His shaking hands could hardly strike the stone, but the tiniest spark
did its killing work. The troll arm ignited and crackled into a crisp ball.
Not about to miss the opportunity before him, Regis scooped up the fiery
limb and ran over to Bruenor. He held back the dwarf's axe, telling Bruenor
to let his latest opponent get above the line of the ridge.
When the troll hoisted itself up, Regis put the fire in its face. The
head virtually exploded into flame and, screaming in agony, the troll
dropped from the mound bringing the killing fire to its own companions.
Trolls did not fear the blade or the hammer. Wounds inflicted by these
weapons healed quickly, and even a severed head would soon grow back. Such
encounters actually helped propagate the wretched species, for a troll
would regrow a severed arm, and a severed arm would regrow another troll!
More than one hunting cat or wolf had feasted upon a troll carcass only to
bring its own horrible demise when a new monster grew in its belly.
But even trolls were not completely without fear. Fire was their bane,
and the trolls of Evermoor were more than familiar with it. Burns could not
regenerate and a troll killed by flames was dead forever. Almost as if it
were purposely in the gods' design, fire clung to a troll's dry skin as
readily as to dry kindling.
The monsters on Bruenor's side of the mound fled away or fell in
charred lumps. Bruenor patted the halfling on the back as he observed the
welcomed spectacle, hope returning to his weary eyes.
"Wood" reasoned Regis. "We need wood."
Bruenor slipped his pack off his back. "Ye'll get yer wood,
Rumblebelly," he laughed, pointing at the sapling running up the side of
the mound before him. "And there's oil in me pouch!" He ran across to
Wulfgar. "The tree, boy! Help the halfling," was the only explanation he
gave as he moved in front of the barbarian.
As soon as Wulfgar turned around and saw Regis fumbling with a flask of
oil, he understood his part in the plan. No trolls as yet had returned to
that side of the mound, and the stench of the burned flesh at the base was
nearly overwhelming. With a single heave, the muscled barbariantore the
sapling from its roots and brought it up to Regis. Then he went back and
relieved the dwarf, allowing Bruenor to put his axe to use in slicing up
the wood.
Soon flaming missiles lit the sky all about the mound and fell into the
troll horde with killing sparks popping all about. Regis ran to the lip of
the mound with another flask of oil and sprinkled it down on the closest
trolls, sending them into a terrified frenzy. The rout was on, and between
the stampede and the quick spread of flames, the area below the mound was
cleared in minutes, and not another movement did the friends see for the
few remaining hours of the night, save the pitiful writhing of the mass of
limbs, and the twitchings of burned torsos. Fascinated, Drizzt wondered how
long the things would survive with their cauterized wounds that would not
regenerate.
As exhausted as they were, none of the companions managed any sleep
that night. With the breaking of dawn, and no sign of trolls around them,
though the filthy smoke hung heavily in the air, Drizzt insisted that they
move along.
They left their fortress and walked, because they had no other choice,
and because they refused to yield where others might have faltered. They
encountered nothing immediately, but could sense the eyes of the moors upon
them still, a hushed silence that foretold disaster.
Later that morning, as they plodded along on the mossy turf, Wulfgar
stopped suddenly and heaved Aegis-fang into a small copse of blackened
trees. The bog bloke, for that is what the barbarian's target truly was,
crossed its arms defensively before it, but the magical warhammer hit with
enough power to split the monster down the middle. Its frightened
companions, nearly a dozen, fled their similar positions and disappeared
into the moors.
"How could you know Regis asked, for he was certain that the
barbarian had barely considered the clump of trees.
Wulfgar shook his head, honestly not knowing what had compelled him.
Drizzt and Bruenor both understood, and approved. They were all operating
on instinct now, their exhaustion rendering their minds long past the point
of consistent, rational thought. Wulfgar's reflexes remained at their level
of fine precision. He might have caught A flicker of movement out of the
corner of his eye, so minuscule that his conscious mind hadn't even
registered it. But his instinct for survival had reacted. The dwarf and the
drow looked to each other for confirmation, not too surprised this tine at
the barbarian's continued show of maturity as a warrior.
The day became unbearably hot, adding to their discomfort. All they
wanted to do was fall down and let their weariness overcome them.
But Drizzt pulled them onward, searching for another defensible spot,
though he doubted that he could find one as well-designed as the last.
Still, they had enough oil remaining to get them through another night if
they could hold a small line long enough to put the flames to their best
advantage. Any hillock, perhaps even a copse of tree, would suffice.
What they found instead was another bog, this one stretching as far as
they could see in every direction, miles perhaps. "We could turn to the
north," Drizzt suggested to Bruenor. "We may have come far enough east by
now to break clear of the moors beyond the influence of Nesme."
"The night'll catch us along the bank," Bruenor observed grimly.
"We could cross," Wulfgar suggested.
"Trolls take to water?" Bruenor asked Drizzt, intrigued by the
possibilities. The drow shrugged.
"Worth a try, then!" Bruenor proclaimed.
"Gather some logs," instructed Drizzt. "Take no time to bind them
together - we can do that out on the water, if we must."
Floating the logs as buoys by their sides, they slipped out into the
cold, still waters of the huge bog.
Though they weren't thrilled with the sucking, muddy sensation that
pulled at them with each step, Drizzt and Wulfgar found that they could
walk in many places, propelling the makeshift raft steadily along. Regis
and Bruenor, too short for the water, lay across the logs. Eventually they
grew more comfortable with the eerie hush of the bog, and accepted the
water route as a quiet rest.
The return to reality was rude indeed.
The water around them exploded, and three troll-like forms hit them in
sudden ambush. Regis, nearly asleep across his log, was thrown off it and
into the water. Wulfgar took a hit in the chest before he could ready
Aegis-fang, but he was no halfling, and even the considerable strength of
the monster could not move him backward. The one that rose before the
ever-alert Drow found two scimitars at work on its face before its head
even cleared the water.
The battle proved as fast and furious as its abrupt beginning. Enraged
by the continued demands of the relentless moors, the friends reacted to
the assault with a counterattack of unmatched fury. The drow's troll was
sliced apart before it even stood straight, and Bruenor had enough time to
prepare himself to get at the monster that had dropped Regis.
Wulfgar's troll, though it landed a second blow behind the first, was
hit with a savage flurry that it could not have expected. Not an
intelligent creature, its limited reasoning and battle experience led it to
believe that its foe should not have remained standing and ready to
retaliate after it had squarely landed two heavy blows.
Its realization, though, served as little comfort as Aegis-fang
pummeled the monster back under the surface.
Regis bobbed back to the surface then and slung an arm over the log.
One side of his face was bright with a welt and a painful-looking scrape.
"What were they?" Wulfgar asked the drow.
"Some manner of troll," Drizzt reasoned, still stabbing at the unmoving
form lying under the water before him.
Wulfgar and Bruenor understood the reason for his continued attacks. In
sudden fright, they took up whacking at the forms lying beside them, hoping
to mutilate the corpses enough so that they might be miles gone before the
things rose to life once again.
Beneath the bog's surface, in the swirlless solitude of the dark
waters, the severe thumping of axe and hammer disturbed the slumber of
other denizens. One in particular had slept away a decade and more,
unbothered by any of the potential dangers that lurked nearby, safe in its
knowledge of supremacy.
Dazed and drained from the hit he had taken, as if the unexpected
ambush had bent his spirit beyond its breaking point, Regis slumped
helplessly over the log and wondered if he had any fight left in him. He
didn't notice when the log began to drift slightly in the hot moors'
breeze. It hooked around the exposed roots of a small line of trees and
floated free into the lily-pad-covered waters of a quiet lagoon.
Regis stretched out lazily, only half aware of the change in his
surroundings. He could still hear the conversation of his friends faintly
in the background.
He cursed his carelessness and struggled against the stubborn hold of
his lethargy, though, when the water began to churn before him. A purplish,
leathery form broke the surface, and then he saw the huge circular maw with
its cruel rows of daggerlike teeth.
Regis, up now, did not cry out or react in any way, fascinated by the
specter of his own death looming before him.
A giant worm.
"I thought the water would offer us some protection from the foul
things, at least," Wulfgar groaned, giving one final smack at the troll
corpse that lay submerged beside him.
"At least the moving's easier," Bruenor put in. "Get the logs together,
and let's move along. No figuring how many kin these three have stalking
the area."
"I have no desire to stay and count," replied Wulfgar. He looked
around, puzzled, and asked, "Where is Regis?"
It was the first time in the confusion of the fight that any of them
noticed that the halfling had floated off. Bruenor started to call out, but
Drizzt slapped a hand across his mouth.
"Listen," he said.
The dwarf and Wulfgar held very still and listened in the direction
that the drow was now intently staring. After a moment of adjustment, they
heard the halfling's quivering voice.
" . . . really is a beautiful stone," they heard, and knew at once that
Regis was using the pendant to get himself out of trouble.
The seriousness of the situation came clear immediately, for Drizzt had
sorted out the blur of images that he saw through a line of trees, perhaps
a hundred feet to the west. "Worm!" he whispered to his companions. "Huge
beyond anything I have ever seen!" He indicated a tall tree to Wulfgar,
then started on a flanking course around to the south, pulling the onyx
statue out of his pack as he went, and calling for Guenhwyvar. They would
need all the help they could get with this beast.
Dipping low in the water, Wulfgar eased his way up to the tree line and
started shinning up a tree, the scene now clear before him. Bruenor
followed him, but slipped between the trees, going even deeper into the
bog, and came into position on the other side.
"There are more, too," Regis bargained in a louder voice, hoping that
his friends would hear and rescue him. He kept the hypnotizing ruby
spinning on its chain. He didn't think for a moment that the primitive
monster understood him, but it seemed perplexed enough by the gem's
sparkles to refrain from gobbling him up, at least for the present. In
truth, the magic of the ruby did little against the creature. Giant worms
had no minds to speak of, and charms had no effect on them at all. But the
huge worm, not really hungry and mesmerized by the dance of the light,
allowed Regis to play through his game.
Drizzt came into position farther down the tree line, his bow now in
hand, while Guenhwyvar stealthily slipped even farther around to the
monster's rear. Drizzt could see Wulfgar poised, high in the tree above
Regis and ready to leap into action. The drow couldn't see Bruenor, but he
knew that the crafty dwarf would find a way to be effective.
Finally the worm tired of its game with the halfling and his spinning
gem. A sudden sucking of air sizzled with acidic drool.
Recognizing the danger, Drizzt acted first, conjuring a globe of
darkness around the halfling's log. Regis, at first, thought the sudden
blackness signified the end of his life, but when the cold water hit his
face and then swallowed him up as he rolled limply from the log, he
understood.
The globe confused the monster for a moment, but the beast spat a
stream of its killing acid anyway, the wicked stuff sizzling as it hit the
water and setting the log ablaze.
Wulfgar sprang from his high perch, launching himself through the air
fearlessly and screaming, "Tempus!" his legs flung wide, but his arm cocked
with the warhammer fully under control and ready to strike.
The worm lolled its head to the side to move away from the barbarian,
but it didn't react quite fast enough. Aegis-fang crunched through the side
of its face, tearing through the purplish hide and twisting the outer rim
of its maw, snapping through teeth and bone. Wulfgar had given all that he
possibly could in that one mighty blow, and he could not imagine the
enormity of his success as he slapped belly-first into the cold water,
beneath the drow's darkness.
Enraged by pain and suddenly more injured than it had ever been, the
great worm issued a roar that split trees asunder and sent creatures of the
