“Well, let’s find out what’s going on, then,” Dahlia said.
Drizzt dismissed Andahar and they moved into the forest on foot. For many hours they searched fruitlessly, Dahlia expending charge after charge of her wand. Many times, Drizzt put his hand to his belt pouch, but he knew that he shouldn’t bring in Guen, not for another day at least.
“If we wait until nightfall, perhaps the vampire will find us,” Dahlia remarked later on, and only then did Drizzt realize that the sun had already passed its zenith and was moving lower in the west. He considered Dahlia’s words and the thought did not sit well with him. Guenhwyvar would be with them in the morning, and she would find their prey.
So intrigued had Drizzt been by the possibilities swirling before him that he had forgotten one other detail of the day’s plans. He looked to the north, where their three companions waited, at his request. Artemis Entreri would not be pleased.
“Where to now?” Dahlia asked.
Drizzt turned back to the west. They were too far out, having passed into reaches of the forest that neither of them knew. “Back to Neverwinter,” the drow decided.
“You would leave Entreri and the others out alone in the forest with a vampire about?”
“If we’re not at their camp by twilight, they’ll return to the city,” Drizzt said absently. He could not focus on the others. This hunt, so suddenly, was more important. “Vampire.…” Dahlia said again, ominously.
“We will find it tomorrow.”
“You indulge me,” Dahlia remarked. “I like that.”
Drizzt didn’t bother to explain his own interests, particularly when Dahlia moved closer, wearing an impish grin.
“Vampire,” she said again with a wide smile, her eyes sparkling.
Drizzt considered that grin, and wanted to share in her mirth at that moment, but found it impossible, for he was too troubled by the possibilities.
Dahlia moved right in front of him and casually draped her arms around his shoulders, putting her face very close to his. “No argument this time?” she asked quietly.
Drizzt managed a chuckle.
“Vampire,” she said and her smile turned in a lewd direction. She shifted to the side and lunged for his throat, biting him playfully on the neck.
“Still no argument?” she asked and she bit him again, a bit harder.
“You are hoping for a vampire, I can see,” Drizzt replied, and it was hard for him to keep his thoughts straight at that particular moment. It was the first time they had touched, other than riding, since they’d left the darkness of Gauntlgrym. “I would hate to disavow you of your wishes.”
Dahlia moved back to stare him in the eye. “Hoping?”
“Hoping to be one, then,” Drizzt said, “apparently.”
Dahlia, laughing, hugged him close. She brought her lips to his ear and kissed him softly, then asked, “Have you forgiven me?”
Drizzt pushed her back to arms’ length and studied her face. He couldn’t deny his attraction to her, particularly when she wore her hair in this softer style, and with the war woad barely visible.
“I had nothing to forgive.”
“My kiss with Entreri?” Dahlia asked. “Your jealousy?”
“It was the sword, playing on my insecurities, pressing my imagination to dark places.”
“Are you sure that’s all it was?” she asked, and she reached over and brushed Drizzt’s long white hair from in front of his face. “Perhaps the sword was only exploiting that which it saw within you.”
Drizzt was shaking his head before she had ever finished. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he repeated.
He almost added, “Have you forgiven yourself?” but he wisely held that thought, not wanting to open anew the wound inflicted by the appearance of the young and twisted warlock.
“Let’s go to Neverwinter,” Drizzt said, but now Dahlia was shaking her head.
“Not yet,” she explained, and she led him to a mossy bed.
Dahlia tapped Drizzt on the arm and when he looked up from his bowl of stew, nodded toward the tavern door.
Drizzt was not surprised to see the three enter, nor was he caught off guard by Artemis Entreri’s dour expression. When the assassin noticed him, he led the other two straight through the crowd to the table.
“Winter fast approaches,” Entreri said, pulling up a chair across from Drizzt.
“The night is cold,” he added when Drizzt didn’t respond.
“Good, then, that you decided to return to the city,” the drow replied casually.
“Oh, grand,” Afafrenfere remarked to Ambergris off to the side. “I will so enjoy watching these two beat each other to death.”
The dwarf snorted.
Drizzt, seeming unbothered by it all, went back to his stew, or tried to until Entreri’s hand snapped across the table and grabbed him roughly by the wrist.
The drow lifted his gaze slowly to regard the man.
“I don’t appreciate being left in a cold forest,” Entreri said evenly.
“We got lost,” Drizzt replied.
“How could you get lost?” Entreri asked. “You were the one who named the place of rendezvous.”
“Our road took us to the east, to unfamiliar ground,” Dahlia interjected.
“What road?” asked Entreri, still staring at Drizzt.
Drizzt sat back in his chair as Entreri let go of his wrist. The drow glanced to the side and motioned to the other two to take a seat. He wondered where he should take this. He was pretty certain now who and what Dahlia and he were hunting. The question was: Did he want Artemis Entreri along on that hunt? The encounter, should it happen, was going to be difficult enough to control as it was, and how much more difficult would it become with the unpredictable and merciless Artemis Entreri in the mix?
“What is your plan, drow?” Entreri asked.
All four of the others, even Dahlia, looked to him for exactly that answer, and it was a good question.
“You escorted me to the bowels of Gauntlgrym to be rid of that cursed sword,” Entreri said. “For that, I owe you.”
Entreri looked to Dahlia, pointedly so. “Or owed you,” he clarified. “But no more. I waited where you asked, and you did not arrive.”
“A great sacrifice,” Dahlia said sarcastically.
Afafrenfere giggled and Ambergris snorted.
Entreri turned his gaze from Dahlia to the other two before settling back on Drizzt.
“You owed me nothing,” Drizzt answered that look. “Not before and not now.”
“Hardly true,” said Dahlia.
“To be rid of Herzgo Alegni, to be rid of Charon’s Claw”-he paused and looked directly at Dahlia“-to be rid of Sylora Salm-all of these things were good and right. I would have undertaken them had I been alone and the opportunity had come before me.”
“Drizzt the hero,” Entreri muttered.
The drow shrugged, unwilling to engage the assassin on that level.
Artemis Entreri stared at him a few moments longer, then placed both his hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. “We do not part as enemies, Drizzt Do’Urden, and that is no small thing,” he said. “Well met and farewell.”
With a last glance at Dahlia, he turned and walked out of the tavern.
“And where is that leaving us?” Brother Afafrenfere asked Ambergris.
The dwarf looked at Drizzt for an answer. “Which road are ye thinking to be more excitin’?” she asked. “Yer own or Entreri’s? For meself, I’m itching for a fight or ten.”
“Ten, and ten more after that,” Afafrenfere added eagerly.
Drizzt had no answer, and when they looked instead to Dahlia, the elf woman could only shrug.
Drizzt, too, looked at Dahlia, her crestfallen expression stabbing deep into his heart. Not a stab of jealousy, however, and he found that curious.
“Well we’re not to solve it here, then,” Ambergris declared, and she too leaped up from her seat. “And me belly’s grumblin’ to be sure!” At the sound of a crashing plate, she looked over to the bar where a band of ruffians began jostling for position.
“House covers the bets,” the bartender announced.