Drizzt stared back at the road for some time as the elf woman moved away from him. There wasn’t much altruism flowing forth from her in words, but perhaps it was there nonetheless, buried under the chip that weighed upon her strong shoulders.
She had returned to Gauntlgrym and the primordial, after all, and though she could pretend she had done so simply to strike back at Sylora Salm, Drizzt knew better. Guilt had driven Dahlia back to that supreme danger in that dark place. That guilt was wrought of her need to right the wrong she had helped facilitate, for she had played a role in freeing the monstrous fire being and thus a role in the catastrophe that had obliterated Neverwinter a decade before.
Buried within Dahlia was compassion, empathy, and a sense of right and wrong.
Drizzt believed that, though he feared that he believed it because he had to.
A short while later, the sun still high overhead, Drizzt crouched low and peered through the tangle of branches before him. He held up his fist, signaling Dahlia to stay back. The goblins were ahead, not far, he knew, for he could smell them. Likely, they had set a camp just ahead, buried in the shadows of a grove of thick maples and a few boulders, for goblins did not like the sunlight and traveled only rarely in the daytime.
He motioned for Dahlia to move off to the right flank, then held his breath as the elf woman started away, her footsteps crunching in the leaves. Was she even trying to be careful, Drizzt wondered? Or was she just being petulant?
Drizzt shook his head, trying to let it go. The brown carpet of autumn lay thick about the ground. Even Drizzt, dark elf and skilled ranger, would have trouble moving silently in this region. So, no matter, he told himself. He drew Taulmaril, set an arrow, and crept ahead, trying to gain a better vantage. At last, he spotted the camp-or what was left of it.
Drizzt stood up straight and glanced over at Dahlia, his expression telling her that she need not take care to be silent any longer. Someone, or something, had beaten them to the camp-and had destroyed the place and the inhabitants.
Dead goblins lay scattered haphazardly about the ground, their shredded, bug-ridden blankets all around. Wisps of smoke still rose from several small logs, the remnants of a cooking fire, likely, which also had been thrown around in the apparent scuffle.
Drizzt removed his arrow, placed it back into the quiver, and slid Taulmaril over his shoulder, as Dahlia appeared at the side of the camp. She came in with a wide smile on her pretty face, and Drizzt found himself unable to look away from her in the morning light-indeed, in a different light than he had known during their recent conversations.
Her black, red-streaked hair was in that pretty bob again, bouncing lightly around her shoulders under her fashionable wide-brimmed black leather hat, its right side pinned up. The sun speckled down on her through the trees, dancing around the woman’s blue-dyed facial woad. In the morning light, those markings didn’t seem fierce to Drizzt, but somehow soft and even innocent, like freckles on a dancing child.
The drow reminded himself that Dahlia was a master of disguise and manipulation. She was, in all possibility, manipulating him even then. But still, he could not pull his eyes away from her.
She wore her black raven cape thrown back from her shoulders, with her white blouse unbuttoned low, to the tip of her black vest that stretched tight about her lithe torso. Her black skirt, cut short and angled, revealed much of her shapely legs-that which wasn’t covered by her tall black boots.
She was the perfect blend of apparent innocence and promising sensuality-in other words, Dahlia was dangerous. And he would do well to always remember that, especially after their adventures with Artemis Entreri.
But Drizzt couldn’t wrap his thoughts around Dahlia in any cohesive way. Not now, not ever. He watched her walk into the camp, casually prodding a dead goblin with Kozah’s Needle, still formed into a thick walking stick, four feet in length. All at once, she seemed sweet, sexy, and vicious, like she wanted to kiss him, or kill him, and as if it wouldn’t matter to her which it might be. How was that possible? What magic surrounded her? Or was it in his mind, Drizzt wondered?
“Someone got here before us,” she said.
“It would appear so. Saved us the trouble.”
“Stole our fun, you mean,” Dahlia replied with a wry grin. She drew a small knife from her belt. “They are offering a bounty on goblin ears in Neverwinter.”
“We didn’t kill them.”
“That will hardly matter.” She bent with the knife, but Drizzt stepped over and caught her arm, and brought her back up to stand before him.
“They’ll want to know who, or what, did this,” the drow said. “Ashmadai? A Netherese patrol?”
Dahlia considered his words for a moment, then glanced back down. “Well,” she said, “I know what did it, if not exactly who.”
Drizzt followed her gaze to the dead goblin she had rolled. The way it had flopped had exposed its neck, showing two puncture wounds, as if made by fangs.
“Vampire,” Dahlia remarked.
Drizzt stared at the wound, seeking a different answer. Perhaps a wolf, he told himself, though he knew that to be ridiculous. A wolf would not have bitten a victim like that only to leave the throat intact. Still, the notion of another vampire was not something Drizzt wanted to embrace. He had seen more than enough of one such creature in the bowels of Gauntlgrym; indeed, Bruenor and Thibbledorf Pwent had been slain by just such a creature.
“You cannot be sure,” Drizzt replied, and not just out of a desperate hope, for something seemed amiss to him. He moved to the side, where a broken tent lay tangled around a small branch.
“I have some experience in these matters,” Dahlia said. “I know what such wounds look like.” Indeed, Drizzt suspected the same vampire, Dor’crae, who had attacked Bruenor in the anteroom to the primordial pit had been Dahlia’s lover.
Drizzt tried hard not to focus on the recollection of Dor’crae. He tried to wash that thought away with the image of the pretty elf walking into the camp, tried to bury it under the sheer attraction the woman elicited in him.
And when that didn’t work, he fell back on that pervading sense of detachment.
Drizzt drew out a scimitar and used it to flip the torn tent aside, revealing more goblins, or more accurately, goblin parts, strewn on the ground before him. He studied the garish vision, the jagged tears in the clothing and skin. These were wounds better known to Drizzt, who had traveled beside just such a fighter for so many decades.
“Battlerager,” he whispered, confused.
“No,” Dahlia said. “I’ve seen these fang marks before …” Her voice trailed off as she walked over to him, as she noted, no doubt, the very different carnage at this section of the broken camp.
“Vampire,” she insisted.
“Battlerager,” Drizzt replied.
“Must you always argue with me?” She asked the question casually, but Drizzt detected an undercurrent of true anger. How many times had that edge crept into Dahlia’s voice of late?
“Only when you’re wrong.” Drizzt tossed her a disarming grin-and he realized it was likely the first lighthearted look he’d offered Dahlia since they’d left the bowels of Gauntlgrym, or more accurately, since he had seen Dahlia and Artemis Entreri share a passionate kiss. “I suppose that might seem like always to you,” Drizzt teased, determined to push past his own negativity and jealousy.
Dahlia cocked her head. “Are you finished with your pouting at long last?” she asked.
The question threw Drizzt off balance for a moment, for it seemed to him to be a matter of Dahlia projecting her own foul mood on him. Or perhaps it was a matter of Dahlia admitting that her own pouting-or grieving, or shock, or whatever combination it might be-needed to end.
But the question teased Drizzt on a much deeper level, and likely more deeply than Dahlia had intended. Drizzt couldn’t deny the truth of her words.