Rise of the King

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Deeper tunnels,” Drizzt explained. “This course will take us down, too far down, I fear.”

  “Bah, but ye’re wanting to go all the way back to find another path?” Bruenor asked skeptically.

  “That is the way of the Underdark,” Drizzt explained. “We will find many dead ends and many wrong turns. This will not be an easy journey, nor a quick one, likely.” He pointed to the magical belt pouch Regis wore, which the party had stuffed with many days worth of rations for just this possibility.

  “Might be branching tunnels ahead,” Athrogate added.

  Bruenor looked to Drizzt, who shrugged.

  “We can’t be knowin’ until we look,” said the orange-bearded dwarf.

  “We could lose another day.”

  “Or save a couple.”

  Drizzt looked to the others, who of course had no answers and could merely shrug in response.

  “Mithral Hall’s mines go deep, eh?” Athrogate asked.

  “Aye,” said Bruenor.

  “We ain’t far from the surface,” the black-bearded dwarf reasoned. “Tunnels takin’ us lower’re more likely to find a strand o’ Mithral Hall, then.” He nodded into the darkness ahead, and Drizzt, too, could only shrug. Then the drow took up the lead once more, skipping ahead beyond the glow of Catti-brie’s magical light, slipping along the dark tunnels.

  They camped in a shallow alcove to the side of that tunnel, Catti-brie dismissing her light and Drizzt and the two dwarves, all three possessed of superior lowlight vision, taking turns on watch.

  Many times that first night did Drizzt go to the others, mostly Wulfgar and Catti-brie, to comfort them, for he knew that they were all but blind in the near-darkness, and realized that must be an unsettling thing indeed.

  They did find side-passages the next day in their hike, and many more passages off of those, and surely even the dwarves might have become lost in the maze of the upper Underdark. Not the drow, though. This was Drizzt’s natural domain, the home he had known for the first decades of his life, and few had walked more Underdark corridors than he.

  Confident in their general direction, if not in their chances to actually find some familiar ground, he led them along, day after day.

  “To live here,” Regis whispered incredulously to Wulfgar during one of their camps.

  The barbarian couldn’t see his halfling head shaking his head, but he knew as much from the sound of Regis’s voice.

  “It is worse when you are blind in the near darkness,” Wulfgar replied.

  “I’m not,” said the halfling. “My lowlight vision is strong now—stronger than it was in my previous life.”

  “Yet you avoid guard duty,” Wulfgar said with a snicker.

  “I go out from the encampment each night—Drizzt knows,” Regis surprised him by saying. “Hunting for fungus and lichen. If we ever find a proper chamber in which to camp, I’ll set up my workshop and brew some more potions.”

  “You are full of surprises, my little friend.”

  “Still, to live here, year after year,” Regis said. “Surely I would lose my sanity. And it is not simply the darkness, though that is pressing enough.”

  “I understand,” Wulfgar answered. “Whenever I think of the mountains of stone above our heads … It presses on my thoughts as surely as the weight would crush my body.”

  “Too many corners,” Catti-brie added, sliding over to join in the conversation. “You must always be on your guard, for every turn in the passage could bring you face to face with an enemy. A goblin or orc, an umber hulk, a displacer beast …”

  “A drow,” Wulfgar added.

  “Aye, and might be a dwarf waiting to slug ye,” came another voice, Bruenor’s voice. “A dwarf angry and tired because his friends wouldn’t shut their mouths when he was trying to sleep.”

  “True enough,” Athrogate added from the other side, for Drizzt was out on watch at that time. “Might be two of ’em, bwahaha! Four fists!”

  The group took several side passages the next day, and had to backtrack twice when they came to a dead end at one tunnel, and another that ended in a large chamber centered by a deep, deep hole.

  The next few days of travel proved much the same, with so many tunnels before them. Drizzt continued to lead, and did well to keep them from any Underdark denizens, though the upper tunnels of the Underdark were not typically rife with monsters, other than the orcs, most of whom were out with Warlord Hartusk’s forces, no doubt.

  They lost track of time, but knew they were nearing a tenday out from Nesmé, when at last they came into regions that sparked some recognition in Bruenor.

  “It’s the smell,” he remarked to the others when they came into a series of wider tunnels, many with natural side chambers. “Smell o’ home.”

  “Then yer home’s smelling like orc,” Athrogate replied.

  The others looked to the black-bearded dwarf curiously.

  “Aye,” Bruenor agreed. “There’s a bit o’ that stench in the air. But it’s more than that, I tell ye. I’m knowing this place.”

  Soon after, Athrogate’s words seemed prescient, for they began to find signs that orcs indeed haunted these tunnels. Around one corner in a winding and narrow passage, they found Drizzt waiting for them, some dozen steps ahead, with his hand up to halt their progress.

  “Wire,” the drow said quietly, pointing down at the floor.

  Catti-brie bent low with the lighted arrow, revealing that a trip wire had been strung across the breadth of the corridor.

  “Pressure plate on the wall,” Regis added, noting a slab of stone that seemed slightly different in hue than the other stones of the corridor.

  Athrogate went to investigate, gingerly stepping over the trip wire. He tested the slab of stone Regis had indicated, then stepped back, nodding.

  “What’s it do?” Bruenor asked.

  “Not for knowing,” Athrogate admitted. “Not for finding out, either.”

  On they went, more quietly then, and with Catti-brie shielding the magically illuminated arrow. Drizzt continued to lead the way, but remained much closer to the others. They found more traps, many more, along with goblin sign: scat and scattered items, even a plate of half-eaten food that was not very old, clearly.

  They said nothing, and were reminded to stay very quiet when they heard whispers, echoing off the rocky walls, bouncing around them confusingly.

  Orcs were all around them, they knew, but it was impossible to determine how many, or how far away, for the echoes of whispers in the crisscrossing, multileveled tunnels came at them from every conceivable angle. They went into a battle formation, Drizzt still leading, Bruenor and Athrogate side by side behind him, with Wulfgar and Regis bringing up the rear and Catti-brie in the middle, that she might launch her magic in any direction as needed.

  They could feel the pressure growing against them. They remained as quiet as they could, but they were not silent, obviously, and the corridors magnified the sound and carried it to many ears, they feared.

  Soon after, the tunnel became a combination of natural tube and worked walls, dwarf walls, and lined with larger chambers on the right-hand wall, connecting to shorter tunnels and more chambers beyond.

  Bruenor’s eyes lit up at the sight. “We’re close,” he whispered. “The western deep mines o’ Mithral Hall, I tell ye.”

  Drizzt came back to the group. “We go to the right, then?” he whispered to Bruenor. “There are many enemies that way, I fear.”

  The dwarf considered it, trying to recall the layout. They were deep, clearly, well below the great forges of Mithral Hall, down near the lowest tunnels. There weren’t many ways to get into the corridors that would lead to Mithral Hall proper from this region, he knew, and by design, keeping these areas secluded for defensive purposes.

  “Stay to the long tunnel another thousand steps,” the dwarf advised. “She’ll bend back to the east, I’m thinking, and there we might find our way.”

  With a nod, Drizzt pressed ahead
once more. He kept his hand near his belt pouch, expecting that he might soon need to call Guenhwyvar to his side.

  They could smell the orcs now, and no doubt, the orcs could smell them.

  The corridor narrowed and the party slowed. They went over a series of traps, three trip wires spanning the corridor, the second two strides beyond the first, the third two strides beyond the second.

  Drizzt found himself more lucky than clever as he crossed the second, barely missing a small pressure plate that had been deviously placed in the center of the corridor. When he noted it, the drow sucked in his breath; they were barely moving along as it was, and now they’d have to be doubly careful, every step of the way.

  Up ahead, the corridor bent sharply to the right, the east, and split in a tight fork, also continuing along to the north.

  With a look to Bruenor, the drow went to the right, the others rolling in behind.

  The corridor tightened, the smell of orc thickened about them. In the distance, they heard drums, and chanting.

  Up in the front, Drizzt called in Guenhwyvar and sent her running ahead.

  “We’ve been herded,” Regis whispered, sorting it all out. He grabbed Wulfgar to halt the man, then pushed ahead and similarly bade Catti-brie to stop.

  “Herded,” he said to the dwarves, and even as he spoke the word, they heard the roar and the cry as Guenhwyvar, long out of sight of them, engaged some unseen enemy.

  “Drizzt!” Regis called in warning, for he saw the seams in the walls and the ceiling, and he realized that the orcs had wanted them in this very place!

  The dwarves turned around to regard him, but the halfling yelled for them to turn back immediately—and just in time as a stone panel in the ceiling fell aside and a quartet of orcs came leaping down at them.

  Up ahead, Drizzt, too, found enemies as secret side panels slid aside, orcs leaping at him left and right.

  And dying to his spinning blades, left and right.

  Regis managed to poke his rapier in between the two battling dwarves to stab at an orc. He considered throwing a serpent at another, when a cry from behind spun him about. He darted away underneath Catti-brie’s reaching hands, the woman throwing a fan of flames over the dwarves and into the faces of the taller orcs.

  Past Catti-brie, Regis spotted Wulfgar, his hammer whipping side to side furiously as orcs pressed in at him.

  “I’m coming!” the halfling called to his large friend, and he pushed past Catti-brie, leaping back to Wulfgar. He had barely begun that charge, though, when he heard the sound of stones scraping and sliding.

  “What?” Catti-brie asked, glancing back over her shoulder, just in time to see a section of the wall to the left of Regis come sliding out, slamming the halfling and driving him to the right hand wall.

  “Wulfgar!” she cried.

  The barbarian swept aside the closest orc and spun back, and he and Catti-brie both sucked in their breath, expecting Regis to be splattered against the corridor wall by the sheer weight of the sliding block!

  But no, that section of wall fell away just before impact, revealing a steep decline, and into it tumbled Regis.

  His cry slipped away with him.

  “No!” Wulfgar yelled. He swept aside the stubborn orcs pressing in at him once more, then leaped for the wall, sealed now by the block that had come sliding across the corridor.

  “Regis!” Catti-brie yelled. “Wulfgar!” she added, seeing a host of orcs bearing down at him from behind.

  The stones ground again, the slab from the left-hand corridor wall slid back the other way, and for a brief moment, before the second wall could slide back into place, the hole into which Regis had tumbled came clear.

  “Wulfgar, no!” Catti-brie cried, but too late, for the barbarian was already moving, diving fearlessly to the floor, going into the side hole up to his waist and reaching into the darkness for his friend.

  “A deep hole!” he cried, or tried to cry, for the second slab crashed into him then and began to crush the life out of him. He groaned and reached down for it, but his angle was all wrong and he couldn’t begin to press it back. Desperately, the barbarian jammed the head of Aegis-fang in between the slab and the wall.

  But still it pressed at him, and he had no choice but to go forward, into the side passage. He squirmed and tugged.

  “Wulfgar!” Catti-brie cried, and she grabbed the edge of the stuck slab and tried to pull back, to no avail. She couldn’t continue, for more orcs appeared around the corner, bearing down at her. She fell back and began a new spell.

  And Drizzt was beside her somehow, having cut through an orc battling Bruenor, then leaping the dwarves. The drow ranger sped right past Catti-brie to meet the orc charge, scimitars spinning in a blur to take aside a thrusting spear and cut the throat out of the first in line.

  “Wulfgar!” he cried at the partially-blocked side passage, where only the head of Aegis-fang was now wedged, preventing the slab from sealing off the exit. “Regis!”

  Out stabbed Twinkle, taking the second orc in the gut, and Drizzt rolled past it to engage the next two in line. Fury drove his strikes as he considered his fallen friends—fallen from view, at least, and taken from his side.

  The tunnel began to tremble and vibrate.

  Drizzt drove back the pair of orcs before him.

  “Go left!” Catti-brie called, and the drow immediately threw himself against that left-hand wall.

  A flash of magical lightning exploded past him, blasting the orcs backward, and Drizzt thought immediately to turn and go at the slab, perhaps to use the leverage of the wedged warhammer to pry it back open.

  Even as he turned, however, the images so briefly revealed in the brilliance of the lightning bolt screamed at him to flee.

  The tunnel shook more violently, and there came a rumble like an avalanche, for back at the corner came a most diabolical war machine, a cylindrical wheel as tall as a dwarf and as wide as the corridor, tons of worked stone wrapped with sheeted steel and wickedly ridged.

  Drizzt knew this contraption, for it was no orc design. He grabbed the lighted arrow from Catti-brie and flung it down the hall, in time to see the war machine mow down an orc, squishing it flat beneath its weight and chopping it apart with its ridges. Ogres pushed the monstrous contraption—many ogres—and little would stop them.

  “Oh run,” Drizzt told Catti-brie, and shouted it again, louder.

  “Juicer!” Bruenor cried when he managed to look back. “They got a juicer. Run!”

  Drizzt went for the warhammer, one last desperate chance to open a way to his lost friends, but even as he reached for it, it disappeared, and the slab slammed into place with a resounding thud, sealing the passage.

  The drow dived into a roll past it, sheathing his scimitars as he went, and he came up holding Taulmaril, and so fought a retreating action, launching a line of arrows behind him to kill orcs, and hopefully, to slow the ogres and their juicer.

  Up in front, Bruenor and Athrogate worked wildly to clear the way, but the orcs battling them wanted no part of the coming machine of slaughter, which would not distinguish friend from foe, and they too fled with all speed.

  “Juicer!” Bruenor shouted repeatedly, for surely the word held powerful meaning for him, Drizzt understood. This was a dwarf machine, a Mithral Hall design, and so at least part of the complex had fallen to the orcs.

  “Run, ye durned fools, for all yer lives!” Bruenor cried.

  And so they did.

  As soon as he began his tumble, Regis kept his cool enough to twist about in such a way as to secure his rapier through the loop in his belt. He kept his magical dagger in hand, though, telepathically willing the living serpent side blades to roll down and fasten about him, to secure the weapon to his hand.

  He stabbed at the stone of the floor and the walls with it, hoping to hook it in a crease and somehow slow his descent.

  He bounced and tumbled, sometimes on a slide, other times dropping over a short ledge into a painful fall. We
lts and bruises covered him, he was sure, he tasted blood in his mouth, and he had to tuck his arms and legs in tight, trying to prevent an awkward tumble that would break his bones.

  On sudden impulse, he reached into his magical belt pouch—how he wished he could just crawl into that extra-dimensional space at that moment—and mentally called for his potion pouch. His fingers worked fast, counting the places, his thoughts worked fast, trying to recall the order of the vials in the line of leather loops under the flap of that pouch.

  Over another drop he went, crying out as he flew through the blackness. He banged his head on the ceiling, then tumbled down with a groan, rolling around a bend in the descent.

  He brought forth a small potion vial and simply stuffed it into his mouth and cracked the glass with his bite, releasing the contents.

  Too late, he feared. He saw the last expanse before him, marked by fires, torchlight, at the end of a long and steep slide.

  He stomped his feet, left and right, trying to slow his descent, and then his left foot stuck, the potion taking effect, and he nearly tore out his knee as he awkwardly rolled up and over that anchored foot.

  Then he moved, the potion giving him control, and he heard something tumbling down from behind and had no choice but to climb up the side wall of this tunnel, scrambling desperately.

  He got to the ceiling, crouching there inverted, and now could see what awaited him at the bottom of the decline: a host of orcs and thick-limbed ogrillon.

  He heard the crash and recognized the grunt, and tried to swing about, and even tried to grab at Wulfgar as the big man bounced and tumbled beneath him, though he surely had no chance of even slowing huge Wulfgar’s crashing descent.

  “Oh no,” he whispered as Wulfgar covered the last lengths of the slide, to pitch out through the ceiling of that lower corridor and fly down hard to the floor.

  The monsters fell over him, punching at him, kicking at him, swatting him with clubs.

  “Oh no,” Regis whispered. He wanted to go to Wulfgar, but the horde was over the barbarian. Too many. Regis inched down for a better view.

  But there was nothing he could do.