"De south? Ha ha ha ha ha!" Sali Dalib blurted. "Not de south! De south is
for thief bait!"
"Calimport is south," Bruenor retorted suspiciously. "And so's the road, by
me guessing."
"De road to Calimport is south," Sali Dalib agreed, "but those who be smart
start to de west, on de bestest road."
Drizzt handed a pouch of gold to the merchant. "How do we catch the
caravan?"
"De west," Sali Dalib replied, dropping the pouch into a deep pocket without
even inspecting the contents. "Only out one hour. Easy catch, dis. Follow de
signposts on de horizon. No problem."
"We'll need supplies," Catti-brie remarked.
"Caravan is well-stocked," answered Sali Dalib. "Bestest place to buy. Now
be going. Catch dem before dey turn south to de Trade Way!" He moved to help
them select their mounts: a large dromedary for Wulfgar, a two-bumper for
Drizzt, and smaller ones for Catti-brie and Bruenor.
"Remember, good friends," the merchant said to them when they were perched
upon their mounts. "What you need-"
"Sali Dalib got!" they all answered in unison. With one final flash of his
gold-and-ivory smile, the merchant shuffled into the tent.
"He was more to bargaining, by me guess," Catti-brie remarked as they headed
tentatively on the stiff-legged camels toward the first signpost. "He could've
gotten more for the beasts."
"Stolen, o' course!" Bruenor laughed, stating what he considered the
obvious.
But Drizzt wasn't so certain. "A merchant such as he would have sought the
best price even for stolen goods," he replied, "and by all my knowledge of the
rules of bargaining, he most certainly should have counted the gold."
"Bah!" Bruenor snorted, fighting to keep his mount moving straight. "Ye
probably gave him more than the things are worth!"
"What, then?" Catti-brie asked Drizzt, agreeing more with his reasoning.
"Where?" Wulfgar answered and asked all at once. "He sent his goblin sneak
away with a message."
"Ambush," said Catti-brie.
Drizzt and Wulfgar nodded. "It would seem," said the barbarian.
Bruenor considered the possibility. "Bah!" He snorted at the notion. "He
didn't have enough wits in his head to pull it off."
"That observation might only make him more dangerous," Drizzt remarked,
looking back a final time toward Memnon.
"Turn back?" the dwarf asked, not so quick to dismiss the drow's apparently
serious concerns.
"If our suspicions prove wrong and we miss the caravan, . . ." Wulfgar
reminded them ominously.
"Can Regis wait?" asked Catti-brie.
Bruenor and Drizzt looked to each other.
"Onward," Drizzt said at length. "Let us learn what we may."
"Nowhere might you learn more than in a land unlike your own," Wulfgar
remarked, echoing Drizzt's thoughts of that morning.
When they had passed the first signpost, their suspicions did not diminish.
A large board nailed to the post named their route in twenty languages, all
reading the same way: "De bestest road." Once again, the friends considered
their options, and once again they found themselves trapped by the lack of time.
They would continue on, they decided, for one hour. If they had found no signs
of the caravan by then, they would return to Memnon and "discuss" the matter
with Sali Dalib.
The next signpost read the same way, as did the one after that. By the time
they passed the fifth, sweat drenched their clothes and stung their eyes, and
the city was no longer in sight, lost somewhere in the dusty heat of the rising
dunes. Their mounts didn't make the journey any better. Camels were nasty
beasts, and nastier still when driven by an inexperienced rider. Wulfgar's, in
particular, had a bad opinion of its rider, for camels preferred to pick their
own route, and the barbarian, with his powerful legs and arms, kept forcing his
mount through the motions he chose. Twice, the camel had arched its head back
and launched a slobbery wad of spittle at Wulfgar's face.
Wulfgar took it all in stride, but he spent more than a passing moment
fantasizing of flattening the camel's hump with his hammer.
"Hold!" Drizzt commanded as they moved down into a bowl between dunes. The
drow extended his arm, leading the surprised glances skyward, where several
buzzards had taken up a lazy, circular flight.
"There's carrion about," Bruenor noted.
"Or there is soon to be," Drizzt replied grimly.
Even as he spoke, the lines of the dunes encircling them transformed
suddenly from the hazy flat brown of hot sands to the ominous silhouettes of
horsemen, curved swords raised and gleaming in the bright sunlight.
"Ambush," Wulfgar stated flatly.
Not too surprised, Bruenor glanced around to take a quick measure of the
odds. "Five to one," he whispered to Drizzt.
"It always seems to be," Drizzt answered. He slowly slid his bow from his
shoulder and strung it.
The horsemen held their position for a long while, surveying their intended
prey.
"Ye think they be wantin' to talk?" Bruenor asked, trying to find some humor
in the bleak situation.
"Nah," the dwarf answered himself when none of the other three cracked a
smile.
The leader of the horsemen barked a command, and the thunderous charge was
on.
"Blast and bebother the whole damned world," Catti-brie grumbled, pulling
Taulmaril froth her shoulder as she slid from her mount. "Everyone wants a
fight.
"Come on, then!" she shouted at the horsemen. "But let's get the fight a bit
fairer!" She set the magical bow into action, sending one silver arrow after
another streaking up the dunes into the horde, blasting rider after rider out of
his saddle.
Bruenor gawked at his daughter, suddenly so grim-faced and savage. "The
girl's got it right!" he proclaimed, sliding down from his camel. "Can't be
fightin' up on one of them things!" As soon as he hit the ground, the dwarf
grabbed at his pack and pulled out two flasks of oil.
Wulfgar followed his mentor's lead, using the side of his camel as a
barricade. But the barbarian found his mount to be his first foe, for the
ill-tempered beast turned back on him and clamped its flat teeth onto his
forearm.
Drizzt's bow joined in on Taulmaril's deadly song, but as the horsemen
closed in, the drow decided upon a different course of action. Playing on the
terror of the reputation of his people, Drizzt tore off his mask and pulled back
the cowl of his cloak, leaping to his feet atop the camel and straddling the
beast with one foot on each hump. Those riders closing in on Drizzt pulled up
short at the unnerving appearance of a drow elf.
The other three flanks collapsed quickly, though, as the horsemen closed in,
still outnumbering the friends.
Wulfgar stared at his camel in disbelief, then slammed his huge fist between
the wretched beast's eyes. The dazed camel promptly let go of its hold and
turned its woozy head away.
Wulfgar wasn't finished with the treacherous beast. He noticed three riders
bearing down on him, so he decided to pit one enemy against another. He stepped
under the camel and lifted it clear off the ground, his muscles rippling as he
heaved the thing into the charging pack. He just managed to dodge the tumbling
mass of horses, riders, camels, and sand.
Then he had Aegis-fang in his hands, and he leaped into the jumble, crushing
the bandits before they ever realized what had hit them.
Two riders found a channel through the riderless camels to get at Bruenor,
but it was Drizzt, standing alone, who got in the first strike. Summoning his
magical ability, the drow conjured a globe of darkness in front of the charging
bandits. They tried to pull up short, but plunged in headlong.
That gave Bruenor all the time he needed. He struck a spark off his
tinderbox onto the rags he had stuffed into the oil flasks, then tossed the
flaming grenades into the ball of darkness.
Even the fiery lights of the ensuing explosions could not be seen within the
globe of Drizzt's spell, but from the screams that erupted inside, Bruenor knew
he had hit the mark.
"Me thanks, elf!" the dwarf cried. "Glad to be with ye again!"
"Behind you!" was Drizzt's reply, for even as Bruenor spoke, a third rider
cut around the globe and galloped at the dwarf. Bruenor instinctively dropped
into a ball, throwing his golden shield above him.
The horse trampled right over Bruenor and stumbled into the soft sand,
throwing its rider.
The tough dwarf sprang to his feet and shook the sand out of his ears. That
stomping would surely hurt when the adrenaline of battle died away, but, right
now, all Bruenor felt was rage. He charged the rider - now also rising to his
feet - with his mithril axe raised above his head.
Just as Bruenor got there and started his overhead chop, a line of silver
flashed by his shoulder, dropping the bandit dead. Unable to stop his momentum,
the dwarf went headlong over the suddenly prostrate body and flopped facedown
onto the ground.
"Next time, tell me, girl!" Bruenor roared at Catti-brie and spitting sand
with every word.
Catti-brie had her own troubles. She had dropped low, hearing a horse
thundering up behind her as she loosed the arrow. A curved sword swooshed past
the side of her head, nicking her ear, and the rider went past.
Catti-brie meant to send out another arrow to follow the man, but while she
was stooped, she saw yet another bandit bearing down on her from behind, this
one with a poised spear and heavy shield leading the way.
Catti-brie and Taulmaril proved the swifter. In an instant, another arrow
was on the magical bow's string and sent away. It exploded into the bandit's
heavy shield and tore through, tossing the helpless man off the back of his
mount and into the realm of death.
The riderless horse broke stride. Catti-brie caught its reins as it trotted
by and swung up into the saddle to pursue the bandit who had cut her.
Drizzt still stood atop his camel, towering above his foes and deftly
dancing away from the strikes of riders rushing by, all the while weaving his
two magical scimitars into a dance of mesmerizing death. Again and again,
bandits thought they had an easy shot at the standing elf, only to find their
swords or spears catching nothing but air, and then to suddenly discover Twinkle
or the other magical scimitar slicing a clean line across their throats as they
started to gallop away.
Then two came in together, broadside to the camel and behind Drizzt. The
agile drow leaped about, still comfortably holding his perch. Within mere
seconds, he had both of his foes on the defensive.
Wulfgar finished the last of the three he had dropped, then sprang away from
the mess, only to find his stubborn camel rising in front of him again. He
slammed the nasty thing again, this time with Aegis-fang, and it dropped to the
ground beside the bandits.
With that battle at an undeniable end, the first thing the barbarian noticed
was Drizzt. He marveled at the magnificent dance of the drow's blades, snapping
down to deflect a curved sword or to keep one of the drow's two opponents off
balance. Drizzt would dispose of both of them in a matter of seconds.
Then Wulfgar looked past the drow, to where another rider quietly trotted
in, his spearhead angled to catch Drizzt in the back.
"Drizzt!" the barbarian screamed as he heaved Aegis-fang at his friend.
At the sound of the shout, Drizzt thought Wulfgar was in trouble, but when
he looked and saw the war hammer spinning toward his knees, he understood
immediately. Without hesitation, he leaped out and over his foes in a twisting
somersault.
The charging spearman didn't even have time to lament his victim's escape,
for the mighty war hammer spun in over the camel's humps and smashed his face
flat.
Drizzt's dive proved beneficial in his fight up front as well, for he had
caught both swordsmen by surprise. In the split second of their hesitation, the
drow, though he was upside down in midair, struck hard, thrusting his blades
downward.
Twinkle dug deeply into a chest. The other bandit managed to dodge the
second scimitar, but it came close enough for Drizzt to lock its hilt under the
man's arm. Both riders came tumbling down with the drow, and only Drizzt landed
on his feet. His blades crossed twice and dove again, this time ending the
struggle.
Seeing the huge barbarian unarmed, another rider went after him. Wulfgar saw
the man coming and poised himself for a desperate strike. As the horse charged
in, the barbarian feinted to his right, away from the rider's sword arm and as
the rider had expected. Then Wulfgar reversed direction, throwing himself
squarely in the horse's path.
Wulfgar accepted the stunning impact and locked his arms about the horse's
neck and his legs onto the beast's front legs, rolling backward with the
momentum and causing the horse to stumble. Then the mighty barbarian yanked with
all his might, bringing horse and rider right over him.
