Archmage

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Aye, and that’s the way we knew it’d be!” Bruenor roared. “Who’s to stop a dwarf charge, I ask ye?”

  And the cheering erupted all along that side corridor, and dwarves began banging their weapons against their shields, and all crowded in on Kipper, who was in the thrall of spellcasting.

  Old Kipper prayed that he had the location correct, that Toliver was relaying the information properly, as he at last completed his spell, connecting this corridor to the floor just to the right of Oretheo Spikes.

  “FOOLS,” JAEMAS SAID, shaking his head in disbelief. “We repelled them last time, and now they come down even more slowly? And more vulnerably?”

  He looked to his cousin Faelas, who was just completing his next lightning bolt. The spell shot off, and Faelas nodded in satisfaction. The flash of his first bolt had shown him the target, and now this second streak of lightning had hit the mark, the magic slashing through one of the rappelling ropes far up from the floor.

  The lowest dwarf on that rope was just jumping the last few feet to the ground. The next tumbled fifteen feet or so, bounced and rolled back to his feet. The third on the rope fell from twice that height. He hit, buckled, and groaned, grabbing at his legs.

  The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth crashed hard onto the floor. One of them was moaning, the other two lying silently and very still.

  Faelas looked to Jaemas and shrugged, as much at a loss as to why the foolish dwarves would try something so obviously desperate as this after the first catastrophe, and indeed, among the piled remains of their dead kin. Drow would never be so stubborn or stupid as that, after all.

  But then the cousins heard a sudden onslaught of cheering and the cavern brightened, a brightly glowing square of light just to the side of the main fighting.

  “What is it?” Faelas asked.

  “A gate!” Jaemas yelled, and indeed it was.

  Through that portal came the Battlehammers, led by Bruenor himself, pouring out into the cavern just to the side of Oretheo Spikes’s position. Many of those dwarves came out bearing a small light stone, and they flung those illuminating orbs as prescribed, scattering them sequentially throughout the reaches of the huge cavern.

  The drow shied in pain and surprise. The cavern became as bright as daylight, brutal to Underdark eyes.

  Demons and goblinkin hunched away and shielded their eyes, and the wall of Battlehammers crashed into them like a stampede of crazed rothé, stomping over them, smashing and slashing at them, burying them.

  Bruenor ran right up the side of one vrock, his axe whacking away with wild abandon, driving into the demon, pounding it down bit by bit.

  Standing atop the broken, destroyed thing, Bruenor glanced back at Oretheo Spikes, the two sharing a knowing nod.

  “Vengeance,” Bruenor Battlehammer muttered quietly, but loud enough for Fury Fellhammer, Athrogate, and Ambergris to hear and echo the sentiment.

  “BE QUICK!” KIPPER Harpell implored the dwarves still pouring through his portal, and to the other wizards who were only then enacting their spells. “They are trying to dispel the gate!”

  Across the way, Catti-brie and Penelope focused on the sight through Kipper’s gate, using that to aid in the placement of their own dimensional doorways. Neither was prolific enough with these types of spells to safely do as Kipper had done, locating and opening a gate merely on the words of Toliver, but now with the target area clearly in their view, both had their spells successfully away.

  At that very moment, Kipper’s gate went away, but it didn’t matter. Two portals were in place now, and soon enough three, as the old mage opened yet another to replace the first.

  Several hundred Battlehammers would be in that cavern before the drow or their demon allies could hope to close the gates.

  “Go! Go!” Catti-brie yelled to the other wizards, and all three rushed around the charging dwarves and back out into the main corridor, pausing to cast as they went.

  “You remember the ritual?” Penelope asked, and both Cattie-brie and Kipper nodded.

  The Adbar dwarves, still rappelling along the ropes—five now, but with a new sixth line soon to be in place—moved aside for the magic-users, and for the royal procession, King Emerus and Ragged Dain and a host of elite Felbarran warriors close behind them.

  As soon as they passed through the last door, Catti-brie and the three Harpells flew away, Toliver leading them down to the correct position near to the floor.

  Up on the landing, King Emerus, Ragged Dain, and the others chanted out a battle song, using the cadence to count as instructed.

  And when the second verse ended, fully confident in the wizards and their timing, the Felbarrans leaped out into the open cavern, plummeting to within ten feet of the floor before passing through the newly enacted Field of Feather Falling, then floating down to begin solidifying Oretheo Spikes’s left flank.

  The shield walls were formed in the blink of a trained dwarf’s eye, the dwarf ranks thickening precisely in the well-lit cavern. Drow darkness spells took some of that light away, but there weren’t many Xorlarrins in this cavern and it was a feeble attempt indeed against the overwhelming number of lighted stones the dwarves had brought to bear.

  And now they were the tide, breaking waves made of rolling dwarves, following the leads of Bruenor Battlehammer, Oretheo Spikes, and Emerus Warcrown.

  Goblins, orcs, and demons died by the score, and the shield line would not be broken.

  Drow lightning and fire came at them, but so quick had the Felbarran assault filled the cavern that Catti-brie and the Harpells, too, began to focus on more offensive spells.

  Thick ran the blood. Goblins and orcs piled deep in death, scores of manes lay smoking and melting on the floor, and many dwarves went to Moradin’s Hall in those early moments of wild battle.

  But the line held, frustratingly so for those hungry demons who could not get to their bearded enemies, and so began attacking the other living creatures, the allied goblinkin, to satisfy their undeniable hunger.

  THEY WERE WINNING. Bruenor understood that as again the dwarven line rolled forward and engulfed their enemies, curling up and down the length of the cavern like a breaking wave on a long beach, as inexorable and undeniable as the tide itself.

  They were winning, and it seemed to Bruenor that the fight was quickly turning into a rout. Once they had this hold on the lower levels, with easy resupply from above, they could not be denied. The Forge and the adjoining primordial chamber, the heart of Gauntlgrym, would be theirs for the taking.

  Gauntlgrym would be Delzoun once more, as Moradin had demanded.

  But something was off-kilter, Bruenor felt, some emptiness within him that muted his joy at the moment of supreme victory.

  Drizzt was not beside him now to share in his greatest triumph. For all their decades together, in this, the culmination of Bruenor’s achievements, Drizzt Do’Urden was not there, and perhaps would never again be.

  His dearest friend, the greatest warrior he had ever known.

  He remembered his own dying words in his previous life, when he had looked into the eyes of his dear friend and whispered, “I found it, elf.” Aye, he had found Gauntlgrym, the most ancient dwarven homeland, the greatest dwarven treasure of all, yet not because of dwarven help but because a dark elf had stood beside his journey for decades, had suffered his wrong turns, had helped him through near-disastrous battles, and in the end, had led the way to put the primordial back in its captivity.

  Drizzt had done all of that. For Bruenor. For friendship. Selflessly.

  Drizzt, who now had paid, at long last, for Bruenor’s dwarven needs.

  The red-bearded dwarf winced, feeling again as if this victory might prove hollow after all. In defiance, Bruenor blew his cracked silver horn. Let the wild spirit of Thibbledorf Pwent come forward, he decided, wanting to ultimately punish those who stood against him.

  FAR FROM THE roar of battle, the explosions of fire and lightning, the whipping ice storms of Penelope Harp
ell and the latest shield rush led by Bruenor Battlehammer, the drow ranger lay quietly in the darkness.

  His first sensations of semiconsciousness came from his fingers, playing over a familiar shape as they shifted across the onyx figurine of the panther.

  Somewhere distantly, Drizzt felt the warmth and heard the name of Guenhwyvar echoing in his thoughts.

  Memories would not come back to him—nothing specific at least. Just a feeling of companionship and joy. Images of his friends flashed in the recesses of his mind, of Catti-brie and Bruenor, mostly.

  And of Guenhwyvar, the panther, the figurine that served as her beacon so tangible in Drizzt’s weak hands.

  He could not hear the cries of dying dwarves, and could not know the battle raging far below, a battle then looking like victory to his friends.

  Somehow, though, Drizzt knew better. A pair of great demon leaders, Marilith and Nalfeshnee, were waiting in the shadows and would soon come onto the battlefield and rally the demonic forces and the drow to turn back the tide of dwarves.

  Where the hopes and expectations of victory in his dearest friends would suddenly turn to dread.

  Another image flashed in his mind, but did not flutter aside. Instead it held him and called to him, demanded of Drizzt that he shake off the irresistible darkness, that he wake up.

  He saw Jarlaxle in his thoughts, and when he at last did open his weary eyes, Drizzt saw Jarlaxle once more, standing with Kimmuriel beside his bed.

  “Welcome back.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The Gray Fog of Death

  ORETHEO SPIKES’S A GOOD ONE,” BUNGALOW THUMP ASSURED Bruenor.

  “He’s got ’em in line, aye!” Bruenor replied, glancing down to his left where the large Adbar contingent centered the dwarven line, with Bruenor and Mithral Hall holding strong on the right flank, King Emerus and the Felbarran leapers holding the left.

  It would have been easy for Oretheo Spikes and his Wilddwarves to press too far ahead, and surely that would prove oh-so-tempting to the ferocious band. They were nearest the huge structure that housed the circular stair to the upper levels, the centerpiece of this cavern, the symbol of control of the chamber. And they were Wilddwarves, so akin in attitude, indeed patterned after, the Mithral Hall Gutbusters, who never met an enemy they didn’t eagerly punch, leap upon, shake apart, or bite.

  The enemy was weaker there too, in the middle, with the stair dispersing the demons and what few remained alive of their goblinkin fodder out to the left and right.

  But Oretheo was keeping his boys in line, and the long front ranks of the dwarven charge kept rolling in practiced unison. Inexorable, unstoppable, a rolling, swallowing wave. And as they had planned up above, Bruenor’s end of the line initiated the roll of each wave. King Bruenor alone paced the assault, keeping his own formations tight, keeping his cadence solid and straight.

  Magical explosions shook the chamber from all around, coming in from dark elf wizards or demons skulking in the shadows, and going out from Catti-brie and the Harpells. The demons, other than the manes and other lesser creatures, didn’t seem overly bothered by the magical barrage, but neither were the tough dwarves, secure behind their armor and shields, as solid as the stone they mined.

  Behind the initial line of fighting, Bruenor noticed something else—and he laughed out loud at the sight. Back there, the demons, who couldn’t get into the fight fast enough to satiate their hateful hunger, had turned on the slave fodder, pulling down goblins and orcs and tearing them to shreds.

  “Keep it slow and keep it steady, me boys!” Bruenor yelled. “Let ’em eat their own a bit afore they’re tastin’ me axe for dessert!”

  And the cheers rolled down the line, and the dwarven wave rolled on across the cavern floor.

  But far down to the left, there came a new commotion, and when Bruenor and the others turned that way, it seemed to them as if the dwarven advance, that metaphorical wave, was suddenly breaking against huge rocks.

  Or huge demons, to be more precise.

  A six-armed female beauty towered three times the height of the unfortunate dwarves facing her, and an even larger beast, much like the one Athrogate and Ambergris had killed in the mines, only bigger, and, given the dwarves flying and dying in front of him, surely meaner.

  Bruenor shouted over to Bungalow Thump, who had scurried back to his line of Gutbusters. “Send Adbar reinforcing to the left!”

  Even as he called out, though, a wall of fire appeared down that way, far to the left, down by the Felbarrans. One of the demon leaders had done that, Bruenor guessed easily enough, and behind the roiling flames, King Emerus and his charges had no choice but to fall back.

  And worse, all around those two demon leaders, the rest of the horde was suddenly rallying and falling into order. From the beginning of the fight, much like in the halls above, the Abyssal creatures had fought as individuals, each taking any opening to leap forward and attack—and so, out there alone, without support, those too-eager demons had been easy prey for the teamwork of the disciplined dwarves.

  But now all of that was fast changing, right in front of Bruenor’s surprised and worried gaze. He heard a low buzzing sound, and knew that this, too, was coming from the demon leaders, from the six-armed female behemoth it seemed. Under that drone, the demons all the way down to this farthest end of the line reformed their ranks, suddenly ready to battle in unison.

  The leaders had brought discipline, and powerful magic, and now Bruenor wasn’t feeling that the victory might be hollow. He was wondering if he had led three thousand dwarves into a death trap.

  “Fight on, boys!” he called to rally those around him. “Hold close to yer fellows! None o’ us’re to move out to get catched and pulled off!”

  He turned to Catti-brie and the Harpells. “Them big ones’re controlling it all.”

  “Marilith and Nalfeshnee,” Penelope Harpell replied, shaking her head, her face a mask of dread. She knew of demonkind and understood the great power that had unexpectedly come upon them. “They are demonic nobility in all but title. Mighty leaders have joined our enemies!”

  “Ye get me down there,” Bruenor told them. “We’ll be cuttin’ the head from the snake or I’m a bearded gnome!”

  “Huzzah!” roared all those dwarves who heard the claim.

  But the middle of that cheer seemed to carry on for a long while, a great buzzing drone, and now a swarm of chasme, scores of the flying beasts, swept into the cavern in tight formation.

  And those chasme carried barrels of oil heated in the nearby forge, so their bombs began to fall, and great blasts of biting flames erupted all around the dwarven lines.

  “THEM TWO’RE CONTROLLING it!” King Emerus yelled to Ragged Dain, both of them coming to the same conclusion as Bruenor. “We got to get to them!”

  But the two in question seemed far beyond the reach of the Felbarran leaders. They loomed as ghostly silhouettes behind the great magical wall of flames that licked and bit at the dwarven line and drove them back.

  King Emerus spun and called for the priestess Mandarina Dobberbright.

  “Ye get me through that wall!” he ordered her.

  “Ye canno’ go alone!” she cried back at him, staring through the roiling flames at the beastly demons beyond.

  “Do it!” Emerus ordered. “And send others to help me as ye can!”

  Still shaking her head, Mandarina launched into her spellcasting, putting an enchantment upon Emerus that would protect him more fully from the biting flames than the minor protections that had been offered before the onset of battle.

  “Now meself,” Ragged Dain demanded as soon as she had finished.

  But King Emerus didn’t wait for his shield dwarf. As soon as he felt the enchantment washing over him, he spun and ran off, plunging into and through the wall of fire, and coming out the other side with a roar and a leap.

  “Be quick!” Ragged Dain cried, and Mandarina pressed on, as other dwarves tried to breach the wall in pursuit of
their daring king, only to be turned back by the unbearable heat.

  “Priests!” many yelled, seeking similar enchantments to get them through, or something, anything, that might bring down that wall. And indeed, many dwarf clerics were already approaching the task, attacking the magical fire with dispelling enchantments, a few even creating water to fall upon the flames and dim them.

  Ragged Dain began his run even before Mandarina finished her spell, and he only felt the enchantment washing over him as he entered the fires. He didn’t care, though, for at the same time, he heard the ring of metal and knew that King Emerus had joined in battle.

  When he burst through the other side of the fire wall, Ragged Dain could only wince, for that battle Emerus had found was with the six-armed demon herself, and her blades worked in a blur all around him. No novice to battle, indeed as great a warrior as Citadel Felbarr had ever known, old King Emerus fought back valiantly, trying to block, trying to dodge, trying to parry, even trying to counterstrike.

  And he seemed to be holding his own. Ragged Dain knew his guess had been correct when the wall behind him dimmed and flashed out. Emerus had taken Marilith’s concentration off her enchantment, and so she could not counter the spells of the many dwarf priests.

  “Me king!” Ragged Dain proudly yelled, sprinting to join Emerus.

  But then Emerus came staggering backward, and a swarm of hulking demons, many vrocks and glabrezu among them, rolled around Marilith and Nalfeshnee to shield their leaders.

  Ragged Dain caught his king in his arms and fast retreated. Other dwarves similarly rolled around Dain and Emerus to meet the demon charge.

  “Me king, oh, me king,” Ragged Dain breathed, and he kept stumbling backward. He soon had to ease Emerus Warcrown down to the floor and as he did, he saw that for all his brilliant efforts, Emerus hadn’t blocked all of those swings. Blood covered his chest and belly, with more spilling fast. “Priests!” Ragged Dain shrieked desperately.

  But he knew in his heart that it was too late.