endeavor would save them many days on a dangerous road. After an hour or
two of feeling the wind rushing past them as they rode, they would forget
any anger they held for him, he knew. Even if they didn't so easily
forgive, a good meal was always worth a little inconvenience to Regis.
Drizzt purposely kept the party moving more to the east than the
southeast. He found no landmarks on Bruenor's map that would let him
approximate the straight course to Longsaddle. If he tried the direct route
and missed the mark, no matter how slightly, they would come upon the main
road from the northern city of Mirabar not knowing whether to turn north or
south. By going directly east, the drow was assured that they would hit the
road to the north of Longsaddle. His path would add a few miles, but
perhaps save them several days of backtracking.
Their ride was clear and easy for the next day and night, and after
that, Bruenor decided that they were far enough from Luskan to assume a
more normal traveling schedule. "We can go by day, now," he announced early
in the afternoon of their second day with the horses.
"I prefer the night," Drizzt said. He had just awakened and was
brushing down his slender, well-muscled black stallion.
"Not me," argued Regis. "Nights are for sleeping, and the horses are
all but blind to holes and rocks that could lame them up."
"The best for both then," offered Wulfgar, stretching the last sleep
out of his bones. "We can leave after the sun peaks, keeping it behind us
for Drizzt, and ride long into the night."
"Good thinking, lad," laughed Bruenor. "Seems to be after noon now, in
fact. On the horses, then! Time's for going!"
"You might have held your thoughts to yourself until after supper!"
Regis grumbled at Wulfgar, reluctantly hoisting the saddle onto the back of
the little white pony.
Wulfgar moved to help his struggling friend. "But we would have lost
half a day's ride," he replied.
"A pity that would have been," Regis retorted.
That day, the fourth since they had left Luskan, the companions came
upon the crags, a narrow stretch of broken mounds and rolling hills. A
rough, untamed beauty defined the place, an overpowering sense of
wilderness that gave every traveler here a feeling of conquest, that he
might be the first to gaze upon any particular spot. And, as was always the
case in the wilds, with the adventurous excitement came a degree of danger.
They had barely entered the first dell in the up-and-down terrain when
Drizzt spotted tracks that he knew well: the trampling march of an orc
band.
"Less than a day old," he told his concerned companions.
"How many?" asked Bruenor.
Drizzt shrugged. "A dozen at least, maybe twice that number."
"We'll keep to our path," the dwarf suggested. "They're in front of us,
and that's better'n behind."
When sunset came, marking the halfway point of that day's journey, the
companions took a short break, letting the horses graze in a small meadow.
The orc trail was still before them, but Wulfgar, taking up the rear of
the troupe had his sights trained behind.
"We are being followed," he said to his friends' inquiring faces.
"Orcs?" Regis asked.
The barbarian shook his head. "None like I have ever seen. By my
reckoning, our pursuit is cunning and cautious."
"Might be that the orcs here are more wise to the ways of goodly folk
than be the orcs of the dale," said Bruenor, but he suspected something
other than orcs, and he didn't have to look at Regis to know that the
halfling shared his concerns. The first map marking that Regis had
identified as an ancestral mound could not be far from their present
position.
"Back to the horses," Drizzt suggested. "A hard ride might do much to
improve our position."
"Go till after moonset," Bruenor agreed. "And stop when ye've found a
place we can hold against attack. I've a feeling we're to see some fighting
'fore the dawn finds us!"
They encountered no tangible signs during the ride, which took them
nearly across the span of the crags. Even the orc trail faded off to the
north, leaving the path before them apparently clear. Wulfgar was certain,
though, that he caught several sounds behind them, and movements along the
periphery of his vision.
Drizzt would have liked to continue until the crags were fully behind
them, but in the harsh terrain, the horses had reached the limit of their
endurance. He pulled up into a small copse of fir trees set on top of a
small rise, fully suspecting, like the others, that unfriendly eyes were
watching them from more than one direction.
Drizzt was up one of the trees before the others had even dismounted.
They tethered the horses close together and set themselves around the
beasts. Even Regis would find no sleep, for, though he trusted Drizzt's
night vision, his blood had already begun pumping in anticipation of what
was to come.
Bruenor, a veteran of a hundred fights, felt secure enough in his
battle prowess. He propped himself calmly against a tree, his many-notched
axe across his chest, one hand firmly in place upon its handle.
Wulfgar, though, made other preparations. He began by gathering
together broken sticks and branches and sharpening their points. Seeking
every advantage, he set them in strategic positions around the area to
provide the best layout for his stand, using their deadly points to cut
down the routes of approach for his attackers. Other sticks he cunningly
concealed in angles that would trip up and stick the orcs before they ever
reached him.
Regis, the most nervous of all, watched it all and noted the
differences in his friends' tactics. He felt that there was little he could
do to prepare himself for such a fight, and he sought only to keep himself
far enough out of the way so as not to hinder the efforts of his friends.
Perhaps the opportunity would arise for him to make a surprise strike, but
he didn't even consider such possibilities at this point. Bravery came to
the halfling spontaneously. It was certainly nothing he ever planned.
With all of their diversions and preparations deflecting their nervous
anticipation, it came as almost a relief when, barely an hour later, their
anxiety became reality. Drizzt whispered down to them that there was
movement on the fields below the copse.
"How many?" Bruenor called back.
"Four to one against us, and maybe more," Drizzt replied.
The dwarf turned to Wulfgar. "Ye ready, boy?"
Wulfgar slapped his hammer out before him. "Four against one?" he
laughed. Bruenor liked the young warrior's confidence, though the dwarf
realized that the odds might actually prove more lopsided, since Regis
wouldn't likely be out in the open fighting.
"Let'em in, or hit them out in the field?" Bruenor asked Drizzt.
"Let them in," the drow replied. "Their stealthy approach shows me that
they believe surprise is with them."
"And a turned surprise is better'n a first blow from afar," Bruenor
finished. "Do what ye can with yer bow when it's started, elf. We'll be
waitin' fer ye! "
Wulfgar imagined the fire seething in the drow's lavender eyes, a
deadly gleam that always belied Drizzt's outward calm before a battle. The
barbarian took comfort, for the drow's lust for battle outweighed even his
own, and he had never seen the whirring scimitars outdone by any foe. He
slapped his hammer again and crouched in a hole beside the roots of one of
the trees.
Bruenor slipped between the bulky bodies of two of the horses, pulling
his feet up into a stirrup on each, and Regis, after he had stuffed the
bedrolls to give the appearance of sleeping bodies, scooted under the
low-hanging boughs of one of the trees.
The orcs approached the camp in a ring, obviously looking for an easy
strike. Drizzt smiled in hope as he noted the gaps in their ring, open
flanks that would prevent quick support to any isolated group. The whole
band would hit the perimeter of the copse together, and Wulfgar, closest to
the edge, would most likely launch the first strike.
The orcs crept in, one group slipping toward the horses, another toward
the bedrolls. Four of them passed Wulfgar, but he waited a second longer,
allowing the others to get close enough to the horses for Bruenor to
strike.
Then the time for hiding had ended.
Wulfgar sprang from his concealment, Aegis-fang, his magical warhammer,
already in motion. "Tempus!" he cried to his god of battle, and his first
blow crashed in, swatting two of the orcs to the ground.
The other group rushed to get the horses free and out of the camp,
hoping to cut off any escape route.
But were greeted by the snarling dwarf and his ringing axe!
As the surprised orcs leaped into the saddles, Bruenor clove one down
the middle, and took a second one's head clean from its shoulders before
the remaining two even knew that they had been attacked.
Drizzt picked as targets the orcs closest to the groups under attack,
delaying the support against his friends for as long as possible. His
bowstring twanged, once, twice, and a third time, and a like number of orcs
fell to the earth, their eyes closed and their hands helplessly clenched
upon the shafts of the killing arrows.
The surprise strikes had cut deeply into the ranks of their enemies,
and now the drow pulled his scimitars and dropped from his perch, confident
that he and his companions could finish the rest off quickly. His smile was
short-lived, though, for as he descended, he noticed more movement in the
field.
Drizzt had come down in the middle of three creatures, his blades in
motion before his feet had even touched the ground. The orcs were not
totally surprised - one had seen the drow dropping - but Drizzt had them
off balance and swinging around to bring their weapons to bear.
With the drow's lightninglike strikes, any delay at all meant certain
death, and Drizzt was the only one in the jumble of bodies under control.
His scimitars slashed and thrust into orcan flesh with killing precision.
Wulfgar's fortunes were equally bright. He faced two of the creatures,
and though they were vicious fighters, they could not match the giant
barbarian's power. One got its crude weapon up in time to block Wulfgar's
swing, but Aegis-fang blasted through the defense, shattering the weapon
and then the unfortunate orc's skull without even slowing for the effort.
Bruenor fell into trouble first. His initial attacks went off
perfectly, leaving him with only two standing opponents - odds that the
dwarf liked. But in the excitement, the horses reared and bolted, tearing
their tethers free from the branches. Bruenor tumbled to the ground, and
before he could recover, was clipped in the head by the hoof of his own
pony. One of the orcs was similarly thrown down, but the last one landed
free of the commotion and rushed to finish off the stunned dwarf as the
horses cleared the area.
Luckily, one of those spontaneous moments of bravery came over Regis at
that moment. He slipped out from under the tree, falling in silently behind
the orc. It was tall for an orc, and even on the tips of his toes, Regis
did not like the angle of a strike at its head. Shrugging resignedly, the
halfling reversed his strategy.
Before the orc could even begin to strike at Bruenor, the halfling's
mace came up between its knees and higher, driving into its groin and
lifting it clear off the ground. The howling victim grasped at its injury,
its eyes lolling about aimlessly, and dropped to the ground with no further
ambitions for battle.
It had all happened in an instant, but victory was not yet won. Another
six orcs poured into the fray, two cutting off Drizzt's attempt to get to
Regis and Bruenor, three more going to the aid of their lone companion
facing the giant barbarian. And one, creeping along the same line Regis had
taken, closed on the unsuspecting halfling.
At the same moment Regis made out the drow's warning call, a club
slammed between his shoulder blades, blasting the wind from his lungs and
tossing him to the ground.
Wulfgar was pressed on all four sides, and despite his boasts before
the battle, he found that he didn't care for the situation. He concentrated
on parrying, hoping that the drow could get to him before his defenses
broke down.
He was too badly outnumbered.
An orcan blade cut into a rib, another clipped his arm.
Drizzt knew that he could defeat the two he now faced, but doubted that
it would be in time for him to help his barbarian friend. Or the halfling.
And there were still reinforcements on the field.
Regis rolled onto his back to lay right beside Bruenor, and the dwarf's
groaning told him that the fight was over for both of them. Then the orc
was above him, its club raised above its head, and an evil smile spread
wide upon its ugly face. Regis closed his eyes, having no desire to watch
the descent of the blow that would kill him.
Then he heard the sound of impact . . . above him.
Startled, he opened his eyes. A hatchet was embedded into his
attacker's chest. The orc looked down at it, stunned. The club dropped
harmlessly behind the orc, and it, too, fell backward, quite dead.
Regis didn't understand. "Wulfgar?" he asked into the air.
A huge form, nearly as large as Wulfgar's, sprang over him and pounced
upon the orc, savagely tearing the hatchet free. He was human, and wearing
the furs of a barbarian, but unlike the tribes of Icewind Dale, this man's
