Drizzt could only pray that he had appealed to the small part of rationale accessible in the enraged barbarian. The drow turned from the portal, tucking the scepter into his belt and slinging Taulmaril over his shoulder. Catti-brie was below him now, still falling, still unmoving.

Drizzt drew out both his scimitars. How long would it take him to pull Catti-brie to a bridge and find his way back to the portal? he wondered. Or would he, too, be caught in an endless, doomed, fall?

And how long could Wulfgar hold the gate open?

He brushed away the questions. He had no time to speculate on their answers.

The fires gleamed in his lavender eyes, Twinkle glowed in one hand, and he felt the urgings of his other blade, pleading for a demodand’s heart to bite.

With all the courage that had marked Drizzt Do’Urden’s existence coursing through his veins, and with all the fury of his perceptions of injustice focused on the fate of that beautiful and broken woman falling endlessly in a hopeless void, he dove into the gloom.

23. If Ever You Loved Catti-brie

Bruenor had come into Pook’s chambers cursing and swinging, and by the time his initial momentum had worn away, he was far across the room from the Taros Hoop and from the two hill giant eunuchs that Pook had on guard. The guildmaster was closest to the raging dwarf, looking at him more in curiosity than terror.

Bruenor paid Pook no mind whatsoever. He looked beyond the plump man, to a robed form sitting against a wall: the wizard who had banished Catti-brie to Tarterus.

Recognizing the murderous hate in the red-bearded dwarf’s eyes, LaValle rolled to his feet and scrambled through the door to his own room. His racing heart calmed when he heard the click of the door behind him, for it was a magic doorway with several holding and warding spells in place. He was safe—or so he thought.

Often wizards were blinded by their own considerable strength to other—less sophisticated, perhaps, but equally strong—forms of power. LaValle could not know the boiling cauldron that was Bruenor Battlehammer, and could not anticipate the brutality of the dwarf’s rage.

His surprise was complete when a mithril axe, like a bolt of his own lightning, sundered his magically barred door to kindling and the wild dwarf stormed in.

Wulfgar, oblivious to the surroundings and wanting only to return to Tarterus and Catti-brie, came through the Taros Hoop just as Bruenor exited the room. Drizzt’s call from across the planes, though, begging him to hold the portal open, could not be ignored. However the barbarian felt at that moment, for Catti-brie or Drizzt, he could not deny that his place was in guarding the mirror.

Still, the image of Catti-brie falling through the eternal gloom of that horrid place burned at his heart, and he wanted to spring right back through the Taros Hoop to rush to her aid.

Before the barbarian could decide whether to follow his heart or his thoughts, a huge fist slammed into the side of his head, dropping him to the floor. He flopped facedown between the tree trunk legs of two of Pook’s hill giants. It was a difficult way to enter a fight, but Wulfgar’s rage was every bit as intense as Bruenor’s.

The giants tried to drop their heavy feet on Wulfgar, but he was too agile for such a clumsy maneuver. He sprang up between them and slammed one square in the face with a huge fist. The giant stared blankly at Wulfgar for a long moment, disbelieving that a human could deliver such a punch, then it hopped backward weirdly and dropped limply to the floor.

Wulfgar spun on the other, shattering its nose with the butt end of Aegis-fang. The giant clutched its face in both hands and reeled. For it, the fight was already over.

Wulfgar couldn’t take the time to ask. He kicked the giant in the chest, launching it halfway across the room.

“Now, there is only me,” came a voice. Wulfgar looked across the room to the huge chair that served as the guildmaster’s throne, and to Pasha Pook, standing behind it.

Pook reached down behind the chair and pulled out a neatly concealed heavy crossbow, loaded and ready. “And I may be fat like those two,” Pook chuckled, “but I am not stupid.” He leveled the crossbow on the back of the chair.

Wulfgar glanced around. He was caught, fully, with no chance to dodge away.

But maybe he didn’t have to.

Wulfgar firmed his jaw and puffed out his chest. “Right here, then,” he said without flinching, tapping his finger over his heart. “Shoot me down.” He cast a glance over his shoulder, to where the image in the Taros Hoop now showed the shadows of gathering demodands. “And you defend the entrance to the plane of Tarterus.”

Pook eased his finger off the trigger.

If Wulfgar’s point had made an impression, it was driven home a second later when the clawed hand of a demodand reached through the portal and latched onto Wulfgar’s shoulder.

Drizzt moved as if swimming in his descent through the gloom, the pumping actions gaining him ground on Catti-brie. He was vulnerable, though, and he knew it.

So did a winged demodand watching him fall by.

The wretched creature hopped off its perch as soon as Drizzt had passed, flapping its wings at an awkward angle to gain momentum in its dive. Soon it was overtaking the drow, and it reached out its razor-sharp claws to tear at him as it passed.

Drizzt noticed the beast at the last moment. He twisted over wildly and spun about, trying to get out of the diving thing’s path and struggling to ready his scimitars.

He should have had no chance. It was the demodand’s environment, and it was a winged creature, more at home in flight than on the ground.

But Drizzt Do’Urden never played the odds.

The demodand strafed past, its wicked talons ripping yet another tear in Drizzt’s fine cloak. Twinkle, as steady as ever even in midfall, lopped off one of the creature’s wings. The demodand fluttered helplessly to the side and continued down in a tumble. It had no heart left for battle against the drow elf, and no wing left to catch him anyway.

Drizzt paid it no heed. His goal was in reach.

He caught Catti-brie in his arms, locking her tightly against his chest. She was cold, he noted grimly, but he knew that he had too far to go to even think about that. He wasn’t certain if the planar gate was still open, and he had no idea of how he could stop his eternal fall.

A solution came to him in the form of another winged demodand, one that cut an intercepting path at him and Catti-brie. The creature did not mean to attack yet, Drizzt could see; its route seemed more of a flyby, where it would pass under them to better inspect its foe.

Drizzt didn’t let the chance go. As the creature passed under, the dark elf snapped himself downward, extending to his limit with one blade-wielding hand. Not aimed to kill, the scimitar found its mark, digging into the creature’s backside. The demodand shrieked and dove away, pulling free of the blade.

Its momentum, though, had tugged Drizzt and Catti-brie along, angling their descent enough to line them up with one of the intersecting smoky bridges.

Drizzt twisted and turned to keep them in line, holding out his cloak with his free arm to catch a draft, or tucking it in tightly to lessen the drag. At the last moment, he spun himself under Catti-brie to shield her from the impact. With a heavy thud and a whoosh of smoke, they landed.

Drizzt crawled out and forced himself to his knees, trying to find his breath.

Catti-brie lay below him, pale and torn, a dozen wounds visible, most vividly the gash from the wererat’s quarrel. Blood soaked much of her clothing and matted her hair, but Drizzt’s heart did not drop at the gruesome sight, for he had noted one other event when they had plopped down.