be hoping that it's Drizzit," Sheila agreed. "But ye canno' be knowing. The towers in the mountains are well guarded. Many o' Chogurugga's kinfolk've been killed in going against them, or just in working the roads. Too many soldiers about and too many hero-minded adventurers. Ye canno' be knowing it's Drizzt or anyone else."
Le'lorinel let it go at that. Let Sheila think whatever Sheila wanted to think.
Le'lorinel, though, heard again the words of E'kressa.
Le'lorinel knew that it was Drizzt, and Le'lorinel was ready. Nothing else - not Sheila, not Drizzt's friends, not the ogres - mattered.
Chapter 25 COMING TO TERMS
Wulfgar," Regis said again, when no one reacted at all to his first remark.
The halfling looked around to the others, trying to read their expressions. Catti-brie's was easy enough to discern. The woman looked like she could be pushed over by a gentle breeze, looked frozen in shock at the realization that Wulfgar was again standing before her.
Drizzt appeared much more composed, and it seemed to Regis as if the perceptive drow was consciously studying Wulfgar's every move, that he was trying to get some honest gauge as to who this man standing before him truly was. The Wulfgar of their earlier days, or the one who had slapped Catti-brie?
As for Bruenor, Regis wasn't sure if the dwarf wanted to run up and hug the man or run up and throttle him. Bruenor was trembling - though out of surprise, rage, or simple amazement, the halfling couldn't tell.
And Wulfgar, too, seemed to be trying to read some hint of the truth of Bruenor's expression and posture. The barbarian, his stern gaze never leaving the crusty and sour look of Bruenor Battlehammer, gave a deferential nod the halfling's way.
"We have been looking for you," Drizzt remarked. "All the way to Waterdeep and back."
Wulfgar nodded, his expression holding steady, as if he feared to change it.
"It may be that Wulfgar has been looking for Wulfgar, as well," Robillard interjected. The wizard arced an eyebrow when Drizzt turned to regard him directly.
"Well, we found you - or you found us," said Regis.
"But ye think ye found yerself?" Bruenor asked, a healthy skepticism in his tone.
Wulfgar's lips tightened to thin lines, his jaw clenching tightly. He wanted to cry out that he had - he prayed that he had. He looked to them all in turn, wanting to explode into a wild rush that would gather them all up in his arms.
But there he found a wall, as fluid and shifting as the smoke of Errtu's Abyss, and yet through which his emotions seemed not to be able to pass.
"Once again, it seems that I am in your debt," the barbarian managed to say, a perfectly stupid change of subject, he knew.
"Delly told us of your heroics," Robillard was quick to add. "All of us are grateful, needless to say. Never before has anyone so boldly gone against the house of Deudermont. I assure you that the perpetrators have brought the scorn of the Lords of Waterdeep upon those they represented."
The grand statement was diminished somewhat by the knowledge of all in the audience that the Lords of Waterdeep would not likely come to the north in search of those missing conspirators. The Lords of Waterdeep, like the lords of almost every large city, were better at making proclamations than at carrying through with action.
"Perhaps we can exact that vengeance for the Lords of Waterdeep, and for Captain Deudermont as well," Drizzt offered with a sly expression turned Robillard's way. "We hunt for Sheila Kree, and it was she who perpetrated the attack on the captain's house."
"I have delivered Wulfgar to you to join in that hunt."
Again all eyes fell over the huge barbarian, and again, his lips thinned with the tension. Drizzt saw it clearly and understood that this was not the time to burst the dam that was holding back Wulfgar's, and thus all of their feelings. The drow turned to regard Catti-brie, and the fact that she didn't blink for several long moments told him much about her fragile state of mind.
"But what of Robillard?" the dark elf asked suddenly, thinking to deflect, or at least delay the forthcoming flood. "Will he not use his talents to aid us?"
That caught the wizard off guard, and his eyes widened. "He already did!" he protested, but the weakness of the argument was reflected in his tone.
Drizzt nodded, accepting that. "And he can do so much more, and with ease."
"My place is with Captain Deudermont