The Orc King

One of the consequences of living an existence that spans centuries instead of decades is the inescapable curse of continually viewing the world through the focusing prism employed by an historian.

I say “curse”—when in truth I believe it to be a blessing—because any hope of prescience requires a constant questioning of what is, and a deep-seated belief in the possibility of what can be. Viewing events as might the historian requires an acceptance that my own initial, visceral reactions to seemingly momentous events may be errant, that my “gut instinct” and own emotional needs may not stand the light of reason in the wider view, or even that these events, so momentous in my personal experience, might not be so in the wider world and the long, slow passage of time.

How often have I seen that my first reaction is based on half-truths and biased perceptions! How often have I found expectations completely inverted or tossed aside as events played out to their fullest!

Because emotion clouds the rational, and many perspectives guide the full reality. To view current events as an historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy. It is to know the past and to use such relevant history as a template for expectations. It is, most of all, to force reason ahead of instinct, to refuse to demonize that which you hate, and to, most of all, accept your own fallibility.

And so I live on shifting sands, where absolutes melt away with the passage of decades. It is a natural extension, I expect, of an existence in which I have shattered the preconceptions of so many people. With every stranger who comes to accept me for who I am instead of who he or she expected me to be, I roil the sands beneath that person’s feet. It is a growth experience for them, no doubt, but we are all creatures of ritual and habit and accepted notions of what is and what is not. When true reality cuts against that internalized expectation—when you meet a goodly drow! — there is created an internal dissonance, as uncomfortable as a springtime rash.

There is freedom in seeing the world as a painting in progress, instead of a place already painted, but there are times, my friend…

There are times.

And such is one before me now, with Obould and his thousands camped upon the very door of Mithral Hall. In my heart I want nothing more than another try at the orc king, another opportunity to put my scimitar through his yellow-gray skin. I long to wipe the superior grin from his ugly face, to bury it beneath a spray of his own blood. I want him to hurt—to hurt for Shallows and all the other towns flattened beneath the stamp of orc feet. I want him to feel the pain he brought to Shoudra Stargleam, to Dagna and Dagnabbit, and to all the dwarves and others who lay dead on the battlefield that he created.

Will Catti-brie ever walk well again? That, too, is the fault of Obould.

And so I curse his name, and remember with joy those moments of retribution that Innovindil, Tarathiel, and I exacted upon the minions of the foul orc king. To strike back against an invading foe is indeed cathartic.

That, I cannot deny.

And yet, in moments of reason, in times when I sit back against a stony mountainside and overlook that which Obould has facilitated, I am simply not certain.

Of anything, I fear.

He came at the front of an army, one that brought pain and suffering to many people across this land I name as my home. But his army has stopped its march, for now at least, and the signs are visible that Obould seeks something more than plunder and victory.

Does he seek civilization?

Is it possible that we bear witness now to a monumental change in the nature of orc culture? Is it possible that Obould has established a situation, whether he intended this at first or not, where the interests of the orcs and the interests of all the other races of the region coalesce into a relationship of mutual benefit?

Is that possible? Is that even thinkable?

Do I betray the dead by considering such a thing?

Or does it serve the dead if I, if we all, rise above a cycle of revenge and war and find within us—orc and dwarf, human and elf alike—a common ground upon which to build an era of greater peace?

For time beyond the memory of the oldest elves, the orcs have warred with the “goodly” races. For all the victories—and they are countless! — and for all the sacrifices, are the orcs any less populous now than they were millennia ago?

I think not, and that raises the specter of unwinnable conflict. Are we doomed to repeat these wars, generation after generation, unendingly? Are we—elf and dwarf, human and orc alike—condemning our descendants to this same misery, to the pain of steel invading flesh?

I do not know.

And yet I want nothing more than to slide my blade between the ribs of King Obould Many-Arrows, to relish in the grimace of agony on his tusk-torn lips, to see the light dim in his yellow, bloodshot eyes.

But what will the historians say of Obould? Will he be the orc who breaks, at long, long last, this cycle of perpetual war? Will he, inadvertently or not, present the orcs with a path to a better life, a road they will walk—reluctantly at first, no doubt—in pursuit of bounties greater than those they might find at the end of a crude spear?

I do not know.

And therein lies my anguish.

I hope that we are on the threshold of a great era, and that within the orc character, there is the same spark, the same hopes and dreams, that guide the elves, dwarves, humans, halflings, and all the rest. I have heard it said that the universal hope of the world is that our children will find a better life than we.

Is that guiding principle of civilization itself within the emotional make-up of goblinkind? Or was Nojheim, that most unusual goblin slave I once knew, simply an anomaly?

Is Obould a visionary or an opportunist?

Is this the beginning of true progress for the orc race, or a fool’s errand for any, myself included, who would suffer the beasts to live?

Because I admit that I do not know, it must give me pause. If I am to give in to the wants of my vengeful heart, then how might the historians view Drizzt Do’Urden?

Will I be seen in the company of those heroes before me who helped vanquish the charge of the orcs, whose names are held in noble esteem? If Obould is to lead the orcs forward, not in conquest, but in civilization, and I am the hand who lays him low, then misguided indeed will be those historians, who might never see the possibilities that I view coalescing before me.

Perhaps it is an experiment. Perhaps it is a grand step along a road worth walking.

Or perhaps I am wrong, and Obould seeks dominion and blood, and the orcs have no sense of commonality, have no aspirations for a better way, unless that way tramples the lands of their mortal, eternal enemies.

But I am given pause.

And so I wait, and so I watch, but my hands are near to my blades.

— Drizzt Do’Urden

CHAPTER 1 PRIDE AND PRACTICALITY

On the same day that Drizzt and Innovindil had set off for the east to find the body of Ellifain, Catti-brie and Wulfgar had crossed the Surbrin in search of Wulfgar’s missing daughter. Their journey had lasted only a couple of days, however, before they had been turned back by the cold winds and darkening skies of a tremendous winter storm. With Catti-brie’s injured leg, the pair simply could not hope to move fast enough to out-distance the coming front, and so Wulfgar had refused to continue. Colson was safe, by all accounts, and Wulfgar was confident that the trail would not grow cold during the delay, as all travel in the Silver Marches would come to a near stop through the frozen months. Over Catti-brie’s objections, the pair had re-crossed the Surbrin and returned to Mithral Hall.

That same weather front destroyed the ferry soon after, and it remained out of commission though tendays passed. The winter was deep about them, closer to spring than to fall. The Year of Wild Magic had arrived.

For Catti-brie, the permeating cold seemed to forever settle on her injured hip and leg, and she hadn’t seen much improvement in her mobility. She could walk with a crutch, but even then every stride made her wince. Still she wouldn’t accept a chair with wheels, such as the one the dwarves had fashioned for the crippled Banak Brawnanvil, and she certainly wanted nothing to do with the contraption Nanfoodle had designed for her: a comfortable palanquin meant to be borne by four willing dwarves. Stubbornness aside, her injured hip would not support her weight very well, or for any length of time, and so Catti-brie had settled on the crutch.

For the last few days, she had loitered around the eastern edges of Mithral Hall, across Garumn’s Gorge from the main chambers, always asking for word of the orcs who had dug in just outside of Keeper’s Dale, or of Drizzt, who had at last been seen over the eastern fortifications, flying on a pegasus across the Surbrin beside Innovindil of the Moonwood.

Drizzt had left Mithral Hall with Catti-brie’s blessing those tendays before, but she missed him dearly on the long, dark nights of winter. It had surprised her when he hadn’t come directly back into the halls upon his return from the west, but she trusted his judgment. If something had compelled him to go on to the Moonwood, then it must have been a good reason.

“I got a hunnerd boys beggin’ me to let ’em carry ye,” Bruenor scolded her one day, when the pain in her hip was obviously flaring. She was back in the western chambers, in Bruenor’s private den, but had already informed her father that she would go back to the east, across the gorge. “Take the gnome’s chair, ye stubborn girl!”

“I have my own legs,” she insisted.

“Legs that ain’t healing, from what me eyes’re telling me.” He glanced across the hearth to Wulfgar, who reclined in a comfortable chair, staring into the orange flames. “What say ye, boy?”

Wulfgar looked at him blankly, obviously having no comprehension of the conversation between the dwarf and the woman.

“Ye heading out soon to find yer little one?” Bruenor asked. “With the melt?”

“Before the melt,” Wulfgar corrected. “Before the river swells.”

“A month, perhaps,” said Bruenor, and Wulfgar nodded.

“Before Tarsakh,” he said, referring to the fourth month of the year.

Catti-brie chewed her lip, understanding that Bruenor had initiated the discussion with Wulfgar for her benefit.

“Ye ain’t going with him with that leg, girl,” Bruenor stated. “Ye’re limpin’ about here and never giving the durned thing a chance at mending. Now take the gnome’s chair and let me boys carry ye about, and it might be—it just might be—that ye’ll be able to go with Wulfgar to find Colson, as ye planned and as ye started afore.”

Catti-brie looked from Bruenor to Wulfgar, and saw only the twisting orange flames reflected in the big man’s eyes. He seemed lost to them all, she noted, wound up too tightly in inner turmoil. His shoulders were bowed by the weight of guilt, to be sure, and the burden of grief, for he had lost his wife, Delly Curtie, who still lay dead under a blanket of snow on a northern field, as far as they knew.

Catti-brie was no less consumed by guilt over that loss, for it had been her sword, the evil and sentient Khazid’hea, that had overwhelmed Delly Curtie and sent her running out from the safety of Mithral Hall. Thankfully—they all believed—Delly hadn’t taken her and Wulfgar’s adopted child, the toddler girl, Colson, with her, but had instead deposited Colson with one of the other refugees from the northland, who had crossed the River Surbrin on one of the last ferries to leave before the onslaught of winter. Colson might be in the enchanted city of Silverymoon, or in Sundabar, or in any of a host of other communities, but they had no reason to believe that she had been harmed, or would be.

And Wulfgar meant to find her—it was one of the few declarations that held any fire of conviction that Catti-brie had heard the barbarian make in tendays. He would go to find Colson, and Catti-brie felt it was her duty as his friend to go with him. After they had been turned back by the storm, in no small part because of her infirmity, Catti-brie was even more determined to see the journey through.

Truly Catti-brie hoped that Drizzt would return before that departure day arrived, however. For the spring would surely bring tumult across the land, with a vast orc army entrenched all over the lands surrounding Mithral Hall, from the Spine of the World mountains to the north, to the banks of the Surbrin to the east, and to the passes just north of the Trollmoors in the south. The clouds of war roiled, and only winter had held back the swarms.

When that storm finally broke, Drizzt Do’Urden would be in the middle of it, and Catti-brie did not intend to be riding through the streets of some distant city on that dark day.

“Take the chair,” Bruenor said—or said again, it seemed, from his impatient tone.

Catti-brie blinked and looked back at him.

“I’ll be needin’ both o’ ye at me side, and soon enough,” Bruenor said. “If ye’re to be slowing Wulfgar down in this trip he’s needing to make, then ye’re not to be going.”

“The indignity….” Catti-brie said with a shake of her head.

But as she did that, she overbalanced just a bit on her crutch and lurched to the side. Her face twisted in a pained grimace as shooting pains like little fires rolled through her from her hip.

“Ye catched a giant-thrown boulder on yer leg,” Bruenor retorted. “Ain’t no indignity in that! Ye helped us hold the hall, and not a one o’ Clan Battlehammer’s thinking ye anything but a hero. Take the durned chair!”

“You really should,” came a voice from the door, and Catti-brie and Bruenor turned to see Regis the halfling enter the room.

His belly was round once again, his cheeks full and rosy. He wore suspenders, as he had of late, and hooked his thumbs under them as he walked, eliciting an air of importance. And truly, as absurd as Regis sometimes seemed, no one in the hall would deny that pride to the halfling who had served so well as Steward of Mithral Hall in the days of constant battle, when Bruenor had lain near death.

“A conspiracy, then?” Catti-brie remarked with a grin, trying to lighten the mood.

They needed to smile more, all of them, and particularly the man seated across from where she stood. She watched Wulfgar as she spoke, and knew that her words had not even registered with him. He just stared into the flames, truly looking inward. The expression on Wulfgar’s face, so utterly hopeless and lost, spoke truth to Catti-brie. She began to nod, and accepted her father’s offer. Friendship demanded of her that she do whatever she could to ensure that she would be well enough to accompany Wulfgar on his most important journey.

So it was a few days later, that when Drizzt Do’Urden entered Mithral Hall through the eastern door, open to the Surbrin, that Catti-brie spotted him and called to him from on high. “Your step is lighter,” she observed, and when Drizzt finally recognized her in her palanquin, carried on the shoulders of four strong dwarves, he offered her a laugh and a wide, wide smile.

“The Princess of Clan Battlehammer,” the drow said with a polite and mocking bow.

On Catti-brie’s orders, the dwarves placed her down and moved aside, and she had just managed to pull herself out of her chair and collect her crutch, when Drizzt crushed her in a tight and warm embrace.

“Tell me that you’re home for a long while,” she said after a lingering kiss. “The winter has been cold and lonely.”

“I have duties in the field,” Drizzt replied. He added, “Of course I do,” when Catti-brie smirked helplessly at him. “But yes, I am returned, to Bruenor’s side as I promised, before the snows retreat and the gathered armies move. We will know the designs of Obould before long.”

“Obould?” Catti-brie asked, for she thought the orc king long dead.

“He lives,” Drizzt replied. “Somehow he escaped the catastrophe of the landslide, and the gathered orcs are bound still by the will of that most powerful orc.”

“Curse his name.”

Drizzt smiled at her, but didn’t quite agree.

“I am surprised that you and Wulfgar have already returned,” Drizzt said. “What news of Colson?”

Catti-brie shook her head. “We do not know. We did cross the Surbrin on the same morning you flew off with Innovindil for the Sword Coast, but winter was too close on our heels, and brought us back. We did learn that the refugee groups had marched for Silvery-moon, at least, and so Wulfgar intends to be off for Lady Alustriel’s fair city as soon as the ferry is prepared to run once more.”

Drizzt pulled her back to arms’ length and looked down at her wounded hip. She wore a dress, as she had been every day, for the tight fit of breeches was too uncomfortable. The drow looked at the crutch the dwarves had fashioned for her, but she caught his gaze with her own and held it.

“I am not healed,” she admitted, “but I have rested enough to make the journey with Wulfgar.” She paused and reached up with her free hand to gently stroke Drizzt’s chin and cheek. “I have to.”

“I am no less compelled,” Drizzt assured her. “Only my responsibility to Bruenor keeps me here instead.”

“Wulfgar will not be alone on this road,” she assured him.

Drizzt nodded, and his smile showed that he did indeed take comfort in that. “We should go to Bruenor,” he said and started away.

Catti-brie grabbed him by the shoulder. “With good news?”

Drizzt looked at her curiously.

“Your stride is lighter,” she remarked. “You walk as if unburdened. What did you see out there? Are the orc armies set to collapse? Are the folk of the Silver Marches ready to rise as one to repel—”

“Nothing like that,” Drizzt said. “All is as it was when I departed, except that Obould’s forces dig in deeper, as if they mean to stay.”

“Your smile does not deceive me,” Catti-brie said.

“Because you know me too well,” said Drizzt.

“The grim tides of war do not diminish your smile?”

“I have spoken with Ellifain.”

Catti-brie gasped. “She lives?” Drizzt’s expression showed her the absurdity of that conclusion. Hadn’t Catti-brie been there when Ellifain had died, to Drizzt’s own blade? “Resurrection?” the woman breathed. “Did the elves employ a powerful cleric to wrest the soul—”

“Nothing like that,” Drizzt assured her. “But they did provide Ellifain a conduit to relate to me…an apology. And she accepted my own apology.”

“You had no reason to apologize,” Catti-brie insisted. “You did nothing wrong, nor could you have known.”

“I know,” Drizzt replied, and the serenity in his voice warmed Catti-brie. “Much has been put right. Ellifain is at peace.”

“Drizzt Do’Urden is at peace, you mean.”

Drizzt only smiled. “I cannot be,” he said. “We approach an uncertain future, with tens of thousands of orcs on our doorstep. So many have died, friends included, and it seems likely that many more will fall.”

Catti-brie hardly seemed convinced that his mood was dour.

“Drizzt Do’Urden is at peace,” the drow agreed against her unrelenting grin.

He moved as if to lead the woman back to the carriage, but Catti-brie shook her head and motioned instead for him to lead her, crutching, along the corridor that would take them to the bridge across Garumn’s Gorge, and to the western reaches of Mithral Hall where Bruenor sat in audience.

“It is a long walk,” Drizzt warned her, eyeing her wounded leg.

“I have you to support me,” Catti-brie replied, and Drizzt could hardly disagree.

With a grateful nod and a wave to the four dwarf bearers, the couple started away.

So real was his dream that he could feel the warm sun and the cold wind upon his cheeks. So vivid was the sensation that he could smell the cold saltiness of the air blowing down from the Sea of Moving Ice.

So real was it all that Wulfgar was truly surprised when he awoke from his nap to find himself in his small room in Mithral Hall. He closed his eyes again and tried to recapture the dream, tried to step again into the freedom of Icewind Dale.

But it was not possible, and the big man opened his eyes and pulled himself out of his chair. He looked across the room to the bed. He hardly slept there of late, for that had been the bed he’d shared with Delly, his dead wife. On the few occasions he had dared to recline upon it, he had found himself reaching for her, rolling to where she should have been.

The feeling of emptiness as reality invaded his slumber had left Wulfgar cold every time.

At the foot of the bed sat Colson’s crib, and looking at it proved even more distressing.

Wulfgar dropped his head in his hands, the soft feel of hair reminding him of his new-grown beard. He smoothed both beard and mustache, and rubbed the blurriness from his eyes. He tried not to think of Delly, then, or even of Colson, needing to be free of his regrets and fears for just a brief moment. He envisioned Icewind Dale in his younger days. He had known loss then, too, and had keenly felt the stings of battle. There were no delusions invading his dreams or his memories that presented a softer image of that harsh land. Icewind Dale remained uncompromising, its winter wind more deadly than refreshing.

But there was something simpler about that place, Wulfgar knew. Something purer. Death was a common visitor to the tundra, and monsters roamed freely. It was a land of constant trial, and with no room for error, and even in the absence of error, the result of any decision often proved disastrous.

Wulfgar nodded, understanding the emotional refuge offered by such uncompromising conditions. For Icewind Dale was a land without regret. It simply was the way of things.

Wulfgar pulled himself from his chair and stretched the weariness from his long arms and legs. He felt constricted, trapped, and as the walls seemed to close in on him, he recalled Delly’s pleas to him regarding that very feeling.

“Perhaps you were right,” Wulfgar said to the empty room.

He laughed then, at himself, as he considered the steps that had brought him back to that place. He had been turned around by a storm.

He, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, who had grown tall and strong in the brutal winters of frozen Icewind Dale, had been chased back into the dwarven complex by the threat of winter snows!

Then it hit him. All of it. His meandering, empty road for the last eight years of his life, since his return from the Abyss and the torments of the demon, Errtu. Even after he had gathered up Colson from Meralda in Auckney, had retrieved Aegis-fang and his sense of who he was, and had rejoined his friends for the journey back to Mithral Hall, Wulfgar’s steps had not been purposeful, had not been driven by a clear sense of where he wanted to go. He had taken Delly as his wife, but had never stopped loving Catti-brie.

Yes, it was true, he admitted. He could lie about it to others, but not to himself.

Many things came clear at last to Wulfgar that morning in his room in Mithral Hall, most of all the fact that he had allowed himself to live a lie. He knew that he couldn’t have Catti-brie—her heart was for Drizzt—but how unfair had he been to Delly and to Colson? He had created a facade, an illusion of family and of stability for the benefit of everyone involved, himself included.

Wulfgar had walked his road of redemption, since Auckney, with manipulation and falsity. He understood that finally. He had been so determined to put everything into a neat and trim little box, a perfectly controlled scene, that he had denied the very essence of who he was, the very fires that had forged Wulfgar son of Beornegar.

He looked at Aegis-fang leaning against the wall then hefted the mighty warhammer in his hand, bringing its crafted head up before his icy-blue eyes. The battles he had waged recently, on the cliff above Keeper’s Dale, in the western chamber, and to the east in the breakout to the Surbrin, had been his moments of true freedom, of emotional clarity and inner calm. He had reveled in that physical turmoil, he realized, because it had calmed the emotional confusion.

That was why he had neglected Delly and Colson, throwing himself with abandon into the defenses of Mithral Hall. He had been a lousy husband to her, and a lousy father to Colson.

Only in battle had he found escape.

And he was still engaged in the self-deception, Wulfgar knew as he stared at the etched head of Aegis-fang. Why else had he allowed the trail to Colson to grow stale? Why else had he been turned back by a mere winter storm? Why else…?

Wulfgar’s jaw dropped open, and he thought himself a fool indeed. He dropped the hammer to the floor and swept on his trademark gray wolf cloak. He pulled his backpack out from under the bed and stuffed it with his blankets, then slung it over one arm and gathered up Aegis-fang with the other.

He strode out of his room with fierce determination, heading east past Bruenor’s audience chamber.

“Where are you going?” he heard, and paused to see Regis standing before a door in the hallway.

“Out to check on the weather and the ferry.”

“Drizzt is back.”

Wulfgar nodded, and his smile was genuine. “I hope his journey went well.”

“He’ll be in with Bruenor in a short while.”

“I haven’t time. Not now.”

“The ferry isn’t running yet,” Regis said.

But Wulfgar only nodded, as if it didn’t matter, and strode off down the corridor, turning through the doors that led to the main avenue that would take him over Garumn’s Gorge.

Thumbs hooked in his suspenders, Regis watched his large friend go. He stood there for a long while, considering the encounter, then turned for Bruenor’s audience chamber.

He paused after only a few steps, though, and looked back again to the corridor down which Wulfgar had so urgently departed.

The ferry wasn’t running.

CHAPTER 2 THE WILL OF GRUUMSH

Grguch blinked repeatedly as he moved from the recesses of the cave toward the pre-dawn light. Broad-shouldered and more than seven feet in height, the powerful half-orc, half-ogre stepped tentatively with his thick legs, and raised one hand to shield his eyes. The chieftain of Clan Karuck, like all of his people other than a couple of forward scouts, had not seen the light of day in nearly a decade. They lived in the tunnels, in the vast labyrinth of lightless caverns known as the Underdark, and Grguch had not undertaken his journey to the surface lightly.

Scores of Karuck warriors, all huge by the standards of the orc race—approaching if not exceeding seven feet and weighing in at nearly four hundred pounds of honed muscle and thick bone—lined the cave walls. They averted their yellow eyes in respect as the great warlord Grguch passed. Behind Grguch came the merciless war priest Hakuun, and behind him the elite guard, a quintet of mighty ogres fully armed and armored for battle. More ogres followed the procession, bearing the fifteen-foot Kokto Gung Karuck, the Horn of Karuck, a great instrument with a conical bore and a wide, upturned bell. It was fashioned of shroomwood, what the orcs named the hard skin of certain species of gigantic Underdark mushrooms. To the orc warriors looking on, the horn was deserving of, and receiving of, the same respect as the chieftain who preceded it.

Grguch and Hakuun, like their respective predecessors, would have had it no other way.

Grguch moved to the mouth of the cave, and out onto the mountainside ledge. Only Hakuun came up beside him, the war priest signaling the ogres to wait behind.

Grguch gave a rumbling laugh as his eyes adjusted and he noted the more typical orcs scrambling among the mountainside’s lower stones. For more than two days, the second orc clan had been frantically keeping ahead of Clan Karuck’s march. The moment they’d at last broken free of the confines of the Underdark, their desire to stay far, far away from Clan Karuck grew only more apparent.

“They flee like children,” Grguch said to his war priest.

“They are children in the presence of Karuck,” Hakuun replied. “Less than that when great Grguch stands among them.”

The chieftain took the expected compliment in stride and lifted his eyes to survey the wider view around them. The air was cold, winter still gripped the land, but Grguch and his people were not caught unprepared. Layers of fur made the huge orc chieftain appear even larger and more imposing.

“The word will spread that Clan Karuck has come forth,” Hakuun assured his chieftain.

Grguch considered the fleeing tribe again and scanned the horizon. “It will be known faster than the words of running children,” he replied, and turned back to motion to the ogres.

The guard quintet parted to grant passage to Kokto Gung Karuck. In moments, the skilled team had the horn set up, and Hakuun properly blessed it as Grguch moved into place.

When the war priest’s incantation was complete, Grguch, the only Karuck permitted to play the horn, wiped the shroomwood mouthpiece and took a deep, deep breath.

A great bass rumbling erupted from the horn, as if the largest bellows in all the world had been pumped by the immortal titans. The low-pitched roar echoed for miles and miles around the stones and mountainsides of the lower southern foothills of the Spine of the World. Smaller stones vibrated under the power of that sound, and one field of snow broke free, creating a small avalanche on a nearby mountain.

Behind Grguch, many of Clan Karuck fell to their knees and began swaying as if in religious frenzy. They prayed to the great One-eye, their warlike god, for they held great faith that when Kokto Gung Karuck was sounded, the blood of Clan Karuck’s enemies would stain the ground.

And for Clan Karuck, particularly under the stewardship of mighty Grguch, it had never been hard to find enemies.

In a sheltered vale a few miles to the south, a trio of orcs lifted their eyes to the north.

“Karuck?” asked Ung-thol, a shaman of high standing.

“Could it be any other?” replied Dnark, chieftain of the tribe of the Wolf Jaw. Both turned to regard the smugly smiling shaman Toogwik Tuk as Dnark remarked, “Your call was heard. And answered.”

Toogwik Tuk chuckled.

“Are you so sure that the ogre-spawn can be bent to your will?” Dnark added, stealing the smile from Toogwik Tuk’s ugly orc face.

His reference to Clan Karuck as “ogre-spawn” rang as a clear reminder to the shaman that they were not ordinary orcs he had summoned from the lowest bowels of the mountain range. Karuck was famous among the many tribes of the Spine of the World—or infamous, actually—for keeping a full breeding stock of ogres among their ranks. For generations untold, Karuck had interbred, creating larger and larger orc warriors. Shunned by the other tribes, Karuck had delved deeper and deeper into the Underdark. They were little known in recent times, and considered no more than a legend among many orc tribes.

But the Wolf Jaw orcs and their allies of tribe Yellow Fang, Toogwik Tuk’s kin, knew better.

“They are only three hundred strong,” Toogwik Tuk reminded the doubters.

A second rumbling from Kokto Gung Karuck shook the stones.

“Indeed,” said Dnark, and he shook his head.

“We must go and find Chieftain Grguch quickly,” Toogwik Tuk said. “The eagerness of Karuck’s warriors must be properly steered. If they come upon other tribes and do battle and plunder…”

“Then Obould will use that as more proof that his way is better,” Dnark finished.

“Let us go,” said Toogwik Tuk, and he took a step forward. Dnark moved to follow, but Ung-thol hesitated. The other two paused and regarded the older shaman.

“We do not know Obould’s plan,” Ung-thol reminded.

“He has stopped,” said Toogwik Tuk.

“To strengthen? To consider the best road?” asked Ung-thol.

“To build and to hold his meager gains!” the other shaman argued.

“Obould’s consort has told us as much,” Dnark added, and a knowing grin crossed his tusky face, his lips, all twisted from teeth that jutted in a myriad of random directions, turning up with understanding. “You have known Obould for many years.”

“And his father before him,” Ung-thol conceded. “And I have followed him here to glory.” He paused and looked around for effect. “We have not known victory such as this—” he paused again and lifted his arms high—“in living memory. It is Obould who has done this.”

“It is the start, and not the end,” Dnark replied.

“Many great warriors fall along the road of conquest,” added Toogwik Tuk. “That is the will of Gruumsh. That is the glory of Gruumsh.”

All three started in surprise as the great bass note of Kokto Gung Karuck again resonated across the stones.

Toogwik Tuk and Dnark stood quiet then, staring at Ung-thol, awaiting his decision.

The older orc shaman gave a wistful look back to the southwest, the area where they knew Obould to be, then nodded at his two companions and bade them to lead on.

The young priestess Kna curled around him seductively. Her lithe body slowly slid around the powerful orc, her breath hot on the side of his neck, then the back of his neck, then the other side. But while Kna stared intensely at the great orc as she moved, her performance was not for Obould’s benefit.

King Obould knew that, of course, so his smile was double-edged as he stood there before the gathering of shamans and chieftains. He had chosen wisely in making the young, self-absorbed Kna his consort replacement for Tsinka Shinriil. Kna held no reservations. She welcomed the stares of all around as she writhed over King Obould. More than welcomed, Obould knew. She craved them. It was her moment of glory, and she knew that her peers across the kingdom clenched their fists in jealousy. That was her paramount pleasure.

Young and quite attractive by the standards of her race, Kna had entered the priesthood of Gruumsh, but was not nearly as devout or fanatical as Tsinka had been. Kna’s god—goddess—was Kna, a purely self-centered view of the world that was so common among the young.

And just what King Obould needed. Tsinka had served him well in her tenure, in bed and out, for she had always spoken in the interests of Gruumsh. Feverishly so. Tsinka had arranged the magical ceremony that had imbued in Obould great prowess both physical and mental, but her devotion was absolute and her vision narrow. She had outlived her usefulness to the orc king before she had been thrown from the lip of the ravine, to fall to her death among the stones.

Obould missed Tsinka. For all of her physical beauty, practiced movements and enthusiasm for the position, Kna was no Tsinka in lovemaking. Nor was Kna possessed of Tsinka’s intellect and cunning, not by any means. She could whisper nothing into Obould’s ear worth listening to, regarding anything other than coupling. And so she was perfect.

King Obould was clear in his vision, and it was one shared by a collection of steady shamans, most notably a small, young orc named Nukkels. Beyond that group, Obould needed no advice and desired no nay-saying. And most of all, he needed a consort he could trust. Kna was too enamored of Kna to worry about politics, plots and varying interpretations of Gruumsh’s desires.

He let her continue her display for a short while longer then gently but solidly pried her from his side and put her back to arms’ length. He motioned for her to go to a chair, to which she returned an exaggerated pout. He gave her a resigned shrug to placate her and worked hard to keep his utter contempt for her well suppressed. The orc king motioned again to the chair, and when she hesitated, he forcefully guided her to it.

She started to protest, but Obould held up his huge fist, reminding her in no uncertain terms that she was nearing the limits of his patience. As she settled into a quiet pout, the orc king turned back to his audience, and motioned to Tornfang Brakk, a courier from General Dukka, who oversaw the most important military region.

“The valley known as Keeper’s Dale is well secured, God-king,” Tornfang reported. “The ground has been broken to prevent easy passage and the structures topping the northern wall of the valley are nearly complete. The dwarves cannot come out.”

“Even now?” Obould asked. “Not in the spring, but even now?”

“Even now, Greatness,” Tornfang answered with confidence, and Obould wondered just how many titles his people would bestow upon him.

“If the dwarves came forth from Mithral Hall’s western doors, we would slaughter them in the valley from on high,” Tornfang assured the gathering. “Even if some of the ugly dwarves managed to cross the ground to the west, they would find no escape. The walls are in place, and the army of General Dukka is properly entrenched.”

“But can we go in?” asked Chieftain Grimsmal of Clan Grimm, a populous and important tribe.

Obould flashed the impertinent orc a less-than-appreciative glare, for that was the most loaded and dangerous question of all. That was the point of contention, the source of all the whispers and all the arguing between the various factions. Behind Obould they had trampled the ground flat and had marched to glory not known in decades, perhaps centuries. But many were openly asking, to what end? To further conquest and plunder? To the caves of a dwarf clan or to the avenues of a great human or elven city?

As he considered things, however, particularly the whispers among the various shamans and chieftains, Obould came to realize that Grimsmal might have just done him a favor, though inadvertently.

“No,” Obould declared solidly, before the bristling could really begin. “The dwarves have their hole. They keep their hole.”

“For now,” the obstinate Grimsmal dared utter.

Obould didn’t answer, other than to grin—though whether it was one of simple amusement or agreement, none could tell.

“The dwarves are out of their hole in the east,” reminded another of the gathering, a slight creature in a shaman’s garb. “They build through the winter along the ridgeline. They now seek to connect and strengthen walls and towers, from their gates to the great river.”

“And foundations along the bank,” another added.

“They will construct a bridge,” Obould reasoned.

“The foolish dwarves do our work for us!” Grimsmal roared. “They will grant us easier passage to wider lands.”

The others all nodded and grinned, and a couple slapped each other on the back.

Obould, too, grinned. The bridge would indeed serve the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. He glanced over at Nukkels, who returned his contented look and offered a slight nod in reply.

Indeed, the bridge would serve, Obould knew, but hardly in the manner that Grimsmal and many of the others, so eager for war, now envisioned.

While the chatter continued around him, King Obould quietly imagined an orc city just to the north of the defenses the dwarves were constructing along the mountain ridge. It would be a large settlement, with wide streets to accommodate caravans, and strong buildings suitable for the storage of many goods. Obould would need to wall it in to protect from bandits, or overeager warrior orcs, so that the merchants who arrived from across King Bruenor’s bridge would rest easy and with confidence before beginning their return journey.

The sound of his name drew the orc king from his contemplations, and he looked up to see many curious stares aimed at him. Obviously he had missed a question.

It did not matter.

He offered a calm and disarming smile in response and used the hunger for battle permeating the air around him to remind himself that they were a long, long way from constructing such a city.

But what a magnificent achievement it would be.

“The yellow banner of Karuck,” Toogwik Tuk informed his two companions as the trio made their way along a winding, snow-filled valley below the cave that served as the primary exit point for orcs leaving the Underdark.

Dnark and Ung-thol squinted in the midday glare, and both nodded as they sorted out the two yellow pennants shot with red that flew in the stiff, wintry wind. They had known they were getting close, for they had crossed through a pair of hastily abandoned campsites in the sheltered valley. Clan Karuck’s march had apparently sent other orcs running fast and far.

Toogwik Tuk led the way up the rocky incline that ramped up between those banners. Hulking orc guards stood to block the way, holding pole arms of various elaborate designs, with side blades and angled spear tips. Half axe and half spear, the weight of the weapons was intimidating enough, but just to enhance their trepidation, the approaching trio couldn’t miss the ease with which the Karuck guards handled the heavy implements.

“They are as large as Obould,” Ung-thol quietly remarked. “And they are just common guards.”

“The orcs of Karuck who do not achieve such size and strength are slave fodder, so it is said,” Dnark said.

“And so it is true,” Toogwik Tuk said, turning back to the pair. “Nor are any of the runts allowed to breed. They are castrated at an early age, if they are fortunate.”

“And my eagerness grows,” said Ung-thol, who was the smallest of the trio. In his younger years, he had been a fine warrior, but a wound had left him somewhat infirm, and the shaman had lost quite a bit of weight and muscle over the intervening two decades.

“Rest easy, for you are too old to be worth castrating,” Dnark chided, and he motioned for Toogwik Tuk to go and announce them to the guards.

Apparently the younger priest had laid the groundwork well, for the trio was ushered along the trail to the main encampment. Soon after, they stood before the imposing Grguch and his war priest advisor, Hakuun. Grguch sat on a chair of boulders, his fearsome double-bladed battle-axe in hand. The weapon, Rampant by name, was obviously quite heavy, but Grguch easily lifted it before him with one hand. He turned it slowly, so that his guests would get a good view, and a good understanding of the many ways Rampant could kill them. The black metal handle of the axe, which protruded up past the opposing “wing” blades, was shaped in the form of a stretching and turning dragon, its small forelegs pulled in close and the widespread horns on its head presenting a formidable spear tip. At the base, the dragon’s long tail curved up and over the grip, forming a guard. Spines extended all along the length so that a punch from Grguch would hit like the stab of several daggers. Most impressive were the blades, the symmetrical wings of the beast. Of shining silver mithral, they fanned out top and bottom, reinforced every finger’s-breadth or so by a thin bar of dark adamantine, which created spines top and bottom along each blade. The convex edges were as long as the distance from Dnark’s elbow to the tips of his extended fingers, and none of the three visitors had any trouble imagining being cut cleanly in half by a single swipe of Rampant.

“Welcome to Many-Arrows, great Grguch,” Toogwik Tuk said with a respectful bow. “The presence of Clan Karuck and its worthy leader makes us greater.”

Grguch led his gaze drift slowly across the three visitors then around the gathering to Hakuun. “You will learn the truth of your hopeful claim,” he said, his eyes turning back to Toogwik Tuk, “when I have the bones of dwarves and elves and ugly humans to crush beneath my boot.”

Dnark couldn’t suppress a grin as he looked to Ung-thol, who seemed similarly pleased. Despite their squeamishness at being so badly outnumbered among the fierce and unpredictable tribe, things were going quite well.

Out of the same cavern from which Grguch and Clan Karuck had emerged came a figure much less imposing, save to those folk who held a particular phobia of snakes. Fluttering on wings that seemed more suited to a large butterfly, the reptilian creature wove a swaying, zigzagging course through the chamber, toward the waning daylight.

The twilight was brighter than anything the creature had seen in a century, and it had to set down inside the cave and spend a long, long while letting its eyes properly adjust.

“Ah, Hakuun, why have you done this?” asked the wizard, who was not really a snake, let alone a flying one. Anyone nearby might have thought it a curious thing to hear a winged snake sigh.

He slithered into a darker corner, and peeked out only occasionally to let his eyes adjust.

He knew the answer to his own question. The only reason the brutes of Clan Karuck would come forth would be for plunder and war. And while war could be an interesting spectacle, the wizard Jack, or Jack the Gnome as he had once been commonly called, really didn’t have time for it just then. His studies had taken him deep into the bowels of the Spine of the World, and his easy manipulation of Clan Karuck, from Hakuun’s father’s father’s father’s father, had provided him with most excellent cover for his endeavors, to say nothing of the glory it had rained upon Hakuun’s miserable little family.

Quite a while later, and only with the last hints of daylight left in the air, Jack slipped up to the cavern exit and peered out over the vast landscape. A couple of spells would allow him to locate Hakuun and the others, of course, but the perceptive fellow didn’t need any magic to sense that something was…different. Something barely distinguishable in the air—a scent or distant sounds, perhaps—pricked at Jack’s sensibilities. He had lived on the surface once, far back beyond his memories, before he had fallen in with the illithids and demons in his quest to learn magic more powerful and devious than the typical evocations of mundane spellcasters. He had lived on the surface when he truly was a gnome, something he could hardly claim anymore. He only rarely wore that guise, and had come to understand that physical form really wasn’t all that important or defining anyway. He was a blessed thing, he knew, mostly thanks to the illithids, because he had learned to escape the bounds of the corporeal and of the mortal.

A sense of pity came over him as he looked out over the wide lands, populated by creatures so inferior, creatures who didn’t understand the truth of the multiverse, or the real power of magic.

That was Jack’s armor as he looked out over the land, for he needed such pride to suppress the other, inevitable feelings that whirled in his thoughts and in his heart. For all of his superiority, Jack had spent the last century or more almost completely alone, and while he had found wondrous revelations and new spells in his amazing workshop, with its alchemical equipment and reams of parchments and endless ink and spellbooks he could stack to several times his gnomish height, only by lying to himself could Jack even begin to accept the paradoxical twist of fate afforded him by practical immortality. For while—and perhaps because—he wouldn’t die anytime soon of natural causes, Jack was acutely aware that the world was full of mortal danger. Long life had come to mean “more to lose,” and Jack had been walled into his secure laboratory as much by fear as by the thick stones of the Underdark.

That laboratory, hidden and magically warded, remained secure even though his unwitting protectors, Clan Karuck, had traveled out of the Underdark. And still, Jack had followed them. He had followed Hakuun, though the pathetic Hakuun was hardly worth following, because, he knew deep inside but wasn’t quite ready to admit, he had wanted to come back, to remember the last time he was Jack the Gnome.

He found himself pleasantly surprised by the view. Something tingled in the air around him, something exciting and teeming with possibility.

Perhaps he didn’t know the extent of Hakuun’s reasoning in allowing Grguch to come forth, Jack thought, and he was intrigued.

CHAPTER 3 THE SIMPLE QUALITY OF TIMES GONE BY

Wulfgar’s long, powerful legs drove through the knee-deep—often hip-deep—snow, plowing a path north from the mountain ridge. Rather than perceive the snow as a hindrance, though, Wulfgar considered it a freeing experience. That kind of trailblazing reminded him of the crisp air of home, and in a more practical sense, the snow slowed to a grumbling halt the pair of dwarven sentries who stubbornly pursued him.

More snow fell, and the wind blew cold from the north, promising yet another storm. But Wulfgar did not fear, and his smile was genuine as he drove forward. He kept the river on his immediate right and scrolled through his thoughts all of the landmarks Ivan Boulder-shoulder had told him regarding the trail leading to the body of Delly Curtie. Wulfgar had grilled Ivan and Pikel on the details before they had departed Mithral Hall.

The cold wind, the stinging snow, the pressure on his legs from winter’s deep…it all felt right to Wulfgar, familiar and comforting, and he knew in his heart that his course was the right one. He drove on all the harder, his stride purposeful and powerful, and no snow drift could slow him.

The calls of protest from Bruenor’s kin dissipated into nothingness behind him, defeated by the wall of wind, and very soon the fortifications and towers, and the mountain ridge itself became indistinct black splotches in the distant background.

He was alone and he was free. He had no one on whom he could rely, but no one for whom he was responsible. It was just Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, ranging through the deep winter snow, against the wind of the newest storm. He was just a lone adventurer, whose path was his own to choose, and who had found, to his thrill, a road worth walking.

Despite the cold, despite the danger, despite the missing Colson, despite Delly’s death and Catti-brie’s relationship with Drizzt, Wulfgar knew only simple joy.

He traveled on long after the dim light had waned to darkness, until the cold night air became too intense for even a proud son of the frozen tundra to bear. He set up camp under the lowest boughs of thick pines, behind insulating walls of snow, where the wind could not find him. He passed the night in dreams of the caribou, and the wandering tribes that followed the herd. He envisioned his friends, all of them, beside him in the shadow of Kelvin’s Cairn.

He slept well, and went out early the next day, under the gray sky.

The land was not unfamiliar to Wulfgar, who had spent years in Mithral Hall, and even as he had exited the eastern door of the dwarven complex, he had a good idea of where Ivan and Pikel had found the body of poor Delly. He would get there that day, he knew, but reminded himself repeatedly of the need for caution. He had left friendly lands, and from the moment he had crossed the dwarven battlements on the mountain spur, he was outside the realm of civilization. Wulfgar passed several encampments, the dark smoke of campfires curling lazily into the air, and he didn’t need to get close enough to see the campers to know their orc heritage and their malicious intent.

He was glad that the daylight was dim.

The snow began again soon after midday, but it was not the driving stuff of the previous night. Puffy flakes danced lightly on the air, trailing a meandering course to the ground, for there was no wind other than the occasional small whisper of a breeze. Despite having to continually watch for signs of orcs and other monsters, Wulfgar made great progress, and the afternoon was still young when he breached one small rocky rise to look down upon a bowl-shaped dell.

Wulfgar held his breath as he scanned the region. Across the way, beyond the opposite rise, rose the smoke of several campfires, and in the small vale itself Wulfgar saw the remains of an older, deserted encampment. For though the dell was sheltered, the wind had found its way in on the previous day, and had driven the snow to the southeastern reaches, leaving a large portion of the bowl practically uncovered. Wulfgar could clearly see a half-covered ring of small stones, the remains of a cooking pit.

Exactly as Ivan Bouldershoulder had described it.

With a great sigh, the barbarian pulled himself over the ridge and began a slow and deliberate trudge into the dell. He slid his feet along slowly rather than lift them, aware that he might trip over a body buried beneath the foot or so of snow that blanketed the ground. He set a path that took him straight to the cooking pit, then lined himself up as Ivan had described and slowly made his way back out. It took him a long while, but sure enough, he noticed a bluish hand protruding from the edge of the snow.

Wulfgar knelt beside it and reverently brushed back the white powder. It was Delly, unmistakably so, for the deep freeze of winter had only intensified after her fall those months before, and little decomposition had set in. Her face was bloated, but not greatly, and her features were not too badly distorted.

She looked as if she were asleep and at peace, and it occurred to Wulfgar that the poor woman had never known such serenity in all of her life.

A pang of guilt stung him at that realization, for in the end, that truth had been no small part his own fault. He recalled their last conversations, when Delly had subtly and quietly begged him to get her out of Mithral Hall, when she had pleaded with him to free her from the confines of the dwarf-hewn tunnels.

“But I am a stupid one,” he whispered to her, gently stroking her face. “Would that you had said it more directly, and yet I fear that still I would not have heard you.”

She had given up everything to follow him to Mithral Hall. Truly her impoverished life in Luskan had not been an enviable existence. But still, in Luskan Delly Curtie had friends who were as her family, had a warm bed and food to eat. She had abandoned that much at least for Wulfgar and Colson, and had held up her end of that bargain all the way to Mithral Hall and beyond.

In the end, she had failed. Because of Catti-brie’s evil and sentient sword, to be sure, but also because the man she had trusted to stand beside her had not been able to hear and recognize her quiet desperation.

“Forgive me,” Wulfgar said, and he bent low to kiss her cold cheek. He rose back to his knees and blinked, for suddenly the dim daylight stung his eyes.

Wulfgar stood.

“Ma la, bo gor du wanak,” he said, an ancient barbarian way of accepting resignation, a remark without direct translation to the common tongue.

It was a lament that the world “is as it would be,” as the gods would have it, and it was the place of men to accept and discover their best path from what was presented them. Hearing the somewhat stilted and less-flowing tongue of the Icewind Dale barbarians rolling so easily from his lips gave Wulfgar pause. He never used that language anymore, and yet it had come back to him so easily just then.

With the winter thick about him, in the crisp and chill air, and with tragedy lying at his feet, the words had come to him, unbidden and irresistible.

“Ma la, bo gor du wanak,” he repeated in a whisper as he looked down at Delly Curtie.

His gaze slid across the bowl to the rising lines of campfire smoke. His expression shifted from grimace to wicked grin as he lifted Aegis-fang into his hands, his current “best path” crystallizing in his thoughts.

Beyond the northern rim of the dell, the ground dropped away sharply for more than a dozen feet, but not far from the ridge sat a small plateau, a single flat-topped jut of stone, like the trunk of a gigantic, ancient tree. The main orc encampment encircled the base of that plinth, but the first thing Wulfgar saw when he charged over the rim of the dell was the single tent and the trio of orc sentries stationed there.

Aegis-fang led the way, trailing the leaping barbarian’s cry to the war god Tempus. The spinning warhammer took the closest orc sentry in the chest and blew him across the breadth of the ten-foot diameter pillar, spreading the snow cover like the prow of a speeding ship before dropping him off the back side.

Encumbered by layers of heavy clothing and with only slippery footing beneath, Wulfgar didn’t quite clear the fifteen-foot distance, and slammed his shins against the ledge of the pillar, which sent him sprawling into the snow. Roaring with battle-frenzy, thrashing about so that he would present no clear target to the remaining two orcs, the barbarian quickly got his hands under him and heaved himself to his feet. His shins were bleeding but he felt no pain, and he barreled forward at the nearest orc, who lifted a spear to block.

Wulfgar slapped the feeble weapon aside and bore in, grasping the front of the orc’s heavy fur wrap. As he simply ran the creature over, Wulfgar caught a second grip down by the orc’s groin, and he hoisted his enemy up over his head. He spun toward the remaining orc and let fly, but that last orc dropped low beneath the living missile, who went flailing into the small tent and took it with him in his continuing flight over the far side of the pillar.

The remaining orc took up its sword in both hands, lifting the heavy blade over its head, and charged at Wulfgar with abandon.

He had seen such eagerness many times before in his enemies, for, as was often the case, Wulfgar appeared unarmed. But as the orc came in, Aegis-fang magically reappeared in Wulfgar’s waiting grasp, and he jabbed it ahead with one hand. The heavy hammerhead connected solidly on the chest of the charging orc.

The creature stopped as though it had rammed into a stone wall.

Wulfgar drew back Aegis-fang and took it up in both hands to strike again, but the orc made no move at all, just stood there staring at him blankly. He watched as the sword slipped from the creature’s grasp, to fall to the ground behind it. Then, before he could strike, the orc simply fell over.

Wulfgar sprinted past it to the edge of the pillar. Below him, orcs scrambled, trying to discern the threat that had come so unexpectedly. One orc lifted a bow Wulfgar’s way, but too slowly, for Aegis-fang was already spinning its way. The warhammer crashed through the orc’s knuckles and laid the archer low.

Wulfgar leaped from the pillar, right over the nearest duo, who had set spears pointed his way. He crashed among a second group, far less prepared, and drove one down below his descending knee, and knocked two others aside with his falling bulk. He managed to keep his footing somehow, and staggered forward, beyond the reach of the spear-wielders. He used that momentum to flatten the next orc in line with a heavy punch, then grabbed the next and lifted it before him in his run, using its body as a shield as he charged into the raised swords of a pair of confused sentries.

Aegis-fang returned to him, and a mighty strike sent all of that trio flying to the ground. Purely on instinct, Wulfgar halted his momentum and pivoted, Aegis-fang swiping across to shatter the spears and arms of creatures coming in at his back. The overwhelmed orcs fell away in a jumble and Wulfgar, not daring to pause, ran off.

He crashed through the side of a tent, his hammer tearing the deerskin from the wooden supports. He dragged his feet and kicked powerfully, scattering bedrolls and supplies, and a pair of young orcs who crawled off yelping.

That pair was no threat to him, Wulfgar realized, so he didn’t pursue, veering instead for the next that raised weapons against him. He came in swinging, rolling his arms in circles above his head. Aegis-fang hummed as it cut through the air. The three orcs fell back, but one tripped and went to the ground. It dropped its weapon and tried to scramble away, but Wulfgar kicked it hard on the hip, sending it sprawling. Stubbornly the orc rolled to its belly and hopped up to all fours, trying to get its feet under it for a dash.

His great muscled arms straining and bulging, Wulfgar halted the spin of Aegis-fang, slid his lead hand up the handle, and jabbed at the orc. The warhammer smacked off the orc’s shoulder and cracked into the side of its head, and the creature fell flat to the ground and lay very still.

Wulfgar stomped on it for good measure as he ran past in pursuit of its two companions, who had halted their retreat and stood ready.

Wulfgar roared and lifted Aegis-fang above his head, eagerly accepting the challenge. On he charged…but he noted something out of the corner of his eye. He dug in his lead foot, stopped abruptly, and tried to turn. Then he threw himself around, a spear grazing his side painfully. The missile caught in his flying wolf cloak and held fast, hanging awkwardly, its handle dragging on the ground and tangling with Wulfgar’s legs as he continued his turn. He could only give it a fraction of his attention, though, for a second spear flew his way. Wulfgar brought Aegis-fang in close to his chest and turned it down at the last moment to crack the spearhead out of line. Still, the missile flipped over the parry and slapped against Wulfgar’s shoulder. As it went over, the back point of the weapon’s triangular head cut the barbarian chin to cheek.

And as he lurched away, his leg caught the spear shaft hanging from his cloak.

To his credit, Wulfgar managed to not fall over, but he was off balance, his posture and the positioning of his weapon all wrong, as the two nearer orcs howled and leaped at him.

He drove Aegis-fang across his body, left to right, blocking a sword cut, but more with his arm than with the warhammer. He lifted his lower hand up desperately, turning the warhammer horizontal to parry a spear thrust from the other orc.

But the thrust was a feint, and Wulfgar missed cleanly. As the orc retracted, its smile was all the barbarian needed to see to know that he had no way to stop the second thrust from driving the spear deep into his belly.

He thought of Delly, lying cold in the snow.

Bruenor stood with Catti-brie outside the eastern door of Mithral Hall. North of them, construction was on in full, strengthening the wall that ran from the steep mountainside along the spur all the way to the river. As long as that wall could hold back the orcs, Clan Battlehammer remained connected above ground to the rest of the Silver Marches. The ferry across the River Surbrin, barely a hundred feet from where Bruenor and Catti-brie stood, would be running soon, and it would only be needed for a short while anyway. The abutments of a strong bridge were already in place on both banks.

The orcs could not get at them from the south without many days of forewarning, and such a journey through that broken ground would leave an army vulnerable at many junctures. With the line of catapults, archer posts, and other defensive assault points already set on the banks, particularly across the river, any orc assault using the river for passage would result in utter ruin for the attackers, much as it had for the dwarves of Citadel Felbarr when they had come to join the Battlehammer dwarves in their attempt to secure that most vital piece of ground.

Neither Bruenor nor Catti-brie were looking at the dwarven handiwork at that point, however. Both had their eyes and thoughts turned farther north, to where Wulfgar had unexpectedly gone.

“Ye ready to walk with him to Silverymoon?” Bruenor asked his adopted daughter after a long and uncomfortable silence, for the dwarf knew that Catti-brie harbored the very same feelings of dread as he.

“My leg hurts with every step,” the woman admitted. “The boulder hit me good, and I don’t know that I’ll ever walk easy again.”

Bruenor turned to her, his eyes moist. For she spoke the truth, he knew, and the clerics had told him in no uncertain terms. Catti-brie’s injuries would never fully heal. The fight in the western entry hall had left her with a limp that she would carry for the rest of her days, and possibly with more damage still. Priest Cordio had confided to Bruenor his fears that Catti-brie would never bear children, particularly given that the woman was nearing the end of her childbearing years anyway.

“But I’m ready for the walk today,” Catti-brie said with determination, and without the slightest hesitance. “If Wulfgar crossed over that wall right as we’re speaking, I’d turn him to the river that we could be on our way. It is past time that Colson was returned to her father.”

Bruenor managed a wide smile. “Ye be quick to get the girl and get ye back,” he ordered. “The snows’re letting go early this year, I’m thinking, and Gauntlgrym’s waiting!”

“You believe that it really was Gauntlgrym?” Catti-brie dared to ask, and it was the first time anyone had actually put the most important question directly to the driven dwarf king. For on their journey back to Mithral Hall, before the coming of Obould, one of the caravan wagons had been swallowed up by a strange sinkhole, one that led, apparently, to an underground labyrinth. Bruenor had immediately proclaimed the place Gauntlgrym, an ancient and long-lost dwarven city, the pinnacle of power for the clan called Delzoun, a common heritage for all the dwarves of the North, Battlehammer, Mirabarran, Felbarran, and Adbarran alike.

“Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor said with certainty, a claim he had been making in that tone since his return from the dead. “Moradin put me back here for a reason, girl, and that reason’ll be shown to me when I get meself to Gauntlgrym. There we’ll be findin’ the weapons we’re needing to drive the ugly orcs back to their holes, don’t ye doubt.”

Catti-brie wasn’t about to argue with him, because she knew that Bruenor was in no mood for any debate. She and Drizzt had spoken at length about the dwarf’s plan, and about the possibility that the sinkhole had indeed been an entry point to the lost avenues of Gauntlgrym, and she had discussed it at length with Regis, as well, who had been poring over ancient maps and texts. The truth of it was that none of them had any idea whether or not the place was what Bruenor had decided it to be.

And Bruenor wasn’t about to argue the point. His litany against the darkness that had settled on the land was a simple one, a single word: Gauntlgrym.

“Durn stubborn fool of a boy,” Bruenor muttered, looking back to the north, his mind’s eye well beyond the wall that blocked his view. “He’s to slow it all down.”

Catti-brie started to respond, but found that she could not speak past the lump that welled in her throat. Bruenor was complaining, of course, but in truth, his anger that Wulfgar’s rash decision to run off alone into orc-held lands would slow the dwarves’ plans was the most optimistic assessment of all.

The woman gave in to her sense of dread for just a moment, and wondered if her duty to her friend would send her off alone across the Surbrin in search of Colson. And in that case, once the toddler had been retrieved, what then?

CHAPTER 4 BUILDING HIS KINGDOM

The beams creaked for a moment, then a great rush of air swept across the onlookers as the counterweights sent the massive neck of the catapult swinging past. The basket released its contents, tri-pointed caltrops, in a line from the highest peak of the arc to the point of maximum momentum and distance.

The rain of black metal plummeted from sight, and King Obould moved quickly to the lip of the cliff to watch them drop to the floor of Keeper’s Dale.

Nukkels, Kna, and some of the others shifted uneasily, not pleased to see their god-king standing so near to a two-hundred-foot drop. Any of General Dukka’s soldiers, or more likely, proud Chieftain Grimsmal and his guards, could have rushed over and ended the rule of Obould with a simple shove.

But Grimsmal, despite his earlier rumblings of discontent, nodded appreciatively at the defenses that had been set up on the northern ridge overlooking Mithral Hall’s sealed western door.

“We have filled the valley floor with caltrops,” General Dukka assured Obould. He motioned to the many baskets set beside the line of catapults, all filled with stones ranging in size from a large fist to twice an orc’s head. “If the ugly dwarves come forth, we’ll shower them with death.”

Obould looked down to the southwest, about two-thirds of the way across the broken valley from the dwarven complex, where a line of orcs chopped at the stone, digging a wide, deep trench. Directly to the king’s left, atop the cliff at the end of the trench, sat a trio of catapults, all sighted to rake the length of the ravine should the dwarves try to use it for cover against the orcs positioned in the west.

Dukka’s plan was easy enough to understand: he would slow any dwarven advance across Keeper’s Dale as much as possible, so that his artillery and archers on high could inflict massive damage on the break-out army.

“They came out of the eastern wall with great speed and cunning,” Obould warned the beaming general. “Encased in metal carts. A collapsed mountain wall did not slow them.”

“From their door to the Surbrin was not far, my king,” Dukka dared reply. “Keeper’s Dale offers no such sanctuary.”

“Do not underestimate them,” Obould warned. He stepped closer to General Dukka as he spoke, and the other orc seemed to shrink in stature before him. His voice ominous and loud, so that all could hear, Obould roared out, “They will come out with fury. They will have brooms before them to sweep aside your caltrops, and shielding above to block your arrows and stones. They will have folding bridges, no doubt, and your trench will slow them not at all. King Bruenor is no fool, and does not charge into battle unprepared. The dwarves will know exactly where they need to go, and they will get there with all speed.”

A long and uncomfortable silence followed, with many of the orcs looking at each other nervously.

“Do you expect them to come forth, my king?” Grimsmal asked.

“All that I expect from King Bruenor is that whatever he chooses to do, he will do it well, and with cunning,” Obould replied, and more than one orc jaw fell open to hear such compliments for a dwarf coming forth from an orc king.

Obould considered those looks carefully in light of his disastrous attempt to break into Mithral Hall. He could not let any of them believe that he was speaking from weakness, from memories of his own bad judgment.

“Witness the devastation of the ridge where you now place your catapults,” he said, waving his arm out to the west. Where once had stood a ridge line—one atop which Obould had placed allied frost giants and their huge war engines—loomed a torn and jagged crevice of shattered stones. “The dwarves are on their home ground. They know every stone, every rise, and every tunnel. They know how to fight. But we…” he roared, striding about for maximum effect, and lifting his clawing hands to the sky. He let the words hang in the air for many heartbeats before continuing, “We do not deny them the credit they deserve. We accept that they are formidable and worthy foes, and in that knowledge, we prepare.”

He turned directly to General Dukka and Chieftain Grimsmal, who had edged closer together. “We know them, but even against what we have shown to them in conquering this land, they still do not know us. This”—he swept his arm out to encompass the catapults, archers, and all the rest—“they know, and expect. Your preparations are half done, General Dukka, and half done well. Now envision how King Bruenor will try to counter everything you have done, and complete your preparations to defeat that counter.”

“B-but…my king?” General Dukka stammered.

“I have all confidence in you,” Obould said. “Begin by trapping your own entrenchments on the western side of Keeper’s Dale, so that if the dwarves reach that goal, your warriors can quickly retreat and leave them exposed on another battlefield of your choosing.”

Dukka began to nod, his eyes shining, and his lips curled into a wicked grin.

“Tell me,” Obould bade him.

“I can set a second force in the south to get to the doors behind them,” the orc replied. “To cut off any dwarf army that charges across the valley.”

“Or a second force that appears to do so,” said Obould, and he paused and let all around him digest that strange response.

“So they will turn and run back,” Dukka answered at length. “And then have to cross yet again to gain the ground they covet.”

“I have never wavered in my faith in you, General Dukka,” said Obould, and he nodded and even patted the beaming orc on the shoulder as he walked past.

His smile was twofold, and genuine. He had just strengthened the loyalty of an important general, and had impressed the potentially troublesome Grimsmal in the process. Obould knew what played in Grimsmal’s mind as he swept up behind the departing entourage. If Obould, and apparently his commanders, could think so far ahead of King Bruenor, then what might befall any orc chieftain who plotted against the King of Many-Arrows?

Those doubts were the real purpose of his visit to Keeper’s Dale, after all, and not any concerns about General Dukka’s readiness. For it was all moot, Obould understood. King Bruenor would never come forth from those western doors. As the dwarf had learned in his breakout to the east—and as Obould had learned in trying to flood into Mithral Hall—any such advance would demand too high a cost in blood.

Wulfgar screamed at the top of his lungs, as if his voice alone might somehow, impossibly, halt the thrust of the spear.

A blue-white flash stung the barbarian’s eyes, and for a moment he thought it was the burning pain of the spear entering his belly. But when he came out of his blink, he saw the spear-wielding orc flipping awkwardly in front of him. The creature hit the ground limp, already dead, and by the time Wulfgar turned to face its companion that orc had dropped its sword and grasped and clawed at its chest. Blood poured from a wound, both front and back.

Wulfgar didn’t understand. He jabbed his warhammer at the wounded orc and missed—another streaking arrow, a bolt of lightning, soared past Wulfgar and hit the orc in the shoulder, throwing it to the ground near its fallen comrade. Wulfgar knew that tell-tale missile, and he roared again and turned to face his rescuer.

He was surprised to see Drizzt, not Catti-brie, holding Taulmaril the Heartseeker.

The drow sprinted toward him, his light steps barely ruffling the blanket of deep snow. He started to nock another arrow, but tossed the bow aside instead and drew forth his two scimitars. He tossed a salute at Wulfgar then darted to the side as he neared, turning into a handful of battle-ready orcs.

“Biggrin!” Drizzt shouted as Wulfgar charged in his wake.

“Tempus!” the barbarian responded.

He put Aegis-fang up behind his head, and let it fly from both hands, the warhammer spinning end-over-end for the back of Drizzt’s head.

Drizzt ducked and dropped to his knees at the last moment. The five orcs, following the drow’s movements, had no time to react to the spinning surprise. At the last moment, the orcs threw up their arms defensively and tangled each other in their desperation to get out of the way. Aegis-fang took one squarely, and that flying orc clipped another enough to send both tumbling back.

The remaining three hadn’t even begun to re-orient themselves to their opponents when the fury of Drizzt fell over them. He skidded on his knees as the hammer flew past, but leaped right back up to his feet and charged forward with abandon, his deadly blades crossing before him, going out wide, then coming back in another fast cross on the backhand. He counted on confusion, and confusion he found. The three orcs fell away in moments, slashed and stabbed.

Wulfgar, still chasing, summoned Aegis-fang back to his waiting hands, then veered inside the drow’s turn so that his long legs brought him up beside Drizzt as they approached the encampment’s main area of tents, where many orcs had gathered.

But those orcs would not stand against them, and any indecision the porcine humanoids might have had about running away was snapped away a moment later when a giant panther roared from the side.

Weapons went flying, and orcs went running, scattering to the winter’s winds.

Wulfgar heaved Aegis-fang after the nearest, dropping it dead in its tracks. He put his head down and plowed on even faster—or started to, until Drizzt grabbed him by the arm and tugged him around.

“Let them go,” the drow said. “There are many more about, and we will lose our advantage in the chase.”

Wulfgar skidded to a stop and again called his magical war-hammer back to his grasp. He took a moment to survey the dead, the wounded, and the fleeing orcs then met Drizzt’s gaze and nodded, his bloodlust sated.

And he laughed. He couldn’t help it. It came from somewhere deep inside, a desperate release, a burst of protest against the absurdity of his own actions. It came from those distant memories again, of running free in Icewind Dale. He had caught the “Biggrin” reference so easily, understanding in that single name that Drizzt wanted him to throw the warhammer at the back of the drow’s head.

How was that even possible?

“Wulfgar has a desire to die?” Drizzt asked, and he, too, chuckled.

“I knew you would arrive. It is what you do.”

Kna curled around his arm, rubbing his shoulder, purring and growling as always. Seated at the table in the tent, King Obould seemed not even to notice her, which of course only made her twist, curl, and growl even more intensely.

Across the table, General Dukka and Chieftain Grimsmal understood all too clearly that Kna was their reminder that Obould was above them, in ways they simply could never hope to attain.

“Five blocks free,” General Dukka explained, “block” being the orc military term coined by Obould to indicate a column of one thousand warriors, marching ten abreast and one hundred deep. “Before the turn of Tarsakh.”

“You can march them to the Surbrin, north of Mithral Hall, in five days,” Chieftain Grimsmal remarked. “Four days if you drive them hard.”

“I would drive them through the stones for the glory of King Obould!” Dukka replied.

Obould did not appear impressed.

“There is no need of such haste,” he said at length, after sitting with a contemplative stare that had the other two chewing their lips in anticipation.

“The onset of Tarsakh will likely bring a clear path to the dwarven battlements,” Chieftain Grimsmal dared to reply.

“A place we will not go.”

The blunt response had Grimsmal sliding back in his chair, and brought a stupefied blink from Dukka.

“Perhaps I can free six blocks,” the general said.

“Five or fifty changes nothing,” Obould declared. “The ascent is not our wisest course.”

“You know another route to strike at them?” Dukka asked.

“No,” said Grimsmal, shaking his head as he looked knowingly at Obould. “The whispers are true, then. King Obould’s war is over.”

The chieftain wisely kept his tone flat and non-judgmental, but Dukka’s wide eyes betrayed the general’s shock, albeit briefly.

“We pause to see how many roads are open to us,” Obould explained.

“Roads to victory?” asked General Dukka.

“Victory in ways you cannot yet imagine,” said Obould, and he wagged his large head and showed a confident and toothy grin. For greater effect, he brought one of his huge fists up on the table before him, and clenched it tightly so that the muscles of his bare forearm bulged and twisted to proportions that pointedly reminded the other orcs of the superiority of this creature. Grimsmal was large by orc standards, and a mighty warrior, which was how he had attained the leadership of his warrior tribe, of course. But even he blanched before the spectacle of Obould’s sheer power. Truly it seemed that if the orc king had been holding a block of granite in that hand, he would have easily ground it to dust.

No less overpowering was Obould’s expression of supreme confidence and power, heightened by his disciplined detachment to Kna’s writhing and purring at his side.

Grimsmal and General Dukka left that meeting having no idea what Obould was planning, but having no doubt of Obould’s certainty in that plan. Obould watched them go with a knowing smile that the two would not plot against him. The orc king grabbed Kna and yanked her around before him, deciding that it was time to celebrate.

The body was frozen solid, and Wulfgar and Drizzt could not bend Delly’s arms back down against her. Tenderly, Wulfgar took the blankets from his pack and wrapped them around her, keeping her face exposed to the last, as if he wanted her to see his sincere remorse and sorrow.

“She did not deserve this,” Wulfgar said, standing straight and staring down at the poor woman. He looked at Drizzt, who stood with Guenhwyvar at his side, one hand on the tuft at the back of the panther’s neck. “She had her life in Luskan before I arrived to steal her from it.”

“She chose the road with you.”

“Foolishly,” Wulfgar replied with a self-deprecating laugh and sigh.

Drizzt shrugged as if the point was moot, which of course it was. “Many roads end suddenly, in the wilds and also in the alleyways of Luskan. There is no way of truly knowing where a road will lead until it is walked.”

“Her trust in me was misplaced, I fear.”

“You did not bring her out here to die,” said Drizzt. “Nor did you drive her from the safety of Mithral Hall.”

“I did not hear her calls for help. She told me that she could not suffer the dwarven tunnels, but I would not hear.”

“And her way was clear across the Surbrin, had that been the route she truly wanted. You are no more to blame for this than is Catti-brie, who did not anticipate the reach of that wicked sword.”

The mention of Catti-brie jolted Wulfgar a bit, for he knew that she felt the weight of guilt indeed about Khazid’hea’s apparent role in Delly Curtie’s tragic death.

“Sometimes what is, just is,” said Drizzt. “An accident, a cruel twist of fate, a conjunction of forces that could not have been anticipated.”

Wulfgar nodded, and it seemed as if a great weight had been lifted from his broad shoulders. “She did not deserve this,” he said again.

“Nor did Dagnabbit, nor did Dagna, nor did Tarathiel, and so many others, like those who took Colson across the Surbrin,” said Drizzt. “It is the tragedy of war, the inevitability of armies crashing together, the legacy of orcs and dwarves and elves and humans alike. Many roads end suddenly—it is a reality of which we should all be aware—and Delly could just as easily have fallen to a thief in the dark of Luskan’s night, or have been caught in the middle of a brawl in the Cutlass. We know for certain only one thing, my friend, that we will one day share in Delly’s fate. If we walk our roads solely to avoid such an inevitability, if we step with too much caution and concern…”

“Then we should just as well lie under the snow and let the cold find our bones,” Wulfgar finished. He nodded with every word, assuring Drizzt that he needn’t worry about the weight of harsh reality bending Wulfgar low.

“You will go for Colson?” Drizzt asked.

“How could I not? You speak of our responsibility to ourselves in choosing our roads with courage and acceptance, yet there remains our responsibility to others. Mine is to Colson. It is the pact I willingly accepted when I took her from Meralda of Auckney. Even if I were assured that she was safe with the goodly refugees who crossed the Surbrin, I could not abandon my promise to Colson’s mother, nor to the girl.

“For yourself there is Gauntlgrym?” Wulfgar asked. “Beside Bruenor?”

“That is his expectation, and my duty to him, yes.”

Wulfgar gave a nod and scanned the horizon.

“Perhaps Bruenor is right, and Gauntlgrym will show us an end to this war,” said Drizzt.

“There will be another war close behind,” Wulfgar said with a helpless shrug and chuckle. “It is the way of things.”

“Biggrin,” Drizzt said, drawing a smile from his large friend.

“Indeed,” said Wulfgar. “If we cannot change the way of things, then we are wise to enjoy the journey.”

“You knew that I would duck, yes?”

Wulfgar shrugged. “I figured that if you did not, it was—”

“—the way of things,” Drizzt finished with him.

They shared a laugh and Wulfgar looked down at Delly once more, his face somber. “I will miss her. She was so much more than she appeared. A fine companion and mother. Her road was difficult for all her days, but she oft found within herself a sense of hope and even joy. My life is lessened with her passing. There is a hole within me that will not be easily filled.”

“Which cannot be filled,” Drizzt corrected. “That is the thing of loss. And so you will go on, and you will take solace in your memories of Delly, in the good things you shared. You will see her in Colson, though the girl was not of her womb. You will feel her beside you on occasion, and though the sadness will ever remain, it will settle behind treasured memories.”

Wulfgar bent down and gently slid his arms beneath Delly and lifted her. It didn’t appear as if he was holding a body, for the frozen form did not bend at all. But he hugged her close to his chest and moisture filled his bright blue eyes.

“Do you now hate Obould as much as I do?” Drizzt asked.

Wulfgar didn’t reply, but the answer that came fast into his thoughts surprised him. Obould was just a name to him, not even a symbol on which he could focus his inner turmoil. Somehow he had moved past rage and into acceptance.

It is what it is, he thought, echoing Drizzt’s earlier sentiments, and Obould diminished to become a circumstance, one of many. An orc, a thief, a dragon, a demon, an assassin from Calimport—it did not matter.

“It was good to fight beside you again,” Wulfgar said, and in such a tone as to give Drizzt pause, for the words sounded more like a farewell than anything else.

Drizzt sent Guenhwyvar out to the point, and side-by-side, he and Wulfgar began their trek back to Mithral Hall, with Wulfgar holding Delly close all the way.

CHAPTER 5 TAKING ADVANTAGE

Clan Grimm has turned north,” Toogwik Tuk told his two companions on a clear, calm morning in the middle of Ches, the third month of the year. “King Obould has granted Chieftain Grimsmal a favorable region, a sheltered and wide plateau.”

“To prepare?” asked Ung-thol.

“To build,” Toogwik Tuk corrected. “To raise the banner of Clan Grimm beside the flag of Many-Arrows above their new village.”

“Village?” Dnark asked, spitting the word with surprise.

“King Obould will claim that this is a needed pause to strengthen the lines of supply,” Toogwik Tuk said.

“A reasonable claim,” said Dnark.

“But one we know is only half true,” Toogwik Tuk said.

“What of General Dukka?” asked an obviously agitated Ung-thol. “Has he secured Keeper’s Dale?”

“Yes,” the other shaman answered.

“And so he marches to the Surbrin?”

“No,” said Toogwik Tuk. “General Dukka and his thousands have not moved, though there are rumors that he will assemble several blocks…eventually.”

Dnark and Ung-thol exchanged concerned glances.

“King Obould would not allow that collection of warriors to filter back to their tribes,” Dnark said. “He would not dare.”

“But will he send them around to strike at the dwarves at the Surbrin?” asked Ung-thol. “The dwarf battlements grow higher with each passing day.”

“We expected Obould would not proceed,” Toogwik Tuk reminded. “Is that not why we coaxed Grguch to the surface?”

Looking at his co-conspirators, Toogwik Tuk recognized that typical doubt right before the moment of truth. The three had long shared their concerns that Obould was veering from the path of conquest, and that was something they, as followers of Gruumsh One-eye, could not suffer. Their shared expectations, however, were that the war was not quite over, and that Obould would strike hard one more time at least, to gain a more advantageous position before his halt.

Leaving the dwarves open to the Surbrin had seemed a more distinct possibility over the past few months, and particularly the past few tendays. The weather was soon to turn, and the appropriate forces were not being moved into a strike position.

Still, in the face of it, the other two couldn’t help but be surprised—and concerned, as the weight of their conspiracy settled more heavily on their shoulders.

“Turn them against the elf raiders in the east,” Toogwik Tuk said suddenly, jolting his two companions, both of whom looked at him curiously, almost plaintively.

“We had hoped to use Grguch to force the charge to the Surbrin,” Toogwik Tuk explained. “But with Obould’s waiting to position the warriors, that is not presently an option. But we must offer Grguch some blood.”

“Or he will take ours,” Ung-thol muttered.

“There have been reports of elf skirmishers along the Surbrin, north of the dwarves,” Dnark said, aiming his comment mostly at Ung-thol.

“Grguch and Clan Karuck will build a reputation that will serve them—and us—well when at last it comes to dealing with King Bruenor’s troublesome beasts,” Toogwik Tuk nudged. “Let us go and bring the Kingdom of Many-Arrows its newest hero.”

Like a leaf fluttering silently on a midnight breeze, the dark elf slipped quietly to the side of the darkened stone and mud structure. The orc guards hadn’t noted his quiet passing, nor was he leaving any obvious tracks on the frozen snow.

No corporeal creature could move more stealthily than a trained drow, and Tos’un Armgo was proficient even by the lofty standards of his race.

He paused at the wall and glanced around at the cluster of structures—the village of Tungrush, he knew through the conversations he had overheard from various “villagers.” He noted the foundation, even a growing base in several places, of a wall that would eventually ring the compound.

Too late, the drow thought with an evil grin.

He inched toward an opening in the house’s back wall, though whether it was an actual window or just a gap that had not yet been properly fitted, he could not tell. Nor did it matter, for the missing stone provided ample egress for the lithe creature. Tos’un slithered in like a snake, walking his hands down the inside of the wall until they braced him against the floor. His roll, like all of his other movements, was executed without a whisper of sound.

The room was nearly pitch black, the meager starlight barely filtering through the many breaks in the stone. A surface dweller would have had little chance of quietly navigating the cluttered place. But to Tos’un, who had lived almost all of his life in the lightless corridors of the Underdark, the place verily glowed with brightness. He stood in the main room, twice the size of the smaller chamber sectioned by an interior wall that extended from the front wall to within three feet of the back. From beyond that partition, he heard snoring.

His two swords, one drow made and the other, the sentient and fabulous Khazid’hea, came out in his hands as he silently approached. At the wall, he peeked in to see a large orc sleeping comfortably, face down on a cot against the house’s outer side wall. In the corner near the front of the house rested a large pile of rags.

He meant to quietly slide his sword into the orc’s lungs, defeating its shout and finishing it quickly and silently. Khazid’hea, though, had other ideas, and as Tos’un neared and readied the strike, the sword overwhelmed him with a sudden and unexpected burst of sheer outrage.

Down came the blade, through the back of the orc’s neck, severing its head and cutting through the wooden frame of the cot with ease, sparking off the floor and drawing a deep line in the hard ground. The cot dropped at the break, clunking down.

Behind Tos’un the rags rose fast, for under them was another orc, a female. Purely on reflex, the drow drove his other arm around, his fine Menzoberranyr sword coming in hard against the female’s neck and pinning her up against the wall. That blade could have easily opened her throat, of course, but as he struck, Tos’un, for some reason that had not consciously registered, turned to the flat edge. He had the orc’s voice choked off, and a line of blood appeared above the blade, but the creature was not finished.

For Khazid’hea would not suffer that inferior sword to score a kill.

Tos’un shushed the orc, who trembled but did not, could not, resist.

Khazid’hea plunged through her chest, right out her back and into, and through, the stones of the house’s front wall.

Surprised by his own movement, Tos’un fast retracted the blade.

The orc stared at him with disbelief. She slipped down to the floor and died with that same expression.

Are you always so hungry? the drow’s thoughts asked the sentient sword.

He sensed that Khazid’hea was laughing in response.

It didn’t matter anyway, of course. It was just an orc, and even if it had been a superior being, Tos’un Armgo never shied from killing. With the witnesses dispatched, the alarms silenced, the drow went back into the main chamber and found the couple’s store of food. He ate and drank, and replenished his pack and his waterskin. He took his time, perfectly at ease, and searched the house for anything that might be of service to him. He even went back into the bedroom, and on a whim, placed the male orc’s severed head between its legs, its face pressed into its arse.

He considered his work with a resigned shrug. Like his food, the lonely drow had to take his amusement where he could find it.

He went out soon after, through the same window that had allowed him access. The night was dark—still the time of the drow. He found the orc guards no more alert than when he had come in, and he thought to kill them for their lack of discipline.

A movement in some distant trees caught his attention, however, and the drow was fast to the shadows. It took him some time to realize…

There were elves about.

Tos’un wasn’t really surprised. Many Moonwood elves had been reconnoitering the various orc settlements and caravan routes. He had been captured by just such a band not so many tendays before, and had thought to join with them after deceiving them into believing that he was not their enemy.

Or was it really a deception? Tos’un hadn’t yet decided. Surely a life among the elves would be better than what he had. He’d thought that then, and thought it again with wretched orc food still heavy in his belly.

But it was not an option, he reminded himself. Drizzt Do’Urden was with the elves, and Drizzt knew that he, Tos’un, had been part and party to King Obould’s advance. Furthermore, Drizzt would take Khazid’hea from him, no doubt, and without the sword, Tos’un would be vulnerable to the spells of priests, detecting any lies he might need to weave.

Tos’un shook the futile debate from his thoughts before Khazid’hea could weigh in, and tried to get a better idea of how many elves might be watching Tungrush. He tried to pick out more movement, but found nothing substantial. The drow was wiser than to take any sense of relief from that, however, for he knew well that the elves could move with stealth akin to his own. They had, after all, surrounded him once without him ever knowing they were near.

He went out carefully, even calling upon his natural drow abilities and summoning a globe of darkness around him at one point, as he broke past the tree line. He continued his scan afterward, and even did a wide circuit of the village.

The perimeter was thick with elves, so Tos’un melted away into the winter night.

Albondiel’s sword cut the air, and cut the throat of the orc. Gasping and clawing, the creature spun and stumbled. An arrow drove into its side, dropping it to the red-stained snow.

Another orc emerged from a house and shouted for the guards.

But the guards were all dead. All of them lay out on the perimeter, riddled with elven arrows. No alarms had sounded. The orcs of the village had not a whisper of warning.

The shouting, frantic orc tried to run, but an arrow drove her to her knees and an elf warrior was fast to her side, his sword silencing her forever.

After the initial assault, no orcs had come out in any semblance of defense. Almost all the remaining orcs were running, nothing more, to the edge of the village and beyond, willy-nilly into the snow. Most soon lay dead well within the village’s perimeter, for the elves were ready, and fast and deadly with their bows.

“Enough,” Albondiel called to his warriors and to the archers who moved to launch a barrage of death on the remaining fleeing orcs. “Let them run. Their terror works in our favor. Let them spread the word of doom, that more will flee beside them.”

“You have little taste for this,” noted another elf, a young warrior standing at Albondiel’s side.

“I shy not at all from killing orcs,” Albondiel answered, turning a stern gaze the upstart’s way. “But this is less battle than slaughter.”

“Because we were cunning in our approach.”

Albondiel smirked and shrugged as if it did not matter. For indeed it did not, the wizened elf understood. The orcs had come, had swept down like a black plague, stomping underfoot all before them. They were to be repelled by any means. It was that simple.

Or was it, the elf wondered as he looked down at his latest kill, an unarmed creature, still gurgling as the last air escaped its lungs. It wore only its nightclothes.

Defenseless and dead.

Albondiel had spoken the truth in his response. He did not shy from battle, and had killed dozens of orcs in combat. Raiding villages, however, left a sour taste in his mouth.

A series of cries from across the way told him that some of the orcs had not fled or come out from their homes. He watched as one emerged from an open door, staggering, bleeding. It fell down dead.

A small one, a child.

With brutal efficiency, the elf raiding party collected the bodies in a large pile. Then they began emptying the houses of anything that would burn, tossing furniture, bedding, blankets, clothes, and all the rest on that same pile.

“Lord Albondiel,” one called to him, motioning him to a small house on the village’s northern perimeter.

As he approached the caller, Albondiel noted a stain of blood running down the stones at the front of the house, to the left side of the door. Following his summoner’s movements, Albondiel saw the hole, a clean gash, through the stones—all the way through to the interior.

“Two were in there, dead before we arrived,” the elf explained. “One was beheaded, and the other stabbed against this wall.”

“Inside the wall,” Albondiel remarked.

“Yes, and by a blade that came right through.”

“Tos’un,” Albondiel whispered, for he had been in Sinnafain’s hunting party when she had captured the drow. The drow who carried Khazid’hea, the sword of Catti-brie. A sword that could cut through solid stone.

“When were they killed?” Albondiel asked.

“Before the dawn. No longer.”

Albondiel shifted his gaze outward, beyond the limits of the village. “So he is still out there. Perhaps even watching us now.”

“I can send scouts…”

“No,” Albondiel answered. “There is no need, and I would have none of our people confront the rogue. Be on with our business here, and let us be gone.”

Soon after, the pile of rags, wood, and bodies was set ablaze, and from that fire, the elves gathered brands with which to light the thatched roofs. Using fallen trees from the nearby woods, the elves battered down the sides of the burning structures, and any stones that could be pried from the smoking piles were quickly carried to the western side of the village, which was bordered by a long, steep slope, and were thrown down.

What the orcs had created on that windswept hilltop, the elves fast destroyed. To the ground. As if the ugly creatures had never been there.

When they left later that same morning, dark smoke still lifting into the air behind them, Albondiel swept his gaze long and wide across the rugged landscape, wondering if Tos’un might be looking back at him.

He was.

Tos’un Armgo let his gaze linger on the thickest line of black smoke drifting skyward and dissipating into the smothering gray of the continuing overcast. Though he didn’t know the specific players in that scene—whether or not Albondiel or Sinnafain, or any of the others he had met, even traveled with, might be up there—they were Moonwood elves. Of that he had no doubt.

They were growing bolder, and more aggressive, and Tos’un knew why. The clouds would soon break, and the wind would shift southward, ferrying the milder breezes of spring. The elves sought to create chaos among the orc ranks. They wanted to inspire terror, confusion, and cowardice, to erode King Obould’s foundations before the turn of the season allowed for the orc army to march against the dwarves in the south.

Or even across the river to the east, to the Moonwood, their precious home.

A pang of loneliness stabbed at Tos’un’s thoughts and heart as he looked back at the burned village. He would have liked to join in that battle. More than that, the drow admitted, he would have liked departing with the victorious elves.

CHAPTER 6 FAREWELL

A thousand candles flickered on the northern side of the twenty-five foot square chamber, set in rows on a series of steps carved into the wall for just that purpose. A slab of gray stone leaned against the eastern wall, beside the closed wooden door. It had been expertly cut from the center of the floor, and on it, engraved in the Dethek runes of the dwarves:

DELENIA CURTIE OF LUSKAN AND MITHRAL HALL

WIFE OF WULFGAR, SON OF KING BRUENOR

MOTHER OF COLSON

WHO FELL TO THE DARKNESS OF OBOULD

IN THE YEAR OF THE UNSTRUNG HARP

1371 DALERECKONING

TO THIS HUMAN

MORADIN OFFERS HIS CUP

AND DUMATHOIN WHISPERS HIS SECRETS

BLESSED IS SHE

Over the hole that had been made when the slab was removed, a stone sarcophagus rested on two heavy wooden beams. A pair of ropes ran out to either side from under it. The box was closed and sealed after Wulfgar paid his final respects.

Wulfgar, Bruenor, Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Regis stood solemnly in a line before the sarcophagus and opposite the candles, while the other guests attending the small ceremony fanned out in a semi-circle behind them. Across from them, the cleric Cordio Muffinhead read prayers to the dead. Wulfgar paid no heed to those words, but used the rhythms of Cordio’s resonant voice to find a state of deep contemplation. He recalled the long and arduous road that had brought him there, from his fall in the grasp of the yochlol in the battle for Mithral Hall, to his years of torment at the hands of Errtu. He looked at Catti-brie only once, and regretted what might have been.

What might have been but could not be reclaimed, he knew. There was an old Dwarvish saying: k’niko burger braz-pex strame—“too much rubble over the vein”—to describe the point at which a mine simply wasn’t worth the effort anymore. So it was with him and Catti-brie. Neither of them could go back. Wulfgar had known that when he had taken Delly as his wife, and he had been sincere in their relationship. That gave him comfort, but it only somewhat mitigated the pain and guilt. For though he had been sincere with Delly, he had not been much of a husband, had not heard her quiet pleas, had not placed her above all else.

Or could he even do that? Were his loyalties to Delly or to Mithral Hall?

He shook his head and pushed that justification away before it could find root. His responsibility was to bring both of those responsibilities to a place of agreement. Whatever his duties to Bruenor and Mithral Hall, he had failed Delly. To hide from that would be a lie, and a lie to himself would destroy him.

Cordio’s chanting anesthetized him. He looked at the casket, and he remembered Delly Curtie, the good woman who had been his wife, and who had done so well by Colson. He accepted his own failure and he moved past it. To honor Delly would be to serve Colson, and to make of himself a better man.

Delly forgave him, he knew in his heart, as he would forgive her if the situation had been reversed. That was all they could do in the end, really. Do their best, accept their mistakes, and go on to a better way.

He felt her spirit all around him, and in him. His mind scrolled through images of the woman, flashes of Delly’s smile, the tenderness on her face when they finished making love—a look, he knew without asking, that was reserved for him alone.

He recalled a moment when he had observed Delly dancing with Colson, unaware of his presence. In all the time he had known her, never had Wulfgar seen her so animated, so free, so full of life. It was as if, through Colson, and for just that moment, she had found a bit of her own childhood—or the childhood that harsh circumstances had never allowed her to truly experience. That had been Wulfgar’s rawest glance into the soul of Delly Curtie, more so even than in their lovemaking.

That was the image that lingered, the image he burned into his consciousness. Forever after, he decided, when he thought of Delly Curtie, he would first envision her dancing with Colson.

A wistful smile creased his face by the time Cordio stopped his chanting. It took Wulfgar a few moments to realize that everyone was looking at him.

“He asked if you wished to say a few words,” Drizzt quietly explained to Wulfgar.

Wulfgar nodded and looked around at the dwarves, and at Regis and Catti-brie.

“This is not where Delly Curtie would have chosen to be buried,” he said bluntly. “For all of her love for Clan Battlehammer, she was not fond of the tunnels. But she would be…she is honored that so fine a folk have done this for her.”

He looked at the casket and smiled again. “You deserved so much more than life ever offered to you. I am a better man for having known you, and I will carry you with me forever. Farewell, my wife and my love.”

He felt a hand clasp his own, and turned to see Catti-brie beside him. Drizzt put his hand over both of theirs, and Regis and Bruenor moved to join in.

Delly deserved better, Wulfgar thought, and I am not deserving of such friends as these.

The sun climbed into the bright blue sky across the Surbrin before them. To the north along the battlements, the hammers rang out, along with a chorus of dwarf voices, singing and whistling as they went about their important work. Across the Surbrin, too, many dwarves and humans were hard at work, strengthening the bridge abutments and pillars and bringing up many of the materials they’d need to properly construct the bridge that summer. For a strong hint of spring was surely in the air that fifth day of Ches, and behind the five friends, rivulets of water danced down the stony mountainside.

“It will be a short window, I am told,” Drizzt said to the others. “The river is not yet swollen with the spring melt, and so the ferry can cross. But once the melt is on in full, the pilots do not expect to execute many crossings. If you cross, you may not be able to get back until after the onset of Tarsakh, at least.”

“There is no choice in the matter,” said Wulfgar.

“It will take you tendays to get to Silverymoon and Sundabar and back anyway,” said Regis.

“Especially since my legs aren’t ready for running,” said Catti-brie. She smiled as she spoke to let the others know that there was no regret or bitterness in her off-handed comment.

“Well, we ain’t waitin’ for Ches to become an old man,” Bruenor grumbled. “If the weather’s holding, then we’re out for Gauntlgrym in days. I’m not for knowin’ how long that’s to take, but it’ll be tendays, I’m guessing. Might be the whole durned summer.”

Drizzt watched Wulfgar in particular, and noted the distance in the man’s blue eyes. Bruenor might as well have been talking about Menzoberranzan or Calimport for all Wulfgar seemed to note or to care. He looked outward—to Colson.

And farther, Drizzt knew. It didn’t matter to Wulfgar whether or not the Surbrin could be crossed again.

A few moments of silence slipped past, the five friends standing there in the morning sun. Drizzt knew that he should savor that moment, should burn it into his memory. Across from Bruenor, Regis shifted uneasily, and when Drizzt looked that way, he saw the halfling looking back at him, as if at a loss. Drizzt nodded at him and offered an accepting smile.

“The ferry docks,” said Catti-brie, turning their attention to the river, where the boat was being quickly off-loaded. “Our road awaits.”

Wulfgar nodded for her to lead on and make the arrangements, and with a curious glance at him, she did so, limping slightly and using Taulmaril as a crutch. As she went, Catti-brie kept glancing back, trying to decipher the curious scene. Wulfgar wore a serious expression as he spoke to the three, then he hugged each of them in turn. He ended with his hand firmly grasping Drizzt’s wrist, the drow similarly holding him, and the two staring long at each other, with respect and what seemed to Catti-brie to be solemn agreement.

She suspected what that might foretell, but she turned her attention back to the river and the ferry, and cast those suspicions aside.

“Come on, elf,” Bruenor said before Wulfgar had even caught up to Catti-brie at the ferry. “I’m wanting to get our maps in order for the trip. No time for wasting!”

Muttering to himself and rubbing his hands together, the dwarf moved back into the complex. Regis and Drizzt waited just a bit longer then turned and followed. They slowed in unison as they neared the open doors and the darkness of the corridor, and turned to look back to the river, and to the sun climbing into the sky beyond.

“Summer cannot come quickly enough for me,” said Regis.

Drizzt didn’t answer, but his expression wasn’t one of disagreement.

“Though I almost fear it,” Regis added, more quietly.

“Because the orcs will come?” asked Drizzt.

“Because others may not,” said Regis, and he tossed a glance at the departing duo, who had boarded the ferry and were looking to the east, and not back.

Again, Drizzt didn’t disagree. Bruenor was too preoccupied to see it, perhaps, but Regis’s fears had confirmed Drizzt’s suspicions about Wulfgar.

“Pwent’s going with us,” Bruenor announced to Drizzt and Regis when they caught up to him in his audience chamber later that day. As he spoke, he reached down to the side of his stone throne, lifted a pack, and tossed it to Drizzt.

“Just you three?” Regis asked, but he bit off the question as Bruenor reached down again and brought up a second pack, and tossed it the halfling’s way.

Regis gave a little squeak and managed to get out of the way. The pack didn’t hit the floor, though, for Drizzt snapped out his hand and plucked it from the air. The drow kept his arm extended, holding the pack out to the startled halfling.

“I’m needin’ a sneak. Yerself’s a sneak,” Bruenor explained. “Besides, ye’re the only one who’s been into the place.”

“Into the place?”

“Ye fell in the hole.”

“I was only in there for a few moments!” Regis protested. “I didn’t see anything other than the wag—”

“That makes yerself the expert,” stated Bruenor.

Regis looked to Drizzt for help, but the drow just stood there holding out the satchel. With a look back to Bruenor and his unrelenting grin, the halfling gave a resigned sigh and took the pack.

“Torgar’s coming, too,” said Bruenor. “I’m wantin’ them Mirabar boys in this from the beginning. Gauntlgrym’s a Delzoun place, and Delzoun’s including Torgar and his boys.”

“Five, then?” asked Drizzt.

“And Cordio’s making it six,” Bruenor replied.

“In the morning?” asked Drizzt.

“The spring, the first of Tarsakh,” Regis argued—rather helplessly, since he was holding a full pack, and since, as he spoke, he noted that Pwent, Torgar, and Cordio all entered the room from a side door, all with heavy packs slung over their shoulders, and Pwent in his full suit of ridged and spiked armor.

“No time better’n this time,” said Bruenor. He stood up and gave a whistle, and a door opposite from the one the three dwarves had just used pushed open and Banak Brawnanvil rolled himself out. Behind him came a pair of younger dwarves, carrying Bruenor’s mithral armor, his one-horned helmet, and his old and battle-worn axe.

“Seems our friend has been plotting without us,” Drizzt remarked to Regis, who didn’t seem amused.

“Yerself’s got the throne and the hall,” Bruenor said to Banak, and he moved down from the dais and tightly clasped his old friend’s offered hand. “Ye don’t be too good a steward, so that me folk won’t want me back.”

“Not possible, me king,” said Banak. “I’d make ’em take ye back, even if it’s just to guard me throne.”

Bruenor answered that with a wide, toothy smile, his white teeth shining through his bushy orange-red beard. Few dwarves of Clan Battlehammer, or elsewhere for that matter, would speak to him with such irreverence, but Banak had more than earned the right.

“I’m goin’ in peace because I’m knowing that I’m leaving yerself in charge behind me,” Bruenor said in all seriousness.

Banak’s smile disappeared and he gave his king a grateful nod.

“Come on, then, elf, and yerself, Rumblebelly,” Bruenor called, slipping his mithral mail over his head and dropping his battered old one-horned helm on his head. “Me boys’ve dug us a hole out in the west so that we’re not needing to cross all the way back over Garumn’s Gorge, then back around the mountain. No time for wasting!”

“Yeah, but I’m not thinking that stoppin’ to wipe out a fort o’ them orcs is wastin’ time,” Thibble dorf Pwent remarked as he eagerly led the other two across in front of Drizzt and Regis and over to Bruenor. “Might that we’ll find the dog Obould himself and be rid o’ the beast all at once.”

“Simply wonderful,” Regis muttered, taking the pack and slinging it over his shoulder. He gave another sigh, one full of annoyance, when he saw that his small mace was strapped to the flap of the pack. Bruenor had taken care of every little detail, it seemed.

“The road to adventure, my friend,” said Drizzt.

Regis smirked at him, but Drizzt only laughed. How many times had he seen that same look from the halfling over the years? Always the reluctant adventurer. But Drizzt knew, and so did everyone else in the room, that Regis was always there when needed. The sighs were just a game, a ritual that somehow allowed Regis to muster his heart and his resolve.

“I am pleased that we have an expert to lead us down this hole,” Drizzt remarked quietly as they fell into line behind the trio of dwarves.

Regis sighed.

It occurred to Drizzt as they passed the room where Delly had just been interred that some were leaving who wanted to stay, and some were staying who wanted to leave. He thought of Wulfgar and wondered if that pattern would hold.

CHAPTER 7 THAT TINGLING FEELING

It looked like a simple bear den, a small hole covered by a crisscross of broken branches blanketed by snow. Tos’un Armgo knew better, for he had built that facade. The bear den was at the end of a long but shallow tunnel, chosen because it allowed Tos’un to watch a small work detail composed mostly of goblins, constructing a bridge over a trench they apparently hoped would serve as an irrigation canal through the melt.

Northeast of that, sheltered in a ravine, the elves of the Moon-wood plotted. If they decided on an attack, it would come soon, that night or the next day, for it was obvious that they were running short on supplies, and shorter on arrows. Tos’un, following them south to north then northeast, realized that they were heading for their preferred ford across the Surbrin and back to the sheltering boughs of the Moonwood. The drow suspected that they wouldn’t ignore a last chance at a fight.

The sun climbed in the sky behind him, and Tos’un had to squint against the painful glare off the wet snow. He noted movement in the sky to the north, and caught a glimpse of a flying horse before it swerved out of sight behind a rocky mountain jag.

The elves favored midday assaults against the usually nocturnal goblins.

Tos’un didn’t have to go far to find a fine vantage point for the coming festivities. He slipped into a recess between a pair of high stones, settling back just in time to see the first volley of elven arrows lead the way into the goblin camp. The creatures began howling, hooting, and running around.

So predictable, Tos’un’s fingers signaled in the intricate, silent drow code.

Of course, he had seen many goblins in his decades in the Under-dark, in Menzoberranzan, where the ugly things were more numerous among the slaves than any other race—other than the kobolds who lived in the channels along the great chasm known as the Claw rift. Goblins could be molded into fierce fighting groups, but the amount of work that required made it hardly worth the effort. Their natural “fight or flight” balance leaned very heavily in the direction of the latter.

And so it was in the valley below him. Goblins rushed every which way, and on came the skilled and disciplined elf warriors, their fine blades gleaming in the sun. It looked to be a fast and uneventful rout.

But then a yellow banner, shot with red so that it looked like the bloodshot eye of an orc, appeared in the west, moving quickly through a pass between a pair of small, round-topped hills. Tos’un peered hard, and harder still as the standard-bearer and its cohorts came into view. He could almost smell them from his perch. They were orcs, but huge by orc standards, even more broad-shouldered than Obould’s elite guards, some even bigger than Obould himself.

So caught up in the spectacle, Tos’un stood up and leaned forward, out of the shelter of the stones. He looked back to the rout, and saw that there, too, things had changed, for other groups of those hulking orcs had appeared, some coming up from under the snow near the center of the battle.

“A trap for the elves,” the drow whispered in disbelief. A myriad of thoughts flitted through his mind at that realization. Did he want the elves destroyed? Did he care?

He didn’t allow himself time to sort through those emotions, though, for the drow realized that he, too, might get swept up in the tumult—and that was something he most certainly did not want.

He looked back to the approaching banner, then to the fight, then back again, measuring the time. With a quick glance all around to ensure his own safety, he rushed out from his perch and back to the hidden tunnel entrance. When he got there, he saw that the battle had been fully joined, and fully reversed.

The elves, badly outnumbered, were on the run. They didn’t flee like the goblins, though, and kept their defenses in place against incursions from the brutish orcs. They even managed a couple of stop-and-pivot maneuvers that allowed them to send a volley of arrows at the orc mass.

But that dark wall rolled on after them.

The winged horse appeared again, flying low over the battlefield then climbing gradually as it passed over the orcs, who of course threw a few spears in its direction. The rider and pegasus went up even higher as they glided over the elves.

The rider meant to direct the retreat, obviously, and good fortune sent the winged horse in Tos’un’s general direction. As it neared, the drow’s eyes widened, for though looking up at the midday sky surely stung his sensitive eyes, he recognized that elf rider, Sinnafain.

For a moment, the drow held his position just inside the tunnel, not sure whether to retreat through the passage or go back out into Sinnafain’s view.

Hardly aware of his movements, he came out of that hole and waved at Sinnafain, and when she didn’t look his way, he called out to her.

What are you doing? Khazid’hea imparted to him.

The sudden jerk of the reins had the pegasus banking sharply and told Tos’un that Sinnafain had spotted him. He took some comfort in the fact that her next movement was not to draw out her bow.

You would go back to them? Khazid’hea asked and the telepathic communication was edged with no small amount of anger.

Sinnafain brought the winged horse in a slow turn, her eyes locked on the drow the entire time. She was too far away for Tos’un to see her face or fathom what she might be thinking, but still she did not draw her bow. Nor had she signaled to her retreating friends to veer away.

Drizzt will kill you! Khazid’hea warned. When he takes me from you, you will find yourself defenseless against the truth-finding spells of elf clerics!

Tos’un lifted the twig barrier that covered his hole, and began motioning to the entrance.

Sinnafain continued to guide the pegasus in a slow circle. When she at last turned back to her companions, Tos’un sprinted off to the side, disappearing into the shadows of the foothills, much to the relief of his demanding sword.

The drow glanced back only one time, to see the elves filtering into the tunnel. He looked up for the pegasus, but it had flown over the ridge and out of sight at that moment.

But Sinnafain had trusted him.

Unbelievably, Sinnafain had trusted him.

Tos’un wasn’t sure whether he should take pride in that, or whether his respect for the elves had just diminished.

Perhaps a bit of both.

Sinnafain couldn’t track their progress, nor could she join her comrades in the tunnel, obviously, while riding Sunrise. She came back over the high ridge and flew near the entrance of the small cave. She drew out her bow and began peppering the leading edge of the orc advance.

She kept up her barrage even after all the elves had disappeared underground. But the huge orcs carried heavy shields to frustrate such attacks, and Sinnafain could only hope that she had held them back long enough for her friends to escape. She put Sunrise up higher then, and angled back the other way, over the rise once more. She looked for Tos’un as much as for her friends, but there was no sign of the drow.

A long while later, with Sunrise tiring beneath her, the elf was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, as a flash of white from a copse of trees some distance to the east signaled to her that Albondiel and the other elves had gotten through the tunnel.

Sinnafain took a roundabout route to get to them, not wanting to tip off any orc spotters who might watch her descending from on high, and by the time she got down to the ground, much activity was already underway. Deep in the woods, in a small clearing, the wounded had been laid out side by side, with priests tending them. Another group carried heavy logs and stones to seal the tunnel exit, and the rest had taken to the trees on the perimeter of the copse, setting up a defensive line that allowed them many overlapping angles of fire on approaching enemies.

As she walked Sunrise along a path through the trees, Sinnafain heard whispers of King Obould over and over again, many of the elves certain that he had come. She found Albondiel near the wounded, standing off to the side of the field and sorting the extra packs and weapons.

“You saved many,” Albondiel greeted when she approached. “Had you not directed us to that tunnel, more of us would have fallen. Perhaps a complete rout.”

Sinnafain thought to mention that it was not her doing, but that of a certain drow, but she kept the thought to herself. “How many were taken down?”

“Four casualties,” Albondiel said grimly. He nodded toward the small field, where the quartet of wounded lay on blankets on the snow. “Two of them were wounded seriously, perhaps mortally.”

“We…I, should have seen the trap from on high,” Sinnafain said, turning back to the ridge in the east that blocked the view of the battlefield.

“The orc ambush was well set,” Albondiel replied. “Those who prepared this battlefield understood our tactics well. They have studied us and learned to counter our methods. Perhaps it is time for us to head back across the Surbrin.”

“We are low on supplies,” Sinnafain reminded him.

“Perhaps it is time for us to stay across the Surbrin,” Albondiel clarified.

Again, thoughts of a certain dark elf popped into Sinnafain’s mind. Had Tos’un betrayed them? He had fought beside them for a short while, and he knew much of their tactics. Plus, he was a drow, and no race in all the world knew better how to lay an ambush than the treacherous dark elves. Though of course, he had shown the elves the way to escape. With any other race, that alone might serve to dispel Sinnafain’s suspicions. But Sinnafain could not allow herself to forget that Tos’un was a dark elf, and no Drizzt Do’Urden, who had proven himself repeatedly over a matter of years. Perhaps Tos’un was playing the elves and orcs against each other for personal gain, or simply for his own amusement.

“Sinnafain?” Albondiel asked, drawing her from her contemplations. “The Surbrin? The Moonwood?”

“You believe that we are finished here?” Sinnafain asked.

“The weather warms, and the orcs will find it easier to move in the coming days. They will be less isolated from each other and so our work here will become more difficult.”

“And they have taken note of us.”

“It is time to leave,” said Albondiel.

Sinnafain nodded and looked to the east. In the distance, the silvery line of the Surbrin could just be seen, flickering out on the horizon.

“Would that we could collect Tos’un on our way,” said Sinnafain. “I have much to ask that one.”

Albondiel looked at her with surprise for just a few moments then nodded his agreement. Though seemingly out of context, it sounded like a reasonable desire—of course they both knew that they weren’t going to catch a drow in those wilds anytime soon.

I know them, Tos’un assured the doubting Khazid’hea. Dnark is chieftain of an important tribe. I was the one who coaxed him into Obould’s coalition before they ever marched from the Spine of the World.

Much has happened, Khazid’hea reminded him, between Tos’un and Obould. If these three know of your last encounter with the orc king, they will not welcome you.

They were not there, Tos’un assured the sword.

They have not heard of the fall of Kaer’lic Suun Wett? Khazid’hea asked. Can you be certain?

Even if they have, they are well aware of Obould’s temper, Tos’un imparted. They will accept that he was outraged at Kaer’lic, and so he killed her. Do you believe that any of these orcs have not lost friends to the temper of Obould? And yet they remain loyal to him.

You risk much.

I risk nothing, Tos’un argued. If Dnark and his friends know that Obould hunts for me, or if they have concluded that I am in league with the elves, then I…then we, will have to kill them. I did not expect that such a result would displease Khazid’hea.

There, he had communicated the magic words, he knew, for the sword fell silent in his thoughts, and he even sensed eagerness coming from it. He considered the exchange as he made his way down toward the trio of orcs, who had drifted off to the side of the construction area where the unusually large orcs had gathered. He came to the conclusion that he had been paid a compliment, that Khazid’hea did not want to be pried from his grasp.

He chose his path to the three orcs carefully, allowing himself a fast route of escape should the need arise—and he feared it would. Several times he paused to search the surrounding area for any guards he might have missed.

Still some distance from the three, he called out the expected, respectful refrain to the chieftain. “Hail Dnark, may the Wolf Jaw bite strong,” he said in his best Orcish, but with no attempt to hide his Underdark drow accent. He watched carefully then to gauge their initial reaction, knowing that to be the bare truth.

All three turned his way, their expressions showing surprise, even shock. Tellingly, however, not one flinched toward a weapon.

“To the throat of your enemy,” Tos’un finished the Wolf Jaw tribe’s salute. He continued his approach, noting that Ung-thol, the older shaman, visibly relaxed, but that the younger Toogwik Tuk remained very much on edge.

“Well met, again,” Tos’un offered, and he climbed the last small rise to gain the sheltered flat ground the trio had staked out. “We have come far from the holes in the Spine of the World, as I predicted to you those months ago.”

“Greetings, Tos’un of Menzoberranzan,” said Dnark.

The drow measured the chieftain’s voice as cautious, and neither warm or cold.

“I am surprised to see you,” Dnark finished.

“We have learned the fate of your companions,” Ung-thol added.

Tos’un stiffened, and had to consciously remind himself not to grasp his sword hilts. “Yes, Donnia Soldou and Ad’non Kareese,” he said. “I have heard their sad fate, and a curse upon the murderous Drizzt Do’Urden.”

The three orcs exchanged smug grins. They knew of the murdered priestess, Tos’un realized.

“And pity to Kaer’lic,” he said lightly, as if it didn’t really matter. “Foolish was she who angered mighty Obould.” He found a surprising response to that from Toogwik Tuk, for the young orc’s smile disappeared, and his lips grew tight.

“She and you, so it is said,” Ung-thol replied.

“I will prove my value again.”

“To Obould?” asked Dnark.

The question caught the drow off-balance, for he had no idea of where the chieftain might be going with it.

“Is there another who would seek that value?” he asked, keeping enough sarcasm out of his tone so that Dnark might seize it as an honest question if he so chose.

“There are many above ground now, and scattered throughout the Kingdom of Many-Arrows,” said Dnark. He glanced back at the hulking orcs milling around the construction area. “Grguch of Clan Karuck has come.”

“I just witnessed his ferocity in routing the cursed surface elves.”

“Strong allies,” said Dnark.

“To Obould?” Tos’un asked without hesitation, turning the question back in similar measure.

“To Gruumsh,” said Dnark with a toothy grin. “To the destruction of Clan Battlehammer and all the wretched dwarves and all the ugly elves.”

“Strong allies,” said Tos’un.

They are not pleased with King Obould, Khazid’hea said in the drow’s mind. Tos’un didn’t respond, other than to not disagree. An interesting turn.

Again the drow didn’t disagree. A tingling feeling came over him, that exciting sensation that befell many of Lady Lolth’s followers when they first discovered that an opportunity for mischief might soon present itself.

He thought of Sinnafain and her kin, but didn’t dwell on them. The joy of chaos came precisely from the reality that it was often so very easy, and not requiring too much deep contemplation. Perhaps the coming mayhem would benefit the elves, perhaps the orcs, Dnark or Obould, one or both. That was not for Tos’un to determine. His duty was to ensure that no matter which way the tumult broke, he would be in the best position to survive and to profit.

For all of his time with the elves of late, for all of his fantasies of living among the surface folk, Tos’un Armgo remained, first and foremost, drow.

He sensed clearly that Khazid’hea very much approved.

Grguch was not pleased. He stomped across the hillside before the tunnel entrance and all of Clan Karuck fled before him. All except for Hakuun, of course. Hakuun could not flee before Grguch. It was not permitted. If Grguch decided that he wanted to kill Hakuun then Hakuun had to accept that as his fate. Being the shaman of Clan Karuck carried such a responsibility, and it was one that Hakuun’s family had accepted throughout the generations—and was one that had cost more than a few of his family their lives.

He knew that Grguch would not cleave him in half, though. The chieftain was angry that the elves had escaped, but the battle could not be called anything but a victory for Clan Karuck. Not only had they stung a few of the elves, but they had sent them running, and had it not been for that troublesome tunnel, the raiding elf band never would have escaped complete and utter ruin.

The hulking brutes of Clan Karuck could not follow them through that tunnel, however, to Grguch’s ultimate frustration.

“This will not end here,” he said in Hakuun’s face.

“Of course not.”

“I desired a greater statement to be made in our first meeting with these ugly faerie folk.”

“The fleeing elves wore expressions of terror,” Hakuun replied. “That will spread back to their people.”

“Right before we fall upon them more decisively.”

Hakuun paused, expecting the order.

“Plan it,” said Grguch. “To their very home.”

Hakuun nodded, and Grguch seemed satisfied with that and turned away, barking orders at the others. Elves were just the sort of cowardly creatures to run away and sneak back for quiet murder, of course, and so the chieftain began setting his defenses and his scouts, leaving Hakuun alone with his thoughts.

Or so Hakuun believed.

He flinched then froze when the foot-long serpent landed on his shoulder, and he held his breath, as he always did on those thankfully rare occasions when he found himself in the company of Jaculi—for that was the name that Jack had given him, the name of the winged serpent that Jack wore as a disguise when venturing out of his private workshops.

“I wish that you had informed me of your departure,” Jack said in Hakuun’s ear.

“I did not want to disturb you,” Hakuun meekly replied, for it was hard for him to hold his steadiness with Jack’s tongue flicking in his ear, close enough to send one of his forked lightning bolts right through the other side of poor Hakuun’s head.

“Clan Karuck disturbs me often,” Jack reminded him. “Sometimes I believe that you have told the others of me.”

“Never that, O Awful One!”

Jack’s laughter came out as a hiss. When he had first begun his domination and deception of the orcs those decades before, pragmatism alone had ruled his actions. But through the years he had come to accept the truth of it: he liked scaring the wits out of those ugly creatures! Truly, that was one of the few pleasures remaining for Jack the Gnome, who lived a life of simplicity and…And what? Boredom, he knew, and it stung him to admit it to himself. In the secret corners of his heart, Jack understood precisely why he had followed Karuck out of the caves: because his fear of danger, even of death, could not surmount his fear of letting everything stay the same.

“Why have you ventured out of the Underdark?” he demanded.

Hakuun shook his head. “If the tidings are true then there is much to be gained here.”

“For Clan Karuck?”

“Yes.”

“For Jaculi?”

Hakuun gulped and swallowed hard, and Jack hiss-laughed again into his ear.

“For Gruumsh,” Hakuun dared whisper.

As weakly as it was said, that still gave Jack pause. For all of his domination of Hakuun’s family, their fanatical service to Gruumsh had never been in question. It had once taken Jack an afternoon of torture to make one of Hakuun’s ancestors—his grandfather, Jack believed, though he couldn’t really remember—utter a single word against Gruumsh, and even then, the priest had soon after passed his duties down to his chosen son and killed himself in Gruumsh’s name.

As he had in the cave, the gnome wizard sighed. With Gruumsh invoked, he wasn’t about to turn Clan Karuck around.

“We shall see,” he whispered into Hakuun’s ear, and said to himself as well, a resigned acceptance that sometimes the stubborn orcs had their own agenda.

Perhaps he could find some amusement and profit out of it, and really, what did he have to lose? He sniffed the air again, and again sensed that something was different.

“There are many orcs about,” he said.

“Tens of thousands,” Hakuun confirmed. “Come to the call of King Obould Many-Arrows.”

Many-Arrows, Jack thought, a name that registered deep in his memories of long ago. He thought of Citadel Fel…Citadel Felb…Fel-something-or-other, a place of dwarves. Jack didn’t much like dwarves. They annoyed him at least as much as did the orcs, with their hammering and stupid chanting that they somehow, beyond all reason, considered song.

“We shall see,” he said again to Hakuun, and noting that the ugly Grguch was fast approaching, Jack slithered down under Hakuun’s collar to nestle in the small of his back. Every now and then, he flicked his forked tongue against Hakuun’s bare flesh just for the fun of hearing the shaman stutter in his discussion with the beastly Grguch.