* * * *
Wulfgar started to slip yet again, but growled and fell flat, reaching his arm up and catching onto a jag in the little bare stone he could find. His pulled with his powerful arm, sliding himself upward.
"We will be here all afternoon if you continue at that pace," came a familiar voice from above.
The barbarian looked up to see Robillard standing atop the pass, a heavy brown blanket wrapped around him, over his customary wizard robes,
"What?" the astonished Wulfgar started to ask, but with his surprise came distraction, and he wound up sliding backward some twenty feet to crash heavily against a rocky outcrop.
The barbarian pulled himself to his feet and looked back up to see Robillard, the bardiche in hand, floating down the mountain slope. The wizard scooped a few of Wulfgar's other belongings on the way, dropped them to Wulfgar, and swooped about, flying magically back and forth until he had collected all of the spilled possessions. That job completed, he landed lightly beside the huge man.
"I hardly expected to see you here," said Wulfgar.
"No less than I expected to see you," Robillard answered. "I predicted that you would take the south road, not the north. Your surprising fortitude even cost me a wager I made with Donnark the oarsman."
"Should I repay you?" Wulfgar said dryly.
Robillard shrugged and nodded. "Another time, perhaps. I have no desire to remain in this godsforsaken wilderness any longer than is necessary."
"I have my possessions and am not badly injured," Wulfgar stated. He squared his massive shoulders and thrust out his chin defiantly, more than ready to allow the wizard to leave.
"But you have not found your friends," the wizard explained, "and have little chance of ever doing so without my help. And so I am here."
"Because you are my friend?"
"Because Captain Deudermont is," Robillard corrected, and with a huff to deny the wry grin that adorned the barbarian's ruddy and bristled face.
"You have spells to locate them?" Wulfgar asked.
"I have spells to make us fly up above the peaks," Robillard corrected, "and others to get us quickly from place to place. We will soon enough take account of every creature walking the region. We can only hope that your friends are among them."
"And if they are not?"
"Then I suggest that you return with me to Waterdeep."
"To Sea Sprite!"
"To Waterdeep," Robillard forcefully repeated.
Wulfgar shrugged, not wanting to argue the point - one that he hoped would be moot. He believed that Drizzt and the others had come in search of Aegis-fang, and if that was the case he expected that they would still be there, alive and well.
He still wasn't sure if he had chosen correctly that day back in Luskan, still wasn't sure if he was ready for this, if he wanted this. How would he react when he saw them again? What would he say to Bruenor, and what might he do if the dwarf, protective of Catti-brie to the end, simply leaped at him to throttle him? And what might he say to Catti-brie? How could he ever look into her blue eyes again after what he had done to her?
Those questions came up at him forcefully at that moment, now that it seemed possible that he would actually find the companions.
But he had no answers for those questions and knew that he would not be able to foresee the confrontation, even from his own sensibilities.
Wulfgar came out of his contemplation to see Robillard staring at him, the wizard wearing as close to an expression of empathy as Wulfgar had ever seen.
"How did you get this far?" Robillard asked.
Wulfgar's expression showed that he did not understand.
"One step at a time," Robillard answered his own question. "And that is how you will go on. One step at a time will Wulfgar trample his demons."
Robillard did something then that surprised the big man as profoundly as he had ever been: he reached up and patted Wulfgar on the shoulder.
Chapter 23 AND IN WALKED ...
I'm thinking that we might be crawling back to that fool Lord Feringal and his little land o' Auckney," Bruenor grumbled when he crept back into the small cave the group had used for shelter that night after the storm had abated. The weather was better, to be sure, but Bruenor understood the dangers of avalanches, and the sheer volume of snow that had fallen the night before stunned him. "Snow's deeper than a giant's crotch!"
"Walk atop it," Drizzt remarked with a wry grin. But in