“Sylora facilitated the death of Bruenor Battlehammer,” Drizzt said, stealing Entreri’s doubting mirth.
“You have chosen your companion poorly, then,” Entreri said.
“I battled beside Dahlia against Sylora’s minions in Gauntlgrym,” Drizzt replied. “Dahlia is no friend to the sorceress of Thay, nor to Szass Tam.”
“Nor to Shadovar dogs,” Dahlia added, spitting every word, and if she were trying to intimidate the man she knew as Barrabus the Gray, her words had an opposite effect.
“I’m fortunate that I’m no Shadovar, then,” he said lightheartedly.
“Any Netherese will do,” Dahlia assured him.
“I’m fortunate that I’m not Netherese, then,” came the quick retort.
Dahlia narrowed her eyes and studied him curiously, her gaze scanning all areas of his exposed gray skin.
“They pay you well, then,” Drizzt reasoned. “Ever was Artemis Entreri for sale to the highest bidder.”
He was surprised by Entreri’s reaction, the assassin’s face tightening into a grimace, and Drizzt knew immediately that Entreri’s relationship with the Netherese was not a bargain of gold coins. Entreri had claimed he served a master, but Drizzt understood then that it was not by choice.
Entreri stared hard at him.
“What is it?” Drizzt asked.
Entreri didn’t blink.
“If not gold, then what?” Drizzt demanded. He draped his wrists over his sword hilts, a poignant reminder of who held the upper hand. “Why would Artemis Entreri serve the Nether—” He stopped and considered Entreri’s earlier words, a claim that Jarlaxle had betrayed him to the Netherese. Instead of continuing with the line of reasoning, Drizzt looked into the eye of his old enemy and asked, simply, “Why?”
“Because he has my sword,” Entreri admitted after a long pause.
“Khazid’hea?” Drizzt asked, and he was a bit confused, for as far as he knew, that sword was still in the possession of the dark elf To’sun Armgo, who lived in the Moonwood in the Silver Marches.
Entreri considered him with a bit of obvious puzzlement, then nodded, as if realizing something. “You wouldn’t know of Claw,” he explained. “Charon’s Claw, actually. Truly a mighty blade, greater by far than Khazid’hea.”
“And you wish to have it back, so you serve the hateful Empire of Netheril?”
“I wish it destroyed!” Entreri countered angrily, but that fast melted into resignation. He laughed helplessly. “I’m its slave. The Shadovar lord in Neverwinter holds the sword, my sword, and it has taken power over me.” He looked over at Dahlia. “And so I’m compelled to kill you,” he explained with a shrug. “Nothing personal.”
His flippant remark had Dahlia advancing a step, her hands going to her weapons, before Drizzt intercepted her.
“He would prefer death,” the woman protested.
“Indeed!” Entreri agreed, and Drizzt looked at him curiously.
“If you could,” Entreri explained.
“He just had his blade to your throat,” Dahlia reminded the assassin.
“But the sword would just bring me back to fight you again,” Entreri went on, ignoring her. Again he looked past Drizzt to Dahlia, and this time, there was more sadness than cleverness showing on his face.
“You’re a slave to a sword you once possessed?” Drizzt asked.
“If I don’t work to its ends, I’m tormented.” He shook his head. “You cannot imagine the torment, my old nemesis. It would do your mother proud.”
Drizzt scrutinized him closely and understood from the assassin’s truly helpless expression—a visage that seemed so out of place on the face of Artemis Entreri!—that the assassin was not exaggerating.
“And its ends include killing Dahlia?” Drizzt asked.
Entreri shrugged. “That’s part of it.”
“Then you die,” Dahlia interrupted, but Drizzt continued to hold her back, and he silenced her with a look.
“Does Dahlia truly matter?” Drizzt asked, drawing confused expressions from both of the others. “Or is she a means to an end?”
“What are you plotting here?” Dahlia demanded, but Drizzt ignored her.
“She’s an obstacle in my master’s way,” said Entreri.
“But not the goal?”
“An obstacle to the goal,” Entreri replied, and Drizzt grinned, catching on.
“Then help us to kill Sylora,” Drizzt reasoned, and Dahlia’s gasp did not deter him. “Is that not the greater prize your master seeks?”
Entreri answered with a nod as he considered the reasoning, and the possibilities.
“Killing Dahlia, who vows to kill Sylora, wouldn’t please your master, then,” said Drizzt.
“You would ally with us?” a skeptical Entreri asked. “I witnessed your work on the Shadovar patrol north of Neverwinter.”
“Ally with a Shadovar, a Netherese pig?” Dahlia replied, equally incredulous. “Never that!”
“Artemis Entreri is neither,” Drizzt assured her. “Why not, then?” he asked both of them.
“It’s often claimed that the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Entreri replied with a shrug.
“Are you still my enemy?” Drizzt asked him.
Entreri laughed a bit as he considered that. “I grew bored with you more than a century ago. To think me your enemy would be to think I care about you one way or the other.”
“And for me?” asked Dahlia. “You just admitted you plan to kill me.”
“That can wait.”
“The enemy of my enemy will be my enemy again?”
Entreri smiled wickedly. “We shall see.”
Drizzt turned from him to Dahlia. “It’s settled, then?”
“I intend to kill Sylora,” Dahlia stated flatly. “And I intend to kill any who try to hinder me from experiencing that pleasure.”
“And what of those who would aid you?” Entreri teased. Dahlia turned and walked away.
“Well met again, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Entreri said to the drow, and he motioned down at his dropped blades.
Drizzt glanced at Dahlia, then, and despite himself, shook his head.
“I will not kill her,” Entreri promised. “Nor you.”
Drizzt eyed him with clear doubt.
“I hate my master, while you merely bore me,” Entreri said.
“And Dahlia?”
“She’s my counterpart, the champion of my master’s enemy, as I am my master’s champion. And so we were tasked with our battle, a proxy battle. It really is nothing personal.”
“So you would say,” Drizzt started to reply—started, but the words caught in his throat as Artemis Entreri came forward suddenly, reaching to his belt as he lunged. That buckle became a knife and that knife beat Drizzt to the drow’s throat.
A heartbeat later, Entreri looked into Drizzt’s lavender eyes, stepped back, and dropped his knife, which showed no blood. He held up his hands. “Now you can trust me,” he said.
It took Drizzt several heartbeats to even sort out what had just occurred, and he silently chastised himself for allowing his guard to slip, for forgetting the continuing danger presented by the skilled Artemis Entreri. He could have been murdered, then and there, because his heart had been looking backward, and no doubt doing so with a stilted view of what had once been.
He looked at Entreri then, standing unarmed and at ease. He looked down at Entreri’s buckle knife, an ample weapon with which Entreri might have cut out Drizzt’s throat.
Drizzt chuckled and turned away from Entreri once more to follow Dahlia. He chastised himself again for being so foolish, but he applauded himself, or was greatly relieved at least, that he’d been right. The fact that he was still drawing breath proved he’d been right.
This man from his past was not his enemy.
Artemis Entreri.
Artemis Entreri!
The name resonated deeply within the soul of the assassin. His given name, that long ago moniker that had seemingly been lost to the ages, as the person who had once been Artemis Entreri had likewise been lost to the ages.
His thoughts went back to a long-ago day in Calimport, a day Entreri had come to cherish as the moment of his escape. Not from Drizzt Do’Urden, whom he’d thought dead. Not from Jarlaxle and the drow elves, for he was certain they would return for him, and they had. Not an escape from Herzgo Alegni, surely, a tiefling who likely wasn’t even born at that time.
Nay, on that long-ago day, Artemis Entreri had escaped from the man who had proven to be his greatest enemy, his most dangerous foe.
On that long-ago day, Entreri had found a moment of mercy, and mercy on a priest no less, in exchange for a promise that the priest would behave according to his professed tenets, which promised benefit to the poor of the desert port city.
On that long-ago day, Artemis Entreri had escaped from himself, his past, his self-loathing.
And he’d come to look at life differently, for just a short time, until the drow mercenaries of Bregan D’aerthe returned.
All of those memories flooded through him in a burst of confusion.
The irony that it had been Drizzt Do’Urden who had revived the name of Artemis Entreri, and who had revived something else, something far more profound, was not lost on the assassin.
He noted that the drow kept his hands on the hilts of his blades as he walked off to catch up to Dahlia, and Entreri had no doubt that, should he retrieve his own blades now and go after Drizzt, he would again face that legendary barrage of spinning scimitars.
But Entreri had no such intention, of course. He’d assured Drizzt of his intent by surrendering the lethal advantage, and even before that, Entreri had known from Drizzt’s eyes, from the moment of the drow ranger’s recognition of him, that Drizzt had not been saddened by the sight of him.
Artemis Entreri was glad of that expression, and not simply because his own foolish plan had failed, and if Drizzt had thought different of their meeting, or had not recognized him, he would surely have been killed. No, it was more than that, much more. Indeed, Drizzt couldn’t begin to know the level of relief that flooded through the tormented man even then.
And as an added benefit, a plan was truly formulating in Entreri’s thoughts, a way to be rid of Sylora, then use the moment of joy to facilitate an introduction between Herzgo Alegni and Drizzt Do’Urden, and with the lovely Dahlia thrown in against Alegni as well.
In that moment, Artemis Entreri, a man who had for decades been known as Barrabus the Gray, felt something he’d not experienced in those same decades:
Hope.
Chapter 16: All Sides Against the Middle
HE’S JOINED WITH MY ENEMIES?” HERZGO ALEGNI ASKED WITH obvious doubt, and he half-drew his sword, trying to find some hint of confirmation from the sentient blade. He stood on his namesake bridge in Neverwinter, the sun low in the western sky in front of him.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Effron replied cryptically, drawing a glare from Alegni, who was in no mood for such games.
“Barrabus has joined forces with the drow and Dahlia,” Effron said. “It would appear the Thayan sorceress’s champion returns as her mortal enemy.”