Far from sated, the ranger and his portable ball of darkness followed, searching for voices or sounds that would lead him to more orcs. Again came the cry that made Montolio smile.
* * *
“Mangura bok woklok!” Drizzt yelled again. An orc tossed a spear at the drow, which Drizzt promptly swatted aside. The distant orc was now unarmed, but Drizzt would not pursue, determinedly holding his position.
“Mangura bok woklok!” Drizzt cried again. “Come in, stupid block head!” This time the giant, approaching the wall in Montolio’s direction, heard the words. The great monster hesitated a moment, regarding the drow curiously.
Drizzt didn’t miss the opportunity. “Mangura bok woklok!”
With a howl and a stamp that shook the earth, the giant kicked a hole in the rock wall and strode toward Drizzt.
“Mangura bok woklok.” Drizzt said for good measure, angling his feet properly.
The giant broke into a dead run, scattering terrified orcs before it and slamming its stone and its club together angrily. It sputtered a thousand curses at Drizzt in those few seconds, words that the drow would never decipher. Three times the drow’s height and many times his weight, the giant loomed over Drizzt, and its rush seemed as though it would surely bury Drizzt where he calmly stood.
When the giant got only two long strides from Drizzt, committed fully to its collision course, Drizzt dropped all of his weight onto his back foot. The ranseur’s butt dropped into the hole. Its tip angled up.
Drizzt leaped back at the moment the giant plowed into the ranseur. The weapon’s tip and hooked barbs disappeared into the giant’s belly, drove upward through its diaphragm and into its heart and lungs. The metal shaft bowed and seemed as if it would break as its butt end was driven a foot and more into the ground.
The ranseur held, and the giant was stopped cold. It dropped its club and rock, reached helplessly for the metal shaft with hands that had not the strength to even close around it. Huge eyes bulged in denial, in terror, and in absolute surprise. The great mouth opened wide and contorted weirdly, but could not even find the wind to scream.
Drizzt, too, almost cried out, but caught the words before he uttered them. “Amazing,” he said, looking back to where Montolio was fighting, for the cry he nearly shouted was a praise to the goddess Mielikki. Drizzt shook his head helplessly and smiled, stunned by the acute perceptions of his not-so-blind companion.
With those thoughts in mind and a sense of righteousness in his heart, Drizzt ran up the shaft and slashed at the giant’s throat with both weapons. He continued on, stepping right on the giant’s shoulder and head and then leaping off toward a group of watching orcs, whooping as he went.
The sight of the giant, their bully, quivering and gasping, had already unnerved the orcs, but when this ebony-skinned and wild-eyed drow monster leaped at them, they broke rank altogether. Drizzt’s charge got him to the closest two, and he promptly cut them down and charged on.
Twenty feet to the drow’s left, a ball of blackness rolled out of the trees, leading a dozen frightened orcs before it. The orcs knew that to fall within that impenetrable globe was to fall within the blind hermit’s reach and to die.
* * *
Two orcs and three worgs, all that remained of the torch-bearers, regrouped and slipped quietly toward the grove’s eastern edge. If they could get in behind the enemy, they believed the battle still could be won.
The orc farthest to the north never even saw the rushing black form. Guenhwyvar plowed it down and charged on, confident that that one would never rise again.
A worg was next in line. Quicker to react than the orc, the worg spun and faced the panther, its teeth bared and jaws snapping.
Guenhwyvar snarled, pulling up short right before it. Great claws came in alternately in a series of slaps. The worg could not match the cat’s speed. It swung its jaws from side to side, always a moment too late to catch up to the darting paws. After only five slaps, the worg was defeated. One eye had closed forever, its tongue, half torn, lolled helplessly out one side of its mouth, and its lower jaw was no longer in line with its upper. Only the presence of other targets saved the worg, for when it turned and fled the way it had come, Guenhwyvar, seeing closer prey, did not follow.
* * *
Drizzt and Montolio had flushed most of the invading force back out over the rock wall. “Bad magic!” came the general orc cry, voices edged on desperation. Hooter and his owl companions aided the growing frenzy, flapping down all of a sudden in orc faces, nipping with a talon or beak, then rushing off again into the sky. Still another orc discovered one of the traps as it tried to flee. It went down howling and shrieking, its cries only heightening its companions’ terror.
“No!” Roddy McGristle cried in disbelief. “Ye’ve let two beat up yer whole force!”
Graul’s glare settled on the burly man.
“We can turn ‘em back,” Roddy said. “If they see ye, they’ll go back to the fight.” The mountain man’s appraisal was not off the mark. If Graul and Roddy had made their entrance then, the orcs, still numbering more than fifty, might have regrouped. With most of their traps exhausted, Drizzt and Montolio would have been in a sore position indeed! But the orc king had seen another brewing problem to the north and had decided, despite Roddy’s protests, that the old man and the dark elf simply weren’t worth the effort.
Most of the orcs in the field heard the newest danger before they saw it, for Bluster and his friends were a noisy lot. The largest obstacle the bears found as they rolled through the orc ranks was picking out a single target in the mad rush. They swatted orcs as they passed, then chased them into the copse and beyond, all the way back to their holes by the river. It was high spring; the air was charged with energy and excitement, and how these playful bears loved to swat orcs!
* * *
The whole horde of rushing bodies swarmed right past the fallen quickling. When Tephanis awoke, he found that he was the only one alive on the blood-soaked field. Growls and shouts wafted in from the west, the fleeing band, and sounds of battle still sounded in the ranger’s grove. Tephanis knew that his part in the battle, minor though it had been, was over. Tremendous pain rolled up the sprite’s leg, more pain than he had ever known. He looked down to his torn foot and to his horror realized that the only way out of the wicked trap was to complete the gruesome cut, losing the end of his foot and all five of his toes in the process. It was not a difficult job—the foot was hanging by a thin piece of skin—and Tephanis did not hesitate, fearing that the drow would come out at any moment and find him.
The quickling stifled his scream and covered the wound with his torn shirt, then ambled—slowly—off into the trees.
* * *
The orc crept along silently, glad for the covering noises of the fight between the panther and a worg. All thoughts of killing the old man or the drow had flown from this orc now; it had seen its comrades chased away by a pack of bears. Now the orc only wanted to find a way out, not an easy feat in the thick, low tangle of pine branches.
It stepped on some dry leaves as it came into one clear area and froze at the resounding crackle. The orc glanced to the left, then slowly brought its head back around to the right. All of a sudden, it jumped and spun, expecting an attack from the rear. But all was clear as far as it could tell and all, except for the distant panther growls and worg yelps, was quiet. The orc let out a profound sigh of relief and sought the trail once again.
It stopped suddenly on instinct and threw its head way back to look up. A dark form crouched on a branch just above the orc’s head, and the silvery flash shot down before the orc could begin to react. The curve of the scimitar’s blade proved perfect for slipping around the orc’s chin and diving into its throat.
The orc stood very still, arms wide and twitching, and tried to scream, but the whole length of its larynx was torn apart. The scimitar came out in a rush and the orc fell backward into death.
Not so far away, another orc finally ex
tracted itself from the hanging net and quickly cut free its buddy. The two of them, enraged and not as anxious to run away without a fight, crept in quietly.
“In the dark,” the first explained as they came through one thicket and found the landscape blotted out by an impenetrable globe. “Deep.”
Together, the orcs raised their spears and threw, grunting savagely with the effort. The spears disappeared into the dark globe, dead center, one banging into a metallic object but the other striking something softer.
The orcs’ cries of victory were cut short by two twangs of a bowstring. One of the creatures lurched forward, dead before it hit the ground, but the other, stubbornly holding its footing, managed to look down to its chest, to the protruding point of an arrowhead. It lived long enough to see Montolio casually stride past and disappear into the darkness to retrieve his shield.
Drizzt watched the old man from a distance, shaking his head and wondering.
* * *
“It is ended,” the elven scout told the others when they caught up to him among the boulders just south of Mooshie’s Grove.
“I am not so certain,” Kellindil replied, looking curiously back to the west and hearing the echoes of bear growls and orc screams. Kellindil suspected that something beyond Graul was behind this attack and, feeling somewhat responsible for the drow, he wanted to know what it might be.
“The ranger and drow have won the grove,” the scout explained.
“Agreed,” said Kellindil, “and so your part is ended. Go back, all of you, to the campsite,”
“And will you join us?” one of the elves asked, though he had already guessed the answer.
“If the fates decree it,” Kellindil replied. “For now, I have other business to attend.”
The others did not question Kellindil further. Rarely did he come to their realm and never did he remain with them for long. Kellindil was an adventurer; the road was his home. He set off at once, running to catch up to the fleeing orcs, then paralleling their movements just south of them.
* * *
“Ye let just two of them beat ye!” Roddy griped when he and Graul had a moment to stop and catch their breath. “Two of them!”
Graul’s answer came in the swing of a heavy club. Roddy partially blocked the blow, but its weight knocked him backward.
“Ye’re to pay for that!” the mountain man growled, tearing Bleeder from his belt. A dozen of Graul’s minions appeared beside the orc king then and immediately understood the situation.
“Yous has brought ruin to us!” Graul snapped at Roddy. Then to his orcs, he shouted, “Kill him!”
Roddy’s dog tripped the closest of the group and Roddy didn’t wait for the others to catch up. He turned and sprinted off into the night, using every trick he knew to get ahead of the pursuing band.
His efforts were quickly successful—the orcs really didn’t want any more battles this night—and Roddy would have been wise to stop looking over his shoulder.
He heard a rustle up ahead and turned just in time to catch the pommel of a swinging sword squarely in the face. The weight of the blow, multiplied by Roddy’s own momentum, dropped the mountain man straight to the ground and into unconsciousness.
“I am not surprised,” Kellindil said over the writhing body.
19. Separate Ways
Eight days had done nothing to ease the pain in Tephanis’s foot. The sprite ambled about as best he could, but whenever he broke into a sprint, he inevitably veered to one side and more often than not crashed into a bush or, worse, the unbending trunk of a tree.
“Will-you-please-quit-growling-at-me, stupid-dog!” Tephanis snapped at the yellow canine he had been with since the day after the battle. Neither had become comfortable around the other. Tephanis often lamented that this ugly mutt was in no way akin to Caroak.
But Caroak was dead; the quickling had found the winter wolf’s torn body. Another companion gone, and now the sprite was alone again. “Alone-except-for-you, stupid-dog!” he lamented.
The dog bared its teeth and growled.
Tephanis wanted to slice its throat, wanted to run up and down the length of the mangy animal, cutting and slashing at every inch. He saw the sun riding low in the sky, though, and knew that the beast might soon prove valuable.
“Time-for-me-to-go!” the quickling spouted. Faster than the dog could react, Tephanis darted by it, grabbed at the rope he had hung about the dog’s neck, and zipped three complete circuits of a nearby tree. The dog went after him, but Tephanis easily kept out of its reach until the leash snapped taut, flipping the dog right over. “Be-back-soon, you-stupid-thing!”
Tephanis sped along the mountain paths, knowing that this night might be his last chance. The lights of Maldobar burned in the far distance, but it was a different light, a campfire, that guided the quickling. He came upon the small camp just a few minutes later, glad to see that the elf was not around.
He found Roddy McGristle sitting at the base of a huge tree, his arms pulled behind him and tied at the wrists around the trunk. The mountain man seemed a wretched thing—as wretched as the dog—but Tephanis was out of options. Ulgulu and Kempfana were dead, Caroak was dead, and Graul, after the disaster at the grove, had actually placed a bounty on the quickling’s head.
That left only Roddy—not much of a choice, but Tephanis had no desire to survive on his own ever again. He sped, unnoticed, to the back of the tree and whispered in the mountain man’s ear. “You-will-be-in-Maldobar-tomorrow.”
Roddy froze at the unexpected, squeaky voice.
“You will be in Maldobar tomorrow,” Tephanis said again, as slowly as he could.
“Go away,” Roddy growled at him, thinking that the sprite was teasing him.
“You-should-be-kinder-to-me, oh-you-should!” Tephanis snapped right back. “The-elf-means-to-imprison-you, you-know. For-crimes-against-the-blind-ranger.”
“Shut yer mouth,” McGristle growled, louder than he had intended.
“What are you about?” came Kellindil’s call from not so far away.
“There, you-have-done-it-now, silly-man!” Tephanis whispered.
“I told ye to go away!” Roddy replied.
“I-might, and-then-where-would-you-be? In-prison?” Tephanis said angrily. “I-can-help-you-now, if-you-want-my-help.”
Roddy was beginning to understand. “Untie my hands,” he ordered.
“They-already-are-untied,” Tephanis replied, and Roddy found the sprite’s words to be true. He started to rise but changed his mind abruptly as Kellindil entered the camp.
“Keep-still,” Tephanis advised. “I-will-distract-your-captor.”
Tephanis had moved as he spoke the words and Roddy heard only an unintelligible murmur. He kept his hands behind him, though, seeing no other course available with the heavily armed elf approaching.
“Our last night on the road,” Kellindil remarked, dropping by the fire the coney he had shot for a meal. He moved in front of Roddy and bent low. “I will send for Lady Falconhand once we have arrived in Maldobar,” he said. “She names Montolio DeBrouchee as a friend and will be interested to learn of the events in the grove.”
“What do ye know?” Roddy spat at him. “The ranger was a friend o’ mine, too!”
“If you are a friend of orc king Graul, then you are no friend of the ranger in the grove,” Kellindil retorted.
Roddy had no immediate rebuttal, but Tephanis supplied one. A buzzing noise came from behind the elf and Kellindil, dropping a hand to his sword, spun about.
“What manner of being are you?” he asked the quickling, his eyes wide in amazement.
Kellindil never learned the answer, for Roddy came up suddenly behind him and slammed him to the ground. Kellindil was a seasoned fighter, but in close he was no match for the sheer brawn of Roddy McGristle. Roddy’s huge and dirty hands closed on the slender elf’s throat.
“I-have-your-dog,” Tephanis said to Roddy when the foul business was done. “Tied-it-to-a-tree.”
“Who are ye?” Roddy asked, trying to hide his elation, both for his freedom and for the knowledge that his dog still lived. “And what do ye want with me?”
“I-am-a-little-thing, you-can-see-that-to-be-true,” Tephanis explained. “Like-keeping-big-friends.”
Roddy considered the offer for a moment. “Well, ye’ve earned it,” he said with a laugh. He found Bleeder, his trusted axe, among the dead elf’s belongings and rose up huge and grim-faced. “Come on then, let’s get back to the mountains. I’ve a drow to deal with.”
A sour expression crossed the quickling’s delicate features, but Tephanis hid it before Roddy could notice. Tephanis had no desire to go anywhere near the blind ranger’s grove. Aside from the fact that the orc king had placed a bounty on his head, he knew that the other elves might get suspicious if Roddy showed up without Kellindil. More than that, Tephanis found the pain in his head and foot even more acute at the mere thought of facing the dark elf again.
“No!” the sprite blurted. Roddy, not used to being disobeyed, eyed him dangerously.
“No-need,” Tephanis lied. “The-drow-is-dead, killed-by-a-worg.”
Roddy didn’t seem convinced.
“I-led-you-to-the-drow-once,” Tephanis reminded him.
Truly Roddy was disappointed, but he no longer doubted the quickling. If it hadn’t been for Tephanis, Roddy knew, he never would have located Drizzt. He would be more than a hundred miles away, sniffing around Morueme’s Cave and spending all of his gold on dragon lies. “What about the blind ranger?” Roddy asked.
“He-lives, but-let-him-live,” Tephanis replied. “Many-powerful-friends-have-joined-him.” He led Roddy’s gaze to Kellindil’s body. “Elves, many-elves.”
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