Streams of Silver

by R. A. Salvatore

  The thud of the warhammer! The constant sting of those streaking lines of silver! And the dwarf! Relentless in his attacks, somehow oblivious to the fires.

  Shimmergloom tore along the length of the gorge, dipping suddenly, then swooping back up and rolling over and about. Catti-brie’s arrows found it at every turn. And Wulfgar, wiser with each of his strikes, sought the best opportunities to throw the warhammer, waiting for the dragon to cut by a rocky outcropping in the wall, then driving the monster into the stone with the force of his throw.

  Flames, stone, and dust flew wildly with each thunderous impact.

  Bruenor held on. Singing out to his father and his kin beyond that, the dwarf absolved himself of his guilt, content that he had satisfied the ghosts of his past and given his friends a chance for survival. He didn’t feel the bite of the fire, nor the bump of stone. All he felt was the quivering of the dragon flesh below his blade, and the reverberations of Shimmergloom’s agonized cries.

  Drizzt tumbled down the face of the gorge, desperately scrambling for some hold. He slammed onto a ledge twenty feet below the assassin and managed to stop his descent.

  Entreri nodded his approval and his aim, for the drow had landed just where he had hoped. “Farewell, trusting fool!” he called down to Drizzt and he started up the wall.

  Drizzt never had trusted in the assassin’s honor, but he had believed in Entreri’s pragmatism. This attack made no practical sense. “Why?” he called back to Entreri. “You could have had the pendant without recourse!”

  “The gem is mine,” Entreri replied.

  “But not without a price!” Drizzt declared. “You know that I will come after you, assassin!”

  Entreri looked down at him with an amused grin. “Do you not understand, Drizzt Do’Urden? That is exactly the purpose!”

  The assassin quickly reached the rim, and peered above it. To his left, Wulfgar and Catti-brie continued their assault on the dragon. To his right, Regis stood enamored of the scene, completely unaware.

  The halfling’s surprise was complete, his face blanching in terror, when his worst nightmare rose up before him. Regis dropped the gem-studded helm and went limp with fear as Entreri silently picked him up and started for the bridge.

  Exhausted, the dragon tried to find another method of defense. Its rage and pain had carried it too far into the battle, though. It had taken too many hits, and still the silver streaks bit into it again and again.

  Still the tireless dwarf twisted and pounded the axe into its back.

  One last time the dragon cut back in mid-flight, trying to snake its neck around so that it could at least take vengeance upon the cruel dwarf. It hung motionless for just a split second, and Aegis-fang took it in the eye.

  The dragon rolled over in blinded rage, lost in a dizzying swirl of pain, headlong into a jutting portion of the wall.

  The explosion rocked the very foundations of the cavern, nearly knocking Catti-brie from her feet and Drizzt from his precarious perch.

  One final image came to Bruenor, a sight that made his heart leap one more time in victory: the piercing gaze of Drizzt Do’Urden’s lavender eyes bidding him farewell from the darkness of the wall.

  Broken and beaten, the flames consuming, it, the dragon of darkness glided and spun, descending into the deepest blackness it would ever know, a blackness from which there could be no return. The depths of Garumn’s Gorge.

  And bearing with it the rightful King of Mithral Hall.

  he burning dragon drifted lower and lower, the light of the flames slowly diminishing to a mere speck at the bottom of Garumn’s Gorge.

  Drizzt scrambled up over the ledge and came up beside Catti-brie and Wulfgar, Catti-brie holding the gem-studded helm, and both of them staring helplessly across the chasm. The two of them nearly fell over in surprise when they turned to see their drow friend returned from the grave. Even the appearance of Artemis Entreri had not prepared Wulfgar and Catti-brie for the sight of Drizzt.

  “How?” Wulfgar gasped, but Drizzt cut him short. The time for explanations would come later; they had more urgent business at hand.

  Across the gorge, right next to the lever hooked to the bridge, stood Artemis Entreri, holding Regis by the throat before him and grinning wickedly. The ruby pendant now hung around the assassin’s neck.

  “Let him go,” Drizzt said evenly. “As we agreed. You have the gem.”

  Entreri laughed and pulled the lever. The stone bridge shuddered, then broke apart, tumbling into the darkness below.

  Drizzt had thought that he was beginning to understand the assassin’s motivations for this treachery, reasoning now that Entreri had taken Regis to ensure pursuit, continuing his own personal challenge with Drizzt. But now with the bridge gone and no apparent escape open before Drizzt and his friends, and the incessant baying of the shadow hounds growing closer at their backs, the drow’s theories didn’t seem to hold up. Angered by his confusion, he reacted quickly. Having lost his own bow back in the alcove, Drizzt grabbed Taulmaril from Catti-brie and fitted an arrow.

  Entreri moved just as fast. He rushed to the ledge, scooped Regis up by an ankle, and held him by one hand over the edge. Wulfgar and Catti-brie sensed the strange bond between Drizzt and the assassin and knew that Drizzt was better able to deal with this situation. They moved back a step and held each other close.

  Drizzt kept the bow steady and cocked, his eyes unblinking as he searched for the one lapse in Entreri’s defenses.

  Entreri shook Regis dangerously and laughed again. “The road to Calimport is long indeed, drow. You shall have your chance to catch up with me.”

  “You have blocked our escape,” Drizzt retorted.

  “A necessary inconvenience,” explained Entreri. “Surely you will find your way through this, even if your other friends do not. And I will be waiting!”

  “I will come,” Drizzt promised. “You do not need the half-ling to make me want to hunt you down, foul assassin.”

  “’Tis true,” said Entreri. He reached into his pouch, pulled out a small item, and tossed it into the air. It twirled up above him then dropped. He caught it just before it passed beyond his reach and would have fallen into the gorge. He tossed it again. Something small, something black.

  Entreri tossed it a third time, teasingly, the smile widening across his face as Drizzt lowered the bow.

  Guenhwyvar.

  “I do not need the halfling,” Entreri stated flatly and he held Regis farther out over the chasm.

  Drizzt dropped the magical bow behind him, but kept his glare locked upon the assassin.

  Entreri pulled Regis back in to the ledge. “But my master demands the right to kill this little thief. Lay your plans, drow, for the hounds draw near. Alone, you stand a better chance. Leave those two, and live!

  “Then come, drow. Finish our business.” He laughed one more time and spun away into the darkness of the final tunnel.

  “He’s out, then,” said Catti-brie. “Bruenor named that passage as a straight run to a door out of the halls.”

  Drizzt looked all around, trying to find some means to get them across the chasm.

  “By Bruenor’s own words, there is another way,” Catti-brie offered. She pointed down to her right, toward the south end of the cavern. “A ledge,” she said, “but hours of walking.”

  “Then run,” replied Drizzt, his eyes still fixed upon the tunnel across the gorge.

  By the time the three companions reached the ledge, the echoes of howls and specks of light far to the north told them that Duergar and shadow hounds had entered the cavern. Drizzt led them across the narrow walkway, his back pressed against the wall as he inched his way toward the other side. All the gorge lay open before him, and the fires still burned below, a grim reminder of the fate of his bearded friend. Perhaps it was fitting that Bruenor died here, in the home of his ancestors, he thought. Perhaps the dwarf had finally satisfied the yearning that had dictated so much of his life.

  The loss remained
intolerable to Drizzt, though. His years with Bruenor had shown him a compassionate and respected friend, a friend he could rely upon at any time, in any circumstance. Drizzt could tell himself over and over that Bruenor was satisfied, that the dwarf had climbed his mountain and won his personal battle, but in the terrible immediacy of his death, those thoughts did little to dispel the drow’s grief.

  Catti-brie blinked away more tears, and Wulfgar’s sigh belied his stoicism when they moved out across the gorge that had become Bruenor’s grave. To Catti-brie, Bruenor was father and friend, who taught her toughness and touched her with tenderness. All of the constants of her world, her family and home, lay burning far below, on the back of a hell-spawned dragon.

  A numbness descended over Wulfgar, the cold chill of mortality and the realization of how fragile life could be. Drizzt had returned to him, but now Bruenor was gone. Above any emotions of joy or grief came a wave of instability, a tragic rewriting of heroic images and bard-sung legends that he had not expected. Bruenor had died with courage and strength, and the story of his fiery leap would be told and retold a thousand times. But it would never fill the void that Wulfgar felt at that moment.

  They made their way across to the chasm’s other side and raced back to the north to get to the final tunnel and be free of the shadows of Mithral Hall. When they came again into the wide end of the cavern, they were spotted. Duergar shouted and cursed at them; the great black shadow hounds roared their threats and scratched at the lip of the other side of the gorge. But their enemies had no way to get at them, short of going all the way around to the ledge, and Drizzt stepped unopposed into the tunnel that Entreri had entered a few hours earlier.

  Wulfgar followed, but Catti-brie paused at the entrance and looked back across the gorge at the gathered host of gray dwarves.

  “Come,” Drizzt said to her. “There is nothing that we can do here, and Regis needs our help.”

  Catti-brie’s eyes narrowed and the muscles in her jaw clenched tightly as she fitted an arrow to her bow and fired. The silver streak whistled into the crowd of Duergar and blasted one from life, sending the others scurrying for cover. “Nothing now,” Catti-brie replied grimly, “but I’ll be comin’ back! Let the gray dogs know it for truth.

  “I’ll be back!”

  rizzt, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie came into Longsaddle a few days later, road weary and still wrapped in a shroud of grief. Harkle and his kin greeted them warmly and invited them to stay at the Ivy Mansion for as long as they desired. But though all three of them would have welcomed the opportunity to relax and recover from their trials, other roads summoned them.

  Drizzt and Wulfgar stood at the exit of Longsaddle the very next morning, with fresh horses provided by the Harpells. Catti-brie walked down to them slowly, Harkle holding back a few steps behind her.

  “Will you come?” Drizzt asked, but guessed by her expression that she would not.

  “Would that I could,” Catti-brie replied. “Ye’ll get to the halfling, I don’t fear. I’ve another vow to fulfill.”

  “When?” Wulfgar asked.

  “In the spring, by me guess,” said Catti-brie. “The magic of the Harpells has set the thing to going; already they’ve called out to the clan in the dale, and to Harbromm in Citadel Adbar. Bruenor’s kin’ll be marchin’ out afore the tenday’s end, with many allies from Ten-Towns. Harbromm promises eight thousand, and some of the Harpells have pledged their help.”

  Drizzt thought of the undercity he had viewed in his passage of the lower levels, and of the bustle of thousands of gray dwarves, all outfitted in shining mithral. Even with all of Clan Battlehammer and their friends from the dale, eight thousand battle-seasoned dwarves from Adbar, and the magical powers of the Harpells, the victory would be hard won if won at all.

  Wulfgar also understood the enormity of the task that Catti-brie would face, and doubt came to him about his decision to set out with Drizzt. Regis needed him, but he could not turn away from Catti-brie in her need.

  Catti-brie sensed his torment. She walked up to him and kissed him suddenly, passionately, then jumped back. “Get yer business done and over, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar,” she said. “And get ye back to me!”

  “I, too, was Bruenor’s friend,” Wulfgar argued. “I, too, shared in his vision of Mithral Hall. I should be beside you when you go to honor him.”

  “Ye’ve a friend alive that needs ye now,” Catti-brie snapped at him. “I can set the plans to going. Ye get yerself after Regis! Pay Entreri all he’s got coming and be quick. Mighten be that ye’ll get back in time to march to the halls.”

  She turned to Drizzt, a most-trusted hero. “Keep him safe for me,” she pleaded. “Show him a straight road, and show him the way back!”

  On Drizzt’s nod, she spun and ran back up to Harkle and toward the Ivy Mansion. Wulfgar did not follow. He trusted in Catti-brie.

  “For the halfling and the cat,” he said to Drizzt, clasping Aegis-fang and surveying the road before them.

  Sudden fires glowed in the drow’s lavender eyes, and Wulfgar took an involuntary step back. “And for other reasons,” Drizzt said grimly, looking out over the wide southland that held the monster he might have become. It was his destiny to meet Entreri in battle again, he knew, the test of his own worth to defeat the killer.

  “For other reasons.”

  Dendybar’s breath came hard to him as he viewed the scene—Sydney’s corpse stuffed into a corner of a dark room.

  The specter, Morkai, waved his arm and the image was replaced by a view of the bottom of Garumn’s Gorge.

  “No!” Dendybar screamed when he saw the remains of the golem, headless and lying among the rubble. The mottled wizard shook visibly. “Where is the drow?” he demanded of the specter.

  Morkai waved the image away and stood silent, pleased at Dendybar’s distress.

  “Where is the drow?” Dendybar repeated, more loudly.

  Morkai laughed at him. “Find your own answers, foolish mage. My service to you is ended!” The apparition puffed into fire and was gone.

  Dendybar leaped wildly from his magic circle and kicked the burning brazier over. “I shall torment you a thousand times for your insolence!” he yelled into the emptiness of the room. His mind spun with the possibilities. Sydney dead. Bok dead. Entreri? The drow and his friends? Dendybar needed answers. He could not forsake his search for the Crystal Shard, could not be denied the power he sought.

  Deep breaths steadied him as he concentrated on the beginnings of a spell. He saw the bottom of the gorge again, brought the image into sharp focus within his mind. As he chanted through the ritual, the scene became more real, more tangible. Dendybar experienced it fully; the darkness, the hollow emptiness of the shadowy walls and the almost imperceptible swish of air running through the ravine, the jagged hardness of the broken stone under his feet.

  He stepped out of his thoughts and into Garumn’s Gorge.

  “Bok,” he whispered as he stared down at the twisted and broken form of his creation, his greatest achievement.

  The thing stirred. A rock rolled away from it as it shifted and struggled to rise before its creator. Dendybar watched in disbelief, amazed that the magical strength he had imbued upon the golem was so resilient as to survive such a drop, and such mutilation.

  Bok stood in front of him, waiting.

  Dendybar studied the thing for a long moment, pondering how he might begin to restore it. “Bok!” he greeted it emphatically, a hopeful grin coming to him. “Come, my pet. I shall take you back home and mend your wounds.”

  Bok took a step forward, crowding Dendybar against the wall. The wizard, still not understanding, started to order the golem away.

  But Bok’s remaining arm shot up and grasped Dendybar by the throat, lifting him into the air and choking off any further commands. Dendybar grabbed and flailed at the arm, helpless and confused.

  A familiar laugh came to his ears. A ball of fire appeared above the torn stump of the golem’s neck, transforming
into a familiar face.

  Morkai.

  Dendybar’s eyes bulged in terror. He realized that he had overstepped his limits, had summoned the specter too many times. He had never truly dismissed Morkai from this last encounter, and suspected rightly that he probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to push the specter from the material plane even if he had tried. Now, outside of his magic circle of protection he was at the mercy of his nemesis.

  “Come, Dendybar,” Morkai grinned, his dominating will twisting the golem’s arm. “Join me in the realm of death where we might discuss your treachery!”

  A snap of bone echoed across the stones, the ball of fire puffed away, and wizard and golem tumbled down, lifeless.

  Farther down the gorge, half buried in a pile of debris, the fires of the burning dragon had died to a smoky smolder.

  Another rock shifted and rolled away.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  R.A. Salvatore was born in Massachusetts in 1959. His love affair with fantasy, and with literature in general, began during his sophomore year of college when he was given a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a Christmas gift. He promptly changed his major from computer science to journalism. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Communications in 1981, then returned for the degree he always cherished, the Bachelor of Arts in English. He began writing seriously in 1982, penning the manuscript that would become Echoes of the Fourth Magic.

  His first published novel was The Crystal Shard from TSR in 1988 and he is still best known as the creator of the dark elf Drizzt, one of fantasy’s most beloved characters.

  THE LEGEND OF DRIZZT

  BOOK V

  STREAMS OF SILVER

  ©1989 TSR, Inc.

  ©2005 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.