"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 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 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, similar
ly 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.
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