from the monster's throat.
"Kill me then an' have done," laughed the giant, genuinely uncaring. The
monster's ease unnerved Drizzt. "I serve the master!" proclaimed the giant.
"Glory is to die for Akar Kessell!"
Wulfgar and Drizzt looked at each other uneasily. They had never seen or
heard of this kind of fanatical dedication in a verbeeg, and the sight disturbed
them. The primary fault of the verbeeg which had always kept then from gaining
dominance over the smaller races was their unwillingness to devote themselves
wholeheartedly to any cause and their inability to follow one leader:
"Who is Akar Kessell?" demanded Wulfgar.
The giant laughed evilly. "If friends o' the towns ye be, yell know soon
enough!"
"I thought you said that Biggrin was laird of this cave," said Drizzt.
"The cave," answered the giant. "And once a tribe. But Bpggrin follows the
master now."
"We've got trouble," Drizzt mumbled to Wulfgar. "Have you ever heard of a
verbeeg chieftain giving up its dominance to another without a fight?"
"I fear for the dwarves," said Wulfgar.
Drizzt turned back to the giant and decided to change the subject so that he
could extract some information more immediate to their situation. "What is at
the end of this tunnel?"
"Nothin'," said the verbeeg, too quickly. "Er, just a place for us t' sleep,
is all."
Loyal, but stupid, noted Drizzt. He turned to Wulfgar again. "We have to take
out Biggrin and any others in the cave who might be able to get back to warn
this Akar Kessell."
"What about this one?" asked Wulfgar. But the giant answered the question for
Drizzt. Delusions of glory pushed it to seek death in the wizard's service. It
tightened its muscles, ignoring the pain in its knee, and lunged at the
companions.
Aegis-fang smashed the verbeeg's collarbone and neck at the same time
Drizzt's scimitar was slipping through its ribs and Guenhwyvar was locking onto
its gut.
But the giant's death mask was a smile.
* * * * *
The corridor behind the back door of the dining room was unlit, and the
companions had to pull a torch from its sconce in the other corridor to take
with them. As they wound their way down the long tunnel, moving deeper and
deeper into the hill, they passed many small chambers, most empty, but some
holding crated stores of various sorts: foodstuffs, skins, and extra clubs and
spears. Drizzt surmised that Akar Kessell planned to use this cave as a home
base for his army.
The blackness was absolute for some distance and Wulfgar, lacking the
darkness vision of his elven companion, grew nervous as the torch began to burn
low. But then they came into a wide chamber, by far the largest they had seen,
and beyond its reaches, the tunnel spilled out into the open night.
"We have come to the front door," said Wulfgar. "And it's ajar. Do you
believe that Biggrin has left?"
"Sssh," hushed Drizzt. The drow thought that he had heard something in the
darkness on the far right. He motioned for Wulfgar to stay in the middle of the
