For some reason, given what Drizzt knew of Jarlaxle, that didn’t sound like much of an exaggeration.
Ambergris, Drizzt, and Effron sat together that night in the back of an open wagon, one of a score that would begin the dangerous journey to Icewind Dale the next morning. As Athrogate had promised, the caravanners were more than thrilled to have the three along as added guards, for the road to Ten-Towns was fraught with peril and the reputation of Drizzt Do’Urden not so easily dismissed.
Drizzt put a hand on Effron’s shoulder, trying to comfort the young tiefling as Ambergris related the last moments of Dahlia’s life.
“All three saw the beast,” she finished. “All three turned to stone. I got me out o’ there, but only by the hair in me ears. He was waitin’ for us, I tell ye.”
“We certainly didn’t catch Lord Draygo by surprise,” Drizzt agreed, and he sighed deeply at the sad story, though he had already come to understand that Dahlia and the others were lost to him.
“It’s my fault,” Effron said, his voice thick with sadness. “I should never have led you there.”
“Had I learned of your information at a later time, and that you knew of Lord Draygo’s secret prisoner, I would never have forgiven you,” Drizzt told him. “Guenhwyvar is a friend. I had to try.”
“Aye, and all who went with ye, meself included, did so of our own accord,” said Ambergris. “Ye did right,” she told Effron. “That’s the price of companionship and loyalty, and one not willin’ to pay it ain’t one worth walkin’ beside.”
“I deserted Draygo Quick’s side and abandoned all that I knew, all of my friends and indeed my home, to find my mother’s side,” Effron replied.
“Thought ye did that to kill her to death,” Ambergris reminded.
“I did it to learn the truth!” Effron retorted, a vein of anger entering his tone. “I had to know.”
“And once ye did?”
“I found my mother’s side, and now she is gone and I am alone.”
Ambergris and Drizzt exchanged looks at that, and both asked together, “Are you?”
“Icewind Dale,” Drizzt said. “When I was alone, so long ago, it was there that I found my heart and my home. And there I go again, and this time I am not alone, nor are you.”
He patted Effron on the back, and the young tiefling gave him an appreciative nod.
A movement off the back of the wagon caught their attention, and a form, a female elf form—Dahlia’s form!—leaped up onto the bed and skidded across to kneel before the seated Effron, whom she immediately wrapped in a huge hug.
“By the gods!’ Ambergris cried.
“By Jarlaxle, I expect,” Drizzt corrected.
“Indeed,” replied Artemis Entreri, coming up to the back of the wagon beside Afafrenfere, who appeared quite glum, surprisingly.
Drizzt hugged Dahlia and nodded at the man. Ambergris scrambled back to greet her old Cavus Dun mate.
“Eh, but what’s yer glower?” she asked the monk, who merely shook his head.
“How?” Drizzt asked. “You had been turned to stone, so says Ambergris.”
Entreri shrugged.
“I remember little,” Dahlia admitted. “I saw the horrid creature, and then I was in the catacombs, Jarlaxle at my side and wearing his smug grin.”
“Athrogate told us where to find you,” Entreri added. “We are bound for Icewind Dale?”
“We are indeed,” said Drizzt, and he felt light at that moment, so glad to see all three of his lost companions. Dahlia crushed him tighter in a hug, and he returned the embrace. She backed off just enough to try to passionately kiss him.
He kissed her, briefly, but he turned his lips away. “Effron, food for our friends!” he said exuberantly, injecting energy to cover up his revealing slip.
When he looked at Dahlia, though, he saw the pain there, and knew that his dodge had been unsuccessful. He hugged her tight again, but this time she broke the embrace and moved to take a seat in the wagon, pointedly on the other side of Effron and not beside Drizzt.
They were going to speak, and soon, Drizzt knew, and he wondered if his coming honesty with Dahlia would split the group apart. Perhaps it would, he realized, and so he knew that he owed it to her, to all of them, to have the conversation before they made the difficult journey to Icewind Dale.
The six moved off the wagon and to the campfire to share a hot meal then, but the talk about that fire was quite light, and often nonexistent, for in truth, they had little to talk about. Time had stopped for half the group, after all, and Drizzt and Effron’s tales of their imprisonment by Draygo Quick offered very little content.
Ambergris took the lead in the conversation after dinner, recounting the last moments of the battle and explaining how she came to find Jarlaxle.
That part of the dwarf’s story had Drizzt and Entreri perking up.
“Tiago Baenre,” Drizzt whispered when the dwarf described Jarlaxle’s rescue of her off the streets of Luskan. Given what he had been told by Athrogate, it made sense, and given that Tiago and his cohorts obviously knew the identities of Drizzt’s companions, the news made him change his mind about his present plans.
He would not speak honestly with Dahlia until they were all safely away, for her own sake.
Not far away from the group, another listened as best he could to their light chatter. Madigan Pruett served Ship Rethnor, and knew that his high captain would be anxious to hear any news of Dahlia.
But Madigan wasn’t sure that he’d relay this news to his Ship, for he had heard of another who had put out word on the street that he was looking for, and paying well for, any information that could be found regarding Drizzt Do’Urden.
Madigan Pruett had come out this night to deliver the last of Rethnor’s supplies for the caravan. Now with this profitable opportunity before him, he decided that he would sign on with the caravan, but only as far as the southern entrance to the pass through the Spine of the World, a couple of days of travel if the weather held.
Then he’d take his information to the man paying well, a visiting wizard named Huervo the Seeker.
A hundred miles to the southeast, and a thousand feet below the surface, Saribel Xorlarrin roused her brother, and the two went with all haste to Tiago Baenre’s private chamber.
Every night at her evening prayers, Saribel asked the handmaidens of the Spider Queen to guide her search, and on a more practical level, she had been charged with maintaining contact to the spies Tiago had set about Neverwinter, Port Llast, and other cities of the region.
“We must return to Luskan with all haste,” Ravel Xorlarrin explained to Tiago.
“The dwarf has been located?”
“Better,” said Ravel, and he looked to Saribel.
“Drizzt Do’Urden has surfaced, at long last,” she explained.
Elated but not surprised, Tiago had been expecting this news since his near capture of the dwarf known as Ambergris. He moved from his bed, took up his clothing and armor, and fabulous sword and shield.
“He is with his companions, then,” Tiago remarked.
“It would seem to be the case,” Ravel answered.
“Gather them all, then,” Tiago instructed, referring to the special force he had assembled for just this occasion, comprised of Ravel’s closest spellspinners and warriors, including Jearth, the weapons master of House Xorlarrin. “We will take no chances of missing the heretic rogue this time.”
“And House Xorlarrin will share in the credit?” Saribel dared to ask.
Tiago snapped a look at her, wearing a smile that he knew would surely unsettle the young priestess. He understood the source of her question: She would, after all, have to answer to her older and quite severe sister, Berellip, for her actions. Both Saribel and Ravel needed some assurance of gain for their House, given the risk they were putting forth.
“Share?” Tiago said with a dismissive laugh. “You will be mentioned prominently as the force I employed to carry out my great victory.”
He kept his tone condescending, but knew, of course, that these two, his lessers, would be satisfied with that.
And so they were.
The next night, a force of more than twenty-five drow and a handful of driders, led by mighty Yerrininae and his wife Flavvor, moved north along the tunnels out of Gauntlgrym.
The wagons rolled at a swift pace. The weather had been dry and the road proved clear and hard, no mud or ruts wearing on the wheels.
For the first time in many months, Drizzt rode Andahar, and he felt grand up there on the unicorn’s strong back, the wind in his long white hair. He put his hand to his belt pouch repeatedly, feeling the onyx figurine, longing for the day when he would call Guenhwyvar to his side once more.
“Patience,” he whispered, reminding himself that Guenhwyvar needed her rest. She would be there, Jarlaxle had assured him, and Jarlaxle was rarely wrong.
He urged Andahar on more powerfully, cantering up around the lead wagon, then riding off down the road at a gallop to scout the way ahead. He let the unicorn run for some time, caring not that he had moved out of sight of the lead wagon. He was free now, riding along a road to a place he had known as home.
Andahar barely broke a sweat, thundering along with a smooth, long stride. Around a bend, they came to a long straightaway, lined with thick trees, and Drizzt allowed the unicorn to move to a full sprint. Nostrils flaring, breath heaving in tremendous bursts, Andahar seemed all too pleased to comply, and now the sweat did bead on the unicorn’s muscled flanks.
Two-thirds of the way along the run, Andahar eased up, and Drizzt sat up straighter, rolling his body in perfect balance as the gallop became a canter, became a trot.
Drizzt bent forward and patted Andahar hard on the neck, grateful for the joy of the run. He had just begun to urge the unicorn around when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, something large and black moving swiftly across the treetops.
Drizzt pulled Andahar up fully, and even reached for Taulmaril, until he recognized the pursuit.
A giant crow set down on the road in front of them, and the crow quickly became Dahlia, clad in her magical cloak.
“You might have passed a horde of highwaymen without ever noticing them,” the elf scolded.
Drizzt grinned at her. “The road is clear.”
Dahlia stared at him doubtfully.
“Fly along above the treetops, then,” the drow told her. “Shadow my ride and show me the error of my judgment.”
Dahlia considered the words for a moment, then shook her head and started toward Drizzt. “No,” she explained, coming up beside him and lifting her hand for him to grasp. “I prefer to ride with you, behind you.”
Drizzt pulled her up, and she came up very tight against him.
“Or under you,” she whispered teasingly in his ear.
Drizzt tensed.
“If the road is clear, then they will not need us,” Dahlia said.
But such a concern wasn’t the source of Drizzt hesitance.
“What is it, then?” Dahlia said when he didn’t reply, and when he didn’t make any more intimate move toward her at all.