A shriek to the right had them both looking that way, to see the superb coordination and harmony of Wulfgar and Catti-brie as they held fast the flank. Orcs came up at them haphazardly, and many fell to the woman's deadly bow and her unending supply of arrows. Those that managed to escape sudden death at the end of a missile likely soon wished they had been hit, for they wound up before the great barbarian Wulfgar and his devastating hammer, the magnificent Aegis-fang, crafted by Bruenor Battlehammer himself. Even as Banak and Rockbottom focused on the pair, Wulfgar smashed one orc so hard atop its head that its skull simply exploded, showering the barbarian and those other orcs scrambling in with blood and brains.
An arrow whistled past Wulfgar to take down a second orc, and a great sweep of Aegis-fang had the remaining two stumbling, one falling to the ground, the other dancing out wide.
Catti-brie got the second one; a chop of Aegis-fang finished the one on the ground.
"Them two are making tales that'll live through the centuries," Rockbottom remarked.
"To some point," said Banak, "then they will fade."
Rockbottom looked at him curiously, surprised by his glum attitude.
"On his way home," Banak explained, "King Bruenor marched through Fell Pass."
Rockbottom nodded his understanding, for he had been on that caravan.
"Find any bones there?" Banak asked.
"More than ye can count," the cleric replied.
"Ye think that any of them fighting that long-ago battle in Fell Pass stood above the others, in bravery and might?"
Rockbottom considered the question for just a moment, before offering a shrug and an agreeing nod.
"Ye know their names?" Banak asked. "Ye know who they were and what they were about? Ye know how many orcs and other monsters they killed in that battle? Ye know how many held the head of a friend as he died?"
The point hit Rockbottom hard. He looked back to the main battle, where the dwarves were routing the orcs and sending them running.
"No pursuit down the slope!" Banak ordered.
"We've got them scared witless," Rockbottom quietly advised.
"They're witless anyway," said the dwarf warlord. "They only came on to draw us from our preparations. That preparation's not to wait while we chase a ragtag band around the mountains. We bring our boys all back and get back to work. This was a skirmish. The big fight's yet to come."
Banak looked back over his shoulder to the cliff area, and hoped that the engineers had not slowed in their work with the rope ladders to the floor of Keeper's Dale.
"Just a skirmish," he reiterated even as the fighting diminished and many of the dwarves began to turn their precise formations back toward his position.
He saw the dead and wounded lying around the blood-soaked stones.
He thought of the bones that would soon enough litter that ground, as thick and as quiet as rocks.
CHAPTER 4 THE SELECTION PROCESS
His trail always seemed to lead him back to that spot. For Drizzt Do'Urden, the devastated rubble of Shallows served as his inspiration, his catalyst to allow the Hunter to fill his spirit with hunger for the hunt. He moved around the broken tower and ruined walls, but rarely did he go to the south of the town. It had taken him several days to muster the nerve to venture past the ruined idol of the foul orc god. As he had feared, he had found no sign of escaping survivors.
Drizzt soon started to visit that place for different purposes. On every return, he hoped he might find some orcs milling around the strewn dead, seeking loot perhaps.
Drizzt thought it would be fitting for him to slaughter orcs in the shadow of the devastation that was Shallows.
He thought he had found his opportunity upon his approach that afternoon. Guenhwyvar, beside him, was clearly on edge, a sure sign that monsters were about, and Drizzt noted the movements of some creatures around the ruins as he moved along the high ground across the ravine north of the town—the same high ground from which the giants had bombarded Shallows as a prelude to the orc assault.
As soon as he got a clear view of the ruins, though, Drizzt understood that he would not be doing any battle there that day. There were indeed orcs in Shallows—thousands of orcs—several tribes of the wretches encamped around the shattered remains of that great wooden statue south of the town's ruined southern wall.
Beside him, Guenhwyvar lowered her ears and issued a long and low growl.
That brought a smile to the dark elf's face—the first smile that had found its way there in a long time.
"I know, Guen," he said, and he reached over and riffled the cat's ear. "Hold patience. We will find our time."
Guenhwyvar looked at him and slowly blinked, then tilted her head so he could scratch a favored spot along her neck. The growling stopped.
Drizzt's smile did not. He continued to scratch the cat, but continued, too, to look across the ravine, to the ruins of Shallows, to the hordes of orcs. He replayed his memories over and over, recalling it all so vividly; he would not let himself forget.
The image of Bruenor tumbling in the tower ruins. The image of giants heaving their great boulders across the ravine at his friends. The image of the orc hordes overrunning the town. None of it had been asked for. None of it deserved.
But it would be paid back, Drizzt knew.
In full.
* * *
"King Obould knows of this travesty?" asked Arganth Snarrl, the wide-eyed, wild-eyed shaman of the orc tribe that bore his surname. With his bright-colored feathered headdress and tooth necklace (with specimens from a variety of creatures) that reached below his waist, Arganth was among the most distinctive and colorful of the dozen shamans congregated around the ruined Gruumsh idol, and with his shrieking, almost birdlike voice, he was also the loudest.
"Does he understand, does he? Does he? Does he?" the shaman asked, hop-ping from one of his colleagues to the next in rapid succession. "I do not think he does! No, no, because if he does, then he does not place this … this … this, blasphemy in proper order! More important than all his conquests, this is!"
"Unless his conquests are being delivered in the name of Gruumsh," shaman Achtel Gnarlfingers remarked, the interruption stopping Arganth in his tracks.
Achtel's dress was not as large and attention-grabbing as Arganth's, but it was equally colorful, with a rich red traveling cloak, complete with hood, and a bright yellow sash crossing shoulder to hip and around her waist. She carried a skull-headed scepter, heavily enchanted to serve as a formidable weapon, from what Arganth had heard. Even more than that, the priestess with the shaggy brown hair carried tremendous weight simply because she represented the largest of the dozen tribes in attendance, with more than six hundred warriors encamped in the area under her dominion.
The colorful priest stared wide-eyed at Achtel, who did not back down at all.
"Which Obould does do," Arganth insisted.
"We march for the glory of Gruumsh," another of the group agreed. "The One-Eye desires the defeat of the dwarves!"
That brought a cheer from all around, except for Arganth, who stood there staring at Achtel. Gradually, all eyes focused on the trembling figure with the feathered headdress.
"Not enough," Achtel insisted. "King Obould Many-Arrows marches for the glory of King Obould Many-Arrows."