“By the gods, but them drow’ve come,” Bruenor muttered under his breath, staring at the swirling, cloud-like vortex spinning against the wall, or within the wall, as if the very stones were malleable and part of the sidelong tornado.
The other dwarves bobbed in behind Bruenor, bumping into him in their rush, but held their ground. All of the four started to ask what was what, and all of them bit back the words even as they started to utter them, caught by the same incredible sight that held Bruenor and Guenhwyvar.
The vortex spun tighter and tighter, the wall seeming to solidify around its retreating edges. And then it was gone, and the room went perfectly silent.
A low growl from Guenhwyvar broke that stillness.
Bruenor moved past the panther, on edge, glancing all about. “What d’ye know?” Tannabritches asked.
“Been a fight in here,” Athrogate said. The black-bearded dwarf motioned for the Fellhammer sisters to fan out to the right, then nodded to Ambergris to go with him to the left flank.
“I’m smellin’ the blood, or I’m a pretty goblin,” Athrogate added.
Bruenor smelled it too, more so because he was closer to the center of the battle, where blood stained the floor. And as he was drawn to that, he found something else besides.
“Elf?” he asked weakly, lifting a very familiar blade-not the whole scimitar, but just the broken blade of Twinkle-from the floor.
“That cyclone!” Ambergris cried, rushing over. “They taked Drizzt!”
Bruenor started for the wall, thinking to shoulder right through it if need be, but Mallabritches’s cry of “No, here!” spun him back the other way. He looked curiously at the sisters, who stood in front of some discoloration on the wall, some malformation that Bruenor couldn’t quite make out. He moved closer, scanning.
The dwarf’s eyes went wide when he glanced at the bottom of that malformation, to see familiar boots hanging below it.
“Drizzt!” he cried. “Oh, me elf!” And he leaped forward at the viscous goo, reaching with his axe as if to cut at it, retracting, dropping the weapon, grabbing at the substance-he didn’t know what to do!
“His nose! His nose!” Tannabritches said, hopping up and down and pointing to a place just above, where it looked as if someone had pulled the slime away from Drizzt’s face, clearing his nose, at least, that he could draw breath.
Bruenor threw down his shield beside his axe and leaped for the spot. “Peel him out!” he shouted, and he began clawing at the glob which had pinned Drizzt against the stone. It came free, but grabbed at Bruenor’s hands so hard that he could barely shake it from his fingers, one stubborn piece at a time, and even then only after rolling it in on itself repeatedly. With Fist and Fury’s help, though, he soon had Drizzt’s head cleared, and the drow’s face lolled forward, Drizzt clearly not hearing the dwarf’s frantic calls, and not reacting at all when a desperate Bruenor slapped him across the face.
“Come on, elf!” Bruenor yelled, cradling the drow’s face, looking at him closely, pleading with him to open his eyes.
Tannabritches and Mallabritches bore on, tearing free the goo, and Athrogate joined in, but Ambergris came up more cautiously. She carried the broken blade of Twinkle, alternately examining the cut along the base of the severed scimitar blade and staring at Drizzt, shaking her head.
It went on for a long while, when finally Tannabritches said, “Oooo,” and stepped back. She had peeled the goo down over Drizzt’s collarbone, down to his chest, and blood poured out.
“What?” Mallabritches demanded.
Tannabritches held up her bloodied hands.
“Stop! Stop!” Ambergris cried, leaping forward to grab at Athrogate and pull him back. “Stop!”
“What, girl?” Athrogate demanded, and all eyes turned to the priestess.
“The glob,” she said, “it’s holding Drizzt together. Keepin’ his blood in! Ye pull it down and he’ll spill all over ye-all over the floor!”
“Like a bandage?” Mallabritches asked.
Bruenor, verging on panic, for it seemed very much to him that Drizzt was already dead, looked from Drizzt to the cleric and back again. Ambergris walked past him to press her hand against the exposed portion of the dark elf’s garish wound. She felt around, put on a pained expression, then said to Bruenor, “It’s a deep one.”
“Well heal him, ye dolt!” Bruenor finally shouted.
Ambergris nodded, but then shook her head and replied, “Ah, but this one’s beyond me.”
“Well try!” the frantic Bruenor screamed.
“Ye go and get his wife,” Ambergris told the Fellhammer sisters. “Go now, and quick.”
“We can’t wait!” Bruenor frantically shouted, but Ambergris was already beginning her first spell, and when he realized that, the dwarf calmed somewhat.
Ambergris pressed her hand in tighter against the drow’s torn chest and brought forth her healing magic. The blood flow slowed its trickle from that small, uncovered part of the wound, but the cleric looked to Bruenor and shook her head.
“Me spells won’t be enough for this one,” she lamented. “Be sure that he’s been killed to death in battle, and only the goo’s keeping him a bit alive.”
“Aye, and smotherin’ him at the same time!” Athrogate said.
Bruenor was shaking his head. Someone had cleared Drizzt’s nose, and Bruenor realized that it was probably the same person who had hit him with the syrupy glob in the first place. “Jarlaxle,” he muttered, nodding. He had seen this trick before from that one.
But why would Jarlaxle just leave Drizzt here like this? The dwarf looked to the wall, where the vortex had been. Another Jarlaxle trick, he wondered?
But had Drizzt and Jarlaxle battled? It didn’t seem possible to him. He could not begin to imagine those two going at each other with blades.
None of this made sense to him, but Bruenor figured that the only way he was going to get the answers was to get Drizzt healed.
He looked to Ambergris, who was deep into casting another spell, and this one elicited a groan from Drizzt as the healing waves entered his torn and battered body.
“Come on, girl,” Bruenor muttered, looking to the door.
“Come on, get his other leg, then,” Athrogate called to him, and Bruenor turned to see the black-bearded dwarf clearing the goo from Drizzt’s shin. “Just a bit at a time, so we’re not for opening any more cuts! Elf’s bled enough!”
“Too much,” Bruenor replied, going at the other leg. He winced as he did, wondering suddenly if this determined expedition was worth it to him. If he recovered Gauntlgrym, but at the price of Drizzt and Cattibrie’s lives, say, would he consider that a victory?
“Aye,” he said with determination, but without much conviction. And he added, “Come on, girl.”
Matron Mother Baenre sat quietly for a long while after Sos’Umptu’s prayer, which called the meeting of the Ruling Council to order. She let her gaze settle on each of the rival matron mothers, her withering look telling them that she understood well the true power behind the attack on the Do’Urden compound, and the coordination it had required. Even those matron mothers who had not participated directly shifted uncomfortably in their seats under the weight of that stare, for certainly all had known of the whispers, the shadowy nods and look-aways that had led to the coordinated assault.
And behind them, seated at the back leg of the table, Matron Darthiir Do’Urden sat impassively.
“Are we to believe this was anything less than an attempted assassination?” the matron mother asked. Several shifted uncomfortably, Matron Mother Mez’Barris let out a little growl, and other matron mothers nodded at the sentiment. Such accusations, if that indeed was where Matron Mother Baenre was going, were not acceptable in the city of backstabbing dark elves.