The Thousand Ords

by A. R. Salvatore

  Drizzt didn’t like what he was seeing. High up on a rocky ledge, the drow lay flat on his belly peering over an encampment of several scores of orcs—what he had expected. Just beyond the camp, though, loomed a quartet of behemoths: huge frost giants, and not the dirty rogues one might expect to find consorting with orcs. These were handsome creatures, clean and richly dressed, adorned with ornamental bracelets and rings, and fine furs that were neither particularly new nor particularly weather-beaten.

  The giants were part of a larger, more organized clan—obviously a part of the network the Jarl Grayhand, a name not unknown to Drizzt and the dwarves of Mithral Hall, had formed in this part of the Spine of the World.

  If the old Grayhand was loaning some of his mighty warriors out to an orc clan, the implications might prove darker than one flattened village and an ambush on a band of dwarves.

  Drizzt looked all around, wondering if there was a way for him to get closer to the giants, to try to overhear their conversation. He could only hope they’d be speaking in a language that he could comprehend.

  The cover between him and the orc camp was not promising, though, nor was the climb down the almost sheer cliff facing. Beyond that, the sun was already hanging low in the sky, and he didn’t have much time if he hoped to rejoin his friends in the appointed place at the appointed hour.

  He lingered for many more minutes, watching from afar the limited interaction between the giants and orcs. His attention piqued when one large and powerful orc, wearing the finest garments of all the filthy band, and with a huge, decorated axe strapped across its back, approached the giant quartet. The orc didn’t go in the hesitating manner of some of the others, who had been either bringing food to the behemoths or simply trying to navigate past them in as unobtrusive a manner as possible. This orc—and Drizzt understood that it had to the leader, or at least one of the leaders—strode up to the giants purposefully and without any apparent trepidation and began conversing in what seemed to be a jovial manner.

  Engaged, straining to hear whatever tidbit he might, even if only a burst of laughter, Drizzt was hardly aware of the approach of an orc sentry until it was too late.

  From one high vantage point, Catti-brie noted where the orcs and giants had stopped to set their camp, far to the west of where she had entered the higher, northern ridgeline. She realized that Drizzt was likely already surveying their encampment, and she could get there, but her estimate told her that she’d probably arrive on the spot just in time to accompany Drizzt, if they found each other, back to their assigned meeting spot. Thus, the woman spent her time running past the east end of the enemy encampment, checking the ground over which the orcs and giants would likely traverse in the morning—unless, of course, they decided to break camp early and march on through the night, which would favor the orcs, no doubt, though probably not be to the liking of the giants.

  With the eye of a trained tactician, which she, as the adopted daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, most certainly was, she looked for advantageous assault points. Bottlenecks in the trail, high ground where dwarves could send rocks and hammers spinning down at their enemies….

  Despite her many duties, the woman was the first of the four to return to the rendezvous point. Wulfgar returned soon after her with Bruenor, Dagnabbit, and Tred McKnuckles at his side.

  “They have encamped almost directly north of this point,” the woman explained.

  “How many?” Bruenor asked.

  Catti-brie gave a shrug. “Drizzt will know. I was searching the ground ahead to see where and how we might strike tomorrow.”

  “Ye find any good killin’ spots?”

  Catti-brie answered with a wicked smile, and Bruenor eagerly rubbed his hands together, then looked over at Tred and offered a nudge and a wink.

  “Ye’ll get yer payback, friend,” the dwarf king promised.

  As so often in the past, luck alone saved Regis. He skittered behind a convenient rock without notice from the group of orcs, who were engaged in an argument over some loot they had pilfered, probably from the sacked village.

  They argued, pushed and shouted at each other, and deciding to divide the loot up privately amongst themselves, they suddenly quieted. Instead of continuing along the trail to join up with the larger band, they plopped themselves down right there, sending a couple ahead to fetch some food.

  That afforded Regis a lovely eavesdropping position while they rambled on about all sorts of things, answering many questions for the halfling and leading him to ask many, many more.

  Drizzt could not have been in a more disadvantageous situation, lying face down between a rise of stone and a boulder, peering over a ledge and with someone, something—likely an orc—moving up behind him. He ducked his head and shrugged the cowl of his cloak up a bit higher, hoping the creature would miss him in the dim light, but when the footsteps closed, the drow knew that he had to take a different course.

  He shoved up to his knees and gracefully leaped to his feet from there, spinning around and drawing his scimitars, moving them as quickly as possible into a defensive position, trying to anticipate the attacker’s thrust. If the creature had come straight on, Drizzt would have been caught back on his heels from the outset.

  But the orc, and it was an orc, hadn’t charged, and didn’t charge. It stood back, hands upraised and waving frantically, having dropped its weapon to the ground at its feet.

  It said something that Drizzt didn’t completely comprehend, though the language was close enough to the goblin tongue, which the drow did know, for him to understand that there was some recognition there, spoken in an almost apologetic tone. It seemed as if the orc, recognizing a drow elf, feared that it was intruding.

  The obvious fear didn’t surprise Drizzt, for the goblinkin were usually terrified of the drow—as were most reasoning races—but this went beyond that, he sensed. The orc wasn’t surprised, as if the appearance of a drow elf near to this force was not unexpected.

  He wanted to question the creature further but saw a black flash to the side of the orc and knew his opportunity had passed.

  Guenhwyvar came across hard and fast, in a great leap that put the panther about chest level with the orc.

  “Guen, no!” Drizzt cried as the cat flew past.

  The orc’s throat erupted in blood and the creature went flying down to the stone. Drizzt rushed to it, turning it over, thinking to stem the flow of blood from its throat.

  Then he realized that the orc had no throat left at all.

  Frustrated that an opportunity had flitted away, but grateful that Guenhwyvar had seen the danger from afar and come rushing in to rescue him, Drizzt could only shake his head.

  He hid the dead orc as well as possible in a crevice, and with Guenhwyvar at his side, he started back to the rendezvous, having discovered more questions than answers.

  “Plenty of ground to shape to our liking,” Catti-brie assured them all when they had reassembled on the plateau below the enemy’s position. “We’ll get the fight we want.”

  None disagreed, but Bruenor wore a concerned expression.

  “Too many giants,” he explained when all the others had focused on him. “Four’d make a good enough fight by themselves. I’m thinking we got to hit them afore the morning. Trim the numbers.”

  “Not an easy thing to do, if we’re still wanting surprise tomorrow,” Catti-brie added.

  They bounced a few ideas back and forth, possible plans to lure out the giants, and potential areas where they could hit at the brutes away from the main force. There seemed no shortage of these, but getting them out wouldn’t be an easy task.

  “There may be a way …” Drizzt offered, the first words he had contributed to the planning.

  Replaying the scene with the orc, the reactions of the creature toward him, Drizzt wondered if his heritage might serve him well.

  They agreed on a place, and the six and Guenhwyvar, minus Drizzt, started away, while the drow moved back toward his last position overlooki
ng the encampment. He stayed there for just a few moments, his keen eyes cutting the night and discerning an approach route toward the separate giant camp, and he was gone, slipping away as silently as a shadow.

  “He’ll bring ’em down from the right,” Bruenor said when they reached the appointed ambush area.

  The dwarf was facing a high cliff, with a rocky, broken trail running left and right in front of it before him.

  “Can ye get up there, Rumblebelly?”

  Regis, standing at the base of the cliff, was already picking his course. He had discerned a few routes already to the ledge he was hoping to reach, but he wanted an easier one for a companion who was not quite as nimble as he.

  “You want to get in on the kill?” he asked Tred McKnuckles, who was standing beside him and looking more than a little overwhelmed by the frantic planning and implementation of the seasoned companions.

  “What d’ya think?” the dwarf shot back.

  “I think you should put that weapon on your back and follow me up,” Regis replied with a wry grin, and without further ado, the halfling began his climb.

  “I ain’t no damn spider!” Tred yelled back.

  “Do you want the kill or not?”

  It was the last thing Regis meant to say, and the last thing he had to say, for Tred, grumbling and growling to make a robbed dwarf proud, began his ascent, following the exact course of footholds and handholds Regis had taken. It took him a long time to get to the ledge, and by the time he arrived, Regis was already sitting comfortably with his back against the wall, twenty-five feet above the ground.

  “See if you can break off a large chunk of that rock,” the halfling remarked, nodding to the side, where a fair-sized boulder had lodged itself on the ledge.

  Tred looked at the solid stone, a thousand pounds of granite, doubtfully.

  “Ye think ye can drop it off?” came a call from below from Catti-brie.

  Regis moved forward to regard her, and Tred looked on even more doubtfully.

  Catti-brie didn’t wait for an answer but moved to the side to confer with Wulfgar. The barbarian rushed away, returning a few moments later with a long and thick broken branch. He positioned himself below the ledge, then reached up as far as he could, and when it was apparent that he still couldn’t reach his companions with the branch, he tossed it up.

  Regis caught it and pulled it up beside him. Smiling, he handed it to the bewildered Tred.

  “You’ll see,” the halfling promised.

  To the side, on another ledge at about the same height as Regis and Tred’s, Guenhwyvar gave a low growl, and poor Tred seemed more unsettled than ever.

  Regis just grinned and moved back into position to watch the trail behind.

  When he heard them talking in a language that was close enough to Common to be understood, Drizzt’s hopes for his plans climbed a bit. He was on the fringes of the encampment, out in the shadows behind a large rock. Neither the orcs nor the giants had set any guards, obviously secure in their victory.

  The giants’ conversation was small talk mostly, giving the drow no real information. That didn’t concern him too much. He was more interested in finding a chance to approach one of them alone, to play his hunch that this group was somewhat familiar with dark elves.

  He got his chance almost an hour later. One of the giants was snoring, a sound not unlike an avalanche. Another, the only female of the quartet, lay beside him, near sleep if not already so. The remaining two continued their conversation, though with the long lags of silence attributable to drowsiness. Finally, one of the pair stood up and wandered off.

  Drizzt took a deep breath—dealing with creatures as formidable as frost giants was no easy task. In addition to their great size, strength, and fighting prowess, frost giants were not blathering idiots like their hill giant and ogre cousins. By all accounts, they were often quite sharp of mind, and not easily fooled. Drizzt had to count on his heritage, and the reputation that he hoped would precede him.

  He crept in under cover of the shadows to within a few feet of the sitting behemoth.

  “You missed some treasure,” he whispered.

  The giant, obviously sleepy, started a bit and fell back to one elbow, turning his head to regard the speaker as it asked, “What?”

  Seeing the dark elf, the giant did move more ambitiously, snapping back up to a straight-backed position.

  “Donnia?” it asked, a name that Drizzt did not recognize, except to recognize that it was indeed a name, a drow name.

  “An associate,” he replied quietly. “You missed a great treasure.”

  “Where? What?”

  “At the village. A huge chest of gems and jewels, buried beneath one of the fallen buildings.”

  The giant looked around, then leaned in more closely.

  “You offer this?” he asked suspiciously, so obviously not convinced that the drow, that any drow, would walk in and give such information away.

  “I cannot carry so much,” Drizzt explained. “I cannot carry one tenth of that which lies within. While I could ferry the treasure away one armload at a time, I suspect there is more still, buried beneath a slab I can’t budge.”

  The giant looked around again, its movements showing that it was more than a little interested. Not far to the side, one of its companions snored, coughed, and rolled over.

  “I will share with you, fifty-fifty, and with your kin, if you believe we need them,” Drizzt said, “but not with the orcs.”

  A wicked smile that crossed the giant’s face told Drizzt that his understanding of the race relationships within the enemy band was not far from the mark.

  “Let us continue this discussion, but not here,” Drizzt said, and he began fading back into the shadows.

  The giant looked around yet again, then moved into a crouch and crept after him, following eagerly into the night, moving quietly along a rocky trail to a small clearing protected behind by a sheer cliff wall.

  On a ledge on that wall, some ten feet above the head of the towering giant, two sets of curious eyes looked on.

  “What will Donnia Soldou think of this?” the giant asked.

  “Donnia need not know,” Drizzt replied.

  The giant’s shrug told him much, told him that Donnia, whoever she might be, was not an overriding controlling force but more likely just an associate. That brought a bit of relief to the dark elf. He would hate to think that the orcs and giants were acting at the behest of a drow army.

  “I will take Geletha with me,” the giant announced.

  “Your friend with whom you were speaking?”

  The giant nodded. “And we take two shares, you take one.”

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  “You cannot move the slab.”

  “You cannot find the slab.” Drizzt continued the banter, trying hard to keep the giant unsuspicious while his friends moved into their final positions.

  He figured he wouldn’t have to keep it up for long.

  When a blue-streaking arrow shot out from behind him, zipped past, and thudded hard into the giant’s chest, the drow was not surprised.

  The behemoth groaned but was not badly hurt. Drizzt drew his scimitars and leaped around, turning to face Catti-brie’s position, still playing the part of the giant’s ally.

  “Where did it come from?” he shouted. “Lift me that I might see.”

  “Straight ahead!” roared the great creature.

  It started to bend to accommodate the drow, and Drizzt turned fast and ran up its treelike arm. His scimitars slashed hard across the behemoth’s face, drawing bright lines of red.

  The giant roared and grabbed at him, but the drow had already leaped away, with another blue-streaking arrow sizzling in behind him, slamming the giant yet again.

  Shrugging it off, the behemoth continued to move toward Drizzt, until there came a sound like a log splitting. Bruenor Battlehammer’s many-notched axe smashed the brute in the back of the knee.

  The giant howled a
nd lurched, grabbing the wound, and Catti-brie hit it again with an arrow, this time in the face.

  Ignoring the hit as much as possible, the brute lifted a foot, obviously intending to smash Bruenor.

  And it was hopping, as Dagnabbit rushed out and planted his warhammer right on top of the giant’s set foot.

  And a cry of “Tempus!” followed by a second warhammer, this one spinning through the air, changed that course.

  Aegis-fang hit the behemoth in the chest, just below its neck, with a force that knocked the giant back against the wall. Wulfgar came in behind the hammer, recalling it magically to his grasp, then charged before the giant had recovered and launched a tremendous smash right into the giant’s kneecap.

  How the brute howled!

  Catti-brie’s next arrow hit it right in the face.

  Up on the ledge, Tred, with the branch lever tucked tight over one shoulder, looked from the giant to Regis, his expression dumbfounded. He had battled giants before, on many occasions, but never had he seen one so battered so quickly.

  He looked past Regis then to Guenhwyvar. The great panther crouched on a ledge to the side, watching the fight, but more than that, watching back toward the east, her ears perked up.

  Regis held his hand out toward the ledge, indicating that the target behemoth was in position.

  Tred gave a satisfied grunt and bore down on the displaced boulder, setting the lever more solidly and driving on. The rock tilted and tumbled, and the poor giant below, which was just then beginning to regain its senses and set some type of defense against the rushing onslaught of the drow, the barbarian, the woman, and the two fiery dwarves, got a thousand pounds of granite right on top of the head. The crunching sound from its neck echoed off the stone, as did the resounding crash as the boulder bounced away.

  Regis gave Tred a salute for the fine shot, but the relief was short-lived, for only then did the halfling and the dwarf come to understand what had so piqued Guenhwyvar’s interest and had kept the cat out of the fight. Another giant was charging down the path, and yet another one, a female, behind that.