Chapter thirteen:
His eyes focused on the red drop as it slowly fell down the wall, noticing that it left no trace in its wake. It had taken a long while for him to be able to banish the images of his friends as corpses, but, for reasons that remained unknown to him, he continued to see blood splattered on walls, ceilings and floors. At least, he thought, as his eyelids dropped to hide the sight, he could block that vision out. Only in absolute silence did he still hear the faint dripping, as he did now in the sleeping mine.
Feeling just a tiny twinge of fear, a lingering result from the days where he had thought the illusions to be true, he turned to his side and slid his hand over the mattress, feeling the cloth move lightly under his touch until they came in contact with warm skin.
As always, the tips of his fingers lightly brushed over her chest, taking comfort in the feel of her soft heartbeats, and he let out a soundless sigh of relief at the feel of life within her. He carefully shuffled closer, enveloping the resting female within his arms, and pulled her close.
Catti-brie stirred then, waking from her slumber. He could feel her eyes on him, before she gently touched his eyelids, as if trying to see the world the way he most often did.
"Ye still be seein' it..?" she softly asked, her voice easily drowning the ghostly sounds of blood falling.
The drow nodded slowly, feeling the woman carefully press her lips against his covered eyes, as if she was attempting to banish what he saw from his mind, before she curled up against him again. Soon, her breathing slowed, telling that she had fallen asleep again, and Drizzt carefully pulled her closer against him, trying to dispel the visions he saw by focusing on the feel of her touch.
After that faithful day where it had been the warmth and pulse of the woman that had made him realise he had not killed his friends, as he had believed, things had quickly escalated. He had been unable to sleep at night without nightmares, and they had only stopped when Catti-brie, in an attempt to let him rest, had spent the night near him. As it had been a success, and he had slept peacefully throughout the night, they had done the same the following night, and, not long after, brought the nights to contain more than just sleeping in the arms of each other.
A light smile briefly crossed his face as he recalled the fond memories, though even they could not banish the slowly, nagging feeling of dread within his stomach. When he looked upon the walls, seeing past the illusions his mind painted on them, he felt it as if they were closing in on him, trapping him in a room that seemed far too small.
Swallowing, feeling the need to get a mouthful of fresh air, the elf carefully extracted himself from Catti-brie, dressed in a simple shirt and breeches, and left the room behind.
Silence reigned within the quiet hallways, only the faint snoring of a dwarf or two breaking it when he passed by a door that contained an inhabited room. Yet, as he passed a small corridor, he caught sight of a figure out of the corner of his eye.
Turning his head, he felt his heart skip a beat, seeing nothing less than Bruenor lying, dead, in a pool of his own blood.
Taking a deep, rattling breath, the dark elf reminded himself that it was not true – that it could not be true. Resisting the urge to drop into despair, he willed his legs to carry him to the still figure, and brushed his fingers against the red beard, meeting nothing but empty air.
Feeling dizzy, realising that the ghostly image of the dwarven king did not vanish when he found it to be an illusion – as the illusions had done before – he felt the floor beneath him move slightly, and the need for fresh air grow stronger.
Fighting not to run, he walked, in a fast pace, down the remainder of the passages, gave a brief nod to the guards near the entrance, and passed through the heavy doors out of the mine and out to the vastness of Icewind Dale.
He walked a few paces, before turning his back against the stone and leaning his head against it, hoping the coolness of the night would help dispel his visions. His eyes closed, he took a few steadying breaths before opening them again, finding his gaze turned towards the stars.
For a while, he watched the twinkling lights, so high above his head, dwelling in the peace and calm that they offered despite the distance between him and them. No redness painted the clear sky, giving his mind a rare respite from the carnage and blood he saw everywhere else he looked.
He watched the stars turn and twinkle until his neck started to ache, unused to support his head in this position for a prolonged period of time, and then returned his gaze to the ground, mentally bracing himself for seeing the vast plains of Icewind Dale covered with the blood he saw.
However, the sight that greeted him when his eyes fell on the ground made him gasp and clutch the rock behind him for support. He had thought to see the usual blood, covering everything, and flowing from unseen sources, perhaps even a slain person or two. But, instead, he was greeted with nothing less than a massacre. Everywhere he looked, he saw people, many of which he knew, dead, beaten and mutilated lying on the ground or over the rocks that lay scattered across the plain.
Dwarves lay side by side with humans, elves near drow, and even creatures he had only caught glimpses of. Alustriel, the great sorceress, lay plopped up against a large rock, her stomach brutally guttered and her innards spilling over a dress that once had looked grand. Not far away, he spotted Kellindil, the elf's head only half-attached to his body, and, beside the dead friend, was Guenhwyvar.
A sob escaped Drizzt as he could see how the panther had been brutally cloven in two, and he turned his gaze from the sight of the three, only to find more of his age-old friends lying dead. Even Mooshie appeared, bearing the clear signs of having been slain by orcs, instead of having had the peaceful death from old age that Drizzt himself had witnessed.
His vision blurred, thankfully erasing most of the familiar features on many of the corpses, yet, they did not vanish. Staggering, clinging to the rocky wall for support, he stumbled back towards the dwarven mine, already dreading what his mind would convert the place he called home into….
