Chapter 28 Chapter Twenty-Three Enters...

"I was thinking maybe we could go back to Orkney, the little place of fool Lord Feringal," Bruno grunted as he climbed back to the small cave that the group had used as a place of worship since the night the storm abated. residence.The weather was better, but Bruno knew the danger of an avalanche, having been stunned by the amount of snow the night before. "The snow is deep enough to reach a giant's leg!" "Walk on it," Drizzt pointed out with a smirk.But in fact none of them were in the mood to laugh, not even the drow.Snow was piled high here and there in the mountains, and as Drizzt feared, the daily trip was cut short for fear of avalanches.Snow slid down in many places around them, blocking the way and forcing the companions to stay far away.Detouring a road filled with falling snow can mean hours, or days, of the journey when it would have taken them an hour to walk.

"We can't find them, Elf," Bruno said frankly. "You don't have to doubt, they are deep in the ground. Before spring, they are unlikely to poke their smelly heads out of the ground. We can't find them like this." "We always knew it wouldn't be easy," Catti-brie reminded the dwarf. "We found the gang that attacked the tower, and they pointed us in the right direction," Regis interjected. "Of course we need a little more luck, but don't we always know that?" "Hi!" Bruno snorted.He kicked a rather large rock, causing it to roll and bounce against the side wall of the small cave.

"Give them the hammer?" Drizzt asked Bruenor very seriously. "Or were we buried before we got close to them?" replied the dwarf. "What a choice, Elf!" "Or go back to Orkney and wait out the winter," Regis offered. "Then try again in the spring." "The Bloody Keel was probably sailing out to sea then," Catti-brie reminded. "Sheila Kree and Aegis-fang have left this shore long ago." "Then let's go south," Bruno reasoned. "We went to Deudermont, made a contract with him, and helped him kill pirates until we caught up with Kerry. Then we took the hammer back and threw that stinky woman to the bottom of the open sea-that's polite enough for her!"

There followed a silence, deep and unbreakable, that lasted a long, long time.Maybe Bruno was right.Maybe the pursuit of Warhammer now will bring them nothing but disaster.And, if any of them had the right to give up the search for Aegis' Fang, it was Bruenor, of course.After all, he forged the hammer and gave it to Wulfgar.Yet none of them actually wanted to give up that hammer, not even Regis, who was perhaps the least concerned.It was a special symbol of what Wulfgar had been to them all. Perhaps it made sense to wait until the cold season was over, making it simply too dangerous to continue the journey, but Drizzt could not accept that logic.The drow wanted this to be over quickly.He was determined to catch up with Wulfgar and retrieve the Fang of Aegis, the lost symbol to them all, and the thought of sitting and waiting during months of snowfall could not rest comfortably on his slender shoulders. settle down.The drow looked around, realizing that everyone else, even Bruenor—perhaps especially Bruenor, despite his usual rage—feeled much the same way.

The drow walked out of the cave and climbed up the snow wall in front of the cave entrance.He ran up to the highest point he could find, and though the blinding light really stung his light-sensitive eyes, he looked around, looking for a way south to the sea, a way they could go on. Presently he heard someone approaching behind him, and from the sound of footsteps he knew it was Catti-brie.Her walk was somewhere between Drizzt's light footsteps and Bruenor's forceful way. "Forward seems to me as bad as backward," she said as she approached Drizzt. "Well, maybe it's better to move on, that's my personal opinion."

"Will Bruno agree? What about Regis?" "The slanderer is inside saying the same thing to Bruenor right now," Catti-brie pointed out, and Drizzt turned to face her.Regis had always been the first to abandon the path of adventure before him, the first to seek a way back to a place of warmth and comfort. "Do you remember when Artemis Entreri was pretending to be Regis?" Drizzt asked, his tone clearly warning. Catti-brie's blue glasses opened wide in surprise for a moment, until Drizzt's expression made it clear he was only joking.Yet something very different inside Regis was articulated and fully received.

"You thought stabbing him with the goblin spear on that river south would make him sink more into the furry chair," Catti-brie pointed out. "If it hadn't been for the magical help that seemed most unlikely, at least he would have lost his arm," Drizzt reminded, and that was quite true. When Regis was stabbed in the shoulder, his friend couldn't stop the bleeding.Drizzt and Catti-brie had actually set about amputating Regis' arm, thinking it was their only chance of keeping the halfling alive.At this point Jarlaxle's drow lieutenant stepped out, disguised as Cadderly, and offered some magical healing.

For the remainder of that adventure, they reached Jarlaxle's Crystal Tower, Drizzt fought Entreri, and they all made their way back to Icewind Dale, a long and dreary journey, all the while Regis kept his Be quiet.The friends had gone on many adventures together, and in fact, that last one was the worst of them all.The Crystal Shard is lost, in the hands of the dangerous leader of the Dayet Mercenaries.It was undoubtedly Regis's most painful and dangerous adventure personally, but for some reason that Drizzt and Catti-brie couldn't understand, the last adventure obviously stirred up some sparks in Regis. .This became evident immediately upon their return to Ten-Towns.Regis didn't once try to dodge when the buddies made moves to police the roads in and out of the area, and when they encountered monsters or robbers on the rare occasions they encountered, Regis refused to sit in the back and let his seasoned Friends cope with this situation.

Here he was again, trying to persuade Bruenor to go on in the desolate and deadly mountains, while the warm fires of Lord Feringal's castle waited behind them. "Three to one, then," said Catti-brie at last. "Looks like we're going to move on." "Every step along the way was accompanied by Bruno's complaints." "If we turned back, he'd still be complaining every step of the way." "It's pretty believable." "A reminder of time gone, and a sign of time to come," Catti-brie quips right away, and the two share a heartfelt, much-needed laugh.

When they returned to the cavern, deep and high, they found Bruenor hard at work, packing the tent and rolling the blankets into tight bundles, while Regis stirred the pot over the still-blazing fire. "Do you see a path worth trying?" Bruno asked. "Forward or backward . . . almost," Drizzt replied. "Except that if we go forward, we have to come back," Bruno reasoned. "Go on, I say," Catti-brie offered. "In the sleepy town of Orkney we don't have answers and I want answers before the spring thaw." "What do you say yourself, Elf?" Bruenor asked.

"We knew the road was dangerous and unwise before we set out from Luskan," Drizzt replied. "And then we got the season, and the snow wasn't unusual or unexpected at all." "But what we hope is to find that stupid pirate before then," interjected the dwarf. "Hope, but nothing," Drizzt replied quickly.He looked at Catti-brie. "I don't want to spend the winter worrying about Wulfgar, either." "Go on, then," Bruno agreed suddenly. "Let the snow kill us. Let Wulfgar spend the winter worrying about us!" the dwarf ended with a stream of curses, a typically Bruenor murmur.The other three in the cave exchanged a few winks and smiles tacitly. Yet Bruno's complaining hum turned into a more general humming noise, filling the space and drawing the attention of all four. In the center of the cave, a blue vertical line appeared, stretching to a height of about seven feet.Before the friends could call out or respond, the line split into two lines of equal height, which began to move apart, with a horizontal line above them. "Mage's portal!" Regis yelled, rolling to one side, scrambling toward the shadows and drawing out his mace. Drizzt threw the statue of Guenhwyvar to the ground, preparing to summon the panther.He drew his scimitar and moved beside Bruenor, directly facing the opening portal, while Catti-brie slid a few steps back and to the side, stringing and drawing the bow in one fluid motion. The door was fully formed, and the area between the three boundary lines was a lighter blue haze, buzzing. A figure stepped out of it, wearing a dark blue robe.Bruenor bellowed and raised his notched axe, Catti-brie ready to strike. "Robilard!" Drizzt called, and Catti-brie immediately repeated the name. "Mage friend of Deudermont?" Bruno asked. "What are you doing here?" the drow asked, but his words stopped when a second figure came out through the magic door behind the mage, a tall, heavy figure. Regis spoke up first, because the other three seemed unable to make a sound, especially Bruenor. "Wulfgar?"