R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Regis stuck Pwent again, but the dwarf growled it away and whipped around, sending Wulfgar skidding across between himself and the halfling to crash across Regis’s arms and drive him back. Wulfgar was out of the way immediately, but not of his own accord, for while the clench was tiring him, the vampire knew no such limitations. Suddenly Wulfgar went flying back the other way, Pwent turning to slam him hard into the wall, and then out Wulfgar flew back again, the furious dwarf throwing him at Regis.

Regis reflexively ducked and Wulfgar crashed into the wall behind him.

“Pwent!” came another shout, this time from Bruenor, who appeared farther along the corridor. “Ye know me, Pwent! Ye gived me back me helm!”

That gave the vampire pause, and so did Guenhwyvar, leaping over Bruenor and charging right in.

But Pwent became a cloud of gas and the panther skidded through, right past Regis, and Wulfgar behind him.

The gas reformed almost immediately, but now Drizzt came in, rushing past Bruenor. “I left you in a cave, brave friend!” the drow cried.

“Aye, and ye’re a fool for it!” the vampire shouted back, and he threw himself at the drow, a barrage of punches meeting a flurry of scimitar parries.

“Pwent!” Bruenor screamed.

Finally it seemed to get through to the vampire, a bit at least, and he abruptly disengaged from Drizzt and stepped back past Regis, who held his strike.

But Wulfgar did not. Aegis-fang back in his hand, the barbarian cried out and swept the weapon across, smashing Pwent in the chest and sending him skidding farther along. Wulfgar jumped out into the center of the corridor and pulled Regis defensively behind him.

Then Drizzt rushed up, shoulder-to-shoulder with the barbarian.

“Pwent, ye know us,” Bruenor said, rushing up beside Regis and behind Drizzt. “We come to help ye.”

The vampire growled.

Behind the vampire, Guenhwyvar growled.

“Pwent, my old friend, remember the fight in the primordial pit,” Drizzt coaxed. “You saved us that day. You saved all in the region from another cataclysm.”

The vampire looked at him, clearly struggling, memories battling demons within.

“Aye, and I damned meself,” he replied, his voice shaking with every syllable.

“In the cave,” Drizzt said. “The sun.”

“Couldn’t …” Pwent answered weakly, and he trembled, his eyes darting all around. He was thinking of escaping, they all realized, but only for a moment before he grunted and stood straight once more, glaring at them hatefully-and also, strangely, plaintively.

“Finish me, then!” he roared and he came forward a step as if to renew the fighting.

But he stopped short, a curious expression on his dead face. He looked at the companions, then past the companions, and shook his head.

That distant look made them all glance back, to see Catti-brie standing down the hall, one hand extended, palm up, balancing a sapphire as the woman, scroll in hand, continued a soft arcane chant.

“No!” Pwent growled, and it seemed as if he tried to come forward then, but could not, locked in place by the mounting dweomer of Catti-brie. “No, ye dogs!”

He leaned forward then, toward their line, and he seemed to elongate, then to become something less than substantial. And he floated past them suddenly and swiftly, stretched and insubstantial, flowing into Catti-brie’s waiting phylactery.

“Ye got him, girl!” Bruenor cried, starting her way, but he stopped even as he turned.

Catti-brie trembled and shook her head as if something were very wrong.

With only that unclear warning, the gemstone exploded into a million pieces, the concussion sending Catti-brie flying backward and flinging dust and pellets around the corridor.

And there, where Catti-brie had been, where the gem had been, stood a very shaken Thibbledorf Pwent.

“They got prisoners,” he said to Bruenor, fighting every word. “Entreri’s caught in the Forge. And more there beside him, and a lady dwarf in the mines …”

He stalked about a step to the left and back to the right, then dived back with startling speed and grabbed up the dazed Catti-brie by the throat.

“Could’o’ killed ye,” he whispered to her, and he dropped her there and leaped away, becoming a bat before he ever landed. He fluttered off the way he had come.

Catti-brie pulled herself to her feet and reached up to pat at the blood on her face-blood from the cuts of a dozen shards of the burst gemstone.

“Me girl!” Bruenor said, rushing up to her, as did the others.

“I’m all right,” she assured them, her gaze turning in the direction of Pwent’s retreat. “The gem was not sufficient to hold him.”

“He’s a monster,” Regis whispered, the halfling thoroughly shaken by what he had seen in Pwent’s dead eyes.

“Half of one, perhaps,” Catti-brie replied, and the fact that she was still alive and could reply bolstered her argument.

“Half and more, and the bad part’s gaining,” Bruenor lamented. “Wilder than I seen him in the throne room them months ago.”

“The curse,” Catti-brie agreed. “He cannot withstand it.”

“They,” Drizzt whispered, and all turned to him at that unexpected word.

“Pwent said they’ve got prisoners,” the drow explained to their curious expressions.

“The drow got the Forge, then, from what he said and what we’re knowin’,” Bruenor agreed. “And we might be needin’ to go through them to get to Pwent again.”

“And to free Entreri,” said Drizzt. “I’ll not leave him to the dark elves.”

“Yeah,” Bruenor replied, hands on hips. “Figured ye’d say as much. Durn elf.”

“We go through them, then,” said Wulfgar.

“Think we might be warnin’ them drow that they’ll get some more o’ their kin and make it more of a fight?” Bruenor said to Drizzt. “Might only be a few hunnerd o’ them to fight.”

Drizzt looked around at the others, all of them nodding and smiling and eager to go-even Regis.

So be it.

Words blurted out in fast reaction so oft ring true.

They flow from the heart, and give voice to raw emotions before the speaker can thoughtfully intervene, out of tact or fear. Before the natural guards arise to self-censor, to protect the speaker from embarrassment or retribution. Before the polite filters catch the words to protect the sensibilities of others, to veil the sharp truth before it can stab.

Bruenor calls this fast reaction “chewing from yer gut.”

We all do it. Most try not to do it, audibly at least, and in matters of tact and etiquette, that is a good thing.

But sometimes chewing from your gut can serve as an epiphany, an admission of sorts to that which is actually in your heart, despite the reservations one might have gained among polite company.

So it was that day in the chambers of upper Gauntlgrym when I said that I would not leave Entreri to his drow captors. I did not doubt my course from the moment Thibbledorf Pwent revealed the situation to me. I would go to find Artemis Entreri, and I would free him-and the others, if they, too, had been taken.

It was that simple.

And yet, when I look back on that moment, there was nothing simple about it at all. Indeed, I find my resolution and determination truly surprising, and for two very different reasons.

First, as my own words rang in my ears, they revealed to me something I had not admitted: that I cared for Artemis Entreri. It wasn’t just convenience that had kept me beside him, nor my own loneliness, nor my flawed desire to bring him and the others to the path of righteousness. It was because I cared, and not just for Dahlia but for Entreri as well.