to avoid a collision on the iron door. Disoriented but sensing movement to the side, each of them launched mighty swings with his hammer, each connecting on the other.
Down they went in a heap, and they felt the rush of air as the dark elf came back over them-this time at the end of a dwarven spear-to be slammed hard against the door. The drow fell wounded atop the two dwarves, and they had enough wits and strength
remaining to grab on to the gift. They kicked and bit, punched out with their weapon hilts or with their gauntleted hands. In mere seconds, they ripped the unfortunate dark elf apart.
More than a score of dwarves died at the end of drow weapons in that narrow corridor, but so, too, did fifteen dark elves, half of the force that had stood to block the way into the new sections.
A handful of drow kept ahead of their pig-riding pursuers long enough to make their way into the back chambers, into the very room where Drizzt and Entreri had fought for the enjoyment of Vierna and her minions. The blasted door and several dead companions told the soldiers that Vierna's group had been hit hard, but they nevertheless believed their salvation at hand when the first of them leaped for the chute-leaped and got stuck on the webbing barring the way.
The stuck drow flailed helplessly, both his arms fully trapped. His companions, with no thoughts of aiding their doomed friend, looked to the room's other door for their salvation.
War pigs grunted; a dozen dwarven riders whooped in joy as they kicked their mounts across the blasted wooden door.
General Dagna came into the room barely five minutes later to see five dark elves, two dwarves, and three pigs lying dead on the floor.
Satisfied that no other enemies were about, the general ordered an inspection of the remarkable area. Grief stung their hearts when they found Cobble's crushed form under the conjured wall of iron, but it was mixed with some measure of hope, for Bruenor and the others obviously had hit the enemy hard in this place, and apparently, with the exception of poor Cobble, had survived.
'Where are ye, Bruenor?' the general asked down the empty corridors. 'Where are ye?'
Sheer determination, pure denial of defeat, was their only strength as Catti-brie and Bruenor, weary and wounded and leaning on each other for support, made their way through the winding tunnels, deeper into the natural corridors. Bruenor held the torch in his free hand. Catti-brie kept her bow ready. Neither of them believed they would stand a chance if they again encountered the dark elves, but, in their hearts, neither of them believed that they could possibly lose.
'Where's that damned cat?' Bruenor asked. 'And the wild one?' Catti-brie shook her head, having no definite answers. Who knew where Pwent might have gotten to? He had flown from the chamber in typical blind rage and could have run all the way back to Garumn's Gorge by this time. Guenhwyvar was a different story, though. Catti- brie dropped her hand into her pouch, sensitive fingers tracing the intricate work of the figurine. She sensed that the panther was no longer about, and trusted the feeling, for if Guenhwyvar had not left the material plane, the panther 'would have made contact with them by this time.
Catti-brie stopped, and Bruenor, after a few steps, turned back curiously and did likewise. The young woman, on one knee, held the figurine in both hands, studying it intently, her bow on the floor by her side.
'Gone?' Bruenor asked.
Catti-brie shrugged and placed the statue on the floor, then called softly to Guenhwyvar. For a long moment, nothing happened, but just as Catti-brie was about to retrieve the item, the familiar gray mist began to gather and take shape.
Guenhwyvar looked haggard indeed! The panther's muscles drooped, slack from exhaustion, and the black— furred skin of one shoulder hung out, torn, revealing sinew and cordlike tendons underneath.
'Oh, go back'.' Catti-brie cried, horrified by the sight. She scooped up the figurine and moved to dismiss the panther.
Guenhwyvar moved faster than either Catti-brie or the dwarf would have believed possible, given the cat's desperate state. A paw slashed up at Catti-brie, batting the figurine to the ground. The panther flattened its ears and issued an angry growl.
'Let the cat stay,' Bruenor said.
Catti-brie gave the dwarf an incredulous look.
'Ain't no worse than the rest of us,' Bruenor explained. He walked over and dropped a gentle hand on the panther's head, easing the tension. Guenhwyvar's ears came back up, and the cat stopped growling. 'And no less determined.'
Bruenor looked back to Catti-brie, then to the corridor beyond. 'The three of us, then,' the dwarf said, 'beat up and ready to fall down-but not afore we take them stink ing drow down under us!'
Drizzt could sense that he was getting close, and he drew his second blade, Twinkle, concentrating hard to keep the scimitar's blue light from flaring. To his delight, the scimitar responded perfectly. Drizzt was hardly aware of the halfling he still held at his side. His keen senses were instead trained in all directions for some clue that the enemy was about. He came through a low doorway into an unremarkable chamber, barely a wider section of hall way, with two other exits, one to the side and level, the other straight ahead, ascending once more.
Drizzt suddenly pushed Regis to the ground, fell back against the wall, weapons and eyes trained to the side. It was no drow that came through the side entrance, though, but a dwarf, possibly the most odd-looking creature either of the companions had ever seen.
Pwent was barely three running strides from the dark elf, and his hearty roar showed that he felt confident he had gained the advantage of surprise. He dipped his head, put his spiked helm in line with Drizzt's belly, and heard the little one lying to the side squeak out in alarm.
Drizzt snapped his hands up above his head, feeling grooves in the wall with strong, sensitive fingers. He still held both his blades, and there wasn't much to grab, but the agile drow didn't need much. As the confident battle rager barreled in blindly, Drizzt lifted his legs up, out, and over the spike.
Pwent hit the wall head-on, his spike digging a three— inch-deep gouge in the stone. Drizzt's legs came down, one on either side of the bent battlerager's head, and down, too, came the drow's scimitars, hilts pounding hard against the back of Pwent's exposed neck.
The dwarf's spike, bent queerly to one side, squealed and scraped as he dropped flat to the stone, groaning loudly.
Drizzt leaped away, allowed the eager scimitar to flare up, bathing the area hi a blue glow.
'Dwarf,' Regis commented, surprised.
Pwent groaned and rolled over; Drizzt spotted an amulet, carved with the foaming mug standard of Clan Battlehammer, on a chain about his neck.
Pwent shook his head and leaped suddenly to his feet.
'Ye won that one!' he roared, and he started for Drizzt.
'We are not enemies,' the drow ranger tried to explain. Regis cried out again as Pwent came in close, launching a one-two punching combination with his glove nails.
Drizzt easily avoided the short punches and took note of the many sharp ridges on his opponent's armor.
Pwent lashed out again, stepping in behind the blow to give it some range. It was a ruse, Drizzt knew, with no chance of hitting. Already the veteran drow understood Pwent's battle tactics, and he knew the phony punch was designed only to put this fearsome dwarf in line, that he might hurl himself at Drizzt. A scimitar flashed out to intercept the punch. Drizzt surprised the dwarf by twirling his second blade above his head and stepping in closer (exactly the opposite course Pwent had expected him to travel), then launching his high-riding weapon out in a wide, arcing, and smoothly descending course as he stepped to the side, bringing the blade to bear at the back of the dwarf's knee.
Pwent momentarily forgot about his impending leap and instinctively bent the vulnerable leg away from the attack. Drizzt pressed on, putting just enough pressure on the dwarf's knee to keep it moving along. Pwent pitched into the air, landed hard on the floor, flat on his back.
'Stop it!' Regis yelled at the stubborn, fallen dwarf, who was again trying to get up. 'Stop it. We are not your enemies!'
'He speaks the truth,' Drizzt added.
Pwent, up on one knee, paused and looked curiously from Regis to Drizzt. 'We came in here to get the
