R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

Kiriy slapped her again, harder, just to hear her groan, and the sound brought a smile to the eldest daughter of Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin.

The smile went away instantly, though, when the door burst in, and no glyphs exploded, and two drow males crashed into the room.

“How dare you!” Kiriy shouted, leaping up and drawing her whip.

“My dear Kiriy, High Priestess, do you not recognize me?” Jarlaxle asked, and he tapped his finger to his temple and dispelled the illusion and became again the mercenary leader.

The priestess gasped. “What are you doing here?” Kiriy drew a dagger and placed it against the back of Dahlia’s neck, and the elf groaned.

Jarlaxle held his hands out wide, innocently. “I serve House Do’Urden,” he replied. “And so, apparently, I serve you.”

“Then be out on the balcony and repel the stone heads, and be quick!” Kiriy ordered, or started to order, for Jarlaxle’s companion took a different tack than the mercenary leader.

Entreri pulled off his mask, becoming a human once more, and threw it aside.

“Iblith!” the priestess gasped, her dagger arm coming out for Entreri.

And he exploded into motion, charging ahead, his sword arcing out in front of him and creating a wall of floating black ash.

Kiriy thrust her scourge forward, the snake heads hungrily striking through the ash wall as she began to cast a spell. Confident the immediate way was clear, and that her spell was ready, she burst through the opaque barrier, ready to destroy the foolish human.

But Entreri wasn’t there.

“She is Xorlarrin!” she heard Jarlaxle cry, aiming it past her, and only then did the priestess begin to understand the truth of Artemis Entreri, a recognition that lasted only the eye-blink it took Charon’s Claw to slash against her back.

Kiriy was fully armored, both with exquisite drow mail woven into her robes and with her own considerable defensive magic. No normal sword could have gotten through that wall.

But Charon’s Claw was no normal sword.

No enchanted blade could have delivered a serious blow.

But Charon’s Claw was no mere enchanted blade.

Kiriy Xorlarrin staggered forward under the weight of the strike. She rolled, grimacing in pain, but ready to battle.

And there was Entreri, in her face, sword spinning and weaving, and his other hand, gripping a dagger, flashing all around.

Kiriy had raised her scourge and commanded the snakes to strike, twice, before she realized that not a serpent head remained.

She cried out and fell back, moving the dagger to defend.

But in came the red blade, striking all around, always just ahead of her defensive turns or blocks, always finding a strong angle. Just when she at last thought she had caught up to the human, he rolled behind her block and she felt the bite of a dagger in her ribs.

“Oh, not that!” she heard Jarlaxle say, and to her relief, briefly, she thought she had found reprieve.

But then the red blade came across, brutally, perfectly, and Kiriy’s head flipped up into the air.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Jarlaxle said from the bed, where he was examining Dahlia and had taken her staff in hand.

“I have had enough of drow priestesses,” Entreri replied.

“She is the eldest daughter of Matron Mother Zeerith.”

“Was,” Entreri corrected.

“Why must you make my life so difficult?”

“To have me walking beside you is a privilege,” Entreri replied, wiping his sword on Kiriy’s headless body. “I want you to earn every step.”

Jarlaxle surrendered with a sigh, his gaze going to Kiriy’s head, which had landed upright, her eyes still open. “I should craft a human disguise,” the mercenary mused. “They always underestimate you.”

“So you do.”

Jarlaxle began to reply, stopped and blinked, then started again, and stopped again when Dahlia stirred beside him. She met his disarming smile with a left hook, screamed, and leaped upon him.

Artemis Entreri was there in a heartbeat, before his dropped weapons even hit the floor. He grabbed at Dahlia as Jarlaxle fell away from her, finally tackling her to the bed. She kept up the struggle, punching and clawing, and even tried to bite Entreri.

Entreri sat up and pulled her up to her knees. He lined up her face in front of his own, gripping her arms tightly, pinning them down and holding her back.

“Dahlia!” he said.

She smashed her forehead into his face.

Entreri pushed her back a bit more and spat blood. “Dahlia! Dahlia, do you not know me?”

The elf stared at him, wide-eyed, her face contorting into a mask of the sheerest confusion.

“Dahlia!”

She seemed about to say something, but seemed confused too, and shook her head in denial.

“Dahlia,” Entreri said softly, and he felt all the strength go out of the elf. She simply collapsed, falling forward into his waiting hug, and there he held her tightly, whispering to her, promising her that he would get her out of this place.

“No, truly,” Jarlaxle said from over the headless body of Kiriy Xorlarrin. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t have to, but it felt good,” Entreri said, holding Dahlia close.

Jarlaxle started to reply, but shrugged instead. He took up Dahlia’s wondrous staff, quickly examined it, then broke it down and tucked it into his pouch.

“We must be away,” Jarlaxle said, and Entreri wasn’t about to argue.

“Indeed,” a woman’s voice replied, and there stood Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre, where a wall had been just a moment before. The disfigured illithid stood beside her, the pair flanked by Sos’Umptu and Minolin Fey. A cadre of the Baenre garrison hovered about, close behind, protecting the matron mother and the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, Tsabrak Xorlarrin, who maintained the passwall. Before Jarlaxle or Entreri could react, the room’s door banged open, and another battle group appeared, this one led by Weapons Master Andzrel Baenre.

Jarlaxle glanced at Entreri and shook his head.

The Baenres had come prepared.

“We saved Matron Mother Darthiir, your voice on the council,” Jarlaxle said when he noted Quenthel Baenre’s disgusted expression as she looked upon the headless corpse at her feet.

“For just that reason, I am sure,” the matron mother sarcastically replied.

On the balcony of the House chapel, Yvonnel, K’yorl, Yiccardaria, and Tiago looked down upon Drizzt Do’Urden.

He didn’t know they were there. His vision and thoughts were caught in the web of a clairvoyance enchantment that had sent him back through the decades. Drizzt gasped and stumbled to the altar, trembling, his knees giving out beneath him, but he crawled on, reaching desperately.

“He is a confused and tormented soul,” Yvonnel explained. “He witnesses now a moment that brings him great pain, and great doubt. He has no footing now, no confidence in his principles or his code of honor. He is a pitiable thing.”

“He is a heretic,” Tiago corrected, sword in hand and buckler unwinding into a larger shield. “An abomination, and soon to be a gift to Lady Lolth.”

“When you are told,” Yiccardaria said in no uncertain terms, and even stubborn Tiago had to back off a bit at the command of a yochlol.

“Your bravery is commendable, if your temerity is not. Do you underestimate this warrior, Tiago? Do you place no value on the brilliance he has attained?”

“I have battled him before,” the young upstart weapons master replied.

And so Drizzt knows what to expect from you and your unusual weapons, Yvonnel thought, but did not say. She did smile, though, and offered a rather evil chuckle that should have warned Tiago somewhat-if he wasn’t so cocksure of his own expertise.