The mage overruled that commonsense notion, for in his gut he felt up to the task at hand without the aid of the ring.

In the room, the sounds of battle grew: flames sweeping over the kobold barricades; kobolds screeching as deadly fires bit at them; crashing stones and other missiles as the diminutive kobolds tried to battle the mighty creature of fire; footfalls, so many rushing footfalls!

Predictably, a bevy of kobolds scrambled out of the destroyed portal, tumbling into the hall, falling all over each other in a desperate effort to get away. Some charged toward the mage, others ran the opposite way.

Brack’thal lifted a small metal bar before him and completed the spell, trying to remain confident that something, some magical energy would come forth.

The lightning bolt filled the hall with a blinding burst of white light, and Brack’thal, surprised by the intensity, surprised even that he had accomplished the evocation, fell back with a shriek of his own.

He composed himself quickly, but kept shaking his head, for the level of power that had flowed through him in that spellcasting reminded him of a time long lost. Was it his work with the ring, he wondered?

As his eyes readjusted to the darkness, Brack’thal noted the image of the corridor before him, and mostly, the stillness of that hallway. More than a dozen kobolds lay dead before him, not a writhe or whimper to be found among them. He had thrown a lightning bolt that would have made him proud in the days before the Spellplague, a burst of magic that had fully overwhelmed the kobolds, taking their lives instantly.

Another pair of the creatures came out into the hall, and a quick glance had them fleeing the other way down the corridor. A third emerged and similarly ran away.

Brack’thal, too intrigued by his surprising show of magical strength, paid them no heed. It wasn’t until the fire elemental returned, until he sensed the beast’s wild and unsatisfied hunger, that the mage realized he would do well to put his thoughts aside and focus on the situation at hand. Indeed, the beast was advancing toward him, ill intent clear in its brightening, excited flaming coat.

Brack’thal reached through the ring, calmly reminding the beast that it was better served with him as its ally, and when that line of thought showed only a moderate slowing of the charging fiery humanoid, the mage got more insistent and demanding, willing the creature to stop, willing it to turn around that they could resume their hunt.

The mage constantly reminded himself to focus on the task at hand, to keep a tight hold on his dangerous companion as they moved deeper into the unexplored reaches of the vast complex.

The fire elemental demanded no less than that level of attention, even with the powerful ring aiding him.

It proved a difficult task, though, for Brack’thal could not ignore the implications of his lightning bolt, perhaps the most powerful evocation of magic he had achieved since the Spellplague a century before.

He tempered his elation, rightly so. He had thrown lightning bolts, magic of the old and diminished schools, in the last decades, of course, and had sometimes surprised himself by the intensity of other dweomers he had achieved. The fall of magic as they had known it was not complete, nor was it consistent. This lightning bolt in this corridor might well be no more than a result of Brack’thal’s elevated state of urgency, or of his repeated usage of the ring, itself an artifact from another time.

How grand would it be if that were not the case. How wonderful if the mage’s lost powers returned to him.

In that event, Brack’thal would be rid of his troublesome little brother in short order.

Chapter 16: He Knew

Three of the shades did not return through the portal with Herzgo Alegni. From a hilltop not so far away, Glorfathel stood before a scrying pool, the dwarf Ambergris and the monk Afafrenfere flanking him on either side. Neither dwarf nor monk looked much like denizens of the Shadowfell at that time, though, due to the magical dweomers of Ambergris’s black pearl necklace. “They are formidable,” Glorfathel remarked.

“Aye, I telled ye as much,” said the dwarf.

“I will kill the drow,” Afafrenfere vowed.

“I’m thinkin’ ye better find him sleeping,” Ambergris replied, and Glorfathel joined the dwarf in a bit of laughter at the monk’s expense.

“You were right,” Glorfathel admitted to the dwarf. “I would have expected them to remain in Neverwinter, or travel the open road, were they headed north or south.”

“The drow is a ranger,” Afafrenfere offered. “He likely thinks himself safer in the forest.”

“Still, they could be all the way to Port Llast by now, if that is their destination.”

“It ain’t,” Ambergris assured them both, and with seeming certainty. With stares from both of her companions upon her, Ambergris added, “And why’d anyone be wantin’ to go to that pit of Umberlee monsters? They’re makin’ for Gauntlgrym.”

“For what?” Afafrenfere asked, but Glorfathel, more familiar with the recent history of the region, spoke over him.

“Why would you believe that?” the elf asked.

“Because I’m knowin’ o’ this Drizzt the ranger,” Ambergris said. “He’s got a problem. His friends’ got a bigger problem. Sword’s the problem, so he’s off to be rid o’ the sword.”

“To hide it in this place, Gauntlgrym?” Afafrenfere asked.

But Ambergris turned to face Glorfathel as she answered. “To hide it, yeah,” the dwarf said, her sarcasm showing that she had a different understanding of what that might mean. “To hide it where it canno’ be found.”

“Follow them,” Glorfathel commanded, his tone turning grim as he caught on to Ambergris’s meaning. “I will check in with you often.” He stepped to the side, where another black portal to the Shadowfell lingered. “Herzgo Alegni will pay well to know their location. No doubt he is even angrier now, and Draygo Quick will grant him all that he needs to finish this task and retrieve the sword.”

He started into the portal, but paused and looked back one last time, focusing his gaze on Afafrenfere. “Make no move against them,” he warned. “Not now,” Ambergris agreed. “But ye make sure that when Alegni’s catching them, me and me monk friend here’ll be beside him.”

“I will kill the drow,” Afafrenfere vowed again.

“We’ll be there,” Glorfathel assured them. “I’ve already secured payment from Effron, that we might aid in the final battle.”

With a nod, he disappeared, and the portal thinned then dissipated behind him. “If we take them and get the sword, we will be hailed as heroes,” Afafrenfere said as soon as they were alone.

Ambergris put her hands on hips, shook her head, and snorted. “Ye just don’t understand, do ye?” she asked.

Afafrenfere crossed his strong, slender arms over his chest.

Ambergris just laughed and started away.

“To the hunt?” the eager monk asked.

“To see what we might find o’ worth on the dead shades,” the dwarf corrected.

“And might be when ye see how many dead shades’re lyin’ about that ye’ll finally understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Understand that I ain’t hoping to be lying dead beside any o’ them anytime soon,” said the dwarf as she stomped away.

Drizzt, Dahlia, and Entreri came above a ridge line, looking down a long and steep descent to a region of stone and boulders. Drizzt and Dahlia knew the place well—they had charged down that very slope into a battle with the Thayan forces of Sylora Salm.

“We’re not far,” Drizzt remarked, and pointed down to the left.

“Not far from the outer tunnels,” Dahlia corrected. “We’ll hike for hours more to get to the entryway of Gauntlgrym, if it even remains.”

Her tone was combative, and Drizzt gave her an appropriately disconcerting look—one Dahlia returned tenfold.

“Better to be underground, out of the exposure of the open road,” Drizzt said.

“Do you fear another fight with the Netherese?” Dahlia shot back.

“Better to be done with all of this,” Entreri muttered, and started moving, without looking back.

Drizzt felt like a fool—he could only assume that Dahlia held similar feelings—for Entreri had just diminished their lovers’ spat in all of its ridiculousness. The animosity and argument between Drizzt and Dahlia was obviously the by-product of some other issue between them, and given the gravity of their mission as they neared their goal, Entreri’s poignant mockery had silenced them both. They were near to Gauntlgrym, thus near to the primordial, thus near to destroying Charon’s Claw, an act that would mark the end of Artemis Entreri’s enslavement at the price of his very life.

Next to that, how petty did Drizzt and Dahlia’s jealousy and quarreling seem?

Humbled, Drizzt started off after the assassin. He had gone many steps before Dahlia followed, far back in his wake.

They found the tunnel entrance easily enough and moved deliberately and silently along the darkened pathway toward the grand cavern that housed the entryway to Gauntlgrym. All three marched with practiced steps, not a footfall to be heard among them, and with equal skill and experience, all they needed to guide them through the corridors was the meager light of Drizzt’s scimitar, Twinkle.

That soft blue-white glow illuminated a very small area before the drow, who took up the lead, and no doubt it marked them, him at least, as a target for any monsters or goblinkin that might be lurking in the area. That proved to be of little concern, though, for all three of the companions itched for a fight, any fight. To Drizzt’s thinking, if they didn’t soon find a common enemy, they would probably be battling each other.

Once again, images of cutting down Artemis Entreri flitted through his mind, along with the reminder of that intimate conversation between the assassin and Dahlia. They shared something, Drizzt knew, something deeper than the bond between himself and Dahlia. He imagined making a fatal blow—one made, curiously, with a red-bladed sword.

“How near are we?” Entreri asked a long while later, jarring Drizzt from his thoughts in the quiet of the tunnels, an eerie hush broken only occasionally by the distant sound of dripping water, or the harsh crack of something hard against the stone.

Drizzt stopped and turned around, waiting as Entreri and Dahlia closed up behind him. He looked to Dahlia for an answer, but the elf shrugged, her memories apparently as hazy as his own.

“Halfway, I would guess,” Drizzt replied. “Perhaps less.”

“Then let’s set a guard and rest,” said Entreri.

“I thought you were eager to die,” Dahlia snapped at him.

“I’m eager to be rid of the sword,” he answered without hesitation. “But I’m not eager to engage more Shadovar when my legs are weak from the long hike.”

Dahlia started to respond, to argue, but Drizzt beat her to it. “I agree,” he said, ending the debate, though his siding with Entreri brought him a scowl from Dahlia that likely signaled the start of another debate, he knew. “We must be on our best guard when we enter Gauntlgrym. We don’t know what we’ll encounter in her dark and broken halls.