Bruenor’s expression grew even more puzzled. He had never noted anything like humility from Athrogate before.
“I fought yer friend, ye know,” Athrogate said. “In Luskan.”
“Aye. And what’re ye sayin’? That this one, this Dahlia, would be beating Drizzt square up?”
Athrogate didn’t answer outright, but his expression showed that he believed exactly that, or at least, that he harbored serious doubts about the outcome of such a fight.
“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “So ye’re afraid o’ her?”
“Bah!” Athrogate snorted right back. “I ain’t afraid o’ no one. Just, I’d be thinking Dahlia less a threat if she weren’t so damned nasty.”
“Good for knowin’,” Bruenor said, and he lowered his voice when he noted Jarlaxle and Dahlia fast approaching.
“We are not alone,” Jarlaxle announced when he neared. “Others are about, likely seeking the same cave as we.”
“Bah, but how’d they be knowin’ about it?” Bruenor asked.
“The Ashmadai at least are all over the Crags, I’d bet,” Dahlia replied. “Sylora knows the approximate location of Gauntlgrym.”
“We’re nowhere near the mountain,” Bruenor replied, somewhat harshly. “Going in from the far side …”
Dahlia’s eyes narrowed for a just a moment, and Bruenor recognized that he’d hit on something there, which was confirmed when Dahlia turned to Jarlaxle.
“Sylora suspected I would go after the primordial, now that we know it’s awakening,” the drow explained. “That is why she sent Dahlia and the others to Luskan—to confirm, and to stop us.”
“By now, she knows that failed,” Dahlia said. “Szass Tam’s minions are possessed of various magical means of communication.”
“And she’d think yerself dead,” Athrogate reasoned.
“No more,” Bruenor replied, and again his voice was thick with suspicion. “If they’re here, they’re watching us, and they’re watching Dahlia.”
The elf woman nodded, but didn’t appear pleased by that prospect. That only put a smirk on Bruenor’s face.
“So ye’re a traitor now, and to be punished if they’re catching ye,” the dwarf reasoned.
“It gives you pleasure to say that?” Dahlia asked.
“Or ye’re a double-traitor,” Bruenor said. “And maked us think ye’d maked them think yerself was killed to death in the fight.”
“No,” Jarlaxle said before Dahlia could.
“No?” Bruenor echoed. He dropped the pack he was holding and drew his axe from off his back, slapping it across his open palm.
“Ye don’t want to be doin’ that,” Athrogate warned, his voice more filled with concern than any threat.
“Listen to your hairy friend, dwarf,” Dahlia said, and she sent her walking stick in an easy swing, which brought it across her open palm so that she was holding it similarly to Bruenor with his axe.
Bruenor did relax at that, mostly because a dark form slipped silently out from around a tree behind Dahlia.
“Lady, ye can’t help but expect a bit o’ suspicion, now can ye?” Bruenor replied, and smiled disarmingly. “Ye come to us for a fight, and now we’re to think yerself on our side?”
“Had I joined the fight in the Cutlass, your mission would have ended there, good dwarf,” the elf warrior replied. “And you can tell that to your drow friend who is standing behind me.”
Behind Dahlia, Drizzt stood up straight, and in front of her, Bruenor’s face twisted up at her bravado.
“Telled ye,” Athrogate muttered at Bruenor’s side.
It occurred to Bruenor then just how young this elf female was. He hadn’t really thought of that before, since everything had been such a jolt and a rush from the moment he and Drizzt had entered Luskan. But she showed it. She stood before a dwarf king, and with a legendary drow warrior behind her, and not a hint of worry showed on her face.
Only someone quite young could feel so … immortal.
She had never experienced loss, was Bruenor’s initial thought, and couldn’t comprehend its possibility.
He studied her more carefully for a few moments, though, and saw through the calm confidence just enough to realize that he was probably way off the mark with that last thought. More likely, Dahlia had experienced loss, great loss, and didn’t care if that was again a possibility. Perhaps her bravado even invited it.
Bruenor glanced at Athrogate, thinking the other dwarf’s warning about Dahlia quite prescient at that moment.
She was dangerous.
“If you’re all so anxious for a fight, you’ll find one soon enough,” Jarlaxle remarked, obviously trying to break the tension.
Despite her outward confidence, Dahlia wondered if she’d played her hand correctly. She stared at the dwarf a few moments longer, trying to rid herself of the nagging notion that the crusty old warrior saw right through her.
She dismissed that concern out of hand. Dahlia had no time for that.
She turned to find Drizzt leaning easily against a tree, his weapons sheathed, his forearms resting on them with his hands crossed in front of him.
“Do you share your friend’s concern?” she asked.
“The thought has occurred to me.”
“And has it found root?”
Drizzt looked past her to Bruenor before offering a smile and answering, simply, “No.”
Dahlia’s stare grew intense, and Drizzt matched it. Once again, as it had just been with Bruenor, it seemed to her as if one of her companions was trying to see right through her. But she had her footing back—thanks to Drizzt’s last answer. She eased her walking staff down beside her and leaned on it, but didn’t relent with her stare, didn’t blink, didn’t allow the legendary warrior, Drizzt, any sense that he’d gained the upper hand.
But neither did Drizzt blink.
“We should be on our way,” Jarlaxle said from the side, and he pointedly walked between the two, breaking their line of vision.
“Did you notice our adversaries?” Jarlaxle asked Drizzt.
“Coming from the south,” the ranger replied. “I noted several groups.”
“Focused?”
“Searching,” Drizzt replied. “I doubt they know our exact location, and I’m certain they’re oblivious to the caves we sighted to the east.”
“But are those the right caves?” Jarlaxle asked. “Once we enter, we can expect our enemies to seal us off.”
A long and uncomfortable silence followed.
“We move quickly,” Dahlia said at length, and unexpectedly, for all thought that Drizzt, who had been extensively scouting the area, would make the call.
“Bah, but yer friends’re trying to flush us, and ye’re leaping from the grass afore their huntin’ dogs,” Bruenor argued.
But Dahlia was shaking her head with every word. “They’re not trying to flush us. They know for certain that we’re here,” she explained, turning back to Drizzt. “You said there were several groups.”
Drizzt nodded.
“Sylora Salm is in a desperate struggle with the Netherese in Neverwinter Wood,” Dahlia explained. “She has few Ashmadai to spare. If she’s sent more than a handful to the Crags, then she’s confident we’re here.”
“She wants us to lead her to the cave,” Bruenor grumbled.
“She would rather none of us even reach the cave,” Dahlia replied without turning back to him. “All she desires is that no one interfere with the primordial.”
“Would she not wish to aid in aiming the beast’s outburst?” Drizzt asked. “To ensure the catastrophe she craves.”
“There is malevolence in the primordial,” Dahlia replied. “It is not an entirely indifferent force, and not entirely unthinking.”
“There is some debate about that,” Jarlaxle replied, but again, Dahlia shook her head.
“How precise was its first attack? The easy and nearest target …” she reasoned. “Had it blown to either the west or the east, few would have been killed. No, it sensed the life in Neverwinter, and buried it.”
“There’s life in Neverwinter again,” Bruenor said.
“That would be a victory for Sylora,” Dahlia answered, finally turning to regard the dwarf. “But not her preferred outcome.”
“Luskan,” Jarlaxle reasoned.
“The primordial has had a decade to test its prison,” Dahlia said, “to recognize the magic that held it, to feel the residual power of the Hosttower, to perhaps send minions along the tendrils to better locate the city.”
“So Sylora believes that the beast will facilitate her goals without her aid,” Drizzt interjected, and when Dahlia and the others turned to regard him, he added, “The longer we delay, the more we play to her strength.”
Dahlia couldn’t suppress her grin, glad for the support—support that conveyed a measure of trust not only in her reasoning, but in her sincerity.
“Our best choice is to be aggressive,” Dahlia said, nodding.
So, too, did Drizzt nod, and so it was decided.
Dahlia sprinted down the side of a ravine, leaping from stone to stone. The ground was uneven and she realized she was moving dangerously fast—but he was beating her. And Dahlia didn’t like to lose. Particularly not with Ashmadai zealots down below in the small canyon, with battle waiting to be joined.
She and Drizzt had come over the high ridge after doubling back to flank the Ashmadai pursuit, their goal to sweep down on the distracted cultists from on high. To the northeast, the dwarves and Jarlaxle had dug in, and Drizzt and Dahlia had barely crested the canyon side when the shouts of the approaching devil-worshipers echoed off the stones.
Without hesitation, the pair had leaped away, but Drizzt had quickly outpaced Dahlia, sprinting ahead with amazing grace—grace Dahlia believed she could match—and even more amazing speed. His feet seemed a blur, fast-stepping forward, leaping from side to side, picking a path that Dahlia might follow, but certainly not at that pace.
So she had taken a steeper route, but still Drizzt moved ahead of her. She simply couldn’t believe it.
A silver streak flashed out of the brush down below and to the side. Not only was the drow running at an incredible pace, he was shooting that fabulous bow of his as he went.
Dahlia put her head down and ran on, concentrating on merely finding a solid place to put her feet as she quick-stepped through one particularly uneven stretch. She would get down there right beside him, if not ahead of him, she told herself.
Then Dahlia realized that she no longer had any choice in the matter, that she had let her pride cloud her judgment. She realized to her horror that she couldn’t slow down if she wanted to, that if she didn’t simply keep throwing one foot out in front of the other, she would stumble and skid down the rest of the slope on her face.
She crashed through some brush and tried desperately to grab on, but the plant came free in the loose soil and Dahlia continued on her barreling way. And that way led to a sudden drop, she realized, as she neared a stony channel some ten feet deep or more, and a like distance wide.
