The Thousand Orcs th-1

by Robert Salvatore

  They bounced a few ideas back and forth, possible plans to lure out the giants, and potential areas where they could hit at the brutes away from the main force. There seemed no shortage of these, but getting them out wouldn't be an easy task.

  "There may be a way. ." Drizzt offered, the first words he had contributed to the planning.

  Replaying the scene with the orc, the reactions of the creature toward him, Drizzt wondered if his heritage might serve him well.

  They agreed on a place, and the six and Guenhwyvar, minus Drizzt, started away, while the drow moved back toward his last position overlooking the encampment. He stayed there for just a few moments, his keen eyes cutting the night and discerning an approach route toward the separate giant camp, and he was gone, slipping away as silently as a shadow.

  "He'll bring 'em down from the right," Bruenor said when they reached the appointed ambush area.

  The dwarf was facing a high cliff, with a rocky, broken trail running left and right in front of it before him.

  "Can ye get up there, Rumblebelly?"

  Regis, standing at the base of the cliff, was already picking his course. He had discerned a few routes already to the ledge he was hoping to reach, but he wanted an easier one for a companion who was not quite as nimble as he.

  "You want to get in on the kill?" he asked Tred McKnuckles, who was standing beside him and looking more than a little overwhelmed by the frantic planning and implementation of the seasoned companions.

  "What d'ya think?" the dwarf shot back.

  "I think you should put that weapon on your back and follow me up," Regis replied with a wry grin, and without further ado, the halfling began his climb.

  "I ain't no damn spider!" Tred yelled back.

  "Do you want the kill or not?"

  It was the last thing Regis meant to say, and the last thing he had to say, for Tred, grumbling and growling to make a robbed dwarf proud, began his ascent, following the exact course of footholds and handholds Regis had taken. It took him a long time to get to the ledge, and by the time he arrived, Regis was already sitting comfortably with his back against the wall, twenty-five feet above the ground.

  "See if you can break off a large chunk of that rock," the halfling remarked, nodding to the side, where a fair-sized boulder had lodged itself on the ledge.

  Tred looked at the solid stone, a thousand pounds of granite, doubtfully.

  "Ye think ye can drop it off?" came a call from below from Catti-brie.

  Regis moved forward to regard her, and Tred looked on even more doubtfully.

  Catti-brie didn't wait for an answer but moved to the side to confer with Wulfgar. The barbarian rushed away, returning a few moments later with a long and thick broken branch. He positioned himself below the ledge, then reached up as far as he could, and when it was apparent that he still couldn't reach his companions with the branch, he tossed it up.

  Regis caught it and pulled it up beside him. Smiling, he handed it to the bewildered Tred.

  "You'll see," the halfling promised.

  To the side, on another ledge at about the same height as Regis and Tred's, Guenhwyvar gave a low growl, and poor Tred seemed more unsettled than ever.

  Regis just grinned and moved back into position to watch the trail behind.

  When he heard them talking in a language that was close enough to Common to be understood, Drizzt's hopes for his plans climbed a bit. He was on the fringes of the encampment, out in the shadows behind a large rock. Neither the orcs nor the giants had set any guards, obviously secure in their victory.

  The giants' conversation was small talk mostly, giving the drow no real information. That didn't concern him too much. He was more interested in finding a chance to approach one of them alone, to play his hunch that this group was somewhat familiar with dark elves.

  He got his chance almost an hour later. One of the giants was snoring, a sound not unlike an avalanche. Another, the only female of the quartet, lay beside him, near sleep if not already so. The remaining two continued their conversation, though with the long lags of silence attributable to drowsiness. Finally, one of the pair stood up and wandered off.

  Drizzt took a deep breath—dealing with creatures as formidable as frost giants was no easy task. In addition to their great size, strength, and fighting prowess, frost giants were not blathering idiots like their hill giant and ogre cousins. By all accounts, they were often quite sharp of mind, and not easily fooled. Drizzt had to count on his heritage, and the reputation that he hoped would precede him.

  He crept in under cover of the shadows to within a few feet of the sitting behemoth.

  "You missed some treasure," he whispered.

  The giant, obviously sleepy, started a bit and fell back to one elbow, turning his head to regard the speaker as it asked, "What?"

  Seeing the dark elf, the giant did move more ambitiously, snapping back up to a straight-backed position.

  "Donnia?" it asked, a name that Drizzt did not recognize, except to recognize that it was indeed a name, a drow name.

  "An associate," he replied quietly. "You missed a great treasure."

  "Where? What?"

  "At the village. A huge chest of gems and jewels, buried beneath one of the fallen buildings."

  The giant looked around, then leaned in more closely.

  "You offer this?" he asked suspiciously, so obviously not convinced that the drow, that any drow, would walk in and give such information away.

  "I cannot carry so much," Drizzt explained. "I cannot carry one tenth of that which lies within. While I could ferry the treasure away one armload at a time, I suspect there is more still, buried beneath a slab I can't budge."

  The giant looked around again, its movements showing that it was more than a little interested. Not far to the side, one of its companions snored, coughed, and rolled over.

  "I will share with you, fifty-fifty, and with your kin, if you believe we need them," Drizzt said, "but not with the orcs."

  A wicked smile that crossed the giant's face told Drizzt that his understanding of the race relationships within the enemy band was not far from the mark.

  "Let us continue this discussion, but not here," Drizzt said, and he began fading back into the shadows.

  The giant looked around yet again, then moved into a crouch and crept after him, following eagerly into the night, moving quietly along a rocky trail to a small clearing protected behind by a sheer cliff wall.

  On a ledge on that wall, some ten feet above the head of the towering giant, two sets of curious eyes looked on.

  "What will Donnia Soldou think of this?" the giant asked.

  "Donnia need not know," Drizzt replied.

  The giant's shrug told him much, told him that Donnia, whoever she might be, was not an overriding controlling force but more likely just an associate. That brought a bit of relief to the dark elf. He would hate to think that the orcs and giants were acting at the behest of a drow army.

  "I will take Geletha with me," the giant announced.

  "Your friend with whom you were speaking?"

  The giant nodded. "And we take two shares, you take one."

  "That hardly seems fair."

  "You cannot move the slab."

  "You cannot find the slab." Drizzt continued the banter, trying hard to keep the giant unsuspicious while his friends moved into their final positions.

  He figured he wouldn't have to keep it up for long.

  When a blue-streaking arrow shot out from behind him, zipped past, and thudded hard into the giant's chest, the drow was not surprised.

  The behemoth groaned but was not badly hurt. Drizzt drew his scimitars and leaped around, turning to face Catti-brie's position, still playing the part of the giant's ally.

  "Where did it come from?" he shouted. "Lift me that I might see."

  "Straight ahead!" roared the great creature.

  It started to bend to accommodate the drow, and Drizzt turned fast and ran up its treelike arm. His scimit
ars slashed hard across the behemoth's face, drawing bright lines of red.

  The giant roared and grabbed at him, but the drow had already leaped away, with another blue-streaking arrow sizzling in behind him, slamming the giant yet again.

  Shrugging it off, the behemoth continued to move toward Drizzt, until there came a sound like a log splitting. Bruenor Battlehammer's many-notched axe smashed the brute in the back of the knee.

  The giant howled and lurched, grabbing the wound, and Catti-brie hit it again with an arrow, this time in the face.

  Ignoring the hit as much as possible, the brute lifted a foot, obviously intending to smash Bruenor.

  And it was hopping, as Dagnabbit rushed out and planted his warhammer right on top of the giant's set foot.

  And a cry of "Tempus!" followed by a second warhammer, this one spinning through the air, changed that course.

  Aegis-fang hit the behemoth in the chest, just below its neck, with a force that knocked the giant back against the wall. Wulfgar came in behind the hammer, recalling it magically to his grasp, then charged before the giant had recovered and launched a tremendous smash right into the giant's kneecap.

  How the brute howled!

  Catti-brie's next arrow hit it right in the face.

  Up on the ledge, Tred, with the branch lever tucked tight over one shoulder, looked from the giant to Regis, his expression dumbfounded. He had battled giants before, on many occasions, but never had he seen one so battered so quickly.

  He looked past Regis then to Guenhwyvar. The great panther crouched on a ledge to the side, watching the fight, but more than that, watching back toward the east, her ears perked up.

  Regis held his hand out toward the ledge, indicating that the target behemoth was in position.

  Tred gave a satisfied grunt and bore down on the displaced boulder, setting the lever more solidly and driving on. The rock tilted and tumbled, and the poor giant below, which was just then beginning to regain its senses and set some type of defense against the rushing onslaught of the drow, the barbarian, the woman, and the two fiery dwarves, got a thousand pounds of granite right on top of the head. The crunching sound from its neck echoed off the stone, as did the resounding crash as the boulder bounced away.

  Regis gave Tred a salute for the fine shot, but the relief was short-lived, for only then did the halfling and the dwarf come to understand what had so piqued Guenhwyvar's interest and had kept the cat out of the fight. Another giant was charging down the path, and yet another one, a female, behind that.

  Regis looked at Tred. "We could find another rock," he offered, just a hint of fear creeping into his voice.

  Behind them, Guenhwyvar leaped onto the shoulder of the charging giant, and as it pounded on down the trail, Tred shrugged and did likewise, using the cat's distraction to get a clear shot at the giant's head with his mighty axe. No crack of stone against stone had ever sounded louder than the report of Tred's axe cracking into the giant's skull,

  Regis winced and looked over.

  "Or we could do that," the halfling remarked, though the dwarf couldn't hear him.

  With great effort, Tred stubbornly hung on to the axe handle, hanging off the back of the giant's head. He rode the behemoth down as it stumbled to its knees, then down to the ground.

  Tred rose from the dead behemoth's back and swung around to join the fray against the remaining beast—or tried to, then got jerked back around by his axe, which remained firmly embedded.

  He heard a groan, from the side and down, and only then realized — and he was the only one of the band to notice—that Dagnabbit had been in an unfortunate position as the giant had slumped down and was buried beneath the behemoth's great weight.

  Drizzt started the counterattack, charging up the path at the furious female frost giant. He saw the giant raise her arm to throw, a large stone in hand, and responded by calling upon his innate drow abilities, summoning a globe of darkness before the creature's face. The drow dived aside, frantically, and the hurled rock clipped the stone where he had been standing. Its rebound sent it skipping fast, brushing Wulfgar in the shoulder and sending him flying, then just missing Catti-brie, taking Taulmaril from her hands and bloodying her fingers. She fell to her knees, clutching her hands, her face locked in a grimace of pain.

  Drizzt came in hard at the giant. The behemoth kicked across at him, and the drow went into a leaping, rolling somersault right over the flying foot, landing gracefully and spinning about, his deadly scimitars cutting two deep lines in the back of the huge calf.

  Bruenor came in next and hard, driving in against the giant's other shin with his axe. The giant swatted him aside with a brutal slap, but the dwarf just accepted the bouncing ride along the rocks, regained his footing, adjusted his one-horned helmet, and wagged a finger back at the behemoth.

  "Now ye're makin' me mad, ye overfed orc!"

  The giant kicked at Drizzt again, but he was too quick for that, skipping aside time and time again, and spinning about to cut a wicked slash whenever presented an opening.

  Apparently realizing that it was overmatched, the behemoth kicked one last time, shortening the blow in an effort not to thump the drow, but to just keep him at bay. The giantess turned to the south and started to run along the broken ground instead of the path, where her long legs would give her an advantage.

  Or she tried to.

  Aegis-fang whipped in, smashing the ankle of the giantess's trailing foot, driving that foot behind the other ankle and tripping the behemoth up.

  She fell hard to the stone, her breath blasted out by the impact.

  She tried to rise but had no chance. Drizzt was there, running up her back. And Guenhwyvar was there, leaping onto her shoulders and biting hard at the back of her neck. And Catti-brie was there, holding Khazid'hea, her devilishly sharp sword, gingerly in her injured grasp. And Bruenor was there with his axe, with Wulfgar behind him with the mighty warhammer back in his grasp.

  And Tred came in, escorting a shaken, but not too badly hurt Dagnabbit.

  Up on the ledge behind them, Regis watched and cheered. He called out when he noticed that the first felled giant was moving again, albeit groggily, the behemoth struggling to rise. Wulfgar rushed back and put Aegis-fang to swift and deadly work on the creature's huge head.

  "I never seen nothing like it," Tred admitted as the band made their way back toward the main force of waiting dwarves.

  "It's all about shaping the battlefield," Bruenor explained.

  "And none do it better 'n King Bruenor!" Dagnabbit added.

  "None, unless it's him," Bruenor replied, nodding his chin toward Drizzt, who was tending Catti-brie's hands as they walked.

  She had at least one broken finger but seemed more than ready to continue.

  There would be no rest for the band that night. There was another battlefield to properly shape, in preparation for an even larger fight.

  CHAPTER 10 NOT WELCOME

  "Uh uh," Pikel said stubbornly, stamping his foot hard and standing before the wide oak, barring Ivan's way into the enchanted tree.

  "What are ye saying?" Ivan shot back. "Ye openin' the door just to keep it blocked, ye dopey fool?"

  Pikel pointed past his brother to the bear, which was sitting and watching, its expression forlorn.

  "Ye ain't takin' the bear!" Ivan bellowed, and he came forward.

  "Uh uh," Pikel said again, waggling his finger and shifting to fully block the way.

  Nose to nose, Ivan glowered at his brother, but he heard the bear growling behind him soon enough and realized this next fight wouldn't be even.

  "Ye can't be taking him," the yellow-bearded dwarf reasoned. "Ye might be breakin' up his bear family, and ye wouldn't want to be doing that!"

  "Oooo," said Pikel, seeming caught off guard for just a second before his face brightened.

  He came forward and whispered into Ivan's ear.

  "How do ye know he ain't got no family?" Ivan roared in protest, and Pikel whispered some more.r />
  "He telled ye?" Ivan bellowed in disbelief. "The stupid bear telled ye? And ye're believing him? Ye ever think that he might be fibbing? That he might be telling ye that just to get away from his… cow or his doe or his. . bearess, or whatever they're calling a she-bear?"

  "Bearess, hee hee hee," said Pikel, and giggling, he whispered some more.

  "He's a.she — bear?" Ivan asked, and he glanced back. "How're ye knowin' it's a … never mind, don't ye be telling me. It ain't no matter, anyway. He-bear or she-bear, he … she … it, ain't goin'."

  Pikel's face seemed to sink, his bottom lip getting pressed forward in a most pitiful pout, but Ivan held his ground. He wasn't about to do this strange tree-walking, unsettling under the best of conditions, with a wild bear beside him.

  "Nope, it ain't," he said calmly. "And when we're missin' Bruenor's coronation, ye can tell Cadderly why. And when the winter's finding us out here, and yer friend's gone to sleep, ye watch me skin her for some warm blankets! And when..»

  Pikel's low moan stopped his fiery brother's tirade, for Ivan surely recognized the defeat in Pikel's tone.

  The green-bearded Bouldershoulder walked past Ivan and over to his bear. He spent a long while grooming the back of the gentle animal's ears, scratching and pulling ticks, and gently placing the insects down on the ground.

  Of course, whenever he put down a bloated one, Ivan made a point of picking it up, holding it high, and popping it between stubby fingers.

  A few moments later, Pikel's bear ambled away, and though Pikel remarked that he thought the creature was quite sad, Ivan frankly saw no difference. The bear was going on its way, and any way would have likely been good enough for the bear.

  Pikel walked past Ivan again. He took up his newest walking stick and knocked three times on the trunk, then bowed low and reverently as he asked the tree's permission to enter.

  Ivan didn't hear anything, of course, but apparently his brother did, for Pikel half-turned and held his arm out Ivan's way, inviting the yellow-bearded brother to lead the way.

  Ivan deferred and responded by motioning for Pikel to go ahead.