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"Then it cannot be him, and we should …" Drizzt started to say, but his eyes widened as he considered the scene at the lever i the demise of Dor’crae He recalled Bruenor’s last words to hi in his ray eyes, and of Thibbledorf Pwent …

Thibbledorf Pwent

Drizzt thought of the torn tent in the goblin caer, he and Dahlia had debated

All of those nagging thoughts coalesced, and Drizzt had his answer He was right in his guess, and so was Dahlia

Without another word, he turned around and urged Andahar forward

"Thank you," she whispered in his ear, but she needn’t have, for if he had been alone, Drizzt would have taken this very same course

They slohen they entered the tree line, Drizzt picking his way carefully through the trees and tangled branches They had barely entered the thicket when Dahlia’s wand glowed brighter and a wisp of blue-gray fog reached out fro into the forest before the," Drizzt remarked

"Follow it," Dahlia instructed

The foggy coil continued to reach out before theh the trees They caht to be a boulder

Andahar pulled up suddenly and snorted, and Drizzt gasped in alare beast, a blended concoction of ic run afoul

Part bear Part fowl

"So we go north," Afafrenfere remarked "You know this place?"

Artemis Entreri tossed his full sack over the back of the saddle and leaped astride his nightmare "Only an hour’s ride up the road," he explained

"Aye, and ris said "But with "

Entreri nodded, then merely walked his ot no horse then, or pig"

Aris put her hands on her hips and stared up at the et there, then," she said

"No, it will take you longer," Entreri corrected, and he kicked hisout Neverwinter’s northern gate

Brother Afafrenfere snorted and chuckled helplessly

"Aye," Areed "If I had a better road afore me, I’d be walkin’ away"

"Better than … what?" the ht have planned for us?"

"We need to be keepin’ hiris explained "Dahlia, and aye, that one, too," she said, nodding toward the now-distant Entreri "If Lord Draygo or Cavus Dun comes a’huntin’, I’ll be wantin’ the blades o’ them three between me and the shades"

Afafrenfere considered her words for a few ate

"Don’t ye outrun me," the darned "Or I’ll put a spell on ye and leave ye held and helpless in the forest"

The rery at the dwarf "That worked once," he replied, "but not again Never again"

Ahed heartily as she came up beside him "Best spell what e’er found ye, boy," she said "For now ye’ve got a finer life ahead o’ ye! A life of adventure, don’t ye doubt A life o’ battle"

"Aye, and probably a life of battling hed all the harder

That beast, an owlbear, didn’t rise up tothat it was quite dead

"Well now," Dahlia said, sliding down from the unicorn’s back to stand beside the slain behereat brown bear, but with the head and powerful beak of an owl atop those powerful ursine shoulders

"Indeed," Drizzt agreed as he slid down

Dahlia bent low beside the beast, ruffling the fur--the bloody fur--around its neck "I expect that we’ve found our vampire’s most recent kill"

"A vampire killed an owlbear?" Drizzt asked skeptically and he, too, bent low and began inspecting the corpse, but not its neck

"So you admit that it was a vampire?" As she asked, Dahlia used both hands to pull the beast’s thick fur aside, to reveal the canine puncture wounds

"So it would seem," Drizzt replied "And yet--" He put his shoulder to the owlbear and nudged it over just a bit, then sier hole, a much deeper puncture "I know this wound as well"

"Do tell"

"A helht again of the grisly scene beside the lever, thought of Pwent

"Perhaps a vaether?"

"A dwarf allied with a vampire?" Drizzt asked doubtfully He had another explanation, but one he wasn’t ready to share

"Athrogate traveled beside Dor’crae"

"Athrogate is ahis head This wasn’t just any battlerager he was considering "Battleragers are loyal soldiers, not mercenaries"