Passage to Dawn

Berkthgar was right.

He was right in returning his people to Icewind Dale, and even more so in returning to the ancient ways of their heritage. Life may have been easier in Settlestone for the barbarians, their material wealth greater by far. In Settlestone, they had more food and better shelter, and the security of allies all around them. But out here on the open tundra, running with the reindeer herd, was their god. Out here on the tundra, in the soil that held the bones of their ancestors, was their spirit. In Settlestone, the barbarians had been far richer in material terms. Out here they were immortal, and thus, richer by far.

So Berkthgar was right in returning to Icewind Dale, and to the old ways. And yet, Wulfgar had been right in uniting the tribes, and in forging alliances with the folk of Ten-Towns, especially with the dwarves. And Wulfgar, in inadvertently leading his people from the dale, was right in trying to better the lot of the barbarians, though perhaps they had gone too far from the old ways, the ways of the barbarian spirit.

Barbarian leaders come to power in open challenge, "by blood or by deed," and that, too, is how they lead. By blood, by the wisdom of the ages, by the kinship evoked in following the course of best intent. Or by deed, by strength and by sheer physical prowess. Both Wulfgar and Berkthgar claimed leadership by deed — Wulfgar by slaying Dracos Icingdeath, and Berkthgar by assuming the leadership of Settlestone after Wulfgar's death. There the resemblance ends, though, for Wulfgar had subsequently led by blood, while Berkthgar continues to lead by deed. Wulfgar always sought what was best for his people, trusting in them to follow his wise

course, or trusting in them to disapprove and deny that course, showing him the folly of his way.

Berkthgar is possessed of no such trust, in his people or in himself. He leads by deed only, by strength and by intimidation. He was right in returning to the dale, and his people would have recognized that truth and approved of his course, yet never did he give them the chance.

Thus Berkthgar errs; he has no guidance for the folly of his way. A return to the old does not have to be complete, does not have to abandon that which was better with the new. As is often the case, the truth sits somewhere in the middle. Revjak knows this, as do many others, particularly the older members of the tribe. These dissenters can do nothing, though, when Berkthgar rules by deed, when his strength has no confidence and thus, no trust.

Many others of the tribe, the young and strong men mostly, are impressed by powerful Berkthgar and his decisive ways; their blood is high, their spirits soar.

Off the cliff, I fear.

The better way, within the context of the old, is to hold fast the alliances forged by Wulfgar. That is the way of blood, of wisdom.

Berkthgar leads by deed, not by blood. He will take his people to the ancient ways and ancient enemies.

His is a road of sorrow.

– Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 24 STUMPET'S WALK

Drizzt, Catti-brie, Bruenor and Regis paced Stumpet as she continued her trancelike trek across the tundra, heading to the north and east. Her line was straight, perfectly straight, as if she knew exactly where she was going, and she walked tirelessly for many hours.

"If she's meaning to walk all the day, we'll not pace her," Bruenor remarked, looking mostly at Regis, who was huffing and puffing, trying to catch his breath and trying to keep up.

"Ye could bring in the cat to pace her," Catti-brie offered to the ranger. "Then Guen could come back and show us the way."

Drizzt thought on that for just a moment, then shook his head. Guenhwyvar might be needed for more important reasons than trailing the dwarf, he decided, and he did not want to waste the panther's precious time on the Prime Material Plane. The drow considered tackling Stumpet and binding her, and he was explaining to Bruenor that they should do just that, when suddenly the dwarven priestess simply sat down on the ground.

The four companions surrounded her, fearing for her safety, fearing that they had come to the place Errtu desired. Catti-brie

had Taulmaril in hand and ready, scanning the noonday skies for sight of the fiend.

But all was quiet, the skies perfectly blue and perfectly empty, save a few puffy clouds drifting fast on stiff winds.

*****

Kierstaad heard his father talking with some of the older men about the march of Bruenor and Drizzt. More pointedly the young man heard his father's concerns that the friends were walking into some trouble once more. That same morning, his father left the barbarian encampment along with a group of his closest friends. They were going hunting, so they said, but Kierstaad, wise beyond his years, knew better.

Revjak was following Bruenor.

At first, the young barbarian was sorely wounded that his father had not confided in him, had not asked him to go along. But when he considered Berkthgar, the huge man living always on the verge of outrage, Kierstaad came to realize that he didn't need that anymore. If Revjak had lost the glory of the Jorn family, then Kierstaad, Kierstaad the man, meant to reclaim it. Berkthgar's hold on the tribe was tightening and only an act of heroic proportions would garner Kierstaad the needed accolades for a right of challenge. He thought he knew how to do that, for he knew how his dead hero had done it. Now Wulfgar's own companions were out in the wild and in need of help, he believed.

It was time for Kierstaad to make a stand.

He arrived at the dwarven mines at midday, quietly slipping into the small tunnels. Again, the chambers were mostly empty, the dwarves, as always, busy with their mining and crafting. Their industry apparently even outweighed any concerns they might hold for the safety of their leader. At first this struck Kierstaad as odd, but then he came to realize that the dwarves' apparent ambivalence was merely a show of respect for Bruenor, who needed no watching after, and who had been, after all, often out on the road with his nondwarven friends.

Much more familiar with the place now, Kierstaad had little trouble in getting back to Bruenor's room. When he had Aegis-fang in his hands once more, the warhammer feeling so solid and comforting, his course was clear to him.

It was midafternoon when the young barbarian managed to get back out onto the open tundra, Aegis-fang in hand. By all accounts, Bruenor and his companions had half a day's lead on him, and Revjak had been on the march for nearly eight hours. But they were likely walking, Kierstaad knew, and he was young. He would run.

*****

The reprieve lasted the remainder of the afternoon, until Stumpet just as suddenly and unexpectedly climbed back to her feet and plodded off across the barren tundra, walking purposefully, though her eyes showed only a blank, unthinking gaze.

"Considerate fiend, givin' us a rest," Bruenor remarked sarcastically.

None of the others appreciated the humor-if Errtu had arranged the impromptu rest, then the balor likely knew exactly where they were.

That thought hung on them with every step, until something else caught Drizzt's attention soon after. He was flanking the group, running swiftly, moving from one side to the other in wide arcs. After some time, he paused and motioned for Bruenor to slide out to join him.

"We are being followed," the drow remarked.

Bruenor nodded. No novice to the tundra, the dwarf had sensed the unmistakable signs: a flitter of movement far to the side, the rush of tundra fowl startled by passage, but too far off to have been disturbed by the companions.

"Barbarians?" the dwarf asked, seeming concerned. Despite the recent troubles between the peoples, Bruenor hoped that it was Berkthgar and his tribesmen. At least then, the dwarf would know what problems he was getting!

"Whoever stalks us knows the tundra-few fowl have been roused, and not a deer has skittered away. Goblinoids could not be so careful and tundra yeti do not pursue, they ambush."

"Men, then," replied the dwarf. "And the only men knowing the tundra well enough'd be the barbarians."

Drizzt didn't disagree.

They parted then, Bruenor going back to Catti-brie and Regis to inform them of their suspicions, and Drizzt swinging in

another wide, trotting arc. There really wasn't much they could do about the pursuit. The ground was simply too open and flat for any evasive actions. If it was the barbarians, then it was likely that Berkthgar's people were watching more for curiosity than for any threat. Confronting the barbarians might just put problems where there were none.

So the friends walked on, throughout the rest of the day, and long into the night, until Stumpet finally stopped again, unceremoniously dropping to the cold and hard ground. The companions immediately went to work in setting up a formal camp this time. They figured that their rest would last for several hours and understood that the summer was fast on the wane, the chills of winter beginning to sneak into Icewind Dale, particularly during the ever-lengthening night. Catti-brie draped a heavy blanket around Stumpet, though the entranced dwarf didn't seem to notice.

The quiet calm lasted a long hour.

"Drizzt?" Catti-brie whispered, but she realized as soon as she had spoken that the drow was not really asleep, was sitting motionless and with his eyes closed, but was very much alert and very much aware that a small avian form had silently glided above the camp. Perhaps it had been an owl; there were huge owls in Icewind Dale, though they were rarely seen.

Perhaps, but neither of them could afford to think that way.

The slight, barely perceptible flutter came again, to the north, and a shape darker than the night sky glided silently overhead.

Drizzt came up in a rush, scimitars sliding free of his belt. The creature reacted at once, giving a quick flap of its wings to lift it out of Drizzt's deadly reach.

But not out of Taulmaril's range.

A silver-streaking arrow cut the night and slammed into the creature, whatever it was, before it cleared the encampment. Multi-colored sparks lit up the area and Drizzt caught his first true vision of the invader, an imp, as it tumbled from the air, shaken, but not really hurt. It landed hard, rolled to a sitting position, then quickly hopped up, flapping batlike wings to get itself into the air once more before the deadly drow could close in.

Regis had a lantern lit and opened wide by then, and Bruenor and Drizzt flanked the creature, Catti-brie standing back, her bow at the ready.

"My master said you would do that," the imp rasped to Catti-brie. "Errtu protects me!"

"I still put ye out o' the air," the woman replied.

"Why are you here, Druzil?" Drizzt asked, for he surely recognized the imp, the same imp Cadderly had used at the Spirit Soaring to gather information.

"Ye're knowin' this thing?" Bruenor asked the drow.

Drizzt nodded, but didn't reply, too intent on Druzil to banter.

"It did not please Errtu to learn that I was the one who told Cadderly," Druzil snarled in explanation. "Errtu uses me now."

"Poor Druzil," Drizzt said with much sarcasm. "Yours is a difficult lot."

"Spare me your false pity," the imp rasped. "I do so love working for Errtu. When my master is done with you here, we will go to Cadderly next. Perhaps Errtu will even make the Spirit Soaring our fortress!" Druzil snickered with every word, obviously savoring the thought.

Drizzt could barely contain a snicker as well. He had been to the Spirit Soaring and understood its strength and its purity. No matter how powerful Errtu might be, no matter how numerous and strong his minions, the fiend would not defeat Cadderly, not there, in that house of Deneir, in that house of goodness.

"Ye admit then that Errtu's behind the march, and behind the troubles of the dwarf?" Catti-brie asked, indicating Stumpet.

Druzil ignored the women. "Fool!" the imp snapped at Drizzt. "Do you think my master even cares about the fodder in this forlorn place? No, Errtu stays only to meet with you, Drizzt Do'Urden, that you might pay for the troubles you have caused!"

Drizzt moved instinctively, a fast stride toward the imp. Catti-brie lifted her bow, and Bruenor, his axe.

But Drizzt calmed quickly, expecting more information, and he held his dangerous friends in check with an upraised hand.

"I offer a deal from Errtu," Druzil said, speaking to Drizzt only. "Your soul for the soul of the tormented one, and for the soul of the female dwarf."

The way the imp described Zaknafein as "the tormented one," surely stung Drizzt to his heart. For a moment, the temptation of the offered deal nearly overwhelmed him. He stood with his head down suddenly, his scimitar tips dipping toward the ground. He would be willing to sacrifice himself to save Zaknafein, surely, or

to save Stumpet, for that matter. How could he ever do less?

But then it occurred to Drizzt that neither of them, Zaknafein nor Stumpet, would want him to, that neither of them would subsequently be able to live with such knowledge.

The drow exploded into action, too fast for Druzil to react. Twinkle sliced deeply into the imp's wing, and the other scimitar, the one forged to fight creatures of fire, scratched at the spinning imp's chest, drawing upon Druzil's life force even though it had not sunk in deeply.

Druzil managed to twirl away, and was about to say something in a last desperate act of defiance, but all of the imp's magical shield had been burned away by Catti-brie's first shot. Her second one, perfectly aimed, blew the imp right out of the sky.

Drizzt was to the spot in an instant, his scimitar moving immediately to cave in Druzil's head. The imp shuddered once, and then melted away into a black and acrid smoke.

"I do not deal with denizens of the lower planes," the drow ranger explained to a fast-closing Bruenor, who had not been quick enough to get into the fight.

Still, Bruenor dropped his heavy axe on the dead imp's head for good measure, before the corporeal form faded away altogether. "Good choice," the dwarf agreed.

Soon after, Regis was snoring contentedly, and Catti-brie was fast asleep. Drizzt did not sleep, preferring to keep a watchful eye over his friends, though even the wary drow expected no more trouble from Errtu that night. He paced a perimeter about the camp, scanning the horizons and more often than not, looking up to the bright stars, letting his heart fly with the freedom that was Icewind Dale. At that moment, under that spectacle of sheer beauty, Drizzt understood why he had truly returned, and why Berkthgar and the others from Settlestone had come running home.

"Ye're not to find many monsters peeking at us from behind the durned stars," came a gruff whisper from behind. Drizzt turned as Bruenor approached. The dwarf was already dressed in his battlegear, his one-horned helmet tilted to the side and his many-notched axe comfortably resting across his shoulder, in anticipation of the coming march.

"Balors can fly," Drizzt reminded him, though they both knew that Drizzt was not looking up at the sky in anticipation of any enemy.

Bruenor nodded and moved beside his friend. There ensued a long period of quiet, each of them alone in the wind, alone among the stars. Drizzt sensed Bruenor's somber mood and knew that the dwarf had come out of the camp for a reason, likely to tell him something.

"I had to come back," Bruenor said at length.

Drizzt looked to him and nodded, but Bruenor was still staring up at the sky.

"Gandalug's got Mithril Hall," Bruenor remarked, and it sounded to Drizzt as though the red-bearded dwarf was making excuses. "Rightfully his."

"And you have Icewind Dale," Drizzt added.

Bruenor turned to him then, as if he meant to protest, to further explain himself. One look into Drizzt's lavender orbs told the dwarf that he didn't have to. Drizzt understood him and understood his actions. He had to come back. That was all that he needed to say.

The pair spent the rest of the night standing in the chill wind, watching the stars, until dawn's first glow stole the majestic view, or rather, replaced it with yet another. Stumpet was up soon after, walking zombielike again. The pair roused Catti-brie and Regis. The friends went off in pursuit, together.

Chapter 25 TO THE BERGS

Over a ridge, they saw the icebergs and shifting floes floating about in the dark waters of the Sea of Moving Ice. Logic told them that they should be nearing their goal, but all of them feared that Stumpet would keep moving, would pick her way across those treacherous expanses, from floe to floe, up and down the conical bergs. Crenshinibon was known to produce towers; another of the artifact's names was Cryshal-Tirith, which literally translated from elvish meant "crystal tower." A ridge blocked their view of the actual shoreline, but surely any tower before the sea would have been visible to them by this time.

Stumpet, seeming oblivious to it all, continued her march to the sea. She came over the ridge first, the friends rushing to keep close behind, when a barrage of icy snowballs assailed them all.

Drizzt went into a flurry, cut left and right, ducking and slapping away at the hurled missiles with his scimitars. Regis and Catti-brie fell flat to the ground, but the two dwarves, particularly poor Stumpet, who just continued her walking, got pummeled. Bloody welts rose on the priestess's face and she staggered more than once.

Catti-brie, recovered from the shock, put her feet under her and rushed ahead, tackling Stumpet and falling over her protectively.

The barrage stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

Drizzt had the onyx figurine on the ground in front of him, quietly calling in his panther ally. He saw the enemy then, they all did, though none of them knew what to make of the creatures. They came as ghosts, slipping from the white ice onto the still-brown shore so smoothly that they seemed part of the land. They were humanoid, bipedal, large and strong and covered in shaggy white hair.

"I'd be mean too, if I was that ugly," Bruenor remarked, moving close to Drizzt so they could calculate their next move.

"You are," Regis said from his prone position.

Neither the drow nor the dwarf had the time or compunction to respond to the halfling. More and more enemies came off the icy sea-flanking left and right-two score, three, and still they came.

"I'm thinking we might want to turn about," Bruenor remarked.

Drizzt hated that thought, but it seemed their only choice. He and his friends could dole out considerable damage, had battled many mighty enemies, but no less than a hundred of these creatures faced them now. They were obviously not stupid beasts, moving in an organized and cunning fashion.

Guenhwyvar was there then, beside her master, ready to spring.

"Perhaps we can scare them off," Drizzt whispered to Bruenor, and with a word, he sent the cat springing away, a powerful rush straight ahead.

A hail of iceballs slapped against the panther's black sides, and even those creatures directly in Guenhwyvar's line did not retreat, did not waver at all. Two of them were buried where they stood, but a host of others closed in, whacking at the cat with heavy clubs. Soon it was Guenhwyvar who was in full retreat.

Catti-brie, meanwhile, had climbed up from Stumpet-who immediately rose and resumed her march until Regis likewise tackled her-and strung Taulmaril. She quickly surveyed the scene and sent fly an arrow, putting the bolt right between the wide-spread legs of the largest creature to the left of her. Again, the merciful Catti-brie wanted only to scare the things away, and

was surprised by the savage response. The creature didn't flinch, as though it didn't care whether it lived or died, and it responded, as did a score of creatures near to it, by hurling iceballs at the woman.

Catti-brie dove and rolled, but got hit several times. One strike on the temple nearly knocked her senseless. She came up in a short run, getting to the side of Drizzt, Bruenor, and the returned panther.

"I'm thinking that our road just turned the other way," she remarked, rubbing the bruise on her forehead.

"A true warrior knows when to turn away," Drizzt agreed, but his eyes continued to scan the icebergs on the dark sea, looking for some hint of Cryshal-Tirith, some hint that Errtu was nearby.

"Would someone please tell that to the damned dwarf!" called a flustered Regis, holding fast to one of Stumpet's sturdy legs. The entranced priestess merely walked along with him, dragging him across the tundra.

All about them, the creatures continued to flank, passing those nasty iceballs down the line for another barrage-one that the companions suspected would be accompanied by a wild charge.

They had to leave, but had not the time to drag Stumpet along with them. If she would not turn with them, surely she would be killed.

*****

"You sent them out!" Errtu roared accusingly at the crystal shard as it hovered in midair in the highest room of the Cryshal-Tirith. From the scrying mirror, the mighty balor watched his minions, the taers, as they blocked the passage of Drizzt Do'Urden, something Errtu most certainly did not desire.

"Admit it!" the fiend bellowed.

You take dangerous chances concerning the rogue drow, came the telepathic reply. I cannot allow that.

"The taers are mine to command!" Errtu screamed. The fiend knew that he merely had to think of his responses and the sentient crystal shard would «hear» them, but Errtu needed to hear the sound of his own roar at that grim time, had to vent his outrage verbally.

"No matter," the fiend decided a moment later. "Drizzt Do'Urden is no small foe. He and his companions will chase off the taers. You have not stopped him!"

They are unthinking tools, came Crenshinibon's casual and confident reply. They obey my command, and will fight to the death. Drizzt Do'Urden is stopped.

Errtu didn't doubt the declaration. Crenshinibon, though it had certainly been weakened by its joust with the antimagic sapphire, was strong enough to dominate the stupid taers. And those creatures, more than a hundred in number, were too strong and too numerous for Drizzt and his friends to defeat. They might escape-the fleet-footed drow at least-but Stumpet was doomed, as was Bruenor Battlehammer and the chubby halfling.

Errtu considered swooping out of his tower then, or of using his magical abilities to get to that beach, to face off with the drow then and there.

Crenshinibon read his thoughts easily and the image in the scrying mirror disappeared as did Errtu's magical teleportation options, for the balor wasn't even sure of where that particular beach might be. He could take wing, of course, and he had a general idea of where Stumpet would make the Sea of Moving Ice, but he realized that by the time he arrived, Drizzt Do'Urden would likely be dead.

The fiend turned angrily on the crystal shard, and Crenshinibon met his rage with a stream of soothing thoughts, of promises of greater power and glory.

The sentient artifact didn't comprehend the level of Errtu's hatred, didn't understand that the fiend's most important reason for coming to the Prime Material Plane was to exact revenge on Drizzt Do'Urden.

Errtu, impotent and confused, stalked from the room.

*****

"We cannot leave Stumpet," Catti-brie said, and of course, Drizzt and Bruenor agreed.

"Hit at them hard," the drow instructed. "Shoot your arrows to kill."

Even as he spoke the words, the iceball volley slapped in. Poor

Stumpet got hit repeatedly; Regis took one in the head and let go of the dwarf. She continued her slow walk until three missiles hit her simultaneously, dropping her to the ground.

Catti-brie killed two taers in rapid succession, then rushed after Drizzt, Bruenor and Guenhwyvar as they charged to form a defensive ring about Stumpet and Regis. The taers were out of iceballs then, and on they came, fearlessly, brandishing clubs and howling like the north wind.

"There's only a hunnerd o' the durned things!" Bruenor blustered, hoisting his axe.

"And four of us!" yelled Catti-brie.

"Five," Regis corrected, stubbornly pulling himself to his feet.

Guenhwyvar roared. Catti-brie fired, killing yet another.

Take me in hand! came a desperate plea from Khazid'hea.

The woman sent off another arrow, and then the creatures were too close. She dropped her precious bow and drew out the eager Khazid'hea.

Drizzt cut in front of her, double-slashing a taer across the throat, falling into a spin to his knees and thrusting ahead with Twinkle, driving the curving blade deep into a creature's belly. His other scimitar slashed horizontally behind him, tripping up the next beast as it bore down on Catti-brie.

Her downward chop sent the sharp-edged Khazid'hea right through the thing's skull and halfway down its neck. But Catti-brie had to tear her sword free immediately, and Drizzt had to get back to his feet and go into yet another scrambling maneuver, for the throng swarmed about them, closing off any escape.

They knew they were doomed … until they heard the unified cry of "Tempus!"

Revjak and his twenty-five warriors came hard into the taer ranks, their huge weapons cutting a swath through the lines of surprised shaggy beasts.

Regis yelled out to their reinforcements, but was silenced by a taer club that slammed him on the shoulder, knocking the breath from him and sending him flying to the ground. Three of the creatures towered over him, ready to smash him down.

A flying Guenhwyvar slammed into them sidelong, the panther spinning about with all four paws raking wildly. A fourth taer slipped by the embattled three, seeking the prone halfling and the unconscious dwarven female lying beside him.

It met a growling Bruenor, or more particularly, Bruenor's chopping axe.

Dazed, Regis was glad to see the boots of Bruenor as the sturdy dwarf straddled him.

Now Drizzt and Catti-brie worked side by side, the two friends who had been together, fighting together, for so many years.

Catti-brie caught the club of one taer in her free hand and sent Khazid'hea in a short arc, severing the creature's other arm just below the shoulder. To her surprise and horror, though, the taer continued to press forward, and another creature came in right beside it, on Catti-brie's left. Struggling to keep her grip firm on the first creature's club, and with her sword all the way on the other side, the woman had no practical defense against the newcomer.

She screamed in defiance and slashed again with her sword, angling higher this time, cutting halfway through the neck of the creature she held. As she moved, Catti-brie closed her eyes, not wanting to see the incoming club.

Drizzt's scimitar came across and under Khazid'hea's high cut, the drow lurching violently to get his blade all the way past Catti-brie to intercept the club. The parry was perfect, as a surprised Catti-brie realized when she opened her eyes.

The woman didn't hesitate. Drizzt had to go back to the two taers he was battling, but his desperate parry had given Catti-brie the moment she needed. She twisted wildly to face this second taer, cutting her blade the rest of the way through the dead and falling creature's neck, and then using its momentum as it pulled free to thrust it straight ahead, right into this newest foe's chest.

The taer fell back, but two others took its place.

As the ground around Bruenor filled with piled bodies and severed limbs, the dwarf accepted hit after hit from the taer's clubs, belting the beasts with his mighty axe in exchange.

"Six!" he yelled as his axe dove into the sloped forehead of yet another creature, but his call was shortened as yet another beast slammed him in the back.

That one hurt, truly hurt, but Bruenor knew that he had to ignore the pain. Gasping as he turned, he launched his axe in a two-handed semicircle, chopping it deep into the side of the taer as if the creature were a tree.

The taer flew sidelong as the axe barreled in, then stood twisted over the blade, dying fast.

Bruenor heard the roar behind him and was glad to know that Guenhwyvar had untangled herself once more and was protecting his back.

Then he heard another cry, a call to the barbarian god, as Revjak and his warriors joined up with the companions. Now the ring about Regis and Stumpet was secured; now the defense was sturdy enough for Guenhwyvar to go out into the taer ranks, a muscled black ball of devastation. Drizzt and Catti-brie cut through the first line and then charged into the second.

In a matter of mere minutes, every taer was dead or downed with injuries too grievous for it to continue the battle, even though Crenshinibon's commands went on, unabated in their relentless brainwashing assault.

Stumpet had recovered enough by then to get back to her feet and to stubbornly resume her march.

Drizzt, down on one knee, trying to catch his breath, called to Revjak, and the barbarian immediately ordered two of his strongest men to surround the dwarf and lift her off the ground. Stumpet offered no resistance, just held steady, staring blankly ahead, her feet pumping futilely in the empty air.

The smile Drizzt and Revjak exchanged was cut short, though, by a familiar voice.

"Treason!" roared Berkthgar as he and his warriors, more than twice the number Revjak had brought out, surrounded the group.

"This keeps gettin' better and better," Catti-brie said dryly.

"The laws, Revjak!" Berkthgar blustered. "You knew them and you disobeyed!"

"To leave Bruenor and his fellows to die?" Revjak asked incredulously, showing no fear, though it seemed to the companions that battle might soon be joined once more. "Never would I follow such a command," Revjak went on confidently. The warriors with him, many of them nursing wounds from the taer fight, were unified in their agreement.

"Some of our people do not forget the friendship shown to us by Bruenor and Catti-brie, by Drizzt Do'Urden and all the others," the older man finished.

"Some of us do not forget the war with Bruenor's folk and the folk of Ten-Towns," Berkthgar retorted, and his warriors bristled.

"I've heared enough," Catti-brie whispered, and before Drizzt could stop her, she stalked across the open ground to stand right before the huge and imposing barbarian.

"Suren, ye've diminished," Catti-brie said defiantly.

Calls behind the barbarian leader hinted that he should slap the impertinent woman aside. Good sense held Berkthgar in check. For, not only was Catti-brie a formidable opponent, as he had learned personally back in Settlestone when she had defeated him in private combat, but she was backed by Drizzt and by Bruenor, neither of whom the barbarian wanted to face. If he put a hand on Catti-brie, Berkthgar understood that the only thing that would keep the drow ranger off of him would be Bruenor, beating Drizzt to the attack.

"All the respect I once had for ye," Catti-brie went on, and Berkthgar was surprised by the sudden change in her tone and the direction of her words. "Ye were the rightful leader after Wulfgar," she said sincerely. "By deed and by wisdom. Without yer guidance, the tribe would have been lost so far away in Settlestone."

"Where we did not belong!" Berkthgar was quick to respond.

"Agreed," said Catti-brie, again catching the man off guard, cutting inside the direction of his ire. "Ye did right in returning to the dale and to yer god, but not to the ancient enemies. Think on the truth o' me father, Berkthgar, and on the truth o' Drizzt."

"Both killers of my kin."

"Only when yer kin came to kill," Catti-brie said, not backing down an inch. "What cowards would they be if they did not defend their home and kin! Do ye begrudge them for fightin' better than yer own?"

Berkthgar's breath came in short, angry puffs. Drizzt saw it and was quick to join Catti-brie. He had heard the quiet conversation, every word, and he knew where to take it up from there.

"I know what you did," the drow said. Berkthgar stiffened, thinking the words to be an accusation.

"To gain control of the united tribe you had to discredit he who came before you. But I warn you, for the good of all in the dale, do not get caught up in your own half-truths. The name of Berkthgar is spoken of reverently in Mithril Hall, in Silverymoon, in Longsaddle and Nesme, even in Ten-Towns and the dwarven mines. Your exploits in Keeper's Dale will not be

forgotten, though you seem to choose to forget the alliance and the good that Bruenor's folk have done. Look to Revjak now-we owe him our lives-and decide, Berkthgar, what course is best for you and your people."

Berkthgar was quiet then, and both Catti-brie and Drizzt knew that to be a good thing. He was not a stupid man, though often he let his emotions cloud his judgment. He did look at Revjak, and at the resolute warriors standing behind the older man, a bit battered, certainly outnumbered, and yet showing no fear. The most important point to the huge barbarian was that neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie was denying his claim of leadership. They were willing to work with him, so it seemed, and Catti-brie had even publicly compared him favorably to Wulfgar!

"And let the hammer stay with Bruenor, where it rightfully belongs," Catti-brie dared to press, as if she was reading Berkthgar's every thought. "Yer own sword is the weapon of yer tribe now; its legend'll be no less than Aegis-fang's if Berkthgar chooses wisely."

That was bait that Berkthgar could not ignore. He visibly relaxed, so did the men following his every word, and Drizzt recognized that they had just passed an important test.

"You were wise in following Bruenor and his companions," Berkthgar said loudly to Revjak, as much an apology as anybody had ever heard the proud barbarian offer.

"And you were wrong in denying our friendship with Bruenor," Revjak replied. Drizzt and Catti-brie both tensed, wondering if Revjak had pushed a bit too hard, too fast.

But Berkthgar took no offense. He didn't respond to the charge. The barbarian didn't show that he agreed, but neither did he become defensive.

"Return with us now," he bade Revjak.

Revjak looked to Drizzt, then to Bruenor, knowing that they still needed his help. It was two of his men, after all, who were still holding Stumpet up in the air.

Berkthgar looked first to Revjak, then followed his gaze to Bruenor, and then looked past the dwarf and to the coast looming not so far away. "You are going out onto the Sea of Moving Ice?"

A frustrated Bruenor gave Stumpet a sidelong glance. "So it'd seem," the dwarf admitted.

"We cannot accompany you," Berkthgar said flatly. "And this is

no choice of mine, but an edict of our ancestors. No tribesman may venture out onto the floating land."

Revjak had to nod his agreement. It was indeed an ancient edict, one put in for practicality because there was little to be gained and much to lose in venturing out onto the dangerous ice floes, the land of the white bear and the great whales.

"We would not ask for you to go," Drizzt quickly put in, and his companions seemed surprised by that. They were going off to fight a balor and all of his devious minions, and an army of powerful barbarians might come in handy! But Drizzt knew that Berkthgar would not go against that ancient rule, and he did not want Revjak to split any further from the leader, did not want to jeopardize the healing that had begun here. Also, none of Revjak's warriors had been killed against the taers, but that would not likely hold true if they followed Drizzt all the way to Errtu. Drizzt Do'Urden had enough blood on his hands already. For the drow ranger, this was a private battle. He would have preferred it to be him against Errtu, one against one, but he knew that Errtu would not be alone, and he could not deny his closest friends the chance to stand beside him as he would stand beside them.

"But ye admit that yer folk owe this much, at least, to Bruenor?" Catti-brie had to ask.

Again Berkthgar didn't openly answer, but his silence, his lack of protest, was all the confirmation that the woman needed to hear.

The companions bandaged up their bruises as well as possible, bid their farewells, and thanked the barbarians. Revjak's men put Stumpet down then, and she resumed her march. The companions plodded off after her.

The Tribe of the Elk turned south in a unified march, Berkthgar and Revjak walking side by side.

*****

Sometime later, Kierstaad came upon the scene of a hundred taer bodies bloating in the afternoon sun. It didn't take the wily young barbarian long to figure out what had happened. Obviously the barbarians with his father had joined in the fight beside Bruenor's group, and so many different prints were to be

found that Kierstaad understood that another group-certainly one led by Berkthgar-had also come upon the scene.

Kierstaad looked to the south, wondering if his father had been escorted back to the encampment as a prisoner. He almost turned then and ran off in pursuit, but the other tracks-the ones of two dwarves, a drow, a woman, a halfling and a hunting cat-compelled him to the north.

Aegis-fang in hand, the young barbarian picked his way down to the cold coast and then out onto the broken trail of ice floes. He was breaking the ancient edicts of his people, he knew, but he dismissed that. In his mind and in his heart, he was following the footsteps of Wulfgar.

Chapter 26 NOT BY SURPRISE

The glabrezu was adamant, not backing down from his story despite the mounting threats of a nervous and desperate Errtu.

"Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends have passed the taers," Bizmatec insisted once more, "leaving them dead and torn on the plain."

"You have seen this?" Errtu asked for the fifth time, the great balor clenching and unclenching his fist repeatedly.

"I have seen this," Bizmatec replied without hesitation, though the glabrezu did lean back warily from the balor. "The taers did not stop them, hardly slowed them. They are mighty indeed, these enemies you have chosen."

"And the dwarf?" Errtu asked, his frustration turning fast to eagerness. As he spoke, the balor tapped his bejeweled ring to show that he was referring to the imprisoned female dwarf.

"Leads them still," Bizmatec answered with a wicked smile, the glabrezu thrilled to see the eagerness, the sheer wickedness bringing the light back to Errtu's glowing eyes.

The balor left with a great flourish, a victorious spin and flap

of leathery wings that got it to the landing of the crystalline tower's open first level. Up Errtu climbed, maddened by hunger, by desire to show Crenshinibon its failure.

"Errtu has put us in line with worthy enemies," Bizmatec remarked again, watching the balor's departure.

The other tanar'ri in the tower's lowest level, a six-armed woman with the lower torso of a snake, smirked, seeming truly unimpressed. There were no worthy enemies to be found among the mortals of the Prime Material Plane.

High above his minions, Errtu clambered into the small room at the tower's highest level. The fiend went to the narrow window first, peering out in the hopes that he might catch a glimpse of the approaching quarry. Errtu wanted to make a dramatic statement to Crenshinibon, but the fiend's excitement betrayed his thoughts to the sentient, telepathic artifact.

Your path remains one of danger, the crystal shard warned.

Errtu spun away from the window and issued a hearty, croaking laugh.

You must not fail, the artifact's telepathic message went on. If you and yours are defeated, then defeated am I, placed in the hands of those who know my nature and …

Errtu's continued laughter rebuked any more telepathic intrusions.

"I have met the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden before," the great balor said with a feral snarl. "He will know true sorrow and true pain before I release him into death! He will see the deaths of his beloved, of those who were foolish enough to accompany him and of he who I hold as prisoner." The great fiend turned back angrily toward the window. "What an enemy have you made, foolish drow rogue! Come to me now that I might exact my revenge and give to you the punishment you deserve!"

With that, Errtu kicked the small coffer still lying on the floor where the fiend had dropped it after the volatile reaction between the crystal shard and the antimagic sapphire. Errtu started to leave, but reconsidered for just a moment. He would be facing Drizzt and all of his companions soon, including the imprisoned priestess. If Stumpet came face to face with the fiend's entrapping gemstone, her spirit might find its way aback to her body.

Errtu pulled off his ring and showed it to Crenshinibon. "The dwarven priestess," the fiend explained. "This holds her spirit. Dominate her and lend what aid you may!"

Errtu dropped the ring to the floor and stormed from the chamber, back down to his minions to prepare for the arrival of Drizzt Do'Urden.

Crenshinibon felt keenly the tanar'ri's rage and the sheer wickedness that was mighty Errtu. Drizzt and his friends had gotten past the taers, so it seemed, but what were they compared to the likes of Errtu?

And Errtu, the crystal shard knew, had powerful allies lying in wait.

Crenshinibon was satisfied, was quite secure. And to the evil artifact, the thought of using Stumpet against the companions was certainly a pleasant one.

*****

Stumpet continued her march across the treacherous and broken ice, leaping small gaps, sometimes splashing her feet into the icy water, but pulling them out with apparently no regard for the freezing wetness.

Drizzt understood the dangers of the water. He wanted to tackle Stumpet once more and pull off her boots, wrapping her feet in warm and dry blankets. The drow let it go. He figured that if frozen toes were the worst of their troubles, they would certainly be better off than he had hoped. Right now, the best thing he could do for Stumpet, for all of them, was to get to Errtu and get this grim business over with.

The drow kept one hand in his pocket as he marched, fingers feeling the intricate detailing of the onyx figurine. He had sent Guenhwyvar home shortly after the taer fight, giving the cat what little rest she might find before the next battle. Now, in looking around, the drow wondered about the wisdom of that decision, for he knew that he was out of place in this unfamiliar terrain.

The landscape seemed surreal, nothing but jagged white mounds, some as high as forty feet, and long sheets of flat whiteness, often cracked by zigzagging dark lines.

They were more than two hours off the beach, far out into the ice-clogged sea, when the weather turned. Dark and ominous clouds rose up, the wind bit harder, colder. Still they plodded on, crawling up the side of one conical iceberg, then sliding down the other side. They came into an area of more dark water and less

ice, and there they caught their first sight of their goal, far away to the north and west. The crystalline tower gleamed above the berg cones, shining even in the dull gray daylight. There could be no doubt, for the tower was no natural structure, and though it appeared as if it was made of ice, it seemed unnatural and out of place among the hard and stark whiteness of the bergs.

Bruenor considered the sight and their present course, then shook his head. "Too much water," he explained, pointing to the west. "Should be going straight out that way."

By all appearances, it seemed as if the dwarf was right. They were traveling generally north, but the ice floes seemed more tightly packed to the west.

Their course was not for them to decide though, and Stumpet continued on her oblivious way to the north, where it seemed as if she would soon be stopped by a wide gap of open water.

Appearances could be deceiving in the surreal and unfamiliar landscape. A long finger of ice bridged that watery gap, turning them more directly toward the crystal tower. When they crossed over, they came into another region of clogged icebergs, and looming before them, barely a quarter of a mile away, was Cryshal-Tirith.

Drizzt brought in Guenhwyvar once more. Bruenor knocked Stumpet down and sat on her, while Catti-brie scrambled up the tallest nearby peak to get a better feeling for the area.

The tower was on a large iceberg, set right in back of the thirty foot high conical tip of the natural structure. Catti-brie guessed she and her companions would cross onto the berg from the southwest, on a narrow strip of ice about a dozen feet wide. One other iceberg directly west of the tower, was close enough, perhaps, to make a leap onto the main area, but other than that, the fiend's fortress was surrounded by ocean.

Catti-brie marked one other point: a cave entrance on the southern face of the conical peak that was almost directly across from the tower on the other side of the berg. It was at least a man's height up from the wider flat area on the southern side of the berg, the area they would cross, the area that seemed as if it would soon become a killing ground. With a resigned sigh, the woman slid back down and reported it all to her friends.

"Errtu's minions will meet us soon after we cross the last stretch," Drizzt reasoned, and Catti-brie nodded with every word.

"We will have to fight them all the way to the cave entrance, and even more so within."

"Let's get on with it, then," Bruenor grumbled. "Me durned feet're getting cold!"

Catti-brie looked to Drizzt, as though she wanted to hear some options. Few seemed apparent, though. Even if that leap was possible for Catti-brie, Drizzt, and Guenhwyvar, Bruenor, in his heavy armor, could not hope to make it, nor could Regis. And if they went that way, Stumpet-who could only walk-would be alone.

"I'll not be much good in a fight," Regis said quietly.

"That never stopped ye before!" Bruenor howled, misunderstanding. "Ye meanin' to sit here-"

Drizzt stopped the dwarf with an upraised hand, guessing that the remarkably resourceful halfling had something important and valuable in mind.

"If Guenhwyvar could get me across that gap, I might make it quietly to the tower," the halfling explained.

The faces of his companions brightened as they began to consider the possibilities.

"I have been in Cryshal-Tirith before," Regis went on. "I know how to get through the tower, and how to defeat the crystal shard if I make it." He looked to Drizzt as he said this and nodded. Regis had been with Drizzt on the plain north of Bryn Shander, when the drow had beaten Akar Kessel's tower.

"A desperate chance," Drizzt remarked.

"Yeah," Bruenor agreed dryly. "Not like walking into the middle of a tanar'ri horde."

That brought a chuckle-a strained one indeed-from the group.

"Let Stumpet up," Drizzt bade Bruenor. "She will take us in to whatever Errtu has planned. And you," he added, looking to the halfling, "may Gwaeron Windstrom, servant of Mielikki and patron of rangers, be with you on your journey. Guenhwyvar will get you across. Understand, my friend, that if you fail and Crenshinibon is not defeated, Errtu will be all the stronger!"

Regis nodded grimly, took a firm hold of the scruff on the back of Guenhwyvar's neck, and split apart from the group, thinking that his one chance would be to get to the iceberg quickly and secretly. He and the cat were soon out of sight, moving up and down across the rough terrain. Guenhwyvar did most of the

work, her claws cutting deep into the ice, grabbing holds where she could find them. Regis merely kept his hold on her and tried to keep his legs moving quickly enough so that he would not be too much of a burden.

They nearly met with disaster coming down the slippery backside of one steep cone. Guenhwyvar dug in, but Regis stumbled and went down. His momentum as he slipped past the cat cost Guenhwyvar her tenuous hold. Down they careened, heading for the black water. Regis stifled a cry, but closed his eyes and expected to splash into his freezing doom.

Guenhwyvar caught a new hold barely inches from the deadly cold sea.

Shaken and bruised, the pair pulled themselves up and started off once more. Regis bolstered his resolve, burying his fears by reminding himself repeatedly of the importance of his mission.

*****

The companions understood how very vulnerable they were as they crossed the last expanse of open ice to get to the huge iceberg that held Cryshal-Tirith. They sensed that they were being watched, sensed that something terrible was about to happen.

Drizzt tried to hurry Stumpet along. Bruenor and Catti-brie ran up ahead.

Errtu's minions were waiting, crouched within the cave entrance and behind the icy bluffs. Indeed the fiend was watching the group, as was Crenshinibon.

The artifact thought the balor a fool, risking so much for so little real gain. It used the gemstone ring to connect with Stumpet, to see through the imprisoned dwarf's eyes, to know exactly where the enemies were.

Suddenly, the very tip of Cryshal-Tirith glowed a fierce red, stealing the grayness of the approaching storm in a pinkish haze.

Catti-brie yelled to Drizzt; Bruenor grabbed the woman and tugged her forward and to the ground.

Drizzt barreled into Stumpet, but merely bounced off. He skittered past-he had to move-then skidded, trying desperately to slow, as a line of blazing fire shot out from the tower's tip and sliced through the ice walk in front of the drow.

Thick steam engulfed the area and the stunned ranger. Drizzt could not fully stop and so he yelled out and charged ahead, leaping and rolling with all his strength.

Only good luck saved him. The line of fire halted abruptly from the tower, and then began again, this time over the standing dwarven priestess, cutting another line behind her. The force of the blow sent flecks of ice flying, thickened the steam. The now-severed floe, two hundred square feet of drifting ice, floated to the southeast, turning slowly as it drifted.

Stumpet had nowhere to go, so she merely stood perfectly still, her gaze impassive.

On the main iceberg, the three friends were up and running once more.

"Left!" Catti-brie called as a creature clambered over the ridge that was the side of the central cone. The woman nearly gagged on her word at the sight of the horrid thing, one of the least of the Abyss's creatures that were called manes. It was the dead spirit of a wretch from the Prime Material Plane. Pale white skin, bloated and overloaded with oozing liquids, hung in loose flaps along the thing's torso, and many-legged parasites clung to its hide. It was only three feet tall, Regis's size, but it sported long and obviously sharp claws and nasty teeth.

Catti-brie blew it away with a single silver-streaking arrow, but a group of its friends, showing no regard whatsoever for their safety, scrambled over the ridge right behind it.

"Left!" the woman cried again, but Drizzt and Bruenor could not afford to heed those words.

For many more manes had come ambling out of the cave entrance, barely thirty feet away, and two flying fiends, giant bugs that seemed a horrid cross between a human and a giant fly, came out above the horde.

Bruenor met the closest fiends with a vicious chop of his axe. The single stroke did the trick, but the destroyed fiend, rather than lie down dead, exploded into a puff of noxious, acidic fumes that burned at the dwarf's skin and lungs.

"Durned slime-orcs," the red-bearded dwarf grumbled, and he was not deterred, blasting away a second fiend, and then a third in rapid succession, filling the air about him with fumes.

Drizzt was hitting at manes and moving so quickly that the ensuing cloud of evil vapors did not even touch him. He had a

line of them down, but then had to fall flat to avoid the low pass of one of the flying tanar'ri, chasme they were called.

By the time the drow regained his footing, a gang of manes had closed around him, reaching eagerly with their long and nasty claws.

Catti-brie nearly wretched again at the mere sight of the flying fiends. She had downed half a dozen manes already, but now she had to turn her attention to the horrible bugs.

She whirled and fired at the closest, nearly point-blank, and sighed with sincere relief as her arrow threw the fiend backward and to the ground.

Its companion, though was gone, simply disappeared in a display of fiendish magic.

It stood quietly behind Catti-brie.

* * * * *

Regis and Guenhwyvar saw the commotion, saw the lines of blazing white fire and heard the ensuing battle. They picked up their pace as much as possible, but the terrain was not favorable, not at all.

Again the halfling was merely holding on, letting Guenhwyvar tow him in full flight. Regis bumped and bounced, but didn't complain. Whatever his pains, he was certain that his friends were feeling worse.

*****

"Behind ye!" Bruenor yelled, bursting free of the horde of manes. One of the wretched creatures clung fast to the dwarf, its claws deep into the back of his neck, but he hardly cared.

All that mattered was Catti-brie, and she was in dire trouble. The dwarf couldn't get to the fiend behind her, but the one she had hit was back up, walking this time, and was directly between Bruenor and his beloved daughter.

Not a good place to be.

Catti-brie spun on her heels as the chasme struck. She accepted the vicious hit on her shoulder and rolled with it, doing two complete somersaults across the ice before putting her feet back underneath her.

Bruenor's twirling axe hit the other chasme full force in the back, blasting it to the ground for the second time. Still the stubborn thing tried to rise, but the running dwarf summarily buried it, diving upon it and grabbing up his weapon. He tore the axe free and pounded away repeatedly, driving the chasme into the ice, splattering the white surface with green and yellow gore.

Still the other fiend hung on the back of the furious dwarf, scratching and biting. It was starting to do some real damage, but that ended as abruptly as the cut of a drow's scimitar.

The remaining chasme was airborne once more, and Catti-brie had her bow in line. She scored a brutal hit and the fiend had seen enough. It flew right past her and over the ridge, toward the back side of the glacier.

As she turned to follow its flight, Catti-brie had to lower her bow to a different target, one of the score of manes who, by this time, had come scrambling over the ridge.

The chasme under Bruenor seemed to deflate-there really was no other way to describe how the fiend's body flattened, like a waterskin emptying its contents.

Drizzt pulled the dwarf up and roughly turned him about. The immediate threat to Catti-brie had been halted, but they had lost ground and the horde of oozing manes had regrouped.

No matter for the two seasoned friends. A quick glance told them that Catti-brie had the group to the side under control and so they charged, side by side, tearing into the closest ranks of least tanar'ri.

Drizzt, with his deadly, slashing scimitars and his quick feet, made the most progress, slicing through reaching arms and dodging manes with abandon, laying six of them low in a matter of seconds. The drow hardly registered that his opponent had changed a moment later, until his wild swing was met, not by one, but by three separate ringing parries.

The horde thinned in this area, the lesser fiends giving a respectful distance to the six-armed monstrosity that now faced off against Drizzt Do'Urden.

Catti-brie saw the fight and recognized the drow's predicament. She rushed to her right, toward the shoreline, trying to get an angle for a shot, paying no heed to unblinking Stumpet on the drifting floe, now some forty feet out from the iceberg. Her wounded shoulder continued to pump out blood-nasty indeed

was the strike of a chasme-but she couldn't stop and bandage it.

Down the woman skidded to one knee. The angle was difficult, especially with the active drow between her and the six-armed tanar'ri. But Catti-brie knew that Drizzt would want her to try, that he needed her to try. Up came Taulmaril, Catti-brie's fingers finding their hold on the string behind the arrow's fletchings.

"The drow cannot fight his own battles?" came a question behind the woman, a deep, throaty voice. "We must talk about that." It was the glabrezu, Bizmatec.

Catti-brie threw herself forward and ducked her shoulder, moving her arm out to full extension to protect the bow, and more particularly, to protect the integrity of the readied arrow. Agile Catti-brie fired off her shot before she even completed the spin, grimacing as her shoulder spouted a red stream. This newest opponent's expression went from amazement to agony as the silver-streaking arrow skipped off the inside of the glabrezu's huge thigh.

Catti-brie winced then, for the arrow continued out from the shore, skipping across the water and onto the drifting chunk of ice barely a few feet from oblivious Stumpet. The woman realized that she shouldn't have wasted the time to follow the arrow, though, for the twelve-foot glabrezu, all muscle and horrible pincers, roared in outrage and closed the gap to Catti-brie with one long stride.

In came a monstrous claw that could easily snap the woman in half, setting into place about Catti-brie's slender, vulnerable waist.

In one fluid motion, Catti-brie punched her hand between the bow and its string, reaching across her body and tearing Khazid'hea from its sheath. Catti-brie cried out and tried futilely to fall away, snapping off a weak backhand with the weapon, hop-ing to wedge the blade into the fiend's pincers and turn aside his attack.

Khazid'hea, so very sharp, hit the inside edge of the pincer and kept on going, slicing right through.

I feared I was forgotten! the sentient sword relayed to Catti-brie.

"Never that," the woman replied grimly.

Bizmatec howled again and brought his great arm snapping across, the remaining side of the pincers knocking Catti-brie flat

to the ground. In stalked the glabrezu, lifting a huge foot to squash the woman.

Khazid'hea, coming up fast and sure, made the fiend reconsider the wisdom of that maneuver, and took one of the toes from Bizmatec's huge foot in the process.

Again the glabrezu howled in rage. Bizmatec hopped back and Catti-brie climbed to her feet, readying herself for the next assault.

The ensuing attack was not what the woman expected. Bizmatec loved to toy with mortals, particularly humans, to torment them and finally, to tear them apart slowly, limb by limb. This one was too formidable for such tactics, the wounded tanar'ri decided, and so Bizmatec called upon magical powers.

Catti-brie felt her back foot slip out from under her, and when she tried to recover, she realized that she was no longer standing on the ice, was floating in the air.

"No, ye cheatin' dog-faced smoke-sucker!" Catti-brie protested, to no avail.

Bizmatec waved his huge hand and Catti-brie drifted by, ten feet in the air now, and moving out over the open water. The woman growled defiantly. Understanding what the fiend had in mind, she took up Khazid'hea in one hand, holding it more like a spear than a sword, and hurled it to the side, to the ice floe holding Stumpet. The sword hit the ice near to the dwarf, and sunk in to the hilt.

Catti-brie wasn't watching, was scrambling to regain her balance and to ready her bow. She did so, but Bizmatec merely laughed at her and released his magical energy.

Catti-brie splashed into the icy water, lost her breath immediately, and could feel her toes quickly going numb.

"Stumpet!" Catti-brie yelled to the dwarf, and Khazid'hea called out to the priestess as well, a mental plea for Stumpet to pull the sword from the ice. Stumpet stood impassively, perfectly oblivious to the threatening scene.

Bruenor knew what had happened to Catti-brie. The dwarf had seen her rise into the air, had heard the splash and her subsequent cries for Stumpet. Every paternal instinct within Bruenor told him to run from the fight and leap into the water after his dear daughter, and yet he knew that to be a foolhardy course. It would not only get him killed (for he cared little for personal

safety where Catti-brie was concerned) but would doom his daughter as well. The only thing Bruenor could do for Catti-brie was win the fight quickly, and so the dwarf went at the manes with abandon, chopping enemies nearly in half with his mighty axe and screaming all the while. His progress was amazing and all the area near him was cloudy with puffs of yellowish gas.

Bruenor's fortune reversed in the flare of a sudden burst of fire. The dwarf fell back and yelped, stunned for a moment, his face red from the flash. He shook his head fiercely and came back to his senses as Bizmatec entered the fray, the huge fiend clubbing Bruenor on the head with what remained of his right claw, his left pincers going for the fast kill at the dwarf's throat.

Drizzt heard it all, the fate of both Catti-brie and Bruenor. The drow did not allow the intimations of guilt to creep into his senses. Long ago, Drizzt Do'Urden had learned that he was not responsible for all of the sorrow in the world, and that his friends would follow the course of their own choosing. What Drizzt felt was outrage, pure and simple, and adrenaline coursed through his veins, carrying him to greater heights of battle.

But how could someone parry six attacks?

Twinkle went left, left, left, then back to the right, each swing picking off a rushing blade. Drizzt's other blade, verily pulsing with hunger, came in a vertical swipe, tip pointing to the ground, blocking two of the marilith's swords at once. Twinkle flew back the other way, angling up to block, and then turning down to intercept. Then the drow hopped as high as he could, purely on instinct, as the marilith half-spun, her green and scaly tail whipping past in an attempt to take the drow's feet out from under him.

Advantage gained, Drizzt hit the ground running, straight ahead, his scimitars flying out in front in a wild offensive flurry. But though he was inside the angles of the fiend's six swords, his attack was defeated as the marilith simply disappeared-pop! — and reappeared right behind him.

Drizzt knew enough about fiends to react to the move. As soon as his target vanished, he dove into a headlong roll, twisting as he came back to his feet. His hungry scimitar shot out to the side as he rose, cutting down a fiend that had ventured too near, but Drizzt hardly followed the attack, his quick feet already turning on the ice to reverse his direction, to get him back at the marilith.

Again came the ringing of parry and counter, sounding almost as a single, long wail, as eight blades wove a blurring dance of death.

It seemed almost a miracle, a virtual impossibility, but Drizzt scored the first hit, Twinkle taking the marilith in one of her numerous shoulders, rendering that arm useless.

And then there were five swords charging hard at the drow's face and he had to fall away.

*****

Regis and Guenhwyvar made it at last to the narrowest point in the channel between the icebergs, and it seemed a desperate leap to the frightened halfling. Even worse, a new problem presented itself, for the area across from them was not an empty, secret run to the crystal tower, but was filling fast with wretched manes.

Regis would have turned back then, preferring to try and find his friends, or, if they were already gone, to turn tail and run, all the way back to the tundra, all the way back to the dwarven mines. Images of coming back with an army of dwarves (of coming back behind an army of dwarves!) flitted through the halfling's mind, but it soon proved to be a moot notion.

Regis was holding fast to Guenhwyvar, and he soon realized that the dedicated panther had no intention of even slowing. The halfling grabbed all the tighter. He yelped in fear as the great cat jumped, soaring out over the black water, across the gap to skid hard on the ice, scattering the nearest group of manes. Guenhwyvar could have made short work of those horrid creatures, but the panther knew her mission and went at it with single-minded abandon. With Regis holding on desperately and howling in terror, Guenhwyvar ran on, cutting left and right, dodging manes and leaving them far behind. In a matter of seconds, the pair went over a ridge and came down into an empty little vale, right at the base of Cryshal-Tirith. The manes, apparently too stupid to follow prey that had gone out of sight, did not come in fast pursuit.

"I have to be insane," Regis whispered, looking again at the crystal tower that had served as a prison to him when Akar Kessel had invaded Icewind Dale. And Kessel, though a wizard,

was but a man. This time a fiend, a great and powerful balor, controlled the crystal shard!

Regis could not see any door to the four-sided tower, as he knew he would not. An added defense of the tower was that Cryshal-Tirith's entrance was not visible to creatures of the plane of existence on which the tower stood, with the single exception of the crystal shard's wielder. Regis could not see the door, but Guenhwyvar, a creature of the Astral Plane, surely could.

Regis hesitated, managed to hold Guenhwyvar back for a moment. "There are guards," the halfling explained. He remembered the giant and powerful trolls that had been in the last Cryshal-Tirith, and imagined what monsters Errtu might have put in place.

Even as he spoke, the pair heard a buzzing sound and looked up. Regis nearly fainted dead away as a chasme swooped over the ridge and bore down on them.

*****

Not bothered at all at being bonked on the head, Bruenor got his axe up to intercept the nipping pincer. The dwarf bolted ahead, or at least, he tried. When that attack didn't work, he wisely reversed his course and went into a quick tactical retreat.

"Bigger beastie, bigger target," Bruenor snarled, straightening the one-horned helmet on his head. He whipped his axe to the side, knocking back a pair of manes, then roared and charged straight in at Bizmatec, showing no fear whatsoever.

The four-armed glabrezu met the charge with a pounding half-claw and a pair of punching fists. Bruenor scored a hit, but got slugged twice in return. Dazed, the dwarf could only look on helplessly as the fiend's good pincer came rushing in again.

A silver streak passed right by the dwarf, the arrow hitting the fiend in his massive chest and driving Bizmatec back a staggering step.

There was Catti-brie, in the water still, thrashing about, bobbing high so that she could bring Taulmaril, which she had turned sidelong, free of the water long enough to get off a shot. Firing the bow at all was amazing, but for her to actually hit the mark …

Bruenor couldn't understand how she came high again, impossibly high, until the dwarf realized that Catti-brie had her foot on a submerged piece of ice. Up she went, letting fly another deadly arrow.

Bizmatec howled and staggered back another step.

Catti-brie howled, too, in glee, but hers was not a sincere cry. She was glad that she was exacting some revenge on the fiend, and glad that she was aiding her father, but she could not deny that her legs were already numb, that her shoulder continued to bleed, and that her time for this fight was not long. All around her, the black and cold water waited impatiently, a prowling animal waiting to gobble up the doomed woman.

Her third shot missed the mark, but it came close enough so that Bizmatec had to duck suddenly. The fiend twisted and bent low, then his eyes widened considerably when he realized that he had just put his forehead in perfect alignment with Bruenor's rushing axe.

The explosion dropped Bizmatec to his knees. The fiend felt the fierce yank as Bruenor tore his axe free. Then came another explosion and a silver streak to the side that blasted away the manes that were trying to come to the glabrezu's aid. Where was Errtu now? Then came a third hit, and the world was swirling, darkening, as the spirit of Bizmatec careened along the corridor that would take him back to the Abyss for a hundred years of banishment.

Bruenor came out from the black smoke, all that remained of the glabrezu, with renewed abandon, hacking at the fast-thinning ranks of manes, working his way to Drizzt. He couldn't actually see the drow, but he could hear the ring of steel, the impossibly fast repetition of blade striking blade.

He did manage to get a glimpse of Catti-brie, and his heart soared with hope, for his daughter had somehow splashed her way over to the same ice floe that bore Stumpet.

"Come on, dwarf," Bruenor muttered intensely. "Find yer god and save me girl!"

Stumpet didn't move as Catti-brie continued to flounder. The woman was too engaged, as was her father, to notice another large form making its way toward the battle, moving swiftly and gracefully across the ice.

*****

From a short distance back within the cave opening, Errtu watched it all with pure enjoyment. The fiend felt no loss as Bizmatec was pounded away into nothingness, cared little for the chasme, and nothing at all for the manes. Even the marilith, in such desperate combat with Drizzt, merely concerned the balor because Errtu feared that she might kill the drow. As for the generals and his soldiers, they were replaceable, easily replaceable. There was no shortage of willing fiends waiting eagerly in the Abyss.

So let the companions win out here on the open berg, Errtu figured. Already the woman was out of the fight, and the dwarf was battered. And Drizzt Do'Urden, though he was fighting so very well, was surely tiring. By the time Drizzt got into the cave, he would likely be alone, and no single mortal, not even a drow elf, could stand up to the mighty balor.

The fiend smiled wickedly and watched the continuing fight. If the marilith gained too much of an advantage, Errtu would have to intervene.

*****

Crenshinibon also viewed the battle with great interest. The crystal shard, intent on the main fight, was oblivious to the enemies who had come to Cryshal-Tirith's doorstep. Unlike Errtu, the artifact wanted the fight done with, wanted Drizzt and his friends simply destroyed before they ever got near the cave. Crenshinibon would have liked to send out another line of fire-the drow was a more stationary target now, locked in combat as he was-but the first such attack had severely weakened the shard. The encounter with the antimagic sapphire had taken a toll. Crenshinibon could only hope the damage would eventually heal.

For now, though. .

The wicked artifact found a way. It reached out telepathically to the ring Errtu had left on the floor, to the trapped dwarf held within that gem prison.

On the ice floe, Stumpet finally moved, and Catti-brie, not understanding, smiled hopefully when she noticed the priestess's approach.

*****

In the never-ending wars of the Abyss, the fiends known as mariliths have a reputation as generals, as the finest tacticians. But Drizzt soon realized that the creature with seven appendages was not so coordinated in her movements. The marilith's routines did not vary, simply because of the confusion any wielder would find in trying to coordinate the movements of six separate blades.

And so the drow was doing better, though his arms tingled with numbness from the sheer number of parries he had been through.

Left, left, then right went Twinkle, complimenting the up and down movements of the other scimitar, and Drizzt was quick to jump when the marilith's tail, predictably, came slashing around.

The fiend disappeared once more, and Drizzt decided to spin about. The marilith expected him to do that, he realized, and so he came straight ahead instead, and scored a vicious hit as the creature reappeared, exactly where she had just been.

"Oh, my son," the marilith said unexpectedly, falling back.

That gave Drizzt pause, but he was still in a ready crouch, still able to double-slash into gas the two manes that ventured near.

"Oh, my son," the fiend said again, in a voice that was so familiar to the beleaguered drow. "Can you not see through the disguise?" his enemy went on.

Drizzt sucked in a deep breath, trying not to look at the deep and bleeding slash he had put across the marilith's left breast, wondering suddenly if he had struck foolishly.

"It is Zaknafein," the creature went on. "A trick of Errtu, forcing me to fight against you … as Matron Malice did with Zin-carla!"

The words stunned Drizzt profoundly, locked his feet into place. His knees nearly buckled as the creature gradually shifted shape, went from a six-armed monstrosity to a handsome drow male, a male that Drizzt Do'Urden knew so very well.

Zaknafein!

"Errtu wants you to destroy me," the creature said. The marilith did well to hide a snicker. She had scoured Drizzt's thoughts to come up with this ploy, and had followed their ensuing course, letting Drizzt lead, every step. As soon as she had proclaimed this to be a trick of the balor, Drizzt had thought of

Matron Malice, whoever that was, and of Zin-carla, whatever that was. The marilith was more than prepared to play along.

And it was working! Drizzt's scimitars sagged. "Fight him, my father!" Drizzt yelled. "Find your freedom, as you did from Malice!"

"He is strong," the marilith replied. "He. ." The creature smiled, her two remaining weapons dipping low. "My son!" came the soothing, familiar voice.

Drizzt nearly swooned. "We must aid the dwarf," he started to say, willing to believe that this was indeed Zaknafein, and that his father could find his way out of Errtu's mental clutches.

Drizzt was willing to believe that, but his scimitar, forged to destroy such creatures of fire, most certainly was not. The scimitar could not «see» the marilith's illusion, could not hear the soothing voice.

Drizzt actually took a step to the side, toward Bruenor, when he recognized the continued throbbing, the unrelenting hunger, of that blade. He took another step, just to get his feet properly positioned, and then hurled himself at the illusion of his father, his rage doubling.

He was met by the five remaining blades as the marilith quickly resumed her more natural form, and the battle began anew.

Drizzt called upon his innate magic and limned the fiend with purplish faerie fire, but the marilith laughed and countered the magical energy, dousing the fire with a thought.

Drizzt heard the familiar shuffling behind him and immediately brought up a globe of impenetrable darkness, right over himself and the creature.

The marilith taunted him. "You think I cannot see?" the fiend roared gleefully. "I have lived longer in darkness than you, Drizzt Do'Urden!"

Her unabated attacks seemed to confirm her words. Sword rang out against scimitar, against scimitar, against scimitar against … axe.

The creature didn't understand for a split second, a fatal hesitation. Suddenly she realized that Drizzt was no longer in front of her, but the drow's dwarven ally! And if Bruenor was in front …

The marilith reached into her innate magic once more, thinking to teleport away to safety.

Drizzt's strike came first, though, his hungry scimitar driving through the marilith's backbone.

His darkness globe went away then, and Bruenor, in front of the fiend, howled insanely as the tip of Drizzt's scimitar blasted out of the marilith's chest.

Drizzt held on, even managed a twist or two, as the scimitar fed, energy coursing along its blade and hilt.

The marilith spat curse after curse. She tried to attack Bruenor, but could not lift her arms as that wicked, cursed blade gulped at her life force, draining it away. The marilith was less substantial suddenly, her flesh melting away to smoky nothingness.

She promised Drizzt Do'Urden a thousand tortured deaths, promised that she would one day return to exact horrific revenge.

Drizzt had heard it all before.

"There's more and worse inside," Drizzt said to Bruenor when the business was finished.

Bruenor gave a quick look over his shoulder and saw Stumpet closing on his struggling daughter-what the dwarf thought to be a good thing. There was nothing more that Bruenor could do for her. "Let's go then!" he bellowed in reply.

Only a few manes remained-more were coming over the ridge from the back side of the iceberg-and the friends charged on, side by side. They blew away any of the meager resistance, went into the cave hard and fast, where the last group of manes waited, and were summarily destroyed.

The only light the companions had with them came from Drizzt's blades. Twinkle glowed its usual blue, while the other blade flared brightly, a different hue of blue. This scimitar glowed only in extreme cold, and it was glowing more fiercely after its most recent feast.

The cave seemed larger from the inside. The floor inside the entrance sloped down steeply to add to its depth, though the whole of the place was thick with icy stalagmites and stalactites, most reaching from floor to ceiling, which was now more than thirty feet above the pair.

When the fight was ended, Drizzt pointed across the way, to a steep incline, a path up the opposite wall, which ended on a landing that seemed to turn around a blocking sheet of thick ice.

They started across the jagged floor, but stopped when they

heard the maniacal laughter. Errtu appeared, and cold became hot as the mighty balor loosed his devastating fire.

*****

It was a simple case of underestimation. The chasme knew about the material world, had been here before, and understood what to expect from the creatures that lived here.

But Guenhwyvar was not of the material world, and was above what a normal cat could do.

The chasme rushed over the pair, thinking itself high enough to be safe. Great indeed was the fiend's surprise when the mighty cat leaped straight up, crossing thirty feet in a mere instant, great claws hooking fast onto the buglike torso.

Down they went in a heap, Guenhwyvar raking wildly with her back legs, holding fast with her front and biting with all the considerable strength of her powerful jaws.

Regis looked to the rolling pair, quickly surmising that he could do little to help. He called repeatedly for Guenhwyvar, then looked about, seeing that some of the manes were fast returning, this time continuing over the ridge to close in.

"Hurry, Guenhwyvar!" the halfling cried, and the panther did just that, redoubling her devastating kicks.

Then it was Guenhwyvar alone on the ground, pulling herself from the fast-dissipating black smoke. The cat came right to Regis, and started for the door, but Regis, an idea popping into his head, tugged hard to stop her momentum.

"There's a window on the top floor!" the halfling explained, for he had no desire to fight his way through the tower's guardians, which might, he realized, include Errtu. He knew this was a desperate chance, for the window on Cryshal-Tirith's top floor was as often a portal to another place as a normal entrance or exit for the tower.

Guenhwyvar scanned the indicated area quickly, then changed direction. Regis went right onto the panther's back, fearing that he would slow the cat's desperate run if his legs could not keep up.

Up the side of the conical mound went Guenhwyvar. Claws digging in, legs churning with all her strength, she came to a relatively flat area, gained a burst of speed, and leaped out for the tower, for the small window.

The pair hit the side of Crenshinibon hard, Regis somehow scrambling over the panther to get his body through the narrow portal. He landed hard and rolled backward, finally putting his back to the wall. He started to call out for Guenhwyvar to come in.

But he heard the cat's roar, and then heard Guenhwyvar spring away from the tower's side, the panther going fast to the aid of her master.

That left Regis alone in the small room to face the crystal shard.

"Great," the terrified halfling said dryly.

Chapter 27 SHOWDOWN

Drizzt and Bruenor quickly came to understand the absolutely unfavorable conditions in which they had met Errtu. The fiend's fires raged, turning the ice cave into a sloshing quagmire. Huge blocks fell from the ceiling, forcing the friends to dodge and twist, the cold water weighing them down.

Even worse, whenever the great balor moved away from the pair, taking away his fiendish heat, the water began to refreeze about Drizzt and Bruenor, slowing them.

Throughout the ordeal, they heard the taunting laughter of the mighty Errtu.

"What torment awaits you, Drizzt Do'Urden!" the fiend bellowed.

Drizzt heard the sudden splash behind him, felt the suddenly intense heat, and knew that the fiend had used his magic, had teleported to arrive right behind the drow. Drizzt started to turn, was quick enough to dodge, but the fiend merely stuck his lightning sword into the water behind the drow, and the energy released from the blade jolted Drizzt's every muscle.

Drizzt spun, gritted his teeth to prevent himself from biting off his own tongue. Around came Twinkle, a perfect parry, catching Errtu's second attack in mid-swing.

The fiend laughed all the louder as his devilish blade released another jolt, a burst of electrical energy that rushed through Drizzt's scimitar and into the drow, coursing down his body and popping his knees so painfully that he lost his balance and nearly lost consciousness.

He heard Bruenor's roar, and the sloshing as the dwarf pounded his way toward him. The dwarf couldn't get there in time, Drizzt realized. Errtu's sudden assault had beaten him.

But suddenly, the fiend was gone, simply gone. It took Drizzt only a moment to understand; Errtu was playing with them! The fiend had waited all these years to exact revenge on Drizzt, and now the wicked balor was truly enjoying himself.

Bruenor skidded by as Drizzt regained his footing. The pair heard the sound of Errtu's taunting laughter once more, from across the way.

"Beware, for the fiend can appear wherever he chooses," Drizzt warned, and even as he spoke the words, he heard the crack of a whip and the cry of the dwarf. Drizzt spun about as Bruenor was tugged from his feet.

"Ye don't say?" the dwarf asked, scrambling furiously to get himself in line for a strike as Errtu jerked him backward, away from Drizzt.

Bruenor realized the depth of his troubles then, for in looking back, he saw a wall of fire looming before him, sizzling and sputtering as it turned the ice to steam. Behind it stood Errtu reeling him in with the whip, grinning wickedly.

Drizzt felt the strength drain from his body; he knew how Errtu meant to torment him now. Bruenor was doomed.

*****

Regis didn't know it, but his presence alone in that small room at the top of Cryshal-Tirith saved Catti-brie. Stumpet was near to her, at the edge of the ice. To Catti-brie's horror, the dwarf did not try to help her get her numbed form over the edge of the floe, but rather began pushing and kicking at her, trying to dislodge her and drop her back into the water.

Catti-brie fought back as fiercely as she could, but without firm footing and with her legs completely numb, she was losing the struggle.

But then Regis went into the tower, and the crystal shard had to release Stumpet from its domineering hold and concentrate on this newest threat.

Stumpet stopped fighting, went perfectly still. As soon as she realized the truth of the immobile dwarf, Catti-brie grabbed a hold on Stumpet's sturdy leg, using the dwarf's bulk to pull herself clear of the water.

After a considerable struggle, the woman managed to get shakily to her feet. Drizzt and Bruenor were gone by then, into the cave, but there remained manes to shoot, including a group that had leaped into the water and were thrashing about, gradually closing the gap to Catti-brie and Stumpet, the last remaining visible enemies.

Up came Taulmaril.

*****

Bruenor struggled with all his might. He grabbed on to the remaining stump of one destroyed stalagmite, but the icy thing was too slick for him to get a firm hold. It wouldn't have helped anyway, not with Errtu-so huge and strong-pulling against him. The dwarf howled in pain as his feet went into the fiendish fire.

Drizzt scrambled so fast that his feet slipped out from under him. He kept moving, though, churning his knees, banging them hard. The drow hardly cared for his pain. Bruenor needed him, that was all that mattered. He rushed with all speed, found a proper foothold amidst the quagmire, and shoved off, diving straight out, his arm extended and holding straight the ice-forged scimitar, sliding its curving blade right beside his friend.

In that area, Errtu's fires were extinguished, put out by the magic of the scimitar.

Both friends tried to rise, and both were blasted back to the wet ground as the balor plunged his lightning sword into the watery ice, taunting them all the while.

"Yes, a reprieve!" the fiend bellowed. "Well done, Drizzt Do'Urden, foolish drow. You have extended my pleasure, and for that-"

The fiend's sentence ended with a grunt as Guenhwyvar soared in, slamming Errtu hard, knocking him off-balance on the slick floor.

Drizzt was up and charging. Bruenor worked fast to untangle himself from the binding thongs of the fiend's whip. And Guenhwyvar raked wildly, biting and clawing.

Errtu knew the cat, had faced Guenhwyvar on that same occasion when Drizzt had banished him, and the balor felt the fool for not anticipating that the animal would soon arrive.

No matter, though, Errtu reasoned, and with a huge shrug of powerful muscles, the fiend launched the cat away.

In came Drizzt, his hungry scimitar thrusting for the fiend's belly.

Errtu's lightning sword swiped down in a parry, and that, too, was an attack, as the energy coursed from weapon to weapon, and subsequently into Drizzt, hurling him backward.

Bruenor was in fast and the dwarf's axe chopped hard into Errtu's leg. The fiend roared and swatted the dwarf, and Bruenor flew backwards. Out came the fiend's leathery wings, up he rose, above the reach of the mighty friends. Guenhwyvar leaped again, but Errtu caught her in mid-flight, locked her with a telekinesis spell, as the glabrezu had done with Catti-brie.

Still, for Drizzt and Bruenor, shaking off their earlier wounds, Guenhwyvar was helping, was keeping the fiend's considerable magical energies engaged.

"Let my father go!" Drizzt cried out.

Errtu laughed at him, and the reprieve was at its end. Errtu's spell hurled the panther aside, and the fiend came on in all his wrath.

*****

It was a small room, perhaps a dozen feet in diameter and with a domed ceiling reaching up to the tower's pinnacle. In the middle of the room, hanging in the empty air, loomed Crenshinibon, the crystal shard, the heart of the tower, pulsing with a pinkish-red color as though it were a living thing.

Regis glanced around quickly. He spotted the coffer lying on the floor-he knew it from somewhere, though he couldn't immediately place it-and the gem-studded ring, but what significance

they held, the halfling could not be sure.

And he didn't have the time to figure it out. Regis had talked extensively with Drizzt after the fall of Kessel, and he knew well the technique the drow had used to defeat the tower on that occasion, simply by covering the pulsing shard with blocking flour. So it was with the halfling now as he pulled the small pack from his back and strode confidently in.

"Time to sleep," Regis taunted. He was almost right, but not in the manner he meant, for he was almost knocked unconscious. The halfling and Drizzt had erred. In the tower on the plain outside of Bryn Shander those years ago, Drizzt had covered not Crenshinibon, but one of the shard's countless images. On this occasion, it was the real crystal shard, the sentient and powerful artifact, serving as the tower's heart. Such a meager attack was defeated by a pulse of energy that disintegrated the flour as it descended, burned the sack in the halfling's hands, and hurled Regis hard against the far wall.

The dazed halfling groaned all the louder when the trap door in the room's floor flew open. The stench of trolls wafted in, followed closely by a huge and wide hand with sharpened claws and rubbery, putrid green skin.

* *** *

Catti-brie could hardly feel her extremities, her teeth chattered uncontrollably and she knew that her bowstring was cutting deeply into her fingers, though she felt no pain there. She had to continue, for the sake of her father and of Drizzt.

Using solid Stumpet as a support, the young woman steadied herself and let fly an arrow, taking down the fiend closest to the cave entrance. Again and again, Catti-brie let fly, her enchanted quiver providing her with endless ammunition. She decimated most of the manes remaining on the ice beach, and blew away those coming over the ridge. She nearly shot Guenhwyvar, too, before she recognized the speeding cat. Her heart was lifted with some hope as the mighty panther rushed into the cave.

Soon all that remained of the manes were the few in the water, swimming fast for Catti-brie. Catti-brie worked frantically— most of her shots hit the mark-but one did get up on the ice floe, and came rushing in.

Catti-brie looked to her sword, buried to the hilt in the ice, and knew that she could not get to it in time. Instead, she used her bow like a club, whacking the fiend hard across the face.

The wretched thing skidded in, off-balance, and even as the two connected, Catti-brie snapped her forehead right into the ugly fiend's nose. Up came the tip of her bow, driving hard under the thing's saggy chin, poking through the oozing skin. The creature exploded into noxious gas, but it had done its work. The momentum of its rush, combined with the sudden gaseous cloud, sent Catti-brie moving backward, past the dwarf and into the water.

Up she came, gasping for breath, flailing with arms that she could not feel. Her legs were useless to her now. She managed somehow to grab on to the very edge of the ice floe, locking her fingers into a small crevice, for she knew that her strength was already going away. She cried out for Stumpet, but even those muscles of her mouth would not respond to her mind's command.

Catti-brie had survived the fiends, it seemed, only to be destroyed by the natural elements of Icewind Dale, the place she had called home for most of her life. That irony was not lost on her as all the world grew cold.

*****

Regis's back skimmed the curving ceiling as the nine-foot troll, the larger of the two that had entered the room, lifted him high into the air to look into its ghastly face. "Now youses goes into me belly!" the horrid thing proclaimed, opening wide its considerable maw.

The mere fact that the troll could speak gave Regis an idea, a desperate glimmer of hope.

"Wait!" he bade the creature, reaching under his tunic. "I have treasure to offer." Out came the halfling's prized pendant, the magnificent, hypnotic ruby dancing on the end of the chain just inches from the startled, and suddenly intrigued, troll's eyes.

"This is only the beginning," Regis stammered, fighting hard to improvise for the consequences of failure were all too evident. "I have a mound of these-look at how wonderfully it spins, drawing your eyes. ."

"Ere now, be ye to eats the thing or not?" the second troll demanded, shoving the first one hard. But that troll was caught fast by the charm, and was already thinking that it didn't want to share the booty with its companion.

Thus, the horrid thing was more than open to Regis's ensuing suggestion as the halfling casually glanced at the second troll and said, "Kill him."

Regis dropped hard to the floor, and was nearly squashed as the two trolls fell into a wild wrestling match. The halfling had to move fast, but what was he to do? His rolling evasion took him to the gem-studded ring, which he promptly pocketed, and to the open and empty coffer, which he suddenly recognized.

It was the same coffer the glabrezu had been carrying when Regis and his companions had come upon evil Matron Baenre in the tunnels under Mithril Hall, the same coffer that had held the stone-the black sapphire that had stolen away all the magic.

Regis scooped up the thing and dashed past the rolling trolls, bearing down fast on the crystal shard. A flood of mental images assaulted him then, nearly buckling his legs. The sentient artifact, sensing the danger, entered the halfling's mind, dominating poor Regis. Regis wanted to move forward, he really did, but his feet would not obey.

And then he wasn't sure that he wanted to move forward at all. Suddenly Regis had to wonder why he had wanted to destroy the crystal tower, the beautiful and marvelous structure. And why would he desire the destruction of Crenshinibon, the creator, when he might use the artifact to his own benefit?

What did Drizzt know anyway?

Though he was a confused and nearly lost soul at that point, the halfling thought to lift his own ruby pendant up before his eyes.

Immediately Regis found himself swirling into the item's depths, following the red flickers deeper and deeper. Most people got lost in that charm, but it was there, deep within the hypnosis of his gemstone, that Regis found himself.

He dropped the pendant chain and leaped forward, snapping the shielding coffer over Crenshinibon just as it released another pulse of deadly energy.

The coffer swallowed the item and its attack, and Regis plucked the shard out of the air.

Immediately the tower, the gigantic image of the crystal shard, began to shudder, the initial rumbles of its death throes.

"Oh, not again," the halfling muttered, for he had been through this before, and had escaped only with aid of Guenhwyvar, while Drizzt had escaped by …

Regis turned to the window, leaped up to its sill. He glanced back at the trolls, hugging instead of wrestling as their tower home shivered beneath them. In unison, they turned to regard the smiling halfling.

"Another day perhaps," Regis said to them, and then, without looking down, he leaped out. Twenty feet down, he hit the side of the iceberg cone, bouncing and sliding wildly to come to a sudden, jolting stop in the icy snow. The crystal tower crumbled around him, huge blocks narrowly missing the stunned and bruised halfling.

*****

The earthquake on the iceberg brought a temporary halt to the fighting within the cave, a temporary reprieve for those being badly beaten by the powerful tanar'ri. But poor Bruenor, standing by the cave wall, fell down as a wide crack opened at his feet. Though the break wasn't very deep, barely to Bruenor's waist, when the shaking ended, the dwarf found himself wedged in tightly.

The loss of Crenshinibon did nothing to diminish Errtu's powers, and the obvious fall of the tower only heightened the balor's rage.

Guenhwyvar came flying back in at him, but the fiend skewered the cat in mid-flight with his mighty sword, holding Guenhwyvar aloft with one powerful hand.

Drizzt, on his knees in the slush, could only watch in horror as Errtu calmly stalked in, as the panther twitched and tried futilely to free herself, growling with agony.

It was over, Drizzt knew. All of it had come to a sudden, crashing end. He could not win out. He wished that Guenhwyvar could get off of that sword-if she did, Drizzt would send her over to Bruenor and then dismiss her. Hopefully she would take the dwarf with her to the relative safety of her astral home.

But that couldn't happen. Guenhwyvar twitched again and slumped, and then dissipated into gray smoke, her corporeal form defeated and sent away from the Prime Material Plane.

Drizzt pulled out the figurine. He knew that he could not recall the cat, not for some days. He heard the hiss as the fiend's fires neared him and were extinguished by his trusty blade, and he looked from the figurine to grinning Errtu, towering over him, barely five feet away.

"Are you ready to die, Drizzt Do'Urden?" the fiend asked. "Your father can see us, you know, and how pained he is that you will die slowly before me!"

Drizzt didn't doubt the words, and his rage came up in full. But it wouldn't help him, not this time. He was cold, weary, filled with sorrow, and defeated. He knew that.

*****

Errtu's words were half true. The prisoner, behind a partially opaque wall of ice at the side of the cave's upper landing, could indeed see the scene, highlighted by the blue glow of Drizzt's scimitars and the orange flames near Errtu.

He clawed at the wall futilely. He cried as he had not cried in so many years.

*****

"And what a fine pet your cat will make for me," Errtu teased.

"Never," the drow growled, and purely on impulse, Drizzt threw the figurine with all his might, back through the cave entrance. He didn't hear the splash, but he was confident that he had heaved it far enough to reach the sea.

"Well done, me friend," a grim Bruenor said from the side.

Errtu's grin became a grimace of outrage. Up came the deadly sword, hanging right over Drizzt's vulnerable head. The drow lifted Twinkle to block.

And then a hammer twirled in end over end to slam hard into the balor, accompanied by the hearty call of "Tempus!"

Without fear, Kierstaad rushed into the cave, skidding right through the breach in Errtu's flames caused by Drizzt's scimitar, skidding right into the face of the tanar'ri, and howling for Aegis-fang all the way. Kierstaad knew the hammer's legend, knew that it would return to his hands.

But it didn't. It was gone from the ground near the fiend, but

for some reason that Kierstaad did not understand, it had not materialized in his waiting hands.

"It should have come back!" he cried in protest, to Bruenor mostly, and then Kierstaad was flying, slapped away by the fiend. He smacked hard into an ice mound, rolled off the thing and fell heavily, groaning, to the slushy floor.

"It should have come back," he said once more, before his consciousness drifted away.

*****

Aegis-fang couldn't go back to Kierstaad, for it had returned to its rightful owner, to Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, watching the scene from behind an ice wall. Wulfgar had been Errtu's prisoner for six long years.

The feel of the weapon transformed Wulfgar, gave him back a measure of himself along with the familiarity of this warhammer, forged for him by the dwarf who loved him. He remembered so much at that moment, so much that he had, by necessity, forced himself to forget in the years of hopelessness.

Truly the strong barbarian was overwhelmed, but not so much so that he didn't think of the immediate need. He roared out to Tempus, his god-how good it felt to hear that name coming from his lips again! — and began taking down the wall with mighty chops of his powerful hammer.

* * * * *

Regis felt a call in his mind. At first he thought it to be the crystal shard, and then, when he convinced himself that the artifact was safely and completely locked away in the coffer, he guessed it to be the ruby pendant.

When that proved false, Regis finally discerned the source: the gemstone ring in his pocket. Regis took it out and stared hard at it. He feared that it was yet another manifestation of Crenshinibon and lifted his arm back to hurl it into the sea.

But then Regis recognized the little voice in his head.

"Stumpet?" he asked, curiously, peering hard into the stone. He moved as he spoke, coming to kneel right beside one of the broken tower blocks. Out came his little mace.

*****

The thunder of the barbarian's hits shook the whole of the cave, so much so that a suddenly nervous Errtu could not help but look back. And when the balor did, Drizzt Do'Urden struck hard.

Twinkle gashed against the fiend's calf, while Drizzt launched his other blade higher, aiming for Errtu's groin. The scimitar's pointy tip dug in, and how Errtu howled! Again came that welcomed throbbing along Drizzt's arm as the scimitar fed on the fiend's life force.

But the turn in the battle was temporary. Errtu quickly slapped Drizzt away, then disappeared, coming back into view high among the icy fingers that hung down from the ceiling.

"Up, Bruenor," Drizzt called. "We have been given a reprieve, for Zaknafein will soon be among us."

The drow looked to the red-bearded dwarf as he spoke, and Bruenor had nearly wriggled his way out of the hole.

Up Drizzt scrambled, up and ready, but something about the look that came over Bruenor's face as the dwarf gazed to the side, weakened Drizzt's knees. He followed the dwarf's stare across the chamber, to the ice wall, where he expected to see Zaknafein.

He saw Wulfgar instead, with unkempt, wild hair and beard, but Wulfgar no doubt, hoisting Aegis-fang high and roaring with pure hatred.

"Me boy," was all the dwarf could whisper, and Bruenor slumped back into the hole.

Errtu went at Wulfgar hard, swooping in, his whip cracking and his sword blazing.

A hurled Aegis-fang nearly knocked the fiend from the air. Still the balor swept by, entangling Wulfgar's ankles with his whip and tugging the man from the ledge to send him bouncing among the ice mounds of the slushy floor.

"Wulfgar," Drizzt called out, and he winced as the man tumbled. It would take more than a fall to stop the tormented Wulfgar, now that he was among his friends, now that he held his mighty hammer. Up he sprang, roaring like some animal, and Aegis-fang, beautiful and solid Aegis-fang, was back in his hand.

Errtu went into a frenzy, determined to squash this minor uprising, to destroy all of Drizzt's friends, and then the drow

himself. Balls of darkness appeared in the air, obscuring Wulfgar's vision as he tried to line up another throw. The fiend cracked his whip and zipped all about the cave, sometimes in swift flight, other times calling upon magic to teleport himself from place to place.

The chaos was complete, and every time Drizzt tried to get to Bruenor, Wulfgar, or even to fallen Kierstaad, there was Errtu, smacking him away. Always the drow parried the lightning sword, but each hit jolted him and hurt him. And every time, before Drizzt could begin to counter, Errtu was gone, simply gone, to wreak havoc in another part of the cave with another of the drow's friends.

*****

She wasn't cold anymore, was far beyond that simple sensation. Catti-brie was walking in darkness, fleeing the realm of mortals.

A strong hand grabbed her by the shoulder, the physical shoulder, bringing her senses back in tune with her corporeal body, and then she felt herself being lifted from the water.

And then. . the woman felt warmth, magical warmth, seeping through her body, returning life where there was barely any.

Catti-brie's eyes fluttered open to see Stumpet Rakingclaw working furiously over her, calling upon the dwarven gods to breathe life back into this woman who had been as a daughter to Clan Battlehammer.

* * * * *

Lightning simmered every time Errtu used that mighty sword. The rumbling of thunder and the fiend's victorious roars were matched by the beating of great leathery wings, the roars of Wulfgar to his battle god, and the cries of "Me boy!" from a wild-eyed, and still trapped Bruenor. Drizzt shouted, trying to bring some semblance of order to his companions, some common strategy that might corner and at last defeat wicked Errtu.

The fiend would have none of that. Errtu swooped and disappeared, struck fast and hard and was simply gone. Sometimes the balor hung up high amidst the stalactites, using his fires to

loosen and drop the natural spikes at the companions scrambling below. Other times, Errtu had to come down to keep them apart, and even with the balor's tremendous efforts, Drizzt wove his way stubbornly toward Bruenor.

Wherever the fiend chose to appear, he could not remain in place and visible for very long. Even though the quagmire continued to slow any moves the drow might try, and even though the dwarf remained stuck in the stubborn crevice, the tormented prisoner, and his mighty hammer were always quick to the call. On several occasions Errtu vanished just an instant before Aegis-fang slammed into the wall, marking the spot where the fiend had been.

And so Errtu retained the upper hand, but in that craziness, the fiend could score no decisive hits.

It was time to win.

Bruenor was almost out of the crack, stuck by a single leg, when the mighty balor appeared, right behind him.

Drizzt, yelled out a warning, and purely on instinct, the dwarf whipped about, throwing himself as far into the fiend as possible, grabbing the balor's leg, wrenching his own knee in the process. Errtu's sword came swishing down, but Bruenor was in too close for it to cleave him. Still the dwarf was battered hard, and the energy jolt nearly popped his knees out of joint, especially the twisted one.

Bruenor grabbed on all the harder, knowing he could not hurt the balor, but hoping he could keep the fiend in place long enough for his friends to strike. His hair singed and his eyes stung as the fiend's fires came up, but they were gone in an instant and Bruenor knew that Drizzt was nearby.

Errtu's whip cracked, slowing the drow's approach. Drizzt went in a complete spin to dodge, skidding down to one knee, and he stumbled as he tried to get back to his feet.

The whip cracked again, but it could do little to slow the progress of twirling Aegis-fang. The hammer caught the balor on the side, slamming Errtu back against the ice wall, and the fiend's respect for the man that had been his prisoner soared. Errtu had been hit by Aegis-fang once already, when Kierstaad had entered the fray, and so he understood the power of the weapon. But that first throw could not prepare Errtu for the power that was Wulfgar. Kierstaad's throw had stung him; Wulfgar's had truly hurt.

In came Drizzt, but the balor lashed out hard with his foot, tearing Bruenor from the crevice and launching the dwarf a dozen feet across the cave floor. The fiend used his magic to disappear immediately, and Drizzt went sliding into empty wall.

"Fools!" the balor bellowed from the cave's exit. "I will retrieve the crystal shard and meet with you again before you leave this sea. Know that you are doomed!"

Drizzt scrambled, Wulfgar tried to line up a parting shot, and even Bruenor worked hard to stagger back to his feet, but none of them would get to Errtu in time.

The fiend turned away from them and started to fly off, but his surprise was complete, his momentum fully halted, by a silver-streaking arrow that hit him right in the face.

Errtu howled and Wulfgar threw, the hammer smashing hard into the fiend, crushing bones.

Catti-brie let fly again, putting one right into his chest. The balor howled again and stumbled backward into the cave.

Bruenor hobbled toward him, catching his axe as Drizzt tossed it to him. He reversed his grip to add to the momentum of the throw and buried the many-notched blade deep into the fiend's backside.

Errtu howled and Catti-brie hit him again, right beside her last shot.

Drizzt was there, Twinkle striking hard. He plunged his other blade plunging deep into the fiend's side, right under Errtu's arm as the fiend tried to lift his own sword to fend off the drow. Then Wulfgar was there, pounding away beside his father. Catti-brie kept the exit blocked by a steady line of streaking arrows.

And Drizzt held on, leaving his gulping blade deep in the fiend's flesh, while Twinkle worked furiously, cutting wound after wound.

With a last burst of energy, Errtu turned about, throwing off Bruenor and Wulfgar, but not Drizzt. The mighty balor looked right into the drow's lavender eyes. Errtu was defeated-even then, the fiend could feel his corporeal form beginning to melt away-but this time, the balor meant to take Drizzt Do'Urden back to the abyss.

Up came the balor's sword and his free hand came across, accepting the sting as it connected with Twinkle, moving the blocking weapon aside.

Drizzt had no defense. He let go of his embedded scimitar and tried to fall away. Too late.

The lightning flared along the blade's edge as it slashed toward the drow's head.

A strong hand shot out before the horrified drow's eyes and caught the fiend by the wrist, somehow stopping the cut, somehow holding mighty Errtu at bay, the lightning weapon barely inches from the target. Errtu glanced across to see Wulfgar, mighty Wulfgar, teeth clenched and muscles standing out like steel cords. All the years of frustration were in that iron grip, all the horrors the young barbarian had known were transformed then into sheer hatred for the fiend.

There was no way that Wulfgar, or any man, could hold back Errtu, but Wulfgar denied that logic, that truth, with the stronger truth that he would not let Errtu hurt him anymore, would not let the fiend take Drizzt from his side.

Errtu shook his half-canine, half-ape head in disbelief. It could not be!

And yet it was. Wulfgar held him, and soon, the balor was gone, in a waft of smoke and a wail of protest.

The three friends fell together in a tearful hug, too overwhelmed to speak, to even stand, for many, many moments.

Chapter 28 THE SON OF BEORNEGAR

Catti-brie saw Regis stumbling his way over the ridge to the left of the cone. She saw Drizzt and Bruenor, leaning heavily on each other for support as they exited the cave. And she saw Kierstaad, being carried over the shoulder of …

Stumpet, with her spells of healing, had done much to bolster the woman, and so the dwarf was surprised when Catti-brie gave a stifled yelp and fell down her knees. The dwarven priestess looked to her with concern, then followed her blank stare across the way, recognizing the source immediately.

"Hey," Stumpet said, scratching her stubbly face, "is that. ." "Wulfgar," Catti-brie breathed.

Regis joined the four at the edge of the iceberg, and was similarly knocked off his feet when he saw who it was that they had rescued from the clutches of evil Errtu. The halfling squeaked repeatedly and launched himself into the barbarian's arms, and Wulfgar, on the slick ice and with Kierstaad on his shoulder, pitched over backward, nearly cracking his head.

The huge man didn't mind, though. Errtu and his wicked min-

ions were gone and now was the time for celebration!

Almost.

Drizzt searched frantically along the stretch of the iceberg in front of the cave entrance, cursing himself repeatedly for losing faith in himself and his friends. He questioned Regis, then called out to Catti-brie and Stumpet, but none of them had seen it.

The figurine that allowed the drow to call to Guenhwyvar was gone, swallowed up in the dark sea.

With Drizzt in such a fit, Bruenor surveyed the situation and quickly took command, setting the friends to work. The first order of business was to get Catti-brie and Stumpet back to them-and fast, for Drizzt, Bruenor, and Wulfgar were wet and fast freezing, and Kierstaad needed immediate attention from the cleric.

On the ice floe, Stumpet pulled a grappling hook and heavy line from her pack, and, with the practiced throw of a seasoned climber, put the hook on the iceberg barely ten feet from her companions. Bruenor secured it quickly, then went beside Wulfgar, who was already pulling hard to bring the floating ice to shore, and pulling all the harder as he looked upon Catti-brie, his love, the woman who was to be his wife all those years ago.

Drizzt was of little help. He knelt over the edge of the iceberg, put his scimitars into the water to try and illuminate it. "I need some protection so I can go down there!" the drow called to Stumpet, who was pulling on her end of the rope and trying to offer some words of comfort to the pained ranger.

Regis, standing beside Drizzt, shook his head knowingly. The halfling had put out a line of his own, weighted at the end. He had fifty feet of cord into the water and still had not felt bottom. Even if Stumpet could enact a spell to keep Drizzt warm and to allow him to breathe underwater, he could not go that deep for very long, and could not hope to find the black figurine in the dark water.

Catti-brie and Bruenor exchanged a quick hug at the shoreline-Stumpet went right to work on Kierstaad-and then the woman and Wulfgar squared off uncomfortably.

Truly the barbarian looked ragged, his blond hair flying wildly, his beard down to his chest, and a hollow look in his eyes. He was still huge, still so well-muscled, but a slackness had come into his limbs, more a loss of spirit than of girth, Catti-brie knew.

But it was Wulfgar, and whatever scars Errtu had put on him seemed irrelevant to the woman at that moment.

Wulfgar's heart pounded in his still-massive chest. Catti-brie did not look so different at all. A bit thicker perhaps, but that sparkle remained in her deep blue eyes, that love of life and adventure, that spirit that could not be tamed.

"I thought ye …" Catti-brie began, but she stopped and took a deep, steadying breath. "I never once forgot ye."

Wulfgar grabbed her up in his arms, pulling her tight to him. He tried to talk to her, to explain that only thoughts of her had kept him alive during his ordeal. But he couldn't find the words, not a one, and so he just held her as tight as he could and they both let the tears come.

It was a heartwarming sight for Bruenor, for Regis, for Stumpet, and for Drizzt, though the drow could not take the moment to consider and enjoy it. Guenhwyvar was gone from him, a loss as great as the loss of his father, as the loss of Wulfgar. Guenhwyvar had been his companion for so many years, often his only companion, his one true friend.

He could not say goodbye to her.

It was Kierstaad, coming out of his stupor with the help of some dwarven healing magic, who broke the spell. The barbarian understood the trouble they were still in, especially with the sky growing thick with moisture and with the short day fast on the wane. It was colder out here than on the tundra, much colder, and they had little materials to set and maintain a fire.

Kierstaad knew a different way to shelter them. Still on the ground, propped on his elbows, he took up the call from Bruenor and began directing the movements. Using Khazid'hea, Catti-brie cut out blocks of ice, and the others piled them as instructed, soon building a domelike structure-an ice hut.

Not a moment too soon, for the dwarven priestess was out of spells and the cold was creeping back into the companions. Soon after, the sky opened up, unleashing a driving sleet, and then later, a fierce snowstorm.

But inside the shelter, the companions were safe and warm.

Except for Drizzt. Without Guenhwyvar, the drow felt as if he would never be warm again.

*****

The next dawn was dim and gray, the air even colder than the previous, freezing night. Even worse, the friends found that they were trapped, stranded, for the night winds had shifted the ice that gave this sea its appropriate name and their berg was too far from any others for them to get across.

Kierstaad, feeling much better, climbed to the top of the conical tip and took up his horn, blowing wildly.

But the only answer came in the form of echoes, bouncing back across the flatness of the dark sea from the numerous other ice mountains.

Drizzt spent the morning in prayer, to Mielikki and to Gwaeron Windstrom, seeking guidance from them, asking them to return to him his panther, his precious friend. He wanted Guenhwyvar to lift out of the sea, back into his arms, and prayed for just that, but Drizzt knew that it didn't work that way.

Then he had an idea. He didn't know if it was god-inspired or one of his own, and he didn't care. He went to Regis first, Regis who had carved so very many wonderful objects with the bone of knucklehead trout, Regis who had created the very unicorn that hung around Drizzt's neck.

The halfling cut an appropriate-sized block of ice and went to work, while Drizzt went to the back side of the iceberg, as far from the others as possible, and began to call.

Two hours later, the drow returned, a young seal flopping along behind him, a newfound friend. As a ranger, Drizzt knew animals, knew how to communicate with them in rudimentary terms, and knew which movements would frighten them, and which would give them confidence. He was pleased upon his return to see that Catti-brie and Bruenor, using a bow and a hastily-strung, makeshift net, had caught some fish, and the drow was quick to proffer one and toss it to the seal.

"Hey!" Bruenor howled in protest, and then the dwarf's face brightened. "Yeah," he said, rubbing his hands briskly together as he thought he understood the drow's intent, "fatten the thing up."

Drizzt's ensuing scowl, as serious as the drow had ever been, ended that train of thought.

The drow went to Regis next, and was amazed and thrilled by the halfling's work. Where there once had been an unremarkable block of ice there was now a near likeness, in size and shape, of the onyx figurine.

"If I had more time," Regis started to say, but Drizzt stopped him with a wave of his hand. This would suffice.

And so they began training the seal. Drizzt tossed the ice statue into the water, yelled, "Guen!" and Regis rushed to the edge of the iceberg and scooped out the figurine in the same net Bruenor had put together for fishing. When Regis turned net and statue over to Drizzt, the drow rewarded him with one of the fish. They repeated it over and over, and finally, Drizzt put the net in the seal's mouth, tossed the figurine into the water and yelled, "Guen!"

Sure enough, the clever creature snorted and plunged in, quickly retrieving the halfling's sculpture. Drizzt glanced around at his friends, daring a smile of hope as he tossed a fish to the eager seal.

They went at it for more than twenty minutes, with each successive throw going farther out into the black water. Every time, the seal retrieved it perfectly, and every time, was rewarded by excitement and, more importantly, by a fish.

Then they needed a break, for the seal was tired and was no longer hungry.

The next few hours were terminally long for poor Drizzt. He sat in the ice hut, warming with his friends, while the others talked, mostly to Wulfgar, trying to bring the barbarian back to the world of the living.

It was painfully obvious to them all, especially to Wulfgar, that he had a long, long road yet to travel.

During that time, Kierstaad would occasionally go out onto the iceberg and blare his horn. The young barbarian was growing quite concerned, for if they were drifting away at all, it was farther out from the shore, and there seemed no way to navigate back to their homes. They could catch their fish, the dwarven priestess and the ice hut could do much to keep them warm, but out on the Sea of Moving Ice was no way to spend Icewind Dale's winter! Eventually, Kierstaad knew, a blizzard would catch up to them, burying them in their hut while they slept, or a hungry white bear would come calling.

Drizzt was back to his work with the seal that afternoon, ending by having Regis distract the seal, while the drow splashed the water and called out, pretending to toss in the statue.

In leaped the seal, excitedly, but that lasted only a few moments, and finally, the frustrated creature clambered back onto the iceberg, barking in protest.

Drizzt did not reward it.

The drow kept the seal inside the ice hut that night and most of the next morning. He needed the creature to be hungry, very hungry, for he knew that they were running out of time. He could only hope that the iceberg hadn't drifted too far from the statue.

After a couple of throws, the drow used the same distractions and sent the seal in on a futile hunt. A few minutes passed, and when it seemed as if the seal was growing frustrated, Drizzt secretly slipped the figurine into the water.

The happy seal spotted it and brought it out, and was rewarded.

"It doesn't sink," Regis remarked, guessing the problem. "We have to get the seal used to diving for it." Following the logic, they weighed down the statue with Stumpet's grappling hook, which was easily bent by Wulfgar. Drizzt was careful on the next couple of throws, making sure that the seal could follow the statue's descent. The cunning animal performed perfectly, gliding under the dark water, out of sight, and returning with the figurine in the net every time.

They tried the ruse again, distracting the seal, while Drizzt slapped the water, and all of them held their breath when the seal went far under.

It surfaced many, many yards from the iceberg, barked to Drizzt and then disappeared again. This happened many times.

And then the seal came up right near the iceberg, leaping with joy up beside the drow, its mission complete.

With Guenhwyvar's figurine in the net.

The friends took up a huge cheer, and Kierstaad blew furiously on his horn. This time, the young barbarian's call was answered by more than echoes. Kierstaad looked to the others hopefully, then blew again.

Drifting through the misty sea came a single boat, Berkthgar standing tall atop its prow while a host of both dwarves and barbarians pulled with all their strength.

Kierstaad responded once more, and then handed his horn over to Wulfgar, who blew the strongest and clearest note ever heard in Icewind Dale.

From out on the dark water, Berkthgar looked upon him, and so did Revjak. It was a moment of confusion and then elation, even for proud Berkthgar.

* * * * *

On the night of their return to the dwarven mines, Drizzt retired with mixed emotions. He was so glad, impossibly thrilled, to have Wulfgar back at his side, and to have come away from an encounter with such powerful enemies with all of his friends, Guenhwyvar included, virtually unharmed.

But the drow could not help thinking about his father. For months he had pursued this course in the belief that it would lead to Zaknafein. He had built the fantasy of being with his father and mentor once more, and though he did not for a moment begrudge the fact that Errtu's prisoner was Wulfgar and not Zaknafein, he could not easily let go of those fantasies.

He went to sleep troubled, and in that sleep, the drow dreamed.

He was awakened in his room by a ghostly presence. He went for his scimitars, but then stopped abruptly and fell back on his bed, recognizing the spirit of Zaknafein.

"My son," the ghost said to him, and Zaknafein was smiling warmly, a proud father, a contented spirit. "All is well with me, better than you can imagine."

Drizzt couldn't find the words to reply, but his expression asked every question in his heart anyway.

"An old priest called me," Zaknafein explained. "He said that you needed to know. Fare well, my son. Keep close to your friends and to your memories, and know in your heart that we will meet again."

With that, the ghost was gone.

Drizzt remembered it all vividly the next morning, and he was indeed comforted. Logic told him that it had been a dream-until he realized that the ghost had been speaking to him in the drow tongue, and until he realized that the old priest Zaknafein had referred to could only be Cadderly.

Drizzt had already decided that he would be going back to the Spirit Soaring after the winter, bearing the crystal shard— securely tucked into the shielding coffer-as he had promised.

As the days went by and the memory of his ghostly encounter did not fade, the drow ranger found true peace, for he came to understand and to believe that it had been no dream.

*****

"They offered me the tribe," Wulfgar said to Drizzt. It was a crisp wintry morning outside the dwarven mines, more than two months after their return from the Sea of Moving Ice.

Drizzt considered the not-unexpected news and the healthier condition of his returned friend. Then he shook his head— Wulfgar had not yet recovered, and should not take on the burden of such responsibility.

"I refused," Wulfgar admitted.

"Not yet," Drizzt said comfortingly.

Wulfgar looked to the blue sky, the same color as his eyes, which were shining again after six years of darkness. "Not ever," he corrected. "That is not my place."

Drizzt wasn't sure that he agreed. He wondered how much of Wulfgar's refusal was fostered by the overwhelming adjustment the barbarian was trying to make. Even the simplest things in this life seemed unfamiliar to poor Wulfgar. He was awkward with everyone, especially Catti-brie, though Bruenor and Drizzt had little doubt that the spark was rekindling between the two.

"I will guide Berkthgar, though," Wulfgar went on. "And will accept no hostility between his people, my people, and the folk of Icewind Dale. We each have enough real enemies without creating more!"

Drizzt didn't argue that point.

"Do you love her?" Wulfgar asked suddenly, and the drow was off his guard.

"Of course I do," Drizzt responded truthfully. "As I love you, and Bruenor, and Regis."

"I would not interfere-" Wulfgar started to say, but he was stopped by Drizzt's chuckle.

"The choice is neither mine nor yours," the drow explained, "but Catti-brie's. Remember what you had, my friend, and remember what you, in your foolishness, nearly lost."

Wulfgar looked long and hard at his dear friend, determined to heed that wise advice. Catti-brie's life was Catti-brie's to decide and whatever, or whomever, she chose, Wulfgar would always be among friends.

The winter would be long and cold, thick with snow and mercifully uneventful. Things would not be the same between the friends, could never be after all they had experienced, but they

would be together again, in heart and in soul. Let no man, and no fiend, ever try to separate them again!

*****

It was one of those perfect spring nights in Icewind Dale, not too cold, but with enough of a breeze to keep the skin tingling. The stars were bright and thick. Drizzt couldn't tell where the night sky ended and the dark tundra began. And it didn't matter to him, Bruenor or Regis. Guenhwyvar was similarly content, prowling about on the lower rocks of Bruenor's Climb.

"They're friends again," Bruenor explained, speaking of Catti-brie and Wulfgar. "He's needin' her now, and she's helping to get him back."

"You do not forget six years of torment at the hands of a fiend like Errtu in short order," Regis agreed.

Drizzt smiled widely, thinking that his friends had found their place together once more. That notion, of course, led the drow to wonder about his own place.

"I believe that I can catch up with Deudermont in Luskan," he said suddenly, unexpectedly. "If not there, then certainly in Waterdeep."

"Ye durned elf, what're ye runnin' from this time?" the dwarf pressed.

Drizzt turned to regard him and laughed aloud. "I am not running from anything, good dwarf," the drow replied. "But I must, on my word and for the good of all, deliver the crystal shard to Cadderly at the Spirit Soaring, in faraway Carradoon."

"Me girl said that place was south o' Sundabar," Bruenor protested, thinking he had caught the drow in a lie. "Ye ain't for sailin' there!"

"Far south of Sundabar," Drizzt agreed, "but closer to Baldur's Gate than to Waterdeep. The Sea Sprite runs swiftly; Deudermont can get me much nearer to Cadderly."

Bruenor's bluster was defeated by the simple logic. "Durned elf," the dwarf muttered. "I'm not much for goin' back on a durned boat! But if we must …"

Drizzt looked hard at the dwarf. "You are coming?"

"You think we would stay?" Regis replied, and when Drizzt turned his startled gaze on the halfling, Regis promptly reminded him that it was he, and not Drizzt, who had captured Crenshinibon.

"Of course they're goin'," came a familiar voice from the darkness some distance below. "As are we!"

A moment later, Catti-brie and Wulfgar walked up the steep path to join their friends.

Drizzt looked to them all, one by one, then turned away to regard the stars.

"All my life, I have been searching for a home," the drow said quietly. "All my life, I have been wanting more than that which was offered to me, more than Menzoberranzan, more than friends who stood beside me out of personal gain. I always thought home to be a place, and indeed it is, but not in any physical sense. It is a place in here," Drizzt said, putting a hand to his heart and turning back to look upon his companions. "It is a feeling given by true friends.

"I know this now, and know that I am home."

"But ye're off to Carradoon," Catti-brie said softly.

"And so're we!" Bruenor bellowed.

Drizzt smiled at them, laughed aloud. "If circumstances will not allow me to remain at home," the ranger said firmly, "then I will simply take my home with me!"

From somewhere not so far away, Guenhwyvar roared. They would be out on the road, all six, before the next dawn.