“You suggested it,” he said to Entreri. “So I suspect that you’ve discovered a place you think suitable for a camp—or do you propose that we just pause in the middle of the tunnel?”
Entreri turned to look over his left shoulder and pointed up at the top of the cavern wall, right where it rounded into a ceiling. Following that lead, Drizzt moved over and held Twinkle up high. The scimitar’s glow revealed a small tunnel winding up and to the side of the corridor.
“There was a second one back a few dozen paces,” Entreri explained, “running up the other way. I expect they join.”
“If either is even passable,” Dahlia remarked sourly.
Drizzt sheathed his blade and leaped up, catching the lip of the smaller tunnel. He pulled himself up to peer into it and paused there, allowing his eyes to adjust to the absence of any substantial light. His drow heritage helped him, greatly so, as the shapes within became clearer. The drow wriggled his way in and crawled along, coming to a landing of sorts, a level and open area large enough to hold all three comfortably. He found two other exits from that small chamber, one rising higher and the other winding back down the other way—likely the opening Entreri had noted earlier in the corridor.
To make certain, the drow went down that way, and soon came to the tunnel exit, just above the corridor he and his friends had already traversed. He rolled himself out of the crawl tunnel, back to the main corridor, and rushed back to rejoin Entreri and Dahlia.
“Suitable,” he said.
Dahlia started to argue against breaking their march at that point, but Entreri moved right to the wall and leaped up, catching a hold and disappearing into the crawl tunnel without a glance back.
“He acts as if it’s his expedition, and we’re just minions to do his bidding,” Dahlia said to Drizzt.
“He has the largest stake in this journey,” the drow reminded.
Dahlia snorted and looked away.
“You wish to turn away, that he will not be killed,” Drizzt whispered.
“I wish to be done with this and be away from here.”
“Not true,” Drizzt replied. “You wish to be away, but now, before we confront the primordial, before we destroy the sword, and so, before the sword destroys this man who so intrigues you.”
Dahlia looked at him for a long while, quietly laughing, and shaking her head slowly, as if in disbelief. She spun around and leaped up along the wall, following Entreri into the crawl tunnel.
Drizzt leaped up right behind her and caught her by the ankle, forcing her to glance back. “I go to scout, before us and behind,” he whispered. “To ensure that we weren’t followed or seen.”
He dropped back down and started off, back the way they had come, intending to double back quickly many yards to search for any sign that they had been trailed. A few dozen paces back along the corridor, it occurred to him to climb up into the second tunnel, to crawl in silently that he could spy on these two.
Then he might know the extent of their bond, after all.
Then he might know of Dahlia’s deceit and infidelity.
Then he might kill Entreri, or kill them both, with a clear conscience.
The line of thinking jarred Drizzt as he hustled past that second opening to the upper chamber. He increased his pace even more, wanting to put this area far behind him, wanting to put those angry impulses far behind him.
Dahlia crawled into the low chamber at the apex of the two entry tunnels. Like the other tunnels and many of the Underdark corridors, this one was quietly lit by various lichens. She could see only half of Entreri, as he was standing up into the third opening, the tunnel climbing up from the chamber. He soon crouched back down and fell into a sitting position beneath the opening.
“Impassible,” he explained. “The way up is blocked by some rocks.”
“So if our enemies assemble around the two lower exits, we’re trapped,” Dahlia replied, and with much sarcasm, added, “Wonderful planning.” She made sure to reflect that sarcasm fully in her inflection, for she knew that Entreri couldn’t make out much of her features in this dark place.
“They won’t find us,” Entreri countered.
“Because there are so many places for us to hide in these few narrow tunnels?” Dahlia asked, her sarcasm unrelenting. And quite boring, she had to admit, even to herself.
Artemis Entreri shook his head and turned his gaze away from her. “Where’s Drizzt?”
“He backtracked to ensure that we weren’t followed,” she replied, and Entreri nodded his agreement with that course. “Perhaps he’s already been captured by the Shadovar and tortured into revealing our position, if it would take even that.”
Entreri swung his head back to regard the woman. She met his stare with a glower, but he didn’t give in to that apparent challenge, and merely continued to look at her, as if measuring her emotions.
“Have you hated for so long that you don’t know how to not hate?” he asked with a wry grin.
Dahlia stared at him, at first angrily, but then with a bit of confusion.
“You got your revenge on Herzgo Alegni,” Entreri pointed out. “Yet your mood is fouler now than before we met him on that Neverwinter bridge.”
Dahlia didn’t blink.
“Might it be that revenge tasted not as sweet as you expected?” Entreri posed. “Was the anticipation of revenge a more calming meal, perhaps?”
“And you’re the assassin-philosopher?” Dahlia asked.
“You’ve been running from it for all of your life,” he said.
“From it?”
“From whatever it was that Alegni did to you.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know that my words have you shifting in your seat.”
“Because it is a stupid seat in a stupid hold-out,” she spat back. “Were we to be found here, how would we even defend ourselves? You can’t even stand up in this hole unless you stick your head into the chimney! I thought I was traveling beside capable warriors, and I find myself put in this compromised position?”
She kept ranting, and Artemis Entreri kept grinning at her, which, of course, only had Dahlia growing more and more agitated.