第17部分

There, she had said it aloud, had proclaimed her course. She immediately began gathering together her things, then swung herself over the edge of the peak and began her scramble to the mountain's base.

In her haversack, Crenshinibon verily purred with elation. The powerful artifact still had no designs on making Stumpet Rakingclaw its wielder. The sentient crystal shard knew the stubbornness of this one, despite the delusions it had gradually enacted over the dwarf. Even worse, Crenshinibon understood Stumpet's place in her society, as a priestess of Moradin, the Soul Forger. Thus far, the artifact had managed to generally sidetrack any of Stumpet's attempts at communing with her god, but sooner or later, the dwarf would seek that higher level, and would likely learn the truth of the "warming stick" that she kept in her pack.

So Crenshinibon would use her to get away from the dwarves, to escape to the wilds of the Spine of the World, where it might find a troll or a giant, or perhaps even a dragon to serve as its wielder.

Yes, a dragon, Crenshinibon hoped. The artifact would like to work in collusion with a dragon!

Oblivious to such wishes, even to the fact that her "warming stick" could wish at all, poor Stumpet cared only about conquering the mountain range. And even she wasn't sure of why she cared.

*****

On the very first night of his rule, Berkthgar began to reveal the precepts that the barbarians of Icewind Dale would follow, a way of life such as they had lived until only a decade hence, before Wulfgar had defeated Heafstaag.

All contact with the folk of Ten-Towns was ordered to stop, and, on pain of death, no barbarian was to speak with Bruenor Battlehammer or any of the bearded folk.

"And if one of the bearded folk is found in need on the open tundra," Berkthgar said, and it seemed to Kierstaad that the man was looking directly at him as he spoke, "leave him to die!"

Later that night, Kierstaad sat alone under the wide canopy of stars, a tortured soul. Now he understood what his father had tried to do that afternoon. Revjak could not defeat Berkthgar, everyone knew that, and so the older man had tried to work out a compromise, one that would benefit all the barbarians. In his mind, Kierstaad realized that Revjak's abdication when the majority favored Berkthgar was a wise, even courageous thing to do, but in his heart and in his gut, the young man still felt the shame of his father's unwillingness to fight.

Better if Revjak had taken up his axe and died at Berkthgar's hands, Kierstaad believed, or at least a part of him believed. That was the way of their people, the ancient and sacred way. What might Tempus, the god of the barbarians, the god of battle, think of Revjak this day? What place in the afterworld might a man such as Revjak, who refused honest and rightful combat, find?

Kierstaad put his head in his hands. Not only was his father dishonored, but so were he and his family.

Perhaps he should proclaim allegiance to Berkthgar and reject his father. Berkthgar, who had been with Kierstaad all the years in Settlestone, who had been beside Kierstaad when the young man had made his first hunting kill on the open tundra, would welcome such support. He would see it, no doubt, as a solidification of his position as leader.

No. He could not abandon his father, however angry he might be. He would take up his weapon against Berkthgar if need be, and kill the man or die in order to restore his family's honor. He would not desert his father.

That option also seemed ridiculous to the young man, and he sat alone, overwhelmed, under the vastness of Icewind Dale's canopy, a tortured soul.

Chapter 20

EARNING THEIR PAY

Both Drizzt and Catti-brie had become quite proficient at riding horses on their trip from Mithril Hall to Waterdeep. But that had been six years before, and the only thing the companions had ridden since then were waves. By the time the caravan got around the western edge of the Spine of the World, five days out from Luskan, the two had settled back into the rhythm, though both had painful sores on their legs and buttocks.

They were at the lead, far ahead of the caravan when they reached the dale. Reached the dale!

Drizzt was about to call for Catti-brie to slow up, but she, as awestruck as the drow, was pulling tight her reigns before he ever began the command.

They were home, truly home, within a hundred miles of the place where they had first met and where their lives and their most important friendships had been shaped and forged. All the memories washed over them at that moment as they looked across the windswept tundra, heard that forlorn moan, the incessant call of the winds blowing off the glaciers to the north and east. The icewind that gave the dale its name.

Catti-brie wanted to say something to Drizzt, something profound and meaningful, and he fostered the same desires. Neither could find the words. They were too overwhelmed by simply seeing the spectacle of Icewind Dale again.

"Come along," Drizzt said finally. The drow looked back over his shoulder, to see the six wagons of the caravan gaining ground, then looked ahead, to the beautiful and wonderful emptiness that was Icewind Dale. Kelvin's Cairn was not in sight, was still too far away, but it would not be long.

Suddenly the drow desperately wanted to see that mountain again! How many hours and days had he spent on the side of that rocky place?

How many times had he sat upon the barren stones of Kelvin's Cairn, looking at the stars and at the twinkling campfires of the distant barbarian encampments?

He started to tell Catti-brie to begin moving, but again, the woman seemed to share his thoughts, for she set her mount off and running before he could get his own horse moving.

Something else struck Drizzt Do'Urden then, another memory of Icewind Dale, a warning from his ranger sensibilities that this was not a safe place. Turning the final corner around the Spine of the World had put them truly in the wilderness again, where fierce tundra yeti and tribes of wild goblins roamed. He didn't want to steal the moment from Catti-brie, not yet, but he hoped that she was sharing his thoughts once again.

Unwary people did not survive long in the unforgiving land called Icewind Dale.

They met up with no trouble that day or the next, and were on the road early before the dawn, making great progress. The mud from the spring thaw had dried and the ground was solid and flat beneath them, the wagon wheels turning easily.

The sun came up in their faces, stinging their eyes, particularly Drizzt's lavender orbs, designed by heredity for the lightless Underdark. Even after more than two decades on the surface, after six years of sailing the bright waters of the Sea of Swords, Drizzt's sensitive eyes had not fully adjusted to the surface light. He didn't mind the sting, though, reveled in it, greeting the bright dawn with a smile, using the light as a reminder of how far he had come.

Later that morning, when the sun climbed high in the clear southeastern sky and the horizon before them became distinct and perfectly clear, they caught what Drizzt claimed to be their first true sight of the area that had been their home, a single flash that Drizzt decided had to be a reflection of the sun off the crystalline snow topping Kelvin's Cairn.

Catti-brie was not so sure of that. Kelvin's Cairn was not so high, and they were still two days of hard riding away. She didn't express any doubts, though, hoping that the drow was right. She wanted to be home!

As did Drizzt, and their pace quickened, became so great that they left the wagons even farther behind. Finally, reason and a terse call from the driver of the lead wagon reminding them of their duty, slowed them down. The pair exchanged knowing smiles.

"Soon," Drizzt promised.

The pace was still swift, for a short while. Then, Drizzt began to slow his horse, glancing all around, sniffing the air.

That was all the warning Catti-brie needed. She brought her horse to a trot and scanned the ground.

Everything seemed unremarkable to Drizzt. The ground was flat, brown and gray, and unbroken. He could see nothing unusual, and could hear nothing save the clip-clop of hooves on the hard ground and the moan of the wind. He could smell nothing other than the wet scent that Icewind Dale's summer wind always carried. But that did not allow the drow to sit easier on his mount. No signs, but that was the way with monsters in the dale.

"What do ye know?" Catti-brie whispered finally.

Drizzt continued to look about. There was about a hundred yards between them and the wagons, and the distance was fast closing. Still, Drizzt's eyes told him nothing, nor did his keen ears, nor even his sense of smell. But that sixth warrior sense knew better, knew that he and Catti-brie had missed something, had passed something by.

Drizzt took the onyx figurine from his pouch and softly called to Guenhwyvar. As the mist grew and the panther took shape, the drow motioned for Catti-brie to ready her bow, which she was already doing, and then to circle back toward the wagons, flanking right while he flanked out to the left.

The young woman nodded. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling, her warrior instincts yelling at her to be ready. She had an arrow on Taulmaril, holding the weapons easily in one hand while her other guided the horse.

Guenhwyvar came onto the tundra with her ears flat, knowing from both the secretive tone of Drizzt's call and her own incredible senses that enemies were about. The cat looked right to Catti-brie, then left to Drizzt, then padded silently up the middle, ready to spring to the aid of either.

Noticing the movement of his point guards, and then the presence of the panther, the lead driver slowed his wagon, then called for a general halt. Drizzt held high a scimitar, showing his agreement with the stop.

Now far to the right, Catti-brie was the first to spot an enemy. It was deep into the soil, just the top of its shaggy brown head visible, poking from a hole. A tundra yeti, the fiercest hunter of Icewind Dale. Shaggy brown in the summer, snow white in the winter, tundra yetis were known to be masters of camouflage. Catti-brie nodded at that assessment, almost in appreciation of their skills. She and Drizzt, no novices, had walked their mounts right past the beasts, oblivious to the danger. This was Icewind Dale, the young woman promptly reminded herself. Merciless and unforgiving of the smallest error.

But the error this time was the yeti's, Catti-brie decided grimly, lifting her bow. Off streaked an arrow, hitting the unsuspecting beast right in the back of the head. It lurched forward, rebounded back violently, then slumped dead in its hole.

A split second later, the very ground seemed to explode as half a dozen yetis leaped up from similar trenches. They were powerful, shaggy beasts, looking like a cross between a human and a bear梐nd indeed, the lore of Icewind Dale's barbarian tribes claimed that they were exactly that!

Back behind Drizzt and Catti-brie, right in the middle of the flanking pair, Guenhwyvar hit one beast in full stride. She knocked it back into its hole, the panther's momentum carrying her in right behind it.

The yeti grabbed on with all its might, thinking to squeeze the life from the cat, but Guenhwyvar's powerful rear legs raked at the beast and held it at bay.

Meanwhile, Drizzt went into a full gallop, racing right beside one spinning yeti and double slashing at it with his scimitars as he held fast to his mount with his strong legs.

The bloodied beast fell away, roaring and howling in protest, and Drizzt, bearing down on a second yeti, paid it no more heed. This second yeti was ready for him, and even worse, it was ready for his horse. Yetis had been known to stop a horse at full charge, breaking the animal's neck in the process.

Drizzt couldn't risk that. He angled his charge to the left of the yeti, then lifted his left leg over the saddle and dropped from his speeding mount into a run, his enchanted anklets allowing him to get his feet under him in but a few speedy strides.

He went by the surprised yeti in a wild, slashing blur, scoring several wicked hits before he was too far away to strike. Drizzt kept running, knowing that the yeti, far from finished, had turned in pursuit. When he had put enough ground between himself and the beast, he turned back, angling for another swift pass.

Then Catti-brie, too, went into a full gallop, using her legs to hold herself steady and she leaned low in the saddle, taking a bead on the next closest beast.

She fired, and missed, but had another arrow up and ready in an instant and fired again, taking the yeti in the hip.

The beast flailed at the arrow and spun in a circle, taking another arrow, and then another in the chest as it came around to face the closing woman. Still it was standing, stubbornly, as Catti-brie came upon it. Ready to improvise, the woman hooked Taulmaril over the horn of her saddle and in one flashing motion, drew out Khazid'hea, her fabulous sword.

Catti-brie rambled past, swiping hard in a downward arc, the fine edge of Khazid'hea caving in the dying beast's skull, finishing the grim task. Down went the beast, its brain spilling from its skull onto the brown plain.

Catti-brie went right by the dying thing, replaced her sword and fired off her fifth shot with Taulmaril, this one popping into the shoulder of the next beast in line, dropping its arm lifeless to its side. Looking past the wounded yeti, Catti-brie saw the last of the yetis, which were closest to the lead wagons. In the distance she also noted the other caravan guards, a dozen sturdy fighters, riding hard to catch up to the battle.

"This fight's our own," the woman said quietly, determinedly, and as she closed on the wounded yeti, she hooked Taulmaril over the horn of her saddle and once more drew out Khazid'hea.

Still down in the tight hole, Guenhwyvar found her mighty claws gave her the advantage. The yeti tried to bite, but the panther was quicker, her neck more flexible. Guenhwyvar angled under the yeti's chin, her jaws snapping onto the shaggy neck. Her claws kept up their raking motions, kept the yeti's considerable weapons at bay, while the deadly jaws clamped tight and suffocated the beast.

The panther came out of the hole as soon as the yeti had stopped its fighting. Guenhwyvar looked left and right, to Drizzt and Catti-brie. She issued a roar and raced right, where the situation seemed far more dangerous.

Drizzt was charging at the yeti he had wounded, but pulled up short, forcing the yeti, which had been ready to meet the charge, to overcompensate. It leaned too far forward. The drow's scimitars cut fast and hard, ripping into the yeti's hands, severing several of the beast's fingers.

The yeti howled and pulled in its arms. Drizzt, so impossibly quick, chased them back, snapping Twinkle into the yeti's upper arm, and scoring a hit down low, at the beast's waist, with his other blade. Then Drizzt went deftly out to the side, out of range before the beast could counter.

The yeti was not a stupid thing, not where combat was concerned, and it understood that it was overmatched. It turned to flee, long and loping strides that could outrun almost any man, or any elf.

But Drizzt wore the enchanted anklets, and he paced the beast easily. He was behind it and then beside it, scoring hit after hit, turning the dirty, shaggy coat bright red with spilling blood. The ranger knew the truth of tundra yetis, knew that they were not simple animal hunters. They were vicious monsters that murdered for sport as well as for food.

So he continued to pace it, would not let it flee, easily dodging the feeble attempts the beast made to strike at him, and scoring his own brutal hits repeatedly. Finally, the yeti pulled up and turned in a final, desperate rush.

Drizzt, too, charged, scimitars extended, one taking the yeti in the throat, the other in the belly.

Agile Drizzt came out the other side, right under the stumbling yeti's reaching arm. The drow skidded to a stop and banged his blades hard against the yeti's back, but the beast was already on the way down, already defeated. It fell headlong into the dirt.

Now it became a race between Catti-brie and the one remaining uninjured enemy to get to the yeti she had wounded in the arm.

Catti-brie won that race, and slashed hard as the yeti reached for her with its one working arm. Khazid'hea, fine-edged Khazid'hea, took that arm off cleanly, severing it at the shoulder.

The yeti went into a crazed dance, spinning all about and then toppling to the ground, its lifeblood gushing forth.

Catti-brie rushed away from it, not wanting to get caught up in that frenzied thrashing, and knowing that the fight was not yet won. She turned just in time to meet the charge of the last yeti, extending her sword and bracing herself.

The beast came straight in, arms out wide and extended.

Khazid'hea went right through its chest, but still its strong arms grasped Catti-brie's shoulders and its momentum barreled her over backward.

As she flew and fell, Catti-brie realized the danger of a five hundred pound yeti coming down atop her. Then, suddenly, she was still falling, but the yeti was gone, simply gone, its momentum reversed by the flying Guenhwyvar.

Catti-brie hit the ground hard, managed to roll to absorb some of the force, and then came back to her feet.

The fight was over, though, with Guenhwyvar's strong jaws clamped tight on the throat of the already dead yeti.

Catti-brie looked up from the cat, into the stare of blank amazement splayed across the faces of the other caravan guards.

Six dead tundra yetis in a matter of minutes.

Catti-brie couldn't restrain a smile, nor could Drizzt as he came up to join her, as the men turned their horses away, shaking their heads in disbelief.

According to Cadderly, Drizzt's reputation as a fighter had gotten them onto the caravan in the first place, and now, the pair realized, that reputation would spread wide among the merchants of Luskan. Would spread wide, as would the clear acceptance of this most unusual drow elf.

*****

Soon after, the friends were back on their mounts and back in the lead.

"Three for me," Catti-brie remarked offhandedly.

Drizzt's lavender orbs narrowed as he considered her. He understood the game, had played it often with Wulfgar and even more so with Bruenor, during the days of their exploits.

"Two and a half," Drizzt corrected, remembering the panther's role in killing the last of the beasts.

Catti-brie did the math quickly in her head and then decided that there was no harm in giving the drow the argument, though she believed that the last yeti was dead before Guenhwyvar ever got to it. "Two and a half," she replied, "but only two for yerself!"

Drizzt couldn't suppress a chuckle.

"And only one and a half for the cat!" Catti-brie added with a superior snap of her fingers.

Guenhwyvar, loping along beside the horses, issued a growl, and both Catti-brie and Drizzt burst out in laughter, figuring that the too-intelligent panther had understood every word.

The caravan continued into Icewind Dale without further incident, arriving ahead of schedule in Bryn Shander, the primary marketplace in the dale and the largest of the ten towns that gave this region of the dale its name. Bryn Shander was a walled city, built upon low hills and circular in design. It was located near to the exact center of the triangle created by the three lakes of Maer Dualdon, Lac Dinneshere, and Redwaters. Bryn Shander was the only town of the ten without a fishing fleet, the staple of Ten-Towns' economy, and yet it was the most thriving of the cities, the home of the craftsmen and the merchants, the hub of politics in all the region.

Drizzt's welcome there was not friendly, even after he was formally introduced to the gate guards, and one of them admitted that he remembered the drow ranger from when he was a boy. Catti-brie was well received, though, quite well, particularly because her father had returned to the dale and all in the city were anxious for the precious metals to begin their flow from the dwarven mines.

Because his time of work for the caravan merchants was ended, Drizzt would not have even entered Bryn Shander. He meant to turn instead straight north for the dwarven valley. Before they could settle up with the caravan leaders inside the city gates, though, the companions were informed that Cassius, the Spokesman of Bryn Shander had requested an audience with Catti-brie.

Though she was dirty from the long ride and wanted nothing more than to fall into a comfortable bed, Catti-brie could not refuse, but she insisted that Drizzt accompany her.

*****

"It went well," the young woman remarked, later that day, when she and Drizzt left the spokesman's mansion.

Drizzt didn't disagree. Indeed it had gone better than Drizzt had expected, for Cassius remembered Drizzt Do'Urden well, and had greeted the drow with an unexpected smile. And now Drizzt was walking openly down the streets of Bryn Shander, suffering many curious looks, but no open hostility. Many, particularly the children, pointed and whispered, and Drizzt's keen ears caught words such as "ranger" and "warrior" more than once, always spoken with respect.

It was good to be home, so good that Drizzt almost forgot the desperate search that had brought him here. For a short while at least, the drow didn't have to think of Errtu and the crystal shard.

Before they reached the gate, another of Bryn Shander's residents came running up to them, hollering their names.

"Regis!" Catti-brie shouted, turning to see the three-and-a-half-foot halfling. His curly brown hair was bobbing, as was his ample belly as he huffed along.

"You were leaving without even a visit!" the halfling cried, finally catching up to the pair. He was immediately scooped up in a tight hug by a speechless Catti-brie. "No 'well met' for your old friend?" Regis asked, falling back to his feet.

"We thought you would be with Bruenor," Drizzt explained honestly, and Regis was not offended, for the explanation was simple and truly believable. Surely if Drizzt and Catti-brie had known that the halfling was in Bryn Shander, they would have gone straight to see him.

"I split my time between the mines and the city," Regis explained. "Somebody has to serve as ambassador between the merchants and that surly father of yours!"

Catti-brie gave him another hug.

"We have dined with Cassius," Drizzt explained. "It seems that not much has changed in Ten-Towns."

"Except for many of the people. You know the way of the dale. Most don't stay long, or don't live long."

"Cassius still rules in Bryn Shander," Drizzt remarked.

"And Jensin Brent speaks still for Caer-Dineval," Regis reported happily. That was good news for the companions, for Jensin Brent was among the heroes of the battle for Icewind Dale against Akar Kessel and the crystal shard. He was among the most reasonable politicians either of them had ever known.

"The good with the bad," Regis went on, "for Kemp remains in Targos."

"Tough old orc-kin," Catti-brie replied quietly.

"Tougher than ever," Regis said. "Berkthgar has returned as well."

Drizzt and Catti-brie nodded. Both had heard rumors to that effect.

"He's running with Revjak and the Tribe of the Elk," the half-ling explained. "We hear little from them."

His tone told the pair that there was more to that tale.

"Bruenor paid Revjak a visit," Regis admitted. "It did not go well."

Drizzt knew Revjak, understood the wise man's soul. He knew Berkthgar, too, and it didn't take the drow long to surmise the source of the apparent problems.

"Berkthgar's never truly forgiven Bruenor," Regis said.

"Not the hammer again," said an exasperated Catti-brie.

Regis could offer no explanations, but Drizzt resolved then and there to pay the barbarians a visit of his own. Berkthgar was a noble and powerful warrior, but he could be a stubborn one, and the drow suspected that his old friend Revjak might be needing some support.

But that was business for another day. Drizzt and Catti-brie spent the night with Regis in his Bryn Shander residence, and then the three were out bright and early the next day, setting a swift pace due north for the dwarven mines.

They arrived before midday, and as they came down into the valley, an anxious Catti-brie, who had grown up in this very place, took the lead from Regis. The young woman needed no guide in this familiar setting. She went straight to the common entrance to the dwarven complex and went in without hesitation, stooping to get under the low frame so easily that it seemed as if she had never been away from the place.

She verily ran along the dimly lit corridors, pausing briefly with every dwarf she encountered梑earded folk whose faces inevitably beamed when they recognized that Catti-brie and Drizzt had returned. Conversations were polite, but very short, a well-wish from the dwarf, an inquiry by Catti-brie or Drizzt about where they might find Bruenor.

At last they came to the room where Bruenor was reportedly at work. They heard the hammer banging within; the dwarf was forging, a rare event over the last decade, since the creation of Aegis-fang.

Catti-brie cracked open the door. Bruenor had his back to her but she knew that it was him by the sturdy set of his shoulders, the wild red hair, and the helmet with one horn broken away. With the sound of his hammer and the roaring fire just to the side of him, he did not hear them enter.

The three walked right up to the oblivious dwarf and Catti-brie tapped him on the shoulder. He half-turned, hardly glancing her way.

"Get ye gone!" the dwarf grumbled. "Can't ye see I'm fixin' . . ."

Bruenor's words fell away in a profound swallow. He continued to stare straight ahead for a long moment as if he was afraid to look, afraid that the quick glimpse had deceived him.

Then the red-bearded dwarf did turn, and he nearly swooned at the sight of his daughter returned, and of his best friend, come home to him after six long years. He dropped his hammer right on top of his own foot, but he didn't seem to notice as he shuffled over a step and wrapped both Catti-brie and Drizzt in a hug so tight that they thought the powerful dwarf would surely snap their spines.

Gradually, Bruenor let Drizzt slip out of that hug, and he wrapped Catti-brie all the tighter, mumbling, "me girl," over and over again.

Drizzt took the opportunity to bring in Guenhwyvar from her astral home, and as soon as the dwarf finally sorted himself out from Catti-brie, the panther buried him, knocking him prone and standing triumphantly above him.

"Get the durned cat off o' me!" Bruenor roared, to which Guenhwyvar casually licked him full in the face.

"Oh, ye stupid cat," the dwarf complained, but there was no anger in Bruenor's voice. How could he possibly be angry with his two, no three, friends returned?

And how could that anger, if there had been any, have held up against the howls of laughter from Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Regis. A defeated Bruenor looked up to the cat, and it seemed to him as if Guenhwyvar was smiling.

The five companions spent the remainder of that day, long into the night, trading tales. Bruenor and Regis had little to say, other than to quickly retell their decision to leave Mithril Hall in Gandalug's hands and return to Icewind Dale.

Bruenor couldn't fully explain that choice梙is choice, for Regis merely had followed along梑ut Drizzt could. When Bruenor's grief over the loss of Wulfgar and his elation about the victory over the dark elves had finally dissipated, Bruenor had gotten restless, as had Catti-brie and Drizzt. The red-bearded dwarf was old, past two hundred, but not too old by the standards of the dwarven folk. He was not yet ready to settle down and live happily ever after. With Gandalug back in Mithril Hall, Bruenor, for once, could forget about responsibilities and consider his own feelings.

For their part, Drizzt and Catti-brie had much more to talk about, recounting tales of their pirate-chasing along the Sword Coast with Captain Deudermont. Bruenor, too, had sailed with the captain, though Regis did not know the man.

And the two had so many tales to tell! One battle after another梩hrilling chases, music playing, and Catti-brie always straining to decipher the enemy's insignia from her high perch. When they got to the events of the last few weeks, though, Drizzt ended the recounting abruptly.

"And so it went," the drow said. "But even such times can become a hollow enjoyment. We both knew that it was time to come home, to find you two."

"How'd ye know where to find us?" he asked.

Drizzt stuttered over his answer for just a moment. "Why, that was how we knew it was time to come home," he lied. "We heard in Luskan that some dwarves had come through the city, returning to Icewind Dale. The rumors said that Bruenor Battle-hammer was among them."

Bruenor nodded, though he knew that his friend was not telling him the truth, or at least, not all of it. Bruenor's party had purposely avoided Luskan, and though the people there certainly knew of the march, the dwarves had not "come through the city," as Drizzt had just claimed. The red-bearded dwarf said nothing, though, for he held faith that Drizzt would tell him the complete truth in good time.

He suspected that his friends had some monumental secret, and the dwarf figured that he knew what it was. How ironic, Bruenor privately considered, for a dwarf to have a drow elf for a son-in-law!

The group went quiet for a while, Drizzt and Catti-brie's tales having been told in full, at least, as in full as they were apparently going to be told at this sitting. Regis went out into the hall and returned in a moment with news that the sun was high in the eastern sky.

"Good food and warm beds!" Bruenor proclaimed, and so off they went, Drizzt dismissing Guenhwyvar and promising to recall the cat as soon as she was rested.

After the short sleep, they were back together梕xcept for Regis, who considered anything less than ten hours too short梩alking and smiling. Drizzt and Catti-brie revealed nothing new about the last few weeks of their adventure, though, and Bruenor didn't press the point, holding faith in his dear friend and his daughter.

For that brief moment, at least, all the world seemed bright and carefree.

Chapter 21

WHENEVER

Drizzt reclined in the shade on the smooth and slanted side of a boulder, crossing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes, enjoying the unusually warm day梖or it did not often get so warm in Icewind Dale, even in late summer.

Though he was far from the entrance to the dwarven mines, Drizzt did not fear his lapse of readiness, for Guenhwyvar reclined nearby, always alert. The drow was just about asleep when the panther issued a low growl, her ears going flat.

Drizzt sat up, but then Guenhwyvar calmed, even rolled over lazily and he knew that whoever was approaching was no threat. A moment later, Catti-brie walked around a bend in the trail to join her friends. Drizzt was pleased to see her桪rizzt was always pleased to see her梑ut then he noted the troubled look upon her fair features.

She walked right up and sat down on the boulder beside the dark elf. "I'm thinking that we have to tell them," she said immediately, ending any suspense.

Drizzt understood exactly what she was talking about. When they had recounted their adventures to Bruenor, it had been Drizzt, and Drizzt alone, who had fabricated the ending tales, Catti-brie going conspicuously silent. She was uncomfortable in lying to her father. So was Drizzt, but the drow wasn't certain of what he might say to Bruenor to explain the events that had brought them to the dale. He did not want to inject any unnecessary tension and as far as he knew, it could be years, even decades, before Errtu found his way to them.

"Eventually," Drizzt replied to Catti-brie.

"Why're ye wanting to wait?" the woman asked.

Drizzt paused梘ood question. "We need more information," he explained at length. "We do not know whether Errtu means to come to the dale, and have no idea of when that might be. Fiends measure time differently than do we; a year is not so long to one of Errtu's race, nor is a century. I see no need to alarm Bruenor and Regis at this time."

Catti-brie thought on that for a long while. "How're ye thinking to get more information?" she asked.

"Stumpet Rakingclaw," Drizzt replied.

"Ye hardly know her."

"But I will get to know her. I know enough of her, of her exploits in Keeper's Dale and in Menzoberranzan against the invading dark elves, to trust in her power and her sense."

Catti-brie nodded梖rom everything she had heard of Stumpet Rakingclaw, the cleric was an excellent choice. Something else bothered Catti-brie, though, something that the drow had hinted at. She sighed deeply, and that told Drizzt what was on her mind.

"We have no way of knowing how long it will be," the drow ranger admitted.

"Then are we to become guardians for a year?" Catti-brie asked, rather sharply. "Or a hundred years?" She saw the drow's pained look and regretted the words as soon as she had spoken them. Surely it would be difficult for Catti-brie, lying in wait as the months rolled by for a fiend that might not even show up. But how much worse it must be for Drizzt! For Drizzt was not just waiting for Errtu, but for his father, his tortured father, and every day that passed meant another day that Zaknafein was in Errtu's evil clutches.

The woman bowed her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should've been thinkin' of yer father."

Drizzt put a hand on her shoulder. "Fear not," he replied, "I think of him constantly."

Catti-brie lifted her deep blue eyes to look deeply into the drow's lavender orbs. "We'll get him back," she promised grimly, "and pay Errtu for all the pain he's given yer father."

"I know," Drizzt said with a nod. "But there is no need to raise the alarm just yet. Bruenor and Regis have enough to concern them with winter fast approaching."

Catti-brie agreed and sat back on the warm stone. They would wait as long as they had to, and then let Errtu beware!

And so the friends fell into the routine of everyday life in Icewind Dale, working with the dwarves over the next couple of weeks. Drizzt secured a cave to serve as an outer camp for his many forays onto the open tundra, and Catti-brie spent quite a bit of time there as well, beside her friend, silently comforting him.

They spoke little of Errtu and the crystal shard, and Drizzt hadn't yet approached Stumpet, but the drow thought of the fiend, and more particularly, of the fiend's prisoner, almost constantly.

Simmering.

*****

"You must come quicker when I call to you!" the wizard growled, pacing anxiously about the room. He hardly seemed imposing to the twelve-foot glabrezu. The fiend had four arms, two ending with mighty hands and two with pincers that could snap a man in half.

"My fellows, they do not tolerate delays," the wizard went on. The glabrezu, Bizmatec, curled up his canine lips in a sly smile. This wizard, Dosemen of Sundabar, was all in disarray, battling hard to win a foolish contest against his fellow guild members. Perhaps he had erred in preparing the circle . . .

"Do I ask much of you?" Dosemen wailed. "Of course I do not! Just a few answers to minor questions, and I have given much in return."

"I do not complain," Bizmatec replied. While the fiend spoke, he scrutinized the circle of power, the only thing holding back the glabrezu's wrath. If Dosemen had not properly prepared the circle, Bizmatec meant to devour him.

"But neither do you give to me the answers!" Dosemen howled. "Now, I will ask once more, and you will have three hours, just three hours, to return with my answers."[奇+书+网]

Bizmatec heard the words distinctly, and considered their implications in a new and respectful light, for by that time, the fiend had come to know that the circle was complete and perfect. There could be no escape.

Dosemen began rattling off his seven questions, seven unimportant and obscure questions, worthless except that finding their answers was the contest the wizard's guild had begun. Dosemen's voice showed his urgency; he knew that at least three of his fellows had garnered several of the answers already.

Bizmatec was not listening, though, was trying to recall something he had heard in the Abyss, a proposition put forth by a tanar'ri much greater than he. The glabrezu looked at the perfect circle again and scowled doubtfully, and yet, Errtu had said that the power of the summoner or the perfection of the magical binding circle was not an issue.

"Wait!" Bizmatec roared, and Dosemen, despite his confidence and his anger, fell back and fell silent.

"The answers you require will take many hours to discover," the fiend explained.

"I do not have many hours!" Dosemen retorted, gaining back a bit of his composure with his rising ire.

"Then I have for you an answer," the glabrezu replied with a sly and wicked grin.

"You just said . . ."

"I have no answers to your questions," Bizmatec quickly explained. "But I know of one who does, a balor."

Dosemen paled at the mention of the great beast. He was no minor wizard, practiced at summoning and confident of his magic circle. But a balor! Never had Dosemen tried to bring in such a beast. Balors, and by all accounts there were only a score or so, were the highest level of tanar'ri, the greatest of the terrors of the Abyss.

"You fear the balor?" Bizmatec teased.

Dosemen pulled himself up straight, remembering that he had to show confidence in the face of a fiend. Weakness of attitude bred weakness of binding, that was the sorcerer's creed. "I fear nothing!" the wizard declared.

"Then get your answers from the balor!" Bizmatec roared. "Errtu, by name."

Dosemen fell back another step at the sheer power of the glabrezu's roar. Then the wizard calmed considerably and stood staring. The glabrezu had just given him the name of a balor, openly and without a price. A tanar'ri's name was among its most precious commodities, for with that name, a wizard such as Dosemen could strengthen the binding of his call.

"How much do you desire defeating your rivals?" Bizmatec teased, snickering with each word. "Surely Errtu will show you the truth of your questions."

Dosemen thought on it for just a moment, then turned sharply upon Bizmatec. He was still leery about the prospects of bringing in a balor, but the carrot, his first victory in one of the guild's biannual contests, was too juicy to ignore. "Be gone!" he commanded. "I'll waste no more energy upon the likes of you."

The glabrezu liked hearing that promise. He knew that Dosemen was speaking only of wasting his energy upon Bizmatec for the time being. The wizard had become quite a thorn to the glabrezu. But if the whispers filtering around the smoky layers of the Abyss concerning mighty Errtu were true, then Dosemen would soon enough be surprised and terrified by the ironic truth of his own words.

*****

Back in the Abyss, the interplanar gate fast closing behind him, Bizmatec rushed to an area of gigantic mushrooms, the lair of mighty Errtu. The balor at first moved to destroy the fiend, thinking the glabrezu an invader, but when Bizmatec spouted his news, Errtu fell back on his mushroom throne, grinning from horn to horn.

"You gave the fool my name?" Errtu asked.

Bizmatec hesitated, but there seemed no anger in Errtu's voice, only eager anticipation. "By the instructions I heard . . ." the glabrezu began tentatively, but Errtu's cackling laughter stopped him.

"That is good," the balor said. Bizmatec relaxed considerably.

"But Dosemen is no minor wizard," Bizmatec warned. "His circle is perfect."

Errtu chuckled again as if that hardly mattered. Bizmatec was about to reiterate that point, figuring that the balor simply believed that he would find a flaw where the glabrezu had not, but Errtu moved first, holding forth a small black coffer.

"No circle is perfect," the balor remarked cryptically and with all confidence. "Now, come quickly. I have another task for you, a service of guarding my most valuable prisoner." Errtu slid from his throne and started away, but stopped, seeing that the glabrezu was hesitating.

"The rewards will be great, my general," Errtu promised. "Many days running free on the Prime Material Plane; many souls to devour."

No tanar'ri could resist that.

Dosemen's call came a short while later, and though it was weak, the wizard having already expended much of his magical energy in summoning Bizmatec, Errtu scooped up his precious coffer and was quick to respond. He followed the interplanar gate to Dosemen's room in Sundabar, and found himself, as Bizmatec had warned, standing in the middle of a perfectly ingrained circle of power.

"Close fast the gate!" the balor cried, his thunderous, grating voice reverberating off the stone walls of the room. "The baatezu might follow me through! Oh, fool! You have separated me from my minions, and now the beasts of doom will follow me through the gate! What will you do, foolish mortal, when the pit fiends enter your domain?"

As any wise wizard would, Dosemen was already frantically at work in closing the gate. Pit fiends! More than one? No circle, no wizard, could hold a balor and a pair or more of pit fiends. Dosemen chanted and worked his arms in concentric circles, throwing various material components into the air.

Errtu continued to feign rage and terror, watching the wizard and then looking back as if he was viewing the very gate he had come through. Errtu needed that gate closed, for any working magic would soon be dispelled, and if the gate was still empowered at the time, the balor would likely be sent back to the Abyss.

Finally, it was done, and Dosemen stood calm梐s calm as a wizard could while looking into the half-ape, half-dog face of a balor!

"I have summoned you for a simple? Dosemen began.

"Silence!" roared mighty Errtu. "You have summoned me because you were instructed to summon me!"

Dosemen eyed the beast curiously, then looked to his circle, his perfect circle. He had to hold faith, had to consider the balor's words as a bluff.

"Silence!" Dosemen yelled back, and because his circle was indeed perfect, and because he had summoned the tanar'ri correctly, using its true name, Errtu had to comply.

So the balor was silent as he produced the black coffer, holding it up for Dosemen to see.

"What is that?" the wizard demanded.

"Your doom," Errtu answered, and he was not lying. Grinning wickedly, the balor opened the coffer, revealing a shining black sapphire the size of a large man's fist, a remnant of the Time of Troubles. Contained within that sapphire was an energy of antimagic, for it was a piece of dead magic zone, one of the most important remnants of the days when the avatars of the gods walked the Realms. When the shielding coffer was opened, Dosemen's mental binding over Errtu was gone, and the wizard's circle, though its tracings remained perfect, was no longer a prison for the summoned fiend, no longer a deterrence, nor were any of the protection spells that the wizard had placed upon his person.

Errtu, too, had no magic that he could hurl in the face of that dead magic stone, but the powerful tanar'ri, a thousand pounds of muscle and catastrophe, hardly needed any.

Dosemen's fellow wizards entered his private room later that night, fearful for their guild-brother. They found a shoe, just one, and a splotch of dried blood.

Errtu, having replaced the sapphire in the coffer, which could shield even against such wicked antimagic, was far, far away by then, flying fast to the north and the west梩o Icewind Dale, where Crenshinibon, an artifact that the balor had coveted through centuries, waited.

*****

Chapter 22

LIKE OLD TIMES

The ranger ran with the wind in his ears, that constant humming. It had shifted more from the north now, off the glaciers and the great bergs of the Sea of Moving Ice, as the season drifted away from summer, through the short fall and into the long and dark winter.

Drizzt knew this change on the tundra as well as any. He had lived in Icewind Dale for just a decade, but in that time he had come to know well the land and its ways. He could tell by the texture of the ground exactly what time of year it was to within a ten-day. Now the ground was hardening once more, though there remained a bit of sliding under his moving feet, a subtle hint of mud below the dry surface, the last remnant of the short summer.

The ranger kept his cloak tight about his neck, warding off the chilly breeze. Though he was bundled, and though he could not hear much above the incessant moan of the wind, the drow was alert, always alert. Creatures venturing out onto the open plain of Icewind Dale who were not careful did not survive for long. Drizzt noted tracks of tundra yeti in several places. He also found one group of footprints close together, moving side by side, the way a goblin band might travel. He could read those prints, where they had come from and where they were going, and he had not come out from Kelvin's Cairn for any fight. He took special note of them now simply to avoid the creatures who had made them.

Soon Drizzt found the tracks he desired, two sets of prints from soft boots, man-sized, traveling slowly, as a hunter would stalk. He noted that the deepest depression by far was near the ball of the foot. Barbarians walked in a toe-heel manner, not the heel-toe stride used by most of the peoples of the Realms. There could be no doubt now for the ranger. He had ventured near to the barbarian encampment the night before, meaning to go in and speak with Revjak and Berkthgar. Listening secretly from the darkness, however, the drow had discovered that Berkthgar intended to go out on a hunt the next day, alone with Revjak's son.

That news unsettled Drizzt at first梔id Berkthgar mean to indirectly strike a blow at Revjak and kill the boy?

Drizzt had quickly dismissed that silly notion; he knew Berkthgar. For all their differences, the man was honorable and no murderer. More likely, Drizzt reasoned, Berkthgar was trying to win over the trust of Revjak's son, strengthening his base of power within the tribe.

Drizzt had stayed out of the encampment all the night, in the darkness, undetected. He had moved safely away before the dawn and had subsequently circled far to the north.

Now he had found the tracks, two men, side by side. They were an hour ahead of him, but moving as hunters, and so Drizzt was confident that he would find them in but a few minutes.

The ranger slowed his pace a moment later when he found that the tracks split, the smaller set going off to the west, the larger continuing straight north. Drizzt followed the larger, figuring them to be Berkthgar's, and a few minutes later, he spotted the giant barbarian, kneeling on the tundra, shielding his eyes and peering hard to the north and west.

Drizzt slowed and moved cautiously. He discovered that he was nervous at the sight of the imposing man. Drizzt and Berkthgar had argued many times in the past, usually when Drizzt was serving Bruenor as liaison to Settlestone, where Berkthgar ruled. This time was different, Drizzt realized. Berkthgar was back home now, needing nothing from Bruenor, and that might make the man more dangerous.

Drizzt had to find out. That was why he had come out from Kelvin's Cairn in the first place. He moved silently, step by step, until he was within a few yards of the still-kneeling, apparently oblivious barbarian.

"My greetings, Berkthgar," the ranger said. His sudden voice did not appear to startle the barbarian, and Drizzt believed that Berkthgar, so at home on the tundra, had sensed his approach.

Berkthgar rose slowly and turned to face the drow.

Drizzt looked to the west, to a speck on the distant tundra. "Your hunting partner?" he asked.

"Revjak's son, Kierstaad by name," Berkthgar replied. "A fine boy."

"And what of Revjak?" Drizzt asked.

Berkthgar paused a moment, jaw firm. "It was whispered that you had returned to the dale," he said.

"Is that a good thing in the eyes of Berkthgar?"

"No," came the simple reply. "The tundra is wide, drow. Wide enough so that we will not have to meet again." Berkthgar began to turn away, as if that was all that had to be said, but Drizzt wasn't ready to let things go just yet.

"Why would you desire that?" Drizzt asked innocently, trying to push Berkthgar into playing his hand openly. Drizzt wanted to know just how far the barbarians were moving away from the dwarves and the folk of Ten-Towns. Were they to become invisible partners sharing the tundra, or, as they once had been, sworn enemies?

"Revjak calls me friend," Drizzt went on. "When I left the dale those years ago, I named Revjak among those I would truly miss."

"Revjak is an old man," Berkthgar said evenly.

"Revjak speaks for the tribe."

"No!" Berkthgar's response came fast and sharp. Then he quickly calmed and his smile told Drizzt that the denial was true. "No more does Revjak speak for the tribe," Berkthgar went on.

"Berkthgar, then?" Drizzt asked.

The huge barbarian nodded, smiling still. "I have returned to lead my people," he said. "Away from the errors of Wulfgar and Revjak, back to the ways we once knew, when we were free, when we answered to no one but our own and our god."

Drizzt thought on that for a moment. The proud young man was truly deluding himself, the drow realized, for those old times that Berkthgar spoke of so reverently were not as carefree and wonderful as the huge man apparently believed. Those years were marked by war, usually between tribes competing for food that was often scarce. Barbarians starved to death and froze to death, and often wound up as meals for tundra yeti, or for the great white bears that also followed the reindeer herd along the coast of the Sea of Moving Ice.

That was the danger of nostalgia, Drizzt realized. One often remembered the good of the past while forgetting the troubles.

"Then Berkthgar speaks for the tribes," Drizzt agreed. "Will he lead them to despair? To war?"

"War is not always despair," the barbarian said coolly. "And do you forget so soon that following the course of Wulfgar led us to war with your own people?"

Drizzt had no response to that statement. It hadn't happened exactly like that, of course. The drow war was far more an accident of chance than of anything Wulfgar had done. But still, the words were true enough, at least from Berkthgar's stilted perspective.

"And before that, Wulfgar's course led the tribes to war in helping to reclaim the throne for your ungrateful friend," Berkthgar pressed.

Drizzt glared hard at Berkthgar. Again the man's words were true, if stilted, and the drow realized that there was no practical response he could offer to sway Berkthgar.

They both noticed then that the speck on the tundra was larger now as Kierstaad approached.

"We have found the clean air of the tundra again," Berkthgar proclaimed before the lad arrived. "We have returned to the old ways, the better ways, and those do not allow for friendship with drow elves."

"Berkthgar forgets much," Drizzt replied.

"Berkthgar remembers much," the giant barbarian answered, and walked away.

"You would do well to consider the good that Wulfgar did for your people," Drizzt called after him. "Perhaps Settlestone was not the place for the tribe, but Icewind Dale is an unforgiving land, a land where allies are the most valuable assets for any man."

Berkthgar didn't slow. He came up to Kierstaad and walked right past the young man. Kierstaad turned and watched him for a short time, the young man quickly deciphering what had just happened. Then Kierstaad turned back to Drizzt and, recognizing the drow, sprinted over to stand before him.

"Well met, Kierstaad," Drizzt said. "The years have done you well."

Kierstaad straightened a bit at that remark, thrilled to have Drizzt Do'Urden say anything complimentary to him. Kierstaad was just a boy of twelve when Drizzt left Mithril Hall, and so he did not know the drow very well. He knew of Drizzt, though, the legendary warrior. Once Drizzt and Catti-brie had come to Hengorot, the mead hall in Settlestone, and Drizzt had leaped upon the table, giving a speech that called for a strengthened alliance between the dwarves and the barbarians. By all the old ways that Berkthgar so often spoke of, no drow elf should have been allowed in Hengorot, and certainly none would have been shown any respect. But the mead hall showed respect to Drizzt Do'Urden that day, a testament to the drow's battle prowess.

Kierstaad could not forget, too, the stories his father had told him of Drizzt. In one particularly vicious battle with the folk of Ten-Towns, the barbarian warriors invading Ten-Towns were badly beaten, in no small part because of Drizzt Do'Urden. After that fight, the ranks of the barbarians were greatly diminished. With winter coming on, it seemed that many hardships would befall those who had survived the war, particularly the very young and the very old, for there simply were not enough hunters left alive to provide for all.

But the fresh carcasses of reindeer had been found along the trail as the nomadic barbarians had moved west with the herd, killed cleanly and left for the tribe. The work of Drizzt Do'Urden, Revjak and many of the elders agreed, the drow who had defended Ten-Towns against the barbarians. Revjak had never forgotten the significance of that act of kindness, nor had many of the older barbarians.

"Well met, to you," Kierstaad replied. "It is good that you have returned."

"Not everyone agrees with that view," Drizzt remarked.

Kierstaad snorted and shrugged noncommittally. "I am sure that Bruenor is glad to see the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden again," he said.

"And of Catti-brie," Drizzt added. "For she returned at my side."

Again the young man nodded and Drizzt could tell that he wanted to say something more profound than the polite conversation. He kept looking back over his shoulder, though, to the departing form of Berkthgar, his leader. His loyalties were obviously split.

Finally, Kierstaad sighed and turned to face the drow directly, the internal battle decided. "Many remember the truth of Drizzt Do'Urden," he said.

"And of Bruenor Battlehammer?"

Kierstaad nodded. "Berkthgar leads the tribe, by right of deed, but not all agree with his every word."

"Then let us hope that Berkthgar soon remembers that truth," Drizzt replied.

Kierstaad glanced back one more time, to see that Berkthgar had stopped and had turned to regard him. The young barbarian understood then what was expected of him, and he gave a quick nod to Drizzt, not even offering a parting word, and ran off to join the giant man.

Drizzt spent a long time considering the implications of that sight, the young man blindly running to Berkthgar's will, though he did not share many of his leader's views. Then Drizzt considered his own course. He had meant to go back to the encampment for a word with Revjak, but that seemed a useless, even dangerous proposition now.

Now that Berkthgar spoke for the tribe.

*****

While Drizzt was running north of Kelvin's Cairn, another traveler was traversing the tundra to the south of the mountain. Stumpet Rakingclaw rambled on, her back bent for the weight of her huge pack, her eyes focused on that singular goal: the towering peaks of the Spine of the World.

Crenshinibon, hanging through a loop on the dwarf's belt, was silent and pleased. The artifact had invaded Stumpet's dreams every night. Its communications with the dwarf had been more subtle than was usual for the domineering artifact, for Crenshinibon held a healthy respect for this one, both dwarf and priestess of a goodly god. Gradually, over the weeks, Crenshinibon had worn away Stumpet's resistance, had slowly convinced the dwarf that this was not a foolishly dangerous trek, but rather a challenge to be met and conquered.

And so Stumpet had come out the previous day, striding determinedly to the south, weapon in hand and ready to meet any monsters, ready to climb any mountain.

She wasn't yet near the mountains, about halfway from Redwaters, the southernmost of the three lakes. Crenshinibon planned to remain silent. The artifact was a work of the ages and a few days meant nothing to it. When they got to the mountains, the wilderness, the artifact would find a more suitable wielder.

But then, unexpectedly, the crystal shard sensed a presence, powerful and familiar.

A tanar'ri.

Stumpet stopped her run a moment later, her face screwed up with curiosity as she considered the item on her belt. She felt the vibrations from it, as though it was a living thing. As she studied the item, she recognized those vibrations as a call.

"What then?" the dwarf asked, lifting the crystal shard from the loop. "What're ye about?"

Stumpet was still eyeing the shard when a ball of blackness swept out of the blue haze of the distant horizon, hearing the call now and speeding fast on leathery wings. Finally, the dwarf shrugged her shoulders. Not understanding, she replaced the shard, then looked up.

Too late.

Errtu came in hard and fast, overwhelming the dwarf before she could even lift her weapon. In mere seconds, the fiend held Crenshinibon in his clutches, a union both desired.

Stumpet, on the ground and dazed, her weapon knocked far from her hands, propped herself on her elbows and looked upon the tanar'ri. She started to call to her god, but Errtu would have none of that. He kicked her hard, launching her a dozen feet away and moved in for the torturous kill.

Crenshinibon stopped him. The artifact did not disdain brute force, nor did it hold any sympathy for the dwarf. But a simple reminder to Errtu that enemies such as Stumpet could be used to his advantage gave the fiend pause. Errtu knew nothing about Bruenor Battlehammer and the quest for Mithril Hall, knew nothing about the clan's departure from the dale, let alone their return. But the fiend did know of Drizzt's previous allegiance to the dwarves of Icewind Dale. If Drizzt Do'Urden was in the dale, or if he ever came back, he would likely once again befriend the dwarves that worked the mines south of the mountain called Kelvin's Cairn. This female, obviously, was of that clan.

Errtu towered over her, menacing her, preventing her from holding any concentration that she would need to cast a spell, or even to retrieve her weapon. The fiend held out one hand, on his second finger was a ring adorned with a blackish-purple gemstone. Errtu's black eyes blazed into orange flames as he began to chant in the guttural language of the Abyss.

The gemstone flared a purplish light that washed over Stumpet.

Suddenly Stumpet's perspective changed. She was no longer looking up at the fiend, but was rather looking down, on her own body! She heard Errtu's cackling laughter, sensed the approval of the crystal shard, and then watched helplessly as her form rose up from the ground and moved about, collecting the dropped items.

Zombielike, moving stiff-legged, the soulless dwarven body turned about and walked off to the north.

Stumpet's soul remained, trapped within the purplish gem, hearing the cackles, sensing the sentient waves that the evil artifact sent out to Errtu.

*****

That same night, Drizzt and Catti-brie sat atop Bruenor's climb with the red-bearded dwarf and Regis, basking in the starlight. Both the dwarf and the halfling recognized the uneasiness of their companions, sensed that Drizzt and Catti-brie were keeping a secret.

Many times, the drow and the woman exchanged concerned looks.

"Well," Bruenor said at length, unable to bear the cryptic glances.

Catti-brie chuckled, the tension relieved by her father's acute observations. She and Drizzt had indeed taken Bruenor and Regis up here this night to discuss more than the beauty of the moon and stars. After long discussion, the drow had finally agreed with Catti-brie's reasoning that it would not be fair to keep their friends in the dark of their true reasons for returning to Icewind Dale.

And so Drizzt told the tale of his last few weeks aboard the Sea Sprite, of the attack on Deudermont in Waterdeep and the run to Caerwich, of the journey to Carradoon caused by Harkle's spell and the windwalk with Cadderly that had brought them to Luskan. He left nothing out, not even the remnants he could remember of the blind hag's poem and the intimations that his father was a prisoner of Errtu, the great tanar'ri.

Catti-brie interjected her thoughts often, mostly reassuring her father that a big part of the reason that they decided it was time to come home was because this was home, was because Bruenor was here, and Regis was here.

Silence fell over the four after Drizzt finished. All gazes fell over Bruenor, waiting for his response as though it was a judgment of them all.

"Ye durned elf!" he bellowed at last. "Ye're always bringing trouble! Know that ye make life interesting!"

After a short, strained laugh, Drizzt, Catti-brie and Bruenor turned to hear what Regis had to say on the matter.

"I do have to widen my circle of friends," the halfling remarked, but like Bruenor's outrage, Regis's despair was a feigned thing.

Guenhwyvar roared in the night.

They were together again, the five friends, more than ready to face whatever odds, more than ready for battle.

They didn't know the depth of Errtu's terror, and didn't know that the fiend already had Crenshinibon in his evil clutches.

Chapter 23

CRYSHAL-TIRITH

A whisper of sound, a ball of flying blackness against the dark night sky, the fiend rushed north, past the three lakes, past Kelvin's Cairn, across the open tundra and over the encampment of Berkthgar's people. Errtu meant to go to the farthest reaches of the tundra to set up his fortresses, but when he got to that point, to the edge of the Sea of Moving Ice, the fiend discovered a better and more forlorn landscape. Errtu, a creature of the fiery Abyss, was no friend of snow and ice, but the texture of the great icebergs clogging the waters梐 mountain range built among defensible, freezing moats梥howed him potential he could not resist.

Out swooped the tanar'ri, across the first and widest expanse of open water, setting on the side of the visible cone of the closest tall iceberg. He peered out through the darkness, first using his normal vision, then letting his eyes slip into the spectrum of heat. Predictably, a cold blackness reflected back at him from both the normal and the infrared spectrums, cold and dead.

The fiend started to move on again, but felt the will of Crenshinibon, asking him to look more closely.

Errtu expecting to find nothing, didn't understand the point to such scrutiny, but he continued his scan. He was surprised indeed when he did see a patch of warmer air rising from a hollow on the side of an iceberg perhaps a hundred yards away. That was too far for Errtu to make out any distinct forms so the great tanar'ri gave a short flap of his leathery wings and halved the gap.

Closer still the balor crept, until Errtu could discern that the heat was coming from a group of warm-blooded forms, huddled in a tight circle. A more knowledgeable traveler of Icewind Dale would have thought them to be seals, or some other marine animal, but Errtu was not familiar with the creatures of the north and so he approached cautiously.

They were humanoid, man-sized, with long arms and large heads. Errtu thought that they were dressed in furs, until he got close enough to recognize that they were not dressed at all, but had their own coat of thick, shaggy fur covered with a filmy, oily sheen.

The beginnings of your army, came an intrusion into the balor's thoughts, as eager Crenshinibon renewed its quest for ever more power.

Errtu paused and considered that thought for some time. The fiend wasn't planning to raise an army, not here in this forlorn wilderness. He would remain in Icewind Dale for a short time only, long enough to discover if Drizzt Do'Urden was about, and long enough to destroy the drow ranger if he was. When that business was finished, Errtu planned to be long gone from the emptiness of the dale and into more hospitable, more thickly inhabited regions.

Crenshinibon's suggestions did not relent, and after awhile, the tanar'ri came to see a potential value of enslaving some of the area's creatures. Perhaps it would be wise to fortify his position with some expendable soldiers.

The balor chuckled wickedly and muttered a few words, a spell that would allow him to converse with the creatures in their own guttural and grunting language梚f that's what their snorts and snarls could be called. Errtu called upon his magical abilities once again and disappeared, reappearing on the slope right behind and above the shaggy creatures' impromptu encampment. Now the balor had a better look at the beasts, about two-score of them, he figured. Their shaggy fur was white, their heads large, though virtually without any discernable forehead. They were strongly built and jostled each other roughly, each apparently trying to get closest to the center of the huddle, what Errtu figured to be the warmest spot.

They are yours! Crenshinibon declared.

Errtu agreed. He felt the power of the crystal shard, a dominating force indeed. The balor leaped up to his full twelve foot height atop the ridge and bellowed to the shaggy humanoids in their own tongue, Errtu declaring himself their god.

The camp disintegrated into pandemonium, creatures running all about, slamming into each other, falling over each other. Down swooped Errtu into their midst, and when they moved out from the towering fiend, encircling him cautiously, the balor brought up a ring of low, simmering fire, a personal perimeter.

Errtu held high his lightning bolt sword, commanding the creatures to kneel before him.

Instead, the shaggy beasts shoved one of their own, the largest of the group, forward.

Errtu understood the challenge. The large, shaggy creature bellowed a single threat, but the word was caught in its throat as the tanar'ri's other weapon, that wicked many-thonged whip, snapped out and wrapped about the beast's ankles. A halfhearted tug from the mighty fiend jerked the creature onto its back and Errtu casually pulled it in so that it lay, screaming in agony, in the fiend's ring of fire.

Errtu didn't kill the creature. He gave a rolling snap on his whip a moment later and the thing flew out of the flames and rolled about on the ice, whimpering.

"Errtu!" the tanar'ri proclaimed, his thunderous voice driving back the cowed creatures. Cowed, but not kneeling, Errtu realized, and so he took a different tactic. Errtu understood the basic, instinctual way of these tribal beasts. Scrutinizing them and their trinkets in the light of the fire, the balor realized that they were likely less civilized than the goblins he was more used to dealing with.

Cower them and reward them, Crenshinibon imparted, a strategy that Errtu already had well under way. The cowering was done. With a roar the fiend leaped away, soaring over the top of the berg and into the blackness of the night. Errtu heard the continuing grunts and whispers as he departed, and he smiled again, thinking himself clever, imagining the faces of the stupid brutes when he gave them their reward.

Errtu didn't have to fly far to figure out what that reward might entail. He saw the fin of a creature, a huge creature, poking from the black surface of the water.

It was a killer whale, though to Errtu, it was merely a big fish, merely some meat he might provide. Down swooped the fiend, diving fast onto the back of the behemoth. In one hand Errtu held his lightning sword, in the other, the crystal shard. Hard struck the sword, a mighty blow, but harder still came the assault from Crenshinibon, its power loosed for the first time in many years, a line of blazing white fire that tore through whale flesh as easily as a beacon cut through the night sky.

Just a few minutes later, Errtu returned to the encampment of the shaggy humanoids, dragging the dead whale behind him. He flopped the creature into the midst of the stunned humanoids, and once again proclaimed himself as their god.

The brutes fell over the slain whale, chopping wildly with crude axes, tearing flesh and guzzling blood, a grisly ceremony.

Just the way Errtu liked it.

Within the span of a few hours, Errtu and his new minions located a suitable ice floe to serve as their stronghold. Then Errtu used the powers of Crenshinibon once more, and the creatures, already falling into worship for the fiend, leaped about in circles, crying Errtu's name, falling to their faces and groveling.

For, Crenshinibon's greatest power was to enact an exact replica of itself, huge in proportion, a crystalline tower桟ryshal-Tirith. At Errtu's invitation, the creatures searched all about the base of the tower, but they saw no entrance梠nly extraplanar creatures could find the door to Cryshal-Tirith.

Errtu did just that, and entered. The fiend wasted no time in calling back to the Abyss, in opening a gate that Bizmatec could come through with the balor's helpless and tormented prisoner in tow.

"Welcome to my new kingdom," Errtu told the tortured soul. "You should like this place." With that, Errtu snapped his whip repeatedly, beating the prisoner unconscious.

Bizmatec howled with glee, knowing that the fun had just begun.

They settled into their new stronghold over the next few days, Errtu bringing in other minor fiends, a horde of wretched manes, and even conversing with another powerful true tanar'ri, a six-armed marilith, coaxing her to join in the play.

But Errtu's focus did not wander too far from his primary purpose; he did not let the intoxication of such absolute power distract him from the truth of his minor conquest. Upon one wall of the tower's second level, there was set a mirror, a device for scrying, and Errtu perused it often, scouring the dale with his magical vision. Great indeed was Errtu's pleasure when he found that Drizzt Do'Urden was indeed in Icewind Dale.

The prisoner, always at Errtu's side, saw the specter of the drow elf, the human woman, a red-bearded dwarf and a plump halfling as well, and his expression changed. His eyes brightened for the first time in many years.

"You will be valuable to me indeed," Errtu remarked, deflating any hope, reminding the prisoner that he was but a tool for the fiend, a piece of barter. "With you in hand, I will bring the drow to me, and destroy Drizzt Do'Urden before your very eyes before I destroy you as well. That is your fate and your doom." The fiend howled with ecstasy and whipped his prisoner again and again, driving him to the floor.

"And you will prove of value," the balor said to the large, purple stone set on his ring, the prison of poor Stumpet Rakingclaw's consciousness. "Your body, at least."

Trapped Stumpet heard the distant words, but the spirit of the priestess was caught in a gray void, an empty place where not even her god could hear her pleas.

*****

Drizzt, Bruenor and the others looked on in helpless amazement as Stumpet walked back into the dwarven mines that night, her expression blank, devoid of any emotion at all. She moved to the main audience hall on the uppermost level, and just stood in place.

"Her soul's gone," was Catti-brie's guess, and the others, in examining the dwarf, in trying to wake her from her stupor, even going so far as to slap her hard across the face, couldn't rightly disagree.

Drizzt spent a long while in front of the zombielike dwarf, questioning her, trying to wake her. Bruenor dismissed most of the others, allowing only his closest friends梐nd ironically, not one of these was a dwarf梩o remain.

On impulse, the drow begged Regis to give him the precious ruby pendant, and Regis readily complied, slipping the enchanted item from around his neck and tossing it to the drow. Drizzt spent a moment marveling at the large ruby, its incessant swirl of little lights that could draw an unsuspecting onlooker far into its hypnotic depths. Drizzt then put the item right in front of the zombie dwarf's face and began talking to her softly, easily.

If she heard him at all, if she even saw the ruby pendant, she did not show it.

Drizzt looked back to his friends, as if to say something, as if to admit defeat, but then his expression brightened in recognition, just a flicker, before it went grave once more. "Has Stumpet been out on her own?" Drizzt asked Bruenor.

"Try to keep that one in one place," the dwarf replied. "She's always out條ook at her pack. Seems to me that she was off again, heading for what's needin' climbing."

A quick look at Stumpet's huge pack confirmed the red-bearded dwarf's words. The haversack was stuffed with food and with pitons and rope, and other gear for scaling mountains.

"Has she climbed Kelvin's Cairn?" Drizzt asked suddenly, things finally falling into place.

Catti-brie gave a low groan, seeing where the drow was taking this.

"Had her eyes set on the place from the minute we walked into Ten-Towns," Bruenor proclaimed. "I think she got it, said she did anyway, not so long ago."

Drizzt looked to Catti-brie and the young woman nodded her agreement.

"What are you thinking?" Regis wanted to know.

"The crystal shard," Catti-brie replied.

They searched Stumpet carefully then, and subsequently went to her private quarters, tearing the place apart. Bruenor called for another of his priests, one who could detect magical auras, but the enhanced scan was similarly unsuccessful.

Not long after, they left Stumpet with the priest, who was trying an assortment of spells to awaken or at least comfort the zombielike dwarf. Bruenor expanded the search for the crystal shard to include every dwarf in the mines, two hundred industrious fellows.

Then all they could do was wait, and hope.

Bruenor was awakened late that night by the priest, the dwarf frantic that Stumpet had just walked away from him, was walking right out of the mines.

"Did ye stop her?" Bruenor was quick to ask, shaking off his grogginess.

"Got five dwarves holding her," the priest answered. "But she just keeps on walkin,' trying to push past 'em!"

Bruenor roused his three friends and together they rushed for the exit to the mines, where Stumpet was still plodding, bouncing off the fleshy barricade, but stubbornly walking right back into it.

"Can't wear her out, can't kill her," one of the blocking dwarfs lamented when he saw his king.

"Just hold her then!" Bruenor growled back.

Drizzt wasn't so sure of that course. He began to sense something here, and figured that it was more than coincidence. Somehow, the drow had the feeling that whatever had happened to Stumpet might be related to his return to Icewind Dale.

He looked to Catti-brie, seeing by her return gaze that she was sharing his feelings.

"Let us pack for the road," Drizzt whispered to Bruenor. "Perhaps Stumpet has something she wishes to show us."

Before the sun had begun to peek over the mountains in the east, Stumpet Rakingclaw walked out of the dwarven valley, heading north across the tundra, with Drizzt, Catti-brie, Bruenor, and Regis in tow.

Just as Errtu, watching from the scrying room of Cryshal-Tirith, had planned.

The fiend waved a clawed hand and the image in the mirror grew gray and indistinct, then washed away altogether. Errtu then went up into the tower's highest level, the small room in which the crystal shard hung, suspended in midair.

Errtu felt the curiosity of the item, for the fiend had developed quite an empathetic and telepathic bond with Crenshinibon. It sensed his delight, the fiend knew, and it wanted to know the source.

Errtu snickered at it and flooded the item with a barrage of incongruous images, defeating its mental intrusions.

Suddenly the fiend was hit with a shocking intrusion, a focused line of Crenshinibon's will that nearly tore the story of Stumpet from his lips. It took every ounce of mental energy the mighty balor could manage to resist that call, and even with that, Errtu found that he had not the strength to leave the room, and knew that he could not resist for long.

"You dare . . ." the fiend gasped, but the crystal shard's attack was undiminished.

Errtu continued a blocking barrage of meaningless thoughts, knowing his doom if Crenshinibon read his mind at that time. He gingerly reached around his hip, taking a small sack that he kept hooked and hanging from the lowest claw of his leathery wings.

In one fierce movement, Errtu brought the sack around and tore it apart, grabbing up the coffer and pulling it open, the black sapphire tumbling into his hand.

Crenshinibon's attack heightened; the fiend's great legs buckled.

But Errtu had gotten close enough. "I am the master!" Errtu proclaimed, lifting the antimagic gemstone near to Crenshinibon.

The ensuing explosion hurled Errtu back against the wall, shook the tower and the iceberg to their very roots.

When the dust cleared, the antimagic gemstone was gone, simply gone, with barely a speck of useless powder to show that it had ever been there.

Never again do such a foolish thing! came a telepathic command from Crenshinibon, the artifact following up that order with promises of ultimate torture.

Errtu pulled himself up from the floor, simmering and delighted all at once. The bared power of Crenshinibon was great indeed for it to have so utterly destroyed the supremely unenchanted sapphire. And yet, that subsequent command Crenshinibon had hurled the balor's way was not so strong. Errtu knew that he had hurt the crystal shard, temporarily, most likely, but still something he had never wanted to do. It couldn't be avoided, the fiend decided. He had to be in command here, not in the blind service of a magical item!

Tell me! the stubborn shard's intrusions came again, but, as with the outrage over the fiend's game with the antimagic gemstone, the telepathic message carried little strength.

Errtu laughed openly at the suspended shard. "I am the master here, not you," the great balor declared, pulling himself up to his full height. His horns brushed the very top of the crystallizing tower. Errtu hurled the empty, shielding coffer at the crystal, missing the mark. "I will tell when it pleases me, and will tell only as much as pleases me!"

The crystal shard, most of its energy sapped by the close encounter with the devilish sapphire, could not compel the fiend to do otherwise.

Errtu left the room laughing, knowing that he was again in control. He would have to pay close heed to Crenshinibon, would have to gain the ultimate respect of the item in the days ahead. Crenshinibon would likely regain its sapped strength, and Errtu had no more antimagic gems to throw at the artifact.

Errtu would be in command, or they would work together. The proud balor could accept nothing less.

Part 5

MORTAL ENEMIES

Berkthgar was right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Off the cliff, I fear.

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

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

His is a road of sorrow.

桪rizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 24

STUMPET'S WALK

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

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

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

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

The four companions surrounded her, fearing for her safety, fearing that they had come to the place Errtu desired. Catti-brie had Taulmaril in hand and ready, scanning the noonday skies for sight of the fiend.

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

*****

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

Revjak was following Bruenor.

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

It was time for Kierstaad to make a stand.

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

"We are being followed," the drow remarked.

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

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

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

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

Drizzt didn't disagree.

They parted then, Bruenor going back to Catti-brie and Regis to inform them of their suspicions, and Drizzt swinging in another wide, trotting arc. There really wasn't much they could do about the pursuit. The ground was simply too open and flat for any evasive actions. If it was the barbarians, then it was likely that Berkthgar's people were watching more for curiosity than for any threat. Confronting the barbarians might just put problems where there were none.

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

The quiet calm lasted a long hour.

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

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

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

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

But not out of Taulmaril's range.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And you have Icewind Dale," Drizzt added.

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

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

Chapter 25

TO THE BERGS

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

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

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

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

The barrage stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catti-brie, meanwhile, had climbed up from Stumpet梬ho immediately rose and resumed her march until Regis likewise tackled her梐nd strung Taulmaril. She quickly surveyed the scene and sent fly an arrow, putting the bolt right between the wide-spread legs of the largest creature to the left of her. Again, the merciful Catti-brie wanted only to scare the things away, and was surprised by the savage response. The creature didn't flinch, as though it didn't care whether it lived or died, and it responded, as did a score of creatures near to it, by hurling iceballs at the woman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

"Admit it!" the fiend bellowed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Errtu, impotent and confused, stalked from the room.

*****

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

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

Even as he spoke the words, the iceball volley slapped in. Poor Stumpet got hit repeatedly; Regis took one in the head and let go of the dwarf. She continued her slow walk until three missiles hit her simultaneously, dropping her to the ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Both killers of my kin."

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

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

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

"To gain control of the united tribe you had to discredit he who came before you. But I warn you, for the good of all in the dale, do not get caught up in your own half-truths. The name of Berkthgar is spoken of reverently in Mithril Hall, in Silverymoon, in Longsaddle and Nesme, even in Ten-Towns and the dwarven mines. Your exploits in Keeper's Dale will not be forgotten, though you seem to choose to forget the alliance and the good that Bruenor's folk have done. Look to Revjak now梬e owe him our lives梐nd decide, Berkthgar, what course is best for you and your people."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Return with us now," he bade Revjak.

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

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

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

"We cannot accompany you," Berkthgar said flatly. "And this is no choice of mine, but an edict of our ancestors. No tribesman may venture out onto the floating land."

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

Sometime later, Kierstaad came upon the scene of a hundred taer bodies bloating in the afternoon sun. It didn't take the wily young barbarian long to figure out what had happened. Obviously the barbarians with his father had joined in the fight beside Bruenor's group, and so many different prints were to be found that Kierstaad understood that another group梒ertainly one led by Berkthgar梙ad also come upon the scene.

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

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

Chapter 26

NOT BY SURPRISE

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

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

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

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

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

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

The balor left with a great flourish, a victorious spin and flap of leathery wings that got it to the landing of the crystalline tower's open first level. Up Errtu climbed, maddened by hunger, by desire to show Crenshinibon its failure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Errtu's continued laughter rebuked any more telepathic intrusions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

They were more than two hours off the beach, far out into the ice-clogged sea, when the weather turned. Dark and ominous clouds rose up, the wind bit harder, colder. Still they plodded on, crawling up the side of one conical iceberg, then sliding down the other side. They came into an area of more dark water and less ice, and there they caught their first sight of their goal, far away to the north and west. The crystalline tower gleamed above the berg cones, shining even in the dull gray daylight. There could be no doubt, for the tower was no natural structure, and though it appeared as if it was made of ice, it seemed unnatural and out of place among the hard and stark whiteness of the bergs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A desperate chance," Drizzt remarked.

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

That brought a chuckle梐 strained one indeed梖rom the group.

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

Regis nodded grimly, took a firm hold of the scruff on the back of Guenhwyvar's neck, and split apart from the group, thinking that his one chance would be to get to the iceberg quickly and secretly. He and the cat were soon out of sight, moving up and down across the rough terrain. Guenhwyvar did most of the work, her claws cutting deep into the ice, grabbing holds where she could find them. Regis merely kept his hold on her and tried to keep his legs moving quickly enough so that he would not be too much of a burden.

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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