He knew he was dead. He could not move, but the dragon was coming … coming for him!
Despair stole his strength, fear locked him in place, the magnificence of the beast thrilled him even as he knew that he would die.
He felt hands against him, but hardly understood.
Then he was flying, to his left and forward, to pitch off the wall and into the courtyard. He rolled over and crashed into a wagon, tumbling and bouncing to the ground.
The dragon roared.
The dragon breathed.
Giles saw it as the great beast swooped past, a burst of whiteness spewing forth from its fanged maw, striking the ground not far from him, rushing to the base of the wall and up and over as the dragon soared beyond the battlements, flying out into the night.
And in that breath was coldness, killing frost, leaving a scar upon the ground and upon the wall, and encapsulating several men on the ground, and a pair of sentries up on …
Karolina.
“Karo!” Giles cried. He pulled himself up from the ground, ignoring the waves of nauseating pain sweeping up from his twisted leg, and from the ribs he had surely broken in his fall. He stumbled and staggered to the nearest ladder and stubbornly tugged himself up, crying out for his sister with each movement. On the walkway, he stumbled and fell, then crawled, and his hands stung like burns when they touched the ice.
So cold.
He propelled himself into a short slide, crashing into the form of his sister, who was half-lying, half-standing as she leaned against the parapet.
“Karolina!” he cried, and he tried to touch her, but he could not feel her through the cocoon of ice the great dragon had breathed upon her. He scratched at it, clawed at it, punched at it, but she did not move, stuck fast.
Then he felt the wetness, for already the summer warmth began to melt the ice. Initially, that only made things slipperier, and Giles almost slid once more from the wall.
“Here, boy,” said a man he did not know, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him back to steadier footing.
“My sister,” he sniffled.
“She’s gone, boy,” the man said, roughly yanking him aside. “She’s gone.”
Giles stuttered for an answer, a cry, a retort, a denial—anything to take him from that awful moment, anything to deny that awful image. He choked on the lump in his throat and could make no decipherable sound, and he looked at her—she seemed to be sleeping peacefully—under the dragon cocoon, and he knew.
He knew.
Like so many in besieged Sundabar, Giles knew that his life would never be the same, that the hole in his heart would never fill. She had saved him because he had failed. She had saved him by pushing him from the wall, and the effort had cost her her life.
“Karolina,” he whispered, and now even his own voice sounded distant in his ears.
He was a guard in Dark Arrow Keep, a burly orc warrior standing in the great circular throne room, great spear in hand.
He saw the Warlord and knew it to be Hartusk.
The killer of King Bromm of Citadel Adbar, he who drove away the line of Obould.
Looking through the burly orc’s bloodshot eyes, Jarlaxle realized that he was witnessing the rise of the king, a new king.
A new king, or warlord, dedicated to the old ways.
Jarlaxle listened to the banter between Hartusk and the shamans and battlefield commanders. The orcs had sent forth a great force, splitting it three ways around the hub of the encampment they had built in the Upper Surbrin Vale, surrounding Mithral Hall and locking the filthy dwarves in their hole. Now they struck at Sundabar—Jarlaxle had seen that—and Silverymoon, and with another force marching to crush Nesmé and curl back in from the west.
“The fool King of Adbar is beyond reason,” the orc before Hartusk explained. “He comes forth with his war bands to strike at any and all. Give me a sly and deadly force, Warlord, and I will bring you the head of Harnoth!”
Jarlaxle watched as the orc leader mulled over the request, then slowly, and wisely, shook his head.
“Let Harnoth have his small victories for now,” he replied. “Send enough patrols, strong patrols, to keep him fighting, and make those fights difficult—perhaps he will be killed, perhaps not. It does not matter. If the dwarves sate their bloodlust revenge with small strikes, then they will remain in their holes.”
Warlord Hartusk stood up and spoke loudly to all in the room. “And if Mithral Hall, Felbarr, and Adbar stay in their holes, then Sundabar will fall.”
The crowd cheered; Jarlaxle heard his own throaty cheer pouring forth from his host orc.
“Then Silverymoon will crumble beneath our war machines.”
The cheering grew louder.
“And Nesmé will be flattened under the tramp of our boots. And three armies become one will destroy Everlund.” Orcs began chanting the name of Hartusk, the guards banging their spears on the wooden floor.
All but the poor fellow inhabited by Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel, at least, for this one was too internally tousled to begin such a coordinated movement as that.
“And the dwarves will still be in their holes when our armies return—return wearing the armor of the Knights in Silver, and carrying the swords of the Sundabar garrison. The bearded fools will know their folly then, that they should have come forth while their allies drew breath. But what will be left for them when the great cities of men and elves are thrown down, when the Glimmerwood is burned and harvested?
“Naught, I say. There will be nothing left for them but their tunnels and their mines, and we will have those soon enough. The Silver Marches will be ours. Gruumsh!”
The wild cheering commenced, and this time even Jarlaxle’s orc managed to clap the butt of his spear on the wooden floor. It seemed like it would go on for hours, an orc orgy of screams and shouts and cheers, but just when Jarlaxle was ready to flee this body, in a most interesting twist, a contingent of much more refined warriors entered the room.
Ravel Xorlarrin, Jarlaxle realized, and almost inadvertently prompted his host to say. And with Tos’un Armgo and Doum’wielle beside him.
And in walked Tiago Baenre.
Jarlaxle forced himself, willed himself, into a fast retreat, and he opened his eyes back in Illusk, beneath the coastal city of Luskan, seated across from Kimmuriel.
“That is brilliant,” the mercenary leader congratulated, and Kimmuriel nodded his acceptance of the compliment, as if it was surely deserved. “How many of these hosts do you have?”
“Five in the region,” Kimmuriel matter-of-factly explained. “These are momentous events. Bregan D’aerthe would be ill-served if we were not informed of the every turn in Luruar.”
“The Matron Mother has struck with brutal efficiency,” said Jarlaxle. “Orcs … and a dragon.”
“Two,” Kimmuriel reminded. “And a horde of frost giants to back the orc lines.”
“She may win,” Jarlaxle remarked, and he sounded surprised, because he was.
Kimmuriel nodded. “As of now, it seems likely.”
“The human kingdoms will find allies.”
“There are none. War is general across the land, as factions vie for control. A void of power invites war, and so the invitation has been answered, in many lands.”
Jarlaxle sat back in his chair and brought his hands up before him, his fingers tap-tapping as he tried to look long-term.
“There are few drow there,” he remarked.
“Not so few. Enough to be present at every battle, and to be at Hartusk’s court commonly. This reinvented House Do’Urden is formidable, it would seem.”
“There are more there …”
“All under the banner of House Do’Urden,” Kimmuriel explained. “All. Even proud Barrison Del’Armgo. Even the nobles and wizards of House Xorlarrin, who are no longer of Menzoberranzan.”
“Why?” Jarlaxle asked, as much to himself as to his partner, so out of proportion did this all seem.
“The Matron Mother serves Lady Lol
th,” Kimmuriel said. “The Spider Queen is angry.”
“Drizzt.”
“She tried to seduce him, but she failed. She lost him to Mielikki.”
“He is just a mortal drow. Why would she care?”
Kimmuriel gave him an incredulous look.
“She doesn’t care,” Jarlaxle answered his own question. “She cares only for her wounded pride. She needed a war, and so she found one. She needed her people united at this time, that she can wrest the Weave of Magic to her own domain. She would …”
He paused and sighed. “Ah, the gods,” he said. “And we are their playthings.”
“Does Jarlaxle really believe that?” Kimmuriel asked, and when Jarlaxle looked up, he was surprised to see his pragmatic partner grinning at him.
“Jarlaxle believes they are meddling puppeteers and nothing more,” the mercenary leader returned.
Kimmuriel just smiled.
“I need to travel, and quickly.”
“Shall I get you a fast horse?”
Jarlaxle gave him a sour look.
“Where would you go?”
“Where is Drizzt?”
“I know not, but I would expect that he and his friends will soon become enmeshed in the battles of Luruar,” Kimmuriel answered. “They were bound for Mithral Hall, so we believe, and the happenings in that region would spur them forward if their past actions are any predictor.
“And the others? Effron, the dwarf and the monk?”
“On the east road in the south, the latter two bound for the Sea of Fallen Stars and to the Bloodstone Lands, the former trying to catch them—or at least, he was.”
“Yes, yes, but where exactly? Do you know?”
“Of course. You bade Beniago to find them, and so he did.”
“Then get me a horse fast enough to catch up to them.”
Kimmuriel looked at him curiously.
“Oh, get me there, you fool,” Jarlaxle pleaded. “Or find me a wizard who will.”
“What are you thinking?” Kimmuriel asked.
Jarlaxle stared hard at Kimmuriel, then slowly lifted his eye-patch, inviting the drow into his thoughts.
“Truly?” Kimmuriel heard himself remark, and there was more emotion than usual in his steady voice.
Before the sun had set that very same day, Jarlaxle sat on a bare-topped hillock near the Trade Way, looking back to the west, awaiting the arrival of the tiefling, the dwarf, and the monk.
WELCOME HOME
HE HAS NOT RETURNED,” WULFGAR PROTESTED, CLIMBING UP ON THE bench beside Bruenor after hitching the team.
“Not now, boy,” the dwarf quietly replied.
Wulfgar leaned back and studied his hairy friend. What did Bruenor know? Why were they getting ready to break camp when Regis had not yet returned from his scouting?
“Keep yer hammer ready,” Bruenor whispered.
“What are you whispering about?” Giselle Malcomb demanded from the back of the wagon. “And where are the others?”
Bruenor turned around and glared at her. “Just shut yer mouth.”
Wulfgar considered the dwarf’s tone—deadly serious. He, too, wanted an answer to that second question at least, for only then, in glancing about, did he realize that Drizzt and Catti-brie were nowhere to be seen. Their mounts had not been summoned, of that he was sure, and yet, neither of them were anywhere in sight.
With a soft snicker, Bruenor set the team to walking along the rough path, winding slowly through the trees. Tied to the back of the wagon, Giselle’s horse and Regis’s pony plodded along.
But then the pony, a veteran of many battles, lifted its head and snorted on alert, and at the same moment Bruenor tugged back the reins and quickly tied them off, going for his axe.
Wulfgar understood when the first orcs appeared, arrayed for battle and rushing out onto the path before them. Another was also on the move, in mid-air, actually, jumping down from a branch along the left-hand side of the trail, leaping for the driver of the wagon.
But that driver knew it was coming—indeed, that driver had only started the wagon rolling to draw out the ambushers he had known to be about. And now Bruenor was up and swinging, taking the orc out in mid-air with a well-timed blow from his powerful axe.
Wulfgar, too, leaped to his feet, bringing Aegis-fang back over his shoulder. He studied the three orcs on the trail ahead just long enough to discern that one held a bow, and he let fly even as the orc loosed its missile.
The arrow shot past Wulfgar, the wide edges of its devastating head cutting the inside of his left arm and drawing a deep gash along his chest as he tried to dodge. Somehow he had avoided a direct strike, one that would have surely killed him, but he had not escaped unscathed.
But neither had the orc archer. It futilely tried to block the spinning warhammer with its bow and arms, but Aegis-fang blasted through, splintering wood and bone with ease. The orc fell away with the head of the warhammer embedded in its chest.
Wulfgar started forward, thinking to spring to the horse team and leap out over them to charge into the other two orcs before they could even realize what was happening.
A cry from behind him brought him to an abrupt halt.
Another enemy had come upon them, a large ogre rushing in from the side and swinging at the desperately diving and dodging Giselle.
Over the bench went Wulfgar, a leap that brought him crashing into the ogre’s shoulder just as it reached back that arm, holding a heavy club. The barbarian grabbed on and twisted, for the monstrous brute, thrice his weight, did not stumble aside under the force of the collision.
Thrice his weight, but not thrice the strength of mighty Wulfgar. He set one foot on the edge of the wagon rail and heaved and turned with all his strength, then reversed, driving forward powerfully, bending the ogre sideways.
The brute started to fall and Wulfgar leaped and tugged away from the wagon, twisting the ogre as they went down in a confused tumble.
Now they clenched and crushed, squeezed and twisted. Wulfgar punched out, smacking the brute in the face, but to little avail as the ogre merely tried to bite his hand, then raked him with its filthy fingernails.
And the brute tried to wriggle free, and Wulfgar knew that if it managed any separation, that heavy club would cave in his skull.
He hung on. For all his life, he hung on.
Giselle grabbed up her sword and started for Wulfgar, but before she got over the side of the wagon, she saw other forms, many forms, moving about the shadows. She slid her sword into her belt and took up her bow instead, then rushed for her mount, unfastening the tether, thinking to gain some distance and mobility.
She had just got into the saddle when the first arrow struck the horse. The steed reared in pain, but Giselle hung on, and started away.
A spinning hand axe cracked across the side of her head, dazing her, and only good fortune brought the spinning weapon upon her with the back side of the head!
Still, she felt the warmth of her blood and it took her many heartbeats to set her vision straight, and even then, the world seemed to swim as the horse leaped and darted.
A ball of flames exploded behind the tree line, and the poor horse reared again—and was hit with a spear this time, burrowing into its flank. Now it staggered sidelong, then turned around and darted back for the camp, but then stumbled again and fell over, throwing Giselle hard to the ground.
She knew she had to get up. She still had her bow, but no arrows. Instinctively, she went for her sword while rising, leaning on her bow for support.
She heard a horn, discordant and painfully off key, and took it to be an orc battle call.
Indeed, it had to be, she thought, for they were all around her now, with a trio of orcs rushing out of the brush, spears leveled and forcing her back. But the other way came another ogre, huge and ugly and holding a club that resembled an uprooted tree with giant spikes stuck through it.
Giselle cried out and spun desperately, and saw another enemy in a branch above her,
a giant black panther, all muscle and claws and killing teeth.
The cat leaped for her, and she cried out again and knew she was doomed.
Except that the panther went right over her and flew between the orcs, touching down behind them, and by the time it had landed and turned back around, two of the orcs lay on the ground, one squirming and spouting a fountain of blood, the other already still in death, for the panther had neatly taken out the throats of both!
The third orc wheeled about and got buried as the cat sprang again.
“Me king!” came a cry at the same time, and Giselle noted another newcomer to the battle, the strangest looking dwarf she had ever seen, dressed in ridged armor and with spikes protruding from hands, elbows, knees, toes, and a huge one straight up from his strange helm. He bounded in a supernatural manner, springing with a lightness that defied the solid appearance, each hop seeming more like a bounce, and each taking him up as high into the air as Giselle’s wide eyes.
He came at her, great leaps and sprinting, and sprang up above her so fully that it seemed to her as if he had simply taken flight.
She heard the ogre groan behind her and spun around to see the brute with a kicking and flailing dwarf embedded firmly into its chest. The ogre staggered backward, grasping at the dwarf, punching at him, trying to bring its heavy club in to swat him away.
But that strange dwarf moved with amazing speed and fought without fear, yanking his bloody helmet spike free and scrambling around the brute, punching and biting and kicking, grabbing on tightly and grinding his ridged armor against ogre flesh—anything, any movement, that might inflict pain.
Giselle didn’t know what to make of it, or of any of this. She spun back to the panther, to see it finishing off the third orc. The magnificent feline turned her way and roared, and the blood drained from her face as she feared that she would be next!
But the cat sprang away, far away, disappearing from view within the thick brush, and almost immediately there came the shouts and terrified cries of more orcs caught in the path of the killing cat.
The Rider of Nesmé grabbed up her bow and ran for her horse, which was up again and hobbling gingerly. She comforted the animal with soft words and worked her way around it, wincing as she noted the wounds, knowing in her heart, though she couldn’t admit it, that the spears and arrows would surely prove mortal to the loyal mount. Determination and anger replaced and erased her fear, and Giselle calmly reached for her quiver set behind the saddle on the horse’s right flank. She pulled forth an arrow, scanning the trees as she set it, determined to pay back the ugly orcs.