R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Gromph wore a grave expression-until he magically shut the door behind his sister. He’d allow her the illusion of an upper hand.

He could afford to, for she clearly had not sorted out that Methil El-Viddenvelp was not only imparting memories to her but was discerning her intent and feeding it back to Gromph. In essence, crafty old Gromph was using the mind flayer in the same way Yvonnel had used Methil to gain an upper hand in the chamber of the Ruling Council.

Quenthel was sharper than she had been before the interactions with the illithid, perhaps, and surely far more knowledgeable about the ways of Lolth’s world.

But thus far, at least, she was no Yvonnel. Not yet.

After the ease with which Quenthel had dominated and manipulated Minolin Fey and Gromph at House Fey-Branche in the Festival of the Founding, Gromph Baenre found himself quite glad of that.

Hanging in his iron cage, Artemis Entreri didn’t know what to make of any of it. Something had happened to Dahlia, obviously. Something awful, something perpetrated by that horrid mind flayer.

She wasn’t crying about Effron. She wasn’t tight with anger or pacing with excessive anxiety and frustration. She wasn’t speaking, not even to answer Artemis Entreri’s soft calls. She wasn’t looking at him, or at anything, it seemed.

She was just sitting there, uncaged, unguarded, broken. She had one shackle around her ankle, chained to a metal ball, but it hardly seemed as if her captors needed it.

“Dahlia!” he called again, as loudly as he dared. He really didn’t want to give any of the dark elves moving around the Forge any excuse to walk over and beat him some more-not that they really needed an excuse; many paused to and from their respective forges to stick him with a small knife, or a heated poker, or to toss some hot ash up toward his face, just to see him try reflexively and futilely to turn away.

The woman made no movement to indicate that she had heard him, or that she even cared to listen, in any case.

She was broken, perhaps beyond repair, he realized, and he couldn’t deny, as much as he wanted to, that the thought of Dahlia’s grim fate gnawed at him.

Gnawed at him and tugged at his heartstrings, more than he ever could have imagined.

Knowing where this would inevitably lead, Entreri tried to block out the train of thought, but he could not.

In his memories, he saw Calihye again, and he imagined her in Dahlia’s place. She, too, had been taken by the dark elves, by Jarlaxle’s band of Bregan D’aerthe.

Taken from him.

Had he really loved Calihye? To this day, he wondered, and for this man, who for most of his life was certain that love did not exist, the conundrum truly echoed through his thoughts. Perhaps he had loved Calihye, perhaps not, but surely his relationship with her was the closest he had ever come to knowing love.

Until now? Until Dahlia?

Entreri stared down at her from his cage.

This could not stand.

Very slowly and deliberately, Entreri manipulated his shoulders, twisting and turning and flexing the powerful muscles along his side until his left shoulder blade had moved downward, in effect shortening his arm. More turning and twisting and stretching at last brought his left hand into view.

He noted his exceptionally long thumbnail. He kept it that way on purpose.

He grimaced with the last painful twist, turning his arm practically out of socket so that he could turn it in around the outside of the cage and bring that fingernail to his mouth.

He sucked that thumb for some time, softening the nail with his spit, then he bit and slowly peeled, taking the top of the fingernail in one long strip.

Activity in the room forced him to twist the arm aside before he could put that nail back into his hand, so he used his tongue to tuck it deep to the side of his lower gum, out of sight and leaving his tongue clear in case he needed to speak.

Out of the tunnel that led to the primordial pit floated High Priestess Berellip, sitting comfortably on a magically glowing summoned disc. Entreri thought that surely meant he was in for another round of torture. But that diminished quickly when more notable drow came out of the tunnel right behind Berellip, including Tiago Baenre and the other Xorlarrin priestess in the second rank, followed closely by the House wizard and weapons master, the priestess upon a similar floating disc, the males all riding battle lizards.

And many others followed, all outfitted for battle, clearly, and with a contingent of driders bringing up the back of the long line.

Entreri considered their course, and traced them back to the chamber that had become, he had heard in whispers, the chapel of this new drow settlement. They had come forth with Lolth’s blessing, then, and had come forth prepared to go to war.

They were marching out of Gauntlgrym again, Entreri realized, as they had gone to Port Llast. More prisoners, more slaves, more dead, more blood. It was the drow way.

They came very near to his cage and to Dahlia, and Berellip halted the march with an upraised hand and guided her disc to the side, hovering near the broken elf woman.

“Darthiir,” she said with a sneer and shake of her head. “Know that I would pull your limbs off on the rack, were it my choice. And I would keep you alive and find more ways to wound you. I would give you hope, and then I would feed you to Yerrininae, and I would watch with joy the unspeakable things he would do to you for killing his beloved Flavvar.”

“Priestess,” Jearth dared to interrupt, and Berellip turned a sharp stare upon him. She didn’t look at him for long, though, Entreri noted, but settled her glower at the male sitting beside her sister, the warrior Entreri knew to be Tiago Baenre.

A large bit of bluster left Berellip’s features as she matched stares with the noble of House Baenre.

The archmage had told her to leave Dahlia alone, Entreri realized from that silent exchange. From his time in Menzoberranzan, Entreri knew well that few would dare cross Gromph Baenre. Even Jarlaxle offered that dangerous wizard more than a bit of deference. Despite the tight press of the cage, Entreri managed to cock his head to the side just a bit with curiosity. The archmage and House Baenre were protecting Dahlia?

The second disc floated closer to him.

“You should force Yerrininae to come with us,” the younger Xorlarrin priestess said to Berellip.

“He is grieving-I did not know that driders were possessed of such emotions,” Berellip answered.

“He hates the darthiir above all others.”

“He will not disobey me,” Berellip assured her. “Go now, to the glory of Q’Xorlarrin. Return to me with the head of Drizzt Do’Urden.”

Him again!

After the initial shock, Entreri found an epiphany: none of this was coincidence. He and his friends had not been misfortunate in being in Port Llast when the drow had attacked. Nay, the drow had attacked because he and his friends had been in Port Llast. They were still obsessed with Drizzt, after all these years. Were they keeping Dahlia alive as bait, then?

That thought hit Entreri almost humorously as he recalled the last bloody meeting between Dahlia and Drizzt.

Almost humorously, for in his current predicament, he really couldn’t find humor in much of anything.

Below him, Berellip waved her sister back to Tiago’s side, then motioned for the procession to be on its way. The force moved by swiftly and steadily, exiting the Forge in short order.

Entreri hung motionless and expressionless, trying not to stare too intently at Berellip and Dahlia, trying to seem as if he was far beyond any concerns of the world about him, too walled up within his own pain and misery. Indeed, he showed no interest at all, and showed himself to be too beaten and broken to even care.