of his sheathed weapons and assuming an un-threatening posture. 'I had thought you returned to your mountain home.'
'It bade me otherwise,' Junger said, and again the drow was taken aback by the giant's command of language and sophisticated dialect.
'It?' the drow asked.
'Some calls cannot be unanswered, you understand,' the giant replied.
'Regis,' Drizzt called back over his shoulder, and he heard the commotion as his three friends, all of them quiet by the standards of their respective races but clamorous indeed by the standards of the dark elf, moved through the forest behind him. Hardly turning his head, for he did not want to further alert the giant, Drizzt did take note of Guenhwyvar, padding quietly along a branch to the behemoth's left flank. She stopped within easy springing distance of the giant's head. 'The halfling will bring it,' Drizzt explained. 'Perhaps then the call will be better understood and abated.'
The giant's big face screwed up with confusion. 'The halfling?' he echoed skeptically.
Bruenor crashed through the brush to stand beside the drow, then Catti-brie behind him, her deadly bow in hand, and finally, Regis, coming out complaining about a scratch one branch had just inflicted on his cherubic face.
'It bade Junger to follow us,' the drow explained, indicating the ruby pendant. 'Show him a better course.'
Smiling ear to ear, Regis stepped forward and pulled out the chain and ruby pendant, starting the mesmerizing gem on a
gentle swing.
'Get back, little rodent,' the giant boomed, averting his eyes from the halfling. 'I'll tolerate none of your tricks this time!'
'But it's calling to you,' Regis protested, holding the gem out even further and flicking it with a finger of his free hand to set it spinning, its many facets catching the firelight in a dazzling display.
'So it is,' the giant replied. 'Thus my business is not with you.'
'But I hold the gem.'
'Gem?' the giant echoed. 'What do I care for any such meager treasures when measured against the promises of Crenshinibon?'
That proclamation widened the eyes of the companions, except for Regis, who was so entranced by his own gem-twirling that the behemoth's words didn't even register with him. 'Oh, but just look at how it spins!' he said happily. 'It calls to you, its dearest friend, and bids you-' Regis ended with a squeaky 'Hey!' as Bruenor rushed up and yanked him backward so forcefully that it took him right off the ground. He landed beside Drizzt and skittered backward in a futile attempt to hold his balance, but tripped anyway, tumbling hard into the brush.
Junger came forward in a rush, reaching as if to slap the dwarf aside, but a silver-streaking arrow sizzled past his head, and the giant jolted upright, startled.
'The next one takes yer face,' Catti-brie promised.
Bruenor eased back to join the woman and the drow.
'You have foolishly followed an errant call,' Drizzt said calmly, trying very hard to keep the situation under control. The ranger held no love for giants, to be sure, but he almost felt sympathy for this poor misguided fool. 'Crenshinibon? What is Crenshinibon?'
'Oh, you know well,' the giant replied. 'You above all others, dark elf. You are the possessor, but Crenshinibon rejects you and has selected me as your successor.'
'All that I truly know about you is your name, giant,' the drow gently replied. 'Ever has your kind been at war with the smaller folk of the world, and yet I offer you this one chance to turn back for the Spine of the World, back to your home.'
'And so I shall,' the giant replied with a chuckle, crossing his ankles calmly and leaning on a tree for support. 'As soon as I have Crenshinibon.' The cunning behemoth exploded into motion, tearing a thick limb from the tree and launching it at the friends, mostly to force Catti-brie and that nasty bow to dive aside.
Junger strode forward and was stunned to find the drow already in swift motion, scimitars drawn, rushing between his legs and slicing away.
Even as the giant turned to catch Drizzt as he rushed out behind him, Bruenor came in hard. The dwarf's axe chopped for the tendon at the back of the behemoth's ankle, and then, suddenly, six hundred pounds of panther crashed against the turning giant's shoulder and head, knocking him off-balance. He would have held his footing, except that Catti-brie drove
an arrow into his lower back. Howling and spinning, Junger went down. Drizzt, Bruenor and Guenhwyvar all skittered out of harm's way.
'Go home!' Drizzt called to the brute as he struggled to his hands and knees.
With a defiant roar, the giant dived out at the drow, arms outstretched. He pulled his arms in fast, both hands suddenly bleeding from deep scimitar gashes, and then he jerked in pain as Catti-brie's next arrow drove into his hip.
Drizzt started to call out again, wanting to reason with the brute, but Bruenor had heard enough. The dwarf rushed up the prone giant's back, quick-stepping to hold his balance as the creature tried to roll him off. The dwarf leaped over the giant's turning shoulder, coming down squarely atop his collarbone. Bruenor's axe came down fast, quicker to the strike than the giant's reaching hands. The axe cut deep into Junger's face.
Huge hands clamped around Bruenor, but they had little strength left. Guenhwyvar leaped in and caught one of the giant's arms, bringing it down under her weight, pinning the hand with claws and teeth. Catti-brie blew the other arm from the dwarf with a perfectly aimed shot.
Bruenor held his ground, leaning down on the embedded axe, and at last, the giant lay still.
Regis came out of the brush and gave a kick at the branch the giant had thrown their way. 'Worms in an apple!' he complained. 'Why'd you kill him?'
'Ye're seein' a choice?' Bruenor called back incredulously, then he braced himself and tugged his axe from the split head. 'I'm not for talking to five thousand pounds of enemy.'
'I take no pleasure in that kill,' Drizzt admitted. He wiped his blades on the fallen behemoth's tunic, then slid them into their sheaths. 'Better for all of us that the giant simply went home.'
'And I could have convinced him to do so,' Regis argued.
'No,' the drow answered. 'Tour pendant is powerful, I do not doubt, but it has no strength over one entranced by Crenshinibon.' As he spoke, he opened his belt pouch and produced the artifact, the famed crystal shard.
'Ye hold it out, and its call'll be all the louder,' Bruenor said grimly. 'I'm thinkin' we might be finding a long road ahead of us.'
'Let it bring the monsters in,' Catti-brie said. 'It'll make our task in killing them all the easier.'
The coldness of her tone caught them all by surprise, but only for the moment it took them to look back at her and see the bruise on her face and remember the cause of her bad mood.
'Ye notice that the damned thing's not working on any of us,' the woman reasoned. 'So it seems that any falling under its spell are deservin' what they'll find at our hands.'
'It does appear that Crenshinibon's power to corrupt extends only to those already of an evil weal,' Drizzt agreed.
'And so our road'll be a bit more exciting,' Catti-brie said. She didn't bother to add that in this light, she wished
Wulfgar was with them. She knew the others were no doubt thinking the exact same thing.
They searched the giant's camp, then turned back to their own fire. Given the new realization that the crystal shard might be working against them, might be reaching out to any nearby monsters in an attempt to get free of the friends, they decided to double their watches from that point forward, two asleep and two awake.
Regis was not pleased.
Chapter 9 GAINING APPROVAL
