The Lone Drow

I watched the descent of Obould's sword. With my heart undefended, risking friends once more, I watched, and again my heart was severed.

All is a swirl of confusion again, punctuated by pinpricks of pain that find my most vulnerable and sensitive areas, stinging and burning, flashing images of falling friends. I can build the stone wall to block them, I know, in the form of anger. To hide my eyes and hide my heart-yet I am not sure if the relief is worth the price.

That is my dilemma.

The death of Tarathiel was about Tarathiel. That is obvious, I know, but I must often remind myself of that truth. The world is not my playground, not a performance for my pleasure and my pain, not an abstract thought in the mind of Drizzt Do'Urden.

Bruenor s fall was more poignant to Bruenor than it was to me. So was Zaknafein's to Zaknafein, and that of all the others. Aside from that truth, though, there is my own sensibility, my own perception of events, my own pain and confusion. We can only view the world through our own eyes, I think. There are empathy and sympathy; there is often a conscious effort to see as a friend or even an enemy might—this is an important element in the concept of truth and justice, of greater community than our own wants and needs. But in the end, it all, for each of us, comes back to each of us individually, and everything we witness rings more important to each of us than to others, even if what we witness is a critical moment for another.

There is an undeniable selfishness in that realization, but I do not run away from that truth because there is nothing I, or anyone, can do about that truth. When we lose a loved one, the agony is ours as well. A parent watching his or her child suffer is in as much pain, or even more, I am sure, than the suffering child.

And so, embracing that selfishness at this moment, I ask myself if Tarathiel's fall was a warning or a test. I dared to open my heart, and it was torn asunder. Do I fall back into that other being once more, encase my spirit in stone to make it impervious to such pain? Or is this sudden and unexpected loss a test of my spirit, to show that I can accept the cruelty of fate and press on, that I can hold fast to my beliefs and my principles and my hopes against the pain of those images?

I think that we all make this choice all the time, in varying degrees. Every day, every tenday, when we face some adversity, we find options that usually run along two roads. Either we hold our course—the one we determinedly set in better and more hopeful times, based on principle and faith-or we fall to the seemingly easier and more expedient road of defensive posture, both emotional and physical. People and often societies sometimes react to pain and fear by closing up, by sacrificing freedoms and placing practicality above principle.

Is that what I have been doing since the fall of Bruenor? Is this hunting creature I have become merely a tactic to forego the pain?

While in Silverymoon some years ago, I chanced to study the history of the region, to glance at perspectives on the many wars faced by the people of that wondrous community throughout the ages. At those times when the threatened Silverymoon closed up and put aside her enlightened principles-particularly the recognition that the actions of the individual are more important than the reputation of the individual's race—the historians were not kind and the legacy did not shine.

The same will be said of Drizzt Do'Urden, I think, by any who care to take notice.

There is a small pool in the cave where Tarathiel and Innovin-dil took up residence, where I am now staying with the grieving Innovindil. When I look at my reflection in that pool, I am reminded, strangely, of Artemis Entreri.

When I am the hunting creature, the reactionary, defensive and closed-hearted warrior, I am more akin to him. When I strike at enemies, not out of community or personal defense, not out of the guiding recognition of right and wrong or good and evil, but out of anger, I am more akin to that closed and unfeeling creature I first met in the tunnels of duergar-controlled Mithral Hall. On those occasions, my blades are not guided by conscience or powered by justice.

Nay, they are guided by pain and powered by anger.

I lose myself.

I see Innovindil across the way, crying still for the loss of her dear Tarathiel. She is not running away from the grief and the loss. She is embracing it and incorporating it into her being, to make it a part of herself, to own it so that it cannot own her.

Have I the strength to do the same?

I pray that I do, for I understand now that only in going through the pain can I be saved.

— Drizzt Do'Urden

CHAPTER 22 THE CALL OF DESPERATE TIMES

"Uh oh," Nanfoodle whispered to Shoudra.

When the sceptrana looked his way, the little gnome motioned his chin toward a group of dwarves holding a conversation near the lip of the cliff. Torgar and Shingles were there, as well as Catti-brie, Wulfgar, Banak, and Tred of Citadel Felbarr. Tred had just returned from Mithral Hall with word of Pikel, no doubt, and also of the duo from Mirabar.

At around the same time Banak and the others all turned to regard the gnome and Shoudra, and their expressions spoke volumes.

"Time for us to go," Shoudra whispered back, and she grabbed Nanfoodle's shoulder.

"No," the gnome insisted, pulling away. "No, we will not flee."

"You underestimate—"

"We helped them in their dilemma here. Dwarves appreciate that," Nan-foodle said, and he started off toward the group.

"I thought it from the first," Torgar Hammerstriker said when Nanfoodle arrived, Shoudra moving cautiously behind. "Ye still can't see the truth o' that damned marchion."

"We didn't flee, did we?" Nanfoodle replied.

"Ye'd probably be smart in keeping yer mouth shut, little one," offered Shingles, and his tone wasn't threatening as much as honest, even sympathetic.

"Ye've got yerself in enough trouble by-the-by. These folk'll treat ye fair and put ye on yer way back home soon enough."

"We could be well on our way home already, if that was the course we chose," Nanfoodle stubbornly replied. "But we did not."

"Because ye're a dolt?" Torgar remarked.

"Because we believed we could be useful," Nanfoodle countered.

"To us or to them orcs?" Banak Brawnanvil put in. "Ye came here to ruin our metal, so ye told Steward Regis yerself."

"That was before we knew of the orc army," Nanfoodle explained.

He tried to focus and find his center, tried to calm his breathing, telling himself to trust in the truth.

"And that's making it any better?" Banak demanded.

"We came here under orders to do exactly what you have stated," Shoudra Stargleam admitted. She came forward to stand beside Nanfoodle and managed to release herself from Banak's imposing stare long enough to shoot her little friend a comforting look. "Your departure brought great fear and distress to Mirabar," she went on, addressing Torgar directly. "And weakened our city greatly."

"That's not me problem," the stubborn dwarf answered.

"No, it is not," Shoudra admitted. "It is the duty of the marchion to protect his people."

"He'd do better protecting them if he could tell the difference between friends and enemies," Torgar shot back, poking a stubby finger Shoudra's way.

The sceptrana held her hands up to calm him, patting them in the air.

"This is not the time to rehash the debate," she said.

"Good a time as any, as far as I'm seein' it," said Torgar.

"We came here not to sabotage.." the sceptrana began.

"The little one admitted it," said Tred, who had brought the news up to the cliff.

"… but to investigate," Shoudra went on. "We had to know if there was any danger to Mirabar—surely you can understand that. Perhaps the emigrating dwarves harbored resentment that would bring them back upon our city, with a host of Battlehammers behind them."

"Ye're talking stupid," said Torgar.

Shoudra started to respond, then sighed and nodded.

"I am telling you things from the perspective of Marchion Elastul, who is charged with the security of Mirabar," she explained.

"Like I said," came Torgar's dry reply.

"Barring any imminent threat to Mirabar—which Nanfoodle and I did not expect to find—we would never have used the formula. In fact, it was that same formula that Nanfoodle used to destroy the giant catapults. Have you so quickly forgotten our help?"

"Course we ain't," said Banak. "Which makes this news all the more painful. We're in a war here, so ye come here as friends or ye come here as enemies. Ain't no middling ground when the blood is flowing."

"We are here as friends," Nanfoodle said without hesitation. "We could have run home, but we did not. We were free in Keeper's Dale and would have been long off to the west before any word came out of Mithral Hall had we chosen to flee. But how could we, when we knew that you were fighting our common enemy up here? How could we when we knew that we could bring valuable assistance to your cause? Judge not my drunken words to Regis—never did I desire to poison Mithral Hall's metal. It is a mission I resisted every step out of Mirabar, and one that I only embarked upon with the intention of turning aside its course. And no less can be said of Shoudra Stargleam, who has ever been a friend of Torgar Hammerstriker and Shingles McRuff."

Banak, Tred, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar all turned to the Mirabarran dwarves, and the pair nodded their agreement with Nanfoodle's assessment.

"Then what would ye have me do, little one?" Banak asked. "Let ye run free down the road to Mirabar?"

Nanfoodle looked to Shoudra, then, smiling, back at the dwarf.

"No," he insisted. "Take me to Regis that I might make my case. In chains, if you must."

He held out his hands to the dwarf, who pushed them aside.

"Ye helped us here. Ye bought us needed time," Banak said. "If ye're wanting to run, now's the time for it. We'll look away long enough for ye to be long gone."

Again Nanfoodle glanced at Shoudra before eyeing the dwarf directly.

"If we thought we could be of no more assistance, we would accept your generous offer, good dwarf." Nanfoodle glanced back to the ridge, where new logs were already piling up, and said, "You must deal with those giants, and I think I can help. So no, I will not leave at this time and will accept the judgment of Steward Regis."

"Sounds like the little one's got a plan," said Catti-brie.

Nanfoodle's smile widened even more.

* * *

Regis sat back in his comfortable chair, dropped his chin into one hand and stared down at the many maps and diagrams Nanfoodle had spread out on the floor.

"I don't understand," he admitted, and he looked to Shoudra.

The sceptrana seemed equally perplexed and could only shrug in response.

"Is he always this abstract?" the halfling asked.

"Always," Shoudra admitted.

In the chair beside Regis, Ivan Bouldershoulder pored over a group of other diagrams Nanfoodle had given him, and it took him some time to realize that the other three were staring his way.

"Easy enough," the dwarf told them, particularly Regis. "The box at least. Simple enough contraption."

"The open-ended metal cylinders will prove no more complicated," Nanfoodle said.

"Agreed, except for the number ye're wanting," said Ivan, and he looked to Regis. "Ye'd have to set every furnace in Mithral Hall working day and night to get it done in time."

Regis shook his head, seeming more perplexed than negative.

"If I am right…" Nanfoodle started to say.

"You don't even know if those tunnels are open," Regis replied. "Nor do you know what you'll find if they are."

"Then let me go and look, at least," said the gnome.

"I can't commit my smiths to the task until we're sure," the steward replied.

Despite the denial, or more so because of the wording of the denial, Nan-foodie's grin nearly took in his abundant ears.

"Yes, go," Regis relented. He looked down at the mass of maps and diagrams and shook his head in disbelief and open skepticism. "It seems a fool's errand, but we have nothing better."

Nanfoodle bowed, again and again, as if he was bobbing with happiness— as indeed he usually was when someone in power offered him the opportunity to chase down another of his often wild proposals. Eventually, he managed to turn back to Ivan, whose reputation as a craftsman had long preceded him to Mithral Hall.

"You will construct the box?" he asked.

"Got all I need," said the dwarf. "Except this flame water potion."

"Leave that to me, when the time is near," Nanfoodle assured him. The brightness on the gnome's face dimmed then, as he added, "Where might I find your brother?"

"Sitting in the dark," Ivan replied. "And I'm wishing ye luck on getting him to go tunneling with ye. He's not much in the mood for anything right now."

"We shall see," said Nanfoodle.

"With your permission, I will return to Master Brawnanvil," Shoudra put in then.

"I feel the fool for trusting you after what he admitted to me," Regis said to her. "I should throw you both in chains and have Marchion Elastul pay a high ransom for your safe return."

Shoudra smiled at him and said, "But you will not."

"Go to Banak," Regis said with a wave of his little hand.

Shoudra started out of the room but paused and looked back as the gracious steward added, "And thank you."

As she left the room, the sceptrana told herself pointedly that when she returned to Mirabar, she would oppose Marchion Elastul's every move against this neighbor and ally.

* * *

As he moved up to the door, Nanfoodle heard the soft, «Oooo» and winced in sympathy for the poor dwarf. The gnome lifted his fist to knock but held back and slowly dropped that hand to the dragon-shaped doorknob and quietly turned the latch. The perfectly balanced and well-oiled portal made not a sound as it swung open.

There sat Pikel in the middle of the floor, head down, his remaining hand absently drawing designs on the stone floor of the room. So distracted and distraught was the green-bearded dwarf that he didn't even look up as Nanfoodle approached, moving right beside him. Every now and then, the dwarf gave another plaintive, "Oooo."

"Does it still hurt?" Nanfoodle quietly asked.

Pikel looked up at him.

"Uh uh," he said, and he waved his stumped forearm in Nanfoodle's direction.

"Then you are sad," Nanfoodle said, and Pikel looked at him as if that should be obvious enough. "Do you believe that you have nothing to offer to Clan Battlehammer now?"

"Eh?" the green-bearded dwarf replied.

He held up his hand and waggled his fingers.

"You are still able to cast your spells then?"

"Yup yup," said Pikel.

"What are you doing there on the floor?" the gnome asked.

He came forward and leaned over the still-sitting Pikel—to see that the dwarf wasn't just sliding his hand over the stone in swirling designs, he was actually swirling the stone itself around. A grin widened on Nanfoodle's face, for that was exactly one of the purposes he had in mind for Pikel Bouldershoulder.

Nanfoodle moved around in front of Pikel and squatted down to look the dwarf directly in the eye.

"Your brother is working for me," he said.

"Eh?"

"I needed a craftsman, an engineer," Nanfoodle explained. "I was told that Ivan was among the best."

"Yup. Hee hee, me brudder."

"And Regis was very interested in telling Ivan to help me because he understands that my plan could well change the battle raging up on top of the cliff." He paused and studied the dwarf to make sure that he had Pikel's attention. "You want to help them, yes?"

Pikel's expression was perfectly perplexed.

"Yup yup."

"You see, I have many different needs right now," Nanfoodle tried to explain. "Important things must be done, but many of the tasks are a bit different than the dwarves could normally offer. Oh, there are a few that Steward Regis knew who might be able to assist me with one task or another, but there was only one name that came through repeatedly, for every task."

"Pikel?" the dwarf asked, pointing to himself—with a finger that was covered in fast-hardening stone.

"Pikel," Nanfoodle confirmed. He pointed down to the designs on the floor. "For that, and because I need help from animals—they won't be injured, I assure you. Not if we are smart and quick."

"Hee hee hee."

It did Nanfoodle's heart good to see that he had brought a smile to the despondent dwarf's face. Pikel seemed such a gentle soul to him; the mere thought of such a person suffering so grievous an injury pained Nanfoodle greatly. But Nanfoodle also understood that Pikel's pain was more emotional than physical, and that, in such cases as his, a person's self-worth was often the greatest casualty.

"Come on," he cheerfully offered to the dwarf, extending his hand to help Pikel to his feet. "We have much to do."

* * *

"Ye're pulling me beard," said Wocco Brawnanvil, brother of Brusco and proud cousin of Mithral Hall's heroic war commander.

"I ain't, and if I was, ye'd be kneeling, don't ye doubt," Ivan Bouldershoulder replied.

"This little gnome's a troublesome one, then," said Wocco. "He's not for building them damn arky-busses, is he? Heared them things blow up in yer face more'n they boom yer enemies."

"Nah, none o' them," Ivan confirmed.

Wocco and all the other blacksmiths standing around him breathed a sigh of relief. Ivan thought discretion necessary. If those dwarves, miners all, understood what Nanfoodle had in mind, they wouldn't be pleased.

"So ye're just wanting a tube of metal?" another dwarf asked.

"But all gotta be the same diameter," Ivan replied.

"And length?"

"Long as ye can make 'em."

The blacksmiths all looked around at each other.

"And Regis wants us doing this?" one asked.

"Got his mark, don't it?" Ivan asked, pointing to the parchment he had handed over, complete with diagrams and instructions and the signature of the Steward of Mithral Hall.

"All the forges?" one of them asked.

"We got lots of weapons to fix, with the fighting up above," Wocco explained. "We're behind already, after outfitting the band Regis sent running down the southern tunnels."

"This comes first," said Ivan. "Bah, if ye're quick about it and make a proper mold, ye'll put them out a dozen at a time!"

Again the blacksmiths looked around at each other, but a couple, at least, were nodding.

"How many ye need?" asked Wocco.

"Just ye keep making them," said Ivan.

He grinned and pulled out another rolled parchment, opening it wide for the other dwarves to see. It contained a diagram, one far more complicated than the instructions for the simple rolled metal tubes.

"And I'm working with impact oil," Ivan said with a snicker.

"Boom?" asked Wocco.

"I'm hopin' I don't slip with me hammer," Ivan said with a laugh, and the others joined in.

"Boom!" several said together.

Wocco lifted the parchments in salute, then motioned for his companions to follow him back to the lines of forges.

Ivan, whose work would be much more delicate, turned and moved off the other way, back to the smaller work area Regis had afforded him near the audience chambers.

He did pause long enough to look across the Undercity to the northwest, to the doors blocking the little-used tunnels, and his smile fast faded. Pikel was down there, with Nanfoodle.

Ivan could only hope that his brother would be all right, and that he would find his heart again, and his laugh.

* * *

Pikel held his shortened arm up and the small bird sitting on it shifted nervously. The dwarf druid brought the delicate creature in close and whispered reassuring words, then lowered the arm and started off down the side passage, which was lit with a soft, reddish glow.

"You are sure of this?" Nanfoodle asked the dwarf. "I have little in the way of weaponry about me and am not even certain that my more potent spells would affect such creatures."

In response, Pikel looked back at Nanfoodle and scrunched up his face, closing his eyes tight, a reminder that the gnome had insisted that they use no fire in the potentially disastrous tunnels.

"Yes, but…" Nanfoodle started to protest.

Pikel just gave a, "Hee hee hee," and started away.

Nanfoodle turned back to the five dwarf warriors assigned as escort and merely shrugged, and so did they, seeming more amused than worried.

"Just bugs, little one," one of the group explained. "Big bugs, but bugs all the same."

To reassure the gnome, the group presented their weapons, including the two enchanted, glowing long swords that had been providing all of their light.

They didn't need those weapons, though, for Pikel had little trouble in persuading the potential enemies that there was no battle to be found, and soon after, all seven were riding rather than walking, atop large beetles with red-glowing glands. Fire beetles, they were called, often coveted by Underdark adventurers for those helpful glands, which would retain their glow for days after the creature had been slain. Of course, there was even more practicality in Pikel's method, because the living beetles never stopped providing the light.

All along the tunnels, the green-bearded dwarf communicated to his new «friends» with a series of clicks and pops, and he even (so he said) managed to glean a bit of useful information out of the giant insects.

Whether or not that claim was true, the dwarf did lead the party to a most curious tunnel, sloping down to the north and reeking of a particularly nasty odor. Streaks of color lined the dark walls, though it was hard to distinguish its true hue in the red light.

"Yellow," Nanfoodle told them, for the gnome knew the smell of sulfur. "Keep a careful watch on your bird, Pikel. You don't want him to fall over dead."

Pikel gave a squeak of protest and brought the brave little bird up close to his face. Almost immediately, the bird began to panic, and Pikel whispered into its ear and sent it flying back up to clearer air.

Beside him, Nanfoodle understood the positive sign, and he pressed on through the reek.

The tunnel ended in a wide, high chamber full of stalagmites that narrowed as they rose, then widened again as they joined with the great stalactites hanging down from above. A haze filled the room, and even the sturdy dwarves had to pull the cloths Pikel had prepared up before their faces.

"Gonna lose me breakfast," one announced, and the others all nodded in agreement.

Nanfoodle, though, was simply too excited to consider such possibilities. He urged his beetle mount up ahead, then quickly dismounted and moved between the pillars of stone to the edge of an underground pool.

His smile erupted when he at last managed to peer through the haze, to see the source of that sulfuric fog, for the water roiled and bubbled, a sure sign of gasses escaping.

"If you lit a torch in here, we would all be incinerated," the gnome somberly announced.

"Hope that breakfast wasn't too spicy, then," chortled one dwarf, motioning over to another who was on his hands and knees gagging.

Those who were able moved up beside Nanfoodle to view the spectacle.

"The gas we need is invisible and has no odor," the gnome explained.

"Could o' fooled me," said one dwarf.

"No no," the gnome explained. "It mixes with other gasses in the pressure below. But you see how it escapes?" he asked, pointing to the bubbles. "Yes, yes, it is all in place."

"Got no idea what ye're talking about, gnome," said a dwarf. "But ye found it, yep? So now we can be leaving?"

"In a few moments," Nanfoodle replied. "We have to know the texture of the stone. We must be prepared when we return, for this will be no easy task."

He looked to Pikel, who was already falling within himself, eyes closed, arms waving.

The dwarf finished, giggled, and lay down, then simply melted into the stone, disappearing from view.

"That one's just not right," muttered a thoroughly shaken dwarf.

"Shut yer trap and get on yer beetle," another sarcastically remarked.

"Doo-dad…." said a third, shaking his head.

Nanfoodle just smiled through it all.

A short while later, Pikel's form reappeared in the stone, like a bas relief carved into the floor. He came forth fully and hopped up, brushing himself off.

"Whew!" he said.

"How thick?" the excited Nanfoodle asked.

Pikel tapped himself on the head three times.

"Fifteen feet," Nanfoodle muttered.

"How'd he know that?" one dwarf asked another.

"Three Pikel's deep," reasoned another.

"Ye're scarin' me, gnome," a third remarked.

"Can we get through that much?" Nanfoodle asked Pikel, ignoring the others.

"Hee hee hee," said the green-bearded dwarf.

CHAPTER 23 ELF MUSING, GIANT FEARS

Drizzt sat on a high stone on the eastern slope, watching as the sky brightened before him, as pinks and violets grew from the deep blue of predawn. He was glad when he heard the soft footfalls of Innovindil behind him, for it was her first journey out of the cave since Tarathiel's fall, two days before.

She walked up beside him and leaned on the stone.

"It will be a beautiful dawn," she said.

"They all are," Drizzt replied. "Even when the clouds lay thick about the horizon, the glow of the sun is a most welcomed sight to my Underdark weary eyes."

"Even after all these years?"

Drizzt looked over at Innovindil, at the warmth of her elf features—seeming less angular in the soft, predawn light—and at the depth of her blue eyes. Dawn was a time befitting her beauty, he thought. The softness and the quiet. The opposite of the hardened warrior he had witnessed in battle. Only then, in that flavor, did Drizzt truly begin to appreciate her depth.

"How old are you?" he asked before he could even consider the propriety of the question.

"This time marks the end of my third century," she answered. 'Tarathiel was older than I, by many decades."

"That seems inconsequential to us of elf heritage."

Drizzt closed his eyes as he spoke, considering his own statement. What was waiting for him in his second century of life? he wondered. Was each existence among the shorter lived races a replay of the previous? A simple continuation?

He glanced at the sunrise and wondered, hoped, that perhaps it was not, that perhaps each «existence» as measured by the life span of a human or even a dwarf, would instead place layers upon knowledge already gained. He looked down at Innovindil, hoping that perhaps there might be some clue to be found in the depths of her eyes, but he found her smiling widely at him, a look that seemed almost condescending.

"You do not understand what it is to be an elf, do you?" she asked him.

Drizzt just stared at her. He understood what she was hinting at and even believed that there was more than a little truth in her words.

"You left the Underdark when you were but a child," Innovindil went on.

"Not so young."

"But never trained in the perspectives of elven culture," Innovindil said.

Drizzt shrugged and had to agree, for in his time in Menzoberranzan, he had spent his hours training to fight and to kill.

"And up here," she went on, "you have mostly been in the company of shorter-lived races."

"Bruenor counts his age in centuries, as do you," Drizzt reminded.

"Dwarves do not have an elf's perspective."

"You speak as if it is a tangible thing."

Drizzt paused then, as did Innovindil, for the eastern sky brightened with brilliant pinks and purples. The dawn came on gloriously, for there were just enough clouds, all drifting in distinct clusters and lines, to catch the morning rays and reflect them in myriad hues and textures.

"Was the beauty of that sunrise a tangible thing?" Innovindil asked.

Drizzt smiled and surrendered with a sigh.

"You must come to understand what it is or what it will be to live for several centuries, Drizzt Do'Urden," she said. "For your own sake, should you be fortunate enough to dodge your enemies and see those long years. You have picked your friends among the lesser races, and you must understand the implications of those choices."

"Lesser…" Drizzt started to ask, but Innovindil cut him short by explaining, "Lesser-lived races."

Drizzt started to respond again, but he fell silent and let his gaze drift back to the east. He concentrated on the beauty of the continuing sunrise, trying to hide behind it and not show the pain that had come into his heart.

"What is it?" Innovindil pressed him.

He held silent. He felt Innovindil's hand softly touch his shoulder, and he couldn't deny that her warm touch was drawing him away from the wall of anger that was building again around his heart.

"Drizzt?" she asked quietly.

"Good friends," he said, his voice quavering.

Innovindil's hand continued to hold him until he at last turned to regard her.

"More than friends?" she asked.

Drizzt's lips went very tight.

"The daughter of Bruenor," Innovindil reasoned. "You love the human daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, the one named Catti-brie."

Drizzt swallowed hard.

"Loved," he corrected.

It was Innovindil's turn to put on a curious look.

"She fell at Shallows, with Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Regis," Drizzt mustered the strength to say. "I picked my friends and could not have found better companionship, but..»

His voice cracked apart, and he turned fast back to the dawn, locking himself into the spectacle of colors, even held his stare against the sting of the rising sun itself, as if its burn on his sensitive eyes could somehow block out the other, more profound pain.

Innovindil squeezed his shoulder hard and asked, "Do you question your choice?"

"No," Drizzt insisted without the slightest hesitation.

"And your choice to love a human?"

"Was I wrong for that?" Drizzt asked. His defiance melted suddenly, and he asked again, more quietly, as if searching for an honest answer, "Was I wrong for that?"

Drizzt had to pause then and take a deep breath, and another, and he turned back to the rising sun, his eyes moist from more than the bright light's sting.

"Do you think it unwise for an elf, who might live for seven or more centuries, to fall in love with a human who will not know the end of one?" Innovindil asked him. "Do you think it a terrible notion that if you had children with a human, they would age and die before you?"

Drizzt winced at both questions.

"I do not know," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper.

"Because you do not know what it is to be an elf," Innovindil said with certainty.

Drizzt looked back at her and asked, "You say that I was wrong?"

But Innovindil's smile disarmed his ire.

"Our curse is to outlive so many of those we will know and love," she said. "I have known two human lovers."

Drizzt eyed her, not knowing what to make of the admission.

"The first man I fell in love with was a human, and he was not a young man, by human counting," Innovindil went on, and it was her turn to look to the rising sun. "He was a good man, a wizard of great talent, if little ambition." She gave a wistful chuckle. "But how I loved him—as greatly as I have ever loved anyone. I buried him when I was still a child by an elf's counting—younger even than you are now. How that pained me….

"Nearly a century passed before I was able to dare to love another human," the elf went on, still staring to the east, not blinking at all.

"And he died as well," Drizzt reasoned.

"But not before we had three wonderful decades together," Innovindil replied, her smile widening. She paused for a long while, then turned and looked directly at Drizzt once more. "You really do not understand what it is to be an elf, Drizzt Do'Urden, because no one has shown you."

Her tone told Drizzt clearly that her words were an offer.

But could he dare to take her up on that offer? Could he dare to leave his heart open wide once more, where it would possibly get seared yet again?

"We have business to attend," the drow announced, his voice strong and determined. "Tarathiel's death will not go unavenged."

"You will kill the orc who slew him?"

"On my word," Drizzt declared through clenched teeth.

It took him a while to realize that Innovindil was staring at him hard. He turned to her, his determination ebbing as he looked into her wide-eyed, angry glare.

"That is our purpose then?" Innovindil asked. "To avenge Tarathiel?"

"Is it not?"

"It is not!" the elf growled at him, and she seemed to grow tall and terrible, seemed to rise up and tower over Drizzt. "Our purpose—my purpose—is not a journey of hatred and vengeance."

Drizzt shrank back from her.

"Not while Sunrise is held captive by such unmerciful and brutal masters, Innovindil explained. She settled back then and seemed herself once more. "1 will not let my anger get in the way of my purpose, Drizzt Do'Urden. I will not let anger cloud my vision or turn me one step to the side of the path I must take. Sunrise is my charge—I will not fail him to satiate my anger."

She looked at Drizzt for a moment longer, then turned and walked back to the cave.

Leaving Drizzt alone on the rock in the slanting rays of early morning.

* * *

"He cut the elf in half," the giant, one of two who had come in to see their dame, told Gerti. "He wields that sword with the strength of Tierlaan Gau," he added, using the giants' name for members of their race.

Gerti Orelsdottr tightened her jaw. Obould had won again, an impressive show in front of creatures who already thought him a god.

"What of the drow and the other elf?"

"Of Drizzt Do'Urden, we have heard nothing … perhaps," the giant replied, and he turned and looked to his partner, also recently returned from the incidents up north.

"Perhaps?"

"A body was found," the giant explained.

"That of a drow," said the other.

"Drizzt?"

"Donnia Soldou," the first giant replied, and Gerti's eyes widened.

"Dead among the rocks," the other giant added. "Murdered by fine blades."

Gerti mulled over the words for a bit. Had Donnia met up with Drizzt? Or perhaps with the surface elves? Gerti couldn't help but chuckle as she considered that perhaps Donnia had angered her own three companions. That was the thing about drow, was it not? They were so often busy killing each other that they could never manage any real conquests.

"I will miss her," Gerti admitted. "She was … amusing."

The other two relaxed, obviously relieved that Gerti wasn't taking the death of Donnia very hard.

"Obould slew one of the elves that has been terrorizing the region," the giantess stated.

"And captured his winged horse," the scout reported.

Again Gerti's eyes went wide.

"A pegasus? Obould is in possession of a pegasus?"

"We would have preferred to kill it," the scout explained. "That elf and his beast made up half the pair who assaulted us in the fight at Shallows."

"A bit of horseflesh would taste good," said the other.

Gerti thought it over for a moment, then said, "You should have slaughtered the creature. While Obould was battling the elf, you should have walked over and crushed its head!"

The two looked startled, but Gerti pressed on, "They are creatures of beauty, yes, and I would favor one for myself. But I do not wish to see King Obould Many-Arrows flying about above the battlefields, calling out orders to his charges. I do not wish to see him up on high, riding about, godlike."

"W-we did not know," the scout stammered.

"We could not have killed the winged beast, in any case," said the other. "We would have been battling scores of orcs had we tried."

Gerti dismissed them both with a wave and turned away, her mind whirling from the surprising news. Obould was the hero once more, which would be beneficial in bringing forth more of the orc and goblin tribes. His glory had bound them together.

But where did that glory leave her? Beneath him on the field while he soared around on his winged steed?

A horn brought the giantess from her contemplations, and she turned north to see the returning host of orcs, King Obould walking at their head.

"Walking," she whispered, thinking that a good thing.

She caught sight of the pegasus, moving along to the side, bound and hobbled by short ropes tied leg to leg. Indeed it was a beautiful creature, majestic and with a brilliant white coat and mane. Too wondrous for the likes of an orc, to Gerti's thinking. She decided right then that she would demand the pegasus in time—true, she could never ride it, but what a wonderful addition to Shining White such a magnificent beast would prove!

As the column neared, Obould motioned for his charges to continue, then he veered toward Gerti, the miserable Arganth trotting along at his heels.

"We found just one," he told her. "But that one will be enough to bring the orcs from the tunnels."

"How can you know?" Gerti asked, and she wasn't looking at the orc king but rather at the pegasus as it was pulled past on her distant right.

"Yes, a mount for a king," Obould remarked. "We have begun the breaking. I will fly the beast when that bitch Alustriel of Silverymoon comes pleading that we do not continue our march."

Gerti glanced back as the pegasus moved past, and she could clearly see the signs of the brutal orc breaking. Whip marks marred the pegasus's white coat. Every time the steed tried to lift its head proudly, the orc tugging it along yanked down on the lead, and the horse bowed. Gerti could only imagine the bite of the nasty bit the orc must be using to so bend the powerful pegasus.

"I have been informed of Donnia's demise," Gerti said, turning back to the orc king.

"Dead and rotting on the mountainside," said Obould.

"Then Drizzt Do'Urden is still around, and other elves, no doubt."

Obould nodded and shrugged as if it didn't really matter.

"We will stay in the region for a while," he explained, "to better coax out any tribes who choose to join us. Arganth will lead some back into the northern tunnels to better spread the word of my victory and to give hope to the orcs. Perhaps we will find Drizzt Do'Urden and the other elf or elves, and they too will fall to my blade. If they are wise, they will flee across the Surbrin and back into the Moonwood, though perhaps they will not be safe there, either."

Behind Obould, Arganth snickered.

Gerti studied the orc king carefully. Was his dimwit resurfacing? Would he begin to believe the accolades others were putting on his shoulders and change his mind about securing the borders of his planned kingdom? Gerti knew that crossing the Surbrin would prove a huge, and likely fatal, error.

Despite herself, she hoped Obould would do it.

"My king," Arganth Snarrl said from behind. "Methinks you should go south to your son and be done with the dwarves."

"You question me?"

"No, my king, no!" Arganth said, bowing repeatedly. "I fear. . Drizzt Do'Urden and the elf's companion are still about… there is …"

Obould glanced back at Gerti, then turned back to Arganth, looking somewhat confused. He gave a sudden, great belly laugh.

"You fear for my safety?"

"Obould is Gruumsh!" Arganth said, and he fell flat to the ground. "Obould is Gruumsh!"

"Get up!"

Arganth jumped to his feet but continued to genuflect.

"Were you afraid when I battled the elf?" Obould asked.

"No, my king! He was nothing against you!"

"But Drizzt Do'Urden…"

"Is nothing to you, my king!" Arganth screeched. "Not in fair battle. But he is drow. He will cheat. He will come in when you are asleep, methinks. I fear—"

"Silence!" growled Obould.

Arganth gave a whine and seemed as if he would faint away.

Obould turned back to Gerti, his face a mask of anger.

Gerti couldn't hide her amusement, and didn't even try to.

"Forgive me, my king," Arganth whispered, moving up behind Obould.

A backhand slap sent the fool flying away.

"I do not fear this rogue drow, nor a host of the elf's companions," the orc told Gerti. "If all the Moonwood came forth to avenge their dead, I would rush to that battle eagerly."

And die horribly, Gerti thought and hoped.

"We already have enough resources to put the dwarves in their hole and to defend the Surbrin," the giantess remarked.

"Not yet," Obould replied. "I want them to pay in deep pools of blood for trying to hold ground against Urlgen. Let him continue the battle outside of Mithral Hall a while longer. Proffit will need time to being the press from the south."

"You will find little hunting in this region beyond Drizzt and any other elves who might be around. The humans are all dead or have wisely fled."

Obould stared at her for a short while, then just muttered under his breath, "I will consider our movements," and walked away.

Gerti nearly slugged him as he passed, for merely presuming to count her and her giants into his considerations. How dare he act as if his decisions would so affect her? How dare he …

Gerti let her bluster die away, a private admission that, just then at least, she would be wise to perhaps play along with Obould. The sheer number of followers he had amassed could press her giants greatly should she make an enemy of him.

The giantess glanced around at the hundreds of orcs and the handful of giants. It struck her then that she had unwisely spread out her forces, with so many working along the Surbrin and the score she had given to Urlgen.

Hopefully that fool of an orc had used those giants as intended and had already driven the dwarves back into Mithral Hall.

Gerti wanted the glory to begin to spread out, instead of simply falling onto Obould's broad shoulders at every point.

She'd find out soon enough, she learned a short while later, when word reached her of Obould's decision to return to the south and Urlgen's battlefield.

CHAPTER 24 PREYING ON FLEETING HOPES

Regis ruffled the pile of papers—scouting reports—then pushed them all aside. Up on the cliff, Banak was holding strong. But how? Or the better question, why? The force of orcs and giants—to say nothing of the trolls! — that had closed the eastern gate of Mithral Hall had by all accounts been huge. Fortifications were being constructed all around the fords of the Surbrin and yet the bulk of the monstrous forces had departed, with the trolls marching south and the main force of orcs turning back to the north. If that main force linked up with the orcs opposing Banak, then the valiant dwarf and his charges would be pushed over the cliff to Keeper's Dale and all the way back into Mithral Hall. There could be no doubt.

The question nagged at Regis's thoughts: Why hadn't the orcs already done that?

The halfling looked up to Catti-brie, who sat across the way. He started to say something, but her expression caught him and held him in place. She seemed relaxed, physically at least, leaning back in the soft chair, her legs crossed at the knee, her head turned to the side and looking off into nowhere, one hand up, one finger absently playing about her chin and lips. Exhaustion was written across her face, a mask of weariness but also of resolve.

Regis looked closer, noticed the bruises on her hand, the small cuts on her extended finger, rubbed raw from the draw of her powerful bow. He noted the dried blood in her auburn hair, the streaks and clumps. And most of all, he noted the look in her blue eyes, the quiet determination, but undercut by something darker, some sense that, for all their efforts, they could not prevail.

"They are fortifying the western bank of the Surbrin," the halfling informed her, and Catti-brie slowly turned her head to regard him. "Every ford and shallow."

"To keep the elves in the Moonwood and Alustriel in Silverymoon," Catti-brie replied. "To keep Felbarr from joining."

"Felbarr's soldiers will come through the tunnels," Regis corrected.

"Aye, but then if they're to go up and fight, they'll be filtering in beside Clan Battlehammer's own. We'll put no vice on the orcs if we're all coming out the same hole."

"It will fall to the humans, then," said Regis. 'To Alustriel and Silverymoon, and to the folk of Sundabar, if they can be raised. We need them."

He heard the pain in his own voice, the realization that crossing the Surbrin would likely take a terrible toll on those hoped-for allies.

"The orcs're counting on the pain of the Surbrin defenses to keep them at bay," Catti-brie said, as if she had read the halfling's mind.

"Some advisors have hinted that I should reopen an eastern exit and strike at the Surbrin fortifications from behind. We could sneak a few hundred dwarves out, and that few hundred could cause more damage than an army of ten thousand across the river."

Catti-brie's expression immediately turned doubtful.

"We would need to coordinate it precisely with the arrival of any allies, of course," the halfling clarified. "Else the beasts would chase us back in and just rebuild their defenses."

Catti-brie began to shake her head.

"You do not agree?"

"You've more than a thousand up with Banak and thousands more digging in on the west end of Keeper's Dale," she explained. "We're hearing the sounds of trolls in the southern tunnels, and you've got dwarves running south to find if any're surviving Nesmй."

"We cannot spare five hundred at this time," Regis replied.

"Even if we could.. " Catti-brie said, her voice halting, and still shaking her head.

"What do you know?"

"It seems amiss. ." the woman started and stopped with a sigh. "They could put us in our hole, but they're not."

Regis heard the words clearly and let them echo in his thoughts. It was such a simple truth, but one whose significance seemed to have escaped them all. Indeed, it seemed obvious that the orcs could have chased Banak from the cliff and all of them back into Mithral Hall. The enemy numbers were too great, too overwhelming. And yet, not only were the dwarves still dug in strongly up on that cliff, but they had set another defense in the west and were now considering a third surface foray, back to the east.

"We're being baited," Regis heard himself saying, and he could hardly believe the words as they left his mouth. He came forward in his chair, eyes wide with the terrible recognition. "They're forcing us to fight on terms more favorable to them."

"The hundreds of orc and goblin dead on the slopes in the north wouldn't be agreeing with you," Catti-brie replied. "Banak's slaughtering them."

Then Regis was the one shaking his head.

"They're accepting the losses for the sake of the bigger gain," he explained. "We kill a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand, but they can replace them. Our replacements come harder, and keeping us fighting aboveground continues the clarion call to the neighboring communities to come forth and join in the battle."

It made sense to Regis. The orcs were driving the issue to the bitter end. That great force that had marched back to the north after sealing Mithral Hall's eastern gate would indeed turn their sights upon Banak and drive the dwarves into their hole. But by that time, Silverymoon and perhaps Sundabar would have played their hands, would have come forth or not. And all on terms favorable to the orcs and giants. Regis fell back in his seat, running his chubby fingers through his curly brown hair.

"The orcs want us to stay out there," he said.

"So you're thinking we should come in?"

Regis pondered Cattie-brie's words for a moment, then stared at the woman in confusion.

"We cannot ignore the damage Banak is inflicting," he said. "And there are reports of refugees making their way to the west, north of the battle." He paused and riffled through a pile of parchments, looking for the report that indicated such an emigration. "If we break off the fighting, any left in the area will be without hope, for the orcs could turn their full attention against them."

"That would include Drizzt," Catti-brie remarked, and the thought had Regis stammering as he tried to continue.

"Don't fret," Catti-brie offered. "The choice won't be your own for long. Banak's thinking he's got less than a tenday before the giants bring their catapults to bear—and we won't be stopping them this time. Once those great engines of war begin throwing, he'll have to retreat or be wiped out."

"And if they get the high ground above Keeper's Dale, we'll have no choice but to come inside. All of us," Regis said.

"And if they're thinking of coming in behind us, we'll cut them down," Catti-brie grimly offered.

It seemed a hollow potential to Regis, though, understanding that all of it— the fighting and the timing—was being controlled by their enemies.

Catti-brie pulled herself out of her chair.

"I'm to be heading back to Banak," she stated.

She pulled up Taulmaril from the side of her chair and slung the bow over her shoulder in a determined and even angry motion. But Regis could see the weariness creeping behind that determination.

Before the woman even turned to leave, there came a knock on the door, and in walked the two emissaries from Mirabar, the gnome's arms filled with dozens of rolled parchments.

"We can do it," Nanfoodle declared before anyone even had the chance for proper greetings. "We can do it!"

"Do it?" Catti-brie asked, turning to Regis.

Regis held up his hand to stop the questions from the woman.

"As you suspected?" the halfling asked the gnome.

"Of course," said Nanfoodle. "And fortune is with us, for the deposit is under the northern edges of Keeper's Dale and close enough to open tunnels so that we will not need to dig through much stone at all."

"What's the little one talking about?" Catti-brie quietly demanded.

Nanfoodle bobbed over, a more somber Shoudra in tow.

"With the help of Pikel Bouldershoulder, we can string the metal tubes in short order," Nanfoodle explained. "Within a single day, if you offer enough dwarves to aid us."

"Tubes?" Catti-brie asked, and she looked from Nanfoodle to Shoudra, who merely shrugged, then back to Regis.

"What do you know of it?" Regis asked the sceptrana.

"I know that Nanfoodle is excited by the prospects," Shoudra replied, stating the obvious, for the little gnome was bobbing about, hopping from foot to foot.

"We can do it, Steward Regis," Nanfoodle insisted. "Only give the word and I will commence the organization of the workers. Twenty should accomplish the task, along with Pikel, Ivan, and myself. More than that would likely get in each others' way! Ha ha!"

"Regis?" Catti-brie demanded more insistently.

The halfling put his palms over his eyes and blew a deep sigh. He was surprised by the gnome's success in finding the gasses, and not necessarily pleasantly surprised. For despite Nanfoodle's obvious exuberance, that new development only upped the stakes for troubled Regis. True, he had diverted his forges to satisfy the gnome's requirements for "tubes," but that action had involved little real risk, after all. To move forward with the gnome's planning, the halfling steward would have to order dwarves into dangerous battle, with the risks much greater to all of them, particularly to Banak and his forces on the northern cliff.

And what would happen if Nanfoodle proved correct and brought his plan to fruition?

A shudder coursed through Regis's spine, and he turned to Catti-brie. "Can we take the tunnels underneath the ridge again?"

"Below the giants?"

"That ridge, yes."

The woman looked again at the gnome, curiously, then sat back and considered the problem. She had no idea of how determinedly the orcs were holding those tunnels, with the giants in place above. Likely the resistance would be greatly diminished, since the strategic importance of the labyrinth seemed negligible.

"I would expect that we could," she answered.

Nanfoodle gave a little squeal and punched his fist into the air.

"Won't be an easy fight, though," the woman added, just to dampen the little one's spirits a bit.

Regis looked from Nanfoodle to Shoudra and back again, then back at Shoudra, his eyes asking her quite clearly to help him, to tell him if he could really trust the gnome's wild planning. The woman, apparently catching the cue, gave the slightest of nods.

"How long before those giant catapults come to bear?" the halfling asked Catti-brie again.

"Within the tenday," she replied. "Might be as few as three days."

"Then go to Banak and prepare a force. Get me the tunnels back the morning after next," the steward instructed. "Nanfoodle will send up specifics this very afternoon."

"Ivan Bouldershoulder will meet you up there with instructions," the gnome put in.

"You think ye might be telling me what this is all about?" Catti-brie asked.

Regis looked to the other two again, then he snorted and shrugged. "I'm afraid to do that," he admitted. "You would not believe me, and if you did, you might just cut me down where I sit."

All eyes went to Nanfoodle then, the obvious architect of all of it all. "We can do it," the little gnome assured them.

* * *

Tred McKnuckles came upon Torgar Hammerstriker and Ivan Bouldershoulder shortly after hearing that Banak had put out a call for volunteers to go and retake the tunnels beneath the western ridge. The pair were distracted as Tred approached, and so they did not seem to notice him. Their attention was fixed upon a small box held by Torgar, one side of it as shiny as any mirror, the other three, and top and bottom, smooth wood.

"Well met," the dwarf of Citadel Felbarr greeted the pair.

"And to yerself," said Ivan.

Torgar nodded and smiled, then went back to inspecting the box.

"Is yerself to lead the fight for the tunnels?" Tred asked Torgar. "Might that I could be joinin' ye?"

"Aye, and aye," Torgar replied. "We'll be going in the morning to drive them smelly orcs out. Me and me boys'll welcome yer company."

"Any word on why?" Tred asked. "I'm not thinkin' we can get to them stinking giants from the holes beneath 'em."

Torgar and Ivan exchanged a grin, and Torgar held up the box.

"Here's why," he explained.

Tred reached for it, but Torgar pulled it back.

"Handle it carefully," the dwarf warned.

"Full o' the oil from me darts," Ivan explained, and he slipped his hand under his bandoleer of explosive crossbow darts and held it forward. "And a concoction the little gnome made—bottle of firewater that blows up when it touches the air."

Tred scrunched up his face and retracted his hand.

"We're going in with bombs, then?" Tred asked.

"Nah, we'll use our axes and hammers to be rid of the durned orcs," said Torgar. "The bombs're for later."

Tred looked curiously from dwarf to dwarf, but both of them merely shrugged and returned his expression.

"It's all beyond us," Torgar admitted. "But Banak's wanting them tunnels taken, and so we're for taking them. We'll see what magic the gnome's got later on."

"Could be worse," Ivan put in. "Least we're getting to smash some orcs." "Always a good thing," Torgar agreed, and Tred nodded.

* * *

"Eleven-hunnerd more feet!" Wocco Brawnanvil cried when Nanfoodle laid out the diagrams before him.

"Eleven hundred and thirty," Nanfoodle corrected.

"Ye'll tie up all the forges for another tenday, ye stupid gnome!"

"Another tenday?" asked the gnome. "Oh no, I need this tomorrow—all of it. My assistants will be pulling it right out of the cooling troughs, piece by piece."

Wocco sputtered for several moments, his flapping lips forming curse after curse, but his incredulity beating every word back before it could get out.

"Seven foot lengths," he finally managed to say. "It's a hunnerd and fifty pieces!"

"A hundred and sixty-two," Nanfoodle corrected. "With half of one left over."

"We can't be doing that!"

"You have to," the gnome countered. "If this was a merchant's order needing to be filled, you would pump those furnaces hot and get the job done."

"Merchants're paying," Wocco dryly answered.

"And so am I," Nanfoodle insisted.

"And what's yer pay, little one?"

"A score of giants," Nanfoodle answered with a great flourish, for he saw that he had many of the other blacksmiths watching him. "A score, I say, and victory for Banak Brawnanvil and Mithral Hall. I offer you nothing less than that, good Master Brawnanvil."

"We build weapons for that," came the smithy's protest.

"This is a weapon," Nanfoodle assured him. "As great a weapon as you've ever built. A hundred and sixty-two. You can do this."

Wocco glanced over at the other blacksmiths.

"It's a lot o' metal," one of the smiths remarked.

"It'll take more than half our stores," said another.

"Much more," a third put in.

"You can do this," Nanfoodle said again to Wocco. "You must do this. Time is running out for Banak and his forces. Would you fail them and have them pushed over the cliff?"

That hit a nerve, the gnome saw immediately, for Wocco puffed out his chest and tightened his jaw, his wide mouth puckering up into an angry pout.

For a moment, Nanfoodle thought the dwarf would surely punch him, but the gnome did not back away an inch, and even added, "This is Banak's only chance to hold out against the hordes. Without your superior efforts here, he will be forced into a disastrous retreat."

Wocco held the pose but did not come forward to throttle the gnome, and gradually, the dwarf's anger seemed to melt into resolve. He looked to the other blacksmiths.

"Well, ye heared him. We got work to do." Wocco turned back to Nanfoodle and said, "Ye'll get yer hunnerd and sixty-two and a few extra for good measure, in case yer own measure weren't so good."

As the chief blacksmith stormed back to his forge, Nanfoodle settled back against the table. He moved to begin collecting his many diagrams but stopped and brought his hand to cover his eyes, overwhelmed suddenly. He could hardly believe that he was really doing it, that the dwarves were trusting him enough to take such a risk.

He hoped that trust wasn't misplaced, for he understood that he was reaching to the ends of common sense, and though he had so vigorously defended his plans to Regis, Shoudra, Wocco Brawnanvil, and all the others, he had to privately admit that his words were stronger than his thoughts.

Nanfoodle sincerely hoped he didn't destroy all of Mithral Hall.

CHAPTER 25 SILENCING THE CHEERS

"Obould is Gruumsh!" Arganth Snarrl shouted at the tribe of orcs exiting the tunnel along the eastern side of one mountain. "He killed the elf demon— all of us witnessed this great victory! He is the chosen! He will lead us to glory!"

The dozen of his comrades behind the shaman took up the chant, and those orcs coming out from their mountain homes glanced around but gradually came to similar chanting.

"He is a dangerous one," Innovindil remarked to Drizzt, the two of them crouched behind a low wall of stone off to the side. They had been listening to Arganth for some time and were both somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the orc shaman in his praise for Obould.

"He truly believes that Obould is the avatar of his vile god," Drizzt replied.

"Then he will watch his vile god die."

Innovindil hadn't turned to face Drizzt as she spoke the angry vow, but he could feel the intensity in her eyes and heart as she spat every word. He thought to point out to her that she had scolded him for just the same angry attitude not so long before, bidding him to look past his thirst for vengeance. But crouching behind and to the side of the elf, looking down at her fair profile, Drizzt could recognize the pain there. Of course she was hurting. And despite her wise words to him, that pain could slip past her guard and bring her uncharacteristic moments of weakness. Drizzt, who had recently witnessed the fall of a dear friend, could surely understand.

"The orc king has gone south with his force, but this one remains," Drizzt remarked.

"To rouse the rabble who crawl out of their mountain holes," said Innovindil.

"We cannot underestimate the importance of that," said Drizzt. "And this one is close to Obould—he may have information."

Innovindil turned around and looked up at the drow, and her expression told him that she understood his reasoning completely.

"They will likely camp within the tunnels," she said.

Drizzt looked to the east and agreed, for already the lighter blue of dawn was blossoming beyond the horizon. Also, while the new orc additions had come forth from the tunnel, they hadn't come out very far.

"They will not move off until late afternoon, likely," said Innovindil.

Drizzt scanned the area, then patted Innovindil's shoulder and motioned for her to follow him off to the side.

"Let us go underground before them and learn our way around," he explained. "We will take the shaman while he sleeps. There is much I wish to hear from that one."

* * *

The two drow moved swiftly along the tunnels, their keen eyes scanning every crevice, every jut, every uneven grade, in the darkness. Well in advance of Proffit's lumbering trolls, Kaer'lic and Tos'un paused many times and listened—and more often than not, found their scouting inhibited by the ruckus of the trolls.

They do roll along, Kaer'lie's fingers flashed to her partner, and she gave a disgusted shake of her face.

Eager for dwarf blood, came Tos'un's response. Will Proffit be so eager to meet with dwarven fire? For the bearded folk know how to battle trolls!

Before Kaer'lic could begin to signal her agreement, she caught a whisper of noise reverberating through the stone. Her fingers stopped abruptly, and she left one extended to signal her companion to silence, then she eased her head against the stone. Yes, there it was, unmistakably so, the march of heavy dwar-ven boots.

Tos'un came up beside her.

Our friends again? his fingers asked.

Kaer'lic nodded.

"A sizable force," she whispered. "Two score or more, I would guess."

How far? asked Tos'un's fingers.

Kaer'lic paused and listened for a moment, then shook her head.

Not far… she started to sign.

But parallel, Tos'un's movements interrupted. And who knows where these tunnels might intersect?

One thing is certain, Kaer'lic replied, our enemies are heading past us to the south. Back toward the Trollmoors.

Reinforcements for Nesmй? asked Tos'un.

Kaer'lic looked back at the stone wall, her expression doubtful.

"Ornamental, if so," she whispered. "A gesture by Mithral Hall, perhaps, to show support for their neighbors."

Sounds echoed down the corridor behind them as the trolls closed ground. The two drow looked at each other, each silently asking the same question.

"Proffit will wish to chase the dwarves down, but the diversion will cost Obould the desired pressure on the dwarves underground, perhaps for several days," reasoned Tos'un.

That possibility didn't bother Kaer'lic greatly, as she let her expression show.

"We might perhaps find some enjoyment if the dwarf band is not so large," Tos'un went on, a smile widening on his face.

"Run along with all speed and find a place where we might cross over to the tunnels used by our enemies," Kaer'lic instructed. "Better to pursue them out to the south than to backtrack and hope to find their tunnel's exit on the cursed surface."

Tos'un gave a deferential nod, then turned to leave.

"With all care!" Kaer'lic called after him.

The drow priestess found that her own words surprised her. Were those not the words of a friend? And since when did Kaer'lic Suun Wett consider anyone a friend? Donnia and Ad'non had been her companions for years, and never once in all the trials of their journeys did she ever so dramatically warn them to take care. On several occasions she had believed one or the other dead, and never once had she wept, or even really cared, beyond her own inevitable needs. Why, then, had she just been so insistent with Tos'un?

Because she was afraid, she realized, and because she feared that she was vulnerable. And with Donnia and Ad'non off who-knew-where, Tos'un was her only real companion.

The stench of troll began to grow around her as Proffit and his band closed in, and that only reinforced for the priestess the value of her lone drow companion. She'd hardly find life tolerable without Tos'un.

For a long, long while, Kaer'lic stared at the dark tunnel down which Tos'un had disappeared, pondering that realization.

* * *

Though he had tried to become a creature of the surface, as soon as he moved deep into the gloom of the tunnels, Drizzt Do'Urden realized just how much he remained a denizen of the Underdark. Beside him, Innovindil moved with an elf's grace, but in the tunnels, it was not nearly as fluid and easy a stride as the dark elf's. In the Underdark, Drizzt was as much superior to her as she was to him in the open daylight.

They made their way across some broken ground and up into a natural chimney, branching off the main corridor of the complex. In looking at Innovindil as they set themselves, Drizzt could see her reservations. And why not? He had placed them in the center of the main corridor, and if the orcs did come in, they would surely pass that way in force and would even possibly camp in that very spot, perhaps right below the pair.

But Drizzt merely looked back to the tunnel below and hid his smile. Innovindil did not understand the level of stealth a drow in such places could achieve. She didn't understand that even if the orcs set their main encampment right below the natural chimney, the drow could slip down among them with ease.

He did look back at Innovindil then, offering her an assuring nod, and the two sat still and quiet, letting the minutes slip past.

Drizzt's sensitive eyes showed him that the gloom lessened just a bit; the heightening of morning outside, he knew. Soon after, there came the shuffling of orc feet and the procession began below them. Drizzt estimated that perhaps two dozen orcs had come in, and as they moved past, he motioned for Innovindil to hold her place, then crept down the chute, head first, spiderlike. Pausing for a moment to listen, he poked his head out into the corridor and scanned both ways. The orcs had moved deeper in, but not far. They were milling around, he could hear, likely setting their camp.

Back up he went.

"Two hours," Drizzt whispered into Innovindil's ear.

The patient elf nodded. The two settled in more comfortably, and to Drizzt's surprise, Innovindil pulled him close to her so that his head was resting comfortably against her bosom. As he relaxed, she gently stroked his long and thick white hair, and even kissed him once atop the head.

It was a comfortable place and a tender sharing, and Drizzt allowed himself to relax more than he had in a long, long while.

The two hours passed all too swiftly for him then, but he was able to pull himself from his zone of comfort and rouse the hunting instincts within. Again, he motioned to his companion to hold her place, and again, he went down the chute, head first.

The corridor was clear. Drizzt hooked strong fingers on the lip of the chimney chute, then rolled himself over, dropping silently to a standing position in the tunnel. He drew out his blades, crept along deeper into the complex, and found the orc camp soon after, set in the corridor and in a pair of small chambers to the side.

The twisting and uneven corridor offered him a plethora of vantage points as he studied his enemies. A few were awake, milling around a small cookfire, and a couple were off to the side, against the far wall, eating and talking. Beyond them was an opening, leading into a slightly higher chamber wherein several orcs snored. Across the way sat the other chamber, with more sleeping brutes. Drizzt did spot one orc dressed in a garb that seemed to mark him as a shaman, but it was not the shaman, not that Arganth creature who seemed so valuable to King Obould.

The drow slid his scimitars away and crept closer, looking for an opportunity. Many minutes passed, but finally the camp settled down a bit more, with all but a couple of the orcs lying back and closing their eyes. Drizzt didn't hesitate. He pulled his cloak tight around him and crept in closer, moving in the shadows on the wall opposite the small cookfire—which was really no more than a few glowing embers by then. He paused just past that main area until those orcs still talking seemed more distracted, then he slipped right by them and into the small room across the way.

He saw Arganth, sleeping soundly.

Back out again, the drow reversed his movements and went back to the chimney, where he found Innovindil waiting. He considered the setup once again, then offered her his plan using short whispers, stopping often to listen and ensure that he had not alerted any nearby enemies. He considered then that perhaps he should try to teach Innovindil the drow sign language, and the thought nearly had him laughing aloud.

He had tried to teach the language to Regis once, but the halfling's stubby fingers, despite his exceptional dexterity, simply could not form the proper letters—Drizzt had explained that the movements seemed as if Regis was speaking with a lisp! He had tried to teach Catti-brie the signals as well and had succeeded to a very small degree, but even a human as clever as Catti-brie simply didn't have the necessary finger coordination. But Innovindil would possess the nimbleness, he was sure. Perhaps when they had more time together, he would show her.

"You may have trouble getting out afterward," the elf replied when Drizzt finished explaining his plan.

Drizzt was touched that her only concern seemed to be with his safety— particularly considering that if things went accordingly, she was the one who would be pursued by most of the orcs.

They went back out into the night then, to ensure that the orc tribe that had come out of the mountains hadn't camped too close.

Then they were back into the tunnels, just around the bend from the nearest point of the orc encampment. They exchanged pats on the shoulder and nods, then Drizzt slipped ahead, mimicking his earlier movements. It took some time, for the group seated by the opposite room were stirring and arguing, but the stealthy drow finally managed to get into the chamber with Arganth and several others.

One by one, he slit their throats, leaving only the lead shaman alive.

Arganth was rudely awakened, a hand over his mouth and a scimitar tip up tight against his back.

"If you squirm in the least, I will cut out your heart," Drizzt promised, his voice merely a buzzing in the terrified shaman's ear.

He pulled Arganth back against the wall and down to the floor, shielding himself with the shaman in case any should look in. He even managed to hook a filthy blanket and pull it up over them somewhat as a further precaution.

Drizzt waited. He had told Innovindil to give him plenty of time to get the shaman nabbed.

A shriek told him that the elf had gone to work.

Outside the small chamber, orcs began to scramble all around, some running past to Drizzt's right, deeper into the tunnels but most heading the other way, or scrambling around. One came to the entryway and called out for help, but of course, none in the room moved or responded. Drizzt grabbed Arganth all the tighter and slumped lower beneath the blankets.

Another shriek outside told him that Innovindil had scored a second hit with her bow.

A few moments later, the drow wriggled his legs under him and yanked Arganth to his feet, then dragged the shaman to the door. Drizzt saw his moment and slipped out, moving to the left, deeper into the tunnels. He slipped into a side passage as soon as one presented itself, and he pulled Arganth into a sheltered cubby.

He waited once more, as the sounds in the main corridor lessened. He waited a few moments longer, then moved his prisoner back out, and managed to get past the orc encampment without seeing a living enemy. Drizzt noted that three orcs were dead in the corridor, shot down by Innovindil.

The drow and his prisoner got all the way out into the night, and only then did Drizzt release the shaman.

"If you cry out, I will cut out your throat," he promised, and he knew from the responding expression that the clever Arganth had understood every word.

"Obould will ki—" the shaman started to say, but he went silent when a scimitar's fine edge flashed up against his throat.

"Yes. . Obould," Drizzt replied. "We will speak about Obould at length, I promise you."

"I will tell you nothing!"

"I beg to differ." The scimitar went in even tighter. "I don't think that you want to die."

At that, Arganth put on a weird smile and, surprisingly, pressed even tighter against the blade.

"Gruumsh is with me!" he proclaimed, and he suddenly threw himself forward.

But Drizzt was quicker, retracting the scimitar and bringing his other one from its sheath and across, pommel leading. It smacked against Arganth's skull, and he crumbled to the ground. He tried to move and tried to cry out, but Drizzt hit him again, and again, until he went very still.

Cursing under his breath, Drizzt slipped his blades away and scooped the shaman up over his shoulder, then ran off into the night.

He was relieved to find Innovindil back at their cave, as they had arranged. Her expression didn't change a bit as the drow dumped the unconscious shaman at her feet.

"You killed three in the cave," he told her.

"And several more outside," she answered, and she looked up at him grimly. "I would have killed them all had their pursuit been more dogged."

Drizzt let it go; he didn't want to raise Innovindil's ire at that time. He methodically went about tying up Arganth, then dragged the shaman to the wall and propped him into a sitting position.

"He will give us the information we need to avenge Tarathiel," Drizzt said.

His mention of the dead elf brought a pained grimace to fair Innovindil.

"And to help defeat this scourge of orcs," she did manage to reply, her voice soft, almost breaking.

"Of course," Drizzt said, offering a smile.

Arganth stirred a bit, and Drizzt kicked him hard in the shin. It was time to talk.

* * *

"The Nesmй dogs are scattered," said one of Proffit's heads.

"And running," added the other.

"And hiding," they both said together.

Kaer'lic looked from one to the other and back again, trying not to let on how unsettling it truly was in dealing with that ugly, two-headed beast.

"Perhaps the dwarves seek them," the drow replied.

"Then we follow dwarves," said Proffit's first head.

"And kill them," the second added.

"And squish them," the first put in.

"And eat them," they both decided.

"Just a small group of trolls should stay for eating dwarves and Nesmй dogs," the first head explained. "The rest go on to start the fight inside Mithral Hall."

Kaer'lic hid her grimace.

"But there were scores and scores of dwarves, perhaps," she replied. "A formidable force. We would be foolish to underestimate them."

"Hmm," the troll's heads pondered.

"Better that we all follow the dwarves out to the south," Kaer'lic reasoned. "Let us eat well, then turn back for Mithral Hall."

"But Obould…."

"Is not here," Kaer'lic interrupted. "Nor has he begun to pressure Mithral Hall in any real way. We have time to finish this band of dwarves and the Nesmй dogs, then turn back and begin the war inside Mithral Hall."

For a moment, the drow considered explaining to Proffit that Obould was using him, was throwing his trolls into the fray inside the Clan Battlehammer tunnels knowing full well that their losses would be horrendous and without any real plan to come in support from the upper gates. The drow resisted the temptation, though, realizing that an angry two-headed troll would be likely to strike out at anything convenient—including a lone drow priestess. Besides, as much as Kaer'lic was becoming wary of Obould, she didn't think the pressure on Clan Battlehammer would be a bad thing. And if a few score trolls got slaughtered in the process, where would be the loss?

Proffit started to respond—to agree, Kaer'lic knew—but he stopped short as another figure came into sight, trotting easily down the passageway.

"We can rotate over to the tunnel the dwarves used not too far from here," Tos'un explained to them. "The joining corridor will be tight for our friends, but they will get through."

He looked at the gigantic Proffit as he said that, and his expression was less than complimentary.

Of course, the dim-witted troll didn't catch the subtle look.

"Off we go then," Kaer'lic remarked. "We'll follow them right out and, hopefully, to the Nesmй refugees, and…" she paused and looked over at Tos'un, "we'll eat well."

Her drow companion screwed up his face with disgust, but both of Proffit's heads were laughing, and both of his toothy mouths were drooling.

Such a thoroughly disgusting creature, Kaer'lic signaled to Tos'un. But useful indeed in angering Obould.

Tos'un's answer came in the sudden flash of nimble fingers. A worthy cause, then.

CHAPTER 26 DURNED GNOME

Regis gave a resigned sigh and dropped the parchment that the scout had just delivered. He watched it float down, gliding left then right before landing on the edge of his desk and hanging there precariously. How fitting, the halfling thought, for it was just one more troubling document in a pile of worry. The scout had come from the south to report that some trolls had turned around in apparent pursuit of Galen Firth and the band Regis had sent to the aid of Nesmй.

The halfling's instincts told him to muster an army and go retrieve the fifty dwarves.

But how could he? He had nearly a thousand still up on the cliff fighting with Banak and another even larger group settled into the western reaches of Keeper's Dale, holding Banak's flank and the course to Mithral Hall's western door. Those limited numbers of dwarves still within Mithral Hall proper had more than enough to keep them busy, between patrolling the tunnels, ferrying supplies up to and bringing wounded down from Banak—and replacing his losses—and running the forges nonstop, crafting the items for Nanfoodle.

A sour look crossed Regis's face when he thought of those forges, and for a moment he considered shutting Nanfoodle's crazy scheme down then and there. He could free up some dwarves at least and send them off to the south.

Another sigh escaped the halfling's lips, and he dropped his face into his palms. Hearing a rap on his door, he rubbed his face briskly, looked up, and bid the knocker to enter.

In came a dwarf arrayed in battle gear, except that his head was wrapped with a bandage instead of encased in a helmet.

"Fighting's begun in the tunnels under the giant ridge," the dwarf reported. "Banak telled me to tell yerself."

"When you came down to get your wounds tended," Regis reasoned.

"Bah, just a scratch," said the dwarf. "Came down to get some long spears so we can build a few new defenses."

He nodded and started back out.

"How goes the fighting in the tunnels?" Regis asked after he recovered from the dwarf's statement.

The warrior looked much worse than he was letting on. One side of the head-wrap was dark with blood and his armor showed dozens of tears and dents. The dwarf turned back.

"Ye ever try to push an enemy outta a tunnel?" he asked. "An enemy that's dug in and ready for ye?"

Regis tried not to grimace as he shook his head. The dwarf just nodded grimly and walked away.

That brought yet another sigh from Regis, but not until the dwarf had closed the door—he didn't want to show any outward display of despair or weakness after all. But it was getting to him, truly wearing at his emotional edges. Dwarves were fighting and dying, and ultimately, it was his decision to keep them there. As steward, the halfling could recall Banak and his forces, could bring all of Clan Battlehammer and all of the newcomers to the halls back within the defenses of Mithral Hall itself. Let the orcs try to move them out then! And given his own revelation that this continuing battle might be exactly what the orcs were hoping for, perhaps recalling the forces would be the most prudent move.

But such a move would, in effect, be handing all the region over to the invading orcs, would be abandoning Mithral Hall's standing as the primary kingdom in their common cause of the defense of the goodly folk in the wild lands beneath the shadows of the eastern stretches of the Spine of the World.

It was all too confusing and all too overwhelming.

"I am no leader," Regis whispered. "Curse that I was put in this role."

The moment of despair passed quickly, replaced by a wistful grin as Regis imagined the answer Bruenor would have had for him had he heard him utter those words.

The dwarf would have called him Rumblebelly, of course, and would have backhanded him across the back of his head.

"Ah, Bruenor," Regis whispered. "Will you just wake up then and see to these troubles?"

He closed his eyes and pictured Bruenor, lying so still and so pale. He went to Bruenor each night, and slept in a chair right beside the dwarf king's bed. Drizzt was nowhere around, and Catti-brie and Wulfgar were both tied up with Banak in the fighting, but Regis was determined that Bruenor would not die without one of his closest companions beside him.

The halfling both feared and hoped for that moment. He couldn't understand why Bruenor was even still alive, actually, since all the clerics had told him that the dwarf would not survive more than a day or so without their tending—and that had been several days before.

Stubborn old dwarf, Regis figured, and he pulled himself out of his chair, thinking to go and sit with his friend. He usually didn't visit Bruenor that early in the evening, certainly not before he had taken his supper, but for some reason, Regis felt that he had to go there just then. Perhaps he needed the comfort of Bruenor's company, the reminder that he was the dwarf king's closest friend, and therefore was correct in accepting the call as Steward of Clan Battlehammer.

Or maybe he could simply find strength in sitting next to Bruenor, recalling as he often did his old times beside the toughened dwarf. What an example Bruenor had been for him all those years, standing strong when others turned to flee, laughing when others crouched in fear.

As he was moving through the door, another thought struck Regis and took from him every ounce of comfort that the notion of going to Bruenor had seeded within his heart and mind.

Perhaps, he suddenly realized, he had felt the need to go to Bruenor because somehow Bruenor's spirit was calling out to him, telling him to get to the king's bedside if he truly wanted to be there when his friend breathed his last.

"Oh no," the halfling gasped, and he ran off down the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him.

The speed of his approach and the unusually early arrival time in Bruenor's chamber brought to Regis an unexpected enlightenment, for as he moved through the door, he found not only Bruenor Battlehammer, lying still as death on the bed, but another dwarf crouching over him, whispering prayers to Moradin.

For a moment Regis thought that the priest was helping to usher Bruenor over to the other side and that perhaps he had arrived too late to witness his friend's passage.

But then the halfling realized the truth of it, that the priest, Cordio Muffinhead, was not saying good-bye but was casting spells of healing upon Bruenor.

Wide-eyed, wondering if Bruenor had done something to elicit such hope as healing spells, Regis bounded forward. His sudden movement alerted Cordio to his presence, and the dwarf looked up and fell back, sucking in his breath. That nervous movement clued Regis in that his hopes were for naught, that something else was going on there.

"What are you about?" the halfling asked.

"I come to pray for Bruenor's passing every day," the dwarf gruffly replied, a half-truth if Regis had ever heard one.

"To ease it, I mean," Cordio tried to clarify. "Praying to Moradin to take him gently."

"You told me that Bruenor was already at Moradin's side."

"Aye, and so his spirit might be—aye, it… it must be," Cordio stammered. "But we're not for wanting the body's passing to be a painful thing, are we?"

Regis hardly heard the response, as he stood there considering Bruenor, considering his friend who should have died days before, soon after he gave the order to the priests to let him be.

"What are you about, Cordio?" the halfling started to ask, but he stopped short when another rushed into the room.

"Steward's comi—" Stumpet Rakingclaw started to say, until she noted that Regis was already in the room.

Her eyes went wide, and she seemed to mutter some curse under her breath as she stepped back.

"Aye, Cordio Muffinhead," Regis remarked. "Steward's coming, so end your spells of healing on King Bruenor and be gone quick."

He turned on Cordio as he spoke the accusation, and the dwarf did not shrink back.

"Aye," Cordio replied, "that would've been close to Stumpet's own words, had ye not been in here."

"You're healing him," Regis accused, engulfing them both in his unyielding glare. "Every day you come in here and cast your magic into his body, preserving his life's breath. You won't let him die."

"His body's here, but his spirit's long gone," Cordio replied.

"Then let him die!" Regis ordered.

"I cannot," said Cordio.

"There is no dignity!" the halfling yelled.

"No," Cordio agreed. "But Bruenor's got his duty now, and I'm seeing that he holds it. I cannot let King Bruenor's body pass over."

"Not yet," said Stumpet.

"But you are the ones who told me that you cannot bring him back, that soul and body are far separated and will not hear the call of healing powers," the half-ling argued. "Your own words brought forth my decision to let Bruenor go in peace, and now you defy my order?"

"King Bruenor cannot fully join his ancestors until the fighting's done," Cordio explained. "And not for Bruenor's sake—this's got nothing to do with Bruenor."

"It's got to do with the king, but not the dwarf," Stumpet added. "It's got to do with them who're out there fighting for Mithral Hall, fighting under the name o' King Bruenor Battlehammer. Ye go and tell Banak Brawnanvil that Bruenor's dead and see how long his line'll hold against the orc press."

"This ain't for Bruenor," said Cordio. "It's for them fighting in Bruenor's name. Ye should be understanding that. Mithral Hall's needing a king."

Regis tried to find an argument. His lips moved, but no sound came forth. His eyes were drawn low, to the specter of Bruenor, his friend, the king, lying so pale and so still on the bed, his strong hands drawn up one over the other on his once-strong chest.

"No dignity…." the halfling did whisper, but the complaint sounded hollow even to him.

Bruenor's life had been about honor, duty, and above all else, loyalty. Loyalty to clan and to friend. If staying alive meant helping clan and friend, even if it meant great pain for Bruenor, the dwarf would put an angry fist in the eye of anyone who tried to stop him from performing that duty.

It pained Regis to stand there staring at his helpless friend. It pained Regis to think that those clerics were going against the wishes of Catti-brie and Wulf-gar, the two who held the largest claim over the fate of their adoptive father.

But the halfling could find no argument against the logic of Cordio and Stumpet's reasoning. He glanced at the two dwarves and without either affirming or denying their work, he put his head down and walked out of the room, yet another weight on his burdened shoulders.

* * *

The two heavy iron tubes clanged down to the stone floor and bounced around for a moment until Nanfoodle finally managed to corral them and hold them steady. The gnome huffed and puffed after carrying the two lengths all the way from the forges. He didn't sit back and rest, but instead adjusted the metal tubes so that they were set end to end.

Pikel Bouldershoulder looked at the items curiously, then down at the pile of mud set before his crossed legs. The enchantment would soon fade on the mud, he knew, reverting it to its former solidity. The green-bearded dwarf scooped a handful and slid over to the two pipes, then lifted the end of one and examined it.

"Heh," he said appreciatively, noting that the dwarves had put a lip on either end of each piece.

He waved Nanfoodle over to his side, and the gnome took up the other tube and carefully held it up to the end Pikel had elevated.

Pikel helped press them together, and Nanfoodle quickly wrapped the area of the joint round and round with a strip of cloth. Pikel brought his hand in, slopping the mud all around the joint, all over the cloth wrap. He worked the mud around, then he and Nanfoodle carefully laid the two pieces back on the floor. Nanfoodle quickly gathered some small stones and buffered them against the curving sides of the two pieces, securing them in place while Pikel's stone hardened.

And harden it did, sealing the two pieces together into a single length.

"Ssssss," Pikel explained, pointing down at the joint, and he pinched his nose.

"Yes, it will leak if we leave it as is," Nanfoodle agreed. "But we shall not."

He rushed out and returned a few moments later bearing a heavy bucket, the handle of a wide brush protruding over its lip. Setting the bucket down, Nanfoodle lifted the brush, which was dripping with heavy black tar. Again, the gnome bent low to the joint, washing over it with the tar.

"No ssssss," he said to Pikel, waggling his finger in the air.

"Hee hee hee," the green-bearded dwarf agreed.

It did Nanfoodle's heart good to see Pikel in such fine spirits. Since the loss of his arm, the dwarf had been sullen, and even less talkative than usual. Nanfoodle had watched him carefully, though, and had come to the conclusion that Pikel's despair was wrought more from being helpless in the face of the current adversity than in his own sudden disadvantage.

Engaging the green-bearded dwarf so completely in his plan—and indeed, Pikel was the best suited of all for such a task—had brought energy back to the dwarf and had rekindled the dwarf's wide smile. Sitting there with his stone-turned-to-mud, Pikel even offered the more-than-occasional "Hee hee hee."

"They're fighting up above," Nanfoodle remarked.

"Oooo," Pikel replied.

He started to rise and turn, as if he meant to run right off to the battlefield.

"The tunnels under the giants," Nanfoodle explained, grabbing Pikel's arm and holding him in place. "If we are fortunate, the battle will be over before we could even get up to join it. But we cannot ask our friends to hold those tunnels for long—doing so will deplete Banak's resources greatly."

"Oooo."

"Only we can help alleviate that, Pikel," Nanfoodle said. "Only you and I, by working hard and working fast."

He glanced down at the lengths of metal tubing.

"Uh huh," Pikel agreed, and he fell back to work, gathering up his large bucket of mud, which was fast turning back to its previous solid state.

Nanfoodle nodded and took a deep breath. It was indeed time to begin in earnest. He considered the course he had to lay out and quickly estimated the maximum number of dwarves he could press into service before creating a situation with simply too many workers. Regis would be easy to convince, the gnome understood, for up above, the truly brutal work, the clearing of the tunnels, was already underway.

Nanfoodle imagined some of the scenes of battle that were no doubt occurring even then.

A shudder coursed his short spine.

* * *

"Damned archers!" Tred McKnuckles cried.

He fell to the side of the tunnel, throwing himself behind a rock. The dwarves had easily enough gained the outer areas of the tunnels, the southern stretches nearest to Keeper's Dale, but as they had moved in deeper, the resistance had grown more and more stubborn. Tred's group, which included Ivan Bouldershoulder and Tred's Felbarr friend Nikwillig, had hit fortified resistance along one long and narrow tunnel.

A short distance from them, the orcs had dug in behind a wall of piled stones and held several vantage points from which they could fire their bows and throw their light spears.

"Torgar's pressing on to our left," Ivan, who had similarly dived for cover on the opposite side of the corridor, called back to Tred. "He'll move past us to the wider halls. He's to be needing our support!"

"Bah!" Tred snorted, and he determinedly leaped out from behind the rock—and promptly got hit by a trio of arrows that had him slumping back from where he'd started.

"Ah, ye fool!" Ivan cried.

"That one's hurtin'," Tred admitted, clutching at one of the quivering arrow shafts.

"We'll get ye outta here!" Ivan promised.

Tred held up his hand and shook his head, assuring the other dwarf that he was all right.

"We gotta get 'em pushed back," the Felbarr dwarf called back.

"Nine Hells!" spouted a frustrated Ivan.

He pulled a crossbow quarrel from his bandoleer and eyed it carefully. His friend Cadderly had designed those bolts, with Ivan's help. Solid on both ends, they were partially cut out in the middle, designed to hold a small vial in their cubby. That vial was full of enchanted oil, designed to explode under the impact of the dart's collapse.

Ivan fitted the bolt to his small hand crossbow—another design that he and Cadderly had worked to perfection—then fell flat to his belly, eased himself out, and launched the missile down the corridor.

Without much force behind it, for it was merely a hand crossbow after all, the bolt looped down toward the orcs. It hit one of the rocks that formed their barricade and collapsed on itself. The oil flashed and exploded, blowing away a piece of the rocks.

"Let me chip away at their walls," Ivan called to Tred. "We'll send them pigs running!"

He fitted another bolt and let it fly, and another small explosion sounded down the tunnel.

And the tunnel began to tremble.

"What'd ye do?" a wide-eyed Tred asked.

Ivan's eyes were no less open.

"Damned if I'm knowing!" he admitted as the thunder began to grow around them. Ivan looked down at his bandoleer, and even pulled forth another dart. "Just a little thing!" he cried, shaking his head, and he looked back down toward the orcs.

He realized only then that the reverberations were behind his position, not in front.

"Tweren't me, then!" Ivan howled, and he looked back in alarm.

"Bah! Cave-in!" cried Tred, catching on. "Get 'em out! Get 'em all out!"

But it wasn't a cave-in, as the two dwarves and their companions learned a moment later, when the leading edge of the thunder-makers came around the corner behind them, charging up the tunnel with wild abandon.

"Not a collapse!" one dwarf further down the corridor called.

"Gutbusters!" cried another.

"Pwent?" Ivan mouthed at Tred, and both wisely rolled back tighter against their respective wall.

His answer came in one long, droning roar: the cry of sheer outrage, the scraping of metal armor, and the stamp of heavy boots. The column rushed past him, Thibbledorf Pwent in its lead, and bearing before him a great, heavy tower shield. Arrows thunked into that shield, and one skipped past, catching Pwent squarely in the shoulder. That only made him yell louder and run faster, leaning forward eagerly.

Orc bows fired repeatedly, and orc spears arced through the narrow passage, but the Gutbusters, be it from courage or stupidity, did not waver a single step. Several took brutal hits, shots that would have felled an ordinary dwarf, but in their heightened state of emotion, the Gutbuster warriors didn't even seem to feel the sting.

Pwent hit the rock barricade at a dead run, slamming against it, and the dwarves behind him hit him at a dead run too, driving on, forming a dwarven ramp over which their buddies could scramble.

And the wall toppled.

A few orcs remained, some firing their bows, some just swatting with flimsy weapons, others drawing swords.

The Gutbusters responded heart and soul, leaping onto their enemies, thrashing them with wickedly ridged armor, skewering them with head spikes, or slugging them with spiked gauntlets.

By the time Ivan helped the stung Tred hobble down to the toppled barricade, no orcs remained intact, let alone alive.

"Gotta take 'em fast and not let 'em shoot ye more'n a few times," the smelly Thibbledorf Pwent explained.

He seemed oblivious to the fact that a pair of arrows protruded from one of his strong shoulders.

"Get that tend—" Ivan started to say to him, but he was interrupted by a cry from farther along, calling out another barricade.

"Get 'em boys!" howled Pwent. "Yaaaaaaaaaa!"

He kicked the broken stones off of his shield and yanked it up. With a chorus of cheering all around him, Pwent set off again at a dead run.

"Hope we don't get to the wider areas too much afore Torgar," Ivan remarked.

Tred just snorted and shook his head, and Ivan helped him along.

* * *

Far down from the fighting, in the sulfuric chamber beneath the northern floor of Keeper's Dale, Nanfoodle, Pikel, and a host of dwarves had gathered, heavy cloths over their faces, protecting them from the nasty stench.

Pikel crouched in a pit that had been carved on the edge of the yellowish water. He was mumbling the words of a spell, waving his hand and his stump of an arm over the stone. Beside him, one burly dwarf held a long metal tube vertically, its bottom end capped with a spearlike tip. Pikel finished the spell and fell back, nodding, and the dwarf plunged the long tube into the suddenly malleable stone. Burly arms pressed on, sliding the metal down through the mud, until more than half its length had disappeared.

"Hit rock," he explained.

Pikel nodded and smiled as he looked at Nanfoodle, who breathed a sigh of relief. It would be the trickiest part of all, the gnome believed. First, with Pikel's help, they had excavated ten feet of stone, leaving a thin wall of about five feet to the trapped gasses. There was little room for error.

They waited until the enchanted mud turned back to stone, and on a nod from the gnome, a pair of mallet-wielding dwarves stepped forward and began tapping at the top of the tube.

Nanfoodle held his breath—he knew that one spark could prove utterly disastrous, though he hadn't shared that little tidbit with any of the others.

He didn't breathe again properly until one of the hammering dwarves remarked, "We're through."

The other dwarf, again on a nod from the gnome, pulled out a knife and cut the tie that was holding the spear tip tight against the bottom lip, allowing it to fall away, and almost immediately both the dwarves spat and waved their hands before them as a deeper stench came flowing through the tube.

Pikel gave a little squeal of delight and ran forward, capping the end with a gummy substance Nanfoodle had prepared, then falling down and further sealing the tube in place with more stone-turned-to-mud.

"Craziest damned thing I ever seen," one dwarf off to the side remarked.

"Durned gnome," another answered.

Beneath his cloth veil, Nanfoodle merely smiled. He couldn't really even disagree with their assessment. On his word alone, the dwarves had strung a line of metal out of the chamber, along several tunnels, and through another ten feet of stone to the floor of Keeper's Dale. On his word alone, other dwarves had taken that line all the way to the base of the cliff, more than fifty feet farther to the north and twice that to the east. On his word alone, still more dwarves were even then continuing the line up the side of the cliff—two or three hundred feet up—securing the tubes end to end with a series of metal pins so that Pikel could later seal them together with his stone-turned-to-mud.

Pikel went back to work, with all the dwarves in tow, some carrying buckets of mud, others carrying buckets of sealing pitch. While the pit had been carved, the green-bearded dwarf had connected nearly all of the underground tubes, and so within the matter of an hour, the crew was back above ground, crawling their way across Keeper's Dale to the base of the cliff. Pikel had become quite proficient at his work by that time, even perfecting the technique for «elbowing» the stone joint when the tubes had to turn a corner.

Nanfoodle led a second crew all along the joined metal line, painting more pitch on any possible weak areas and propping stones against the metal to further secure it. There was no room for error, the gnome understood, particularly in those stretches underground.

Every so often, the gnome went back to the sulfuric chamber, just to make sure that the critical first tube was still solidly in place.

Just to reassure himself that he wasn't completely out of his mind.

* * *

After Pwent's dramatic victory at the barricade, the battling dwarves had the majority of the tunnels beneath the giant-held ridge secured within another hour, forcing the remaining orcs to the very northern end of the complex. Not wanting to delay much further than that, Torgar ordered the area sealed off (which greatly disappointed Pwent, of course), his engineers dropping a wall of stone before their enemies. Inspecting the cave-in, Torgar declared the complex won.

The work was only beginning, though. The dwarves rushed back out of the tunnel's southern end, back near Keeper's Dale, and replaced weapons on their belts as they took up buckets of dark and sticky pitch. As part of Torgar's troupe went back underground, buckets and brushes in hand, another part began stringing the come-alongs and ropes down to the floor of Keeper's Dale. Within a short expanse of time, a bucket brigade had begun, with tar-filled pails coming up the ropes and empty buckets moving back down for refilling.

Inside, the dwarves worked to seal every crack and crevice they could find, plastering the walls and ceiling with the sticky substance.

Using the designs offered by Nanfoodle, other dwarves secured themselves to the long ropes with harnesses and eased down the cliff face, taking up equidistant positions from the canyon floor all the way to the top. They began hammering in eyelet supports, building a straight line of supporting superstructure from floor to ledge.

Torgar, Ivan, and Tred—who continued to stubbornly wave away any who thought to tend his wounds—began to inspect the region near the center of the tunnels within the ridgeline, seeking the thinnest area of stone blocking the way to the east and the continuing battlefield. Torgar moved along deliberately, tapping the stone with a small hammer and listening carefully for the consistency of the ring. Convinced he had found an optimal spot, Torgar sent his diggers to work, and the team quickly bored a hole out to the east, breaking through the line of the stony ridge so that they could feel the open air upon them.

"That wide enough?" Torgar asked.

Ivan held up the small box he had constructed to Nanfoodle's specifications, with its mirrored side.

"Looks like it'll fit," he answered.

He moved close and held the box up tight. The diggers went back to work at once, shaping the hole so that it would be a better and more secure fit, then they moved back and Ivan squeezed in as far as he could, pressing the box, mirror facing outward, as far to the edge as possible.

"Seal it tight in place," Torgar instructed his team, and he and the other two leaders moved back the other way.

"What's that durned gnome thinking?" Tred asked.

"Couldn't begin to tell ye," Torgar admitted. "But Banak telled me to take the damned tunnels, so I taked the damned tunnels."

"That ye did," said Ivan. "That ye did."

"And good'll come of it," Tred offered with a nod.

"Aye," agreed Ivan. "These Battlehammers know how to win a fight."

Torgar patted his companions in turn, and it struck Ivan then how ironic it was that he, Torgar, and Tred had been given charge of so important a mission as retaking the cave complex, in light of the fact that not one of them was of Bruenor's clan.

The stomping of battlerager boots interrupted that thought, and their conversation. The three turned to see Thibbledorf Pwent leading his troops at a swift pace back to the south.

"Fighting's startin' again outside," Pwent explained to the three as he passed. He called back to his team, "Hurry up, ye dolts! We're missing all the fun!"

With a great cheer, the Gutbuster Brigade charged past.

"Glad he's on our side," Tred remarked, drawing a chortle from both of his companions.

* * *

Before the next dawn, with fighting continuing along the sloping ground to the east and with Tred sent along for some priestly tending, Torgar and Ivan stood at the edge of the southernmost of the complex tunnels, right near the lip of the cliff drop to Keeper's Dale.

"We spill good dwarf blood just to close it all off," Torgar remarked with a frustrated sigh.

"I'm thinking the gnome's meaning to stink them giants off the ridge," Ivan replied. He kicked at the length of tubing that had been laid down from the cliff face to inside the tunnel itself. "He's for bringing up the stink."

Before the pair, a group of dwarves worked fast, piling rocks all around the center reaches of the long metal tube, carefully placing the stones so that they supported each other without putting any pressure on the metal pipe.

"Have to be a pretty good stink," said Torgar, "to chase giants off the ridge."

"Me brother says it's a good one," Ivan explained.

As the workers scurried to the side, he nodded to the dwarf engineers standing to either side of the tunnel, warning them away. Torgar and Ivan took up heavy mallets and simultaneously knocked out wooden supports that had been set in place, and the end of the rocky tunnel collapsed, burying the entrance and the middle sections of the tubing.

"Seal it up good," Ivan explained to his workers. "Wash it all with pitch, pile it with dirt, then wash it all again. We're not wanting any of that stink backing up on us."

The dwarves nodded and went to work without complaint.

Ivan returned the nod, then glanced back over the cliff facing, at the line of harnessed dwarves hanging all the way down to the floor of the dale. Other ropes brought buckets of muddy stone and still others hauled length of the metal tubing.

So much metal tubing.

"Durned gnome," Ivan remarked.

CHAPTER 27 CONSCIENCE DECISIONS

"How fortunate for you that those giants decided to join with you," Obould remarked to Urlgen when he caught up to his son at the rear of Urlgen's encampment. As he spoke, the orc king directed Urlgen's attention to the western ridgeline, where Gerti's frost giant warriors were busily reconstructing their catapults. "Good fortune that this group happened your way."

Neither Urlgen nor Gerti, who was standing beside Obould, missed the orc king's sarcasm, nor his clear inference that he knew Gerti and Urlgen had tried to circumvent his control of the situation.

"I did not refuse valuable help," Urlgen replied, glancing at Gerti for support more than once.

"Valuable in scoring a victory without Obould?" the orc king bluntly asked, and both Urlgen and Gerti bristled and shifted nervously. "And still, even with the assistance of, what—a score of frost giants? — the dwarves remain."

"I will drive them from the cliff!" Urlgen insisted.

"You will do as you are instructed!" Obould countered.

"You would deny me this victory?"

"I would deny you a minor victory when a greater one is within our grasp," Obould explained. "Have everything in place to drive the dwarves from the cliff. I will quietly double your forces, out of sight of the foolish dwarves. After that, Gerti and I will march southwest and attack the dale below from the west. Then you can drive the dwarves from the cliff. They will have nowhere to run."

He looked from Urlgen to Gerti, who was clearly angry and just as clearly perplexed as she surveyed the ridgeline to the west.

"This should have been ended long ago," the giantess admitted, addressing Urlgen more than Obould. "Explain this delay."

"Two days ago the catapults were ready to finish the task," Urlgen growled back at her. "But our enemies came against them, and your giants failed to defend the war engines. It will not happen again."

"But there are reports that the dwarves retook the tunnels beneath the catapults," Gerti reminded, for word of the recent battle had been filtering through the camp all the day long.

"True," Urlgen admitted. "They have lost dwarves in retaking tunnels that were not worth defending. By the time they can dig through the thick stone to attack the giants, the battle outside will be long over.

"But that doesn't even seem to be their intent," he went on. "They fill the tunnels with stink—too great a stink for us to counterattack, and so great that your giants complain of it. Look on them closely, and you will see that they wear veils over their faces to ward the stench."

"Will an odor drive them from the ridge?" Obould asked.

"It is an inconvenience and nothing more," Urlgen explained. "The dwarves have assured that we cannot attack them through those tunnels. They believe they have protected their flank, but it was not an attack we would make anyway. Their fight in the tunnels has brought them no relief, and no victory."

Obould squinted his bloodshot eyes and stared at the ridge. In any event, it seemed as if the catapults were nearly completed and that work was continuing on them at a steady pace.

"We have a ten-mile march to wage the fight west of the dale," Obould explained. "When battle sounds in the southwest, begin your drive against the dwarves. Engage them fully and to the end. Drive them from the cliff into my waiting army, and they will be destroyed, and Mithral Hall will never again realize its present glory."

Urlgen glanced again at Gerti and seemed more than a little shaken.

"All glory to Obould," the younger orc said, rather unconvincingly.

"Obould is Gruumsh," the orc king corrected. "All glory to Gruumsh!"

With that, and with a warning snarl at both his son and the giantess, King Obould walked away.

"His army has grown many times over," Gerti explained to Urlgen. "He will more than double your force. You'll not even need my warriors and the catapults."

"The smell of dwarven trickery will not force them from the ridge," Urlgen assured her. "Let the catapults throw their stones and crush the dwarves. Perhaps we can direct some throws over the cliff and near to Obould's march, eh?"

"Take care your words," Gerti warned.

But there was no hiding the smile that showed her to be somewhat entertained by the mere notion of «accidentally» squishing King Obould Many-Arrows beneath a giant boulder. She glanced over at the departing orc king, that arrogant little wretch who was so controlling the entirety of the campaign.

Her smile widened.

* * *

"His zeal is religious in nature," Innovindil explained to Drizzt after hours of nearly fruitless interrogation of the captured shaman. "He will tell us nothing. He fears not pain nor death—not if it is in the name of his cursed god-figure."

Drizzt leaned back against the cave wall and considered the truth of Innovin-dil's reasoning. He had learned that Obould had marched south—but he had all but figured that out previous to capturing the shaman, anyway. The only other tidbit that seemed even remotely useful was the admission by Arganth that it was Obould's own son, Urlgen, who had sacked Shallows and was pressing the dwarves in a fierce battle just north of Mithral Hall.

"Are you ready to go to the south?" Innovindil quietly asked the drow. "Are you ready to face the surviving dwarves of Mithral Hall and confirm your fears?"

Drizzt rubbed his hands over his face and pushed away the awful image of Withegroo's tumbling tower. He knew what he was going to hear when he went to Mithral Hall.

And he didn't want to hear it.

"Let us go south, then," the drow answered. "We have business with this King Obould and have a loyal pegasus depending upon our every move. I mean to get that mount back and mean to pay Obould back for his actions."

Innovindil was smiling then, and nodding. Drizzt glanced to the side, to the opening of the side chamber that held the shaman.

"What do we do with that one?" he asked. "He will surely slow us down."

Without saying a word, Innovindil stood, gathered up her bow, and walked to the entrance of the side chamber.

"Innovindil?" Drizzt asked.

She fitted an arrow to her bowstring.

"Innovindil?"

Drizzt jerked in shock as the elf drew back and let fly, and let fly again, and a third time.

"I show them more mercy than they would show to us, by making the kill swift and clean," the elf replied, her voice perfectly impassive.

She glanced at Drizzt, and they both heard a moan coming from the chamber. Without a word, Innovindil dropped her bow aside and drew out her slender sword, then stalked into the side chamber.

Her actions bothered Drizzt. He thought back briefly to a goblin he had once known, a misunderstood slave who had been wrongfully beaten and murdered by his human master.

But the drow shook that image away. The creature they had captured was not like that goblin. A fanatical follower of an evil god, the orc shaman had lived to destroy, to pillage, to burn, and to conquer. Drizzt knew that Innovindil's assessment of the situation, that she had shown more mercy than the orcs ever would, was perfectly correct.

He began gathering up their things, preparing to break camp. It was time to head south.

Past time, perhaps.

* * *

Regis sat in the dark, recalling old times with his friend Bruenor. How many days they had shared back in Icewind Dale. How many times Bruenor had found him on the banks of Maer Dualdon, casually fishing, or at least pretending to. Bruenor had berated him—Regis could hear the words in his ears even then.

"Bah, Rumblebelly! Ye do the laziest job ye can find, and ye don't even do that with any heart!"

A smile creased the halfling's face as he recalled that Bruenor would often then plop down beside him on the lakeside, to "show him how to do it."

A great way to enjoy those precious few warm days in Icewind Dale.

Bruenor was still alive. Regis suspected that Cordio and Stumpet were still going to him in the quiet night, casting their preserving healing spells upon him. They weren't going to follow his orders on that issue—they had made that fairly clear—and Regis's position as steward offered him little leverage against two of Mithral Hall's leading priests.

In a way, Regis was glad that they were making the choice for him. He didn't know if he could find the heart to once again demand that Bruenor be allowed to die.

But still, the halfling could not bring himself to fully agree with the assessment of the two stubborn clerics, that for the sake of Mithral Hall, Bruenor had to be kept alive. They argued the symbolism of Bruenor Battlehammer, but it seemed obvious to Regis that Bruenor wasn't a king to anyone then.

No king would lie there if he knew that all his minions were in dire battle, that so many were falling wounded or dead.

"There has to be an answer," Regis muttered softly in the dark room.

He rolled up to a sitting position and stared into the darkness. There had to be more options.

Regis straightened suddenly as his thoughts wound around and coalesced, drawing new patterns in his mind. He considered Cordio's words, and Stumpet's. He considered his old friend Bruenor and all the times they had once shared. He thought of the dwarf's stubbornness, of his pride, of his loyalty and generosity.

There in the darkness, Regis found the answer, found the joining of his heart and his mind.

With more determination and fire in his belly than the unsure halfling had known in a long, long time, Regis, Steward of Mithral Hall, stormed out of his room and across the dwarven complex to find Cordio Muffinhead.

CHAPTER 28 NANFOODLE'S DRAGON

"Keep the squares tight!" Banak Brawnanvil yelled to his forces—his depleted forces.

Not only had attrition begun to take a real toll on the dwarf defenders, but Banak had several dozen of his dwarves off the lines and working with Nan-foodie. They were further securing the pieces of metal tubing that were running from the tunnels beneath Keeper's Dale all the way up the side of the cliff face. That left the dwarf warlord fighting defensively, warding the newest vicious attack, but withholding any counterstrikes.

Banak's dwarves were holding well and would continue to hold, as far as the orcs were concerned. But the dwarf warlord kept glancing to his left, to the northwestern ridge and the giants busily completing the assembly on their great catapults. Every so often, a flash of white from the far ridge caught Banak's attention. Reports from his scouts said that Nanfoodle's stink was thick around the behemoths, crawling up through the rocks and settling like a fetid yellow cloud upon the ridge. But to Banak's dismay, that discomfort hadn't driven the giants away. They had wrapped their large faces in treated cloth and had methodically continued, and were continuing, their work.

"We're running out o' time, Banak," came a voice from the side.

The warlord turned to regard Ivan Bouldershoulder.

"We'll hold them back," Banak replied.

"Bah, them orcs're nothing," said tough Ivan. "But the little trickster's trick ain't working. By yer own eyes, ye can seem them giants still at their work. Catapults'll be up and throwin' before the sun's next rising. From that angle, they'll flatten us to the stone."

Banak rubbed his bleary eyes.

"We might want to be dropping down to the dale," Ivan offered.

Banak shook his head.

"Little one's still working on it," he huffed. "I've got a hunnerd dwarves working with him."

"He's only securing the line, from what I'm hearing," Ivan countered.

He motioned for Banak to follow and started off to the west, toward the line of dwarves hanging along the cliff facing down to Keeper's Dale. They came in sight of Nanfoodle and Ivan's brother in short order, standing atop the cliff, looking over reams of parchments and diagrams. Every so often, Nanfoodle would lean out a bit and holler down the line, telling the dwarves to re-tar the joints— all the joints.

"This'll make the smell so bad them giants can't stay up?" Banak asked when he and Ivan neared the pair.

Nanfoodle looked up at him, and the blood drained from the clearly worried gnome's face.

"Easy, little one," Banak offered. "Yer stink's slowing them at least, and we're grateful to ye for that."

"They're not even supposed to smell it!" Nanfoodle shouted.

"Ptooey!" Pikel spat in agreement.

Ivan looked at his brother and shook his head.

"We're not supposed to be stinking up the ridge," Nanfoodle tried to explain. "That means that the hot air … the pitch was supposed to seal the tunnels. . we need to build this level of concentration.."

He stammered and stuttered and held up a sheet parchment scribbled with numbers and formulae that Banak couldn't begin to decipher.

"Ye got what he's saying?" Banak asked Ivan.

"Giants shouldn't be stinking," Ivan clarified.

"But then they'd be building their war engines without any hindrance at all," the warlord reasoned.

"Yup," Ivan agreed.

"But then.." Banak started, but he stopped and shook his head.

He gave Nanfoodle a confused look out of the comer of his eye, then shook his head again as he looked down at the many dwarves working on securing the line of metal tubes tight to the cliff—dwarves who could have been strengthening the defensive squares that were even then holding the line against the pressuring orcs.

With a snort, Banak moved back toward the area of battle.

"No, he doesn't understand," Nanfoodle pleaded to Ivan.

The yellow-bearded dwarf patted his gnarled hands in the air to calm the little one.

"And he never will," Ivan replied.

"The stink should not have escaped," Nanfoodle frantically tried to explain.

"I know, little one," Ivan assured him.

"Boom," Pikel quietly muttered.

"We needed to contain it, to thicken it…" Nanfoodle pressed.

"I know little one," Ivan interrupted, but Nanfoodle rambled along.

"The stench would never push them away—in the tunnels, maybe, where the concentration is greater..»

"Little one," Ivan said, and when Nanfoodle rambled on, he repeated his calm call again and again, until finally he caught the excited gnome's attention.

"Little one, I built yer box," Ivan reminded him.

He patted Nanfoodle on the shoulder, then hustled after Banak to help direct the battle.

Ivan glanced to the west as he departed, not to the ridgeline, but beyond it, where the sun had set and the twilight gloom was completing its hold on the land. Then he did lower his gaze to encompass the ridgeline and the dark silhouettes of the great working giants.

Ivan knew that their troubles would multiply before the next rising sun.

* * *

"The dwarves' plans did not work, boss," one of the orc undercommanders said to Urlgen.

The pair as standing in the center of the two armies at Urlgen's command: his own, which was continuing the battle up the slope against the dwarves; and those on loan from his father, who were still encamped and out of sight of their enemies.

Urlgen was looking to the west, to the ridge and the giants. The hourglass was flowing on the battle, as word had arrived from Obould that the assault in the west would begin in full at dawn. For Urlgen, that meant that he had to push those dwarves over the cliff, and doing that would be no easy task without the giant catapults.

"They will be ready," the orc undercommander remarked.

Urlgen turned to face him.

"The dwarves and their stink have not stopped the giants," the undercommander asserted.

Urlgen nodded and looked back to the west. He had assurances from the giants that the catapults would begin their barrage before the dawn.

Back in the north, the battle continued, not in full force, for that was not Urlgen's intent, but strongly enough to prevent the dwarves from retreating in full. He had to keep them there, engaged, until his father sealed off any possible escape.

The orc leader issued a low growl and curled his fists up at his side in eager anticipation. The dawn would bring his greatest victory.

He couldn't help but glance back nervously at the western ridge as he considered that without the giant catapults, his task would be much more difficult.

* * *

Nikwillig rolled the small mirror over and over in his hands. He glanced to the west and the ridge, then to the east and the taller peaks. He focused on one smaller peak at the edge of the cliff, a short but difficult climb. That was where he had to go to catch the morning rays. Returning from that place, should Banak lose, would prove nearly impossible.

"What am I hearing?" he heard Tred call to him, drawing him from the unsettling thought.

Nikwillig observed the swift approach of his Citadel Felbarr companion.

"What am I hearing?" Tred demanded again, storming up right before the seated Nikwillig.

"Someone's got to do it."

Tred put his hands on his hips and looked all around at the continuing bustle of the encampment. He had just come back from the fighting, dragging a pair of wounded dwarves with him, and he meant to get right back into the fray.

"I was wondering why ye weren't with us on the line," he said.

"I'm more trouble than help down there, and ye know it," said Nikwillig. "Never been a warrior."

"Bah, ye were doing fine!"

"It's not me place, Tred. Ye know it, too."

"Ye could've gone running back to King Emerus then, with news," Tred answered. "I bid ye to do just that—was yer own stubbornness that kept us both here!"

"And we belong here," Nikwillig was quick to reply. "We're owing that much to Bruenor and Mithral Hall. And to be sure, they're glad that Tred was up here fighting beside them."

"And Nikwillig!"

"Bah, I ain't killed an orc yet and would've been slain more than once if not for yerself and others pulling me out o' the fight."

"So ye're choosin' this road?" came the incredulous question.

"Someone's got to do it," Nikwillig said again. "The way I'm seeing it, I might be the most expendable one up here."

"What about Pikel?" Tred asked. "Or the durned gnome Nanfoodle—yeah, was his crazy idea in the first place."

"Pikel probably can't even make the climb with his one arm. And Nanfoodle might be needed here—ye know it. Pikel, too, since he's been so important to it all so far. Nah, Tred, shut up yer whining. This's a good job for meself and ye know it. I can do this as well as any, and I'll be the least missed here."

Tred started to argue, but Nikwillig rose up before him, his stern expression stealing the blustery dwarf's words.

"And I'm wanting to do it," Nikwillig declared. "With all me heart and soul. Now I'm paying back the Battlehammers for their help."

"Ye might find a tough time in getting back. In getting anywhere."

"And if that's true, then yerself and all them standing here will have hard a tough time of it, too," said Nikwillig. He gave a snort and a sudden burst of laughter. "Yerself's about to charge down headlong into a sea of smelly orcs, and ye're fearing for me?"

When he heard it put that way, Tred, too, gave a little laugh. He reached up and patted his longtime companion on the shoulder.

"I'm not liking that we might be meeting our ends so far apart," he said.

Nikwillig returned the pat, and the look, and said, "Nor am I. But I been looking to make meself as helpful as can be, and this job's perfect for Nikwillig." Again, Tred started to protest—reflexively, it seemed—but again, Nikwillig cut him short.

"And ye know it!" Nikwillig said flatly.

Tred went quiet and stared at his friend for a long moment, then gradually admitted as much with a hesitating nod.

"Ye be careful."

"Are ye forgetting?" Nikwillig replied with a wink. "I'm knowing how to ran away!"

A shout from down the slope caught their attention then. The orcs had breached the dwarven line right between the two defensive squares—not seriously, but enough to put a few of the bearded folk in apparent and immediate danger.

"Moradin, put yer strength in me arms!" Tred howled, and he charged headlong down the slope.

Nikwillig smiled as he watched his friend go, then he turned back to the east and the dark silhouettes of the imposing mountains. He glanced back one more time to take his bearings and to better mark the critical area of the mountain spur, then, without another word, he tucked the mirror safely into his pack and trudged off on what he figured would be the last journey of his life.

* * *

Several hours later, the sky still dark but the eastern rim holding the lighter glow of the approaching dawn, word filtered up to Banak that an orc force had been spotted in the southwest, fast approaching the dwarf positions on the western edge of Keeper's Dale. The dwarf quickly assembled his leaders, along with Nanfoodle, Pikel, and Shoudra Stargleam, who had been the bearer of the information, having scouted the western reaches personally with her magical abilities.

"It is a sizable force," Shoudra warned them. "A great and powerful army. Our friends will be hard-pressed to hold out for very long."

The dispiriting news had all the dwarves glancing around to one another.

"Are ye saying that we should ran down the cliff now and be done with it?" Banak asked.

Shoudra had no answer to that, and Banak turned to Nanfoodle.

"I'm hoping to steal a victory here," he explained. "But we're not to do that if them giants start throwing their boulders across our flank. It comes down to yer plan, gnome."

Nanfoodle tried to look confident—futilely.

"If we gotta leave, then we gotta leave," Banak said to them all. "But I'm thinkin' we need to hurt these pig orcs, and bad."

Thibbledorf Pwent growled.

"They're coming soon," Ivan Bouldershoulder put in. "They're stirring in the north, getting ready for another charge."

"Because they know the giants will soon begin their barrage," Wulfgar reasoned.

"But if them giants ain't throwing. …" Banak said slyly.

Again he turned to Nanfoodle, guiding the eyes of all the others to the gnome as well.

"Oo oi!" Pikel cheered in support of the hunched little alchemist.

"Is it gonna work?" Banak asked.

"Oo oi!" Pikel said again, punching his one fist into the air.

"The smell was not supposed to.. " Nanfoodle started to reply, but then he stopped and took a deep breath. "I do not know," he admitted. "I think…"

"Ye think?" Banak berated. "Ye got more than a thousand dwarves up here, little one. Ye think? Do we hold the fight or get down now?"

Poor Nanfoodle had no idea how to answer and couldn't begin to take that heavy responsibility upon his tiny shoulders.

"Oooi!" cried Pikel.

"It's gonna work," Ivan added.

"So we should stay?" Banak asked.

"That's yer own choice to make," Ivan replied. "But I'm thinking them giants're gonna be wishing we'd turned tail and run!"

He stepped over and patted Nanfoodle on the shoulder.

"Oo oi!" cried Pikel.

"Orcs're coming again," said another dwarf, Rockbottom the cleric. "Big charge this time."

"Good enough. I was gettin' bored!" said Thibbledorf Pwent, who was already covered in blood and gore from the evening's fighting—some of it his own, but most of it that of his unfortunate enemies.

"Dawn's another hour away," Ivan remarked.

"Less than that from Nikwillig's perch, if he got there," said Catti-brie.

"We got to hold then," Banak decided.

He turned to Nanfoodle and nodded, as much a show of support for the gnome's outrageous scheme as he could muster at that grim time. Banak was gambling a lot, and he knew it, and so did everyone else around him. With the giants throwing their boulders and the press of the orcs, the dwarves would have a difficult time getting over that cliff face and down to Keeper's Dale. If Shoudra's reports and assessment were correct, getting down to Keeper's Dale might prove to be the least of their problems and the worst of their decisions.

"Drive them back, Thibbledorf Pwent," Banak instructed. "Ye hold them pigs off us."

In response, Pwent held up a bulging wineskin, tapped it to his forehead in salute, and ran along to join his bloody and battered Gutbusters.

All eyes again went to Nanfoodle, who seemed to shrink under the press of those concerned gazes. His plan had to work, but the signs were not promising.

Soon enough, the sounds of battle again echoed up the slope as Pwent led the dwarves' counterassault.

Soon after that, the sounds of another battle echoed up from below, from the western reaches of Keeper's Dale.

And soon after that, the first of the giant catapults let fly. A huge boulder smashed and bounced across the back edge of the dwarven line, right along the cliff face.

* * *

"Ye got yer skins?" Thibbledorf Pwent asked his gathered Gutbusters as they circled back up and regrouped. To a dwarf, they produced the bulging bladders. "Some o' ye won't be needing them," he added solemnly. "And might be that some won't be able to get to them, but ye know yer place!"

As one, the Gutbusters cheered and roared.

"Get in and break their lines," the fierce dwarf instructed. "Drive them back and take yer dead place!"

Down went the force, another furious charge that slashed through the orc ranks. No defensive measure there, Pwent led his forces down the slope farmer than any dwarves had previously gone, shattering the orc line and their supporting allies. Their goal was to cause more confusion than actual damage—no easy mind set for the carnage-hungry Gutbuster Brigade—and that's what they did.

The orc assault fell apart, with many forced to turn back and retreat before regrouping.

Thibbledorf Pwent kept his formation tight, not allowing the customary Gut-buster pursuit. He raised his waterskin in salute and reminder to the others. Then he found a broken weapon he could later use, offering a wink to those nearby so they would understand his intent.

* * *

Like an ocean tide, the orcs rolled back and gathered strength for the next wave. And during that brief lull, more of the giant catapults began heaving huge boulders through the predawn sky. Few had the range at first, and so the initial volleys were not so effective, but all the dwarves understood how quickly that might all change.

"We got to hold the east!" Tred cried at the others, mostly to Wulfgar, who had pretty much been anchoring that end of the line from the very beginning.

Wulfgar looked at him grimly, and that response alone quieted the Felbarr dwarf, reminding him of what he had known all along: that Nikwillig would have a hard time getting back to them.

* * *

Banak paced nervously around the cliff ledge, looking down to the southwest as often as he was looking at the raging battle down the slope to the north.

This is it, he thought.

It was the culmination of all his efforts and of all of his enemies' efforts. The orcs were closing their vice, north and west, as the giants were softening up the rear of Banak's position.

A boulder slammed down not so far away and bounced right past Banak, nearly clipping him off the cliff.

The tough dwarf didn't flinch, just continued his pacing, his eyes more and more going to the brightening eastern sky.

"Come on then, Nikwillig of Felbarr," he whispered, and even as he spoke the words, he saw the flash of a distant mirror, catching the first rays of dawn on the other side of the eastern ridge.

Others noted the same thing, some pointing excitedly to the east. Catti-brie came running Banak's way from the east, bow in hand, as did Nanfoodle, Shoudra, and Pikel, coming in fast from the west.

"Sight it, sight it," Shoudra coaxed quietly, watching the distant mirror.

Nanfoodle clenched his hands before him, hardly drawing breath.

"There!" Catti-brie said, pointing to the ridge, where the reflection of Nikwillig's roving sunbeam at last caught a second mirror, turning it to blazing brilliance. The woman lifted her bow.

Banak held his breath, as did the others.

Below them, the battle raged, orcs swarming up the slope in greater numbers than before. An all-out assault, it seemed, and all around their position came the calls for retreat, even some terrified shouts for the dwarves to retreat all the way, to get down to Keeper's Dale.

"What're we doing, then?" Catti-brie asked, glancing, as were all the others, over at Nanfoodle.

Nanfoodle began to huff and puff, unable to catch his breath, and for a moment it seemed as if he would simply fall over. He glanced over to regard Pikel, who was sitting next to the tubing near one wide joint.

Nanfoodle found strength in that image, in the giddy confidence of the green-bearded dwarf.

The gnome took a deep breath and nodded to Pikel.

"Oo oi!" Pikel Bouldershoulder cried.

The druid waved his hand over the stone that joined the tubes, then pressed against the suddenly malleable stone, crushing it flat and sealing off the flow.

Another deep breath and another gulp, and Nanfoodle forced himself to steady.

"Shoot straight!" he yelled, and he whimpered and cast himself aside.

Catti-brie leveled Taulmaril, sighting in the shining mirror—the reflector Ivan had placed on the side of the box that had been set in the ridge.

More giant boulders crashed down—several dwarves cried out in terror as the great rocks smashed across the dwarven line.

Catti-brie pulled back, but the eastern mirror held by distant Nikwillig shifted a bit and the reflector in the ridge went suddenly dark.

The woman held her posture, held her breath, and held her bow ready.

"Breach!" came the cry of a dwarf from below and to the north.

"Shoot it, then!" Banak implored her.

She didn't breathe and didn't let fly, waiting, waiting, trusting in Nikwillig. She saw his reflected sunbeam crawling around the dark stones of the ridge, seeking its target.

"Come on then," Shoudra whispered. "Sight it."

Banak ran away from them.

"Fall back!" he yelled down to those engaged in battle. "Form a second line!" he cried to those reserves up nearer to the cliff—reserves who were scrambling around, trying to find cover from the increasing catapult barrage.

Catti-brie put it all out of her mind, holding herself perfectly still and ready, and focusing on that reflected sunbeam—only on that crawling line of light.

There came a flash in the darkness of the western ridge.

Taulmaril hummed, the silver-streaking arrow soaring out across the many yards. The woman fired a second and a third off at once, aiming for the general area.

She needn't have bothered, for that first shot had struck the mark, smashing through the glass of the mirror, then driving home into the piece of wood set in place behind it. The force of the blow drove the wood back, collapsing the large vial and the enchanted and explosive oil burst to life.

For a brief instant, nothing happened, then …

BOOM!

All the west lit up as if the sun itself had leaped out from behind that ridge. Flames shot out from every crack in the mountain spur, side, and ceiling, jumping up past the stunned giants and their great war engines, leaping higher than any flames any of the awestricken onlookers had ever seen. A thousand feet into the air went the orange fires of Nanfoodle, turning night to daylight and carrying dust and stone and huge boulders high into the sky with them.

The flames lasted only a brief instant, the gasses burning themselves out in one concussive blast, and the onlookers gaped and gasped. And a hot wave of shocking force rolled over them, over Catti-brie, Shoudra, and Nanfoodle, over squealing Pikel and wide-eyed Banak, over the battling warriors, dwarf and orc alike, throwing them all to the ground.

Within that hot wave of air came the debris, tons and tons of stones small and large sweeping across the battlefield slope. Since the main reaches of the slope were farther to the north, the orc hordes took the worst of it, with hundreds laid low in a single burst of power.

Back in the west, the ridge, once so evenly distributed, seemed a jagged and torn line. Catapults and giants alike—those few that were still somehow in place—were aflame, the war engines falling to pieces, the behemoths leaping wildly about.

Nanfoodle pulled himself off the ground and stood staring stupidly to the west.

"Remember that fireball you described to me from your visit to the mage faire those years ago?" he asked the equally stricken Shoudra.

"Elminster's blast, yes," the stunned woman replied. "The greatest fireball ever thrown."

Nanfoodle snapped his little fingers in the air and said, "Not any more."

"Oo oi!" Pikel Bouldershoulder squealed.

CHAPTER 29 SHOCK WAVES

The gallant Sunset did not complain as he wound his way above the mountains with two riders sitting astride his strong back. Innovindil guided the pegasus from the front perch, with Drizzt sitting right behind her, his arms tight around her waist.

For Drizzt, flying was among the most amazing and wonderful experiences he had ever known. His traveling cloak and long white hair alike flew out behind him, waving in the wind, and he had to squint against the rush of air to keep his tears from flying. Though he was astride a mount and moving not of his own volition, the drow felt a profound sense of freedom, as if escaping the bounds of earth was somewhat akin to escaping the bounds of mortality itself.

Early on in the flight, he had tried to speak with Innovindil, but the wind was too loud around them, so that they had to shout to be heard at all.

And so Drizzt just rested back and enjoyed the ride, the rush of air and the predawn chill.

They were traveling south, far behind the mass of King Obould's army. Their destination weighed heavily upon Drizzt, though he had found some respite from his fears, at least, in the wondrous pleasures offered by the journey on the winged horse. They knew not what they might find as they approached Mithral Hall. Would Obould have the dwarves sealed away, with no chance for Drizzt and Innovindil to sneak through to communicate with Bruenor's kin? Would the dwarves be holding strong against the invaders, leaving Drizzt and Innovindil a field of torn orc corpses to cross? With so many possibilities spread wide before them, Drizzt had managed to settle back from them all, to simply enjoy the sensation of flight.

Ahead and to the right of the pair and their mount lay the soft darkness of predawn, but to the left, the east, the sky showed the pale blue of morning, above the pink rim created by the approach of the rising sun. Drizzt watched in awe as the red-glowing sun crested the horizon, the first streaks of dawn reaching out from the east.

"Beautiful," he muttered, though he knew that Innovindil could not hear him.

From that high vantage point, Drizzt followed the brightening line of morning as it spread east to west. He turned far ahead of it to catch one last glimpse of the departing night.

And there was daylight, so suddenly, everywhere at once! No, not daylight, Drizzt realized, but an orange glow, an orange flame leaping high into the sky, a fire so great that it brightened the landscape before him instantaneously. Into the air the fire leaped, so far up that the two pegasus-riding elves had to crane their necks and look up to see its apex.

Sunset pawed at the empty air and whinnied, and Innovindil, equally stunned and confused, eased the reigns and bade the mount to descend.

"What in all the world?" the female cried.

Drizzt started to similarly cry out, but then the hot Shockwave of the explosion reached out to them, buffeting them with its winds, nearly dislodging both of them. The wind carried dust and small debris far from the fireball, and all three, elf, drow, and pegasus, squinted against the sting.

Down, down they went, Sunset frantic to get to the ground. Innovindil held tight and helped guide him, but Drizzt took the moment to survey the region lit up by the fast-dissipating fireball, to note the swarm of crawling forms. In that brief instant, the drow saw the distant battlefield, recognized the slope leading to the lip of Keeper's Dale, and knew at once that the dwarves were fiercely fighting.

"What in all the world?" a desperate Innovindil asked again as they touched down on solid ground. "Have they wakened a dragon, then?"

Drizzt had no answers for her, for never in all his life had he witnessed such a blast. His immediate thoughts conjured an image of one Harkle Harpell, a most eccentric and dangerous wizard, and Harkle's family of equally crazy mages. Had the Harpells come to Mithral Hall's aid once again, bearing new and uncontrollable magic?

But none of it made any sense to Drizzt, and he had nothing to answer Innovindil's wide-eyed and desperate stare.

"What have they done?" the elf asked.

Drizzt stammered and shook his head, then just offered, "Let us go and see."

* * *

The orc ranks flattened like tall grass before a gale. Those fortunate enough to escape the punch of flying debris went down hard anyway, blown from their feet by a Shockwave the likes of which they had never imagined possible.

Urlgen, too, went flying down to the stone, but the proud and strong orc did not cry out in fear, nor did he cower. He climbed right back to his feet against the flush of heat and the last waves of the blast and surveyed the battlefield.

There he saw a squirming mass of stunned orcs and dwarves. The tall orc shook his head in disbelief and confusion. He glanced over at the blasted ridge, to see one giant rushing around to and fro, waving its arms, the whole of it immolated by bright flames.

As life itself seemed to return to the battlefield and to the orcs around Urlgen, he heard terrified cries and shrieks, and only then did he understand the true danger of that horrific blast. He had lost some orcs, to be sure, and his giant flank was no more, but the real danger presented itself far above the orc commander's position, as the dwarves regrouped quickly and began a devastating charge against his confused and scattering forces.

Urlgen shook his head and thought, It isn't supposed to go this way!

The shouts to retreat and run away echoed all around him, and for an instant, Urlgen almost conceded to them, almost ordered his warriors to run away.

Almost, but then he considered the bigger picture and the gains his father would even then be making down in the southwest. Urlgen had planned to soften the dwarves for a bit longer, to use the giants and his original force to shape the battlefield without the possibility of the dwarves escaping. Then he would send in the reinforcements his father had given to him and overwhelm the dwarves.

That had all changed in the instant of that terrible explosion.

With a roar that echoed above the din of scrambling orcs, Urlgen demanded and commanded attention. He ran along parallel to the battlefield, intercepting retreating orcs and turning them around—by sheer will and threat forcing them back into the fight.

And all the while, he shouted out to those reserves he had to that point kept hidden from the dwarves' view, turning loose the whole of his force in one great and sweeping charge.

"Kill them all!" the tall orc commanded.

As the swarm gradually swung around to reengage the charging dwarves, Urlgen lifted his fists, spiked gauntlets high, and for the first time, rushed into battle. It was all-or-nothing for him, he knew. He would win there, decisively, or all would be lost. He would forevermore be crushed under the mantle of his glorious father— if his glorious father even spared his life.

* * *

Banak Brawnanvil sucked in his breath when he saw the orc horde pivot and swing around. His boys had fared far better than the orcs in Nanfoodle's blast, and all the lower slopes were littered with orc dead. But his boys were still outnumbered—and outnumbered many times over as a second group charged in from behind the original orc ranks.

Banak growled. Given the effectiveness of the explosion, he had wanted to break out and join the definitive battle that would push the orcs back from Mithral Hall.

"Hit them hard and retreat to hold the line!" Banak called to his nearby commanders.

As he watched the full charge of orcs from below, though, it seemed apparent that there was a different tone to their charge, a different intent and intensity. The veteran dwarf began to understand almost immediately that his enemies did not mean to hit and run again. The old dwarf chewed his lip, considered the strength of his enemies, and considered his options.

"Come on, then," he muttered under his breath.

He set his feet firmly under him, determined to hold strong. That determination shifted none-too-subtly a moment later, though, from sheer dwarf grit to almost desperate need, when scouts out to the west shouted back along the tine that there was fighting in the southwest, along the western edge of Keeper's Dale.

Banak found a vantage point and peered into the growing light in the southwest. As he noted the scope of the battle and the size of the opposing orc force, he nearly fell over.

"By Moradin, ye hold them," the old dwarf whispered, barely able to get the words out.

He looked back to the north, where the momentum of the wake of Nanf oodle s blast had played out, where the press of orcs was flowing up at him, driving the dwarves back toward their defensive positions. Then he glanced back to the southwest and the growing sounds of battle.

He surmised at once the orc plan.

He saw at once the danger.

With a determined grunt, the warlord forced himself to look back to the devastation of the western ridge. The orc plan had been a good one, well coordinated to not only win the ground, but to slaughter the dwarves to a warrior as well. Nan-foodie's explosion alone had bought him some breathing room, some time—perhaps enough to escape.

"Moradin be with ye, little one," Banak said, aiming the words at the distant gnome, who was too far away to hear.

The battle sounds to the southwest increased suddenly, dramatically, and Banak glanced back to see that a horde of giants had joined in with his enemies.

"Moradin be with us all," the dwarf mouthed.

* * *

The main dwarven line broke and retreated, as ordered, running flat out for their defensive positions atop the slope. Arrows and hammers came out over them in support, slowing the orcs that nipped at their heels every step.

Many of the dwarves were not fast returning, though. More than a few were dead, laid low by orc spears, or by the flying debris of Nanfoodle's momentous blast. Many more, well over a hundred others, lay splayed across the stones, covered in blood.

Not from wounds, though, but from torn waterskins. Thibbledorf Pwent and his Gutbusters, which included more than a few very recent recruits, had used the cover of the explosion to splash themselves with blood and fall «dead» to the ground. Some, like Pwent himself, accentuating the wounds by strategically placing broken weapons against them. Now they lay there, perfectly still as hordes of orcs ran past them, sometimes stepping all over them.

Pwent opened one eye and did well to hide his smile.

He leaped up and punched a spiked gauntlet right through the face of the nearest, surprised orc. He yelled out at the top of his lungs, and up came his Gutbusters as one, right in the middle of the confused enemy.

"Buy 'em time!" the toughened leader cried out, and the Gutbusters did just that, launching into a frenzy, slugging and slashing with abandon, tackling orcs and convulsing atop them, their ridged armor plates gashing their enemies to pulp.

Thibbledorf Pwent stood at their center, directing the battle through example more than words. For there was no overreaching plan. The last thing Pwent wanted was to create an atmosphere of coordination and predictability.

Mayhem.

Simple and beautiful mayhem. The call of the Gutbusters, the joy of the Gutbusters.

CHAPTER 30 THE LAY OF BRUENOR

Watching the countercharge—thousands of orcs streaming up in bloodthirsty rage—Banak Brawnanvil understood that it was over. It would be the last battle on that ground, win or lose, press through or retreat. In realizing the sheer size of that orc force, with so many charging up in reinforcement, the dwarf wasn't thrilled with the prospects.

The sound of fighting behind and below him soon had him rushing back to join some of the others at the cliff ledge.

And there, the old dwarf saw nothing but doom.

The dwarves on the western edge of Keeper's Dale had broken ranks already. And how could they not? For the force arrayed against them was huge, larger than anything Banak had ever seen in all his years.

"How many orcs?" he asked breathlessly, for surely the spectacle of that arrayed force had stolen Banak's strength. "Five thousand? Ten thousand?"

"They'll sweep the dale in short order," Torgar Hammerstriker warned.

And that would be it, Banak knew.

"Get 'em down," Banak ordered, and he had to forcefully spit the dreaded words through his gritted teeth. "All of them. We make for the dale and the halls'

An order to retreat was nothing that the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer, nor of Mirabar, were used to hearing, and for a moment, all the commanders near to Banak stared at him open-mouthed.

"The giants're dead!" one protested. "Gnome blew up the ridge, and …"

But as the reality settled upon them, as they all came to see the truth of the orc press from the north and the rout behind them in the dale, that was the only dissenting voice. Before the grumbling dwarf had ever finished the statement, Torgar and Shingles, Ivan and Tred, and all the others were rushing out among their respective groups calling for and organizing a full retreat from the cliff.

The warlord ignored the protestor and turned his attention down the northern slopes, to where Thibbledorf Pwent and his Gutbusters were causing havoc across the center of the orc press. The old dwarf nodded his appreciation—their sacrifice was buying him precious time to get away.

"Fight hard, Pwent," he muttered, as unnecessary a cheer as could be spoken.

"Go! Go! Go!" Banak prodded those dwarves moving to the drop-ropes. "Don't ye slow a bit till ye've hit the floor o' Keeper's Dale!"

Banak watched the dwarves who had met the front end of the orc charge form into tighter squares and begin their pivot back up the slopes.

"We gotta break their front ranks to give them who're coming last time to get over," he heard Tred shout out from somewhere below and to the right.

In response to that call came two familiar forms, Wulfgar and Catti-brie, sprinting down the slope, driving the left flank of the orc line before them.

Banak held his breath. Tred's assessment was on target, he understood. If they could not break the orc momentum, could not turn the front ranks around in at least a short retreat and regroup, then many dwarves would die that day.

Behind him again, he heard several dwarves bickering, arguing that they weren't about to run away while their kin were fighting. Banak turned on them powerfully, eyes blazing with fury.

"Get ye down!" he shouted above the commotion of the argument, and all eyes turned his way.

"Go!" the old dwarf commanded. "Ye dolts, we're all to run, and them behind ye can't start until ye're off!"

One of the group punched another and roughly pushed him toward the edge and one of the drop-ropes.

"Ain't never left a friend," the dwarf continued to grumble, but he did indeed take up the rope in his strong hands and roll off the ledge.

Looking back at the furious battle, then farther down to where Pwent and his boys had been seemingly boxed in, Banak could certainly understand that sentiment.

* * *

"Crush them!" King Obould cried to his charges, urging them forward. The orc king didn't stand back and issue the order, but rather charged up toward the front ranks, prodding the orcs on, kicking aside the dead and wounded orcs who had already tried the devastating dwarven defenses.

Obould cursed his luck—his very first assault would have overwhelmed those walls and fortifications, he believed, except that the ground had violently lurched beneath them, followed by a hail of stones from up above. The orc king had no idea what in the world might have happened up there, but just then, it wasn't his concern.

Just then, he was focused on one goal alone.

"Crush them!" he cried again.

The orc king continued to push his way forward, crossing to the leading ranks. He came up against the front dwarven wall, sweeping his greatsword before him to knock aside the many prodding dwarven polearms. A couple avoided his wild parry, though, and the dwarves redirected the weapons quickly to stab at the great orc.

Those weapons of Mithral Hall, fine as they were, barely scratched the orc king's magnificent armor, and he barreled ahead, cutting a downward slash with his sword, igniting its flame as he did. One unfortunate dwarf popped up at that moment and had his head cleaved in half. Obould's sword drove down farther, crashing against the top of the stone wall and knocking out a sizeable chunk of it.

The orc king smashed again and again, sweeping that area clean. He leaped up, clearing the four vertical feet to the wall top.

And there he stood, flaming sword braced against one hip and angled diagonally upward out to the side, his other hand outstretched and clenched.

Arrows and crossbow bolts came at him and bounced away. Nearby dwarves scrambled, bringing their weapons to bear, smacking at the great ore's feet to try to dislodge him.

"Crush them!" Obould screamed, and he didn't budge an inch.

Bolstered by his display, the orcs swarmed the wall, and terrified of the display, the dwarves hesitated. To Obould's far right came a wedge of roaring giants, heaving boulders at the fortifications and charging in with abandon.

Beneath his skull-faced helmet, the orc king grinned wickedly. He had suspected that his bold attack would force Gerti and her reluctant kin into full action.

The front fortifications gave way before the swarm. The dwarves broke ranks and fled, and those who were not quick enough were pulled down by the throng and crushed into the stone.

Obould held his spot on the high ground, roaring, sword aflame, fist clenched. He glanced back up to the cliff in the northeast and wondered again about that tremendous explosion. But the implications did not hold his attention for long, for he looked back to his own overwhelming force and the growing rout in the west. Even if Urlgen failed him in the north, Obould knew that he would win the day in Keeper's Dale.

Close the door, the orc king mused, and let those dwarves trapped above-ground try to find their way home.

* * *

Drizzt couldn't see the front lines of the fighting, but he knew from the logjam of orc warriors in the middle and back of their ranks that the dwarves near to the cliff were putting up strong resistance. He could also see a commotion only a hundred yards or so south of his position, in the middle of the orc horde. As he watched one orc spinning up into the air, blood flying from multiple wounds, the drow figured that Thibbledorf Pwent was likely involved.

Drizzt didn't even allow himself a grin, for he was approaching the rear of the orc line and had drawn the attention of many of the stragglers.

"They will test you," he said to his companion, who stumbled before him, her arms bound behind her. "You must trust in me."

Innovindil tripped and fell, and Drizzt grimaced against his instinctual response, denying even the slightest hint of it, and let her go down hard. He grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly pulled her back to her feet—and again fought against his reflexive urge to wince when he saw the welt on her face.

It was the way it had to be.

Drizzt pushed her ahead, and she nearly stumbled down again, then he prodded her with one of his drawn blades. Orcs came in at the pair, yellow eyes wide, teeth bared, weapons ready. One moved right up before Innovindil, who looked down.

"A prisoner for Urlgen," Drizzt growled in his coarse command of Orcish.

"For Urlgen!" he reiterated powerfully when the orc made a move Innovin-dil's way.

"A prisoner from Donnia," the drow added, when doubting looks came back at him from many angles.

The orc in front motioned to another, who charged up behind Innovindil and tugged at her arms, checking the bonds. Drizzt slapped him away, after letting him see that the ties were authentic.

"For Urlgen!" he shouted yet again.

Whether in another test or just out of spite, the orc in front stabbed forward suddenly with its spear, right for the surface elf's gut.

Around went Drizzt, rolling around Innovindil's hip, scimitars slashing, taking the spear out wide with three quick hits.

The drow spun again, shouting, "For Urlgen!" with his scimitars working in a circular blur.

The orc flinched again and again, and fell back.

The drow settled before the elf, scimitars at his side.

The orc looked at him, then looked down at its own torso, cut and bleeding in more than a dozen bright and deep lines. Then it fell over.

"Take me to Urlgen!" Drizzt demanded of the others, "Take me!"

The drow moved behind Innovindil, pushing her forward with all speed, and the orc ranks parted before them like the waters of a lake before the prow of a fast sailing ship.

Up the slope they went, drawing stares from all around—but few of those orcs wanted to be anywhere near to them, Drizzt noted hopefully.

His eyes were soon enough drawn forward, up the slope, to the spectacle of one tall orc barking orders and roughly shoving aside any creatures who got too close to him.

The leader. Obviously the leader.

Drizzt began to fall into himself, finding his center, finding his anger, finding the primal creature that resided within his mortal coil, that instinctive Hunter, then moving through the Hunter and into the realm of pure concentration. With the swarm around him, he held little hope that he and Innovindil could get out of it, and given that, the drow had chosen to simply ignore the throng.

He took a quick look at Innovindil, her blue eyes set as if in stone, staring with abject hatred at the orc leader, at the son of the beast who had so brutally taken her Tarathiel from her.

Before they had come in with their ruse, Innovindil had exacted Drizzt's promise that Urlgen, son of Obould, was hers to kill.

The sounds of battle echoed all around them, the cries of the orc leader cut the air, and the orcs pressed on up the slope, where the stubborn dwarves held their ground.

And Drizzt Do'Urden tuned it out, focusing instead on a singular image.

A tower crumbling, burning, falling, and a dwarf rushing around on its tilting top, crying orders to the last.

The Hunter reached for Guenhwyvar.

* * *

They knew they had to hold. For the sake of their kin atop the cliffs, the dwarves had to fend the charging hordes. Where would Banak Brawnanvil run if they were forced back into Mithral Hall?

The defenders of western Keeper's Dale knew that truth keenly and used it to bolster their every moment of doubt. There was no choice; they had to hold.

But they could not, and their more immediate choice, up and down the length of their line, quickly became a simple decision to fall back or die where they stood. Many chose the latter, or the latter found them, while others did indeed fall back to the next defensible position. But the orc horde pursued, rolling along, smashing through every wall and swarming around every obstacle.

Like driftwood on an incoming tide, the dwarves fell back.

They sent runners to the base of the northern cliffs, shouting up for Banak to retreat in full, and indeed, their hopes were bolstered in seeing the first dwarves coming down the rope ladders. Immediately, those at the base began setting up a plan for defending the area, waving in the dwarves coming down the ropes to quickly join in.

Other dwarves sprinted farther to the east, shouting out to those guards near to Mithral Hall's doors, warning of the impending disaster.

Soon enough, all the remaining Keeper's Dale defenders were in sight of those great western doors, and every valiant effort to turn and make a stand was overrun, pushing them ever farther to the west.

They were almost level with the drop ropes from above when they made yet another determined stand, knowing that if they were pushed any farther, Banak's retreat would find a swift end.

"The hall's opening!" one dwarf cried, looking back and pointing to the wall.

Every dwarf in the line found a moment to glance back that way, to see indeed the great doors of Mithral Hall opening to their call for help. Out came reinforcements, scores of their kin, many still wearing their blacksmith aprons or still dressed in common clothing instead of battle mail. Out came every remaining dwarf, it seemed, even many of the wounded who should have stayed in bed.

They all came to the call of distress; they all charged forth from the safety of their tunnels to aid in the battle.

Certainly there were not nearly enough reinforcements to win the day, nor even enough, it seemed, to begin to slow the orc rout.

But there was among the ranks of newcomers one dwarf in particular who could not be ignored, and whose presence could not be measured in the form of just another singular warrior.

For a dwarf larger than life centered that reinforcing line.

For Bruenor Battlehammer centered that reinforcing line.

* * *

Banak gnashed his teeth as he surveyed the scene below, hardly believing how fast the defenders of Keeper's Dale were being overrun and pushed back, hardly believing the sheer scope and ferocity of the newly arrived orc army.

The old dwarf broke his ranks and sent his charges over the ledge, scrambling like ants down the many rope ladders. It was a decision made on the fly, committed to in the blink of an eye, and when it was done, the order given, Banak could not help but second-guess himself.

For he could see the dark tide flowing west to east across Keeper's Dale. Would any of his fleeing dwarves even reach the floor of the dale before the darkness had crossed by? If they did, would they be able to mount a defense as more and more got down beside them?

The alternative, Banak Brawnanvil knew, would be abject disaster, perhaps a complete slaughter of all those brave souls entrusted to his care.

He continued to shout support at the retreating dwarves. He yelled down to Pwent and his boys to fight their way back up to the cliff, and he personally moved to the escape route of last resort: the drop chute Torgar's engineers had manufactured.

Wulfgar and Catti-brie met him there, just ahead of Torgar, Tred, and Shingles.

"The two of ye be on yer way," Banak instructed the two humans, one of whom was far too large to attempt the narrow chute. "Get to the ropes and get yerselfs down."

"We'll go when Pwent returns," Catti-brie said.

To accentuate her point, she lifted Taulmaril and sent a sizzling arrow sailing away at the orc throng. It disappeared into the morass, but none watching had any doubt that it had to have found a deadly mark on one creature or another.

Wulfgar, meanwhile, pulled two long drop ropes in closer to their position, setting them and looping them over and over to make them impossible to untie and more difficult to cut.

"Ye don't be stupid," Banak argued. "Ye're the children o' King Bruenor, and as such, ye're sure to be needed inside the hall."

"As we're needed up here right now," said Wulfgar.

"We'll go when Pwent returns," Catti-brie reiterated. She let fly again. "And not a moment before."

Banak started to argue but cut himself short, unable to counter the simple logic of it. He, too, would be an important voice in Mithral Hall after that day, of course, and yet he too, had no intention of going anywhere until the Gutbusters began their drop down the escape chute.

He stepped out in front of Catti-brie, Torgar and Shingles on his left, Tred and Ivan Bouldershoulder, who joined in after seeing a reluctant Pikel off along the ropes, on his right.

"Use me head to sight yer bow," Banak said to Catti-brie.

She did just that and cut down the closest of a group of orcs charging their way.

* * *

Her movements of grace and fluidity contrasted sharply with Urlgen's sudden, herky-jerky lunges and punches.

Innovindil glided around him, launching a series of thrusts and sweeping sword attacks, most designed merely to set the large orc up for a sudden and devastating finish.

Urlgen turned with her, his heavily armored arms swiping across and picking off each attack, his feet turning and keeping him always on balance as the elf swirled around him, circling continually to his right.

Then she was gone, reversing her movement back to the left, turning a complete circuit to gain momentum, and redirecting that newfound momentum into a single thrust for the ore's heart.

But Urlgen, son of Obould, saw the move coming and had it countered before it ever began. As soon as he lost sight of the elf, the orc turned his hips appropriately and brought his arms swinging down and across his body. That thrust, which would have skewered almost any orc, got nowhere close to hitting.

Innovindil didn't let her surprise show on her face, nor did she relinquish the attack and fall back to regroup. She didn't have the time for that, she knew, for Drizzt Do'Urden was working furiously around her, leaping and spinning, his deadly scimitars slashing down any nearby orcs who dared approach. Across from him, equally effective as she protected Innovindil's other flank, the mighty black panther reared and sprang. She came up before one orc who was scrambling desperately to get away and swiped off its face with one powerful claw, then charged back the other way, bowling over yet another orc.

Those two brave friends were giving her the battle, Innovindil knew, but time was not on their side.

She pressed the attack more furiously, stabbing left, right, and center in rapid succession. Sparks flew as her sword struck hard against one metal bracer, and a second, and again as both bracers crossed over her blade, driving it down and just to the side of Urlgen's left hip.

And the orc countered, not by raising his arms to the offense, but by living up to the reputation of his name, Threefist. He leaned over the blocked sword and snapped his forehead down. Though Innovindil was agile enough to shift her head away from a direct hit, even a glancing blow from the ore's metal head plate had her stumbling backward, dazed.

Instinct alone had her sword flailing before her, fending the heavy punches of the ore's spiked gauntlets. Only gradually did Innovindil collect her wits enough to get her feet firmly under her and solidify both her stance and her defenses. She fought the orc back to even footing.

"Lesson learned," she muttered under her breath, and she vowed that she'd watch for that devastating head-butt more closely.

* * *

Upon a stone did Bruenor make his stand.

His legs widespread and planted, his many-notched axe held high, the King of Mithral Hall called for his kin, called for all the Delzoun dwarves, to hold firm. And there did the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer rally. Whether by luck or by the guarding hands of his ancestors and his god, no spear found Bruenor that day.

With the swirling orc sea around him, he stood, a beacon of hope for the dwarves, a testament to sheer determination. Spears thrust and flew his way, orc hands grabbed at his sturdy legs, but none could uproot King Bruenor. A flying club smashed him in the face, opening a long wound, closing one eye.

Bruenor roared through it.

An orc saw the opportunity to get up beside the dwarf, slamming hard with a warhammer.

Bruenor took the hit and didn't flinch, then chopped the orc away with a deadly slash of his axe.

Another orc was up beside him and another and another, and for a moment, it seemed as if the dwarf king would be buried where he stood.

But they went flying away, one after another, thrown by the strength and determination of Bruenor Battlehammer, who would not fall, who would not fail. Blood ran freely from many wounds, some obviously serious. But Bruenor's roar was not in pain nor in fear. It was a denial, stubborn and strong, determined beyond mortal bounds.

Never did Delzoun hearts so swell with pride as on that day, as on that stone, when King Battlehammer cried!

There was no choice before them. To retreat past Bruenor meant to abandon those hundreds of dwarves even then crawling down the cliff face. Better to die, by all measures of dwarven logic, than to forsake kin.

Bruenor reminded them of that. His presence alone, somehow risen from his deathbed, reminded them all of who they were, of what they were, and of what, above all else, mattered: kin and kind.

And so the retreating dwarves did pivot as one, did dig in their heels and press back against the onslaught, matching spear with hammer and axe, matching orc bloodlust with dwarf determination.

And there, around the stone upon which stood the King of Mithral Hall, the orc wave broke and was halted.

* * *

Shoulder to shoulder and with Banak Brawnanvil in their middle, the five dwarves met the tip of the orc ranks with sheer fury, leaping in as one and pounding away with hammer and axe. Behind them, Catti-brie worked Taulmaril to devastating effect, coordinating her shots with Wulfgar as he ran back and forth along the short defensive line, preventing any orcs from getting behind the fighting fivesome.

"Pwent, ye hurry! All the boys're down!" Banak shouted to the very depleted group of Gutbusters who were finally making some headway in their desperate attempt to reach him and the drop chute.

Banak couldn't even see if Pwent was alive among that group.

"Girl, ye bring yer fire to bear!" Ivan Bouldershoulder shouted back to Catti-brie.

"Go," Wulfgar bade her, assuring her that he had the situation in hand.

Indeed it seemed as if he did, for no orcs wanted anything to do with the terrible barbarian warrior.

Catti-brie sprinted ahead, coming to a stop right behind Ivan. She took quick note of the situation ahead, of the group of orcs who had turned around in an attempt to seal off the retreat of the bloodied Gutbusters.

Up came Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, and sizzling lines of silver raced out from the line of five dwarves. Catti-brie worked left and right, not daring to shoot straight down the center for fear that her enchanted arrows would blow right through some orcs and into the retreating dwarves. She found her rhythm, swinging left and right, left and right, each shot slicing down to devastating effect. Those orcs in between the continuing lines of deadly arrows found no reinforcements to bolster their barricade against the fury of the Gutbusters, and seeing that reality, the Gutbusters themselves reacted, tightening their ranks and spearheading their way up the slope.

"Now get ye over that cliff!" Banak demanded of Catti-brie and Wulfgar when the line closed. "We got us a faster way down!"

Reluctantly, but unable to argue the logic, Catti-brie ran up to Wulfgar and the pair charged back to the cliff face. They shouldered their weapons, took up their respective ropes, and went over side by side, sliding down the face of the cliff.

They heard the Gutbusters leaping into the drop chute above them and took satisfaction in that. They heard Banak calling frantically for his fellows to go.

And they heard orcs, so many orcs.

Wulfgar's rope jolted suddenly, and again, and Catti-brie reached out for him, and he for her.

His rope fell away, cut from above.

* * *

Obould did not see his forces stall around the stone upon which stood King Bruenor, for his attention had been drawn to the side by that point, to the defensive stand in the north, where dwarves were fast descending.

The dwarves were making a stubborn stand, to be sure, but Obould's numbers should have swept them away.

But then a fireball exploded in the midst of his line. And, inexplicably, another charging group ran off to the side and began fighting against… against nothing, the orc king realized, or against each other, or against the stones.

A quick scan showed Obould the truth of it, that two others, a human woman and a gnome, had joined in the defensive stand, waggling their fingers and launching their magic. More dwarves came down from above, leaping to the dale floor, pulling free their weapons, and throwing themselves in to bolster the defensive line.

His orcs were going to break ranks!

A bolt of blue lightning flashed through the throng and a dozen orcs fell dead and a score more flopped on the ground, stunned and shocked.

The real beauty of his plan, to not simply push the dwarves into their holes but to slaughter the whole of the force up above, began to unravel before Obould's angry eyes. With a roar, he denied that unacceptable turn. With a growl and a fist clenched so tightly that it would have crushed solid stone, the great orc king began his own charge to that northern wall, determined to turn the tide yet again.

The dwarves were not going to escape his trap. Not again.

* * *

Banak went into the hole head first and last, after having forcibly thrown the exhausted and bloody Thibbledorf Pwent in before him. He expected to fall into the steep slide, but he had barely gotten into the hole when he got hung up.

Only then did the old dwarf realize that he had a spear sticking out of his back, and that it was stuck on the stone.

Orcs crowded around the hole above him, whacking at his feet, prodding down with their nasty spears.

Banak kicked furiously, but he knew he was dead, knew that there was no way he could extricate himself.

But then a hand grabbed him by the collar and the smelly Pwent clawed back up before him.

"Come on, ye dolt!" Pwent yelled.

"Spear," Banak tried to explain, but Pwent wasn't even listening, was just tugging.

A searing eruption of fire burned suddenly in poor Banak's back as the spear twisted around, and he gave a howl of agony.

And Pwent tugged all the harder, understanding that there was no choice, no option at all.

The spear shaft snapped and Banak and Pwent fell free, sliding down the steep, turning chute Torgar's engineers had fashioned. They came into a straight descent then and fell through an opening, dropping several feet onto a pile of hay that had been strategically placed in the exit chamber. Of course by that point, most of the hay had been scattered by those coming down earlier, and the two dwarves hit hard and lay there groaning.

Rough hands grabbed them, ignoring their cries of pain. For they had no time to concern themselves over wounds.

"Close the chute!" Pwent cried, but too late, for down dropped a pursuer, a small goblin who had likely been thrown down as leading fodder by the bullying orcs. The creature landed right atop the still prone Banak, who gave another agonized groan.

Pwent rolled back and drove his spiked gauntlet through the stunned goblin's face, and shouted again for the others to close the chute.

Torgar Hammerstriker was already moving. He shoved a lever, releasing a block, then reached up and guided the block plate into position beneath the chute. The top side of the block plate was set with long spikes, and they claimed their first victim almost as soon as the chute was closed, an orc or goblin dropping hard atop it and impaling itself.

The dwarves were too busy to relish in that kill, though, grabbing their two fallen comrades up, ushering Pwent along and carrying the seriously wounded Banak. The escape chamber opened onto a ledge about a quarter of the way down the cliff, where more rope ladders were in place. Many of the Gutbusters were already well on their way down the ladders, rushing to join the critical battle at the base of the cliff.

As soon as he saw that spectacle below, Thibbledorf Pwent shook away his dizziness—or embraced it, for it was often hard to distinguish which with Pwent! — and scrambled over the ledge and down the ropes.

"I got him first," Ivan Bouldershoulder insisted.

He carefully lifted Banak up over his shoulder and moved to the rope ladder. Tred went over the cliff side before him, offering assistance from below.

Torgar and Shingles drew out their weapons and stood guard at the entrance to the escape room, ready to protect their departing friends should the chute's block plate fail and the orcs come down at them. Not until Ivan and the others were far below, moving to the second series of lower rope ladders did the pair from Mirabar turn and flee.

* * *

He grabbed for her, instinctively, as she reached out for him. They caught each other by the wrists and held fast as the barbarian fell away, then rolled around, rebounding off the stone of the cliff face. The jolt of his weight almost dislodged the woman from her rope, but she stubbornly held on, grasping with all of her strength and determination.

Wulfgar's rope fell past, slapping over the big man, and again, he nearly broke free of Catti-brie's grasp.

But she wouldn't let him go. Her arms stretched, her muscles ached, her shoulders felt as if they would simply pop out of joint.

But she wouldn't let go.

Wulfgar looked up at her, his eyes wide with fear—as much for her, she knew, as for himself, for it seemed that he would indeed dislodge her and drop them both to their deaths.

But she wouldn't let go. For all her life, at the cost of her life, Catti-brie was not going to let her friend fall.

It seemed like minutes, though in truth, it had all occurred in the span of a split second. Finally, Wulfgar caught Catti-brie's rope with his free hand and pulled himself in tight.

"Go!" Catti-brie prompted as soon as she got her wits back about her, as soon as she understood that if his rope had been cut, hers would likely go next.

Wulfgar went down hand-over-hand, verily running down the thick line. He reached a ledge and scrambled onto it, then set himself as solidly as the footing would allow.

Catti-brie came down fast behind, but not fast enough, as her rope, too, came free and she dropped. Wulfgar caught her and pulled her in, and the both of them pressed themselves flat against the cliff.

"Not yet halfway," Wulfgar said a moment later.

He motioned across to the other side of the small ledge, where the next descending ladders were set.

* * *

Drizzt double-stabbed, then stepped forward, driving on and forcing the orc to go tumbling backward, thus hindering any approach by those others near it.

The drow turned away immediately, rolling around, scimitars flying widely but not wildly, every strike in complete control, every cut working to fend any interference from the onlookers to the spectacle of Innovindil's battle with their leader.

The drow turned again, taking in the scene across the way, where Guen-hwyvar leaped onto an orc and suddenly sprang away to bury another.

Drizzt eyes scanned over to the main fight as he turned to meet the charge of two more, and in that instant scan, he noted that Urlgen was pressing his elf friend hard, that she had stumbled backward. He had to go to her, but he could not as an orc pair pressed in.

"Fall into your anger!" he cried to Innovindil. "Remember Tarathiel! Remember your loss and embrace the pain!"

With every word he cried, the drow had to swipe or parry with his blades, working furiously to keep back the press of increasingly emboldened orcs.

"Find a place of balance," he tried to explain to Innovindil. "A balance between your anger and your determination! Use the pain to focus!"

He was asking her to become the Hunter, he knew. He was asking her to forsake her reason at that moment and fall into a more primal state, a state of feeling, of emotion and fear. As she had worked to coax him from that anger, so he tried to moved her toward it.

Was there any other way?

Drizzt let go of his fears for his friend and let himself fall even more fully into the Hunter. The orcs pressed in, and his scimitars went into a frenzied dance, driving them back, cutting them down.

* * *

Despite her suddenly desperate situation, despite the press of that ferocious orc and the tumult of the crowding monsters all around her, Innovindil did hear the words of Drizzt Do'Urden.

Her sword worked furiously, fending blow after blow as the wild orc came at her, his spiked gauntlets swinging wildly. Her feet worked with equal desperation, trying to keep under her as she was forced to dodge and to back away. She tried to find her rhythm, but the ore's fighting style was unconventional at best, with attacks quickly re-angled to punch through any opening she presented. Innovindil had no doubt that she could gradually come to a point of understanding and logical counter, but she knew that she had no such luxury of time.

Thus, she followed the words of Drizzt Do'Urden, who was battling so brilliantly to keep the others away. She allowed her mind to wander the road of memory, to Tarathiel's horrible fall. She felt her anger rising and channeled it into determination.

Out left went her sword, cutting short a hooking right hand, and back fast to center to block a left jab.

Innovindil put her conscious thoughts aside, fell into the flow and the feeling of the fight. Sparks flew as she connected with a fist, and again as the orc blocked her own thrust with a second metal gauntlet.

She worked with sudden intensity, taking the fight back to him, and at last discerned a pattern to his counters and his blocks.

He was setting her up for a head-butt, she realized, looking for that killing opening.

Innovindil rolled with the punches and the continuing flow, fell deeper into her instinctual self, catching herself somewhere between rage and complete concentration.

She ducked one blow and seemed to fall almost completely off her balance, lunging to the side so violently that her free hand slapped against her doeskin boot. In came the ore's counter punch—one that could have truly hurt her. But it was not aimed for her, and she understood that. Rather, Urlgen was going for her sword, striking it hard and knocking it aside.

Presenting him with that opening.

He darted ahead, his strong back snapping his head forward.

Innovindil threw her free hand up across her forehead to block and felt the sudden impact driving down through her hand and smashing against her skull. Back she skittered, trying to hold her balance, but stumbling down to a sitting and vulnerable position.

But Urlgen wasn't pursuing, for he had driven his head down not only onto the elf's blocking hand, but onto the small knife she had cleverly pulled out from her boot, impaling himself up to its crosspiece. The orc staggered back, the hilt of the knife protruding from his forehead like some strange unicorn horn. His black gauntlets waved in the air, and he turned around and around, head thrown back, pommel high in the air.

In that moment of distraction, when all the orcs nearby stared incredulously at their leader, Drizzt Do'Urden rushed to Innovindil and roughly pulled her to her feet, then pushed her ahead, to the north, and took up the run. The drow cut back and forth in front of the stumbling, still-dazed Innovindil, his scimitars clearing the way. When they came upon a particularly dense group of enemies, Guenhwyvar leaped by the pair, launching herself full force into the crowd, scattering them and taking them down.

Drizzt sprinted by, pulling Innovindil behind him. He took out a slender rope and thrust its other end into her hand, and that tactile feel brought her somewhat back to her sensibilities, reminding her of her duties. She urged Drizzt to press on, then brought a free hand to her lips and blew a shrill whistle.

Down they ran, angling to a flat area to the side, and, coming in low under the rising sun, they saw their one hope: a winged horse fast descending.

Sunset touched down and charged across the stone, scattering orcs before his run. Drizzt and Innovindil moved to intercept, one on either side, a rope strung before them. Sunset accepted the hit as he ran into the rope, and both drow and elf used the sudden pull to move them aside the pegasi's flanks, ducking under the high-held wings. Innovindil went up first, Drizzt leaping right behind her, as Sunset never slowed in his run. His wide wings beat the air, and he sprang away, half-running, half-flying, moving out of range of any pursuit.

"Go home, Guenhwyvar!" Drizzt cried out to the panther, who was still scattering orcs, still battling fiercely.

Up into the air they went, climbing fast to the north. Spears reached up at them, but few got close to hitting the mark, and those who did were knocked away by the scimitars of the drow. Finally, they were safely out of range, and Drizzt looked back to the diminishing battle.

The orcs were right up to the cliff, by then, and the drow understood that the dwarves had been pushed over into Keeper's Dale.

Had he gotten up into the sky only a minute before, he might have noted the telltale silver flash of Taulmaril.

* * *

Shoudra Stargleam's eyes glowed with determination as she watched her fireball engulf a handful of orcs, sending them scurrying about, all aflame.

The sorceress launched a second strike to devastating effect, a burning bolt of lightning that dropped a line of orcs at the center of their press.

More than one dwarf glanced back her way to nod in appreciation, which only spurred the proud and noble sceptrana on even more. She was a Battle-hammer then, by all measure, fighting as fiercely as if Mithral Hall was her home and the dwarves all around her, her kin.

Beside her, little Nanfoodle worked his wonders, confusing an entire company of orcs with an illusion that had them charging face first into the cliff wall.

"Well done," Shoudra congratulated him.

She followed his mind attack with a physical blast of lightning that scattered the confused group and laid many low. Shoudra threw a wink Nanfoodle's way, then glanced up nervously at the cliffs, where dwarves continued their descent. Behind her, she heard those first who had come down forming up the defensive plan that would take them all to Mithral Hall's grand doors.

But they had to hold out until all were down.

The sceptrana turned away and sucked in her breath as one dwarf up ahead of her fell back, a spear deep in his chest. With no reserves immediately available to fill the gap, the sceptrana stepped forward, extending one arm and calling forth a burst of magical missiles that drove the orcs back. So many more came on, though.

Shoudra breathed a sigh of relief as a pair of dwarves scrambled past her, one going to his wounded kin, the other taking the downed dwarf's position at the low stone wall.

The orcs came on.

Looking all around to find the most effective area for her blasts, Shoudra's attention was caught and held by the spectacle of a single orc, a huge, armored creature swinging a sword nearly as tall as she at the end of one strong arm. He waded through his own ranks, orcs scrambling to get out of his way, stalking determinedly for the wall.

A crossbow bolt whistled out and smacked hard against his metal breastplate, but it did not penetrate and did not slow him in the least. In fact, he even sped up his rush, leaping forward into a roaring run.

Shoudra brought forth her magical power and struck him head-on with a lightning bolt, one that lifted him from his feet and threw him back into the throng. Figuring him dead, the sceptrana turned her attention back to the throng pressing the dwarves, and she ignited another fireball just forward of the dwar-ven line, so close that even the dwarves felt the rush of heat.

Again, flaming orcs scrambled and fell burning to the ground, but through that opening came a familiar figure, that great orc carrying a huge greatsword.

Shoudra's eyes widened when she saw him, for no orc could so readily accept the hit of one of her lightning blasts!

But it was the same orc, she knew, and he came on with fury, plowing over any orcs who could not scramble out of his way, reaching the wall and dwar-ven line in a rush, his sword slashing across, scattering the dwarves. He dropped his shoulder and plowed on, driving right through the hastily built rock wall, knocking heavy stones aside with ease.

Dwarves went at him, and dwarves went flying away, slashed by the sword, swatted with his free arm, even kicked high into the air.

And all the while, Shoudra suddenly realized, he was looking directly at her.

On came the mighty orc, and Nanfoodle gave a shriek. Shoudra heard the gnome quickly casting, but she knew instinctively that he would not divert that beast. She brought her hands up before her, thumbs touching tip to tip.

"Be gone, little demon," she said, and a wide arc of orange flames erupted from her fingers.

The sceptrana turned, using the distraction to get out of the way, but then she got punched—or thought it was a punch. She tried to move, but her feet skidded on the stone, and she was strangely held in place. She looked back, and she understood, for it was no punch that had hit her, but the thrust of a great-sword. Shoudra looked down to see less than half of that blade remaining before her chest; she knew that it had gone right through her.

Still with only the one mighty hand holding the sword, the orc lifted Shoudra Stargleam up into the air.

She heard Nanfoodle shriek, but it was somehow very far away.

She heard the dwarves cry out and saw them scrambling, in fear, it seemed.

She saw a sudden flash of silver and felt the jerk as the great orc staggered backward.

* * *

Her legs looped within the coils of the drop rope, Catti-brie hung upside down, reloading her bow, letting fly another shot at the monstrous beast who held Shoudra aloft. Her first arrow had struck home, right in the thing's chest, and had knocked the orc backward a single step.

But it had not penetrated.

"Get him away!" Catti-brie yelled to Wulfgar.

The barbarian had leaped to the ground and was even then bearing down on the orc. He cried out to Tempus and brought his hammer to bear—brought his whole body to bear—throwing himself at the orc, trying to knock it aside.

Suddenly Wulfgar was flying backward, blocked, stopped and thrown back by a swipe of the great ore's arm. The great barbarian, who had taken hits offered by giants, staggered back and stumbled to the ground.

The orc lifted his arm higher, presented the squirming Shoudra up into the air, and roared. The sword came to fiery life, and Shoudra howled all the louder. The mighty orc jerked his arm side to side.

Shoudra Stargleam fell apart.

Catti-brie hit the beast with another arrow, and a third, but by that last shot, he wasn't even staggering backward from the blows anymore. He turned and started toward Wulfgar.

The spinning Aegis-fang hit him hard. The orc stumbled back a few steps, and almost fell to the ground.

Almost.

On came the beast, charging Wulfgar with abandon.

The barbarian recalled Aegis-fang to his hand and met that charge with another cry to his god, and a great swipe of his mighty hammer. Sword against hammer they battled, two titans standing tall above the onlookers.

Down came Aegis-fang, smashing hard against the ore's shoulder, sending him skidding to the side. Across came the flaming greatsword, and Wulfgar had to throw his hips back, barely getting out of reach.

The orc followed that wide slash by leaping forward even as Wulfgar came forward behind the blade, and the two collided hard, muscle against muscle.

A heavy punch sent Wulfgar flying away, had him staggering on the stones, barely able to keep his feet.

The orc pursued, sword in both hands, leaping in for the killing blow that the barbarian couldn't begin to block,

An arrow hit the orc in the face, spraying sparks across the glassteel, but he came on anyway and cleaved at the barbarian.

At least, the orc thought it was the barbarian, for where force and fire had failed, Nanfoodle had succeeded, misdirecting the blow with an illusionary Wulfgar, to the swift demise of a second orc who happened to be standing too close to King Obould's rage.

Catti-brie leaped down to the stone, caught up Wulfgar under one arm, and shoved him away.

The orc moved to catch them—or tried to, for suddenly the stone around his feet turned to mud, right up to his ankles, then turned back to stone.

"Bad orc!" cried a green-bearded dwarf, and he poked the fingers of his one hand in Obould's direction.

The furious orc king roared and squirmed, then reached down and punched the stone. Then, with strength beyond belief, he tore one foot free.

"Oooo," said the green-bearded dwarf.

Down came more help then, in the form of the Gutbusters, falling all around the pair, leaping into battle. Any who got near to the great orc, though, fell fast and fell hard.

Down came Torgar and Tred, Shingles and Ivan, and the wounded Banak, sweeping up Catti-brie and Wulfgar, the stunned and crying Nanfoodle, and all the others in their wake as they ran flat out across Keeper's Dale, angling for the doors of Mithral Hall.

Only then did Catti-brie notice the pillar of strength that stood supporting the routed dwarves in the wider battle, the indomitable power of her own father, legs planted firmly upon a tall stone, axe sweeping orcs away, dwarves rallying all around him.

"Bruenor," she mouthed, unable to even comprehend how it could be, how her father could have arisen once more.

* * *

Out toward the center of the dale, Bruenor marked well the run of Banak's retreat and of his own son and daughter—and glad he was to see them alive.

His forces had held strong, somehow, against the overwhelming odds, had stemmed the undeniable tide.

At great cost, the dwarf king knew, and he knew, too, that that orc sea would not be denied—especially since the giants were fast approaching, bolstering the orc lines.

From up on his rock, the dwarf king called for a retreat, told his boys to turn and run for the doors. But Bruenor didn't move, not an inch, until the others had all broken ranks.

His axe led the way as he chased after them. He felt the spears and swords reaching out for him, but there were no openings within the fury that was Bruenor Battlehammer. He spun and he dodged. He fled for the doors and stopped suddenly, reversing his course and chopping down the closest orc, and sending those others nearby into a terrified retreat.

He ushered all behind him as the doors drew near, refusing to break and flee until all were within. He fought with the strength of ten dwarves and the heart of a thousand, his many notched axe earning more marks that day than in many years previous. He piled orc bodies around him and painted all the ground a bloody red.

And it was time to go, he knew, and those holding the door called out to him. A swipe of his axe drove back the orc wall before him, and Bruenor turned and sprinted.

Or started to, for there behind him stood an orc, spear coming forward at an angle that Bruenor could not hope to fend. Seeing his doom, the dwarf king gave a howl of denial.

The orc lurched over backward and a spike drove out through its chest. A helmet spike, Bruenor realized as Thibbledorf Pwent stood straight behind his attacker, lifting the orc up in the air atop his head.

Before Bruenor could utter a word, Pwent grabbed him by the beard and yanked him into a stumbling charge that brought him into the hall.

And so Thibbledorf Pwent was the last to enter the dwarven stronghold that fateful day, the great doors booming closed behind him, the dead orc still flopping about atop his helmet, impaled by the long spike.

CHAPTER 31 THROUGH THE BODIES

It hadn't been the victory he had hoped to achieve, for most of Clan Battle-hammer's dwarves, even those from atop the cliff, had gotten back into the safety of Mithral Hall. Worse still for King Obould, there could be little doubt of the identity of the dwarf leader who had emerged to bolster the retreat. It had been King Bruenor, thought dead and buried in the rubble of Shallows.

The Battlehammer dwarves had chanted his name when he'd charged from the hall, and the sudden increased ferocity and stubbornness of their defense upon the red-bearded dwarf's arrival left little real doubt for Obould about the authenticity of their leader.

The orc king made a mental note to speak with his son about that curious turn of events.

Despite the unexpected arrival, despite the dwarves' success in retreating from the cliffs, Obould took satisfaction in knowing that the dwarves could not claim a victory there. They had been pushed into their hall, with little chance of getting out anytime soon—even then, Gerti's giants were hard at work sealing the hall's western doors. The orc losses in Keeper's Dale had been considerable, but there was no shortage of dwarf dead lying among that carnage.

"It was Bruenor!" came the predictable cry of Gerti Orelsdottr, and the giantess stormed up to the orc king. "Bruenor himself! The King of Mithral Hall! You claimed he was dead!"

"As I was told by my son, and your own giants," Obould calmly and quietly reminded her.

"The death of Bruenor was the rallying cry, dog!"

"Lower your voice," Obould told the giantess. "We have won here. This is not the moment to voice our fears."

Gerti narrowed her eyes and issued a low growl.

"You did not lose a single giant," Obould reminded her, and that seemed to take the wind out of Gerti's bluster. "The Battlehammer dwarves are in their hole, their numbers depleted, and you did not lose a single giant."

Still staring hard at the orc king and still snarling, she walked off.

Obould's gaze went up the cliff face, and he thought of the tremendous explosion that had heralded the beginning of the battle and the shower of debris that had followed. He hoped that his claim to Gerti was correct. He hoped that the fight atop the cliff had been a success.

If not, Obould decided, he would murder his son.

* * *

Her face wet with sweat and tears, blood and mud, Catti-brie fell to her knees before her father and wrapped him in a tight hug.

Bruenor, his face scarred and bloody, with part of his beard ripped away and one eye swollen and closed, lifted one arm (for the other hung limply at his side) and returned the hug.

"How's it possible?" Banak Brawnanvil asked.

He stood with many others in the entry hall, staring incredulously at their king, returned from death itself, it seemed.

"'Twas Steward Regis who found the answer," said Stumpet Rakingclaw.

"Was him who showed us the way," agreed Cordio Muffinhead.

He walked over and slapped Regis so hard on the shoulder that the halfling stumbled and nearly dropped from his feet.

All eyes, particularly those of Wulfgar and Catti-brie, fell over Regis, who seemed uncharacteristically embarrassed by all the attention.

"Cordio woke him," he offered sheepishly.

"Bah! Was yer own work with yer ruby," Cordio explained. "Regis called to Bruenor through the gem. 'No real king'd lie there and let his people fight without him, he said."

"You said the same thing to me some days ago," said Regis.

But Cordio just laughed, slapped him again, and continued, "So he went into that body and found the spark o' Bruenor, the one piece left o' the king keeping his body breathing. And Regis telled him what was going on. And when me and Stumpet went back to our healing spells, Bruenor's spirit was back to catch 'em. His spirit heard our call as sure as his body was taking the physical healing. Come straight from Moradin's side, I'm guessing!"

Everyone turned to regard Bruenor, who just shrugged and shook his head. Cordio became suddenly solemn, and he moved up before the dwarf king.

"And so ye returned to us when we were in need," the cleric said quietly. "We pulled ye back for our own needs, and true to yer line, ye answered them. No dwarf can deny yer sacrifice, me king, and no dwarf could ever ask more o' ye. We're in now, and the halls're closed to our enemies. Ye've done yer duty to kin and clan."

All around began to murmur and to look on more closely. They quieted almost immediately, many holding their breath, as Cordio's intent became clearer.

"Ye've come to us, returned from Moradin's own halls," the cleric said to Bruenor, and he brought his hands up before the dwarf king to offer a blessing. "We can'no compel ye to stay. Ye've done yer duty, and so ye've earned yer rest."

Eyes went wide all around. Wulfgar had to grab Catti-brie, who seemed as if she would just fall over. In truth, the barbarian needed the support every bit as much as she.

For it seemed like Cordio's words were affecting Bruenor greatly. His eyes were half-closed, and he leaned forward, shoulders slumped.

"Ye need feel no more pain, me king," Cordio went on, his voice breaking.

He reached up to support Bruenor's shoulder, for indeed it seemed as if the dwarf would tumble face down.

"Moradin's welcomed ye. Ye can go home."

The gasp came from Regis, the sobs from everywhere around.

Bruenor closed his eyes.

Then Bruenor opened his eyes, and wide! And he stood straight and fixed the priest with the most incredulous look any dwarf ever offered.

"Ye dolt!" he bellowed. "I got me home surrounded by stinkin' orcs and giants, and ye're telling me to lie down and die?"

"B-but. . but…" Cordio stammered.

"Bah!" Bruenor snorted. "No more o' the stupid talk. We got work to do!"

For a moment, no one moved or said anything, or even breathed. Then such a cheer went up in Mithral Hall as had not been known since the defeat of the drow those years before. They had been chased in, yes, and could hardly claim victory, but Bruenor was with them again, and he was fighting mad.

"All cheers for Bruenor!" one dwarf cried, and the throng erupted. "Hero of the day!"

"Who fought no more than the rest of ye," Bruenor shouted them down. "Was one of us alone who found the way to call me home."

And his gaze led those of all the others to a particular halfling.

"Then Steward Regis is the hero of the day!" one dwarf cried from the back of the hall.

"One of many," Wulfgar was quick to reply. "Nanfoodle the gnome facilitated our retreat from above."

"And Pikel!" Ivan Bouldershoulder put in.

"And Pwent and his boys," said Banak. "And without Pwent, King Bruenor'd be dead on our doorstep!"

The cheers went up with each proclamation.

Bruenor heard them keenly and let them continue, but he did not join in any longer. He still wasn't quite sure of what had happened to him. He recalled a feeling of bliss, a sense of complete peace, a place he never wanted to leave. But then he had heard a cry of help from afar, from a familiar halfling, and he walked a dark path, back to the realm of the living.

Just in time to jump into the fight with both feet. It would take some time to sort through the fog of the battle and measure their success or failure, Bruenor knew, but one thing was certain at that moment: Clan Battlehammer had been pushed back into Mithral Hall. Whatever the count of the dead, orc and dwarf, it had not been a victory.

Bruenor knew that he and his kin had a lot of work to do.

* * *

In the corridor running off the main entry chamber, Nanfoodle sat against the wall and wept.

Wulfgar found him there, among the many wounded and the many dwarves attending to them.

"You did well today," the barbarian said, crouching down beside the gnome.

Nanfoodle looked up at him, his face streaked with tears, and with more still rolling down his cheeks.

"Shoudra," he whispered and he shook his head.

Wulfgar had no answer to that simple remark and the horrific images it conjured, and so he patted the gnome on the head and rose. He brought a hand up tenderly to his ribs, wondering how bad he had been hurt by that tremendous blow the mighty orc had delivered.

But then all thoughts of pain washed away from the barbarian as he spotted a familiar figure rushing down the corridor toward him.

Delly ran up and wrapped her husband in a tight hug, and as soon as they were joined, all strength seemed to leave the woman, and she just melted into Wulfgar's strong chest, her shoulders bobbing with sobs.

Wulfgar held her tight.

From the entrance to the corridor, Catti-brie witnessed the scene and smiled and nodded.

* * *

In Keeper's Dale, Obould had lost orcs at somewhere around a four-to-one pace to the dying dwarves, an acceptable ratio indeed against a dug-in and battle-hardened defender. No one could question the cost of that victory, given the gains they had achieved.

Up there, though, without even getting any real body counts, Obould understood that the dwarves had slaughtered Urlgen's orcs at a far higher ratio, perhaps as sorely as twenty-to-one.

The ridge was gone, and all but one of the giants who had been up there were dead, and that one, who had been thrown several hundred feet by the monstrous explosion, would likely soon join his deceased companions.

Obould wanted nothing more than to call his son out for that disaster and to slaughter the fool openly before the entire army, to lay all the blame at Urlgen's deserving feet.

"Go and find my son!" he commanded all of those around him, and his crooked teeth seemed locked together as he spat the words. "Bring Urlgen to me!"

He stormed around, looking for any sign of his son, kicking dead bodies with nearly every stride. Only a few moments later, an orc ran up and nervously bowed over and over again, and explained to the great orc that his son had been found among the dead. Obould grabbed the messenger by the throat and with just that one strong hand, lifted him into the air.

"How do you know this?" he demanded, and he jerked the orc back and forth.

The poor creature tried to answer, brought both of its hands up and tried to break the choking grip. But Obould only squeezed all the harder, and the ore's neck snapped with a sharp retort.

Obould snarled and tossed the dead messenger aside.

His son was dead. His son had failed. The orc king glanced around to measure the reaction of those cowering orcs nearby.

A few images of Urlgen flashed through Obould's thoughts, and a slight wave of regret found its way through the crust of the vicious ore's heart, but all of that quickly passed. All of that was fast buried under the weight of necessity, of the immediate needs of the moment.

Urlgen was dead. Given that, Obould knew that he had to focus on the positive aspects of the day, on the fact that the dwarves had been dislodged from the cliff and forced back into Mithral Hall. It was a critical moment for his forces and the course of their conquest, he understood. He had his kingdom overrun, from the Spine of the World to Mithral Hall, from the Surbrin to Fell Pass. Little resistance remained.

He had to maintain his force's enthusiasm, though, for the inevitable coun-terstrike. How he wished that Arganth was there, proclaiming him to be Gruumsh.

Soon after, though, Obould learned that Arganth was dead, killed by an elf and a drow.

"This is unacceptable!" Gerti growled at the orc king as night encompassed the land and the weary army continued its work of reorganizing.

"Nineteen of yours fell, but thousands of mine," the orc countered.

"Twenty," said Gerti.

"Then twenty," Obould agreed, as if it didn't matter.

Gerti scowled at him and asked, "What weapon did they use? What magic so sundered that mountain arm? How did your son let this happen?"

Obould didn't blink, didn't shrink in the least under the giantess's imposing stare. He turned and walked away.

He heard the telltale noise of a sword sliding free of its sheath and moved completely on instinct, drawing forth his own greatsword as he swung around, bringing his blade across to parry the swipe of Gerti's huge weapon.

With a roar, the giantess came on, trying to overwhelm the orc king with her sheer size and strength. But Obould brought his sword to flaming life and slashed it across at Gerti's knees. She avoided the cut, turning sidelong and lifting her leg away from the fires.

Obould barreled in, dipping his shoulder against her thigh and driving on with supernatural strength.

To Gerti's complete surprise, to the amazement of all in attendance—orc, goblin, and giant alike—the orc king muscled Gerti right off the ground. With a great heave, he sent her flopping through the air to land hard and unceremoniously on the ground, face down.

She started to rise but wisely stopped short, feeling the heat of a fiery great-sword hovering above the back of her neck.

"All that is left here are the dwarven tunnels," Obould told her. "Go and defend the Surbrin or take your dead and retreat to Shining White." Obould bent low and whispered, so that only Gerti could hear, "But if you forsake our road now, know that I will visit you when Mithral Hall is mine."

He backed away then and allowed Gerti to scramble back to her feet, where she stood staring down at him with open hatred.

"Enough of this foolishness, giantess," Obould said loudly, so that those few astonished onlookers could hear. "We are both angered and sorrowful. My own son lies among the dead.

"But we have won a great victory this day!" the orc king proclaimed to the throng. "The cowardly dwarves have run away and will not soon return!"

That brought cheering.

Obould walked around, his arms raised in victory, his flaming sword serving as a focus of their collective glory. Every so often, though, the orc did glance back at Gerti, letting her alone see the continuing hatred and threat in his jaundiced and bloodshot eyes.

For Gerti, there was only uncertainty.

* * *

From a distance, another watched the celebration of the victorious orcs and saw that flaming sword lifted high in glory. Satisfied that he had done his duty well and that his work had been of a great benefit to the retreating dwarves, Nikwillig of Citadel Felbarr settled back against the cold stone and considered the distant glow of the setting sun.

His vantage point had allowed him a view of the general course of the battle not only up there, but down in Keeper's Dale, and he knew that the dwarves had been driven underground.

He knew that he had nowhere to run.

He knew that he would soon have nowhere to hide.

But so be it, the dwarf honestly told himself. He had done his duty. He had helped his kin.