But another arrow cracked home.
Wulfgar saw a great gob of dragon blood splatter on the floor beside him, and he watched the globe of darkness lurch away. The dragon roared in anger. Aegis-fang struck again, and a third time. One of the scales cracked and flaked away, and the sight of exposed flesh renewed Wulfgar’s hopes of victory.
Icingdeath had lived through many battles, though, and was far from finished. The dragon knew how vulnerable it was to the powerful hammer and kept its concentration focused enough to retaliate. The long tail circled over the scaly back and cracked into Wulfgar just as the barbarian had begun another swing. Instead of the satisfaction of feeling Aegis-fang crushing through dragon flesh, Wulfgar found himself slammed against a frozen mound of gold coins twenty feet away.
The cavern spun all about him, his watering eyes heightening the starred reflections of light and his consciousness slipping away. But he saw Drizzt, scimitars drawn, advancing boldly toward Icingdeath. He saw the dragon poised to breath again. He saw, with crystalline clarity, the immense icicle hanging from the ceiling above the dragon.
Drizzt walked forward. He had no strategy against such a formidable foe; he hoped that he would spot some weakness before the dragon killed him. He thought that Wulfgar was out of the battle, and probably dead, after the mighty slash of the tail, and was surprised when he saw sudden movement off to the side.
Icingdeath sensed the barbarian’s move as well and sent its long tail to squelch any further threat to its flank.
But Wulfgar had already played his hand. With the last burst of strength he could muster, he snapped up from the mound and launched Aegis-fang high into the air.
The dragon’s tail struck home and Wulfgar didn’t know if his desperate attempt was successful. He thought that he saw a lighter spot appear on the ceiling before he was thrown into blackness.
Drizzt bore witness to their victory. Mesmerized, the drow watched the silent descent of the huge icicle.
Icingdeath, blinded to the danger by the globe of darkness and thinking that the hammer had flown wildly, waved its wings. The clawed forelegs had just begun to lift up when the ice spear smashed into the dragon’s back, driving it back to the floor.
With the ball of darkness planted on its head, Drizzt couldn’t see the dragon’s dying expression.
But he heard the killing “crack” as the whiplike neck, launched by the sudden reversal of momentum, rolled upward and snapped.
22. By Blood or by Deed
The heat of a small fire brought Wulfgar back to consciousness. He came to his senses groggily and, at first, could not comprehend his surroundings as he wriggled out of a blanket that he did not remember bringing. Then he recognized Icingdeath, lying dead just a few yards away, the huge icicle rooted firmly in the dragon’s back. The globe of darkness had dissipated, and Wulfgar gawked at how accurate the drow’s approximated bowshots had been. One arrow protruded from the dragon’s left eye, and the black shafts of two others stuck out from the mouth.
Wulfgar reached down to grasp the security of Aegisfang’s familiar handle. But the hammer was nowhere near him. Fighting the pervading numbness in his legs, the barbarian managed to stand up, searching around frantically for his weapon. And where, he wondered, was the drow?
Then he heard the tapping coming from a side chamber. Stiff-legged, he moved cautiously around a bend. There was Drizzt, standing atop a hill of coins, breaking away its icy covering with Wulfgar’s warhammer.
Drizzt noticed Wulfgar approaching and bowed low in greeting. “Well met, Dragon’s Bane!” he called.
“And to you, friend elf,” Wulfgar responded, thoroughly pleased to see the drow again. “You have followed me a long way.”
“Not too far,” Drizzt replied, chopping another chunk of ice off the treasure. “There was little excitement to be found in Ten-Towns, and I could not let you forge ahead in our competition of kills! Ten and one-half to ten and one-half,” he declared, smiling broadly, “and a dragon to split between us. I claim half the kill!”
“Yours and well earned,” Wulfgar agreed. “And claim to half the booty.”
Drizzt revealed a small pouch hanging on a fine silver chain around his neck. “A few baubles,” he explained. “I need no riches and doubt that I would be able to carry much out of here, anyway! A few baubles will suffice.”
He sifted through the portion of the pile he had just freed from the ice, uncovering a gem-encrusted sword pommel, its black adamantite hilt masterfully sculpted into the likeness of the toothed maw of a hunting cat. The lure of the intricate workmanship pulled at Drizzt, and with trembling fingers he slid the rest of the weapon out from under the gold.
A scimitar. Its curving blade was of silver, and diamond-edged. Drizzt raised it before him, marveling at its lightness and perfect balance.
“A few baubles…and this,” he corrected.
Even before he had encountered the dragon, Wulfgar wondered how he would escape the underground caverns. “The current of the water is too strong and the ledge of the waterdrop too high to go back through Evermelt,” he said to Drizzt, though he knew that the drow would have surmised the same thing. “Even if we somehow find our way through those barriers, I have no more deer blubber to protect us from the cold when we leave the water.”
“I also have no mind to pass through the waters of Evermelt again,” Drizzt assured the barbarian. “Yet I rely on my considerable experience to bring me into such situations prepared! Thus the wood for the fire and the blanket that I put upon you, both wrapped in sealskin. And also this.” He produced a three-pronged grapple and some light but strong cord from his belt. He had already discovered an escape route.
Drizzt pointed up to a small hole in the roof above them. The icicle that had been dislodged by Aegis-fang had taken part of the chamber’s ceiling with it. “I cannot hope to throw the hook so high, but your mighty arms should find the toss a minor challenge.”
“In better times, perhaps,” relied Wulfgar. “But I have no strength to make the attempt.” The barbarian had come closer to death than he realized when the dragon’s breath had descended upon him, and with the adrenalin of the fight now used up, he felt the pervading cold keenly. “I fear that my unfeeling hands could not even close upon the hook!”
“Then run!” yelled the drow. “Let your chilled body warm itself.”
Wulfgar was off at once, jogging around the wide chamber, forcing his blood to circulate through his numbed legs and fingers. In a short while, he began to feel the inner warmth of his own body returning.
It took him only two throws to put the grapple through the hole and get it to catch fast on some ice. Drizzt was the first to go, the agile elf veritably running up the cord.
Wulfgar finished his business in the cavern, collecting a bag of riches and some other items he knew he would need. He had much more difficulty than Drizzt in ascending the cord, but with the drow’s assistance from above, he managed to scramble onto the ice before the westering sun dipped below the horizon.
They camped beside Evermelt, feasting on venison and enjoying a much-needed and well-deserved rest in the comfort of the warming vapors.
Then they were off again before dawn, running west. They ran side by side for two days, matching the frenzied pace that had brought them so far east. When they came upon the trails of the gathering barbarian tribes, both of them knew that the time had come for them to part.
“Farewell, good friend,” said Wulfgar as he bent low to inspect the trails. “I shall never forget what you have done for me.”
“And to you, Wulfgar,” Drizzt replied somberly. “May your mighty warhammer terrorize your enemies for years to come!” He sped off, not looking back, but wondering if he would ever see his large companion alive again.