R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“He faked his death,” Regis announced, rushing over to join them, having finally dispatched the crawling monstrosity. “Convincingly! He is a monk, after all.”

“Repeatedly,” Afafrenfere confirmed. “Whenever anyone was about.”

“You could have let me know,” said Entreri. “For all the days I hung beside you.”

“That the illithid might draw it from your thoughts?”

“You’re lucky we didn’t just leave you here,” Entreri grumped.

Afafrenfere started to rise and Drizzt and Entreri moved fast to help him up, but they found immediately that they would have to fully support him if he was to remain upright. They eased him to a sitting position instead, and Drizzt called out to Catti-brie.

“Now what?” Entreri asked Drizzt when the group, now seven strong, was all together.

“We should make for the exit quickly,” Catti-brie said, and nodded at Wulfgar and Afafrenfere, both sitting propped against the wall, both weak and weary and in no condition for another fight anytime soon.

But Drizzt answered by bringing forth the mace the largest of the driders had carried. “Amber is down here,” he said. “And Dahlia, likely.”

“Likely both dead or taken away by those who fled,” Entreri answered.

“Like Effron? So we should leave?” Drizzt asked, and it seemed more an accusation than an honest question.

“No,” Entreri answered. “You and I should go and find them. And quickly.”

Drizzt looked to Catti-brie, who nodded.

“Not without meself, ye don’t,” Bruenor grumbled.

“Or me,” said Regis.

“Aye,” Entreri sarcastically replied. “Because it would do well to leave our injured with the woman alone, to face the drow should they return through another course.”

Bruenor made a noise that sounded remarkably like a growl.

But Entreri ignored him. “Stealth,” he said to Drizzt.

“I’m as quiet as any,” Regis protested.

“And speed,” Entreri added without missing a breath. He turned to Regis. “Then keep a silent watch,” he said and started off. Or tried to, but by that point, his adrenalin had played out and his knee buckled. He pulled himself straight immediately and stood very still, as if willing away the pain.

A tap on his side brought Entreri from his self-imposed meditation to find Regis standing beside him, holding forth a small potion bottle.

“Healing,” the halfling offered, and when Entreri took it, he handed him a second vial. “For the drow poison,” he explained.

Entreri settled comfortably as the first potion filled him with warmth, and he tipped a nod to Regis before quaffing the second. “Off,” he said to Drizzt, “with all speed.” And he started away once more.

Drizzt looked all around. He didn’t want to leave his friends in this dangerous place, not for a moment, but he knew that Entreri was right, and that Amber and hopefully Dahlia needed him. He dropped Taulmaril and the enchanted quiver at Catti-brie’s feet.

“You take it,” she said, but Drizzt just shook his head and sprinted away, hustling to catch up to Entreri.

Regis moved around the Forge, inspecting the work areas and pocketing more than a few items in that magical pouch he carried.

Bruenor went to the mithral door, nodding. He knew what lay behind it. It would not open, however, and he could find no handle to try to pull it in. He put his shoulder against it and pushed, but he might as well have been pushing against the mountain itself.

Drizzt and Entreri, too, had gone to that door first, then had rushed off to the far end of the room, angling down the corridor where some of the drow had run off.

Wulfgar, much-improved by Catti-brie’s healing, sat up against the wall, resting easily and with Aegis-fang close at hand. If the drow came in, he would stand against them. Beside him, Afafrenfere lay on his back, working his arms up into the air in small circles, and his hands working in circles of their own, fingers lifting and closing as he tried to reawaken muscles that had been dormant for days. His voice was still thin as he explained the monk technique of feigning death to Wulfgar and Catti-brie.

Wulfgar listened intently, and with an amused expression, for the warrior barbarian hadn’t even learned the art of retreat, let alone faking his death to fool enemies!

And Catti-brie did not listen at all, hardly aware of her surroundings.

For in her head, the woman heard a call, quiet but insistent, a plea, and one from some being beyond her, some great creature, perhaps divine … though its mental intrusion seemed too foreign to be that of Mielikki’s song.

She didn’t understand. She unwittingly clenched her hand.

The woman leaned against the wall. Wulfgar’s laughter interrupted her thoughts and she turned to regard him, then followed his gaze and Afafrenfere’s to the Great Forge centering the room, and to Regis, who was trying to drag an enormous warhammer, a weapon made for a giant king, it seemed-and indeed it had been crafted for just that reason-from the work table.

“What’re ye about, Rumblebelly?” Bruenor called from across the way.

Regis lifted up his small belt pouch, which seemed barely large enough to contain his hand up to his wrist. With a wry grin, Regis slipped the bag over the end of the weapon’s long handle, and smiling all the wider, the mischievous halfling continued sliding the pouch up, the shaft disappearing within, seeming as if the magic was somehow devouring it.

“And how’re ye to get the hammer’s head over that little bag, magical or not?” Bruenor asked, for indeed, it didn’t seem possible.

“Well, come help me, then,” Regis argued back, and realizing his error, he began extracting the handle from the pouch.

Bruenor gave a great “harrumph” and stood with his hands on his hips, but Wulfgar pulled himself up and started over.

Catti-brie started to call out to him, to jokingly warn him not to let the light-fingered halfling near Aegis-fang, but she was interrupted before she ever begin by an insistent telepathic call, a plea to her, she felt, but in some language she could not decipher.

She glanced at the mithral door just down the way and crunched up her face curiously, seeing that liquid was spilling out around it, steaming and bubbling.

“Water?” she whispered, and realized that the door had opened a crack. She gathered up the bow and quiver, slinging both over her shoulder and moved to the door. She easily pulled it wide, revealing a low corridor beyond. She lifted her hand, the light from the spell she had placed upon her ring stealing the darkness before her and revealing to her a series of puddles along the floor, fast evaporating, billowing steam, though the woman, protected from fire as she was, couldn’t feel the heat.

“Girl?” she heard Bruenor call out as she entered the tunnel.

“Girl!” he yelled more frantically, but his voice was cut short as the heavy metal door swung closed behind her. Catti-brie went to it and pushed, but it would not budge. Strangely, she was not afraid, and the voice in her head beckoned her along. She made her way down the tunnel, pausing at one puddle where a broken pile of fast-cooling black rock lay. She found more of it along the path, like volcanic spit in a river bed, but she could make no sense of it.

She exited the tunnel into the steamy chamber, coming out right beside a pony-sized green spider that seemed to twitch at the sight of her. Catti-brie fell back and turned into a defensive crouch, her hand reflexively going to her bow. She shook her head and did not proceed, though, thinking that its movement must be a trick of her eye in the swirling steam of this place, for it seemed just a statue.

A beautiful jade statue, shining green against her light spell, and so intricate in detail as to appear lifelike. Still, when it didn’t move, Catti-brie couldn’t focus on it. The room around it seemed full of surprises, and oddly mixed shapes and items. To her right, beyond and above the spider, loomed tapestries of impossibly thick hanging webbing that shimmered and seemed alive in the pressing waves of steam.