was his heart, empty with the loss of Wulfgar, and breaking apart at the thought that Drizzt and his precious Catti brie had gone off into danger.
The events about him had gone beyond his responsibilities as king of Mithril Hall. Bruenor 's first dedication was to his children, one lost, the other missing, and to his friends. Their fates were beyond him now; he could only hope that they would win out, would survive and come back to him, for Bruenor had no way to get to Catti-brie and Drizzt.
Bruenor could never get back to Wulfgar.
The dwarf king sighed and turned away, walking slowly back toward his empty room, not even noticing that the meeting had adjourned.
Regis watched Bruenor silently from the doorway, wishing that he had his ruby pendant, if for no other reason than to try to re kindle the fires in the broken dwarf.
Catti-brie eyed the wide corridor ahead suspiciously, trying to make out distinct shapes among the many stalagmite mounds. She had come into a region where mud mixed with stone, and she had seen the tracks clearly enough, goblin tracks, she knew, and recent.
Ahead loomed the perfect place for an ambush. Catti-brie took an arrow from the quiver strapped behind her hip, then held Taul maril the Heartseeker, her magical bow, ready in her hands. Tucked under one arm, ready to be dropped, was the panther figurine. She silently debated whether or not she should summon Guenhwyvar from the Astral Plane. She had no real proof that the goblins were about, all the mounds in the corridor seemed natural and benign, but she felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle.
She decided to hold off calling the cat, her logic overruling her instincts. She fell against the left hand wall and slowly started for ward, wincing every time the mud sloshed around her lifting boot.
With a dozen stalagmite mounds behind her, the wall still tightly to her left, the young woman paused and listened once more. All seemed perfectly quiet, but she couldn't shake the feeling that her every step was being monitored, that some monster was poised not far away, waiting to spring out and throttle her. Would it be like this all the way through the Underdark? she wondered. Would she drive herself insane with imagined dangers? Or worse, would the false alarms of her misguided instincts take her off guard on that one occasion when danger really did rise against her?
Catti-brie shook her head to clear the thoughts and squinted her eyes to peer into the magically starlit gloom. Another benefit of Lady Alustriel's gift was that Catti-brie's eyes did not glow with the telltale red of infravision. The young woman, though, inexperienced in such matters, didn't know that; she knew only that the shapes ahead seemed ominous indeed. The ground and walls were not firmly set, as in other parts of the tunnels. Mud and open water flowed freely in different areas. Many of the stalagmites seemed to have appendages, goblin arms, perhaps, holding wicked weapons.
Again Catti-brie forced away the unwanted thoughts, and she started forward, but froze immediately. She had caught a sound, a slight scraping, like that of a weapon tip brushing against stone. She waited a long while but heard nothing more, so she again told her self not to let her imagination carry her away.
But had those goblin tracks been part of her imagination? she asked herself as she took another step forward.
Catti-brie dropped the figurine and swung about, her bow com ing to bear. Around the nearest stalagmite charged a goblin, its ugly, flat face seeming broader for the wide grin it wore and its rusting and jagged sword held high above its head.
Catti-brie fired, point blank, and the silver streaking arrow had barely cleared the bow when the monster's head exploded in a shower of multicolored sparks. The arrow blasted right through, sparking again as it sliced a chunk off the stalagmite mound.
"Guenhwyvar!" Catti-brie called, and she readied the bow. She knew she had to get moving, that this area had been clearly marked by the spark shower. She considered the gray mist that had begun to swirl about her, and, knowing the summoning was complete, scooped up the figurine and ran away from the wall. She hopped the dead goblin's body and cut around the nearest stalagmite, then slipped between two others. Out of the corner of her eye