R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

On one roll, Pwent put his stout legs under him and regained his footing, driving Wulfgar back. But Wulfgar, as in his previous existence, was possessed of fine agility for one so large and he turned his torso and also got his feet planted, and so Pwent’s drive actually brought the barbarian upright as well.

Pwent tried to punch, but Wulfgar held him by the wrists. They struggled and twisted, the dwarf suddenly lowering his head to line up his helmet spike.

Wulfgar had to grab it to twist it aside, and he tried to twist further, to throw the dwarf off him.

He wasn’t fast enough, though, as Pwent’s freed hand immediately pounded against the barbarian’s massive chest, the gauntlet spike tearing through flesh and rib and lung alike, and Wulfgar went staggering back and to the ground.

“Pwent!” Bruenor screamed, finally catching up and throwing himself against the dwarf.

Pwent bounced aside and turned, ready to leap back in. He paused, though, and stood there staring at Bruenor, confused, trembling.

“Me king,” he said, his voice thick with sorrow, and he lowered his gaze in shame.

“Get aside, ye fool! By Moradin’s word, get aside!” Bruenor roared.

Pwent looked up at him and nodded. “Me king,” he said reverently, and seemed fully in control once more, and full of remorse and shame.

Drizzt and Entreri came running up, swords in hand, and skidded to a stop behind Bruenor, who lifted his hand to halt them.

“Ye do what I’m tellin’ ye, and ye do not-a-thing more,” the dwarf king said to Pwent, who nodded obediently.

But that nod transformed into a curious expression, then one that included a bit of pain, it seemed, and Pwent’s eyes led all to the right, to the fallen Wulfgar and to Catti-brie standing over him, holding a curious object and chanting an arcane poem.

“Girl?” Bruenor asked at the same time Pwent yelled, “No!” and leaped for the woman.

And again, this seemed a curious, supernatural stride, one elongated and too swift, and one full of spinning wisps of foggy trails.

But Pwent didn’t materialize from that step as before, and indeed became wholly insubstantial, mist or fog or dust, perhaps, right before all of it swept into the object Catti-brie held before her: Wulfgar’s horn.

The silver horn shuddered with the vampire dwarf’s entrance, and a strange low note came forth, spraying the dust of captured ancients, and ten berserkers appeared in the room before Catti-brie. They all looked around curiously, confused, and they all blew away to dust, then to nothingness altogether.

“Girl, what’d’ye do?” Bruenor asked, running up.

Already bathed in her ghostly blue mist, Catti-brie tossed him the horn and fell over Wulfgar, casting once more. Blue tendrils snaked out of her sleeves and rolled down over the prone form, warm healing to wash over the badly wounded Wulfgar.

“Girl?” Bruenor asked breathlessly a few moments later, Drizzt flanking him. Just to the side of them, Entreri helped Regis back to his feet, and they, too, looked on.

Catti-brie looked up and smiled, and below her, Wulfgar matter-of-factly remarked, “Ouch,” then with great difficulty propped himself up on his elbows.

Drizzt took the horn from Bruenor and held it up to examine it, and noted a crack running along its side.

“Ye breaked it, girl,” Bruenor remarked when Drizzt pointed it out.

“It will hold him.”

“I had him back to his senses,” Bruenor protested. “We ain’t done yet!”

“No, but Pwent is,” Catti-brie said, rising and coming over to take back the horn. She slung it over her shoulder, shaking her head to deny any forthcoming protests from the dwarf.

“We came for Pwent and we got him,” Regis interjected. He looked at the man standing beside him and added, “We came for Entreri and we got him.”

Entreri looked down at him curiously. “Who are you?” he asked, and in response, Regis held up his hand with the missing finger, a digit removed in the trauma of his near-catastrophic birth, but so eerily similar to the wound Entreri had put upon him in his previous existence.

Entreri turned his confused expression to Drizzt, who merely answered, “Are you really surprised by anything anymore?”

The assassin shrugged and glanced back the other way, where the vampire minions huddled together at the far end of the room, cowering from Catti-brie’s powerful invocation. He nodded to Drizzt and started off to dispose of them, but it was Regis who led the way.

“Ye sure it’ll hold him, then?” Bruenor quietly asked Catti-brie when the trio had gone off.

The woman inspected the horn and nodded.

Bruenor sighed.

“It is best,” Catti-brie said. “Pwent can’t control himself-not for long, and not for much longer at all. It’s a curse full of great powers, and surely not a blessing. We’ll find him his rest, the proper rest for Thibbledorf Pwent.”

“Ah, but I loved the dirty brawler.”

“And Moradin will enjoy him at the great feast,” Catti-brie replied, managing a smile, and Bruenor nodded again.

“Ouch,” Wulfgar said again from beside them, and with great effort, he rolled around and managed to sit up.

Bruenor pulled one of Regis’s healing potions from his belt, but Wulfgar waved him away. “We may need it later,” he said, his voice still a bit breathless.

They sent Regis to finish off the crawling beast, then Drizzt and Entreri waded into the trio of cowering undead with wild abandon, blades hacking the creatures apart before they ever knew they were being attacked.

“Is it really them?” Entreri asked quietly, and Drizzt nodded.

“Where is Dahlia?” Drizzt asked as they approached the hanging cages.

Entreri shook his head. “I haven’t seen her in more than a day-perhaps longer. I have little sense of the passage of time down here.”

“Effron?”

Entreri shook his head, and pointed to lead Drizzt’s gaze to the misshapen pile of splattered skull.

Drizzt gasped and averted his eyes.

“They tormented her with that, your fine kin,” Entreri said. “The sight of it … of him, broke her and left her vulnerable.”

Drizzt sighed. He could only imagine the pain such a loss would have inflicted on fragile Dahlia, and so soon after she had come to reconcile with her son, both in his forgiveness of her and her own forgiveness of herself. Effron had allowed Dahlia to come to terms with her own dark past, and had given her hope for the future.

And there it lay, splattered on the floor.

“How long since your capture, do you think?” Drizzt asked, needing to shift the subject.

“Several days-less than a tenday, I believe. They took us in Port Llast, and laid waste to much of the place.”

Drizzt looked around, his expression curious. “Not so many dark elves,” he remarked.

“Because Tiago led them off,” Entreri replied, “with an army at his heels-looking for you, I expect. That seems to be the driving desire in his life.”

Entreri climbed up the side of Afafrenfere’s cage and picked the lock quickly, then dropped down to help the drow ease the monk to the floor. Fortunately, this cage hadn’t been glyphed like Entreri’s.

“We’ll throw him in the primordial pit,” Entreri offered. “So they can’t raise him and torment-”

“No,” came an interruption, a weak and parched whisper-from Afafrenfere!

Entreri jumped back and nearly jumped out of his boots, staring wide-eyed.

“We thought you were dead,” Drizzt cried.

“For all the days we’ve been here!” Entreri added.

The monk stiffly moved up to one elbow, swallowing repeatedly. “Fortunately,” he said, his voice a thin whisper, “so did our captors.”

“How?” Entreri cried. “What?”