They seemed nervous as they moved along the trail, a single giant among the horde, with the other three inexplicably missing.
Watching them from the boughs of an evergreen, concealed at a height just above the giant, Drizzt Do'Urden recognized that level of alertness clearly and knew that he and his friends would have to be even more precise. The giant was the key to it all, the drow recognized, and had explained as much to Dagnabbit and Bruenor when they were setting out the forces. With that belief firmly in hand, Drizzt had taken a bit of his own initiative, moving up ahead of the concealed dwarves. He was ready, with his formidable panther ally, to make what he hoped would be the decisive first strike.
The trail was clearly defined as it moved through the copse of trees in the small, sheltered dell. Drizzt held his breath and tightened against the trunk of the pine when the orcs wisely sent lead runners in to inspect the area. He was glad that he had convinced Bruenor and Dagnabbit to set the ambush just past that place.
The orc scouts milled about down below, slipping in and out of the shadows, kicking through leafy piles. A pair took up defensive positions, while another pair headed back out the way they had entered, signaling for the approach.
On came the caravan, marching easily and without too much apparent concern.
The lead orcs passed below Drizzt's position. He looked across the trail, to Guenhwyvar, motioning for the cat to be calm, but be ready.
More and more orcs filtered below, then came the giant, walking alone and with a great scowl upon his face.
Drizzt set himself upon the branch he had specifically selected, drawing out his scimitars slowly and keeping them low, under the sides of his cloak so that their gleaming metal and magical glow would not give him away.
The giant marched through, one long stride after another, eyes straight ahead.
Drizzt leaped out, landing on the giant's huge shoulder, his scimitars slashing fast as he scrambled away, leaping off the other side and into the second pine as the giant reached up to grab at him. The drow ranger hadn't done much damage-he hadn't intended to-but he did turn the behemoth, just enough, and got its arms, eyes, and chin moving upward.
When Guenhwyvar leaped out the other way, she had an open path to the giant's throat, and there she lodged and dug in, tearing and biting.
The giant howled, or tried to, and snapped his huge hands onto the cat. Guenhwyvar didn't relent, digging deeper, biting harder, tearing and crushing the behemoth's windpipe, opening arteries.
Below, the orcs scrambled to get out of the way of stomping boots and breaking branches.
"What's it?" one orc yelled.
"A damned mountain cat!" another howled. "A great black one!"
The giant finally tugged stubborn Guenhwyvar free, not even realizing that he was taking a good portion of his own neck along with the cat. With another great effort, the giant brought the cat in close, under his huge arms, and began to crush her. Guenhwyvar gave a loud, pitiful wail.
Drizzt, wincing at the sound, dismissed her to her astral home. The giant folded a bit more tightly, the panther it had been squeezing turning to insubstantial mist.
The behemoth reached up to his neck, patting the spurting blood wildly, frantically. He stumbled to and fro, scattering terrified orcs, before finally staggering to his knees, then falling down, gasping, into the dirt.
"It kilt the cat!" one orc yelled. "Buried the damned thing right under it!"
A couple of orcs rushed to aid the giant, but the floundering, terrified behemoth slapped them aside. Scores of orcs had their attention squarely on the prone behemoth, wondering if it would rise again.
Which is why they didn't notice the stealthy dark elf, slipping down the tree and into position.
Which is why they didn't notice the dwarves moving in a bit closer, hammers ready to throw, melee weapons in easy reach.
There was much yelling, screaming, suggestions and pleas from the confused orcs, when finally one turned enough to see the force creeping in against them. Its eyes went wide, it lifted its finger to point, and it opened its mouth to cry out.
That yell became a communal thing, as a score or more dwarves joined in the chorus, running forward suddenly, launching their first missile barrage, then wading in, axes, hammers, swords, and picks going to fast and deadly work.
In the back, one orc tried to direct the response-until a scimitar slashed into its back and through a lung. Off to the side, another orc took up the lead-until an arrow split the air, knocking into a tree beside its head. More concerned with its own safety than with organizing against the dwarves, the would-be leader ducked, scrambled, and simply ran away.
Just when those orcs closest to the dwarves seemed to begin some semblance of a defense, in came Wulfgar, his warhammer swatting furiously, slapping aside orcs two at a time. He took a few stinging hits but didn't begin to slow, and he didn't begin to lessen his hearty song to Tempus, his god of battle.
Off to the side of the battle, Catti-brie was both pained and overjoyed. She kept taking up her bow and lowering it in frustration. Her battered fingers simply would not allow for enough accuracy for her to dare shooting anywhere near to her friends. That, plus the fact that she had no idea where Drizzt might be in that morass of scrambling, screaming orcs.
It pained her greatly to be out of the fight, but she saw that it was going as well as they could have hoped. They had taken the orcs completely off their guard, and the fierce dwarves would not begin to relent such an advantage.
Even more brilliant and inspiring to Catti-brie were the movements of Wulfgar. He strode with confidence, such ferocity, with a surety of his every deadly strike. This was not the man she had been engaged to, who became unsure, fearful, and protective. This was not the man who had walked away from them when they had set out to destroy the Crystal Shard.
This was the Wulfgar she had known in Icewind Dale, the man who had charged gladly beside Drizzt into the lair of Biggrin. This was the Wulfgar who had led the barbarian countercharge against the minions of Akar Kessell back in that frozen place. This was the son of Beornegar, returned to them, and fully so, from the clutches of Errtu.
Catti-brie could not hide her smile as she watched him wade among the enemies, for she somehow instinctively knew that no sword or club would harm him this day, that somehow he was above the rest of them. Aegis-fang tossed orcs aside as if they were mere children, mere inconveniences. One orc rushed behind a sapling, and so Wulfgar growled more loudly, shouted more loudly, and swung more powerfully, taking out the tree and the huddling creature behind it.
By the time Catti-brie managed to tear her stare away from the man, the fight was over, with the remaining orcs, still outnumbering the dwarves at least three to one. fleeing in every direction, many throwing down their weapons as they ran.
Bruenor and Dagnabbit moved their troops fast and sure, to cut off as many as possible, and Wulfgar paced all fleeing near him, chopping them down.
Off to the other side, Catti-brie saw one group of three rush into the trees, and she lifted her bow but was too late to catch them with an arrow.
The shadows within the group of trees deepened, engulfed in magical darkness, and the ensuing screams told her that Drizzt was in there and that he had that situation well in hand.
One orc did come rushing out, running right toward her, and she lifted Taulmaril to take it down.
But then it fell, suddenly and hard, tripped up by a lump that appeared on the ground before it, and Catti-brie merely shook her head and grinned when she saw the diminutive form of Regis unfold and rise up. The halfling darted forward and swung his mace once and again, then winced back from the crimson spray, a sour look upon his face. He looked up, noted Catti-brie, and just shrugged and melted back into the grass.
Catti-brie looked all around, her bow ready if needed, but she put it up and replaced the arrow in her magical, always-full quiver.
The short and brutal fight was done.
In all Faerun there was no tougher race than the dwarves, and among the dwarves there were few to rival the toughness of Clan Battlehammer- especially those who had survived the harshness of Icewind Dale-and so the battle was long over, and the dwarves had regrouped before several of them even realized that they had been injured in the battle.
Some of those wounds were deep and serious; at least two would have proven fatal if there had not been a pair of clerics along with the party to administer their healing spells, salves, and bandages.
Numbered among the wounded was Wulfgar, the proud and strong barbarian gashed in many places by orc weapons. He didn't complain any more than a reflexive grunt when one of the dwarves poured a stinging solution over the wounds to clean them.
"Are ye all right then?" Catti-brie asked the barbarian when she found him sitting stoically on a rock, waiting his turn with the overworked clerics.
"I took a few hits," he replied, matter-of-factly. "Nothing as hurtful as the chop Bruenor put on me when first we met, but. . . ."
He ended with a wide smile, and Catti-brie thought she'd never seen anything more beautiful than that in all her life.
Drizzt joined them then, nursing one hand.
"Clipped it on an orc's hilt," he explained, shaking it away.
"Where's Rumblebelly?" Calti-brie asked.
The drow nodded toward the place where Catti-brie had seen Regis trip up one orc.
"He won't end a fight without searching the bodies of the dead," Drizzt explained. "He says it's the principle of the thing."
They sat and talked for just a bit longer, before a louder argument off to the side drew their attention.
"Bruenor and Dagnabbit," Catti-brie remarked. "How am I guessin' what that's about?"
She and Drizzt rose to leave. Wulfgar didn't follow, and when they turned to question him, he waved them away.
"He's hurtin' a bit more than he's sayin'," Catti-brie remarked to Drizzt.
"But he could take a hundred times those wounds and still be standing," the drow assured her.
By the time they arrived, they had already discerned the cause of the argument, and it was exactly as Catti-brie had guessed.
"I'm heading for Mithral Hall when I'm telling ye I'm heading for Mithral Hall!" Bruenor roared, poking his finger hard into Dagnabbit's chest.
"We got wounded," Dagnabbit replied, staying strong to his unfortunate task of trying to protect the stubborn king.
Bruenor turned to Drizzt. "What're ye thinking?" he asked. "I'm sayin' we should move along from one town t' the next, all the way to Shallows. Wouldn't do to let 'em get run over without a warning."
"The orcs're dead and scattered," Dagnabbit put in, "and all their giant friends're lying dead too."
Drizzt wasn't sure he agreed with that assessment at all. The dress and cleanliness of the giants had told him that these were not rogues but were part of a larger clan. Still, he decided to keep that potentially devastating news to himself until he could gather more information.
"These orcs and these giants!" Bruenor bellowed before the drow could respond. "Might that there are more of 'em, running in packs all about!"
"Then all the more reason to go back, regroup, and get Pwent and his boys to join us," Dagnabbit replied.
"We take Pwent and his boys to Shallows and the last thing they'll be worryin' about're stupid orcs," Bruenor said.
Several around him, Drizzt included, caught on to the joke and appreciated the tension-breaking levity. Dagnabbit, his scowl as deep as ever, didn't seem to catch it.
"Well, ye're making more than a bit o' sense," Bruenor admitted a moment later. "The way I'm seein' it, we got a couple o' responsibilities here, and none I'm willing to ignore. We got to get our wounded back. We got to tell the folk o' the region about the danger and help 'em get prepared, and we got to get ourselves ready for fighting nearer to Mithral Hall."
Dagnabbit started to respond, but Bruenor stopped him with an upraised hand and continued on, "So let's send back a group with the wounded, and with orders to tell Pwent and his boys to lead a hunnerd to set up a base north o' Keeper's Dale. They can send another two hunnerd to block the low ground along the Surbrin north o' Mithral Hall. We'll make the rounds and work off that."
"A good plan, and I'm agreein'," said Dagnabbit.
"A good plan, and ye got no choice," Bruenor corrected.
"But..." Dagnabbit interjected, even as Bruenor turned to Drizzt and Catti-brie.
The dwarf king swung back to his commander.
"But ye're among them that's taking the wounded back to Mithral Hall," Dagnabbit demanded.
Drizzt was certain that he saw smoke coming out of Bruenor's ears at that remark and was almost as certain that he'd be spending the next few minutes pulling Bruenor off Dagnabbit's beard.
"Ye telling me to go and hide?" Bruenor asked, walking right up to the other dwarf, so that his nose was pressing against Dagnabbit's.
"I'm telling ye that it's me job to keep ye safe!"
"Who gived ye the job?"
"Gandalug."
"And where's Gandalug now?"
"Under a cairn o' rocks."
"And who's taking his place?"
"Yeah, that'd be yerself."
Bruenor assumed a bemused expression and posture, dropping his hands on his hips and smirking at Dagnabbit as if the ensuing logic should be perfectly obvious.
"Yeah, and Gandalug telled me ye'd be saying this," Dagnabbit remarked, seeming defeated.
"And what'd he tell ye to tell me when I did?"
The other dwarf shrugged and said, "He just laughed at me."
Bruenor punched him on the shoulder. "Ye go and get things set up as I telled ye," he ordered. "Leave us with fifteen, not countin' me boy and girl, the halfling, and the drow."
"We gotta send at least one priest back with the hurt ones."
Bruenor nodded. "But we'll keep th' other."
With that settled, Bruenor joined Catti-brie and Drizzt.
"Wulfgar's among them wounded," Catti-brie informed him.
She led him back to where Wulfgar was still sitting on the rock, tying a bandage tight about one thigh.
"Ye wantin' to go back with the group I'm sending?" Bruenor asked him, moving over to better inspect the many wounds.
"No more than you are," Wulfgar replied.
Bruenor smiled and let the issue drop.
Later on, eleven dwarves, seven of them wounded and one being carried on a makeshift stretcher, started off for the low ground to the south, and the trails that would take them home. Fifteen others, led by Bruenor, Tred, and Dagnabbit, and with Drizzt, Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar running flank, moved off to the northeast.