The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

  Down he came with a great roar and a tremendous overhead chop of the headsman’s axe, his pure strength adding to the momentum of the drop.

  The startled giant managed a slight dodge, enough so that the axe didn’t sheer through its neck. Despite its great size, Wulfgar’s power would have decapitated the behemoth. Still, the axe drove through the giant’s shoulder blade, tearing skin and muscle and crushing bone, knocking the giant into a howling, agonized stagger that left it crouched on one knee.

  But in the process, Wulfgar’s weapon snapped at mid-shaft. Ever one to improvise, the barbarian hit the ground in a roll, came right back to his feet, and rushed in on the wounded, kneeling giant, stabbing it hard in the throat with the pointed, broken end of the shaft. As the gurgling behemoth reached for him with huge, trembling hands, Wulfgar tore the shaft free, tightened his grip on the end, and smashed the giant across the face.

  He left the giant there on one knee, knowing that its friends would soon come out. Looking for a defensible position, he noticed then that the action of his attack, or perhaps the landing on the floor, had reopened his shoulder wound, his tunic already growing wet with fresh blood.

  Wulfgar didn’t have time to think about it. He made it back to his high perch as the other two entered the area below him. He found his next weapon in the form of a huge rock. With a stifled grunt, Wulfgar brought it up overhead and waited.

  The last giant in line, the smallest of the three, heard that grunt and looked up just as Wulfgar brought the rock smashing down—and how that giant howled!

  Wulfgar scooped his club and leaped down, once again using his momentum to heighten the strike as he smashed this one across the face. The barbarian hit the floor and pivoted back at the behemoth, rushing past its legs to smash at its kneecaps. Altering his grip, he stabbed hard at the tender hamstrings on the back of the giant’s legs, just as Bruenor had taught him.

  Still holding its smashed face and howling in pain, the giant tumbled to the ground behind Wulfgar, where it fell in the way of the last of the group, the only one who had not yet felt the sting of Wulfgar’s weapons.

  Outside the cave, Morik winced as he heard the cries, groans, and howls, and the unmistakable sound of boulder against bone.

  Curious despite himself, the rogue moved up closer to the entrance, trying to get a look inside, though he feared and honestly believed that his friend was already dead.

  “You should be well on your way to Luskan,” Morik scolded himself under his breath. “A warm bed for Morik tonight.”

  He’d hit them as hard as he could both times, yet he hadn’t killed a single one of the trio, probably hadn’t even knocked one of them out of the fight for long. Here he was, exposed and running into the main chamber without even knowing if the place had another exit.

  But memories of Errtu weren’t with the barbarian now. He was temporarily free of that emotional bondage, on the very edge of present desperation, and he loved it.

  For once luck was with him. Inside the lair proper Wulfgar found the spoils of the giants’ last raid, including the remains of a trio of dwarves, one of whom had carried a small, though solid hammer and another with several hand axes set along a bandolier.

  Roaring, the giant rushed in, and Wulfgar let fly one, two, three, with the hand axes, scoring two gouging hits. Still the brute came on, and it was only a single running stride away when a desperate Wulfgar, thinking he was about to get squished into the wall, spun the hammer right into its thigh.

  Wulfgar dived desperately, for the staggering giant couldn’t begin to halt its momentum. It slammed headlong into the stone wall, dropping more than a bit of dust and pebbles from the cave ceiling. Somehow Wulfgar managed to avoid the crunch, but he had left his new weapons behind and couldn’t possibly get to them in time as the giant Wulfgar had smashed with the rock came limping into the chamber.

  Wulfgar went for the snapped axe shaft instead. Scooping it up, he dived aside in another roll as the behemoth stomped down with a heavy boot. Wulfgar was already in motion, charging for those vulnerable knees, smashing one repeatedly, then spinning around the trunklike leg, out of the giant’s grasp. Turning his weapon point out as he pivoted, he stabbed again at the back of the bloodied leg. The giant lying against the wall kicked out, clipping Wulfgar’s wounded shoulder and launching the man away to slam hard against the far wall.

  Wulfgar was in his warrior rage now. He came out of the slam with a bellow, charging right back at the limping behemoth too fast for it to recognize the movement. His relentless club went at the knees again, and though the giant slapped at him, Wulfgar took hope in finally hearing the bone crunch apart. Down went the behemoth, clutching its broken knee, the sheer volume of its cries shaking the entire cave. Shaking off the dull ache of that slap, Wulfgar taunted it with laughter.

  The one against the wall tried to rise, but Wulfgar was there in an instant, standing on its back, his club battering it about the back of the head. He scored several thunderous hits and had the behemoth flat down and trying to cover. Wulfgar dared hope he might finally finish one off.

  Then the huge hand of the other giant tightened around his leg.

  Morik could hardly believe his movements, felt as if his own feet were betraying him, as he crept right up to the cave entrance and peered inside.

  He saw the first of the giant group, standing bent over at the waist under the overhanging rock, one arm extended against the wall to lend support as it coughed up the last remnants of blood from its mouth.

  Before his own good sense could overrule him, Morik was on the move, silently creeping into the gloom of the cave along the wall. He got by the giant with hardly a whisper of sound, his small noises easily covered by the giant’s hacking and wheezing, then climbed to a ledge several feet from the ground.

  The sounds of battle rang out from the inner chamber, and he could only hope that Wulfgar was doing well, both for his friend’s sake and because he realized that if the other giants came out now he would be in a difficult position indeed.

  The rogue held his nerve, and waited, poised, dagger in hand, lining up his strike. He considered the attack from the perspective of those backstabs he knew from his experiences fighting men, but he looked at his puny dagger doubtfully.

  The giant began to turn around. Morik was out of time. Knowing he had to be perfect, figuring that this was going to hurt more than a little, and wondering why in the Nine Hells he had come in here after foolish Wulfgar, Morik went with his instinct and leaped for the giant’s torn throat.

  His dagger flashed. The giant howled and leaped up—and slammed its head on the overhanging boulder. Groaning, it tried to straighten, flailing its arms, and Morik flew aside, his breath blasted away. Half-tumbling, half-running, and surely screaming, Morik exited the cave with the gasping, grasping giant right behind.

  He felt the giant closing, step by step. At the last instant Morik dived aside and the behemoth stumbled past, one hand clutching its throat, wheezing horribly, its face blue, eyes bulging.

  Morik sprinted back the other way, but the giant didn’t pursue. The huge creature was down on its knees now, gasping for air.

  “Going home to Luskan,” Morik mumbled over and over, but he kept moving for the cave entrance as he spoke.

  Wulfgar spun and stabbed with all his strength, then drove ahead ferociously, twisting and pulling at the giant’s leg. The giant was on one knee, its broken leg held out straight as it struggled to maintain some balance. The other meaty hand came at Wulfgar, but he slipped under it and pulled on furiously, breaking free and leaping to the giant’s shoulder.

  He scrambled behind the behemoth’s head and wrapped his hands back around, lining up the point of his axe shaft with the creature’s eye. Wulfgar locked his hands around that splintered pole and pushed hard. The giant’s hands grabbed at him to stop his progress, but he growled and pulled on.

  The terrified giant tried to wriggle away, pulled with its huge hands with all its strength, bunched mu
scle that would stop nearly any human cold.

  But Wulfgar had the angle and was possessed of a strength beyond that of nearly any human. He saw the other giant climbing back to its feet, but reminded himself to take the fight one at a time. Wulfgar felt the tip of his axe shaft sink into the giant’s eye. It went into a frenzy, even climbing back to its feet, but Wulfgar held on. Driving, driving.

  The giant ran blindly for the wall and turned around, going in hard, trying to crush the man. Wulfgar growled away the pain and pressed on with all his strength until the spear slipped in deeper to the behemoth’s brain.

  The other giant came in then. Wulfgar fell away, scrambling across the chamber, using the spasms of the dying giant to cover his retreat. The butt end of Wulfgar’s impromptu spear remained visible within the folds of the dying brute’s closed eyelid. Wulfgar scarcely had time to notice as he dived headlong across the way to retrieve the hammer and one of the bloody hand axes.

  The giant threw its dead companion aside and strode forward, then staggered back with a hand axe embedded deep into its forehead.

  Wulfgar continued to press in with a mighty overhead chop that slammed the hammer hard into the behemoth’s chest. He hit it again, and a third time, then went down under the flailing fists and struck a brutal blow against the giant’s knee. Wulfgar skittered past and ran behind the brute to the wall, leaping upward two full strides, then springing off with yet another wicked, downward smash as the turning giant came around.

  The hammer’s head cracked through the giant’s skull. The behemoth dropped straight down and lay very still on the floor.

  Morik entered the chamber at that moment and gaped at the battered Wulfgar. The barbarian’s shoulder was soaked with blood, his leg bruised from ankle to thigh, and his knees and hands were skinned raw.

  “You see?” Wulfgar said with a triumphant grin. “No trouble at all. Now we have a home.”

  Morik looked past his friend to the gruesome remains of the half-eaten dwarves and the two dead giants oozing blood throughout the chamber. “Such as it is,” he answered dryly.

  They spent the better part of the next three days cleaning out their cave, burying the dwarves, chopping up and disposing of the giants, and retrieving their supplies. They even managed to get the horses and the wagon up to the place along a roundabout route, though they simply let the horses run free after the great effort, figuring that they would never be very useful as a pulling team.

  A full pack on his back, Morik took Wulfgar out along the trails. The pair finally came to a spot overlooking a wide pass, the one true trail through this region of the Spine of the World. It was the same trail that Wulfgar and his former friends had used whenever they’d ventured out of Icewind Dale. There was another pass to the west that ran through Hundelstone, but this was the most direct route, though more dangerous by far.

  “Many caravans will roll through this place before winter,” Morik explained. “They’ll be heading north with varied goods and south with scrimshaw knucklehead carvings.”

  More familiar with the routine than Morik would ever understand, Wulfgar merely nodded.

  “We should hit them both ways,” the rogue suggested. “Secure our provisions from those coming from the south and our future monies from those coming from the north.”

  Wulfgar sat down on a slab and stared north along the pass, beyond it to Icewind Dale. He was reminded again of the sharp contrast between his past and his present. How ironic it would be if his former friends were the ones to track down the highwaymen.

  He pictured Bruenor, roaring as he charged up the rocky slope, agile Drizzt skipping past him, scimitars in hand. Guenhwyvar would already be above them, Wulfgar knew, cutting off any retreat. Morik would likely flee, and Catti-brie would cut him down with a single, blazing arrow.

  “You look a thousand miles away. What’s on your mind?” Morik inquired. As usual, he was holding an open bottle he’d already begun sampling.

  “I’m thinking I need a drink,” Wulfgar replied, taking the bottle and lifting it to his lips. Burning all the way down, the huge swallow helped calm him somewhat, but he still couldn’t reconcile himself to his present position. Perhaps his friends would come after him, as he, Drizzt and Guenhwyvar, and the others following, had gone after the giant band they suspected to be highwaymen in Icewind Dale.

  Wulfgar took another long drink. He didn’t like the prospects if they came after him.

  cannot wait until the spring, I fear,” Meralda said coyly to Feringal after dinner one night at Auckney Castle. At Meralda’s request the pair was walking the seashore this evening, instead of their customary stroll in the garden.

  The young lord stopped in his tracks, eyes wider than Meralda had ever seen them. “The waves,” he said, drawing closer to Meralda. “I fear I did not hear you correctly.”

  “I said that I cannot wait for the spring,” Meralda repeated. “For the wedding, I mean.”

  A grin spread from ear to ear across Feringal’s face, and he seemed as if he were about to dance a jig. He took her hand gently, brought it up to his lips, and kissed it. “I would wait until the end of time, if you so commanded,” he said solemnly. To her great surprise—and wasn’t this man always full of surprises?—Meralda found that she believed him. He had never betrayed her.

  As thrilled as Meralda was, however, she had pressing problems. “No, my lord, you’ll not be waiting long,” she replied, pulling her hand from his and stroking his cheek. “Suren I’m glad that you’d wait for me, but I can no longer wait for the spring for my own desires.” She moved in close and kissed him, and felt him melting against her.

  Feringal pulled away from her for the first time. “You know we cannot,” he said, though it obviously pained him. “I have given my word to Temigast. Propriety, my love. Propriety.”

  “Then make it proper, and soon,” Meralda replied, stroking the man’s cheek gently. She thought that Feringal might collapse under her tender touch, so she moved in close again and added breathlessly, “I simply can’t wait.”

  Feringal lost his thin resolve and wrapped her in his arms, burying her in a kiss.

  Meralda didn’t want this, but she knew what she had to do. She feared too much time had passed already. The young woman started to pull the man down to the sand with her, setting her mind firmly that she would seduce him and be done with it, but there came a call from the castle wall—Priscilla’s shrill voice: “Feri!”

  “I detest it when she calls me that!” With great effort, the young lord jumped back from Meralda and cursed his sister under his breath. “Can I never escape her?”

  “Feri, is that you?” Priscilla called again.

  “Yes, Priscilla,” the man replied with barely concealed irritation.

  “Do come back to the castle,” the woman beckoned. “It grows dark, and Temigast says there are reports of thieves about. He wants you within the walls.”

  Brokenhearted Feringal looked to Meralda and shook his head. “We must go,” he said.

  “I can’t wait for spring,” the woman said determinedly.

  “And you shan’t,” Lord Feringal replied, “but we shall do it properly, in accordance with etiquette. I will move the wedding day forward to the winter solstice.”

  “Too long,” Meralda replied.

  “The autumn equinox then.”

  Meralda considered the timeline. The autumn equinox was four tendays away, and she was already more than a month pregnant. Her expression revealed her dismay.

  “I cannot possibly move it up more than that,” Lord Feringal explained. “As you know, Priscilla is doing the planning, and she will already howl with anger when she hears that I wish to move it up at all. Temigast desires that we wait until the turn of the year, at least, but I will convince him otherwise.”

  He was talking more to himself than to Meralda, and so she let him ramble, falling within her own thoughts as the pair made their way back to the castle. She knew that the man’s fears of his sister’s rage we
re, if anything, an underestimation. Priscilla would fight their plans for a change of date. Meralda was certain the woman was hoping the whole thing would fall apart.

  It would fall apart before the wedding if anyone suspected she was carrying another man’s child.

  “You should know better than to go out without guards in the night,” Priscilla scolded as soon as the pair entered the foyer. “There are thieves about.”

  She glared at Meralda, and the woman knew the truth of Priscilla’s ire. Feringal’s sister didn’t fear thieves on her brother’s account. Rather, she was afraid of what might happen between Feringal and Meralda, of what had nearly happened between them on the beach.

  “Thieves?” Feringal replied with a chuckle. “There are no thieves in Auckney. We have had no trouble here in many years, not since before I became lord.”

  “Then we are overdue,” Priscilla replied dryly. “Would you have it that the first attack in Auckney in years happen upon the lord and his future wife? Have you no sense of responsibility toward the woman you say you love?”

  That set Feringal back on his heels. Priscilla always seemed able to do that with just a few words. She made a mental note to remedy that situation as soon as she had a bit of power behind her.

  “’Twas my own fault,” Meralda interrupted, moving between the siblings. “I’m often walking the night, my favorite time.”

  “You are no longer a common peasant,” Priscilla scolded bluntly. “You must understand the responsibility that will accompany your ascent into the family.”

  “Yes, Lady Priscilla,” Meralda replied, dipping a polite curtsey, head bowed.

  “If you wish to walk at night, do so in the garden,” Priscilla added, her tone a bit less harsh.

  Meralda, head still bowed so that Priscilla could not see her face, smiled knowingly. She was beginning to figure out how to get to the woman. Priscilla liked a feisty target, not an agreeable, humble one.