power, he drove the dark-haired man to his knees. All around, the camp went
silent, even the shaman being stricken speechless by the display.
Two guards moved tentatively to Wulfgar's side.
The beaten warrior pulled himself to his feet and stood facing Wulfgar.
No hints of anger marred his face, just honest admiration, for the Sky
Ponies were an honorable people.
"We would welcome you," Valric said. "You have defeated Torlin, son of
Jerek Wolf-slayer, Chieftain of the Sky Ponies. Never before has Torlin
been bested!"
"What of my friends?" Wulfgar asked.
"I care nothing for them!" Valric snapped back. "The dwarf will be set
free on a trail leading from our land. We have no quarrel with him or his
kind, nor do we desire any dealings with them!"
The shaman eyed Wulfgar slyly. "The other is a weakling," he stated.
"He shall serve as your passage to the tribe, your sacrifice to the winged
horse."
Wulfgar did not immediately respond. They had tested his strength, and
now were testing his loyalties. The Sky Ponies had paid him their highest
honor in offering him a place in their tribe, but only on condition that he
show his allegiance beyond any doubt. Wulfgar thought of his own people,
and the way they had lived for so many centuries on the tundra. Even in
this day, many of the barbarians of Icewind Dale would have accepted the
terms and killed Regis, considering the life of a halfling a small price
for such an honor. This was the disillusionment of Wulfgar's existence with
his people, the facet of their moral code that had proved unacceptable to
his personal standards.
"No," he replied to Valric without blinking.
"He is a weakling!" Valric reasoned. "Only the strong deserve life!"
"His fate is not mine to decide," Wulfgar replied. "Nor yours."
Valric motioned to the two guards and they immediately rebound
Wulfgar's hands.
"A loss for our people," Torlin said to Wulfgar. "You would have
received a place of honor among us."
Wulfgar didn't answer, holding Torlin's stare for a long moment,
sharing respect and also the mutual understanding that their codes were too
different for such a joining. In a shared fantasy that could not be, both
imagined fighting beside the other, felling orcs by the score and inspiring
the bards to a new legend.
It was time for Drizzt to strike. The drow had paused by the horses to
view the outcome of the contest and also to better measure his enemies. He
planned his attack for effect more than for damage, wanting to put on a
grand show to cow a tribe of fearless warriors long enough for his friends
to break free of the ring.
No doubt, the barbarians had heard of the dark elves. And no doubt, the
tales they had heard were terrifying.
Silently, Drizzt tied the two ponies behind the horses, then mounted
the horses, a foot in one stirrup on each. Rising between them, he stood
tall and threw back the cowl of his cloak. The dangerous glow in his
lavender eyes sparkling wildly, he bolted the mounts into the ring,
scattering the stunned barbarians closest to him.
Howls of rage rose up from the surprised tribesmen, the tone of the
shouts shifting to one of terror when they viewed the black skin. Torlin
and Valric turned to face the oncoming menace, though even they did not
know how to deal with a legend personified.
And Drizzt had a trick ready for them. With a wave of his black hand,
purple flames spouted from Torlin and Valric's skin, not burning, but
casting both the superstitious tribesmen into a horrified frenzy. Torlin
dropped to his knees, clasping his arms in disbelief, while the highstrung
shaman dove to the ground and began rolling in the dirt.
Wulfgar took his cue. Another surge of power through his arms snapped
the leather bonds at his wrists. He continued the momentum of his hands,
swinging them upward, catching both of the guards beside him squarely in
the face and dropping them to their backs.
Bruenor also understood his part. He stomped heavily onto the instep of
the lone barbarian standing between him and Regis, and when the man
crouched to grasp his pained foot, Bruenor butted him in the head. The man
tumbled as easily as Whisper had back in Rat Alley in Luskan.
"Huh, works as well without the helmet!" Bruenor marveled.
"Only for a dwarf's head!" Regis remarked as Wulfgar grabbed both of
them by the back of their collars and hoisted them easily onto the ponies.
He was up then, too, beside Drizzt, and they charged through the other
side of the camp. It had all happened too quickly for any of the barbarians
to ready a weapon or form any kind of defense.
Drizzt wheeled his horse behind the ponies to protect the rear. "Ride!"
he yelled to his friends, slapping their mounts on the rump with the flat
of his scimitars. The other three shouted in victory as though their escape
was complete, but Drizzt knew that this had been the easy part. The dawn
was fast approaching, and in this up-and-down, unfamiliar terrain, the
native barbarians could easily catch them.
The companions charged into the silence of pre-dawn, picking the
straightest and easiest path to gain as much ground as possible. Drizzt
still kept an eye behind them, expecting the tribesmen to be fast on their
trail. But the commotion in the camp had died away almost immediately after
the escape, and the drow saw no signs of pursuit.
Now only a single call could be heard, the rhythmic singing of Valric
in a tongue that none of the travelers understood. The look of dread on
Wulfgar's face made all of them pause. "The powers of a shaman," the
barbarian explained.
Back in the camp, Valric stood alone with Torlin inside the ring of his
people, chanting and dancing through the ultimate ritual of his station,
summoning the power of his tribe's Spiritual Beast. The appearance of the
drow elf had completely unnerved the shaman. He stopped any pursuit before
it had even begun and ran to his tent for the sacred leather satchel needed
for the ritual, deciding that the spirit of the winged horse, the Pegasus,
should deal with these intruders.
Valric targeted Torlin as the recipient of the spirit's form, and the
son of Jerek awaited the possession with stoic dignity, hating the act, for
it stripped him of his identity, but resigned to absolute obedience to his
shaman.
From the moment it began, however, Valric knew that in his excitement,
he had overstepped the urgency of the summoning.
Torlin shrieked and dropped to the ground, writhing in agony. A gray
cloud surrounded him, its swirling vapors molding with his form, reshaping
his features. His face puffed and twisted, and suddenly spurted outward
into the semblance of a horse's head. His torso, as well, transmuted into
something not human. Valric had meant only to impart some of the strengths
of the spirit of the Pegasus in Torlin, but the entity itself had come,
possessing the man wholly and bending his body into its own likeness.
Torlin was consumed.
In his place loomed the ghostly form of the winged horse. All in the
tribe fell to their knees before it, even Valric, who could not face the
image of the Spiritual Beast. But the Pegasus knew the shaman's thoughts
and understood its children's needs. Smoke fumed from the spirit's nostrils
and it rose into the air in pursuit of the escaping intruders.
The friends had settled their mounts into a more comfortable, though
still swift, pace. Free of their bonds, with the dawn breaking before them
and no apparent pursuit behind them, they had eased up a bit. Bruenor
fiddled with his helmet, trying to push the latest dent out far enough for
him to get the thing back on his head. Even Wulfgar, so shaken a short time
before when he had heard the chanting of the shaman, began to relax.
Only Drizzt, ever wary, was not so easily convinced of their escape.
And it was the drow who first sensed the approach of danger.
In the dark cities, the black elves often dealt with otherworldly
beings, and over the many centuries they had bred into their race a
sensitivity for the magical emanations of such creatures. Drizzt stopped
his horse suddenly and wheeled about.
"What do ye hear?" Bruenor asked him.
"I hear nothing," Drizzt answered, his eyes darting about for some
sign. "But something is there."
Before they could respond, the gray cloud rushed down from the sky and
was upon them. Their horses bucked and reared in uncontrollable terror and
in the confusion none of the friends could sort out what was happening. The
Pegasus then formed right in front of Regis and the halfling felt a deathly
chill penetrate his bones. He screamed and dropped from his mount.
Bruenor, riding beside Regis, charged the ghostly form fearlessly. But
his descending axe found only a cloud of smoke where the apparition had
been. Then, just as suddenly, the ghost was back, and Bruenor, too, felt
the icy cold of its touch. Tougher than the halfling, he managed to hold to
his pony.
"What?" he cried out vainly to Drizzt and Wulfgar.
Aegis-fang whistled past him and continued on at the target. But the
Pegasus was only smoke again and the magical warhammer passed unhindered
through the swirling cloud.
In an instant, the spirit was back, swooping down upon Bruenor. The
dwarf's pony spun down to the ground in a frantic effort to scramble away
from the thing.
"You cannot hit it!" Drizzt called after Wulfgar, who went rushing to
the dwarf's aid. "It does not exist fully on this plane!"
Wulfgar's mighty legs locked his terrified horse straight and he struck
as soon as Aegis-fang returned to his hands.
But again he found only smoke, before his blow.
"Then how?" he yelled to Drizzt, his eyes darting around to spot the
first signs of the reforming spirit.
Drizzt searched his mind for answers. Regis was still down, lying pale
and unmoving on the field, and Bruenor, though he had not been too badly
injured in his pony's fall, appeared dazed and shivering from the chill of
unearthly cold. Drizzt grasped at a desperate plan. He pulled the onyx
statue of the panther from his pouch and called for Guenhwyvar.
The ghost returned, attacking with renewed fury. It descended upon
Bruenor first, mantling the dwarf with its cold wings. "Damn ye back to the
Abyss!" Bruenor roared in brave defiance.
Rushing in, Wulfgar lost all sight of the dwarf, except for the head of
his axe bursting harmlessly through the smoke.
Then the barbarian's mount halted in its tracks, refusing, against all
efforts, to move any closer to the unnatural beast. Wulfgar leaped from his
saddle and charged in, crashing right through the cloud before the ghost
could reform, his momentum carrying both him and Bruenor out the other side
of the smoky mantle. They rolled away and looked back, only to find that
the ghost had disappeared altogether again.
Bruenor's eyelids drooped heavily and his skin held a ghastly hue of
blue, and for the first time in his life, his indomitable spirit had no
gumption for the fight. Wulfgar, too, had suffered the icy touch in his
pass through the ghost, but he was still more than ready for another round
with the thing.
"We can't fight it!" Bruenor gasped through his chattering teeth. "Here
for a strike, it is, but gone when we hit back!"
Wulfgar shook his bead defiantly. "There is a way!" he demanded, though
he had to concede the dwarf's point. "But my hammer cannot destroy clouds!"
Guenhwyvar appeared beside its master and crouched low, seeking the
nemesis that threatened the drow.
Drizzt understood the cat's intentions. "No!" he commanded. "Not here."
The drow had recalled something that Guenhwyvar had done several months
earlier. To save Regis from the falling stone of a crumbling tower,
Guenhwyvar had taken the halfling on a journey through the planes of
existence. Drizzt grabbed onto the panther's thick coat.
"Take me to the land of the ghost," he instructed. "To its own plane,
where my weapons will bite deeply into its substantial being."
The ghost appeared again as Drizzt and the cat faded into their own
cloud.
"Keep swinging!" Bruenor told his companion. "Keep it as smoke so's it
can't get at ye!"
"Drizzt and the cat have gone!" Wulfgar cried.
"To the land of the ghost," Bruenor explained.
It took Drizzt a long moment to set his bearings. He had come into a
place of different realities, a dimension where everything, even his own
skin, assumed the same hue of gray, objects being distinguishable only by a
thin waver of black that outlined them. His depth perception was useless,
for there were no shadings, and no discernible light sources to use as a
guide. And he found no footing, nothing tangible beneath him, nor could he
even know which way was up or down. Such concepts didn't seem to fit here.
He did make out the shifting outlines of the Pegasus as it jumped
between planes, never fully in one place or the other. He tried to approach
it and found propulsion to be an act of the mind, his body automatically
following the instructions of his will. He stopped before the shifting
lines, his magical scimitar poised to strike when the target fully
appeared.
Then the outline of the Pegasus was complete and Drizzt plunged his
blade into the black waver that marked its form. The line shifted and bent,
and the outline of the scimitar shivered as well, for here even the
properties of the steel blade took on a different composition. But the
steel proved the stronger and the scimitar resumed its curved edge and
