transition 01 The Orc King

by R . A. Salvatore

  Drizzt continued his run farther to the side before turning back at the orc. He dropped Taulmaril and drew forth his blades, and he thought of Guenhwyvar, and called out plaintively for his lost cat.

  In sight of the wizard again, Drizzt dived behind a tree.

  A lightning bolt split it down the middle before him, opening the ground to the orc wizard again, stealing Drizzt’s protective wall, and so he ran on, to the side again.

  “I won’t run out of magic, foolish drow!” the orc called—and in High Drow, with perfect inflection!

  That unnerved Drizzt almost as much as the magical barrage, but Drizzt accepted his role, and suspected that Bruenor was no less hard-pressed.

  He swung out away from the orc wizard then veered around, finding a direct path to his enemy that would take him under a widespread maple and right beside another cluster of evergreens.

  He roared and charged. He saw a tell-tale movement beside him, and grinned as he recognized it.

  Drizzt reached inside himself as the wizard began casting, and summoned a globe of absolute darkness before him, between him and the mage.

  Into the darkness went Drizzt. To his right, the evergreens rustled, as if he had cut fast and leaped out that way.

  Dull pain and cold darkness filled Regis’s head. He was far from consciousness, and sliding farther with every passing heartbeat. He knew not where he was, or what had put him there, in a deep and dark hole.

  Somewhere, distantly, he felt a heavy thud against his back, and the jolt sent lines of searing pain into the halfling.

  He groaned then simply let it all go.

  The sensation of flying filled him, as if he had broken free of his mortal coil and was floating…floating.

  “Not so clever, drow,” Jack said through Hakuun’s mouth as they both noted the movement in the limbs of the evergreens. A slight turn had the fiery pea released from Jack’s spell lofting out that way, and an instant later, those evergreens exploded into flames, with, Jack and Hakuun both presumed, the troublesome drow inside.

  But Drizzt had not gone out to his right. That had been Guenhwyvar, re-summoned from the Astral Plane by his call, heeding his quiet commands to serve her role as diversion. Guenhwyvar had gone across right behind Drizzt to leap into the evergreens, while Drizzt had tumbled headlong, gaining momentum, into the darkness.

  In there, he had leaped straight up, finding the maple’s lowest branch.

  “Be gone, Guen,” he whispered as he ran along that branch, feeling the heat of the flames to his side. “Please be gone,” he begged as he came out of the blackness, bearing down on the wizard, who was still looking at the evergreens, still apparently oblivious to Drizzt.

  The drow came off the branch in a leaping somersault, landing lightly in a roll before the orc, who nearly jumped out of his boots and threw his hands up defensively. As Drizzt came out of that roll, he sprang and rolled again, going right past the orc, right over the orc’s shoulder as he turned back upright.

  Anger drove him, memories of Innovindil. He told himself that he had solved the riddle, that that creature had been the cause.

  Fury driving his arms, he slashed back behind him and down with Icingdeath as he landed, and felt the blade slash hard through the orc’s leather tunic and bite deeply into flesh. Drizzt skidded to an abrupt stop and pirouetted, slashing hard with Twinkle, gashing the back-bending orc across the shoulder blades. Drizzt stepped back toward him, moving around him on the other side, and cut Twinkle down hard across the creature’s exposed throat, driving it to the ground on its back.

  He moved for the kill, but stopped short, realizing that he needn’t bother. A growl from over by the burning pines showed him that Guenhwyvar hadn’t heeded his call to be gone, but neither had the panther, so swift and clever, been caught in the blast.

  Relief flooded through Drizzt, but with the diversion, he didn’t take notice of a small winged snake slithering out of the dead orc’s ear.

  Bruenor’s axe slid down hard to the side, and Bruenor stumbled that way. He saw the huge orc’s face twist in glee, in the belief of victory.

  But that was exactly the look he had hoped for.

  For Bruenor was not stumbling, and had forced the angled block for that very reason, to disengage his axe quickly and down to the side, far to the right of his target. In his stumble, Bruenor was really just re-setting his stance, and he spun away from the orc, daring to turn his back on it for a brief moment.

  In that spin, Bruenor sent his axe in a roundabout swing at the end of his arm, and the orc, readying a killing strike, could not redirect his heavy two-bladed axe in time.

  Bruenor whirled around, his axe flying out wide to the right, setting himself in a widespread stance, ready to meet any attack.

  None came, for his axe had torn the orc’s belly as it had come around, and the creature crumbled backward, holding its heavy axe in its right hand, but clutching at its spilling entrails with its left.

  Bruenor stalked forward and began battering it once more. The orc managed to block a blow, then a second, but the third slipped past and gashed its forearm, tearing its hand clear of its belly.

  Guts spilled out. The orc howled and tried to back away.

  But a flaming sword swept in over Bruenor’s one-horned helmet and cut Grguch’s misshapen head apart.

  Guenhwyvar’s roar saved him, for Drizzt glanced back at the last moment, and ducked aside just in time to avoid the brunt of the winged snake’s murderous lightning strike. Still the bolt clipped the drow, and lifted him into the air, flipping him over more than a complete rotation, so that he landed hard on his side.

  He bounced right back up, though, and the winged snake dropped to the ground and darted for the trees.

  But the curved edge of a scimitar hooked under it and flipped it into the air, where Drizzt’s other blade slashed against it.

  Against it, but not through it, for a magical ward prevented the cut—though the force of the blade surely bent the serpent over it!

  Undeterred, for that mystery within a mystery somehow confirmed to Drizzt his suspicions about Innovindil’s fall, the drow growled and pushed on. Whether his guess was accurate or not hardly mattered, for Drizzt transformed that rage into blinding, furious action. He flipped the serpent again, then went into a frenzy, slashing left, right, left, right, over and over again, holding the serpent aloft by the sheer speed and precision of his repeated hits. He didn’t slow, he didn’t breathe, he simply battered away with abandon.

  The creature flapped its wings, and Drizzt scored a hit at last, cutting up and nearly severing one where it met the serpent’s body.

  Again the drow went into a fury, slashing back and forth, and he ended by turning one blade around the torn snake. He fell into a short run and turn behind that strike and used his scimitar to fling the snake out far.

  In mid-air, the snake transformed, becoming a gnome as it hit the ground in a roll, turning as it came up and slamming its back hard against a tree.

  Drizzt relaxed, convinced that the tree was the only thing holding the surprising creature upright.

  “You summoned…the panther…back,” the gnome said, his voice weak and fading.

  Drizzt didn’t reply.

  “Brilliant diversion,” the gnome congratulated.

  A curious expression came over the diminutive creature, and it held up one trembling hand. Blood poured from out of his robe’s voluminous sleeve, though it did not stain the material—material that showed not a tear from the drow’s assault.

  “Hmm,” the gnome said, and looked down, and so did Drizzt, to see more blood pouring out from under the hem of the robe, pooling on the ground between the little fellow’s boots.

  “Good garment,” the gnome noted. “Know you a mage worthy?”

  Drizzt looked at him curiously.

  Jack the Gnome shrugged. His left arm fell off then, sliding out of his garment, the tiny piece of remaining skin that attached it to his shoulder tearing free under the dea
d weight.

  Jack looked at it, Drizzt looked at it, and they looked at each other again.

  And Jack shrugged. And Jack fell face down. And Jack the Gnome was dead.

  CHAPTER

  GARUMN’S GORGE

  Bruenor tried to stand straight, but the pain of his broken arm had him constantly twitching and lowering his left shoulder. Directly across from him, King Obould stared hard, the fingers of his hand kneading the hilt of his gigantic sword. Gradually that blade inched down toward the ground, and Obould dismissed its magical flames.

  “Well, what of it, then?” Bruenor asked, feeling the eyes of orcs boring into him from all around.

  Obould let his gaze sweep across the crowd, holding them all at bay. “You came to me,” he reminded the dwarf.

  “I heared ye wanted to talk, so I come to talk.”

  Obould’s expression showed him to be less than convinced. He glanced up the hill, motioning to Nukkels the priest, the emissary, who had never made it near to Bruenor’s court.

  Bruenor, too, looked up at the battered shaman, and the dwarf’s eyes widened indeed when Nukkels was joined by another orc, dressed in decorated military garb, who carried a bundle of great interest to Bruenor. The two orcs walked down to stand beside their king, and the second, General Dukka, dropped his cargo, a bloody and limp halfling, at Obould’s feet.

  All around them, the orcs stirred, expecting the fight to erupt anew.

  But Obould silenced them with an upraised hand, as he looked Bruenor in the eye. Before him, Regis stirred, and Obould reached down and with surprising gentleness, lifted the halfling to his feet.

  Regis could not stand on his own, though, his knees buckling. But Obould held him upright and motioned to Nukkels. Immediately, the shaman cast a spell of healing over the halfling, and though it only marginally helped, it was enough for Regis to stand at least. Obould pushed him toward Bruenor, but again, without any evident malice.

  “Grguch is dead,” Obould proclaimed to all around, ending as he locked stares with Bruenor. “Grguch’s path is not the way.”

  Beside Obould, General Dukka stood firm and nodded, and Bruenor and Obould both understood that the orc king had all the support he needed, and more.

  “What are you wantin’, orc?” Bruenor asked, and he held his hand up as he finished, looking past Obould.

  Many orcs turned, Obould, Dukka, and Nukkels included, to see Drizzt Do’Urden standing calmly, Taulmaril in hand, arrow resting at ease on its string, and with Guenhwyvar beside him.

  “What are ye wanting?” Bruenor asked again as Obould turned back.

  The dwarf already knew, of course, and the answer was one that filled him with both hope and dread.

  Not that he was in any position to bargain.

  “It won’t make her more than a surcoat, elf,” Bruenor said as Drizzt folded up the fabulous garment of Jack the Gnome, wrapping it over a few rings and other trinkets he had taken from the body.

  “Give it to Rumblebelly,” said Bruenor, and he propped Regis up a bit more, for the halfling leaned on him heavily.

  “A wizard’s…robe,” the still-groggy Regis slurred. “Not for me.”

  “Not for me girl, neither,” Bruenor declared.

  But Drizzt only smiled and tucked the fairly won gains into his pack.

  Somewhere in the east, fighting erupted again, a reminder to them all that not everything was settled quite yet, with remnants of Clan Karuck still to be rooted out. The distant battle sounds also reminded them that their friends were still out there, and though Obould, after conferring with Dukka, had assured them that four dwarves, an elf, and a drow had gone back over the southern ridge when Dukka’s force had sent Wolf Jaw running, the relief of the companions showed clearly on their faces when they came in sight of the bedraggled, battered, and bloody sextet.

  Cordio and Shingles ran to take Regis off of Bruenor’s hands, while Pwent fell all over himself, hopping around Bruenor with unbridled glee.

  “Thought ye was sure’n dead,” Torgar said. “Thought we were suren dead, to boot. But them orcs held back and let us run south. I’m not for knowin’ why.”

  Bruenor looked at Drizzt then at Torgar and the others. “Not sure that I’m knowin’ why, meself,” he said, and he shook his head helplessly, as if none of it made any sense to him. “Just get me home. Get us all home, and we’ll figure it out.”

  It sounded good, of course, except that one of the group had no home to speak of, none in the area, at least. Drizzt stepped past Bruenor and the others and motioned for Tos’un and Hralien to join him off to the side.

  Back with the others, Cordio tended to Bruenor’s broken arm, which of course had Bruenor cursing him profusely, while Torgar and Shingles tried to figure out the best way to repair the king’s broken shield, an artifact that could not be left in two pieces.

  “Is it in your heart, or in your mind?” Drizzt asked his fellow drow when the three of them were far enough away.

  “Your change, I mean,” Drizzt explained when Tos’un did not immediately answer. “This new demeanor you wear, these possibilities you see before you—are they in your heart, or in your mind? Are they born of feelings, or is it pragmatism that guides your actions?”

  “He was dismissed and running free,” Hralien said. “Yet he came back to save me, perhaps to save us all.”

  Drizzt nodded his acceptance of that fact, but it didn’t change his posture as he continued to stare at Tos’un.

  “I do not know,” Tos’un admitted. “I prefer the elves of the Moon-wood to Obould’s orcs. That much I can tell you. And I will not go against the Moonwood elves, on my word.”

  “The word of a drow,” Drizzt remarked, and Hralien snorted at the absurdity of the statement, given the speaker.

  Drizzt held his hand out, and motioned toward the sentient sword belted on Tos’un’s hip. With only a moment’s hesitation, Tos’un drew the blade and handed it over.

  “I cannot allow him to keep it,” Drizzt explained to Hralien.

  “It is Catti-brie’s sword,” the elf agreed, but Drizzt shook his head.

  “It is a corrupting, evil, sentient being,” Drizzt said. “It will feed the doubts of Tos’un and play into his fears, hoping to incite him to spill blood.” To Hralien’s surprise, Drizzt handed it over to him. “Nor does Catti-brie wish it returned to Mithral Hall. Take it to the Moonwood, I beg, for your wizards and priests are better able to deal with such weapons.”

  “Tos’un will be there,” Hralien warned, and he glanced at the wandering drow and nodded, and relief showed clearly on Tos’un’s face.

  “Perhaps your wizards and priests will be better able to discern the heart and mind of the dark elf, too,” said Drizzt. “If trust is gained then return the sword to him. It is a choice beyond my judgment.”

  “Elf! Ye done jabberin’?” Bruenor called. “I’m wanting to go see me girl.”

  Drizzt looked to Hralien and Tos’un in turn. “Indeed,” he offered. “Let us all go home.”

  The wind howled out its singular, mournful note, a constant blow that sounded to Wulfgar of home.

  He stood on the northeastern slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, not far below the remnants of the high ridge once known as Bruenor’s Climb, looking out over the vast tundra, where the snows had receded once more.

  Slanting light crossed the flat ground, the last rays of day sparkling in the many puddles dotting the landscape.

  Wulfgar stayed there, unmoving, as the last lights faded, as the stars began to twinkle overhead, and his heart leaped again when a distant campfire appeared out in the north.

  His people.

  His heart was full. This was his place, his home, the land where he would build his legacy. He would assume his rightful place among the Tribe of the Elk, would take a wife and live as his father, his grandfather, and all of his ancestors had lived. The simplicity of it, the lack of the deceitful trappings of civilization, welcomed him, heart and soul.

  His heart was
full.

  The son of Beornegar had come home.

  The dwarven hall in the great chamber known as Garumn’s Gorge, with its gently arcing stone bridge and the new statue of Shimmergloom the shadow dragon, ridden to the bottom of the gorge to its death by heroic King Bruenor, had never looked so wondrous. Torches burned throughout the hall, lining the gorge and the bridge, their firelight changing through the spectrum of colors due to the enchantments of Lady Alustriel’s wizards.

  On the western side of the gorge before the bridge stood hundreds of Battlehammer dwarves, all dressed in their full, shining armor, pennants flying, spear tips gleaming in the magical light. Across from them stood a contingent of orc warriors, not nearly as well-outfitted, but standing with equal discipline and pride.

  Dwarf masons had constructed a platform at the center of the long bridge, and on it had built a three-tiered fountain. Nanfoodle’s alchemy and Alustriel’s wizards had done their work there, as well, for the water danced to the sound of haunting music, its flowing streams glowing brightly and changing colors.

  Before the fountain, on a mosaic of intricate tiles fashioned to herald that very day, stood a mithral podium, and on it rested a pile of identical parchments, pinned by weights sculpted into the form of a dwarf, an elf, a human, and an orc. The bottom paper of that pile had been sealed atop the podium, to remain there throughout the coming decades.

  Bruenor stepped out from his line and walked the ten strides to the podium. He looked back to his friends and kin, to Banak in his chair, sitting impassive and unconvinced, but unwilling to argue with Bruenor’s decision. He matched stares with Regis, who solemnly nodded, as did Cordio. Beside the priest, Thibble dorf Pwent was too distracted to return Bruenor’s look. The battle-rager, as clean as anyone in the hall had ever seen him, swiveled his head around, sizing up any threats that might materialize from the strange gathering—or maybe, Bruenor thought with a grin, looking for Alustriel’s dwarf friend, Fret, who had forced a bath upon Pwent.