Forgotten Realms:Legend of Drizzt 26:Companions Codex 02:Rise of the King

by R. A. Salvatore

  The Rider of Nesmé grabbed up her bow and ran for her horse, which was up again and hobbling gingerly. She comforted the animal with soft words and worked her way around it, wincing as she noted the wounds, knowing in her heart, though she couldn’t admit it, that the spears and arrows would surely prove mortal to the loyal mount. Determination and anger replaced and erased her fear, and Giselle calmly reached for her quiver set behind the saddle on the horse’s right flank. She pulled forth an arrow, scanning the trees as she set it, determined to pay back the ugly orcs.

  With a sudden burst, Wulfgar twisted and drove forward, ducking his head so that he tumbled right across the prostrate ogre’s face. He rolled to the ground and over to his feet, quick-stepped ahead and away from the beast, where he skidded to a stop and spun around.

  The ogre was halfway up, in a crouch and swinging about, club sweeping in.

  But Wulfgar was quicker, and Aegis-fang was back in his hand, magically returned to his grasp. The ogre came in from the side, but Wulfgar went straight ahead, inside its reach, and drove his warhammer into the ogre’s forehead as the brute tried to fully stand. Wulfgar’s muscles corded with the brutal hit, the weapon vibrating as profoundly as if he had struck granite instead of flesh and bone.

  The powerful weapon tore through that flesh and smashed through the skull, splashing ogre brains all around, and the brute went down to a confused jumble on the ground. Spasms twitched its limbs and rolled its eyes, but it was already dead.

  And Wulfgar was already gone, running out after enemies he saw scrambling through the brush.

  He realized his error only as the spear entered his left side when he passed the nearest large tree.

  With amazing reflexes, Wulfgar’s hand clamped down on that stabbing shaft before the orc could drive the spear tip in too deeply. The barbarian dropped Aegis-fang, turned, and grabbed the spear with his other hand as well, driving down with his left, yanking up and in with his right, and thus snapping the feeble weapon cleanly.

  He grabbed the piece still held by the orc, ignoring the end stuck into his side, and heaved up and about, taking the monster with his turn, lifting it right from its feet.

  The orc was smart enough to let go before Wulfgar could launch it away, but Wulfgar had anticipated that. He twisted right, stepped left, to the orc as it landed, and batted across with the spear shaft.

  The orc’s head snapped to the side, blood and teeth flying from its mouth. Dazed, it staggered, but somehow managed to hold its footing.

  But Wulfgar came on, infuriated by the violation of his body. Hands wide on the spear handle now, he drove it under the orc’s chin, then growled and pushed out and upward, turning the orc and lifting it off the ground as he pressed ahead to slam it against the tree. With a growl he drove on, thinking to crush the creature’s muscled neck. But the spear shaft broke again around the orc’s throat, and as Wulfgar stumbled forward, the orc kept its wits enough to throw its face forward as well, head-butting the barbarian hard.

  Wulfgar accepted the blow and ignored the wave of dizziness and the coppery taste on his lips. Out to the side went his arms, then in and up, just as the orc reached for him.

  The splintered ends of the weapon shaft served as short spears, each driving in hard through the orc’s ears.

  The creature shuddered and jerked violently, and Wulfgar roared and held on, driving it back against the tree once more.

  He twisted and pressed, but he needn’t have, for the twin spears had torn the orc’s brains apart.

  Wulfgar threw the beast aside and stumbled over to retrieve his warhammer. He brought his arm across to wipe the blood from his broken nose, then closed his eyes and shook the cobwebs from his sensibilities.

  “Over here, boy,” he heard Bruenor call, and he turned just as an orc burst from the brush, not charging at him but running from the murderous dwarf.

  The orc noticed the hulking barbarian a stride later, its eyes going wide, its hands coming up, but too late to block the two-handed swing of Aegis-fang.

  Wulfgar stomped on the squirming creature’s face and stalked off to find his dwarf companion.

  Drizzt glided among the trees like a ghost, seeming more ethereal than corporeal. A slight fog had come up, only adding to the illusion, the blur that was the drow ranger. He approached a pair of trees and made for the hollow between them.

  But the extra sense that had guided this veteran warrior through a thousand battles warned him of the course. At the last moment, he tossed one scimitar through the gap, while rolling around the other way, going about the thick trunk of the tree to his left.

  He came upon the orc pressed against the bark preparing the ambush, the orc that was now looking curiously at the scimitar that had come flying through. The oblivious beast even leaned out to look more closely, to peer back through the hollow.

  Drizzt’s remaining blade crashed down upon the back of its neck, severing its spine, and as it dropped straight and fast to the ground, the drow noted its companion across the way, pressed against the other tree and staring back at him wide-eyed.

  With a howl that orc lifted its spear and let fly.

  With his enchanted anklets enhancing his speed, Drizzt could have easily side-stepped the clumsy throw, but instead he moved just a bit and brought his curved blade back across his body, the flat of the weapon smacking against the spear tip, stealing the missile’s momentum. Before it bounced away, Drizzt’s free hand nabbed it out of midair, and he deftly flipped it about.

  In the space of all those movements, the orc had come on, but only a step, and now it dug in its heels to halt its momentum when it noted the drow holding a scimitar in one hand and its own spear in his other!

  The orc stepped back, awkwardly swung about and stumbled off.

  To its credit, it actually got a couple of running strides from the drow before its own spear violated its back.

  The orc staggered to one knee, but kept pressing forward. It had allies close by, it knew. If only it could get to them …

  Darkness fell in the form of a scimitar, creasing its skull, and a second blade fast followed, for Drizzt had been quick enough to retrieve it in his fast pursuit, stabbing the orc through the throat.

  And the hunting ghost swept on, noting movement ahead, but up in the trees.

  Away went the scimitars, and out came Taulmaril.

  A macabre dance filled the woods about Catti-brie as a trio of orcs rushed about, flapping their burning arms wildly. Three others lay dead from her fireball, and flames licked at many of the nearby trees.

  It occurred to the woman that perhaps she should not have used that particular spell in this particular location, for now, surely, enemies far away would see those flames.

  Another orc came tumbling down from the boughs, though, crashing through the branches to fall dead at her feet. It still clutched its bow.

  The woman nodded, changing her mind. That was the third archer she had inadvertently taken down with the blast, for she had been aiming only at the quartet who had come at her on the ground.

  So yes, she thought, perhaps the fireball had been the correct response after all!

  She glanced about, thinking it best to move along, but a volley of spears came flying out at her from the brush ahead. She winced and dodged instinctively, but she needn’t have, for of the four missiles, the two that were on target rammed against her magical shield and were defeated.

  Behind those throws came another foursome of orcs, however, and the woman moved fast, calling upon her divine powers this time.

  Blue swirls of magical energy curled out of her robe’s right sleeve, twisting about her and mingling with the swirl that had come from the spellscar of Mystra on her left forearm.

  One of the orcs slowed and nearly toppled forward, its boots grabbed by the remaining grasses. Two others stopped completely as tree limbs reached down to enwrap them.

  The fourth got through, drawing a short sword and leaping in for the kill.

  Catti-brie
lifted her spread hands before her, thumbs touching, and met the charge with a fan of flames. Even as they sprouted from her fingertips, the woman fell off to the side.

  The orc barreled through, blinded and burning, and swinging wildly with downward chops and desperate thrusts. It staggered for many steps, tiny flames licking at its clothing and hair, before it could stop its rush and swing about.

  More flames appeared on the creature, not biting at its flesh but outlining it clearly for the enemy who stood against it.

  “I need to get a weapon,” Catti-brie lamented, and she began casting yet another spell, and a quick one, for the orc soon realized that this faerie fire wasn’t hot and stopped slapping at it, instead renewing its charge.

  One, two, three, four went the magic missiles, singeing the creature, burrowing into the creature. It kept coming forward, but out of momentum and not conscious thought, Catti-brie realized.

  She crouched low and swung up and around with a timed circle kick to the dying orc’s face just for good measure.

  The creature proved too heavy for her to fully block its advance, however, and so Catti-brie ducked and dodged as it crashed past. She rolled up under its still-lifted arm and caught hold, and managed to extract the orc’s sword from its dead hand before it ever hit the ground.

  She shook her head at the pathetic balance of the weapon and put it through a quick practice swing, or tried to, until a tremendous cracking sound spun her about.

  Unbeknownst to the priestess, her entangling enchantment had caught another victim, so it seemed, bigger than an orc, bigger than an ogre.

  Catti-brie swallowed hard as she watched the frost giant extricate itself from the grabbing tree, by ripping the heavy limb right off the trunk!

  Now it held the broken branch like a giant club, and with a look of grim satisfaction, it strode to the woman.

  Wulfgar winced as he batted aside the thrusting spear, for the movement painfully twisted the spear tip that was embedded in his side. He could feel the blood streaming from the wound, and worse, he could feel it pooling inside of him.

  The orc before him swept the spear back in, but Wulfgar moved inside its reach and the shaft banged harmlessly against his hip. He locked it in place with his right hand and punched out with Aegis-fang in his left.

  The orc ducked the blow and returned a stinging punch to the big man’s face, but he accepted it and spat blood as he let go of the spear and brought his hand up frighteningly fast, clamping it about the orc’s throat.

  But the powerful humanoid tightened its jaw, flexing its considerable neck muscles against the pressure. It punched out again, repeatedly, rapidly, snaking its hand about Wulfgar’s attempts to block, pummeling him again and again. No novice to warfare, the orc also used the barbarian’s self-imposed disadvantage, for both his hands were engaged, one with the warhammer, trying to block the punches, the other grabbing at the orc’s throat. So the orc’s spear was free, and the monster brought it up fast to clip the barbarian’s already bloody face. The orc threw its arm back and loosened its grip, sliding the spear back to shorten its forward length.

  Now it could thrust under the barbarian’s arm and score a kill.

  Except that the orc did not understand the power of Wulfgar, the sheer strength of the man. Wulfgar had accepted the punishment in order to get the orc rocking forward, which it did then as it tried to stab.

  But Wulfgar spun around, yanking the orc around with him, and he heaved the monster through the air, sending it spinning into the trunk of a tree.

  “Behind ye, boy,” he heard Bruenor shout from the side, and indeed, Wulfgar too had seen the second orc rushing in to join the fray.

  Wulfgar rolled his left arm down and under, launching Aegis-fang into a spinning flight. He leaped around to see the charging orc collide with the hammer, and stumble forward, and he slapped the creature’s sword aside, grabbed it by the hair and helped it on its way, launching it into a forward pitch to crash into its dazed companion.

  “Bwahaha!” Bruenor howled, and Wulfgar turned to regard him just in time to see the dwarf bury his axe through the collarbone of his ugly opponent.

  “Tempus!” Wulfgar growled, calling his hammer back to his hand. He leaped forward, towering over the two tangled orcs and began to chop mightily.

  He didn’t aim, didn’t try to sort one out from the other. He just brought the hammer down with two-handed chops, turning flesh, muscle, and bone into mush.

  He didn’t know how many strikes he had landed, a dozen at least, when he heard Bruenor’s cry for him.

  “Boy!” the dwarf bellowed. “Boy, get down!”

  But Wulfgar was already jumping about, and still standing straight.

  He saw the arrows coming, but had no time to react defensively. One drove into his chest just under his right breast, a second jabbed right through his left shoulder. Wulfgar felt the explosions, dull at first, then burning with fire. The strength left his legs and he began to sink, and he saw two orc archers coming out of the brush, setting arrows and sneering at him.

  He saw them draw back.

  He saw …

  Giselle could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She had known many battles before, but mostly against goblins or orcs, or even annoying trolls that had slithered out of the Trollmoors. And on those occasions, she had been among fellow Riders of Nesmé, skilled and coordinated and well-practiced in their movements.

  She had never seen a true giant before. To her, an ogre or a troll had seemed an incredibly powerful beast, but measured against the frost giant she discovered in the forest, even those formidable foes seemed no more than puny goblins!

  She noted the woman, Catti-brie, launching another magic missile barrage at the behemoth, which winced but didn’t even slow its pursuit. Around a tree Catti-brie rushed, cutting back under some low branches.

  Out came the giant behind her, simply tearing those branches from the trees as it passed, then hurling them forward at the dodging and scampering woman.

  Giselle swallowed hard and lifted her bow, and with a determined grimace, she let fly. Her aim proved true—how could it not when it seemed to her as if she was shooting at the side of a mountain?—and the arrow caught the behemoth in the upper arm.

  It didn’t even flinch, didn’t even turn to take note of her!

  The woman looked at her quiver. She had but five arrows remaining, and what use might they prove?

  But she had to help. She thought of drawing her sword and realized that she would stand only momentarily before this brute.

  Her mind whirled. She felt helpless, felt like a coward!

  Catti-brie had gained some distance, she noted, and Giselle’s heart skipped, thinking the woman might get away. But then Catti-brie had to cut back to the side, rushing back into the thicker brush and trees, and the giant angled and gained ground quickly.

  For a moment, Giselle didn’t understand the turn, but then she noted the orc, moving slowly, tearing each foot up from the grabbing grasses. She saw its two companions then, as well, back a bit, caught by tree limbs, but struggling and wriggling to get free.

  The woman calmed herself with a deep and slow breath, and leveled her bow.

  The nearest orc tore free its boot and stepped forward.

  Giselle shot it dead.

  She nodded grimly. Determined to open the escape route for Catti-brie, she took a quick look at the giant, then advanced for a clearer shot at the remaining orcs.

  “By the bearded gods!” came a roar from the side. Bruenor leaped out of the shadows. He sent his battle-axe spinning out before him, the weapon twisting and rolling with little chance to take out an orc.

  But it did crash in before the pair, disrupting their shots. One arrow fell harmlessly aside, the bowstring twanging uselessly. The second orc got its arrow away, though the angle was wrong, and the shot aimed for Wulfgar’s chest stabbed into the big man’s thigh instead.

  Behind the axe came a leaping Bruenor. The nearest orc drew out a long
knife and turned to meet him.

  The dwarf didn’t slow, springing high, taking the hit in exchange for burying this enemy beneath him, and the pair went flying away into the brush.

  The other orc charged ahead following its shot. It saw weakness there, in the huge barbarian, who swayed as if he could barely stand his ground.

  And indeed, nauseating waves of pain had Wulfgar teetering. Blood streamed from his side, from his chest, from his shoulder, from his thigh. He raised his hammer to meet the charge, and let fly with a cry to his warrior god.

  The weapon flew past the charging orc, however, for Wulfgar had spotted a more important target, as another orc appeared near the brush where Bruenor wrestled the first. So intent on lining up a strike with its axe on the rolling dwarf, the orc never saw the warhammer coming and made no move to dodge or even block.

  It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, and Wulfgar nodded in grim satisfaction that he had given his friend a fighting chance at least before he himself was slain.

  He set himself for the orc’s charge, knowing his only hope was to get in close, to use his superior strength to choke or crush the orc before it could bring its short sword to bear.

  But the orc was no novice. Like many of the orcs of this kingdom, it had waged many fights and many raids against the peoples of Luruar, even against fellow Many-Arrow orcs. It pulled up short and slashed hard at Wulfgar’s reaching hand, and though he retracted, he did so with a painful gash from forearm to palm.

  The barbarian shrank back and the orc smiled wickedly, even laughed aloud as it began to circle slowly.

  “A thousand cuts and you die in your blood,” the orc teased.

  Wulfgar shrugged.

  Aegis-fang came back into his hands.

  The orc’s yellow eyes went wide and it made a strange squeaking sound and Wulfgar now came forward, jabbing ahead with his mighty warhammer. The barbarian rushed forward, his weapon now sweeping in great circles, around and around and the orc did well to keep its weapon back from that killing flow.