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drow's intentions at once, and he scrambled to regain his balance.
Again Drizzt was the quicker. The point of a scimitar nicked in under
Wulfgar's cheekbone, keeping him moving in the desired direction. As he neared
the portal, just when
Drizzt expected him to try some desperate maneuver, the drow drove a boot
under his shoulder and kicked him hard.
Betrayed, Wulfgar tumbled into Pasha Pook's central chamber. He ignored his
surroundings, grabbed at the Taros Hoop and shook it with all his strength.
"Traitor!" he yelled. "Never will I forget this, cursed drow!"
"Take your place!" Drizzt yelled back at him from across the planes. "Only
Wulfgar has the strength to hold the gate open and secure. Only Wulfgar! Hold
it, son of Beornegar. If you care for Drizzt Do'Urden, and if ever you loved
Catti-brie, hold the gate!"
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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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