He did hear the shaman, but that small flicker of consciousness that Drizzt had remaining was not comforted by the shaman's words.
Kill him.
Chapter 11 FUTILITY
This the place?" the battlerager asked, shouting so that his gruff voice could be heard over the whipping wind. He had come out of Mithril Hall with Regis and Brue nor, had forced the halfling to take him out, actually, in search of the body of Artemis Entreri. "Ye find the clues where ye find them, " Pwent had said in typically cryptic explanation.
Regis pulled the cowl of his oversized cloak low to ward off the wind's sting. They were in a narrow valley, a gully, the sides of which seemed to focus the considerable wind into a torrent. "It was around here, " Regis said, shrugging his shoulders to indicate that he could not be sure. When he had come out to find the battered Entreri, he had taken a higher route, along the top of the ravine and other ledges. He was certain that he was in the general region, but things looked too different from this perspective to be sure.
"We'll find him, me king, " Thibbledorf assured Bruenor.
"For what that's worth, " the dejected Bruenor grumbled.
Regis winced at the dwarf's deflated tones. He recognized clearly that Bruenor was slipping back into despair. The dwarves had found no way through the maze of tunnels beneath Mithril Hall, though a thousand were searching, and word from the east was not promising, if Catti-brie and Drizzt had gone to Silvery moon, they were long past that place now. Bruenor was coming to realize the futility of it all. Weeks had passed and he had not found a way out of Mithril Hall that would take him anywhere near his friends. The dwarf was losing hope.
"But, me king!" Pwent roared. "He knows the way."
"He's dead, " Bruenor reminded the battlerager.
"Not to worry!" bellowed Pwent. "Priests can talk to the dead, and he might have a map. Oh, we'll find our way to this drow city, I tell ye, and there I'll go, for me king! I'll kill every stinking drow, except that ranger fellow, " he added, throwing a wink at Regis, ", and bring yer girl back home!"
Bruenor just sighed and motioned for Pwent to get on with the hunt. Despite all the complaining, though, the dwarf king privately hoped that he might find some satisfaction in seeing Entreri's bro ken body.
They moved on for a short while, Regis constantly peeking out from his cowl, trying to get his bearings. Finally, the halfling spotted a high outcropping, a branchlike jag of rock.
"There, " he said, pointing the way. "That must be it."
Pwent looked up, then followed a direct line to the ravine's bot tom. He began scrambling around on all fours, sniffing the ground as if trying to pick up the corpse's scent.
Regis watched him, amused, then turned to Bruenor, who stood against the gully's wall, his hand on the stone, shaking his head.
"What is it?" Regis asked, walking over. Hearing the question and noticing his king, Pwent scampered to join them.
When he got close, Regis noticed something along the stone wall, something gray and matted. He peered closer as Bruenor pulled a bit of the substance from the stone and held it out.
"What is it?" Regis asked again, daring to touch it. A stringy fil ament came away with his retracting finger, and it took some effort to shake the gooey stuff free.
Bruenor had to swallow hard several times. Pwent ran off, sniff ing at the wall, then across the ravine to consider the stone on the other side.
"It's what's left of a web, " the dwarf king answered grimly.
Both Bruenor and Regis looked up to the jutting rock and silently considered the implications of a web strung below the falling assassin.
Fingers flashed too quickly for him to follow, conveying some instructions that the assassin did not understand. He shook his head furiously, and the flustered drow clapped his ebon skinned hands together, uttered, "Iblith, " and walked away.
Iblith, Artemis Entreri echoed silently in his thoughts. The drow word for offal, it was the word he had heard the most since Jarlaxle had taken him to this wretched place. What could that drow soldier have expected from him? He was only beginning to learn the intri cate drow hand code, its finger movements so precise and detailed