I own neither the forgotten realms nor Inuyasha but a girl can dream right?

Chapter Two

"What could have done that to a giant?" a fastidious dwarf named Fret said as he watched the lady ranger Dove Falconhand poke the hole in the giant's throat with her sword. Dove and her band had been called to the town of Maldobar to deal with a drow threat only to find that they had arrived too late a family had already been killed by the dark elf. Though the rangers had their doubts that it was really the drow that had killed the family they agreed to track him. They even took on one of the townspeople a rather smelly man named Roddy McGristle.

"I don't know but whatever it was let's hope it's on our side." A whistle from above them and they looked up to see Kellindil the elven archer waving his arms around to get their attention

"More up here" he called "two goblins an uncommonly large wolf and a red skinned giant the likes of which I've never seen!" Dove nodded told Gabriel to stay there and headed up the path with Roddy and Fret. About half way up they came across the last man of their group Darda. He was short with the heavy muscles of a fighter. He was examining a bloodied plowshare propped against the mountainside.

"That's Thistledown's!" Roddy exclaimed "I seen it out back of his farm set for fixing!"

"But what is it doing here?" Dove murmured to herself trying to figure out the clues but they were too few so she threw her hands in the air and continued on. She entered the cave behind the elf Kellindil and upon viewing the carnage a few more things became clearer.

"Barghest Whelp!" Fret exclaimed when he saw the red skinned giant and the large wolf.

"Barghest?" Roddy asked also looking at the giant

"Of course" Fret nodded to himself "most likely the wolf as well that would explain its abnormal size" all but Roddy nodded at this all he could do was angrily repeat the word he hated being left out of a conversation he couldn't understand.

It was Fret who explained it for him "a creature from another plain of existence. Gehenna, I have heard. Barghest send their whelps to other plains to feed and grow" he paused here then said again "to feed" trying to lead the others down to the same conclusion he had reached.

"The half eaten woman at the barn." Dove said evenly all the others except Roddy had reached the same conclusion. Roddy however refused to believe that anyone but the Drow killed the family after all he had his revenge to see too. The others ignored him and continued to examine the whelp.

"The same thing that killed the giant killed the whelps as well but it was a blade that killed the two goblins at the entrance and that same blade caused some of the wounds on the Barghest wolf." They quickly gleaned all they could off of the bodies and it was decided that they should try to find some tracks in the ravine.

By the time the four had reached the bottom Gabriel had already found a trail. There were two sets of tracks one very petite most likely a female the other was the drow.

"Do you think it was the female that killed the three giants? Is she with the drow or tracking him the same as us?" Fret asked worriedly he really didn't like the idea of going up against something that can cause that kind of wound in a creature of that size. Dove just laughed ruefully and shook her head. Behind every answer seemed to be a thousand more questions.

Kagome and Drizzt ran through the night and by now Kagome had figured out that he was running from something but she couldn't ask him what it was and she hated not being able to help her friends. It was on the second night that she decided to do something about the communication problem so she sat him down and started pointing to things asking the names of them. It was in this way that they passed most of that night and when they woke up sometime in the late afternoon she insisted on learning more words. Drizzt enjoyed teaching her and was amazed at her memory once he told her the name for something she never forgot. It wouldn't be long before she could talk in full sentences. Already she could speak brokenly and he was enjoying having someone to talk to even if they couldn't always make themselves understood.

It was sometime in the middle of the third night that they saw the light of a campfire back the way they had come.

"They fallow?" Kagome spoke slowly and as precisely as her accent would allow. Drizzt nodded not taking his eyes from the firelight in the distance "You think they friends of Oni?" He looked down at her and shook his head

"It might be possible but I don't think so."

"Think they what you run from?" He swallowed thickly and nodded eyes downcast. Her continued good opinion of him mattered a great deal to him, and he was afraid that if she learned about the family and the part he played in their deaths she would be disgusted and leave him. She was the first person in the above world to make friends with him despite what he was.

"I am going to send Guenhwyvar to scout them out for us." She nodded as he took out the cat figurine and called the cat's name.

"Kuro too?" Drizzt smiled but shook his head.

"No let him sleep Guenhwyvar can handle it by herself." Kagome nodded Kuro was still a baby so he needed more sleep than Kirara had. He also couldn't carry people in his large form yet nor hold it for very long. But his larger size was impressive already he was larger than Kirara even though he still had some growing to do. So while Guenhwyvar ran toward the campfire Drizzt and Kagome sat down and continued her language lessons Kuro curled up in his mistresses lap purring contentedly as she ran her fingers through his fur.

Dove and Gabriel sat by their campfire trying to hold in their laughter as they listened to Fret bemoan the dirt on his clothes and vow that Dove would have to replace them. Roddy sat by himself across from them his back against a tree and his dog at his feet. He paid no mind to the others his mind occupied with paying the drow back for the loss of his other dog and ear.

"Drat and bebother!" Fret exclaimed as he threw the brush he had been using to clean his shirt to the ground.

"Shut yer mouth! Do ye mean to bring the drow upon us!" Roddy yelled stealing the group's mirth.

Gabriel glared at the mountain man but Dove realized that though it was rudely given advice it was sound. "Let us get some rest Gabriel before Kellindil and Darda come in and it is our turn for the watch. I expect tomorrow's road will be no less wearisome" She looked at Fret with a smile "and no less dirty than today's." Gabriel shrugged put his pipe in his mouth and his hands behind his back. This was the life he had chosen and he liked it for all that it could be rough.

Fret was far from comfortable with sleeping out of doors and he grumbled to himself as he searched for the least uncomfortable position he could find. Dove and Gabriel shared a small smile over Fret's grumbling while Roddy fumed about the unnecessary noise. Just as Fret was settling down a whistle sounded and Roddy's dog lifted his head the fur bristling and a growl sounding deep in his throat.

Dove, Gabriel, and Roddy were up and moving in a matter of seconds. Roddy pulling his dog with him out of the light and toward a boulder while the other two went in the direction the whistle had come from. They spoke briefly with him then split up to check the perimeter of the camp.

It was quickly discovered that the Drow's panther was sitting in the tree observing them. Roddy Dove and Gabriel waited patiently for Darda and Kellindil to circle around the cat so the trap could be sprung. It most likely would have worked to had Fret not chose that moment to come stumbling out of the campsite and into Roddy. As he fell he instinctively put his weaponless hand out to catch himself, and his dog taking it as a sign to attach jumped into action baying wildly as was a dogs want when it took to hunting.

Like a shot the panther was off running straight into the sight of the elf Kellindil who heard the chaos back the way Guenhwyvar had come and the shouts of Roddy to "kill the murderous thing" so came to the natural conclusion that either the cat or her companion had attached the camp. He let his arrow fly the enchanted thing burying itself within the cat as she rushed past. But then a moment later Doves voice rang above the melee behind him

"Do not! The cat has done nothing to earn our arrows!"

Kellindil rushed after the panther his heat sensitive vision picking up the trail of blood easily but he knew he couldn't catch up to the creature so turned his ire upon the one who misguided his shot.

"On your words I shot a animal undeserving of it. I will warn you once and only once! Never do so again!" Kellindil glared at the mountain man then stocked after the trail just because he couldn't catch her didn't mean he couldn't fallow her.

Roddy glowered angry with the elf for yelling at him that way but he knew he couldn't do much when all four of them would stand united against him so he turned toward the dwarf the one who had technically caused this with his inability to shut up.

"You'd best be learnin how to shut yer mouth when troubles near else you get us all killed!" With that he too stocked after the trail still angry but feeling a bit better for having yelled at the dwarf.

Guenhwyvar limped back to their camp just as the suns rays were touching the earth. Kagome gasped in shock at seeing the arrow sticking out of the poor cats flank. She immediately jumped up and rushed to her side examining the wound as she pulled out a small dagger to cut the bolt out with. As she swiftly dealt with the injury Drizzt looked on almost unsurprised buy the arrow. He should have known it would happen but he had been hoping that maybe he had been wrong and they weren't chasing him. A small flash of light brought him out of his musings Kagome had healed Guenhwyvar so he sent her back to her home on the astral plain.

"What now?"

"We keep going and hope to outrun them." Kagome sighed and put her hand on his shoulder giving it a little squeeze. She didn't know much of her new friend or the world he inhabited but she did know that her longed for a place to belong and it was something she could understand having felt such a longing herself when she was jumping between worlds but belonging to neither one fully. Perhaps she and Drizzt could find that place of belonging together that would be nice. Drizzt turned to her and she offered up a brilliant smile and he gave a small one back as a little of her cheerfulness seeped into him. Maybe it wasn't so bad at least he had a friend in the form of this strange human girl who wasn't afraid of him.