transition 01 The Orc King

by R . A. Salvatore

  “They know too much of us,” Hralien protested.

  “Then we must change our tactics.”

  But Hralien was shaking his head. “It is more, I fear. Could it be that they are guided by a dark elf who knows how we fight?”

  “We do not know that,” Albondiel cautioned. “This was a simple ambush, perhaps.”

  “One ready for Innovindil and Sunset!”

  “By design or by coincidence? You assume much.”

  Hralien knelt beside his friends, living and dead. “Can we afford not to?”

  Albondiel pondered that for a few moments. “We should find Tos’un.”

  “We should get word to Mithral Hall,” said Hralien. “To Drizzt Do’Urden, who will grieve for Innovindil and Sunset. He will understand better the methods of Tos’un, and has already vowed to find the drow.”

  A shadow passed over them, drawing their attention skyward.

  Sunrise circled above them, tossing his head and crying out pitifully for the lost pegasus.

  Albondiel looked at Hralien and saw tears streaking his friend’s face. He looked back up at the pegasus, but could hardly make out the flying horse through the glare of his own tears in the morning sunlight.

  “Get Drizzt,” he heard himself whisper.

  CHAPTER

  MISDIRECTING CLUES

  Pack it up and move it out,” Bruenor grumbled, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He snatched up his axe, wrapping his hand around the handle just under the well-worn head. He prodded the hard ground with it as if it were a walking stick as he moved away from the group.

  Thibble dorf Pwent, wearing much of his lunch in his beard and on his armor, hopped up right behind, eager to be on his way, and Cordio and Torgar similarly rose to Bruenor’s call, though with less enthusiasm, even with a wary glance to each other.

  Regis just gave a sigh and looked down at the remainder of his meal, a slab of cold beef wrapped with flattened bread, and with a bowl of thick gravy and a biscuit on the side.

  “Always in a hurry,” the halfling said to Drizzt, who helped him rewrap the remaining food.

  “Bruenor is nervous,” said Drizzt, “and anxious.”

  “Because he fears more monsters?”

  “Because these tunnels are not to his expectations or to his liking,” the drow explained, and Regis nodded at the revelation.

  They had come into the hole expecting to find a tunnel to the dwarven city of Gauntlgrym, and at first, after their encounter with the strange beasts, things had seemed pretty much as they had anticipated, including a sloping tunnel with a worked wall. The other side seemed more natural stone and dirt, as were the ceiling and floor, but that one wall had left no doubt that it was more than a natural cave, and the craftsmanship evident in the fitted stones made Bruenor and the other dwarves believe that it was indeed the work of their ancestors.

  But that tunnel hadn’t held its promise or its course, and though they were deeper underground, and though they still found fragments of old construction, the trail seemed to be growing cold.

  Drizzt and Regis moved quickly to close the distance to the others. With the monsters about, appearing suddenly from the shadows as if from nowhere, the group didn’t dare separate. That presented a dilemma a hundred feet along, when Bruenor led them all into a small chamber they quickly recognized to be a hub, with no fewer than six tunnels branching out from it.

  “Well, there ye be!” Bruenor cried, hefting his axe and punching it into the air triumphantly. “Ain’t no river or burrowing beast made this plaza.”

  Looking around, it was hard for Drizzt to disagree, for other than one side, where dirt had collapsed into the place, the chamber seemed perfectly circular, and the tunnels too equidistant for it to be a random design.

  Torgar fell to his knees and began digging at the hard-packed dirt, and his progress multiplied many times over when Pwent dropped down beside him and put his spiked gauntlets to work. In a few moments, the battlerager scraped stone, and as he worked his way out to the sides, it became apparent that the stone was flat.

  “A paver!” Torgar announced.

  “Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor said to Drizzt and Regis with an exaggerated wink. “Never doubt an old dwarf.”

  “Another one!” Pwent announced.

  “Sure’n the whole place is full o’ them,” said Bruenor. “It’s a trading hub for caravans, or I’m a bearded gnome. Yerself’s knowing that,” he said to Torgar, and the Mirabarran dwarf nodded.

  Drizzt looked past the three dwarves to the fourth, Cordio, who had moved to the wall between a pair of the tunnels and was scraping at the wall. The dwarf nodded as his knife sank in deeper along a crease in the stone behind the accumulated dirt and mud, revealing a vertical line.

  “What do ye know?” Bruenor asked, leading Torgar and Thibbledorf over to the cleric.

  A moment later, as Cordio broke away a larger piece of the covering grime, it became apparent to all that the cleric had found a door. After a few moments, they managed to clear it completely, and to their delight they were able to pry it open, revealing a single-roomed structure behind it. Part of the back left corner had collapsed, taking a series of shelves down with it, but other than that, the place seemed frozen in time.

  “Dwarven,” Bruenor was saying as Drizzt moved to the threshold.

  The dwarf stood off to the side of the small door, examining a rack holding a few ancient metal artifacts. They were tools or weapons, obviously, and Bruenor upended one to examine its head, which could have been the remnants of a pole arm, or even a hoe, perhaps.

  “Might be dwarven,” Torgar agreed, examining the shorter-handled item beside the one Bruenor had lifted, one showing the clear remains of a spade. “Too old to know for sure.”

  “Dwarven,” Bruenor insisted. He turned and let his gaze encompass the whole of the small house. “All the place is dwarven.”

  The others nodded, more because they couldn’t disprove the theory than because they had reached the same conclusions. The remnants of a table and a pair of chairs might well have been dwarf-made, and seemed about the right size for the bearded folk. Cordio moved around those items to a hearth, and as he began clearing the debris from it and scraping at the stone, that, too, seemed to bolster Bruenor’s argument. For there was no mistaking the craftsmanship evident in the ancient fireplace. The bricks had been so tightly set that the passage of time had done little to diminish the integrity of the structure, and indeed it seemed as if, with a bit of cleaning, the companions could safely light a fire.

  Drizzt, too, noted that hearth, and paid particular heed to the shallowness of the fireplace, and the funnel shape of the side walls, widening greatly into the room.

  “The plaza’s a forward post for the city,” Bruenor announced as they began moving back out. “So I’m guessing that the city’s opposite the tunnel we just came down.”

  “In the lead!” said Pwent, heading that way at once.

  “Good guess on the door,” Bruenor said to Cordio, and he patted the cleric on the shoulder before he and Torgar started off after the battlerager.

  “It wasn’t a guess,” Drizzt said under his breath, so that only Regis could hear. And Cordio, for the dwarf glanced back at Drizzt—his expression seeming rather sour, Regis thought—then moved off after his king, muttering, “Wouldn’t need pavers this far down.”

  Regis looked from him to Drizzt, his expression begging answers.

  “It was a free-standing house, and not a reinforced cave dwelling,” Drizzt explained.

  Regis glanced around. “You think there are others, separating the exit tunnels?”

  “Probably.”

  “And what does that mean? There were many free-standing houses in the bowels of Mirabar. Not so uncommon a thing in underground cities.”

  “True enough,” Drizzt agreed. “Menzoberranzan is comprised of many similar structures.”

  “Cordio’s expression spoke of some significance,” the halfling remarked. “If this
type of structure is to be expected, then why did he wear a frown?”

  “Did you note the fireplace?” Drizzt asked.

  “Dwarven,” Regis replied.

  “Perhaps.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The fireplace was not a cooking pit, primarily,” Drizzt explained. “It was designed to throw heat into the room.”

  Regis shrugged, not understanding.

  “We are far enough underground so that the temperature hardly varies,” Drizzt informed him, and started off after the others.

  Regis paused for just a moment, and glanced back at the revealed structure.

  “Should we search this area more completely?” the halfling asked.

  “Follow Bruenor,” Drizzt replied. “We will have our answers soon enough.”

  They kept their questions unspoken as they hurried to join up with the four dwarves, which took some time, for the excited Bruenor led them down the tunnel at a hurried pace.

  The tunnel widened considerably soon after, breaking into what seemed to be a series of parallel tracks of varying widths continuing in the same general direction. Bruenor moved without hesitation down the centermost of them, but they found it to be a moot choice anyway, since the tunnels interconnected at many junctures. What they soon discerned was that this wasn’t so much a series of tunnels as a singular pathway, broken up by pillars, columns, and other structures.

  At one such interval, they came upon a low entrance, capped diagonally by a structure that had obviously been made by skilled masons, for the bricks could still be seen, and they held fast despite the passage of centuries and the apparent collapse of the building, which had sent it crashing to the side into another wall.

  “Could be a shaft, pitched for a fast descent,” Bruenor remarked.

  “It’s a building that tipped,” Cordio argued, and Bruenor snorted and waved his hand dismissively.

  But Torgar, who had moved closer, said, “Aye, it is.” He paused and looked up. “And one that fell a long way. Or slid.”

  “And how’re ye knowin’ that?” Bruenor asked, and there was no mistaking the hint of defiance. He was catching on, obviously, that things weren’t unfolding the way he’d anticipated.

  Torgar was already motioning them over, and began pointing out the closest corner of the structure, where the edge of the bricks had been rounded, but not by tools.

  “We see this in Mirabar all the time,” Torgar explained, running a fat thumb over the corner. “Wind wore it round. This place was under the sky, not under the rock.”

  “There’s wind in some tunnels,” said Bruenor. “Currents and such blowin’ down strong from above.”

  Torgar remained unconvinced. “This building was up above,” he said, shaking his head, “for years and years afore it fell under.”

  “Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Ye’re guessin’.”

  “Might be that Gauntlgrym had an aboveground market,” Cordio interjected.

  Drizzt looked at Regis and rolled his eyes, and as the dwarves moved off, the halfling grabbed Drizzt by the sleeve and held him back.

  “You don’t believe that Gauntlgrym had an aboveground market?” he asked.

  “Gauntlgrym?” Drizzt echoed skeptically.

  “You don’t believe?”

  “More than the market of this place was above ground, I fear,” said Drizzt. “Much more. And Cordio and Torgar see it, too.”

  “But not Bruenor,” said Regis.

  “It will be a blow to him. One he is not ready to accept.”

  “You think this whole place was a city above ground?” Regis stated. “A city that sank into the tundra?”

  “Let us follow the dwarves. We will learn what we will learn.”

  The tunnels continued on for a few hundred more feet, but the group came to a solid blockage, one that sealed off all of the nearby corridors. Torgar tapped on that wall repeatedly with a small hammer, listening for echoes, and after inspecting it at several points in all the tunnels, announced to the troop, “There’s a big open area behind it. I’m knowin’ it.”

  “Forges?” Bruenor asked hopefully.

  Torgar could only shrug. “Only one way we’re goin’ to find out, me king.”

  So they set their camp right there, down the main tunnel at the base of the wall, and while Drizzt and Regis went back up the tunnel some distance to keep watch back near the wider areas, the four dwarves devised their plans for safely excavating. Soon after they had shared their next meal, the sound of hammers rang out against the stone, none more urgent than Bruenor’s own.

  CHAPTER

  NESMÉ’S PRIDE

  I had hoped to find the woman before we crossed the last expanse to Nesmé,” Wulfgar remarked to Catti-brie. Their caravan had stopped to re-supply at a nondescript, unnamed cluster of houses still a couple of days’ travel from their destination, and the last such scheduled stop on their journey.

  “There are still more settlements,” Catti-brie reminded him, for indeed, the drivers had told them that they would pass more secluded lodges in the next two days.

  “The houses of hunters and loners,” Wulfgar replied. “No places appropriate for Cottie to remain with Colson.”

  “Unless all the refugees remained together and decided to begin their own community.”

  Wulfgar replied with a knowing smile, a reflection of Catti-brie’s own feelings on the subject, to be sure. She knew as Wulfgar knew that they would find Cottie Cooperson and Colson in Nesmé.

  “Two days,” Catti-brie said. “In two days, you will have Colson in your arms once more. Where she belongs.”

  Wulfgar’s grim expression, even a little wince, caught her by surprise.

  “We have heard of no tragedies along the road,” Catti-brie added. “If the caravan bearing Cottie and the others had been attacked, word would have already spread through these outposts. Since we are so close, we can say with confidence that Cottie and Colson reached Nesmé safely.”

  “Still, I have no love of the place,” he said, “and no desire to see the likes of Galen Firth or his prideful companions ever again.”

  Catti-brie moved closer and put her hand on Wulfgar’s shoulder. “We will collect the child and be gone,” she said. “Quickly and with few words. We come with the backing of Mithral Hall, and to Mithral Hall we will return with your child.”

  Wulfgar’s face was unreadable, though that, of course, only reaf-firmed Catti-brie’s suspicions that something was amiss.

  The caravan rolled out of the village before the next dawn, wheels creaking against the uneven strain of the perpetually muddy ground. As they continued west, the Trollmoors, the fetid swamp of so many unpleasant beasts, seemed to creep up toward them from the south. But the drivers and those more familiar with the region appeared unconcerned, and were happy to explain, often, that things had quieted since the rout of the trolls by Alustriel’s Knights in Silver and the brave Riders of Nesmé.

  “The road’s safer than it’s been in more than a decade,” the lead driver insisted.

  “More’s the pity,” one of the regulars from the second wagon answered loudly. “I been hoping a few trolls or bog blokes might show their ugly faces, just so I can watch the work of King Bruenor’s kids!”

  That brought a cheer from all around, and a smile did widen on Catti-brie’s face. She looked to Wulfgar. If he had even heard the remarks, he didn’t show it.

  Wulfgar and Catti-brie weren’t really sure what they might find when their caravan finally came into view of Nesmé, but they knew at once that it was not the same town through which they had traveled on their long-ago journey to rediscover Mithral Hall. Anticipated images of ruined and burned-out homes and shoddy, temporary shelters did not prepare them for the truth of the place. For Nesmé had risen again already, even through the cold winds of winter.

  Most of the debris from the troll rampage had been cleared, and newer buildings, stronger, taller, and with thicker walls, replaced the old structures. The double wall su
rrounding the whole of the place neared completion, and was particularly fortified along the southern borders, facing the Trollmoors.

  Contingents of armed and armored riders patrolled the town, meeting the caravan far out from the new and larger gate.

  Nesmé was alive again, a testament to the resiliency and determination, and sheer stubbornness that had marked the frontiers of human advancement throughout Faerûn. For all of their rightful negativity toward the place, given their reception those years before, neither Wulfgar nor Catti-brie could hide their respect.

  “So much like Ten-Towns,” Catti-brie quietly remarked as their wagon neared the gate. “They will not bend.”

  Wulfgar nodded his agreement, slightly, but he was clearly distracted as he continued to stare at the town.

  “They’ve more people now than before the trolls,” Catti-brie said, repeating something the caravan drivers had told the both of them earlier along the road. “Twice the number, say some.”

  Wulfgar didn’t blink and didn’t look her way. She sensed his inner turmoil, and knew that it wasn’t about Colson. Not only, at least.

  She tried one last time to engage him, saying, “Nesmé might inspire other towns to grow along the road to Silverymoon, and won’t that be a fitting response to the march of the murderous trolls? It may well be that the northern border will grow strong enough to build a militia that can press into the swamp and be rid of the beasts once and for all.”

  “It might,” said Wulfgar, in such a tone as to show Catti-brie that he hadn’t even registered that to which he agreed.

  The town gates, towering barriers thrice the height of a tall man and built of strong black-barked logs banded together with heavy straps of metal, groaned in protest as the sentries pulled them back to allow the caravan access to the town’s open courtyard. Beyond that defensive wall, Wulfgar and Catti-brie could see that their initial views of Nesmé were no illusion, for indeed the town was larger and more impressive than it had been those years before. It had an official barracks to support the larger militia, a long, two-story building to their left along the defensive southern wall. Before them loomed the tallest structure in town, aside from a singular tower that was under work somewhere in the northwestern quadrant. Two dozen steps led off the main plaza where the wagons parked, directly west of the eastern-facing gates. At the top of those steps ran a pair of parallel, narrow bridges, just a short and defensible expanse, to the impressive front of the new Nesmian Town Hall. Like all the rest of the town, the building was under construction, but like most of the rest, it was ready to stand against any onslaught the Trollmoors in the south, or King Obould in the north, might throw against it.