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Entreri hadthatto pass up the opportunity offered by the dwarves’ departure, he had slipped into the most favorable position for an attack and noaited patiently atop the narrow perch of the open door, balanced as easily as a cat on asill He listened for her approach, his dagger turning over casually in his hand

Catti-brie sensed the danger as soon as she reached the doorway and saw the black for to her side But as quick as her reactions were, her own dagger was not halfway froers of a cool hand had clae of a jeweled dagger had creased a light line on her throat

She was stunned and appalled Never had she seen a man move so quickly, and the deadly precision of Entreri’s strike unnerved her A sudden tenseness in hisher weapon, she would be dead long before she could use it Releasing the hilt, she th also surprised her as he easily lifted her to a chair He was a small man, slender as an elf and barely as tall as she, but everyedge His very presence exuded an aura of strength and an unshakable confidence This, too, unnerved Catti-brie, because it wasn’t the brash cockiness of an exuberant youngster, but the cool air of superiority of one who had seen a thousand fights and had never been bested

Catti-brie’s eyes never turned from Entreri’s face as he quickly tied her to the chair His angular features, striking cheekbones and a strong jaw line, were only sharpened by the straight cut of his raven black hair The shadow of beard that darkened his face appeared as if no ahten it Far fro about the ht even have considered hiray showed no sparkle Lifeless, devoid of any hint of compassion or humanity, theymore

"What do ye want o’ me?" Catti-brie asked when sheslap across her face "The ruby pendant!" he de still wear the ruby pendant?"

Catti-brie fought to stifle the tears welling in her eyes She was disoriented and off guard and could not respond ier flashed before her eyes and slowly traced the circumference of her face

"I have not much time," Entreri declared flatly "You will tell er it takes you to answer, the more pain you will feel"

His words were calhened under Bruenor’s own tutelage, found herself unnerved She had faced and defeated goblins before, even a horrid troll once, but this collected killer terrified her She tried to respond, but her treain

"Regis wears it!" Catti-brie shrieked, a tear tracing a solitary line down each of her cheeks

Entreri nodded and shtly "He is with the dark elf, the dwarf, and the barbarian," he said matter-of-factly "And they are on the road to Luskan And from there, to a place called Mithril Hall Tell irl" He scraped the blade on his own cheek, its fine edge poignantly clearing a small patch of beard "Where does it lie?"

Catti-brie realized that her inability to ansould probably spell her end "I-I know not," she sta a h her eyes never left the glint of the deadly blade

"A pity," Entreri replied "Such a pretty face"

"Please," Catti-brie said as cal toward her "Not a one knows! Not even Bruenor! To find it is his quest"

The blade stopped suddenly and Entreri turned his head to the side, eyes narrowed and all of his muscles taut and alert

Catti-brie hadn’t heard the turn of the door handle, but the deep voice of Fender Mallot echoing down the hallway explained the assassin’s actions

"’Ere, where are ye, girl?"

Catti-brie tried to yell, "Run!" and her own life be damned, but Entreri’s quick backhand dazed her and drove the word out as an indecipherable grunt

Her head lolling to the side, she just ed to focus her vision as Fender and Grollo, battle-axes in hand, burst into the rooer in one hand and a saber in the other

For an instant, Catti-brie was filled with elation The dwarves of Ten-Toere an iron-fisted battalion of hardened warriors, with Fender’s prowess in battle a the clan second only to Bruenor’s

Then she ree, her hopes ashed away by a wave of undeniable conclusions She had witnessed the blur of the assassin’s move in her throat, she couldn’t even gasp for the dwarves to flee

Even had they known the depths of the horror in thebefore thee blinds a dwarven fighter froard for personal safety, and when these t their beloved Catti-brie bound to the chair, their charge at Entreri cae, their first attacks roared in with every ounce of strength they could call upon Conversely, Entreri started slowly, finding a rhyth the sheer fluidity of his motions to build his e the ferocious swipes Some missed their mark by barely an inch, and the near hits spurred Fender and Grollo on even further

But even with her friends pressing the attack, Catti-brie understood that they were in trouble Entreri’s hands seemed to talk to each other, so perfect was the coger and saber The synchronous shufflings of his feet kept hihout the es, parries, and counterslashes

His was a dance of death

Catti-brie had seen this before, the telltale methods of the finest swordsman in all of Icewind Dale The corace and move in harly different, a polarity of morals that subtly altered the aura of the dance

The drow ranger in battle was an instru his chosen course of righteousness with unsurpassed fervor But Entreri wasof obstacles in his path

The initial an to diminish now, and both Fender and Grollo wore a look of amazement that the floor was not yet red with their opponent’s blood But while their attacks were slowing, Entreri’s momentum continued to build His blades were a blur, each thrust followed by two others that left the dwarves rocking back on their heels

Effortless, his y

Fender and Grollo maintained a solely defensive posture, but even with all of their efforts devoted to blocking, everyone in the roo blade slipped through

Catti-brie didn’t see the fatal cut, but she saw vividly the bright line of blood that appeared across Grollo’s throat The dwarf continued fighting for a few moments, oblivious to the cause of his inability to find his breath Then, startled, Grollo dropped to his knees, grasping his throat, and gurgled into the blackness of death

Fury spurred Fender beyond his exhaustion His axe chopped and cut wildly, screa the charade so, far as to slap hied, insulted, and fully aware that he was overe, hoping to bring the assassin doith hie with an aer deep into Fender’s chest, and following through with a skull-splitting slash of the saber as the dwarf stumbled by

Too horrified to cry, too horrified to screaer fro death, she closed her eyes as the dagger came toward her, felt its metal, hot from the dwarf’s blood, flat on her throat

And then the teasing scrape of its edge against her soft, vulnerable skin as Entreri slowly turned the blade over in his hand

Tantalizing The proone Catti-brie opened her eyes just as the small blade went back into its scabbard on the assassin’s hip He had taken a step back from her

"You see," he offered in simple explanation of his mercy, "I kill only those who stand to oppose me Perhaps, then, three of your friends on the road to Luskan shall escape the blade I want only the halfling"

Catti-brie refused to yield to the terror he evoked She held her voice steady and proht you"

With calm confidence, Entreri replied, "Then they, too, shall die"

Catti-brie couldn’t win in a contest of nerves with the dispassionate killer Her only answer to him was her defiance She spat at hile stinging backhand Her eyes blurred in pain and welling tears, and Catti-brie slumped into blackness But as she fell unconscious, she heard a few seconds longer, the cruel, passionless laughter fading away as the assassinThe promise of death