pair of wagons to drive through side by side.
The wizard held onto the invisible halfling, pulling him along into the cave. They heard the gruff banter of three ogres as soon as they went in.
"There might be a better way into the complex for yourself and the drow," the wizard suggested in a whisper.
The halfling nearly jumped in the air at the sound of the voice right beside him. Regis composed himself quickly enough not to squeal out and alert the guards.
"Stay here," Robillard whispered, and he was gone.
And Regis was all alone, and though he was invisible he felt very small and very vulnerable indeed.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"You nearly killed me with the first throw of the warhammer!" Drizzt reminded, and he and Catti-brie both smiled when the drow's words brought a chuckle to Wulfgar's grim visage.
They were discussing old times, fond recollections initiated by Drizzt in an effort to break the ice and to draw Wulfgar out of his understandable shell. There was nothing comfortable about this reunion, as was evidenced by Bruenor's unrelenting scowl and Wulfgar's obvious tension.
They were recounting the tales of Drizzt and Wulfgar's first battle together, in the lair of a giant named Biggrin. The two had been training together, and they understood their relative styles, and at many junctures those styles had meshed into brilliance. But indeed, as Drizzt clearly admitted, at some points more luck than teamwork or skill had been involved.
Despite Bruenor's quiet and continuing scowl, the drow went on with tales of the old days in Icewind Dale, of the many adventures, of the forging of Aegis-fang (at which both Bruenor and Wulfgar winced noticeably), of the journey to Calimport to rescue Regis and the trip back to the north and east to find and reclaim Mithral Hall. Even Drizzt was surprised at the sheer volume of the tales, of the depth of the friendship that had been. He started to talk of the coming of the dark elves to Mithral Hall, the tragic encounter that had taken Wulfgar away from them, but he stopped, reconsidering his words.
"How could such bonds have been so fleeting?" the drow asked bluntly. "How could even the intervention of a demon have sundered that which we all spent so many years constructing?"
"It was not the demon Errtu," Wulfgar said, even as Catti-brie started to respond.
The other three stared at the huge man, for these were his first words since Drizzt had begun the tales.
"It was the demon Errtu implanted within me," Wulfgar explained. He paused and moved to the side, facing Catti-brie directly instead of Drizzt. He gently took the woman's hands in his own. "Or the demons that were there before . . ."
His voice broke apart, and he looked up, moisture gathering in his crystal-blue eyes. Stoically, Wulfgar blinked it away and looked back determinedly at the woman.
"I can only say that I am sorry," he said, his normally resonant voice barely a whisper.
Even as he spoke the words, Catti-brie reached up and wrapped him in a great hug, burying her face in his huge shoulder. Wulfgar returned that hug a thousand times over, bending his face into the woman's thick auburn hair.
Catti-brie turned her face to the side, to regard Drizzt, and the drow was smiling and nodding, as pleased as she that this first in what would likely be a long line of barriers to the normal resumption of their friendship had been so thrown down.
Catti-brie stepped back a moment later, wiping her own eyes and regarding Wulfgar with a warm smile. "Ye've a fine wife there in Delly," she said. "And a beautiful child, though she's not yer own."
Wulfgar nodded to both, seeming very pleased at that moment, seeming as if he had just taken a huge step in the right direction.
His grunt was as much in surprise as in pain, then, when he got slammed suddenly in the side. A heavy punch staggered him to the side. The barbarian turned to see a fuming Bruenor standing there, hands on hips.
"Ye ever hit me girl again and I'll be making a fine necklace outta yer teeth, boy! Ye want to be callin' yerself me son, and ye don't go hitting yer sister!"
The way he put it was perfectly ridiculous, of course, but as Bruenor stomped past them and out of the cave the three left behind heard a little sniffle and understood that the dwarf had reacted in