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sliding it under Entreri's blade and cutting back a reverse swipe. Entreri's
dagger arm came thrusting out right in the scimitar's path, and before the
assassin could poke his blade into Drizzt's heart, Drizzt's scimitar gashed into
the back of his elbow.
The dagger dropped to the muck. Entreri grabbed his wounded arm, grimaced in
pain, and rushed back from the battle. His eyes narrowed on Drizzt, angry and
confused.
"Your hunger blurs your ability," Drizzt said to him, taking a step forward.
"We have both looked into a mirror this night. Perhaps you did not enjoy the
sight it showed to you."
Entreri fumed but had no retort. "You have not won yet," he spat defiantly,
but he knew that the drow had gained an overwhelming advantage.
"Perhaps not," Drizzt shrugged, "but you lost many years ago."
Entreri smiled evilly and bowed low, then took flight back through the
passage.
Drizzt was quick to pursue, stopping short, though, when he reached the edge
of the globe of blackness. He heard shuffling on the other side and braced
himself. Too loud for Entreri, he reasoned, and he suspected that some wererat
had returned.
"Are ye there, elf?" came a familiar voice.
Drizzt dashed through the blackness and side-stepped his astonished friends.
"Entreri?" he asked, hoping that the wounded assassin had not escaped unseen.
Bruenor and Catti-brie shrugged curiously and turned to follow as Drizzt ran
off into the darkness.
20
Black and White
Wulfgar, nearly overcome by exhaustion and by the pain in his arm, leaned
heavily against the smooth wall of an upward-sloping passage. He clutched the
wound tightly, hoping to stem the flow of his lifeblood.
How alone he felt.
He knew that he had been right in sending his friends away. They could have
done little to help him, and standing there, in the open of the main corridor
right in front of the very spot Entreri had chosen for his trap, left them too
vulnerable. Wulfgar now had to move along by himself, probably into the heart of
the infamous thieves' guild.
He released his grip on his biceps and examined the wound. The hydra had
bitten him deeply, but he found that he could still move his arm. Gingerly he
took a few swings with Aegis-fang.
He then leaned back against the wall once more, trying to figure a course of
action in a cause that seemed truly hopeless.
* * *
Drizzt slipped from tunnel to tunnel, sometimes slowing his pace to listen
for faint sounds that would aid his pursuit. He didn't really expect to hear
anything; Entreri could move as silently as he. And the assassin, like Drizzt,
moved along without a torch, or even a candle.
But Drizzt felt confident in the turns he took, as if he were being led
along by the same reasoning that guided Entreri. He felt the assassin's
presence, knew the man better than he cared to admit, and Entreri could no more
escape him than he could Entreri. Their battle had begun in Mithril Hall months
before - or perhaps theirs was only the present embodiment in the continuation
of a greater struggle that was spawned at the dawn of time - but, for Drizzt and
Entreri, two pawns in the timeless struggle of principles, this chapter of the
war could not end until one claimed victory.
Drizzt noted a glimmer down to the side - not the flickering yellow of a
torch, but a constant silvery stream. He moved cautiously and found an open
grate, with the moonlight streaming in and highlighting the wet iron rungs of a
ladder bolted into the sewer wall. Drizzt glanced around quickly - too quickly -
and rushed to the ladder.
The shadows to his left exploded into motion, and Drizzt caught the telltale
shine of a blade just in time to turn his back from the angle of the blow. He
staggered forward, feeling a burning across his shoulder blades and then the
wetness of his blood rolling down under his cloak.
Drizzt ignored the pain, knowing that any hesitation would surely result in
his death, and spun around, slamming his back into the wall and sending the
curved blades of both his scimitars into a defensive spin before him.
Entreri issued no taunts this time. He came in furiously, cutting and
slicing with his saber, knowing that he had to finish Drizzt before the shock of
the ambush wore off. Viciousness replaced finesse, engulfing the injured
assassin in a frenzy of hatred.
He leaped into Drizzt, locking one of the drow's arms under his own wounded
limb and trying to use brute strength to drive his saber into his opponent's
neck.
Drizzt steadied himself quickly enough to control the initial assault. He
surrendered his one arm to the assassin's hold, concentrating solely on getting
his free scimitar up to block the strike. The blade's hilt again locked with
that of Entreri's saber, holding it motionless in midswing halfway between the
combatants.
Behind their respective blades, Drizzt and Entreri eyeballed each other with
open hatred, their grimaces only inches apart.
"How many crimes shall I punish you for, assassin?" Drizzt growled.
Reinforced by his own proclamation, Drizzt pushed the saber back an inch,
shifting the angle of his own deadly blade down more threateningly toward
Entreri.
Entreri did not answer, nor did he seem alarmed at the slight shift in the
blades' momentum. A wild, exhilarated look came into his eyes, and his thin lips
widened into an evil grin.
Drizzt knew that the killer had another trick to play.
Before the drow could figure the game, Entreri spat a mouthful of filthy
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