A single torch was lit; Drizzt realized it was part of I the deal. Entreri probably was not yet comfortable enough with his newly acquired infravision I to battle Drizzt without any light source at all. When his eyes shifted into the normal spectrum of light, Drizzt studied the medium-sized chamber. While its walls and ceiling were quite naturally formed, curving and with jutting angles and small stalactites hanging down, it had two wooden doors - recently constructed, Drizzt believed, most probably arranged by Vierna as part of the deal with Entreri. A drow soldier flanked the doors on each side and a third stood between them, right in front of each portal.
Twelve dark elves were in the room now, including Vierna and Jarlaxle, but the drider was nowhere to be found. Entreri was talking with Vierna; Drizzt saw her give the assassin the belt holding Drizzt's two scimitars.
There also was a curious alcove in the room, a single step in from the back wall of the main area and with a waist-high ledge, the top covered by a blanket and a soldier leaning on it, his sword and dagger drawn.
A chute? Drizzt wondered.
Entreri had said this was the place where he and the dark elves would part company, but Drizzt doubted that the assassin, his business finished, meant to go back the way they had come, anywhere near Mithril Hall. With only one other door apparent in the chamber, perhaps there did indeed loom a chute under that blanket, a way to the open and twisted corridors of the deeper Underdark.
Vierna said something that Drizzt did not hear, and Entreri came over to him, bearing his weapons. A drow soldier moved behind Drizzt and released his bonds, and he slowly brought his hands back in front of him, his shoulders aching from their long stay in the awkward position and from the residual pain of Vierna's vicious beating.
Entreri dropped the scimitar belt at Drizzt's feet and took a cautious step backward. Drizzt looked down to his weapons curiously, unsure of what he should do.
"Pick them up," Entreri instructed.
"Why?"
The question seemed to slap the assassin across the face. A great scowl flashed for just an instant, then was replaced by Entreri's typically emotionless expression.
"That we might learn the truth," he answered.
"I know the truth," Drizzt replied calmly. "You wish to distort it, that you might keep hidden, even from yourself, the folly of your wretched existence."
"Pick them up," the assassin snarled, "or I will kill you where you stand."
Drizzt knew the threat was a hollow one. Entreri would not kill him, not until the assassin had tried to redeem himself in honest battle. Even if Entreri did strike to slay him, Drizzt figured Vierna would intervene. Drizzt was too important to Vierna; sacrifices to the Spider Queen were not readily accepted unless given by drow priestesses.
Drizzt finally did bend and retrieve his weapons, feeling more secure as he belted them on. He knew that the odds in this room were impossible, whether he had the scimitars or not, but he was experienced enough to realize that opportunities were fleeting and often came when least expected.
Entreri drew his slender sword and jeweled dagger, then crouched low, his thin lips widening into an eager smile.
Drizzt stood easily, shoulders slumped, scimitars still in their sheaths.
The assassin's sword cut across, nicking Drizzt on the tip of his nose, forcing his head to flinch to the side. He reached up casually with his thumb and index finger, pinching the flow of blood.
"Coward," Entreri teased, feigning a straightforward lunge and still circling.
Drizzt turned to keep him directly in front, not bothered at all by the ridiculous insult.
"Come now, Drizzt Do'Urden," Jarlaxle intervened, drawing looks from both Drizzt and Entreri. "You know you are doomed, but will you not gain any pleasure in killing this human, this man who has done you and your friends so many wrongs?"
"What have you to lose?" Entreri asked. "I cannot kill you, only defeat you - that is my deal with your sister. But you may kill me. Surely Vierna would not intervene, and might even be amused, at the loss of a simple human life."
Drizzt remained impassive. He had nothing to lose, they claimed. What they apparently did not understand was that Drizzt Do'Urden did not fight when he had nothing to lose, only when he had something to gain, only when the situation necessitated that he fight.
"Draw your weapons, I beg," Jarlaxle added. "Your reputation is considerable and I would dearly love to see you at play, to see if you are truly the better of Zaknafein."
Drizzt, trying to play it calm, trying to hold fast to his principles, could not hide his grimace at the mention of his dead father, reputably the finest weapons master ever to draw swords in Menzoberranzan. In spite of himself, he drew his scimitars, Twinkle's angry blue glow sincerely reflecting the welling rage that Drizzt Do'Urden could not fully suppress.
Entreri came on suddenly, fiercely, and Drizzt reacted with warrior instincts, scimitars ringing against sword and dagger, defeating every attack. Taking the offensive before he even realized what he was doing, acting solely on instinct, Drizzt began turning full circles, his blades flowing around him like the edging of a screw, every turn bringing them in at his opponent from different heights and different angles.
Entreri, confused by the unconventional routine, missed as many parries as he hit, but his quick feet kept him out of reach. "Always a surprise," the assassin admitted grimly, and he winced jealously at the approving sighs and comments from the dark elves lining the room.
Drizzt stopped his spin, ending perfectly squared to the assassin, blades low and ready.
"Pretty, but to no avail," Entreri cried and rushed forward, sword flying low, dagger slicing high. Drizzt twisted diagonally, one blade knocking the sword aside, the other forming a barrier that the dagger could not get through as it cut harmlessly high. Entreri's dagger hand continued a complete circuit - Drizzt noticed that he flipped the blade over in his fingers - while his sword darted and thrust, this way and that, to keep Drizzt busy.
Predictably, the assassin's dagger hand came about, dipping down to the side, and he whipped the dagger free.
Ringing like a hammer on metal, Twinkle darted into the missile's path and batted it away, knocking it across the room.
"Well done!" Jarlaxle congratulated, and Entreri, too, backed off and nodded his sincere approval. With just a sword now, the assassin came in more cautiously, loosing a measured strike.
His surprise was absolute when Drizzt did not parry, when Drizzt missed not one deflection, but two and the thrusting weapon slipped past the scimitar defense. The sword quickly recoiled, never reaching its vulnerable mark. Entreri came in again, feigning another straightforward thrust, but snapping the weapon back and around instead.
He had Drizzt beaten, could have ripped the drow's shoulder, or neck, apart with that simple feint! Drizzt's knowing smile stopped him, though. He turned his sword to its flat edge and smacked it against the drow's shoulder, doing no real damage.
Drizzt had let him through, both times, was now mocking the assassin's precious fight with a pretense of inability!
Entreri wanted to scream out his protests, let all the other dark elves in on Drizzt s private game. The assassin decided that this battle was too personal, though, something that should be settled between himself and Drizzt, and not through any intervention by Vierna or Jarlaxle.
"I had you," he teased, using the rocky Dwarvish language in the hopes that those drow around him, except, of course, for Drizzt, would not understand it.
"You should have ended it, then," Drizzt replied calmly, in the Common surface language, though he spoke the Dwarvish tongue perfectly well. He wouldn't give Entreri the satisfaction of removing this to a personal level, would keep the fight public and ridicule it openly with his actions.
"You should have fought better," Entreri retorted, reverting to the Common tongue. "For the sake of your halfling friend, if not for yourself. If you kill me, then Regis will be free, but if I walk from here ..." He let the threat hang in the air, but it grew less ominous indeed when Drizzt laughed at it openly.
"Regis is dead," the drow ranger reasoned. "Or will be, whatever the outcome of our battle."
"No - " Entreri began.
"Yes," Drizzt interrupted. "I know you better than to fall prey to your unending lies. You have been too blinded by your rage. You did not anticipate every possibility."
Entreri came in again, easily, not making any blatant strikes that would make this continuing charade obvious to the gathered dark elves.
"He is dead," Drizzt asked as much as stated.
"What do you think?" Entreri snapped back, his snarling tone making the answer seem obvious.
Drizzt realized the shift in tactics, understood that Entreri now was attempting to enrage him, to make him fight in anger.
Drizzt remained impassive, let fly a few lazy attack routines that Entreri had little trouble defeating - and that the assassin could have countered to devastating effect if he had so desired.
Vierna and Jarlaxle began to speak in whispers, and Drizzt, thinking they might grow tired of the charade, came on more forcefully, though still with measured and ineffective strikes. Entreri gave a slight but definite nod to show that he was beginning to understand. The game, the subtle and silent undercurrents and communications, were getting personal, and Drizzt, as much as Entreri, did not want Vierna intervening.
"You will savor your victory," Entreri promised uncharacteristically, a leading phrase.
"It will come as no gain," Drizzt replied, a response the assassin was obviously fully beginning to expect. Entreri wanted to win this fight, wanted to win it even more badly because Drizzt did not seem to care. Drizzt knew that Entreri was not stupid, though, and while he and Drizzt were of similar fighting skills, their motivations surely separated them. Entreri would fight with all his heart against Drizzt just to prove something, but Drizzt honestly felt that he had nothing to prove, not to the assassin.
Drizzt's failings in this fight were not a bluff, were not something that Entreri could call him on. Drizzt would lose, taking more satisfaction in not giving Entreri the enjoyment of honest victory.
And, as his actions now revealed, the assassin was not completely surprised by the turn of events.
"Your last chance," Entreri teased. "Here, you and I part company. I leave through the far door, and the drow go back down to their dark world."
Drizzt's violet eyes flicked to the side, to the alcove, for just a moment, his movement revealing to Entreri that he had not missed the emphasis on the word "down," had not missed the obvious reference to the cloth-covered chute.
Entreri rolled to the side suddenly, having worked himself around close enough to retrieve his lost dagger. It was a daring maneuver, and again a revealing move to his opponent, for with Drizzt's fighting so obviously lacking, Entreri had no need to take the risk of going for his lost weapon.
"Might I rename your cat?" Entreri asked, shifting his waist to reveal a large belt pouch, the black statuette obvious through the open edges of its bulging top.
The assassin came in fast and hard with a four-strike routine, any of which could have slipped through, had he pressed them, to nick at Drizzt.
"Come now," Entreri said loudly. "You can fight better than that! I have witnessed your skills too many times - in these very tunnels even - to think you might be so easily defeated!"
At first, Drizzt was surprised that Entreri had so obviously let their private communication become so public, but Vierna and the others probably had figured by that point that Drizzt was not fighting with all his heart. Still, it seemed a curious comment - until Drizzt came to understand the hidden meanings of the assassin's words, the assassin's bait. Entreri had referred to their fighting in these tunnels, but those battles had not been against each other. On that unusual occasion, Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri had fought together, side by side and back-to-back, out of simple desire to survive against a common enemy.
Was it to be that way again, here and now? Was Entreri so desperate for an honest fight against Drizzt that he was offering to help him defeat Vierna and her gang? If that happened, and they won, then any following battle between Drizzt and Entreri would certainly give Drizzt something to gain, something to honestly fight for. If together he and Entreri could win out, or get away, the ensuing battle between them would dangle Drizzt's freedom before his eyes with only Artemis Enrreri standing in his way.
"Tempus!" The cry stole the contemplations from both opponents, forced them to react to the obvious forthcoming distraction.
They moved in perfect harmony, Drizzt whipping his scimitar across and the assassin dropping his defenses, falling back and turning his hip to stick out his belt pouch. Twinkle cut through the pouch cleanly, spilling the figurine of the enchanted panther onto the floor.
The door, the same door through which they had entered the chamber, blew apart under the weight of flying Aegis-fang, hurling the drow standing before it to the floor.
Drizzt s first instinct told him to go to the door, to try to link up with his friends, but he saw that possibility blocked by the many scrambling dark elves. The other door, too, offered no hope, for it opened immediately with the onset of commotion, the drider Dinin leading the drow charge into the room.
The chamber flashed bright with magical light; groans erupted from every corner. A silver-streaking arrow sizzled in through the blasted portal, catching the same unfortunate dark elf in midstep as he rose from beneath the blasted door. It hurtled him backward against the far wall, where he stuck in place, arrow through chest and stone.
"Guenhwyvar!"
Drizzt could not wait and see if his call to the panther had been heard, could not wait for anything at all. He rushed for the alcove, the single drow holding guard near it raising his weapons in surprised defense.
Vierna cried out; Drizzt felt a dagger cut into his wide-flying cloak and knew it was hanging just an inch from his thigh. Straight ahead he ran, dipping one shoulder at the last moment as though he meant to dive sidelong.
The drow guard dipped right along with him, but Drizzt came back up straight before his adversary, his scimitars crossing high, at neck level.
The guarding drow couldn't get his sword and dirk up fast enough to deflect the lightning-fast attack, couldn't reverse his momentum and fall back to the side out of harm's way.
Drizzt's fine-edged weapons crossed over his throat.
Drizzt winced, tucked his bloodied blades in close and dove headlong for the cloth, hoping that there was indeed an opening under it and hoping that it was a chute, not a straight drop.
