The Thousand Orcs th-1

by Robert Salvatore

  "And through it all, we must take care, wise Obould, not to invoke the wrath of Silverymoon, whose Lady is a friend to Mithral Hall," the drow advisor went on. "And we must never allow an alliance to form between Mithral Hall and Mirabar."

  "Bah, Mirabar hates them newcomers!"

  "True enough, but they do not fear the newcomer dwarves in any but economic ways," Ad'non explained. "They will fear you and Gerti with their very lives, and such fear makes for unexpected alliances."

  "Like the one between me and Gerti?"

  Ad'non considered that for a moment, then shook his head.

  "No, you and Gerti understand that you'll both move closer to your goals by allying. You are not afraid, of course."

  "Course not!"

  "Nor should you be. Play the game as we've discussed, as you and I have planned it all along, my friend Obould." He moved closer and whispered so that only the orc king could hear. "Show why you are above the others of your race, why you alone might gather a strong enough alliance to reclaim your rightful citadel."

  Obould straightened and nodded, then turned to his kinfolk and recited the litany that Ad'non had taught him for months and months.

  "Patience.."

  "I'll not even bother to ask how your parlay with Obould progressed," priestess Kaer'lic Suun Wett remarked when Ad'non finally arrived at the comfortable, richly adorned chamber off a deep, deep tunnel below the southernmost spurs of the Spine of the World, not far from the caverns of Shining White, though much deeper.

  Kaer'lic was the most striking member of the group. Heavyset, which was very unusual for a dark elf, and with broad shoulders, Kaer'lic had lost her right eye in a battle when she was a young priestess nearly a century before. Rather than have the orb magically restored, the stubborn Kaer'lic had replaced it with a black, many-chambered eye pried from the carcass of a giant spider. She claimed the orb was functional and allowed her to see things that others could not, but her three friends knew the truth of it. Many times, Ad'non and Donnia had sneaked up on Kaer'lic's right side, completely undetected, for no better reason than to tease her.

  Still, the two assassins had gone along with Kaer'lic's ruse to their newest companion for many tendays. Spiders, after all, made quite an impact on dark elves from Menzoberranzan, and Tos'un Armgo had remained suitably impressed for a long time, until Ad'non had finally let him in on the ruse—and that, only after the three long-term friends had come to understand that Tos'un was one who could be trusted.

  Ad'non shrugged in response to Kaer'lic's remarks, telling the other three that it had gone exactly as they would all expect when dealing with an orc. Indeed, Obould was more cunning than his kind, but that wasn't really saying much by drow standards.

  "Dame Gerti holds the course, as well," Donnia added. "She believes it to be her destiny to rule the Spine of the World and will follow any course that may lead her to that place."

  "She might be right," Tos'un put in. "Gerti Orelsdottr is a smart one, and between Obould's masses and the stirring trolls from the moors, enough chaos might be created for Gerti to step forward."

  "And we will be ready to profit, in material and in pleasure, whatever the outcome," Donnia said with a wry grin, one that was matched by her three friends.

  'It amazes me that I ever considered returning to Menzoberranzan," Tos'un Armgo remarked, and the others laughed.

  Donnia and Ad'non were staring rather intently at each other when that laughter abated. The lovers had been apart for several days, after all, and both of them found such talk of conquest, chaos and profit quite stimulating.

  They practically ran out of the chamber to their private room.

  Kaer'lic howled with renewed laughter as they departed, shaking her head. She was always more pragmatic about such needs, never reducing them to overpowering levels, as the two assassins often did.

  "They will die in each others' arms," she remarked to Tos'un, "coupling and oblivious to the threat."

  "There are worse ways to go, I suppose," the son of House Barrison Del'Armgo replied, and Kaer'lic laughed again.

  These two were part-time lovers as well, but only part time, and not for a long, long time. Kaer'lic wasn't really interested in a partner, in truth, far preferring a slave to use as a toy.

  "We should expand these raids to the Moonwood," she remarked lewdly. "Perhaps we could convince Obould to capture us a couple of young moon elves."

  "A couple?" Tos'un said skeptically. "A handful would be more fun."

  Kaer'lic laughed yet again.

  Tos'un leaned back into the thick furs of his divan, wondering again how he could have ever even considered returning to the dangers discomforts and subjugation that he, as a male, could not avoid, along the dark avenues of Menzoberranzan.

  CHAPTER 2 NOT WELCOME

  The wind howled down at them from the peaks to the north, the towering snow-capped Spine of the World Mountains. Just a bit farther to the south, along the roads out of Luskan, spring was in full bloom, fast approaching summer, but at the higher elevations, the wind was rarely warm, and the going rarely easy.

  Yet it was precisely this course that Bruenor Battlehammer had chosen as the route back to Mithral Hall, walking east within the shadow of the mountains. They had left Icewind Dale without incident, for none of the highwaymen or solitary monsters that often roamed the treacherous roads would challenge an army of nearly five hundred dwarves! A storm had caught them in the pass through the mountains, but Bruenor's hearty people had trudged on, turning east even as Drizzt and his other unsuspecting friends were expecting to soon see the towers of Luskan in the south before them.

  Drizzt had asked Bruenor about the unexpected course change, for though this was a more direct route, it certainly wouldn't be much quicker and certainly not less hazardous.

  In reply to the logical question, Bruenor had merely snorted, "Ye'll see soon enough, elf!"

  The days blended into tendays and the raucous hand put more than

  a hundred and fifty difficult miles behind them. Their days were full of dwarven marching songs, their nights full of dwarven partying songs.

  To the surprise of Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar, Bruenor moved Regis by his side soon after the eastward turn. The dwarf was constantly leaning in and talking to the halfling, while Regis bobbed his head in reply.

  "What's the little one know that we don't?" Catti-brie asked the drow as they flanked the caravan to the north, looking back on the third wagon, Bruenor's wagon, to see Bruenor and Regis engaged in one such discussion.

  Drizzt just shook his head, not really sure of how to read Regis at all anymore.

  "Well, I'm thinking we should find out," Catti-brie added, seeing no response forthcoming.

  "When Bruenor wants us to know all the details, he will tell us," Drizzt assured her, but her smirk made it fairly clear that she wasn't buying into that theory.

  "We've turned the both of them from more than one ill-aimed scheme," she reminded. "Are ye hoping to find out right before the cataclysm?"

  The logic was simple enough, and in considering the pair on the wagon, and the fact that raucous and none-too-brilliant Thibbledorf Pwent was also serving Bruenor in an advisory position, the drow could only chuckle.

  "And what are we to do?"

  "Well, hot pokers won't get Bruenor talking, even against a birthday surprise," Catti-brie reasoned, "but I'm thinking that Regis has a bit lower tolerance."

  "For pain?" Drizzt asked incredulously.

  "Or for tricks, or for drink, or for whatever else might work," the woman explained. "Think I'll be getting Wulfgar to carry the little rat to us when Bruenor's off about other business tonight."

  Drizzt gave a helpless laugh, understanding well the perils that awaited poor Regis, and glad that Bruenor had taken the halfling into his confidence and not him.

  As with most nights, Drizzt and Catti-brie set a camp off to the side of the gathering of dwarves, keeping watch, and even more than that, keeping a bit of their s
anity aside from Thibbledorf Pwent's antics and the Gutbuster's training. Pwent did come over and join the pair this night, though, walking right in and plopping down on a boulder to the side of their fire.

  He looked at Catti-brie, even reached up to touch her long auburn hair.

  "Ah, ye're looking good, girl," he said, and he dropped a sack of some muddy compound at her feet, "Ye be putting that on yer face each night afore ye go to sleep."

  Catti-brie looked down at the sack and its slimy contents, then up at Drizzt, who was sitting on a log and resting back against a rock facing, his hands tucked behind his head, brushing wide his thick shock of white hair so that it framed his black-skinned face and his purple eyes. Clearly, the battlerager amused him.

  "On me face?" Catti-brie asked, and Pwent's head bobbed eagerly. "Let me guess. It will make me grow a beard."

  "Good and thick one," said Pwent. "Red to match yer hair, I'm hoping. Oh, a fiery one ye'll be!"

  Catti-brie's eyes narrowed as she looked over at Drizzt once more, to see him choking back a chuckle.

  "Make sure ye're not putting it up too high on yer cheeks, girl," the battlerager went on, and now Drizzt did laugh out loud. "Ye'll look like that durned Harpell werewolf critter!"

  As he finished the thought, Pwent sighed and rolled his eyes longingly. It was well known that the battlerager had begged Bidderdoo Harpell, the werewolf, to bite him so that he too might be afflicted by the ferocious disease. The Harpell had wisely refused.

  Before the wild dwarf could continue, the trio heard a movement to the side, and a huge form appeared. It was Wulfgar the barbarian, nearly seven feet tall, with a broad and muscled chest. He was wearing a beard to match his blond hair, but it was neatly trimmed, showing the renewed signs of care that had given all the friends hope that Wulfgar had at last overcome his inner demons. Ho carried a large sack over one shoulder, and something inside of it was squirming.

  "Hey, what'cha got there, boy?" Pwent howled, hopping up and bending in curiously.

  "Dinner," Wulfgar replied. The creature in the sack moaned and squirmed more furiously.

  Pwent rubbed his hands together eagerly and licked his lips.

  "Only enough for us," Wulfgar said to him. "Sorry."

  "Bah, ye can spare me a leg!"

  "Just enough for us," Wulfgar said again, putting his hand on Pwent's forehead and pushing the dwarf back to arm's length. "And for me to bring some leftovers to my wife and child. You will have to go and dine with your kin, I fear."

  "Bah!" the battlerager snorted. "Ye ain't even kilt it right!"

  With that, he stepped up and balled his fist, retracting his arm for a devastating punch.

  "No!" Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie all yelled together.

  The woman and the drow leaped up and rushed in to intercept. Wulfgar, spinning aside, put himself between the battlerager and the sack. As he did, though, the sack swung out wide and bounced off the rock facing, drawing another groan from within.

  "We're wanting it fresh," Catti-brie explained to the befuddled battlerager.

  "Fresh? It's still kicking!"

  Catti-brie rubbed her hands together eagerly and licked her lips, mimicking Pwent's initial reaction.

  "It is indeed!" she said happily.

  Pwent backed off a step and put his hands firmly on his hips, staring hard at the woman, then he exploded into laughter.

  "Ye'll make a good dwarf, girl!" he howled.

  He slapped his hands against his thighs and bounded away, back down the slope toward the main encampment.

  As soon as he was gone, Wulfgar swung the sack over his shoulder and bent low, gently spilling its contents: one very irate, slightly overweight halfling dressed in fine traveling clothes, a red shirt, brown vest, and breeches.

  Regis rolled on the ground, quickly regained his footing, and frantically brushed himself off.

  "Your pardon," Wulfgar offered as graciously as he could while stifling a laugh.

  Regis glared up at him then hopped over and kicked him hard in the shin—which of course hurt Regis's bare toes more than it affected the mighty barbarian.

  "Relax, my friend," Drizzt bade him, stepping over and draping his arm over the halfling's shoulder. "We needed to speak with you, that is all."

  "And asking is beyond your comprehension?" Regis was quick to point out.

  Drizzt shrugged, "It had to be done secretly," he explained. Even as the words left his mouth Regis began to shrink back, apparently catching on.

  "Ye been talking a lot with Bruenor of late," Catti-brie piped in, and Regis shrank back even more. "We're thinking that ye should be sharing some of his words with us."

  "Oh, no," Regis replied, patting his hands in the air before him, warding them away. "Bruenor's got his plans spinning, and he will tell you when he wants you to know."

  "Then there is something?" Drizzt reasoned.

  "He is returning to Mithral Hall to become the king," the halfling replied. "That is something, indeed!"

  "Something more than that," said Drizzt. "I see it clearly in his eyes, in the bounce of his step."

  Regis shrugged. "He's glad to be going home."

  "Oh, is that where we're going?" Catti-brie asked.

  "You are. T am going farther," the halfling admitted. "To the Herald's Holdfast," he explained, referring to a renowned library tower located east of Mithral Hall and northwest of Silverymoon, a place the friends had visited years before, when they were trying to locate Mithral Hall so that Bruenor could reclaim the place. "Bruenor has asked me to gather some information for him."

  "About what?" asked the drow.

  "Gandalug and Gandalug's time, mostly," Regis answered, and while it seemed to the other three that he was speaking truthfully, they also sensed that he was speaking incompletely.

  "And what might Bruenor be needing that for?" asked Catti-brie.

  "I'm thinking that's a question ye should be asking Bruenor," came the gruff reply of a familiar voice, and all four turned to see Bruenor stride into the firelight. "Ye go grabbing Rumblebelly there, when all ye had to do was ask meself."

  "And ye'd be telling us?" Catti-brie asked.

  "No," said the dwarf, and three sets of eyes narrowed immediately. "Bah!" Bruenor recanted. "Hoping to surprise ye three is hoping for the impossible!"

  "Surprise us with what?" asked Wulfgar.

  "An adventure, boy!" the dwarf howled. "As great an adventure as ye've ever knowed."

  "I've known a few," Drizzt warned, and Bruenor howled.

  "Sit yerselfs down," the dwarf bade them, motioning to the fire, and all five sat in a circle about the blaze.

  Bruenor pulled a bulging pack off his back. After dropping it to the ground he pulled it open to reveal packets of food and bottles of ale and wine.

  "Though ye're fancying fresher food," he said with a wink to Catti-brie, "I was thinking this'd do for now."

  They sorted out the meal, and Bruenor hardly waited for them to begin eating before he launched into his tale, telling them that he was truly glad they had pressed the issue, for it was a tale, a promise of adventure, that he desperately wanted to share.

  "We'll be making the mouth o' the Valley of Khedrun tomorrow," he explained. "Then we're turning south across the vale, to the River Mirabar, and to Mirabar herself."

  "Mirabar?" Catti-brie and Drizzt echoed in unison, and with equal skepticism.

  It was hardly a secret that the mining city of Mirabar was no supporter of Mithral Hall, which threatened their business interests.

  "Ye're knowing Dagnabbit?" Bruenor asked, and the friends all nodded. "Well, he's a few friends there who'll be giving us some information that we're wanting to hear."

  The dwarf paused and hopped up, glancing all around into the darkness as if searching for spies

  "Ye got yer cat about, elf?" the red-bearded dwarf asked.

  Drizzt shook his head.

  "Well, get her here, if ye can," Bruenor bade him. "Send her out about and tell her to
drag in any who might overhear."

  Drizzt looked to Catti-brie and to Wulfgar, then reached into his belt pouch and brought forth an onyx figurine of a panther.

  "Guenhwyvar," he called softly. "Come to me, friend."

  A gray mist began to swirl around the figurine, growing and thickening, gradually mirroring the shape of the idol. The mist solidified quickly, and the huge black panther Guenhwyvar stood there, quietly and patiently waiting for Drizzt's instructions.

  The drow bent low and whispered into the panther's ear, and Guenhwyvar bounded away, disappearing into the blackness.

  Bruenor nodded. "Them Mirabar boys're mad about Mithral Hall," he said, which wasn't news to any of them. "They're looking for a way to get back an advantage in the mining trade."

  The dwarf looked around again, then bent in very close, motioning for a huddle.

  "They're looking for Gauntlgrym," he whispered.

  ''What is that?" Wulfgar asked.

  Catti-brie looked equally perplexed, though Drizzt was nodding as if it was all perfectly logical.

  "The ancient stronghold of the dwarves," Bruenor explained. "Back afore Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar. Back when we were one big clan, back when we named ourselves the Delzoun."

  "Gauntlgrym was lost centuries ago," Drizzt put in. "Many centuries ago. Beyond the memory of any living dwarves."

  "True enough," Bruenor said with a wink. "Now that Gandalug's gone to the Halls of Moradin."

  Drizzt's eyes widened — so did those of Catti-brie and Wulfgar.

  "Gandalug knew of Gauntlgrym?" the drow asked.

  "Never saw it, for it fell afore he was born," Bruenor explained.

  "But," he added quickly, as the hopeful smiles began to fade, "when he was a lad the tales of Gauntlgrym were fresher in the mouths o' dwarves." He looked at each of his friends in turn, nodding knowingly. "Them Mirabar boys're looking for it under the Crags to the south. They're looking in the wrong place."

  "How much did Gandalug know?" Catti-brie asked.