R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

But he cared indeed. By his estimation, well over half of the Xorlarrin garrison had just departed the complex, and with all of the nobles save Berellip, a good portion of the goblinkin slave force and many of the monstrous driders with them.

He would get his chance.

The Forge lay quiet, the stillness interrupted only by the occasional ping of the hammer of the lone drow blacksmith still at work and the snorts and chortles of sleeping slaves.

Dahlia, too, was fast asleep, lying on the stone floor right in front of Entreri’s cage.

The assassin used her as his focus, staring at her, thinking of what these wretched dark elves had done to her, and what they would likely do to her going forward.

He focused on that as his one hand reached up and worked deliberately, fingernail in hand, on the tumblers within the cage’s lock. Entreri had contorted himself enough to stick a finger from his other hand into his ear, blocking the sound, while he rested his open ear against the same metal bar that ran up to the lock.

He heard and felt the subtle vibration as a tumbler clicked.

Nothing mattered to him beyond that sound, then. With perfect concentration, the skilled assassin tuned all of his senses to his work, feeling and learning the intricate mechanism, listening for the tell-tale sounds.

A second tumbler was soon defeated.

Entreri fell deeper into his trance, blocking out all distractions. Pure focus.

Click went the third, then the fourth.

And then came an unexpected sound indeed as the lock opened and the leaning assassin inadvertently pressed the door open, just a bit, just enough to set off a lightning glyph that crackled about him, stinging him painfully and alerting those in the room.

He dropped his arms and hung there, seeming unconscious, but still the drow blacksmith approached, hot poker in hand. The drow called out as he did, and another pair of dark elves ran into the room from the corridor beyond, rushing to join their kin.

They came up to Entreri, glancing about nervously.

The cage door moved imperceptibly and another shock rattled the assassin. He groaned and lolled his head to the side.

He understood the drow language enough to recognize the obvious question, and he did well to hide his smile at the answer.

“His weight has loosened the door enough to set off Priestess Berellip’s traps!”

Entreri unclenched his muscles enough for his weight to shift the door the tiniest bit yet again, to jolt him with magical lightning yet again.

He groaned.

The dark elves laughed.

The two guards were still laughing when they went back to their posts. The blacksmith was still laughing when he lifted his hammer once again.

Entreri let the cage shock him again, and several more times after that, at varying intervals, and for varying periods of time, sometimes through several painful heartbeats.

The blacksmith stopped even looking back his way.

The cage sounded again, for a long while, then fell silent as Entreri, on the floor, quietly closed the door.

Dahlia sprawled before him, and how he wanted to go to her! He slithered off into the shadows instead, crawling by the sleeping goblins, where he appropriated a long shovel.

Like a whisper of wind he moved, forge to forge, shadow to shadow, pile to pile. None were better at hearing the quiet than the drow, but none were better at being the quiet than Artemis Entreri.

He came up behind the drow craftsman, leaning the shovel diagonally against the tray of the workplace. In one fluid movement, Entreri stepped up beside his intended victim, lifted the hot poker, and brought it in against the drow’s belly. The shocked blacksmith instinctively threw his hips back, and Entreri helped him avoid the press of the poker by grabbing the hair at the back of the drow’s head and driving forward with all his strength. Already bending forward to avoid the poker, the surprised blacksmith offered little resistance as Entreri slammed his face down on the edge of the metal tray in front of him.

Up came the dazed and bleeding dark elf to Entreri’s strong pull, and down he went again, even harder.

Entreri kicked down hard on the leaning shovel, cracking the handle in half, and before the broken top piece could fall, he snatched it out of the air with his free hand.

The drow craftsman finally reoriented himself enough to start to call out, but around came Entreri’s arm and makeshift weapon, the now sharp end of the broken handle stabbing up under the drow’s jaw and stealing his words in a gurgle of erupting blood.

A third face slam had the craftsman falling limp, barely conscious. Still holding him fast by the hair, Entreri set down the spear and drove his free hand up against the drow’s crotch. With the strength of a warrior, muscles hardened by decades of fighting, Entreri hoisted his victim from the ground and tossed him into the oven, feeding the forge with drow flesh.

Primordial fire ate the poor drow immediately, consuming flesh and charring bones before he could even truly cry out.

Still, the dying dark elf issued enough of a sound to remind Entreri that he had to move fast. He slid the halves of the broken shovel back together, using the splinters of the wood to make the piece appear whole at a cursory glance. He noted a narrow nail on the tray and collected it, thinking it a far better lockpick than a thumbnail, after all. Then he quickly dabbled some ash on the floor at the base of the forge and rushed off into the shadows, crossing by the sleeping goblins just long enough to replace the shovel among their utensils.

Back at his cage, he accepted another painful sting of the lightning glyph as he swung the door open and leaped back into place, then shut the door with his arms and shoulders positioned carefully to make it look as if it had never opened. He twisted around and reached up, using his new and better lockpick to engage one of the tumblers before setting it into his mouth, tight beside his gums.

The assassin fully relaxed and fell back into place. He leaned his face on the iron band and cried out suddenly, sharply, and very briefly, just enough to stir the goblins and to alert the guards outside the room.

And then he appeared to be, to all who might look, no more alive than the monk in the cage beside him, hanging limply against the press of the cage.

Just a heartbeat later, Entreri noted one goblin standing and looking around curiously. The creature kicked another nearby sleeper, and so on down the line until several were up and about, scratching their ugly heads and pointing to the still-fired forge, where the drow had been at work.

The group moved there, filling the ash Entreri had sprinkled with their footprints, and looked all around until one of them noted the charred remains inside the oven. Then how they jumped, falling all over each other to get away from the murder scene.

They scrambled and went for their tools, makeshift weapons to use against whatever intruder had murdered the drow craftsman.

In came the dark elf guards at the sound of the commotion, and when shown the murder scene, they called in many more.

Watching through one half-closed eye, Artemis Entreri enjoyed the spectacle indeed as the drow demanded answers from the goblins. He had only one moment of fear, when the goblins pointed to Dahlia, gibbering that she must be the culprit.

It was precisely that moment, however, when one of the ugly little creatures lifted the shovel Entreri had borrowed. It noted the stains on the handle only then, and when it moved to inspect the blood, the shovel fell in half, revealing the makeshift spear.

Leaving the goblin holding the murder weapon.

And with goblin footprints all around the ash near the crime scene.

The goblins kept pointing at Dahlia, who seemed unaware of anything going on around her, but the dark elves ignored them.