“No,” said Grimsmal, shaking his head as he looked knowingly at Obould. “The whispers are true, then. King Obould’s war is over.”
The chieftain wisely kept his tone flat and non-judgmental, but Dukka’s wide eyes betrayed the general’s shock, albeit briefly.
“We pause to see how many roads are open to us,” Obould explained.
“Roads to victory?” asked General Dukka.
“Victory in ways you cannot yet imagine,” said Obould, and he wagged his large head and showed a confident and toothy grin. For greater effect, he brought one of his huge fists up on the table before him, and clenched it tightly so that the muscles of his bare forearm bulged and twisted to proportions that pointedly reminded the other orcs of the superiority of this creature. Grimsmal was large by orc standards, and a mighty warrior, which was how he had attained the leadership of his warrior tribe, of course. But even he blanched before the spectacle of Obould’s sheer power. Truly it seemed that if the orc king had been holding a block of granite in that hand, he would have easily ground it to dust.
No less overpowering was Obould’s expression of supreme confidence and power, heightened by his disciplined detachment to Kna’s writhing and purring at his side.
Grimsmal and General Dukka left that meeting having no idea what Obould was planning, but having no doubt of Obould’s certainty in that plan. Obould watched them go with a knowing smile that the two would not plot against him. The orc king grabbed Kna and yanked her around before him, deciding that it was time to celebrate.
The body was frozen solid, and Wulfgar and Drizzt could not bend Delly’s arms back down against her. Tenderly, Wulfgar took the blankets from his pack and wrapped them around her, keeping her face exposed to the last, as if he wanted her to see his sincere remorse and sorrow.
“She did not deserve this,” Wulfgar said, standing straight and staring down at the poor woman. He looked at Drizzt, who stood with Guenhwyvar at his side, one hand on the tuft at the back of the panther’s neck. “She had her life in Luskan before I arrived to steal her from it.”
“She chose the road with you.”
“Foolishly,” Wulfgar replied with a self-deprecating laugh and sigh.
Drizzt shrugged as if the point was moot, which of course it was. “Many roads end suddenly, in the wilds and also in the alleyways of Luskan. There is no way of truly knowing where a road will lead until it is walked.”
“Her trust in me was misplaced, I fear.”
“You did not bring her out here to die,” said Drizzt. “Nor did you drive her from the safety of Mithral Hall.”
“I did not hear her calls for help. She told me that she could not suffer the dwarven tunnels, but I would not hear.”
“And her way was clear across the Surbrin, had that been the route she truly wanted. You are no more to blame for this than is Catti-brie, who did not anticipate the reach of that wicked sword.”
The mention of Catti-brie jolted Wulfgar a bit, for he knew that she felt the weight of guilt indeed about Khazid’hea’s apparent role in Delly Curtie’s tragic death.
“Sometimes what is, just is,” said Drizzt. “An accident, a cruel twist of fate, a conjunction of forces that could not have been anticipated.”
Wulfgar nodded, and it seemed as if a great weight had been lifted from his broad shoulders. “She did not deserve this,” he said again.
“Nor did Dagnabbit, nor did Dagna, nor did Tarathiel, and so many others, like those who took Colson across the Surbrin,” said Drizzt. “It is the tragedy of war, the inevitability of armies crashing together, the legacy of orcs and dwarves and elves and humans alike. Many roads end suddenly—it is a reality of which we should all be aware—and Delly could just as easily have fallen to a thief in the dark of Luskan’s night, or have been caught in the middle of a brawl in the Cutlass. We know for certain only one thing, my friend, that we will one day share in Delly’s fate. If we walk our roads solely to avoid such an inevitability, if we step with too much caution and concern…”
“Then we should just as well lie under the snow and let the cold find our bones,” Wulfgar finished. He nodded with every word, assuring Drizzt that he needn’t worry about the weight of harsh reality bending Wulfgar low.
“You will go for Colson?” Drizzt asked.
“How could I not? You speak of our responsibility to ourselves in choosing our roads with courage and acceptance, yet there remains our responsibility to others. Mine is to Colson. It is the pact I willingly accepted when I took her from Meralda of Auckney. Even if I were assured that she was safe with the goodly refugees who crossed the Surbrin, I could not abandon my promise to Colson’s mother, nor to the girl.
“For yourself there is Gauntlgrym?” Wulfgar asked. “Beside Bruenor?”
“That is his expectation, and my duty to him, yes.”
Wulfgar gave a nod and scanned the horizon.
“Perhaps Bruenor is right, and Gauntlgrym will show us an end to this war,” said Drizzt.
“There will be another war close behind,” Wulfgar said with a helpless shrug and chuckle. “It is the way of things.”
“Biggrin,” Drizzt said, drawing a smile from his large friend.
“Indeed,” said Wulfgar. “If we cannot change the way of things, then we are wise to enjoy the journey.”
“You knew that I would duck, yes?”
Wulfgar shrugged. “I figured that if you did not, it was—”
“—the way of things,” Drizzt finished with him.
They shared a laugh and Wulfgar looked down at Delly once more, his face somber. “I will miss her. She was so much more than she appeared. A fine companion and mother. Her road was difficult for all her days, but she oft found within herself a sense of hope and even joy. My life is lessened with her passing. There is a hole within me that will not be easily filled.”
“Which cannot be filled,” Drizzt corrected. “That is the thing of loss. And so you will go on, and you will take solace in your memories of Delly, in the good things you shared. You will see her in Colson, though the girl was not of her womb. You will feel her beside you on occasion, and though the sadness will ever remain, it will settle behind treasured memories.”
Wulfgar bent down and gently slid his arms beneath Delly and lifted her. It didn’t appear as if he was holding a body, for the frozen form did not bend at all. But he hugged her close to his chest and moisture filled his bright blue eyes.
“Do you now hate Obould as much as I do?” Drizzt asked.
Wulfgar didn’t reply, but the answer that came fast into his thoughts surprised him. Obould was just a name to him, not even a symbol on which he could focus his inner turmoil. Somehow he had moved past rage and into acceptance.
It is what it is, he thought, echoing Drizzt’s earlier sentiments, and Obould diminished to become a circumstance, one of many. An orc, a thief, a dragon, a demon, an assassin from Calimport—it did not matter.
“It was good to fight beside you again,” Wulfgar said, and in such a tone as to give Drizzt pause, for the words sounded more like a farewell than anything else.
Drizzt sent Guenhwyvar out to the point, and side-by-side, he and Wulfgar began their trek back to Mithral Hall, with Wulfgar holding Delly close all the way.
CHAPTER 5
TAKING ADVANTAGE
Clan Grimm has turned north,” Toogwik Tuk told his two companions on a clear, calm morning in the middle of Ches, the third month of the year. “King Obould has granted Chieftain Grimsmal a favorable region, a sheltered and wide plateau.”
“To prepare?” asked Ung-thol.
“To build,” Toogwik Tuk corrected. “To raise the banner of Clan Grimm beside the flag of Many-Arrows above their new village.”
“Village?” Dnark asked, spitting the word with surprise.
“King Obould will claim that this is a needed pause to strengthen the lines of supply,” Toogwik Tuk said.
“A reasonable claim,” said Dnark.
“But o
ne we know is only half true,” Toogwik Tuk said.
“What of General Dukka?” asked an obviously agitated Ung-thol. “Has he secured Keeper’s Dale?”
“Yes,” the other shaman answered.
“And so he marches to the Surbrin?”
“No,” said Toogwik Tuk. “General Dukka and his thousands have not moved, though there are rumors that he will assemble several blocks…eventually.”
Dnark and Ung-thol exchanged concerned glances.
“King Obould would not allow that collection of warriors to filter back to their tribes,” Dnark said. “He would not dare.”
“But will he send them around to strike at the dwarves at the Surbrin?” asked Ung-thol. “The dwarf battlements grow higher with each passing day.”
“We expected Obould would not proceed,” Toogwik Tuk reminded. “Is that not why we coaxed Grguch to the surface?”
Looking at his co-conspirators, Toogwik Tuk recognized that typical doubt right before the moment of truth. The three had long shared their concerns that Obould was veering from the path of conquest, and that was something they, as followers of Gruumsh One-eye, could not suffer. Their shared expectations, however, were that the war was not quite over, and that Obould would strike hard one more time at least, to gain a more advantageous position before his halt.
Leaving the dwarves open to the Surbrin had seemed a more distinct possibility over the past few months, and particularly the past few tendays. The weather was soon to turn, and the appropriate forces were not being moved into a strike position.
Still, in the face of it, the other two couldn’t help but be surprised—and concerned, as the weight of their conspiracy settled more heavily on their shoulders.
“Turn them against the elf raiders in the east,” Toogwik Tuk said suddenly, jolting his two companions, both of whom looked at him curiously, almost plaintively.
“We had hoped to use Grguch to force the charge to the Surbrin,” Toogwik Tuk explained. “But with Obould’s waiting to position the warriors, that is not presently an option. But we must offer Grguch some blood.”
“Or he will take ours,” Ung-thol muttered.
“There have been reports of elf skirmishers along the Surbrin, north of the dwarves,” Dnark said, aiming his comment mostly at Ung-thol.
“Grguch and Clan Karuck will build a reputation that will serve them—and us—well when at last it comes to dealing with King Bruenor’s troublesome beasts,” Toogwik Tuk nudged. “Let us go and bring the Kingdom of Many-Arrows its newest hero.”
Like a leaf fluttering silently on a midnight breeze, the dark elf slipped quietly to the side of the darkened stone and mud structure. The orc guards hadn’t noted his quiet passing, nor was he leaving any obvious tracks on the frozen snow.
No corporeal creature could move more stealthily than a trained drow, and Tos’un Armgo was proficient even by the lofty standards of his race.
He paused at the wall and glanced around at the cluster of structures—the village of Tungrush, he knew through the conversations he had overheard from various “villagers.” He noted the foundation, even a growing base in several places, of a wall that would eventually ring the compound.
Too late, the drow thought with an evil grin.
He inched toward an opening in the house’s back wall, though whether it was an actual window or just a gap that had not yet been properly fitted, he could not tell. Nor did it matter, for the missing stone provided ample egress for the lithe creature. Tos’un slithered in like a snake, walking his hands down the inside of the wall until they braced him against the floor. His roll, like all of his other movements, was executed without a whisper of sound.
The room was nearly pitch black, the meager starlight barely filtering through the many breaks in the stone. A surface dweller would have had little chance of quietly navigating the cluttered place. But to Tos’un, who had lived almost all of his life in the lightless corridors of the Underdark, the place verily glowed with brightness. He stood in the main room, twice the size of the smaller chamber sectioned by an interior wall that extended from the front wall to within three feet of the back. From beyond that partition, he heard snoring.
His two swords, one drow made and the other, the sentient and fabulous Khazid’hea, came out in his hands as he silently approached. At the wall, he peeked in to see a large orc sleeping comfortably, face down on a cot against the house’s outer side wall. In the corner near the front of the house rested a large pile of rags.
He meant to quietly slide his sword into the orc’s lungs, defeating its shout and finishing it quickly and silently. Khazid’hea, though, had other ideas, and as Tos’un neared and readied the strike, the sword overwhelmed him with a sudden and unexpected burst of sheer outrage.
Down came the blade, through the back of the orc’s neck, severing its head and cutting through the wooden frame of the cot with ease, sparking off the floor and drawing a deep line in the hard ground. The cot dropped at the break, clunking down.
Behind Tos’un the rags rose fast, for under them was another orc, a female. Purely on reflex, the drow drove his other arm around, his fine Menzoberranyr sword coming in hard against the female’s neck and pinning her up against the wall. That blade could have easily opened her throat, of course, but as he struck, Tos’un, for some reason that had not consciously registered, turned to the flat edge. He had the orc’s voice choked off, and a line of blood appeared above the blade, but the creature was not finished.
For Khazid’hea would not suffer that inferior sword to score a kill.
Tos’un shushed the orc, who trembled but did not, could not, resist.
Khazid’hea plunged through her chest, right out her back and into, and through, the stones of the house’s front wall.
Surprised by his own movement, Tos’un fast retracted the blade.
The orc stared at him with disbelief. She slipped down to the floor and died with that same expression.
Are you always so hungry? the drow’s thoughts asked the sentient sword.
He sensed that Khazid’hea was laughing in response.
It didn’t matter anyway, of course. It was just an orc, and even if it had been a superior being, Tos’un Armgo never shied from killing. With the witnesses dispatched, the alarms silenced, the drow went back into the main chamber and found the couple’s store of food. He ate and drank, and replenished his pack and his waterskin. He took his time, perfectly at ease, and searched the house for anything that might be of service to him. He even went back into the bedroom, and on a whim, placed the male orc’s severed head between its legs, its face pressed into its arse.
He considered his work with a resigned shrug. Like his food, the lonely drow had to take his amusement where he could find it.
He went out soon after, through the same window that had allowed him access. The night was dark—still the time of the drow. He found the orc guards no more alert than when he had come in, and he thought to kill them for their lack of discipline.
A movement in some distant trees caught his attention, however, and the drow was fast to the shadows. It took him some time to realize…
There were elves about.
Tos’un wasn’t really surprised. Many Moonwood elves had been reconnoitering the various orc settlements and caravan routes. He had been captured by just such a band not so many tendays before, and had thought to join with them after deceiving them into believing that he was not their enemy.
Or was it really a deception? Tos’un hadn’t yet decided. Surely a life among the elves would be better than what he had. He’d thought that then, and thought it again with wretched orc food still heavy in his belly.
But it was not an option, he reminded himself. Drizzt Do’Urden was with the elves, and Drizzt knew that he, Tos’un, had been part and party to King Obould’s advance. Furthermore, Drizzt would take Khazid’hea from him, no doubt, and without the sword, Tos’un would be vulnerable to the spells of priests, detecting any lies he might need t
o weave.
Tos’un shook the futile debate from his thoughts before Khazid’hea could weigh in, and tried to get a better idea of how many elves might be watching Tungrush. He tried to pick out more movement, but found nothing substantial. The drow was wiser than to take any sense of relief from that, however, for he knew well that the elves could move with stealth akin to his own. They had, after all, surrounded him once without him ever knowing they were near.
He went out carefully, even calling upon his natural drow abilities and summoning a globe of darkness around him at one point, as he broke past the tree line. He continued his scan afterward, and even did a wide circuit of the village.
The perimeter was thick with elves, so Tos’un melted away into the winter night.
Albondiel’s sword cut the air, and cut the throat of the orc. Gasping and clawing, the creature spun and stumbled. An arrow drove into its side, dropping it to the red-stained snow.
Another orc emerged from a house and shouted for the guards.
But the guards were all dead. All of them lay out on the perimeter, riddled with elven arrows. No alarms had sounded. The orcs of the village had not a whisper of warning.
The shouting, frantic orc tried to run, but an arrow drove her to her knees and an elf warrior was fast to her side, his sword silencing her forever.
After the initial assault, no orcs had come out in any semblance of defense. Almost all the remaining orcs were running, nothing more, to the edge of the village and beyond, willy-nilly into the snow. Most soon lay dead well within the village’s perimeter, for the elves were ready, and fast and deadly with their bows.
“Enough,” Albondiel called to his warriors and to the archers who moved to launch a barrage of death on the remaining fleeing orcs. “Let them run. Their terror works in our favor. Let them spread the word of doom, that more will flee beside them.”
“You have little taste for this,” noted another elf, a young warrior standing at Albondiel’s side.
“I shy not at all from killing orcs,” Albondiel answered, turning a stern gaze the upstart’s way. “But this is less battle than slaughter.”
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