“Better for yerself to take it to him,” she replied and tried to hand back the scimitar.
Bruenor balked and shook his head and would not take the blade back. He had made it quite clear, with voice at first, but with his actions since, that he didn’t want to see Drizzt lying helpless and near death on a cot.
Catti-brie, however, wasn’t about to let this go. Not now. She pushed the blade out to Bruenor, and scowled at him when he began to shake his head once more.
Reluctantly, Bruenor took the repaired scimitar and slid it into a loop on his backpack.
“Lead on, then, and let’s be done with it,” he grumbled.
Catti-brie paused for a few heartbeats, staring at her adoptive father, at the pommel of Twinkle sticking up from behind his left shoulder. For some reason, that image resonated with her. Seeing that Bruenor had taken the blade, and so would return it to Drizzt, reassured her that her father, at least, would soon enough be all right.
Any victory seemed a major victory at that dark time.
CHAPTER 18
Every patrol led back to this central corridor, one that ran to a great gap in the floor of the upper complex, and more important, ended in a thick door that opened to a landing set just below the ceiling of a vast cavern of the deeper levels.
In darkness and silence Bungalow Thump was down at the end of that corridor, lying flat on the landing floor and peering over the rim into the deep gloom below. Quietly, young King Connerad crept up beside him and similarly gazed into the vast darkness. The two dwarves exchanged looks and a shrug, then Connerad motioned Bungalow back.
They went a long way along the tunnel and down a side passage before they broke their silence.
“Get yer Harpell friends and put some light down there?” Bungalow Thump asked.
“She’s a vast one,” Connerad said. “Got to be a hunnerd ogre feet from here to the floor, if there’s even a floor to be found.” He considered Bungalow’s request for a bit, but couldn’t agree. “We drop a magic light down there and sure that every drow in the lower levels’ll be ready for us. Shinin’ bright in deep tunnels brings them all in for a what-to-do, and not sure I’m liking that with just this one way down. Ropes and slides and all we can put in are still to be leavin’ us hanging high and open if they’re waiting for us.”
“Aye, figured as much, but I had to ask,” said Bungalow Thump.
“Suren that yer duty’s to put it all out afore me, and for that, ye got me gratitude,” Connerad replied.
“Are we knowing where the stair’s at?”
“Right below and folded over in half,” Connerad replied. “That’s what Athrogate telled me o’ the place, at least. The durned drow’ve done a great job in building themselves a stair that can be taken down fast, but not so fast to put back up, so I’m hearin’. So no, me friend, we won’t be slippin’ a few fellows down to the stair and getting it set up for us, if that’s what ye were thinking.”
“All of us fast down on a slide rope then,” said Bungalow. “I’m not feelin’ good about puttin’ me boys on ropes to rappel a hunnerd feet and more to the dark floor. Not with a horde o’ damned drow below shootin’ at us all the way.”
“Silence and darkness and two set o’ three ropes abreast,” Connerad replied. “And know that I’ll be right beside ye.”
Bungalow Thump patted Connerad on the shoulder, never doubting for a heartbeat that his king wouldn’t send him and his boys into a danger that Connerad wouldn’t face right beside them. Connerad’s family name was Brawnanvil, but for all that he was Battlehammer, through and through.
“We got them young Harpell wizards, too,” Connerad reminded.
“Wishin’ we had the old one,” said Bungalow. “And the woman who’s leadin’ ’em. Both can throw a bit o’ lightning and fire, so I’m hearin’.”
“The one girl with this group-said her name’s Kenneally,” Connerad replied, “she’s a flyer and a floater, and with more than a few tricks for such. Might be that she can give us wings, me and yerself, and so we’ll chase our boys down the hole, eh?”
“Kenneally Harpell,” Bungalow reminded him, emphasizing that legendary family name. “So she’ll likely turn us into bats, what!”
“Ha!” said Connerad. “Aye, her and the skinny fellow. . Tuck-the-Duck?”
“Tuckernuck,” came the correction from the doorway and the two dwarves turned to see the two in question, Kenneally and Tuckernuck Harpell.
“Rest assured, King Connerad, that we two and the others will be of great assistance in getting your force swiftly to the bottom, if that is your wish,” Kenneally Harpell said.
“I’ve a new spell to try for just this purpose,” Tuckernuck added, and the dwarves looked to each other doubtfully, having heard, and seen, much of the leftover effects of “new spells” tried at the Ivy Mansion in Longsaddle, including more than half the statues in the place. More than a few brilliant Harpell wizards had mastered a spell to turn himself or herself into such a statue, and of course, did so knowing the words to reverse the spell but without realizing that as a statue, he or she wouldn’t be able to mouth those words.
“Do tell, boy,” Connerad gingerly prompted.
“Field of Feather Falling,” Tuckernuck replied.
“You fall into it, you float out of it,” Kenneally replied. The dwarves exchanged skeptical looks once more.
“We put it down near the floor, perhaps,” said Tuckernuck. “A long and fast fall into the field and a short float to the fight!”
“Or quick surprise turned into a quick splat, eh?” Bungalow Thump said dryly.
Matron Mother Zeerith sat on the altar stone in the chapel of Q’Xorlarrin, fidgeting nervously. More than once, she imagined taking just a few steps and leaping from the ledge to the fiery maw of the fire primordial.
It was just a passing thought, and nothing she seriously considered. Not yet, at least, but she could well envision a day not too far off when such a suicidal leap into utter oblivion might prove to be her best course. She spun around on the altar stone then and leaned forward to peer into the pit, its sides swirling with water elementals rushing about in their cyclonic frenzy.“Matron Mother?” she heard from behind her, and she turned to see
High Priestess Kiriy and the wizard Hoshtar entering the chamber. “I do not wish to disturb your communion, Matron Mother,” Kiriy said respectfully, and she bowed low.
“What do you want?” Matron Mother Zeerith snapped in reply. She turned a threatening glare over Hoshtar, who similarly bowed, and had the wisdom to remain low.
“They near the lower positions,” Kiriy explained. “I thought it important that you greet them personally.”
Matron Mother Zeerith winced. “Already?” she whispered under her breath, though she knew she shouldn’t be surprised, for demons were tireless creatures.
“They are to be allowed nowhere near this room,” she said to her daughter. “Or the forge room.”
“It will take one of your supreme station to deter them, Matron Mother,” Kiriy explained. “Mighty Marilith herself leads the throng."
“A marilith. .” Matron Mother Zeerith said with a sigh. She was hoping that a nalfeshnee, with its strange sense of law and order, would be at the head of the demonic column, or perhaps even some weaker type of major demon, one that she could easily dominate. The six-armed mariliths, though, were exceedingly cunning, and could warp any command to their advantage.
“Not a marilith,” Kiriy said, interrupting Zeerith’s train of thought.
“Marilith herself.”
“Under the suffrage and domination of Archmage Gromph Baenre,”
Hoshtar added, and Matron Mother Zeerith felt as if he were twisting a knife in her back. By all reason, Gromph Baenre should be a friend to the Xorlarrins, a family so strong in male wizards. But whether it was his jealousy, or his fear that one of the Xorlarrins would usurp his high station, such an alliance had never come to pass.