Dreams Beneath a Starfilled Sky

A/N: The creature is my own creation, but if it happens to exist in some other book, please inform me.
A/N2: I figured, too, that when a drow sees in the infrared spectrum, they cannot see normal colours.. Therefore, against things with heatsight, these things are invisible.

Chapter 7: Ghosts and shadows

When Catti-brie’s arrow slammed into the wall to his right, the flare of the explosion blinding him for a moment, Drizzt whirled around, just in time to see the human fit a second arrow and firing it as well. Fearful that his beloved might have gone mad, he carefully tightened his grip around the scimitars, decided that even if he would have to knock her unconscious, he would do so before she could do any harm to herself.
However, before he managed to act upon his decision, a thud, like that of a body striking a stone floor, sounded to his side. He spun around again, his eyes scanning the area behind him to see what had caused the sound, but, to his surprise, he could see nothing out of order. Carefully, he lowered himself to his knees, reaching out with a hand in the direction of the sound. His fingers brushed against sharp scales, and when he removed his hand, he could see the faint outline of heat from it upon the creature’s hide.
“You could see it?” he asked in surprise, turning to face Catti-brie.
She nodded.
“Aye. ‘Tis as brightly coloured as the elephants Pwent sees after havin’ taken too close a look ta Stumpet’s Holy Water,” she replied with a soft giggle.
“But there’s no heat.. None at all,” the drow muttered, turning his attention back the, to him, invisible beast and once more ran his hands over it.
Its hide was incredible thick, and was probably what had concealed it from his eyes. The beast itself seems to be most akin to a very broad, flat snake. It did not have any head – instead both eyes and a huge mouth sat at the end of the body. Upon touching the beast’s fangs, Drizzt could feel a liquid wet his fingers and, from the immediate sting, determined it to be poison, acid or a mixture of both. At least it was something he had no desire to get into his system.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered such a creature before.. Nor do I believe I’ve even heard of such one,” he slowly said, rising to his feet again and turned towards Catti-brie. “It looks like I’ll be needing your eyes, if there should be any more of those things around…”
Catti-brie gave a slight smile, nodded, and formed the drow hand-signal for ‘all clear’.
The black elf found it difficult not to laugh. He had long tried to teach Catti-brie the drow sign language, and though she had fought on with every single ounce of dwarven-inspired stubbornness, he had discovered that it was impossible to teach her more than the most basic words without teaching her the entire drow language. However, even those few phrases she had learned was often used, if nothing else, then to annoy Bruenor and Regis.
They started moving again, this time side by side, and both glancing this way and that on the lookout for more of the cold-skinned beasts. The tunnel continued its winded, twisted path, and though they checked every single side passage and –cave, they never came across any more than what they had found in the first chamber. And none of those caves bore any sign of having been used for sleeping or eating.
“I’ve never heard o’ yetis livin’ this far in a cave..,” Catti-brie nervously muttered, holding on tightly to Drizzt’s hand as the light had diminished so much she could not even see her hand when holding it in front of her face.
“Me neither,” Drizzt admitted. “I’ve heard that they sometimes venture deep into certain caves, but I don’t know for what reason. I didn’t pay much attention at that time…”