Robert Salvatore: Passage to Dawn

Bruenor grabbed on all the harder, knowing he could not hurt the balor, but hoping he could keep the fiend in place long enough for his friends to strike. His hair singed and his eyes stung as the fiend's fires came up, but they were gone in an instant and Bruenor knew that Drizzt was nearby.

Errtu's whip cracked, slowing the drow's approach. Drizzt went in a complete spin to dodge, skidding down to one knee, and he stumbled as he tried to get back to his feet.

The whip cracked again, but it could do little to slow the progress of twirling Aegis-fang. The hammer caught the balor on the side, slamming Errtu back against the ice wall, and the fiend's respect for the man that had been his prisoner soared. Errtu had been hit by Aegis-fang once already, when Kierstaad had entered the fray, and so he understood the power of the weapon. But that first throw could not prepare Errtu for the power that was Wulfgar. Kierstaad's throw had stung him; Wulfgar's had truly hurt.

In came Drizzt, but the balor lashed out hard with his foot, tearing Bruenor from the crevice and launching the dwarf a dozen feet across the cave floor. The fiend used his magic to disappear immediately, and Drizzt went sliding into empty wall.

"Fools!" the balor bellowed from the cave's exit. "I will retrieve the crystal shard and meet with you again before you leave this sea. Know that you are doomed!"

Drizzt scrambled, Wulfgar tried to line up a parting shot, and even Bruenor worked hard to stagger back to his feet, but none of them would get to Errtu in time.

The fiend turned away from them and started to fly off, but his surprise was complete, his momentum fully halted, by a silver-streaking arrow that hit him right in the face.

Errtu howled and Wulfgar threw, the hammer smashing hard into the fiend, crushing bones.

Catti-brie let fly again, putting one right into his chest. The balor howled again and stumbled backward into the cave.

Bruenor hobbled toward him, catching his axe as Drizzt tossed it to him. He reversed his grip to add to the momentum of the throw and buried the many-notched blade deep into the fiend's backside.

Errtu howled and Catti-brie hit him again, right beside her last shot.

Drizzt was there, Twinkle striking hard. He plunged his other blade plunging deep into the fiend's side, right under Errtu's arm as the fiend tried to lift his own sword to fend off the drow. Then Wulfgar was there, pounding away beside his father. Catti-brie kept the exit blocked by a steady line of streaking arrows.

And Drizzt held on, leaving his gulping blade deep in the fiend's flesh, while Twinkle worked furiously, cutting wound after wound.

With a last burst of energy, Errtu turned about, throwing off Bruenor and Wulfgar, but not Drizzt. The mighty balor looked right into the drow's lavender eyes. Errtu was defeated-even then, the fiend could feel his corporeal form beginning to melt away-but this time, the balor meant to take Drizzt Do'Urden back to the abyss.

Up came the balor's sword and his free hand came across, accepting the sting as it connected with Twinkle, moving the blocking weapon aside.

Drizzt had no defense. He let go of his embedded scimitar and tried to fall away. Too late.

The lightning flared along the blade's edge as it slashed toward the drow's head.

A strong hand shot out before the horrified drow's eyes and caught the fiend by the wrist, somehow stopping the cut, somehow holding mighty Errtu at bay, the lightning weapon barely inches from the target. Errtu glanced across to see Wulfgar, mighty Wulfgar, teeth clenched and muscles standing out like steel cords. All the years of frustration were in that iron grip, all the horrors the young barbarian had known were transformed then into sheer hatred for the fiend.

There was no way that Wulfgar, or any man, could hold back Errtu, but Wulfgar denied that logic, that truth, with the stronger truth that he would not let Errtu hurt him anymore, would not let the fiend take Drizzt from his side.

Errtu shook his half-canine, half-ape head in disbelief. It could not be!

And yet it was. Wulfgar held him, and soon, the balor was gone, in a waft of smoke and a wail of protest.

The three friends fell together in a tearful hug, too overwhelmed to speak, to even stand, for many, many moments.

Catti-brie saw Regis stumbling his way over the ridge to the left of the cone. She saw Drizzt and Bruenor, leaning heavily on each other for support as they exited the cave. And she saw Kierstaad, being carried over the shoulder of …

Stumpet, with her spells of healing, had done much to bolster the woman, and so the dwarf was surprised when Catti-brie gave a stifled yelp and fell down her knees. The dwarven priestess looked to her with concern, then followed her blank stare across the way, recognizing the source immediately.

"Hey," Stumpet said, scratching her stubbly face, "is that. ." "Wulfgar," Catti-brie breathed.

Regis joined the four at the edge of the iceberg, and was similarly knocked off his feet when he saw who it was that they had rescued from the clutches of evil Errtu. The halfling squeaked repeatedly and launched himself into the barbarian's arms, and Wulfgar, on the slick ice and with Kierstaad on his shoulder, pitched over backward, nearly cracking his head.

The huge man didn't mind, though. Errtu and his wicked min-

ions were gone and now was the time for celebration!

Almost.

Drizzt searched frantically along the stretch of the iceberg in front of the cave entrance, cursing himself repeatedly for losing faith in himself and his friends. He questioned Regis, then called out to Catti-brie and Stumpet, but none of them had seen it.

The figurine that allowed the drow to call to Guenhwyvar was gone, swallowed up in the dark sea.

With Drizzt in such a fit, Bruenor surveyed the situation and quickly took command, setting the friends to work. The first order of business was to get Catti-brie and Stumpet back to them-and fast, for Drizzt, Bruenor, and Wulfgar were wet and fast freezing, and Kierstaad needed immediate attention from the cleric.

On the ice floe, Stumpet pulled a grappling hook and heavy line from her pack, and, with the practiced throw of a seasoned climber, put the hook on the iceberg barely ten feet from her companions. Bruenor secured it quickly, then went beside Wulfgar, who was already pulling hard to bring the floating ice to shore, and pulling all the harder as he looked upon Catti-brie, his love, the woman who was to be his wife all those years ago.

Drizzt was of little help. He knelt over the edge of the iceberg, put his scimitars into the water to try and illuminate it. "I need some protection so I can go down there!" the drow called to Stumpet, who was pulling on her end of the rope and trying to offer some words of comfort to the pained ranger.

Regis, standing beside Drizzt, shook his head knowingly. The halfling had put out a line of his own, weighted at the end. He had fifty feet of cord into the water and still had not felt bottom. Even if Stumpet could enact a spell to keep Drizzt warm and to allow him to breathe underwater, he could not go that deep for very long, and could not hope to find the black figurine in the dark water.

Catti-brie and Bruenor exchanged a quick hug at the shoreline-Stumpet went right to work on Kierstaad-and then the woman and Wulfgar squared off uncomfortably.

Truly the barbarian looked ragged, his blond hair flying wildly, his beard down to his chest, and a hollow look in his eyes. He was still huge, still so well-muscled, but a slackness had come into his limbs, more a loss of spirit than of girth, Catti-brie knew.

But it was Wulfgar, and whatever scars Errtu had put on him seemed irrelevant to the woman at that moment.