The Orc King t-1

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  Drizzt charged to join his friend, but noted a movement to his right that he could not dismiss. Looking past the thrashing, cursing, hanging Thibble dorf, he saw the gigantic, batlike creature drop from the canopy, spreading black wings fully forty feet across as it commenced its swoop. The air shimmered in front of it before it ever really began, though. It sent forth a wave of devastating magical energy that struck the drow with tremendous force.

  Drizzt felt his heart stop as if it had been grabbed by a giant hand. Blood came from his eyes and blackness filled his vision. He staggered and stumbled, and as the nightwing came on, he knew he was helpless. He did see, but didn’t consciously register, Thibble dorf Pwent curling up against the canopy, tucking his feet against the stone.

  Torgar Hammerstriker, proud warrior from Mirabar, whose family had served the various Marchions of Mirabar for generations, and who had bravely marched from that city to Mithral Hall, pledging allegiance to King Bruenor, could not believe his fright. Torgar Hammerstriker, who had leaped headlong into an army of orcs, who had battled giants and giant mottled worms, who had once fought a dragon, cursed himself for being held in the paralysis of fear from the black-skinned behemoth.

  He saw Drizzt stagger and stumble, and noted the swoop of the giant batlike creature. But he went for Bruenor, only for Bruenor, his king, his great-axe held high.

  Beside him as he sped past, Cordio Muffinhead cast the first of his spells, throwing a wave of magic out at Bruenor that infused the dwarf king with added strength so that with his next swing, his many-notched axe bit in a little deeper. Cordio, too, turned to meet the rush of the nightwing, and deduced immediately that it had somehow rendered Drizzt helpless. The dwarf began another spell, but doubted he could cast it in time.

  But Thibble dorf Pwent loosed his own type of spell, a battlerager dweomer, indeed. With a roar of defiance, the already battered dwarf shoved off with all his strength, his powerful legs tearing free his embedded hand spikes with a terrible screeching noise. Pwent flew out and up backward from the canopy and executed a half-twist, half-somersault as he went.

  He came around as the nightwing glided under him, and he punched out, one fist after another, latching on with forged metal spikes.

  The nightwing dipped under the dwarf’s weight as he crashed down on its back, then it shrieked in protest. It finished with a great intake of breath, and Pwent felt it grow cold beneath him—not as if in death, but magically so, as if he had leaped not on a living, giant bat, but upon the Great Glacier itself.

  The nightwing started to swing its head, but Pwent moved faster, tucking his chin and snapping every muscle in his body to propel himself forward and down, driving his head spike into the base of the nightwing’s skull. The sheer power of the dwarf’s movement straightened the creature’s head back out and facing forward as the nightwing executed its magic, breathing a cone of freezing air before it.

  Unfortunately for the humanoid giant, it stood right in the path of the devastating cone of cold.

  The behemoth roared in protest and thrashed its arms to block the blinding and painful breath. White frost appeared all over the black skin of its head, arms, and chest, and strictly on reflex the giant punched out as the frantic night wing fluttered past, scoring a solid slam against the base of its wing that sent both bat and dwarf into a fast-spinning plummet. They soared over the stairs and off toward the towers, skipped off the top of one building and barreled into another, crashing down in a tangled heap.

  Thibble dorf Pwent never stopped shouting, cursing, or thrashing.

  Drizzt fought through the pain and wiped the blurriness from his bloodied eyes. He had no time to go after Pwent and the giant shadowy bat. None of them did, for the black-skinned giant was far from defeated.

  Bruenor and Torgar raced across the stairs, swatting at the tree-like legs with their masterwork weapons, and indeed several gashes showed on those legs, and from them issued grayish ooze that smoked as it dribbled to the ground. But they would have to hit the giant a hundred times to fell it, Drizzt realized, and if the behemoth connected solidly on either of them but once….

  Drizzt winced as the nightwalker kicked out, just clipping the dodging Torgar, but still hitting him hard enough to send him bouncing down the stone stairs, his axe flying from his grasp. Knowing that Bruenor couldn’t stand alone against the beast, Drizzt started for him, but stumbled, still weak and wounded, disoriented from the magical attack of the flying creature.

  The drow felt another magical intrusion then, a wave of soothing, healing energy, and as he renewed his charge Bruenor’s way, he managed a quick glance, a quick nod of appreciation, to Cordio.

  As he did, he noted Regis simply walking away, muttering to himself, as if oblivious to the events unfolding around him.

  As with Pwent, though, the drow had no time to concern himself with it, and when he refocused on his giant target, he winced in fear, for the behemoth chopped down its huge hand, leaving a trail of blackness hanging in the air, and more than opaque, that blackness had dimension.

  A magical gate. And one with shapes already moving within its inviting swirls.

  Drizzt took heart as Bruenor scored a solid hit, nearly tripping up the giant as it lifted a foot to stomp at him. The nightwalker howled and grabbed at its torn foot, giving Bruenor time to move safely aside, and more importantly, giving Torgar time to begin his charge back up the stairs, limping though he was.

  Drizzt, though, had stopped his own advance. The warnings of the priests echoing in his thoughts, the drow pulled forth his onyx figurine. He could see the dangers clearly, the instability of the region, the appearance of a gate to the Plane of Shadow. But as the first wraith-like form began to slide through that smoky portal, Drizzt knew they could not win without help.

  “Come to me, Guenhwyvar!” he yelled, and dropped the statue to the stone. “I need you.”

  “Drizzt, no!” Cordio cried, but it was too late, already the gray mist that would become the panther had begun to form.

  Torgar sprinted by the drow, taking the stairs two at a time. He veered from his path to the behemoth to intercept the first floating, shadowy creature to emerge from the gate, which resembled an emaciated human dressed in tattered dark gray robes. Torgar leaped at it with a great two-handed swipe of his axe, and the creature, a dread wraith, met that with a sweep of its arm, trailing tendrils of smoke.

  The axe struck home and the creature’s hand slapped across the dwarf’s shoulder, its permeating and numbing touch reaching into Torgar and leaching his life-force. Blanching, weaker, Torgar growled through the sudden weariness and pulled back his axe, spinning a complete circuit the other way and coming around with a second chop that bludgeoned the dread wraith straight back into the smoky portal.

  But another was taking its place, and Torgar’s legs shook beneath him. He hadn’t the strength to charge, so he tried to firm himself up to meet the newest wraith’s approach.

  Leaving Drizzt with a dilemma, to be sure, for while Torgar obviously needed his help, so did Bruenor up above, where the giant was moving deliberately, cutting off the dwarf’s avenues of escape.

  But the choice didn’t materialize, for there came a flash of blackness and time seemed to stand still for many long heartbeats.

  Light turned to dark and dark to light, so that the giant seemed to become a brighter gray in hue, as did Drizzt, and the dwarves’ faces darkened. Everything reversed, torches flaring black, and the hush of surprise engulfed the creatures of shadow and the companions alike.

  Guenhwyvar’s roar broke the spell.

  When Drizzt turned to see his beloved companion, his hope turned to horror, for Guenhwyvar, whiter than Drizzt or the behemoth, seemed only half-formed, and she elongated as she leaped for the second emerging wraith, as if she were somehow dragging her magical gate with her very form. She hit the wraith and went back into the shadow portal with it, and as those two portals merged into a weird weave of conflicting energies, there came another blinding b
urst of black energy. The wraith hissed in protest, and Guenhwyvar’s roar flooded with pain.

  The behemoth howled, too, its agony obvious. The portal stretched, twisted, and reached out to grab at the gigantic creature of shadow, as if to bring it home.

  No, Drizzt realized, his eyes straining to make sense through the myriad of free-flowing shapes, not to bring it home but as if to engulf the giant and swallow it, and the behemoth’s howls only confirmed that the assault of the twisting portals was no pleasant embrace.

  The giant proved the stronger, though, and the portals winked out, and the light returned to normal torch-and lichen light, and all was as it had been before the giant had enacted its gate and Drizzt had responded with one of his own.

  Except that the behemoth was clearly wounded, clearly off-balance and staggering. And not everyone had been frozen by the stunning events of the merging gates and the dizzying reversals of light and dark.

  Far up the stairs, King Bruenor Battlehammer seized the moment of opportunity. He came down like a rolling boulder, skipped out to the edge of a stair, and leaped as high and as far as his short legs would carry him.

  Drizzt charged at the behemoth, demanding its attention with a wild flurry of his blades and a piercing battle cry, and so the giant was fully focused on him when Bruenor’s axe, clutched in both his hands, cracked into its spine.

  The behemoth threw its shoulders back in pain and surprise, its elbows tucked against its ribs, its forearms and long fingers flailing and grabbing at the empty air.

  Drizzt’s charge became real, focused, and he went right for the giant’s most obviously injured leg, his scimitars digging many lines as he quick-stepped past.

  The behemoth whirled to follow the movements of the drow, and Bruenor could not hold on. His axe remained deep into the giant’s back as the dwarf flew off down the stairs. He crashed in a twisted mess, but Cordio was there at once, infusing him with waves of magical healing.

  The giant grimaced and staggered, and Drizzt easily got out of reach. He turned fast, thinking to charge right back in.

  But he paused when he saw a tell-tale mist reappearing by the small figurine lying on the stairs.

  The giant set itself again. It tried to reach back to extract the dwarf’s axe, but the placement prevented it from getting any grip. Down below, Torgar tried to join in, but his legs gave out and he slumped to the stone. No help would come soon from Bruenor, either, Drizzt could see, nor from Cordio, who attended the dwarf king. And Regis was nowhere to be seen.

  Giving up on the axe, the behemoth turned its hateful glare at Drizzt. The drow felt a wave of energy flow forth, and for just an instant, he forgot where he was or what was happening. In that split second, he even thought about leaping down at the dwarves, somehow envisioning them as mortal enemies.

  But the spell, a dizzying enchantment of confusion, could not take hold on the veteran dark elf the way it had so debilitated Regis, and Drizzt leaped down to the side, coming to the same level as the giant, surrendering the higher ground to limit the giant’s attack options. Better to force it to reach for him, he thought, and better still for it to try to stomp or kick at him.

  The giant did just that, lifting its leg, and Guenhwyvar did just as Drizzt wanted and sprang upon the one planted leg, raking at the back of the behemoth’s knee.

  In charged Drizzt, forcing the giant to twist, or try to twist, to keep pace. The drow’s magical anklets allowed him to accelerate suddenly past the stomping foot, and he reversed immediately, spinning and slashing at the back of the leading leg. The giant twisted and tried to kick, but Guenhwyvar clamped powerful jaws on the back of its knee, feline fangs tearing deep into dark muscle.

  That leg buckled. Arms flailing, the giant fell over backward down the stairs, landing with a tremendous, stone-crunching crash, and just missing crushing poor unconscious Torgar.

  Drizzt sprinted and leaped atop it, running down its length to reach its neck before it could bring its arms in to fend him off. Drizzt found less resistance than he expected, for the giant’s fall had driven Bruenor’s axe in all the deeper, severing its spine.

  The behemoth was helpless, and Drizzt showed it no mercy. He crossed its massive chest. Its head was back due to the angle of the stairs, leaving its neck fully exposed.

  He leaped from the gurgling, dying behemoth a moment later, landing gracefully on the stairs in full run, angling toward where the batlike creature and Pwent had tumbled. It was quiet there, the fight apparently ended, and Drizzt winced when he saw a leathery wing flop, thinking the monster still alive.

  But it was just Pwent, he saw, grumbling as he extracted himself from the broken body.

  Drizzt veered back the way they’d come, thinking to go after Regis, but before he could even begin, Regis appeared between the buildings, walking back swiftly toward the group, his mace in hand, his chubby cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  “It took me strength, me king,” Torgar Hammerstriker was saying when Drizzt, Guenhwyvar in tow, moved back to the three dwarves. “Like it pulled me spine right out.”

  “A wraith,” explained Cordio, who was still working on the battered Bruenor, bandaging a cut along the dwarf king’s scalp. “Their chilling touch steals yer inner strength—and it can suren kill ye to death if it gets enough o’ the stuff from ye! Take heart, for ye’ll be fine in a short bit.”

  “As will me king?” Torgar asked.

  “Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Got me a bigger bounce fallin’ off me throne after a proper blessing to Moradin. A night o’ the holy mead’s hurtin’ me more than that thing e’er could!”

  Torgar moved over to the dead giant and tried to lift its shoulder. He looked back at the others, shaking his head. “Gonna be a chore for ten in gettin’ back yer axe,” he said.

  “Then take yer own and cut yer way through the durned thing,” Bruenor ordered.

  Torgar considered the giant, then looked to his great-axe. He gave a “hmm” and a shrug, spat in both his hands, and hoisted the weapon. “Won’t take long,” he promised. “But take care with yer axe when I get it for ye, for the handle’s sure to be slick.”

  “Nah, it crusts when it dries,” came a voice from the side, and the group turned to regard Thibble dorf Pwent, who certainly knew of what he spoke. For Pwent was covered in blood and gore from the thrashing he had given the batlike monster, and a piece of the creature’s skull was still stuck to his great head spike, with gobs of bloody brain sliding slowly down the spike’s stem. To emphasize his point, Pwent held up his hand and clenched and unclenched his fist, making sounds both sloppy wet and crunchy.

  “And what happened to yerself?” Pwent demanded of Regis as the halfling approached. “Ye find something to hit back there, did ye?”

  “I don’t know,” the halfling honestly answered.

  “Bah, let off the little one,” Bruenor told Pwent, and he included all the others as he swept his gaze around. “Ain’t nothing chasing Rumblebelly off.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” Regis said to Bruenor, and he looked at the dead giant and shrugged. “For any of it.”

  “Magic,” said Drizzt. “The creatures were possessed of more than physical prowess, as is typical of extraplanar beings. One of those spells attacked the mind. A disorienting dweomer.”

  “True enough, elf,” Cordio agreed. “It delayed me spellcasting.”

  “Bah, but I didn’t feel nothing,” said Pwent.

  “Attacked the mind,” Bruenor remarked. “Yerself was well defended.”

  Pwent paused and pondered that for a few moments before bursting into laughter.

  “What is this place?” Torgar asked at length, finding the strength to rise and walk, taking in the sights, the sculpture, the strange designs.

  “Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor declared, his dark eyes gleaming with intensity.

  “Then yer Gauntlgrym was a town above the ground,” said Torgar, and Bruenor glared at him.

  “This place was above ground, me king,”
Torgar answered that look. “All of it. This building and those, too. This plaza, set with stones to protect from the mud o’ the spring melt….” He looked at Cordio, then Drizzt, who nodded his agreement. “Something must’ve melted the tundra beneath the whole of it. Turned it all to mud and sank this place from sight.”

  “And the melts bring water, every year,” Cordio added, pointing to the north. “Washing away the mud, bucket by bucket, but leaving the stones behind.”

  “Yer answer’s in the ceiling,” Torgar explained, pointing up. “Can ye get a light up there, priest?”

  Cordio nodded and moved away from Bruenor. He began casting again, gently waving his arms, creating a globe of light up at the cavern’s ceiling, right at the point where it joined in with the top of the great building before them. Some tell-tale signs were revealed with that light, confirming Torgar’s suspicions.

  “Roots,” the Mirabarran dwarf explained. “Can’t be more than a few feet o’ ground between that roof and the surface. And these taller buildings’re acting like supports to keep that ceiling up. The tangle o’ roots and the frozen ground’re doin’ the rest. Whole place sank, I tell ye, for these buildings weren’t built for the Underdark.”

  Bruenor looked at the ceiling, then at Drizzt, but the drow could only nod his agreement.

  “Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Gauntlgrym was akin to Mirabar, then, and ye’re for knowin’ that. So this must be the top o’ the place, with more below. All we need be looking for is a shaft to take us to the lower levels, akin to that rope and come-along dumbwaiter ye got in Mirabar. Now let’s see what this big place is all about—important building, I’m thinking. Might be a throne room.”

  Torgar nodded and Pwent ran up in front of Bruenor to lead the way up the stairs, with Cordio close on his heels. Torgar, though, lagged behind, something Drizzt didn’t miss.