第2部分

"Goblins across Faerun will be glad to hear that," he said facetiously, trying to bring some levity to the young woman's dark mood. Catti-brie did manage a slight smile, but there remained a profound sadness in her blue eyes.

"You fought as well as any," Drizzt added.

"Did ye not think I would?" Catti-brie snapped at him, suddenly defensive, her tone as sharp as the edges of Drizzt's magical scimitars.

"Are you always so filled with anger?" Drizzt retorted, and his accusing words calmed Catti-brie immediately.

"Just scared, I'm guessing," she replied quietly.

Drizzt nodded, understanding and appreciating his friend's growing dilemma. "I must go back to Bruenor," he explained, rising from the pedestal. He would have left it at that, but he could not ignore the pleading look Catti-brie then gave him. She turned away immediately, staring straight ahead under the cowl of her thick auburn locks, and that despondence struck Drizzt even more profoundly.

"It is not my place to tell you how you should feel," Drizzt said evenly. Still the young woman did not look back to him. "My burden as your friend is equal to the one you carried in the southern city of Calimport, when I had lost my way. I say to you now: The path before you turns soon in many directions, but that path is yours to choose. For all our sakes, and mostly yours, I pray that you consider your course carefully." He bent low, pushed back the side of Catti-brie's hair and kissed her gently on the cheek.

He did not look back as he left the chapel.

* * * * *

Half of Cobble's cart was already empty by the time the drow entered Bruenor's audience hall. Bruenor, Cobble, Dagna, Wulfgar, Regis, and several other dwarves argued loudly over which pail of the "holy water" held the finest, smoothest taste—arguments that inevitable produced further taste tests, which in turn created further arguments.

"This one!" Bruenor bellowed after draining a pail and coming back up with his red beard covered in foam.

"That one's good for goblins!" Wulfgar roared, his voice dull. His laughter ended abruptly, though, when Bruenor plopped the pail over his head and gave it a resounding backhand.

"I could be wrong," Wulfgar, suddenly sitting on the floor, admitted, his voice echoing under the metal bucket.

"Tell me what ye think, drow," Bruenor bellowed when he noticed Drizzt. He held out two sloshing buckets.

Drizzt put up a hand, declining the invitation. "Mountain springs are more to my liking than thick mead," he explained.

Bruenor threw the buckets at him, but the drow easily stepped aside, and the dark, golden liquid oozed slowly across the stone floor. The sheer volume of the ensuing protests from the other dwarves at the waste of good mead astounded Drizzt, but not as much as the fact that this probably was the first time he had ever seen Bruenor scolded without finding the courage to fight back.

"Me king," came a call from the door, ending the argument. A rather plump dwarf, fully arrayed in battle gear, entered the audience hall, the seriousness of his expression deflating the mirth in the tasting chamber.

"Seven kin have not returned from the newer sections," the dwarf explained.

"Taking their time, is all," Bruenor replied.

"They missed their supper," said the guard.

"Trouble," Cobble and Dagna said together, suddenly solemn.

"Bah!" snorted Bruenor as he waved his thick hand unsteadily in front of him. "There be no more goblins in them tunnels. The groups down there now're just hunting mithril. They found a vein o' the stuff, I tell ye. That'd keep any dwarf, even from his supper."

Cobble and Dagna, even Regis, Drizzt noted, wagged their heads in agreement. Given the potential danger whenever traveling the tunnels of the Underdark (and the deepest tunnels of Mithril Hall could be considered nothing less), the wary drow was not so easily convinced.

"What're ye thinking?" Bruenor asked Drizzt, seeing his plain concern.

Drizzt considered his response for a long while. "I am thinking that you are probably right."

"Probably?" Bruenor huffed. "Ah, well, I never could convince ye. Go on, then. It's what ye want. Take yer cat and go find me overdue dwarves."

Drizzt's wry smile left no doubt that Bruenor's instructions had been his intention all along.

"I am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar! I will go!" Wulfgar proclaimed, but he sounded somewhat ridiculous with his head still under the bucket. Bruenor leveled another backhand to silence his spouting.

"And elf," the king called, turning Drizzt back to him. Bruenor offered a wicked smile to all of those about him, then dropped it fully over Regis. "Be taking Rumblebelly with ye," the dwarf king explained. "He's not doing me much good about here."

Regis's big, round eyes got even bigger and rounder. He ran plump, soft fingers through his curly brown hair, then tugged uncomfortably at the one dangling earring he wore. "Me?" he asked meekly. "Go back down there?"

"Ye went once," Bruenor reasoned, making his argument more to the other dwarves than to Regis. "Got yer-self a few goblins, if me memory's right."

"I have too much to—"

"Get ye going, Rumblebelly," Bruenor growled, leaning forward in his seat and nearly overbalancing in the process. "For the first time since ye come running back to us—and know that we're knowing ye're running!—do what I ask of ye without yer back talk and excuses!"

The seriousness of Bruenor's grim tone surprised everyone in the room, apparently even Regis, for the halfling offered not another word, just got up and walked obediently to stand beside Drizzt.

"Can we stop by my room?" Regis quietly asked the drow. "I would like my mace and pack, at least."

Drizzt draped an arm over his three-foot-tall companion's slumping shoulders and turned him about. "Fear not," he said under his breath, and to accentuate the point he dropped the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar into the halfling's eager hands.

Regis knew he was in fine company.

Chapter 7

Quiet in the Darkness

Even with burning lamps lining all the walls and the paths clear and well marked, it took Drizzt I and Regis the better part of three hours to cross I the miles of the great Mithril Hall complex to the new runnel areas. They passed through the wondrous, tiered Undercity, with its many levels of dwarven dwellings that resembled gigantic steps on two sides of the huge cavern. The dwellings overlooked a central work area on the cavern floor that bustled with the activities of the industrious race. This was the hub of the entire complex; here the majority of Bruenor's people lived and worked. Great furnaces roared all day, every day. Dwarven hammers rang out in a continual song, and, though the mines had been opened for only a couple of months, thousands of finished products—everything from finely crafted weapons to beautiful goblets—already filled many pushcarts, which waited along the walls for the onset of the trading season.

Drizzt and Regis entered from the eastern end on the top tier, crossed the cavern along a high bridge, and weaved down the many stairways to exit the city's lowest level, heading west into Mithril Hall's deepest mines. Low-burning lamps lined the walls, though these were fewer now and farther between, and every now and then the companions came to a dwarven work crew, bleeding precious silvery mithril from the tunnel wall.

Then they came to the outer tunnels, where there were no lamps and no dwarves. Drizzt pulled off his pack, thinking to light a torch, but noticed the half ling's eyes glowing with the telltale red of infravision.

"I do prefer the light of a torch," Regis commented when the drow started to replace the pack without striking a light. "We should save them," Drizzt answered. "We do not know how long we will have to remain in the new areas." Regis shrugged; Drizzt took amusement in the fact that the halfling was already holding his small but undeniably effective mace, though they hadn't yet passed beyond the secured regions of the complex.

They took a short break, then started on again, putting another two or three miles behind them. Predictably, Regis soon began to complain about his sore feet and quieted only when they heard the sound of dwarven chatter somewhere up ahead.

A few twists and turns in the tunnel took them to a narrow stair that emptied into the final guardroom of this section. Four dwarves were in there, playing bones (grumbling with every throw) and paying little attention to the great, iron-barred stone door that sealed off the new areas. "Well met," Drizzt said, interrupting the game. "We got some kin down there," a stocky, brown-bearded dwarf replied as soon as he noticed Drizzt. "King Bruenor sending yerselves to find them?"

"Lucky us," Regis remarked.

Drizzt nodded. "We are to remind the missing dwarves that the mithril will be gotten in proper time," he said, trying to keep this encounter lighthearted, wanting to not alarm the dwarven guards by telling them that he believed there might be trouble in the new section.

Two of the dwarves took up their weapons while the other two walked over to remove the heavy iron bar that locked the door.

"Well, when ye're ready to come back out, tap the door three, then two," the brown-bearded dwarf explained. "We're not for opening it unless the signal's right!"

"Three, then two," Drizzt agreed.

The bar came off and the door fell inward with a great sucking sound. Nothing but the blackness of an empty tunnel was apparent beyond it.

"Easy, my little friend," Drizzt said, seeing the sudden gleam in the halfling's eye. They had been down here just a couple of weeks before, for the goblin fight, but, though they had seen that threat eradicated, the hushed tunnel seemed no less imposing.

"Hurry ye up," the brown-bearded dwarf said to them, obviously not happy with keeping the door open.

Drizzt lighted a torch, and led the way into the gloom, Regis close on his heels. The dwarves shut the door immediately when the companions were clear, and Drizzt and Regis heard the clanging of the iron bar being set back into place.

Drizzt handed Regis the torch and drew out his scimitars, Twinkle glowing a soft blue. "We should get done as quickly as we can," the drow reasoned. "Bring in Guenhwyvar and let the cat lead us."

Regis set down his mace and torch and fumbled around to find the onyx figurine. He placed it on the ground before him and took up his other items, then looked to Drizzt, who had moved a few steps farther down the tunnel.

"You may call the panther," Drizzt said, somewhat surprised, when he looked back to see the halfling waiting for him, a curious sight given Regis's close relationship with the great cat. Guenhwyvar was a magical entity, a denizen of the Astral Plane, that came to the summons of the figurine's possessor. Bruenor always had been a bit shy around the cat (dwarves didn't generally like magic other than the magic of fine weapons), but Regis and Guenhwyvar had been close friends. Guenhwyvar had even saved the halfling's life once by taking Regis along on an astral ride, getting the halfling out of a collapsing tower in the process.

Now, though, Regis stood above the figurine, torch and mace in hand, apparently unsure of how to proceed.

Drizzt walked back the few steps to join his diminutive friend. "What is the problem?" he asked.

"I... I just think you should call Guenhwyvar," the halfling replied. "It's your panther, after all, and yours is the voice Guenhwyvar knows best."

"Guenhwyvar would come to your call," Drizzt assured Regis, patting the halfling's shoulder. Not wanting to delay and argue the point, though, the drow softly called out the panther's name. A few seconds later, a grayish mist, seeming darker in the dim light, gathered about the figurine and gradually shaped itself into the panther form. The mist subtly transformed, became something more substantial, then it was gone, leaving in its stead Guenhwyvar's muscled feline form. The panther's ears went flat immediately—Regis took a prudent step back— then Drizzt grabbed Guenhwyvar by a jowl and gave a playful shake.

"Some dwarves are missing," Drizzt explained to the cat, and Regis knew that Guenhwyvar understood every word. "Find their scent, my friend. Lead me to them."

Guenhwyvar spent a long moment studying the immediate area, turned back to stare at Regis for a bit, then issued a low growl.

"Go on," Drizzt bade the cat, and the sleek muscles flexed, propelling Guenhwyvar easily and in perfect silence into the darkness beyond the torchlight.

Drizzt and Regis followed at an easy pace, the drow confident that the panther would not outdistance them and Regis glancing nervously, this way and that, with every passing inch. They came through the intersection with the giant ettin's bones, Bruenor's first kill, a short while later, and Guenhwyvar joined them once more when they entered the low cavern where the main goblin force had been routed.

Little evidence remained of that recent battle, save the many bloodstains and a diminishing pile of goblin bodies in the center of the place. Ten-foot-long wormlike creatures swarmed all about these, long tendrils feeling the way as they feasted on the bloated corpses.

"Keep close," Drizzt warned, and Regis didn't have to be told twice. "Those are carrion crawlers," the drow ranger explained, "the vultures of the Underdark. With food so readily available, they likely will leave us alone, but they are dangerous foes. A sting from their tendrils can steal the strength from your limbs."

"Do you think the dwarves got too close to them?" Regis asked, squinting in the dim light to see if he could make out any nongoblin bodies among the pile.

Drizzt shook his head. "The dwarves know the crawlers well," he explained. "They welcome the beasts to be rid of the stench of goblin corpses. I would hardly expect seven veteran dwarves to be taken down by crawlers."

Drizzt started down from the angled platform, but the halfling grabbed his cloak to stop him. "There's a dead ettin under here," Regis explained. "Lots of meat."|Qī-shū-ωǎng|

Drizzt cocked his head curiously as he regarded the quick-thinking halfling, the drow thinking that maybe Bruenor had been wise in sending the little one along. They skirted the lip of the raised stone and came down far to the side. Sure enough, several carrion crawlers worked over the huge ettin body; Drizzt's original course would have taken him dangerously close to the beasts.

They were into the empty tunnels again in a few seconds, Guenhwyvar drifting silently into the darkness to lead them.

The torch soon burned low; Regis shook his head when Drizzt reached for another one, reminding Drizzt that they should save their light sources.

They went on, in the quiet, in the dark, with only the soft glow of Twinkle to mark their passing. To the drow it seemed like old times, traversing the Underdark with his feline companion, his senses heightened in the knowledge that danger might well lurk around any bend.

* * * * *

The disk is warm?" Jarlaxle asked, seeing Vierna's pleasurable expression as she rubbed her delicate fingers across the metallic surface. She sat atop the drider, her mount for the journey, Dinin's bloated face expressionless and unblinking.

"My brother is not far," the priestess replied, her eyes closed in concentration.

The mercenary leaned against the wall, peering down the long tunnel filled with flattened goblin corpses. All about him dark forms, his quiet band of killers, slipped silently about their way.

"Can we know that Drizzt is here at all?" the mercenary dared to ask, though he was not anxious to dispel volatile Vierna's anticipation—especially not with the priestess sitting atop so poignant a reminder of her wrath.

"He is here," Vierna replied calmly.

"And you are sure our friend will not kill him before we find him?" the mercenary asked.

"We can trust this ally," Vierna replied calmly, her tone a relief to the edgy mercenary leader. "Lloth has assured me."

So ends any debate, Jarlaxle told himself, though he hardly felt secure in trusting any human, particularly the wicked one to whom Vierna had led him. He looked back to the tunnel, back to the shifting forms as the mercenary band cautiously made its way.

What Jarlaxle did trust was his soldiers, drow-for-drow as fine a force as any in the dark elf world. If Drizzt Do'Urden was indeed wandering about these tunnels, the skilled killers of Bregan D'aerthe would get him.

"Should I dispatch the Baenre force?" the mercenary asked Vierna.

Vierna considered the words for a moment, then shook her head, her indecision revealing to Jarlaxle that she was not as certain of her brother's whereabouts as she claimed. "Keep them close a while longer," she instructed. "When we have found my brother, they will serve to cover our departure."

Jarlaxle was all too glad to comply. Even if Drizzt was down here, as Vierna believed, they did not know how many of his friends might have accompanied him. With fifty drow soldiers about them, the mercenary was not too worried.

He did wonder, though, how Triel Baenre might welcome the news that her soldiers, even if they were only males, had been used as no more than fodder.

* * * * *

"These tunnels are endless," Regis moaned after two more hours of unremarkable twists and turns in the goblin-enhanced natural passageways. Drizzt allowed a break for supper—even lit a torch—and the two friends sat in a small natural chamber on a flat rock, surrounded by leering stalactites and monsterlike mounds of piled stone.

Drizzt understood just how unintentionally perceptive the half ling's words might prove. They were far underground, several miles, and the caverns continued aimlessly, connecting chambers large and small and meeting with dozens of side passages. Regis had been in the dwarven mines before, but he had never entered that next lower realm, the dreaded Underdark, wherein lived the drow elves, wherein Drizzt Do'Urden had been born.

The stifling air and inevitable realizations of thousands of tons of rock over his head inevitably led the dark elf to thoughts of his past life, of the days when he had lived in Menzoberranzan, or walked with Guenhwyvar in the seemingly endless tunnels of Toril's subterranean world.

"We'll get lost, just like the dwarves," Regis grumbled, munching a biscuit. He took tiny bites and chewed them a thousand times to savor each precious crumb.

Drizzt's smile didn't seem to comfort him, but the ranger was confident that he and, more particularly, Guenhwyvar knew exactly where they were, making a systematic circuit with the chamber of the main goblin battle as their hub. He pointed behind Regis, his motion prompting the halfling to half-turn in his rocky seat.

"If we went back through that tunnel and branched at the first right-hand passage, we would come, in a matter of minutes, to the large chamber where Bruenor defeated the goblins," Drizzt explained. "We were not so far from this spot when we met Cobble."

"Seems like farther, that's all," Regis mumbled under his breath.

Drizzt did not press the point, glad to have Regis along, even if the halfling was in a particularly grumpy mood. Drizzt hadn't seen much of Regis in the weeks since he had returned to Mithril Hall; no one had, actually, except perhaps the dwarven cooking staff in the communal dining halls.

"Why have you returned?" Drizzt asked suddenly, his question making Regis choke on a piece of biscuit. The halfling stared at him incredulously.

"We are glad to have you back," Drizzt continued, clarifying the intentions of his rather blunt question. "And certainly all of us are hoping you will stay here for a long time to come. But, why, my friend?"

"The wedding…" Regis stammered.

"A fine reason, but hardly the only one," Drizzt replied with a knowing smile. "When last we saw you, you were a guildmaster and all of Calimport was yours for the taking."

Regis looked away, ran his fingers through his curly brown hair, fiddled with several rings, and slipped his hand down to tug at his one dangling earring.

"That is the life the Regis I know always desired," Drizzt remarked.

"Then maybe you really didn't understand Regis," the halfling replied.

"Perhaps," Drizzt admitted, "but there is more to it than that. I know you well enough to understand that you would go to great lengths to avoid a fight. Yet, when the goblin battle came, you remained beside me."

"Where safer than with Drizzt Do'Urden?"

"In the higher complex, in the dining halls," the drow replied without hesitation. Drizzt's smile was one of friendship; the luster in his lavender eyes showed no animosity for the halfling, whatever falsehoods Regis might be playing. "Whatever the reason you have come, be sure that we are all glad you are here," Drizzt said honestly. "Bruenor more than any, perhaps. But if you have found some trouble, some danger, you would be well advised to state it openly, that we might battle it together. We are your friends and will stand beside you, without blame, against whatever odds we are offered. By my experience, those odds are always better when I know the enemy."

"I lost the guild," Regis admitted, "just two weeks after you left Calimport."

The news did not surprise the drow.

"Artemis Entreri," Regis said grimly, lifting his cherubic face to stare at Drizzt directly, studying the drow's every movement.

"Entreri took the guild?" Drizzt asked.

Regis nodded. "He didn't have such a hard time of that. His network reached to my most trusted colleagues."

"You should have expected as much from the assassin," Drizzt replied, and he gave a small laugh, which made Regis's eyes widen with apparent surprise.

"You find this funny?"

"The guild is better in Entreri's hands," Drizzt replied, to the halfling's continued surprise. "He is suited for the double-dealing ways of miserable Calimport."

"I thought you . . ." Regis began. "I mean, don't you want to go and ..."

"Kill Entreri?" Drizzt asked with a soft chuckle. "My battle with the assassin is ended," he added when Regis's eager nod confirmed his guess.

"Entreri might not think so," Regis said grimly.

Drizzt shrugged—and noticed that his casual attitude seemed to bother the halfling more than a little. "As long as Entreri remains in the southland, he is of no concern to me." Drizzt knew that Regis didn't expect Entreri to remain in the south. Perhaps that was why Regis would not stay in the upper levels during the goblin fight, Drizzt thought. Perhaps Regis feared that Entreri might sneak into Mithril Hall. If the assassin found both Drizzt and Regis, he probably would go after Drizzt first.

"You hurt him, you know," Regis went on, "in your fight, I mean. He's not the type to forgive something like that."

Drizzt's look became suddenly grave; Regis shifted back, putting more distance between himself and the fires in the drow's lavender eyes. "Do you believe he has followed you north?" Drizzt asked bluntly.

Regis shook his head emphatically. "I arranged things so it would look like I had been killed," he explained. "Besides, Entreri knows where Mithril Hall is. He could find you without having to follow me here.

"But he won't," Regis went on. "From all I have heard, he has lost the use of one arm, and lost an eye as well. He would hardly be your fighting equal anymore."

"It was the loss of his heart that stole his fighting ability," Drizzt remarked, more to himself than to Regis. Despite his casual attitude, Drizzt could not easily dismiss his long-standing rivalry with the deadly assassin. Entreri was his opposite in many ways, passionless and amoral, but in fighting ability he had proven to be Drizzt's equal— almost. Entreri's philosophy maintained that a true warrior be a heartless thing, a pure, efficient killer. Drizzt's beliefs went in exactly the opposite direction. To the drow, who had grown up among so many warriors holding similar ideals as the assassin, the passion of righteousness enhanced a warrior's prowess. Drizzt's father, Zaknafein, was unequaled in Menzoberranzan because his swords rang out for justice, because he fought with the sincere belief that his battles were morally justified.

"Do not doubt that he will ever hate you," Regis remarked grimly, stealing Drizzt's private contemplations.

Drizzt noted a sparkle in the halfling's eye and took it as an indication of Regis's burning hatred of Entreri. Did Regis want, expect, him to go back to Calimport and finish his war with Entreri? the drow wondered. Did Regis expect Drizzt to deliver the thieves' guild back to him, deposing its assassin leader?

"He hates me because my way of life shows his to be an empty lie," Drizzt remarked firmly, somewhat coldly. The drow would not go back to Calimport, would not go back to do battle with Artemis Entreri, for any reason. To do so would put him on the assassin's moral level, something the drow, who had turned his back on his own amoral people, feared more than anything in all the world.

Regis looked away, apparently catching on to Drizzt's true feelings. Disappointment was obvious in his expression; the drow had to believe that Regis really did hope he would regain his precious guild at the end of Drizzt's scimitars. And Drizzt didn't really take much hope in the halfling's claims that Entreri would not come north. If the assassin, or at least agents of the assassin, would not be about, then why had Regis remained tight to Drizzt's side when they went down to fight the goblins?

"Come," the drow bade, before his mounting anger could take hold of him. "We have many more miles to cover before we break for the night. We must soon send Guenhwyvar back to the Astral Plane, and our chances of finding the dwarves are better with the panther beside us."

Regis stuffed his remaining food in his small pack, doused the torch, and fell in step behind the drow. Drizzt looked back at him often, somewhat amazed, somewhat disappointed, by the angry glow in the red dots that were the halfling's eyes.

Chapter 8

Sparks A-Flying

Beads of glistening sweat rolled along the barbarian's sculpted arms; shadows of the flickering I hearth drew definitive lines along his biceps I and thick forearms, accentuating the enormous, corded muscles.

With astounding ease, as though he were swinging a tool made for slender nails, Wulfgar brought a twenty-pound sledge down repeatedly on a metal shaft. Bits of molten iron flew with every ringing hit and spattered the walls and floor and the thick leather apron he wore, for the barbarian had carelessly overheated the metal. Blood surged in Wulfgar's great shoulders, but he did not blink and he did not tire. He was driven by the certainty that he had to work out the demon emotions that had grabbed his heart.

He would find solace in exhaustion.

Wulfgar had not worked the forge in years, not since Bruenor had released him from servitude back in Icewind Dale, a place, a life, that seemed a million miles removed.

Wulfgar needed the iron now, needed the unthinking, instinctual pounding, the physical duress to overrule the confusing jumble of emotions that would not let him rest. The rhythmic banging forced his thoughts into a straight line pattern; he allowed himself to consider only a single complete thought between each interrupting bang.

He wanted to resolve so many things this day, mostly to remind himself of those qualities that initially had drawn him to his soon-to-be bride. At each interval, though, the same image flashed to him: Aegis-fang twirling dangerously close to Drizzt's head.

He had tried to kill his dearest friend.

With suddenly renewed vigor, he sent the sledge pounding home on the metal and again sent lines of sparks flying throughout the small, private chamber.

What in the Nine Hells was happening to him?

Again, the sparks flew wildly.

How many times had Drizzt Do'Urden saved him? How empty would his life have been without his ebon-skinned friend?

He grunted as the hammer hit home.

But the drow had kissed Catti-brie—Wulfgar's Catti-brie!—outside Mithril Hall on the day of his return!

Wulfgar's breathing came in labored gasps, but his arm pumped fiercely, playing his fury through the smithy hammer. His eyes were closed as tightly as the hand that clenched the hammer; his muscles swelled with the strain.

"That one for throwin' around corners?" he heard a dwarf's voice ask.

Wulfgar's eyes popped open and he spun about to see one of Bruenor's kinfolk shuffling past the partly opened doorway, the dwarf's laughter echoing as he made his way along the stone-worked corridor. When the barbarian looked back to his work, he understood the dwarf's mirth, for the metal spear he had been shaping was now badly bowed in the middle from the too-hard slams on the overheated metal.

Wulfgar tossed the ruined shaft aside and let the hammer drop to the stone floor.[奇+书+网]

"Why did you do it to me?" he asked aloud, though, of course, Drizzt was too far away to hear him. His mind held a conjured image of Drizzt and his beloved Catti-brie embraced in a deep kiss, an image the beleaguered Wulfgar could not let go, even though he had not actually seen the two in the act.

He wiped a hand across his sweaty brow, leaving a line of soot on his forehead, and slumped to a seat on the edge of a stone table. He hadn't expected things to become this complicated, hadn't anticipated Catti-brie's outrageous behavior. He thought of the first time he had seen his love, when she was barely more than a girl, skipping along the tunnels of the dwarven complex in Icewind Dale—carelessly skipping, as though all the ever-present dangers of that harsh region, and all the memories of the recent war against Wulfgar's people simply fell away from her delicate shoulders, bounced off her as surely as did her lustrous auburn tresses.

It didn't take young Wulfgar long to understand that Catti-brie had captured his heart with that carefree dance. He had never met a woman like her; in his male-dominated tribe, women were virtual slaves, cowering to the often unreasonable demands of the menfolk. Barbarian women did not dare to question their men, certainly did not embarrass them, as Catti-brie had done to Wulfgar when he had insisted that she not accompany the force sent to parley with the goblin tribe.

Wulfgar was wise enough now to admit his own shortcomings, and he felt a fool for the way he had spoken to Catti-brie. Still, there remained in the barbarian a need for a woman—a wife—that he could protect, a wife that would allow him his rightful place as a man.

Things had become so very complicated, and then, just to make matters worse, Catti-brie, his Catti-brie, had shared a kiss with Drizzt Do'Urden!

Wulfgar bounced up from his seat and rushed to retrieve the hammer, knowing that he would spend many more hours at the forge, many more hours transferring the rage from his knotted muscles to the metal. For the metal had yielded to him as Catti-brie would not, had complied to the undeniable call of his heavy hammer.

Wulfgar sent the hammer down with all his might, and a newly heated metal bar shuddered with the impact. Pong Sparks whipped across Wulfgar's high cheekbones, one nipping at the edge of his eye.

Blood surging, muscles corded, Wulfgar felt no pain.

* * * * *

"Put up the torch," the drow whispered.

"Light will alert our enemies," Regis argued in similarly hushed tones.

They heard a growl, low and echoing, down the corridor.

"The torch," Drizzt instructed, handing Regis a small tinderbox. "Wait here with the light. Guenhwyvar and I will circle about."

"Now I am bait?" the halfling asked.

Drizzt, his senses tuned outward for signs of danger, did not hear the question. One scimitar drawn, Twinkle and its telltale glow waiting poised in its sheath, he slipped silently ahead and disappeared into the gloom.

Regis, still grumbling, struck flint to steel and soon had the torch blazing. Drizzt was out of sight.

A growl spun the halfling about, mace at the ready, but it was only Guenhwyvar, ever alert, doubling back down a side passage. The panther padded past the halfling, following Drizzt's course, and Regis quickly shuffled behind, though he could not hope to keep pace with the beast.

He was alone again in seconds, his torch casting elongated, ominous shadows along the uneven walls. His back to the stone, Regis inched on, as quiet as death.

The black mouth of a side passage loomed just a few feel away. The halfling continued walking, holding the torch straight out behind him, his mace leading the way. He sensed a presence around that corner, something inching up to the edge at him from the other direction.

Regis carefully laid the torch on the stone and brought his mace in close to his chest, gently sliding his feet to perfectly balance his weight.

He went around the corner in a blinding rush, chopping with the mace. Something blue flashed to intercept; then came the ring of metal on metal. Regis instantly brought his weapon back and sent it whipping in sidelong, lower.

Again came the distinctive ring of a parry.

Out came the mace, and back in, deftly along the same course. The halfling's skilled adversary was not fooled though, and the blocking blade was still in place.

"Regis!"

The mace twirled above the halfling's head, ready to dart ahead, but Regis swung it down at arm's length instead, suddenly recognizing the voice.

"I told you to remain back there with the light," Drizzt scolded him, stepping out of the shadow. "You are fortunate I did not kill you."

"Or that I did not kill you," Regis replied without missing a beat, and his calm, cold tone made Drizzt's face contort with surprise. "Have you found anything?" the halfling asked.

Drizzt shook his head. "We are close," he replied quietly "Both Guenhwyvar and I are certain of that."

Regis walked over and picked up his torch, then tucked his mace into his belt, within easy reach.

Guenhwyvar's sudden growl echoed at them from farther down the long corridor, launching them both into a run. "Don't leave me behind!" Regis demanded, and he grabbed hold of Drizzt's cloak and would not let go, his furry feet skipping, jumping, even skidding along as he tried to keep pace.

Drizzt slowed when Guenhwyvar's yellow-green, glassy eyes reflected back at him from just beyond the leading edge of the torchlight, at a corner where the passageway turned sharply.

"I think we found the dwarves," Regis muttered grimly. He handed Drizzt the torch and let go of the cloak, following the drow up to the bend.

Drizzt peeked around—Regis saw him wince—then brought the torch into the open, casting light on the dreadful scene.

They had indeed found the missing dwarves, sliced and slaughtered, some lying, some propped against the walls at irregular intervals along a short expanse of worked stone corridor.

* * * * *

"If ye're not for wearing the apron, then don't ye be wearing it!" Bruenor said in frustration. Catti-brie nodded, finally hearing the concession she had wanted from the beginning.

"But, me king,..." protested Cobble, the only other one in the private chamber with Bruenor and Catti-brie. Both he and Bruenor sported severe holy water headaches.

"Bah!" the dwarf king snorted to silence the good-intentioned cleric. "Ye're not knowing me girl as well as meself. If she's saying she won't be wearing it, then all the giants o' the Spine of the World couldn't be changing her mind."

"Bah yerself!" came an unexpected call from outside the room, followed by a tremendous knock. "I know ye're in there, Bruenor Battlehammer, who calls himself king o' Mithril Hall! Now be opening yer door and meet your better!"

"Do we know that voice?" asked Cobble, he and Bruenor exchanging confused glances.

"Open it, says me!" came another cry, followed by a sharp rap. Wood splintered as a glove nail, a large spike set into the face of a specially constructed metal gauntlet, wedged itself through the thick door.

"Aw, sandstone," came a quieter call.

Bruenor and Cobble looked to each other in disbelief. "No," they said in unison, wagging their heads back and forth.

"What is it?" Catti-brie asked, growing impatient.

"It cannot be," Cobble replied, and it seemed to the young woman that he hoped with all his heart that his words were true.

A grunt signaled that the creature beyond the door had finally extracted his spike.

"What is it?" Catti-brie demanded of her father, her hands planted squarely on her hips.

The door burst open, and there stood the most curious-looking dwarf Catti-brie had ever seen. He wore a spiked steel gauntlet, open-fingered, on each hand, had similar spikes protruding from his elbows, knees, and the toes of his heavy boots, and wore armor (custom-fitted to his short, barrellike form) of parallel, horizontal metal ridges half an inch apart and ringing his body from neck to midhigh and his arms from shoulder to forearm. His gray helmet was open-faced, with thick leather straps disappearing under his monstrous black beard, and sported a gleaming spike atop it, nearly half again as tall as the four-foot-high dwarf.

"It," Bruenor answered, his tone reflecting his obvious disdain, "is a battlerager."

"Not just 'a battlerager" the curious, black-bearded dwarf put in. "The battlerager! The most wild battlerager!" He walked toward Catti-brie and smiled widely with his hand extended toward her. His armor, with every movement, issued grating, scraping noises that made the young woman's hair stand straight up on the back of her neck.

"Thibbledorf Pwent at yer service, me good lady!" the dwarf introduced himself grandly. "First fighter o' Mithril Hall. Yerself must be this Catti-brie I've heared so much tell of back in Adbar. Bruenor's human daughter, so they telled me, though still I'm a bit shaken at seeing any Battle-hammer woman without a beard to tickle her toes!"

The smell of the creature nearly overwhelmed Catti-brie. Had he taken that armor off anytime this century? she had to wonder. "I'll try to grow one," she promised.

"See that ye do! See that ye do!" Thibbledorf hooted, and he hopped over to stand before Bruenor, the noise of his armor scraping at the marrow of Catti-brie's bones.

"Me king!" Thibbledorf bellowed. He fell to a bow—and nearly halved Bruenor's long, pointy nose with his helmet spike as he did.

"What in the Nine Hells is yerself doing here?" Bruenor demanded.

"Alive, anyway," Cobble added, then he returned Bruenor's incredulous stare with a helpless shrug.

"It was me belief that ye fell when the dragon Shimmer-gloom took the lower halls," Bruenor went on.

"His breath was death!" Thibbledorf shouted.

Look who's talking, Catti-brie thought, but she kept silent.

Pwent roared on, dramatically waving his arms about and turning a spin on the floor, his eyes staring at nothing in particular, as though he was recalling a scene from his distant past. "Evil breath. A deep blackness that fell over me and stole the strength from me bones.

"But I got out and got away!" Thibbledorf cried suddenly, spinning at Catti-brie, one stubby finger pointing her way. "Out a secret door in the lower tunnels. Even the likes o' that dragon couldn't stop the Pwent!"

"We held the halls for two more days afore Shimmer-gloom's minions drove us into Keeper's Dale," Bruenor put in. "I heared no words o' yer return to fight beside me father and his father, the then king o' Mithril Hall."

"It was a week afore I got me strength back and got back around the mountain passes to the western door," Pwent explained. "By then the halls were lost.

"Sometime later," Pwent continued, parting his impossibly thick beard with one of his glove nails, "I heared that a bunch of the younger folk, yerself included, had gone to the west. Some said ye were to work the mines o' Mirabar, but when I got there, I heared not a word."

"Two hunnerd years!" Bruenor growled in Pwenfs face, stealing his seemingly perpetual smile. "Ye had two hunnerd years to find us, but not once did we hear a word that ye was even alive."

"I came back to the east," Pwent explained easily. "Been living—living well, doing mercenary work, mostly—in Sundabar and for King Harbromme of Citadel Adbar. It was back there, three weeks past—I'd been off to the south for some time, ye see—that I first heared o' yer return, that a Battlehammer had taken back the halls!

"So here I be, me king," he said, dipping to one knee. "Point me at yer enemies." He gave Catti-brie a garish wink and poked a dirty, stubby finger toward the tip of his helmet spike.

"Most wild?" Bruenor asked, somewhat derisively.

"Always been," Thibbledorf replied.

"I'll call ye an escort," Bruenor said, "so ye can get yerself a bath and a meal."

"I'll take the meal," Pwent replied. "Keep yer bath and yer escort. I know me way around these old halls as well as yerself, Bruenor Battlehammer. Better, I say, since ye was but a stubble-chinned dwarfling when we was pushed out." He put his hand out to pinch Bruenor's chin and had it promptly slapped away. His shrieking laughter like a hawk's cry, his armor squealing like talons on slate, the battlerager stomped away.

"Pleasant sort," Catti-brie remarked.

"Pwent alive," Cobble mused, and Catti-brie could not tell if that was good news or not.

"Ye've never once mentioned that one," Catti-brie said to Bruenor.

"Trust me, girl," Bruenor replied. "That one's not worth mentioning."

* * * * *

Exhausted, the barbarian fell onto his cot and sought some needed sleep. He felt the dream returning before he had even closed his eyes. He bolted upright, not wanting to see again the images of his Catti-brie entwined with the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden.

They came to him anyway.

He saw a thousand sparkles, a million reflected fires, spiraling downward, inviting him along.

Wulfgar growled defiantly and tried to stand. It took him several moments to realize that the attempt had been futile, that he was still on his cot, and that he was descending, following the undeniable trail of glittering sparkles down to the images.

Cobble's forces joined the other dwarves two hours later, reporting the rear areas clear of enemies. The rout was complete, as far as Bruenor and his commanders could discern, with not a single enemy left alive.

None of the dwarven forces had noticed the slender, dark forms—dark elves, Jarlaxle's spies—floating among the stalactites near critical areas of battle, watching the dwarven movements and battle techniques with more than passing interest.

The goblin threat was ended, but that was the least of Bruenor Battlehammer's problems.

Chapter 9

Too Clean Cuts

“Goblins?" Regis asked. Drizzt bent low over one of the dwarven corpses, shaking his head even before he got close enough to fully inspect the wounds. Goblins would not likely have left the dwarves in this condition, the drow ranger knew, certainly not with all of their valuable armor and equipment intact. Besides, goblins never recovered the bodies of their own dead, yet the only kills in this corridor were dwarves. No matter how large the goblin force, and how great their advantage of surprise, Drizzt did not think it likely that they could have killed this sturdy party without a single loss.

The wounds on the nearest dwarf seemed to confirm the drow's instincts. Slender and precise, these cuts were not made by crude, jagged goblin weapons. A fine edge, razor sharp and probably enchanted, had sliced this particular dwarf's throat. The line was barely visible, even after Drizzt had wiped away the blood, but ultimately deadly.

"What killed them?" Regis asked, growing impatient. He shifted about from foot to foot, moving the torch alternately from one hand to the other.

Drizzt's mind refused to accept the obvious conclusion. How many times in his years in Menzoberranzan, fighting beside his drow kin, had Drizzt Do'Urden witnessed wounds similar to these? No other race in all the Realms, with the possible exception of the surface elves, used weapons so finely edged.

"What killed them?" Regis asked again, a notable tremor in his voice.

Drizzt shook his white locks. "I do not know," he replied honestly. He moved to the next body, this one slumped, half-sitting against the wall. Despite the abundance of blood, the only wound the drow found was a single clean, diagonal slash along the right side of the unfortunate dwarf's throat, a cut paper thin but very deep.

"It could be Duergar," Drizzt said to Regis, referring to the evil race of gray dwarves. The thought made sense, since Duergar had served as minions to Shimmergloom the dragon, and had inhabited these halls until just a few months before, when Bruenor's forces had chased them out. Still, Drizzt knew that his reasoning was based more in hope than in truth. Greedy Duergar would have stripped these victims clean, particularly of the valuable mining equipment, and Duergar, like mountain dwarves, favored heavier weapons, such as the battle-axe. No such weapon had hit this dwarf.

"You don't believe that," Regis said behind him. Drizzt didn't turn to regard the halfling; staying in a crouch, he shuffled over to the next unfortunate dwarf.

Regis's voice fell away behind him, but Drizzt heard the halfling's last statement as clearly as he had ever heard anything in his life.

"You think Entreri did it."

Drizzt did not think that, did not think that any lone warrior, however skilled, could possibly have done such a complete and precise job. He glanced back at Regis, standing impassively under his upheld torch, his eyes searching Drizzt for some clue of a reaction. Drizzt thought the halfling's reasoning curious indeed, and the only explanation he could think of was that Regis was terribly frightened that Entreri had followed him out of Calimport.

Drizzt shook his head and turned back to his investigation. On the body of the third dwarf he found a clue that narrowed the list of potential killers to one race.

A tiny dart protruded from the body's side, under its cloak. Drizzt had to take a steadying breath before he mustered the nerve to pull it out, for he recognized it, and it explained the ease with which these toughened dwarves had been slaughtered. The quarrel, made for a hand-held crossbow, undoubtedly had been coated with sleep poison and was a favored missile of dark elves.

Drizzt came up from his low crouch; his scimitars leaped into his slender hands. "We must leave this place," he whispered harshly.

"What is it?" Regis asked.

Drizzt, his keen senses attuned to the darkness farther along the corridor, did not answer.

From somewhere back behind the halfling, Guenhwyvar issued a low growl.

Drizzt eased one foot behind him and slid slowly backward, somehow understanding that any abrupt movement would trigger an attack. Dark elves in Mithril Hall! Of all the horrors Drizzt could think of—and in Faerun, these were countless—not one came near to the disaster of the drow.

"Which way?" Regis whispered.

Twinkle's blue light seemed to flare.

"Go!" Drizzt cried, understanding the scimitar's warning He spun about and saw Regis for just a moment, then the halfling disappeared under a ball of conjured darkness, the magic snuffing out the light of the halfling's torch in the blink of an eye.

Drizzt rolled to the side of the corridor and spun back around behind the propped body of a dead dwarf. He closed his eyes, forcing them into the infrared spectrum, and felt the dwarf's body jerk slightly, once and then again. Drizzt knew it had been hit with quarrels.

A black streak emerged from the globe of darkness behind him; the corridor brightened just a bit as Regis apparently went out the back side of the darkened area, his torch shedding some light around the edge of the unyielding globe.

The halfling did not cry out, though. This surprised Drizzt and made him fear that Regis had been taken.

Guenhwyvar padded by him and darted left, then right. A poison-coated quarrel skipped off the stone floor, inches from the panther's fast-moving paws. Another struck Guenhwyvar with a thud, but the cat hardly slowed.

Drizzt saw the heated outlines of two slender forms many yards away, each with a single arm extended, as though they were again taking aim with their wicked weapons. Drizzt called upon his own innate magical abilities and dropped a globe of darkness into the corridor ahead of Guenhwyvar, offering some cover. Then he, too, was up and running, following the cat, hoping that Regis somehow had escaped.

He went into his own area of darkness without slowing, sure-footed, remembering the layout of the corridor perfectly and deftly skipping over yet another dwarven body. When he emerged, Drizzt noticed the black mouth of a side passage to his left. Guenhwyvar had flown right past it, and now was bearing down on the two drow forms, but Drizzt, trained in the tactics of the dark elves, knew in his heart that the side passage could not be clear.

He heard a scuttling noise, as of many hard-edged legs, and then he fell back, stunned and afraid, as an eight-legged monstrosity, half drow and half arachnid, clambered around the bend, its legs catching hold with equal ease on both floor and wall. Twin axes waved ominously in its hands, which once had been the delicate hands of a drow.

In all the wide world, there was nothing more repulsive to any dark elf, Drizzt Do'Urden included, than a drider.

Guenhwyvar's roar, accompanied by the sounds of several clicking crossbows, brought Drizzt back to his senses in time to deflect the drider's first attack. The monster came straight in with its front legs raised and kicking—to keep Drizzt off balance—and launched its axes in a quick double chop at Drizzt's head.

Drizzt spun back out of range of the legs in time to avoid the slicing axes, but instead of continuing his retreat, he hooked an arm on one spidery leg and rolled around it, rushing back in. Twinkle whipped across, blasting aside a second leg and giving Drizzt enough of an opening to slide down to his knees, right under the beast.

The drider reared and hissed, both of its axes chopping at Drizzt's backside.

Drizzt's other scimitar was already in place, though, leveled horizontally in back of his vulnerable neck. It deflected one axe harmlessly wide and caught the other where its head met its handle. Drizzt put his feet under him and turned sideways as he rose, both his blades turning point up. With his parrying scimitar, he continued the movement, twisting the trapped axe right over in the drider's hand, then tugging it free. With Twinkle he thrust straight up, finding a ridge in the creature's armored exoskeleton and sinking the blade deep into spidery flesh. Hot fluids gushed over Drizzt's arm; the drider shrieked in agony and twitched violently.

Legs buffeted Drizzt from every side. He nearly lost his grip on Twinkle and had to pull the blade out to keep hold i of it. Through his prison bars of spider legs Drizzt noticed more dark forms emerging from the side corridor, drow elves, he knew, each with one arm extended his way.

He spun frantically as the first one fired. His thick cloak luckily floated out behind him and caught the quarrel ! harmlessly in its heavy folds. When he ended his desperate I maneuver, though, Drizzt found that he was half out from j under the drider, and the creature had turned about enough | to line him up with its remaining axe. Even worse, the second drow had him solidly targeted in crossbow sights.

The axe came down curiously—flat end leading, Drizzt noted—forcing Drizzt to parry. He expected to hear the click of a firing crossbow, but Drizzt heard instead a muffled groan as six hundred pounds of black panther | buried his dark elf attacker.

Drizzt slapped the axe aside with one blade, then the other, buying himself enough time to get out the rest of the way. He came up, instinctively spinning away from the J drider, just in time to get his weapons up to block a sword thrust from the closest drow enemy.

"Drop your weapons and it will go easier on you!" the, drow, holding two fine swords, cried in a language that Drizzt had not heard in more than a decade, a language that sent images of beautiful, twisted, terrible Menzoberranzan flowing back into his mind. How many tunes had Zaknafein, his father, stood before him, similarly armed, awaiting their inevitable sparring tournament?

A growl that he was not even cognizant of escaped Drizzt's lips; he went into a series of offensive combinations that left his opponent dazzled and off balance in a split second. A scimitar came in low to the side, the second came in high, straight ahead, and the first chopped in again, angled downward at shoulder level.

The enemy drow's eyes widened as if he had suddenly realized his doom.

Guenhwyvar shot by them both, hit the drider full on, and went tumbling in a black ball of raking claws and flailing spider legs.

More dark elves were coming, Drizzt knew, from farther ahead and from the side passage. Drizzt's fury did not relent. Twinkle and his other blade worked fiercely, preventing the other drow from beginning an offensive counter.

He found an opening level with the drow's neck but had no heart for a kill. This was no goblin he faced, but a drow, one of his own race, one like Zaknafein, perhaps. Drizzt remembered a vow he had made when he had left the dark elf city. Ignoring the opening for the drow's neck, he whipped his blade low instead, banging one of his opponent's swords. Twinkle followed the attack immediately, slamming at the same sword, then Drizzt's first blade whipped back the other way, hitting the weapon on the opposite side and sending the battered thing flying away. The evil drow fell back, then came in low, hoping to counter quickly enough with his remaining sword to push Drizzt back, that he might recover his lost weapon.

A blinding backhand from Twinkle sent that remaining sword flying out wide, and Drizzt, never doubting the effectiveness of his strike, was moving forward before Twinkle ever connected.

He could have hit the drow anywhere he chose, including a dozen critical areas, but Drizzt Do'Urden recalled again the vow he had made when he had left Menzoberranzan, a promise to himself and a justification of his departure, that he would never again take the life of one of his people.

His scimitar jabbed downward, angling in above his opponent's kneecap. The evil drow howled and fell back, rolling to the stone and grasping at his torn joint.

Guenhwyvar was under the standing drider, the muscles of the panther's flank exposed from under a loose-hanging piece of the cat's black-furred skin.

"Go, Guenhwyvar!" Drizzt shouted as he ran along the wall, leaping wildly, hacking away, into the jumble of drider legs on that side. He heard the monstrosity shriek again as a scimitar blasted deep into one leg, nearly severing it, and then he tumbled free, out the back side.

Guenhwyvar took another axe hit but did not respond, did not follow Drizzt or counter the attack.

"Guenhwyvar!" Drizzt called, and the panther's head turned slowly to regard him. Drizzt understood the panther's delay when Guenhwyvar flinched several more times from continued crossbow hits.

Drizzt's instincts told him to send the panther away before any more punishment could be leveled upon it— but he did not have the figurine!

"Guenhwyvar!" he cried again, seeing many forms closing quickly from beyond the drider. Truly torn, Drizzt decided to rush back in and fight beside the panther to the bitter end.

The eight-legged creature hissed victoriously as its axe lined up for a stroke on the helpless and quivering panther's neck. Down came the blade, but it hit only insubstantial mist, and the drider's cry turned to one of frustration.

"Come on!" Drizzt heard Regis say behind him. The ranger understood then and was relieved.

But then the drider turned on him fully, and for the first time, with the torchlight returned to this area of the tunnel, Drizzt got a good look at the creature's unnervingly familiar face.

He had not the time to stop to consider it, though. He swept about, exaggerating the movement to send his cloak flying wide (and it took yet another quarrel that had been diving for his back), and rushed away.

The corridor darkened immediately, then lightened a bit, then darkened again, as Regis went into and through the two globes of darkness. Drizzt dove to the side as soon as he went into the cover of his own globe, and he heard a quarrel skip off the stone not far away. In full stride, he caught Regis just beyond the second globe, and the two flew past the dwarven bodies, cut around the bend in the corridor, and kept on running, Drizzt leading the way.

Chapter 10

In The Facets of a Wondrous Gem

Regis and Drizzt pulled up in a small side chamber, its ceiling relatively clear of the persistent stalactites common in this region of caves, and its entryway low and defensible. "Should I put out the torch?" the halfling asked. He stood behind Drizzt as the drow crouched in front of the entryway, listening for sounds of movement in the main tunnel beyond.

Drizzt thought for a long moment, then shook his head, knowing that it really did not matter, that he and Regis had no chance of escaping these tunnels without further confrontation. Soon after they had fled the battle, Drizzt discovered other enemies paralleling them down side corridors. He knew the dark elf hunting techniques well enough to understand that the trap would not be set with any obvious openings.

"I fight better in the light than my kin, I would guess," Drizzt reasoned.

"At least it wasn't Entreri," Regis said lightly, and Drizzt thought the reference to the assassin a strange thing indeed. Would that it were Artemis Entreri! the drow mused. At least then he and Regis would not be surrounded by a horde of drow warriors!

"You did well in dismissing Guenhwyvar," Drizzt remarked.

"Would the panther have died?" Regis asked.

Drizzt honestly did not know the answer, but he did not believe that Guenhwyvar had been in any mortal peril. He had seen the panther dragged into the stone by a creature of the elemental plane of earth and plunged into a magically created lake of pure acid. Both times the panther had returned to him and eventually all of Guenhwyvar's wounds had healed.

"If the drow and the drider had been allowed to continue," he added, "it is likely that Guenhwyvar would have needed more time to mend wounds on the Astral Plane. I do not believe the panther can be killed away from its home, however, not as long as the figurine survives." Drizzt looked back to Regis, sincere gratitude on his handsome face. "You did well in sending Guenhwyvar away, though, for certainly the panther was suffering at the hands of our enemies."

"I'm glad Guenhwyvar would not die," Regis commented as Drizzt looked back to the entryway. "It would not do to lose so valuable a magical item."

Nothing Regis had said since his return from Calimport, nothing Regis had ever said to Drizzt, seemed so very out of place. No, it went further than that, Drizzt decided as he crouched there, stunned by his halfling companion's callous remark. Guenhwyvar and Regis had been more than companions, had been friends, for many years. Regis would never refer to Guenhwyvar as a magical item.

Suddenly, it all began to make sense to the dark elf: the halfling's references to Artemis Entreri now, back with the dead dwarves, and back when they had talked of what had happened in Calimport after Drizzt's departure. Now Drizzt understood the eager way in which Regis measured his responses to remarks about the assassin.

And Drizzt understood the viciousness of his fight with Wulfgar—hadn't the barbarian mentioned that it was Regis who had told him about Drizzt's meeting with Catti-brie outside Mithril Hall?

"What else did you tell Wulfgar?" Drizzt asked, not turning around, not flinching in the least. "What else did you convince him of with that ruby pendant that hangs about your neck?"

The little mace skipped noisily across the floor beside the drew, coming to rest several feet to the front and side of him. Then came another item, a mask that Drizzt himself had worn on his journey to the southern empires, a mask that had allowed Drizzt to alter his appearance to that of a surface elf.

* * * * *

Wulfgar eyed the outrageous dwarf curiously, not quite sure what to make of this unorthodox battlerager. Bruenor had introduced Pwent to the barbarian just a minute before, and Wulfgar had gotten the distinct impression that Bruenor wasn't overly fond of the black-bearded, smelly dwarf. The dwarf king, to take his seat between Cobble and Catti-brie, had then rushed across the audience hall, leaving Wulfgar awkwardly standing by the door.

Thibbledorf Pwent, though, seemed perfectly at ease.

"You are a warrior, then?" Wulfgar asked politely, hoping to find some common ground.

Pwent's burst of laughter mocked him. "Warrior?" the bawdy dwarf bellowed. "Ye mean, one who's for fighting with honor?"

Wulfgar shrugged, having no idea of where Pwent was leading.

"Is yerself a warrior, big boy?" Pwent asked.

Wulfgar puffed out his great chest. "I am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar..." he began somberly.

"I thinked as much," Pwent called across the room to the others. "And if ye was fighting another, and he tripped on his way in and dropped his weapon, ye'd stand back and let him pick it up, knowing that ye'd win the fight anyway," Pwent reasoned.

Wulfgar shrugged, the answer obvious.

"Ye realize Pwent will surely insult the boy," Cobble, leaning on the arm of Bruenor's chair, whispered to the dwarf king.

"Gold against silver on the boy, then," Bruenor offered quietly. "Pwent's good and wild, but he ain't got the strength to handle that one."

"Not a bet I'd take," Cobble replied, "but if Wulfgar lifts a hand against that one, he's to get stung, not to doubt."

"Good," Catti-brie put in unexpectedly. Both Bruenor and Cobble turned incredulous looks on the young woman. "Wulfgar's needing some stinging," she explained with uncharacteristic callousness.

. "Well, there ye have it then!" Pwent roared in Wulfgar's face, leading the barbarian across the room as he spoke. "If I was fighting anyone, if I was fighting yerself, and ye dropped yer weapon, I'd let ye bend and pick it up."

Wulfgar nodded in agreement, but jumped back as Pwent snapped his dirty fingers right under Wulfgar's nose. "And then I'd put me spike right through the top o' yer thick head!" the battlerager finished. "I ain't no damned stupid warrior, ye damned fool! I'm a battlerager, the battlerager, and don't ye ever forget that the Pwent plays to win!" He snapped his fingers again Wulfgar's way, then stormed past the stunned barbarian, stomping over to stand before Bruenor.

"Ye got some outrageous friends, but I'm not surprised," Pwent roared at Bruenor. He regarded Catti-brie with his broken-toothed smile. "But yer girl'd be a cute one if ye could find a way to put some hair on her chin."

"Take it as a compliment," Cobble quietly offered to Catti-brie, who only shrugged and smiled with amusement.

"Battlehammers always kept a soft spot in their hearts for them that wasn't dwarf-kin," Pwent went on, directing his remarks at Wulfgar as the tall man moved beside him. "And we let 'em be our kings anyway. Never could figure that part out."

Bruenor's knuckles whitened under the strain as he grabbed hard on the arms of his chair, trying to control himself. Catti-brie dropped a hand over his, and when he looked at her tolerant eyes, the storm quickly passed.

"Speaking of that," Pwent went on, "there's an ugly rumor making the rounds that ye've got a drow elf standing beside ye. There be any truth o' that?"

Bruenor's first reaction was one of anger—always the dwarf had been defensive about his oft-maligned drow friend.

Catti-brie spoke first, though, her words directed more to her father than to Pwent, a reminder to Bruenor that Drizzt's skin had thickened and that he could take care of himself. "Ye'll be meeting the drow soon enough," she told the battlerager. "Suren that one's a warrior to fit yer description, if ever there was one."

Pwent roared in derisive laughter, but it faded as Catti-brie continued.

"If ye came at him to start a fight, but dropped yer pointy helm, he'd pick it up for ye and put it back on yer head," she explained. "Of course, then he'd take it back off and stuff it down the back of yer pants, and give ye a few boots, just so ye'd get 'the Pwent.'"

The battlerager's lips seemed to tie themselves up in a neat knot. For the first time in many days, Wulfgar seemed to approve completely of Catti-brie's reasoning, and the nod of his head, and of Bruenor's and of Cobble's, was certainly appreciative when Pwent made no move to answer.

"How long will Drizzt be gone?" the barbarian asked, to change the subject before Pwent could find his irritating voice.

"The tunnels are long," Bruenor replied.

"He will return for the ceremony?" Wulfgar asked, and there seemed to Catti-brie to be some ambivalence in his tone, an uncertainty of which answer he would prefer.

"Be sure that he will," the young woman put in evenly. "For be sure that there'll be no wedding until Drizzt is back from the tunnels." She looked at Bruenor, thoroughly squashing his protests before he ever uttered them. "And I'm not for caring if all the kings and queens of the North are kept waiting a month!"

Wulfgar seemed on the verge of an explosion, but he was wise enough to direct his mounting anger away from volatile Catti-brie. "I should have gone with him!" he growled at Bruenor. "Why did you send Regis along? What good might the halfling do if enemies are found?"

The ferocity of the lad's tone caught Bruenor off his guard.

"He's right," Catti-brie snapped in her father's ear, not that she wanted to agree with Wulfgar on any point, but that she, like Wulfgar, saw the opportunity to vent her anger openly.

Bruenor sank back in his chair, his dark eyes darting from one to the other. "Dwarves're lost, is all," he said.

"Even if that is true, what will Regis do but slow down the drow?" Catti-brie reasoned.

"He said he'd find a way to fit in!" Bruenor protested.

"Who said?" Catti-brie demanded.

"Rumblebelly!" shouted her flustered father.

"He did not even wish to go!" Wulfgar shot back.

"Did too!" Bruenor roared, leaping up from his seat and pushing the leaning Wulfgar back two steps with a sturdy forearm slam to the lad's chest. "'Twas Rumblebelly that telled me to send him along with the drow, I tell ye!"

"Regis was here with yerself when ye got the news o' the missing dwarves," Catti-brie reasoned. "Ye didn't say a thing about Regis telling ye to send him."

"He telled me before that," Bruenor answered. "He telled . . ." The dwarf stopped suddenly, realizing the illogic of it all. Somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered Regis explaining that he and Drizzt should go after the missing dwarves, but how could that be, since Bruenor had made the decision as soon as they all learned that dwarves were missing?

"Have ye been tasting the holy water again, me king?" Cobble asked respectfully but firmly.

Bruenor held his hand out, motioning for them all to be quiet while he sought his recollections. He remembered Regis's words distinctly and knew he was not imagining them, but no images accompanied the memory, no scene where he could place the halfling and thus straighten out the apparent time discrepancy.

Then an image came to Bruenor, a swirling array of shining facets, spiraling down and drawing him with them into the depths of a wondrous ruby.

"Rumblebelly telled me that the dwarves'd be missing," Bruenor said slowly and clearly, his eyes closed as he forced the memory from his subconscious. "He telled me I should send himself, and Drizzt, to find them, that them two alone'd get me dwarves back to the halls safely."

"Regis could not have known," Cobble reasoned, obviously doubting Bruenor's words.

"And even if he did, the little one would not have wished to go along to find them," Wulfgar added, equally doubtful. "Is this a dream—?"

"Not a dream!" Bruenor growled. "He telled me ... with that ruby of his." Bruenor's face screwed up as he tried to remember, tried to call upon his dwarven resistance to magic to fight past the stubborn mental block.

"Regis would not—" Wulfgar started to say again, but this time it was Catti-brie, knowing the truth of her father's claims, who interrupted him.

"Unless it wasn't really Regis," she offered, and her own words made her mouth drop open with their terrible implications. The three had been through much beside Drizzt, and they all knew well that the drow had many evil and powerful enemies, one in particular who would have the wiles to create such an elaborate deception.

Wulfgar looked equally stricken, at a loss, but Bruenor was fast to react. He jumped down from the throne and blasted between Wulfgar and Pwent, nearly knocking them both from their feet. Catti-brie went right behind, Wulfgar turning to follow.

"What in the head of a goblin are them three talking about?" Pwent demanded of Cobble as the cleric, too, rambled past.

"A fight," Cobble replied, knowing well how to deflect any of Pwent's demands for a lengthy explanation.

Thibbledorf Pwent dropped to one knee and rolled his burly shoulder, punching his fist triumphantly out in front of him. "Yeeeeeah!" he cried in glee. "Suren it's good to be back serving a Battlehammer!"

* * * * *

"Are you in league with them, or is this all a terrible coincidence?" Drizzt asked dryly, still refusing to turn about and give Artemis Entreri the satisfaction of viewing his torment.

"I do not believe in coincidence," came the predictable answer.

Finally, Drizzt did turn around, to see his dreaded rival, the human assassin Artemis Entreri, standing easily at the ready, fine sword in one hand, jeweled dagger in the other. The torch, still burning, lay at his feet. The magical transformation from halfling to human had been complete, clothing included, and this fact somewhat confused Drizzt. When Drizzt had used the mask, it had done no more than alter the color of his skin and hair, and his amazement now was obvious on his face.

"You should better learn the value of magical items before you so casually toss them aside," the assassin said to him, understanding the look.

There was a note of truth in Entreri's words, apparently, but Drizzt had never regretted leaving the magical mask in Calimport. Under its protective camouflage, the dark elf had walked freely, without persecution, among the other races. But under that mask, Drizzt Do'Urden had walked in a lie.

"You could have killed me in the goblin fight, or a hundred other times since your return to Mithril Hall," Drizzt reasoned. "Why the elaborate games?"

"The sweeter comes my victory."

"You wish me to draw my weapons, to continue the fight we began in Calimport's sewers."

"Our fight began long before there, Drizzt Do'Urden," the assassin chided. He casually poked his blade at Drizzt, who neither flinched nor reached for his scimitars as the fine sword nicked him on the cheek.

"You and I," Entreri continued, and he began to circle to Drizzt's side, "have been mortal enemies from the day we learned of each other, each an insult to the other's code of fighting. I mock your principles, and you insult my discipline."

"Discipline and emptiness are not the same," Drizzt answered. "You are but a shell that knows how to use weapons. There is no substance in that."

"Good," Entreri purred, tapping Drizzt's hip with his sword. "I feel your anger, drow, though you try so desperately to hide it. Draw your weapons and let it loose. Teach me with your skills what your words cannot."

"You still do not understand," Drizzt replied calmly, his head cocked to the side and a smug, sincere grin widening on his face. "I would not presume to teach you anything. Artemis Entreri is not worth my time."

Entreri's eyes flared in sudden rage and he leaped forward, sword high as if to strike Drizzt down.

Drizzt didn't flinch.

"Draw your weapons and let us continue our destiny," Entreri growled, falling back and leveling his sword at the draw's eye level.

"Fall on your own blade and meet the only end you'll ever deserve," Drizzt replied.

"I have your cat!" Entreri snapped. "You must fight me, or Guenhwyvar will be mine."

"You forget that we are both soon to be captured—or killed," Drizzt reasoned. "Do not underestimate the hunting skills of my people."

"Then fight for the halfling," Entreri growled. Drizzt's expression showed that the assassin had hit a nerve. "Had you forgotten about Regis?" Entreri teased. "I have not killed him, but he will die where he is, and only I know of that place. I will tell you only if you win. Fight, Drizzt Do'Urden, if for no better reason than to save the life of that miserable halfling!"

Entreri's sword made a lazy thrust at Drizzt's face again, but this time it went flying wide to the side as a scimitar leaped out and banged it away.

Entreri sent it right back in, and followed it closely with a dagger strike that nearly found a hole hi Drizzt's defenses.

"I thought you had lost the use of an arm and an eye," the drow said.

"1 lied," Entreri replied, stepping back and holding his weapons out wide. "Must I be punished?"

Drizzt let his scimitars answer for him, rushing in quickly and chopping repeatedly, left and right, left and right, then right a third time as his left blade twirled up above his head and came straight ahead in a blinding thrust.

Sword and dagger countering, the assassin batted aside each attack.

The fight became a dance, movements too synchronous, too much in perfect harmony for either to gain an advantage. Drizzt, knowing that time was running out for him, and more particularly for Regis, maneuvered near the low-burning torch, then stomped down on it, rolling it about and smothering the flames, stealing the light.

He thought his racial night vision would gain him the edge, but when he looked at Entreri, he saw the assassin's eyes glowing in the telltale red of infravision.

"You thought the mask gave me this ability?" Entreri reasoned. "Not true, you see. It was a gift from my dark elf associate, a mercenary, not so unlike myself." His words ended at the beginning of his charge, his sword coming high and forcing Drizzt to twist and duck to the side. Drizzt grinned in satisfaction as Twinkle came up, the scimitar ringing as it knocked Entreri's dagger aside. A subtle twist put Drizzt back on the offensive. Twinkle coming around Entreri's dagger hand and slicing at the assassin's exposed chest.

Entreri already had begun to roll, straight backward, and the blade never got close.

In the dim light of Twinkle's glow, their skin colors lost in a common gray, they seemed alike, brethren come from the same mold. Entreri approved of that perception, but Drizzt surely did not. To the renegade drow, Artemis Entreri seemed a dark mirror of his soul, an image of what he might have become had he remained in Menzoberranzan beside his amoral kin.

Drizzt's rage led him now in another series of dazzling thrusts and cunning, sweeping cuts, his curved blades weaving tight lines about each other, hitting at Entreri from a different angle with every attack.

Sword and dagger played equally well, blocking and returning cunning counters, then blocking the countering counters that the assassin seemed to anticipate with ease.

Drizzt could fight him forever, would never tire with Entreri standing opposite him. But then he felt a sting in his calf and a burning, then numbing, sensation emanating throughout his leg.

In seconds, he felt his reflexes slowing. He wanted to shout out the truth, to steal the moment of Entreri's victory, for surely the assassin, who so desired to beat Drizzt in honest combat, would not appreciate a win brought on by the poisoned quarrel of hidden allies.

Twinkle's tip dipped to the floor and Drizzt realized he was dangerously vulnerable.

Entreri fell first, similarly poisoned. Drizzt sensed the dark shapes slipping in through the low door and wondered if he had time to bash in the fallen assassin's skull before he, too, slumped to the ground.

He heard one of his own blades, then the other, clang to the floor, but he was not aware that he had dropped them. Then he was down, his eyes closed, his dimming consciousness trying to fathom the extent of this disaster, the many implications for his friends and for him.

His thoughts were not eased with the last words he heard, a voice in the drow language, a voice from somewhere in his past.

"Sleep well, my lost brother."

Part 3

Legacy

What dangerous paths I have trod in my life; what I crooked ways these feet have walked, in my home-I land, in the tunnels of the Underdark, across the surface Northland, and even in the course of following my friends.

I shake my head in wonderment—is every corner of the wide world possessed of people so self-absorbed that they cannot let others cross the paths of their lives? People so filled with hatred that they must take up chase and vindicate themselves against perceived wrongs, even if those wrongs were no more than an honest defense against their own encroaching evils?

I left Artemis Entreri in Calimport, left him there in body and with my taste for vengeance rightfully sated. Our paths had crossed and separated, to the betterment of us both. Entreri had no practical reason to pursue me, had nothing to gain in finding me but the possible redemption of his injured pride.

What a fool he is.

He has found perfection of the body, has honed his fighting skills as perfectly as any I have known. But his need to pursue reveals his weakness. As we uncover the mysteries of the body, so too must we unravel the harmonies of the soul. But Artemis Entreri, for all his physical prowess, will never know what songs his spirit might sing. Always will he listen jealously for the harmonies of others, absorbed with bringing down anything that threatens his craven superiority.

So much like my people is he, and so much like many others I have met, of varied races: barbarian warlords whose positions of power hinge on their ability to wage war on enemies who are not enemies; dwarf kings who hoard riches beyond imagination, while when sharing but a pittance of their treasures could better the lives of all those around them and in turn allow them to take down their ever-present military defenses and throw away their consuming paranoia; haughty elves who avert their eyes to the sufferings of any who are not elven, feeling that the "lesser races" somehow brought their pains unto themselves.

I have run from these people, passed these people by, and heard countless stories of them from travelers of every known land. And I know now that I must battle them, not with blade or army, but by remaining true to what I know in my heart is the rightful course of harmony.

By the grace of the gods, I am not alone. Since Bruenor regained his throne, the neighboring peoples take hope in his promises that the dwarven treasures of Mithril Hall will better all the region. Catti-brie's devotion to her principles is no less than my own, and Wulfgar has shown his warrior people the better way of friendship, the way of harmony.

They are my armor, my hope in what is to come for me and for all the world. And as the lost chasers such as Entreri inevitably find their paths linked once more with my own, I remember Zaknafein, kindred of blood and soul. I remember Montolio and take heart that there are others who know the truth, that if I am destroyed, my ideals will not die with me. Because of the friends I have known, the honorable people I have met, I know I am no solitary hero of unique causes. I know that when 1 die, that which is important will live on.

This is my legacy; by the grace of the gods, I am not alone.

—Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 11

Family Business

Clothing flew wildly, bric-a-brac smashed against the wall across the room, assorted weapons spun up into the air and twirled back down, I some bouncing off Bruenor's back. The dwarf, top half buried in his private locker, felt none of it, didn't even grunt when, as he rose for a moment, the flat side of a throwing axe struck and dislodged his one-homed helmet. "It's in here!" the dwarf growled stubbornly, and a half-completed suit of chain mail whipped over his shoulder, nearly clobbering the others in the room. "By Moradin, the damned thing's got to be in here!"

"What in the Nine—" Thibbledorf Pwent began, but Bruenor's ecstatic cry cut him short.

"I knowed it!" the red-bearded dwarf proclaimed, spinning up and turning away from the dismantled chest. In his hand he held a small, heart-shaped locket on a golden chain.

Catti-brie recognized it instantly as the magical gift Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon had given Bruenor, that he might find his friends who had gone into the Southland. Inside the locket was a tiny portrait of Drizzt, and the item was attuned to the drow, would give its possessor general information about Drizzt Do'Urden's whereabouts.

"This'll lead us to the elf," Bruenor proclaimed, holding the locket up high before him.

"Then give it over, me king," said Pwent, "and let me find this strange ... friend o' yers."

"I can work it well enough," Bruenor growled in reply, replacing his one-horned helm atop his head and taking up his many-notched axe and golden shield.

"Ye're king of Mithril Hall!" Pwent protested. "Ye cannot be running off into the danger of unknown tunnels."

Catti-brie ripped off an answer before Bruenor got the chance.

"Shut yer mouth, battlerager," the young woman insisted. "Me Dad'd throw the halls to the goblins afore he'd be letting Drizzt stay in trouble!"

Cobble grabbed Pwent's shoulder (and got a nasty cut on one finger from the many-ridged armor in the process) to confirm the woman's observation and silently warn the wild battlerager not to press this point.

Bruenor wouldn't have listened to any arguments anyway. The red-bearded dwarf king, fires aglow in his dark eyes, again blasted past Pwent and Wulfgar and led the charge out of the room.

* * * * *

The image came into focus slowly, surrealistically, and by the time Drizzt Do'Urden fully awakened, he clearly recognized his sister Vierna, bending low to regard him.

"Purple eyes," the priestess said in the drow tongue.

A sense that he had played out this identical scene a hundred times in his youth nearly overwhelmed the trapped dark elf.

Vierna! The only member of his family that Drizzt had ever cared for, besides the dead Zaknafein, stood before him now.

She had been Drizzt's wean-mother, assigned to bring him, as a prince of House Do'Urden, into the dark ways of drow society. But thinking back to those distant memories, to times of which he had few, if any, recollections, Drizzt knew there was something different about Vierna, some underlying tenderness buried beneath the wicked robes of a priestess of the Spider Queen.

"How long has it been, my lost brother?" Vierna asked, still using the language of the dark elves. "Nearly three decades? And how far you have come, and yet so close again to where you began, and where you belong."

Drizzt steeled his gaze, but had no practical retort—not with his hands bound behind him and a dozen drow soldiers milling about the small chamber. Entreri was there, too, talking to a most curious dark elf who wore an outrageously plumed hat and a short, open-front vest that showed the rippling muscles of his slender stomach. The assassin had the magical mask tied to his belt, and Drizzt feared the mischief Entreri might cause if he were allowed to return to Mithril Hall.

"What will you think when you walk again into Menzoberranzan?" Vierna asked Drizzt, and though the question was again rhetorical, it drew his attention fully back to her.

"I will think as a prisoner thinks," Drizzt replied. "And when I am brought before Matr…before wicked Malice…"

"Matron Malice!" Vierna hissed.

"Malice," Drizzt repeat defiantly, and Vierna slapped him hard across the face. Several dark elves turned to regard the incident, then gave quiet chuckles and went back to their conversations.

Vierna, too, erupted in laughter, long and wild. She threw her head back, her flowing white tresses flipping back from her face.

Drizzt regarded her silently, having no idea of what had precipitated the explosive reaction.

"Matron Malice is dead, you fool!" Vierna said suddenly, snapping her head forward to within an inch of Drizzt's face.

Drizzt did not know how to react. He had just been told that his mother was dead, and he had no idea of how the information should affect him. He felt a sadness, distantly, but dismissed it, understanding that it came from a sense of never knowing a mother, not from the loss of Malice Do'Urden. As he settled back, digesting the news, Drizzt came to feel a calmness, an acceptance that brought not an ounce of grief. Malice was his natural parent, never his mother, and by all of Drizzt Do'Urden's estimation, her death was not a bad thing.

"You do not even know, do you?" Vierna laughed at him. "How long you have been gone, lost one!"

Drizzt cocked a curious eye, suspecting that some further, even greater, revelation was yet to be spoken.

"By your own actions House Do'Urden was destroyed, and you do not even know!" Vierna cackled hysterically.

"Destroyed?" Drizzt asked, surprised but, again, not overly concerned. In truth, the renegade drow felt no more for his own house than for any other in Menzoberranzan. In truth, Drizzt felt nothing at all.

"Matron Malice was charged with finding you," Vierna explained. "When she could not, when you slipped through her grasp, so, too, did the favor of Lloth."

"A pity," Drizzt interjected, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Vierna hit him again, harder, but he held firm to his stoic discipline and did not blink.

Vierna spun away from him, clenched her delicate but deceptively strong hands in front of her and found breath hard to come by.

"Destroyed," she said again, suddenly obviously pained, "taken down by the will of the Spider Queen. They are dead because of you," she cried, spinning back at Drizzt and pointing accusingly. "Your sisters, Briza and Maya, and your mother. All the house, Drizzt Do'Urden, dead because of you!"

Drizzt gave no outward expression, an accurate reflection of his absence of feelings, for the incredible news Vierna had just thrown at him. "And what of our brother?" he asked, more to discern information about this raiding force than for any sincere cares about Dinin's well-deserved demise.

"Why, Drizzt," Vierna said with obviously feigned confusion, "you have met him yourself. You nearly took one of his legs."

Drizzt's confusion was genuine—until Vierna finished the thought.

"One of his eight legs."

Again Drizzt managed to keep his features expressionless, but the stunning information that Dinin had become a drider certainly had caught him by surprise.

"Again the blame is yours!" Vierna snarled, and she watched him for a long moment, her smile gradually fading as he did not react.

"Zaknafein died for you!" Vierna cried suddenly, and, though Drizzt knew she had said it only to evoke a reaction, this time he could not remain calm.

"No!" he shouted back in rage, lurching forward from the floor, only to be easily pushed back to his seat.

Vierna smiled evilly, knowing she had found Drizzt's weak spot.

"Were it not for the sins of Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein would live still," she prodded. "House Do'Urden would have known its highest glories and Matron Malice would sit upon the ruling council."

"Sins?" Drizzt spat back, finding his courage against the painful memories of his lost father. "Glories?" he asked. "You confuse the two."

Vierna's hand shot up as though to lash out again, but when stoic Drizzt did not flinch, she lowered it.

"In the name of your wretched deity, you revel in the evilness of the drow world," the indomitable Drizzt went on. "Zaknafein died .. . no, was murdered, in pursuit of false ideals. You cannot convince me to accept the blame. Was it Vierna who held the sacrificial dagger?"

The priestess seemed on the verge of an explosion, her eyes glowing intensely and her face flushed hot to Drizzt's heat-seeing eyes.

"He was your father, too," Drizzt said to her, and she winced in spite of her efforts to sustain her rage. It was true enough. Zaknafein had sired two, and only two, children with Malice.

"But you do not care about that," Drizzt reasoned immediately. "Zaknafein was just a male, after all, and males do not count in the world of the drow.

"But he was your father," Drizzt had to add. "And he gave more to you than you will ever accept."

"Silence!" Vierna snarled through gnashing teeth. She slapped Drizzt again, several times in rapid succession. He could feel the warmth of his own blood oozing down his face.

Drizzt remained quiet for the moment, caught in private reflections of Vierna, and of the monster she had become. She now seemed more akin to Briza, Drizzt's oldest and most vicious sister, caught up in the frenzy that the Spider Queen always seemed ready to promote. Where was the Vierna that had secretly shown mercy to young Drizzt? Where was the Vierna who went along with the dark ways, as did Zaknafein, but never seemed to fully accept what Lloth had to offer?

Where was Zaknafein's daughter?

She was dead and buried, Drizzt decided as he regarded that heat-flushed face, buried beneath the lies and the empty promises of twisted glory that perverted everything about the dark world of the drow.

"I will redeem you," Vierna said, calm again, the heat gradually leaving her delicate, beautiful face.

"More wicked ones than you have tried," Drizzt replied, misunderstanding her intent. Vierna's ensuing laughter revealed that she recognized the error of his conclusions.

"I will give you to Lloth," the priestess explained. "And I will accept, in return, more power than even ambitious Matron Malice ever hoped for. Be of cheer, my lost brother, and know that you will restore to House Do'Urden more prestige and power than it ever before knew."

"Power that will wane," Drizzt replied calmly, and his tone angered Vierna more than his insightful words. "Power that will raise the house to another precipice, so that another house, finding the favor of Lloth, might push Do'Urden down once more."

Vierna's smile widened.

"You cannot deny it," Drizzt snarled at her, and it was he who now faltered in the war of words, he who found his logic, however sound, to be inadequate. "There is no constancy, no permanence, in Menzoberranzan beyond the Spider Queen's latest whim."

"Good, my lost brother," Vierna purred.

"Lloth is a damned thing!"

Vierna nodded. "Your sacrilege cannot harm me any more," the priestess explained, her tone deathly calm, "for you are not of me anymore. You are nothing more than a houseless rogue whom Lloth has deemed suitable for sacrifice.

"So do continue to spit your curses at the Spider Queen," Vierna went on. "Do show Lloth how proper this sacrifice will be! How ironic it is, for if you repented your ways, if you came back to the truth of your heritage, then you would defeat me."

Drizzt bit his lip, realizing that he would do well to hold his silence until he better fathomed the depth of this unexpected meeting.

"Do you not understand?" Vierna asked him. "Merciful Lloth would welcome back your skilled sword, and my sacrifice would be no more. Thus would I live as an outcast, like you, a houseless rogue."

"You do not fear to tell me this?" Drizzt asked her coyly.

Vierna understood her renegade brother better than he believed. "You will not repent, foolish, honorable Drizzt Do'Urden," she replied. "You would not utter such a lie, would not proclaim your fealty to the Spider Queen, even to save your very life. What useless commodities are these ideals you hold so precious!"

Vierna slapped him one more time, for no particular reason that Drizzt could discern, and she twirled away, her hot form blurred by the shielding flow of her clerical robes. How fitting that image seemed to Drizzt, that the true outline of his sister should be hidden beneath the garments of the perverting Spider Queen.

The curious-looking drow that had been conversing with Entreri walked over to Drizzt then, his high boots clacking loudly on the stone. He gave Drizzt an almost sympathetic look, then shrugged.

"A pity," he remarked, as he produced the glowing Twinkle from under the folds of his shimmering cape.

"A pity,” he said again, and he walked away, this time his boots making not a whisper of sound.

* * * * *

The amazed guards snapped to rigid attention when their king unexpectedly entered their chamber, accompanied by his daughter, Wulfgar, Cobble, and a strangely armored dwarf that they did not know.

"Ye heared from the drow?" Bruenor asked the guards, the dwarf king going straight for the heavy bar on the stone door as he spoke.

Their silence told Bruenor all he needed to know. "Get to General Dagna," he instructed one of the guardsmen. "Tell him to gather together a war party and get down the new tunnels!"

The dwarven guard obediently kicked up his heels and darted away.

Bruenor's four companions came beside him as the bar clanged to the stone, Wulfgar and Cobble bearing blazing torches.

"Three, then two, is the draw's signal," the remaining guard explained to Bruenor.

"Three, then two, it is," Bruenor replied, and he disappeared into the gloom, forcing the others, particularly Thibbledorf, who still did not think it a good thing that the king of Mithril Hall was even down there, to scamper quickly just to keep pace.

Cobble and even hardy Pwent glanced back and grimaced as the stone door slammed shut, while the other three, bent forward with the weight of their fears for their missing friend, did not even hear the sound.

Chapter 12

The Truth Be Known

“Blood," Catti-brie muttered grimly, holding a I torch and bending low over the line of droplets in the corridor, near the entry way of a small I chamber.

"Could be from the goblin fight," Bruenor said hopefully, but Catti-brie shook her head.

"Still wet," she replied. "The blood from the goblin fight'd be long dried by now."

"Then from them crawlers we seen," Bruenor reasoned, "tearing apart the goblin bodies."

Still Catti-brie was not convinced. Stooping low, torch held far in front of her, she went through the short doorway of the side chamber. Wulfgar clambered in behind and pushed past her as soon as the passage widened again, coming up defensively in front of the young woman.

The barbarian's action did not sit well with Catti-brie. Perhaps, from Wulfgar's point of view, he was merely following a prudent course, getting his battle-ready body in front of one encumbered with a torch and whose eyes were on the floor. But Catti-brie doubted that possibility, felt that Wulfgar had come in so urgently because she had been in the lead, because of his need to protect her and stand between her and any possible danger. Proud and able, Catti-brie was more insulted than flattered.

And worried, for if Wulfgar was so fearful of her safety, then he might well make a tactical mistake. The companions had survived many dangers together because each had found a niche in the band, because each had played a role complementary to the abilities of the others. Catti-brie understood clearly that a disruption of that pattern could be deadly.

She pushed back ahead of Wulfgar, batting aside his arm when he held it out to block her progress. He glared at her, and she promptly returned the unyielding stare.

"What d'ye got in there?" came Bruenor's call, deflecting the imminent showdown. Catti-brie looked back to see the dark form of her father crouched in the low doorway, Cobble and Pwent, who held the second torch, out in the corridor behind him.

"Empty," Wulfgar answered firmly, and turned to go.

Catti-brie kept on crouching and looking about, though, as much to prove the barbarian wrong as in an honest search for clues.

"Not empty," she corrected a moment later, and her superior tone turned Wulfgar back around and lured Bruenor into the chamber.

They flanked Catti-brie, who bent low over a tiny object on the floor: a crossbow quarrel, but far too small for any of the crossbows Bruenor's fighters carried, or any similar weapon the companions had ever seen. Bruenor picked it up in his stubby fingers, brought it close to his eyes, and studied it carefully.

"We got pixies in these tunnels?" he asked, referring to the diminutive but cruel sprites more common to woodland settings.

"Some type of—" Wulfgar began.

"Drow," Catti-brie interrupted. Wulfgar and Bruenor turned on her, Wulfgar's clear eyes flashing with anger at being interrupted, but only for the moment it took him to understand the gravity of what Catti-brie had announced.

"The elf had a bow that'd fit this?" Bruenor balked.

"Not Drizzt," Catti-brie corrected grimly, "other drow." Wulfgar and Bruenor screwed up their faces in obvious doubt, but Catti-brie felt certain of her guess. Many times in the past, back in Icewind Dale on the empty slopes of Kelvin's Cairn, Drizzt had told her of his homeland, had told her of the remarkable accomplishments and exotic artifacts of the dark elf nation. Among those artifacts was the most favored weapon of the dark elves, hand-held crossbows, with quarrels usually tipped in poison.

Wulfgar and Bruenor looked to each other, each hopeful that the other would find some logic to defeat Catti-brie's grim assertions. Bruenor only shrugged, tucked the quarrel away, and started for the outside passage. Wulfgar looked back to the young woman, his face flushed with concern.

Neither of them spoke—neither had to—for they both knew well the horror-filled tales of marauding dark elves. The implications seemed grave indeed if Catti-brie's guess proved correct, if drow elves had come to Mithril Hall.

There was something more in Wulfgar's expression that troubled Catti-brie, though, a possessive protectiveness that the young woman was beginning to believe would get them all in trouble. She pushed past the huge man, dipping low and exiting the chamber, leaving Wulfgar in the dark with his inner turmoil.

* * * * *

The caravan made its slow but steady way through the tunnels, the passageways becoming ever more natural. Drizzt still wore his armor but had been stripped of his weapons and had his hands tightly bound behind his back by some magical cord that would not loosen in the least, no matter how he managed to twist his wrists.

Dinin, eight legs clicking on the stone, led the troupe, with Vierna and Jarlaxle a short way behind. Several in the twenty-drow party had fallen into formation behind them, including the two keeping watch over Drizzt. They intersected once with the larger, flanking band of House Baenre soldiers, Jarlaxle issuing quiet orders and the second drow force slipping, melting, away into the shadows.

Only then did Drizzt begin to understand the import of the raid on Mithril Hall. By his count, somewhere between two and three score dark elves had come up from Menzoberranzan, a formidable raiding party indeed.

And it had all been for him.

What of Entreri? Drizzt wondered. How did the assassin fit into this? He seemed to mesh so well with the dark elves. Of similar build and temperament, the assassin moved along with the drow ranks easily, inconspicuously.

Too well, Drizzt thought.

Entreri spent some time with the shaven-headed mercenary and Vierna, but then dropped back rank by rank, making his way inevitably toward his most-hated enemy.

"Well met," he said coyly when he at last fell into step beside Drizzt. A look from the human sent the two closest dark elf guards moving respectfully away.

Drizzt eyed the assassin closely for a moment, looking for clues, then pointedly turned away.

"What?" Entreri insisted, grabbing the obstinate drow's shoulder and turning him back. Drizzt stopped abruptly, drawing concerned looks from the drow flanking him, particularly Vierna. He started moving again immediately, though, not liking the attention and, gradually, the other dark elves settled into their comfortable pace around him.

"I do not understand," Drizzt remarked offhandedly to Entreri. "You had the mask, had Regis, and knew where I could be found. Why then did you ally with Vierna and her gang?"

"You presume that the choice was mine to make," Entreri replied. "Your sister found me—I did not seek her out."

"Then you are a prisoner," Drizzt reasoned.

"Hardly," Entreri replied without hesitation, chuckling as he spoke. "You said it correctly the first time. I am an ally."

"Where my kin are concerned, the two are much the same."

Again Entreri chuckled, apparently seeing the bait for what it was. Drizzt winced at the sincerity in the assassin's laughter, because he then realized the strength in the bonds of his enemies, ties he had hoped, in a fleeting moment of any hope, he might stretch and exploit.

"I deal with Jarlaxle, actually," the assassin explained, "not your volatile sister. Jarlaxle, the pragmatic mercenary, the opportunist. That one, I understand. He and I are much alike!"

"When you are no longer needed—" Drizzt began ominously.

"But I am and shall continue to be!" Entreri interrupted. "Jarlaxle, the opportunist," he reiterated loudly, drawing an approving nod from the mercenary, who apparently understood well the Common tongue of the surface. "What gain would Jarlaxle find in killing me? I am a valuable tie to the surface, am I not? The head of a thieves' guild in exotic Calimport, an ally that might well prove useful in the future. I have dealt with Jarlaxle's kind all my life, guild-masters from a dozen cities along the Sword Coast."

"Drow have been known to kill for the simple pleasure of killing," Drizzt protested, not willing to let go of this one loose strand so easily.

"Agreed," Entreri replied, "but they do not kill when they stand to gain by not killing. Pragmatic. You will not shake this alliance, doomed Drizzt. It is of mutual benefit, you see, to your inevitable loss."

Drizzt paused a long while to digest the information, to find some way to regain that potentially unwinding strand, that loose end that he believed always existed when treacherous individuals came together on any cause.

"Not mutual benefit," he said quietly, noting Entreri's curious glance his way.

"Explain," Entreri bade him after a long moment of silence.

"I know why you came after me," Drizzt reasoned. "It was not to have me killed, but to kill me yourself. And not just to kill me, but to defeat me in even combat. That possibility seems less likely now, in these tunnels beside merciless Vierna and her desires for simple sacrifice."

"So formidable even when all is lost," Entreri remarked, his superior tones pulling that elusive strand from Drizzt's reach once more. "Defeat you in combat, I will—that is the deal, you see. In a chamber not so far from here, your kin and I will part company, but not until you and I have settled our rivalry."

"Vierna would not let you kill me," Drizzt retorted.

"But she would allow me to defeat you," Entreri answered. "She desires that very thing, desires that your humiliation be complete. After I have settled our business, then she will give you to Lloth ... with my blessings.

"Come now, my friend," Entreri purred, seeing no response coming from Drizzt, seeing Drizzt's face screwed up in an uncharacteristic pout.

"I am not your friend," Drizzt growled back.

"My kindred, then," Entreri teased, his delight absolute when Drizzt turned an angry glower at him.

"Never."

"We fight," Entreri explained. "We both fight so very well, and fight to win, though our purposes for battle may vary. I have told you before that you cannot escape me, cannot escape who you are."

Drizzt had no answer for that, not in a corridor surrounded by enemies and with his hands tied behind his back. Entreri had indeed made these claims before, and Drizzt had reconciled them, had come to terms with the decisions of his life and with the path he had chosen as his own.

But seeing the obvious pleasure on the evil assassin's face disturbed the honorable drow nonetheless. Whatever else he might do in this seemingly hopeless situation, Drizzt Do'Urden determined then not to give Entreri his satisfaction.

They came to an area of many side passages, winding, scalloped tunnels, worm holes, they seemed, meandering and rolling about in every direction at once. Entreri had said that the room, the parting of ways, was close, and Drizzt knew he was running out of time.

He dove headlong to the floor, tucked his feet in tight, and slipped his arms over them, then brought them back in front, as he rolled to a standing position. By the time he turned back, the ever-alert Entreri already had his sword and dagger in hand, but Drizzt charged him anyway. Weaponless, the drow had no practical chance, but he guessed that Entreri would not strike him down, guessed that the assassin would not so impulsively destroy the even challenge he desperately craved, the very moment Entreri had worked so very hard to achieve.

Predictably, Entreri hesitated, and Drizzt was beyond his half-hearted defenses in a moment, leaping into the air and landing a double-footed kick on Entreri's face and chest that sent the man flying away.

Drizzt bounced back to his feet and rushed toward the entrance to the nearest side tunnel, blocked by a single drow guard. Again Drizzt came on fearlessly, hoping that Vierna had promised incredible torments to anyone who stole her sacrifice—a hope that seemed confirmed when Drizzt glanced back to Vierna, to see her hand holding back Jarlaxle's, the mercenary's fingers clutching a throwing dagger.

The blocking drow fighter, as agile as a cat, punched out at the charging Drizzt, hilt first. But Drizzt, quicker still, snapped his hands straight up, and the ties binding his wrists hooked the fighter's weapon hand and threw his sword harmlessly high. Drizzt slammed into him, body to body, lifting his knee as they came together, and connecting cleanly on his opponent's abdomen. The fighter doubled over and Drizzt, with no time to spare, pushed past him, throwing him down to trip up the next soldier, and Entreri, coming in fast.

Around a bend, down a short expanse, then diving into yet another side passage, Drizzt barely managed to keep ahead of the pursuit—so close were his enemies in fact, that as he turned into the next passage, he heard a quarrel skip along the wall to the side.

Even worse, the drow ranger noted other forms slipping in and out of the openings to the sides of the tunnel. There had been no more than seven dark elves in the corridor with him, but he knew that more than twice that number had accompanied Vierna, not to mention the larger force that had been left behind not so long ago. The missing soldiers were all about, Drizzt knew, flanking and scouting, feeding reports along prescribed routes in silent codes.

Around another bend he went, then another, turning back opposite the first. He scrambled up a short wall, then cursed his luck when the branching corridor atop it sloped back down to the previous level.

Around another bend he saw a flash of heat glowing fiercely and knew it was a signal speculum, a metal plate magically heated on one side, which the dark elves used for signaling. The heated side glowed like a mirror in sunlight to beings using infravision. Drizzt cut down a side passage, realizing that the webs were tightening about him, knowing that his attempt would not succeed.

Then the drider reared up in front of him.

Drizzt's revulsion was absolute, and he backpedaled in spite of the dangers he knew were behind him. To see his brother in such a state! Dinin's bloated torso moved in harmony with the eight scrabbling legs, his face an expressionless death mask.

Drizzt quieted his churning emotions, his need to scream out, and looked for a practical way to get past this obstacle. Dinin had turned his twin axes to their blunt sides, waving them wildly, and his eight legs kicked and bucked, giving Drizzt no obvious opening.

Drizzt had no choice; he spun about, intending to flee back the other way. Vierna, Jarlaxle, and Entreri turned the corner to greet him.

They conversed quietly in the Common tongue. Entreri said something about settling his score then and there, but apparently changed his mind.

Vierna advanced instead, her whip of five living snake heads waving ominously before her.

"If you defeat me, then you can have back your freedom," she teased in the drow tongue, as she tossed Twinkle to the floor at Drizzt's feet. He went for the weapon and Vierna struck, but Drizzt had expected as much and he fell back short of his dropped scimitar, leaving Twinkle just out of reach.

The drider scrambled ahead, an axe clipping Drizzt's shoulder, knocking him backward toward Vierna. The ranger had no other choice now, and dove headlong for his blade, his fingers barely reaching it.

Snake fangs dug into his wrist. Another bite took him on the forearm and three more dove at his face or at his other hand, which was twisted over his grasping hand in a feeble defense. The sting of the bites was vicious, but it was the more insidious poison that defeated Drizzt. He had Twinkle in his grasp, he thought, but he couldn't be certain, since his numbed fingers could no longer feel the weapon's metal.

Vierna's cruel whip lashed out again, five heads biting eagerly into Drizzt's flesh, spreading the waves of numbness throughout his battered form. The merciless priestess of a merciless goddess beat the helpless prisoner a dozen times, her face twisted in absolute, evil glee.

Drizzt stubbornly held consciousness, eyed her with utter contempt, but that only prodded Vierna on, and she would have beaten him to death then and there had not Jarlaxle, and more pointedly, Entreri, come beside her and calmed her.

For Drizzt, his body racked with agony and all hope of survival long flown, it seemed less than a reprieve.

* * * * *

"Aaargh!" Bruenor wailed. "Me kinfolk!"

Thibbledorf Pwent's reaction to the gruesome scene of seven slaughtered dwarves was even more dramatic. The battlerager floundered to the side of the tunnel and began slamming his forehead against the stone wall. Undoubtedly he would have knocked himself cold had not Cobble quietly reminded him that his hammering could be heard a mile away.

"Killed clean and fast," Catti-brie commented, trying to keep rational and make some sense of this newest clue.

"Entreri," Bruenor growled.

"By all our guesses, if he's truly wearing the face and body of Regis, these dwarves were missing afore he went into these tunnels," Catti-brie reasoned. "Seems the assassin might have bringed some helpers along." The image of the small crossbow bolt played in her mind and she hoped her suspicions would prove false.

"Dead helpers when I get me hands around their murdering throats!" Bruenor promised. He fell to his knees then, hunched over a dead dwarf who had been a close friend.

Catti-brie could not bear the sight. She looked away from her father, to Wulfgar, standing quietly and holding the torch.

Wulfgar's scowl, aimed at her, caught her by surprise.

She studied him for a few moments. "Well, say yer thoughts," she demanded, growing uncomfortable under his unrelenting glare.

"You should not have come down here," the barbarian answered calmly.

"Drizzt is not me friend, then?" she asked, and she was surprised again at how Wulfgar's face crinkled in barely explosive rage at her mention of the dark elf.

"Oh, he is your friend, I do not doubt," Wulfgar replied, his tone dripping with venom. "But you are to be my wife. You should not be in this dangerous place."

Catti-brie's eyes opened wide in disbelief, in absolute outrage, showing the reflections of the torchlight as though some inner fire burned within them. "'Tis not yer choice to be making!" she cried loudly—so loudly that Cobble and Bruenor exchanged concerned looks and the dwarf king rose from his dead friend and moved toward his daughter.

"You are to be my bride!" Wulfgar reminded her, his volume equally disturbing.

Catti-brie didn't flinch, didn't blink, her determined stare forcing Wulfgar back a step. The resolute young woman almost smiled in spite of her rage, with the knowledge that the barbarian was finally beginning to catch on.

"You should not be here," Wulfgar said again, renewing his strength in his declaration.

"Get yerself to Settlestone, then," Catti-brie retorted, poking a finger into Wulfgar's massive chest. "For if ye're thinking I should not be here to help in finding Drizzt, then ye cannot call yerself a friend of the ranger!"

"Not as much as you can!" Wulfgar snarled back, his eyes glowing angrily, his face twisted and one fist clenched tightly at his side.

"What're ye saying?" Catti-brie asked, sincerely confused by all of this, by Wulfgar's irrational words and erratic behavior.

Bruenor had heard enough. He stepped between the two, pushing Catti-brie gently back and turning to squarely face the barbarian who had been like a son to him.

"What are ye saying, boy?" the dwarf asked, trying to keep calm, though he wanted nothing more than to punch Wulfgar in the blabbering mouth.

Wulfgar didn't look at Bruenor at all, just reached over the sturdy but short dwarf to point accusingly at Catti-brie. "How many kisses have you and the drow shared?" he bellowed.

Catti-brie nearly fell over. "What?" she shrieked. "Ye've lost yer senses. I never—"

"You lie!" Wulfgar roared.

"Damn yer words!" howled Bruenor and out came his great axe. He whipped it across, forcing Wulfgar to leap back and slam hard against the corridor wall, then chopped with it, forcing the barbarian to dive aside. Wulfgar tried to block with the torch, but Bruenor slapped it from his hand. Wulfgar tried to get to Aegis-fang, which he had slipped under his backpack when they had found the dead dwarves, but Bruenor came at him relentlessly, never actually striking, but forcing him to dodge and dive, to scramble across the hard stone.

"Let me kill him for ye, me king!" Pwent cried, rushing up and misunderstanding Bruenor's intentions.

"Get ye back!" Bruenor roared at the battlerager, and all the others were amazed, Pwent most among them, at the sheer force of Bruenor's voice.

"I been playing along with yer stupid actions for weeks now," Bruenor said to Wulfgar, "but I've no more time for ye. Ye speak out whatever's got yer hair up here and now, or shut yer stupid mouth and keep it shut until we find Drizzt and get us outta these stinking tunnels!"

"I have tried to remain calm," Wulfgar retorted, and it seemed more a plea, since the barbarian was still on his knees from dodging Bruenor's dangerously close swings. "But I cannot ignore the insult to my honor!" As though realizing his subservient appearance, the proud barbarian leaped to his feet. "Drizzt met with Catti-brie before the drow returned to Mithril Hall."

"Who telled ye that?" Catti-brie demanded.

"Regis!" Wulfgar shouted back. "And he told me that your meeting was filled with more than words!"

"It's a lie!" Catti-brie cried.

Wulfgar started to respond in kind, but he saw Bruenor's wide smile and heard the dwarf's mocking laughter. The head of the dwarf's axe dropped to the floor, Bruenor placing both hands on his hips and shaking his head in obvious disbelief.

"Ye stupid ...," the dwarf muttered. "Why don't ye use whatever part o' yer body's not muscle and think o' what ye just said? We're here because we're guessing that Regis ain't Regis!"

Wulfgar scrunched his face up in confusion, realizing only then that he had not reconsidered the halfling's volatile accusations in light of the recent revelations.

"If ye're feeling as stupid as ye look, then ye're feeling the way ye ought to feel," Bruenor remarked dryly.

The sudden revelations hit Wulfgar as surely as Bruenor's axe ever could. How many times had Regis spoken with j him alone these last few days? And what, he considered carefully, had been the content of those many meetings? For the first time, perhaps, Wulfgar realized what he had done in his chamber against the drow, truly realized that he would have killed Drizzt if the drow had not won the battle. "The halfling ... Artemis Entreri, tried to use me in his evil plans," Wulfgar reasoned. He remembered a swirling myriad of sparkling reflections, the facets of a gemstone, inviting him down into its depths. "He used his pendant on me—-I cannot be sure, but I think I remember ... I believe he used ..."

"Be sure," Bruenor said. "I knowed ye a long time, lad, and never have I knowed ye to act so damned stupid. And meself as well. To send the halfling along with Drizzt into this unknown region!"

"Entreri tried to get me to kill Drizzt," Wulfgar went on, trying to fathom it all.

"Tried to get Drizzt to kill yerself, ye mean," Bruenor corrected. Catti-brie snorted, unable to contain her pleasure and her gratitude that Bruenor had put the boastful ! barbarian in his place.

Wulfgar scowled at her from over Bruenor's shoulder.

"You did meet with the drow," he stated.

"That's me own business," the young woman replied, not giving in an inch to Wulfgar's lingering jealousy.

The tension began to mount again—Catti-brie could see that while the revelations about Regis had taken some of the bite from Wulfgar's growl, the protective man still did not wish her there, did not wish his bride-to-be in a dangerous situation. Stubborn and proud, Catti-brie remained more insulted than flattered.

She didn't get the chance to vent her rage, though, not then, for Cobble came shuffling back to the group, begging them all to be silent. Only then did Bruenor and the others notice that Pwent was no longer present. "Noise," the cleric explained quietly, "somewhere farther along in the deeper tunnels. Let us pray to Moradin that whatever is down there did not hear the clamor of our own stupidity!"

Catti-brie looked to the fallen dwarves, looked to see Wulfgar do likewise, and knew that the barbarian, like her, was reminding himself that Drizzt was in serious danger. How petty their arguments seemed to her then, and she was ashamed.

Bruenor sensed her despair, and he came over to her and draped his arm across her shoulders. "Had to be said," he offered comfortingly. "Had to be brought out and cleared afore the fighting begins."

Catti-brie nodded her agreement and hoped that the fighting, if there was to be any, would begin soon.

She hoped, too, with all her heart, that the next battle would not be fought as vengeance for the death of Drizzt Do'Urden.

Chapter 13

Broken Vows

A single torch was lit; Drizzt realized it was part of I the deal. Entreri probably was not yet comfortable enough with his newly acquired infravision I to battle Drizzt without any light source at all. When his eyes shifted into the normal spectrum of light, Drizzt studied the medium-sized chamber. While its walls and ceiling were quite naturally formed, curving and with jutting angles and small stalactites hanging down, it had two wooden doors—recently constructed, Drizzt believed, most probably arranged by Vierna as part of the deal with Entreri. A drow soldier flanked the doors on each side and a third stood between them, right in front of each portal.

Twelve dark elves were in the room now, including Vierna and Jarlaxle, but the drider was nowhere to be found. Entreri was talking with Vierna; Drizzt saw her give the assassin the belt holding Drizzt's two scimitars.

There also was a curious alcove in the room, a single step in from the back wall of the main area and with a waist-high ledge, the top covered by a blanket and a soldier leaning on it, his sword and dagger drawn.

A chute? Drizzt wondered.

Entreri had said this was the place where he and the dark elves would part company, but Drizzt doubted that the assassin, his business finished, meant to go back the way they had come, anywhere near Mithril Hall. With only one other door apparent in the chamber, perhaps there did indeed loom a chute under that blanket, a way to the open and twisted corridors of the deeper Underdark.

Vierna said something that Drizzt did not hear, and Entreri came over to him, bearing his weapons. A drow soldier moved behind Drizzt and released his bonds, and he slowly brought his hands back in front of him, his shoulders aching from their long stay in the awkward position and from the residual pain of Vierna's vicious beating.

Entreri dropped the scimitar belt at Drizzt's feet and took a cautious step backward. Drizzt looked down to his weapons curiously, unsure of what he should do.

"Pick them up," Entreri instructed.

"Why?"

The question seemed to slap the assassin across the face. A great scowl flashed for just an instant, then was replaced by Entreri's typically emotionless expression.

"That we might learn the truth," he answered.

"I know the truth," Drizzt replied calmly. "You wish to distort it, that you might keep hidden, even from yourself, the folly of your wretched existence."

"Pick them up," the assassin snarled, "or I will kill you where you stand."

Drizzt knew the threat was a hollow one. Entreri would not kill him, not until the assassin had tried to redeem himself in honest battle. Even if Entreri did strike to slay him, Drizzt figured Vierna would intervene. Drizzt was too important to Vierna; sacrifices to the Spider Queen were not readily accepted unless given by drow priestesses.

Drizzt finally did bend and retrieve his weapons, feeling more secure as he belted them on. He knew that the odds in this room were impossible, whether he had the scimitars or not, but he was experienced enough to realize that opportunities were fleeting and often came when least expected.

Entreri drew his slender sword and jeweled dagger, then crouched low, his thin lips widening into an eager smile.

Drizzt stood easily, shoulders slumped, scimitars still in their sheaths.

The assassin's sword cut across, nicking Drizzt on the tip of his nose, forcing his head to flinch to the side. He reached up casually with his thumb and index finger, pinching the flow of blood.

"Coward," Entreri teased, feigning a straightforward lunge and still circling.

Drizzt turned to keep him directly in front, not bothered at all by the ridiculous insult.

"Come now, Drizzt Do'Urden," Jarlaxle intervened, drawing looks from both Drizzt and Entreri. "You know you are doomed, but will you not gain any pleasure in killing this human, this man who has done you and your friends so many wrongs?"

"What have you to lose?" Entreri asked. "I cannot kill you, only defeat you—that is my deal with your sister. But you may kill me. Surely Vierna would not intervene, and might even be amused, at the loss of a simple human life."

Drizzt remained impassive. He had nothing to lose, they claimed. What they apparently did not understand was that Drizzt Do'Urden did not fight when he had nothing to lose, only when he had something to gain, only when the situation necessitated that he fight.

"Draw your weapons, I beg," Jarlaxle added. "Your reputation is considerable and I would dearly love to see you at play, to see if you are truly the better of Zaknafein."

Drizzt, trying to play it calm, trying to hold fast to his principles, could not hide his grimace at the mention of his dead father, reputably the finest weapons master ever to draw swords in Menzoberranzan. In spite of himself, he drew his scimitars, Twinkle's angry blue glow sincerely reflecting the welling rage that Drizzt Do'Urden could not fully suppress.

Entreri came on suddenly, fiercely, and Drizzt reacted with warrior instincts, scimitars ringing against sword and dagger, defeating every attack. Taking the offensive before he even realized what he was doing, acting solely on instinct, Drizzt began turning full circles, his blades flowing around him like the edging of a screw, every turn bringing them in at his opponent from different heights and different angles.

Entreri, confused by the unconventional routine, missed as many parries as he hit, but his quick feet kept him out of reach. "Always a surprise," the assassin admitted grimly, and he winced jealously at the approving sighs and comments from the dark elves lining the room.

Drizzt stopped his spin, ending perfectly squared to the assassin, blades low and ready.

"Pretty, but to no avail," Entreri cried and rushed forward, sword flying low, dagger slicing high. Drizzt twisted diagonally, one blade knocking the sword aside, the other forming a barrier that the dagger could not get through as it cut harmlessly high. Entreri's dagger hand continued a complete circuit— Drizzt noticed that he flipped the blade over in his fingers—while his sword darted and thrust, this way and that, to keep Drizzt busy.

Predictably, the assassin's dagger hand came about, dipping down to the side, and he whipped the dagger free.

Ringing like a hammer on metal, Twinkle darted into the missile's path and batted it away, knocking it across the room.

"Well done!" Jarlaxle congratulated, and Entreri, too, backed off and nodded his sincere approval. With just a sword now, the assassin came in more cautiously, loosing a measured strike.

His surprise was absolute when Drizzt did not parry, when Drizzt missed not one deflection, but two and the thrusting weapon slipped past the scimitar defense. The sword quickly recoiled, never reaching its vulnerable mark. Entreri came in again, feigning another straightforward thrust, but snapping the weapon back and around instead.

He had Drizzt beaten, could have ripped the drow's shoulder, or neck, apart with that simple feint! Drizzt's knowing smile stopped him, though. He turned his sword to its flat edge and smacked it against the drow's shoulder, doing no real damage.

Drizzt had let him through, both times, was now mocking the assassin's precious fight with a pretense of inability!

Entreri wanted to scream out his protests, let all the other dark elves in on Drizzt s private game. The assassin decided that this battle was too personal, though, something that should be settled between himself and Drizzt, and not through any intervention by Vierna or Jarlaxle.

"I had you," he teased, using the rocky Dwarvish language in the hopes that those drow around him, except, of course, for Drizzt, would not understand it.

"You should have ended it, then," Drizzt replied calmly, in the Common surface language, though he spoke the Dwarvish tongue perfectly well. He wouldn't give Entreri the satisfaction of removing this to a personal level, would keep the fight public and ridicule it openly with his actions.

"You should have fought better," Entreri retorted, reverting to the Common tongue. "For the sake of your halfling friend, if not for yourself. If you kill me, then Regis will be free, but if I walk from here ..." He let the threat hang in the air, but it grew less ominous indeed when Drizzt laughed at it openly.

"Regis is dead," the drow ranger reasoned. "Or will be, whatever the outcome of our battle."

"No—" Entreri began.

"Yes," Drizzt interrupted. "I know you better than to fall prey to your unending lies. You have been too blinded by your rage. You did not anticipate every possibility."

Entreri came in again, easily, not making any blatant strikes that would make this continuing charade obvious to the gathered dark elves.

"He is dead," Drizzt asked as much as stated.

"What do you think?" Entreri snapped back, his snarling tone making the answer seem obvious.

Drizzt realized the shift in tactics, understood that Entreri now was attempting to enrage him, to make him fight in anger.

Drizzt remained impassive, let fly a few lazy attack routines that Entreri had little trouble defeating—and that the assassin could have countered to devastating effect if he had so desired.

Vierna and Jarlaxle began to speak in whispers, and Drizzt, thinking they might grow tired of the charade, came on more forcefully, though still with measured and ineffective strikes. Entreri gave a slight but definite nod to show that he was beginning to understand. The game, the subtle and silent undercurrents and communications, were getting personal, and Drizzt, as much as Entreri, did not want Vierna intervening.

"You will savor your victory," Entreri promised uncharacteristically, a leading phrase.

"It will come as no gain," Drizzt replied, a response the assassin was obviously fully beginning to expect. Entreri wanted to win this fight, wanted to win it even more badly because Drizzt did not seem to care. Drizzt knew that Entreri was not stupid, though, and while he and Drizzt were of similar fighting skills, their motivations surely separated them. Entreri would fight with all his heart against Drizzt just to prove something, but Drizzt honestly felt that he had nothing to prove, not to the assassin.

Drizzt's failings in this fight were not a bluff, were not something that Entreri could call him on. Drizzt would lose, taking more satisfaction in not giving Entreri the enjoyment of honest victory.

And, as his actions now revealed, the assassin was not completely surprised by the turn of events.

"Your last chance," Entreri teased. "Here, you and I part company. I leave through the far door, and the drow go back down to their dark world."

Drizzt's violet eyes flicked to the side, to the alcove, for just a moment, his movement revealing to Entreri that he had not missed the emphasis on the word "down," had not missed the obvious reference to the cloth-covered chute.

Entreri rolled to the side suddenly, having worked himself around close enough to retrieve his lost dagger. It was a daring maneuver, and again a revealing move to his opponent, for with Drizzt's fighting so obviously lacking, Entreri had no need to take the risk of going for his lost weapon.

"Might I rename your cat?" Entreri asked, shifting his waist to reveal a large belt pouch, the black statuette obvious through the open edges of its bulging top.

The assassin came in fast and hard with a four-strike routine, any of which could have slipped through, had he pressed them, to nick at Drizzt.

"Come now," Entreri said loudly. "You can fight better than that! I have witnessed your skills too many times—in these very tunnels even—to think you might be so easily defeated!"

At first, Drizzt was surprised that Entreri had so obviously let their private communication become so public, but Vierna and the others probably had figured by that point that Drizzt was not fighting with all his heart. Still, it seemed a curious comment—until Drizzt came to understand the hidden meanings of the assassin's words, the assassin's bait. Entreri had referred to their fighting in these tunnels, but those battles had not been against each other. On that unusual occasion, Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri had fought together, side by side and back-to-back, out of simple desire to survive against a common enemy.