victims, but he trusted enough in Catti-brie not to fear a stray shot. His
muscles flexed in another crushing blow, even the Duergar's shining armor
offering no protection against his brute strength.
But then arms stronger than his own caught him from behind.
The few Duergar that remained before him did not recognize Bok as an
ally. They fled in terror to the chasm bridge, hoping to cross and destroy
the route of any pursuit behind them.
Catti-brie cut them down.
Regis didn't make any sudden moves, knowing Sydney's power from the
encounter back in the oval room. Her bolt of energy had flattened both
Bruenor and Wulfgar; the halfling shuddered to think what it could do to
him.
His only chance was the ruby pendant, he thought. If he could get
Sydney caught in its hypnotizing spell, he might hold her long enough for
his friends to return.
Slowly, he moved his hand under his jacket, his eyes trained upon the
mage, wary for the beginnings of any killing bolt.
Sydney's wand remained tucked into her belt. She had a trick of her own
planned for the little one. She muttered a quick chant, then rolled her
hand open to Regis and puffed gently, launching a filmy string in his
direction.
Regis understood the spell's nature when the air around him was
suddenly saturated with floating webs - sticky spiders' webs. They clung to
every part of him, slowing his movements, and filled the area around him.
He had his hand around the magical pendant, but the web had him fully
within its own grip.
Pleased in the exercising of her power, Sydney turned to the door and
the battle beyond. She preferred calling upon the powers within her, but
understood the strength of these other enemies, and drew her wand.
Bruenor finished the last of the gray dwarves facing him. He had taken
many hits, some serious, and much of the blood covering him was his own.
The rage within him that he had built over the course of centuries, though,
blinded him to the pain. His blood lust was sated now, but only until he
turned back toward the anteroom and saw Bok lifting Wulfgar high. into the
air and crushing the life out of him.
Catti-brie saw it, too. Horrified, she tried to get a clear shot at the
golem, but with Wulfgar's desperate struggling, the combatants stumbled
about too often for her to dare. "Help him!" she begged to Bruenor under
her breath, as all that she could do was watch.
Half of Wulfgar's body was numbed under the incredible force of Bok's
magically strengthened arms. He did manage to squirm around and face his
foe, though, and he put a hand in-the golem's eye and pushed with all his
strength, trying to divert some of the monster's energy from the attack.
Bok seemed not to notice.
Wulfgar slammed Aegis-fang into the monster's face with all the force
he could muster under the tight circumstances, still a blow that would have
felled a giant.
Again Bok seemed not to notice.
The arms closed relentlessly. A wave of dizziness swept through the
barbarian. His fingers tingled with numbness. His hammer dropped to the
ground.
Bruenor was almost there, axe poised and ready to begin chopping. But
as the dwarf passed the open door to the anteroom, a blinding flash of
energy shot out at him. It struck his shield, luckily, and deflected up to
the cavern ceiling, but the sheer force of it hurled Bruenor from his feet.
He shook his head in disbelief and struggled to a sitting position.
Catti-brie saw the bolt and remembered the similar blast that had
dropped both Bruenor and Wulfgar back in the oval room. Instinctively,
without the slightest hesitation or concern for her own safety, she was
off, running back down the passageway, driven by the knowledge that if she
couldn't get to the mage, her friends didn't have a chance.
Bruenor was more prepared for the second bolt. He saw Sydney inside the
anteroom lift the wand at him. He dove on his belly and threw his shield
above his head, facing the mage. It held again against the blast,
deflecting the energy harmlessly away, but Bruenor felt it weaken under the
impact and knew that it would not withstand another.
The stubborn survival instincts of the barbarian brought his drifting
mind from the swoon and back into focus on the battle. He didn't call for
his hammer, knowing it to be of little use against the golem and doubting
that he could have clasped it anyway. He summoned his own strength,
wrapping his huge arms around Bok's neck. His corded muscles tensed to
their limits and ripped beyond as he struggled. No breath would come to
him; Bruenor would not get there in time. He growled away the pain and the
fear, grimaced through the sensations of numbness.
And twisted with all his might.
Regis at last managed to get his hand and the pendant out from under
leis jacket. "Wait, mage!" he cried at Sydney, not expecting her to listen,
but only hoping to divert her attention long enough for her to glimpse the
gemstone, and praying that Entreri had not informed her of its hypnotizing
powers.
Again the mistrust and secrecy of the evil party worked against them.
Oblivious to the dangers of the halfling's ruby, Sydney glanced at him out
of the corner of her eye, more to ensure that her web still held him
tightly than to listen to any words he might have to say.
A sparkle of red-light caught her attention more fully than she had
intended, and long moments passed before she would look away.
In the main passage, Catti-brie crouched low and sped along as swiftly
as she could. Then she heard the baying.
The hunting shadow hounds filled the corridors with their excited
cries, and filled Catti-brie with dread. The hounds were far behind, but
her knees went weak as the unearthly sound descended upon her, echoing from
wall to wall and encasing her in a dizzying jumble. She gritted her teeth
against the assault and pressed on. Bruenor needed her, Wulfgar needed her.
She would not fail them.
She made the balcony and sprinted down the stairs, finding the door to
the anteroom closed. Cursing the luck, for she had hoped to get a shot at
the mage from a distance, she slung Taulmaril over her shoulder, drew her
sword, and boldly, blindly, charged through.
Locked in a killing embrace, Wulfgar and Bok stumbled around the
cavern, sometimes dangerously close to the gorge. The barbarian matched his
muscle against Dendybar's magical work; never before had he faced such a
foe. Wildly, he jerked Bok's massive head back and forth, breaking the
monster's ability to resist. Then he began turning it in one direction,
driving on with every ounce of power that he had left to give. He couldn't
remember the last time he had found a breath; he no longer knew who he was,
or where he was.
His sheer stubbornness refused to yield.
He heard the snap of bone, and couldn't be sure if it had been his own
spine or the golem's neck. Bok never flinched, nor loosened its vicelike
grip. The head turned easily now, and Wulfgar, driven on by the final
darkness that began its descent upon him, tugged and turned in a final
flurry of defiance.
Skin ripped away. The blood-stuff of the wizard's creation poured onto
Wulfgar's arms and chest, and the head tore free. Wulfgar, to his own
amazement, thought that he had won.
Bok seemed not to notice.
The beginnings of the ruby pendant's hypnotizing spell shattered when
the door crashed in, but Regis had played his part. By the time Sydney
recognized the coming danger, Catti-brie was too close for her to cast her
spells.
Sydney's gaze locked into a stunned, wide-eyed stare of confused
protest. All of her dreams and future plans fell before her in that one
instant. She tried to scream out a denial, certain that the gods of fate
had a more important role planned for her in their scheme of the universe,
convinced that they would not allow the shining star of her budding power
to be extinguished before it ever came to its potential.
But a thin, wooden wand is of little use in parrying a metal blade.
Catti-brie saw nothing but her target, felt nothing in that instant but
the, necessity of her duty. Her sword snapped through the feeble wand and
plunged home.
She looked at Sydney's face for the first time. Time itself seemed to
halt.
Sydney's expression had not changed, her eyes and mouth still open in
denial of this possibility.
Catti-brie watched in helpless horror as the last flickers of hope and
ambition faded from Sydney's eyes. Warm blood gushed over Catti-brie's arm.
Sydney's final gasp of breath seemed impossibly loud.
And Sydney slid, ever so slowly, from the blade and into the realm of
death.
A single, vicious cut from the mithril axe severed one of Bok's arms,
and Wulfgar fell free. He landed on one knee, barely on the edge of
consciousness. His huge lungs reflexively sucked in a volume of
revitalizing oxygen.
Sensing the dwarf's presence clearly, but without eyes to focus upon
its target, the headless golem lunged confusedly at Bruenor and missed
badly.
Bruenor had no understanding of the magical forces that guided the
monster, or kept it alive, and he had little desire to test his fighting
skills against it. He saw another way. "Come on, ye filthy mold of
orc-dung," he teased, moving toward the gorge. In a more serious tone, he
called to Wulfgar, "Get yer hammer ready, boy."
Bruenor had to repeat the request over and over, and by the time
Wulfgar began to hear it, Bok had backed the dwarf right up to the ledge.
Only half aware of his actions, Wulfgar found the warhammer returned to
his hand.
Bruenor stopped, his heels clear of the stone floor, a smile on his
face that accepted death. The golem paused, too, somehow understanding that
Bruenor had nowhere left to run.
Bruenor dropped to the floor as Bok lunged forward, Aegis-fang slammed
into its back, pushing it over the dwarf. The monster fell silently, with
no ears to hear the sound of the air rushing past.
Catti-brie was still standing motionless over the mage's body when
Wulfgar and Bruenor entered the anteroom. Sydney's eyes and mouth remained
open in silent denial, a futile attempt to belie the pool of blood that
deepened around her body.
Lines of tears wetted Catti-brie's face. She had felled goblinoids and
gray dwarves, once an ogre and a tundra yeti, but never before had she
killed a human. Never before had she looked into eyes akin to her own and
watched the light leave them. Never before had she understood the
complexity of her victim, or even that the life she had taken existed
outside the present field of battle.
Wulfgar moved to her and embraced her in full sympathy while Bruenor
cut the halfling free of the remaining strands of webbing.
The dwarf had trained Catti-brie to fight and had reveled in her
victories against orcs and the like, foul beasts that deserved death by all
accounts. He had always hoped, though, that his beloved Catti-brie would be
spared this experience.
Again Mithril Hall loomed as the source of his friends' suffering.
Distant howls echoed from beyond the open door behind them. Catti-brie
slid the sword into its sheath, not even thinking to wipe the blood from
it, and steadied herself. "The pursuit is not ended," she stated flatly.
"It is past time we leave."
She led them from the room then, but left a part of herself, the
pedestal of her innocence, behind.
23
The Broken Helm
Air rolled across its black wings like the continuous rumble of distant
thunder as the dragon swept out of the passageway and into Garumn's Gorge,
using the same exit that Drizzt and Entreri had passed just a few moments
before. The two, a few dozen yards higher on the wall, held perfectly
still, not even daring to breathe. They knew that the dark lord of Mithril
Hall had come.
The black cloud that was Shimmergloom rushed by them, unnoticing, and
soared down the length of the chasm. Drizzt, in the lead, scrambled up the
side of the gorge, clawing at the stone to find whatever holds he could and
trusting to them fully in his desperation. He had heard the sounds of
battle far above him when he first entered the chasm, and knew that even if
his friends had been victorious thus far, they would soon be met by a foe
mightier than anything they had ever faced.
Drizzt was determined to stand beside them.
Entreri matched the drow's pace, wanting to keep close to him, though
he hadn't yet formulated his exact plan of action.
Wulfgar and Catti-brie supported each other as they walked. Regis kept
beside Bruenor, concerned for the dwarf's wounds, even if the dwarf was
not. "Keep yer worries for yer own hide, Rumblebelly," he kept snapping at
the halfling, though Regis could see that the depth of Bruenor's gruffness
had diminished. The dwarf seemed somewhat embarrassed for the way he had
acted earlier. "Me wounds'll heal; don't ye be thinking ye've gotten rid of
me so easy! There'll be time for looking to them once we've put this place
behind us."
Regis had stopped walking, a puzzled expression on his face. Bruenor
looked back at him, confused, too, and wondered if he had somehow offended
the halfling again. Wulfgar and Catti-brie stopped behind Regis and waited
for some indication of the trouble, not knowing what had been said between
him and the dwarf.
"What's yer grief?" Bruenor demanded.
Regis was not bothered by anything Bruenor had said, nor with the dwarf
at all at that moment. It was Shimmergloom that he had sensed, a sudden
coldness that had entered the cavern, a foulness that insulted the
companions' caring bond with its mere presence.
