Tephanis had no desire to face that one again.
* * *
Ulgulu had not tried to cover his tracks at all. The dark elf had served the barghest’s needs; now he planned to make a meal of Drizzt, one that might bring him into maturity and allow him to return to Gehenna.
Ulgulu’s two goblin guards were not too surprised at Drizzt’s entrance. Ulgulu had told them to expect the drow and to simply delay him out in the entry room until the barghest could come and attend to him. The goblins halted their conversation abruptly, dropped their spears in a blocking cross over the curtain, and puffed out their scrawny chests, foolishly following their boss’s instructions as Drizzt approached.
“None can go in—” one of them began, but then, in a single swipe of Drizzt’s scimitar, both the goblin and its companion staggered down, clutching at their opened throats. The spear barrier fell away and Drizzt never even slowed as he stalked through the curtain.
In the middle of the inner room, the drow saw his enemy. Scarlet-skinned and giant-sized, the barghest waited with crossed arms and a wicked, confident grin.
Drizzt threw the dagger and charged right in behind it. That throw saved the drow’s life, for when the dagger passed harmlessly through his enemy’s body, Drizzt recognized the trap. He came in anyway, unable to break his momentum, and his scimitar entered the image without finding anything tangible to cut into.
The real barghest was behind the stone throne at the back of the room. Using another power of his considerable magical repertoire, Kempfana had sent an image of himself into the middle of the room to hold the drow in place.
Immediately Drizzt’s instincts told him that he had been set up. This was no real monster he faced but an apparition meant to keep him in the open and vulnerable. The room was sparsely furnished; nothing nearby offered any cover.
Ulgulu, levitating above the drow, came down quickly, lighting softly behind him. The plan was perfect and the target was right in place.
Drizzt, his reflexes and muscles trained and honed to fighting perfection, sensed the presence and dove forward into the image as Ulgulu launched a heavy blow. The barghest’s huge hand only clipped Drizzt’s flowing hair, but that alone nearly ripped the drow’s head to the side.
Drizzt half-turned his body as he dove, rolling back to his feet facing Ulgulu. He met a monster even larger than the giant image, but that fact did nothing to intimidate the enraged drow. Like a stretched cord, Drizzt snapped straight back at the barghest. By the time Ulgulu even recovered from his unexpected miss, Drizzt’s lone scimitar had poked him three times in the belly and had dug a neat little hole under his chin.
The barghest roared in rage but was not too badly hurt, for Drizzt’s drow-made weapon had lost most of its magic in the drow’s time on the surface and only magical weapons—such as Guenhwyvar’s claws and teeth—could truly harm a creature from Gehenna’s rifts.
The huge panther slammed onto the back of Ulgulu’s head with enough force to drop the barghest facedown on the floor. Never had Ulgulu felt such pain as Guenhwyvar’s claws raked across his head.
Drizzt moved to join in, when he heard a shuffle from the back of the room. Kempfana came charging out from behind the throne, bellowing in protest.
It was Drizzt’s turn to utilize some magic. He threw a globe of darkness in the scarlet-skinned barghest’s path, then dove into it himself, crouching on his hands and knees. Unable to slow, Kempfana roared in, stumbled over the braced drow—kicking Drizzt with enough force to blast the air from his lungs—and fell heavily out the other side of the darkness.
Kempfana shook his head to clear it and planted his huge hands to rise. Drizzt was on the barghest’s back in no time, hacking away wildly with his vicious scimitar. Blood matted Kempfana’s hair by the time he was able to brace himself enough to throw the drow off. He staggered to his feet dizzily and turned to face the drow.
Across the room, Ulgulu crawled and tumbled, rolled and twisted. The panther was too quick and too sleek for the giant’s lumbering counters. A dozen gashes scarred Ulgulu’s face and now Guenhwyvar had its teeth clamped on the back of the giant’s neck and all four paws raking at the giant’s back.
Ulgulu had another option, though. Bones crackled and reformed. Ulgulu’s scarred face became an elongated snout filled with wicked canine teeth. Thick hair sprouted from all over the giant, fending off Guenhwyvar’s claw attacks. Flailing arms became kicking paws.
Guenhwyvar battled a gigantic wolf, and the panther’s advantage was short-lived.
Kempfana stalked in slowly, showing Drizzt new respect.
“You killed them all,” Drizzt said in the goblin tongue, his voice so utterly cold that it stopped the scarlet-skinned barghest in his tracks.
Kempfana was not a stupid creature. The barghest recognized the explosive rage in this drow and had felt the sharp bite of the scimitar. Kempfana knew better than to walk straight in, so again he called upon his otherworldly skills. In the blink of an orange-burning eye, the scarlet-skinned barghest was gone, stepping through an extradimensional door and reappearing right behind Drizzt.
As soon as Kempfana disappeared, Drizzt instinctively broke to the side. The blow from behind came quicker, though, landing squarely on Drizzt’s back and launching him across the room. Drizzt crashed into the base of one wall and came up into a kneel, gasping for his breath.
Kempfana did stalk straight in this time; the drow had dropped his scimitar halfway to the wall, too far away for Drizzt to grasp.
The great barghest-wolf, nearly twice Guenhwyvar’s size, rolled over and straddled the panther. Great jaws snapped near Guenhwyvar’s throat and face, the panther batting wildly to hold them at bay. Guenhwyvar could not hope to win an even fight against the wolf. The only advantage the panther retained was mobility. Like a black-shafted arrow, Guenhwyvar darted out from under the wolf and toward the curtain.
Ulgulu howled and gave chase, ripping the curtain down and charging on, toward the waning daylight.
Guenhwyvar came out of the cave as Ulgulu tore through the curtain, pivoted instantly, and leaped straight up to the slopes above the entrance. When the great wolf came out, the panther again crashed down on Ulgulu’s back and resumed its raking and slashing.
* * *
“Ulgulu killed the farmers, not I,” Kempfana growled as he approached. He kicked Drizzt’s scimitar across to the other side of the room. “Ulgulu wants you—you who killed his gnolls. But I shall kill you, drow warrior. I shall feast on your life force so that I may gain in strength!”
Drizzt, still trying to find his breath, hardly heard the words. The only thoughts that occurred to him were the images of the dead farmers, images that gave Drizzt courage. The barghest drew near and Drizzt snapped a vile gaze upon him, a determined gaze not lessened in the least by the drow’s obviously desperate situation.
Kempfana hesitated at the sight of those narrowed, burning eyes, and the barghest’s delay brought Drizzt all the time he needed. He had fought giant monsters before, most notably hook horrors. Always Drizzt’s scimitars had ended those battles, but for his initial strikes, he had, every time, used only his own body. The pain in his back was no match for his mounting rage. He rushed out from the wall, remaining in a crouch, and dove through Kempfana’s legs, spinning and catching a hold behind the barghest’s knee.
Kempfana, unconcerned, lurched down to grab the squirming drow. Drizzt eluded the giant’s grasp long enough to find some leverage. Still, Kempfana accepted the attacks as a mere inconvenience. When Drizzt put the barghest off balance, Kempfana willingly toppled, meaning to crush the wiry little elf. Again Drizzt was too quick for the barghest. He twisted out from under the falling giant, put his feet back under him, and sprinted for the opposite end of the chamber.
“No, you shall not!” Kempfana bellowed, crawling then running in pursuit. Just as Drizzt scooped up his scimitar, giant arms wrapped around him and easily lifted him off the ground.
“Crush you and bite yo
u!” Kempfana roared, and indeed, Drizzt heard one of his ribs crack. He tried to wiggle around to face his foe, then gave up on the notion, concentrating instead on freeing his sword arm.
Another rib snapped; Kempfana’s huge arms tightened. The barghest did not want to simply kill the drow, though, realizing the great gains toward maturity he could make by devouring so powerful an enemy, by feeding on Drizzt’s life force.
“Bite you, drow.” The giant laughed. “Feast!”
Drizzt grasped his scimitar in both hands with strength inspired by the images of the farmhouse. He tore the weapon loose and snapped it straight back over his head. The blade entered Kempfana’s open, eager mouth and dove down the monster’s throat.
Drizzt twisted it and turned it.
Kernpfana whipped about wildly and Drizzt’s muscles and joints nearly ripped apart under the strain. The drow had found his focus, though, the scimitar hilt, and he continued to twist and turn.
Kempfana went down heavily, gurgling, and rolled onto Drizzt, trying to squash the life out of him. Pain began to seep into Drizzt’s consciousness.
“No!” he cried, grabbing at the image of the sandy-haired boy, slain in his bed. Still Drizzt twisted and turned the blade. The gurgling continued, a wheezing sound of air rising through choking blood. Drizzt knew that this battle was won when the creature above him no longer moved.
Drizzt wanted only to curl up and find his breath but told himself that he was not yet finished. He crawled out from under Kempfana, wiped the blood, his own blood, from his lips, unceremoniously ripped his scimitar free of Kempfana’s mouth, and retrieved his dagger.
He knew that his wounds were serious, could prove fatal if he didn’t attend to them immediately. His breath continued to come in forced, bloodied gasps. It didn’t concern him, though, for Ulgulu, the monster who had killed the farmers, still lived.
* * *
Guenhwyvar sprang from the giant wolf’s back, again finding a tenuous footing on the steep slope above the cave entrance. Ulgulu spun, snarling, and leaped up at the panther, clawing and raking at the stones in an effort to get higher.
Guenhwyvar leaped out over the barghest-wolf, pivoted immediately, and slashed at Ulgulu’s backside. The wolf spun but Guenhwyvar leaped by, again to the slope.
The game of hit-and-run went on for several moments, Guenhwyvar striking, then darting away. Finally, though, the wolf anticipated the panther’s dodge. Ulgulu brought the leaping panther down in his massive jaws. Guenhwyvar squirmed and tore free, but came up near the steep gorge. Ulgulu hovered over the cat, blocking any escape.
Drizzt exited the cave as the great wolf bore down, pushing Guenhwyvar back. Pebbles rolled out into the gorge; the panther’s back legs slipped and then clawed back, trying to find a hold. Even mighty Guenhwyvar could not hold out against the weight and strength of the barghest-wolf, Drizzt knew.
Drizzt saw immediately that he could not get the great wolf off Guenhwyvar in time. He pulled out the onyx figurine and tossed it near the combatants. “Be gone, Guenhwyvar!” he commanded.
Guenhwyvar normally would not desert its master in a time of such danger, but the panther understood what Drizzt had in mind. Ulgulu bore in powerfully, determinedly driving Guenhwyvar from the ledge.
Then the beast was pushing only intangible vapors. Ulgulu lurched forward and scrambled wildly, kicking more stones and the onyx figurine into the gorge. Overbalanced, the wolf could not find a hold, and then Ulgulu was falling.
Bones popped again, and the canine fur thinned; Ulgulu could not enact a levitation spell in his canine form. Desperate, the barghest concentrated, reaching for his goblinoid form. The wolf maw shortened into a flat-featured face; paws thickened and reformed into arms.
The half-transformed creature didn’t make it, but instead cracked into the stone.
Drizzt stepped off the ledge and into a levitation spell, moving down slowly and close to the rocky wall. As it had before, the spell soon died away. Drizzt bounced and clawed through the last twenty feet of the fall, coming to a hard stop at the rocky bottom. He saw the barghest twitching only a few feet away and tried to rise in defense, but darkness overwhelmed him.
* * *
Drizzt could not know how many hours had passed when a thunderous roar awakened him some time later. It was dark now and a cloudy night. Slowly the memories of the encounter came back to the dazed and injured drow. To his relief, he saw that Ulgulu lay still on the stone beside him, half a goblin and half a wolf, obviously quite dead.
A second roar, back up by the cave, turned the drow toward the ledge high above him. There stood Lagerbottoms, the hill giant, returned from a hunting trip and outraged by the carnage he had found.
Drizzt knew as soon as he managed to crawl to his feet that he could not fight another battle this day. He searched around for a moment, found the onyx figurine, and dropped it into his pouch. He wasn’t too concerned for Guenhwyvar. He had seen the panther through worse calamities—caught in the explosion of a magical wand, pulled into the Plane of Earth by an enraged elemental, even dropped into a lake of hissing acid. The figurine appeared undamaged, and Drizzt was certain that Guenhwyvar was now comfortably at rest in its astral home.
Drizzt, however, could afford no such rest. Already the giant had begun picking its way down the rocky slope. With a final look to Ulgulu, Drizzt felt a sense of vengeance that did little to defeat the agonizing, bitter memories of the slaughtered farmers. He set off, moving farther into the wild mountains, running from the giant and from the guilt.
8. Clues and Riddles
More than a day had passed since the massacre when the first of the Thistledowns’ neighbors rode out to their secluded farm. The stench of death alerted the visiting farmer to the carnage even before he looked in the house or barn.
He returned an hour later with Mayor Delmo and several other armed farmers at his side. They crawled through the Thistledown house and across the grounds cautiously, putting cloth over their faces to combat the terrible smell.
“Who could have done this?” the mayor demanded. “What monster?” As if in answer, one of the farmers walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, holding a broken scimitar in his hands.
“A drow weapon?” the farmer asked. “We should be getting McGristle.”
Delmo hesitated. He expected the party from Sundabar to arrive any day and felt that the famed ranger Dove Falconhand would be better able to handle the situation than the volatile and uncontrollable mountain man.
The debate never really began, though, for the snarl of a dog alerted all in the house that McGristle had arrived. The burly, dirty man stalked into the kitchen, the side of his face horribly scarred and caked with brown, dried blood.
“Drow weapon!” he spat, recognizing the scimitar all too clearly. “Same as he used agin me!”
“The ranger will be in soon,” Delmo began, but McGristle hardly listened. He stalked about the room and into the adjoining bedroom, gruffly tapping bodies with his foot and bending low to inspect some minor details.
“Saw the tracks outside,” McGristle stated suddenly. “Two sets, I make ‘em.”
“The drow has an ally,” the mayor reasoned. “More cause for us to wait for the party from Sundabar.”
“Bah, ye hardly know if they’re even comin’!” McGristle snorted. “Got to get after the drow now, while the trail’s fine for my dog’s nose!”
Several of the gathered farmers nodded their accord—until Delmo prudently reminded them of exactly what they might be facing.
“A single drow took you down, McGristle,” the mayor said. “Now you think there’s two of them, maybe more, and you want us to go and hunt them?”
“Bad fortune, it was, that took me down!” Roddy snapped back. He looked around, appealing to the now less-than-eager farmers. “I had that drow, had him cleaned an’ dressed!”
The farmers milled nervously and whispered to each other as the mayor took Roddy by the arm and led him to the side of t
he room.
“Wait a day,” Delmo begged. “Our chances will be much greater if the ranger comes.”
Roddy didn’t seem convinced. “My battle’s my own to fight,” he snarled. “He killed my dog an’ left me ugly.”
“You want him, and you’ll have him,” the mayor promised, “but there might be more on the table here than your dog or your pride.”
Roddy’s face contorted ominously, but the mayor was adamant. If a drow war party was indeed operating in the area, all of Maldobar was in imminent danger. The small group’s greatest defense until help could arrive from Sundabar was unity, and that defense would fail if Roddy led a group of men—fighters who were scarce enough already—on a chase through the mountains. Benson Delmo was astute enough to know that he could not appeal to Roddy on those terms, though. While the mountain man had remained in Maldobar for a couple of years, he was, in essence, a drifter and owed no allegiance to the town.
Roddy turned away, deciding that the meeting was at its end, but the mayor boldly grabbed his arm and turned him back around. Roddy’s dog bared its teeth and growled, but that threat was a small consideration to the fat man in light of the awful scowl that Roddy shot him.
“You’ll have the drow,” the mayor said quickly, “but wait for the help from Sundabar, I beg.” He switched to terms that Roddy could truly appreciate. “I am a man of no small means, McGristle, and you were a bounty hunter before you got here, and still are, I’d expect.”
Roddy’s expression quickly changed from outrage to curiosity.
“Wait for the help, then go get the drow.” The mayor paused, considering his forthcoming offer. He really had no experience in this sort of thing and, while he didn’t want to come in too low and spoil the interest he had sparked, he didn’t want to tax his own purse strings any more than was necessary. “A thousand gold for the drow’s head.”