The Silent Blade
Chapter 2 RUNNING THE HORSE

 
Their pace held slow but steady. The springtime tundra, the hardening grasp of ice dissipating, had become like a great sponge, swelling in places to create mounds higher even than Wulfgar. The ground was sucking at their boots with every step, as if it were trying desperately to hold them. Drizzt, the lightest on his feet, had the easiest time of it of those walking, at least. Regis, sitting comfortably up high on the shoulders of an uncomplaining Wulfgar, felt no muddy wetness in his warm boots. Still, the other three, who had spent so many years in Icewind Dale and were accustomed to the troubles of springtime travel, plodded on without complaint. They knew from the outset that the slowest and most tiresome part of their journey would be the first leg, until they got around the western edges of the Spine of the World and out of Icewind Dale.
Every now and then they found patches of great stones, the remnants of a road built long ago from Ten Towns to the western pass, but these did little more than assure them that they were on the right path, something that seemed of little importance in the vast open stretches of the tundra. All they really had to do was keep the towering mountains to the south, and they would not lose their way.
Drizzt led them and tried to pick a course that followed the thickest regions of sprouting yellow grass, for this, at least, afforded some stability atop the slurpy ground. Of course-and the drow and his Mends knew it-tall grass might also serve as camouflage for the dangerous tundra yetis, always hungry beasts that often feasted on unwary travelers.
With Drizzt Do'Urden leading them, though, the friends did not consider themselves unwary.
They put the river far behind them and found yet another stretch of that ancient road when the sun was halfway to the western horizon. There, just beyond one long rock slab, they also came upon some recent tracks.
"Wagon," Catti-brie remarked, seeing the long lines of deep grooves.
"Two," Regis commented, noting the twin lines at each groove.
Catti-brie shook her head. "One," she corrected, following the tracks, noting how they sometimes joined and other times separated, and always with a wider track as they moved apart. "Sliding in the mud as it rolled along, its back end often unaligned with the front."
"Well done," Drizzt congratulated her, for he, too, had come to the same conclusion. "A single wagon traveling east and not more than a day ahead of us."
"A merchant wagon left Bremen three days before we arrived there," Regis, always current on the goings-on of Ten Towns, commented.
"Then it would seem they are having great difficulty navigating the marshy ground," Drizzt replied.
"And might be other troubles they're findin'," came Bruenor's call from a short distance to the side, the dwarf stooping low over a small hump of grass.
The friends moved to join him and saw immediately his cause for concern: several tracks pressed deep into the mud.
"Yetis," the dwarf said distastefully. "And they came right to the wagon tracks and then went back. They're knowin' this for a used trail or I'm a bearded gnome."
"And the yeti tracks are more recent," Catti-brie remarked, noting the water still within them.
Up on Wulfgar's shoulders, Regis glanced around nervously, as if he expected a hundred of the shaggy beasts to leap out at them.
Drizzt, too, bent low to study the depressions and began to shake his head.
"They are recent," Catti-brie insisted.
"I do not disagree with your assessment of the time," the drow explained. "Only with the identification of the creature."
"Not a horse," Bruenor said with a grunt. "Unless that horse's lost two legs. A yeti, and a damned big one."
"Too big," the drow explained. "Not a yeti, but a giant."
"Giant?" the dwarf echoed skeptically. "We're ten miles from the mountains. What's a giant doing out here?"
"What indeed?" the drow answered, his grim tone giving the answer clear enough. Giants rarely came out of the Spine of the World Mountains, and then only to cause mischief. Perhaps this was a single rogue- that would be the best scenario-or perhaps it was an advanced scout for a larger and more dangerous group.
Bruenor cursed and dropped the head of his many-notched axe hard into the soft turf. "If ye're thinkin' o' walking all the way back to the durned towns, then be thinkin' again, elf," he said. "Sooner I'm outta this mud, the better. The towns've been livin' well enough without our help all these years. They're not needin' us to turn back now!"
"But if they are giants-" Catti-brie started to argue, but Drizzt cut her short.
"I've no intention of turning back," he said. "Not yet. Not until we have proof that these tracks foretell a greater disaster than one, or even a handful, of giants could perpetrate. No, our road remains east, and all the quicker because I now hope to catch that lone wagon before the fall of darkness, or soon after if we must continue on. If the giant is part of a rogue hunting group and it knows of the wagon's recent passage, then the Bremen merchants might soon be in dire need of our help."
They set off at a swifter pace, following the wagon tracks, and within a couple of hours they saw the merchants struggling with a loose and wobbly wagon wheel. Two of the five men, obviously the hired guards, pulled hard to try and lift the carriage while a third, a young and strong merchant whom Regis identified as Master Camlaine the scrimshaw trader, worked hard, though hardly successfully, to realign the tilted wheel. Both the guards had sunk past their ankles into the mud, and though they struggled mightily, they could hardly get the carriage up high enough for the fit.
How the faces of all five brightened when they noted the approach of Drizzt and his friends, a well-known company of heroes indeed among the folk of Icewind Dale.
"Well met, I should say, Master Do'Urden!" the merchant Camlaine cried. "Do lend us the strength of your barbarian friend. I will pay you well, I promise. I am to be in Luskan in a fortnight, yet if our luck holds as it has since we left Bremen, I fear that winter will find us still in the dale."
Bruenor handed his axe to Catti-brie and motioned to Wulfgar. "Come on, boy," he said. "Ye'll play come-along and I'll show ye an anvil pose."
With a nonchalant shrug, Wulfgar brought Regis swinging down from his shoulders and set him on the ground. The halfling moaned and rushed to a pile of grass, not wanting to get mud all over his new boots.
"Ye think ye can lift it?" Bruenor asked Wulfgar as the huge man joined him by the wagon. Without a word, without even putting down his magnificent warhammer Aegis-fang, Wulfgar grabbed the wagon and pulled hard. The mud slurped loudly in protest, grabbing and clinging, but in the end it could not resist, and the wheel came free of the soupy ground.
The two guards, after a moment of disbelief, found handholds and similarly pulled, hoisting the wagon even higher. Down to hands and knees went Bruenor, setting his bent back under the axle right beside the wheel. "Go ahead and set the durned thing," he said and then he groaned as the weight came upon him.
Wulfgar took the wheel from the struggling merchant and pulled it into line, then pushed it more securely into place. He took a step back, took up Aegis-fang in both hands, and gave it a good whack, setting it firmly. Bruenor gave a grunt from the suddenly shifting weight, and Wulfgar moved to lift the wagon again, just a few inches, so that Bruenor could slip out from under it. Master Camlaine inspected the work, turning about with a bright smile and nodding his approval.
"You could begin a new career, good dwarf and mighty Wulfgar," he said with a laugh. "Wagon repair."
"There is an aspiration fit for a dwarven king," Drizzt remarked, coming over with Catti-brie and Regis. "Give up your throne, good Bruenor, and fix the carts of wayward merchants."
They all had a laugh at that, except for Wulfgar, who simply seemed detached from it all, and for Regis, still fretting over his muddy boots.
"You are far out from Ten Towns," Camlaine noted, "with nothing to the west. Are you leaving Icewind Dale once more?"
"Briefly," Drizzt replied. "We have business in the south."
"Luskan?"
"Beyond Luskan," the drow explained. "But we will indeed be going through that city, it would seem."
Camlaine brightened, obviously happy to hear that bit of news. He reached to a jingling purse on his belt, but Drizzt held up a hand, thinking it ridiculous that the man should offer to pay.
"Of course," Camlaine remarked, embarrassed, remembering that Bruenor Battlehammer was indeed a dwarven king, wealthy beyond anything a simple merchant could ever hope to achieve. "I wish there was some way I ... we, could repay you for your help. Or even better, I wish that there was some way I could bribe you into accompanying us to Luskan. I have hired fine and able guards, of course," he added, nodding to the two men. "But Icewind Dale remains a dangerous place, and friendly swords-or warhammers or axes-are always welcomed."
Drizzt looked to his friends and, seeing no objections, nodded. "We will indeed travel with you out of the dale," he said.
"Is your mission urgent?" the scrimshaw merchant asked. "Our wagon has been dragging more than rolling, and our team is weary. We had hoped to repair the wheel and then find a suitable campsite, though there yet remain two or three hours of daylight."
Drizzt looked to his friends and again saw no complaints there. The group, though their mission to go to the Spirit Soaring and destroy Crenshinibon was indeed vital, was in no great hurry. The drow found a campsite, a relatively high bluff not so far away and they all settled down for the night. Camlaine offered his new companions a fine meal of rich venison stew. They passed the meal with idle chatter, with Camlaine and his four companions doing most of the talking, stories about problems in Bremen over the winter, mostly, and about the first catch of the prized knucklehead trout, the fish that provided the bone material for the scrimshaw. Drizzt and the others listened politely, not really interested. Regis, however, who had lived on the banks of Maer Dualdon and had spent years making scrimshaw pieces of his own, begged Camlaine to show him the finished wares he was taking to Luskan. The halfling poured over each piece for a long while, studying every detail.
"Ye think we'll be seeing them giants this night?" Cattibrie asked Drizzt quietly, the two moving off to the side of the main group.
The drow shook his head. "The one who happened upon the tracks turned back for the mountains," he said. "Likely, he was merely checking the route. I had feared that he then went in pursuit of the wagon, but since Camlaine and his crew were not so far away, and since we saw no other sign of any behemoth, I do not expect to see him."
"But he might be bringing trouble to the next wagon along," Catti-brie reasoned.
Drizzt conceded the point with a nod and a smile, a look that grew more intense as he and the beautiful woman locked stares. There had been a notable strain between them since the return of Wulfgar, for in the six years of Wulfgar's absence, Drizzt and Catti-brie had forged a deeper friendship, one bordering on love. But now Wulfgar, who had been engaged to marry Catti-brie at the time of his apparent death, was back, and things between the drow and the woman had become far more complicated.
Not at this moment, though. For some reason that neither of the friends could understand, for this one second, it was as if they were the only two people in all the world, or as if time had stopped all around them, freezing the others in a state of oblivion.
It didn't last, not more than a brief moment, for a commotion at the other side of the encampment drew the two apart. When she looked past Drizzt, Catti-brie found Wulfgar staring at them hard. She locked eyes with the man, but again, it was only for a moment. One of Camlaine's guards standing behind Wulfgar, called to the group, waving his arms excitedly.
"Might be that our giant friend decided to show its ugly face," Catti-brie said to Drizzt. When they joined the others, the guard was pointing out toward another bluff, this one an oozing mud mound pushed up like a miniature volcano by the shifting tundra.
"Behind that," the guard said.
Drizzt studied the mound intently; Catti-brie pulled Taulmaril, the Heartseeker bow, from her shoulder and set an arrow.
"Too small a pimple for a giant to hide behind," Bruenor insisted, but the dwarf clutched his axe tightly as he spoke.
Drizzt nodded his agreement. He looked to Catti-brie and to Wulfgar alternately, motioning that they should cover him. Then he sprinted away, picking a careful and quiet path that brought him right to the base of the mound. With a glance back to ensure that his friends were ready, the drow skipped up the side of the mound, his twin scimitars drawn.
And then he relaxed, and put his deadly blades away, as a man, a huge man wearing a wolf-skin wrap, came out around the base into plain sight.
"Kierstaad, son of Revjak," Catti-brie remarked.
"Following his hero," Bruenor added, looking up at Wulfgar, for it was no secret to any of them, or to any of the barbarians of Icewind Dale, that Kierstaad idolized Wulfgar. The young man had even stolen Aegis-fang and followed the companions along when they had gone out onto the Sea of Moving Ice to rescue Wulfgar from the demon, Errtu. To Kierstaad, Wulfgar symbolized the greatness that the tribes of Icewind Dale might achieve and the greatness that he, too, so desired.
Wulfgar frowned at the sight.
Kierstaad and Drizzt exchanged a few words, then both moved back to the main group. "He has come for a word with Wulfgar," the drow explained.
"To beg for the survival of the tribes," Kierstaad admitted, staring at his barbarian kin.
"The tribes fare well under the care of Berkthgar the Bold," Wulfgar insisted.
"They do not!" Kierstaad replied harshly, and the others took that as their cue to give the two men some space. "Berkthgar understands the old ways, that is true," Kierstaad went on. "But the old ways do not offer the hope of anything greater than the lives we have known for centuries. Only Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, can truly unite the tribes and strengthen our bond with the folk of Ten Towns."
"That would be for the better?" Wulfgar asked skeptically.
"Yes!" Kierstaad replied without hesitation. "No longer should any tribesman starve because the winter is difficult. No longer should we be so completely dependent upon the caribou herd. Wulfgar, with his friends, can change our ways ... can lead us to a better place."
"You speak foolishness," Wulfgar said, waving his hand and turning from the man. But Kierstaad wouldn't let him get away that easily. The young man ran up behind and grabbed Wulfgar roughly by the arm, turning him about.
Kierstaad started to offer yet another argument, started to explain that Berkthgar still considered the folk of Ten Towns, even the dwarven folk of Wulfgar's own adoptive father, more as enemies than as allies. There were so many things that young Kierstaad wanted to say to Wulfgar, so many arguments to make to the big man, to try and convince him that his place was with the tribes. But all those words went flying away as Kierstaad went flying away, for Wulfgar turned about viciously, following the young man's pull, and brought his free arm swinging about, slugging the young man heavily in the chest and launching him into a short flight and then a backward roll down the side of the bluff.
Wulfgar turned away with a low, feral growl, storming back to his supper bowl. Protests came at him from every side, particularly from Catti-brie. "Ye didn't have to hit the boy," she yelled, but Wulfgar only waved his hand at her and snarled again, then went back to his food.
Drizzt was the first one down to Kierstaad's side. The young barbarian was lying facedown in the muck at the bottom of the bluff. Regis came along right behind, offering one of his many handkerchiefs to wipe some of the mud from Kierstaad's face-and also to allow the man to save some measure of pride and quietly wipe the welling tears from his eyes.
"He must understand," Kierstaad remarked, starting back up the hill, but Drizzt had him firmly by the arm, and the young barbarian did not truly fight against the pull.
"This matter was already resolved," the drow said, "between Wulfgar and Berkthgar. Wulfgar made his choice, and that choice was the road."
"Blood before friends-that is the rule of the tribes," Kierstaad argued. "And Wulfgar's blood kin need him now."
Drizzt tilted his head, and a knowing expression came over his fair, ebon-skinned face, a look that settled Kierstaad more than any words ever could. "Is it so?" the drow asked calmly. "Do the tribes need Wulfgar, or does Kierstaad need him?"
"What do you mean?" the young man stammered, obviously embarrassed.
"Berkthgar has been angry with you for a long time," the drow explained. "Perhaps you will not find a position that pleases you while Berkthgar rules the tribes."
Kierstaad pulled roughly away; his face screwed up with anger. "This is not about Kierstaad's position within the tribes," he insisted. "My people need Wulfgar, and so I have come for him."
"He'll not follow you," Regis said. "Nor can you drag him, I would guess."
Frustration evident on his face, Kierstaad began clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. He looked up the bluff, then took a step that way, but agile Drizzt moved quickly in front of him.
"He'll not follow," the drow said. "Even Berkthgar begged Wulfgar to remain and to lead, but that, by Wulfgar's own words, is not his place at this time."
"But it is!"
"No!" Drizzt said forcefully, stopping Kierstaad's further arguments cold. "No, and not only because Wulfgar has determined that it is not his place. Truly I was relieved to learn that he did not accept the leadership from Berkthgar, for I, too, care about the welfare of the tribes of Icewind Dale."
Even Regis looked at the drow with surprise at that seemingly illogical reasoning.
"You do not believe Wulfgar to be the rightful leader?" Kierstaad asked incredulously.
"Not at this time," Drizzt replied. "Can any of us appreciate the agony the man has suffered? Or can we measure the lingering effects of Errtu's torments? No, Wulfgar is not now fit to lead the tribes-he is having a difficult enough time leading himself."
"But we are his kin," Kierstaad tried to argue, but as he spoke them the words sounded lame even to him. "If Wulfgar feels pain, then he should be with us, in our care."
"And how might you tend the wounds that tear at Wulfgar's heart?" Drizzt asked. "No, Kierstaad. I applaud your intentions, but your hopes are false. Wulfgar needs time to remember who he truly is, to remember all that was once important to him. He needs time, and he needs his friends, and though I'll not argue your contention of the importance of blood kin, I tell you now in all honesty that those who love Wulfgar the most are here, not back with the tribes."
Kierstaad started to reply but only huffed and stared emptily back up the bluff, having no practical rebuttal.
"We will return soon enough," the drow explained. "Before the turn of winter, I hope, or in the spring soon after, at the latest. Perhaps Wulfgar will find again his heart and soul on the road with his friends. Perhaps he will return to Icewind Dale ready to assume the leadership that he truly deserves and that the tribes truly deserve."
"And if not?" Kierstaad asked.
Drizzt only shrugged. He was beginning to understand the depth of Wulfgar's pain and could make no guarantees.
"Keep him safe," Kierstaad said.
Drizzt nodded.
"On your word," the young barbarian pressed.
"We care for each other," the drow replied. "It has been that way since before we set out from Icewind Dale to reclaim Bruenor's throne in Mithral Hall nearly a decade ago."
Kierstaad continued to stare up the bluff. "My tribe has camped north of here," he explained, starting slowly away. "It is not far."
"Stay with us through the night," the drow offered.
"Master Camlaine has some fine food," Regis added hopefully. Drizzt knew just from the fact that the halfling was apparently willing to split the portions an extra way that Kierstaad's plight had touched his little friend.
But Kierstaad, obviously too embarrassed to go back up and face Wulfgar, only shook his head and started off to the north, across the empty tundra.
"You should beat him," Regis said, looking back up the hill at Wulfgar.
"How would that help?" the drow asked.
"I think our large friend could use a bit of humility."
Drizzt shook his head. "His reaction to Kierstaad's touch was just that: a reaction," the drow explained. He was beginning to understand Wulfgar's mood a bit more clearly now, for Wulfgar's striking of Kierstaad had been wrought of no conscious thought. Drizzt recalled his days back in Melee Magthere, the drow school for fighters. In that always dangerous environment, where enemies lurked around every corner, Drizzt had seen such reactions, had reacted similarly on many occasions himself. Wulfgar was back with friends now in a safe enough place, but emotionally he was still the prisoner of Errtu, his constant defenses still in place against the intrusions of the demon and its minions.
"It was instinctual and nothing more."
"He could have apologized," Regis replied.
No, he could not, Drizzt thought, but he kept the notion silent. An idea came over the drow then, one that put a particularly sparkling twinkle in his lavender eyes, a look that Regis had seen many times before.
"What are you thinking?" the halfling prompted.
"About giants," Drizzt replied with a coy smile, "and about the danger to any passing caravans."
"You believe that they will come at us this night?"
"I believe that they are back in the mountains, perhaps planning to bring a raiding party to the trail," Drizzt answered honestly. "And we would be long gone before they ever arrived."
"Would be?" Regis echoed softly, still studying the drow's glowing eyes-no trick of the late-day sun-and the way Drizzt's gaze drifted back toward the snowy peaks shining in the south. "What are you thinking?" "We cannot wait for the giants' return," the drow said. "Nor do I wish to leave any future caravans in peril. Perhaps Wulfgar and I should go out this night."
Regis's jaw dropped open, his dumbfounded expression bringing a laugh to the drow's lips.
"In my days with Montolio, the ranger who trained me, I learned much about horsemanship," Drizzt began to explain.
"You plan to take one or both of the merchant's horses to go to the mountains?" an incredulous Regis asked.
"No, no," Drizzt replied. "Montolio had been quite a rider in his youth, before he lost his vision, of course. And the horses he chose to ride were the strongest and least broken by saddles. But he had a technique-he called it 'running the horse'-to calm the steeds enough so that they would behave. He would bring them out in an open field on a long lead and snap a whip behind them repeatedly to get them running in wide and hard circles, even to get them bucking."
"Would that not only make them less behaved?" the halfling asked, for he knew little about horses.
Drizzt shook his head. "The strongest of horses possesses too much energy, Montolio explained to me. Thus, he would take them out and let them release that extra layer, and when he would then climb on their backs they would ride strong but in control."
Regis shrugged and nodded, accepting the story. "What has that to do with Wulfgar?" he asked, but his expression changed to one of understanding even as the question came out of his mouth. "You plan to run Wulfgar as Montolio ran the horses," he reasoned.
"Perhaps he needs a good fight," Drizzt replied. "And truly I wish to rid the region of any trouble with giants."
"It will take you hours to get to the mountains," Regis estimated, looking to the south. "Perhaps longer if the giants' trail is not clear to follow."
"But we will move much quicker than you three if you stay, as we promised, with Camlaine," the drow replied. "Wulfgar and I will be back beside you within two or three days, long before you've turned the corner around the Spine of the World."
"Bruenor will not like being left out," Regis remarked.
"Then do not tell him," the drow instructed. Then, before Regis could offer the expected reply, he added, "Nor should you tell Catti-brie. Explain to them only that Wulfgar and I set out in the night, and that I promised to return the day after tomorrow."
Regis gave a frustrated sigh-once before Drizzt had run off, promising Regis to secrecy, and a frantic Catti-brie had nearly beat the information out of the halfling. "Why am I always the one to hold your secrets?" he asked.
"Why are you always sniffing where your nose does not belong?" Drizzt answered with a laugh.
The drow caught up to Wulfgar on the far side of the encampment. The big man was sitting alone, absently tossing stones down to the ground. He did not look up, nor did he offer any apologetic expressions, burying them beneath a wall of anger.
Drizzt sympathized completely and recognized the torment simmering just below the surface. Anger was his friend's only defense against those horrible memories. Drizzt crouched low and looked into Wulfgar's pale blue eyes, even if the huge man did not match the gaze.
"Do you remember our first fight?" the drow asked slyly.
Now Wulfgar did turn his stare up at the drow. "Do you mean to teach me another lesson?" he asked, his tone showing that he was more than ready to accept that challenge.
The words stung Drizzt profoundly. He recalled his last angry encounter with Wulfgar, over the barbarian's treatment of Catti-brie those seven years before in Mithral Hall. They had fought viciously with Drizzt emerging as victor. And he recalled his first fight against Wulfgar, when Bruenor had captured the lad and brought him into the dwarven clan in Icewind Dale after the barbarians had tried to raid Ten Towns. Bruenor had charged Drizzt with training Wulfgar as a fighter, and those first lessons between the two had proven especially painful for the young and overly proud barbarian. But that was not the encounter to which Drizzt was now referring.
"I mean the first time that we fought together side by side against a real enemy," he explained.
Wulfgar's eyes narrowed as he considered the memory, a glimpse at his friendship with Drizzt from many years ago.
"Biggrin and the verbeeg," Drizzt reminded. "You and I and Guenhwyvar charging headlong into a lair full of giants."
The anger melted from Wulfgar's face. He managed a rare smile and nodded.
"A tough one was Biggrin," Drizzt went on. "How many times did we hit the behemoth? It took a final throw from you to drive the dagger-"
"That was a long time ago," Wulfgar interrupted. He couldn't manage to maintain the smile, but at least he did not sink right back into the explosive anger. Wulfgar again found a more even keel, much like his detached, almost ambivalent attitude when they had first started out on this journey.
"But you do remember?" Drizzt pressed, his grin growing across his black face, that telltale twinkle in his lavender eyes.
"Why ..." Wulfgar started to ask, but stopped short and sat studying his friend. He hadn't seen Drizzt in such a mood in a long, long time, even well before his fateful fight with the handmaiden of the demon queen Lolth back in Mithral Hall. This was a flash of Drizzt from the days before the quest to reclaim the dwarven kingdom, an image of the drow in those times when Wulfgar honestly feared that Drizzt's recklessness would soon put him and the drow in a situation from which they could not escape.
Wulfgar liked the image.
"We have some giants readying to waylay travelers on the road," the drow said. "Our pace will be slower out of the dale, now that we have agreed to accompany
Master Camlaine. It seems to me that a side journey to deal with these dangerous marauders might be in order."
It was the first hint of an eager sparkle in Wulfgar's eye that Drizzt had seen since they had been reunited in the ice cave after the defeat of Errtu.
"Have you spoken with the others?" the barbarian asked.
"Just me and you," Drizzt explained. "And Guenhwyvar, of course. She would not appreciate being left out of this fun."
The pair left camp long after sunset, waiting for Cattibrie, Regis, and Bruenor to fall asleep. With the drow leading, having no difficulty in seeing under the starry tundra sky, they went straight back to the point where the giant and the wagon tracks intersected. There, Drizzt reached into a pouch and produced the onyx panther figurine, placing it reverently on the ground. "Come to me, Guenhwyvar," he called softly.
A mist came up, swirling about the figurine, growing thicker and thicker, flowing and swirling and taking the shape of the great panther. Thicker and thicker, and then it was no mist circling the onyx likeness, but the panther herself. Guenhwyvar looked up at Drizzt with eyes showing an intelligence far beyond that indicated by her feline form.
Drizzt pointed down to the giant track, and Guenhwyvar, understanding, led them away.
She knew as soon as she opened her eyes that something was amiss. The camp was quiet, the two merchant guards sitting on the bench of the wagon, talking softly.
Catti-brie shifted up to her elbows to better survey the scene. The fire had burned low but was still bright enough to cast shadows from the bedrolls. Closest lay Regis, curled in a ball so near to the fire that Catti-brie was amazed the little fellow hadn't gone up in flames. The mound that was Bruenor lay just a bit further back, right where Catti-brie had said good night to her adoptive father. The woman sat up, then got to one knee, craning her neck, but she could not locate two particular forms among the sleeping.
She started for Bruenor, but changed her mind and went to Regis instead. The halfling always seemed to know....
A gentle shake only made him groan and roll tighter into a ball. A rougher shake and a call of his name only had him spitting curses and tightening even more.
Catti-brie kicked him in the rump.
"Hey!" he protested loudly, coming up suddenly.
"Where'd they go to?" the woman asked.
"What're ye about, girl?" came Bruenor's sleepy voice, the dwarf awakened by Regis's call.
"Drizzt and Wulfgar have gone out from camp," she explained, then turned her penetrating gaze back over Regis.
The halfling squirmed under the scrutiny. "Why would I know?" he argued, but Catti-brie didn't blink. Regis looked to Bruenor for support, but found the half-dressed dwarf ambling over, seeming every bit as perturbed as Catti-brie, and apparently ready, like the woman, to direct his ire the halfling's way.
"Drizzt said that they would return to us, and the caravan, tomorrow, or perhaps the day after that," the halfling admitted.
"And where'd they go off to?" Catti-brie demanded.
Regis shrugged, but Catti-brie had him by the collar, hoisting him to his feet before he ever finished the motion. "Are ye meanin' to play this game again?" she asked.
"To find Kierstaad and apologize, I would guess," the halfling said. "He deserves as much."
"Good enough if the boy's got an apology in his heart," Bruenor remarked. Seemingly satisfied with that, the dwarf turned back for his bedroll.
Catti-brie, though, stood holding Regis roughly and shaking her head. "He's not got it in him," she said, drawing the dwarf back into the conversation. "Not now, and that's not where they're off to." She moved closer to Regis as she spoke, but did let go of him. "Ye need to tell me," she said calmly. "Ye can't be playin' this game. If we're to travel half the length o' Faerun together, then we're needing a bit o' trust, and that ye're not earning."
"They went after the giants," Regis blurted. He couldn't believe that he had said it, but neither could he deny the logic of Catti-brie's argument nor the plaintive look in her beautiful eyes.
"Bah!" Bruenor snorted, stomping his bare foot- and slamming it so hard that it sounded as if he was wearing boots. "By the brains of a pointed-headed ore-cousin! Why didn't ye tell us sooner?"
"Because you would have made me go," Regis argued, but his voice lost its angry edge when Catti-brie moved right in front of his face.
"Ye always seem to be knowing too much and tellin' too little," she growled. "As when Drizzt left Mithral Hall."
"I listen," Regis replied with a helpless shrug.
"Get dressed," Catti-brie instructed Regis, who just looked back at her incredulously.
"Ye heard her!" Bruenor roared.
"You want to go out there?" the halfling asked, pointing to the black emptiness that was the nighttime tundra. "Now?"
"Won't be the first time I pulled that durned elf from the mouth of a tundra yeti," the dwarf snorted, heading for his bedroll.
"Giants," Regis corrected.
"Even worse, then!" Bruenor roared louder, waking the rest of the camp.
"But we cannot leave," Regis protested, motioning to the three merchants and their guardsmen. "We promised to guard them. What if the giants come in behind us?"
That brought a concerned look to the faces of the five members of the merchant team, but Catti-brie didn't blink at the ridiculous thought. She just kept looking hard at Regis, and at his possessions, including the new unicorn-headed mace one of Bruenor's smithies had forged for him, a beautiful mithral and black steel item with blue sapphires set for the eyes.
With a profound sigh the halfling pulled his tunic on over his head.
They were out within the hour, backtracking to the point where wagon track, giant track, and now drow and barbarian track, intersected. They had much more difficulty finding it than had Wulfgar and Drizzt, with the drow's superior night vision. For even though Catti-brie wore an enchanted circlet that allowed her to see in the dark, she was no ranger and could not match Drizzt's keen senses and training. Bruenor bent low, sniffing the ground, then led on through the darkness.
"Probably get swallowed by waiting yetis," Regis grumbled.
"I'll shoot high, then," Catti-brie answered, holding her deadly bow out. "Above the belly, so ye won't have a hole in ye when we cut ye out."
Of course Regis continued to grumble, but he kept his voice lower, not letting Catti-brie hear clearly so that she could not offer any more sarcastic replies.
They spent the dark hours before the dawn feeling their way over the rocky foothills of the Spine of the World. Wulfgar complained many times that they must have lost the trail, but Drizzt held faith in Guenhwyvar, who kept appearing ahead of them, a darker shadow against the night sky, high on rocky outcroppings.
Soon after the break of day, as they moved along a winding mountain path, the drow's faith in the panther was confirmed as the pair came across a distinctive footprint, a huge boot, along a low and muddy depression on the trail.
"An hour ahead, no more," Drizzt explained, examining the print. He looked back at Wulfgar and smiled widely, lavender eyes sparkling.
The barbarian, more than ready for a fight, nodded.
Following Guenhwyvar's lead, they climbed higher and higher until, above them, the land seemed to suddenly disappear, the trail ending at a sheer cliff face. Drizzt moved up first, shadow to shadow, motioning Wulfgar to follow as he determined the way to be clear. They had come to the side of a canyon, a deep and rocky ravine bordered on all four sides by mountain walls, though the barrier to their right, the south, was not complete, leaving one exit from the valley floor. At first, they surmised that the giant encampment must be down there in the ravine, hidden among the boulders, but then Wulfgar spotted a line of smoke drifting up from behind a wall of boulders on the cliff wall almost directly across the way, some fifty yards from their position.
Drizzt scaled a nearby tree, getting a better angle, and soon confirmed that to be the giants' camp. A pair of behemoths were sitting behind the sheltering stones, eating a meal. The drow surveyed the landscape. He could get around, and so could Guenhwyvar, without going down to the valley floor.
"Can you reach them with a hammer throw from here?" he asked Wulfgar.
The barbarian nodded.
"Lead me in, then," the drow said. With a wink, he started off to the left, moving over the lip of the cliff and edging along its facing. Guenhwyvar also started off, picking a higher route than Drizzt along the cliff face.
The dark elf moved like a spider, crawling from ledge to ledge, while Guenhwyvar went along above him in a series of powerful bounds, clearing twenty feet at a leap. Within half an hour, amazingly, the drow had moved beyond the northern wall, around to the eastern facade and within twenty feet or so of the seemingly oblivious giants. He motioned back to Wulfgar, then set his feet firmly and took a deep breath. Not wanting to be spotted, he had come in slightly below the level of the shelf and the boulder wall, and now he measured the short run he would have, and then the distance of the leap to the giants' shelf. He didn't want to have to use his hands to safely land the jump, preferring to come in with both scimitars drawn and ready.
He could make it, he decided, so he looked up at Guenhwyvar. The cat was perched on a shelf some thirty feet above the giants. Drizzt opened his mouth in a mock roar.
The great panther responded, only her roar was far from silent. It rumbled off the mountain walls, drawing the attention of the giants and of any other creatures for miles around.
With a howl, the giants sprang to their feet. The drow ran silently along the ledge and leaped for their position.
Shouting a call to Tempus, the barbarian god of war, Wulfgar hoisted Aegis-fang . . . but hesitated, stung by the sound of that name. The name of a god he had once worshiped but to whom he had not prayed in so many years. A god he felt had abandoned him in the pits of the Abyss. Waves of emotional turmoil rolled over him, dizzying him, sending him careening back to that awful place of Errtu's darkness.
And leaving Drizzt terribly exposed.
They had been guessing as much as trailing, for though Catti-brie could see well in the dark, her night vision still could not match that of the drow, and Bruenor, though skilled at tracking, could not match the hunting prowess of Guenhwyvar. Still, when they heard the panther's roar echoing off the stones about them, they knew their guess had been a good one.
Off they ran, Bruenor's rolling pace matching Catti-
brie's long and graceful strides. Regis didn't even try to catch up, didn't even try to follow the same path. While Bruenor and Catti-brie charged off straight in the direction of the roar, Regis veered north, following an easier trail, smooth but angling upward. The halfling wasn't thrilled with the idea of getting into any fights, let alone one against giants, but he did truly want to help out. Perhaps he might find a higher vantage point from which he could call down directions to his friends. Perhaps he might find a place where he could throw stones (and he was a pretty good shot) at safely distant giants. Perhaps he might find-
A tree trunk, the halfling thought, a bit distracted as he rushed around a bend and bumped into a solid trunk.
No, not a trunk, Regis realized. Trees did not wear boots.
Two giants rose up to search out Guenhwyvar; two giants noted the sudden approach of the leaping drow elf. Drizzt timed and aimed his leap perfectly, coming to the lip of the ledge lightly, in full balance. But he hadn't counted on two opponents waiting for him. He had expected Wulfgar's throw to take one down, or at least to distract the behemoth long enough for the dark elf to find steady footing.
Improvising quickly, the drow summoned his innate magical powers-though few remained after all these years on the surface-and brought forth a globe of impenetrable darkness. He centered it on the back wall ten feet from the ground so that it blocked the sight of the behemoths, but, since the globe's radius was about the same length as Drizzt was tall, it left their lower legs visible to Drizzt. He went in hard and fast, skidding down low and slashing wildly with both his scimitars, Twinkle and the newly named Icingdeath.
The giants kicked and stomped, bent low and swung their clubs frantically, and though they were as likely to hit each other as the drow, a giant could take a solid hit from another giant's club.
Drizzt could not.
Damn Errtu! How many evils had he suffered? How many attacks upon body and soul? He felt again Biz-matec's pincers closing about his neck, felt the dull aches of heavy punches as Errtu beat upon him as he lay in the filth, and then the sharp sting of fire as the demon dragged him into the flames that always surrounded its hideous form. And he felt the touch, gentle and alluring, of the succubus, perhaps the worst tormentor of all.
And now his friend needed him. Wulfgar knew that, could hear the battle being joined. He should have led the way with a throw of Aegis-fang, should have put the giants off balance, perhaps even put one down altogether.
He knew that and wanted desperately to help his friend, and yet his eyes were not seeing the fight between Drizzt and the giants. They were looking again into the swirls of Errtu's prison.
"Damn you!" the barbarian cried, and he built a wall of the sheerest red anger, trying to block the visions with pure rage.
It was easily the largest giant Regis had ever seen, towering twenty feet and as wide as buildings Regis had once called home. Regis looked at his new mace, his pitifully small mace, and doubted that he could even raise a bruise on the giant. Then he looked up to see the monster bending lower, a huge hand-a hand big enough to grab the halfling and squeeze the life out of him-reaching down.
"A bit of a meal, then?" the huge creature said in a voice surprisingly sophisticated for one of its kind. "Not much of one, of course, but little's better than nothing."
Regis sucked in his breath and put his hand over his heart, feeling as if he would faint-and then feeling a familiar lump by his collarbone. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a gemstone, a large ruby dangling at the end of a chain. "A pretty thing, don't you think?" he asked sheepishly.
"I think I like my rodents mashed," the giant replied, and up went its huge foot, and off ran Regis with a squeak. A single long stride put the giant's other foot in front of him, though, and he had nowhere to run.
Drizzt rolled over a kicking giant leg, tucking his shoulder as he hit the stone and coming back over to his feet nimbly, reversing direction and stabbing glowing Twinkle into the huge calf. That brought a roar of pain, and then came another yell. It was Wulfgar. The barbarian's curse was followed by an explosion of stone as something-a relieved Drizzt figured it to be Aegis-fang-slammed hard into the cliff.
The missile bounced from the stone wall into the open air beyond, where the drow could see that it was a boulder-thrown by yet another giant, no doubt- and no warhammer.
Even worse for Drizzt, one of the giants moved out far enough on the ledge to see around the globe of darkness. "Argh, ye black-skinned rat!" it said, lifting its club.
Guenhwyvar soared down thirty feet from her perch to slam the bending behemoth on the shoulders, a six-hundred-pound missile of slashing claws and biting teeth. Caught by surprise and off balance, the giant toppled over the stone wall and out into the air, taking Guenhwyvar with it.
Drizzt, dodging yet another stubborn kick, cried out for the cat, but had to turn away, had to focus on the remaining, kicking giant.
As the plummeting giant rolled over Guenhwyvar sprang again, flying out wide and far, back toward the cliff where Wulfgar stood battling his mental demons.
The cat slammed hard against a ledge, far below the barbarian, and there she desperately clung, battered and shaking, while the giant continued its bouncing descent. Down, down the giant fell, a hundred feet and more before it settled, battered and groaning, upon a rocky outcropping.
Another explosion rocked the ledge where Drizzt battled the giant, then a third. The sudden, shocking noise finally broke Wulfgar free of his dark memories. He saw Guenhwyvar struggling to hold her perch on the ledge, nothing but empty air below her all the way to the ravine's floor. He saw Drizzt's globe of darkness, and every now and then a flash of bluish light as the drow sent his scimitar flying fast under the globe but above the blocking boulder wall. He saw the giant's head as it came up straight, and he took aim.
But then another boulder slammed the cliff wall, ricocheting off stone and right into the giant's side, bending it low into the darkness. And then another hit the wall right below Wulfgar's position, nearly shaking him from his feet. The barbarian located the throwers, three more giants on a ledge down and to the right, well concealed behind a barrier of rock, and probably with a cave in the cliff wall behind them. The third threw its rock Wulfgar's way, and the barbarian had to dive aside to avoid being crushed.
He came up and had to scramble again as two more rocks hurtled in.
With a roar-to no god, but just a primal growl- Wulfgar brought Aegis-fang over his head and returned the volley. The mighty warhammer sailed end over end to strike the stone right before the ducking giants. With a thunderous retort it knocked a fair-sized chunk out of the rock wall.
The giants came up staring, obviously impressed with the damage the weapon had inflicted on the stone. When they moved, all three clambered all over each other to retrieve the weapon.
But Aegis-fang disappeared, and when it magically returned to Wulfgar's grasp, the barbarian could see the three giants spread out over the wall in clear view.
Catti-brie and Bruenor came to the lip of the canyon, on the same side as Wulfgar but farther to the south, about halfway between the barbarian and the three giants. They were in time to see the next spinning throw of Aegis-fang. One of the giants managed to get back over the protective wall, and a second was on its way up when the warhammer crashed in, dropping the behemoth onto the back of the third. Solid as the hit was, it didn't kill the giant. Nor did the silverstreaking magical arrow Catti-brie let fly from Taulmaril, scoring a hit on the same giant's back,
"Bah, ye two're to steal all that danged fun!" Bruenor grumbled, skipping off to the south, looking for a way to get at the giants. "Gotta make me a dwarven bow!"
"A bow?" Catti-brie asked skeptically as she set another arrow. "When did you learn to work wood?"
As she finished, Aegis-fang came spinning by once again. Bruenor pointed to it emphatically. "Dwarven bow!" he explained with a wink, then ran off.
Though wounded, the three giants did well to regroup. Up came the first, a huge stone high over its head.
Catti-brie's next arrow drove hard into that stone, cutting right through it, and the two halves slipped down, banging the giant on the head.
The second giant came up fast, throwing hard for Cattibrie, but far wide of the mark. It did get back down in time to dodge her next lightning-streaking arrow, though. The bolt buried itself hard into the cliff wall.
The third giant let fly for Wulfgar even as Aegis-fang returned to the man's hand, and the barbarian had to dive once more to avoid being smashed. Still, the stone rebounded from the back wall at an unexpected angle, clipping Wulfgar painfully on the hip.
Looking up to him, Catti-brie saw that he had an even greater problem, for beyond him, on the north wall and up higher, loomed yet another giant. This one was huge, holding a stone over its head that looked as though it could take down both the barbarian and the ledge he was standing on.
"Wulfgar!" Catti-brie cried in warning, thinking the man doomed.
Drizzt hadn't witnessed any of the missile exchange, though he did get enough of a break from his dodging and slashing to see that Guenhwyvar was all right. The panther had made it onto the lower ledge, and though obviously wounded, seemed more angry at the fact that she could not easily get back into the fight.
The giant's kicks came slower now. As the behemoth tired, its legs stun from many deep cuts. The only trouble the swift drow had now was making sure that he didn't lose his footing in the deepening blood.
Then he heard Catti-brie's cry and was so startled that he slowed too much. The giant's boot caught up to him, hitting him squarely and sending him on a tumbling dive to the far end of the ledge, beyond the edge of the darkness globe. Coming right back to his feet, ignoring the ache, Drizzt ran up the stony wall, climbing a dozen feet before the giant came out in pursuit, bending low, thinking its prey to be on the ground.
Drizzt dropped on the giant's shoulders, wrapping his legs about its neck and double-stabbing his scimitars into the sides of its eyes. The behemoth howled and stood straight. The monster reached for the source of the pain, but the drow was too quick. Rolling over down the giant's back and landing nimbly on his feet, Drizzt cut fast for the lip of the ledge, hopping to the rocky barricade.
The giant batted at its torn eyes, blinded by the cuts and the blood. It waved its hands frantically and turned toward the noise of the drow's movements, lurching to grab him.
But Drizzt was already gone, spinning about the giant and chasing it from behind, prodding hard to keep the behemoth going as it reached for the ledge, overbalancing. Howling with pain, the giant tried to turn around, but that only sent Drizzt in even harder, scimitars biting about the stooping thing's chin.
The giant tried to scramble back but fell into the open air.
Wulfgar turned around at Catti-brie's call but had no time to strike out first or to dodge. Catti-brie got her bow up and level, but the huge giant threw first.
The stone sailed past Wulfgar, past Catti-brie, and Bruenor, down to the ledge in the south. Short-hopping off the stone-blocking wall, it slammed one giant in the chest, throwing it back and to the ground.
Looking down at her drawn arrow, a stunned Catti-brie spotted Regis sitting comfortably on the giant's shoulder. "The little rat," she whispered under her breath, truly impressed.
Now all three-giant, Wulfgar and Catti-brie- turned their attention to the lower ledge. Lightning arrows streaked in one after another, punctuated by a spinning throw of Aegisfang, or the thunderous report of a huge, giant-hurled boulder. The sheer force of the barrage soon had the three giants dizzy and ducking.
Aegis-fang clipped one on the shoulder as it tried to run out the side down a concealed trail. The force of the hammer blow turned it around in time to see the next streaking arrow, right before the bolt drove through its ugly face. Down it went in a heap. A second giant stepped out, rock high to throw, only to catch a huge boulder in the chest and go flying away.
The third, badly wounded, stayed in a crouch behind the wall, not even daring to creep back the fifteen feet to the cave opening in the wall behind it. Head down, it didn't see the dwarf climb into position on a ledge above it, though it did look up when it heard the roar of a leaping Bruenor.
The dwarf king's axe, buried deep into the giant's brain, sported yet another notch.