"More of my people are out there. I will not forsake them in their time of desperation."
"Well, that's for yerself to decide," said Dagna. "I come here to see how I might be helping, and so me and me boys did. I left six more dead back there. That's eight o' fifty, almost one in six."
"And your efforts saved ten times the number of your dead. Are not ten of Nesme's folk worth a single dwarf's life?"
"Bah, don't ye be putting it like that," Dagna said, and he gave a great snort. "I'm thinking that we're all to be slaughtered in one great fight if we make a single mistake. More than two score o' me boys and closer to a hun-nerd o' yer own folk."
"Then we won't make a mistake," Galen Firth said in a low and even tone.
Dagna snorted again and moved past the man, knowing that he wouldn't be getting anything settled that night. Nor did he have to, for in truth, he had no idea of where the force might even find any tunnels that would take them back to Mithral Hall. Dagna knew, and so did Galen, that this band would be moving out of necessity and not choice over the next hours, and even days, likely, so arguing about courses that might not ever even become an option seemed a rather silly thing to do.
Dagna crossed by the folk of Nesme, accepting their kind words and gratitude, and offering his own praise for their commendable efforts. He also found his own clerics hard at work tending the wounded, and he offered a solid pat on each dwarf shoulder as he passed. Mostly, though, Dagna studied the humans. They were indeed a good and sturdy folk, in the tough general's estimation, if a bit orc-headed.
Well, he supposed, orc-headed only if Galen Firth is an accurate representative of the community.
That notion had Dagna moving more purposefully among the ranks, seeking out a particular man whose actions had stood above the norm back on the battlefield. He found that man at the very back of the shallow cave, reclining on a smooth, rounded stone. As he approached, Dagna noted the man's many wounds, including three fingers on his left hand twisted at an angle that showed them to certainly be broken, and a garish tear on his left ear that looked as if the ear might fall right off.
"Ye might want to be seeing the priests about them fingers and that ear," Dagna said, moving up before the man.
Obviously startled, the warrior quickly sat up and straightened his battered chain and leather tunic.
"Dagna's me name," the dwarf said, extending his calloused hand. "General Dagna o' Mithral Hall, Warcommander to King Bruenor Battle-hammer."
"Well met, General Dagna," the man said. "I am Rannek of Nesme."
"One o' them Riders?"
The man nodded. "I was, at least."
"Bah, ye'll get yer town back soon enough!"
The dwarf noted that his optimism didn't seem to lift the man's expression, though he suspected, given the reception Galen Firth had offered Rannek back at the battlefield, that the dourness wasn't precipitated by the wider prospects for the town.
"Ye done well back there," Dagna offered, eliciting a less-than-resounding shrug.
"We fight for our very existence, good dwarf. Our options are few. If we err, we die."
"Ain't that the way of it?" asked the dwarf. "In me many years, I've come to see the truth in the notion that war's the time for determining the character of a dwarf. Or a man."
"Indeed."
Dagna's eyes narrowed under his bushy and prominent eyebrows. "Ye got nearly a hunnerd o' yer kin in here looking to ye. Ye're knowing that? And here ye be with a face showing defeat, yet ye got most o' yer folk out o' what them trolls suren thought to be the end o' yer road."
"They'll be looking to Galen Firth, now that he has returned," said Rannek.
"Bah, that's not a good enough answer."
"It is the only answer I have," said Rannek.
He slid off the rounded stone, offered a polite and unenthusiastic bow, and moved away.
General Dagna heaved a resigned sigh. He didn't have time for this. Not now. Not with trolls pressing in on them.
"Humans…" he muttered under his breath, giving a shake of his hairy head.
* * * * *
"They are helpless and they are scattered," Kaer'lic Suun Wett said to the giant two-headed Proffit soon after the human band had temporarily escaped from the troll and bog bloke pursuit. "The hour of complete domination over all the region is at hand for you. If you strike at them now, hard and relentlessly, you will utterly destroy all remnants of Nesme and any foothold the humans can dare hope to hold in your lands."
"King Obould wants us in the tunnels," one of Proffit's heads replied.
"Now!" the other head emphatically added.
"To help with Obould's victory in the north?" Kaer'lic said. "In lands that mean nothing to Proffit and his people?"
"Obould helped us," Proffit said.
"Obould showed Proffit the way out, with all the trolls behind him," the other head added.
Kaer'lic knew well enough what Proffit was referring to. It had been none other than Donnia Soldou, in fact, who had orchestrated the rise of Proffit, through the proxies of King Obould. All that Donnia had hoped was that Proffit and his force of brutish trolls would cause enough of a distraction closer to the major human settlements to keep the bigger players of the region, primarily Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon, from turning her eyes and her formidable armies upon Obould.
Of course at that time, Kaer'lic and the other dark elves had no idea of how fast or how high King Obould would rise. The game had changed.
"And Proffit helped Obould close the back door of Mithral Hall," Kaer'lic reminded.
"Tit," said one head.
"For tat," the other added with a rumbling chuckle.
"But dwarves are left," said the first.
"To," said the other.
"Kill!" they both shouted together.
"Dwarves of Mithral Hall to kill, yes," agreed Kaer'lic. "Dwarves who are stuck in a hole and going nowhere. Dwarves who will still be there waiting to be killed when Proffit has done his work here."
The troll's heads looked at each other and nodded in unison.
"But the humans of Nesme are not so trapped," Tos'un Armgo put in, right on cue, as he and Kaer'lic had previously decided and practiced. "They will run far away, out of Proffit's reach. Or they will bring in many, many friends, and when Proffit comes back out of the tunnels, he may find a huge army waiting for him."
"More."
"To."
"Kill!" the troll said, both heads grinning stupidly.
"Or too many to kill," Tos'un argued after a quick, concerned glance at Kaer'lic.
"The human friends of Nesme will bring wizards with great magical fires," Kaer'lic ominously warned.
That took the stupid and eager smile from Proffit's faces.
"What to do?" one head asked.
"Fight them now," said Kaer'lic. "We will help you locate each human band and to position your forces to utterly destroy them. It will not take long, and you can go into the tunnels to fight the dwarves confident that no force will mobilize against you and await your return."
Proffit's two heads bobbed, one chewing its lip, the other holding its mouth open, and both obviously trying to digest the big words and intricate concepts.
"Kill the humans, then kill the dwarves," Kaer'lic said simply. "Then the land is yours. No one will bother to rebuild Nesme if everyone from Nesme is dead."
"Proffit likes that."
"Kill the humans," said the other head.
"Kill the dwarves," the first added.
"Kill them all!" the second head cheered.
"And eat them!" yelled the first.
"Eat them all," Kaer'lic cheered, and she motioned to Tos'un, who added, "Taste good!"
Tos'un offered a shrug back at Kaer'lic, showing her that he really had no idea what to add to the ridiculous conversation. It didn't really matter anyway, because both dark elves realized soon enough that their little ploy had worked, and so very easily.
"I remember when Obould was as readily man
ipulated as that," Kaer'lic said almost wistfully as she and Tos'un left Proffit's encampment.
Tos'un didn't disagree with the sentiment. Indeed, the world had seemed so much simpler a place not so very long ago.
CHAPTER 6 FORWARD THINKING ORC
"All the anger of the day," Tsinka Shinriil said as she ran her fingers over Obould's massive shoulder. "Let it lead you now." Then she bit the orc on the back of his neck and began to wrap her sinewy arms and legs around him.
Feeling the tautness of her muscles against him, Obould was again reminded of the wild pegasus. Amusing images floated through his mind, but he pushed them away as he easily moved the amorous shaman aside, stepping out into the center of his tent.
"It is much more than a stupid creature," he remarked, as much to himself as to Tsinka. He turned to see the shaman staring at him, her bewildered expression so much in contrast to her trembling and naked form.
"The winged horse," Obould explained. Tsinka slumped down on a pile of furs. "More than a horse … more than the wings …" He turned away, nodding, and began to pace. "Yes… that was my mistake."
"Mistake? You are Gruumsh. You are perfect."
Obould's grin became an open snicker as he turned back to her and said, "I underestimated the creature. A pegasus, so it would seem, is much more than a horse with wings."
Tsinka's jaw drooped. Obould laughed at her.
"A horse might be clever, but this creature is more," said Obould. "It is wise. Yes! And if I know that…"
"Come to me," Tsinka bade him, and she extended her arm and struck a pose so exaggerated, so intentionally alluring, that Obould found it simply amusing.
He went to her anyway, but remained quite distracted as he thought through the implications of his insight. He knew the disposition of the pegasus; he knew that the creature was much more than a stupid horse with wings, for he had come to recognize its stubbornness as loyalty. If he knew that, then the pegasus's former masters surely knew it, and if they knew it, then there was certainly no way that they would let the imprisonment stand.
That thought reverberated through Obould, overshadowing every movement of Tsinka, every bite, every caress, every purr. Rather than diminish in the fog of lust, the images of elves sweeping down to rescue the pegasus only gained momentum and clarity. Obould understood the true value of the creature his minions had captured.
The orc king gave a great shout, startling Tsinka. She froze and stared at him, her eyes at first wild and showing confusion.
Obould tossed her off to the side and leaped up, grabbing a simple fur to wrap around himself as he pushed through the tent flap and out into the encampment.
"Where are you going?" Tsinka shrieked at him. "You cannot go!"
Obould disappeared behind the tent flap as it fell back in place.
"You must not go out without your armor!" cried Tsinka. "You are Gruumsh! You are the god! You must be protected."
Obould's head poked back in, his eyes and toothy grin wide.
"If I am a god …" he started to say, but he left the question there, letting Tsinka reason it out for herself. If he was a god, after all, then why would he need armor?
* * * * *
"Sunrise," Innovindil said breathlessly when at long last she saw the marvelous winged horse.
Behind her, over the rocky bluff and down the back slope of the mountain spur, Sunset pawed the ground and snorted, obviously aware that her brother and companion was down there in the grassy vale.
Innovindil hardly heard the pegasus behind her, and hardly noticed her dark elf companion stirring at her side. Her eyes remained locked on the pegasus below, legs bound as it grazed in the tall brown grass. The elf couldn't block out recollections of the last time she had seen Sunrise, caught under a net, nor those images that had accompanied that troubling scene. The death of her lover Tarathiel played out so clearly in her mind again. She saw his desperate war dance against Obould and that sudden and stunning end.
She stared at Sunrise and blinked back tears.
Drizzt Do'Urden put a hand on her shoulder, and when Innovindil finally managed to glance over at him, she recognized that he understood very clearly the tumult within her.
"I know," the drow confirmed. "I see him, too."
Innovindil silently nodded.
"Let us find a way to take a giant stride toward avenging Tarathiel," Drizzt said. "Above all else, he would demand that we free Sunrise from the orcs. Let us give his spirit some rest."
Another silent nod, and Innovindil looked back down at the grassy vale. She didn't focus on the pegasus, but rather on the approach routes that would bring them near to the poor creature. She considered the orc guards milling about, counting half a dozen.
"We could swoop in fast and hard upon Sunset," she offered. "I drop you down right behind Sunrise and cover your movements as you free our captured friend."
Drizzt was shaking his head before she ever finished. He knew that the large enemy encampment was just over the low ridge on the other side of the vale.
"Our time will be too short," he replied. "If we alert them before we even arrive on the scene, our time to free Sunrise and be away will be shorter still. Frost giants can throw boulders a long, long way, and their aim is usually true."
Innovindil didn't argue the point. Her own thinking, in fact, had been moving along those same lines even as she was offering her suggestion. When she looked back at Drizzt, she rested more easily, for she could see the dark elf's eyes searching out every approach and weighing every movement. Innovindil had already gained tremendous respect for the dark elf. If anyone could pull off the rescue, it was Drizzt Do'Urden.
"Tell Sunset to be ready to come to your whistle," the drow said a few moments later. "Just as when we … when you, killed Obould's murderous son."
Innovindil slid back from the ridge, belly-crawling over the far side to Sunset. When she returned a few moments later, she was greeted by a smiling Drizzt, who was waving his hand for her to follow. He slithered over the stones as easily as a snake, Innovindil close behind.
It took the pair nearly half an hour to traverse the mostly open ground of the mountain's eastern slope. They moved from shadow to shadow, from nook to jag to cranny. Drizzt's path got them to the valley floor just north of the field where Sunrise grazed, but still with fifty yards of open ground between them and the pegasus. From that better vantage point, they noted two more orc guards, bringing the number to eight.
Drizzt pointed to himself, to Innovindil, then to the tall grass, and moved his hand in a slithering, snakelike fashion. When the elf nodded her understanding and began to crouch, the drow held up his hand to stop her. He started to work his fingers in the silent drow code, but stopped short in frustration, wishing that she could understand it.
Instead, Drizzt twisted his face and pushed his nose up, trying to look very orclike. Then he indicated the tall grass again and gave an uncertain shrug.
Innovindil winked in reply, to show that she had taken his meaning, and as she went back into her crouch, she produced a dagger from her boot and brought it up to her mouth. Holding it between clenched teeth, the elf went down to her belly and moved out of the trees and to the edge of the grass. She glanced back at Drizzt, indicating with her hand that she'd go out to the right, moving west of Sunrise's position.
The drow went into the grass to her left, similarly on his belly, and the two moved along.
Drizzt took his movements in bursts of ten elbow-steps, slowly and methodically creeping through the grass, then pausing and daring to lift his head enough to take note of the closest orc guard. He wanted to veer off and go right to that one, to leave it dead in the grass, but that was not the point of their mission. Drizzt fought aside his instinctive rage, against the Hunter within him that demanded continual retribution for the death of Bruenor and the others. He controlled those angry instincts and reminded himself silently that Sunrise was depending on him, that the ghost of Tarathiel, another fallen friend, demanded it
of him.
He veered away from the orc guard, swerving wide enough to avoid detection and putting himself back in line to approach Sunrise from the east. Soon he was inside the orc guard perimeter. He could hear them all around, chattering in their guttural language, or kicking at the dirt. He heard Sunrise paw the ground and was able to guess that he was still about twenty-five feet from the steed. That distance would likely take him longer than the hundred-plus feet he had come from the trees, he knew, for every movement had to be silent and carefully made so as to not disturb the grass.
Many minutes passed Drizzt by as he lay perfectly still, then he dared to place one elbow out in front of him and propel himself a foot forward. He moved slightly back to the west as he made his way, closing the ground, he hoped, between himself and Innovindil.
A footstep right before him froze him in place. A moment later, through the grass, he saw a strong, thick orc leg, wrapped in leather and furs.
He didn't dare draw breath.
The brutish creature called to its friends—something in its native language spoken too quickly for Drizzt to decipher. The drow did relax just a bit, though, when he heard other orcs respond with a laugh.
The orc walked along to the west, moving out of Drizzt's way.
The dark elf paused a bit longer, giving the creature time to completely clear and also making sure that it did not take note of Innovindil.
Satisfied, he started to move along once more, but then stopped in surprise at a sudden whinny from Sunrise. The pegasus reared and snorted, front hooves thumping the ground hard. The winged horse neighed again, loudly and wildly, and bucked, kicking the air so forcefully that Drizzt clearly heard the crack of hooves cutting the air.
The drow dared lift his head—and quickly realized his mistake.
Behind him, up in the trees from which he and Innovindil had just come, he heard the shout of an orc lookout. Before him, the eight guards began to close ranks, and one called out.
A noise to the side turned the drow that way—to see more orcs charging over the distant ridgeline.
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