The Lone Drow th-2

by Robert Salvatore

  A cheer went up around him, but he could hear the shallowness of it. For nearly a third of their four hundred were down, including Torgar, their heart and soul.

  But the dwarves did as Shingles ordered, without a word of complaint. The last ground in the tunnels, the first ground they had claimed in entering the complex, was the best prepared of all, and if the orcs meant to push them back out the exits near to the cliff overlooking Keeper's Dale, they were going to lose hundreds in the process.

  The dwarves dug in and waited.

  They propped those with torn legs against secure backing and gave them lighter weapons to swing, and waited.

  They wrapped their more garish wounds without complaint, some even tying weapons to broken hands, and waited.

  They kissed their dead good-bye and waited.

  But the orcs, with three quarters of the ridge complex conquered, did not come on.

  * * *

  "The most stubborn they been yet," Banak observed when the orcs and goblins finally turned and retreated down the slope. For more than an hour they had come on, throwing themselves into the fray with abandon, and the last battle piled more orc and goblin bodies on the blood-slicked slope than all the previous fights combined. And through it all, the dwarves had held tight to their formations and tight to their defensible positions, and never once had the orcs seemed on the verge of victory.

  But still they had come on

  "Stubborn? Or stupid?" Tred McKnuckles replied.

  "Stupid," Ivan Bouldershoulder decided.

  His brother added, "Hee hee h—"

  Pikel's laugh was cut short, and Banak's response did not get past his lips, for only then did they see the very telling movement in the west of Torgar's retreat, only then did they see the lines of wounded dwarves streaming out of the tunnels, those able enough carrying dead kin.

  "By Moradin," Banak breathed, realizing then that the huge battle on the open slopes had been nothing more than a ruse designed to prevent reinforcements from flocking to Torgar's ranks.

  Banak squinted, a prolonged wince, as the lines of limping wounded and borne dead continued to stream out from the southern entrance of the complex. Those dwarves had just joined Mithral Hall—most of them had never even seen the place that had drawn them from the safety of their Mirabar homes.

  "The retreat's organized," Ivan Bouldershoulder observed. "They didn't get routed, just pushed back, I'm guessin'."

  "Go find Torgar," Banak instructed. "Or whoever it is that's in charge. See if he's needing our help!"

  With an "Oo oi!" from Pikel, the Bouldershoulders rushed off.

  Tred offered a nod to Banak and ran right behind.

  Two others came up to the dwarf leader at just that moment, grim-faced and covered in orc blood.

  "What's the point of it?" Catti-brie asked, observing the lines. "They gave so many dead to take the tunnels, but what good are those tunnels to them anyway? None connect to Mithral Hall proper—not even close."

  "But they don't know that," said Banak.

  Catti-brie didn't buy it. Something else was going on, she believed, and when she looked at Wulfgar, she could see that he was thinking the same way.

  "Let's go," Wulfgar offered.

  "I got them Bouldershoulders and Tied going to Torgar now," Banak told him.

  Wulfgar shook his head. "Not going to Torgar," he corrected. "There is nothing in those tunnels worth this to our enemies," he added, sweeping his arm out to highlight the sheer carnage about the mountain slopes.

  Banak nodded his agreement but kept his real fear unspoken. It was coming clearer to him and to the others, he knew, why the orcs had so desperately played for those tunnels.

  Giants.

  Wulfgar and Catti-brie sprinted away, actually catching and passing by the three dwarves heading to find Torgar.

  "We're going up top," Catti-brie explained to them.

  "Then take me brother!" Ivan called. "He's more help out of doors than in."

  "Me brudder!" shouted Pikel, and he veered from his dwarf companions toward the duo.

  Without complaint, having long before learned to not underestimate and to appreciate the dwarf "doo-dad," Catti-brie and Wulfgar continued along. They got to the southern end of the ridge and began to scale, beside the tunnel entrance from which came the line of wounded.

  "We're holding!" one badly injured but still-walking dwarf proudly called to them.

  "We never doubted that ye would!" Catti-brie yelled back, allowing her Dwarvish accent to strike hard into her inflection. In response, the dwarf punched a fist into the air. The movement had him grimacing with pain, though he tried hard not to let it show.

  Wulfgar led the way up the rocky incline, his great strength and long legs allowing him to scale the broken wall easily. At every difficult juncture, he stopped and turned, reaching down and easily hoisting Catti-brie up beside him. A couple of points presented a more difficult challenge concerning short Pikel, though, for even lying flat on the stone, Wulfgar couldn't reach back that low.

  Pikel merely smiled and waved him back, then went into a series of gyra-tions and chanting, then stopped and stared at the flat stone incline, giggling all the while. The green-bearded dwarf reached forward, his hand going right into the suddenly malleable stone. He reshaped it into one small step after another. Then, giggling still, the dwarf simply walked up beside the two humans and motioned them to move along.

  The top of the ridgeline was broken and uneven but certainly navigable, even with the wind howling across the trio, left to right. Downwind as they were of the western slopes, they actually caught scent of the enemy before ever seeing them.

  They fell back behind a high jut and watched as the first frost giant climbed to the ridge top.

  Catti-brie put up Taulmaril and took deadly aim, but Pikel grabbed the arrow, shook his hairy head, and waggled the finger of his free hand before her, then pointed out to the north.

  Where more giants were coming up.

  "One shot," Wulfgar whispered. He grasped Aegis-fang tightly. "Be running as you let fly."

  "Ready," Catti-brie assured him, and she motioned for Pikel to let go of her arrow, then for him to be off.

  With a porcine squeal, Pikel sprinted out from behind the jut, running full out to the south. The nearest giant howled and pointed and started to give chase.

  But then a streaking arrow hit the behemoth in the chest, staggering him backward, and a spinning warhammer followed the shot, striking in almost exactly the same place. The giant staggered more and tumbled off the western side of the ridge.

  Wulfgar and Catti-brie heard the roar but didn't see it, for they were already in a dead run. They caught up to Pikel near to the southern descent, and without a word, Wulfgar merely scooped the dwarf up in his powerful grasp and ran on, hopping from ledge to ledge all the way back to the ground. Soon after they came down, boulders began to skip all around them, and the trio worked hard to help those dwarves still in the area back into the shelter of the tunnel.

  Not so far in, they rejoined Ivan and Tred, along with Shingles McRuff and a very shaken Torgar Hammerstriker.

  "Casters," Shingles explained to them. "Giant witch reached out and nearly crushed me friend's heart!"

  As he finished, he patted Torgar on the shoulder, but gently.

  "Hurts," Torgar remarked, his voice barely audible. "Hurts a lot."

  "Bah, ye're too tough to fall to a simple witch trick," Shingles assured his friend, and he started to slap Torgar again, but Torgar held up a hand to deny the blow.

  "Giants up above," Wulfgar explained to the dwarves. "We should move in deeper in case they come down."

  "They won't move south," Catti-brie reasoned. "They wanted the high ground, and so they got it."

  "And them orcs ain't coming on anymore, neither," said Shingles. "We dropped the roof on them, but they could've gotten to us by now if they'd wanted to."

  "They have what they came for," Catti-brie replied.

  She
glanced back to the southern exit, and all seemed calm again, the rock shower having ended. Still, Wulfgar and the others gave it some time before daring to exit the tunnel again. The long shadows of twilight greeted them, along with an unsettling quiet that had descended over the region.

  Catti-brie looked back to the main dwarven force, far to the east.

  "Too far for a giant's throw," she said, and she glanced back up at the ridge.

  Wulfgar started up immediately, and the woman went right behind. Back on the ridge top, even in the deepening gloom of night, they quickly came to understand what the assault had been all about. Far to the north on the ridge, giants were hauling huge logs up the western slope, while others were assembling those logs into gigantic war engines. Catti-brie looked back to the dwarves' position, with alarm. The distance was too far for a giant's throw, indeed, but was it too far for the throw of a giant-sized catapult?

  At that moment, it truly hit the woman just how much trouble they were in. For the orcs to sacrifice so many, for them to allow hundreds of their kin to be slaughtered simply to earn a tactical advantage in the preparation of the battlefield, revealed a level of commitment and cunning far beyond anything the woman had ever seen from the wretched, pig-faced creatures.

  "Bruenor's often said that the only reason the orcs and goblins didn't take over the North was that the orcs and goblins were too stupid to fight together," the woman whispered to Wulfgar.

  "And now Bruenor is dead, or soon will be," Wulfgar replied.

  His grim tone confirmed to Catti-brie that he had come to fathom the situation along similar lines.

  They were in trouble.

  CHAPTER 13 DEFINING THE BORDER

  "By the gods, old William, ye could sleep the day away gettin' ready for yer nighttime rest," said Brusco Brawnanvil, first cousin to Banak, the war leader who was making his amazing reputation across the mountains to the west, on the other side of Mithral Hall.

  "Yep," old William—Bill to his friends—HuskenNugget answered, and he let his head slide back to rest against the stone wall of the small tower marking the eastern entrance to the dwarven stronghold. Below their position, the Sur-brin flowed mightily past, sparkling in the afternoon light.

  Soon after the first reports had filtered back to Mithral Hall of monsters stirring in the North, a substantial encampment had been constructed just north of their current position, along the high ground of a mountain arm. But with the desperate retreat from Shallows and the advent of the war in the west, that camp had been all but abandoned, with only a few forward scouts left behind. The dwarves simply didn't have any to spare, and the orcs were pressing them hard in the mountains north of Keeper's Dale. Rumors from Nesmй had forced Clan Battlehammer to tighten the defenses of their tunnels as well, fearing an underground assault.

  In the east, there was nothing but the dance of the Surbrin and the long hours of boredom, made worse for the veteran dwarves because of their knowledge that their kin were fighting and dying in the west.

  Thus, with Banak, Pwent, and their charges—along with the dwarves of Mirabar—making their names in a heroic stand against the pursuing hordes, Brusco, Bill, and the others still in the east just closed their eyes and rested their heads and hoped there'd be orcs enough for them to kill before the war ended.

  "Ain't seen Filbedo in a few days," Brusco remarked.

  Bill cracked open one sleepy eye and said, "He went through to the west, and out across Keeper's Dale, from what I'm hearing."

  "Aye, that he did," said Kingred Doughbeard, who was up above them in the tower, sitting beside the open trapdoor, his back resting along the waist-high wall that ringed the structure's top. "We're not to be relieved fifteen for fifteen no more. Only twenty-five of us left on this side o' the halls, so some'll be pulling shifts two times in a row."

  "Bah!" Brusco snorted. "Wished they'd asked. I'd've gone off to the west!"

  "So would us all," Kingred answered, and he gave a snort. "Exceptin' Bill there. Bill's just looking to sleep."

  "Yep," Bill agreed. "And I'll take the two-times watch. Three times, if ye're wanting. Nine Hells, I'll stay out here all day and all the night."

  "Snoring all the while," said Kingred.

  "Yep," said Bill.

  "Found himself a comfortable spot," Brusco remarked and Kingred laughed again.

  "Yep," said Bill.

  "Well, if ye're gonna sleep, then switch with Kingred," Brusco demanded. "Give me someone to roll bones with, at least."

  "Yep," said Bill.

  He yawned and somehow rolled to his side and up on his feet, then wearily began to climb.

  The noise below, of Kingred, Brusco, and a couple of others they had coaxed from the tunnels to join in their gambling, did little to inhibit the ever-tired dwarf, and soon he was snoring contentedly.

  * * *

  Halfway up the outside wall of the tower, nestled in the dark crevice where the shaped tower edge met the natural stone of the mountain wall, Tos'un Armgo heard the entire conversation. The drow paused at one comfortable juncture and waited, cursing silently—and not for the first time! — the absence of Donnia and Ad'non. They were the stealthy ones of the group, after all, whereas Tos'un was a mere warrior. At least, that's what Donnia and Ad'non were always insisting to him.

  Kaer'lic had given Tos'un a few enchantments to help him as he ran forward scout for Obould, but still, he wasn't overly thrilled with being so exposed, out alone in a nest of tough dwarves.

  Obould wasn't far behind, he told himself. Likely the orc and his minions would overrun the feeble defenses of the encampment to the north within a short time.

  That notion made the drow take a deep breath and turn around, picking his handholds. The cursed, burning ball of fire in the sky had moved behind the mountains by this time, thankfully, extended long shadows over all the area on this eastern slope. Still, it was uncomfortably light by Tos'un's estimations.

  But it was growing darker.

  The time of the drow.

  * * *

  Brusco blew into his cupped hands, then shook them vigorously, rolling the bones around in the cup of his gnarly fingers and callused palms. Then he blew into them again and whispered a quick prayer to Dumathoin, the god of secrets under the mountain.

  He repeated the process, and again, until the other dwarves around the cleared, rolling area began complaining, and one even cuffed him off the back of the head.

  "Throw the damned things, will ye?"

  Of course, the dwarf's annoyance had an awful lot to do with the fact that most of the silver pieces were set before Brusco by that point, as the dwarf had gotten onto a winning streak since sunset, some hours before.

  "Gotta wait for good ol' Dum to tell me what's what," Brusco replied.

  "Throw the damned things!" several shouted at once.

  "Bah!" Brusco snorted and brought his hands back to roll.

  And a horn blew, loud and clear and insistent, and all the dwarves froze in place.

  "South?" one asked.

  The horn blew again. Expecting it, they were able to discern that it had indeed come from the south.

  "What d'ye see, Bill?" Kingred called up.

  The others scrambled out of the tower, moving to higher points so that they could look for the signal fires from their watch-outposts in the southland.

  "Bill?" Kingred called again. "Wake up, ye dolt! Bill!"

  No answer.

  And no snoring, Kingred realized, and there had been none for some time.

  "Bill?" he asked again, more quietly and more concerned.

  "What do ye know?" asked Brusco, running back in.

  Kingred stared up, his expression speaking volumes to the other dwarf.

  "Bill?" Brusco shouted.

  He rushed to the ladder and began a fast climb.

  "Trolls to the south!" came a cry from outside, from the distance. "Trolls to the south!"

  Brusco paused on the ladder and thought, Trolls? What in the Nine Hells a
re trolls doing up here?

  Another horn blew, from the north.

  "Get to the crawls!" Brusco shouted down to Kingred. "Get 'em all to the crawls and get ready to shut 'em tight!"

  Kingred scrambled out, and Brusco looked back up the ladder. He could see one of Bill's feet, hanging out over the open trapdoor.

  "Bill?" he called again.

  The foot didn't move at all.

  A nauseous feeling came over Brusco then, and he forced himself up, slowly, hand over hand. Just below the lip, he slowly reached up and grabbed Bill's foot, giving it a tug.

  "Bill?"

  No movement, no response, no snoring.

  And suddenly, Brusco was blind, completely in darkness. Instinctively, he simply let go and tucked, dropping to the stone floor and landing in a bumpy roll. By the time he came out of it, the veteran warrior had his sword in hand, and he was glad at least to find that he was not blind, that the spell that had dropped over him was an area of darkness and nothing that had actually affected his vision.

  "Get in here!" he cried to his companions. "Magic! And something's got Bill!"

  Other dwarves, led by Kingred, charged back into the tower.

  "Set a catch blanket!" Brusco ordered.

  He rushed back to the base of the ladder and started up again, moving much more quickly. The other dwarves grabbed a pair of blankets, doubling them up. Each taking a corner, they stretched it wide under the trapdoor.

  They heard a commotion above, shouts from Brusco for Bill, and a grunt.

  A dwarf came tumbling down, hitting the side of the blanket and rolling off to thud hard against the floor.

  "Bill!" the four dwarves cried together, abandoning the blanket and rushing to their fallen comrade, a bright line of blood showing across his throat.

  "Get him in to a priest!" one cried, and began to drag Bill away.

  The dwarves rolled toward the door, then stopped and shouted for Brusco when they heard another commotion up above.

  Brusco fell from the darkness, landing hard on the floor. He tried to stand and staggered to the side and would have fallen had not Kingred rushed over and caught him.

  "Damned thing slicked me!" Brusco gasped.