tiago. They had taken too many on their hunt. They had left Q’Xorlarrin vulnerable.
“Gather the guards from the mines and all the goblin workers,” she ordered. “Where is Yerrininae?”
“He has gone to the fight with his driders,” the young priestess reported, and Berellip nodded.
Berellip started to respond, ready to order her sisters into a proper fighting group that they could charge in to support their allies. But before she could even get started, she noted the young cleric’s lips moving, as if she were struggling to convey something.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“The rogue,” the young priestess explained. “It is Drizzt Do’Urden, come to Q’Xorlarrin!”
Berellip’s eyes went wide as she sucked in her breath, nearly knocked from her feet by the startling news. She looked around at her sister priestesses and saw them equally at a loss.
She could claim the prize, she dared to think, and would not Tiago Baenre suffer then for his choice of Saribel?
“Gather the guards!” she started to yell, bu
t a sharp intrusion stung her brain, a watery voice sounding in her thoughts.
They are beyond you, the voice warned, and Berellip looked all around in confusion. Do not engage the rogue, daughter of House Xorlarrin. He is beyond you.
“Methil,” Berellip whispered.
“Lady?” the young priestess and another of the clerics asked in unison.
Berellip blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the room once more. She wanted to argue with the illithid, but had no idea of how to even return his communication—and it was him, she knew, and his warning echoed in her thoughts.
“We go,” Berellip said to the others.
“To war!” one cried.
“No!” Berellip cut her short. She turned to the oldest and most powerful of the bunch. “Gather back whatever of our soldiers you can find,” she ordered, and to the others, she said, “To the mines, all of us. To the mines and below.”
“You are fleeing the apostate?” one priestess dared to argue.
But at the same time in Berellip’s head, the illithid’s watery voice warned, They will win the room before you arrive. They are beyond you.
“He has come alone?” Berellip asked the young priestess, her voice halting as she considered Methil’s assertions.
She shook her head. “With—with allies,” she stammered. “And Mistress, our missing kin are there in the battle, fighting on the side of Drizzt!” She lowered her voice. “They are undead, Mistress, and being led by a vampire dwarf who controls them.”
Berellip silently cursed her brother and Tiago again, although it occurred to her that perhaps the hunting army had indeed come upon Drizzt and had been defeated. Had the rogue arrived in Q’Xorlarrin through Tiago’s march? It was too much for her to comprehend, and she could not make sense of it without more information, clearly.
And whether that was the case or not, Berellip’s duty now was to the city, to the Xorlarrin forces still within Q’Xorlarrin. What would be left of her family if she stayed and fought, and lost, as the illithid had assured her would be the case? What would Matron Zeerith find upon her arrival to the lost chambers, to the ruin of all her dreams?