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.

Wulfgar rushed to a short flight of stairs and leaped up them in a single bound, smashing through the door at the top. A maze of corridors and open chambers loomed before him, a treasury of artworks—statues, paintings, and tapestries—beyond any collection the barbarian had ever imagined. Wulfgar had little time to appreciate the artwork. He saw the forms chasing him. He saw them off to the side and gathering down the corridors before him to cut him off. He knew what they were; he had just been in their sewers.

He knew the smell of wererats.

Entreri had his feet firmly planted, ready for Drizzt as he came up through the open grate. When the drow’s form began to exit onto the street, the assassin cut down viciously with his saber.

Drizzt, running up the iron rungs in perfect balance, had his hands free, however. Expecting such a move, he had crossed his scimitars up over his head as he came through.

He caught Entreri’s saber in the wedge and pushed it harmlessly aside.

Then they were faced off on the open street.

The first hints of dawn cracked over the eastern horizon, the temperature had already begun to soar, and the lazy city awakened around them.

Entreri came in with a rush, and Drizzt fought him back with wicked counters and sheer strength. The drow did not blink, his features locked in a determined grimace. Methodically he moved at the assassin, both scimitars cutting with even, solid strokes.

His left arm useless and his left eye seeing no more than a blur, Entreri knew that he could not hope to win. Drizzt saw it, too, and he picked up the tempo, slapping again and again at the slowing saber in an effort to further weary Entreri’s only defense.

But as Drizzt pressed into the battle, his magical mask once again loosened and dropped from his face.

Entreri smirked, knowing that he had once again dodged certain death. He saw his out.

“Caught in a lie?” he whispered wickedly.

Drizzt understood.

“A drow!” Entreri shrieked to the multitude of people he knew to be watching the battle from nearby shadows. “From the Forest of Mir! A scout, a prelude to an army! A drow!”

Curiosity now pulled a throng from their concealments. The battle had been interesting enough before, but now the street people had to come closer to verify Entreri’s claims. Gradually a circle began to form around the combatants, and Drizzt and Entreri heard the ring of swords coming free of scabbards.

“Good-bye, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Entreri whispered under the growing tumult and the cries of “Drow!” springing up throughout the area. Drizzt could not deny the effectiveness of the assassin’s ploy. He glanced around nervously, expecting an attack from behind at any moment.

Entreri had the distraction he needed. As Drizzt looked to the side again, he broke away and stumbled off through the crowd, shouting, “Kill the drow! Kill him!”

Drizzt swung around, blades ready, as the anxious mob cautiously moved in. Catti-brie and Bruenor came up onto the street then and saw at once what had happened, and what was about to happen. Bruenor rushed to Drizzt’s side and Catti-brie notched an arrow.

“Back away!” the dwarf grumbled. “Suren there be no evil here, except for the one ye fools just let get away!”