The chamber—the entire complex—shook under the power of that blast.
Yvonnel calmly looked over at Komtoddy.
As the spriggan’s bones began to pop and elongate, Yvonnel moved over to a weapon rack and pulled forth a large sword, one suited for a giant. She could hardly lift it by the hilt, so she let the point drag on the ground as she began casting once more, running one hand the length of the blade, pressing it left and right.
More enchantments followed before she finished and turned, grinning, to the Hunzrins and the now giant Komtoddy.
“I am going to make a hero of you,” she explained. She stepped aside, revealing the sword, which now appeared more slender but more formidable, with a blade that was wavy and not straight.
“A hero?” Charri Hunzrin breathed.
“The Dark Prince,” Denderida replied.
“Come now, my toy,” Yvonnel said to the dwarf. “What is our name?”
The spriggan moved over tentatively. “Komtoddy.”
“I have work to do with you, Komtoddy. Your skin needs to shine like polished black stone, and you need more fingers, and more toes.”
Komtoddy turned an alarmed and pleading look to Charri Hunzrin, but she backed away, shaking her head.
Yvonnel was already spellcasting once more.
ENTRERI THREW OPEN the door and dived through, rolling off to the side, drawing his weapons as he went.
Drizzt was right behind him, leaping across the threshold, levelling Taulmaril at that woman standing beside the hearth—beside the mirror!—looking back at him.
When her batlike wings extended, Drizzt let fly.
The arrow soared for her chest, hit a magical shield, and exploded into thousands of harmless sparks.
Drizzt sent another, and another, and another, to similar non-effect, while Entreri executed a rolling and diving charge, and the demon responded.
Her fireball filled the room, hissing on the surface of the small pool off to the right, sweeping out at Drizzt and engulfing Entreri. Drizzt dived, replacing Taulmaril and drawing Icingdeath and Vidrinath as he went. He winced as the flames and smoke dissipated. A heavy steamy fog billowed back from the water. Entreri stood and lunged for the demon.
But the assassin hit only steamy air. The woman was gone.
Entreri called to Drizzt, “Where is she?”
“Keep moving!” Drizzt warned, finally spotting the demon on the other side of the hearth from his friend.
“Left!” Drizzt cried, starting for her.
A whip cracked in the air just in front of him, its lightning spark throwing Drizzt backward, his hair dancing from the shock.
Stumbling to regain his balance, he spotted Entreri again, circling behind the hearth, closing fast.
But she was gone again, straight up with a beat of her powerful wings—and likely some magical enhancement—and the assassin rushed out under her with nothing to hit.
Out came Taulmaril and off went another arrow, Drizzt tracking and letting fly repeatedly, determined to burn through that magical shield.
The demon laughed at him and bellowed forth a cloud of thicker smoke, filling the room with a heavy haze.
Down she came, whip crackling, filling the room with a sulfuric smell.
Drizzt and Entreri coordinated by yelling out to each other. Drizzt put a globe of darkness over by the door, and the demon’s whip snapped at it, lightning crackling. And so Drizzt saw just enough of her. He reached deep inside himself, deep to those abilities he had known in the Underdark, to those innate drow abilities that resonated strongly within him. He cast a limning faerie fire upon the fiend.
The blue flames didn’t burn, but they outlined her enough to minimize the distraction of her fog.
She turned and cried out—Entreri was upon her.
Drizzt went in the other way, stabbing hard and scoring a hit as the demon leaped straight up once more.
Both men dived away, getting a second fireball for their efforts.
Drizzt came up and Entreri staggered to the side. “I’m all right,” the assassin insisted, but his voice was scratchy, his cough real—that blast had surely stung him.
Drizzt started for Taulmaril once more, but saw the demon diving back down, straight for Entreri.
Drizzt cried out for Guenhwyvar, and charged to intercept. He came in hard enough to stop the demon from finishing his companion, who was still staggering from the fireball. Instead, the demon slapped Entreri, sent him flying, and spun on Drizzt, winding her whip out his way.
He was too quick, and accelerated past the reach of the awful barb at the end of the whip.
But this was no ordinary whip, and was more a matter of the demon’s will than her sweeping arm. She called that barb back in.
Just before he reached his target, Drizzt felt the bite in the middle of his back, and the full power of a baleful Abyssal stroke of lightning exploded within him. For a moment, he realized that he was flying, and he saw the wall coming up fast. But strangely, he felt nothing, nothing at all, when he slammed face-first into that wall.
He bounced back and was caught by the fiend and pulled in to her side. Dragging him as if he were weightless, she charged after Entreri.
And she bit Drizzt’s neck, and he felt his life-force being pulled from him.
The demon fed.
“THIS IS MADNESS,” Charri Hunzrin dared to complain as the procession made its way along the corridors of Smeltergard, descending for the room the spriggans had given to Malcanthet.
Yvonnel stopped and stepped in front of the impertinent Hunzrin priestess. “You understand, of course, that this is your only chance to avoid the wrath of the matron mother,” she said.
“You think to fool the Succubus Queen?” Charri protested.
“You think to fight her?”
“Of course I do not!”
“Do you think to ask her politely to leave?”
“Foolishness,” the Hunzrin priestess said, shaking her head.
“Perhaps,” Yvonnel admitted. “But foolishness with which you will cooperate.” She held up the jar of frog guts once more and shook it. “Every word, every syllable, every inflection,” Yvonnel warned in no uncertain terms.
Charri Hunzrin looked to Denderida for support, but the scout wisely merely nodded at Yvonnel’s reminder.
“We will get through this,” Yvonnel promised them. “And House Hunzrin will be free to continue their trade with the surface without restitution for this one error in judgment—an error that will go no farther than this group, House Hunzrin, and House Baenre.”
That brought a suspicious look to Charri’s face, exactly as Yvonnel had hoped. The woman would never believe charity from the likes of House Baenre, and certainly not from the daughter of Gromph representing that House. But the hint that their little secret would go no farther lent credence to some larger plan, some service or allegiance, likely with a Hunzrin ally like House Melarn, that was more consistent with the Baenres’ desires.
And so Yvonnel’s lie was stronger.
“And I will lead Smeltergard!” added the six-fingered, six-toed, six-horned, obsidian-skinned Komtoddy, in a voice clear and beautiful and resonant.
Yvonnel smiled at him. “You may keep this form if you so desire,” she said. “You are quite beautiful.”
Komtoddy laughed.
He had no idea what unintended consequences might come with that apparent gift.
THE SECOND FIREBALL had hurt him. He felt scarred in his throat and had to work hard to draw a full breath. But he couldn’t stop.
Artemis Entreri rushed around the front of the hearth, taking care to avert his eyes from that horrible mirror.
He saw the demon, moving to the right side of the room, near the pool, putting distance between herself and him, Entreri knew.
Then he saw Drizzt.
The assassin’s heart fell. She had her teeth in Drizzt’s neck and he wasn’t fighting it. He wasn’t doing anything, just hanging limp, as if dead. He wasn?
??t even holding his scimitars any longer, having dropped them back behind the hearth.
The demon looked up at Entreri and spread her wings like a crowning eagle. Her face was covered in Drizzt’s blood, and so was the side of Drizzt’s neck and chest.
And still he didn’t move.
A flicker of hope appeared, a black flicker of flying hope, as Guenhwyvar charged into the room and sprang at the demon.
With a feral growl, Artemis Entreri charged right behind.
He heard the crack of the whip, the retort halting him, but he started in once more, wincing. The cat had been struck directly and crashed to the floor, skidding as if she would slide right into the demon and Drizzt. But the panther slid through the pair, becoming an insubstantial mist, dissipating back to her Astral home.
With a single snap of that awful whip, this fiend had destroyed the mighty panther!
And now Entreri saw the whip reaching out at him, delicately, dangerously, arcs of black lightning following its curling sweep.
At the last moment, so the demon could not alter the angle of the strike as she had done with Drizzt, Entreri sprang over the whip and into a roll. He didn’t get hit, just barely escaping, but the thunderous retort did sting him and send him farther along his way.
He rolled to his feet, pivoted, and threw himself into a straight run at the demon.
Out came the whip, and again, at the last moment, Entreri fell aside, narrowly avoiding that brutal crackle. Now he was closer, though—too close for the demon to execute a third strike. Charon’s Claw cut fast for the demon’s open left side. Her arm came out to block—and she took the hit with her bare flesh.
Bare flesh and magical enchantments, clearly, for such a stroke from that red-bladed sword should have severed her arm with ease. It did draw a deep gash, but the demon seemed not to care. The hit didn’t slow her, and Entreri had been certain the sword’s life-killing sting, a product of the lower planes, would have little effect on her.
The demon smiled, mocking him, and continued her swing. Entreri was shocked by the strength of that backhand, so powerful it halted him in his rush and sent him staggering back. His shoulder went numb and Charon’s Claw flew from his grasp and splashed into the pool.
He leaped right back in close—what else might he do?—and grabbed on for all his life.
He didn’t stab with the dagger, not right away, because he saw one desperate chance.
But he knew that chance would almost certainly cost him his life.
So be it.
The demon’s hand grabbed him with frightening strength and he felt as if his shoulder was being crushed. But Artemis Entreri held on. He grabbed Drizzt’s nearest arm, hanging limp and lifeless, and forced his dagger into Drizzt’s hand, his own hand closing over it, guiding it to stab the demon in the belly.
She slugged Entreri hard, sending him flying away, crashing down near the hearth. Barely holding on to consciousness, the assassin crawled, desperate to reach Drizzt’s scimitars.
The demon roared and Entreri thought his life surely over. He threw himself to the weapons, grabbed up Icingdeath, and rolled to face his doom.
But the demon wasn’t roaring at him, nor as much in shock and pain as rage. The dagger had punctured, just a bit, and drank, drawing the demon’s great life-force and transferring it to the wielder, giving Drizzt just enough awareness to hold on for all his life.
The demon’s eyes widened in horror. With a growl, she bit down on Drizzt’s neck again and began drawing forth his life, feasting on it as he feasted on hers.
They moved around in circles in some sort of macabre dance, and the sheer horror of the spectacle had Entreri gasping through his burned throat and mouth.
“Now,” he told himself, thinking he had one chance, and he scooped up Vidrinath as well and leaped to his feet.
But there was no opening. The demon convulsed, a great exhale and shove, and sent Drizzt flying limply to the side to hit the floor and roll about like a dead seal caught in the surf.
The demon’s eyes and smile widened, all the more garish because of the blood covering her face. She didn’t seem seriously wounded, and Entreri knew that he was doomed.
She strode for him deliberately and determinedly, slowly, that gruesome expression taunting him.
But then she stopped and straightened, and looked confused. She spun, and her newest attacker moved with her, staying behind her.
A halfling, dripping wet, held a beautiful rapier in his hand, its tip bloody from the stab in the demon’s back. It hadn’t done much damage, clearly, and the halfling looked panicked as he struck with a different weapon—and not a three-bladed dagger.
Entreri stared incredulously as Regis brought a flat gemstone up against the small hole he had poked into the demon’s back.
Around came the demon, and Regis tried to flee but wound up flying, along with the gemstone and the rapier, at the back of her hand. He crashed down hard, cried out in terror, and ran for the pool, leaping for the water and disappearing under it just as the whip cracked and lit the surface with a sheen of sparkling lightning.
The demon, furious now, spun back on Entreri, who tried to get to her once more. She lifted her whip for the killing stroke.
Entreri dived back, rolling repeatedly, trying to put the hearth between them.
But the strike didn’t come and the demon lurched and walked weirdly, stumbling. She cursed, but the words were garbled, her mouth twisting awkwardly as if she couldn’t control herself.
She stumbled into a run, angled for the door, and crashed out of the room. Just outside, she roared in outrage.
Entreri wasn’t about to give chase.
CHAPTER 26
Courage
I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THAT WEAPON, MALCANTHET SILENTLY CURSED herself. She couldn’t form actual words as she staggered along the corridor, veering from wall to wall. That awful dagger had hurt her more seriously than she wanted to believe.
The soul of Concettina was back in the body, fully aware and fighting wildly to hold on to her corporeal reality. Each step became forced and difficult as the division grew sharper, the battle more fully engaged.
Possession of another was a difficult thing even in the best of circumstances, when the victim was caught by surprise, but this would be no easy struggle. More than just the body of Concettina, that dagger had drawn at the life-force of Malcanthet herself, and she felt the pain as Concettina vied for control.
This would not do. Not at all.
They stumbled and they fought through a series of passageways, mouth twisting in indecipherable screams, legs stiff, and gait awkward.
Malcanthet just had to hold on a bit longer, until she could find an unsuspecting host.
The woman crashed into a door, which fell open and left her stumbling through and falling face down on the floor. Both Malcanthet and Concettina, sharing the body’s ears, heard the collective gasp of surprise and recognized the shouts and hoots that followed as those of goblins.
And they were just a woman now, a feeble, broken human, so it appeared, and one barely dressed.
A goblin came over and grabbed the thick blond hair and yanked the woman’s head up and back.
The smelly creature, holding a wicked, serrated knife, was not alone. Its dozen friends in the chamber, recovering from the shock of the unexpected intruder, seemed no more disposed to decency than this wretched and filthy thing.
“DON’T LOOK IN the mirror!” Regis warned Entreri. “Don’t look in the mirror! Bad things in there! Very bad, very bad!”
The halfling was gasping, out of breath and out of sorts, and clearly overwhelmed by his ordeal, which Entreri expected was much more than this last battle here with the demon woman.
“We were told you were dead,” he replied as he rushed past Regis to drop to his knees beside the body of Drizzt. He lifted the drow’s head in his hands, thinking to say goodbye, but to his surprise, Drizzt wasn’t quite dead.
“Something! Anything!” Entreri y
elled, and Regis, after carefully placing his cape over the mirror once more, came running.
“Drizzt!” Regis cried, reaching for his magical belt pouch.
He produced a small flask and put it fast to Drizzt’s lips, pouring the liquid down his throat.
“I didn’t even know he was here,” Regis gasped.
“She threw him,” Entreri said grimly. “She destroyed the cat.”
“Guen,” Regis mouthed, placing down the empty flask and grabbing a second from his pouch. That, too, went to Drizzt’s lips.
“Where did you come from?” Entreri demanded.
“The pool. I dived into the pool. There was a hydra, or a dragon with many heads, breathing fire. I had nowhere to go.”
“That was days ago.”
“I only came up for air when I had to—a couple of times, no more.”
“What?” the assassin asked incredulously.
Regis shook his head, having no desire to explain his genasi heritage at that desperate time. “Who told you I was dead?” he asked.
“The dwarf, Pikel.”
“He lives?” Regis asked, incredulous. “He escaped? Oh, Pikel!”
Before Entreri could respond, Drizzt coughed—a pathetic and wheezing thing, but a sign of life, at least. The ranger opened his lavender eyes and took in the scene before him, two faces hovering over him, the two who had saved him.
“Drizzt!” Regis cried, and he put the flask back to the drow’s lips, wanting him to get every drop of the healing potion.
“Can you move?” Entreri asked.
Drizzt’s eyes turned to regard Entreri directly, but he made no other movement than that, not even a slight shift of his head.
“Collect his things,” Entreri ordered. “Help me get him over to the wall by the door.”
“What’s wrong with him?” a desperate Regis asked, and he sucked in his breath, finding his own answer. “The whip! Oh, that horrid whip!”
He went for his pouch, for another potion of healing, but he knew it was useless.