second, Catti-brie, crouched farther down the hall to watch Guenhwyvar's progress, saw the slender forms of the approaching dark elf band.
She put an arrow into the air and used its silvery light to discern the dark elves' exact positions. Her face locked in a merciless grimace and the battered young woman rose behind the arrow's silvery wake to steadily begin stalking her enemies, knocking another arrow as she went.
Vengeance for Wulfgar dominated her every thought. She knew no fear, did not even flinch as she heard the expected reply from handcrossbows. Two quarrels stung her.
Another arrow went off, this one catching a dark elf in the shoulder and hurling him to the floor. Before its streaking light had dissipated, Catti-brie fired a third, this one screeching like a banshee as it careened off the worked tunnel's stone walls.
Still the young woman walked on. She knew the dark elves could see her every step, while she caught only silhouetted glimpses of the elves as her arrows streaked past.
Instinct told her to put an arrow up high, and she smiled grimly as it connected with a levitating drow, catching him squarely in the face as he rose, blowing his head apart. The force of the blow spun the body over, and it hung, motionless, in midair.
Catti-brie did not see her next arrow go off, and only then did she realize that the dark elves had put a globe of darkness over her. How foolish! she thought, for now they could not see her as she could not see them.
Still she walked, out of the globe, firing again, killing another of her enemies.
A crossbow quarrel hit the side of her face, scraped painfully against her jawbone.
Catti-brie walked on, jaw set, teeth gritted tightly. She saw the red-glowing eyes of the remaining two drow closing on her fast, knew that they had drawn swords and charged. She put the bow up, using their eyes as beacons.
A globe of darkness fell over her.
Terror welled up inside the young woman, but she fought it back stubbornly, her expression not changing. She knew she had only moments before a drow sword plunged through her. Her mind recalled the last positions in which she had seen her enemies, showed her the angles for her shot.
She put another arrow up, heard the slightest scuffle ahead and to the left, turned, and fired. Then she loosed a third and a fourth, using no guidance beyond her instinct, hoping that she might at least wound the charging dark elves and slow their progress. She fell flat to the floor and fired sidelong, then winced as her arrow soared away in the blackness, apparently not connecting.
Instincts guiding her still, Catti-brie rolled to her back and fired above her, heard a dull thump, then a sharp crack as the missile drove through a floating drow and into the ceiling. Chunks of rubble fell from above, and Catti-brie covered up.
She remained in a defensive position for a long while, expecting the ceiling to fall on her, expecting a dark elf to rush up and slash her apart.
He got his sword near the dwarf far more often than the dwarf's bulky axe came near to hitting him, but the lone drow facing Bruenor knew he could not win, could not stop this enraged enemy. He called upon his innate magic and lined Bruenor with blue-
glowing, harmless flames— faerie fire, it was called-distinctively outlining the dwarf's form and presenting the drow with an easier target.
Bruenor didn't even flinch.
The drow came with a vicious, straightforward thrust that forced the dwarf back on his heels, then turned and fled, thinking to put a few feet between him and his enemy, then turn and drop a darkness globe over the dwarf.
Bruenor didn't try to match the drow's long strides. He brought his axe in, clasped it in both hands, and pulled it back over his head.
"Me boy!" the dwarf yelled with all his rage, and with all his strength he hurled the axe, end over end. It was a daring move, a move offered by the desperation of a father who had lost his child. Bruenor's axe would not return to him as Aegis-fang had to Wulfgar. If the axe did not hit the mark…
It caught the drow just as he was turning the corner back into the winding side tunnel, diving into his hip and back and hurling him across the way to collide with the opposite corner. He tried to recover, wriggled about on the floor for a few moments, searching for his lost sword and air to breathe.
As his hand neared the hilt of his fallen weapon, a dwarven boot slammed down atop it, crushing the fingers.
Bruenor considered the angle of the sticking axe and the gush of blood pouring all about the weapon's blade. "Ye're dead," he said coldly to the dark elf, and he tore the weapon free with a sickening crackle.
The drow heard the words distantly, but his mind had shut down by that time, his thoughts flowing away from him as surely as was his life's blood.
Vierna did not relent as her companion fell dead, showed no signs that she cared at all for the battle's sudden turn. Drizzt's stomach turned at the sight of his sister, her features locked in the hatred that the Spider Queen so often fostered, a rage beyond reason, beyond consciousness and conscience.
Drizzt did not let his ambivalence affect his swordplay, though, not after Vierna had proclaimed his friends dead. He hit the snapping snake heads often, but couldn't seem to connect solidly enough to seriously damage any.
One got its fangs into his arm. Drizzt felt the numbing tingle and whipped his other blade across to sever the thing.
The movement left his opposite flank open, though, and a second head got him on the shoulder. A third came in for the side of his face.
His backhand slash took the nearest viper's head and drove the other attacking snake away.
Vierna's whip had only three heads remaining, but the hits had staggered Drizzt. He rocked back a few steps, found some support in the solid wall along the side of the entryway. He looked to his shoulder, horrified to see the severed head of the snake still holding fast, its fangs deeply embedded.
Only then did Drizzt notice the familiar silver flashes of Taulmaril, Catti-brie's bow. Guenhwyvar was alive and about; Catti-brie was out in the hall, fighting; and, from
somewhere far down the other corridor, the one along the right-hand side of the small chamber, Drizzt heard the unmistakable roar of Bruenor Battlehammer's litany of rage.
"Me boy!"
"You said they were dead," Drizzt remarked to Vierna. He steadied himself against the wall.
"They do not matter!" Vierna yelled back at him, obviously as amazed as Drizzt by the revelation. "You are all that matters, you and the glories your death will bring me!" She launched herself forward at her wounded brother, three snake heads leading the way.
Drizzt had found his strength again, had found it in the presence of his friends, in the knowledge that they, too, were involved in this fight and would need him to win.
Instead of lashing out or swiping across, Drizzt let then snake heads come to him. He got bit again, twice, but Twinkle split one viper's rushing head down the middle, leaving its torn body writhing uselessly.
Drizzt kicked off the wall, driving Vierna back in surprise. He worked his blades fast and hard, aiming always for the snakes of Vierna's whip, though more than once he felt as if he could have slipped through his sister's defenses and scored a hit on her body.
Another snake head dropped to the floor.
Vierna came across with the decimated whip, but a scimitar sliced deeply into her forearm before she could snap the remaining snake head forward. The weapon flew to the floor. The writhing snake became a lifeless thong as soon as the whip left Vierna's hand.
Vierna hissed-she seemed an animal-at Drizzt, her empty hands grasping the air repeatedly.
Drizzt did not immediately advance, did not have to, for Twinkle's deadly tip was poised only inches from his sister's vulnerable breast.
Vierna's hand twitched toward her belt, where twin maces, carved in intricate runes of spiderwebs, awaited. Drizzt could well guess the power of those weapons, and he knew firsthand from his days in Menzoberranzan Vierna's skill in using them.
"Do not," he ordered, indicating t
he weapons.
"We were both trained by Zaknafein," Vierna reminded him, and the mention of his father stung Drizzt. "Do you fear to find out who best learned the many lessons?"
"We were both sired by Zaknafein," Drizzt retorted, tapping Vierna's hand away from her belt with Twinkle's furiously glowing blade. "Do not continue this and dishonor him. There is a better way, my sister, a light you cannot know."
Vierna's cackling laughter mocked him. Did he really believe he could reform her, a priestess of Lloth?
"Do not!" Drizzt commanded more forcefully as Vierna's hand again inched toward the nearest mace.
She lurched for it. Twinkle plunged through her breast, through her heart, its bloody tip coming out her back.
Drizzt was right against her then, holding her arms in tight, supporting her as her legs failed her.
They stared at each other, unblinking, as Vierna slowly slumped to the floor. Gone was her rage, her obsession, replaced by a look of serenity, a rare expression on the face of a drow.
"I am sorry," was all Drizzt could quietly mouth.
Vierna shook her head, refusing any apology. To Drizzt, it seemed as if that buried part of her that was Zaknafein Do'Urden's daughter approved of this ending. Vierna's eyes then closed forever.
Chapter 24 The Long Walk Home
"Well done." The words came at Drizzt unexpectedly, jerked him into the realization that while Vierna was dead, the battle might not yet be won. He jumped aside, scimitars coming up defensively before him.
He lowered the weapons when he considered Jarlaxle, the mercenary sitting propped against the chamber's far wall, one leg sticking out to the side at a weird angle.
"The panther," the mercenary explained, speaking the Common tongue as fluidly as if he had spent his life on the surface. "I thought I would be killed. The panther had me down." Jarlaxle gave a shrug. "Perhaps my lightning bolt hurt the beast."
The mention of the lightning bolt reminded Drizzt of the wand, reminded Drizzt that this drow was still very dangerous. He went down in a crouch, circling defensively.
Jarlaxle winced in pain and held an empty hand up in front of him to calm the alerted ranger. "The wand is put away," he assured Drizzt. "I would have no desire to use it if I had you helpless-as you believe you have me."
"You meant to kill me," Drizzt replied coldly.
Again the mercenary shrugged, and a smile widened on his face. "Vierna would have killed me if she had won and I had not come to her aid," he explained calmly. "And, skilled as you may be, I thought she would win."
It seemed logical enough, and Drizzt knew well that pragmatism was a common trait among dark elves. "Lloth would reward you still for my death," Drizzt reasoned.
"I do not slave for the Spider Queen," Jarlaxle replied. "I am an opportunist."
"You make a threat?"
The mercenary laughed loudly, then winced again at the throb in his broken leg.
Bruenor rushed into the chamber from the side passage. He glanced at Drizzt, then focused on Jarlaxle, his rage not yet played out.
"Hold!" Drizzt commanded him as the dwarf started for the apparently helpless mercenary.
Bruenor skidded to a stop and put a cold stare on Drizzt, a look made more ominous by the dwarf's ripped face, his right eye badly gouged and a line of blood running from the top of his forehead to the bottom of his left cheek. "We're not for needing prisoners," Bruenor growled.
Drizzt considered the venom in Bruenor's voice and considered the fact that he had not seen Wulfgar anywhere in this fight. "Where are the others?"
"I'm right here," replied Catti-brie, coming into the chamber from the main tunnel, behind Drizzt.
Drizzt turned to regard her, her dirty face and incredibly grim expression revealing much. "Wulf…" he started to ask, but Catti-brie shook her head solemnly, as though she could not bear to hear the name spoken aloud. She walked near Drizzt and he winced, seeing the small crossbow quarrel still sticking from the side of her jaw.
Drizzt gently stroked Catti-brie's face, then took hold of the obscene dart and yanked it free. He brought his hand immediately to the young woman's shoulder, lending her support as waves of nausea and pain swept over her.
"I pray I did not harm the panther," Jarlaxle interrupted, "a magnificent beast indeed!"
Drizzt spun about, his lavender eyes flashing.
"He's baiting ye," Bruenor remarked, his fingers moving eagerly over the handle of his bloody axe, "begging for mercy without the begging."
Drizzt wasn't so sure. He knew the horrors of Men zoberranzan, knew the lengths that some drow would travel to survive. His own father, Zaknafein, the drow Drizzt had loved most dearly, had been a killer, had served as Matron Malice's assassin out of a simple will to survive. Might it be that this mercenary was of similar pragmatism?
Drizzt wanted to believe that. With Vierna dead at his feet, his family, his ties to his heritage, were no more, and he wanted to believe that he was not alone in the world.
"Kill the dog, or we drag him back," Bruenor growled, his patience exhausted.
"What would be your choice, Drizzt Do'Urden?" Jarlaxle asked calmly.
Drizzt considered Jarlaxle once more. This one was not so much like Zaknafein, he decided, for he remembered his father's rage when it was rumored that Drizzt had slain surface elves. There was indeed an undeniable difference between Zaknafein and Jarlaxle. Zaknafein killed only those he believed deserved death, only those serving Lloth or other evil minions. He would not have walked beside Vierna on this hunt.
The sudden rage that welled up in Drizzt almost sent him rushing at the mercenary. He fought the impulse back, though, remembering again the weight of Menzoberranzan, the burden of pervasive evil that bowed the backs of those few dark elves who were not of typical demeanor. Zaknafein had admitted to Drizzt that he had almost lost himself to the ways of Lloth many times, and in his own trek through the Underdark Drizzt Do'Urden often feared what he would, what he had, become.
How could he pass judgment on this dark elf? The scimitars went back into their sheaths.
"He killed me boy!" Bruenor roared, apparently understanding Drizzt's intentions. Drizzt shook his head resolutely.
"Mercy is a curious thing, Drizzt Do'Urden," Jarlaxle remarked. "Strength, or weakness?" "Strength," Drizzt answered quickly. "It can save your soul," Jarlaxle replied, "or damn your body." He tipped his wide-brimmed hat to Drizzt, then moved suddenly, his arm coming free of his cloak. Something small slammed the floor in front of Jarlaxle, exploding, filling that area of the chamber with opaque smoke.
"Damn him!" Catti-brie growled, and she snapped off a streaking shot that cut through the haze and thundered against the stone of the far wall. Bruenor rushed in, axe flailing wildly, but there was nothing there to hit. The mercenary was gone.
By the time Bruenor came out of the smoke, both Drizzt and Catti-brie were standing over the prone form of Thib bledorf Pwent.
"He dead?" the dwarf king asked.
Drizzt bent to the battlerager, remembered that Pwent had been hit viciously by Vierna's snake-headed whip. "No," he replied. "The whips are not designed to kill, just to paralyze."
His keen ears caught the words as Bruenor muttered, "Too bad," under his breath.
It took them a few moments to revive the battlerager. Pwent hopped up to his feet-and promptly fell over once more. He struggled back up, humbled until Drizzt made the mistake of thanking him for his valuable help.
In the main corridor, they found the five dead drow, one still hanging near the ceiling in the area where the globe of darkness had been. Catti-brie's explanation of where this small band had come from sent a shudder through Drizzt.
"Regis," he breathed, and he rushed off down the hall way, to the side passage where he had left the halfling.
There sat Regis, terrified, half-buried under a dead drow, holding the jeweled dagger tightly in his hand.
"Come on, my friend," the relieved Drizzt said to him. "It is time we went home."
The five beaten companions leaned on each other as they made their way slowly and quietly through the tun nels. Drizzt looked around at the ragged group, at Bruenor with his eye closed and Pwent still having trouble coordinating his muscles. Drizzt's own foot throbbed painfully. The realization of the wound became clearer as the adrena line rush of battle slowly ebbed. It was not the physical problems that most alarmed the drow ranger, though. The impact of Wulfgar's loss seemed to have fully sunk in for all those who had been his companions.
Would Catti-brie be able to call upon her rage once more, to ignore the emotional battering she had taken and fight with all her heart? Would Bruenor, so wickedly wounded that Drizzt was not certain he would make it back to Mithril Hall alive, be able to guide himself through yet another battle?
Drizzt couldn't be sure, and his sigh of relief was sincere when General Dagna, at the lead of the dwarven cavalry and its grunting mounts, rounded the bend in the tunnel far ahead.
Bruenor allowed himself to collapse at the sight, and the dwarves wasted little time in getting their injured king, and Regis, strapped to war pigs and ushered out of the untamed complex. Pwent went, too, accepting the reins of a pig, but Drizzt and Catti-brie did not take a direct route back to Mithril Hall. Accompanied by the three displaced dwarven riders, General Dagna included, the young woman led Drizzt to Wulfgar's fateful cave.
There could be no doubt, Drizzt realized as soon as he looked at the collapsed alcove, no doubt, no reprieve. His friend was gone forever.
Catti-brie recounted the details of the battle, had to stop for a long while before she mustered the voice to tell of Wulfgar's valiant end.
She finally looked to the pile of rubble, quietly said "Good-bye," and walked out of the room with the three dwarves.
Drizzt stood alone for many minutes, staring helplessly. He could hardly believe that mighty Wulfgar was under there. The moment seemed unreal to him, against his sen sibilities.
But it was real.
And Drizzt was helpless.
Pangs of guilt assaulted the drow, realizations that he had caused his sister's hunt, and thus had caused Wulfgar's death. He summarily dismissed the thoughts, though, refusing to consider them again.