"How do they feel?" Belwar asked.
"They do not," Drizzt replied.
The gnome nodded his hairless head and brought his pickaxe up to scratch at his huge nose. "You got nookered," he remarked.
Drizzt did not reply, obviously not understanding.
"Nookered," Belwar said again, moving to a cabinet bolted to the wall. He hooked the door with his pickaxe and swung it open, then used both hands to tentatively grasp some item inside and take it out for Drizzt to see. "A newly designed weapon," Belwar explained. "Been around for only a few years."
Drizzt thought that the item resembled a beaver's tail, with a short handle for grasping on the narrow end and with the wide end curled over at a sharp angle. It was smooth all about, with the notable exception of one serrated edge.
"A nooker," Belwar said, holding it up high. It slipped from his tentative grasp and dropped to the floor.
Belwar shrugged and clapped his mithril hands together. "A good thing it is that I have my own weapons!" Belwar banged the hammer and pickaxe together a second time.
"Lucky you are, Drizzt Do'Urden," he went on, "that the svirfnebli in battle recognized you for a friend."
Drizzt snorted; he didn't, at that moment, feel very lucky.
"He could have hit you with the sharp edge," Belwar went on. "Cut your backbone in half, it would have!"
"My backbone feels as if it lias been cut in half," Drizzt remarked.
"No, no," Belwar said, walking back to the bottom of the hammock, "just nookered." The gnome poked his pickaxe hard against the bottom of Drizzfs foot, and the drow winced and shifted. "See, coming back already is the feeling," Belwar declared, and, smiling mischievously, he prodded Drizzt again.
"I will walk again, Burrow Warden," the relieved drow promised, his tone threatening so that he could play along with the game.
Belwar poked him again. "A while will that be!" he laughed. "And soon you will feel a tickle as well!"
It seemed like old times to Drizzt; it seemed like the very pressing problems that had burdened his shoulders had been temporarily lifted. How good it was to see his old friend again, this gnome who had gone out with him, out of loyalty alone, into the wilds of the Underdark, who had been captured beside Drizzt by the dreaded mind flayers and had fought his way out beside Drizzt.
"It was a coincidence, fortunate for both me and your fellows in the tunnels, that I happened into the area when I did," Drizzt said.
"Not so much a chance of fate," Belwar replied, and a grim demeanor clouded his cheerful expression. "The fights have become too common. One a week, at least, and many svirfnebli have died."
Drizzt closed his lavender eyes and tried to digest the unwelcome news.
"Lloth is hungry, so it is said," Belwar went on, "and life has not been good for the gnomes of Blingdenstone. The cause of it all we are trying to learn."
Drizzt took it all in stride, feeling then, more than ever before, that he had done right in returning. More was happening than a simple drow attempt to recapture him. Belwar's description, the assertion that Lloth was hungry, seemed on the mark.
Drizzt got prodded again, hard, and he popped open his eyes to see the smiling burrow warden staring down at him, the cloud of recent events apparently passed. "But enough of the darkness!" Belwar declared. "Twenty years we have to recall, you for me and me for you!" He reached down and hooked one of Drizzt's boots, lifting it up and sniffing at the sole. "You found the surface?" he asked, sincerely hopeful.
The two friends spent the rest of that day trading tales, with Drizzt, who had gone into so different a world, doing most of the talking. Many times Belwar gasped and laughed; once he shared tears with his drow friend, seeming sincerely hurt by the loss of Wulfgar.
Drizzt knew at that moment that he had rediscovered another of his dearest friends. Belwar listened intently, with caring, to Drizzt's every word, let him share the most personal moments of his last twenty years with the silent support of a true friend.
After they dined that night, Drizzt took his first tentative steps, and Belwar, who had seen the debilitating effects of a well-wielded nooker before, assured the drow that he would be running along rubble-filled walls again in a day or so.
Chapter 14 DISGUISE
"Wait here, Guen," Catti-brie whispered to the panther, both of whom stared at the wider area, a chamber relatively clear of stalagmites, that loomed up ahead. Many goblin voices came from that chamber. Catti-brie guessed that this was the main host, probably growing nervous since their scouh'ng party hadn't returned. Those few surviving goblins were likely coming fast behind her, the young woman knew. She and Guen had done a fine job in prodding them on their way, had sent them running in the opposite direction down the corridor, but they likely had already turned about. And that fight had occurred less than an hour's hike from this spot.
There was no other apparent way around the chamber, and Catti-brie understood without even seeing the goblin horde that there were simply too many of the wretches to fight or scare off. She looked down to her ebon-skinned hands one last time, took some comfort in their accurate drow appearance, then straightened her thick hair—showing stark white now instead of its normal auburn—and plush robes, and defiantly strode forward.
The closest goblin sentries fell back in terror as the drow priestess casually entered their lair. Numbers alone kept the group from running off altogether, for, as Catti-brie had guessed, more than a hundred goblins were camped here. A dozen spears came up, angled in her direction, but she continued to walk steadily toward the center of the cavern.
Goblins gathered all around the young woman, cutting off any retreat. Others crouched facing the tunnel from which Catti-brie had emerged, not knowing if other drow would come strolling through. Still, the sea of flesh parted before the unexpected visitor; Catti-brie's bravado and disguise had apparently put the creatures off their collective guard.
She reached the chamber's halfway point, could see the corridor continuing on across the way, but the sea closed around her, giving ground more slowly and forcing the woman-turned-drow to slow her pace as well.
Then she was stopped, goblin spears pointing her way from every direction, goblin whispers filling the room. "Cund ha, moga moga," she demanded. Her command of the Goblin tongue was rudimentary at best, and she wasn't quite sure if she had said, "move aside and let me pass," or "move my mother into the ditch."
She hoped it was the former.
"Moga gund, geek-ik moon'ga'woon'gaw rasped one huge goblin, nearly as large as a man, and it shifted through the horde to stand right before Catti-brie. The young woman forced herself to remain calm, but a large part of her wanted to cry out for Guenhwyvar and run away, and a smaller part wanted to break out in laughter. This was obviously the goblin leader, or the tribe's shaman, at least.
But the creature needed a few fashion tips. It wore high black boots, like those of a nobleman, but with the sides cut out to allow for its wide, ducklike feet. A pair of women's pantaloons, ringed with wide frills, served as its breeches, and, though it was obviously male, the beast wore a woman's underpants and corset, as well, complete with cups for very ample breasts. Several mismatched necklaces, some gold, some silver, and one strand of pearls, circled its skinny neck, and a gaudy ring adorned every crooked finger. Catti-brie recognized the goblin's headdress as religious, though she wasn't quite certain of the sect. It resembled a sunburst trimmed with long gold ribbons, but Catti-brie was fairly sure that the goblin had it on backward, for it leaned forward over the ugly creature's sloping brow, one ribbon dangling annoyingly before the goblin's nose.