Do you understand?” Drizzt whispered to Guenhwyvar one day. Off to the side, Belwar was fast asleep, flat on his back on the stone, using a rock for a pillow. Drizzt shook his head in continued amazement when he studied the little figure. He was beginning to suspect that the deep gnomes carried their affinity with the earth a bit too far. “Go get him,” he prompted the cat Guenhwyvar lumbered over and plopped across the burrow-warden’s legs. Drizzt moved away into the shielding entrance of a tunnel to watch. Only a few minutes later, Belwar awoke with a snarl. “Magga cammara, panther!” the deep gnome growled. “Why must you always bed down on me, instead of beside me?” Guenhwyvar shifted slightly but let out only a deep sigh in response. “Magga cammara, cat!” Belwar roared again. He wiggled his toes frantically, trying futilely to keep the circulation going and dismiss the tingles that had already begun. “Away with you!” The burrow-warden propped himself up on one elbow and swung his hammer-hand at Guenhwyvar’s backside. Guenhwyvar sprang away in feigned flight, quicker than Belwar’s swat. But just as the burrow-warden relaxed, the panther cut back on its tracks, pivoted completely, and leaped atop Belwar, burying him and pinning him flat to the stone.

R.A. Salvatore