transition 01 The Orc King
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The creature howled again and bit down at the passing blades, its three mandible tips not quite aligning as they clicked together. It opened wide its maw again as it turned to face Drizzt.
His blades worked in a flash, the backhand of Icingdeath slicing the opposing skin flap, and a hard strike of Twinkle passing through the muscle and flesh, then turning straight down to slash the base flap that connected the lower two mandible tips. Drizzt turned the blade just a bit as it connected, and leaned forward hard, forcing the jaws to angle down.
The creature snapped its head back up, accepting the cut, and leaped straight up, turning its back end under so that it landed on its outstretched tail with its hind legs free to claw at its opponent. Formidable indeed were the three claws tipping the feet of those powerful legs, and Drizzt barely dodged back in time to avoid the vicious rake.
Somehow the creature hopped forward in pursuit, using just its tail for propulsion. Its tiny front legs waved frantically in the air as its long, powerful rear legs slashed wildly at the drow.
Drizzt worked his scimitars in a blur to defend, connecting repeatedly, but never too solidly for fear of having a blade torn from his grasp. He retracted a blade and the creature’s hind leg flailed free, then he stabbed straight out, piercing its foot.
The creature threw back its head and howled again—from up above there came a crash as a form rolled over the ledge—and Drizzt didn’t miss the opportunity offered by the distraction. Rolling around those flailing legs and slashing across with Icingdeath, then with Twinkle in close pursuit, he scored two hits on the creature’s thin neck. There was a sucking of air and Drizzt saw the bubbling of blood as his blades passed through flesh.
Not even slowing in his turn as the creature fell silent, then just fell over, the drow sprinted down the tunnel. A roar from behind made him glance back, to see Bruenor flying down the last few feet beside the stalagmite, axe over his head. The dwarf timed his landing perfectly with his overhand chop, driving his axe through the already mortally wounded creature’s backbone with a sickening sound.
“Wait here!” Drizzt called to him, and the drow was gone.
Bruenor held on as the creature thrashed in its death throes. It tried to turn around to snap at him, but Drizzt had completely disabled the once-formidable jaws’ ability to inflict any real damage. The mandibles flopped awkwardly and without coordination, most of the supporting muscles severed. Similarly, the creature’s tail and hind legs exhibited only the occasional spasmodic twitch, for Bruenor’s axe had cleaved its spine.
So the dwarf stayed at arms’ length, holding his axe out far from his torso to avoid any incidental contact.
“Hurry, elf!” Bruenor called after Drizzt when he glanced to the side and noted Thibble dorf’s boot lying on the stone floor. No longer willing to wait out the dying beast, Bruenor leaped atop its back and ripped through tendon and bone as he tugged and yanked his axe free. He thought to run off after Drizzt, but before he even had the weapon set in his hands, a movement to the side caught his eye.
The dwarf watched curiously as a darker patch of shadow coalesced near the side wall and the broken wagon, gradually taking shape—the shape of another of the strange beasts.
It came out hard and fast at him, and Bruenor wisely dropped down behind the fallen creature. On came the second beast, jaws snapping furiously, and the dwarf fell to the stone floor and heaved the fallen creature up as a meaty shield. The dwarf finally saw the damage those strange triangular jaws could inflict, for the ravenous newcomer tore through great chunks of flesh and bone in seconds.
Movement behind Bruenor had him half turning to his right.
“Just me!” Regis called to him before he came around, and the dwarf refocused on the beast before him.
Then Bruenor glanced left, to see Drizzt backing frantically out of the tunnel, his scimitars working fast and independently, each slashing quick lines to hold the snapping mouths of two more creatures at bay.
“Rumblebelly, ye help the elf!” Bruenor called, but when he glanced back, Regis was gone.
Bruenor’s foe plowed over its fallen comrade then, and the dwarf king had no time to look for his halfling companion.
Drizzt noticed Regis flattened against the wall as he, and the pair of monsters pursuing him, moved past the halfling.
Regis nodded and waited for a responding nod. As soon as Drizzt offered it, the halfling came out fast and slapped his small mace against the tail of the creature on the left. Predictably, the beast wheeled to snap at this newest foe, but anticipating that, Drizzt moved faster, bringing his right hand blade over and across, cutting a gash across the side of the turning beast’s neck.
With a roar of protest, the creature spun back, and the other, seeing the opening, came on suddenly.
But Drizzt was the quicker, and he managed to backstep fast enough to buy the time to realign his blades. He gave an approving nod to Regis as the halfling slipped down the tunnel.
Regis moved deliberately, but nervously, into the darkness, expecting a monster to spring out at him from every patch of shadow. Soon he heard the scraping of metal, and an occasional grumble and Dwarvish curse, and he could tell from the lack of bluster that Thibble dorf Pwent was in serious trouble.
Propelled by that, Regis moved with more speed, coming up to the edge of a side chamber from which issued the terrible, gnashing, metallic sounds. Regis summoned his courage and peeked around the rim of the opening. There in the room, silhouetted by the glow of lichen along the far wall, stood another creature, one larger than the others and easily more than ten feet from maw to tail tip. It stood perfectly still, except that it thrashed its head back and forth. Looking at it from the back, but on a slight angle, Regis could see why it did so. For out of the side of that mouth hung an armored dwarf leg with a dirty bare foot dangling limply at its end. Regis winced, thinking that his friend was being torn apart by that triangular maw. He could picture the black teeth crunching through Pwent’s armored shell, tearing his flesh with fangs and ripped metal.
And the dwarf wasn’t moving, other than the flailing caused by the limp limbs protruding from the thing’s mouth, and no further protests or groans came forth.
Trembling with anger and terror, Regis charged with abandon, leaping forward and lifting high his small mace. But where could he even hit the murderous beast to hurt it?
He got his answer as the creature noticed him, whipping its head around. It was then that the halfling first came to understand the strange head, with its three equidistant eyes set in the middle of each of the skin flaps that connected the mandibles. Purely on instinct, the halfling swung for the nearest eye, and the creature’s short forelimbs could not reach forward far enough to block.
The mace hit true, and the flap, taut about the knee and upper leg of the trapped dwarf, had no give that it might absorb the blow. With a sickening splat, the eye popped, gushing liquid all over the horrified halfling.
The creature hissed and whipped its head furiously—an attempt to throw the dwarf free.
But Pwent wasn’t dead. He had gone into a defensive curl, a “turtle” maneuver that tightened the set of his magnificent armor, strengthening its integrity and hiding its vulnerable seams. As the creature loosened its death grip on him, the dwarf came out of his curl with a defiant snarl. He had no room to punch, or to maneuver his head spike, so he simply thrashed, shaking like a wide-leafed bush in a gale.
The creature lost interest in Regis, and tried to clamp down on the dwarf instead. But too late, for Pwent was in a frenzy, insane with rage.
Finally the creature managed to open wide its maw and angle down, expelling the dwarf. When Pwent came free, Regis’s eyes widened to see the amount of damage—torn skin, broken teeth, and blood—the dwarf had inflicted on the beast.
And Pwent was far from done. He hit the ground in a turn that put his feet under him, and his little legs bent, then propelled him right back at the creature, head—and helmet spike—leading. He drove into
and through the apex of the jaws, and the dwarf bored on, bending the creature backward. The dwarf punched out, both hands at the same time, launching twin roundhouse hooks that pounded the beast on opposite sides of its neck, fist-spikes digging in. Again and again, the dwarf retracted and punched back hard, both hands together, mashing the flesh.
And the dwarf’s legs ground on, pushing the beast backward, up against the side-chamber’s wall, and by the time they got there, the creature was not resisting at all, was not pushing back, and without the barrage it would have likely fallen over.
But Pwent kept hitting it, muttering profanities all the while.
Bruenor thrust his axe out horizontally before him, defeating the first attack. He turned the weapon and used it to angle the charging creature aside as he, too, ran ahead, sprinting by the beast to the remains of the wagon. All of the supply crates and sacks had been destroyed, either from the fall or torn apart thereafter, but Bruenor found what he was looking for in an intact portion of the side of the wagon, angling up to about waist height. Knowing the creature to be in full pursuit, the dwarf dived right over that, falling to the floor at its base and rolling to his back, axe up above his head along the ground.
The creature leaped over the planks, not realizing that Bruenor was so close to them until the dwarf’s axe hit it hard in the side, cutting a long gash just behind its small, twitching foreleg.
Bruenor fell back flat and continued the momentum to roll him right over, coming back up to his feet. He didn’t pause to look over his handiwork, but propelled himself forward, lifting his axe high over one shoulder as he went.
The creature was ready, though, and as the dwarf bore in, it snapped its mouth out at him, and when it had to retract far short of the mark to avoid a swipe of that vicious axe, the creature just fell back on its tail, as the other one had done, and brought up its formidable rear legs.
One blocked Bruenor’s next swing, kicking out and catching the axe below the head, while the other lashed out, scraping deep lines on the dwarf’s armor. Following that, the creature snapped its upper body forward, the triangular maw biting hard at the dwarf, who only managed at the last instant to get back out of range.
And right back came Bruenor, with a yell and a spit and a downward chop.
The creature rocked back and the axe whipped past cleanly. The creature reversed, coming in behind.
Bruenor didn’t stop the axe’s momentum and reverse it to parry. Rather, he let it flow through, turning sidelong as the blade came low, then turning some more, daring to roll his back around before the beast in the belief that he would be the quicker.
And so he was.
Bruenor came around, the axe in both hands and at full extension in a great sidelong slash. The creature scrambled to block. Bruenor shortened his grip, bringing the axe head in closer. When the creature kicked out to block, the axe met it squarely, removing one of the three toes and cleaving the blocking foot in half.
The creature threw itself forward, screaming in pain and anger, coming at Bruenor with blind rage. And the dwarf king backed frantically, his axe working to-and-fro to fend off the snapping assaults.
“Elf! I’m needin’ ye!” the desperate dwarf bellowed.
Drizzt was in no position to answer. The wound he had inflicted on one of the beasts wasn’t quite as serious as he’d hoped, apparently, for that creature showed no signs of relenting. Worse for Drizzt, he had been backed into a wider area, giving the creatures more room to maneuver and spread out before him.
They went wide, left and right, amazingly well coordinated for unthinking beasts—if they were indeed unthinking beasts. Drizzt worked his blades as far to either side as he could, and when that became impractical and awkward, the drow rushed ahead suddenly, back toward the tunnel.
Both creatures turned to chase, but Drizzt reversed even faster, spinning to meet their pursuit with a barrage of blows. He scored a deep gash on the side of one’s mouth, and poked the other in its bottom eye.
Up above he heard a crash, and from the side Bruenor called for him. All he could do was look for options.
His gaze followed the trail of falling rocks, to see Torgar Hammer striker in a wild and overbalanced run down the side of the stalagmite. The dwarf held a heavy crossbow before him, and just before his stumbling sent him into a headlong slide, he let fly a bolt, somehow hitting the creature to Drizzt’s right. The crossbow went flying and so did Torgar, crashing and bouncing the rest of the way down.
The creature he had hit stumbled then spun to meet the dwarf’s charge. But its jaws couldn’t catch up to the bouncing and flailing Torgar, and the dwarf slammed hard against the back and side of the beast, bringing it down in a heap. Dazed beyond sensibility, Torgar couldn’t begin to defend himself in that tumble as the creature moved to strike.
But Drizzt moved around the remaining creature and struck hard at the fallen beast, his scimitars slicing at its flesh in rapid succession, tearing deep lines. Drizzt had to pause to fend off the other, but as soon as that attack was repelled, he went back to the first, ensuring that it was dead.
Then the drow smiled, seeing that the tide had turned, seeing the lowered head spike rushing in hard at the standing creature’s backside.
Even as Pwent connected, skewering the beast from behind, Drizzt broke off and ran toward the wagon. By the time he got there, he found Bruenor and his opponent in a wild back and forth of snapping and slashing.
Drizzt leaped up to the lip of the wagon side, looking for an opening. Noting him, Bruenor rushed out the other way, and the creature turned with the dwarf.
Drizzt leaped astride its back, his scimitars going to quick and deadly work.
“What in the Nine Hells are them things?” Bruenor asked when the vicious thing at last lay still.
“What from the Nine Hells, perhaps,” said Drizzt with a shrug.
The two moved back to the center of the room, where Pwent continued pummeling the already dead beast and Regis tended to the dazed and battered Torgar.
“I can’t be getting down,” came a call from above, and all eyes lifted to see Cordio peering over the entrance, far above. “Ain’t no place to set the rope.”
“I’ll get him,” Drizzt assured Bruenor.
With agility that continued to awe, the drow ran up the side of the stalagmite, sliding his scimitars away. At the top, he searched and found his handholds, and between those and the rope, which Cordio had braced once more, Drizzt soon disappeared back out of the hole.
A few moments later, Cordio came down on the rope, gaining to the top of the mound, then, with Drizzt’s help, he worked his way gingerly down to the ground. Drizzt came back into the cavern soon after, hanging by his fingertips. He fell purposely, landing lightly atop the stalagmite mound. From there, the drow trotted down to join his friends.
“Stupid, smelly lizards,” Pwent muttered as he tried to put his boot back on. The metal bands had been bent, though, crimping the opening in the shoe, and so it was no easy task.
“What were them things?” Bruenor asked any and all.
“Extraplanar creatures,” said Cordio, who was inspecting one of the bodies—one of the bodies that was smoking and dissipating before his very eyes. “I’d be keeping yer cat in its statue, elf.”
Drizzt’s hand went reflexively to his pouch, where he kept the onyx figurine he used to summon Guenhwyvar to the Prime Material Plane. He nodded his agreement with Cordio. If ever he had needed the panther, it would have been in the last fight, and even then, he hadn’t dared call upon her. He could sense it, too, a pervasive aura of strange otherworldliness. The place was either truly haunted or somehow dimensionally unstable.
He slipped his hand in the pouch and felt the contours of the panther replica. He hoped the situation wouldn’t force him to chance a call to Guenhwyvar, but in glancing around at his already battered companions, he had little confidence that it could be avoided for long.
CHAPTER
THE WAY OF THE ORC
On a hillside to the east, Dnark, Toogwik Tuk, and Ung-thol crouched and waited nervously, while Clan Karuck crept along the low ground behind them and to the south.
“This is too brazen,” Ung-thol warned. “The elves will come out in force.”
Dnark knew that his shaman’s words were not without merit, for they’d encroached on the Moonwood, the home of a deadly clan of elves.
“We will be gone across the river before the main groups arrive,” Toogwik Tuk replied. “Grguch and Hakuun have planned this carefully.”
“We are exposed!” Ung-thol protested. “If we are seen here on open ground…”
“Their eyes will be to the north, to the flames that eat their beloved god-trees,” said Toogwik Tuk.
“It is a gamble,” Dnark interjected, calming both shamans.
“It is the way of the warrior,” said Toogwik Tuk. “The way of the orc. It is something Obould Many-Arrows would have once done, but no more.”
Truth resonated in those words to both Dnark and Ung-thol. The chieftain glanced down at the creeping warriors of Clan Karuck, many shrouded by branches they had attached to their dark armor and clothing. Further to the side, tight around the trees of a small copse, a band of ogre javelin throwers held still and quiet, atlatl throwing sticks in hand.
The day could bring disaster, a ruination of all of their plans to force Obould forward, Dnark knew. Or it could bring glory, which would then only push their plans all the more. In any event, a blow struck here would sound like the shredding of a treaty, and that, the chieftain thought, could only be a good thing.