"Out, or down," Drizzt answered, emphasizing the first choice enough to
make the barbarian understand that the second was unlikely. "We shall know
when we arrive."
Wulfgar studied his dark friend for some hint of the adventurous spirit
he had come to know, but Drizzt seemed nearly as resigned to leaving as
Bruenor. Something about this place had diffused the drow's normally
unstoppable verve. Wulfgar could only guess that Drizzt, too, battled
unpleasant memories of his past in a similarly dark place.
The perceptive young barbarian was correct. The drow's memories of his
life in the underworld had indeed fostered his hopes that they might soon
leave Mithril Hall, but not because of any emotional upheaval he was
experiencing upon his return to his childhood realm. What Drizzt now
remembered keenly about Menzoberranzan were the dark things that lived in
dark holes under the earth. He felt their presence here in the ancient
dwarven halls, horrors beyond the surface dwellers' imagination. He didn't
worry for himself. With his drow heritage, he could face these monsters on
their own terms. But his friends, except perhaps the experienced dwarf,
would be at a sorry disadvantage in such fighting, ill-equipped to battle
the monsters they would surely face if they remained in the mines.
And Drizzt knew that eyes were upon them.
Entreri crept up and put his ear against the door, as he had nine times
before. This time, the clang of a shield being dropped to the stone brought
a smile to his face. He turned back to Sydney and Bok and nodded.
He had at last caught his prey.
The door they had entered shuddered from the weight of an incredible
blow. The companions, just settled in after their long march, looked back
in amazement and horror just as the second blow fell and the heavy stone
splintered and broke away. The golem crashed into the oval room, kicking
Regis and Catti-brie aside before they could even reach for their weapons.
The monster could have squashed both of them right there, but its
target, the goal that pulled at all of its senses, was Drizzt Do'Urden. It
rushed by the two into the middle of the room to locate the drow.
Drizzt hadn't been so surprised, slipping into the shadows on the side
of the room and now making his way toward the broken door to secure it
against further entry. He couldn't hide from the magical detections that
Dendybar had bestowed upon the golem, though, and Bok turned toward him
almost immediately.
Wulfgar and Bruenor met the monster head on.
Entreri entered the chamber right after Bok, using the commotion caused
by the golem to slip unnoticed through the door and off into the shadows in
a manner strikingly similar to the drow. As they approached the midpoint of
the oval room's wall, each was met by a shadow so akin to his own that he
had to stop and take measure of it before he engaged.
"So at last I meet Drizzt Do'Urden," Entreri hissed.
"The advantage is yours," replied Drizzt, "for I know naught of you."
"Ah, but you will, black elf!" the assassin said, laughing. In a blur,
they came together, Entreri's cruel saber and jeweled dagger matching the
speed of Drizzt's whirring scimitars.
Wulfgar pounded his hammer into the golem with all his might, the
monster, distracted by its pursuit of the drow, not even raising a pretense
of defense. Aegis-fang knocked it back, but it seemed not to notice, and
started again toward its prey. Bruenor and Wulfgar looked at each other in
disbelief and drove in on it again, hammer and axe flailing.
Regis lay, unmoving against the wall, stunned by the kick of Bok's
heavy foot. Catti-brie, though, was back up on one knee, her sword in hand.
The spectacle of grace and skill of the combatants along the wall held her
in check for a moment.
Sydney, just outside the doorway, was likewise distracted, for the
battle between the dark elf and Entreri was unlike anything she had ever
seen, two master swordsmen weaving and parrying in absolute harmony.
Each anticipated the other's movements exactly, countering the other's
counter, back and forth in a battle that seemed as though it could know no
victor. One appeared the reflection of the other, and the only thing that
kept the onlookers aware of the reality of the struggle was the constant
clang of steel against steel as scimitar and saber came ringing together.
They moved in and out of the shadows, seeking some small advantage in a
fight of equals. Then they slipped into the darkness of one of the alcoves.
As soon as they disappeared from sight, Sydney remembered her part in
the battle. Without further delay, she drew a thin wand from her belt and
took aim on the barbarian and the dwarf. As much as she would have liked to
see the battle between Entreri and the dark elf played out to its end, her
duty told her to free up the golem and let it take the drow quickly.
Wulfgar and Bruenor dropped Bok to the stone, Bruenor ducking between
the monster's legs while Wulfgar slammed his hammer home, toppling Bok over
the dwarf.
Their advantage was short-lived. Sydney's bolt of energy sliced into
them, its force hurling Wulfgar backward into the air. He rolled to his
feet near the opposite door, his leather jerkin scorched and smoking, and
his entire body tingling in the aftermath of the jolt.
Bruenor was slammed straight down to the floor and he lay there for a
long moment. He wasn't too hurt - dwarves are as tough as mountain stone
and especially resistant to magic - but a specific rumble that he heard
while his ear was against the floor demanded his attention. He remembered
that sound vaguely from his childhood, but couldn't pinpoint its exact
source.
He did know, though, that it foretold doom.
The tremor grew around them, shaking the chamber, even as Bruenor
lifted his head. The dwarf understood. He looked helplessly to Drizzt and
yelled, "Ware elf!" the second before the trap sprang and part of the
alcove's floor fell away.
Only dust emerged from where the drow and the assassin had been. Time
seemed to freeze for Bruenor, who, was fixated upon that one horrible
moment. A heavy block dropped from the ceiling in the alcove, stealing the
very last of the dwarf's futile hopes.
The execution of the stonework trap only multiplied the violent tremors
in the chamber. Walls cracked apart, chunks of stone shook loose from the
ceiling. From one doorway, Sydney cried for Bok, while at the other,
Wulfgar threw the locking bar aside and yelled for his friends.
Catti-brie leaped to her feet and rushed to the fallen halfling. She
dragged him by the ankles toward the far door, calling for Bruenor to help.
But the dwarf was lost in the moment, staring vacantly at the ruins of
the alcove.
A wide crack split the floor of the chamber, threatening to cut off
their escape. Catti-brie gritted her teeth in determination and charged
ahead, making the safety of the hallway. Wulfgar screamed for the dwarf,
and even started back for him.
Then Bruenor rose and moved toward them - slowly, his head down, almost
hoping in his despair that a crack would open beneath him and drop him into
a dark hole.
And put an end to his intolerable grief.
20
End of a Dream
When the last tremors of the cave-in had finally died away, the four
remaining friends picked their way through the rubble and the veil of dust
back to the oval chamber. Heedless of the piles of broken stone and the
great cracks in the floor that threatened to swallow them up, Bruenor
scrambled into the alcove, the others close on his heels.
No blood or any other sign of the two master swordsmen was anywhere to
be found, just the mound of rubble covering the hole of the stonework trap.
Bruenor could see the edgings of darkness beneath the pile, and he called
out to Drizzt. His reason told him, against his heart and hopes, that the
drow could not hear, that the trap had taken Drizzt from him.
The tear that rimmed his eye dropped to his cheek when he spotted the
lone scimitar, the magical blade that Drizzt had plundered from a dragon's
lair, resting against the ruins of the alcove. Solemnly, he picked it up
and slid it into his belt.
"Alas for ye, elf," he cried into the destruction. "Ye deserved a
better end." If the others had not been so caught up in their own
reflections at that moment, they would have noticed the angry undertone to
Bruenor's mourning. In the face of the loss of his dearest and most trusted
friend, and already questioning the wisdom of continuing through the halls
before the tragedy, Bruenor found his grief muddled with even stronger
feelings of guilt. He could not escape the part he had played in bringing
about the dark elf's fall. He remembered bitterly how he had tricked Drizzt
into joining the quest, feigning his own death and promising an adventure
the likes of which none of them had ever seen.
He stood now, quietly, and accepted his inner torment.
Wulfgar's grief, was equally deep, and uncomplicated by other feelings.
The barbarian had lost one of his mentors, the warrior who had transformed
him from a savage, brutish warrior to a calculating and cunning fighter.
He had lost one of his truest friends. He would have followed Drizzt to
the bowels of the Abyss in search of adventure. He firmly believed that the
drow would one day get them into a predicament from which they could not
escape, but when he was fighting beside Drizzt, or competing against his
teacher, the master, he felt alive, existing on the very dangerous edge of
his limits. Often Wulfgar had envisioned his own death beside the drow, a
glorious finish that the bards would write and sing about long after the
enemies who had slain the two friends had turned to dust in unmarked
graves.
That was an end the young barbarian did not fear.
"Ye've found yer peace now, me friend," Catti-brie said softly,
understanding the drow's tormented existence better than anyone.
Catti-brie's perceptions of the world were more attuned to Drizzt's
sensitive side, the private aspect of his character that his other friends
could not see beneath his stoic features. It was the part of Drizzt
Do'Urden that had demanded he leave Menzoberranzan and his evil race, and
had forced him into a role as an outcast. Catti-brie knew the joy of the
drow's spirit, and the unavoidable pain he had suffered at the snubbings of
those who could not see that spirit for the color of his skin.
She realized, too, that both the causes of good and evil had lost a
champion this day, for in Entreri Catti-brie saw the mirror-image of
Drizzt. The world would be better for the loss of the assassin.
But the price was too high.
Any relief that Regis might have felt at the demise of Entreri was lost
in the swirling mire of his anger and sorrow. A part of the halfling had
died in that alcove. No longer would he have to run - Pasha Pook would
pursue him no more - but for the first time in his entire life Regis had to
accept some consequences for his actions. He had joined up with Bruenor's
party knowing that Entreri would be close behind, and understanding the
potential danger to his friends.
Ever the confident gambler, the thought of losing this challenge had
never entered his head. Life was a game that he played hard and to the
edge, and never before had he been expected to pay for his risks. If
anything in the world could temper the halfling's obsession with chance, it
was this, the loss of one of his few true friends because of a risk he had
chosen to take.
"Farewell, my friend," he whispered into the rubble. Turning to
Bruenor, he then said, "Where do we go? How do we get out of this terrible
place?"
Regis hadn't meant the remark as an accusation, but forced into a
defensive posture by the mire of his own guilt, Bruenor took it as such and
struck back. "Ye did it yerself!" he snarled at Regis. "Ye bringed the
killer after us!" Bruenor took a threatening step forward, his face
contorted by mounting rage and his hands whitened by the intensity of their
clench.
Wulfgar, confused by this sudden pulse of anger, moved a step closer to
Regis. The halfling did not back away, but made no move to defend himself,
still not believing that Bruenor's anger could be so consuming.
"Ye thief!" Bruenor roared. "Ye go along picking yer way with no
concern for what yer leaving behind - and yer friends pay for it!" His
anger swelled with each word, again almost a separate entity from the
dwarf, gaining its own momentum and strength.
His next step would have brought him right up, to Regis, and his motion
showed them all, clearly that he meant to strike, but Wulfgar stepped
between the two and halted Bruenor with an unmistakable glare.
Broken from his angry trance by the barbarian's stern posture, Bruenor
realized then what he was about to do. More than a little embarrassed, he
covered his anger beneath his concern for their immediate survival and
turned away to survey the remains of the room. Few, if any, of their
supplies had survived the destruction. "Leave the stuff; no time for
wasting!" Bruenor told the others, clearing the choked growls from his
throat. "We're to be putting this foul place far behind us!"
Wulfgar and Catti-brie scanned the rubble, searching for something that
could be salvaged and not so ready to agree with Bruenor's demands that
they press on without any supplies. They quickly came to the same
conclusion as the dwarf, though, and with a final salute to the ruins of
the alcove, they followed Bruenor back into the corridor.
"I'm meaning to make Garumn's Gorge afore the next rest," Bruenor
