"Denning, Troy - Forgotten Realms - Legacy of the Draw 2 - Starless Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

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Entreri spat on the floor. Leave him alone? The rest would wait until he was asleep, then cut him into little pieces to feed to the spiders of Donigarten. That thought broke the assassin's narrow-eyed concentration, forced him to wince. He had killed a female (which, in Menzoberranzan, was much worse than killing a male), and some house in the city might be starving their spiders right now in anticipation of a human feast.
"Ah, but you are so crude," the mercenary said, as though he pitied the man. Entreri sighed and looked away, bringing a hand up to rub his saliva-wetted lips. What was he becoming? In Calimport, in the guilds, even among the pashas and those others that called themselves his masters, he had been in control. He was a killer hired by the most treacherous, double-dealing thieves in all the Realms, and yet, not one had ever tried to cross Artemis Entreri. How he longed to see the pale sky of Calimport again!
"Fear not, my abbil," Jarlaxle said, using the draw word for trusted friend. "You will again see the sunrise." The mercenary smiled widely at Entreri's expression, apparently understanding that he had just read the assassin's very thoughts. "You and I will watch the dawn from the doorstep ofMithrilHall."
They were going back after Drizzt, Entreri realized. This time, judging from the lights in Menzoberranzan, which he now came to understand. Clan Battlehammer itself would be crushed!
"That is," Jarlaxle continued teasingly, "unless House Horlbar takes the time to discover that it was you who slew one of its matron mothers."
With a click of his boot and a tip of his hat, Jarlaxle spun out of the room.
Jarlaxle knew! And the female had been a matron mother! Feeling perfectly miserable, Entreri leaned heavily against the wall. How was he to know that the wicked beast in the alley was a damned matron mother?
The walls seemed to close in on the man, suffocating him. Cold sweat beaded on his normally cool brow, and he labored to draw breath. All his thoughts centered on possible escape, but they inevitably slammed against unyielding
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stone walls. He was caught by logistics as much as by drow blades.
He had tried to escape once, had run out of Menzoberranzan through the eastern exit, beyond Donigarten. But where could he go? The Underdark was a maze of dangerous tunnels and deep holes filled with monsters the assassin did not know how to fight. Entreri was a creature of the very different surface world. He did not understand the wild Underdark, could not hope to survive there for long. Certainly he would never find his own way back to the surface. He was trapped, caged, stripped of his pride and his dignity, and, sooner or later, he was going to be horribly killed.
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Chapter 12
RISING TO THE OCCASION
e can drop this whole section," General Dagna remarked as he poked a stubby finger against the map spread on the table.
"Drop it?" bellowed the battlerager. "If ye drop it, then how're we to kill the stinking drow?" Regis, who had arranged this meeting, looked incredulously to Dagna and the other three dwarven commanders huddled about the table. Then he looked back to Pwent. "The ceiling will kill the stinking drow," he explained.
"Bah, sandstone!" huffed the battlerager. "What fun do ye call that? I got to grease up me armor with some drow blood, I do, but with yer stupid plan, I'll have to do a month's digging just to find a body to rub against."
"Lead the charge down here," Dagna offered, pointing to another section of open corridors on the map. "The rest of us'll give ye a hunnerd-foot head start."
Regis put a sour look on the general and moved it, in turn, to each of the other dwarves, who were all bobbing their heads in agreement. Dagna was only half-kidding, Regis knew. More than a few of Clan Battlehammer would
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not be teary-eyed if obnoxious Thibbledorf Pwent happened to be among the fallen in the potential fight against the dark elves.
"Drop the tunnel," Regis said to get them back on track. "We'll need strong defenses here and here," he added, pointing to two open areas in the otherwise tight lower tunnels. "I'm meeting later this day with Berkthgar of Settlestone."
"Ye're bringin' the smelly humans in?" Pwent asked.
Even the dwarves, who favored the strong smells of soot-covered, sweaty bodies, twisted their faces at the remark. In Mithril Hall, it was said that Pwent's armpit could curl a hardy flower at fifty yards.
"I don't know what I'm doing with the humans," Regis answered. "I haven't even told them my suspicions of a drow raid yet. If they agree to join our cause, and I have no reason to believe that they won't, I suspect that we would be wise to keep them out of the lower tunnelsЧeven though we plan to light those tunnels."
Dagna nodded his agreement. "A wise choice indeed," he said. "The tall men are better suited to fighting along the mountainsides. Me own guess is that the drow1!! come in around the mountain as well as through it."
"The men of Settlestone will meet them," added another dwarf.
From the shadows of a partly closed door at the side of the room, Bruenor Battlehammer looked on curiously. He was amazed at how quickly Regis had taken things into his control, especially given the fact that the halfling did not wear his hypnotic ruby pendant. After scolding Bruenor for not acting quickly and decisively, for falling back into a mire of self-pity with the trails to Catti-brie and Drizzt apparently closed, the halfling, with Pwent in tow, had gone straight to General Dagna and the other war commanders.
What amazed Bruenor now was not the fact that the dwarves had gone eagerly into preparations for war, but the fact that Regis seemed to be leading them. Of course, the halfling had concocted a lie to assume that role. Using
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Bruenor's resumed indifference, the halfling was faking meetings with the dwarf king, then going to Dagna and the others pretending that he was bringing word straight from Bruenor.
When he first discovered the ruse, Bruenor wanted to throttle the halfling, but Regis had stood up to him, and had offered, more than sincerely, to step aside if Bruenor wanted to take over.
Bruenor wished that he could, desperately wanted to find that level of energy once more, but any thought of warfare inevitably led him to memories of his recent past battles, most of them beside Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar. Paralyzed by those painful memories, Bruenor had simply dismissed Regis and allowed the halfling to go on with his facade.
Dagna was as fine a strategist as any, but his experience was rather limited regarding races other than dwarves or stupid goblins. Regis was among Drizzf s best friends, had sat and listened to Drizzf s tales of his homeland and his kin hundreds of times. Regis had also been among Wulfgar's best friends, and so he understood the barbarians, whom the dwarves would need as allies should the war come to pass.
Still, Dagna had never been fond of anyone who wasn't a dwarf, and the fact that he wholeheartedly accepted the advice of a halflingЧand one not known for bravery!Чsurprised Bruenor more than a little.
It stung the king as well. Bruenor knew of the dark elves and the barbarians at least as well as Regis, and he understood dwarven tactics better than anyone. He should be at that table, pointing out the sections on the map; he should be the one, with Regis beside him, to meet with Berkthgar the Bold.
Bruenor dropped his gaze to the floor, rubbed a hand over his brow and down his grotesque scar. He felt an ache in the hollow socket. Hollow, too, was his heart, empty with the loss of Wulfgar, and breaking apart at the thought that Drizzt and his precious Catti-brie had gone off into danger.
The events about him had gone beyond his responsibilities as king of Mithril Hall. Bruenor's first dedication was to his children, one lost, the other missing, and to his friends.
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Their fates were beyond him now; he could only hope that they would win out, would survive and come back to him, for Bruenor had no way to get to Catti-brie and Drizzt.
Bruenor could never get back to Wulfgar.
The dwarf king sighed and turned away, walking slowly back toward his empty room, not even noticing that the meeting had adjourned.
Regis watched Bruenor silently from the doorway, wishing that he had his ruby pendant, if for no other reason than to try to rekindle the fires in the broken dwarf.
Catti-brie eyed the wide corridor ahead suspiciously, trying to make out distinct shapes among the many stalagmite mounds. She had come into a region where mud mixed with stone, and she had seen the tracks clearly enoughЧ goblin tracks, she knew, and recent.