Twelve armored dwarves led the procession, their interlocking shields presenting a solid wall of metal to enemy weapons. The shields were specially hinged, allowing the dwarves on the outside edges to turn back behind the front rank whenever the corridor tightened.
General Dagna and his elite cavalrylike force came in the following ranks, riding, not marching, each warrior armed with a readied heavy crossbow fitted with special darts tipped in a silver-white metal. Several torchbearers, each holding two of the flaming brands out far for easy access to the riders, wandered between the tusked mounts of Dagna's twenty troops. The remainder of the dwarven army came behind, wearing grim expressions, different from those looks they had worn when they had come down this way to battle the goblins.
Dwarves did not laugh about the presence of dark elves, and, by all their reckoning, their king was in dire trouble.
They came to the side passage, clear once more since the darkness spells had long since expired. The ettin bones sat facing them, across the way, somehow undisturbed through all the tumult of the previous encounter.
"Clerics," Dagna whispered, a quiet call that was repeated down the dwarven lines. Somewhere in the closest ranks behind Dagna's elites, half a dozen dwarven priests, wearing their smithy apron vestments and holding mithril warhammer holy symbols tight in upraised fists, sighted their targets, two to the side, two in front, and two above.
"Well," Dagna said to the shield-bearing dwarves in the front rank, "give 'em something worth shooting at."
The blocking wall of shields broke apart, twelve dwarves stringing out along the wide intersection.
Nothing happened.
"Damn," Dagna pouted after a few uneventful moments, realizing that the dark elves had moved back to another ambush spot. In a minute, the battle formation was rejoined and the force tromped off, at a greater pace, with just a small group slipping down the side passage to make sure their enemies would not come out at their backs.
Grumbling whispers ran the length of the ranks, eager dwarves frustrated by the delay.
Some time later, the growl of one of the war dogs, leashed and held in the middle ranks of the army, came as the only warning.
Crossbows clicked from up ahead, most of the quarrels banging harmlessly off the interlocked shields, but some, coming from higher angles, soaring down to strike the dwarves in the second and third ranks. One torchbearer went down, his flaming brands causing minor havoc with the mounts of the nearest two riders. But the dwarves and their mounts were well trained and the situation did not deteriorate into chaos.
Clerics went into their chants, reciting the proper magical syllables; Dagna and his riders put the tips of their crossbows against the flaming torches; the front row counted in unison to ten, then fell straight to their backs, shields defensively atop them.
On came the cavalry, armored war pigs grunting, magnesium-tipped quarrels flaring to intense white light. The cavalry charge took the dwarves beyond the area of torchlight quickly, but the clerical spells popped into the corridor ahead of them, magical lights stealing the darkness.
Dagna and every other member of his eager band whooped with delight, seeing the dark elves scrambling this time, apparently caught by surprise with the sudden ferocity and speed of the dwarven attack. The drow had been confident that they could outrun the short-legged dwarves, and so they could, but they couldn't outrun the sturdy, tusked mounts.
Dagna saw one dark elf turn and reach out, as if to throw, and, instinctively, the worldly and wise general understood the creature to be using his darkness ability, trying to counter the stinging magical lights.
When the magnesium quarrel lit up the inside of the draw's belly, his focus predictably shifted.
"Sandstone!" cried the rider right beside Dagna, a dwarven curse if ever there was one. The general saw his companion lurch backward, angling his weapon above. He jerked - obviously hit by some missile - but managed to fire his own crossbow before he tumbled from his saddle, bouncing along the stone.
The flaring quarrel missed, but it doomed the drow floating among the rafters anyway, serving as a tracer for the many dwarven foot soldiers rushing in behind.
"Ceiling!" cried one dwarf, and two dozen crossbow men skidded to their knees, eyes going up. They caught a shifting motion among the few stalactites and fired, practically in unison.
More dwarves rushed by them as they reloaded, war dogs sounding anxious cries. Dagna's band charged on in hot pursuit, caring little that they had passed beyond the lighted area. The tunnels were fairly flat, and the fleeing drow were not far ahead.
One cleric stopped to aid the kneeling crossbowmen. They showed him the general direction of their quarry, and he put a light spell up there.
The dead drow, his torso ripped by a score of heavy bolts, hung motionless in the air. As if on cue to the revealing light, his levitation spell gave out and he plummeted the twenty feet to the floor.
The dwarves were not even watching him. The light in the ceiling had revealed two of the drow's hidden companions. These new dark elves worked fast to counter the spell with their innate powers of darkness, but it did them little good, for the skilled crossbowmen had picked them out and no longer needed to see them.
Groans and a scream of agony accompanied a frantic explosion of clicking sounds as the host of quarrels skipped and ricocheted off the many stalactites. The two drow dropped, one writhing about as he hit the floor, not quite dead.
The fierce dwarves fell over him, bludgeoning him with the butts of their heavy weapons.
The one tunnel became several as the riders, in hot pursuit, came into a region of snaking side passages. Dagna picked out his target easily enough, despite the growing maze and the gloom. Actually the dimness aided Dagna, for the drow he was chasing had been hit in the shoulder, the white-flaring magnesium serving as a beacon for the charging dwarf.
He gained with every stride, saw the drow turn to face him, the dark elf's shoulder glowing red when viewed from the front. Dagna dropped his crossbow aside and whipped out a heavy mace, angling the boar as if to make a close pass by the drow's wounded flank.
The drow, taking the bait, turned sidelong, getting his one working weapon hand in line. - At the last moment, Dagna lowered his head and veered the tusked boar, and the drow's eyes widened when he realized the wild dwarf's new course. He tried to leap aside, but got hit solidly, tusks catching him just above the knee, Dagna's iron helmet slamming his belly. He hurtled through the air for perhaps fifteen feet, and would have gone farther if the tunnel wall hadn't abruptly stopped him.
Crumpled in a broken heap at the base of the wall, the barely conscious drow saw Dagna pull his mount up before him and saw Dagna's mace go up.
The explosion in his head flared as brightly as the magnesium in his shoulder, then there was only darkness.
Bloodhounds led a large contingent of the dwarven army down to the left of the main chamber, into a region of looping, more natural caverns. Soldiers rumbled straight in, clerics among their ranks, while other dwarves, armed not with weapons, but with tools, went to work behind them and among the passages to the sides.
They came to the four-way intersection, the bloodhounds straining against their leads both left and right. The sneaky dwarves forced the dogs straight ahead, though, and predictably, more than a dozen dark elves slipped into the central corridor behind them, firing their nasty bolts.
The army swung about, the clerics called upon their spells to light up the area, and the drow, outnumbered four to one, wisely turned and fled. They had no reason to fear their way back blocked, not with so many tunnels before them. They had a good idea of the dwarven numbers and were certain that fewer than half of their options would be blocked.
Down the very first path they chose, they came to understand their error, though, running up against a freshly constructed iron door, barred from the other side. The dark elves could see around the edges of the portal - the dwarves hadn't had the time to fit it perfectly into the oddly shaped tunnel - but there was no way to slip through.
The next tunnel seemed more promising, and, by the hopes of the fleeing drow, it had to be, for the dwarven force, dogs barking wildly, was right on their heels again. Turning a corner, the dark elves found a second door, heard the hammers of the working dwarves behind it, putting in the finishing touches.
The desperate dark elves dropped spells of darkness on the other side of the door, slowing the work. They found the widest cracks along the jam and fired their crossbows blindly at the workers, adding to the confusion. One drow got his hand around and located the locking bar.
Too late. The dogs rounded the corner, and the dwarven force fell over them.
Darkness descended over the area of battle. A dwarven cleric, his powers nearly exhausted, countered it, but then another drow blackened the area once more. The brave dwarves fought blindly, matching drow skill with sheer fury.
One dwarf felt the hot burn as an unseen enemy's sword slipped between his ribs, slashing through his lung. The dwarf knew the wound would prove mortal, felt the blood filling his lungs and choking off his breathing. He could have retreated, hoped to fall out of the darkened area close enough to a cleric with curative spells to treat the wound. In that critical instant, though, the dwarf knew his opponent was vulnerable, knew that if he retreated, one of his comrades might next feel the dark elf's cruel sword. He lunged ahead, the draw's sword impaling him further, and chopped with his warhammer, connecting once, then again on his enemy.
He went down atop the dead drow and died with a grim smile of satisfaction splayed across his bearded face.
Two dwarves, driving in deeply side by side, felt their intended target dive between them, but turned too late to avoid a collision on the iron door. Disoriented but sensing movement to the side, each of them launched mighty swings with his hammer, each connecting on the other.
Down they went in a heap, and they felt the rush of air as the dark elf came back over them - this time at the end of a dwarven spear - to be slammed hard against the door. The drow fell wounded atop the two dwarves, and they had enough wits and strength remaining to grab on to the gift. They kicked and bit, punched out with their weapon hilts or with their gauntleted hands. In mere seconds, they ripped the unfortunate dark elf apart.
More than a score of dwarves died at the end of drow weapons in that narrow corridor, but so, too, did fifteen dark elves, half of the force that had stood to block the way into the new sections.
A handful of drow kept ahead of their pig-riding pursuers long enough to make their way into the back chambers, into the very room where Drizzt and Entreri had fought for the enjoyment of Vierna and her minions. The blasted door and several dead companions told the soldiers that Vierna's group had been hit hard, but they nevertheless believed their salvation at hand when the first of them leaped for the chute - leaped and got stuck on the webbing barring the way.
The stuck drow flailed helplessly, both his arms fully trapped. His companions, with no thoughts of aiding their doomed friend, looked to the room's other door for their salvation.
War pigs grunted; a dozen dwarven riders whooped in joy as they kicked their mounts across the blasted wooden door.
General Dagna came into the room barely five minutes later to see five dark elves, two dwarves, and three pigs lying dead on the floor.
Satisfied that no other enemies were about, the general ordered an inspection of the remarkable area. Grief stung their hearts when they found Cobble's crushed form under the conjured wall of iron, but it was mixed with some measure of hope, for Bruenor and the others obviously had hit the enemy hard in this place, and apparently, with the exception of poor Cobble, had survived.
"Where are ye, Bruenor?" the general asked down the empty corridors. "Where are ye?"
Sheer determination, pure denial of defeat, was their only strength as Catti-brie and Bruenor, weary and wounded and leaning on each other for support, made their way through the winding tunnels, deeper into the natural corridors. Bruenor held the torch in his free hand. Catti-brie kept her bow ready. Neither of them believed they would stand a chance if they again encountered the dark elves, but, in their hearts, neither of them believed that they could possibly lose.
"Where's that damned cat?" Bruenor asked. "And the wild one?"
Catti-brie shook her head, having no definite answers. Who knew where Pwent might have gotten to? He had flown from the chamber in typical blind rage and could have run all the way back to Garumn's Gorge by this time. Guenhwyvar was a different story, though. Catti-brie dropped her hand into her pouch, sensitive fingers tracing the intricate work of the figurine. She sensed that the panther was no longer about, and trusted the feeling, for if Guenhwyvar had not left the material plane, the panther 'would have made contact with them by this time.
Catti-brie stopped, and Bruenor, after a few steps, turned back curiously and did likewise. The young woman, on one knee, held the figurine in both hands, studying it intently, her bow on the floor by her side.
"Gone?" Bruenor asked.
Catti-brie shrugged and placed the statue on the floor, then called softly to Guenhwyvar. For a long moment, nothing happened, but just as Catti-brie was about to retrieve the item, the familiar gray mist began to gather and take shape.
Guenhwyvar looked haggard indeed! The panther's muscles drooped, slack from exhaustion, and the black-furred skin of one shoulder hung out, torn, revealing sinew and cordlike tendons underneath.
"Oh, go back'." Catti-brie cried, horrified by the sight. She scooped up the figurine and moved to dismiss the panther.
Guenhwyvar moved faster than either Catti-brie or the dwarf would have believed possible, given the cat's desperate state. A paw slashed up at Catti-brie, batting the figurine to the ground. The panther flattened its ears and issued an angry growl.
"Let the cat stay," Bruenor said.
Catti-brie gave the dwarf an incredulous look.
"Ain't no worse than the rest of us," Bruenor explained. He walked over and dropped a gentle hand on the panther's head, easing the tension. Guenhwyvar's ears came back up, and the cat stopped growling. "And no less determined."
Bruenor looked back to Catti-brie, then to the corridor beyond. "The three of us, then," the dwarf said, "beat up and ready to fall down - but not afore we take them stinking drow down under us!"
Drizzt could sense that he was getting close, and he drew his second blade, Twinkle, concentrating hard to keep the scimitar's blue light from flaring. To his delight, the scimitar responded perfectly. Drizzt was hardly aware of the halfling he still held at his side. His keen senses were instead trained in all directions for some clue that the enemy was about. He came through a low doorway into an unremarkable chamber, barely a wider section of hallway, with two other exits, one to the side and level, the other straight ahead, ascending once more.
Drizzt suddenly pushed Regis to the ground, fell back against the wall, weapons and eyes trained to the side. It was no drow that came through the side entrance, though, but a dwarf, possibly the most odd-looking creature either of the companions had ever seen.
Pwent was barely three running strides from the dark elf, and his hearty roar showed that he felt confident he had gained the advantage of surprise. He dipped his head, put his spiked helm in line with Drizzt's belly, and heard the little one lying to the side squeak out in alarm.
Drizzt snapped his hands up above his head, feeling grooves in the wall with strong, sensitive fingers. He still held both his blades, and there wasn't much to grab, but the agile drow didn't need much. As the confident battlerager barreled in blindly, Drizzt lifted his legs up, out, and over the spike.
Pwent hit the wall head-on, his spike digging a three-inch-deep gouge in the stone. Drizzt's legs came down, one on either side of the bent battlerager's head, and down, too, came the drow's scimitars, hilts pounding hard against the back of Pwent's exposed neck.
The dwarf's spike, bent queerly to one side, squealed and scraped as he dropped flat to the stone, groaning loudly.
Drizzt leaped away, allowed the eager scimitar to flare up, bathing the area hi a blue glow.
"Dwarf," Regis commented, surprised.
Pwent groaned and rolled over; Drizzt spotted an amulet, carved with the foaming mug standard of Clan Battlehammer, on a chain about his neck.
Pwent shook his head and leaped suddenly to his feet.
"Ye won that one!" he roared, and he started for Drizzt.
"We are not enemies," the drow ranger tried to explain. Regis cried out again as Pwent came in close, launching a one-two punching combination with his glove nails.
Drizzt easily avoided the short punches and took note of the many sharp ridges on his opponent's armor.
Pwent lashed out again, stepping in behind the blow to give it some range. It was a ruse, Drizzt knew, with no chance of hitting. Already the veteran drow understood Pwent's battle tactics, and he knew the phony punch was designed only to put this fearsome dwarf in line, that he might hurl himself at Drizzt. A scimitar flashed out to intercept the punch. Drizzt surprised the dwarf by twirling his second blade above his head and stepping in closer (exactly the opposite course Pwent had expected him to travel), then launching his high-riding weapon out in a wide, arcing, and smoothly descending course as he stepped to the side, bringing the blade to bear at the back of the dwarf's knee.
Pwent momentarily forgot about his impending leap and instinctively bent the vulnerable leg away from the attack. Drizzt pressed on, putting just enough pressure on the dwarf's knee to keep it moving along. Pwent pitched into the air, landed hard on the floor, flat on his back.
"Stop it!" Regis yelled at the stubborn, fallen dwarf, who was again trying to get up. "Stop it. We are not your enemies!"
"He speaks the truth," Drizzt added.
Pwent, up on one knee, paused and looked curiously from Regis to Drizzt. "We came in here to get the halfling," he said to Drizzt, obviously confused. "To get him and skin him alive, and now ye're telling me to trust him?"
"Different halfling," Drizzt remarked, snapping his blades into their sheaths.
An inadvertent grin showed on the dwarf's face as he considered the advantage his enemy apparently had just given him.
"We are not your enemy," Drizzt said evenly, lavender eyes flashing dangerously, "but I've no more time to play your foolish games."
Pwent leaned forward, muscles twitching, eager to leap ahead and rip the drow apart.
Again the drow's eyes flashed, and Pwent relaxed, understanding that this opponent had just read his thoughts.
"Come ahead if you will," Drizzt warned, "but know that the next time you go down, you will never get back up."
Thibbledorf Pwent, rarely shaken, considered the grim promise and his opponent's easy stance, and he remembered what Catti-brie had told him about this drow - if indeed this was the legendary Drizzt Do'Urden. "Guess we're friends," the unnerved dwarf admitted, and he slowly rose.
