“The sun is fast setting,” said Drizzt, pulling himself up and starting back to the east and the pegasi.
They had less than half an hour of daylight remaining, but in that time they found much more than they had anticipated. Just a few hundred yards from the as-yet-unfinished gate sat a blockade of piled stones, and a second had been thrown together a hundred yards ahead of that one. Sentries manned both posts, while workers disassembled the one closest to the gate, carrying the stones for cutting and placement on the more formidable wall.
The coordination and tactics could not be denied.
“The fall of Obould has not yet corroded their unity and precision,” Innovindil remarked.
“They wear uniforms,” Drizzt said. He seemed as if he could hardly draw breath-and from more than the cold wind, Innovindil could plainly see.
His words rang true enough to the elf, for the sentries at all three points wore similar skull-shaped helms of white bone and nearly identical black tabards.
“Their tactics are perfect,” the drow went on, for he had seen many similar scenes during his time in Menzoberranzan among his warrior people. “They hastily set blockades to slow down any attackers so that they won’t be caught vulnerable at their more permanent construction site.”
“Orcs have always been clever, if not cohesive,” the elf reminded him.
“It would seem that Obould has remedied the weakness of the latter point more completely than we had thought.” The drow looked around, his gaze drifting in the direction of Mithral Hall. “We have to investigate this more fully and go back to Bruenor,” he said as he looked back at his elf companion.
Innovindil held his stare for a short while, then shook her head. “We have already decided our course.”
“We could not know.”
“We still do not know,” the elf replied. “These southern orc scouts and laborers may not even yet know of Obould’s demise. We cannot measure what we see here as what we can expect a month from now, or after the winter season. In any case, the stalemate will hold with the coming snow and cold, and nothing we can tell King Bruenor now will alter his preparations for the winter.”
“You would still recover the body of Ellifain,” said Drizzt.
Innovindil nodded and replied, “It is important-for my people, and for our acceptance of you.”
“Is this a journey to recover a lost soul? Or is it to determine the veracity of a potential friend?”
“It is both.”
Drizzt leaned back as if stung. Innovindil reached out for him.
“Not for me,” she assured him. “You have nothing to prove to Innovindil, Drizzt Do’Urden. Our friendship is sincere. But I would have no doubts lingering among my sorely wounded and angry people. The People of the Moonwood are not many in number. Forgive us our caution.”
“They bade you do this?”
“There was no need. I understand the importance of it, and do not doubt that I, that all of my people, owe this to the lost one. Ellifain’s fall marks a great failing in the Moonwood, that we could not convince her of the error of her ways. Her heart was scarred beyond reason, but in offering her no remedy, we of the Moonwood can only see Ellifain’s fall as our failing.”
“How will retrieving her body remedy that?”
Innovindil shrugged and said, “Let us learn.”
Drizzt had no answer for that, nor did he think it was his place to question further. He had agreed to fly beside Innovindil to the Sword Coast and so he would. He owed her that, at least. But more importantly, he owed it to Ellifain, the lost elf he had slain.
They returned to their mounts and moved higher up on the trails as darkness fell and the cold closed in, accepting the less accommodating climate so that they could try to get a better understanding of what the orcs around them were up to. They found an overhang to block the biting northeastern wind and huddled close.
As they had expected, campfires came up. A line of lights ran off from the gate construction to the north. More curiously, every few minutes a flaming arrow soared into the night sky. For more than an hour, Drizzt measured the signal flares against the movements of the moon and the small star that chased it, and it wasn’t long before he was nodding in admiration.
“Not random,” he informed Innovindil. “They have devised a coded system of signaling.”
For a long while, the elf didn’t respond. Then she asked, “Is this how kingdoms are born?”
The next day dawned warmer and with less of a wind, so Drizzt and Innovindil wasted no time in getting their flying horses up into the air. They set down soon after, moving into position on the bluffs above the gate construction, and soon realized that their suppositions were right on the mark. The orcs continued to coordinate the deconstruction of the protective barriers to the south with the construction of the more sophisticated gate. The caravan they’d first spotted arrived soon after, laden with supplies for the workers, and that, too, seemed quite extraordinary to the two onlookers.
No typically-orc squabbling came from below regarding the food and drink; it was passed out in an orderly fashion, with enough set aside to feed those orcs still working in the south upon their return.
Even more curiously, the guards rotated, with several caravan guards replacing those at the wall, who set out on the return journey to the north. The new guards, too, were dressed in the skull helmets and black tabards that seemed to be the uniform of Obould’s minions.
Intrigued by the surprising orderliness of the orcs, the two elves, moon and drow, moved back from the ledges and put their mounts to the sky once again. They veered along a more northerly route, wanting to more fully explore the continuing organization of the orc army. They noted wooden pyres set on many hilltops-signal fires. They saw other well-guarded caravans moving out along the various trails like the tentacles of a gigantic octopus. The center of that creature, a huge encampment, was not hard to find.
They flew beyond it, continuing more north than west, and found new construction everywhere. Clusters of stone houses and incomplete walls showed across every snow-covered lea, and every other hilltop, it seemed, was set with the base stones of a new, fortified keep.
“Word does not spread quickly among the orcs, it would seem,” Innovindil said when they landed in a secluded vale.
Drizzt didn’t reply, but his doubting expression spoke volumes. All those orcs couldn’t still be ignorant of an event as momentous as the fall of Obould Many-Arrows. Could it be that the cohesion Obould had spawned among his people would outlast him?
That possibility rattled Drizzt to his bones. The decapitation of the orc army, the death of Obould, was supposed to work like a cancer on the stupid beasts. Surely infighting and selfishness would destroy the integrity of their enemies; the nature of orcs would accomplish what Bruenor’s army had not been able to.
“The tale is early in the telling,” Innovindil said, and Drizzt realized that his fears were playing out on his face.
“Not so early.”
“Our enemies have not been tested since Obould’s fall,” Innovindil said. “Neither by sword nor winter’s fury.”
“They are preparing for both, it would seem.”
Innovindil touched her hand to the drow’s shoulder, and he looked into her blue eyes. “Do not abandon hope,” she reminded him. “Nor make judgments on things we cannot yet know. How will these remainders of the orc army fare when winter comes on in full? How will they manage when some tribe or another decides that it is time to return to the safety of its mountain hole? Will the others try to stop the retreat, and if they do, if orcs begin to battle orcs, how long will it take for the entire mass to feed upon itself?”
Drizzt glanced back to the distant trails and the working orcs and let his gaze linger there for some time. “It is too early to make a judgment,” he finally agreed. “Let us go to the west and finish our task. Perhaps the day will shine brighter upon our return.”
Innovindil took his hand and walked him back to the w
aiting pegasi, and soon they were on their way again, flying due west, the miles to Luskan rolling out below them. They set their course and held true, and they each tried to hold on to their reasoning that the events about them were not likely indicative of what they would find upon their return.
But they each glanced to the sides, and watched the continuing progress and cohesion of an orc force that was supposed to be disintegrating.
The sights of that day, the signal fires and coordinated flares of that night, and the sights of the next day, until they broke clear of the orcs in the Haunted Pass to the west, did not bolster their confidence.
As a minor noble in a major House of Menzoberranzan, Tos’un Armgo had done many years of battle training at Melee-Magthere, the school of warriors. He had served under the brutal and legendary weapons master, Uthegental, who had distinguished himself among drow warriors with his fearsome, offensive style of battle. Never known for his subtlety, what Uthegental lacked in finesse he made up for in sheer strength and ferocity, and the Barrison del’Armgo warriors he commanded learned to strike hard and strike fast.
Tos’un was no exception. So when he descended upon a caravan of orcs, Khazid’hea in his right hand and a second sword in his left, he did not hesitate. He came down from on high in a great leap, stabbed out with his left as he landed beside the lead orc, then spun across with Khazid’hea and cut the foolish creature shoulder to hip. A sudden reversal and backhand sent Khazid’hea slashing at the next orc in line, who lifted a sack of supplies to block.
The blade, with an edge as fine as any in all the world, slid in and out of the bag, through the orc’s raised arm, and into its surprised face with such ease Tos’un wasn’t even sure he had hit the creature.
Until, that is, it fell in a blood-spraying heap.
Tos’un planted his foot on the fallen orc as he leaped forward, scoring another kill by stabbing Khazid’hea through the planks of the caravan’s lead cart and into the chest of the orc that had leaped behind it for cover.
More! the sentient sword screamed in his head. It sent waves of rage at the drow, telepathic impartations that agitated him and drove him on with fury.
A pair of orcs moved to intercept, their swords out level to hinder him.
Out went Tos’un’s second sword, tapping across left to right under the blade of the orc on his right. He rolled it under and tapped the underside of the other orc blade, then back again to the right and back to the left in a series of light parries. The orcs didn’t resist, for the hits were not strong, but neither did they realize that the drow was walking their blades up ever so slightly.
Tos’un stopped in mid swing and tossed his second sword into the air to fly between the surprised orcs. In the same fluid movement, the drow dropped low and spun, slipping forward to one knee and ducking under the orcs’ blades. Khazid’hea ripped across, shearing thick belts and leather tabards as if they were made of parchment.
Both orcs howled and fell away, grabbing at their spilling entrails.
Khazid’hea howled, too, but in pleasure-in Tos’un’s head.
Another pair of guards came at the drow, each circling to the side and prodding at him with metal-tipped spears. He analyzed their movements and ran through an internal debate about how to proceed, where to parry, and which counter to follow through.
When the thrust came, Tos’un proved more than ready. With his superior agility and speed, he slipped his foot back and half-turned, dodging the stab that passed behind him and slapping aside the one in front.
One step forward had him in range, and Khazid’hea tasted more orc blood.
The other foolish orc pursued the drow from behind, and Tos’un executed a brilliant backhand, behind-the-back deflection with his more mundane blade, spun following his own blade as he continued to force the spear aside, and bore in to put Khazid’hea through the orc’s heart.
The sword flooded Tos’un with appreciation.
The drow saw an opening to the left, where an orc began scrambling away. He started that way but then cut back, having seen a pair of orcs running right, abandoning the wagon to save their lives. He took a few steps in pursuit, but his delay had cost him any chance of catching them quickly, so he sheathed his swords and went to the carts instead to realize the spoils.
Khazid’hea went silent, but the sword was more intrigued than pleased. Tos’un was a fine wielder, a solid drow warrior, certainly superior to the human woman who had wielded the sword for several years before, a female warrior who too often favored her bow-a coward’s weapon-over Khazid’hea’s magnificent blade.
We have much to learn from each other, the sword related in Tos’un’s thoughts.
The drow glanced down at Khazid’hea’s hilt, and the sword could sense his trepidation.
You do not trust your instinctive warrior self, the sword explained.
Tos’un put down the food he had found and drew Khazid’hea from its sheath, holding the gleaming blade up before his red eyes.
You think too much, the sword imparted.
Tos’un paused for a bit, then resheathed the blade and went back to his food.
That was good enough for the time being, Khazid’hea believed. The drow had not dismissed the suggestion. The sword would be more prepared in their next fight to help the dark elf achieve a state of more fluid concentration, of heightened awareness, in which he could trust in his abilities and fully understand his limitations.
Not long before, Khazid’hea had been wielded by Drizzt Do’Urden, a champion among drow. That dark elf had easily dismissed any of the sentient weapon’s intrusions because he had achieved a perfect warrior state of mind, an instantaneous recognition of his enemies and evaluation of their abilities. Drizzt moved without conscious consideration, moved in a manner that perfectly blended his thoughts and actions.
Khazid’hea had felt that warrior instinct, the concentration that elevated Drizzt above even a superbly trained warrior such as Tos’un Armgo. The sentient sword had studied its wielder intently in the fight between Drizzt and Obould, and Khazid’hea had learned from the master.
And the sword meant to teach that technique to Tos’un. Though this drow would never be as powerful in heart and will as Drizzt Do’Urden, that was a good thing. For without that inner determination and overblown moral compass even as he gained in physical prowess, Tos’un would not be able to deny Khazid’hea, as had Drizzt. The sword could make Tos’un as physically formidable, but without the dead weight of free will.
Khazid’hea could not settle for second best.
“You have been very quiet these last days,” Innovindil remarked to Drizzt when they pulled up to set their camp for the night.
The smell of brine filled their nostrils and the sunset that night shone at them across the great expanse of dark waters rolling in toward the Sword Coast. The weather had held and they put hundreds of miles behind them much more quickly than they’d anticipated. The two elves even dared to hope that, if good fortune held, they could be back in Mithral Hall before winter came on in full, before the deep snows filled Keeper’s Dale and the icy winds forced them to travel exclusively on the ground. In the air, the pegasi could cover thirty miles in a single day with ease, and those thirty miles were in a direct line to their goal, not winding around hillocks or following rivers for hours and hours until a ford could be found. On the ground, along the winding trails and empty terrain of the wilderness, where they had to beware of monsters and wild beasts, they would be lucky to travel ten miles in any given day, and luckier still if more than a third of those were actually in the direction of their goal.
“Our progress has been amazing,” Innovindil went on when Drizzt, standing on a bluff and staring out at the sea, made no move to reply. “Rillifain is with us,” she said, referring to an elf forest god, one of the deities of her Moonwood clan. “His calming breath is keeping the wintry blows at bay, that we might recover Ellifain and return with all speed.”
She continued on, speaking of the g
od Rillifain Rallathil and the various tales associated with him. The sun’s lower rim seemed to touch the distant water and still she talked. The sky turned a rich blue as the fiery orb disappeared behind the waves, and she realized that Drizzt was not listening, that he had not been listening to her at all.
“What is it?” she said, moving up beside him. She asked again a moment later, and forced him to look at her.
“Are you all right, my friend?” Innovindil asked.
“What did Obould know that we do not?” Drizzt asked in reply.
Innovindil took a step back, her fair elf face scrunching up, for he had caught her off guard.
“Are there good orcs and bad orcs, do you suppose?” Drizzt went on.
“Good orcs?”
“You are surprised that a goodly drow elf would ask such a question?”
Innovindil’s eyes snapped open wide at that, and she stuttered over a reply until Drizzt let her off the hook with a disarming grin.
“Good orcs,” he said.
“Well, I am sure that I do not know. I have never met one of goodly disposition.”
“How would you know if you had?”
“Well, then, perhaps there are such creatures as goodly orcs,” an obviously flustered Innovindil conceded. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know, but I’m also sure that if such beasts exist, they are not the norm for that race. Perhaps a few, but which are more predominant, your mythical goodly orc or those bent on evil?”
“It does not matter.”
“Your friend King Bruenor would not likely agree with you this time.”
“No, no,” Drizzt said, shaking his head. “If there are goodly orcs, even a few, would that not imply that there are varying degrees of conscience within the orc heart and mind? If there are goodly orcs, even a few, does that not foster hope that the race itself will move toward civilization, as did the elves and the dwarves … the halflings, gnomes, and humans?”
Innovindil stared at him as if she didn’t understand.
“What did Obould know that we do not?” Drizzt asked again.
The Collected Stories, The Legend of Drizzt (forgotten realms) Page 17