That was why he had neglected Delly and Colson, throwing himself with abandon into the defenses of Mithral Hall. He had been a lousy husband to her, and a lousy father to Colson.
Only in battle had he found escape.
And he was still engaged in the self-deception, Wulfgar knew as he stared at the etched head of Aegis-fang. Why else had he allowed the trail to Colson to grow stale? Why else had he been turned back by a mere winter storm? Why else…?
Wulfgar’s jaw dropped open, and he thought himself a fool indeed. He dropped the hammer to the floor and swept on his trademark gray wolf cloak. He pulled his backpack out from under the bed and stuffed it with his blankets, then slung it over one arm and gathered up Aegis-fang with the other.
He strode out of his room with fierce determination, heading east past Bruenor’s audience chamber.
“Where are you going?” he heard, and paused to see Regis standing before a door in the hallway.
“Out to check on the weather and the ferry.”
“Drizzt is back.”
Wulfgar nodded, and his smile was genuine. “I hope his journey went well.”
“He’ll be in with Bruenor in a short while.”
“I haven’t time. Not now.”
“The ferry isn’t running yet,” Regis said.
But Wulfgar only nodded, as if it didn’t matter, and strode off down the corridor, turning through the doors that led to the main avenue that would take him over Garumn’s Gorge.
Thumbs hooked in his suspenders, Regis watched his large friend go. He stood there for a long while, considering the encounter, then turned for Bruenor’s audience chamber.
He paused after only a few steps, though, and looked back again to the corridor down which Wulfgar had so urgently departed.
The ferry wasn’t running.
CHAPTER 2
THE WILL OF GRUUMSH
Grguch blinked repeatedly as he moved from the recesses of the cave toward the pre-dawn light. Broad-shouldered and more than seven feet in height, the powerful half-orc, half-ogre stepped tentatively with his thick legs, and raised one hand to shield his eyes. The chieftain of Clan Karuck, like all of his people other than a couple of forward scouts, had not seen the light of day in nearly a decade. They lived in the tunnels, in the vast labyrinth of lightless caverns known as the Underdark, and Grguch had not undertaken his journey to the surface lightly.
Scores of Karuck warriors, all huge by the standards of the orc race—approaching if not exceeding seven feet and weighing in at nearly four hundred pounds of honed muscle and thick bone—lined the cave walls. They averted their yellow eyes in respect as the great warlord Grguch passed. Behind Grguch came the merciless war priest Hakuun, and behind him the elite guard, a quintet of mighty ogres fully armed and armored for battle. More ogres followed the procession, bearing the fifteen-foot Kokto Gung Karuck, the Horn of Karuck, a great instrument with a conical bore and a wide, upturned bell. It was fashioned of shroomwood, what the orcs named the hard skin of certain species of gigantic Underdark mushrooms. To the orc warriors looking on, the horn was deserving of, and receiving of, the same respect as the chieftain who preceded it.
Grguch and Hakuun, like their respective predecessors, would have had it no other way.
Grguch moved to the mouth of the cave, and out onto the mountainside ledge. Only Hakuun came up beside him, the war priest signaling the ogres to wait behind.
Grguch gave a rumbling laugh as his eyes adjusted and he noted the more typical orcs scrambling among the mountainside’s lower stones. For more than two days, the second orc clan had been frantically keeping ahead of Clan Karuck’s march. The moment they’d at last broken free of the confines of the Underdark, their desire to stay far, far away from Clan Karuck grew only more apparent.
“They flee like children,” Grguch said to his war priest.
“They are children in the presence of Karuck,” Hakuun replied. “Less than that when great Grguch stands among them.”
The chieftain took the expected compliment in stride and lifted his eyes to survey the wider view around them. The air was cold, winter still gripped the land, but Grguch and his people were not caught unprepared. Layers of fur made the huge orc chieftain appear even larger and more imposing.
“The word will spread that Clan Karuck has come forth,” Hakuun assured his chieftain.
Grguch considered the fleeing tribe again and scanned the horizon. “It will be known faster than the words of running children,” he replied, and turned back to motion to the ogres.
The guard quintet parted to grant passage to Kokto Gung Karuck. In moments, the skilled team had the horn set up, and Hakuun properly blessed it as Grguch moved into place.
When the war priest’s incantation was complete, Grguch, the only Karuck permitted to play the horn, wiped the shroomwood mouthpiece and took a deep, deep breath.
A great bass rumbling erupted from the horn, as if the largest bellows in all the world had been pumped by the immortal titans. The low-pitched roar echoed for miles and miles around the stones and mountainsides of the lower southern foothills of the Spine of the World. Smaller stones vibrated under the power of that sound, and one field of snow broke free, creating a small avalanche on a nearby mountain.
Behind Grguch, many of Clan Karuck fell to their knees and began swaying as if in religious frenzy. They prayed to the great One-eye, their warlike god, for they held great faith that when Kokto Gung Karuck was sounded, the blood of Clan Karuck’s enemies would stain the ground.
And for Clan Karuck, particularly under the stewardship of mighty Grguch, it had never been hard to find enemies.
In a sheltered vale a few miles to the south, a trio of orcs lifted their eyes to the north.
“Karuck?” asked Ung-thol, a shaman of high standing.
“Could it be any other?” replied Dnark, chieftain of the tribe of the Wolf Jaw. Both turned to regard the smugly smiling shaman Toogwik Tuk as Dnark remarked, “Your call was heard. And answered.”
Toogwik Tuk chuckled.
“Are you so sure that the ogre-spawn can be bent to your will?” Dnark added, stealing the smile from Toogwik Tuk’s ugly orc face.
His reference to Clan Karuck as “ogre-spawn” rang as a clear reminder to the shaman that they were not ordinary orcs he had summoned from the lowest bowels of the mountain range. Karuck was famous among the many tribes of the Spine of the World—or infamous, actually—for keeping a full breeding stock of ogres among their ranks. For generations untold, Karuck had interbred, creating larger and larger orc warriors. Shunned by the other tribes, Karuck had delved deeper and deeper into the Underdark. They were little known in recent times, and considered no more than a legend among many orc tribes.
But the Wolf Jaw orcs and their allies of tribe Yellow Fang, Toogwik Tuk’s kin, knew better.
“They are only three hundred strong,” Toogwik Tuk reminded the doubters.
A second rumbling from Kokto Gung Karuck shook the stones.
“Indeed,” said Dnark, and he shook his head.
“We must go and find Chieftain Grguch quickly,” Toogwik Tuk said. “The eagerness of Karuck’s warriors must be properly steered. If they come upon other tribes and do battle and plunder…”
“Then Obould will use that as more proof that his way is better,” Dnark finished.
“Let us go,” said Toogwik Tuk, and he took a step forward. Dnark moved to follow, but Ung-thol hesitated. The other two paused and regarded the older shaman.