Starless Night

Courage.

In any language, the word has a special ring to it, as much, I suspect, from the reverent way in which it is spoken as from the actual sounds of the letters. Courage. The word evokes images of great deeds and great character: the grim set of the faces of men defending their town's walls from raiding goblins; the resilience of a mother caring for young children when all the world has seemingly turned hostile. In many of the larger cities of the Realms, young waifs stalk the streets, without parents, without homes. Theirs is a unique courage, a braving of hardships both physical and emotional.

I suspect that Artemis Entreri fought such a battle in the mud-filled lanes of Calimport. On one level, he certainly won, certainly overcame any physical obstacles and rose to a rank of incredible power and respect.

On another level, Artemis Entreri surely lost. What might he have been, I often wonder, if his heart had not been so tainted? But I do not mistake my curiosity for pity. Entreri's odds were no greater than my own. He could have won out over his struggles, in body and in heart.

I thought myself courageous, altruistic, when I left Mithril Hall determined to end the threat to my friends. I thought I was offering the supreme sacrifice for the good of those dear to me.

When Catti-brie entered my cell in House Baenre, when, through half-closed eyes, I glimpsed her fair and deceivingly delicate features, I learned the truth. I did not understand my own motivations when I walked from Mithril Hall. I was too full of unknown grief to recognize my own resignation. I was not courageous when I walked into the Underdark, because, in the deepest corner of my heart, I felt as if I had nothing to lose. I had not allowed myself to grieve for Wulfgar, and that emptiness stole my will and my trust that things could be put aright.

Courageous people do not surrender hope.

Similarly, Artemis Entreri was not courageous when he came with Catti-brie to rescue me. His actions were wrought of sheer desperation, for if he remained in Menzoberranzan, he was surely doomed. Entreri's goals, as always, were purely selfish. By his rescue attempt he made a conscious choice that coming after me was his best chance for survival. The rescue was an act of calculation, not of courage.

By the time Catti-brie had run out of Mithril Hall in pursuit of her foolish draw friend, she had honestly overcome her grief for Wulfgar. The grieving process had come full circle for Catti-brie, and her actions were motivated only by loyalty. She had everything to lose, yet had gone alone into the savage Underdark for the sake of a friend.

I came to understand this when first I looked into her eyes in the dungeons of House Baenre. I came to understand fully the meaning of the word courage.

And I came, for the first time since Wulfgar fell, to know inspiration. I had fought as the hunter, savagely, mercilessly, but it wasn't until I looked again upon my loyal friend that I regained the eyes of the warrior. Gone was my resignation and acceptance of fate; gone was my belief that all would be right if House Baenre got its sacrifice—gave my heart to Uoth.

In that dungeon, the healing potions returned strength to my battered limbs; the sight of grim, determined Catti-brie returned strength to my heart. I vowed then that I would resist, that I would fight the overwhelming events, and would fight to win.

When I saw Catti-brie, I remembered all that I had to lose.

Chapter 23 DUK-TAK

She reached for an arrow, then shifted her bow out in front of her in defense as a glob of greenish goo erupted from the wand and flew at her. Catti-brie's bow was suddenly tight against her chest, and she was flying, to smack hard against the wall. One arm was pinned tightly against her chest, the other tightly to her hip, and she could not move her legs. She could not even fall from the wall!

She tried to call out, but her jaw would not work, and one eye would not open. She could see, barely, with the other eye, and she somehow managed to continue to draw breath.

Entreri spun about, sword and dagger coming to the ready. He dove to the side, to the middle of the room, in front of Catti-brie, when he saw the three drow females enter, two of them aiming loaded hand-crossbows his way.

The agile assassin rolled back to his feet and started forward, rising up as if he would leap into his attackers. Then he dove low, sword leading.

The skilled drow females held their shots through the assassin's feint, then brought their hands in line. The first dart hit Entreri's shoulder and jolted him more than he would have expected. Suddenly, his momentum was stolen and he was standing straighter. Black arcs of electricity, writhing like sparking tentacles, shot out from the dart, burning him, jolting him back a few steps.

The second dart got him in the belly and, though the initial hit did not pain the assassin too greatly, a huge electrical blast followed, hurling him backward to the floor. His sword went flying, narrowly missing the trapped Catti-brie.

Entreri came to a stop at the young woman's feet. He still clutched his jeweled dagger, and thought immediately that he might have to throw the thing. But he could only watch in astonishment as the fingers of that hand twitched involuntarily, his grasp on the dagger weakening. He willed his arm to heave the blade, but his muscles would not respond, and the dagger soon toppled out of his trembling hand.

He lay on the stone at Catti-brie's feet, confused and scared. For the first time in his life, those finely honed warrior muscles would rot answer his call.

It was the third female, in the middle of the trio, that held Drizzt's attention: Vendes Baenre, Duk-Tak, his merciless torturer for all these long days. Drizzt stood very still, holding the coat of chain mail in front of him, not even daring to blink. The females flanking the cruel Baenre daughter put away their handcrossbows and drew two shining swords each.

Drizzt expected to be blown away, or held by some magical intrusion, as Vendes quickly chanted under her breath.

"Valiant friends," the wicked noble remarked sarcastically, using perfect surface Common.

Drizzt understood the nature of her spell then, a dewomer that allowed her to communicate with Entreri and Catti-brie.

Entreri's mouth moved weirdly, and the expression on his face revealed what he was trying to say more than any decipherable words. "High ritual?"

"Indeed," Vendes replied. "My mother and sisters, and many visiting matron mothers, are gathered in the chapel. I was excused from the initial ceremonies and was instructed to bring Drizzt Do'Urden in to them later." She eyed Drizzt and seemed perfectly content. "I see that your friends have saved me the trouble of forcing the healing potions down your throat.

"Did you really expect to so easily walk into House Baenre, steal our most valuable prisoner, and walk out?" Vendes asked Entreri. "You were seen before you ever crossed the web fence—and there will be inquiries as to how you got your unclean hands on my brother's mask! Gromph, or perhaps that dangerous Jarlaxle, will have many questions to answer.

"I am surprised at you, too, assassin," she went on. "Your reputation precedes you—I would have expected a better performance. Did you not understand the significance of mere males guarding our prized catch?"

She looked to Drizzt and shook her head. "Those pretend guards I put in place were expendable, of course," she said. Drizzt made no move, showed no reply in his features. He felt the strength returning to him as the healing potions did their work, but that strength would make little difference, he realized, facing the likes of Vendes and two supremely armed and trained females. The ranger looked to his coat of armor disdainfully—it would do him little good held in his hands.

Entreri's mind was working more clearly now, but his body was not. The electrical impulses continued, defeating any coordinated attempt at movement. He did manage to drop one hand into his pouch, though, in response to something Vendes had said, some hint at fleeting hope.

"We suspected that the human woman was alive," Vendes explained, "in the clutches of Jarlaxle, most likely— and we hardly hoped that she would be so easily delivered to us."

Entreri had to wonder if Jarlaxle had double-crossed him. Had the mercenary concocted this elaborate plan for no better reason than to deliver Catti-brie to House Baenre? It made no sense to Entreri—but little about Jarlaxle's actions these last hours made sense to him.

The mention of Catti-brie brought a measure of fire to Drizzt's eyes. He couldn't believe that the young woman was here, in Menzoberranzan, that she had risked so much to come after him. Where was Guenhwyvar? he wondered. And had Bruenor or Regis come along beside Catti-brie?

He winced as he eyed the young woman, wrapped in greenish goo. How vulnerable she seemed, how utterly helpless.

The fires burned brighter in Drizzt's lavender eyes when he returned his gaze to Vendes. Gone was his fear of his torturer; gone was his resignation about how things had to end.

In one swift motion, Drizzt dropped the suit of armor and snapped out his scimitars.

On a nod from Vendes, the two females were on Drizzt, one circling to each side. One tapped her sword against Twinkle's curving blade, indicating that Drizzt should drop the weapon. He looked down to Twinkle, and all logic told him to comply.

He spun the scimitar in a wild arc instead, swishing the female's sword aside. His second blade came up suddenly, defeating a thrust from the other side before it ever began.

"O fool!" Vendes cried at him in obvious glee. "I do so wish to see you fight, Drizzt Do'Urden—since Dantrag is so intent on slaughtering you!"

The way she said it made Drizzt wonder who Vendes would want to win that potential fight. He had no tune to ponder the continuing intrigue of the chaotic world, though, not with two drow females pressing him so.

Vendes reverted to the Drow language then, commanding her soldiers to beat Drizzt fiercely, but not to kill him.

Drizzt turned a sudden spin, like a screw, his blades weaving a dangerous pattern on all sides. He came out of it suddenly, viciously, snapping a thrust at the female on his left. He scored a minor hit, doing no real damage against the fabulous drow armor—armor that Drizzt was not wearing.

That point was driven home by the tip of a sword that then nicked Drizzt from the right. He grimaced and pivoted back, his backhanded cut taking the sword away before it could do any real damage.

Entreri prayed that Vendes was as intent on the fight as her soldiers, for every movement he made seemed so very clumsy and obvious. Somehow, he managed to get the spider mask out of his pouch and over his trembling hand, and then he reached up and grabbed Catti-brie's belt.

His trembling fingers could not support the hold, though, and he fell back to the floor.

Vendes glanced casually his way, snickered—apparently not noticing the mask—and turned back to the fight.

Entreri sat half-propped by the wall, trying to find some inner control to ward off the nasty drow enchantment, but all his efforts proved useless; his muscles continued their involuntary twitching.

Swords cut in at Drizzt from every angle. One drew a line on his cheek, stinging him painfully. The skilled females, working perfectly in concert, kept him pinned near the corner, gave him no room to maneuver. Still, Drizzt's parrying work was excellent, and Vendes applauded his outstanding, if futile, efforts.

Drizzt knew that he was in serious trouble. Unarmored and still weak (though the magical potions continued to flow through his veins), he had few tricks that could get him past so powerful a tandem.

A sword cut low; Drizzt hopped the blade. Another chopped down, from the other side, but Drizzt, crouching as he leaped, got Twinkle up to deflect it. His other scimitar snapped back and forth in front of him, defeating the two middle-height attacks, one from each female, and completing the four-parry.

But Drizzt could not counter with any offensive routines as the relentless barrage continued, forcing him back on his heels, forcing him to react in awkward angles.

He hopped and ducked, spun his blades this way and that, and somehow managed to keep those stinging swords from cutting any deep holes in his vulnerable body, though the minor hits were beginning to add up.

The ranger glanced forlornly at Catti-brie, terrified at the prospects of what she would soon face.

Entreri continued to wage his futile war, then finally slumped low, defeated, thinking that he could not possibly fight his way past the powerful enchantment.

But the assassin had not survived the streets of dangerous Calimport, had not risen to a position of leadership in the evil underworld of the southern city, by accepting defeat. He changed his thinking, decided that he had to work within the parameters offered to him.

Entreri's arm shot up above him. His fingers did not grasp—he did not try to grasp—but rather, he slapped his arm hard against the binding goo.

That was all the grip he would need.

With tremendous effort, Entreri coiled his stuck arm and pulled himself halfway up beside the trapped woman.

Catti-brie was watching him, helpless and hopeless, having no idea what he meant to do. She even winced and tried to duck (though of course her head would not move an inch) as the assassin's free arm swung about, as though she feared that he meant to strike her.

It was not the jeweled dagger perched in that free hand, though, but the spider mask, and Catti-brie began to understand as it came over the very top of her head. It wouldn't slip down very far at first, blocked by the binding goo, but that greenish sludge instantly began to give way to the item's mighty magic.

Catti-brie was fully blinded as a wave of goo, then the bottom lip of the spider mask, covered her one free eye.

A moment later, her other eye blinked open.

Sparks flew as the battle intensified, the females pressing more fiercely against the stubborn defenses of the renegade male.

"Be done with it!" impatient Vendes growled. "Take him down, that we might drag him to the chapel, that he might bear witness as we sacrifice the foolish woman to Lloth!"

Of all the things that Vendes could have said, of all the threats that she could have then laid upon Drizzt Do'Urden, none would have been so foolish. The notion of Catti-brie, dear and innocent Catti-brie, being given to the horrid, wretched Spider Queen was too much for Drizzt's sensibilities to bear.

No longer was he Drizzt Do'Urden, for his rational identity was replaced by the welling urges of the primal hunter, the savage.

The female on his left came with another measured counter, but the one on his right struck more daringly, one of her swords thrusting far beyond the tip of Drizzt's blocking scimitar.

It was a cunning move, but in the heightened sensibilities of the hunter, that thrusting sword seemed to move almost in slow motion. Drizzt let the tip get within a few inches of his vulnerable abdomen before the blade in his left hand slashed across, deflecting the sword out wide, crossing under his upraised arm as his other scimitar worked against the female's second sword.

His scimitars then crossed in a powerful diagonal parry, alternating their targets, his left arm shooting across and up, his right across and down.

He dove to his knees, straight ahead, using his closest enemy's body to prevent the other female from hitting him. In came his right hand, deftly turning the blade so that it slashed against the outside of his opponent's knee, buckling the leg. Drizzt punched out with his left, connecting on the female's belly and throwing her back over that collapsing leg.

Still on his knees, the ranger spun desperately, hacking across with his left as the other female rushed in on him.

She was too high. The scimitar took one sword out wide, but the other sword poked lower.

The hunter's second scimitar intercepted it and turned it aside, though it slashed Drizzt's skin and nicked a rib.

Back and forth went the parries and thrusts, the hunter feeling no pain from this newest and most serious wound. It seemed impossible to Vendes, but Drizzt managed to get a foot under him and was soon standing even with her skilled soldier.

The other female writhed on the ground, clutching her blasted leg and tucking her arm tightly over her slashed belly.

"Enough!" Vendes cried, holding her wand Drizzt's way. She had enjoyed the spectacular battle, but had no intention of losing any females.

"Guenhwyvar!" came a shrill cry.

Vendes looked to the side, to the human woman—wearing the spider mask! — crouching low, away from the binding goo. Catti-brie charged out from the wall, dropping the magical figurine and scooping up a certain dagger as she went

Instinctively, Vendes loosed another gob of goo, but it seemed to pass right through the charging woman to splat harmlessly against the wall.

Somewhat disoriented and certainly off balance, Catti-brie simply dove forward, dagger out. She managed to nick Vendes' hand, but the parrying wand rushed across and turned the deadly blade before it could dig in,

Catti-brie crashed heavily into the draw's thighs, and both females went sprawling, the woman trying to hold on, and Vendes kicking and scrambling fiercely to get away.

Drizzt's scimitars banged against the remaining female's swords so rapidly that it sounded like one long, scraping ring. She kept up with his fury for a few moments, to her credit, but gradually her parries came later and later against the barrage of thrusts and cuts.

A sword snapped up to her right, defeating Twinkle. Her second sword turned up and out to take the second thrusting scimitar to the side.

But the second scimitar was not really thrusting, and it was the female's sword that went out. She recognized the feint and halted her own weapon's progress, bringing it right back in.

She was too late. Drizzt's scimitar plunged through the fine mesh armor. He was open to any counter, but the female had no strength, no life, left as the wicked scimitar jabbed at her heart. She shuddered as Drizzt withdrew the blade.

A flurry of punches battered Catti-brie's head as she hugged tightly to the vicious draw's tegs. The spider mask had turned about, and Catti-brie could not see, but she realized that if Vendes had a weapon handy, she would be in trouble.

Blindly, Catti-brie reached up with one hand, trying to grab at a drow wrist. Vendes was too quick for the move, though, and not only got her arm out of the way, but wriggled one leg free as well. She coiled and kicked, and Catti-brie nearly swooned.

Vendes pushed powerfully against her, slipping free, then Catti-brie was scrambling, trying to catch up to the suddenly receding legs. The young woman hesitated for just an instant, to pull the troublesome mask from her face, then cried out in denial as she saw Vendes's feet slipping too far from her grasp. The Baenre daughter quickly regained her footing and ran from the room.

Catti-brie could easily fathom the consequences of letting this one get away. Stubbornly, she put her arms under her and started to rise, but was pushed back to the floor by a gentle hand as someone came over her. She saw the bare feet of Drizzt Do'Urden hit the stone floor in front of her, in full pursuit.

Drizzt twisted weirdly as he came into the corridor. He threw himself backward and to the floor so fiercely that Catti-brie feared he had been clotheslined. She understood the move as Drizzt's own doing, though, as a gob of greenish goo flew harmlessly above him.

A twisting roll realigned Drizzt and put his feet back under him, and he shot off like a springing cat.

And a springing cat, Guenhwyvar, followed, leaping over Catti-brie and into the corridor, turning so perfect an angle, the instant the paws touched the stone, that Catti-brie had to blink to make sure she was not seeing things.

"Nau" came the doomed draw's cry of protest from out in the corridor. The warrior whom Vendes had tortured, had beaten without mercy, was upon her, his eyes raging with fires of vengeance.

Guenhwyvar came right behind, desperate to help Drizzt, but in the instant it took the cat to reach the fighting, a scimitar had already plunged deep into Vendes's stomach.

A groan from the side refocused Catti-brie's attention. She spotted the wounded female crawling for her dropped weapons.

Catti-brie scrambled immediately, staying on the floor, and wrapped her legs about the draw's neck, squeezing with all her strength. Both ebon-skinned hands came up to tear at her, to punch at her. But then the female calmed, and Catti-brie thought she had surrendered—until she noticed the draw's lips moving.

She was casting a spell!

Purely on instinct, Catti-brie poked her finger repeatedly into the draw's eyes. The chant became cries of pain and protest, and they became no more than a wheeze as Catti-brie clamped her legs down tighter.

Catti-brie hated this with all her generous heart. The killing revolted her, especially a fight such as this, where she would have to watch for agonizing seconds, minutes perhaps, while she suffocated her opponent.

She spied Entreri's dagger not far away and grabbed it. Tears of rage and innocence lost filled her blue eyes as she brought the deadly blade to bear.

Guenhwyvar skidded to a stop, and Drizzt roughly retracted the embedded blade and took a step back.

"Nau?" shinned Vendes repeated, the drow word for "no." Vicious Duk-Tak seemed little to Drizzt then, almost pitiful. She was doubled over in pain, trembling violently.

Chapter 24 HEADFIRST

Drizzt came back into his cell to see Catti-brie still lying on the stone floor, holding the spider mask and gasping heavily as she tried to steady her breathing. Behind her, Entreri hung awkwardly by one arm, twisted and stuck to the gooey wall.

"This'll get him down," Catti-brie explained, tossing the mask to Drizzt.

Drizzt caught the mask but made no move, having much more on his mind than freeing the assassin.

"Regis telled me," Catti-brie explained, though that point seemed obvious enough. "I made him tell me."

"You came alone?"

Catti-brie shook her head, and for a moment Drizzt nearly swooned, thinking that another of his friends might be in peril, or might be dead. But Catti-brie motioned to Guenhwyvar, and the ranger breathed a sigh of relief.

"You are a fool," Drizzt replied, his words wrought of sheer incredulity and frustration. He scowled fiercely at Catti-brie, wanting her to know that he was not pleased.

"No more than yerself," the young woman answered with a wistful smile, a smile that stole the scowl from Drizzt's face. The dark elf couldn't deny his joy at seeing Catti-brie again, even in this dangerous circumstance.

"Are ye wanting to talk about it now?" Catti-brie asked, smiling still. "Or are ye wanting to wait until we're back in Mithril Hall?"

Drizzt had no answer, just shook his head and ran a hand through his thick mane. He looked to the spider mask then, and to Entreri, and his scowl returned.

"We've a deal," Catti-brie quickly put in. "He got me to ye, and said he'd get us both out, and we're to guide him back to the surface."

"And once there?" Drizzt had to ask.

"Let him go his way, and we're to go our own," Catti-brie answered firmly, as though she needed to hear the strength of her voice for the sake of her own resolve.

Again Drizzt looked doubtfully from the mask to the assassin. The prospects of setting Artemis Entreri free on the surface did not sit well in the noble ranger's gut. How many would suffer for Drizzt's actions now? How many would again be terrorized by the darkness that was Artemis Entreri?

"I gived me word," Catti-brie offered in the face of her friend's obvious doubts.

Drizzt continued to ponder the consequences. He couldn't deny Entreri's potential value on the ensuing journey, particularly the fight they would likely face in getting out of.the Baenre complex. Drizzt had fought beside the assassin before on similar occasions, and together they had been nothing short of brilliant.

Still…

"I came in good faith," Entreri stuttered through chattering, barely controlled teeth. "I saved … I … saved that one." His free arm twitched out as though to indicate Catti-brie, but it jerked suddenly, violently, and banged against the wall instead.

"I'll have your word then," Drizzt offered, moving toward the man. He meant to go on and exact a promise from Entreri that his evil deeds would be at an end, even that once on the surface he would willingly stand trial for his dark past. Entreri saw it coming clearly, though, and cut Drizzt short, his rising anger giving him temporary control over his uncooperative muscles.

"Nothing!" he snarled. "You have what I offered to her!"

Drizzt immediately looked back to Catti-brie, who was up and moving for her bow.

"I gived me word," she replied, more emphatically, matching his doubtful stare.

"And we are running. . short … of time," Entreri added.

The ranger moved the last two steps swiftly and plopped the mask over Entreri's head. The man's arm slid out of the goo and he dropped to the floor, unable to gain enough control to even stand. Drizzt went for the remaining potion bottles, hoping that they might restore the assassin's muscle control. He still wasn't wholly convinced that showing Entreri back to the surface was the right choice, but he decided that he couldn't wait around and debate the issue. He would free Entreri, and together the three and Guenhwyvar would try to escape the compound and the city. Other problems would have to be dealt with later.

It would all be moot, after all, if the potion's healing magic did not help the assassin, for Drizzt and Catti-brie surely could not carry the man out of there.

But Entreri was standing again before he had even finished his first draw on the ceramic flask. The effects of the dart were temporary and fast fading, and the revitalizing potion spurred the recovery even more quickly.

Drizzt and Catti-brie shared another flask, and Drizzt, after strapping on his armor, belted on two of the six remaining and gave two each to his companions.

"We have to go back out of Baenre's great mound," Entreri said, readying himself for the journey. "The high ritual is still in progress, no doubt, but if the slain minotaurs on the higher level have been discovered, then we'll likely find a host of soldiers waiting for us."

"Unless Vendes, in her arrogance, came down here alone," Drizzt replied. His tone, and the assassin's responding stare revealed that neither of them thought that possibility likely.

"Head first," Catti-brie offered. Both her companions looked to her, not understanding.

"The dwarven way," the young woman explained. "When ye've a back to yer wall, ye put yer head down low and let it lead."

Drizzt looked to Guenhwyvar, to Catti-brie and her bow, to Entreri and his deadly blades, and to his own scimitars—how convenient for cocky Dantrag, in anticipation of his fight with the captured ranger, to have placed all of Drizzt's items so near at hand! "They may have us cornered," Drizzt admitted, "but I doubt that they understand what it is they have cornered!"

Matron Baenre, Matron Mez'Bams Armgo, and K'yorl Odran stood in a tight triangle atop the central altar of House Baenre's immense chapel. Five other matron mothers, rulers of the fourth— to eighth-ranking houses of the city, formed a ring about the trio. This elite group, Menzoberran-zan's ruling council, met often in the small, secret room used as council chambers, but not in centuries had they come together in prayer.

Matron Baenre felt truly at the pinnacle of her power. She had brought them together, one and all, had banded the eight ruling houses in an alliance that would force all of Menzoberranzan to follow Matron Baenre's lead to Mithril Hall. Even vicious K'yorl, so resistant to the expedition and the alliance, now seemed honestly caught up in the budding frenzy. Earlier in the ceremony, K'yorl, with no prompting, had offered to go along personally on the attack, and Mez'Barris Armgo—not wanting the ruler of the house ranked behind her own to shine darker in Matron Baenre's eyes—had immediately offered likewise.

Lloth was with her. Matron Baenre believed with all of her evil heart. The others believed that Lloth was with the withered matron mother, too, and, thus, the alliance had been firmly joined.

Matron Baenre did well to hide her smile through the next portions of the ceremony. She tried hard to be patient with Vendes. She had sent her daughter to get Drizzt, after all, and Vendes was experienced enough in the ways of drow rituals to understand that the renegade might not survive the ceremony. If Vendes took a few torturing liberties with the prisoner now. Matron Baenre could not fault her. Baenre did not plan to sacrifice Drizzt at the ceremony. She had many games left to play with that one, and dearly wanted to give Dantrag his chance to outshine all other weapon masters in Menzoberranzan. But these religious frenzies had a way of deciding their own events, Baenre knew, and if the situation demanded that Drizzt be given over to Lloth, then she would eagerly wield the sacrificial dagger.

The thought was not an unpleasant one.

At the front of the circular structure, beside the great doors, Dantrag and Berg'inyon found themselves faced with equally difficult choices. A guard sneaked in, whispering word that some commotion had occurred at the great mound, that several minotaurs were rumored killed, and that Vendes and her escort had gone to the lower levels.

Dantrag looked down the rows of seated dark elves, to the raised central dais. All of his other sisters were down there, and his elder brother, Gromph, as well (though he didn't doubt that Gromph would have eagerly accepted the excuse to be out of that female-dominated scene). The high ritual was a ceremony of emotional peaks and valleys, and the ruling matron mothers, turning faster and faster circles on the dais, slapping their hands together and chanting wildly, were surely heading for a peak.

Dantrag looked into the waiting gaze of Berg'inyon, the younger Baenre obviously at a loss as to how they should proceed.

The weapon master moved out of the main hall, taking the guard and Berg'inyon with him. Behind them there came a succession of crescendos as the frenzied cheers mounted.

Go to the perimeter, Dantrag's hands flashed to Berg'inyon, for he would have had to shout to be heard. See that it is secure.

Berg'inyon nodded and moved off down the bending corridor, to one of the secret side doors, where he had left his lizard mount.

Dantrag took a quick moment to check his own gear. Likely, Vendes had the situation—if there even was a situation—well under control, but deep inside, Dantrag almost hoped that she did not, hoped that his fight with Drizzt would be thrust upon him. He felt his sentient sword's agreement with that thought, felt a wave of vicious hunger emanate from the weapon.

Dantrag let his thoughts continue down that path. He would carry the slain renegade's body in to his mother at the high ritual, would let her and the other matron mothers (and Uthegental Armgo, who sat in the audience) witness the result of his prowess.

The thought was not an unpleasant one.

"Head first," Catti-brie mouthed silently as the companions came up into the main level within the marble cylinder. Guenhwyvar crouched in front of her, ready to spring; Drizzt and Entreri stood to either side of the cat, weapons drawn. Catti-brie bent back Taulmaril.

A high-ranking drow soldier, a female, stood right before the opening as the marble door slid aside. Wide went her red eyes, and she threw her hands up before her.

Catti-brie's arrow blew right through the meager defense, blew right through the female, and took down the drow behind her as well. Guenhwyvar leaped in the arrow's wake, easily clearing the two falling dark elves and barreling into a host of others, scattering them all across the circular room.

Out went Drizzt and Entreri, one on either side of the opening, their flashing weapons leading. They came back into Catti-brie's line of sight almost immediately, both of them bearing suddenly blood-stained blades.

Catti-brie fired again, right between them, pounding a hole in the fleshy drow wall blocking the entrance to the exit corridor. Then she leaped out, between her companions, with Drizzt and Entreri doing equally brilliant sword work on either side of her. She fired again, nailing a drow to one of the side doors in the circular room. Entreri's dagger bit hard into a drow heart; Drizzt's scimitars crossed up an opponent's attack routine, then countered, one over the other in opposing, diagonal, downward swipes, drawing a neat X on the draw's throat.

But this was Guenhwyvar's show. Inside the crowded room, nothing in all the world could have created more general havoc and panic than six hundred pounds of snarling, clawing fury. Guenhwyvar dashed this way and that, swiping one drow on the backside, tripping up another with a bite to the ankle. The cat actually killed no dark elves in that wild rush through the room and into the corridor, but left many wounded, and many more fleeing, terrified, in its wake.

Catti-brie was first into the corridor.

"Shoot the damned door!" Entreri cried to her, but she needed no prodding and put the first and second arrows away before the assassin even finished the command. Soon she could hardly even see the door for the blazing shower of sparks igniting all about it—but what she could make out continued to appear solid.

"Open, oh, open!" the young woman shouted, thinking that they were going to be trapped in the corridor. Once the chaos in the room behind them subsided, their enemies would overwhelm them. Just to accentuate Catti-brie's fears, the corridor suddenly went black.

Good fortune alone saved them, for the woman's next shot struck one of the opening mechanisms within the door, and up it slid. Still running blindly, Catti-brie stumbled out into the Baenre compound, Drizzt and Entreri, and then Guenhwyvar, coming fast behind.

They saw the streaks of glowing house emblems, leaving a residual trail of light as several lizard-riders swarmed to the area of the commotion. The companions had to make their choice immediately, as crossbow quarrels clicked off the stone around them. Entreri took up the lead. His first thought was to go for the fence, but he realized that the three of them, with only one spider mask, could not get past that barrier in time. He ran to the right, around the side of the great mound. It was an uneven wall, for the structure was really a tight cluster of several huge stalagmites. Catti-brie and Drizzt came right behind, but Guenhwyvar pivoted completely about just outside the doorway, and rushed back in, scattering the closest pursuing dark elves.

Entreri's mind worked furiously, trying to remember the general layout of the huge compound, trying to discern how many guards were likely on duty, and where they were all normally located. The immense house grounds covered nearly half a mile in one direction and a quarter of a mile in the other, and many of the guards, if Entreri chose correctly, would never get near the fighting.

It seemed as if all the drow of the house were about them now, though, a mounting frenzy on all sides of the escaping prisoners.

"There's nowhere to go!" Catti-brie cried. A javelin slammed the stone just above her head, and she swung about, Taulmaril ready. The enemy dark elf was already moving, diving out of sight behind a mound near the fence, but Catti-brie let fly anyway. The magical arrow skipped off the stone and slammed the fence, disintegrating into a tremendous shower of silver and purple sparks. For a moment, the woman dared to hope that luck had shown her a way to blow through the barrier, but when the sparks cleared, she realized that the strand of the mighty fence wasn't even scratched.

Catti-brie hesitated for a moment to consider the shot, but Drizzt slammed roughly against her back, forcing her to run on.

Around another bend went the assassin, only to find that many drow were coming at them from the other direction. With enemies so close, to run out into the open compound would have been suicide, and they could go neither forward nor back the way they had come. Entreri rushed forward anyway, then cut a sharp right, leaping up onto the mound, onto a narrow, ascending walkway used mostly by the goblin slaves the Baenre family had put to work sculpting the outside of the gorgeous palace.

The ledge was not difficult for the assassin, who was used to running along the high, narrow gutters of the great houses of southern cities. Neither was it difficult for Drizzt, so agile and balanced. If Catti-brie had found the time to pause a moment and consider her course, though, she likely would not have been able to go on. They were running up a path a foot and a half wide, open on one side (to an increasingly deep drop) and with an uneven wall on the other. But the dark elves were not far behind, and none of the fugitives had time to consider his or her course. Catti-brie not only paced Entreri step for step, but she managed to fire off a couple of shots into the compound below, just to keep her enemies scrambling for cover.

Entreri thought that they had met an obstacle when he rounded a bend to find two stupidly staring goblin workers. The terrified slaves wanted no part of any fight, though, and they dove over the edge of the walkway, sliding the bumpy ride down the side of the mound.

Around the next bend the assassin spotted a wide and decorated balcony, five feet to the side of the continuing walkway. Entreri leaped onto it, seeing a better carved stairway ascending from that point.

As soon as he landed, two dark elves burst out of doors set in the back of the balcony, against the mound. A silver-streaking arrow greeted the first, blowing her back into the carved room, and Entreri made short work of the other, finishing her before Drizzt and Catti-brie had even leaped across to join him.

Then came Guenhwyvar, the panther flying past the three surprised companions to take up the lead along the stairway.

Higher and higher went the companions, fifty feet, a hundred feet, two hundred feet, off the ground. Huffing and puffing, the tired group ran on, having no choice. Finally, after they had put a thousand feet below them, the huge stalagmite became a stalactite, and the stair gave way to horizontal walkways, connecting many of the larger hanging stones over the Baenre compound.

A group of drow charged along the walkway from the other direction, cutting off the companions. The dark elves fired their hand-crossbows as they came, into the great panther as Guenhwyvar flattened its ears and charged. Darts stung the cat, pumping their poison, but Guenhwyvar would not be stopped. Realizing this, the trailing members of the group turned and fled, and some of those caught too close to the cat simply leaped over the side of the railed walkway, using their innate powers of levitation to keep them aloft.

Catti-brie immediately hit one of them with an arrow, the force of the impact spinning the dying drow over and over in midair, to hang grotesquely at a diagonal, upside-down angle, lines of his blood running freely from the wound to scatter like rain on the stone floor many hundreds of feet below. The other levitating dark elves, realizing how vulnerable they were, quickly dropped from sight.

Guenhwyvar buried the remaining elves on the walkway. Entreri came right behind and finished off those wounded drow left broken in the fierce panther's wake. Entreri looked back to his companions and gave a determined shout, seeing running room ahead of them.

Catti-brie responded in kind, but Drizzt kept silent. He knew better than the others how much trouble he and his friends were really in. Many of the Baenre drow could likely levitate, an ability that Drizzt had for some reason lost after he had spent some time on the surface. The Baenre soldiers would be up all along the walkways before long, hiding among the stalactites with their handcrossbows ready.

The walkway came to another stalactite and split both ways around the structure. Guenhwyvar went left, Entreri right. Suspecting an ambush, the assassin rushed around the bend in a slide on his knees. A single drow was waiting for him, arm extended. The dark elf snapped the hand-crossbow down as soon as she saw the assassin coming in low. She fired but missed, and Entreri's sword punctured her side. Up came the assassin in a flourish. Having no time for any extended battles, Entreri used his prodding sword as leverage and heaved the female over the railing.

Drizzt and Catti-brie heard a roar and saw a dark elf, swatted by the panther, go tumbling away on the left as well. Catti-brie started that way to follow, but heard a whistle from behind and looked over her shoulder just as Drizzt's tattered green cloak waved in the air. The woman reflexively ducked, then stood staring at a crossbow dart that had tangled up in the thick cloth, a crossbow dart that had been aimed at the back of her head.

Drizzt dropped the cloak and skipped to Catti-brie's side, affording her a fine view of the walkway behind them and the group of drow fast approaching.

On the narrow walkway, there was no better weapon in all the world than Taulmaril.

Streak after streak flashed down the length, killing and wounding several drow. Catti-brie thought she could keep up the attack indefinitely, until all the pursuing enemies were slain, but suddenly Drizzt grabbed her by the shoulders and heaved her to the side, falling flat with her under him halfway around the round stalactite.

A lightning bolt slammed the stone, right where they had been standing, showering them both with multicolored sparks.

"Damn wizard!" the fiery woman shouted. She came up on one knee and fired again, thinking she had located the mage. Her arrow dove for the approaching group, but hit some magical barrier and exploded into nothingness.

"Damn wizard!" Catti-brie cried again, then she was running, pulled on by Drizzt.

The walkway beyond the stalactite was clear, and the companions far outdistanced those pursuing, as the dark elves had to be wary of any ambush near the pillar.

Many intersecting walkways, a virtual maze above the great compound, presented themselves, and very few Baenre soldiers were anywhere to be seen. Again it seemed as though the friends had some running room, but where could they go? The entire cavern of Menzoberranzan was opened wide before them, below them, but the walkways ended far short of the perimeter of the Baenre compound in every direction, and few stalactites hung low enough to join with the great stalagmite mounds that might have offered them a way to get back to the ground.

Guenhwyvar, apparently sharing those confused thoughts, fell back into the group, and Entreri again took up the lead. He soon came to a fork in the walkway and looked back to Drizzt for guidance, but the drow only shrugged. Both of the seasoned warriors realized that the defenses were fast organizing around them.

They came to another stalactite pillar and followed a ringing walkway ascending its curving side. They found a door, for this one pillar was hollowed, but there was only a single, empty room inside—no place to hide. At the top of the ascending ring, the bridging walkways continued on in two directions. Entreri started left, then stopped abruptly and fell flat to his back.

A javelin soared just over him, hitting and sinking into the stone stalactite right in front of Catti-brie's face. The young woman stared at it as writhing black tentacles arched along its quivering length, crackling and biting at the rock. Catti-brie could only imagine what pains that evil-looking enchantment might cause.

"Lizard-riders," Drizzt whispered into her ear, pulling her along once more. Catti-brie looked all about for a shot and heard the scuttling feet of subterranean lizards as they ran along the cavern's ceiling. But in the dimly lit view afforded her by her magical circlet, she made out no clear targets.

"Drizzt Do'Urden!" came a cry from a lower, parallel walkway. Drizzt stopped and looked that way, to see Berg'inyon Baenre on his lizard, hanging under the closest edge of the stone walkway and readying a javelin. The young Baenre's throw was remarkable, given the distance and his curious angle, but still the weapon fell short.

Catti-brie responded with a shot as the rider darted back under the stone bridge, her arrow skimming the stone and flying freely to the ground so very far below.

"That was a Baenre," Drizzt explained to her, "a dangerous one indeed!"

"Was," Catti-brie replied evenly, and she took up her bow and fired again, this time aiming for the center of the lower bridge. The magical arrow burrowed through the stone, and there came a shriek. Berg'inyon fell free from below the bridge, and his dead lizard tumbled after. Out of the companions' sight, the young noble enacted his levitational powers and turned about in the air, slowly descending to the cavern floor.

Drizzt kissed Catti-brie on the cheek in admiration of the remarkable shot. Then they ran on, after Entreri and Guenhwyvar. Around the next stalactite, the two saw Entreri and the cat bury another dark elf.

It all seemed so hopeless, though, to no avail. They could keep scoring minor victories for hours on end and not deplete the resources of House Baenre. Even worse, sooner or later the compound's defense would organize fully, and the matron mother and high priestesses, and probably more than a few powerful wizards as well, would come out of the domed chapel to join in the chase.

They climbed a walkway ringing another stalactite, going to the highest worked levels of the cavern. Still there were drow above them, they knew, hiding in the shadows, on their lizard mounts, carefully picking their shots.

Guenhwyvar stopped suddenly and sprang straight up, disappearing into a cluster of hanging stones fully twenty-five feet above the walkway. Back down came the mighty panther, raking and gouging the lizard it brought along. The two crashed to the stone walkway, rolling and biting, and for a moment, Drizzt thought that Guenhwyvar would surely go over the side.

Entreri skidded to a stop a safe distance from the bat-tfing beasts, but the ranger sprang beyond him, putting his scimitars to deadly work on the entangled lizard.

Catti-brie had wisely kept her stare upward, and when a drow drifted slowly out of the stalactite cluster, Taulmaril was waiting. The dark elf fired his hand-crossbow and missed, the quarrel skipping off the bridge behind her; Catti-brie responded and blew the tip off a stalactite just to the side of the drow.

The drow realized immediately that he could not win against the woman and that deadly bow. He scrambled along the stalactites, kicking off them and flying along the cavern's ceiling. Another arrow cracked into the stone, not so far behind, and then another blew out the hanging stone right in front of him, just as he went to grab at it.

The levitating drow was stuck with no handholds, hanging in midair twenty feet up and now a few dozen feet to the side of the walkway. He should have released his levitation spell and dropped for the ground, recalling the magical energies when he was far below Catti-brie's level. He went up instead, seeking the safety of the nooks in the uneven ceiling.

Catti-brie took deadly aim and let fly. The streaking arrow drove right through the doomed drow and thundered up into the ceiling above, disappearing into the stone. A split second later, there came another explosion from above, from somewhere above the cavern roof.

Chapter 25 THE DESPERATE RUN

Patron Baenre swelled with pride as the ritual continued, undisturbed by the events in the compound. She did not know that Dantrag and Berg'inyon had gone out from the chapel, did not know that her vicious Duk-Tak was dead, slain by the very renegade Matron Baenre hoped to soon present before the other ruling matron mothers.

All that Matron Baenre knew was the sweet taste of power. She had brought together the most powerful alliance in recent drow history, with herself at its head. She had out-maneuvered K'yorl Odran, always a clever one, and had virtually cowed Mez'Barris Armgo, the second most influential drow in all the city. Lloth was smiling brightly on the matron mother of House Baenre, she believed.

All she heard was the singing, and not the sounds of battle, and all she saw, looking up, was die magnificent illusion of the Spider Queen, going through its perpetual shift from arachnid to drow and back to arachnid. How could she, or any of the others, watching that specter with similar awe, know of the raging fight nearly a thousand feet above the roof of that domed chapel, along the bridged stalactites of House Baenre?

"A tunnel!" Catti-brie cried to Drizzt. She grabbed him by the shoulder and turning him toward the still-levitating dead drow.

Drizzt looked at her as though he did not understand.

"Up above!" she cried. Catti-brie brought her bow up and fired again into the general area. The arrow slammed into the base of a stalactite, but did not go through.

"If s up there, I tell ye!" the young woman exclaimed. "Another tunnel, above the cavern!"

Drizzt looked doubtfully to the area. He did not question Catti-brie's claim, but he had no idea of how they might get to this supposed tunnel. The closest walkway was fully a dozen feet from the area, and to get to that walkway, though it was barely thirty feet away from and a few feet higher than their current position, the companions would have to take a roundabout route, many hundreds of yards of running.

"What is it?" cried Entreri, rushing back to join his hesitating companions. Looking past them, back down the walkway, the assassin saw the forms of many gathering drow.

"There may be a tunnel above us," Drizzt quickly explained.

Entreri's scowl showed that he hardly believed the information valuable, but his doubts only spurred Catti-brie on. Up came her bow and off flew the arrows, one after another, all aimed for the base of that stubborn stalactite.

A fireball exploded on their walkway, not far behind them, and the whole bridge shuddered as the metal and stone in the area of the blast melted and shifted, threatening to break apart.

Catti-brie spun about and let fly two quick shots, killing one drow and driving the others back behind the protection of the closest supporting stalactite. From somewhere in the darkness ahead, Guenhwyvar growled and crossbows clicked.

"We must be off!" Entreri prodded them, grabbing Drizzt and trying to tug him on. The ranger held his ground, though, and watched with faith as Catti-brie turned again to the side and fired another of her arrows. It smacked solidly into the weakened stone.

The targeted stalactite groaned in protest and slipped down on one side to hang at an awkward angle. A moment later, it fell free into the far drop below. For a moment, Drizzt thought that it might hit the purple-glowing chapel dome, but it smashed to the stone floor a short distance away, shattering into a thousand pieces.

Drizzt, his ears keen, widened his eyes as he focused on the hole, a flicker of hope evident in his expression. "Wind," he explained breathlessly. "Wind from the tunnel!"

It was true. An unmistakable sound of rushing wind emanated from the hole in the ceiling as the air pressure in the caves above adjusted to match the air pressure in the great cavern.

"But how are we to get there?" Catti-brie asked.

Entreri, convinced now, was already fumbling with his pack. He took out a length of rope and a grappling hook and soon had the thing twirling above him. With one shot, he hooked it over the bridge nearest the tunnel. Entreri rushed to the nearest railing of his own walkway and tied off the rope, and Drizzt, without the slightest hesitation, hopped atop the cord and gingerly began to walk out. The agile drow picked up speed as he went, gaining confidence.

That confidence was shattered when an evil dark elf suddenly appeared. Coming out of an invisibility enchantment, he slashed at the rope with his fine-edged sword.

Drizzt dropped flat to the rope and held on desperately. Two cuts sliced it free of the grappling hook, and Drizzt swung down like a pendulum, rocking back and forth ten feet below his companions on the walkway.

The enemy drow's smug smile was quickly wiped away by a silver-streaking arrow.

Drizzt started to climb, then stopped and flinched as a dart whistled past. Another followed suit, and the drow looked down to see a handful of soldiers approaching, levitating up and firing as they came.

Entreri tugged fiercely at the rope, trying to help the ranger back to the walkway. As soon as Drizzt grabbed the lip, the assassin pulled him over, then took the rope from him. He looked at it doubtfully, wondering how in the Nine Hells he was supposed to hook it again over the distant walkway without the grappling hook. Entreri growled determinedly and made the cord into a lasso, then turned to search for a target.

Drizzt threw one knee over the bridge and tried to get his feet under him, just as a thunderous blast struck the walkway right below them. Both the ranger and Catti-brie were knocked from their feet. Drizzt fell again, to hang by his fingertips, and the stone under Catti-brie showed an unmistakable crack.

A crossbow quarrel hit the stone right in front of the drow's face; another popped against the bottom of his boot but did not get through. Then Drizzt was glowing, outlined by distinctive faerie fire, making him an even easier target.

The ranger looked down to the approaching dark elves and called upon his own innate abilities, casting a globe of darkness in front of them. Then he pulled himself up over the lip of the bridge, to find Catti-brie exchanging volleys with the dark elves behind them on the walkway, and Entreri pulling in the thrown lasso, cursing all the while.

"I've no way to hook it," the assassin growled, and he didn't have to spell out the implications. Drow were behind them and below them, inevitably working their way toward the band. The walkway, weakened by the magical assaults, seemed not so secure anymore, and, just to seal their doom, the companions saw Guenhwyvar rushing back to them, apparently in full retreat.

"We're not to surrender," Catti-brie whispered, her eyes filled with determination. She put another arrow back down the walkway, then fell to her belly and hooked her arms over the lip. The ascending drow wizard was just coming through Drizzt's darkness globe, a wand pointed for the walkway.

Catti-brie's arrow hit that wand squarely, split it apart, then gashed the drow's shoulder as it whistled past him. His scream was more of terror than of pain as he regarded his shattered wand, as he considered the release of magical energy that would follow. With typical drow loyalty, the wizard threw the wand below him, into the darkness and into the midst of his rising comrades. He urged his levita-tion on at full speed to get away from the unseen, crackling lightning balls, and heard the horrified calls of his dying companions.

He should have looked up instead, for he never knew what hit him as Catti-brie's next arrow shattered his backbone. That threat eliminated, or at least slowed, the young woman went back up to her knees and opened up another barrage on the stubborn dark elves behind her on the walkway. Their hand-crossbows couldn't reach Catti-brie, and they couldn't hope to hurl their javelins that far, but the woman knew that they were up to something, plotting some way to cause havoc.

Guenhwyvar was no ordinary panther; it possessed an intelligence far beyond the norm of its feline land. Coming fast toward the cornered companions, Guenhwyvar quickly discerned their troubles and their hopes. The panther was sorely wounded, carrying a dozen poisoned crossbow darts in its hide as it ran, but its fierce loyalty was fully with Drizzt.

Entreri fell back and cried aloud as the cat suddenly rushed up and bit the rope from his hand. The assassin went immediately for his weapons, thinking that the cat meant to attack him, but Guenhwyvar skidded to a stop—knocking both Entreri and Drizzt several feet back—turned a right angle, and leaped away, flying through the air,

Guenhwyvar tried to stop, daws raking over the top of the target walkway's smooth stone. The cafs momentum was too great, though, and Guenhwyvar, still clamping tightly to the rope, pitched over the far side, coming to a jerking stop at the rope's end, some twenty feet below the bridge.

More concerned for the cat than for himself, Drizzt instinctively sprang onto the taut rope and ran across, without regard for the fact that Guenhwyvar's hold was tentative at best

Entreri grabbed Catti-brie and pulled her over, motioning for her to follow the drow.

"I cannot walk a tightrope!" the desperate woman explained, eyes wide with horror.

"Then learn!" the assassin roughly replied, and he pushed Catti-brie so hard that she nearly fell right over the side of the walkway. Catti-brie put one foot up on the rope and started to shift her weight to it, but she fell back immediately, shaking her head.

Entreri leaped past her, onto the rope. "Work your bow well!" he explained. "And be ready to untie this end!"

Catti-brie did not understand, but had no time to question as Entreri sped off, walking as surefootedly along the hemp bridge as had Drizzt. Catti-brie fired down the walkway behind her, then had to spin about and fire the other way, ahead, at those drow who had been pursuing Guenhwyvar.

She had no time to aim either way as she continued to turn back and forth, and few of her arrows hit any enemies at all.

Catti-brie took a deep breath. She sincerely lamented the future she would never know. But she followed the sigh with a resigned but determined smile. If she was going down, then Catti-brie had every intention of taking her enemies down with her, had every intention of offering Drizzt his freedom.

Some of those inside the great Baenre chapel had heard and felt the stalactite crash on the compound's floor, but only slightly, since the chapel's walls were of thick stone and two thousand drow voices within the place were lifted in frantic song to Lloth.

Matron Baenre was notified of the crash several moments later, when Sos'Umptu, her daughter in charge of chapel affairs, found the opportunity to whisper to her that something might be amiss out in the compound.

It pained Matron Baenre to interrupt the ceremony. She looked around at the faces of the other matron mothers, her only possible rivals, and remained convinced that they were now wholly committed to her and her plan. Still, she gave Sos'Umptu permission to send out—discreetly—a few members of the chapel elite guard.

Then the first matron mother went back to the ceremony, smiling as though nothing out of the ordinary—except, of course, this extraordinary gathering—was going on. So secure was Matron Baenre in the power of her house that her only fears at that time were that something might disturb the sanctity of the ceremony, something might lessen her in the eyes of Lloth.

She could not imagine the antics of the three fugitives and the panther far, far above.

Hanging low over the bridge, coaxing his dear, wounded companion, Drizzt did not hear Entreri touch down on the stone behind him.

"There is nothing we can do for the cat!" the assassin said roughly, and Drizzt spun about, noticing immediately that Catti-brie was in dire straits across the way.

"You left her!" the ranger cried.

"She could not cross!" Entreri spat back in his face. "Not yet!" Drizzt, consumed by rage, went for his blades, but Entreri ignored him and focused back on Catti-brie, who was kneeling on the stone, fumbling with something that the assassin could not discern.

"Untie the rope!" Entreri called. "But hold fast as you do and swing out!"

Drizzt, thinking himself incredibly stupid for not understanding Entreri's designs, released his grip on his weapon hilts and dove down to help Entreri brace the hemp. As soon as Catti-brie untied the other end, six hundred pounds of pressure—from the falling panther—would yank the rope. Drizzt held no illusions that he and Entreri could hold the panther aloft for more than a short while, but they had to make the tug on the other end of the rope less violent, so that Catti-brie would be able to hold on.

The young woman made no immediate move for the rope, despite Entreri's screams and the dark elves approaching from both sides. Finally she went for it, but came up immediately and cried out, "?Suren it's too tight!"

"Damn, she has no blade," Entreri groaned, realizing his mistake.

Drizzt drew out Twinkle and skipped back atop the rope, determined to die beside his dear Catti-brie. But the young woman hooked Taulmaril over her shoulder and leaped out onto the tentative bridge, wearing an expression of sheer terror. She came across hanging under the hemp, hands and knees locked tight. Ten feet out, then fifteen, halfway to her friends.

The dark elves dosed quickly, seeing that no more of those wicked arrows would be coming at them. The lead drow were nearly up to the rope, hand-crossbows coming up, and Catti-brie would be an easy target indeed!

But then the dark elves in front skidded to a sudden stop and began scrambling to get away, some leaping off the bridge.

Drizzt did not understand what he was seeing, and had no time to sort it out as a ball of fire exploded on the other walkway, right between the converging groups of dark elves. Walls of flame rolled out at Drizzt, and he fell back, throwing his hands up in front of him.

A split second later, Entreri cried out and the rope, burned through on the other walkway, began to whip past them, with Guenhwyvar more than balancing Catti-brie's weight.

Entreri and Drizzt were quick enough to dive and grab at the rope when it stopped flying past, when valiant Guenhwyvar, understanding that Catti-brie would be knocked from her tentative grasp as she collided with the side of the walkway, let go and plummeted into the darkness.

The bridge across the way creaked apart and fell, crashing against one levitating drow who had survived the wand explosion, and dropping those dark elves remaining on the platform. Most of those still alive could levitate, and would not fall to their deaths, but the explosion had certainly bought the companions precious time.

Catti-brie, her face red from the heat and small flames dancing along her cloak, kept the presence of mind to reach up and grab Drizzt's offered hand.

"Let Guen go!" she pleaded breathlessly, her lungs pained by the heat, and Drizzt understood immediately. Still holding fast to the woman's hand, the ranger fished the figurine out of Catti-brie's pouch and called for Guenhwyvar to be gone. He could only hope that the magic took hold before the panther hit the floor.

Then the ranger heaved Catti-brie up to the walkway and wrapped her in a tight hug. Entreri, meanwhile, had retrieved the grappling hook and was tying it off. A deft shot put the thing through the hole Catti-brie had created by blasting away the stalactite.

"Go!" the assassin said to Drizzt, and the drow was off, climbing hand over hand as Entreri anchored the rope around the metal railing. Catti-brie went next, not nearly as fast as Drizzt, and Entreri shouted curses at her, thinking that her slowness would allow their enemies to catch up with them.

Drizzt could already see dark elves levitating up from the cavern floor beneath his newest position, though it would take them many minutes to get that high.

"It is secured!" Drizzt called from the tunnel above— and all were indeed relieved to learn that there truly was a tunnel up above, and not just a small cubby!

Entreri let go of his hold, then sprang onto the rope as it swung directly under the hole.

Drizzt pulled Catti-brie in and considered the climbing man. He could cut the rope and drop Entreri to his death, and surely the world would have been a better place without the assassin. But honor held Drizzt to his word, to Catti-brie's word. He could not dispute the assassin's daring efforts to get them all this far, and he would not now resort to treachery.

He grabbed Entreri when the man got close and hauled him in. Holding Taulmaril, Catti-brie went back to the hole, looking for any dark elves that might be on their way. Then she noticed something else: the purple faerie fire of the great, domed chapel, almost directly below her position. She thought of the expression on the faces of those drow at the high ritual inside if Guenhwyvar had crashed through that roof—and that notion led her mind to other ideas. She

smiled wickedly as she looked again to the dome, and to the ceiling above it.

The tunnel was natural and uneven, but wide enough for the three to walk abreast A flash stole the darkness up ahead, telling the companions that they were not alone.

Drizzt ran ahead, scimitars in hand, thinking to clear the way. Entreri moved to follow, but hesitated, seeing that Catti-brie was inexplicably going back the other way.

"What are you about?" the assassin demanded, but the woman didn't answer. She merely fitted an arrow to her bow as she measured her steps.

She fell back and cried out as she crossed a side passage and a drow soldier leaped out at her, but before he got his sword in line, a hurled dagger sank into his rib cage. Entreri rushed in, meeting the next drow in line, calling for Catti-brie to run back the other way, to join Drizzt.

"Hold them!" was all the explanation the young woman offered, and she continued on in the opposite direction.

"Hold them?" Entreri echoed. He cut down the second drow in line and engaged the third as two others ran off the way they had come.

Drizzt careened around a bend, even leaped onto the curving wall to keep his desperate speed.

"Valiant!" came a greeting call, spoken in the Drow tongue, and the ranger slowed and stopped when he saw Dantrag and Berg'inyon Baenre sitting casually atop their lizard mounts in the middle of the passage.

Chapter 26 CATTI-BRIE'S SURPRISE

"I thought that your lizard was shot out from under you," Drizzt remarked, trying to sound confident in the face of his disappointment.

Berg'inyon steeled his red-glowing gaze upon the impetuous renegade and did not respond.

"A fine shot," Dantrag agreed, "but it was only a lizard, after all, and well worth the entertainment you and your pitiful friends have provided." Dantrag casually reached over and took the long death lance from his brother's hand. "Are you ready to die, Drizzt Do'Urden?" he asked as he lowered the deadly tip,

Drizzt crouched low, feeling his balance, and crossed his scimitars in front of him. Where were Catti-brie and Entreri? he wondered, and he feared that they had met resistance—Dantrag's soldiers? — back in the corridor.

Despair washed over him suddenly with the thought that Catti-brie might already be dead, but the ranger pushed it away, reminded himself to trust her, to trust that she could take care of herself.

Dantrag's lizard leaped ahead, then skittered sideways along a wall. Drizzt had no idea of which way the creature would veer when it came near him. Back to the floor? Higher on the wall? Or might it turn right up onto the ceiling and carry its hanging rider right above the target?

Dantrag knew that Drizzt had been on the surface, where there were no ceilings, for many years—did he think the last choice the most devious?

Drizzt started toward the opposite wall, but fell to his knees instead at the same instant that Dantrag coaxed his fast-running, sticky-footed mount up to the ceiling. The tip of the long lance just missed the ducking ranger's head, and Drizzt leaped up as the rider passed, grabbing at the weapon's shaft.

He felt a sting in his lower back, and turned to see Berg'inyon sitting calmly atop his mount, reloading his hand-crossbow.

"It does not have to be a fair fight, Drizzt Do'Urden!" Dantrag explained with a laugh. He swung his well-trained mount about, brought it back to the floor, and lowered the lance once more.

Sword and dagger flashed wildly as Entreri tried to finish the stubborn dark elf. This one was a skilled fighter, though, and his parries were fast and on target. Behind the drow, the other dark elves were steadily inching toward Entreri, gaining confidence as they watched their companion hold the assassin's devilish attacks at bay.

"What are you doing?" Entreri demanded of Catti-brie, seeing her kneeling beside a large mound of rock. The woman stood up and fired an arrow into the stone, then a second, then dropped back to her knees.

"What are you doing?" Entreri demanded more emphatically.

"Stop yer whining and be done with the drow," Catti-brie snarled back, and Entreri regarded her incredulously, suddenly not so sure of what to make of this surprising creature. Almost as an afterthought, Catti-brie tossed the onyx panther figurine to the floor. "Come back, Guenhwyvar," she said too calmly. "Me heroic companion's needing yer help."

Entreri growled and went at his opponent with renewed fury—just the effect conniving Catti-brie had hoped for. His sword went into a circular movement, and his jeweled dagger poked in behind it at every opportunity.

The dark elf called out something, and one of those nearest him mustered some courage and came forward to join the combatants. Entreri growled and reluctantly fell back a step, across the corridor.

A streaking arrow cut in front of the assassin, stealing his sight, and when his vision returned, he faced only one drow again, and those others watching from behind, in the side passage, were long gone.

Entreri put a sarcastic glance at Catti-brie, but she was firing into the stone again (and talking to the returned panther) and did not hear.

Drizzt felt the burn of drow poison in his back, but felt, too, the tingling of the recently quaffed healing potions. He started to swoon—purposely—and heard Dantrag laughing at him, mocking him. The predictable click of Berg'inyon's crossbow sounded, and Drizzt fell right to the stone, the dart arcing over him and stealing the mirth from the smug weapon master as it skipped off the stone not so far from Dantrag's head.

Dantrag's charge was on before Drizzt was fully back to his feet, the weapon master coming straight at him this time. Drizzt fell to one knee, shot back up, and spun away, frantically batting at the dangerous and enchanted lance as it passed just under his high-flying arm. Dantrag, incredibly fast, snapped off a backhanded slap into Drizzt's face as he passed. Drizzt, both his blades intent on keeping the lance at bay, could not respond.

Back came the weapon master, impossibly quick, and Drizzt had to dive to the side as the mighty lance scratched a deep line into the stone. Drizzt reversed his direction immediately, hoping to score a hit as the lance went past, but again Dantrag was too quick, snapping out his own sword and not only deflecting Drizzt's lunge, but countering with a slapping strike against the side of Drizzt's outstretched hand. And then the sword went back into its sheath, too fast for Drizzt to follow the move.

Around wheeled the lizard, going up on a wall for this pass and sending Drizzt into a frantic roll back the other way.

"How long, Drizzt Do'Urden?" the cocky weapon master asked, knowing that Drizzt, with all his frantic dodging had to be tiring.

Drizzt growled and could not disagree, but as he rose from the floor, turning to follow the lizard's progress, the ranger saw a glimmer of hope from the comer of his eye: the welcome face of a certain black panther as it bounded around the corridor's bend.

Dantrag was just turning his mount about for a fifth pass when Guenhwyvar barreled in.??ver went the lizard, with Dantrag strapped in for the ride. The weapon master managed to somehow get loose of his bindings as the beasts continued to roll, and he came up, quite shaken, facing the ranger.

"Now the fight is fair," Drizzt declared.

A crossbow quarrel whistled past Dantrag, and past Drizzt's blocking scimitar, to score a hit on the ranger's shoulder.

"Hardly," Dantrag corrected, his smile returning. Faster than Drizzt's eye could follow, he snapped his two swords from their sheaths and began his measured advance. In his head his sentient sword, hungering for this fight perhaps more than the weapon master himself, telepathically agreed.

Hardly.

"What are you about?" Entreri screamed when Guenhwyvar bounded past him, giving no apparent regard to his opponent. The flustered assassin took out his frustration on the lone drow facing him, hitting the unfortunate soldier with a three-cut combination that left him off balance and with one of his arms severely bleeding. Entreri probably could have finished the fight right then, except that his attention was still somewhat focused on Catti-brie.

"I'm just digging holes," the young woman said, as though that should explain everything. Several more bow shots followed in rapid succession, chipping away at the hard stone of an enormous stalactite. One arrow went through then, back into the cavern below.

"There is fighting ahead," Entreri called. "And dark elves will soon be floating through that hole in the ceiling."

"Then be done with yer work!" Catti-brie shouted at him. "And be leaving me to me own!"

Entreri bit back his next retort, gnawed on his lips instead, and determined that if he was alive when this was all over, Catti-brie would wish that she was not.

The drow facing the assassin came on suddenly, thinking that his opponent was distracted and thinking to score a quick victory. But Entreri's sword snapped left, right, and straight ahead, batting aside both weapons and scoring a minor hit, again on the bleeding arm.

They were no more than a tumbling ball of fur and scales, Guenhwyvar and the subterranean lizard locked in a raking, biting jumble. With its longer neck, the lizard had its head far to the side, biting at Guenhwyvar's flank, but Guenhwyvar stubbornly kept a firm hold on the base of the lizard's neck. More deadly still, the panther's claws were inside the lizard's reach, affording Guenhwyvar a distinct advantage as they rolled. The panther's front claws kept a tight and steady hold, while Guenhwyvar's rear legs tucked in close and began a vicious kicking rake, tearing at the reptilian beast.

Victory was at hand for the beleaguered panther, but then Guenhwyvar feft a wicked sting in the back, the sting of a sword.

The panther whipped its maw about in a frenzy, tearing out a chunk of the lizard's shoulder, but the pain brought blackness, and Guenhwyvar, already battered from the run along the walkways, had to give in, had to melt away into an insubstantial mist and follow the tunnel back to the Astral Plane.

The torn lizard rolled about on the stone, bleeding from its neck and sides, its belly hanging free of its skin. It crept away as swiftly as it could, seeking a hole in which to crawl.

Berg'inyon paid it no heed. He simply sat back on his own mount and watched the impending battle with more than a passing interest. He started to load his hand-crossbow, but changed his mind and just sat back.

It occurred to Berg'inyon then that he stood only to gain, no matter who won this contest.

Hands out, his sword blades resting across his shoulders, the weapon master casually walked up to stand before Drizzt He started to say something, so Drizzt thought, when a sword abruptly whipped out. Drizzt heaved his own weapon up to block, heard the ring of steel on steel, then Dantrag sliced out with his second blade, and punched ahead with the hilt of his first.

Drizzt could hardly register the moves. He got Twinkle up in time to block the second blade, and got punched solidly in the face. Then he was struck in the face a second time as Dantrag's other hand flew up, too quick for Drizzt to catch.

What magic did this drow possess? Drizzt wondered, for he did not believe that anyone could move so quickly.

The razorlike edge of one of Dantrag's swords began to glow a distinct line of red, though it seemed no more than a dull blur to Drizzt as the weapon master continued his lightning-fast routines. Drizzt could only react to each move, snap his blades this way and that and take some relief in hearing the ring of steel. All thoughts of countering the moves were gone; Drizzt could hope only that Dantrag would quickly tire.

But Dantrag smiled, realizing that Drizzt, like any other drow, could not move fast enough to effectively counter.

Twinkle caught a slice coming in at Drizzt's left; Dantrag's other sword, the glowing one, arced out wide to the right, and Drizzt was somewhat off balance as his second scimitar rushed, tip straight up, to block. The sword connected on the scimitar near its tip, and Drizzt knew that he hadn't the strength to fully stop that blow with that difficult angle. He dove straight down as his blade inevitably tipped in, and the sword swished above Ms head, went right across as Drizzt spun away, to slash against—and cut deeply into! — the stone wall.

Drizzt nearly screamed aloud at the incredible edge that weapon displayed, to cut stone as easily as if it had been a wall of Bruenor Battlehammer's favorite smelly cheese!

"How long can you continue?" Dantrag asked him, mocked him. "Already your moves are slowing, Drizzt Do'Urden. I will have your head soon." In stalked the confident weapon master, even more confident now that he had seen the legendary renegade in battle.

Drizzt had been caught by surprise, back on his heels and fearful of the consequences of his loss. He forced himself to realize that now, forced himself to fall into a meditative trance, purely focused on his enemy. He could not continue to react to Dantrag's flashing movements; he had to look deeper, to understand the methods of his cunning and skilled adversary, as he had when Dantrag had first charged on the lizard. Drizzt had known the charging Dantrag would go to the ceiling, because he had managed to understand the situation through the weapon master's eyes.

And so it went now. Dantrag came with a left, right, left, left, thrust combination, but Drizzt's blades were in line for the parry every time, Drizzt actually beginning the blocks before Dantrag had begun the attacks. The weapon master's attacks were not so different from Zak'nafein's during all those years of training. While Dantrag moved faster than any drow Drizzt had ever encountered, the ranger began to suspect that Dantrag could not improvise in the middle of any moves.

He caught a high-riding sword, spun a complete circuit to whip Twinkle across and knock away the predictable thrust of the second. It was true, Drizzt then knew; Dantrag was as much a prisoner of his own speed as were his opponents.

In came a vicious thrust, but Drizzt was already down on his knees, one scimitar snapping up above his head to keep Dantrag's weapon riding high. The weapon master's second strike was on the way, but it fell a split second after Twinkle had reached out and cut a fine line on the side of Dantrag's shin, forcing the Baenre into a hopping retreat instead.

With a growl of rage, the weapon master bore right back in, slapping at Drizzt's blades, slowly working them up high. Drizzt countered every move, falling in line with the attack patterns. At first, the ranger's mind worked ahead to find an effective counterstrike, but then Drizzt understood Dantrag's aim in this routine, a scenario that Drizzt had played out before with his father.

Dantrag could not know—only Drizzt and Zak'nafein knew—that Drizzt had found the solution to this usually unbeatable offense.

Up higher went the scimitars, Dantrag moving under them and in. The attack was called double-thrust-low, wherein the aim was to get your opponent's weapons up high, then step back suddenly and come straight in with both your own blades.

Drizzt hopped back and snapped his crossed scimitars down atop the flying blades, the only parry against the cunning move, the cross-down. But Drizzt was countering even as he blocked, shifting his weight to his lead foot as his back foot kicked out, between his scimitar hilts, between Dantrag's surprised eyes.

He connected squarely on the weapon master's face, staggering Dantrag back several steps. Drizzt sprang right ahead, all over the stunned drow in a wild flurry. Now he was forcing the moves, striking repeatedly so that his opponent could not again gain the offensive, could not use that unbelievable speed to its fullest advantage.

Now it was Dantrag who was reacting to Drizzt's blinding attacks, scimitars snapping in at him from every conceivable angle. Drizzt didn't know how long he could keep up the wild flurry, but he understood that he could not allow Dantrag to regain the offensive, could not allow Dantrag to again put him back on his heels.

To Dantrag's credit, he managed to keep his balance well enough to defeat the attacks, and the weapon master dodged aside whenever a scimitar slipped through. Drizzt noticed that only Dantrag's hands seemed possessed of that impossible speed; the rest of the draw's body moved well, perfectly balanced, as would be expected of a Baenre weapon master. But, ultimately, except for the hands, Dantrag moved no faster than Drizzt could move.

Twinkle went straight in. Dantrag's sword banged against its side. Sly Drizzt twisted the scimitar, used its curving blade to roll it over the weapon master's sword and bite at his arm.

Dantrag leaped back, trying to break the clinch, but Drizzt paced him, scimitars waving. Again, then a third time, Drizzt turned Dantrag's perfect parries into minor hits, the fluid motions of his curving blades trapping the straight blocks of the swords.

Could Dantrag anticipate Drizzt's moves as well as Drizzt had anticipated the weapon master's? Drizzt wondered with more than a little sarcasm, and he sublimated his wicked smile. Straight ahead went Twinkle, and out snapped the blocking sword, the only possible defense. Drizzt started to twist the blade, and Dantrag started to retract the arm.

But Drizzt stopped suddenly and reversed the flow. Twinkle shooting across faster than Dantrag could react. The deadly scimitar gashed deeply into the weapon master's other forearm, poking it out wide, then came back across, Drizzt stepping into the move so that his extended blade slashed a tight line across Dantrag's belly.

Wincing in pain, the weapon master managed to leap back from his deadly adversary. "You are good," he admitted, and though he tried to keep his confident facade, Drizzt could tell by the quiver in his voice that the last hit had been serious.

Dantrag smiled unexpectedly. "Berg'inyon!" he called, looking to the side. His eyes widened indeed when he saw that his brother was no longer there.

"He wishes to be the weapon master," Drizzt reasoned calmly.

Dantrag roared in outrage and leaped ahead, his attacks coming in rapid fire, suddenly stealing the offensive.

Up flashed the sword and in stepped the furious assassin, his jeweled dagger drinking eagerly of his opponent's lifeblood. Entreri jerked the weapon once, then again, then stepped back and let the dead drow fall to the stone.

The assassin kept the presence of mind to immediately jump to the side of the passage, and shook his head helplessly as several darts knocked against the corridor wall opposite the opening.

Entreri turned to the still-kneeling Catti-brie and demanded again to know what she was up to.

The auburn-haired woman, so deceptively innocent-looking, smiled widely and held up the last of the loaded hourglasses, then put it into one of her arrow-blasted holes.

The blood drained from the assassin's face as he realized how Catti-brie had blown up the walkway back in the cavern, as he realized what she was doing now.

"We should be running," Catti-brie remarked, coming up from her crouch, Taulmaril in hand.

Entreri was already moving, not even looking down the side corridor as he passed it.

Catti-brie came right behind, actually laughing. She paused long enough at the hole in the floor, leading back into the main cavern, to shout out to those levitating dark elves drifting up toward her that they weren't likely to enjoy the reception.

Thrust left, thrust right, down-cut left, down-cut right. Dantrag's attack came brutally swift and hard, but Drizzt's scimitars were in place for the parries and blocks, and again the cunning ranger used a third weapon—his boot—to counter. He snapped his foot up to slam the weapon master's already wounded belly.

Dantrag couldn't stop from lurching over, and then he was back on the defensive again, reacting desperately as Drizzt relentlessly waded in.

Around the bend came Entreri. "Run on!" he cried, and though the assassin needed Drizzt for his ultimate escape, he did not dare to stop and pull the ranger along.

Catti-brie came next, just in time to see Drizzt's scimitars flash straight ahead, to be taken out wide and held by Dantrag's blocking swords. Up came Drizzt's knee, quicker than Dantrag's, as the two inevitably moved together, and in a sudden explosion of agony, the wounded weapon master understood that he could not hold Drizzt back.

Drizzt turned Twinkle over the blocking sword and put it in line for Dantrag's ribs, then the two seemed to pause for an instant, eye to eye.

"Zak'nafein would have defeated you," the ranger promised grimly, and he plunged Twinkle deep into Dantrag's heart.

Drizzt turned to Catti-brie, trying to fathom the level of terror apparent in her wide eyes.

Chapter 27 SORTING IT OUT

It creaked and groaned in protest, shock waves and searing flames melting its hold on the cavern ceiling. Then it fell, like a great spear, whistling along its thousand-foot descent.

Helpless and horrified, those dark elves levitating nearby watched it fly past.

Inside the domed chapel, the ceremony continued undisturbed.

A female soldier, an elite guard of House Baenre but certainly no noble, rushed up to the central dais, screaming wildly. At first. Matron Baenre and the others thought her caught up in the outrageous frenzy, an all-too-common sight in the out-of-control drow rituals. Gradually they came to understand that this soldier was screaming cries of warning. Seven matron mothers turned suddenly suspicious gazes on Matron Baenre, and even her own daughters did not know what she was about. Then the stalactite hit.

Drizzt caught Catti-brie in midair, then he, too, was flying. He rolled over as the two touched down, burying the young woman under him protectively.

They were both screaming, but neither heard anything beyond the thunderous roar of the widening fireball. Drizzt's back warmed, and his cloak ignited in several places as the very edge of the firestorm rolled over him.

Then it was done as quickly as it had begun. Drizzt rolled off Catti-brie, scrambled to get out of his burning cloak, and rushed to get to his still-down companion, fearing that she had been knocked unconscious, or worse, in the explosion.

Catti-brie opened a blue eye and flashed a wistful, mischievous smile.

"I'm betting that the way is clear behind us," she smirked and Drizzt nearly laughed aloud. He scooped her up in his arms and hugged her tightly, feeling in that instant as though they might actually be free once more. He thought of the times to come in Mithril Hall, times that would be spent beside Bruenor and Regis and Guenhwyvar, and, of course, Catti-brie.

Drizzt could not believe all that he had almost thrown away.

He let Catti-brie go for a moment and rushed back around the bend, just to confirm that all those drow pursuing them were gone.

"Hello," Catti-brie whispered under her breath, looking down to a magnificent sword lying next to the fallen weapon master. Catti-brie gingerly picked the weapon up, confused as to why an evil drow noble would wield a sword whose hilt was sculpted in the shape of a unicorn, the symbol of the goodly goddess Mielikki.

"What have you found?" Drizzt asked, returning calmly.

"I think that this one'd suit yerself," Catti-brie remarked, holding up the weapon to display the unusual pommel.

Drizzt stared at the sword curiously. He had not noticed that hilt in his fight with Dantrag, though he certainly remembered that blade as the one that had so easily cut through the stone wall. "You keep it," he offered with a shrug. "I favor the scimitar, and if that is truly a weapon of Mielikki, then she would be pleased to have it on the hip of Catti-brie."

Catti-brie saluted Drizzt, smiled widely, and slipped the sword into her belt. She turned about, hearing Entreri's return, as Drizzt bent over Dantrag's body and quietly slipped the bracers off the dead draw's wrists,

"We cannot delay!" the obviously flustered assassin snapped. "All of Menzoberranzan knows of us now, and a thousand miles will not be enough ground between me and that wretched city."

For perhaps the first time, Drizzt found that he completely agreed with the assassin.

Belted as it was on the hip of the human woman was not exactly what the sentient Khazid'hea had in mind. The sword had heard much talk of Drizzt Do'Urden and, upon Dantrag's defeat, had altered the appearance of its magical pommel so that it might rest in the grasp of the legendary warrior.

Drizzt hadn't taken the bait, but the sword that had rightfully earned the name Cutter could wait.

The going was smooth, with no pursuit evident for the rest of that day and long into the night. Finally the group had no choice but to stop and rest, but it was a fitful and nervous time indeed.

So it went for three days of running, putting the miles behind them. Drizzt kept the lead, and kept the companions far from Blingdenstone, fearful of involving the svirmebli in any of this incredible and dangerous web. He could not understand why lizard-riding draw patrols had not overtaken them, could hardly believe that scores of dark elves were not crouched in corridors behind them, or on their flanks, waiting to spring an ambush.

Thus, Drizzt was not surprised to see a familiar, outrageous dark elf standing in the middle of the corridor, wide-brimmed hat in hand, waiting to greet him and his fleeing companions.

Catti-brie, still seething, still on her warrior's edge, brought Taulmaril up immediately. "Ye're not for running free this time," she muttered under her breath, remembering how the crafty Jarlaxle had eluded them after the fight in Mithril Hall.

Entreri grabbed the arrow before Catti-brie had bent the bow, and the young woman, seeing that Drizzt was making no move to go for his weapons, did not continue.

"Please, dear and beautiful woman," the mercenary said to her. "I have only come out to say farewell."

His words grated on Catti-brie's nerves, but at the same time, she could not deny that Jarlaxle had treated her with dignity, had not abused her when she had been bis helpless prisoner.

"From my perspective, that would seem a strange thing," Drizzt remarked, taking care to keep his voice calm. He felt in the pouch for the onyx figurine, but took little comfort in its presence, knowing that if he found the need to summon Guenhwyvar, they would all likely die. Both Drizzt and Entreri, understanding the methods of Bregan D'aerthe and the precautions of its elusive leader, knew that they were surrounded by skilled warriors in overwhelming numbers.

"Perhaps I was not so opposed to your escape, Drizzt Do'Urden, as you seem to think," Jarlaxle replied, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he had aimed that remark directly at Artemis Entreri.

Entreri did not seem surprised by the claim. Everything had fallen neatly into place for the assassin—Catti-brie's circlet and the locket that helped to locate Drizzt; the spider mask; Jarlaxle's references to the vulnerability of House Baenre during the high ritual; even the panther figurine, waiting for him to take it, on Jarlaxle's desk. He did not know how purposeful and involved Jarlaxle had been in arranging things, but he certainly understood that the mercenary had anticipated what might come to pass.

'Tou betrayed your own people," the assassin said.

"My own people?" Jarlaxle balked. "Define that term, people." Jarlaxle paused a few moments, then laughed, hearing no answer to his request. "I did not cooperate with the plans of one matron mother," he corrected.

"The first matron mother," Entreri put in.

"For now," the mercenary added with a wistful smile. "Not all the drow of Menzoberranzan were so pleased by the alliance Baenre had formed—not even all of Matron Baenre's own family."

"Triel," Entreri said, more to Drizzt than to the mercenary.

"Among others," said Jarlaxle.

"What're the two talking about?" Catti-brie whispered to Drizzt, who only shrugged, not understanding the larger picture.

"We are discussing the fate of Mithril Hall," Jarlaxle explained to her. "I commend your aim, dear and beautiful lady." He swept into a graceful bow that, for some reason, made Catti-brie more than a little uncomfortable.

Jarlaxle looked to Drizzt. "I would pay dearly for a glimpse of the expressions worn by those matron mothers inside the Baenre chapel when your lovely companion's stalactite spear plunged through the roof!"

Both Drizzt and Entreri turned to stare at Catti-brie, who just shrugged and smiled innocently.

"You didn't kill many drow," Jarlaxle quickly added. "Only a handful in the chapel, and no more than two dozen throughout your entire escape. House Baenre will recover, though it may take a while to figure out how to extract your handiwork from their no-longer-perfectly-domed ceiling! House Baenre will recover."

"But the alliance," Drizzt remarked, beginning to understand why no drow other than Bregan D'aerthe had come into the runnels in pursuit.

"Yes, the alliance," Jarlaxle replied, offering no explanation. "In truth, the alliance to go after Mithril Hall was dead the minute that Drizzt Do'Urden was taken captive.

"But the questions!" Jarlaxle continued. "So many to be answered. That is why I have come out, of course."

The three companions looked to each other, not understanding what the mercenary might be hinting at.

"You have something that I must return," Jarlaxle explained, looking directly at Entreri. He held out his empty hand. "You will turn it over."

"And if we don't?" Catti-brie demanded fiercely.

Jarlaxle laughed.

The assassin immediately produced the spider mask. Of course Jarlaxle would need to put it back in Sorcere, else he would be implicated in the escape.

Jarlaxle's eyes gleamed when he saw the item, the one piece left to put into his completed puzzle. He suspected that Triel Baenre had watched Entreri and Catti-brie's every step when they had gone into Sorcere to pilfer the thing. Jarlaxle's actions in guiding the assassin to the mask, though, in precipitating the escape of Drizzt Do'Urden, were perfectly in line with the eldest Baenre daughter's desires. He took faith that she would not betray him to her mother.

If he could just get that mask back into Sorcere—no difficult feat—before Gromph Baenre realized that it was missing…

Entreri looked to Drizzt, who had no answers, then tossed the mask to Jarlaxle. Almost as an afterthought, the mercenary reached up and took a ruby pendant off his neck.

'It is not so effective against drow nobles," he explained dryly, and threw it unexpectedly to Drizzt.

Drizzt's hand snapped out, too soon, and the pendant, Regis's pendant, slapped against the ranger's forearm. Quick as could be, Drizzt snapped his hand back in, catching the thing before it had fallen half an inch.

"Dantrag's bracers," Jarlaxle said with a laugh as he noticed the ranger's covered wrist. "I had suspected as much of them. Fear not, for you will get used to them, Drizzt Do'Urden, and then how much more formidable you will be!"

Drizzt said nothing, but didn't doubt the mercenary's words.

Entreri, not yet free of his rivalry with Drizzt, eyed the ranger dangerously, not the least bit pleased.

"And so you have defeated Matron Baenre's plans," Jarlaxle went on grandly, sweeping into another bow. "And you, assassin, have earned your freedom. But look ever over your shoulders, daring friends, for the memories of dark elves are long and the methods of dark elves are devious."

There came an explosion, a blast of orange smoke, and when it cleared, Jarlaxle was gone.

"And good riddance to ye," Catti-brie muttered.

"As I will say to you when we part company on the surface," Entreri promised grimly.

"Only because Catti-brie gave you her word," Drizzt replied, his tone equally grave. He and Entreri locked uncompromising stares, looks of pure hatred, and Catti-brie, standing between them, felt uncomfortable indeed.