Sea of Swords

The weather was terrible, the cold biting at my fingers, the ice crusting my eyes until it pained me to see. Every pass was fraught with danger—an avalanche waiting to happen, a monster ready to spring. Every night was spent in the knowledge that we might get buried within whatever shelter we found (if we were even lucky enough to find shelter), unable to claw our way out, certain to die.

Not only was I in mortal danger, but so were my dearest friends.

Never in my life have I been more filled with joy.

For a purpose guided our steps, every one through the deep and driving snow. Our goal was clear, our course correct. In traversing the snowy mountains in pursuit of the pirate Kree and the warhammer Aegis-fang, we were standing for what we believed in, were following our hearts and our spirits.

Though many would seek short cuts to the truth, there is no way around the simplest of tenets: hardship begets achievement and achievement begets joy—true joy, and the sense of accomplishment that defines who we are as thinking beings. Often have I heard people lament that if only they had the wealth of the king, then they could be truly happy, and I take care not to argue the point, though I know they are surely wrong. There is a truth I will grant that, for the poorest, some measure of wealth can allow for some measure of happiness, but beyond filling the basic needs, the path to joy is not paved in gold, particularly in gold unearned.

Hardly that! The path to joy is paved in a sense of confidence and self-worth, a feeling that we have made the world a little bit better, perhaps, or that we fought on for our beliefs despite adversity. In my travels with Captain Deudermont, I dined with many of the wealthiest families of Waterdeep. I broke bread with many of the children of the very rich. Deudermont himself was among that group, his father being a prominent landowner in Waterdeep's southern district. Many of the current crop of young aristocrats would do well to hold Captain Deudermont up as an example, for he was unwilling to rest on the laurels of the previous generation. He spotted, very young, the entrapment of wealth without earning. And so the good captain decided at a young age the course of his own life, an existence following his heart and trying very hard to make the waters of the Sword Coast a better place for decent and honest sailors.

Captain Deudermont might die young because of that choice to serve, as I might because of my own, as Catti-brie might beside me. But the simple truth of it is that, had I remained in Menzoberranzan those decades ago, or had I chosen to remain safe and sound in Ten-Towns or Mithral Hall at this time, I would already, in so many ways, be dead.

No, give me the road and the dangers, give me the hope that I am striding purposefully for that which is right, give me the sense of accomplishment, and I will know joy.

So deep has my conviction become that I can say with confidence that even if Catti-brie were to die on the road beside me, / would not backtrack to that safer place. For I know that her heart is much as my own on this matter. I know that she will—that she must—pursue those endeavors, however dangerous, that point her in the direction of her heart and her conscience.

Perhaps that is the result of being raised by dwarves, for no race on all of Toril better understands this simple truth of happiness better than the growling, grumbling, bearded folk. Dwarf kings are almost always among the most active of the clan, the first to fight and the first to work. The first to envision a mighty underground fortress and the first to clear away the clay that blocks the cavern in which it will stand. The tough, hard-working dwarves long ago learned the value of accomplishment versus luxury, long ago came to understand that there are riches of spirit more valuable by far than gold—though they do love their gold!

So I find myself in the cold, windblown snow, and the treacherous passes surrounded by enemies, on our way to do battle with an undeniably formidable foe.

Could the sun shine any brighter?

– Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 20 EVICTION NOTICE

The people of Faerыn's northern cities thought they understood the nature of snowstorms and the ferocity of winter but in reality, no person who hadn't walked the tundra of Icewind Dale or the passes of the Spine of the World during a winter blizzard could truly appreciate the raw power of nature unleashed.

Such a storm found the four friends as they traversed one high pass southeast of Auckney.

Driven by fierce and frigid winds that had them leaning far forward just to prevent being blown over, icy, stinging snow crashed against them more than fell over them. That driving wind shifted constantly among the alternating cliff faces, swirling and changing direction, denying them any chance of finding a shielding barricade, and always seeming to put snow in their faces no matter which way they turned. They each tried to formulate a plan and had to shout out their suggestions at the top of their lungs, putting lips right against the ear of the person with whom they were trying to communicate.

In the end, any hope of a plan for achieving some relief had to rely completely upon luck—the companions needed to find a cave, or at least a deep overhang with walls shielding them from the most pressing winds.

Drizzt bent low on the white trail and placed his black onyx figurine on the ground before him. With the same urgency he might have used if a tremendous battle loomed before him, the dark elf called to Guenhwyvar. Drizzt stepped back, but not too far, and waited for the gray mist to appear, swirling and gradually forming into the shape of the panther, then solidifying into the cat itself. The drow bent low and communicated his wishes, and the panther leaped away, padding off through the storm, searching the mountain walls and the many side passes that dipped down from the main trail.

Drizzt started away as well, on the same mission. The other three companions, though, remained tight together, defensively huddled from the wind and other potential dangers. That proximity alone prevented complete disaster when one great gust of wind roared up, knocking Catti-brie to one knee and blowing the poor halfling right over backward. Regis tumbled and scrambled, trying to find his balance, or at least find something to hold onto.

Bruenor, sturdy and steady, grabbed his daughter by the elbow and hoisted her up, then pushed her off in the direction of the scrambling halfling. Catti-brie reacted immediately, diving out over the lip of the trail's crest, pulling Taulmaril off her shoulder, falling flat to her belly and reaching the bow out toward the skidding, sliding halfling.

Regis caught the bow and held on a split second before he went tumbling over the side of the high trail, a spill that would have had him bouncing down hundreds of feet to a lower plateau and would have likely dropped an avalanche on his head right behind him. It only took a couple of minutes for Catti-brie to extract the halfling from the open face, but by the time she yanked him in he was covered white with snow and shivering terribly.

“We canno' stay out here,” the woman yelled to Bruenor, who came stomping over. “The storm'll be the death of us!”

“The elf'll find us something!” the dwarf yelled. “Him or that cat o' his!”

Catti-brie nodded, Regis tried to nod as well, but his shivering only made the motion look ridiculous. All three knew that they were fast running out of options. All three understood that Drizzt and Guenhwyvar had better find them some shelter. And soon.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Guenhwyvar's roar came as the most welcome sound Drizzt Do'Urden had heard in a long, long time. He peered through the blinding sheets of blowing white, to see the huge black panther atop a windblown jag of stone, ears flat back, face masked with icy white snow.

Drizzt half skipped and half fell along a diagonal course that kept the mighty wind somewhat behind him as he made his way to Guenhwyvar.

“What have you found?” he asked the cat when he arrived just below her, peering up.

Guenhwyvar roared again and leaped away. The drow rushed to follow, and a few hundred feet down a side trail piled deep with snow, the pair came under a long overhang of rock. Drizzt nodded, thinking that this would provide some shelter, at least, but then Guenhwyvar prodded him and growled. She moved into the shelter, toward the very back, which remained shadowed. The panther was moving and peering more intently, the drow understood, for there, in the back of the sheltered area, Drizzt spotted a fair-sized crack at the base of the stone wall.

The dark elf padded over, quickly and silently, and kneeled down to the crack, taking heart as his keen eyes revealed to him that there was indeed an even more sheltered area within, a cave or a passage. Hardly slowing, reminding himself that his friends were still out in the blizzard, Drizzt dived into the opening head first, squirming to get his feet under him as he came to a lower landing.

He was in a cave, large and with many rocky shelves and boulders. The floor was clay, mostly, and as he allowed his vision to shift into the heat-seeing spectrum of the Underdark dwellers, he did indeed note a heat source, a fire pit whose contents had been very recently extinguished.

So, the cave was not unoccupied, and given their locale and the tremendous storm blowing outside, Drizzt would have been honestly surprised if it had been.

He spotted the inhabitants a moment later, moving along the shadows of the far wall, their warmer bodies shining clearly to him. He knew at once that they were goblins, and he could well imagine that there were more than a few in this sheltered area.

Drizzt considered going back outside, retrieving his friends, and taking the cave as their own. Working with their typical efficiency, the companions should have little trouble with a small gang of goblins.

But the drow paused, and not out of fear for his friends. What of the morality involved? What of the companions walking into another creature's home and expelling it into the deadly weather? Drizzt recalled another goblin he had once met in his travels, long before and far away, a creature who was not evil. These goblins, so far out and so high up in nearly impassable mountains, might have never encountered a human, an elf, a dwarf, or any other of the goodly reasoning races. Was it acceptable, then, for Drizzt and his friends to wage war on them in an attempt to steal their home?

“Hail and well met,” the drow called in the goblin tongue, which he had learned during his years in Menzoberranzan. Though the dialect of the goblins of the deep Underdark was vastly different from that of their surface cousins, he could communicate with them well enough.

The surprise on the goblin's face when it discovered that the intruder was not an elf, but a dark elf, was obvious indeed as the creature neared—or started to approach, only to skitter back, its sickly yellowish eyes wide with shock.

“My friends and I need shelter from the storm,” Drizzt explained, standing calm and confident, trying to show neither hostility nor fear. “May we join you?”

The goblin stuttered too badly to even begin a response. It turned around, panic-stricken, to regard one of its companions. This second goblin, larger by far and likely, Drizzt surmised from his understanding of goblin culture, a leader in the tribe, stepped out from the shadows.

“How many?” it croaked at Drizzt.

Drizzt regarded the goblin for a few moments, noted that its dress was better than that of its ugly fellows, with a tall lumberjack's cap and golden ear-cuffs on both ears.

“Five,” the drow replied.

“You pay gold?”

“We pay gold.”

The large goblin gave a croaking laugh, which Drizzt took as an agreement. The drow pulled himself back out of the cave, set Guenhwyvar as a sentry, and rushed off to find the others.

It wasn't hard for Drizzt to predict Bruenor's reaction when he told the dwarf of the arrangement with their new landlords.

“Bah!” the dwarf blustered. “If ye're thinking that I'm givin' one piece o' me gold coins to the likes o' smelly goblins, then ye're thinkin' with the brains of a thick rock, elf! Or worse yet, ye're thinking like a smelly goblin!”

“They have little understanding of wealth,” Drizzt replied with all confidence. He pointedly led the group away as he continued the discussion, not wanting to waste any time at all out in the freezing cold. Regis in particular was starting to look worse for wear, and was constantly trembling, his teeth chattering. “A coin or two should suffice.”

“Ye can put copper coins over their eyes when I cleave 'em down!” Bruenor roared in reply. “Some folks do that.”

Drizzt stopped, and stared hard at the dwarf. “I have made an arrangement, rightly or wrongly, but it is one that I expect you to honor,” he explained. “We do not know if these goblins are deserving of our wrath, and whatever the case if we simply walk in and put them out of their own home then are we any better than they?”

Bruenor laughed aloud. “Been drinking the holy water again, eh, elf?” he asked.

Drizzt narrowed his lavender eyes.

“Bah, I'll let ye lead on this one,” the dwarf conceded. “But be knowing that me axe'll be right in me hand the whole time, and if any stupid goblin makes a bad move or says a stupid thing, the place'll get a new coat o' paint—red paint!”

Drizzt looked at Catti-brie, expecting support, but the expression he saw there surprised him. The woman, if anything, seemed to be favoring Bruenor's side of this debate. Drizzt had to wonder if he might be wrong, had to wonder if he and his friends should have just walked in and sent the goblins running.

The dark elf went back into the cave first, with Guenhwyvar right behind. While the sight of the huge panther set more than a few goblins back on their heels, the sight of the next visitor— a red-bearded dwarf—had many of the humanoid tribe howling in protest, pointing crooked fingers, waving their fists, and hopping up and down.

“You drow, no dwarf!” the big goblin protested.

“Duergar,” Drizzt replied. “Deep dwarf.” He nudged Bruenor and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Try to act gray.”

Bruenor turned a skeptical look his way.

“Dwarf!” the goblin leader protested.

“Duergar,” Drizzt retorted. “Do you not know the duergar? The deep dwarves, allies of the drow and the goblins of the Underdark?”

There was enough truth in the dark elf’s statement to put the goblin leader off his guard. The deep dwarves of Faerыn, the duergar, often traded and sometimes allied with the drow. In the Underdark, the duergar had roughly the same relationship with the deep goblins as did the drow, not so much a friendship as tolerance. There were goblins in Menzoberranzan, many goblins. Someone had to do the cleaning, after all, or give a young matron a target that she might practice with her snake whip.

Regis was the next one in, and the goblin leader squealed again.

“Young duergar,” Drizzt said before the protest could gain any momentum. “We use them as decoys to infiltrate halfling villages.”

“Oh,” came the response.

Last in was Catti-brie, and the sight of her, the sight of a human, brought a new round of whooping and stomping, finger-pointing and fist waving.

“Ah, prisoner!” the goblin leader said lewdly.

Drizzt's eyes widened at the word and the tone, at the goblin leader's obvious intentions toward the woman. The drow recognized his error. He had refused to accept that Nojheim, the exceptional goblin he'd met those years before, was something less than representative of his cruel race. Nojheim was a complete anomaly, unique indeed.

“What'd he say?” asked Bruenor, who wasn't very good at understanding the goblin dialect.

“He said the deal is off,” Drizzt replied. “He told us to get out.”

Before Bruenor could begin to question what the drow wanted to do next, Drizzt had his scimitars in hand and began stalking across the uneven floor.

“Drizzt?” Catti-brie called to the drow. She looked to Bruenor, hardly seeing him in the dim light.

“Well, they started it!” the dwarf roared, but his bluster ended abruptly, and he called out to the dark elf, in less than certain terms, “Didn't they?”

“Oh, yes,” came the drow's reply.

“Put up a torch for me girl, Rumblebelly!” Bruenor said with a happy howl, and he slapped his axe hard against his open hand and rushed forward. “Just shoot left, girl, until ye can see! Trust that I'll be keepin' meself to the right!”

A pair of goblins rushed in at Drizzt, one from either side. The drow skittered right, turned, and went into a sudden dip, thrusting both scimitars out that way. The goblin, holding a small spear, made a fine defensive shift and almost managed to parry one of the blades.

Drizzt retracted and swung back around the other way, turning right past his friends and letting his right hand lead in a vicious cross. He felt the throb in his injured shoulder, but that remark by the goblin leader, “prisoner,” that inference that it would be happy to spend some time playing with Catti-brie, gave him the strength to ignore the pain.

The goblin coming in at him ducked the first blade and instinctively lifted its spear up to parry, should Drizzt dip that leading scimitar lower.

The second crossing scimitar took out its throat.

A third creature charged in on that goblin's heels and was suddenly lying atop its dead companion, taken down by a quickstep and thrust, the bloodied left-hand scimitar cutting a fast line to its heart, while Drizzt worked the right-hand blade in tight circles around the thrusting sword of a fourth creature.

“Damn elf, ye're taking all the fun!” Bruenor roared.

He rushed right past Drizzt, thinking to bury his axe into the skull of the goblin parrying back and forth with the dark elf. A black form flew past the dwarf, though, and launched the goblin away, pinning it under six hundred pounds of black fur and raking claws.

The cave lit suddenly with a sharp blue light, then another, as Catti-brie put her deadly bow to work, sending off a line of lightning-streaking arrows. The first shots burrowed into the stone wall to the cave's left side, but each offered enough illumination for her to sort out a target or two.

By the third shot, she got a goblin, and each successive shot either found a deadly mark or zipped in close enough to have goblins diving all about.

The three friends pressed on, cutting down goblins and sending dozens of the cowardly creatures running off before them.

Catti-brie kept up a stream of streaking arrows to the side, not really scoring any hits now, for all of the goblins over there were huddled under cover. Her efforts were not in vain, though, for she was keeping the creatures out of the main fight in the cave's center.

Regis, meanwhile, made his way around the other wall, creeping past boulders and stalagmites and huddling goblins. He noted that the goblins were disappearing sporadically through a crack in the back of the cave and that the leader had already gone in.

Regis waited for a lull in the goblin line, then slipped into the deeper darkness of the inner tunnels.

The fight was over in a short time, for in truth, other than the initial three goblins' charge at Drizzt, it never was much of a fight. Goblins worked harder at running away than at defending themselves from the mighty intruders—some even threw their kinfolk into the path of the charging dwarf or leaping panther.

It ended with Drizzt and Bruenor simultaneously stabbing and chopping a goblin as it tried to exit at the back of the cave.

Bruenor yanked back on his axe, but the embedded blade didn't disengage and he wound up hoisting the limp goblin right over his shoulder.

“Big one got through,” the dwarf grumbled, seeming oblivious to the fact that he was holding a dead goblin on the end of his axe. “Ye going after it?”

“Where is Regis?” came Catti-brie's call from the cave entrance.

The pair turned to see the woman crouching just before the entrance slope, lighting a torch.

“Rumblebelly ain't good at following directions,” Bruenor griped. “I telled him to do that!”

“I didn't need it with me bow,” Catti-brie explained. “But he ran off.” She called out loudly, “Regis?”

“He ran away,” Bruenor whispered to Drizzt, but that just didn't sound right—to either of them—after the halfling's brave work on the roads outside of Ten-Towns and his surprisingly good performance against the ogres. “I'm thinking them ogres scared the fight outta him.”

Drizzt shook his head, slowly turning to scan the perimeter of the cave, fearing more that Regis had been cut down than that he had run off.

They heard their little friend a few moments later, whistling happily as he exited the goblin escape tunnel. He looked at Drizzt and Bruenor, who stared at him in blank amazement, then tossed something to Drizzt.

The drow caught it and regarded it, and his smile widened indeed.

A goblin ear, wearing a golden cuff.

The dwarf and the dark elf looked at the halfling incredulously.

“I heard what he said,” Regis answered their stares. “And I do understand goblin.” He snapped his little fingers in the air before the stunned pair and started across the cave toward Catti-brie. He stopped a few strides away, though, turned back, and tossed the second ear to Drizzt.

“What's gettin' into him?” Bruenor quietly asked the drow when Regis was far away.

“The adventurous spirit?” Drizzt asked more than stated.

“Ye could be right,” said Bruenor. He spat on the ground. “He's gonna get us all killed, or I'm a bearded gnome.”

The five, for Guenhwyvar remained throughout the night, waited out the rest of the storm in the goblin cave. They found a pile of kindling at the side of the cave, along with some rancid meat they didn't dare cook, and Bruenor set a blazing fire near the outside opening. Guenhwyvar stood sentry while Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Regis deposited the goblin bodies far down the passageway. They ate, and they huddled around the fire. They took turns on watch that night, sleeping two at a time, though they didn't really expect the cowardly goblins to return anytime soon.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Many miles to the south and east of the companions, another weary traveler didn't have the luxury of comrades who could stand watch while he slept. Still, not expecting that many enemies would be out and about on a stormy night such as this, Wulfgar did settle back against the rear wall of the covered nook he chose as his shelter and closed his eyes.

He had dug out this nook, and so he was flanked left and right by walls of solid snow, with the rock wall behind and a rising snow wall before him. He knew that even if no monsters or wild animals would likely find him, he had to take his sleep in short bursts, for if he didn't regularly clear some of the snow from the front, he ran the risk of being buried alive, and if he didn't occasionally throw another log on the fire, he'd likely freeze to death on this bitter night.

These were only minor inconveniences to the hearty barbarian, who had been raised from a babe on the open tundra of brutal Icewind Dale, who had been weaned with the bitter north wind singing in his ears.

And who had been hardened in the fiery swirls of Errtu's demonic home.

The wind sang a mournful song across the small opening of Wulfgar's rock and snow shelter, a long and melancholy note that opened the doorway to the barbarian's battered heart. In that cave, in that storm, and on that windy note, Wulfgar's thoughts were sent back across the span of time.

He recalled so many things about his childhood with the Tribe of the Elk, running the open and wild tundra, following the footsteps of his ancestors in hunts and rituals that had survived for hundreds of years.

He recalled the battle that had brought him to Ten-Towns, an aggressive attack by his warrior people upon the settlers of the villages. There an ill-placed blow on the head of a particularly hard-headed dwarf had led to young Wulfgar's defeat—and that defeat had landed young Wulfgar squarely in the tutelage and indenture of one Bruenor Battlehammer, the surly, gruff, golden-hearted dwarf who Wulfgar would soon enough come to know as a father. That defeat on the battlefield had brought Wulfgar to the side of Drizzt and Catti-brie, had set him on the road that had guided the later years of his youth and the early years of his adulthood. That same road, though, had landed Wulfgar in that most awful of all places, the lair of the demon Errtu.

Outside, the wind mourned and called to his soul, as if asking him to turn away now on his road of memories, to reject all thoughts of Errtu's hellish lair.

Warning him, warning him. .

But Wulfgar, as tormented by his self-perception as he was by the tortures of Errtu, would not turn away. Not this time. He embraced the awful memories. He brought them into his consciousness and examined them fully and rationally, telling himself that this was as it had been. Not as it should have been, but a simple reality of his past, a memory that he would have to carry with him.

A place from which he should try to grow, and not one from which he should reflexively cower.

The wind wailed its dire warnings, calling to him that he might lose himself within that pit of horror, that he might be going to dark places better left at rest. But Wulfgar held on to the thoughts, carried them through to the final victory over Errtu, out on the Sea of Moving Ice.

With his friends beside him.

That was the rub, the forlorn barbarian knew. With his friends beside him! He had forsaken his former companions because he had believed that he must. He had run away from them, particularly from Catti-brie, because he could not let them come to see what he had truly become: a broken wretch, a shell of his former glory.

Wulfgar paused in his contemplation and tossed the last of his logs onto the fire. He adjusted the stones he had set under the blaze, rocks that would catch the heat and hold it for some time. He prodded one stone away from the fire and rolled it under his bedroll, then worked it down under the fabric so that he could comfortably rest atop it.

He did just that and felt the new heat rising beneath, but the new-found comfort could not eliminate or deflect the wall of questions.

“And where am I now?” the barbarian asked of the wind, but it only continued its melancholy wail.

It had no answers, and neither did he.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning dawned bright and clear, with the brilliant sun climbing into a cloudless eastern sky, sending the temperatures to comfortable levels and beginning the melt of the previous day's blizzard.

Drizzt regarded the sight and the warmth with mixed feelings, for while he and all the others were glad to have some feeling returning to their extremities, they all knew the dangers that sunshine after a blizzard could bring to mountain passes. They would have to move extra carefully that day, wary of avalanches with every step.

The drow looked back to the cave, wherein slept his three companions, resting easily, hoping to continue on their way. With any luck, they might make the coast that very day and begin the search in earnest for Minster Gorge and Sheila Kree.

Drizzt looked around and realized they would need considerable luck. Already he could hear the distant rumblings of falling snow.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Wulfgar punched and thrashed his way out of the overhang that had become a cave, that had become a snowy tomb, crawling out and stretching in the brilliant morning sunlight.

The barbarian was right on the edge of the mountains, with the terrain sloping greatly down to the south toward Luskan and with towering, snow-covered peaks all along the northern horizon. He noted, too, with a snort of resignation, that he had apparently been on the edge of the rain/snow line of the blizzard's precipitation, for those sloping hillsides south of him seemed more wet than deep with snow, while the region north of him was clogged with powder.

It was as if the gods themselves were telling him to turn back.

Wulfgar nodded. Perhaps that was it. Or perhaps the storm had been no more than an analogy of the roads now facing him in his life. The easy way, as it would have been out of Luskan, was to the south. That road called to him clearly, showing him a path where he could avoid the difficult terrain.

The hearty barbarian laughed at the symbolism of it all, at the way nature herself seemed to be pushing him back toward that more peaceful and easy existence. He hoisted his pack and the unbalanced bardiche he carried in Aegis-fang's stead and trudged off to the north.

Chapter 21 WASTED CHARMS

I have business to attend to in Luskan,” Morik complained. “So many things I have set in place—connections and deals—and now, because of you and your friends, all of that will be for naught.”

“But you will enjoy the long winter's night,” Bellany said with a wicked grin. She curled seductively on the pile of furs.

“That is of no … well, there is that,” Morik admitted, shaking his head. “And my protest has nothing to do with you—you do understand that.”

“You talk way too much,” the woman replied, reaching for the small man.

“I … I mean, no this cannot be! Not now. There is my business—”

“Later.”

“Now!”

Bellany grinned, rolled over, and stretched. Morik's protests had to wait for some time. Later on, though, the rogue from Luskan was right back at it, complaining to Bellany that her little side trip here was going to cost him a king's treasure and more.

“Unavoidable,” the sorceress explained. “I had to bring you here, and winter came early.”

“And I am not allowed to leave?”

“Leave at your will,” Bellany replied. “It is a long, cold road— do you think you'll survive all the way back to Luskan?”

“You brought me here, you take me back.”

“Impossible,” the sorceress said calmly. “I can not teleport such distances. That spell is beyond me. I could conjure the odd magical portal for short distances perhaps, but not enough to skip our way to Luskan. And I do not like the cold, Morik. Not at all.”

“Then Sheila Kree will have to find a way to take me home,” Morik declared, pulling his trousers on—or at least trying to. As he brought the pants up over his ankles, Bellany waved her hand and cast a simple spell to bring about a sudden breeze. The gust was strong enough to push the already off-balance Morik backward, causing him to trip and fall.

He rolled and put his feet under him, rising, stumbling back to his knees, then pulling himself up and turning an indignant stare over the woman.

“Very humorous,” he said grimly, but as soon as he spoke the words, Morik noted the look on Bellany's face, one that showed little humor.

“You will go to Sheila Kree and demand that she take you home?” the sorceress asked.

“And if I do?”

“She will kill you,” Bellany stated. “Sheila is not overly fond of you, my friend, and in truth she desires you gone from here as much as you desire to be gone. But she'll spare no resources to do that, unless it is the short journey for one of her pet ogres to toss your lifeless body into the frigid ocean waters.

“No, Morik, understand that you would do well to remain unobtrusive and quietly out of Sheila's way,” Bellany went on. 'Bloody Keel will sail in the spring, and likely along the coast. We'll put you ashore not so far from Luskan, perhaps even in port, if we can be certain Deudermont's not lying in wait for us there.”

“I will be a pauper by then.”

“Well, if you are still rich, and wish to die that way, then go to Sheila with your demands,” the sorceress said with a laugh. She rolled over, wrapping herself in the furs, burying even her head to signal Morik that this conversation was at its end.

The rogue stood there staring at his lover for a long while. He liked Bellany—a lot—and believed that a winter of cuddling beside her wouldn't be so bad a thing. There were several other women there as well, including a couple of quite attractive ones, like Jule Pepper. Perhaps Morik might find a bit of challenge this season!

The rogue shook that thought out of his head. He had to be careful with such things, while in such tight and inescapable quarters beside such formidable companions. Woe to him if he angered Bellany by making a play for Jule. He winced as he considered the beating this beautiful sorceress might put on him. Morik had never liked wizards of any type, for they could see through his disguises and stealth and could blast him away before he ever got close to them. To Morik's way of thinking, wizards simply didn't fight fair.

Yes, he had to be careful not to evoke any jealousies.

Or perhaps that was it, Morik mused, considering Sheila's obvious disdain. Perhaps the fiery pirate didn't approve of Bellany's companion because she was trapped here as well, and with no one to warm her furs.

A wry smile grew on Morik's face as he watched the rhythmic breathing of sleeping Bellany.

“Ah, Sheila,” he whispered, and he wondered if he would even want to go home after spending some time with the captain, wondered if he might not find an even greater prosperity right here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chogurugga stalked about her huge room angrily, throwing furniture and any of the smaller ogres and half-ogres who were too slow to get out of her way.

“Bathunk!” the ogress wailed repeatedly. “Bathunk, where you be?” The ogress's prized son had gone out from the home to lead a raiding party, an expedition that was supposed to last only three or four days, but now nearly a tenday had passed, with no word from the young beast.

“Snow deep,” said a composed Bloog from the side of the room, lying back on a huge hammock—a gift from Sheila Kree—his massive legs hanging over, one on either side.

Chogurugga raced across the room, grabbed the side of the hammock, and dumped Bloog onto the stone floor. “If me learn that you hurt—”

“Bathunk go out,” Bloog protested, keeping his calm, though whether that was because he didn't want to lash out at his beautiful wife or because he didn't want to laugh at her hysteria, the ogress could not tell. “Him come back or him not. Bloog not go out.”

The logic, simple enough for even Chogurugga to grasp, did not calm the ogress, but turned her away from Bloog at least. She rushed across the room, wailing for Bathunk.

In truth, her son had been late in returning from raiding parties many times, but this time was different. It wasn't just the fierce storm that had come up. This time, Chogurugga sensed that something was terribly amiss. Disaster had befallen her beloved Bathunk.

He wouldn't be coming home.

The ogress just knew it.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Morik grinned widely and pulled a second goblet, another beautiful silver and glass piece, out of the small belt pouch on his right hip, placing it in front of Sheila Kree on the table between them.

Sheila regarded him with an amused expression and a nod, bidding him to continue.

Out of the pouch next came a bottle of Feywine—itself much too big to fit in the small pouch, let alone beside a pair of sizeable goblets.

“What else ye got in yer magical pouch, Morik the Rogue?” Sheila asked suspiciously. “Does Bellany know ye got that magic about ye?”

“Why would it concern her, dear, beautiful Sheila?” Morik asked, pouring a generous amount of the expensive liquor into Sheila's cup and a lesser amount into his own. “I am no threat to anyone here. A friend and no enemy.”

Sheila smirked, then brought her goblet up so fast for a big swallow that some wine splashed out the sides of the drinking vessel and across her ruddy face. Hardly caring, the pirate banged the goblet back to the table, then ran an arm across her face.

“Would any enemy e'er say different?” she asked, simply. “Don't know o' many who'd be calling themselfs a foe when they're caught.”

Morik chuckled. “You do not approve of Bellany bringing me here.”

“Have I ever gived ye a different feeling?”

“Nor do you approve of Bellany's interest in my companionship,” Morik dared to say.

When Sheila winced slightly and shifted in her seat, Morik knew he'd hit a nerve. Bolstered by the thought that Sheila's gruffness toward him might be nothing more than jealousy— and to confident Morik's way of thinking, why should it not be? — the rogue lifted his goblet out toward the pirate leader in toast.

“To a better understanding of each other's worth,” he said, tapping Sheila's cup.

“And a better understanding of each other's desires,” the pirate replied, her smirk even wider.

Morik grinned as well, considering how he might turn this one's fire into some wild pleasures.

He didn't get what he bargained for.

Morik staggered out of Sheila's room a short while later, his head throbbing from the left hook the pirate had leveled his way while still wearing that smirk of hers. Confused by Sheila's violent reaction to his advance—Morik had sidled up to her and gently brushed the back of his hand across her ruddy cheek—the rogue muttered a dozen different curses and stumbled across the way toward Bellany's room. Morik wasn't used to such treatment from the ladies, and his indignation was clear to the sorceress as she opened the door and stood there, blocking the way.

“Making love with a trapped badger?” the grinning Bellany asked.

“That would have been preferable,” Morik replied and tried to enter the room. Bellany, though, kept her arm up before him, blocking the way.

Morik looked at her quizzically. “Surely you are not jealous.”

“You seem to have a fair estimation of your worth to so definitely know that truth,” she replied.

Morik started to respond, but then the insult registered, and he stopped and gave a little salute to the woman.

“Jealous?” Bellany asked skeptically. “Hardly that. I would have thought you'd have bedded Jule Pepper by now, at least. You do surprise me with your taste, though. I didn't think you were Sheila Kree's type, nor she yours.”

“Apparently your suspicions are correct,” the rogue remarked, rubbing his bruised temple. He started ahead again, and this time Bellany let him move past her and into the room. “I suspect you would have had more luck in wooing that one.”

“Took you long enough to figure that one out,” Bellany replied, closing the door as she entered behind the rogue.

Morik fell upon a bed of soft furs and rolled to cast a glance at the grinning sorceress. “A simple word of warning?” he asked. “You could not have done that for me beforehand?”

“And miss the fun?”

“You did not miss much,” said Morik, and he held his arms out toward her.

“Do you need your wound massaged?” Bellany asked, not moving. “Or your pride?”

Morik considered the question for just a moment. “Both,” he admitted, and, her smile widening even more, the sorceress approached.

“This is the last time I will warn you,” she said, slipping onto the bed beside him. “Tangle with Sheila Kree, and she will kill you. If you are lucky, I mean. If not, shell likely tell Chogurugga that you have amorous designs over her.”

“The ogress?” asked a horrified Morik.

“And if your coupling with that one does not kill you, then Bloog surely will.”

Bellany edged in closer, trying to kiss the man, but Morik turned away, any thoughts of passion suddenly flown.

“Chogurugga,” he said, and a shudder coursed his spine.

Chapter 22 ONE STEP AT A TIME

With the freezing wind roaring in at him from the right, Wulfgar plodded along, ducking his shoulder and head against the constant icy press. He was on a high pass, and though he didn't like being out in the open, this windblown stretch was the route with by far the least remaining snow. He knew that enemies might spot him from a mile away, a dark spot against the whiteness, but knew he also that unless they were aerial creatures—and ones large enough to buck the wintry blow—they'd never get near to him.

What he was hoping for was that his former companions might spot him. For how else might he find them in this vast, up-and-down landscape, where vision was ever limited by the next mountain peak and where distances were badly distorted? Sometimes the next mountain slope, where individual trees could be picked out, might seem to be a short march, but was in reality miles and miles away, and those with often insurmountable obstacles, a sharp ravine or unclimbable facing, preventing Wulfgar from getting there without a detour that would take days.

How did I ever hope to find them? the barbarian asked himself, and not for the first, or even the hundredth time. He shook his head at his own foolishness in ever walking through Luskan's north gate on that fateful morning, and again at continuing into the mountains after the terrific storm when the south road seemed so much more accessible.

“And would I not be the fool if Drizzt and the others have sought out shelter, a town through which they can spend the winter?” the barbarian asked himself, and he laughed aloud.

Yes, this was about as hopeless as seemed possible, seeking his friends in a wilderness so vast and inhospitable, in conditions so wild that he might pass within a few yards of them without ever noticing them. But still, when he considered it in context, the barbarian realized he was not foolish, despite the odds, that he had done what he needed to do.

Wulfgar paused from that high vantage point and looked all around him at the valleys, at the peak looming before him, and at one expanse of fir trees, a dark green splash against the white-sided mountain, down to the right.

He decided he would go there, under the cover of those trees, making his way to the west until he came to the main mountain pass that would take him back into Icewind Dale. If he found his former companions along the way, then all the better. If not, he would continue along to Ten-Towns and stay there until Drizzt and the others came to him, or until the spring, if they did not arrive, when he could sign on with a caravan heading back to Waterdeep.

Wulfgar shielded his eyes from the glare and the blowing snow and picked his path. He'd have to continue across the open facing to the larger mountain, then make his way down its steep western side. At least there were trees along that slope, against which he could lean his weight and slow his descent. If he tried to go down from this barren area and got into a slide, he'd tumble a long way indeed.

Wulfgar put his head down again and plowed on, leaning into the wind.

That lean cost him when he stepped upon one stone, which sloped down to the right much more than it appeared. His furry boot found little traction on the icy surface, and the overbalanced Wulfgar couldn't compensate quickly enough to belay the skid. Out he went, feet first, to land hard on his rump. He was sliding, his arms flailing wildly in an effort to find a hold.

He let go of the large, unwieldy bardiche, tossing the weapon a bit to the side so it didn't tumble down onto his head behind him. He couldn't slow and was soon bouncing more than sliding, going into a headlong roll and clipping one large stone that turned him over sideways. The straps on his pack fell loose, one untying, the other tearing free. He left it behind, its flap opening and a line of his supplies spilling out behind it as it slid.

Wulfgar continued his twisting, bouncing descent and left the pack, the bardiche, and the top of the pass, far behind.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“He's hurt!” Captain Deudermont said, his voice rising with anxiety as he watched the barbarian's long and brutal tumble.

He and Robillard were in his private quarters aboard Sea Sprite, staring into a bowl of enchanted water the wizard was using to scrye out the wandering barbarian. Robillard was not fond of such divination spells, nor was he very proficient with them, but he had secretly placed a magical pin under the folds of Wulfgar's silver wolf-furred clothing. That pin, attuned to the bowl, allowed even Robillard, whose prowess was in evocation and not divination, to catch a glimpse of the distant man.

“Oaf,” Robillard quietly remarked.

They watched silently, Deudermont chewing his lip, as Wulfgar climbed to his feet at the bottom of the long slide. The barbarian leaned over to one side, favoring an injured shoulder. As he walked about, obviously trying to sort out the best path back to his equipment, the pair noted a pronounced limp.

“He'll not make it back up without aid,” Deudermont said.

“Oaf,” Robillard said again.

“Look at him!” the captain cried. “He could have turned south, as you predicted, but he did not. No, he went out to the north and into the frozen mountains, a place where few would travel, even in the summer and even in a group, and fewer still would dare try alone.”

“That is the way of nature,” Robillard quipped. “Those who would try alone likely have and thus are all dead. Fools have a way of weeding themselves out of the bloodlines.”

“You wanted him to go north,” the captain pointedly reminded.

“You said as much, and many times. And not so that he would fall and die. You insisted that if Wulfgar was a man deserving of such friends as Drizzt and Catti-brie, that he would go in search of them, no matter the odds.

“Look now, my curmudgeonly friend,” Deudermont stated, waving his arm out toward the water bowl, to the image of stubborn Wulfgar.

Obviously in pain but just grimacing it away, the man was scrambling inch by inch to scale back up the mountainside. The barbarian didn't stop and cry out in rage, didn't punch his fist into the air. He just picked his path and clawed at it without complaint.

Deudermont eyed Robillard as intently as the wizard was then eyeing the scrying bowl. Finally, Robillard looked up. “Perhaps there is more to this Wulfgar than I believed,” the wizard admitted.

“Are we to let him die out there, alone and cold?”

Robillard sighed, then growled and rubbed his hands forcefully across his face, so that his skinny features glowed bright red. “He has been nothing but trouble since the day he arrived on Waterdeep's long dock to speak with you!” Robillard snarled, and he shook his head. “Nay, even before that, in Luskan, when he tried to kill—”

“He did not!” Deudermont insisted, angry that Robillard had reopened that old wound. “That was neither Wulfgar nor the little one named Morik.”

“So you say.”

“He suffers hardships without complaint,” the captain went on, again directing the wizard's eyes to the image in the bowl. “Though I hardly think Wulfgar considers such a storm as this even a hardship after the torments he likely faced at the hands of the demon Errtu.”

“Then there is no problem here.”

“But what now?” the captain pressed. “Wulfgar will never find his friends while wandering aimlessly through the wintry mountains.”

Deudermont could tell by the ensuing sigh that Robillard understood him completely.

“We spotted a pirate just yesterday,” the wizard remarked, a verbal squirm if Deudermont had ever heard one. “Likely we will do battle in the morning. You can not afford—”

“If we see the pirate again and you have not returned, or if you are not yet prepared for the fight, then we will shadow her. As we can outrun any ship when we are in pursuit, so we can when we are in retreat.”

“I do not like teleporting to unfamiliar places,” Robillard grumbled. “I may appear too high, and fall.”

“Enact a spell of flying or floating before you go, then.”

“Or too low,” Robillard said grimly, for that was ever a possibility, and any wizard who wound up appearing at the other end of a teleport spell too low would find pieces of himself scattered amongst the rocks and dirt.

Deudermont had no answer for that other than a shrug, but it wasn't really a debate. Robillard was only complaining anyway, with every intention of going to the wounded man.

“Wait for me to return before engaging any pirates,” the wizard grumbled, fishing through his many pockets for the components he would need to safely—as safely as possible, anyway—go to Wulfgar. “If I do return, that is.”

“I have every confidence.”

“Of course you do,” said Robillard.

Captain Deudermont stepped back as Robillard moved to a side cabinet and flung it open, removing one of Deudermont's own items, a heavy woolen blanket. Grumbling continually, the wizard began his casting, first a spell that had him gently floating off of the floor, and another that seemed to tear the fabric of the air itself. Many multicolored bubbles surrounded the wizard until his form became blurred by their multitude—and he was gone, and there were only bubbles, gradually popping and flowing together so that the air seemed whole again.

Deudermont rushed forward and stared into the watery bowl, catching the last images of Wulfgar before Robillard's divining dweomer dissipated.

He saw a second form come onto the snowy scene.

* * * ** * * * * * *

Wulfgar started to slip yet again, but growled and fell flat, reaching his arm up and catching onto a jag in the little bare stone he could find. His pulled with his powerful arm, sliding himself upward.

“We will be here all afternoon if you continue at that pace,” came a familiar voice from above.

The barbarian looked up to see Robillard standing atop the pass, a heavy brown blanket wrapped around him, over his customary wizard robes,

“What?” the astonished Wulfgar started to ask, but with his surprise came distraction, and he wound up sliding backward some twenty feet to crash heavily against a rocky outcrop.

The barbarian pulled himself to his feet and looked back up to see Robillard, the bardiche in hand, floating down the mountain slope. The wizard scooped a few of Wulfgar's other belongings on the way, dropped them to Wulfgar, and swooped about, flying magically back and forth until he had collected all of the spilled possessions. That job completed, he landed lightly beside the huge man.

“I hardly expected to see you here,” said Wulfgar.

“No less than I expected to see you,” Robillard answered. “I predicted that you would take the south road, not the north. Your surprising fortitude even cost me a wager I made with Donnark the oarsman.”

“Should I repay you?” Wulfgar said dryly.

Robillard shrugged and nodded. “Another time, perhaps. I have no desire to remain in this godsforsaken wilderness any longer than is necessary.”

“I have my possessions and am not badly injured,” Wulfgar stated. He squared his massive shoulders and thrust out his chin defiantly, more than ready to allow the wizard to leave.

“But you have not found your friends,” the wizard explained, “and have little chance of ever doing so without my help. And so I am here.”

“Because you are my friend?”

“Because Captain Deudermont is,” Robillard corrected, and with a huff to deny the wry grin that adorned the barbarian's ruddy and bristled face.

“You have spells to locate them?” Wulfgar asked.

“I have spells to make us fly up above the peaks,” Robillard corrected, “and others to get us quickly from place to place. We will soon enough take account of every creature walking the region. We can only hope that your friends are among them.”

“And if they are not?”

“Then I suggest that you return with me to Waterdeep.”

“To Sea Sprite!”

“To Waterdeep,” Robillard forcefully repeated.

Wulfgar shrugged, not wanting to argue the point—one that he hoped would be moot. He believed that Drizzt and the others had come in search of Aegis-fang, and if that was the case he expected that they would still be there, alive and well.

He still wasn't sure if he had chosen correctly that day back in Luskan, still wasn't sure if he was ready for this, if he wanted this. How would he react when he saw them again? What would he say to Bruenor, and what might he do if the dwarf, protective of Catti-brie to the end, simply leaped at him to throttle him? And what might he say to Catti-brie? How could he ever look into her blue eyes again after what he had done to her?

Those questions came up at him forcefully at that moment, now that it seemed possible that he would actually find the companions.

But he had no answers for those questions and knew that he would not be able to foresee the confrontation, even from his own sensibilities.

Wulfgar came out of his contemplation to see Robillard staring at him, the wizard wearing as close to an expression of empathy as Wulfgar had ever seen.

“How did you get this far?” Robillard asked.

Wulfgar's expression showed that he did not understand.

“One step at a time,” Robillard answered his own question. “And that is how you will go on. One step at a time will Wulfgar trample his demons.”

Robillard did something then that surprised the big man as profoundly as he had ever been: he reached up and patted Wulfgar on the shoulder.

Chapter 23 AND IN WALKED …

I'm thinking that we might be crawling back to that fool Lord Feringal and his little land o' Auckney,” Bruenor grumbled when he crept back into the small cave the group had used for shelter that night after the storm had abated. The weather was better, to be sure, but Bruenor understood the dangers of avalanches, and the sheer volume of snow that had fallen the night before stunned him. “Snow's deeper than a giant's crotch!”

“Walk atop it,” Drizzt remarked with a wry grin. But in truth none of them, not even the drow, was much in the mood for smiling. The snow had piled high all through the mountains, and the day's travel had been shortened, as Drizzt had feared, by the specter of avalanches. Dozens cascaded down all around them, many blocking passes that would force the companions to wander far afield. This could mean a journey of hours, perhaps days, to circumvent a slide-filled pass that should have taken them but an hour to walk through.

“We ain't gonna find 'em, elf,” Bruenor said bluntly. “They're deep underground, don't ye doubt, and not likely to stick their smelly heads above ground until the spring. We ain't for finding them in this.”

“We always knew it would not be easy,” Catti-brie reminded the dwarf.

“We found the group raiding the tower, and they pointed us in the right direction,” Regis piped in. “We'll need some more luck, to be sure, but did we not know that all along?”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. He kicked a fairly large stone, launching it into a bouncing roll to crash into the side wall of the small cave.

“Surrender the hammer to them?” Drizzt asked Bruenor in all earnestness.

“Or get buried afore we e'er get near 'em?” the dwarf replied. “Great choices there, elf!”

“Or return to Auckney and wait out the winter,” Regis offered. “Then try again in the spring.”

“When Bloody Keel will likely be sailing the high seas,” reminded Catti-brie. “With Sheila Kree and Aegis-fang long gone from these shores.”

“We go south, then,” reasoned Bruenor. “We find Deudermont and sign on to help with his pirate-killin' until we catch up to Kree. Then we take me hammer back and put the witch on the bottom o' those high seas—and good enough for her!”

A silence followed, profound and unbroken for a long, long time. Perhaps Bruenor was right. Perhaps hunting for the warhammer now wouldn't bring them anything but disaster. And if anyone among them had the right to call off the search for Aegis-fang, it was certainly Bruenor. He had crafted the hammer, after all, and had given it to Wulfgar. In truth, though, none of them, not even Regis, who was perhaps the most removed from the situation, wanted to let go of that warhammer, that special symbol of what Wulfgar had once been to all of them.

Perhaps it made sense to wait out the wintry season, but Drizzt couldn't accept the logical conclusion that the weather had made the journey simply too dangerous to continue. The drow wanted this done with, and soon. He wanted to finally catch up to Wulfgar, to retrieve both Aegis-fang and the lost symbol of all they had once been, and the thought of sitting around through several months of snow would not settle comfortably on his slender shoulders. Looking around, the drow realized that the others, even Bruenor—perhaps even particularly Bruenor, despite his typical blustering—were feeling much the same way.

The drow walked out of the cave, scrambling up the wall of snow that had drifted in front of the entrance. He ran to the highest vantage point he could find, and despite the glare that was surely stinging his light-sensitive eyes, he peered all around, seeking a course to the south, to the sea, seeking some way that they could continue.

He heard someone approaching from behind a short time later and from the sound of the footfalls knew it to be Catti-brie. She was walking with a stride that was somewhere between Drizzt's light-stepping and Bruenor's plowing technique.

“Lookin' as bad to me in going back as in going ahead,” the woman said when she moved up beside Drizzt. “Might as well be going ahead, then, by me own thinking.”

“And will Bruenor agree? Or Regis?”

“Rumblebelly’s making much the same case to Bruenor inside right now,” Catti-brie remarked, and Drizzt turned to regard her. Always before, Regis would have been the very first to abandon the road to adventure, the very first to seek a way back to warm comfort.

“Do you remember when Artemis Entreri impersonated Regis?” Drizzt asked, his tone a clear warning.

Catti-brie's blue eyes widened in shock for just a moment, until Drizzt's expression clearly conveyed that he was only kidding. Still, the point that something was very different with Regis was clearly made, and fully taken.

“Ye'd think that the goblin spear he caught on the river in the south would’ve put him even more in the fluffy chair,” Catti-brie remarked.

“Without the magical aid from that most unlikely source, he would have lost his arm, at least,” Drizzt reminded, and it was true enough.

When Regis had been stabbed in the shoulder, the friends simply could not stop the bleeding. Drizzt and Catti-brie were actually in the act of preparing Regis's arm for amputation, which they figured to be the only possible chance they had for keeping the halfling alive, when Jarlaxle's drow lieutenant, in the guise of Cadderly, had walked up and offered some magical healing.

Regis had been quiet through the remainder of that adventure, the road to Jarlaxle's crystal tower and Drizzt's fight with Entreri, and the long and sullen road all the way back to Icewind Dale. The friends had seen many adventures together, and in truth, that last one had seen the worst outcome of all. The Crystal Shard was lost to the dangerous leader of Bregan D'aerthe. It had also been easily the most painful and dangerous for Regis personally, and yet for some reason Drizzt and Catti-brie could not fathom, that last adventure had apparently sparked something within Regis. It had become evident almost immediately after their return to Ten-Towns. Not once had Regis tried to dodge out of the companions' policing of the dangerous roads in and out of the region, and on those few occasions when they had encountered monsters or highwaymen, Regis had refused to sit back and let his skilled friends handle the situation.

And here he was, trying to convince Bruenor to plow on through the inhospitable and deadly mountains, when the warm hearth of Lord Feringal's castle sat waiting behind them.

“Three against one, then,” Catti-brie said at length. “We'll be going ahead, it seems.”

“With Bruenor grumbling every step of the way.”

“He'd be grumbling every step of the way if we turned back, as well.”

“There is a dependability there.”

“A reminder of times gone past and a signal of times to come,” Catti-brie replied without missing a beat, and the pair shared a needed, heartfelt laugh.

When they went back into the deep, high cave they found Bruenor hard at work in packing up the camp, rolling blankets into tight bundles, while Regis stirred the pot over the still-blazing fire.

“Ye seein' a road worth trying?” Bruenor asked.

“Ahead or back … it is much the same,” Drizzt answered.

“Except if we go ahead, we'll still have to come back,” Bruenor reasoned.

“Go on, I say,” Catti-brie offered. “We're not to find our answers in the sleepy town of Auckney, and I'm wanting answers before the spring thaw.”

“What says yerself, elf?” Bruenor asked.

“We knew that the road would be dangerous and inhospitable before we ever set out from Luskan,” Drizzt answered. “We knew the season then, and this snowfall is hardly unusual or unexpected.”

“But we hoped to find the stupid pirate afore this,” the dwarf put in.

“Hoped, but hardly expected,” Drizzt was quick to reply. He looked to Catti-brie. “I, too, have little desire to spend the winter worrying about Wulfgar.”

“On, then,” Bruenor suddenly agreed. “And let the snow take us. And let Wulfgar spend the winter worrying about us!” The dwarf ended with a stream of curses, muttering under his breath in that typical Bruenor fashion. The other three in the cave shared a few knowing winks and smiles.

The low hum of Bruenor's grumbles shifted, though, into a more general humming noise that filled all the air and caught the attention of all four.

In the middle of the cave, a blue vertical line appeared, glowing to a height of about seven feet. Before the friends could begin to call out or react, that line split apart into two of equal height, and those two began drifting apart, a horizontal blue line atop them.

“Wizard door!” Regis cried, rolling to the side, scrambling for the shadows, and taking out his mace.

Drizzt dropped the figurine of Guenhwyvar to the floor, ready to call out to the panther. He drew forth his scimitars, moving beside Bruenor to face the growing portal directly, while Catti-brie slipped a few steps back and to the side, stringing and drawing her bow in one fluid motion.

The door formed completely, the area within the three defining lines buzzing with a lighter blue haze.

Out stepped a form, dressed in dark blue robes. Bruenor roared and lifted his many-notched axe, and Catti-brie pulled back, ready to let fly.

“Robillard!” Drizzt called, and Catti-brie echoed the name a split second later.

“Deudermont's wizard friend?” Bruenor started to ask.

“What are you doing here?” the drow asked, but his words fell away as a second form came through the magical portal behind the wizard, a huge and hulking form.

Regis said it first, for the other three, especially Bruenor, couldn't seem to find a single voice among them. “Wulfgar?”

Chapter 24 DROW-SIGN

The unearthly wail, its notes primal and agonized, echoed off the stone walls of the cavern complex, reverberating into the very heart of the mountain itself.

The tips of Le'lorinel's sword and dagger dipped toward the floor. The elf stopped the training session and turned to regard the room's open door and the corridor beyond, where that awful cry was still echoing.

“What is it?” Le'lorinel asked as a form rushed by. Jule Pepper, the elf, who sprinted to catch up, guessed.

Down the winding way Le'lorinel went, pursuing Jule all the way to the complex of large chambers immediately below those of Sheila Kree and her trusted, brand-wearing compatriots, and into the lair of Chogurugga and Bloog.

Le'lorinel had to dodge aside upon entering, as a huge chair sailed by to smash against the stone. Again came that terrible cry—Chogurugga's shriek. Looking past the ogress, Le'lorinel understood it to be a wail of grief.

For there, in the middle of the floor, lay the bloated body of another ogre, a young and strong one. Sheila Kree and Bellany stood over the body beside another ogre who was kneeling, its huge, ugly head resting atop the corpse. At first, Le'lorinel figured it to be Bloog, but then the elf spotted the gigantic ogre leader, looking on from the wall behind them. It didn't take Le'lorinel long to figure out that the mask of anguish that Bloog wore was far from genuine.

It occurred to Le'lorinel that Bloog might have done this.

“Bathunk! Me baby!” Chogurugga shrieked with concern very atypical for a mother ogress. “Bathunk! Bathunk!”

Sheila Kree moved to talk to the ogress, perhaps to console her, but Chogurugga went into another flailing fit at that moment, lifting a rock from the huge fire pit and hurling it to smash against the wall—not so far from the ducking Bloog, Le'lorinel noted.

“They found Bathunk's body near an outpost to the north,” Bellany explained to Jule and Le'lorinel, the sorceress walking over to them. “A few were killed, it seems. That one, Pokker, thought it prudent to bring back Bathunk's body.” As she explained, she pointed to the ogre kneeling over the body.

“You sound as if he shouldn't have,” Jule Pepper remarked.

Bellany shrugged as if it didn't matter. “Look at the wretch,” she whispered, nodding her chin toward the wild Chogurugga. “She'll likely kill half the ogres in Golden Cove or get herself killed by Bloog.”

“Or by Sheila,” Jule observed, for it seemed obvious that Sheila Kree was fast losing patience with the ogress.

“There is always that possibility,” Bellany deadpanned.

“How did it happen?” asked Le'lorinel.

“It is not so uncommon a thing,” Bellany answered. “We lose a few ogres every year, particularly in the winter. The idiots simply can't allow good judgment to get in the way of their need to squash people. The soldiers of the Spine of the World communities are veterans all, and no easy mark, even for monsters as powerful and as well-outfitted as Chogurugga's ogres.”

While Bellany was answering, Le'lorinel subtly moved toward Bathunk's bloated corpse. Noting that it seemed as if Sheila had Chogurugga momentarily under control then, the elf dared move even closer, bending low to examine the body.

Le'lorinel found breathing suddenly difficult. The cuts on the body were, many, were beautifully placed and were, in many different areas, curving. Curving like the blades of a scimitar. Noting one bruise behind Bathunk's hip, the elf gently reached down and edged the corpse a bit to the side. The mark resembled the imprint of a delicately curving blade, much like the blades Le'lorinel had fashioned for Tunevec during his portrayal of a certain dark elf,

Le'lorinel looked up suddenly, trying to digest it all, recognizing clearly that no ordinary soldier had downed this mighty ogre.

The elf nearly laughed aloud then—a desire only enhanced when Le'lorinel noticed that Bloog was sniffling and wiping his eyes as if they were teary, which they most surely were not. But another roar from behind came as a clear reminder that a certain ogress might not enjoy anyone making light of this tragedy.

Le'lorinel rose quickly and walked back to Jule and Bellany, then kept right on moving out of the room, running back up the passageway to the safety of the upper level. There, the elf gasped and laughed heartily, at once thrilled and scared.

For Le'lorinel knew that Drizzt Do'Urden had done this thing, that the drow was in the area—not so far away if the ogre could carry Bathunk back in this wintry climate.

“My thanks, E'kressa,” the elf whispered.

Le'lorinel's hands went instinctively for sword and dagger, then came together in front, the fingers of the right hand turning the enchanted ring about its digit on the left. After all these years, it was about to happen. After all the careful planning, the studying of Drizzt's style and technique, the training, the consultations with some of the finest swordsmen of northern Faerыn to find ways to counter the drow's maneuvers. After all the costs, the years of labor to pay for the ring, the partners, the information.

Le'lorinel could hardly draw breath. Drizzt was near. It had to have been that dangerous dark elf who had felled Bathunk.

The elf stalked about the room then went out into the corridor, stalking past Bellany's room and Sheila's, to the end of the hall and the small chamber where Jule Pepper had set up for the winter.

The three women arrived a few moments later, shaking their heads and making off-color jokes about Chogurugga's antics, with Sheila Kree doing a fair imitation of the crazed ogress.

“Quite an exit,” Bellany remarked. “You missed the grandest show of all.”

“Poor Chogurugga,” said Jule with a grin.

“Poor Bloog, ye mean,” Sheila was quick to correct, and the three had a laugh.

“All right, ye best be telling me what ye're knowing about it,” Sheila said to Le'lorinel when the elf didn't join in the mirth, when the elf didn't crack the slightest of smiles, intensity burning behind those blue and gold orbs.

“I was here when Bathunk was killed, obviously,” Le'lorinel reminded.

Bellany was the first to laugh. “You know something,” the sorceress said. “As soon as you went to Bathunk's corpse. .”

“Ye think it was that damned drow who did it to Bathunk,” Sheila Kree reasoned.

Le'lorinel didn't answer, other than to keep a perfectly straight, perfectly grim countenance.

“Ye do!”

“The mountains are a big place, with many dangerous adversaries,” Jule Pepper put in. “There are thousands who could have done this to the foolish young ogre.”

Before Le'lorinel could counter, Bellany said, “Hmm,” and walked out in front of the other two, one delicate hand up against her pursed lips. “But you saw the wounds,” the sorceress reasoned.

“Curving wounds, like the cuts of a scimitar,” Le'lorinel confirmed

“A sword will cut a wound like that if the target's falling when he gets it,” Sheila put in. “The wounds don't tell ye as much as ye think.”

“They tell me all I need to know,” Le'lorinel replied.

“They were well placed,” Jule reasoned. “No novice swordsman cut down Bathunk.

“And I know Chogurugga gave him many of the potions you delivered to her,” she added to Bellany.

That made even Sheila lift her eyebrows in surprise. Bathunk was no ordinary ogre. He was huge, strong, and well trained, and some of those potions were formidable enhancements.

“It was Drizzt,” Le'lorinel stated with confidence. “He is nearby and likely on his way to us.”

“So said the diviner who delivered you here,” said Bellany, who knew the story well.

“E'kressa the gnome. He sent me to find the mark of Aegis-fang, for that mark would bring Drizzt Do'Urden.”

Jule and Bellany looked to each other, then turned to regard Sheila Kree, who was standing with her head down, deep in thought.

“Could've been the soldiers at the tower,” the pirate leader said at length, “Could've been reinforcements from one of the smaller villages. Could've been a wandering band of heroes, or even other monsters, trying to claim the prize the ogres had taken.”

“Could’ve been Drizzt Do'Urden,” interjected Jule, who had firsthand experience with the dangerous drow and his heroic friends.

Sheila looked at the tall, willowy woman and nodded, then turned her gaze over Le'lorinel. “Ye ready for him—if it is him and if he is coming this way?”

The elf stood straight and tall, head back, chest out proudly. “I have prepared for nothing else in many years.”

“If he can take down Bathunk, he'll be a tough fight, don't ye doubt,” the pirate leader added.

“We will all be there to aid in the cause,” Bellany pointed out, but Le'lorinel didn't seem thrilled at that prospect.

“I know him as well as he knows himself,” the elf explained. “If Drizzt Do'Urden comes to us, then he will die.”

“At the end of your blade,” Bellany said with a grin.

“Or at the end of his own,” the ever-cryptic Le'lorinel replied.

“Then we'll be hoping that it's Drizzit,” Sheila agreed. “But ye canno' be knowing. The towers in the mountains are well guarded. Many o' Chogurugga's kinfolk've been killed in going against them, or just in working the roads. Too many soldiers about and too many hero-minded adventurers. Ye canno' be knowing it's Drizzt or anyone else.”

Le'lorinel let it go at that. Let Sheila think whatever Sheila wanted to think.

Le'lorinel, though, heard again the words of E'kressa.

Le'lorinel knew that it was Drizzt, and Le'lorinel was ready. Nothing else—not Sheila, not Drizzt's friends, not the ogres— mattered.

Chapter 25 COMING TO TERMS

Wulfgar,” Regis said again, when no one reacted at all to his first remark.

The halfling looked around to the others, trying to read their expressions. Catti-brie's was easy enough to discern. The woman looked like she could be pushed over by a gentle breeze, looked frozen in shock at the realization that Wulfgar was again standing before her.

Drizzt appeared much more composed, and it seemed to Regis as if the perceptive drow was consciously studying Wulfgar's every move, that he was trying to get some honest gauge as to who this man standing before him truly was. The Wulfgar of their earlier days, or the one who had slapped Catti-brie?

As for Bruenor, Regis wasn't sure if the dwarf wanted to run up and hug the man or run up and throttle him. Bruenor was trembling—though out of surprise, rage, or simple amazement, the halfling couldn't tell.

And Wulfgar, too, seemed to be trying to read some hint of the truth of Bruenor's expression and posture. The barbarian, his stern gaze never leaving the crusty and sour look of Bruenor Battlehammer, gave a deferential nod the halfling's way.

“We have been looking for you,” Drizzt remarked. “All the way to Waterdeep and back.”

Wulfgar nodded, his expression holding steady, as if he feared to change it.

“It may be that Wulfgar has been looking for Wulfgar, as well,” Robillard interjected. The wizard arced an eyebrow when Drizzt turned to regard him directly.

“Well, we found you—or you found us,” said Regis.

“But ye think ye found yerself?” Bruenor asked, a healthy skepticism in his tone.

Wulfgar's lips tightened to thin lines, his jaw clenching tightly. He wanted to cry out that he had—he prayed that he had. He looked to them all in turn, wanting to explode into a wild rush that would gather them all up in his arms.

But there he found a wall, as fluid and shifting as the smoke of Errtu's Abyss, and yet through which his emotions seemed not to be able to pass.

“Once again, it seems that I am in your debt,” the barbarian managed to say, a perfectly stupid change of subject, he knew.

“Delly told us of your heroics,” Robillard was quick to add. “All of us are grateful, needless to say. Never before has anyone so boldly gone against the house of Deudermont. I assure you that the perpetrators have brought the scorn of the Lords of Waterdeep upon those they represented.”

The grand statement was diminished somewhat by the knowledge of all in the audience that the Lords of Waterdeep would not likely come to the north in search of those missing conspirators. The Lords of Waterdeep, like the lords of almost every large city, were better at making proclamations than at carrying through with action.

“Perhaps we can exact that vengeance for the Lords of Waterdeep, and for Captain Deudermont as well,” Drizzt offered with a sly expression turned Robillard's way. “We hunt for Sheila Kree, and it was she who perpetrated the attack on the captain's house.”

“I have delivered Wulfgar to you to join in that hunt.”

Again all eyes fell over the huge barbarian, and again, his lips thinned with the tension. Drizzt saw it clearly and understood that this was not the time to burst the dam that was holding back Wulfgar's, and thus all of their feelings. The drow turned to regard Catti-brie, and the fact that she didn't blink for several long moments told him much about her fragile state of mind.

“But what of Robillard?” the dark elf asked suddenly, thinking to deflect, or at least delay the forthcoming flood. “Will he not use his talents to aid us?”

That caught the wizard off guard, and his eyes widened. “He already did!” he protested, but the weakness of the argument was reflected in his tone.

Drizzt nodded, accepting that. “And he can do so much more, and with ease.”

“My place is with Captain Deudermont and Sea Sprite, who are already at sea hunting pirates, and were, in fact, in pursuit of one such vessel even as I flew off to collect Wulfgar,” Robillard explained, but the drow's smile only widened.

“Your magical talents allow you to search far and wide in a short time,” Drizzt explained. “We know the approximate location of our prey, but with the ups and downs of the snow-covered mountains, they could be just beyond the next rise without our ever knowing it.”

“My skills have been honed for shipboard battles, Master Do'Urden,” Robillard replied.

“All we ask of you is aid in locating the pirate clan, if they are, as we believe, holed up on the southwestern edge of the mountains. Certainly if they've put their ship into winter port, they're near the water. How much more area can you scout, and how much grander the vantage point, with enchantments of flying and the like?”

Robillard thought the words over for a few moments, brought a hand up, and rubbed the back of his neck. “The mountains are vast,” he countered.

“We believe we know the general direction,” Drizzt answered.

Robillard paused a bit longer, then nodded his head. “I will search out a very specific region, giving you just this one afternoon,” he said. “Then I must return to my duties aboard Sect Sprite. We've a pirate in chase that I'll not let flee.”

“Fair enough,” Drizzt said with a nod.

“I will take one of you with me,” the wizard said. He glanced around, his gaze fast settling on Regis, who was by far the lightest of the group. “You,” he said, pointing to the halfling. “You will ride with me on the search, learn what you may, then guide your friends back to the pirates.”

Regis agreed without the slightest hesitation, and Drizzt and Catti-brie looked at each other with continued surprise.

The preparations were swift indeed, with Robillard gathering up one of the empty packs and bidding Regis to follow him outside. He warned the halfling to don more layers of clothing to battle the cold winds and the great chill up high, then cast an enchantment upon himself.

“Do you know the region Drizzt spoke of?” he asked.

Regis nodded and the wizard cast a second spell, this one over the halfling, shrinking him down considerably in size. Robillard plucked the halfling up and set him in place in the open pack, and off the pair flew, into the bright daylight.

“Quarterling?” Bruenor asked with a chuckle.

“Lookin' more like an eighthling,” Catti-brie answered, and the two laughed.

The levity didn't seem to sink in to Wulfgar, nor to Drizzt who, now that the business with Robillard was out of the way, understood that it was time for them to deal with a much more profound issue, one they certainly could not ignore if they were to walk off together into danger with any hope of succeeding.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He saw the world as a bird might, soaring past below him as the wizard climbed higher and higher into the sky, finding wind currents that took them generally and swiftly in the desired direction, south and to the sea.

At first, Regis considered how vulnerable they were up there, black spots against a blue sky, but as they soared on the halfling lost himself in the experience. He watched the rolling landscape, coming over one ridge of a mountain, the ground beyond falling away so fast it took the halfling's breath away. He spotted a herd of deer below and took comfort in their tiny appearance, for if they were that small, barely distinguishable black spots, then how small he and Robillard must seem from the ground. How easy for them to be mistaken for a bird, Regis realized, especially given the wizard's trailing, flowing cape.

Of course, the sudden realization of how high they truly were soon incited other fears in Regis, and he grabbed on tightly to the wizard's shoulders.

“Lessen your pinching grasp!” Robillard shouted against the wind, and Regis complied, just a tiny bit.

Soon the pair were out over cold waters, and Robillard brought them down somewhat, beneath the line of the mountaintops. Below, white water thrashed over many looming rocks and waves thundered against the stony shore, a war that had been raging for millennia. Though they were lower in the sky, Regis couldn't help but tighten his grip again,

A thin line of smoke ahead alerted the pair to a campfire and Robillard immediately swooped back in toward shore, cutting up behind the closest peaks in an attempt to use them as a shield against the eyes of any potential sentries. To the halfling's surprise and relief, the wizard set down on a bare patch of stone.

“I must renew the spell of flying,” Robillard explained, “and enact a couple more.” The wizard fumbled in his pouch for various components, then began his spellcasting. A few seconds later, he disappeared.

Regis gave a little squeak of surprise and alarm.

“I am right here,” Robillard's voice explained.

The halfling heard him begin casting again—the same spell, Regis recognized—and a moment later Regis was invisible too.

“You will have to feel your way back into my pack as soon as I am done renewing the spell of flying,” the wizard's voice explained, and he began casting again.

Soon the pair were airborne once more, and though he knew logically that he was safer because he was invisible, Regis felt far less secure simply because he couldn't see the wizard supporting him in his flight. He clung with all his might as Robillard zoomed them around the mountains, finding lower passes that led in the general direction of the smoke they'd seen. Soon that smoke was back in sight yet again, only this time the pair were flying in from the northwest instead of the southwest.

As they approached, they came to see that it was indeed sentries. There was a pair of them, one a rough-looking human and the other a huge, muscled brute—a short ogre perhaps, or a creature of mixed human and ogre blood. The two huddled over a meager fire on a high ridge, rubbing their hands and hardly paying attention to their obvious duty overlooking a winding pass in a gorge just beyond their position.

“The prisoners we captured mentioned a gorge,” Regis said to the wizard, loudly enough for Robillard to hear.

In response, Robillard swooped to the north and followed the ridge up to the end of the long gorge. Then he swung around and flew the halfling down the descending, swerving line of the ravine. It had obviously once been a riverbed that wound down toward the sea between two long walls of steep stone, two, maybe three hundred feet tall. The base was no more than a hundred feet wide at its widest point, the expanse widening as the walls rose so that from cliff top to cliff top was several hundred feet across in many locations.

They passed the position of the two sentries and noted another pair across the way, but the wizard didn't slow long enough for Regis to get a good look at this second duo.

Down the wizard and his unenthusiastic passenger went, soaring along, the gorge walls rolling past at a pace that had the poor halfling's thoughts whirling. Robillard spotted yet another ogre-looking sentry, but the halfling, too dizzy from the ride, didn't even look up to acknowledge the wizard's sighting.

The gorge rolled along for more than a thousand feet, and as they rounded one last bend, the pair came in sight of the wind-whipped sea. To the right, the ground broke away into various piles of boulders and outcroppings—a jagged, blasted terrain. To the left, at the base of the gorge, loomed a large mound perhaps four or five hundred feet high. There were openings along its rocky side, including a fairly large cave at ground level.

Robillard went past this, out to the sea, then turned a swift left to encircle the south side of the mound. Many great rocks dotted the seascape, a veritable maze of stone and danger for any ships that might dare it. Other mounds jutted out even more than this one all about the coast, further obscuring it from any seafaring eyes.

And there, in the south facing at sea level, loomed a cave large enough for a masted ship to enter.

Robillard went past it, rising as he continued to circle. Both he and Regis noted a pathway then, beginning to the side of the ocean level cavern and rising as it encircled the mountain to the east.

Climbing up past the eastern face, the pair saw one door, and could easily imagine others along that often-shielded trail.

Robillard went up over the eastern face, continuing back to the north and cutting back down into the gorge. To the halfling's surprise and trepidation, the wizard put down at the base of the mound, right beside the cave opening, which was large enough for a pair of wagons to drive through side by side.

The wizard held onto the invisible halfling, pulling him along into the cave. They heard the gruff banter of three ogres as soon as they went in.

“There might be a better way into the complex for yourself and the drow,” the wizard suggested in a whisper.

The halfling nearly jumped in the air at the sound of the voice right beside him. Regis composed himself quickly enough not to squeal out and alert the guards.

“Stay here,” Robillard whispered, and he was gone.

And Regis was all alone, and though he was invisible he felt very small and very vulnerable indeed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“You nearly killed me with the first throw of the warhammer!” Drizzt reminded, and he and Catti-brie both smiled when the drow's words brought a chuckle to Wulfgar's grim visage.

They were discussing old times, fond recollections initiated by Drizzt in an effort to break the ice and to draw Wulfgar out of his understandable shell. There was nothing comfortable about this reunion, as was evidenced by Bruenor's unrelenting scowl and Wulfgar's obvious tension.

They were recounting the tales of Drizzt and Wulfgar's first battle together, in the lair of a giant named Biggrin. The two had been training together, and they understood their relative styles, and at many junctures those styles had meshed into brilliance. But indeed, as Drizzt clearly admitted, at some points more luck than teamwork or skill had been involved.

Despite Bruenor's quiet and continuing scowl, the drow went on with tales of the old days in Icewind Dale, of the many adventures, of the forging of Aegis-fang (at which both Bruenor and Wulfgar winced noticeably), of the journey to Calimport to rescue Regis and the trip back to the north and east to find and reclaim Mithral Hall. Even Drizzt was surprised at the sheer volume of the tales, of the depth of the friendship that had been. He started to talk of the coming of the dark elves to Mithral Hall, the tragic encounter that had taken Wulfgar away from them, but he stopped, reconsidering his words.

“How could such bonds have been so fleeting?” the drow asked bluntly. “How could even the intervention of a demon have sundered that which we all spent so many years constructing?”

“It was not the demon Errtu,” Wulfgar said, even as Catti-brie started to respond.

The other three stared at the huge man, for these were his first words since Drizzt had begun the tales.

“It was the demon Errtu implanted within me,” Wulfgar explained. He paused and moved to the side, facing Catti-brie directly instead of Drizzt. He gently took the woman's hands in his own. “Or the demons that were there before. .”

His voice broke apart, and he looked up, moisture gathering in his crystal-blue eyes. Stoically, Wulfgar blinked it away and looked back determinedly at the woman.

“I can only say that I am sorry,” he said, his normally resonant voice barely a whisper.

Even as he spoke the words, Catti-brie reached up and wrapped him in a great hug, burying her face in his huge shoulder. Wulfgar returned that hug a thousand times over, bending his face into the woman's thick auburn hair.

Catti-brie turned her face to the side, to regard Drizzt, and the drow was smiling and nodding, as pleased as she that this first in what would likely be a long line of barriers to the normal resumption of their friendship had been so thrown down.

Catti-brie stepped back a moment later, wiping her own eyes and regarding Wulfgar with a warm smile. “Ye've a fine wife there in Delly,” she said. “And a beautiful child, though she's not yer own.”

Wulfgar nodded to both, seeming very pleased at that moment, seeming as if he had just taken a huge step in the right direction.

His grunt was as much in surprise as in pain, then, when he got slammed suddenly in the side. A heavy punch staggered him to the side. The barbarian turned to see a fuming Bruenor standing there, hands on hips.

“Ye ever hit me girl again and I'll be making a fine necklace outta yer teeth, boy! Ye want to be callin' yerself me son, and ye don't go hitting yer sister!”

The way he put it was perfectly ridiculous, of course, but as Bruenor stomped past them and out of the cave the three left behind heard a little sniffle and understood that the dwarf had reacted in the only way his proud sensibilities would allow, that he was as pleased by the reunion as the rest of them.

Catti-brie walked over to Drizzt, then, and casually but tellingly draped her arm across his back. Wulfgar at first seemed surprised, at least as much so as when Bruenor had slugged him. Gradually, though, that look of surprise melted into an expression completely accepting and approving, the barbarian offering a wistful smile.

“The road before us becomes muddled,” Drizzt said. “If we are together, and contented, need we go to find Aegis-fang now, against these obstacles?”

Wulfgar looked at him as if he didn't believe what he was hearing. The barbarian's expression changed, though, and quickly, as he seemed to almost come to agree with the reasoning.

“Ye're bats,” Catti-brie answered Drizzt, in no uncertain terms.

The drow turned a surprised and incredulous look over her, given her vehemence.

“Don't ye be taking me own word,” the woman said, “Ask him.” As she finished, she pointed back behind the drow, who turned to see Bruenor stomping back in.

“What?” the dwarf asked.

“Drizzt was thinking that we might be better off leaving the hammer for now,” Catti-brie remarked.

Bruenor's eyes widened and for a moment it seemed as if he would launch himself at the drow. “How can ye … ye durn fool elf.. why. . w-what?” he stammered.

Drizzt patted his hand in the air and offered a slight grin, while subtly motioning for the dwarf to take a look at Wulfgar. Bruenor continued to sputter for a few more moments before catching on, but then he steadied himself, hands on hips, and turned on the barbarian.

“Well?” the dwarf bellowed. “What're ye thinking, boy?”

Wulfgar took a deep breath as the gazes of his four friends settled over him. They placed him squarely in the middle of it all, which was where he belonged, he understood, for it was his action that had cost him the hammer, and since it was his hammer his word should be the final say on the course before them.

But what a weight that decision carried.

Wulfgar's thoughts swirled through all the possibilities, many of them grim indeed. What if he led the companions to Sheila Kree only to have the pirate band wipe them out? Or even worse, he figured, suppose one or more of his friends died, but he survived? How could he possibly live with himself if that. .

Wulfgar laughed aloud and shook his head, seeing the trap for what it was.

“I lost Aegis-fang through my own fault,” he admitted, which of course everyone already knew. “And now I understand the error—my error. And so I will go after the warhammer as soon as I may, through sleet and snow, against dragons and pirates alike if need be. But I can not make you, any of you, join with me. I would not blame any who turned back now for Ten-Towns, or for one of the smaller towns nestled in the mountains. I will go. That is my duty and my responsibility.”

“Ye think we'd let ye do it alone?” Catti-brie remarked, but Wulfgar cut her short.

“And I welcome any aid that you four might offer, though I feel that I am hardly deserving of it.”

“Stupid words,” Bruenor huffed. “ 'Course we're going, ye big dope. Ye got yer face into the soup, and so we're pullin' it out.”

“The dangers—” Wulfgar started to respond.

“Ogries and stupid pirates,” said Bruenor. “Ain't nothing tough there. We'll kill a few and send a few more running, get yer hammer back, and be home afore the spring. And if there's a dragon there. .” Bruenor paused and smiled wickedly. “Well, we'll let ye kill it yerself!”

The levity was perfectly timed, and all of the companions seemed to be just that again, four friends on a singular mission.

“And if ye ever lose Aegis-fang again,” Bruenor roared on, pointing a stubby finger Wulfgar's way, “I'll be buryin' ye afore I go get it back!”

Bruenor's tirade seemed as if it would ramble on, but a voice from outside silenced him and turned all heads that way.

Robillard and Regis entered the small cave.

“We found them,” Regis said before the wizard could begin. The halfling stuffed his stubby thumbs under the edges of his heavy woolen vest, assuming a proud posture. “We went right in, past the ogre guards and—”

“We don't know if it is Sheila Kree,” Robillard interrupted, “but it seems as if we've found the source of the ogre raiding party—a large complex of tunnels and caverns down by the sea.”

“With a cave on the water large enough for a ship to sail into,” Regis was quick to add.

“You believe it to be Kree?” Drizzt asked, staring at the wizard as he spoke.

“I would guess,” Robillard answered with only the slightest hesitation. “Sea Sprite has pursued what we think was Kree's ship into these waters on more than one occasion, then simply lost her. We always suspected that she had a hidden port, perhaps a cave. The complex at the end of that gorge to the south would support that.”

“Then that is where we must go,” Drizzt remarked.

“I can not carry you all,” Robillard explained. “Certainly that one is too large to hang on my back as I fly.” He pointed to Wulfgar.

“You know the way?” the drow asked Regis.

The halfling stood very straight, seeming as if he was about to salute the drow. “I can find it,” he assured Drizzt and Robillard.

The wizard nodded. “A day's march, and no more,” he said. “And thus, your way is clear to you. If.. ” He paused and looked at each of them in turn, his gaze at last settling on Wulfgar. “If you don't choose to pursue this now, Sea Sprite would welcome you all in the spring, when we might find a better opportunity to retrieve the lost item from Sheila Kree.”

“We go now,” Wulfgar said.

“Won't be no Kree to chase, come spring,” Bruenor snickered, and to accentuate his point, he pulled forth his battle-axe and slapped it across his open palm.

Robillard laughed and nodded his agreement.

“Good Robillard,” Drizzt said, moving to stand before the wizard, “If you and Sea Sprite see Bloody Keel on the high seas, hail her before you sink her. It might well be us, bringing the pirateer into port.”

Robillard laughed again, all the louder. “I do not doubt you,” he said to Drizzt, patting the drow on the shoulder. “Pray, if we do meet on the open water, that you and your friends do not sink us!”

The good-natured humor was much appreciated, but it didn't last. Robillard walked past the dark elf to stand before Wulfgar.

“I have never come to like you,” he said bluntly.

Wulfgar snorted—or started to, but he caught himself and let the wizard continue. Wulfgar expected a berating that perhaps he deserved, given his actions. The barbarian squared himself and set his shoulders back, but made no move to interrupt.

“But perhaps I have never really come to know you,” Robillard admitted. “Perhaps the man you truly are is yet to be found. If so, and you do find the true Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, then do come back to sail with us. Even a crusty old wizard, who has seen too much sun and smelled too much brine, might change his mind.”

Robillard turned to wave to the others, but looked back, turning a sly glance over Wulfgar. “If that matters to you at all, of course,” he said, and he seemed to be joking.

“It does,” Wulfgar said in all seriousness, a tone that stiffened the wizard and the friends with surprise.

An expression that showed startlement, and a pleasant one, widened on Robillard's face. “Farewell to you all, then,” the wizard said with a great bow. He ended by launching directly and smoothly into a spell of teleportation, the air around him bubbling like multicolored boiling water, obscuring his form.

And he was gone, and it was just the five of them.

As it had once been.

Chapter 26 LEADING WITH THEIR FACES

The sky had grayed again, threatening yet another wintry blast, but the friends, undaunted, started out from their latest resting spot full of hope and spirit, ready to do battle against whatever obstacles they might find. They were together again, and for the first time since Wulfgar's unexpected return from the Abyss it seemed comfortable to them all. It seemed. . right.

When Wulfgar had first returned to them—in an icy cave on the Sea of Moving Ice in the midst of their raging battle against the demon Errtu—there had been elation, of course, but it had been an uncomfortable thing on many levels. It was a shock and a trial to readjust to this sudden new reality. Wulfgar had returned from the grave, and all the grief the other four friends had thought settled had suddenly been unearthed, resolution thrown aside.

Elation had led to many uncomfortable but much-needed adjustments as the friends had tried to get to know each other again. That led to disaster, to Wulfgar's moodiness, to Wulfgar's outrage, and to the subsequent disbanding of the Companions of the Hall. But now they were together again.

They fell into a comfortable rhythm in their determined march, with Bruenor leading the main group, plowing the trail with his sturdy body, Regis came next, noting the mountain peaks and guiding the dwarf. Then came Wulfgar, the heavy bardiche on his shoulder, using his height to scan the trail ahead and to the sides.

Catti-brie, a short distance back, brought up the rear of the four, bow in hand, on the alert and keeping track of the drow who was constantly flanking them, first on one side and then the other. Drizzt had not brought up Guenhwyvar from the Astral Plane—in fact, he had handed the figurine controlling the panther over to Catti-brie—because the longer they could wait, the more rested the great cat would be. And the drow had a feeling he would be needing Guenhwyvar before this was ended.

Soon after noon, with the band making great progress and the snow still holding back, Catti-brie noted a hand signal from Drizzt, who was ahead and to the left.

“Hold,” she whispered to Wulfgar, who relayed the command to the front.

Bruenor pulled up, breathing hard from his trudging. He lifted the axe off his back and dropped the head to the snow, leaning on the upright handle.

“Drizzt approaches,” said Wulfgar, who could easily see over the snowy berm and the drifts on the path ahead.

“Another trail,” the drow explained when he appeared above the berm. “Crossing this one and leading to the west.”

“We should go straight south from here,” Regis reminded.

Drizzt shook his head. “Not a natural trail,” he explained.

“Tracks?” asked Bruenor, seeming quite eager. “More ogries?”

“Different,” said Drizzt, and he motioned for them all to follow him.

Barely a hundred yards ahead, they came upon the second' trail. It was a pressed area of snow cutting across their current path, moving along the sloping ground to the east. There, continuing across an expanse of deep, blown snow, the friends saw a lower area full of slush and with a bit of steam still rising from it.

“What in the Nine Hells done that?” asked Bruenor.

“Polar worm,” Drizzt explained.

Bruenor spat, Regis shivered, and Catti-brie stood a bit straighter, suddenly on her guard. They all had some experience with the dreaded remorhaz, the great polar worms. Enough experience, certainly, to know that they each had little desire to battle one again.

“No foe I wish to leave behind us,” the drow explained.

“So ye're thinking we should go and fight the damned thing?” Bruenor asked doubtfully.

Drizzt shook his head. “We should figure out where it is, at least. Whether or not we should kill the creature will depend on many things.”

“Like how stupid we really are,” Regis muttered under his breath. Only Catti-brie, who was standing near to him, heard. She looked at him with a smile and a wink, and the halfling only shrugged.

Hardly waiting for confirmation, Drizzt rushed up to take the point. He was far ahead, creeping along the easier path carved out by the strange and powerful polar worm, a beast that could superheat its spine to vaporize snow and, the drow reminded himself, vaporize flesh. They found the great beast only a few hundred yards off the main path, down in a shallow dell, devouring the last of a mountain goat it had caught in the deep snow. The mighty creature's back glowed from the excitement of the kill and feast.

“The beast will not bother with us,” Wulfgar remarked. “They feed only rarely and once sated, they seek no further prey.”

“True enough,” Drizzt agreed, and he led them back to the main trail.

A few light flakes were drifting through the air by that point, but Regis bade them not to worry, for in the distance he noted a peculiar mountain peak that signaled the northern tip of Minster Gorge.

The snow was still light, no more than a flurry, when the five reached the trail on the side of the peak, with Minster Gorge winding away to the south before them. Regis took command, explaining the general layout of the winding run, pointing out the expected locations of sentries, left and right, and leading their gazes far, far to the south where the white-capped top of one larger mound could just be seen. Carefully, the halfling again diagrammed the place for the others, explaining the outer, ascending path running past the sea facing and around to the east on that distant mound. That path, he explained, led to at least one door set into the mound's side.

Regis looked to Drizzt, nodded, and said, “And there is another, more secret way inside.”

“Ye thinking we'd be better splitting apart?” Bruenor asked the halfling doubtfully. He turned to aim his question at Drizzt as well, for it was obvious that Regis's reminder had the drow deep in thought.

Drizzt hesitated. Normally, the Companions of the Hall fought together, side by side, and usually to devastating effect. But this was no normal attack for them. This time, they were going against an entrenched fortress, a place no doubt secure and well defended. If he could take the inner corridors to some behind-the-lines vantage point, he might be able to help out quite a bit.

“Let us discern our course one step at a time,” the drow finally said. “First we must deal with the sentries, if there are any.”

“There were a few when I flew by with Robillard,” said Regis. “A pair, at least, on either side of the gorge. They didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave.”

“Then we must take alternate paths to avoid them,” Wulfgar put in. “For if we strike at a band on one side, the band opposite will surely alert all the region before we ever get near to them.”

“Unless Catti-brie can use her bow. .” Regis started to say, but the woman was shaking her head, looking doubtfully at the expanse between the high gorge walls.

“We can not leave these potential enemies behind us,” the drow decided. “I will go to the right, while the rest of you go to the left.”

“Bah, there's a fool's notion,” snorted Bruenor. “Ye might be killin' a pair o' half-ogries, elf—might even take out a pair o' full-ogries—but ye'd not do it in time to stop them from yelling for their friends.”

“Then we have to disguise the truth of the attack across the way,” Catti-brie said.

When the others turned to her, they found her wearing a most determined expression. The woman looked back to the north and west.

“Worm's not hungry,” she explained. “But that don't mean we can't get the damn thing angry.”

* * * * * * * * * *

“Ettin?” one of the half-ogre guards on the eastern rim of the gorge asked.

Scratching its lice-ridden head, the half-ogre stared in amazement as the seven-foot-tall creature approached. It sported two heads, so it seemed to be of the ettin family, but one of those heads looked more akin to a human with blond hair, and the other had the craggy, wrinkled features and thick red hair and beard of a dwarf.

“Huh?” asked the second sentry, moving to join its companion.

“Ain't no ettins about,” the third called from the warm area beside the fire.

“Well there's one coming,” argued the first.

And indeed, the two-headed creature was coming on fast, though it presented no weapon and was not advancing in any threatening manner. The half-ogres lifted their respective weapons anyway and called for the curious creature to halt.

It did so, just a few strides away, staring at the sentries with a pair of positively smug smiles.

“What you about?” asked one half-ogre.

“About to get outta the way!” the red-haired head exclaimed.

The half-ogres' chins dropped considerably a moment later when the huge human—for it was indeed a human! — threw aside the blanket and the red-haired dwarf leaped off his shoulder, rolling to the left. The human, too, took off, sprinting to the right. Coming fast behind the splitting pair, bearing down on their original position, and thus bearing down on the stunned half-ogres, came a rolling line of steam.

The brutes screamed. The polar worm broke through the snow cap and reared, towering over them.

“That ain't no ettin, ye fools!” screeched the half-ogre by the fire. With typical loyalty for its wild nature, it leaped up and ran off to the south along the ravine edge and toward the cavern complex.

Or tried to, for three strides away, a blue-streaking arrow like a bolt of lightning slammed it in the hip, staggering it. The slowed beast, limping and squealing, didn't even see the next attack. The red-haired dwarf crashed in, body-slamming it, then chopping away with his nasty, many-notched axe. For good measure, the dwarf spun around and smashed his shield so hard into the slumping brute's face that he left an impression of a foaming mug on the half-ogre's cheek.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Regis heard the commotion behind him and took comfort in it as he worked his way along the side of the ravine across the way, working for handholds just below the rim, out of sight of the guards on that side. He and Drizzt had left the other three, picking their way to the western wall. Then Regis and the drow had split up, with the drow taking an inland route around the back of the sentry position. Regis, a plan in mind, had gone along the wall.

The halfling was well aware from the smirk Drizzt had given him when they'd split up, that Drizzt didn't expect much from him in the fight, that the drow believed he was just finding a place to hide. But Regis had a very definite plan in mind, and he was almost to the spot to execute it: a wide overhang of ice and snow.

He worked his way under it, staying against the stone wall, and began chipping away at the overhang's integrity with his small mace.

He glanced back across the gorge to see the polar worm rear again, a half-ogre thrashing about in its mouth. Regis winced in sympathy for the brute as the polar worm rolled its head back and let go of the half-ogre, rolling it over the horned head and down onto the glowing, superheated spine of the great creature. How the agonized half-ogre thrashed!

Further along, Regis spotted Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie sprinting down to the south, getting as far away from the polar worm and the three wounded — and soon to be dead — half-ogres as possible.

The halfling paused, hearing commotion above. The guards on his side recognized the disaster across the way.

“Help!” Regis called out a moment later, and all above him went quiet.

“Help!” he called again.

He heard movement, heard the ice pack crunch a bit, and knew that one of the stupid brutes was moving out onto the overhang.

“Hey, yer little rat!” came the roar a moment later, as the half-ogre's head poked down. The creature was obviously lying flat atop the overhang, staring at Regis incredulously and reaching for him.

“Break. . break,” Regis demanded, smacking his mace up at the ice pack with all the strength he could muster. He had to stop the pounding and dodge aside when the brute's hand snapped at him, nearly getting him.

The half-ogre crept even lower. The ice pack creaked and groaned in protest.

“Gotcha!”

The brute's declaration became a wail of surprise and terror as the ice pack broke free, taking the half-ogre with it down the side of the ravine.

“Do you now?” Regis asked the fast-departing beast.

“Yup,” came an unexpected response from above, and Regis slowly looked up to see the second sentry glaring down at him, spear in hand, and with Regis well within stabbing distance. The halfling thought of letting go, then, of taking his chances on a bouncing ride down the side of the ravine, but the half-ogre stiffened suddenly and hopped forward, then tried to turn but got slashed across the face. Over it went, plummeting past the halfling, and Drizzt was in its stead, lying flat and reaching down for Regis.

The halfling grabbed the offered hand, and Drizzt pulled him up.

“Five down,” said Regis, his excitement bubbling over from the victory his information had apparently delivered. “See? I had the count right. Four, maybe five—and right where I told you they would be!”

“Six,” Drizzt corrected, leading the halfling's gaze back a ways to another brute lying dead in a widening pool of bright red blood. “You missed one.”

Regis stared at it for a moment, mouth hanging open, and, deflated, he only shrugged.

Surveying the scene, the pair quickly surmised that none of these two groups would give them any further trouble. Across the way, the three were dead, the white worm tearing at their bodies, and the two that had gone over the edge had bounced, tumbled, and fallen a long, long way. One of them was lying very still at the bottom of the gorge. The other, undoubtedly nearby its broken companion, was buried under a deep pile of snow and ice.

“Our friends went running down the edge of the ravine,” Regis explained, “but I don't know where they went.”

“They had to move away from the gorge,” Drizzt reasoned, seeming hardly concerned. They had discussed this very possibility before bringing the white worm from its feast. The drow pointed down along the gorge to where a sizeable number of huge ogres and half-ogres were running up the ravine. The companions had hoped to dispatch these sentries without alerting the main base, but they had understood from the beginning that such might be the case—that's why they had used the white worm.

“Come,” Drizzt bade the halfling. “We will catch up with our friends, or they with us, in due time.” He started away to the south, staying as near to the edge of the gorge as he safely could.

They heard the ogre posse pass beneath them soon after, and Drizzt veered back to the edge, then moved down a bit farther and went right over, picking his way down a less steep part of the ravine.

Regis huffed and puffed and worked hard but somehow managed to keep up. Soon, the halfling and the drow were standing on the floor of the gorge, the posse far away to the north, the mound that housed the main complex just to the south and with the cave opening quite apparent.

“Are you ready?” Drizzt asked Regis.

The halfling swallowed hard, not so thrilled about moving off with the dangerous Drizzt alone. He far preferred having Bruenor and Wulfgar standing strong before him and having Catti-brie covering him with that deadly bow of hers, but it was obvious that Drizzt wasn't about to let this opportunity to get right inside the enemies' lair go by.

“Lead on,” Regis heard himself saying, though he could hardly believe the words as they came out of his mouth.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The four leaders of Sheila Kree's band all came out of their rooms together, hearing the shouts from below and from outside the mound complex.

“Chogurugga dispatched a group to investigate,” Bellany informed the others. The sorceress's room faced north, the direction of the tumult, and included a door to the outside landing.

“Ye go and do the same,” Sheila Kree told her. “Get yer scrying pool up and see what's coming against us.”

“I heard yells about a white worm,” the sorceress replied.

Sheila Kree shook her head, her fiery red hair flying wildly. “Too convenient,” she muttered as she ran out of the room and down the curving, sloping passage leading to Chogurugga and Bloog's chamber, with Jule Pepper right behind her.

Le'lorinel made no move, though, just stood in the corridor, nodding knowingly.

“Is it the drow?” Bellany asked.

The elf smiled and retreated back into the private room, shutting the door.

Standing alone in the common area, Bellany just shook her head and took a deep breath and considered the possibilities if it turned out to be Drizzt Do'Urden and the Companions of the Hall who were now coming against them. The sorceress hoped it was indeed a white worm that had caused the commotion, whatever the cost of driving the monster away.

She went back into her chamber and set up for some divining spells, thinking to look out over the troubled area to the north and to look in on Morik, just to check on where his loyalties might truly lie.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A few moments later, Le'lorinel slipped back out and headed down the same way Sheila and Jule had gone.

Chogurugga's chamber was in complete chaos, with the ogress's two large attendants rushing around, strapping on armor pieces and hoisting heavy weapons. Chogurugga stood quietly on the side of the room in front of an opened wardrobe, its shelves filled with potion bottles. Chogurugga mulled them over one at a time, pocketing some and separating the others into two bunches.

At the back of the room, Bloog remained in the hammock, the ogre's huge legs hanging over, one on either side. If Bloog was the slightest bit worried by the commotion, the lazy brute didn't show it.

Le'lorinel went to him. “He will find you,” the elf warned. “It was foreseen that the drow would come for the warhammer.”

“Drow?” the big ogre asked. “No damn drow. White worm.”

“Perhaps,” Le'lorinel replied with a shrug and a look that told Bloog implicitly that the elf hardly believed all the commotion was being caused by such a creature as that.

“Drow?” the ogre asked, and Bloog suddenly seemed a bit less cock-sure.

“He will find you.”

“Bloog crunch him down!” the ogre shouted, rising, or at least trying to, though the movement nearly spilled him out of the unsteady hammock. “No take Bloog's new hammer! Crunch him down!”

“Crunch who?” Chogurugga called from across the way, and the ogress scowled, seeing Le'lorinel close to Bloog.

“Not as easy as that, mighty Bloog,” the elf explained, pointedly taking no note of ugly Chogurugga. “Come, my friend. I will show you how to best defeat the dark elf.”

Bloog looked from Le'lorinel to his scowling mate, then back to the delicate elf. With an expression that told Le'lorinel he was as interested in angering Chogurugga as he was in learning what he might about the drow, the giant ogre pulled himself out of the hammock and hoisted Aegis-fang to his shoulder. The mighty weapon was dwarfed by the creature's sheer bulk and muscle that it looked more like a carpenter's hammer.

With a final glance to Chogurugga, just to make sure the volatile ogress wasn't preparing a charge, Le'lorinel led Bloog out of the room and back up the ramp, going to the northern end of the next level and knocking hard on Bellany's door.

“What is he doing up here?” the sorceress asked when she answered the knock a few minutes later. “Sheila would not approve.”

“What have you learned?” Le'lorinel asked.

A cloud passed over Bellany's face. “More than a white worm,” she confirmed. “I have seen a dwarf and a large man moving close to our position, running hard.”

“Bruenor Battlehammer and Wulfgar, likely,” Le'lorinel replied. “What of the drow?”

Bellany shrugged and shook her head.

“If they have come, then so has Drizzt Do'Urden,” Le'lorinel insisted. “The fight out there is likely a diversion. Look closer!”

Bellany scowled at the elf, but Le'lorinel didn't back down.

“Drizzt Do'Urden might already be in the complex,” the elf added.

That took the anger off of Bellany's face, and she moved back into her room and shut the door. A moment later, Le'lorinel heard her casting a spell and watched with a smile as the wood on Bellany's door seemed to swell a bit, fitting the portal tightly into the jamb.

Fighting hard not to laugh out loud, as much on the edge of nerves as ever before, Le'lorinel motioned for Bloog to follow and moved to a different door.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Regis put his cherubic face up against the stone and didn't dare to breathe. He heard the rumble of the next pair of brutes, along with the snarl of a more human voice, as they came past his and Drizzt's position, heading up the gorge to check on their companions.

The halfling took some comfort in the fact that Drizzt was hiding right beside him—until he managed to turn his face that way to find that the drow was gone.

Panic welled in Regis. He could heard the cursing trio of enemies right behind him.

“Too bloody cold to be chasin' shadows!” the human snarled.

“Big wormie,” said one of the ogres.

“And that makes it better?” the human asked sarcastically. “Leave the ugly thing alone, and it'll slither away!”

“Big worm killeded Bonko!” the other ogre said indignantly.

The human started to respond—likely to dismiss the importance of a dead ogre, Regis realized, but apparently he thought the better of it and just cursed under his breath.

They went right past the halfling's position, and if they'd come any closer, they surely would have brushed right against Regis's rear end.

The halfling didn't breathe easier until their voices had faded considerably, and still he stood there in the shadows, hugging the wall.

“Regis,” came a whisper, and he looked up to see Drizzt on a ledge above him. “Come along and be quick. It's clear into the cave.”

Mustering all the courage he could find, the halfling scrambled up, taking the drow's offered hand. The pair skittered along the thin ridge, behind a wall of blocking boulders to the corner of the large cave.

Drizzt peeked around, then skittered in, pulling Regis along behind him.

The cave narrowed into a tunnel soon after, running level and branching in two or three places. The air was smoky, with torches lining the walls at irregular intervals, their dancing flames illuminating the place with wildly elongating and shrinking shadows.

“This way,” Regis said, slipping past the drow at one fork, and moving down to the left. He tried to recall everything Robillard had told him about the place, for the wizard had done a thorough scan of the area and had even found his way up into the complex a bit.

The ground sloped down in some places, up in others, though the pair were generally descending. They came through darker rooms where there was no torchlight, and other chambers filled with stalagmites breaking up the trail, and with stalactites leering down at them threateningly from above. Many shelves lined the walls, rolling back to marvelous rock formations or with sheets of water-smoothed rock that seemed to be flowing. Many smaller tunnels ran off at every conceivable angle.

Soon Regis slowed, the sound of guttural voices becoming audible ahead of them. The halfling turned on Drizzt, an alarmed expression on his face. He pointed ahead emphatically, to where the corridor circled left and back to the right, ascending gradually.

Drizzt caught the signal and motioned for Regis to wait a moment, then slipped ahead into the shadows, moving with such grace, speed, and silence that Regis blinked many times, wondering if his friend had just simply disappeared. As soon as his amazement diminished, though, the halfling remembered where he was and took note of the fact that he was now alone. He quickly skittered into the shadows off to the side.

The drow returned a short while later, to Regis's profound relief, and with a smile that showed he had found the desired area. Drizzt led him around a bend and up a short incline, then up a few steps that were part natural, part carved, into a chamber that widened off to the left along a broken, rocky plateau about chest high to the drow.

The voices were much closer now, just up ahead and around the next bend. Drizzt leaped up to the left, then reached back and pulled Regis up beside him.

“Lots of loose stone,” the drow quietly explained. “Take great care.”

They inched across the wider area, staying as tight to the wall as possible until they came to one area cleared of stony debris. Drizzt bent down against the wall there and stuck his hand into a small alcove, pulling it back out and rubbing his fingers together.

Regis nodded knowingly. Ash. This was a natural chimney, the one Robillard had described to him on the flight back to the friends, the one he had subsequently described to Drizzt.

The drow went in first, bending his body perfectly to slide up the narrow hole. Before he could even consider the course before him, before he could even pause to muster his courage, Regis heard the sound of many voices moving along the corridor back behind him.

In he went, into the absolute darkness, sliding his hands and finding holds, blindly propelling himself up behind the drow.

For Drizzt, it was suddenly as if he were back in the Underdark, back in the realm of the hunter, were all his senses had to be on the very edge of perfection if he was to have any chance of survival. He heard so many sounds then: the distant dripping of water; a grating of stone on stone; shouts from below and in the distance, leaking through cracks in the stone. He could feel that noise in his sensitive fingertips as he continued his climb, slowing only because he understood that Regis couldn't possibly keep up. Drizzt, a creature of the Underdark where natural chutes were common, where even a halfling's fine night vision would be perfectly useless, could move up this narrow chute as quickly as Regis could trot through a starlit meadow.

The drow marveled in the texture of the stone, feeling the life of this mound, once teeming with rushing water. The smoothness of the edges made the ascent more comfortable, and the walls were uneven enough so that the smoothness didn't much adversely affect climbing.

He moved along, silently, alertly.

“Drizzt,” he heard whispered below, and he understood that Regis had come to an impasse.

The drow backed down, finally lowering his leg so that Regis could grab on.

“I should have stayed with the others,” the halfling whispered when he at last got over the troublesome rise.

“Nonsense,” the drow answered. “Feel the life of the mountain about you. We will find a way to be useful to our friends here, perhaps pivotal.”

“We do not even know if the fight will come in here.”

“Even if it does not, our enemies will not expect us in here, behind them. Come along.”

And so they went, higher and higher inside the mountain. Soon they heard the booming voices of huge humanoids, growing louder and louder as they ascended.

A short, slightly descending tunnel branched off the chute, with some heat rising, and the booming voices coming in loud and clear with it.

Drizzt waited for Regis to get up level with him in this wider area, then he moved along the side passage, coming to an opening above the low-burning embers of a wide hearth.

The opening of that hearth was somewhat higher than the bottom of the angling tunnel, so Drizzt could see into the huge room beyond, where three ogres, one an exotic, violet-skinned female, were rushing around, strapping on belts and testing weapons.

To the side of the room, Drizzt clearly marked another well-worn passage, sloping upward. The drow backed up to where Regis was waiting.

“Up,” he whispered.

He paused and pulled off his waterskin, wetted the top of his shirt and pulled it over the bottom half of his face to ward off the smoke. Helping Regis do likewise, Drizzt started away.

Barely thirty feet higher, the pair came to a hub of sorts. The main chute continued upward, but five side chambers broke off at various heights and angles, with heat and some smoke coming back at the pair. Also, these side tunnels were obviously hand cut, and fashioned by smaller hands than those of an ogre.

Drizzt motioned for Regis to slowly follow, then crept along the tunnel he figured was heading most directly to the north.

The fire in this hearth was burning brighter, though fortunately the wood was not very wet and not much smoke was coming up. Also, the angle of the chimney to the hearth was steeper, and so Drizzt could not see into the room beyond.

The drow spent a moment tying his long hair back and wetting it, then he knelt, took a deep breath, and went over head first, creeping like a spider down the side of the chute until he could poke his face out under the top lip of the hearth, the flames burning not far below him and with sparks rising up and stinging him.

This room appeared very different from the chamber of the ogres below. It was full of fine furniture and carpets, and with a lavish bed. A door stood across the way, partly opened and leading into another room. Drizzt couldn't make out much in there, but he did discern a few tables, covered with equipment like one might see in an alchemical workshop. Also, across that second room loomed another door, heavier in appearance, and with daylight creeping in around it.

Now he was intrigued, but out of time, for he had to retreat from the intense heat.

He got back to Regis at the hub and described what he had seen.

“We should go outside and try to spot the others,” the halfling suggested, and Drizzt was nodding his agreement when they heard a loud voice echo along one of the other side passages.

“Bloog crunch! No take Bloog's new hammer!”

Off went the drow, Regis following right behind. They came to another steep chute at another hearth, this one hardly burning. Drizzt inverted and poked his head down.

There stood an ogre, a gigantic, ugly, and angry beast, swinging Aegis-fang easily at the end of one arm. Behind it, talking to the ogre in soothing tones, stood a slender elf swordsman.

Without even waiting for Regis, the drow flipped himself over to the fireplace, straddling the embers for a moment, then boldly striding out into the room.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The three friends ran along the ridge at full speed, veering away from the lip when they heard the ruckus of ogre reinforcements charging out from the mound below. They had to veer even farther from the straight path when a second group of beasts came off the mound above the ridgeline, charging up through the snow.

“Probably many more within,” Catti-brie remarked.

“More the reason to go!” snarled Bruenor.

“Drizzt and Regis are likely already nearing the place, if not already in,” Wulfgar added.

The woman, bow in hand, motioned forward.

“Ye gonna call up that cat?” Bruenor asked.

Catti-brie glanced at her belt, where she had set the figurine of Guenhwyvar. “As we near,” she answered. Bruenor only nodded, trusting her implicitly, and rushed off after Wulfgar.

Up ahead, Wulfgar ducked suddenly as another ogre leaped off the mound, across a short ravine to the sloping ridgeline, the brute coming at him with a great swing of a heavy club.

Easily dodging, Wulfgar kicked out and slashed, cutting a deep gash in back of the brute's shoulder. The ogre started to turn, but then lurched wildly as Bruenor came in hard, smashing his axe through the brute's kneecap.

Down it went, howling.

“Finish it, girl!” Bruenor demanded, running past, running for the mound. The dwarf skittered to a stop, though, foiled by the ravine separating the mound from the slope, which was too far across for him to jump.

Then Bruenor had to dive to the side as a rock sailed at him from a position along the side of that mound, just up above him.

Wulfgar came past, roaring “Tempus!” and making the leap across the ravine. The barbarian crashed along some rocks, but settled himself quickly onto a narrow trail winding its way up along the steep slope.

“Should've thrown me first,” Bruenor grumbled, and he dived aside again as another rock crashed by.

The dwarf did pick out a path that would get him to the winding trail, but he knew he would be far behind Wulfgar by that point. “Girl! I need ye!” he howled.

He turned back to see the fallen ogre shudder again as another arrow buried itself deep into its skull.

Catti-brie rushed up, falling to one knee and setting off a stream of arrows at the concealed rock-thrower. The brute popped up once more, rock high over its head, but it fell away as an arrow sizzled past.

Catti-brie and Bruenor heard the roars of battle as Wulfgar reached the brute. Off ran the dwarf, while Catti-brie dropped the onyx figurine to the ground, called for the cat, then put her bow right back to work. For on a ledge high above Wulfgar's position, a new threat had arrived, a group of archers firing bows instead of hurling boulders.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Is it them?” Morik the Rogue asked, pushing against the unyielding door of Bellany's private chambers. He looked up at the swelled wood and understood that the sorceress had magically sealed it. “Bellany?”

In response, the door seemed to exhale and shrink to normal size, and Morik crept through.

“Bellany?”

“I believe your friend and his companions have come to retrieve the warhammer,” came a voice from right in front of Morik. He nearly jumped out of his boots, for he could not see the woman standing before him.

“Wizards,” he muttered as he settled down. “Where is Sheila Kree?”

There came no answer.

“Did you just shrug?” the rogue surmised.

Bellany's ensuing giggle told him she had.

“What of you, then?” Morik asked. “Are you to hide up here, or join in the fray?”

“Sheila instructed me to divine the source of the commotion, and so I have,” the invisible sorceress answered.

A smile widened on Morik's face. He understood well what Bellany's cryptic answer meant. She was waiting to see who would win out before deciding her course. The rogue's respect for the sorceress heightened considerably at that moment.

“Have you another such enchantment?” he asked. “For me?”

Bellany was spellcasting before he ever finished the question. In a few moments Morik, too, vanished from sight.

“A minor enchantment only,” Bellany explained. “It will not last for long.”

“Long enough for me to find a dark hole to hide in,” Morik answered, but he ended short, hearing sounds from outside, farther down the mountainside.

“They are fighting out along the trail,” the sorceress explained.

A moment later, Bellany heard the creak from the other room and saw an increase in light as Morik moved through the outer door. The sorceress went to the side of the room, then heard a cry of surprise from across the way—from Le'lorinel's room.

Chapter 27 BLIND VENGEANCE

Crunch! Crunch!” the huge ogre roared, speaking to the elf and waving Aegis-fang.

“Slash, slash,” came a remark behind the brute, spinning it around in surprise.

“Huh?”

The elf moved out around the side of the ogre and froze in place, staring hard at the slender dark figure who had come into the room.

Slowly Drizzt reached up and pulled his wet shirt down from in front of his face.

The ogre staggered, eyes bulging, but the drow was no longer even looking at the brute. He was staring hard at the elf, at the pair of blue, gold-flecked eyes staring out at him from behind the holes in a thin black mask, regarding him with haunting familiarity and intense hatred.

The ogre stammered over a couple more words, finally blurting, “Drow!”

“And no friend,” said the elf. “Crunch him.”

Drizzt, his scimitars still sheathed, simply stared at the elf, trying to figure out where he had seen those eyes before, where he had seen this elf before. And how had this one known right away that he was an enemy, almost as if expecting him?

“He has come to take your hammer, Bloog,” the elf said teasingly.

The ogre exploded into motion, its roar shaking the stone of the walls. It grabbed up the hammer in both hands and chopped mightily at the drow. Or tried to, for Aegis-fang arced up behind the brute to slam hard into the low ceiling, cracking free a chip that dropped onto Bloog's head.

Drizzt didn't move, didn't take his intense stare off the elf, who was making no move against him, or even toward him.

Bloog roared again and stooped a bit. He tried again to crush the drow flat, this time with the hammer clearing the low ceiling and coming over in a tremendous swat.

Drizzt, who was standing somewhat sideways to the brute, hopped and did a sidelong somersault at the ogre, inside the angle of the blow. Even as the drow came around, he drew out his scimitars then landed lightly and bore into Bloog, stabbing several times and offering one slash before skittering out to the side opposite the elf.

The ogre retracted Aegis-fang easily with one arm, while he tried to grab at the drow with his free hand.

Drizzt was too quick for that, and as Bloog reached out in pursuit, the drow, who was skittering backward and still looking at the ogre, launched a double slash at the exposed hand.

Bloog howled and pulled his bloody hand in, but came forward in a sudden and devastating rush, Aegis-fang whipping wildly.

Drizzt dropped down to the floor, scrambled forward, came back up and rolled around the ogre's bulk, scoring a vicious double slash against the back of Bloog's hip as he passed. He stopped short, though, and rushed back expecting a charge from the elf, who now held a fine sword and dagger.

But the elf only laughed at him, and continued to stare.

“Bloog crunch you down!” the stubborn ogre roared, bouncing off the wall with a turn and charging back at Drizzt.

Aegis-fang whipped out, right and left, but Drizzt was in his pure fighting mode now, certainly not underestimating this monster—not with Aegis-fang in his grasp and not after he had nearly lost to a smaller ogre out by the tower.

The drow ducked the first swing, then ducked the second, and both times the drow managed to score small stings against the ogre's huge forearms.

Bloog swung again, and again Drizzt dropped to the floor. Aegis-fang smashed against the stone of the hearth, bringing a surprised squeak from Regis — who was still inside the chimney — that made Drizzt wince in fear.

Drizzt went forward hard, but the ogre didn't back from the twin stabbing scimitars, accepting the hit in exchange for a clear shot at the drow's puny head.

The whipping backhand with Aegis-fang, coming across and down, almost got Drizzt, almost smashed his skull to little bits.

He stabbed again, and hard, and rushed out to the side, but the ogre hardly seemed hurt, though his blood was running from many wounds.

Drizzt had to wonder how many hits it would take to bring this monster down.

Drizzt had to wonder how much time he had before others rushed in to the ogre's aid.

Drizzt had to wonder when that elf, seeming so very confident, would decide to join in.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Screaming to Tempus, his god of battle, the former guiding light in his warrior existence, the son of Beornegar charged along the winding trail. Sometimes the path was open to his right and sometimes blocked by low walls of stone. Sometimes the mountain on his left was steep and sheer, other times it sloped gradually, affording him a wider view of the mound.

And affording archers hiding among the higher rocks clear shots at him.

But Wulfgar ran on, coming to a place where the path leveled out. Around a bend ahead, in a larger area, he heard the ogre rock-thrower. With a silent prayer to Tempus, the barbarian charged right in, howling when the brute saw him, ducking when the surprised ogre hurled its boulder at him.

Seeing the boulder fly above the mark, the ogre reached for a heavy club, but Wulfgar was too fast for the brute to get its weapon ready. And the barbarian was too enraged, too full of battle-lust, for the ogre to accept the bardiche hit. The weapon pounded home with tremendous force, driving deep into the ogre's chest, sending it back against the wall, where it slumped in the last moments of its life.

But as Wulfgar leaped back, he understood that he was in trouble. For in that mighty hit, he felt the bardiche handle crack apart. It didn't splinter completely, but Wulfgar knew that the integrity of the weapon had been severely compromised. Worse still, a rock at the back of the clearing, against the mountain, suddenly rolled aside, revealing a passageway. Out poured another half-ogre, roaring and charging. A small and ugly man came out beside it, with a red-haired, powerful-looking woman behind them.

An arrow skipped off the stone right beside the backing barbarian, and he understood that he had to stay closer to the mountain wall in this exposed place.

He bore in on the half-ogre, then stopped fast as the brute lowered its head and shoulder and tried to barrel over him. How glad Wulfgar was at that moment that he had been trained by Drizzt Do'Urden, that he had learned the subtleties and wisdom of angled deflection instead of just shrugging off every hit and responding in kind. He slipped to the side a single step, leaving his leg out in front of the overbalancing brute, then turned as the half-ogre stumbled past, planting the butt of his weapon behind the half-ogre's armpit and shoving with all his strength.

Wulfgar took some relief as the brute barreled forward, right over the lip of the front side of the clearing, tumbling over the rocks there. He didn't know how far down the mountainside the brute might be falling, but he understood that it was out of the fight for a while, at least.

And a good thing that was, for the human pirate was right there, stabbing with a nasty sword, and Wulfgar had to work furiously to keep that biting tip at bay. Worse, the red-haired woman bore in, her sword working magnificently, rolling around the blocking bardiche and forcing Wulfgar back with a devilish thrust.

She was good. Wulfgar recognized that at once. He knew it would take all his energy if he was to have any hope. So the barbarian took a chance, stepping forward suddenly and accepting a slight stab from the man on his side.

That stab had little energy, though, for as the man started to attack, Wulfgar let go of his weapon with his right hand and punched straight out, connecting on the pirate's face even as his smile started to widen. Before his sword could slip deeply into the barbarian's side, the pirate was flying away, crumpling to the stone.

Then it was Wulfgar and Sheila Kree—Wulfgar recognized that this was indeed the pirate leader. How he wished she was holding Aegis-fang instead of this fine-edged sword. How he would have loved to summon the warhammer from her hand at that moment, then turn it back against her!

As it was, the barbarian had to work furiously to keep the warrior pirate at bay, for Sheila was surely no novice to battle. She stabbed and slashed, spun a complete circle and dived her sword in at Wulfgar's neck. The barbarian found himself forced back out into the open and took another hit as an arrow slashed down across his shoulder.

Sheila's smile widened.

A large ogre came out of the opening in the mountainside. Another roar came from above, and yet another from behind Wulfgar and not so far down the mountain—the half-ogre he had tripped up, he knew, on its way back.

“I need you!” the desperate barbarian cried out to his friends, but the wind stole the momentum from that call.

He knew that Catti-brie and Bruenor, wherever they were, would not likely hear him. He felt the bardiche handle cracking even more in his hand, and believed that the weapon would break apart in his hands with the next hit.

He forced his way forward again, skipping to his left, trying to delay the ogre's entry into the fray for as long as possible. But then he saw yet another form come out of the opening, another human pirate, it seemed, and he knew that he was doomed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Drizzt scored and scored again, using the tight quarters and the low ceiling against the huge ogre. This one would have proven a much tougher opponent outdoors, the drow knew, especially with Aegis-fang in hand. But in here, now that he had the ogre's speed sorted out, the drow was too quick and too experienced.

Wound after wound opened up on the howling Bloog, and the ogre started calling for the elf to jump in and help.

And that elf did come forward, and Drizzt prepared a new strategy he had just worked out for keeping the ogre between him and this newest opponent. Before the drow could implement that strategy, though, the ogre lurched suddenly. A new and deeper wound appeared behind Bloog's hip, and the elf smiled wickedly.

Drizzt looked at the elf with amazement, and so did the ogre.

And the elf promptly drove the sword in again. The ogre howled and spun, but Drizzt was right there, his scimitar taking the beast deep in the kidney.

Back and forth it went, the two skilled warriors picking away while poor Bloog turned back and forth, never recovering from that initial surprise and the deep wound.

Soon enough, the big ogre went down hard and lay still.

Drizzt stood staring at the elf from across the large body. His scimitar tips lowered toward the floor, but he had them ready, unsure of this one's motives and intent.

“Perhaps I am a friend,” the elf said, in a tone that was mocking and insincere. “Or perhaps I just wanted to kill you myself and grew impatient with Bloog's pitiful efforts against you.”

Drizzt was circling then, and so was the elf, moving about Bloog's body, keeping it between as a deterrent to the potential foe.

“It would seem as if only you can answer which of the possibilities it might be.”

The elf snorted derisively. “I have waited for this moment for years, Drizzt Do'Urden,” came the surprising response.

Drizzt took a deep breath. This was as challenger here, perhaps someone who had studied his abilities and reputation and had prepared against him. This was not one to take lightly—he had seen the warrior's graceful movements against Bloog—but the drow suddenly remembered that he had more at stake here than this one fight, that he had others counting on him.

“This is not the time for a personal challenge,” he said.

“This is exactly the time,” the elf answered. “As I have arranged!”

“Regis!” Drizzt called.

The drow burst forward, putting both scimitars in one hand, grabbing Aegis-fang with the other, and tossing it into the hearth. The halfling leaped down to grab it up, pausing only to see the first exchange as the elf leaped in at Drizzt, sword and dagger flashing.

But Drizzt was away in the blink of an eye, scimitars out and ready, balanced in a perfect defensive posture.

Regis knew that he had no place in this titanic struggle, so he gathered up the warhammer and climbed back up the chimney, then moved down the other side passage toward the apparently empty room they had already scouted.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The wind was just right, and so Catti-brie heard Wulfgar's desperate call for help after all. She knew he was in trouble, could hear the fighting up above, could see the half-ogre scrambling, almost back to the ledge.

But the woman, who had leaped across the ravine to the winding trail, was held in place by a barrage of arrows coming down at her.

Guenhwyvar had finally taken form by then, but before Catti-brie could even offer a command to the panther, an arrow drove down into the cat. Guenhwyvar, with a great roar, leaped away.

Catti-brie worked furiously then, using every opportunity to pop back out from the mountainside and let fly a devastating missile. Her arrow blasted through stone, and given the cry of pain and surprise, apparently scored a hit on one of the archers. But they were many, and she was stuck and could not get to Wulfgar.

She did manage to slip out and let fly at the half-ogre that was stubbornly climbing back to Wulfgar's position, her missile slamming the creature in the hip and sending it into a slide back down the slope.

But Catti-brie took an arrow for her efforts, the missile biting into her forearm. She fell back against the wall with a cry. The woman clutched at the shaft gingerly, then steeled her gaze and her grip. Growling away the agony, she pushed the arrow through. Catti-brie reached for her pack, pulling forth a bandage and tightly wrapping the arm.

“Bruenor, where are you?” she said quietly, fighting against despair.

It occurred to her as more than a passing possibility that they had all come together again just to be sundered apart, and permanently.

“Oh, get to him, Guen,” the woman quietly begged, tying off the bandage and wincing away the pain as she set another arrow.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He fought brilliantly, purely on instinct, without rage and without fear. But he got hit again and again, and though no one wound was serious, Wulfgar knew that it was only a matter of time—a very short amount of time—before they overcame him. He sang out to Tempus, thinking it fitting, hoping it acceptable to the god, that he be singing that name as he died.

For surely this was the end for the son of Beornegar, with the red-haired pirate and the ogre pressing him, with his weapon falling apart in his hands, with a third opponent swiftly moving in.

No one could get to him in time.

He was glad, at least, that he might die honorably, in battle.

He took a stinging hit from the red-haired pirate, then had to pivot fast to block the ogre, and knew even as he turned that it was over. He had just left an opening for Sheila Kree to cut him down.

He glanced back to see the fatal blow.

Wulfgar, content for the first time in so many years, smiled.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Shouts of surprise from above clued Catti-brie, and she dared to leap out into the open.

There, above her, mighty Guenhwyvar charged the archers' nest, taking arrow after stinging arrow, but never veering and never slowing. The archers were standing then, and so the woman wasted no time in putting an arrow into the side of one's head, then taking down another.

She took aim for a third, but held the shot, for Guenhwyvar leaped in among the nest then, scattering the band. One man tried to scramble up the back side, farther up the mountain, but a great black paw caught him in the back of his leg and tore him back down.

Another man leaped over the rim of the nest, falling and bouncing, preferring to the fall to the grim fate at the claws of the panther. He tried desperately to control his descent and finally managed to settle on a stone.

Right in Catti-brie's sights.

He died quickly, at least.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sheila Kree had him dead, obviously so, and her sword dived in at Wulfgar's exposed flank.

But the pirate leader had to pull back before ever hitting the mark, for a pair of legs wrapped around her waist, and a pair of daggers stabbed in viciously at the sides of her neck.

The veteran pirate bent forward, flipping the cunning assassin over her.

“Morik, ye dog!” she cried as the rogue went into a roll that stood him up right beside Wulfgar, bloody daggers in hand.

Sheila stumbled backward, taking some comfort as more of her fighters passed her by.

“Kill 'em both!” she screamed as she staggered back into the cave complex.

“Like old times, eh?” Morik said to the stunned Wulfgar, who was already back to fending the ogre attacker.

Wulfgar could hardly respond. He just shook his head at the unexpected reprieve.

“Like old times?” Morik said again, as he fell into a fight with a pair of dirty pirates.

“We didn't win many of the fights in the old times,” Wulfgar poignantly reminded him, for the odds had far from evened.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Drizzt worked his scimitars in a flurry of spinning parries, gradually turning them and altering his angle, moving his defensive posture into one more offensive, and forcing the elf back.

“Well done,” the elf congratulated, skipping over one of fallen Bloog's legs.

“I do not even know your name, yet you bear me this hatred,” the drow remarked.

The elf laughed at him. “I am Le'lorinel. That is the only name you need to hear.”

Drizzt shook his head, staring at those intense eyes, somewhat recognizing them, but unable to place them.

And he was back into the fray, as Le'lorinel leaped forward, blades working furiously.

A sword came at Drizzt's head and he picked it off with an upraised scimitar. Le'lorinel turned the sword under the drow's curving blade and came ahead with a left-hand thrust of the dagger, a brilliant move.

But Drizzt was better. He accepted the cunning turn of the blades and instead of trying to move his second blade in front to deflect the dagger, he rolled to his right, driving his scimitar in toward the center, pushing the sword across and forcing his opponent to shift and alter the dagger thrust.

The drow's second blade came around with a sweep, driving against the elf's side.

The blade bounced off. Drizzt might as well have tried to slash through stone.

The drow rushed out, eyeing the turning and smiling Le'lorinel. He knew the enchantment immediately, for he had seen wizards use it. Was this elf a spellsword, then, a warrior trained in both the arcane and martial arts?

Drizzt hopped fallen Bloog's bloody chest, making a fast retreat to the back of the room, near to the hearth.

Le'lorinel continued to smile and held up one hand, whispering something Drizzt did not hear. The ring flared, and the elf moved even faster, hastened by yet another enchantment.

Oh, yes, this one was indeed prepared.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Regis dropped Aegis-fang down onto the burning logs, then scrambled as low as he could, rolled over so that he was going down head first, and caught the lip of the hearth and swung himself out. He was glad, as his feet kicked through the flames, that he was wearing heavy winter boots instead of walking in his typical barefoot manner.

The halfling scanned the room, seeing it much as Drizzt had described. He reached back and pulled Aegis-fang from the fire, then started across the room, to the partially opened door.

He went through silently, coming into a smaller chamber, this one some sort of alchemical workshop. There loomed the other door, with daylight streaming in around it.

The halfling ran for it, grabbed the handle, and tugged it open.

Then he was hit by a series of stinging, burning bursts against his hip and back. With a squeal, Regis scrambled out onto a natural balcony, but one that left him nowhere to run. He saw the fighting almost directly below him, so he threw the warhammer as far as he could, which wasn't very far, and cried out for Wulfgar.

Regis scrambled back, not even watching the hammer's bouncing descent. He saw the sorceress then, her invisibility enchantment dispelled. She stared at him from the side of the room, her hands working in the midst of casting yet another spell.

Regis yelped and ran out of the room into the main chamber, heading first for the hearth, then veering for another door.

The air around him grew thick with drifting strands of sticky, string like material. The halfling changed course yet again, making for the hearth, hoping its flames would burn this magical webbing away. He never got close, though, his strides shortened, his momentum stolen.

He was caught, encased in magical webbing that was holding him fast and was so thick around him he couldn't even breathe.

And the sorceress was there, in front of him, on the outside of the webbing barely a few inches away. She lifted a hand, holding a shining dagger up to Regis's face.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Another archer went down. Ignoring the burning pain and tightness in her arm, Catti-brie set another arrow to her bow.

More archers had appeared above Guenhwyvar. As the woman took aim on that position, she noted another movement in a more dangerous place, a ledge high up above where Wulfgar was fighting.

Catti-brie whirled and nearly fired.

It was Regis, falling back — and Aegis-fang, falling down!

Catti-brie held her breath, thinking that the warhammer would bounce all the way down to the sea, but it caught suddenly and held in place on a small ledge up above and to the side.

“Call for it!” she screamed repeatedly.

With a glance to the lower archer ledge, where she knew Guenhwyvar was still engaged, she ran along the trail.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Drizzt made the hearth and skidded down to one knee, dropping Icingdeath to the stone floor and reaching into the glowing fireplace. Out his arm pumped, then back in, then out again, launching a barrage of missiles at Le'lorinel. One hit, then another. The elf blocked a third, a spinning stick, but the missile broke apart across the elf s blade, each side spinning in to score a hit.

None of them were serious, none of them would have been even without the stoneskin defense, but every one, every strike upon the elf, removed a bit more of the defensive enchantment.

“Very wise, drow!” Le'lorinel congratulated, and on the elf warrior came, sword flashing for the stooping drow.

Drizzt grabbed his blade and started up, then dropped back to the floor and kicked out, his foot barely hitting Le'lorinel's shin.

Then Drizzt had to roll to the side and over backward to his feet, against the wall. His scimitars came up immediately, ringing with parry after parry as Le'lorinel launched a series of strong attacks his way.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The bardiche was falling apart in his hands by then, as Wulfgar worked against the ogre.

To the side, Morik, too, found himself hard-pressed by a pair of pirates, both wielding vicious-looking cutlasses,

“We can't win!” the rogue cried.

“Then why did you help me?” Wulfgar countered.

Morik found his next words caught in his throat. Why indeed had he gone against Sheila Kree? Even when he had come visible again, on the ramp descending from Chogurugga's chamber, it would not have been difficult for him to find a shadowy place to sit out the fight. Cursing himself for what he now had to consider a foolhardy decision, the rogue leaped ahead, daggers slashing. He landed in a turn that sent his dark cloak flying wide.

“Run away!” he cried out, leaving the cloak behind as a pair of slashing cutlasses came against it. He skittered behind Wulfgar, moving between a pair of huge boulders and heading up the trail.

Then he came back onto the small clearing, shouting, “Not that way!” Yet another ogre was in fast pursuit.

Wulfgar groaned as this new foe seemed to be entering the fray—and another, he noted, seeing movement beside Morik.

But that was no ogre.

Bruenor Battlehammer leaped up onto the rock as Morik passed underneath. Axe in both hands and down behind him, the dwarf took aim as the oblivious ogre came by in fast pursuit.

Crack!

The hit resounded like splitting stone, and everyone on the clearing stopped their fighting for just a moment to regard the wild-eyed red-haired dwarf standing atop the stone, his axe buried deeply into the skull of an ogre that was only still upright because the mighty dwarf was holding it there, trying to tug the axe back out.

“Ain't that a beautiful sound?” Bruenor called to Wulfgar.

Wulfgar shook his head and went back into defensive action against the ogre, and now with the two pirates joining in. “Took you long enough!” he replied.

“Quit yer bitchin'!” Bruenor yelled back. “Me girl's seen yer hammer, ye durn fool! Call for it, boy!”

The ogre in front of Wulfgar stepped back to get some charging room, roared defiantly, and lifted its club, coming on hard.

Wulfgar threw his ruined bardiche at the beast, who blocked it with its chest and arm and tossed the pieces aside.

“Oh, brilliant!” complained Morik, who was back behind Wulfgar, coming around to engage the two pirates.

But Wulfgar wasn't even listening to the complaint or to the threats from the enraged ogre. He was yelling out instead, trusting Bruenor's word.

“What you to do now, puny one?” the ogre said, though its expression changed considerably as it finished the question. A finely crafted warhammer appeared in Wulfgar's waiting grasp.

“Catch this one,” the barbarian remarked, letting fly.

As it had with the cracked bardiche, the ogre tried to accept the blow with its chest and its arm, tried to just take the hit and push the warhammer aside.

But this was no cracked bardiche.

The ogre had no idea why it was sitting against the wall then, unable to draw breath.

His hand up high in the air, Wulfgar called out again for the hammer.

And there it was, in his grasp, warrior and weapon united.

A cutlass came in at him from the side, along with a cry of warning from Morik.

Wulfgar snapped his warhammer down, blasting the thrusting cutlass away. With perfect balance, as if the warhammer was an extension of his own arm, Wulfgar turned the weapon and swung it out hard.

The pirate flew away.

The other turned and ran, but Morik had him before he reached the opening, stabbing him down.

Another ogre exited the cave and glared threateningly at nearby Morik, but a blue streak cut between the barbarian and the rogue, knocking the brute back inside.

The friends turned to see Catti-brie standing there, bow in hand.

“Guen's got them up above,” the woman explained.

“And Rumblebelly's up there too, and likely needin' us!” howled Bruenor, motioning for them.

They ran on up the path, winding farther around the mountain. They came to another level, wide area with a huge door facing them, set into the mountain.

“Not that one,” Morik tried to explain. “Big ogres. .”

The rogue shut up as Bruenor and Wulfgar fell over the door, hammer and axe chopping, splintering the wood to pieces.

In the pair went.

Chogurugga and her attendants were waiting.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Their weapons rang against each other repeatedly, a blur of motion, a constant sound. Hastened by the enchantment, Le'lorinel matched Drizzt's blinding speed, but unlike the drow, the elf was not used to such lightning reflexive action.

Scimitar right, scimitar left, scimitar straight ahead, and Drizzt scored a hard stab against Le'lorinel's chest that would have finished the elf had it not been for the stonelike dweomer.

“How many more will it stop?” the drow asked, growing more confident now as his routines slipped around Le'lorinel's defenses. “We need not do this.”

But the elf showed no sign of letting up.

Drizzt slashed out with his right, then spun as Le'lorinel, parrying, went into a circuit to the right as well, both coming together out of their respective spins with a clash of four blades.

Drizzt turned his blade over the elf's, driving Le'lorinel's down. When the elf predictably stabbed ahead, the drow leaped into a somersault right over the attack, landing on his feet and falling low as the sword swished over his head. Drizzt slashed out, scoring on Le'lorinel's hip, then kicked out as the elf retreated, clipping a knee.

Le'lorinel squeaked in pain and stumbled back a few steps.

The enchantment was defeated. The next scimitar hit would draw blood.

“There is no need for this,” Drizzt graciously said.

Le'lorinel glared at him, and smiled again. Up came the ring, and with a word from the elf, it flashed again.

Drizzt charged, wanting to beat whatever trick might be coming next.

But Le'lorinel was gone, vanished from sight.

Drizzt skidded to a stop, eyes widening with surprise. On instinct, he reached within himself to his own magical powers, his innate drow abilities, and summoned a globe of darkness about him, one that filled the room and put him back on even footing with the invisible warrior.

Just as Le'lorinel had expected he would. For now, with the ring's fourth enchantment—the most insidious of the group— the invisible elf s form was outlined again in glowing fires.

Drizzt moved in, spinning and launching slashing attack routines, as he had long ago learned when fighting blindly. Every attack was also a parry, his scimitars whirling out wide from his body.

And he listened, and he heard the shuffle of feet.

He was on the spot in an instant and took heart when his blade rang against a blocking sword, awkwardly held.

The elf had miscalculated, he believed, had altered the fight into one in which the experienced drow held a great advantage.

He struck with wide-reaching blows, coming in from the left and the right, keeping his opponent before him.

Right and left again, and Drizzt turned suddenly behind his second swing, spinning and slashing with the right as he came around.

The victory was his, he knew, from the position of the blocking sword and dagger, the elf caught flatfooted and without defense.

His scimitar drove against Le'lorinel's side, tearing flesh.

But at precisely the same instant, Drizzt, too, got hit in the side.

Unable to retract or slow his blow, Drizzt had to finish the move, the scimitar bouncing off of a rib, tearing a lung and cutting back out across the front of the elf’s chest.

And the same wound burrowed across the drow's chest.

Even as the pain exploded within him, even as he stumbled back, tripping over Bloog's leg and falling hard to the floor against the wall, Drizzt understood what had happened, recognized the fire shield enchantment, a devilish spell that inflicted damage upon anyone striking the spell-user.

He lay there, one lung collapsing, his lifeblood running out freely.

Across the way, Le'lorinel, dying as Drizzt was dying, groaned.

Chapter 28 NOT WITHOUT LOSS

With equal intensity, Bruenor and Wulfgar charged into the large cave. Wulfgar headed to the side to intercept a pair of large, armored ogres while Bruenor went for the most exotic of the three, an ogress with light violet skin wearing a huge shining helmet and wielding an enormous scythe.

Morik came in behind the ferocious pair, tentatively, and making no definite strides to join the battle.

More eager behind him came Catti-brie. She had an arrow flying almost immediately, staggering one of the two ogres closing on Wulfgar.

That blast gave the barbarian all the momentum he needed. He drove hard against the other brute, Aegis-fang pounding repeatedly. The ogre blocked and blocked again, but the third chop hit it on the breastplate and sent it staggering backward.

Wulfgar bore in, smashing away.

The ogre's wounded companion tried to move back into the fight, but Catti-brie hit it with a second arrow, and a third. Howling with rage and pain, the brute turned and charged the door instead.

“Brilliant,” Morik groaned, and he cried out as a large form brushed past him, sending him sprawling.

Guenhwyvar hit the charging, arrow-riddled ogre head on. She leaped onto its face, clawing, raking, and biting. The brute stood straight, its momentum lost, and staggered backward, its face erupting in fountains of blood.

“Good girl,” said Catti-brie, and she turned and fired up above Bruenor, nailing the ogress, then drew out Khazid'hea. She paused and glanced back at Morik, who was standing against the wall, shaking his head.

“Well done,” he muttered, in obvious disbelief.

They were indeed an efficient group!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The magical darkness lifted.

Drizzt sat against the wall. Across from him sat Le'lorinel, in almost the exact posture and with a wound identical to the drow's.

Drizzt stared at his fallen opponent, his eyes widening. Thin magical flames still licked at Le'lorinel's skin, but Drizzt hardly noted them. For the wound, torn through Le'lorinel's leather vest and across the front, revealed a breast—a female breast!

And Drizzt understood so very much, and knew those eyes so much better, and knew who this truly was even before Le'lorinel reached up and pulled the mask off her face.

An elf, a Moon elf, once a little child whom Drizzt had saved from drow raiders. An elf driven to rage by the devastation of the drow on that fateful, evil day, when she was bathed in the blood of her own murdered mother to convince the dark elves that she, too, was already dead.

“By the gods,” the drow rasped, his voice weak for lack of air.

“You are dead, Drizzt Do'Urden,” the elf said, her voice equally weak and faltering. “My family is avenged.”

Drizzt tried to respond, but he could not begin to find the words. In this short time, how could he possibly explain to Le'lorinel that he had not participated in that murder, that he had saved her at great personal peril, and most importantly, that he was sorry, so very sorry, for what his evil kin had done.

He stared at Le'lorinel, bearing her no ill will, despite the fact that her misguided actions and blind vengeance had cost them both their very lives.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chogurugga was doing well against the mighty Bruenor Battlehammer, her potion-enhanced muscles, potion-enhanced speed, and potion-enhanced defenses more than holding their own against the dwarf.

Bruenor just growled and cursed, swatting powerfully, taking hits that would fell most opponents and shrugging them off with dwarven toughness then boring on, his axe slashing in.

He was losing, though, and he knew it, but then Catti-brie's arrow sizzled in above him, driving into the ogress's chest and sending her staggering backward.

“Oh, good girl!” the dwarf roared, taking the advantage to charge forward and press the offensive.

But even as he got there the ogress had yet another vial in hand and up to her lips, swallowing its contents in one great gulp.

Even as Bruenor closed, starting the battle once more, the ogress's wounds began to bind.

The dwarf growled in protest. “Damn healing potion!” he howled, and he got a hit in against Chogurugga's thigh, opening a gash.

Immediately, Chogurugga had another vial, one similar to the last, off of her belt and moving up to her lips. Bruenor cursed anew.

A black form sailed above the dwarf, slamming into the ogress and latching on.

Chogurugga flailed as Guenhwyvar tore at her face, front claws holding fast, fangs biting and tearing, back claws raking wildly.

The ogress dropped the vial, which hit the floor but did not break, and dropped her weapon as well. The ogress grabbed at the cat with both hands, trying to pull Guenhwyvar away.

The panther's hooked claws held tight, which meant that throwing Guenhwyvar aside would mean tearing her face right off. And of course Bruenor was right there, smashing the ogress's legs and midsection with mighty, vicious chops.

Bruenor heard a crash to the side, and Catti-brie was beside him, her powerful sword slicing easily through Chogurugga's flesh and bone.

The ogress toppled to the floor.

The two companions and Guenhwyvar turned about just as Wulfgar's hammer caved in the last ogre's skull, the brute falling right over its dead partner.

“This way!” Morik called from an exit across the wide room, with a corridor beyond heading farther up into the complex.

Bruenor paused to wait for his girl as Catti-brie stooped to retrieve Chogurugga's fallen vial.

“When I find out who's selling this stuff to damn ogres, I'll chop him up!” the frustrated dwarf declared.

Across the room, Morik bit his lower lip. He knew who it was, for he had seen Bellany's alchemical room.

Up went the companions, to the level corridor with five doors that marked Sheila Kree's complex. A groan from the side brought them immediately to one door, which Bruenor barreled through with dwarven subtlety.

There lay Drizzt, and there lay the elf, both mortally wounded.

Catti-brie came in right behind, moving immediately for Drizzt, but the drow stopped her with an upheld hand.

“Save her,” he demanded, his voice very weak. “You must.”

And he slumped.

Wulfgar stood at the door, horrified, but Morik didn't even slow at that particular room, but rather ran across the hall to Bellany's chambers. He burst through, and even as he was entering he prayed that the wizard hadn't trapped the portal.

The rogue skidded to a stop just inside the threshold, hearing a shriek. He turned to see a halfling extracting himself from a magical web.

“Who are you?” Regis asked, then quickly added, “See what I have?” He pulled open his shirt, lifting out a ruby pendant for Morik to see.

“Where is the sorceress?” Morik demanded, not even noticing the tantalizing gemstone.

Regis pointed to the open outer door and the balcony beyond and Morik sprinted out. The halfling glanced down, then, at his enchanted ruby pendant and scratched his head, wondering why it hadn't had its usual charming effect. Regis was glad that this small man was too busy to be bothered with him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Catti-brie paused, taken aback by the sincerity and demand in Drizzt's voice as he had given her the surprising instructions. The woman turned toward the fallen elf, whose breathing was as shallow as Drizzt's, who seemed, as did Drizzt, as if each breath might be her last.

“The Nine Hells ye will!” Bruenor roared, rushing to her and tearing the vial away.

Sputtering a string of curses, the dwarf went right to Drizzt and poured the healing liquid down his throat.

The drow coughed and almost immediately began to breathe easier.

“Damn it all!” Catti-brie cried, and she ran across the room to the fallen elf, lifting her head gently with her hands, staring into those eyes.

Empty eyes.

Even as Drizzt opened his eyes once more, Le'lorinel's spirit fled her body.

“Come quickly!” said Regis, arriving at the door. The halfling paused, though, when he saw Drizzt lying there so badly wounded.

“What'd'ye know, Rumblebelly?” Bruenor said after a moment's pause.

“S-sorceress,” Regis stammered, still staring at Drizzt. “Um. . Morik's chasing her.” Never turning his eyes, he pointed across the way.

Wulfgar started off and Bruenor called to Catti-brie as she fell to her knees beside the drow, “Get yer bow out there! They'll be needing ye!”

The woman hesitated for a long while, staring helplessly at Drizzt, but Bruenor pushed her away.

“Go, and be quick!” he demanded. “I ain't one for killing wizards. Yer bow's better for that.”

Catti-brie rose and ran out of the room.

“But holler if ye see another ogre” the dwarf shouted behind her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bellany cursed under her breath as she gingerly picked her way along the mountainside to come in sight of the coast, only to see Bloody Keel riding the receding tide out of the cave. Her deck bristled with pirates, including, prominently, Sheila Kree, wounded but undaunted, shouting orders from the deck.

Bellany fell into her magical powers immediately, beginning to cast a spell that would transport her to the deck. She almost finished the casting, was uttering the very last words and making the final motions, when she was grabbed from behind.

Horrified, the sorceress turned her head to see Morik the Rogue, grim-faced and holding her fast.

“Let me go!” she demanded.

“Do not,” Morik said, shaking his head. “Do not, I beg.”

“You fool, they will kill me!” Bellany howled, trying hard to pull away. “I could have slain you, but I did not! I could have killed the halfling, but. .”

Her voice trailed away over those last few words, though, for the huge form of a barbarian warrior came bounding around the mountainside.

“What have you done to me?” the defeated woman asked Morik.

“Did you not let the halfling live?” the rogue reasoned.

“More than that! I cut him out,” Bellany answered defiantly. She went silent, for Wulfgar was there, towering over her.

“Who is this?” the enraged barbarian demanded.

“An observer,” Morik answered, “and nothing more. She is innocent.”

Wulfgar narrowed his eyes, staring hard at both Bellany and Morik, and his expression showed that he hardly believed the rogue.

But Morik had saved his life this day, and so he said nothing.

Wulfgar's eyes widened and he stepped forward as he noted the ship, sails unfurling, gliding out past the rocks. He leaped out to another rock, gaining a better vantage point, and lifted Aegis-fang as if he meant to hurl it at the departing ship.

But Bloody Keel was long out of even his range.

Catti-brie joined the group next, and wasted no time in putting up Taulmaril, leveling the bow at Bloody Keel's deck.

“The red-haired one,” Morik instructed. Bellany elbowed him hard in the ribs and scowled at him deeply.

Indeed, Catti-brie already had a bead drawn on Sheila Kree, the pirate easy to spot on the ship's deck.

But the woman paused and lifted her head from the bow for a wider view. She took note of the many waves breaking over submerged rocks, all about the escaping pirate, and understood well the skill needed to take a ship out through those dangerous waters.

Catti-brie leveled her bow again, scouring the deck.

When she found the wheel, and the crewman handling it, she let fly.

The pirate lurched forward, then slid down to the decking, taking the wheel over to the side as he went.

Bloody Keel cut a sharp turn, crewmen rushing desperately from every angle to grab the wheel.

Then came the crunch as the ship sailed over a jagged reef, and the wind in the sails kept her going, splintering the hull all the way.

Many were thrown from the ship with the impact. Others leaped into the icy waters, the ship disintegrating beneath them. Still others grabbed a rail or a mast and held on for dear life.

Amidst it all stood Sheila Kree. The fiery pirate looked up at the mountainside, up at Catti-brie, in defiance.

And she, too, went into the cold water, and Bloody Keel was no more than kindling, scattering in the rushing waters.

Few would escape that icy grip, and those who did, and those who never got onto the ship in the first place—ogre, half-ogre, and human alike—had no intention of engaging the mighty friends again.

The fight for Golden Cove was won.