raised his mithril axe high before him. The dragon heard him coming and
swerved in closer to the rim to investigate - and was as amazed as the
dwarf's friends when Bruenor, his shoulder and back aflame, leaped from the
edge and streaked down upon it.
Impossibly strong, as though all of the ghosts of Clan Battlehammer had
joined their hands with Bruenor's upon the weapon handle and lent him their
strength, the dwarf's initial blow drove the mithril axe deep into
Shimmergloom's back. Bruenor crashed down behind, but held fast to the
embedded weapon, even though the keg of oil broke apart with the impact and
spewed flames all across the monster's back.
Shimmergloom shrieked in outrage and swerved wildly, even crashing into
the stone wall of the gorge.
Bruenor would not be thrown. Savagely, he grasped the handle, waiting
for the opportunity to tear the weapon free and drive it home again.
Catti-brie and Regis rushed to the edge of the gorge, helplessly
calling out to their doomed friend. Wulfgar, too, managed to drag himself
over, still fighting the black depths of despair.
When the barbarian looked upon Bruenor, sprawled amid the flames, he
roared away the dragon's spell and, without the slightest hesitation,
launched Aegis-fang. The hammer caught Shimmergloom on the side of its head
and the dragon swerved again in its surprise, clipping the other wall of
the gorge.
"Are ye mad?" Catti-brie yelled at Wulfgar.
"Take up your bow," Wulfgar told her. "If a true friend of Bruenor's
you be, then let him not fall in vain!" Aegis-fang returned to his grasp
and he launched it again, scoring a second hit.
Catti-brie had to accept the reality. She could not save Bruenor from
the fate he had chosen. Wulfgar was right - she could aid the dwarf in
gaining his desired end. Blinking away the tears that came to her, she took
Taulmaril in hand and sent the silver bolts at the dragon.
Both Drizzt and Entreri watched Bruenor's leap in utter amazement.
Cursing his helpless position, Drizzt surged ahead, nearly to the rim. He
shouted out for his remaining friends, but in the commotion, and with the
roaring of the dragon, they could not hear.
Entreri was directly below him. The assassin knew that his last chance
was upon him, though he risked losing the only challenge he had ever found
in this life. As Drizzt scrambled for his next hold, Entreri grabbed his
ankle and pulled him down.
Oil found its way in through the seams in Shimmergloom's scales,
carrying the fire to the dragon flesh. The dragon cried out from a pain it
never believed it could know.
The thud of the warhammer! The constant sting of those streaking lines
of silver! And the dwarf! Relentless in his attacks, somehow oblivious to
the fires.
Shimmergloom tore along the length of the gorge, dipping suddenly, then
swooping back up and rolling over and about. Catti-brie's arrows found it
at every turn. And Wulfgar, wiser with each of his strikes, sought the best
opportunities to throw the warhammer, waiting for the dragon to cut by a
rocky outcropping in the wall, then driving the monster into the stone with
the force of his throw.
Flames, stone, and dust flew wildly with each thunderous impact.
Bruenor held on. Singing out to his father and his kin beyond that, the
dwarf absolved himself of his guilt, content that he had satisfied the
ghosts of his past and given his friends a chance for survival. He didn't
feel the bite of the fire, nor the bump of stone. All he felt was the
quivering of the dragon flesh below his blade, and the reverberations of
Shimmergloom's agonized cries.
Drizzt tumbled down the face of the gorge, desperately scrambling for
some hold. He slammed onto a ledge twenty feet below the assassin and
managed to stop his descent.
Entreri nodded his approval and his aim, for the drow had landed just
where he had hoped. "Farewell, trusting fool!" he called down to Drizzt and
he started up the wall.
Drizzt never had trusted in the assassin's honor, but he had believed
in Entreri's pragmatism. This attack made no practical sense. "Why?" he
called back to Entreri. "You could have had the pendant without recourse!
"The gem is mine," Entreri replied.
"But not without a price!" Drizzt declared. "You know that I will come
after you, assassin!"
Entreri looked down at him with an amused grin. "Do you not understand,
Drizzt Do'Urden? That is exactly the purpose!"
The assassin quickly reached the rim, and peered above it. To his left,
Wulfgar and Catti-brie continued their assault on the dragon. To his right,
Regis stood enamored of the scene, completely unaware.
The halfling's surprise was complete, his face blanching in terror,
when his worst nightmare rose up before him. Regis dropped the gem-studded
helm and went limp with fear as Entreri silently picked him up and started
for the bridge.
Exhausted, the dragon tried to find another method of defense. Its rage
and pain had carried it too far into the battle, though. It had taken too
many hits, and still the silver streaks bit into it again and again.
Still the tireless dwarf twisted and pounded the axe into its back.
One last time the dragon cut back in mid-flight, trying to snake its
neck around so that it could at least take vengeance upon the cruel dwarf.
It hung motionless for just a split second, and Aegis-fang took it in the
eye.
The dragon rolled over in blinded rage, lost in a dizzying swirl of
pain, headlong into a jutting portion of the wall.
The explosion rocked the very foundations of the cavern, nearly
knocking Catti-brie from her feet and Drizzt from his precarious perch.
One final image came to Bruenor, a sight that made his heart leap one
more time in victory: the piercing gaze of Drizzt Do'Urden's lavender eyes
bidding him farewell from the darkness of the wall.
Broken and beaten, the flames consuming it, the dragon of darkness
glided and spun, descending into the deepest blackness it would ever know,
a blackness from which there could be no return. The depths of Garumn's
Gorge.
And bearing with it the rightful King of Mithril Hall.
24
Eulogy for Mithril Hall
The burning dragon drifted lower and lower, the light of the flames
slowly diminishing to a mere speck at the bottom of Garumn's Gorge.
Drizzt scrambled up over the ledge and came up beside Catti-brie and
Wulfgar, Catti-brie holding the gem-studded helm, and both of them staring
helplessly across the chasm. The two of them nearly fell over in surprise
when they turned to see their drow friend returned from the grave. Even the
appearance of Artemis Entreri had not prepared Wulfgar and Catti-brie for
the sight of Drizzt.
"How?" Wulfgar gasped, but Drizzt cut him short. The time for
explanations would come later; they had more urgent business at hand.
Across the gorge, right next to the lever hooked to the bridge, stood
Artemis Entreri, holding Regis by the throat before him and grinning
wickedly. The ruby pendant now hung around the assassin's neck.
"Let him go," Drizzt said evenly. "As we agreed. You have the gem."
Entreri laughed and pulled the lever. The stone bridge shuddered, then
broke apart, tumbling into the darkness below.
Drizzt had thought that he was beginning to understand the assassin's
motivations for this treachery, reasoning now that Entreri had taken Regis
to ensure pursuit, continuing his own personal challenge with Drizzt. But
now with the bridge gone and no apparent escape open before Drizzt and his
friends, and the incessant baying of the shadow hounds growing closer at
their backs, the drow's theories didn't seem to hold up. Angered by his
confusion, he reacted quickly. Having lost his own bow back in the alcove,
Drizzt grabbed Taulmaril from Catti-brie and fitted an arrow.
Entreri moved just as fast. He rushed to the ledge, scooped Regis up by
an ankle, and held him by one hand over the edge. Wulfgar and Catti-brie
sensed the strange bond between Drizzt and the assassin and knew that
Drizzt was better able to deal with this situation. They moved back a step
and held each other close.
Drizzt kept the bow steady and cocked, his eyes unblinking as he
searched for the one lapse in Entreri's defenses.
Entreri shook Regis dangerously and laughed again. "The road to
Calimport is long indeed, drow. You shall have your chance to catch up with
me."
"You have blocked our escape," Drizzt retorted.
"A necessary inconvenience," explained Entreri. "Surely you will find
your way through this, even if your other friends do not. And I will be
waiting!"
"I will come," Drizzt promised. "You do not need the halfling to make
me want to hunt you down, foul assassin."
"'Tis true," said Entreri. He reached into his pouch, pulled out a
small item, and tossed it into the air. It twirled up above him then
dropped. He caught it just before it passed beyond his reach and would have
fallen into the gorge. He tossed it again. Something small, something
black.
Entreri tossed it a third time, teasingly, the smile widening across
his face as Drizzt lowered the bow.
Guenhwyvar.
"I do not need the halfling," Entreri stated flatly and he held Regis
farther out over the chasm.
Drizzt dropped the magical bow behind him, but kept his glare locked
upon the assassin.
Entreri pulled Regis back in to the ledge. "But my master demands the
right to kill this little thief. Lay your plans, drow, for the hounds draw
near. Alone, you stand a better chance. Leave those two, and live!
"Then come, drow. Finish our business." He laughed one more time and
spun away into the darkness of the final tunnel.
"He's out, then," said Catti-brie. "Bruenor named that passage as a
straight run to a door out of the halls."
Drizzt looked all around, trying to find some means to get them across
the chasm.
"By Bruenor's own words, there is another way," Catti-brie offered. She
pointed down to her right, toward the south end of the cavern. "A ledge,"
she said, "but hours of walking."
"Then run," replied Drizzt, his eyes still fixed upon the tunnel across
the gorge.
By the time the three companions reached the ledge, the echoes of howls
and specks of light far to the north told them that Duergar and shadow
hounds had entered the cavern. Drizzt led them across the narrow walkway,
his back pressed against the wall as he inched his way toward the other
side. All the gorge lay open before him, and the fires still burned below,
a grim reminder of the fate of his bearded friend. Perhaps it was, fitting
that Bruenor died here, in the home of his ancestors, he thought. Perhaps
the dwarf had finally satisfied the yearning that had dictated so much of
his life.
The loss remained intolerable to Drizzt, though. His years with Bruenor
had shown him a compassionate and respected friend, a friend he could rely
upon at any time, in any circumstance. Drizzt could tell himself over and
over that Bruenor was satisfied, that the dwarf had climbed his mountain
and won his personal battle, but in the terrible immediacy of his death,
those thoughts did little to dispel the drow's grief.
Catti-brie blinked away more tears, and Wulfgar's sigh belied his
stoicism when they moved out across the gorge that had become Bruenor's
grave. To Catti-brie, Bruenor was father and friend, who taught her
toughness and touched her with tenderness. All of the constants of her
world, her family and home, lay burning far below, on the back of a
hell-spawned dragon.
A numbness descended over Wulfgar, the cold chill of mortality and the
realization of how fragile life could be. Drizzt had returned to him, but
now Bruenor was gone. Above any emotions of joy or grief came a wave of
instability, a tragic rewriting of heroic images and bard-sung legends that
he had not expected. Bruenor had died with courage and strength, and the
story of his fiery leap would be told and retold a thousand times. But it
would never fill the void that Wulfgar felt at that moment.
They made their way across to the chasm's other side and raced back to
the north to get to the final tunnel and be free of the shadows of Mithril
Hall. When they came again into the wide end of the cavern, they were
spotted. Duergar shouted and cursed at them; the great black shadow hounds
roared their threats and scratched at the lip of the other side of the
gorge. But their enemies had no way to get at them, short of going all the
way around to the ledge, and Drizzt stepped unopposed into the tunnel that
Entreri had entered a few hours earlier.
Wulfgar followed, but Catti-brie paused at the entrance and looked back
across the gorge at the gathered host of gray dwarves.
"Come," Drizzt said to her. "There is nothing that we can do here, and
Regis needs our help."
Catti-brie's eyes narrowed and the muscles in her jaw clenched tightly
as she fitted an arrow to her bow and fired. The silver streak whistled
into the crowd of Duergar and blasted one from life, sending the others
scurrying for cover. "Nothing now," Catti-brie replied grimly, "but I'll be
comin' back! Let the gray dogs know it for truth.
"I'll be back!"
Epilogue
Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie came into Longsaddle a few days later,
road weary and still wrapped in a shroud of grief. Harkle and his kin
greeted them warmly and invited them to stay at the Ivy Mansion for as long
