“Friend of yours?” Dahlia asked with a nod back at the cat, and a wicked smile.
Drizzt smiled back, even wider when he heard the wild tumult behind them.
He let Dahlia get ahead of him and he trusted her to keep the way clear as he watched for pursuit. When they at last neared the rocky vale immediately preceding the caves, Drizzt called upon his enchanted anklets and sprinted to catch up to her.
They crossed a small battlefield, several Ashmadai down, a couple moaning. One off to the side hung inverted from a tree, calling for help, held fast by the legs by whatever that was that shot from Jarlaxle’s magical wand.
Dahlia veered for the victim and Drizzt winced, thinking she would surely crack open the trapped Ashmadai’s skull. To his surprise and relief, she merely patted the trapped woman on the side of the face as she skipped past her with a laugh.
Just past the battlefield, they scrambled over a rocky mound, revealing a small vale below dotted with several cave entrances.
“Here!” Bruenor called from one, and Drizzt and Dahlia moved to join him.
“Your panther,” Dahlia said, glancing back.
“Guenhwyvar has already returned to the Astral Plane, awaiting my next call,” Drizzt assured her.
She nodded, and skipped into the dark cave, but Drizzt paused to watch her, pleased by her concern for the great cat.
They, even Bruenor, had to belly-crawl to get out of the first chamber of the cave, but they moved with all speed, with sounds of pursuit echoing behind them. They came out of that low channel into a smaller, but higher-ceilinged space, in which Athrogate and Jarlaxle waited. As Dahlia came out, she tapped her staff, in the form of a four-foot walking stick, and a blue-white light glowed from its top end.
“This is the way?” Drizzt asked.
“I hope,” said Jarlaxle. “We checked the caves as quickly as we could and this was the only one that seemed promising.”
“But there could be other caves in the area that we haven’t yet discovered?” an uneasy Drizzt asked.
Jarlaxle shrugged. “Luck has always been on your side, my friend. It’s the only reason I asked you along on this journey.”
Dahlia reacted with alarm to that, until she glanced at Drizzt to see him smiling.
The five companions moved through a maze of tunnels and crawlspaces, even splashing through a shallow underground stream for a bit. They hit many dead ends, but many more tunnels broke off into multiple passageways, and they had nothing to guide them but their instincts. Dahlia appeared completely bewildered, but few could navigate dark tunnels better than dwarves, and among those few were the dark elves.
Soon enough, they heard sounds far behind them in the tunnels, and knew that the Ashmadai had continued the pursuit into the Underdark.
At one point, the five came into a long, fairly straight tunnel, which Athrogate rightly identified as a lava tube. It traveled in the correct direction, and at a gentle downward slope, so they eagerly rambled along it. Eventually, though, a cold mist wafted past them, and Dahlia sucked in her breath and turned her head, watching it depart up the tunnel behind them.
“What d’ye know?” Bruenor asked, catching her concern.
“Deathly cold,” Drizzt said.
“Was it?” Jarlaxle asked the elf warrior.
Dahlia nodded. “Dor’crae,” she said.
“The vampire,” Athrogate explained, and Bruenor snorted and shook his head in disgust.
“He will bring them to us,” Dahlia said, and they all suspected then how the Ashmadai had come to know so much about their location.
“Perhaps he’s returning from Gauntlgrym,” Drizzt interjected. “If so, this is indeed the correct path.”
With that hopeful thought in mind, they pressed on with all speed, and for a long way, hours of walking, the lava tube continued with the same agreeable slope. But then they came to an abrupt end, where the tunnel turned downward sharply, a near vertical descent into seemingly bottomless darkness. There was no way around that hole, and they had seen no side tunnels throughout the last hours of their march.
“Let us hope your luck holds,” Jarlaxle remarked to Drizzt, and from an obviously magical pouch, the drow mercenary produced a long length of fine cord. He tossed one end to Drizzt and the other to Athrogate, ordering the dwarf to brace it well.
Without hesitation, Drizzt tied it off around his waist and went over the lip, quickly disappearing from sight. As he neared the end of that length, Drizzt called up, “It levels off to a sharp, but traversable slope.”
A moment later, there came a flash and a sharp retort.
“Drizzt?” Jarlaxle called.
“I’ve set a second rope,” Drizzt called from the darkness. “Move!”
“No going back,” Jarlaxle said to Bruenor, apparently deferring to the dwarf.
“Then that’s the way,” Bruenor decided, and he was next to the rope.
When he reached the bottom, where Drizzt had been, Bruenor found the second line, drilled deep into the angled ceiling across the way, set firmly into the stone by one of Taulmaril’s enchanted arrows.
The tunnel continued, sometimes a drop, sometimes a gentle slope, and the five managed it fairly well. They were near the end of their endurance, but dared not stop and set camp, and yet, there seemed no end in sight.
But then they went down a small shaft and under a low archway where the tunnel turned sharply and showed them the glow of Underdark lichen. A few moments later, they came out onto a high ledge on a great cavern. Giant stalagmites stood quietly around a still pond, and both Drizzt and Bruenor blinked in disbelief, first at the worked tops of those mounds—guard towers—then at the great castle wall across the way.
Bruenor Battlehammer swallowed hard and glanced at the other dwarf.
“Aye, King Bruenor,” Athrogate said with a wide grin. “I was hoping this cavern survived the explosion, that ye might see the front gate.
“There’s yer Gauntlgrym.”
Chapter 19 - Through the Eyes of an Ancient King
IT WAS DUMB LUCK,” DOR’CRAE INSISTED. “THERE WERE TEN CAVES THEY might have—”
“These are dark elves in the Underdark, fool,” Sylora interrupted. “They likely ruled out most of the other caves simply by sniffing the air currents.”
Dor’crae shrugged and tried to respond, but Sylora growled at him, warning him to silence.
“I’ll not have them binding the primordial,” the Thayan sorceress insisted. “Its awakening will seal the fate of the Netherese along the Sword Coast North, and it will complete the Dread Ring and ensure my victory.”
“Yes, my lady,” Dor’crae said with a bow. “But they are a formidable force. The traitor Dahlia strikes fear into even hearty Ashmadai, and this dark elf, Drizzt, is a legend across the North. But we are talking about a primordial here, a grounded god-being. Could Elminster himself, even in his prime, calm such a beast?”
“It was trapped once to serve Gauntlgrym, a prison that lasted millennia.”
“A prison keyed by the Hosttower of the Arcane, which is no more.”
“But which exudes residual magic,” Sylora warned him. “Trust that if there is a way to rebuild the prison, the clever Jarlaxle has discerned it. They are a threat.”
“The Ashmadai pursue them,” Dor’crae promised her. “And from my recent visit to Gauntlgrym, I can assure you that the primordial has populated its sleeping place with worthy guards, mighty creatures from the Plane of Fire that have answered its incoherent call. A small army of red-skinned lizard men roam the halls.”
“Salamanders …” Sylora mused. “Then you have time to get back there and join in the battle.”
The look of dread on Dor’crae’s face as she spoke brought a smile to the sorceress’s lips. The vampire had been hesitant from the beginning, and he still harbored fears that Dahlia wanted to move that tenth diamond chip, the one that represented him, from her right ear to her left.
“I can take no chances on this,” Sylora went on a moment later. “Awakening the primordial into another act of devastation is our penultimate goal here. Unfortunately, the ultimate goal presses, as the Netherese continue to fight me for Neverwinter Wood, though I still struggle with why, and I dare not leave here. So I send you, in respect and confidence.”
Dor’crae’s expression told her that he knew the hollowness of her compliments, but he bowed anyway and said, “I am humbled, my lady.”
“You will take Valindra with you,” Sylora said as Dor’crae straightened, and the vampire’s eyes widened with surprise and trepidation. “She’s far more lucent now,” Sylora assured him. “And know this, Valindra Shadowmantle hates Jarlaxle most of all, and has no love for this other drow, either, whom she blames in no small part for the loss of Arklem Greeth.”
“She is unpredictable, her power often minimally contained,” Dor’crae warned. “She might have a fit, manifested magically, that would facilitate exactly that which you fear most.”
Sylora narrowed her eyes at the vampire, warning him that she didn’t like having her judgment so boldly questioned. She let it go at that, though, for there was a measure of possibility in Dor’crae’s fears. Indeed, as she thought about her decision in that moment, it occurred to Sylora that the vampire might be right, that Valindra was too much the “unexpected bounce of the bones,” as the old Thayan saying went.
Sylora tried to fathom a way to back out of her command that he take Valindra, thinking she might posit that she only suggested Valindra to test Dor’crae’s understanding of the situation. But when such a remark fell flat even in her thoughts, she decided against it. Which left the stubborn leader, who would never admit she was wrong, only one option.
“Valindra will expedite your return to the caverns. And once there, she can move as swiftly as you through the tunnels.”
“Unless she wanders off,” Dor’crae dared mutter, and Sylora flashed him an angry glare.
“You will guide her,” Sylora told him in no uncertain terms. “And when you have caught up to our enemies, point her at the two drow, remind her of who they are and what they did to her precious Hosttower and Arklem Greeth. Then watch in awe as the mighty lich brings old Gauntlgrym itself down on the heads of our enemies.”
“Yes, my lady,” Dor’crae replied with another bow, though his tone seemed less than satisfied.
“And consider,” Sylora tossed out at him, just for the pleasure of it, “if Valindra can lead the assault against our enemies, then you might not have to do battle with Dahlia, though I know how dearly you wish to challenge her.”
The biting sarcasm, the bald expression of Dor’crae’s fear, wiped away any response from the vampire. His shoulders slumped, his entire form seemed to deflate.
He knew Sylora was right.
As with the cavern outside, the circular entry room had survived the cataclysm nearly intact. The throne still sat there, a silent testament to that which had come before, like a guardian of the past holding to its post.
The whole of the place had Drizzt staring wide-eyed and his jaw hanging slack, as it had done to Jarlaxle and Athrogate—and even Dahlia—when first they had passed through the audience chamber. Worse off than the drow, Bruenor nearly fell over, so overwhelmed was he.