Streams Of Silver (32 page)

Around a final bend, they came to the abrupt end of the mine, its last supports opening into a huge cavern. They moved tentatively through the supports and onto a small ledge that ran along the side of a wide gorge—the great undercity of Clan Battlehammer.

Luckily they were on the top level of the chasm, for both walls had been cut into huge steps right down to the floor, each one holding rows of the decorated doorways that had once marked the entrances to the houses of Bruenor’s kin. The steps were mostly empty now, but Drizzt, with the countless tales Bruenor had told to him, could well imagine the past glory of the place. Ten thousand dwarves, untiring in their passion for their beloved work, hammering at the mithral and singing praises to their gods.

What a sight that must have been! Dwarves scrambling from level to level to show off their latest work, a mithral item of incredible beauty and value. And yet, judging from what Drizzt knew of the dwarves in Icewind Dale, even the slightest imperfection would send the artisans scurrying back to their anvils, begging their gods for forgiveness and the gift of skill sufficient to craft a finer piece. No race in
all the Realms could claim such pride in their work as the dwarves, and the folk of Clan Battlehammer were particular even by the standards of the bearded people.

Now only the very floor of the chasm bustled in activity, for, hundreds of feet below them and stretching off in either direction, loomed the central forges of Mithral Hall, furnaces hot enough to melt the hard metal from the mined stone. Even at this height Drizzt and Entreri felt the searing heat, and the intensity of the light made them squint. Scores of squat workers darted about, pushing barrows of ore or fuel for the fires. Duergar, Drizzt assumed, though he couldn’t see them clearly in the glare from this height.

Just a few feet to the right of the tunnel exit, a wide, gently arching ramp spiraled down to the next lower step. To the left, the ledge moved on along the wall, narrow and not designed for casual passage, but farther down its course, Drizzt could see, the black silhouette of a bridge arching across the chasm.

Entreri motioned him back into the tunnel. “The bridge seems our best route,” the assassin said. “But I am wary of moving out across the ledge with so many about.”

“We have little choice,” Drizzt reasoned. “We could backtrack and search for some of the side corridors that we passed, but I believe them to be no more than extensions of the mine complex and I doubt that they would lead us back even this far.”

“We must go on,” Entreri agreed. “Perhaps the noise and glare will provide us ample cover.” Without further delay, he slipped out onto the ledge and began making his way to the dark outline of the chasm bridge, Drizzt right behind.

Though the ledge was no more than two feet wide at any point and much narrower than that at most, the nimble fighters had no trouble navigating it. Soon they stood before the bridge, a narrow walk of stone arching over the bustle below.

Creeping low, they moved out easily. When they crossed the midpoint and began the descent down the back half of the arch, they saw a wider ledge running along the chasm’s other wall. At the end of the bridge loomed a tunnel, torchlit like the ones they had left on the upper level. To the left of the entrance, several small shapes, Duergar, stood huddled in conversation, taking no notice of the area. Entreri looked back at Drizzt with a sneaky smile and pointed to the tunnel.

As silent as cats and invisible in the shadows, they crossed into the tunnel, the group of Duergar oblivious to their passing.

Wooden supports rolled past the two easily now as they took up a swift gait, leaving the undercity far behind. Roughhewn walls gave them plenty of shadowy protection in the torchlight, and as the noise of the workers behind them dimmed to a distant murmur they relaxed a bit and began looking ahead to the prospect of meeting back up with the others.

They turned a bend in the tunnel and nearly ran over a lone Duergar sentry.

“What’re yer fer?” the sentry barked, mithral broadsword gleaming with each flicker of the torchlight. His armor, too, chain mail, helm, and shining shield, were of the precious metal, a king’s treasure to outfit a single soldier!

Drizzt passed his companion and motioned for Entreri to hold back. He didn’t want a trail of bodies to follow their escape route. The assassin understood that the black elf might have some luck in dealing with this other denizen of the underworld. Not wanting to let on that he was human, and possibly hinder the credibility of whatever story Drizzt had concocted, he hitched his cloak up over his face.

The sentry jumped back a step, his eyes wide in amazement when he recognized Drizzt as a drow. Drizzt scowled at him and did not reply.

“Er … what might ye be doin’ in the mines?” the Duergar asked, rephrasing both his question and tone politely.

“Walking,” Drizzt replied coldly, still, feigning anger at the gruff greeting he had initially received.

“And … uh … who might ye be?” stuttered the guard.

Entreri studied the gray dwarf’s obvious terror of Drizzt. It appeared that the drow carried even more fearful respect among the races of the underworld than among the surface dwellers. The assassin made a mental note of this, determined to deal with Drizzt even more cautiously in the future.

“I am Drizzt Do’Urden, of the house of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, ninth family of the throne to Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt said, seeing no reason to lie.

“Greetings!” cried the sentry, overly anxious to gain the favor of the stranger. “Mucknuggle I be, of Clan Bukbukken.” He bowed low, his gray beard sweeping the floor. “Not often do we greet guests in the mines. Be it someone ye seek? Or something that I could be helpin, ye with?”

Drizzt thought for a moment. If his friends had survived the cavein, and he had to go on his hopes that they had, they would be making for Garumn’s Gorge. “My business here is complete,” he told the Duergar. “I am satisfied.”

Mucknuggle looked at him curiously. “Satisfied?”

“Your people have delved too deep,” Drizzt explained. “You have disturbed one of our tunnels with your digging. Thus we have come to investigate this complex, to ensure that it is not again inhabited by enemies of the drow. I have seen your forges, gray one, you should be proud.”

The sentry straightened his belt and sucked in his belly. Clan Bukbukken was indeed proud of its setup, though they had in truth stolen the entire operation from Clan Battlehammer. “And ye’re satisfied, ye say. Then where might ye be headin’ now, Drizzt Do’Urden? T’see the boss?”

“Who would I seek if I were?”

“Ain’t ye not heared o’ Shimmergloom?” answered Mucknuggle with a knowing chuckle. “The Drake o’ Darkness, he be, black as black and fiercer than a pin-stuck demon! Don’t know ’ow he’ll take to drow elves in his mines, but we’ll be seein’!”

“I think not,” replied Drizzt. “I have learned all that I came to learn, and now my trail leads home. I shan’t disturb Shimmergloom, nor any of your hospitable clan again.”

“Me thinkin’s that ye’re goin’ to the boss,” said Mucknuggle, drawing more courage from Drizzt’s politeness and from the mention of his mighty leader’s name. He folded his gnarly arms across his chest, the mithral sword resting most visibly on the shining shield.

Drizzt resumed his scowl and poked a finger into the fabric under his cloak, pointing in the Duergar’s direction. Mucknuggle noted the move, as did Entreri, and the assassin nearly fell back in confusion at the reaction of the Duergar. A noticeable ashen pall came over Mucknuggle’s already gray features and he stood perfectly still, not even daring to draw breath.

“My trail leads home,” Drizzt said again.

“Home, it do!” cried Mucknuggle. “Mighten I be of some help in findin’ the way? The tunnels get rightly mixed up back that way.”

Why not? Drizzt thought, figuring their chances would be better if they at least knew the quickest route. “A chasm,” he told Mucknuggle. “In the time before Clan Bukbukken, we heard it named as Garumn’s Gorge.”

“Shimmergloom’s Run it is now,” Mucknuggle corrected. “The left tunnel at the next fork,” he offered, pointing down the hallway. “And a straight run from there.”

Drizzt didn’t like the sound of the gorge’s new name. He
wondered what monster his friends might find waiting for them if they reached the gorge. Not wanting to waste any more time, he nodded to Mucknuggle and walked past. The Duergar was all too willing to let him by without further conversation, stepping as far aside as he could.

Entreri looked back at Mucknuggle as they passed and saw him wiping nervous sweat from his brow. “We should have killed him,” he told Drizzt when they were safely away. “He will bring his kin after us.”

“No faster than a dead body, or a missing sentry would have set off a general alarm,” replied Drizzt. “Perhaps a few will come to confirm his tale, but at least we now know the way out. He would not have dared to he to me, in fear that my inquiry was just a test of the truth of his words. My people have been known to kill for such lies.”

“What did you do to him?” Entreri asked.

Drizzt couldn’t help but chuckle at the ironic benefits of his people’s sinister reputation. He poked the finger under the fabric of his cloak again. “Envision a crossbow small enough to fit into your pocket,” he explained. “Would it not make such an impression when pointed at a target? The drow are well known for such crossbows.”

“But how deadly could so small a bolt prove against a suit of mithral?” Entreri asked, still not understanding why the threat had been so effective.

“Ah, but the poison,” Drizzt smirked, moving away down the corridor.

Entreri stopped and grinned at the obvious logic. How devious and merciless the drow must be to command so powerful a reaction to so simple a threat! It seemed that their deadly reputation was not an exaggeration.

Entreri found that he was beginning to admire these black elves.

The pursuit came faster than they had expected, despite their swift pace. The stamp of boots sounded loudly and then disappeared, only to reappear at the next turn even closer than before. Side-passages, Drizzt and Entreri both understood, cursing every turn in their own twisting tunnel. Finally, when their pursuers were nearly upon them, Drizzt stopped the assassin.

“Just a few,” he said, picking out each individual footfall.

“The group from the ledge,” Entreri surmised. “Let us make a stand. But be quick, there are more behind them, no doubt!” The excited light that came into the assassin’s eyes seemed dreadfully familiar to Drizzt.

He didn’t have time to ponder the unpleasant implications. He shook them from his head, regaining full concentration for the business at hand, then pulled the hidden dagger out of his boot—no time for secrets from Entreri now—and found a shadowed recess on the tunnel wall. Entreri did likewise, positioning himself a few feet farther down from the drow and across the corridor.

Seconds passed slowly with only the faint shuffle of boots. Both companions held their breath and waited patiently, knowing that they had not been passed by.

Suddenly the sound multiplied as the Duergar came rushing out of a secret door and into the main tunnel.

“Can’t be far now!” Drizzt and Entreri heard one of them say.

“The drake’ll be feedin’ us well fer this catch!” hooted another.

All clad in shining mail and wielding mithral weapons, they rounded the last bend and came into sight of the hidden companions.

Drizzt looked at the dull steel of his scimitar and considered how precise his strikes must be against armor of mithral. A
resigned sigh escaped him as he wished that he now held his magical weapon.

Entreri saw the problem, too, and knew that they had to somehow balance the odds. Quickly he pulled a pouch of coins from his belt and hurled it farther down the corridor. It sailed through the gloom and clunked into the wall where the tunnel twisted again.

The Duergar band straightened as one. “Just ahead!” one of them cried, and they bent low to the stone and charged for the next bend. Between the waiting drow and assassin.

The shadows exploded into movement and fell over the stunned gray dwarves. Drizzt and Entreri struck together, seizing the moment of best advantage when the first of the band had reached the assassin and the last was passing Drizzt.

The Duergar shrieked in surprised horror. Daggers, saber, and scimitar danced all about them in a flurry of flashing death, poking at the seams of their armor, seeking an opening through the unyielding metal. When they found one, they drove the point home with merciless efficiency.

By the time the Duergar recovered from the initial shock of the attack, two lay dead at the drow’s feet, a third at Entreri’s, and yet another stumbled away, holding his belly in with a blood-soaked hand.

“Back to back!” Entreri shouted, and Drizzt, thinking the same strategy, had already begun quick-stepping his way through the disorganized dwarves. Entreri took another one down just as they came together, the unfortunate Duergar looking over its shoulder at the approaching drow just long enough for the jeweled dagger to slip through the seam at the base of its helmet.

Then they were together, back against back, twirling in the wake of each other’s cloak and maneuvering their weapons in blurred movements so similar that the three remaining Duergar
hesitated before their attack to sort out where one enemy ended and the other began.

With cries to Shimmergloom, their godlike ruler, they came on anyway.

Drizzt scored a series of hits at once that should have felled his opponent, but the armor was of tougher stuff than the steel scimitar and his thrusts were turned aside. Entreri, too, had trouble finding an opening to poke through against the mithral mail and shields.

Drizzt turned one shoulder in and let the other fall away from his companion. Entreri understood and followed the drow’s lead, dipping around right behind him.

Gradually their circling gained momentum, as synchronous as practiced dancers, and the Duergar did not even try to keep up. Opponents changed continually, the drow and Entreri coming around to parry away the sword or axe that the other had blocked on the last swing. They let the rhythm hold for a few turns, allowed the Duergar to fall into the patterns of their dance, and then, Drizzt still leading, stuttered their steps, and even reversed the flow.