Driven by fierce and frigid winds that had them leaning far forward just to prevent being blown over, icy, stinging snow crashed against them more than fell over them. That driving wind shifted constantly among the alternating cliff faces, swirling and changing direction, denying them any chance of finding a shielding barricade, and always seeming to put snow in their faces no matter which way they turned. They each tried to formulate a plan and had to shout out their suggestions at the top of their lungs, putting lips right against the ear of the person with whom they were trying to communicate.
In the end, any hope of a plan for achieving some relief had to rely completely upon luck—the companions needed to find a cave, or at least a deep overhang with walls shielding them from the most pressing winds.
Drizzt bent low on the white trail and placed his black onyx figurine on the ground before him. With the same urgency he might have used if a tremendous battle loomed before him, the dark elf called to Guenhwyvar. Drizzt stepped back, but not too far, and waited for the gray mist to appear, swirling and gradually forming into the shape of the panther, then solidifying into the cat itself. The drow bent low and communicated his wishes, and the panther leaped away, padding off through the storm, searching the mountain walls and the many side passes that dipped down from the main trail.
Drizzt started away as well, on the same mission. The other three companions, though, remained tight together, defensively huddled from the wind and other potential dangers. That proximity alone prevented complete disaster when one great gust of wind roared up, knocking Catti-brie to one knee and blowing the poor halfling right over backward. Regis tumbled and scrambled, trying to find his balance, or at least find something to hold onto.
Bruenor, sturdy and steady, grabbed his daughter by the elbow and hoisted her up, then pushed her off in the direction of the scrambling halfling. Catti-brie reacted immediately, diving out over the lip of the trail's crest, pulling Taulmaril off her shoulder, falling flat to her belly and reaching the bow out toward the skidding, sliding halfling.
Regis caught the bow and held on a split second before he went tumbling over the side of the high trail, a spill that would have had him bouncing down hundreds of feet to a lower plateau and would have likely dropped an avalanche on his head right behind him. It only took a couple of minutes for Catti-brie to extract the halfling from the open face, but by the time she yanked him in he was covered white with snow and shivering terribly.
“We canno' stay out here,” the woman yelled to Bruenor, who came stomping over. “The storm'll be the death of us!”
“The elf'll find us something!” the dwarf yelled. “Him or that cat o' his!”
Catti-brie nodded, Regis tried to nod as well, but his shivering only made the motion look ridiculous. All three knew that they were fast running out of options. All three understood that Drizzt and Guenhwyvar had better find them some shelter. And soon.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Guenhwyvar's roar came as the most welcome sound Drizzt Do'Urden had heard in a long, long time. He peered through the blinding sheets of blowing white, to see the huge black panther atop a windblown jag of stone, ears flat back, face masked with icy white snow.
Drizzt half skipped and half fell along a diagonal course that kept the mighty wind somewhat behind him as he made his way to Guenhwyvar.
“What have you found?” he asked the cat when he arrived just below her, peering up.
Guenhwyvar roared again and leaped away. The drow rushed to follow, and a few hundred feet down a side trail piled deep with snow, the pair came under a long overhang of rock. Drizzt nodded, thinking that this would provide some shelter, at least, but then Guenhwyvar prodded him and growled. She moved into the shelter, toward the very back, which remained shadowed. The panther was moving and peering more intently, the drow understood, for there, in the back of the sheltered area, Drizzt spotted a fair-sized crack at the base of the stone wall.
The dark elf padded over, quickly and silently, and kneeled down to the crack, taking heart as his keen eyes revealed to him that there was indeed an even more sheltered area within, a cave or a passage. Hardly slowing, reminding himself that his friends were still out in the blizzard, Drizzt dived into the opening head first, squirming to get his feet under him as he came to a lower landing.
He was in a cave, large and with many rocky shelves and boulders. The floor was clay, mostly, and as he allowed his vision to shift into the heat-seeing spectrum of the Underdark dwellers, he did indeed note a heat source, a fire pit whose contents had been very recently extinguished.
So, the cave was not unoccupied, and given their locale and the tremendous storm blowing outside, Drizzt would have been honestly surprised if it had been.
He spotted the inhabitants a moment later, moving along the shadows of the far wall, their warmer bodies shining clearly to him. He knew at once that they were goblins, and he could well imagine that there were more than a few in this sheltered area.
Drizzt considered going back outside, retrieving his friends, and taking the cave as their own. Working with their typical efficiency, the companions should have little trouble with a small gang of goblins.
But the drow paused, and not out of fear for his friends. What of the morality involved? What of the companions walking into another creature's home and expelling it into the deadly weather? Drizzt recalled another goblin he had once met in his travels, long before and far away, a creature who was not evil. These goblins, so far out and so high up in nearly impassable mountains, might have never encountered a human, an elf, a dwarf, or any other of the goodly reasoning races. Was it acceptable, then, for Drizzt and his friends to wage war on them in an attempt to steal their home?
“Hail and well met,” the drow called in the goblin tongue, which he had learned during his years in Menzoberranzan. Though the dialect of the goblins of the deep Underdark was vastly different from that of their surface cousins, he could communicate with them well enough.
The surprise on the goblin's face when it discovered that the intruder was not an elf, but a dark elf, was obvious indeed as the creature neared—or started to approach, only to skitter back, its sickly yellowish eyes wide with shock.
“My friends and I need shelter from the storm,” Drizzt explained, standing calm and confident, trying to show neither hostility nor fear. “May we join you?”
The goblin stuttered too badly to even begin a response. It turned around, panic-stricken, to regard one of its companions. This second goblin, larger by far and likely, Drizzt surmised from his understanding of goblin culture, a leader in the tribe, stepped out from the shadows.
“How many?” it croaked at Drizzt.
Drizzt regarded the goblin for a few moments, noted that its dress was better than that of its ugly fellows, with a tall lumberjack's cap and golden ear-cuffs on both ears.
“Five,” the drow replied.
“You pay gold?”
“We pay gold.”
The large goblin gave a croaking laugh, which Drizzt took as an agreement. The drow pulled himself back out of the cave, set Guenhwyvar as a sentry, and rushed off to find the others.
It wasn't hard for Drizzt to predict Bruenor's reaction when he told the dwarf of the arrangement with their new landlords.
“Bah!” the dwarf blustered. “If ye're thinking that I'm givin' one piece o' me gold coins to the likes o' smelly goblins, then ye're thinkin' with the brains of a thick rock, elf! Or worse yet, ye're thinking like a smelly goblin!”
“They have little understanding of wealth,” Drizzt replied with all confidence. He pointedly led the group away as he continued the discussion, not wanting to waste any time at all out in the freezing cold. Regis in particular was starting to look worse for wear, and was constantly trembling, his teeth chattering. “A coin or two should suffice.”