of the behemoth's ankle, and then, suddenly, six hundred pounds of panther crashed against the turning giant's shoulder and head, knocking him off-balance. He would have held his footing, except that Catti-brie drove an arrow into his lower back. Howling and spinning, Junger went down. Drizzt, Bruenor and Guenhwyvar all skittered out of harm's way.
"Go home!" Drizzt called to the brute as he struggled to his hands and knees.
With a defiant roar, the giant dived out at the drow, arms outstretched. He pulled his arms in fast, both hands suddenly bleeding from deep scimitar gashes, and then he jerked in pain as Catti-brie's next arrow drove into his hip.
Drizzt started to call out again, wanting to reason with the brute, but Bruenor had heard enough. The dwarf rushed up the prone giant's back, quick-stepping to hold his balance as the creature tried to roll him off. The dwarf leaped over the giant's turning shoulder, coming down squarely atop his collarbone. Bruenor's axe came down fast, quicker to the strike than the giant's reaching hands. The axe cut deep into Junger's face.
Huge hands clamped around Bruenor, but they had little strength left. Guenhwyvar leaped in and caught one of the giant's arms, bringing it down under her weight, pinning the hand with claws and teeth. Catti-brie blew the other arm from the dwarf with a perfectly aimed shot.
Bruenor held his ground, leaning down on the embedded axe, and at last, the giant lay still.
Regis came out of the brush and gave a kick at the branch the giant had thrown their way. "Worms in an apple!" he complained. "Why'd you kill him?"
"Ye're seein' a choice?" Bruenor called back incredulously, then he braced himself and tugged his axe from the split head. "I'm not for talking to five thousand pounds of enemy."
"I take no pleasure in that kill," Drizzt admitted. He wiped his blades on the fallen behemoth's tunic, then slid them into their sheaths. "Better for all of us that the giant simply went home."
"And I could have convinced him to do so," Regis argued.
"No," the drow answered. 'Tour pendant is powerful, I do not doubt, but it has no strength over one entranced by Crenshinibon." As he spoke, he opened his belt pouch and produced the artifact, the famed crystal shard.
"Ye hold it out, and its call'll be all the louder," Bruenor said grimly. "I'm thinkin' we might be finding a long road ahead of us."
"Let it bring the monsters in," Catti-brie said. "It'll make our task in killing them all the easier."
The coldness of her tone caught them all by surprise, but only for the moment it took them to look back at her and see the bruise on her face and remember the cause of her bad mood.
"Ye notice that the damned thing's not working on any of us," the woman reasoned. "So it seems that any falling under its spell are deservin' what they'll find at our hands."
"It does appear that Crenshinibon's power to corrupt extends only to those already of an evil weal," Drizzt agreed.
"And so our road'll be a bit more exciting," Catti-brie said. She didn't bother to add that in this light, she wished Wulfgar was with them. She knew the others were no doubt thinking the exact same thing.
They searched the giant's camp, then turned back to their own fire. Given the new realization that the crystal shard might be working against them, might be reaching out to any nearby monsters in an attempt to get free of the friends, they decided to double their watches from that point forward, two asleep and two awake.
Regis was not pleased.
Chapter 9 GAINING APPROVAL
From the shadows he watched the wizard walk slowly through the door. Other voices followed LaValle in from the corridor, but the wizard hardly acknowledged them, just shut the door and moved to his private stock liquor cabinet at the side of the audience room, lighting only a single candle atop it.
Entreri clenched his hands eagerly, torn as to whether he should confront the wizard verbally or merely kill the man for not informing him of Dog Perry's attack.
Cup in one hand, burning taper in the other, LaValle moved from the cabinet to a larger standing candelabra. The room brightened with each touch as another candle flared to life. Behind the occupied wizard, Entreri stepped into the open.
His warrior senses put him on his guard immediately. Something-but what?-at the very edges of his consciousness alerted him. Perhaps it had to do with LaValle's