Boundless

by R. A. Salvatore

  But . . . it didn’t.

  It instead ran right past him, or above him, at least, rambling down the tunnel’s ceiling as if it hadn’t even noticed Drizzt or the lightning arrows.

  Drizzt stuttered over some words, trying futilely to make sense of it. Then he kicked Andahar into a run, following the spider creature down, down, back to the entry cavern. Every now and then, he met a demon coming up the other way, but a few arrows from Taulmaril took these lesser monsters down, or wounded them enough for Andahar to run them down, stomping out the last of their life force.

  In the main cavern, Drizzt saw that the spider kept up its pace, moving up high into the shadows, weaving in and out among the stalactites up there. Drizzt thought he should ride ahead to warn the dwarves, and he started to do just that, but an ungodly shriek, a high-pitched squeal—from the side and not above—had him pulling up on Andahar’s reins.

  A second giant arachnid came into view, this one scrabbling fast across the floor, heading straight for Drizzt. Living in Menzoberranzan, Drizzt had encountered thousands and thousands of spiders, but he had never heard one shriek. A hiss, perhaps, but nothing like this—this was a scream, unearthly, more demonic than arachnid.

  And it was heading straight for him.

  Or perhaps heading past him, Drizzt thought, or wanted to believe, given his previous encounter.

  He trotted Andahar to the side, around a stalagmite, but still in view of the avenue with the charging spider.

  The beast veered, again heading straight for Drizzt.

  Drizzt went back the other way around the stone mound, and the beast changed course, correcting as if locked onto Drizzt.

  And it was exactly that, he sensed. It then occurred to him that the previous beast might have been focused on something, or someone, else. When this spider screamed again, Drizzt was certain that it was because it had recognized him and its prey was in sight.

  He thought to gallop for the dwarven complex, but he wasn’t sure the dwarves could hold back even the other creature that was charging their way. No, something was very wrong here, in both the sheer power of these creatures and in their apparent single-mindedness, for why hadn’t the other monster attacked Drizzt in the tunnel?

  He put up his bow and let fly a long shot, the lightning arrow lighting up the mounds in a weird and beautiful way as it passed. It struck the spider squarely in the face, but this beast, like the other, did not slow.

  “What are you?” Drizzt whispered, and then he gasped as the spider returned the volley with a ray of its own, a raging line of fire shooting down the avenue straight for the drow.

  Andahar reacted before Drizzt could, leaping aside, back toward the entry tunnels. Drizzt didn’t even try to slow the unicorn or pull it up once it had avoided the attack, rather, urging it on faster even, as the spider gave chase.

  “Bruenor, retreat!” Drizzt screamed as loudly as he could. “Run!”

  And Drizzt and Andahar did the same, galloping away from Gauntlgrym. On impulse, Drizzt turned left as they neared the cavern wall opposite the dwarven complex, thinking that the tram exit tunnel might be a better choice. That brought him perilously near the spider, though, and he braced himself, expecting another fire bolt.

  Andahar entered the incline at a full gallop, running between the tram tracks. Just a short way in, those tracks climbed steeply away from the floor and rolled over to invert along the ceiling. Drizzt guided the steed perfectly into the reverse gravity field, but he heard a sizzling sound behind him and glanced back to see the spider still in full charge, still not far behind, its giant mandibles arcing lightning back and forth between them.

  “Run, Andahar,” he whispered, bending low beside the unicorn’s bobbing head.

  “We got ’em runnin’, boys!” Bruenor roared, leading the charge across the front of the outer defensive wall, then down the avenue deeper into the cavern. The demons fled before them, those that could get away. The rest were trampled by the famed Battlehammer juicers, or, if they avoided that fate, overwhelmed by hordes of angry warrior dwarves, the Gutbusters in their ridged and spiked armor tearing them apart.

  Soon enough, all of the area around the wall was cleared, the demons in full flight, and Bruenor and his charges in pursuit.

  A flash far across the naturally pillared cavern seemed comfortingly familiar to the dwarven king, a missile he had seen a thousand times before.

  “Drizzt’s got ’em, boys!” Bruenor yelled, and he got slapped on the back of his head for that remark.

  “Gals!” Queen Mallabritches corrected.

  “Bah! But ye’re all boys to me!” Bruenor said, and when both Mallabritches and Tannabritches giggled at that remark, Bruenor stuttered for a response.

  Finally, Bruenor threw up his hands in surrender to his playful, if annoying, wives, and turned back just in time to see the most tremendous conflagration of a roiling and rising wall of flame he had ever known, one whose burning licks climbed high into the cavern.

  “What in the Nine Hells?” Tannabritches gasped.

  Bruenor feared that the old dwarven cliché might prove accurate this time. Surely he had never seen such a display of lightning power from anything short of an actual thunderstorm.

  “Bwoona! Bwoona!” he heard when he regained his sensibilities, and he thought he heard something else, the shout of a friend, a call of “Run!”

  “Pikel, what?” he asked, turning to see the green-bearded dwarf hopping his way, calling his name as only Pikel could.

  “Bwoona! Bwoona!”

  “Me brudder’s got somethin’ he’s needin’ to tell ye,” said Ivan, huffing and puffing and struggling to keep up with the animated Pikel.

  “Bad, bad, bad!” Pikel exclaimed.

  “Hold!” Bruenor shouted to his forces, a cry echoed by his queens and then down the line.

  “Bad spideys,” Pikel explained.

  His face scrunched with confusion, Bruenor looked to Ivan, but the old yellow-bearded dwarf could only shrug and shake his head.

  The answer came a moment later, and not far across the cavern, though way up high, in the form of a cry from some of the dwarves still in their stalactite artillery position, followed by another tremendous explosion. Bruenor and the others looked on in horror as that distant stalactite crumbled and tumbled, falling the fifty feet and more to the floor, a quartet of poor dwarves falling with it, along with their ballista, and something else.

  Something huge and radiating evil.

  “Bad spidey,” Pikel said again. “Oooo.”

  Now Bruenor and the others surely understood, as a giant arachnid construct flung aside broken stones and pulled itself from the rubble, shaking off massive boulders as if they were no more an inconvenience than a pile of dry leaves.

  “Run away!” Bruenor and almost every other dwarf in that corridor yelled in unison, and as one, the dwarves turned and fled—except for the juicer team.

  “No!” Mallabritches yelled at them as they charged at the giant spider, but the team, Gutbusters one and all, knew their role here, and that role was to hold back the enemy so that their king and queens could get away. They roared as one, the juicer rolling and bouncing along, part battering ram, part rolling pin. Demon husks flew aside or got crunched beneath the heavy contraption, the Gutbusters cheering and singing.

  Bruenor, being dragged away by his royal guard, glanced back to watch the last charge to the spider, and saw the beast’s eyes glowing.

  “No!” he yelled, figuring that something terrible was about to happen, but his voice could not rise above the chorus of Gutbuster glee.

  A ray shot forth from the monster, a long and narrow multihued cone that widened just enough to encompass the juicer and the crew behind it.

  For a few heartbeats, Bruenor wasn’t even sure what had happened, for the juicer kept moving, but awkwardly, and the Gutbusters kept singing, but their chorus had hollowed greatly.

  The contraption bounced and jerked from side to side, and then ran straig
ht on, and Bruenor then understood, to his horror.

  Of the ten Gutbusters on the juicer, four had been left behind, turned to stone and knocked over, and at least one seemed to have lost an arm, which was still attached to the juicer’s handle!

  “By the gods, oh Moradin, where ye be?” Bruenor gasped, and he winced when juicer and spider collided.

  The angled cow-catcher lifted the beast onto its back legs, and for a moment, Bruenor thought his team might drive it right over—he almost called for another charge!

  But no, the giant spider went up high, above the front of the war machine, and from there, it spat again, this time a fountain of gooey webbing falling over the remaining Gutbusters. They thrashed and fought against the bindings, but they couldn’t get through before the spider’s eyes began to glow once more.

  Bruenor didn’t see it, for he and his escort had turned the corner and were running along the outside of the wall then, toward the break across the cavern. He heard nothing, no lightning bolt, no rush of flames.

  But he knew in his heart that none of those Gutbusters were coming home.

  He had crossed the bridge over the small pond and was just about to the door when the cavern lit up in a sudden and shockingly bright flash. A moment later came the retort, a grumble of thunder that sounded more like the exploding volcano he had witnessed from this very mountain than the crackle of a lightning stroke.

  “What in the Nine Hells?” Tannabritches asked again.

  “Indeed” was all that Bruenor Battlehammer could answer, and into his hole he ran.

  Upside down and galloping along the ceiling now, Drizzt heard the thunder of a lightning bolt and braced, expecting to be incinerated. But good fortune was with him, for the spider hadn’t anticipated his rise and inversion, and the blast, the most stunning and tremendous bolt of lightning he had ever witnessed, shot past beneath him.

  On ran Andahar, up the mountain tunnel. Drizzt could hear the spider’s skittering behind him, but it was fading as Andahar outpaced the arachnid behemoth. Drizzt looked back one last time, trying to sort out his plan. Perhaps he would go out and come right back in down the other tunnel, though it still troubled him to bring this thing anywhere near his friends until he better understood its power.

  When he looked forward again, despite the pursuit, he slowed his mouth and nearly shouted out, “Run,” because there before him were a host of dwarves, set in battle formation, weapons raised.

  He held that cry when he realized the truth, but he did keep Andahar at a trot as he navigated the unicorn through a forest of immovable dwarves. They had been turned to stone. Right here, in the tunnel, standing on the ceiling that was magically the floor, one of Bruenor’s brigades had met a sudden end.

  Drizzt fought hard to keep his breath steady, to keep his mind focused on the task at hand and the course he needed to take.

  He came out of the tunnel soon after, Andahar running down the corkscrew tram rails, then leaping free of them onto solid ground right beside the destroyed tram station of Bleeding Vines. Drizzt saw no enemies, but he knew that he was not alone, for he could hear them out there in the tree line.

  Not slowing, he broke left past the other tunnel, then kept going, out to the west. He heard some movement, even the click of a crossbow, but didn’t get hit as he moved away at great speed.

  Behind him came the spider behemoth, nearly pacing him. Many times through the rest of that night did Drizzt look back to see the silhouettes of great trees shaking behind him, some even falling down, as the spider bulled its way in pursuit.

  Andahar wouldn’t tire, and as long as the monster gave chase, Drizzt had no intention of stopping.

  “We’ll hold the wall!” Bruenor growled at Jarlaxle after the drow mercenary had delivered the bad news.

  “You’ll not,” Jarlaxle warned.

  “Give me your horse,” Zaknafein told him, for the third time. “I will lead the beast away.”

  “Ye’re not even knowin’ if the eight-legged beast’s here for yerself!” Bruenor scolded.

  “Aren’t we?” argued Jarlaxle.

  “I’m thinking yer Matron Baenre’s no fan o’ meself,” Bruenor reminded. “Should I get on the hellhorse with ye, then? Should we all just run?”

  “If we can,” said Jarlaxle, but that brought only a profound scowl from Bruenor.

  “Ye’re not much knowin’ Battlehammers, are ye, sneaky one?”

  Jarlaxle answered with a shrug. “It will take a demon prince or a god to stop these beasts, my friend,” he said.

  At that moment, an explosion rocked the great entry hall and throne room of Gauntlgrym, and shouts of “Breach!” filtered in from the door, soon followed by fleeing Battlehammers.

  Bruenor didn’t see it, though. At Jarlaxle’s mention of divine beings, the dwarf had rushed over to the great seat of the complex, the Throne of the Dwarven Gods, and leaped upon it, praying for insight and guidance. Once before had the gods granted him great power and strength. Perhaps now they would again.

  But no, he knew immediately, even such a moment of giant strength would not protect him from this horrid creation of the Abyss. The mortal creatures within Gauntlgrym could not fight it.

  Bruenor’s eyes popped open and he nodded.

  “We need a plan,” Jarlaxle told him, standing right before the throne.

  The wall of the room shook.

  “And quickly,” the mercenary added.

  “Give me your horse,” insisted Zaknafein, who stood to the side, weapons drawn.

  Bruenor hopped off the throne, still nodding.

  “Bruenor?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “What do ye know, me love?” asked Queen Mallabritches.

  “Aye, what did ye see in that mind o’ yers?” Queen Tannabritches agreed.

  “What’d ye say it’d take to beat that thing?”

  “A demon prince. A god,” Jarlaxle answered.

  “Get me five juicers and five teams,” Bruenor told his queens.

  “Here?” both asked skeptically, for the wall was shaking again and it hardly seemed like they had the time.

  “Nah, down below,” Bruenor answered, and he looked directly at Jarlaxle as he finished, “I got a plan.”

  “Give me your horse,” Zaknafein told Jarlaxle again a moment later, when they were somewhat separated from the others. “If I am to do right by my son, that means getting his friends out of jeopardy.”

  “You believe you can outrun that thing?”

  Zaknafein shrugged. “I think I can try, and that running out there in the wide open might prove better than letting it corner me—us—down here in tight tunnels.”

  “Bruenor said that he had a plan,” Jarlaxle reminded him.

  “You hold great faith in that, it would seem.” Zaknafein could tell by the way Jarlaxle then looked at Bruenor that perhaps the faith was not as deep as he had presumed. He saw trepidation on Jarlaxle’s face.

  “Earlier, we asked him to trust us,” said Jarlaxle.

  “Earlier, the ones we were putting most in danger were ourselves.”

  “Drizzt would trust Bruenor,” Jarlaxle said bluntly. “Will Zaknafein?”

  “Will Jarlaxle? I know you. I’ve known you longer than anyone around here, and so my guess is that you’ve some way out if the dwarf fails.”

  “Truly? I am wounded.”

  “You might be,” said Zaknafein. “You keep that horse ready, and if you leave and cannot take me with you, you’d do well to drop it for me so that I have a chance to get out as well.”

  “Wouldn’t I do better in making sure that you can’t escape? I mean, given your attitude.”

  “Good point,” Zaknafein replied. “But you’ve known me long enough to realize that I’ll possibly find a way out anyway, and in that event, you also know me well enough to be certain that I will find you.”

  Jarlaxle gave a great, exaggerated sigh. “Ah, Zaknafein, it is so good to have you back.”

  “More than you know, Jarlaxle. If it we
ren’t for me being here, that spider thing would likely be chasing you.”

  Bruenor came bounding back toward the pair then, so Jarlaxle just ended with a “Hmm.”

  Chapter 22

  . . . Mentormentor . . .

  “I cannot see her eyes!” Alvilda Margaster yelled at her cousin Inkeri. “Her beautiful gray eyes, so shining and pretty!”

  “This you think is important at this time?” Inkeri replied with a great huff. “The whole of the north is open before us.”

  “She’s my baby girl.”

  “Shut up!” Inkeri yelled at her.

  Shut up! commanded another voice in Alvilda’s own head, a voice like the growl of an angry giant with a mouthful of biting wasps.

  “Take me,” Alvilda heard herself saying, but in that demonic voice, not her own.

  “Yes,” said Inkeri, and she quickly pulled off her necklace, a golden chain set with a large opal, and held it out with one hand while beckoning to Alvilda with the other.

  “Give me your necklace,” Inkeri demanded.

  “I give you nothing,” Alvilda argued, or started to, for the words ended in a strangled garble. They had already swapped necklaces multiple times before, always at Inkeri’s insistence. She knew not what game her cousin was playing here, but the demons contained within the respective phylacteries were not alike, and the one Alvilda currently held was more powerful by far.

  “Give me your necklace or be killed,” Inkeri warned.

  Alvilda, her thoughts suddenly jumbled, a pain as profound as a spear tip stabbing her between her eyes, didn’t even hear the command. But it didn’t matter, for she had no control of her body then as the beast within her moved her hands for her, pulling the necklace, this one a golden chain set with a large ruby, over her head.

  Alvilda felt the connection break, but by the time she realized it, her own body had tossed the item to Inkeri, who now stood holding both, and still presenting the opal to her.