giant looked around yet again, then moved into a crouch and crept after him, following eagerly into the night, moving quietly along a rocky trail to a small clearing protected behind by a sheer cliff wall.
On a ledge on that wall, some ten feet above the head of the towering giant, two sets of curious eyes looked on.
"What will Donnia Soldou think of this?" the giant asked.
"Donnia need not know," Drizzt replied.
The giant's shrug told him much, told him that Donnia, whoever she might be, was not an overriding controlling force but more likely just an associate. That brought a bit of relief to the dark elf. He would hate to think that the orcs and giants were acting at the behest of a drow army.
"I will take Geletha with me," the giant announced.
"Your friend with whom you were speaking?"
The giant nodded. "And we take two shares, you take one."
"That hardly seems fair."
"You cannot move the slab."
"You cannot find the slab." Drizzt continued the banter, trying hard to keep the giant unsuspicious while his friends moved into their final positions.
He figured he wouldn't have to keep it up for long.
When a blue-streaking arrow shot out from behind him, zipped past, and thudded hard into the giant's chest, the drow was not surprised.
The behemoth groaned but was not badly hurt. Drizzt drew his scimitars and leaped around, turning to face Catti-brie's position, still playing the part of the giant's ally.
"Where did it come from?" he shouted. "Lift me that I might see."
"Straight ahead!" roared the great creature.
It started to bend to accommodate the drow, and Drizzt turned fast and ran up its treelike arm. His scimitars slashed hard across the behemoth's face, drawing bright lines of red.
The giant roared and grabbed at him, but the drow had already leaped away, with another blue-streaking arrow sizzling in behind him, slamming the giant yet again.
Shrugging it off, the behemoth continued to move toward Drizzt, until there came a sound like a log splitting. Bruenor Battlehammer's many-notched axe smashed the brute in the back of the knee.
The giant howled and lurched, grabbing the wound, and Catti-brie hit it again with an arrow, this time in the face.
Ignoring the hit as much as possible, the brute lifted a foot, obviously intending to smash Bruenor.
And it was hopping, as Dagnabbit rushed out and planted his warhammer right on top of the giant's set foot.
And a cry of "Tempus!" followed by a second warhammer, this one spinning through the air, changed that course.
Aegis-fang hit the behemoth in the chest, just below its neck, with a force that knocked the giant back against the wall. Wulfgar came in behind the hammer, recalling it magically to his grasp, then charged before the giant had recovered and launched a tremendous smash right into the giant's kneecap.
How the brute howled!
Catti-brie's next arrow hit it right in the face.
Up on the ledge, Tred, with the branch lever tucked tight over one shoulder, looked from the giant to Regis, his expression dumbfounded. He had battled giants before, on many occasions, but never had he seen one so battered so quickly.
He looked past Regis then to Guenhwyvar. The great panther crouched on a ledge to the side, watching the fight, but more than that, watching back toward the east, her ears perked up.
Regis held his hand out toward the ledge, indicating that the target behemoth was in position.
Tred gave a satisfied grunt and bore down on the displaced boulder, setting the lever more solidly and driving on. The rock tilted and tumbled, and the poor giant below, which was just then beginning to regain its senses and set some type of defense against the rushing onslaught of the drow, the barbarian, the woman, and the two fiery dwarves, got a thousand pounds of granite right on top of the head. The crunching sound from its neck echoed off the stone, as did the resounding crash as the boulder bounced away.
Regis gave Tred a salute for the fine shot, but the relief was short-lived, for only then did the halfling and the dwarf come to understand what had so piqued Guenhwyvar's interest and had kept the cat out of the fight. Another giant was charging down the path, and yet another one, a female, behind that.
Regis looked at Tred. "We could find another rock," he offered, just a hint of fear creeping into his voice.
Behind them, Guenhwyvar leaped onto the shoulder of the charging giant, and as it pounded on down the trail, Tred shrugged