“Crunch who?” Chogurugga called from across the way, and the ogress scowled, seeing Le'lorinel close to Bloog.
“Not as easy as that, mighty Bloog,” the elf explained, pointedly taking no note of ugly Chogurugga. “Come, my friend. I will show you how to best defeat the dark elf.”
Bloog looked from Le'lorinel to his scowling mate, then back to the delicate elf. With an expression that told Le'lorinel he was as interested in angering Chogurugga as he was in learning what he might about the drow, the giant ogre pulled himself out of the hammock and hoisted Aegis-fang to his shoulder. The mighty weapon was dwarfed by the creature's sheer bulk and muscle that it looked more like a carpenter's hammer.
With a final glance to Chogurugga, just to make sure the volatile ogress wasn't preparing a charge, Le'lorinel led Bloog out of the room and back up the ramp, going to the northern end of the next level and knocking hard on Bellany's door.
“What is he doing up here?” the sorceress asked when she answered the knock a few minutes later. “Sheila would not approve.”
“What have you learned?” Le'lorinel asked.
A cloud passed over Bellany's face. “More than a white worm,” she confirmed. “I have seen a dwarf and a large man moving close to our position, running hard.”
“Bruenor Battlehammer and Wulfgar, likely,” Le'lorinel replied. “What of the drow?”
Bellany shrugged and shook her head.
“If they have come, then so has Drizzt Do'Urden,” Le'lorinel insisted. “The fight out there is likely a diversion. Look closer!”
Bellany scowled at the elf, but Le'lorinel didn't back down.
“Drizzt Do'Urden might already be in the complex,” the elf added.
That took the anger off of Bellany's face, and she moved back into her room and shut the door. A moment later, Le'lorinel heard her casting a spell and watched with a smile as the wood on Bellany's door seemed to swell a bit, fitting the portal tightly into the jamb.
Fighting hard not to laugh out loud, as much on the edge of nerves as ever before, Le'lorinel motioned for Bloog to follow and moved to a different door.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Regis put his cherubic face up against the stone and didn't dare to breathe. He heard the rumble of the next pair of brutes, along with the snarl of a more human voice, as they came past his and Drizzt's position, heading up the gorge to check on their companions.
The halfling took some comfort in the fact that Drizzt was hiding right beside him—until he managed to turn his face that way to find that the drow was gone.
Panic welled in Regis. He could heard the cursing trio of enemies right behind him.
“Too bloody cold to be chasin' shadows!” the human snarled.
“Big wormie,” said one of the ogres.
“And that makes it better?” the human asked sarcastically. “Leave the ugly thing alone, and it'll slither away!”
“Big worm killeded Bonko!” the other ogre said indignantly.
The human started to respond—likely to dismiss the importance of a dead ogre, Regis realized, but apparently he thought the better of it and just cursed under his breath.
They went right past the halfling's position, and if they'd come any closer, they surely would have brushed right against Regis's rear end.
The halfling didn't breathe easier until their voices had faded considerably, and still he stood there in the shadows, hugging the wall.
“Regis,” came a whisper, and he looked up to see Drizzt on a ledge above him. “Come along and be quick. It's clear into the cave.”
Mustering all the courage he could find, the halfling scrambled up, taking the drow's offered hand. The pair skittered along the thin ridge, behind a wall of blocking boulders to the corner of the large cave.
Drizzt peeked around, then skittered in, pulling Regis along behind him.
The cave narrowed into a tunnel soon after, running level and branching in two or three places. The air was smoky, with torches lining the walls at irregular intervals, their dancing flames illuminating the place with wildly elongating and shrinking shadows.
“This way,” Regis said, slipping past the drow at one fork, and moving down to the left. He tried to recall everything Robillard had told him about the place, for the wizard had done a thorough scan of the area and had even found his way up into the complex a bit.
The ground sloped down in some places, up in others, though the pair were generally descending. They came through darker rooms where there was no torchlight, and other chambers filled with stalagmites breaking up the trail, and with stalactites leering down at them threateningly from above. Many shelves lined the walls, rolling back to marvelous rock formations or with sheets of water-smoothed rock that seemed to be flowing. Many smaller tunnels ran off at every conceivable angle.
Soon Regis slowed, the sound of guttural voices becoming audible ahead of them. The halfling turned on Drizzt, an alarmed expression on his face. He pointed ahead emphatically, to where the corridor circled left and back to the right, ascending gradually.
Drizzt caught the signal and motioned for Regis to wait a moment, then slipped ahead into the shadows, moving with such grace, speed, and silence that Regis blinked many times, wondering if his friend had just simply disappeared. As soon as his amazement diminished, though, the halfling remembered where he was and took note of the fact that he was now alone. He quickly skittered into the shadows off to the side.
The drow returned a short while later, to Regis's profound relief, and with a smile that showed he had found the desired area. Drizzt led him around a bend and up a short incline, then up a few steps that were part natural, part carved, into a chamber that widened off to the left along a broken, rocky plateau about chest high to the drow.
The voices were much closer now, just up ahead and around the next bend. Drizzt leaped up to the left, then reached back and pulled Regis up beside him.
“Lots of loose stone,” the drow quietly explained. “Take great care.”
They inched across the wider area, staying as tight to the wall as possible until they came to one area cleared of stony debris. Drizzt bent down against the wall there and stuck his hand into a small alcove, pulling it back out and rubbing his fingers together.
Regis nodded knowingly. Ash. This was a natural chimney, the one Robillard had described to him on the flight back to the friends, the one he had subsequently described to Drizzt.
The drow went in first, bending his body perfectly to slide up the narrow hole. Before he could even consider the course before him, before he could even pause to muster his courage, Regis heard the sound of many voices moving along the corridor back behind him.
In he went, into the absolute darkness, sliding his hands and finding holds, blindly propelling himself up behind the drow.
For Drizzt, it was suddenly as if he were back in the Underdark, back in the realm of the hunter, were all his senses had to be on the very edge of perfection if he was to have any chance of survival. He heard so many sounds then: the distant dripping of water; a grating of stone on stone; shouts from below and in the distance, leaking through cracks in the stone. He could feel that noise in his sensitive fingertips as he continued his climb, slowing only because he understood that Regis couldn't possibly keep up. Drizzt, a creature of the Underdark where natural chutes were common, where even a halfling's fine night vision would be perfectly useless, could move up this narrow chute as quickly as Regis could trot through a starlit meadow.
The drow marveled in the texture of the stone, feeling the life of this mound, once teeming with rushing water. The smoothness of the edges made the ascent more comfortable, and the walls were uneven enough so that the smoothness didn't much adversely affect climbing.