Robert Salvatore - Streams of Silver

“At least the moving’s easier,” Bruenor put in. “Get the logs together, and let’s move along. No figuring how many kin these three have stalking the area.”

“I have no desire to stay and count,” replied Wulfgar. He looked around, puzzled, and asked, “Where is Regis?”

It was the first time in the confusion of the fight that any of them noticed that the halfling had floated off. Bruenor started to call out, but Drizzt slapped a hand across his mouth.

“Listen,” he said.

The dwarf and Wulfgar held very still and listened in the direction that the drow was now intently staring. After a moment of adjustment, they heard the halfling’s quivering voice.

“…really is a beautiful stone,” they heard, and knew at once that Regis was using the pendant to get himself out of trouble.

The seriousness of the situation came clear immediately, for Drizzt had sorted out the blur of images that he saw through a line of trees, perhaps a hundred feet to the west. “Worm!” he whispered to his companions. “Huge beyond anything I have ever seen!” He indicated a tall tree to Wulfgar, then started on a flanking course around to the south, pulling the onyx statue out of his pack as he went, and calling for Guenhwyvar. They would need all the help they could get with this beast.

Dipping low in the water, Wulfgar eased his way up to the tree line and started shinning up a tree, the scene now clear before him. Bruenor followed him, but slipped between the trees, going even deeper into the bog, and came into position on the other side.

“There are more, too,” Regis bargained in a louder voice, hoping that his friends would hear and rescue him. He kept the hypnotizing ruby spinning on its chain. He didn’t think for a moment that the primitive monster understood him, but it seemed perplexed enough by the gem’s sparkles to refrain from gobbling him up, at least for the present. In truth, the magic of the ruby did little against the creature. Giant worms had no minds to speak of, and charms had no effect on them at all. But the huge worm, not really hungry and mesmerized by the dance of the light, allowed Regis to play through his game.

Drizzt came into position farther down the tree line, his bow now in hand, while Guenhwyvar stealthily slipped even farther around to the monster’s rear. Drizzt could see Wulfgar poised, high in the tree above Regis and ready to leap into action. The drow couldn’t see Bruenor, but he knew that the crafty dwarf would find a way to be effective.

Finally the worm tired of its game with the halfling and his spinning gem. A sudden sucking of air sizzled with acidic drool.

Recognizing the danger, Drizzt acted first, conjuring a globe of darkness around the halfling’s log. Regis, at first, thought the sudden blackness signified the end of his life, but when the cold water hit his face and then swallowed him up as he rolled limply from the log, he understood.

The globe confused the monster for a moment, but the beast spat a stream of its killing acid anyway, the wicked stuff sizzling as it hit the water and setting the log ablaze.

Wulfgar sprang from his high perch, launching himself through the air fearlessly and screaming, “Tempus!” his legs flung wide, but his arm cocked with the warhammer fully under control and ready to strike.

The worm lolled its head to the side to move away from the barbarian, but it didn’t react quite fast enough. Aegis-fang crunched through the side of its face, tearing through the purplish hide and twisting the outer rim of its maw, snapping through teeth and bone. Wulfgar had given all that he possibly could in that one mighty blow, and he could not imagine the enormity of his success as he slapped belly-first into the cold water, beneath the drow’s darkness.

Enraged by pain and suddenly more injured than it had ever been, the great worm issued a roar that split trees asunder and sent creatures of the moors scurrying for cover miles away. It rolled an arch along its fifty-foot length, up and down, in a continual splash that sent bursts of water high into the air.

Drizzt opened up, his fourth arrow nocked and ready before the first even reached its mark. The worm roared again in agony and spun on the drow, releasing a second stream of acid.

But the agile elf was gone long before the acid sizzled into the water where he had been standing.

Bruenor, meanwhile, had completely gone under the water, blindly stumbling toward the beast. Nearly ground into the mud by the worm’s frenzied gyrations, he came up just behind the curl of the monster. The breadth of its massive torso measured fully twice his height, but the dwarf didn’t hesitate, smacking his axe against the tough hide.

Guenhwyvar then sprang upon the monster’s back and ran up its length, finding a perch on its head. The cat’s clawed paws dug into the worm’s eyes before it even had time to react to the new attackers.

Drizzt plucked away, his quiver nearly empty and a dozen feathered shafts protruding from the worm’s maw and head. The beast decided to concentrate on Bruenor next, his vicious axe inflicting the most severe wounds. But before it could roll over onto the dwarf, Wulfgar emerged from the darkness and heaved his warhammer. Aegis-fang thudded into the maw again and the weakened bone cracked apart. Acidic blobs of blood and bone hissed into the bog and the worm roared a third time in agony and protest.

The friends did not relent. The drow’s arrows stung home in a continuous line. The cat’s claws raked deeper and deeper into the flesh. The dwarf’s axe chopped and hacked, sending pieces of hide floating away. And Wulfgar pounded away.

The giant worm reeled. It could not retaliate. In the wave of dizzying darkness that fast descended upon it, it was too busy merely holding to its stubborn balance. Its maw was broken wide open and one eye was out. The relentless beating of the dwarf and barbarian had blasted through its protective hide, and Bruenor growled in savage pleasure when his axe at last sank deep into exposed flesh.

A sudden spasm from the monster sent Guenhwyvar flying into the bog and knocked Bruenor and Wulfgar away. The friends didn’t even try to get back, aware that their task was completed. The worm trembled and twitched in its last efforts of life.

Then it toppled into the bog in a sleep that would outlast any it had ever known—the endless sleep of death.

The dissipating globe of darkness found Regis once again clinging to his log, which was now little more than a black cinder, and shaking his head. “We are beyond ourselves,” he sighed. “We cannot make it through.”

“Faith, Rumblebelly,” Bruenor comforted, sloshing through the water to join the halfling. “Tales we be making, for telling to our children’s children, and for others to tell when we’re no more!”

“You mean today, then?” Regis snipped. “Or perhaps we’ll live this day and be no more tomorrow.”

Bruenor laughed and grabbed hold of the log. “Not yet, me friend,” he assured Regis with an adventurous smile. “Not till me business is done!”

Drizzt, moving to retrieve his arrows, noted how heavily Wulfgar leaned upon the worm’s body. From a distance, he thought that the young barbarian was simply exhausted, but when he drew near, he began to suspect something more serious. Wulfgar clearly favored one leg in his pose, as though it, or perhaps his lower back, had been injured.

When Wulfgar saw the drow’s concerned look, he straightened stoically. “Let us move on,” he suggested, moving away toward Bruenor and Regis and doing his best to hide a limp.

Drizzt didn’t question him about it. The young man was made of stuff as hard as the tundra in midwinter, and too altruistic and proud to admit an injury when nothing could be gained by the admission. His friends couldn’t stop to wait for him to heal, and they certainly couldn’t carry him, so he would grimace away the pain and plod on.