upon Drizzt. "How many're ye figuring, elf?" he asked.
"A score," Drizzt replied. "Perhaps as many as thirty."
"Let's be picking our place for fighting, then," Bruenor said. "If we're to fight, then let it be on ground of our own choosing."
Everyone around noted the lack of dismay in Bruenor's tone.
"They'll be seein' the boat a long way off," Bumpo explained. "If we're to keep it here, tied up, they might be catching on."
Drizzt was shaking his head before the dwarf ever finished. "Bottom Feeder will go along as planned," he explained, "but without we three." He indicated Bruenor and Catti-brie, then moved near to Regis, unstrapping his belt so that he could slide off the pouch that held the Crystal Shard. "This remains on the boat," he explained to the halfling. "Above all else, keep it safe."
"So they will come after the boat, and you three will come after them," Regis reasoned, and Drizzt nodded.
"Be quick, if you please," the halfling added.
"What're ye grumbling over, Rumblebelly?" Bruenor asked with a chuckle. "Ye just loaded a ton o' food on the boat, and knowing ye the way I do I'm figuring there won't be much left for me when we get back aboard!"
Regis looked down doubtfully at the pouch, but his face did brighten as he turned to regard the supply-laden boat.
They parted company then, Bumpo, his crew, and Regis pushed off from the impromptu tree landing back into the swift currents. Before they had gone far Drizzt, on the riverbank, took out his onyx figurine, set it down, and called for his panther companion. Then he and his three companions set off, running straight to the east, following the same course as the goblin troupe.
Guenhwyvar took the point position, blending into the brush, barely seeming to stir the grasses and bushes as she passed. Drizzt came along next, working as liaison between the cat and the other two, who brought up the rear, Bruenor with his axe comfortably across his shoulder and Catti-brie with Taulmaril in hand, arrow notched and ready.
"Well, if we're to be fightin', then this'll be the place," Donat said a short while later as Bottom Feeder rounded a bend in the river, crossing into a region of narrower banks and swifter current and with many tree limbs overhanging the water.
Regis took one look at the area and groaned, not liking the prospects at all. Goblins could be anywhere, he realized, taking a good measure of the many bushes and hillocks. He took little comfort in the apparent giddiness of the four dwarves, for he had been around dwarves long enough to know that they were always happy before a fight, no matter the prospects.
And even more disconcerting to the halfling came a voice within his head, a tempting, teasing voice, reminding him that with a word he could construct a crystalline tower-a tower that a thousand goblins couldn't breach-if Regis just took control of the crystal shard. The goblins wouldn't even try to take the tower, Regis knew, for Crenshinibon would work with him to control the little wretches.
They could not resist.
Drizzt, looking back with his back against a tree some distance ahead of Bruenor and Catti-brie, motioned for the woman to hold her shot. He, too, had seen the goblin on the branch above, a goblin intent on the river ahead and taking no note of the approaching friends. No need to tell the whole troupe that danger was about, the ranger decided, and Cattibrie's thunderous bow would certainly raise the general alarm.
So up the tree went the drow ranger, one scimitar in hand. With amazing stealth and equal agility, he made a branch level with the goblin. Then, balancing perfectly without using his free hand, he closed suddenly in five quick steps. The drow clamped his empty hand around the creature's side, through bow and bowstring and over the surprised goblin's mouth, and drove his scimitar into the creature's back, hooking the blade upward as he went to slice smoothly through heart and lung. He held the goblin for a few seconds, letting it descend into the complete blackness of death, then carefully set it down over the branch, laying the crude bow atop it.
Drizzt looked all around for Guenhwyvar, but the panther was nowhere to be seen. He had instructed the cat to hold back until the main fighting started and trusted that Guenhwyvar would do as told.
That fight fast approached, Drizzt knew, for the goblins were all about, huddled in bushes and in