INTERSECTION
Drizzt started around the corner, but fell back abruptly and turned to his companions, his expression one of concern and surprise.
“What?” asked Entreri, who was growing more impatient and agitated with every step. Even as he finished the question, though, he and Dahlia both understood the drow’s hesitance, for a wall of steamy fog rolled along the perpendicular corridor. The temperature in the area climbed dramatically, the air growing so humid that the greenish tendrils of the Hosttower above began to sweat and drip almost immediately.
“It is passable,” Drizzt informed them.
“Then go,” Entreri snapped back.
Drizzt continued to hold his position. He glanced around the corner again, and when he turned back, beads of sweat showed on his face.
“This tunnel continues to bend around the forge room,” Drizzt replied. “Perhaps there would be an easier way in.”
“Or a less obvious advance than the main corridor,” Dahlia agreed. Entreri started to argue, clearly wanting to be done with all of this, wanting to be done with everything, but when Drizzt held up his hand, the assassin went quiet, for he, too, had heard a distant rumble. On Drizzt’s motion, they backtracked quickly the way they had come, taking up a mostly concealed position some twenty strides back.
The unmistakable sound of an approaching force grew around them, then rumbled down the corridor against the rolling steam. The first forms, ghostly in the fog, crossed the corridor. Even before a couple happened out into their side tunnel, in clear view, the three companions understood the composition of the force. These were Shadovar, making directly for the forge room.
“We could have gone in before them,” Entreri whispered, his jaw clenched, the veins standing out on his forehead.
But both Drizzt and Dahlia, who knew the layout of the forge room, knew of the small archway and single tunnel leading to the primordial pit, understood the futility of that argument. Had they gone in, they would have had to flee immediately out another exit of the forge room, or would have surely found themselves trapped in the primordial chamber.
“We go in behind them, then,” Entreri said.
“We would never make it to the archway,” Dahlia replied, and though he didn’t know the specifics of what she might be talking about, her point was clearly made. “What, then?” he asked.
“We go past the steam corridor,” Drizzt suggested. “Let us learn the layout of this entire region, and learn it well. We’ll find our way in, but we can’t rush in there behind the shade forces and hold any hope of getting to our goal, to say nothing of getting back out.”
Even though that last part of the statement seemed to hold little persuasion to Entreri, Drizzt noted, the assassin didn’t argue. If they went in there and were stopped by the multitude of shades, Entreri would find himself right back in the position of Barrabus the Gray, or worse.
They had to wait a long while for the Shadovar forces to pass by, then they moved quickly, crossing the steamy corridor and moving with all prudent speed. Drizzt again took the lead, opening a wide distance between himself and his two companions. He dropped his hand into his belt pouch and quietly called out for Guenhwyvar again and again, hoping against hope that the Netherese forces had been foolish enough to bring her along, and that she would hear his call and appear to him. He thought of the strange woman he had met, with her enticing offer. Nay, not enticing, for in truth, Drizzt could not put a man, any man, even Artemis Entreri, back into slavery again, whatever his gain. He simply couldn’t do it. And in his heart, Drizzt knew that he wouldn’t get Guenhwyvar back that way, anyway. The trickster would never have willingly given the magnificent panther to him. He could not bargain in good faith with the Netherese.
He thought of the shadow gate he had seen in the forest. His answer lay there, he believed. He would have to go to the Shadowfell when he was done with this ugly business, when Charon’s Claw—and Artemis Entreri—was destroyed.
Flanked by Effron and Glorfathel, Herzgo Alegni glimpsed the forge room through a thick cloud of steam. Fires burned all around the place as the battle of the opposing elemental monsters raged.
“Destroy them,” he instructed his spellcasters.
“Not easily done,” said Effron.
“A slow process,” Glorfathel agreed.
“Bah, but I’ll be turnin’ the tide for ye,” said Ambergris from behind, and she pushed her way through the trio, even daring to shove past Alegni himself.
He looked at her curiously, too surprised to lash out, and more curiously still when he saw what the cleric held: a small jug of curious design. It seemed to be polished from one piece of wood, its thick neck offset from center, and stoppered with a large cork fastened to the decanter with a gold link chain. Circles and triangles of red and green ran around the circumference of the jug in a repeating, but hardly perfect, pattern, as if this item had been crafted by some village woman in a remote jungle.
Ambergris whispered something under her breath, talking to her magic item, it seemed, and she pulled out the cork with a loud popping sound. A few more words and a stream of water poured forth, splashing the floors before her.
“What is that?” Effron asked before Alegni could.
Glorfathel just laughed, having no definitive answer. “Always full of surprises is that one,” he explained. “It is why Cavus Dun so quickly accepted her.”
Ambergris continued to walk out from the doorway, her magical decanter spraying in wide sweeps before her. The others watching from just outside the room all gasped in unison as a large fire elemental rushed through the steam to meet her, reaching at her with flaming limbs.
The dwarf laughed at it. She had already fortified herself with resistance spells, and when the stream of water became a geyser, the weapon she carried proved effective. Ambergris staggered back a step just trying to control the powerful flow.
The elemental, too, staggered back, diminishing before their eyes as the geyser assailed its fiery core, cooling it, shrinking it.
The dwarf laughed all the louder.
“Where is the primordial?” Herzgo Alegni asked.
“Nearby, surely,” said Glorfathel.
“Get me to it,” Alegni ordered.
“Let’s hope we’re not too late,” Effron said.
Herzgo Alegni closed his eyes and opened his mind, and heard again the whisper of Claw, of the sword that was still very much intact. “We’re not,” he stated with confidence.
Thanks to the magical sprinklers of the curious tendrils above, the remaining water elementals, and the dwarf with her perpetual decanter of water, the Shadovar secured the forge room in short order. They couldn’t stop the occasional outbursts from the forges, or the appearance of fire beasts now and again, for they knew nothing of the sub-chamber that controlled the flow of primordial power.
They found the small corridor and the primordial pit, and soon enough, there stood Herzgo Alegni, Effron, and the trio from Cavus Dun. Like all who had entered this place, they lingered at the side of the pit, staring in awe at the swirling water and the rumbling of the godlike primordial from far below.
Other concerns did not allow them to linger, however, for they noted the second exit from the room, a small tunnel still glowing with streaks and puddles of red lava. “Newly cut,” Glorfathel remarked. “The work of the primordial, I would guess.”
“What happened here?” Alegni asked. “Did the dark elves do this as they retreated?”
“Perhaps this is why they fled,” said Effron. “They could not control this power.”
“But did they take the sword with them?” Glorfathel asked, and no one had an answer.
“Set a perimeter around the room,” Alegni ordered as he stared down this curious tunnel. It looked as if a ball of fire had just rolled through the stone, melting and disintegrating it as it went. “Secure the halls and corridors, and determine proper emissaries to send to find these unexpected dark elves. Let us determine their intent.”
“Ye’d bargain with drows?” Ambergris asked skeptically.
“If they have Claw, they will return it for a price, likely,” the warlord replied. “The drow don’t want war with us.”
“A hefty price,” said the dwarf.
Alegni stared hard at her and for a moment almost gave in to the urge to strike the annoying dwarf. But he calmed and let it go. She was speaking the truth, likely.
“Cross that small bridge,” Alegni told Afafrenfere. “Ensure that these are the only two exits from the chamber. I’ll take this room as my own for now, and you four shall remain with me.” He turned to Glorfathel and Effron. “Find other warlocks or sorcerers or some type of wizard who can help to secure the pit.”
“Secure it how?” Glorfathel asked. “There is a beast below beyond all of our power, Lord Alegni.”
“Secure its edge,” the warlord explained. “I’ll not have our enemies throw the sword over the side.”
“We mustn’t let them get near to the pit in the first place,” the elf insisted. “I know of a few potentially helpful dweomers against such an attempt, but we cannot secure it as you would demand, certainly.”
“Send scouts along this tunnel, then,” Alegni replied. “And we’ll make our camp right here, before the pit and the primordial. Let them come to us and let us be done with them.”
He would take all precautions, but Herzgo Alegni truly doubted that his enemies would come to him in that place. They had joined with, or been taken by, these other drow. Likely the latter, for these dark elves had been in this place for some time, judging by the work Alegni and his minions had seen in their charge through the lower levels. The expertly crafted and repaired, and purposely dropped stairwell alone showed that Alegni and his force had stumbled upon a determined dark elf settlement.
Had this curious ranger, Drizzt, known about that, he wondered, and not for the first time? Had Drizzt led the other two here to find reinforcements?
He turned to the dwarf as he considered the pressing question, for she had insisted that could not be the case. She claimed to know of Drizzt, quite a bit of his history, actually, since he had settled in a dwarven citadel near to her own place of birth. Drizzt would not willingly fall in with others of his race, she had assured Alegni. He was a rogue, an outcast, and his head would be a greater trophy than Claw even, in the eyes of the Spider Queen’s followers.
In that case, the dark elves, not Drizzt and his two companions, likely now had the blade, and likely had the three Alegni pursued, as well, either dead or wishing they were.
He hoped that was not the case, even if he could bargain to get back the sword and the three living prisoners. He wanted more than that. He wanted a fight.
He wanted to pay back the traitor Barrabus, and most of all, he wanted to defeat Dahlia yet again, to pull her into his grasp, battered and terrified.
Oh, that one he would pay back most dearly, he fantasized, and he looked at Effron as he did, crystallizing his hatred.