The Orc King

We construct our days, bit by bit, tenday by tenday, year by year. Our lives take on a routine, and then we bemoan that routine. Predictability, it seems, is a double-edged blade of comfort and boredom. We long for it, we build it, and when we find it, we reject it.

Because while change is not always growth, growth is always rooted in change. A finished person, like a finished house, is a static thing. Pleasant, perhaps, or beautiful or admirable, but not for long exciting.

King Bruenor has reached the epitome, the pinnacle, the realization of every dream a dwarf could fathom. And still King Bruenor desires change, though he would refuse to phrase it that way, admitting only his love of adventure. He has found his post, and now seeks reasons to abandon that post at every turn. He seeks, because inside of him he knows that he must seek to grow. Being a king will make Bruenor old before his time, as the old saying goes.

Not all people are possessed of such spirits. Some desire and cling to the comfort of the routine, to the surety that comes with the completion of the construction of life’s details. On the smaller scale, they become wedded to their daily routines. They become enamored of the predictability. They calm their restless souls in the confidence that they have found their place in the multiverse, that things are the way they are supposed to be, that there are no roads left to explore and no reason to wander.

On the larger scale, such people become fearful and resentful—sometimes to extremes that defy logic—of anyone or anything that intrudes on that construct. A societal change, a king’s edict, an attitude shift in the neighboring lands, even events that have nothing to do with them personally can set off a reaction of dissonance and fear. When Lady Alustriel initially allowed me to walk the streets of Silverymoon openly, she found great resistance. Her people, well protected by one of the finest armies in all the land and by a leader whose magical abilities are renowned throughout the world, did not fear Drizzt Do’Urden. Nay, they feared the change that I represented. My very presence in Silvery-moon infringed upon the construct of their lives, threatened their understanding of the way things were, threatened the way things were supposed to be. Even though, of course, I posed no threat to them whatsoever.

That is the line we all straddle, between comfort and adventure. There are those who find satisfaction, even fulfillment, in the former, and there are those who are forever seeking.

It is my guess, and can only be my guess, that the fears of the former are rooted in fear of the greatest mystery of all, death. It is no accident that those who construct the thickest walls are most often rooted firmly, immovably, in their faith. The here and now is as it is, and the better way will be found in the afterlife. That proposition is central to the core beliefs that guide the faithful, with, for many, the added caveat that the afterlife will only fulfill its promise if the here and now remains in strict accord with the guiding principles of the chosen deity.

I count myself among the other group, the seekers. Bruenor, too, obviously so, for he will ever be the discontented king. Cattibrie cannot be rooted. There is no sparkle in her eyes greater than the one when she looks upon a new road. And even Regis, for all his complaints regarding the trials of the road, wanders and seeks and fights. Wulfgar, too, will not be confined. He has seen his life in Mithral Hall and has concluded, rightfully and painfully, that there is for him a better place and a better way. It saddens me to see him go. For more than a score of years he has been my friend and companion, a trusted arm in battle and in life. I miss him dearly, every day, and yet when I think of him, I smile for him. Wulfgar has left Mithral Hall because he has outgrown all that this place can offer, because he knows that in Icewind Dale he will find a home where he will do more good—for himself and for those around him.

I, too, hold little faith that I will live out my days in Bruenor’s kingdom. It is not just boredom that propels my steps along paths unknown, but a firm belief that the guiding principle of life must be a search not for what is, but for what could be. To look at injustice or oppression, at poverty or slavery, and shrug helplessly, or worse to twist a god’s “word” to justify such states, is anathema to the ideal, and to me, the ideal is achieved only when the ideal is sought. The ideal is not a gift from the gods, but a promise from them.

We are possessed of reason. We are possessed of generosity. We are possessed of sympathy and empathy. We have within us a better nature, and it is one that cannot be confined by the constructed walls of anything short of the concept of heaven itself. Within the very logic of that better nature, a perfect life cannot be found in a world that is imperfect.

So we dare to seek. So we dare to change. Even knowing that we will not get to “heaven” in this life is no excuse to hide within the comfort of routine. For it is in that seeking, in that continual desire to improve ourselves and to improve the world around us, that we walk the road of enlightenment, that we eventually can approach the gods with heads bowed in humility, but with confidence that we did their work, that we tried to lift ourselves and our world to their lofty standards, the image of the ideal.

— Drizzt Do’Urden

CHAPTER 15 CONVERGENCE OF CRISES

Magical horses striding long, the fiery chariot cut a line of orange across the pre-dawn sky. Flames whipped in the driving wind, but for the riders they did not burn. Standing beside Lady Alustriel, Catti-brie felt that wind indeed, her auburn hair flying wildly behind her, but the bite of the breeze was mitigated by the warmth of Alustriel’s animated cart. She lost herself in that sensation, allowing the howl of the wind to deafen her thoughts as well. For a short time, she was free to just exist, under the last twinkling stars with all of her senses consumed by the extraordinary nature of the journey.

She didn’t see the approaching silver line of the Surbrin, and was only vaguely aware of a dip in altitude as Alustriel brought the conjured chariot down low over the water, and to a running stop on the ground outside the eastern door of Mithral Hall.

Few dwarves were out at that early hour, but those who were, mostly those standing guard along the northern wall, came running and cheering for the Lady of Silverymoon. For of course they knew it was she, whose chariot had graced them several times over the past few months.

Their cheering grew all the louder when they noted Alustriel’s passenger, the Princess of Mithral Hall.

“Well met,” more than one of the bearded folk greeted.

“King Bruenor’s not yet returned,” said one, a grizzled old sort, with one eye lost and patched over, and half his great black beard torn away. Catti-brie smiled as she recognized the fierce and fiercely loyal Shingles McRuff, who had come to Mithral Hall beside Torgar Hammerstriker. “Should be along any day.”

“And be knowin’ that ye’re all welcome, and that ye’ll find all the hospitality o’ Mithral Hall for yerself,” another dwarf offered.

“That is most generous,” said Alustriel. She turned and looked back to the east as she continued, “More of my people—wizards from Silverymoon—will be coming in throughout the morn, on all manner of flight, some self-propelled and some riding ebony flies, and two on broomsticks and another on a carpet. I pray your archers will not shoot them down.”

“Ebony flies?” Shingles replied. “Flying on bugs, ye mean?”

“Big bugs,” said Catti-brie.

“Would have to be.”

“We come armed with spells of creation, for we wish to see the bridge across the Surbrin opened and secure as soon as possible,” Alustriel explained. “For the sake of Mithral Hall and for all the goodly kingdoms of the Silver Marches.”

“More well met, then!” bellowed Shingles, and he led yet another cheer.

Catti-brie moved toward the back edge of the chariot, but Alustriel took her by the shoulder. “We can fly out to the west and seek King Bruenor,” she offered.

Catti-brie paused and looked that way, but shook her head and replied, “He will return presently, I’m sure.”

Catti-brie accepted Shingles’s offered hand, and let the dwarf ease her down to the ground. Shingles was quick to Alustriel, similarly helping her, and the Lady, though not injured as was Catti-brie, graciously accepted. She moved back from her cart and motioned for the others to follow.

Alustriel could have simply dismissed the flaming chariot and the horses made of magical fire. Dispelling her own magic was easy work, of course, and the fiery team and cart alike would have flared for an instant before they winked into blackness, a final puff of smoke drifting and dissipating into the air.

But Lady Alustriel had been using that particular spell for many years, and had put her own flavor into it, both in the construction of the cart and team and in the dismissal of the magic. Figuring that the dwarves could use a bit of spirit-lifting, the powerful wizardess performed her most impressive variation of the dispelling.

The horse team snorted and reared, flames shooting from swirling, fiery nostrils. As one, they leaped into the air, straight up, the cart lurching behind them. Some twenty feet off the ground, the many sinews of fire that held the form broke apart, orange tendrils soaring every which way, and as they reached their limits, exploded with deafening bangs, throwing showers of sparks far and wide.

The dwarves howled with glee, and Catti-brie, for all of her distress, couldn’t contain a giggle.

When it ended a few heartbeats later, their ears ringing with the echoes of the retorts, their eyes blinking against the sting of the brilliant flashes, Catti-brie offered an appreciative smile to her friend and driver.

“It was just the enchantment they needed,” she whispered, and Alustriel replied with a wink.

They went into Mithral Hall side-by-side.

Early the next morning, Shingles again found himself in the role of official greeter in the region east of the hall’s eastern gate, for it was he who first caught up with the six adventurers returning from the place Bruenor had named Gauntlgrym. The old Mirabarran dwarf had directed the watch overnight, and was sorting out assignments for the workday, both along the fortifications on the northern mountain spur and at the bridge. No stranger to the work of wizards, Shingles repeatedly warned his boys to stay well back when Alustriel’s gang came out to work their dweomers. When word came that King Bruenor and the others had returned, Shingles moved fast to the south to intercept them.

“Did ye find it, then, me king?” he asked excitedly, giving voice to the thoughts and whispers of all the others around him.

“Aye,” Bruenor replied, but in a tone surprisingly unenthusiastic. “We found something, though we’re not for knowing if it’s Gauntlgrym just yet.” He motioned to the large sack that Torgar carried, and the rolled tapestry slung over Cordio’s shoulder. “We’ve some things for Nanfoodle and me scholars to look over. We’ll get our answers.”

“Yer girl’s come home,” Shingles explained. “Lady Alustriel flew her in on that chariot o’ fire. And the Lady’s here, too, along with ten Silverymoon wizards, all come to work on the bridge.”

Bruenor, Drizzt, and Regis exchanged glances as Shingles finished.

“Me girl alone?” Bruenor asked.

“With the Lady.”

Bruenor stared at Shingles.

“Wulfgar’s not returned with ’em,” the old Mirabarran dwarf said. “Catti-brie said nothing of it, and I didn’t think it me place to ask.”

Bruenor looked to Drizzt.

“He is far west,” the drow said quietly, and Bruenor inadvertently glanced out that way then nodded.

“Get me to me girl,” Bruenor instructed as he started off at a swift pace for Mithral Hall’s eastern door.

They found Catti-brie, Lady Alustriel, and the Silverymoon wizards not far down the corridor inside, the lot of them having spent the night in the hall’s easternmost quarters. After a quick and polite greeting, Bruenor begged the Lady’s pardon, and Alustriel and her wizards quickly departed the hall, heading for the Surbrin bridge.

“Where’s he at?” Bruenor asked Catti-brie when it was just the two of them, Drizzt, and Regis.

“You’re knowing well enough.”

“Ye found Colson, then?”

Catti-brie nodded.

“And he’s taking her home,” Bruenor stated.

Another nod. “I offered to journey with him,” Catti-brie explained, and she glanced at Drizzt and was relieved to see him smile at that news. “But he would not have me along.”

“Because the fool ain’t for coming back,” said Bruenor, and he spat and stalked off. “Durned fool son of an over-sized orc.”

Drizzt motioned to Regis to go with Bruenor, and the halfling nodded and trotted away.

“I think Bruenor is right,” Catti-brie said, and she shook her head in futile denial, then rushed over and wrapped Drizzt in a tight hug and kissed him deeply. She put her head on his shoulder, not relenting a bit in her embrace. She sniffed back tears.

“He knew that Wulfgar would not likely return,” Drizzt whispered.

Catti-brie pushed him back to arms’ length. “As did yourself, but you didn’t tell me,” she said.

“I honored Wulfgar’s wishes. He was not sure of where his road would lead, but he did not wish discussion of it all the way to Silvery-moon and beyond.”

“If I had known along our road, I might’ve been able to change his mind,” Catti-brie protested.

Drizzt gave her a helpless look. “More the reason to not tell you.”

“You agree with Wulfgar’s choice?”

“I think it is not my place to agree or to argue,” Drizzt said with a shrug.

“You think it’s his place to be deserting Bruenor at this time of—?”

“This time or any time.”

“How can you say that? Wulfgar is family to us, and he just left…”

“As you and I did those years ago, after the drow war when Wulfgar fell to the yochlol,” Drizzt reminded her. “We longed for the road and so we took to the road, and left Bruenor to his hall. For six years.”

That reminder seemed to deflate Catti-brie’s ire quite a bit. “But now Bruenor’s got an army of orcs on his doorstep,” she protested, but with far less enthusiasm.

“An army that will likely be there for years to come. Wulfgar told me that he could not see his future here. And truly, what is there for him here? No wife, no children.”

“And it pained him to look upon us.”

Drizzt nodded. “Likely.”

“He told me as much.”

“And so you wear a mantle of guilt?”

Catti-brie shrugged.

“It doesn’t suit you,” Drizzt said. He drew her in close once more, and gently pushed her head onto his shoulder. “Wulfgar’s road is Wulfgar’s own to choose. He has family in Icewind Dale, if that is where he decides to go. He has his people there. Would you deny him the chance to find love? Should he not sire children, who will follow his legacy of leadership among the tribes of Icewind Dale?”

Catti-brie didn’t respond for a long while then merely said, “I miss him already,” in a voice weak with sorrow.

“As do I. And so too for Bruenor and Regis, and all else who knew him. But he isn’t dead. He did not fall in battle, as we feared those years ago. He will follow his road, to bring Colson home, as he sees fit, and then perhaps to Icewind Dale. Or perhaps not. It might be that when he is away, Wulfgar will come to realize that Mithral Hall truly is his home, and turn again for Bruenor’s halls. Or perhaps he’ll take another wife, and return to us with her, full of love and free of pain.”

He pushed Catti-brie back again, his lavender eyes locking stares with her rich blue orbs. “You have to trust in Wulfgar. He has earned that from us all many times over. Allow him to walk whatever road he chooses, and hold confidence that you and I, and Bruenor and Regis, all go with him in his heart, as we carry him in ours. You carry with you guilt you do not deserve. Would you truly desire that Wulfgar not follow his road for the sake of mending your melancholy?”

Catti-brie considered the words for a few heartbeats, then managed a smile. “My heart is not empty,” she said, and she came forward and kissed Drizzt again, with urgency and passion.

“Whate’er ye’re needin’, ye’re gettin’,” Bruenor assured Nanfoodle as the gnome gently slid one of the parchment scrolls out of the sack. “Rumblebelly here is yer slave, and he’ll be running to meself and all me boys at the command o’ Nanfoodle.”

The gnome began to unroll the document, but winced and halted, hearing the fragile parchment crackle.

“I will have to brew oils of preservation,” he explained to Bruenor. “I dare not put this under bright light until it’s properly treated.”

“Whate’er ye need,” Bruenor assured him. “Ye just get it done, and get it done quick.”

“How quick?” The gnome seemed a bit unnerved by that request.

“Alustriel’s here now,” said Bruenor. “She’s to be working on the bridge for the next few days, and I’m thinkin’ that if them scrolls’re saying what I’m thinkin’ they’re saying, it might be good for Alustriel to go back to Silverymoon muttering and musing on the revelations.”

But Nanfoodle shook his head. “It will take me more than a day to prepare the potions—and that’s assuming that you have the ingredients I will require.” He looked to Regis. “Bat guano forms the base.”

“Wonderful,” the halfling muttered.

“We’ll have it or we’ll get it,” Bruenor promised him.

“It will take more than a day to brew anyway,” said Nanfoodle. “Then three days for it to set on the parchment—at least three. I’d rather it be five.”

“So four days total,” said Bruenor, and the gnome nodded.

“Just to prepare the parchments for examination,” Nanfoodle was quick to add. “It could take me tendays to decipher the ancient writing, even with my magic.”

“Bah, ye’ll be faster.”

“I cannot promise.”

“Ye’ll be faster,” Bruenor said again, in a tone less encouraging and more demanding. “Guano,” he said to Regis, and he turned and walked from the room.

“Guano,” Regis repeated, looking at Nanfoodle helplessly.

“And oil from the smiths,” said the gnome. He drew another scroll from the sack and placed it beside the first, then put his hands on his hips and heaved a great sigh. “If they understood the delicacy of the task, they would not be so impatient,” he said, more to himself than to the halfling.

“Bruenor is well past delicacy, I’m guessing,” said Regis. “Too many orcs about for delicacy.”

“Orcs and dwarves,” muttered the gnome. “Orcs and dwarves. How is an artist to do his work?” He heaved another sigh, as if to say “if I must,” and moved to the side of the room, to the cabinet where he kept his mortar and pestle, and assorted spoons and vials.

“Always rushing, always grumbling,” he griped. “Orcs and dwarves, indeed!”

The companions had barely settled into their chambers in the dwarven hall west of Garumn’s Gorge when word came that yet another unexpected visitor had arrived at the eastern gate. It wasn’t often that elves walked through King Bruenor’s door, but those gates were swung wide for Hralien of the Moonwood.

Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Bruenor waited impatiently in Bruenor’s audience chamber for the elf.

“Alustriel and now Hralien,” Bruenor said, nodding with every word. “It’s all coming together. Once we get the words from them scrolls, we’ll get both o’ them to agree that the time’s now for striking them smelly orcs.”

Drizzt held his doubts private and Catti-brie merely smiled and nodded. There was no reason to derail Bruenor’s optimism with an injection of sober reality.

“We know them Adbar and Felbarr boys’ll fight with us,” Bruenor went on, oblivious to the detachment of his audience. “If we’re getting the Moonwood and Silverymoon to join in, we’ll be puttin’ them orcs back in their holes in short order, don’t ye doubt!”

He rambled on sporadically for the next few moments, until at last Hralien was led into the chamber and formally introduced.

“Well met, King Bruenor,” the elf said after the list of his accomplishments and titles was read in full. “I come with news from the Moonwood.”

“Long ride if ye’ve come just to break bread,” said Bruenor.

“We have suffered an incursion from the orcs,” Hralien explained, talking right past Bruenor’s little jest. “A coordinated and cunning attack.”

“We know yer pain,” Bruenor replied, and Hralien bowed in appreciation.

“Several of my people were lost,” Hralien went on, “elves who should have known the birth and death of centuries to come.” He looked squarely at Drizzt as he continued, “Innovindil among them.”

Drizzt’s eyes widened and he gasped and slumped back, and Catti-brie brought her arm across his back to support him.

“And Sunset beneath her,” said Hralien, his voice less steady. “It would appear that the orcs had anticipated her arrival on the field, and were well prepared.”

Drizzt’s chest pumped with strong, gasping breaths. He looked as if he was about to say something, but no words came forth and he had the strength only to shake his head in denial. A great emptiness washed through him, a cold loss and callous reminder of the harsh immediacy of change, a sudden and irreversible reminder of mortality.

“I share your grief,” Hralien said. “Innovindil was my friend, beloved by all who knew her. And Sunrise is bereaved, do not doubt, for the loss of Innovindil and of Sunset, his companion for all these years.”

“Durned pig orcs,” Bruenor growled. “Are ye all still thinkin’ we should leave them to their gains? Are ye still o’ the mind that Obould’s kingdom should stand?”

“Orcs have attacked the Moonwood for years uncounted,” Hralien replied. “They come for wood and for mischief, and we kill them and send them running. But their attack was better this time—too much so for the simplistic race, we believe.” As he finished, he was again looking directly at Drizzt, so much so that he drew curious stares from Bruenor and Catti-brie in response.

“Tos’un Armgo,” Drizzt reasoned.

“We know him to be in the region, and he learned much of our ways in his time with Albondiel and Sinnafain,” Hralien explained.

Drizzt nodded, determination replacing his wounded expression. He had vowed to hunt down Tos’un when he and Innovindil had returned Ellifain’s body to the Moonwood. Suddenly that promise seemed all the more critical.

“A journey full o’ grief is a longer ride by ten, so the sayin’ goes,” said Bruenor. “Ye make yerself comfortable, Hralien o’ the Moon-wood. Me boys’ll see to yer every need, and ye stay as long as ye’re wantin’. Might be that I’ll have a story for ye soon enough—one that’ll put us all in better stead for ridding ourselves o’ the curse of Obould. A few days at the most, me friends’re tellin’ me.”

“I am a courier of news, and have come with a request, King Bruenor,” the elf explained, and he gave another respectful and appreciative bow. “Others will journey here from the Moonwood to your call, of course, but my own road is back through your eastern door no later than dawn tomorrow.” Again he looked Drizzt in the eye. “I hope I will not be alone.”

Drizzt nodded his agreement to go out on the hunt before he even turned to Catti-brie. He knew that she would not deny him that.

The couple were alone in their room soon after, and Drizzt began to fill his backpack.

“You’re going after Tos’un,” Catti-brie remarked, but did not ask.

“Have I a choice?”

“No. I only wish that I were well enough to go with you.”

Drizzt paused in his packing and turned to regard her. “In Menzoberranzan, they say, Aspis tu drow bed n’tuth drow. ‘Only a drow can hunt a drow.’”

“Then hunt well,” said Catti-brie, and she moved to the side wardrobe to aid Drizzt in his preparations. She seemed not upset with him in the least, which was why she caught Drizzt completely off his guard when she quietly asked, “Would you have married Innovindil when I am gone?”

Drizzt froze, and slowly mustered the courage to turn and look at Catti-brie. She wore a slight smile and seemed quite at ease and comfortable. She moved to their bed and sat on the edge, and motioned for Drizzt to join her.

“Would you have?” she asked again as he approached. “Innovindil was very beautiful, in body and in mind.”

“It is not something I think about,” said Drizzt.

Catti-brie’s smile grew wider. “I know,” she assured him. “But I am asking you to consider it now. Could you have loved her?”

Drizzt thought about it for a few moments then admitted, “I do not know.”

“And you never wondered about it at all?”

Drizzt’s thoughts went back to a moment he had shared with Innovindil when the two of them were out alone among the orc lines. Innovindil had nearly seduced him, though only to let him see more clearly his feelings for Catti-brie, whom he had thought dead at the time.

“You could have loved her, I think,” Catti-brie said.

“You may well be right,” he said.

“Do you think she thought of you in her last moments?”

Drizzt’s eyes widened in shock at the blunt question, but Catti-brie didn’t back down.

“She thought of Tarathiel, likely, and what was,” he answered.

“Or of Drizzt and what might have been.”

Drizzt shook his head. “She would not have looked there. Not then. Likely her every thought was for Sunset. To be an elf is to find the moment, the here and now. To revel in what is with knowledge and acceptance that what will be, will be, no matter the hopes and plans of any.”

“Innovindil would have had a fleeting moment of regret for Drizzt, and potential love lost,” Catti-brie said.

Drizzt didn’t disagree, and couldn’t, given the woman’s generous tone and expression. Catti-brie wasn’t judging him, wasn’t looking for reasons to doubt him. She confirmed that a moment later, when she laughed and put her hand up to stroke his cheek.

“You will outlive me by centuries, in all likelihood,” she explained. “I understand the implications of that, my love, and what a selfish fool I would be if I expected you to remain faithful to a memory. Nor would I want—nor do I want—that for you.”

“It doesn’t mean that we have to speak of it,” Drizzt retorted. “We know not where our roads will lead, nor which of us will outlive the other. These are dangerous times in a dangerous world.”

“I know.”

“Then is this something we should bother to discuss?”

Catti-brie shrugged, but gradually her smile dissipated and a cloud crossed her fair features.

“What is it?” Drizzt asked, and lifted his hand to turn her to face him directly.

“If the dangers do not end our time together, how will Drizzt feel, I wonder, in twenty years? Or thirty?”

The drow wore a puzzled expression.

“You will still be young and handsome, and full of life and love to give,” Catti-brie explained. “But I will be old and bent and ugly. You will stay by my side, I am sure, but what life will that be? What lust?”

It was Drizzt’s turn to laugh.

“Can you look at a human woman who has seen the turn of seventy years and think her attractive?”

“Are there not couples of humans still in love after so many years together?” Drizzt asked. “Are there not human husbands who love their wives still when seventy is a birthday passed?”

“But the husbands are not usually in the springtime of their lives.”

“You err because you pretend that it will happen overnight, in the snap of fingers,” Drizzt said. “That is far from the case, even for an elf looking upon the human lifespan. Every wrinkle is earned, my love. Day by day, we spend our time together, and the changes that come will be well earned. In your heart you know that I love you, and I have no doubt but that my love will grow with the passage of years. I know your heart, Catti-brie. You are blissfully predictable to me in some ways, never so in others. I know where your choices will be, time and again, and ever are they on the right side of justice and integrity.”

Catti-brie smiled and kissed him, but Drizzt broke it off fast and pushed her back.

“If a dragon’s fiery breath were to catch up with me, and scar my skin hideously, blind me, and keep about me a stench of burnt flesh, would Catti-brie still love me?”

“Wonderful thought,” the woman said dryly.

“Would she? Would you stand beside me?”

“Of course.”

“And if I thought otherwise, at all, then never would I have desired to be your husband. Do you not similarly trust in me?”

Catti-brie grinned and kissed him again, then pushed him on his back on the bed.

The packing could wait.

Early the next morning, Drizzt leaned over the sleeping Catti-brie and gently brushed her lips with his own. He stared at her for a long while, even while he walked from the bed to the door. He at last turned and nearly jumped back in surprise, for set against the door was Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, Catti-brie’s bow, and lying below it was her magical quiver, one that never ran out of arrows. For a moment, Drizzt stood confused, until he noticed a small note on the floor by the quiver. From a puncture in its side, he deduced that it had been pressed onto the top of the bow but had not held its perch.

He knew what it said before he ever brought it close enough to read the scribbling.

He looked back at Catti-brie once more. She couldn’t be with him in body, perhaps, but with Taulmaril in his hand, she’d be there in spirit.

Drizzt slung the bow over his shoulder then retrieved the quiver and did likewise. He looked back once more to his love then left the room without a sound.

CHAPTER 16 TOOGWIK TUK’S PARADE

The warriors of Clan Karuck paraded onto the muddy plaza centering a small orc village one rainy morning, the dreary overcast and pounding rain doing nothing to diminish the glory of their thunderous march.

“Stand and stomp!” the warriors sang in voices that resonated deeply from their massive half-ogre chests. “Smash and crush! All for the glory of One-eye Gruumsh!”

Yellow pennants flapping in the wind, waves of mud splattering with every coordinated step, the clan came on in tight and precise formation, their six flags moving, two-by-two, in near perfect synchronization. The curious onlookers couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast between the huge half-ogre, half-orcs and the scores of orcs from other tribes that had been swept up into their wake from the first villages through which Chieftain Grguch had marched.

Only one full-blooded orc marched with Grguch, a young and fiery shaman. Toogwik Tuk wasted no time as the villagers gathered. He moved out in front as Grguch halted his march.

“We are fresh from victory in the Moonwood!” Toogwik Tuk proclaimed, and every orc along the eastern reaches of Obould’s fledgling kingdom knew well that hated place. Thus, predictably, a great cheer greeted the news.

“All hail Chieftain Grguch of Clan Karuck!” Toogwik Tuk proclaimed, and that was met with an uncomfortable pause until he added, “For the glory of King Obould!”

Toogwik Tuk glanced back to Grguch, who nodded his agreement, and the young shaman started the chant, “Grguch! Obould! Grguch! Obould! Grguch! Grguch! Grguch!”

All of Clan Karuck fell in quickly with the cadence, as did the orcs who had already joined in with the march, and the villagers’ doubts were quickly overwhelmed.

“As Obould before him, Chieftain Grguch will bring the judgment of Gruumsh upon our enemies!” Toogwik Tuk cried, running through the mob and whipping them into frenzy. “The snow retreats, and we advance!” With every glorious proclamation, he took care to add, “For the glory of Obould! By the power of Grguch!”

Toogwik Tuk understood well the weight that had settled on his shoulders. Dnark and Ung-thol had departed for the west to meet with Obould regarding the new developments, and it fell squarely upon Toogwik Tuk to facilitate Grguch’s determined march to the south. Clan Karuck alone would not stand against Obould and his thousands, obviously, but if Clan Karuck carried along with them the orc warriors from the dozen villages lining the Surbrin, their arrival on the field north of King Bruenor’s fortifications would carry great import—enough, so the conspirators hoped, to coerce the involvement of the army Obould had likely already positioned there.

That sort of rabble rousing had been Toogwik Tuk’s signature for years. His rise through the ranks to become the chief shaman of his tribe—almost all of whom were dead, crushed in the mysterious, devastating explosion of a mountain ridge north of Keeper’s Dale—had been expedited by precisely that talent. He knew well how to manipulate the emotions of the peasant orcs, to conflate their present loyalties with what he wanted their loyalties to be. Every time he mentioned Obould, he was quick to add the name Grguch. Every time he spoke of Gruumsh, he was quick to add the name of Grguch. Mingle them, say them together enough times so that his audience would unwittingly add “Grguch” whenever they heard the names of the other two.

His energy again proved infectious, and he soon had all of the villagers hopping about and chanting with him, always for the glory of Obould, and always by the power of Grguch.

Those two names needed to be intimately linked, the three conspirators had decided before Dnark and Ung-thol had departed. To even hint against Obould after such dramatic and sweeping victories as the orc king had brought would have spelled a fast end to the coup. Even considering the disastrous attempt to enter Mithral Hall’s western gate, or the loss of the eastern ground between the dwarven halls and the Surbrin, or the stall throughout winter and the whispers that it might be longer than that, the vast majority of orcs spoke of Obould in the hushed tones usually reserved for Gruumsh himself. But Toogwik Tuk and two companions planned to move the tribes to oppose their king, one baby-step at a time.

“By the power of Grguch!” Toogwik Tuk cried again, and before the cheer could erupt, he added, “Will the dwarven wall hold against a warrior who burned the Moonwood?”

Though he expected a cheer, Toogwik Tuk was answered with looks of suspicion and confusion.

“The dwarves will flee before us,” the shaman promised. “Into their hole they will run, and we will control the Surbrin for King Obould! For the glory of King Obould!” he finished, screaming with all his power.

The orcs around him cheered wildly, insanely.

“By the power of Grguch!” the not-quite-so-out-of-control Toogwik Tuk cleverly added, and many of the villagers, so used to the chant by then, shouted the words right along beside him.

Toogwik Tuk glanced back at Chieftain Grguch, who wore a most satisfied grin.

Another step taken, Toogwik Tuk knew.

Taking many offered supplies, Clan Karuck soon resumed their march, and a new pennant flew among the many in the mob behind them, and another forty warriors eagerly melded into Chieftain Grguch’s trailing ranks. With several larger villages before them, both the chieftain and his shaman spokesman expected that they would number in the thousands when they at last reached the dwarven wall.

Toogwik Tuk held faith that when they smashed that wall, the cries for Grguch would be louder than those for Obould. The next cheers he led would hold fewer references to the glory of Obould and more to the glory of Gruumsh. But he would not lessen the number of his claims that all of it was being wrought by the power of Grguch.

Jack could see that the sprout of hair on one side of Hakuun’s misshapen, wart-covered nose tingled with nervous energy as he walked out from the main host, among dark pines and broken fir trees.

“By sprockets and elemental essences, that was exciting, wasn’t it?”

The orc shaman froze in place at the all-too-familiar voice, composed himself with a deep breath that greatly flared his nostrils, and slowly turned to regard a curious little humanoid in brilliant purple robes sitting on a low branch, swinging his feet back and forth like a carefree child. The form was new to Hakuun. Oh, he knew what a gnome was, indeed, but he had never seen Jaculi in that state before.

“That young priest is so full of spirit,” Jack said. “I almost walked out and joined in with Grguch myself! Oh, what a grand march they have planned!”

“I didn’t ask you to come up here,” Hakuun remarked.

“Did you not?” said Jack, and he hopped down from the tree and brushed the twigs from his fabulous robes. “Tell me, Shaman of Clan Karuck, what am I to think when I peer out from my work to find that the one to whom I have bestowed such great gifts has run off?”

“I did not run off,” Hakuun insisted, trying to keep his voice steady, though he was visibly near panic. “Often does Clan Karuck go hunting.”

Hakuun gave ground as the gnome walked up to him. Jack continued to advance as Hakuun retreated.

“But this was no ordinary excursion.”

Hakuun looked at Jack with dull curiosity, obviously not understanding him.

“No ordinary hunt,” Jack explained.

“I have told you.”

“Of Obould, yes, and of his thousands,” said Jack. “A bit of mischief and a bit of loot to be found, so you said. But it is more than that, is it not?”

Again Hakuun wore a puzzled expression.

Jack snapped his stubby fingers in the air and whirled away. “Do you not feel it, shaman?” he asked, his voice full of excitement. “Do you not recognize that this is no ordinary hunt?”

Jack spun back on Hakuun to measure his response, and still he saw that the shaman wasn’t quite catching on. For Jack, so perceptive and cunning, had deduced the subtext of Toogwik Tuk’s speech, and the implications it offered.

“Perhaps it is just my own suspicion,” the gnome said, “but you must tell me all that you know. Then we should speak with that spirited young priest.”

“I have told you…” Hakuun protested. His voiced trailed off and he retreated a step, knowing what awful thing was about to befall him.

“No, I mean that you must tell me everything,” Jack said, all humor gone from his voice and his expression as he took a step toward the shaman. Hakuun shrank back, but that only made Jack stride more purposefully.

“Ah, you do forget,” the gnome said as he closed the gap. “All that I have done for you, and so little have I asked in return. With great power, Hakuun, comes great expectations.”

“There is nothing more,” the shaman started to plead, and he held up his hands.

Jack the Gnome wore a mask of evil. He said not a word, but pointed to the ground. Hakuun shook his head feebly and continued to wave, and Jack continued to point.

But it was no contest, the outcome never in doubt. With a slight whimper, Hakuun, the mighty shaman of Clan Karuck, the conduit between Grguch and Gruumsh, prostrated himself on the ground, face down.

Jack looked straight ahead and lowered his arms to his sides as he quietly mouthed the words to his spell. He thought of the mysterious illithids, the brilliant mind flayers, who had taught him so much of one particular school of magic.

His robes fluttered only briefly as he shrank, then they and all his other gear melded into his changing form. In an instant Jack the Gnome was gone and a sightless rodent padded across the ground on four tiny feet. He went up to Hakuun’s ear and sniffed for a few moments, hesitating simply because he recognized how uncomfortable it was making the cowering creature.

Then Jack the Gnome-cum-brain mole crawled into Hakuun’s ear and disappeared from sight.

Hakuun shuddered and jerked in agonized spasms as the creature burrowed deeper, through the walls of his inner ear and into the seat of his consciousness. The shaman forced himself up to all fours as he began to gag. He vomited and spat, though of course the feeble defenses of his physical body could not begin to dislodge his unwelcome guest.

A few moments later, Hakuun staggered to his feet.

There, said the voice of Jack in his head. Now I better understand the purpose of this adventure, and together we will learn the extent of this spirited young shaman’s plans.

Hakuun didn’t argue—there was no way he could, of course. And for all his revulsion and pain, Hakuun knew that with Jack inside him, he was much more perceptive, and many times more powerful.

A private conversation with Toogwik Tuk, Jack instructed, and Hakuun could not disagree.

Even with their sensitive elf ears, Drizzt and Hralien could only make out the loudest chants from the gathered orcs. Still, the purpose of the march became painfully obvious.

“They are the ones,” Hralien remarked. “The yellow banner was seen in the Moonwood. It appears that their numbers have…”

He paused as he looked over at his companion, who didn’t seem to be listening. Drizzt crouched, perfectly still, his head turned back to the south, toward Mithral Hall.

“We have already passed several orc settlements,” the drow said a few heartbeats later. “No doubt this march will cross through each.”

“Swelling their numbers,” Hralien agreed, and Drizzt finally looked at him.

“And they’ll continue southward,” the drow reasoned.

Hralien said, “This may be renewed aggression brewing. And I fear that there is an instigator.”

“Tos’un?” said Drizzt. “I see no dark elf among the gathering.”

“He’s likely not far afield.”

“Look at them,” Drizzt said, nodding his chin in the direction of the chanting, cheering orcs. “If Tos’un did instigate this madness, could he still be in control of it?”

It was Hralien’s turn to shrug. “Do not underestimate his cunning,” the elf warned. “The attack on the Moonwood was well-coordinated, and brutally efficient.”

“Obould’s orcs have surprised us at every turn.”

“And they were not without drow advisors.”

The two locked stares at that remark, a cloud briefly crossing Drizzt’s face.

“I truly believe that Tos’un orchestrated the attack on the Moon-wood,” Hralien said. “And that he is behind this march, wherever it may lead.”

Drizzt glanced back to the south, toward Bruenor’s kingdom.

“It may well be that their destination is Mithral Hall,” Hralien conceded. “But I beg you to continue on the road that led you out of Bruenor’s depths. For all our sakes, find Tos’un Armgo. I will shadow these orcs, and will give ample warning to King Bruenor should it become necessary—and I will err on the side of caution. Trust me in this, I beg, and free yourself for this most important task.”

Drizzt looked from the gathered orcs back toward Mithral Hall yet again. He envisioned a battle fought along the Surbrin, fierce and vicious, and felt the pangs of guilt in considering that Bruenor and Regis, perhaps even Catti-brie and the rest of Clan Battle hammer, would yet again be fighting for their survival without him by their side. He winced as he saw again the fall of the tower at Shallows, with Dagnabbit, whom he had then thought to be Bruenor, tumbling down to his death atop it.

He took a deep breath and turned back to the orc frenzy, the chanting and dancing continuing unabated. If a dark elf from Barrison Del’Armgo, one of the most formidable Houses of Menzoberranzan, was to blame then the orcs would no doubt prove many times more formidable than they appeared. Drizzt nodded grimly, his responsibility and thus his path clear before him.

“Follow their every move,” he bade Hralien.

“On my word,” the elf replied. “Your friends will not be caught unprepared.”

The orcs moved along soon after, and Hralien shadowed their southwestern march, leaving Drizzt alone on the mountainside. He considered going down to the orc village and snooping around, but decided that Tos’un, if he was about, would likely be along the periphery, among the stones, as was Drizzt.

“Come to me, Guenhwyvar,” the drow commanded, drawing forth the onyx figurine. When the gray mist coalesced into the panther, Drizzt sent her out hunting. Guenhwyvar could cover a tremendous amount of ground in short order, and not even a lone drow could escape her keen senses.

Drizzt, too, set off, moving deliberately but with great caution in the opposite direction from the panther, who was already cutting across the wake of the departing army. If Hralien’s guess was correct and Tos’un Armgo was directing the orcs from nearby, Drizzt held all faith that he would soon confront the rogue.

His hands went to his scimitars as he considered Khazid’hea, Catti-brie’s sword, the weapon that had fallen into the hands of Tos’un. Any drow warrior was formidable. A warrior of a noble House likely more so. Even thinking in those respectful terms, Drizzt consciously reminded himself that the drow noble was even more potent, for those who underestimated Khazid’hea usually wound up on the ground.

In two pieces.

Interesting, Jack said to Hakuun’s mind when they walked away from their quiet little meeting with Toogwik Tuk, one in which Jack had used the power of magical suggestion to complement Hakuun’s spells of lie detection, allowing the dual being to extract much more honest answers from Toogwik Tuk than the young shaman had ever meant to offer. So the conspirators have not brought you here to enhance Obould’s forces.

“We must tell Grguch,” Hakuun whispered.

Tell him what? That we have come to do battle?

“That our venture into the Moonwood and now against the dwarves will likely anger Obould.”

Inside his head, Hakuun could feel Jack laughing. Orcs plotting against orcs, Jack silently related. Orcs manipulating orcs to plot against orcs. All of this will be surprising news to old Chieftain Grguch, I am sure.

Hakuun’s determined stride slowed, his tailwind stolen by Jack’s cynical sarcasm—sarcasm effective only because it held the ring of truth.

Let the play play, said Jack. The plots of the conspirators will be bent to our favor when we need them to be. For now, all the risk is theirs, for Clan Karuck is unwitting. If they have played the part of fools to even consider such a plot, their fall will be enjoyable to witness. If they are not fools, then all to our gain.

“Our gain?” said Hakuun, emphasizing Jack’s inclusion into it all.

“For as long as I am interested,” Hakuun’s voice replied, though it was Jack who controlled it.

A not-so-subtle reminder, Hakuun understood, of who was leading whom.

CHAPTER 17 DEFINING GRUUMSH

Chieftain Dnark did not miss the simmer behind King Obould’s yellow eyes whenever the orc king’s glance happened his and Ungthol’s way. Obould was continually repositioning his forces, which all of the chieftains understood was the king’s way of keeping them in unfamiliar territory, and thus, keeping them dependent upon the larger kingdom for any real sense of security. Dnark and Ung-thol had rejoined their clan, the tribe of the Wolf Jaw, only to learn that Obould had summoned them to work on a defensive position north of Keeper’s Dale, not far from where Obould had settled to ride out the fleeting days of winter.

As soon as Obould had met Wolf Jaw at the new site, the wise and perceptive Dnark understood that there had been more to that movement than simple tactical repositioning, and when he’d first met the orc king’s gaze, he had known beyond doubt that he and Ung-thol had been the focus of Obould’s decision.

The annoying Kna squirmed around his side, as always, and shaman Nukkels kept to a respectful two paces behind and to his god-figure’s left. That meant that Nukkels’s many shamans were filtered around the common warriors accompanying the king. Dnark presumed that all of the orcs setting up Obould’s three-layered tent were fanatics in the service of Nukkels.

Obould launched into his expected tirade about the importance of the mountain ridge upon which the tent was being erected, and how the fate of the entire kingdom could well rest upon the efforts of Clan Wolf Jaw in properly securing and fortifying the ground, the tunnels, and the walls. They had heard it all before, of course, but Dnark couldn’t help but marvel at the rapt expressions on the faces of his minions as the undeniably charismatic king wove his spell yet again. Predictability didn’t diminish the effect, and that, the chieftain knew, was no small feat.

Dnark purposely focused on the reactions of the other orcs, in part to keep himself from listening too carefully to Obould, whose rhetoric was truly hard to resist—sometimes so much so that Dnark wondered if Nukkels and the other priests weren’t weaving a bit of magic of their own behind the notes of Obould’s resonating voice.

Wound in his contemplations, it took a nudge from Ung-thol to get Dnark to realize that Obould had addressed him directly. Panic washing through him, the chieftain turned to face the king squarely, and he fumbled for something to say that wouldn’t give away his obliviousness.

Obould’s knowing smile let him know that nothing would suffice.

“My pennant will be set upon the door of my tent when it is ready for private audience,” the orc king said—said again, obviously. “When you see it, you will come for a private parlay.”

“Private?” Dnark dared ask. “Or am I to bring my second?”

Obould, his smile smug indeed, looked past him to Ung-thol. “Please do,” he said, and it seemed to Dnark the enticing purr of a cat looking to sharpen its claws.

Wearing a smug and superior smile, Obould walked past him, carrying Kna and with Nukkels scurrying in tow. Dnark scanned wider as the king and his entourage moved off to the tent, noting the glances from the king’s warriors filtering across his clan, and identifying those likely serving the priests. If it came to blows, Dnark would have to direct his own warriors against the magic-wielding fanatics, first and foremost.

He winced as he considered that, seeing the futility laid bare before him. If it came to blows with King Obould and his guard, Dnark’s clan would scatter and flee for their lives, and nothing he could say would alter that.

He looked to Ung-thol, who stared at Obould without blinking, watching the king’s every receding step.

Ung-thol knew the truth of it as well, Dnark realized, and wondered—not for the first time—if Toogwik Tuk hadn’t led them down a fool’s path.

“The flag of Obould is on the door,” Ung-thol said to his chieftain a short while later.

“Let us go, then,” said Dnark. “It would not do to keep the king waiting.”

Dnark started off, but Ung-thol grabbed him by the arm. “We must not underestimate King Obould’s network of spies,” the shaman said. “He has sorted the various tribes carefully throughout the region, where those more loyal to him remain watchful of others he suspects. He may know that you and I were in the east. And he knows of the attack on the Moonwood, for Grguch’s name echoes through the valleys, a new hero in the Kingdom of Many-Arrows.”

Dnark paused and considered the words, then began to nod.

“Does Obould consider Grguch a hero?” Ung-thol asked.

“Or a rival?” asked Dnark, and Ung-thol was glad that they were in agreement, and that Dnark apparently understood the danger to them. “Fortunately for King Obould, he has a loyal chieftain”—Dnark patted his hand against his own chest—“and wise shaman who can bear witness here that Chieftain Grguch and Clan Karuck are valuable allies.”

With a nod at Ung-thol’s agreeing grin, Dnark turned and started for the tent. The shaman’s grin faded as soon as Dnark looked away. None of it, Ung-thol feared, was to be taken lightly. He had been at the ceremony wherein King Obould had been blessed with the gifts of Gruumsh. He had watched the orc king break a bull’s neck with his bare hands. He had seen the remains of a powerful drow priestess, her throat bitten out by Obould after the king had been taken down the side of a ravine in a landslide brought about by a priestess’s earth-shaking enchantment. Watching Grguch’s work in the east had been heady, invigorating and inspiring, to be sure. Clan Karuck showed the fire and mettle of the very best orc warriors, and the priest of Gruumsh could not help but feel his heart swell with pride at their fast and devastating accomplishments.

But Ung-thol was old enough and wise enough to temper his elation and soaring hopes against the reality that was King Obould Many-Arrows.

As he and Dnark entered the third and final off-set entrance into Obould’s inner chamber, Ung-thol was only reminded of that awful reality. King Obould, seeming very much the part, sat on his throne on a raised dais, so that even though he was seated, he towered over any who stood before him. He wore his trademark black armor, patched back together after his terrific battle with the drow, Drizzt Do’Urden. His greatsword, which could blaze with magical fire at Obould’s will, rested against the arm of his throne, within easy reach.

Obould leaned forward at their approach, dropping one elbow on his knee and stroking his chin. He didn’t blink as he measured the steps of the pair, his focus almost exclusively on Dnark. Ung-thol hoped that his wrath, if it came forth, would be equally selective.

“Wolf Jaw performs brilliantly,” Obould greeted, somewhat dissipating the tension.

Dnark bowed low at the compliment. “We are an old and disciplined clan.”

“I know that well,” said the king. “And you are a respected and feared tribe. It is why I keep you close to Many-Arrows, so that the center of my line will never waver.”

Dnark bowed again at the compliment, particularly the notion that Wolf Jaw was feared, which was about as high as orc praise ever climbed. Ung-thol considered his chieftain’s expression when he came back up from that bow. When the smug Dnark glanced his way, Ungthol shot him a stern but silent retort, reminding him of the truth of Obould’s reasoning. He was keeping Wolf Jaw close, indeed, but Dnark had to understand that Obould’s aim was more to keep an eye on the tribe than to shore up his center. After all, there was no line of battle, so there was no center to fortify.

“The winter was favorable to us all,” said Dnark. “Many towers have been built, and miles of wall.”

“Every hilltop, Chieftain Dnark,” said Obould. “If the dwarves or their allies come against us, they will have to fight over walls and towers on every hilltop.”

Dnark glanced at Ung-thol again, and the cleric nodded for him to let it go at that. There was no need to engage Obould in an argument of defensive versus offensive preparations, certainly. Not with their schemes unfolding in the east.

“You were gone from your tribe,” Obould stated, and Ung-thol started and blinked, wondering if the perceptive Obould had just read his mind.

“My king?” Dnark asked.

“You have been away in the east,” said Obould. “With your shaman.”

Dnark had done a good job keeping his composure, Ung-thol believed, but then the shaman winced when Dnark swallowed hard.

“There are many rogue orcs left over from the fierce battles with the dwarves,” Dnark said. “Some strong and seasoned warriors, even shamans, have lost all their kin and clan. They have no banner.”

As soon as he spoke the words, Dnark shrank back a step, for a murderous scowl crossed Obould’s powerful features. At either side of the tent chamber, guards bristled, a couple even growling.

“They have no banner?” Obould calmly—too calmly—asked.

“They have the flag of Many-Arrows, of course,” Ung-thol dared to interject, and Obould’s eyes widened then narrowed quickly as he regarded the shaman. “But your kingdom is arranged by tribe, my king. You send tribes to the hills and the vales to do the work, and those who have lost their tribes know not where to go. Dnark and other chieftains are trying to sweep up the rogues to better organize your kingdom, so that you, with great plans opening wide before your Gruumsh-inspired visions, are not cluttered by such minor details.”

Obould eased back in his throne and the moment of distress seemed to slip back from the edge of disaster. Of course with Obould, whose temper had left uncounted dead in his murderous wake, none could be sure.

“You were in the east,” Obould said after many heartbeats had passed. “Near the Moonwood.”

“Not so near, but yes, my king,” said Dnark.

“Tell me of Grguch.”

The blunt demand rocked Dnark back on his heels and crippled his denial as he replied with incredulity, “Grguch?”

“His name echoes through the kingdom,” said Obould. “You have heard it.”

“Ah, you mean Chieftain Grguch,” Dnark said, changing the inflection of the name to put emphasis on the “Gr,” and acting as if Obould’s further remarks had spurred recognition. “Yes, I have heard of him.”

“You have met him,” said Obould, his tone and the set of his face conveying that his assertion was not assumption, but known fact.

Dnark glanced at Ung-thol, and for a moment the shaman thought his chieftain might just turn on his heel and flee. And indeed, Ung-thol wanted to do the same. Not for the first time and not for the last time, he wondered how they could have been foolish enough to dare conspire against King Obould Many-Arrows.

A soft chuckle from Dnark settled Ung-thol, though, and reminded him that Dnark had risen through difficult trials to become the chieftain of an impressive tribe—a tribe that even then surrounded Obould’s tent.

“Chieftain Grguch of Clan Karuck, yes,” Dnark said, matching Obould’s stare. “I witnessed his movement through Teg’ngun’s Dale near the Surbrin. He was marching to the Moonwood, though we did not know that at the time. Would that I had, for I would have enjoyed witnessing his slaughter of the foolish elves.”

“You approve of his attack?”

“The elves have been striking at your minions in the east day after day,” said Dnark. “I think it good that the pain of battle was taken to their forest, and that the heads of several of the creatures were placed upon pikes at the river’s edge. Chieftain Grguch did you a great service. I had thought his assault on the Moonwood to be at your command.”

He ended with an inflection of confusion, even suspicion, craftily turning the event back upon the orc king.

“Our enemies do not avoid their deserved punishment,” Obould said without hesitation.

At Dnark’s side, Ung-thol realized that his companion’s quick-thinking had likely just saved both their lives. For King Obould would not kill them and tacitly admit that Grguch had acted independent of the throne.

“Chieftain Grguch and Clan Karuck will serve the kingdom well,” Dnark pressed. “They are as fierce as any tribe I have ever seen.”

“They breed with ogres, I am told.”

“And carry many of the brutes along to anchor their lines.”

“Where are they now?”

“In the east, I expect,” said Dnark.

“Near the Moonwood still?”

“Likely,” said Dnark. “Likely awaiting the response of our enemies. If the ugly elves dare cross the Surbrin, Chieftain Grguch will pike more heads on the riverbank.”

Ung-thol eyed Obould carefully through Dnark’s lie, and he easily recognized that the king knew more than he was letting on. Word of Grguch’s march to the south had reached Obould’s ear. Obould knew that the chieftain of Clan Karuck was a dangerous rival.

Ung-thol studied Obould carefully, but the cunning warrior king gave little more away. He offered some instructions for shoring up the defense of the region, included a punishing deadline, then dismissed the pair with a wave of his hand as he turned his attention to the annoying Kna.

“Your hesitance in admitting your knowledge of Grguch warned him,” Ung-thol whispered to Dnark as they left the tent and crossed the muddy ground to rejoin their clan.

“He pronounced it wrong.”

“You did.”

Dnark stopped and turned on the shaman. “Does it matter?”

CHAPTER 18 THE SURBRIN BRIDGE

The wizard held his hand out, fingers locked as if it were the talon of a great hunting bird. Sweat streaked his forehead despite the cold wind, and he locked his face into a mask of intensity.

The stone was too heavy for him, but he kept up his telekinetic assault, willing it into the air. Down at the riverbank, dwarf masons on the far bank furiously cranked their come-alongs, while others rushed around the large stone, throwing an extra strap or chain where needed. Still, despite the muscle and ingenuity of the dwarf craftsmen, and magical aid from the Silverymoon wizard, the floating stone teetered on the brink of disaster.

“Joquim!” another citizen of Silverymoon called.

“I…can’t…hold…it,” the wizard Joquim grunted back, each word forced out through gritted teeth.

The second wizard shouted for help and rushed down to Joquim’s side. He had little in the way of telekinetic prowess, but he had memorized a dweomer for just that eventuality. He launched into his spellcasting and threw his magical energies out toward the shaking stone. It stabilized, and when a third member of the Silverymoon contingent rushed over, the balance shifted in favor of the builders. It began to seem almost effortless as the combination of dwarf and wizard guided the stone out over the rushing waters of the River Surbrin.

With a dwarf on the end of a beam guiding the way, the team with the come-alongs positioned the block perfectly over the even larger stones that had already been set in place. The guide dwarf called for a hold, rechecked the alignment, then lifted a red flag.

The wizards eased up their magic gradually, slowly lowering the block.

“Go get the next one!” the dwarf yelled to his companions and the wizards on the near bank. “Seems the Lady’s almost ready for this span!”

All eyes turned to the work at the near bank, the point closest to Mithral Hall, where Lady Alustriel stood on the first length of span over the river, her features serene as she whispered the words of a powerful spell of creation. Cold and strong she appeared, almost godlike above the rushing waters. Her white robes, highlighted in light green, blew about her tall and slender form. There was hardly a gasp of surprise when a second stone span appeared before her, reaching out to the next set of supports.

Alustriel’s arms slipped down to her sides and she gave a deep exhale, her shoulders slumping as if her effort had thrown out more than magical strength.

“Amazing,” Catti-brie said, coming up beside her and inspecting the newly conjured slab.

“The Art, Catti-brie,” Alustriel replied. “Mystra’s blessings are wondrous indeed.” Alustriel turned a sly look her way. “Perhaps I can tutor you.”

Catti-brie scoffed at the notion, but coincidentally, as she threw her head back, she twisted her leg at an angle that sent a wave of pain rolling through her damaged hip, and she was reminded that her days as a warrior might indeed be at their end—one way or another.

“Perhaps,” she said.

Alustriel’s smile beamed genuine and warm. The Lady of Silvery moon glanced back and motioned to the dwarf masons, who flooded forward with their tubs of mortar to seal and smooth the newest span.

“The conjured stone is permanent?” Catti-brie asked as she and Alustriel moved back down the ramp to the bank.

Alustriel looked at her as if the question was completely absurd. “Would you have it vanish beneath the wheels of a wagon?”

They both laughed at the flippant response.

“I mean, it is real stone,” the younger woman clarified.

“Not an illusion, to be sure.”

“But still the stuff of magic?”

Alustriel furrowed her brow as she considered the woman. “The stone is as real as anything the dwarves could drag in from a quarry, and the dweomer that created it is permanent.”

“Unless it is dispelled,” Catti-brie replied, and Alustriel said, “Ah,” as she caught on to the woman’s line of thought.

“It would take Elminster himself to even hope to dispel the work of Lady Alustriel,” another nearby wizard interjected.

Catti-brie looked from the mage to Alustriel.

“A bit of an exaggeration, of course,” Alustriel admitted. “But truly, any mage of sufficient power to dispel my creations would also have in his arsenal evocations that could easily destroy a bridge constructed without magic.”

“But a conventional bridge can be warded against lightning bolts and other destructive evocations,” Catti-brie reasoned.

“As this one shall be,” promised Alustriel.

“And so it will be as safe as if the dwarves had…” Catti-brie started, and Alustriel finished the thought with her, “dragged the stones from a quarry.”

They shared another laugh, until Catti-brie added, “Except from Alustriel.”

The Lady of Silverymoon stopped cold and turned to stare directly at Catti-brie.

“It is an easy feat for a wizard to dispel her own magic, so I am told,” Catti-brie remarked. “There will be no wards in place to prevent you from waving your hands and making expanse after expanse disappear.”

A wry grin crossed Alustriel’s beautiful face, and she cocked an eyebrow, an expression of congratulations for the woman’s sound and cunning reasoning.

“An added benefit should the orcs overrun this position and try to use the bridge to spread their darkness to other lands,” Catti-brie went on.

“Other lands like Silverymoon,” Alustriel admitted.

“Do not be quick to sever the bridge to Mithral Hall, Lady,” Catti-brie said.

“Mithral Hall is connected to the eastern bank through tunnels in any case,” Alustriel replied. “We will not abandon your father, Catti-brie. We will never abandon King Bruenor and the valiant dwarves of Clan Battlehammer.”

Catti-brie’s responding smile came easy to her, for she didn’t doubt a word of the pledge. She glanced back at the conjured slabs and nodded appreciatively, both for the power in creating them and the strategy of Alustriel in keeping the power to easily destroy them.

The late afternoon sun reflected moisture in Toogwik Tuk’s jaundiced brown eyes, for he could hardly contain his tears of joy at the ferocious reminder of what it was to be an orc. Grguch’s march through the three remaining villages had been predictably successful, and after Toogwik Tuk had delivered his perfected sermon, every able-bodied orc warrior of those villages had eagerly marched out in Grguch’s wake. That alone would have garnered the fierce chieftain of Clan Karuck another two hundred soldiers.

But more impressively, they soon enough discovered, came the reinforcements from villages through which they had not passed. Word of Grguch’s march had spread across the region directly north of Mithral Hall, and the war-thirsty orcs of many tribes, frustrated by the winter pause, had rushed to the call.

As he crossed the impromptu encampment, Toogwik Tuk surveyed the scores—no, hundreds—of new recruits. Grguch would hit the dwarven fortifications with closer to two thousand orcs than one thousand, by the shaman’s estimation. Victory at the Surbrin was all but assured. Could King Obould hope to hold back the tide of war after that?

Toogwik Tuk shook his head with honest disappointment as he considered the once-great leader. Something had happened to Obould. The shaman wondered if it might have been the stinging defeat Bruenor’s dwarves had handed him in his ill-fated attempt to breach Mithral Hall’s western door. Or had it been the loss of the conspiring dark elves and Gerti Orelsdottr and her frost giant minions? Or perhaps it had come about because of the loss of his son, Urlgen, in the fight on the cliff tops north of Keeper’s Dale.

Whatever the cause, Obould hardly seemed the same fierce warrior who had led the charge into Citadel Adbar, or who had begun his great sweep south from the Spine of the World only a few months before. Obould had lost his understanding of the essence of the orc. He had lost the voice of Gruumsh within his heart.

“He demands that we wait,” the shaman mused aloud, staring out at the teeming swarm, “and yet they come by the score to the promise of renewed battle with the cursed dwarves.”

Never more certain of the righteousness of his conspiracy, the shaman moved quickly toward Grguch’s tent. Obould no longer heard the call of Gruumsh, but Grguch surely did, and after the dwarves were smashed and chased back into their holes, how might King Obould claim dominion over the chieftain of Clan Karuck? And how might Obould secure fealty from the tens of thousands of orcs he had brought forth from their holes with promises of conquest?

Obould demanded they sit and wait, that they till the ground like peasant human farmers. Grguch demanded of them that they sharpen their spears and swords to better cut the flesh of dwarves.

Grguch heard the call of Gruumsh.

The shaman found the chieftain standing on the far side of a small table, surrounded by two of his Karuck warlords and with a much smaller orc standing across from them and manipulating a pile of dirt and stones that had been set upon the table. As he neared, Toogwik Tuk recognized the terrain being described by the smaller orc, for he had seen the mountain ridge that stretched from the eastern end of Mithral Hall down to the Surbrin.

“Welcome, Gruumsh-speaker,” Grguch greeted him. “Join us.”

Toogwik Tuk moved to an open side of the table and inspected the scout’s work, which depicted a wall nearly completed to the Surbrin and a series of towers anchoring it.

“The dwarves have been industrious throughout the winter,” said Grguch. “As you feared. King Obould’s pause has given them strength.”

“They will anticipate an attack like ours,” the shaman remarked.

“They have witnessed no large movements of forces to indicate it,” said Grguch.

“Other than our own,” Toogwik Tuk had to remind him.

But Grguch laughed it off. “Possibly they have taken note of many orcs now moving nearer to their position,” he agreed. “They may expect an attack in the coming tendays.”

The two Karuck warlords beside the brutish chieftain chuckled at that.

“They will never expect one this very night,” said Grguch.

Toogwik Tuk’s face dropped into a sudden frown, and he looked down at the battlefield in near panic. “We have not even sorted out our forces…” he started to weakly protest.

“There is nothing to sort,” Grguch replied. “Our tactic is swarm fodder and nothing more.”

“Swarm fodder?” asked the shaman.

“A simple swarm to and through the wall,” said Grguch. “Darkness is our ally. Speed and surprise are our allies. We will hit them as a wave flattens the ridge of a boot print on a beach.”

“You know not the techniques of the many tribes who have come into the fold.”

“I don’t need to,” Grguch declared. “I don’t need to count my warriors. I don’t need to place them in lines and squares, to form reserves and ensure that our flanks are protected back far enough to prevent an end run by our enemies. That is the way of the dwarf.” He paused and looked around at the stupidly grinning warlords and the excited scout. “I see no dwarves in this room,” he said, and the others laughed.

Grguch looked back at Toogwik Tuk. His eyes went wide, as if in alarm, and he sniffed at the air a couple of times. “No,” he declared, looking again to his warlords. “I smell no dwarves in this room.”

The laughter that followed was much more pronounced, and despite his reservations, Toogwik Tuk was wise enough to join in.

“Tactics are for dwarves,” the chieftain explained. “Discipline is for elves. For orcs, there is only…” He looked directly at Toogwik Tuk.

“Swarm fodder?” the shaman asked, and a wry grin spread on Grguch’s ugly face.

“Chaos,” he confirmed. “Ferocity. Bloodlust and abandon. As soon as the sun has set, we begin our run. All the way to the wall. All the way to the Surbrin. All the way to the eastern doors of Mithral Hall. Half, perhaps more than half, of our warriors will find tonight the reward of glorious death.”

Toogwik Tuk winced at that, and silently berated himself. Was he beginning to think more like Obould?

Grguch reminded him of the words of Gruumsh One-eye. “They will die with joy,” the chieftain promised. “Their last cry will be of elation and not agony. And any who die otherwise, with regret or with sorrow or with fear, should have been slaughtered in sacrifice to Gruumsh before our attack commenced!”

The sudden volume and ferocity of his last proclamation set Toogwik Tuk back on his heels and had both the Clan Karuck warlords and guards at the perimeter of the room growling and gnashing their teeth. For a brief moment, Toogwik Tuk almost reconsidered his call to the deepest holes to rouse Chieftain Grguch.

Almost.

“There has been no sign from the dwarves that they know of our march,” Grguch told a great gathering later that day, when the sunlight began to wane. Toogwik Tuk noted the dangerous priest Hakuun standing at his side, and that gave the younger shaman pause. He got the feeling that Hakuun had been watching him all along.

“They do not see the doom that has come against them,” Grguch ordered. “Do not shout out, but run. Run fast to the wall, without delay, and whispering praise for Gruumsh with every stride.”

There were no lines or coordinated movements, just a wild charge begun miles from the goal. There were no torches to light the way, no magical lights conjured by Toogwik Tuk or the other priests of Gruumsh. They were orcs, after all, raised in the upper tunnels of the lightless Underdark.

The night was their ally, the dark their comfort.

Once, when he was a child, Hralien had found a large pile of sand down by one of the Moonwood’s two lakes. From a distance, that mound of light-colored sand had seemed discolored with streaks of red, and as he moved closer, young Hralien realized that the streaks weren’t discolored sand, but were actually moving upon the surface of the mound. Being young and inexperienced, he had at first feared that he had happened upon a tiny volcano, perhaps.

On closer inspection, though, the truth had come clear to him, for the pile of sand had been an ant mound, and the red streaks were lines of the six-legged creatures marching to and fro.

Hralien thought of that long-ago experience as he witnessed the charge of the orcs, swarming the small, rocky hills north of King Bruenor’s eastern defenses. Their movements seemed no less frenetic, and truly their march appeared no less determined. Given their speed and intensity, and the obstacle that awaited them barely two miles to the south, Hralien recognized their intent.

The elf bit his lip as he remembered his promise to Drizzt Do’Urden. He looked south, sorting out the landscape and recalling the trails that would most quickly return him to Mithral Hall.

Then he was running, and fearing that he could not keep his promise to his drow friend, for the orc line stretched ahead of him and the creatures had not far to travel. With great grace and agility, Hralien sprang from stone to stone. He leaped up and grabbed a low tree branch and swung out across a narrow chasm, landing lightly on the other side and in a full run. He moved with hardly a whisper of sound, unlike the orcs, whose heavy steps echoed in his keen elf’s ears.

He knew that he should be cautious, for he could ill afford the delay if he happened into a fight. But neither could he slow his run and carefully pick his path, for some of the orcs were ahead of him, and the dwarves would need every heartbeat of warning he could give them. So he ran on, leaping and scrambling over bluffs and through low dales, where the melting snow had streamed down and pooled in clear, cold pockets. Hralien tried to avoid those pools as much as possible, for they often concealed slick ice. But even with his great dexterity and sharp vision, he occasionally splashed through, cringing at the unavoidable sound.

At one point, he heard an orc cry out, and feared that he had been spotted. Many strides later, he realized that the creature was just calling to a companion, a stark reminder that the lead runners and scouts of the brutish force were all around him.

Finally he left the sounds of orcs behind, for though the brutes could move with great speed, they could not match the pace of a dexterous elf, even across such broken ground.

Soon after, coming up over a rocky rise, Hralien caught sight of squat stone towers in the south, running down from tall mountains to the silvery, moonlit snake that was the River Surbrin.

“Too soon,” the elf whispered in dismay, and he glanced back as if expecting Obould’s entire army to roll over him. He shook his head and winced, then sprinted off for the south.

“We will have it completed within the tenday,” Alustriel said to Catti-brie, the two sitting with some of the other Silverymoon wizards around a small campfire. One of the wizards, a robust human with thick salt and pepper hair and a tightly trimmed goatee, had conjured the flames and was playing with them, casting cantrips to change their color from orange to white to blue and red. A second wizard, a rather eccentric half-elf with shiny black hair magically streaked by a bloom of bright red locks, joined in and wove enchantments to make the red flames form into the shape of a small dragon. Seeing the challenge, the first wizard likewise formed blue flames, and the two spellcasters set their fiery pets into a proxy battle. Almost immediately, several other wizards began excitedly placing their bets.

Catti-brie watched with amusement and interest—more than she would have expected, and Alustriel’s words to her about dabbling in the dark arts flitted unbidden through her thoughts. Her experience with wizards was very limited, and mostly involved the unpredictable and dangerously foolish Harpell family from Longsaddle.

“Asa Havel will win,” Alustriel whispered to her, leaning in close and indicating the half-elf wizard who had manipulated the red flame. “Duzberyl is far more powerful at manipulating fire, but he has taxed his powers to their limit this day conjuring bright hot flames to seal the stone. And Asa Havel knows it.”

“So he challenged,” Catti-brie whispered back. “And his friends know, too, so they wager.”

“They would wager anyway,” Alustriel explained. “It is a matter of pride. Whatever is lost here will be reclaimed soon enough in another challenge.”

Catti-brie nodded and watched the unfolding drama, the many faces, elf and human alike, glowing in varying shades and hues in the uneven light, turning blue as the blue dragon leaped atop the red, but then drifting back, green and yellow and toward a feverish red as Asa Havel’s drake filtered up through Duzberyl’s and gradually gained supremacy. It was all good-natured, of course, but Catti-brie didn’t miss the intensity etched onto the faces of the combatants and onlookers alike. It occurred to her that she was looking into an entirely different world. She could relate it to the drinking games, and the arm-wrestling and sparring that so often took place in the taverns of Mithral Hall, for though the venue was different, the emotions were not. Still, there remained enough of a difference to intrigue her. It was a battle of strength, but of mental strength and concentration, and not of muscle and intestinal fortitude.

“Within a month, you could form flames into such shapes, yourself,” Alustriel teased.

Catti-brie looked at her and laughed dismissively, but that hardly hid her interest.

She looked back to the fire just in time to see Duzberyl’s blue roll over and consume Asa Havel’s red, contrary to Alustriel’s prediction. The backers of both wizards gasped in surprise and Duzberyl gave a yelp that was more shock than of victory. Catti-brie’s gaze turned to Asa Havel, and her surprise turned to confusion.

The half-elf was not looking at the fight, and seemed oblivious to the fact that his dragon had been consumed by the human’s blue. He stared out to the north, his sea-blue eyes scanning high above the flames. Catti-brie felt Alustriel turn beside her, then stand. The woman glanced over her shoulder, up at the dark wall, but shook her head slightly in confusion, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Beside her, Alustriel cast a minor spell.

Other wizards rose and peered out to the north.

“An elf has come,” Alustriel said to Catti-brie. “And the dwarves are scrambling.”

“It’s an attack,” Asa Havel announced, rising and moving past the two women. He looked right at Alustriel and the princess of Mithral Hall and asked, “Orcs?”

“Prepare for battle,” Alustriel said to her contingent. “Area spells to disrupt any charge.”

“We have little left this day,” Duzberyl reminded her.

In response, Alustriel reached inside one of the folds of her robes and drew forth a pair of slender wands. She half-turned and tossed one to Duzberyl. “Your necklace, too, if needed,” she instructed, and the human nodded and brought a hand to a gaudy choker he wore, its golden links set with large stones like rubies of varying sizes, including one so large that Catti-brie couldn’t have closed her fist around it.

“Talindra, to the gates of the dwarven halls,” Alustriel said to a young elf female. “Warn the dwarves and help them sort the battle.”

The elf nodded and took a few fast steps to the west, then disappeared with a flash of blue-white light. A second flash followed almost instantly, over near the hall’s eastern gates, transporting Talindra to her assigned position, the surprised Catti-brie assumed, for she couldn’t actually see the young elf.

She turned back to hear Alustriel positioning Asa Havel and another pair. “Secure fast passage to the far bank, should we need it. Prepare enough to carry any dwarves routed from the wall.”

Catti-brie heard the first shouts from the wall, followed by the blare of horns, many horns, from beyond to the north. Then came the blare of one that overwhelmed all the others, a resonating, low-pitched grumble that shook the stones beneath Catti-brie’s feet.

“Damn Obould to the Nine Hells,” Catti-brie whispered, and she grimaced at the realization that she had loaned Taulmaril to Drizzt. She looked over at Alustriel. “I haven’t my bow, or a sword. A weapon, please? Conjure one or produce one from a deep pocket.”

To Catti-brie’s surprise, the Lady of Silverymoon did just that, pulling yet another wand from inside her robes. Catti-brie took it, not knowing what to make of the thing, and when she looked back at Alustriel, the tall woman was tugging a ring from her finger.

“And this,” she said, handing over the thin gold band set with a trio of sparkling diamonds. “I trust you are not already in the possession of two magical rings.”

Catti-brie took it and held it pressed between her thumb and index finger, her expression dumbfounded.

“The command word for the wand is ‘twell-in-sey,’” Alustriel explained. “Or ‘twell-in-sey-sey’ if you wish to loose two magical bolts.”

“I don’t know…”

“Anyone can use it,” Alustriel assured her. “Point it at your target and speak the word. For the bigger orcs, choose two.”

“But…”

“Put the ring on your finger and open your mind to it, for it will impart to you its dweomers. And know that they are powerful indeed.” With that, Alustriel turned away, and Catti-brie understood that the lesson was at its end.

The Lady of Silverymoon and her wizards, except for those working near the river preparing a magical escape to the far bank, headed off for the wall, nearly all of them drawing forth wands or rods, or switching rings and other jewelry. Catti-brie watched it all with an undeniable sense of excitement, so much so that she was trembling so badly she could hardly line up the ring to slip it on her finger.

Finally she did, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt as if she were looking up at the heavens, to see stars shooting across the darkened night sky, to see flashes of brilliance so magnificent that it seemed to her as if the gods must be throwing bolts at each other.

The first sounds of battle shook her from her contemplation. She opened her eyes and nearly fell over due to dizziness from the sudden change, as if she had just stepped back to solid ground from the Astral Plane.

She started after Alustriel, inspecting the wand, and garnered quickly which end to hold from a leather strap wrapped diagonally as a hand grip. At least she hoped it was the right end, and she winced at the thought of unloading enchanted bolts of magic into her own face. She dismissed the worry, noting that she wasn’t gaining much on Alustriel, and noting more pointedly that the dwarves at the wall scrambled and yelled for support in many places already. She dropped her arms down beside her and ran as fast as her battered hip would allow.

“Twell-in-sey,” she whispered, trying to get the inflection correct.

She did.

The wand discharged and a red dart of energy burst forth, snapping into the ground with a hiss right before her running feet. Catti-brie yelped and stumbled, nearly falling over. She caught her balance and her composure, and was glad that no one seemed to notice.

On she ran, or tried to, but a wave of hot fire ran up her leg and nearly toppled her yet again. She looked down to her boot, smoking and charred on the side just back of her little toe. She paused again and composed herself, taking heart that the wound was not too severe, and thanking Moradin himself that Lady Alustriel hadn’t given her a wand of lightning bolts.

The orc gained the wall in a wild rush, stabbing powerfully at the nearest dwarf, who seemed an easy kill as he was busy driving a second orc back over the wall and into the darkness.

But that dwarf, Charmorffe Dredgewelder of Fine Family Yellow-beard—so named because none of the Dredgewelders was ever known to have a yellow beard—was neither particularly surprised nor particularly impressed by the aggressive move. Trained under Thibble dorf Pwent himself, having served more than a score of years in the Gutbuster Brigade, Charmorffe had faced many a finer foe than that pathetic creature.

As Charmorffe had never gotten familiar with a formal buckler, his plate-shielded arm swooped down to intercept the spear, blocking it solidly and sweeping it back behind him as he turned. That same movement brought his cudgel swinging around, and a quick three-step forward caught the overbalanced orc cleanly in range. The creature grunted, as did the dwarf, as the cudgel slammed it right behind the shoulder, launching it into a dive and spin forward, right off the ten-foot parapet.

As the path before him cleared, Charmorffe looked down the tip of an arrow set on a short bow. He yelped and fell over backward, buckling at both his knees, and as soon as he was clear, Hralien let fly. The missile hummed through the air right above the dwarf, and splattered into the chest of an orc that had been sneaking up on him from behind.

As soon as his back hit the stone, Charmorffe snapped all of his muscles forward, throwing his arms up high, and brought himself right back to his feet.

“That’s twice I’m owin’ ye, ye durned elf!” the dwarf protested. “First for savin’ us all, and now for savin’ meself!”

“I did neither, good dwarf,” Hralien replied, running across the parapet to the waist-high wall, where he set his bow to work immediately. “I’ve faith that Clan Battlehammer is more than able to save itself.”

He shot off an arrow as he spoke, but as soon as he finished, a large orc rose into the air right before him, sword ready to strike a killing blow. The orc landed lightly on the wall top and struck, but a spinning cudgel hit both the sword and the orc, turning its blow harmlessly short. And when the orc managed to hold its balance and throw itself forward at Hralien, it too was intercepted, by a flying Charmorffe Dredgewelder. The dwarf connected with a shoulder block, driving the orc tight against the wall. The orc began raining ineffective blows upon the dwarf’s back for Charmorffe’s powerful legs kept grinding, pressing in even tighter.

Hralien stabbed the orc in the eye with an arrow.

The elf jumped back fast, though, set the arrow and let fly, point blank into yet another orc flying up to the top of the wall. Hralien hit it squarely, and though its feet landed atop the narrow rail, the jolt of the hit dropped it right back off.

Charmorffe leaped up and clean-and-jerked the thrashing orc up high over his head. The dwarf threw himself into the wall, which hit him about mid chest, and snapped forward, tossing the orc over. As he went forward, Charmorffe solved the riddle, for just below him, and off to both sides as well, stood ogres, their backs tight against the wall. As each bent low and cupped its hands down near the ground, another orc ran up and stepped into that brace. A slight toss by the ogres had orcs sailing up over the wall.

“Pig-faced goblin kissers,” Charmorffe growled. He turned and shouted, “Rocks over the wall, boys! We got ogres playing as ladders!”

Hralien rushed up beside Charmorffe, leaned far out and shot an arrow into the top of the nearest ogre’s head. He marveled at his handiwork, then saw it all the more clearly as a fireball lit up the night, down to the east of his position, closer to the Surbrin where the wall was far from complete.

When Hralien looked that way, he thought their position surely lost, for though Alustriel and her wizards had entered the fray, a mass of huge orcs and larger foes swarmed across the defenses.

“Run for Mithral Hall, good dwarf,” the elf said.

“That’s what I be thinking,” said Charmorffe.

Duzberyl ambled toward the wall, grumbling incessantly. “Two hundred pieces of gold for this one alone,” he muttered, pulling another glittering red jewel from his enchanted necklace. He reached back and threw it at the nearest orcs, but his estimate of distance in the low light was off and the jewel landed short of the mark. Its fiery explosion still managed to engulf and destroy a couple of the creatures, and the others fell back in full flight, shrieking with every stride.

But Duzberyl griped all the more. “A hundred gold an orc,” he grumbled, glancing back at Alustriel, who was far off to the side. “I could hire an army of rangers to kill ten times the number for one-tenth the cost!” he said, though he knew she was too far away to hear him.

And she wasn’t listening anyway. She stood perfectly still, the wind whipping her robes. She lifted one arm before her, a jeweled ring on her clenched fist sparking with multicolored light.

Duzberyl had seen that effect before, but still he was startled when a bolt of bright white lightning burst forth from Alustriel’s ring, splitting the night. The powerful wizard’s aim was, as always, right on target, her bolt slamming an ogre in the face as it climbed over the wall. Hair dancing wildly, head smoking, the brute flew back into the darkness as Alustriel’s bolt bounced away to hit another nearby attacker, an orc that seemed to simply melt into the stone. Again and again, Alustriel’s chain lightning leaped away, striking orc or ogre or half-ogre, sending foes flying or spinning down with smoke rising from bubbling skin.

But every vacancy was fast-filled, ten attackers for every one that fell, it seemed.

The apparent futility brought a renewed growl to Duzberyl’s chubby face, and he stomped along to a better vantage point.

Limping from foot and hip, Catti-brie watched it all with equal if not greater frustration, for at least Alustriel and her wizards were equipped to battle the monsters. The woman felt naked without her bow, and even with the gifts Alustriel had offered, she believed that she would prove more a burden than an asset.

She considered removing herself from the front lines, back to the bridge where she might prove of some use to Asa Havel in directing the retreat, should it come to that. That in mind, she glanced back—and noted a small group of orcs sprinting along the riverbank toward the distracted wizards.

Catti-brie thrust forth the wand, but brought it back and punched out with her other fist instead. The ring’s teeming magical energies called out to her and she listened, and though she didn’t know exactly the effects of her call, she followed the magical path toward the strongest sensation of stored energy.

The ring jolted once, twice, thrice, each burst sending forth a fiery ball at Catti-brie’s targets. Like twinkling little stars, they seemed, as if the ring had reached up to the heavens and pulled celestial bodies down for its wielder to launch at her enemies. At great speed, they shot out across the night, leaving fiery trails, and when they reached the orc group, they exploded into larger blasts of consuming flames.

Orcs shrieked and scrambled frantically, and more than one leaped into the river to be washed away by cold, killing currents. Others rolled on the ground, trying to douse the biting flames, and when that failed, they ran off like living torches into the dark night, only to fall a few steps away, to crumble and burn on the frozen ground.

It lasted only a heartbeat, but seemed like much longer to Catti-brie, who stood transfixed, breathing hard, her eyes wide with shock. With a thought, she had blown apart nearly a score of orcs. As if they were nothing. As if she were a goddess, passing judgment on insignificant creatures. Never had she felt such power!

At that moment, if someone had asked Catti-brie the Elvish name of her treasured longbow, she would not have recalled it.

“It’s not to hold!” Charmorffe cried to Hralien, and a swipe of the dwarf’s heavy cudgel sent another orc flying aside.

Hralien wanted to shout back words of encouragement, but his view of the battlefield, since he wielded a weapon that made it incumbent upon him to seek a wider perspective, was more complete, and he understood that the situation was even worse than Charmorffe likely believed.

Few dwarves came forth from Mithral Hall and a host of orcs poured through the lower, uncompleted sections of the defensive wall. Huge orcs, some two feet taller and more than a hundred pounds heavier than the dwarves. Among them were true ogres, though it was hard for Hralien to distinguish where some of the orcs ended and the clusters of ogres began.

More orcs came up over the wall, launched by their ogre step-stools, putting pressure on the dwarves and preventing them from organizing a coordinated defense against the larger mass rolling in from the east.

“It’s not to hold!” Charmorffe yelled again, and the words rang true. Hralien knew that the end was coming fast. The wizards intervened—one fireball then another, and a lightning chain that left many creatures smoking on the ground. But that wouldn’t be enough, and Hralien understood that the wizards had been at their magical work all day long and had little power left to offer.

“Start the retreat,” the elf said to Charmorffe. “To Mithral Hall!”

Even as he spoke, the orc mass surged forward, and Hralien feared that he and Charmorffe and the others had waited too long.

“By the gods, and the gemstone vendors!” Duzberyl roared, watching the sudden break in the dwarven line, the bearded folk sprinting back to the west along the wall, leaping down from the parapets and veering straight for Mithral Hall’s eastern door. All semblance of a defensive posture had flown, creating a full and frantic retreat.

And it wouldn’t be enough, the wizard calculated, for the orcs, hungry for dwarf blood, closed with every stride. Duzberyl grimaced as a dwarf was swallowed in the black cloud of the orc horde.

The portly wizard ran, and he reached up to his necklace, grasping the largest stone of all. He tore it free, cursed the gemstone merchant again for good measure, and heaved it with all his strength.

The magical grenade hit the base of the wall just behind the leading orcs, and exploded, filling the area, even up onto the parapet, with biting, killing fires. Those monsters immediately above and near the blast charred and died, while others scrambled in an agonized and horrified frenzy, flames consuming them as they ran. Panic hit the orc line, and the dwarves ran free.

“Mage,” Grguch muttered as he alighted on the wall some distance back of the enormous fireball.

“Of considerable power,” said Hakuun, who stood beside him, having blessed himself and Grguch with every conceivable ward and enhancement.

The chieftain turned back and fell prone on the parapet railing. “Hand it up,” he called down to the ogre who had flipped him up, indicating a weapon. A moment later, Grguch stood again on the wall, hoisting on one shoulder a huge javelin at the end of an atlatl.

“Mage,” Grguch grumbled again with obvious disgust.

Hakuun held up a hand, motioning for the chieftain to pause. Then, from inside the orc priest, Jack the Gnome cast a most devious enchantment on the head of the missile.

Grguch grinned and brought his shoulder back, shifting the angle of the ten-foot missile. As Hakuun cast a second, complimentary spell upon the intended victim, Grguch launched the spear with all his might.

The stubborn orc lurched toward her, one of its legs still showing flashes of biting flame.

Catti-brie didn’t flinch, didn’t even start as the orc awkwardly threw a spear her way. She kept her eyes locked on the creature, met its gaze and its hate, and slowly lifted her wand.

She wished at that moment that she had Khazid’hea at her side, that she could engage the vile creature in personal combat. The orc took another staggering step, and Catti-brie uttered the command word.

The red missile sizzled into the orc’s chest, knocking it backward. Somehow it held its balance and even advanced another step. Catti-brie said the last word of the trigger twice, as she had been schooled, and the first red missile knocked the orc back yet again, and the second dropped it to the ground where it writhed for just a heartbeat before laying very still.

Catti-brie stood calm and motionless for a few moments, steadying herself. She turned back to the wall, and blinked against the bursts of fiery explosions and the sharp cuts of lightning bolts, a fury that truly left her breathless. In her temporary blindness, she almost expected that the battle had ended, that the wizardly barrage had utterly destroyed the attackers as she had laid low the small group by the river.

But there came the largest blast of all, a tremendous fireball some distance back along the wall to the west, toward Mithral Hall. Catti-brie saw the truth of it, saw the dwarves, and one elf, in desperate retreat, saw all semblance of defense stripped from the wall, buried under the trampling boots of a charging orc horde.

The wall was lost. All from Mithral Hall to the Surbrin was lost. Even Lady Alustriel was withdrawing, not quite in full flight, but in a determined retreat.

Looking past Alustriel, Catti-brie noted Duzberyl. For a moment, she wondered why he, too, was not in retreat, until she realized that he stood strangely, leaning too far back for his legs to support him, his arms lolling limply at his sides.

One of the other wizards threw a lightning bolt—a rather feeble one—and in the flash, Catti-brie saw the huge javelin that had been driven half of its ten-foot length through his chest, its tip buried into the ground, pinning the wizard in that curious, angular stance.

“We have them routed! Now is the moment of victory!” a frustrated Hakuun said as he stood alone behind the charging horde. He wanted to go with them, or to serve as Jaculi’s conduit, as he often had, to launch a barrage of devastating magic.

But Jaculi would not begin that barrage, and worse, the uninvited parasite interrupted him every time he tried to use his more conventional shaman’s magic.

A temporary moment, to be sure, Jack said in his thoughts.

“What foolishness…?”

That is Lady Alustriel, Jack explained. Alustriel of the Seven Sisters. Do not draw her attention!

“She is running!” Hakuun protested.

She will know me. She will recognize me. She will turn loose her army and all of her wizards and all of her magic to destroy me, Jack explained. It is an old grudge, but one that neither I nor she has forgotten! Do nothing to draw her attention.

“She is running! We can kill her,” said Hakuun.

Jack’s incredulous laughter filled his head with dizzying volume, so much so that the shaman couldn’t even start off after Grguch and the others. He just stood there, swaying, as the battle ended around him.

Inside Hakuun’s head, Jack the brain mole breathed a lot easier. In truth, he had no idea if Alustriel remembered the slight he had given her more than a century earlier. But he surely remembered her wrath from that dangerous day, and it was nothing that Jack the Gnome ever wanted to see again.

One of Lady Alustriel’s wizards ran past Catti-brie at that moment, shouting, “Be quick to the bridge!”

Catti-brie shook her head, but she knew it to be a futile denial. Mithral Hall hadn’t expected an assault of such ferocity so soon. They had been lulled by a winter of inaction, by the many reports that the bulk of the orc army remained in the west, near to Keeper’s Dale, and by the widespread rumors that King Obould had settled in place, satisfied with his gains.

“To the Nine Hells with you, Obould,” she cursed under her breath. “I pray that Drizzt won’t kill you, only that I may find the pleasure myself.”

She turned and started for the bridge with as much speed as she could muster, stepping awkwardly, as each time she brought her right foot forward, she felt the pangs from her damaged hip, and each time she placed that foot onto the ground, she was reminded by a burning sting of her foolishness with the magical wand.

When another wizard running by skidded to a stop beside her and offered her shoulder, Catti-brie, for all her pride and all her determination to not be a burden, gratefully accepted. If she had refused a hand, she would have fallen to the back of the line and likely would have never made it to the bridge.

Asa Havel greeted the returning contingent, directing them to floating disks of glowing magic that hovered nearby. As each seat filled, the wizard who had created it climbed aboard, but for a few moments, none started out across the river, for none wanted to leave the fleeing dwarves.

“Be gone!” Alustriel ordered them, coming in at the end of the line and with orc pursuit not far behind. “Because of Duzberyl’s sacrifice, the retreating dwarves will make the safety of the hall, and I have sent a whisper on the wind to Talindra to instruct them to hold fast their gates and wait for morning. Across the river for us, to the safety of the eastern bank. Let us prepare our spells for a morning reprisal that will leave our enemies melted between the river and King Bruenor’s hall.”

Many heads nodded in agreement, and as Alustriel’s eyes flashed with the sheerest intensity, Catti-brie could only wonder what mighty dweomers the Lady of Silverymoon would cast upon the foolish orcs when dawn revealed them.

Seated on the edge of a disk, her feet dangling just inches above the cold and dark rushing waters of the Surbrin, Catti-brie stared back at Mithral Hall with a mixture of emotions, not least among them guilt, and fear for her beloved home and for her beloved husband. Drizzt had gone to the north, and the army had descended from that direction. Yet he had not returned in front of the marching force with a warning, she knew, for she had not seen the lightning arrows of Taulmaril streaking through the night sky.

Catti-brie looked down at the water and steeled her thoughts and her heart.

Asa Havel, sitting beside her, put a hand on her shoulder. When she looked at the half-elf, he offered a warm and comforting smile. That smile turned a bit mischievous, and he nodded down to her torn boot. Catti-brie followed his gaze then looked back up at him, her face flushed with embarrassment.

But the elf nodded and shrugged, and lifted his red and black hair by his left ear, turning his head to catch the moonlight so that she could take note of a white scar running up the side of his head. He took her wand and assumed a pensive pose, tapping it against the side of his face, in line with the scar.

“You won’t err like that again,” he assured her with a playful wink, handing the wand back. “And take heart, for your impressive meteor shower gave us the time to complete the floating disks.”

“It wasn’t mine. It came from the ring Lady Alustriel loaned to me.”

“However you accomplished it, your timing and your calm action saved our efforts. You will find a role in the morning.”

“When we avenge Duzberyl,” Catti-brie said grimly.

Asa Havel nodded, and added, “And the dwarves who no doubt fell this dark night.”

The shouting across the river ended soon after, silenced by a resounding bang as Mithral Hall slammed shut her eastern door. But as the wizards and Catti-brie set their camp for the evening, they heard more commotion across the dark water. The orcs scrambled around the towers and the wizards’ previous encampment, tearing and smashing and looting, their grunts and assaults punctuated by the occasional crack of a thrown boulder hitting the bridge abutments, and bouncing into the water.

Others settled down to sleep, but Catti-brie remained sitting, staring back at the darkness, where an occasional fire sprang to life, consuming a tent or some other item.

“I had an extra spellbook over there,” one wizard grumbled.

“Aye, and I, the first twenty pages of a spell I was penning,” said another.

“And I, my finest robes,” a third wailed. “Oh, but orcs will burn for this!”

A short while later, a rustle from the other direction, back to the east, turned Catti-brie and the few others who hadn’t yet settled in for the night. The woman rose and limped across to stand beside Alustriel, who greeted the Felbarran contingent as they rushed in to investigate the night’s tumult.

“We’d set off for Winter Edge to quarry more stones,” explained the leader, a squat and tough old character with a white beard and eyebrows so bushy that they hid his eyes. “What in the grumble of a dragon’s belly hit ye?”

“Obould,” Catti-brie said before Alustriel could respond.

“So much then for the good intentions,” said the Felbarran dwarf. “Never thought them dogs’d sit quiet on the ground they’d taken. Mithral Hall get breached?”

“Never,” said Catti-brie.

“Good enough then,” said the dwarf. “We’ll push ’em back north o’ the wall in short order.”

“In the morning,” said Alustriel. “My charges are preparing their spells. I have ears and a voice in Mithral Hall to coordinate the counterattack.”

“Might be then that we’ll kill ’em all and not let any be running,” said the dwarf. “More’s the fun!”

“Set your camp by the river, and order your forces into small and swift groups,” Alustriel explained. “We will open magical gates of transport to the other bank and your speed and coordination in entering the battlefield will prove decisive.”

“Pity them orcs, then,” said the dwarf, and he nodded and bowed, then stormed off, barking orders at his grim-faced forces.

He had barely gone a few strides, though, when there came a tremendous crash from across the way, followed by wild orc cheering.

“A tower,” Alustriel explained to the surprised stares of all around her.

Catti-brie cursed under her breath.

“We will extend our time at Mithral Hall,” the Lady of Silvery-moon promised her. “Our enemies have exploited a vulnerability that cannot be allowed to hold. We will sweep the orcs back to the north and chase them far from the doors.”

“Then finish the bridge,” another nearby wizard offered, but Alustriel was shaking her head.

“The wall first,” she explained. “Our enemies did us a favor by revealing our weakness. Woe to all in the North if the orcs had taken this ground after the bridge’s completion. So our first duty after they are expelled is to complete and fortify that wall. Any orc excursion back to Mithral Hall’s eastern door must come at a great cost to them, and must provide the time for us to disassemble the bridge. We will finish the wall and then we will finish the bridge.”

“And then?” Catti-brie asked, and Alustriel and the other wizards looked at her curiously.

“You will return to Silverymoon?” Catti-brie asked.

“My duties are there. What else would you suggest?”

“Obould has shown his hand,” Catti-brie replied. “There is no peace to be found while he is camped north of Mithral Hall.”

“You ask me to rally an army,” said Alustriel.

“Have we a choice?”

Alustriel paused and considered the woman’s words. “I know not,” she admitted. “But let us first concentrate on the battle at hand.” She turned to the nearby wizards. “Sleep well, and when you awaken, prepare your most devastating evocations. Join with each other when you open your spellbooks, and coordinate your efforts and complement your spells. I want these orcs utterly destroyed. Let their folly serve as a warning that will keep their kin at bay long enough for us to strengthen the defenses.”

Many nods came back at her, along with a sudden and unexpected shout, “For Duzberyl!”

“Duzberyl!” another cried, and another, and even those Silvery-moon wizards who had settled down for the night rose and joined in the chant. Soon enough, even the Felbarran dwarves joined in, though none of them knew what a “Duzberyl” might be.

It didn’t matter.

More than once that night, Catti-brie awoke to the sound of a thunderous crash from across the river. That only steeled her determination, though, and each time, she fell back asleep with Lady Alustriel’s promise in her thoughts. They would pay the orcs back in full, and then some.

The preparations began before dawn, wizards ruffling the pages of their spellbooks, dwarves sharpening weapons. With a wave of yet another wand, Lady Alustriel turned herself into an owl, and flew off silently to scout out the coming battlefield.

She returned in mere moments, and reverted to her human form as the first rays of dawn crept across the Surbrin, revealing to all the others what Alustriel had returned to report.

Spellbooks snapped shut and the dwarves lowered their weapons and tools, moving to the riverbank and staring in disbelief.

Not an orc was to be seen.

Alustriel set them to motion, her minions opening dimensional doors that soon enough got all of them, dwarf, wizard, and Catti-brie alike, across the Surbrin, the last of them crossing even as Mithral Hall’s eastern door banged open and King Bruenor himself led the charge out from the stronghold.

But all they found were a dozen dead dwarves, stripped naked, and a dead wizard, still standing, held in place by a mighty javelin.

The wizards’ encampment had been razed and looted, as had the small shacks the dwarf builders had used. An assortment of boulders lay around the base of the damaged bridge abutment, and all of the towers and a good portion of the northern wall had been toppled.

And not an orc, dead or alive, was anywhere to be found.

CHAPTER 19 AN ORC KING’S CONJECTURE

By all the glories of Gruumsh!” Kna squealed happily when the reports of the victory at the Surbrin made their way like wildfire back to King Obould’s entourage. “We have killed the dwarves!”

“We have stung them and left them vulnerable,” said the messenger who had come from the battle, an orc named Oktule, who was a member of one of the many minor tribes that had been swept up in the march of Chieftain Grguch—a name Oktule used often, Obould had sourly noted. “Their walls are reduced and the winter is fast receding. They will have to work through the summer, building as they defend their position at the Surbrin.”

The orcs all around began to cheer wildly.

“We have severed Mithral Hall from their allies!”

The cheering only increased.

Obould sat there, digesting it all. He knew that Grguch hadn’t done any such thing, for the cunning dwarves had tunnels under the Surbrin, and many others that stretched far to the south. Still, it was hard to dismiss the victory, from both practical and symbolic terms. The bridge, had it been completed, would have provided a comfortable and easy approach to Mithral Hall from Silverymoon, Winter Edge, the Moonwood, and the other surrounding communities, and an easy way for King Bruenor to continue doing his profitable business.

Of course, one orc’s victory was another orc’s setback. Obould, too, had wanted to claim a piece of the Surbrin bridge, but not in such a manner, not as an enemy. And certainly not at the cost of assuring the mysterious Grguch all the glory. He fought hard to keep the scowl from his face. To go against the tide of joy then was to invite suspicion, perhaps even open revolt.

“Chieftain Grguch and Clan Karuck did not hold the ground?” he asked, not so innocently, for he knew well the answer.

“Lady Alustriel and a gang of wizards were with the dwarves,” Oktule explained. “Chieftain Grguch expected that the whole of the dwarven hall would come forth with the morning light.”

“No doubt with King Bruenor, Drizzt Do’Urden, and the rest of that strange companionship at its head,” Obould muttered.

“We did not have the numbers to hold against that,” Oktule admitted.

Obould glanced past the messenger to the gathered crowd. He saw more trepidation on their faces than anything else, along with an undercurrent of…what? Suspicion?

The orc king stood up and stretched to his full height, towering over Oktule. He looked up and let his gaze sweep in the mob then said with a wicked grin, “A great victory anyway!”

The cheering reached new heights, and Obould, his anger beginning to boil within him, used that opportunity to steal off into his tent, the ever-present Kna and the priest Nukkels following close behind.

Inside the inner chamber, Obould dismissed all of his guards.

“You, too,” Kna snapped at Nukkels, errantly presuming that the glorious news had excited her partner as it had her.

Nukkels grinned at her and looked to Obould, who confirmed his suspicions.

“You, too,” Obould echoed, but aimed the comment at Kna and not the priest. “Be gone until I summon you back to my side.”

Kna’s yellow eyes widened in shock, and she instinctively moved to Obould’s side and began to curl sensually around him. But with one hand, with the strength of a giant, he yanked her away.

“Do not make me ask you again,” he said slowly and deliberately, as if he were a parent addressing a child. With a flick of his wrist he sent Kna skipping and tumbling backward, and she kept scrambling away, her eyes wide with shock as she locked her stare on Obould’s frightening expression.

“We must commune with Gruumsh to determine the next victory,” Obould said to her, purposely softening his visage. “You will play with Obould later.”

That seemed to calm the idiot Kna a bit, and she even managed a smile as she exited the chamber.

Nukkels started to talk then, but Obould stopped him with an upraised hand. “Give Kna time to be properly away,” the king said loudly. “For if my dear consort inadvertently overhears the words of Gruumsh, the One-eye will demand her death.”

As soon as he finished, a rustling just to the side of the exit confirmed his suspicions that his foolish Kna had been thinking to eavesdrop. Obould looked at Nukkels and sighed.

“An informative idiot, at least,” the priest offered, and Obould could only shrug. Nukkels began spellcasting, waving his arms and releasing wards to silence the area around himself and Obould.

When he finished, Obould nodded his approval and said, “I have heard the name of Chieftain Grguch far too often of late. What do you know of Clan Karuck?”

It was Nukkels’s turn to shrug. “Half-ogres, say the rumors, but I cannot confirm. They are not known to me.”

“And yet they heard my call.”

“Many tribes have come forth from the deep holes of the Spine of the World, seeking to join in the triumph of King Obould. Surely Clan Karuck’s priests could have heard of our march through communion with Gruumsh.”

“Or from mortal voices.”

Nukkels mulled that over for a bit. “There has been a chain of whispers and shouts, no doubt,” he replied cautiously, for Obould’s tone hinted at something more nefarious.

“He comes forth and attacks the Moonwood then sweeps south and overruns the dwarves’ wall. For a chieftain who lived deep in the holes of the distant mountains, Grguch seems to know well the enemies lurking on the borders of Many-Arrows.”

Nukkels nodded and said, “You believe that Clan Karuck was called here with purpose.”

“I believe I would be a fool not to find out if that was the case,” Obould replied. “It is no secret that many have disagreed with my decision to pause in our campaign.”

“Pause?”

“As far as they know.”

“So they bring forth an instigator, to drive Obould forward?”

“An instigator, or a rival?”

“None would be so foolish!” the priest said with proper and prudent astonishment.

“Do not overestimate the intelligence of the masses,” Obould said. “But whether as an instigator or a rival, Grguch has brought trouble to my designs. Perhaps irreparable damage. We can expect a counterattack from King Bruenor, I am sure, and from many of his allies if we are unlucky.”

“Grguch stung them, but he left,” Nukkels reminded the king. “If they see his strike as bait, Bruenor will not be so foolish as to come forth from his defended halls.”

“Let us hope, and let us hope that we can quickly contain this eager chieftain. Send Oktule back to Grguch, with word that I would speak to him. Offer an invitation to Clan Karuck for a great feast in honor of their victories.”

Nukkels nodded.

“And prepare yourself for a journey, my trusted friend,” Obould went on, and that reference took Nukkels off-guard, for he had only known Obould for a short time, and had only spoken directly to the orc king since Obould had climbed back up from the landslide that had nearly killed him and the dark elf.

“I would go to Mithral Hall itself for King Obould Many-Arrows,” Nukkels replied, standing straight and determined.

Obould grinned and nodded, and Nukkels knew that his guess had been correct. And his answer had been sincere and well-placed—and expected, since it had, after all, come from the king’s “trusted friend.”

“Shall I invite Kna and your private guard to return to you, Great One?” Nukkels asked, bowing low.

Obould paused for a moment then shook his head. “I will call for them when they are needed,” he told the priest. “Go and speak with Oktule. Send him on his way, and return to me this night, with your own pack readied for a long and trying road.”

Nukkels bowed again, turned, and swiftly departed.

“Ah, but it’s good that ye’re here, Lady,” Bruenor said to Alustriel when they met out by the wall. Catti-brie stood beside the Lady of Silverymoon, with Regis and Thibble dorf Pwent close behind Bruenor.

Not far away, Cordio Muffinhead and another dwarf priest went to work immediately on the poor, impaled Duzberyl, extricating the dead wizard as gently as possible.

“Would that we could have done more,” Alustriel replied solemnly. “Like your kin, we were lulled by the passing months of quiet, and so the orc assault caught us by surprise. We had not the proper spells prepared, for our studies have focused on working the Surbrin Bridge to completion.”

“Ye did a bit o’ damage to the pigs, and got most o’ me boys back to the hall,” said Bruenor. “Ye did good by us, and we’re not for forgettin’ that.”

Alustriel responded with a bow. “And now that we know, we will not be caught unawares again,” she promised. “Our efforts on the bridge will be slowed, of course, as half our magical repertoire each day will be focused on spells for defending the ground and repelling invaders. And indeed, we will have just a small crew at the bridge until the wall and towers are repaired and completed. The bridge will serve no useful purpose until—”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “The point’s all moot. We seen the truth o’ Obould, suren as there is any. Put all yer spells for orc-killing—excepting them ye’ll be needin’ to get yer Knights in Silver across the Surbrin. When we’re done with the damned orcs, we can worry about the bridge and the wall, though I’m thinkin’ we won’t be needing much of a wall!”

Behind him, Thibble dorf Pwent snorted, as did several others, but Alustriel just looked at him curiously, as if she didn’t understand. As her expression registered to Bruenor, his own face became a scowl of abject disbelief. That look only intensified as he noted Catti-brie’s wince at Alustriel’s side, confirmation that he wasn’t misreading the Lady of Silverymoon.

“Ye’re thinkin’ we’re to dig in and let Obould play it as Obould wants?” the dwarf asked.

“I advise caution, good king,” Alustriel said.

“Caution?”

“The orcs did not hold the ground,” Alustriel noted. “They struck and then they ran—likely to evoke just such a response from you. They would have you roar out of Mithral Hall, all full of fight and rage. And out there”—she motioned to the wild north—“they would have their battle with you on the ground of their own choosing.”

“Her words make sense,” Catti-brie added, but Bruenor snorted again.

“And if they’re thinking that Clan Battlehammer’s to come out alone, then I’m thinkin’ their plan to be a good one,” Bruenor said. “But what a trap they’ll find when the trap they spring closes on all the force o’ the Silver Marches. On Alustriel’s wizards and the Knights in Silver, on Felbarr’s thousands and Adbar’s tens o’! On Sundabar’s army, guided in on Obould’s flank by them Moonwood elves, who’re not too fond o’ the damned orcs, in case ye’re missing the grumbles.”

Alustriel drew her lips very tight, as clear a response as she could possibly give.

“What?” Bruenor roared. “Ye’re not for calling them? Not now? Not when we seen what Obould’s all about? Ye hoped for a truce, and now ye’re seein’ the truth o’ that truce! What more’re ye needing?”

“It is not a matter of evidence, good dwarf,” Alustriel replied, calmly and evenly, though her voice rang much thinner than usual. “It is a matter of practicality.”

“Practicality, or cowardice?” Bruenor demanded.

Alustriel accepted the barb with a light, resigned shrug.

“Ye said ye’d be standin’ with me boys when we needed ye,” Bruenor reminded.

“They will…” Catti-brie started to say, but she shut up fast when Bruenor snapped his scowl her way.

“Ye’re friendship’s all pretty when it’s words and building, but when there’s blood….” Bruenor accused, and Alustriel swept her arm out toward Duzberyl, who lay on the ground with Cordio praying over him.

“Bah, so ye got caught in one fight, but I’m not talking about one!” Bruenor kept on. “Lost me a dozen good boys last night.”

“All the Silver Marches weep for your dead, King Bruenor.”

“I ain’t askin’ ye to weep!” Bruenor screamed at her, and all around, work stopped, and dwarf, human, and elf—including Hralien—stood and stared at the outraged king of Mithral Hall and the great Lady of Silverymoon, who not a one of them had ever imagined could be yelled at in such a manner. “I’m askin’ ye to fight!” the unrelenting Bruenor fumed on. “I’m askin’ ye to do what’s right and send yer armies—all yer durned armies! Obould’s belongin’ in a hole, and ye’re knowing that! So get yer armies, and get all the armies, and let’s put him where he belongs, and let’s put the Silver Marches back where the Silver Marches’re belonging!”

“We will leave all the ground between Mithral Hall and the Spine of the World stained with the blood of dwarves and men and elves,” Alustriel warned. “Obould’s thousands are well en—”

“And well meaning to strike out until they’re stopped!” Bruenor shouted over her. “Ye heared o’ the Moonwood and their dead, and now ye’re seein’ this attack with yer own eyes. Ye can’t be doubtin’ what that foul orc’s got in his head.”

“But to go out from defensive positions against that force—”

“Is to be our only choice, now or tomorrow, or me and me boys’ll forever be on yer point, fighting Obould one bridge, one door at a time,” said Bruenor. “Ye think we’re to take their hits? Ye think we can be keeping both our doors always sealed and secured, and our tunnels, too, lest the durned pigs tunnel in and pop up in our middle?”

Bruenor’s eyes narrowed, his expression taking on a clear look of suspicion. “Or would that arrangement please Alustriel and all th’ others about? Battlehammer dwarves’ll die, and that’s suitin’ ye all, is it?”

“Of course not,” Alustriel protested, but her words did little to soften the scowl of King Bruenor.

“Me girl beside ye just got back from Nesmé, and what a fine job yer knights’ve done pushing them trolls back into the swamp,” Bruenor went on. “Seems Nesmé’s grander than afore the attacks, mostly because o’ yer own work—and don’t that make Lady Alustriel proud?”

“Father,” Catti-brie warned, shocked by the sarcasm.

“But then, them folk’re more akin to yer own, in looks and thoughts.”

“We should continue this discussion in private, King Bruenor,” said Alustriel.

Bruenor snorted at her and waved his hand, turned on his heel, and stomped away, Thibble dorf Pwent in tow.

Regis remained, and he turned a concerned look at Alustriel then at Catti-brie.

“He will calm down,” Regis said unconvincingly.

“Not so sure I’m wantin’ him to,” Catti-brie admitted, and she glanced at Alustriel.

The Lady of Silverymoon had nothing more than helplessly upraised hands in reply, and so Catti-brie limped off after her beloved father.

“It is a dark day, my friend Regis,” Alustriel said when the woman had gone.

Regis’s eyes popped open wide, surprised at being directly addressed by one of Alustriel’s stature.

“This is how great wars begin,” Alustriel explained. “And do not doubt that no matter the outcome, there will be no winners.”

As soon as the priest had gone, Obould was glad of his decision not to call in his entourage. He needed to be alone, to vent, to rant, and to think things through. He knew in his heart that Grguch was no ally, and had not arrived by accident. Ever since the disaster in the western antechamber of Mithral Hall and the pushback of Proffit’s troll army, the orcs and dwarves had settled into a stalemate—and it was one that Obould welcomed. But one that he welcomed privately, for he knew that he was working against the traditions, instincts, and conditioning of his warrior race. No voices of protest came to him directly, of course—he was too feared by those around him for that kind of insolence—but he heard the rumbles of discontent even in the grating background of praises thrown his way. The restless orcs wanted to march on, back into Mithral Hall, across the Surbrin to Silverymoon and Sundabar, and particularly Citadel Felbarr, which they had once, long ago, claimed as their own.

“The cost…” Obould muttered, shaking his head.

He would lose thousands in such an endeavor—even if he only tried to dislodge fierce King Bruenor. He would lose tens of thousands if he went farther, and though he would have loved nothing more than to claim the throne of Silverymoon as his own, Obould understood that if he had gathered all the orcs from all the holes in all the world, he could not likely accomplish such a thing.

Certainly he might find allies—more giants and dark elves, perhaps, or any of the other multitude of races and monsters that lived solely for the pleasure of fighting and destruction. In such an alliance, though, he could never reign, nor could his minions ever gain true freedom and self-determination.

And even if he did manage greater conquests with his orc minions, even if he widened the scope of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, the lessons of history had taught him definitively that the center of such a kingdom could never hold. His reach was long, his grip iron strong. Long and strong enough to hold the perimeters of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows? Long and strong enough to fend off Grguch and any potential conspirators who had coaxed the fierce chieftain to the surface?

Obould clenched his fist mightily as that last question filtered through his mind, and he issued a long and low growl then licked his lips as if tasting the blood of his enemies.

Were Clan Karuck even his enemies?

The question sobered him. He was getting ahead of the facts, he realized. A ferocious and aggressive orc clan had arrived in Many-Arrows, and had taken up the fight independently, as orc clans often did, and with great and glorious effect.

Obould nodded as he considered the truth of it and realized the limits of his conjecture. In his heart, though, he knew that a rival had come, and a very dangerous one at that.

Reflexively, the orc king looked to the southwest, the direction of General Dukka and his most reliable fighting force. He would need another courier, he realized immediately. As Oktule went to summon Grguch, as Nukkels traveled to King Bruenor’s Court with word of truce, so he would need a third, the fastest of the three, to go and retrieve Dukka and the warriors. For the dwarves might soon counterattack, and likely would be joined by the dangerous and outraged Moonwood elves.

Or more likely, Clan Karuck would need to be taught a lesson.

CHAPTER 20 ON SQUIGGLES AND EMISSARIES

With but one hand, for the chieftain was no minor warrior, Dnark pushed Oktule to the side and stepped past him to the edge of a mountain-view precipice overlooking King Obould’s encampment. A group of riders exited that camp, moving swiftly to the south, and without the banner of Many-Arrows flying from their midst.

“War pigs, and armored,” the shaman Ung-thol remarked. “Elite warriors. Obould’s own.”

Dnark pointed to a rider in the middle of the pack, and though they were far away and moving farther, his headdress could still be seen.

“The priest, Nukkels,” Ung-thol said with a nod.

“What does this mean?” Oktule asked, his tone concurring with his body posture to relate his discomfort. Young Oktule had been chosen as a courier from the east because of his speed and stamina, but he had not the experience or the wisdom to fathom all that was going on around him.

The chieftain and his shaman turned as one to regard the orc. “It means that you should tell Grguch to proceed with all caution,” Dnark said.

“I do not understand.”

“King Obould might not welcome him with the warmth promised in the invitation,” Dnark explained.

“Or might greet him with more warmth than promised,” Ungthol quipped.

Oktule stared at them, his jaw hanging open. “King Obould is angry?”

That brought a laugh from the two older and more worldly orcs.

“You know Toogwik Tuk?” Ung-thol asked.

Oktule nodded. “The preacher orc. His words showed me to the glory of Grguch. He proclaimed the power of Chieftain Grguch and the call of Gruumsh to bring war to the dwarves.”

Dnark chuckled and patted the air with his hand, trying to calm the fool. “Deliver your words to Chieftain Grguch as your king demanded,” he said. “But seek out Toogwik Tuk first and inform him that a second courier went out from Obould’s”—then he quickly corrected himself—“King Obould’s camp, this one riding to the south.”

“What does it mean?” Oktule asked again.

“It means that King Obould expects trouble,” Ung-thol interrupted, stopping Dnark before he could respond. “Toogwik Tuk will know what to do.”

“Trouble?” asked Oktule.

“The dwarves will likely counterattack, and more furious will they become when they learn that both King Obould and Chieftain Grguch are in the same place.”

Oktule began to nod stupidly, catching on.

“Be off at once,” Dnark told him, and the young orc spun on his heel and rushed away. A signal from Dnark sent a couple of guards off with him, to escort him on his important journey.

As soon as they were gone, the chieftain and the shaman turned back to the distant riders.

“Do you really believe that Obould would send an emissary to the Battlehammer dwarves?” Ung-thol asked. “Has he become so cowardly as that?”

Dnark nodded through every word, and when Ung-thol glanced over at him, he replied, “We should find out.”

“Ye tell Emerus that we’ll be lookin’ for all he’s to bring,” Bruenor said to Jackonray Broadbelt and Nikwillig, the emissaries from Citadel Felbarr.

“The bridge’ll be ready soon, I’m told,” Jackonray replied.

“Forget the durned bridge!” Bruenor snapped, startling everyone in the room with his unexpected outburst. “Alustriel’s wizards’ll be working more on the wall for the next days. I’m wanting an army here afore the work’s even begun on the bridge again. I’m wanting Alustriel to see Felbarr side-by-side with Mithral Hall, that when we’re walking out that gate, she’ll know the time for talkin’s over and the time for fightin’s come.”

“Ah,” Jackonray replied, nodding, a smile spreading on his hairy and toothy face. “So I’m seeing why Bruenor’s the king. Ye’ve got me respect, good King Bruenor, and ye’ve got me word that I’ll shove King Emerus out the durned tunnel door meself if it’s needin’ to be!”

“Ye’re a good dwarf. Ye do yer kin proud.”

Jackonray bowed so low that his beard brushed the ground, and he and Nikwillig left in a rush—or started to, until Bruenor’s call turned them fast around.

“Go out through the eastern gate, under the open sky,” Bruenor instructed with a wry grin.

“Quicker through the tunnels,” Nikwillig dared to argue.

“Nah, ye go out and tell Alustriel that I’m wantin’ the two o’ ye put outside o’ Felbarr in a blink,” Bruenor explained, and snapped his stubby fingers in the air to accentuate his point. All around Bruenor, dwarves began to chuckle.

“Never let it be said that a Battlehammer don’t know a good joke when he’s seein’ one,” Bruenor remarked, and the chuckles turned to laughter.

Jackonray and Nikwillig left in a rush, giggling.

“Let Alustriel play a part in her own trap,” Bruenor said to Cordio, Thibble dorf, and Banak Brawnanvil, who had a specially designed throne right beside Bruenor’s own, a place of honor for the heroic leader who had been crippled in the orc assault.

“Suren she’s to be scrunching up her pretty face,” Banak said.

“When Mithral Hall and Citadel Adbar march right past her working wizards, to be sure,” Bruenor agreed. “But she’ll be seeing, too, that the time’s past hiding from Obould’s dogs. He’s wantin’ a fight and we’re for givin’ him one—one that’ll take him all the way back where he came from, and beyond.”

The room erupted in cheering, and Banak reached out to grab Bruenor’s offered hand, clasping tight in a shake of mutual respect and determination.

“Ye stay here and take the rest o’ the audiences,” Bruenor instructed Banak. “I’m for seeing Rumblebelly and the littler one. There’s clues in them scrolls we brought back, or I’m a bearded gnome, and I’m wantin’ all the tricks and truths we can muster afore we strike out against Obould.”

He hopped down from his throne and from the dais, motioning for Cordio to follow and for Thibble dorf to stand as Banak’s second.

“Nanfoodle telled me that the runes on them scrolls weren’t nothing he’d e’er seen,” Cordio said to Bruenor as they started out of the audience chamber. “Squiggles in places squiggles shouldn’t be.”

“The littler one’ll straighten ’em out, don’t ye doubt. As clever as any I’ve ever seen, and a good friend o’ the clan. Mirabar’s lost a lot when Torgar and his boys come our way, and they lost a lot when Nanfoodle and Shoudra come looking for Torgar and his boys.”

Cordio nodded his agreement and left it at that, following Bruenor down the corridors and stairwells to a small cluster of secluded rooms where Nanfoodle had set up his alchemy lab and library.

No one in the tribe knew if it had gotten its name through its traditional battle tactics, or if the succession of chieftains had fashioned the tactics to fit the name. Whatever the cause-effect, their peculiar battle posture had been perfected through generations. Indeed, the leaders of Wolf Jaw selected orcs at a young age based on size and speed to find the appropriate place in the formation each might best fit.

Choosing the enemy and the battleground was more important even than that, if the dangerous maneuver was to work. And no orc in the tribe’s history had been better at such tasks than the present chieftain, Dnark of the Fang. He was descended from a long line of point warriors, the tip of the fangs of the wolf jaw that snapped over its enemies. For years, young Dnark had spearheaded the top line of the V formation, sliding out along the left flank of an intended target, while another orc, often a cousin of Dnark’s, led the right, or bottom, jaw. When the lines stretched to their limit, Dnark would swing his assault group to a sharp right, forming a fang, and he and his counterpart would join forces, sealing the escape route at the rear of the enemy formation.

As chieftain, though, Dnark anchored the apex. His jaws of warriors went out north and south of the small encampment, and when the signals came back to the chieftain, he led the initial assault, moving forward with his main battle group.

They did not charge, and did not holler and hoot. Instead, they approached calmly, as if nothing was amiss—and indeed, why would King Obould’s shaman advisor suspect anything different?

The camp did stir at the approach of so large a contingent, with calls for Nukkels to come forth from his tent.

Ung-thol put his hand on Dnark’s arm, urging restraint. “We do not know his purpose,” the shaman reminded.

Nukkels appeared a few moments later, moving to the eastern end of the small plateau he and his warriors had used for their pause. Beside him, Obould’s powerful guards lifted heavy spears.

How Dnark wanted to call for the charge! How he wanted to lead the way up the rocky incline to smash through those fools!

But Ung-thol was there, reminding him, coaxing him to patience.

“Praise to King Obould!” Dnark called out, and he took his tribe’s banner from an orc to the side and waved it around. “We have word from Chieftain Grguch,” he lied.

Nukkels held up his hand, palm out at Dnark, warning him to hold back.

“We have no business with you,” he called down.

“King Obould does not share that belief,” Dnark replied, and he began his march again, slowly. “He has sent us to accompany you, as more assurance that Clan Karuck will not interfere.”

“Interfere with what?” Nukkels shouted back.

Dnark glanced at Ung-thol, then back up the rise. “We know where you are going,” he bluffed.

It was Nukkels’s turn to look around at his entourage. “Come in alone, Chieftain Dnark,” he called. “That we might plot our next move.”

Dnark kept moving up the slope, calm and unthreatening, and he did not bid his force to lag behind.

“Alone!” Nukkels called more urgently.

Dnark smiled, but otherwise changed not a thing. The orcs beside Nukkels lifted their spears.

It didn’t matter. The bluff had played its part, allowing Dnark’s core force to close nearly half the incline to Nukkels. Dnark held up his hands to Nukkels and the guards then turned to address his group—ostensibly to instruct them to wait there.

“Kill them all—except for Nukkels and the closest guards,” he instructed instead, and when he turned back, he had his sword in hand, and he raised it high.

The warriors of Clan Wolf Jaw swept past him on either side, those nearest swerving to obstruct their enemies’ view of their beloved chieftain. More than one of those shield orcs died in the next moments, as spears flew down upon them.

But the jaws of the wolf closed.

By the time Dnark got up to the plateau, the fighting was heavy all around him and Nukkels was nowhere to be found. Angered by that, Dnark threw himself into the nearest battle, where a pair of his orcs attacked a single guard, wildly and ineffectively.

Obould had chosen his inner circle of warriors well.

One of the Wolf Jaw orcs stabbed in awkwardly with his spear, but the guard’s sword swept across and shattered the hilt, launching it out to confuse the attacker’s companion. With the opening clear, the guard retracted and stepped forward for the easy kill.

Except that Dnark came in fast from the side and hacked the fool’s sword arm off at the elbow.

The guard howled and half-turned, falling to its knees and clutching its stump. Dnark stepped in and grabbed it by the hair, tugging its head back, opening its neck for a killing strike.

And always before, the chieftain of Clan Wolf Jaw would have taken that strike, would have claimed that kill. But he held back his sword and kicked the guard in the throat instead, and as it fell away, he instructed his two warriors to make sure that the fallen enemy didn’t die.

Then he went on to the next fight in a long line of battles.

When the skirmish on the plateau ended, though, Shaman Nukkels was not to be found, either among the seven prisoners or the score of dead. He had gone off the back end at the first sign of trouble, so said witnesses.

Before Dnark could begin to curse that news, however, he found that his selections for the fangs of the formation had done his own legacy proud, for in they marched, Nukkels and a battered guard prodded before them with spears.

“Obould will kill you for this,” Nukkels said when presented before Dnark.

Dnark’s left hook left the shaman squirming on the ground.

“The symbol is correct,” Nanfoodle proudly announced. “The pattern is unmistakable.”

Regis stared at the large copy of the parchment, its runes separated and magnified. On Nanfoodle’s instruction, the halfling had spent the better part of a day transcribing each mark to that larger version then the pair had spent several days cutting out wooden stencils for each—even for those that seemed to hold an obvious correlation to the current Dwarvish writing.

Mistaking that tempting lure, accepting the obvious runes for what they supposed them to be, Dethek runes of an archaic orc tongue called Hulgorkyn, had been their downfall through all of their early translation attempts, and it wasn’t until Nanfoodle had insisted that they treat the writing from the lost city as something wholly unrecognizable that the pair had begun to make any progress at all.

If that was indeed what they were making.

Many other stencils had been crafted, multiple representations of every Dwarvish symbol. Then had come the trial and error—and error, and error, and error—for more than a day of painstaking rearranging and reevaluation. Nanfoodle, no minor illusionist, had cast many spells, and priests had been brought in to offer various auguries and inspired insights.

Thirty-two separate symbols appeared on the parchment, and while a thorough statistical analysis had offered hints of potential correlations to the traditional twenty-six runes of Dethek, the fact that none of those promising hints added up to anything substantial made much of that analysis no more than guesswork.

Gradually, though, patterns had taken shape, and spells seemed to confirm the best guesses time and time again.

More than a tenday into the work, an insight from Nanfoodle—after hearing all of Regis’s stories of the strange city—proved to be the tipping point. Instead of using Dwarvish as his basis for the analysis, he decided upon a double-basis and began incorporating the Orcish tongue—in which, of course, he was fluent. More stencils were cut, more combinations explored.

Early one morning, Nanfoodle presented Regis with his completed conclusion for translation, a correlative identifying every symbol on the parchment, some that mirrored current Dwarvish or Orcish lettering.

The halfling went to work over the transcribed, larger-lettered parchment, diligently placing above each symbol the stencil Nanfoodle believed correlative. Regis didn’t pause at all to consider familiar patterns, but simply placed them all as fast as he could.

Then he stepped back and stood up on the high bench Nanfoodle had placed beside the work table. The gnome was already there, staring back incredulously, his mouth hanging open, and when he took his place beside Nanfoodle, Regis understood.

For the gnome’s guesses had been correct, obviously, and the translation of the text was clear to see, and to read. It wasn’t unknown for orcs to steal and incorporate Dethek runes, of course, as was most evident with Hulgorkyn. But there was something more than that, a willful blending of related but disparate languages in a balanced manner, one that indicated compromise and coordination between dwarf and orc linguists.

The translation was laid bare for them to see. Digesting the words, however, proved more difficult.

“Bruenor won’t like this,” Regis remarked, and he glanced around as if expecting the dwarf king to crash into the room in a tirade at any moment.

“It is what it is,” Nanfoodle replied. “He will not like it, but he must accept it.”

Regis looked back at the translated paragraph and read again the words of the orc philosopher Duugee.

“You place too much value in reason,” the halfling muttered.