R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

A hail of javelins swarmed into the globe. There came a grunt and the thud of the man falling to the ground, and Entreri noted his hand protruding from the edge of the darkness, fingers trembling and moving, as if they were trying to grasp at life itself.

Then stillness.

So it was over, Entreri realized, his gallant idiocy sure to leave them both dead on the street. He managed a glance behind him, down the lane toward the lower city, and caught sight of Dahlia in crow form touching down beside Effron, and Amber battling a horrid drider off to the side, and a spinning web of lightning descending right behind Dahlia.

The flashes and reverberations of that lightning net shook the ground all around this section of Port Llast; people were running, scrambling, tumbling as the ground moved under their feet.

Entreri held his balance, and even used the tremor to go at Tiago once more, hoping to at least take this miserable drow noble down before the other dark elves overwhelmed him.

But Tiago, with equal balance, was ready for the charge, and Entreri’s slashing sword met a spiraling, widening shield-a magical shield expanding right before Entreri’s eyes! Tiago dared to roll around, even putting his back to Entreri for a brief instant.

His back! Entreri saw the opening. His opponent had underestimated him.

He went for the target, or tried to, but found to his horror that his sword was stuck fast to Tiago’s shield, as surely as if he had slashed it into the side of a thick spiderweb.

Tiago came around turning that shield, tugging hard and nearly taking the sword from Entreri’s hand. Only the assassin’s great speed and balance allowed him to twist and turn enough to hold on desperately as the drow’s sword stabbed for him. Only a last-instant parry by his jeweled dagger turned that blade from his face, and only enough so that blade still nicked his ear as it passed.

Entreri felt the sting of that hit, and the added sting of drow poison.

And then the ground rolled under him suddenly, like an ocean wave, and he and Tiago were lifted into the air, deafened by a thunder stroke, and blinded by a flash so brilliant that it stole the night.

"Ca-ru-delly!” Penelope Harpell said with great enthusiasm and a loud clap of her hands when the five companions, led by Catti-brie, were escorted into her audience chamber.

“Eh?” Bruenor asked.

But Catti-brie was simply smiling in response at the affectionate nickname-one Catti-brie had earned in her initial meeting with Penelope a couple of years earlier. When asked her name in that first meeting, Catti-brie had nearly blurted the truth, then tried to change it with the name she had been given by her Bedine parents, and finally had settled on her alias, that of poor Delly Curtie. She moved swiftly across the room, catching Penelope, her mentor, in a great hug.

“I told you I would return,” she said.

“To tell me the truth of your tale, so you promised,” Penelope replied as they broke the embrace. The older woman looked past Catti-brie to her companions, and her expression turned to one of curiosity when her gaze settled on the dark elf.

“Drizzt Do’Urden?” she asked. “Truly?”

The drow bowed. “Well met, Lady Penelope,” he said.

“Truly, indeed,” said an old man as he came in the door. He walked around Drizzt, nodded and smiled to Catti-brie, then clapped the drow on the shoulder.

“Kipper Harpell,” Drizzt said, nodding. He didn’t really remember the man all that well, but the name was fresh in his thoughts, given Catti-brie’s tutelage of the current state of the Ivy Mansion as the group had neared the place.

“I was a young man when last you came through Longsaddle,” Kipper said.

“Aye, was half a century ago when last we seen ye,” answered Bruenor, moving up beside Drizzt and offering his hand to Kipper.

The old man looked at him curiously.

“Half a century?” he asked, staring doubtfully at the young dwarf, who could not be half that age.

“I was older then,” Bruenor said with a laugh.

“I was older still,” Wulfgar said. “In human years.”

Regis snorted and waved his hand dismissively at the other two. “I was dead!” he exclaimed.

Kipper turned to Penelope, but she wore a perplexed expression to match that of the old mage.

“I told you I had a tale to tell,” Catti-brie said to her.

The older woman considered her former student, then turned to regard Drizzt and the others, her gaze settling on Bruenor. “Older then, but wearing the same crown?” she asked, and when the dwarf smiled, she added, “The one-horned helm of King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall?”

“Aye, she’s gettin’ it!” said the dwarf.

Penelope turned to the beautiful young woman with auburn hair standing beside her and said, “Catti-brie.”

Catti-brie nodded.

“Was she your mother, then?” Kipper asked Catti-brie. “Or your great-great-great grandmother at the least.”

Penelope grabbed Catti-brie’s arm and lifted it, pulling back the sleeve of her white gown to reveal the spellscar. She looked at Kipper and shook her head. “Catti-brie,” she reiterated.

“The Companions of the Hall,” Drizzt put in. “All of us. Once great friends to the Harpells of Longsaddle, who came to our aid in Mithral Hall in the Time of Troubles, when the drow returned.”

“I am too old for riddles,” Kipper complained.

“But are you too old for a fine tale?” Catti-brie asked.

Penelope’s husband Dowell entered the room then, his smile going wide when he noted the return of the woman called Delly Curtie. He looked around, happily at first, but his smile vanished when he regarded old Kipper, who stood with his arms crossed, a frown on his face, and tapping one shoe impatiently against the wooden floor.

“It seems that I have missed something,” Dowell said.

The door closed and all turned to see the foppish halfling leaning up against it. With a wide grin, Regis led the looks to the side of the room, where Wulfgar was already setting out an array of glasses, and inspecting the bottles of Penelope and Dowell’s private stock as he went.

Apparently noticing the dumbfounded stares upon him, Wulfgar turned and met them with a beaming smile. “What is a fine tale without an appropriate toasting beverage?” he asked, looking at Regis as he did.

“Ye’re gonna get me boy in trouble,” Bruenor whispered to the halfling.

“Count on it,” the halfling replied.

With a laugh, Penelope agreed, and she moved fast to clear enough of her desk for the large barbarian to bring over sufficient glasses and bottles. She settled back into her chair, Dowell and Kipper taking seats to flank her, and bade Catti-brie to spin her tale.

Even as the woman moved before the desk to begin, though, Penelope held up her hand to stop her. The Harpell leader then closed her eyes and whispered a spell-indeed, a spell referred to as the magical whisper. Soon after, there came a knock on the door. On Penelope’s signal, Regis opened it, and in came a line of younger Harpells, all bearing comfortable chairs for the guests.

“Do begin,” Penelope bade Catti-brie when the students were gone and the door closed once more.

A long while later, Penelope magically whispered once more, and soon after that, a grand dinner was brought in.

Through the meal, Catti-brie and the others continued their tale.

Long into the night, Drizzt finished. “And so we are here, with a dark road before us, and needing the friendship of the great Harpells of Longsaddle once more.

“For the sake o’ me Pwent,” Bruenor added.

Penelope looked to Dowell, and both deferred to Kipper.