Catti-brie realized that her inability to answer would probably spell her end. “I-I know not,” she stammered boldly, regaining a measure of the discipline that Bruenor had taught her, though her eyes never left the glint of the deadly blade.

“A pity,” Entreri replied. “Such a pretty face…”

“Please,” Catti-brie said as calmly as she could with the dagger moving 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 managed to focus her vision as Fender and Grollo, battle-axes in hand, burst into the room. Entreri stood ready to meet them, jeweled dagger in one hand and a saber in the other.

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

Then she remembered who they faced, and despite their apparent advantage, her hopes were washed away by a wave of undeniable conclusions. She had witnessed the blur of the assassin’s movements, the uncanny precision of his cuts.

Revulsion welling in her throat, she couldn’t even gasp for the dwarves to flee.

Even had they known the depths of the horror in the man standing before them, Fender and Grollo would not have turned away. Outrage blinds a dwarven fighter from any regard for personal safety, and when these two saw their beloved Catti-brie bound to the chair, their charge at Entreri came by instinct.