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"Rest easy, wild dwarf," Drizzt laughed. "The verbeeg are all dead."
Bruenor spotted his friends and hopped down into the tunnel, soon followed by
the rest of the rowdy clan. "All dead!" the dwarf cried. "Damn ye, elf, I knew
ye'd keep all the play to yerself!"
"What about the reinforcements?" Wulfgar asked.
Bruenor chuckled wickedly. "Some faith, will ye, boy? They're lumped in a
common hole, though buryin's too good for 'em, I say! Only one's alive, a
miserable orc who'll breath only as long as 'e wags 'is stinkin' tongue!"
After the episode with the mirror, Drizzt was more than a little interested
in interrogating the orc. "Have you questioned him?" he asked Bruenor.
"Ah, he's mum to now," the dwarf replied. "But I've a few things should make
'im squeal!"
Drizzt knew better. Orcs were not loyal creatures, but under the enchantment
of a mage, torturing techniques weren't usually much good. They needed something
to counteract the magic, and Drizzt had a notion of what might work. "Go for
Regis," he instructed Bruenor. "The halfling can make the orc tell us everything
we want to know."
"Torturin'd be more fun," lamented Bruenor, but he, too, understood the
wisdom of the drow's suggestion. He was more than a bit curious - and worried -
about so many giants working together. And now with orcs beside them . . .
* * * * *
Drizzt and Wulfgar sat in the far corner of the small chamber, as far from
Bruenor and the other two dwarves as they could get. One of Bruenor's troops had
returned from Lonelywood with Regis that same night, and though they were all
exhausted from marching and fighting, they were too anxious about the impending
information to sleep. Regis and the captive orc had moved into the adjoining
room for a private conversation as soon as the halfling had gotten the prisoner
firmly under his control with his ruby pendant.
Bruenor busied himself preparing a new recipie - giant-brain stew - boiling
the wretched, foul-smelling ingredients right in a hollowed-out verbeeg skull.
"Use yer heads!" he had argued in response to Drizzt and Wulfgar's. expressions
of horror and disgust. "A barnyard goose tastes better 'an a wild one cause it
don't use its muscles. The same oughta hold true for a giant's brains!"
Drizzt and Wulfgar hadn't seen things quite the same way. They didn't want to
leave the area and miss anything that Regis might have to say, though, so they
huddled in the farthest corner of the room, carrying on a private conversation.
Bruenor strained to hear them, for they were talking of something that he had
more than a passing interest in.
"Half for the last one in the kitchen," Wulfgar insisted, "and half for the
cat."
"And you only get half for the one at the chasm," Drizzt retorted.
"Agreed," said Wulfgar. "And we split the one in the hall and Biggrin down
the middle?"
Drizzt nodded. "Then with all halves and shared kills added up, it's ten and
one-half for me and ten and one-half for you."
"And four for the cat," added Wulfgar.
"Four for the cat," Drizzt echoed. "Well fought, friend. You've held your own
up to now, but I've a feeling that we have a lot more fighting before us, and my
greater experience will win out in the end!"
"You grow old, good elf," Wulfgar teased, leaning back against the wall, the
