At his side, Tarathiel and Innovindil linked arms and went into their deadly dance.
The orcs fell back. One tried to call out commands for them to regroup, but Drizzt immediately engulfed the creature in a globe of darkness.
Another shouted out a command—right before a flying Guenhwyvar buried it.
Within moments, the orcs were running back the way they had come, and when the last rays of daylight winked out, they were still running, and still with Guenhwyvar flanking them on the left and Drizzt on the right and Tarathiel and Innovindil and their powerful mounts pressing them from behind.
Soon after, Drizzt watched the last pair run into a dark, wide cave. He charged up behind them, calling out threats. When one slowed and started to glance back, he rushed ahead and cut the creature down.
Its companion did not look back.
Nor did any others of the tribe.
Drizzt stood in the cave entrance, hands resting against his hips, staring down the deep tunnel beyond.
Guenhwyvar padded up beside him, and soon he heard the clopping of pegasi hooves.
"Exactly as I had hoped," Tarathiel remarked, dismounting and moving to stand beside Drizzt.
He lifted a hand and patted the drow on the shoulder, and though he did flinch a bit initially, Drizzt did not pull away.
"Our technique will only strengthen with practice," Innovindil said as she walked up on Drizzt's other side.
The drow looked deeply into her eyes and saw that she had just challenged him yet again, had just invited him yet again.
He did not openly deny her, nor did he pull away when she moved very close to his side.
CHAPTER 19 SETTLING INTO THE ORC KING'S SHADOW
The work along the western bank of the Surbrin moved at a frenetic pace, with orcs and giants constructing defensive fortifications at all of the possible fords near the southern edge of the mountains around the closed gate of Mithral Hall. King Obould deemed one crossing particularly dangerous, where the river was wide and shallow and an entire army could cross in short order. And so Obould set most of his orcs into action, bringing tons of stones down to the water and packing them tightly together, then filling in with tons of sand, forming a levy that tightened up the river and deepened and strengthened the flow.
Not to be outdone, and taking no chances, Gerti Orelsdottr ordered her giants to ensure that the dwarven gate would not soon be opened, at one point even bringing a landslide down from the mountains. She would not have Clan Battlehammer sneaking out at her backside!
The work went on day and night, with high walls quickly constructed at every crossing point. Giants piled boulders suitable for bombardment at every outpost, ready to meet any crossing with heavy resistance, and orcs similarly filled rooms with hastily made spears. If reinforcements meant to come across the Surbrin, Gerti and Obould meant to make them pay dearly for the ground.
The two leaders met every night, along with Arganth, who was fast becoming Obould's principal advisor. The discussions were usually civil, a discourse about how to best and quickly secure their gains, but it did not escape Gerti's notice that Obould was leading the way at every turn, that his plans made great sense, that his vision had suddenly clarified to a keen and attainable edge. Thus, when the giantess was leaving the nightly meetings, she was usually in a foul mood, and increasingly, she went into the meetings gnashing her teeth.
So it was that night a tenday after the fall of Mithral Hall's eastern gate.
"We must move back to the west," Gerti began, the litany she spoke to open every meeting of late. "Your son remains locked in a stalemate with the dwarves, and he has not the giant allies he needs to dislodge them."
"You are in a hurry to chase them into Mithral Hall?" Obould casually asked.
"One less problem for us when we do."
"Better to let attrition take a heavy toll on them while we have them out here in the open," the orc king reasoned. "Deplete the resources they would employ against Proffit and his smelly trolls."
The notion of the orc king referring to any other race as «smelly» struck Gerti as laughable, but she was in no mood for mirth.
"Do you believe that a few trolls will chase Clan Battlehammer from its ancestral home?" she scoffed.
"Of course Proffit will not succeed," Obould admitted. "But we do not need him to succeed. He will soften them and tighten the noose around them. The tighter we squeeze them in their tunnels, the better the resolution."
"That we wipe them from the North?" Gerti asked, a bit confused, for it did not seem to her that Obould was moving along that line, though it had always before been his stated intent.
"That would be wonderful," the orc king remarked. "If we can. If not, perhaps with their outer doors sealed and pressed in the tunnels, Clan Battlehammer will seek to negotiate a settlement."
"A treaty between conquering orcs and dwarves?" Gerti asked incredulously.
"What is their option?" asked Obould. "Will they carry on their trade through tunnels to Silverymoon and Felbarr?"
"They might."
"And when we at last locate and drop those tunnels?" Obould asked, seeming perfectly confident in that. "Will the dwarves follow the way of that wretched Do'Urden creature and begin doing trade with the drow of the Underdark?"
"Or perhaps they will do nothing of the sort," Gerti argued. "Surely Mithral Hall is self-contained and self-sustaining. Clan Battlehammer may be content to remain in their hole for a century, if necessary." She leaned forward over her crossed legs. "Your kind has never been known for its long-term resolve, Obould.
Orc conquests are usually short-lived affairs, and more often than not, lost by the warring of other orcs."
That particular reference was purposely worded and aimed to sting Obould, for not long in the past the orc king had made a great conquest indeed, sweeping the dwarves from Citadel Felbarr and renaming it the Citadel of Many-Arrows. But then had come the inevitable squabbling, orc against orc, and the dwarves under King Emerus Warcrown had wasted little time in chasing Obould's distracted and chaotic invaders back out. Gerti had launched her not-too-subtle reminder of that disaster just to drop her counterpart's mounting ego a few pegs. The giantess was surprised, though, and more than a little disappointed, at how composed Obould remained.
"True enough," the orc king even admitted. "Perhaps we have learned from our mistakes."
Gerti honestly wanted to ask that strange creature who he truly was and what he had done with that sniveling fool, Obould.
"When the region is secured and our numbers great enough, we will build orc cities," Obould explained, and he seemed to be looking far away then, as if he was visualizing that of which he spoke. "We will find our own commerce and trade and seek out surrounding towns to join in."
"You will send an emissary to Lady Alustriel and Emerus Warcrown seeking trade agreements?" Gerti blurted.
"Alustriel first," Obould calmly replied. "Ever has Silverymoon been known for tolerance. I expect that King Warcrown will need more persuading."
He looked directly at Gerti and grinned wickedly, his tusks curling over his upper lip.
"But we will have barter," Obould asked, "will we not?"
"What goods might you produce that they cannot get elsewhere?"
"We will hold the key to Clan Battlehammer's freedom," Obould explained. "Perhaps we allow for the reopening of the eastern door of Mithral Hall. Perhaps we even construct a great bridge at that point over the Surbrin. We allow Mithral Hall to trade openly and aboveground once again, and all for a tithe, of course."
"You have gone mad," Gerti snapped at him. "Dwarves fall before orc blades! King Bruenor himself was killed by your son's charges. Do you believe they will so quickly forget?"