Drizzt foiled Entreri's attack routine and countered with an equally skilled
sequence, he exposed the emptiness of the assassin's existence.
Drizzt recognized the boiling anger in Entreri and sought a way to exploit
it. He launched another deceptive sequence but was again deterred.
Then he came in a straight double-thrust, his scimitars side by side and
only an inch apart.
Entreri blew them both off to the side with a sweeping saber parry, grinning
at Drizzt's apparent mistake. Growling wickedly, Entreri launched his dagger arm
through the opening, toward the drow's heart.
But Drizzt had anticipated the move - had even set the assassin up. He
dipped and angled his front scimitar even as the saber came in to parry it,
sliding it under Entreri's blade and cutting back a reverse swipe. Entreri's
dagger arm came thrusting out right in the scimitar's path, and before the
assassin could poke his blade into Drizzt's heart, Drizzt's scimitar gashed into
the back of his elbow.
The dagger dropped to the muck. Entreri grabbed his wounded arm, grimaced in
pain, and rushed back from the battle. His eyes narrowed on Drizzt, angry and
confused.
"Your hunger blurs your ability," Drizzt said to him, taking a step forward.
"We have both looked into a mirror this night. Perhaps you did not enjoy the
sight it showed to you."
Entreri fumed but had no retort. "You have not won yet," he spat defiantly,
but he knew that the drow had gained an overwhelming advantage.
"Perhaps not," Drizzt shrugged, "but you lost many years ago."
Entreri smiled evilly and bowed low, then took flight back through the
passage.
Drizzt was quick to pursue, stopping short, though, when he reached the edge
of the globe of blackness. He heard shuffling on the other side and braced
himself. Too loud for Entreri, he reasoned, and he suspected that some wererat
had returned.
"Are ye there, elf?" came a familiar voice.
Drizzt dashed through the blackness and side-stepped his astonished friends.
"Entreri?" he asked, hoping that the wounded assassin had not escaped unseen.
Bruenor and Catti-brie shrugged curiously and turned to follow as Drizzt ran
off into the darkness.
20
Black and White
Wulfgar, nearly overcome by exhaustion and by the pain in his arm, leaned
heavily against the smooth wall of an upward-sloping passage. He clutched the
wound tightly, hoping to stem the flow of his lifeblood.
How alone he felt.
He knew that he had been right in sending his friends away. They could have
done little to help him, and standing there, in the open of the main corridor
right in front of the very spot Entreri had chosen for his trap, left them too
vulnerable. Wulfgar now had to move along by himself, probably into the heart of
the infamous thieves' guild.
He released his grip on his biceps and examined the wound. The hydra had
bitten him deeply, but he found that he could still move his arm. Gingerly he
took a few swings with Aegis-fang.
He then leaned back against the wall once more, trying to figure a course of
action in a cause that seemed truly hopeless.
* * *
Drizzt slipped from tunnel to tunnel, sometimes slowing his pace to listen
for faint sounds that would aid his pursuit. He didn't really expect to hear
anything; Entreri could move as silently as he. And the assassin, like Drizzt,
moved along without a torch, or even a candle.
But Drizzt felt confident in the turns he took, as if he were being led
along by the same reasoning that guided Entreri. He felt the assassin's
presence, knew the man better than he cared to admit, and Entreri could no more
escape him than he could Entreri. Their battle had begun in Mithril Hall months
before - or perhaps theirs was only the present embodiment in the continuation
of a greater struggle that was spawned at the dawn of time - but, for Drizzt and
Entreri, two pawns in the timeless struggle of principles, this chapter of the
war could not end until one claimed victory.
Drizzt noted a glimmer down to the side - not the flickering yellow of a
torch, but a constant silvery stream. He moved cautiously and found an open
grate, with the moonlight streaming in and highlighting the wet iron rungs of a
ladder bolted into the sewer wall. Drizzt glanced around quickly - too quickly -
and rushed to the ladder.
The shadows to his left exploded into motion, and Drizzt caught the telltale
shine of a blade just in time to turn his back from the angle of the blow. He
staggered forward, feeling a burning across his shoulder blades and then the
wetness of his blood rolling down under his cloak.
Drizzt ignored the pain, knowing that any hesitation would surely result in
his death, and spun around, slamming his back into the wall and sending the
curved blades of both his scimitars into a defensive spin before him.
Entreri issued no taunts this time. He came in furiously, cutting and
slicing with his saber, knowing that he had to finish Drizzt before the shock of
the ambush wore off. Viciousness replaced finesse, engulfing the injured
assassin in a frenzy of hatred.
He leaped into Drizzt, locking one of the drow's arms under his own wounded
limb and trying to use brute strength to drive his saber into his opponent's
neck.
Drizzt steadied himself quickly enough to control the initial assault. He
surrendered his one arm to the assassin's hold, concentrating solely on getting
his free scimitar up to block the strike. The blade's hilt again locked with
that of Entreri's saber, holding it motionless in midswing halfway between the
combatants.
Behind their respective blades, Drizzt and Entreri eyeballed each other with
open hatred, their grimaces only inches apart.
"How many crimes shall I punish you for, assassin?" Drizzt growled.
Reinforced by his own proclamation, Drizzt pushed the saber back an inch,
shifting the angle of his own deadly blade down more threateningly toward
Entreri.
Entreri did not answer, nor did he seem alarmed at the slight shift in the
blades' momentum. A wild, exhilarated look came into his eyes, and his thin lips
widened into an evil grin.
Drizzt knew that the killer had another trick to play.
Before the drow could figure the game, Entreri spat a mouthful of filthy
sewer water into his lavender eyes.
* * *
The sound of renewed fighting led Bruenor and Catti-brie along the tunnels.
They caught sight of the moonlit forms struggling just as Entreri played his
wicked card.
"Drizzt!" Catti-brie shouted, knowing that she couldn't get to him, even get
her bow up, in time to stop Entreri.
Bruenor growled and bolted forward with only one thought on his mind: If
Entreri killed Drizzt, he would cut the dog in half!
* * *
The sting and shock of the water broke Drizzt's concentration, and his
strength, for only a split second, but he knew that even a split second was too
long against Artemis Entreri. He jerked his head to the side desperately.
Entreri snapped his saber down, slicing a gash across Drizzt's forehead and
crushing the drow's thumb between the twisting hilts. "I have you!" he squealed,
hardly believing the sudden turn of events.
At that horrible moment, Drizzt could not disagree with the observation, but
the drow's next move came more on instinct than on any calculations, and with
agility that surprised even Drizzt. In the instant of a single, tiny hop, Drizzt
snapped one foot behind Entreri's ankle and tucked the other under him against
the wall. He pushed away and twisted as he went. On the slick floor, Entreri had
no chance to dodge the trip, and he toppled backward into the murky stream,
Drizzt splashing down on top of him.
The weight of Drizzt's heavy fall jammed the crosspiece of his scimitar into
Entreri's eye. Drizzt recovered from the surprise of his own movement faster
than Entreri, and he did not miss the opportunity. He spun his hand over on the
hilt and reversed the flow of the blade, pulling it free of Entreri's and
swinging a short cut back and down, with the tip of the scimitar diving in at
the assassin's ribs. In grim satisfaction, Drizzt felt it begin to cut in.
It was Entreri's turn for a move wrought of desperation. Having no time to
brig his saber to bear, the assassin punched straight out, slamming Drizzt's
face with the butt of his weapon. Drizzt's nose splattered onto his cheek,
flashes of color exploded before his eyes, and he felt himself lifted and
dropped off to the side before his scimitar could finish its work.
Entreri scrambled out of reach and pulled himself from the murky water.
Drizzt, too, rolled away, struggling against the dizziness to regain his feet.
When he did, he found himself facing Entreri once again, the assassin even worse
off than he.
Entreri looked over the drow's shoulder, to the tunnel and the charging
dwarf and to Catti-brie and her killer bow, coming up level with his face. He
jumped to the side, to the iron rungs, and started up to the street.
Catti-brie followed his motion in a fluid movement, keeping him dead in her
sights. No one, not even Artemis Entreri, could escape once she had him cleanly
targeted.
"Get him, girl!" Bruenor yelled.
Drizzt had been so involved in the battle that he hadn't even noticed the
arrival of his friends. He spun around to see Bruenor rolling in, and Catti-brie
just about to loose her arrow.
"Hold!" Drizzt growled in a tone that froze Bruenor in his tracks and sent a
shiver through Catti-brie's spine. They both gawked, open-mouthed, at Drizzt.
"He is mine!" the drow told them.
Entreri didn't hesitate to consider his good fortune. Out in the open
streets, his streets, he might find his sanctuary.
With no retort forthcoming from either of his unnerved friends, Drizzt
slapped the magical mask up over his face and was just as quick to follow.
* * *
The realization that his delay might bring danger to his friends - for they
had gone rushing off to search for some way to meet him back on the street -
spurred Wulfgar to action. He clasped Aegis-fang tightly in the hand of his
wounded arm, forcing the injured muscles to respond to his commands.
Then he thought of Drizzt, of that quality his friend possessed to
completely sublimate fear in the face of impossible odds and replace it with
pointed fury.
This time, it was Wulfgar's eyes that burned with an inner fire. He stood
wide-legged in the corridor, his breath rasping out as low growls, and his
muscles flexing and relaxing in a rhythmic pattern that honed them to fighting
perfection.
The thieves' guild, the strongest house in Calimport, he thought.
A smile spread over the barbarian's face. The pain was gone now, and the
weariness had flown from his bones. His smile became a heartfelt laugh as he
rushed off.
Time to fight.
He took note of the ascending slope of the tunnel as he jogged along and
knew that the next door he went through would be at or near street level. He
soon came upon, not one, but three doors: one at the end of the tunnel and one
on either side. Wulfgar hardly slowed, figuring the direction he was traveling
to be as good as any, and barreled through the door at the corridor's end,
crashing into an octagonal-shaped guard room complete with four very surprised
guards.
"Hey!" the one in the middle of the room blurted as Wulfgar's huge fist
slammed him to the floor. The barbarian spotted another door directly across
from the one he had entered, and cut a beeline for it, hoping to get through the
room without a drawn-out fight.
One of the guards, a puny, dark-haired little rogue, proved the quickest. He
darted to the door, inserted a key, and flipped the lock, then he turned to face
Wulfgar, holding the key out before him and grinning a broken-toothed smile.
"Key," he whispered, tossing the device to one of his comrades to the side.
Wulfgar's huge hand grabbed his shirt, taking out more than a few chest
hairs, and the little rogue felt his feet leave the floor.
With one arm, Wulfgar threw him through the door.
"Key," the barbarian said, stepping over the kindling-and-thief pile.
Wulfgar hadn't nearly outrun the danger, though. The next room was a great
meeting hall, with dozens of chambers directly off it. Cries of alarm followed
the barbarian as he sprinted through, and a well-rehearsed defense plan went
into execution all around him. The human thieves, Pook's original guild members,
fled for the shadows and the safety of their rooms, for they had been relieved
of the responsibilities of dealing with intruders more than a year before -
since Rassiter and his crew had joined the guild.
Wulfgar rushed to a short flight of stairs and leaped up them in a single
bound, smashing through the door at the top. A maze of corridors and open
chambers loomed before him, a treasury of artworks - statues, paintings, and
tapestries - beyond any collection the barbarian had ever imagined. Wulfgar had
little time to appreciate the artwork. He saw the forms chasing him. He saw them
off to the side and gathering down the corridors before him to cut him off. He
knew what they were; he had just been in their sewers.
He knew the smell of wererats.
* * *
Entreri had his feet firmly planted, ready for Drizzt as he came up through
