Thibbledorf Pwent felt the poison coursing through his veins. Wicked poison. Worse than spoilt Gutbuster, he lamented.
He had seen Bruenor’s victory and Bruenor’s fall, and for a moment, he thought he had to be satisfied in that, that he and his king had died gloriously. What more might a shield dwarf ever want? What greater honor for a battlerager?
But then a reminder, a distant cry.
“The bridge! The lever!”
Pwent saw Bruenor pull himself to his feet. He saw his king begin to crawl. To crawl!
Toward the bridge went Bruenor, one stubborn foot at a time.
But he couldn’t make it. He fell over. He tried to get back to his elbows, tried to crawl again, and when he couldn’t, he made to slither like a snake.
But he went nowhere.
And so it was Thibbledorf Pwent who had to call upon the greater powers of his heritage at that moment, who had to reach beyond his old and broken body. The battlerager pulled himself to his feet and staggered across the way. He nearly overbalanced and went right past Bruenor to pitch from the ledge.
But he caught himself, and caught up his king under the arms, hoisting him as much as he could and dragging Bruenor on toward that one small bridge that spanned the primordial’s hellish chasm.
All Drizzt wanted to do was get through that tunnel to the side of his dwarf friend. He was glad that Pwent had gone through, but it gave him little comfort as the tremors mounted. The pit fiend had gone through as well, and Bruenor had obviously not gotten to the lever.
Drizzt tried to fight his way to that entrance, but there always seemed an enemy in his path. His scimitars worked furiously in an overhand roll, overwhelming the nearest Ashmadai, but as that one fell aside, another was quick to the attack.
With a growl of frustration, Drizzt maneuvered to set that one up for the kill, as well.
Dahlia rushed up beside him—flew past him, actually, vaulting with her long staff. She landed and brought the staff forward, turning it to drive the Ashmadai to the side.
“Go!” she yelled to Drizzt.
He didn’t want to leave her, but Bruenor needed him. He sprinted into the tunnel and swung around to fend off any pursuit.
But there was only Dahlia, her back to him, blocking the way.
Drizzt rushed into the chamber. Debris lay all around the ledge—black rocks, some fast-cooling lava, a pair of morningstars, and so much blood. Before him lay the pit and its orange glow. The beast roiled, spitting rocks up above the ledge, some arcing back down into the pit, some bouncing onto the floor, smoking. Hardly looking to the side, the drow, mesmerized by the spectacle of the raging primordial, rushed to the ledge, fearing the worst.
He looked down into the very eye of chaos. Lines of fire erupted from the lava, reaching high. Rocks bubbled and spat forth, lifting up toward him. He had looked upon dragons, but the primordial, he knew, was something more.
Some movement broke him from his trance.
“Bruenor!” he started to yell, but it was not Bruenor. It was Athrogate, on a ledge, badly wounded and trying to cover as the rocks and fire spat up about him. Stubbornly, the dwarf managed to point up and to Drizzt’s right. Following that, Drizzt caught sight of his friends, both Bruenor and Pwent, crawling along the far side of a narrow arching bridge that spanned the divide.
He took a step that way—almost a step—then he saw the primordial leap up at him.
Drizzt flung himself aside as a column of lava leaped from the pit, rushing up through the room to disappear through the hole in the ceiling high above.
“Bruenor!” he screamed, blocking his ears against the roar of the beast.
He fell and covered his head with his hands as rocks and bits of hot lava rained across the ledge. It seemed to go on forever and ever, but in truth it was only a matter of heartbeats before the column dropped back down. Had Icingdeath not been in his hand, the dark elf would likely have been burned to cinders.
Drizzt scrambled to his feet, calling for the dwarf. The bridge was gone, blasted apart by the force of the eruption—but there were Bruenor and Pwent, across the way, holding each other and crawling together for an archway.
Doing his best to keep Icingdeath in his right hand, Drizzt pulled a cord from his pack, nimbly tying one end into a knot while still holding the frostbrand. He drew out an arrow, poked its head through that knot, and chanced sheathing Icingdeath to take up Taulmaril.
A flutter behind him alerted him at the last second and he dived aside into a roll, dropping his bow and drawing forth his blades as he came around. The danger had passed—for him—and he realized then that he had narrowly avoiding being knocked from the ledge by the attacker, a giant bat. The creature had clawed him as it passed, and Drizzt reached up to his temple to feel the hot wetness of blood.
Still confused, the drow watched the creature fly across the pit, and on the other side, right before the archway, it flopped over weirdly in mid-air and landed, no longer a bat but a man, staring back at Drizzt.
Cursing himself for his hesitance, Drizzt sheathed his blades and leaped back for his bow. He took up the arrow and knocked the rope aside, setting the missile and letting fly.
But the vampire was quicker, slipping under the archway, and the arrow hit nothing but stones, exploding in a shower of sparks.
“No, Bruenor, no,” Drizzt mouthed, grabbing up the rope, pulling forth another arrow and taking aim. He let fly high above the archway, the arrow driving hard into the wall, burrowing the rope deeply into the solid stone.
More commotion came from behind Drizzt, and he turned just in time to see Dahlia speeding his way.
“Dor’crae!” she yelled, and she dropped her staff to the floor as she charged right past Drizzt, yanking the rope from his hand and swinging across the open lava pit. She leaped off and landed in a run, disappearing under the archway.
Frantically, cursing with every movement, Drizzt fumbled for another length of rope. He glanced back as yet another figure entered the chamber, and how his eyes widened when he saw that it was Jarlaxle.
“How?” he asked.
The drow mercenary replied with a grin and brought his hand up to his mouth to flash the same ring he had given to Dahlia before the fight in the Cutlass.
“Get me across!” Drizzt yelled at him, not having the time to sort it out.
The room shook then, so violently that it threw Drizzt from his feet. Jarlaxle, though, managed to stay standing, and even collected a pair of morningstars lying on the floor. He held them up, his face a mask of puzzlement and horror.
“Athrogate?” Drizzt explained, and as if on cue, they heard the dwarf cry out from the pit below.
Jarlaxle tucked the morningstars into a magical bag as he sprinted to the ledge and looked down.
“Bruenor is across the way!” Drizzt yelled at him. “The lever!”
Jarlaxle turned to face him, the mercenary’s face twisted in pain.
“You cannot!” Drizzt cried.
“My friend, I must, as you must go to your Bruenor,” Jarlaxle replied with a shrug. He put his hand over his House Baenre emblem then, and with a tip of his cap to Drizzt, he hopped off the ledge.
Drizzt growled at the frustration, at the insanity of it all, and went back to his rope, knotting the end.
And the primordial roared, a column of lava once again leaping up from the pit, rushing skyward to the ceiling and beyond.
“Jarlaxle,” Drizzt wailed repeatedly, shaking his head, but he didn’t cover his ears against the roar of the volcano. Instead he kept working at the rope.
Dahlia rushed under the archway just in time to see Thibbledorf Pwent, his throat torn, tumble to the stone beside Bruenor. Gasping, the dwarf reached up, his hands clawing the air as he tried futilely and pitifully to grasp the vampire.
Dor’crae turned to face Dahlia, his face bright with Pwent’s blood.
“You wretched beast,” she said.
“You can leave this place and be redeemed,” Dor’crae replied. “What have you gained, my love?”
He finished abruptly as Dahlia leaped across the small room at him, all punches and kicks.
But just punches and kicks, for she had left Kozah’s Needle behind. As fine a fighter as Dahlia was, even unarmed, the supernaturally strong vampire had no trouble pinning her arms and spinning her around, slamming her into the wall.
“At last, I feast,” Dor’crae promised.
But then he froze in place, only his eyes widening.
“Does it hurt?” Dahlia asked him, poking her finger, tipped with the wooden spike from her ring, harder at his chest. “Tell me it hurts.”
Dor’crae’s head went back and he began shaking, and smoke began wafting from his skin.
Dahlia’s wooden stake stabbed at his heart again.
“Ah … me king,” she heard from the floor behind her, a voice gurgling with thick liquid, and she glanced back to see a bloody, strangely armored dwarf somehow rolling himself over to one elbow, his other arm coming across to grab at Bruenor Battlehammer.
Somehow, impossibly, Pwent got his knees under him and heaved Bruenor upward, then fell forward with him, right beside the lever. Like a loving father, Pwent lifted Bruenor’s hand, cupping it with his own, and set it against the angled pole.
“Me king,” Pwent said again, and it seemed the end of his strength. His head dropped down and he lay there very still.
“Me friend,” Bruenor answered, and with just a glance at Dahlia, the dwarf king summoned his strength and pulled.
Dor’crae was babbling for mercy the entire time, pleading with Dahlia to let him live, promising her that he would make everything all right for her with Sylora.
“You think I will let you fly away, when I am surely doomed?” Dahlia said, face to face, letting him see the absence of mercy in her freezing blue eyes. As if in response to her, perhaps, but surely to the reversed lever, the primordial roared again and the room lurched.
Dahlia tried to drive the wooden stake in harder, but the tremor stole her balance and the desperate Dor’crae managed to slip aside. Sorely wounded, the vampire wanted nothing more to do with Dahlia. Once more, he took the form of a bat.