The Crystal Shard

by R. A. Salvatore

  When the list had finally been completed, Cassius turned to the important issues. “The first item on the agenda,” he said, hardly glancing at the notes that were laid out before him, “concerns the territorial dispute between the sister cities, Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval, on Lac Dinneshere. I see that Dorim Lugar of Caer-Konig has brought the documents that he promised at the last meeting, so I turn the floor over to him. Spokesman Lugar.”

  Dorim Lugar, a gaunt, dark-complected man whose eyes never seemed to stop darting about nervously, nearly leaped out of his chair when he was introduced.

  “I have in my hand,” he yelled, his upraised fist closed about an old parchment, “the original agreement between Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval, signed by the leaders of each town,” he shot an accusing finger in the direction of the spokesman from Caer-Dineval, “including your own signature, Jensin Brent!”

  “An agreement signed during a time of friendship and in the spirit of good will,” retorted Jensin Brent, a younger, golden-haired man with an innocent face that often gave him an advantage over people who judged him naive. “Unroll the parchment, Spokesman Lugar, and let the council view it. They shall see that it makes no provisions whatsoever for Easthaven.” He looked around at the other spokesmen. “Easthaven could hardly be called even a hamlet when the agreement to divide the lake in half was signed,” he explained, and not for the first time. “They had not a single boat to put in the water.”

  “Fellow spokesmen!” Dorim Lugar yelled, jolting some of them from the lethargy that had already begun to creep in. This same debate had dominated the last four councils with no ground gained by either side. The issue held little importance or interest for any but the two spokesmen and the spokesman from Easthaven.

  “Surely Caer-Konig cannot be blamed for the rise of Easthaven,” pleaded Dorim Lugar. “Who could have foreseen the Eastway?” he asked, referring to the straight and smooth road that Easthaven had constructed to Bryn Shander. It was an ingenious move and proved a boon to the small town on the southeastern corner of Lac Dinneshere. Combining the appeal of a remote community with easy access to Bryn Shander had made Easthaven the fastest growing community in all of Ten-Towns, with a fishing fleet that had swelled to nearly rival the boats of Caer-Dineval.

  “Who indeed?” retorted Jensin Brent, now a bit of fluster showing through his calm facade. “It is obvious that Easthaven’s growth has put Caer-Dineval in stiff competition for the southern waters of the lake, while Caer-Konig sails freely in the northern half. Yet Caer-Konig has flatly refused to renegotiate the original terms to compensate for the imbalance! We cannot prosper under such conditions!”

  Regis knew that he had to act before the argument between Brent and Lugar got out of control. Two previous meetings had been adjourned because of their volatile debates, and Regis couldn’t let this council disintegrate before he had told them of the impending barbarian attack.

  He hesitated, having to admit to himself once again that he had no options and could not back away from this urgent mission; his haven would be destroyed if he said nothing. Although Drizzt had reassured him of the power he possessed, he retained his doubts about the true magic of the stone. Yet due to his own insecurity, a trait common among little folk, Regis found himself blindly trusting in Drizzt’s judgment. The drow was possibly the most knowledgeable person he had ever known, with a list of experiences far beyond the tales that Regis could tell. Now was the time for action, and the halfling was determined to give the drow’s plan a try.

  He closed his fingers around the little wooden gavel that was set out on the table before him. It felt unfamiliar to his touch, and he realized then that this was the first time that he had ever used the instrument. He tapped it lightly on the wooden table, but the others were intent on the shouting match that had erupted between Lugar and Brent. Regis reminded himself of the urgency of the drow’s news once again and boldly pounded the gavel down.

  The other spokesmen turned immediately to the halfling, blank expressions stamped upon their faces. Regis rarely spoke at the meetings, and then only when cornered with a direct question.

  Cassius of Bryn Shander brought his heavy gavel down. “The council recognizes Spokesman…uh…the spokesman from Lonelywood,” he said, and from his uneven tone Regis could guess that he had struggled to address the halfling’s request for the floor seriously.

  “Fellow spokesmen,” Regis began tentatively, his voice cracking into a squeak. “With all due respect to the seriousness of the debate between the spokesmen from Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig, I believe that we have a more urgent problem to discuss.” Jensin Brent and Dorim Lugar were livid at being interrupted, but the others eyed the halfling curiously. Good start, Regis thought, I’ve got their full attention.

  He cleared his throat, trying to steady his voice and sound a bit more impressive. “I have learned beyond doubt that the barbarian tribes are gathering for a united attack on Ten-Towns!” Though he tried to make the announcement dramatic, Regis found himself facing nine apathetic and confused men.

  “Unless we form an alliance,” Regis continued in the same urgent tones, “the horde will overrun our communities one by one, slaughtering any who dare to oppose them!”

  “Certainly, Spokesman Regis of Lonelywood,” said Cassius in a voice he meant to be calming but was, in effect, condescending, “we have weathered barbarian raids before. There is no need for—”

  “Not like this one!” Regis cried. “All the tribes have come together. The raids before matched one tribe against one city, and usually we fared well. But how would Termalaine or Caer-Konig—or even Bryn Shander—stand against the combined tribes of Icewind Dale?” Some of the spokesmen settled back into their chairs to contemplate the halfling’s words; the rest began talking among themselves, some in distress, some in angry disbelief. Finally Cassius pounded his gavel again, calling the hall to silence.

  Then, with familiar bravado, Kemp of Targos slowly rose from his seat. “May I speak, friend Cassius?” he asked with unnecessary politeness. “Perhaps I may be able to put this grave pronouncement in the proper light.”

  Regis and Drizzt had made some assumptions about alliances when they had planned the halfling’s actions at this council. They knew that Easthaven, founded and thriving on the principle of brotherhood among the communities of Ten-Towns, would openly embrace the concept of a common defense against the barbarian horde. Likewise Termalaine and Lonelywood, the two most accessible and raided towns of the ten, would gladly accept any offers of help.

  Yet even Spokesman Agorwal of Termalaine, who had so much to gain from a defensive alliance, would hedge and hold his silence if Kemp of Targos refused to accept the plan. Targos was the largest and mightiest of the nine fishing villages, with a fleet more than twice the size of the second largest.

  “Fellow members of the council,” Kemp began, leaning forward over the table to loom larger in the eyes of his peers. “Let us learn more of the halfling’s tale before we begin to worry. We have fought off barbarian invaders and worse enough times to be confident that the defenses of even the smallest of our towns are adequate.”

  Regis felt his tension growing as Kemp rolled into his speech, building on points designed to destroy the halfling’s credibility. Drizzt had decided early on in their planning that Kemp of Targos was the key, but Regis knew the spokesman better than the drow and knew that Kemp would not be easily manipulated. Kemp illustrated the tactics of the powerful town of Targos in his own mannerisms. He was large and bullying, often taking to sudden fits of violent rage that intimidated even Cassius. Regis had tried to steer Drizzt away from this part of their plan, but the drow was adamant.

  “If Targos agrees to accept the alliance with Lonelywood,” Drizzt had reasoned, “Termalaine will gladly join and Bremen, being the only other village on the lake, will have no choice but to go along. Bryn Shander will certainly not oppose a unified alliance of the four towns on the largest and most prosperous lake, and Easthaven will make six in
the pact, a clear majority.”

  The rest would then have no choice but to join in the effort. Drizzt had believed that Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig, fearing that Easthaven would receive special consideration in future councils, would put on a blusterous show of loyalty, hoping themselves to gain favor in the eyes of Cassius. Good Mead and Dougan’s Hole, the two towns on Redwaters, though relatively safe from an invasion from the north, would not dare to stand apart from the other eight communities.

  But all of this was merely hopeful speculation, as Regis clearly realized when he saw Kemp glaring at him from across the table. Drizzt had conceded the point that the greatest obstacle in forming the alliance would be Targos. In its arrogance, the powerful town might believe that it could withstand any barbarian raid. And if it did manage to survive, the destruction of some of its competitors might actually prove profitable.

  “You say only that you have learned of an invasion,” Kemp began. “Where could you have gathered this valuable and no doubt, hard to find information?”

  Regis felt sweat beading on his temples. He knew where Kemp’s question would lead, but there was no way that he could avoid the truth. “From a friend who often travels the tundra,” he answered honestly.

  “The drow?” Kemp asked.

  With his neck bent up and Kemp towering over him, Regis found himself quickly placed on the defensive. The halfling’s father had once warned him that he would always be at a disadvantage when dealing with humans because they physically had to look down when speaking to him, as they would to their own children. At times like this, the words of his father rang painfully true to Regis. He wiped a bead of moisture from his upper lip.

  “I cannot speak for the rest of you,” Kemp continued, adding a chuckle to place the halfling’s grave warning in an absurd light, “but I have too much serious work to do to go into hiding on the words of a drow elf!” Again the burly spokesman laughed, and this time he was not alone.

  Agorwal of Termalaine offered some unexpected assistance to the halfling’s failing cause. “Perhaps we should let the spokesman from Lonelywood continue. If his words are true—”

  “His words are the echoes of a drow’s lies!” Kemp snarled. “Pay them no heed. We have fought off the barbarians before, and—”

  But then Kemp, too, was cut short as Regis suddenly sprang up on the council table. This was the most precarious part of Drizzt’s plan. The drow had shown faith in it, describing it matter-of-factly, as though it would pose no problems. But Regis felt impending disaster hovering all about him. He clasped his hands behind his back and tried to appear in control so that Cassius wouldn’t take any immediate actions against his unusual tactics.

  During Agorwal’s diversion, Regis had slipped the ruby pendant out from under his waistcoat. It sparkled on his chest as he walked up and down, treating the table as though it were his personal stage.

  “What do you know of the drow to jest of him so?” he demanded of the others, pointedly Kemp. “Can any of you name a single person that he has harmed? No! You chastise him for the crimes of his race, yet have none of you ever considered that Drizzt Do’Urden walks among us because he has rejected the ways of his people?” The silence in the hall convinced Regis that he had either been impressive or absurd. In any case, he was not so arrogant or foolish to think his little speech sufficient to accomplish the task.

  He walked over to face Kemp. This time he was the one looking down, but the spokesman from Targos seemed on the verge of exploding into laughter.

  Regis had to act quickly. He bent down slightly and raised his hand to his chin, by appearance to scratch an itch though in truth to set the ruby pendant spinning, tapping it with his arm as it passed. He then held the silence of the moment patiently and counted as Drizzt had instructed. Ten seconds passed and Kemp had not blinked. Drizzt had said that this would be enough, but Regis, surprised and apprehensive at the ease with which he had accomplished the task, let another ten go by before he dared begin testing the drow’s beliefs.

  “Surely you can see the wisdom of preparing for an attack,” Regis suggested calmly. Then in a whisper that only Kemp could hear he added, “These people look to you for guidance, great Kemp. A military alliance would only enhance your stature and influence.”

  The effect was dazzling.

  “Perhaps there is more to the halfling’s words than we first believed,” Kemp said mechanically, his glazed eyes never leaving the ruby.

  Stunned, Regis straightened up and quickly slipped the stone back under his waistcoat. Kemp shook his head as though clearing a confusing dream from his thoughts, and he rubbed his dried eyes. The spokesman from Targos couldn’t seem to recall the last few moments, but the halfling’s suggestion was planted deeply into his mind. Kemp found, to his own amazement, that his attitudes had changed.

  “We should hear well the words of Regis,” he declared loudly. “For we shall be none the worse from forming such an alliance, yet the consequences of doing nothing may prove to be grave, indeed!”

  Quick to seize an advantage, Jensin Brent leaped up from his chair. “Spokesman Kemp speaks wisely,” he said. “Number the people of Caer-Dineval, ever proponents of the united efforts of Ten-Towns, among the army that shall repel the horde!”

  The rest of the spokesmen lined up behind Kemp as Drizzt had expected, with Dorim Lugar making an even bigger show of loyalty than Brent’s.

  Regis had much to be proud of when he left the council hall later that day, and his hopes for the survival of Ten-Towns had returned. Yet the halfling found his thoughts consumed by the implications of the power he had discovered in his ruby. He worked to figure the most fail-safe way in which he could turn this new-found power of inducing cooperation into profit and comfort.

  “So nice of the Pasha Pook to give me this one!” he told himself as he walked through the front gate of Bryn Shander and headed for the appointed spot where he would meet with Drizzt and Bruenor.

  hey started at dawn, charging across the tundra like an angry whirlwind. Animals and monsters alike, even the ferocious yetis, fled before them in terror. The frozen ground cracked beneath the stamp of their heavy boots, and the murmur of the endless tundra wind was buried under the strength of their song, the song to the God of Battle.

  They marched long into the night and were off again before the first rays of dawn, more than two thousand barbarian warriors hungry for blood and victory.

  Drizzt Do’Urden sat nearly halfway up on the northern face of Kelvin’s Cairn, his cloak pulled tight against the bitter wind that howled through the boulders of the mountain. The drow had spent every night up here since the council in Bryn Shander, his violet eyes scanning the blackness of the plain for the first signs of the coming storm. At Drizzt’s request, Bruenor had arranged for Regis to sit beside him. With the wind nipping at him like an invisible animal, the halfling squeezed in between two boulders as further protection from the unwelcoming elements.

  Given a choice, Regis would have been tucked away into the warmth of his own soft bed in Lonelywood, listening to the quiet moan of the swaying tree branches beyond his warm walls. But he understood that as a spokesman everyone expected him to help carry out the course of action he had suggested at the council. It quickly became obvious to the other spokesmen and to Bruenor, who had joined in the subsequent strategy meetings as the representative of the dwarves, that the halfling wouldn’t be much help in organizing the forces or drawing any battle plans, so when Drizzt told Bruenor that he would need a courier to sit watch with him, the dwarf was quick to volunteer Regis.

  Now the halfling was thoroughly miserable. His feet and fingers were numbed from the cold, and his back ached from sitting against the hard stone. This was the third night out, and Regis grumbled and complained constantly, punctuating his discomfort with an occasional sneeze. Through it all, Drizzt sat unmoving and oblivious to the conditions, his stoic dedication to duty overriding any personal distress.

  “How many more nights do we have to
wait?” Regis whined. “One morning, I’m sure—maybe even tomorrow—they’ll find us up here, dead and frozen to this cursed mountain!”

  “Fear not, little friend,” Drizzt answered with a smile. “The wind speaks of winter. The barbarians will come all too soon, determined to beat the first snows.” Even as he spoke, the drow caught the tiniest flicker of light in the corner of his eye. He rose from his crouch suddenly, startling the halfling, and turned toward the direction of the flicker, his muscles tensed with reflexive wariness, his eyes straining to spot a confirming sign.

  “What’s—” Regis began, but Drizzt silenced him with an outstretched palm. A second dot of fire flashed on the edge of the horizon.

  “You have gotten your wish,” Drizzt said with certainty.

  “Are they out there?” Regis whispered. His vision wasn’t nearly as keen as the drow’s in the night.

  Drizzt stood silently in concentration for a few moments, mentally trying to measure the distance of the campfires and calculate the time it would take the barbarians to complete their journey.

  “Go to Bruenor and Cassius, little friend,” he said at length. “Tell them that the horde will reach Bremen’s Run when the sun peaks tomorrow.”

  “Come with me,” said Regis. “Surely they’ll not put you out when you bear such urgent news.”

  “I have a more important task at hand,” Drizzt answered. “Now be off! Tell Bruenor—and Bruenor alone—that I shall meet him on Bremen’s Run at the first light of dawn.” And with that, the drow padded off into the darkness. He had a long journey before him.