“I think not,” replied Drizzt. “I have learned all that I came to learn, and now my trail leads home. I shan’t disturb Shimmergloom, nor any of your hospitable clan again.”
“Me thinkin’s that ye’re goin’ to the boss,” said Mucknuggle, drawing more courage from Drizzt’s politeness and from the mention of his mighty leader’s name. He folded his gnarly arms across his chest, the mithril sword resting most visibly on the shining shield.
Drizzt resumed his scowl and poked a finger into the fabric under his cloak, pointing in the Duergar’s direction. Mucknuggle noted the move, as did Entreri, and the assassin nearly fell back in confusion at the reaction of the Duergar. A noticeable ashen pall came over Mucknuggle’s already gray features and he stood perfectly still, not even daring to draw breath.
“My trail leads home,” Drizzt said again.
“Home, it do!” cried Mucknuggle. “Mighten I be of some help in findin’ the way? The tunnels get rightly mixed up back that way.”
Why not? Drizzt thought, figuring their chances would be better if they at least knew the quickest route. “A chasm,” he told Mucknuggle. “In the time before Clan Bukbukken, we heard it named as Garumn’s Gorge.”
“Shimmergloom’s Run it is now,” Mucknuggle corrected. “The left tunnel at the next fork,” he offered, pointing down the hallway. “And a straight run from there.”
Drizzt didn’t like the sound of the gorge’s new name. He wondered what monster his friends might find waiting for them if they reached the gorge. Not wanting to waste any more time, he nodded to Mucknuggle and walked past. The Duergar was all too willing to let him by without further conversation, stepping, as far aside as he could.
Entreri looked back at Mucknuggle as they passed and saw him wiping nervous sweat from his brow. “We should have killed him,” he told Drizzt when they were safely away. “He will bring his kin after us.”
“No faster than a dead body, or a missing sentry would have set off a general alarm,” replied Drizzt. “Perhaps a few will come to confirm his tale, but at least we now know the way out. He would not have dared to lie to me, in fear that my inquiry was just a test of the truth of his words. My people have been known to kill for such lies.”
“What did you do to him?” Entreri asked.
Drizzt couldn’t help but chuckle at the ironic benefits of his people’s sinister reputation. He poked the finger under the fabric of his cloak again. “Envision a crossbow small enough to fit into your pocket,” he explained. “Would it not make such an impression when pointed at a target? The drow are well known for such crossbows.”
“But how deadly could so small a bolt prove against a suit of mithril?” Entreri asked, still not understanding why the threat had been so effective.
“Ah, but the poison,” Drizzt smirked, moving away down the corridor.
Entreri stopped and grinned at the obvious logic. How devious and merciless the drow must be to command so powerful a reaction to so simple a threat! It seemed that their deadly reputation was not an exaggeration.
Entreri found that he was beginning to admire these black elves.
The pursuit came faster than they had expected, despite their swift pace. The stamp of boots sounded loudly and then disappeared, only to reappear at the next turn even closer than before. Side-passages, Drizzt and Entreri both understood, cursing every turn in their own twisting tunnel. Finally, when their pursuers were nearly upon them, Drizzt stopped the assassin.
“Just a few,” he said, picking out each individual footfall.
“The group from the ledge,” Entreri surmised. “Let us make a stand. But be quick, there are more behind them, no doubt!” The excited light that came into the assassin’s eyes seemed dreadfully familiar to Drizzt.
He didn’t have time to ponder the unpleasant implications. He shook them from his head, regaining full concentration for the business at hand, then pulled the hidden dagger out of his boot—no time for secrets from Entreri now—and found a shadowed recess on the tunnel wall. Entreri did likewise, positioning himself a few feet farther down from the drow and across the corridor.
Seconds passed slowly with only the faint shuffle of boots. Both companions held their breath and waited patiently, knowing that they had not been passed by.
Suddenly the sound multiplied as the Duergar came rushing out of a secret door and into the main tunnel.
“Can’t be far now!” Drizzt and Entreri heard one of them say.
“The drake’ll be feedin’ us well fer this catch!” hooted another.
All clad in shining mail and wielding mithril weapons, they rounded the last bend and came into sight of the hidden companions.
Drizzt looked at the dull steel of his scimitar and considered how precise his strikes must be against armor of mithril. A resigned sigh escaped him as he wished that he now held his magical weapon.
Entreri saw the problem, too, and knew that they had to somehow balance the odds. Quickly he pulled a pouch of coins from his belt and hurled it farther down the corridor. It sailed through the gloom and clunked into the wall where the tunnel twisted again.
The Duergar band straightened as one. “Just ahead!” one of them cried, and they bent low to the stone and charged for the next bend. Between the waiting drow and assassin.
The shadows exploded into movement and fell over the stunned gray dwarves. Drizzt and Entreri struck together, seizing the moment of best advantage, when the first of the band had reached the assassin and the last was passing Drizzt.
The Duergar shrieked in surprised horror. Daggers, saber, and scimitar danced all about them in a flurry of flashing death, poking at the seams of their armor, seeking an opening through the unyielding metal. When they found one, they drove the point home with merciless efficiency.
By the time the Duergar recovered from the initial shock of the attack, two lay dead at the drow’s feet, a third at Entreri’s, and yet another stumbled away, holding his belly in with a blood-soaked hand.
“Back to back!” Entreri shouted, and Drizzt, thinking the same strategy, had already begun quick-stepping his way through the disorganized dwarves. Entreri took another one down just as they came together, the unfortunate Duergar looking over its shoulder at the approaching drow just long enough for the jeweled dagger to slip through the seam at the base of its helmet.
Then they were together, back against back, twirling in the wake of each other’s cloak and maneuvering their weapons in blurred movements so similar that the three remaining Duergar hesitated before their attack to sort out where one enemy ended and the other began.
With cries to Shimmergloom, their godlike ruler, they came on anyway.
Drizzt scored a series of hits at once that should have felled his opponent, but the armor was of tougher stuff than the steel scimitar and his thrusts were turned aside. Entreri, too, had trouble finding an opening to poke through against the mithril mail and shields.
Drizzt turned one shoulder in and let the other fall away from his companion. Entreri understood and followed the drow’s lead, dipping around right behind him.
Gradually their circling gained momentum, as synchronous as practiced dancers, and the Duergar did not even try to keep up. Opponents changed continually, the drow and Entreri coming around to parry away the sword or axe that the other had blocked on the last swing. They let the rhythm hold for a few turns, allowed the Duergar to fall into the patterns of their dance, and then, Drizzt still leading, stuttered their steps, and even reversed the flow.
The three Duergar, evenly spaced about the pair, did not know which direction would bring the next attack.
Entreri, practically reading the drow’s every thought by this point, saw the possibilities. As he moved away from one particularly confused dwarf, he feigned a reversed attack, freezing the Duergar just long enough for Drizzt, coming in from the other side, to find an opening.