"Oh, well done," Harkle admitted as Robillard slapped his hands together in a superior motion, wiping himself clean of the zombies and of Harkle. The spells had cleared the beach of enemies, and so the fight was apparently over.
But Harkle couldn't let Robillard have the last word, not that way. He looked to the zombies struggling in the ice, and then glowered at Robillard. Deliberately, he reached into his deepest pocket and pulled forth a ceramic flask. "Super heroism," he explained. "You have perhaps heard of Tenser?"
Robillard put a finger to pursed lips. "Oh, yes," he said a moment later. "Of course, crazy Tenser." Robillard's eyes went wide as he considered the implications. Tenser's most renowned spell reportedly transformed a wizard into a warrior for a short duration-a berserk warrior!
"Not the Tenser!" Robillard yelled, tackling Harkle where he stood, pinning the man down before he could pop the cork off the potion flask.
"Help me!" Robillard begged, and the others were there in a moment. The battle, and the contest, was at its end.
They pulled themselves together and Deudermont announced that it was time to get off the beach.
Drizzt motioned to Catti-brie and immediately moved out front, more than ready to be on the move. The woman didn't immediately follow. She was too intent on the continuing, now-
friendly, exchange between the wizards. Mostly, she was watching Robillard, who seemed much more animated and happy. She thought perhaps Harkle Harpell was indeed having a positive effect on the man.
"Oh, that digging spell worked so very well with my Bigby variation," she heard Harkle say. "You really must teach it to me. My cousin, Bidderdoo, he is a werewolf, and he has this habit of burying everything about the yard, bones and wands and the like. The dig spell will help me to recover …"
Catti-brie shook her head and rushed to catch up with Drizzt. She skidded to an abrupt stop, though, and looked back to the rowboat. More particularly, she looked back to Dunkin Tallmast, who was seated in the beached craft, shaking his head back and forth. Catti-brie motioned to the others and they all went back to the man.
"I wish to go back to the boat," Dunkin said sternly. "One of the wizards can get me there." As he spoke, the man was clutching the rail so tightly that the knuckles on both his hands had whitened for lack of blood.
"Come along," Drizzt said to him.
Dunkin didn't move.
"You have been given a chance to witness what few men have ever seen," the ranger said. As he spoke, Drizzt took out the panther figurine and dropped it on the sand.
"You know more about Caerwich than any other aboard the Sea Sprite," Deudermont added. "Your knowledge is needed."
"I know little," Dunkin retorted.
"But still more than any other," Deudermont insisted.
"There is a reward for your assistance," Drizzt went on, and Dunkin's eyes brightened for an instant-until the drow explained what he meant by the word "reward."
"Who knows what adventure we might find here?" Drizzt said excitedly. "Who knows what secrets might be unveiled to us?"
"Adventure?" Dunkin asked incredulously, looking to the carnage along the beach, and to the zombies still frozen in the water. "Reward?" he added with a chuckle. "Punishment, more likely, though I have done nothing to harm you, any of you!"
"We are here to unveil a mystery," Drizzt said, as though that fact should have piqued the man's curiosity. "To learn and to grow. To live as we discover the secrets of the world about us."
"Who wants to know?" Dunkin snapped, deflating the drow and dismissing his grandiose speech. Waillan Micanty, inspired by the drow's words, had heard enough of the whining little man. The young sailor moved to the side of the beached rowboat, tore Dunkin's hands free of the rail and dragged the man onto the sand.
"I could have done that with much more flair," Robillard remarked dryly.
"So could Tenser," said Harkle.
"Not the Tenser," Robillard insisted.
"Not the Tenser?"
"Not the Tenser," Robillard reiterated, in even tones of finality. Harkle whimpered a bit, but did not respond.
"Save your magic," Waillan said to both of them. "We may need it yet."
Now it was Dunkin's turn to whine.
"When this is over, you will have a tale to widen the eyes of every sailor who puts in at Mintarn Harbor," Drizzt said to the small man.
That seemed to calm Dunkin somewhat, until Catti-brie added, "If ye live."
Drizzt and Deudermont both scowled at her, but the woman merely grinned innocently and walked away.
"I will tell his tyrancy," Dunkin threatened, but no one was listening to him anymore.
Drizzt called to Guenhwyvar and when the panther came onto the beach, the seven adventurers gathered around Deudermont. The captain drew a rough outline of the island in the sand. He put an X on the area indicating their beach, then another one outside his drawing, to show the location of the Sea Sprite.
"Ideas?" he asked, looking particularly at Dunkin.
"I've heard people speak of 'the Witch of the Moaning Cave, " the small man offered sheepishly.
"There might be caves along the coast," Catti-brie reasoned. "Or up here." She put her finger down onto Deudermont's rough drawing, indicating the one mountain, the low cone that comprised the bulk of Caerwich.
"We should search inland before we put back out into the sea," Deudermont reasoned, and none of them had to follow his gaze to the frozen zombies to be reminded of the dangers along the shore
of Caerwich. And so off they trudged, inland, through a surprisingly thick tangle of brush and huge ferns.
Almost as soon as they had left the openness of the beach behind, sounds erupted all about them-the hoots and whistles of exotic birds, and throaty howling calls that none of them had heard before. Drizzt and Guenhwyvar took up the point and flanks, moving off to disappear into the tangle without a sound.
Dunkin groaned at this, not liking the fact that his immediate group had just become smaller. Catti-brie chuckled at him, drawing a scowl. If only Dunkin knew how much safer they were with the drow and his cat moving beside them.
They searched for more than an hour, then took a break in a small clearing halfway up the low conical mountain. Drizzt sent Guenhwyvar off alone, figuring that the cat could cover more ground in the span of their short break than they would search out the rest of the day.
"We will come down the back side of the cone, then move southward, all the way around and back to the boat," Deudermont explained. "Then back up and over the cone, and then to the north."
"We may have walked right past the cave without ever seeing it," Robillard grumbled. It was true enough, they all knew, for the tangle was so very thick and dark, and the mist had not diminished in the least.
"Well, perhaps our two wizards could be of use," Deudermont said sarcastically, "if they hadn't been so absorbed in wasting their spells to prove a point."
"There were enemies to strike down," Harkle protested.
"I could've cut 'em down with me bow," said Catti-brie.
"And wasted arrows!" Harkle retorted, thinking he had her in a logic trap.
Of course, the others all knew, Catti-brie's quiver was powerfully enchanted. "I don't run out of arrows," she remarked, and Harkle sat back down.
Drizzt interrupted then, abruptly, by hopping to his feet and staring hard into the jungle. His hand went to the pouch that held the onyx figurine.
Catti-brie jumped to her feet, taking up Taulmaril, and the others followed suit.
"Guenhwyvar?" the woman asked.
Drizzt nodded. Something had happened to the panther, but he wasn't sure of what that might be. On a hunch, he took out the figurine, placed it on the ground, and called to the panther once more. A moment later, the gray mist appeared, and then took form, Guenhwyvar pacing nervously about the drow.