Then the halfling looked to the side of the Taros Hoop, where LaValle stood, unconcerned, his arms crossed over his chest and his pearl-tipped scepter tapping on one shoulder.
“Your followers do not fare so well, Rassiter,” the guildmaster remarked. “One might even note their cowardice.”
Rassiter shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other.
“Is it that you cannot hold to your part of our arrangement?”
“My guild fights mighty enemies this night,” Rassiter stammered. “They…we have not been able…the fight is not yet lost!”
“Perhaps you should see to it that your rats fare better,” Pook said calmly, and Rassiter did not miss the command’s—the threat’s—tone. He bowed low and rushed out of the chamber, slamming the door behind him.
Even the demanding guildmaster could not hold the wererats wholly responsible for the disaster at hand.
“Magnificent,” he muttered as Drizzt fought off two simultaneous thrusts and sliced down both wererats with individual, yet mystically intertwined counters. “Never have I seen such grace with a blade.” He paused for a moment to consider that thought. “Perhaps once.”
Surprised at the revelation, Pook looked at LaValle, who nodded in accord.
“Entreri,” LaValle inferred. “The resemblance is unmistakable. We know now why the assassin coaxed this group to the south.”
“To fight the drow?” Pook mused. “At last, a challenge for the man without peer?”
“So it would seem.”
“But, where is he, then? Why has he not made his appearance?”
“Perhaps he already has,” LaValle replied grimly.
Pook paused to consider the words for a long moment; they were too unconscionable for him to believe. “Entreri beaten?” He gasped. “Entreri dead?”
The words rang like sweet music to Regis, who had watched the rivalry between the assassin and Drizzt with horror from its inception. All along, Regis had suspected that those two would fall into a duel that only one could survive. And all along, the halfling had feared for his drow friend.
The thought of Entreri gone put a new perspective on the battle at hand for Pasha Pook. Suddenly he needed Rassiter and his cohorts again; suddenly the carnage he watched through the Taros Hoop had a more direct impact on his guild’s immediate power.
He leaped from his seat and ambled over to the evil device. “We must stop this,” he snarled at LaValle. “Send them away to a dark place!”
The wizard grinned wickedly and shuffled off to retrieve a huge book, bound in black leather. Opening it to a marked page, LaValle walked before the Taros Hoop and began the initial chantings of an ominous incantation.
Bruenor was first out of the room, searching for a likely route to Regis—and for more wererats to chop down. He stormed along a short corridor and kicked open a door, finding, not wererats, but two very surprised human thieves. Holding a measure of mercy in his battle-hardened heart—after all, he was the invader—Bruenor held back his twitching axe hand and shield-slammed the two rogues to the ground. He then rushed back out into the corridor and fell in line with the rest of his friends.
“Watch yer right!” Catti-brie cried out, noting some movement behind a tapestry near the front of the line, beside Wulfgar. The barbarian pulled the heavy tapestry down with a single heave, revealing a tiny man, barely more than a halfling, crouched and poised to spring. Exposed, the little thief quickly lost his heart for the fight and just shrugged apologetically as Wulfgar slapped his puny dagger away.
Wulfgar caught him up by the back of the neck, hoisting the little man into the air and putting his nose to the thief’s. “What manner are you?” Wulfgar scowled. “Man or rat?”
“Not a rat!” the terrified thief shrieked. He spat on the ground to emphasize his point. “Not a rat!”
“Regis?” Wulfgar demanded. “You know of him?”
The thief nodded eagerly.
“Where can I find Regis?” Wulfgar roared, his bellow draining the blood from the thief’s face.
“Up,” the little man squeaked. “Pook’s rooms. All the way up.” Acting solely on instinct for survival, and having no real intentions to do anything but get away from the monstrous barbarian, the thief slipped one hand to a hidden dagger tucked in the back of his belt.
Bad judgment.
Drizzt slapped a scimitar against the thief’s arm, exposing the move to Wulfgar.
Wulfgar used the little man to open the next door.
Again the chase was on. Wererats darted in and out of the shadows to the sides of the four companions, but few stood to face them. Those that did wound up in their path more often by accident than design!
More doors splintered and more rooms emptied, and a few minutes later, a stairway came into view. Broad and lavishly carpeted, with ornate banisters of shining hardwood, it could only be the ascent to the chambers of Pasha Pook.
Bruenor roared in glee and charged on. Wulfgar and Catti-brie eagerly followed. Drizzt hesitated and looked around, suddenly fearful.
Drow elves were magical creatures by nature, and Drizzt now sensed a strange and dangerous tingle, the beginnings of a spell aimed at him. He saw the walls and floor around him waver suddenly, as if they had become somehow less tangible.
Then he understood. He had traveled the Planes before, as companion to Guenhwyvar, his magical cat, and he knew now that someone, or something, was pulling him from his place on the Prime Material Plane. He looked ahead to see Bruenor and the others now similarly confused.
“Join hands!” the drow cried, rushing to get to his friends before the dweomer banished them all.
In hopeless horror, Regis watched his friends huddle together. Then the scene in the Taros hoop shifted from the lower levels of the guildhouse to a darker place, a place of smoke and shadows, of ghouls and demons.
A place where no sun shined.
“No!” the halfling cried out, realizing the wizard’s intent. LaValle paid him no heed, and Pook only snickered at him. Seconds later, Regis saw his friends in their huddle again, this time in the swirling smoke of the dark plane.
Pook leaned heavily on his walking stick and laughed. “How I love to foil hopes!” he said to his wizard. “Once more you prove your inestimable worth to me, my precious LaValle!”
Regis watched as his friends turned back to back in a pitiful attempt at defense. Already, dark shapes swooped about them or hovered over them, beings of great power and great evil.
Regis dropped his eyes, unable to watch.
“Oh, do not look away, little thief,” Pook laughed at him. “Watch their deaths and be happy for them, for I assure you that the pain they are about to suffer will not compare to the torments I have planned for you.”
Regis, hating the man and hating himself for putting his friends in such a predicament, snapped a vile glare at Pook. They had come for him. They had crossed the world for him. They had battled Artemis Entreri and a host of were-rats, and most probably many other adversaries. All of it had been for him.
“Damn you,” Regis spat, suddenly no longer afraid. He swung himself down and bit the eunuch hard on the inner thigh. The giant shrieked in pain and loosened his grip, dropping Regis to the floor.
The halfling hit the ground running. He crossed before Pook, kicking out the walking stick the guildmaster was using for support, while very deftly slipping a hand into Pook’s pocket to retrieve a certain statuette. He then went on to LaValle.