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It was time for Drizzt to strike The drow had paused by the horses to view the outcome of the contest and also to better measure his enee, wanting to put on a grand show to cow a tribe of fearless warriors long enough for his friends to break free of the ring

No doubt, the barbarians had heard of the dark elves And no doubt, the tales they had heard were terrifying

Silently, Drizzt tied the two ponies behind the horses, thenbetween them, he stood tall and threw back the cowl of his cloak The dangerous glow in his lavender eyes sparkling wildly, he bolted thethe stunned barbarians closest to hie rose up fro to one of terror when they viewed the black skin Torlin and Valric turned to face the oncoh even they did not kno to deal with a legend personified

And Drizzt had a trick ready for them With a wave of his black hand, purple fla, but casting both the superstitious tribesmen into a horrified frenzy Torlin dropped to his knees, clasping his arround and began rolling in the dirt

Wulfgar took his cue Another surge of power through his arms snapped the leather bonds at his wrists He continued theboth of the guards beside hi them to their backs

Bruenor also understood his part He sto between hirasp his pained foot, Bruenor butted him in the head The man tumbled as easily as Whisper had back in Rat Alley in Luskan

"Huh, works as ithout the helis rerabbed both of them by the back of their collars and hoisted them easily onto the ponies

He was up then, too, beside Drizzt, and they charged through the other side of the camp It had all happened too quickly for any of the barbarians to ready a weapon or form any kind of defense

Drizzt wheeled his horse behind the ponies to protect the rear "Ride!" he yelled to his friends, slapping their mounts on the rump with the flat of his scih their escape was complete, but Drizzt knew that this had been the easy part The daas fast approaching, and in this up-and-down, unfamiliar terrain, the native barbarians could easily catch theed into the silence of pre-dawn, picking the straightest and easiest path to gain as round as possible Drizzt still kept an eye behind the the tribesmen to be fast on their trail But the commotion in the camp had died away alns of pursuit

Now only a single call could be heard, the rhythue that none of the travelers understood The look of dread on Wulfgar’s face made all of them pause "The powers of a shaman," the barbarian explained

Back in the ca of his people, chanting and dancing through the ulti the power of his tribe’s Spiritual Beast The appearance of the drow elf had completely unnerved the shaun and ran to his tent for the sacred leather satchel needed for the ritual, deciding that the spirit of the winged horse, the Pegasus, should deal with these intruders

Valric targeted Torlin as the recipient of the spirit’s fornity, hating the act, for it stripped hined to absolute obedience to his shaan, however, Valric knew that in his excite

Torlin shrieked and dropped to the ground, writhing in agony A gray cloud surrounded hi his features His face puffed and twisted, and suddenly spurted outward into the semblance of a horse’s head His torso, as well, trans not huths of the spirit of the Pegasus in Torlin, but the entity itself had co his body into its own likeness

Torlin was consued horse All in the tribe fell to their knees before it, even Valric, who could not face the iasus knew the shahts and understood its children’s needs Smoke fumed from the spirit’s nostrils and it rose into the air in pursuit of the escaping intruders

The friends had settled their h still swift, pace Free of their bonds, with the dawn breaking before them and no apparent pursuit behind them, they had eased up a bit Bruenor fiddled with his helh for hiar, so shaken a short tian to relax

Only Drizzt, ever wary, was not so easily convinced of their escape And it was the droho first sensed the approach of danger

In the dark cities, the black elves often dealt with otherworldly beings, and over the many centuries they had bred into their race a sensitivity for the ical emanations of such creatures Drizzt stopped his horse suddenly and wheeled about

"What do ye hear?" Bruenor asked hi about for so is there"

Before they could respond, the gray cloud rushed down from the sky and was upon them Their horses bucked and reared in uncontrollable terror and in the confusion none of the friends could sort out as happening The Pegasus then for felt a deathly chill penetrate his bones He screais, charged the ghostly for axe found only a cloud of smoke where the apparition had been Then, just as suddenly, the ghost was back, and Bruenor, too, felt the icy cold of its touch Tougher than the halfling, he ed to hold to his pony

"What?" he cried out vainly to Drizzt and Wulfgar

Aegis-fang whistled past hiasus was only sh the swirling cloud

In an instant, the spirit was back, swooping down upon Bruenor The dwarf’s pony spun down to the ground in a frantic effort to scra

"You cannot hit it!" Drizzt called after Wulfgar, ent rushing to the dwarf’s aid "It does not exist fully on this plane!"

Wulfgar’s ht and he struck as soon as Aegis-fang returned to his hands

But again he found only smoke, before his blow

"Then how?" he yelled to Drizzt, his eyes darting around to spot the first signs of the reforis was still down, lying pale and unh he had not been too badly injured in his pony’s fall, appeared dazed and shivering frorasped at a desperate plan He pulled the onyx statue of the panther frohost returned, attacking with renewed fury It descended upon Bruenor first, s "Damn ye back to the Abyss!" Bruenor roared in brave defiance

Rushing in, Wulfgar lost all sight of the dwarf, except for the head of his axe bursting harh the smoke

Then the barbarian’s ainst all efforts, to ar leaped froh the cloud before the ghost could refor both him and Bruenor out the other side of the smoky mantle They rolled away and looked back, only to find that the ghost had disappeared altogether again

Bruenor’s eyelids drooped heavily and his skin held a ghastly hue of blue, and for the first tiuar, too, had suffered the icy touch in his pass through the ghost, but he was still

"We can’t fight it!" Bruenor gasped through his chattering teeth "Here for a strike, it is, but gone e hit back!"

Wulfgar shook his head defiantly "There is a way!" he deh he had to concede the dwarf’s point "But my hammer cannot destroy clouds!"

Guenhwyvar appeared beside itsthe nemesis that threatened the drow

Drizzt understood the cat’s intentions "No!" he co that Guenhwyvar had done severalstone of a cru on a journey through the planes of existence Drizzt grabbed onto the panther’s thick coat

"Take host," he instructed "To its own plane, where "

The ghost appeared again as Drizzt and the cat faded into their own cloud

"Keep swinging!" Bruenor told his coet at ye!"

"Drizzt and the cat have gone!" Wulfgar cried

"To the land of the ghost," Bruenor explained

It took Drizzt a long s He had come into a place of different realities, a di, even his own skin, assuuishable only by a thin waver of black that outlined thes, and no discernible light sources to use as a guide And he found no footing, nothing tangible beneath him, nor could he even knohich as up or down Such concepts didn’t see outlines of the Pegasus as it jumped between planes, never fully in one place or the other He tried to approach it and found propulsion to be an act of thethe instructions of his will He stopped before the shifting lines, his et fully appeared

Then the outline of the Pegasus was coed his blade into the black waver that marked its form The line shifted and bent, and the outline of the scimitar shivered as well, for here even the properties of the steel blade took on a different coer and the scihost There cah Drizzt’s cut had disturbed the equilibriuhost’s line trear saw the shost shape "Drizzt!" he called out to Bruenor "He has host on even terh he knew that his own part in the fight had ended "The drow h for a hit!" Bruenor clutched at his sides, trying to hug the deathly cold out of his bones, and stuhost turned on Drizzt, but the sciain And Guenhwyvar ju into the black outline of its ene that it held no advantage against foes on its own plane Its only recourse was a retreat back to the ar waited

As soon as the cloud resuar felt a solid strike for just a moment, and knew that he had hit his host was back with Drizzt and Guenhwyvar, again facing their relentless stabs and rakes It shifted back again, and Wulfgar struck quickly Trapped with no retreat, the ghost took hits from both planes Every time it materialized before Drizzt, the drow noted that its outline came thinner and less resistant to his thrusts And every tiar, its density had diminished The friends had won, and Drizzt watched in satisfaction as the essence of the Pegasus slipped free of the rayness

"Take me home," the weary drow instructed Guenhwyvar A is

"He’ll live," Bruenor stated flatly at Drizzt’s inquiring look "More to faintin’ than to dying’d be ar, too, was hunched over a forht in a transformation soar explained He lifted his gaze back toward the barbarian camp "Valric is has done this The blood of Torlin soils his hands!"

"Torlin’s own choice, perhaps?" Drizzt offered

"Never!" Wulfgar insisted "When we e, my eyes looked upon honor He was a warrior He would never have allowed this!" He stepped away fro its mutilated remains emphasize the horror of the possession In the frozen pose of death, Torlin’s face had retained half the features of a host

"He was the son of their chieftain," Wulfgar explained "He could not refuse the demands of the shaman"

"He was brave to accept such a fate," Drizzt remarked

"Son of their chieftain?" snorted Bruenor "Seems we’ve put evento settle this score"

"As will I!" Wulfgar proclaih Eye!" he shouted into the distance, his calls echoing around the e seething in his features, as he declared grie Torlin’s dishonor"

Bruenor nodded his approval at the barbarian’s dedication to his principles

"An honorable task," Drizzt agreed, holding his blade out to the east, toward Longsaddle, the next stop along their journey "But one for another day"