the wall.” She snuggled closer, and Drizzt felt her shoulders bob a bit, as if she was stifling a sob. “What is it?” he asked and kissed her forehead. She shook her head. “It is me being a fool, and nothing more.” “You have seen much suffering this day.” “I have facilitated much suffering this day.” There it was, a frank admission, a feeling from the heart, and one that had Drizzt sucking in his breath. She had sounded so confident back in Icewind Dale, decrying the orcs and evil giantkind,

And a cloud passed over Drizzt’s face, enough so that Effron had heard, at that moment, all he needed. Appearing unsteady on his feet, the tiefling warlock slipped into the chair. Drizzt introduced his companions, even calling Wulfgar back to the table. “This is Catti-brie?” Effron asked at one point. “Truly?” “From the same forest as that in which we slept,” Drizzt tried to explain. “Returned to the world, as were we, from a long slumber.” Effron eyed the woman up and down, his expression

and every able-bodied man or woman to take up arms, and in patrolling the length of Sundabar’s walls, yelling at anyone who seemed less than perfectly vigilant. She was not of Sundabar, but had taken over the garrison at the request of King Firehelm when nearly all of his military officers had been killed in a tragic bombing. “They will come against us today!” Aleina shouted. “They come against us every day,” Giles muttered quietly. “Be quiet,” said his sister Karolina. “The Knight-Captain is

pony plodded along. But then the pony, a veteran of many battles, lifted its head and snorted on alert, and at the same moment Bruenor tugged back the reins and quickly tied them off, going for his axe. Wulfgar understood when the first orcs appeared, arrayed for battle and rushing out onto the path before them. Another was also on the move, in mid-air, actually, jumping down from a branch along the left-hand side of the trail, leaping for the driver of the wagon. But that driver knew it was

Mulmaster,” the drow replied. “And fear not, for I can navigate the streets of Mulmaster quite easily, I assure you. The place is known to me, and knows of me.” Once more, Ambergris and Afafrenfere glanced to each other for support. “And I’ve news and stories to share, and some to hear, I hope,” Jarlaxle added. The two paused and seemed hardly convinced. “If not Mulmaster, then know that you’ve erred,” the drow told them. “You would have been much better off disembarking in Procampur than at