R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

I will follow Bruenor to Mithral Hall. If the orc raiders are as prevalent as Bruenor insists, then I am sure I will find good use for my blades, and likely at Bruenor’s side, vigilant hunters striking without hesitation or guilt.

But I will not start a war.

That chasm is too wide.

Am I wrong, then, in hoping that the decision is taken from us before we ever arrive? In hoping that the Kingdom of Many-Arrows proves Catti-brie’s point in no uncertain terms?

“Where’s the babies’ room!” I hear her again, often in my thoughts, in that Dwarvish brogue of old, and with the ferocity befitting a daughter of King Bruenor Battlehammer. And though Catti-brie carried this accent for many years, and can fight as well as any, this time her cheer rang discordantly, painfully, in my ears.

What of Nojheim, then, the goblin I once knew who seemed a decent sort undeserving of his harsh fate?

Or am I really saying, what, then, of Drizzt?

I want to deny the message of Mielikki; once I claimed the goddess as that which was in my heart, a name for what I knew to be true and right. And now I want to deny it, desperately so, and yet I cannot. Perhaps it is the harsh truth of Faerûn that goblinkin and evil giantkind are just evil, by nature and not nurture.

And likely, my perception of this truth has been distorted by my own determined escape from the seemingly inevitable path I was born to follow, and perhaps distorted in dangerous ways.

On a very basic level, this message wounds me, and that wound is the burden. Is there, in this instance, no place for optimism and an insistence that there is good to be found? Does that outlook, the guiding philosophy of my existence, simply have no place in the darkness of an orc’s heart?

Can I start a war?

I walk this road tentatively, but also eagerly, for I am filled with conflict. I wish to know, I must know! I am afraid to know.

Alas, so much has changed, but so much remains the same. The Spellplague is gone, yet trouble seems ever to be brewing in our wake. Yet we walk a road into deeper darkness, into Gauntlgrym for the sake of a lost friend, and then, if we survive, into the midst of a greater storm.

For all of that, have I ever been happier?

— Drizzt Do’Urden

"You shouldn’t have stopped me,” Dahlia said with an accompanying hiss when Entreri walked back into the room they shared in Port Llast, a high room in the inn called Stonecutter’s Solace tucked up against the eastern cliffs of the sheltered city. Dahlia sat at the room’s lone window, looking west, to the docks and the ocean of the reclaimed city-reclaimed in no small part because of the actions of this very group of adventurers. The sun sat low on the horizon before her, ready to surrender to the twilight.

“That again?” Entreri asked with a snort. He was returning from a late supper with the other three of their party, a meal in which the pouting Dahlia had refused to partake.

Dahlia swiveled around in her seat to regard him, her face scrunching with that unrelenting anger. She wore her hair in the top-braid again, something she had not done in some time, and her magical blue facial woad seemed particularly angry to Entreri this evening, somewhat resembling a hunting cat, and she turned and tilted her head obstinately. At least, that was the impression it gave to him.

“Do you think he is following us?” she asked.

“No.” In truth, the assassin had no idea whether Drizzt had decided to follow them out of Icewind Dale, nor was he overly concerned, in any case. At least, not for the reason Dahlia was clearly concerned. Likely Drizzt had remained in Icewind Dale, as he had indicated he would. He was probably licking his wounds and looking for some way to redeem his reputation among the folk of Ten-Towns, Entreri figured, for the assassin had seen the pain on Drizzt’s face when they had been denied entry to Bryn Shander.

Drizzt should have come with them, Entreri believed, although Dahlia had made that road far more difficult.

Or perhaps Entreri was simply considering his own preferences, to have the capable and steady drow warrior at his side. That realization surprised him more than a little.

“He will seek revenge,” Dahlia insisted. “You should not have stopped me!”

Entreri laughed at her.

“He deserved to die!” Dahlia spat, and she leaped out of her seat and stormed across the room to stand before the man.

“We were the ones who betrayed him, remember?” Entreri came back with a snicker. “And Drizzt forgave you, and never once confronted me-”

“He dismissed me,” Dahlia interrupted, as if that explained everything regarding her outright attack on the drow. She poked her finger into Entreri’s chest as she spoke, which brought another amused smile from the man.

So Dahlia slapped him across the face.

But he intercepted, catching her by the wrist and turning her arm down and around with a painful jerk.

“I am not Drizzt Do’Urden,” he assured her evenly. “If you attack me, I will fight back.”

“We have battled before,” Dahlia reminded him.

“Yes, but then I didn’t understand your strange weapon,” the assassin replied, using that voice that had chilled the blood of so many victims over the decades, usually right before his blades had drained that same blood. “I know your style and tricks now. If you attack me, have no doubt, I will kill you.”

He let go of her wrist, shoving the arm aside, and Dahlia fell back a step, staring at him with an expression caught somewhere between outrage and intrigue. Behind her, through the window, the sun disappeared, the long shadows giving way to dusk.

“Is that what you want?” Entreri reasoned. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

Dahlia straightened and squared her shoulders but couldn’t seem to find a response.

“Because you are a coward?” Entreri asked.

The woman’s hands reflexively moved toward her flail, the pair set in a belt loop on her left hip.

Artemis Entreri smiled again, and Dahlia stopped short of grabbing them.

“To what end, Dahlia?” he asked quietly. “You have your son back, and he forgives you, even if you cannot find the strength to forgive yourself. How long will you continue hating what you see in the mirror?”

“You know nothing of it.”

“I know that you went after Drizzt because he rejected you,” Entreri answered. “I also know your game.”

She tilted her head in curiosity, prompting him to elaborate.

“To find a lover who will confirm what you hate about yourself,” Entreri obliged. “And to find one who will, when you confront him, be strong enough to finally grant you peace. Well take heart, elf, for here I stand.”

Dahlia fell back a step, staring at Entreri and seemingly at a loss.

“We are done, here and now,” Entreri announced. “I will sail from this place without you.”

Dahlia’s expression went blank, and she mouthed “no,” though she couldn’t seem to find the breath to actually speak the word, as she shook her head slowly in denial.

“So draw your weapons as you will,” Entreri said, and he made sure he did so rather flippantly. “I long ago lost count of those I’ve killed. One more shan’t matter.”

Dahlia continued to shake her head, and it seemed to Entreri that she might simply melt then and there before him. Tears gathered in her eyes, one rolling down her cheek. Her lips moved as if she were trying to find something to say to him, some denial.