Montolio, Hooter on his shoulder, sat on one of the rope bridges, waiting for Drizzt’s return. “They are coming for us,” the old ranger declared when the drow finally came in. “Graul has his neck up about something, probably a little incident at Rogee’s Bluff.” Montolio pointed to the west, toward the high ridge where he and Drizzt had met.
“Do you have a sanctuary secured for times such as this?” Drizzt asked. “The orcs will come this very night, I believe, nearly a hundred strong and with powerful allies.”
“Run?” Montolio cried. He grabbed a nearby rope and swung down to stand by the drow, Hooter clutching his tunic and rolling along for the ride. “Run from orcs? Did I not tell you that orcs are my special bane? Nothing in all the world sounds sweeter than a blade opening an orc’s belly!”
“Should I even bother to remind you of the odds?” Drizzt said, smiling in spite of his concern.
“You should remind Graul!” Montolio laughed. “The old orc has lost his wits, or grown an oversized set of fortitude, to come on when he is so obviously outnumbered!”
Drizzt’s only reply, the only possible reply to such an outrageous statement, came as a burst of laughter.
“But then,” Montolio continued, not slowing a beat, “I will wager a bucket of freshly caught trout and three fine stallions that old Graul won’t come along for the fight. He will stay back by the trees, watching and wringing his fat hands, and when we blast his forces apart, he will be the first to flee! He never did have the nerve for the real fighting, not since he became king anyway. He’s too comfortable, I would guess, with too much to lose. Well, we’ll take away a bit of his bluster!”
Again Drizzt could not find the words to reply, and he couldn’t have stopped laughing at the absurdity anyway. Still, Drizzt had to admit the rousing and comforting effect Montolio’s rambling imparted to him.
“You go and get some rest,” Montolio said, scratching his stubbly chin and turning all about, again considering his surroundings. “I will begin the preparations—you will be amazed, I promise—and rouse you in a few hours.”
The last mumblings the drow heard as he crawled into his blanket in a dark den put it all in perspective. “Yes, Hooter, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Montolio said excitedly, and Drizzt did not doubt a word of it.
It had been a peaceful spring for Kellindil and his elven kin. They were a nomadic group, ranging throughout the region and taking up shelter where they found it, in trees or in caves. Their love was the open world, dancing under the stars, singing in tune with rushing mountain rivers, hunting harts and wild boar in the thick trees of the mountainsides.
Kellindil recognized the dread, a rarely seen emotion among the carefree group, on his cousin’s face as soon as the other elf walked into camp late one night.
All the others gathered about.
“The orcs are stirring,” the elf explained.
“Graul has found a caravan?” Kellindil asked.
His cousin shook his head and seemed confused. “It is too early for the traders,” he replied. “Graul has other prey in mind.”
“The grove,” several of the elves said together. The whole group turned to Kellindil then, apparently considering the drow his responsibility.
“I do not believe that the drow was in league with Graul,” Kellindil answered their unspoken question. “With all of his scouts, Montolio would have known. If the drow is a friend to the ranger, then he is no enemy to us.”
“The grove is many miles from here,” one of the others offered. “If we wish to look more closely at the orc king’s stirrings, and to arrive in time to aid the old ranger, then we must start out at once.”
Without a word of dissent, the wandering elves gathered the necessary supplies, mostly their great long bows and extra arrows. Just a few minutes later, they set off, running through the woods and across the mountain trails, making no more noise than a gentle breeze.
Drizzt awakened early in the afternoon to a startling sight. The day had darkened with gray clouds but still seemed bright to the drow as he crawled out of his den and stretched. High above him he saw the ranger, crawling about the top boughs of a tall pine. Drizzt’s curiosity turned to horror, when Montolio, howling like a wild wolf, leaped spread-eagled out of the tree.
Montolio wore a rope harness attached to the pine’s thin trunk. As he soared out, his momentum bent the tree, and the ranger came down lightly, bending the pine nearly in two. As soon as he hit the ground, he scrambled to his feet and set the rope harness around some thick roots.
As the scene fully unfolded to Drizzt, he realized that several pines had been bent this way, all pointing to the west and all tied by interconnected ropes. As he carefully picked his way over to Montolio, Drizzt passed a net, several trip wires, and one particularly nasty rope set with a dozen or more double-bladed knives. When the trap was sprung and the trees snapped back up, so would this rope, to the peril of any creatures standing beside it.
“Drizzt?” Montolio asked, hearing the light footsteps. “‘Ware your steps, now. I would not want to have to rebend all these trees, though I will admit it is a bit of fun.”
“You seem to have the preparations well under way,” Drizzt said as he came to stand near the ranger.
“I have been expecting this day for a long time,” Montolio replied. “I have played through this battle a hundred times in my mind and know the course it will take.” He crouched and drew an elongated oval on the ground, roughly the shape of the pine grove. “Let me show you,” he explained, and he proceeded to draw the landscape around the grove with such detail and accuracy that Drizzt shook his head and looked again to make sure the ranger was blind.
The grove consisted of several dozen trees, running north-south for about fifty yards and less than half that in width. The ground sloped at a gentle but noticeable incline, with the northern end of the grove being half a tree’s height lower than the southern end. Farther to the north the ground was broken and boulder-strewn, with scraggly patches of grass and sudden drops, and crossed by sharply twisting trails.
“Their main force will come from the west,” Montolio explained, pointing beyond the rock wall and across the small meadow to a pair of dense copses packed between the many rock ledges and cliff facings. “That is the only way they could come in together.”
Drizzt took a quick survey of the surrounding area and did not disagree. Across the grove to the east, the ground was rough and uneven. An army charging from that direction would come into the field of tall grass nearly single-file, straight between two high mounds of stone, and would make an easy target for Montolio’s deadly bow. South, beyond the grove, the incline grew steeper, a perfect place for orc spear-throwers and archers, except for the fact that just over the nearest ridge loomed a deep ravine with a nearly unclimbable wall.
“We’ll not see any trouble from the south,” Montolio piped in, almost as though he had read Drizzt’s thoughts. “And if they come from the north, they’ll be running uphill to get at us. I know Graul better than that. With such favorable odds, he will charge his host straight in from the west, trying to overrun us.”
“Thus the tress,” Drizzt remarked in admiration. “And the net and knife-set rope.”
“Cunning,” Montolio congratulated himself. “But remember, I have had five years to prepare for this. Come along now. The trees are just the beginning. I have duties for you while I finish with the tree trap.”
Montolio led Drizzt to another secret, blanket-shielded den. Inside hung lines of strange iron items, resembling animal jaws with a strong chain connected to their bases.
“Traps,” Montolio explained. “Pelt hunters set them in the mountains. Wicked things. I find them—Hooter is particularly skilled at spotting them—and take them away. I wish I had eyes to see the hunter scratching his head when he comes for them a week later!