So east it was, Nikwillig decided. To the River Surbrin and hopefully, against all odds, beyond.
He thought he heard a sound nearby and imagined that an orc patrol was likely watching him even then, ready to spring upon him and batter him to death. He took a deep breath. He put one foot in front of the other.
He started his dark journey.
* * * * *
Drizzt and Innovindil veered to the south as they headed for the blasted ridge, angling their march so that they came in sight of Keeper's Dale right near to the spot where the line of metal tubes had been placed by the dwarves. That line ran up from the ground to the entrance of the tunnels that wound beneath what was once a ridgeline. Of course neither of them understood what that pipeline was all about. Neither had any idea that the dwarves, at the instructions of Nanfoodle the gnome, had brought natural gasses up from their underground entrapment, filling the tunnels beneath the unwitting giants and their catapults.
Perhaps if the pair had been granted more time to ponder the pipeline, to climb down the cliff and inspect it more closely, Drizzt and Innovindil would have begun to decipher the mystery of the gigantic fireball. At that moment, however, the fireball seemed the least of their issues. For below them swarmed the largest army of orcs either had ever seen, a virtual sea of dark forms milling around the obelisks that marked Keeper's Dale. Thousands, tens of thousands, moved down there, their indistinct mass occasionally marked by the larger form of a hulking frost giant.
As he scanned across the throng, Drizzt Do'Urden picked out more and more of those larger monsters, and he sucked in his breath as he came to realize the scope of the army. Hundreds of giants were down there, as if the entire population of behemoths from all the Spine of the World had emptied out to the call of King Obould.
"Have the Silver Marches known a darker day?" Innovindil asked.
Drizzt turned to regard her, though he wasn't sure if she was actually asking him or simply making a remark.
Innovindil swung her head to meet his lavender-eyed gaze. "I remember when Obould managed to rout the dwarves from Citadel Felbarr," she explained. "And what a dark day that was! But still, the orc king seemed to have traded one hole for another. While his conquest had played terribly on King Emerus Warcrown and the other Felbarran dwarves, never was it viewed as any threat to the wider region. The orc king had seized upon an unexpected opportunity, and so he had prevailed in a victory that we all expected would be short-lived, as it was. But now this…." Her voice trailed off and she shook her head helplessly as she looked back to the dale and the massive orc army.
"We can guess that most of the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer managed to get back into their tunnels," Drizzt reasoned. "They'll not be easily routed, I assure you. In their chambers, Clan Battlehammer once repulsed an attack by Menzoberranzan. I doubt there are enough orcs in all the world to take the hall."
"You may be right, but does that even matter?"
Drizzt looked at the elf curiously. He started to ask how it might not matter, but as he came to fully understand Innovindil's fears, he held the question in check.
"No," he agreed, "this force Obould has assembled will not be easily pushed back into their mountain holes. It will take Silverymoon and Everlund, and perhaps even Sundabar… Citadels Felbarr and Adbar, and Mithral Hall. It will take the Moonwood elves and the army of Marchion Elastul of Mirabar. All the north must rally to the call of Mithral Hall in this, their hour of need."
"And even in that case, the cost will prove enormous," Innovindil replied. "Horrific." She glanced back to the bloody, carcass-ridden battlefield. "This fight here on the ridge will seem a minor skirmish and fat will the crows of the Silver Marches be."
Drizzt continued his scan as she spoke, and he noted movement down to the west, quickly discerning it as a force of orcs circling up and out of Keeper's Dale.
"The orc scavengers will soon arrive," he said. "Let us be on our way."
Innovindil stared down at Keeper's Dale a bit longer.
"No sign of Sunrise," she remarked, referring to the pegasus companion of Sunset, and once the mount of Tarathiel, her companion.
"Obould still has him, and alive, I am sure," Drizzt replied. "Even an orc would not destroy so magnificent a creature."
Innovindil continued to stare and managed a little hunch of her shoulders, then turned to face Drizzt directly again. "Let us hope."
Drizzt rose, took her hand, and together they walked down toward the north, along the ridge of blasted and broken stones. The explosion had lifted the roof of the ridge away, leaving a scarred ravine behind. Every now and again, the couple came upon the remains of a charred giant. In one place, they found a burned out catapult, somehow still retaining its shape despite the tremendous blast.
Their discoveries prompted more questions than they answered, however, leaving the pair no clue whatsoever as to what might have caused such a cataclysm.
"When we at last find our way into Mithral Hall, you can ask the dwarves about it," Innovindil said when they were far from the field, on an open plateau awaiting the return of the winged Sunset.
Drizzt didn't respond to the elf's direct implication that he would indeed soon return to the dwarven stronghold—where he would have no choice but to face his fears—other than to offer a quiet nod.
"Some trick of the gods, perhaps," the elf went on.
"Or the Harpells," Drizzt added, referring to a family of eccentric and powerful wizards—too powerful for their own good, or for the good of those around them, in most cases! — from the small community of Longsaddle many miles to the west. The Harpells had come to the aid of Mithral Hall before, and had a long-standing friendship with Bruenor and his kin. Drizzt knew enough about them to realize that if anyone might have inadvertently caused such a catastrophe as befell the ridge, it would be that strange clan of confused humans.
"Harpells?"
"You do not want to know," Drizzt said in all seriousness. "Suffice it to say that Bruenor Battlehammer has made some unconventional friends."
As soon as he had spoken the words, Drizzt recognized the irony of them, and he managed a smile to match Innovindil's own widening grin as he glanced at her.
"We will know soon enough on all counts," she said. "For now, we have duties of our own to attend."
"For Sunrise," Drizzt agreed and he shook Innovindil's offered hand. "And for vengeance. Tarathiel will rest easier when Obould Many-Arrows is dead."
"Dead at the tip of a sword?" Innovindil asked, putting a hand to the hilt of her own weapon. "Or at the curve of a scimitar?"
"A scimitar, I think," Drizzt answered without the slightest hesitation, and he looked back to the south. "I do intend to kill that one."
"For Tarathiel, and for Bruenor, then," said Innovindil. "For those who have died and for the good of the North."
"Or simply because I want to kill him," said Drizzt in a tone so cold and even that it sent a shiver along Innovindil's spine.
She could not find the voice to answer.
CHAPTER 3 PASSION
With a growl that seemed more anger than passion, Tsinka Shinriil rolled Obould over and scrambled atop him.
"You have put them in their dark hole!" the female shaman cried, her eyes wide—so wide that the yellow-white of her eyes showed clearly all around her dark pupils, giving her an expression that seemed more a caricature of insanity than anything else. "Now we dig into that hole!"
King Obould Many-Arrows easily held the excited shaman at bay as she tried to engulf him with her trembling body, his thick, muscular arms lifting her from the straw bed.