"I cannot take so many," Cadderly admitted. "And certainly, I cannot take a ship!"
Drizzt thought it over for a moment. "But we must go," he said to Catti-brie.
"I'm thinking that Deudermont's to like sailin' on a lake," Catti-brie retorted sarcastically. "Not many pirates about, and if he opened the Sea Sprite's sails wide, then suren he'd find himself a mile into the stinkin' woods!"
Drizzt seemed to deflate under the weight of her honest words. "Let us go and find the captain," he replied. "Perhaps we will retrieve Harkle Harpell. He put the Sea Sprite in Impresk Lake, let him get her back where she belongs!"
Catti-brie mumbled something under her breath, her tone too low for Drizzt to decipher the actual words. He knew what she thought of Harkle though, and could imagine them readily enough.
The three found Deudermont, Waillan and Dunkin sitting with Ivan and Pikel along the walk outside of the Spirit Soaring's front doors. Deudermont told them the news of Robillard and the plan to get back where they belonged, which came as a great relief to both Drizzt and Catti-brie. The two looked to each other, and Deudermont knew them well enough to understand the gist of what was going on.
"You are leaving us," he reasoned. "You cannot wait the two or three weeks it will take Robillard to facilitate our return."
"Cadderly can get us to Luskan," Drizzt replied. "In less than two or three weeks, I hope to be in Ten-Towns."
The news put a pall on the previously lighthearted conversation. Even Pikel, who hardly knew what the others were talking about, issued a long and forlorn, "Ooooo."
Deudermont tried to find a way out of this, but he recognized the inevitable. His place was with the Sea Sprite, and given the high stakes, Drizzt and Catti-brie had no choice but to follow the words of the blind seer. Besides, Deudermont had not missed their expressions when Ivan had informed them that Bruenor had left Mithril Hall. Drizzt said he was going back to Ten-Towns, to Icewind Dale, and that was likely where Bruenor had gone.
"Perhaps if we get back to the Sword Coast before the weather turns toward winter, I'll sail the Sea Sprite around the bend and into the Sea of Moving Ice," Deudermont said, his way of bidding his friends farewell. "I would like to visit this Icewind Dale."
"My home," Drizzt said solemnly.
Catti-brie nodded to Drizzt and to Deudermont. She was never comfortable with goodbyes and she knew that was exactly what this was.
It was time to go home.
Chapter 17 THE FEEL OF POWER
Stumpet Rakingclaw plodded through the snow halfway up the side of Kelvin's Cairn. The dwarf knew that her course was risky, for the melt in Icewind Dale was on in full and the mountain was not so high that its temperature remained below the point of freezing. The dwarf could feel the wetness seeping through her thick leather boots, and more than once she heard telltale rumblings of the complaining snow.
The stubborn dwarf plowed on, thrilled by the potential danger. This whole slope could go tumbling down; avalanches were not uncommon on Kelvin's Cairn, where the melt came fast. Stumpet felt like a true adventurer at that moment, braving ground she believed no one had trod in many years. She knew little of the region's history, for she had gone to Mithril Hall along with Dagna and the thousands from Citadel Adbar and had been too busy working in the mines to pay attention to the stories the members of Clan Battlehammer told of Icewind Dale.
Stumpet did not know the story of the most famous avalanche on this very mountain. She did not know that Drizzt and Akar
Kessel had waged their last battle here before the ground had fallen out from under them, burying Kessel.
Stumpet stopped and reached into a pouch, producing a bit of lard. She uttered a minor enchantment and touched the lard to pursed lips, enacting a spell to help her ward off the chill. The season was fast turning to summer down below, but the wind up here was cold still and the dwarf was wet. Even as she finished, she heard another rumble and looked up to the mountain's peak, which was still two hundred feet away. For the first time she wondered if she could really get there.
Kelvin's Cairn was certainly not a large mountain. If it had been near Adbar, Stumpet's birthplace, or near Mithril Hall, it wouldn't even have been called a mountain at all. It was just a hillock, a thousand-foot-high clump of rock. But out here on the flat tundra, it seemed a mountain, and Stumpet Rakingclaw was a dwarf who considered the challenge of climbing to be the primary purpose of any mountain. She knew that she could have waited until late summer, when there would have been little snow remaining on Kelvin's Cairn and the ground would be more accessible, but the dwarf had never been known for her patience. Anyway, the mountain wouldn't be much of a challenge without the dangerous, shifting snow.
"Don't ye be falling on me," Stumpet said to the mountain. "And don't ye take me all the way back down!"
She spoke too loudly and, as if in answer, the mountain gave a tremendous groan. Suddenly Stumpet was sliding backward.
"Oh, damn ye!" she cursed, taking up her huge pick, looking for a hold. She tumbled over backward, but kept herself oriented enough to dodge a jutting stone and to set her pick firmly into its side. Her muscles strained as the snow washed past, but it was not too deep and the force of it not too strong.
A moment later all was quiet again, save the distant echoes, and Stumpet pulled herself out of the giant snowball that she and the supporting rock had become.
Then she noticed a curious shard of ice lying on the now bare ground. Coming free of the snow pile, the dwarf gave the strangely shaped item little thought. She moved up to a spot of bare ground and brushed herself off as thoroughly as possible before the snow could melt on her and further wet her already sopping clothing.
Her eyes kept roving back to the crystal. It didn't seem so extraordinary, just a hunk of ice. And yet, the dwarf got the distinct feeling deep in her gut that it was more than that.
For a few moments, Stumpet managed to fend off the unreasonable urges and concentrate on getting herself ready to continue her climb.
The piece of crystal kept calling to her, just below her conscious level, beckoning her to pick it up.
Before she realized what she was doing, she had the item in hand. Not ice, she realized immediately, for it was warm to the touch, warm and somehow comforting. She held it up to the light. It appeared to be a square-sided icicle, barely a foot long. Stum-pet paused and removed her gloves.
"Crystal," she muttered in confirmation, for the warm item did not have the slick feel of ice. Stumpet closed her eyes, concentrating on her tactile sense, trying to feel the true temperature of the item.
"Me spell," the dwarf whispered, thinking she had figured out the mystery. She chanted again, dispelling the magic she had just enacted to fend off the cold.
Still the crystal shard felt warm. Stumpet rubbed her hands across its side and its warmth spread out even to her wet toes.
The dwarf scratched the stubble on her chin and looked around to see if anything else might have dislodged in the small avalanche. She was thinking clearly now, reasoning through this unexpected mystery. But all she saw was white and gray and brown, the unremarkable tapestry that was Kelvin's Cairn. That didn't deter her suspicions. Again she held the crystal shard aloft, watching the play of sunlight through its depths.
"A magical ward against the cold," she said aloud. "A merchant brought ye on a trip to the dale," she reasoned. "Might be that he was seeking some treasure up here, or just that he came up here to get a better look around, thinking that ye'd protect him. And from the cold, ye did," she reasoned confidently, "but not from the snowfall that buried him!"