The Last Threshold tns-4

by R. A. Salvatore

  “We have mounts,” Entreri reminded, but Effron shook his head.

  “If you summon your nightmare here, you will likely lose control of the beast, and the same for the unicorn you ride. This is not the place for such toys, I warn.”

  “So, three days walking,” said Drizzt.

  Effron nodded. “That measures the actual time, but I warn you, it may seem a month to you, for you’re not acclimated to the realities of the Shadowfell.”

  “Meself’s acclimated, and it’s seemin’ like a month already!” Ambergris said. “By the gods, I hate this place.” She looked at Afafrenfere. “To think that ye chose to be here them years,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Now that I have been away, I begin to agree,” Afafrenfere answered, and the dwarf’s eyes popped open wide.

  Dahlia regarded the two, and particularly focused on their appearance. When she had first encountered them, she had thought them shades, with dark hair and gray skin, but subtly, both had shifted in that appearance, in almost the reverse manner that a farmer’s skin might darken in the first tendays of spring. Still ruddy, as with most dwarves, it seemed as if a pall had been lifting from Ambergris of late, and even her hair had changed color, showing more reddish tints now. And Dahlia realized that for Afafrenfere, the reversion to something more fully human had been even more dramatic.

  Dahlia only noted that now, for the change had been so gradual, but in this place of perpetual gloom, the monk appeared again much as he had when Dahlia had first seen him, and the abrupt reversion so clearly revealed the extent of the change.

  “Every journey begins with a step, then,” said Drizzt, and he started off in the direction Effron had indicated.

  Effron caught him by the arm quickly, though. “I would have you on the flank,” he explained. “And you,” he added, indicating Entreri, “on the other. This place is the stuff of nightmares, and it earns its name, I assure you.”

  “Aye, and tell ’em why,” Ambergris said, and when Effron didn’t immediately respond, other than to look at the dwarf, she added, “The swamp’s full o’ dead things that won’t stay quiet. And they’re always hungry.”

  Dahlia, Drizzt, and Entreri looked to Effron, who could only shrug. The drow nodded and moved out to the left flank, Entreri similarly moving out to the right. Effron took up the lead, Dahlia beside him, the dwarf and monk some distance behind.

  “Why are you doing this?” Dahlia asked quietly when she was alone with her son.

  Effron’s face grew very tight. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “Is it hatred for this Lord Draygo?”

  “No,” Effron answered even before thinking about it. It was true enough, though. “Draygo Quick has shown me more friendship than.…” He let it end there, hanging in the air between them.

  “Don’t try to hurt him,” Effron warned. “Do not insinuate me into a fight between you and Lord Draygo.”

  “Because you will side with him?”

  “I don’t know,” came the answer once more.

  Clearly uncomfortable, Effron pressed on faster, and Dahlia, after considering it for a moment, didn’t try to keep up.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain and confusion Effron was suffering at that time. His life’s journey was twisting and turning rapidly, and not entirely, if at all, of his own volition. Dahlia considered her own life’s road then, going from Szass Tam to this new horizon. She had faced a crisis in Gauntlgrym, a stark ethical and moral choice that would have broken her had she chosen differently. If she had pulled that lever to release the fire primordial and wreak devastation upon the land, then she would have succumbed wholly to the darkness that had followed her since that day Alegni had ravaged her, and more particularly since that subsequent date when she had thrown her son from the cliff. The dark wings of her own guilt would have enveloped her forever more, making her no better a creature than the loathsome Szass Tam himself.

  How different her new road. But, indeed, it was now a journey of her choosing.

  Could Effron say the same?

  “A copper for yer thoughts,” Ambergris remarked, and Dahlia realized that lost in her internal dialogue, she had slowed her pace.

  “They will cost you a bag of gold, a chest of jewels and gems, and a swift journey to a place of sunlight,” she replied.

  “A ransom no good dwarf’d e’er pay!” Ambergris replied with a laugh.

  Afafrenfere, coming up on the other side of Dahlia, joined in, but Dahlia could only manage a polite chuckle, her gaze remaining straight ahead, at the crooked back of the physically frail creature who led the way.

  There was never much of a sun shining in the Shadowfell, but when night fell, the contrast seemed even more dramatic compared to the nightfall on Toril, for in the Shadowfell, sunset awakened more inhabitants than sunrise.

  The six companions felt that keenly as they set their encampment amid the muddy ground and bogs. The air hung thick with the smell of decay, the stench seeming more like a tangible and living enemy than the mere result of the flora and fauna. The annoyance of stinging insects buzzed ever-presently in their ears, and the sound of their own slapping became readily apparent and nearly as annoying as the buzzing wings.

  “If our campfire doesn’t give us away, then the drumming will,” Entreri said.

  “Ye got a better idea?” Ambergris asked, punctuating her question with a resounding smack across her own face. She brought her hand out and held it up, showing a squashed bug the size of her thumbnail, and a palm full of blood. “These sucker bugs’ll drain the juices right out o’ ye!”

  Before Entreri could respond, both he and the dwarf turned to regard Afafrenfere, who had gone into what seemed to be a wild dance.

  The monk moved swiftly, as if executing a practiced training routine, and so he was, but with a few additions, they came to realize, as his turns brought sweeps and snatches instead of punches, and every ending pose brought an onslaught of well-aimed slaps about his body. He went on for many heartbeats, then turned to his audience, smiling widely, and held forth his open hands, showing the bits and pieces of dozens of insects he had plucked and crushed or swatted flat.

  Metallic tapping from the other direction turned all to witness Dahlia across the way. She smiled widely as she worked her flails and looked back at Afafrenfere. “I am better suited,” she explained, and she cracked her spinning flails together repeatedly, each strike causing a slight spark of lightning from the powerfully-enchanted Kozah’s Needle.

  “Not unless ye’re squishing bugs with them hits,” Ambergris replied.

  “You work the nun’chuks well, “Afafrenfere remarked, and Dahlia looked at him curiously, not quite sure of the reference.

  But no matter. Dahlia merely smiled ever more and heightened her movements, the flails spinning around her, up over her shoulder and down and around. Click, click, click, they went, tap-tapping with increasing intensity.

  And then came the reveal, as Dahlia leaped and spun dramatically, and brought her flails spinning in for a tremendous concussion in which she released all the building energy of her magical weapon.

  A great burst of lightning blasted forth, momentarily stealing the night and filling the air with such a charge that the hair of all six companions began dancing wildly. And in that burst, for those who managed to note, came a thousand little pops of insects exploding under the concussion of the charge.

  “Why don’t you find a horn to blow, loud and long, to announce our position?” Entreri growled at her, clearly not amused.

  But the dwarf laughed and Afafrenfere clapped in approval. “Brilliant work!” he congratulated. “Where did you learn to use the nun’chuks in that manner?”

  “Use what?” Dahlia asked, looking at her weapons.

  “Nunchaku,” Artemis Entreri interjected. “Nun’chuks.”

  “Flails,” Dahlia replied, spinning one at the end of its cord. Entreri shrugged as if he hardly cared about a semantic distinction.

  “Nun
’chuks,” Afafrenfere corrected. “We train in their use in the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. They distinguish from typical flails because you can move your grip from one of the joined poles to the other.” He moved toward Dahlia and held out a hand. “May I?”

  Dahlia looked around at her other companions, who all seemed intrigued, then held both flails out toward Afafrenfere. He took only one, however.

  Dahlia stepped back and the monk launched into his disciplined routine, moving the weapon about his torso, over one shoulder and under the other, fluidly and rapidly.

  With a grin, Dahlia, too, began such a dance, and the two circled, their respective weapons spinning all around in a blur. Coincidentally, both lunged forward at the same time, letting the free end fly over, and with a twist of the wrist, both put that free end up tight into a lock with their armpit at the very same moment, and stood facing each other, muscles flexed as hand pulled against the hold.

  They both began to laugh, and around them, the others applauded their coordination and precision.

  All except for Artemis Entreri, who leaped up and moved clearly into the light. He was not looking at Dahlia and Afafrenfere, however, but off into the darkness to the west. “We’ve got company,” he said.

  He glanced over at Drizzt, and the drow nodded, and slipped off into the darkness to the north, while Entreri moved out to the south.

  “Form around me,” Ambergris ordered the others and she stood before the fire, hoisting her huge mace, Skullbreaker, up onto one shoulder.

  “The fire?” Dahlia asked, for surely the light marked their position.

  “We’ll be needin’ it,” Ambergris replied.

  “The walking dead,” Effron explained to his mother, and Afafrenfere, on the other side of the dwarf, handed the nun’chuk back to Dahlia and nodded his agreement with that assessment.

  The passing moments seemed an eternity before they finally heard some movement out in the dark swamp, the rustle of grass and the splash of a running footfall on muddy ground.

  “Ghouls,” Effron remarked.

  Even as he spoke, a great stench washed over them, overpowering the heavy marsh aroma.

  “They’ve likely got a ghast or two among ’em,” said the dwarf. She reached into a pouch and brought forth her holy symbol then, and held it up questioningly before her eyes. She rolled it about in her thick fingers, the silvery image of mountains flashing in the firelight with each turn.

  “Will Dumathoin grant you such strength?” Afafrenfere asked, obviously understanding the dwarf’s skeptical expression.

  “Me god’s been closer as me skin’s grown lighter,” Ambergris replied, but she could only shrug meekly beyond that assurance.

  Artemis Entreri rushed back into the light then, startling them all. “Back to back!” he warned. “A horde of ghouls, and with wights among them!”

  The four warriors formed a box around Effron as the warlock prepared his spells.

  “Wrap yer hands, monk,” Ambergris told her friend. “Don’t want to be touching them beasties with your open skin!”

  Stealth wouldn’t help him much, Drizzt knew, for the undead could smell him, could sense his life-force, and no measure of hiding behind a shrub or a stone would mitigate that. He relied on speed instead, constantly moving, constantly shifting directions.

  He noted the approaching hunters, a pack of hunched and emaciated creatures, once human, but now hardly resembling the form they knew in life. Bobbing and scrabbling with every step, their movements seemed that of an animal, and their faces locked in a grimace of perpetual anger, or hunger, with their jaws hanging open, showing teeth that apparently had kept growing in the grave, or perhaps it was that their gums had greatly receded.

  Drizzt drew back on Taulmaril, leveling the bow at the nearest creature. He glanced around, plotting his escape route, and thinking that his best course would be to draw off as many of these ghouls as possible, to buy his friends more time.

  Just before he let fly, he realized that not all of the creatures before him were the same, for among the ghoulish ranks loomed other creatures, standing more upright, appearing less driven by rage and hunger, perhaps, and more measured in their approach toward the firelight. And while the ghouls scrabbled, these few seemed more to float above the muck of the swamp.

  Drizzt was not well-versed in the distinctions of undead creatures, but it seemed clear to him that this second version, less visceral and animalistic, was likely more dangerous.

  He swiveled the bow around, leveled and let fly, his lightning streak stealing the night in a blinding flash of sharp and crackling energy. It struck the wight in the shoulder, the force of the blow spinning the screeching beast around, spiraling in a full circle, stumbling, before regaining its balance.

  Just in time to catch the second arrow right in its emaciated and horrid face. The creature’s head exploded under the weight of that blow, and it flew back and to the ground.

  And Drizzt saw another wight, a larger one, an armored one, and holding a greatsword out toward him, and the ghouls, following that direction, swarmed his way.

  It was time to run, but Drizzt hesitated, staring at what he thought to be the leader of this horde of monsters. He tried to discern a route to get to the armored wight, for if he could decapitate the band, the fight might fast dissolve.

  But then he realized that even this impressive being was not in command of his enemies, for behind the armored wight came a crackling flash of deep blue light, just long enough to illuminate another monstrosity. Part wraith-like, the creature appeared as if someone had placed a second and third skull on the shoulders of an emaciated corpse. It carried a staff that seemed more like bone than wood in the brief instant Drizzt had glimpsed it, and it wore a crown on its central skull.

  “What?” Drizzt muttered, and indeed he wondered what he and his friends were up against.

  They came in running, fearlessly, ravenous, mostly from the west, but already flanking north and south. The companions stood to face them, most of all Ambergris, who didn’t hoist her huge mace, but stepped forward and presented instead her holy symbol.

  “By Dumathoin’s grace, be gone!” she roared, her voice clear and melodic, full of resonance and godly power, which manifested itself in a supernatural glow, a light shining from the dwarf herself.

  The press of creatures immediately before Ambergris threw up their spindly arms and clawed hands defensively, a horrid communal shriek filling the air. Some fell to the ground, thrashing, and others, many others, fled, turning back the way they had come, running with all speed from the bared power of the dwarf cleric.

  “Redemption!” Afafrenfere congratulated at the dwarf’s side, but that was all he had time to say, for though Ambergris had improved the odds, the numbers still dramatically favored the enemy.

  A ghoul leaped in, clawing with its left hand, and the monk stepped forward with his left foot and threw his forearm against the ghoul’s forearm in a solid block, taking care to avoid the filthy, paralyzing claws. Predictably, the ghoul tried to bite at that blocking arm, but Afafrenfere was already into his heavy right crossing punch. He caught the ghoul on the side of its jaw, shattering the bones and snapping the undead monster’s head around viciously.

  The monk disengaged his arm quickly and fell back, throwing all of his weight to his trailing right leg and lifting his left and kicking out, catching the ghoul in the throat as it turned back at him, and driving it away.

  At the same time, Afafrenfere snapped off a series of overhand and underhand slaps with his right arm, rolling fast to pick off the clawing swipes of a second ghoul. He ducked low and kicked out, cracking the ghoul’s knee, shattering the bones, but undead creatures felt no pain and the ghoul leaped upon him.

  Afafrenfere braced and caught the monster, then stood up straight, hoisting the ghoul above his head and launching it back at the next nearest monster. As it flew out, however, the ghoul hooked its claws on the monk’s upper arm, tearing Afafrenfere’s skin as it went.
The monk gave the slight wound no heed, already spinning and kicking at the next incoming enemy.

  But he soon enough felt the numbness spreading along his arm, the infection of ghoul touch, and the images before him began to swim and float around as he felt the strength leaving his legs.

  Across from the monk, Dahlia was better armed against such monsters. She had Kozah’s Needle assembled as a staff once more, and prodded it and swept it around to keep the enemies at bay. She worked toward Entreri as she did, and he to her, and they quickly found a rhythm, with Dahlia using the long weapon and tactical bursts of its magical lightning to create a perimeter free of clawing beasts.

  Entreri stayed low and unobtrusive, giving the elf warrior full reign to guide the fight. Her heritage, her elf blood, would protect her from the ghoul paralysis, at least, where his own would not. He focused on the flanks, and whenever one of the monsters slipped past a swing of Dahlia’s staff, it was met full force by the assassin’s sword and dagger, weaving and darting, striking home. But Entreri, too, took great care here, and reminded himself of the nature of his enemies, particularly when his shorter blade found a mark.

  Entreri could not let the dagger drink, as it always desired, for the life-force it would bring forth from the undead would hardly nourish him.

  Well-versed in the matter of undead creatures, Effron the warlock recognized immediately that this was no simple ghoul hunting pack. Such roving bands were common around the marshes, but too many had come forth, and with wights among them.

  And with something more sinister and powerful behind them, he understood, lurking out there in the darkness, waiting for the moment to come forth in all its sinister power.

  The tiefling warlock held back his most powerful spells in the early rounds of battle, throwing forth necromantic flames to sting and slow any approaches wherever his companions’ defenses seemed weakest.

  Soon enough, he found himself furiously casting, one fiery assault after another, black sweeps of flame reaching out almost continuously at the encroaching horde.