Chapter 20 Suddenly
Dust continued to settle in the wide chamber, dulling the flickering light; one of the torches had been extinguished beneath a falling chunk of stone, its glow snuffed out in the blink of an eye. Snuffed out like the light in Wulfgar's eyes. When the rumbling finally stopped, when the larger pieces of collapsed ceiling settled, Catti-brie turned herself about and managed to sit up, facing the rubble-filled alcove. She wiped the dirt from her eyes, blinked through the gloom for several long moments before the grim truth of the scene registered fully.
The monster's one visible tentacle, still wrapped about the young woman's ankle, had been cleanly severed, its back edge, near the rubble, twitching reflexively.
Beyond it there was only piled rock. The enormity of the situation overwhelmed Catti-brie. She swayed to the side, nearly swooned, finding her strength only when a burst of anger and denial welled up within her. She tore her feet free of the tentacle and scrambled ahead on all fours. She tried to stand, but her head throbbed, keeping her low. Again came the wave of weak nausea, the invitation to fall back into unconsciousness.
Wulfgar!
Catti-brie crawled on, slapped aside the twitching tentacle, and began digging into the stone pile with her bare hands, scraping her skin and tearing a fingernail painfully. How similar this collapse seemed to the one that had taken Drizzt on the companions' first crossing of Mithril Hall. But that had been a dwarf-designed trap, a rigged fall that dropped out the floor as it had dropped out a ceiling block, sending Drizzt careening safely into a lower corridor.
This was no rigged trap, Catti-brie reminded herself; there was no chute to a lower chamber. A soft groan, a whimper, escaped her lips and she clawed on, desperate to get Wulfgar from the crushing pile, praying that the rocks had collapsed in an angle that would allow the barbarian to survive.
Then Bruenor was beside her, dropping his axe and shield to the floor and going at the pile with abandon. The powerful dwarf managed to move several large stones aside, but when the outer rim of the cave-in had been cleared, he stopped his work and stood staring blankly at the pile.
Catti-brie kept digging, didn't notice her father's frown.
After more than two centuries of mining, Bruenor understood the truth. The collapse was complete.
The lad was gone.
Catti-brie continued to dig, and to sniffle, as her mind began to tell her what her heart continued to deny.
Bruenor put his hand on her arm to stop her from her pointless work, and when she looked up at him, her expression broke the tough dwarf's heart. Her face was grime-covered. Blood was caked on one cheek, and her hair was matted to her head. Bruenor then saw only Catti-brie's eyes, doelike orbs of deepest blue, glistening with moisture.
Bruenor slowly shook his head.
Catti-brie fell back to a sitting position, her bleeding hands limp in her lap, her eyes unblinking. How many times had she and her friends come so close to this final point? she wondered. How many times had they escaped Death's greedy clutches at the last instant?
The odds had caught up to them, had caught up to Wulfgar, here and now, suddenly, without warning.
Gone was the mighty fighter, leader of his tribe, the man Catti-brie had intended to marry. She, Bruenor, even mighty Drizzt Do'Urden, could do nothing to help him, nothing to change what had happened.
'He saved me,' the young woman whispered. Bruenor seemed not to hear her. The dwarf continually wiped at the dust in his eyes, at the dust that collected in the large teardrops that gathered and then slipped down, streaking his dirty cheeks. Wulfgar had been like a son to Bruenor. The tough dwarf had taken the young Wulfgar— just a boy back then-into his home after a battle, ostensibly as a slave but in truth to teach the lad a better way. Bruenor had molded Wulfgar into a man who could be trusted, a man of honest character. The happiest day in the dwarf's life, even happier than the day Bruenor had reclaimed Mithril Hall, was the day Wulfgar and Catti-brie had announced they would wed.
Bruenor kicked a heavy stone, the force of his blow shifting it aside.
There lay Aegis-fang.
The brave dwarf's knees went weak at the sight of the marvelous warhammer's head, etched with the symbols of Dumathoin, a dwarven god, the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain. Bruenor forced deep breaths into his lungs and tried to steady himself for a long while before he could manage the strength to reach down and work the hammer free of the rubble.
It had been Bruenor's greatest creation, the epitome of his considerable smithing abilities. He had put all of his love and skill into forging the hammer; he had made it for Wulfgar.
Catti-brie's semistoic front collapsed like the ceiling at the sight of the weapon. Quiet sobs made her shoulders bob, and she trembled, seeming frail in the dim, dusty light.
Bruenor found his own strength in watching her display. He reminded himself that he was the Eighth King of Mithril Hall, that he was responsible for his subjects-and for his daughter. He slipped the precious warhammer into the strap of his traveling pack and hooked an arm under Catti-brie's shoulder, hoisting her to her feet.
'We can't do a thing for the boy,' Bruenor whispered. Catti-brie pulled away from him and moved back to the pile, growling as she tossed several smaller stones aside. She could see the futility of it all, could see the tons of dirt and stones, many of them too large to be moved, filling the alcove. But Catti-brie dug anyway, simply incapable of giving up on the barbarian. No other apparent course offered any hope.
Bruenor's hands gently closed about her upper arms.
With a snarl, the young woman shrugged him away and resumed her work.
'No!' Bruenor roared, and he grabbed her again, force fully, lifting her from the ground and hauling her back from the pile. He put her down hard, with his wide shoul ders squared between her and the pile, and whichever way Catti-brie went to get around him, Bruenor shuffled to block her.
'Ye can't do a thing!' he shouted into her face a dozen times.
'I've got to try!' she finally pleaded with him, when it became obvious to her that Bruenor was not going to let her back to the digging.
Bruenor shook his head-only the tears in his dark eyes, his obvious distress, prevented Catti-brie from punching him in the face. She did calm down then, stopped trying to slip past the stubborn dwarf.
'It's over,' Bruenor said to her. 'The boy… me boy, choosed his course. He gave himself for us, yerself and me. Don't ye do him the dishonor of letting stupid pains keep ye here, in danger.'
Catti-brie's body seemed to slump at the undeniable truth of Bruenor's reasoning. She did not move back to the pile, to Wulfgar's burial cairn, as Bruenor retrieved his shield and axe. The dwarf came back to her and draped one arm about her back.
'Say yer good-byes,' he offered, and he silently waited a moment before leading Catti-brie away, first to her bow, then from the chamber, toward the same entrance through which they had come.
Catti-brie stopped beside him and regarded him and the tunnel curiously, as if questioning their course.
'Pwent and the cat'll have to find their own way about,' Bruenor answered her blank stare, misunderstanding her confusion.
Catti-brie wasn't worried about Guenhwyvar. She knew that nothing could bring the panther serious harm while she still possessed the magical figurine, and she wasn't worried about the missing battlerager at all.
'What about Drizzt?' she asked simply.
'Me guess is that the elf's alive,' Bruenor answered with confidence. 'One of them drow asked me about him, asked me where he was at. He's alive, and he's got away from them, and by me own figuring, Drizzt's got a better chance o' getting clear of these tunnels than the two of us. Might be that the cat's with him even now.'
'And it might be that he needs us,' Catti-brie argued, pulling free of Bruenor's gentle touch. She flipped the bow over her shoulder and crossed her arms over her chest, her face grim and determined.
'We're going home, girl,' Bruenor ordered sternly. 'We're not for knowing where Drizzt might be. I'm only guessing, and hoping, that he really is alive!'
'Are ye willing to take the chance?' Catti-brie asked simply. 'Are ye willing to risk that he's needing us? We lost one friend, maybe two if the assassin finished off Regis. I'm not for giving up on Drizzt, not for any risk.' She winced as another memory flashed through her mind, a memory of being lost on Tarterus, another plane of
