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Sround they stood upon, wafted by drearily and rolled around their feet By the angle of its roll, the way it fell away below theain in another cloud, the friends saw that they were on a narrow ledge, a bridge across soes, none more than a few feet wide, criss-crossed above and below them, and for what they could see, those were the only ays in the entire plane No solid land , spiraling bridges

The friends’ ht of the air The place itself, a diuished cries, exuded evil Vile, loolee at the unexpected appearance of such tasty ainst the perils of their oorld, found thee

"The Nine Hells?" Catti-brie whispered in a tiny voice, afraid that her words athering in the ever-present shadows

"Hades," Drizzt guessed, more schooled in the known planes "The doht beside his friends, his words rang out as distant, as had Catti-brie’s

Bruenor started to growl out a retort, but his voice faded ahen he looked at Catti-brie and Wulfgar, his children, or so he considered the he could possibly do to help thear looked to Drizzt for answers "How can we escape?" he pressed bluntly "Is there a door? Aback to our oorld?"

Drizzt shook his head He wanted to reassure theer This tih, the drow had no answers for theed creature, doglike, but with a face grotesquely and un a filthy talon in line with the barbarian’s shoulder

"Drop!" Catti-brie yelled to Wulfgar at the last possible second The barbarian didn’t question the command He fell to his face, and the creaturein ht turn, then it ca flesh

Catti-brie was ready for it this tiroup, she loosed an arrow It reached out lazily toward the ray streak instead of the usual silver The h, scorching a wicked hole in the dog fur and unbalancing theto right itself, and Bruenor chopped it down, dropping it in a spiraling descent into the gloom below them

The friends could hardly be pleased with the minor victory A hundred similar beasts flitted in and out of their vision above, below, and to the sides, er than the one Bruenor and Catti-brie had felled

"We can’t be staying here," Bruenor o, elf?"

Drizzt would have been just as content staying where they were, but he knew that ive theainst their dilemma Only the drow understood the depth of the horror they now faced Only Drizzt knew that wherever they ht travel on the dark plane, the situation would prove to be the same: no escape

"This way," he said after a moment of mock contemplation "If there is a door, I sense that it is this way" He took a step down the narrow bridge but stopped abruptly as the smoke heaved and swirled before him

Then it rose in front of him

Hulike head and long, three-fingered hands that ended in claws Taller even than Wulfgar, it towered over Drizzt "Chaos, dark elf?" it lisped in a guttural, foreign voice "Hades?"

Twinkle glowed eagerly in Drizzt’s hand, but his other blade, the one forged with ice-ic, nearly leaped out at the monster

"Err, you do," the creature croaked

Bruenor rushed up beside Drizzt "Get yerself back, derowled

"Not de the creature’s references and reht about the Planes during his years in the city of drow "Demodand"

Bruenor looked up at him curiously

"And not Hades," Drizzt explained "Tarterus"

"Good, dark elf," croaked the de of the lower planes are your people"

"Then you understand of the power of my people," Drizzt bluffed, "and you knoe repay even dehed, if that’s what it was, for it sounded e do not Far from home are you!" It reached a lazy hand toward Drizzt

Bruenor rushed by his friend "Moradin!" he cried, and he swiped at the demodand with his mithril axe The deh, and it easily dodged the blow, countering with a clubbing blow of its ar on his face farther down the bridge

The de dith its wicked claws

Twinkle cut the hand in half before it ever reached Bruenor

The demodand turned on Drizzt in ah no hint of pain rang out in its voice, "but better you must do!" It snapped the wounded hand out at Drizzt, and as he reflexively dodged it, the demodand sent its second hand out to finish the task of the first, cutting a triple line of gashes down the sprawled dwarf’s shoulder

"Blast and bebother!" Bruenor roared, getting back to his knees "Ye filthy, sli a second unsuccessful attack

Behind Drizzt, Catti-brie bobbed and ducked, trying to get a clear shot with Taul no rooe to ishly, his scih an uneven sequence Perhaps it was because of the weariness of a long night of fighting or the unusual weight of the air in the plane, but Catti-brie, looking on curiously, had never seen the drow so lackluster in his efforts

Still on his knees farther down the bridge, Bruenor swiped more with frustration than his customary lust for battle

Catti-brie understood It wasn’t weariness or the heavy air Hopelessness had befallen the friends

She looked to Wulfgar, to beg hiave her no co li dipped below the low-riding sht? How many of these wretched demodand would he be able to put down before hein a plane of unending battles? she wondered

Drizzt felt the despair most keenly For all the trials of his hard life, the drow had held faith for ultih he never dared to ad faith in his precious principles would bring hile that could only end in death, where one victory brought only more conflict

"Damn ye all!" Catti-brie cried She didn’t have a safe shot, but she fired anyway Her arrow razed a line of blood across Drizzt’s ariving Bruenor the chance to scramble back to Drizzt’s side

"Have ye lost yer fight, then?" Catti-brie scolded theirl," Bruenor replied so low at the deerly and started another attack, which Drizzt deflected

"Easy yerself, Bruenor Battlehaall to call yerself king o’ yer clan Ha! Garuhtin’ so!"

Bruenor turned a wicked glare on Catti-brie, his throat too choked for him to spit out a reply

Drizzt tried to s woman, was up to His lavender eyes lit up with the inner fire "Go to Wulfgar," he told Bruenor "Secure our backs and watch for attacks from above"

Drizzt eyed the dee in demeanor

"Coiven to that particular type of creature "Farastu," he taunted, "the least of the demodand kind Come and feel the cut of a drow’s blade"

Bruenor backed away fro Part of hier part, the side of hi references to his proud history, had a different ht, then!" he roared into the shadows of the endless chash for the whole damn world of ye!"

In seconds, Drizzt was fully in command His movements remained sloith the heaviness of the plane, but they were no less nificent He feinted and cut, sliced and parried, in harmony to offset every ar and Bruenor started in to help him, but stopped to watch the display

Catti-brie turned her gaze outward, plucking off a bowshot whenever a foul for smoke She took a quick bead on one body as it dropped froh above

She pulled Taulmaril away at the last second in absolute shock

"Regis!" she cried

The halfling ended his half-speed plu with a soft puff into the se a dozen yards across the eround against a wave of dizziness and disorientation

"Regis!" Catti-brie cried again "How did ye get yerself here?"

"I saw you in that awful hoop," the halfling explained "Thought you ot yerself thrown here, Rumblebelly," Bruenor replied

"Good to see you, too," Regis shot back, "but this time you are mistaken I came of my own choice" He held the pearltipped scepter up for the you this"

Truly Bruenor had been glad to see his little friend even before Regis had refuted his suspicion He ad under the smoky swirl

Another dee as Regis The halfling showed his friends the scepter again "Catch it," he begged, winding up to throw "This is your only chance to get out of here!" He mustered up his nerve - there would only be one chance - and heaved the scepter as powerfully as he could It spun end over end, tantalizingly slow in its journey toward the three sets of outstretched hands

It could not cut a swift enough path through the heavy air, though, and it lost its speed short of the bridge