The scout turned and slid down lower toward the floor, then began to half walk, half crawl toward his target. He paused when he heard the dwarf raise his voice, arguing with the single human among the troop. The drow moved to a properly hidden vantage point and bided his time.
Soon enough, several of the dwarves farther along told the two to be quiet, and the dwarf near to Tos'un grumbled something and waved the human away.
Tos'un glanced back just once, then paused and listened until his sensitive ears picked out the rumble of Proffit's closing war party.
Tos'un slithered in. His left arm struck first, jabbing the dart into the dwarf's shoulder as his right hand came across, the serrated knife cutting a very precise line on the dwarf's throat. It could easily have been a killing blow, but Tos'un angled the blade so as not to cut the main veins, the same technique he had recently used on a dwarf in a tower near the Surbrin. Eventually his cut would prove mortal, but not for a long time, not until Kaer'lic could intervene and with but a few minor spells granted by the Spider Queen save the wretched creature's life.
Though, Tos'un thought, the prisoner would surely wish he had been allowed to die.
The dwarf shifted fast and tried to cry out, but the drow had taken its vocal chords. Then the dwarf tried to punch and lash out, but the poison was already there. Blood streaming from the mortal wound, the dwarf crumbled down to the stone, and Tos'un slithered back.
"Bah, ye're still a bigmouth!" came a quiet call from the main group. "Keep still, will ya, Fender?"
Tos'un continued to retreat.
"Fender?" The call sounded more insistent.
Tos'un flattened against the corner of the wall and the floor, making himself very small and all but invisible under his enchanted cloak.
"Fender!" a dwarf ahead of him cried, and Tos'un smiled at his cleverness, knowing the stupid dwarves would surely think their poisoned companion dead.
The camp began to stir, dwarves leaping up and grabbing their weapons, and it occurred to Tos'un that Kaer'lic's decision to go for a captive might cost Proffit and his trolls dearly. The price of the drow's initial assault had been the element of surprise.
Of course, for the dark elf, that only made the attack all the more sweet.
* * * * *
Some dwarves cried out for Fender, but the shout that rose above them all came from Bonnerbas Ironcap, the dwarf closest to their fallen companion.
"Trolls!" he yelled, and even as the word registered with his companions, so did the smell of the wretched brutes.
"Fall back to the fire!" General Dagna shouted.
Bonnerbas hesitated, for he was but one stride from poor Fender. He went forward instead of back, and grabbed his friend by the collar. Fender flopped over and Bonnerbas sucked in his breath, seeing clearly the line of bright blood. The dwarf was limp, unfeeling.
Fender was dead, Bonnerbas believed, or soon would be.
He heard the charge of the trolls then, looked up, and realized that he would soon join Fender in the halls of Moradin.
Bonnerbas fell back one step and took up his axe, swiping across viciously and cutting a deep line across the arms of the nearest, low-bending troll. That one fell back, stumbling to the side and toppling, but before it even hit the floor it came flying ahead, bowled over by a pair of trolls charging forward at Bonnerbas.
The dwarf swung again, and turned to flee, but a clawed troll hand hooked his shoulder. Bonnerbas understood then the frightful strength of the brutes, for suddenly he was flying backward, spinning and bouncing off legs as solid as the trunks of tall trees. He stumbled and fell, winding up on his back. Still, the furious dwarf flailed with his axe, and he scored a couple of hits. But the trolls were all around him, were between him and Dagna and the others, and poor Bonnerbas had nowhere to run.
One troll reached for him and he managed to swat the arm with enough force to take it off at the elbow. That troll howled and fell back, but then, even as the dwarf tried to roll to his side and stand the biggest and ugliest troll Bonnerbas had ever seen towered over him, a gruesome two-headed brute staring at him with a wide smile on both of its twisted faces. It started to reach down, and Bonnerbas started to swing.
As his axe flew past without hitting anything, the dwarf recognized the dupe, and before he could bring the axe back over him, a huge foot appeared above him and crashed down hard, stomping him into the stone.
Bonnerbas tried to struggle, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to breathe, but the press was too great.
* * * * *
As the trolls pushed past the two fallen dwarves, General Dagna could only growl and silently curse himself for allowing his force to be caught so unawares. Questions and curses roiled in his mind. How could stupid, smelly trolls have possibly followed them back into the tunnels? How could the brutes have scouted and navigated the difficult approach to where Dagna had thought it safe to break for a meal?
That jumble quickly calmed in the thoughts of the seasoned commander, though, and he began barking orders to put his command in line. His first thought was to move back into the lower tunnels, to get the trolls bent over even more, but the dwarf's instincts told him to stay put, with a ready fire at hand. He ordered his boys to form up a defensive hold on the far side of the cooking fire. Dagna himself led the countercharge and the push, centering the front line of five dwarves abreast and refusing to retreat against the troll press.
"Hold 'em fast!" he cried repeatedly as he smashed away with his war-hammer. "Go to crushing!" he told the axe-wielding dwarf beside him. "Don't yet cut through 'em if that's giving them a single step forward!"
The other dwarf, apparently catching on to the reasoning that they had to hold the far side of the fire at all costs, flipped his axe over in his hand and began pounding away at the closest troll, smashing it with the flat back of the weapon to keep it at bay.
All the five dwarves did likewise, and Galen Firth ran up behind Dagna and began slashing away with his fine long sword. They knew they would not be able to hold for long, though, for more trolls crowded behind the front ranks, the sheer weight of them driving the force forward.
Thinking that all of them were doomed, Dagna screamed in rage and whacked so hard at the troll reaching for him that his nasty hammer tore the creature's arm off at the elbow.
The troll didn't seem to even notice as it came forward, and Dagna realized his error. He had over-swung the mark and was vulnerable.
But the troll backed suddenly, and Dagna ducked and cried out in surprise, as the first of the torches, compliments of Galen Firth, entered the fray. The man reached over and past the ducking Dagna and thrust the flaming torch at the troll, and how the creature scrambled to get back from the fire!
Trolls were mighty opponents indeed, and it was said—and it was true— that if you cut a troll into a hundred pieces, the result would be a hundred new trolls, with every piece regenerating into an entirely new creature. They had a weakness, though, one that every person in all the Realms knew welclass="underline" fire stopped that regeneration process.
Trolls didn't like fire.
More torches were quickly passed up to Dagna and the four others and the trolls fell back, but only a step.
"Forward, then, for Fender and Bonnerbas!" Dagna cried, and all the dwarves cheered.
But then came a shout from the other side of "Trolls in the tunnels!" and another warning shout from directly behind Dagna.
All the tunnels were blocked. Dagna knew at once that his dwarves were surrounded and had nowhere to run.
"How deep're we?" the general shouted.
"Roots in the ceiling," one dwarf answered. "Ain't too deep."
"Then get us through!" the old dwarf ordered
Immediately, those dwarves near to the center of the tightening ring went into action. Two braced a third and lifted him high with his pickaxe, and he began tearing away at the ground.