The Lone Drow th-2

by Robert Salvatore

  On they ran, too afraid to even look back. Gradually, the bombardment thinned and the yells of outrage behind them diminished to nothingness.

  Huffing and puffing, the foursome pulled up behind a wall of stone.

  "Nanfoodle?" Catti-brie asked again.

  "If we're lucky, the giants never even knew he was there," Shoudra explained. "He has potions that should allow him easy escape."

  "And if we're not lucky?" Wulfgar asked.

  Shoudra's grim expression was all the answer he needed. Wulfgar had seen enough of giants in his day, and enough of frost giants in particular, to understand the odds Nanfoodle would face if they noticed him.

  "I don't know … that we killed any … but there's one. . giantess who is sure to be … wishing we hadn't come," Catti-brie remarked between gasps.

  "I am sure that my lightning stung a few," Shoudra added. "But I doubt I did any serious harm to any."

  "But that wasn't the point, now was it?" Torgar reminded them. "Come on, let's get off these rocks before the next orc charge. I didn't get no swings at the damned giants, but I mean to have me a few ores' heads!"

  He stomped off, and the others followed, all of them nursing more than a few cuts and bruises from their nighttime run, and all of them glancing back repeatedly in hopes of seeing their gnome companion.

  They should have been looking ahead instead, for when they arrived back at the main encampment, they found Nanfoodle resting against a stone, an oversized pipe stuffed into his mouth, his smile stretching wide to either side.

  "Should be an interesting morning," the gnome remarked, grinning from ear to ear.

  Soon after dawn the next day, the first giant barrage began—almost.

  All the dwarves watched as in the distance, a pair of great catapults, baskets piled with stones, bent back, giants straining to set them.

  From below, the orcs howled and began their charge, thinking to catch the dwarves vulnerable under the giant-sized volley.

  Beams creaked … and cracked.

  The giants tried to release the missiles, but the catapults simply fell to pieces.

  All eyes in the area turned to Nanfoodle, who whistled and pulled a vial out of his belt pouch, holding it up before him and swishing greenish liquid around inside it.

  "A simple acid, really," he explained.

  "Well, ye bought us some time," Banak Brawnanvil congratulated the five-some, and he looked down the slope at the stubbornly charging orcs. "From them giants, at least."

  The dwarf ran off then, barking orders, calling his formations into position.

  "They'll need many new logs if they hope to reconstitute their war engines," Nanfoodle assured the others.

  Of course, none of them were surprised later that same day, when scouts reported that new logs were already being brought in to that northwestern ridge.

  "Stubborn bunch," the little gnome observed.

  CHAPTER 21 TWO HELMETS

  The diamond edge held his gaze, its glaring image crystallizing his thoughts.

  Drizzt sat in his small cave, Icingdeath laid out before him, Bruenor's lost helmet propped on a stick to the side. Outside, the morning shone bright and clear, with a brisk breeze blowing and small clusters of white clouds rushing across the blue sky.

  There was a vibrancy in that wind, a sense of being alive.

  To Drizzt Do'Urden, it shamed him and angered him all at the same time. For he had gone there to hide, to slide back into the comfort of secluded darkness—to put his feelings behind a wall that effectively denied them.

  Tarathiel and Innovindil had assaulted that wall. Their forgiveness and apology, the beauty of their fighting dance, the effectiveness of their actions beside him, all showed Drizzt that he must accept their invitation, both for the sake of the cause against the invading orcs and for his own sake. Only through them, he knew, could he begin to sort out the darkness of Ellifain. Only through them might he come to find some closure on that horrible moment in the pirate hideout.

  But seeking those answers and that closure meant moving out from behind the invulnerable wall that was the Hunter.

  Drizzt's gaze slipped away from the diamond edge of Icingdeath to the one-homed helmet.

  He tried to look away almost immediately, but it didn't matter, for he wasn't really looking at the helmet. He was watching the tower fall. He was watching Ellifain fall. He was watching Clacker fall. He was watching Zaknafein fall.

  All that pain, buried within him for all those years, came flooding over Drizzt Do'Urden there, alone in the small cave. Only when the first line of moisture slid down his cheek did he even realize how few tears he had shed over the years. Only when the wetness crystallized his vision did Drizzt truly realize the depth of the pain within him.

  He had hidden it away, time and again, beneath the veil of anger in those times when he became the Hunter, when the pain overwhelmed him. And more than that—more subtly but no less destructive, he only then realized— he had hidden it all away beneath the veil of hope, in the logical and determined understanding that sacrifices were acceptable if the principles were upheld.

  Dying well.

  Drizzt had always hoped that he would die well, battling evil enemies or saving a friend. There was honor in that, and the truest legacy he could ever know. Had anyone died more nobly than Zaknafein?

  But that didn't alleviate the pain for those left behind. Only then, sitting there, purposefully tearing down the wall he had built of anger and of hope, could Drizzt Do'Urden begin to realize that he had never really cried for Zaknafein or for any of the others.

  And under the weight of that revelation, he felt a coward.

  It started as the slightest of movements, a jerk of the drow's slender shoulders. It sounded as a small gasp at first, a mere chortle.

  For the first time, Drizzt Do'Urden didn't let it end at that point. For the first time, he did not let the Hunter build a wall of stone around his heart, nor let the justifications of principle and purpose dull the keen edge of pain. For the first time, he did not shy from the emptiness and the helplessness; he did not embrace them, but neither did he run.

  He cried for Zaknafein and for Clacker. He cried for Ellifain, the most tragic loss of all. He considered the course of his life—but not with lament, stubbornly throwing aside all the typical regrets that he should have turned his friends from the course into the mountains, that he should have ushered them straight to Mithral Hall. They had walked with eyes wide. All of them, knowing the dangers, expecting the inevitable. Circumstance and bad luck had guided Drizzt's journey to that fallen tower and to the helmet of his lost friend. His journey had taken him to the saddest day of his life, to a moment of the greatest loss he could possibly know. In an instant, he had lost almost everything dear to him: Bruenor, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, and Regis.

  But he had not cried.

  He had run away from the pain. He had built the wall of the Hunter, the justification being that he would continue the fight—heighten it—and pay back his enemies.

  There was truth in that course. There was purpose and there was, undeniably, effectiveness.

  But there was a price as well, Drizzt understood on a very basic level, as the wall fell down and the tears flowed. The price of his heart.

  For to hide away behind the stone of anger was to deny, as well, the pleasures of being alive. All of that separated him from the orcs he killed. All of that gave true purpose to waging the war, the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong.

  All of that had blurred with the fall of Ellifain.

  All of that blended within the veil of the Hunter.

  Drizzt thought of Artemis Entreri then. His arch-nemesis, his … alter ego? Was that Hunter within Drizzt in truth who Entreri was, a man so full of pain and anguish that he denied his own heart? Was Drizzt destined to follow that uncaring road?

  Drizzt let the tears flow. He cried for them all, and he cried for himself, for the profound loss that had so emptied the joy from
his heart. Every time the anger welled, he threw it back down. Every time he visualized his blades taking the head from an orc, he instead forced forth the image of Catti-brie smiling, or of Bruenor tossing him a knowing wink, or of Wulfgar singing to Tempus as they trotted along the mountain trails, or of Regis lying back, fishing line tied to his toe, on the banks of Maer Dualdon. Drizzt forced the memories to come forth, despite the pain.

  He was hardly conscious of the deepening shadows of nightfall, and he lay there, somewhere between sleep and memory throughout the night.

  By the time morning dawned once more, Drizzt had at last found the strength to take the first steps along a necessary road to follow the elves, who had moved their encampment. To accept their invitation to join with them in common cause.

  He put away his scimitars and took up his cloak, then paused and looked back.

  With a bittersweet smile on his face, Drizzt reached in and lifted Bruenor's helmet from the supporting stick. He rolled it over in his hands and brought it close so that he could again catch Bruenor's scent. Then he put it in his pack and started away.

  He paused only a couple of steps out from the entrance, though, and nearly laughed aloud when he looked down at his callused feet.

  A moment later, the drow held his boots in his hand. He considered putting them on, but then just tied them together by the laces and slung them over one shoulder.

  Perhaps there was a happy medium to be found.

  * * *

  At the same time Drizzt was rolling Bruenor's helmet over in his hands, another, not so far away, was likewise studying a different armored headpiece. That helm was white as bone and resembled a skull, though with grotesquely elongated eyes. The «chin» of the helmet would hang down well over Obould's own chin, offering protection for his throat. The elongated eye holes were the most unique part of the design, though, for they were not open. A glassy substance filled them, perfectly translucent.

  "Glassteel," Arganth explained to the great orc. "No spear will pierce it. Not even a great dwarven crossbow could drive a bolt through it."

  Obould growled softly in admiration as he rolled the helmet over in his hands. He slowly brought it up and fitted it over his head. It settled low, right to his collarbones.

  Arganth held up a scarf, laced with metal.

  "Wrap this around your neck and the helmet will settle upon it," the shaman explained. "There will be no opening."

  Behind the glassteel, Obould narrowed his eyes. "You doubt my ability?" he demanded.

  "There can be no opening," Arganth bravely replied. "Obould is the hope of Gruumsh! Obould is chosen."

  "And Gruumsh will punish Arganth if Obould fails?" the orc king asked.

  "Obould will not fail," the shaman replied, dodging the question.

  Obould let it go at that and considered instead the seemingly endless line of precious gifts. Every time he clenched his fist, he could feel the added strength in his arms; every easy step he took across the broken ground reminded him of the additional balance and speed. Beneath his plate mail he wore a light shirt and breeches, enchanted, so said the shamans, to protect him from fire and ice.

  The shamans were making him impregnable. The shamans were building around him a failsafe armor.

  But he could not let that notion permeate his thoughts, Obould understood, or he would inevitably relax his guard.

  "Does it please you?" Arganth asked, his excited voice nearly a squeal.

  Still growling, Obould removed the helm and took the metal-laced scarf from the shaman.

  "Obould is pleased," he said.

  "Then Gruumsh is pleased!" Arganth declared.

  He danced away, back to the waiting cluster of shamans, who all began talking excitedly. No doubt pooling their thoughts toward a new improvement for their god-king, Obould realized. The orc king gave a grating chuckle. Always before, he had demanded devotion and exacted it with fear and with muscle. But the growing fanaticism was something completely different.

  Could any king hope for more?

  But such fanaticism came with expectations, Obould understood, and he looked around at the dark mountains. They had forced marched north in short order, through the day and through the night, because a threat loomed before his grand design.

  Obould meant to eliminate that threat.

  * * *

  A quick glance to the west told Tarathiel that he was pushing his luck, for the sun's lower rim was almost to the horizon and his and Innovindil's camp was some distance away. When the sun went down, he'd have to bring Sunrise to the ground, for flying around in the dark of night was no easy task, even with the elf and his keen eyesight guiding the pegasus.

  Still, the elf's adrenaline was pumping with the thrill of the hunt—he had a dozen orcs running scared along the mountain trail below him—and even more so that day because he knew that Drizzt Do'Urden was about. After their joint efforts in turning the orc tribe back to the Spine of the World, the drow had gone off again, and Tarathiel and Innovindil hadn't seen him for a few days. Then Tarathiel, out hunting alone, had spotted Drizzt moving along a trail toward the cave he and Innovindil were using as their new base. Drizzt had offered a wave; not much of an assurance, of course, but Tarathiel had noticed a couple of hopeful signs. Drizzt was carrying the helmet of his lost friend— Tarathiel had spotted its one remaining horn poking out of the drow's shoulder pack—and perhaps even more notably, Drizzt was carrying his boots.

  Had his resistance to the advances of the two elves begun to break down?

  Tarathiel meant to return to Innovindil, and hopefully Drizzt, with news of another victory, albeit a minor one. He meant to have at least four kills under his belt that day before going home. He already had two, and with a dozen targets still scrambling below him, it did not seem unlikely that he would get his wish.

  The elf settled more comfortably in his saddle and leveled his bow for a shot, but the orcs cut down into a narrow stone channel, dropping from sight. Tarathiel brought Sunrise around, sweeping over that crevice, and saw that the creatures were still running. He circled his pegasus and came in over the channel, following the line, looking for a shot.

  His bow twanged, but off the mark as both the channel and the targeted orc cut to the right. Again the elf had to circle, so that he didn't overfly the group.

  He was back in sight shortly, and his arrow struck home, marking his third kill. Again, he then had to fly his mount in a wide circle. Tarathiel glanced west at the lowering sun as he did and realized that he didn't have too much time remaining.

  Again he bore down on the fleeing orcs. The channel descended along the mountainside and cut sharply between two high juts of stone, where the ground opened up beyond. Tarathiel told himself that he'd catch them as they exited the crevice and seek out whichever one scattered in the general direction of his cave.

  Smiling widely, eager for that last kill, Tarathiel brought Sunrise soaring through the gap.

  And as he did, two long poles rose up before him, crossing diagonally and going upright to either side. It wasn't until Sunrise plowed right in that the elf even realized that a net had been strung to the poles.

  The pegasus let out a shocked whinny and it and Tarathiel balled up, wings folding under the press. They continued forward for just a bit as the poles crossed again behind them, netting them fully, and the whole trap slid down to the ground.

  Tarathiel twisted and slipped underneath Sunrise as soon as they touched down, using the free area beneath the pegasus to draw out his sword and begin cutting at the net. With a few links severed, the elf scrambled out. He looked around, expecting enemies to be fast closing.

  He sucked in his breath, seeing that the netting poles had been held not by orcs, but by a pair of frost giants.

  They weren't approaching, though, and so Tarathiel spun around and went to fast work on the net, trying desperately to free Sunrise.

  He stopped when torches flared to life around him. He stopped and realized the completeness of this
trap.

  Slowly the elf moved away from the struggling pegasus, walking a defensive circle around Sunrise, sword out before him as he eyed the torchbearers, a complete circle of ugly orcs. They had set him up, and he had fallen for it. He had no idea how he could possibly get himself and Sunrise out of there. He glanced back at the pegasus to see that Sunrise was making some progress in extracting himself—but certainly not quickly enough. The elf had to get back and cut more of the netting, he knew, and he turned.

  Or started to.

  There before him, emerging from the line of orcs, came a creature of such stature and obvious power that Tarathiel found he could not turn away. Suited in beautifully crafted, ridged and spiked plate mail and a skull-shaped white helmet with elongated eyes and shining teeth, the large orc stepped out from the line. Tarathiel noted the carved hilt of a huge sword protruding up diagonally from behind the brute's right shoulder.

  "Obould!" the other orcs began to chant. "Obould! Obould! Obould!"

  It was a name that Tarathiel, like every other worldly creature across the Silver Marches surely knew, the name of an orc king who had brought a powerful dwarven citadel to its knees.

  Tarathiel wanted to turn back for Sunrise and the net. He knew he had to, but he could not. He could not tear his eyes away from the spectacle of King Obould Many-Arrows.

  The burly orc strode toward Tarathiel, reaching up his thick right arm to grasp the carved hilt. Slowly, the orc extended his arm, drawing up the great-sword. He lifted the weapon clear of its half-sheath, to a horizontal position above his head. Still stalking in, hardly slowing, not changing his expression one bit (as far as Tarathiel could see through the huge eye holes), the determined creature swept the weapon down to his side.

  The blade flamed to life.

  Tarathiel moved his free left hand to the small of his back, to the hilt of a throwing dagger. He had to finish the orc quickly, he understood, to stun the onlookers and buy himself time to get back to Sunrise. He forced aside his fears and studied the incoming orc, looking for an opening, any opening.