Up leaped the battlerager, snapping his head from side to side, whipping the caught drow back and forth until the ebony skin ripped apart, freeing the helmet spike.
The approaching dark elf stopped his advance, trying to make some sense of the gruesome scene. He was moving again-back the other way-when indomitable Pwent took up the roaring charge.
The drow was truly amazed at the stubby dwarf's frantic pace, amazed that he could not easily outdistance this enemy. He wouldn't have run too far anyway, though, pre ferring to bait this dangerous one away from the main battle.
They went through a series of twisting corridors, the dark elf ten strides ahead. His graceful steps barely seemed to alter as he leaped, landing and spinning about, sword ready and smile wide.
Pwent never slowed. He merely ducked his head to put his helmet spike in line. With his eyes to the stone, the battlerager realized the trap, too late, as he crossed the rim of a pit the drow had subtly leaped across.
Down went the battlerager, crashing and bouncing, the many points of his battle armor throwing sparks as he skidded along the stone. He cracked a rib against the rounded top of a stalagmite mound some distance down, bounced completely over, and landed flat on his back in a lower chamber.
He lay there for some time, admiring the cunning of his enemy and admiring the curious way the ceiling-tons of solid rock-continued to spin about.
No novice with the sword, Catti-brie worked her blade marvelously, using every defense Drizzt Do'Urden had shown her to gain back some measure of equal footing. She was confident that the drow's initial advantage was fading, confident that she could soon get her feet under her and come back up evenly against this opponent.
Then, suddenly, she had no one to fight.
Aegis-fang twirled by her, its windy wake bringing her thick hair about, and hit the surprised dark elf full force, blasting him away.
Catti-brie spun about, her initial appreciation lost as soon as she recognized Wulfgar's protectiveness. The mist near the barbarian was forming by then, taking on the substantial, corporeal body of a denizen of some vile lower plane, some enemy far more dangerous than the dark elf Catti-brie had been battling.
Wulfgar had come to her aid at the risk of his own peril, had put her safety above his own.
To Catti-brie, confident that she could have taken care of her own situation, that act seemed more stupid than altruistic.
Catti-brie went for her bow-she had to get to her bow. Before she even had her hands on it, though, the monster, the yochlol, came fully to the plane. Amorphous, it somewhat resembled a lump of half-melted wax, showing eight tentaclelike appendages and a central, gaping maw lined with long, sharp teeth.
Catti-brie sensed danger behind her before she could call out to Wulfgar. She spun, bow in hand, and looked up to her enemy, to a drow's sword fast descending for her head.
Catti-brie shot first. The arrow jolted the drow several inches from the floor and passed right through the dark elf to explode in a shower of sparks against the ceiling. The drow was still standing when he came back to the floor, still holding his sword, his expression revealing that he was not quite sure what had just happened.
Catti-brie grabbed her bow like a club and jumped up to meet him, pressing him fiercely until his mind registered the fact that he was dead.
She looked back once, to see Wulfgar grabbed by one of the yochlol's tentacles, then another. All the barbarian's incredible strength could not keep him from the waiting maw.
Bruenor could see nothing but the black of the drider's torso as he continued to bull in, continued to drive Dinin backward. He could hear nothing except the sounds of flying blades, the clang of metal against metal, or the sound of cracking shell whenever his axe struck home.
He knew instinctively that Catti-brie and Wulfgar, his children, were in trouble.
Bruenor's axe finally caught up with the retreating creature with full force as the drider slammed against the wall. Another spider leg fell away; Bruenor planted his feet and heaved with all his strength, launching himself several feet back.
Dinin, weirdly contorted, two legs lost, did not immediately pursue, glad for the reprieve, but ferocious Bruenor came back in, the dwarf's savagery overwhelming the wounded drider. Bruenor's shield blocked the first axe; his helmet blocked the following strike, a blow that should have dropped him.
Straight across whipped the dwarf's many-notched axe, above the hard exoskeleton to cut a jagged line across the bloated drider's belly. Hot gore spewed out. Fluids ran down the drider's legs and Bruenor's pumping arms.
Bruenor went into a frenzy, his axe smacking repeatedly, incessantly, into the crook between the drider's two fore most legs. Exoskeleton gave way to flesh; flesh opened to spill more gore.
Bruenor's axe struck hard yet again, but he took a hit atop the shoulder of his weapon arm. The drider's awkward angle stole most of the strength from the blow, and the axe did not get through Bruenor's fine mithril mail, but a blast of hot agony assaulted Bruenor.
His mind screamed that Catti-brie and Wulfgar needed him!
Grimacing against the pain, Bruenor whipped his axe in an upward backhand, its flat back cracking against the drider's elbow. The creature howled and Bruenor brought the weapon to bear again, angled up the other way, catching the drider in the armpit and shearing the creature's arm off.
Catti-brie and Wulfgar needed him!
The drider's longer reach got its second axe around the dwarf's blocking shield, its bottom edge drawing a line of blood up the back of Bruenor's arm. Bruenor tucked the shield in close and shoulder-blocked the monster against the wall. He bounced back, drove his axe in hard at the monster's exposed side, then shoulder-blocked again.
Back bounced the dwarf, in chopped his axe, and Bruenor's stubby legs twitched again, sending him hurtling forward. This time, Bruenor heard the drider's other axe fall to the floor, and when he bounced back, he stayed back, chopping wildly with his axe, driving the drider to the stone, splitting flesh and breaking ribs.
Bruenor turned about, saw Catti-brie in command of her situation, and took a step toward Wulfgar.
"Wishya!"
Waves of energy hit the dwarf, lifting his feet from the ground and launching him a dozen feet through the air, to slam against the wall.
He rebounded in a redirected run, and he cried a single note of rage as he bore down on the entrance to the distant tunnel, the eyes of several drow watching him from farther within.
"Wishya!" came the cry once more, and Bruenor was moving backward suddenly.
"How many ye got?" the tough dwarf roared, shrugging off this newest hit against the wall.
The eyes, every set, turned away.
A globe of darkness fell over the dwarf, and he was, in truth, glad for its cover, for that last slam had hurt him more than he cared to admit.
A fourth soldier joined Vierna, Jarlaxle, and their one bodyguard as they again moved deeper into the tunnels.
"Dwarf to the side," the newcomer explained. "Insane, wild with rage. I put him down a pit, but I doubt he is stopped!"
Vierna began to reply, but Jarlaxle interrupted her, pointing down a side passage, to yet another drow signaling to them frantically in the silent hand code.
Devil cat! the distant drow signaled. A second form rushed by him, followed by a third a few seconds later. Jarlaxle understood the movements of his troops, knew that these three were the survivors of two separate battles, and understood that both the ledge and the side passage below it had been lost.
We must go, he signaled to Vierna. Let us find a more advantageous region where we might continue this fight.
"Lloth has answered my call!" Vierna growled at him. "A handmaiden has arrived!"
"More the reason to be gone," Jarlaxle replied aloud. "Show your faith in the Spider Queen and let us be on with the hunt for your brother."
Vierna considered the words for just a moment, then, to the worldly mercenary's relief, nodded her agreement. Jarlaxle led her
along at a great pace, wondering if it could be true that only seven of his skilled Bregan D'aerthe force, himself and Vierna included, remained.
Wulfgar's arms slapped wildly at the waving tentacles; his hands clasped over those appendages wrapping him, trying to break free of their iron grip. More tentacles slapped in at him, forcing his attention.
He was jerked out straight, yanked sidelong into the great maw, and he understood these newest slapping attacks to be merely diversions. Razor-edged teeth dug into his back and ribs, tore through muscle, and scraped against bone.
He punched out and grabbed a handful of slimy yochlol skin, twisting and tearing a hunk free. The creature did not react, continued to bite bone, razor teeth working back and forth across the trapped torso.
Aegis-fang came back to Wulfgar's hand, but he was twisted awkwardly for any hits against his enemy. He swung anyway, connecting solidly, but the fleshy, rubbery hide of the evil creature seemed to absorb the blows, sinking deep beneath the weight of Aegis-fang.
Wulfgar swung again, twisted about despite the searing pain. He saw Catti-brie standing free, the second drow lying dead at her feet, and her face locked in an expression of open horror as she stared at the white of Wulfgar's exposed ribs.
Still, the image of his love, free from harm, brought a grimace of satisfaction to the barbarian's face.
A bolt of silver flashed right below, startling Wulfgar, blasting the yochlol, and the barbarian thought his salvation at hand, thought that his beloved Catti-brie, the woman he had dared to underestimate, would strike his attacker down.
A tentacle wrapped around Catti-brie's ankles and jerked her from her feet. Her head hit the stone hard, her precious bow fell from her grasp, and she offered little resistance as the yochlol began to pull her in.
"No!" Wulfgar roared, and he whacked again and again, futilely, at the rubbery beast. He cried out for Bruenor; out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dwarf stumble out of a dark globe, far away and dazed.
The yochlol's maw crunched mercilessly; a lesser man would have long since collapsed under the force of that bite.
Wulfgar could not allow himself to die, though, not with Catti-brie and Bruenor in danger.
He began a hearty song to Tempus, his god of battle. He sang with lungs fast filling with blood, with a voice that came from a heart that had pumped mightily for more than twenty years.
He sang and he forgot the waves of crippling pain; he sang and the song came back to his ears, echoing from the cavern walls like a chorus from the minions of an approving god.
He sang and he tightened his grip on Aegis-fang.
Wulfgar struck out, not against the beast, but against the alcove's low ceiling. The hammer chopped through dirt, hooked about stone.
Pebbles and dust fell all around the barbarian and his attacker. Again and again, all the while singing, Wulfgar slammed at the ceiling.
The yochlol, not a stupid beast, bit fiercely, shook its great maw wildly, but Wulfgar had passed beyond the admission of pain. Aegis-fang chopped upward; a chunk of stone followed its inevitable descent.
As soon as she recovered her wits, Catti-brie saw what the barbarian was doing. The yochlol was no longer interested in her, was no longer pulling her in, and she man aged to claw her way back to her bow.
"No, me boy!" she heard Bruenor cry from across the way.
Catti-brie nocked an arrow and turned about.
Aegis-fang slammed against the ceiling.
Part 5 End Game
When I die…
I have lost friends, lost my father, my mentor, to I that greatest of mysteries called death. Ihave known I grief since the day I left my homeland, since the day wicked Malice informed me that Zaknafein had been given to the Spider Queen. It is a strange emotion, grief, its focus shifting. Do I grieve for Zaknafein, for Montolio, for Wulfgar? Or do I grieve for myself, for the loss I must forever endure? It is perhaps the most basic question of mortal existence, and yet it is one for which there can be no answer…. Unless the answer is one of faith.
I am sad still when I think of the sparring games against my father, when I remember the walks beside Montolio through the mountains, and when those memories of Wulfgar, most intense of all, flash through my mind like a summary of the last several years of my life. I remember a day on Kelvin's Cairn, looking out over the tundra of Icewind Dale, when young Wulfgar and I spotted the campfires of his nomadic people. That was the moment when Wulfgar and I truly became friends, the moment when we came to learn that, for all the other uncertainties in both our lives, we would have each other.
I remember the white dragon, Icingdeath, and the giant-kin, Biggrin, and how, without heroic Wulfgar at my side, I would have perished in either of those fights. Iremember, too, sharing the victories with my friend, our bond of trust and love tightening-close, but never uncomfortable.
I was not there when he fell, could not lend him the support he certainly would havelent me.
I could not say "Farewell!"
When I die, will I be alone? If not for the weapons of monsters or the clutch of disease, I surely will outlive Catti-brie and Regis, even Bruenor. At this time in my life I do firmly believe that, no matter who else might be beside me, if those three were not, I would indeed die alone.
These thoughts are not so dark. I have said farewell to Wulfgar a thousand times. Ihave said it every time I let him know how dear he was to me, every time my words or actions affirmed our love. Farewell is said by the living, in life, every day. It is said with love and friendship, with the affirmation that the memories are lasting if the flesh is not.
Wulfgar has found another place, another life-I have to believe that, else what is thepoint of existence?
My very real grief is for me, for the loss I know I will feel to the end of my days, however many centuries have passed. But within that loss is a serenity, a divine calm. Better to have known Wulfgar and shared those very events that now fuel my grief, than never to have walked beside him, fought beside him, looked at the world through his crystal-blue eyes.
When I die… may there be friends who will grieve for me, who will carry our sharedjoys and pains, who will carry my memory.
This is the immortality of the spirit, the ever-lingering legacy, the fuel of grief. Butso, too, the fuel of faith
— Drizzt Do'Urden
Chapter 20 Suddenly
Dust continued to settle in the wide chamber, dulling the flickering light; one of the torches had been extinguished beneath a falling chunk of stone, its glow snuffed out in the blink of an eye. Snuffed out like the light in Wulfgar's eyes. When the rumbling finally stopped, when the larger pieces of collapsed ceiling settled, Catti-brie turned herself about and managed to sit up, facing the rubble-filled alcove. She wiped the dirt from her eyes, blinked through the gloom for several long moments before the grim truth of the scene registered fully.
The monster's one visible tentacle, still wrapped about the young woman's ankle, had been cleanly severed, its back edge, near the rubble, twitching reflexively.
Beyond it there was only piled rock. The enormity of the situation overwhelmed Catti-brie. She swayed to the side, nearly swooned, finding her strength only when a burst of anger and denial welled up within her. She tore her feet free of the tentacle and scrambled ahead on all fours. She tried to stand, but her head throbbed, keeping her low. Again came the wave of weak nausea, the invitation to fall back into unconsciousness.
Wulfgar!
Catti-brie crawled on, slapped aside the twitching tentacle, and began digging into the stone pile with her bare hands, scraping her skin and tearing a fingernail painfully. How similar this collapse seemed to the one that had taken Drizzt on the companions' first crossing of Mithril Hall. But that had been a dwarf-designed trap, a rigged fall that dropped out the floor as it had dropped out a ceiling block, sending Drizzt careening safely into a lower corridor.
This was no rigged trap, Catti-brie reminded herself; there was no chute to a lower chamber. A s
oft groan, a whimper, escaped her lips and she clawed on, desperate to get Wulfgar from the crushing pile, praying that the rocks had collapsed in an angle that would allow the barbarian to survive.
Then Bruenor was beside her, dropping his axe and shield to the floor and going at the pile with abandon. The powerful dwarf managed to move several large stones aside, but when the outer rim of the cave-in had been cleared, he stopped his work and stood staring blankly at the pile.
Catti-brie kept digging, didn't notice her father's frown.
After more than two centuries of mining, Bruenor understood the truth. The collapse was complete.
The lad was gone.
Catti-brie continued to dig, and to sniffle, as her mind began to tell her what her heart continued to deny.
Bruenor put his hand on her arm to stop her from her pointless work, and when she looked up at him, her expression broke the tough dwarf's heart. Her face was grime-covered. Blood was caked on one cheek, and her hair was matted to her head. Bruenor then saw only Catti-brie's eyes, doelike orbs of deepest blue, glistening with moisture.
Bruenor slowly shook his head.
Catti-brie fell back to a sitting position, her bleeding hands limp in her lap, her eyes unblinking. How many times had she and her friends come so close to this final point? she wondered. How many times had they escaped Death's greedy clutches at the last instant?
The odds had caught up to them, had caught up to Wulfgar, here and now, suddenly, without warning.
Gone was the mighty fighter, leader of his tribe, the man Catti-brie had intended to marry. She, Bruenor, even mighty Drizzt Do'Urden, could do nothing to help him, nothing to change what had happened.
"He saved me," the young woman whispered. Bruenor seemed not to hear her. The dwarf continually wiped at the dust in his eyes, at the dust that collected in the large teardrops that gathered and then slipped down, streaking his dirty cheeks. Wulfgar had been like a son to Bruenor. The tough dwarf had taken the young Wulfgar— just a boy back then-into his home after a battle, ostensibly as a slave but in truth to teach the lad a better way. Bruenor had molded Wulfgar into a man who could be trusted, a man of honest character. The happiest day in the dwarf's life, even happier than the day Bruenor had reclaimed Mithril Hall, was the day Wulfgar and Catti-brie had announced they would wed.
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