'Tight turn!' the boss dwarf yelled, and sparks flew from the side of the steel-covered outer stone wheels as they screeched along. The dwarves had counted on this region to stop the rolling monstrosity.
It didn't, and around the bend loomed the end of the corridor, a dozen goblins scratching at the unyielding stone, trying to find escape.
'Let it go!' cried the boss, and the wild-rushing dwarves did, falling all over each other as they continued to bounce along.
With a tremendous explosion that shook the bedrock, the juicer collided with the wall. It wasn't hard for the cheering dwarves to figure out what had happened to the unfortunate creatures caught in between.
'Oh, good work!' the boss dwarf said to his charges as he looked back around the bend to the long line of crushed goblins. The dwarven soldiers were still battling, but now they badly outnumbered their enemies, for more than half the goblin force had been squashed.
'Good work!' the boss reiterated heartily, and by a goblin-hating dwarf's estimation, it certainly was.
Back in the main chamber, Bruenor and Dagna exchanged victorious and wet hugs, 'sharing the blood of their enemies,' as the brutal dwarves called it. A few dwarves had been killed and many others lay wounded, but neither of the leaders had dared to hope that the rout would be so complete.
'What do ye think o' that, me girl?' Bruenor asked Catti-brie when she came over to join him, her long bow comfortably over one shoulder.
'We did as we had to do,' the woman replied. 'And the goblins were, as expected, a treacherous bunch. But I'll not back down on me words. We did right in trying to talk first.'
Dagna spat on the floor, but Bruenor, the wiser of the two, nodded his agreement with his daughter.
'Tempus!' they heard Wulfgar cry in victory, and the barbarian, spotting the group, began bounding over to them, his mighty warhammer held high above his head.
'I'm still for thinking that ye're all taking a bit too much pleasure in it all,' Catti-brie remarked to Bruenor. Apparently not wanting to talk with Wulfgar, she moved away, back to help the wounded.
'Bah!' Bruenor snorted behind her. 'Suren ye set yer own bow to some sweet singing!'
Catti-brie brushed her auburn locks out of her face and did not look back. She didn't want Bruenor to see her smile.
The juicer brigade entered the main chamber a half hour later, reporting the right flank clear of goblins. Only a few minutes after them, Drizzt, Regis, and Guenhwyvar came in, the drow telling Bruenor that Cobble's forces were finishing up in the corridors to the left and the rear.
'Did ye get a few for yerself?' the dwarf asked. 'After the ettins, I mean?'
Drizzt nodded. 'I did,' he replied, 'as did Guenhwyvar… and Regis.' Both Drizzt and the dwarf turned curious eyes on the halfling, who stood easily, his bloodied mace in hand. Noticing the looks, Regis slipped the weapon behind his back as though he were embarrassed.
'I did not even expect ye to come, Rumblebelly,' Bruenor said to him. 'I thought ye'd be staying up, helping yerself to more food, while the rest of us did all the fighting.'
Regis shrugged. 'I figured that the safest place in all the world would be beside Drizzt,' he explained.
Bruenor wasn't about to argue with that logic. 'We can set to digging in a few weeks,' he explained to his ranger friend. 'After some expeditionary miners come through and name the place safe.'
By this point, Drizzt was hardly listening to him. He was more interested in the fact that Catti-brie and Wulfgar, moving about the ranks of wounded, obviously were avoiding each other.
'It's the boy,' Bruenor told him, noticing his interest.
'He did not think a woman should be at the battle,' Drizzt replied.
'Bah!' snorted the red-bearded dwarf. 'She's as fine a fighter as we've got. Besides, five dozen dwarf women came along, and two of 'em even got killed.'
Drizzt's face twisted with surprise as he regarded the dwarf king. He shook his white shock of hair helplessly and started away to join Catti-brie, but stopped and looked back after only a few steps, shaking his head yet again.
'Five dozen of 'em,' Bruenor reiterated into his doubting expression. 'Dwarf women, I tell ye.'
'My friend,' Drizzt answered, moving off once more, 'I never could tell the difference.'
Coble s forces joined the other dwarves two hours later, reporting rear areas clear of enemies. The rout was complete, as fare as Bruenor and his commanders could discern, with not a single enemy left alive.
Non of the dwarven forces had noticed the slender, dark forms— dark elves, Jarlaxle s spies — floating among the stalactites near critical areas of the battle, watching the dwarven movements and battle techniques with more than passive interest.
The goblin threat was ended, but that was the least of Bruenor Battlehammer's problems.
Chapter 5 Ye of Little Faith
Dinin watched Vierna's every move, watched how his sister went through the precise rituals I to honor the Spider Queen. The drow were in a Ismail chapel Jarlaxle had secured for Vierna's use in one of the minor houses of Menzoberranzan. Dinin remained faithful to the dark deity Lloth and willingly had agreed to accompany Vierna to her prayers this day, but, in truth, the male drow thought the whole thing a senseless facade, thought his sister a ridiculous mockery of her former self.
'You should not be so doubting,' Vierna remarked to him, still going about her ritual and not bothering to look over her shoulder to regard Dinin.
At the sound of Dinin's disgusted sigh, though, Vierna did spin about, an angry red glower in her narrow-set eyes.
'What is the purpose?' Dinin demanded, facing her wrath bravely. Even if she was out of Lloth's favor, as Dinin stubbornly believed, Vierna was larger and stronger than he and armed with some clerical magic. He gritted his teeth, firmed his resolve, and did not back down, fearful that Vierna's mounting obsession again would lead those around him down a path to destruction.
In answer, Vierna produced a curious whip from under the folds of her clerical robes. While its handle was unremarkable black adamantite, the instrument's five tendrils were writhing, living snakes. Dinin's eyes widened; he understood the weapon's significance.
'Lloth does not allow any but her high priestesses to wield these,' Vierna reminded him, affectionately petting the heads.
'But we lost favor…' Dinin started to protest, but it was a lame argument in the face of Vierna's demonstration.
Vierna eyed him and laughed evilly, almost purred, as she bent to kiss one of the heads.
'Then why go after Drizzt?' Dinin asked her. 'You have regained the favor of Lloth. Why risk everything chasing our traitorous brother?'
'That is how I regained the favor!' Vierna screamed at him. She advanced a step, and Dinin wisely backed away. He remembered his younger days at House Do'Urden, when Briza, his oldest and most vicious sister, often tortured him with one of those dreaded, snake-headed whips.
Vierna calmed immediately, though, and looked back to her dark, (both live and sculpted) spider-covered altar. 'Our family fell because of Matron Malice's weakness,' she explained. 'Malice failed in the most important task Lloth ever gave her.'
'To kill Drizzt,' Dinin reasoned.
'Yes,' Vierna said simply, looking back over her shoulder to regard her brother. 'To kill Drizzt, wretched, traitorous Drizzt. I have promised his heart to Lloth, have promised to right the family's wrong, so that we-you and I-might regain the favor of our goddess.'
'To what end?' Dinin had to ask, looking around the unremarkable chapel with obvious scorn. 'Our house is no more. The name of Do'Urden cannot be spoken anywhere in the city. What will be the gain if we again find Lloth's favor? You will be a high priestess, and for that I am glad, but you will have no house over which to preside.'
'But I will!' Vierna retorted, her eyes flashing. 'I am a surviving noble of a destroyed house, as are you, my
