When they went back into the deep, high cave they found Bruenor hard at work in packing up the camp, rolling blankets into tight bundles, while Regis stirred the pot over the still-blazing fire.
“Ye seein' a road worth trying?” Bruenor asked.
“Ahead or back … it is much the same,” Drizzt answered.
“Except if we go ahead, we'll still have to come back,” Bruenor reasoned.
“Go on, I say,” Catti-brie offered. “We're not to find our answers in the sleepy town of Auckney, and I'm wanting answers before the spring thaw.”
“What says yerself, elf?” Bruenor asked.
“We knew that the road would be dangerous and inhospitable before we ever set out from Luskan,” Drizzt answered. “We knew the season then, and this snowfall is hardly unusual or unexpected.”
“But we hoped to find the stupid pirate afore this,” the dwarf put in.
“Hoped, but hardly expected,” Drizzt was quick to reply. He looked to Catti-brie. “I, too, have little desire to spend the winter worrying about Wulfgar.”
“On, then,” Bruenor suddenly agreed. “And let the snow take us. And let Wulfgar spend the winter worrying about us!” The dwarf ended with a stream of curses, muttering under his breath in that typical Bruenor fashion. The other three in the cave shared a few knowing winks and smiles.
The low hum of Bruenor's grumbles shifted, though, into a more general humming noise that filled all the air and caught the attention of all four.
In the middle of the cave, a blue vertical line appeared, glowing to a height of about seven feet. Before the friends could begin to call out or react, that line split apart into two of equal height, and those two began drifting apart, a horizontal blue line atop them.
“Wizard door!” Regis cried, rolling to the side, scrambling for the shadows, and taking out his mace.
Drizzt dropped the figurine of Guenhwyvar to the floor, ready to call out to the panther. He drew forth his scimitars, moving beside Bruenor to face the growing portal directly, while Catti-brie slipped a few steps back and to the side, stringing and drawing her bow in one fluid motion.
The door formed completely, the area within the three defining lines buzzing with a lighter blue haze.
Out stepped a form, dressed in dark blue robes. Bruenor roared and lifted his many-notched axe, and Catti-brie pulled back, ready to let fly.
“Robillard!” Drizzt called, and Catti-brie echoed the name a split second later.
“Deudermont's wizard friend?” Bruenor started to ask.
“What are you doing here?” the drow asked, but his words fell away as a second form came through the magical portal behind the wizard, a huge and hulking form.
Regis said it first, for the other three, especially Bruenor, couldn't seem to find a single voice among them. “Wulfgar?”
Chapter 24 DROW-SIGN
The unearthly wail, its notes primal and agonized, echoed off the stone walls of the cavern complex, reverberating into the very heart of the mountain itself.
The tips of Le'lorinel's sword and dagger dipped toward the floor. The elf stopped the training session and turned to regard the room's open door and the corridor beyond, where that awful cry was still echoing.
“What is it?” Le'lorinel asked as a form rushed by. Jule Pepper, the elf, who sprinted to catch up, guessed.
Down the winding way Le'lorinel went, pursuing Jule all the way to the complex of large chambers immediately below those of Sheila Kree and her trusted, brand-wearing compatriots, and into the lair of Chogurugga and Bloog.
Le'lorinel had to dodge aside upon entering, as a huge chair sailed by to smash against the stone. Again came that terrible cry—Chogurugga's shriek. Looking past the ogress, Le'lorinel understood it to be a wail of grief.
For there, in the middle of the floor, lay the bloated body of another ogre, a young and strong one. Sheila Kree and Bellany stood over the body beside another ogre who was kneeling, its huge, ugly head resting atop the corpse. At first, Le'lorinel figured it to be Bloog, but then the elf spotted the gigantic ogre leader, looking on from the wall behind them. It didn't take Le'lorinel long to figure out that the mask of anguish that Bloog wore was far from genuine.
It occurred to Le'lorinel that Bloog might have done this.
“Bathunk! Me baby!” Chogurugga shrieked with concern very atypical for a mother ogress. “Bathunk! Bathunk!”
Sheila Kree moved to talk to the ogress, perhaps to console her, but Chogurugga went into another flailing fit at that moment, lifting a rock from the huge fire pit and hurling it to smash against the wall—not so far from the ducking Bloog, Le'lorinel noted.
“They found Bathunk's body near an outpost to the north,” Bellany explained to Jule and Le'lorinel, the sorceress walking over to them. “A few were killed, it seems. That one, Pokker, thought it prudent to bring back Bathunk's body.” As she explained, she pointed to the ogre kneeling over the body.
“You sound as if he shouldn't have,” Jule Pepper remarked.
Bellany shrugged as if it didn't matter. “Look at the wretch,” she whispered, nodding her chin toward the wild Chogurugga. “She'll likely kill half the ogres in Golden Cove or get herself killed by Bloog.”
“Or by Sheila,” Jule observed, for it seemed obvious that Sheila Kree was fast losing patience with the ogress.
“There is always that possibility,” Bellany deadpanned.
“How did it happen?” asked Le'lorinel.
“It is not so uncommon a thing,” Bellany answered. “We lose a few ogres every year, particularly in the winter. The idiots simply can't allow good judgment to get in the way of their need to squash people. The soldiers of the Spine of the World communities are veterans all, and no easy mark, even for monsters as powerful and as well-outfitted as Chogurugga's ogres.”
While Bellany was answering, Le'lorinel subtly moved toward Bathunk's bloated corpse. Noting that it seemed as if Sheila had Chogurugga momentarily under control then, the elf dared move even closer, bending low to examine the body.
Le'lorinel found breathing suddenly difficult. The cuts on the body were, many, were beautifully placed and were, in many different areas, curving. Curving like the blades of a scimitar. Noting one bruise behind Bathunk's hip, the elf gently reached down and edged the corpse a bit to the side. The mark resembled the imprint of a delicately curving blade, much like the blades Le'lorinel had fashioned for Tunevec during his portrayal of a certain dark elf,
Le'lorinel looked up suddenly, trying to digest it all, recognizing clearly that no ordinary soldier had downed this mighty ogre.
The elf nearly laughed aloud then—a desire only enhanced when Le'lorinel noticed that Bloog was sniffling and wiping his eyes as if they were teary, which they most surely were not. But another roar from behind came as a clear reminder that a certain ogress might not enjoy anyone making light of this tragedy.
Le'lorinel rose quickly and walked back to Jule and Bellany, then kept right on moving out of the room, running back up the passageway to the safety of the upper level. There, the elf gasped and laughed heartily, at once thrilled and scared.
For Le'lorinel knew that Drizzt Do'Urden had done this thing, that the drow was in the area—not so far away if the ogre could carry Bathunk back in this wintry climate.
“My thanks, E'kressa,” the elf whispered.
Le'lorinel's hands went instinctively for sword and dagger, then came together in front, the fingers of the right hand turning the enchanted ring about its digit on the left. After all these years, it was about to happen. After all the careful planning, the studying of Drizzt's style and technique, the training, the consultations with some of the finest swordsmen of northern Faerыn to find ways to counter the drow's maneuvers. After all the costs, the years of labor to pay for the ring, the partners, the information.