The Lone Drow

I erred, as I knew I would. Rationally, in those moments when I have been able to slip away from my anger, I have known for some time that my actions have bordered on recklessness, and that I would find my end out here on the mountain slopes.

Is that what I have desired all along, since the fall of Shallows? Do I seek the end of pain at the end of a spear?

There is so much more to this orc assault than we believed when first we encountered the two wayward and wounded dwarves from Citadel Fel-barr. The orcs have found organization and cooperation, at least to an extent that they save their sharpened swords for a common enemy. All the North is threatened, surely, especially Mithral Hall, and I would not be surprised to learn that the dwarves have already buttoned themselves up inside their dark halls, sealing their great doors against the assault of the overwhelming orc hordes.

Perhaps it is that realization, that these hordes threaten the place that for so long was my home, that so drives me on to strike against the raiders. Perhaps my actions are bringing some measure of discomfort to the invaders, and some level of assistance to the dwarves.

Or is that line of thinking merely justification? Can I admit that possibility to myself at least? Because in my heart I know that even if the orcs had retreated back to their holes after the fall of Shallows, I would not have turned back for Mithral Hall. I would have followed the orcs to the darkest places, scimitars high and ready, Guenhwyvar crouched beside me. I would have struck hard at them, as I do now, taking what little pleasure seems left in my life in the warmth of spilling orc blood.

How I hate them.

Or is it even them?

It is all too confusing to me. I strike hard and in my mind I see Bruenor atop the burning tower, tumbling to his death. I strike hard and in my mind I see Ellifain falling wounded across the room, slumping to her death.

I strike hard, and if I am lucky, I see nothing—nothing but the blur of the moment. As my instincts engulf my rational mind, I am at peace.

And yet, as those immediate needs retreat, as the orcs flee or fall dead, I often find unintended and unwelcome consequences.

What pain I have caused Guenhwyvar these last days! The panther comes to my call unerringly and fights as I instruct and as her instincts guide. I ask her to go against great foes, and there is no complaint. I hear her wounded cry as she writhes in the grip of a giant, but there is no accusation toward me buried within that wail. And when I call upon her again, after her rest in the Astral Plane, she is there, by my side, not judging, uncomplaining.

It is as it was in the Underdark those days after I walked out of Men-zoberranzan. She is my only contact to the humanity within me, the only window on my heart and soul. I know that I should be rid of her now, that I should hand her over to one more worthy, for I have no hope that I will survive this ordeal. How great it wounds me to think of the figurine that summons Guenhwyvar, the link to the astral spirit of the panther, in the clutches of an orc.

And yet, I find that I cannot make that trip to Mithral Hall to turn over the panther to the dwarves. I cannot walk this road without her, and it is a road I am unable to turn from.

I am weak, perhaps, or I am a fool. Whichever the case, I am not yet ready to stop this war I wage; I am not yet ready to abandon the warmth of spilled orc blood. These beasts have brought this pain upon me, and I will repay them a thousand thousand times over, until my scimitars slip from my weakened grasp and I fall dying to the stone.

I can only hope that Guenhwyvar has gone beyond the compulsion of the magic figurine, that she has found some free will against its pressure. I believe that she has, and that if an orc pries the figurine from my dead body and somehow discovers how to use it, he will bring to his side the instrument of his death.

That is my hope at least.

Perhaps it is another lie, another justification.

Perhaps I am lost in a web of such soft lies too deep to sift through.

I know only the pain of memory and the pleasure of the hunt. I will take that pleasure, to the end.

— Drizzt Do'Urden

CHAPTER 8 POSTURING

Drizzt stared hard at the elf who had just spoken his name. A flicker of recognition teased the drow, but it was nothing tangible, nothing he could hold onto.

"We have some salves that might help with your wound," the elf offered.

He took a step forward—and Drizzt backed away an equal step.

The elf stopped his approach and held up his hands.

"It has been many years," said the elf. "I am pleased to see that you are well."

Drizzt couldn't completely suppress his wince at the irony of that statement, for he felt anything but "well." The reference that he had met the elf before had his thoughts shifting away from that, however, as he tried hard to place the speaker. He had known few surface elves in his years out of the Underdark. Not many were in Ten-Towns, though Drizzt hadn't been close to many of the folk of the towns, anyway, preferring to spend his hours with the dwarves or out on the open tundra.

As soon as he thought of Ellifain, though, that poor troubled elf who had pursued him to the end of the world, and to the end of her life, Drizzt made the connection.

"You are of the Moonwood," he said.

The elf glanced at his female companion, bowed, and said "Tarathiel, at your service."

It all came flooding back to Drizzt then. Years before, on his journey back to the Underdark, he had traveled through the Moonwood and had met up with the clan of Ellifain. This elf, Tarathiel, had led him away, had even allowed him to ride on of the elf clan's fine horses for a bit. Their meeting had been brief and to the point, but they had left with mutual respect and a bit of trust.

"Forgive my poor memory," Drizzt replied.

He wanted to express his gratitude for Tarathiel's former generosity and to thank the pair for coming to his aid in the recent fight, but he stopped. Drizzt found that he simply did not want to begin that conversation. Did the pair know of Ellifain's pursuit of him and attack upon him? Could he tell them about Elli-fain's fate, slain at the end of the very scimitars Drizzt even then held at his sides?

"Well met again, Tarathiel," Drizzt said, somewhat curtly.

"And Innovindil," Tarathiel remarked, motioning to his beautiful and deadly partner.

Drizzt offered her a somewhat stiff bow.

"The orcs are fast returning," Innovindil remarked, for she alone had been looking around during the brief exchange. "Let us go somewhere that we might better speak of the past, and of the present danger that engulfs this region."

The two started off and motioned for Drizzt to hurry to keep up, but the drow did not.

"We cannot give our enemies a single target of pursuit," Drizzt said. "Perhaps our paths will meet again."

He gave another bow, slid his scimitars away, and rushed off in the opposite direction.

* * *

Tarathiel started after Drizzt and started to call out, but Innovindil caught him by the arm.

"Let him go," Innovindil whispered. "He is not ready to speak with us."

"I would know about Ellifain," Tarathiel protested.

"He knows of us now," Innovindil explained. "He will seek us out when he is ready."

"He should be warned of Ellifain at least."

Innovindil shrugged as if it didn't matter.

"Is she anywhere about?" she asked. "And if so, will her pursuit of Drizzt Do'Urden overrule all sensibility? The land is thick with more immediate enernies."

Tarathiel continued to look after the departing drow and still leaned that way, but he didn't pull away from Innovindil's insistent hold.

"He will seek us out, and soon enough," Innovindil promised.

"You sound as if you know him," Tarathiel remarked.

He turned to regard his companion, to find that she, too, was staring off in the direction of the departing drow.

Innovindil slowly nodded.

"Perhaps," she replied.

* * *

Urlgen Threefist watched the latest wave of his shock troops, goblins mostly, charging up the sloping stone ground, throwing themselves with abandon at the dwarven defenses. The orc leader ignored the sudden shift from battle cry to wail of agony, focusing his attention on the defenders of the high ground.

The dwarves moved with great precision, but their lines wove a bit more slowly now, the orc leader believed, as if their legs were growing weary. Urlgen's lip curled back from his tusked mouth in a wicked smile. They should be tired, he knew, for he would allow them no rest. By day, he hit them with his orc forces and by night, his goblin shock troops. Even in those hours of retreat and regroup, the dwarves could not rest, for their defenses were not fully in place.

Flashes to the right side of the dwarven line, ahead to Urlgen's left, drew the tall ore's attention. Once again the dwarves had anchored their line with a marvelous pair of warriors, a huge human, strong as a giant, and an archer woman whose magical bow had devastated the extreme of Urlgen's left flank on every attack. They were two of Shallows's survivors, Urlgen knew, for he remembered well those silvery lines of death—the shining magical arrows—and the barbarian who had inspired terror among his ranks back at the doomed town. The great warrior had held the center of Shallows's wall single-handedly, scattering the attackers with impunity. His fists struck as hard as iron weapons, and that hammer of his had swept orcs from the wall two or three at a time.

Urlgen noted that fewer of the goblins seemed anxious to come in from that angle. His force was more constricted toward the center and right.

But still that magical bow fired off shot after shot, and Urlgen had no doubt that the barbarian warrior would find enemies to slaughter.

Soon enough, the assault stalled, and the disorganized and overwhelmed goblins came running back down the stony slope. Perhaps as a sign of their growing exhaustion, the dwarves did not pursue nearly as far as on the previous attacks, and Urlgen took faith that he was wearing them down.

That notion had the tall orc looking back over his shoulder, back to the wide lands north of his position. Reports had come in of the great gathering of orc tribes. His father's ranks were swelling. But where were they?

Urlgen was torn about the implications of that question. On the one hand, he understood that he simply didn't have the numbers at his disposal to dislodge the dwarves, and so he wanted those hordes to come forth and help him to push the ugly creatures right off the cliff face and back into their filthy hole at Mithral Hall. But on the other hand, Urlgen wasn't overly thrilled at the prospect of being rescued by his arrogant father, and even less by the thought of Gerti Orelsdottr coming in with the large remaining force of her giants and devastating the dwarves before him.

Perhaps it would be better if things continued as they were, for more warriors were filtering into Urlgen's force every day. Despite the hundreds of orcs and goblins dead on the mountain slope, Urlgen's army was actually larger than when he had first cornered the dwarves.

He couldn't risk a straight-out charge to push the dwarves off.

But attrition was on his side.

* * *

She started to draw her bow, but the creature was too close. Always ready to improvise, Catti-brie just flipped the weapon in her hand, bringing it up high before her where she caught it by the end in both hands and swept it out, swatting the pesky goblin across the face.

The goblin stumbled backward but was hardly felled by the blow. At last seeing an apparent opening in the defenses of that terrible pair, it and its companions howled and charged the woman.

But Catti-brie had dropped her bow and drawn out Khazid'hea, and the sentient, fine-edged blade felt eager in her hands. She met the goblin charge with one of her own, slashing across, then stabbing ahead, once and again. Khazid'hea, nicknamed Cutter, lived up to its reputation, slicing through anything the goblins put in it way: spears, a feeble wooden shield, and more than one arm.

The goblin press continued forward, more out of momentum than any eagerness to engage the warrior, but Catti-brie did not back down. A backhand severed a spear tip before the thrusting weapon got close; a turn down had the overbalancing creature throwing its feet out behind it, but a sudden reverse brought Khazid'hea straight up, slicing the goblin's face in half.

Well done! the sword telepathically communicated.

"Glad to be of such service," Catti-brie muttered.

She forced the sword across, then slid out to the side, sensing a presence coming fast for her back.

With perfect timing, Wulfgar rushed past her and headlong into the front of the charging goblin group. Hardly slowing, he ran over the first two in line, kicking them aside as he passed, and swept another couple from out before him with mighty Aegis-fang. It was his turn to pause, and he did so, bringing his hammer around and up high so that Catti-brie could charge past under his upraised arms, Cutter stabbing repeatedly.

Within a matter of a few moments, the goblins understood their doom, and those closest to the powerful pair fell all over each other and trampled down those behind them in their frenzy to get away.

All the goblins were running then, from one end to the other along the dwarven line. Wulfgar gave pursuit, catching one by the back of the neck in one hand. With a growl, the barbarian put the creature up high, and when it tried to resist, when it tried to swing its club out behind at the man, Wulfgar gave it such a vicious shake that its lips flapped loudly and its body jerked wildly, so much so that its club went flying away. Then the goblin followed, as Wulfgar threw it high and far, and over the lip of the small ravine that marked the end of the dwarven line.

The barbarian turned around to see Catti-brie leveling Taulmaril, and he walked back to join the woman as she put a few shots out among the retreating goblins.

"My damned sword's complaining," Catti-brie said to him. "Wants to be out, fighting and killing enemies." She gave a chortle. "Killing enemies and friends alike, for all Cutter's caring!"

"I fear that it will get all that it desires and more," Wulfgar replied.

"The wretches don't even care that we're slaughtering them," said Catti-brie. "They're coming up here for no better reason than to keep us tired, and we're killing them one atop the next."

"And in the end, they will have this ridge," Wulfgar remarked.

He put his arm on Catti-brie's shoulder as he glanced back, drawing the woman's gaze with his own.

The dwarves were already clearing their wounded, loading them onto stretchers lashed to the rope ladders and sending them down the cliff face using blocks-and-tackle. Only the most grievously wounded of the dwarves were going, of course, since the tough warriors weren't easily to be taken out of battle, but still, more than a few went over the cliff, sliding down to waiting hands in Keeper's Dale.

Other dwarves who were leaving the battlefield had been lined up off to the side, and there was no hurry to evacuate that group, for they were beyond the help of any priests.

"With the enchanted quiver, I can keep shooting Heartseeker day and night," Catti-brie observed. "I'll not run short of arrows. Not like Banak's charges, though, for his line's to thin and thin. We'll be getting no help from below, for they're working hard to secure the lower halls and tunnels, the eastern gate, and Keeper's Dale."

"He would do well to have a quiver like yours," Wulfgar agreed, "only one that produces dwarf warriors instead of magical arrows."

Catti-brie barely managed a smile at the quip, and in looking at Wulfgar, she knew that he hadn't meant the statement humorously, anyway.

Already the stubborn dwarves were back to their other work, building the defensive positions and walls, but it seemed to Catti-brie that the hammers swung a bit more slowly.

The orcs and goblins were wearing them down.

The monsters didn't care for their dead.

* * *

He came to the lip of the huge boulder silently, on bare feet and with an easy and balanced stride. Drizzt went down to his belly to peer over and spotted the cave opening almost immediately.

As he lay there watching, the female elf walked into sight, leading a pega-s. The great steed had one wing tied up tight against its side, but that was no effort to hobble the winged horse, Drizzt knew, but rather some sort of sling. The creature's discomfort seemed minimal, though.

As Drizzt continued to watch, the sun sliding to the horizon behind him, the female elf began to brush the glistening white coat of the pegasus, and she began to sing softly, her voice carrying sweetly to Drizzt's ears.

It all seemed so … normal. So warm and quiet.

The other pegasus came into view then, and Drizzt ducked back a little bit as Tarathiel flew the creature down across the way, beyond his partner. As soon as the steed's hooves touched stone, Tarathiel dismounted with a graceful movement, putting his left leg over the saddle to the right before him, then turning sidesaddle and simply rolling over into a backward somersault. He landed in easy balance and moved to join his companion—who promptly tossed him a brush so that he could groom his mount.

Drizzt watched the pair for a bit longer with a mixture of bitterness and hope. For in them, he saw the promise of Ellifain, saw who she might have become, who she should have become. The unfairness of it all had the drow clenching his hands at his sides, had him gnashing his teeth, had him wanting nothing more than to run off right then and find more enemies to destroy.

The sun dipped lower and twilight descended over the land. Side by side, the two elves led their winged horses into the cave.

Drizzt rolled onto his back, marking the first twinkling stars of the evening. He rubbed his hands across his face and thought again of Ellifain, and thought again of Bruenor.

And he wondered once more what it was all about, what worth all the sacrifice had been, what value was to be found in his adherence to his moral codes. He knew that he should go right off for Mithral Hall, to find out which of his friends, if any, had survived the orc victory at Shallows.

But he could not bring himself to do that. Not now.

He knew, then, that he should crawl off his rock and go and speak with those elves, with Ellifain's people, to explain her end and express his sorrow.

But the thought of telling Tarathiel such grim news froze him where he lay.

He saw again the tower falling, saw again the death of his dearest friend.

The saddest day of Drizzt's life played out so clearly and began to pull him down into the darkness of despair. He rose from the boulder, then, and rushed off into the deepening gloom, running the mile or so to his own tiny cave shelter, and there he sat for a long while, holding the one-horned helmet he had retrieved from the ruins.

The sadness deepened as he turned that helmet in his hands. He felt the blackness rising up around him, grabbing at him, and he knew that it would swallow him and destroy him.

And so Drizzt used the only weapon he possessed against such despair. He wanted to bring in Guenhwy var, but he could not, for the panther had not rested long enough, given the wounds the giant had inflicted.

And so the Hunter went out alone into the dark of night to kill some enemies.

CHAPTER 9 WITH GRUUMSH WATCHING

King Obould built a wall of tough guards all around him as he made his way through the vast encampment at the ruins of Shallows. The great orc was tentative that day, for the ripples emanating from the murder of Achtel were still flowing out among the gathering and Obould had to wonder if that backlash would turn some of the tribes against him and his cause. The reactions of the orcs guarding the region's perimeter had been promising, at least, with several falling flat before Obould and groveling, which was always welcomed, and all the others bowing low and staying there, averting their eyes to the ground whenever they reverently answered the great orc king's questions. As one, the sentries had directed Obould to seek out Arganth Snarrl.

The spectacular shaman was not difficult to locate. With his wild clothing and feathered headdress, the cloak he had proffered from dead Achtel, and his continual gyrations, Arganth commanded the attention of all around him. Any trepidation Obould held that the charismatic shaman might pose some rivalry to him were dispelled almost immediately when he came in sight of the shaman. The shaman caught sight of Obould and fell flat to his face as completely and as surely as if he had been felled by a giant-thrown boulder.

"Obould Many-Arrows!" Arganth shrieked, and it was obvious that the shaman was literally crying with joy. "Obould! Obould! Obould!"

Around Arganth, all the other orcs similarly prostrated themselves and took up the glorious cry.

Obould looked to his personal guards curiously and returned their shrugs with a suddenly superior look. Yes, he was enjoying it! Perhaps, he mused, he should demand more from those closest around him..

"Are you Snarrl? Arganth Snarrl?" the king asked, moving up to tower over the still gyrating, facedown shaman.

"Obould speaks to me!" Arganth cried out. "The blessings of Gruumsh upon me!"

"Get up!" King Obould demanded.

When Arganth hesitated, he reached down, grabbed the shaman by the scruff of his neck and jerked him to his feet.

"We have awaited your arrival, great one," Arganth said at once, and he averted his eyes.

Obould, falling back off balance a bit, realizing then that such apparent overblown fealty could be naught but a prelude to an assassination, grabbed the shaman's chin and forced him to look up.

"We two will speak," he declared.

Arganth seemed to calm then, finally. His red-streaked eyes glanced around at the other prone orcs, then settled back to meet Obould's imposing stare.

"In my tent, great one?" he asked hopefully.

Obould released him and motioned for him to lead the way. He also motioned for his guards to stay on alert and to stay very close.

Arganth seemed a completely different creature when he and Obould were out of sight of the rest of the orcs.

"It is good that you have come, King Obould Many-Arrows," the shaman said, still holding a measure of reverence in his tone, but also an apparent inner strength—something that had been lacking outside. "The tribes are anxious now and ready to kill."

"You had a … problem," Obould remarked.

"Achtel did not believe, and so Achtel was murdered," said Arganth.

"Believe?"

"That Obould is Gruumsh and Gruumsh is Obould," Arganth boldly stated.

That put the orc king back on his heels. He narrowed his dark eyes and furrowed his prominent brow.

"I have seen this to be true," Arganth explained. "King Obould is great. King Obould was always great. King Obould is greater now, because the One-Eye will be one with him."

Obould's expression did not lose its aura of obvious skepticism.

"What sacrilege was done here by the dwarves!" Arganth exclaimed. "To use the idol!"

Obould nodded, beginning to catch on.

"They defiled and desecrated Gruumsh, and the One-Eye is not pleased!" Arganth proclaimed, his voice rising and beginning to crack into a high-pitched squeal. "The One-Eye will exact vengeance upon them all! He will crush them beneath his boot! He will cleave them with his greatsword! He will chew out their throats and leave them gasping in the dirt!"

Obould continued to stare and even brought his hand up in a wave to try to calm the increasingly animated shaman.

"His boot," Arganth explained, pointing to Obould's feet. "His greatsword," the shaman went on, pointing to the massive weapon strapped across Obould's strong back. "Obould is the tool of Gruumsh. Obould is Gruumsh. Gruumsh is Obould! I have seen this!"

Obould's large and ugly head tilted as he scrutinized the shaman, seeking even the slightest clue that Arganth was taunting him.

"Achtel did not accept this truth," Arganth went on. "Gruumsh did not protect her when the angry drow arrived. The others, they all accept and know that Obould is Gruumsh, I have done this for you, my king … my god."

The great orc king's suspicious look melted into a wide and wicked grin.

"And what does Arganth want in return for his service to Obould?"

"Dwarf heads!" the shaman cried without the slightest hesitation. "They must die. All of them! King Obould will do this."

"Yes," Obould mused. "Yes."

"Will you accept the blessings of Gruumsh, delivered through the hand of Arganth and the other gathered shamans?" the orc priest asked, and he seemed to shrink down a bit lower as he dared ask anything of Obould, his gaze locked on the floor.

"What blessings?"

"You are great, Obould!" Arganth shrieked in terror, though there was no overt accusation in Obould's questioning tone.

"Yes, Obould is great," Obould replied. "What blessings?"

Arganth's bloodshot eyes sparkled as he answered, "To Obould we give the strength of the bull and the quickness of the cat. To Obould we give great power. Gruumsh will grant this. I have seen it."

"Such spells are not uncommon," Obould answered sharply. "I would demand no less from—"

"No spell!" Arganth interrupted, and he nearly fainted dead away when he realized that he had done so. He paused for along moment, apparently hoping that the great orc would not crush him. "A spell to give, yes, but forevermore. Obould is Gruumsh. Obould will be strong—stronger!" he quickly and enthusiastically added when the scowl began to spread over Obould's ugly face. "The god-blessing of Gruumsh is a rare and beautiful gift," Arganth explained. "Not in a hundred years has it been granted, but to you, great Obould, it will be. I have seen this. Will you accept and join us in ceremony?"

Obould stared long and hard at the shaman, having no idea what he might be referring to. He had never heard of any "god-blessing of Gruumsh" before. But he could tell that Arganth was afraid and full of sincere respect. The priests had always favored Obould before. Why should they not when he made every conquest with his obligatory dedication to the great One-Eye?

"Obould will accept," he told Arganth, and the shaman nearly did a back flip in his excitement.

Obould was quick to sober him, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him easily right from the ground, then pulling him in close so that he could smell the king's hot breath.

"If I am disappointed, Arganth, I will stake you to a wall and I will eat you, starting at your fingers and working my way up your arm."

Arganth nearly fainted dead away again, for it was often rumored that Obould had done just that to other orcs on several occasions.

"Do not disappoint me."

The shaman's response might have been a "yes," or might have been a "no." It didn't really matter to Obould, for the mere tone of it, a simple and pitiful squeak, confirmed all the orc king needed to know.

* * *

"Am I doing them honor?" Drizzt asked Guenhwyvar.

He sat on the boulder that formed half of his new home, rolling the one-horned helmet of Bruenor over in his delicate fingers. Guenhwyvar lay beside him, right up against him, staring out over the mountainous terrain. The wind blew strongly in their faces that evening and carried a bit of a chill

"I know that I escape my pain when we are in battle," the drow went on.

His gaze drifted past the helmet to the distant mountains. He was speaking more to himself than to the cat, as if Guenhwyvar was really a conduit to his own conscience.

Which of course, she had always been.

"As I focus on the task at hand, I forget the loss—it is a moment of freedom. And I know that our work here is important to the dwarves of Mithral Hall. If we keep the orcs off-balance, if we make them fear to come out of their mountain holes, the press against our friends should lessen."

It all made perfect sense of course, but to Drizzt, the words still sounded somewhat shallow, somewhat of a rationalization. For he knew beneath the surface that he should not have stayed out there, not immediately, that despite the obvious signs that none had escaped, he should have gone straightaway from Shallows to Mithral Hall. He should have gone for his own sensibilities, to confirm whether or not any of his dear friends had escaped the onslaught, and he should have gone for the sake of the surviving dwarves of Clan Battlehammer, to bear witness to the fall of their king and to coordinate his subsequent movements with their own defenses.

The drow dismissed his guilt with a long sigh. Likely the dwarves had buttoned up the hall behind their great doors of iron and stone. The orcs would bring great turmoil to the North, no doubt, particularly to the myriad little towns that dotted the land, but Drizzt doubted that the humanoids would pose much of a real threat to Mithral Hall itself, even with the loss of King Bruenor. The dark elves of Menzoberranzan had attempted to wage such a war, after all, and with far greater resources and greater access through the many Underdark tunnels, and they had failed miserably. Bruenor's people were a resilient and organized force, indeed.

"I miss them, Guenhwyvar," the drow whispered, and the panther perked up at the resumption of talk, turning her wide face and soft eyes over her friend. "Of course I knew this could happen—we all knew it. In fact, I expected it. Too many narrow escapes and too many lucky breaks. It had to end, and in this type of a fall. But I always figured that I would be the first to fall, not the last, that the others would witness my demise, and not I, theirs."

He closed his eyes and saw again the fall of Bruenor, that terrible image burned indelibly into his mind. And again he saw the fall of Ellifain, and in many ways, that faraway battle wounded him even more deeply. For the fall of Bruenor brought him personal pain, but it was in accordance with those principles that had so guided Drizzt for all of his life. To die in defense of friend and community was not so bad a thing, he believed, and while the disaster at Shallows wounded his heart, the disaster along the Sword Coast, in the lair of Sheila Kree, wounded more, wounded the very foundation of his beliefs. Every memory of the fall of Ellifain brought Drizzt back to that terrible day in his youth, when he had first ventured onto the surface along with a raiding party that had attacked and slaughtered a group of innocent surface elves. That had been the first real trial, the first life-and-death trial, of his principles that Drizzt Do'Urden had ever faced. That fateful night so long ago, his first night under the stars, had changed Drizzt's perceptions indelibly. That fateful night had indeed been the beginning of the end of his existence in Menzoberranzan, the moment when Drizzt Do'Urden had truly come to see the evil of his people, an evil beyond redemption, beyond tolerance, beyond anything Drizzt could hope to combat.

Zaknafein had nearly killed him for that wretched surface raid, until he had learned that Drizzt had not really partaken of the killings and had even deceived his companions and the Spider Queen herself by allowing the elf child to live.

How it had pained Drizzt those years before, when he had ventured through the Moonwood to happen upon Ellifain and her people, only to find the grown elf child out of her mind with rage and so obviously distorted.

And in the battle along the Sword Coast, for him to inadvertently slay her!

On so many levels, it seemed to Drizzt that Ellifain's death had mocked his principles and had made so much of his life, not a lie, but a fool's errand.

The drow rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped one atop Guenhwyvar, who had lain her head upon his leg by then, and was breathing slowly and rhythmically. Drizzt enjoyed those moments with Guenhwyvar, when they were not engaged in battle, when they could just rest and enjoy the temporary peace and the mountain breezes. The instincts of the Hunter understood that he should dismiss the cat, to allow her to rest in her Astral home. For she would be needed more desperately when orcs and giants were about.

But Drizzt, and not the Hunter, so torn and internally battling at that moment, could not listen to that pragmatic alter ego.

He closed his eyes and thought of his friends—and not of their fall. He saw again the uncomplicated Regis on the banks of Maer Dualdon, his fishing line stretched out to the dark waters before him. He knew that the hook wasn't baited, and that the line was nothing more than an excuse to simply relax.

He saw again Bruenor, grumping about the caves surrounding Kelvin's Cairn, shouting orders and banging his fists—and all the while winking at Drizzt to let him know that the gruff facade was just that.

He saw again the young boy that was Wulfgar, growing under the tutelage of both Drizzt and Bruenor. He remembered the fight in the verbeeg lair, when he and Wulfgar had charged in headlong against a complex full of powerful enemies. He remembered the battle with Icingdeath in the ice cave, when a clever and lucky Wulfgar had brought down the icicle roof to defeat the dragon.

He saw again Catti-brie, the young girl who had first greeted him on the slopes of Kelvin's Cairn. The young woman who had first shown him the truth of his life on the surface, in a faraway southern desert. The woman who had stayed beside him, through all his doubts and all his fears, through all his mistakes and all his triumphs. When he had foolishly returned to Menzoberran-zan in an effort to free his friends of the shackles of his legacy, Catti-brie had braved the Underdark to rescue him from the drow and from himself. She was his conscience and always told him when she thought he was wrong, but more than that, she was his friend and never really judged him. With a gentle touch, she could take away the shivers of doubt and fear. With a glance from those enticing blue eyes, she could look into his soul and see the truth of his emotions, busting any facade he might have painted upon his face. With a kiss on his cheek, she could remind him that he had his friends around him, always and evermore, and that in light of those friends, nothing could truly wound him.

In light of those friends….

That last thought had Drizzt's head slumping to his hands, had his breath coming in shorter, forced gasps, and had his shoulders bobbing with sobs. He felt himself sinking into a grief beyond anything he had ever known, felt himself falling into a dark and empty pit, where he was helpless.

Always and evermore? Ellifain? Were those the lies of Drizzt Do'Urden's life?

He saw Zaknafein fall into the acid. He saw Withegroo's tower, that awful tower, crumble to dust and flames.

He fell deeper, and he knew only one way to climb out of that pit.

"Come, Guenhwyvar," the Hunter said to the panther.

He rose on steady legs, and with steady hands, he drew forth his scimitars. The Hunter's eyes scanned the distance, moving below the twinkling stars and their invitation to painful introspection to the flickers of campfires and the promise of battle.

The promise of revenge.

Against the orcs.

Against the lies.

Against the pain.

* * *

Thousands of orcs gathered around the broken statue of Gruumsh One-Eye one dark night, staying respectfully back as they had been instructed by their respective spiritual leaders. They whispered among themselves and bullied for position that they might witness the miraculous event. Those scuffles were kept to a minimum, though, for the shamans had promised that any who distracted the proceedings would be offered as sacrifice to Gruumsh. To back up their threat, the shamans had more than a dozen unfortunate orcs already in custody, allegedly for crimes committed out on the battlefield.

Gerti Orelsdottr was there that night as well, along with nearly a hundred of her frost giant kin. She kept her enclave even farther back from the statue, wanting to witness the supposed miracle that had the orcs in such a state of frenzy, but not wanting to give it too much credence by the weight of her immediate presence.

"Detached amusement," she had instructed her kin. "Watch it with little outward concern and detached amusement."

Another two sets of eyes were also witnessing the event. Kaer'lic Suun Wett and Tos'un Armgo at first remained near to Gerti's group—and indeed had met with the frost giantess earlier in the evening—but soon they inched closer, the drow cleric in particular wanting to get a better view.

The call for silence went out from those shamans near to the statue, and those orcs who did not immediately obey were quickly warned, usually at the end of a spear tip and often with a painful prod, by the many soldiers of Obould who were scattered throughout the throng.

Many shamans, Tos'un communicated to Kaer'lic, using the silent drow language of intricate hand movements.

A great communal spell, Kaer'lic explained. It is not so uncommon a thing among the drow, but rarely have I heard of the lesser races employing such a tactic. Perhaps this ceremony is as important as the orcs have hinted.

Their powers are not great! Tos'un argued, emphatically grabbing his thumb at the end of his statement.

Individually, no, Kaer'lic agreed. But do not underestimate the power of shamans joined. Nor the power of the orc god. Gruumsh has heard their call, perhaps.

Kaer'lic smiled as she noted Tos'un shift uncomfortably, his hands sliding near to the twin weapons he had sheathed on his hips.

Kaer'lic was not nearly as concerned. She knew Obould's designs, and she understood that those designs were not so different from her own or those of her companions or those of Gerti. This would not be a ceremony that turned the orcs against their allies, she was certain.

Her thoughts were cut short as a figure dramatically appeared atop the ruined idol of the orc god. Wearing dead Achtel's red robes and his typical ceremonial headdress, Arganth Snarrl leaped up to the highest point on the broken statue and thrust his arms up high, a burning torch in each hand, flames dancing in the night wind. His face was painted in reds and whites and a dozen toothy bracelets dangled from each arm.

He gave a sudden shrill cry and thrust his arms even higher, and two dozen other torches soon flared to life, in a ring around the statue.

Kaer'lic carefully eyed the holders of these lower torches, shamans all, and painted and decorated garishly to an orc. The drow had never seen so many orc shamans in one place, and given the typical stupidity of the brutish race, she was surprised that so many were even clever enough to assume that mantle!

Up on the statue, Arganth began to slowly turn around. In response, those shamans on the ground began to move slowly around the perimeter of the statue, each turning small circles within the march around the larger circle. Gradually Arganth began to increase the pace of his turn, and those below similarly began to move faster, both in their own circles and in their larger march. That march became more animated with each step, becoming more of a dance. Torches bobbed and swayed erratically.

It went on for many minutes, the shamans not seeming to tire in the least— and that alone told perceptive Kaer'lic that there was some magic afoot. The drow priestess narrowed her eyes and began scrutinizing more closely.

Finally, Arganth stopped all of a sudden, and those below stopped at precisely the same moment, simply freezing in place.

Kaer'lic sucked in her breath—only a heightened state of communion could have so coordinated that movement. With the synchronicity of a practiced dance team—which of course they were not, for the shamans were not even of the same tribes, for the most part, and hadn't even known each other for more than a few days—the group swayed and rotated, gradually coming to stand straight, torches held high and steady.

And Obould appeared. As one, the crowd, including Kaer'lic and her drow associate, including Gerti and her hundred giants, gasped.

The orc king was naked, his muscular frame painted in bright colors, red and white and yellow. His eyes had been lined in white, exaggerating them so that it seemed to every onlooker as if Obould was scrutinizing him specifically, and the crowd reflexively shrank back.

As she collected her wits about her, Kaer'lic realized how extraordinary the ceremony truly was, for Obould was not wearing his magnificent masterwork armor. The orc king had allowed himself to be vulnerable, though he hardly appeared helpless. His torso rippled with every stride, and his limbs seemed almost as if his muscles were stretched too tightly, the sinewy cords standing taut and straight. In many ways, the powerful orc seemed every bit as imposing as if he had been fully armed and armored. His face contorted as his mouth stretched in a wide and threatening growl, as his intensity heightened so that it seemed as if his mortal coil could not contain it.

Up above, Arganth dropped one torch to the horizontal, then swept it before him. The first orc prisoner was dragged out before Obould and forced to his knees by the escorting guard.

The creature whined pitifully, but its squeals were quickly drowned out by the shamans, who began chanting the name of their god. That chant moved outward, to encompass the front ranks of the crowd, and continued to spread back through all the gathering until thousands of orc voices joined in the call to Gru-umsh. So hypnotic was it that even Kaer'lic caught herself mouthing the name. The drow glanced around nervously, hoping that Tos'un had not seen, then she smiled to see him similarly whispering to the orc god. She gave him a sharp elbow to remind him of who he was.

Kaer'lic looked back to the spectacle just as Arganth shrieked and brought his two torches in a fast and definitive cross before him, and the crowd went suddenly silent. Looking down to Obould, Kaer'lic saw that he had produced a great blade from somewhere. He slowly raised it high above his head. With a cry, he brought it flashing down, lopping the head from the kneeling orc.

The crowd roared.

The second orc prisoner was dragged in and brought to his knees beside the decapitated corpse of the first.

And so it went, the process of chanting and beheading repeated through the ten prisoners, and each execution brought a greater cry for the glory of Gruumsh than the previous.

And each made Obould seem to stand just a bit taller and stronger, his powerful chest swelling more tightly beneath his stretched skin.

When the killings were finished, the shamans began their circular dance once more, and all the crowd took up the chant to the great One-Eye.

And another creature was brought forth, a great bull, its legs hobbled by strong chords. The orc soldiers surrounding the creature prodded it with their spears and gave it no leeway whatsoever, marching it before their magnificent king.

Obould stared hard at the bull for a long while, the two seeming to fall into some sort of a mutual trance. The orc king grasped the bull by the horns, the two standing motionless, just staring.

Arganth came down from on high, and all the shamans moved around him and surrounded the bull. They began their spellcasting in unison, invoking the name of Gruumsh with every sentence, seeking the blessings of their god.

Kaer'lic recognized enough of the words to know the general spell, an invocation that, temporarily, greatly increased the strength of the recipient. There was a different twist to that one, though, the drow understood, for its intensity was so great that she could feel the magical tingling even from a distance.

A series of weird, multicolored lights, green and yellow and pink, began to flow around the bull and Obould. More and more of the lights began to emanate from the bull, it seemed. Those lights ran forward to engulf and immerse themselves in the orc king. Each one seemed to take a bit of strength from the animal, and soon it stood on trembling legs, and each one seemed to make Obould just a bit more formidable

It ended, and only then did Kaer'lic even recognize that during the process, the bindings had been cut away from the bull, so that the only thing holding it was Obould, one hand grasped upon each horn.

All fell silent, a great hush of anticipation quieting the crowd.

Obould and the creature stared at each other as the moments slipped by. With sudden strength and speed, the orc king brought his hands around, twisting the bull's head upside down. Reversing his grips, the orc king completed the circuit, bringing the poor creature's head around a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

Obould held that pose for a long moment, still staring at the bull. He let go, and the bull fell over.

Obould thrust his arms to the sky and cried out, "Gruumsh!"

A wave of energy rolled out from him across the stunned and silent crowd.

It took Kaer'lic a moment to realize that she had been knocked to her knees, that all around her were similarly kneeling. She glanced back at the frost giants, to see them on their knees as well, and none of them, particularly Gerti, looking overly pleased by that fact.

Again the shamans went into their wild dance around the broken statue, and not a one in the crowd dared to rise, though every voice immediately joined in the chanting.

It stopped again, abruptly.

A second creature was brought forth, a great mountain cat, held around the neck by long noose poles. The creature growled as it neared Obould, but the orc king didn't shy from it at all. He even bent forward, then fell to all fours, staring the cat in the eye.

The attendants loosened their nooses and removed the poles, freeing the beast.

The stare went on, as did the anticipating hush. The cat leaped forward, snapping and roaring, claws raking, and Obould caught it in his hands.

The great cat's claws couldn't dig in against Obould's flesh.

The great cat's teeth could find no hold.

Obould rose up to his full height and easily brought the squirming, thrashing cat up high above his head.

The orc king held that pose for a long moment, then called out again to Gruumsh and began to move about, his feet gaining speed with every stride, his balance holding perfect with every turn and every leap. He stopped in the middle of the frenzied movement and gave a great and sudden twist. The cat cried out, then fell silent and limp. Obould tossed its lifeless body to the ground beside the dead bull.

The crowd began to roar. The shamans began to sing and to dance, their circle bringing them around the orc king and the dead prisoners and animals.

Arganth moved inside the ring, then he ordered the culmination of the dance. The leading shaman began to sway rhythmically, whispering an incantation that Kaer'lic could not hear.

The ten headless orcs stood up and marched in silent procession to form two ranks behind Obould.

Again Arganth fell into his spellcasting, and suddenly, both the bull and the mountain cat sprang up, very much alive.

Very much alive!

The confused and frightened creatures leaped about and ran off into the night. The orcs cheered, and Obould stood very calm.

Kaer'lic could hardly draw her breath. The animation of the corpses did not seem like such a tremendous feat—certainly nothing she had expected from an orc shaman, but nothing too great in magical power—but the resurrection of the animals! How was that possible, coming from an orc?

And Kaer'lic knew, and Kaer'lic understood. Gruumsh had attended the ceremony, in spirit at least. The orc cry to their god had been answered, and the One-Eye's blessing had been instilled in Obould.

Kaer'lic saw that clearly in scrutinizing the calm orc king. She could feel the gravity of him, even from afar, could recognize the added, supernatural strength and speed that had been placed within his powerful frame.

The dwarves had erred, and badly, she knew. Their ruse in using the image of Gruumsh to so deceive his minions had brought upon them the wrath of the orc god—in the form of King Obould Many-Arrows.

Suddenly, Kaer'lic Sun Wett was very much afraid. Suddenly, she knew, the balance of power among those united in battling the dwarves had shifted.

And not for the better.

CHAPTER 10 WHEN THE TUTORED STEPS FORTH

"It was impressive," Kaer'lic Suun Wett somberly admitted.

Beside her, Tos'un scoffed, and across from her, both Donnia and Ad'non sat very still, their mouths agape.

"They are mere orcs," said the castoff of House Barrison Del'Armgo. "It was all illusion, all emotion."

For a moment, it seemed as if Kaer'lic would reach over and smack Tos'un, for her face grew very tight, her muscles very taut.

"Of course," Donnia agreed with a dismissive chuckle. "The mood, the throng—the ceremony was amplified by the intensity of the—

"Silence!" Kaer'lic demanded, so forcefully that both Donnia and Ad'non slipped hands quietly to their respective weapons. "If we underestimate Obould now, it could prove disastrous. This shaman, Arganth of tribe Snarrl… he was inspired. Divinely inspired."

"That is quite a claim," Ad'non quietly remarked.

"It is something I have witnessed before, in a ceremony in which several yochlol appeared," Kaer'lic assured him. "I recognized it for what it was: divine inspiration." She turned to Tos'un. "Are you normally so easily deceived that you can now convince yourself that you did not see what you did indeed see?"

"I understand the trick of the mood," Tos'un hesitantly replied.

"The bull's head was twisted right around," Kaer'lic scolded him and reinforced to the others. "The creature was dead, then it was not, and this sort of resurrection is simply beyond the powers of orc shamans."

"Normally so, yes," said Ad'non. "Perhaps it is Arganth whom we should not underestimate."

Shaking her head with every word, Kaer'lic replied, "Arganth is indeed worthy, relative to his heritage. He is frenetic in his devotion to Gruumsh and handled the coincidental death of Achtel quite cleverly. But if he was possessed of priestly powers sufficient to resurrect the two dead animals, then he could have overwhelmed Achtel and her doubts long before her untimely death. He did not do that—did not even attempt to do it."

"You believe Achtel's death a fortunate coincidence?" Donnia asked.

"She was killed by Drizzt Do'Urden," answered Kaer'lic. "There can be no doubt. He was witnessed, right down to his scimitars. He slew her and rampaged through the camp and off into the night. I would doubt him to be an instrument of Gruumsh. But Arganth played it that way to the dimwitted orcs, much to his credit and much to his success."

"And now we know that Drizzt has allied with the surface elves," Tos'un remarked.

"To what extent?" asked Donnia, who, despite the reports of the fight at the river, was not so convinced.

"That is secondary," Kaer'lic pointedly reminded. "Drizzt Do'Urden is not our concern!"

"You keep saying that," Ad'non interrupted.

"Because it seems as if you do not understand it," the priestess replied. "Drizzt is not our problem, nor are we his unless he learns of our existence. He is Obould's problem and Gerti's problem, and we would do well to let them handle him. Particularly now that Obould has been gifted by Gruumsh."

A couple of snorts accompanied that claim from the still-doubting duo across from Kaer'lic.

"Underestimate him at your peril now," Kaer'lic replied to those scoffs. "He is stronger—visibly so—and he is possessed of great quickness. Even Tos'un, who believes he was tricked, cannot deny these things. Obould is far more formidable."

Tos'un reluctantly nodded his agreement.

"Obould was always formidable," Ad'non replied. "Even before this ceremony, I had little desire to wage battle with him openly. And surely none of us wishes to do battle with Gerti Orelsdottr. But did the shamans make the orc king brighter and more clever? I hardly think so!"

"But they gave him, above all else, the confidence of a mandate and the supreme confidence of knowing that his god was with him on his endeavors," Kaer'lic pointed out. "Do not miss the significance of these two gains. Obould will be possessed of no insecurity now, of no inner doubts that we might exploit to our wishes. He walks with confidence, with strength, and with surety. He will look more carefully at our every word that contradicts his instincts, and even more carefully at our suggestions that run tangentially to his previously decided course. He is a stronger and swifter running current now, one that will be more difficult to deflect along our desired course."

The doubting smirks became scowls, and quickly so.

"But I believe that we have already set the river's course in proper flow," Kaer'lic went on. "We need not manipulate Obould any longer, for he is determined to execute the very war we desired—and now he seems more able to do it."

"We become detached and amused onlookers?" Tos'un asked.

Kaer'lic shrugged and replied, "Not such a bad fate."

Across the way, Donnia and Ad'non exchanged doubting glances, and Ad'non shook his head.

"There is still the matter of Gerti," he reasoned. "And this ceremony for Obould will likely put the giantess even more on her guard. Seeing the growth of Obould might bring cohesion to the orc tribes, but it will likely instill grave doubts in Gerti. For all the power you believe the orc king has gained, he will need Gerti's giants to seal the dwarves back in their holes and ravage the countryside."

"Then we must make certain that Gerti continues to follow Obould," said Tos'un.

The other three turned somewhat sour looks upon him, silently berating him for his lack of understanding. He took their expressions with proper humility. He was the youngest of the group, after all, and by far the least experienced in such matters.

"No, not follow," Donnia corrected. "We need to make her continue to travel the course beside him and to make sure that he still understands that he is walking beside her, and not leading her."

The others nodded; it was a subtle distinction, but a very important one.

* * *

Ad'non and Donnia went out as soon as the sun had set, exiting the deep cave the group had taken as their temporary residence, not too far to the east of the ruins of Shallows. The two dark elves blinked repeatedly as they came to the surface, for though no moon was up, the relative light of the surface night remained at first uncomfortable.

Donnia looked out to the east, beyond the steep slopes and cliffs, to see the Surbrin winding its way south, starlight sparkles dancing around the rushing waters. Beyond that lay the darkness of the Moonwood, Donnia knew, where more elves resided. As far as the four drow knew, only a couple had involved themselves in the affairs of Obould since the orc king, at the drow's bidding, had not yet crossed the Surbrin with any substantial numbers.

"Perhaps they will come forth from their forest home," Ad'non said to Donnia, reading her mind and her desires.

The male drow grinned wickedly and gave a low laugh.

They both hoped that the elves would come forth in force, Donnia knew. Obould could handle a small clan, and how sweet it would be to see some faeries lying dead at orc feet. Or even better—dare she even hope? — to have faeries taken as prisoners and handed over to Donnia and her band for their pleasures.

"Kaer'lic's continuing fear of Drizzt is disturbing," Ad'non remarked.

"Tos'un names the rogue as formidable."

"Indeed, and I do not doubt our Menzoberranyr friend at all in that regard," said Ad'non. "Still«/emphasis·"

"Kaer'lic seems more fearful of everything lately," Donnia agreed. "She verily trembled when she spoke of Obould. A mere orc!"

"Perhaps she has been away from our people for too long. Perhaps she needs to revisit the Underdark—back to Ched Nasad, possibly, or even Menzober-ranzan, if Tos'un can smooth our way in."

"Where we would be homeless rogues until one matron mother or another saw fit to offer us shelter—in exchange for slavish fealty," Donnia said sourly, and Ad'non could only shrug at that distinct possibility.

"Kaer'lic would not be pleased if she knew our intent this night," Donnia remarked a moment later.

Again Ad'non shrugged and said, "I answer not to Kaer'lic Suun Wett."

"Even if her reasoning is sound?"

Ad'non paused and considered the words for a long while.

"But we are not seeking Drizzt Do'Urden in any case," he said at length.

It was true enough, if only technically so. The pair had made up their minds to investigate the troubles Obould's rear lines had been experiencing over the Past couple of tendays. Of course they knew that Drizzt Do'Urden was central to those troubles, but it was not he who had lured the two drow out of their deep holes—both because of Kaer'lic's reasoning and Tos'un's warnings, and because, as far as Donnia and Ad'non were concerned, there was better prey to hunt.

A pair of surface elves, seen by Gerti's giants riding winged horses— wouldn't those mounts be fine trophies!

Within the hour, the pair were at the scene of the last assault, near to the smaller river within the mountains. Orc bodies still littered the ground, for no one had bothered to bury them. Following the path of the massacre, the two soon had Drizzt's route of battle discerned, and the bodies of many orcs in a circle around one point showed them where the two surface elves had joined the fray.

More than a score dead, and only three blades engaged, Donnia flashed with silent hand signals, taking care to hold her silence.

Most felled by Drizzt, no doubt, before the other two even arrived, came Ad'non's answer.

They tarried around the battleground for quite a while, trying to learn as much as they could, both from the pattern of the dead to the types of wounds, about the fighting styles of those engaged. More than once, Donnia flashed to Ad'non a signal revealing her admiration for the sword work, and more than once, Ad'non agreed. And, with the night almost half over, the pair went out from the immediate area, working about the perimeter and beyond for some sign of passage.

To their surprise and delight, they found a trail easily enough and knew from the footprints and the bent blades of grass that it had been made by at least two of the three enemies.

The surface elves, Ad'non flashed. I would have expected them to better cover their tracks.

Unless they were not making the trail for the orcs, Donnia reasoned. Few orcs could follow these subtle signs, I expect, though to our trained eyes they seem obvious.

To our trained eyes and to those of Drizzt Do'Urden, perhaps? asked Ad'non's fingers.

Donnia grinned and bent low to study one particular stretch of brush. Yes, it made perfect sense to her. The trail seemed obvious to the keen eyes and tracking skills of the trained dark elves, but surely it was nothing that any orcs would find and follow. And yet, with her experiences concerning surface elves, Donnia knew that it was a clumsy passage, at best. The more she looked, the more Ad'non's subtle suggestion that the trail had been left on purpose for Drizzt rang true to her. The elves thought their enemies to be orcs, goblins, and giants, and thought that a dark elf was numbered among their allies. The orcs who had witnessed the massacre had indeed noted that the surface elves and the dark elf had parted ways immediately following the fighting; perhaps the surface elves wanted to make sure that Drizzt Do'Urden knew how to find them should he need them.

Shall we go and find our pleasure? Ad'non's fingers waggled.

Donnia brought her hands up before her, a movement of accentuation and exclamation, and tapped the outsides of her thumbs together.

Indeed!

* * *

Tension hung thick in the air by the time Kaer'lic and Tos'un entered Obould's great tent. One glance at Gerti, the giantess sitting cross-legged (which still put her head near to the arched deerskin ceiling) between a pair of grim-faced guards, told the two drow that the meeting had not gone well to that point.

"Nesmй has been overrun in the south," Gerti resumed as soon as the two newcomers took their places across from her and to Obould's right. "Proffit and his wretched trolls have made more progress than we and in a shorter time."

"Their enemies were not nearly as formidable as ours," Obould countered. "They battled humans in open villages, while we try to dislodge dwarves from their deep holes."

"Deep holes?" Gerti roared. "We have gotten nowhere near to Mithral Hall yet. All you and your worthless son have encountered are minor settlements and a small force of dwarves on open ground! And Urlgen has not even been able to push a minor force over the cliff face and back to Mithral Hall. This is not victory. It is standstill, and all the while, Proffit the wretch marches from the Trollmoors!"

Proffit? Tos'un signed to Kaer'lic, spelling the unknown name phonetically.

Leader of the trolls, Kaer'lic replied, an assumption, of course, for she really had little knowledge of what was happening in the southland.

Kaer'lic turned her full attention back to the giantess and orc leader as she signed, though, and the expression on Obould's face rang out bells of alarm.

"King Obould's son claims the head of Bruenor Battlehammer as a trophy," the drow female interjected, trying to diffuse the situation.

Kaer'lic was only beginning to understand the depth of the change in the orc king, and it occurred to her that with his newfound confidence and prowess, Obould might not be above challenging Gerti or siccing his legions upon her and her minions.

"I have not seen any Battlehammer head," Gerti sharply replied.

"His fall was witnessed by many," Kaer'lic pressed. "As the tower fell."

"My giants claim no small part in that kill."

"True enough," Kaer'lic replied before Obould could explode—as he surely seemed about to do. "And so our victories to date at least equal those of this troll. . Proffit?"

"Proffit," Obould confirmed. "Who has bound the trolls and bog blokes under his command. Who has led them from the Trollmoors in greater numbers than ever before."

"He will squeeze Mithral Hall from the south?" Kaer'lic asked.

Obould leaned forward and dropped his chin in his hand, mulling it over.

"Better from the tunnels," Tos'un reasoned, and the eyes of the three leaders turned over him.

"Let Proffit keep the pressure on the dwarves," the drow went on. "Let him and his minions keep them fighting in their tunnels after we seal them in Mithral Hall. We will raze the land and claim our boundaries and turn our attention to the beleaguered dwarves."

Kaer'lic's face remained impassive, but she did flash a signal of gratitude to Tos'un for his clever thinking.

"The fall of Nesmй and the presence of the trolls will more likely incite Sil-verymoon to action," Kaer'lic added. "That, we do not want. Let them go underground and do battle with Mithral Hall, as the son of Barrison Del'Armgo suggests. Perhaps then our greater enemies will think that Proffit and his wretched creatures have retreated back to the Trollmoors, where even Lady Alus-triel would not go in pursuit."

Obould was nodding, slightly, but what caught Kaer'lic's attention most was the scowl stamped upon Gerti's face and the set of her blue eyes that never once left the specter of King Obould. There was more going on than the lack of recent progress in the march to Mithral Hall, Kaer'lic understood. First and foremost, Gerti was seething about the apparent transformation of Obould. Was it jealousy? Fear?

For a moment, the notion terrified Kaer'lic. A rift between the giants and the orcs at such a critical juncture could allow the dwarves to regroup and wipe out their gains.

It was but a fleeting thought, though, for it occurred to Kaer'lic that watching the giants and orcs turn against each other might be as fine a show as watching their combined forces rolling over the dwarves.

"The suggestion intrigues me," Obould said to Tos'un. "We will speak more on this. I have sent word to Proffit to turn east to the Surbrin and north to Mithral Hall's eastern gate, where we will meet with him as we chase the dwarves into their hole."

"We must go straight to the south and push the resistance from in front of your worthless son," Gerti demanded. "Urlgen's forces are being slaughtered, and while it pains me not at all to see orcs and goblins shredded, I fear that the losses are too great."

A look of utter contempt came over Obould at those remarks, and Kaer'lic immediately began preparing a spell that would provide cover so that she and Tos'un could flee should the orc king launch himself at Gerti.

But to his credit, Obould settled back, staring hard at the giantess.

"My ranks have swelled threefold since the fall of Shallows," the orc king reminded her.

"The dwarves are slaughtering your son's forces," Gerti replied.

"And the dwarves are taking heavy losses in the process," said the orc king. "And they are growing weary, with few to replace them on the battle line, while fresh warriors join Urlgen's ranks every day. If more giants joined in the fray, the dwarf losses would increase even more."

"I do not sacrifice my warriors."

Obould began to chuckle and said, "Giants will die in this campaign, Dame Orelsdottr."

The sheer power of his tone had Kaer'lic tilting her head to study his every movement. Clearly the ceremony had done something to Obould, had instilled in him the confidence to deal with Gerti in a manner even beyond that which the drow cleric had anticipated.

"The choice remains yours to make," Obould went on. "If you fear losses, then retreat to the Spine of the World and the safety of Shining White. If you wish the rewards, then press on. The Battlehammers will be beaten back into their hole, and the Spine is ours. Once secured, we will flush the dwarves from that hole, and Mithral Hall will be renamed the Citadel of Many-Arrows."

That bit of news brought surprise to everyone in the room who was not an orc. Since the day she had met Obould, Kaer'lic had seen in him a singular desire: to retrieve lost Citadel Felbarr. Had he abandoned that course in favor of the closer dwarven settlement of Mithral Hall?

"And how will King Emerus Warcrown react to this?" Gerti said slyly, Picking up on the same discrepancy and not-so-subtly reminding Obould of that other goal.

"We cannot cross the Surbrin," Obould countered without the slightest hesitation. "I'll not allow the greater powers of the North to ally against us—not now. Citadel Felbarr will send aid and warriors to Clan Battlehammer, of course, but when Mithral Hall is lost to them, with King Bruenor dead, the dwarves in the east will more likely welcome the refugees of Mithral Hall to their own deep holes. Then, once the adjoining tunnels are secured, our victory is complete and all the land from the mountains to the Surbrin, south to the Trollmoors, will be ours."

A smaller bite, Tos'un signaled to Kaer'lic.

A wiser course, Kaer'lic flashed back. Obould seeks more than vengeance and battle now. He seeks victory.

The notion astonished Kaer'lic even as her delicate fingers communicated it to Tos'un. While quite worthy among his inferior kin, Obould had always seemed to Kaer'lic so much less refined than that. From the day she'd met him, the orc king had spoken almost exclusively of retaking Citadel Felbarr, which, with the reclamation of Mithral Hall and the solidification of the alliances between the dwarven triumvirate—Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar—seemed completely unattainable. Even in fostering this alliance and campaign, the four plotting dark elves had always assumed that Obould would reach for that goal, to abject disaster. Kaer'lic and her associates had never considered any real and lasting victory, but rather a simple state of resulting chaos from which they could find enjoyment and profit.

Had the shaman Arganth's ceremony granted some sort of greater insight to the orc king? Had the dwarves' blasphemy with the idol of Gruumsh brought the possibility of true and lasting victory to Obould and his swelling ranks of minions?

Kaer'lic took care not to let those thought spiral out of control, reminding herself that they were but orcs, after all, whatever their numbers. All she had to do was look at the simmering hatred in Gerti's eyes to recognize that Obould's designs could splinter and shatter at any moment.

"We seal the region under our domain at the onset of winter," Obould explained. "Put the dwarves in their hole and secure all the land above to the corner of the mountain range. We will fight through Mithral Hall's tunnels throughout the winter."

"The dwarves will prove more formidable in their underground halls, Kaer'lic said.

"But how long will they deign to remain there in battle?" Obould asked. "King Bruenor is dead, and they will have no trade unless they try to break out."

It made a lot of sense, Kaer'lic had to admit to herself, and the thought was both optimistic and fear-inspiring. Perhaps Obould was making too much sense. Ever skeptical of the entire endeavor, the drow priestess could see both a higher potential climb and a higher potential fall.

The worst part of it was her confirmation that King Obould had suddenly become much less malleable to the designs and deceptions of the dark elves.

That could make him dangerous.

Kaer'lic looked at Gerti and recognized that the giantess was thinking along pretty much the same lines.

CHAPTER 11 UNSHACKLING

In a rare moment of respite, the exhausted Wulfgar leaned back against a boulder and stared out over Keeper's Dale, his gaze drawn to the western gates of MithralHall.

"Thinking of Bruenor," Catti-brie remarked when she joined him.

"Aye," the big man whispered. He glanced over at the woman and nearly laughed at the sight, though it would have been a chuckle of sheer resignation and nothing out of true amusement. For Catti-brie was covered in blood, her blond hair matted to her head, her clothing stained, her boots soaked with the stuff. "Your sword cuts too deep, I fear," he said.

Catti-brie ran a hand through her sticky hair and gave a helpless sigh.

"Never thought I'd admit to being sick of killing orcs and goblins," she said. "And no matter how many we kill, seems there're a dozen more to take the place of each."

Wulfgar just nodded and gazed back across the valley.

"Regis has given the order to all the clerics now that Bruenor is not to be tended," Catti-brie reminded.

"Should we be there when he dies?" Wulfgar asked, and it was all he could do to keep his voice from breaking apart.

He heard the woman's approach but did not turn to her, afraid that if he looked into her eyes at that moment he would burst out in sobs. And that was something he could not do, something none of them could afford.

"No," Catti-brie said, and she dropped a comforting and familiar hand on Wulfgar's broad shoulder, then moved in closer to hug his head against her breast. "He's already lost to us," she whispered. "We witnessed his fall in Shallows. That was when our Bruenor died, and not when his body takes its last breath. The priests have been keeping him breathing for our own sake, and not for Bruenor's. Bruenor's long gone already, sitting around a table with Gandalug and Dagnabbit, likely, and grumbling about us and our crying."

Wulfgar put his own huge hand over Catti-brie's and turned to look at her, silently thanking her for her calming words. He still wasn't sure about all of it, feeling almost as if he was betraying Bruenor by not being by his side when he passed over to the other world. But how could Banak and the others spare him and Catti-brie at that point, for surely the efforts of the pair were doing much to bolster the cause?

And wouldn't Bruenor slap him across the head if he ever heard of such a thing?

"I can hardly say my farewells to him," Wulfgar admitted.

"When we thought you dead, taken by the yochlol, Bruenor fretted about for tendays and tendays," Catti-brie explained. "His heart was ripped out from his chest like never before." She moved around, placing one hand on either side of Wulfgar's face and staring at him intently. "But he did go on. And in those first days, with the murdering dark elves still thick about us, he let his anger lead the way. No time for mourning, he kept muttering, when he thought none were about to hear him."

"And we must be equally strong," Wulfgar agreed.

They had been over it all before, of course, saying many of the same words and with the same determination. Wulfgar understood that the need he and Catti-brie had to repeat the conversation came from deep-seeded doubts and fears, from a situation that had so quickly spun out of their control.

"Bruenor Battlehammer's rest with his ancestors," he continued, "will be easier indeed if he knows that Mithral Hall is safe and that his friends and family fought on in his name and for his cause."

Catti-brie kissed him on the forehead and hugged him close, and with a deep breath, Wulfgar let go of his pain—temporarily, he knew. All the world had changed for him, and all the world would change again, and not for the better, when they buried King Bruenor beside his ancestors. Catti-brie's words made sense, and Wulfgar understood that Bruenor had died gloriously, as a dwarf ought to die, as Bruenor would have chosen to die, in the fight at Shallows.

That realization did make it a little easier.

Just a little.

"And what of you?" Wulfgar asked the woman. "You are so concerned with how everyone else might be feeling, and yet I see a great pain in your blue eyes, my friend."

"What creature would I be if losing the dwarf who raised me as his own child didn't wound me heart?" Catti-brie replied.

Wulfgar reached up and grabbed her firmly by the forearms.

"I mean about Drizzt," he said quietly.

"I do not think he's dead," came the emphatic reply.

Wulfgar shook his head with every word, agreeing wholeheartedly.

"Orcs and giants?" he said. "No, Drizzt is alive and well and likely killing as many of our enemies as this whole army of us are killing here."

Catti-brie's responding expression was more grit than smile as she nodded.

"But that is not what I meant," Wulfgar went on. "I know the confusion that you now endure, for it is clear to all who know you and love you."

"You're talking silliness," Catti-brie answered, and in a telling gesture, she tried to pull away.

Wulfgar held her firm and steady.

"Do you love him?" he asked.

"I could ask the same of Wulfgar, and get the same answer, I'm sure."

"You know what I mean," Wulfgar pressed. "Of course you love Drizzt as a friend, as I do, as Regis does, as Bruenor does. I knew that I would find my way from the drink and from my torment when I returned to you four, my friends. My true friends and family. And you understand that which I now ask. Do you love him?"

He let go of Catti-brie, and she did step back, though she didn't turn her eyes from his crystalline blue gaze and did not even blink.

"When you were gone …" she started to reply.

Wulfgar laughed at her obvious attempt to spare his feelings.

"This has nothing to do with me!" he insisted. "Except in the manner that I am to you a friend. Someone who cares very deeply for you. Please, for your own sake, do not avoid this. Do you love him?"

Catti-brie gave a deep sigh, and she did look down.

"Drizzt," she said, "is special to me in ways beyond that of the others of our group."

"And are you lovers?"

The blunt and personal question had the woman snapping her gaze back up at the barbarian. There was nothing but true compassion in his eyes, though, and so Catti-brie did not lash out.

"We spent years together," she said quietly. "When ye fell and were lost to us, me and Drizzt spent years together, riding and sailing with Deudermont."

Wulfgar smiled at her and held up his hand, gently telling her that he had heard enough, that he understood well her meaning.

"Was it love or friendship that guided your way through those years and those roads?" Wulfgar asked.

Catti-brie pondered that for a bit, glancing off into the distance.

"There was always friendship," she said. "We two never let go of that. Friendship and companionship above all else sustained me and Drizzt on the road."

"And now you're pained because it was more than that for you," Wulfgar reasoned. "And when you thought you were dead with those orcs, the sting was all the more because you've all the more to lose."

Catti-brie stood staring at him and making no move to answer.

"So tell me, my dear friend, are you ready to surrender that road?" Wulfgar asked. "Are you ready to forsake the adventures?"

"No more than Bruenor ever was!" Catti-brie snapped at him without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Wulfgar smiled widely, for it was all sorting out for him then, and he believed that he might be able to actually help his friend when she needed him.

"Do you wish to have children?" he asked.

Catti-brie stared at him incredulously.

"What kind of question is that for you to be asking me?"

"The kind a friend would ask," said Wulfgar, and he asked it again.

Catti-brie's stern gaze dissipated, and it was obvious to Wulfgar that she was really looking inward then, honestly asking herself that very same question for perhaps the first time.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I always thought it'd be an easy choice, and of course, I'd want to have some of me own. But I'm not so sure of meself, though I'm guessing that I'm running out of time to decide."

"And do you wish to have Drizzt's children?"

A look of panic came over the woman, her eyes going wide with apparent horror, but then softening quickly. She was torn, Wulfgar could clearly see, and had certainly expected. For this was the crux of it all, the rough rub in their relationship. Drizzt was a drow, and could Catti-brie honestly go down that path? Could she honestly have children who were half-drow in heritage?

Certainly the answer here was twofold, a heartfelt yes and a logical no, and both were emphatic.

Wulfgar began to chuckle.

"You're mocking me," Catti-brie said to him, and Wulfgar noted that as she became agitated, she seemed to sound more like a dwarf!

"No, no," Wulfgar assured her, and he held up his hands defensively. "I was considering the irony of it all, and it amuses me that you are even listening to my words of advice. I, who have taken a wife from the most unlikeliest of places and who am raising a child that is neither mine nor that of my unlikely wife."

As that message sank in, a smile widened over Catti-brie's face as well.

"And we of a family with a dwarf father who raises two human children as his own," she replied.

"And should I begin to list the ironies of Drizzt Do'Urden?" Wulfgar asked.

Catti-brie's laughter had her holding her sides then.

"Can we be saying," she said, "that Regis is the most normal among us?"

"Then be afraid!" Wulfgar replied dramatically, and Catti-brie laughed all the harder. "Perhaps it is just those ironies about us that drive us on along this road we so often choose."

Catti-brie sobered a bit at that remark, then stopped her giggling, her expression going suddenly more grim—and Wulfgar understood that the conversation had led her right back to where they had started, right back to the state of Bruenor Battlehammer.

"Perhaps," the woman agreed. "Until now, with Bruenor gone and Drizzt out there alone."

"No!" Wulfgar insisted, and he came up from the rock, standing tall before her. "Still!"

Catti-brie sighed and started to reply, but Wulfgar cut her short.

"I think of my wife and child back in Mithral Hall," the warrior said. "Every time I walk out of there, I know that I might not see Delly and Colson again. And yet I go, because the road beckons me—as you yourself just admitted it so beckons you. Bruenor is gone, so we must accept, and Drizzt… well, who can know where the drow now runs? Who can know if an orc spear has found his heart and quieted him forever? Not I, and not you, though we both hold fast to our prayers that he is all right and will return to us soon.

"But even should he not, and even if Regis accepts a permanent position of steward, or counselor, perhaps, if Banak Brawnanvil becomes King of Mithral Hall, I will not forsake the road. This is my life, with the wind upon my face and the stars as my ceiling. This is my lot, to wage battle against the orcs and the giants and all others who threaten the good folk of the land. I embrace that lot and revel in it, and I shall until I am too old to run about the mountain trails or until an enemy blade lays me low.

"Delly knows this. My wife accepts that I will spend little time in Mithral Hall beside her." The barbarian gave a self-deprecating chortle and asked, "Can I really call her my wife? And Colson my child?"

"You're a good husband to her and a fine father to the little one."

Wulfgar gave a nod of thanks to the woman for those words.

"But still I will not forsake the road," he said, "and Delly Curtie would not have me forsake the road. That is what I have come to love most about her. That is why I trust that she will raise Colson in my absence, should I be killed, to be true to whomever it is that Colson is meant to be."

"True to her nature?"

"Independence is what matters," Wulfgar explained. "And it is more difficult by far to be independent of our own inner shackles than it is of the shackles that others might place upon us."

The simple words nearly knocked Catti-brie over. "I said the same thing to a friend of ours, once," she said.

"Drizzt?"

The woman nodded.

"Then heed your own words," Wulfgar advised her. "You love him and you love the road. Why does there need to be more than that?"

"If I'm wanting to have children of me own…."

"Then you will come to know that, and so you will redirect the road of your life appropriately," Wulfgar told her. "Or it might be that fate intervenes, against all care, and you get that which you're not sure you want."

Catti-brie sucked in her breath.

"And would it truly be such a bad thing?" Wulfgar asked her. "To mother the child of Drizzt Do'Urden? If the babe was possessed of half his skills and but a tenth of his heart, it would be among the greatest of all the folk of the northland."

Catti-brie sighed again and brought a hand up to wipe her eyes.

"If Bruenor can raise a couple of human brats as troublesome as us. . " Wulfgar remarked with a smirk, and he let the thought hang in the air.

Catti-brie laughed and smiled at him, with warmth and gratitude.

"Take your love and your pleasure as you find it," Wulfgar advised. "Do not Worry so much of the future that you let today pass you by. You are happy beside Drizzt. Need you know more than that?"

"You sound just like him," Catti-brie answered. "Only not when he was advising me, but when he was advising himself. You're asking me to go to the same place that Drizzt found, the same enjoyment in the moment and all the rest be damned."

"And as soon as Drizzt found that place, you began to doubt," Wulfgar said with a coy smile. "When he found the place of comfort and acceptance, all obstacles were removed, and so you put one up—your fears—to hold it all in stasis."

Catti-brie was shaking her head, but Wulfgar could tell that she wasn't disagreeing with him in the least.

"Follow your heart," the big man said quietly. "Minute by minute and day by day. Let the course of the river run as it will, instead of tying yourself up in fears that you may never realize."

Catti-brie looked up at him, her head beginning to nod. Glad that he had brought her some comfort and some good advice, Wulfgar bent over and kissed his friend on the forehead.

That elicited a wide and warm smile from Catti-brie, and she seemed to him, for the first time in a long time, to be at peace with herself. He had forced her emotions back into the present, he knew, and had released her from the fears that had taken hold. Why would she sacrifice her present joys—the wild road, the companionship of her friends, and the love of Drizzt—for fear of some uncertain future wishes?

He watched her continue to visibly relax, watched her smile become more and more genuine and enduring. He could see her emotional shackles falling away.

"When'd you get so smart?" she asked him.

"In Hell and out of it," Wulfgar replied. "In a hell of Errtu's making, and in a hell of Wulfgar's making."

Catti-brie tilted her head and stared at him hard.

"And are you free?" she asked. "Are you really free?"

Wulfgar's smile matched her own, even exceeded it, his boyish grin so wide and so sincere, so warm and, yes, so free.

"Let's go kill some orcs," he remarked, words that were truly comforting music to the ears of Catti-brie.

CHAPTER 12 SUBTERFUGE

They swept across the vale between Shallows and the mountains north of Keeper's Dale like a massive earthbound storm, a great darkness and swirling tempest. Led by Obould-who-was-Gruumsh and anchored by a horde of frost giants greater than any that had been assembled in centuries, the orc swarm trampled the brush and sent the animals small and large fleeing before it.

For the first time in tendays, King Obould Many-Arrows met up with his son, Urlgen, in a sheltered ravine north of the sloping battleground where the dwarves had entrenched.

Urlgen entered the meeting full of fury, ready to demand more troops so that he could push the dwarves over the cliff and back into their holes. Fearing that Obould and Gerti would blame him for his lack of a definitive victory, Urlgen was ready to go on the offensive, to chastise his father for not giving him enough force to unseat the dwarves from the high ground.

As soon as he entered his father's tent, though, the younger ore's bluster melted away in confusion. For he knew, upon his very first glance, that the brutish leader sitting before him was not his father as he had known him, but was something more. Something greater.

A shaman that Urlgen did not know sat in place before, below, and to the side of Obould, dressed in a feathered headdress and a bright red robe. To the side, against the left-hand edge of the tent, sat Gerti Orelsdottr, and she seemed to the younger orc leader not so pleased.

Mostly though, Urlgen focused on Obould, for the brash young orc was barely able to take his eyes off his father, off the bulging muscles of the intense ore's powerful arms, or the fierce set of Obould's face, seeming on the verge of an explosion. That was not so uncommon a thing with Obould, but Urlgen understood that the danger of Obould was somehow greater than ever before.

"You have not pushed them back into Mithral Hall," Obould stated.

Urlgen could not tell if the statement was meant as a mere recitation of the obvious or an indictment of his leadership.

"They are a difficult foe," Urlgen admitted. "They reached the high ground before we caught up to them and immediately set about preparing their defenses."

"And those defenses are now entrenched?"

"No!" Urlgen said with some confidence. "We have struck at them too often. They continue to work, but with arms weary from battle."

"Then strike at them again, and again after that," Obould demanded, coming forward suddenly and powerfully. "Let them die of exhaustion if not at the end of an orc spear. Let them grow so weary of battle that they retreat to their dark hole!"

"I need more warriors."

"You need nothing more!" Obould screamed right back at Urlgen, and he came right out of his seat then and put his face just an inch from his son's. "Fight them and stab them! Crush them and grind them into the stone!"

Urlgen tried hard to match his father's stare, but to no avail, for more than anger was driving the younger orc then. Obould had marched in with a force ten times the size of his own, and with a horde of giants beside him. One concentrated attack would force the dwarves into complete retreat, would chase them all the way back into Mithral Hall.

"I go east," Obould announced. "To seal the dwarves' gate along the Sur-brin and chase them underground. There I will meet with the troll Proffit, who has overrun Nesmй, and I will arrange for him to begin the underground press upon our dwarf enemies."

"Let us close this western gate first," Urlgen suggested, but his father was snarling and shouting "No!" before he ever finished.

"No," Obould repeated. "It will not be enough to let these smelly dwarves run back into Mithral Hall. Not anymore. They have chosen to stand against us, and so they will die! You must hold them and batter at them. Keep them in place, but keep them weary. I return soon, and we will see to the end of them."

"I have lost hundreds," Urlgen protested.

"And you have hundreds more to lose," Obould calmly replied.

"My warriors will break rank and flee," Urlgen insisted. "They splash through the blood of their kin. They climb over orc bodies to get to the dwarves."

Obould let out a long, extended growl. He reached up and grasped Urlgen by the front of his tunic. Urlgen grabbed Obould's hand with both of his own, and tried to twist free, but with a flick of his wrist, Obould sent his startled son flying across the room to crash down by the flap of the tent.

"They will not dare flee," Obould insisted. He turned to the red-robed shaman as he spoke. "They will see the glory of Obould."

"Obould is Gruumsh! Arganth Snarrl insisted.

Urlgen stared incredulously at his father, stunned by the sheer strength of Obould and the sheer intensity in his simmering yellow eyes. A glance to Gerti showed Urlgen that she was horrified by the display and similarly frustrated. Most of all, Urlgen recognized that frustration, and only then did it occur to him that Gerti had not said a word.

Gerti Orelsdottr, the daughter of the great Jarl Greyhand, who had always held the upper hand in all dealings with the orcs, had not said a word.

* * *

Like a great yawning river, the swarm of King Obould's orcs began their pivot and deliberate flow out to the east.

Urlgen Threefist, stung and afraid, watched the turn and march from a high ridge at the back of his own forces. His father had reinforced him, but with nothing substantial. Enough to hold on, enough to keep the dwarves under pressure, but not enough to dislodge them.

For suddenly King Obould didn't want to dislodge them. His reasoning had seemed sound—keep the dwarves fighting and separated so that they could completely cut them off and kill as many as possible before Mithral Hall's western door banged closed—but Urlgen could not dismiss the feeling that part of the delaying tactic was for no better reason than to push the credit for success squarely off of Urlgen's shoulders and squarely onto Obould's.

A noise from behind and below turned Urlgen from his contemplations.

"I feared you would not come," the orc said to Gerti as the giantess climbed up to stand just below him, which put her face level with his own.

"Was it not I who asked you to come out here at this time?" the giantess replied.

Urlgen bit back a sharp retort, for he still had not reconciled within himself the value of any dialogue with Gerti, whom he hated.

"You have come to fear my father," the orc did say.

"Can you state any differently?" Gerti asked.

"He has grown," Urlgen admitted.

"Obould seeks to dominate."

"King Obould," Urlgen corrected. "You would ask me to help the giants prevent the rise of the orcs?"

"Not of the orcs," Gerti clarified. "I would ask you, for the sake of Urlgen and not of Gerti, to check the rise of King Obould. Where will Urlgen fit in under the god-figure that Obould is fast becoming?"

In light of the weight of that question, Urlgen didn't question Gerti's omission of his father's title.

"Will Urlgen find any credit and glory?" Gerti asked. "Or will he serve as convenient scapegoat at the first sign of disaster?"

Urlgen's lip curled in a snarl, and as much as he wanted to lash out at the giantess (though of course he would never dare do anything of the sort!), his anger came more from the fact that Gerti's reasoning was sound than from the obvious insult to him. Obould was holding him from gaining a great victory there and, but should he fail, Urlgen held no doubts of the severity of his powerful father's judgment.

"What do you need from me?" Gerti surprised him by asking.

Urlgen glanced back at the marching thousands, then turned to Gerti once more, staring at her curiously, trying to read the message behind her words.

"When the time comes to destroy the dwarves before you, you wish to make certain that the orcs praise Urlgen," Gerti reasoned. "I will help you to do that."

Urlgen narrowed his eyes but was nodding despite his cynicism.

"And that the orcs praise Gerti," he remarked.

"If we share in Obould's glory, we will help ensure that we do not suffer all the blame."

It made sense, of course, but to Urlgen, it all seemed so surreal. He had never been close to Gerti in any form. He had often argued with his father against even enlisting the giants as allies. And for her part, Urlgen understood that Gerti despised him even more than she hated Obould and the other orcs. To Gerti, Urlgen had never been anything more than a wretch.

And yet, there they were, sharing plans behind the back of Obould.

Urlgen led Gerti's gaze to the south, to the steeply rising ground and the distant dwarven encampment.

"I need giants," he said. "To secure my lines and throw huge stones!"

"The high ground gives the dwarves the advantage of range," Gerti replied. "I will not see the orc bodies covered by those of my kin."

"Then what do you offer?" Urlgen asked, growing more and more frustrated.

Gerti and Urlgen both scanned the area.

"There," the giantess said, pointing to the high ridge far to the west. "From there, my kin will be out of the dwarves' range and on ground as high as that of our enemies. My kin will serve as your flank and your artillery."

"A long throw for a giant."

"But not for a giant-sized catapult," said Gerti.

"There are tunnels beneath the ridge," Urlgen explained. "The dwarves have taken them and secured them. It will be difficult to—"

"As difficult as arguing your cause when your father declares that you have failed?"

That straightened Urlgen, and straightened his thinking as well.

"Take the ridge, and I will give you the warriors to secure it and to strike out against the dwarves, for the glory of us both," Gerti promised.

"No easy task."

Gerti led Urlgen's gaze back up the slope, to the piles and piles of orc bodies rotting in the morning sun, letting the implication speak for itself.

* * *

"Bash! They're fightin' again, and we're stuck here watching!" the old dwarf Shingles McRuff grumbled to Torgar Hammerstriker.

Torgar moved to the opening in the ridge's eastern wall, overlooking the mountain slope that had served as battlefield for so many days. Sure enough, the charge was on again in full, with orcs and goblins running up the steep ascent, howling and hooting with every stride. A look back to the south told the dwarf that his kin were ready to meet that charge, their formations already composing, Catti-brie's devastating bow already sending lines of sizzling arrows streaming out at the oncoming horde. Every now and then, there came a small explosion among the front ranks of the charging orcs, and Torgar smiled, knowing that Ivan Bouldershoulder had put that clever hand crossbow of his to work.

Even though he held all confidence that Banak and the others would stave off the assault, Torgar was soon chewing his lower lip with frustration that he and half the dwarves of Mirabar could not stand beside them.

"They were needing us here," Shingles reminded Torgar, and he dropped his hand hard onto Torgar's strong shoulder. "We're serving King Bruenor well."

"In holding tunnels that ain't getting attacked," Torgar muttered.

The words had hardly left his mouth when shouts echoed back at him and Shingles from the deeper tunnels to the north.

"Orcs!" came the cry. "Orcs in the tunnels!"

Shingles and Torgar turned wide-eyed expressions at each other, both fast shifting into snarling battle rage.

"Orcs," they muttered together.

"Orcs!" Shingles echoed loudly, for the benefit of all those dwarves nearby, particularly those back toward the southern entrance. "Get yer axes up, boys. We got orcs to kill!"

With energy, enthusiasm, and even glee, the dwarves of Mirabar set off to predetermined positions to support those farther to the north, where, they learned almost immediately from ringing steel and cries of rage and pain, the battle had already been joined.

Torgar barked out orders with every stride, reminders that he knew he really didn't have to offer to his disciplined warriors. The Mirabarran dwarves understood their places, for in the days they had been in the tunnels, they had come to know every turn in every corridor and every chamber where defenses could be, and had been, set. Still, Torgar barked reminders, and he told them to fight for the glory of Bruenor Battlehammer and Mithral Hall, their new king, their new home.

Torgar had set the defenses purposefully, designing them with every intent that he and Shingles would not be left out of the fighting. The pair rushed down one descending corridor and came out onto a ledge overlooking an oval-shaped chamber, and below they found their first orcs, engaged with a force of more than a dozen Mirabarran dwarves.

Hardly slowing, Torgar leaped from the ledge, crashing in hard among the orc ranks, bringing a pair down beside him. He was up on his feet in an instant, his axe sweeping back and forth—but in control. Shingles was airborne by that time, along with several others who had followed the pair to that room.

Those dwarves up front pressed on more forcefully with the arrival of the reinforcements, hacking their way through orcs as they tried to link up with Torgar and the others. Almost immediately, the battle turned in favor of the dwarves. Orcs fell and orcs tried to flee, but they were held up by their stubborn kin trying to filter out of the tunnel and join in the fray.

"Kill enough and they'll run off!" Torgar roared, and of course, that was indeed the expectation when fighting orcs.

Many minutes later and with the floor covered in orc blood, the dwarves had reached the tunnel entrance, driving back the invaders. With Torgar centering them, the dwarves formed an arc around the narrow opening, so that many weapons could be brought to bear against any orc that stepped through. Surprisingly, though, the orcs still came through, one after another, taking hits and climbing over the fast-piling bodies of their fallen kin. On and on they came, and five orcs fell for every dwarf that was forced back with wounds.

"Damn stubborn lot!" Shingles cried at Torgar's side.

He accentuated his shout with a smash of his hammer that laid yet another brute low.

"Too stubborn," Torgar replied—quietly, though, and under his breath.

He didn't want the others to take note of his alarm. Torgar could hardly believe that orcs were still squeezing out of that tunnel. Every other one never even got a single step back into the room before being chopped down, but still they came.

Cries echoing from the tunnels near to them told Torgar that it was not a unique occurrence in that particular battle, that his boys were being hard-pressed at every turn.

More minutes passed, and more orcs crowded into the room, and more orcs died on the floor.

Torgar glanced back at the ledge, where an appointed dwarf was waiting.

"Position two!" he cried to the young scout and the dwarf ran off, shouting the call.

"Ye heard him!" Shingles cried to the others in the room. "Tighten it up!"

As he finished, Shingles spun around a large rock that had been set in place at the side of the tunnel entrance, bracing his back against the unsteady stone.

"On yer call!" Shingles cried.

Torgar pressed his attack on the nearest orc, shifting as he swung so that he could directly confront the next creature as it tried to come out of the tunnel. Behind him, his boys went into a frenzy, finishing those in the room.

As soon as he thought the door temporarily secured, Torgar shouted, "Now!"

A great heave by Shingles sent the rock falling across the door, and Torgar had to scamper back to avoid getting clipped.

"Go! Go! Go!" Shingles cried.

The dwarves gathered up their wounded and dead and retreated fast to the opposite end of the room and out to the south.

Before they could get through that other door, though, the orcs had already breached the makeshift barricade and a pair of spears arced out, one scoring a hit on poor Shingles.

"Ah, me bum!" he cried, grabbing at the shaft that was protruding from his right buttock.

Though he already had one unconscious dwarf over his other shoulder, Torgar hooked his dearest friend under the arm and pulled him along, out of the room and down the southern tunnel, where a series of stone drops had been set in place to slow any pursuit in just such a situation. All across the tunnel complex beneath the western ridge, the dwarves were forced into organized retreats, but they had been in the tunnels for several days and that was more than any dwarves ever needed to prepare a proper defense.

Torgar was back in battle soon enough, and even a limping Shingles returned to his side, hammer swinging with abandon. They and a handful of other dwarves had made a stand in a stalagmite-filled room that sloped up to the south behind them. Figuring to make the orcs pay for every foot of ground across the wide chamber, the dwarves battled furiously, and again, the orc blood began to flow and the orc bodies began to pile.

But still the stubborn creatures came on.

"Damn stupid lot!" Shingles cried out yet again.

Torgar didn't bother replying to the obvious or to the hidden message of his friend. They were beginning to catch on that the orcs meant to take the tunnels, whatever the cost. That troublesome thought only gained even more credence a few moments later when another group of dwarves unexpectedly crashed into the room from a western corridor.

"Giants!" they cried before Torgar could even ask them why they had abandoned the organized retreat that would have had them bypassing that chamber altogether. "Giants in the tunnels!"

"Giants?" Shingles echoed. "Too low for giants!"

The dwarves charged across and launched themselves into the fray, slaughtering the orcs that stood between them and Torgar's group.

"Giants!" one insisted when he came up before the leader.

Torgar didn't question him, for in looking over his shoulder, the dwarf leader saw the truth of the words in the form of a giant, a giantess actually, crouching, even crawling in places, to arrive at the entrance of the western corridor.

"Get that one!" Torgar demanded, eager to claim that greater prize.

His boys rushed past him, and past those who had just entered, lifting warhammers to throw and ignoring the warning cries of their newly arrived companions to stay back.

A dozen hammers went spinning across the expanse, and every throw seemed true—until the missile neared the pale, bluish-skinned creature and simply veered away.

"Magic?" Torgar whispered.

Almost as if she had heard him, almost as if she was mocking him, the giantess smiled wickedly and waggled her fingers.

Torgar's boys began their charge.

Then they were stumbling, slipping, and blinded, as a sudden burst of sleet filled the room, slicking up the floor.

"Close ranks!" Torgar shouted above the din of the magical storm.

A bright burst of fire appeared, reaching down from the chamber's ceiling and immolating a trio of dwarves who were trying to do just that.

"Run away!" yelled Shingles.

"No," Torgar muttered, and with rage burning in his eyes almost as brightly as the magical fire of the giantess, the refugee from Mirabar stalked through the sleet at the kneeling behemoth.

She looked at him, her eyes blazing with hatred, and she began to mutter yet another spell.

Torgar increased his stride into a run and lifted his axe. He roared above the din, denying the storm, denying his fear, denying all the magic.

Two strides away, he threw himself forward.

And he was hit by wracking pains, by a sudden, inexplicable magical grasp that closed upon his heart and stiffened him in midflight. He tried to bring his arms forward to strike with his axe, but they wouldn't move to his call. He could not get past that burst of agony, that grasp of ultimate pain.

Torgar smashed into the giantess, who didn't move an inch, and he bounced away. He tried to hold his balance for just a moment, but his legs were as useless as his arms. Torgar fell back several stumbling steps. He stared at the giantess curiously, incredulously.

Then he fell over.

Behind him, dwarves swarmed into the room, crying for their leader, bend-ing their backs against the continuing sleet, and Gerti (for it was indeed Gerti herself who had entered the fray), her most powerful enchantments spent, wisely retreated, covering her departure by launching a host of orcs into the fray behind her.

* * *

Ignoring the pain in his rump, ignoring the fresh flow of blood down the back of his leg and the new wounds, Shingles scrambled to Torgar's side. He slapped Torgar hard across the face and shouted for him to wake up.

Gasping, Torgar did manage to look at his friend.

"Hurts," he whispered. "By Moradin, she's crushed me heart!"

"Bah, but yer heart's stone," Shingles growled at him. "So quit yer whinin'!"

And with that, Shingles hoisted Torgar over his shoulder and started back the other way, determinedly and carefully putting one foot in front of the other as he struggled up the icy slope with his dear friend.

They did get out of the room and out of many more, and while the fighting raged outside, the dwarves from Mirabar battled and battled for every inch of ground.

But stubborn indeed were the orcs, and willing to lose ten-to-one against their enemies. By the sheer weight of numbers, they gained ground, corridor to corridor and room to room.

Back near the southern end of the tunnel complex, Shingles reluctantly ordered the last and most definitive ceiling drops.

He told all his boys, even the wounded, "Ye dig in and be ready to die for the honor o' Mithral Hall. They took us in as brothers, and we'll not fail them Battlehammers now."

A cheer went up around him, but he could hear the shallowness of it. For nearly a third of their four hundred were down, including Torgar, their heart and soul.

But the dwarves did as Shingles ordered, without a word of complaint. The last ground in the tunnels, the first ground they had claimed in entering the complex, was the best prepared of all, and if the orcs meant to push them back out the exits near to the cliff overlooking Keeper's Dale, they were going to lose hundreds in the process.

The dwarves dug in and waited.

They propped those with torn legs against secure backing and gave them lighter weapons to swing, and waited.

They wrapped their more garish wounds without complaint, some even tying weapons to broken hands, and waited.

They kissed their dead good-bye and waited.

But the orcs, with three quarters of the ridge complex conquered, did not come on.

* * *

"The most stubborn they been yet," Banak observed when the orcs and goblins finally turned and retreated down the slope. For more than an hour they had come on, throwing themselves into the fray with abandon, and the last battle piled more orc and goblin bodies on the blood-slicked slope than all the previous fights combined. And through it all, the dwarves had held tight to their formations and tight to their defensible positions, and never once had the orcs seemed on the verge of victory.

But still they had come on

"Stubborn? Or stupid?" Tred McKnuckles replied.

"Stupid," Ivan Bouldershoulder decided.

His brother added, "Hee hee h—"

Pikel's laugh was cut short, and Banak's response did not get past his lips, for only then did they see the very telling movement in the west of Torgar's retreat, only then did they see the lines of wounded dwarves streaming out of the tunnels, those able enough carrying dead kin.

"By Moradin," Banak breathed, realizing then that the huge battle on the open slopes had been nothing more than a ruse designed to prevent reinforcements from flocking to Torgar's ranks.

Banak squinted, a prolonged wince, as the lines of limping wounded and borne dead continued to stream out from the southern entrance of the complex. Those dwarves had just joined Mithral Hall—most of them had never even seen the place that had drawn them from the safety of their Mirabar homes.

"The retreat's organized," Ivan Bouldershoulder observed. "They didn't get routed, just pushed back, I'm guessin'."

"Go find Torgar," Banak instructed. "Or whoever it is that's in charge. See if he's needing our help!"

With an "Oo oi!" from Pikel, the Bouldershoulders rushed off.

Tred offered a nod to Banak and ran right behind.

Two others came up to the dwarf leader at just that moment, grim-faced and covered in orc blood.

"What's the point of it?" Catti-brie asked, observing the lines. "They gave so many dead to take the tunnels, but what good are those tunnels to them anyway? None connect to Mithral Hall proper—not even close."

"But they don't know that," said Banak.

Catti-brie didn't buy it. Something else was going on, she believed, and when she looked at Wulfgar, she could see that he was thinking the same way.

"Let's go," Wulfgar offered.

"I got them Bouldershoulders and Tied going to Torgar now," Banak told him.

Wulfgar shook his head. "Not going to Torgar," he corrected. "There is nothing in those tunnels worth this to our enemies," he added, sweeping his arm out to highlight the sheer carnage about the mountain slopes.

Banak nodded his agreement but kept his real fear unspoken. It was coming clearer to him and to the others, he knew, why the orcs had so desperately played for those tunnels.

Giants.

Wulfgar and Catti-brie sprinted away, actually catching and passing by the three dwarves heading to find Torgar.

"We're going up top," Catti-brie explained to them.

"Then take me brother!" Ivan called. "He's more help out of doors than in."

"Me brudder!" shouted Pikel, and he veered from his dwarf companions toward the duo.

Without complaint, having long before learned to not underestimate and to appreciate the dwarf "doo-dad," Catti-brie and Wulfgar continued along. They got to the southern end of the ridge and began to scale, beside the tunnel entrance from which came the line of wounded.

"We're holding!" one badly injured but still-walking dwarf proudly called to them.

"We never doubted that ye would!" Catti-brie yelled back, allowing her Dwarvish accent to strike hard into her inflection. In response, the dwarf punched a fist into the air. The movement had him grimacing with pain, though he tried hard not to let it show.

Wulfgar led the way up the rocky incline, his great strength and long legs allowing him to scale the broken wall easily. At every difficult juncture, he stopped and turned, reaching down and easily hoisting Catti-brie up beside him. A couple of points presented a more difficult challenge concerning short Pikel, though, for even lying flat on the stone, Wulfgar couldn't reach back that low.

Pikel merely smiled and waved him back, then went into a series of gyra-tions and chanting, then stopped and stared at the flat stone incline, giggling all the while. The green-bearded dwarf reached forward, his hand going right into the suddenly malleable stone. He reshaped it into one small step after another. Then, giggling still, the dwarf simply walked up beside the two humans and motioned them to move along.

The top of the ridgeline was broken and uneven but certainly navigable, even with the wind howling across the trio, left to right. Downwind as they were of the western slopes, they actually caught scent of the enemy before ever seeing them.

They fell back behind a high jut and watched as the first frost giant climbed to the ridge top.

Catti-brie put up Taulmaril and took deadly aim, but Pikel grabbed the arrow, shook his hairy head, and waggled the finger of his free hand before her, then pointed out to the north.

Where more giants were coming up.

"One shot," Wulfgar whispered. He grasped Aegis-fang tightly. "Be running as you let fly."

"Ready," Catti-brie assured him, and she motioned for Pikel to let go of her arrow, then for him to be off.

With a porcine squeal, Pikel sprinted out from behind the jut, running full out to the south. The nearest giant howled and pointed and started to give chase.

But then a streaking arrow hit the behemoth in the chest, staggering him backward, and a spinning warhammer followed the shot, striking in almost exactly the same place. The giant staggered more and tumbled off the western side of the ridge.

Wulfgar and Catti-brie heard the roar but didn't see it, for they were already in a dead run. They caught up to Pikel near to the southern descent, and without a word, Wulfgar merely scooped the dwarf up in his powerful grasp and ran on, hopping from ledge to ledge all the way back to the ground. Soon after they came down, boulders began to skip all around them, and the trio worked hard to help those dwarves still in the area back into the shelter of the tunnel.

Not so far in, they rejoined Ivan and Tred, along with Shingles McRuff and a very shaken Torgar Hammerstriker.

"Casters," Shingles explained to them. "Giant witch reached out and nearly crushed me friend's heart!"

As he finished, he patted Torgar on the shoulder, but gently.

"Hurts," Torgar remarked, his voice barely audible. "Hurts a lot."

"Bah, ye're too tough to fall to a simple witch trick," Shingles assured his friend, and he started to slap Torgar again, but Torgar held up a hand to deny the blow.

"Giants up above," Wulfgar explained to the dwarves. "We should move in deeper in case they come down."

"They won't move south," Catti-brie reasoned. "They wanted the high ground, and so they got it."

"And them orcs ain't coming on anymore, neither," said Shingles. "We dropped the roof on them, but they could've gotten to us by now if they'd wanted to."

"They have what they came for," Catti-brie replied.

She glanced back to the southern exit, and all seemed calm again, the rock shower having ended. Still, Wulfgar and the others gave it some time before daring to exit the tunnel again. The long shadows of twilight greeted them, along with an unsettling quiet that had descended over the region.

Catti-brie looked back to the main dwarven force, far to the east.

"Too far for a giant's throw," she said, and she glanced back up at the ridge.

Wulfgar started up immediately, and the woman went right behind. Back on the ridge top, even in the deepening gloom of night, they quickly came to understand what the assault had been all about. Far to the north on the ridge, giants were hauling huge logs up the western slope, while others were assembling those logs into gigantic war engines. Catti-brie looked back to the dwarves' position, with alarm. The distance was too far for a giant's throw, indeed, but was it too far for the throw of a giant-sized catapult?

At that moment, it truly hit the woman just how much trouble they were in. For the orcs to sacrifice so many, for them to allow hundreds of their kin to be slaughtered simply to earn a tactical advantage in the preparation of the battlefield, revealed a level of commitment and cunning far beyond anything the woman had ever seen from the wretched, pig-faced creatures.

"Bruenor's often said that the only reason the orcs and goblins didn't take over the North was that the orcs and goblins were too stupid to fight together," the woman whispered to Wulfgar.

"And now Bruenor is dead, or soon will be," Wulfgar replied.

His grim tone confirmed to Catti-brie that he had come to fathom the situation along similar lines.

They were in trouble.

CHAPTER 13 DEFINING THE BORDER

"By the gods, old William, ye could sleep the day away gettin' ready for yer nighttime rest," said Brusco Brawnanvil, first cousin to Banak, the war leader who was making his amazing reputation across the mountains to the west, on the other side of Mithral Hall.

"Yep," old William—Bill to his friends—HuskenNugget answered, and he let his head slide back to rest against the stone wall of the small tower marking the eastern entrance to the dwarven stronghold. Below their position, the Sur-brin flowed mightily past, sparkling in the afternoon light.

Soon after the first reports had filtered back to Mithral Hall of monsters stirring in the North, a substantial encampment had been constructed just north of their current position, along the high ground of a mountain arm. But with the desperate retreat from Shallows and the advent of the war in the west, that camp had been all but abandoned, with only a few forward scouts left behind. The dwarves simply didn't have any to spare, and the orcs were pressing them hard in the mountains north of Keeper's Dale. Rumors from Nesmй had forced Clan Battlehammer to tighten the defenses of their tunnels as well, fearing an underground assault.

In the east, there was nothing but the dance of the Surbrin and the long hours of boredom, made worse for the veteran dwarves because of their knowledge that their kin were fighting and dying in the west.

Thus, with Banak, Pwent, and their charges—along with the dwarves of Mirabar—making their names in a heroic stand against the pursuing hordes, Brusco, Bill, and the others still in the east just closed their eyes and rested their heads and hoped there'd be orcs enough for them to kill before the war ended.

"Ain't seen Filbedo in a few days," Brusco remarked.

Bill cracked open one sleepy eye and said, "He went through to the west, and out across Keeper's Dale, from what I'm hearing."

"Aye, that he did," said Kingred Doughbeard, who was up above them in the tower, sitting beside the open trapdoor, his back resting along the waist-high wall that ringed the structure's top. "We're not to be relieved fifteen for fifteen no more. Only twenty-five of us left on this side o' the halls, so some'll be pulling shifts two times in a row."

"Bah!" Brusco snorted. "Wished they'd asked. I'd've gone off to the west!"

"So would us all," Kingred answered, and he gave a snort. "Exceptin' Bill there. Bill's just looking to sleep."

"Yep," Bill agreed. "And I'll take the two-times watch. Three times, if ye're wanting. Nine Hells, I'll stay out here all day and all the night."

"Snoring all the while," said Kingred.

"Yep," said Bill.

"Found himself a comfortable spot," Brusco remarked and Kingred laughed again.

"Yep," said Bill.

"Well, if ye're gonna sleep, then switch with Kingred," Brusco demanded. "Give me someone to roll bones with, at least."

"Yep," said Bill.

He yawned and somehow rolled to his side and up on his feet, then wearily began to climb.

The noise below, of Kingred, Brusco, and a couple of others they had coaxed from the tunnels to join in their gambling, did little to inhibit the ever-tired dwarf, and soon he was snoring contentedly.

* * *

Halfway up the outside wall of the tower, nestled in the dark crevice where the shaped tower edge met the natural stone of the mountain wall, Tos'un Armgo heard the entire conversation. The drow paused at one comfortable juncture and waited, cursing silently—and not for the first time! — the absence of Donnia and Ad'non. They were the stealthy ones of the group, after all, whereas Tos'un was a mere warrior. At least, that's what Donnia and Ad'non were always insisting to him.

Kaer'lic had given Tos'un a few enchantments to help him as he ran forward scout for Obould, but still, he wasn't overly thrilled with being so exposed, out alone in a nest of tough dwarves.

Obould wasn't far behind, he told himself. Likely the orc and his minions would overrun the feeble defenses of the encampment to the north within a short time.

That notion made the drow take a deep breath and turn around, picking his handholds. The cursed, burning ball of fire in the sky had moved behind the mountains by this time, thankfully, extended long shadows over all the area on this eastern slope. Still, it was uncomfortably light by Tos'un's estimations.

But it was growing darker.

The time of the drow.

* * *

Brusco blew into his cupped hands, then shook them vigorously, rolling the bones around in the cup of his gnarly fingers and callused palms. Then he blew into them again and whispered a quick prayer to Dumathoin, the god of secrets under the mountain.

He repeated the process, and again, until the other dwarves around the cleared, rolling area began complaining, and one even cuffed him off the back of the head.

"Throw the damned things, will ye?"

Of course, the dwarf's annoyance had an awful lot to do with the fact that most of the silver pieces were set before Brusco by that point, as the dwarf had gotten onto a winning streak since sunset, some hours before.

"Gotta wait for good ol' Dum to tell me what's what," Brusco replied.

"Throw the damned things!" several shouted at once.

"Bah!" Brusco snorted and brought his hands back to roll.

And a horn blew, loud and clear and insistent, and all the dwarves froze in place.

"South?" one asked.

The horn blew again. Expecting it, they were able to discern that it had indeed come from the south.

"What d'ye see, Bill?" Kingred called up.

The others scrambled out of the tower, moving to higher points so that they could look for the signal fires from their watch-outposts in the southland.

"Bill?" Kingred called again. "Wake up, ye dolt! Bill!"

No answer.

And no snoring, Kingred realized, and there had been none for some time.

"Bill?" he asked again, more quietly and more concerned.

"What do ye know?" asked Brusco, running back in.

Kingred stared up, his expression speaking volumes to the other dwarf.

"Bill?" Brusco shouted.

He rushed to the ladder and began a fast climb.

"Trolls to the south!" came a cry from outside, from the distance. "Trolls to the south!"

Brusco paused on the ladder and thought, Trolls? What in the Nine Hells are trolls doing up here?

Another horn blew, from the north.

"Get to the crawls!" Brusco shouted down to Kingred. "Get 'em all to the crawls and get ready to shut 'em tight!"

Kingred scrambled out, and Brusco looked back up the ladder. He could see one of Bill's feet, hanging out over the open trapdoor.

"Bill?" he called again.

The foot didn't move at all.

A nauseous feeling came over Brusco then, and he forced himself up, slowly, hand over hand. Just below the lip, he slowly reached up and grabbed Bill's foot, giving it a tug.

"Bill?"

No movement, no response, no snoring.

And suddenly, Brusco was blind, completely in darkness. Instinctively, he simply let go and tucked, dropping to the stone floor and landing in a bumpy roll. By the time he came out of it, the veteran warrior had his sword in hand, and he was glad at least to find that he was not blind, that the spell that had dropped over him was an area of darkness and nothing that had actually affected his vision.

"Get in here!" he cried to his companions. "Magic! And something's got Bill!"

Other dwarves, led by Kingred, charged back into the tower.

"Set a catch blanket!" Brusco ordered.

He rushed back to the base of the ladder and started up again, moving much more quickly. The other dwarves grabbed a pair of blankets, doubling them up. Each taking a corner, they stretched it wide under the trapdoor.

They heard a commotion above, shouts from Brusco for Bill, and a grunt.

A dwarf came tumbling down, hitting the side of the blanket and rolling off to thud hard against the floor.

"Bill!" the four dwarves cried together, abandoning the blanket and rushing to their fallen comrade, a bright line of blood showing across his throat.

"Get him in to a priest!" one cried, and began to drag Bill away.

The dwarves rolled toward the door, then stopped and shouted for Brusco when they heard another commotion up above.

Brusco fell from the darkness, landing hard on the floor. He tried to stand and staggered to the side and would have fallen had not Kingred rushed over and caught him.

"Damned thing slicked me!" Brusco gasped.

He reached back and brought a blood-covered hand back in front. All strength left him then, and Kingred had to set himself firmly to hold the heavy dwarf up.

"A hand!" he called, and another dwarf rushed to the opposite side of the wounded Brusco.

"To the crawls," Brusco managed to remind them, coughing blood between each word.

By the time they got out of the small tower, two carrying Bill and two supporting Brusco, they caught sight of other companions charging up from the south and heard the calls of those rushing back from the north as well.

In the south, they shouted, "Trolls!"

From the north came the cries of, "Orcs!"

Kingred handed Brusco over fully to the other dwarf and sprinted ahead, drawing a hammer from his belt as he approached the huge iron doors of Mithral Hall. He went in hard, hammering away, once, twice … a pause, and a third time. He waited a few moments and banged out the coded signal again and again, and more emphatically when he thought he heard the locking bar being lifted behind the door.

The last thing he wanted at that moment was for those impregnable doors to open!

A grinding noise began off to the side of the main entrance and a small rock slid aside, revealing a dark crawl tunnel. In went the dwarves, one after another, with Kingred standing beside the tunnel, urging them on. Dwarves came from the north and from the south, each group barely outdistancing the advancing force—trolls in the south, orcs in the north. Kingred saw the truth of it; even though a second crawl tunnel had been opened, all the dwarves couldn't possibly get in ahead of the monsters. He almost called for his fellows to open the main doors then, but he held off the urge and bit back his fear. He and some others would have to stay out, would have to hold back the invaders to the bitter end.

Kingred took up his sword and strapped on a shield, and he continued to order those rushing up into the crawls.

"Go! Go! Go!" he called to them. "Keep yer butt down and keep yer butt moving!"

The trolls were the first monsters to arrive, their horrid stench filling Kingred's nostrils as he rushed out to meet them. His strong arms worked tirelessly, slashing away at the beasts, driving them back. A claw raked his shoulder, drawing a deep line, but he shrugged it off and turned, swinging, at that attacker. One after another, Kingred drove them back. Fighting like a dwarf possessed, a dwarf who knew that all, for him, was lost, Kingred growled and pressed on.

A great two-headed troll, as ugly as any creature Kingred had ever seen, as ugly a nightmare as Kingred had ever believed possible, shoved some of the other trolls out of the way and stepped up before him. Swallowing his fear, Kingred roared and charged headlong into the beast, but a huge spiked club whipped across to intercept and the dwarf was lifted from the ground and launched far, far away.

At that moment, the orcs arrived on the scene, sweeping down from the north, howling and hooting and throwing stones as they charged in with abandon.

* * *

"We got a dozen left out there!" cried Bayle Rockhunter, one of the inner gate guards. "Open them durned doors!"

The dwarf slapped a heavy pick across his hands and charged for the portal, and many others fell in behind him.

"It ain't to be done!" the wounded Brusco cried. "Ye know yer place!"

That reminder slowed the charge to the great doors—portals that were not to be opened in any event without express permission from the clan leaders back in the western reaches of the complex. The dwarves at the eastern gate were not an army by any means, but merely lookouts and sentries, holding the hall at all costs. Opening those doors would be engaging an apparently powerful force, one that could then flow into the hall.

But not opening those doors meant listening to their kin caught outside die.

"We can't be leaving them!" Bayle shouted back.

"Then ye're stealing all meaning from their deaths," Brusco responded, much more quietly.

That tone as much as the words themselves seemed to steal all the fire from the angry young dwarf.

"Hold the crawl tunnels open as long as ye can," another dwarf remarked.

Two score dwarves got into the safety of Mithral Hall that fateful evening, while some dozen stood with Kingred outside the crawl tunnels and the great, barred doors. Eventually, those inside reluctantly pulled the levers that dropped the counterweights that slid the stones back over the crawl entrances, sealing their kin outside, sealing their fate. Brusco and the others shut the crawl tunnels with heavy hearts and with promises that Kingred and the others wouldn't be forgotten, that songs would be written and sung, tavern to tavern.

* * *

King Obould, Gerti Orelsdottr, and Proffit the troll stood back from the tower and the doors, watching the work as giants, orcs, and trolls piled heavy stones before Mithral Hall's eastern entrance. All sound from inside the hall indicated that the dwarves were doing likewise, but Obould didn't want to take any chances. His goal had been to seal the eastern gates, and so he was doing just that.

"The land is ours to the Surbrin," the orc announced to his fellow leaders. From the shadows, Kaer'lic and Tos'un listened carefully.

He forgets that his son has not quite sealed in the dwarves, as yet, Kaer'lic flashed to her companion.

Tos'un appreciated the sarcasm, though he was more impressed with Obould's progress. Given the pressure that Urlgen was placing on Clan Battle-hammer in the west, the victory had been all too easy. A few dead orcs, a few dead dwarves, and Obould controlled the western bank of the Surbrin, all the way from the Spine of the World to the end of the mountains south of Mithral Hall. With defensive positions already being constructed along the river north of their current position, that was no small thing.

"The dwarves will find another way out," Gerti remarked, and Tos'un could tell that she, like Kaer'lic, simply wanted to deflate the glorious orc king a bit.

Obould offered a quick scowl at the giantess but turned his attention to the two-headed troll, Proffit.

"You have done well," he congratulated. "Your march was impressive."

"Troll no.." said the left-side head.

"… get tired," added the right.

"And so you will go right back to the south when we are finished here," Obould said, and both heads nodded.

"We stretch our line the length of the Surbrin," Obould explained to Gerti. "Hold our gains against any who would deny them. And our main force goes back to the west and north."

"And Proffit goes back to the Trollmoors?" Gerti asked.

Her disgust for the smelly troll was easy to see.

"To the tunnels in the south," Obould corrected. "Tunnels that connect to Mithral Hall. Proffit and his people will begin the battle for the dwarven stronghold within. We will defeat the dwarves without and claim our new kingdom."

He has a vision, Kaer'lic flashed.

Tos'un hid his smile, for he could tell that his companion was growing very uneasy with Obould. The four clever drow had incited all of it, but never had they actually believed that Obould would orchestrate something definitive and winnable! What would happen, Tos'un wondered (and he knew that his drow companions were also wondering), if the orc king managed to secure all the North between the Trollmoors and the Spine of the World, from the Surbrin to the Fell Pass? What would happen if, with such a base to serve as a kingdom, Obould did finally rout the dwarves from Mithral Hall? What would Silverymoon do? Or Mirabar? Or Citadel Adbar or Citadel Felbarr?

What could they do? More orcs were pouring forth from the mountains, by all reports. Had Tos'un and his companions inadvertently elevated Obould beyond their control?

An orc kingdom nestled within the various strongholds—human, dwarf, and elf. Would other tribes flock in to join in Obould's glory? Would Obould seek treaties, perhaps, and trade with the other cities?

It all seemed so preposterous to Tos'un, and also amusing. When he looked at Gerti, though, her expression grim even as she outwardly agreed with the orc king, the dark elf was reminded that there remained many potential pitfalls.

Only then did Tos'un realize that Kaer'lic was walking out to join the three leaders and that Obould was calling to him as well. He moved out beside the priestess of Lolth.

"You go with Proffit," Obould instructed the warrior of Barrison Del' Armgo.

"I?" Tos'un asked incredulously, and with more than a little revulsion at the less than appetizing thought.

"Proffit will travel the upper Underdark to do battle with the dwarves," Obould explained. "Much as your city did."

Tos'un looked at Kaer'lic with surprise, wondering how the orc king might have garnered that information.

It is for the best, Kaer'lic secretly flashed to him, alleviating all his doubts concerning the source.

"You know the tunnels leading to Mithral Hall," Obould reasoned to Tos'un. "You have been there."

"I know little," the drow argued.

"And that is more than anyone else," said Obould. "We must soon begin our attack within the hall, if the surface is to be secured. You will guide Proffit in this hunt."

There was no debate in Obould's tone, and when Tos'un started to argue anyway, Kaer'lic flashed an emphatic, It is better!

"I will go with him," Kaer'lic then announced. "I know some tunnels, and better for Proffit to have two dark elves directing his forces."

Obould nodded and turned to other matters, mostly the continuing sealing of the great doors.

Why have you done this? Tos'un's fingers asked Kaer'lic as the pair drifted back from the main conversation.

We should be away, came the reply.

What of Ad'non and Donnia?

Kaer'lic shrugged and replied, They will fend for themselves. They always do. For now, it is best that we go to the south.

Why?

Because Drizzt Do'Urden is in the north.

Tos'un stared curiously at his surprising companion. Kaer'lic had expressed great concern about Drizzt, but to go far away simply because the renegade drow was operating in the region? It made no sense.

He couldn't know Kaer'lic's suspicions, though. Ever since Tos'un had joined the band of renegades with his tales of Menzoberranzan's Mithral Hall disaster, Kaer'lic Suun Wett had feared that Drizzt Do'Urden might be something more than any of the Menzoberranyr drow had ever appreciated.

Beyond his fighting skills, there was something special about that particular renegade drow, something god-blessed. Kaer'lic had always been a clever one, but she almost hated her cunning, for in the grip of her suspicions, the drow priestess understood that she might be, in effect, condemning herself. Might that not be the price of enlightenment?

Unknown to her companions, the priestess of Lolth was convinced of something both unnerving and perfectly wicked: Drizzt Do'Urden had the favor of Lolth.

CHAPTER 14 ELVEN GNATS

Weapons flying, feet flapping, the two orcs had no desire to continue any battle with the deadly elf warrior on his flying horse—seeing three of their kin already down and dead was more than enough for their cowardly sensibilities, so they threw their weapons and ran away, sprinting along the rocky trail and shouting for help.

Behind and above them came the elf, astride his beautiful white charger, great wings driving them on. The orcs couldn't outrun him, certainly, nor could they hide unless they found a way underground.

And they would not, the elf knew.

He brought Sunrise out to the left, herding the pair back on the main, narrow trail.

Oblivious to anything but the pegasus and the elf, the orcs willingly veered and ran on at full speed. They came around a bend, one behind the other, and charged up a slight incline around another boulder.

At least, they tried to get around the boulder.

The second elf appeared, as beautiful as she was deadly. She came out in a spin from the left, from behind the boulder. The lead orc gave a shriek and stopped cold, throwing its hands out before it, but the elf didn't even strike at it. She rolled right around it, using the orc as an optical barrier to its running partner. The second orc pulled up fast, seeing its companion unexpectedly stopped, and didn't even notice the lithe form coming around on its companion's right until it was too late.

A sword skewered the orc through the chest.

The first orc opened its eyes again, and thought it had survived the attack, that the female elf had somehow gone right past it. Apparently, not one to pause and consider such a fortunate turn, the orc started to run again.

It got almost one full step before a sword bit it in the kidney. It got almost a second full step before the blade struck again. It got almost a third full step before the deadly sword came in yet again, across the back of its neck.

"I'm beginning to understand why Drizzt Do'Urden enjoys this existence," Tarathiel remarked, walking his mount up beside Innovindil.

"I do not think he enjoys it," Innovindil replied. She looked out across the rocks and gave a whistle. Sunset appeared, trotting her way. "He is driven by rage and is beyond all joy. We saw that when we came to his aid. He could not even accept our generosity."

Tarathiel wiped his bloody sword on the ratty tunic of one felled orc. His partner was right, he knew. He had hoped to begin a relationship with the dark elf when he and Innovindil had come upon Drizzt at the river. Tarathiel had hoped to speak with him about Ellifain, to learn what he might about her or to warn Drizzt that she was beyond reason and hunting for him.

But their discussion that day had never gotten even close to that point, and for exactly the reasons Innovindil had just espoused.

"Somewhere deep inside him, he must take some pleasure at killing these foul creatures," Tarathiel did respond. "He must recognize that his actions are for the betterment of the world."

"Let us hope," said Innovindil, in a less-than-convincing tone.

She looked up and around as she spoke, as if scanning for some sign of Drizzt.

The two moved along soon after, knowing that other orcs were converging on the area, rushing to investigate the screams of the five orcs the elves had killed. They kept the pegasi on the ground for the most part, trotting along, but used the flying mounts to cross ravines and small cliff faces to discourage any pursuit. They held high confidence that the grounded orcs could not possibly catch up.

The elves didn't return directly to their cave that night, though, preferring to scout out even wider in search of more prey.

Drizzt might be acting out of rage, but for Tarathiel and Innovindil, there was indeed a sense of accomplishment and even pleasure at the sport. And there was no shortage of orcs to hunt.

* * *

Donnia didn't even have to signal her pleasure to Ad'non when the glow of warmth led them to the pile of manure, for her evil smile summed it up perfectly.

Ad'non's expression showed that he was no less pleased.

The drow could see that most of the heat was gone from the pile, and they had a point of reference so that they could use that to determine the time the manure had been there. Dark elves were taught to judge heat dissipation from droppings from an early age, and the pile was similar in texture and size to that typical of the rothй cattle the dark elves farmed in their underground cities.

The pair flashed coordinating messages, and they set off on a roundabout path up the mountainside. Moving from bluff to bluff, from stone to stone, and from tree to tree, the pair made leap-frogging progress. Another pile of manure brought grins.

Then some more, down below them as they looked out from a flat stone.

Cave, Ad'non signaled, falling to his belly off to Donnia's right.

The two dark elves didn't know it, but they were atop the very same stone from which Drizzt had first glimpsed the cave of Tarathiel and Innovindil.

Donnia flicked a series of signals back to Ad'non, then slid forward on her belly to the very lip of the flat stone. A glance around and at Ad'non to ensure that he had his hand crossbow at the ready, and Donnia rolled right over the stone, holding securely to its Up, then skipping down the ten feet to hit the ground running across from the cave. At the side of the dark entrance, she drew out sword and hand crossbow.

Up above, Ad'non went over in a similar manner and quick-stepped his way to the wall opposite the entrance from Donnia.

Warm ashes within, Donnia flashed, a sure sign that the place was being used as a campsite.

Ad'non fell low and peered around, taking his time with the scan.

Empty, he silently told his companion. But not deserted.

Neither had to signal the other that they should set an ambush.

The drow elves moved around outside the cave, looking for some promis-ing vantage points for an ambush. They didn't remain too close to the entrance, though, nor did they go in, showing proper respect for their dangerous adver-saries. Soon after, Donnia stumbled upon something even more promising: a second cave.

This one is deeper, she signaled.

Ad'non came up to the lip of the small tunnel. He studied the descent within and the general angle of the corridor, then measured both against the location of the cave the surface elves were obviously using as a base. He motioned Donnia back, then fell to his belly and turned his head away as he gingerly slid his hand into the cave, delicate and practiced fingers working around the rim in search of any cunning traps. Gradually, Ad'non's arm went in deeper, feeling every inch.

With a glance at Donnia, the drow male slithered into the small hole, disappearing from view.

Donnia moved to the lip and glanced in just in time to see Ad'non's feet slip around the first bend in the corridor. With a look all around, she gently put one ear to the stone. The tapping of a predetermined code sent her into motion, falling flat and slipping in. The going was tight and tighter still when she worked around that first bend, and she came to a hole in the floor that could be negotiated only by going in head first, and blindly. Few rational creatures would have continued through such an uncomfortable obstacle, but to the dark elves, who had spent so many decades working through countless similar corridors in the honeycombed Underdark, it was not so daunting.

The corridor below the hole was a bit wider, though the ceiling was too low for Donnia to lift her head as she crawled along. It widened even more and opened into a higher chamber, and there she found her companion, sitting on a stone.

We should go down lower, Ad'non reasoned, and he motioned to the several choices offered to them: a pair of corridors winding out of the chamber, a wider area up a steep incline that seemed to extend over a wall of piled stones, and a broken-walled, rocky hole winding down deeper.

Donnia knew better than to argue with Ad'non concerning underground direction sense, for the scout had always shown a remarkable ability to navigate such tunnels. He was possessed of a keen instinct for that type of searching, as if he could innately sense the structure of any cave complex, as if he could somehow step back from the smaller areas visible to them at any given time and view the whole of the region. Perhaps it was the flow of the air or gradations of heat or light, but however he did it, Ad'non always seemed to follow the best course along a maze of tunnels.

And sure enough, after squeezing down the rocky shaft, crawling under a low overhang of rock and following yet another winding tunnel, the dark elves came into a small chamber. A slight breeze blew through the far wall. Not much of a wind, but one that sounded clearly to the keen ears of the drow.

Dead end? Donnia asked.

Ad'non signed her to be patient, then he moved to that far wall and began feeling along the stone. He looked back and grinned wickedly, and when Donnia rushed up to join him, she soon understood.

For they had come into a chamber adjacent to the cave the surface elves were using as their camp, and while there was no access between the chambers, the dark elves were able to work enough of the stone to give them a view of the other room.

They carefully replaced the stones and went back out into the night.

* * *

Drizzt went down to one knee and stared out across the early-morning landscape. Mist rose from the many mountain streams, dulling the sharp lines of ridges and outcroppings and adding a surreal quality to the morning light, dispersing it in a haze of orange and yellow. That mist dulled the sounds, too. The cry of birds, the rumble of loose stones, the babble of running water.

The scream of orcs.

Drizzt followed those screams out across a valley to another ridge across the way, and he made out the winged form of one pegasus, lifting into the air, then diving suddenly, and again, while its rider let fly a line of arrows from a longbow.

That would be Tarathiel, Drizzt supposed, for he was usually the one chasing the orcs into Innovindil's ambush.

Drizzt shook his head and gave a grin at their efficiency, for the pair had been out hunting before the last sunset and were out again at the first signs of dawn. He doubted that they had even returned to their cave during the night. He watched the chase a bit longer, then padded off softly for a secluded glade that he knew of nearby. Once there, he found a quiet place off to the side where he could watch the grassy area unnoticed, and he waited.

Sure enough, barely half an hour later, a pair of pegasi trotted onto the meadow, the two elves walking beside them and talking easily. The mounts needed to rest and to eat and needed to be wiped down as well, for their white coats glistened with sweat.

Drizzt had figured as much, and thus, he had expected the elf pair. Once again, the thought of going to them nagged at him. Was it not his responsibility to tell them of Ellifain and the tragedy in the west?

And yet, as the minutes passed, with Tarathiel and Innovindil untacking the Pegasi, the drow did not move.

He watched their movements as they gently watered down the marvelous steeds with water from a nearby brook. He watched Tarathiel bring a bucket up before each pegasus in turn, gently stroking the sides of their heads as they bent low to drink. He watched Innovindil bring forth some type of root. She put it in her mouth and stood before her mount teasingly, and the pegasus reached out and took the root from her in what could only be described as a kiss. The stallion reared then, but not threateningly, and Innovindil merely laughed and did not move as the great equine creature waved its front hooves in the air before her.

Drizzt's hand went to his belt pouch and the onyx figurine at the sight of the intimate interaction, for the way Tarathiel and Innovindil acted with their pegasi seemed a deeper level than master and creature, seemed a friendship more than anything else. Drizzt above all others understood such a relationship.

Again the drow felt the urge to go to them, to talk to them and to tell them the truth. He paused and looked down, then closed his eyes and relived that fateful battle with the disturbed Ellifain. For many minutes, he sat there quietly, remembering the encounter and the one previous with Ellifain, in the Moonwood and with Tarathiel nearby. He understood the pain Tarathiel would feel upon hearing of Ellifain's fate, for he had seen the compassion Tarathiel had shown to the disturbed elf female.

He didn't want to bring that pain to those two.

But they had a right to know, and he a responsibility to tell them.

Yes, he had to tell them.

But when he looked up, the elves were already gone. Drizzt moved from his hiding place, a low crook on a tree nestled among several others. He went to the edge of the meadow, scanning, and he saw the pegasi lift into the air from over the other end.

Drizzt knew that they weren't going hunting. The mounts were too weary and so were the elves, likely. He watched their progress and figured their direction.

They were going back to their cave.

Drizzt wondered if he really had the strength to go to them and tell them his tale.

* * *

"We should return to the Moonwood and gather the clan," Tarathiel said to his companion as the two elves settled their pegasi outside the antechamber of their cave shelter.

"Are you ready to abandon Drizzt Do'Urden when you have not yet learned of Ellifain?" Innovindil replied.

"Soon," Tarathiel replied.

He began stripping off his bloodstained clothing and carefully hung his sword belt on a natural wall hook above his bedroll, then pulled off his tunic. Noticing a wound on his shoulder, he went back to the sword belt and reached into his pouch to produce a jar of salve.

Across from him, Innovindil was similarly stripping down and carefully laying out her dirty clothes.

"One scored a hit on you," she remarked, seeing the long scratch along Tarathiel's shoulder and upper arm.

"A branch, I believe," Tarathiel corrected, and he winced as he rubbed the cleansing salve over the wound. "During Sunrise's dive."

He replaced the top on the jar of salve and dropped it down to his bedroll, then pulled off his breeches and knelt down, straightening the blankets.

"Not too deep?" Innovindil asked.

"Not at all," came the assurance from Tarathiel, but the reply ended abruptly, and when Innovindil turned to regard him, she saw him crumple down on the bedroll.

"Are you that weary?" she asked lightheartedly, at first thinking nothing of it.

A few seconds slipped past.

"Tarathiel?" she asked, for he hadn't responded at all and lay very still. Innovindil moved over to him and bent low. "Tarathiel?"

A slight noise turned her head up to look at the back wall, and she spotted the hole in the stones and the small contraption—a hand crossbow—set in it.

The click of its release halted her questioning gasp, and she watched the small dart zoom across the short expanse. She tried to dodge but was too close. She threw her hand up instinctively to block, but the dart was already past that Point—already past the waving hand and sticking deep into the base of her neck, just above her collarbone.

Innovindil staggered backward, her hand still held out before her. The hand was trembling, and violently, she realized only by looking at it. Even then the drow poison was coursing through her veins, numbing her extremities, dulling her thoughts. She realized she was sitting, though she hadn't intended to.

Then she was on her back, staring up at the ceiling of the cave. She tried to call out, but her lips wouldn't move to her command. She tried to turn her head to regard her companion, but she could not.

* * *

Behind the wall, Ad'non and Donnia exchanged grins and quickly moved away. They moved out of the back tunnel in a few moments' time and rushed around the hill to the front entrance of the cave. They each reached into their innate magic and summoned a globe of darkness, one over each of the pegasi milling around the entrance. The pegasi whinnied and stomped the ground in protest, and the dark elves rushed past them quickly.

Ad'non led the way up to the two paralyzed surface elves, Innovindil lying on her back before him and Tarathiel beyond her, crumpled in the fetal position.

"Beautiful, naked, and helpless," Ad'non remarked as he lewdly regarded the elf female.

With a wide grin and a quick glance back to Donnia, the drow crouched over and began stroking the elf's bare shoulder. Innovindil shuddered and jerked spasmodically, obviously trying to curl up and cower away from the touch.

That brought a chuckle from Ad'non, and from Donnia, who was enjoying the show.

"Beautiful, naked and helpless," Ad'non said again, and he glanced back at his drow companion. "Just the way I like my fairies."