“And so I shall, if it comes to that,” the woman said evenly. “And Jarlaxle will do the same for you, no doubt.”
“You would take …” Drizzt stammered and stuttered and shook his head when he found he had no response. He pulled Taulmaril over his shoulder. “I have used this in my adventures against the demons in the lower tunnels off of Mithral Hall,” he explained again.
“Aye, and you used Guenhwyvar, too.”
“Not the same …” the confused drow ranger replied. “Are you trying to dissuade …?”
“No!” Catti-brie said with finality, then more gently, “No.”
The woman beckoned again. “Trust me.”
Now Drizzt’s expression turned to one of curiosity, as he caught on that she had something in mind. He handed over Taulmaril then reached around and removed the magical quiver that would afford him an endless supply of arrows to be enchanted and loosed by the magic of the great bow.
Catti-brie nodded and slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder.
They said no more then. There was nothing more to say. She would trust him as he trusted her. That was their unspoken agreement,. They did not inhibit each other’s journey, but rather trusted and encouraged those choices.
But Drizzt knew there remained a loaded weight in that level of trust. It implied that he would make his choices well. And on the surface, this particular choice to travel beside Jarlaxle to Menzoberranzan could not seem a wise decision. Even for the sake of Dahlia.
And still, Drizzt knew that he was walking the right road. There was something more, something nagging at his very soul, some whispering notion that this road would prove an important part of his own journey, a measure of closure that he needed so that he could honestly go on with his life as planned.
This was fated, he felt, though Drizzt had never been one to believe in fate, or in the pre-planning of the gods, or any other such notions. He believed in free will and reason above all-he lived his life by that credo. Even in matters of faith, Drizzt placed his moral compass above any external edicts, and indeed, Mielikki was merely a name to what he knew was in his heart-though he had come to doubt that label of late.
Still, this offer of adventure Jarlaxle had placed before him felt to him more like some road to lasting peace. If he succeeded, he suspected he would finally and forever put Menzoberranzan behind him, or at least lock his awful experiences in that dark cavern into proper perspective.
And yes, it was a great risk.
Perhaps he would be slain, perhaps turned into a drider, perhaps sent into the Abyss to serve as a slave to Lolth forevermore.
But even in the face of those grim possibilities, he had to do this.
He and Catti-brie spent a long time alone then, expressing their love and respect as if it might be the last time.
They went together, and found Jarlaxle to bring along, to tell King Bruenor, whose excited response was, of course, perfectly predictable.
“Call out the boys!” the dwarf proclaimed. “Oh, but we’ll march with ye, elf, all of us, and we’ll tear down every drow House and put a blade up every ugly, skinny drow bum!” He paused in his rant and looked at Jarlaxle. “Well, exceptin’ those ye tell us to let be, and then we’ll be lettin’ ’em be only if they keep them skinny bums out o’ our way!”
“Bruenor, no,” Drizzt was finally able to say, and forcefully enough to halt the dwarf’s momentum. Standing on the Throne of the Dwarven Gods then, King Bruenor looked at Drizzt curiously and said, “Huh?”
“You have your work here,” Drizzt said. “No less important. The tunnels are full of demons, the drow may return to Gauntlgrym, and the Hosttower must be rebuilt or it is all for naught anyway.”
“Bah! But ye think I’m to let ye walk off along to Menzoburysomedrow?”
The play on the name gave Drizzt pause, enough for Jarlaxle to verbally wade into the conversation with, “Yes, that is exactly what we think, and what we demand.”
All around the group, dwarves gasped at the dark elf visitor’s impertinence, especially with King Bruenor standing atop the throne.
“Were you to empty your halls, indeed all the halls of the Silver Marches, you’d not win a fight with Menzoberranzan, good dwarf,” Jarlaxle explained. “Not there, not where all the Houses would unite against you. You’d not get near to our goal.”
“Trust them, me Da,” Catti-brie said. She looked over at Drizzt and nodded. “They will not fail in this.”
Bruenor was clearly unable to come up with any answer that satisfied him or assuaged his all-too-obvious fears. He slowly melted back into the throne and heaved a great sigh.
“We’re almost there, elf,” he said quietly. “Can ye no feel it?”
“I do,” Drizzt said. “And we are. To that place we’ve talked of since our days together on Kelvin’s Cairn. Almost there. The winding road shows the end straightaway.”
“The door to home’s in sight,” Bruenor said.
Many hugs later, Drizzt and Jarlaxle walked together into the Underdark, side-by-side. Oftentimes, Jarlaxle lifted a hand to put it comfortingly on Drizzt’s shoulder, and more than once, the mercenary whispered Bruenor’s last words, “The door to home’s in sight.”
CHAPTER 6
With a thousand dwarves marching behind her, Catti-Brie, astride the mighty unicorn Andahar, led the way to the gates of Luskan. Athrogate and Ambergris rode at her side, the two of them assigned by Bruenor to serve as her personal bodyguards. Many threatening looks came at the woman, and particularly at her entourage, from the scalawags serving as gate guards-rogues in the service of one or another of the five competing Captains of Luskan. But Jarlaxle’s hold on the city was so powerful not a single word was spoken, not even a request for the leaders to identify the approaching army.
The gates were pulled open without a word, and Catti-brie led the way into the city.
“Take me to the Hosttower,” she ordered one of the nearby guards, a woman so dark from the sun and dirty from the streets she looked as if she had the shadow of a beard.
Still without a word of response, she escorted them up Reaver’s Run, the main boulevard that led all the way to the city’s main market. Beyond that lay the bridge to Closeguard Island, which housed the Ship of High Captain Kurth, who was of course Jarlaxle’s lieutenant, Beniago.
Indeed, Beniago waited at the far end of the bridge, bidding the newcomers to cross. He took up beside Catti-brie and led the way to the next bridge, from Closeguard to Cutlass Island, where once had stood the Hosttower of the Arcane. Large tents had already been constructed all around the ruins of that once-grand structure.
“Food will be brought to you daily,” Beniago assured Catti-brie.
“Enough to keep me belly fat?” Athrogate demanded.
Beniago, who knew Athrogate well, merely laughed and nodded.
“Aye, better be,” the dwarf grunted.
Catti-brie moved over to the roots of the ruined structure as the dwarves settled in. The devastation had been so complete that she could look down into what had once been the basement of the tower, and even below that broken stone and metal to the deep roots trailing down into the Underdark. These were the roots that ran to Gauntlgrym, delivering seawater to the elementals that held the fire primordial in its pit.
She looked up at the darkening sky. The sun had slipped below the horizon, but only recently. The clouds to the west flared pink and orange in the dying light. The wind was off the water, wet and chill in her face, and Catti-brie pulled her black cloak-the cloak Jarlaxle had given her-tighter about her.
“A daunting task,” Gromph Baenre said and the woman jumped-and nearly transformed into a raven and flew away. The drow was suddenly there, out of nowhere it seemed, standing perfectly calm beside her.
She gave him an incredulous look, and he returned a smile that reminded her of their respective powers. She knew Gromph’s appearance and demeanor was meant to intimidate her so she calmed herself quickly and presented herself more forcefully.