Her voice lowered ominously as she asked again, “Are we in agreement?”
Charri Hunzrin nodded.
“Every syllable, every inflection,” Yvonnel warned again.
CHAPTER 25
Overmatched
THE SOUNDS OF AN ARGUMENT LED DRIZZT AND ENTRERI TO A ROCKY bluff overlooking a flat stone in front of the yawning opening of a large cave. Down beside the stone, dwarves and giants, looking very similar other than the obvious size difference, grumbled and spat and threw bones, gambling over the items that had been stripped from a pair of giant bodies lying in the dirt to the side of the stone. Those mostly naked corpses had been there for a couple of days, at least, and apparently some wolves had feasted on them in the night, strewing their limbs and entrails about.
Entreri tapped Drizzt on the shoulder, then pointed to a higher ridge just beyond the opening. Several giants stood up there, pointing down at the game and laughing.
“Too well guarded?” Drizzt whispered. “Perhaps there is a side entrance.”
Entreri scoffed and shook his head. “Remember the duergar?” he asked slyly.
Drizzt nodded and smiled, and rarely had he been this excited for an upcoming battle. His mind was clear, his heart strong, his determination full and solid, and he had Artemis Entreri by his side.
“Fast under the cave entrance so they can’t rain stones upon us,” Entreri remarked.
“They will come down, and if they have allies waiting within the cave, we will have no way out,” Drizzt warned.
“Yes, we will,” Entreri replied, drawing his blades. “Only it will take a little longer.”
Another nod, another smile, and Drizzt thought it time for him to bring in a powerful ally. He pulled the onyx figurine from his belt pouch and whispered for Guenhwyvar.
SHE COULD SEE nothing through the perpetual gray fog.
“Is this death?” poor Concettina Delcasio Frostmantle asked for perhaps the hundredth time since she’d been thrown from her body and into this strange prison, or afterlife, or whatever it might be.
“Am I a ghost?” she asked when she pushed through the fog to a wall, and there she thought she could see out into the world she had left behind.
“Help me!” she cried as loudly as she could.
She pressed her face closer and through a distorted lens could see what she thought to be the wall of a compound, or of a town, perhaps. Beyond it, an orange flame flickered, though she couldn’t see the fire, just the haunting reflection of it in a cave.
The woman shook her head. It made no sense, or would have had to be a gigantic cavern if that was indeed the wall of a castle or compound or city in front of her.
Straining, she peered even closer, or maybe it was just that she found a clearer spot through the translucent material. Concettina got the most curious impression that she was within some strange chamber inside of a giant chest. Were those gold and silver coins around her?
But they were gigantic!
“I go mad,” she whispered, turning away.
She spun back just in time to see a gargantuan hand coming for her, a plump hand with four fingers. She had the sensation of falling, but like everything in this strange afterlife, she really didn’t fall, couldn’t fall, for even her solidity, it seemed, was an illusion.
But the hand was not an illusion. It closed over the translucent wall.
Concettina threw herself at that wall and knew she was there, though she could feel nothing solid.
Still, she screamed. For all her life, she screamed.
Even when she realized she couldn’t hear her own voice, that her scream was as intangible as her form. Broken, terrified Concettina screamed.
“REMEMBER THE DUERGAR?” Artemis Entreri asked with a wink, and Drizzt could only grin.
The pair swooped down upon the unsuspecting spriggans like a whirlwind, closing upon the giants with dizzying speed, leaping and turning about each other, four blades working in deadly concert.
Drizzt drove a giant back with a double-thrust of his scimitars, and in that move shifted both to his left hand. He spun, putting his back to the behemoth and setting his legs firmly as it charged in. Then he dropped his free right hand out and in front of him.
In ran Entreri, taking that foothold and leaping as Drizzt shoved to send him higher.
The giant blinked and lifted its arms, but too late, and Charon’s Claw gashed its throat as the assassin sailed past.
And Drizzt ran between its legs as it stood there quivering, his scimitars taking out the tendons at the back of the giant’s ankles.
Side-by-side, the companions met the next two in their path, dodging blows and countering with speed and precision, though not getting near enough to score any solid hits.
Just as the giants began their attacks anew, Drizzt went left, Entreri right, both turning as they seamlessly crossed, each leaping out to the side.
And the spriggans turned, too, and right into each other, face to face.
Both took a dozen stabs and slices before they realized their error—and a dozen more before they could untangle enough to do anything about it.
And Drizzt and Entreri ran past.
The drow dived, a heavy stone crashing down in front of him. He turned to the ridge where the other sentries stood. A second spriggan had a stone up high over its head, ready to launch.
But Guenhwyvar leaped first, crossing past the giant’s face and taking a considerable amount of that face with her in her clawing descent. The giant turned as she passed, howling in pain and throwing its stone—right into the face of the other spriggan.
Separated now, Drizzt found himself straight up against a spriggan with a sword longer than the drow was tall. A few lumbering swings got nowhere near to hitting the speedy Drizzt, but this one was clever. As it began another apparent sidelong slash, left to right, it halted its momentum and turned the other way, sweeping its left leg across to try to trip up Drizzt.
But Drizzt leaped straight up and tucked his legs, and the giant’s kick was too low to catch him. And in that leap, he sheathed his scimitars, pulled his buckle-bow, and set his arrow.
And in that descent and before he touched the ground, as the giant tried to bring its blade back in once more, Drizzt let fly. The sizzling lightning arrow slashed up under the behemoth’s chin, through its mouth, and into its brain.
It staggered back a stride, then another, and fell over dead.
And Drizzt rolled to the side to avoid another thrown stone and came up facing the ridge, where giants frantically tried to ward the panther and another hoisted boulders that rained upon the attackers.
Off went the lightning arrows, one after another. The second shot took the thrower in the arm just as it lifted the next stone up high, and that stone fell free and crashed down against its face. The giant brushed it aside, but the next arrow was there instead, driving into its cheek and throwing it back against the mountain wall behind the ridge.
Drizzt kept firing, and he whistled.
To the side of him, Entreri, too, called out. He spun farther from Drizzt, his red-bladed sword cutting down a goblin. He turned right past it, driving his dagger into the chest of a dwarf stupidly thinking it could sneak up on Artemis Entreri.
The next group in line—a pair of goblins, a dwarf, and another giant—slowed when Entreri’s nightmare appeared, stomping fire, snorting smoke, and charging them with abandon.
Andahar charged across the flat stone at Drizzt’s call, gliding past the drow, bearing straight for the cave opening.
Goblins dived aside, but a giant spriggan dared to block.
The moment the tip of Andahar’s horn came out its back, that spriggan recognized its mistake.
“You need to make me one of those!” Entreri said as Drizzt put Taulmaril away and drew his scimitars once more, the pair following the path opened by their magical mounts.
Another group waited just inside the cave opening, but those few who managed to dodge the charge of the nightmare a
nd the unicorn found themselves in the midst of a blade storm, scimitar, sword, scimitar, dagger coming at them too swiftly and in too perfect unison for them to begin to respond.
Drizzt and Entreri went into the darkness side by side. They had to dismiss their magical, powerful mounts.
But they were not alone. Guenhwyvar, her paws bloody, bits of spriggan stuck in her teeth, padded past them, her hunger unsated.
AS THEY MADE their way through the upper tunnels of Smeltergard, heading back toward the Damaran entrance, Yvonnel considered and reconsidered her plans. If the ruse was detected, she would be in serious danger and everything would fall apart for her and the others as well.
Even her Hunzrin escorts failed to understand the gravity of this moment, of this creature they had loosed upon the World Above. This was no mere succubus, the likes of which were nowhere near as formidable as even a pit fiend or a balor.
No, this was the Succubus Queen, a demon princess, a being just below those demon lords that had swept into the Underdark. If Drizzt had all of his companions by his side and Yvonnel could summon her father, and Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, and maybe coax Grandmaster Kane to join the fray, then perhaps they could wage a battle against Malcanthet.
But that force could not be assembled, surely not in the time allotted. This conflict had to be won with guile and fortitude.
Not that much fortitude, Yvonnel convinced herself as she considered the polymorph spell and her vulnerability. She needed a patsy.
“Who leads these ugly dwarves?” she asked. “Or are they giants?”
“Spriggans,” Charri Hunzrin corrected.
“Of course,” said Yvonnel. “And who leads them?”
Charri and Denderida exchanged nervous glances.
“Truly?” Yvonnel asked, and she produced a flask from her hip bag and shook it around as a reminder, the frog guts and entrails bloodying the sides of the glass.
“Toofless and Komtoddy,” Charri quickly said.
Yvonnel winced, thinking that sounded like a bad dwarven drinking song—and indeed there actually was one of a similar title: “Toothless and Hot Toddy.”
“Take me to them,” Yvonnel instructed. “One of them will become very beautiful this day, for a time, at least.”
Again the Hunzrins exchanged doubtful, skeptical glances, but the flask was still in sight and so they veered for the chambers shared by the spriggan leaders.
“YACH, BUT YE stupids just keep yers eyes peeled,” the dwarf told the goblin patrol. “Can’ts be doing the only lookin’ meself!”
The spriggan stared back at the wide-eyed goblin nearest him.
“What?” the dwarf asked before he caught on that the goblin was looking past him.
He spun around.
He died.
The goblins scattered as Drizzt and Entreri charged past the falling dwarf, those at the back whooping, confident that the unfortunate wretches up front would slow this unexpected duo enough for them to scatter to the tunnels.
But the duo was a trio and Guenhwyvar leaped over those first lines to land among the few trying to flee, claws tearing, teeth catching legs and ripping them apart.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Drizzt and Entreri came through the front lines as easily and swiftly as they burst through Entreri’s ash walls.
In mere moments, only one was running free, the others dead or dying.
Out came Taulmaril, but before Drizzt could set an arrow and let fly, a missile flew past him, catching the goblin mid-back and throwing it down to the floor.
Drizzt considered the throw, the jewel-hilted dagger sticking from the twitching creature’s back. He glanced over at Entreri.
“Get me one of those bows,” the assassin said, going for his dagger. “Perhaps you’ll find occasion—rare occasion—where you beat me on the draw.”
The drow shook his head and looked around. He couldn’t deny Entreri’s efficiency.
They went fast down some empty corridors in the lower levels, for Pikel had indicated that the demon, the mirror, and Wulfgar were at the very bottom tunnels of the complex. On several occasions, they heard the scuffling of rushing footsteps—more goblins and spriggans running for the surface.
Let us hope that the demon, too, has gone to investigate the fight at the door, Entreri said to him, but not aloud. The assassin used his fingers, signing in the silent drow language perfectly.
Drizzt nodded his agreement, then motioned to the side. Guenhwyvar’s ears had gone flat, the panther peering intently at an upcoming intersection where this corridor ended and broke both left and right, with flickering light coming from both directions.
They crept down and peered around the corner. To the left, more ramshackle doors lined the corridor, but down to the right they noted a pair of giants standing beneath lit torches set in sconces on the wall, flanking a most remarkable bloodstone door, just as Pikel had described.
Twenty count, Entreri’s hand flashed to Drizzt, and the assassin slipped around the corner, blending in beautifully with the shadows.
And where there were no masking shadows, Entreri used Charon’s Claw and made his own. So skilled was he that even Drizzt, with his Underdark vision, lost sight of the man before he had silently counted to ten.
The drow counted on, setting an arrow to Taulmaril.
“Silently, Guen,” he whispered to the cat, then swung around the corner, leveling his bow at the giant on the left.
Entreri had crossed over, though, and that giant fell silently, a red blade going across its throat as the assassin dropped upon it from the ceiling.
Drizzt swung Taulmaril and let fly for the other, his arrow burrowing into the spriggan’s chest and knocking it back against the wall.
Entreri moved to finish the task, but fell back as a ball of feline muscle and claws flew past him. Guenhwyvar landed against the behemoth’s chest, her jaws settling about its throat, choking off its screams.
By the time Drizzt reached the end of the corridor, Entreri’s fingers had worked carefully along the door jamb, the assassin falling to his knees before the lock.
There could be a magical trap, Drizzt warned.
Entreri just shrugged. What else were they to do?
He had the door unlocked in moments, turning the last tumbler tentatively, grimacing as if he expected to be blown up by a fireball.
He looked up at Drizzt, whose fingers flashed, reminding him not to look into the mirror.
With that thought in mind, Drizzt sent Guenhwyvar back the other way, to guard the corridor.
The drow pulled Taulmaril from his belt buckle and set an arrow.
Entreri grasped the door handle.
The companions nodded.
THE RUMORS OF an invasion met the drow group as they neared the more southern reaches of Smeltergard. Yvonnel did well to hide her smirk at the whispers. From the frantic words of those fleeing goblins they interviewed, it seemed as if some group had exploded into the place and left a line of carnage in their wake.
The news only made Yvonnel push the Hunzrins on faster, fearful that Drizzt and Entreri would soon face the likes of Malcanthet.
They found the spriggan leaders in their dwarf forms soon after, in the room the two shared.
“Smeltergard has been attacked,” Charri Hunzrin stated when she entered.
“Drow,” Komtoddy answered.
“And have you killed these drow?” Yvonnel asked.
The spriggans blanched and fell back, both shaking their heads emphatically.
“Theys went low, way down,” Toofless said. “We thinks them friends o’ our guest.”
“Hardly,” Charri Hunzrin started to say, but she stopped and glanced over at Yvonnel suspiciously. She had made no mention of any other actions against Malcanthet.
Yvonnel ignored her and stepped right past her to stand in front of the spriggan leaders. She spent a moment studying each, taking their measure. The little one with the gum-mouthed lisp seemed slimier, to be sure, while the other was
more muscular.
“I have a job for you,” she told Komtoddy.
The dwarf looked past her to Charri Hunzrin.
“So now ye’re to be orderin’ us about, eh?” Toofless said to Charri.
“This is the very great Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” Charri warned, indicating Yvonnel. “You should take care your words, Toofless Tonguelasher, for none speak more fully for the Spider Queen herself than Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre.”
Yvonnel let the mistake pass, for it served her, clearly, as both spriggans stood straighter and seemed, then, more attentive.
“You,” Yvonnel said, indicating Toofless, “be gone from here. If you are wise, you will gather your minions and flee to the north. Your work in Helgabal has sent the king’s army against you, and they come with many powerful allies. The attack on this place has only just begun, and it will not end well for any of your clan caught here.”
Toofless looked at Komtoddy, licked his lips, and started to inquire about his friend.
But Yvonnel’s scowl cut him short, and with another look at his friend, one more of better-you-than-me than any sympathy, Toofless scampered for the room’s door.
“You can transform into a giant?” Yvonnel asked a clearly nervous Komtoddy.
He nodded tentatively.
“Do so.”
The spriggan crossed his arms over his chest, but his only direct response was to match Yvonnel’s glare.
“Toofless Tonguelasher!” Yvonnel called, turning to stare at the spriggan just as he was about to leave. She held up her hand and motioned for the dwarf to return.
“Show your friend what will happen to him if he disobeys me,” Yvonnel instructed when Toofless arrived by her side.
The spriggan looked at her curiously, at a loss.
And Yvonnel hit him with a lightning bolt, point blank, that lifted him and sent him flying across the room into the hallway, and there splattered him, bits and pieces flying all over.