"Well done." The words came at Drizzt unexpectedly, jerked him into the realization that while Vierna was dead, the battle might not yet be won. He jumped aside, scimitars coming up defensively before him.
He lowered the weapons when he considered Jarlaxle, the mercenary sitting propped against the chamber's far wall, one leg sticking out to the side at a weird angle.
"The panther," the mercenary explained, speaking the Common tongue as fluidly as if he had spent his life on the surface. "I thought I would be killed. The panther had me down." Jarlaxle gave a shrug. "Perhaps my lightning bolt hurt the beast."
The mention of the lightning bolt reminded Drizzt of the wand, reminded Drizzt that this drow was still very dangerous. He went down in a crouch, circling defensively.
Jarlaxle winced in pain and held an empty hand up in front of him to calm the alerted ranger. "The wand is put away," he assured Drizzt. "I would have no desire to use it if I had you helpless - as you believe you have me."
"You meant to kill me," Drizzt replied coldly.
Again the mercenary shrugged, and a smile widened on his face. "Vierna would have killed me if she had won and I had not come to her aid," he explained calmly. "And, skilled as you may be, I thought she would win."
It seemed logical enough, and Drizzt knew well that pragmatism was a common trait among dark elves. "Lloth would reward you still for my death," Drizzt reasoned.
"I do not slave for the Spider Queen," Jarlaxle replied. "I am an opportunist."
"You make a threat?"
The mercenary laughed loudly, then winced again at the throb in his broken leg.
Bruenor rushed into the chamber from the side passage. He glanced at Drizzt, then focused on Jarlaxle, his rage not yet played out.
"Hold!" Drizzt commanded him as the dwarf started for the apparently helpless mercenary.
Bruenor skidded to a stop and put a cold stare on Drizzt, a look made more ominous by the dwarf's ripped face, his right eye badly gouged and a line of blood running from the top of his forehead to the bottom of his left cheek. "We're not for needing prisoners," Bruenor growled.
Drizzt considered the venom in Bruenor's voice and considered the fact that he had not seen Wulfgar anywhere in this fight. "Where are the others?"
"I'm right here," replied Catti-brie, coming into the chamber from the main tunnel, behind Drizzt.
Drizzt turned to regard her, her dirty face and incredibly grim expression revealing much. "Wulf..." he started to ask, but Catti-brie shook her head solemnly, as though she could not bear to hear the name spoken aloud. She walked near Drizzt and he winced, seeing the small crossbow quarrel still sticking from the side of her jaw.
Drizzt gently stroked Catti-brie's face, then took hold of the obscene dart and yanked it free. He brought his hand immediately to the young woman's shoulder, lending her support as waves of nausea and pain swept over her.
"I pray I did not harm the panther," Jarlaxle interrupted, "a magnificent beast indeed!"
Drizzt spun about, his lavender eyes flashing.
"He's baiting ye," Bruenor remarked, his fingers moving eagerly over the handle of his bloody axe, "begging for mercy without the begging."
Drizzt wasn't so sure. He knew the horrors of Menzoberranzan, knew the lengths that some drow would travel to survive. His own father, Zaknafein, the drow Drizzt had loved most dearly, had been a killer, had served as Matron Malice's assassin out of a simple will to survive. Might it be that this mercenary was of similar pragmatism?
Drizzt wanted to believe that. With Vierna dead at his feet, his family, his ties to his heritage, were no more, and he wanted to believe that he was not alone in the world.
"Kill the dog, or we drag him back," Bruenor growled, his patience exhausted.
"What would be your choice, Drizzt Do'Urden?" Jarlaxle asked calmly.
Drizzt considered Jarlaxle once more. This one was not so much like Zaknafein, he decided, for he remembered his father's rage when it was rumored that Drizzt had slain surface elves. There was indeed an undeniable difference between Zaknafein and Jarlaxle. Zaknafein killed only those he believed deserved death, only those serving Lloth or other evil minions. He would not have walked beside Vierna on this hunt.
The sudden rage that welled up in Drizzt almost sent him rushing at the mercenary. He fought the impulse back, though, remembering again the weight of Menzoberranzan, the burden of pervasive evil that bowed the backs of those few dark elves who were not of typical demeanor. Zaknafein had admitted to Drizzt that he had almost lost himself to the ways of Lloth many times, and in his own trek through the Underdark Drizzt Do'Urden often feared what he would, what he had, become.
How could he pass judgment on this dark elf? The scimitars went back into their sheaths.
"He killed me boy!" Bruenor roared, apparently understanding Drizzt's intentions. Drizzt shook his head resolutely.
"Mercy is a curious thing, Drizzt Do'Urden," Jarlaxle remarked. "Strength, or weakness?" "Strength," Drizzt answered quickly. "It can save your soul," Jarlaxle replied, "or damn your body." He tipped his wide-brimmed hat to Drizzt, then moved suddenly, his arm coming free of his cloak. Something small slammed the floor in front of Jarlaxle, exploding, filling that area of the chamber with opaque smoke.
"Damn him!" Catti-brie growled, and she snapped off a streaking shot that cut through the haze and thundered against the stone of the far wall. Bruenor rushed in, axe flailing wildly, but there was nothing there to hit. The mercenary was gone.
By the time Bruenor came out of the smoke, both Drizzt and Catti-brie were standing over the prone form of Thibbledorf Pwent.
"He dead?" the dwarf king asked.
Drizzt bent to the battlerager, remembered that Pwent had been hit viciously by Vierna's snake-headed whip. "No," he replied. "The whips are not designed to kill, just to paralyze."
His keen ears caught the words as Bruenor muttered, "Too bad," under his breath.
It took them a few moments to revive the battlerager. Pwent hopped up to his feet - and promptly fell over once more. He struggled back up, humbled until Drizzt made the mistake of thanking him for his valuable help.
In the main corridor, they found the five dead drow, one still hanging near the ceiling in the area where the globe of darkness had been. Catti-brie's explanation of where this small band had come from sent a shudder through Drizzt.
"Regis," he breathed, and he rushed off down the hallway, to the side passage where he had left the halfling.
There sat Regis, terrified, half-buried under a dead drow, holding the jeweled dagger tightly in his hand.
"Come on, my friend," the relieved Drizzt said to him. "It is time we went home."
The five beaten companions leaned on each other as they made their way slowly and quietly through the tunnels. Drizzt looked around at the ragged group, at Bruenor with his eye closed and Pwent still having trouble coordinating his muscles. Drizzt's own foot throbbed painfully. The realization of the wound became clearer as the adrenaline rush of battle slowly ebbed. It was not the physical problems that most alarmed the drow ranger, though. The impact of Wulfgar's loss seemed to have fully sunk in for all those who had been his companions.
Would Catti-brie be able to call upon her rage once more, to ignore the emotional battering she had taken and fight with all her heart? Would Bruenor, so wickedly wounded that Drizzt was not certain he would make it back to Mithril Hall alive, be able to guide himself through yet another battle?
Drizzt couldn't be sure, and his sigh of relief was sincere when General Dagna, at the lead of the dwarven cavalry and its grunting mounts, rounded the bend in the tunnel far ahead.
Bruenor allowed himself to collapse at the sight, and the dwarves wasted little time in getting their injured king, and Regis, strapped to war pigs and ushered out of the untamed complex. Pwent went, too, accepting the reins of a pig, but Drizzt and Catti-brie did not take a direct route back to Mithril Hall. Accompanied by the three displaced dwarven riders, General Dagna included, the young woman led Drizzt to Wulfgar's fateful cave.
There could be no doubt, Drizzt realized as soon as he looked at the collapsed alcove, no doubt, no reprieve. His friend was gone forever.
Catti-brie recounted the details of the battle, had to stop for a long while before she mustered the voice to tell of Wulfgar's valiant end.
She finally looked to the pile of rubble, quietly said "Good-bye," and walked out of the room with the three dwarves.
Drizzt stood alone for many minutes, staring helplessly. He could hardly believe that mighty Wulfgar was under there. The moment seemed unreal to him, against his sensibilities.
But it was real.
And Drizzt was helpless.
Pangs of guilt assaulted the drow, realizations that he had caused his sister's hunt, and thus had caused Wulfgar's death. He summarily dismissed the thoughts, though, refusing to consider them again.
Now was the time to bid farewell to his trusted companion, his dear friend. He wanted to be with Wulfgar, to be beside the young barbarian and comfort him, guide him, to share one more mischievous wink with the barbarian and boldly face together whatever mysteries death presented to them.
"Farewell, my friend," Drizzt whispered, trying futilely to keep his voice from breaking. "This journey you make alone."
The return to Mithril Hall was not a time of celebration for the weary, battered friends. They could not claim victory over what had happened in the lower tunnels. Each of the four, Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-brie, and Regis, held a different perspective on the loss of Wulfgar, for the barbarian's relationship had been very different for each of them - as a son to Bruenor, a fiance to Catti-brie, a comrade to Drizzt, a protector to Regis.
Bruenor's physical wounds were most serious. The dwarf king had lost an eye and would carry an angry reddish blue scar from forehead to jawline for the rest of his days. The physical pains, though, were the least of Bruenor's troubles.
Many times over the next few days the sturdy dwarf suddenly remembered some arrangement yet to be made with the presiding priest, only to recall that Cobble would not be there to help him sort things out, to recall that there would be no wedding that spring in Mithril Hall.
Drizzt could see the intense grief etched on the dwarf's face. For the first time in the years he had known Bruenor, the ranger thought the dwarf looked old and tired. Drizzt could hardly bear to look at him, but his heart broke even more whenever he chanced by Catti-brie.
She had been young and vital, full of life and feeling immortal. Now Catti-brie's perception of the world had been shattered.
The friends kept to themselves mostly as the interminably long hours crawled by. Drizzt, Bruenor, and Catti-brie saw each other rarely, and none of them saw Regis.
None of them knew that the halfling had gone out from Mithril Hall, out the west exit, into Keeper's Dale.
Regis inched out onto a rocky spur, fifty feet above the jagged floor of the southern end of a long and narrow valley. He came upon a limp figure, hanging by the shreds of a torn cloak. The halfling lay atop the garment, hugging close to the exposed stone as the winds buffeted him. To his amazement, the man below him shifted slightly.
"Alive?" the halfling whispered approvingly. Entreri, his body obviously broken and torn, had been hanging for more than a day. "Still you're alive?" Always cautious, especially where Artemis Entreri was concerned, Regis took out the jeweled dagger and placed its razor edge under the remaining seam of the cloak so that a flick of his wrist would send the dangerous assassin falling free.
Entreri managed to tilt his head to the side and groan weakly, though he could not find the strength to form words.
"You have something of mine," Regis said to Mm.
The assassin turned a little more, straining to see, and Regis winced and pulled back a bit at the grotesque sight of the man's shattered face. His cheekbone blasted to powder, the skin torn from the side of his face, the assassin obviously could not see out of the eye he had turned toward Regis.
And Regis was certain that the man, his bones broken, agony assaulting him from every garish wound, wasn't even aware that he could not see.
"The ruby pendant," Regis said more forcefully, spotting the hypnotic gemstone as it hung low on its chain beneath Entreri.
Entreri apparently comprehended, for his hand inched toward the item but fell limp, too weak to continue.
Regis shook his head and took up his walking stick. Keeping the dagger firm against the cloak, he reached below the spur and prodded Entreri.
The assassin did not respond.
Regis poked him again, much harder, then several more times before he was convinced the assassin was indeed helpless. His smile wide, Regis worked the tip of the walking stick under the chain around the assassin's neck and gently angled it out and around, lifting the pendant free.
"How does it feel?" Regis asked as he gathered in his precious ruby. He poked down with the stick, popping Entreri on the back of the head.
"How does it feel to be helpless, a prisoner of someone else's whims? How many have you put another in the position you now enjoy?" Regis popped him again. "A hundred?"
Regis moved to strike again, but then he noticed something else of value hanging on a cord from the assassin's belt. Retrieving this item would be far more difficult than getting the pendant, but Regis was a thief, after all, and he prided himself (secretly, of course) on being a good one. He looped his silken rope about the spur and swung low, placing his foot on Entreri's back for balance.
The mask was his.
For good measure, the thieving halfling fished his hands through the assassin's pockets, finding a small purse and a fairly valuable gemstone.
Entreri groaned and tried to swing about. Frightened by the movement, Regis was back on the spur in the blink of an eye, the dagger again firmly against the tattered cloak's seam.
"I could show mercy," the halfling remarked, looking up to the vultures circling overhead, the carrion birds that had shown the way to Entreri. "I could get Bruenor and Drizzt to bring you in. Perhaps you have information that might prove valuable."
Regis's memories of Entreri's tortures came flooding back when he noticed his own hand, missing two fingers that the assassin had cut away - with the very dagger Regis now held. How beautifully ironic, Regis thought.
"No," he decided. "I do not feel particularly merciful this day." He looked up again. "I should leave you hanging here for the vultures to pick at," he said.
Entreri in no way reacted.
Regis shook his head. He could be cold, but not to that level, not to the level of Artemis Entreri. "The enchanted wings saved you when Drizzt let you fall," he said, "but they are no more!"
Regis flicked his wrist, severing the cloak's remaining seam, and let the assassin's weight do the rest.
Entreri was still hanging when Regis slid back off the spur, but the cloak had begun to tear.
Artemis Entreri had run out of tricks.
