“If ye can’t keep up, then fall an’ die!” Roddy snarled. “We’re not to be lettin’ the stinking drow get away this time!”
It was not Fret, however, but another member of the troupe who unexpectedly went down. A large rock soared into the group suddenly, clipping Darda’s shoulder with enough force to lift the man from the ground and spin him right over in the air. He never even got the chance to cry out before he fell facedown in the dust.
Dove grabbed Fret and rolled for a nearby boulder, Roddy and Gabriel doing likewise. Another stone, and then several more, thundered into the region.
“Avalanche?” the stunned dwarf asked when he recovered from the shock.
Dove, too concerned with Darda, didn’t bother to answer, though she knew the truth of their situation and knew that it was no avalanche.
“He is alive,” Gabriel called from behind his protective rock, a dozen feet across from Dove’s. Another stone skipped through the area, narrowly missing Darda’s head.
“Damn,” Dove mumbled. She peeked up over the lip of her boulder, scanning both the mountainside and the lower crags at its base. “Now, Kellindil,” she whispered to herself. “Get us some time.”
As if in answer came the distant twang of the elf’s re-strung bow, followed by an angry roar. Dove and Gabriel glanced over to each other and smiled grimly.
“Stone giants!” Roddy cried, recognizing the deep, grating timbre of the roaring voice.
Dove crouched and waited, her back to the boulder and her open pack in her hand. No more stones bounced into the area; rather, thunderous crashes began up ahead of them, near Kellindil’s position. Dove rushed out to Darda and gently turned the man over.
“That hurt,” Darda whispered, straining to smile at his obvious understatement.
“Do not speak,” Dove replied, fumbling for a potion bottle in her pack. But the ranger ran out of time. The giants, seeing her out in the open, resumed their attack on the lower area.
“Get back to the stone!” Gabriel cried. Dove slipped her arm under the fallen man’s shoulder to support Darda as, stumbling with every movement, he crawled for the rock.
“Hurry! Hurry!” Fret cried, watching them anxiously with his back flat against the large stone.
Dove leaned over Darda suddenly, flattening him down to the ground as another rock zipped by just above their ducking heads.
Fret started to bite his fingernails, then realized what he was doing and stopped, a disgusted look on his face. “Do hurry!” he cried again to his friends. Another rock bounced by, too close.
Just before Dove and Darda got to Fret, a stone landed squarely on the backside of the boulder. Fret, his back tight against the rock barrier, flew out wildly, easily clearing his crawling companions. Dove placed Darda down behind the boulder, then turned, thinking she would have to go out again and retrieve the fallen dwarf.
But Fret was already back up, cursing and grumbling, and more concerned with a new hole in his fine garment than in any bodily injury.
“Get back here!” Dove screamed at him.
“Drat and bebother these stupid giants!” was all that Fret replied, stomping purposefully back to the boulder, his fists clenched angrily against his hips.
The barrage continued, both up ahead of the pinned companions and in their area. Then Kellindil came diving in, slipping to the rock beside Roddy and his dog.
“Stone giants,” the elf explained. “A dozen at the least.” He pointed up to a ridge halfway up the mountainside.
“Drow set us up,” Roddy growled, banging his fist on the stone. Kellindil wasn’t convinced, but he held his tongue.
Up on the peak of the rocky rise, Drizzt watched the battle unfolding. He had passed through the lower paths an hour earlier, before the dawn. In the dark, the waiting giants had been no obstacle for the stealthy drow; Drizzt had slipped through their line with little trouble.
Now, squinting through the morning light, Drizzt wondered about his course of action. When he had passed the giants, he fully expected that his pursuers would fall into trouble. Should he have somehow tried to warn them? he wondered. Or should he have veered away from the region, leading the humans and the elf out of the giants’ path?
Again Drizzt did not understand where he fit in with the ways of this strange and brutal world. “Let them fight among themselves,” he said harshly, as though trying to convince himself. Drizzt purposefully recalled his encounter of the previous night. The elf had attacked despite his proclamation that he did not want to fight. He recalled, too, the arrow he had dug out of Guenhwyvar’s flank.
“Let them all kill each other,” Drizzt said and he turned to leave. He glanced back over his shoulder one final time and noticed that some of the giants were on the move. One group remained at the ridge, showering the valley floor with a seemingly endless supply of rocks while two other groups, one to the left and one to the right, had fanned out, moving to encircle the trapped party.
Drizzt knew then that his pursuers would not escape. Once the giants had them flanked, they would find no protection against the cross fire.
Something stirred within the drow at that moment, the same emotions that had set him into action against the gnoll band. He couldn’t know for certain, but, as with the gnolls and their plans to attack the farmhouse, Drizzt suspected that the giants were the evil ones in this fight.
Other thoughts softened Drizzt’s determined grimace, memories of the human children at play on the farm, of the sandy-haired boy going into the water trough.
Drizzt dropped the onyx figurine to the ground. “Come, Guenhwyvar,” he commanded. “We are needed.”
“We’re being flanked!” Roddy McGristle snarled, seeing the giant bands moving along the higher trails.
Dove, Gabriel, and Kellindil all glanced around and to each other, searching for some way out. They had battled giants many times in their travels, together and with other parties. Always before, they had gone into the fight eagerly, happy to relieve the world of a few troublesome monsters. This time, though, they all suspected that the result might be different. Stone giants were reputably the best rock-throwers in all the realms and a single hit could kill the hardiest of men. Also, Darda, though alive, could not possibly run away, and none of the others had any intentions of leaving him behind.
“Flee, mountain man,” Kellindil said to Roddy. “You owe us nothing.”
Roddy looked at the archer incredulously. “I don’t run away, elf,” he growled. “Not from nothin’!”
Kellindil nodded and fitted an arrow to his bow.
“If they get to the side, we’re doomed,” Dove explained to Fret. “I beg your forgiveness, dear Fret. I should not have taken you from your home.”
Fret shrugged the thought away. He reached under his robes and produced a small but sturdy silver hammer. Dove smiled at the sight, thinking how odd the hammer seemed in the dwarf’s soft hands, more accustomed to holding a quill.
On the top ridge, Drizzt and Guenhwyvar shadowed the movements of the stone giant band circling to the trapped party’s left flank. Drizzt was determined to help the humans, but he wasn’t certain of how effective he could be against the likes of four armed giants. Still, he figured that with Guenhwyvar by his side, he could find some way to disrupt the giant group long enough for the trapped party to make a break.
The valley rolled out wider across the way and Drizzt realized that the giant band circling in the other direction, to the trapped party’s right flank, was probably out of rock-throwing range.
“Come, my friend,” Drizzt whispered to the panther, and he drew his scimitar and started down a descent of broken and jagged stone. A moment later, though, as soon as he noticed the terrain a short distance ahead of the giant band, Drizzt grabbed Guenhwyvar by the scruff and led the panther back up to the top ridge.