powerful guilds and might then implicate LaValle.
So he sat in the darkness, wondering and worrying, as the hours slipped by.
Chapter 6 LEAVING THE DALE BEHIND
Drizzt watched every move the barbarian made-the way Wulfgar sat opposite him across the fire, the way the man went at his dinner-looking for some hint of the barbarian's mindset. Had the battle with the giants helped? Had Drizzt 'run the horse' as he had explained his hopes to Regis? Or was Wulfgar in worse shape now than before the battle? Was he more consumed by this latest guilt, though his actions, or inaction, hadn't really cost them anything?
Wulfgar had to recognize that he had not performed well at the beginning of the battle, but had he, in his own mind, made up for that error with his subsequent actions?
Drizzt was as perceptive to such emotions as anyone alive, but, in truth, he could not get the slightest read of the barbarian's inner turmoil. Wulfgar moved methodically, mechanically, as he had since his return from Errtu's clutches, going through the motions of life itself without any outward sign of pain, satisfaction, relief, or anything else. Wulfgar was existing, but hardly living. If there remained a flicker of passion within those sky-blue orbs, Drizzt could not see it.
Thus, the drow ranger was left with the impression that the battle with the giants had been inconsequential, had neither bolstered the barbarian's desire to live nor had placed any further burdens upon Wulfgar. In looking at his friend now, the man tearing a piece of fowl from the bone, his expression unchanging and un-revealing, Drizzt had to admit to himself that he had not only run out of answers but out of places to look for answers.
Catti-brie moved over and sat down beside Wulfgar then, and the barbarian did pause to regard her. He even managed a
little smile for her benefit. Perhaps she might succeed where he had failed, the drow thought. He and Wulfgar had been friends, to be sure, but the barbarian and Catti-brie had shared something much deeper than that.
The thought of it brought a tumult of opposing feelings into Drizzt's gut. On the one hand he cared deeply for Wulfgar and wanted nothing more in all the world than for the barbarian to heal his emotional scars. On the other hand, seeing Catti-brie close to the man pained him. He tried to deny it, tried to elevate himself above it, but it was there, and it was a fact, and it would not go away.
He was jealous.
With great effort, the drow sublimated those feelings enough to honestly leave the couple alone. He went to join Bruenor and Regis and couldn't help but contrast the halfling's beaming face as he devoured his third helping with that of Wulfgar, who seemed to be eating only to keep his body alive. Pragmatism against pure pleasure.
'We'll be out o' the dale tomorrow,' Bruenor was saying, pointing out the dark silhouettes of the mountains, looming much larger to the south and east. Indeed, the wagon had turned the corner and they were heading south now, no longer west. The wind, which always filled the ears in Icewind Dale, had died to the occasional gust.
'How's me boy?' Bruenor asked when he noticed the dark elf.
Drizzt shrugged.
'Ye could've got him killed, ye durned fool elf,' the dwarf huffed. 'Ye could've got us all killed. And not for the first time!'
'And not for the last,' Drizzt promised with a smile, bowing low. He knew that Bruenor was playing with him here, that the dwarf loved a good fight as much as he did, particularly one against giants. Bruenor had been upset with him, to be sure, but only because Drizzt hadn't included him in the original battle plans. The brief but brutal fight had long since exorcised that grudge from Bruenor, and so now he was just teasing the drow as a means of relieving his honest concerns for Wulfgar.
'Did ye see his face when we battled?' the dwarf asked more earnestly. 'Did ye see him when Rumblebelly showed up with his stinkin' giant friend and it appeared as if me boy was about to be squished flat?'
Drizzt admitted that he did not. 'I was engaged with my own concerns at the time,' he explained. 'And with Guenhwyvar's peril.'
'Nothing,' Bruenor declared. 'Nothing at all. No anger as he lifted his hammer to throw it at the giants.'
'The warrior sublimates his anger to keep in conscious control,' the drow reasoned.
'Bah, not like that,' Bruenor retorted. 'I saw rage in me boy when we fought Errtu on the ice island, rage beyond anything me old eyes've ever seen. And how I'd like to be seein' it again. Anger, rage, even fear!'
'I saw him when I arrived at the battle,' Regis admitted. 'He did not know that the new and huge giant would be an ally, and if it was not, if it had joined in on the side of
the other giants, then Wulfgar would have easily been killed, for he had no defense against our angle from his open ledge. And yet he was not afraid at all. He looked right up at the giant, and all I saw was…'
'Resignation,' the drow finished for him. 'Acceptance of whatever fate might throw at him.'
'I'm not for understanding.' Bruenor admitted.
Drizzt had no answers for him. He had his suspicions, of course, that Wulfgar's trauma had been too great and had thus stolen from him his hopes and dreams, his passions and purpose, but he could find no way to put that into words that the ever-pragmatic dwarf might understand. He thought it ironic, in a sense, for the closest example of similar behavior he could recall was Bruenor's own, soon after Wulfgar had fallen to the yochlol. The dwarf had wandered aimlessly through the halls for days on end, grieving.
Yes, Drizzt realized, that was the key word. Wulfgar was grieving.
Bruenor would never understand, and Drizzt wasn't sure that he understood.
'Time to go,' Regis remarked, drawing the dark elf from his contemplation. Drizzt looked to the halfling, then to Bruenor.
'Camlaine's invited us to a game o' bones,' Bruenor explained. 'Come along, elf. Yer eyes see better'n most, and I might be needing ye.'
Drizzt glanced back to the fire, to Wulfgar and Catti-brie, sitting very close and talking. He noted that Catti- brie wasn't doing all of the speaking. She had somehow engaged Wulfgar, even had him a bit animated in his discussion. A big part of Drizzt wanted to stay right there and watch their every move, but he wouldn't give in to that weakness, so he went with Bruenor and Regis to watch the game of bones.
'Ye cannot know our pain at seeing the ceiling fall in on ye,' Catti-brie said, gently moving the conversation to that fateful day in the bowels of Mithral Hall. Up to now, she and Wulfgar had been sharing happier memories of previous fights, battles in which the companions had overwhelmed monsters and put down threats without so high a price.
Wulfgar had even joined in, telling of his first battle with Bruenor-against Bruenor-when he had broken his standard staff over the dwarf's head, only to have the stubborn little creature swipe his legs out from under him and leave him unconscious on the field. As the conversation wound on, Catti-brie focused on another pivotal event: the Grafting of Aegis-fang. What a labor of love that had been, the pinnacle of Bruenor's amazing career as a smith, done purely out of the dwarf's affection for Wulfgar.
'If he hadn't loved ye so, he'd ne'er been able to make so great a weapon,' she had explained. When she saw that her words were getting through to the pained man she had shifted the conversation subtly again, to the reverential treatment Bruenor had shown the warhammer after Wulfgar's apparent demise. And that, of course, had brought Catti-brie to the discussion of the day of Wulfgar's fall, to the memory of the evil yochlol.
To her great relief, Wulfgar had not tightened up when she went in this direction, but had stayed with her, hearing her words and adding his own when they seemed relevant.
'All the strength went from me body,' Catti-brie went on. 'And never have I seen Bruenor closer to breaking. But we went on and started fighting in yer name, and woe to our enemies then.'
A distant look came into Wulfgar's light eyes and the woman went silent, giving him time to digest her words. She thought he would respond, but he did not, and the seconds slipped away quietly.
Catti-brie moved closer to him and put her arm about his back, resting her head on his strong shoulder. He
