didn't push her away, even shifted so they would both be more comfortable. The woman had hoped for more, had hoped to get Wulfgar into an emotional release. But while she hadn't achieved quite that, she recognized that she had gotten more than she could have rightfully expected. The love had not resurfaced, but neither had the rage.
It would take time.
The group did indeed roll out of Icewind Dale the next morning, a distinction made clear by the shifting wind. In the dale, the wind came from the northeast, rolling down off the cold waters of the Sea of Moving Ice. At the juncture to points south, east, and north of the bulk of the mountains, the wind blew constantly no longer, but was more a matter of gusts than the incessant whistle through the dale. And now, moving more to the south, the wind again kicked up, swirling against the towering Spine of the World. Unlike the cold breeze that gave its name to Icewind Dale, this was a gentle blow. The winds wafted up from warmer climes to the south or off the warmer waters of the Sword Coast, hitting against the blocking mountains and swirling back.
Drizzt and Bruenor spent most of the day away from the wagon, both to scout a perimeter about the steady but slow pacing team and to give some privacy to Catti-brie and Wulfgar. The woman was still talking, still trying to bring the man to a better place and time. Regis rode all the day long nestled in the back of the wagon among the generous-smelling foodstuffs.
It proved to be a quiet and uneventful day of travel, except for one point where Drizzt found a particularly disturbing track, that of a huge, booted giant.
'Rumblebelly's friend?' Bruenor asked, bending low beside the ranger as he inspected the footprint.
'So I would guess,' Drizzt replied.
'Durned halfling put more of a spell than he should've on the thing,' Bruenor grumbled.
Drizzt, who understood the power of the ruby pendant and the nature of enchantments in general, could not agree. He knew that the giant, no stupid creature, had been released from any spell Regis had woven soon after leaving the group. Likely, before they were miles apart, the giant had begun to wonder why in the world he had ever deigned to help the halfling and his strange group of friends. Then, soon after that, he had either forgotten the whole incident or was angry indeed at having been so deceived.
And now the behemoth seemed to be shadowing them, Drizzt realized, noting the general course of the tracks.
Perhaps it was mere coincidence, or perhaps even a different giant-Icewind Dale had no shortage of giants, after all. Drizzt could not be sure, and so, when he and Bruenor returned to the group for their evening meal, they said nothing about the footprints or about increasing the night watch. Drizzt did go off on his own, though, as much to get away from the continuing scene between Catti-brie and Wulfgar as to scout for any rogue giants. There in the dark of night, he could be alone with his thoughts and his fears, could wage his own emotional wars and remind himself over and over that Catti-brie alone could decide the course of her life.
Every time he recalled an incident highlighting how intelligent and honest the woman had always been, he was comforted. When the full moon began its lazy ascent over the distant waters of the Sword Coast, the drow felt strangely warm. Though he could hardly see the glow of the campfire, he understood that he was truly among friends.
Wulfgar looked deeply into her blue eyes and knew that she had purposefully brought him to this point, had smoothed the jagged edges of his battered consciousness slowly and deliberately, had massaged the walls of anger until her gentle touch had rubbed them into transparency. And now she wanted, she demanded, to look behind those walls, wanted to see the demons that so tormented Wulfgar.
Catti-brie sat quietly, calmly, patiently waiting. She had coaxed some specific horror stories out of the man and then had probed deeper, had asked him to lay bare his soul and his terror, something she knew could not be easy for the proud and strong man.
But Wulfgar hadn't rebuffed her. He sat now, his thoughts whirling, his gaze locked firmly by hers, his breath coming in gasps, his heart pounding in his huge chest.
'For so long I held on to you,' he said quietly. 'Down there, among the smoke and the dirt, I held fast to an image of my Catti-brie. I kept it right before me at all times. I did.'
He paused to catch his breath, and Catti-brie placed a gentle hand on his.
'So many sights that a man was not meant to view,' Wulfgar said quietly, and Catti-brie saw a hint of moisture in his light eyes. 'But I fought them all with an image of you.'
Catti-brie offered a smile, but that did little to comfort Wulfgar.
'He used it against me,' the man went on, his tone lowering, becoming almost a growl. 'Errtu knew my thoughts and turned them against me. He showed me the finish of the yochlol fight, the creature pushing through the rubble, falling over you and tearing you to pieces. Then it went for Bruenor….'
'Was it not the yochlol that brought you to the lower planes?' Catti-brie asked, trying to use logic to break the demonic spell.
'I do not remember,' Wulfgar admitted. 'I remember the fall of the stones, the pain of the yochlol's bite tearing
into my chest, and then only blackness until I awakened in the court of the Spider Queen.
'But even that image … you do not understand! The one thing I could hold onto Errtu perverted and turned against me. The one hope left in my heart burned away and left me empty.'
Catti-brie moved closer, her face barely an inch from Wulfgar's. 'But hope rekindles,' she said softly. 'Errtu is gone, banished for a hundred years, and the Spider Queen and her hellish drow minions have shown no interest in Drizzt for years. That road has ended, it seems, and so many new ones lie before us. The road to the Spirit Soaring and Cadderly. From there to Mithral Hall perhaps, and then, if we choose, we might go to Waterdeep and Captain Deudermont, take a wild voyage on Sea Sprite, cutting the waves and chasing pirates.
'What possibilities lie before us!' she went on, her smile wide, her blue eyes flashing with excitement. 'But first we must make peace with our past.'
Wulfgar heard her well, but he only shook his head, reminding her that it might not be as easy as she made it sound. 'For all those years you thought I was dead,' he said. 'And so I thought of you for that time. I thought you killed, and Bruenor killed, and Drizzt cut apart on the altar of some vile drow matron. I surrendered hope because there was none.'
'But you see the lie,' Catti-brie reasoned. 'There is always hope, there must always be hope. That is the lie of Errtu's evil kind. The lie about them, and the lie that is them. They steal hope, because without hope there is no strength. Without hope there is no freedom. In slavery of the heart does a demon find its greatest pleasures.'
Wulfgar took a deep, deep breath, trying to digest it all, balancing the logical truths of Catti-brie's words— and of the simple fact that he had indeed escaped Errtu's clutches-against the pervasive pain of memory.
Catti-brie, too, spent a long moment digesting all that Wulfgar had shown to her over the past days. She understood now that it was more than pain and horror that bound her friend. Only one emotion could so cripple a man. In replaying his memories within his own mind, Wulfgar had found some wherein he had surrendered, wherein he had given in to the desires of Errtu or the demon's minions, wherein he had lost his courage or his defiance. Yes, it was obvious to Catti-brie, staring hard at the man now that guilt above all else was the enduring demon of Wulfgar's time with Errtu.
Of course to her that seemed absurd. She could readily forgive anything Wulfgar had said or done to survive the decadence of the Abyss. Anything at all. But it was not absurd, she quickly reminded herself, for it was painted clearly on the big man's pained features.
Wulfgar squinted his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. She was right, he told himself repeatedly. The past was past, an experience dismissed, a lesson learned. Now they were all together again, healthy and on the road of adventure. Now he had learned the errors of his previous engagement to Catti-brie and could look at her with fresh hopes and desires.
She recognized a measure of calm come over the man as he opened his eyes again to stare back at her. And then he came
forward, kissing her softly, just brushing his lips against hers as if asking permission.
Catti-brie glanced all around and saw that they were indeed alone. Though the others were not so far away, those who were not asleep were too engaged in their gambling to take note of anything.
Wulfgar kissed her again, a bit more urgently, forcing her to consider her feelings for the man. Did she love him? As a friend, surely, but was she ready to take that love to a different level?
