The Lone Drow

How strange it was for me to watch the two elves come to my aid that day at the river. How out of sorts I felt, and how off-balance. I knew the hunting pair were in the area, of course, but to actually confront them on such terras took me to places where I did not dare to venture.

Took me back to the cave in the west, where Ellifain, their friend, lay dead at the end of my bloody blade.

How convenient the situation was to me in that moment of recognition, for there was truth in my advisement that we should flee along separate trails to discourage pursuit. There was justification in my reasoning.

But that cannot hide the truth I know in my own heart. I ran off down a different path because I was afraid, because courage in battle and courage in personal and emotional matters are often two separate attributes, and an abundance of one does not necessarily translate into an ample amount of the other.

I fear little from enemies. I fear more from friends. That is the paradox of my life. I can face a giant, a demon, a dragon, with scimitars drawn and enthusiasm high, and yet it took me years to admit my feelings for Catti-brie, to let go of the fears and just accept our relationship as the most positive aspect of my entire life.

And now I can throw myself into a gang of orcs without regard, blades slashing, a song of battle on my lips, but when Tarathiel and Innovindil presented themselves to me, I felt naked and helpless. I felt like a child again in Menzoberranzan, hiding from my mother and my vicious sisters. I do not think those two meant me any harm; they did not aid me in my battle just so they could find the satisfaction of killing me themselves. They came to me openly, knowing my identity.

But not knowing of my encounter with poor Ellifain, I am fairly certain.

I should have told them. I should have confessed all. I should have explained my pain and my regret, should have bowed before them with sorrow and humility, should have prayed with them for the safekeeping of poor Ellifain's spirit.

I should have trusted them. Tarathiel knows me and once trusted me with one of the precious horses of the Moonwood. Tarathiel saw the truth and believed that I had acted nobly on that long-ago night when the drow raiding party had crept out of the Underdark to slaughter Ellifain's clan.

He would have understood my encounter with Ellifain. He would have seen the futility of my position and the honest pain within my heart and soul.

And he should know the fate of his old friend. By all rights, he and Innovindil deserve to know of the death of Ellifain, of how she fell, and perhaps together we could then determine why she fell.

But I couldn't tell them. Not there. Not then. The wave of panic that rolled through me was as great as any I have ever known. All that I could think of was how I might get out of there, of how I might get away from these two allies, these two friends of dead Ellifain.

And so I ran.

With my scimitars, I am Drizzt the Brave, who shies from no battle. I am Drizzt who walked into a verbeeg lair beside Wulfgar and Guenhwyvar, knowing we were outmatched and outnumbered but hardly afraid! I am Drizzt, who survived alone in the Underdark for a decade, who accepted his fate and his inevitable death (or so I thought) rather than compromise those principles that I knew to be the true guiding lights of my existence.

But I am also Drizzt the Coward, fearing no physical challenge but unable to take an emotional leap into the arms of Catti-brie. I am Drizzt the Coward, who flees from Tarathiel because he cannot confess.

I am Drizzt, who has not returned to Mithral Hall after the fall of Shallows because without that confirmation of what I know to be true, that my friends are all dead, I can hold a sliver of hope that somehow some of them managed to escape the carnage. Regis, perhaps, using his ruby pendant to have the orcs carry him to waiting Batdehammer arms. Wulfgar, perhaps, raging beyond sensibility, reverting to his time in the Abyss and a pain and anger beyond control, scattering orcs before him until all those others ran from him and did not pursue.

And Catti-brie with him, perhaps.

It is all folly, I know.

I heard the orcs. I know the truth.

I am amazed at how much I hide behind these blades of mine. I am amazed at how little I fear death at an enemy's hands, and yet, at how greatly I fear having to tell Tarathiel the truth of Ellifain.

Still, I know that to be my responsibility. I know that to be the proper and just course.

I know that.

In matters of the heart, courage cannot overcome cowardice until I am honest with myself, until I admit the truth.

My reasoning in running away from the two elves that day in the river was sound and served to deflect their curiosity. But that reasoning was also a lie, because I cannot yet dare to care again.

I know that.

— Drizzt Do'Urden

CHAPTER 15 TACTICAL DISADVANTAGE

Catti-brie threw her back against a flat stone, avoiding the rock that whistled across beside her, clipped the ground, and rebounded out over the drop to Keeper's Dale. The woman couldn't afford to watch that missile, though, for she was already being hard pressed by the pair of orcs that remained of the trio charging her position.

She had taken one of them down with Taulmaril, but then came the barrage from those distant giants on the western ridge. They couldn't reach the dwarves' position with any large stones, so they were throwing slabs of shale instead, the thin, sharp missiles catching drafts of air in wild and arcing spins. Most of the throws went far wild, spinning crazily, turning up on end and soaring far to one side or the other, but some cut in too close to be ignored.

Another arrow went up on the bowstring, and Catti-brie drew back just as the lead orc came around, the side of the stone, club raised, teeth bared.

She blew the creature away, her arrow blasting it right in the chest, lifting it from the ground and throwing it a dozen feet backward to the stone.

Instinctively, the woman dropped the bow straight down, caught it at its end and stabbed out with it behind her to intercept the attack of a second orc. The curve of the bow brought the free tip up under the ore's chin, and Catti-brie kept the pressure on as she turned around, reversing her grip and pressing forward. She had the orc straining to its tiptoes then, and it reached up to grab the bow and push it aside.

But Catti-brie moved more quickly, turning slightly and putting her back in tight against the stone, angling the bow out. She twisted and shoved, and the orc had to retreat and twist away.

Unfortunately for the orc, it happened to be standing on the edge of Keeper's Dale. It managed to grab the bow as it started to fall, forcing Catti-brie to let go. She grimaced as she saw Taulmaril go over the edge. She didn't dwell on the loss, but rather quickly drew out Khazid'hea and spun back to face the threat.

An ugly orc face greeted her, leering at her from across the flat stone. The creature did a feint to the right, and the woman sent her sword out that way. It went back to the left quickly, and Catti-brie reacted accordingly. The orc shifted fast back to center and moved as if to scramble over the stone.

But Catti-brie tired of the game and thrust straight ahead, her fabulous sword slicing through the stone and right through the chest of the orc up against it.

The creature's bloodshot eyes stared at her incredulously over the sheared rock.

"Ye almost fooled me," Catti-brie said with a wink.

Another orc leaped at her then, suddenly and without warning, coming in from far and wide.

No, not leaped, she realized as the flailing creature soared right past, soared right out over the drop to the dale.

Catti-brie understood as Wulfgar appeared, hammer in hand.

"Ready your bow," he bade her. "We are turning them yet again!"

Catti-brie held up her free hand helplessly and started to motion toward the cliff. But she just shrugged when she realized that Wulfgar wasn't watching, having already turned back to the main fight. She leaped ahead, scrambling to the top of the stone and away in fast pursuit of her barbarian friend.

Side by side, they waded into the closest group of orcs, Aegis-fang swiping back and forth, scattering the closest enemies.

Catti-brie darted out to the side, where an orc presented a shield against her. It was a feeble defense against Khazid'hea. The blade bit right through the wooden shield, right through the arm strapped against its other side, and right through the ore's chest.

Catti-brie slashed across to intercept the charge of a second creature, and the fine blade, so aptly nicknamed Cutter, sliced through bone and flesh and wood to tear free of its first victim. Turning it down, Catti-brie caught the second ore's thrusting spear and dropped its tip harmlessly. She snapped the blade back up with two quick stabs—two clean holes in the ore's chest. The creature staggered backward and tried to regroup, but the swiping Aegis-fang caught it in the back and sent it flying past Catti-brie.

She put Cutter into its side for good measure as it went by.

How fine I eat this night! came a thought in her mind.

Though the words hardly registered, the sensation of bloodthirst surely did. Before she could even consider the implications, before she even realized that the sentient sword had awakened and found its way into her conscious once more, the woman charged ahead, past Wulfgar, rushing with abandon into a throng of orcs.

Ferocity replaced finesse, with Cutter lashing out wickedly at anything that moved near. Out to the left she thrust, across her chest and through one shield and arm. A quick retraction and the blade slashed across in front of her, forcing the two orcs before her to stumble backward and taking the tip from the spear of another that was coming in from her right. Catti-brie turned her trailing foot and swung her hips, then charged out suddenly to the right, stabbing repeatedly, poking hole after hole into the curling and screaming orc.

Recognizing her vulnerability, the woman turned back to face the remaining two, and she dived aside as something flew past.

Aegis-fang, she realized when one of the two orcs seemed to simply disappear.

He shares our plate! Khazid'hea protested, and the sword compelled the woman to charge forward at the remaining orc.

Terrified, the creature threw its sword at her and turned and fled, and though the weapon smacked against her, it hardly slowed her. She caught the orc as it joined up with a pair of its fellows and still didn't slow, coming in with fury, stabbing and slashing. She took a hit and ignored the pain, willing to trade strike for strike, orc weapon against marvelous Khazid'hea.

The three were down, and Catti-brie ran on.

"Wait!" came a cry behind her.

It was Wulfgar's cry, but it seemed distant and not insistent. Not as insistent as the hunger in her thoughts. Not as insistent as the fire coursing through her veins.

Another orc fell before her. She hit another, thinking to rush past with a following stab on the creature behind it. But her strike was too strong, and the fine blade slashed through the ore's upper arm, severing the limb, then bit deeply into the creature's side, cutting halfway through its torso. There the blade halted and got stuck, for the momentum of the slash was stolen by too-eager Catti-brie, her weight coming past before she had finished the move. The dying orc flopped about and the woman nearly lost her grip on the blade. She turned and tugged fiercely, knowing she had to get it free, seeing the next creature barely feet away.

"Bah! Ye're taking all the fun!" that creature called at her.

Only then did Catti-brie stop struggling with the stuck sword. Only then did she realize that she had already reached the end of the dwarven line.

She offered a sheepish smile at the dwarf, keeping the thought private that if she hadn't accidentally caught her blade on the orc, that dwarf would likely have fallen to the hunger of Khazid'hea.

Spurred by that thought, the woman silently swore at the sword, which of course heard her clearly. She planted a foot on the dead orc and tried again to pull Khazid'hea free but was stopped by a large hand gripping her shoulder.

"Easy," Wulfgar bade her. "We fight together, side by side."

Catti-brie let go of the blade and stepped back, then took a long and steadying deep breath.

"Sword's hungry," she explained.

Wulfgar smiled, nodded, and said, "Temper that hunger with common sense."

Catti-brie looked back at the path of carnage she had wrought, at the sliced and slashed orcs, and at herself, covered head to toe in orc blood.

No, not all of it was orc, she only then realized and only then felt the burning pain. The thrown sword had opened a gash along her left arm, and she had another wound on her right hip and another where a spear tip had cut into her right foot.

"You need a priest," Wulfgar said to her.

Catti-brie, jaw clenched against the pain, stubbornly stepped forward and grabbed Khazid'hea's hilt. She roughly tore it free—and yet another fountain of orc blood painted her.

"And a bath," Wulfgar remarked, half in humor and half in sadness.

* * *

Banak Brawnanvil shoved two thick fingers into his mouth and blew a shrill whistle. The orcs were in retreat yet again, and the dwarves were giving chase, holding perfectly to their formations as they went. But those orcs were veering, Banak realized from his high vantage point back near the cliff face. They were sidling west in their run down the slope.

Banak whistled again and again and called for his nearby commanders to turn the dwarves around.

Before that order ever reached the pursuing force, though, all the dwarves, commander and pursuer alike, came to understand its intent and urgency. For in their bloodlust, the dwarves had moved too far to the north and west, too close to the high ridge and the waiting giants. As one, the formation skidded to a stop and swung around as giant boulders began to rain down upon them.

Their focused turn became an all-out retreat, and the orcs who had baited them turned as well, making the pursuers the pursued.

"Damned clever pigs," Banak grumbled.

"They've got the tactical advantage with them giants on the ridge," agreed Torgar, who stood at Banak's side.

That advantage was likely leading to complete disaster. Those orcs in pursuit, with the artillery support of the giants, would likely cut deep into the dwar-ven lines.

The two dwarf commanders held their breaths, praying that the errant band would get out of the giants' effective range and would then be able to offer some defense against the orcs. Banak and Torgar measured the ground, both calling out commands to support groups, moving all the remaining dwarves into position to catch and bolster their running kin.

Their plans took a sudden turn, though, as one group from the fleeing dwarves broke away from the main force, turning back upon the orcs with sudden ferocity.

"That'd be Pwent," Banak muttered.

Torgar tipped his helmet in admiration of the brave Gutbusters.

Pwent and his boys hit the orc line with abandon, and that line broke almost immediately.

The giants turned their attention to that particular area. Boulders rained down, but there were many more orcs than dwarves, a ratio of more than five to one—and that ratio held up concerning the numbers dropped by giant-thrown stones.

The pursuit was over and the main dwarven force was able to return to their defensive positions. All eyes turned back to the area of carnage, to see a group f Gutbusters, less than half of those who had bravely turned and charged, come scrambling out, running zigzags up the inclining stone.

Banak's charges cheered for them, urging them on, shouting for them to, "Run!" and, "Duck!" and, "Keep going!"

But rocks smashed among the zigzagging group, and whenever one of Pwent's boys went down, the cheering dwarves gave a collective groan.

One figure in particular caught the attention of the onlookers. It was Pwent himself, running up the slope with not one, but a pair of wounded dwarves slung over his shoulders.

The cheers went up for him, for "Pwent, Pwent, Pwent!"

He lagged behind, so he became the focus of the giants as well. Rocks smashed down all around him. Still he charged on, roaring with every step, determined to get his wounded boys out of there.

A rock hit the ground behind him and skipped forward, slamming him in the back and sending him flying forward. The wounded dwarves rolled off to either side, all three hitting the ground hard.

Up above, cheers turned to stunned silence.

Pwent struggled to get up.

Another stone clipped him and laid him face down.

Two figures broke out from the dwarf ranks then, running fast on longer legs, sprinting down the slope toward the fallen trio.

Amazingly, Pwent forced himself back up and turned to face the giants. He swung one arm up, slapping his other hand across his elbow so that his fist punched high in the air—as rude a gesture as he could offer.

Another boulder smashed the stone right in front of him, then bounced up over him and clunked down behind.

And there stood Pwent, signaling curses at the giants.

* * *

Catti-brie wished that she had her bow with her! Then, perhaps, she could at least offer some cover against that suicidal charge.

Wulfgar outdistanced her, his hands free, for he had left Aegis-fang back up with the dwarves.

"Get to Pwent!" the barbarian cried, and he veered for one of the two more seriously wounded warriors.

Catti-brie reached the stubborn battlerager and grabbed him by the still-cursing arm.

"Come on, ye dolt!" she cried. "They'll crush you down!"

"Bah! They're as stupid as they are tall!" Pwent shouted.

He pulled his arm from Catti-brie, hooked a finger of each hand into either side of his mouth, and pulled it wide, sticking out his tongue at the distant behemoths.

He sobered almost at once, though, and not from Catti-brie's continuing pleas, but from the specter of Wulfgar crossing before him, an unconscious dwarf over one shoulder. Pwent watched as Wulfgar moved to the second fallen Gutbuster, a huge hand clasping over the scruff of the dwarf's neck and hoisting him easily.

When Catti-brie tugged again, Pwent didn't argue, and the woman pulled him along, back up the slope. The rain of boulders commenced with full force, but luck was with the trio and their unconscious cargo, and Wulfgar was hardly slowed by the burden of the two injured dwarves. Soon enough, they were out of range of the boulders. The frustrated giants went back to their shale then, filling the air with spinning and slashing sharp-edged stones.

* * *

Dwarves cheered wildly as the group of five approached. As one, the hundreds lifted their arms in rude gestures and stood defiantly against the whizzing missiles of slate.

"Get yer bandages ready," Banak shouted to Pikel Bouldershoulder, who was off to the side, jumping around excitedly.

"Oo oi!" the dwarf yelled back, and he turned and lifted an arm in salute to Banak.

The slate flew past, taking Pikel's raised arm at the elbow. The green-bearded dwarf put on a puzzled look and stumbled forward, then shrugged as if he didn't understand.

And his eyes went wide as he saw the severed limb—his severed limb! — lying off to the side.

His brother Ivan slammed into him from the side, slapping a cloak tightly around Pikel's blood-spurting stump, and other dwarves nearby howled and rushed to help.

Pikel was sitting then, ushered down by his brother.

"Oooo," he said.

CHAPTER 16 EMBRACING THE HUNTER

Ad'non Kareese's long, slender fingers traced a line down over Innovindil's delicate chin, down the moon elf's birdlike neck and to the base of her throat.

"Can you feel me?" the drow teased, though he believed, of course, that the paralyzed surface elf couldn't understand his language.

"Have your way with the creature and be done with her," Donnia said from behind him.

Ad'non smiled, keeping his head turned away from his companion so that she could not see the amusement he was taking at her obvious consternation. She understood his intended action as debasement more than any real emotional connection, of course—and as she was drow herself so she was certainly going to find her own pleasures with their paralyzed playthings—but still, there sounded a bit of unmistakable agitation around the edges of her voice.

Amusing.

"If I find you soft and warm, perhaps I will keep you alive for a while, Ad'non said to Innovindil.

He watched the surface elf's eyes as he spoke and could see that they were indeed reacting to the sound of his voice and the feel of his touch. Yes, she couldn't outwardly make any movements—the drow poison had done its job well—but she understood what was happening, understood what he was about to do to her, and understood that she had no chance to get out of it.

That made it all the sweeter.

Ad'non ran his hand lower, across the female's small breasts and down over her belly. Then he stood up and stepped back. He glanced back at Donnia, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest.

"We should drag them to a different cave," he said to his companion. "Let us keep them prisoner."

"Her, perhaps," Donnia replied, indicating Innovindil. "For that one, there will be only death."

It seemed fine enough to Ad'non, and he glanced back at the female elf and grinned.

And he couldn't see her—a ball of blackness covered her and her companion.

Never to be taken completely by surprise, the two dark elves swung around, Ad'non unsheathing his swords, Donnia drawing a blade and her hand crossbow. The form behind them, by the entrance, was easily enough distinguishable. It was a drow standing calmly, standing ready, scimitars drawn.

"Traitor!" Donnia growled, and she lifted her crossbow and fired.

* * *

Drizzt trembled with rage when he first entered the cave, seeing the two elves lying flat, and the two drow standing over them. He had known of the trouble before he'd ever come in, for the calls and stomping hooves of the pegasi outside had alerted him from some distance away. Without thinking twice, the drow ranger had broken into a run, leaping down the flat rock from which he'd often observed the area, and charging between the winged horses even as the darkness globes dissipated.

So alarmed was Drizzt that he hadn't even paused long enough to bring forth Guenhwyvar.

And he faced the drow pair.

He didn't even see the movement, but he heard the distinctive click, and remembered well enough that telltale sound. The ranger spun, pulling his cloak in a wide sweep around him.

His quick defense caught the dart in the swinging cloak, but even as the dart stuck in place, the second click sounded. Drizzt spun again, but the second dart got past the flying cloak and struck him in the hip.

Almost immediately, Drizzt felt the numbing chill of the drow poison.

He staggered back toward the exit and thought to call in Guenhwyvar. He couldn't reach for his belt pouch, though, for it was all he could do to hold fast to his weapons.

"How wonderful of you to join us, Drizzt Do'Urden," said the female drow who'd shot him.

Her words, spoken in the language of his homeland, brought him drifting back across the years, brought him back to images of Menzoberranzan and his family, of House Do'Urden and Zaknafein, of Narbondel glowing with heat and the great structures of the drow palaces, stalagmite and stalactite palaces, shaped and set with sweeping balconies and decorated with multicolored accents of faerie fire.

He saw it all so clearly—the early days beside his sisters and training with the weapons masters at Melee Magthere, the school for drow warriors.

The sound of metal clinking against stone woke him up, and only then did he realize that he was leaning heavily on the wall and that he had dropped one of his blades.

"Ah, Drizzt Do'Urden, I had hoped you would put up a better fight than this," said the male drow. The sound of his voice alone told Drizzt that his enemy was steadily approaching. "I have heard so much of your prowess."

Drizzt couldn't keep his eyes open. He felt the numbness flowing through his lower extremities so that he couldn't even feel the ground beneath his feet. The only reason he was still standing, he understood through the haze that was filtering his thoughts, was because of his angle against the wall.

The poison crept in, and so did the sword-wielding drow.

Drizzt tried to fight back against the numbness, tried hard to find his center, tried hard to shake his mind clear of the cloudy disorientation.

He could not.

"Now perhaps we have found a true plaything, Ad'non," he heard the drow female remark from somewhere so very, very distant.

"Too dangerous is this one, my dear Donnia," the male argued. "He dies quickly."

"As you will…"

Her voice trailed away, and it seemed to Drizzt as if he was falling far away, into a pit of blackness from which there could be no escape.

* * *

Wulfgar lay on the stone, peering down, trying to discern the best angle of approach toward the ledge where Taulmaril balanced precariously.

Behind him, Catti-brie tied a rope around her waist and checked the length of the cord.

"The devilish sword almost had me enthralled," the woman admitted as Wulfgar turned around and sat up facing her. "I've not felt its call so insistently in many months."

"Because you are tired," Wulfgar replied. "We're all tired. How many times have our enemies come at us? A dozen? They give us no rest."

"Just hit the damned thing with a rock, send it tumbling to the floor, and go get it," said Torgar, coming over with Shingles McRuff beside him.

Both of them were limping, and Shingles was holding one arm protectively close against his side.

"We've tried," Wulfgar replied.

"How is Pikel?" Catti-brie asked. "And Pwent?"

"Pwent's hopping mad," Shingles replied.

"Nothing new there," the woman remarked.

"And Pikel's said nothing but 'oooo' since he lost the arm," Shingles added. "I'm thinking it'll take him a bit afore he's used to it. Banak sent him down to Mithral Hall for better tending."

"He'll live, though, and that's more than many can say," added Torgar.

"Well, be quick about getting yer bow," Shingles said. "Might that we'll all be going inside the hall soon enough." He glanced back over his shoulder toward the distant ridge and the giants. "We can hold firm so far, as long as we're not stupid enough to chase the damned orcs back in range of the brutes. But they're bringin' up big logs and building giant-sized catapults. Once them things are throwing, we'll be fast out o' here."

Wulfgar and Catti-brie exchanged concerned looks, for neither had any answer to that logic.

"Banak would've called for the retreat to begin already," said Torgar, "except now we've got a force set west of Keeper's Dale, and he knows that if he surrenders this ground, they'll have the dickens getting back to the gate, since they'd be crossing the dale right under giant fire."

Again the two humans exchanged a concerned look. Their enemies had gained a huge tactical advantage, one that would drive the dwarves from the area, and yes, back into Mithral Hall. That much seemed certain.

What did that mean for all the other towns nearby?

What did that mean for Mithral Hall, with no surface trade and no way to get out in numbers sufficient to take back the land?

And for Wulfgar and Catti-brie, there remained one more nagging problem.

If they were forced back underground, what did it mean for Drizzt Do'Urden? Would he ever be able to find his way back to them?

* * *

He saw Zaknafein falling into the acid pit.

He saw Ellifain falling against the wall.

He saw Bruenor falling atop a tower.

He felt the keen sting of each loss, the pain and the anger, and he did not push them away. No, Drizzt embraced them, called those emotions to him, basked in them and heightened them.

He imagined Regis being torn apart by orcs.

He imagined Wulfgar falling amidst a bloody sea of enemy spears.

He imagined Catti-brie, down and helpless, surrounded by enemies, bleeding from a hundred wounds.

He imagined, and those conjured images blended with the very real and painful images he had known in his life, the visions of sorrow and despair, the scenes of his life that had brought him to a place of emotional darkness.

He felt the Hunter rising within him. All the images ran together then, one long line of pain and loss and sorrow and regret, and most of all, of pure rage.

A sword stabbed in at Drizzt's left side, but the ring of metal on metal sounded clearly, a warning bell to his two attackers that their poison could not defeat the Hunter. For across came the backhand slash of a scimitar, in the blink of an astonished drow eye, whipping up and around in an instant to catch the thrusting sword and turn it up and out.

The second sword followed, predictably low, but even in anticipation of the coming blade and given the attack angle, the defender seemingly had no practical chance of either snapping down his first scimitar or of getting to his second, which lay on the floor.

But he was the Hunter, and not only did that first scimitar blade come back down, rapping the sword and driving it out to the right out in front of him as he turned, but the Hunter fell into a crouch with the parry, scooping up the fallen Twinkle. As he came up fast, blades working in perfect harmony, the retrieved scimitar came in and over the sword and rode it out even more.

That first scimitar reversed and snapped back up, hard, ringing the first sword again.

And so the attacker, Ad'non, stood helpless, swords out wide to either side, two deadly scimitars inside them.

A sudden and brutal ending, or so it would have been for the surprised Ad'non, had not his companion come in then hard at the Hunter's back. A sudden jerk shoved Ad'non's blades out even more, and he had to step back to hold any sort of defensive position. But he needed no defense at that moment, for the Hunter spun away from him, blades cutting the air in a protective weave before him as he turned left to right.

Donnia squealed at the surprising deflection of her sword, but the skilled female warrior followed the flow of the scimitars and quick-stepped in behind for a dagger thrust.

The Hunter's hip was already moving, keeping him out of reach.

And Drizzt spun again, defeating Ad'non's double-thrust, scimitars rolling up and across, hitting the swords a dozen times in rapid succession before he continued around, the whirling blades forcing that dirk back, then driving hard against Donnia's sword once more.

The Hunter continued to spin, rolling blades striking one side and the other, always coming around at the exact angle to intercept, as if the lone drow was anticipating each attack, as if he was seeing it before it ever began.

His attackers were not novices, though, and they had fought together many, many times. They kept opposite each other and kept their attacks coordinated—and they were expending far less energy than the spinning drow defender. Still, as they struck and leaped back, every thrust, high or low, left or right, was met by the ringing impact of a perfectly aimed scimitar.

Then, suddenly, the twirl stopped, and the pair attacked, but the Hunter went back around the other way. Again came the ring of metal on metal, two scimitars striking hard against three swords.

That spin ended almost immediately, though, leaving the Hunter sidelong to both attackers.

In came Ad'non, double-thrust high.

The Hunter ducked below it and stabbed for the male's knees, then leaped straight up over Donnia's slashing sword as Ad'non retracted. Drizzt landed in a fast step toward Ad'non, snapping his scimitars up in a cross between Ad'non's leveled blades, stabbing them high until his arms crossed and the hilts caught at the blade, then snapping them out across again, out wide, nearly tearing the swords from Ad'non's grasp.

Ad'non threw himself backward, but so did the Hunter, leaping into a backward somersault right above and over the stabbing sword of Donnia. He landed lightly, still backstepping.

As he crossed over, defeating her attack, the dexterous Donnia flipped her dirk in her hand and whipped it at his chest.

But the defending drow's right scimitar snapped up to cleanly block, and before the deflected dirk could bounce away, the left-hand scimitar locked up under it, pinning it against the first blade for just a moment before slashing back to the left, redirecting the dirk into a swift flight at his retreating adversary. Ad'non desperately dived back and around but got clipped across the cheek as he tumbled away.

Donnia pressed the attack, drawing a whip from her belt as she thrust ahead with her sword.

That sword thrust never got close, as the Hunter's right reversed down and around, turning it, then lifting it as the left hand came back in, striking it again, lifting it higher. The right scimitar climbed that parrying ladder in turn, knocking it still higher.

Donnia accepted the blocks with only a minimal attempt to break free, for her second hand worked perfectly then, sending the whip in a teasing forward slide, then snapping it suddenly for the Hunter's face.

A scimitar picked it off, but it did not cut the enchanted whip, and the same magic that prevented the tear also reacted to Donnia's willful call, the living tentacle wrapping fast around the blade.

Her eyes blazing with apparent victory, the female yanked the scimitar free. She was surprised at how easily she got it from the strong drow—only until she realized that he had let it go, turning as he did and pulling his cloak from around his neck.

Ad'non came in hard from the side, but the Hunter quick-stepped ahead and to the opposite side, moving around Donnia to use her as a screen. As he went, he brought his cloak up above his head in a spin, and as Donnia snapped the whip, so he launched the cloak.

She felt her whip crack hard against his shoulder and got wrapped about the head by the flying cloak in return—which she accepted as more than an even trade.

Until she felt the sudden sting at the side of her neck, and she realized that her dart was hanging in that cloak and that the vicious and sneaky warrior had angled the throw perfectly to get its poisoned tip near to her.

With a shriek, the female fell back and threw aside the garment.

One scimitar against two swords, the Hunter still slapped and parried perfectly, never letting Ad'non get close to hitting. He backstepped as he parried, swiftly working his way in perfect balance to his lost scimitar.

Following that maneuver, Ad'non increased his attack, even went into a sudden and furious charge.

The Hunter leaped aside, to Ad'non's left, and the skilled killer redirected his left-hand blade out immediately, and when it got slapped aside, he followed with a thrust of the right.

That, too, was parried, and the Hunter turned inside both, putting his back to Ad'non. A quick double-pump of his arm brought his scimitar forward and back twice, brought its pommel hard into Ad'non's face—twice.

Staggered, the drow stumbled backward, his blades working furiously in desperate defense. They hit only air, though, and a look of abject terror flashed across the drow's face.

Except that the Hunter hadn't pursued. Instead, he'd turned and sprinted for his lost scimitar.

A globe of darkness covered him as he reached the blade, and he responded with one of his own, right where he remembered the female to be.

Grabbing up the scimitar, he went out furiously, diving into a roll, then charged right through the second globe, his own globe, sliding in low, blades working all around.

He came out to find the female sprinting across toward the male, who had warm blood trickling down his face.

Unafraid, the Hunter stalked in.

"Together and to the sides," the Hunter heard the male say, and Ad'non started to the left.

And the female felt at the side of her neck, a look of panic on her face.

The Hunter covered her in blue-glowing flames, harmless faerie fire that marked her as a clearer target.

As Ad'non charged, she turned and ran.

They worked their blades so quickly that the ring sounded as one long call. Ad'non stabbed with one sword then the other and got hit with a double-block left and a double-block right, each of his attacks being picked off by not one, but both of the Hunter's scimitars.

A slash across hit nothing but air as the Hunter ducked. A thrust flew freely as the Hunter deftly turned, and that blade got smacked hard on the retraction, nearly tearing it free of Ad'non's grasp.

"Donnia!" he screamed.

He growled and worked his own blades magnificently as a sudden series of diagonal slashes, tap-tapping each scimitar just enough to make it slide past him harmlessly. So fast did those scimitars come, though, that Ad'non was forced to steadily retreat and couldn't begin to think of any possible counters.

But those blades did gradually slow, leaving a slip of an opening.

One that Ad'non leaped through, offering a devastating double-thrust low.

Amazingly, the scimitars somehow fell into the only possible defense, double-cross-down, which left the two at a draw for that particular routine, so Ad'non thought. For Ad'non Kareese was not of Menzoberranzan and did not know that his foe, Drizzt' Do'Urden, had long-ago found the solution for the routine-end.

With amazing dexterity and balance, the Hunter's foot came up right between the crossed scimitars and smashed Ad'non squarely in the face, sending him staggering backward yet again.

He tried to mount a defense, but the scimitars led the way, batting his swords aside, and as he slammed hard against the wall, he could not block the diving, curved blade.

It hit him squarely in the chest, and he screamed.

And the Hunter growled, thinking the fight at its end.

But the scimitar did not penetrate! Nor did its sister blade score a mortal wound as it came in hard against Ad'non's side. Oh yes, the two blades had hurt the drow warrior, but neither had found its way in for the kill.

And suddenly, the Hunter was off-balance, was caught by surprise.

Across came a sword, knocking both scimitars aside, and the Hunter went into a spin, right-to-left. But Ad'non went to his right behind him, pressing the attack, forcing him to run past or get skewered.

But there was a wall there, Ad'non knew, and he smiled, for the devilish drow renegade had nowhere to go. In Ad'non charged, both blades going for the kill.

But the Hunter was not there.

Ad'non's blades clipped the bare stone, and he stopped suddenly, eyes wide.

"O cunning Drizzt," he said as he figured out that Drizzt had gone right over him, running up the wall and flipping a back somersault to stand behind him.

The scimitar came slashing across just above Ad'non's shoulder, cleanly lopping off his head.

Drizzt glanced across the way to the two paralyzed elves and even started toward them, just a step. But then, his anger far from sated, the Hunter ran out of the cave and off into the night. He paused and glanced around and saw the blue glow of his faerie fire along a slope to the west. His eyes cast determinedly as if set in stone, the Hunter drew forth his onyx figurine and called to Guenhwyvar.

The blue glow still showed when the great panther materialized beside him, and Drizzt pointed it out.

"Catch her, Guen," the drow instructed. "Catch her and hold her for me." With a growl, the panther charged off into the night, gaining great expanses with every mighty leap.

CHAPTER 17 STEWARDSHIP AND ESPIONAGE

Regis squeezed Bruenor's hand and stared down at his friend, wondering if it would be last time he would see the dwarf king alive. Bruenor's breaths seemed more shallow to him, and the dwarf's color was even more grayish, as if he was made of stone. Stumpet and Cordio had told Regis that it likely wouldn't be much longer, and he could see that plainly.

"I owe you this," the halfling whispered, barely able to get his voice out through the lump in his throat. "We all do, and know as you rest that Mithral Hall will stand strong in your absence. I will not let this place fall."

The halfling gave another gentle squeeze, then laid the dwarf's hand down across his chest. For a moment, he saw no movement in Bruenor's chest, and he wondered if the dwarf had heard him and had at last let go.

But then Bruenor took a breath.

Not yet.

Regis patted the dwarf's hands and briskly walked out of the room, overcome and trying hard to bring himself emotionally back to center. He moved quickly along the tunnels, knowing that he was late for a meeting with Galen Firth of Nesmй. He still didn't know how he would handle the fierce warrior. What aid might he offer with Mithral Hall under such duress? The eastern door was sealed—the dwarves had even dropped the tunnels behind it to make sure that any enemies trying to come in that way would have to claw through more than twenty feet of stone.

Reports from the north were no more promising, for Banak Brawnanvil had sent word that he was not certain how long he could hold his position. The giants were setting catapults on the western ridge, and soon enough, Banak feared, his forces would be under terrible duress.

He had asked for Regis to swing the force that had settled in the western end of Keeper's Dale around to the north to overrun the ridge from the west, but the request had come with a caveat: if it was feasible. Even Banak, settled in an increasingly desperate situation, recognized the danger of following such a course. Not only would that be exposing one of his two remaining surface armies to a potentially devastating situation, but in moving them out of their defensive position in Keeper's Dale, Regis would be risking leaving a wide-open path to Mithral Hall's western gate.

And Nesmй was sorely pressed—likely even overrun—so the halfling had to keep the western approach protected from potential enemies moving up from the south.

Too many problems flitted through the halfling steward's mind. Too many issues confronted him. He hardly knew where he was half the time, and in truth, all he wanted was to go eat a big meal or two and settle down in a warm bed, with nothing troubling him more than the all-important decision of what he would choose to eat for breakfast.

With all of that weighing down his little shoulders, Regis started away. But he stopped and glanced back at the candlelit room where King Bruenor lay, and he remembered his words to his dying friend.

Regis straightened his shoulders immediately, bolstered by his sense of duty. His promise had not been idly given, and he did indeed owe Bruenor at least that much, and surely even more.

First things first, Regis decided, and he moved off more quickly and determinedly for his meeting with Galen Firth. He found the man in the appointed audience room, a smaller and more personable sitting area than the grand chamber. It was appointed with comfortable chairs—three padded ones with arm rests and wide-flaring backs—set on a thick-woven rug patterned in the foaming mug emblem of Clan Battlehammer. Completing the square of the sitting area was a stone hearth, wherein burned a small and cozy fire.

Despite the obvious comforts, Galen Firth was pacing, his hands behind his back, his fingers running all around, his eyes cast down at the floor. Regis had to wonder if this man was ever anything but agitated.

"Well met again, Galen Firth of Nesmй," the halfling steward greeted as he entered the room. "Forgive my tardiness, I beg, for there are many pressing problems all needing my attention."

"Your tardiness this day is more forgivable than the tardiness of Mithral Hall's answer to Nesmй's desperate call," the disagreeable man replied rather harshly.

Regis gave a sigh, walked past Galen and plopped himself down in one of the chairs. When the warrior made no move to join him in the sitting area, the halfling pointedly gestured to the seat directly across from him, to the right of the fire as his was to the left.

Never blinking and never taking his eyes from the halfling, the Rider of Nesmй moved to the chair.

"What would you have me do?" Regis asked as Galen at last sat down.

"Launch an army of dwarves to the aid of Nesmй, that we can drive the trolls back into their brackish waters and restore my town."

"And when this army marches south and a greater army of orcs and giants offers pursuit, then what would you have any of us do?" Regis reasoned, and Galen's eyes narrowed. "For that is what will happen, you do understand. The orcs press us on the north and have sealed the door to Mithral Hall on the east—you have heard of this latest battle, yes? I have one force up on the cliff north of Keeper's Dale waging battle daily against the orcs, but if the reports of the size of the attacking force in the east were anywhere near to accurate, my warriors will soon be even harder pressed and likely forced to forfeit the ground.

"You do not fully comprehend what is transpiring all around us, do you?" the halfling asked.

Galen Firth sat there staring, grim faced.

"It is no accident that Nesmй was attacked just now," Regis explained. "These enemy forces, north and south, have coordinated their movements."

"That cannot be!"

"Did you hear no details of the fall of Mithral Hall's eastern gate?"

"Few, nor do I care to—"

"The forces out there were besieged by giants and orcs from the north and by a host of trolls from the south," Regis interrupted, and Galen's bluster fell away as clearly as his suddenly drooping jaw.

"It would seem that our common enemies are sweeping all the land from the Surbrin to Nesmй, from the Trollmoors to the Spine of the World," Regis went on. "That leaves only a handful of settlements, Mithral Hall, and Nesmй to stop them, unless we can elicit help from the neighboring lands."

"Then you admit that we must join our forces," Galen reasoned. "Then you see the wisdom of sending a force fast for Nesmй."

"I do," said Regis, "and I do not. We must stand together, and so we shall, but I believe your desire to hold our ground at Nesmй is ill considered. Mithral Hall will hold, but outside of our gates, all is lost—or soon shall be."

"What foolishness is this?" Galen Firth demanded, leaping from his chair, his eyes ablaze with anger.

"We fight for every inch of ground," Regis countered, and his voice didn't waver in the least, nor did he tense up or shy away from the imposing man. "And when we cannot hold, we retreat into the defensible tunnels of Mithral Hall. From here, we keep the lines of tunnels open to Citadel Felbarr; they will be our eyes, ears, and mouth to the outside world. From here, we continue to implore Silverymoon and Sundabar to mobilize their forces. I already have emissaries hurrying along their way through tunnels to find Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon and the leaders of Sundabar. From here, we hold the one remaining fortress against the onslaught of monstrous enemies."

"While my people die?" Galen Firth spat.

"No," said Regis. "Not if we can help them. From the moment you arrived, I had dwarf scouts striking out to the southwest, underground, seeking a course to Nesmй. Their progress has been strong, and I expect that they will find an exit to the surface near enough to your town to join up with your people."

"Then send an army, and let us drive the trolls back!"

"I will send what I can spare, but I expect that will be far fewer than needed for the task you espouse," said Regis.

"Then what?" the warrior's voice suddenly mellowed, and he even slumped back in the chair.

He turned his head and rested his chin in his hand, staring into the flames.

"Let us find your people and help them as we may," Regis explained. "We will fight beside them, if that remains a viable option. And if not, or when it becomes not, we will retreat, with your people in tow, back into the Underdark and back to Mithral Hall. Though my dwarves will not be able to defeat our enemies aboveground, I have little doubt that they can hold their own tunnels against pursuing monsters."

Galen Firth said nothing, just kept staring into the fire.

"I wish I could offer more," Regis went on. "I wish I could empty Mithral Hall and charge south to overrun the trolls. But I cannot, and you must understand."

Galen sat there quietly for a long while, then turned to Regis, his features softened.

"You truly believe that the orcs and giants work in concert with the Trollmoors trolls?"

"The fall of the eastern gate would indicate as much," the halfling replied.

"And it tells, too, that my people are in dire trouble," Galen said. "If the trolls had enough strength to send a force as far east and north as your gates on the Surbrin…."

"Then tarry no more," Regis said. He reached into his vest and produced a rolled parchment, tossing it across to the man. "Take that to the Undercity and Taskman Bellows. The expedition is outfitting even now and will be ready to march this very day."

Again Galen Firth paused, staring at the parchment, then back at Regis as he slowly climbed out of the chair once more. He said nothing more, but his nod held enough appreciation for Regis to see that the man understood the reasoning, even if he did not necessarily agree.

He gave a slight bow and left the room and the halfling steward breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he had one less issue pressing.

Regis slid back in his chair and turned to the fire, but before he could even begin to relax, a knock on the door turned him back.

"Enter, please," he said, expecting it to be a returned Galen Firth.

The door pushed open and in walked a soot-covered dwarf, Miccarl Ironforge by name, one of Mithral Hall's best blacksmiths. So dirty was this one that the color of his wide, short beard (rumored to be red) was impossible to tell. He wore a thick leather apron and a black shirt with only one sleeve, covering his left arm completely and sewn as one with a heavy heat-resistant glove. His bare right arm, streaked with soot, was nearly twice the girth of his left, muscled from years and years of lifting heavy hammers.

"The gnome again?" Regis asked.

Miccarl had sought him out twice before in the last tenday, offering reports that their little visitor from Mirabar had been acting overly curious in snooping around the Undercity.

"The little one's been in the maps again," Miccarl explained.

"Same maps?"

"Western tunnels—mostly unused."

"Where is he now?"

"Last I saw was him moving down those same tunnels," Miccarl explained. "I'm thinking that he's thinking he's found something there."

"And what might be there?"

"Nothing that I'm knowing, nor that anyone else's knowing. Them tunnels been mostly sealed for a few hunnerd years, unless them duergar that took the hall with the dragon opened them—and none who've been down that way since our return ever found anything."

"Then what? A way out—a way to bring an army from Mirabar in?" Regis asked. "Orc that could be stolen for Mirabar's forges?"

"Nothing there—not even good orc," Miccarl answered. "Never was nothing there but shale and coal for the forges. If the little one's come all the way to find a source for that, then he's a bigger fool than ye know, for there's not much worth in the stuff and Mirabar's already got more than she'd ever need."

"Tunnels to Mirabar?"

Miccarl snorted and said, "We got enough already known. We could get far west of here in a day's time and be aboveground beyond the reach of our enemies and well on our way to Mirabar. The little one's got to know that."

"Then what?" Regis asked again, but quietly, and more to himself than to the dwarf.

What might Nanfoodle be doing? As he pondered the possibilities, the half-ling's hand instinctively went up to the chain around his neck.

"Find Nanfoodle and bid him join me," Regis instructed the dwarf.

"Aye," Miccarl readily agreed. "Ye wanting me to drag him or knock him black and carry him?"

"I'm wanting you to coerce him," Regis replied. "Tell him that I have some news for Mirabar and need his advice forthwith."

"Not as much fun," Miccarl muttered, and he left.

A procession of informants followed the departure of the blacksmith, with news from the east and news from the west, with reports about the fighting outside and from the progress in securing and scouting the tunnels. Regis took it all in, paying strict attention, weighing all the possibilities, and mostly, formulating a line of questions for his dwarf advisors. He recognized that he was more the synthesizer of information than the decision maker, though he found that his advice was carrying more and more weight as the dwarves came to trust his judgment.

That pleased him and frightened him all at the same time.

His dinner was delivered to him in the same room, coming in alongside yet another messenger, one reporting that the expedition of fifty dwarves had set off for the south with Galen Firth.

Regis invited the dwarf to join him, or started to, but then Miccarl Ironforge appeared at the door.

"More work," Regis explained to the first messenger.

The halfling gave an apologetic shrug and motioned to the plates of food set on the small table between the chairs.

"Yup," replied the dwarf, and he stepped over, piled a few pounds of meat on a plate and filled the largest flagon to its tip with mead.

He gave a nod to Regis, which sent some mead spilling over the front of the flagon, then took his leave.

In walked Miccarl and Nanfoodle.

"Got work to do," the sooty blacksmith explained, and after moving over to similarly outfit himself with meat and mead for the trek back to the Under-city, he too took his leave.

"Sit and eat and drink," Regis offered to the gnome.

"They left little," Nanfoodle remarked with a grin, but even as he spoke the words, a pair of dwarves entered with refills of both food and drink.

Both the halfling and the gnome, not to be outdone by any dwarf, began their long, hearty meal.

"I am told you have news of Mirabar, or for Mirabar," Nanfoodle said between gulps of the golden liquid. "Master Ironforge was not explicit."

"I have a request for Mirabar," Regis explained between bites. "You understand the weight of our present dilemma, I hope."

"Many monsters, yes," Nanfoodle replied, and he took another bite of lamb and another gulp of mead.

"More than you know," Regis replied. "Pressing all the region. No doubt word has already reached your marchion from besieged, and perhaps already overrun, Nesmй. I know not how long we might hold any presence on the surface, and so Mirabar must mobilize her forces."

"For the good of Mithral Hall?" asked the gnome.

So surprised was he that a bit of mead fell out of his mouth as he blurted the words. He quickly dabbed it up with his napkin and took another big swallow.

"For the good of Mirabar," Regis corrected. "Are we to assume that these monsters will end their march here?"

It seemed to him that the gnome was growing a bit more concerned, and in his nervousness, Nanfoodle seemed to be taking more and more drink and less and less food. That was good, Regis thought, and so he kept the conversation going for some time, detailing the fall of the eastern gate and the fears that the trolls of the south had joined with the orcs and giants from the north, or perhaps that the groups had been working in concert all along. He spared no detail at all, drawing out the conversation for as long as possible, and letting Nanfoodle drink more and more mead.

At one point, when the servers arrived with even more food and drink, Regis called one over and whispered into his ear, "Cut the next bit of drink with Gut-buster." The halfling glanced at the gnome, trying to get a measure of his present sensibilities. "Twenty-to-one mead," he explained to the server, not wanting to knock the poor gnome unconscious.

An hour later, Regis was still talking, and Nanfoodle was still drinking.

"But you and your sceptrana claim that you came here to check on Torgar and to strengthen the bond between our towns," Regis said suddenly, and with increased volume. He had been steering the conversation that way for a bit, moving away from the particulars of the monsters and the fighting and toward the issue of relations between Mirabar and Mithral Hall. "That is true, is it not?"

Nanfoodle's eyes opened wide—or at least, as wide as the somewhat inebriated gnome could open them.

"W-well… yes," Nanfoodle sputtered. "That is why we came here, after all."

"Indeed," said Regis.

He shifted forward in his chair, leaning near to Nanfoodle. He fished his necklace out of the front of his vest and fiddled with the ruby pendant, sending it into a little spin.

"Well, we all want that, of course," the halfling said, and he noted that Nanfoodle had glanced at the ruby and up, and again at the ruby. "Better relations, I mean."

"Yes, yes, of course," said the gnome, his eyes more and more focused on the tantalizing spin of the enchanted ruby pendant.

Regis would never have tried it on the gnome normally. Nanfoodle was a brilliant alchemist, so Torgar and Shingles McRuff had told him, and also was known to dabble in illusionary magic. Add to that obvious intelligence the natural resistance of a gnome to such enchantments as the ruby might cast, and the pendant would never have been effective.

But Nanfoodle was drunk.

He didn't even turn his eyes from the pendant anymore, obviously mesmerized by its continuing sparkling and spinning.

"And do you seek those relations in the westernmost tunnels of Mithral Hall?" Regis asked casually.

"Eh?" Nanfoodle remarked.

"You were there, were you not?" Regis pressed, but quietly so, not wanting his suspicions to break the charm. "In the western tunnels, I mean. You have been going there quite a bit, from what I hear. The dwarves find that curious, even amusing, for there is nothing down there … or is there?"

"Sealed tunnels, pitch-washed," Nanfoodle answered absently.

"Then what importance might they offer to your mission in coming all this way?" the halfling asked. "Since you came to check on Torgar, did you not? And to better the relationship between Mirabar and Mithral Hall?

Nanfoodle gave a snort and a shake of his head.

"If only that were so," said the gnome.

Regis froze in place, resisting the urge to fall back in his chair. He gave the pendant another spin.

"Indeed, if only!" he enthusiastically agreed. "So tell me, good gnome, why have you really come?"

* * *

The hair on the back of Shoudra Stargleam's neck rose inexplicably when a dwarf informed her that her friend was sitting with Steward Regis, and had been for more than two hours. The sceptrana moved along the corridors, half-running and often slowing as she tried to sort things out. Why was she so bothered and nervous, after all, for wasn't Nanfoodle a reliable companion?

She came into an anteroom where a trio of dwarves stood calmly, each holding a nasty-looking polearm.

"Well met yerself," one of them said to Shoudra, and he motioned for the door to the audience room.

A second dwarf, standing beside the door, pushed it open, and Shoudra heard laughter from within and saw the glow of a comfortable fire. Still, she didn't calm down; something wasn't sitting well with her. She moved to the opening and peered in to see Nanfoodle laughing stupidly on one cushy chair, while a more sober Regis, his wounded arm back in its supporting sling, sat across from him.

"So nice of you to join us, Sceptrana Shoudra," the halfling said, and he motioned to the empty chair.

Shoudra took one step into the room, then jerked suddenly as the door slammed behind her.

"Nanfoodle and I were just discussing the disposition of the relationship between our respective communities," Regis explained, and again he indicated the empty chair to the unmoving sceptrana.

Shoudra hardly heard him, for her attention followed her scan around the room. The walls were all hung with tapestries, save the one that held the hearth, and the heavy hangings were not flat against the wall. Shoudra's gaze went lower, and she noted the toes of more than one pair of boots below the bottom fringe.

Slowly, the sceptrana turned her gaze to Regis.

"It is an interesting relationship, don't you agree," the halfling said, and there was no missing the sudden change in his tone.

"One we hope to strengthen," Shoudra replied, her gaze going to the obviously drunk Nanfoodle.

"Truly?" Regis asked.

Shoudra turned back to him.

"To strengthen our relationship by weakening Mithral Hall's orc?" the half-ling asked, and he pulled a large pouch out from behind him on the chair and tossed it on the floor at Shoudra's feet.

Shoudra slowly bent and retrieved the pouch but didn't even have to open it to know what was inside: Nanfoodle's weakening solution.

The sceptrana turned her stunned expression over the gnome, who burst out in great laughter and nearly fell off the chair.

"My new friend Nanfoodle told me everything," Regis stated.

He snapped his fingers in the air, and the tapestries were pulled aside, revealing a trio of grim-faced dwarves. The door behind Shoudra opened as well, and the sceptrana knew that polearms were aimed at her back.

"He has told me," Regis went on, "of how you came here on orders of the marchion to sabotage our orc. Of how Mirabar intended to wage a trade war upon Mithral Hall through such means, to ruin our reputation and steal our customers."

Shoudra began to shake her head.

"You must understand …" she started.

"Understand?" Regis interrupted. "Weakened metal in our hands as we battle the orc hordes? Weakened metal on the barricades we construct to keep the monsters out of our halls? What is there to understand, Sceptrana?"

"We didn't know you were at war!" Shoudra blurted.

"Oh, then of course your spying and espionage are not so important!" came the halfling's sarcastic reply.

"No, you must understand the temperament of Marchion Elastul," Shoudra tried to explain. She moved beside Nanfoodle as he spoke and casually draped an arm across his shoulders. "This is his … his way. Marchion Elastul fears Mithral Hall, and so he instructed Nanfoodle and I to come here and learn if Torgar was divulging the secrets of Mirabar. You must admit that Mithral Hall has gained a sudden advantage in the trade war, with four hundred of Mirabar's dwarves deserting our city to come to yours."

"Yes, a tremendous advantage with hordes of orcs knocking on our doors."

"We did not know." Shoudra took a deep breath and went on, "And I doubt that Nanfoodle or I would have had the heart to cause any mischief even if there was no war. Neither of us approve of the marchion's tactics here, nor of his disposition concerning King Bruenor and Mithral Hall. We two seek a better way."

"You would say that now, of course," Regis interrupted.

Shoudra closed her eyes and blew a long sigh, then began muttering under her breath.

"Take them and lock them away—and separately," Regis instructed.

The six dwarves advanced on the pair, but then they were gone, winking out of sight.

"The door!" Regis cried, and the dwarf closest the exit rushed back and slammed the portal shut.

Shoudra and a very surprised-looking Nanfoodle appeared suddenly on the far side of the room, and the dwarves hooted and charged.

They disappeared again, reappearing a few moments later in front of the hearth.

"She's casting again! Stop her!" Regis cried, noting Shoudra's renewed chant.

"Watch for fireballs!" cried the dwarf by the door.

He pulled it open, and Shoudra and Nanfoodle appeared right there, as fortune would have it. The dwarf fell away with a shriek.

Nanfoodle giggled stupidly, and Shoudra yanked him out of the room and into a run through the anteroom and out into the corridor, chased every step by the shouting dwarves.

"You silly gnome!" Shoudra scolded, and Nanfoodle giggled even more.

With the dwarves gaining and Nanfoodle lagging, Shoudra gave an exasperated growl and scooped Nanfoodle up.

They went through a door, which Shoudra shut and promptly barred, and out the other side of the room into another corridor. On they ran for the western gate, cries of alarm sounding all around them.

Soon the dwarves had them located once more, a dozen shouts echoing down every side passage they crossed. Finally, the pair turned into the long main corridor, which ended on a wide landing lined by statues of the kings of Mithral Hall. A descending staircase beyond that landing led to a smaller room and across that the last rays of daylight were streaming through the great hall's open western doors.

Doors that weren't to remain open for long, Shoudra realized, for dwarves down there were already pushing aside the doorstops, while others were forming a defensive line across the opening.

"Well, they got us," Nanfoodle said with a chuckle. "Time for torture!"

"Shut up, you fool," Shoudra scolded.

She looked all around, then at the last moment, tugged Nanfoodle into the shadows behind the nearest statue. And not a moment too soon, for a group of dwarves came charging through the moment they were out of sight, all of them shouting to, "Hold the door!" or, "Bar the way!"

Nanfoodle started to cry out in response, but Shoudra clamped a hand over his mouth and held him tight. She took a deep breath and gathered her courage, then she peeked out at the outside door and the area beyond. After finally calming the drunken gnome, the sceptrana began to cast another spell.

She whispered out a chant and the tips of her two index fingers began to glow bright blue. With them, the sceptrana then drew out the lines of a door in the air.

"There!" came a shout—Regis's shout, and Shoudra glanced back to see the halfling and a group of dwarves charging her way.

Without hesitation, the sceptrana hoisted Nanfoodle once more, and as the great western doors of Mithral Hall banged closed, she carried Nanfoodle through her portal.

The dimensional door closed right behind her, and Shoudra breathed a sudden sigh of relief to realize that she and her companion were outside the closed doors, standing alone in Keeper's Dale.

"You got so many tricks," Nanfoodle squeaked, and he laughed again.

Shoudra's eyes shot darts at the foolish alchemist.

"More than you know," she promised.

She hoisted him higher and moved off to the side of the gates, to a hollow area already dark with shadows.

There, the glum Shoudra sat, but not until she had forced Nanfoodle down to the ground. He tried to rise, but Shoudra dropped both of her legs over him, pinning the unsteady gnome.

He started to protest, but Shoudra flicked her finger against the underside of his long and pointy nose.

"Hey!" Nanfoodle cried.

"Shhh," Shoudra insisted, putting her finger over her pursed lips. In a voice low and threatening, she added, "You be quiet, or I'll make you quiet. I've a few magic tricks left."

Those words seemed to take a bit of the drunk off Nanfoodle. He swallowed loudly and said no more.

They sat there as afternoon turned to twilight and twilight to night.

And Shoudra had no idea what they were going to do.

CHAPTER 18 THE FRIENDSHIP DARE

Drizzt pulled himself up over the dark stone and dexterously moved his foot atop the abutment. He started to leap over, quickly sorting out his landing area, but he relaxed and paused, noting that Guenhwyvar had the situation completely under control.

There stood the female drow, weapons in hand, but talking to the cat, bidding Guenhwyvar to back off and not kill her.

"Perhaps if you threw your weapons to the ground, Guenhwyvar would not seem so hungry," Drizzt called down, and he was surprised at how easily the little-used drow language came back to him.

"And when I do, you will instruct your panther to slay me," came the reply.

"I could instruct her so right now," Drizzt argued, "and could be down beside her quickly enough, I assure you. Your choices are few. Surrender, or fight and die."

The female glanced up at him—even from a distance, he could see her sneer—but then she looked back at Guenhwyvar and angrily threw her sword and dagger to the ground.

Guenhwyvar continued to circle her but did not advance.

"What is your name?" Drizzt asked, scrambling over the stone and picking a rocky path down to the small stone hollow where the cat had cornered the female.

"I am of family Soldou," the female replied tentatively. "Is that a name known to you?"

"It is not," Drizzt announced, suddenly right behind her, having fast-stepped around the bowl, out of sight. The suddenness of his arrival startled the female. "And in truth, your surname is not important to me. Not nearly as important as your purpose in being here."

Slowly, the female turned to face him. She was quite pretty, Drizzt noted, with her hair parted so that long strands covered half her face, including one of her reddish eyes—not the spidery bloodshot lines he often saw in orcs, but a general reddish hue.

"I escaped the Underdark much as you did, Drizzt Do'Urden," she answered, and though he did well to hide it, the references to him, the apparent knowledge of his course, did indeed surprise Drizzt. "If you knew of family Soldou, you would understand that we lost favor with the Spider Queen, by choice. As one, we forsook that wicked demon queen, and so we were destroyed almost to a one."

"But you got out?"

"Here I stand."

"Indeed, and in company quite fitting a follower of Lolth," Drizzt remarked, and he brought Twinkle up in a flash, the edge of the blade resting against the side of the female's neck.

She didn't flinch.

"Only so that I could survive," the female tried to explain. "I came out and still have not adapted to this fiery orb that burns its way across the high ceiling."

"It takes time."

"I found the other drow—his name is Ad'non—"

"Was," Drizzt corrected, and he shrugged.

The female didn't flinch.

"I would have killed him soon enough anyway," she went on. "I could not tolerate his vileness any longer. As soon as he stripped down to take advantage of the paralyzed elf, I meant to run him through."

Drizzt nodded, though of course he did not believe a word of it. For a supposed convert against the drow nature, she seemed quite willing to put a dart or two into him, after all.

"You still have not told me your name."

"Donnia," she answered, and Drizzt was somewhat relieved that she had not lied to him on that, at least. He had heard the male call her by name, after all-"I am Donnia Soldou, who seeks the blessing of Eilistraee."

That reference put Drizzt somewhat off his center, obviously so.

"You have heard of the Lady of the Dance?"

"Rumors," said Drizzt.

He believed that the female was lying, of course, but still, he couldn't help but be intrigued, for he had indeed heard whispers of the goddess Eilistraee and her followers—supposedly drow of like heart to his own.

"I am sorry that I turned on you in the cave of the elves," Donnia went on. She lowered her gaze. "You must understand that my companion was a powerful warrior and that I was alive only by his good graces. If he suspected that I was a traitor, he would have long-ago killed me."

"And you found no opportunities in all this time to be rid of him?"

Donnia stared up at him.

"Or is he not the only companion you have found?"

"Only Ad'non," Donnia said. "Well, Ad'non and his friends, the giants and the orcs. He has been here for many years, a rogue not unlike yourself—though his intent is far different. He haunts the tunnels among the upper Underdark and about the Spine of the World, finding his pleasures where he can."

"Then why did you not rid yourself of him and be on your way?" Drizzt asked.

Donnia nodded and rubbed a hand across her face.

"Then I would have been alone," she whispered. "Alone and up here, in this place I do not know. I was weak, Drizzt Do'Urden. Can you not understand?"

"I can indeed," Drizzt admitted.

He sheathed Icingdeath and moved Twinkle from Donnia's neck. With his free hand he began patting the female down. He found a dagger at her belt and took it away, along with her hand crossbow and a belt pouch filled with darts. One of those darts came out quickly and quietly, the ranger sliding it into his belt. Drizzt patted lower, along her leg, and noted the slightest lump at the top of one of her soft boots. He purposely ignored that bulge as he slid his hand down across her ankles. It was a knife, of course, and he made it look like he had just missed it in his inspection.

"Your weapons are drow-made," he remarked, tossing the discovered dagger and hand crossbow to the ground beside the sword and the other dagger. "They will do you little good up here if you plan to remain under the light of the sun." He slid Twinkle into its sheath. "Come along then," he instructed, and he started away, pointedly walking right past the discarded weapons.

He looked back at Donnia as he did, and noting that she wasn't paying him any heed at the moment, he hooked the hand crossbow with his foot and brought it up fast to catch it with his free hand and hook it on his belt.

"Come along," he instructed her once more, and he started away.

He heard Donnia suck in her breath slightly as she moved past the pile of weapons, and he knew what she was thinking. She believed that he was testing her, that he was ready to pull forth his blades and defend should she grab at one of those discarded weapons.

When they crossed by, the weapons still in their pile, Drizzt knew that Donnia believed she had passed that test. Little did she understand that first opportunity to be no more than a ruse.

"Guenhwyvar," the ranger called, baiting the trap all the more sweetly. "Too long have you tarried here. Go home now, I bid!"

Drizzt glanced sidelong at Donnia, watching her as she observed the great panther begin stalking in a circle, round and round until Guenhwyvar's lines blurred and she became a drifting gray mist, initially in the shape of a cat, but then drifting apart to nothingness.

"Guenhwyvar's time here is limited," Drizzt explained. "She tires easily and must return to her Astral home to rejuvenate."

"A marvelous companion," Donnia remarked.

"One of three," Drizzt replied. "Or five, if you count the pegasi, and I assure you that they should be counted."

"You are allied with the surface elves then?" Donnia asked, and before Drizzt could answer, she added, "That is good—they are fine companions for one of our kind who has forsaken the Spider Queen."

"Mighty companions," Drizzt agreed. "The female is a high priestess of an elf god, Corellon Larethian. She will wish to speak with you, no doubt, to determine your veracity."

He noted the slight hesitation in Donnia's step as she moved along right behind him.

"She has spells she will cast upon you," Drizzt pressed. "But fear not, for they are merely to detect if you are lying. Once she has seen the truth of Donnia Soldou…"

He ended his words with a sudden spin left to right, drawing Icingdeath from the sheath on his right hip as he turned. As he expected, the panicked Donnia was coming at him, dagger drawn from her boot and arm extended.

Drizzt's leading right hand slapped down over Donnia's wrist and turned her stabbing blade up high and wide, and in rushed the scimitar to poke hard against the female's ribs, drawing a long gash. Donnia spun and scrambled away, but not before she got hit again across the extended arm, hard enough so that she let go of her blade. Clutching her right arm and holding it in tight against the wound to her right side, Donnia stumbled.

Drizzt ran past her.

"All of it a lie—as if I should have ever expected anything else from a drow!" he cried, and he rushed to the side as Donnia veered.

"I will have the truth now, or I will have your head!" Drizzt demanded. "Why are you here? And how many of our kin are in your band?"

"Hundreds!" Donnia yelled at him, and still she scrambled, looking for some escape. "Thousands, Drizzt Do'Urden! And all of them with the edict to bring your head to the Spider Queen!"

Drizzt rushed to block the way before her, and Donnia summoned a globe of darkness around him.

She charged right into it, guessing correctly that he would go out one side or the other. She got past and rushed out of the darkness, coming to the lip of a long drop. Without hesitation, the drow leaped out, again bringing forth the innate magic of her station and race. Before she had plummeted twenty feet, she was drifting down slowly.

"You so disappoint me," she heard Drizzt say behind and above her, and she sensed sincerity in his voice, as if perhaps he truly wanted to believe her tale.

And indeed, he had wanted to believe her. How badly Drizzt wanted to find a drow companion! Another of like mind to him to share his adventures, to truly understand the solitude that was ever in his heart.

Donnia had barely gotten the smile onto her face when she heard the click of a hand crossbow from behind and above, and she felt the sudden sting atop her shoulder. She held her place in midair, counteracting the pull of the ground completely with the levitation. Then she stared at the dart and felt the poison beginning to seep into her shoulder.

She was motionless, helpless, hanging there.

Drizzt looked down at her and sighed deeply. He dropped the hand crossbow—Donnia's own hand crossbow that he had scooped up from the pile as they had set out—and watched it drop past her, down, down, the two hundred feet to shatter on the stones below.

Drizzt fell into a crouch and put his head in his hand. He didn't look away, though, determined to bear witness.

The levitation soon expired and the paralyzed Donnia dropped. She couldn't even scream out as she fell, for her vocal chords could not function against the potent poison.

Drizzt looked away at the last second, not wanting to watch her hit. But then he looked back, to see the drow female splayed across the stones, warm blood pooling around her.

The ranger sighed again, though he wasn't really surprised it had ended like that. Still, the one emotion that dominated Drizzt Do'Urden at that moment was anger, just anger, at the futility of it all.

He gathered himself up a few moments later, reminding himself that Tarathiel and Innovindil were likely still fairly helpless in their cave, and he started back at a fast run. He found them safe and sound, and even beginning to move a bit once more.

Innovindil was reaching for her clothing as Drizzt entered, so he promptly retrieved the items and gave them over, then moved back near the entrance and began cleaning up the mess that was Ad'non.

"Well met again, Drizzt Do'Urden," Tarathiel said to him. "And a most fortunate meeting it is, for us at least."

"You have dealt with the remaining drow?" Innovindil asked.

"She is dead," Drizzt confirmed, his tone somber. "She fell from a cliff face."

"Did it pain you to kill them?" Innovindil asked.

Drizzt's head snapped around at her, his eyes narrow.

"Did it?" Innovindil asked again, not backing away at all.

Drizzt's visage softened.

"It always does," he admitted.

"Then your soul is intact," Tarathiel remarked. "Be afraid when the killing no longer affects you."

How profound that simple remark seemed to Drizzt at that moment, to the creature who seemed to be caught somewhere between his true self and the Hunter. Certainly he felt more soulless at those times when he was the Hunter. The deaths didn't bother him in that mode. He had felt nothing but the satisfaction of victory when he had beheaded Ad'non, but the death of Donnia had stung more than a little. There had to be some middle ground, Drizzt knew, a place where he could fight as the Hunter and yet hold on to his soul. He thought back across the years and believed that he had found that place before. He could only hope that he would find it again.

Drizzt rummaged through Ad'non's pockets, searching for some clue as to who the dark elf might be and why he was there. He found little, other than a few coins that he did not recognize. One other thing did catch his eye though: the fine light gray silk shirt that Ad'non wore under his cloak. That shirt had stopped Drizzt's scimitars; he could see the indentation marks where his fine blades had struck hard. Furthermore, though the area all around the corpse was deep in blood, none of it seemed to touch Ad'non's shirt.

"Strong magic," Innovindil remarked, and when Drizzt looked to her, she motioned for him to take the shirt as his own. "To the victor. . " she recited.

Drizzt began removing the shirt. His own chain mail, forged by Bruenor, was in sore need of repair, with many broken links, and some of them rubbing him uncomfortably.

"We are most grateful," Tarathiel remarked. "You understand that, of course?"

"I could not let them harm you, as I believe you would have come to my aid—indeed, as you have come to my aid," Drizzt replied.

"We are not your enemies," Tarathiel said, and the tone of his voice made Drizzt pause and consider him.

"I have never desired the enmity of any surface elf I have ever known," Drizzt replied, both his tone and his words leading.

He didn't miss the movement as Innovindil and Tarathiel exchanged concerned glances.

"We must tell you that you have made an enemy of one," Innovindil admitted. "Through no fault of your own."

"You remember Ellifain," Tarathiel added.

"Keenly," Drizzt assured him, and he sighed and lowered his gaze. "Though when I last met her, she was called Le'lorinel and was masquerading as a male."

Again the two elves looked to each other, Tarathiel nodding.

"That was how she evaded us in Silverymoon," he said to his partner.

"She came after you," Innovindil reasoned. "We knew that such was her course, though we knew not where you might be. We tried to stop her—you must believe us when we tell you that Ellifain was beyond reason and was acting on her own and against the wishes of our people."

"She was beyond reason," Drizzt agreed.

"And you met her in battle?" Tarathiel quietly asked, his voice full of concern.

Drizzt glanced up at him but lowered his eyes almost immediately and sighed yet again.

"I had no desire to … had I known, I would have …" he stammered. He took a deep breath and looked directly at the pair. "I caught up to her in the company of some thieves that I and my companions were pursuing. I had no idea of who she was—or even that she was a 'she'—when we joined in combat. It was not until…"

"Until you struck the killing blow," Tarathiel reasoned, and Innovindil looked away.

Drizzt's responding silence spoke volumes.

"I feared that it would end this way," Tarathiel said to Drizzt. "We tried to save Ellifain from herself—no doubt you did as well, or that you would have, had you known."

"But she was full of a rage that transcended all rationality," Innovindil added. "With every tale we heard about your exploits in the service of the goodly races, she grew even more outraged, convinced that it was all a lie. Convinced that Drizzt Do'Urden was all a lie."

Drizzt didn't blink as he responded, "Perhaps I am."

"Is that what you believe?" Innovindil asked, and Drizzt merely shrugged.

"We do not judge you harshly for defending yourself against Ellifain," Tarathiel remarked.

"It would change nothing if you did," said Drizzt, and that seemed to take the pair off their balance a bit.

"And so we can fight together in our common cause," Tarathiel went on. "Side-by-side."

Drizzt stared at him for a short while, then looked back at Innovindil. It was a tempting offer, but it entailed a commitment that Drizzt was not yet ready to take. He looked back to Tarathiel and shook his head.

"I hunt alone," he explained. "But I will be there to support you if I may, in times when you are in need."

He gathered up the marvelous silken shirt then and started to go.

"We will always be in need of your help," Tarathiel said from behind him. "And would you not be stronger if…"

"Let him go," Drizzt heard Innovindil remark to her companion. "He is not yet ready."

* * *

The next morning, Drizzt Do'Urden sat on a bluff looking back at the area of the elves' cave, mulling over the generous offer Tarathiel had given him. He had just admitted to killing their friend and kin, and yet, neither had judged him at all harshly.

It put a whole new light on the unfortunate Ellifain incident for Drizzt Do'Urden, but he just wasn't certain of how that light might yet shine.

And he was confronted with the prospect of new friendship, of new allies, and while the thought tempted him on a very basic level, it also frightened him profoundly.

He had known great friends once and the greatest allies anyone could ever hope to command.

Once.

So he sat and he stared, torn apart inside, wondering what might be and what should be.

Always, always, he found the image of the blasted tower tumbling, taking Bruenor down with it.

Drizzt felt an urgent need to go back to his own cave then, to feel the one-horned helmet, to smell the scent of Bruenor, and to remember his lost friends. He started off.

Before the end of the day, though, he was drawn back to that bluff, looking across the stones to the lair of Innovindil and Tarathiel.

He watched with great interest as one of the pegasi swooped past, bearing Tarathiel down to the cave entrance. To his surprise, the elf dismounted and did not go right in, but rather, ran out his way and called to him.

"Drizzt Do'Urden!" Tarathiel cried. "Come! I have news that concerns us all!"

Despite his reservations, despite the deep pain that pervaded his every fiber, Drizzt found himself trotting along to join the pair.

* * *

"Yet another tribe crawls from its dark hole," Innovindil said to Drizzt when he entered the cave. "Tarathiel has seen them marching along the foothills of the Spine of the World."

"You called me in to tell me of orcs in the area?" Drizzt asked incredulously. "There is no shortage of—"

"Not just any orcs, but a new tribe," Tarathiel interrupted. "We have seen them flocking to this cause, one tribe after another. Now we have found a group that has not yet linked up."

"If we strike at them hard, they might go back to their holes," Innovindil explained. "That would be a great victory to our cause." When Drizzt didn't overtly react, she added, "It would be a great victory for those dwarves defending Mithral Hall."

"How many?" Drizzt heard himself asking.

"A small tribe—perhaps fifty," Tarathiel replied.

"The three of us are to kill fifty orcs?" Drizzt asked.

"Better to kill ten and turn the other forty around," Tarathiel replied.

"Let them whisper in their tunnels about certain death awaiting any who go to the call of the orc leader," Innovindil added.

"The orcs and giants have amassed a great army," Tarathiel explained. "Thousands of orcs and hundreds of giants, we fear, and truthfully, our efforts against such a great army will prove a minor factor in the end result. But the more ominous cloud for those in the region, the dwarves of Mithral Hall, the elves of the Moonwood, the people of Silverymoon, are the seemingly limitless reinforcements pouring out of the Spine of the World."

"Tens of thousands more orcs and goblins may flock to the call of whoever it is who leads this army," Innovindil put in.

"But perhaps we can stem that flow of vermin," said Tarathiel. "Let us turn back the orcs, that they warn their fellows about leaving the mountains. Our kills could be multiplied many times over concerning monsters who choose not to join in." He paused and stared hard at Drizzt.

"This is, perhaps, our chance to make a real difference in this war. Just we three."

Drizzt couldn't deny the potential of Tarathiel's plan.

"Quickly, then," Tarathiel remarked when it became obvious that Drizzt wasn't going to argue. "We must hit them before they travel far from the caves, before the fall of night."

* * *

Drizzt marveled at how precisely the two elves angled their descending mounts, putting themselves in line with the setting sun as they approached the orc force.

Beside the drow, Guenhwyvar gave an anxious growl, but Drizzt held her back.

In came the two elves and their winged mounts, and their bows began to hum. And the orcs began to shriek and to point up to the sky.

"Now, Guen," Drizzt whispered, and he turned the panther loose.

Guenhwyvar bounded away along a line north of the orcs, while Drizzt sprinted off the other way, hemming the tribe on the south. He found his first battle soon after, even as orcs across the way screamed out in terror at the sight of Guenhwyvar. Drizzt leaped atop a boulder and stood staring down at a pair of orcs who had taken cover from the elves' arrow barrage. He waited for them to finally look up before dropping between them.

Out went Twinkle, a killing blow to his left, while he turned Icingdeath to the flat side as he slapped hard at the orc on his right, sending the creature scrambling away.

Behind him and to his left, the pegasi set down, and the two elves let fly another round of arrows, then leaped free and drew their weapons.

"For the Moon wood!" Drizzt heard Tarathiel cry.

Despite the urgent moment, Drizzt Do'Urden was wearing a grin when he came out hard from behind that boulder, leaping into a devastating spin at the closest ranks of orcs.

At his side, Tarathiel and Innovindil linked arms and went into their deadly dance.

The orcs fell back. One tried to call out commands for them to regroup, but Drizzt immediately engulfed the creature in a globe of darkness.

Another shouted out a command—right before a flying Guenhwyvar buried it.

Within moments, the orcs were running back the way they had come, and when the last rays of daylight winked out, they were still running, and still with Guenhwyvar flanking them on the left and Drizzt on the right and Tarathiel and Innovindil and their powerful mounts pressing them from behind.

Soon after, Drizzt watched the last pair run into a dark, wide cave. He charged up behind them, calling out threats. When one slowed and started to glance back, he rushed ahead and cut the creature down.

Its companion did not look back.

Nor did any others of the tribe.

Drizzt stood in the cave entrance, hands resting against his hips, staring down the deep tunnel beyond.

Guenhwyvar padded up beside him, and soon he heard the clopping of pegasi hooves.

"Exactly as I had hoped," Tarathiel remarked, dismounting and moving to stand beside Drizzt.

He lifted a hand and patted the drow on the shoulder, and though he did flinch a bit initially, Drizzt did not pull away.

"Our technique will only strengthen with practice," Innovindil said as she walked up on Drizzt's other side.

The drow looked deeply into her eyes and saw that she had just challenged him yet again, had just invited him yet again.

He did not openly deny her, nor did he pull away when she moved very close to his side.

CHAPTER 19 SETTLING INTO THE ORC KING'S SHADOW

The work along the western bank of the Surbrin moved at a frenetic pace, with orcs and giants constructing defensive fortifications at all of the possible fords near the southern edge of the mountains around the closed gate of Mithral Hall. King Obould deemed one crossing particularly dangerous, where the river was wide and shallow and an entire army could cross in short order. And so Obould set most of his orcs into action, bringing tons of stones down to the water and packing them tightly together, then filling in with tons of sand, forming a levy that tightened up the river and deepened and strengthened the flow.

Not to be outdone, and taking no chances, Gerti Orelsdottr ordered her giants to ensure that the dwarven gate would not soon be opened, at one point even bringing a landslide down from the mountains. She would not have Clan Battlehammer sneaking out at her backside!

The work went on day and night, with high walls quickly constructed at every crossing point. Giants piled boulders suitable for bombardment at every outpost, ready to meet any crossing with heavy resistance, and orcs similarly filled rooms with hastily made spears. If reinforcements meant to come across the Surbrin, Gerti and Obould meant to make them pay dearly for the ground.

The two leaders met every night, along with Arganth, who was fast becoming Obould's principal advisor. The discussions were usually civil, a discourse about how to best and quickly secure their gains, but it did not escape Gerti's notice that Obould was leading the way at every turn, that his plans made great sense, that his vision had suddenly clarified to a keen and attainable edge. Thus, when the giantess was leaving the nightly meetings, she was usually in a foul mood, and increasingly, she went into the meetings gnashing her teeth.

So it was that night a tenday after the fall of Mithral Hall's eastern gate.

"We must move back to the west," Gerti began, the litany she spoke to open every meeting of late. "Your son remains locked in a stalemate with the dwarves, and he has not the giant allies he needs to dislodge them."

"You are in a hurry to chase them into Mithral Hall?" Obould casually asked.

"One less problem for us when we do."

"Better to let attrition take a heavy toll on them while we have them out here in the open," the orc king reasoned. "Deplete the resources they would employ against Proffit and his smelly trolls."

The notion of the orc king referring to any other race as «smelly» struck Gerti as laughable, but she was in no mood for mirth.

"Do you believe that a few trolls will chase Clan Battlehammer from its ancestral home?" she scoffed.

"Of course Proffit will not succeed," Obould admitted. "But we do not need him to succeed. He will soften them and tighten the noose around them. The tighter we squeeze them in their tunnels, the better the resolution."

"That we wipe them from the North?" Gerti asked, a bit confused, for it did not seem to her that Obould was moving along that line, though it had always before been his stated intent.

"That would be wonderful," the orc king remarked. "If we can. If not, perhaps with their outer doors sealed and pressed in the tunnels, Clan Battlehammer will seek to negotiate a settlement."

"A treaty between conquering orcs and dwarves?" Gerti asked incredulously.

"What is their option?" asked Obould. "Will they carry on their trade through tunnels to Silverymoon and Felbarr?"

"They might."

"And when we at last locate and drop those tunnels?" Obould asked, seeming perfectly confident in that. "Will the dwarves follow the way of that wretched Do'Urden creature and begin doing trade with the drow of the Underdark?"

"Or perhaps they will do nothing of the sort," Gerti argued. "Surely Mithral Hall is self-contained and self-sustaining. Clan Battlehammer may be content to remain in their hole for a century, if necessary." She leaned forward over her crossed legs. "Your kind has never been known for its long-term resolve, Obould.

Orc conquests are usually short-lived affairs, and more often than not, lost by the warring of other orcs."

That particular reference was purposely worded and aimed to sting Obould, for not long in the past the orc king had made a great conquest indeed, sweeping the dwarves from Citadel Felbarr and renaming it the Citadel of Many-Arrows. But then had come the inevitable squabbling, orc against orc, and the dwarves under King Emerus Warcrown had wasted little time in chasing Obould's distracted and chaotic invaders back out. Gerti had launched her not-too-subtle reminder of that disaster just to drop her counterpart's mounting ego a few pegs. The giantess was surprised, though, and more than a little disappointed, at how composed Obould remained.

"True enough," the orc king even admitted. "Perhaps we have learned from our mistakes."

Gerti honestly wanted to ask that strange creature who he truly was and what he had done with that sniveling fool, Obould.

"When the region is secured and our numbers great enough, we will build orc cities," Obould explained, and he seemed to be looking far away then, as if he was visualizing that of which he spoke. "We will find our own commerce and trade and seek out surrounding towns to join in."

"You will send an emissary to Lady Alustriel and Emerus Warcrown seeking trade agreements?" Gerti blurted.

"Alustriel first," Obould calmly replied. "Ever has Silverymoon been known for tolerance. I expect that King Warcrown will need more persuading."

He looked directly at Gerti and grinned wickedly, his tusks curling over his upper lip.

"But we will have barter," Obould asked, "will we not?"

"What goods might you produce that they cannot get elsewhere?"

"We will hold the key to Clan Battlehammer's freedom," Obould explained. "Perhaps we allow for the reopening of the eastern door of Mithral Hall. Perhaps we even construct a great bridge at that point over the Surbrin. We allow Mithral Hall to trade openly and aboveground once again, and all for a tithe, of course."

"You have gone mad," Gerti snapped at him. "Dwarves fall before orc blades! King Bruenor himself was killed by your son's charges. Do you believe they will so quickly forget?"

"Who can know?" the orc king said with a shrug, and he seemed to hardly care. "They are just the options, all the more possible because of our successes. If all this land becomes an orc stronghold, will the peoples of the region band together and fight us? How many thousands will they sacrifice? How long will they hold their resolve when their kin die by the score? By the hundred, or thousand? And all of that with the option of peace honestly offered to them."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly," Obould replied. "We cannot take Silverymoon, or Sundabar, if all my kin and all your kin and all the trolls of the Trollmoors banded together. You know this as I know this."

The admission nearly had Gerti choking with disbelief, for she had known that truth from the beginning, of course, but had never believed that Obould would ever truly understand his real limitations.

"Wh-what about Citadel Felbarr?" she did manage to stammer, hoping once more to throw the orc king off his guard.

"We will see how far our victories take us," Obould replied. "Perhaps Mitnral Hall will be conquered—that is no less a prize than Felbarr. Perhaps even the Moonwood will fall to us in the months it will take to secure any peace. We will be in need of lumber, of course, and not so that we might dance about the living trees as do the foolish elves."

He looked to the side again, as if staring far away, and gave a little guttural chuckle.

"We get too far ahead of ourselves," the orc king remarked. "Let us secure what we now have. Close the Surbrin to those who would support Mithral Hall. Let Proffit work his disaster in the southern tunnels, and let Urlgen then drive the dwarves fully into their hole and close the western door. Then we might decide our next march."

Gerti settled back against the wall of the stone room and stared at her counterpart and at the smug shaman sitting next to him. She resisted the urge to reach out and crush the life out of Arganth, though she dearly wanted to do just that, if only because he was such an ugly little wretch.

And she wondered, honestly, if she should spring forward and crush the life out of Obould first. The creature who was sitting before her was constantly amazing her, was constantly putting her off her balance. He was not the sniveling orc who had once brought her dwarf heads as a present. He was not the overreaching and doomed-to-disaster warrior leader whom she had played as an ally out of amusement. Obould was biding his time over in the west against the dwarves, sacrificing short-term gain and swift victory for a long-term benefit. What orc ever thought like that?

It seemed to Gerti as if Obould honestly had it all planned out, and even more amazing, it seemed as if he had a real chance of succeeding. What she had to wonder, however, was what plans the orc king might have in store for her.

* * *

"They smell like rothй dung in fetid water," Tos'un complained.

Despite her generally foul mood, Kaer'lic Suun Wett didn't argue the point—her nose wouldn't let her.

"And Proffit is the smelliest of the bunch," Tos'un rambled on.

Kaer'lic shot him a look reminding him that they were two drow amidst an army of trolls and that it might not do well to so openly insult the leader of the brutes.

"Perhaps that is how he got so elevated," Tos'un added, amusing himself, Kaer'lic figured, for she found nothing at all amusing about their current state of affairs. Particularly concerning her own state of indecision.

Tos'un continued to grumble and began to stalk around. He stopped suddenly and took a closer look at the small cave Kaer'lic had taken for her temporary shelter. Glyphs and runes had been etched here and there, and the priestess's ceremonial robes were set out.

When Tos'un turned to more closely scrutinize her, she did not hide the fact that she had been beginning to change into those garments when he had burst in.

"This is not a ceremonial day, is it?" the male asked.

"No," the priestess answered simply.

"Then you are communing … perhaps to locate our lost companions?"

"No."

"To gain spells that will help us with the trolls?"

"No."

"Am I to guess every possible purpose, then? Or is it that you would not tell me in any case?"

"No."

Tos'un paused and studied her, obviously not quite sure of where that last answer fit in exactly.

"Your pardon, high priestess," he said with clear sarcasm, and he dipped a bow that was full of his frustration. "I forget my place as a mere male."

"Oh, shut up," Kaer'lic replied, and she moved toward her vestments and began further disrobing. "I am as confused as you are," she admitted.

She gave a little laugh as she considered that—why shouldn't she tell Tos'un

the truth, after all, since he was the only drow companion she was going to know for some time?

"It does not surprise me that Ad'non and Donnia sneaked away," Tos'un said.

"Nor does it surprise me," Kaer'lic replied. "My confusion has nothing to do with them."

"Then what? Obould?"

"He would be part of it, yes," said the priestess. "As would be whatever intervention his brutish god offered."

"It was an impressive ceremony."

Kaer'lic turned on him suddenly, caring not at all that she was stripped to the waist.

"I fear that I have angered Lolth," she admitted.

It didn't seem to sink into Tos'un at first, and he started to respond. But then, with her continuing stare, the weight of her words nearly bowled the male over. He glanced around, as if expecting some creature of the Abyss to leap out of the shadows and devour him then and there.

"What does that mean?" he asked, his voice shaky.

"I do not know," Kaer'lic replied. "I do not even know if I am correct in my assessment."

"Do you think the intervention of Gruumsh One-Eye to be—"

"No, it was before that ceremony," Kaer'lic admitted.

"Then what?"

"I fear it is because of your advice," Kaer'lic honestly replied.

"Mine?" the male protested. "What have I done that holds any sway to the Spider Queen? I have offered nothing—"

"You suggested that we would be better served in avoiding Drizzt Do'Urden, did you not?"

Tos'un rocked back on his heels, his eyes darting around, seeming like a trapped animal.

"I fear that I am trapped within a web of my own suspicions," said Kaer'lic. "Perhaps my unwillingness to engage the traitor, as you advised, has cost me Lolth's favor, but in truth, I fear that going against Drizzt Do'Urden and slaying him would anger the Spider Queen even more!"

Tos'un looked as if a slight breeze would have knocked him over.

"She denies you communion?"

"I am afraid to even try," the priestess admitted. "It is possible that my own fears work against me here."

"Your fears of Drizzt?" he asked, shaking his head, so obviously at a complete loss.

"Long ago, I came to some conclusions concerning the renegade of House Do'Urden," Kaer'lic explained. "Even before I knew of Matron Baenre's march against Mithral Hall. The name of Drizzt was not unknown to us even before you joined our little band. So many of our priestesses have come to errant presumptions concerning that one, I fear … and I believe. They see him as an enemy of the Spider Queen."

"Of course," said Tos'un. "How could he be anything but?"

"He is a facilitator of chaos!" Kaer'lic interrupted. "In his own beautiful way, Drizzt Do'Urden has brought more chaos to your home city than perhaps any before him. Would that not be the will of Lolth?"

Tos'un's eyes widened so much that it seemed as if they might simply roll out of their sockets.

"You believe the road of Drizzt Do'Urden to be Lolth-inspired?" he asked.

"I do," said Kaer'lic, and she turned away. "Clever Kaer'lic! To see the irony of the rebel. To imagine the beauty of Lolth's design."

"It does make sense," the other drow admitted.

"And either way, whether my guess is correct or not, I am trapped by my own cleverness," said Kaer'lic.

Tos'un moved around to stare at her curiously.

"If I am wrong," the priestess explained, "then we should have engaged the renegade with all our powers, as I believe Ad'non and Donnia now seek to do. If I am right, then I have exposed a design that is far beyond …"

Her voice trailed away.

"If you are right, the mere fact that you have solved the riddle of Drizzt brings weakness to Lady Lolth's designs," the male reasoned.

"And we cannot know."

Tos'un began shaking his head and trembling.

He said, "And you told me."

"You asked."

"But…" the male stammered. "But…"

"We do not know anything," Kaer'lic reminded him, holding up her hand before the quivering fool to calm him. "It is all speculation."

"Then let us break free of these wretched trolls and seek Drizzt out, that we might learn the truth," Tos'un offered.

"To reveal my discovery fully?"

Tos'un seemed to quickly come to see her point, his sudden, apparent eagerness fast wilting.

"Then what?" he asked.

"Then I will seek my answers as we travel with Proffit," Kaer'lic explained. "I must find my heart for the call to the handmaidens, though I fear the machinations of Lady Lolth and the fate that awaits those who seek to look through her plans."

"The Time of Troubles marked the greatest chaos in Menzoberranzan," he told her. "When House Oblodra, fortified by their psionic powers when the magic of all others seemed to fail about them, aspired to the mantle of First House and nearly won it. Of course, Lady Lolth then returned to the pleas of Matron Baenre. . never have I seen such a catastrophe as that which befell the Oblodrans!"

Kaer'lic nodded, for the male had told her and her fellows that story before, in great and gory detail.

"It is a confusing time," she said again. "If my fears of Lolth's purpose concerning Drizzt Do'Urden weren't enough, we witness a rare display of true orc shaman might."

"You fear Obould," Tos'un stated more than he asked.

"We would be wise to stay wary of that one," Kaer'lic replied, not denying a thing. "And not because he is suddenly so much physically stronger and so much quicker. No, we must watch Obould carefully because, so suddenly, he is right!"

"Perhaps we were wrong in our estimation of the gifts Gruumsh has placed on that one. Perhaps the shamans imbued him with more than muscle and agility," Tos'un reasoned. "Is it possible that the ceremony gave to him the gift of insight as well?"

"At the least, he learned well his priorities," said Kaer'lic. "Forgoing his anger and hunger for a level of reason beyond anything I ever expected of the pig-faced creature. Consider this mission we find ourselves along—consider how easily and completely Obould is using Proffit and his trolls. If Obould can secure the area and keep the flow of orcs and goblins coming strong from the mountains, all the while holding firm his alliance with Proffit, then there is every reason to believe that he might just succeed in creating an orc nation in the North. Is it possible that Obould will bring his people to parity with Silverymoon and Sundabar, that he will force treaties, perhaps even trade agreements?"

"They are orcs!" Tos'un protested.

"Too smart for orcs, suddenly," lamented Kaer'lic. "We would do well to carefully watch these developments and to take no course contrary to Obould for the time being."

Once again, both Kaer'lic and Tos'un found themselves back on their heels at the observation; the two had been over it all before, but every time, they came to the same inescapable conclusion, and both were amazed.

"I wish that Ad'non and Donnia had not gone running off," Tos'un lamented. "It would be best if we were all together now."

"To retreat?"

"If it comes to that," the warrior from House Harrison Del'Armgo admitted. "For where and how shall we fit into Obould's kingdom?"

"From afar, in any case," Kaer'lic answered. "But fear not, for we shall find our fun. Even if Obould's vision comes to pass and he secures the realm he will claim as his own, how long will the orc kingdom hold? How long did it hold when Obould had Citadel Felbarr in his grasp? They will fall apart soon enough, do not doubt, and we will find enjoyment throughout the process, so long as we are cunning and careful."

Her own lack of confidence as she spoke that thought struck the blustering priestess profoundly. Was she uncomfortable because of her fears concerning the ultimate power behind the renegade Do'Urden? Or had the orc ceremony so unsettled her? Kaer'lic had to wonder if her lack of confidence was well founded, and directly proportional to her growing confidence in Obould's capabilities.

"And our enjoyment now?" Tos'un asked sarcastically.

"Yes, the trolls smell terribly," Kaer'lic replied. "But let us lead them as we were asked, through the tunnels toward Mithral Hall. You and I stay out of the way and out of the fighting—let the trolls and the dwarves slaughter each other with abandon. What do we care which side emerges victorious?"

Tos'un considered the words for a few moments, then nodded his agreement. He looked around at the hastily decorated chamber.

"Do you think you will find your confidence in Lolth's graces once more?" he asked.

"Who can know Lolth's will?" Kaer'lic said, with more than a little defeat obvious in her tone. "The enigma of the renegade Do'Urden troubles me greatly. In this time of chaos, I am the main representative of Lady Lolth and in the face of great presence of Gruumsh One-Eye. If through my cleverness or folly, I have compromised my own position in this, I have removed Lady Lolth from a deserved position in this delicious conquest."

"Or is there a personal remedy?" Tos'un remarked with a sly grin.

"I am not yet ready to embrace that notion and go chasing after Drizzt Do'Urden," Kaer'lic replied. "If Lolth is angry with me for my suspicions of her intentions concerning the rogue, then I will need guidance, and I will need to be well equipped with her blessing."

Tos'un nodded and glanced around once more.

"I wish you well in your search," he said. He turned to leave, adding, "for both our sakes."

Kaer'lic appreciated that last remark and felt better about her decision to reveal her weakness to the warrior. Normally, a dark elf would never offer advantage to another dark elf, fearing a dagger in the back. Might Tos'un figure to gain favor with Lolth by killing Kaer'lic? The priestess pushed that unsettling notion aside, reminding herself that their little band wasn't typical for the drow. The four of them were more reliant on each other than normal, for defense, for profit, and yes, even for companionship. How horrible the journey would be for her if Tos'un was not beside her. And he felt the same way, she knew, and that had guided her instincts that it would be acceptable to reveal the truth to him.

Because if it was personal, if Lolth was angry at her for purposefully turning away from Drizzt Do'Urden, then she would need Tos'un's assistance—and Ad'non's and Donnia's as well, if the renegade's reputation was to be believed.

Yes, Kaer'lic was thinking very much along the same lines as Tos'un. She wished those other two had not run off.

* * *

"What is it?" Gerti asked as she entered the wide cave beside the river that Obould had taken as his temporary quarters. The orc king sat on a stone to one side, his head resting in one hand and a look of concern on his brutish face— more concern than Gerti had seen since that troublesome ceremony.

"News from the north," Obould replied. "The Red Slash emerged from the Spine of the World to join in our cause."

His word choice alone reminded Gerti that he was not the same orc king who had often before come sniveling into her cave.

Obould looked up at her and said, "They were turned back."

"Turned back?" Gerti asked, and her voice turned snide. "Have your people already reverted to their self-destructive ways? Are they preparing the way for a counterattack before victory has even been achieved?"

"They were turned back by elves," Obould sourly replied, and he glared at the giantess, as open a threat as Gerti had ever seen from any orc.

"The elves have crossed the Surbrin?" the giantess asked, but not with too much concern.

"They were turned back by a pair of elves. . and a drow," Obould clarified. "Does that ring familiar?"

"These Red Slash orcs—a small tribe?"

"Does it matter?" Obould replied. "They will run back into the tunnels now, and alert any others who were considering coming out to join with us."

"But Arganth spreads the word of the glory of Obould," said Gerti, "and Obould is Gruumsh, yes?"

As Obould narrowed his eyes, Gerti knew that he had caught on to the underpinnings of sarcasm in her voice, and she was glad of that. She might not overtly go against him just then, but she was more than willing to let him know that she remained less than impressed.

"Do not underestimate the advantages that Arganth and his shamans have brought to us," Obould warned.

"To us, or to Obould?"

"To both," the orc said definitively. "Their call sounds deep in the tunnels. I have brought forth perhaps fifteen thousand orcs, and thousands of goblins as well, but there are ten times those numbers still available to us if we can coax them forth. We cannot have these puny enemies turning the retreat of a few into a tactical advantage for our enemies."

Gerti wanted to argue of course—mostly because she just wanted to argue with everything Obould said—but she found that she really could not find flaws in the logical reasoning. "What will you do?" she heard herself asking.

"The preparations here are well underway, so we will take the bulk of our force and march off at once, back to the west and the north," Obould announced. "We will send some to reinforce Urlgen so that he can continue the fight on the north ridge for as long as the dwarves are foolish enough to stay and battle. Whatever his losses, we can afford them much more easily than the dwarves can afford theirs.

"I had planned to swing immediately around to the west," Obould went on, "and close the vice on the place the dwarves call Keeper's Dale, driving them into Mithral Hall. But first I will go north with Arganth and some others to see to this problem."

Gerti eyed him suspiciously, trying not at all to hide her trepidation.

"I expect that you will afford me a few of your kin for my journey," Obould answered that look. "You can come along or not, at your pleasure. Either way, I will have a pair of elf heads and a drow's to hang on the sides of my carriage."

"You do not have a carriage," the giantess remarked.

"Then I will build one," Obould replied without missing a beat.

Gerti didn't answer but merely turned and exited, and that act alone signified to her the change that had come over her relationship with Obould. Always before, it had been the orc king coming to Shining White, her icy mountain home, to speak with her, but lately, she more often than not seemed the visitor in Obould's growing kingdom.

With that unsettling thought reverberating within her as she walked out into the daylight, the giantess also heard the orc king's dismissive, "you can come along or not, at your pleasure," echoing in her mind.

Gerti pointedly reminded herself that she could not afford to let Obould move her too far to the margins. Her thoughts began to crystallize around the realization that if the orc king's confidence continued to grow into such impertinence, she might have to kill him. The timing would be everything, the giantess realized. She had to let Obould play his hand out, let him chase the dwarves into the tunnels and begin the full-fledged flushing of Clan Battlehammer, and let him stand as the center point of war with the larger communities in the North, if it came to that.

If there was to be a fall, Gerti wanted Obould to take it. If there was to be only glory and gain, then she would have to give Obould his fall and step into the vacated position.

The giantess would enjoy crushing the life out of the impertinent and ugly orc.

She had to keep telling herself that.

CHAPTER 20 DELAYING THE INEVITABLE

"That's it then? We just leave?" Nanfoodle asked Shoudra.

The little gnome assumed a defiant posture, folding his little arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently, his toes, which could not be seen, flapping the front of his red robes.

"You would have us go back in there after your revelations to Steward Regis?" the sceptrana returned, pointing back over Nanfoodle's shoulder at the closed door of Mithral Hall. "I prefer to report in person to Marchion Elastul, if you please, and not simply by having my disembodied head delivered to him on a Clan Battlehammer platter!"

Nanfoodle's bluster did diminish a bit at the reminder that he had been the one to betray them, and his foot stopped tapping quite so insistently.

"It… it was the truth," he stammered. "And when they hear the whole truth, they will understand—I never meant to follow through with Marchion Elastul's stupid mission anyway."

"So just march in and tell that to Regis," Shoudra offered. "I am certain he will believe you."

Nanfoodle muttered under his breath and went back into his defiant mode.

"Of course we cannot go back in there!" said the gnome. "Not yet. We have to prove ourselves to the dwarves—and why should we not? We did come here under false pretenses and with nefarious designs. So let us show them the truth of Nanfoodle and Shoudra and of how the truth is different from that of Mar-chion Elastul."

"Well said," Shoudra remarked, her sarcasm still dripping. "Shall we go and destroy the orc hordes? Perhaps we can return to the halls before the afternoon beer and cookies.."

She stopped, seeing Nanfoodle's eyes go wide and for a moment, she thought he was staring incredulously at her. But then Shoudra heard the wailing behind her and she spun around to see a trio of dwarves approaching from the north. Two flanked the green-bearded one in the center, the dwarf on Pikel Bouldershoulder's right holding him under the shoulder, while the dwarf on his left, his brother Ivan, held a blood-soaked cloth up to the stump that remained of his left arm.

"Oooo," Pikel whined.

Nanfoodle and Shoudra rushed across the expanse to meet up with the trio.

"Oooo," said Pikel.

"They got me brother good," Ivan bellowed. "Took his arm off clean with that slate them giants're chucking. Damned unlucky shot!"

"They've got the high ground now, and once they get their war engines built, there will be many more coming down," said the other dwarf supporting Pikel. "This wound'll be a little one compared to what we're soon to see."

The trio hustled by, heading straight for the door, and Shoudra and Nanfoodle wisely moved farther out of the way.

"We cannot abandon them in this dark hour," Nanfoodle insisted.

Shoudra peeked around a boulder as the great doors opened and the trio were hustled inside. The sceptrana fell back quickly, though, for a couple of dwarf guards came out and began glancing all around.

"What would you have us do, Nanfoodle the alchemist," she replied, putting her back to the stone and seeming, in that dark moment, as if she truly needed it for support. "Perhaps we can join with the orcs, and you can poison their weapons with your concoction."

It was meant as a joke, of course, but Nanfoodle seemed to brighten suddenly as he stared at Shoudra. He snapped his stubby fingers in the air.

"We just might do that!" he declared.

He started away toward the north, staying close to the cover of the uneven, broken wall.

"What are you talking about?" Shoudra demanded, pacing him easily.

"They need us up there, so let us go and see where we might fit in," the gnome replied.

Shoudra grabbed him by the shoulder and halted him.

"Up there?" she echoed, pointing up to the top of the northern cliff. "Up there, where the battle rages?"

Nanfoodle fell back into his cross-armed, toe-tapping stance.

"Up there," he answered.

Shoudra scoffed.

"You know that I am right in this," the gnome argued. "You know that we owe it to Clan Battleham—"

"We owe it to Clan Battlehammer?" the sceptrana asked.

"Yes, of course," said Nanfoodle, and it was his turn to bathe his words in sarcasm. "We owe them nothing. Not even in common cause against monstrous armies. Not even though they might be the only thing standing between these orc and giant hordes and Mirabar herself! Not even because they have offered Torgar Hammerstriker and his followers the friendship of brothers. Not even because they welcomed us into their homes, trusting us even though they had no sound reason to. Not even because—"

"Enough, Nanfoodle," said Shoudra, and she waved her hands in surrender. "Enough."

The tall, beautiful woman gave a long sigh as she looked back up at the high cliff and at the lines of rope ladders hanging down, crossing from ledge to ledge.

"Up there," she stated more than asked.

"Perhaps you have a spell that will carry us up to them?" the gnome asked hopefully.

Shoudra looked back at him and shook her head.

His look was crestfallen, but that was quickly pushed aside by renewed determination as little Nanfoodle the alchemist led the way to the base of the cliff and the nearest rope ladder. He gave one look over at Shoudra, and he began to climb.

It took the pair more than an hour to get up the side of the cliff, pausing to rest at every available ledge. When they finally did near the top, the first faces that greeted them were not dwarves', to their surprise.

"Regis sent you?" Catti-brie asked, peering over at the two.

She reached her hand down toward Nanfoodle, while Wulfgar fell flat beside her and extended his strong arm to Shoudra.

"We came on our own," Shoudra answered as she climbed up and brushed herself off. "We were preparing to leave—back home to Mirabar—but thought to check in and see if we might be of some use up here."

"We can use all the help we can find," Wulfgar answered. He turned and stepped aside, giving the pair a wide view of the lands below them to the north, where the vast orc and goblin army was regrouping. "They have come at us regularly, several times each day."

Lowering her gaze to encompass the descending ground between the dwarves and the orcs, Shoudra could see the truth of the barbarian's words, as evidenced by the scores of hacked orc and goblin bodies. Blood was so thick about the battleground by that point that it seemed as if the gray stone itself had taken on a deeper, reddish hue.

"We're killing them twenty to one," Catti-brie remarked. "And still they're coming."

Shoudra glanced over at Nanfoodle, who nodded grimly.

"We will help where we may," the sceptrana assured the two human children of King Bruenor.

"Ye'd be helping more if ye might be finding a way to take out them giants," came the call of a dwarf, Banak Brawnanvil, as he stalked over to greet the pair of new recruits.

He turned as he approached, motioning back to the ridge in the distant west, a mountain arm running north-south.

"They cannot reach us with their stones," Catti-brie explained. "But they've improvised well, hurling flat pieces of—"

"Slate," Shoudra finished, nodding. "We met up with the unfortunate Bouldershoulder down in Keeper's Dale."

"Poor Pikel," said Catti-brie.

"The giants will become more of a problem than that soon enough," Banak put in.

He didn't elaborate, but he didn't have to, for as she scanned the giants' position far to the northwest, Shoudra could see the great logs that had been brought up to the ridge, some of them already assembled into wide bases. No stranger to battle, Shoudra Stargleam could guess easily enough what the behemoths might be constructing.

"The slate is troublesome and unnerving," Wulfgar explained. "But in truth, they cannot often get the soaring pieces anywhere near to us, despite Pikel's misfortune. But once they assemble and sight in those catapults, we will have little cover from the barrage."

"And I'm thinking that they'll have a couple up and launching tomorrow," Banak added.

"Their advantage will drive you from the cliffs," Nanfoodle reasoned, and no one disagreed.

"Well, we're glad to have ye, for as long as we can have ye," Banak said suddenly and enthusiastically, brightening the dampened mood. He turned to Wulfgar and Catti-brie. "The two of ye show them about so they might figure how they'll best fit in."

Despite the many forays by their enemies, the dwarves had done a fine job of creating defensive positions, Shoudra and Nanfoodle quickly realized. Their walls were neither high nor thick, but they were well angled to protect from flying slate and well designed to allow for the bearded warriors to move from position to position along the trenches created behind them. Most of all, the dwarves had forced a series of choke points up near the cliff, areas where the orc advantage in numbers would be diminished by lack of room. Shoudra could well imagine that the last orc charge, if designed to drive the dwarves over the cliff, would prove very costly to the aggressors.

And the dwarves were preparing for the eventuality of that retreat as well. With several hundred to evacuate, it seemed clear to Shoudra that many would be killed on the journey down the rope ladders—taken down by missiles from above and perhaps tumbling away when ropes were slashed. Shoudra recognized many of the dwarves, Mirabar engineers, hard at work on the answer to that dilemma. They were digging a tunnel, a slide actually, with a wide hopper area leading to a narrower channel that wound down within the stone, paralleling the descent of the cliff itself.

"Would you even fit down there?" Shoudra asked the huge Wulfgar.

"They've set drop-ropes as well," the barbarian explained. "The slide is for those last dwarves leaving."

"Ye think ye got a spell or two to grease the run?" came a familiar voice from out of the hole.

Nanfoodle fell flat and peered in to see Shingles McRuff climbing up from the darkness.

"It is good to see you well," Shoudra said when the dwarf emerged from the hole.

"Well enough, I suppose," Shingles replied. "But we lost many kin when them ugly orcs took the tunnels in the west."

"Tunnels?"

"Under the ridge," Catti-brie explained. "Torgar, Shingles, and the others from Mirabar tried to hold them, but the onslaught was too great." The woman glanced over at the dirty dwarf. "But more orcs died than dwarves, to be sure," she added, and Shingles managed a smile.

"Tunnels under the ridge?" Nanfoodle inquired.

"A fair network," Shingles explained. "Not too wide and not too many, but running one end to the other."

Nanfoodle's expression suddenly became very intrigued, and he looked up at Shoudra.

"And no easy access up to the ridge," Catti-brie remarked, "if you're thinking we should fight our way back in there and rush up at the giants."

Nanfoodle merely nodded and began tapping his finger against his chin. He moved off for a moment and glanced back over the cliff at Keeper's Dale.

"What's he thinking?" Shingles asked.

"With him, who can tell?" came Shoudra's answer, given with a shrug. "Pray tell me, my old friend, how fares Torgar?"

"He's well," Shingles reported.

He looked down to the northeast, to a group of dwarves holding a tight formation behind a low wall, ready to spring up and counter any orc charge. Studying the group, Shoudra thought she could make out the familiar figure of Master Hammerstriker, whose actions in Mirabar carried effects for them all that seemed to go on and on.

"Well as can be," Shingles added. "He's not much happy about losing the tunnels."

"Too many orcs," Catti— brie said. "And too many giants, and some with dark magic. The Mirabarran dwarves did well to hold as long as you did."

"Yeah, yeah," came Shingles's dismissive answer.

"Perhaps you'll get the chance to take it back," Nanfoodle offered, rejoining the group.

"Might that we will, but I'm not for seeing any reason," Shingles replied. "Won't do us much good in getting rid o' them giants, and them giants're the big trouble now. Can't see how we're to stop "em."

Nanfoodle looked at Shoudra, who gave a great sigh and walked off a couple of steps to the northwest, cupping her hand over her eyes and looking off at the high ridge.

"Solutions are often complicated," Nanfoodle said, and the gnome was grinning widely. "Unless you follow them logically, one little step at a time."

"What're you thinking?" Catti-brie asked.

"I am thinking that I have been presented a problem. One in need of a solution in short order." Still smiling, the gnome turned back to Shoudra—to her back, actually, for she continued her scan of the ridge. "And what are you thinking, Shoudra?" he asked.

"I am thinking that I know what you can do to metal, my friend," the sceptrana answered. "Would you have a similar solution for wood?"

Nanfoodle looked back to the puzzled expressions of Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and Shingles.

He offered them another wide smile.

* * *

The feeling of flying was strange indeed to Wulfgar—almost as much so as the spell Shoudra had cast upon him so that he could see in the night as well as any elf. He was the only one enchanted with the power of flight—the others were simply levitating—so he was the guiding force, pulling them all across the broken terrain of the mountain ridge.

He kept glancing back at them, though since they were invisible, he couldn't see them or the tow ropes. He knew they were there, for he could feel the resistance on the separate ropes from all four: Catti-brie, Torgar, Shoudra, and Nanfoodle.

Remembering Shoudra's warning that magical flight was unpredictable, Wulfgar set down as soon as it seemed to him that the remaining run to the giants and their war engines was smooth enough to easily traverse. He set himself firmly and ducked low, understanding that the levitating foursome would continue to fly past him. One by one, he caught them and broke their momentum as their different lengths of rope played out to the end, and though all of them did their best to remain quiet against the tug, there came a slight grunt from Nanfoodle that had them all holding their breath.

The giants didn't seem to notice.

It took the five a short while to untangle and untie themselves and get together, for only Shoudra and Nanfoodle, enchanted with spells of magical vision, could see the others. Finally, they were all settled behind a small jut.

"We were wise in coming out," Shoudra whispered. "The giants' catapults are nearing completion."

"I will need five minutes," Nanfoodle whispered in reply.

"Not so long a time," said Shoudra.

"Longer than you think, with a score of giants about," Catti-brie whispered.

Nanfoodle set off then, and Shoudra guided her three invisible companions around to the east of the giants, to a defensible position.

"Just say when to go," Catti-brie offered.

"As soon as you attack, the invisibility spell will dissipate," Shoudra reminded her.

In response, Catti-brie lifted Taulmaril over the lip of the jut, settling the bow into the general direction of the closest group of giants. Only then did she realize that she couldn't rightly aim the invisible weapon, for she had no reference points with which to sight it in.

"You two here, then," Shoudra agreed. "You will hear the first sounds soon enough." The sceptrana took Torgar's hand and led him away, circling even more to the east and north of the giant encampment.

"I'd be feeling a bit more comforted if I could see you ready beside me," Catti-brie whispered to Wulfgar.

"Right here," he assured her.

He went silent and so did she, for a giantess moved very near to their position.

Many minutes slipped past in tense silence, broken only by the hum of the wind whistling through the many broken stones. Even the wind was not loud that night, as if all the world was hushed in anticipation.

And it began. Catti-brie and Wulfgar jumped back in surprise at the abrupt commotion off to the north, a great din that sounded as if an entire dwarf army had gone on the attack. The giants reacted at once, leaping up and turning that way.

Catti-brie let the nearest of the behemoths get a few long strides farther away, then let fly a sizzling blue bolt, slamming the giantess right in the center of her back. She howled and had just started to turn when Aegis-fang smacked her across the shoulder, sending her sprawling to the stone.

"To the glory of Moradin!" came a great roar, a magically enhanced blast of Torgar's voice, Catti-brie realized.

Then came a lightning bolt, splitting the darkness and sending a handful of giants tumbling aside.

Catti-brie let fly another arrow into the giantess, and as soon as his magical warhammer reappeared in his waiting hand, Wulfgar launched it at the next nearest giant, who was turning to see to his fallen companion.

More cries to the dwarf god echoed from the north, another lightning bolt lit up the night, then came a sudden storm, a downpour of sleet pelting the stones near to Wulfgar and Catti-brie.

The woman hardly slowed her shooting, letting fly arrow after arrow, and many giants turned and charged at her position.

And many giants slipped on the slick stones. One nearly navigated his way all the way to the jut, but Aegis-fang smashed him in the chest. Though the giant seemed to handle the heavy blow well, he staggered backward under its weight, his feet sliding out from under him.

Catti-brie hit him in the face with an arrow as he sat there on the wet and shiny stones.

A great hand appeared right in front of her, the scrambling giantess finally crawling to the other side of the jut. She pulled herself up v/ith a roar, and Catti-brie was suddenly falling away.

It wasn't from anything the giantess had done, though, the woman soon realized. Wulfgar had tossed her aside, taking her place, and as the giantess's head came up over the jut, the barbarian gave a roar to his god of war and brought Aegis-fang sweeping down from on high.

Catti-brie winced at the sharp retort, a sound like stone clacking against stone, and the giantess disappeared from view.

But more were coming, as fast as they could manage across the slippery surface. Others took a different tack, finding stones and sending them sailing at the pair. It was Catti-brie's turn to pull Wulfgar aside, as she dived behind the cover of the jut, catching him by his thick shock of blond hair and forcing him down beside her. And not a moment too soon, for barely had the barbarian hit the ground when a boulder smashed the tip of the jut and went rebounding past.

The two quickly untangled, trying to regroup, and both cried out in surprise as a blue line appeared in the darkness, running straight up to a height of about six feet. That line widened and stretched, forming a doorway of light, and through it stepped Shoudra and Torgar.

"Just run!" Shoudra cried, pulling at Catti-brie as she began her sprint to the south.

"Nanfoodle?" Catti-brie cried.

"Just run!" Shoudra insisted.

And there seemed no other choice, for the giants were closing and were soon to be out of the icy area, and more rocks began to skip all around them.

They scrambled and they tumbled, and whenever one fell, the others hoisted him up and pulled him along. At one point, a rather wide and seemingly bottomless chasm, Wulfgar grabbed Catti-brie and tossed her across. A protesting Torgar got the treatment next, then Shoudra. With giant-thrown rocks cracking the stone all around him, Wulfgar made the leap himself.

On they ran, too afraid to even look back. Gradually, the bombardment thinned and the yells of outrage behind them diminished to nothingness.

Huffing and puffing, the foursome pulled up behind a wall of stone.

"Nanfoodle?" Catti-brie asked again.

"If we're lucky, the giants never even knew he was there," Shoudra explained. "He has potions that should allow him easy escape."

"And if we're not lucky?" Wulfgar asked.

Shoudra's grim expression was all the answer he needed. Wulfgar had seen enough of giants in his day, and enough of frost giants in particular, to understand the odds Nanfoodle would face if they noticed him.

"I don't know … that we killed any … but there's one. . giantess who is sure to be … wishing we hadn't come," Catti-brie remarked between gasps.

"I am sure that my lightning stung a few," Shoudra added. "But I doubt I did any serious harm to any."

"But that wasn't the point, now was it?" Torgar reminded them. "Come on, let's get off these rocks before the next orc charge. I didn't get no swings at the damned giants, but I mean to have me a few ores' heads!"

He stomped off, and the others followed, all of them nursing more than a few cuts and bruises from their nighttime run, and all of them glancing back repeatedly in hopes of seeing their gnome companion.

They should have been looking ahead instead, for when they arrived back at the main encampment, they found Nanfoodle resting against a stone, an oversized pipe stuffed into his mouth, his smile stretching wide to either side.

"Should be an interesting morning," the gnome remarked, grinning from ear to ear.

Soon after dawn the next day, the first giant barrage began—almost.

All the dwarves watched as in the distance, a pair of great catapults, baskets piled with stones, bent back, giants straining to set them.

From below, the orcs howled and began their charge, thinking to catch the dwarves vulnerable under the giant-sized volley.

Beams creaked … and cracked.

The giants tried to release the missiles, but the catapults simply fell to pieces.

All eyes in the area turned to Nanfoodle, who whistled and pulled a vial out of his belt pouch, holding it up before him and swishing greenish liquid around inside it.

"A simple acid, really," he explained.

"Well, ye bought us some time," Banak Brawnanvil congratulated the five-some, and he looked down the slope at the stubbornly charging orcs. "From them giants, at least."

The dwarf ran off then, barking orders, calling his formations into position.

"They'll need many new logs if they hope to reconstitute their war engines," Nanfoodle assured the others.

Of course, none of them were surprised later that same day, when scouts reported that new logs were already being brought in to that northwestern ridge.

"Stubborn bunch," the little gnome observed.

CHAPTER 21 TWO HELMETS

The diamond edge held his gaze, its glaring image crystallizing his thoughts.

Drizzt sat in his small cave, Icingdeath laid out before him, Bruenor's lost helmet propped on a stick to the side. Outside, the morning shone bright and clear, with a brisk breeze blowing and small clusters of white clouds rushing across the blue sky.

There was a vibrancy in that wind, a sense of being alive.

To Drizzt Do'Urden, it shamed him and angered him all at the same time. For he had gone there to hide, to slide back into the comfort of secluded darkness—to put his feelings behind a wall that effectively denied them.

Tarathiel and Innovindil had assaulted that wall. Their forgiveness and apology, the beauty of their fighting dance, the effectiveness of their actions beside him, all showed Drizzt that he must accept their invitation, both for the sake of the cause against the invading orcs and for his own sake. Only through them, he knew, could he begin to sort out the darkness of Ellifain. Only through them might he come to find some closure on that horrible moment in the pirate hideout.

But seeking those answers and that closure meant moving out from behind the invulnerable wall that was the Hunter.

Drizzt's gaze slipped away from the diamond edge of Icingdeath to the one-homed helmet.

He tried to look away almost immediately, but it didn't matter, for he wasn't really looking at the helmet. He was watching the tower fall. He was watching Ellifain fall. He was watching Clacker fall. He was watching Zaknafein fall.

All that pain, buried within him for all those years, came flooding over Drizzt Do'Urden there, alone in the small cave. Only when the first line of moisture slid down his cheek did he even realize how few tears he had shed over the years. Only when the wetness crystallized his vision did Drizzt truly realize the depth of the pain within him.

He had hidden it away, time and again, beneath the veil of anger in those times when he became the Hunter, when the pain overwhelmed him. And more than that—more subtly but no less destructive, he only then realized— he had hidden it all away beneath the veil of hope, in the logical and determined understanding that sacrifices were acceptable if the principles were upheld.

Dying well.

Drizzt had always hoped that he would die well, battling evil enemies or saving a friend. There was honor in that, and the truest legacy he could ever know. Had anyone died more nobly than Zaknafein?

But that didn't alleviate the pain for those left behind. Only then, sitting there, purposefully tearing down the wall he had built of anger and of hope, could Drizzt Do'Urden begin to realize that he had never really cried for Zaknafein or for any of the others.

And under the weight of that revelation, he felt a coward.

It started as the slightest of movements, a jerk of the drow's slender shoulders. It sounded as a small gasp at first, a mere chortle.

For the first time, Drizzt Do'Urden didn't let it end at that point. For the first time, he did not let the Hunter build a wall of stone around his heart, nor let the justifications of principle and purpose dull the keen edge of pain. For the first time, he did not shy from the emptiness and the helplessness; he did not embrace them, but neither did he run.

He cried for Zaknafein and for Clacker. He cried for Ellifain, the most tragic loss of all. He considered the course of his life—but not with lament, stubbornly throwing aside all the typical regrets that he should have turned his friends from the course into the mountains, that he should have ushered them straight to Mithral Hall. They had walked with eyes wide. All of them, knowing the dangers, expecting the inevitable. Circumstance and bad luck had guided Drizzt's journey to that fallen tower and to the helmet of his lost friend. His journey had taken him to the saddest day of his life, to a moment of the greatest loss he could possibly know. In an instant, he had lost almost everything dear to him: Bruenor, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, and Regis.

But he had not cried.

He had run away from the pain. He had built the wall of the Hunter, the justification being that he would continue the fight—heighten it—and pay back his enemies.

There was truth in that course. There was purpose and there was, undeniably, effectiveness.

But there was a price as well, Drizzt understood on a very basic level, as the wall fell down and the tears flowed. The price of his heart.

For to hide away behind the stone of anger was to deny, as well, the pleasures of being alive. All of that separated him from the orcs he killed. All of that gave true purpose to waging the war, the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong.

All of that had blurred with the fall of Ellifain.

All of that blended within the veil of the Hunter.

Drizzt thought of Artemis Entreri then. His arch-nemesis, his … alter ego? Was that Hunter within Drizzt in truth who Entreri was, a man so full of pain and anguish that he denied his own heart? Was Drizzt destined to follow that uncaring road?

Drizzt let the tears flow. He cried for them all, and he cried for himself, for the profound loss that had so emptied the joy from his heart. Every time the anger welled, he threw it back down. Every time he visualized his blades taking the head from an orc, he instead forced forth the image of Catti-brie smiling, or of Bruenor tossing him a knowing wink, or of Wulfgar singing to Tempus as they trotted along the mountain trails, or of Regis lying back, fishing line tied to his toe, on the banks of Maer Dualdon. Drizzt forced the memories to come forth, despite the pain.

He was hardly conscious of the deepening shadows of nightfall, and he lay there, somewhere between sleep and memory throughout the night.

By the time morning dawned once more, Drizzt had at last found the strength to take the first steps along a necessary road to follow the elves, who had moved their encampment. To accept their invitation to join with them in common cause.

He put away his scimitars and took up his cloak, then paused and looked back.

With a bittersweet smile on his face, Drizzt reached in and lifted Bruenor's helmet from the supporting stick. He rolled it over in his hands and brought it close so that he could again catch Bruenor's scent. Then he put it in his pack and started away.

He paused only a couple of steps out from the entrance, though, and nearly laughed aloud when he looked down at his callused feet.

A moment later, the drow held his boots in his hand. He considered putting them on, but then just tied them together by the laces and slung them over one shoulder.

Perhaps there was a happy medium to be found.

* * *

At the same time Drizzt was rolling Bruenor's helmet over in his hands, another, not so far away, was likewise studying a different armored headpiece. That helm was white as bone and resembled a skull, though with grotesquely elongated eyes. The «chin» of the helmet would hang down well over Obould's own chin, offering protection for his throat. The elongated eye holes were the most unique part of the design, though, for they were not open. A glassy substance filled them, perfectly translucent.

"Glassteel," Arganth explained to the great orc. "No spear will pierce it. Not even a great dwarven crossbow could drive a bolt through it."

Obould growled softly in admiration as he rolled the helmet over in his hands. He slowly brought it up and fitted it over his head. It settled low, right to his collarbones.

Arganth held up a scarf, laced with metal.

"Wrap this around your neck and the helmet will settle upon it," the shaman explained. "There will be no opening."

Behind the glassteel, Obould narrowed his eyes. "You doubt my ability?" he demanded.

"There can be no opening," Arganth bravely replied. "Obould is the hope of Gruumsh! Obould is chosen."

"And Gruumsh will punish Arganth if Obould fails?" the orc king asked.

"Obould will not fail," the shaman replied, dodging the question.

Obould let it go at that and considered instead the seemingly endless line of precious gifts. Every time he clenched his fist, he could feel the added strength in his arms; every easy step he took across the broken ground reminded him of the additional balance and speed. Beneath his plate mail he wore a light shirt and breeches, enchanted, so said the shamans, to protect him from fire and ice.

The shamans were making him impregnable. The shamans were building around him a failsafe armor.

But he could not let that notion permeate his thoughts, Obould understood, or he would inevitably relax his guard.

"Does it please you?" Arganth asked, his excited voice nearly a squeal.

Still growling, Obould removed the helm and took the metal-laced scarf from the shaman.

"Obould is pleased," he said.

"Then Gruumsh is pleased!" Arganth declared.

He danced away, back to the waiting cluster of shamans, who all began talking excitedly. No doubt pooling their thoughts toward a new improvement for their god-king, Obould realized. The orc king gave a grating chuckle. Always before, he had demanded devotion and exacted it with fear and with muscle. But the growing fanaticism was something completely different.

Could any king hope for more?

But such fanaticism came with expectations, Obould understood, and he looked around at the dark mountains. They had forced marched north in short order, through the day and through the night, because a threat loomed before his grand design.

Obould meant to eliminate that threat.

* * *

A quick glance to the west told Tarathiel that he was pushing his luck, for the sun's lower rim was almost to the horizon and his and Innovindil's camp was some distance away. When the sun went down, he'd have to bring Sunrise to the ground, for flying around in the dark of night was no easy task, even with the elf and his keen eyesight guiding the pegasus.

Still, the elf's adrenaline was pumping with the thrill of the hunt—he had a dozen orcs running scared along the mountain trail below him—and even more so that day because he knew that Drizzt Do'Urden was about. After their joint efforts in turning the orc tribe back to the Spine of the World, the drow had gone off again, and Tarathiel and Innovindil hadn't seen him for a few days. Then Tarathiel, out hunting alone, had spotted Drizzt moving along a trail toward the cave he and Innovindil were using as their new base. Drizzt had offered a wave; not much of an assurance, of course, but Tarathiel had noticed a couple of hopeful signs. Drizzt was carrying the helmet of his lost friend— Tarathiel had spotted its one remaining horn poking out of the drow's shoulder pack—and perhaps even more notably, Drizzt was carrying his boots.

Had his resistance to the advances of the two elves begun to break down?

Tarathiel meant to return to Innovindil, and hopefully Drizzt, with news of another victory, albeit a minor one. He meant to have at least four kills under his belt that day before going home. He already had two, and with a dozen targets still scrambling below him, it did not seem unlikely that he would get his wish.

The elf settled more comfortably in his saddle and leveled his bow for a shot, but the orcs cut down into a narrow stone channel, dropping from sight. Tarathiel brought Sunrise around, sweeping over that crevice, and saw that the creatures were still running. He circled his pegasus and came in over the channel, following the line, looking for a shot.

His bow twanged, but off the mark as both the channel and the targeted orc cut to the right. Again the elf had to circle, so that he didn't overfly the group.

He was back in sight shortly, and his arrow struck home, marking his third kill. Again, he then had to fly his mount in a wide circle. Tarathiel glanced west at the lowering sun as he did and realized that he didn't have too much time remaining.

Again he bore down on the fleeing orcs. The channel descended along the mountainside and cut sharply between two high juts of stone, where the ground opened up beyond. Tarathiel told himself that he'd catch them as they exited the crevice and seek out whichever one scattered in the general direction of his cave.

Smiling widely, eager for that last kill, Tarathiel brought Sunrise soaring through the gap.

And as he did, two long poles rose up before him, crossing diagonally and going upright to either side. It wasn't until Sunrise plowed right in that the elf even realized that a net had been strung to the poles.

The pegasus let out a shocked whinny and it and Tarathiel balled up, wings folding under the press. They continued forward for just a bit as the poles crossed again behind them, netting them fully, and the whole trap slid down to the ground.

Tarathiel twisted and slipped underneath Sunrise as soon as they touched down, using the free area beneath the pegasus to draw out his sword and begin cutting at the net. With a few links severed, the elf scrambled out. He looked around, expecting enemies to be fast closing.

He sucked in his breath, seeing that the netting poles had been held not by orcs, but by a pair of frost giants.

They weren't approaching, though, and so Tarathiel spun around and went to fast work on the net, trying desperately to free Sunrise.

He stopped when torches flared to life around him. He stopped and realized the completeness of this trap.

Slowly the elf moved away from the struggling pegasus, walking a defensive circle around Sunrise, sword out before him as he eyed the torchbearers, a complete circle of ugly orcs. They had set him up, and he had fallen for it. He had no idea how he could possibly get himself and Sunrise out of there. He glanced back at the pegasus to see that Sunrise was making some progress in extracting himself—but certainly not quickly enough. The elf had to get back and cut more of the netting, he knew, and he turned.

Or started to.

There before him, emerging from the line of orcs, came a creature of such stature and obvious power that Tarathiel found he could not turn away. Suited in beautifully crafted, ridged and spiked plate mail and a skull-shaped white helmet with elongated eyes and shining teeth, the large orc stepped out from the line. Tarathiel noted the carved hilt of a huge sword protruding up diagonally from behind the brute's right shoulder.

"Obould!" the other orcs began to chant. "Obould! Obould! Obould!"

It was a name that Tarathiel, like every other worldly creature across the Silver Marches surely knew, the name of an orc king who had brought a powerful dwarven citadel to its knees.

Tarathiel wanted to turn back for Sunrise and the net. He knew he had to, but he could not. He could not tear his eyes away from the spectacle of King Obould Many-Arrows.

The burly orc strode toward Tarathiel, reaching up his thick right arm to grasp the carved hilt. Slowly, the orc extended his arm, drawing up the great-sword. He lifted the weapon clear of its half-sheath, to a horizontal position above his head. Still stalking in, hardly slowing, not changing his expression one bit (as far as Tarathiel could see through the huge eye holes), the determined creature swept the weapon down to his side.

The blade flamed to life.

Tarathiel moved his free left hand to the small of his back, to the hilt of a throwing dagger. He had to finish the orc quickly, he understood, to stun the onlookers and buy himself time to get back to Sunrise. He forced aside his fears and studied the incoming orc, looking for an opening, any opening.

Only its bloodshot eyes appeared vulnerable—not an easy throw, but to Tarathiel, a necessary one.

He slid the dagger free of his belt and casually lowered his arm to his side, concealing the weapon behind his hand, with its blade running up behind his arm.

Obould was barely fifteen feet away by then and showed no sign of slowing, no sign of speaking. The orc took another long stride.

Tarathiel's arm snapped forward, the small dagger spinning out.

Obould didn't move fast to dodge or block, but he did stiffen suddenly, staring without a blink.

Tarathiel started to break to the side at once, back toward Sunrise, thinking that his missile would surely drop the brute. But even as he took the first step away, the elf noted the impact. The dagger's tip clipped against the translucent shield of glassteel and ricocheted harmlessly aside.

Beneath the skull teeth of that awful helmet, King Obould widened his grin and gave an eager growl.

Tarathiel stopped in his tracks and spun back to face the ore's sudden charge. He ducked the ore's surprisingly swift one-armed cut of the greatsword, feeling the heat of its flames as it passed above him. Ahead stepped the elf, his own sword stabbing hard for Obould's belly.

But the orc didn't jump back, again trusting in his armor, and instead caught up his own sword in both hands and came over and down diagonally back the other way.

Tarathiel's sword did connect, but before he could slip it around in search of an opening or drive it in harder to test the plate, he found himself leaping aside, spinning as he went, every muscle working to keep him away from the ore's mighty sword.

As he turned his back to Obould, before completing the spin, the elf quick-stepped straight away. He felt the pursuit, felt the hunger of his adversary, and suddenly completed the spin, reversing direction and ducking into a squat as he flashed past the lumbering Obould. The elf turned again and drove his sword hard into Obould's lower back. The orc howled as he spun to catch up, his great-sword splitting the air with a swoosh of flame and ferocity.

Tarathiel didn't leave his feet, didn't even move his feet, as he threw himself backward, arms flying out wide to either side. Down he tumbled, the deadly fiery sword passing above his chest and face as he fell nearly horizontal. And, with an amazing display of agility and leg strength, the elf popped right back up to the vertical, his sword stabbing ahead once and again.

Sparks flew from the orc king's black armor as the fine elven blade struck hard, but if either of the strikes had hurt Obould, the orc didn't show it.

Again, that greatsword came across, and again, Tarathiel fell back, coming out of the stiff movement with a wise backstep. Obould didn't overswing again and had his sword in stubborn pursuit.

But Tarathiel had one advantage, his quickness, and he knew that if he did not err, he could stay away from that terrible sword. He had to bide his time, to take his opportunities where he found them, and hope to wear down the great orc. He had to fight defensively, always one step ahead of his opponent, until the weight of that massive sword began to take a toll on Obould's strong arms, forcing them down so that Tarathiel could find some weakness in that suit of armor, find some place to score a mortal wound on the orc.

Tarathiel understood all of that immediately, but a glance to the side, where Sunrise was still struggling under the net, reminded him that time was a luxury he could not afford.

On came Obould, driving the elf. Then the elf went suddenly out to the side, spinning and turning around that stabbing greatsword. As he sensed that mighty weapon coming back in pursuit, the elf fell flat to the ground and scrambled suddenly at the ore's thick legs, driving in hard, thinking to trip him up.

He might as well have tried to knock over a pair of healthy oaks, for Obould didn't budge an inch, and the impact against the ore's legs left the elf's shoulders numb.

Tarathiel did well to emotionally dismiss the surprise, to continue moving around the orc king's legs, angling to ensure that he gave no opening for that pursuing sword. He came back to his feet, falling into a defensive stance as Obould came around to face him.

With a sudden roar, the orc came on, and again, Tarathiel was dancing and dodging, searching for some opening, searching for some sign that Obould was tiring.

Surprisingly, though, the orc only seemed to be gaining momentum.

* * *

Innovindil looked with some distress at the dipping sun, knowing that Tarathiel should have arrived by then. She had moved out to join him, guessing the general area where he would herd any potential enemies and figuring that she would find some way to assist in his hunt.

But there had been no sign.

And the sun was going down, which would likely ground the pegasus.

"Where are you, my love?" the female whispered to the night breeze.

She caught the movements of a dark figure off to the north of her position and smiled, somewhat comforted by the knowledge that Drizzt Do'Urden was flanking her hunt.

She told herself that Tarathiel had to be close and quickly reminded herself of all those times when her bold companion had run off into the night in pursuit of fleeing orcs. How Tarathiel loved to kill orcs! Innovindil gave a helpless and exasperated sigh, silently promising herself that she would scold him for worrying her so. She moved on, heading up the side of one ridge so that she could get a better view of the ground to the northwest.

She heard the chanting, like the low rumbling of a building thunderstorm. "Obould! Obould! Obould!" they said in the communal croaking voice, and even though she did not at first recognize the reference and the name, Innovindil understood that there were orcs around—too many orcs.

Normally, that notion would not have phased the elf. Normally, she would have then simply figured that Tarathiel was in hiding nearby, probably gaining a fair estimate of the nearby force, probably even finding some weaknesses among the orc ranks that they two could exploit. But for some reason, Innovindil had the distinct feeling that something was amiss, that Tarathiel was not safe and secure behind a wall of mountain stone.

Perhaps it was the insistent tone of the chanting, "Obould! Obould!" with an undercurrent that seemed hungry and elated all at the same time. Perhaps it was just the lengthening shadows of a dark night. Whatever the reason, Innovindil found herself moving once more, running as fast as she could manage across the broken and rocky slope, veering inevitably toward that distant chanting.

When she at last crested the ridge in the north, coming over and continuing down the other side across the craggy rocks, the elf's heart dropped. For there in the rocky vale before her flickered the torches of scores of orcs, all in a wide ring, all chanting.

Innovindil did recognize the name, and before she could even fully register the implications. Her eyes scanned across the lines, toward the center of the circle, and her heart fell away. For there was Tarathiel, dodging and diving, always a fraction of a step ahead of a fiery greatsword. And there behind him in the shadows was Sunrise, struggling, pinned by a net.

Gasping for breath, Innovindil fell back against the stone, mesmerized by the dance of the combatants and by the spectacle of the onlookers. Her love, her friend, dived and rolled, spun a beautiful turn, and rushed in hard, his sword flashing, sparks flying.

Then he was diving again, the greatsword slashing across just above him.

Innovindil looked around the orc ring, trying to find some way she could penetrate it, some way she could get down there beside Tarathiel. She silently cursed herself for leaving Sunset back at their new cave, and she considered rushing back to gather up the flying steed.

But could Tarathiel possibly hold out for that long?

Innovindil started back up to the south, then she paused and turned back to the north. She realized that she had no other option, and so she spun again to the south and her cave, looking back and praying to the elf gods to protect Tarathiel.

She stopped suddenly, mesmerized once more by the intensity of the fight, the dance. Tarathiel went by Obould and stabbed hard, and the greatsword flashed down across in front of the backing elf. Innovindil blinked—and she understood that Tarathiel had, too—when that sword-fire suddenly blinked out.

Innovindil's eyes bulged as her mouth widened in a silent scream, recognizing that the blackout had frozen Tarathiel's eye for just an instant, the last flash of fire holding his attention and making him think that the blade was still down low.

But it was not.

It was up high again and back the other way.

"Obould! Obould! Obould!" the orcs chanted for their mighty and cunning leader.

The burly orc leaped forward and brought his sword down and across in a great diagonal swipe.

Tarathiel leaped back as well, and when he didn't fly away, Innovindil believed for a moment that he must have somehow backed out of range. She knew that to be impossible, but he was still standing there before the orc king.

How had the strike missed?

It hadn't. It couldn't have.

Not breathing, not moving, Innovindil stared down at Tarathiel, who stood perfectly still, and even from a distance, she could tell that he wore a perplexed look.

The sword had not missed; the mighty cut had slashed through Tarathiel's collarbone and down and across, left to right, to come out just under his ribs on the other side. Still staring, he just fell apart, his torso sliding out to the left, his legs buckling under him.

"Obould! Obould! Obould!" the orcs screamed.

Innovindil screamed as well. She leaped away, charging down the rocky slope, drawing forth her slender sword.

Or trying to, for then she got tackled from the side, and before she hit the ground, before she could cry out in surprise, a slender but strong hand clamped hard across her mouth. She struggled futilely for a moment before finally recognizing the voice whispering into her ear.

Drizzt Do'Urden stayed tight against her on the ground, holding her, telling her that it would be all right, until at last her muscles relaxed.

"There's nothing to do," the drow said over and over again. "Nothing we can do."

He pulled Innovindil up into a sitting position against him and together they looked down on the rocky vale, where the orc king, his sword aflame once more, stalked around the halved body of Tarathiel, where more netting was being thrown over poor Sunrise, holding the pegasus down, where scores of orcs and more than a few giants cheered and danced in the torchlight.

The couple sat there for a long, long time, staring in disbelief, and despite Drizzt holding her as tightly as he could, Innovindil's shoulder bobbed with great sobs of despair and grief.

She couldn't see it, for her eyes were transfixed on the horrible scene before her, but behind her, Drizzt, too, was crying.