Robert Salvatore - The Halfling’s Gem

Entreri issued no taunts this time. He came in furiously, cutting and slicing with his saber, knowing that he had to finish Drizzt before the shock of the ambush wore off. Viciousness replaced finesse, engulfing the injured assassin in a frenzy of hatred.

He leaped into Drizzt, locking one of the drow’s arms under his own wounded limb and trying to use brute strength to drive his saber into his opponent’s neck.

Drizzt steadied himself quickly enough to control the initial assault. He surrendered his one arm to the assassin’s hold, concentrating solely on getting his free scimitar up to block the strike. The blade’s hilt again locked with that of Entreri’s saber, holding it motionless in midswing halfway between the combatants.

Behind their respective blades, Drizzt and Entreri eyeballed each other with open hatred, their grimaces only inches apart.

“How many crimes shall I punish you for, assassin?” Drizzt growled. Reinforced by his own proclamation, Drizzt pushed the saber back an inch, shifting the angle of his own deadly blade down more threateningly toward Entreri.

Entreri did not answer, nor did he seem alarmed at the slight shift in the blades’ momentum. A wild, exhilarated look came into his eyes, and his thin lips widened into an evil grin.

Drizzt knew that the killer had another trick to play.

Before the drow could figure the game, Entreri spat a mouthful of filthy sewer water into his lavender eyes.

The sound of renewed fighting led Bruenor and Catti-brie along the tunnels. They caught sight of the moonlit forms struggling just as Entreri played his wicked card.

“Drizzt!” Catti-brie shouted, knowing that she couldn’t get to him, even get her bow up, in time to stop Entreri.

Bruenor growled and bolted forward with only one thought on his mind: If Entreri killed Drizzt, he would cut the dog in half!

The sting and shock of the water broke Drizzt’s concentration, and his strength, for only a split second, but he knew that even a split second was too long against Artemis Entreri. He jerked his head to the side desperately.

Entreri snapped his saber down, slicing a gash across Drizzt’s forehead and crushing the drow’s thumb between the twisting hilts. “I have you!” he squealed, hardly believing the sudden turn of events.

At that horrible moment, Drizzt could not disagree with the observation, but the drow’s next move came more on instinct than on any calculations, and with agility that surprised even Drizzt. In the instant of a single, tiny hop, Drizzt snapped one foot behind Entreri’s ankle and tucked the other under him against the wall. He pushed away and twisted as he went. On the slick floor, Entreri had no chance to dodge the trip, and he toppled backward into the murky stream, Drizzt splashing down on top of him.

The weight of Drizzt’s heavy fall jammed the crosspiece of his scimitar into Entreri’s eye. Drizzt recovered from the surprise of his own movement faster than Entreri, and he did not miss the opportunity. He spun his hand over on the hilt and reversed the flow of the blade, pulling it free of Entreri’s and swinging a short cut back and down, with the tip of the scimitar diving in at the assassin’s ribs. In grim satisfaction, Drizzt felt it begin to cut in.

It was Entreri’s turn for a move wrought of desperation. Having no time to bring his saber to bear, the assassin punched straight out, slamming Drizzt’s face with the butt of his weapon. Drizzt’s nose splattered onto his cheek, flashes of color exploded before his eyes, and he felt himself lifted and dropped off to the side before his scimitar could finish its work.

Entreri scrambled out of reach and pulled himself from the murky water. Drizzt, too, rolled away, struggling against the dizziness to regain his feet. When he did, he found himself facing Entreri once again, the assassin even worse off than he.

Entreri looked over the drow’s shoulder, to the tunnel and the charging dwarf and to Catti-brie and her killer bow, coming up level with his face. He jumped to the side, to the iron rungs, and started up to the street.

Catti-brie followed his motion in a fluid movement, keeping him dead in her sights. No one, not even Artemis Entreri, could escape once she had him cleanly targeted.

“Get him, girl!” Bruenor yelled.

Drizzt had been so involved in the battle that he hadn’t even noticed the arrival of his friends. He spun around to see Bruenor rolling in, and Catti-brie just about to loose her arrow.

“Hold!” Drizzt growled in a tone that froze Bruenor in his tracks and sent a shiver through Catti-brie’s spine. They both gawked, open-mouthed, at Drizzt.

“He is mine!” the drow told them.

Entreri didn’t hesitate to consider his good fortune. Out in the open streets, his streets, he might find his sanctuary.

With no retort forthcoming from either of his unnerved friends, Drizzt slapped the magical mask up over his face and was just as quick to follow.

The realization that his delay might bring danger to his friends—for they had gone rushing off to search for some way to meet him back on the street—spurred Wulfgar to action. He clasped Aegis-fang tightly in the hand of his wounded arm, forcing the injured muscles to respond to his commands.

Then he thought of Drizzt, of that quality his friend possessed to completely sublimate fear in the face of impossible odds and replace it with pointed fury.

This time, it was Wulfgar’s eyes that burned with an inner fire. He stood wide-legged in the corridor, his breath rasping out as low growls, and his muscles flexing and relaxing in a rhythmic pattern that honed them to fighting perfection.

The thieves’ guild, the strongest house in Calimport, he thought.

A smile spread over the barbarian’s face. The pain was gone now, and the weariness had flown from his bones. His smile became a heartfelt laugh as he rushed off.

Time to fight.

He took note of the ascending slope of the tunnel as he jogged along and knew that the next door he went through would be at or near street level. He soon came upon, not one, but three doors: one at the end of the tunnel and one on either side. Wulfgar hardly slowed, figuring the direction he was traveling to be as good as any, and barreled through the door at the corridor’s end, crashing into an octagonal-shaped guard room complete with four very surprised guards.

“Hey!” the one in the middle of the room blurted as Wulfgar’s huge fist slammed him to the floor. The barbarian spotted another door directly across from the one he had entered, and cut a beeline for it, hoping to get through the room without a drawn-out fight.

One of the guards, a puny, dark-haired little rogue, proved the quickest. He darted to the door, inserted a key, and flipped the lock, then he turned to face Wulfgar, holding the key out before him and grinning a broken-toothed smile.

“Key,” he whispered, tossing the device to one of his comrades to the side.

Wulfgar’s huge hand grabbed his shirt, taking out more than a few chest hairs, and the little rogue felt his feet leave the floor.

With one arm, Wulfgar threw him through the door.

“Key,” the barbarian said, stepping over the kindling-and-thief pile.

Wulfgar hadn’t nearly outrun the danger, though. The next room was a great meeting hall, with dozens of chambers directly off it. Cries of alarm followed the barbarian as he sprinted through, and a well-rehearsed defense plan went into execution all around him. The human thieves, Pook’s original guild members, fled for the shadows and the safety of their rooms, for they had been relieved of the responsibilities of dealing with intruders more than a year before—since Rassiter and his crew had joined the guild.