He heard someone approaching from behind a short time later and from the sound of the footfalls knew it to be Catti-brie. She was walking with a stride that was somewhere between Drizzt's light-stepping and Bruenor's plowing technique.
“Lookin' as bad to me in going back as in going ahead,” the woman said when she moved up beside Drizzt. “Might as well be going ahead, then, by me own thinking.”
“And will Bruenor agree? Or Regis?”
“Rumblebelly’s making much the same case to Bruenor inside right now,” Catti-brie remarked, and Drizzt turned to regard her. Always before, Regis would have been the very first to abandon the road to adventure, the very first to seek a way back to warm comfort.
“Do you remember when Artemis Entreri impersonated Regis?” Drizzt asked, his tone a clear warning.
Catti-brie's blue eyes widened in shock for just a moment, until Drizzt's expression clearly conveyed that he was only kidding. Still, the point that something was very different with Regis was clearly made, and fully taken.
“Ye'd think that the goblin spear he caught on the river in the south would’ve put him even more in the fluffy chair,” Catti-brie remarked.
“Without the magical aid from that most unlikely source, he would have lost his arm, at least,” Drizzt reminded, and it was true enough.
When Regis had been stabbed in the shoulder, the friends simply could not stop the bleeding. Drizzt and Catti-brie were actually in the act of preparing Regis's arm for amputation, which they figured to be the only possible chance they had for keeping the halfling alive, when Jarlaxle's drow lieutenant, in the guise of Cadderly, had walked up and offered some magical healing.
Regis had been quiet through the remainder of that adventure, the road to Jarlaxle's crystal tower and Drizzt's fight with Entreri, and the long and sullen road all the way back to Icewind Dale. The friends had seen many adventures together, and in truth, that last one had seen the worst outcome of all. The Crystal Shard was lost to the dangerous leader of Bregan D'aerthe. It had also been easily the most painful and dangerous for Regis personally, and yet for some reason Drizzt and Catti-brie could not fathom, that last adventure had apparently sparked something within Regis. It had become evident almost immediately after their return to Ten-Towns. Not once had Regis tried to dodge out of the companions' policing of the dangerous roads in and out of the region, and on those few occasions when they had encountered monsters or highwaymen, Regis had refused to sit back and let his skilled friends handle the situation.
And here he was, trying to convince Bruenor to plow on through the inhospitable and deadly mountains, when the warm hearth of Lord Feringal's castle sat waiting behind them.
“Three against one, then,” Catti-brie said at length. “We'll be going ahead, it seems.”
“With Bruenor grumbling every step of the way.”
“He'd be grumbling every step of the way if we turned back, as well.”
“There is a dependability there.”
“A reminder of times gone past and a signal of times to come,” Catti-brie replied without missing a beat, and the pair shared a needed, heartfelt laugh.
When they went back into the deep, high cave they found Bruenor hard at work in packing up the camp, rolling blankets into tight bundles, while Regis stirred the pot over the still-blazing fire.
“Ye seein' a road worth trying?” Bruenor asked.
“Ahead or back … it is much the same,” Drizzt answered.
“Except if we go ahead, we'll still have to come back,” Bruenor reasoned.
“Go on, I say,” Catti-brie offered. “We're not to find our answers in the sleepy town of Auckney, and I'm wanting answers before the spring thaw.”
“What says yerself, elf?” Bruenor asked.
“We knew that the road would be dangerous and inhospitable before we ever set out from Luskan,” Drizzt answered. “We knew the season then, and this snowfall is hardly unusual or unexpected.”
“But we hoped to find the stupid pirate afore this,” the dwarf put in.
“Hoped, but hardly expected,” Drizzt was quick to reply. He looked to Catti-brie. “I, too, have little desire to spend the winter worrying about Wulfgar.”
“On, then,” Bruenor suddenly agreed. “And let the snow take us. And let Wulfgar spend the winter worrying about us!” The dwarf ended with a stream of curses, muttering under his breath in that typical Bruenor fashion. The other three in the cave shared a few knowing winks and smiles.
The low hum of Bruenor's grumbles shifted, though, into a more general humming noise that filled all the air and caught the attention of all four.
In the middle of the cave, a blue vertical line appeared, glowing to a height of about seven feet. Before the friends could begin to call out or react, that line split apart into two of equal height, and those two began drifting apart, a horizontal blue line atop them.
“Wizard door!” Regis cried, rolling to the side, scrambling for the shadows, and taking out his mace.
Drizzt dropped the figurine of Guenhwyvar to the floor, ready to call out to the panther. He drew forth his scimitars, moving beside Bruenor to face the growing portal directly, while Catti-brie slipped a few steps back and to the side, stringing and drawing her bow in one fluid motion.
The door formed completely, the area within the three defining lines buzzing with a lighter blue haze.
Out stepped a form, dressed in dark blue robes. Bruenor roared and lifted his many-notched axe, and Catti-brie pulled back, ready to let fly.
“Robillard!” Drizzt called, and Catti-brie echoed the name a split second later.
“Deudermont's wizard friend?” Bruenor started to ask.
“What are you doing here?” the drow asked, but his words fell away as a second form came through the magical portal behind the wizard, a huge and hulking form.
Regis said it first, for the other three, especially Bruenor, couldn't seem to find a single voice among them. “Wulfgar?”
Chapter 24 DROW-SIGN
The unearthly wail, its notes primal and agonized, echoed off the stone walls of the cavern complex, reverberating into the very heart of the mountain itself.
The tips of Le'lorinel's sword and dagger dipped toward the floor. The elf stopped the training session and turned to regard the room's open door and the corridor beyond, where that awful cry was still echoing.
“What is it?” Le'lorinel asked as a form rushed by. Jule Pepper, the elf, who sprinted to catch up, guessed.
Down the winding way Le'lorinel went, pursuing Jule all the way to the complex of large chambers immediately below those of Sheila Kree and her trusted, brand-wearing compatriots, and into the lair of Chogurugga and Bloog.
Le'lorinel had to dodge aside upon entering, as a huge chair sailed by to smash against the stone. Again came that terrible cry—Chogurugga's shriek. Looking past the ogress, Le'lorinel understood it to be a wail of grief.
For there, in the middle of the floor, lay the bloated body of another ogre, a young and strong one. Sheila Kree and Bellany stood over the body beside another ogre who was kneeling, its huge, ugly head resting atop the corpse. At first, Le'lorinel figured it to be Bloog, but then the elf spotted the gigantic ogre leader, looking on from the wall behind them. It didn't take Le'lorinel long to figure out that the mask of anguish that Bloog wore was far from genuine.
It occurred to Le'lorinel that Bloog might have done this.
“Bathunk! Me baby!” Chogurugga shrieked with concern very atypical for a mother ogress. “Bathunk! Bathunk!”
Sheila Kree moved to talk to the ogress, perhaps to console her, but Chogurugga went into another flailing fit at that moment, lifting a rock from the huge fire pit and hurling it to smash against the wall—not so far from the ducking Bloog, Le'lorinel noted.
“They found Bathunk's body near an outpost to the north,” Bellany explained to Jule and Le'lorinel, the sorceress walking over to them. “A few were killed, it seems. That one, Pokker, thought it prudent to br
ing back Bathunk's body.” As she explained, she pointed to the ogre kneeling over the body.
“You sound as if he shouldn't have,” Jule Pepper remarked.
Bellany shrugged as if it didn't matter. “Look at the wretch,” she whispered, nodding her chin toward the wild Chogurugga. “She'll likely kill half the ogres in Golden Cove or get herself killed by Bloog.”
“Or by Sheila,” Jule observed, for it seemed obvious that Sheila Kree was fast losing patience with the ogress.
“There is always that possibility,” Bellany deadpanned.
“How did it happen?” asked Le'lorinel.
“It is not so uncommon a thing,” Bellany answered. “We lose a few ogres every year, particularly in the winter. The idiots simply can't allow good judgment to get in the way of their need to squash people. The soldiers of the Spine of the World communities are veterans all, and no easy mark, even for monsters as powerful and as well-outfitted as Chogurugga's ogres.”
While Bellany was answering, Le'lorinel subtly moved toward Bathunk's bloated corpse. Noting that it seemed as if Sheila had Chogurugga momentarily under control then, the elf dared move even closer, bending low to examine the body.
Le'lorinel found breathing suddenly difficult. The cuts on the body were, many, were beautifully placed and were, in many different areas, curving. Curving like the blades of a scimitar. Noting one bruise behind Bathunk's hip, the elf gently reached down and edged the corpse a bit to the side. The mark resembled the imprint of a delicately curving blade, much like the blades Le'lorinel had fashioned for Tunevec during his portrayal of a certain dark elf,
Le'lorinel looked up suddenly, trying to digest it all, recognizing clearly that no ordinary soldier had downed this mighty ogre.
The elf nearly laughed aloud then—a desire only enhanced when Le'lorinel noticed that Bloog was sniffling and wiping his eyes as if they were teary, which they most surely were not. But another roar from behind came as a clear reminder that a certain ogress might not enjoy anyone making light of this tragedy.
Le'lorinel rose quickly and walked back to Jule and Bellany, then kept right on moving out of the room, running back up the passageway to the safety of the upper level. There, the elf gasped and laughed heartily, at once thrilled and scared.
For Le'lorinel knew that Drizzt Do'Urden had done this thing, that the drow was in the area—not so far away if the ogre could carry Bathunk back in this wintry climate.
“My thanks, E'kressa,” the elf whispered.
Le'lorinel's hands went instinctively for sword and dagger, then came together in front, the fingers of the right hand turning the enchanted ring about its digit on the left. After all these years, it was about to happen. After all the careful planning, the studying of Drizzt's style and technique, the training, the consultations with some of the finest swordsmen of northern Faerыn to find ways to counter the drow's maneuvers. After all the costs, the years of labor to pay for the ring, the partners, the information.
Le'lorinel could hardly draw breath. Drizzt was near. It had to have been that dangerous dark elf who had felled Bathunk.
The elf stalked about the room then went out into the corridor, stalking past Bellany's room and Sheila's, to the end of the hall and the small chamber where Jule Pepper had set up for the winter.
The three women arrived a few moments later, shaking their heads and making off-color jokes about Chogurugga's antics, with Sheila Kree doing a fair imitation of the crazed ogress.
“Quite an exit,” Bellany remarked. “You missed the grandest show of all.”
“Poor Chogurugga,” said Jule with a grin.
“Poor Bloog, ye mean,” Sheila was quick to correct, and the three had a laugh.
“All right, ye best be telling me what ye're knowing about it,” Sheila said to Le'lorinel when the elf didn't join in the mirth, when the elf didn't crack the slightest of smiles, intensity burning behind those blue and gold orbs.
“I was here when Bathunk was killed, obviously,” Le'lorinel reminded.
Bellany was the first to laugh. “You know something,” the sorceress said. “As soon as you went to Bathunk's corpse. .”
“Ye think it was that damned drow who did it to Bathunk,” Sheila Kree reasoned.
Le'lorinel didn't answer, other than to keep a perfectly straight, perfectly grim countenance.
“Ye do!”
“The mountains are a big place, with many dangerous adversaries,” Jule Pepper put in. “There are thousands who could have done this to the foolish young ogre.”
Before Le'lorinel could counter, Bellany said, “Hmm,” and walked out in front of the other two, one delicate hand up against her pursed lips. “But you saw the wounds,” the sorceress reasoned.
“Curving wounds, like the cuts of a scimitar,” Le'lorinel confirmed
“A sword will cut a wound like that if the target's falling when he gets it,” Sheila put in. “The wounds don't tell ye as much as ye think.”
“They tell me all I need to know,” Le'lorinel replied.
“They were well placed,” Jule reasoned. “No novice swordsman cut down Bathunk.
“And I know Chogurugga gave him many of the potions you delivered to her,” she added to Bellany.
That made even Sheila lift her eyebrows in surprise. Bathunk was no ordinary ogre. He was huge, strong, and well trained, and some of those potions were formidable enhancements.
“It was Drizzt,” Le'lorinel stated with confidence. “He is nearby and likely on his way to us.”
“So said the diviner who delivered you here,” said Bellany, who knew the story well.
“E'kressa the gnome. He sent me to find the mark of Aegis-fang, for that mark would bring Drizzt Do'Urden.”
Jule and Bellany looked to each other, then turned to regard Sheila Kree, who was standing with her head down, deep in thought.
“Could've been the soldiers at the tower,” the pirate leader said at length, “Could've been reinforcements from one of the smaller villages. Could've been a wandering band of heroes, or even other monsters, trying to claim the prize the ogres had taken.”
“Could’ve been Drizzt Do'Urden,” interjected Jule, who had firsthand experience with the dangerous drow and his heroic friends.
Sheila looked at the tall, willowy woman and nodded, then turned her gaze over Le'lorinel. “Ye ready for him—if it is him and if he is coming this way?”
The elf stood straight and tall, head back, chest out proudly. “I have prepared for nothing else in many years.”
“If he can take down Bathunk, he'll be a tough fight, don't ye doubt,” the pirate leader added.
“We will all be there to aid in the cause,” Bellany pointed out, but Le'lorinel didn't seem thrilled at that prospect.
“I know him as well as he knows himself,” the elf explained. “If Drizzt Do'Urden comes to us, then he will die.”
“At the end of your blade,” Bellany said with a grin.
“Or at the end of his own,” the ever-cryptic Le'lorinel replied.
“Then we'll be hoping that it's Drizzit,” Sheila agreed. “But ye canno' be knowing. The towers in the mountains are well guarded. Many o' Chogurugga's kinfolk've been killed in going against them, or just in working the roads. Too many soldiers about and too many hero-minded adventurers. Ye canno' be knowing it's Drizzt or anyone else.”
Le'lorinel let it go at that. Let Sheila think whatever Sheila wanted to think.
Le'lorinel, though, heard again the words of E'kressa.
Le'lorinel knew that it was Drizzt, and Le'lorinel was ready. Nothing else—not Sheila, not Drizzt's friends, not the ogres— mattered.
Chapter 25 COMING TO TERMS
Wulfgar,” Regis said again, when no one reacted at all to his first remark.
The halfling looked around to the others, trying to read their expressions. Catti-brie's was easy enough to discern. The woman looked like she could be pushed over by a gentle breeze, looked frozen in shock at the realization that Wulfg
ar was again standing before her.
Drizzt appeared much more composed, and it seemed to Regis as if the perceptive drow was consciously studying Wulfgar's every move, that he was trying to get some honest gauge as to who this man standing before him truly was. The Wulfgar of their earlier days, or the one who had slapped Catti-brie?
As for Bruenor, Regis wasn't sure if the dwarf wanted to run up and hug the man or run up and throttle him. Bruenor was trembling—though out of surprise, rage, or simple amazement, the halfling couldn't tell.
And Wulfgar, too, seemed to be trying to read some hint of the truth of Bruenor's expression and posture. The barbarian, his stern gaze never leaving the crusty and sour look of Bruenor Battlehammer, gave a deferential nod the halfling's way.
“We have been looking for you,” Drizzt remarked. “All the way to Waterdeep and back.”
Wulfgar nodded, his expression holding steady, as if he feared to change it.
“It may be that Wulfgar has been looking for Wulfgar, as well,” Robillard interjected. The wizard arced an eyebrow when Drizzt turned to regard him directly.
“Well, we found you—or you found us,” said Regis.
“But ye think ye found yerself?” Bruenor asked, a healthy skepticism in his tone.
Wulfgar's lips tightened to thin lines, his jaw clenching tightly. He wanted to cry out that he had—he prayed that he had. He looked to them all in turn, wanting to explode into a wild rush that would gather them all up in his arms.
But there he found a wall, as fluid and shifting as the smoke of Errtu's Abyss, and yet through which his emotions seemed not to be able to pass.
“Once again, it seems that I am in your debt,” the barbarian managed to say, a perfectly stupid change of subject, he knew.
“Delly told us of your heroics,” Robillard was quick to add. “All of us are grateful, needless to say. Never before has anyone so boldly gone against the house of Deudermont. I assure you that the perpetrators have brought the scorn of the Lords of Waterdeep upon those they represented.”
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