The Thousand Orcs

We have to live our lives and view our relationship in the present. That is the truth of my life with Catti-brie, and it is also my fear for that life. To live in the here and now, to walk the windswept trails and do battle against whatever foe opposes us. To define our cause and our purpose, even if that purpose is no more than the pursuit of adventure, and to chase that goal with all our hearts and souls. When we do that, Catti-brie and I are free of the damning realities of our respective heritage. As long as we do that, we can live our lives together in true friendship and love, as close as two reasoning beings could ever be.

It is only when we look further down the road of the future that we encounter troubles.

On the mountainous trails north of Mithral Hall, Catti-brie recently had a brush with death and more poignantly, a brush with mortality. She looked at die end of her life, so suddenly and brutally. She thought she was dead, and believed in that horrible instant that she would never be a mother, that she would bear no children and instill in them the values that guide her life and her road. She saw mortality, true mortality, with no one to carry on her legacy.

She did not like what she saw.

She escaped death, as she has so often done, as I, and all of us, have so often done. Wulfgar was there for her, as he would have been for any of us, as any of us would have been for him, to scatter the orcs. And so her mortality was not realized in full.

But still the thought lingers.

And there, in that clearer understanding of the prospects of her future, in the clearer understanding of the prospect of our future, lies the rub, the sharp turn in our adventurous road that threatens to spill all that we have come to achieve into a ravine of deadly rocks.

What future is there between us? When we consider our relationship day by day, there is only joy and adventure and excitement; when we look down the road, we see limitations that we, particularly Catti-brie, cannot ignore. Will she ever bear children? Could she even bear mine? There are many half-elves in the world, the product of mixed heritage, human and elf, but half-drow? I have never heard of such a thing—it was rumored that House Barrison Del'Armago fostered such couplings, to add strength and size to theirwarrior males, but I know not if that was anything more than rumor. Certainly the results were not promising, even if that were true!

So I do not know that I could father any of Catti-brie s children, and in truth, even if it is possible, it is not necessarily a pleasant prospect, and certainly not one without severe repercussions. Certainly I would want children of mine to hold so many of Catti-brie's wonderful qualities: her perceptive nature, her bravery, her compassion, her constant holding to the course she knows to be right, and of course, her beauty. No parent could be anything but proud of a child who carried the qualities of Catti-brie.

But that child would be half-drow in a world that will not accept drow elves. I find a measure of tolerance now, in towns where my reputation precedes me, but what chance might any child beginning in this place have? By the time such a child was old enough to begin to make any such reputation, he or she would be undoubtedly scarred by the uniqueness of heritage. Perhaps we could have a child and keep it in Mithral Hall all the years.

But that, too, is a limitation, and one that Catti-brie knows all too well.

It is all too confusing and all too troubling. I love Catti-brie— I know that now—and know, too, that she loves me. We are Mends above all else, and that is the beauty of our relationship. In the here and in the now, walking the road, feeling the wind, fighting our enemies, I could not ask for a better companion, a better compliment to who I am.

But as I look farther down that road, a decade, two decades, I see sharper curves and deeper ravines. I would love Catti-brie until the day of her death, if that day found her infirm and aged while I was still in the flower of my youth. To me, there would be no burden, no longing to go out and adventure more, no need to go out and find a more physically compatible companion, an elf or perhaps even another drow.

Catti-brie once asked me if my greatest limitation was internal or external. Was I more limited by the way people viewed me as a dark elf, or by the way I viewed people viewing me? I think that same thing applies now, only for her. For while I understand the turns our road together will inevitably take, and I fully accept them, she fears them, I believe, and more for my sensibilities than for her own. In three decades, when she nears sixty years of age, she will be old by human standards. I'll be around a hundred, my first century, and would still be considered a very young adult, barely more than a child, by the reckoning of the drow. I think that her brush with mortality is making her look to that point and that she is not much enjoying the prospects—for me more than for her.

And there remains that other issue, of children. If we two were to start a family, our children would face terrific pressures and prejudices and would be young, so very young, when their mother passed away.

It is all too confusing.

I choose, for now, to walk in the present.

Yes, I do so out of fear.

— Drizzt Do'Urden

CHAPTER 21 THE AURA OF BEING KING

Even after the greeting by the guards sent out from Shallows, the response from the town the following morning, when the King of Mithral Hall and his entourage walked through the front gate of the walled town, stunned the group.

Trumpeters sounded from the parapets and from the top of the lone tower that stood along the northern wall of the small town. Though none of the trumpeters was very good, and none dressed in the shining armor one might expect from the court of a larger city like Silverymoon, Bruenor was certain that he had never heard anyone play with more heart.

All the people of the village, more than a hundred, encircled the area beyond the gate, clapping and waving and throwing petals. There were more women than Bruenor had expected from a frontier town and even a few children, including a couple of babies. Perhaps he should be spending quite a bit of time out of Mithral Hall and watching over these developing towns, Bruenor mused. It was not an unpleasant thought. In just looking at the place, it seemed to him as if Shallows was trying hard to become a regular town, a settled place, instead of the pocket of rogues and outlaws he had always thought it and all the other towns of the Savage Frontier to be. He considered his former home then, Ten-Towns, and recalled the evolution of those ten cities into something far more settled than they had been when he had first arrived in Icewind Dale those centuries before.

The dwarf, leading the procession, paused and looked around, past the many cheering people to their sturdy houses. Most were made of stone with supporting wooden frames, and all were built solid, as if the inhabitants meant to be there for a while. Bruenor nodded his silent approval, his gaze gradually moving to the single tower that so clearly marked the town. It was a thirty-foot gray cylinder, flying a pennant of a pair of hands surrounded by golden stars on a red background. A wizard's emblem, obviously, and when the crowd before him parted and a white-bearded old man walked through, dressed in a tall and pointy hat and bright red robes emblazoned in golden stars, it wasn't hard for the dwarf to make the connection.

"Welcome to my humble town, King Bruenor of Mithral Hall," the man said, walking up to stand right before Bruenor. He swept off his hat and fell into a grand bow. "I am Withegroo Seian'Doo, the founder of Shallows and present liege. This honor is unexpected but surely not unwelcome."

"Me greetings to yerself, Withe.."

"Withegroo."

"Withegroo," Bruenor finished. "And I'm not yet King Bruenor— well, not yet again, if ye get me meaning."

"It was with great sadness that I and my fellow townsfolk here heard of the passing of your ancestor, Gandalug."

"Yep, but the old one had himself a few good centuries, and I'm not thinking we can be askin' for more than that," Bruenor replied.

He looked around, to see the cheery and sincere smiles of the townsfolk, and he knew that he could be at ease there, that he and his friends, even Drizzt who was standing right behind him, were indeed welcomed guests in Shallows.

"Got the word in the west," the dwarf explained. "In Icewind Dale, where me and a few o' me friends were making our homes."

"Did you get lost on your journey home to Mithral Hall?"

Bruenor shook his head.

"Found me a couple o’ friends from Felbarr," he explained, and he turned and indicated Tred, who gave an uncomfortable though still gracious bow. "They'd found themselves a bit o' trouble with some orcs."

He noted a shadow cross over Withegroo's wrinkled old face and long, hawkish nose. The man's enormous cars twitched beneath the bristles of his wild while hair, which was slicking out in every direction under the bent brim of his red hat.

Bruenor matched that look with a grave one of his own.

"Ye know the town o' Clicking Heels?" he asked somberly.

Withegroo looked around, to see several of his townsfolk nodding.

"Well, it ain't no more," Bruenor said bluntly. "Orcs 'n giants laid it to waste. Killed them all."

Groans, gasps, and whispers sprang up all around the courtyard.

"We been chasin' the dogs and killed more than a few," Bruenor went on quickly, wanting to put a better light on the tragedy. "Left a handful o' giants and near to a hunnerd orcs layin' dead in the mountains, but we thinked it smart to come in here and make sure that Shallows was standing strong."

"Stronger than you can imagine," Withegroo replied.

He stood up straight and tall — and he was tail, well over six feet, tall enough to look Wulfgar in the eye without bending back his head. Unlike Wulfgar, though, the man was stick lean and couldn't have weighed more than half the barbarian's three hundred pounds.

"We have suffered the likes of orcs and giants many times," the wizard continued, "but not once have any crossed the line of our strong walls."

"Old Withegroo lays 'em dead with his lightning!" one man shouted from the side, and others immediately took up the chorus of cheers for the wizard,

Withegroo smiled, somewhat sheepishly, somewhat pridefully, and turned to them, patting his hands humbly to silence the growing chorus.

"I do what I can," the wizard said to Bruenor, turning back to face the dwarf. "I am no novice to battle, and I made my name and my fortune adventuring in dark caves filled with all sorts of beasts."

"And ye bought yerself a town," Bruenor remarked, with no sarcasm in his tone.

"I built myself a tower," the wizard corrected. "I thought this a fine place to live out my days, in study and recollections of adventures past. These good folk" — he turned and swept his hand across the crowd— "found me, one by one and family by family. I believe they recognized the value of having so striking a landmark as my tower in their intended settlement—brings in the dwarf traders, you see."

He ended with an exaggerated wink, which brought a smile to Bruenor's face.

"Bet they weren't minding having a wizard lookin' over them, throwing a few bolts o' lightning at any monsters venturing too close, either," the dwarf said to Withegroo, who took the compliment in stride.

"I do what I can."

"I'm bettin ye do."

"Well," the wizard said with a deep breath, setting an abrupt change in the conversation. "You have come to check in on us, and an honor it is, King—or soon to be King—Bruenor Battlehammer. You can sec that we are secure and strong, but I beg you, do not take quick leave of us. The walls of Shallows and the houses alike are of stone, and may seem cold — though not to a dwarf! — but they mask hearths of warmth and the voices of those with many adventures to share." He stepped back and looked up, addressing the whole company. "You are welcome, one and all. Welcome to Shallows!"

And with that, a great cheer went up form all the townsfolk, and Bruenor motioned for his road-weary group to disperse and relax.

"A bit better welcome than we received from Mirabar," Drizzt remarked to Bruenor, Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar when the dwarf king moved away from Withegroo to rejoin his closest friends.

"Yeah, Mirabar." Bruenor grumbled. "Remind me to knock that place down."

"Not a sign of orc about," Catti-brie said, "and a town with strong walls and stronger folk, and a wizard backing them. .»

She nodded her approval.

"And a southern road awaiting us," Wulfgar put in.

"But not right yet," said Catti-brie. "I'm thinking we should stay on a bit, just to be sure they're safe."

"Ye got a feeling, do ye?" Bruenor asked.

Catti-brie looked around, and despite the festivities, the laughter, and the seemingly normal scene, a cloud crossed her face.

"Yeah, I got it, too," said Bruenor. "But not to worry. We'll be checkin' all the land, and we'll take our march to the Surbrin in the east. Tred's telling me there's a couple more towns down that way. Let's see how many o' the folk in the region are as welcoming to King Bruenor and his friends."

He looked at Drizzt and pointedly added, "All his friends." The drow shrugged as if it did not matter, and in truth, it did not.

"There are ten thousand more in dark holes who will be led if they believe that they will find greater glory," Ad'non Kareese said to his three companions.

He had just returned from a scouting circuit of the region between the dark elves hideaway and Gerti’s complex, including a pair of visits with other minor monster kings: an orc who knew of Obould and a particularly wretched goblin.

"Twenty thousand," Donnia corrected, "at least. The mountain caverns crawl with the little beasts, and the only thing that keeps them in there is their own stupidity and fear. If Obould and Gerti claim this prize, the head of the king of the dwarven stronghold, then we will coax more than a few, I am certain."

"To what end?" Kaer'lic interjected doubtfully. "Then we will only have to look at the beasts scurrying about the surface."

"In chaos we find comfort," Tos'un put in with a wry grin.

"Spoken like a dolt from Menzoberranzan," said Kaer'lic, which only made Tos'un smile even wider.

"To your own tests of worthiness, then," Tos'un replied. "In chaos we find wealth. In chaos we find enjoyment."

Kaer'lic shrugged and didn't argue.

"I have already made some connections with the leaders of the various goblin and orc tribes and have heard hints of one that holds great ties to the more formidable beasts of the Trollmoors to the south," Ad'non remarked.

"Beware the boasts of goblins," said Donnia. "They would tell you that the mountain giants bow to them if they thought you would be impressed."

"Their tunnels stretch long," Ad'non replied.

"I am willing to believe that we can do this," said Tos'un, "and willing to believe that we will enjoy it greatly. I was the biggest doubter when we first tried to tie Obould to Gerti, and T was certain that the giantess would throttle the wretched orc when she learned of the loss of four of her kin, yet look where we are. Obould's scouts are everywhere, running the mountains, tracking this band that we believe contains King Bruenor himself. Once he is found, and Gerti takes her revenge. .»

"We can rally thousands to Obould's side," said Ad'non. "We can create a dark swarm that will cover the land for miles around!"

"And?" Kaer'lic asked dryly.

"And let them kill the dwarves, the humans, and each other," Ad'non replied. "And we will be there, always one step behind, yd always one step ahead, to collect our due at every turn."

"And to thoroughly enjoy die spectacle of it all," Donnia added with a wicked grin.

Kaer'lic accepted that reasoning and nodded her approval.

"Be certain that our allies are warned of the presence of a drow who is not a friend," the priestess advised.

She sat back as the others began formulating plans for their next moves. Kaer'lic did like the excitement, but there were other matters that concerned her more. She thought back to some experiences she had faced before finding her two, then three companions, when she had been out of her Underdark city on a mission for the ruling priestesses.

In those thoughts, Drizzt Do'Urden surely came to mind more than once, for he was not the first traitor to Lolth and drow ways that Kaer'lic the Terrible had faced.

It wasn't that she had any particular hatred or vendetta against Drizzt, of course—Tos'un would more likely harbor such resentments, she supposed—but the ever-plotting priestess had to wonder how it would all play out. Would she find unexpected opportunities to pay back old debts? Might the reputation of one renegade drow be put in good service to the Spider Queen, and even more importantly, to a priestess who had fallen out of favor with the goddess?

She smiled and looked around at the other three, all seeming so much more eager to play this out than was she.

Kaer'lic the Terrible, ever the patient one.

They heard the trumpets, and though they were somewhat dimwitted, one of the orc band made the connection between that heralding sound and the troupe they had been tracking.

From across the ravine, the orcs had the same view of Withegroo's tower as Drizzt and his friends had enjoyed only the day before.

Wicked grins splayed on their misshapen, tusked mouths, the orc patrol rushed away, back up into the foothills to where Urlgen, son of Obould, waited.

"Bruenor in the town," the patrol leader informed the tall, cruel orc leader.

Urlgen curled his torn lip, welcoming the information. The orc needed to redeem himself, and nothing short of the death of Bruenor Battlehammer would suffice. Obould blamed him, and so did Gerti, and for any creature living in the cold mountains at the end of the Spine of the World, having those two angry with him was not a good thing.

But they had King Bruenor within their grasp, at rest in a remote town and with little understanding of the catastrophe that was about to befall him.

Urlgen dispatched his messengers with all speed and with orders to press Obould to move quickly. They had the rat in the trap and Urlgen did not want him to slip out.

The orc was exhausted, having spent day after day in rallying others to his cause. Still, King Obould knew that he had to make this journey personally and not deliver the news that Bruenor had been found through any messenger.

He found Gerti sitting on the very edge of her throne, her blue eyes narrow and dangerous, her posture that of a predator anxious to spring.

"You have located King Bruenor and those others who murdered my kin?" she asked before the orc king could even offer a formal greeting.

"A small town," Obould replied. "The one with the lone tower."

Gerti nodded her recognition. With its singular tower, Shallows was quite distinct in this region of abandoned, simple villages and underground dwarven or goblinkin strongholds.

"And you have prepared your forces?"

"An army is out and running already," Obould answered.

Gerti's eyes widened and she seemed about to explode.

"Only to circle south," the orc quickly explained. "The ground is flat and easy to cross there, and King Bruenor must be held in the town."

"They are out to seal the road and nothing more?"

"Yes."

Gerti nodded to one of her attendants, a massive, muscular frost giant clad in shining metal armor and holding the largest, nastiest spear Obould had ever seen. The warrior immediately returned the nod with a bow and started out of the room.

"Yerki will lead my forces," Gerti explained. "They are ready to march at once."

"How many?" the orc had to ask.

"Ten," Gerti replied.

"And a thousand orcs," Obould added.

"Then our contributions to the downfall of King Bruenor Battlehammer are about the same," remarked the superior-minded giantess.

Obould almost blurted a sarcastic response, but he remembered where he was and how easy it would be for any of Gerti's associates to smash him, and he just chuckled instead.

With her eyes still focused, narrow again and deadly serious, Gerti didn't join in his mirth.

"We must be away at once," Obould explained, shifting the subject a bit. "Three days running to the town."

"Make it in two," Gerti said.

Obould nodded, bowed, and turned around, hustling away from the giantess, but she stopped him as he was about to exit the cave, calling out his name.

The orc turned to face the power that was Gerti.

"Do not fail me … again," the giantess warned, putting emphasis on that last, damning word.

But Obould stood tall and straight and didn't back away from Gerti's imposing stare at all. He had ten giants at his disposal. Ten giants!

And a thousand orcs!

CHAPTER 22 TOO CLEAR A WARNING

Ivan had at first scoffed at Pikel's suggestion that they ride the currents of the River Surbrin to Mithral Hall's eastern gates, but after they set their camp the third night out of the Moonwood, with the river right below them, Pikel surprised his brother by sneaking away in the dark to collect fallen logs. By the time Ivan's snores had turned to the roaring yawns of morning, his green-bearded brother had fashioned a fair-sized raft of notched, interlocking logs, tied together by vines and rope.

Ivan's first reaction, of course, had been one of doubt.

"Ye fool, ye'll get us both drowned to death!" he said, hands on hips, feet wide-spaced, as if expecting Pikel to take the insult with typical grace and leap upon him.

Pikel only laughed and launched the raft. It bobbed in a shallow ebb pool at the river's edge in perfect balance and hardly dipped at all when Pikel hopped aboard.

With a lot of coaxing and many reminders of sore feet, Ivan finally joined his brother on the craft, "just to give it a test!" Before Ivan announced his final intent, Pikel paddled the raft out into the main currents, where it drifted easily.

Ivan's protests were lost in the sheer comfort of the journey, an easy glide. Pikel had fashioned the raft beautifully, creating a couple of amazingly comfortable seats, and even stringing a small hammock at one end of the craft.

Ivan didn't have to ask where his brother had learned to make such things. He knew that Pikel's weird druidic magic had been involved — obviously so! Some of the wood, like the chair he had taken as his own, seemed shaped, not carved, and the oar Pikel was using was covered in designs of leaves and trees so intricate that it would have taken a skilled woodcarver a tenday to fashion it. Pikel had done it in a single night.

They made great time that first day on the Surbrin, and on Pikel's suggestion, they continued right through the night. What a pleasant experience it was, particularly for Pikel, to be gliding on the easy currents under the canopy of twinkling stars. Even Ivan, so much the true dwarf, gained a bit more respect for elves under that amazing summer sky, or at least, he admitted some understanding (to himself!) of the elves' love of stars.

The second day, the river edged closer to the towering mountains, running the line along the eastern edge of the Spine of the World. Shining walls of gray stone, spattered with green foliage and streaks of white, marked the right bank, and sometimes both sides, as the river wove in and out of the rocky terrain. It didn't seem to bother Pikel in the least, but it made Ivan fall more on his guard. They had recently battled orcs, after all, and wouldn't this landscape make for a wonderful ambush?

At Ivan's insistence, they put up on the riverbank that second night, and in truth, the river was becoming a bit too unpredictable and rushed for travel in the dark anyway. Besides, the dwarves needed to resupply.

Rain found them the next day, but it was a gentle one mostly, though it soaked them and made them miserable. At least the mountains retreated somewhat, the riverbank to the east falling away, and the mountain slopes on the west becoming more rounded and gently up-sloping. "Think we'll find 'em today?" Ivan asked early on. "Yup yup," Pikel replied.

Both dwarves retreated into thoughts of the real reason for their journey out of the Spirit Soaring cathedral. They had come to see Mithral Hall, to see King Bruenor's coronation. The prospect of viewing great dwarven halls, something neither of the brothers had done since their youngest years, far more than a century before, incited great joy in Ivan. His mind thought back to the most distant of his memories, to the sound of hammers ringing on metal, the smell of coal and sulfur and most of all mead. He could see again the strong, tall columns that supported the greatest chambers of his own home and believed that those of legendary Mithral Hall would probably exceed even those magnificent works by far.

Yes, to Ivan's thinking, as much as he loved Cadderly, Danica, and the kids, it would be grand to be among his own kind again, and in a place fashioned to the tastes of dwarves.

He looked over at Pikel as he considered his anticipation and wondered, hoped, that perhaps being in a place like Mithral Hall might go a long way into guiding the «doo-dad» back to his true heritage. If Pikel could fashion such work as this raft out of wood, Ivan had to wonder how magnificent his art might be when working with the true dwarven materials of stone and metal.

Of course, Ivan's budding fantasy would have been more convincing to him if, in the middle of his contemplations, Pikel hadn't summoned down a large and incredibly ugly bird to his upheld forearm, then engaged in a long and seemingly detailed conversation with the creature.

"Talkin' to yer own level?" Ivan asked dryly when the vulture flew away.

Pikel turned to his brother with a surprisingly serious expression, then pointed to the western bank and began steering the raft that way.

Ivan knew better than to argue. His often silly brother had proven too many times that the information he could garner from animals could prove vital. Besides, the river was getting a bit more vigorous and Ivan longed to put his feet on solid ground once more.

As soon as they had the boat beached, Pikel grabbed his large sack of supplies, plopped his cooking pot over his head, and leaped away, rushing for the higher ground away from the riverbank. Ivan caught up to him a short time later, on a rocky mound.

Pikel pointed to the southwest, to a cluster of activity against the backdrop of the gray mountains.

"Dwarfs," Ivan remarked.

He narrowed his eyes and shielded them from the glare with his hand. He nodded, affirming his own observation. They were indeed dwarves, and had to be from Mithral Hall, all rushing around, apparently working on defensive fortifications.

He looked back to his brother but found Pikel already moving, cutting a straight line for the construction. Side-by-side they ran along the gently sloping ground, first down then up a steep trail.

A short time later came a roaring command, "Halt and be known! Be liked or be skewered!"

The brothers, understanding the seriousness of that tone, skidded to a stop before the closed iron gates set at the front of a stone wall.

A burly red-bearded dwarf in full battle-mail rushed out through those gates.

"Well, ye don't look like orcs and ye don't smell like orcs," he said. "Though I'm not for certain what yerself looks and smells like," he added, scrutinizing Pikel.

"Doo-dad," Pikel remarked,

"Ivan Bouldershoulder at yer service, and I'm thinking ye must be in service to King Bruenor. This is me brother Pikel. We're coming outta Carradoon and the Snowflake Mountains, sent by High Priest Cadderly Bonaduce to serve as witnesses to the new king's coronation."

The soldier nodded, his expression showing that while he might not have understood all that Ivan had just said, he seemed to get the gist of it and seemed to think it a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"Cadderly's a friend of that drow elf that runs about with yer soon-to-be king," Ivan explained, drawing a knowing nod from the soldier. "He's still soon-to-be, ain't he?"

The soldier's expression turned sour for just a moment, his crusty features lightening, then widened in understanding.

"We ain't crowned him yet, as he ain't been in from Icewind Dale." "We feared we'd miss him," Ivan said.

"Ye would've if he'd've come right in," the soldier explained, "but him and his found orcs on the road and're chasin' them down and putting them back in their filthy holes."

Ivan nodded with sincere admiration. "Good king," he said, and the soldier beamed. "Small band and nothin' more, so it won't be long," the soldier explained. He turned to the side and motioned for the brothers to come along. "We're a bit short o' the ale out here," he explained. "Come out fast from the halls to set the camp, while our brothers are up there on the west, setting another."

"Just a small band?" Ivan asked skeptically.

"We're not for taking any chances, Ivan Bouldershoulder," the soldier explained. "We been fighting much o' late, and not too far from our memories arc them damned drow coming up from their deep holes. I'm not knowing this Carradoon or them Snowflake Mountains ye're mentioning, but up here's a wild land."

"We just got done fighting a few orcs ourselfs," Ivan replied. He turned to the river and nodded his bearded chin to the east. "Out in the Moonwood. Me brother put us a bit outta the way."

"Oo," said Pikel, hardly taking the blame in stride.

"Yeah yeah, ye got us up here quick, even if ye did land us in a nest o' elves!" Ivan admitted, and turned back to the soldier. 'Ores crawling everywhere, are they? Well, then I guess we come to the right place!"

It was spoken like a true dwarf, and the soldier appreciated the sentiment enough to slap Ivan on the shoulder.

"Let me see what ye’re buildin'," Ivan offered. "Might know a trick or two from the south that ye ain't neared of here."

"Ye heading out?" came a soft voice, one that Drizzt Do'Urden surely welcomed.

He looked up from the small pouch he was preparing for the road to see Catti-brie's approach. The two had said little over the past few days. Catti-brie had retreated within herself, for private contemplations that Drizzt wasn't sure he understood.

"Just ensuring that the orcs were indeed chased away," the drow answered.

"Withegroo's got patrols out."

Drizzt offered a doubting smirk.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. They're knowing the ground, at least."

"As I soon will."

"Let me get me bow, and I'll take yer flank," the woman offered.

Drizzt looked up. "It is a dark night," he said.

Looking as if she had just been slapped, Catti-brie also let her gaze move about before settling it enough to stare back at Drizzt.

"I got me a little headpiece here for just such an occasion," she remarked.

From her belt pouch she brought forth the cat's-eye circlet that she often wore, one that magically conveyed heightened vision in very low light.

"Not as keen as a drow's eyes," Drizzt remarked. "The ground is rocky and likely treacherous."

Catti-brie started to argue, to remind him that the circlet had served her even in the Underdark, and that this had never been an issue between them before, but Drizzt interrupted her before she could even get started.

"Remember the rocky climb outside of Deudermont's house?" he asked. "You hardly managed it. After the rain, the rocks here arc no doubt equally slick."

Again, Catti-brie looked as if he had just slapped her. His words were true enough. She could not pace him in the daylight, let alone in the dark of night, but was he saying that she would slow him down? Was he, for the first time since his foolish decision to go to Menzoberranzan alone, forsaking the help of his friends?

He nodded, offered the thin veil of a smile, slung his pack over his shoulder, and rose, turning away.

Catti-brie caught him by the arm, forcing him to turn and face her.

"Ye know I can do this," she said.

Drizzt looked at her hard and long. His stern expression melted away into a nod.

"There is no better partner in all the world," he admitted. "But ye want to go out alone this night," Catti-brie stated more than asked.

Again the drow nodded.

Catti-brie pulled him close into a hug, and it was one of warmth and love, with just a bit of sadness.

Drizzt went out from Shallows soon after. Guenhwyvar was not with him, but he had the figurine close and knew that the cat would be available to his call should he need her. Barely fifty feet from the torchlit gate, the drow melted into the shadows, becoming one with the dark of night.

He saw the patrols from Shallows several times in the night and heard them long before they came into view. Drizzt avoided them easily every time. He did not want company, but his inner turmoil did little to dull his focus. Out there, in the dark, he was hunting as only a skilled drow might do, roaming the trails and the woods as silently as a shadow. He expected to find nothing, but he was seasoned enough to understand that those honest expectations would lean him toward the precipice of disaster if he embraced them too deeply.

Thus he was not surprised when he found orc-sign. Prints showed themselves to Drizzt's keen drow eyes amidst a circle of sitting stones. They were fresh, very recent, yet there was no sign of any campfire or of any residue from a torch. Night had been on for some time, and all of the patrols from Shallows were human in make-up, and all of them were carrying torches.

But someone had been there, someone human-sized or close to it, and someone traveling in the dark of night without any apparent light source. Given all the recent events, the fact that these were orcs—from the tracks, the drow figured there were two of them—was not hard to determine.

Neither was the trail. The creatures were moving quickly and without much regard to their tracks. Within half an hour's time, Drizzt knew that he had closed considerably.

He did not for a moment wish that Catti-brie or any of the others were at his side. He did not for a moment turn his thoughts away from the task at hand, from the dangers and needs of that very second.

Under the cover of a low tree branch, the drow spotted them. A pair of orcs, crouched on a nearby ridgeline, peered around some lilac bushes toward the distant and well-lit town of Shallows.

Step-by-step, each foot meticulously placed before the other, the drow closed.

Out came his scimitars, and the orcs nearly jumped out of their boots, turning to see curving blade tips in close to their throats. One threw up its hands, but the other, stupidly, went for its weapon, a short, thick sword.

It got the blade out, even managed a quick thrust, but Drizzt's left hand worked a circle around the weapon, turning it down and out wide, while his right hand held his other scimitar poised for a kill on the other orc.

He could easily have killed the attacking orc at that moment—after the turning parry, he had an open strike to the creature's chest—but he was more interested in prisoners than corpses, so he brought his scimitar in against the creature's ribs, hoping the threat alone would end the fight.

But the orc, stubborn to the end, leaped back—right over the north side of the ridge, which was, in fact, a thirty foot cliff.

Holding his scimitar in tight against the second creature, Drizzt skittered up to the cliff edge. He saw the orc bounce once off a rocky protrusion, go into a short somersault, and smash hard onto the stone below.

The other orc bolted away.

Again, Drizzt could have killed it, but he stayed his hand and took up a swift pursuit.

The orc went for the trees, rushing around strewn rocks, falling down one descent and scrambling up the backside. It glanced back many times during its wild flight, thinking and hoping that it had left the dark elf far behind.

But Drizzt was merely oft" to the side, easily pacing the creature. As it veered around one tree—the same tree from which Drizzt had been watching the pair a few moments earlier—the drow took a more direct route. Leaping onto a low branch, Drizzt ran with perfect balance and the lightest of steps along the limb. He hopped around the trunk to a branch heading out the other way, similarly traversed it, and fell into a roll at its end that landed him on the ground. The dark elf crouched down on one knee, with both blades pointed back at the rushing orc that was now heading straight for him.

The orc shrieked and swerved, and Drizzt feigned a double thrust that sent the creature turning off balance.

Drizzt retracted the blades immediately and spun around, kicking out his trailing foot into the orc's trailing foot as it skittered, forcing its legs crossed and sending it sprawling face down to the rocky ground.

Not really hurt, the orc flattened its hands on the ground and started to push back up, but a pair of scimitar blades touching against the base of its skull convinced it that it might be better to lie still.

Torchlight and noises in the distance told Drizzt that the commotion had roused one of the patrols. He called out to them, bringing them to his side, then bade them to take the prisoner to King Bruenor and Withegroo while he scouted out the rest of the area.

The look on Bruenor's face when Drizzt returned to Shallows some hours later puzzled the drow. Drizzt had expected either frustration from the dwarf because the orc wouldn't talk, or more likely, simple anger, the continuation of the feelings about the tragedy at Clicking Heels.

What he saw on his red-bearded friend's face, though, was neither. Bruenor's look was more tentative in quality, his skin ashen.

"What do you know?" the drow asked his friend, sliding into a seat beside Bruenor, in front of a blazing hearth in the house the folk of Shallows had given them to use.

"He says there's a thousand out there," Bruenor explained somberly. "Says that the orcs 'n giants are all about and ready to squish us flat."

"A ruse to force a lenient hand from his captors," Drizzt reasoned.

Bruenor didn't seem convinced.

"How far'd ye go out, elf?"

"Not very," Drizzt admitted. "I merely ran the town's perimeter, looking for any small bands that might bring havoc."

"Ore says the lands south o' here're crawling with its dirty kinfolk."

"Again, it is a cunning lie, if it is a lie."

"Nah," said Bruenor. "The orc would of said the north then. That'd be more believable and harder to make sure of. Putting them in the flatlands to the south makes the truth a patrol away. Besides, the squealing pig wasn't in any flavor to be thinking beyond them words that were coming outta its mouth, if ye get me meaning."

A shudder coursed Drizzt's spine as he did, indeed, get the dwarf's meaning.

"Spoke pretty quick, he did," said Bruenor. The dwarf reached over the low arm of his chair and brought up a flagon of ale, moving it to his waiting lips. "Looks like we might be gettin' a bit more fighting afore we find our way back to Mithral Hall."

"That displeases you?"

"Course not!" Bruenor was quick to retort. "But a thousand's a lot o' orcs!"

Drizzt gave a comforting laugh, reached over and patted Bruenor's arm.

"My dear dwarf," he said, "you and I both know that orcs can't count!"

The drow sat back in his chair, pondering the potentially devastating news.

"Perhaps I should be out again at once," he said.

"Rumblebelly, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie are already on their way," Bruenor explained. "The town's sent scouts o' their own, and old Withegroo's promising to use some magic eyes. We'll know afore the turn o' dark if the orc was squealin' the truth or telling lies."

It was true enough, Drizzt realized, and so he rested back again. He let his lavender eyes close, glad to be among such capable friends, particularly if there was any truth at all to the orc's dire tale.

"And I got Dagnabbit working hard on plans for getting us all outta here if there's too many or for holding off whatever might come if there's not," Bruenor rambled on, oblivious to his friend's descent into deep, deep rest. "Might be that we'll find ourselfs a bit o' fun! Ye can't be guessin' how glad I am that I didn't let them talk me into going straight to me home, elf! Aye, this is what any good dwarf's livin' for—a chance to smash an orc face! Aye, and don't ye doubt that I'll be getting me share o' kills. Don't ye doubt it for a minute! I'll be gettin' more than yerself of me girl or me boy all put together."

He lifted his mug in a toast to himself.

"Got room for a hunnerd more notches on me axe, elf! And that's just on the sharpened side!"

CHAPTER 23 SWORD AGAINST SWORD

They were frontiersmen, hunters and by brutal experience, warriors. Not a man or woman of Shallows was unfamiliar with the use of a blade, nor were any inexperienced in killing. Ores and goblins were all too common in the wilds.

The folk of Shallows knew well the habits of the creatures from the dark mountain holes, knew well the tendencies and the tricks of the wretched orc-kin.

Too well.

The scouting party out of Shallows was not too wary that night, despite the warnings from King Bruenor and his friends, and the tale of the disaster at Clicking Heels. Even as Drizzt was returning with the captured orc, a force of a dozen strong warriors was departing Shallows's southern gate, moving fast along ground comfortably familiar.

They spotted orc-sign soon after and agreed that it was two or three of the creatures at the most. Eager for some sport, the band deserted their information gathering mission and went on the hunt instead, coming down one fairly steep trail into a shallow, boulder-strewn dell. They knew they were close. Every sword, axe, and spear came out at the ready.

The point woman motioned back for the main group to hold fast, then she fell to her belly and started to crawl about a pair of boulders. A wide rin was on her face, for she expected the duo or trio of orcs to be waiting on the other side of that very rock, oblivious to the fact that they were about to die.

Her grin disappeared as she came around the far side to see not two, not three, but a score of the humanoid creatures, standing ready, weapons drawn.

Confident that she had not been seen but knowing well that her band had been spotted long before—likely as they were descending into the dell—the woman edged back around the boulders and turned into a sitting position. She was thinking to ward her friends away, or at least to assemble them in some kind of defensive position. She started to motion for them to do just that, swinging her arm up from pointing at them to showing the ridge behind.

She froze. Her face, gone stern from its previous smile, slipped into an expression of sheer dread. There, up on the ridge behind her fellows, the woman saw the unmistakable forms of many, many enemies.

A cry from back there, from the trailing human scout, confirmed the horror, and the other members of the party swung around. A horde of orcs came down fast, howling with every step. The woman started to scramble up to go and join her companions, but she fell back at the sound of footsteps rushing around and coming over the boulders. The score of orcs went right past her, bearing down on their prey, and the woman knew that her friends were doomed to a man. Too many enemies, she knew. Too many.

She fell back, recoiling instinctively from the horrible screams of agony that began to erupt all over the bloody battlefield. She saw one man go up several feet into the air at the end of a trio of orc spears. Howling and kicking, he somehow managed to fall back to his feet and somehow hold his balance, though he was surely mortally wounded.

He stood determinedly—until a group of orcs leaped atop him, smashing him down.

The woman melted back, crawling between the paired boulders, squeezing into the dark place underneath their abutting overhangs. She tried to control her breathing, tried to stifle the shrieks welling up within her. From under the stones she could not see the battlefield, but she could hear it well enough. Too well.

She lay there in the dark, terrified, for a long, long while after the cries had abated. She knew that at least one man had been dragged off as a prisoner.

But there was nothing she could do.

She lay there, praying every minute that some orc wouldn't happen by and notice her, and she held back her tears as the long night passed.

Overwhelmed and trembling, sheer exhaustion overcame her.

The sound of birds awakened her the next morning. Still terrified, it took every ounce of willpower she could muster to crawl out of that small cubby-hole. Coming out the way she had gone in, but feet first, was no easy task, physically or emotionally. Every inch that she moved out made her feel more vulnerable, and she almost expected a spear to be thrust into her belly at any time.

When she had to blink away the bright sunlight she gradually managed to sit up.

There she saw the bodies of her companions, hacked apart—an arm here, a head lying over there. The orcs had slaughtered them, had mutilated them.

Gasping for breath, the woman tried to turn to her side and stand, but stopped halfway and fell I to her knees, falling forward to all fours and vomiting.

It took her a long time to manage to stand, and a long time to wander past the carnage of those who had been her companions, her hunting partners, her friends. She didn't pause to reassemble any corpses, to look for lost limbs or lost heads, to count the bodies to try to determine how many, if any, had been taken off as prisoners.

It didn't seem to matter then, for she knew beyond doubt that any who had been dragged away were already dead.

Or wished they were.

She came up out of the dell slowly, cautiously, but no sign of the orc ambush group was to be found. The first step over that lip came hard to her, as did the second, but each subsequent stride moved more quickly, more determinedly, until she was running flat out across the mile of ground she needed to cover to get back to her home.

"It ain't right, I tell ye!" yelled one dwarf, who was a bit too full of the mead. The feisty fellow stood up on his chair and pounded his fist on the table in frustration. "Ye just can't be forgetting all the years! All the damned years! More'n any o' yerselfs'll e'er know!"

He ended by wagging an accusing finger at a group of humans seated at a nearby table in the crowded tavern.

Over at the bar, Shingles watched the spectacle with resignation, and he even gave a knowing nod of what was soon to come, when one the humans wagged a finger back at the drunk dwarf and told him to "sit down and shut his hairy mouth."

Was there anyone in Mirabar whose knuckles were not bruised from recent fights?

"Not another one, I pray," came a quiet voice to the side. Shingles turned to regard the dwarf who had taken the stool beside him. The old dwarf nodded and lifted his mug to second the sentiment, but he stopped before the mug even lifted from the bar. "Agrathan?" Shingles asked in surprise.

Councilor Agrathan, dirty and disguised, put a finger to pursed lips, motioning for old Shingles to calm down.

"Aye," he said quietly, looking around to make certain that none were watching. "I heard that trouble was brewing on the streets."

"Trouble's been brewing since yer fool marchion hauled Torgar Hammerstriker back from the road," Shingles pointed out. "Been a dozen fights every day and every night, and now the fool humans arc coming down here, and doin' nothing but causing more trouble."

"Those in the city above have come to view this as a test of loyalty," the councilor explained. "To blood or to town?"

"To town, which to them is of utmost importance." "Ye're speakin' like a human again," Shingles warned. "I'm just telling ye the truth of it," Agrathan protested. "If ye don't want to be hearing that truth, then don't be asking!"

"Bah!" Shingles snorted. He buried his face with the mug, swallowing half its contents in one big gulp. "What about the loyalty of the marchion to the folk o' Mirabar? Ain't that countin' for nothing?"

"Elastul's thinking that he did right by the folk of Mirabar by preventing Torgar from going to Mithral Hall, taking our secrets along with him," Agrathan replied, an argument that Shingles and all the others had heard countless times since Torgar's imprisonment.

"More years than ye'll know from the time yer mother dropped ye to the time they plant ye in the ground!" the drunk dwarf at the table shouted even more loudly and more vehemently.

He was wagging a fist at the men, not just a finger. He threw back his chair and staggered toward the men, who rose as one, along with many other humans in the establishment—and along with many, many dwarves, including the drunk's companions, who rushed to hold the drunk back.

"And more years than the marchion's to rule and to live, and more than the ten marchions before him and a good number yet to come," Shingles added privately to Agrathan. "Torgar and his kin been serving since Mirabar's been Mirabar. Ye just can't be throwing a fellow like that in yer jail and not expecting to stir the folk."

"Elastul remains firm that he did the right thing," Agrathan answered.

For just a moment, Shingles thought he caught a look of regret cross the councilor's face.

"I hope ye're telling him that he's a fool, then," Shingles bluntly replied.

Agrathan's expression went to a stem look.

"Ye should be watching your words concerning our leader," the councilor warned. "I took an oath of loyalty to Mirabar and one to Elastul when I took my place at the table of the Sparkling Stones."

"Are ye threatening me, Agrathan?" Shingles quietly and calmly asked.

"I'm advising you," Agrathan corrected. "Many ears are out and about, don't doubt. Marchion Elastul's well aware that there might be trouble."

"More trouble than Mirabar would e'er've knowed if he just let Torgar alone," Shingles grumbled.

Agrathan gave a great sigh. "I come to you to ask ye to help me calm things down a bit. The place is on the edge of a fall. I can smell it."

Even as he finished, the drunken dwarf broke free of his comrades and launched himself at the humans, beginning a brawl that quickly escalated.

"Well?" Agrathan yelled at Shingles as the place began to erupt. "Are you with me or against me?"

Shingles sat calmly, despite the tornado exploding into fury all around him. So there it was, presented calmly, a choice that he had been mulling over for a month. He looked around at the growing fight, man against dwarf and dwarf against dwarf. Of late, Shingles had been playing the part of the calming voice in these nightly brawls, had been taking a diplomatic route in the hopes that Elastul's imprisonment of Torgar would prove a temporary thing, maybe even that Elastul would come to see that he had erred in capturing Torgar in the first place.

"I'm with ye if ye can tell me truly that Elastul'll be lettin' Torgar out soon," he answered.

"The condition hasn't changed," Agrathan replied. "When Torgar denounces his road, Torgar walks free."

"Won't happen."

"Then he won't walk free. Elastul's not moving on this one."

A body came crashing past, flopping over the bar between the pair so quickly that neither was really sure if it had been a human or a dwarf.

"Are you with me or against me?" Agrathan asked again, for the fight was at the critical moment, obviously, just about to get out of control.

"Thought I gived ye me answer three tendays ago," Shingles replied.

As a reminder, he balled up his fist and laid Agrathan low with a single heavy punch.

For all the like-minded dwarves in the tavern that night, those on the line of divided loyalties, Shingles's action came as a signal to fight. For all those, human and dwarf, of the opposite mind, the punch thrown by this leader of Torgar's supporters was a call to arms.

Within seconds, everyone in the tavern was into it, and it began to spill onto the streets. Out there, of course, more were drawn in, mostly dwarves, and more on Shingles's side than opposing.

As the fight tilted Shingles's way, the Axe of Mirabar arrived in force, brandishing weapons and telling the dwarves to disperse. This time, unlike all the previous, the dwarf supporters of Torgar Hammerstriker were ready to take their case to a higher authority.

Many ran off at the first sign of the Axe, only to return in full battle gear, wearing mail and with weapons drawn, in numbers far greater than the ranks of the policing Axe. In the ensuing standoff, more and more of Shingles's allies ran to get their gear, as well, and many of those dwarves opposing Shingles threw insults freely, or warned against the action.

But surprisingly few would go to that next level and take up arms against their kin.

The standoff held for a long time, but as the dwarves' numbers increased—one hundred, two hundred, four hundred—the predominantly human soldiers of the Axe began to shrink back toward the lifts that would take them back to the overcity.

"Ye're not wanting this fight," Shingles called to them. He had taken his position at the front center of the mob of dwarves. "Not over that one dwarf ye got jailed."

"The marchion's word. ." the leader of the Axe contingent yelled back.

"Won't be much good if ye’re all dead, now will it?" Shingles interrupted.

He could hardly believe he was speaking those words aloud, could hardly believe that he, and those following him, were taking this road. It was a path that would lead to the overcity, certainly, and likely right out of the city. This wasn't like the initial riot, which was based solely on shock and sheer emotion. The tone was different. This was a revolt more than a riot.

"Seems ye got yer choice, boys," Shingles bellowed. "Ye want to fight us, then fight us, but one way or th' other, we're gettin' Torgar back among them where he's belongin'!"

As Shingles finished, he noticed the bloodied Agrathan standing off to the side, looking at him plaintively, a desperate expression begging him to reconsider this most dangerous course.

As he finished, the dwarves behind him, hundreds strong, gave out a round of wild cheers and began to move inexorably forward, like a great, unstoppable wave.

The doubt was easily recognizable on the faces of the Mirabarran soldiers, as clear as was the resolve stamped upon the grim face of every dwarf marching behind Shingles.

It wasn't much of a battle, there in the Undercity, in the great corridor just off the lift area. A few hits were traded, a couple of them serious, but the Axe gave way, running back to the room with all the lifting platforms and barring the doors. Shingles's dwarves pounded on them for a bit, but in an orderly fashion, they followed their leader down another side corridor, one that would get them to the surface along a winding, sloping tunnel.

Agrathan, his face bloody and bruised, stood before them, alone.

"Do not do this," the councilor pleaded.

"Get outta our way, Agrathan," Shingles told him, firmly but with a measure of respect. "Ye tried yer way in getting Torgar out—I know ye did—but Elastul's not for listening to ye. Well, he'll be listening to us!"

The cheers behind Shingles drowned out Agrathan's responses and told the councilor beyond all doubt that the dwarves would not be deterred. He turned and ran along the tunnel ahead of the marching mob, who took up an ancient war song, one that had rung out from Mirabar's walls many times over the millennia.

That sound, as much as anything else, nearly broke Agrathan's heart.

The councilor rushed through the positions of the Axe warriors at the tunnel's exit in the overcity, bidding the commanders to wield their force judiciously.

Agrathan ran on, down the streets toward Elastul's palace.

"What is it?" came a cry behind him and to the side.

He didn't slow, but turned his head enough to see Sceptrana Shoudra Stargleam coming out of one avenue, waving for him to wait for her. He kept running and motioned for her to catch up instead.

"They are in revolt," Agrathan told her.

Shoudra's expression after the initial shock showed that she was not so surprised by the news.

"How serious are they?" she asked as she ran along beside Agrathan.

"If Elastul will not release Torgar Hammerstriker, then Mirabar will know war!" the dwarf assured her.

Djaffar was waiting for the pair when they arrived at Elastul's palace. He leaned on the door jamb, seeming almost bored.

"The news beat you here," he explained.

"We must act, and quickly!" Agrathan cried. "Assemble the council. There is no time to spare."

"The council need not get involved," Djaffar began.

"The marchion has agreed to the release?" Shoudra cut in.

"This is a job for the Axe, not the council," Djaffar went on. seeming supremely confident. "The dwarves will be put down."

Agrathan trembled as if he would explode — and he did just that, leaping at the Hammer and putting a lock on the man's throat, pulling Djaffar down to the ground.

A bright flash of light ended that, blinding both combatants, and in the moment of surprise, the Hammer managed to pull away. Both looked to Shoudra Stargleam, the source of the magic.

"The whole of the city will act thusly," the woman said sourly.

Even as she finished the sound of battle, of metal on metal, rang out in the night air.

"This is the purest folly!" Agrathan cried. "The city will tear apart because of—"

"The actions of one dwarf!" Djaffar interrupted.

"The stubbornness of Elastul!" Agrathan corrected. "Show us to him. Will he sit there quiet in his house while Mirabar burns down around him?"

Djaffar started to respond, his expression holding its steady, sour edge, but then Shoudra intervened, stepping up to the man and fixing him with an uncompromising glower. She walked right by him into the house.

"Elastul!" Shoudra called loudly. "Marchion!"

A door to the side banged open and the marchion, flanked by the other three Hammers, swept into the foyer.

"I told you to control them!" Elastul yelled at Agrathan.

"Nothing will control them now," the dwarf shot back.

"Nothing short of the Axe," Djaffar corrected.

"Not even yer Axe!" Agrathan cried, his voice taking on an unmistakable reversion to his Dwarvish accent. "Torgar's part o' that Axe, or have ye forgotten? And five hundred of me … of my people count among the two thousand of your ranks. You'll have a quarter that won't fight with you if you're lucky, and a quarter that will join the enemy if you're not."

"Get out there," Elastul told Agrathan, "and speak to them. Your people are sorely outnumbered here, good dwarf. Would you have them slaughtered?"

Agrathan trembled visibly, his lips chewing on words that would not come. He turned and ran out of the house, following the volume of the battle, which predictably led him toward the town's jail.

"The dwarves are more formidable than you believe," Shoudra Stargleam told Elastul.

"We will defeat them."

"To what end?" the Sceptrana asked. It was hard to deter Elastul on such a matter by reasoning concerning losses to his soldiers, since his own safety didn't really seem to be at stake, but by changing the subject to the not-so-little matter of profits, she quickly gained the marchion's attention. "The dwarves are our miners, the only miners we have capable of bringing up proper ore."

"We'll get more," the marchion retorted.

Shoudra shot him a doubtful look.

"What would you have me do?"

"Release Torgar Hammerstriker," the Sceptrana replied.

Elastul winced.

"You have no choice. Release him and set him on the road. He'll not go alone, I know, and the loss to Mirabar will be heavy, but not all the dwarves will depart. Your reputation will not deter other dwarves, perhaps, from coming into the city. The alternate course is one of a bloody battle where there will be no winners, with naught but a shattered Mirabar in its wake."

"You overestimate the loyalty of dwarf to dwarf."

"You underestimate it. To a dwarf, any dwarf, the only thing more precious than gold and jewels is kin. And they're all kin, Elastul, family of Delzoun at their core. I say this as your advisor and as your friend. Let Torgar go, and quickly, before the battle mounts into a full riot, where all reason is flown."

Elastul lowered his gaze in thought, mulling it over with a range of expressions, anger to fear, washing over his face. He looked back up at Shoudra then at Djaffar.

"Do it," he commanded.

"Marchion!" Djaffar started to protest, but his retort was cut short by Elastul's uncompromising stance and expression.

"Do it now!" Elastul demanded. "Go and free Torgar Hammerstriker, and bid him to leave this city forever more."

"He may see your lenience as a reason for staying," Shoudra started to reason, wondering honestly if all of this might be used to further a deeper and better relationship between Elastul and the dwarves.

"He cannot stay and cannot return, under penalty of death."

"That may not prove acceptable to many of the dwarves," Shoudra pointed out.

"Then let those who agree with the traitor go with him," Elastul spat. "Let them go and die on the road to Mithral Hall, or let them get to Mithral Hall and infect it with the same disloyalty and feeble convictions that have too long plagued Mirabar!

"Go!" the marchion roared at Djaffar. "Go now and let us be rid of them!" Djaffar gave a snarl, but he motioned for one of the other Hammers to accompany him and rushed out into the night.

With a look to Elastul, Shoudra Stargleam joined the Hammers.

The fight outside the jail was more a series of brawls than a pitched battle at the point where the three arrived, but the situation seemed to be fast degenerating, despite Agrathan's pleading efforts to calm the dwarves.

Several hundred were there in support of Shingles and Torgar, opposing perhaps twice that many soldiers of the Axe. Notably, no dwarves showed in the ranks of the Mirabarran garrison, though many dwarf Axe soldiers stood off to the side, arms crossed, faces dour and grim.

Shoudra looked over at Djaffar, who was regarding the dwarf non-combatants with open contempt.

"Do not even think of going against the marchion's orders," the sceptrana warned the stubborn Hammer, "and do not even think of delaying the release of Torgar in the hopes that this battle will erupt before us."

Djaffar turned a wry and wicked grin her way.

"I have spells prepared," Shoudra warned.

It was a bluff, but she didn't back away from the man an inch.

When that didn't work, she reminded, "It is a fight none in Mirabar can win. Look at them, Djaffar. Members of your own Axe stand to the side, torn in their loyalties."

Councilor Agrathan came over then, flustered and with his robes all twisted, as if someone had lifted him by the fine fabric and shook him all about (which, indeed, had happened).

"There's no talking to them!" the frustrated dwarf roared.

"Djaffar can talk to them," Shoudra explained, "for he has the news that Torgar is to be released." She looked over the Hammer, whose eyes had narrowed. "Immediately, on word from the marchion. Torgar will be set upon the road out of Mirabar, here and now, and with all of his personal items returned."

"Praise Dumathoin," Agrathan said with a great sigh of relief.

He rushed off to spread the news, using words, finally, to quell many of the mounting brawls.

"Be done with the foul Torgar, then!" Djaffar spat at Shoudra, an admission of defeat. "And let him be done with us. Let all his smelly little kin walk out with him, for all I care!"

Shoudra accepted that tantrum for what it was, never really expecting anything more than that from Djaffar of the Hammers.

Shoudra took center stage, commanding the attention of all by sending a magical burst of light up above her. All eyes upon her, she gave the announcement that so many of Mirabar's dwarves desperately wanted to hear.

When Torgar Hammerstriker walked out of the Mirabar jail a short while later, he did so to thunderous applause from Shingles and his supporters, mixed in with curses and jeers from many of the humans—and a few groans and mixed sounds from the Axe dwarves, still standing to the side.

Shoudra made her way to Torgar and found Agrathan there as well.

"You are not completely free in your choice of road," the sceptrana explained to the dwarf, her body language and tone telling him that she was no enemy, despite her words. "You are bid to depart the city at once."

"Already decided upon that," Torgar said.

"Give him the night, at least," Agrathan asked of Shoudra. "Allow him his farewells to those he will leave behind."

"I'm not thinking that he's leaving many behind worth saying farewell to," came a gruff voice, and the trio turned to see old Shingles, outfitted in traveling clothes and with a huge pack on his back, moving toward them.

When they looked past the old dwarf, they saw others similarly outfitted, and others across the great square, meeting runners bearing their supplies and traveling gear.

"Ye can't be doing this!" Councilor Agrathan protested, but his was the only protest, for when he looked to Shoudra, he saw her nodding with grim resignation.

Soon after, Torgar Hammerstriker left Mirabar for the last time, along with nearly four hundred dwarves, nearly a fifth of all the dwarves of Mirabar, many of whom had lived in the city for more than a century, and many from families who had served Mirabar since its founding. They all walked with their heads held high and with the conviction that they would not be ill-treated and would not be turned away by the King of Mithral Hall.

"I did not think this possible," Agrathan said to Shoudra as the pair, along with Djaffar, watched the departure.

"Rats leave the ship when it's taking water," Djaffar reminded. "They're seeing more riches in Mithral Hall, the greedy dogs."

"What they are seeing is the possibility that they will have a greater place among their own than we afford them in the city of Marchion Elastul," Shoudra corrected. "The greatest of riches is respect, Djaffar, and few in all Faerun are more deserving of respect than the dwarves of Mirabar."

Agrathan almost cynically added, "The dwarves of Mithral Hall, you mean," but he bit the words back and reminded himself that he still had sixteen hundred dwarf constituents looking to him for leadership, particularly in this confusing time.

Agrathan knew that it would take a long time for Mirabar to shake off the stench of the recent events.

A very long time.

CHAPTER 24 WITH SURPRISING SKILL

Drizzt, Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and Regis sat around a rough map Regis had drawn of the town and the surrounding area and upon which Drizzt had added detail. The mood was dour and fearful — not for themselves, but for the townsfolk. First the orc prisoner had mentioned a huge army encircling the town, then a woman who had been out on patrol had come in, battered and terrified, and reporting that all the others were dead, wiped away by a powerful force of humanoids.

Though she was obviously unnerved, her words told of a well-coordinated group, a dangerous foe beyond the usual expectations.

None of the friends mentioned Clicking Heels that morning, but the images of that flattened town surely played upon all their minds. Shallows was larger than Clicking Heels and much better defended, with a wizard to help, but the signs were getting very dark.

Bruenor came in soon after, his face locked in a scowl.

"Stubborn bunch," the dwarf remarked, moving between Regis and Wulfgar and observing the map with an approving grunt.

"Withegroo cannot be dismissing the claims of the lone survivor," Drizzt came back. "They lost nearly one in ten this morning."

"Oh, he's believin' her, he is," Bruenor explained, "but him and the others're thinking that they're to pay back them that killed their kin.

The folk of Shallows are up for a fight."

"Even if that fight's against a foe they can't be beating?" Catti-brie asked.

"Don't know that they're thinking such a foe's about," came Bruenor's response.

The words had barely left his lips when Drizzt and Catti-brie rose up, the woman reaching for her bow, Drizzt going for his cloak.

"I'll go, too," Regis offered.

Wulfgar rose and picked up Aegis-fang.

"The two of ye take the short perimeter," Catti-brie said. "I'll take one round out from there, and let Drizzt do the deep scouting."

"Should we wait for the cover of night?" Regis asked.

"Orcs're better at night than in the day," Catti-brie remarked.

"And we might not have that much time to spare," Drizzt added. He looked to Bruenor and said, "The townsfolk have to agree to let the weak and infirm leave, at least."

"Got Dagnabbit putting together plans for a run even now," the dwarf confirmed, "but I'm not thinking that many o' Shallows's folk'll be wantin' to go out. This is their place, elf, their home and the place of security they've known for many years. They're trusting in Withegroo, and he's one to be trustin', I don't doubt."

"I fear that he might be wrong this time," Drizzt replied. "Every sign darkens the possibilities. If the force allied against Shallows is as strong as indications, then the folk of the town may all wish that they had gone out before too long."

"Go and see," Bruenor bade him. "I'll make 'em listen while ye're out. I'll get the horses ready and the wagons packed. I'll get me dwarfs in proper order and ready to roll out. I'll be talking with Withegroo again, right off, now that I can catch him alone and without them hollering fools wanting revenge here and now."

"Do ye think he'll hear ye?" Catti-brie asked.

Bruenor gave a shrug and an exaggerated wink, and said, "I'm the king, ain't I?"

On that lighter note, the four scouts rushed out of the building and out of the town. Wulfgar and Regis peeled away to high ground near to the town's walls. Catti-brie found a similar but more defensible vantage point a hundred yards farther out, and Drizzt rushed away from there.

Other scouting groups went out from Shallows as well, but none were nearly as organized, nor nearly as stealthy.

One such group, seven strong, passed Wulfgar and Regis just outside the town's southern gate.

"Well met again," the townsfolk greeted, pausing for just a moment.

"You would do well — better for your town—if you remained inside the walls, preparing defenses should the expected attack come," Wulfgar told the apparent leader: a young man, strong of limb and with a grim and angry expression locked upon his dark, strong features.

The man stopped, his six companions paused behind him, and he shot the barbarian a curious, somewhat angry look.

"We will discern the strength of our common enemy," Wulfgar explained, "and report fully to the town leaders. None can scout the trails better than Drizzt Do'Urden."

The man's look did not soften. It was almost as if he was taking Wulfgar's remarks as a personal affront.

"Every person out here is at risk," Wulfgar went on, not backing down an inch. "For Shallows to lose seven more able-bodied fighters now would not bode well."

The man's nostrils flared and his eyes widened, his expression intense indeed.

Regis motioned to him, bidding him to move off to the side.

"There are other considerations," the halfling remarked, and he offered a sidelong glance at Wulfgar as he spoke, even managing a little telling wink to his large friend.

The scout eyed the halfling suspiciously, but Regis only smiled innocently and turned, nodding for the man to follow. They held a short, private conversation off to the side, and the man from Shallows was smiling and nodding as he returned.

"Back to the town," he ordered his companions, sweeping past them and taking them up in his wake. "Our friends here are correct and we're splitting our forces apart before we even know what it is we're soon to fight."

There came some murmuring of dissent and confusion but the speaker was obviously the appointed and accepted leader, and the group started back the way they'd come.

"Do you never feel the slightest twinge of regret when employing your magical ruby?" Wulfgar asked Regis when the others had moved off.

"Not when it's for their own good," Regis replied, grinning from ear to car. "We both heard that group coming from fifty feet away. I think the orcs would have, as well." He turned and looked out to the south. "And if there are nearly as many as we've been led to believe, I likely just saved those seven from death this day."

"A temporary reprieve?" Wulfgar asked, the jarring question catching Regis off his guard and stealing the smile from his cherubic face.

He and the barbarian looked at each other, but then Wulfgar looked past him, the barbarian's blue eyes widening.

Regis spun around, looking to the south once more, and there he saw Catti-brie running flat out toward them, waving her arms and her bow in the air.

Regis winced. Wulfgar leaped ahead as the woman staggered suddenly, grasping at her shoulder. Only then did Regis and Wulfgar understand that she was being pursued by archers.

Regis spun around and saw the seven scouts from Shallows rushing back his way.

"To the town!" he yelled to them. "To the town and man the walls. Have the gate ready to swing wide for us!"

By the time the halfling turned back, Catti-brie and Wulfgar had joined up and were both running back toward him, with Wulfgar supporting the wounded woman.

Behind them, corning out of the brush and around the rocks, rushed a horde of orcs.

Regis paused and watched, measuring the distance, and only then did he realize that he wouldn't be doing Wulfgar and Catti-brie much good if they had to sweep him up in their wake.

He turned and ran, reaching the gate at about the same time as his two friends. They scrambled in and the gate was closed and secured behind them, and after a cursory look at Catti-brie's wound, which was superficial, the three rushed for the ladders and the wall parapets.

The orcs came on, a great number indeed, and horns blew throughout the town, with folk rushing all around.

The wave didn't approach, though, but rather swung around in a fierce charge, howling all the louder as they ran back to the south.

"That would be Drizzt," Regis remarked.

"Buying us lime," Catti-brie concurred.

She looked up at Wulfgar as she spoke, and he at her, both of them grim-faced and concerned.

The first boulder bounced across the stony ground and hit the town wall a few minutes after sunset. Surprisingly, it had come from the north, from across the narrow ravine.

Horns blew and the militiamen of Shallows rushed to their defensive positions, as did Dagnabbit's dwarves, and King Bruenor and his friends.

A second boulder bounced in, this time closer.

"Can't even see 'em!" Bruenor growled at his three friends as they stood along the northern wall, peering into the gloom.

"There!" Regis cried out, pointing to a boulder tumble.

The others squinted and could just make out the forms of giants across the way.

Catti-brie put her bow up immediately, taking aim, then lifting the angle to compensate for the great distance. She let fly, her arrow cutting a lightninglike line across the darkening sky.

She didn't hit a giant, but the flash at impact told her that she was in the general area at least. She lifted her bow, gritting her teeth against the pain in her fingers and shoulder, which had been creased by an orc's arrow. Before she let fly, though, she had to stop and grab onto Wulfgar, for all the wall was shaking then, hit by a thrown rock.

"Take cover!" came the cry from the lead sentry.

Catti-brie got her bow back up and fired off her second shot, but then she and all her friends were scrambling as one boulder smashed into the courtyard behind them and another landed short of the wall but skipped in hard. Another hit the wall squarely, and another hit the northeastern juncture then skipped along the eastern wall, clipping stones and soldiers.

"How many damned giants are there?" Bruenor asked as he and the others scrambled for cover.

"Too many," came Regis's answer.

"We gotta find a way to counter them," the dwarf king started to reason, but before he could gain any momentum for that thought, a cry from the southern wall told him and his friends that they had other more immediate problems.

By the time Bruenor, Wulfgar, Regis, and Catti-brie reached the southern wall to stand beside Dagnabbit and the other dwarves, the orcs' charge was on in full. The field before the city seemed black with the rushing horde, and the air reverberated with their high-pitched keening. Hundreds and hundreds came on, not slowing at all as the first barrage of arrows went out from Shallows's strong wall.

"This is gonna hurt," Bruenor remarked, looking to his friend and to Dagnabbit.

"Gonna hurt them orcs," Dagnabbit corrected with a grim nod. "We take the center!" he cried to his fifteen remaining warriors. "None come through that gate! None come over the wall!"

With cheers of "Mithral Hall!" and "King Bruenor!" Dagnabbit's well-drilled warriors clustered in the appointed area, the most vulnerable spot on Shallows's southern wall. As one, they took up their dwarven arrows and their well-balanced throwing hammers, and they crouched. The orcs were throwing spears and launching arrows of their own. The dwarves held their ground atop the wall until the last possible second, then leaped up and whipped their hammers into the leading edge of the orc throng, interrupting the charge.

Shallows's bowmen sent a volley out from the walls, and Catti-brie put the Heartseeker to devastating work, her streaks of arrow lightning cutting lines through the enemy ranks.

An agonized cry from behind told them all that one of the townsfolk had caught a giant-thrown rock, and the continuing explosions and ground-shaking made it clear that the giants hadn't let up their barrage in the least.

Dagnabbit's dwarves let fly a second volley before leaping from the wall into the courtyard to bolster the gate defenses, King Bruenor joining them. The bowmen and Catti-brie continued to drive into the orcs' ranks as the blackness closed.

Ropes and grapnels came up over the walls, many catching hold. The orcs, seemingly oblivious to the rain of death, leaped onto them and began scrambling up, while others below threw themselves al the gates, the sheer weight of the force bending the heavy locking bars.

"I wish Drizzt was here!" a terrified Regis cried.

"But he is not," Wulfgar countered, and the two shared a look.

With a growl of determination, Wulfgar nodded for the halfling to follow, and away they went, running along the parapet. The mighty barbarian grabbed grapnels and ropes, using his great strength to pull them free even if they were taut from the weight of orcs climbing on the other side.

At one point, an orc crested the wall just as Wulfgar reached for the supporting grapnel. The barbarian howled and spun. The orc roared and started to swing its heavy club.

And a silver-streaking arrow caught it in the armpit and blew it aside.

Wulfgar glanced back at Catti-brie for just a moment then pulled free the grapnel.

Another orc caught the wall-top as the barbarian tossed the rope back over. It started to pull itself up.

Regis's mace smashed it in the face once, then again.

"More to the east!" Wulfgar cried.

He rushed along to secure a breach where several orcs were even then coming over the wall, doing close battle with a group of Shallows's bowmen.

Regis started to follow but skidded to a stop as the reaching hands of another orc showed on the wall-top right before him. He lifted his mace, but he changed his mind and met the orc with a dazzling, spinning ruby instead.

The orc held in place, truly mesmerized by the spinning gem, its magic reaching out with promises and warm feelings. In a split second, the creature harbored no doubts that the halfling holding the amazing gemstone was its best friend.

"How strong are you?" Regis asked, but the orc didn't seem to understand.

"Strong?" the halfling said more forcefully, and he lifted one arm and made a muscle—not much of one, but a muscle nonetheless.

The orc smiled and grunted.

Regis motioned for it to slip back down, just a bit, and grab the rope again. The creature complied.

Then the halfling patted both his hands emphatically, gesturing for the orc to hold its place right there. Again it complied, and that one rope, at least, was blocked for the time being.

Regis glanced to the right to see Catti-brie staring at him in disbelief. He shrugged then turned back to the left, just in time to see Wulfgar lift an orc high overhead and throw it into a pair of others as they tried to get over the wall. All three fell back outside.

In other places the wall defense wasn't so secure, and orcs poured in, leaping down to the courtyard.

There, centering the defense, stood seventeen toughened dwarves — Dagnabbit and Bruenor among them. As the orcs came down, the dwarves swarmed over them, axes and hammers slashing and smashing.

Bruenor led that charge, hitting the first orc before it had even touched down from its leap. He caught it in the legs and sent it spinning right over, to land face down. Not bothering to finish the kill, the dwarf plowed on, shield-rushing a second orc as it hit the ground. The two of them came together with enough impact to rattle Bruenor's teeth.

The dwarf bounced back and shook his head fiercely, his lips wagging. He swung his axe reflexively across in front of him, thinking that the orc might even then be bearing down on him.

He hit only air, though, and when he recovered his wits a bit, he looked ahead to see that the orc hadn't taken the hit as well as he. The creature was sitting, leaning backward on stiffened arms, its head lolling side to side.

It hardly seemed fair to Bruenor, but war wasn't fair. He charged forward, past the orc, slowing only enough so that he could crease its skull with his heavy axe.

The sheer ferocity of the assault had caught Drizzt off his guard. Barely away from the group he had turned, the drow had been skipping down one descent when he had first caught sight of the charging orcs. Avoiding them had been easy enough, but by the time Drizzt had been able to scramble out of the bowl and head back toward Shallows, the leading edge of the assaulting force was far ahead of him. He saw his three friends in the distance, running back for the town. He saw Catti-brie get clipped

281

by an arrow, and he breathed a great sigh of relief when she, escorted by Wulfgar and Regis, got behind the town's strong walls.

From the shadows of a tree, the drow watched the orc horde sweep past him. He knew he couldn't get back to the town to fight, and perhaps die, beside his friends.

A group of orcs passed below him, and he considered leaping in among them and slashing them down.

But he held his position in the tree, tight to the trunk. It occurred to him that these particular orcs he had chosen to avoid might be the ones who would slay one of his friends, but he dismissed that devastating thought at once, having no time for such distractions. The choices lay clear before him—he could either join in the battle, out there among the horde, or use the distraction of the battle to scout out the truth of their enemies.

The drow surveyed the sweeping lines of orcs, charging headlong for Shallows. How much could he really do out there? How many could he kill, and how much of an effect would a few less orcs really have on this fight?

No, Drizzt had to trust that his friends and the townsfolk would hold. He had to trust that this was likely an exploratory assault, the first rush, the test of defenses.

Shallows would be better off after that initial battle if they understood the true size and strength of their enemy, the location of the orc camps and their defenses.

As the last of the horde swept past beneath him, Drizzt dropped lightly from the tree and sprinted off, not back to the north and the town, but to the east, moving along behind the main bulk of the enemy force.

He could hardly lift his arms anymore, so many swings had he taken, so many orcs had he thrown, but Wulfgar pressed on with all the power he could muster, throwing himself against any and all who crested the southern wall.

Blood ran from a dozen wounds on Wulfgar, and on Regis, who fought valiantly, if less effectively, beside him, putting mace and gemstone to work. As one group of four orcs came over the wall simultaneously, Wulfgar looked back to his right, a silent plea for Catti-brie, but she was not there.

Panicked, the barbarian looked out over the wall, and the distraction as the orcs closed in nearly cost him dearly.

Nearly—but then an arrow sizzled down past him, clipping one orc and smashing into the stone with a blinding flash. Wulfgar glanced back over his shoulder, relief flooding through him as he noted Catti-brie in a new position at the top of the lone tower that so distinguished Shallows.

The woman let fly another arrow and nodded grimly at Wulfgar.

He turned back to meet the resumed charge, to sweep one orc away with his hammer, then he turned to Regis to help the halfling as another of the brutes bore down on him. The orc stopped suddenly, staring hard at a spinning ruby.

Wulfgar plowed ahead, shouldering the nearest orc back over the wall, but taking a stinging hit from the other's club. Grunting away the pain, Wulfgar took another hit—a solid blow to the forearm — but he rolled his arm around the weapon and pulled it in close, tucking it under his arm and moving nose to nose with the wretched orc.

The creature started to bite at him, or tried to, but Wulfgar snapped his forehead into the orc's face, flattening its nose and dazing it enough for him to shove it back from him. Knowing the creature was stunned, he released his hold on the club and grabbed the front of the orc's dirty leather armor instead. A quick turn and a heave had that orc flying out of the town.

Turning for the orc Regis had entranced, Wulfgar glanced back up at the tower, where Catti-brie and a couple of the town's archers were launching arrow after arrow into the throng beyond the wall.

Wulfgar paused, noting another presence up there. It was the old wizard Withegroo. The man was chanting and waving his arms.

"It's breaking in!" came a dwarf's cry from the courtyard below.

Wulfgar snapped his gaze that way to see Bruenor and his kin running roughshod over the orcs in the courtyard, scrambling back to reinforce the gate.

Out of the corner of his eye, though, he saw a small flare come out from above, a tiny ball of fire gracefully arcing out over the wall.

He felt a flash of heat as Withegroo's fireball exploded.

That shock snapped the orc standing before Regis out of its enchantment, and before the halfling could react, the creature stabbed straight out at him.

With a yelp, Regis fell back into the courtyard.

Wulfgar leaped upon the orc, bearing it down to the ground beneath him. Face down, the orc managed to push up to its elbows, but Wulfgar had it by the head then with both hands. With a roar of outrage, the barbarian drove the creature's head down to the stone parapet, again and again, even after the orc stopped fighting, even after the once solid skull became a misshapen, crushed, and bloody thing.

He was still bashing the orc down when a strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

Wulfgar spun frantically, angrily, but held back when he saw Bruenor staring down at him.

"They've run off, boy," the dwarf explained, "and I'm thinking that one's not to be causing us no more trouble."

Wulfgar rose, shoving the orc down one final time.

"Regis?" he asked breathlessly.

Bruenor nodded to the courtyard. The halfling was sitting up halfway, though he hardly seemed conscious of the events around him. Blood showed at his side and several dwarves tended him frantically.

"Bet that one hurt," Bruenor said grimly.

CHAPTER 25 THE KEPT HALFLING

He felt as if he was awakening from a dream, a very bad dream. He felt a tightness in the side, but as he considered a sensation there, along his belly, Regis was very surprised that it didn't hurt much more.

The halfling's eyes popped open wide as the last scenes of battle—the orc thrusting its sword into his gut—played clearly in his mind. He had tried to jump back and had lost his footing almost immediately, falling from the wall.

Regis reflexively rubbed the back of his head—that fall had hurt! In retrospect, though, it had also likely saved his life. If he had been standing with his back to a wall, he'd have been thoroughly skewered, no doubt. He propped himself up on his elbows, recognizing the small side room to the cottage in Shallows. The light was dim around him, night had likely fallen in full outside.

He was alive and in a comfortable bed, and his wounds had been tended. They had turned back the orc tide.

Regis's wave of hope shook suddenly—as his body shook—when the thunderous report of a giant-hurled boulder slammed a structure somewhere nearby.

"Live to fight another day," the halfling mumbled under his breath.

He started out of the bed, wincing with each movement, but stopped when he heard familiar voices outside his small room.

"A thousand at the least," Drizzt said quietly, grimly.

Another rock shook the town.

"We can break through them," Bruenor answered.

Regis could imagine Drizzt shaking his head in the silence that ensued. The halfling crept out of his bed and to the door, which was open just a crack. He peered into the other room, to see his four companions sitting around the small table, a single candle burning between them. What struck the halfling most were the number of bandages wrapped around Wulfgar. The man had taken a beating holding the wall.

"We can't go north because of the ravine," Drizzt finally replied.

"And they've giants across it," Catti-brie added.

"A handful, at least," the drow agreed. "More, I would guess, since their bombardment has continued unabated for many hours now. Even giants get tired, and some would have to go and retrieve more rocks."

"Bah, they ain't done much damage," Bruenor grumbled.

"More than ye think," Catti-brie replied. "Now they're taking special aim at Withegroo's tower. Hit it a dozen times in the last hour, from what I'm hearing."

"The wizard showed himself in the last battle with the fireball," Drizzt remarked. "They will focus on him now."

"Well, here's hoping he's got more to throw than a single fireball, then," said Catti-brie.

"Here's hoping we all have more to give," Wulfgar chimed in.

They all sat quietly for a few moments, their expressions grim.

Regis turned around and leaned heavily on the wall. He was truly relieved that Wulfgar was alive and apparently not too badly hurt. He had feared the barbarian slain, likely while trying to defend him.

Of course it had come to this, the halfling realized. Ever since they had been fighting bandits on the road in Icewind Dale, Regis had been trying to fit in, had been trying to find a way where he would not only be out of harm's way but would actually prove an asset to his friends.

He had found more success than any of them had expected, particularly in the fight at the guard tower in the Spine of the World, when they had discovered the place overrun by ogres.

In truth, Regis was quite proud of his recent exploits. Ever since he had taken that spear in the shoulder on the river, when the friends were

journeying to bring the Crystal Shard to Cadderly, Regis had come to view his place in the world a bit differently. Always before, the halfling had looked for the easy way, and in truth that was the way he most wanted to take even now, but his guilt wouldn't allow it. He had been saved that day on the river by his friends, by the same friends who had traveled halfway across the world to rescue him from the clutches of Pasha Pook, by the same friends who had carried him along, often literally, for so many years.

And so of late he had tried with all his might to find some way to become a greater asset to them, to pay them back for all they had done for him.

But never once had Regis believed that his luck would hold. He should have died atop that ogre tower in the Spine of the World, far to the west, and he should have died on the wall of Shallows.

His hand slipped down to his wounded belly as he considered that.

He turned around and peered out at the four friends again, the real heroes. Yes, he had been the one carried on the shoulders of the folk of Ten-Towns after the defeat of Akar Kessell. Yes, he had been the one who had ascended to a position of true power after the fall of Pook, though he had so quickly squandered that opportunity. Yes, he was spoken of by the folk of the North as one of the companions, but crouching there, watching the group, he knew the truth of it.

In his heart, he could not deny that truth.

They were the heroes, not he. He was the beneficiary of fine friends.

As he tuned back to the conversation, the halfling realized that his friends were talking of alternative plans to fighting, of sneaking the villagers away or of sending for help from the south.

The halfling took a deep and steadying breath, then stepped out into the room just as Bruenor was saying to Drizzt, "We can't be sparing yer swords, elf. Nor yer cat. Too long a run to Pwent. Even if ye could get there, ye'll not get back in time to do anythin' more then clean up the bodies."

"But I see no way for us to take a hundred villagers out of Shallows and run to the south," the drow replied.

He stopped short to regard Regis, as did the others.

"Ye're up!" Bruenor cried.

Catti-brie stood from her chair and moved to guide Regis to the seat, but the halfling, whose side was still stiff and tight, didn't really want to bend. Standing seemed preferable to sitting.

"Up halfway, at least," he answered Bruenor.

He winced as he spoke but waved Catti-brie away, motioning for her to keep her scat.

"You are made of tougher stuff than you seem, Regis of Lonely wood," Wulfgar proclaimed.

He held up a flagon in toast.

"And quicker feet," Regis replied with a knowing grin. "You don't believe that my descent from the wall was anything but intentional, do you?"

"A cunning flank!" Wulfgar agreed and all the friends shared a laugh.

It was a short-lived one, for the grim reality of the situation remained.

"We'd not get the folks of Shallows to follow us out in any case," Catti-brie put in when the conversation got back to the business at hand. "They're thinking to hold against whatever comes against them. They've great faith in themselves and their town and greater faith in their resident mage."

"Too much so, I fear," said Drizzt. "The force is considerable, and the giant bombardment could go on for days and days — there is no shortage of stones to throw in the mountains north of Shallows."

"Bah, they ain't doing much damage," Bruenor argued. "Nothing that can't be fixed."

"A townsman was struck and killed by a stone today," Drizzt answered. "Another two were hurt. We haven't many to spare."

Regis stepped back a bit and let the four ramble on with their defensive preparations. The idea of "ducking yer head and lifting yer axe," as Bruenor had put it, seemed to be the order of the day, but after the ferocity of the first attack, the halfling wasn't sure he agreed.

The giants hadn't crossed the ravine and yet the orcs had almost breached the wall, and the southern gates had been weakened by the press of enemies. While Shallows would continue to see a thinning of their forces as men and dwarves were injured, the orcs' numbers would likely grow. Regis understood the creatures and knew that others might be fast to the call if they believed victory to be imminent and riches to be split.

He almost announced then that he would take the initiative and leave

Shallows for the south, that he would find a way to Pwent and the others and return beside a dwarven army. He owed his friends that much at least.

He almost announced it, but he did not, for in truth, the prospect of sneaking away to the south through an army of bloodthirsty orcs shook Regis to his spine. He would rather die beside his friends than out there, and even worse than dying would be getting captured by the orcs. What tortures might those beasts know?

Regis shuddered visibly, and Catti-brie caught the movement and offered a curious glance.

"I'm a bit chilled," Regis explained.

"Probably because you lost so much blood," said Drizzt.

"Get yerself back in yer bed, Rumblebelly," said Bruenor. "We'll take care o' keeping ye safe!"

Yes, Regis pondered, and the thought made him wince. They'd keep him safe. They were always keeping him safe.

They knew the second assault would come soon after sunset.

"They're being too quiet," Bruenor said to Drizzt. The pair was standing on the northern wall, peering out across the ravine to where the giant had been. "Restin' to come on, no doubt."

"The giants won't approach," Drizzt reasoned. "Not while the defense is still in place. They'll not face a wizard's lightning when they can strike from afar with complete safety."

"Complete?" Bruenor asked slyly, for he and Drizzt had just been discussing that very issue, and they had just come to the conclusion that Drizzt should go out and bring the fight to the giants or distract them from their devastating bombardment at least.

Now the drow was hesitating, and Bruenor knew why.

"We could use yer swords here, don't ye doubt," the dwarf said.

Drizzt eyed him curiously.

"But we'll hold without ye," Bruenor added. "Don't ye doubt that, either. Ye go and get 'em, elf. Keep their damned rocks off our heads and leave the little orcs to us."

Drizzt looked back to the north and took a deep breath.

"And now ye're asking all them questions in yer head again, ain't

ye?" Bruenor remarked. "Ye're thinking that maybe ye were wrong in telling Catti-brie not to go. Ye're thinking that maybe ye were wrong in thinking to go out at all. Ye're thinking that everything ye’re doing is wrong. But ye know better'n that, elf. Ye know where we're standing, and that's under the shadow o' flying rocks. As much as ye're thinking ye don't want to be away from yer friends, yer friends're thinking they don't want ye away."

Drizzt offered him a smile.

"Yet you believe that I have to go, as we discussed," he finished for the dwarf.

"We don't stop or at least slow them giants, and there's no Shallows to defend," the dwarf answered. "Seeming pretty simple from where I'm looking at it. Ye're the only one who can get across that ravine fast enough to make a difference, despite the arguing ye got from me girl when we decided ye should go."

At the mention of Catti-brie, Drizzt turned a bit and glanced back over his shoulder, up to the top of Withegroo's battered tower where the woman stood, bow in hand, looking out over the parapets. She glanced down at Drizzt and noticed his stare. She offered a wave.

"I'll not be away for long," the drow promised Bruenor, returning Catti-brie's wave with a salute of his own.

"Ye'll be as long as ye’re needing to be," Bruenor corrected. "I'm thinking is ye can keep them giants off us through the next tight, we'll hold, and if we hold strong, then might be that them orcs'll give it up or break apart enough for us to get through and run to the south."

"Or at least to get some runners through with news for Thibbledorf Pwent," Drizzt added.

"Dagnabbit's working on that very thing," Bruenor assured him with a wink and a nod.

The dwarf didn't have to say any more. They both knew the truth of it. Shallows had to hold through the next couple of fights, either to weaken the orcs enough for a full breakout to the south or to make their enemies give up altogether.

As the bottom rim of the sun began to flirt with the western horizon, Drizzt went out over Shallows's wall, avoiding the northern gate, as he expected it was being watched. He slipped down beside the wider guard tower on the town's northwestern corner and moved off as stealthily as possible, rock to rock, brush to brush, belly-crawling across any open expanses. He made the lip of the ravine, and there he waited.

The dusk grew around him. He could hear the sounds of the stirring orcs to the south, and the grating of boulders being piled by the giants just a few hundred yards from his position, across the ravine. The drow pulled his cloak up tight around him and closed his eyes, falling into a meditative state, forcing himself to become the pure warrior. He had no honest idea of how he might divert the giants, though that was the goal his friends so desperately needed him to achieve.

The mere thought of those companions he had left behind shattered that meditative state and had Drizzt looking back over his shoulder at the battered town. The last image he had seen of Catti-brie, grim-faced and accepting, flashed over and over in his mind.

"Go," she had bade him earlier in the day when he had argued, for purely selfish reasons, against the course.

That was all she had said, but Drizzt knew better than to believe that other, darker thoughts weren't crossing her mind, as they surely were his own. They were going to try to hold the town, against the odds, and Drizzt and his friends had been forced to split up.

He had to wonder if he would ever sec any of them alive again.

The drow let his forehead slip down to the earth, and he closed his eyes again. He wasn't scared—not for himself, at least—but he had seen the orc force, and he knew that there were several giants across the way. This band was organized, determined, and had them terribly outnumbered. Was this the end of his beloved band?

Drizzt lifted his head and stubbornly shook it, dismissing the question within a swirl of memories of other enemies overcome. Of the verbeeg lair with Wulfgar and Guenhwyvar. Of the fight to reclaim Mithral Hall. Of the wild chase on Calimport's streets to save Regis. And most of all, of the war with the army of Menzoberranzan, defending Mithral Hall against a terrible foe.

Then the dark elf couldn't even dwell on past victories, couldn't dwell on anything. He moved his consciousness purposefully across his limbs and torso, attuning himself, body and mind, into a singular warrior entity.

The sun dipped below the western horizon.

The Hunter moved over the lip of the ravine, sliding along the rock faces like the shadow of death.

It started almost exactly as the assault of the previous night, with giant boulders raining down across the town and a frenzied horde of orcs charging hard from the south. The defense followed much the same course, with Wulfgar centering the defense of the parapet and Bruenor's dwarves bolstering the gate.

This time, though, Bruenor was with his barbarian friend — and with Regis, who despite the advice of his friends that he should remain at rest, would not be left out.

On the tower behind the wall, Catti-brie sent the first responses out against the orc charge—a line of flashing arrows slashing across the southern fields—as much to put some light out there and mark the enemy advance as in hope of hitting anything.

When the orcs were but fifty feet from the wall, the other archers opened up. It was a devastating barrage made all the more powerful by one of Withegroo's fireballs.

Many orcs died in that moment, but the rest pressed on, rushing to the base of the wall and throwing their grapnels or setting ladders. One group bore a ram between two lines of orcs and pressed straightaway to the gate. Their initial hit almost took it down.

Bruenor, Regis, and Wulfgar met the first breach on that wall top. A pair of orcs scrambled onto the parapet, and Wulfgar caught one even as it spun over the wall, lifting it high, throwing it back outside, and taking one of its following companions down with it. Bruenor took a different tactic, coming in hard for the second orc even as it stood straight. The dwarf feigned high and ducked low, shouldering the orc across the knees and upending it. A twist and shove by the dwarf had the orc falling—not outside to join the one Wulfgar had thrown, but inside, to the courtyard, where Dagnabbit and the other dwarves waited.

As soon as the orc flew away, Bruenor hopped up. Regis rushed by him, or tried to, as another orc crested the wall, but the dwarf caught the halfling by the shoulder, pulled him back defensively, and stepped forward. A swipe of Bruenor's axe took that second orc down, and the dwarf's foam-emblazoned shield got a third, right on the head, as it too tried to come over.

Behind him, Regis tried to help, but in truth the halfling found himself more often ducking the backswing of Bruenor's constantly chopping axe than any orc's weapon. Regis turned toward Wulfgar instead and found the barbarian in no less of a battle frenzy, whipping Aegis-fang back and forth with abandon, shoulder-blocking orcs back over the wall.

Regis hopped to and fro as more and more orcs tried to gain the wall, but he simply could not fit between or beside his ferocious friends.

One orc came up and over fast. Wulfgar, his hammer caught on another to the right side, just let go with his left hand and slapped the creature past him. The orc stumbled but caught itself and would have turned to attack the barbarian, except that Regis dived down low, cutting across its ankles and tripping it up.

The clever halfling got more than he bargained for, though, as the orc hooked him with its feet and pulled him along for the ride. Not wanting to take that fall again — and particularly not when he heard the gates groan in protest under yet another thunderous hit—Regis let go of his little mace and grasped desperately at the lip of the wall.

"Rumblebelly!" he heard Bruenor cry, his worst fears then realised.

He knew that he would be a distraction—a potentially deadly distraction—to his friends.

"Fight on!" the halfling cried back.

He let go, dropping the ten feet to the ground. He landed in a roll to absorb the blow, but nearly fainted as he came rolling across his wounded side. He was just to the west of the southern gate and saw that the gate was about to crash in. He grabbed his dropped mace and looked to the side to the grim-faced dwarves.

He knew he would be of no real help to them.

He knew what he had to do. He had known since he heard his friends remarking that they simply could not spare Drizzt's blades in the defense of the town.

Regis turned around and ran for the western wall. He heard Dagnabbit yell out to him to "Stand fast!" but he ignored the call, making the wall and turning north along it.

Soon he was on the parapet in the northwestern corner, the same place where Drizzt had gone out before him. Regis took a deep breath and looked back and up, to see Catti-brie staring at him incredulously.

He saluted her, then he willed his legs to move him over the wall.

"I am no evoker," Withegroo lamented after casting his fireball.

A few orcs had been killed, but unfortunately the rusty wizard hadn't put the blast where he had intended to, and he had done little more than momentarily delay the assault.

He leaned on the southern rim of his tower top, beside Catti-brie and a trio of other archers, and watched the battle unfold. He didn't have many effective spells to throw, so he knew he'd have to choose his castings carefully.

He saw a breach at the southeastern corner, orcs rolling up over the wall and leaping down to the courtyard below, and nearly threw one of a pair of lightning bolts he had prepared. He held the shot, though, seeing the dwarves of Mithral Hall rushing to the spot and overwhelming the orcs as they touched down.

Even as the old wizard breathed easier, he saw a second breach open up, a pair of orcs climbing onto the parapet in the southwestern corner, These didn't leap right down, but rather lifted heavy bows.

Withegroo beat one to the punch, waggling his fingers and sending a series of magical bolts out at the creature, burning it, staggering it, and ultimately dropping it to the stone.

Its companion responded by turning the bow up toward the tower top and letting fly a wild shot.

Before Withegroo could respond with a second spell, Catti-brie took aim on the orc and fired, her magical arrow snapping it down to the stone.

The wizard patted her shoulder, but she couldn't even pause long enough to acknowledge the teamwork. Too many other targets were already presenting themselves along the southern wall.

Then came the howls, to the east and to the west as the second wave came on, of scores and scores of orcs riding worgs.

Then came a heavier rain of boulders, ten at a time it seemed, falling heavily across the town.

Shallows shook under the weight of another battering blow to the southern gate. A hinge burst wide and one of the double-doors twisted inward.

He crossed the steep-sided and rocky ravine as quickly as possible, leaping from stone to stone and scrambling on all fours. As he came up the northern facing, he paused to look back at Shallows, and he knew then that his guess about the giants had been correct. They were more than five in number—likely twice that, at least. Since the beginning of the first assault, they had been taking turns throwing the rocks, conserving their strength, in shifts of two or three at a time.

But they were out in full as the assault escalated. The bombardment that echoed behind Drizzt Do'Urdon was nothing short of spectacular, and devastating.

It pained Drizzt profoundly to think that his friends were in that town.

He shook the disturbing thought from his mind and pressed onward, scaling the rock face with the same sure-footed agility that had propelled him through the Underdark for all those years.

His mind whirled with all the possibilities, but he did find his center, his necessary meditative state. If there were a dozen giants up there, how might he begin to do battle with them? How might he engage them in any manner to distract them, to buy his friends and the other gallant defenders of Shallows some respite, at least, while they fended the town from the orc hordes?

As soon as Drizzt reached the lip of the ravine, he spotted the cluster of stones and the giants—nine by his count. The drow pulled the magical figurine from his pouch and brought forth his feline companion. He had Guenhwyvar rush off to the north and await his signal.

Drizzt reached for his scimitars then glanced back at Shallows. He wondered if there was some way he could get his friends out of there, but he quickly realized that even if Bruenor, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, and Regis were all beside him, they would find this enemy beyond even their skills. Nine giants, and not the more common and far less formidable hill giants, but nine cunning and mighty frost giants.

Drizzt corrected his count when he saw yet another moving in toward the band, carrying a bulging sack that the drow knew to be filled with rocks.

Could he, perhaps, lead his friends and the rest of Bruenor's dwarves out there? With Dagnabbit and Tred and the others, they might prepare a battlefield on which they could defeat the giants.

But considering the ravine he had just exited, the drow realized that line of reasoning to be one of folly. They could never get that group across the ravine in any short amount of time and without being detected — and how vulnerable they would be among the steep, sharp rocks down below with half a score of giants raining boulders on them.

Drizzt took a deep breath and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. He reached for his scimitars reflexively, but then moved his hands aside, leaving them in their sheaths. He had fooled the frost giants once before.. .

"Hold!" he cried, walking to the edge of their position. "Another enemy has revealed itself to the north and west, not so far from here!"

The giants stared at him incredulously. Some looked to each other, and Drizzt recognized clearly the doubt stamped upon their faces.

"A second group of dwarves!" Drizzt cried, pointing out to the northwest. "A larger force, but one heading straight to reinforce Shallows, and one I am certain has not yet learned of your position out here."

"How many?" a giantess asked.

Drizzt noticed that some of the others were reaching for stones.

"Two score," the drow improvised, trying hard to put an urgent edge to his tone, to bring the obviously skeptical giants to action.

"Two score," one of the other giants echoed, and Drizzt noted clearly the dry edge in its tone.

He knew then, beyond any doubt, that his ploy would not work. Not this time, not on this group.

Drizzt was moving before the volley of rocks came at him, and that warrior reflex alone saved him from being battered to pulp then and there. He summoned a globe of darkness at his back as he rushed out of the boulder cluster then ran straight off to the rockier and more broken ground.

Half the giants gave chase.

In those first strides out of the cluster, all hope of deception flown, Drizzt fell into himself—into the warrior, into the Hunter. He was pure instinct, feeling the giants' movements around him before he saw them, sensing and anticipating his enemy.

He cut left and a boulder skipped past—one that would have crushed the life from him had he not veered off.

Cutting back to the right, he slipped into a narrow channel between two rock walls, brought up another globe of darkness, then leaped and scrambled over the wall to his right, rolling down behind a jut of stone.

He knew he couldn't sit and wait. It wasn't just about eluding the pursuit for self-preservation. It was about keeping the giants, as many as possible, away from their bombardment, and so, as the last of the chasing five rushed past, Drizzt sprang back the other way, managing to slash the trailing behemoth across the back as he went.

The giant gave a howl and its companions turned to follow.

Drizzt yelled for Guenhwyvar.

The mad rush throughout the stony mountainsides, one that would last all night long, was on.

The orcs poured through the breached gate like water, filling every opening, one after the other, in their lust to dive into a pitched battle.

Or at least, they started to.

From on high came the first and most devastating response, a blinding stroke of lightning slashing down past the startled Catti-brie, cutting before the startled Mithral Hall dwarves to explode against the metal gates in a multitude of bluish arcs.

Many orcs fell to Withegroo's stroke. Many were killed, others stunned and others blinded, and when Dagnabbit and Tred led the charge to secure the gate, the off-balanced and confused orcs proved easy prey.

Hammers thumped and axes chopped. Ores squealed and bones shattered.

But the orcs still had the gate opened, and more poured in, pushing aside their smoking comrades, scrambling madly to get at the dwarves.

From the tower, Catti-brie sent a line of arrows at the blasted gates and the incoming orcs, but only for a moment. The wall top remained primary to her, where Wulfgar, Bruenor, and a handful of Shallows's townsfolk were fighting back a swarm of hungry attackers.

The dwarf and the barbarian quickly worked their way above the broken gate back-to-back. They turned, with Wulfgar facing out over the wall and Bruenor looking down at the mounting battle in the town's courtyard.

Catti-brie watched them curiously, then understood as Bruenor patted Wulfgar's broad back. With a cry to Clan Battlehammer, the soon-to-be Tenth King of Mithral Hall leaped down from on high, right into the midst of the swarming orcs.

"Bruenor," Catti-brie mouthed silently, desperately, for he disappeared almost at once in the swirling mob, almost as if he had leaped right into the mouth of a whirlpool.

The woman shook away the horrible image immediately and turned her attention back to the wall to Wulfgar, who was fast becoming a lone figure of defiance up there.

Catti-brie fired left of him, then right, each arrow taking down an orc as it tried to come over the wall. Her hand was aching badly, she could hardly draw the bowstring, but she had to, just as Wulfgar, with all his wounds and all his weariness, had to stand there and hold that wall.

She fired again, grimacing in pain, but scoring another hit. There was hardly any self-congratulation in that fact, though, for in looking at the wall, at the sheer number of orcs, Catti-brie wondered grimly if she could possibly miss.

He dived behind a rock, praying that the orcs were so concerned with the town that they had not seen him come out over the wall. He hunched lower, trembling with terror as worg-riding orcs swept past him, left and right, and others leaped the stone he was hiding behind—and leaped him as well.

He could only hope that he had gotten far enough from the wall so that when they were forced to stop, he could slip away.

It seemed that he had, for the worg-riders split left and right as they neared the wall, drawing out bows and sending arrows randomly over the wall.

Regis put his legs back under him and started to slowly rise.

He heard growling and froze, turning slowly, to see the bared fangs of a worg not three feet from his face. The orc atop it had its bow drawn, taking a bead on Regis's skull.

"I brought this!" Regis cried breathlessly, desperately, holding up his ruby and giving it a spin.

The halfling threw up his free arm to block as the worg's snapping jaw came for his face.

"I will sweep them from the wall!" Withegroo proclaimed in outrage as another of his townsmen went down under the press, far to Wulfgar's left.

The wizard waggled his fingers and swept his arms about, preparing to launch a second devastating lightning bolt. At that desperate moment, it certainly seemed as if Shallows needed one.

A rock hit the tower top and skipped across it, slamming the back of Withegroo's legs and crushing him against the tower's raised lip.

Catti-brie and the other archers rushed to him as he started to slump down, grimacing in agony, his eyes rolling up into his head.

More rocks hit the tower, the giants having apparently found the range, and it shuddered again and again. Another skipped across the top, to smash against the wall near the fallen wizard.

"We can't hold the tower!" one of the town's archers cried.

He and his companions pulled their beloved Withegroo from the trapping rock and gently lifted him.

"Come on!" the man cried to Catti-brie.

The woman ignored him and held her ground, keeping her focus on the wall and Wulfgar, who desperately needed her then. She could only hope that no rock would skip in behind her and take her down the same way.

Crying out for Mithral Hall and Clan Battlehammer—and with a lone and powerful voice yelling for his lost brother and Citadel Felbarr—the dwarves met the orcs pouring in through the gate and those coming down off the wall with wild abandon. At least it seemed to be that, though in truth the dwarves held their defensive formation strong, even in the midst of the tumult.

They saw Bruenor leap down from on high. Dagnabbit, spearheading the wedgelike formation, swung the group around to get to their fighting king.

Bruenor's many-notched axe swept left and right. He took a dozen hits in the first few moments after leaping from the wall but gave out twice that. While the orcs' blows seemed to bounce off of him without effect, his own swipes took off limbs and heads or swept the feet out from under one attacker after another.

The orcs pressed in on him, and he fought them back time and again, roaring his clan's name, spitting blood, taking hits with a smile and almost every time paying back the orc that had struck him with a lethal retort. Soon, with dead orcs piled around him, few others would venture in, and Bruenor had to charge ahead to find battle. Even then, the orcs gave ground before him, terrified of this bloody, maniacal dwarf.

The other dwarves were beside him, and Bruenor's exploits inspired them to even greater ferocity. No sword or club could slow them, no orc could stand before them.

The tide stopped flowing in through the battered and hanging gates. Amidst a shower of crimson mist and cries of pain and rage, the tide began to retreat.

None of the turn in the courtyard below would have mattered, though, if Wulfgar could not hold strong on the wall. Like a tireless gnomish machine, the barbarian swept Aegis-fang before him. Orcs leaped over the wall and went flying back out.

One orc came in hard with a shoulder block, thinking to knock Wulfgar back and to the ground, but the orc's charge ended as it hit the set barbarian. It might as well have tried to run right through Shallows's stone wall.

It bounced back a step, and Wulfgar hit it with a short right cross, staggering it. The orc went up in the air, grabbed by the throat with one hand. With seemingly little effort, Wulfgar sent it flying.

Behind that missile, though, the barbarian saw another orc, this one with a bow, aimed right for him.

Wulfgar roared and tried to turn, knowing he had no defense.

The orc flew away as a streaking arrow whipped past, burrowing into its chest.

Wulfgar couldn't even take the second to glance back and nod his appreciation to Catti-brie. Bolstered in the knowledge that she was still there, overlooking him, covering his flanks with that deadly bow of hers, the barbarian pressed on, sweeping another orc from the wall, and another.

The sudden blowing of many, many horns out across the battlefield did nothing to break the fanatic fury of the dwarves. They didn't know if the horns signaled the arrival of more enemies, or even of allies, nor did they care.

In truth, the dwarves, fighting for their clan, fighting for the survival of their king who stood tallest among them, needed no incentive and had no time for trepidation.

Only after many minutes, the orc mob thinning considerably, did they come to understand that their enemy was in retreat, that the town had held through the second assault.

Bruenor centered their line just behind the blasted gates, all of them breathing hard, all of them covered in blood, all of them looking around.

They had held, and scores of orcs lay dead or dying in and around the courtyard and the wall, but not a dwarf, not a defender in all the town, would consider the fight a victory. Not only the gates had been compromised, but the walls themselves had been badly damaged. In many places, mixed among the dead orcs, were the bodies of many townsfolk, warriors Shallows simply could not spare.

"They're gonna come back," Tred said grimly.

"And we're gonna punch 'em again!" Dagnabbit assured him, and he looked to his king for confirmation.

Bruenor returned that stare with one that showed a bit of uncharacteristic confusion on the crusty old dwarf king's intense face. He started some movement—it seemed a shrug—and he fell over.

With the battle ended, King Bruenor could no longer deny the wounds he had taken, including one sword stab when he had first leaped down from on high that had found a seam in his fine armor and slipped through to his lung.

Up above the fallen dwarf, Wulfgar slumped on the wall in complete exhaustion, and with more than a few wicked wounds of his own, oblivious to the fall of his friend down below — until, that is, he heard the shriek of Catti-brie. He glanced up to see the woman looking down from the tower, her gaze leading to the courtyard below him, her wide eyes and horrified expression telling him so very much.

"Too many dead!" King Obould scolded his son, though not loudly, when he arrived on the scene south of Shallows and observed the body-strewn field.

CHAPTER 26 POINT AND COUNTERPOINT

Despite his obvious anger and disappointment at the course of the battle thus far and the resiliency of Shallows's defenders, Obould had brought several hundred more orcs with him. As he had gone about the caverns of the Spine of the World with news of the entrapment of the dwarf king of Mithral Hall, many tribes had been eager to join in the glory of the slaughter.

"The town is softened, and their dead lay thick about our own," Urlgen argued, his voice rising.

Obould shot Urlgen a threatening glare, then led his son's gaze to the three large orcs standing together off to the side, each a chief of his respective tribe.

"We think the wizard is dead," Urlgen went on. "Arock hit the top of his tower and he did nothing at the end of the battle."

"Then why did you run away?"

"Too many dead," Urlgen echoed sarcastically.

Obould's eyes narrowed into that particular look the orc king had, which told all standing near to him to dive for cover. Urlgen did no such thing, though. The young, strong upstart puffed out his chest.

"The town will not stand against the next attack," Urlgen insisted. "And now, with more warriors, we can finish them easily."

Obould was nodding with every word of the seemingly obvious assessment, but then he replied, "Not now."

"They are ripe!"

"Too many dead," said Obould. "Use the giants to knock down their walls with rocks. Use the giants to topple the tower. We chase them out or leave them nothing to hide behind. Then we kill them, every one."

"Half the giants are gone," Urlgen informed his father.

Obould's bloodshot eyes widened, his jaw going tight with trembling rage.

"Chasing a scout from the town," Urlgen quickly added.

"Half!"

"A dangerous scout," said Urlgen. "One who holds a black panther as a companion."

Urlgen's face eased almost immediately. Ad'non had warned them about Drizzt Do'Urden, as Donnia had warned the giants. Given everything the drow had told the orc king about this unusual dark elf, it seemed that having half the giants chasing him away might not be so bad a trade off.

"Tell the giants who remain to throw their stones," Obould instructed. "Big stones. And send arrows of fire into the town. Burn it and bash it! Stomp it down flat! And tighten the ranks around the enemy. No escape!"

Urlgen's tusky smile showed his complete agreement. The two orcs both looked back at the battered town with supreme confidence that Shallows would fall and that all within would soon enough be dead.

A boulder clipped the stone above him, bouncing wildly past and showering him with chips of broken stone.

Drizzt ducked his head against the stinging shower and doggedly went back to his work, tightening a belt around a twisted ankle. That done, he stood gingerly and shifted his weight to the wounded foot, nodding grimly when it would still support his weight.

Still, where to go?

The pursuit had been dogged, a handful of giants chasing him through the long night. He had used every trick he knew—backtracking and setting strategic globes of darkness, climbing one tree and rushing across its boughs to another and another, coming down far to the side and sprinting off in a completely different direction—but still the giants hounded him.

It occurred to Drizzt that someone was guiding them. Given his reception at the first giant camp, when they had thought him an ally of some unknown drow, he could render a guess as to who—or at least what—that someone might be.

As dawn broke over the eastern horizon, and with the unerring pursuit close behind, Drizzt realized that his greatest advantage was fast diminishing. He understood, too, that his companion needed to be sent away to her rest.

"Guen," he called softly.

A moment later the great panther leaped across the narrow channel above Drizzt, settling on a stone at his shoulder height, a few feet away.

"Rest easy and rest quickly," Drizzt bade the panther, willing her away. "I will need you again, and soon I fear."

The cat gave a low growl that blew away on the wind, as Guenhwyvar seemed to dissipate in the air, becoming less than substantial, becoming the grayish mist, then nothing tangible at all.

Loud voices from not too far behind told Drizzt that he had better get moving. He took some comfort in the fact that he had led so many giants away from the battle at Shallows, and indeed, he had taken them far to the northwest, to the rougher and higher rocky ground. Every once in a while, the drow came out on a high ridge that offered him a view of the distant, battered town, and each time he could only clutch at the hope that his friends were all right, that they had held strong, or perhaps even that they had found a way to slip out and make a run to the south.

A boulder skipped into the narrow channel then, followed by the roar of the giants, and Drizzt had no further time for contemplation. He darted off as quickly as his twisted ankle would allow, moving on all fours at times as he scaled the steep inclines.

He was tiring, though, and he knew it, and he knew, too, that giants did not tire as quickly as the smaller races. He couldn't keep up the run for much longer, if the pursuit remained so dogged, nor could he hope to turn and face his pursuers. If it was one giant, perhaps, or even two, he might try, but not this many. All his warrior skills wouldn't hold him for long against a handful of mighty frost giants.

He needed another solution, a different escape route, and he found it in the form of a dark opening among a tumble of boulders against one rocky cliff facing. At first he thought the cave within to be nothing more than the sheltered and darkened area formed by the formation of the rocks, but then he saw a deeper opening at the back of the alcove, a crack in the ground barely wide enough for him to slip through. He fell to his belly and peered in, breathed in. His Underdark senses told him that this was no little hole in the ground, but something large and deep.

Drizzt crawled back out and surveyed the area. Did he want to end the chase then and there? Could his friends afford for him to release the giants of their pursuit, when the behemoths would surely turn right back to their stone-throwing positions?

But what choice did he really have? This pursuit was going to end soon either way, he knew.

With a reluctant sigh, the drow slipped into the cave and moved a bit deeper into the darkness, then sat and listened, and let his eyes adjust to the dramatic shift of light.

Within minutes, he heard the giants milling around outside, and their grumbling told him that they knew exactly where he had gone. The light in the cave increased slightly as the boulder tumble outside was thrown away. After more angry grumbling, including a suggestion that they go and get some orcs or someone named Donnia—and Drizzt recognized that as a drow name—to pursue the drow into the cave, the hole was blocked by a giant's face. How Drizzt wished he had Catti-brie's bow in hand!

More roars of protest and grumbling ensued, but only briefly, and the cave went perfectly dark. The ground shook beneath Drizzt, as the giants piled stones over the opening, sealing him in.

"Wonderful," Drizzt whispered.

He wasn't really worried for himself, though, for he could tell from the feel of the air that he would find another way out of the cave. How long that might take, though, he could not guess.

He feared that by the time he got out and circled back to Shallows, there would be no town standing.

His left arm was all but useless. He knew that the bone had been shattered under the worg's tremendous bite, and the torn skin was taking on the unhealthy color of a dire infection, but he couldn't worry about that.

Regis pressed the charmed orc to urge the exhausted mount on faster, though he feared that he was pushing his luck more than pushing the obviously angry worg. With the limitations of their shared vocabulary, the halfling had somehow managed to convince the orc that he knew where they could find big treasure, and a horde of weapons for the other orcs, and so the dim-witted creature had beaten its worg into submission, and into letting go of Regis's shattered arm, and had forced the snarling and nipping creature to take a second rider on its broad back.

It certainly hadn't been a comfortable or comforting ride for Regis. Sitting before the big, smelly orc placed the halfling's dangling feet to the sides of the worg's neck—within nipping distance, he found out, whenever the great wolf slowed.

As they left the battlefield far behind that night and pressed on through the morning, the halfling had found the orc's resistance growing. He used his enchanted, mesmerizing ruby constantly on the orc, not ordering it but rather tempting it, again and again, with techniques the sneaky halfling had perfected on the streets of Calimport years before.

But even with the gemstone, Regis knew that he was on the edge of disaster. The worg could not be so tempted—certainly not as much as the taste of halfling flesh would tempt such a cruel creature—and the orc was not a patient thing. Even worse, several times, the halfling thought he would simply faint and fall off, for his shattered arm was shooting lines of burning, overwhelming, and disorienting pain through him.

He thought of his friends, and he knew that he could not falter, not for himself and not for them.

All Regis could think to do was to keep them running fast to the south and hope that some opportunity opened before him where he could kill the pair, or at least where he could slip away. And despite his trepidation, the halfling understood well that he could never have covered as much ground on foot as they had on the worg. When the dawn brightened the ground the next morning, they found that the mountains to the south, across the eastern stretches of Fell Pass, were much closer than those they had left behind.

The orc wanted to sleep, something that Regis knew he could not allow. The halfling was sure that as soon as the brute closed its eyes, the worg would make a meal of him.

"Into the mountains," he told it with his halting command of the Orcish language. "We camp here and dwarves will find us."

Grumbling, the orc pressed the overburdened worg on.

As they came into the foothills, Regis watched every turn and every ridge, looking desperately for a place where he could make his escape. A small cliff face, perhaps, where he could quietly slip over and disappear into the brush below, or a river that might wash him far enough away from these two wretched companions.

He saw a couple of promising spots but let them pass by, too afraid to make such a break. He tried to bolster his resolve by reminding himself of the predicament of his friends to the north, but still he saw nothing that offered more than a fleeting hope.

Still, from the tone of the orc's complaints, Regis understood that he would have to do something soon.

"We gonna camp," the orc informed him.

Regis's eyes went wide and he looked around desperately for a way out. His darting eyes looked down to his small mace, belted at his hip.

He thought of taking it out then and there and smashing the worg atop the head. He couldn't get his hand to move to it, though, whatever the logic, for he knew beyond doubt that he would have to be perfect, and that the blow would have to fell the creature, which he sincerely doubted it would. Even without the wound to his arm, Regis was no match for a worg, and he knew it. He couldn't begin to hurt the thing before those snapping jaws found his throat.

The only thing keeping him alive was the orc, the worg's master.

The halfling nearly fell over when the orc stopped the mount suddenly, on a small and level landing along the mountainside. Regis remembered to leap off the worg's back only when the snarling creature turned and nipped at his foot. He ran to the side and the worg turned and darted at him, but the orc intercepted and scolded it, kicking it in the rump as it turned around.

The worg retreated across the way, looking back at Regis with its hateful eyes, a stare that told him that as soon as the orc fell asleep, the great wolf would have him dead.

He found his solution in the fact that this particular clearing was surrounded by trees. Deathly exhausted and afraid, and terribly sore from his ordeal, Regis moved to an appropriate tree and started to climb.

"Where you's going?" the orc demanded.

"I'll keep the first watch," Regis replied.

"The dog will watch." The orc indicated the worg, which looked at Regis and bared its filthy fangs.

"As will I!" the halfling insisted.

He scrambled up the tree as fast as his broken arm would permit, moving well out of the orc's reach as quickly as he could manage.

He found a nook and settled his back against the trunk, his legs stretched out over a branch, and tried to secure himself as much as possible. He thought to go down and prod the orc into moving along, but in truth, he knew that they all needed rest, particularly the worg—though if the thing fell over dead of exhaustion, the halfling wouldn't shed a tear.

Every few seconds, Regis glanced back to the north, toward distant Shallows, and thought of his friends.

He could only hope they were still alive.

"Three buildings burning strong," Dagnabbit informed Catti-brie and Wulfgar as they kept a vigil at Bruenor's bedside.

They had set up the infirmary in the low workmen tunnels beneath Withegroo's tower, a series of connecting passageways that allowed for inspections at key points of the tower's supporting base structure. This was actually the strongest section of the town, even stronger than the tower above, for the dwarves Withegroo had hired to build his tower had fashioned the tunnels first, reinforcing them against weather and enemies alike, for they alone had provided shelter during the months of the tower's construction.

Still, the cramped tunnels were hardly suited for their present purposes as makeshift bunkers. The friends were in the largest room — the only place that could rightly be called a room—and Wulfgar couldn't even stand up straight. He had to belly crawl through a ten-foot passageway to get in.

"The buildings are stone," Catti-brie argued.

"With a lot of wood support," said the dwarf. He moved beside Bruenor and sat down. "Giants threw a few firepots, and the rocks are coming in fast now."

"It's an organized group," said Wulfgar.

"Aye," Dagnabbit agreed, "and they're blocking all the south. We got no way out." He looked at Bruenor, so pale and weak, his broad chest barely rising with each breath. "Exceptin' that way."

Bruenor surprised them all, then, by opening one eye and even managing to turn his head toward Dagnabbit.

"Then ye take a bunch o' stinkin' orcs along for yer ride," the dwarf said, and he sank back into his bed.

Catti-brie was there in an instant, hovering over him, but after a quick inspection she realized that he had slipped off into that semi-conscious state once again.

"Where's Rockbottom?" she asked, referring to the one cleric who had remained with their group of dwarves when the expeditionary force had split.

"Tending Withegroo, though I'm thinking the old mage's about finished," Dagnabbit answered. "Rockbottom says he's done all he can for Bruenor for now, and he's thinking like I'm thinking that we're gonna be needin' that wizard to have any chance o' getting outta here."

Catti-brie bit back her urge to scream at poor Dagnabbit, for she realized that despite his seemingly callous attitude toward Bruenor, he was as torn up as she was about the dwarf king's predicament. Dagnabbit was above all else pragmatic, though. He was the commander of Mithral Hall's forces, and always followed the road that promised the best chance of positive result, whatever the emotional burden. Catti-brie understood that he was as angry and frustrated as she at their helplessness, at having to sit there and watch the life ebb out of Bruenor.

Dagnabbit moved to the side of Bruenor's bed and gently lifted the signature one-horned helm off the dwarf king's head, rolling it about in his hands.

"Even if we find a way outta here, L don't know if we can take him with us," the dwarf said quietly.

Wulfgar was up in an instant, towering over Dagnabbit despite his necessary crouch.

"You would leave him?" he roared incredulously.

Dagnabbit didn't shrink from the barbarian's wild stare. He looked from Bruenor to Wulfgar, then back to his beloved king.

"If bringing him means throwing out all chance of us running by them, yeah," he admitted. "Bruenor'd not want to go if going meant getting them he loves slaughtered, and ye're knowing that."

"Get Rockbottom back in here to tend to him."

"Rockbottom can't do a thing for him, and ye heared it yerself when last he was here," said Dagnabbit. "Damned orc got him good. He'll be needin' a bigger priest than Rockbottom, might be even that he'll be needin' a whole bunch o' priests."

Wulfgar started toward Dagnabbit, but Catti-brie grabbed him by the arms and forced him to stop and look at her. He saw only sympathy there, a complete understanding of, and agreement with, his frustrations.

"We'll make our choices as we sec them," the woman said softly.

"If we arc to run to the south, then I will carry Bruenor all the way to Mithral Hall," Wulfgar said, casting a stern look at Dagnabbit.

The commander didn't flinch, but he did, after a moment, nod.

"Well if ye do, then ye know that me and me boys'll do all we can to keep ye running and to keep them damned orcs off ye."

That calmed Wulfgar, even though he, Catti-brie, and Dagnabbit all knew that those were words of the heart, not of the mind. In truth, to all three, the point seemed moot anyway. A few scouts had dared to slip out of Shallows in the hours since the end of the second battle and the reports of the tightening ring of orcs showed no chance of any large-scale escape.

They were trapped, Bruenor was dying, Drizzt and Regis were both missing, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Punctuating that disturbing logic, another giant boulder smashed against the tower above them, and cries of "Fire! Fire!" echoed down the low tunnels leading to the small, smoky room.

"Town lost thirty in the fighting," Dagnabbit informed them. "Counting the twelve killed afore the first fight."

"Almost a third," said Catti-brie.

"And most o' them men — some o' their best fighters," said the dwarf. "Two o' me own are dead, another five down too hurt to fight. If they come on again, we'll be hard pressed to hold."

"We'll hold," Wulfgar said grimly.

"After seein' ye on the wall, I'm almost believing ye," the dwarf replied.

"Almost?" Catti-brie asked.

Dagnabbit, who had seen the extent of destruction to the fortifications above, could only offer a shrug in reply.

"We hold or we die," said Catti-brie.

"We gotta get out," Dagnabbit remarked.

"Or get help in," said Catti-brie. 'Regis got over the wall, though I'm not for knowing if he's dead on the field outside, or if he's running for help." She looked to Wulfgar as she explained, "Right after he went over the wall, the orcs on worgs came charging in."

After the fight, the friends had searched the ground west of Shallows as much as possible, but had found no sign of Regis. That had brought them some hope, at least, but in truth, both of them feared the halfling captured or dead.

"Even if he got away, I'm not for hoping that'll do anyone but himself any good," said Dagnabbit. "How long will it take him to find Pwent? It'll take an army to get through to us, I'm thinking, and not just them Gut-busters. And how long will it take them to gather an army to our aid?"

"As long as it takes," said Wulfgar. "Until then, we must hold."

Dagnabbit started to reply, seeming as if to argue the point, but then he just blew a long sigh.

"Stay with King Bruenor," he bade Catti-brie. "If any're to keep his heart beating, it's yerself. Keep him warm, and wish him well from me and all me boys if he walks his journey to the other side."

He looked to Wulfgar.

"Help me and me boys fix what defenses we can?" he asked the man.

With a nod and a determined look to Catti-brie, the barbarian lifted his bloodied frame and crawled out of the small tunnel to begin the work of shoring up the defenses.

Such as they were.

He caught himself just as he was about to fall off of the branch, and when he realized that, when he realized where he was, the halfling had to spend a long moment telling his heart not to leap out of his chest. The fall probably wouldn't have been so bad, a few bruises and scratches, but Regis knew all too well what awaited him on the ground: a snarling, vicious worg.

He settled himself quickly and looked over the impromptu encampment. The orc was snoring contentedly between a pair of shading rocks, while the worg was curled right at the base of Regis's tree.

Wonderful, the halfling thought.

The sun was up and the day bright and warm, and Regis's heart told him that this was his last and only chance, that he had to find some way out of there. Would the orc still consider him a friend when it awoke? Would the gem-enhanced promises he had made of treasures and new weapons still hold strong in the dim-witted creature's thinking? If not, how could he use his ruby once again? How could he even get close enough to a hostile orc with that hungry worg wanting nothing more than to make a meal of him?

Regis put his head down and fought hard to hold back his sobs, for it seemed to him that it had all been for naught. He wished that he was back in Shallows with his friends, that if he was to die, as he surely believed he was, it would be with Bruenor and the others, with the friends who had walked the road beside him.

Not like this. Not torn apart by a cruel worg on a lonely mountain pass.

"Stop it!" Regis scolded himself, more loudly than he had intended.

Below him, the worg looked up, gave a long, low growl, then put its head back atop its paws.

"No time for self pity," the halfling whispered. "Your friends need you, Regis, so what arc you going to do for them? Sit here and cry?"

No, he decided, and he sat up straighter and resolutely shook his head. Even that motion made his broken arm throb more. It was time to rouse the orc, to hope that the creature was still under the sway of the enchanted ruby, or to find some other way if it was not. If he had to fight them both, orc and worg, then he'd fight and be done with it. His friendship with those who had risked themselves time and again for his sake demanded no less.

Seeming taller, feeling taller, Regis rolled over the side of the branch and caught a foothold below, moving down the tree to a better vantage point where he could rouse the orc and judge its demeanor.

He stopped, though, and suddenly, his head snapping around, as something came bouncing into the encampment.

An old boot.

The worg leaped at it and tore at it with snapping jaws—and those jaws were snapping indeed, as a series of small explosions erupted from within the boot.

The worg yelped and howled, and leaped up into the air, doing a complete somersault.

The most curious looking creature Regis had ever seen rushed in to join the dance: a green-bearded dwarf wearing light green robes, open sandals on his dirty feet, and a cooking pot on his head. The dwarf ran right up to the worg and began waggling his fingers and his lips. The great wolf stopped its yammering and its hopping and froze in place, ears going back, eyes going wide.

With a sound that could only be described as a shriek, the worg put its tail between its legs and ran away.

"Hee hee hee," said the dwarf.

"What?" roared the awakened orc, its protesting cry cut short—as tended to happen when a battle-axe crushed the speaker's skull.

From behind the tumbling orc came a second dwarf, this one with a brilliant yellow beard, and dressed in more conventional dwarven attire—except for a tremendous helm that sported the huge antlers of a full-grown buck.

"Ye should o' killed the damned dog, too," the yellow bearded dwarf roared. "I'm hungry!"

As the green-bearded creature started wagging his finger in a scolding manner, Regis moved down the tree as quickly as his aching arm would permit.

"Who are you?" he called.

Both dwarves spun on him—and the yellow-bearded one almost launched his deadly axe Regis's way.

"No friend o' orcs … like yerself!" the yellow-bearded dwarf roared.

"No, no, no!" Regis insisted coming to the ground and waving his empty hand up in a sign of submission, his other arm tucked in close to his side. "I have come from the town of Shallows."

"Don't know it," said the yellow-bearded dwarf.

He looked to the other, who agreed with a "Nope, nope."

"And King Bruenor Battlehammer," Regis went on.

"Ah, nowye're talking!" said the dwarf with the yellow-beard. "Ivan Bouldershoulder at yer service, little one. And this's me brother—"

"Pikel!" Regis cried.

He had heard quite a bit about these two from Drizzt and Catti-brie, though in truth, no spoken words could do the specter of Pikel Bouldershoulder justice.

"Aye," said Ivan, "and tell me, little one, how're ye knowin' that, and what're ye doing with the likes o' them two?"

"We have to hurry," Regis replied, urgency suddenly flying back into his tone. "Bruenor's in trouble—they all are! — and I have to get to Mithral Hall… no, to the camp that Thibbledorf Pwent was supposed to be building north of the hall."

"Yeah, that's where we're goin'," said Ivan. "To Pwent. We took a circular route, but a bird telled me brother where they were at. We were just fixing to go there when another bird telled me brother about the orc and his puppy."

"He talks to a lot of birds, does he?" Regis asked dryly.

"Aye, and to the trees. Come along and he'll get us there afore ye can ask me how."

"There is no time," Regis said to the Bouldershoulders, to Thibbledorf Pwent and to the other leaders at the second dwarven outpost, some twenty miles across uneven, rocky ground north of Keeper's Dale, the vale heralding the main entrance to Mithral Hall. "Bruenor and the others don't have the four extra days it will take for the runners to gather the army and return here."

"Bah, they'll do it in three!" one of the outpost bosses, a crusty little fellow named Runabout Kickastone, insisted. "Ain't ye never seen a mad dwarf run?"

"Three's three too many!" roared Pwent, who had been leaning toward the north ever since Regis and the Bouldershoulders had arrived with the dire news of Shallows's predicament.

Indeed, Thibbledorf Pwent had been leaning to the north since Bruenor had separated from him and sent him to the south.

"We only got a hunnerd!" said Runabout. "And from what the little one's saying, a hunnerd ain't to do much!"

"Ye got the Gutbusters!" Pwent roared right back. "Them orcs'll think they're outnumbered, don't ye doubt!"

"And you've got clerics," added Regis, who knew they had to be away at once, and who guessed easily enough that some of his friends were likely in desperate need of some healing magic.

Runabout sighed and looked around, planting his hands on his hips.

"We might be doin' some good if we can get to the town," he admitted. "Shorin' up defenses and healing them that's hurt and all that. Don't sound like we'll be getting there with any kind o' ease, though."

Off to the side, Pikel hopped over to Ivan and began whispering excitedly into his brother's car. All the others turned to watch and listen, though they couldn't really make out any clear words or meanings.

"Me brother's got some berries that'll make ye walk longer and faster," Ivan explained. "Takin' away yer need to stop and eat or drink. That'll get us up there all the faster, with short camps."

"Getting up there's sounding like the easy part," the ever-doubting Runabout replied, and before he had even finished, Pikel hopped up to Ivan and put his lips near his brother's ear again.

Ivan's expression turned sour, his face full of doubt, and he began to shake his head, but as Pikel continued, ever more excitedly, the dwarf slowly settled and began to listen more intently.

Finally, Pikel hopped back and Ivan turned an incredulous stare upon him and asked, "Ye think?"

"Hee hee hee."

"What?" Thibbledorf Pwent, Regis, and Runabout all demanded at once.

"Well, me brother's got a plan," Ivan haltingly explained. "Crazy plan. ."

"Yes!" said Pwent, punching his fist into the air.

"But a plan's a plan, at least," Ivan went on. He looked to Pikel and asked again, "Ye think?"

"Hee hee hee."

"Well?" prompted Runabout.

"Well, are we to stand here jawing or to get going?" Ivan shot right back. "Ye got a big, strong wagon?"

"Yes," Runabout answered.

"Ye got a lot o' wood? Especially them big logs ye been using to hold the stone walls in place?"

Runabout looked around and slowly nodded.

"Then get all yer wood and get yer biggest and strongest wagons, and get all yer boys into line on the road north," said Ivan.

"What about yer brother's plan?" Runabout asked.

"I'm thinkin' it'd be better if I tell ye on the way," Ivan responded. "Both because we can't be standing here talking while yer king's in trouble, and because.." He paused and looked at the giggling Pikel, then admitted, "Because when ye hear it, ye might think we'd've been better waiting for the army."

"Hee hee hee," said Pikel.

Within the hour, the hundred dwarves and Regis set out from the outpost, pulling huge wagons laden with tons of strong wood. Pikel wasn't pulling and wasn't even walking. Rather, the dwarf moved from wagon to wagon, working the wood with his druidic magic, considering each piece and how it might fit into his overall design, and giggling. Despite the gravity of the situation, despite the fact that they were walking into an obviously desperate battle, Pikel was always giggling.

CHAPTER 27 WHEN HOPE FADES

Catti-brie sat in the dim light of a single candle, staring at Bruenor, her beloved father, as he lay on the cot. His face was ashen, and it was no trick of the light, she knew. His chest barely moved, and the bandages she had only recently changed were already blood-stained yet again.

Another rock hit close outside, shaking the ground but not even stirring Catti-brie, for the explosions had been sounding repeatedly. The bombardment had increased in tempo and ferocity. Every twentieth missile or so was no rock but a burning fire pot that spread lines of devastation, often igniting secondary fires within the town. Three blazes had already been put out in the wizard's tower, and Dagnabbit had warned that the integrity of the structure had been compromised.

They hadn't moved Bruenor, though, for there was nowhere else to go.

Catti-brie sat and stared at her father, remembering all the good times, all the things he had done for her, all the adventures they had shared. Her mind told her that that was over, though her heart surely argued against that conclusion.

In truth, they were waiting for Bruenor to die, for when he took his last breath, they—all who remained—would crawl out of their holes and over the battered walls and make their desperate run to the south. That was their only hope, slim though it was.

But Catti-brie could hardly believe she was sitting there waiting for Bruenor to die. She could hardly accept that the toughened old dwarf's chest would sometime soon go still, that he would no longer draw breath. She had always thought he would outlive her.

She had witnessed his fall once before and had thought him dead, when he had ridden the shadow dragon down into the gorge in Mithral Hall. She remembered that heartbreak, the unbelievable hole she had felt in her heart, the sense of helplessness and the surreal nature of it all.

She was feeling that again, all of it, only this time the end would come before her eyes, undeniably and with no room for hope.

The woman felt a strong hand on her shoulder then and turned to see Wulfgar moving in beside her. He draped his arm across her shoulders, and she put her head on his strong chest.

"I wish Drizzt would return," Wulfgar remarked quietly, and Catti-brie looked at him. "And with Regis beside him," the barbarian said. "We should all be together for this."

"For the end of Bruenor's life?"

"For all of it," Wulfgar explained. "For the run to the south, or the last stand here. It would be fitting."

They said no more. They didn't have to. Each was feeling the exact same thing, each was remembering the exact same things.

Up above, the rain of boulders continued.

"How many orcs are there?" Innovindil asked Tarathiel.

The two elves were far from the Moonwood, flying through the night on their winged horses. She had to shout to be heard, and even then her voice carried thinly on the night breezes.

"Enough so that the security of our own home will surely be compromised," Tarathiel answered with all confidence.

They were in the foothills to the north of the town of Shallows, looking back at the hundreds of fires of orc camps and at the flames engulfing sections of the town, most notably the lone tower that so clearly marked the place.

The pair set down on one high ridge to better converse.

"We cannot help them," Tarathiel said to his more compassionate companion as soon as they set down and he could better sec the look upon her fair face. "Even if we could get to the Moonwood and rouse all the clan, we'd not return in time to turn the tide of this battle. Nor should we try," he added, seeing her doubting expression. "Our first responsibility is to the forest we name as our home, and if this black tide turns to the east and crosses the Surbrin, we will know war soon enough."

"There is truth in your words," Innovindil admitted. "I wonder if we might go there, though, and perhaps pull some from the disaster before the darkness closes in over them."

Tarathiel shook his head and painted on an expression that showed no room for debate.

"Ore arrows would chase us every inch," he argued, "and if they brought down Sunrise and Sunset, what good would we do for anybody? Who would fly to the cast and warn our people?"

He pressed on with the argument, though Innovindil didn't need to hear it. She understood her responsibilities, and just as importantly, her limitations. She knew that the catastrophe to the south was far beyond the ability of her and her friend, and all their clan, to correct.

It pained her, it pained them both, to watch the town of Shallows die, for though the elves of the Moonwood were no friends to any of the humans in the area, neither were they enemies.

They could only watch.

It was a difficult climb, made all the more so because of the swelling and soreness in his twisted ankle. Hand over hand, Drizzt pulled himself up the long and narrow natural chimney, chasing the last flickers of diminishing daylight up above.

Diminishing daylight.

The drow paused, more than halfway up the three hundred foot climb. The worse thing about the fading afternoon light above was that Drizzt knew it was not the day after he had first crawled into the cave, but was the day after that. The size of the caverns had truly surprised him. It was a vast underground network, and he had spent nearly two days wandering through it, looking for a way back to the surface. Following lighter air, the drow had found many dead ends, chutes and openings too small for him to exit through.

He was beginning to suspect that he had found another, but he continued his climb. Still, each foot traversed made it clearer to him that this too was a dead end. The light above had shone brilliantly when first he had seen it, a welcomed contrast to the darkness of the caverns, but that had been due to the angle of the sun, the drow realized, and not the width of the opening.

He continued up another hundred feet before he knew for certain that he would have to double back, that the opening would admit no more than an arm or perhaps his head.

With a quiet reminder to himself that his friends needed him, Drizzt Do'Urden started back down.

An hour later, he was walking as swiftly as his sore ankle and his sheer exhaustion would permit. He considered doubling back, moving all the way to where he had first entered the tunnels in the hope that he might move the barriers the giants had constructed there, but he shook that thought away.

The sun had long risen before the drow found the next opening, and this time the exit was large enough.

Drizzt came out into the daylight, blinking against the stinging brilliance, letting his eyes adjust as much as possible. Then he spent a long while studying the mountains around him, trying to find some recognizable landmark that would guide him back to Shallows. The angle was too different, though. Observing the sun told him east from west, and north from south, though, so he started south. He was hoping to hit the Fell Pass, and hoping that he would find his bearings once the ground had somewhat leveled out.

He tore a sleeve from his shirt and tightened the splint around his ankle, then trotted away, ignoring the pain. He watched the sun pass its zenith above him, then move to the western horizon and drop behind.

Hours later, he found the Fell Pass and recognized the ground.

He ran on to the east across the foothills, urgency growing with each stride. A short while later, he saw a distant glow against the lightening sky of the southeast. He rushed up over one hill, finding a better viewpoint and saw, in the distance, flames climbing into the night sky.

Withegroo's tower.

His heart pumping more out of fear than from exertion, Drizzt ran on. He saw a glowing ball sail across the sky, north to south. When it hit it burst into flame in the battered town.

Drizzt didn't veer to the south, instead charging straight for the giants' position, determined to deter them yet again. His hand went to his onyx figurine, though he didn't bring the panther to him just yet.

"Be ready, Guenhwyvar," he said quietly. "Soon we find battle."

Drizzt knew that fire in the night distorted distances greatly, and so he was not surprised at how long it took him to get back near the town and the attacking giants.

He moved to the northern rim of the ravine in clear sight of Shallows. He could see the defenders rushing around. The tower was burning, though not nearly as brightly as before, and most of the activity was centered around it.

The giants seemed to be concentrating on that particular target as well.

Drizzt took out the figurine and set it on the ground, determined to bring forth Guenhwyvar and charge straight on into the giant encampment. He paused, though, noting a familiar figure atop that burning tower.

Drizzt couldn't make out much, but one thing showed clearly to him: a one-horned helmet that he knew so very well.

"Defy them, Bruenor," the drow whispered, a wry grin on his face.

Almost in response, a series of missiles smashed against that tower, one clipping right near the brightest burning fires and sending a shower of sparks through the night sky.

There the dwarf remained, atop the structure, directing the forces on the ground.

Drizzt's smile widened, or started to, for then there came a loud groaning and scraping sound from the south. Eyes wide with horror, Drizzt watched the tower lean, watched the dwarf atop it scramble to the edge, diving desperately for the rim.

The tower toppled to the south, and half fell over, half crumbled, so that the poor doomed dwarf fell down amidst tons of crushing stone.

Drizzt didn't even realize his own movements, didn't even register that his legs hadn't supported him through that terrible sight, that he was sitting down on the stone.

He knew beyond any doubt that no one in all the world could have survived that catastrophe.

A chill rushed through him. His hands trembled and tears filled his violet eyes.

"Bruenor," he whispered over and over.

His hands reached out to the south, into the empty air, with nothing to hold on to.

CHAPTER 28 BOWING BEFORE THE WRONG GOD

She could see nothing, could feel only the pain of raw scrapes all around her arms and shoulders, and the discomfort of breathing in chunks of stony dust. She groped around in the darkness of the partially collapsed tunnel, searching desperately for her father.

Luck was with her, for the area around which Bruenor lay had survived the catastrophe almost intact. Catti-brie got up beside her father, gently running her hands over his face, then putting her ear low to his mouth, to find that he was still breathing, shallow though it was.

The woman turned around, trying to get her bearings, trying to figure out which way would provide the shortest route to the surface, though she wondered if she should even go to the surface at all. Had the orcs come on in full after the fall of Withegroo's tower, which surely had fallen? If so, she wondered if she would be better off staying there, in the dark, for as long as she could manage before trying to find a way out of the town altogether so she could head for the south.

That seemed the safer course, perhaps, but Wulfgar was up there, and Dagnabbit and the others were up there, and the townsfolk were up there, and if the orcs had indeed come on, the battle would be desperate.

Catti-brie crawled to the side of the small chamber and began to claw at the stone, digging free several chunks and a mound of dirt and stone

dust. Her fingers bled but she pushed on. The ground above her groaned ominously, but she pushed on, ignoring the exhaustion that crept through her as the minutes passed.

She hit a rock too big for her to move. Undaunted, the woman started working at the side of the stone, and she jumped back as the rock suddenly shifted.

Morning light streamed in as the boulder went away, hoisted and tossed aside by the strong arms of Wulfgar.

He reached in for her and she gave him her hand and the barbarian gently pulled her from the small tunnel.

"Bruenor?" Wulfgar asked desperately.

'"He's the same," Catti-brie replied. "The collapse didn't touch his room. Dwarves built it well."

As she finished, the woman looked around at the devastation. The tower had half fallen over and half collapsed in on itself, and it had taken out several buildings on its toppling descent, leaving a long line of rubble. She wanted to ask so many questions then, about who had survived and who had fallen, but she could find no words, her jaw just drooping open.

"Dagnabbit is gone," Wulfgar informed her. "Three other dwarves were lost with him, and at least five townsmen."

Catti-brie continued her scan, hardly believing the devastation that had befallen the town. Most of the buildings were down or badly damaged, and little remained of the wall. When the orcs came on — and she knew it would be soon since she could hear their horns blowing and drums beating in the south—there would be no organized defense, just fighting from street to street, and before the bitter end, from tunnel to tunnel.

She looked to Wulfgar and gathered strength from his stoic expression and his wide shoulders. He'd kill more than a few before the orcs finished him, Catti-brie knew, and she decided that she would too. A wry smile widened on her face, and Wulfgar looked at her curiously.

"Well, if it's to end, then it's to end in a blaze o* fighting!" she said, nodding and grinning.

It was either that or fall down and weep.

She put her hand on Wulfgar's shoulder, and he on hers.

"They're coming," came a voice behind them.

They turned to see Tred, battered and bloody, but looking more than ready for a fight. The dwarf stood sidelong, one hand hidden behind his back, the other holding his double-bladed axe.

Wulfgar pointed out several positions in a rough circle around the cave entrance leading back to Bruenor.

"We'll hold these four positions," he explained, "and fall back behind one pile after another to join up right here."

"And then?" asked Tred.

"We fall back into the caves, or what's left of them," the barbarian said. "Let the orcs crawl in and be killed until we are too weary to strike at them."

Tred looked around, then nodded his agreement though he understood, as they all did, the ultimate futility of it all. Certainly some orcs, thirsty for blood, would foolishly come into the caves after them, but soon enough the wicked creatures would realize that time was on their side, that they could just wait out the return of the defenders, or even worse, that they could start fires and smoke the defenders out of the caves.

"It'll be me honor to die beside yer King Bruenor and to die beside the fine children of the king. He was a fine and brave one, that Dagnabbit," Tred said somberly, glancing over at the long pile of broken stone. "Citadel Felbarr would've been proud to call him one of our own. I'm wishing we had the time to dig him out."

"It is a fitting grave," Wulfgar replied. "Dagnabbit stood tall and defied them, and at the moment of his fall he called to the dwarf gods. He knew that he had done well. He knew that he had honored his people and his race."

A solemn and silent moment passed, all three bowing their heads in deference to the fallen Dagnabbit.

"I got me some orcs to chop," Tred announced.

He saluted the pair and moved off, organizing the remaining few into battle groups to defend three of the positions.

Soon after, the bombardment increased once again but there was plenty of cover with so many piles of rubble, and there was little left to destroy. The giants' prelude seemed more an annoyance than anything else. The rain of boulders ended as the orcs, many riding worgs, came on, howling their battle cries.

Catti-brie started the fight for the defenders, popping up from behind the rubble pile and letting fly a streaking arrow that hit a worg squarely in the head, stopping it in its tracks and launching its rider through the air. The woman let fly again to the side, for there was no shortage of targets with orcs swarming over the all but destroyed walls. She drove her arrows into their ranks, taking one, sometimes even two, down with every shot.

But still they came on.

"Stay with the bow," Wulfgar instructed her.

He rose up strong and tall and met the orcs' charge, Aegis-fang sweeping the leading orcs away, launching them through the air.

All around the pair, the defenders of Shallows rose to meet the charge, humans and dwarves fighting desperately side by side. For a while, it seemed as if no orc's blow could fell any of them, as if any hit they suffered was a minor thing, shrugged off and retaliated immediately and brutally. Bodies piled all around the four defended positions, and almost all of them at first were orc and worg.

The momentum couldn't hold, though, nor could the defense. The defenders, even in their desperate frenzy, knew it.

Wulfgar swept his warhammer tirelessly, battering through any defenses the orcs trying to stand before him could possibly manage. Occasionally one of the creatures managed to slip under the blow, or duck back from it, but before the orc could them come on, a streaking silver arrow drove it down.

Catti-brie put Taulmaril up again and again, her enchanted quiver never emptying. Whenever she could manage, she aimed for a worg instead of an orc, considering the snarling wolves to be the more dangerous foe. Most of the time, though, the woman didn't even bother to aim, nor did she have to.

Even with that devastating line of fire, and with Wulfgar fighting more brilliantly and brutally than she had ever witnessed, the orcs, like the incoming tide, began to press in, swarming through holes.

Catti-brie let fly an arrow, put another up and spun around, blasting away an orc point-blank. Another was there, though, and she had to take up her bow like a staff and fend the creature off.

A second joined it, and she almost yelled for Wulfgar. Almost, but she held her words, realizing that any distraction to him would surely bring about his swift downfall. The woman whipped Taulmaril out before her viciously, back and forth, forcing the two orcs back. She dropped the bow and in the same fluid movement brought forth Khazid'hea, her fine-edged sword.

The orcs pressed on, a thrusting spear coming in hard at her right. A downward parry sheared the spear's tip cleanly off, and the orc, surprised by the lack of any real impact with the parry, overbalanced just a bit.

Enough for Catti-brie to turn her hand over and stab out quickly, taking the creature in the chest.

Back came Khazid'hea, just in time to ring against the heavy blade of the second orc's sword. One on one, this creature would be no match for Catti-brie.

But two others joined it, on either side, and Catti-brie was working furiously to fend off the trio. Behind her, she heard an impact, followed by Wulfgar's grunt.

But she couldn't help him, and he couldn't help her.

Catti-brie worked her blade all the more ferociously, turning aside thrust after stab after slash. Frustration grew within her, for she was making no headway, and she was working far too hard to maintain the pace.

The orc before her and to the right moved suddenly, and in a way she could not have anticipated. At first, she thought the creature was charging her, but quickly she realized that it was just flying by, launched at the end of a heavy dwarven axe. Tred stepped forward behind it, launching a backhand that doubled over the second of the trio, the one standing right before Catti-brie. The woman reacted quickly, diverting all of her attention to the orc on her left. She came forward suddenly, turned Khazid'hea over the orc's sword and down. The orc, both weapons down low, charged forward, trying to bowl her over, but the woman nimbly side-stepped the charge then stepped right past the orc. As the blades disengaged, she flipped her grip around and stabbed out behind her, severing the creature's spine.

"Defenses falling!" Tred cried, running to join the battered Wulfgar and nearly getting his head torn off by one of Aegis-fang's wild swings. "We're backing to the hole!"

Wulfgar grunted his accord and swiped away yet another orc, then fell back behind the rubble barricade.

A worg came flying over it, leaping for his throat.

Catti-brie, her bow retrieved, took the wolf in the flank, the powerfully enchanted arrow throwing it out to the side, quite dead.

She looked up to see a horde of others charging in, though, and expected they would be overwhelmed quickly. She heard a noise behind her on the ground and turned to see old Withegroo, his features gaunt and strained. He could hardly stand, his body trembling from the exertion of even being upright, but the look in his eyes was not dull, and he moved his lips with determination wrought of sheer rage.

His fireball stopped the charge of worg and orc, and brought the defenders a little more time, but the exertion cost Withegroo dearly. He managed a smile as he launched his devastating bomb, then he looked at Catti-brie and winked.

He fell over, and before she even went to him the woman knew that he was dead.

Withegroo's blast had defeated the charge of one flank, but the orcs did not scramble from the magical display. The dwindling defenders backed and backed some more, and when they heard horns blowing in the south they knew it was more orcs joining the already overwhelming odds.

Or were those horns some other signal? the defenders had to wonder, as the press suddenly lightened. They were practically backed to the end of the line by then, with several already forced down into the tiny tunnels.

The defenders of Shallows regrouped in a tight ring and battled on. Before long, Catti-brie and Wulfgar were back to their original defensive position, and this time with few orcs standing before them.

Still the horns blew in the south, and as the fighting subsided, Wulfgar dared to run to the highest mound he could find and peered out that way.

"What in the Nine Hells?" he called.

Tred, Catti-brie, and a few others joined him, and their incredulity was no less intense. There, rolling north and pulled by a strange looking team of more than twenty straggly mules, came a huge wooden totem. It was a gigantic statue of an orc face, but with a singular, grotesque eye.

"Gruumsh," Tred McKnuckles said. He spat upon the ground as if the mere mention of the ore god put a foul taste in his mouth. "They're bringing their clerics up," he reasoned. "A ceremony for their final victory, I'm guessin.’”

The orcs that had been battling only moments before, filled the field to the south of the town, all pointing and cheering, many falling to their knees, prostrating themselves before the image of then' revered, and feared, god.

Across the ravine, Drizzt heard the horns, though from his low vantage point creeping in on the giants' position, he couldn't see what the fuss was about. Even the giants standing up above him were talking excitedly, confused and pointing out to the south.

Drizzt spotted Guenhwyvar across the way, moving in for an attack. He caught the cat's attention with a wave of his hand, and motioned for her to hold her position. He looked around, wondering how he could find a better vantage point without being seen. He started out but stopped almost immediately. The giants, not so startled anymore, were conversing angrily. He couldn't understand very much of what they were saying, but he recognized that they were somewhat put off by the orcs—he heard something about the orc priests stealing all their glory.

A flicker of hope came to Drizzt that perhaps their enemies were about to split ranks, though he knew it was likely far too late to make any real difference.

The driver, huddled under heavy robes, cracked his whip above the long line of pulling beasts, and the dirty and shaggy creatures tugged harder, propelling the huge wagon and great statue of Gruumsh One-Eye, god of the orcs, along the sloping and rocky ground.

All of the orcs had turned their attention from Shallows, and the tiny pocket of hopelessly outnumbered defenders, to this new arrival. They bowed and fell to their knees in droves beside the wagon's course.

"What is this?" one orc commander asked the leader of the army, Urlgen, son of Obould.

Urlgen considered the strange scene with a perfectly confused expression, his tusks chewing at his lips.

"Obould has brought many allies," was all he could say, and all he could think.

Was his father elevating the glory of this attack? Was he tying the attacks directly to some edict of the orc god's?

Urlgen didn't know, and like the rest of his army his movements crept him closer to the great rolling statue. Unlike most of the others, though, Urlgen didn't focus entirely on that idol. He considered the curious team, perhaps the most unkempt and straggly looking team of … of what? Urlgen didn't even really know what the creatures were. Mules? Small oxen? Rothe, perhaps, taken from the corridors of the Underdark?

From there, the unusually smart orc scrutinized the drivers. One was taller and broader than the other, though both were short by orc standards. Perhaps the second—more a passenger than a driver, he seemed—was a child, but Urlgen couldn't really tell, since both wore heavy cloaks that included wide, low cowls.

The wagon rolled to a stop some hundred or so feet from the town, which Urlgen thought rather foolish, since it left them in range of that horrible human woman and her nasty bow. The orc leader glanced back that way, and he did see several of the defenders watching, as were his own minions.

The larger driver stood up and lifted his arms above his head. The sleeves of his cloak slipped down to reveal gnarly hands and a hairy forearm that didn't seem very orclike.

Before anyone could truly take note of that, though, the driver grabbed a lever of some kind located on the front of the statue, right below the tusk-filled mouth.

He said something that sounded like, "Hee hee hee," and yanked the lever down.

"Well, here's one less priest for the damned Gruumsh," Catti-brie said with bitter determination.

She lifted Taulmaril and leveled it the driver's way, but Tred grabbed her arm and stayed the shot.

"One won't be makin' any difference," he said, "and something's not right about all this besides."

Catti-brie started to ask what he meant, but in truth she could sense it too. Something about the team and the drivers struck her as odd, even from a distance.

Her eyes widened when she heard the grinding sound that followed the orc shaman's pull of the lever, and they widened some more as the great statue seemed to grow, then split apart, the four sides breaking in the middle and falling out to form four wide planks.

Out onto those planks, from the hollow inside of the statue, ran dwarves—many dwarves—in the full battle array of the unmistakable Gut-busters!

One in particular led the way, wearing black, ridged armor and a helmet with a spike that was half again the height of the dwarf wearing it.

"It's Pwent!" Catti-brie cried.

Even as she spoke, Thibbledorf Pwent leaped out, roaring and flailing. He ducked his head with perfect timing to skewer one orc as he landed atop another, smashing it to the ground. Catti-brie lost sight of him then but winced anyway, for she knew his technique. She knew that he was jostling about wildly atop the orc, his sharpened armor shredding it.

His boys followed with equal abandon, running to the end of a plank and leaping wildly atop the confused throng of orcs. One after another they went, dwarven catapult balls raining death from on high. Even more dwarves appeared a moment later, throwing off camouflaging blankets that someone must have enchanted to make them look like a team of mules, and charging out from the yokes. How many fine targets they found in those first confusing seconds, with so many orcs kneeling on the ground, bowing forward.

The massacre became a fight soon after, but even then the orcs were outmatched. Many were running, caught by surprise, and as was typical for any goblinkin, ranks broke apart at the first sign of retreat.

The dwarven ranks stayed tight and strong and swept toward the town, with groups breaking away at the slightest sign of pursuit to chase off the orcs.

"Ye Battlehammers was always known for yer timing!" Tred McKnuckles cried, then he yelped and leaped aside as a great rock smashed down and bounced past.

"Damn giants again!" the dwarf cried.

Catti-brie ran to the remnants of the northern wall and lifted her bow.

"Move as you shoot!" Wulfgar warned, and indeed, as soon as the first arrow made its way out across the ravine, a volley of great stones came in at the position where the arrow had been fired.

It did Drizzt Do'Urden's heart good to see those telltale arrows sailing across the ravine, but even that good news—that Catti-brie was apparently still fighting—did not distract him from his course. The giants had started their bombardment in full force again, and that, he knew, he could not allow. He called Guenhwyvar into action, then scrambled up to the side of the giants position himself., moving high up on a pile of boulders unnoticed by the behemoths.

The drow advanced without a sound, leaping out and crossing behind one giant, his scimitars slashing hard. He hit the ground running, executing a perfect double stab at the back of another's knee, and kept right on going, around the rocks on the other side.

Giants turned to follow, and one lifted its arms to throw a stone at the fleeing drow.

Instead of executing the throw, the giant caught a flying panther in its face—all six hundred pounds of raking claws. Guenhwyvar went for the eyes, not the kill, and scraped them deep, blinding the giant before leaping aside.

All the giants were scrambling, but Drizzt held no illusions that he and Guenhwyvar could keep them occupied for long. Nor did he think that he could possibly kill many, even any, of them, but maybe he and the panther could blind a few or get a few to chase them away.

He came back around the rocks the same way he had gone in and did indeed catch the closest giant off its guard, managing another few nasty stabs before scrambling the other way. The pursuit was better this time, though—was too good — with giants flanking both ways and another pair pursuing directly.

Drizzt moved to put his back to a wall, ready to make a final, desperate stand.

The nearest giant charged in.

Before it got to Drizzt, though, the behemoth winced and grabbed at its neck. As it spun around, the dark elf clearly saw the feathered fletching of a pair of arrows buried in the giant's neck. Drizzt's jaw dropped open when the brute moved just a bit to the side.

There, up above him to the north, sat a pair of elves astride flying horses.

The giants scrambled.

Drizzt rushed out to the side, stabbed yet another, then kept on running, leaping past some boulders. Few giants paid him any heed, though. A couple off to the side were still futilely trying to keep up with Guenhwyvar as the panther leaped all around them. Several of the others were moving fast for more rocks — to throw at the elves, obviously.

Drizzt couldn't let them get organized. He moved to the rock pile on the west. When one giant stooped and reached for a stone, he leaped out, slashing the behemoth hard across its fingers. The giant retracted the hand, and it, and a companion, gave chase on the drow.

This time Drizzt didn't turn and didn't slow, leading the giants off and yelling for Guenhwyvar to do the same across the way. The drow ranger saw a stone go flying into the air and heard the shriek of a pegasus a moment later, though when he looked to the north, both elves were still up there, flying around and firing their bows.

Drizzt sprinted out across some open ground, often glancing back at the destroyed town, hoping to catch some sign of his friends.

He saw nothing definitive, just a swarm of orcs charging for the town. Drizzt had to turn away, running to the north with a pair of giants close behind him.

"We got no time!" Thibbledorf Pwent cried, charging into Shallows. "Gather up yer things and yer wounded and follow me to the wagon!"

"We need a cleric!" Wulfgar yelled at him. "At once! We've wounded too badly hurt to be moved!"

"Then ye might need to leave "em!" Pwent yelled back..

"One of them is Bruenor Battlehammer!" Wulfgar yelled back.

"Cleric! " yelled Pwent. "And get the one on the wagon with the green beard," the battlerager cried to another dwarf. "He's got more tricks than a den o' drunken wizards."

"Get 'em moving!" another dwarf cried. "Get the wounded on the wagon and get all the dead dwarfs ye can up there with 'em. We're not for leaving Battlehammers behind for the buzzards or the orcs!"

"How did ye find us so fast?" Catti-brie started to ask Pwent, but she stopped and smiled when she saw the obvious source of the daring rescue. The second driver, the little one, whom she recognized clearly once his cowl was pulled back. "Regis," the woman said.

With her heart busting, she moved to hug him but backed away quickly when she saw him wince as she put pressure against his arm.

"Someone had to feed the wolf," the halfling said with a sheepish shrug.

Catti-brie bent low and kissed him on the head, and Regis blushed deeply.

And they were moving, a whirlwind of scrambling dwarf warriors buzzing like a swarm of angry bees around the exhausted defenders of Shallows, a ragtag group. Of the hundred humans and twenty-six dwarves who had begun the defense of the town, less than a score were leaving of their own strength, and only another ten, Bruenor among them, were still drawing breath at all.

Hardly a victory.

CHAPTER 29 WHERE ROADS MEET AND ROADS DIVERGE

They ran in flanking lines left and right of the main wagons. Others pulled hard at the largest wagon—the orc god statue discarded—that bore the wounded, including King Bruenor Battlehammer. On the cart with him rode Regis, who was too injured to do much of anything else, and Pikel Bouldershoulder, the doo-dad, who used his enchanted berries and roots on Bruenor's wounds.

"He'll draw out the sickness," Ivan assured Wulfgar and Tred as they ran along behind that wagon. "Me brother's got some tricks, he does."

Wulfgar nodded grimly and took heart in the words, for Catti-brie had told him a short while before that Bruenor did seem to be resting more easily.

"Ain't that that's worrying me," Tred put in. "We're seeing orc sign all about, and if they come on now. .»

"They will be without their giant friends, who were left on the other side of the ravine," Wulfgar insisted.

"True enough," Tred admitted, though his dour expression did not brighten, "but I'm thinking we'll be finding a tougher fight with them orcs, even with yer boys from Mithral Hall here, when them orcs ain't so surprised that yer boys from Mithral Hall're here!"

There really wasn't much that Wulfgar could say against such logic.

He had seen the orc force, and he knew that those legions, despite being scattered and with many slaughtered outside of Shallows, would still prove overwhelming to this contingent in a level fight. Even as they had begun the run the previous day, they had all known that their only real hope was that the orcs had been too scattered to regroup in time to catch them before they reached the safety of Mithral Hall, or at least before they met up with the dwarven army rolling out of that fortress.

But already the signs were showing their hopes to be in vain. All through the night—in which the dwarves, utilizing more of Pikel's wondrous berries, had kept moving—they had heard the calls of worgs, left and right, shadowing them. Earlier the second day, they had caught sight of a dust cloud rising in the north, not so far behind, and they knew that they were being pursued.

Pwent had proposed a possible scenario to them that morning. The battlerager figured that the orc worg-riders would flank and circle in front of the dwarves, trying to slow their run, thus giving the pursuing main force time to catch up and overwhelm them. The dwarves had decided that if such a blockade had been formed, they would lower their heads and blast straight through it.

Wulfgar could only hope that it didn't come to that. They barely had enough to take turns pulling the wagon of wounded, and Pwent and his boys were reaching the end of their tolerance. Pikel's berries were amazing indeed, but they did not provide magical strength. They merely allowed the body to draw on its deeper resources. After the run to the north, the desperate fight, and the beginning of the run back to the south, Wulfgar could plainly see that those reserves were reaching their end. Even worse, those who had come from the prolonged defense of Shallows, himself included, were all carrying grievous wounds.

Another fight would likely be the end of all of them and at the least would eliminate any hope Wulfgar had of getting his beloved father back to Mithral Hall alive.

And so that afternoon, when scouts reported a growing cloud of dust to the west, the barbarian moved to the wagon to join Catti-brie, Regis, and Bruenor.

"That'll mark the end of it," Catti-brie remarked, staring out at the cloud.

Her demeanor, so removed from the ever-optimistic presence that Wulfgar had always known, caught him off guard and surprised Regis as well.

"We'll fight them and beat them!" Regis replied. "And if more catch us, we'll fight them, too!"

"Indeed," Wulfgar agreed. "I would not see Aegis-fang in the hands of an orc, even if that means I must kill every orc in all the North. And I will see Bruenor back to Mithral Hall, where he will find his strength anew and resume the throne that is so rightfully his."

The words were empowering to both Regis and Catti-brie, and their appreciative looks to Wulfgar became grins and even laughter when Pikel Bouldershoulder chimed in with an enthusiastic "Oo oi!"

The dwarves closed ranks around the wagons, though they maintained their swift pace. Pwent began directing his charges, moving his most seasoned fighters to the delicate areas of defense, and calling out to his boys to be ready. At one point, he moved beside the wagon.

"There'll be a few hunnerd of 'em, judging by what me scouts're seeing," the battlerager explained. He added with an exaggerated wink, "Nothing me and me boys can't handle."

Wulfgar nodded, as did the others, but they all knew the truth of the matter. Being intercepted by several hundred orcs would be bad enough, but even if they could indeed win out against such odds, they would find themselves caught by an equal or larger group from behind because of the inevitable delay.

"Take up your bow," Wulfgar bade Catti-brie as he handed her Taulmaril. "Shoot well."

"Perhaps T could go out under a flag of truce and speak with them," Regis offered, pointedly pulling the enchanted ruby pendant over his shirt collar.

Wulfgar shook his head.

"They'd have ye dead even if ye managed to snare a few o' them with yer lies," Catti-brie remarked.

"Promises, not lies," Regis corrected.

He shrugged helplessly and looked down at the ruby then tucked it away.

The dwarven ranks tightened. It was obvious that they had been spotted by the intercepting force, and their choices were few. A turn to the east would likely put them into another group of orcs, and to stop and try to form some semblance of defense might bring the pursuing orcs upon them as well.

They plowed ahead, gripping weapons in one hand, wagon yokes in the other.

"We gotta make that ridge afore 'em!" Thibbledorf Pwent cried to his fellows, pointing ahead to some higher ground.

The dwarves responded by lowering their aching shoulders even more and charging on. They reached the base of the ridge and started up the slope, hardly slowing.

But they didn't get there first.

"The wing is not broken, but it is bruised badly and will not carry Sunset for any distance," Innovindil told Tarathiel when he and Sunrise returned to her in the mountain cave, some miles north east of the place where they had battled the giants.

Even with the glancing hit by the thrown rock, they had managed to outdistance the pursuing giants and had been fortunate to find a cave where they could put up for the time being.

"The giants have given up the chase, I believe," Tarathiel replied. "They will not find us."

"But neither will we get back to the Moonwood anytime soon," Innovindil reasoned, "or at least, not both of us."

Her expression as she finished was as clear a signal to Tarathiel that she wanted him to climb onto Sunrise and fly off for home as if she had spoken the words directly.

"I am not certain that our report to our people would be complete enough to properly prepare them for what is to come," he replied somberly.

"What have you seen?"

Tarathiel's expression held a grim edge.

"They are crawling out of their holes," he told her, "all to the north and the west. The orcs and goblins are rising as one, and we have seen that the giants, too, are with them. I fear that the force that sacked the town of Shallows is but a small portion of what we will discover."

"Then all the more reason for you to fly to our people."

Tarathiel looked to his mount and seemed, for just a moment, to be leaning that way, but then he looked back at his companion and stood resolute.

"I'll not leave you," he said. "The elves of the Moonwood will not be caught off their guard, whether I fly there or not."

Innovindil started to argue but changed her mind almost immediately. She did not want to be left out there alone, however brave she might sound. She did not know the region as did Tarathiel, and she truly feared for Sunrise. Though the pegasus would survive the wound, it had been so valiant in holding its position above the giants through the pain and shock that the elf had no intention of allowing Sunrise to do anything but heal, even if protecting the pegasus was at the cost of her own life. She knew that Tarathiel felt the same way.

"And we have something else to learn, and now may be our only chance to do so," Tarathiel added after a short pause.

"You believe that the dark elf escaped the fight with the giants," Innovindil reasoned.

"It is possible that Ellifain is out there, as well."

"It is probable that Ellifain is dead," said Innovindil, and Tarathiel could only nod.

Initial shock, the adrenaline of an approaching, desperate battle, fast shifted to confusion among the ranks of the battleragers and the others in the fleeing caravan, for there, on the ridge before them, stood dwarves— a host of dwarves—and arrayed with the colors not of Mithral Hall, but with the axe symbol of Mirabar.

"Who are ye, and what're ye about?" the lead dwarf cried, and he lifted his helm back off his face.

"Torgar!" Regis cried, surely recognizing the dwarf.

A perplexed expression came over the dwarf's face, and he motioned to his fellows to spread wide, left and right. He, along with several others, came down to the ragtag group.

"Well, yer King Bruenor's got our weapons, and so's Mithral Hall, whatever his fate," Torgar proclaimed when Wulfgar and the others filled him in on the desperate battle and the retreat to Mithral Hall. "We come out to ask King Bruenor for his friendship, and now I'm thinking we can prove our own to him and his. Ye just keep on yer run and me and mine'll follow ye close."

"Ye let me and me own run with ye, Torgar o' Mirabar," Thibbledorf Pwent cut in as he stepped forward, showing his ridged, bloodstained armor in all its gory glory. "We give them orcs a reason to run!"

"Luck has shone upon us," Wulfgar whispered to Catti-brie a moment later, as the five hundred reinforcements found positions around the retreating caravan.

They both looked to Bruenor and to Pikel, still tirelessly tending the dwarf king and the other wounded. Apparently sensing their looks, Pikel turned to regard them and offered a wink and a hopeful nod.

Catti-brie couldn't help but smile but then couldn't help but look back to the north.

"You're thinking of Drizzt," Wulfgar observed.

"As soon as we get Bruenor back to Mithral Hall, we'll head out to find him," Regis said, joining in on the conversation.

Catti-brie shook her head with even greater resolve. "He will see to himself and trust that we will see to our safety and the security of Mithral Hall. When his job is done out there, he will come home."

Both Wulfgar and Regis looked at her with surprise, but both inevitably agreed. Without information to the contrary, they knew they had to trust in Drizzt, and in truth, who in all the world was better suited to survive in the hostile environment of the orc-infested North? More practically, none of them were really fit to head back out. Certainly Regis was in no shape to be walking a dangerous road anytime soon.

Catti-brie continued to stare to the north, and without even realizing it, she began chewing nervously on her bottom lip.

Wulfgar grabbed her forearm and gave a gentle, comforting squeeze.

"Elastul told you?" Nanfoodle asked Shoudra when the two met up in the corridor of their building a few nights later.

"He instructed me to go with you," Shoudra replied, her tone making it clear that she was none too pleased with the order.

"He has erred and continues to do so," the little gnome said. "First he chases Bruenor off, then imprisons Torgar, and now. ."

"This is hardly the same thing," said Shoudra.

"Is it so different? Will the remaining dwarves in Mirabar be pleased when they learn of our antics in Mithral Hall? Do we even have a hope of succeeding there, given that more than four hundred of Mirabar's dwarves will precede our arrival?"

"Elastul is counting on just that fact to gain us the confidence of Bruenor and his kin."

"To what end? Treachery?" asked the glum gnome.

Shoudra started to respond, but just shrugged. "We will see what we find when we arrive in Mithral Hall," she said after a moment's reflection.

Nanfoodle considered her words and her demeanor for a moment, then his face brightened.

"I plan to follow your lead in the cavern of Clan Battlehammer," he said, "even if that lead diverges from the edicts of Marchion Elastul."

Shoudra looked around cautiously, her expression bidding the gnome to speak no more of such foolishness.

In her own heart, though, the Sceptrana did not disagree. Elastul's edict had been direct and simple; Go to Mithral Hall and check on the traitor dwarves, and while they're there, do some serious damage to their rival's operations.

Better, Shoudra thought, that they go to Mithral Hall to reach out to King Bruenor through Torgar Hammerstriker and the others. After the disaster that had befallen Mirabar, they might find a new and stronger alliance with their fellow mining city, one that would benefit them all.

She could only sigh and wish things were different, though, for she knew Elastul well enough to understand the absurdity of even hoping that she could realize such a outcome.