The panther tried to determine a pattern to the necromancer’s movements. He was trying to move her farther from the bridge and the other combatants.
She went flying again, thirty feet with ease, glancing all around as she went. When, guessing wrong, she located the necromancer popping up from a crack in the cobblestones, she landed, re-directed and flew off again immediately.
On one such spring, the tiefling came up not far to the side, and Guenhwyvar saw then that her tactics were indeed unnerving him, clearly saw the look of fear on his face. When she landed, barely two strides separated her from the necromancer, who didn’t even think to sting at her with one of his black energy bolts, but melted away at once.
And Guenhwyvar was in the air again immediately, flying beyond his last position, but not so far. She suspected that her enemy would instinctively move straight back, or that he might even come right back up to his previous position with an expectation that she would have leaped beyond.
He did go back, but to the side just a bit, and Guenhwyvar, with her shortened leap, was able to spring again without much scrabbling to reverse momentum, and by the time the necromancer reappeared fully, clever and deadly Guenhwyvar was already high in the air, descending upon that very spot.
He favored his left arm with his attacks, but had no such luxury with his defenses, as Entreri, sensing the advantage, pressed him hard. In came the assassin’s sword for Drizzt’s left flank, a strike that called for an easy parry, center-out, of Twinkle. But Drizzt used his right hand instead, cutting Icingdeath all the way across to bash the slashing sword harmlessly wide.
In came the assassin’s dagger from the other side, and instead of simply backhanding with Icingdeath to block, now Drizzt did use his left hand, Twinkle darting across in a movement that seemed a mirror image of his last parry.
Against the lighter dagger, the block did not profoundly sting Drizzt’s wounded shoulder, and more than that, because of the shorter reach of the dagger, now Drizzt was closer as he turned.
He reached up and over with his right hand, stabbing straight for the assassin’s face, and Entreri had to desperately throw himself back to avoid that cut.
Drizzt felt as if he had been propelled back in time, to a place and mind of simpler truths. He was on the mountain ledge again outside of Mithral Hall! He was in the sewers of Calimport, battling Regis’s kidnapper!
He couldn’t deny the exhilaration. Even with Guenhwyvar desperately struggling behind him and his lover in dire peril before him, this was the life Drizzt had known, the better life Drizzt had known, purer in morals and with a clear distinction of right and wrong. And this was the very man Drizzt had battled, so many times, in so many places.
And Drizzt understood that this man, Artemis Entreri, was indeed a worthy foe.
Predictably, the skilled assassin reversed and rushed right back upon him, right hand thrusting, sword reaching back for Drizzt’s face even as the drow retracted his own blade.
Now he needed to use Twinkle, and met the thrust with a solid block, and how his shoulder ached for that effort!
Entreri didn’t let up, launching into a spinning reverse circuit around to his right.
Drizzt instinctively mirrored the move, and only halfway through his own turn did he realize his mistake. For as he came around, as Entreri came around, the assassin did not lead with a backhand of his dagger, as Drizzt might have done with his own leading, longer blade, but Entreri cut in tighter and quicker, bringing his sword to bear with a powerful forehand slash.
Drizzt had no choice but to meet that with Twinkle, with his left arm, and the numbing wave of pain nearly toppled him with dizziness and nausea, and he nearly dropped his scimitar to the stone once more.
On came Entreri aggressively, and Drizzt had to work furiously to counter, with both arms.
He couldn’t keep up the pace for long, he recognized.
“Fight it!” he implored the assassin as he managed to disengage for a heartbeat by jumping straight back. “You are no man’s slave!”
He saw a hint of hesitation, just a hint, but Entreri growled through it and came on.
“You are no weapon’s slave!” Drizzt insisted, but this time there was less in the way of a pause from Entreri, for this time, the heat of combat, the ring of metal, drowned out any reasonableness in the words.
Suddenly Drizzt understood the opposing needs, realizing that this battle was feeding Entreri’s insanity. The instinctive and necessary aggressiveness of such a brutal fight made so much stronger the intrusions of Charon’s Claw. Drizzt jumped back, using his anklets to buy him some room, and called out to Artemis Entreri, “Do you remember when we two fought side by side beneath the chambers of the dwarven halls?”
Entreri, fast in pursuit, stutter-stepped and seemed torn for just a moment.
Drizzt didn’t back down, and met the assassin’s attacks with a series of blocks and deflections and dodges, and in the midst of that encounter, emphatically reiterated, “Do you remember when we two fought side by side beneath the chambers of the dwarven halls?”
No hesitation at all by Entreri, no look of doubt in his eye.
The heat of battle worked against Drizzt.
In his own distraction as he considered this revelation, Drizzt suddenly found himself pressed hard. He thrust out Icingdeath, only to have Entreri roll his sword over it, drive it out wide to Drizzt’s right, then press forward with a thrust of that sword.
Drizzt’s only block came with Twinkle, and the heavy collision of blades sent a shiver of agony through his torn shoulder.
Entreri did not relent, and moved out to Drizzt’s left, forcing him to keep using that blade, that injured arm, to defeat blow after heavy blow.
Drizzt stumbled and tried to turn even with the man, to bring Icingdeath more into play, but Entreri countered every movement and struck again, and again.
Drizzt could hardly feel the scimitar in his left hand, and stubbornly told himself to hold on. Finally he got his right arm across enough to pick off that thrusting sword, but even as he took some satisfaction in the block, he came to realize that it, too, was a feint, that in that fleeting moment, Entreri managed to get his dirk up and under the upraised Twinkle. With a flick of his wrist, the assassin sent the blade flying from Drizzt’s hand.
Now he pressed Drizzt ferociously, but the drow met him and more with Icingdeath. Surprisingly, freed of the blade, or more pointedly, freed from the pain of holding the blade, Drizzt tucked his left arm and found new energy, enough to beat back the assault, and even to work his remaining scimitar into strikes that put Entreri back on his heels.
His elation proved short-lived, though, as he saw Dahlia go flying into the air before him. He glanced back to call for Guenhwyvar, only to discover that the panther was many, many strides away then, across the square at the end of the bridge. And worse, now other Shadovar loomed there, closing in!
He couldn’t possibly defeat Entreri in time to get to Dahlia, if he could defeat Entreri at all, which he doubted, for the blood continued to flow from his shoulder and the pain continued to wear at him.
He had found a temporary respite, and nothing more.
And even if he somehow managed to beat Entreri, it would come far too late for Dahlia.
He jumped back. “Are you Artemis Entreri or Barrabus the Gray?” he cried.
The pursuing assassin straightened as if slapped.
But again it was only a temporary reprieve.
Drizzt leaped back again and sprinted away, and Entreri went in pursuit.
He had bought the distance he needed, but now Drizzt needed to find the courage to execute his last hope. In that eye-blink of time, his mind whirled through all that he knew of Artemis Entreri, of the man’s capture of Catti-brie, of fighting against him and fighting beside him.
In the end, though, it came down to the simple truth that Drizzt had no choice. For Dahlia’s sake, for Guenhwyvar’s sake, Drizzt had no choice.
He dropped Icingdeath to the stone and held his arms out wide before the approaching killer.
“Are you Artemis Entreri or Barrabus the Gray?” he yelled again. “Free man or slave?”
The assassin kept coming.
“Free man or slave?” Drizzt yelled, and it sounded almost like a cry of final despair in Drizzt’s ears as his tone turned to a near-shriek, as the assassin’s sword came in fast for his heart.
Every swing of that red-bladed sword had Dahlia moving desperately, diving aside, ducking or leaping.
He was laughing at her.
Herzgo Alegni, her rapist, her mother’s murderer, laughed at her.
She kept slapping her flails together between blocks, during dives and leaps, trying to build a powerful charge, trying to find something, anything, to bring this foul tiefling to his knees.
The sword slashed down at her left, then up and over and down past her right side, and both cuts filled their path with a veil of black ash.
Dahlia went forward, even managing a slight strike on Alegni by flicking her wrist and throwing one flail out straight before her.
It hardly bothered him, though, and he rushed aside, his sword slashing every which way, bringing in veils of ash.
“You are alone, little girl,” he taunted, and Dahlia understood that he was creating the ash fields not for any tactical advantage, but simply to add to her sense of despair.
Was he giving her a chance, she wondered? Was he shaping the battlefield to better suit her advantages of speed and agility?
She burst through a hanging sheet of ash, diving down low, then leaped up through a second one, and there Alegni stood before her, but not facing her directly. She rushed in, flails spinning, striking, one after another.
But his single elbow jab as he turned weighed more heavily on Dahlia than her handful of strikes had inflicted on him, and once more she found herself bursting through sheets of hanging ash, but this time involuntarily, launched yet again through the air. She landed in a roll and came up once more right before the railing of the bridge, turning and setting herself for the incoming Alegni, preparing her stance to send her out to the right or left as needed.
But she couldn’t see him behind the remaining ash walls.
She took a deep breath, or started to until she felt the sharp pain that doubled her over.
She knew then that she had a broken rib.
She knew then, once more, that she could not win.
Drizzt Do’Urden hardly dared to breathe.
“Free man or slave?” he asked in a whisper, Entreri’s deadly sword touching his chest and with no way for him to prevent the assassin from plunging it into his heart.
He saw the struggle on Entreri’s face.
“Are you Artemis Entreri or Barrabus the Gray?” Drizzt asked.
Entreri winced.
“I know you. I remember you,” said Drizzt. “Deny the call of Herzgo Alegni. No mere sword can control you; no artifact can steal that which is yours.”
“How long have I wanted to kill you,” the assassin stated, and Drizzt recognized that he was trying to justify that which the sword compelled him to do.
“And yet you paused, because you know the truth,” Drizzt countered. “Is this how you would kill me? Is this what would satisfy Artemis Entreri?”
The assassin grimaced.
“Or would it, instead, perpetuate Barrabus the Gray?” Drizzt asked.
Entreri spun away, and Drizzt nearly swooned with relief.
And disbelief, for before him, shaking his head with every stride, Artemis Entreri walked up the bridge expanse, sword and dagger turning over in his hands, determinedly toward Herzgo Alegni and the maze of ash walls.
The drow started to follow, and only then did he understand how badly he had been wounded, how badly that wound had drained him, for he stumbled down to one knee and had to fight hard to collect his balance.
The warlock didn’t even fully materialize—to do so would have given Guenhwyvar the certain kill. He faded straight back into the stone and came up far away, running for the Shadovar reinforcements, flailing his good arm, his broken one swinging of its own accord, and crying out to Glorfathel to help him.
Guenhwyvar had sprung away as soon as her claws screeched on the empty stones once more, and had leaped back the other way, toward the bridge. In mid-flight, she heard the warlock’s cries, far back the other way, and knew that she had guessed wrong.
And now before her knelt Drizzt, wounded, and perhaps mortally, it seemed, for Artemis Entreri had left him there.
To die?
He thought of the days of his youth, running the streets of Calimport—running freely because he was respected, even feared.
He was feared because of a reputation earned, because he was Artemis Entreri.
That was before Barrabus, before the betrayal of Jarlaxle and the enslavement by Charon’s Claw. Rarely could Artemis Entreri recall those days now, particularly when he was around Alegni and that awful sword. Claw wouldn’t allow it.
Claw had told him to kill Drizzt.
Now Claw insisted that he turn around and kill Drizzt.
His steps came more slowly. He couldn’t believe that he had denied the intrusion this long, but even pausing to be incredulous at that thought cost him ground.
In a daring move, Entreri had allowed the citizens of Neverwinter to name this bridge “The Walk of Barrabus.” How that had infuriated Herzgo Alegni! And how Alegni had punished him for his insolence!
Punished him through the sword.
He remembered that pain keenly now.
He used that memory of pure agony in a manner opposite its intent. The punishment had been to warn him, but now Entreri used it to reinforce his hatred of Claw and of Alegni, and most of all, to reinforce his ultimate hatred . . . of Barrabus the Gray.
“The Walk of Barrabus,” he whispered aloud.
“The Walk of Barrabus.”
He transformed those four words into his litany, a reminder of the agony Alegni had inflicted upon him, and a reminder of the man he used to be.
Claw screamed protests in his head. He shook with every step.
But Artemis Entreri said, “The Walk of Barrabus,” and stubbornly put one foot in front of the other.
He burst through the ash wall, sword stabbing and slashing with power and abandon, and had Dahlia not guessed perfectly, rolling aside at the last possible second, she surely would have been cut down.
Alegni pursued, creating more visual barriers as he went, laughing at her, mocking her, certain that he was fast cornering her.
Dahlia couldn’t disagree, particularly when she rolled through one ash wall to slam hard into the bridge rail, for she was closer to the edge than she had believed.
Through the cloud of swirling blackness she had left behind, she noted the confident approach of Alegni.
Too close!
She glanced left and right, looking for an out, and on that turn to her left, the woman noted a curious sight. Her gaze apparently tipped off Alegni, as well, for as she rose to her feet, now looking back at the man, she saw that he, too, was glancing that way.
“Barrabus?” he asked, and his voice showed a lack of confidence that Dahlia had not heard before.
The elf leaped to her feet, thinking an opportunity before her, but Alegni turned on her immediately and rushed in.
She couldn’t hope to dive out to the left, nor to the right, nor could Dahlia begin to parry or block the mighty tiefling with her back against the rail.
So Dahlia took the only course remaining: she jumped over the rail.
Alegni charged in and swept his blade across as Dahlia fell away, then growled in anger at his clean miss. The river was low, so late in the autumn season, the fall considerable, the jagged rocks plentiful, and her desperate escape would likely be the end of her, he knew.
But that seemed an empty victory indeed, considering the pain and torture he had intended to inflict on Dahlia. Perhaps his minions might find her alive, he dared hope, and they could nurse her back to health enough for him to play with her.
He dismissed all thoughts of Dahlia at that, and turned on Barrabus. Barrabus!
No, not Barrabus the Gray, but Artemis Entreri, he realized as Claw informed him that the foolish man was somehow resisting.
“Impressive,” he said loudly enough for the man to hear.
Artemis Entreri did not acknowledge the words, but merely kept walking, head and gaze steady, his lips forming some words, some mantra, that Alegni could not quite catch.
Herzgo Alegni reached to his belt and produced the tuning fork. “You should rethink your course,” he warned.
Artemis Entreri roared and leaped forward in a sudden rush.
Alegni banged the fork against the blade, the vibrations sending forth the bared power of Charon’s Claw.
How close Entreri came! Barely a stride away, the wave hit him and stopped him, as if every muscle in his body was suddenly on fire. He staggered, he growled, he managed to spit “The Walk of Barrabus!” one last time before he found himself on his knees.
“Oh, a pity,” Alegni teased, and he snarled and cracked the fork against the metal blade again.
Entreri grimaced, veins standing clear on his forehead as he battled the disrupting energy. He almost fell to the stones—it seemed so much like that time when Alegni had heard of the bridge’s intended name!
But he didn’t fall flat. Not this time. The waves would likely destroy him in his stubbornness, but he didn’t care. He knelt and he even managed to look up at Alegni, to let the man see his hate-filled eyes, to let the man know that he was not Barrabus!
He was Artemis Entreri, and he was a slave no longer!
Herzgo Alegni’s eyes went wide then as he considered the sight before him. Entreri could not break free of the physical pain prison enacted by Claw, perhaps, but the man had resisted the mental entrapment.
The man had resisted.
“Ah, you fool,” Alegni said, deep regret in his voice. “I can never trust in you again. Take heart, for you have found your freedom, and your death.”
Herzgo Alegni knew that he was losing the best associate he had ever commanded, and it pained him greatly, but he knew, too, that Barra—Entreri, had at last found his way through the maze of Claw’s machinations. Indeed, he could never trust this one again.
He stepped forward. Entreri tried to lift a sword against him, but Alegni easily kicked it from his grasp. Then he banged the tuning fork once more and the waves of agony knocked the dagger, too, from Entreri’s hand.
Alegni grabbed Entreri by the hair and roughly pulled his head aside.
Up went Claw.
At the end of the bridge, Drizzt Do’Urden watched it all helplessly. He did not know what had happened to Dahlia, only that she was gone, for his view had been obscured by walls of floating ash. But he could clearly see the end of Artemis Entreri as the red blade went up high.
A strange sensation of deep regret came over Drizzt.
He was alone again?
No, not alone, he realized as Guenhwyvar, battered but still very animated and obviously angry, bounded up to him.
“Go!” he yelled, pushing the cat along, and surely hope sprang anew within him, but when he turned back up the bridge, he knew that it was too late. “Kill the Shadovar!” he ordered. “Kill him, Guen!”
The recognition that this would be mere vengeance, though, for surely Entreri was doomed and Dahlia nowhere to be seen, and likely already dead or gravely wounded, filled Drizzt with anger, and that rage brought strength back to the torn drow and he forced himself to stand.
Herzgo Alegni saw the cat coming fast, but he kept his concentration—Entreri was too dangerous for distraction!
He twisted the assassin’s head farther as Claw went up, opening an easy target, and down came the blade.
Almost.
A shadow appeared on the ground beneath them, and before Alegni could even register it, a great form crashed up against him, a giant raven, battering him with its wings and pecking him hard—right in the eye!—with its powerful beak.
He staggered to the side and thrust his sword out before him to fend the beast, but then it was a beast no more, but an elf warrior.
A young elf woman.
And in her hands, Dahlia held not a long staff, and not flails, but a tri-staff, spinning and sparking with power, and before the hulking tiefling could properly orient himself, she was before him, then beside him, striking him hard across the fingers with the handle-pole of her weapon. The tri-staff swung down and under, then back up again with its third length, that last pole nearly clipping him in the face and forcing him even farther off balance.
Dahlia didn’t pursue. She ran directly away from him and tugged with all of her strength, and the tri-staff unwound, Kozah’s Needle releasing its considerable lightning energy at that very moment, and the force of the twist and the blast tore Claw from Alegni’s grasp and sent the sword flying high over the far rail of the bridge.
Herzgo Alegni roared in protest, and leaped upon her, catching her by her skinny throat and squeezing with all his strength. But then he felt a profound sting as a spinning dagger caught him in the gut, and he noted the betrayer, Entreri, picking his sword from the bridge stones.
And past that formidable enemy came another, the panther, up in the air and flying down from on high.
Alegni threw Dahlia down to the stone, but there was nowhere to run. So Herzgo Alegni didn’t run.
He stepped instead.
Shadow-stepped.
Guenhwyvar hit him halfway through, and went with him through the gate into the Shadowfell.