Robert Salvatore - STARLESS NIGHT

A flurry of punches battered Catti-brie's head as she hugged tightly to the vicious draw's tegs. The spider mask had turned about, and Catti-brie could not see, but she realized that if Vendes had a weapon handy, she would be in trouble.

Blindly, Catti-brie reached up with one hand, trying to grab at a drow wrist. Vendes was too quick for the move, though, and not only got her arm out of the way, but wriggled one leg free as well. She coiled and kicked, and Catti-brie nearly swooned.

Vendes pushed powerfully against her, slipping free, then Catti-brie was scrambling, trying to catch up to the suddenly receding legs. The young woman hesitated for just an instant, to pull the troublesome mask from her face, then cried out in denial as she saw Vendes's feet slipping too far from her grasp. The Baenre daughter quickly regained her footing and ran from the room.

Catti-brie could easily fathom the consequences of letting this one get away. Stubbornly, she put her arms under her and started to rise, but was pushed back to the floor by a gentle hand as someone came over her. She saw the bare feet of Drizzt Do'Urden hit the stone floor in front of her, in full pursuit.

Drizzt twisted weirdly as he came into the corridor. He threw himself backward and to the floor so fiercely that Catti-brie feared he had been clotheslined. She understood the move as Drizzt's own doing, though, as a gob of greenish goo flew harmlessly above him.

A twisting roll realigned Drizzt and put his feet back under him, and he shot off like a springing cat.

And a springing cat, Guenhwyvar, followed, leaping over Catti-brie and into the corridor, turning so perfect an angle, the instant the paws touched the stone, that Catti-brie had to blink to make sure she was not seeing things.

"Nau" came the doomed draw's cry of protest from out in the corridor. The warrior whom Vendes had tortured, had beaten without mercy, was upon her, his eyes raging with fires of vengeance.

Guenhwyvar came right behind, desperate to help Drizzt, but in the instant it took the cat to reach the fighting, a scimitar had already plunged deep into Vendes's stomach.

A groan from the side refocused Catti-brie's attention. She spotted the wounded female crawling for her dropped weapons.

Catti-brie scrambled immediately, staying on the floor, and wrapped her legs about the draw's neck, squeezing with all her strength. Both ebon-skinned hands came up to tear at her, to punch at her. But then the female calmed, and Catti-brie thought she had surrendered—until she noticed the draw's lips moving.

She was casting a spell!

Purely on instinct, Catti-brie poked her finger repeatedly into the draw's eyes. The chant became cries of pain and protest, and they became no more than a wheeze as Catti-brie clamped her legs down tighter.

Catti-brie hated this with all her generous heart. The killing revolted her, especially a fight such as this, where she would have to watch for agonizing seconds, minutes perhaps, while she suffocated her opponent.

She spied Entreri's dagger not far away and grabbed it. Tears of rage and innocence lost filled her blue eyes as she brought the deadly blade to bear.

Guenhwyvar skidded to a stop, and Drizzt roughly retracted the embedded blade and took a step back.

"Nau?" shinned Vendes repeated, the drow word for "no." Vicious Duk-Tak seemed little to Drizzt then, almost pitiful. She was doubled over in pain, trembling violently.

Drizzt came back into his cell to see Catti-brie still lying on the stone floor, holding the spider mask and gasping heavily as she tried to steady her breathing. Behind her, Entreri hung awkwardly by one arm, twisted and stuck to the gooey wall.

"This'll get him down," Catti-brie explained, tossing the mask to Drizzt.

Drizzt caught the mask but made no move, having much more on his mind than freeing the assassin.

"Regis telled me," Catti-brie explained, though that point seemed obvious enough. "I made him tell me."

"You came alone?"

Catti-brie shook her head, and for a moment Drizzt nearly swooned, thinking that another of his friends might be in peril, or might be dead. But Catti-brie motioned to Guenhwyvar, and the ranger breathed a sigh of relief.

"You are a fool," Drizzt replied, his words wrought of sheer incredulity and frustration. He scowled fiercely at Catti-brie, wanting her to know that he was not pleased.

"No more than yerself," the young woman answered with a wistful smile, a smile that stole the scowl from Drizzt's face. The dark elf couldn't deny his joy at seeing Catti-brie again, even in this dangerous circumstance.

"Are ye wanting to talk about it now?" Catti-brie asked, smiling still. "Or are ye wanting to wait until we're back in Mithril Hall?"

Drizzt had no answer, just shook his head and ran a hand through his thick mane. He looked to the spider mask then, and to Entreri, and his scowl returned.

"We've a deal," Catti-brie quickly put in. "He got me to ye, and said he'd get us both out, and we're to guide him back to the surface."

"And once there?" Drizzt had to ask.

"Let him go his way, and we're to go our own," Catti-brie answered firmly, as though she needed to hear the strength of her voice for the sake of her own resolve.

Again Drizzt looked doubtfully from the mask to the assassin. The prospects of setting Artemis Entreri free on the surface did not sit well in the noble ranger's gut. How many would suffer for Drizzt's actions now? How many would again be terrorized by the darkness that was Artemis Entreri?

"I gived me word," Catti-brie offered in the face of her friend's obvious doubts.

Drizzt continued to ponder the consequences. He couldn't deny Entreri's potential value on the ensuing journey, particularly the fight they would likely face in getting out of.the Baenre complex. Drizzt had fought beside the assassin before on similar occasions, and together they had been nothing short of brilliant.

Still…

"I came in good faith," Entreri stuttered through chattering, barely controlled teeth. "I saved … I … saved that one." His free arm twitched out as though to indicate Catti-brie, but it jerked suddenly, violently, and banged against the wall instead.

"I'll have your word then," Drizzt offered, moving toward the man. He meant to go on and exact a promise from Entreri that his evil deeds would be at an end, even that once on the surface he would willingly stand trial for his dark past. Entreri saw it coming clearly, though, and cut Drizzt short, his rising anger giving him temporary control over his uncooperative muscles.

"Nothing!" he snarled. "You have what I offered to her!"

Drizzt immediately looked back to Catti-brie, who was up and moving for her bow.

"I gived me word," she replied, more emphatically, matching his doubtful stare.

"And we are running. . short … of time," Entreri added.

The ranger moved the last two steps swiftly and plopped the mask over Entreri's head. The man's arm slid out of the goo and he dropped to the floor, unable to gain enough control to even stand. Drizzt went for the remaining potion bottles, hoping that they might restore the assassin's muscle control. He still wasn't wholly convinced that showing Entreri back to the surface was the right choice, but he decided that he couldn't wait around and debate the issue. He would free Entreri, and together the three and Guenhwyvar would try to escape the compound and the city. Other problems would have to be dealt with later.

It would all be moot, after all, if the potion's healing magic did not help the assassin, for Drizzt and Catti-brie surely could not carry the man out of there.

But Entreri was standing again before he had even finished his first draw on the ceramic flask. The effects of the dart were temporary and fast fading, and the revitalizing potion spurred the recovery even more quickly.