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passing miners gave him a curious sidelong glance.
Bruenor hunched even lower and quickly stepped away, realizing the effect
his sweating would have on his feeble disguise. By the time he reached the first
stair on the other side of the chasm, his face was fully streaked and parts of
his whiskers were showing their true hue.
Still, he thought he might make it. But halfway up the stair, disaster
struck. Concentrating more on hiding his face, Bruenor stumbled and bumped into
a duergar soldier standing two steps above him. Reflexively Bruenor looked up,
and his eyes met with the duergar's.
The dumbfounded stare of the gray dwarf told Bruenor beyond any doubt that
the ploy was over. The gray dwarf went for his sword, but Bruenor didn't have
time for a pitched battle. He drove his head between the duergar's knees -
shattering one kneecap with the remaining horn of his helmet - and heaved the
duergar behind him and down the stairs.
Bruenor glanced around. Few had noticed, and fights were commonplace among
the duergar ranks. Casually he started again up the stairs.
But the soldier was still conscious after he crashed to the floor and still
coherent enough to point a finger up to the tier and shout, "Stop 'im!"
Bruenor lost all hope of remaining inconspicuous. He pulled out his mithril
axe and tore along the tier toward the next stair. Cries of alarm sprang up
throughout the chasm. A general commotion of spilled wheelbarrows, the clanging
of weapons being drawn, and the thumping of booted feet closed in around
Bruenor. Just as he was about to turn onto the next stairway, two guards leaped
down in front of him.
"What's the trouble?" one of them cried, confused and not understanding that
the dwarf they now faced had been the cause of the commotion. In horror, the two
guards recognized Bruenor for what he was just as his axe tore the face off one
and he shoulder-blocked the other off the tier.
Then up the stairs he sprinted, only to reverse his tracks as a patrol
appeared at the top. Hundreds of gray dwarves rushed all about the undercity,
their focus increasing on Bruenor.
Bruenor found another stair and got to the second tier.
But he stopped there, trapped. A dozen duergar soldiers came at him from
both directions, their weapons drawn.
Bruenor scanned the area desperately. The tumult had brought more than a
hundred of the gray dwarves on the floor rushing over to, and up, the original
stair he had climbed.
A broad smile found the dwarf's face as he considered a desperate plan. He
looked again at the charging soldiers and knew that he had no choice. He saluted
the groups, adjusted his helmet and dropped suddenly from the tier, crashing
down into the crowd that had assembled on the tier below him. Without losing his
momentum, Bruenor continued his roll to the ledge, dropping along with several
unfortunate gray dwarves, onto another group on the floor.
Bruenor was up in a flash, chopping his way through. The surprised duergar
in the crowd climbed over each other to get out of the way of the wild dwarf and
his deadly axe, and in seconds, Bruenor was sprinting unhindered across the
floor.
Bruenor stopped and looked all around. Where could he go now? Dozens of
duergar stood between him and any of the exits from the undercity, and they grew
more organized with every second.
One soldier charged him, only to be chopped down in a single blow. "Come on,
then!" Bruenor shouted defiantly, figuring to take a fair share and more of the
duergar down with him. "Come on, as many as will! Know the rage of the true king
o' Mithril Hall!"
A crossbow quarrel clanked into his shield, taking a bit of the bluster out
of his boastings. More on instinct than conscious thought, the dwarf darted
suddenly for the single unguarded path - the roaring furnaces. He dropped the
mithril axe into his belt loop and never slowed. Fire hadn't harmed him on the
back of the falling dragon, and the warmth of the ashes he'd rubbed on his face
never seemed to touch his skin.
And once again, standing in the center of the open furnace, Bruenor found
himself impervious to the flames. He didn't have time to ponder this mystery and
could only guess the protection from fire to be a property of the magical armor
he had donned when he had first entered Mithril Hall.
But in truth, it was Drizzt's lost scimitar, neatly strapped under Bruenor's
pack and almost forgotten by the dwarf, that had once again saved him.
The fire hissed in protest and started to burn low when the magical blade
came in. But it roared back to life as Bruenor quickly started up the chimney.
He heard the shouts of the astonished duergar behind him, along with cries to
get the fire out. Then one voice rose above the others in a commanding tone.
"Smoke 'im!" it cried.
Rags were wetted and thrown into the blaze, and great bursts of billowing
gray smoke closed in around Bruenor. Soot filled his eyes and he could find no
breath, still he had no choice but to continue his ascent. Blindly he searched
for cracks into which he could wedge his stubby fingers and pulled himself along
with all of his strength.
He knew that he would surely die if he inhaled, but he had no breath left,
and his lungs cried out in pain.
Unexpectedly he found a hole in the wall and nearly fell in from his
momentum. A side tunnel? he wondered, astonished. He then remembered that all of
the chimneys of the undercity had been interconnected to aid in their cleaning.
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