The Thousand Orcs th-1

by Robert Salvatore

  "Not much more than I knew about Mithral Hall when first we went a' lookin'," Bruenor admitted with a snort. "Less even. But it'll be an adventure worth making if we're finding the city. O, the treasures, I tell ye! And metal as good as anything ye've e'er seen!"

  He went on and on about the legendary crafted pieces of the Gauntlgrym dwarves, about weapons of great power, armor that could turn any blade, and shields that could stop dragonfire.

  Drizzt wasn't really listening to the specifics, though he was watching every movement from the fiery dwarf. By the drow's estimation, the adventure would be well worth the risks and hardships whether or not they ever found Gauntlgrym. He hadn't seen Bruenor this animated and excited in years, not since the first foray to find Mithral Hall.

  As he looked around at the others, he saw the eager gleam in Catti-brie 's green eyes and the sparkle in Wulfgar's icy blue orbs—further confirmation to him that his barbarian friend was well on the road to recovery from the trauma of spending six years at the clawed hands of the demon Errtu. The fact that Wulfgar had taken on the responsibilities of husband and father, Delly and the baby never far from him even in their present camp, was all the more reassuring. Even Regis, who had no doubt heard this tale many times already along the road, leaned in, drawn to the dwarf's tales of dungeons deep and treasures magical.

  It occurred to Drizzt that he should ask Bruenor why they all had to go to Mirabar, where they wouldn't likely be welcomed. Couldn't Dagnabbit go in alone or with a small group, less conspicuously? The drow held his thoughts, though, understanding it well enough. He hadn't been with Bruenor in Icewind Dale when the first reports of antagonism from Mirabar had been sent to him from King Gandalug. He and Catti-brie had been sailing the Sword Coast at that time, but when they had found Bruenor back in Icewind Dale, the dwarf had pointed it out more than once, a simmering source of anger.

  Openly, the Council of Sparkling Stones, the ruling council of Mirabar, comprised of dwarves and men, spoke warmly of Mithral Hall, welcoming their brothers of Clan Battlehammer back to the region. Privately, though, Bruenor had heard over the years many reports of more subtle derogatory comments from sources close to the Council of Sparkling Stones and Elastul, the Marchion of Mirabar. Some of the plots that had caused Gandalug headaches had been traced back to Mirabar.

  Bruenor was going there for no better reason than to look some of the folk of Mirabar straight in the eye, to make a proclamation that the Eighth King of Mithral Hall had returned as the Tenth King, and he was one a bit more clued in to the subterfuge of the present day politics of the wild north.

  Drizzt just sat back and watched his friends' continuing huddle. The adventure had begun, it seemed, and it was one the drow believed he would truly enjoy.

  Or would he?

  For something else occurred to Drizzt then, a memory quite unexpected. He recalled his first visit to the surface, a supposed great adventure alongside his fellow dark elves. Images of the slaughter of the surface elves swirled through his thoughts, culminating in the memory of a little elf girl he had smeared with her own mother's blood, to make it appear as if she too had been mortally wounded. He had saved her that terrible day, and that massacre had, in truth, been the first real steps for Drizzt away from his vile kinfolk.

  And, all these years later, he had killed that same elf child. He winced as he saw Ellifain again, across the room in the pirate cavern complex, mortally wounded and pleased by the thought that in sacrificing herself, she had taken Drizzt with her. On a logical level, the drow could surely understand that nothing that had happened that day was his fault, that he could not have foreseen the torment that would follow that rescued child all these decades.

  But on another level, a deeper level, the fateful fight with the anguished Ellifain had struck a deep chord within Drizzt Do'Urden. He had left Icewind Dale full of anticipation for the open road, and indeed, he was glad to be with his friends, traveling the wilds, full of adventure and excitement.

  But the keen edge of a purpose beyond material gain, beyond finding ancient kingdoms and ancient treasure, had been dulled. Drizzt had never fancied himself a major player in the events of the wider world. He had contented himself in the knowledge that his actions served those around him in a positive way. From his earliest days in Menzoberranzan, he had held an innate understand of the fundamental differences between good and evil, and he had always believed that he was a player for the side of justice and goodness.

  But what of Ellifain?

  He continued to listen to the excited talk around him and held fast his consenting smile, assuring himself that he would indeed enjoy this newest adventure.

  He had to believe that.

  There was nothing pretty about the open air city of Mirabar. Squat stone buildings and a few towers sat inside a square stone wall. Everything about the place spoke of efficiency and control, a no-nonsense approach to getting their work done.

  To the sensibilities of a dwarf like Bruenor, that made Mirabar a place to be admired to a point, but to Drizzt and Catti-brie as they approached the city's northern gate, Mirabar seemed an unadorned blotch, uninteresting and unremarkable.

  "Give me Silverymoon," Drizzt remarked to the woman as they walked along to the left of the dwarven caravan.

  "Even Menzoberranzan's a prettier sight," Catti-brie replied, and Drizzt could only agree.

  The guards at the north gate seemed an apt reflection of Mirabar's dour attitude. Four humans stood in pairs on opposite ends of sturdy metallic doors, halberds set on the ground and held vertically before them, silver armor gleaming in the early morning sun. Bruenor recognized the crest emblazoned on their tower shields, the royal badge of Mirabar, a deep red double-bladed axe with a pointed haft and a flaring, flat base, set on a black field. The approach of a huge caravan of dwarves, a veritable army, surely shook them all, but to their credit, they held their posture perfect, eyes straight ahead, faces impassive.

  Bruenor brought his wagon around, moving to the front of the caravan, Pwent's Gutbusters running to keep their protective guard to either flank.

  "Bring her right up afore 'em," Bruenor instructed his driver, Dagnabbit.

  The younger, ye How-bearded dwarf gave a gap-toothed grin and urged his team on faster, but the Mirabar guards didn't blink.

  The wagon skidded to a stop short of the closed doors and Bruenor stood up tall (relatively speaking) and put his hands on his hips.

  "State your business. State your name," came a curt instruction from the inner guard on the right.

  "Me business is with yer Council o' Sparkling Stones," Bruenor answered. "I'll be tellin' it to them alone."

  "You will answer the appointed gate guard of Mirabar, visitor," the inner guard on the left hand side of the doors demanded.

  "Ye think?" Bruenor asked. "And ye're wantin' me name? Bruenor Battlehammer's the name, ye durned fool. King Bruenor Battlehammer. Now ye go and run that name to yer council and we'll be seeing if they're to talk to me or not."

  The guards tried to hold their posture and calm demeanor, but they did glance over at each other, hastily.

  "Ye heared o' me?" Bruenor asked them. "Ye heared o' Mithral Hall?"

  A moment later, one of the guards turned to the guard standing beside him and nodded, and that man produced a small horn from his belt and blew a series of short, sharp notes. A few moments later, a smaller hatch cunningly cut into the large portals, banged open and a tough-looking, many-scarred dwarf wearing a full suit of battered plate mail, ambled out. He too wore the badge of the city, emblazoned on his breastplate, as he carried no shield.

  "Ah, now we're getting somewhere," Bruenor remarked. "And it does me old heart good to see that ye've a dwarf for a boss. Might be that ye' re not as stupid as ye look."

  "Well met. King Bruenor," the dwarf said. "Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker at yer service." He bowed low. his black beard sweeping the ground.

  "Well met, Torgar," Bruenor replied, offering a gracious bow of his own, something
that he, as head of a nearby kingdom, was certainly not required to do. "Yer guards here serve ye well at blocking the way and better as fodder!"

  "Trained 'em meself," Torgar responded.

  Bruenor bowed again. "We're tired and dirty, though the last part ain't so bad, and looking for a night's stay. Might ye be opening the doors for us?"

  Torgar leaned to one side and the other, taking a good look at the caravan, shaking his head doubtfully. His eyes went wide and he shook his head more vehemently when he glanced to his right, to see a human woman standing off to the side beside a drow elf.

  "That ain't gonna happen!" the dwarf cried, pointing a stubby finger Drizzt's way.

  "Bah, ye heared o' that one, and ye know ye have," Bruenor scolded. "The name Drizzt ringing any bells in yer thick skull?"

  "It is or it ain't, and it ain't making no difference anyway," Torgar argued. "No damned drow elf's walkin' into me city. Not while I'm the Topside Commander of the Axe of Mirabar!"

  Bruenor glanced over at Drizzt, who merely smiled and bowed deferentially.

  "Not fair, but fair enough, so he's stayin' out," Bruenor agreed. "What

  about me and me kin?"

  "Where're we to put five hunnerd o' ye?" Torgar asked sincerely, correctly estimating the force's size. He held his large hands out helplessly to the side. "Could send a bunch to the mines, if we let anyone into the mines. And that we don't!"

  "Fair enough," Bruenor replied. "How many can ye take?"

  "Twenty, yerself included," Torgar answered.

  "Then twenty it'll be." Bruenor glanced at Thibbledorf Pwent and nodded. "Just three o' yers," he ordered, "and me and Dagnabbit makes five, and we'll be adding Rumblebelly. ." He paused and looked at Torgar. "Ye got any arguing to do about me bringing a halfling?"

  Torgar shrugged and shook his head.

  "Then Rumblebelly makes six," Bruenor said to Dagnabbit and Pwent. "Tell th' others to pick fourteen merchants wanting to go in with some goods."

  "Better to take me whole brigade," Pwent argued, but Bruenor was hearing none of it.

  The last thing Bruenor wanted in this already tenuous circumstance was to turn a group of Gutbuster battleragers loose on Mirabar. In that event Mithral Hall and Mirabar would likely be at open war before the sun set.

  "Ye pick the two goin' with ye, if ye're planning on going," Bruenor explained to Pwent, "and be quick about it."

  A short while later, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker led the twenty dwarves through Mirabar s strong gate. Bruenor walked at the front of the column, right beside Torgar, looking every bit the road-wise, adventure-hardened King of Mithral Hall spoken of throughout the land. He kept his many-notched, single-bladed axe strapped on his back, but prominently displayed atop the foaming mug shield that was also strapped there. He wore his helmet, with one horn broken away, like a badge of courage. He was a king, but a dwarf king, a creature of pragmatism and action, not a flowered and prettily dressed ruler like those common among the humans and elves.

  "So who's yer marchion these days?" he asked Torgar as they crossed into the city.

  Torgar's eyes widened. "Elastul Raurym," he replied, "though it's no name ye need be thinking of."

  "Ye tell him I'm wanting to talk with him," Bruenor explained, and Torgar's eyes widened even more.

  "He's fillin' his meetings for the spring in the fall, for the summer in the winter," Torgar explained. "Ye can't just walk in and get an audience …"

  Bruenor fixed the dwarf with a strong, stern gaze. "I'm not gettin' an audience," he corrected. "I'm granting one. Now, ye go and get a message to the marchion that I'm here for the talking if he's got anything worth hearing."

  The sudden change in Bruenor's demeanor, now that the gates were behind him, clearly unsettled Torgar. His off-balance surprise fast shifted to a grim posture, eyes narrowing and staring hard at his fellow dwarf.

  Bruenor matched that stare—more than matched it.

  "Ye go an' tell him," he said calmly. "And ye tell yer council and that fool Sceptrana that I telled ye to tell him."

  "Protocol. ."

  "Is for humans, elves, and gnomes," Bruenor interrupted, his voice stern. "I ain't no human, I sure ain't no elf, and I'm no bearded gnome. Dwarf to dwarf, I'm talking here. If yerself came to me Mithral Hall and said ye needed to see me, ye'd be seeing me, don't ye doubt."

  He finished with a nod, and dropped his hand hard on Torgar's shoulder. That little gesture, more than anything previous, seemed to put the sturdy warrior at ease. He nodded, his expression grim, as if he had just been reminded of something very important.

  "I'll be telling him," he agreed, "or at least, Til be tellin' his Hammers to be tellin' him."

  Bruenor smirked at that, and Torgar shuffled. Against the obvious disdain of the dwarf King of Mithral Hall, the inaccessibility of the Marchion of Mirabar to one of his trusted shield dwarf commanders did indeed seem a bit trite.

  "I'll be tellin' him," Torgar said again, with a bit more conviction.

  He led the twenty visitors away then to a place where they could stay the night, a large and unremarkable stone house with several sparsely furnished rooms.

  "Ye can set up yer wagons and goods right outside," Torgar explained. "Many'll be comin' to see ye, I'm sure, 'specially for them little white trinkets ye got."

  He pointed to one of the three wagons that had come in with the

  visitors, its side panels tinkling with many trinkets as it bounced along the rough ground.

  "Scrimshaw," Bruenor explained. "Carved from knucklehead trout. Me little friend here's good at it."

  He motioned to Regis, who blushed and nodded.

  "Ye make any of the stuff on the wagon?" Torgar asked the half ling, and the dwarf seemed genuinely interested.

  "A few pieces."

  "Ye show me in the morning," Torgar asked. "Might that I'll buy a few."

  With that, he nodded and left them, heading off to deliver Bruenor's invitation to the marchion.

  "You turned him over quite well," Regis remarked.

  Bruenor looked at him.

  "He was ready for a fight when we first arrived," the halfling observed. "Now I believe he's thinking of leaving with us when we go."

  It was an exaggeration, of course, but not ridiculously so.

  Bruenor just smiled. He had heard from Dagnabbit of many curses and threats being hurled against Mithral Hall from Mirabar, and surprisingly (or not so, when he thought about it), more seemed to be coming from the dwarves of Mirabar than from the humans. That was why Bruenor had insisted on coming to this city where so many of his kinfolk were living in conditions and climate much more fitting to human sensibilities than to a dwarf's. Let them see a true dwarf king, a legend of their people come to life. Let them hear the words and ways of Mithral Hall. Maybe then, many of Mirabar's dwarves would stop whispering curses against Mithral Hall. Maybe then, the dwarves of Mirabar would remember their heritage.

  "It's troubling ye that they wouldn't let ye in," Catti-brie remarked to Drizzt a short time later, the two of them on a high bluff to the east of the remaining dwarves and the caravan, overlooking the city of Mirabar.

  Drizzt turned to regard her curiously, and saw sympathy etched on his dear friend's face. He realized that Catti-brie was reacting to his own wistful expression.

  "No," he assured her. "There are some things I know I can never change, and so I accept them as they are."

  "Yer face is saying different."

  Drizzt forced a smile. "Not so," he said—convincingly, he thought.

  But Catti-brie's returning look showed him that she saw better. The woman stepped back and nodded, catching on.

  "Ye're thinking of the elf," she reasoned.

  Drizzt looked away, back toward Mirabar, and said, "I wish we could have saved her."

  "We're all wishing that."

  "I wish you had given the potion to her and not to me."

  "Aye, and Bruenor would've killed me," Catti-brie said. She grabbed t
he drow and made him look back at her, a smile widening on her pretty face. "Is that what ye're hoping?"

  Drizzt couldn't resist her charm and the much-needed levity.

  "It is just difficult," he explained. "There are times when I so wish that things could be different, that tidy and acceptable endings could find every tale."

  "So ye keep trying to make them endings acceptable," Catti-brie said to him. "It's all ye can do."

  True enough, Drizzt admitted to himself. He gave a great sigh and looked back to Mirabar and thought again of Ellifain.

  Dagnabbit went out later that afternoon, the sun setting and a cold wind kicking up through the streets of the city. He didn't return until right before the dawn, and spent the day inside with Bruenor, discussing the political intrigue of the city and the implications to Mithral Hall, while the merchants and Regis worked their wagons outside.

  Not many came to those wagons — a few dwarves and fewer humans — and most of those who did bargained for deals so poor that the Clan Battlehammer dwarves ultimately refused. The lone exception arrived soon after highsun.

  "Well, show me yer work, halfling," Torgar bade Regis.

  A dozen heads, those of Torgar's friends, bobbed eagerly behind him.

  "Regis," the halfling explained, extending his hand, which Torgar took in a firm and friendly shake.

  "Show me, Regis," the dwarf said. "Me and me friends'll need a bit o' convincing to be spendin' our gold pieces on anything ye can't drink!"

  That brought a laugh from all the dwarves, Battlehammer and Mirabarran alike, and from Regis. The halfling was wondering if he should consider using his enchanted ruby necklace, with its magical powers of persuasion, to «convince» the dwarves of a good deal. He dismissed that thought almost immediately, though, reminding himself of how stubborn some dwarves could be against any kind of magic. Regis also considered the implications on the relationship between Mithral Hall and Mirabar should he get caught.

  Still, soon enough it became apparent to Regis that he wouldn't need the pendant's influence. The dwarves had come well stocked with coin, and many of their friends joined them. The goods on the wagons, Regis's work and many other items, began to disappear.