solemn emotions that had found their way through his thick hide. Finally,
as afternoon waned, Drizzt moved over to him.
"Do you know the way?" he asked.
Bruenor looked up at a pass that climbed along the side of the nearest
mountain. "Half a day," he replied.
"Camp here?" Drizzt asked.
"It would do me good," said Bruenor. "I've much to think over, elf.
I'll not forget the way, fear not." His eyes narrowed in tight focus at the
trail he had fled on the day of darkness, and he whispered, "I'll never
forget the way again."
* * *
Bruenor's driven pace proved fortunate for the friends, for Bok had
easily continued along the drow's trail outside of Silverymoon and had led
its group with similar haste. Bypassing the Holdfast altogether - the
tower's magical wards would not have let them near it in any case - the
golem's party had made up considerable ground.
In a camp not far away, Entreri stood grinning his evil smile and
staring at the dark horizon, and at the speck of light he knew to be the
campfire of his victim.
Catti-brie saw it, too, and knew that the next day would bring her
greatest challenge. She had spent most of her life with the battle-seasoned
dwarves, under the tutelage of Bruenor himself. He had taught her both
discipline and confidence. Not a facade of cockiness to hide deeper
insecurities, but a true self-belief and measured evaluation of what she
could and could not accomplish. Any trouble that she had finding sleep that
night was more due to her eagerness to face this challenge than her fear of
failure.
They broke camp early and arrived at the ruins just after dawn. No more
anxious than Bruenor's party, though, they found only the remnants of the
companions' campsite.
"An hour - perhaps two," Entreri observed, bending low to feel the heat
of the embers.
"Bok has already found the new trail," said Sydney, pointing to the
golem moving off toward the foothills of the closest mountain.
A smile filled Entreri's face as the thrill of the chase swept over
him. Catti-brie paid little attention to the assassin, though, more
concerned with the revelations painted on Jierdan's face.
The soldier seemed unsure of himself. He took up after them as soon as
Sydney and Entreri started behind Bok, but with forced steps. He obviously
wasn't looking forward to the pending confrontation, as were Sydney and
Entreri. .
Catti-brie was pleased.
They charged ahead through the morning, dodging sharp ravines and
boulders, and picking their way up the side of the mountains. Then, for the
first time since he had begun his search more than two years before,
Entreri saw his prey.
The assassin had come over a boulder-strewn mound and was slowing his
strides to accommodate a sharp dip into a small dell thick with trees, when
Bruenor and his friends broke clear of some brush and made their way across
the facing of a steep slope far ahead. Entreri dropped into a crouch and
signaled for the others to slow behind him.
"Stop the golem," he called to Sydney, for Bok had already disappeared
into the copse below him and would soon come crashing out of the other side
and onto another barren mound of stone, in clear sight of the companions.
Sydney rushed up. "Bok, return to me!" she yelled as loudly as she
dared, for while the companions were far in the distance, the echoes of
noises on the mountainside seemed to carry forever.
Entreri pointed to the specks moving across the facing ahead of them.
"We can catch them before they get around the side of the mountain," he
told Sydney. He jumped back to meet Jierdan and Catti-brie, and roughly
bound Catti-brie's hands behind her back. "If you cry out, you. will watch
your friends die," he assured her. "And then your own end will be most
unpleasant."
Catti-brie painted her most frightened look across her face, all the
while pleased that the assassin's latest threat seemed quite hollow to her.
She had risen above the level of terror that Entreri had played against her
when they had first met back in Ten-Towns. She had convinced herself,
against her instinctive revulsion of the passionless killer, that he was,
after all, only a man.
Entreri pointed to the steep valley below the facing and the
companions. "I will go through the ravine," he explained to Sydney, "and
make the first contact. You and the golem continue along the path and close
in from behind."
"And what of me?" Jierdan protested.
"Stay with the girl!" Entreri commanded, as absently as if he was
speaking to a servant. He spun away and started off, refusing to hear any
arguments.
Sydney did not even turn to look at Jierdan as she stood waiting for
Bok's return. She had no time for such squabbles and figured that if
Jierdan could not speak for himself, he wasn't worth her trouble.
"Act now," Catti-brie whispered to Jierdan, "for yerself and not for
me!" He looked at her, more curious than angry, and vulnerable to any
suggestions that might help him from this uncomfortable position.
"The mage has thrown all respect for ye, man," Catti-brie continued.
"The assassin has replaced ye, and she'd be liken to stand by him above ye.
This is yer chance to act, yer last one if me eyes be tellin' me right!
Time to show the mage yer worth, Soldier of Luskan!"
Jierdan glanced about nervously. For all of the manipulations he
expected from the woman, her words held enough truth to convince him that
her assessment was correct.
His pride won over. He spun on Catti-brie and smacked her to the
ground, then rushed past Sydney in pursuit of Entreri.
"Where are you going?" Sydney called after him, but Jierdan was no
longer interested in pointless talk.
Surprised and confused, Sydney turned to check on the prisoner.
Catti-brie had anticipated this and she groaned and rolled on the hard
stone as though she had been knocked senseless, though in truth she had
turned enough away from Jierdan's blow that he had merely glanced her.
Fully conscious and coherent, her movements were calculated to position her
where she could slip her tied hands down around her legs and bring them up
in front of her.
Catti-brie's act satisfied Sydney enough so that the mage put her
attention fully on the coming confrontation between her two comrades.
Hearing Jierdan's approach, Entreri had spun on him, his dagger and saber
drawn.
"You were told to stay with the girl!" he hissed.
"I did not come on this journey to play guard to your prisoner!"
Jierdan retorted, his own sword out.
The characteristic grin made its way onto Entreri's face again. "Go
back," he said one last time to Jierdan, though he knew, and was glad, that
the proud soldier would not turn away.
Jierdan took another step forward.
Entreri struck.
Jierdan was a seasoned fighter, a veteran of many skirmishes, and if
Entreri expected to dispatch him with a single thrust, he was mistaken.
Jierdan's sword knocked the blow aside and he returned the thrust.
Recognizing the obvious contempt that Entreri showed to Jierdan, and
knowing the level of the soldier's pride, Sydney had feared this
confrontation since they had left the Hosttower. She didn't care if one of
them died now she suspected that it would be Jierdan - but she would not
tolerate anything that put her mission in jeopardy. After the drow was
safely in her hands, Entreri and Jierdan could settle their differences.
"Go to them!" she called to the advancing golem. "Stop this fight!" Bok
turned at once and rushed toward the combatants, and Sydney, shaking her
head in disgust, believed that the situation would soon be under control
and they could resume their hunt.
What she didn't see was Catti-brie rising up behind her.
Catti-brie knew that she had only one chance. She crept up silently and
brought her clasped hands down on the back of the mage's neck. Sydney
dropped straight to the hard stone and Catti-brie ran by, down into the
copse of trees, her blood coursing through her veins. She had to get close
enough to her friends to yell a clear warning before her captors overtook
her.
Just after Catti-brie slipped into the thick trees, she heard Sydney
gasp, "Bok!"
The golem swung back at once, some distance behind Catti-brie, but
gaining with each long stride.
Even if they had seen her flight, Jierdan and Entreri were too caught
up in their own battle to be concerned with her.
"You shall insult me no more!" Jierdan cried above the clang of steel.
"But I shall!" Entreri hissed. "There are many ways to defile a corpse,
fool, and know that I shall practice every one on your rotting bones." He
pressed in harder, his concentration squarely on his foe, his blades
gaining deadly momentum in their dance.
Jierdan countered gamely, but the skilled assassin had little trouble
in meeting all of his thrusts with deft parries and subtle shifts. Soon the
soldier had exhausted his repertoire of feints and strikes, and he hadn't
even come close to hitting his mark. He would tire before Entreri - he saw
that clearly even this early in the fight.
They exchanged several more blows, Entreri's cuts moving faster and
faster, while Jierdan's double-handed swings slowed to a crawl. The soldier
had hoped that Sydney would intervene by this point. His weakness of
stamina had been clearly revealed to Entreri, and he couldn't understand
why the mage had not said anything, about the battle. He glanced about, his
desperation growing. Then he saw Sydney, lying face down on the stone..
An honorable way out, he thought, still more concerned with himself.
"The, mage!" he cried to Entreri. "We must help her!" The words fell upon
deaf ears.
"And the girl!" Jierdan yelled, hoping to catch the assassin's
interest. He tried to break free of the combat, jumping back from Entreri
and lowering his sword. ``We shall continue this later," he declared in a
threatening tone, though he had no intention of engaging the assassin in a
fair fight again.
Entreri didn't answer, but lowered his blades accordingly. Jierdan,
ever the honorable soldier, turned about to see to Sydney.
A jeweled dagger whistled into his back.
Catti-brie stumbled along, unable to hold her balance with her hands
bound together. Loose stone slipped beneath her and more than once she
tumbled to the ground. As agile as a cat, she was up quickly.
But Bok was the swifter.
Catti-brie fell again and rolled over a sharp crest of stone. She
started down a dangerous slope of slippery rocks, heard the golem stomping
behind her, and knew that she could not possibly outrun the thing. Yet she
had no choice. Sweat burned a dozen scrapes and stung her eyes, and all
hope had flown from her. Still she ran, her courage denying the obvious
end.
Against her despair and terror, she found the strength to search for an
option. The slope continued down another twenty feet, and right beside her
was the slender and rotting stump of a long-dead tree. A plan came to her
then, desperate, but with enough hope for her to try it. She stopped for a
moment to survey the root structure of the rotting stump, and to estimate
the effect that uprooting the thing might have on the stones.
She backed a few feet up the slope and waited, crouched for her
impossible leap. Bok came over the crest and bore down on her, rocks
bouncing away from the heavy plodding of its booted feet. It was right
behind her, reaching out with horrid arms.
And Catti-brie leaped.
She hooked the rope that bound her hands over the stump as she flew
past, throwing all of her weight against the hold of its roots.
Bok lumbered after her, oblivious to her intentions. Even as the stump
toppled, and the network of dead roots pulled up from the ground, the golem
couldn't understand the danger. As the loose stones shifted and began their
descent, Bok kept its focus straight ahead on its prey.
Catti-brie bounced down ahead and to the side of the rockslide. She
didn't try to rise, just kept rolling and scrambling in spite of the pain
to gain every inch between herself and the crumbling slope. Her
determination got her to the thick trunk of an oak, and she rolled around
behind it and turned back to look at the slope.
Just in time to see the golem go down under a ton of bouncing stone.
18
The Secret of Keeper's Dale
"Keeper's Dale," Bruenor declared solemnly. The companions stood on a
high ledge, looking down hundreds of feet to the broken floor of a deep and
rocky gorge.
"How are we to get down there?" Regis gasped, for every side appeared
absolutely sheer, as though the canyon had been purposely cut from the
stone.
There was a way down, of course, and Bruenor, walking still with the
memories of his youth, knew it well. He led his friends around to the
eastern rim of the gorge and looked back to the west, to the peaks of the
three nearest mountains. "Ye stand upon Fourthpeak," he explained, "named
for its place beside th'other three."
"Three peaks to seem as one," the dwarf recited, an ancient line from a
longer song that all the young dwarves of Mithril Hall were taught before
they were even old enough to venture out of the mines.
"Three peaks to seem as one, Behind ye the morning sun."
Bruenor shifted about to find the exact line of the three western
mountains, then moved slowly to the very edge of the gorge and looked over.
