Dust continued to settle in the wide chamber, dulling the flickering light; one of the torches had been extinguished beneath a falling chunk of I 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 soft 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.
Bruenor kicked a heavy stone, the force of his blow shifting it aside.
There lay Aegis-fang.
The brave dwarf's knees went weak at the sight of the marvelous warhammer's head, etched with the symbols of Dumathoin, a dwarven god, the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain. Bruenor forced deep breaths into his lungs and tried to steady himself for a long while before he could manage the strength to reach down and work the hammer free of the rubble.
It had been Bruenor's greatest creation, the epitome of his considerable smithing abilities. He had put all of his love and skill into forging the hammer; he had made it for Wulfgar.
Catti-brie's semistoic front collapsed like the ceiling at the sight of the weapon. Quiet sobs made her shoulders bob, and she trembled, seeming frail in the dim, dusty light.
Bruenor found his own strength in watching her display. He reminded himself that he was the Eighth King of Mithril Hall, that he was responsible for his subjects - and for his daughter. He slipped the precious warhammer into the strap of his traveling pack and hooked an arm under Catti-brie's shoulder, hoisting her to her feet.
"We can't do a thing for the boy," Bruenor whispered. Catti-brie pulled away from him and moved back to the pile, growling as she tossed several smaller stones aside. She could see the futility of it all, could see the tons of dirt and stones, many of them too large to be moved, filling the alcove. But Catti-brie dug anyway, simply incapable of giving up on the barbarian. No other apparent course offered any hope.
Bruenor's hands gently closed about her upper arms.
With a snarl, the young woman shrugged him away and resumed her work.
"No!" Bruenor roared, and he grabbed her again, forcefully, lifting her from the ground and hauling her back from the pile. He put her down hard, with his wide shoulders squared between her and the pile, and whichever way Catti-brie went to get around him, Bruenor shuffled to block her.
"Ye can't do a thing!" he shouted into her face a dozen times.
"I've got to try!" she finally pleaded with him, when it became obvious to her that Bruenor was not going to let her back to the digging.
Bruenor shook his head - only the tears in his dark eyes, his obvious distress, prevented Catti-brie from punching him in the face. She did calm down then, stopped trying to slip past the stubborn dwarf.
"It's over," Bruenor said to her. "The boy ... me boy, choosed his course. He gave himself for us, yerself and me. Don't ye do him the dishonor of letting stupid pains keep ye here, in danger."
Catti-brie's body seemed to slump at the undeniable truth of Bruenor's reasoning. She did not move back to the pile, to Wulfgar's burial cairn, as Bruenor retrieved his shield and axe. The dwarf came back to her and draped one arm about her back.
"Say yer good-byes," he offered, and he silently waited a moment before leading Catti-brie away, first to her bow, then from the chamber, toward the same entrance through which they had come.
Catti-brie stopped beside him and regarded him and the tunnel curiously, as if questioning their course.
"Pwent and the cat'll have to find their own way about," Bruenor answered her blank stare, misunderstanding her confusion.
Catti-brie wasn't worried about Guenhwyvar. She knew that nothing could bring the panther serious harm while she still possessed the magical figurine, and she wasn't worried about the missing battlerager at all.
"What about Drizzt?" she asked simply.
"Me guess is that the elf's alive," Bruenor answered with confidence. "One of them drow asked me about him, asked me where he was at. He's alive, and he's got away from them, and by me own figuring, Drizzt's got a better chance o' getting clear of these tunnels than the two of us. Might be that the cat's with him even now."
"And it might be that he needs us," Catti-brie argued, pulling free of Bruenor's gentle touch. She flipped the bow over her shoulder and crossed her arms over her chest, her face grim and determined.
"We're going home, girl," Bruenor ordered sternly. "We're not for knowing where Drizzt might be. I'm only guessing, and hoping, that he really is alive!"
"Are ye willing to take the chance?" Catti-brie asked simply. "Are ye willing to risk that he's needing us? We lost one friend, maybe two if the assassin finished off Regis. I'm not for giving up on Drizzt, not for any risk." She winced as another memory flashed through her mind, a memory of being lost on Tarterus, another plane of existence, when Drizzt Do'Urden had bravely faced unspeakable horrors to bring her home.
"Ye remember Tarterus?" she said to Bruenor, and the thought made the helpless-feeling dwarf blink and turn away.
"I'm not giving up," Catti-brie said again, "not for any risk." She looked to the tunnel entrance across the way, where the escaping dark elves apparently had taken flight. "Not for any damned dark elves and their hell-spawned friends!"
Bruenor stayed quiet for a long while, thinking of Wulfgar, milling over his daughter's determined words. Drizzt might be about, might be hurt, might be caught again. If it was Bruenor lost down there, and Drizzt up here, the dwarf had no doubt which course Drizzt would choose.
He looked again at Catti-brie and at the pile behind her. He had just lost Wulfgar. How could he risk losing Catti-brie as well?
Bruenor looked more closely at Catti-brie, saw the seething determination in her eyes. "That's me girl," the dwarf said quietly.
They retrieved the remaining torch and left through the exit on the opposite side of the chamber, moved deeper into the tunnels in search of their missing friend.
* * * * *
One who had not been raised in the perpetual gloom of the Underdark would not have noticed the subtle shift in the depth of the darkness, the slight tingling breeze of fresher air. To Drizzt the changes came as obviously as a slap across the face, and he picked up his pace, hoisting Regis tight to his side.
"What is it?" the scared halfling demanded, glancing about as if he expected Artemis Entreri to jump out of the nearest shadows and devour him.
They passed a wide but low side passage, sloping upward. Drizzt hesitated, his direction sense screaming to him that he had just passed the correct tunnel. He ignored those silent pleas, though, and continued on, hopeful that the opening to the outside world would be accessible enough for him and Regis to get a welcome breath of fresh air.
It was. They rounded a bend in the tunnel and felt the chilly burst of wind in their faces, saw a lighter opening ahead, and saw beyond it towering mountains . . . and stars!
The halfling's profound sigh of relief echoed Drizzt's sentiments perfectly as he carried Regis on. When they came out of the tunnel, both of them were nearly overcome by the splendor of the mountainous scene spread wide before them, by the sheer beauty of the surface world under the stars, so removed from the starless nights of the Underdark. The wind, rushing past them, seemed a vital and alive entity.
They were on a narrow ledge, two-thirds of the way to the bottom of a steep, thousand-foot cliff. A narrow path wound up to their right, down to the left, but at only a slight angle, which offered little hope that it would continue long enough to get them either up or down the cliff.
Drizzt considered the towering wall. He knew he could easily manage the few hundred feet to the bottom, could probably get up to the top without too much trouble, but he didn't think he'd be able to bring Regis with him and didn't like the prospect of being in an unknown stretch of wilderness, not knowing how long it might take him to get back to Mithril Hall.
His friends, not so far away, were in trouble.
"Keeper's Dale is up there," Regis remarked hopefully, pointing to the northwest, "probably no more than a few miles."
Drizzt nodded but replied, "We have to go back in."
While Regis did not seem pleased by that prospect, he did not argue, understanding that he could not get off this ledge in his present condition.
"Well done," came Entreri's voice from up around the bend. The assassin's dark silhouette came into sight, the jewels of his belted dagger glimmering like his heat-seeing eyes. "I knew you would come to this place," he explained to Drizzt. "I knew you would sense the clean air and make for it."
"Do you congratulate me or yourself?" the drow ranger asked.
"Both!" Entreri replied with a hearty laugh. The white of his teeth disappeared, replaced by a cold frown, as he continued to approach. "The tunnel you passed fifty yards back will indeed take you to the higher level, where you'll likely find your friends - your dead friends, no doubt."
Drizzt didn't take the bait, didn't let his rage send him charging ahead.
"But you cannot get there, can you?" Entreri teased. "You alone could keep ahead of me, could avoid the fight I demand. But, alas for your wounded companion. Think of it, Drizzt Do'Urden. Leave the halfling and you can run free!"
Drizzt didn't justify the absurd thought with a reply.
"I would leave him," Entreri remarked, dropping his cold glare over Regis as he spoke. The halfling gave a curious whimper and slumped under the strong hold of Drizzt's arm.
Drizzt tried not to imagine the horrors Regis had suffered at Entreri's vile hands.
"You will not leave him," Entreri continued. "We long ago established that difference between us, the difference you call strength, but that I know to be weakness." He was only a dozen strides away; his slender sword hissed free of its scabbard, illuminating him in its blue-green glow. "And so to our business," he said. "And so to our destiny. Do you like the battlefield I have prepared? The only way off this ledge is the tunnel behind you, and so I, like yourself, cannot flee, must play it out to the end." He looked over the cliff as he spoke. "A deadly drop for the loser," he explained, smiling. "A fight with no reprieve."
Drizzt could not deny the sensations that came over him, the heat in his breast and behind his eyes. He could not deny that, in some repressed corner of his heart and soul, he wanted this challenge, wanted to prove Entreri wrong, to prove the assassin's existence to be worthless. Still, the fight would never have happened if Drizzt Do'Urden had been given a reasonable choice. The desires of his ego, he understood and fully accepted, were no valid reason for mortal combat. Now, with Regis helpless behind him and his friends somewhere above, facing dark elf enemies, the challenge had to be met.
He felt the hard metal of his scimitar hilts in his hands, let his eyes slip back fully into the normal spectrum of light as Twinkle flared its angry blue.
Entreri halted, sword at one side, dagger at the other, and motioned for Drizzt to approach.
For the third time in less than a day, Twinkle slapped hard against the assassin's slender blade; the third time, and, as far as both Drizzt and Entreri were concerned, the very last time.
They started easily, each measuring his steps on the unorthodox arena. The ledge was perhaps ten feet wide at this point, but narrowed considerably just behind Drizzt and just behind Entreri.
A backhand slash with the sword led Entreri's routine, dagger thrust following.