Everything seemed unremarkable to Drizzt. The ground was flat, brown and gray, and unbroken. He could see nothing unusual, and could hear nothing save the clip-clop of hooves on the hard ground and the moan of the wind. He could smell nothing other than the wet scent that Icewind Dale's summer wind always carried. But that did not allow the drow to sit easier on his mount. No signs, but that was the way with monsters in the dale.
'What do ye know?' Catti-brie whispered finally.
Drizzt continued to look about. There was about a hundred yards between them and the wagons, and the distance was fast closing. Still, Drizzt's eyes told him nothing, nor did his keen ears, nor even his sense of smell. But that sixth warrior sense knew better, knew that he and Catti-brie had missed something, had passed something by.
Drizzt took the onyx figurine from his pouch and softly called to Guenhwyvar. As the mist grew and the panther took shape, the drow motioned for Catti-brie to ready her bow, which she was already doing, and then to circle back toward the wagons, flanking right while he flanked out to the left.
The young woman nodded. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling, her warrior instincts yelling at her to be ready. She had an arrow on Taulmaril, holding the weapons easily in one hand while her other guided the horse.
Guenhwyvar came onto the tundra with her ears flat, knowing from both the secretive tone of Drizzt's call and her own incredible senses that enemies were about. The cat looked right to Catti-brie, then left to Drizzt, then padded silently up the middle, ready to spring to the aid of either.
Noticing the movement of his point guards, and then the presence of the panther, the lead driver slowed his wagon, then called for a general halt. Drizzt held high a scimitar, showing his agreement with the stop.
Now far to the right, Catti-brie was the first to spot an enemy. It was deep into the soil, just the top of its shaggy brown head visible, poking from a hole. A tundra yeti, the fiercest hunter of Icewind Dale. Shaggy brown in the summer, snow white in the winter, tundra yetis were known to be masters of camouflage. Catti-brie nodded at that assessment, almost in appreciation of their skills. She and Drizzt, no novices, had walked their mounts right past the beasts, oblivious to the danger. This was Icewind Dale, the young woman promptly reminded herself. Merciless and unforgiving of the smallest error.
But the error this time was the yeti's, Catti-brie decided grimly, lifting her bow. Off streaked an arrow, hitting the unsuspecting beast right in the back of the head. It lurched forward, rebounded back violently, then slumped dead in its hole.
A split second later, the very ground seemed to explode as half a dozen yetis leaped up from similar trenches. They were powerful, shaggy beasts, looking like a cross between a human and a bear-and indeed, the lore of Icewind Dale's barbarian tribes claimed that they were exactly that!
Back behind Drizzt and Catti-brie, right in the middle of the flanking pair, Guenhwyvar hit one beast in full stride. She knocked it back into its hole, the panther's momentum carrying her in right behind it.
The yeti grabbed on with all its might, thinking to squeeze the life from the cat, but Guenhwyvar's powerful rear legs raked at the beast and held it at bay.
Meanwhile, Drizzt went into a full gallop, racing right beside
one spinning yeti and double slashing at it with his scimitars as he held fast to his mount with his strong legs.
The bloodied beast fell away, roaring and howling in protest, and Drizzt, bearing down on a second yeti, paid it no more heed. This second yeti was ready for him, and even worse, it was ready for his horse. Yetis had been known to stop a horse at full charge, breaking the animal's neck in the process.
Drizzt couldn't risk that. He angled his charge to the left of the yeti, then lifted his left leg over the saddle and dropped from his speeding mount into a run, his enchanted anklets allowing him to get his feet under him in but a few speedy strides.
He went by the surprised yeti in a wild, slashing blur, scoring several wicked hits before he was too far away to strike. Drizzt kept running, knowing that the yeti, far from finished, had turned in pursuit. When he had put enough ground between himself and the beast, he turned back, angling for another swift pass.
Then Catti-brie, too, went into a full gallop, using her legs to hold herself steady and she leaned low in the saddle, taking a bead on the next closest beast.
She fired, and missed, but had another arrow up and ready in an instant and fired again, taking the yeti in the hip.
The beast flailed at the arrow and spun in a circle, taking another arrow, and then another in the chest as it came around to face the closing woman. Still it was standing, stubbornly, as Catti-brie came upon it. Ready to improvise, the woman hooked Taulmaril over the horn of her saddle and in one flashing motion, drew out Khazid'hea, her fabulous sword.
Catti-brie rambled past, swiping hard in a downward arc, the fine edge of Khazid'hea caving in the dying beast's skull, finishing the grim task. Down went the beast, its brain spilling from its skull onto the brown plain.
Catti-brie went right by the dying thing, replaced her sword and fired off her fifth shot with Taulmaril, this one popping into the shoulder of the next beast in line, dropping its arm lifeless to its side. Looking past the wounded yeti, Catti-brie saw the last of the yetis, which were closest to the lead wagons. In the distance she also noted the other caravan guards, a dozen sturdy fighters, riding hard to catch up to the battle.
'This fight's our own,' the woman said quietly, determinedly, and as she closed on the wounded yeti, she hooked Taulmaril
over the horn of her saddle and once more drew out Khazid'hea.
Still down in the tight hole, Guenhwyvar found her mighty claws gave her the advantage. The yeti tried to bite, but the panther was quicker, her neck more flexible. Guenhwyvar angled under the yeti's chin, her jaws snapping onto the shaggy neck. Her claws kept up their raking motions, kept the yeti's considerable weapons at bay, while the deadly jaws clamped tight and suffocated the beast.
The panther came out of the hole as soon as the yeti had stopped its fighting. Guenhwyvar looked left and right, to Drizzt and Catti-brie. She issued a roar and raced right, where the situation seemed far more dangerous.
Drizzt was charging at the yeti he had wounded, but pulled up short, forcing the yeti, which had been ready to meet the charge, to overcompensate. It leaned too far forward. The drow's scimitars cut fast and hard, ripping into the yeti's hands, severing several of the beast's fingers.
The yeti howled and pulled in its arms. Drizzt, so impossibly quick, chased them back, snapping Twinkle into the yeti's upper arm, and scoring a hit down low, at the beast's waist, with his other blade. Then Drizzt went deftly out to the side, out of range before the beast could counter.
The yeti was not a stupid thing, not where combat was concerned, and it understood that it was overmatched. It turned to flee, long and loping strides that could outrun almost any man, or any elf.
But Drizzt wore the enchanted anklets, and he paced the beast easily. He was behind it and then beside it, scoring hit after hit, turning the dirty, shaggy coat bright red with spilling blood. The ranger knew the truth of tundra yetis, knew that they were not simple animal hunters. They were vicious monsters that murdered for sport as well as for food.
So he continued to pace it, would not let it flee, easily dodging the feeble attempts the beast made to strike at him, and scoring his own brutal hits repeatedly. Finally, the yeti pulled up and turned in a final, desperate rush.
Drizzt, too, charged, scimitars extended, one taking the yeti in the throat, the other in the belly.
Agile Drizzt came out the other side, right under the stumbling yeti's reaching arm. The drow skidded to a stop and
banged his blades hard against the yeti's back, but the beast was already on the way down, already defeated. It fell headlong into the dirt.
Now it became a race between Catti-brie and the one remaining uninjured enemy to get to the yeti she had wounded in the arm.
Catti-brie won that race, and slashed hard as the yeti reached for her with its one working arm. Khazid'hea, fine-edged Khazid'hea, took that arm off cleanly, severing it at the shoulder.
The yeti went into a crazed dance, spinning all about and then toppling to the ground, its lifeblood gushing forth.
