"You must do this," she said. "For me and for you. And for Tarathiel."
Drizzt nodded. He knew that she was right.
They started back up the trail, thinking to return to a hidden camp, then take the alternate route when the sun began to dip below the western horizon once more.
The night was full of the sound of hammers and rolling stones, both inside the hall and outside in Keeper's Dale, but it was an uneventful night for the couple, lying side by side under the stars in the cool autumn wind.
To his surprise, Drizzt did not spend the hours in fear of what the following night might bring.
At least, not concerning his friends, for his acceptance was already there. He did fear for Innovindil, and he looked over at her many times that night, silently vowing that he would come back out as soon as he could to rejoin her in her quest.
Their plans did not come to fruition, though, for under the bright sun of the following morning, a commotion in Keeper's Dale brought the two elves to their lookout post. They watched curiously as a large caravan comprised mostly of giants - almost all of the giants - rolled out to the west away from them, moving to the exit of Keeper's Dale. Some orcs traveled along with them, most pulling carts of supplies.
And one other creature paced in that caravan, as well. Even from a distance, the sharp eyes of Innovindil could not miss the glistening white coat of poor Sunrise.
"They break ranks?" she asked. "A full retreat?"
Drizzt studied the scene below, watching the movements of the orcs who were not traveling beside the giants. The vast bulk of the monstrous army that had come to Keeper's Dale was not on the move. Far from it, construction on defensive barriers, walls low and high, continued in full.
"Obould is not surrendering the ground," the drow observed. "But it would seem that the giants have had enough of the fight, or there is somewhere else where they're more urgently needed."
"In either case, they have something that does not belong to them," said Innovindil.
"And we will get him back," Drizzt vowed.
He looked down at the path that would likely get him to the western doors of Mithral Hall, the path that he had decided to walk that very night so that he could settle the past and be on with the future.
He looked back to the west and the procession, and he knew that he would not take that path to the doors that night.
He didn't need to.
He looked to his companion and offered her a smile of assurance that he was all right, that he was ready to move along.
That he was ready to bring Sunrise home.
11. STUMBLING
Dizzy and weak with hunger, his extremities numb, his fingers scraped and twisted from a dozen falls as he tried to make his way down the difficult mountain terrain, Nikwillig stubbornly put one foot in front of the other and staggered forward. He wasn't even sure where he was going anymore - just forward. A part of him wanted to simply lie down and expire, to be rid of the pain and the emptiness, both in his belly and in his thoughts.
The past few days had not been kind to the poor dwarf from Citadel Felbarr. His food was gone, though there was plenty of water to be found. His clothing was torn in many places from various falls, including one that had him bouncing thirty feet down a rocky slope. That fall had left him senseless for nearly an hour, and had also left him weaponless. Somewhere in the descent, Nikwillig had dropped his short sword, and as luck would have it, the weapon had bounced into a narrow ravine, a deep crack really, between two huge slabs of solid stone. After he'd gathered his sensibilities, the dwarf retraced his steps and had actually found the weapon, but alas, it lay beyond his short reach.
He had fetched a small branch and tried again, using the stick to try to maneuver the sword at a better angle for grabbing. But the sword slipped from its unexpectedly precarious perch, clanking down to the deeper recesses of the cavity.
With a helpless shrug, Nikwillig, who had never been much of a fighter anyway, had let it go at that. He didn't much care for the idea of being unarmed in hostile territory, with ugly orcs all around him, but he knew there was nothing