The Orc King

The questions continue to haunt me. Are we watching the birth of a civilization? Are the orcs, instead of wanting us dead, wishing to become more like us, with our ways, our hopes, our aspirations? Or was that wish always present in the hearts of the primitive and fierce race, only they saw not how to get to it? And if this is the case, if the orcs are redeemable, tamable, how then are we best to facilitate the rise of their more civilized culture? For that would be an act of great self-defense for Mithral Hall and all of the Silver Marches.

Accepting the premise of a universal desire among rational beings, a commonality of wishes, I wonder, then, what might occur should one kingdom stand paramount, should one city-state somehow attain unquestioned superiority over all the rest. What responsibilities might such predominance entail? If Bruenor has his way, and the Silver Marches rise up and drive Obould’s orcs from the land and back to their individual tribes, what will be our role, then, in our resulting, unquestioned dominance?

Would the moral road be the extermination of the orcs, one tribe at a time? If my suspicions regarding Obould are correct, then that I cannot reconcile. Are the dwarves to become neighbors or oppressors?

It is all premised on a caveat, of course, on a hunch—or is it a deep-rooted prayer in the renegade soul of Drizzt Do’Urden? I desperately want to be right about Obould—as much as my personal desires might urge me to kill him! — because if I am, if there is in him a glint of rational and acceptable aspirations, then surely the world will benefit.

These are the questions for kings and queens, the principal building blocks of the guiding philosophies for those who gain power over others. In the best of these kingdoms—and I name Bruenor’s among that lot—the community moves constantly to better itself, the parts of the whole turn in harmony to the betterment of the whole. Freedom and community live side-by-side, a tandem of the self and the bigger tapestry. As those communities evolve and ally with other like-minded kingdoms, as roads and trade routes are secured and cultures exchanged, what of the diminishing few left behind? It is incumbent, I believe, for the powerful to bend and grasp the hand of the weak, to pull them up, to share in the prosperity, to contribute to the whole. For that is the essence of community. It is to be based on hope and inspiration and not on fear and oppression.

But there remains the truth that if you help an orc to stand, he will likely stab your heart on the way to his feet.

Ah, but it is too much, for in my heart I see the fall of Tarathiel and want to cut the vicious orc king apart! It is too much because I know of Innovindil’s fall! Oh, Innovindil, I pray you do not think less of me for my musing!

I feel the sting of paradox, the pain of the irresolvable, the stark and painful imperfections of a world of which I secretly demand perfection. Yet for all the blemishes, I remain an optimist, that in the end the ideal will prevail. And this too I also know, and it is why my weapons sit comfortably in my hands. Only from a position of unquestioned strength can true change be facilitated. For it is not in the hands of a rival to affect change. It is not in the hands of the weaker to grant peace and hope to the stronger.

I hold faith in the kingdom of common voices that Bruenor has created, that Alustriel has similarly created in Silverymoon. I believe that this is the proper order of things—though perhaps with some refining yet to be found—for theirs are kingdoms of freedom and hope, where individual aspirations are encouraged and the common good is shared by all, in both benefit and responsibility. How different are these two places from the darkness of Menzoberranzan, where the power of House presided over the common good of the community, and the aspirations of the individual overwhelmed the liberty, even the life, of others.

My belief in Mithral Hall as nearer the ideal brings with it a sense of Mithral Hall’s responsibilities, however. It is not enough to field armies to thwart foes, to crush our enemies under the stamp of well-traveled dwarven boots. It is not enough to bring riches to Mithral Hall, to expand power and influence, if said power and influence is to the benefit only of the powerful and influential.

To truly fulfill the responsibilities of predominance, Mithral Hall must not only shine brightly for Clan Battlehammer, but must serve as a beacon of hope for all of those who glimpse upon it. If we truly believe our way to be the best way, then we must hold faith that all others—perhaps even the orcs! — will gravitate toward our perspectives and practices, that we will serve as the shining city on the hill, that we will influence and pacify through generosity and example instead of through the power of armies.

For if it is the latter, if dominance is attained and then maintained through strength of arm alone, then it is no victory, and it cannot be a permanent ordering. Empires cannot survive, for they lack the humility and generosity necessary to facilitate true loyalty. The wont of the slave is to throw off his shackles. The greatest aspiration of the conquered is to beat back their oppressors. There are no exceptions to this. To the victors I warn without doubt that those you conquer will never accept your dominion. All desire to emulate your better way, even if the conquered agree with the premise, will be overwhelmed by grudge and humiliation and a sense of their own community. It is a universal truth, rooted in tribalism, perhaps, and in pride and the comfort of tradition and the sameness of one’s peers.

And in a perfect world, no society would aspire to dominance unless it was a dominance of ideals. We believe our way is the right way, and thus we must hold faith that others will gravitate similarly, that our way will become their way and that assimilation will sheathe the swords of sorrow. It is not a short process, and it is one that will be played out in starts and stops, with treaties forged and treaties shattered by the ring of steel on steel.

Deep inside, it is my hope that I will find the chance to slay King Obould Many-Arrows.

Deeper inside, it is my prayer that King Obould Many-Arrows sees the dwarves standing higher on the ladder in pursuit of true civilization, that he sees Mithral Hall as a shining city on the hill, and that he will have the strength to tame the orcs long enough for them to scale the rungs of that same ladder.

— Drizzt Do’Urden

CHAPTER 21 PUTTING HIS WORLD TOGETHER

The wagon rocked, sometimes soothing, sometimes jarring, as it rolled along the rocky path, heading north. Sitting on the open bed and looking back the way they had come, Wulfgar watched the skyline of Luskan recede. The many points of the wizard’s tower seemed like a single blur, and the gates were too far for him to make out the guards pacing the city wall.

Wulfgar smiled as he considered those guards. He and his accomplice Morik had been thrown out of Luskan with orders never to return, on pain of death, yet he had walked right into the city, and at least one of the guards had surely recognized him, even tossing him a knowing wink. No doubt Morik was in there, too.

Justice in Luskan was a sham, a scripted play for the people to make them feel secure and feel afraid and feel empowered over the specter of death itself, however the authorities decided was timely.

Wulfgar had debated whether or not to return to Luskan. He wanted to join in with a caravan heading north, for that would serve as his cover, but he feared exposing Colson to the potential dangers of entering the forbidden place. In the end, though, he found that he had no real choice. Arumn Gardpeck and Josi Puddles deserved to learn of Delly Curtie’s sad end. They had been friends of the woman’s for years, and far be it from Wulfgar to deny them the information.

The tears shed by all three—Arumn, Josi, and Wulfgar—had felt right to the barbarian. There was so much more to Delly Curtie than the easy, clichéd idea that many in Luskan had of her, and that Wulfgar had initially bought into himself. There was an honesty and an honor beneath the crust that circumstance had caked over Delly. She’d been a good friend to all three, a good wife to Wulfgar, and a great mother to Colson.

Wulfgar tossed off a chuckle as he considered Josi’s initial reaction to the news, the small man practically launching himself at Wulfgar in a rage, blaming the barbarian for the loss of Delly. With little effort, Wulfgar had put him back in his seat, where he had melted into his folded arms, his shoulders bobbing with sobs—perhaps enhanced by too many drinks, but likely sincere, for Wulfgar had never doubted that Josi had secretly loved Delly.

The world rolled along, stamping its events into the books of history. What was, was, Wulfgar understood, and regrets were not to be long held—no longer than the lessons they imparted regarding future circumstance. He was not innocent of Josi’s accusations, though not to the extent the distraught man had taken them, surely.

But what was, was.

After one particularly sharp bounce of the wagon, Wulfgar draped his arm over Colson’s shoulder and glanced down at the girl, who was busying herself with some sticks Wulfgar had tied together to approximate a doll. She seemed content, or at least unbothered, which was the norm for her. Quiet and unassuming, asking for little and accepting less, Colson just seemed to go along with whatever came her way.

That road had not been fair so far in her young life, Wulfgar knew. She had lost Delly, by all measures her mother, and nearly as bad, Wulfgar realized, she had suffered the great misfortune of being saddled with him as her surrogate father. He stroked her soft, wheat-colored hair.

“Doll, Da,” she said, using her moniker for Wulfgar, one that he had heard only a couple of times over the last tendays.

“Doll, yes,” he said back to her, and tousled her hair.

She giggled, and if ever a sound could lift Wulfgar’s heart….

And he was going to leave her. A momentary wave of weakness flushed through him. How could he even think of such a thing?

“You don’t remember your Ma,” he said quietly, not expecting a response as Colson went back to her play. But she looked up at him, beaming a huge smile.

“Dell-y. Ma,” she said.

Wulfgar felt as if her little hand had just flicked against his heart. He realized how poor a father he had been to her. Urgent business filled his every day, it seemed, and Colson was always placed behind the necessities. She had been with him for many months, and yet he hardly knew her. They had traveled hundreds of miles to the east, and then back west, and only on that return trip had he truly spent time with Colson, had he tried to listen to the child, to understand her needs, to hug her.

He gave a helpless and self-deprecating chuckle and patted her head again. She looked up at him with that unending smile, and went immediately back to her doll.

He hadn’t done right by her, Wulfgar knew. As he had failed Delly as a husband, so he had failed Colson as her father. “Guardian” would be a better term to describe his role in the child’s life.

So he was on that road that would pain him greatly, but in the end it would give to Colson all that she deserved and more.

“You are a princess,” he said to her, and she looked up at him again, though she knew not what it meant.

Wulfgar responded with a smile and another pat, and turned his eyes back toward Luskan, wondering if he would ever travel that far south again.

The village of Auckney seemed to have changed not at all in the three years since Wulfgar had last seen it. Most of his last visit, of course, had been spent in the lord’s dungeon, an accommodation he hoped to avoid a second time. It amused him to think of how his time with Morik had so ingratiated him to the towns of that region, where the words “on pain of death” seemed to accompany his every departure.

Unlike those guards in Luskan, though, Wulfgar suspected that Auckney’s crew would follow through with the threat if they figured out who he was. So for the sake of Colson, he took great pains to disguise himself as the trading caravan wound its way along the rocky road in the westernmost reaches of the Spine of the World, toward the Auckney gate. He wore his beard much thicker, but his stature alone distinguished him from the great majority of the populace, being closer to seven feet tall than to six, and with shoulders wide and strong.

He bundled his traveling cloak tight around him and kept the cowl up over his head—not an unusual practice in the early spring in that part of the world, where the cold winds still howled from on high. When he sat, which was most of the time, he kept his legs tucked in tight so as not to emphasize the length of the limbs, and when he walked, he crouched and hunched his shoulders forward, not only disguising his true height somewhat, but also appearing older, and more importantly, less threatening.

Whether through his cleverness, or more likely sheer luck and the fact that he was accompanied by an entire parade of merchants in that first post-winter caravan, Wulfgar managed to get into the town easily enough, and once past the checkpoint, he did his best to blend in with the group at the circled wagons, where kiosks were hastily constructed and goods displayed to the delight of the winter-weary townsfolk.

Lord Feringal Auck, seeming as petulant as ever, visited on the first full day of the caravan faire. Dressed in impractical finery, including puffy pantaloons of purple and white, the foppish man strutted with a perpetual air of contempt turning up his thin, straight nose. He glanced at goods but never seemed interested enough to bother—though his attendants often returned to purchase particular pieces, obviously for the lord.

Steward Temigast and the gnome driver—and fine fighter—Liam Woodgate, stood out among those attendants. Temigast, Wulfgar trusted, but he knew that if Liam spotted him, the game was surely up.

“He casts an impressive shadow, don’t he?” came a sarcastic voice from behind, and Wulfgar turned to see one of the caravan drivers looking past him to the lord and his entourage. “Feringal Auck….” the man added, chuckling.

“I am told that he has a most extraordinary wife,” Wulfgar replied.

“Lady Meralda,” the man answered, rather lewdly. “As pretty as the moon and more dangerous than the night, with hair blacker than the darkest of ’em and eyes so green that ye’re thinking yerself to be in a summer’s meadow whenever she glances yer way. Aye, but every man doing business in Auckney would want to bed that one.”

“Have they children together?”

“A son,” the man answered. “A strong and sturdy lad, and with features favoring his mother and not the lord, thank the gods. Little lord Ferin. All in the town celebrated his first birthday just a month ago, and from what I’m hearing, they’ll be buying extra stores to replenish that which they ate at the feast. Finished off their winter stores, by some accounts, and there’s more truth than lie to those, judging by the coins that’ve been falling all the morning.”

Wulfgar glanced back at Feringal and his entourage as they wound their way along the far side of the merchant caravan.

“And here we feared that the market’d be thinner with the glutton Lady Priscilla gone.”

That perked up Wulfgar’s ears, and he turned fast on the man. “Feringal’s…?”

“Sister,” the man confirmed.

“Died?”

The man snorted and didn’t seem the least bit bothered by that possibility, something that Wulfgar figured anyone who had ever had the misfortune of meeting Priscilla Auck would surely appreciate.

“She’s in Luskan—been there for a year. She went back with this same caravan after our market here last year,” the man explained. “She never much cared for Lady Meralda, for ’twas said she’d had Feringal’s ear until he married that one. I’m not for knowing what happened, but that Priscilla’s time in Castle Auck came to an end soon after the marriage, and when Meralda got fat with Feringal’s heir, she likely knew her influence here would shrink even more. So she went to Luskan, and there she’s living, with enough coin to keep her to the end of her days, may they be mercifully short.”

“Mercifully for all around her, you mean?”

“That’s the way they tell it, aye.”

Wulfgar nodded and smiled, and that genuine grin came from more than the humor at Priscilla’s expense. He looked back at Lord Feringal and narrowed his crystalline blue eyes, thinking that one major obstacle, the disagreeable Lady Priscilla, had just been removed from his path.

“If Priscilla was at Castle Auck, as much as he’d be wanting to leave, Lord Feringal wouldn’t dare be out without his wife at his side. He wouldn’t leave them two together!” the man said.

“I would expect that Lady Meralda would wish to visit the caravan more than would the lord,” Wulfgar remarked.

“Ah, but not until her flowers bloom.”

Wulfgar looked at him curiously.

“She’s put in beds of rare tulips, and they’re soon to bloom, I’m guessing,” the man explained. “’Twas so last year—she didn’t come down to the market until our second tenday, not until the white petals were revealed. Put her in a fine, buying mood, and finer still, for by that time, we knew that Lady Priscilla would be journeying from Auckney with us.”

He began to laugh, but Wulfgar didn’t follow the cue. He stared across the little stone bridge to the small island that housed Castle Auck, trying to remember the layout and where those gardens might be. He took note of a railing built atop the smaller of the castle’s square keeps. Wulfgar glanced back at Feringal, to see the man making his way out of the far end of the market, and with the threat removed, Wulfgar also set out, nodding appreciatively at the merchant, to find a better vantage point for scouting the castle.

Not long after, he had his answer, spotting the form of a woman moving along the flat tower’s roof, behind the railing.

There were no threats to Auckney. The town had known peace for a long time. In that atmosphere, it was no surprise to Wulfgar to learn that the guards were typically less than alert. Even so, the big man had no idea how he might get across that little stone bridge unnoticed, and the waters roiling beneath the structure were simply too cold for him to try to swim—and besides, both the near bank and the island upon which the castle stood had sheer cliffs that rose too steeply from the pounding surf below.

He lingered long by the bridge, seeking the answer to his dilemma, and he finally came to accept that he might have to simply wait for those flowers to bloom, so he could confront Lady Meralda in the market. That thought didn’t sit well with him, for in that setting he would almost surely need to face Lord Feringal and his entourage as well. It would be easier if he could speak with Meralda first, and alone.

He leaned against the wall of a nearby tavern one afternoon, staring out at the bridge and taking note of the guards’ maneuvers. They weren’t very disciplined, but the bridge was so narrow that they didn’t have to be. Wulfgar stood up straight as a coach rambled across the structure, heading out of the castle.

Liam Woodgate wasn’t driving. Steward Temigast was.

Wulfgar stroked his beard and weighed his options, and purely on instinct—for he knew that if he considered his movements, he would lose heart—he gathered up Colson and moved out to the road, to a spot where he could intercept the wagon out of sight of the guards at the bridge, and most of the townsfolk.

“Good trader, do move aside,” Steward Temigast bade him, but in a kindly way. “I’ve some paintings to sell and I wish to see the market before the light wanes. Dark comes early to a man of my age, you know.”

The old man’s smile drifted to nothingness as Wulfgar pulled back the cowl of his cloak, revealing himself.

“Always full of surprises, Wulfgar is,” Temigast said.

“You look well,” Wulfgar offered, and he meant it. Temigast’s white hair had thinned a bit, perhaps, but the last few years had not been rough on the man.

“Is that….?” Temigast asked, nodding to Colson.

“Meralda’s girl.”

“Are you mad?”

Wulfgar merely shrugged and said, “She should be with her mother.”

“That decision was made some three years ago.”

“Necessary at the time,” said Wulfgar.

Temigast sat back on his seat and conceded the point with a nod.

“Lady Priscilla is gone from here, I am told,” said Wulfgar, and Temigast couldn’t help but smile—a reassurance to Wulfgar that his measure of the steward was correct, that the man hated Priscilla.

“To the joy of Auckney,” Temigast admitted. He set the reins on the seat, and with surprising nimbleness climbed down and approached Wulfgar, his hands out for Colson.

The girl shoved her hand in her mouth and whirled away, burying her face in Wulfgar’s shoulder.

“Bashful,” Temigast said. Colson peeked out at him and he smiled all the wider. “And she has her mother’s eyes.”

“She is a wonderful girl, and sure to become a beautiful woman,” said Wulfgar. “But she needs her mother. I cannot keep her with me. I am bound for a land that will not look favorably on a child, any child.”

Temigast stared at him for a long time, obviously unsure of what he should do.

“I share your concern,” Wulfgar said to him. “I never hurt Lady Meralda, and never wish to hurt her.”

“My loyalty is to her husband, as well.”

“And what a fool he would be to refuse this child.”

Temigast paused again. “It is complicated.”

“Because Meralda loved another before him,” said Wulfgar. “And Colson is a reminder of that.”

“Colson,” said Temigast, and the girl peeked out at him and smiled, and the steward’s whole face lit up in response. “A pretty name for a pretty girl.” He grew more serious as he turned back to Wulfgar, though, and asked bluntly, “What would you have me do?”

“Get us to Meralda. Let me show her the beautiful child her daughter has become. She will not part with the girl again.”

“And what of Lord Feringal?”

“Is he worthy of your loyalty and love?”

Temigast paused and considered that. “And what of Wulfgar?”

Wulfgar shrugged as if it did not matter, and indeed, regarding his obligation to Colson, it did not. “If he desires to hang me, he will have to—”

“Not that,” Temigast interrupted, and looked at Colson.

Wulfgar’s shoulders slumped and he heaved a deep sigh. “I know what is right. I know what I must do, though it will surely break my heart. But it will be a temporary wound, I hope, for in the passing months and years, I will rest assured that I did right by Colson, that I gave her the home and the chance she deserved, and that I could not provide.”

Colson looked at Temigast and responded to his every gesture with a delighted smile.

“Are you certain?” the steward asked.

Wulfgar stood very straight.

Temigast glanced back at Castle Auck, at the short keep where Lady Meralda kept her flowers. “I will return this way before nightfall,” he said. “With an empty carriage. I can get you to her, perhaps, but I disavow myself of you from that point forward. My loyalty is not to Wulfgar, not even to Colson.”

“One day it will be,” said Wulfgar. “To Colson, I mean.”

Temigast was too charmed by the girl to disagree.

One hand patted the soft soil at the base of the stem, while the fingers of Meralda’s other hand gently brushed the smooth petals. The tulips would bloom soon, she knew—perhaps even that very evening.

Meralda sang to them softly, an ancient rhyme of sailors and explorers lost in the waves, as her first love had been taken by the sea. She didn’t know all the words, but it hardly mattered, for she hummed to fill in the holes in the verses and it sounded no less beautiful.

A slap on the stone broke her song, though, and the woman stood up suddenly and retreated a fast step when she noted the prongs of a ladder. Then a large hand clamped over the lip of the garden wall, not ten feet from her.

She brushed back her thick black hair, and her eyes widened as the intruder pulled his head up over the wall.

“Who are you?” she demanded, retreating again, and ignoring his shushing plea.

“Guards!” Meralda called, and turned to run as the intruder shifted. But as his other hand came up, she found herself frozen in place, rooted as if she was just another plant in her carefully cultivated garden. In the man’s other hand was a young girl.

“Wulfgar?” Meralda mouthed, but had not the breath to say aloud.

He put the girl down inside, and Colson turned shyly away from Meralda. Wulfgar grabbed the wall with both hands and hauled himself over. The girl went to his leg and wrapped one arm around it, the thumb of her other hand going into her mouth as she continued to shy away.

“Wulfgar?” Meralda asked again.

“Da!” implored Colson, reaching up to Wulfgar with both hands. He scooped her up and set her on his hip, then pulled back his cowl, revealing himself fully.

“Lady Meralda,” he replied.

“You should not be here!” Meralda said, but her eyes betrayed her words, for she stared unblinkingly at the girl, at her child.

Wulfgar shook his head. “Too long have I been away.”

“My husband would not agree.”

“It is not about him, nor about me,” Wulfgar said, his calm and sure tone drawing her gaze back to him. “It is about her, your daughter.”

Meralda swayed, and Wulfgar was certain that a slight breeze would have knocked her right over.

“I have tried to be a good father to her,” Wulfgar explained. “I had even found her a woman to serve as her mother, though she is gone now, taken by foul orcs. But it is all a ruse, I know.”

“I never asked—”

“Your husband’s actions demanded it,” Wulfgar reminded her, and she went silent, her gaze locking once more on the shy child, who had buried her face in her da’s strong shoulder.

“My road is too arduous,” Wulfgar explained. “Too dangerous for the likes of Colson.”

“Colson?” Meralda echoed.

Wulfgar merely shrugged.

“Colson…” the woman said softly, and the girl looked her way only briefly and flashed a sheepish smile.

“She belongs with her mother,” Wulfgar said. “With her real mother.”

“I had thought her father had demanded her to raise as his princess in Icewind Dale,” came a sharp retort from the side, and all three turned to regard the entrance of Lord Feringal. The man twisted his face tightly as he moved near to his wife, all the while staring hatefully at Wulfgar.

Wulfgar looked to Meralda for a clue, but found nothing on her shocked face. He struggled to figure out which way to veer the conversation, when Meralda unexpectedly took the lead.

“Colson is not his child,” the Lady of Auckney said. She grabbed Feringal by the hands and forced him to look at her directly. “Wulfgar never ravished—”

Before she could finish, Feringal pulled one of his hands free and lifted a finger over her lips to silence her, nodding his understanding.

He knew, Meralda realized and so did Wulfgar. Feringal had known all along that the child was not Wulfgar’s, not the product of a rape.

“I took her to protect your wife…and you,” Wulfgar said after allowing Feringal and Meralda a few heartbeats to stare into each other’s eyes. Feringal turned a scowl his way, to which Wulfgar only shrugged. “I had to protect the child,” he explained.

“I would not…” Feringal started to reply, but he stopped and shook his head then addressed Meralda instead. “I would not have hurt her,” he said, and Meralda nodded.

“I would not have continued our marriage, would not have borne you an heir, if I had thought differently,” Meralda quietly replied.

Feringal’s scowl returned as he glanced back at Wulfgar. “What do you want, son of Icewind Dale?” he demanded.

Some noise to the side clued Wulfgar in to the fact that the Lord of Auckney hadn’t come to the garden alone. Guards waited in the shadows to rush out and protect Feringal.

“I want only to do what is right, Lord Feringal,” he replied. “As I did what I thought was right those years ago.” He shrugged and looked at Colson, the thought of parting with her suddenly stabbing at his heart.

Feringal stood staring at him.

“The child, Colson, is Meralda’s,” Wulfgar explained. “I would not cede her to another adoptive mother without first determining Meralda’s intent.”

“Meralda’s intent?” Feringal echoed. “Am I to have no say?”

As the lord of Auckney finished, Meralda put a hand to his cheek and turned him to face her directly. “I cannot,” she whispered.

Again Feringal silenced her with a finger against her lips, and turned back to Wulfgar. “There are a dozen bows trained upon you at this moment,” he assured the man. “And a dozen guards ready to rush out and cut you down, Liam Woodgate among them—and you know that he holds no love for Wulfgar of Icewind Dale. I warned you that you return to Auckney only under pain of death.”

A horrified expression crossed Meralda’s face, and Wulfgar squared his shoulders. His instincts told him to counter the threat, to bring Aegis-fang magically to his hand and explain to the pompous Feringal in no uncertain terms that in any ensuing fight, he, Feringal, would be the first to die.

But Wulfgar held his tongue and checked his pride. Meralda’s expression guided him, and Colson, clutching his shoulder, demanded that he diffuse the situation and not escalate a threat into action.

“For the sake of the girl, I allow you to flee, straightaway,” Feringal said, and both Wulfgar and Meralda widened their eyes with shock.

The lord waved his hands dismissively at Wulfgar. “Be gone, foul fool. Over the wall and away. My patience wears thin, and when it is gone, the whole of Auckney will fall over you.”

Wulfgar stared at him for a moment then looked at Colson.

“Leave the girl,” Feringal demanded, lifting his voice for the sake of the distant onlookers, Wulfgar realized. “She is forfeit, a princess of Icewind Dale no more. I claim her for Auckney, by Lady Meralda’s blood, and do so with the ransom of Wulfgar’s promise that the tribes of Icewind Dale will never descend upon my domain.”

Wulfgar spent a moment digesting the words, shaking his head in disbelief all the while. When it all sorted out, he dipped a quick and respectful bow to the surprising Lord Feringal.

“Your faith in your husband and your love for him were not misplaced,” he said quietly to Meralda, and he wanted to laugh out loud and cry all at the same time, for never had he expected to see such growth in the foppish lord of that isolated town.

But for all of Wulfgar’s joy at the confirmation that he had been right to return there, the price of his, and Feringal’s, generosity could not be denied.

Wulfgar pulled Colson out to arms’ length then brought her in and hugged her close, burying his face in her soft hair. “This is your mother,” he whispered, knowing that the child wouldn’t begin to understand. He was reminding himself, though, for he needed to do that. “Your ma will always love you. I will always love you.”

He hugged her even closer and kissed her on the cheek then stood fast and offered a curt nod to Feringal.

Before he could change his mind, before he surrendered to the tearing of his heart, Wulfgar thrust Colson out at Meralda, who gathered her up. He hadn’t even let go of the girl when she began to cry out, “Da! Da!” reaching back at him plaintively and pitifully.

Wulfgar blinked away his tears, turned, and went over the wall, dropping the fifteen feet and landing on the grass below in a run that didn’t stop until he had long crossed through Auckney’s front gates.

A run that carried with every step the frantic cries of “Da! Da!”

“You did the right thing,” he said to himself, but he hardly believed it. He glanced back at Castle Auck and felt as if he had just betrayed the one person in the world who had most trusted him and most needed him.

CHAPTER 22 THE PRACTICAL MORALITY

Certain that no orcs were about, for he could hear their revelry far over a distant hill, Tos’un Armgo settled against a natural seat of stone. Or perhaps it wasn’t natural, he mused, situated as it was in the middle of a small lea, roughly circular and sheltered by ancient evergreens. Perhaps some former occupant had constructed the granite throne, for though there were other such stones scattered around the area, the placement of those two, seat and back, was perhaps a bit too convenient.

Whatever and however it had come to be, Tos’un appreciated the chair and the view it afforded him. He was a creature of the nearly lightless Underdark, where no stars shone, where no ceiling was too far above, too vast and distant, otherworldly or extraplanar, even. The canopy that floated above him every night was far beyond his experience, reaching into places that he did not know he possessed. Tos’un was a drow, and a drow male, and in that role his life remained solidly grounded in the needs of the here-and-now, in the day-to-day practicality of survival. As his goals were ever clear to him, based on simple necessity, so his limitations stayed crystalline clear as well—the boundaries of House walls and the cavern that was Menzoberranzan. For all of his life, the limits of Tos’un’s aspirations hung over him as solidly as the ceiling of Menzoberranzan’s stone cavern.

But those limitations were one of the reasons he had abandoned his House on their journey back to Menzoberranzan after the stunning defeat at the hands of Clan Battlehammer and Mithral Hall. Aside from the chaos that was surely to ensue following that catastrophe, when Matron Yvonnel Baenre herself had been cut down, Tos’un understood that whatever the reshuffling that chaos resolved, his place was set. Perhaps he would have died in the House warfare—as a noble, he made a fine trophy for enemy warriors, and since his mother thought little of him, he would have no doubt wound up on the front lines of any fight. But even had he survived, even had House Barrison Del’Armgo used the vulnerability of the suddenly matron-less House Baenre to ascend to the top rank in Menzoberranzan’s hierarchy, Tos’un’s life would be as it had always been, as he could not dare hope it would be anything but.

So he had seized the opportunity and had fled, not in search of any particular opportunity, not to follow any ambition or fleeting dream. Why had he fled, then, he wondered as he sat there under the stars?

You will be king, promised a voice in his head, startling Tos’un from his contemplations.

Without a word, with hardly a thought, the drow climbed out of the seat and took a few steps across the meadow. The snow had settled deep on that spot not long ago, but had melted, leaving spongy, muddy ground behind. A few steps from the throne, Tos’un unstrapped his sword belt and lay it upon the ground, then went back to his spot and leaned back, letting his thoughts soar up among the curious points of light.

“Why did I flee?” he asked himself quietly. “What did I desire?”

He thought of Kaer’lic, Donnia, and Ad’non, the drow trio he had joined up with after wandering aimlessly for tendays. Life with them had been good. He had found excitement and had started a war—a proxy war, which was the best kind, after all. It had been heady and clever and great fun, right up until the beastly Obould had bitten the throat out of Kaer’lic Suun Wett, sending Tos’un on the run for his life.

But even that excitement, even controlling the destiny of an army of orcs, a handful of human settlements, and a dwarven kingdom, had been nothing Tos’un had ever desired or even considered, until circumstance had dangled it before him and his three co-conspirators.

No, he realized in that moment of clarity, sitting under a canopy so foreign to his Underdark sensibilities. No tangible desire had brought him from the ranks of House Barrison Del’Armgo. It was, instead, the desire to eliminate the boundaries, the need to dare to dream, whatever dream may come to him. Tos’un and the other three drow—even Kaer’lic, despite her subservience to Lady Lolth—had run to their freedom for no reason more than to escape from the rigid structure of drow culture.

The irony of that had Tos’un blinking repeatedly as he sat there. “The rigid structure of drow culture,” he said aloud, just to bask in the irony. For drow culture was premised on the tenets of Lady Lolth, the Spider Queen, the demon queen of chaos.

“Controlled chaos, then,” he decided with a sharp laugh.

A laugh that was cut short as he noted movement in the trees.

Never taking his eyes from that spot, Tos’un rolled backward from the stone seat, flipping to his feet in a crouch with the stone between him and the shadowy form—a large, feline form—filtering in and out of the darker lines of the tree trunks.

The drow eased his way to the edge of the stone nearest his discarded sword belt, preparing his dash. He held still, though, not wanting to alert the creature to his presence.

But then he stood taller, blinking, for the great cat seemed to diminish, to dematerialize into a dark mist that filtered away to nothingness. For just a moment, Tos’un wondered if his imagination was playing tricks on him in that strange environment, under a sky that he had still not grown accustomed to or comfortable with.

When he realized the truth of the beast, when he recalled its origins, the drow leaped out from the stone, dived into a forward roll retrieving his belt as he went, and came up so perfectly that he had already buckled it in place before he stood once more.

Drizzt’s cat! his thoughts screamed.

Pray that it is! came the unexpected and unasked for answer from his intrusive sword. A glorious victory is at hand!

Tos’un winced at the thought. In Lolth’s favor… he imparted to the sword, recalling Kaer’lic’s fears about Drizzt Do’Urden.

The priestess had been terrified at the prospect of battling the rogue from Menzoberranzan, fearing, with solid reasoning, that the trouble Drizzt had brought upon the drow city was just the sort of chaos that pleased Lady Lolth. Add to that Drizzt’s uncanny luck and almost supernatural proficiency with the blade, and the idea that he was secretly in the favor of Lolth seemed not so far-fetched.

And Tos’un, for all of his irreverence, understood well that anyone who crossed Lolth’s will could meet a most unpleasant end.

All of those thoughts followed his intentional telepathic message to Khazid’hea, and the sword went strangely quiet for the next few moments. Indeed, to Tos’un’s sensibilities, everything seemed to go strangely quiet. He strained his eyes in the direction of the pines where he had last seen the feline shape, his hands wringing on the hilt of Khazid’hea and his other, drow-made sword. Every passing moment drew him farther into the shadows. His eyes, his ears, his sense of smell, every instinct within him honed in on that spot where the cat had disappeared as he tried desperately to discern where it had gone.

And so he nearly leaped out of his low, soft boots when a voice behind him, speaking in the drow language with perfect Menzoberranyr inflection, said, “Guenhwyvar was tired, so I sent her home to rest.”

Tos’un whirled, slashing the empty air with his blades as if he believed the demon Drizzt to be right behind him.

The rogue drow was many steps away, though, standing easily, his scimitars sheathed, his forearms resting comfortably on their respective hilts.

“A fine sword you carry, son of Barrison Del’Armgo,” Drizzt said, nodding toward Khazid’hea. “Not drow made, but fine.”

Tos’un turned his hand over and regarded the sentient blade for a moment before turning back to Drizzt. “One I found in the valley, below…”

“Below where I fought King Obould,” Drizzt finished, and Tos’un nodded.

“You have come for it?” Tos’un asked, and in his head, Khazid’hea simmered and imparted thoughts of battle.

Leap upon him and cut him down! I would drink the blood of Drizzt Do’Urden!

Drizzt noted Tos’un’s uncomfortable wince, and suspected that Khazid’hea had been behind the grimace. Drizzt had carried the annoying sentient blade long enough to understand that its ego simply would not let it remain silent through any conversation. The way Tos’un had measured his cadence, as if he was listening to the sound of his own words coming back at him in an echo from a stone wall, revealed the continual intrusions of the ever-present Khazid’hea.

“I have come here to see this curiosity I find before me,” Drizzt replied. “A son of Barrison Del’Armgo, living on the surface world, alone.”

“Akin to yourself.”

“Hardly,” Drizzt said with a chuckle. “I carry my surname out of habit alone, and toward no familiarity or relationship with the House of Matron Malice.”

“As I have abandoned my own House,” Tos’un insisted, again in that stilted cadence.

Drizzt wasn’t about to argue with that much of his claim, for indeed it seemed plausible enough—though of course, the events that drove Tos’un from the ranks of his formidable House might be anything but exculpatory. “To trade service to a matron mother for service to a king,” Drizzt remarked. “For both of us, it seems.”

Whatever Tos’un meant to reply, he bit it back and tilted his head to the side, searching the statement, no doubt.

Drizzt didn’t hide his wry and knowing grin.

“I serve no king,” Tos’un insisted, and with speed enough and force enough to prevent any interruptions from the intrusive blade.

“Obould names himself a king.”

Tos’un shook his head, his face curling into a snarl.

“Do you deny your part in the conspiracy that prompted Obould to come south?” Drizzt asked. “I have had this conversation with two of your dead companions, of course. Or do you deny your partnering with the pair I killed? Recall that I saw you standing with the priestess when I came to battle Obould.”

“Where was I, a Houseless rogue, to turn?” Tos’un replied. “I happened upon the trio of which you speak in my wandering. Alone and without hope, they offered me sanctuary, and that I could not refuse. We did not raid your dwarf friends, nor any human settlements.”

“You prompted Obould and brought disaster upon the land.”

“Obould was coming with his thousands with no prompt from us—from my companions, for I had no part in that.”

“So you would have to say.”

“So I do say. I serve no orc king. I would kill him if given the chance.”

“So you would have to say.”

“I watched him bite out the throat of Kaer’lic Suun Wett!” Tos’un roared at him.

“And I killed your other two friends,” Drizzt was quick to reply. “By your reasoning, you would kill me if given the chance.”

That gave Tos’un pause, but only for a moment. “Not so,” he said.

But he winced again as Khazid’hea emphatically shot, Do not let him strike first! into his thoughts.

The sword continued its prompting, egging Tos’un to leap forward and dispatch Drizzt, as the drow continued, “There is no honor in Obould, no honor in the smelly orcs. They are iblith.”

Again his comments were broken, his cadence uneven, and Drizzt knew that Khazid’hea was imploring him. Drizzt took a slight step and shift to Tos’un’s right, for in that hand he held Khazid’hea.

“You may be correct in your assessment,” Drizzt replied. “But then, I found little honor in your two friends before I killed them.” He half-expected his words to prompt a charge, and shifted his hands appropriately nearer his hilts, but Tos’un stayed in place.

He just stood there, trembling, waging an inner battle against the sword’s murderous intent, Drizzt surmised.

“The orcs have gone on the attack once again,” Drizzt remarked, and his tone changed, and his thoughts went dark, as he reminded himself of the fate of Innovindil. “In the Moonwood and against the dwarves.”

“They are old enemies.” Tos’un replied, as if the whole news was matter-of-fact and hardly unexpected.

“Spurred by instigators who revel in chaos—indeed, who worship a demon queen who thrives on a state of utter confusion.”

“No,” Tos’un answered flatly. “If you are referring to me—”

“Are there other drow about?”

“No, and no,” said Tos’un.

“You would have to say that.”

“I fought beside the Moonwood elves.”

“Why would you not, in the service of chaos? I doubt that you care which side wins this war, as long as Tos’un realizes his gain.”

The drow shook his head, unconvinced.

“And in the Moonwood, “Drizzt continued, “the orcs’ attacks were cunning and coordinated—more so than one might expect from a band of the dimwitted goblinkin.” As he finished, Drizzt’s scimitars appeared in his hands as if they had simply materialized there, so fast and fluid was his motion. Again he sidled to his left, reminding himself that Tos’un was a drow warrior, trained at Melee-Magthere, likely under the legendary Uthegental. House Barrison Del’Armgo’s warriors were known for their ferocity and straightforward attacks. Formidable, to be sure, Drizzt knew, and he could not forget for one instant that sword Tos’un carried.

Drizzt went to the right, trying to keep Tos’un using only short strokes with Khazid’hea, a weapon powerful enough to perhaps sever one of Drizzt’s enchanted blades if swung with enough weight behind the blow.

“There is a new general among them, an orc most cunning and devious,” Tos’un replied, his face twisting with every word—arguing against the intrusions of Khazid’hea, Drizzt clearly recognized.

That obvious truth of Tos’un’s inner struggle had Drizzt somewhat hesitant, for why would this drow, if everything Drizzt presumed was true, be arguing against the murderous sword?

Before his thoughts could even go down that road, however, Drizzt thought again of Innovindil, and his face grew very dark. He turned his blades over and back again, anxious to exact revenge for his lost friend.

“More cunning than a warrior trained in Melee-Magthere?” he asked. “More devious than one raised in Menzoberranzan? More hateful of elves than a drow?”

Tos’un shook his head through all of the questions. “I was with the elves,” he argued.

“And you deceived them and ran—and ran with knowledge of their tactics.”

“I killed none as I left, though I surely could—”

“Because you are more cunning than that,” Drizzt interrupted. “I would expect nothing less from a son of House Barrison Del’Armgo. You knew that if you struck and murdered some in your escape, the elves of the Moonwood would have understood the depths of your depravity and would have known that an attack was soon to befall them.”

“I did not,” Tos’un said, shaking his head helplessly. “None of…” He stopped and grimaced as Khazid’hea assaulted his thoughts.

He will take from you his friend’s sword! Without me, your lies will not withstand the interrogations of the elf clerics. They would know your heart.

Tos’un found it hard to breathe. He was trapped in a way he never wanted, facing a foe he believed he could not defeat. He couldn’t run away from Drizzt as he had Obould.

Kill him! Khazid’hea demanded. With me in your grasp, Drizzt Do’Urden will fall. Take his head to Obould!

“No!” Tos’un shot back audibly—and Drizzt smiled in under-standing—instinctively recoiling from the orc king, an emotion that Khazid’hea surely understood.

Then take his head to Menzoberranzan, the sword offered, and again Tos’un’s reasoning argued, for he hadn’t the strength to return to the drow city alone along the unmerciful corridors of the Underdark.

But again the sword had the answers waiting. Promise Dnark the friendship of Menzoberranzan. He will give you warriors to accompany you to the city, where you will betray them and assume your place as a hero of Menzoberranzan.

Tos’un tightened his grip on both his swords and thought of Kaer’lic’s warning regarding Drizzt. Before Khazid’hea could even begin to argue, though, the drow did it for himself, for Kaer’lic’s warning that Drizzt might be in the graces of Lolth had been but a suspicion, and an outlandish one at that, but that mortal predicament standing before him loomed all too real.

And Drizzt watched it all, and recognized many of the fears and emotions playing through Tos’un’s thoughts, and so when the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo leaped toward him, his scimitars rose in a sudden and effortless cross before him.

Tos’un executed a double-thrust wide, Khazid’hea and his other sword stabbing past the axis of Drizzt’s blades. Drizzt threw his hands out wide to their respective sides, the called-for defense, each of his blades taking one of Tos’un’s.

Advantage taken, Drizzt went for the greater stance offered by his curved blades. A more conventional warrior would have reversed the thrust back at his opponent, but Tos’un, expecting that, would have been too quick on the retreat for any real advantage to be realized. So Drizzt turned his scimitars over Tos’un’s swords, using the curve of his blades to draw the swords in tighter, that he could send them out with more authority and perhaps even knock his foe off-balance enough that he could score a quick kill.

He rolled the scimitars over with a snap of his wrists.

But Khazid’hea….

Tos’un countered by jamming the powerful sword hard into the hilt of Drizzt’s scimitar—and the impossibly sharp blade cut in, catching a hold that halted Drizzt’s move. Tos’un pressed forward with his right and stepped back with his left, keeping perfect balance as he disengaged his left from Drizzt’s rolling blade.

Seeing disaster, Drizzt reversed suddenly, bringing Icingdeath, his right-hand blade, across hard instead of ahead, which would have left him off-balance and lunging. He drove Twinkle down hard directly away from the terrible blade of Khazid’hea, for that was the only chance to disengage before the mighty sword cut half of Twinkle’s crosspiece away. Tos’un followed until the disengagement, then thrust forward at Drizzt, of course, and Icingdeath came across in the last instant, scraping along Khazid’hea’s blade, shearing a line of sparks into the air.

Drizzt was half-turned, though, and Tos’un stabbed forward with his left for the ranger’s exposed side.

But Twinkle came up from under Drizzt’s other arm, neatly picking off the attack, and Drizzt uncrossed his arms suddenly, Icingdeath slashing back across to knock Tos’un’s sword aside. Twinkle slapped back against Khazid’hea with equal fury. Tos’un leaped back, as did Drizzt, the two again circling, taking a measure of each other.

He was good, Drizzt realized. Better than he had anticipated. He managed a glance at Twinkle to note the clear tear where Khazid’hea had struck, and noted, too, a nick on Icingdeath’s previously unblemished blade.

Tos’un came ahead with a lazy thrust, a feint and a sudden flurry, leading with his left then rattling off several quick blows with Khazid’hea. He moved forward with every strike, forcing Drizzt to block and not dodge. Every time Khazid’hea slapped against one of his blades, Drizzt winced, fearing that the awful sword would cut right through.

He couldn’t play it Tos’un’s way, he realized. Not with Khazid’hea in the mix. He couldn’t use a defensive posture, as he normally would against a warrior who had trained under Uthegental, an overly aggressive sort that would allow him to simply let Tos’un’s rage wear him out.

As soon as the attacks of Khazid’hea played out, Drizzt sprang forward, putting his blades up high and rolling his hands in a sudden blur. Over and over went his scimitars, as he rolled his hands left and right, striking rapidly at Tos’un from varying angles.

Tos’un’s defense mirrored Drizzt’s movements, hands rolling, blades turning in and out, rolling over each other with equal harmony.

Drizzt kept in tight and kept the strokes short, not willing to let Tos’un put any weight behind Khazid’hea. He thought that to be Tos’un’s only possible advantage, the sheer viciousness and power of that sword, and without it, Drizzt, who had defeated the greatest weapons master of Menzoberranzan, would find victory.

But Tos’un matched his rolling fury, anticipated his every move, and even managed several short counterstrikes that interrupted Drizzt’s rhythm, and one that nearly got past Drizzt’s sudden reversal and defense and would have surely gutted him. Surprised, Drizzt pressed the attack even more, rolling his hands more widely, changing the angles of attack more dramatically.

He slashed—one, two, three—downward at Tos’un’s left shoulder, spun suddenly as the last parry sounded, and turned lower as he went so that as he came around, both his swords tore for Tos’un’s right side. He expected a down-stroke parry from Khazid’hea, but Tos’un turned inside the attack, bringing his drow blade across to block. As he turned, he stabbed Khazid’hea back and down over his right shoulder.

Drizzt ducked the brunt of it, but felt the bite as the sword sliced down his shoulder blade, leaving a long and painful gash. Drizzt ran straight out from the engagement and dived forward in a roll, turning as he came up to face the pursuing Tos’un.

It was Tos’un’s turn, and he came on with fury, stabbing and slashing, spinning completely around and with perfect balance and measured speed.

Ignoring the pain and the warm blood running down the right side of his back, Drizzt matched that intensity, parrying left and right, up and down, the blades ringing in one long note as they clanged and scraped. With every parry of Khazid’hea, Drizzt caught the sword more softly, retreating his own blade upon contact, as he might catch a thrown egg to avoid breaking it. That was more taxing, though, more precise and time-consuming, and the necessity of such a concentrated defense prevented him from regaining the momentum and the offense.

Around and around the sheltered lea they went, Tos’un pressing, not tiring, and growing more confident with every strike.

He had a right to do so, Drizzt had to admit, for he fought brilliantly, fluidly, and only then did Drizzt begin to understand that Tos’un had done with Khazid’hea that which Drizzt had refused to allow. Tos’un was letting the sword infiltrate his thoughts, was following the instincts of Khazid’hea as if they were his own. They had found a complementary relationship, a joining of sword and wielder.

Worse, Drizzt realized, Khazid’hea knew him, knew his movements as intimately as a lover, for Drizzt had wielded the sword in a desperate fight against King Obould.

He understood then, to his horror, how Tos’un had so easily anticipated his rollover and second throw move after the initial cross and parry. He understood then, to his dilemma, his inability to set up a killing strike. Khazid’hea knew him, and though the sword couldn’t read his thoughts, it had taken a good measure of the fighting techniques of Drizzt Do’Urden. Just as damaging, since Tos’un had apparently given over to Khazid’hea’s every intrusion, the sword and the trained drow warrior had found a symbiosis, a joining of knowledge and instinct, of skill and understanding.

For a fleeting moment, Drizzt wished that he had not dismissed Guenhwyvar, as tired as she had been after finally leading him to Tos’un Armgo.

A fleeting moment indeed, for Tos’un and Khazid’hea came on again, hungrily, the drow stabbing high and low simultaneously then spinning his blades over in a cross, and back again with a pair of backhand slashes.

Drizzt backed as Tos’un pursued. He parried about half the strikes—mostly those of the less dangerous drow blade—and dodged the other half cleanly. He offered no counters, allowing Tos’un to press, as he tried to find the answers to the riddle of the drow warrior and his mighty sword.

Back he stepped, parrying a slash. Back he stepped again, and he knew that he was running out of room, that the stone throne was near. He began to parry more and retreat less, his steps slowing and becoming more measured, until he felt at last the thick granite of the throne behind his trailing heel.

Apparently sensing that Drizzt had run out of room, Tos’un came forward more aggressively, executing a double thrust low. Surprised by the maneuver, Drizzt launched a double-cross down, the appropriate parry, where he crossed his scimitars down over the two thrusting swords. Drizzt had long ago solved the riddle of that maneuver. Before, the defender could hope for no advantage beyond a draw.

Tos’un would know that, he realized in the instant it took him to begin the second part of his counter, kicking his foot through the upper cross of his down-held blades, and so when Tos’un reacted, Drizzt already had his improvisation ready.

He kicked for Tos’un’s face, so it appeared. Tos’un leaned back and drove his swords straight up, his intent to knock the kicking Drizzt, already in an awkward maneuver, off his balance.

But Drizzt shortened his kick, which could have no more than glanced Tos’un’s face anyway, and changed the angle of his momentum upward then used Tos’un’s push from below to bolster that directional change. Drizzt leaped right up and tucked in a tight turn that spun him head-over-heels to land lightly atop the seat of the stone throne, and it was Tos’un who overbalanced as the counterweight disappeared in a back flip, the drow staggering back a step.

Typical of an Armgo, Tos’un growled and came right back in, slashing across, which Drizzt hopped easily. Up above, Drizzt had the advantage, but Tos’un tried to use sheer aggressiveness to dislodge him from the seat, slashing and stabbing with abandon. One swipe cut across short of Drizzt, who threw back his hips, and sent Khazid’hea hard into the back of the stone throne. With a crack and a spark, the sword slashed through, leaving a gouge in the granite.

“I will not let you win, and I will not let you flee!” Drizzt cried in that moment, when the stone, though it hadn’t stopped the sword, surely broke Tos’un’s rhythm.

Drizzt went on the offensive, hacking down at Tos’un with powerful and straightforward strokes, using his advantageous angle to put his weight behind every blow. Tos’un tried to not retreat as a drum roll of bashing blades landed against his upraised swords, sending shivers of numbness down his arms, but Drizzt had him defending against angles varying too greatly for him to ever get his feet fully under him. Soon he had no choice but to fall back, stumbling, and Drizzt was there, leaping from the seat and coming down with a heavy double chop of his blades that nearly took Tos’un’s swords from his hands.

“I will not let you win!’ Drizzt cried again, throwing out the words in a release of all his inner strength as he backhanded across with Icingdeath, smashing Tos’un’s drow-made sword out to the side.

And that was the moment when Drizzt could have ended it, for Twinkle’s thrust, turn, and out-roll had Khazid’hea too far to the side to stop the second movement of Icingdeath, a turn and stab that would have plunged the blade deep into Tos’un’s chest.

Drizzt didn’t want the kill, for all the rage inside him for Innovindil. He played his trump.

“I will again wield the magnificent Khazid’hea!” he cried, disengaging instead of pressing his advantage. He went back just a couple of steps, and only for a few heartbeats—long enough to see a sudden wave of confusion cross Tos’un’s face.

“Give me the sword!” Drizzt demanded.

Tos’un cringed, and Drizzt understood. For he had just given Khazid’hea what it had long desired, had just spoken the words Khazid’hea could not ignore. Khazid’hea’s loyalty was to Khazid’hea alone, and Khazid’hea wanted, above all else, to be wielded by Drizzt Do’Urden.

Tos’un stumbled, hardly able to bring his blades up in defense as Drizzt charged in. In came Twinkle, in came Icingdeath, but not the blades. The hilts smashed Tos’un’s face, one after another. Both Tos’un’s swords went flying, and he went with them, back and to the ground. He recovered quickly, but not quickly enough. Drizzt’s boot slammed down upon his chest and Icingdeath came to rest against his neck, its diamond edge promising him a quick death if he struggled.

“You have so much to answer for,” Drizzt said to him.

Tos’un fell back and gave a great exhale, his whole body relaxing with utter resignation, for he could not deny that he was truly doomed.

CHAPTER 23 BLACK AND WHITE

Nanfoodle lifted one foot and drew little circles on the floor with his toes. Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, the gnome presented an image of uncertainty and trepidation. Bruenor and Hralien, who had been sitting discussing their next moves when Nanfoodle and Regis had entered the dwarf’s private quarters, looked at each other with confusion.

“Well if ye can’t get it translated, then so be it,” Bruenor said, guessing at the source of the gnome’s consternation. “But ye’re to keep working on it, don’t ye doubt!”

Nanfoodle looked up, glanced at Regis, then bolstered by Regis’s nod, turned back to the dwarf king and squared his shoulders. “It is an ancient language, based on the Dwarvish tongue,” he explained. “It has roots in Hulgorkyn, perhaps, and Dethek runes for certain.”

“Thought I’d recognized a couple o’ the scribbles,” Bruenor replied.

“Though it is more akin to the proper Orcish,” Nanfoodle explained, and Bruenor gasped.

“Dworcish?” Regis remarked with a grin, but he was the only one who found any humor in it.

“Ye’re telling me that the durned orcs took part of me Delzoun ancestors’ words?” Bruenor asked.

Nanfoodle shook his head. “How this language came about is a mystery whose answer is beyond the parchments you brought to me. From what I can tell of the proportion of linguistic influence, you’ve juxtaposed the source and add.”

“What in the Nine Hells are ye babblin’ about?” Bruenor asked, his voice beginning to take on an impatient undercurrent.

“Seems more like old Dwarvish with added pieces from old Orcish,” Regis explained, drawing Bruenor’s scowl his way and taking it off of Nanfoodle, who seemed to be withering before the unhappy dwarf king with still the most important news forthcoming.

“Well, they needed to talk to the dogs to tell them what’s what,” said Bruenor, but both Regis and Nanfoodle shook their heads with every word.

“It was deeper than that,” Regis said, stepping up beside the gnome. “The dwarves didn’t borrow orc phrases, they integrated the language into their own.”

“Something that would have taken years, even decades, to come into being,” said Nanfoodle. “Such language blending is common throughout the history of all the races, but it occurs, every time, because of familiarity and cultural bonds.”

Silence came back at the pair, and Bruenor and Hralien looked to each other repeatedly. Finally, Bruenor found the courage to ask directly, “What are ye saying?”

“Dwarves and orcs lived together, side-by-side, in the city you found,” said Nanfoodle.

Bruenor’s eyes popped open wide, his strong hands slapped against the arms of his chair, and he came forward as if he meant to leap out and throttle both the gnome and the halfling.

“For years,” Regis added as soon as Bruenor settled back.

The dwarf looked at Hralien, seeming near panic.

“There is a town called Palishchuk in the wastes of Vaasa on the other side of Anauroch,” the elf said with a shrug, as if the news was not as unexpected and impossible as it seemed. “Half-orcs, one and all, and strong allies with the goodly races of the region.”

“Half-orcs?” Bruenor roared back at him. “Half-orcs’re half-humans, and that lot’d take on a porcupine if the durned spines didn’t hurt so much! But we’re talkin’ me kin here. Me ancestors!”

Hralien shrugged again, as if it wasn’t so shocking, and Bruenor stopped sputtering long enough to catch the fact that the elf might be having a bit of fun with the revelation, at the dwarf’s expense.

“We don’t know that these were your ancestors,” Regis remarked.

“Gauntlgrym’s the home o’ Delzoun!” Bruenor snapped.

“This wasn’t Gauntlgrym,” said Nanfoodle, after clearing his throat. “It wasn’t,” he reiterated when Bruenor’s scowl fell over him fully.

“What was it, then?”

“A town called Baffenburg,” said Nanfoodle.

“Never heared of it.”

“Nor had I,” the gnome replied. “It probably dates from around the time of Gauntlgrym, but it was surely not the city described in your histories. Not nearly that size, or with that kind of influence.”

“That which we saw of it was probably the extent of the main town,” Regis added. “It wasn’t Gauntlgrym.”

Bruenor fell back in his seat, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. He wanted to argue, but had no facts with which to do so. As he considered things, he recognized that he’d never had any evidence that the hole in the ground led to Gauntlgrym, that he had no maps that indicated the ancient Delzoun homeland to be anywhere near that region. All that had led him to believe that it was indeed Gauntlgrym was his own fervent desire, his faith that he had been returned to Mithral Hall by the graces of Moradin for that very purpose.

Nanfoodle started to talk, but Bruenor silenced him and waved both him and Regis away.

“This does not mean that there is nothing of value…” Regis started to say, but again, Bruenor waved his hand, dismissing them both—then dismissing Hralien with a gesture, as well, for at that terrible moment of revelation, with orcs attacking and Alustriel balking at decisive action, the crestfallen dwarf king wanted only to be alone.

“Still here, elf?” Bruenor asked when he saw Hralien inside Mithral Hall the next morning. “Seeing the beauty o’ dwarf ways, then?”

Hralien shared the dwarf king’s resigned chuckle. “I am interested in watching the texts unmasked. And I would be re—” He stopped and studied Bruenor for a moment then added, “It is good to see you in such fine spirits this day. I had worried that the gnome’s discovery from yesterday would cloak you in a dour humor.”

Bruenor waved a hand dismissively. “He’s just scratched the scribblings. Might be that some dwarves were stupid enough to trust the damned orcs. Might be that they paid for it with their city and their lives—and that might be a lesson for yer own folk and for Lady Alustriel and the rest of them that’s hesitating in driving Obould back to his hole. Come with me, if ye’re wantin’, for I’m on me way to the gnome now. He and Rumblebelly have worked the night through, on me orders. I’m to take their news to Alustriel and her friends out working on the wall. Speak for the Moonwood in that discussion, elf, and let’s be setting our plans together.”

Hralien nodded and followed Bruenor through the winding tunnels and to the lower floors, and a small candlelit room where Regis and Nanfoodle were hard at work. Parchment had been spread over several tables, held in place by paperweights. The aroma of lavender permeated the room, a side-effect from Nanfoodle’s preservation potions that had been carefully applied to each of the ancient writings, and to the tapestry, which had been hung on one wall. Most of its image remained obscured, but parts of it had been revealed. That vision made Bruenor cringe, for the orcs and dwarves visible in the drawing were not meeting in battle or even in parlay. They were together, intermingled, going about their daily business.

Regis, who sat off to the side transcribing some text, greeted the pair as they entered, but Nanfoodle didn’t even turn around, hunched as he was over a parchment, his face pressed close to the cracked and faded page.

“Ye’re not looking so tired, Rumblebelly,” Bruenor greeted accusingly.

“I’m watching a lost world open before my eyes,” he replied. “I’m sure that I will fall down soon enough, but not now.”

Bruenor nodded. “Then ye’re saying that the night showed ye more o’ the old town,” he said.

“Now that we have broken the code of the language, the pace improves greatly,” said Nanfoodle, never turning from the parchment he was studying. “You retrieved some interesting texts on your journey.”

Bruenor stared at him for a few heartbeats, expecting him to elaborate, but soon realized that the gnome was fully engulfed by his work once more. The dwarf turned to Regis instead.

“The town was mostly dwarves at first,” Regis explained. He hopped up from his chair and moved to one of the many side tables, glanced at the parchment spread there, and moved along to the next in line. “This one,” he explained, “talks about how the orcs were growing more numerous. They were coming in from all around, but most of the dwarven ties remained to places like Gauntlgrym, which was of course belowground and more appealing to a dwarf’s sensibilities.”

“So it was an unusual community?” Hralien asked.

Regis shrugged, for he couldn’t be certain.

Bruenor looked to Hralien and nodded smugly in apparent vindication, and certainly the elf and the halfling understood that Bruenor did not want his history intertwined with that of the foul orcs!

“But it was a lasting arrangement,” Nanfoodle intervened, finally looking up from the parchment. “Two centuries at least.”

“Until the orcs betrayed me ancestors,” Bruenor insisted.

“Until something obliterated the town, melting the permafrost and dropping the whole of it underground in a sudden and singular catastrophe,” Nanfoodle corrected. “And not one of orc making. Look at the tapestry on the wall—it remained in place after the fall of Baffenburg, and certainly it would have been removed if that downfall had been precipitated by one side or the other. I don’t believe that there were ‘sides,’ my king.”

“And how’re ye knowing that?” Bruenor demanded. “That scroll tellin’ ye that?”

“There is no indication of treachery on the part of the orcs—at least not near the end of the arrangement,” the gnome explained, hopping down from his bench and moving to yet another parchment across from the table where Regis stood. “And the tapestry…Early on, there were problems. A single orc chieftain held the orcs in place beside the dwarves. He was murdered.”

“By the dwarves?” Hralien asked.

“By his own,” said Nanfoodle, moving to another parchment. “And a time of unrest ensued.”

“Seemin’ to me that the whole time was a time of unrest,” Bruenor said with a snort. “Ye can’t be living with damned orcs!”

“Off and on unrest, from what I can discern,” Nanfoodle agreed. “And it seemed to get better through the years, not worse.”

“Until the orcs brought an end to it,” Bruenor grumbled. “Suddenly, and with orc treachery.”

“I do not believe…” Nanfoodle started to reply.

“But ye’re guessin’, and not a thing more,” said Bruenor. “Ye just admitted that ye don’t know what brought the end.”

“Every indication—”

“Bah! But ye’re guessing.”

Nanfoodle conceded the point with a bow. “I would very much like to go to this city and build a workshop there, in the library. You have uncovered something fascinating, King Bru—”

“When the time’s for it,” Bruenor interrupted. “Right now I’m seeing the call of them words. Get rid of Obould and the orcs’ll fall apart, as we were expecting from the start. This is our battle call, gnome. This is why Moradin sent me back here and told me to go to that hole, Gauntlgrym or not!”

“But that’s not…” Nanfoodle started to argue, but his voice trailed away, for it was obvious that Bruenor paid him no heed.

His head bobbing with excitement and vigor, Bruenor had already turned to Hralien. He swatted the elf on the shoulder and swept Hralien up in his wake as he quick-stepped from the room, pausing only to berate Nanfoodle, “And I’m still thinking it’s Gauntlgrym!”

Nanfoodle looked helplessly at Regis. “The possibilities….” the gnome remarked.

“We’ve all our own way of looking at the world, it would seem,” Regis answered with a shrug that seemed almost embarrassed for Bruenor.

“Is this find not an example?”

“Of what?” asked Regis. “We do not even know how it ended, or why it ended.”

“Drizzt has whispered of the inevitability of Obould’s kingdom,” Nanfoodle reminded him.

“And Bruenor is determined that it will not be. The last time I looked, Bruenor, and not Drizzt, commanded the army of Mithral Hall and the respect of the surrounding kingdoms.”

“A terrible war is about to befall us,” said the gnome.

“One begun by King Obould Many-Arrows,” the halfling replied.

Nanfoodle sighed and looked at the many parchment sheets spread around the room. It took all his willpower to resist the urge to rush from table to table and crumble them to dust.

“His name was Bowug Kr’kri,” Regis explained to Bruenor, presenting more of the deciphered text to the dwarf king.

“An orc?”

“An orc philosopher and wizard,” the halfling replied. “We think the statues we saw in the library were of him, and maybe his disciples.”

“So he’s the one who brought the orcs into the dwarf city?”

“We think.”

“The two of ye do a lot o’ thinking for so little answering,” Bruenor growled.

“We have only a few old texts,” Regis replied. “It’s all a riddle, still.”

“Guesses.”

“Speculation,” said Regis. “But we know that the orcs lived there with the dwarves, and that Bowug Kr’kri was one of the leaders of the community.”

“Any better guesses on how long that town lived? Ye said centuries, but I’m not for believin’ ye.”

Regis shrugged and shook his head. “It had to be over generations. You saw the structures, and the language.”

“And how many o’ them structures were built by the dwarfs afore the orcs came in?” Bruenor asked with a sly smile.

Regis had no answer.

“Might’ve been a dwarf kingdom taken down by trusting the damned orcs,” Bruenor said. “Fool dwarfs who took much o’ the orc tongue to try to be better neighbors to the treacherous dogs.”

“We don’t think—”

“Ye think too much,” Bruenor interrupted. “Yerself and the gnome’re all excited about finding something so different than that which we’re knowin’ to be true. If ye’re just finding more o’ the same, then it’s just more o’ the same. But if ye’re findin’ something to make yer eyes go wide enough to fall out o’ their holes, then that’s something to dance about.”

“We didn’t invent that library, or the statues inside it,” Regis argued, but he was talking into as smug and sure an expression as he had ever seen. And he wasn’t sure, of course, that Bruenor’s reasoning was wrong, for indeed, he and Nanfoodle were doing a lot of guessing. The final puzzle picture was far from complete. They hadn’t even yet assembled the borders of the maze, let alone filled in the interior details.

Hralien walked into the room then, answering a summons Bruenor had sent out for him earlier.

“It’s coming clear, elf,” Bruenor greeted him. “That town’s a warning. If we’re following Alustriel’s plans, we’re to wind up a dead and dust-covered artifact for a future dwarf king to discover.”

“My own people are as guilty as is Alustriel in wanting to find a stable division, King Bruenor,” Hralien admitted. “The idea of crossing the Surbrin to do battle with Obould’s thousands is daunting—it will not be attempted without great sorrow and great loss.”

“And what’s to be found by sitting back?” Bruenor asked.

Hralien, who had just lost a dozen friends in an orc assault on the Moonwood, and had just witnessed first-hand the attack on the dwarven wall, didn’t need to use his imagination to guess the answer to that question.

“We can’t be fightin’ them straight up,” Bruenor reasoned. “That’s the way o’ doom. Too many o’ the stinking things.” He paused and grinned, nodding his hairy head. “Unless they’re attacking us, and in bits and pieces. Like the group that went into the Moonwood and the one that come over me wall. If we were ready for them, then there’d be a lot o’ dead orcs.”

Hralien gave a slight bow in agreement.

“So Drizzt was right,” said Bruenor. “It’s all about the one on top. He tried to get rid of Obould, and almost did. That’d’ve been the answer, and still is. If we can just get rid o’ the durned Obould, we’ll be tearing it all down.”

“A difficult task,” said Hralien.

“It’s why Moradin gave me back to me boys,” said Bruenor. “We’re goin’ to kill him, elf.”

“‘We’re’?” asked Hralien. “Are you to spearhead an army to strike into the heart of Obould’s kingdom?”

“Nah, that’s just what the dog’s wantin’. We’ll do it the way Drizzt tried it. A small group, better’n…” He paused and a cloud passed over his face.

“Me girl won’t be going,” Bruenor explained. “Too hurt.”

“And Wulfgar has left for the west,” said Hralien, catching on to the source of Bruenor’s growing despair.

“They’d be helpin’, don’t ye doubt.”

“I do not doubt at all,” Hralien assured him. “Who, then?”

“Meself and yerself, if ye’re up for the fight.”

The elf gave a half-bow, seeming to agree but not fully committing, and Bruenor knew he’d have to be satisfied with that.

The dwarf looked over to Regis, who nodded with increased determination, his face as grim as his cherubic features would allow.

“And Rumblebelly there,” the dwarf said.

Regis took a step back, shifting uncomfortably as Hralien cast a doubtful look his way.

“He’s knowing how to find his place,” Bruenor assured the elf. “And he’s knowin’ me fightin’ ways, and them o’ Drizzt.”

“We will collect Drizzt on our road?”

“Can ye think o’ anyone ye’d want beside ye more than the drow?”

“Indeed, no, unless it was Lady Alustriel herself.”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Ye won’t be getting that one to agree. Meself and a few o’ me boys, yerself and Drizzt, and Rumblebelly.”

“To kill Obould.”

“Crush his thick skull,” said Bruenor. “Me and some o’ me best boys. We’ll be cuttin’ a quiet way, right to the head o’ th’ ugly beast, and then let it fall where it may.”

“He is formidable,” Hralien warned.

“Heared the same thing about Matron Baenre o’ Menzoberranzan,” Bruenor replied, referring to his own fateful strike that had decapitated the drow city and ended the assault on Mithral Hall. “And we got Moradin with us, don’t ye doubt. It’s why he sent me back.”

Hralien’s posture and expression didn’t show him to be completely convinced by any of it, but he nodded his agreement just the same.

“Ye help me find me drow friend,” Bruenor said to him, seeing that unspoken doubt. “Then ye make yer mind up.”

“Of course,” Hralien agreed.

Off to the side, Regis shifted nervously. He wasn’t afraid of adventuring beside Bruenor and Drizzt, even if it would be behind orc lines. But he did fear that Bruenor was reading it all wrong, and that their mission would turn out badly, for them perhaps, and for the world.

The gathering fell quiet when Banak Brawnanvil looked Bruenor in the eye and declared, “Ye’re bats!”

Bruenor, however, didn’t blink. “Obould’s the one,” he said evenly.

“Not doubtin’ that,” replied the irrepressible Banak, who seemed to tower over Bruenor at that moment despite the fact that he was confined to a sitting position because of his injury in the orc war. “So send Pwent and yer boys to go and get him, like ye’re wantin’.”

“It’s me own job.”

“Only because ye’re a thick-headed Battlehammer!”

A few gasps filtered about the room at that proclamation, but they were diffused by a couple of chortles, most notably from the priest Cordio. Bruenor turned on Cordio with a scowl, but it fast melted against the reality of Banak’s words. Truer words regarding the density of Bruenor’s skull, Cordio—and Bruenor—knew, had never been spoken.

“Was meself that went to Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor said. He snapped his head to Regis’s direction, as if expecting the halfling to argue that it wasn’t Gauntlgrym. Regis, though, wisely stayed silent. “Was meself that anchored the retreat from Keeper’s Dale. Was meself that battled Obould’s first attack in the north.” He was gaining speed and momentum, not to bang drums for meself, as the dwarven saying went, but to justify his decision that he would personally lead the mission. “Was meself that went to Calimport to bring back Rumblebelly. Was meself that cut the damned Baenre in half!”

“I drunk enough toasts to ye to appreciate the effort,” said Banak.

“And now I’m seeing one more task afore me.”

“The King o’ Mithral Hall’s plannin’ to march off behind an orc army and kill the orc king,” Banak remarked. “And if ye’re caught on the way? Won’t yer kin here be in fine straits then in trying to bargain with Obould?”

“If ye’re thinkin’ I’m to be caught livin’, then ye’re not knowing what it is to be a Battlehammer,” Bruenor retorted. “Besides, ain’t no different than if Drizzt got himself caught already, or any o’ the rest of us. Ye’re not for changing yer ways with orcs for meself any more than ye would for any of our boys.”

Banak started to respond, but really had no answer for that.

“Besides, besides,” Bruenor added, “once I’m walking out that gate, I’m not the king o’ Mithral Hall, which is the whole point in us being here, now ain’t it?”

“I’ll be yer steward, but no king is Banak,” the crippled Brawnanvil argued.

“Ye’ll be me steward, but if I’m not returning then yerself is the Ninth King o’ Mithral Hall and don’t ye be doubting it. And not a dwarf here would agree with ye if ye were.”

Bruenor turned and led Banak’s gaze around the room with his own, taking in the solemn nods of all the gathering, from Pwent and his Gutbusters to Cordio and the other priests to Torgar and the dwarves from Mirabar.

“This is why Moradin sent me back,” Bruenor insisted. “It’s me against Obould, and ye’re a fool betting if ye’re betting on Obould!”

That elicited a cheer around the room.

“Yerself and the drow?” Banak asked.

“Me and Drizzt,” Bruenor confirmed. “And Rumblebelly’s up for it, though me girl’s in no place for it.”

“Ye telled her that, have ye?” Banak asked with a snicker that was echoed around the room.

“Bah, but she can’t be running, if running we’re needing, and she’d not ever put her friends in a spot o’ staying behind to protect her,” said Bruenor.

“Then ye ain’t telled her,” said Banak, and again came the snorts.

“Bah!” Bruenor said, throwing up his hands.

“So yerself, Drizzt, and Regis,” said Banak. “And Thibble dorf Pwent?”

“Try to stop me,” Pwent replied, and the Gutbuster brigade cheered.

“And Pwent,” said Bruenor, and the Gutbusters cheered again. Nothing seemed to excite that group quite so much as the prospect of one of their own walking off on an apparent suicide mission.

“Begging yer pardon, King Bruenor,” Torgar Hammerstriker said from the other side of the room. “But me thinking is that the Mirabar boys should be represented on yer team, and me thinking’s that meself and Shingles here”—he reached to the side and pulled forward the scarred old warrior, Shingles McRuff—“be just the two to do Mirabar proud.”

As he finished, the other five Mirabarran dwarves in the room exploded into cheers for their mighty leader and the legendary Shingles.

“Make it seven, then,” Cordio Muffinhead added. “For ye can’t be goin’ on a march for Moradin without a priest o’ Moradin, and I’m that priest.”

“Eight, then,” Bruenor corrected, “for I’m thinking that Hralien o’ the Moonwood won’t be leaving us after we find Drizzt.”

“Eight for the road and eight for Obould!” came the cheer, and it grew louder as it was repeated a second then a third time.

Then it ended abruptly, as a scowling Catti-brie came in through the door, staring hard at Bruenor with a look that had even the doubting Banak Brawnanvil looking at the dwarf king with sympathy.

“Go and do what needs doin’,” Bruenor instructed them all, his voice suddenly shaky, and as the others scattered through every door in the room, Catti-brie limped toward her father.

“So you’re going for Obould’s head, and you’re to lead it?” she asked.

Bruenor nodded. “It’s me destiny, girl. It’s why Moradin put me back here.”

“Regis brought you back, with his pendant.”

“Moradin let me go from his hall,” Bruenor insisted. “And it was for a reason!”

Catti-brie stared at him long and hard. “So now you’re to go out, and to take my friend Regis with you, and to take my husband with you. But I’m not welcome?”

“Ye can’t run!” Bruenor argued. “Ye can hardly walk more than a few dozen yards. If we’re turning from orcs, then are we to wait for yerself?”

“There’ll be less turning from orcs if I’m there.”

“Not for doubtin’ that,” said Bruenor. “But ye know ye can’t do it. Not now.”

“Then wait for me.”

Bruenor shook his head. Catti-brie’s lips grew tight and she blinked her blue eyes as if fighting back tears of frustration.

“I could lose all of you,” she whispered.

Bruenor caught on then that part of her difficulty at least had to do with Wulfgar. “He’ll come back,” the dwarf said. “He’ll walk the road that’s needin’ walking, but don’t ye doubt that Wulfgar’ll be coming back to us.”

Catti-brie winced at the mention of his name, and her expression showed her to be far less convinced of that than was her father.

“But will you?” she asked.

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted, throwing up a hand as if the question was ridiculous.

“And will Regis come back? And Drizzt?”

“Drizzt is out there already,” Bruenor argued. “Are ye doubtin’ him?”

“No.”

“Then why’re ye doubting me?” asked Bruenor. “I’m out for doing the same thing Drizzt set out to do afore the winter. And he went out alone! I won’t be out there alone, girl, and ye’d be smarter if ye was worrying about the damned orcs.”

Catti-brie continued to look at him, and had no answer.

Bruenor opened wide his arms, inviting her to a hug that she could not resist. “Ye won’t be alone, girl. Ye won’t ever be alone,” he whispered into her ear.

He understood fully her frustration, for would his own have been any less if he was to be left out of such a mission, when all of his friends were to go?

Catti-brie pulled back from him far enough to look him in the eye and ask, “Are you sure of this?”

“Obould’s got to die, and I’m the dwarf to kill him,” said Bruenor.

“Drizzt tried, and failed.”

“Well Drizzt’ll try again, but this time he’s got friends trying with him. When we come back to ye, the orc lines’ll be breaking apart. Ye’ll find plenty o’ fighting then, to be sure, and most of it outside our own doors. But the orcs’ll be scattered and easy to kill. Take me bet now, girl, that I’ll kill more than yerself.”

“You’re going out now, and getting a head start,” Catti-brie answered, her face brightening a bit.

“Bah, but I won’t count the ones I’m killing on the road,” said Bruenor. “When I get back here and the orcs come on, as they’re sure’n to do when Obould’s no more, then I’ll be killing more orcs than Catti-brie’s to fell.”

Catti-brie wore a sly grin. “I’ll have me bow back from Drizzt then,” she said, assuming a Dwarvish accent as she threw out the warning. “Every arrow’s taking one down. Some’ll take down two, or might even be three.”

“And every swipe o’ me axe is cutting three in half,” Bruenor countered. “And I’m not for tiring when there’re orcs to cut.”

The two stared at each other without blinking as each extended a hand to shake on the bet.

“The loser represents Mithral Hall at the next ceremony in Nesmé,” Catti-brie said, and Bruenor feigned a grimace, as though he hadn’t expected the stakes to be quite so high.

“Ye’ll enjoy the journey,” the dwarf said. He smiled and tried to pull back, but Catti-brie held his hand firmly and stared him in the eye, her expression solemn.

“Just get back to me, alive, and with Drizzt, Regis, and the others alive,” she said.

“Plannin’ on it,” said Bruenor, though he didn’t believe it any more than did Catti-brie. “And with Obould’s ugly head.

Catti-brie agreed. “With Obould’s head.”

CHAPTER 24 TAKING CARE IN WHAT THEY WISHED FOR

Clan Wolf Jaw lined both sides of the trail, their formidable array of warriors stretching out for hundreds of feet, beyond the bend and out of Chieftain Grguch’s line of sight. None moved to block the progress of Clan Karuck, or to threaten the hulking orcs in any way, and Grguch recognized the pair who did step out in the middle of the trail.

“Greetings again, Dnark,” Grguch said. “You have heard of our assault on the ugly dwarves?”

“All the tribes of Many-Arrows have heard of the glory of Grguch’s march,” Dnark answered, and Grguch smiled, as did Toogwik Tuk, who stood to the side and just behind the ferocious chieftain.

“You march west,” remarked Dnark, glancing back over his shoulder. “To the invitation of King Obould?”

Grguch spent a few moments looking over Dnark and his associate, the shaman Ung-thol. Then the huge orc warrior glanced back at Toogwik Tuk and beyond him, motioning to a trio of soldiers, two obviously of Clan Karuck, with wide shoulders and bulging muscles, and a third that Dnark and Ung-thol had parted company with just a few days earlier.

“Obould has sent an emissary, requesting parlay,” Grguch explained. Behind him, Oktule saluted the pair and bowed repeatedly.

“We were there among King Obould’s entourage when Oktule was sent forth,” Dnark replied. “Know you, though, that he was not the only emissary sent out that day.” He finished and met Grguch’s hard stare for a few heartbeats, then motioned behind to the Wolf Jaw ranks. Several warriors stepped out, dragging a beaten and battered orc. They took him around Dnark, and on his signal closed half the distance to Grguch before dropping their living cargo unceremoniously onto the dirt.

Priest Nukkels groaned as he hit the ground, and squirmed a bit, but Ung-thol and Dnark had done their work extremely well and there was no chance of him getting up from the ground.

“An emissary sent to you?” Grguch asked. “But you said that you were with Obould.”

“No,” Toogwik Tuk explained, reading correctly the smug expressions worn by his co-conspirators. He stepped forward, daring to pass Grguch as he moved toward the battered priest. “No, this is Nukkels,” he explained, looking back at Grguch.

Grguch shrugged, for the name meant nothing to him.

“King Obould’s advisor,” Toogwik Tuk explained. “He would not be sent to deliver a message to Chieftain Dnark. No, not even to Chieftain Grguch.”

“What?” Grguch demanded, and though his tone was calm and even, there remained behind it a hint of warning to Toogwik Tuk to tread lightly, where he seemed on the verge of insult.

“This emissary was for no orc,” Toogwik Tuk explained. He looked to Dnark and Ung-thol. “Nor was he heading north, to Gerti Orelsdottr, was he?”

“South,” Dnark answered.

“Southeast, precisely,” added Ung-thol.

Toogwik Tuk could barely contain his amusement—and his elation that King Obould had so perfectly played into their plans. He turned to Grguch, certain of his guess. “Priest Nukkels was sent by King Obould to parlay with King Bruenor Battlehammer.”

Grguch’s face went stone cold.

“We believe the same,” said Dnark, and he moved forward to stand beside Toogwik Tuk—and to ensure that Toogwik Tuk did not claim an overdue amount of the credit for that revelation. “Nukkels has resisted our…methods,” he explained, and to accentuate his point, he stepped over and kicked the groaning Nukkels hard in the ribs, sending him into a fetal curl. “He has offered many explanations for his journey, including that of going to King Bruenor.”

“This pathetic dwarf-kisser in the dirt was sent by Obould to meet with Bruenor?” Grguch asked incredulously, as if he could not believe his ears.

“So we believe,” Dnark answered.

“It is easy enough to discern,” came a voice from behind, among Clan Karuck’s ranks. All turned, Grguch with a wide, knowing smile, to see Hakuun step forward to stand beside his chieftain. “Would you like me to question the emissary?” Hakuun asked.

Grguch laughed and glanced around, motioning at last to a dark cluster of trees off to the side of the path. Dnark began signaling to his ranks for orcs to drag the prisoner over, but Grguch cut him short as Hakuun launched into a spell. Nukkels contorted as if in pain, and curled up on the ground—until he was not on the ground, but floating in the air. Hakuun walked for the trees, and Nukkels drifted behind him.

Away from the others, Hakuun obediently put his ear in line with that of Nukkels. The transfer took only a moment, with Jack the brain mole slipping out of Hakuun’s ear and into Nukkels’s.

As he realized what was happening to him, Nukkels began thrashing wildly in the air, but with nothing to orient him, with no pull of gravity to keep him upright or even on his side, he began to spin—which dizzied him, of course, and only made Jack’s intrusion that much easier.

Jack came back out, and back into his more usual host a short while later, having ripped Nukkels’s brain of every detail. He knew, and soon Hakuun knew, of Obould’s true designs, confirming the fears of the trio who had summoned Clan Karuck from the bowels of the Spine of the World.

“Obould seeks peace with the dwarves,” Hakuun remarked in disbelief. “He wants the war to be at its end.”

A very un-orc orc, said the voice in his head.

“He defiles the will of Gruumsh!”

As I said.

Hakuun stalked out of the tree cluster, Jack’s magic yanking the shivering, slobbering, floating Nukkels along behind him. When Hakuun got back to the others on the trail, he waved Nukkels in and let him drop hard to the ground.

“He was bound for King Bruenor,” the shaman of Clan Karuck stated. “To undo the damage wrought by Chieftain Grguch and Clan Karuck.”

“Damage?” Grguch asked, furrowing his thick brow. “Damage!”

“As we explained to you upon your arrival,” said Ung-thol.

“It is as our friends have told us,” Hakuun confirmed. “King Obould has lost his heart for war. He wishes no further battle with Clan Battlehammer.”

“Cowardice,” spat Toogwik Tuk.

“Has he found enough spoils to return to his home?” Grguch asked, his tone mocking and derogatory.

“He has conquered empty rocks,” Dnark proclaimed. “All that is of value lies within the halls of the Battlehammer dwarves, or across the river in the realm of Silverymoon. But Obould—” he paused, turned, and kicked Nukkels hard—“Obould would parlay with Bruenor. He would seek a treaty!”

“With dwarves?” Grguch bellowed.

“Exactly that,” said Hakuun, and Grguch nodded, having seen Hakuun at his work too many times to doubt a word he spoke.

Ung-thol and Toogwik Tuk exchanged knowing grins. It was all for show, all to rouse the rabble around the two chieftains, to garner outrage at the utter ridiculousness of the apparent designs of Obould.

“And he would parlay with Grguch,” Dnark reminded the ferocious orc chieftain. “He would summon you to his side to gain your approval. Or perhaps to scold you for attacking the elves and dwarves.”

Grguch’s bloodshot eyes opened wide and a great snarl rumbled behind his trembling lips. He seemed as if he would leap forward and bite off Dnark’s head, but the Chieftain of Wolf Jaw did not relent. “Obould intends to show Grguch who controls the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. He will coax you to join his way, so certain is he that he follows the true vision of Gruumsh.”

“To parlay with dwarves?” Grguch roared.

“Cowardice!” Dnark cried.

Grguch stood there, clenching his fists, the muscles in his neck straining, his chest and shoulders bulging as if their sinewy power could not be contained by the orc’s skin.

“Oktule!” he cried, wheeling to face the orc who had arrived with King Obould’s invitation.

The emissary shrank back, as did every orc around him.

“Come here,” Grguch demanded.

Oktule, trembling and sweating, gave a quick shake of his head and stumbled back even more—or would have, had not a pair of Clan Karuck’s powerful warriors grabbed him by the arms and walked him forward. He tried to dig his feet in, but they just dragged him, depositing him before the wild gaze of Chieftain Grguch.

“King Obould would scold me?” Grguch asked.

A line of wetness ran down poor Oktule’s leg, and he shook his head again—though whether in response to the question or in simple, desperate denial, no one around could tell. He focused on Dnark, pleading with the chieftain who knew that his role was unwitting.

Dnark laughed at him.

“He would scold me?” Grguch said again, louder. He leaned forward, towering over the trembling Oktule. “You did not tell me that.”

“He would not…he…he…he told me to come to get you,” Oktule stammered.

“That he might scold me?” Grguch demanded, and Oktule seemed about to faint.

“I did not know,” the pathetic courier protested meekly.

Grguch whirled to regard Dnark and the others, his expression brightening as if he had just sorted everything out. “To gain the favor of Bruenor, Obould would have to offer something,” Grguch realized. He spun back on Oktule and slapped him with a backhand across the face, launching him to the side and to the ground.

Grguch turned on Dnark again, his smile wry, nodding his head knowingly. “He would offer to Bruenor the head of the warrior who struck against Mithral Hall, perhaps.”

Behind him, Oktule gulped.

“Is there truth in that?” Dnark asked Nukkels, and he kicked the prone orc hard again.

Nukkels grunted and groaned, but said nothing decipherable.

“It is reasonable,” Ung-thol said, and Dnark quickly nodded, neither of them wishing to let Grguch calm from his self-imposed frenzy. “If Obould wishes to convince Bruenor that the attack was not of his doing, he would have to prove his claim.”

“With the head of Grguch?” the chieftain of Clan Karuck asked as he turned to Hakuun, and Grguch laughed as if it was all absurd.

“The foolish priest showed me nothing of this,” Hakuun admitted. “But if Obould truly wishes peace with Bruenor, and he does, then Chieftain Grguch has quickly become…an inconvenience.”

“It is past time I meet this Obould fool, that I can show him the truth of Clan Karuck,” said Grguch, and he gave a little laugh, clearly enjoying the moment. “It may be unfortunate that you interrupted the journey of the one in the dirt,” he said, nodding toward the still-squirming Nukkels. “Greater would be King Bruenor’s surprise and fear when he looked into that basket, I say! I would pay in women and good gold to see the face of the dwarf when he pulled out Obould’s head!”

The orcs of Clan Karuck began to howl at that, but Dnark, Ungthol, and Toogwik Tuk just looked at each other solemnly and with nods of understanding. For there it was, the conspiracy spoken clearly, openly proclaimed, and there could be no turning back. They offered their nods of thanks to Hakuun, who remained impassive, the part of him that was Jack the Gnome not wishing to even acknowledge their existence, let alone allow them the illusion that they were somehow his peers.

Grguch hoisted his two-bladed axe, but paused then set it aside. Instead, he drew a long and wicked knife from his belt and glanced back to the Karuck orcs standing around Oktule. His smile was all the impetus those orcs needed to drag the poor courier forward.

Oktule’s feet dug small trenches in the wet spring ground. He shook his head in denial, crying, “No, no, please no!”

Those pleas only seemed to spur Grguch on. He strode behind Oktule and grabbed a handful of the fool’s hair, roughly yanking his head back, exposing his throat.

Even the orcs of Oktule’s own clan joined in the cheering and chanting, and so he was doomed.

He screamed and shrieked in tones preternatural in their sheer horror. He thrashed and kicked and fought as the blade came against the soft skin of his throat.

Then his screams became watery, and Grguch bore him to the ground, face down, the chieftain’s knees upon his back, pinning him, while Grguch’s arm pumped furiously.

When Grguch stood up again, presenting Oktule’s head to the frenzied gathering, the three conspirators shared another glance, and each took a deep and steadying breath.

Dnark, Toogwik Tuk, and Ung-thol had made a deal with as brutal a creature as any of them had ever known. And they knew, all three, that there was more than a passing chance that Chieftain Grguch would one day present their heads for the approval of the masses.

They had to be satisfied with the odds, however, because the other choice before them was obedience to Obould, and Obould alone. And that course of cowardice they could not accept.

“There will be nothing subtle about Grguch’s challenge to Obould,” Ung-thol warned his comrades when the three were alone later that same night. “Diplomacy is not his way.”

“There is no time for diplomacy, nor is there any need,” said Toogwik Tuk, who clearly stood as the calmest and most confident of the trio. “We know the options before us, and we chose our road long ago. Are you surprised by Grguch and Clan Karuck? They are exactly as I portrayed them to you.”

“I am surprised by their…efficiency,” said Dnark. “Grguch walks a straight line.”

“Straight to Obould,” Toogwik Tuk remarked with a snicker.

“Do not underestimate King Obould,” warned Dnark. “That he sent Nukkels to Mithral Hall tells us that he understands the true threat of Grguch. He will not be caught unawares.”

“We cannot allow this to become a wider war,” Ung-thol agreed. “Grguch’s name is great among the orcs in the east, along the Surbrin, but the numbers of warriors there are few compared to what Obould commands in the west and the north. If this widens in scope, we will surely be overwhelmed.”

“Then it will not,” Toogwik Tuk said. “We will confront Obould with his small group around him, and Clan Karuck will overwhelm him and be done with it. He does not have the favor of Gruumsh—have we any doubt of that?”

“His actions do not echo the words of Gruumsh,” Ung-thol reluctantly agreed.

“If we are certain of his actions,” said Dnark.

“He will not march against Mithral Hall!” Toogwik Tuk snarled at them. “You have heard the whimpers of Nukkels! Grguch’s priest confirmed it.”

“Did he? Truly?” Dnark asked.

“Or is it all a ruse?” Ung-thol posed. “Is Obould’s pause a feint to fully unbalance our enemies?”

“Obould will not march,” Toogwik Tuk protested.

“And Grguch will not be controlled,” said Dnark. “And are we to believe that this half-ogre creature will hold the armies of Many-Arrows together in a unified march for wider glory?”

“The promise of conquest will hold the armies together far better than the hope of parlay with the likes of King Bruenor of the dwarves,” Toogwik Tuk argued.

“And that is the truth,” said Dnark, ending the debate. “And that is why we brought Clan Karuck forth. It unfolds before us now exactly as we anticipated, and Grguch meets and exceeds every expectation. Now that we are finding that which we decided we wished to find, we must hold fast to our initial beliefs that led us to this point. It is not the will of Gruumsh that his people should pause when great glory and conquest awaits. It is not the will of Gruumsh that his people should parlay with the likes of King Bruenor of the dwarves. Never that! Obould has pushed himself beyond the boundaries of decency and common sense. We knew that when we called to Clan Karuck, and we know that now.” He turned his head and spat upon Nukkels, who lay unconscious and near death in the mud. “We know that with even more certainty now.”

“So let us go and witness Grguch as he answers the summons of Obould,” said Toogwik Tuk. “Let us lead the cheers to King Grguch, as he leads our armies against King Bruenor.”

Ung-thol still wore doubts on his old and wrinkled face, but he looked to Dnark and shared in his chieftain’s assenting nod.

In a tree not far away, a curious winged snake listened to it all with amusement.

CHAPTER 25 POLITICS AND ALLIANCES

Raised in Menzoberranzan, a male drow in the matriarchal city of Menzoberranzan, Tos’un Armgo didn’t as much as grimace when Drizzt tugged his arms back hard and secured the rope on the other side of the large tree. He was caught, with nowhere to run or hide. He glanced to the side—or tried to, for Drizzt had expertly looped the rope under his chin to secure him against the tree trunk—where Khazid’hea rested, stabbed into a stone by Drizzt. He could feel the sword calling to him, but he couldn’t reach out to it.

Drizzt studied Tos’un as if he understood the silent pleas exchanged between drow and sentient sword—and likely, he did, Tos’un realized.

“You have nothing further to gain or lose,” Drizzt said. “Your day in the service of Obould is done.”

“I have not been in his service for many tendays,” Tos’un stubbornly argued. “Not since before the winter. Not since that day you battled him, and even before that, truth be told.”

“Truth told by a son of House Barrison Del’Armgo?” Drizzt asked with a scoff.

“I have nothing to gain or lose, just as you said.”

“A friend of mine, a dwarf named Bill, would speak with you about that,” Drizzt said. “Or whisper at you, I should say, for his throat was expertly cut to steal the depth of his voice.”

Tos’un grimaced at that inescapable truth, for he had indeed cut a dwarf’s throat in preparation for Obould’s first assault on Mithral Hall’s eastern door.

“I have other friends who might have wished to speak with you, too,” said Drizzt. “But they are dead, in no small part because of your actions.”

“I was fighting a war,” Tos’un blurted. “I did not understand—”

“How could you not understand the carnage to which you contributed? Is that truly your defense?”

Tos’un shook his head, though it would hardly turn to either side.

“I have learned,” the captured drow added. “I have tried to make amends. I have aided the elves.”

Despite himself and his intentions that he would bring no harm to his prisoner, Drizzt slapped Tos’un across the face. “You led them to the elves,” he accused.

“No,” said Tos’un. “No.”

“I have heard the details of the raid.”

“Facilitated by Chieftain Grguch of Clan Karuck, and a trio of conspirators who seek to force Obould back to the road of conquest,” said Tos’un. “There is more afoot here than you understand. Never did I side with those who attacked the Moonwood, and who have marched south, I am sure, with intent to strike at Mithral Hall.”

“Yet you just said that you were no ally of Obould,” Drizzt reasoned.

“Not of Obould, nor of any other orc,” said Tos’un. “I admit my role, though it was a passive one, in the early stages, when Donnia Soldou, Ad’non Kareese, and Kaer’lic Suun Wett decided to foster an alliance between Obould and his orcs, Gerti Orelsdottr and her giants, and the two-headed troll named Proffit. I went along because I did not care—why would I care for dwarves, humans, and elves? I am drow!”

“A point I have never forgotten, I assure you.”

The threat took much of Tos’un’s bluster, but he pressed on anyway. “The events surrounding me were not my concern.”

“Until Obould tried to kill you.”

“Until I was chased away by the murderous Obould, yes,” said Tos’un. “And into the camp of Albondiel and Sinnafain of the Moonwood.”

“Whom you betrayed,” Drizzt shouted in his face.

“From whom I escaped, though I was not their captive,” Tos’un yelled back.

“Then why did you run?”

“Because of you!” Tos’un cried. “Because of that sword I carried, who knew that Drizzt Do’Urden would never allow me to keep it, who knew that Drizzt Do’Urden would find me among the elves and strike me down for possessing a sword that I had found abandoned in the bottom of a ravine.”

“That is not why, and you know it,” said Drizzt, backing off just a step. “’Twas I who lost the sword, recall?”

As he spoke he glanced over at Khazid’hea, and an idea came to him. He wanted to believe Tos’un, as he had wanted to believe the female, Donnia, when he had captured her those months before.

He looked back at Tos’un, smiled wryly, and said, “It is all opportunity, is it not?”

“What do you mean?”

“You ally with Obould as he gains the upper hand. But he is held at bay, and you face his wrath. So you find your way to Sinnafain and Albondiel and the others and think to create new opportunities where your old ones have ended. Or to recreate the old ones, at the expense of your new ‘friends.’ Once you have gained their trust and learned their ways, you again have something to offer to the orcs, something that will perhaps bring Obould back to your side.”

“By helping Grguch? You do not understand.”

“But I shall,” Drizzt promised, moving off to the side, toward Khazid’hea. Without hesitation, he grabbed the sword by the hilt. Metal scraped and screeched as he withdrew the blade from the stone, but Drizzt didn’t hear that, for Khazid’hea already invaded his thoughts.

I had thought you lost to me.

But Drizzt wasn’t listening to any of that, had not the time for it. He forced his thoughts into the sword, demanding of Khazid’hea a summary of its time in the hands of Tos’un Armgo. He did not coddle the sword with promises that together they would find glory. He did not offer to the sword anything. He simply asked of it, Were you in the Moonwood? Have you tasted the blood of elves?

Sweet blood… Khazid’hea admitted, but with that thought came to Drizzt a sense of a time long past. And the sword had not been in the Moonwood. Of that much, the drow was almost immediately certain.

In light of Khazid’hea’s open admission of its fondness for elf blood, Drizzt considered the unlikely scenario that Tos’un could have been an integral part of the planning for that raid and yet still have remained on the western side of the Surbrin. Would Khazid’hea have allowed that participation from afar, knowing that blood was to be spilled, and particularly since Khazid’hea had been in Tos’un’s possession when he had been with the elves?

Drizzt glanced back at the captured drow and considered the relationship between Tos’un and the sword. Had Tos’un so dominated Khazid’hea?

As that very question filtered through Drizzt’s thoughts, and thus was offered to the telepathic sword, Khazid’hea’s mocking response chimed in.

Drizzt put the sword down for a few moments to let it all sink in. When he retrieved the blade, he directed his questioning toward the newcomer.

Grguch, he imparted.

A fine warrior. Fierce and powerful.

A worthy wielder for Khazid’hea? Drizzt asked.

The sword didn’t deny it.

More worthy than Obould? Drizzt silently asked.

The feeling that came back at him seemed not so favorably impressed. And yet, Drizzt knew that King Obould was as fine a warrior as any orc he had ever encountered, as fine as Drizzt himself, whom the sword had long coveted as a wielder. Though not of that elite class, Catti-brie, too, was a fine warrior, and yet Drizzt knew from his last experience with the sword that she had fallen out of Khazid’hea’s favor, as she opted to use her bow far too often for Khazid’hea’s ego.

A long time passed before Drizzt set the sword down once again, and he was left with the impression that the ever-bloodthirsty Khazid’hea clearly favored Grguch over Obould, and just for the reasons that Tos’un had said. Obould was not pressing for conquest and battle.

Drizzt looked at Tos’un, who rested as comfortably as could be expected given his awkward position tied to the tree. Drizzt could not dismiss the plausibility of Tos’un’s claims, all of them, and perhaps, whether through heartfelt emotion or simple opportunity, Tos’un was not now an enemy to him and his allies.

But after his experiences with Donnia Soldou—indeed, after his experiences with his own race from the earliest moments of his conscious life, Drizzt Do’Urden wasn’t about to take that chance.

The sun had long set, the dark night made murkier by a fog that curled up from the softening snow. Into that mist disappeared Bruenor, Hralien, Regis, Thibble dorf Pwent, Torgar Hammerstriker and Shingles McRuff of Mirabar, and Cordio the priest.

On the other side of the ridgeline, behind the wall where Bruenor’s dwarves and Alustriel’s wizards worked vigilantly, Catti-brie watched the receding group with a heavy heart.

“I should be going with them,” she said.

“You cannot,” said her companion, Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon. The tall woman moved nearer to Catti-brie and put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Your leg will heal.”

Catti-brie looked up at her, for Alustriel was nearly half a foot taller than she.

“Perhaps this is a sign that you should consider my offer,” Alustriel said.

“To train in wizardry? Am I not too old to begin such an endeavor?”

Alustriel laughed dismissively at the absurd question. “You will take to it naturally, even though you were raised by the magically inept dwarves.”

Catti-brie considered her words for a moment, but soon turned her attention to the view beyond the wall, where the fog had swallowed her father and friends. “I had thought that you would walk beside my father, as he bade,” she said, and glanced over at the Lady of Silverymoon.

“As you could not, neither could I,” Alustriel replied. “My position prevented me from it as fully as did your wounded leg.”

“You do not agree with Bruenor’s goal? You would side with Obould?”

“Surely not,” said Alustriel. “But it is not my place to interject Silverymoon in a war.”

“You did exactly that when you and your Knights in Silver rescued the wandering Nesmians.”

“Our treaties with Nesmé demanded no less,” Alustriel explained. “They were under attack and running for their lives. Small friends we would be if we did not come to them in their time of need.”

“Bruenor sees it just that way right now,” said Catti-brie.

“Indeed he does,” Alustriel admitted.

“So he plans to eradicate the threat. To decapitate the orc army and send them scattering.”

“And I hope and pray that he succeeds. To have the orcs gone is a goal agreed upon by all the folk of the Silver Marches, of course. But it is not my place to bring Silverymoon into this provocative attack. My council has determined that our posture is to remain defensive, and I am bound to abide by their edicts.”

Catti-brie shook her head and did not hide her disgusted look. “You act as if we are in a time of peace, and Bruenor is breaking that peace,” she said. “Does a needed pause in the war because of the winter’s snows cancel what has gone before?”

Alustriel hugged the angry woman a bit tighter. “It is not the way any of us wish it to be,” she said. “But the council of Silverymoon has determined that Obould has stopped his march, and we must accept that.”

“Mithral Hall was just attacked,” Catti-brie reminded. “Are we to sit back and let them strike at us again and again?”

Alustriel’s pause showed that she had no answer for that. “I cannot go after Obould now,” she said. “In my role as leader of Silverymoon, I am bound by the decisions of the council. I wish Bruenor well. I hope with all my heart and soul that he succeeds and that the orcs are chased back to their holes.”

Catti-brie calmed, more from the sincerity and regret in Alustriel’s tone than from her actual words. Alustriel had helped, despite her refusal to go along, for she had given to Bruenor a locket enchanted to lead the dwarf toward Drizzt, an identical locket to the one she had given to Catti-brie many years before when she, too, had gone off to find a wandering Drizzt.

“I hope that Bruenor is correct in his guess,” Alustriel went on, trepidation in her voice. “I hope that killing Obould will bring the results he desires.”

Catti-brie didn’t reply, but just stood there and absorbed the words. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that Obould, who had started the war, might actually have become a stabilizing force, and yet she could not deny her doubts.

The two orcs stood under a widespread maple, the sharp, stark lines of its branches not yet softened by the onset of buds. They talked and chuckled at their own stupidity, for they were completely lost, and far separated from their kin at the small village. A wrong turn on a trail in the dark of night had put them far afield, and they had long ago abandoned the firewood they had come out to collect.

One lamented that his wife would beat him red, to warm him up so he could replace the fire that wouldn’t last half the night.

The other laughed and his smile lingered long after his mirth was stolen by an elven arrow, one that neatly sliced into his companion’s temple. Standing in confusion, grinning simply because he hadn’t the presence of mind to remove his own smile, the orc didn’t even register the sudden thump of heavy boots closing in fast from behind him. He was caught completely unawares as the sharp tip of a helmet spike drove into his spine, tearing through muscle and bone, and blasted out the front of his chest, covered in blood and pieces of his torn heart.

He was dead before Thibble dorf Pwent straightened, lifting the orc’s flopping body atop his head. The dwarf hopped around, looking for more enemies. He saw Bruenor and Cordio scrambling in the shadows south of the maple, and noted Torgar and Shingles farther to the east. With Hralien in the northwest, and Regis following in the shadows behind Pwent, the group soon surmised that the pair had been out alone.

“Good enough, then,” said Bruenor, nodding his approval. He held up the locket Alustriel had given him. “Warmer,” he explained. ”Drizzt is nearby.”

“Still north?” Hralien asked, coming in under the maple to stand beside Bruenor.

“Back from where ye just walked,” Bruenor confirmed, holding forth his fist, which held the locket. “And getting warmer by the step.”

A curious expression showed on Bruenor’s face. “And getting warmer as we’re standin’ here,” he explained to the curious glances that came his way.

“Drizzt!” Regis cried an instant later.

Following the halfling’s pointing finger, the others spied a pair of dark elves coming toward them, with Tos’un bound and walking before their friend.

“Taked ye long enough to find him, eh?” Thibble dorf Pwent said with a snort. He bent and slapped his leg for effect, which sent the dead orc flopping weirdly.

Drizzt stared at the bloody dwarf, at the cargo he carried on his helmet spike. Realizing that there was simply nothing he might say against the absurdity of that image, he just prodded Tos’un on, moving to the main group.

“They hit the wall east of Mithral Hall,” Hralien explained to Drizzt. “As you had feared.”

“Aye, but know that we sent them running,” Bruenor added.

Drizzt’s confused expression didn’t change as he scanned the group.

“And now we’re out for Obould,” Bruenor explained. “I’m knowing ye were right, elf. We got to kill Obould and break it all apart, as ye thought afore when ye went after him with me girl’s sword.”

“We’re out for him?” Drizzt asked doubtfully, looking past the small group. “You’ve brought no army, my friend.”

“Bah, an army’d just muddle it all,” Bruenor said with a wave of his hand.

It wasn’t hard for Drizzt to catch the gist of that, and in considering it for a moment, in considering Bruenor’s leadership methodology, he realized that he should not be the least bit surprised.

“We wish to get to Obould, and it seems that we have a captive who might aid in exactly that,” Hralien remarked, stepping up before Tos’un.

“I have no idea where he is,” Tos’un said in his still-stinted command of the Elvish tongue.

“You would have to say that,” said Hralien.

“I helped you…your people,” Tos’un protested. “Grguch had them caught in the failed raid and I showed them the tunnel that took them to safety.”

“True,” Hralien replied. “But then, isn’t that what a drow would do? To gain our trust, I mean?”

Tos’un’s shoulders sagged and he lowered his eyes, for he had just fought that same battle with Drizzt, and there seemed no way for him to escape it. Everything he had done leading up to that point could be interpreted as self-serving, and for the benefit of a larger and more nefarious plot.

“Ye should’ve just killed him and been done with it,” Bruenor said to Drizzt. “If he’s not for helping us then he’s just slowing us down.”

“Meself’ll be there for the task in a heartbeat, me king!” Pwent shouted from the side, and all eyes turned to see the dwarf, bent low with head forward, backing through the narrow opening between a pair of trees. Pwent set the back of the dead orc’s thighs against one trunk, the poor creature’s shoulder blades against another, and with a sudden burst, the dwarf tugged backward. Bones and gristle popped and ground as the barbed spike tore back through, freeing the dwarf of his dead-weight burden.

Pwent stumbled backward and fell to his rump, but hopped right back to his feet and bounced around to face the others, shaking his head so vigorously that his lips flapped. Then, with a smile, Pwent brought his hands up before him, palms facing out, extended thumbs touching tip-to-tip, lining up his charge.

“Turn the dark-skinned dog just a bit,” he instructed.

“Not just yet, good dwarf,” Drizzt said, and Pwent straightened, disappointment clear on his face.

“Ye thinkin’ to take him along?” Bruenor asked, and Drizzt nodded.

“We could divert our course to the Moonwood, or back to Mithral Hall,” Hralien offered. “We would lose no more than a day or so, and would be rid of our burden.”

But Drizzt shook his head.

“Easier just to kill him,” said Bruenor, and to the side, Pwent began scraping his feet across the ground like a bull readying for a charge.

“But not wiser,” Drizzt said. “If Tos’un’s claims are true, he might prove to be a valuable asset to us. If not, we have lost nothing because we have risked nothing.” He looked to his fellow drow. “If you do not deceive us, on my word I will let you leave when we are done.”

“You cannot do this,” said Hralien, drawing all eyes his way. “If he has committed crimes against the Moonwood, his fate is not yours alone to decide.”

“He has not,” Drizzt assured the elf. “He was not there, for Khazid’hea was not there.”

Bruenor yanked Drizzt aside, pulling him away from the others. “How much o’ this is yer way o’ hoping for a drow akin to yerself?” the dwarf asked bluntly.

Drizzt shook his head, with sincerity and certainty. “On my word, Bruenor, this I do because I think it best for us and our cause—whatever that cause may be.”

“What’s that meaning?” the dwarf demanded. “We’re for killing Obould, don’t ye doubt!” He raised his voice with the proclamation, and the others all looked his way.

Drizzt didn’t argue. “Obould would kill Tos’un if given the chance, as Obould murdered Tos’un’s companion. We will gamble nothing with Tos’un, I promise you, my friend, and the possibility of gain cannot be ignored.”

Bruenor looked long and hard at Drizzt then glanced back at Tos’un, who stood calmly, as if resigned to his fate—whatever that fate may be.

“On my word,” Drizzt said.

“Yer word’s always been good enough, elf,” said Bruenor. He turned and started back for the others, calling to Torgar and Shingles as he went. “Think yerselves are up to guardin’ a drow?” he asked, or started to, for as soon as his intent became clear, Drizzt interrupted him.

“Let Tos’un remain my responsibility,” he said.

Again Bruenor granted Drizzt his wish.

CHAPTER 26 CROSSROAD

Wulfgar lingered around the outskirts of Auckney for several days. He didn’t dare show his face in the town for fear that connecting himself to the new arrival at Castle Auck would put undue pressure on Lord Feringal, and create dangerous ramifications for Colson. But Wulfgar was a man comfortable in the wilds, who knew how to survive through the cold nights, and who knew how to keep himself hidden.

Everything he heard about the lord and lady’s new child brought him hope. One of the prevalent rumors whispered by excited towns-folk hinted that the girl was Feringal’s and Meralda’s own, and that she had been born in a sleep-state from which they had never expected her to awaken. And what joy now for the couple and the town that the child had recovered!

Another rumor attached Colson to barbarian nobility, and claimed that her presence with Lord Feringal ensured security for the folk of Auckney—a wonderful thing in the tough terrain of the frozen North.

Wulfgar absorbed it all with a growing sense that he had done well for Colson, for himself, and for Delly. Truly he had a hole in his heart that he never expected to fill, and truly he vowed that he would visit Auckney and Colson in the coming years. Feringal would have no reason to dismiss him or arrest him as time passed, after all, and indeed Wulfgar might find a level of bargaining power in the future, since he knew the truth of the girl’s parentage. Lord Feringal wouldn’t want him for an enemy, physically or politically.

That was the barbarian’s hope, the one thing that kept him from breaking down and rushing back into the town to “rescue” Colson.

He continued to linger, to listen and to watch, for on more than one occasion he chanced to see Colson out with her new parents. He was truly amazed and heartened to see how quickly the young girl had adapted to her new surroundings and new parents, from afar at least. Colson smiled as often as she had in Mithral Hall, and she seemed at ease holding Meralda’s hand and walking along in the woman’s shadow.

Similarly, the love Meralda held for her could not be denied. The look of serenity on her face was everything Wulfgar had hoped it would be. She seemed complete and content, and in addition to those promising appearances, what gave Wulfgar more hope still was the posture of Lord Feringal whenever he was near to the girl. There could be no doubt that Feringal had grown greatly in character over the years. Perhaps it was due to the support of Meralda, a woman Wulfgar knew to be possessed of extraordinary integrity, or perhaps it was due to the absence of Feringal’s shrill sister.

Whatever the cause, the result was clear for him to see and hear, and every day he lingered near to Auckney was a day in which he grew more certain of his decision to return the child to her rightful mother. It did Wulfgar’s heart good, for all the pain still there, to think of Colson in Meralda’s loving arms.

So many times he wanted to run into Auckney to tell Colson that he loved her, to crush her close to him in his arms and assure her that he would always love her, would always protect her. So many times he wanted to go in and simply say goodbye. Her cries of “Da!’ still echoed in his mind and would haunt him for years and years, he knew.

But he could not go in, and so as the days became a tenday, Wulfgar melted away down the mountain road to the east, the way he had come. The next day, he arrived at the end of the eastern pass, where the road ran south through the foothills to Luskan, and north to the long dale that traversed the Spine of the World and opened up into Icewind Dale.

Wulfgar turned neither way at first. Instead he crossed the trail and scaled a rocky outcropping that afforded him a grand view of the rolling lands farther to the east. He perched upon the stone and let his mind’s eye rove beyond the physical limitations of his vision, imagining the landscape as it neared Mithral Hall and his dearest friends. The place he had called home.

He turned suddenly back to the west, thinking of his daughter and realizing just how badly he missed her—much more so than he’d anticipated.

Then back to the east went his thoughts and his eyes, to the tomb of Delly, lying cold in Mithral Hall.

“I only ever tried to do the best I could,” he whispered as if talking to his dead wife.

It was true enough. For all of his failures since his return from the Abyss, Wulfgar had tried to do the best he could manage. It had been so when he’d first rejoined his friends, when he’d failed and assaulted Catti-brie after a hallucinatory dream. It had been so during his travels with Morik, through Luskan and up to Auckney. So many times had he failed during those dark days.

Looking west then looking east, Wulfgar accepted the responsibility for all of those mistakes. He did not couch his admission of failure with self-serving whining about the trials he had suffered at the claws of Errtu. He did not make excuses for any of it, for there were none that could alter the truth of his behavior.

All he could do was do the best he could in all matters before him. That was what had led him to retrieve Delly’s body. It was the right thing to do. That was what had led him not only to retrieve Colson from Cottie and the refugees, but to bring her home to Meralda. It was the right thing to do.

And now?

Wulfgar had thought he’d sorted it all out, had thought his plans and road determined. But with the stark reality of those plans before him, he was unsure. He knelt upon the stone and prayed to Delly for guidance. He called upon her ghost to show him the way.

Was Obould pounding on the doors of Mithral Hall yet again?

Bruenor might need him, he knew. His adoptive father, who had shown him nothing but love for all those years, might need his strength in the coming war. Wulfgar’s absence could result in Bruenor’s death!

The same could be true of Drizzt, or Regis, or Catti-brie. They might find themselves in situations in the coming days where only Wulfgar could save them.

“Might,” Wulfgar said, and as he heard the word, he recognized that that would forever be the case. They might need him as he might need any of them, or all of them. Or perhaps even all of them together would one day soon be overcome by a black tide like the one of Obould.

“Might,” he said again. “Always might.”

Aside from the grim possibilities offered by the nearly perpetual state of war, however, Wulfgar had to remind himself of important questions. What of his own needs? What of his own desires? What of his own legacy?

He was approaching middle age.

Reflexively, Wulfgar turned from the east to face north, looking up the trail that would lead him to Icewind Dale, the land of his ancestors, the land of his people.

Before he could fully turn that way, however, he looked back to the east, toward Mithral Hall, and envisioned Obould the Awful towering over Bruenor.

CHAPTER 27 TRUST, AND VERIFY

This Toogwik Tuk is aggressive,” Grguch said to Hakuun, and to Jack, though of course Grguch didn’t know that. They stood off to the side of the gathering force as it realigned itself for a march to the west. “He would have us wage war with Obould.”

“He claims that Obould would wage war with us,” the shaman agreed after a quick internal dialogue with Jack.

Grguch grinned as if nothing in the world would please him more. “I like this Toogwik Tuk,” he said. “He speaks with Gruumsh.”

“Are you not curious as to why Obould halted his march?” Hakuun asked, though the question had originated with Jack. “His reputation is for ferocity, but he builds walls instead of tearing them down.”

“He fears rivals,” Grguch assumed. “Or he has grown comfortable. He walks away from Gruumsh.”

“You do not intend to convince him otherwise.”

Grguch grinned even more wickedly. “I intend to kill him and take his armies. I speak to Gruumsh, and I will please Gruumsh.”

“Your message will be blunt, or coaxed at first?”

Grguch looked at the shaman curiously then motioned with his chin toward a bag set off to the side, a sack that held Oktule’s head.

A wry smile widened on Hakuun’s face. “I can strengthen the message,” he promised, and Grguch was pleased.

Hakuun looked back over his shoulder and spoke a few arcane words, strung together with dramatic inflection. Jack had predicted all of it, and had already worked the primary magic for it. Out of the shadows walked Oktule, headless and grotesque. The animated zombie strode stiff-legged to the sack and shifted aside the flaps. It stood straight a moment later and moved slowly toward the pair, cradling its lost head in both hands at its midsection.

Hakuun looked to Grguch and shrugged sheepishly. The chieftain laughed.

“Blunt,” he said. “I only wish that I might view Obould’s face when the message is delivered.”

Inside Hakuun’s head, Jack whispered, and Hakuun echoed to Grguch, “It can be arranged.”

Grguch laughed even louder.

With a bellow of “Kokto Gung Karuck,” Grguch’s orc force, a thousand strong and growing, began its march to the west, the clan of the Wolf Jaw taking the southern flank, Clan Karuck spearheading the main mass.

In the very front walked the zombie Oktule, holding a message for Obould.

They heard the resonating grumble of “Kokto Gung Karuck,” and from a high mountain ridge not far northeast of Mithral Hall, Drizzt, Bruenor, and the others saw the source of that sound, the march of Clan Karuck and its allies.

“It is Grguch,” Tos’un told the group. “The conspirators are leading him to Obould.”

“To fight him?” Bruenor asked.

“Or to convince him,” said Tos’un.

Bruenor snorted at him, but Tos’un just looked at Drizzt and Hralien and shook his head, unwilling to concede the point.

“Obould has shown signs that he wishes to halt his march,” Drizzt dared say.

“Tell it to the families of me boys who died at the wall a couple o’ nights ago, elf,” Bruenor growled.

“That was Grguch, perhaps,” Drizzt offered, careful to add the equivocation.

“That was orcs,” Bruenor shot back. “Orcs is orcs is orcs, and th’ only thing they’re good for is fertilizing the fields. Might that their rotting bodies’ll help grow trees to cover the scars in yer Moonwood,” he added, addressing Hralien, who blanched and rocked back on his heels.

“To cover the blood of Innovindil,” Bruenor added, glaring at Drizzt.

But Drizzt didn’t back from the stinging comment. “Information is both our weapon and our advantage,” he said. “We would do well to learn more of this march, its purpose, and where it might turn next.” He looked down and to the north, where the black swarm of Grguch’s army was clear to see along the rocky hills. “Besides, our trails parallel anyway.”

Bruenor waved his hand dismissively and turned away, Pwent following him back to the food spread out at the main encampment.

“We need to get closer to them,” Drizzt told the remaining half a dozen. “We need to learn the truth of their march.”

Regis took a deep breath as Drizzt finished, for he felt the weight of the task on his shoulders.

“The little one will be killed,” Tos’un said to Drizzt, using the drow language, Low Drow, that only he and Drizzt understood.

Drizzt looked at him hard.

“They are warriors, fierce and alert,” Tos’un explained.

“Regis is more than he seems,” Drizzt replied in the same Under-dark language.

“So is Grguch.” As he finished, Tos’un glanced at Hralien, as if to invite Drizzt to speak to the elf for confirmation.

“Then I will go,” said Drizzt.

“There is a better way,” Tos’un replied. “I know of one who can walk right in and speak with the conspirators.”

That gave Drizzt pause, an expression of doubt clouding his face and obvious to everyone nearby.

“Ye plannin’ to tell us what ye’re talking about?” Torgar said impatiently.

Drizzt looked at him then back at Tos’un. He nodded, to both.

After a brief private conversation with Cordio, Drizzt pulled Tos’un off to the side to join the priest.

“Ye sure?” Cordio asked Drizzt when they were alone. “Ye’re just gonna have to kill him.”

Tos’un tensed at the words, and Drizzt fought hard to keep the smile from his face.

“He might be full o’ more information that we can coax out o’ him,” Cordio went on, playing his role perfectly. “Might be that a few tendays o’ torture’ll bring us answers about Obould.”

“Or lies to stop the torture,” Drizzt replied, but he ended the forthcoming debate with an upraised hand, for it didn’t matter anyway. “I am sure,” he said simply, and Cordio heaved an “oh-if-I-must” sigh, the perfect mix of disgust and resignation.

Cordio began to chant and slowly dance around the startled Tos’un. The dwarf cast a spell—a harmless dweomer that would have cured any diseases that Tos’un might have contracted, though of course, Tos’un didn’t know that, and recognized only that the dwarf had sent some magical energy into his body. Another harmless spell followed, then a third, and with each casting, Cordio narrowed his eyes and sharpened his inflection just a bit more, making it all seem quite sinister.

“The arrow,” the dwarf commanded, holding a hand out toward Drizzt though his intense stare never left Tos’un.

“What?” Drizzt asked, and Cordio snapped his fingers impatiently. Drizzt recovered quickly and drew an arrow from his magical quiver, handing it over as demanded.

Cordio held it up before his face and chanted. He waggled the fingers of his free hand over the missile’s wicked tip. Then he moved it toward Tos’un, who shrank back but did not retreat. The dwarf lifted the arrow up to Tos’un’s head then lowered it.

“The head, or the heart?” he asked, turning to Drizzt.

Drizzt looked at him curiously.

“Telled ye it was a good spell,” Cordio lied. “Not that it’ll much matter with that durned bow o’ yers. Blast his head from his shoulders or take out half his chest? Yer choice.”

“The head,” said the amused drow. “No, the chest. Shoot center mass….”

“Ye can’t miss either way,” the dwarf promised.

Tos’un stared hard at Drizzt.

“Cordio has placed an enchantment upon you,” Drizzt explained as Cordio continued to chant and wave the arrow before Tos’un’s slender chest. The dwarf ended by tapping the arrowhead against the drow, right over his heart.

“This arrow is now attuned to you,” Drizzt said, taking the arrow from the dwarf. “If it is shot, it will find your heart, unerringly. You cannot dodge it. You cannot deflect it. You cannot block it.”

Tos’un’s look was skeptical.

“Show ’im, elf,” Cordio said.

Drizzt hesitated for effect.

“We’re shielded from the damned orcs,” the priest insisted. “Show ’im.”

Looking back at Tos’un, Drizzt still saw doubt, and that he could not allow. He drew Taulmaril from his shoulder, replaced the “enchanted” arrow in his quiver and took out a different one. As he set it, he turned and targeted, then let fly at a distant boulder.

The magical bolt split the air like a miniature lightning bolt, flashing fast and true. It cracked into the stone and blasted through with a sharp retort that had Regis and the other dwarves jumping with surprise. It left only a smoking hole in the stone where it had hit.

“The magic of the surface dwellers is strange and powerful, do not doubt,” Drizzt warned his fellow drow.

“Ye ain’t got a chest plate thick enough,” Cordio added, and he tossed an exaggerated wink at Tos’un then turned with a great laugh and ambled away.

“What is this about?” Tos’un asked in the drow tongue.

“You wish to play the role of scout, so I will let you.”

“But with the specter of death walking beside me.”

“Of course,” said Drizzt. “Were it just me, I might trust you.”

Tos’un tilted his head, curious, trying to get a measure of Drizzt.

“Fool that I am,” Drizzt added. “But it is not just me, and if I am to entrust you with this, I need to ensure that my friends will not be harmed by my decision. You hinted that you can walk right into their camp.”

“The conspirators know that I am no friend of Obould’s.”

“Then I will allow you to prove your worth. Go and learn what you may. I will be near, bow in hand.”

“To kill me if I deceive you.”

“To ensure the safety of my friends.”

Tos’un began to slowly shake his head.

“You will not go?” Drizzt asked.

“You need not do any of this, but I understand,” Tos’un replied. “I will go as I offered. You will come to know that I am not deceiving you.”

By the time the two dark elves got back to the rest of the group, Cordio had informed the others of what had transpired, and of the plan going forward. Bruenor stood with his hands on his hips, clearly unconvinced, but he merely gave a “harrumph” and turned away, letting Drizzt play out his game.

The two drow set off from the others after nightfall, moving through the shadows with silent ease. They picked their way toward the main orc encampment, dodging guards and smaller camps, and always with Tos’un several steps in the lead. Drizzt followed with Taulmaril in hand, the deadly “enchanted” arrow set on its string—at least, Drizzt hoped he had taken out the same arrow Cordio had played with, or that if he had not, Tos’un hadn’t noticed.

As they neared the main group, crossing along the edge of a clearing that was centered by a large tree, Drizzt whispered for Tos’un to stop. Drizzt paused for a few heartbeats, hearing the rhythm of the night. He waved for Tos’un to follow out to the tree. Up Drizzt went, so gracefully that it seemed as if he had walked along a fallen log rather than up a vertical trunk. On the lowest branch, he paused and looked around then turned his attention on Tos’un below.

Drizzt dropped a sword belt, both of Tos’un’s weapons sheathed.

You would trust me? the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo signaled up with his fingers, using the intricate silent language of the drow.

Drizzt’s answer was simple, and reflected on his impassive expression. I have nothing to lose. I care nothing for that sword—it destroys more than it helps. You will drop it and your other blade to the ground when you return to the tree, or I will retrieve it from the grasp of the dying orc who took it from you after I put an arrow through your heart.

Tos’un stared at him long and hard, but had no retort against the simple and straightforward logic. He looked down at the sword belt, at the hilt of Khazid’hea, and truly he was glad to have the sword back in hand.

He disappeared into the darkness a moment later, and Drizzt could only hope that his guess regarding Tos’un’s veracity had been correct. For there had been no spell, of course, Cordio’s grand exhibition being no more than an elaborate ruse.

Tos’un was truly torn as he crossed the orc lines to the main encampment. Known by the Wolf Jaw orcs sprinkled among the Clan Karuck sentries, he had no trouble moving in, and found Dnark and Ung-thol easily enough.

“I have news,” he told the pair.

Dnark and Ung-thol exchanged suspicious looks. “Then speak it,” Ung-thol bade him.

“Not here.” Tos’un glanced around, as if expecting to find spies behind every rock or tree. “It is too important.”

Dnark studied him for a few moments. “Get Toogwik…” he started to say to Ung-thol, but Tos’un cut him short.

“No. For Dnark and Ung-thol alone.”

“Regarding Obould.”

“Perhaps,” was all the drow would answer, and he turned and started away. With another look at each other, the two orcs followed him into the night, all the way back to the edge of the field where Drizzt Do’Urden waited in a tree.

“My friends are watching,” Tos’un said, loudly enough for Drizzt, with his keen drow senses, to hear.

Drizzt tensed and drew back Taulmaril, wondering if he was about to be revealed.

Tos’un would die first, he decided.

“Your friends are dead,” Dnark replied.

“Three are,” said Tos’un.

“You have made others. I salute you.”

Tos’un shook his head with disgust at the pathetic attempt at sarcasm, wondering why he had ever suffered such creatures to live.

“There is a sizable drow force beneath us,” he explained, and the two orcs, predictably, blanched. “Watching us—watching you.”

He let that hang there for a few heartbeats, watching the two shift uncomfortably.

“Before she died, Kaer’lic called to them, to Menzoberranzan, my home. There was glory and wealth to be found, she promised them, and that call from a priestess of Lady Lolth could not go unheeded. And so they have come, to watch and to wait, at first. You are advancing toward Obould.”

“Ob—King Obould,” Dnark corrected rather stiffly, “has summoned Chieftain Grguch to his side.”

Tos’un wore a knowing grin. “The drow hold no love for Obould,” he explained, and indeed, it seemed to Drizzt as if the orc chieftain relaxed a bit at that.

“You go to pay fealty? Or to wage war?”

The two orcs looked at each other again.

“King Obould summoned Clan Karuck, and so we go,” Ung-thol said with clear determination.

“Grguch attacked the Moonwood,” Tos’un replied. “Grguch attacked Mithral Hall. Without Obould’s permission. He will not be pleased.”

“Perhaps…” Dnark started.

“He will not be pleased at all,” Tos’un interrupted. “You know this. It is why you brought Clan Karuck forth from their deep hole.”

“Obould has no heart for the fight,” Dnark said with a sudden sneer. “He has lost the words of Gruumsh. He would barter and…” He stopped and took a deep breath, and Ung-thol picked up the thought.

“Perhaps the presence of Grguch will inspire Obould and remind him of his duty to Gruumsh,” the shaman said.

“It will not,” said Tos’un. “And so my people watch and wait. If Obould wins, we will travel back to the lower Underdark. If Grguch prevails, perhaps there is cause for us to come forth.”

“And if Obould and Grguch join together to sweep the north-land?” Dnark asked.

Tos’un laughed at the preposterous statement.

Dnark laughed, too, after a moment.

“Obould has forgotten the will of Gruumsh,” Dnark said bluntly. “He sent an emissary to parlay with the dwarves, to beg forgiveness for Grguch’s attack.”

Tos’un could not hide his surprise.

“An emissary who never arrived, of course,” the orc chieftain explained.

“Of course. And so Grguch and Dnark will remind Obould?”

The orc didn’t reply.

“You will kill Obould, and replace him with Grguch, for the will of Gruumsh?”

No answer again, but it was apparent from the posture and expressions of the two orcs that the last remark hit closer to the truth.

Tos’un smiled at them and nodded. “We will watch, Chieftain Dnark. And we will wait. And I will take great pleasure in witnessing the death of Obould Many-Arrows. And greater pleasure in taking the head of King Bruenor and crossing the River Surbrin to lay waste to the wider lands beyond.”

The drow gave a curt bow and turned away. “We are watching,” he warned as he started off. “All of it.”

“Listen for the Horn of Karuck,” Dnark said. “When you hear it blow, know that King Obould nears the end of his reign.”

Tos’un didn’t so much as offer a glance up at Drizzt as he crossed the clearing to the far side, but soon after the orcs had headed back to their encampment, the rogue drow returned to the base of the tree.

“Your belt,” Drizzt whispered down, but Tos’un was already undoing it. He let it fall to the ground and stepped back.

Drizzt hopped down and retrieved it.

“You might have prepared them to say as much,” Drizzt remarked.

“Ask the sword.”

Drizzt looked down at Khazid’hea skeptically. “It is not to be trusted.”

“Then demand of it,” said Tos’un.

But Drizzt merely slung the sword belt over his shoulder, motioning for Tos’un to lead the way back to the waiting dwarves.

Whatever Tos’un’s position, whether it was out of a change of heart or simple pragmatism, Drizzt had no reason to doubt what he had heard, and one statement in particular kept repeating in his thoughts, the orc’s claim that Obould had “sent an emissary to parlay with the dwarves, to beg forgiveness for Grguch’s attack.”

Obould would not march. For the orc king, the war was at its end. But for many of his subjects, apparently, that was not so pleasing a thought.

CHAPTER28 FOR THE GREATER GOOD

The scout pointed to a trio of rocky hills in the northwest, a few miles away. “Obould’s flag flies atop the centermost,” he explained to Grguch, Hakuun, and the others. “He has rallied his clan around him in a formidable defense.”

Grguch nodded and stared toward his distant enemy. “How many?”

“Hundreds.”

“Not thousands?” the chieftain asked.

“There are thousands south of his position, and thousands north,” the scout explained. “They could close before us and shield King Obould.”

“Or swing around and trap us,” said Hakuun, but in a tone that showed he was not overly concerned—for Jack, answering that particular question through Hakuun’s mouth, held little fear of being trapped by orcs.

“If they remain loyal to King Obould,” Toogwik Tuk dared interject, and all eyes turned his way. “Many are angry at his decision to halt his march. They have come to know Grguch as a hero.”

Dnark started as if to speak, but changed his mind. He had caught Grguch’s attention, though, and when the fierce half-orc, half-ogre turned his gaze Dnark’s way, Dnark said, “Do we even know that Obould intends to do battle? Or will he just posture and paint with pretty words? Obould rules through wit and muscle. He will see the wisdom of coaxing Grguch.”

“To build walls?” the chieftain of Clan Karuck said with a dismissive snicker.

“He will not march!” Toogwik Tuk insisted.

“He will speak enough words of war to create doubt,” said Dnark.

“The only word I wish to hear from the coward Obould is ‘mercy,’” Grguch stated. “It pleases me to hear a victim beg before he is put to my axe.”

Dnark started to respond, but Grguch held up his hand, ending any further debate. With a scowl that promised only war, Grguch nodded to Hakuun, who commanded forth the grotesque zombie of Oktule, still holding its head before it.

“This is our parlay,” Grguch said. He swung his gaze out to the side, where the battered Nukkels hung by his ankles from poles suspended across the broad shoulders of a pair of ogres. “And our advanced emissary,” Grguch added with a wicked grin.

He took up his dragon-fashioned axe and stalked toward Nukkels, who was too beaten and dazed to even register his approach. Nukkels did see the axe, though, at the last moment, and he gave a pathetic yelp as Grguch swung it across, cleanly severing the rope and dropping Nukkels on his head to the ground.

Grguch reached down and hoisted the shaman to his feet. “Go to Obould,” he ordered, turning Nukkels around and shoving him toward the northwest so ferociously that the poor orc went flying headlong to the ground. “Go and tell Obould the Coward to listen for the sound of Kokto Gung Karuck.”

Nukkels staggered back to his feet and stumbled along, desperate to be away from the brutal Karuck orcs.

“Tell Obould the Coward that Grguch has come and that Gruumsh is not pleased,” Grguch shouted after him, and cheers began to filter through all of the onlookers. “I will accept his surrender…perhaps.”

That sent the Karuck orcs and ogres into a frenzy, and even Toogwik Tuk beamed in anticipation. Dnark, though, looked at Ung-thol.

This conspiracy had been laid bare, to the ultimate fruition. This was real, suddenly, and this was war.

“Grguch comes with many tribes in his wake,” Obould said to General Dukka. “To parlay?”

He and Obould’s other commanders stood on the centermost of the three rocky hills. The foundations of a small keep lined the ground behind the orc leader, and three low walls of piled stones ringed the hill. The other two hills were similarly outfitted, though the defenses were hardly complete. Obould looked over his shoulder and motioned to his attendants, who brought forth the battered, nearly dead Nukkels.

“He’s already spoken, it would seem,” the orc king remarked.

“Then it will be war within your kingdom,” the general replied, and his doubts were evident for all to hear.

Doubts offered for his benefit, Obould recognized. He didn’t blink as he stared at Dukka, though others around him gasped and whispered.

“They are well-supported at their center,” Dukka explained. “The battle will be fierce and long.”

They are well-supported indeed, Obould thought but did not say.

He offered a slight nod of appreciation to Dukka, for he read easily enough between Dukka’s words. The general had just warned him that Grguch’s fame had preceded him, and that many in Obould’s ranks had grown restless. There was no doubt that Obould commanded the superior forces. He could send orcs ten-to-one against the march of Clan Karuck and its allies. But with the choice laid bare before them, how many of those orcs would carry the banner of Obould, and how many would decide that Grguch was the better choice?

But there was no question among those on the three hills, Obould understood, for there stood Clan Many-Arrows, his people, his slavish disciples, who would follow him into Lady Alustriel’s own bedroom if he so commanded.

“How many thousands will die?” he asked Dukka quietly.

“And will not the dwarves come forth when the opportunity is seen?” the general bluntly replied, and again Obould nodded, for he could not disagree.

A part of Obould did want to reach out and throttle Dukka for the assessment and for the lack of complete obedience and loyalty, but he knew in his heart that Dukka was right. If Dukka’s force, more than two thousand strong, joined battle on the side of Clan Karuck and her allies, the fight could well shift before first blood was spilled.

Obould and his clan would be overwhelmed in short order.

“Hold my flank from the orcs who are not Karuck,” Obould asked of his general. “Let Gruumsh decide which of us, Obould or Grguch, is more worthy to lead the kingdom forward.”

“Grguch is strong with Gruumsh, so they say,” Dukka warned, and a cloud crossed over Obould’s face. But Dukka broke a smile before that cloud could become a full scowl. “You have chosen wisely, and for the good of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Grguch is strong with Gruumsh, it is said, but Obould protects the minions of the One-eye.”

“Grguch is strong,” the orc king said, and he brought his great-sword from its scabbard strapped diagonally across his back. “But Obould is stronger. You will learn.”

General Dukka eyed that sword for a long while, recalling the many occasions when he had seen it put to devastating use. Gradually, he began to nod then to grin.

“Your flanks will be secure,” he promised his king. “And any fodder prodded before Grguch’s clan will be swept clean before they reach the hill. Clan Karuck alone will press the center.”

“Ye lost yer wits, ye durned orc-brained, pointy-eared elf!” Bruenor bellowed and stomped the ground in frustration. “I come out here to kill the beast!”

“Tos’un speaks the truth.”

“I ain’t for trusting drow elfs, exceptin’ yerself!”

“Then trust me, for I overheard much of his conversation with the orc conspirators. Obould dispatched an emissary to Mithral Hall to forbid the attack.”

“Ye don’t know what Tos’un telled them orcs to say afore they got out to ye.”

“True enough,” Drizzt conceded, “but I suspected that which Tos’un reports long before I ever caught up to him. Obould’s pause has run too long.”

“He attacked me wall! And the Moonwood. Are ye so quick in forgetting Innovindil?”

The accusation rocked Drizzt back on his heels, and he winced, profoundly stung. For he had not forgotten Innovindil, not at all. He could still hear her sweet voice all around him, coaxing him to explore his innermost thoughts and feelings, coaching him on what it was to be an elf. Innovindil had given to him a great and wondrous gift, and in that gift, Drizzt Do’Urden had found himself, his heart and his course. With her lessons, offered in the purest friendship, Innovindil had solidified the sand beneath Drizzt’ Do’Urden’s feet, which had been shifting unsteadily for so many years.

He hadn’t forgotten Innovindil. He could see her. He could smell her. He could hear her voice and the song of her spirit.

But her demise was not the work of Obould, he was certain. That terrible loss was the consequence of the absence of Obould, a prelude to the chaos that would ensue if that new threat, the beast Grguch, assumed command of Obould’s vast and savage army.

“What are ye askin’ me for, elf?” Bruenor said after the long and uncomfortable pause.

“It wasn’t Gauntlgrym.”

Bruenor locked his gaze, unblinking.

“But it was beautiful, was it not?” Drizzt asked. “A testament—”

“An abomination,” Bruenor interrupted.

“Was it? Would Dagna and Dagnabbit think it so? Would Shoudra?”

“Ye ask me to dishonor them!”

“I ask you to honor them with the most uncommon courage, will and vision. In all the recorded and violent histories of all the races, there are few who could claim such.”

Bruenor tightened his grip on his many-notched axe and lifted it before him.

“No one doubts the courage of King Bruenor Battlehammer,” Drizzt assured the dwarf. “Any who witnessed your stand against the tide of orcs on the retreat into Mithral Hall places you among the legends of dwarf warriors, and rightly so. But I seek in you the courage not to fight.”

“Ye’re bats, elf, and I knowed ye’d be nothing but trouble when I first laid eyes on ye on the side o’ Kelvin’s Cairn.”

Drizzt drew out Twinkle and Icingdeath and tapped them on either side of Bruenor’s axe.

“I’ll be watchin’ the fight afore us,” Bruenor promised. “And when I find me place in it, don’t ye be blocking me axe, where’er it’s aimed.”

Drizzt snapped his scimitars away and bowed before Bruenor. “You are my king. My counsel has been given. My blades are ready.”

Bruenor nodded and started to turn away, but stopped abruptly and swiveled his head back at Drizzt, a sly look in his eye. “And if ye send yer durned cat to pin me down, elf, I’ll be cooking kitty, don’t ye doubt.”

Bruenor stomped away and Drizzt looked back at the probable battlefield, where the distant lines of orcs were converging. He pulled the onyx figurine from his belt pouch and summoned Guenhwyvar to his side, confident that the fight would ensue long before the panther began to tire.

Besides, he needed the surety of Guenhwyvar, the nonjudgmental companionship. For as he had asked for courage from Bruenor, so Drizzt had demanded it of himself. He thought of Tarathiel and Shoudra and all the others, dead now because of the march of Obould, dead at Obould’s own hand. He thought of Innovindil, always he thought of Innovindil, and of Sunset, and he knew that he would carry that pain with him for the rest of his life. And though he could logically remove that last atrocity from the bloody hands of Obould, would any of it have happened in the Moonwood, in Mithral Hall, in Shallows and Nesmé, and all throughout the Silver Marches, had not Obould come forth with designs of conquest?

And yet, there he was, asking for uncommon courage from Bruenor, betting on Tos’un, and gambling with all the world, it seemed.

He brought his hand down to stroke Guenhwyvar’s sleek black coat, and the panther sat down then collapsed onto her belly, her tongue hanging out between her formidable fangs.

“If I am wrong, Guenhwyvar, my friend, and to my ultimate loss, then I ask of you this one thing: dig your claws deep into the flesh of King Obould of the orcs. Leave him in agony upon the ground, dying of mortal wounds.”

Guenhwyvar gave a lazy growl and rolled to her side, calling for a scratching on her ribs.

But Drizzt knew that she had understood every word, and that she, above all others, would not let him down.

CHAPTER 29 DWARVEN KING, DWARVEN ARROW

Shingles and Torgar stood quietly, staring at Bruenor, letting him lead without question, while an eager Pwent hopped around them. Cordio kept his eyes closed, praying to Moradin—and to Clangeddin, for he understood that the road to battle was clear. For Hralien, there showed only grim determination, and beside him, the bound Tos’un matched that intensity. Regis shifted from foot to foot nervously. And Drizzt, who had just delivered the assessment that battle was soon to be joined, and that the time had come for them to either leave or engage, waited patiently.

All focus fell to Bruenor, and the weight of that responsibility showed clearly on the face of the agitated dwarf. He had brought them there, and on his word they would either flee to safety or leap into the jaws of a tremendous battle—a battle they could not hope to win, or likely even survive, but one that they might, if their gods blessed them, influence.

To the south, Obould saw Dukka’s force rolling forward like a dark cloud, streaming toward a line of orcs moving west to flank the hills. The clan of the Wolf Jaw, he knew, and he nodded and growled softly, imagining all the horrors he would inflict upon Dnark when his business with Grguch was over.

Confident that General Dukka would keep Wolf Jaw at bay, Obould focused his gaze directly to the east, where rising dust showed the approach of a powerful force, and yellow banners shot with red proclaimed Clan Karuck. The orc king closed his eyes and fell within his thoughts, imagining again his great kingdom, full of walls and castles, and teeming cities of orcs living under the sun and sharing fully in the bounty of the world.

Kna’s shriek brought him from his quiet meditation, and as soon as he opened his eyes, Obould understood her distress.

An orc approached, a zombie orc, holding its head plaintively in its hands before it. Before any of his warriors and guards could react, Obould leaped the low wall before him and charged down, drawing his greatsword as he went. A single swing cleaved the zombie in half and sent the head flying.

So it was, the orc king knew as he executed the swing. Grguch had stated his intent and Obould had answered. There was no more to be said.

Not so far to the east, a great horn blared.

From over the very next ridge came the sound of a skirmish, orc against orc.

“Obould and Grguch,” Tos’un stated.

In the distance to the northeast, a great horn, Kokto Gung Karuck, sounded.

“Grguch,” Drizzt agreed.

Bruenor snorted. “I can’t be asking any o’ ye to come with me,” he started.

“Bah, but just ye try to stop us,” said Torgar, with Shingles nodding beside him.

“I would travel to the Abyss itself for a try at Obould,” Hralien added.

Beside him, Tos’un shook his head.

“Obould’s to be found on them hills,” Bruenor said, waving his axe in the general direction of the trio of rocky mounds they had determined to be Obould’s main encampment. “And I’m meaning to get there. Right through, one charge, like an arrow shot from me girl’s bow. I’m not for knowing how many I’ll be leavin’ in me wake. I’m not for knowin’ how I’m getting back out after I kill the dog. And I’m not for caring.”

Torgar slapped the long handle of his greataxe across his open palm, and Shingles banged his hammer against his shield.

“We’ll get ye there,” Torgar promised.

The sounds of battle grew louder, some close and some distant. The great horn blew again, its echoes vibrating the stones beneath their feet.

Bruenor nodded and turned to the next ridge, but hesitated and glanced back, focusing his gaze on Tos’un. “Me elf friend telled me that ye done nothing worth killin’ ye over,” he said. “And Hralien’s agreeing. Get ye gone, and don’t ye e’er give me a reason to regret me choice.”

Tos’un held his hands out wide. “I have no weapons.”

“There’ll be plenty for ye to find in our wake, but don’t ye be following too close,” Bruenor replied.

With a helpless look to Drizzt, then to all the others, Tos’un gave a bow and walked back the way they had come. “Grguch is your nightmare, now,” he called to Drizzt, in the drow tongue.

“What’s that?” Bruenor asked, but Drizzt only smiled and walked over to Hralien.

“I’ll be moving fast beside Bruenor,” the drow explained, handing Tos’un’s weapon belt over. “If any are to escape this, it will be you. Beware this sword. Keep it safe.” He glanced over at Regis, clearly nervous. “This will not unravel the way we had intended. Our run will be frantic and furious, and had we known the lay of the land and the orc forces, Bruenor and I would have come out—”

“Alone, of course,” finished the elf.

“Keep the sword safe,” Drizzt said again, though he looked not at Khazid’hea, but at Regis as he spoke, a message all too clear for Hralien.

“And live to tell our tale,” the drow finished, and he and Hralien clasped hands.

“Come on, then!” Bruenor called.

He scraped his boots in the dirt to clear them of mud, and adjusted his one-horned helmet and his foaming mug shield. He started off at a brisk walk, but Thibble dorf Pwent rushed up beside him, and past him, and swept Bruenor up in his eagerness.

They were in full charge before they crested the ridge.

They found the fighting to the west of them, back toward Obould’s line, but there were orcs aplenty right below, running eagerly to battle—so eagerly that Pwent had already lowered his head spike before the nearest one turned to regard the intruders.

That orc’s scream became a sudden gasp as the helmet spike prodded through its chest, and a lip-flapping head wag from Pwent sent the mortally wounded creature flying aside. The next two braced for the charge, ready to dive aside, but Pwent lifted his head and leaped at them, spiked gauntlets punching every which way.

Drizzt and Bruenor veered to the right, where orc reinforcements rushed past the trees and the stones. Torgar and Shingles ran straight ahead off their wake, following Pwent in his attempt to punch through this thin flank and toward the main engagement, which was still far to the north.

With his long strides, Drizzt moved ahead of Bruenor. He lifted Taulmaril, holding the bow horizontal before his chest, for the orcs were close enough and plentiful enough that he didn’t even need to aim. His first shot took one in the chest and blasted it backward and to the ground. His second went through another orc so cleanly that the creature hardly jerked, and Drizzt thought for a moment that he had somehow missed—he even braced for a counter.

But blood poured forth, chest and back, and the creature died where it stood, too fast for it to even realize that it should fall over.

“Bend right!” Bruenor roared, and Drizzt did, sidestepping as the dwarf charged past him, barreling into the next group of orcs, shield bashing and axe flying left, right, and center.

With a single fluid movement, Drizzt shouldered the bow and drew forth his scimitars, and went in right behind Bruenor. Dwarf and drow found themselves outnumbered three to one in short order.

The orcs never had a chance.

Regis didn’t argue as Hralien pulled him to the side, still well behind the other six and moving from cover to cover.

“Protect me,” the elf bade as he put up his longbow and began streaming arrows at the plentiful orcs.

His little mace in hand, Regis was in no position to argue—though he suspected that Drizzt had arranged it for his protection. For Hralien, Regis knew, was the one Drizzt most expected to escape the insanity.

His anger at the drow for pushing him to the side of the fight lasted only the moment it took Regis to view the fury of the engagement. To the right, Pwent spun, punched, butted, kicked, kneed, and elbowed with abandon, knocking orcs aside with every twist and turn.

But they were orcs of Wolf Jaw, warriors all, and not all of the blood on the battlerager was from an orc.

Back-to-back behind him, Torgar and Shingles worked with a precision wrought of years of experience, a harmony of devastating axe-work the pair had perfected in a century of fighting together as part of Mirabar’s vaunted watch. Every routine ended with a step—either left or right, it didn’t seem to matter—as each dwarf behind moved in perfect complement to keep the defense complete.

“Spear, down!” Torgar yelled.

He ducked, unable to deflect the missile. It flew over his head, apparently to crack through the back of Shingles’s skull, but hearing the warning, old Shingles threw his shield up behind his head at the last instant, turning the crude spear aside.

Shingles had to fall away as the orc before him seized the opening.

But of course there was no opening, as Shingles rolled out to the side and Torgar came in behind him with a two-handed slash that disemboweled the surprised creature.

Two orcs took its place and Torgar got stabbed in the upper arm—which only made him madder, of course.

Regis swallowed hard and shook his head, certain that if he’d followed the charge, he’d already have been dead. He nearly fainted as he saw an orc, stone axe high for a killing blow, close in on Shingles, an angle that neither dwarf could possibly block.

But the orc fell away, an arrow deep in its throat.

That startled Regis from his shock, and he looked up to Hralien, who had already set another arrow and swiveled back the other way.

For there Bruenor and Drizzt worked their magic, as only they could. Drizzt’s scimitars spun in a blur, too quick for Regis to follow their movements, which he measured instead by the angles of the orcs falling away from the furious drow. What Bruenor couldn’t match in finesse, he made up for with sheer ferocity, and it occurred to Regis that if Thibble dorf Pwent and Drizzt Do’Urden collided with enough force to meld them into a single warrior, the result would be Bruenor Battlehammer.

The dwarf sang as he cut, kicked, and bashed. Unlike the other trio, who seemed stuck in a morass and tangle of orcs, Drizzt and Bruenor kept moving across and to the north, chopping and slashing and dancing away. At one point, a group of orcs formed in their path, and it seemed as if they would be stopped.

But Hralien’s arrows broke the integrity of the orc line, and a flying black panther crashed into the surprised creatures, scattering them and sending them flying.

Drizzt and Bruenor ran by, breaking clear of the conflict.

At first, that thought panicked Regis. Shouldn’t the two turn back to help Pwent and the others? And shouldn’t he and Hralien hurry to keep up?

He looked at the elf and realized it wasn’t about them, any of them. It was about Bruenor getting to Obould, about Bruenor killing Obould.

Whatever the cost.

Cordio wanted to keep up with Bruenor, to protect his beloved king at all costs, but the priest could not pace the fiery dwarf and his drow companion, and once he noted the harmony of their movements, attacks and charges, he recognized that he would likely only get in their way.

He turned for the dwarf trio instead, angling to get into the melee near to Torgar, whose right arm drooped low from a nasty stab.

Still fighting fiercely, the Mirabarran dwarf nevertheless grunted his approval as Cordio reached toward him, sending waves of magical healing energy into him. When Torgar turned to note his appreciation more directly, he saw that Cordio’s help hadn’t come without cost, for the priest had sacrificed his own position against one particularly large and nasty orc for the opportunity to help Torgar. Cordio bent low under the weight of a rain of blows against his fine shield.

“Pwent!” Torgar roared, motioning for the priest as the battlerager turned his way.

“For Moradin!” came Pwent’s roar and he disengaged from the pair he was battering and charged headlong for Cordio.

The two orcs gave close chase, but Torgar and Shingles intercepted and drove them aside.

By the time Pwent reached Cordio, the priest was back to an even stance against the orc. No novice to battle, Cordio Muffinhead had covered himself with defensive enchantments and had brought the strength of his gods into his arms, swinging his flail with powerful strokes.

That didn’t slow Pwent, of course, who rushed past the startled priest and leaped at the orc.

The orc’s sword screeched against Pwent’s wondrous armor, but it hardly bit through before Pwent slammed against the orc and began to thrash, the ridges on his plate mail tearing apart the orc’s leather jerkin and slicing into its flesh beneath. With a howl of pain, the orc tried to disengage, but a sudden left and right hook from Pwent’s spiked gauntlets held it in place like harvest corn.

Cordio used the opportunity to cast some healing magic into the battlerager, though he knew that Pwent wouldn’t feel any difference. Pwent didn’t really seem to feel pain.

The back of the small clearing dipped even lower, down into a dell full of boulders and a few scraggly tree skeletons. Drizzt and Bruenor rushed through, leaving their fighting companions behind, and with his longer strides, Drizzt took the lead.

Their goal was to avoid battle while they closed the ground to the trio of rocky hills and King Obould. As they came up the far side of the dell, they saw the orc king, picking him out from the flames engulfing his magical greatsword.

An ogre tumbled away from him then he shifted back and stabbed up over his shoulder, skewering another ten-foot behemoth. With strength beyond all reason, Obould used his sword to pull that ogre right over his shoulder and send it spinning down the side of the hillock.

All around him the battle raged, as Clan Karuck and Clan Many-Arrows fought for supremacy.

And in truth, with Obould and his minions holding the high ground, it didn’t seem as if it would be much of a fight.

But then a fireball exploded, intense and powerful, right behind the highest wall on the hill to Obould’s left, the northernmost of the three, and all of the Many-Arrows archers concealed there flailed about, immolated by the magical flames. They shrieked and they died, curling up on the ground in blackened, smoking husks.

Clan Karuck warriors swarmed over the stones.

“What in the Nine Hells…?” Bruenor asked Drizzt. “Since when are them orcs throwing fireballs?”

Drizzt had no answer, other than to reinforce his feelings about the entire situation, simply by stating, “Grguch.”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted, so predictably, and the pair ran on.

“Keep to the high ground,” Hralien instructed Regis as he led the halfling along to the east. They pulled up amidst a boulder tumble, beside a single maple tree, Hralien sighting targets and lifting his bow.

“We have to go and join them!” Regis cried, for the four dwarves moved out of sight over the near ridge of the dell.

“No time!”

Regis wanted to argue, but the frantic hum of Hralien’s bowstring, the elf firing off arrow after arrow, denied him his voice. More orcs swarmed along before them from the east, and a darker cloud had formed in the west as a vast army began its approach.

Regis cast a plaintive gaze to the north, where Drizzt and Bruenor had gone, where Cordio, Pwent, and the others had run. He believed that he would never see his friends again. Drizzt had done it, he knew. Drizzt had put him with Hralien, knowing that the elf would likely find a way out, where there could be no retreat for Drizzt and Bruenor.

Bitterness filled the back of Regis’s throat. He felt betrayed and abandoned. In the end, when the circumstances had grown darkest, he had been set aside. Logically he could understand it all—he was, after all, no hero. He couldn’t fight like Bruenor, Drizzt, and Pwent. And with so many orcs around, there really wasn’t any way for him to hide and strike from points of opportunity.

But that did little to calm the sting.

He nearly jumped out of his boots when a form rose up beside him, an orc springing from concealment. Purely on instinct, Regis squealed and shouldered the thing, knocking it off-balance just enough so that its stab at Hralien only grazed the distracted archer.

Hralien turned fast, smashing his bow across the orc’s face. The bow flew free as the orc tumbled, Hralien going for his sword.

Regis lifted his mace to finish the orc first, except that as he retracted his arm for the strike, something grabbed him and yanked that arm back viciously. He felt his shoulder pop out of joint. His hand went numb as his mace fell away. He managed to half turn then to duck, bringing his other arm up over his head defensively as he noted the descent of a stone hammer.

A blinding explosion spread over the back of his head, and he had no idea of whether his legs had buckled or simply been driven straight into the ground as he fell face-down in the stony dirt. He felt a soft boot come in tight against his ear and heard Hralien battling above him.

He tried to put his hands under him, but one arm would not move to his call, and the attempt sent waves of nauseating agony through him. He managed to lift his head, just a bit, and tasted the blood streaming down from the back of his skull as he half-turned to try to get his bearings.

He was back on the ground again, though he knew not how. Cold fingers reached up at him, as if from the ground itself. He had his eyes open, but the darkness crept in from the edges.

The last thing he heard was his own ragged breathing.

Orc armor proved no match for the fine elven sword as Hralien slid the blade deep into the chest of the newest attacker, who held a stone hammer wet with Regis’s blood.

The elf slashed out to the side, finishing the first one, who stubbornly tried to regain its footing, then spun to meet the charge of a third creature coming in around the tree. His sword flashed across, turning the orc’s spear in against the bark and knocking the creature off balance. The tree alone stopped it from falling aside, but that proved an unfortunate thing for the orc, as Hralien leaped out to the side and stabbed back in, catching the creature through the armpit.

It shrieked and went into a frenzy, spinning and stumbling away, grabbing at the vicious wound.

Hralien let it go, turning back to Regis, who lay so very still on the cold ground. More orcs had spotted him, he knew. He had no time. He grabbed the halfling as gently as he could and slid him down into a depression at the base of the maple, between two large roots. He kicked dirt and twigs and leaves, anything he could find to disguise the poor halfling. Then, for the sake of the fallen Regis, Hralien grabbed up his bow and sprang away, running again to the east.

Orcs closed on him from behind and below. More rose up before him, running at an angle to prevent him from going over the ridge to the south.

Hralien dropped his second sword belt, the one Drizzt had given him, and threw aside his bow, needing to be nimble.

He charged ahead, desperate to put as much ground between himself and Regis as possible, in the faint hope that the orcs would not find the wounded halfling. The run lasted only a few strides, though, as Hralien skidded to a stop, turning frantically to bring his sword around to deflect a flying spear. Swords came in at him from every angle, orcs closing for the kill. Hralien felt the hot blood of his elders coursing through his veins. All the lessons he had learned in two centuries of life flooded through him, driving him on. There was no thought, only instinct and reaction, his shining sword darting to block, angling to turn a spear and stabbing ahead to force an attacker into a short retreat.

Beautiful was his dance, magnificent his turns, and lightning-quick his thrusts and ripostes.

But there were too many—too many for him to even consider them separately as he tried to find some answer to the riddle of the battle.

Images of Innovindil flitted through his mind, along with those others he had lost so recently. He took hope in the fact that they had gone before him, that they would greet him in Arvandor when a single missed block let a sword or a spear slip through.

Behind him, back the way he had come, Regis sank deeper into the cold darkness. And not so far away, perhaps halfway to the tree, a black hand closed over Khazid’hea’s hilt.

They had intended to follow in the wake of Bruenor and Drizzt, but the four dwarves found the route blocked by a wall of orcs. They came out of the dell to the east instead, and there, too, they met resistance.

“For Mirabar and Mithral Hall!” Torgar Hammerstriker called, and shoulder to shoulder with his beloved and longtime friend Shingles, the leader of the Mirabarran exodus met the orcs.

To the side of them, Thibble dorf Pwent snarled and bit and found within himself yet another frenzy. Flailing his arms and legs, and butting his head so often that his forward movements seemed the steps of a gawky, long-necked seabird, Pwent had the orcs on that side of the line in complete disarray. They threw spears at him, but so intent were they on getting out of his way that they threw as they turned, and thus with little or no effect.

It couldn’t hold, though. Too many orcs stood before them, and they would have to pile the orc bodies as thick as the walls of a dwarf-built keep before they could even hope to find a way through.

Bruenor and Drizzt were lost to them, as was any route that would get them back to the south and the safety of Mithral Hall. So they did what dwarves do best, they fought to gain the highest ground.

Cordio wanted to tap some offensive magic, to stun the orcs with a blast of shocking air, perhaps, or to hold a group in place so that Torgar and Shingles could score quick kills. But blood flowed freely from all the dwarves in short order, and the priest could not keep up with the wounds, though his every spell cast was one of healing. Cordio was filled with Moradin’s blessing, a priest of extraordinary power and piety. It occurred to him, though, that Moradin himself was not possessed of enough magical healing to win that fight. They were known, the clear spectacle of the most-hated enemy in the midst of the orcs, and behind the immediate fighting, the ugly creatures stalked all around them, preparing to overwhelm them.

Not a dwarf was afraid, though. They sang to Moradin and Clangeddin and Dumathoin. They sang of bar wenches and heavy mugs of ale, of killing orcs and giants, of chasing dwarf ladies.

And Cordio led a song to King Bruenor, of the fall of Shimmer-gloom and the reclamation of Mithral Hall.

They sang and they fought. They killed and they bled, and they looked continually to the north, where Bruenor their king had gone.

For all that mattered was that they had served him well that day, that they had given him enough time and enough of a distraction to get to the hills and to end, once and for all, the threat of Obould.

Hralien felt the sting of a sword across his forearm, and though the wound was not deep, it was telling. He was slowing, and the orcs had caught on to the rhythms of his dance.

He had nowhere to run.

An orc to his right came on suddenly, he thought, and he spun to meet the charge—then saw that it was no charge at all, for the tip of a sword protruded from the falling creature’s chest.

Behind the orc, Tos’un Armgo retracted Khazid’hea and leaped out to the side. An orc lifted its shield to block, but the sword went right through the shield, right through the arm, and right through the side of the creature’s chest.

Before it had even fallen away, another orc fell to Tos’un’s second weapon, an orc-made sword.

Hralien had no time to watch the spectacle or to even consider the insanity of it all. He spun back and took down the nearest orc, who seemed dumbfounded by the arrival of the drow. On the elves pressed, light and dark, and orcs fell away, or threw their weapons and ran away, and soon the pair faced off, Hralien drawing a few much-needed deep breaths.

“Clan Wolf Jaw,” Tos’un explained to Hralien. “They fear me.”

“With good reason,” Hralien replied.

The sound of battle to the north, and the sound of dwarf voices lifted in song, stole their conversation, and before Tos’un could begin to clarify, he found that he did not have to, for Hralien led their run down from the ridgeline.

CHAPTER 30 OLD AND NEW BEFORE HIM

It had to come down to the two of them, for among the orcs, struggles within and among tribes were ultimately personal.

King Obould leaped atop a stone wall and plunged his sword into the belly of a Karuck ogre. He stared the behemoth in the face, grinning wickedly as he called upon his enchanted sword to burst into flame.

The ogre tried to scream. Its mouth stretched wide in silent horror.

Obould only smiled wider and held his sword perfectly still, not wanting to hurry the death of the ogre. Gradually, the dimwitted behemoth leaned back, back, then slid off the blade, tumbling down the hill, wisps of smoke coming from the already cauterized wound.

Looking past it, Obould saw one of his guards, an elite Many-Arrows warrior, go flying aside, broken and torn. Tracing its flight back to the source, he saw another of his warriors, a young orc who had shown great promise in the battles with the Battlehammer dwarves, leap back. The warrior stood still for a curiously long time, his arms out wide.

Obould stared at his back, shaking his head, not understanding, until a huge axe swept up from in front of the warrior, then cut down diagonally with tremendous, jolting force, cleaving the warrior in half, left shoulder to right hip. Half the orc fell away, but the other half stood there for a few long heartbeats before buckling to the ground.

And there stood Grguch, swinging his awful axe easily at the end of one arm.

Their eyes met, and all the other orcs and ogres nearby, Karuck and Many-Arrows alike, took their battles to the side.

Obould stretched his arms out wide, fires leaping from the blade of his greatsword as he held it aloft in his right hand. He threw back his head and bellowed.

Grguch did likewise, axe out wide, his roar echoing across the stones, the challenge accepted. Up the hill he ran, hoisting his axe in both hands and bringing it back over his left shoulder.

Obould tried for the quick kill, feigning a defensive posture, but then leaping down at the approaching chieftain and stabbing straight ahead. Across came Grguch’s axe with brutal and sudden efficiency, the half-ogre chopping short to smash his dragon-winged weapon against Obould’s blade. He turned it sidelong as he swiped, the winged blades perpendicular to the ground, but so strong was the beast that the resistance as he brought the axe across didn’t slow his swing in the least. By doing it that way, his blade obscuring nearly three feet top-to-bottom, Grguch prevented Obould from turning his greatsword over the block.

Obould just let his sword get knocked out to his left, and instead of letting go with his right hand, as would be expected, the cunning orc let go with his left, allowing him to spin in behind the cut of Grguch’s axe. He went forward as he went around, lowering his soon-leading left shoulder as he collided with Grguch.

The pair slid down the stony hill, and to Obould’s amazement, Grguch did not fall. Grguch met his heavy charge with equal strength.

He was taller than Obould by several inches, but Obould had been blessed by Gruumsh, had been given the strength of the bull, a might of arm that had allowed him to bowl over Gerti Orelsdottr of the frost giants.

But not Grguch.

The two struggled, their weapon arms, Obould’s right and Grguch’s left, locked at one side. Obould slugged Grguch hard in the face, snapping his head back, but as he recoiled from that stinging blow, Grguch snapped his head forward, inside the next punch, and crunched his forehead into Obould’s nose.

They clutched, they twisted, and they postured, and both tried to shove back at the same time, sending themselves skidding far apart.

Right back they went with identical blows, axe and sword meeting with tremendous force, so powerfully that a gout of flames flew free of Obould’s sword and burst into the air.

“As Tos’un told us,” Drizzt said to Bruenor as they slipped between fights to come in view of the great struggle.

“Think they’d forget each other and turn on us, elf?” Bruenor asked hopefully.

“Likely not—not Obould, at least,” Drizzt replied dryly, stealing Bruenor’s mirth, and he led the dwarf around a pile of stones that hadn’t yet been set on the walls.

“Bah! Ye’re bats!”

“Two futures clear before us,” Drizzt remarked. “What does Moradin say to Bruenor?”

Before Bruenor could answer, as Drizzt came around the pile, a pair of orcs leaped at him. He snapped up both his blades and threw himself backward, quickstepping across Bruenor’s field of vision and dragging the bloodthirsty orcs with him.

The dwarf’s axe came crashing down, and then there was one.

And that orc twisted and half-turned, startled by Bruenor and never imagining that Drizzt could be nimble enough to reverse his field so quickly.

The orc got hit four times by Drizzt’s scimitars, and Bruenor creased its skull for good measure, and the pair rambled along.

Before them, much closer, Obould and Grguch clutched again, and traded a series of brutal punches that splattered blood from both faces.

“Two roads before us,” Drizzt said, and he looked at Bruenor earnestly.

The dwarf shrugged then tapped his axe against Drizzt’s scimitars. “For the good o’ the world, elf,” he said. “For the kids o’ me kin and me trust for me friends. And ye’re still bats.”

Every swing brought enough force to score a kill, every cut cracked through the air. They were orcs, one half ogre, but they fought as giants, titans even, gods among their respective people.

Bred for battle, trained in battle, hardened as his skin had calloused, and propped by magical spells from Hakuun, and secretly from Jack the Gnome, Grguch moved his heavy axe with the speed and precision with which a Calimport assassin might wield a dagger. None in Clan Karuck, not the largest and the strongest, questioned Grguch’s leadership role, for none in that clan would dare oppose him. With good reason, Obould understood all too quickly, as the chieftain pressed him ferociously.

Blessed by Gruumsh, infused with the strength of a chosen being, and veteran of so many battles, Obould equaled his opponent, muscle for muscle. And unlike so many power-driven warriors who could smash a weapon right through an opponent’s defenses, Obould combined finesse and speed with that sheer strength. He had matched blades with Drizzt Do’Urden, and overmatched Wulfgar with brawn. And so he met Grguch’s heavy strikes with powerful blocks, and so he similarly pressed Grguch with mighty counterstrikes that made the chieftain’s arms strain to hold back the deadly greatsword.

Grguch rushed around to Obould’s left, up the hill a short expanse. He turned back from that higher ground and drove a tremendous overhand chop down at the orc king, and Obould nearly buckled under the weight of the blow, his feet sliding back dangerously beneath him.

Grguch struck again, and a third time, but Obould went out to the side suddenly, and that third chop cut nothing but air, forcing Grguch down the hill a few quick steps.

They stood even again, and with the miss, Obould gained an offensive posture. Both hands grasping his sword, he smashed it in from the right then the left then right again. Grguch moved to a solely defensive posture, axe darting left and right to block.

Obould quickened the pace, slashing with abandon, allowing Grguch no chance for a counter. He brought forth fire on his blade then winked it out with a thought—and brought it forth again, just to command more of his opponent’s attention, to further occupy Grguch.

Left and right came the greatsword, then three overhead chops, battering Grguch’s blocking blade, sending shivers through the chieftain’s muscled arms. Obould did not tire, and more furious came his strikes, backing his opponent.

Grguch was no longer looking for an opening to counter, Obould knew. Grguch tried only to find a way to disengage, to put them back on even ground.

Obould wouldn’t give it to him. The chieftain was worthy, indeed, but in the end, he was no Obould.

A blinding flash and a thunderous retort broke the orc king’s momentum and rhythm, and as he recovered from the initial, stunning shock of it, he realized that he had lost more than advantage. His legs twitched and could hardly hold him upright. His greatsword trembled violently and his teeth chattered so uncontrollably that he tore strips of skin from the inside of his mouth.

A wizard’s lightning bolt, he understood somewhere deep in the recesses of his dazed mind, and a mighty one.

His block of Grguch’s next attack was purely coincidental, his greatsword fortunately in the way of the swing. Or maybe Grguch had aimed for the weapon, Obould realized as he staggered back from the weight of the blow, fighting to hold his balance with every stumbling, disoriented step.

He offered a better attempt to block the next sidelong swing, turning to the left and presenting his sword at a perfect angle to intercept the flying axe.

A perfect parry, except that Obould’s twitching legs gave out under the weight of the blow. He skidded half-backward and half-sidelong down the hill and went down to one knee.

Grguch hit his sword again, knocking it aside, and as the chieftain stepped forward, bringing his blade back yet again, Obould realized that he had little defense.

A booted foot stomped hard on the back of Obould’s neck, driving him low, and he tried to turn and lash out at what he deemed to be a new attacker.

But Bruenor Battlehammer’s target was not Obould, and he had used the battered and dazed orc king merely as a springboard to launch himself at his real quarry.

Grguch twisted frantically to get his axe in line with the dwarf’s weapon, but Bruenor, too, turned as he flew, and his buckler, emblazoned with the foaming mug of Clan Battlehammer, crashed hard into Grguch’s face, knocking him back.

Grguch leaped up and came right back at Bruenor with a mighty chop, but Bruenor rushed ahead under the blow, butting his one-horned helmet into Grguch’s belly and sweeping his axe up between the orc chieftain’s legs. Grguch leaped, and Bruenor grabbed and leaped back and over with him, the pair flying away and tumbling down the hill. As they unwound, Grguch, caught with his back to the dwarf, rushed away and shoulder-rolled over the hill’s lowest stone wall.

Bruenor pursued furiously, springing atop the wall, then leaping from it, swooping down from on high with a mighty chop that sent the blocking Grguch staggering backward.

The dwarf pressed, axe and shield, and it took Grguch many steps before he could begin to attain even footing with his newest enemy.

Back on the hill, Obould stubbornly gained his feet and tried to follow, but another crackling lightning bolt flattened him.

Hralien darted out in front as the pair crossed the narrow channel. He leaped a stone, started right, then rolled back left around the trunk of a dead tree, coming around face up against an unfortunate orc, whose sword was still angled the other way to intercept his charge. The elf struck hard and true, and the orc fell away, mortally wounded.

Hralien retracted the blade as he ran past the falling creature, which left his sword arm out behind him.

As his sword pulled free, a sudden sting broke the elf’s grasp on it, and he glanced back in shock to see Tos’un flipping the blade over between his two swords. With amazing dexterity, the drow slid his own sword into its sheath and caught Hralien’s flipping weapon by the hilt.

“Treacherous dog!” Hralien protested as the dark elf moved in behind him, prodding him along.

“Just shut up and run,” Tos’un scolded him.

Hralien stopped, though, and the tip of Khazid’hea nicked him. Tos’un’s hand came against his back then, and shoved him roughly forward.

“Run!” he demanded.

Hralien stumbled forward and Tos’un didn’t let him dig in, keeping up and pushing him along with every stride.

Drizzt hated breaking away from Bruenor with both the orc leaders so close, but the magic-using orc, nestled in a mixed copse of evergreen and deciduous trees to the east of Obould’s defenses, demanded his attention. Having lived and fought beside the wizards of the drow school Sorcere, who were skilled in the tactics of wizardry combined with sword-fighters, Drizzt understood the danger of those thunderous, blinding lightning bolts.

And there was something more, some nagging suspicion in Drizzt’s thoughts. How had the orcs taken Innovindil and Sunset from the sky? That puzzle had nagged at Drizzt since Hralien had delivered the news of their fall. Did he have his answer?

The wizard wasn’t alone, for he had set other orcs, large Karuck half-ogre orcs, around the perimeter of the copse. One of them confronted Drizzt as he reached the tree line, leaping forward with a growl and a thrusting spear.

But Drizzt had no time for such nonsense, and he shifted, throwing himself to the left, and brought both of his scimitars down and back to the right, double-striking the spear and driving it harmlessly aside. Drizzt continued right past the off-balance spear-wielder, lifting Twinkle expertly to slash a line across the orc’s throat.

As that one fell away, though, two more charged at the drow, from left and right, and the commotion also drew the attention of the wizard, still some thirty feet away.

Drizzt pasted an expression of fear on his face, for the benefit of the wizard, then darted out to the right, quick-stepping to intercept the charging orc. He turned as they came together, rolling right around and to the left, tilting his shoulders out of horizontal as he turned so that his sweeping blades lifted the orc’s sword up high.

Drizzt sprinted right for the trunk of a nearby tree, both orcs closing. He ran up it and leaped off, threw his head and shoulders back, and tucked into a tight somersault. He landed lightly, exploding into a barrage of whirling blades, and one orc fell away, the other running off to the side.

Drizzt came out from behind the tree as he pursued, to see the orc wizard waggling his fingers in spellcasting, aiming his way.

It was exactly as Drizzt had planned, for the surprise on the wizard orc’s face was both genuine and delicious as Guenhwyvar crashed in from the side, bearing the creature to the ground.

“For the lives of your dwarven friends,” Tos’un explained, pushing the stubborn elf forward. The surprising words diminished Hralien’s resistance, and he did not fight against the shift when the flat of Tos’un’s blade turned him, angling him more directly to the east.

“The Wolf Jaw standard,” Tos’un explained to the elf. “Chieftain Dnark and his priest.”

“But the dwarves are in trouble!” Hralien protested, for not far away, Pwent and Torgar and the others fought furiously against an orc force thrice their number.

“To the head of the serpent!” Tos’un insisted, and Hralien could not disagree.

He began to understand as they passed several orcs, who glanced at the dark elf deferentially and did not try to intercept them.

They sprinted around some boulders and broken ground, down past a cluster of thick pines and across a short expanse to the heart of Dnark’s army. Tos’un spotted the chieftain immediately, Toogwik Tuk and Ung-thol at his side as expected.

“A present for Dnark,” the drow called at the stunned expressions, and he pushed Hralien harder, nearly toppling the elf.

Dnark waved some guards toward Hralien to take the elf from Tos’un.

“General Dukka and his thousands approach,” Dnark called to the drow. “But we will not fight until it is settled between the chieftains.”

“Obould and Grguch,” Tos’un agreed, and as the orc guards approached, he went past Hralien.

“Left hip,” the dark elf whispered as he crossed past Hralien, and he brushed close enough for the surface elf to feel the hilt of his own belted sword.

Tos’un paused and nodded at both the orcs, drawing their attention and giving Hralien ample time to draw forth the blade. And so Hralien did, and even as the orc guards noted it and called out in protest, the flash of elven steel left them dead.

Tos’un stumbled away from Hralien, stumbled toward Dnark’s group, looking back and scrambling as if fleeing the murderous elf. He turned fully as he put his feet under him, and saw that Toogwik Tuk had begun spellcasting, with Dnark directing other orcs toward Hralien.

“Back to the elf and finish him!” Dnark protested as Tos’un continued his flight. “Dukka is coming and we must prepare…”

But Dnark’s voice trailed off as he finished, as he came to realize that Tos’un, that treacherous drow, wasn’t running away from the elf, but was, in fact, charging at him.

Standing at Dnark’s left, Toogwik Tuk gasped as Khazid’hea rudely interrupted his spellcasting, biting deep into his chest. To Chieftain Dnark’s credit, he managed to get his shield up to block Tos’un’s other blade as it came in at him. He couldn’t anticipate the power of Khazid’hea, though, for instead of yanking the blade out of Toogwik Tuk’s chest, Tos’un just drove it across, the impossibly fine edge of the sword known as Cutter slicing through bone and muscle as easily as if it were parting water. The blade came across just under Dnark’s shoulder, and before the chieftain even realized the attack enough to spin away, his left arm was taken, falling free to the ground.

Dnark howled and dropped his weapon, reaching across to grab at the blood spurting from his stumped shoulder. He fell back and to the ground, thrashing and roaring empty threats.

But Tos’un wasn’t even listening, turning to strike at the nearest orcs. Not Ung-thol, though, for the shaman ran away, taking a large portion of Dnark’s elite group with him.

“The dwarves!” Hralien called to the drow, and Tos’un followed the Moonwood elf. He forced back his nearest attackers with a blinding, stabbing routine, then angled away, turning back toward Hralien, who had already swung around in full charge toward the dell in the west.

Bruenor rolled his shield forward, picking off a swing, then advanced, turning his shoulders and rolling his axe at the dodging Grguch. He swung his shield arm up to deflect the next attack, and swiped his axe across underneath it, forcing Grguch to suck in his gut and throw back his hips.

On came the dwarf, pounding away with his shield, slashing wildly with his axe. He had the much larger half-ogre off balance, and knew from the craftsmanship and sheer size of Grguch’s axe that he would do well to keep it that way!

The song of Moradin poured from his lips. He swung across and reversed in a mighty backhand, nearly scoring a hit, then charged forward, shield leading. That is why he had been returned to his people, Bruenor knew in his heart. That was the moment when Moradin needed him, when Clan Battlehammer needed him.

He threw out the confusion of the lost city and its riddles, of Drizzt’s surprising guesses. None of that mattered—it was he and that newest, fiercest foe, battling to the death, old enemies locked in mortal combat. It was the way of Moradin and the way of Gruumsh, or at least, it was the way it had always been.

Light steps propelled the dwarf, spinning, advancing and retreating out of every swing and every block with perfect balance, using his speed to keep his larger, stronger foe slightly off balance.

Every time Grguch tried to wind up for a mighty stroke of that magnificent axe, Bruenor moved out of range, or came in too close, or too far to the same side as the retracted weapon, shortening Grguch’s strike and stealing much of its power.

And always Bruenor’s axe slashed at the orc. Always, the dwarf had Grguch twisting and dodging, and cursing.

Like sweet music to Bruenor’s ears did those orc curses sound.

In utter frustration, Grguch leaped back and roared in protest, bringing his axe up high. Bruenor knew better than to pursue, dropping one foot back instead, then rushing back and to the side, under the branch of a leafless maple.

Grguch, too outraged by the frustrating dwarf to hold back, rushed forward and swung with all his might anyway—and the dragon-axe crashed right through that thick limb, splintering its base and driving it back at the dwarf. Bruenor threw up his shield at the last second, but the weight of the limb sent him staggering backward.

By the time he recovered, Grguch was there, roaring still, his axe cutting a line for Bruenor’s skull.

Bruenor ducked and threw up his shield, and the axe hit it solidly—too solidly! The foaming mug shield, that most recognizable of Mithral Hall’s artifacts, split in half, and below it, the bone in Bruenor’s arm cracked, the weight of the blow driving the dwarf to his knees.

Agony burned through Bruenor’s body, and white flashes filled his vision.

But Moradin was on his lips, and Moradin was in his heart, and he scrambled forward, slashing his axe with all his might, forcing Grguch before him in his frenzy.

Pwent, Torgar, and Shingles formed a triangle around Cordio. The priest directed their movements, mostly coordinating Shingles and Torgar with the wild leaps and surges of the unbridled fury that was Thibble dorf Pwent. Pwent had never viewed battle in terms of defensive formations. To his credit, though, the wild-eyed battlerager did not completely compromise the integrity of their defensive stand, and the bodies of dead orcs began to pile up around them.

But more took the places of the fallen—many more, an endless stream. As weapon arms drooped from simple weariness, the three frontline dwarves took more and more hits, and Cordio’s spells of healing came nearly constant from his lips, depleting his magical energies.

They couldn’t keep it up for much longer, all three knew, and even Pwent suspected that it would be their last, glorious stand.

The orc immediately before Torgar rushed forward suddenly. The Mirabarran dwarf turned the long handle of his axe at the last moment to deflect the creature aside, and only when it started to fall away did Torgar recognize that it was already mortally wounded, blood pouring from a deep wound in its back.

As the dwarf turned to face any other nearby orcs, he saw the way before him cleared of enemies, saw Hralien and Tos’un fighting side by side. They backed as Torgar shifted to his right, moving beside Shingles, and the defensive triangle became two, two and one, and with an apparent escape route open to the east. Hralien and Tos’un started that flight, Cordio bringing the others in behind.

But they became bogged down before they had ever really started, as more and more orcs joined the fray—orcs thirsty for vengeance for their fallen chieftain, and orcs simply thirsty for the taste of dwarf and elf blood.

The panther’s claws raked the fallen orc’s body, but Jack’s wards held strong and Guenhwyvar did little real damage. Even as Guenhwyvar thrashed, Hakuun began to mouth the words of a spell as Jack took control.

Guenhwyvar understood well the power of wizards and priests, though, and the panther clamped her jaws over the orc’s face, pressing and twisting. Still the wizard’s defensive wards held, diminishing the effect. But Hakuun began to feel the pain, and knowing that the magical shields were being torn asunder, the orc panicked.

That mattered little to Jack, safe within Hakuun’s head. Wise old Jack was worldly enough to recognize Guenhwyvar for what she was. In the shelter of Hakuun’s thick skull, Jack calmly went about his task. He reached into the Weave of magical energy, found the nearby loose ends of enchanting emanations, and tied them together, filling the area with countering magical force.

Hakuun screamed as panther claws tore through his leather tunic and raked lines of blood along his shoulder. The cat retracted her huge maw, opened wide and snapped back at his face, and Hakuun screamed louder, certain that the wards were gone and that the panther would crush his skull to dust.

But that head dissipated as the panther bit down, and gray mist replaced the dispelled Guenhwyvar.

Hakuun lay there, trembling. He felt some of the magical wards being renewed about his disheveled frame.

Get up, you idiot! Jack screamed in his thoughts.

The orc shaman rolled to his side and up to one knee. He struggled to stand then stumbled away and back to the ground as a shower of sparks exploded beside him, a heavy punch knocking him backward.

He collected his wits and looked back in surprise to see the drow lifting a bow his way.

A second lightning-arrow streaked in, exploding, throwing him backward. But inside of Hakuun, Jack was already casting, and while the shaman struggled, one of his hands reached out, answering the drow’s third shot with a bolt of white-hot lightning.

When his blindness cleared, Hakuun saw that his enemy was gone. Destroyed to a smoking husk, he hoped, but only briefly, as another arrow came in at him from a different angle.

Again Jack answered with a blast of his own, followed by a series of stinging magical missiles that weaved through the trees to strike at the drow.

Dual voices invaded Hakuun’s head, as Jack prepared another evocation and Hakuun cast a spell of healing upon himself. He had just finished mending the panther’s fleshy tear when the stubborn drow hit him with another arrow.

He felt the magical wards flicker dangerously.

“Kill him!” Hakuun begged Jack, for he understood that one of those deadly arrows, maybe the very next one, was going to get through.

They had fought minor skirmishes, as anticipated, but nothing more, as word arrived along the line that Grguch and Obould had met in battle. Never one to play his hand fully, General Dukka moved his forces deliberately and with minimal risk. However things turned out, he intended to remain in power.

The Wolf Jaw orcs gave ground to Dukka’s thousands, rolling down the channel on Obould’s southern flank like floodwaters.

Always ready for a fight, Dukka stayed near the front, and so he was not far away when he heard a cry from the south, along the higher ridge, and when he heard the sound of battle to the northeast, and to the north, where he knew Obould to be. Lightning flashes filled the air up there, and Dukka could only imagine the carnage.

His arm ached and hung practically useless, and Bruenor understood that if he lost his momentum, he would meet a quick and unpleasant end. So he didn’t relent. He drove on and on, slashing away with his many-notched axe, driving the oversized orc before him.

The orc could hardly keep up, and Bruenor scored minor hits, clipping him across one hand and nicking his thigh as he spun away.

The dwarf could win. He knew he could.

But the orc began calling out, and Bruenor understood enough Orcish to understand that he called for help. Not just orc help, either, the dwarf saw, as a pair of ogres moved over at the side of his vision, lifting heavy weapons.

Bruenor couldn’t hope to win against all three. He thought to drive the orc leader back before him, then break off and head back the other way—perhaps Drizzt was finished with the troublesome wizard.

But the dwarf shook his head stubbornly. He had come to win against Obould, of course, until his dark-skinned friend had shown him another way. He had never expected to return to Mithral Hall, had guessed from the start that his reprieve from Moradin’s halls had been temporary, and for a single purpose.

That purpose stood before him in the form of one of the largest and ugliest orcs he had ever had the displeasure to lay eyes on.

So Bruenor ignored the ogres and pressed his attack with even more fury. He would die, and so be it, but that bestial orc would fall before him.

His axe pounded with wild abandon, cracking against the blocking weapon of his opponent. He drew a deep line in one of the heads on Grguch’s axe then nearly cracked through the weapon’s handle when the orc brought it up horizontally to intercept a cut.

Bruenor had intended that cut to be the coup de grace, though, and he winced at the block, expecting that his time was over, that the ogres would finish him. He heard them off to the side, stalking in, growling…screaming.

Before him, the orc roared in protest, and Bruenor managed to glance back as he wound up for another strike.

One of the ogres had fallen away, its leg cleaved off at the hip. The other had turned away from Bruenor, to battle King Obould.

“Bah! Haha!” Bruenor howled at the absurdity of it all, and he brought his axe in at the same chopping downward angle, but more to his right, more to his opponent’s left. The orc shifted appropriately and blocked, and Bruenor did it again, and again more to his right.

The orc decided to change the dynamics, and instead of just presenting the horizontal handle to block, he angled it down to his left. Since Bruenor was already leaning that way, there was no way for him to avoid the rightward slide.

The huge orc howled, advantage gained.

The orc had dispelled Guenhwyvar! From its back, claws and fangs digging at it, the orc had sent Drizzt’s feline companion back to the Astral Plane.

At least, that’s what the stunned drow prayed had happened, for when he had finished with the pair of orcs at the trees, he had come in sight just in time to watch his friend dissolve into smoky nothingness.

And that orc, so surprising, so unusual for one of the brutish race, had taken the hits of Drizzt’s arrows, and had met his barrage with lightning-bolt retorts that had left Drizzt dazed and wounded.

Drizzt continued to circle, firing as he found opportunities between the trees. Every shot hit the mark, but every arrow was stopped just short, exploding into multicolored sparks.

And every arrow was met with a magical response, lightning and insidious magic missiles, from which Drizzt could not hide.

He went into the thickness of some evergreens, only to find other orcs already within. Bow in hand instead of his scimitars, and still dazed from the magical assaults, Drizzt had no intention of joining combat at that difficult moment, and so he cut to his right, back away from the magic-using orc, and ran out of the copse.

And just in time, for without regard to its orc comrades, the wizard dropped a fireball on those trees, a tremendous blast that instantly consumed the copse and everyone within.

Drizzt continued his run farther to the side before turning back at the orc. He dropped Taulmaril and drew forth his blades, and he thought of Guenhwyvar, and called out plaintively for his lost cat.

In sight of the wizard again, Drizzt dived behind a tree.

A lightning bolt split it down the middle before him, opening the ground to the orc wizard again, stealing Drizzt’s protective wall, and so he ran on, to the side again.

“I won’t run out of magic, foolish drow!” the orc called—and in High Drow, with perfect inflection!

That unnerved Drizzt almost as much as the magical barrage, but Drizzt accepted his role, and suspected that Bruenor was no less hard-pressed.

He swung out away from the orc wizard then veered around, finding a direct path to his enemy that would take him under a widespread maple and right beside another cluster of evergreens.

He roared and charged. He saw a tell-tale movement beside him, and grinned as he recognized it.

Drizzt reached inside himself as the wizard began casting, and summoned a globe of absolute darkness before him, between him and the mage.

Into the darkness went Drizzt. To his right, the evergreens rustled, as if he had cut fast and leaped out that way.

Dull pain and cold darkness filled Regis’s head. He was far from consciousness, and sliding farther with every passing heartbeat. He knew not where he was, or what had put him there, in a deep and dark hole.

Somewhere, distantly, he felt a heavy thud against his back, and the jolt sent lines of searing pain into the halfling.

He groaned then simply let it all go.

The sensation of flying filled him, as if he had broken free of his mortal coil and was floating…floating.

“Not so clever, drow,” Jack said through Hakuun’s mouth as they both noted the movement in the limbs of the evergreens. A slight turn had the fiery pea released from Jack’s spell lofting out that way, and an instant later, those evergreens exploded into flames, with, Jack and Hakuun both presumed, the troublesome drow inside.

But Drizzt had not gone out to his right. That had been Guenhwyvar, re-summoned from the Astral Plane by his call, heeding his quiet commands to serve her role as diversion. Guenhwyvar had gone across right behind Drizzt to leap into the evergreens, while Drizzt had tumbled headlong, gaining momentum, into the darkness.

In there, he had leaped straight up, finding the maple’s lowest branch.

“Be gone, Guen,” he whispered as he ran along that branch, feeling the heat of the flames to his side. “Please be gone,” he begged as he came out of the blackness, bearing down on the wizard, who was still looking at the evergreens, still apparently oblivious to Drizzt.

The drow came off the branch in a leaping somersault, landing lightly in a roll before the orc, who nearly jumped out of his boots and threw his hands up defensively. As Drizzt came out of that roll, he sprang and rolled again, going right past the orc, right over the orc’s shoulder as he turned back upright.

Anger drove him, memories of Innovindil. He told himself that he had solved the riddle, that that creature had been the cause.

Fury driving his arms, he slashed back behind him and down with Icingdeath as he landed, and felt the blade slash hard through the orc’s leather tunic and bite deeply into flesh. Drizzt skidded to an abrupt stop and pirouetted, slashing hard with Twinkle, gashing the back-bending orc across the shoulder blades. Drizzt stepped back toward him, moving around him on the other side, and cut Twinkle down hard across the creature’s exposed throat, driving it to the ground on its back.

He moved for the kill, but stopped short, realizing that he needn’t bother. A growl from over by the burning pines showed him that Guenhwyvar hadn’t heeded his call to be gone, but neither had the panther, so swift and clever, been caught in the blast.

Relief flooded through Drizzt, but with the diversion, he didn’t take notice of a small winged snake slithering out of the dead orc’s ear.

Bruenor’s axe slid down hard to the side, and Bruenor stumbled that way. He saw the huge orc’s face twist in glee, in the belief of victory.

But that was exactly the look he had hoped for.

For Bruenor was not stumbling, and had forced the angled block for that very reason, to disengage his axe quickly and down to the side, far to the right of his target. In his stumble, Bruenor was really just re-setting his stance, and he spun away from the orc, daring to turn his back on it for a brief moment.

In that spin, Bruenor sent his axe in a roundabout swing at the end of his arm, and the orc, readying a killing strike, could not redirect his heavy two-bladed axe in time.

Bruenor whirled around, his axe flying out wide to the right, setting himself in a widespread stance, ready to meet any attack.

None came, for his axe had torn the orc’s belly as it had come around, and the creature crumbled backward, holding its heavy axe in its right hand, but clutching at its spilling entrails with its left.

Bruenor stalked forward and began battering it once more. The orc managed to block a blow, then a second, but the third slipped past and gashed its forearm, tearing its hand clear of its belly.

Guts spilled out. The orc howled and tried to back away.

But a flaming sword swept in over Bruenor’s one-horned helmet and cut Grguch’s misshapen head apart.

Guenhwyvar’s roar saved him, for Drizzt glanced back at the last moment, and ducked aside just in time to avoid the brunt of the winged snake’s murderous lightning strike. Still the bolt clipped the drow, and lifted him into the air, flipping him over more than a complete rotation, so that he landed hard on his side.

He bounced right back up, though, and the winged snake dropped to the ground and darted for the trees.

But the curved edge of a scimitar hooked under it and flipped it into the air, where Drizzt’s other blade slashed against it.

Against it, but not through it, for a magical ward prevented the cut—though the force of the blade surely bent the serpent over it!

Undeterred, for that mystery within a mystery somehow confirmed to Drizzt his suspicions about Innovindil’s fall, the drow growled and pushed on. Whether his guess was accurate or not hardly mattered, for Drizzt transformed that rage into blinding, furious action. He flipped the serpent again, then went into a frenzy, slashing left, right, left, right, over and over again, holding the serpent aloft by the sheer speed and precision of his repeated hits. He didn’t slow, he didn’t breathe, he simply battered away with abandon.

The creature flapped its wings, and Drizzt scored a hit at last, cutting up and nearly severing one where it met the serpent’s body.

Again the drow went into a fury, slashing back and forth, and he ended by turning one blade around the torn snake. He fell into a short run and turn behind that strike and used his scimitar to fling the snake out far.

In mid-air, the snake transformed, becoming a gnome as it hit the ground in a roll, turning as it came up and slamming its back hard against a tree.

Drizzt relaxed, convinced that the tree was the only thing holding the surprising creature upright.

“You summoned…the panther…back,” the gnome said, his voice weak and fading.

Drizzt didn’t reply.

“Brilliant diversion,” the gnome congratulated.

A curious expression came over the diminutive creature, and it held up one trembling hand. Blood poured from out of his robe’s voluminous sleeve, though it did not stain the material—material that showed not a tear from the drow’s assault.

“Hmm,” the gnome said, and looked down, and so did Drizzt, to see more blood pouring out from under the hem of the robe, pooling on the ground between the little fellow’s boots.

“Good garment,” the gnome noted. “Know you a mage worthy?”

Drizzt looked at him curiously.

Jack the Gnome shrugged. His left arm fell off then, sliding out of his garment, the tiny piece of remaining skin that attached it to his shoulder tearing free under the dead weight.

Jack looked at it, Drizzt looked at it, and they looked at each other again.

And Jack shrugged. And Jack fell face down. And Jack the Gnome was dead.

CHAPTER 31 GARUMN’S GORGE

Bruenor tried to stand straight, but the pain of his broken arm had him constantly twitching and lowering his left shoulder. Directly across from him, King Obould stared hard, the fingers of his hand kneading the hilt of his gigantic sword. Gradually that blade inched down toward the ground, and Obould dismissed its magical flames.

“Well, what of it, then?” Bruenor asked, feeling the eyes of orcs boring into him from all around.

Obould let his gaze sweep across the crowd, holding them all at bay. “You came to me,” he reminded the dwarf.

“I heared ye wanted to talk, so I come to talk.”

Obould’s expression showed him to be less than convinced. He glanced up the hill, motioning to Nukkels the priest, the emissary, who had never made it near to Bruenor’s court.

Bruenor, too, looked up at the battered shaman, and the dwarf’s eyes widened indeed when Nukkels was joined by another orc, dressed in decorated military garb, who carried a bundle of great interest to Bruenor. The two orcs walked down to stand beside their king, and the second, General Dukka, dropped his cargo, a bloody and limp halfling, at Obould’s feet.

All around them, the orcs stirred, expecting the fight to erupt anew.

But Obould silenced them with an upraised hand, as he looked Bruenor in the eye. Before him, Regis stirred, and Obould reached down and with surprising gentleness, lifted the halfling to his feet.

Regis could not stand on his own, though, his knees buckling. But Obould held him upright and motioned to Nukkels. Immediately, the shaman cast a spell of healing over the halfling, and though it only marginally helped, it was enough for Regis to stand at least. Obould pushed him toward Bruenor, but again, without any evident malice.

“Grguch is dead,” Obould proclaimed to all around, ending as he locked stares with Bruenor. “Grguch’s path is not the way.”

Beside Obould, General Dukka stood firm and nodded, and Bruenor and Obould both understood that the orc king had all the support he needed, and more.

“What are you wantin’, orc?” Bruenor asked, and he held his hand up as he finished, looking past Obould.

Many orcs turned, Obould, Dukka, and Nukkels included, to see Drizzt Do’Urden standing calmly, Taulmaril in hand, arrow resting at ease on its string, and with Guenhwyvar beside him.

“What are ye wanting?” Bruenor asked again as Obould turned back.

The dwarf already knew, of course, and the answer was one that filled him with both hope and dread.

Not that he was in any position to bargain.

“It won’t make her more than a surcoat, elf,” Bruenor said as Drizzt folded up the fabulous garment of Jack the Gnome, wrapping it over a few rings and other trinkets he had taken from the body.

“Give it to Rumblebelly,” said Bruenor, and he propped Regis up a bit more, for the halfling leaned on him heavily.

“A wizard’s…robe,” the still-groggy Regis slurred. “Not for me.”

“Not for me girl, neither,” Bruenor declared.

But Drizzt only smiled and tucked the fairly won gains into his pack.

Somewhere in the east, fighting erupted again, a reminder to them all that not everything was settled quite yet, with remnants of Clan Karuck still to be rooted out. The distant battle sounds also reminded them that their friends were still out there, and though Obould, after conferring with Dukka, had assured them that four dwarves, an elf, and a drow had gone back over the southern ridge when Dukka’s force had sent Wolf Jaw running, the relief of the companions showed clearly on their faces when they came in sight of the bedraggled, battered, and bloody sextet.

Cordio and Shingles ran to take Regis off of Bruenor’s hands, while Pwent fell all over himself, hopping around Bruenor with unbridled glee.

“Thought ye was sure’n dead,” Torgar said. “Thought we were suren dead, to boot. But them orcs held back and let us run south. I’m not for knowin’ why.”

Bruenor looked at Drizzt then at Torgar and the others. “Not sure that I’m knowin’ why, meself,” he said, and he shook his head helplessly, as if none of it made any sense to him. “Just get me home. Get us all home, and we’ll figure it out.”

It sounded good, of course, except that one of the group had no home to speak of, none in the area, at least. Drizzt stepped past Bruenor and the others and motioned for Tos’un and Hralien to join him off to the side.

Back with the others, Cordio tended to Bruenor’s broken arm, which of course had Bruenor cursing him profusely, while Torgar and Shingles tried to figure out the best way to repair the king’s broken shield, an artifact that could not be left in two pieces.

“Is it in your heart, or in your mind?” Drizzt asked his fellow drow when the three of them were far enough away.

“Your change, I mean,” Drizzt explained when Tos’un did not immediately answer. “This new demeanor you wear, these possibilities you see before you—are they in your heart, or in your mind? Are they born of feelings, or is it pragmatism that guides your actions?”

“He was dismissed and running free,” Hralien said. “Yet he came back to save me, perhaps to save us all.”

Drizzt nodded his acceptance of that fact, but it didn’t change his posture as he continued to stare at Tos’un.

“I do not know,” Tos’un admitted. “I prefer the elves of the Moon-wood to Obould’s orcs. That much I can tell you. And I will not go against the Moonwood elves, on my word.”

“The word of a drow,” Drizzt remarked, and Hralien snorted at the absurdity of the statement, given the speaker.

Drizzt held his hand out, and motioned toward the sentient sword belted on Tos’un’s hip. With only a moment’s hesitation, Tos’un drew the blade and handed it over.

“I cannot allow him to keep it,” Drizzt explained to Hralien.

“It is Catti-brie’s sword,” the elf agreed, but Drizzt shook his head.

“It is a corrupting, evil, sentient being,” Drizzt said. “It will feed the doubts of Tos’un and play into his fears, hoping to incite him to spill blood.” To Hralien’s surprise, Drizzt handed it over to him. “Nor does Catti-brie wish it returned to Mithral Hall. Take it to the Moonwood, I beg, for your wizards and priests are better able to deal with such weapons.”

“Tos’un will be there,” Hralien warned, and he glanced at the wandering drow and nodded, and relief showed clearly on Tos’un’s face.

“Perhaps your wizards and priests will be better able to discern the heart and mind of the dark elf, too,” said Drizzt. “If trust is gained then return the sword to him. It is a choice beyond my judgment.”

“Elf! Ye done jabberin’?” Bruenor called. “I’m wanting to go see me girl.”

Drizzt looked to Hralien and Tos’un in turn. “Indeed,” he offered. “Let us all go home.”

The wind howled out its singular, mournful note, a constant blow that sounded to Wulfgar of home.

He stood on the northeastern slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, not far below the remnants of the high ridge once known as Bruenor’s Climb, looking out over the vast tundra, where the snows had receded once more.

Slanting light crossed the flat ground, the last rays of day sparkling in the many puddles dotting the landscape.

Wulfgar stayed there, unmoving, as the last lights faded, as the stars began to twinkle overhead, and his heart leaped again when a distant campfire appeared out in the north.

His people.

His heart was full. This was his place, his home, the land where he would build his legacy. He would assume his rightful place among the Tribe of the Elk, would take a wife and live as his father, his grandfather, and all of his ancestors had lived. The simplicity of it, the lack of the deceitful trappings of civilization, welcomed him, heart and soul.

His heart was full.

The son of Beornegar had come home.

The dwarven hall in the great chamber known as Garumn’s Gorge, with its gently arcing stone bridge and the new statue of Shimmergloom the shadow dragon, ridden to the bottom of the gorge to its death by heroic King Bruenor, had never looked so wondrous. Torches burned throughout the hall, lining the gorge and the bridge, their firelight changing through the spectrum of colors due to the enchantments of Lady Alustriel’s wizards.

On the western side of the gorge before the bridge stood hundreds of Battlehammer dwarves, all dressed in their full, shining armor, pennants flying, spear tips gleaming in the magical light. Across from them stood a contingent of orc warriors, not nearly as well-outfitted, but standing with equal discipline and pride.

Dwarf masons had constructed a platform at the center of the long bridge, and on it had built a three-tiered fountain. Nanfoodle’s alchemy and Alustriel’s wizards had done their work there, as well, for the water danced to the sound of haunting music, its flowing streams glowing brightly and changing colors.

Before the fountain, on a mosaic of intricate tiles fashioned to herald that very day, stood a mithral podium, and on it rested a pile of identical parchments, pinned by weights sculpted into the form of a dwarf, an elf, a human, and an orc. The bottom paper of that pile had been sealed atop the podium, to remain there throughout the coming decades.

Bruenor stepped out from his line and walked the ten strides to the podium. He looked back to his friends and kin, to Banak in his chair, sitting impassive and unconvinced, but unwilling to argue with Bruenor’s decision. He matched stares with Regis, who solemnly nodded, as did Cordio. Beside the priest, Thibble dorf Pwent was too distracted to return Bruenor’s look. The battle-rager, as clean as anyone in the hall had ever seen him, swiveled his head around, sizing up any threats that might materialize from the strange gathering—or maybe, Bruenor thought with a grin, looking for Alustriel’s dwarf friend, Fret, who had forced a bath upon Pwent.

To the side lay Guenhwyvar, majestic and eternal, and beside her stood Drizzt, calm and smiling, his mithral shirt, his belted weapons, and Taulmaril over his shoulder, reminding Bruenor that no dwarf had ever known a better champion. In looking at him, Bruenor was amazed yet again at how much he had come to love and trust that dark elf.

Just as much, Bruenor knew, as his gaze slipped past Drizzt to Catti-brie, his beloved daughter, Drizzt’s wife. Never had she looked as beautiful to Bruenor as she did just then, never more sure of herself and comfortable in her place. She wore her auburn hair up high on one side, hanging loosely on the other, and it caught the light of the fountain, reflected off the rich, silken colors of her blouse, the garment of the gnome wizard. It had been a full robe on the gnome, of course, but it reached only to mid-thigh on Catti-brie, and while the sleeves had nearly covered the gnome’s hands, they flared halfway down Catti-brie’s delicate forearms. She wore a dark blue dress under the blouse, a gift from Lady Alustriel, her new tutor—working through Nanfoodle—that reached to her knees and matched exactly the blue trim of her blouse. High boots of black leather completed the outfit, and seemed so appropriate for Catti-brie, as they were both delicate and sturdy all at once.

Bruenor chuckled, recalling so many images of Catti-brie covered in dirt and in the blood of her enemies, dressed in simple breeches and tunic, and fighting in the mud. Those times were gone, he knew, and he thought of Wulfgar.

So much had changed.

Bruenor looked back to the podium and the treaty, and the extent of the change weakened his knees beneath him.

Along the southern rim of the center platform stood the other dignitaries: Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon, Galen Firth of Nesmé, King Emerus Warcrown of Citadel Felbarr—looking none too pleased, but accepting King Bruenor’s decision—and Hralien of the Moonwood. More would join in, it was said, including the great human city of Sundabar and the largest of the dwarven cities in the region, Citadel Adbar.

If it held.

That thought made Bruenor look across the podium to the other principal, and he could not believe that he had allowed King Obould Many-Arrows to enter Mithral Hall. Yet there stood the orc, in all his terrible splendor, with his black armor, ridged and spiked, and his mighty greatsword strapped diagonally across his back.

Together they walked to opposite sides of the podium. Together they lifted their respective quills.

Obould leaned forward, but even though he was a foot and a half taller, his posture did not diminish the splendor and strength of King Bruenor Battlehammer.

“If ye’re e’er to deceive…” Bruenor started to whisper, but he shook his head and let the thought drift away.

“It is no less bitter for me,” Obould assured him.

And still they signed. For the good of their respective peoples, they put their names to the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge, recognizing the Kingdom of Many-Arrows and forever changing the face of the Silver Marches.

Calls went out from the gorge, and horns blew along the tunnels of Mithral Hall. And there came a greater blast, a rumble and resonance that vibrated through the stones of the hall and beyond, as the great horn once known as Kokto Gung Karuck, a gift from Obould to Bruenor, sounded from its new perch on the high lookout post above Mithral Hall’s eastern door.

The world had changed, Bruenor knew.