And off flew Tazmikella to the walls of Dark Arrow Keep.
In the lone bright spot, the singular force holding the shocked and disorganized hordes of Many-Arrows in any semblance of a fighting posture, was their vicious leader. Bodies piled around Warlord Hartusk, his flaming sword marking the center, the rallying point, of the dwindling but still enormous goblinkin and giantkind forces. Even in the midst of a horrendous slaughter of his people, the orc leader vowed to fight on, and rallied those around him to feats of fury that held the enemies at bay.
His position was not unnoticed.
Bruenor Battlehammer similarly formed the center of the dwarven press, standing tall and singing at the top of his lugs, urging his boys to get to the ugly warlord so that they could at last extinguish his flaming greatsword.
Bruenor heard the flap of great leathery wings before he saw the copper dragon Tazmikella moving up behind him and just above.
“He is an ugly one,” Drizzt called down to his red-bearded friend from the dragon’s back. Catti-brie sat behind him, her arms around his waist. “I was thinking that perhaps I should go over and put an end to Warlord Hartusk.”
“Bah, elf, but ye leave that dog for me!” said Bruenor, and Drizzt smiled wide.
“He was hoping you would say that,” Catti-brie said to her father, and before Bruenor could begin to decipher her sly tone and jovial mood, Tazmikella flew past, one great clawed foot reaching down to scoop up Bruenor and carry him away.
All around, surprised dwarves howled in shock, but then, sorting it out, cheered instead.
A soldier from Everlund rolled and squirmed down to the ground, disemboweled by the mighty sword of Hartusk. The orc warlord stood tall, sword upraised in one hand, his other fist upraised as well. He roared in victory and told his minions that the tide of battle would turn.
But before the orcs and others could respond with cheers of their own, a dragon glided in to hover above the great orc, and the monsters around Hartusk cowered and fled.
Surely the wyrm could have killed Hartusk there where he stood, but she did not. Instead, she swooped down lower and deposited her cargo, a dwarf held in one claw, on the field in front of the warlord.
An orc lifted its bow to shoot the dwarf, but one of the dragon’s three riders had his arrow nocked first and shot that orc dead with a silver-streaking arrow that launched the ugly archer into the air.
On the ground below Tazmikella, Bruenor Battlehammer straightened and dusted himself off.
“Been waitin’ a long time for this,” the dwarf said. He adjusted his one-horned helm, then pulled a mug of ale out from behind his burnished magical shield. He lifted it in toast.
“To yer ugly head bouncing about the ground,” he said, then drained the flagon with one great gulp.
Hartusk growled and lifted his greatsword.
Bruenor laughed at him and lifted his many-notched axe.
They came together like a pair of raging giants, Hartusk pressing hard with great sweeps of his longer blade.
But Bruenor was hearing the song of Clangeddin then, his arms swelling with strength, his heart lifted in the thrill of battle. Again and again, Hartusk’s sword slammed against the shield, but even that mighty weapon in the hands of the powerful orc could not mar the image of the foaming mug emblazoned on the buckler that had twice known the fires of Gauntlgrym’s Forge.
The orc’s fury played out, the warlord’s swing slowing after a dozen-dozen sweeps.
And now came Bruenor, leaping ahead, inside the orc’s reach, bashing Hartusk with his axe, denting the warlord’s mighty armor and driving him back, step by step.
On one such step back, Hartusk retreated farther and tucked his sword in tight. Then he thrust it ahead powerfully, and roared in victory, knowing that the dwarf could not bring his mighty shield across to block and could dodge neither left nor right.
But Hartusk did not hit.
Bruenor leaped and rolled into the air, his right side thrown back. Spinning a sidelong circuit all the way around, he held there, defying Toril’s pull, seemingly floating like a condor on mountain updrafts—or like the dragons watching from above.
Around he went, and for Hartusk, time seemed to slow, agonizingly, for as the dwarf at last came around, that mighty axe led the way, and with his arms and sword extended, with the dwarf above that thrusting blade, Warlord Hartusk had no defense.
The wish of Bruenor’s toast had come to pass.
EPILOGUE
HE WEREN’T NO OBOULD, TO BE SURE,” BRUENOR SAID AGAINST THE stream of huzzahs and heigh-ho’s that came his way. He sat with his peers around a small fire in front of the gates of Dark Arrow Keep.
With Hartusk fallen, the battle had quickly disintegrated into a hodgepodge of small pockets of fighting, and usually with those warriors of Many-Arrows more interested in running away than in fighting.
Many orcs and other monsters did get off that field, indeed, tens of thousands, running north into the mountains.
“Might that they’ll be comin’ back,” King Emerus warned.
“Aye, but we should chase ’em and kill ’em to death,” King Harnoth agreed.
“Tear Dark Arrow Keep down, log by log,” Bruenor declared. “And float them logs down the Surbrin. Me boys’ll take ’em for burning in Mithral Hall.”
“Yer boys?” King Emerus said slyly, and he glanced at King Connerad, who looked up at that surprising remark.
Bruenor looked from king to king, then laughed heartily. “Nah,” he said. “Connerad’s boys. Me place’s done here, me friends. I got a road I’m needin’ to walk.”
“Back to Icewind Dale?” King Connerad asked, but Bruenor shook his head. “I’ll tell ye soon enough.” He motioned to the side then, noting the approach of Drizzt and the other Companions of the Hall. He knew where they had been, with whom they had met.
“What’re ye knowin’, elf?” Bruenor asked as Drizzt arrived.
“The orcs will not return,” Drizzt replied. “Not soon, at least, and under no king or warlord. Lorgru, the son of Obould, has many of them now under his command, and that one had no designs of conquest.” He looked over at Sinnafein as he finished, and the elf nodded knowingly. Lorgru’s mercy toward her had started this war, after all.
“He ain’t coming back, no matter his designs!” King Harnoth said, and all the others, Bruenor included, nodded at that demand.
Drizzt bowed to diffuse the sudden tension.
“Hartusk usurped the throne from Lorgru, who wanted no war,” Drizzt explained.
“And how might ye be knowin’ all this, Mister Drizzt Do’Urden?” Ragged Dain asked.
“From a friend.”
“A friend?” King Harnoth asked suspiciously.
“A friend who brought dragons,” Drizzt replied without hesitation, and that set the young king of Adbar back on his haunches.
The drow started to elaborate, but he stopped suddenly, a curious look coming over him. He looked to Catti-brie first, and his expression gave her pause.
“What is it?” she asked with great concern.
“Drizzt?” Regis added.
But the drow couldn’t hear them at that moment. A song was in his head, a spell actually, calling to him. He walked away from the small fire, moving among many campfires, to the curious looks from dwarves and elves and humans.
The Companions of the Hall and many others gave chase, calling to him.
Finally he stopped in the midst of a wide area cleared of bodies and camps. Catti-brie rushed to him, but he lifted his arms to her and motioned her back. The song was loud now in his mind, deafeningly so, urgently so, begging release.
And so Drizzt Do’Urden began to sing. His arms lifted up to the side and hung outstretched. His head went back, his words aimed at the sky above.
To the gasps of the onlookers, Drizzt floated up from the ground. A glow came about him, like faerie fire at first, but then intensifying.
“Drizzt!” his friends shouted—except for Catti-brie
, who was crying and laughing all at once, overwhelmed as she believed she had solved the mystery. She had thought herself the Chosen of Mielikki, but how silly that seemed now, considering the drow floating in the air in front of her.
Beams of light shot from Drizzt’s hands, reaching up to the Darkening. Subtle and soft at first, they gathered in strength and multitude, and now the flashes came so quickly they couldn’t be counted. Into the sky they soared, striking the roiling blackness, and there, fires erupted and lightning flashes shot the night, as the great battle roared.
“Mielikki,” Catti-brie said, tears streaking her cheeks, and the sheer glory and weight of the experience drove her to her knees.
Though he was on a hillock far away, Tiago Baenre couldn’t miss the spectacle of Drizzt throwing shards of brilliant light up into the sky. The young noble drow ducked behind a bush, its leaves meager to nonexistent, as with all of the flora in the Silver Marches this year. He watched with amazement, and anger.
He grasped the scraggly branches, mesmerized by the mounting display.
“We will have him soon enough,” promised a voice behind him, a voice so unexpected that Tiago nearly leaped out of his boots, and spun around with his sword drawn and shield spiraling out to a larger size.
“What are you doing here?” he asked when he recognized the speaker.
“I came to find you,” Doum’wielle lied. She had come here to find another, of course, but Khazid’hea had sensed a Baenre House emblem, the residue of Tiago’s long float back to Faerûn. For that emblem, like all of House Baenre’s marks, had been fashioned of a stone from the Faerzress, the same Underdark region, with its magical emanations, that had granted Khazid’hea its sentience.
“I did not summon you,” Tiago barked at her. “Where is Ravel, and my wife?”
“I know not,” Doum’wielle answered. “They were chased from the Rauvin ford back to the south. I was cast into the river and washed all the way to the Surbrin. My sword led me to my father, and from there, on the slope of the mountain above the dwarves’ home, we came north in search of you.”
Tiago looked at her with clear doubt. How could she have known that he would be up here, or even alive? He lowered his sword, and Doum’wielle moved closer.
“You should be glad that I have come, for I can prove to be of great value to you, up here on the World Above,” she said, and there was a bit of tease in her soft voice.
“You are worthless, and worthless to me.”
“You should rethink that,” Doum’wielle said.
“You dare question me?”
“I am not worthless to you, noble son of House Baenre,” she said, standing tall. “I can move among the folk of the surface easily, and besides …” She moved a bit closer. “I can offer you something the women of Menzoberranzan cannot.”
“Do tell,” Tiago said when she was standing right in front of him.
“Respect,” Doum’wielle said.
Tiago feigned anger at that, and managed a scowl, but Doum’wielle could see that she had gotten through to him a bit, at least, though whether because of the practical benefit she offered or the emotional one, she could not tell.
It didn’t matter, she decided. Because she hated him in any case, and needed him to help with her quest, even as he thought she was aiding him in his own.
Even the dwarves were crying soon, all the onlookers on the field overwhelmed by the spectacle.
And the stars peeked through, shining on the Silver Marches for the first time in so many months.
And still it went on, the shards of brilliance leaping from Drizzt to join in the fight. And still he sang, though he felt as if his very life-force was engaged in this perilous struggle now, the Lightening against the Darkening.
It went on through most of that midsummer night, which for the first time in so long became true night once more, with stars and a full silvery Selûne and her Tears bathing the land.
It ended with a whisper, a final, gasping note, and then the spell was broken and Drizzt fell back to the ground and crumpled into a heap. His friends ran to him, thinking him dead and crying to Mielikki.
In the foothills to the west, the normally unflappable Jarlaxle had to slap his hand over his mouth to stop from crying out with laughter. “Brilliant!” he said. “They think it their goddess!”
As the Darkening above fully dissipated, Kimmuriel broke the mental connection he had enacted between Drizzt and Gromph Baenre, wherein the archmage had used the unsuspecting Drizzt as a surrogate for his powerful enchantment, a spell to defeat Tsabrak’s.
“I know not what to say,” Jarlaxle remarked, shaking his head.
It took Gromph a long time to steady himself after the exertion of that spell, as great a casting as he had ever performed. He opened his eyes and stepped back from the psionicist, closed his huge spellbook, and let his imposing stare fall over Jarlaxle.
“A feint within a feint within a feint, if ever I’ve seen one,” said Jarlaxle, who couldn’t remain speechless for long, after all. “All witnessed Drizzt casting the enchantment, and all believed it the power of his goddess flowing through him. The task is far removed from the caster. Brilliant. Why, Brother, you are beginning to remind me of … me!”
Gromph arched an eyebrow, and didn’t have to utter the threat it signified.
“But surely you understand my confusion, Archmage,” Jarlaxle said with proper deference. “Matron Mother—”
“Damn Quenthel to the Nine Hells where devils can play with her,” Gromph growled back, and both Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel fell back a step.
“The true Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan sleeps in the arms of Minolin Fey Baenre this day, awaiting my return,” Gromph explained. “Quenthel, all of the city, will learn that truth soon enough.”
Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel looked to each other with surprise.
The massive pickets of Dark Arrow Keep came tumbling down under the brilliant sunshine of the following day, the dwarves happily carrying them to the Surbrin and tossing them in. Riders had already left for Mithral Hall, and the dwarves at the Surbrin Bridge would be ready to receive the firewood.
The meeting inside the audience chamber of Dark Arrow Keep that day was limited to the four dwarf kings, for this was Delzoun business most serious.
“Mithral Hall’s for Connerad,” Bruenor asserted as soon as the formalities, including several hearty ales from Bruenor’s magical shield, were out of the way. “Even if meself was to stay, it’d not be me place to challenge that what was rightfully and properly given.”
“Always’ll be a place for Little Arr Arr in Citadel Felbarr!” King Emerus assured the red-bearded dwarf, to a chorus of huzzahs and clanging mugs.
“Bah, but his place is Mithral Hall, and don’t ye doubt it!” King Connerad demanded.
“Me place’s in the west,” Bruenor corrected solemnly, and the flagons drifted lower, and the three kings stared at him somberly. “And I’m hopin’ that yerselves, me friends, will afford me the boys I’m needin’ to get to that place.”
“Gauntlgrym,” Connerad said quietly.
“Aye,” Bruenor replied. “Damned drow elfs got it, but they ain’t for holding it.”
“We should be sendin’ word to Mirabar,” King Harnoth offered. “Aye, and Icewind Dale, course.”
“How many boys?” King Emerus asked.
“All ye can spare,” Bruenor replied. “It’s Gauntlgrym, and the throne’s there, and the Forge—ah, but she’s the stuff o’ legend!”
“There were rumors that ye found it,” said Emerus.
“More’n rumors. Found it twice—ye see me shield and axe? Been through the Forge o’ Gauntlgrym, and that forge’s burnin’ with the power of a great beast o’ fire. It’s all that ye heared, boys, and more, I tell ye.”
He lifted his flagon and the others brought theirs up beside it, and the four dwarf kings looked into each other’s eyes and hearts, and knew then that Gauntlgrym would be returned to the line of Delzoun.
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Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf Page 39
