Drizzt halted before the throne and bowed low. The sight of Regis standing beside the wizard disturbed him more than a little, but he managed to hide that he recognized the halfling. Regis likewise had shown no familiarity when he had first seen the drow, though Drizzt couldn’t be sure if that was a conscious effort or if the halfling was under the influence of some type of enchantment.
“Greetings, Akar Kessell,” Drizzt stammered in the broken accent of denizens of the underworld, as though the common tongue of the surface was foreign to him. He figured that he might as well try the same tactics he had used against the demon. “I am sent from my people in good faith to parley with you on matters concerning our common interests.”
Kessell laughed aloud. “Are you indeed!” a wide smile spread across his face, replaced abruptly with a scowl. His eyes narrowed evilly. “I know you, dark elf! Any man who has ever lived in Ten-Towns has heard the name of Drizzt Do’Urden in tale or in jest! So keep your lies unspoken!”
“Your pardon, mighty wizard,” Drizzt said calmly, changing tactics. “In many ways, it seems, you are wiser than your demon.”
The self-assured look disappeared from Kessell’s face. He had been wondering what had prevented Errtu from answering his summons. He looked at the drow with more respect. Had this solitary warrior slain a major demon?
“Allow me to begin again,” Drizzt said. “Greetings, Akar Kessell.” He bowed low. “I am Drizzt Do’Urden, ranger of Gwaeron Windstrom, guardian of Icewind Dale. I have come to kill you.”
The scimitars leaped out of their sheaths.
But Kessell moved, too. The candle he held suddenly flickered to life. Its flame was caught in the maze of prisms and mirrors that cluttered the entire chamber, focused and sharpened at each reflecting spot. Instantaneously with the lighting of the candle, three concentrated beams of light enclosed the drow in a triangular prison. None of the beams had touched him, but he sensed their power and dared not cross their path.
Drizzt clearly heard the tower humming as daylight filtered down its length. The room brightened considerably as several of the wall panels which had appeared mirrorlike in the torchlight showed themselves to be windows.
“Did you believe that you could walk right in here and simply dispose of me?” Kessell asked incredulously. “I am Akar Kessell, you fool! The Tyrant of Icewind Dale! I command the greatest army that has ever marched on the frozen steppes of this forsaken land!”
“Behold my army!” He waved his hand and one of the scrying mirrors came to life, revealing part of the vast encampment that surrounded the tower, complete with the shouts of the awakening camp.
Then a death cry sounded from somewhere in the unseen reaches of the field. Instinctively, both the drow and the wizard tuned their ears on the distant clamor and heard the continuing ring of battle. Drizzt looked curiously at Kessell, wondering if the wizard knew what was happening in the northern section of his camp.
Kessell answered the drow’s unspoken question with a wave of his hand. The image in the mirror clouded over with an inner fog for a moment, then shifted to the other side of the field. The shouts and clanging of the battle rang out loudly from within the depths of the scrying instrument. Then, as the mist cleared, the image of Bruenor’s clansmen, fighting back to back in the midst of a sea of goblins, came clear. The field all around the dwarves was littered with the corpses of goblins and ogres.
“You see how foolish it is to oppose me?” Kessell squealed.
“It appears to me that the dwarves have done well.”
“Nonsense!” Kessell screamed. He waved his hand again, and the fog returned to the mirror. Abruptly, the Song of Tempos resounded from within its depths. Drizzt leaned forward and strained to catch a glimpse of an image through the veil, anxious to see the leader of the song.
“Even as the stupid dwarves cut down a few of my lesser fighters, more warriors swarm to join the ranks of my army! Doom is upon you all, Drizzt Do’Urden! Akar Kessell is come!”
The fog cleared.
With a thousand fervent warriors behind him, Wulfgar approached the unsuspecting monsters. The goblins and orcs who were closest to the charging barbarians, holding unbending faith in the words of their master, cheered at the coming of their promised allies.
Then they died.
The barbarian horde drove through their ranks, singing and killing with wild abandonment. Even through the clatter of weapons, the sound of the dwarves joining in the Song of Tempos could be heard.
Wide-eyed, jaw hanging open, trembling with rage, Kessell waved the shocking image away and swung back on Drizzt. “It does not matter!” he said, fighting to keep his tone steady. “I shall deal with them mercilessly! And then Bryn Shander shall topple in flames!”
“But first, you, traitorous drow,” the wizard hissed. “Killer of your own kin, what gods have you left to pray to?” He puffed on the candle, causing its flame to dance on its side.
The angle of reflection shifted and one of the beams landed on Drizzt, boring a hole completely through the hilt of his old scimitar and then drove deeper, cutting through the black skin of his hand. Drizzt grimaced in agony and clutched at his wound as the scimitar fell to the floor and the beam returned to its original path.
“You see how easy it is?” Kessell taunted. “Your feeble mind cannot begin to imagine the power of Crenshinibon! Feel blessed that I allowed you to feel a sample of that power before you died!”
Drizzt held his jaw firm, and there was no sign of pleading in his eyes as he glared at the wizard. He had long ago accepted the possibility of death as an acceptable risk of his trade, and he was determined to die with dignity.
Kessell tried to goad the sweat out of him. The wizard swayed the deadly candle tantalizingly about, causing the rays to shift back and forth. When he finally realized that he would not hear any whimpering or begging out of the proud ranger, Kessell grew tired of the game. “Farewell, fool,” he growled and puckered his lips to puff on the flame.
Regis blew out the candle.
Everything seemed to come to a complete halt for several seconds. The wizard looked down at the halfling, whom he thought to be his slave, in horrified amazement. Regis merely shrugged his shoulders, as if he was as surprised by his uncharacteristically brave act as Kessell.
Relying on instinct, the wizard threw the silver plate that held the candle through the glass of the mirror and ran screaming toward the back corner of the room to a small ladder hidden in the shadows. Drizzt had just taken his first steps when the fires within the mirror roared. Four evil red eyes stared out, catching the drow’s attention, and two hellhounds bounded through the broken glass.
Guenhwyvar intercepted one, leaping past its master and crashing headlong into the demon hound. The two beasts tumbled back toward the rear of the room, a black and tawny-red blur of fangs and claws, knocking Regis aside.
The second dog unleashed its fire breath at Drizzt, but again, as with the demon, the fire didn’t bother the drow. Then it was his turn to strike. The fire-hating scimitar rang in ecstasy, cleaving the charging beast in half as Drizzt brought it down. Amazed at the power of the blade but not having time even to gawk at his mutilated victim, Drizzt resumed his chase.
He reached the bottom of the ladder. Up above, through the open trap door to the tower’s highest floor, came the rhythmic flashing of a throbbing light. Drizzt felt the intensity of the vibrations increasing with each pulse. The heart of Cryshal-Tirith was beating stronger with the rising sun. Drizzt understood the danger that he was heading into, but he didn’t have the time to stop and ponder the odds.
And then he was once again facing Kessell, this time in the smallest room of the structure. Between them, hanging eerily in midair, was the pulsating hunk of crystal—Cryshal-Tirith’s heart. It was four-sided and tapered like an icicle. Drizzt recognized it as a miniature replica of the tower he stood in, though it was barely a foot long.
An exact image of Crenshinibon.
A wall of light emanated from
it, cutting the chamber in half, with the drow on one side and the wizard on the other. Drizzt knew from the wizard’s snicker that it was a barrier as tangible as one of stone. Unlike the cluttered scrying room below, only one mirror, appearing more like a window in the tower’s wall, adorned this room, just to the side of the wizard.
“Strike the heart, drow,” Kessell laughed. “Fool! The heart of Cryshal-Tirith is mightier than any weapon in the world! Nothing that you could ever do, magical or otherwise, could even put the slightest scratch upon its pure surface! Strike it; let your foolish impertinence be revealed!”
Drizzt had other plans, though. He was flexible and cunning enough to realize that some foes could not be defeated with force alone. There were always other options.
He sheathed his remaining weapon, the magical scimitar, and began untying the rope that secured the sack to his belt. Kessell looked on curiously, disturbed by the drow’s calm, even when his death seemed inevitable. “What are you doing?” the wizard demanded.
Drizzt didn’t reply. His actions were methodical and unshaken. He loosened the drawstring on the sack and pulled it open.
“I asked you what you were doing!” Kessell scowled as Drizzt began walking toward the heart. Suddenly the replica seemed vulnerable to the wizard. He had the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps this dark elf was more dangerous than he had originally estimated.
Crenshinibon sensed it, too. The crystal shard telepathically instructed Kessell to unleash a killing bolt and be done with the drow.
But Kessell was afraid.
Drizzt neared the crystal. He tried to put his hand over it, but the light wall repulsed him. He nodded, expecting as much, and pulled back the sack’s opening as wide as it would go. His concentration was solely on the tower itself, he never looked at the wizard or acknowledged his ranting.
Then he emptied the bag of flour over the gemstone.
The tower seemed to groan in protest. It darkened.
The wall of light that separated the drow from the wizard disappeared.
But still Drizzt concentrated on the tower. He knew that the layer of suffocating flour could only block the gemstone’s powerful radiations for a short time.
Long enough, though, for him to slip the now-empty bag over it and pull the drawstring tight. Kessell wailed and lurched forward, but halted before the drawn scimitar.
“No!” the wizard cried in helpless protest. “Do you realize the consequences of what you have done?” As if in answer, the tower trembled. It calmed quickly, but both the drow and the wizard sensed the approaching danger. Somewhere in the bowels of Cryshal-Tirith, the decay had already begun.
“I understand completely,” replied Drizzt. “I have defeated you, Akar Kessell. Your short reign as self-proclaimed ruler of Ten-Towns is ended.”
“You have killed yourself, drow!” Kessell retorted as Cryshal-Tirith shuddered again, this time even more violently. “You cannot hope to escape before the tower crumbles upon you!”
The quake came again. And again.
Drizzt shrugged, unconcerned. “So be it,” he said. “My purpose is fulfilled, for you, too, shall perish.”
A sudden, crazy cackle exploded from the wizard’s lips. He spun away from Drizzt and dove at the mirror embedded in the tower wall. Instead of crashing through the glass and falling to the field below, as Drizzt expected, Kessell slipped into the mirror and was gone.
The tower shook again, and this time the trembling did not relent. Drizzt started for the trap door but could barely keep his footing. Cracks appeared along the walls.
“Regis!” he yelled, but there was no answer. Part of the wall in the room below had already collapsed; Drizzt could see the rubble at the base of the ladder. Praying that his friends had already escaped, he took the only route left open to him.
He dove through the magic mirror after Kessell.
30. The Battle of Icewind Dale
The people of Bryn Shander heard the fighting out on the field, but it wasn’t until the lightening of full dawn that they could see what was happening. They cheered the dwarves wildly and were amazed when the barbarians crashed into Kessell’s ranks, hacking down goblins with gleeful abandon.
Cassius and Glensather, in their customary positions upon the wall, pondered the unexpected turn of events, undecided as to whether or not they should release their forces into the fray.
“Barbarians?” gawked Glensather. “Are they our friends or foes?”
“They kill orcs,” Cassius answered. “They are friends!”
Out on Maer Dualdon, Kemp and the others also heard the clang of battle, though they couldn’t see who was involved. Even more confusing, a second fight had begun, this one to the southwest, in the town of Bremen. Had the men of Bryn Shander come out and attacked? Or was Akar Kessell’s force destroying itself around him?
Then Cryshal-Tirith suddenly fell dark, its once glassy and vibrant sides taking on an opaque, deathly stillness.
“Regis,” muttered Cassius, sensing the tower’s loss of power. “If ever a hero we had!”
The tower shuddered and shook. Great cracks appeared over the length of its walls. Then it broke apart.
The monster army looked on in horrified disbelief as the bastion of the wizard they had come to worship as a god came crashing down.
The horns in Bryn Shander began to blow. Kemp’s people cheered wildly and rushed for the oars. Jensin Brent’s forward scouts signaled back the startling news to the fleet on Lac Dinneshere, who in turn relayed the message to Redwaters. Throughout the temporary sanctuaries that hid the routed people of Ten-Towns came the same command.
“Charge!”
The army assembled inside the great gates of Bryn Shander’s wall poured out of the courtyard and onto the field. The fleets of Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval on Lac Dinneshere and Good Mead and Dougan’s Hole in the south lifted their sails to catch the east wind and raced across the lakes. The four fleets assembled on Maer Dualdon rowed hard, bucking that same wind in their haste to get revenge.
In a whirlwind rush of chaos and surprise, the final Battle of Icewind Dale had begun.
* * *
Regis rolled out of the way as the embattled creatures tumbled past again, claws and fangs tearing and ripping in a desperate struggle. Normally, Guenhwyvar would have had little trouble dispatching the helldog, but in its weakened state, the cat found itself fighting for its life. The hound’s hot breath seared black fur; its great fangs bit into muscled neck.
Regis wanted to help the cat, but he couldn’t even get close enough to kick at its foe. Why had Drizzt run off so abruptly?
Guenhwyvar felt its neck being crushed by the powerful maw. The cat rolled, its greater weight taking the dog over with it. But the hold of the canine jaws was not broken. Dizziness swept over the cat from lack of air. It began to send its mind back across the planes, to its true home, though it lamented having failed its master in his time of need.
Then the tower went dark. The startled hellhound relaxed its grip slightly, and Guenhwyvar was quick to seize the opportunity. The cat planted its paws against the dog’s ribs and shoved free of the grasp, rolling away into the blackness.
The helldog scanned for its foe, but the panther’s powers of stealth were beyond even the considerable awareness of its keen senses. Then the dog saw a second quarry. A single bound took it to Regis.
Guenhwyvar was playing a game that it knew better, now. The panther was a creature of the night, a predator that struck from the blackness and killed before its prey even sensed its presence. The helldog crouched for a strike at Regis, then dropped as the panther landed heavily upon its back, claws raking deeply into the rust-colored hide.
The dog yelped only once before the killing fangs found its neck.
Mirrors cracked and shattered. A sudden hole in the floor swallowed Kessell’s throne. Blocks of crystalline rubble began falling all about as the tower shuddered in its final death throes. Screams from the harem chamber below told Regis that
a similar scene of destruction was common throughout the structure. He was gladdened when he saw Guenhwyvar dispatch the helldog, but he understood the futility of the cat’s heroics. They had nowhere to run, no escape from the death of Cryshal-Tirith.
Regis called Guenhwyvar to his side.
He couldn’t see the cat’s body in the blackness, but he saw the eyes, intent upon him and circling around, as though the cat was stalking him. “What?” the halfling balked in astonishment, wondering if the stress and the wounds the dog had inflicted upon Guenhwyvar had driven the cat into madness.
A chunk of wall crashed right beside him, sending him sprawling to the floor. He saw the cat’s eyes rise high into the air; Guenhwyvar had sprung.
Dust choked him, and he felt the final collapse of the crystal tower begin. Then came a deeper darkness as the black cat engulfed him.
* * *
Drizzt felt himself falling.
The light was too bright, he couldn’t see. He heard nothing, not even the sound of air rushing by. Yet he knew for certain that he was falling.
And then the light dimmed in a gray mist, as though he were passing through a cloud. It all seemed so dreamlike, so completely unreal. He couldn’t recall how he had gotten into this position. He couldn’t recall his own name.
Then he dropped into a deep pile of snow and knew that he was not dreaming. He heard the howl of the wind and felt its freezing bite. He tried to stand and get a better idea of his surroundings.
And then he heard, far away and below, the screams of the raging battle. He remembered Cryshal-Tirith, remembered where he had been. There could only be one answer.
He was on top of Kelvin’s Cairn.
* * *
The soldiers of Bryn Shander and Easthaven, fighting arm in arm with Cassius and Glensather at their head, charged down the sloping hill and drove hard into the confused ranks of goblins. The two spokesmen had a particular goal in mind: They wanted to cut through the ranks of monsters and link up with Bruenor’s charges. On the wall a few moments before, they had seen the barbarians attempting the same strategy, and they figured that if all three armies could be brought together in flanking support, their slim chances would be greatly improved.
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