"These tunnels are endless," Regis moaned after two more hours of unremarkable twists and turns in the goblin-enhanced natural passageways. Drizzt allowed a break for supper-even lit a torch-and the two friends sat in a small natural chamber on a flat rock, surrounded by leering stalactites and monsterlike mounds of piled stone.
Drizzt understood just how unintentionally perceptive the half ling's words might prove. They were far underground, several miles, and the caverns continued aimlessly, connecting chambers large and small and meeting with dozens of side passages. Regis had been in the dwarven mines before, but he had never entered that next lower realm, the dreaded Underdark, wherein lived the drow elves, wherein Drizzt Do'Urden had been born.
The stifling air and inevitable realizations of thousands of tons of rock over his head inevitably led the dark elf to thoughts of his past life, of the days when he had lived in Menzoberranzan, or walked with Guenhwyvar in the seemingly endless tunnels of Toril's subterranean world.
"We'll get lost, just like the dwarves," Regis grumbled, munching a biscuit. He took tiny bites and chewed them a thousand times to savor each precious crumb.
Drizzt's smile didn't seem to comfort him, but the ranger was confident that he and, more particularly, Guenhwyvar knew exactly where they were, making a systematic circuit with the chamber of the main goblin battle as their hub. He pointed behind Regis, his motion prompting the halfling to half-turn in his rocky seat.
"If we went back through that tunnel and branched at the first right-hand passage, we would come, in a matter of minutes, to the large chamber where Bruenor defeated the goblins," Drizzt explained. "We were not so far from this spot when we met Cobble."
"Seems like farther, that's all," Regis mumbled under his breath.
Drizzt did not press the point, glad to have Regis along, even if the halfling was in a particularly grumpy mood. Drizzt hadn't seen much of Regis in the weeks since he had returned to Mithril Hall; no one had, actually, except perhaps the dwarven cooking staff in the communal dining halls.
"Why have you returned?" Drizzt asked suddenly, his question making Regis choke on a piece of biscuit. The halfling stared at him incredulously.
"We are glad to have you back," Drizzt continued, clarifying the intentions of his rather blunt question. "And certainly all of us are hoping you will stay here for a long time to come. But, why, my friend?"
"The wedding…" Regis stammered.
"A fine reason, but hardly the only one," Drizzt replied with a knowing smile. "When last we saw you, you were a guildmaster and all of Calimport was yours for the taking."
Regis looked away, ran his fingers through his curly brown hair, fiddled with several rings, and slipped his hand down to tug at his one dangling earring.
"That is the life the Regis I know always desired," Drizzt remarked.
"Then maybe you really didn't understand Regis," the halfling replied.
"Perhaps," Drizzt admitted, "but there is more to it than that. I know you well enough to understand that you would go to great lengths to avoid a fight. Yet, when the goblin battle came, you remained beside me."
"Where safer than with Drizzt Do'Urden?"
"In the higher complex, in the dining halls," the drow replied without hesitation. Drizzt's smile was one of friendship; the luster in his lavender eyes showed no animosity for the halfling, whatever falsehoods Regis might be playing. "Whatever the reason you have come, be sure that we are all glad you are here," Drizzt said honestly. "Bruenor more than any, perhaps. But if you have found some trouble, some danger, you would be well advised to state it openly, that we might battle it together. We are your friends and will stand beside you, without blame, against whatever odds we are offered. By my experience, those odds are always better when I know the enemy."
"I lost the guild," Regis admitted, "just two weeks after you left Calimport."
The news did not surprise the drow.
"Artemis Entreri," Regis said grimly, lifting his cherubic face to stare at Drizzt directly, studying the drow's every movement.
"Entreri took the guild?" Drizzt asked.
Regis nodded. "He didn't have such a hard time of that. His network reached to my most trusted colleagues."
"You should have expected as much from the assassin," Drizzt replied, and he gave a small laugh, which made Regis's eyes widen with apparent surprise.
"You find this funny?"
"The guild is better in Entreri's hands," Drizzt replied, to the halfling's continued surprise. "He is suited for the double-dealing ways of miserable Calimport."
"I thought you…" Regis began. "I mean, don't you want to go and…"
"Kill Entreri?" Drizzt asked with a soft chuckle. "My battle with the assassin is ended," he added when Regis's eager nod confirmed his guess.
"Entreri might not think so," Regis said grimly.
Drizzt shrugged-and noticed that his casual attitude seemed to bother the halfling more than a little. "As long as Entreri remains in the southland, he is of no concern to me." Drizzt knew that Regis didn't expect Entreri to remain in the south. Perhaps that was why Regis would not stay in the upper levels during the goblin fight, Drizzt thought. Perhaps Regis feared that Entreri might sneak into Mithril Hall. If the assassin found both Drizzt and Regis, he probably would go after Drizzt first.
"You hurt him, you know," Regis went on, "in your fight, I mean. He's not the type to forgive something like that."
Drizzt's look became suddenly grave; Regis shifted back, putting more distance between himself and the fires in the drow's lavender eyes. "Do you believe he has followed you north?" Drizzt asked bluntly.
Regis shook his head emphatically. "I arranged things so it would look like I had been killed," he explained. "Besides, Entreri knows where Mithril Hall is. He could find you without having to follow me here.
"But he won't," Regis went on. "From all I have heard, he has lost the use of one arm, and lost an eye as well. He would hardly be your fighting equal anymore."
"It was the loss of his heart that stole his fighting ability," Drizzt remarked, more to himself than to Regis. Despite his casual attitude, Drizzt could not easily dismiss his long-standing rivalry with the deadly assassin. Entreri was his opposite in many ways, passionless and amoral, but in fighting ability he had proven to be Drizzt's equal— almost. Entreri's philosophy maintained that a true warrior be a heartless thing, a pure, efficient killer. Drizzt's beliefs went in exactly the opposite direction. To the drow, who had grown up among so many warriors holding similar ideals as the assassin, the passion of righteousness enhanced a warrior's prowess. Drizzt's father, Zaknafein, was unequaled in Menzoberranzan because his swords rang out for justice, because he fought with the sincere belief that his battles were morally justified.
"Do not doubt that he will ever hate you," Regis remarked grimly, stealing Drizzt's private contemplations.
Drizzt noted a sparkle in the halfling's eye and took it as an indication of Regis's burning hatred of Entreri. Did Regis want, expect, him to go back to Calimport and finish his war with Entreri? the drow wondered. Did Regis expect Drizzt to deliver the thieves' guild back to him, deposing its assassin leader?
"He hates me because my way of life shows his to be an empty lie," Drizzt remarked firmly, somewhat coldly. The drow would not go back to Calimport, would not go back to do battle with Artemis Entreri, for any reason. To do so would put him on the assassin's moral level, something the drow, who had turned his back on his own amoral people, feared more than anything in all the world.
Regis looked away, apparently catching on to Drizzt's true feelings. Disappointment was obvious in his expression; the drow had to believe that Regis really did hope he would regain his precious guild at the end of Drizzt's scimitars. And Drizzt didn't really take much hope in the halfling's claims that Entreri would not come north. If the assassin, or at least agents of the assassin, would not be about, then why had Regis remained tight to Drizzt's side when they went down to fight the goblins?
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"Come," the drow bade, before his mounting anger could take hold of him. "We have many more miles to cover before we break for the night. We must soon send Guenhwyvar back to the Astral Plane, and our chances of finding the dwarves are better with the panther beside us."
Regis stuffed his remaining food in his small pack, doused the torch, and fell in step behind the drow. Drizzt looked back at him often, somewhat amazed, somewhat disappointed, by the angry glow in the red dots that were the halfling's eyes.
Chapter 8 Sparks A-Flying
Beads of glistening sweat rolled along the barbarian's sculpted arms; shadows of the flickering I hearth drew definitive lines along his biceps I and thick forearms, accentuating the enormous, corded muscles.
With astounding ease, as though he were swinging a tool made for slender nails, Wulfgar brought a twenty-pound sledge down repeatedly on a metal shaft. Bits of molten iron flew with every ringing hit and spattered the walls and floor and the thick leather apron he wore, for the barbarian had carelessly overheated the metal. Blood surged in Wulfgar's great shoulders, but he did not blink and he did not tire. He was driven by the certainty that he had to work out the demon emotions that had grabbed his heart.
He would find solace in exhaustion.
Wulfgar had not worked the forge in years, not since Bruenor had released him from servitude back in Icewind Dale, a place, a life, that seemed a million miles removed.
Wulfgar needed the iron now, needed the unthinking, instinctual pounding, the physical duress to overrule the confusing jumble of emotions that would not let him rest. The rhythmic banging forced his thoughts into a straight line pattern; he allowed himself to consider only a single complete thought between each interrupting bang.
He wanted to resolve so many things this day, mostly to remind himself of those qualities that initially had drawn him to his soon-to-be bride. At each interval, though, the same image flashed to him: Aegis-fang twirling dangerously close to Drizzt's head.
He had tried to kill his dearest friend.
With suddenly renewed vigor, he sent the sledge pounding home on the metal and again sent lines of sparks flying throughout the small, private chamber.
What in the Nine Hells was happening to him?
Again, the sparks flew wildly.
How many times had Drizzt Do'Urden saved him? How empty would his life have been without his ebon-skinned friend?
He grunted as the hammer hit home.
But the drow had kissed Catti-brie-Wulfgar's Catti-brie! — outside Mithril Hall on the day of his return!
Wulfgar's breathing came in labored gasps, but his arm pumped fiercely, playing his fury through the smithy hammer. His eyes were closed as tightly as the hand that clenched the hammer; his muscles swelled with the strain.
"That one for throwin' around corners?" he heard a dwarf's voice ask.
Wulfgar's eyes popped open and he spun about to see one of Bruenor's kinfolk shuffling past the partly opened doorway, the dwarf's laughter echoing as he made his way along the stone-worked corridor. When the barbarian looked back to his work, he understood the dwarf's mirth, for the metal spear he had been shaping was now badly bowed in the middle from the too-hard slams on the overheated metal.
Wulfgar tossed the ruined shaft aside and let the hammer drop to the stone floor.
"Why did you do it to me?" he asked aloud, though, of course, Drizzt was too far away to hear him. His mind held a conjured image of Drizzt and his beloved Catti-brie embraced in a deep kiss, an image the beleaguered Wulfgar could not let go, even though he had not actually seen the two in the act.
He wiped a hand across his sweaty brow, leaving a line of soot on his forehead, and slumped to a seat on the edge of a stone table. He hadn't expected things to become this complicated, hadn't anticipated Catti-brie's outrageous behavior. He thought of the first time he had seen his love, when she was barely more than a girl, skipping along the tunnels of the dwarven complex in Icewind Dale-carelessly skipping, as though all the ever-present dangers of that harsh region, and all the memories of the recent war against Wulfgar's people simply fell away from her delicate shoulders, bounced off her as surely as did her lustrous auburn tresses.
It didn't take young Wulfgar long to understand that Catti-brie had captured his heart with that carefree dance. He had never met a woman like her; in his male-dominated tribe, women were virtual slaves, cowering to the often unreasonable demands of the menfolk. Barbarian women did not dare to question their men, certainly did not embarrass them, as Catti-brie had done to Wulfgar when he had insisted that she not accompany the force sent to parley with the goblin tribe.
Wulfgar was wise enough now to admit his own shortcomings, and he felt a fool for the way he had spoken to Catti-brie. Still, there remained in the barbarian a need for a woman-a wife-that he could protect, a wife that would allow him his rightful place as a man.
Things had become so very complicated, and then, just to make matters worse, Catti-brie, his Catti-brie, had shared a kiss with Drizzt Do'Urden!
Wulfgar bounced up from his seat and rushed to retrieve the hammer, knowing that he would spend many more hours at the forge, many more hours transferring the rage from his knotted muscles to the metal. For the metal had yielded to him as Catti-brie would not, had complied to the undeniable call of his heavy hammer.
Wulfgar sent the hammer down with all his might, and a newly heated metal bar shuddered with the impact. Pong Sparks whipped across Wulfgar's high cheekbones, one nipping at the edge of his eye.
Blood surging, muscles corded, Wulfgar felt no pain.
"Put up the torch," the drow whispered.
"Light will alert our enemies," Regis argued in similarly hushed tones.
They heard a growl, low and echoing, down the corridor.
"The torch," Drizzt instructed, handing Regis a small tinderbox. "Wait here with the light. Guenhwyvar and I will circle about."
"Now I am bait?" the halfling asked.
Drizzt, his senses tuned outward for signs of danger, did not hear the question. One scimitar drawn, Twinkle and its telltale glow waiting poised in its sheath, he slipped silently ahead and disappeared into the gloom.
Regis, still grumbling, struck flint to steel and soon had the torch blazing. Drizzt was out of sight.
A growl spun the halfling about, mace at the ready, but it was only Guenhwyvar, ever alert, doubling back down a side passage. The panther padded past the halfling, following Drizzt's course, and Regis quickly shuffled behind, though he could not hope to keep pace with the beast.
He was alone again in seconds, his torch casting elongated, ominous shadows along the uneven walls. His back to the stone, Regis inched on, as quiet as death.
The black mouth of a side passage loomed just a few feel away. The halfling continued walking, holding the torch straight out behind him, his mace leading the way. He sensed a presence around that corner, something inching up to the edge at him from the other direction.
Regis carefully laid the torch on the stone and brought his mace in close to his chest, gently sliding his feet to perfectly balance his weight.
He went around the corner in a blinding rush, chopping with the mace. Something blue flashed to intercept; then came the ring of metal on metal. Regis instantly brought his weapon back and sent it whipping in sidelong, lower.
Again came the distinctive ring of a parry.
Out came the mace, and back in, deftly along the same course. The halfling's skilled adversary was not fooled though, and the blocking blade was still in place.
"Regis!"
The mace twirled above the halfling's head, ready to dart ahead, but Regis swung it down at arm's length instead, suddenly recognizing the voice.
"I told you to remain back there with the light," Drizzt scolded him, stepping out of the shadow. "You are fortunate I did not kill you."
"Or that I did not kill you," Regis replied without missing a beat, and his calm, cold tone made Drizzt's face contort with surprise. "
Have you found anything?" the halfling asked.
Drizzt shook his head. "We are close," he replied quietly "Both Guenhwyvar and I are certain of that."
Regis walked over and picked up his torch, then tucked his mace into his belt, within easy reach.
Guenhwyvar's sudden growl echoed at them from farther down the long corridor, launching them both into a run. "Don't leave me behind!" Regis demanded, and he grabbed hold of Drizzt's cloak and would not let go, his furry feet skipping, jumping, even skidding along as he tried to keep pace.
Drizzt slowed when Guenhwyvar's yellow-green, glassy eyes reflected back at him from just beyond the leading edge of the torchlight, at a corner where the passageway turned sharply.
"I think we found the dwarves," Regis muttered grimly. He handed Drizzt the torch and let go of the cloak, following the drow up to the bend.
Drizzt peeked around-Regis saw him wince-then brought the torch into the open, casting light on the dreadful scene.
They had indeed found the missing dwarves, sliced and slaughtered, some lying, some propped against the walls at irregular intervals along a short expanse of worked stone corridor.
"If ye're not for wearing the apron, then don't ye be wearing it!" Bruenor said in frustration. Catti-brie nodded, finally hearing the concession she had wanted from the beginning.
"But, me king,…" protested Cobble, the only other one in the private chamber with Bruenor and Catti-brie. Both he and Bruenor sported severe holy water headaches.
"Bah!" the dwarf king snorted to silence the good-intentioned cleric. "Ye're not knowing me girl as well as meself. If she's saying she won't be wearing it, then all the giants o' the Spine of the World couldn't be changing her mind."
"Bah yerself!" came an unexpected call from outside the room, followed by a tremendous knock. "I know ye're in there, Bruenor Battlehammer, who calls himself king o' Mithril Hall! Now be opening yer door and meet your better!"
"Do we know that voice?" asked Cobble, he and Bruenor exchanging confused glances.
"Open it, says me!" came another cry, followed by a sharp rap. Wood splintered as a glove nail, a large spike set into the face of a specially constructed metal gauntlet, wedged itself through the thick door.