The Crystal Shard

by The Crystal Shard [lit]

  Hesitation had cost another giant its life. For as the stunned verbeeg stared dumbfoundedly at its friend's brains splattered all over its club, the drow's curved blade sliced under its rib cage, tearing through lungs and finding its mark in the monster's heart.

  Time moved slowly for the mortally wounded giant. The club it had dropped seemed to take minutes to reach the floor. With the barely perceptible motion of a falling tree, the verbeeg slid back from the scimitar. It knew that it was falling, but the floor never came up to meet it. Never came up...

  Wulfgar hoped that he had hit the wounded giant in the tunnel hard enough to keep it out of the fray for a while - he would be in a tight spot indeed if it carne up behind him then. He had all that he could handle parrying and counter-thrusting with the two giants he now faced. He needn't have worried about his backside, though, for the wounded verbeeg slumped against the wall in the tunnel, oblivious to its surroundings. And, in the opposite direction, Drizzt had just finished off the other two giants. Wulfgar laughed aloud when he saw his friend wiping the blood from his blade and walking back across the room. One of the verbeeg noticed the dark elf, too, and it jumped out of its fight with the barbarian to engage this new foe.

  "Ay, ye little runt, ye think ye can face me even up an' live to talk about it?" bellowed the giant.

  Feigning desperation, Drizzt glanced all about him. As usual, he found an easy way to win this fight. Using a stalking belly-crawl, Guenhwyvar had slithered behind the giant bodies, trying to get into a favorable position. Drizzt took a small step backward, goading the giant into the great cat's path.

  The giant's club crashed into Wulfgar's ribs and pushed him up against the wooden beam. The barbarian was made of tougher stuff than wood, though, and he took the blow stoically, returning it two-fold with Aegis-fang. Again the verbeeg struck, and again Wulfgar countered. The barbarian had been fighting with hardly a break for over ten minutes, but adrenalin coursed through his veins, and he barely felt winded. He began to appreciate the endless hours toiling for Bruenor in the mines, and the miles and miles of running Drizzt had led him through during their sessions as his blows started to fall with increasing frequency on his tiring opponent.

  The giant advanced on Drizzt. "Arg, hold yer ground, ye miserable rat!" it growled. "An' none o' yer sneaky tricks! We wants to see how ye does in a fair fight."

  Just as the two carne together, Guenhwyvar darted the remaining few feet and sank his fangs deep into the back of the verbeeg's ankle. Reflexively, the giant shot a glance at the rear attacker, but it recovered quickly and shot its eyes back to the elf . . .

  . . . Just in time to see the scimitar entering its chest.

  Drizzt answered the monster's puzzled expression with a question. "Where in the nine hells did you ever find the notion that I would fight fair?"

  The verbeeg lurched away. The blade hadn't found its heart, but it knew that the wound would soon prove fatal if untended. Blood poured freely down the monster's leather tunic, and it labored visibly as it tried to breath. Drizzt alternated his attacks with Guenhwyvar, striking and ducking away from the lumbering counter while his partner rushed in on the monster's other side. They knew, and the giant did, too, that this fight would soon be over.

  The giant fighting Wulfgar could no longer sustain a defensive posture with its heavy club. Wulfgar was beginning to tire as well, so he started to sing an old tundra war song, the Song of Tempos, its rousing notes inspiring him into one final barrage. He waited for the verbeeg's club to inch inevitably downward and then launched Aegis-fang once, twice, and then a third time. Wulfgar nearly collapsed in exhaustion after the third swing, but the giant lay crumpled on the floor. The barbarian leaned wearily on his weapon and watched his two friends nip and scratch their verbeeg to pieces.

  "Well done!" Wulfgar laughed when the last giant fell.

  Drizzt walked over to the barbarian, his left arm hanging limply at his side. His jacket and shirt were torn where the stone had struck, and the exposed skin of his shoulder was swollen and bruised.

  Wulfgar eyed the wound with genuine concern, but Drizzt answered his unspoken question by raising the arm above him, though he grimaced in pain with the effort. "It'll be quick to mend," he assured Wulfgar. "Just a nasty bump, and I find that a small cost to weigh against the bodies of thirteen verbeeg!"

  A low groan issued from the tunnel.

  "Twelve as yet," Wulfgar corrected. "Apparently one is not quite done kicking." With a deep breath, Wulfgar lifted Aegis-fang and turned to finish the task.

  "A moment, first," insisted Drizzt, a thought pressing on his mind. "When the giants charged you in the tunnel, you yelled something in your home tongue, I believe. What was it you said?"

  Wulfgar laughed heartily. "An old Elk tribe battle cry," he explained. "Strength to my friends, and death to my foes!"

  Drizzt eyed the barbarian suspiciously and wondered just how deep ran Wulfgar's ability to fabricate a lie on demand.

  * * * * *

  The injured verbeeg was still propped against the tunnel wall when the two companions and Guenhwyvar came upon it. The drow's dagger remained deeply buried in the giant's knee, its blade caught fast between two bones. The giant eyed the men with hate-filled yet strangely calm eyes as they approached.

  "Ye'll pay fer all o' this," it spat at Drizzt. "Biggrin'll play with ye afore killin' ye, be sure o' that!"

  "So it has a tongue," Drizzt said to Wulfgar. And then to the giant, "Biggrin?"

  "Laird o' the cave," answered the giant. "Biggrin'll be a wantin' to meet ye."

  "And we'll be wanting to meet Biggrin!" stormed Wulfgar. "We have a debt to repay; a little matter concerning two dwarves!" As soon as Wulfgar mentioned the dwarves., the giant spat again. Drizzt's scimitar flashed and poised an inch from the monster's throat.

  "Kill me then an' have done," laughed the giant, genuinely uncaring. The monster's ease unnerved Drizzt. "I serve the master!" proclaimed the giant. "Glory is to die for Akar Kessell!"

  Wulfgar and Drizzt looked at each other uneasily. They had never seen or heard of this kind of fanatical dedication in a verbeeg, and the sight disturbed them. The primary fault of the verbeeg which had always kept then from gaining dominance over the smaller races was their unwillingness to devote themselves wholeheartedly to any cause and their inability to follow one leader:

  "Who is Akar Kessell?" demanded Wulfgar.

  The giant laughed evilly. "If friends o' the towns ye be, yell know soon enough!"

  "I thought you said that Biggrin was laird of this cave," said Drizzt.

  "The cave," answered the giant. "And once a tribe. But Bpggrin follows the master now."

  "We've got trouble," Drizzt mumbled to Wulfgar. "Have you ever heard of a verbeeg chieftain giving up its dominance to another without a fight?"

  "I fear for the dwarves," said Wulfgar.

  Drizzt turned back to the giant and decided to change the subject so that he could extract some information more immediate to their situation. "What is at the end of this tunnel?"

  "Nothin'," said the verbeeg, too quickly. "Er, just a place for us t' sleep, is all."

  Loyal, but stupid, noted Drizzt. He turned to Wulfgar again. "We have to take out Biggrin and any others in the cave who might be able to get back to warn this Akar Kessell."

  "What about this one?" asked Wulfgar. But the giant answered the question for Drizzt. Delusions of glory pushed it to seek death in the wizard's service. It tightened its muscles, ignoring the pain in its knee, and lunged at the companions.

  Aegis-fang smashed the verbeeg's collarbone and neck at the same time Drizzt's scimitar was slipping through its ribs and Guenhwyvar was locking onto its gut.

  But the giant's death mask was a smile.

  * * * * *

  The corridor behind the back door of the dining room was unlit, and the companions had to pull a torch from its sconce in the other corridor to take with them. As they wound their way down the long tunnel, moving deeper and deepe
r into the hill, they passed many small chambers, most empty, but some holding crated stores of various sorts: foodstuffs, skins, and extra clubs and spears. Drizzt surmised that Akar Kessell planned to use this cave as a home base for his army.

  The blackness was absolute for some distance and Wulfgar, lacking the darkness vision of his elven companion, grew nervous as the torch began to burn low. But then they came into a wide chamber, by far the largest they had seen, and beyond its reaches, the tunnel spilled out into the open night.

  "We have come to the front door," said Wulfgar. "And it's ajar. Do you believe that Biggrin has left?"

  "Sssh," hushed Drizzt. The drow thought that he had heard something in the darkness on the far right. He motioned for Wulfgar to stay in the middle of the room with the torch as he crept away into the shadows.

  Drizzt stopped short when he heard gruff giant voices ahead, though he couldn't figure out why he couldn't see their bulky silhouettes. When he carne upon a large hearth, he understood. The voices were echoing through the chimney.

  "Biggrin?" asked Wulfgar when he came up.

  "Must be," reasoned Drizzt. "Think you can fit through the chimney?"

  The barbarian nodded. He hoisted Drizzt up first - the drow's left arm still wasn't of much use to him - and followed, leaving Guenhwyvar to keep watch.

  The chimney snaked up a few yards, then came to an intersection. One way led down to a room from which the voices were coming, and the other thinned as it rose to the surface. The conversation was loud and heated now, and Drizzt moved down to investigate. Wulfgar held the drow's feet to help him inch down the final descent, as the slope became nearly vertical. Hanging upside down, Drizzt peeked under the rim of the hearth in another room. He saw three giants; one by a door at the far end of the room, looking as though it wanted to leave, and a second with its back to the hearth, being scolded by the third, an immensely wide and tall frost giant. Drizzt knew by the twisted, lipless smile that he looked upon Biggrin.

  "To tell Biggrin!" pleaded the smaller giant.

  "Ye ran from a fight," scowled Biggrin. "Ye left yer friends t' die!"

  "No . . :' protested the giant, but Biggrin had heard enough. With one swipe of its huge axe, it lopped the smaller giant's head off.

  * * * * *

  The men found Guenhwyvar diligently on watch when they came out of the chimney. The big cat turned and growled in recognition when it saw its companions, and Wulfgar, not understanding the throaty purr to be a friendly sound, took a cautious step away.

  "There has to be a side tunnel off the main corridor further down," Drizzt reasoned, having no time to be amused by his friend's nervousness.

  "Let's get this over with, then," said Wulfgar.

  They found the passage as the Drow had predicted and soon came to a door they figured would lead to the room with the remaining giants. They clapped each other on the shoulder for luck and Drizzt patted Guenhwyvar, though Wulfgar declined the drow's invitation to do likewise. Then they burst in.

  The room was empty. A door previously invisible to Drizzt from his vantage point at the hearth stood ajar.

  * * * * *

  Biggrin sent its lone remaining soldier out the secret side door with a message for Akar Kessell. The big giant had been disgraced, and it knew that the wizard wouldn't readily accept the loss of so many valuable troops. Biggrin's only chance was to take care of the two intruding warriors and hope that their heads would appease its unmerciful boss. The giant pressed its ear to the door and waited for its victims to enter the adjoining room.

  * * * * *

  Wulfgar and Drizzt passed through the second door and came into a lavish chamber, its floor adorned with plush furs and large, puffy pillows. Two other doors led out of the room. One was slightly open, a darkened corridor beyond, and the other was closed.

  Suddenly Wulfgar stopped Drizzt with an outstretched hand and motioned for the drow to be quiet. The intangible quality of a true warrior, the sixth sense that allows him to sense unseen danger, had come into play. Slowly the barbarian turned to the closed door and lifted Aegis-fang above his head. He paused for a moment and cocked his head, straining to hear a confirming sound. None came, but Wulfgar trusted his instincts. He roared to Tempos and launched the hammer. It split the door asunder with a thunderous snap and dropped the planks - and Biggrin - to the floor.

  Drizzt noticed the swing of the open secret door across the room beyond the giant chieftain and realized that the last of the giants must have slipped away. Quickly the drow set Guenhwyvar into motion. The panther understood, too, for it bolted away, clearing the writhing form of Biggrin with one great bound, and charged out of the cave to give chase to the escaping verbeeg.

  Blood streamed down the side of the big giant's head, but the thick bone of its skull had rejected the hammer. Drizzt and Wulfgar looked on in disbelief as the huge frost giant shook its jowls and rose to meet them.

  "It can't do that," protested Wulfgar.

  "This giant's a stubborn one," Drizzt shrugged.

  The barbarian waited for Aegis-fang to return to his grasp, then moved with the drow to face Biggrin.

  The giant stayed in the doorway to prevent either of its foes from flanking it as Wulfgar and Drizzt confidently moved in. The three exchanged ominous stares and a few easy swings as they felt each other out.

  "You must be Biggrin," Drizzt said, bowing.

  "That I am," proclaimed the giant. "Biggrin! The last foe yer eyes'll see!"

  "Confident as well as stubborn," Wulfgar remarked.

  "Little human," the giant retorted, "I've squashed a hunnerd o' yen puny kin!"

  "More reason for us to kill you," Drizzt stated calmly.

  With sudden speed and ferocity that surprised its two opponents, Biggrin took a wide sweep with its huge axe. Wulfgar stepped back out of its deadly range, and Drizzt managed to duck under the blow, but the drow shuddered when he saw the axe blade take a fair-sized chunk out of the stone wall.

  Wulfgar jumped right back at the monster as the axe passed him, pounding on Biggrin's broad chest with Aegis-fang. The giant flinched but took the blow. "Ye'll have t' hit me harder 'an that, puny man!" it bellowed as it launched a mighty backswing with the flat head of the axe.

  Again Drizzt slipped below the swing. Wulfgar, however, battle-weary as he was, did not move quickly enough to back out of range. The barbarian managed to get Aegis-fang up in front of him, but the sheer force of Biggrin's heavy weapon smashed him into the wall. He crumpled to the floor.

  Drizzt knew that they were in trouble. His left arm remained useless, his reflexes were slowing with exhaustion, and this giant was simply too powerful for him to parry any blows. He managed to slip in one short thrust with his scimitar as the giant recovered for its next swing, and then he fled toward the main corridor.

  "Run, ye dark dog!" roared the giant. "I'll after ye, an' I'll have ye!" Biggrin charged after Drizzt, smelling the kill.

  The drow sheathed his scimitar as he reached the main passage and looked for a spot to ambush the monster. Nothing presented itself, so he went halfway to the exit and waited.

  "Where can ye hide?" Biggrin taunted as its huge bulk entered the corridor. Poised in the shadows, the drow threw his two knives. Both hit home, but Biggrin hardly slowed.

  Drizzt moved outside the cave. He knew that if Biggrin didn't follow him, he would have to go back in; he certainly couldn't leave Wulfgar to die. The first rays of dawn had found their way onto the mountain, and Drizzt worried that the growing light would spoil any chance he had for ambush. Scrambling up one of the small trees that concealed the exit, he pulled out his dagger.

  Biggrin charged out into the sunlight and looked around for signs of the fleeing drow. "Yer about, ye miserable dog! Ye've no place to run!"

  Suddenly Drizzt was on top of the monster, gouging its face and neck in a barrage of stabs and slices. The giant howled in rage and jerked its massive body backward violently, sending Drizzt, who could not gain a firm hold with
his weakened arm, flying back into the tunnel. The drow landed heavily on his injured shoulder and nearly swooned in agony. He squirmed and twisted for a moment, trying to regain his feet, but he bumped into a heavy boot. He knew that Biggrin couldn't have gotten to him so quickly. He turned slowly onto his back, wondering where this new giant had come from.

  But the drow's outlook changed dramatically when he saw that Wulfgar stood over him, Aegis-fang firmly in his hand and a grim look stamped upon his face. Wulfgar never took his eyes off of the giant as it entered the tunnel.

  "He's mine," the barbarian said grimly.

  Biggrin looked hideous indeed. The side of its head where the hammer had struck was caked with dark, dried blood, while the other, and several spots on its face and neck, ran bright with blood from new wounds. The two knives Drizzt had thrown were still sticking in the giant's chest like morbid medals of honor.

  "Can you take it again?" Wulfgar challenged as he sent Aegis-fang on a second flight toward the giant.

  In answer, Biggrin stuck out his chest defiantly to block the blow. "I can take whatere' ye have t' give!" it boasted.

  Aegis-fang slammed home, and Biggrin staggered back a step. The hammer had cracked a rib or two, but the giant could handle that.

  More deadly, though, and unknown to Biggrin, Aegis-fang had driven one of Drizzt's knives through the lining of its heart.

  "I can run, now," Drizzt whispered to Wulfgar when he saw the giant advancing again.

  "I stay," the barbarian insisted without the slightest tremor of fear in his voice.

  Drizzt pulled his scimitar. "Well spoken, brave friend. Let us fell this foul beast - there's food to be eaten!"

  "Ye'll find that more a task than ye talk!" Biggrin retorted. It felt a sudden stinging in its chest, but it grunted away the pain. "I've felt the best that ye can hit, an' still I come at ye! Ye can no' hope t' win!"