The guard shrugged and looked to his fellows, who similarly shook their heads or shrugged, having no answer.
“Not far, and not for long, likely,” replied the woman who had first spoken Drizzt’s name. “Might be to see the barbarian tribes, or might be to hunt. But he’s sure to return soon enough. Nowhere to go east of Ten-Towns.”
That calmed Tiago greatly. “Easthaven?” he asked as sweetly as he could manage.
“A day’s ride down the Eastway,” the woman answered.
Tiago turned to his companions, Ravel, Saribel, and Jearth, and all four wore perplexed expressions.
“To the east,” another guard explained, and he turned back and pointed down the boulevard straight into the heart of the city. “Straight through and straight out Bryn Shander’s eastern gate, to the east.”
“Night is upon us,” the woman explained. “You’ll be wanting lodging.”
Tiago shook his head. “I have arrangements elsewhere. This road, the Eastway, runs out from the other end of this city?”
“Aye,” several answered.
Tiago turned and started back the way he had come, the other three drow moving in his wake, not one of them offered a parting word, or looking back, except for Jearth, whose duty it was to keep the rear guard watch.
“Drizzt Do’Urden,” an excited Tiago whispered when they were out of earshot of the guards.
“Only days ahead of us,” Ravel agreed.
“With nowhere to run,” Saribel remarked, and all four dreamed of the glory they would soon know.
The small, flat-bottomed boat lurched and rolled, and the nervous captain looked at his three passengers, fearing they would punish him severely for the uncomfortable journey. But the seven of them, drow all, didn’t appear at all bothered by the rolling; so dexterous and balanced were they even in this unfamiliar environment that they barely shifted as the deck was jolted repeatedly by the shock of uneven waves.
The captain glanced at the drow more than they regarded him, which gave him some comfort at least. These were proclaimed friends of Drizzt Do’Urden, but something about their demeanor didn’t fit that description. Not that the captain knew Drizzt well, of course, having met him only once on this same ferry route, but the tales of the rogue drow were common about Ten-Towns, particularly Easthaven, which looked out onto the open tundra. Drizzt had been instrumental in forging the peace between Ten-Towns and the barbarian tribes a century before, and that peace held to this day, to say nothing of his legendary exploits in defeating the minions of the infamous Crystal Shard.
Even though few alive in Ten-Towns knew much of present-day Drizzt—indeed, only a couple of elves remaining in Lonelywood were even alive back in the time of Akar Kessell and the Crystal Shard—most would swing wide their doors for him. The nervous captain could hardly believe the same would be true for this particular group of grim-faced drow adventurers.
He was glad then, as he turned his craft around the last stony jut and into the shallow and somewhat protected cove on the lake’s eastern shore. He dropped the single sail and let the current take them, locking the wheel and moving to the anchor and long gangplank set forward. He could typically secure the landing very quickly, having years of practice, but this day, despite the frothing waters, the captain had them in place and with the bridge to the shore up and steady faster than ever before.
He moved far aside, to the front corner of the craft, as the contingent of drow headed away.
“This is the exact location where you left Drizzt?” asked Tiago, coming near the end of the line, with only Jearth behind him.
“Same spot,” the captain replied.
“A tenday ago?”
“To the day, sir.”
“You will await our return in this very place.”
The captain nearly choked on that. He had agreed to, and been paid for, taking them out here, but even with the rough weather, he wanted a day of knucklehead fishing. Indeed, in weather such as this, knucklehead trout were more likely to bite.
“But—” he started to argue, but the drow fixed him with such a stare that he knew that any contrary word from him would likely get him murdered, then and there.
“You will await our return,” Tiago said again.
“H-how long?” the captain stammered.
“Until you die of old age, if need be,” said Tiago. “And then you will return us to Easthaven’s dock, or you will begin a circuitous ferry from that dock to this place as the rest of my force is brought forth.”
The notion that there were more of these dangerous folk around had the hairs on the back of the captain’s neck standing up. What had he stepped into here, he wondered and imagined a drow invasion force burning Easthaven to the ground!
Later that same day, the sun setting low, the captain breathed a sigh of relief when Tiago and the others stepped off his boat again, this time onto Easthaven’s docks. They had found no sign of Drizzt out in the east, and had quickly realized the fool’s errand of trying to pursue the rogue, who knew the region so much better than they, into the open tundra.
So instead, Tiago and a select few remained at the inn in Easthaven, with the bulk of their thirty-warrior force camped in an extra-dimensional space created by Ravel and the other spellspinners, ready for fast recall.
And they waited.
Another tenday passed. Tiago sent out tendrils—Saribel’s priestesses—to Bryn Shander, and hired indigenous scouts to widen his network to encompass the whole of Ten-Towns, including the Battlehammer contingent living under the lone mountain. Ravel and his spellspinners, meanwhile, utilized their divination magic, while Saribel and her kind called out to Lolth’s handmaidens for guidance in their search.
A month slipped by. Tiago hired locals to reach out to the barbarian tribes for word on the missing drow.
Another month passed, with no word of Drizzt, and indeed, even the extra-planar creatures the priestesses and now magic-users he had called upon could find no sign of the rogue. The season began its turn, where the mountain passes would fill with snow and cold, and Icewind Dale would again be isolated from the rest of Faerûn. By the time of the first snowstorm, no caravan moved along the single road connecting Icewind Dale to the lands south of the Spine of the World.
No caravan, perhaps, but the storm did not hinder the approach of a demonic balor, whose every monstrous stride turned the snowpack to steam.
A tremendous explosion rocked Bryn Shander’s gate, crumbling the stones and shattering the hinges of the great doors, which fell in and were fast consumed by the demonic fires. A guard to the side of the devastation lifted her spear and threw, crying out for Bryn Shander, for Ten-Towns. The missile disappeared into the smoky shroud around the demon, but whether it had any effect or not, the poor sentry would never know. For as her spear flew out, the demon’s long whip reached in, snapping around her torso. With a flick of his powerful wrist, Errtu yanked her from her feet and sent her flying from the wall, dragging her into the killing fires surrounding his great form.
He gave her not another thought, and waved forward three powerful minions, great glabrezu demons. Twice the height of a tall man, the bipedal, hulking creatures eagerly loped through the breach and into the city, each demon waving four massive arms. Two of those arms ended in giant pincers, powerful enough to cut a man in half, as one unfortunate Bryn Shander soldier discovered almost immediately.
“I will have the drow!” Errtu roared. “Send him to me now, or I will lay waste to your city!”
From a short distance south of the unfolding battle scene, Tiago and his minions, well-versed in demon lore, understood that the threat was not an idle one.
“A balor,” Saribel said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Hunting us?” a confused Ravel added.
“So it would seem,” said Tiago. “And though I truly enjoy the spectacle of carnage before us, perhaps we should discern what this beast might wish with us. Nothing good, I expect, and so perhaps we will have to destr
oy it. A pity, really.”
His casual attitude, so matter-of-fact and calm despite the formidable enemy on the field before them, had the others looking at the young Baenre with renewed respect, and inevitably nodding in agreement.
Tiago turned to Saribel. “Ward me from the demon flames,” he instructed. “Ward us all. Let us strip this balor of its primary weapon.”
While Saribel and her priestesses began the task, casting many magical protections over the group, Tiago gathered Ravel, Jearth, and Yerrininae to prepare the battlefield. Within a short while, Tiago rode Byok to the front of his column. He watched the huge balor follow the glabrezu into the city, a cacophony of screams echoing along Bryn Shander’s wall, then started forward. He pointed to the wall, some twenty feet south of the destroyed gate, and kicked Byok into a run. The drow warriors and Saribel’s priestesses followed quickly, Jearth guiding them. The mighty driders ran with the group for a short distance, but veered away to the west soon after, increasing their pace in a circuitous route that would take them north of the gate.
Ravel and his fellow spellspinners did not follow the others. They assumed their battle formation, with the noble drow serving as the hub of their “wheel.” As the other five began their long incantation, Ravel cast the first spell, opening a dimensional portal from just north of their position to the area immediately before Bryn Shander’s ruined gate. By the time he had finished that spell, the first sparks of mounting power began to crackle in the air around him.
Tiago Baenre guided his lizard mount at full speed to the base of Bryn Shander’s tall wall, then leaped onto the stones and ran up so quickly that an onlooker might have thought the wall an optical illusion, and no more than a gently-sloping hill at best. Tiago gained the top of the wall quickly and ran along a short distance, taking in the scene of carnage before him while Jearth and the others gathered at the base outside the wall.
The citizens of Bryn Shander had come out in force to meet the assault of the demons, and to their credit, they did not break ranks as the mighty balor and the vicious glabrezu decimated all who came against them. A dozen warriors all at once charged a single glabrezu, off to the side of the main fighting, some bursting out of doors, tossing spears and demanding the creature’s attention, while others leaped from the rooftops, throwing themselves atop the monster with flailing abandon.
A cloud of blood appeared almost instantly, and twelve warriors became ten, then six in short order. The glabrezu roared and struck hard, butting with its horns, biting with its canine maw, snapping with its deadly pincers. For all the damage it could cause, though, the sheer weight of the gallant citizens brought it to the ground, and the humans wet their spear tips and swords with demon blood.
“I will have you, drow!” the balor roared, and the greatest beast hardly seemed concerned by the fall of the one glabrezu. “Come forth or see them all destroyed! I have waited a hundred years!”
As it bellowed, the creature sent a wall of fire rushing down an alleyway, just as an arrow came forth. That arrow had little effect, and the poor archer’s screams filled the air as the wall of fire ate him.
“Who is this balor to demand an audience so emphatically?” Tiago cried out, in the tongue of demons and not the common surface language.
The balor stiffened at the sound of the words in the distinct Menzoberranyr accent, and wheeled around.
Tiago started to ask another question, but the creature was apparently in no mood to converse—not with a solitary drow warrior, at least—and it lifted its whip in a spin around its massive horned head. Out lashed the weapon, and Tiago ducked behind his shield, and the magnificent web that was Orbcress spiraled as he did, and grew in size to fully wall him from the deadly bite of Errtu’s whip.
“A hundred years is not so long a time, Drizzt Do’Urden!” Errtu roared, and threw a fireball Tiago’s way.
The drow was already moving, though, running Byok along the narrow walkway toward the ruined gate, then down the outside of the wall, back to the field before Bryn Shander. He had barely registered the demon’s words, barely begun to sort out that this creature was hunting not him, but Drizzt, when the beast charged back out of the city, its fiery whip snapping at Tiago once more.
At the same time, the great demon reached to the side with its sword hand, exuding a telekinetic power that lifted a boulder from the rubble of the broken gate.
Tiago blocked the snapping whip yet again, and started to call out, trying to strike up a conversation with this demon. But any thoughts he had of joining with the creature flew away from him as that boulder flew toward him!
He ducked behind the shield once more, and surely it saved his life, but the weight of the blow sent him flying from his mount with such force that it tore the saddle from Byok’s back and sent the powerful lizard tumbling over.
A glabrezu lifted a Bryn Shander warrior into the air between its great pincers. The man’s companion and dear friend cried out in denial, but to no avail.
The pincers closed and the poor warrior fell to the ground in two pieces.
“Drizzt did this!” the man screamed, throwing himself with abandon at the huge demon. He slashed and stabbed wildly with his sword, scoring a couple of solid hits before the creature backhanded him with the strength of a hill giant, launching him to the side.
Other warriors replaced him. From the balcony of a nearby building, a wizard lashed out with a lightning bolt, shocking and startling the glabrezu, weakening its preparedness as the other citizens came on.
To the side, the battered warrior cried out for his fallen friend, and loudly cursed the name of Drizzt Do’Urden.
Others joined in.
Tiago rolled a dozen times, trying to absorb the shock of the blow. He came around, his shield arm slumping low, his shoulder numb, just in time to see his prized lizard charging in fiercely at the balor.
“No!” Tiago screamed, but the lizard, as well-trained as it was, was hearing none of his commands. Byok leaped at the balor, forelegs raking, maw snapping.
But the balor’s whip connected first, wrapping around the powerful lizard, and with frightening strength, the great demon tugged hard and defeated the lizard’s momentum, sending Byok into a sudden spin to land hard amidst the flames at the balor’s feet.
Tiago charged, screaming for his prized pet. He saw Byok bite up at the balor, and catch the whip arm, tearing demon flesh, but then the balor’s greatsword swept down into the flames, and came up dripping lizard blood.
From the side charged Jearth and the others, a volley of javelins soaring in to sting the great demon. Two glabrezu came through the gate at the same moment, however, turning immediately to engage this new force.
Tiago winced with every strike as the battle in the flames continued before him. The balor stood up straight, towering above the flames, and lifted its whip arm, and Byok—grand and brave Byok!—was still attached, biting on ferociously. Ragged skin hung from the lizard’s powerful maw, and Byok shook his jaws and the balor howled in pain and Tiago’s heart leaped with hope.
But across came the demon’s sword arm, and the sword it held proved vorpal, severing Byok’s head cleanly. The lizard’s body fell away into the flames. The head remained in place, locked onto to the balor’s arm.
Tiago skidded to a stop and felt as if a hill giant had punched him in the gut. “Byok,” he breathed and he retched as if he would vomit. He had raised that lizard from the day it had hatched, and had been magically attuned to it, much as a wizard might find and bond to a familiar.
“Kill it!” he cried in outrage, and looked to Jearth and the warriors, who engaged the glabrezu pair.
“Kill it!” he cried again, looking helplessly to the city gates and the force assembled just within, not daring to come forth.
“Hold!” the guard commander called out to the gathered forces of Bryn Shander. “Do not exit the city!”
He waved his hand, ordering archers back up to the wall. Who were these dark elves battling the demons?<
br />
“Allies?” he asked quietly, but aloud, and those around him could not offer an answer.
He looked to the north then, to another approaching force, and he swallowed hard with sheer revulsion and horror, and at the thought that Bryn Shander might well be in dire trouble no matter which side in this titanic battle proved victorious.
Tiago’s plea was answered with a net of crackling lightning, hurtling through a dimensional gate to seemingly appear out of nowhere right beside the massive balor. The demon grunted in surprise as the net descended over it, brilliant flashes of lightning exploding all around, blinding all who looked on. Tiago continued to squint against the thunderous explosions, though, wanting to see this demon utterly destroyed, wanting to witness the retribution against the demon that had killed his prize lizard mount.
Sparks burst into the air, carrying the demon’s flames with them. The balor tried to stand against the net, but the stinging lightning explosions drove it down, down, and it roared, maddened with pain.
The ground began to tremble, the lightning explosions came faster and faster until they crackled and boomed as a single, unending note of destruction.
The net fell flat to the ground, amidst the now-dying flames, where it continued to pop and spark.
But the demon was gone, and in the next instant, it was back again, but no longer under the net.
No, Errtu had teleported from the danger and now stood directly behind Tiago Baenre. Down came the balor’s greatsword, and Tiago swung around and lifted his shield just in time to block the heavy swing. His shoulder went numb again, and his shield arm slumped. No single warrior could stand against a balor! And though this one was badly hurt, lines of lightning scars all around its head and torso, with one of its horns blown away completely, a balor was a creature of rage.
The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV Page 42
