Entreri could have gone in again-so many openings presented themselves in the tiefling’s awkward posture-but a streak of silver flashed over the tiefling’s shoulder and had Entreri ducking for his life.
He started to call out for Drizzt to cease, but another arrow cracked against the stone, showering Entreri and the tiefling in sparks. Entreri dived to the far side desperately, and knew he was vulnerable to the tiefling now, to that heavy axe.
But his opponent seemed no longer interested. The brute lurched forward and half-turned, showing Entreri a smoking hole in his back where an arrow had struck.
From the darkness globe came the other warrior, backstepping, arms up defensively, and futilely, before him.
A lightning arrow blew right through him and flew on to drive into the chest of the burly tiefling.
Drizzt’s right hand moved in a near-perfect circle, reaching back over his shoulder, accepting an arrow from his enchanted quiver, and coming around to nock, pull, and fire, before beginning its circuit anew.
A line of arrows streamed out, Drizzt swaying the bow, left to right and back again, shooting low and shooting high.
He glanced only once at Dahlia, who crouched atop the warrior she had felled.
An image flashed in Drizzt’s head then, of Dahlia reclining with Artemis Entreri, of Dahlia entwined with Artemis Entreri, locked in passionate play.
Drizzt’s face, so calm and determined until that moment, struck an angry grimace and he stepped forward.
“He is done,” he heard Dahlia say, but he kept firing.
The elf reached up to grab at his arm, but Drizzt pushed past her and increased the barrage, skipping arrows off the stone, left and right, and off the ceiling as well.
“He is done!” Dahlia insisted, but she was speaking of the sorcerer, and Drizzt was aiming past the sorcerer, to the other Shadovar enemies behind his darkness globe, and at a companion he knew to be there.
The corridor flashed like a raging thunderstorm, stone smoking and cracking, the air sizzling with lightning energy.
The burly tiefling warrior somehow continued to stand, though likely more because the repeated blows were holding him aloft than out of any sense of balance or even consciousness.
Against the wall, Entreri called out for Drizzt to stop, but his words seemed thin indeed against the thundering cacophony of the barrage.
The stone right before his face fractured as an arrow skipped past, shards stinging his eyes. He rolled out from the wall and swept the feet out from under the tiefling, then flattened out, accepting the crashing weight as the brute fell atop him.
But could even this burly blanket stop a shot from that devastating bow?
“Heavily enchanted,” Glorfathel warned as Ambergris edged toward the magnificent, gem-studded throne on the tiled stone dais.
“Cast protections, then,” Afafrenfere said, eyeing those marvelous baubles hungrily.
Glorfathel laughed at the monk. “No mage in the Shadowfell or on Toril would be foolish enough to touch that throne. It is imbued with the power-”
“Of dwarf gods,” Ambergris finished for him, and she was very near to the throne. She glanced past it, to a small graveyard of cairns. A curious sight indeed, for who would put such monuments so near to such a throne in the middle of an audience hall? Two of the cairns were larger than the others, and as she focused on the grandest of them, Ambergris realized yet another mystery: these were new. They hadn’t been placed in the last tenday, perhaps, but the graves were certainly not nearly as ancient as everything else they had seen in the complex.
“What secrets might ye be keepin’ here, Clangeddin?” she asked softly. “And what powers, mighty Moradin?” She reached her hand out tentatively.
“Dare not,” the elf warned, and Afafrenfere swallowed hard.
Ambergris stiffened immediately as her thick fingers touched the burnished arm of the great chair, as if some bolt of power had shot down her spine. She sucked in her breath and held the pose for a long while, the other two staring on incredulously.
They could not begin to understand the rush of power traveling through the dwarf at that time. She saw flashes of the last disciple of the dwarf gods who had touched this throne, and then a clear image of him sitting there. She noted his red beard and one-horned crown, and her lips moved to form the name of “King Bruenor?”
She held on a bit longer, but the energy proved too great. She focused on the vision, as if trying desperately to convince this famous dwarf king that she, too, was of Delzoun heritage, that she truly was of the Adbar O’Mauls! But Ambergris carried no royal blood, and so the throne rejected her, but kindly, energy building until she could hold on no longer.
The dwarf staggered backward.
“It canno’ be,” she mumbled, but she knew that it had been, indeed. This was no deception.
“What?” Afafrenfere asked, stepping up beside her. His arm slipped out toward the throne.
“It’ll eat ye,” Ambergris warned.
Afafrenfere turned on her. “Then you do it,” he said. “Pluck a gem or two!”
Ambergris stared incredulously, then laughed at him. “Not in ten elf generations,” she said. “I’d rather be pluckin’ a gem from betwixt a red dragon’s back teeth.”
“Well, what are we to do with it, then?” the exasperated monk asked. “It’s a king’s treasure and more.”
“Much more,” said Ambergris.
“We’re to leave it alone,” Glorfathel said. “As anyone who’s ever been here has left it alone, or suffered deadly consequences, no doubt.”
Not everyone, Ambergris thought, but did not say.
“The graves, then,” the monk suggested.
“Touch a stone and I’ll be making another one for yerself,” Ambergris said, without leaving a hint that she was interested in any debate. Her nostrils flared and her eyes widened, almost maniacally, and Afafrenfere backed down.
“You can never take the pride from a dwarf,” Glorfathel said with a laugh. “No matter how much you might darken her skin.”
Ambergris nodded, glad that the elf had justified her level of rage.
As Glorfathel led the way to the tunnel they had been tasked with guarding, Ambergris let her stare linger on that wondrous throne, and once more she pictured a red-bearded dwarf sitting there, king of kings. Her last look before they left was back to the graves, to the grandest of the group, for she figured who might be buried there.
She managed a slight and inconspicuous bow as she departed.
“Drizzt!” Dahlia yelled, and grabbed at the drow’s arm. “It’s over!”
He shoved her away and began anew, the image of her coupling with Entreri burning in his thoughts.
He would sweep clear this corridor all the way to Gauntlgrym!
An arrow flew free, but its lightning glow was stolen even as it left Taulmaril. A second went similarly dark, and even a third before Drizzt even realized it, even noted Dahlia, crouched to the side with her magical staff extended, the energy of Kozah’s Needle absorbing the magic of Taulmaril with each release.
She was protecting him!
Drizzt’s eyes widened with rage. Instead of reaching for another arrow, he took up the bow as a club, thinking to bash Dahlia aside.
The darkness dissipated then, and both paused and looked to the corridor.
The sorcerer sat awkwardly against the wall, legs and arms splayed wide, chin on his chest and wafts of smoke, even a bit of flame, rising from several holes in his torso. Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, had lived up to its name. Beside, curled into a defensive ball, lay the smoking husk of a halfling shade, and a larger form lay very still farther along. The walls were pitted with holes, smoke rising from them, and shards of broken stone lay all around.
“What have you done?” Dahlia demanded, rising up.