His noise will bring the whole of the Underdark on our heads," Catti-brie whispered to Bruenor, referring to the battlerager's continually squealing armor. Pwent, realizing the same, had gone far ahead of the others and was gradually outpacing them, for Catti-brie and Wulfgar, human and not blessed with eyes that could see in the infrared spectrum, had to nearly crawl along, one hand on Bruenor at all times. Only Guenhwyvar, sometimes leading, more often moving as a silent emissary between Bruenor and the battlerager, maintained any semblance of communication between the principals of the small troupe.
Another grating squeal from ahead brought a grimace to Bruenor's face. He heard Catti-brie's resigned sigh and agreed with it. Even more so than his daughter, the experienced Bruenor understood the futility of it all. He thought of making Pwent remove the noisy armor but dismissed the notion immediately, realizing that even if all four of them walked naked, their footfalls would sound as clearly as a marching drumbeat to the sensitive ears of the enemy dark elves.
"Put up the torch," he instructed Wulfgar. "Surely ye cannot," Catti-brie argued. "They're all about us," Bruenor replied. "I can sense the dogs, and they'll see us as well without the light as with. We've no chance of getting through without another fight - I'm knowing that now - so we might as well fight 'em on terms better suited for our side."
Catti-brie turned her head about, though she could see nothing at all in the pitch blackness. She sensed the truth of Bruenor's observations, though, sensed that dark and silent shapes were moving all about them, closing a noose about the doomed party. A moment later she had to blink and squint when Wulfgar's torch came up in a fiery blaze. Flickering shadows replaced absolute blackness; Catti-brie was surprised at how uncut this tunnel was, much more natural and rough than those they had left. Soil mixed with the stone along the ceiling and walls, giving the young woman less confidence in the stability of the place. She became acutely aware of the hundreds of tons of earth and rock above her head, aware that a slight shift in the stone could instantly crush her and her companions.
"What're ye about?" Bruenor asked her, seeing her obvious anxiety. He turned to Wulfgar and saw the barbarian growing similarly unnerved.
"Unworked tunnels," the dwarf remarked, coming to understand. "Ye're not so used to the wild depths." He put a gnarly hand on his beloved daughter's arm and felt beads of cold sweat.
"Ye'll get used to it," the dwarf gently promised. "Just remember that Drizzt is alone down here and needing our help. Keep yer mind on that fact and ye'll fast forget the stone above yer head."
Catti-brie nodded resolutely, took a deep breath, and determinedly wiped the sweat from her brow. Bruenor moved ahead then, saying that he was going to the front edge of the torchlight to see if he could locate the leading battlerager.
"Drizzt needs us," Wulfgar said to Catti-brie as soon as the dwarf had gone.
Catti-brie turned to him, surprised by his tone. For the first time in a long while, Wulfgar had spoken to her without a hint of either protective condescension or mounting rage.
Wulfgar walked up to her, put his arm gently against her back to move her along. She matched his slow stride, all the while studying his fair face, trying to sort through the obvious torment in his strong facial features.
"When this is through, we have much to discuss," he said quietly.
Catti-brie stopped, eyeing him suspiciously - and that seemed to wound the barbarian even more.
"I have many apologies to offer," Wulfgar tried to explain, "to Drizzt, to Bruenor, but mostly to you. To let Regis - Artemis Entreri - fool me so!" Wulfgar's mounting excitement flew away when he took the moment to look closely at Catti-brie, to see the stern resolve in her blue eyes.
"What happened over the last few weeks surely was heightened by the assassin and his magical pendant," the young woman agreed, "but I'm fearing that the problems were there afore Entreri ever arrived. First thing, ye got to admit that to yerself."
Wulfgar looked away, considered the words, then nodded his agreement. "We will talk," he promised.
"After we're through with the drow," Catti-brie said.
Again the barbarian nodded.
"And keep yer place in mind," Catti-brie told him. "Ye've a role to play in the group, and it's not a role of looking out for me own safety. Keep yer place."
"And you keep yours," Wulfgar agreed, and his ensuing smile sent a burst of warmth through Catti-brie, a poignant reminder of those special, boyish qualities, innocent and unjudging, that had so attracted her to Wulfgar in the first place.
The barbarian nodded again and, still smiling, started away, Catti-brie at his side - but no longer behind him.
* * * * *
"I have given you all of this," Entreri prodded, moving slowly toward his rival, his glowing sword and jeweled dagger held out wide as though he were guiding a tour around some vast treasure hoard. "Because of my efforts, you have hope once more, you can walk these very dark tunnels with some belief that you will again see the light of day." Drizzt, jaw set firm, scimitars in hand, did not reply. "Are you not grateful?"
"Please kill him," Drizzt heard battered Regis whisper, possibly the most pitifully sounding plea the drow ranger had ever heard. He looked to the side to see the halfling trembling with unbridled fright, gnawing his lips and twisting his still-swollen hands about each other. What horrors Regis must have experienced at Entreri's hands, Drizzt realized.
He looked back to the approaching assassin; Twinkle flared angrily.
"Now you are ready to fight," Entreri remarked. He curled his lips up in his customary evil smile. "And ready to die?"
Drizzt flipped his cloak back over his shoulders and boldly strode ahead, for he did not want to fight Entreri anywhere near Regis. Entreri might just flick that deadly dagger of his into the halfling, for no better reason than to torment Drizzt, to raise Drizzt's rage.
The assassin's dagger hand did pump as if he meant to throw, and Drizzt instinctively dropped into a crouch, his blades coming up defensively. Entreri didn't release the blade, though, and his widening smile showed that he never intended to.
Two more strides brought Drizzt within sword's reach. His scimitars began their flowing dance.
"Nervous?" the assassin teased, pointedly slapping his fine sword against Twinkle's reaching blade. "Of course you are. That is the problem with your tender heart, Drizzt Do'Urden, the weakness of your passion."
Drizzt came in a cunning cross, then swiped at a low angle for Entreri's belt, forcing the assassin to suck in his belly and leap back, at the same time snapping his dagger across to halt the scimitar's progress.
"You have too much to lose," Entreri went on, seeming unconcerned for the close call. "You know that if you die, the halfling dies. Too many distractions, my friend, too many items keeping your focus from the battle." The assassin charged as he spoke the last word, sword pumping fiercely, ringing from scimitar to scimitar, trying to open some hole in Drizzt's defenses that he might slip his dagger through.
There were no holes in Drizzt's defenses. Each maneuver, skilled as it might have been, left Entreri back where he had started, and gradually Drizzt worked his blades from defense to offense, driving the assassin away, forcing another break.
"Excellent!" Entreri congratulated. "Now you fight with your heart. This is the moment I have awaited since our battle in Calimport."
Drizzt shrugged. "Please do not let me disappoint you," he said, and came ahead viciously, spinning with his scimitars angled like the edging of a screw, as he had done in the chamber above. Again Entreri had no practical defense against the move - except to keep out of the scimitars' shortened reach.
Drizzt came out of the spin angled slightly to the assassin's left, Entreri's dagger hand. The drow dove ahead and rolled, just out of Entreri's lunging strike, then came back to his feet and reversed momentum immediately, rushing around Entreri's back side, forcing the assassin to spin on his heels, his sword whipping about in a frantic effort to keep the thrusting scimitars at bay. Entreri was no longer smiling.
He managed somehow to avoid being hit, but Drizzt pressed the attack, kept him on his heels.
They heard the soft click of a handcrossbow from somewhere down the hall. In unison, the mortal enemies jumped back and fell into rolls, and the quarrel skipped harmlessly between them.
Five dark forms advanced steadily, swords drawn. "Your friends," Drizzt remarked evenly. "It seems our fight will wait once more."
Entreri's eyes narrowed in open hatred as he regarded the approaching dark elves.
Drizzt understood the source of the assassin's frustration. Would Vierna give Entreri another battle, especially with other powerful enemies in the tunnels, searching for Drizzt? And even if she did, Entreri had to realize that, as with the fight before, he would not coax Drizzt into this level of battle, not with Drizzt's hopes for freedom extinguished.