Junger came forward in a rush, reaching as if to slap the dwarf aside, but a silver-streaking arrow sizzled past his head, and the giant jolted upright, startled.
"The next one takes yer face," Catti-brie promised.
Bruenor eased back to join the woman and the drow.
"You have foolishly followed an errant call," Drizzt said calmly, trying very hard to keep the situation under control. The ranger held no love for giants, to be sure, but he almost felt sympathy for this poor misguided fool. "Crenshinibon? What is Crenshinibon?"
"Oh, you know well," the giant replied. "You above all others, dark elf. You are the possessor, but Crenshinibon rejects you and has selected me as your successor."
"All that I truly know about you is your name, giant," the drow gently replied. "Ever has your kind been at war with the smaller folk of the world, and yet I offer you this one chance to turn back for the Spine of the World, back to your home."
"And so I shall," the giant replied with a chuckle, crossing his ankles calmly and leaning on a tree for support. "As soon as I have Crenshinibon." The cunning behemoth exploded into motion, tearing a thick limb from the tree and launching it at the friends, mostly to force Catti-brie and that nasty bow to dive aside.
Junger strode forward and was stunned to find the drow already in swift motion, scimitars drawn, rushing between his legs and slicing away.
Even as the giant turned to catch Drizzt as he rushed out behind him, Bruenor came in hard. The dwarf's axe chopped for the tendon at the back of the behemoth's ankle, and then, suddenly, six hundred pounds of panther crashed against the turning giant's shoulder and head, knocking him off-balance. He would have held his footing, except that Catti-brie drove
an arrow into his lower back. Howling and spinning, Junger went down. Drizzt, Bruenor and Guenhwyvar all skittered out of harm's way.
"Go home!" Drizzt called to the brute as he struggled to his hands and knees.
With a defiant roar, the giant dived out at the drow, arms outstretched. He pulled his arms in fast, both hands suddenly bleeding from deep scimitar gashes, and then he jerked in pain as Catti-brie's next arrow drove into his hip.
Drizzt started to call out again, wanting to reason with the brute, but Bruenor had heard enough. The dwarf rushed up the prone giant's back, quick-stepping to hold his balance as the creature tried to roll him off. The dwarf leaped over the giant's turning shoulder, coming down squarely atop his collarbone. Bruenor's axe came down fast, quicker to the strike than the giant's reaching hands. The axe cut deep into Junger's face.
Huge hands clamped around Bruenor, but they had little strength left. Guenhwyvar leaped in and caught one of the giant's arms, bringing it down under her weight, pinning the hand with claws and teeth. Catti-brie blew the other arm from the dwarf with a perfectly aimed shot.
Bruenor held his ground, leaning down on the embedded axe, and at last, the giant lay still.
Regis came out of the brush and gave a kick at the branch the giant had thrown their way. "Worms in an apple!" he complained. "Why'd you kill him?"
"Ye're seein' a choice?" Bruenor called back incredulously, then he braced himself and tugged his axe from the split head. "I'm not for talking to five thousand pounds of enemy."
"I take no pleasure in that kill," Drizzt admitted. He wiped his blades on the fallen behemoth's tunic, then slid them into their sheaths. "Better for all of us that the giant simply went home."
"And I could have convinced him to do so," Regis argued.
"No," the drow answered. 'Tour pendant is powerful, I do not doubt, but it has no strength over one entranced by Crenshinibon." As he spoke, he opened his belt pouch and produced the artifact, the famed crystal shard.
"Ye hold it out, and its call'll be all the louder," Bruenor said grimly. "I'm thinkin' we might be finding a long road ahead of us."
"Let it bring the monsters in," Catti-brie said. "It'll make our task in killing them all the easier."
The coldness of her tone caught them all by surprise, but only for the moment it took them to look back at her and see the bruise on her face and remember the cause of her bad mood.
"Ye notice that the damned thing's not working on any of us," the woman reasoned. "So it seems that any falling under its spell are deservin' what they'll find at our hands."
"It does appear that Crenshinibon's power to corrupt extends only to those already of an evil weal," Drizzt agreed.
"And so our road'll be a bit more exciting," Catti-brie said. She didn't bother to add that in this light, she wished
Wulfgar was with them. She knew the others were no doubt thinking the exact same thing.
They searched the giant's camp, then turned back to their own fire. Given the new realization that the crystal shard might be working against them, might be reaching out to any nearby monsters in an attempt to get free of the friends, they decided to double their watches from that point forward, two asleep and two awake.
Regis was not pleased.
Chapter 9 GAINING APPROVAL
From the shadows he watched the wizard walk slowly through the door. Other voices followed LaValle in from the corridor, but the wizard hardly acknowledged them, just shut the door and moved to his private stock liquor cabinet at the side of the audience room, lighting only a single candle atop it.
Entreri clenched his hands eagerly, torn as to whether he should confront the wizard verbally or merely kill the man for not informing him of Dog Perry's attack.
Cup in one hand, burning taper in the other, LaValle moved from the cabinet to a larger standing candelabra. The room brightened with each touch as another candle flared to life. Behind the occupied wizard, Entreri stepped into the open.
His warrior senses put him on his guard immediately. Something-but what? — at the very edges of his consciousness alerted him. Perhaps it had to do with LaValle's comfortable demeanor or some barely perceptible extraneous noise.
LaValle turned around then and jumped back just a bit upon seeing Entreri standing in the middle of the room. Again the assassin's perceptions nagged at him. The wizard didn't seem frightened or surprised enough.
"Did you believe that Dog Perry would defeat me?" Entreri asked sarcastically.
"Dog Perry?" LaValle came back. "I have not seen the man"
"Do not lie to me," Entreri calmly interrupted. "I have known you too long, LaValle, to believe such ignorance of you. You watched Dog Perry, without doubt, as you know all the movements of all the players."
"Not all, obviously," the wizard replied dryly, indicating the uninvited man.
Entreri wasn't so sure of that last claim, but he let it pass. "You agreed to warn me when Dog Perry came after me," he said loudly. If the wizard had guild bodyguards nearby, let them hear of his duplicity. "Yet there he was, dagger in hand, with no prior warning from my friend LaValle."
LaValle gave a great sigh and moved to the side, slumping into a chair. "I did indeed know," he admitted. "But I could not act upon that knowledge," he added quickly, for the assassin's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You must understand. All contact with you is forbidden."
"Kelp-enwalled," Entreri remarked.
LaValle held his hands out helplessly.
"I also know that LaValle rarely adheres to such orders," Entreri went on.