She did not know that the minute tingling was the confirmation from the deep gnome scouts that this drow crouching in the stalag mite cluster was indeed alone.
One of the svirfnebli ahead suddenly burst into motion, chant ing a few words that Catti-brie did not understand and hurling a rock her way. She dipped lower behind the stones for cover and tried to decide whether to call out a surrender or take out her bow and try to frighten the creatures away.
The stone bounced harmlessly short and shattered, its flecks spreading in a small area before the stalagmite cluster. Those flecks began to smoke and sizzle, and the ground began to tremble.
Before Catti-brie knew what was happening, the stones before her rose up like a gigantic bubble, then took on the shape of a giant fifteen foot tall humanoid, its girth practically filling the corridor. The creature had huge, rocky arms that could smash a building to pieces. Two of the front stalagmites had been caught up in the mon strous formation and now served as dangerous spikes protruding from the front of the monster's massive chest.
Down the passage, the deep gnomes let out battle cries, calls that echoed in corridors all about the frightened woman.
Catti-brie scrambled backward as a gigantic hand swooped in and took the top from one stalagmite. She dropped the onyx figur ing and called frantically for Guenhwyvar, all the while fitting an arrow to her bowstring.
The earth elemental shifted forward, its bulky legs melding with, slipping right through, the stony stalagmites in its way. It moved again to grab the woman, but a silver streaking arrow ripped through its rock face, blowing a clean crevice between the monster's eyes.
The elemental straightened and reeled, then used its hands to push its halved head back into one piece. It looked back to the clus ter and saw not the female drow, but a huge cat, tamping down its hind legs.
Catti-brie came out the back of the cluster, thinking to flee, but found deep gnomes coming down every side passage. She ran along the main corridor, cutting from mound to mound for cover, not dar ing to glance back at Guenhwyvar and the elemental. Then some thing hard banged against her shin, tripping her, and she sprawled headlong. She squirmed about to see another of the svirfnebli rising from behind one mound, a pickaxe still angled out as it had been placed to trip her.
Catti-brie pulled her bow around and shifted into a sitting posi tion, but the weapon was batted away. She instinctively rolled to the side, but heard shuffling feet as three gnomes kept pace with her, heavy mauls lifted high to squash her.
Guenhwyvar snarled and soared, thinking to fly right past the behemoth and turn it about. The elemental was faster than the pan ther suspected, though, and a great rocky hand shot out, catching the cat in midflight and pulling it to its massive chest. Guenhwyvar shrieked as a stalagmite spike dug into a shoulder, and the deep gnomes, running up beside their champion, shrieked as well, in glee that the drow and her unexpected ally were apparently soon to be finished.
A maul descended toward Catti-brie's head. She snapped out her short sword and caught it at the joint between handle and head, deflecting it enough so that it banged loudly off the floor. The young woman scampered and parried, trying to get far enough from the gnomes to regain her footing, but they paced her, every which way, banging their mauls with shortened, measured strokes so that this fast tiring dark elf had no opportunities for clear counterstrikes.
The sight of the marvelous panther, soon to be fully impaled and crushed, brought victorious thrills to a handful of the trailing svirfnebli, but brought only confusion to two others. Those two, Seldig and Pumkato by name, had played with such a panther as fledglings, and since Drizzt Do'Urden, the drow renegade they had played beside almost thirty years before, had just passed through Blingdenstone, they felt the panther's appearance could not be coincidence.
"Guenhwyvar!" Seldig cried, and the panther roared in reply.
The name, so perfectly spoken, struck Catti-brie profoundly and made those three deep gnomes about her hesitate as well.
Pumkato, who had summoned the elemental in the first place, called for the monster to hold steady, and Seldig quickly used his pickaxe to scale partway up the behemoth. "Guenhwyvar?" he