asleep, was sitting motionless and with his eyes closed, but was very much alert and very much aware that a small avian form had silently glided above the camp. Perhaps it had been an owl; there were huge owls in Icewind Dale, though they were rarely seen.
Perhaps, but neither of them could afford to think that way.
The slight, barely perceptible flutter came again, to the north, and a shape darker than the night sky glided silently overhead.
Drizzt came up in a rush, scimitars sliding free of his belt. The creature reacted at once, giving a quick flap of its wings to lift it out of Drizzt's deadly reach.
But not out of Taulmaril's range.
A silver-streaking arrow cut the night and slammed into the creature, whatever it was, before it cleared the encampment. Multi-colored sparks lit up the area and Drizzt caught his first true vision of the invader, an imp, as it tumbled from the air, shaken, but not really hurt. It landed hard, rolled to a sitting position, then quickly hopped up, flapping batlike wings to get itself into the air once more before the deadly drow could close in.
Regis had a lantern lit and opened wide by then, and Bruenor and Drizzt flanked the creature, Catti-brie standing back, her bow at the ready.
'My master said you would do that,' the imp rasped to Catti-brie. 'Errtu protects me!'
'I still put ye out o' the air,' the woman replied.
'Why are you here, Druzil?' Drizzt asked, for he surely recognized the imp, the same imp Cadderly had used at the Spirit Soaring to gather information.
'Ye're knowin' this thing?' Bruenor asked the drow.
Drizzt nodded, but didn't reply, too intent on Druzil to banter.
'It did not please Errtu to learn that I was the one who told Cadderly,' Druzil snarled in explanation. 'Errtu uses me now.'
'Poor Druzil,' Drizzt said with much sarcasm. 'Yours is a difficult lot.'
'Spare me your false pity,' the imp rasped. 'I do so love working for Errtu. When my master is done with you here, we will go to Cadderly next. Perhaps Errtu will even make the Spirit Soaring our fortress!' Druzil snickered with every word, obviously savoring the thought.
Drizzt could barely contain a snicker as well. He had been to the Spirit Soaring and understood its strength and its purity. No matter how powerful Errtu might be, no matter how numerous and strong his minions, the fiend would not defeat Cadderly, not there, in that house of Deneir, in that house of goodness.
'Ye admit then that Errtu's behind the march, and behind the troubles of the dwarf?' Catti-brie asked, indicating Stumpet.
Druzil ignored the women. 'Fool!' the imp snapped at Drizzt. 'Do you think my master even cares about the fodder in this forlorn place? No, Errtu stays only to meet with you, Drizzt Do'Urden, that you might pay for the troubles you have caused!'
Drizzt moved instinctively, a fast stride toward the imp. Catti-brie lifted her bow, and Bruenor, his axe.
But Drizzt calmed quickly, expecting more information, and he held his dangerous friends in check with an upraised hand.
'I offer a deal from Errtu,' Druzil said, speaking to Drizzt only. 'Your soul for the soul of the tormented one, and for the soul of the female dwarf.'
The way the imp described Zaknafein as 'the tormented one,' surely stung Drizzt to his heart. For a moment, the temptation of the offered deal nearly overwhelmed him. He stood with his head down suddenly, his scimitar tips dipping toward the ground. He would be willing to sacrifice himself to save Zaknafein, surely, or
to save Stumpet, for that matter. How could he ever do less?
But then it occurred to Drizzt that neither of them, Zaknafein nor Stumpet, would want him to, that neither of them would subsequently be able to live with such knowledge.
The drow exploded into action, too fast for Druzil to react. Twinkle sliced deeply into the imp's wing, and the other scimitar, the one forged to fight creatures of fire, scratched at the spinning imp's chest, drawing upon Druzil's life force even though it had not sunk in deeply.
Druzil managed to twirl away, and was about to say something in a last desperate act of defiance, but all of the imp's magical shield had been burned away by Catti-brie's first shot. Her second one, perfectly aimed, blew the imp right out of the sky.
Drizzt was to the spot in an instant, his scimitar moving immediately to cave in Druzil's head. The imp shuddered once, and then melted away into a black and acrid smoke.
'I do not deal with denizens of the lower planes,' the drow ranger explained to a fast-closing Bruenor, who had not been quick enough to get into the fight.
Still, Bruenor dropped his heavy axe on the dead imp's head for good measure, before the corporeal form faded away altogether. 'Good choice,' the dwarf agreed.
Soon after, Regis was snoring contentedly, and Catti-brie was fast asleep. Drizzt did not sleep, preferring to keep a watchful eye over his friends, though even the wary drow expected no more trouble from Errtu that night. He paced a perimeter about the camp, scanning the horizons and more often than not, looking up to the bright stars, letting his heart fly with the freedom that was Icewind Dale. At that moment, under that spectacle of sheer beauty, Drizzt understood why he had truly returned, and why Berkthgar and the others from Settlestone had come running home.
'Ye're not to find many monsters peeking at us from behind the durned stars,' came a gruff whisper from behind. Drizzt turned as Bruenor approached. The dwarf was already dressed in his battlegear, his one-horned helmet tilted to the side and his many-notched axe comfortably resting across his shoulder, in anticipation of the coming march.
'Balors can fly,' Drizzt reminded him, though they both knew that Drizzt was not looking up at the sky in anticipation of any enemy.
Bruenor nodded and moved beside his friend. There ensued a long period of quiet, each of them alone in the wind, alone among the stars. Drizzt sensed Bruenor's somber mood and knew that the dwarf had come out of the camp for a reason, likely to tell him something.
'I had to come back,' Bruenor said at length.
Drizzt looked to him and nodded, but Bruenor was still staring up at the sky.
'Gandalug's got Mithril Hall,' Bruenor remarked, and it sounded to Drizzt as though the red-bearded dwarf was making excuses. 'Rightfully his.'
'And you have Icewind Dale,' Drizzt added.
Bruenor turned to him then, as if he meant to protest, to further explain himself. One look into Drizzt's lavender orbs told the dwarf that he didn't have to. Drizzt understood him and understood his actions. He had to come back. That was all that he needed to say.
The pair spent the rest of the night standing in the chill wind, watching the stars, until dawn's first glow stole the majestic view, or rather, replaced it with yet another. Stumpet was up soon after, walking zombielike again. The pair roused Catti-brie and Regis. The friends went off in pursuit, together.
Chapter 25 TO THE BERGS
Over a ridge, they saw the icebergs and shifting floes floating about in the dark waters of the Sea of Moving Ice. Logic told them that they should be nearing their goal, but all of them feared that Stumpet would keep moving, would pick her way across those treacherous expanses, from floe to floe, up and down the conical bergs. Crenshinibon was known to produce towers; another of the artifact's names was Cryshal-Tirith, which literally translated from elvish meant 'crystal tower.' A ridge blocked their view of the actual shoreline, but surely any tower before the sea would have been visible to them by this time.
Stumpet, seeming oblivious to it all, continued her march to the sea. She came over the ridge first, the friends rushing to keep close behind, when a barrage of icy snowballs assailed them all.
Drizzt went into a flurry, cut left and right, ducking and slapping away at the hurled missiles with his scimitars. Regis and Catti-brie fell flat to the ground, but the two dwarves, particularly poor Stumpet, who just
