“Let’s talk about future gains instead of past losses,” the tiefling offered.

The Shifter’s laughter echoed all around him, as if without a point of origin. Just floating freely in the air—or was it even audible, he wondered? Might she be imparting the chortles telepathically?

Effron looked down again, trying to find his sense of balance against this interminably aggravating associate.

Many heartbeats passed before the laughter subsided, and many more in silence.

“Talk of them, then,” the Shifter finally prompted.

“What glory might we find if we regain the sword?” Effron asked slyly.

“I don’t desire glory. Glory brings fame, and fame brings jealousy, and jealousy brings danger. What glory might you find, you mean.”

“So be it,” Effron said. “And what treasures might you find?”

“That’s a more interesting question.”

“Five hundred pieces of gold,” Effron announced.

The Shifter—the image of the Shifter—did not appear intrigued. “For a Netherese blade as powerful as Claw?” she scoffed.

“You are not creating it, merely retrieving it.”

“You forget that I have dealt with this trio of warriors before,” she said. “With powerful allies beside me, some of whom are dead, and none of whom would wish to return to face those three again. Yet you expect me to do so alone, and for a paltry sum.”

“Not to face the three,” Effron corrected. “Just one.”

“They are all formidable!”

“While it pleases me to see you afraid, I am not asking you to do battle. Not against three, not against one.”

“To simply steal a sentient sword?” Again her tone was incredulous, which made sense, of course, given such a proposed task as that!

“To simply make a deal,” Effron corrected. He reached into his pouch and produced a small glowing cage of magical energy, one that fit in his palm, one that contained a tiny likeness of a panther the Shifter had seen before, right before she had fled the fight in the forest.

“No, not a likeness,” the Shifter said aloud, and she leaned in to better inspect the living creature trapped within the force cage—and it was indeed her, Effron realized at that moment, and not an image.

“Magnificent,” she whispered.

“You cannot have her.”

“Better her than the sword, I expect!”

“Except that she is untamable,” Effron explained.

“You are quite young and inexperienced to be proclaiming that so definitively.”

“So said Draygo Quick.”

The mention of the great warlock lord had the Shifter standing straight immediately, and staring hard, not at Guenhwyvar, but back at Effron.

“You come to me with the imprimatur of Draygo Quick?”

“At his insistence, and with his coin.”

The Shifter swallowed hard, all semblance of that confident trickster flown away. “Why didn’t you tell me that when first you contacted me?”

“Five hundred pieces of gold,” Effron stated.

The Shifter disappeared, then reappeared beside him—only it was again an illusion, he suspected, as was confirmed when she answered from the other side as he turned to face her image.

“To trade the panther back to the drow in exchange for the sword?”

Effron nodded.

“Herzgo Alegni has already taken his hunters after the blade,” the Shifter explained.

Again Effron nodded, for he knew of Alegni’s departure for Neverwinter Wood, a posse of Shadovar beside him. He wasn’t too concerned about that, however, for Alegni had told him that they were merely going to pick up the trail. Herzgo Alegni was no fool, and after the beating he had received on his coveted bridge, one given despite his trickery with Artemis Entreri, he would not soon again take such a risk where Dahlia and her cohorts were involved—particularly not while they held Charon’s Claw. For more than a few, Draygo Quick included, had warned Alegni that the weapon might not so easily forgive his failure, and might even go over to the side of Artemis Entreri against him.

Could Claw control Alegni the way it had tormented the man known as Barrabus the Gray?

The thought proved not as amusing to Effron as he had suspected and so he pushed it away quickly, returning to the situation at hand.

“The drow’s friends might not appreciate such an exchange, particularly Lord Alegni’s former slave,” the Shifter remarked.

“If I thought they would, I would go to them myself,” Effron replied. “You are clever enough to find a way, and to get away if the need arises.”

The Shifter, her image at least, seemed intrigued. Effron and others always thought that the current image’s expressions and posture matched that of the host, though, of course, none knew for certain. As she considered the information, a long while passed before she said, “One thousand gold if I return with the sword.”

“Draygo Quick . . .” Effron started to reply.

“Five hundred from him and five hundred from Herzgo Alegni,” the Shifter interrupted. “It’s worth at least that to him, is it not?”

Effron didn’t blink.

“Or did you think to exact that sum from him for yourself?” the Shifter asked slyly.

“I have no desire for the coins.”

“Then you are indeed a fool.”

“So be it.”

“So be it? That you are a fool, or that you agree to my terms?”

“One thousand pieces of gold.”

“And five hundred if I return without it, for my troubles.”

“No.”

The image of the Shifter faded away to nothingness.

“One hundred,” Effron quickly said, trying hard, but futilely, to keep the desperation out of his voice. “If you return with the panther.”

The image of the Shifter reappeared.

“If you lose the panther, but do not regain the sword, then you will find no gold, but surely the wrath of Draygo Quick.”

“And if I bring back both?” she asked.

“The wrath of Draygo Quick, who desires no conflict with this or any other drow,” Effron said. “Make the deal.”

“Ah, the ever-present wrath of Draygo Quick,” the Shifter said. “It seems that you have added a measure of danger to the bargain.” Her image suddenly grabbed the cage from Effron’s hand, but it did not appear in that image’s hand, but rather, seemed to simply disappear. “How, then, can I say no?”

Effron nodded and watched the image melt away again to nothingness, and then he knew that he was alone.

He collected his wits, always so scattered after dealing with this annoying creature, and started away, hoping that Herzgo Alegni would not claim the prize first.

Because to Effron, Charon’s Claw was not the prize. He would procure it and use it to prompt Herzgo Alegni to the true victory, the one he and the tiefling warlord both badly wanted: Lady Dahlia, helpless before them, in all her shame, to answer for her crimes.

Drizzt Do’Urden sat in the crook of a thick branch, tight against the trunk of a large tree, trying to make himself as small as possible. He pulled his ragged forest green cloak around him as tightly as possible, and told himself that he would need to replace this garment soon enough, perhaps with some elven cloak, or another drow piwafwi if he could find some way to procure one.

That thought, of course, led him back to the last time he had seen Jarlaxle, when the drow had gone over the lip of the primordial’s pit after Athrogate, only to be obliterated, so it seemed, by the primordial’s subsequent eruption.

Drizzt closed his eyes and forced himself to let it all go. Too many questions accompanied thoughts of Jarlaxle, as they did with Entreri. Too many inconsistencies and too many needed excuses. The world was much easier when viewed in black and white, and these two, Jarlaxle most poignantly and pointedly, surely injected areas of shadow into Drizzt’s view of the world as it should be.

So did Dahlia, of course.

Below Drizzt’s perch, Entreri and Dahlia went about their business, acting as if they were putting together a camp for the night. They moved half-heartedly, hardly playing their roles, as the time dragged along.

Finally, Drizzt spotted some movement in the shadows a short distance behind them.

No, not a movement in the shadows, he realized, but a movement of the shadows. Arunika’s warning about the Netherese and their fanatical grip on their artifacts rang clear in his mind.

The drow gave a little whistle, a series of high-pitched notes like the song of a wren, the previously agreed-upon signal. Both Entreri and Dahlia glanced up toward him, and so, fearing that the Shadovar might be close enough to view any arm waving, he whistled again to confirm.

While the two went back to the camp-building, more determinedly and convincingly this time, Drizzt quietly slipped the Heartseeker into position and set his magical quiver on a web of branches in easy reach. Even as the first arrow went to his bowstring, the drow picked out the advancing forms again, noting at least three of the gray-skinned pursuers.

Their determined and clever movements told him that they knew of his companions at least.

Drizzt whistled again, this time a longer chain of wren-song, to communicate this new observation, and ended with three short tweets to let the others know the enemy count.

He tweeted a short fourth whistle, then a fifth and sixth, as more Shadovar, or at least, as more movement indicative of approaching Shadovar, came visible to him.

The drow licked his lips, his eyes scanning intently. If these enemies meant to attack from afar, by spell or by missile, then he would provide the only warning and the only initial defense for Entreri and Dahlia.

Behind the approaching shades and beside the magical gate that had brought them to this place, Herzgo Alegni paced anxiously. He badly wanted to lead this charge, but he had not yet fully recovered from the beating on the bridge. He could not lift his left arm, and he knew no healer with the power to restore his right eye. He wore an eye patch over that broken orb now.

Another trio of shades came through the gate, and Alegni directed them forward—and it took all of his willpower not to rush off after them.

How he hated these enemies! How he hated Dahlia and her heinous betrayal! How he hated Barrabus and his treachery!

He hoped that those two would be captured alive, so he could torture them until they begged for the sweet release of death.

Another shade came through, a wizard, and one very loyal to Effron, Alegni knew. With a curt and almost dismissive nod to the tiefling warlord, he hustled away to join the impending battle.

A low growl escaped Alegni’s lips. He needed to get the many priests working harder, needed to be back in the fight, back in command, in short order. Out of stubbornness, he tried to lift his arm, and growled louder through his grimace.

He looked to the distant hillock, atop which his enemies prepared their camp, and muttered, “Soon, Dahlia, very soon,” and then again, substituting the name of Barrabus.

The first shades burst into the opening, two charging in with leveled spears, the third with an axe spinning up above his head.

But the elf and human were not unprepared. As the shades had appeared, both turned, weapons in hand, to meet the charge.