others, explaining the outer, ascending path running past the sea facing and around to the east on that distant mound. That path, he explained, led to at least one door set into the mound's side.
Regis looked to Drizzt, nodded, and said, "And there is another, more secret way inside."
"Ye thinking we'd be better splitting apart?" Bruenor asked the halfling doubtfully. He turned to aim his question at Drizzt as well, for it was obvious that Regis's reminder had the drow deep in thought.
Drizzt hesitated. Normally, the Companions of the Hall fought together, side by side, and usually to devastating effect. But this was no normal attack for them. This time, they were going against an entrenched fortress, a place no doubt secure and well defended. If he could take the inner corridors to some behind-the-lines vantage point, he might be able to help out quite a bit.
"Let us discern our course one step at a time," the drow finally said. "First we must deal with the sentries, if there are any."
"There were a few when I flew by with Robillard," said Regis. "A pair, at least, on either side of the gorge. They didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave."
"Then we must take alternate paths to avoid them," Wulfgar put in. "For if we strike at a band on one side, the band opposite will surely alert all the region before we ever get near to them."
"Unless Catti-brie can use her bow . . ." Regis started to say, but the woman was shaking her head, looking doubtfully at the expanse between the high gorge walls.
"We can not leave these potential enemies behind us," the drow decided. "I will go to the right, while the rest of you go to the left."
"Bah, there's a fool's notion," snorted Bruenor. "Ye might be killin' a pair o' half-ogries, elf - might even take out a pair o' full-ogries - but ye'd not do it in time to stop them from yelling for their friends."
"Then we have to disguise the truth of the attack across the way," Catti-brie said.
When the others turned to her, they found her wearing a most determined expression. The woman looked back to the north and west.
"Worm's not hungry," she explained. "But that don't mean we can't get the damn thing angry."
* * * * * * * * * *
"Ettin?" one of the half-ogre guards on the eastern rim of the gorge asked.
Scratching its lice-ridden head, the half-ogre stared in amazement as the seven-foot-tall creature approached. It sported two heads, so it seemed to be of the ettin family, but one of those heads looked more akin to a human with blond hair, and the other had the craggy, wrinkled features and thick red hair and beard of a dwarf.
"Huh?" asked the second sentry, moving to join its companion.
"Ain't no ettins about," the third called from the warm area beside the fire.
"Well there's one coming," argued the first.
And indeed, the two-headed creature was coming on fast, though it presented no weapon and was not advancing in any threatening manner. The half-ogres lifted their respective weapons anyway and called for the curious creature to halt.
It did so, just a few strides away, staring at the sentries with a pair of positively smug smiles.
"What you about?" asked one half-ogre.
"About to get outta the way!" the red-haired head exclaimed.
The half-ogres' chins dropped considerably a moment later when the huge human - for it was indeed a human! - threw aside the blanket and the red-haired dwarf leaped off his shoulder, rolling to the left. The human, too, took off, sprinting to the right. Coming fast behind the splitting pair, bearing down on their original position, and thus bearing down on the stunned half-ogres, came a rolling line of steam.
The brutes screamed. The polar worm broke through the snow cap and reared, towering over them.
"That ain't no ettin, ye fools!" screeched the half-ogre by the fire. With typical loyalty for its wild nature, it leaped up and ran off to the south along the ravine edge and toward the cavern complex.
Or tried to, for three strides away, a blue-streaking arrow like a bolt of lightning slammed it in the hip, staggering it. The slowed beast, limping and squealing, didn't even see the next attack. The red-haired dwarf crashed in, body-slamming it, then chopping away with his nasty, many-notched axe. For good measure, the dwarf spun around and smashed his shield so hard into the slumping brute's face that he left