The Thousand Orcs

by R. A. Salvatore

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.

  Tor
chlight 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!"