tensed, wondering if Revjak had pushed a bit too hard, too fast.
But Berkthgar took no offense. He didn't respond to the charge. The barbarian didn't show that he agreed, but neither did he become defensive.
'Return with us now,' he bade Revjak.
Revjak looked to Drizzt, then to Bruenor, knowing that they still needed his help. It was two of his men, after all, who were still holding Stumpet up in the air.
Berkthgar looked first to Revjak, then followed his gaze to Bruenor, and then looked past the dwarf and to the coast looming not so far away. 'You are going out onto the Sea of Moving Ice?'
A frustrated Bruenor gave Stumpet a sidelong glance. 'So it'd seem,' the dwarf admitted.
'We cannot accompany you,' Berkthgar said flatly. 'And this is
no choice of mine, but an edict of our ancestors. No tribesman may venture out onto the floating land.'
Revjak had to nod his agreement. It was indeed an ancient edict, one put in for practicality because there was little to be gained and much to lose in venturing out onto the dangerous ice floes, the land of the white bear and the great whales.
'We would not ask for you to go,' Drizzt quickly put in, and his companions seemed surprised by that. They were going off to fight a balor and all of his devious minions, and an army of powerful barbarians might come in handy! But Drizzt knew that Berkthgar would not go against that ancient rule, and he did not want Revjak to split any further from the leader, did not want to jeopardize the healing that had begun here. Also, none of Revjak's warriors had been killed against the taers, but that would not likely hold true if they followed Drizzt all the way to Errtu. Drizzt Do'Urden had enough blood on his hands already. For the drow ranger, this was a private battle. He would have preferred it to be him against Errtu, one against one, but he knew that Errtu would not be alone, and he could not deny his closest friends the chance to stand beside him as he would stand beside them.
'But ye admit that yer folk owe this much, at least, to Bruenor?' Catti-brie had to ask.
Again Berkthgar didn't openly answer, but his silence, his lack of protest, was all the confirmation that the woman needed to hear.
The companions bandaged up their bruises as well as possible, bid their farewells, and thanked the barbarians. Revjak's men put Stumpet down then, and she resumed her march. The companions plodded off after her.
The Tribe of the Elk turned south in a unified march, Berkthgar and Revjak walking side by side.
*****
Sometime later, Kierstaad came upon the scene of a hundred taer bodies bloating in the afternoon sun. It didn't take the wily young barbarian long to figure out what had happened. Obviously the barbarians with his father had joined in the fight beside Bruenor's group, and so many different prints were to be
found that Kierstaad understood that another group-certainly one led by Berkthgar-had also come upon the scene.
Kierstaad looked to the south, wondering if his father had been escorted back to the encampment as a prisoner. He almost turned then and ran off in pursuit, but the other tracks-the ones of two dwarves, a drow, a woman, a halfling and a hunting cat-compelled him to the north.
Aegis-fang in hand, the young barbarian picked his way down to the cold coast and then out onto the broken trail of ice floes. He was breaking the ancient edicts of his people, he knew, but he dismissed that. In his mind and in his heart, he was following the footsteps of Wulfgar.
Chapter 26 NOT BY SURPRISE
The glabrezu was adamant, not backing down from his story despite the mounting threats of a nervous and desperate Errtu.
'Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends have passed the taers,' Bizmatec insisted once more, 'leaving them dead and torn on the plain.'
'You have seen this?' Errtu asked for the fifth time, the great balor clenching and unclenching his fist repeatedly.
'I have seen this,' Bizmatec replied without hesitation, though the glabrezu did lean back warily from the balor. 'The taers did not stop them, hardly slowed them. They are mighty indeed, these enemies you have chosen.'
'And the dwarf?' Errtu asked, his frustration turning fast to eagerness. As he spoke, the balor tapped his bejeweled ring to show that he was referring to the imprisoned female dwarf.
'Leads them still,' Bizmatec answered with a wicked smile, the glabrezu thrilled to see the eagerness, the sheer wickedness bringing the light back to Errtu's glowing eyes.
The balor left with a great flourish, a victorious spin and flap
of leathery wings that got it to the landing of the crystalline tower's open first level. Up Errtu climbed, maddened by hunger, by desire to show Crenshinibon its failure.
'Errtu has put us in line with worthy enemies,' Bizmatec remarked again, watching the balor's departure.
The other tanar'ri in the tower's lowest level, a six-armed woman with the lower torso of a snake, smirked, seeming truly unimpressed. There were no worthy enemies to be found among the mortals of the Prime Material Plane.
High above his minions, Errtu clambered into the small room at the tower's highest level. The fiend went to the narrow window first, peering out in the hopes that he might catch a glimpse of the approaching quarry. Errtu wanted to make a dramatic statement to Crenshinibon, but the fiend's excitement betrayed his thoughts to the sentient, telepathic artifact.
Errtu spun away from the window and issued a hearty, croaking laugh.
Errtu's continued laughter rebuked any more telepathic intrusions.
'I have met the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden before,' the great balor said with a feral snarl. 'He will know true sorrow and true pain before I release him into death! He will see the deaths of his beloved, of those who were foolish enough to accompany him and of he who I hold as prisoner.' The great fiend turned back angrily toward the window. 'What an enemy have you made, foolish drow rogue! Come to me now that I might exact my revenge and give to you the punishment you deserve!'
With that, Errtu kicked the small coffer still lying on the floor where the fiend had dropped it after the volatile reaction between the crystal shard and the antimagic sapphire. Errtu started to leave, but reconsidered for just a moment. He would be facing Drizzt and all of his companions soon, including the imprisoned priestess. If Stumpet came face to face with the fiend's entrapping gemstone, her spirit might find its way aback to her body.
Errtu pulled off his ring and showed it to Crenshinibon. 'The dwarven priestess,' the fiend explained. 'This holds her spirit. Dominate her and lend what aid you may!'
Errtu dropped the ring to the floor and stormed from the chamber, back down to his minions to prepare for the arrival of Drizzt Do'Urden.
Crenshinibon felt keenly the tanar'ri's rage and the sheer wickedness that was mighty Errtu. Drizzt and his friends had gotten past the taers, so it seemed, but what were they compared to the likes of Errtu?
And Errtu, the crystal shard knew, had powerful allies lying in wait.
Crenshinibon was satisfied, was quite secure. And to the evil artifact, the thought of using Stumpet against the companions was certainly a pleasant one.
*****
Stumpet continued her march across the treacherous and broken ice, leaping small gaps, sometimes splashing her feet into the icy water, but pulling them out with apparently no regard for the freezing wetness.
