Catti-brie's expression softened, and she bit her lower lip as she nodded her agreement. "And did it work?" she asked. "Suren the fight went well, and Wulfgar fought well and honestly."
Drizzt's gaze drifted out the exit. "He made a mistake," the drow admitted. "Though surely he compensated as the battle progressed. It is my hope that Wulfgar will forgive himself his initial hesitance and focus on the actual fight where he performed wonderfully."
"Hesitance?" Catti-brie asked skeptically.
"When we first began the battle," Drizzt started to explain, but he waved his hand dismissively as if it did not really matter. "It has been many years since we have fought together. It was an excusable miscue, nothing more." In truth, Drizzt had a hard time dismissing the fact that Wulfgar's hesitance had almost cost him and Guenhwyvar dearly.
"Ye're in a generous mood," the ever-perceptive Catti-brie remarked.
"It is my hope that Wulfgar will remember who he is and who his friends truly are," the drow ranger replied.
"Yer hope," Catti-brie echoed. "But is it your expectation?"
Drizzt continued to stare out the exit. He could only shrug.
The four were out of the ravine and back on the trail shortly after, and Bruenor's grumbling about Drizzt turned into complaining about Regis. "Where in the Nine Hells is Rumblebelly?" the dwarf bellowed. "And how in the Nine Hells did he ever get a giant to throw rocks for him?"
Even as he spoke, they felt the vibrations of heavy, heavy footfalls beneath their feet and heard a silly song sung in unison. There was a happy halfling voice, Regis, and a second voice that rumbled like the thunder of a rockslide. A moment later, Regis came around a bend in the northern trail, riding on the giant's shoulder, the two of them singing and laughing with every step.
"Hello," Regis said happily when he steered the giant to join his friends. He noted that Drizzt had his hands on his scimitars, though they were sheathed (and that meant little for the lightning-fast drow), Bruenor clutched tightly to his axe, Catti-brie to her bow, and Wulfgar, holding Aegis-fang, seemed as if he was about to explode into murderous action.
"This is Junger," Regis explained. "He was not with the other band-he says he doesn't even know them. And he is a smart one."
Junger put a hand up to secure Regis's seat, then bowed low before the stunned group.
"In fact, Junger does not even go down to the road, does not go out of the mountains at all," Regis explained. "Says he has no interest in the affairs of dwarves or men."
"He telled ye that, did he?" Bruenor asked doubtfully.
Regis nodded, his smile wide. "And I believe him," he said, waggling the ruby pendant, whose magical hypnotizing properties were well known to the friends.
"That don't change a thing," Bruenor said with a growl, looking to Drizzt as if expecting the ranger to start the fight. A giant was a giant, after all, to the dwarf's way of thinking, and any giant looked much better lying down with an axe firmly embedded in its skull.
"Junger is no killer," Regis said firmly.
"Only goblins," the huge giant said with a smile. "And hill giants. And orcs, of course, for who could abide the ugly things?"
His sophisticated dialect and his choice of enemies had the dwarf staring at him wide-eyed. "And yeti," Bruenor said. "Don't ye be forgettin' yeti."
"Oh, not yeti," Junger replied. "I do not kill yeti."
The scowl returned to Bruenor's face.
"Why, one cannot even eat the smelly things," Junger explained. "I do not kill them, I domesticate them."
"Ye what?" Bruenor demanded.
"Domesticate them," Junger explained. "Like a dog or a horse. Oh, but I've quite a selection of yeti workers at my cave back in the mountains."
Bruenor turned an incredulous expression on Drizzt, but the ranger, as much at a loss as the dwarf, only shrugged.
"We've lost too much time already," Catti-brie remarked. "Camlaine and the others'll be halfway out o' the dale afore we catch them. Be rid o' yer friend, Regis, and let us get to the trail."
Regis was shaking his head before she ever finished. "Junger does not usually leave the mountains," he explained. "But he will for me."
"Then I'll not have to carry you anymore," Wulfgar grumbled, walking away. "Good enough for that."
"Ye're not having to carry him anyway," Bruenor replied, then looked back to Regis. "I'm thinking ye can do yer own walking. Ye don't need a giant to act as a horse."
"More than that," Regis said, beaming. "A bodyguard."
The dwarf and Catti-brie both groaned; Drizzt only chuckled and shook his head.
"In every fight, I spend more time trying to keep out of the way," Regis explained. "Never am I any real help. But with Junger-"
"Ye'll still be trying to keep outta the way," Bruenor interrupted.
"If Junger is to fight for you, then he is no more than any of the rest of us," Drizzt added. "Are we, then, merely bodyguards of Regis?"
"No, of course not," the halfling replied. "But-"
"Be rid of him," Catti-brie said. "Wouldn't we look the fine band of friendly travelers walking into Luskan beside a mountain giant?"
"We'll walk in with a drow," Regis answered before he could think about it, then blushed a deep shade of red.
Again, Drizzt only chuckled and shook his head.
"Put him down," Bruenor said to Junger. "I think he's needin' a talk."
"You mustn't hurt my friend Regis," Junger replied. "That I simply cannot allow."
Bruenor snorted. "Put 'im down."
With a look to Regis, who held a stubborn pose for a few moments longer, Junger complied. He set the halfling gently on the ground before Bruenor, who reached as if to grab Regis by the ear, but then glanced up, up, up at Junger and thought the better of it. "Ye're not thinkin', Rumblebelly," the dwarf said quietly, leading Regis away. "What happens if the big damned thing finds its way outta yer ruby spell? He'll squish ye flat afore any o' us can stop him, and I'm not thinking I'd try to stop him if I could, since ye'd be deserving the flattening!"
Regis started to argue, but he remembered the first moments of his encounter with Junger, when the huge giant had proclaimed that he liked his rodents smashed. The little halfling couldn't deny the fact that a single step from Junger would indeed mash him, and the hold of the ruby pendant was ever tentative. He turned and walked back from
Bruenor and bade Junger to go back to his home in the deep mountains.
The giant smiled-and shook his head. "I hear it," he said cryptically. "So I shall stay."
"Hear what?" Regis and Bruenor asked together.
"Just a call," Junger assured them. "It tells me that I should go along with you to serve Regis and protect him."
"Ye hit him good with that thing, didn't ye now?" Bruenor whispered at the halfling.
"I need no protecting," Regis said firmly to the giant. "Though we all thank you for your help in the fight. You can go back to your home."
Again Junger shook his head. "Better that I go with you."
Bruenor glowered at Regis, and the halfling had no explanation. As far as he could tell, Junger was still under the spell of the pendant-the fact that Regis was still alive seemed evidence of that-yet the behemoth was clearly disobeying him.
"Perhaps you can come along," Drizzt said to the surprise of them all. "Yes, but if you mean to join us, then perhaps your pet tundra yetis might prove invaluable. How long will it take you to retrieve them?"
"Three days at the most," Junger replied.
"Well, go then, and be quick about it," Regis said, hopping up and down and wriggling the ruby pendant at the end of its chain.
That seemed to satisfy the giant. It bowed low then bounded away.
"We should've killed the thing here and now," Bruenor said. "Now it'll come back in three days and find us long gone, then it'll likely take its damned smelly yetis and go down hunting on the road!"