Bruenor's final threat carried little weight to the wily halfling. Dondon had
faced them down through both lies without the slightest hint of a slip.
But Drizzt nodded approvingly as Bruenor, still scowling, turned back into
the room, for the drow also knew that the threat, if nothing else, had made
Bruenor feel more secure.
On Drizzt's suggestion, they all settled down for some sleep. With the
clamor of the streets, they would never be able to slip unnoticed into one of
the sewer grates. But the crowds would likely thin out as the night waned and
the guard changed from the dangerous rogues of evening to the peasants of the
hot day.
Drizzt alone did not find sleep. He sat propped by the door of the room,
listening for sounds of any approach and lulled into meditations by the rhythmic
breathing of his companions. He looked down at the mask hanging around his neck.
So simple a lie, and he could walk freely throughout the world.
But would he then be trapped within the web of his own deception? What
freedom could he find in denying the truth about himself?
Drizzt looked over at Catti-brie, peacefully slumped in the room's single
bed, and smiled. There was indeed wisdom in innocence, a vein of truth in the
idealism of untainted perceptions.
He could not disappoint her.
Drizzt sensed a deepening of the outside gloom. The moon had set. He moved
to the room's window and peeked out into the street. Still the night people
wandered, but they were fewer now, and the night neared its end. Drizzt roused
his companions; they could not afford any more delays. They stretched away their
weariness, checked their gear, and moved back down to the street.
Rogues Circle was lined with several iron sewer grates that looked as though
they were designed more to keep the filthy things of the sewers underground than
as drains for the sudden waters of the rare but violent rainstorms that hit the
city. The friends chose one in the ally beside their inn, out of the main way of
the street but close enough to the guildhouse that they could probably find
their underground way without too much trouble.
"The boy can lift it," Bruenor remarked, waving Wulfgar to the spot. Wulfgar
bent low and grasped the iron.
"Not yet," Drizzt whispered, glancing around for suspicious eyes. He
motioned Catti-brie to the end of the ally, back along Rogues Circle, and he
darted off down the darker side. When he was satisfied that all was clear, he
waved back to Bruenor. The dwarf looked to Catti-brie, who nodded her approval.
"Lift it, boy," Bruenor said, "and be quiet about it!"
Wulfgar grasped the iron tightly and sucked in a deep, draft of air for
balance. His huge arms pumped red with blood as he heaved, and a grunt escaped
his lips. Even so, the grate resisted his tugging..
Wulfgar looked at Bruenor in disbelief, then redoubled his efforts, his face
now flushing red. The grate groaned in protest, but came up only a few inches
from the ground.
"Suren somethings holdin' it down," Bruenor said, leaning over to inspect
it.
A "clink" of snapping chain was the dwarf's only warning as the grate broke
free, sending Wulfgar sprawling backward. The lifting iron clipped Bruenor's
forehead, knocking his helmet off and dropping him on the seat of his pants.
Wulfgar, still clutching the grate, crashed heavily and loudly into the wall of
the inn.
"Ye blasted, fool-headed. . ." Bruenor started to grumble, but Drizzt and
Catti-brie, rushing to his aid, quickly reminded him of the secrecy of their
mission.
"Why would they chain a sewer grate?" Catti-brie asked.
Wulfgar dusted himself off. "From the inside," he added.
"It seems that something down there wants to keep the city out."
"We shall know soon enough," Drizzt remarked. He dropped down beside the
open hole, slipping his legs in. "Prepare a torch," he said. "I will summon you
if all is clear."
Catti-brie caught the eager gleam in the drow's eyes and looked at him with
concern.
"For Regis," Drizzt assured her, "and only for Regis." Then he was gone,
into the blackness. Black like the lightless tunnels of his homeland.
The other three heard a slight splash as he touched down, then all was
quiet.
Many anxious moments passed. "Put a light to the torch," Bruenor whispered
to Wulfgar.
Catti-brie caught Wulfgar's arm to stop him. "Faith," she said to Bruenor.
"Too long," the dwarf muttered. "Too quiet."
Catti-brie held on to Wulfgar's arm for another second, until Drizzt's soft
voice drifted up to them. "Clear," the drow said. "Come down quickly."
Bruenor took the torch from Wulfgar. "Come last," he said, "and slide the
grate back behind ye. No need in tellin' the world where we went!"
* * *
The first thing the companions noticed when the torchlight entered the sewer
was the chain that had held the grate down. It was fairly new, without doubt,
and fastened to a locking box constructed on the sewer's wall.
"Me thinking's that we're not alone," Bruenor whispered.
Drizzt glanced around, sharing the dwarf's uneasiness. He dropped the mask
from his face, a drow again in an environ suited for a drow. "I will lead," he
said, "at the edge of the light. Keep ready." He padded away, picking his silent
steps along the edge of the murky stream of water that rolled slowly down the
center of the tunnel.
Bruenor came next with the torch, then Catti-brie and Wulfgar. The barbarian
had to stoop low to keep his head clear of the slimy ceiling. Rats squeaked and
scuttled away from the strange light, and darker things took silent refuge under
the shield of the water. The tunnel meandered this way and that, and a maze of
side passages opened up every few feet. Sounds of trickling water only worsened
the confusion, leading the friends for a moment, then coming louder at their
side, then louder still from across the way.
Bruenor shook the diversions clear of his thoughts, ignored the muck and the
fetid stench, and concentrated on keeping his track straight behind the shadowy
figure that darted in and out at the front edge of his torchlight. He turned a
confusing, multicornered intersection and caught sight of the figure suddenly
off to his side.
Even as he turned to follow, he realized that Drizzt still had to be up
front.
"Ready!" Bruenor called, tossing the torch to a dry spot beside him and
taking up his axe and shield. His alertness saved them all, for only a split
second later, not one, but two cloaked forms emerged from the side tunnel,
swords raised and sharp teeth gleaming under twitching whiskers.
They were man-sized, wearing the clothes of men and holding swords. In their
other form, they were indeed humans and not always vile, but on the nights of
the bright moon they took on their darker form, the lycanthrope side. They moved
like men but were mantled with the trappings - elongated snout, bristled brown
fur, and pink tail - of sewer rats.
Lining them up over the top of Bruenor's helm, Catti-brie launched the first
strike. The silvery flash of her killing arrow illuminated the side tunnel like
a lightning bolt, showing many more sinister figures making their way toward the
friends.
A splash from behind caused Wulfgar to spin about to face a rushing gang of
the ratmen. He dug his heels into the mud as well as he could and slapped
Aegis-fang to a ready position.
"They was layin' on us, elf!" Bruenor shouted.
Drizzt had already come to that conclusion. At the dwarf's first shout, he
had slipped farther from the torch to use the advantage of darkness. Turning a
bend brought him face to face with two figures, and he guessed their sinister
nature before he ever got the blue light of Twinkle high enough to see their
furry brows.
The wererats, though, certainly did not expect what they found standing
ready before them. Perhaps it was because they believed that their enemies were
solely in the area with the torchlight, but more likely it was the black skin of
a drow elf that sent them back on their heels.
Drizzt didn't miss the opportunity, slicing them down in a single flurry
before they ever recovered from their shock. The drow then melted again into the
blackness, seeking a back route to ambush the ambushers.
Wulfgar kept his attackers at bay with long sweeps of Aegis-fang. The hammer
blew aside any wererat that ventured too near, and smashed away chunks of the
muck on the sewer walls every time it completed an arc. But as the wererats came
to understand the power of the mighty barbarian, and came in at him with less
enthusiasm, the best that Wulfgar could accomplish was a stalemate - a deadlock
that would only last as long as the energy in his huge arms.
Behind Wulfgar, Bruenor and Catti-brie fared better. Catti-brie's magical
bow - loosing arrows over the dwarf's head - decimated the ranks of the
approaching wererats, and those few that reached Bruenor, off-balance and
ducking the deadly arrows of the woman behind him, proved easy prey for the
dwarf.
But the odds were fully against the friends, and they knew that one mistake
would cost them dearly.
The wererats, hissing and spitting, backed away from Wulfgar. Realizing that
he had to initiate more decisive fighting, the barbarian strode forward.
The ratmen parted ranks suddenly, and down the tunnel, at the very edge of
the torchlight, Wulfgar saw one of them level a heavy crossbow and fire.
Instinctively the big man flattened against the wall, and he was agile
enough to get out of the missile's path, but Cattibrie, behind him and facing
the other way, never saw the bolt coming.
She felt a sudden searing burst of pain, then the warmth of her blood
pouring down the side of her head. Blackness swirled about the edges of her
vision, and she crumbled against the wall.
* * *
Drizzt slipped through the dark passages as silently as death. He kept
Twinkle sheathed, fearing its revealing light, and led the way with his other
magical blade. He was in a maze, but figured that he could pick his route well
enough to rejoin his friends. Every tunnel he picked, though, lit up at its
other end with torchlight as still more wererats made their way to the fighting.
The darkness was certainly ample for the stealthy drow to remain concealed,
but Drizzt got the uneasy feeling that his moves were being monitored, even
anticipated. Dozens of passages opened up all around him, but his options came
fewer and fewer as wererats appeared at every turn. The circuit to his friends
was growing wider with each step, but Drizzt quickly realized that he had no
choice but to go forward. Wererats had filled the main tunnel behind him,
following his route.
Drizzt stopped in the shadows of one dark nook and surveyed the area about
him, recounting the distance he had covered and noting the passages behind him
that now flickered in torchlight. Apparently there weren't as many wererats as
he had originally figured; those appearing at every turn were probably the same
groups from the previous tunnels, running parallel to Drizzt and turning into
each new passage as Drizzt came upon it at the other end.
But the revelation of wererat numbers came as little comfort to Drizzt. He
had no doubts to his suspicions now. He was being herded.
* * *
Wulfgar turned and started toward his fallen love, his Catti-brie, but the
wererats came in on him immediately.
Fury now drove the mighty barbarian. He tore into his attackers' ranks,
smashing and squashing them with bone-splitting chops of his war hammer or
reaching out with a bare hand to twist the neck of any who had slipped in beside
him. The ratmen managed a few retreating stabs, but nicks and little wounds
wouldn't slow the enraged barbarian.
He stomped on the fallen as he passed, grinding his booted heels into their
dying bodies. Other wererats scrambled in terror to get out of his way.
At the end of their line, the crossbowman struggled to reload his weapon, a
job made more difficult by his inability to keep his eyes off the spectacle of
the approaching barbarian and made doubly difficult by his knowledge that he was
the focus of the powerful man's rage.
Bruenor, with the wererat ranks dissipated in front of him, had more time to
tend to Catti-brie. He bent over the young woman, his face ashen as he pulled
her thick mane of auburn hair, thicker now with the wetness of her blood, from
her fair face.
Catti-brie looked up at him through stunned eyes. "But an inch more, and me
life'd be at its end," she said with a wink and a smile.
Bruenor scrambled to inspect the wound, and found, to his relief, that his
daughter was correct in her observations. The quarrel had gouged her wickedly,
but it was only a grazing shot.
"I'm all right," Catti-brie insisted, starting to rise.
Bruenor held her down. "Not yet," he whispered.
"The fight's not done," Catti-brie replied, still trying to plant her feet
under her. Bruenor led her gaze down the tunnel, to Wulfgar and the bodies
piling all about him.
"There's our chance," he chuckled. "Let the boy think ye're down."
Catti-brie bit her lip in astonishment of the scene. A dozen ratmen were
down and still Wulfgar pounded through, his hammer tearing away those
