The Thousand Orcs

 

For Tred McKnuckles, the sight was as painful as anything he had ever witnessed. By his estimation, the people of Clicking Heels had treated him and Nikwillig with generosity and tender care, had jeopardized their own safety by getting into a conflict that had not even involved them. Nikwillig and he had done that to them by approaching their town, and they had reacted with more kindness and openness than a pair of lost dwarves from a distant citadel could have expected.

And now they had paid the price.

Tred walked about the ruins of the small village, the blasted and burned houses, and the bodies. He chased away the carrion birds from one corpse, then closed his eyes against the pain, recognizing the woman as one of the caring faces he had seen when he had first opened his eyes after resting against the weariness of the difficult road that had brought him there.

Bruenor Battlehammer watched the dwarf's somber movements, noting always the look on Tred's face. Before there had been a desire for vengeance-the dwarves' caravan had been hit and destroyed, and Tred had lost friends and a brother. Dwarves could accept such tragedies as an inevitability of their existence. They usually lived on the borderlands of the wilderness, and almost always faced danger of one sort or another, but the look on Tred's tough old face was somewhat different, more subdued, and in a way, more pained. A good measure of guilt had been thrown into the tumultuous mix. Tred and Nikwillig had stumbled into Clicking Heels on their desperate road, and as a result, the town was gone.

Simply, brutally, gone.

That frustration and guilt showed clearly as Tred made his way about the smoldering ruins, especially whenever he came upon one of the many orc corpses, always giving it a good kick in the face.

"How many're ye thinking?" Bruenor asked Drizzt when the drow returned from the outlying countryside, checking tracks and trying to get a clearer picture of what had occurred at the ruins of Clicking Heels.

"A handful of giants," the drow explained. He pointed up to a ridge in the distance. "Three to five, I would make it, based on the tracks and the remaining cairns of stones."

"Cairns?"

"They had prepared well for the attack," Drizzt reasoned. "I would guess that the giants rained boulders on the village in the dark of night, softening up the defenses. It went on for a long time, hours at least."

"How're ye knowing that?

"There are places where the walls were hastily repaired-before being knocked down once more," the drow explained. He pointed to a remote corner of the village. "Over there, a woman was crushed under a boulder, yet the townsfolk had the time to remove the stone and drag her away. In desperation, as the bombardment continued, a group even left the village and tried to sneak up on the giants' position." He pointed up toward the ridgeline, to a boulder tumble off to the side of where he had found the giant tracks and the cairns. "They never got close, with a host of orcs laying in wait."

"How many?" Bruenor asked him. "Ye say a handful o' giants, but how many orcs came against the village?"

Drizzt looked around at the wreckage, at the bodies, human and orc.

"A hundred," he guessed. "Maybe less, maybe more, but somewhere around that number. They left only a dozen dead on the field, and that tells me that the villagers were completely overwhelmed. Giant-thrown boulders killed many and methodically tore away the defensive positions. A third of the village's fighting force were slaughtered out by the ridge, and that left but a score of strong, hearty frontiersmen here to defend. T don't think the giants even came into the town to join in the fight." His lips grew very tight, his voice very grave. "I don't think they had to."

"We gotta pay 'em back, ye know?"

Drizzt nodded.

"A hunnerd, ye say?" Bruenor went on, looking around. "We're outnumbered four to one."

When the dwarf looked back at the drow, he saw Drizzt standing easily, hands on his belted scimitars, a look both grim and eager stamped upon his face-that same look that inspired both a bit of fear and the thrill of adventure in Bruenor and all the others who knew the drow.

"Four to one?" Drizzt asked. "You should send half our force back to Pwent and Mithral Hall. . . just to make it interesting."

A crooked smile creased Bruenor's weathered old face. "Just what I was thinking."

"Ye're the king, damn ye! Ain't ye knowin' what that means?"

Dagnabbit's less than enthusiastic reaction to Bruenor's announcement that they would hunt down the orcs and giants to avenge the destruction of the town and the attack on Tred's caravan came as no surprise to the dwarf king. Dagnabbit was seeing things through the lens offered by his position as Bruenor's appointed protector-and Bruenor did have to admit that at times he needed protecting from his own judgment.

But this was not one of those limes, as far as he was concerned. His kingdom was but a few days of easy marching from Clicking Heels, and it was his responsibility, and his pleasure, to aid in cleansing the region of foul creature like orcs and renegade giants.

"One thing it means is that I can't be lettin' the damned orcs come down and kill the folks about me kingdom!"

"Ores and giants," Dagnabbit reminded. "A small army. We didn't come out here to-"

"We come out here to kill them that killed Tred's companions," Bruenor interrupted. "Seems likely it's the same band to me."

To the side, Tred nodded his agreement.

"And a bigger band than we thinked," the stubborn Dagnabbit argued. 'Tred was saying that there were a score and a couple of giants, but 'twas more 'n that that leveled this town! Ye let me go back and get Pwent and his boys, and a hunnerd more o' me best fighters, and we'll go and get the durned orcs and giants."

Bruenor looked over at Drizzt. "Trail'll be cold by then?" he pleaded more than asked.

Drizzt nodded and said, "And we'll find little advantage in the way of surprise with an army of dwarves marching across the hills."

"An army that'll kill yer orcs and giants just fine," said Dagnabbit.

"But on a battlefield of their choosing," Drizzt countered. He looked to Bruenor, though it was obvious that Bruenor needed little convincing. "You get an army and we can, perhaps, find a new trail to lead to our enemies. Yes, we will defeat them, but they will see us coming. Our charge will be through a rain of giant boulders and against fortified positions - behind rock walls, or worse, up on the cliff ledges, barely accessible and easily defended. If we go after them now and hunt them down quickly and with surprise, then we will choose and prepare the battlefield. There will be no flying boulders and no defended ledges, unless we are the ones defending them."

"Sounds like ye're looking to have a bit o' fun," Catti-brie snidely remarked, and Drizzt's smile showed that he couldn't honestly deny that.

Dagnabbit started to argue, as was, in truth, his place in all of this, but Bruenor had heard enough. The king held up his hand, silencing his commander.

"Go find the trail, elf," he ordered Drizzt. "Our friend Tred's looking to spill a bit o' orc blood. Dwarf to dwarf, I'm owing him that."

Tred's expression showed his appreciation at the favorable end to the debate. Even Dagnabbit seemed to accept the verdict, and he said no more.

Drizzt turned to Catti-brie. "Shall we?"

"I was thinkin' ye'd never ask. Ye bringing yer cat?"

"Soon enough," Drizzt promised.

"Regis and I will run liaison between you and Bruenor," Wulfgar added.

Drizzt nodded, and the harmony of the group, with everyone understanding so well their place in the hunt, heightened Bruenor's confidence in his decision.

In truth, Bruenor needed that boost. Deep within him came the nagging worry that he was doing this out of his own selfish needs, that he might be leading his friends and followers into a desperate situation all because he feared, even loathed, the statesmanlike life that awaited him at the end of his road.

But, looking at his skilled and seasoned friends beginning their eager preparations, Bruenor shrugged many of those doubts aside. When they were done with this bit of business, when all the orcs and giants were dead or chased back into their deep holes, he'd go and take his place at Mithral Hall, and he'd use this impending victory as a reminder of who he was and who he wanted to be. There would be the trappings of bureaucratic process, the seemingly endless line of dignitary visitors who had to be entertained, to be sure, but there would also be adventure. Bruenor promised himself that much, thinking again of the secrets of Gauntlgrym. There would be time for the open road and the wind on his wild red beard.

He smiled as he silently made that promise.

He had no idea that getting what you wished for might be the worst thing of all.

"It's all rocks and will be a difficult track, even with so many of them," Drizzt noted when he and Catti-brie entered the rocky slopes north of the destroyed village.

"Or perhaps not," the woman replied, motioning for Drizzt to join her.

As he came beside her, she pointed down at a dark gray stone, at a patch of red marking its smooth surface. Drizzt went down to one knee, removed a leather glove and dipped his finger, then brought it up before his smiling face.

"They have wounded."

"And they're letting them live," Catti-brie remarked. "Civilized group of orcs, it seems."

"To our advantage," Drizzt remarked. He ended short and turned to see a large form coming around the bend.

"The dwarves are readied for the road," Wulfgar announced.

"And we've found them a road to walk," Catti-brie explained, pointing down to the stone.

"Ore blood or a prisoner's?" Wulfgar asked.

The question took the smiles from Drizzt and Catti-brie, for neither of them had even thought of that unpleasant possibility.

"Ore, I would guess," said Drizzt. "I saw no signs of mercy at the village, but let us move, and quickly, in case it is the other."

Wulfgar nodded and headed away, signaling to Regis, who relayed the sign to Bruenor, Dagnabbit, and the others.

"He seems at ease," Catti-brie remarked to Drizzt when Wulfgar had left them, the barbarian fading back to his position ahead of the dwarf contingent.

"His new family pleases him," Drizzt replied. "Enough so that he has forgiven himself his foolishness."

He started ahead, but Catti-brie caught him by the arm, and when he turned to face her, he saw her wearing a serious look.

"His new family pleases him enough that it does not pain him to see us together out here, hunting side by side."

"Then we can only hope to one day share Wulfgar's fate," Drizzt replied with a wry grin. "One day soon."

He started off, then, bounding across the uneven rock surfaces with such ease and grace that Catti-brie didn't even try to pace him. She knew the routine of their hunting. Drizzt would move from vantage point to vantage point all around her while she meticulously followed the trail, the drow serving as her wider eyes while her own were fixed upon the stone before her feet.

"Don't ye be too long in calling up yer cat!" she called to him as he moved away, and he responded with a wave of his hand.

They moved swiftly for several hours, the blood trail easy enough to follow, and by the time they found the source-an orc lying dead along the side of the path, which brought a fair bit of relief-the continuing trail lay obvious before them. There weren't many paths through the mountains, and the ground outside the lone trail stretching before them was nearly impossible to cross, even by long-legged frost giants.

They signaled back through their liaisons and waited for the dwarves then set camp there.

"If the trail does not split soon, we will catch up to them within two days," Drizzt promised Bruenor as they ate their evening meal. "The orc has been dead as long as three days, but our enemies are not moving swiftly or with purpose. They may even be closer than we believe, may even have doubled back in the hopes of finding more prey along the lower elevations."

"That's why I doubled the guard, elf," Bruenor replied through a mouth full of food. 'Tin not looking to have a hunnerd orcs and a handful of giants find me in me sleep!"

Which was precisely how Drizzt hoped to find the hundred orcs and the handful of giants.

They hustled along the next day, Drizzt and Catti-brie spying many signs of the recent passing, like the multitude of footprints along one low, muddy dell. In addition to showing the way, the continuing indications led credence to Drizzt's estimate of the size of the enemy force.

The drow and Catti-brie knew that they were gaining, and fast, and that the orcs and giants were making no effort to conceal themselves or watch their backs for any apparent pursuit.

And why should they? Clicking Heels, like all the other villages in the Savage Frontier, was a secluded place, a place where, under normal circumstances, the complete disaster and destruction of the village might not be known by the other inhabitants of the region for tendays or months, even in the summertime when travel was easier. This was not a region of high commerce, except in the markets of places like Mithral Hall, and not a region where many journeyed along the rugged trails. Clicking Heels was not on the main road of commerce. It existed on the fringes, like a dozen or more similar communities, comprised mostly of huntsmen, that rarely if ever even showed up on any map.

These were the wilds, lands untamed. The orcs and giants knew all of this, of course, as Drizzt and Catti-brie understood, and so the couple didn't think it likely that their enemies would have sentries protecting their retreat from a village crushed with no survivors.

When the couple joined the dwarves for dinner that second evening, it was with complete confidence that Drizzt reasserted his prediction to Bruenor.

"Tell your fellows to sleep well," he explained. "Before the setting of tomorrow's sun, we will have first sight of our enemies."

"Then afore the rising o' the sun the next day after that, our enemies'll be dead," Bruenor promised.

As he spoke, he looked over at the dwarf he had invited to dine with him that night.

Tred replied with a grim and appreciative nod then dug into his lamb shank with relish.

The terrain was rocky and broken, with collections of trees, evergreens mostly, set in small protected dells against the backdrop of the increasingly towering mountains. The wind swept down and circled about, rebounding off the many mountainous faces. The winding paths of swift-running streams cascaded down the slopes, silver lines against a background of gray and blue. For the inexperienced, the mountain trails would be quietly deceiving, leading a traveler around, in, up, and down circles that ultimately got him nowhere near where he intended to be or taking him on a wide-ranging path that ended abruptly at a five-hundred foot drop.

Even for Drizzt and his friends, so attuned with the ways of the wild, the mountains presented a huge challenge. They could pursue the orc force readily enough, for the correct trail was clearly marked to the trained eyes of the drow, but finding a way to flank that fleeing force as the trail grew fresher would not be so easy.

On one plateau of a particularly wide mountain, fed by many trails and serving as a sort of hub for them all, Drizzt found a telltale marker. He bent over a patch of mud, its edge depressed by the step of a recent boot.

"The print is fresh," he explained to Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar. He rose up from his crouch, rubbing his muddied fingers together. "Less than an hour."

The friends glanced around, focusing mostly on the higher ridgeline that loomed to the north.

Catti-brie was first to catch sight of the movement up there, a hulking giant form gliding around a line of broken boulders.

"Time for Guenhwyvar," Wulfgar remarked.

Drizzt nodded and pulled the statue from his belt pouch, then placed it on the ground and summoned the magical panther to his side.

"We should pass word to Bruenor as well," the barbarian added.

"Ye do it," Catti-brie replied, speaking to Wulfgar. "Ye can get there quicker than the little one with yer longer legs."

Wulfgar nodded; it made sense.

"We'll better locate and assess the enemy while you fetch the dwarves," Drizzt explained. He glanced off at Regis, who was already

moving-to the west and not the north. "Flanking?"

"I go this way, you go north, and she goes east," Regis explained.

His three friends smiled, glad to see a bit of the old Regis returned, for the giant they had spotted had been moving west to east and by going west, Regis was almost assuring that his two hunting friends would find the orc and giant band before he did.

"Guenhwyvar comes with me to the north, in a direct line toward the enemy," Drizzt explained. "She alone can run without inviting suspicion. We four will meet back here right before the sunset."

With final nods and determined looks, they split apart, each moving swiftly along the appointed trail.

It was a strange feeling for Regis, being out alone in the wilderness without Drizzt or any of the others protectively at his side. Back in Ten-Towns, the halfling had often ventured out of Lonelywood by himself, but almost always along familiar trails, particularly the one that would take him to the banks of the great lake Maer Dualdon and his favorite fishing hole.

Being alone in the wilds, with known, dangerous enemies not too far away, felt strangely refreshing. Despite his very real fears, Regis could not deny the surge of energy coursing through his diminutive body. The rush of excitement, the thrill of knowing that a goblin might be hiding behind any rock, or that a giant might even then be taking deadly aim at him with one of its huge boulder missiles. . . .

In truth, this wasn't an experience that Regis planned to make the norm of his existence, but he understood that it was a necessary risk, one leading to the greater good, and one that he had to accept.

Still, he wished he hadn't been the first to encounter the orcs, a group of a dozen stragglers lagging behind their main lines. Caught up in his own thoughts, the distracted halfling almost walked right into their midst before ever realizing that they were there.

Drizzt didn't like what he was seeing. High up on a rocky ledge, the drow lay flat on his belly peering over an encampment of several scores of orcs-what he had expected. Just beyond the camp, though, loomed a quartet of behemoths: huge frost giants, and not the dirty rogues one might expect to find consorting with orcs. These were handsome creatures, clean and richly dressed, adorned with ornamental bracelets and rings, and fine furs that were neither particularly new nor particularly weather-beaten.

The giants were part of a larger, more organized clan-obviously a part of the network the Jarl Grayhand, a name not unknown to Drizzt and the dwarves of Mithral Hall, had formed in this part of the Spine of the World.

If the old Grayhand was loaning some of his mighty warriors out to an orc clan, the implications might prove darker than one flattened village and an ambush on a band of dwarves.

Drizzt looked all around, wondering if there was a way for him to get closer to the giants, to try to overhear their conversation. He could only hope they'd be speaking in a language that he could comprehend.

The cover between him and the orc camp was not promising, though, nor was the climb down the almost sheer cliff facing. Beyond that, the sun was already hanging low in the sky, and he didn't have much time if he hoped to rejoin his friends in the appointed place at the appointed hour.

He lingered for many more minutes, watching from afar the limited interaction between the giants and orcs. His attention piqued when one large and powerful orc, wearing the finest garments of all the filthy band, and with a huge, decorated axe strapped across its back, approached the giant quartet. The orc didn't go in the hesitating manner of some of the others, who had been either bringing food to the behemoths or simply trying to navigate past them in as unobtrusive a manner as possible. This orc -and Drizzt understood that it had to the leader, or at least one of the leaders-strode up to the giants purposefully and without any apparent trepidation and began conversing in what seemed to be a jovial manner.

Engaged, straining to hear whatever tidbit he might, even if only a burst of laughter, Drizzt was hardly aware of the approach of an orc sentry until it was too late.

From one high vantage point, Catti-brie noted where the orcs and giants had stopped to set their camp, far to the west of where she had entered the higher, northern ridgeline. She realized that Drizzt was likely already surveying their encampment, and she could get there, but her estimate told her that she'd probably arrive on the spot just in time to accompany Drizzt, if they found each other, back to their assigned meeting spot. Thus, the woman spent her time running past the east end of the enemy encampment, checking the ground over which the orcs and giants would likely traverse in the morning-unless, of course, they decided to break camp early and march on through the night, which would favor the orcs, no doubt, though probably not be to the liking of" the giants.

With the eye of a trained tactician, which she, as the adopted daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, most certainly was, she looked for advantageous assault points. Bottlenecks in the trail, high ground where dwarves could send rocks and hammers spinning down at their enemies. . . .

Despite her many duties, the woman was the first of the four to return to the rendezvous point. Wulfgar returned soon after her with Bruenor, Dagnabbit, and Tred McKnuckles at his side.

"They have encamped almost directly north of this point," the woman explained.

"How many?" Bruenor asked.

Catti-brie gave a shrug. "Drizzt will know. I was searching the ground ahead to see where and how we might strike tomorrow."

"Ye find any good killin' spots?"

Catti-brie answered with a wicked smile, and Bruenor eagerly rubbed his hands together, then looked over at Tred and offered a nudge and a wink.

"Ye'll get yer payback, friend," the dwarf king promised.

As so often in the past, luck alone saved Regis. He skittered behind a convenient rock without notice from the group of orcs, who were engaged in an argument over some loot they had pilfered, probably from the sacked village.

They argued, pushed and shouted at each other, and deciding to divide the loot up privately amongst themselves, they suddenly quieted. Instead of continuing along the trail to join up with the larger band, they plopped themselves down right there, sending a couple ahead to fetch some food.

That afforded Regis a lovely eavesdropping position while they rambled on about all sorts of things, answering many questions for the halfling and leading him to ask many, many more.

Drizzt could not have been in a more disadvantageous situation, lying face down between a rise of stone and a boulder, peering over a ledge and with someone, something-likely an orc-moving up behind him. He ducked his head and shrugged the cowl of his cloak up a bit higher, hoping the creature would miss him in the dim light, but when the footsteps closed, the drow knew that he had to take a different course.

He shoved up to his knees and gracefully leaped to his feet from there, spinning around and drawing his scimitars, moving them as quickly as possible into a defensive position, trying to anticipate the attacker's thrust. If the creature had come straight on, Drizzt would have been caught back on his heels from the outset.

But the orc, and it was an orc, hadn't charged, and didn't charge. It stood back, hands upraised and waving frantically, having dropped its weapon to the ground at its feet.

It said something that Drizzt didn't completely comprehend, though the language was close enough to the goblin tongue, which the drow did know, for him to understand that there was some recognition there, spoken in an almost apologetic tone. It seemed as if the orc, recognizing a drow elf, feared that it was intruding.

The obvious fear didn't surprise Drizzt, for the goblinkin were usually terrified of the drow-as were most reasoning races -but this went beyond that, he sensed. The orc wasn't surprised, as if the appearance of a drow elf near to this force was not unexpected.

He wanted to question the creature further but saw a black flash to the side of the orc and knew his opportunity had passed.

Guenhwyvar came across hard and fast, in a great leap that put the panther about chest level with the orc.

"Guen, no!" Drizzt cried as the cat flew past.

The orc's throat erupted in blood and the creature went flying down to the stone. Drizzt rushed to it, turning it over, thinking to stem the flow of blood from its throat.

Then he realized that the orc had no throat left at all.

Frustrated that an opportunity had flitted away, but grateful that Guenhwyvar had seen the danger from afar and come rushing in to rescue him, Drizzt could only shake his head.

He hid the dead orc as well as possible in a crevice, and with Guenhwyvar at his side, he started back to the rendezvous, having discovered more questions than answers.

"Plenty of ground to shape to our liking," Catti-brie assured them all when they had reassembled on the plateau below the enemy's position. "We'll get the fight we want."

None disagreed, but Bruenor wore a concerned expression.

'Too many giants," he explained when all the others had focused on him. "Four'd make a good enough fight by themselves. I'm thinking we got to hit them afore the morning. Trim the numbers."

"Not an easy thing to do, if we're still wanting surprise tomorrow," Catti-brie added.

They bounced a few ideas back and forth, possible plans to lure out the giants, and potential areas where they could hit at the brutes away from the main force. There seemed no shortage of these, but getting them out wouldn't be an easy task.

"There may be a way . . ." Drizzt offered, the first words he had contributed to the planning.

Replaying the scene with the orc, the reactions of the creature toward him, Drizzt wondered if his heritage might serve him well.

They agreed on a place, and the six and Guenhwyvar, minus Drizzt, started away, while the drow moved back toward his last position overlooking the encampment. He stayed there for just a few moments, his keen eyes cutting the night and discerning an approach route toward the separate giant camp, and he was gone, slipping away as silently as a shadow.

"He'll bring 'em down from the right," Bruenor said when they reached the appointed ambush area.

The dwarf was facing a high cliff, with a rocky, broken trail running left and right in front of it before him.

"Can ye get up there, Rumblebelly?"

Regis, standing at the base of the cliff, was already picking his course. He had discerned a few routes already to the ledge he was hoping to reach, but he wanted an easier one for a companion who was not quite as nimble as he.

"You want to get in on the kill?" he asked Tred McKnuckles, who was standing beside him and looking more than a little overwhelmed by the frantic planning and implementation of the seasoned companions.

"What d'ya think?" the dwarf shot back.

"I think you should put that weapon on your back and follow me up," Regis replied with a wry grin, and without further ado, the halfling began his climb.

"I ain't no damn spider!" Tred yelled back.

"Do you want the kill or not?"

It was the last thing Regis meant to say, and the last thing he had to say, for Tred, grumbling and growling to make a robbed dwarf proud, began his ascent, following the exact course of footholds and handholds Regis had taken. It took him a long time to get to the ledge, and by the time he arrived, Regis was already sitting comfortably with his back against the wall, twenty-five feet above the ground.

"See if you can break off a large chunk of that rock," the halfling remarked, nodding to the side, where a fair-sized boulder had lodged itself on the ledge.

Tred looked at the solid stone, a thousand pounds of granite, doubtfully.

"Ye think ye can drop it off?" came a call from below from Catti-brie.

Regis moved forward to regard her, and Tred looked on even more doubtfully.

Catti-brie didn't wait for an answer but moved to the side to confer with Wulfgar. The barbarian rushed away, returning a few moments later with a long and thick broken branch. He positioned himself below the ledge, then reached up as far as he could, and when it was apparent that he still couldn't reach his companions with the branch, he tossed it up.

Regis caught it and pulled it up beside him. Smiling, he handed it to the bewildered Tred.

"You'll see," the halfling promised.

To the side, on another ledge at about the same height as Regis and Tred's, Guenhwyvar gave a low growl, and poor Tred seemed more unsettled than ever.

Regis just grinned and moved back into position to watch the trail behind.

When he heard them talking in a language that was close enough to Common to be understood, Drizzt's hopes for his plans climbed a bit. He was on the fringes of the encampment, out in the shadows behind a large rock. Neither the orcs nor the giants had set any guards, obviously secure in their victory.

The giants' conversation was small talk mostly, giving the drow no real information. That didn't concern him too much. He was more interested in finding a chance to approach one of them alone, to play his hunch that this group was somewhat familiar with dark elves.

He got his chance almost an hour later. One of the giants was snoring, a sound not unlike an avalanche. Another, the only female of the quartet, lay beside him, near sleep if not already so. The remaining two continued their conversation, though with the long lags of silence attributable to drowsiness. Finally, one of the pair stood up and wandered off.

Drizzt took a deep breath-dealing with creatures as formidable as frost giants was no easy task. In addition to their great size, strength, and fighting prowess, frost giants were not blathering idiots like their hill giant and ogre cousins. By all accounts, they were often quite sharp of mind, and not easily fooled. Drizzt had to count on his heritage, and the reputation that he hoped would precede him.

He crept in under cover of the shadows to within a few feet of the sitting behemoth.

"You missed some treasure," he whispered.

The giant, obviously sleepy, started a bit and fell back to one elbow, turning his head to regard the speaker as it asked, "What?"

Seeing the dark elf, the giant did move more ambitiously, snapping back up to a straight-backed position.

"Donnia?" it asked, a name that Drizzt did not recognize, except to recognize that it was indeed a name, a drow name.

"An associate," he replied quietly. "You missed a great treasure."

"Where? What?"

"At the village. A huge chest of gems and jewels, buried beneath one of the fallen buildings."

The giant looked around, then leaned in more closely.

"You offer this?" he asked suspiciously, so obviously not convinced that the drow, that any drow, would walk in and give such information away.

"I cannot carry so much," Drizzt explained. "I cannot carry one tenth of that which lies within. While I could ferry the treasure away one armload at a time, I suspect there is more still, buried beneath a slab I can't budge."

The giant looked around again, its movements showing that it was more than a little interested. Not far to the side, one of its companions snored, coughed, and rolled over.

"I will share with you, fifty-fifty, and with your kin, if you believe we need them," Drizzt said, "but not with the orcs."

A wicked smile that crossed the giant's face told Drizzt that his understanding of the race relationships within the enemy band was not far from the mark.

"Let us continue this discussion, but not here," Drizzt said, and he began fading back into the shadows.

The giant looked around yet again, then moved into a crouch and crept after him, following eagerly into the night, moving quietly along a rocky trail to a small clearing protected behind by a sheer cliff wall.

On a ledge on that wall, some ten feet above the head of the towering giant, two sets of curious eyes looked on.

"What will Donnia Soldou think of this?" the giant asked.

"Donnia need not know," Drizzt replied.

The giant's shrug told him much, told him that Donnia, whoever she might be, was not an overriding controlling force but more likely just an associate. That brought a bit of relief to the dark elf. He would hate to think that the orcs and giants were acting at the behest of a drow army.

"I will take Geletha with me," the giant announced.

"Your friend with whom you were speaking?"

The giant nodded. "And we take two shares, you take one."

"That hardly seems fair."

"You cannot move the slab."

"You cannot find the slab." Drizzt continued the banter, trying hard to keep the giant unsuspicious while his friends moved into their final positions.

He figured he wouldn't have to keep it up for long.

When a blue-streaking arrow shot out from behind him, zipped past, and thudded hard into the giant's chest, the drow was not surprised.

The behemoth groaned but was not badly hurt. Drizzt drew his scimitars and leaped around, turning to face Catti-brie's position, still playing the part of the giant's ally.

"Where did it come from?" he shouted. "Lift me that I might see."

"Straight ahead!" roared the great creature.

It started to bend to accommodate the drow, and Drizzt turned fast and ran up its treelike arm. His scimitars slashed hard across the behemoth's face, drawing bright lines of red.

The giant roared and grabbed at him, but the drow had already leaped away, with another blue-streaking arrow sizzling in behind him, slamming the giant yet again.

Shrugging it off, the behemoth continued to move toward Drizzt, until there came a sound like a log splitting. Bruenor Battlehammer's many-notched axe smashed the brute in the back of the knee.

The giant howled and lurched, grabbing the wound, and Catti-brie hit it again with an arrow, this time in the face.

Ignoring the hit as much as possible, the brute lifted a foot, obviously intending to smash Bruenor.

And it was hopping, as Dagnabbit rushed out and planted his warhammer right on top of the giant's set foot.

And a cry of "Tempus!" followed by a second warhammer, this one spinning through the air, changed that course.

Aegis-fang hit the behemoth in the chest, just below its neck, with a force that knocked the giant back against the wall. Wulfgar came in behind the hammer, recalling it magically to his grasp, then charged before the giant had recovered and launched a tremendous smash right into the giant's kneecap.

How the brute howled!

Catti-brie's next arrow hit it right in the face.

Up on the ledge, Tred, with the branch lever tucked tight over one shoulder, looked from the giant to Regis, his expression dumbfounded. He had battled giants before, on many occasions, but never had he seen one so battered so quickly.

He looked past Regis then to Guenhwyvar. The great panther crouched on a ledge to the side, watching the fight, but more than that, watching back toward the east, her ears perked up.

Regis held his hand out toward the ledge, indicating that the target behemoth was in position.

Tred gave a satisfied grunt and bore down on the displaced boulder, setting the lever more solidly and driving on. The rock tilted and tumbled, and the poor giant below, which was just then beginning to regain its senses and set some type of defense against the rushing onslaught of the drow, the barbarian, the woman, and the two fiery dwarves, got a thousand pounds of granite right on top of the head. The crunching sound from its neck echoed off the stone, as did the resounding crash as the boulder bounced away.

Regis gave Tred a salute for the fine shot, but the relief was short-lived, for only then did the halfling and the dwarf come to understand what had so piqued Guenhwyvar's interest and had kept the cat out of the fight. Another giant was charging down the path, and yet another one, a female, behind that.

Regis looked at Tred. "We could find another rock," he offered, just a hint of fear creeping into his voice.

Behind them, Guenhwyvar leaped onto the shoulder of the charging giant, and as it pounded on down the trail, Tred shrugged and did likewise, using the cat's distraction to get a clear shot at the giant's head with his mighty axe. No crack of stone against stone had ever sounded louder than the report of Tred's axe cracking into the giant's skull,

Regis winced and looked over.

"Or we could do that," the halfling remarked, though the dwarf couldn't hear him.

With great effort, Tred stubbornly hung on to the axe handle, hanging off the back of the giant's head. He rode the behemoth down as it stumbled to its knees, then down to the ground.

Tred rose from the dead behemoth's back and swung around to join the fray against the remaining beast-or tried to, then got jerked back around by his axe, which remained firmly embedded.

He heard a groan, from the side and down, and only then realized - and he was the only one of the band to notice-that Dagnabbit had been in an unfortunate position as the giant had slumped down and was buried beneath the behemoth's great weight.

Drizzt started the counterattack, charging up the path at the furious female frost giant. He saw the giant raise her arm to throw, a large stone in hand, and responded by calling upon his innate drow abilities, summoning a globe of darkness before the creature's face. The drow dived aside, frantically, and the hurled rock clipped the stone where he had been standing. Its rebound sent it skipping fast, brushing Wulfgar in the shoulder and sending him flying, then just missing Catti-brie, taking Taulmaril from her hands and bloodying her fingers. She fell to her knees, clutching her hands, her face locked in a grimace of pain.

Drizzt came in hard at the giant. The behemoth kicked across at him, and the drow went into a leaping, rolling somersault right over the flying foot, landing gracefully and spinning about, his deadly scimitars cutting two deep lines in the back of the huge calf.

Bruenor came in next and hard, driving in against the giant's other shin with his axe. The giant swatted him aside with a brutal slap, but the dwarf just accepted the bouncing ride along the rocks, regained his footing, adjusted his one-horned helmet, and wagged a finger back at the behemoth.

"Now ye're makin' me mad, ye overfed orc!"

The giant kicked at Drizzt again, but he was too quick for that, skipping aside time and time again, and spinning about to cut a wicked slash whenever presented an opening.

Apparently realizing that it was overmatched, the behemoth kicked one last time, shortening the blow in an effort not to thump the drow, but to just keep him at bay. The giantess turned to the south and started to run along the broken ground instead of the path, where her long legs would give her an advantage.

Or she tried to.

Aegis-fang whipped in, smashing the ankle of the giantess's trailing foot, driving that foot behind the other ankle and tripping the behemoth up.

She fell hard to the stone, her breath blasted out by the impact.

She tried to rise but had no chance. Drizzt was there, running up her back. And Guenhwyvar was there, leaping onto her shoulders and biting hard at the back of her neck. And Catti-brie was there, holding Khazid'hea, her devilishly sharp sword, gingerly in her injured grasp. And Bruenor was there with his axe, with Wulfgar behind him with the mighty warhammer back in his grasp.

And Tred came in, escorting a shaken, but not too badly hurt Dagnabbit.

Up on the ledge behind them, Regis watched and cheered. He called out when he noticed that the first felled giant was moving again, albeit groggily, the behemoth struggling to rise. Wulfgar rushed back and put Aegis-fang to swift and deadly work on the creature's huge head.

"I never seen nothing like it," Tred admitted as the band made their way back toward the main force of waiting dwarves.

"It's all about shaping the battlefield," Bruenor explained.

"And none do it better 'n King Bruenor!" Dagnabbit added.

"None, unless it's him," Bruenor replied, nodding his chin toward Drizzt, who was tending Catti-brie's hands as they walked.

She had at least one broken finger but seemed more than ready to continue.

There would be no rest for the band that night. There was another battlefield to properly shape, in preparation for an even larger fight.