The Thousand Orcs th-1

by Robert Salvatore

  "And what if I die out there, away from you?"

  It was not a question asked out of fear, for Wulfgar was not afraid of dying out on the road. He was an adventurer, a warrior, and as long as he could hold faith that he was following the true course of his life, then whatever was put before him would be acceptable.

  Of course, he wouldn't die on the road without a fight!

  "I think about it all the time," Delly admitted, "because I'm knowin' that ye've got to be going. And if ye die on the road, then know that yer Colson will be proud o' her daddy. For a bit, I thinked about changing yer heart, about tricking ye into staying by me side, but that's not who ye are. I see it on yer face—a face that's smiling all the wider when the wild wind is blowin' across it. Me and Colson can accept whatever fate ye find at the end o' yer road, Wulfgar son of Beornegar, so long as ye're walking the road of yer heart."

  She moved up close as she spoke, kneeling in front of the sitting Wulfgar and draping her arms over his shoulders.

  "Just give an orc a good smack for me, will ya? "

  Wulfgar was smiling then as he looked into her sparkling eyes— sparkling more than they ever had back in the days when Delly had worked in Arumn's tavern in the seedy bowels of Luskan. Something about the road, the fresh air, the adventure, the child, had gotten into the woman, and Delly seemed to grow more beautiful, more wholesome, more healthy with every passing day.

  Wulfgar pulled her close and hugged her tightly. His thoughts went back to the day when Robillard had dropped him in the center of Luskan, presenting him with two choices: the road south and security beside Delly and Colson, or the road north, to join his friends in adventure. Hearing Delly's words, the sincerity in her voice, the love and admiration accompanying it, Wulfgar was never more glad of his choice, of that northward turn, and never more sure of himself.

  And never more in love with this woman who had become his wife.

  "I will give him two good smacks for you," Wulfgar answered, and he moved in to kiss his wife.

  "Nah," Delly said, pulling back teasingly. "Yer first one'll send him flyin' far enough."

  She didn't move away again as Wulfgar's lips found hers, in a long and leading kiss, gentle at first but then pressing more urgently. The barbarian started to stand, easily lifting the lithe Delly up with him, guiding her to the privacy of their covered wagon.

  Colson woke up then and started to cry.

  Wulfgar and Delly could only laugh.

  Thibbledorf Pwent hopped around, uttering a series of sounds that amply reflected his frustration and disappointment, and kicking at every stone he passed, even those far too big to be kicked. Still, if the tough dwarf felt any pain, he didn't show it much, just an occasional grunt within the steady stream of curses, and an added hop here or there after a particularly vicious kick at a particularly stubborn rock.

  Finally, after circling King Bruenor for many minutes of random cursing, Pwent hopped to a stop, and put his stubby hands on his hips.

  "Ye're going for a fight, and a fight's where me and me boys belong!"

  "We're going to pay back a small band o' orcs and a couple o' giants," Bruenor corrected. "Won't be much of a fight, and even less o' one if Pwent and his boys are there."

  "It's what we do."

  "And too well!" Bruenor cried.

  Pwent's eyes widened.

  "Huh?"

  "Ye durned fool!" Bruenor scolded. "Don't ye see that this'll be me last time? When we get back to Mithral Hall, I'll be the king again, and what a boring title that is!"

  "What're ye talkin' about? Ye're the best king. ."

  Bruenor silenced him with a wave and an exaggerated look of disgust.

  "Talkin' with lying emissaries, making pretty with fancy fool lords and fancier and more foolish ladies … Ye think I'll get to use me axe much in the next hunnerd years? Only if another army o' damned drow come a'knocking at our doors! So now I get the chance, one last chance, and ye're thinking to steal all me fun with yer killer band. And I thinked ye was me friend."

  That set Pwent back on his heels, putting the whole situation in a light he had never begun to imagine.

  "I am yer friend, King Bruenor," Pwent said somberly, as reserved as Bruenor or anyone else had ever seen him. "FU be takin' me boys back to Mithral Hall to get the place ready for yer arrival."

  He paused and offered Bruenor a sly wink — well, it was intended to be sly, at least, but from Pwent it just came out as an exaggerated twitch.

  "And I'm hopin' ye won't be back anytime soon," Pwent went on, with more comprehension than Bruenor had expected. "Might be just one small band that hit the boys from Felbarr, but might be that ye'll find a bunch o' other small bands betwixt here and that one, and a bunch more on yer way back home. Good fighting, King Bruenor. May ye notch yer axe a thousand more times afore ye see yer shining halls once more!"

  With great cheering and fanfare, promises of death to the orcs and giants, and eternal friendship between Mithral Hall and Citadel Felbarr, the band of Bruenor and his dear friends, along with Dagnabbit, Tred, and twenty-five stout warriors, moved off from the main group, turning north into the mountains. Dwarves were not a bloodthirsty race, but they knew how to celebrate when the occasion was a war against goblinkind and giantkin, their most hated of foes.

  As for the friends, as one (even Regis!) they felt energized and refreshed to be on the road to adventure once again, and so the only regrets that fine morning were felt by those who had not been chosen to go.

  For the dark elf, it was old times and new times all rolled together, the same camaraderie that had so enriched his life of recent years, his old band

  marching together into adventure in rugged lands, and yet, with a better understanding of each other and of their respective places in the world. The day was full of promise indeed!

  What Drizzt Do'Urden did not understand was that he was walking headlong into the saddest day of his life.

  PART 2

  I am not afraid to die. There, I said it, I admitted it… to myself. I am not afraid to die, nor have I been since the day I walked out of Menzoberranzan. Only now have I come to fully appreciate that fact, and only because of a very special friend named Bruenor Battlehammer.

  It is not bravado that makes such words flow from my lips. Not some needed show of courage and not some elevation of myself above any others. It is the simple truth. I am not afraid to die.

  I do not wish to die, and I hold faith that I will fight viciously against any attempts to kill me. I’ll not run foolishly into an enemy encampment with no chance of victory (though my friends often accuse me of just that, and even the obvious fact that we are not yet dead does not dissuade them from their barbs). Nay, I hope to live for several centuries. I hope to live forever, with my dear friends all about me every step of that unending journey.

  So, why the lack of fear? I understand well enough that the road I willingly walk—indeed, the road I choose to walk—is fraught with peril and presents the very real possibility that one day, perhaps soon, I, or my friends, will be slain. And while it would kill me to be killed, obviously, and kill me even more to see great harm come to any of my dear friends, I will not shy from this road. Nor will they.

  And now I know why. And now, because of Bruenor, I understand why I am not afraid to die.

  Before, I expected that my lack of fear was due to some faith in a higher being, a deity, an afterlife, and there remains that comforting hope. That is but a part of the equation, though, and a part that is based upon prayers and blind faith, rather than the certain knowledge of that which truly sustains me, which truly guides me, which truly allows me to take every step along the perilous road with a profound sense of inner calm.

  I am not afraid to die because I know that I am part of a something, a concept, a belief, that is bigger than all that is me, body and soul

  When I asked Bruenor about this road away from Mithral Hall that he has chosen, I put the question simply: what will the folk of Mithral H
all do if you are killed on the road?

  His answer was even more simple and obvious: they’ll do better then than if I went home and hid!

  That s the way of the dwarves—and it is an expectation they place upon all of their leaders. Even the overprotective ones, such as the consummate bodyguard Pwent, understand deep down that if they truly shelter Bruenor, they have, in effect, already slain the King of Mithral Hall. Bruenor recognizes that the concept of Mithral Hall, a theocracy that is, in fact, a subtle democracy, is bigger than the dwarf, whoever it might be, who is presently occupying the throne. And Bruenor recognizes that kings before him and kings after him will die in battle, tragically, with the dwarves they leave behind caught unprepared for his demise. But countering that seeming inevitability, in the end, is that the concept that is Mithral Hall will rise from the ashes of the funeral pyre. When the drow came to Mithral Hall, as when any enemy in the past ever threatened the place, Bruenor, as king, stood strong and forthright, leading the charge. Indeed, it was Bruenor Battlehammer, and not some warrior acting on his behalf, who slew Matron Baenre herself, the finest notch he ever put into that nasty axe of his.

  That is the place of a dwarf king, because a dwarf king must understand that the kingdom is more important than the king, that the clan is bigger than the king, that the principles of the clan's existence are the correct principles and are bigger than the mortal coil of king and commoner alike.

  If Bruenor didn't believe that, if he couldn't honestly look his enemies coldly in the eye without fear for his own safety, then Bruenor should not be King of Mithral Hall. A leader who hides when danger reveals itself is no leader at all. A leader who thinks himself irreplaceable and invaluable is a fool.

  But I am no leader, so how does this apply to me and my chosen road? Because I know in my heart that I walk a road of truth, a road of the best intentions (if sometimes those intentions are misguided), a road that to me is an honest one. I believe that my way is the correct way (for me, at least), and in my heart, if I ever do not believe this, then I must work hard to alter my course.

  Many trials present themselves along this road. Enemies and other physical obstacles abound, of course, but along with them come the pains of the heart. In despair, I traveled back to Menzoberranzan, to surrender to the drow so that they would leave my friends alone, and in that most basic of errors I nearly cost the woman who is most dear to me her very life. I watched a confused and tired Wulfgar walk away from our group and feared he was walking into danger from which he would never emerge. And yet, despite the agony of that parting, I knew that I had to let him go.

  At times it is hard to hold confidence that the chosen fork in the road is the right one. The image of Ellifain dying will haunt me forever, I fear, yet I hold in retrospect the understanding that there was nothing I could have truly done differently. Even now knowing the dire consequences of my actions on that fateful day half a century ago, I believe that I would follow the same course, the one that my heart and my conscience forced upon me. For that is all that I can do, all that anyone can do. The inner guidance of conscience is the best marker along this difficult road, even if it is not foolproof.

  I will follow it, though I know so well now the deep wounds I might find.

  For as long as I believe that I am walking the true road, if I am slain, then I die in the knowledge that for a brief period at least, I was part of something bigger than Drizzt Do'Urden.

  I was part of the way it should be.

  No drow, no man, no dwarf, could ever ask for more than that.

  I am not afraid to die.

  — Drizzt Do'Urden

  CHAPTER 8 AROUND THE EDGES OF DISASTER

  "We're lost!" the yellow-bearded dwarf roared.

  He took a threatening step forward, nearly tripping over his long, wagging beard. He was a square-shouldered creature, with hardly a neck to speak of, and a face full of exaggerated features: a huge nose, long and wide; a great mouth of large teeth showing under the pronounced yellow whiskers; and wild dark eyes set in wide sockets, seeming all the wilder as he wound up into one of his more animated moods. Though his heavy plate mail was lying by the bedrolls, he still wore his great helm, fashioned of metal and the towering antlers of a ten-point deer.

  "How can we be lost, ye danged fool?" he said. "Ye got all them birds leadin' ye, don't ye?"

  The other dwarf, his older brother, shrugged and gave a plaintive, "Oooo" sound.

  He looked down at his feet, clad in sandals and not the typical heavy dwarven boots, and kicked a nearby rock, sending it bouncing into the brush.

  "Ye said ye could get me there!" Ivan Bouldershoulder roared on. "A shortcut? Yeah, a danged shortcut that's got us somewhere. Near to Mithral Hall? No! But somewhere, and ye're right, ye stupid doo-dad, ye got us here fast!"

  The blustering dwarf stood up straight and adjusted his battered chain mail jerkin, fixing the bandoleer of tiny crossbow bolts that crossed from his left shoulder to his right hip.

  "Tick, tick, lick, boom," his brother warned for the hundredth time, waggling a finger at those special crossbow bolts, each fitted with a small vial of oil of impact.

  In response, the angry Ivan drew out a handheld crossbow, an exact replica of the kind favored by the dark elves of the Underdark, and waggled it back at Pikel.

  "Boom, yerself, ye stupid doo-dad!"

  Pikel's eyes rolled up into his head and he whispered a quick chant. Before Ivan could tell him to knock it off, a small branch snapped down at the yellow-bearded dwarf's extended arm, enwrapping the wrist and tugging back up to put Ivan on the tips of his toes.

  "Ye don't want to play like this," Ivan warned. "Not now."

  "No boom," Pikel said firmly, waggling his finger like a scolding mother.

  He seemed perfectly ridiculous, of course, as he usually did, with his long, green-dyed beard parted in the middle and pulled up over his large ears, then braided together with his long hair to run halfway down his back. He wore light green robes, layered and tied with a thick rope at his waist, and with voluminous sleeves that hung down over his hands if he held his arms at his side.

  Ivan gave a little laugh, one that promised his older brother that he'd be meeting a fist very soon.

  Pikel just ignored him and walked to the side of their small encampment, where a bowl of vegetable stew was boiling over the fire. The pair had been out of the Spirit Soaring cathedral in the mountains above the small town of Carradoon for more than a tenday, accepting Cadderly's invitation to them to represent him and his wife Danica and al I the cathedral in the formal coronation of King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall. Ivan and Pikel had been muttering about going to see Mithral Hall for years, ever since Drizzt Do'Urden and Catti-brie had come through the Spirit Soaring on the road to find a lost friend. With things settled comfortably along the Snowflake Mountains, and with the great event of Bruenor's forthcoming coronation, the time seemed perfect.

  Just out of the Snowflake Mountains, their road barely begun, Pikel, who was a druid in his heart and in practice, had informed his brother that he could guide them more swiftly on their long journey. He could talk to animals after all, though he hardly seemed able to talk to anyone else except for Ivan, who understood his every grunt. He could predict the weather with a high degree of accuracy, and there was one more little trick up Pikel's wide sleeve, a mode of teleportation that druids understood, using the connectedness of trees to step into one and emerge through another, many miles away.

  Ivan and Pikel had done just that, once thus far, and with more than a little complaining from Ivan, who thought the whole trip perfectly unnatural. They had come out into a deep, dark forest. At first, Ivan had figured that they had entered Shilmista, the elf woodland across the Snowflakes from Carradoon, but after a day of wandering in the dark place, both he and Pikel had come to realize that the tone of this particular forest was very different from the magical land ruled by Elbereth and his dancing kin. This forest, wherever it was and whatever it was,
was darker and more foreboding than that airy forest of Shilmista. The wind held a deeper bite, as if they had gone further north.

  "Ye gonna let me down?" Ivan called from his perch beneath the entrapping tree.

  "Uh-uh."

  Ivan gave a little chuckle, held his free hand out under the trapped arm and dropped the handheld crossbow to his own waiting grasp. He moved fast, bringing the weapon up to his face, hooking the bowstring under his top teeth and pushing it straight up until it clicked in the readied position, then he bit the weapon's handgrip, holding it in his mouth, while he reached down to pull a small dart from his bandoleer.

  "Oooof" Pikel howled when he noticed. He lifted a small log from beside the fire and uttered a quick chant, proclaiming it a "Sha-la-la," and charged for his brother.

  Ivan calmly and deliberately set the quarrel in place on the crossbow, then took up the weapon, pointing it at the entangling branch. Realizing that the howling Pikel was too close, though, the yellow-bearded dwarf matter-of-factly lowered the weapon the charging Pikel's way and fired.

  The quarrel hit Pikel's raised enchanted club squarely, the quarrel sticking home, then collapsing on itself. A blinding, concussive flash halted Pikel's charge, and left the stunned dwarf standing there, his beard and hair smoking on the right side, his right arm still upraised, but holding only a blackened stump instead of an enchanted cudgel.

  "Oooo," the druid dwarf moaned.

  "Yeah, and yer tree is next!" Ivan promised, and he put the crossbow back in his mouth, his hand going for another dart.

  Pikel hit him with a flying tackle that became more of a flying tackle when the hugging dwarves flew backward, only to be pulled forward by the strong branch, and of course, to rebound backward again.