Chapter 12 RISING TO THE OCCASION
'We can drop this whole section,' General Dagna remarked as he poked a stubby finger against the map spread on the table.
'Drop it?' bellowed the battlerager. 'If ye drop it, then how're we to kill the stinking drow?' Regis, who had arranged this meeting, looked incredulously to Dagna and the other three dwarven commanders huddled about the table. Then he looked back to Pwent. 'The ceiling will kill the stinking drow,' he explained.
'Bah, sandstone!' huffed the battlerager. 'What fun do ye call that? I got to grease up me armor with some drow blood, I do, but with yer stupid plan, I'll have to do a month's digging just to find a body to rub against.'
'Lead the charge down here,' Dagna offered, pointing to another section of open corridors on the map. 'The rest of us'll give ye a hunnerd-foot head start.'
Regis put a sour look on the general and moved it, in turn, to each of the other dwarves, who were all bobbing their heads in agreement. Dagna was only half-kidding, Regis knew. More than a few of Clan Battlehammer would not be teary-eyed if obnoxious Thibbledorf Pwent happened to be among the fallen in the potential fight against the dark elves.
'Drop the tunnel,' Regis said to get them back on track. 'We'll need strong defenses here and here,' he added, pointing to two open areas in the otherwise tight lower tunnels. 'I'm meeting later this day with Berkthgar of Settlestone.'
'Ye're bringin' the smelly humans in?' Pwent asked.
Even the dwarves, who favored the strong smells of soot-covered, sweaty bodies, twisted their faces at the remark. In Mithril Hall, it was said that Pwent's armpit could curl a hardy flower at fifty yards.
'I don't know what I'm doing with the humans,' Regis answered. 'I haven't even told them my suspicions of a drow raid yet. If they agree to join our cause, and I have no reason to believe that they won't, I suspect that we would be wise to keep them out of the lower tunnels—even though we plan to light those tunnels.'
Dagna nodded his agreement. 'A wise choice indeed,' he said. 'The tall men are better suited to fighting along the mountainsides. Me own guess is that the drows'll come in around the mountain as well as through it.'
'The men of Settlestone will meet them,' added another dwarf.
From the shadows of a partly closed door at the side of the room, Bruenor Battlehammer looked on curiously. He was amazed at how quickly Regis had taken things into his control, especially given the fact that the halfling did not wear his hypnotic ruby pendant. After scolding Bruenor for not acting quickly and decisively, for falling back into a mire of self-pity with the trails to Catti-brie and Drizzt apparently closed, the halfling, with Pwent in tow, had gone straight to General Dagna and the other war commanders.
What amazed Bruenor now was not the fact that the dwarves had gone eagerly into preparations for war, but the fact that Regis seemed to be leading them. Of course, the halfling had concocted a lie to assume that role. Using Bruenor's resumed indifference, the halfling was faking meetings with the dwarf king, then going to Dagna and the others pretending that he was bringing word straight from Bruenor.
When he first discovered the ruse, Bruenor wanted to throttle the halfling, but Regis had stood up to him, and had offered, more than sincerely, to step aside if Bruenor wanted to take over.
Bruenor wished that he could, desperately wanted to find that level of energy once more, but any thought of warfare inevitably led him to memories of his recent past battles, most of them beside Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar. Paralyzed by those painful memories, Bruenor had simply dismissed Regis and allowed the halfling to go on with his facade.
Dagna was as fine a strategist as any, but his experience was rather limited regarding races other than dwarves or stupid goblins. Regis was among Drizzt's best friends, had sat and listened to Drizzt's tales of his homeland and his kin hundreds of times. Regis had also been among Wulfgar's best friends, and so he understood the barbarians, whom the dwarves would need as allies should the war come to pass.
Still, Dagna had never been fond of anyone who wasn't a dwarf, and the fact that he wholeheartedly accepted the advice of a halfling—and one not known for bravery! — surprised Bruenor more than a little.
It stung the king as well. Bruenor knew of the dark elves and the barbarians at least as well as Regis, and he understood dwarven tactics better than anyone. He should be at that table, pointing out the sections on the map; he should be the one, with Regis beside him, to meet with Berkthgar the Bold.
Bruenor dropped his gaze to the floor, rubbed a hand over his brow and down his grotesque scar. He felt an ache in the hollow socket. Hollow, too, was his heart, empty with the loss of Wulfgar, and breaking apart at the thought that Drizzt and his precious Catti-brie had gone off into danger.
The events about him had gone beyond his responsibilities as king of Mithril Hall. Bruenor's first dedication was to his children, one lost, the other missing, and to his friends.
Their fates were beyond him now; he could only hope that they would win out, would survive and come back to him, for Bruenor had no way to get to Catti-brie and Drizzt.
Bruenor could never get back to Wulfgar.
The dwarf king sighed and turned away, walking slowly back toward his empty room, not even noticing that the meeting had adjourned.
Regis watched Bruenor silently from the doorway, wishing that he had his ruby pendant, if for no other reason than to try to rekindle the fires in the broken dwarf.
Catti-brie eyed the wide corridor ahead suspiciously, trying to make out distinct shapes among the many stalagmite mounds. She had come into a region where mud mixed with stone, and she had seen the tracks clearly enough— goblin tracks, she knew, and recent.
Ahead loomed the perfect place for an ambush. Catti-brie took an arrow from the quiver strapped behind her hip, then held Taulmaril the Heartseeker, her magical bow, ready in her hands. Tucked under one arm, ready to be dropped, was the panther figurine. She silently debated whether or not she should summon Guenhwyvar from the Astral Plane. She had no real proof that the goblins were about—all the mounds in the corridor seemed natural and benign—but she felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle.
She decided to hold off calling the cat, her logic overruling her instincts. She fell against the left-hand wall and slowly started forward, wincing every time the mud sloshed around her lifting boot.
With a dozen stalagmite mounds behind her, the wall still tightly to her left, the young woman paused and listened once more. All seemed perfectly quiet, but she couldn't shake the feeling that her every step was being monitored, that some monster was poised not far away, waiting to spring out and throttle her. Would it be like this all the way through the Underdark? she wondered. Would she drive herself insane with imagined dangers? Or worse, would the false alarms of her misguided instincts take her off guard on that one occasion when danger really did rise against her?
Catti-brie shook her head to clear the thoughts and squinted her eyes to peer into the magically starlit gloom. Another benefit of Lady Alustriel's gift was that Catti-brie's eyes did not glow with the telltale red of infravision. The young woman, though, inexperienced in such matters, didn't know that; she knew only that the shapes ahead seemed ominous indeed. The ground and walls were not firmly set, as in other parts of the tunnels. Mud and open water flowed freely in different areas. Many of the stalagmites seemed to have appendages—goblin arms, perhaps, holding wicked weapons.
Again Catti-brie forced away the unwanted thoughts, and she started forward, but froze immediately. She had caught a sound, a slight scraping, like that of a weapon tip brushing against stone. She waited a long while but heard nothing more, so she again told herself not to let her imagination carry her away.
But had those goblin tracks been part of her imagination? she asked herself as she took another step forward.
Catti-brie dropped the figurine and swung about, her bow coming to bear. Around the nearest stalagmite charged a goblin, its ugly, flat face seeming broader for the wide grin it wore and its rusting and jagged sword held high above its head.
Catti-brie fired, point blank, and the silver-streaking arrow had barely cleared the bow when the monster's head exploded in a shower of multicolored sparks. The arrow blasted right through, sparking again as it sliced a
