ounce of strength they could call upon. Conversely, Entreri started slowly,
finding a rhythm and allowing the sheer fluidity of his motions to build
his momentum. At times he seemed barely able to parry or dodge the
ferocious swipes. Some missed their mark by barely an inch, and the near
hits spurred Fender and Grollo on even further.
But even with her friends pressing the attack, Catti-brie understood
that they were in trouble. Entreri's hands seemed to talk to each other, so
perfect was the complement of their movements as they positioned the
jeweled dagger and saber. The synchronous shufflings of his feet kept him
in complete balance throughout the melee. His was a dance of dodges,
parries, and counterslashes.
His was a dance of death.
Catti-brie had seen this before, the telltale methods of the finest
swordsman in all of Icewind Dale. The comparison to Drizzt Do'Urden was
inescapable; their grace and movements were so alike, with every part of
their bodies working in harmony.
But they remained strikingly different, a polarity of morals that
subtly altered the aura of the dance.
The drow ranger in battle was an instrument of beauty to behold, a
perfect athlete pursuing his chosen course of righteousness with
unsurpassed fervor. But Entreri was merely horrifying, a passionless
murderer callously disposing of obstacles in his path.
The initial momentum of the dwarves' attack began to diminish now, and
both Fender and Grollo wore a look of amazement that the floor was not yet
red with their opponent's blood. But while their attacks were slowing,
Entreri's momentum continued to build. His blades were a blur, each thrust
followed by two others that left the dwarves rocking back on their heels.
Effortless, his movements. Endless, his energy.
Fender and Grollo maintained a solely defensive posture, but even with
all of their efforts devoted to blocking, everyone in the room knew that it
was only a matter of time before a killing blade slipped through.
Catti-brie didn't see the fatal cut, but she saw vividly the bright
line of blood that appeared across Grollo's throat. The dwarf continued
fighting for a few moments, oblivious to the cause of his inability to find
his breath. Then, startled, Grollo dropped to his knees, grasping his
throat, and gurgled into the blackness of death.
Fury spurred Fender beyond his exhaustion. His axe chopped and cut
wildly, screaming for revenge.
Entreri toyed with him, actually carrying the charade so, far as to
slap him on the side of the head with the flat of the saber.
Outraged, insulted, and fully aware that he was overmatched, Fender
launched himself into a final, suicidal, charge, hoping to bring the
assassin down with him.
Entreri sidestepped the desperate lunge with an amused laugh, and ended
the fight, driving the jeweled dagger deep into Fender's chest, and
following through with a skull-splitting slash of the saber as the dwarf
stumbled by.
Too horrified to cry, too horrified to scream, Catti-brie watched
blankly as Entreri retrieved the dagger from Fender's chest. Certain of her
own impending death, she closed her eyes as the dagger came toward her,
felt its metal, hot from the dwarf's blood, flat on her throat.
And then the teasing scrape of its edge against her soft, vulnerable
skin as Entreri slowly turned the blade over in his hand.
Tantalizing. The promise, the dance of death.
Then it was gone. Catti-brie opened her eyes just as the small blade
went back into its scabbard on the assassin's hip. He had taken a step back
from her.
"You see," he offered in simple explanation of his mercy, "I kill only
those who stand to oppose me. Perhaps, then, three of your friends on the
road to Luskan shall escape the blade. I want only the halfling."
Catti-brie refused to yield to the terror he evoked. She held her voice
steady and promised coldly, "You underestimate them. They will fight you."
With calm confidence, Entreri replied, "Then they, too, shall die."
Catti-brie couldn't win in a contest of nerves with the dispassionate
killer. Her only answer to him was her defiance. She spat at him, unafraid
of the consequences.
He retorted with a single stinging backhand. Her eyes blurred in pain
and welling tears, and Catti-brie slumped into blackness. But as she fell
unconscious, she heard a few seconds longer, the cruel, passionless
laughter fading away as the assassin moved from the house.
Tantalizing. The promise of death.
2
City of Sails
"Well, there she is, lad, the City of Sails," Bruenor said to Wulfgar
as the two looked down upon Luskan from a small knoll a few miles north of
the city.
Wulfgar took in the view with a profound sigh of admiration. Luskan
housed more than fifteen thousand small compared to the huge cities in the
south and to its nearest neighbor, Waterdeep, a few hundred miles farther
down the coast. But to the young barbarian, who had spent all of his
eighteen years among nomadic tribes and the small villages of Ten-Towns,
the fortified seaport seemed grand indeed.
A wall encompassed Luskan, with guard towers strategically spaced at
varying intervals. Even from this distance, Wulfgar could make out the dark
forms of many soldiers pacing the parapets, their spear tips shining in the
new light of the day.
"Not a promising invitation," Wulfgar noted.
"Luskan does not readily welcome visitors," said Drizzt, who had come
up behind his two friends. "They may open their gates for merchants, but
ordinary travelers are usually turned away."
"Our first contact is there," growled Bruenor. "And I mean to get in!"
Drizzt nodded and did not press the argument. He had given Luskan a
wide berth on his original journey to Ten-Towns. The city's inhabitants,
primarily human, looked upon other races with disdain. Even surface elves
and dwarves were often refused entry. Drizzt suspected that the guards
would do more to a drow elf than simply put him out.
"Get the breakfast fire burning," Bruenor continued, his angry tones
reflecting his determination that nothing would turn him from his course.
"We're to break camp early, an' make the gates 'fore noon. Where's that
blasted Rumblebelly?"
Drizzt looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the camp.
"Asleep," he answered, though Bruenor's question was wholly rhetorical.
Regis had been the first to bed and the last to awaken (and never without
help) every day since the companions had set out from Ten-Towns.
"Well, give him a kick!" Bruenor ordered. He turned back to the camp,
but Drizzt put a hand on his arm to stay him.
"Let the halfling sleep," the drow suggested. "Perhaps it would be
better if we came to Luskan's gate in the less-revealing light of dusk."
Drizzt's request confused Bruenor for just a moment - until he looked
more closely at the drow's sullen visage and recognized the trepidation in
his eyes. The two had become so close in their years of friendship that
Bruenor often forgot that Drizzt was an outcast. The farther they traveled
from Ten-Towns, where Drizzt was known, the more he would be judged by the
color of his skin and the reputation of his people.
"Aye, let 'im sleep," Bruenor conceded. "Maybe I could use a bit more,
meself!"
They broke camp late that morning and set a leisurely pace, only to
discover later that they had misjudged the distance to the city. It was
well past sunset and into the early hours of darkness when they finally
arrived at the city's north gate.
The structure was as unwelcoming as Luskan's reputation: a single
iron-bound door set into the stone wall between two short, squared towers
was tightly shut before them. A dozen fur-capped heads poked out from the
parapet above the gate and the companions sensed many more eyes, and
probably bows, trained upon them from the darkness atop the towers.
"Who are you who come to the gates of Luskan?" came a voice from the
wall.
"Travelers from the north," answered Bruenor. "A weary band come all
the way from Ten-Towns in Icewind Dale!"
"The gate closed at sunset," replied the voice. "Go away!"
"Son of a hairless gnoll," grumbled Bruenor under his breath. He
slapped his axe across his hands as though he meant to chop the door down.
Drizzt put a calming hand on the dwarf's shoulder, his own sensitive
ears recognizing the clear, distinctive click of a crossbow crank.
Then Regis unexpectedly took control of the situation. He straightened
his pants, which had dropped below the bulge of his belly, and hooked his
thumbs in his belt, trying to appear somewhat important. Throwing his
shoulders back, he walked out in front of his companions.
"Your name, good sir?" he called to the soldier on the wall.
"I am the Nightkeeper of the North Gate. That is all you need to know!"
came the gruff reply. "And who -"
"Regis, First Citizen of Bryn Shander. No doubt you have heard my name
or seen my carvings."
The companions heard whispers up above, then a pause. "We have viewed
the scrimshaw of a halfling from Ten-Towns. Are you he?"
"Hero of the goblin war and master scrimshander," Regis declared,
bowing low. "The spokesmen of Ten-Towns will not be pleased to learn that I
was turned into the night at the gate of our favored trading partner."
Again came the whispers, then a longer silence. Presently the four
heard a grating sound behind the door, a portcullis being raised, knew
Regis, and then the banging of the door's bolts being thrown. The halfling
looked back over his shoulder at his surprised friends and smiled wryly.
"Diplomacy, my rough dwarven friend," he laughed.
The door opened just a crack and two men slipped out, unarmed but
cautious. It was quite obvious that they were well protected from the wall.
Grim-faced soldiers huddled along the parapets, monitoring every move the
strangers made through the sights of crossbows.
"I am Jierdan," said the stockier of the two men, though it was
difficult to judge his exact size because of the many layers of fur he
wore.
"And I am the Nightkeeper," said the other. "Show me what you have
brought to trade"
"Trade?" echoed Bruenor angrily. "Who said anything about trade?" He
slapped his axe across his hands again, drawing nervous shufflings from
above. "Does this look like the blade of a stinkin' merchant?"
Regis and Drizzt both moved to calm the dwarf, though Wulfgar, as tense
as Bruenor, stayed off to the side, his huge arms crossed before him and
his stern gaze boring into the impudent gatekeeper.
The two soldiers backed away defensively and the Nightkeeper spoke
again, this time on the edge of fury. "First Citizen," he demanded of
Regis, "why do you come to our door?"
Regis stepped in front of Bruenor and steadied himself squarely before
the soldier. "Er . . . a preliminary scouting of the marketplace," he
blurted out, trying to fabricate a story as he went along. "I have some
especially fine carvings for market this season and I wanted to be certain
that everything on this end, including the paying price for scrimshaw,
shall be in place to handle the sale."
The two soldiers exchanged knowing smiles. "You have come a long way
for such a purpose," the Nightkeeper whispered harshly. "Would you not have
been better suited to simply come down with the caravan bearing the goods?"
Regis squirmed uncomfortably, realizing that these soldiers were far
too experienced to fall for his ploy. Fighting his better judgement, he
reached under his shirt for the ruby pendant, knowing that its hypnotic
powers could convince the Nightkeoper to let them through, but dreading
showing the stone at all and further opening the trail for the assassin
that he knew wasn't far behind.
Jierdan started suddenly, however, as he noticed the figure standing
beside Bruenor. Drizzt Do'Urden's cloak had shifted slightly, revealing the
black skin of his face.
As if on cue, the Nightkeeper tensed as well and, following his
companion's lead, quickly discerned the cause of Jierdan's sudden reaction.
Reluctantly, the four adventurers dropped their hands to their weapons,
ready for a fight they didn't want.
But Jierdan ended the tension as quickly as he had begun it, by
bringing his arm across the chest of the Nightkeeper and addressing the
drow openly. "Drizzt Do'Urden?" he asked calmly, seeing confirmation of the
identity he had already guessed.
The drow nodded, surprised at the recognition.
"Your name, too, has come down to Luskan with the tales frown Icewind
Dale," Jierdan explained. "Pardon our, surprise." He bowed low. "We do not
see many of your race at our gates." _
Drizzt nodded again, but did not answer, uncomfortable with this
unusual attention. Never before had a gatekeeper bothered to ask him his
name or his business. And the drow had quickly come to understand the
advantage of avoiding gates altogether, silently slipping over a city's
wall in the darkness and seeking the seedier side, where he might at least
have a chance of standing unnoticed in the dark corners with the other
rogues. Had his name and heroics brought him a measure of respect even this
far from Ten-Towns?
Bruenor turned to Drizzt and winked, his own anger dissipated by the
fact that his friend had finally been given his due from a stranger.
