Archmage

CHAPTER 10

Connerad Brawnanvil beamed with pride as he stood on the bank of the underground pond, having called Bruenor and Emerus to his side. The two had asked Connerad to oversee the defensive coordination of the outside chamber, Bruenor pointedly reminding him that his father had been one of the greatest military tacticians Mithral Hall had ever known. Now, judging from the younger dwarf’s somewhat smug expression, it seemed that Connerad intended to do his father proud.

“We got our shots sighted in at every guard station,” he explained, pointing out various stalagmites and stalactites that were hollowed out, either recently or in the original dwarven settlement of Gauntlgrym. “So say we got an enemy on the north wall, creeping for the lake.”

He gave a sharp whistle, and a torch flared along the northern wall of the cavern, followed by shouts form various stalactite and stalagmite mounds referencing the “mark.”

“Aye, there they be!” Connerad exclaimed, pointing to a pile of stones and sticks set up to resemble a group of goblins or orcs or some other intruders.

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, the dwarf sentinels let fly with their side-slinger catapults and rebuilt ballistae, and the entire area around those targets filled with flying stones and spears, and finally, with burning pitch.

The speed and violence of the attack had Bruenor and Emerus rocking back on their heels.

“Just for that one spot?” Bruenor asked.

“All about the cavern,” Connerad replied. “We put our war engines on pivots and sighted in, don’t ye doubt, near and far. If it’s in here, movin’ or not, we can hit it!”

“Well played, young Brawnanvil!” King Emerus said.

“Just as it was in the first days o’ Gauntlgrym, and woe to any foe trying to sneak in,” Connerad explained. “And I got some boys scraping mica and polishin’ silver, working on focusin’ mirrors so we can send light from every tower into every crack in the cavern. As it was in the first days o’ Gauntlgrym.”

“How’re ye knowin’. .” Emerus started to ask, but Bruenor cut him short.

“Ye sat yer bum on the throne,” he said, staring at Connerad.

The young king didn’t argue.

“Bah, but we telled ye to let us be with ye!” said Emerus.

“And I taked it upon meself to do it meself,” Connerad replied. “Getting ready for comragh!”

Bruenor and Emerus looked at each other then, somewhat surprised and a bit perturbed, but only until they realized that Connerad had used the ancient word for “battle.” Aye, he had sat his bum on the throne, and aye, the old ones had talked to him, as they had talked to Bruenor and Emerus. As they had both been leading their respective clans for centuries, it was hard for either of the older kings to think of Connerad as an equal, but by rights, he was just that. He hadn’t been Steward of Mithral Hall for the last decades, but King of Mithral Hall, and once again, as with their earlier conversation about Bruenor taking back the throne of Mithral Hall, Connerad had reminded them both that he didn’t need their permission.

“The throne showed ye the old designs?” Bruenor asked.

“We’re pushin’ out into the tunnels beyond, them leadin’ back to the rocky dale,” he answered. “That’s goin’ to be takin’ some time.”

“How many’re ye using?” Bruenor asked.

“One brigade only,” Connerad answered. “We can’t be splittin’ our forces with a nest o’ drow below.”

“Nest o’ kobolds not far below,” Bruenor reminded him, and the other two nodded.

“Ye plannin’ their party?” Connerad asked.

“Aye, and sure to be a good one.”

“I’ll be expectin’ an invitation,” said Connerad.

“Right by me side,” Bruenor promised, and he clapped Connerad on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t be havin’ it any other way!” Bruenor turned back out to the wider cavern, impressed by the progress. The bridge was almost finished already, with solid abutments and a center span wired to drop.

“And we’ve one more thing we’re needin’ to do afore the fighting starts in full,” Connerad said.

The other two looked at him.

“Clangeddin didn’t tell ye, then,” Connerad asked, “when ye sat yer bums on the throne?”

“Say it clear, lad,” Bruenor bade him.

“Deas-ghnaith inntrigidh,” Connerad replied.

Bruenor and Emerus turned to each other curiously. These were words neither dwarf had ever heard before, and yet as they stared at each other, each came to understand the phrase, as if they were pulling the wrapping off a present. And more than the words, Connerad’s mere recital of the ancient Delzoun phrase, opened in the minds of the other two images of what could be, of what should be, of what must be.

“All th’ others need to put their bums on that throne, then,” Bruenor whispered, and Emerus nodded his agreement.

“Tariseachd, the Rite o’ Fealty, the call o’ Kith’n Kin,” said Connerad. “Three kingdoms joined as one.”

“Aye,” the other two said in unison.

A sharp sound from behind startled Bruenor and turned him around to note work on the wall of the complex. Connerad was building nests for archers, and even some war engines back there.

Bruenor thought back to his unpleasant exchange with Lord Neverember, and he couldn’t help but grin. Send all of Waterdeep down here, he thought, and watch them limp away, battered, before they ever reached Gauntlgrym’s front door.

Because of King Connerad, Gauntlgrym’s entry cavern was ready for comragh!

“They are just kobolds,” Tiago grumbled, tugging his shoulder away from Doum’wielle’s grip.

“This is their lair and they are many,” the half-drow warned.

But Tiago wasn’t listening. Kobolds, he thought with disgust-at them and at Doum’wielle for even hinting that these two-legged rats might pose a threat. Menzoberranzan was thick with the vermin, as almost every House used them as slaves. House Baenre kept hundreds, thousands even, tending the gardens, cleaning the compound, and going out into the Underdark to hunt for giant red-cap mushrooms whenever one of the priestesses was in the mood for the delicacy.

Tiago could hardly believe that a colony of kobolds was living here now, in the deeper rooms of the complex’s upper tunnels. Why hadn’t Matron Mother Zeerith enslaved the beasts by now? Or murdered them?

Or perhaps she had enslaved them, he considered again, and he slowed his pace as he moved along the uneven, cracked stones of one twisted hallway. He could only imagine the force that had so broken this place, as if the whole of the mountain had twisted, turning the hallway as a slave might wring the dirty water from a cleaning rag. At various points along the wide cracks in the walls or floor, Tiago noted volcanic rock. He could feel the heat from it, and that truly unsettled him.

Had the primordial escaped again? While he had been off in the Silver Marches fighting the war, had Ravel’s family been blasted by another volcano of primordial power? The last known eruption had been decades before, after all. How could the stone still be throwing such heat?

Noting movement in a wider chamber up ahead, the drow put those thoughts aside and picked up his pace even more, breaking into a trot.

He lifted his arm, turning his shield as he did so that Doum’wielle could see, and motioned her ahead, then shifted his fingers in the silent hand code of the drow, side by side.

Doum’wielle hustled to catch up. Before them lay an oval-shaped room, with the wider chamber opening left and right beyond. It was lighter in there, and brightening now, as if the kobolds within might be stoking a fire. A ghostly image drifted past, beyond the oval, and both companions stutter-stepped a bit, caught by surprise for a heartbeat before realizing that it was merely a bit of steam.

“Stay close,” Tiago whispered. “We ask once for surrender, then we kill them all.”

The drow’s eyes sparkled and he couldn’t suppress his grin. Too long had it been since he had felt the thrill of battle. Indeed, not since the werewolves haunting the forests around Longsaddle. They had noted the kobold lair upon first entering the complex, but Tiago had stayed away, fearing that these were slaves of Q’Xorlarrin. He did not want to be discovered by Matron Mother Zeerith and the rest of her House.

Not until he had the head of Drizzt in a sack.

Three strides away, ready to leap through the opening, Tiago broke into a sprint and gave a battle cry.

But kobolds appeared from around the edges of the opening at just that moment, each holding a large bucket, which they swept across, throwing forth the liquid contents at the opposite edge of the oval.

Tiago pulled up and spun a circuit to slow, but his momentum was too great, and Doum’wielle pressed him from close behind. He gave another yell, this one in alarm as his mind whirled in fear of what these little rats had thrown at him.

Oil of impact that would explode if he brushed too near, perhaps? Acid to bite at him as he dived through?

Even as his mind tried to sort out the surprise, liquid struck stone and hissed in protest, and a wall of steam filled the opening, glowing red.

Shield leading, Tiago dived through. He hit the ground, tucking that shoulder, waving his sword left and right to fend off any attackers in the opaque veil as he rolled around and came up to his feet.

Doum’wielle came in behind him, not as gracefully and not in a roll, tripping past the threshold and stumbling, but holding her feet as she fell toward Tiago.

Fearing that she’d stagger right past him, Tiago turned and shieldblocked her, jolting her upright and steady.

“What-?” she started to ask, but he hushed her, having no time for her idiocy.

Tiago felt as if sweat was running from every pore in his skin. It was hot in here, and not just from the steam. He noted lines of glowing red and suspected them to be lava.

Uncooled lava, and they could hardly see.

Beware every step! he started to sign, but then, realizing Doum’wielle wouldn’t begin to make out the intricate movements in this thick haze, he spoke the warning instead.

His voice had betrayed their position, he realized a moment later, when rocks soared in at them.

Tiago’s shield unwound, growing by the heartbeat, and he managed to duck behind it to avoid the volley, though the small stones lobbed his way didn’t seem as if they would cause much harm anyway.

But then the first hit his shield, a slight tap. It turned into a more profound one as the ball of stone exploded.

Tiago staggered back even as other missiles banged against the shield, each exploding like the first, driving Tiago back, ever back.

Doum’wielle cried out and went rolling past him to his right, more rocks chasing her, landing all around and pop-popping like the small fireworks and grenades Tiago had used himself at a Baenre celebration, fashioned by the priests of Gond in days gone by, when they had experimented with smoke powder.

These grenades were different, though, for they didn’t burst and whistle like those fireworks. They cracked and popped, throwing stone shards, and burning red, bright and angry, but only briefly.

“Forward!” Tiago ordered Doum’wielle. They couldn’t stand there and suffer the continuing barrage.

But all she returned were screams of pain. Tiago couldn’t see her clearly, but his glance showed him her shadowy form, on the floor and writhing.

The drow tucked his head behind his shield and followed the path of the stones across the room to the throwers. He got hit again, repeatedly, each explosion staggering him, halting him momentarily or even driving him back a step. Tiago reached into his drow heritage, into the magic of the Faerzress that tickled the life-force of his kind, and brought forth a globe of darkness, aiming it in front of him at the far end of the room, where he suspected the kobolds to be.

The barrage slowed, the rocks came in less accurately, and Tiago pressed ahead, shield leading, sword poking forward from all around it. He went into the darkness without hesitation, and thrust more powerfully, scoring a hit.

He dismissed the globe of darkness and found himself faced up with a pair of kobolds, both waving short swords, both holding rocks-missiles that showed the red streaks of contained lava. Behind him, Doum’wielle was still crying out in pain, though it was more a whimper than a scream at that point-a poignant reminder to the son of House Baenre not to let one of those rocks hit him.

The mist thinned, and then he was against not two, but four kobolds, coming at him fearlessly-no slaves these! — and fanning about him, stabbing with short swords, cocking their arms to launch their grenades as soon as an opening showed.

So Tiago gave them that opening-those on his right, at least-as he swept his shield out to the left.

The two on the right let fly, Tiago dropped below the barrage and fast-stepped out to the right, stabbing fiercely, impaling a kobold who fell limp in front of the drow before he’d ever withdrawn the blade.

The mist thinned some more, and Tiago had a better grasp of the room and the grenades. The kobolds stood in front of and beneath a long, slender stalactite, but none like Tiago had ever seen. It dripped red lava, like a leaking, open boil on the skin of the primordial-and onto a mold of solid stone, one that let the lava spread out into a semicircle where it would fast harden and blacken.

So shocked was he by this surprising display of cunning by the miserable little rat-faced kobolds, that Tiago almost forgot that he was in the middle of a fight.

He barely avoided the stab of a short sword from the right, and just got his shield up to deflect the thrust of one of the creatures on his left. He enacted the magic on Orbbcress, his blocker, then, catching the sword fast against the edge. He jerked down and pivoted left, turning the stubborn kobold, who would not surrender its blade.

Bent low, overbalanced, Tiago and Vidrinath turning fast, the kobold surrendered its head instead.

A scraping sound brought the drow back to center, to see a crack opening into a door behind the dropping stalactite, the glowing eyes of a horde of kobolds within.

Tiago felt vulnerable. If that mob held grenades. .

Movement behind him and to his right almost had him sending Vidrinath out on a sweeping backhand, for only at the last moment did he realize that it was Doum’wielle, come to join him.

To join him and even step past him, her free arm held in tight, her tunic smoking still.

Without hesitation, the elf struck, but not at a kobold. Khazid’hea cleaved the stalactite several feet up from its dripping end.

Doum’wielle leaped back, as did Tiago, their elf reflexes saving them as a flood of red lava dropped from the opening, striking the ground and splashing all over, stinging and burning kobold legs and sending the two remaining creatures leaping away, howling in agony.

Both went for the open door in the back, but the one coming from the left tripped over the feet of the other, quicker creature, and down it stumbled right into the splashing lava.

How it shrieked! How it spasmed, with superheated, molten rock grabbing at it, biting at it, melting it. .

From the opening came a volley of grenades, but Doum’wielle was behind Tiago now, and Tiago behind his shield, the magnificent Orbbcress defeating the jarring and explosive barrage.

Out through the oval went the pair, back into the hallway where they sprinted back the way they had come. In the days they had been in Gauntlgrym, this had been their first encounter with the kobolds, and they hoped it would be their last.

“Clever,” Doum’wielle said through a grimace when they had put the enemy far behind. She lifted her left arm from her side and inspected an angry welt and blister where a drop of lava had bit her.

“Too clever,” Tiago spat, openly on edge-for he was not used to being chased off by kobolds. “The drow of Q’Xorlarrin have trained them as an upper guard, no doubt, and taught them well.”

“You are drow,” Doum’wielle reminded him.

“They saw you,” Tiago accused. “Were you not with me-”

“You would have faced a dozen lava bombs from the doorway,” Doum’wielle interrupted.

The two stared at each other for a long while, and it crossed Tiago’s mind more than once to cut the impertinent elf down where she stood. He held his strike, though, and his temper, for he couldn’t deny, to himself at least, that Doum’wielle’s clever trick with the stalactite had broken them free of the ambush.

Nor could he deny, again to himself, that without Doum’wielle’s trick, they would not have survived that assault.

Against kobolds.

More than once, Tiago glanced back in the direction of that chamber. He wanted to believe his own words that Matron Mother Zeerith’s soldiers had trained the beasts, but he knew that was not the truth. These kobolds, wretched little creatures though they were, had found harmony with the mountain and the under-chambers-enough so to effectively use the blood of the primordial as a weapon.

Tiago had to remember that.

He glanced about curiously. He had expected Drizzt to come forth to scout for the dwarves, but so far, that had not happened. From his own scouting, it seemed to him that the dwarves were being very cautious, fortifying every inch of ground they had secured.

Or perhaps that would end with the grand entry cavern and the throne room, and once those positions were secured, the dwarves would come forth, and once the dwarves moved along, Drizzt would come forth.

Tiago had to be ready for that, doubly now, for he suspected that if he wanted the kill, he would have to find the ranger before the kobolds did.

Kobolds!

Tiago shook his head and again glanced in the direction of the nowdistant ambush chamber. He had never known kobolds to be so clever and industrious.

The chasm called the Clawrift, which split the grand cavern of Menzoberranzan, housed tens of thousands of kobolds, perhaps hundreds of thousands.

Tiago blew a deep sigh, visibly shaken.

They knew a fight was coming. Indeed, they were going to start one! And so Bruenor and the other kings decided that they could not delay the Rite of Fealty. This would bring the dwarves closer together, a bonded force marching in unison.

Bruenor stood at the end of the receiving line, with Emerus first, Connerad to his left, and Bruenor to Connerad’s left, all three facing the Throne of the Dwarf Gods. Bruenor held his breath a bit as the first of the dwarves not of royal blood stepped up to the throne. Fittingly, and unanimously approved by the trio, Ragged Dain would be the first.

He moved up to the throne, turned and bowed respectfully to the three kings, closed his eyes, and sat down. Immediately his eyes opened, but the throne did not reject him or wound him, as Bruenor knew it could.

Ragged Dain remained seated for only a few heartbeats, then hopped off and moved down to kneel before King Emerus.

“Ar tariseachd, na daoine de a bheil mise, ar righ,” he said reverently, ancient Delzoun for “Me dying fealty, me kith’n kin, me king.”

Emerus placed his hand on Ragged Dain’s head with genuine affection. The two had been close for more than a century. Then the king nodded and released his hand, and Ragged Dain rose, accepted a kiss on the check from Emerus, and stepped over to kneel before King Connerad.

He repeated his words, and Connerad did as Emerus had done, accepting the fealty, not to himself, but to kith and kin, to Gauntlgrym and the dwarves-all the dwarves-assembled in her halls.

On to Bruenor went Ragged Dain, and it was repeated a third time, and at the end, Bruenor, on sudden impulse, reached behind his shield and brought forth a flagon of ale and handed it to Ragged Dain, waggling a finger to indicate that he should not drink it at that time.

The second dwarf, Oretheo Spikes, was already at King Connerad by then, with the third, Bungalow Thump, kneeling before King Emerus.

And so it went, one after another in fast order, and all walked off to the side with a flagon of Bruenor’s ale in hand-there seemed to be no limit to the shield’s production this day!

It went on for hour after hour. At the very back of the line, still outside the entryway, Athrogate and Amber fidgeted nervously. Would the throne accept them? Both had committed crimes against their previous kings, Athrogate in Citadel Felbarr, Amber in Citadel Adbar. Would the dwarf gods forgive them, or reject them?

Four hours passed, five hours, then six and they were in the throne room, though still in the back of a long and winding line. Athrogate caught Bruenor’s eye, and the dwarf king smiled at him and nodded confidently.

Another hour passed, and now there were only a few score ahead of the couple, with near to five thousand others filling the large hall, many singing softly and using words that those still in line, who had not sat upon the throne, could not begin to understand.

Athrogate lost himself in that song, trying to make sense of it, and so distracted was he that he was caught by surprise when Amber tugged on his sleeve and said, “Here I go, then.”

He held his breath as this woman he had come to love moved up to the throne. She bowed to the kings, added a shrug to Bruenor, then took her seat.

With a wide smile and tears flowing from her eyes, Amber Gristle O’Maul of the Adbar O’Mauls hopped back up and verily ran to kneel before King Emerus.

That left Athrogate standing alone in front of the throne, the eyes of all upon him. He bowed to the kings, accepted Bruenor’s nod. .

But still he hesitated.

Athrogate allowed himself a deep sigh. Many of those nearest stopped singing and stared. They wouldn’t take him, he knew in his heart. Too far had he strayed. He shook his hairy head and looked at Amber, now holding her flagon, and his tears fell thicker than hers.

Tears of regret.

Tears for a life that had not been lived as well as it should have.

The great hall was silent, not a whisper to be heard. Athrogate looked around at the thousands of faces, and one by one, they began to nod. At the back of the hall, near the exit to the tunnels, he noted Drizzt and Catti-brie, the two beaming at him with wide smiles.

“Suidh!” one called, then another, then all of them.

“Suidh! Suidh!” and Athrogate understood that they were telling him to sit. But not to judge him, he realized, but rather to welcome him.

So he sat upon the throne.

He was not thrown free.

And he heard the language and then knew their song, and knew, too, that he was kith’n kin.

To the side of Tiago, not far away and nursing her wounded arm, Doum’wielle did not miss the noble Baenre’s expression of dismay-nor did her sentient sword, which had guided her to strike the stalactite and had warned her to offer a quick retreat after she had.

She watched Tiago’s face go through a range of expressions, anger to trepidation to frustration. She understood that he feared for Drizzt’s life more than he feared that she would be killed by kobolds.

Nothing else seemed to matter to that one.

Drizzt is Tiago’s way of ascendance in the hierarchy of Menzoberranzan, Khazid’hea explained to her. He envisions no other journey to lift him from the lower environs, where drow males reside.

“Even as a noble,” Doum’wielle whispered, shaking her head in disbelief, and Khazid’hea affirmed that.

I will be stealing his dream from him, Doum’wielle imparted to the sword, given their plans.

You will be saving yourself from a life of slavery and brutality, the sword reminded her.

Doum’wielle nodded in agreement, and her eyes narrowed as she stared back at Tiago, silently scolding herself for even thinking of allowing any hint of sympathy toward her brutal rapist.

The trophy of Drizzt would be all the sweeter knowing the gain to her, and indeed, knowing the cost to Tiago.

“Lock!” came the command of General Connerad Brawnanvil, and the ten dwarves leading the square down the wide corridor interlocked their great shields, forming a solid wall of metal.

And not a moment too soon, for even as the shields clanged into place, the first bombs began to rain down upon them from the darkness down the corridor.

“Double-step, boys!” yelled Bruenor, in the middle of the second rank. Beside him, Drizzt popped up tall, above the shield line, and let fly an arrow that lit up the corridor the length of its travels, albeit briefly- long enough to reveal the horde of kobolds lifting these exploding rocks from a pile, though there was one less monster grenadier when the arrow found its mark.

Drizzt was fast down in a crouch beside Catti-brie.

“Too many,” he started to say, but he noted that the woman wasn’t listening to him. She moved with her eyes closed, her hand on the shoulder of Ambergris to her other side. She was whispering, but Drizzt could not make out the words, and could not discern to whom she was speaking.

“Charge!” Connerad ordered, and the front rank ran off as one, only gradually decoupling their cleverly designed shields.

Up tall again, Drizzt paced about the second rank while firing off a line of silvery death.

The corridor lit up then in a light more profound than any Drizzt’s arrows might achieve, as a wall of rock bombs hurtled down upon the dwarves, smashing against shields and exploding, one after another, with tremendous force.

“Bah!” cried Athrogate, to the other side of Ambergris, when the shield dwarf in front of him was knocked flat and the lava splattered back over Athrogate to strike the dwarves behind him.

Before the bending Athrogate could help the shield dwarf back up, another grenade crashed in just in front of the fallen dwarf’s feet, the splash reaching up at his feet and legs-and how he howled.

“Come on, then!” Athrogate yelled, sending his morningstars into a spin and leaping over the shield dwarf to spur the others forward.

But a second barrage had them all backing and ducking beneath nowdented shields-blockers that dripped with molten lava!

Then came the greatest kobold trap of all, as the ceiling above the front lines of the dwarves cracked open, loosing a river of red liquid stone.

Catti-brie wasn’t hearing Bruenor or Athrogate, or even the grunts and cries of the dwarves in the front line. Her focus remained solely on the ring she wore on her right hand, the Ring of Elemental Power that Drizzt had taken from a drow wizard, Brack’thal Xorlarrin, and then given to her.

She knew these lines of lava to be an extension of the primordial, sending its tendrils far and wide, relishing in the momentary freedom from the water elementals trapping it, a little bit at least. She sensed no kinship from the great and godlike being toward the kobolds, just a measure of acceptance that they would allow the lifeblood lava to drip, drip, drip. For that was the purpose and calling of the primordial, to throw its molten heat far and wide, to consume with liquefied stone. To burn, as the Elemental Plane of Fire itself burned.

Catti-brie felt the flow of lava as surely as she could feel the pulse in her own arm. She sensed it and understood it, and felt it keenly as it pooled in the ceiling just above her and the others.

And so when the ceiling cracked open, Catti-brie was ready for it. The spell came to her lips in an instant. Blue mist encircled her arms, and blasts of water burst from her staff and sprayed upward to intercept the lava. Instead of an immolating, fiery death raining upon her and the dwarves, there came a tumble of hot stones that bounced off helmets and upraised shields. Catti-brie blocked one, painfully, with her upraised forearm, and felt herself stumbling. But Drizzt had her, tugging her along, and then Athrogate barreled into her, shoving the whole pile back, back.

“To the throne room!” General Connerad ordered, and the dwarves methodically and efficiently pivoted and rushed back the way they had come.

Not all of them, though. Catti-brie grabbed Bruenor by the arm and held him, then pulled back against Drizzt’s incessant tug.

“Let’s go, girl. Too many!” Bruenor said to her.

“Only because of their trick,” Catti-brie argued.

“Aye, and a stinging one!”

“No more,” the woman insisted.

“What d’ye know, girl?” Bruenor asked, but Catti-brie was already turning away from him and twisting aside from the driving Athrogate, who fell forward on his face, grunted, and hopped back to his feet.

Catti-brie looked at the ceiling breach, the first stones fallen, and now the rest of the lava pouring out upon them.

Primordial lava, living flame.

She could feel its life-force, though it was no longer part of the greater beast, and she beckoned to it, helping it keep its separate life, fanning the flames to consciousness with her call and her own will.

“Well?” Bruenor said, not understanding what his daughter was doing and wanting an answer-and rightly so, for behind that lava pour came a horde of kobolds, all hoisting grenades.

“Tell her, elf!” Bruenor shouted to Drizzt, but the drow, understanding his wife better than Bruenor ever could, merely smiled and turned a confident look back to Bruenor, even offering the dwarf a knowing wink.

“She got ’em, don’t she?” Bruenor asked, and even as he did, the pile of stones and lava in the corridor between them and the kobolds stood up and swung around to face the diminutive monsters, gladly accepting, even being strengthened by, their volley of flaming grenades.

“No, Bruenor,” Drizzt corrected, “We’ve got them.”

The red-bearded dwarf grinned from ear to ear-there were only a hundred of the beasts, after all.

“Ye ready for some fun, elf?” the red-bearded dwarf roared. Then he banged his axe against his shield and called upon the axe to burst into flame.

Together, the pair ran off past Catti-brie, dodging and diving to get beyond her lava pet.

Drizzt let fly with Taulmaril once, twice, and thrice, and lines of kobolds fell dead as the arrows bored through them, hardly slowing. The drow slung the bow over his shoulder, drew forth his blades, and dodged and ducked and twisted to avoid the shower of explosive, lava-filled stones.

Bruenor just brought his shield up in front of them and weathered the beating. He slowed not at all, plowing into the front ranks of kobolds with wild abandon. He almost grabbed the cracked silver horn hanging around him to summon the spirit of Pwent, but stubbornly refused to give in to the call.

Every swipe of his axe sent a kobold flying left or right, and the roaring flames on the many-notched weapon cauterized the garish wounds even as Bruenor inflicted them. He glanced to his right only once, to see the elf’s blades working almost magically, flipping over and around any kobold weapon that neared, reaching forward, prodding and sticking, driving the creatures in front of him. And whenever a kobold stumbled, Drizzt chopped it down To Bruenor’s left came the lava elemental, not even slowing as it hit the first kobold ranks, just stomping through, ignoring the feeble weapons that could in no way harm its rocky flesh.

Bruenor shield-rushed a trio of enemies, too quick for them to escape. He felt their legs angle and buckle in front of him as he pressed forward, his axe, alive with flame, cutting a line in front of him.

“Durned good weapon,” Bruenor said, shaking his head, but then he cried out and nearly dropped the enchanted battle-axe when the flame leaping from it took definitive shape, like a living winged creature above the blade, and leaped out from his weapon to engulf a kobold that had broken free in desperate retreat.

Another burst of fire ignited upon his flame-tongued battle-axe, and Bruenor gasped in astonishment before finally solving the riddle. He glanced back over his right shoulder to see Catti-brie calmly pacing him and Drizzt, walking up behind them in all confidence, her eyes half-closed, her lips moving to enact another spell, or to speak with the fire, perhaps.

Farther to the right, Drizzt cut down another kobold, and another.

“Ye’ll not get more than meself!” Bruenor shouted at him, and turned to pursue the next nearest group. He paused, though, and shouted out for his girl. From a side passage came a host of kobolds, bearing down on Catti-brie, who looked all alone and vulnerable. Bruenor swung around, but knew he was too far to help her in time.

“Me girl!” he roared.

The cry of “Me girl!” sounded behind Catti-brie, but she paid it no heed, her focus solely on the sudden and unexpected threat. In came the lead kobold, spear leveled.

With only minimal movement, Catti-brie turned aside of that thrust and as the kobold stumbled by, she chopped it on the back of the neck with her staff, sending it stumbling and tumbling. And so great was her concentration that she continued her spell and was still able to come up and turn left to face the next attacker, leaping inside its swing so that it could not bring its sword to bear.

With one hand, Catti-brie grabbed the back of its scraggly fur, yanking its snapping maw away, while she pointed with her staff tip, the sapphire flaring, and enacted her spell.

The area right in front of her, under the feet of the charging kobolds, slickened with magical grease, and the creatures suddenly were stumbling all about, flailing and falling.

And then, before Catti-brie could deal with the kobold she was grappling, she felt as if a swarm of bees had entered the fray, and indeed that proved an apt description as Athrogate and Ambergris, Fist and Fury, and Connerad Brawnanvil came pounding by, throwing kobolds aside as easily as a heavy stone could crash through a barrier of thin parchment.

The magic of Athrogate’s right-hand morningstar, coated with oil of impact, exploded with a tremendous crash and sent a kobold flying far away, while the dwarf’s other morningstar swept across to crush the skull of a second monster. Beside him, Ambergris worked with great sweeping strikes, launching kobolds into the air two at a time with her huge mace.

But neither of these great warriors, amazing as they were, could hold Catti-brie’s attention as fully as the two young female dwarves from Citadel Felbarr. Connerad rushed up to Catti-brie’s side, but he, too, said nothing, and didn’t bother to blink as he watched the deadly play of Fist and Fury.

Both carried swords, neither bothered with a shield. They came up on a pair of kobolds and one of the sisters-Catti-brie wasn’t sure which was which! — struck out to the side, distracting the kobold in front of her sister, who then rolled around and dived back down behind the legs of the kobolds.

Ahead came the first dwarf with a vicious burst, and the kobolds, reflexively retreating, tripped over the now-kneeling dwarf behind them, and that dwarf popped up fast and powerfully as they pitched over, launching them up higher into the air. She turned, her back to the kobolds, her hand extended, and her sister took it and she yanked her sister by, launching her like a living missile into the receding mob. In came the other dwarf, and side by side the Fellhammer sisters worked as one, sword left up high, sword right down low, so that the kobold between that vise couldn’t duck, couldn’t jump and couldn’t block.

The leading dwarf turned and reached, and her sister took her hand and now it was her turn to fly into the throng, laughing all the while.

And the Fellhammer sisters caught up to Bruenor, and the three moved like intimate old friends, and fought like intimate old friends, who had trained together for all of their lives.

Like a field of tall wheat in front of the sweeping scythe, the kobolds fell all around them.

Behind Catti-brie and Connerad came the rest of the dwarves, turned by Bruenor’s daring charge, shamed now and determined to punish those monsters that had chased them off.

And determined to prove themselves worthy to their king.

There was an old saying in the Realms that “not a dwarf would-could fight like a dwarf angered, but not a dwarf would-could bite like a dwarf shamed.”

So it was then, to the great pain of the kobold clan, swept away in a living tidal wave of fury.

Surrounded now by a wall of dwarves, Catti-brie focused once more on the tendrils of the primordial that coursed around her. She sensed the building, concentrated living energy back among the kobold ranks, and understood it to be bits of living flame encased in a multitude of grenades.

The woman called to those flames through her ring, beckoning to them to awaken, to grow stronger, to extend their reach and break free from their tombs.

In heartbeats, popping noises resounded among the kobold ranks, tiny primordial flames bursting from their encasement, exploding in the midst of the kobold grenadiers.

In short order, the whole of the kobold horde was in full retreat, a huge magma elemental in close pursuit, and a host of tiny flames chasing after that beast in hungry pursuit of the kobold flesh they would bite and burn.