Drow weapons. Drow armor.
The ogres spoke of Q’Xorlarrin, a drow city leading the glorious charge. It took Regis a while to decipher their incomplete information, but he gradually came to understand that Q’Xorlarrin was Gauntlgrym. Or near to Gauntlgrym, at least, and the name of Tiago came up often in his conversation with the ogre chieftain.
“We attack at midday,” Regis told the brute. “A full charge at a nearly empty city. We will overrun it and prepare the way for the arrival of Warlord Hartusk and Tiago.”
The ogre chieftain and his entourage seemed quite eager at that news.
They were hungry for blood and ready to go.
Regis breathed a sigh of relief at that. These brutes had come in without orders, other than to join in with this battle group, so they would not derail or even question the midday charge.
That sigh of relief became a wince of concern, however, as more ogres flowed in over the next hours.
Even with the trap set, Regis had to wonder if his monstrous force had grown so powerful that it would indeed overrun Nesmé, even without help from the larger battle group to the east!
He had no choice, however. The trap was set and had to be sprung.
They were out early the next day, swarming out of the tunnels and into the boulder tumble, forming into battle groups based on tribe and race. Regis called them together, group by group, blessed them in the name of Gruumsh, and sent them running to the south.
He went with the last group of goblins, huffing and puffing as they rumbled across the miles, trying valiantly to keep up. When he realized that he wouldn’t be able to do so, the pretend shaman sent word to the trio of frost giants, and one came rambling back to gather him up.
Sitting on a giant’s shoulder, then, Regis rode the miles to Nesmé.
When the walled town finally came in sight, the monsters ran all the harder, for it surely seemed as deserted as the drow informant had promised.
“Put me down,” Regis ordered the giant.
“I can throw you over the wall,” the giant replied with a laugh. “All glory to Kllug!”
Regis tried not to faint.
But the giant dropped him to the ground and thundered off, leaving the halfling-turned-goblin in the midst of a swarming sea of charging monsters. The phony Shaman Kllug began shouting out commands, this way and that, and if any of the bloodthirsty creatures had paused long enough to pay attention, it would likely have recognized the orders as nonsensical.
None were listening, though, for their goal was in sight and the charge had begun in full.
Regis breathed a sigh of relief and took a survey of the area about him. He had to stay out of the fight, obviously, and stay out of the way of retreating monsters when the ambush was sprung.
“If they retreat,” he whispered with a wince as he noted the fury of the charge and that it was led by more than a hundred armored ogres.
The ground and walls shook around them from the thunder of the monstrous charge. Crouched on the wall behind the shielding battlements, Nesmé defenders nervously set and reset arrows to their bowstrings.
Drizzt Do’Urden snaked about them, whispering encouragement and reminding them to wait until the order. “Let them be near enough our walls so that every arrow will take one down,” he said. “Our first volley will be the most important. Mark your target due north of your position and take the creature down.”
Nods came back at him, but few inspired confidence. As seasoned as these warriors of the frontier city might be, the charge coming at them surely surpassed anything anyone in this region had seen in a century and more, since the assault of the original Obould and his orc thousands.
The ground shook more violently, the air filled with the war-whoops of orcs and goblins. Drizzt peeked over the battlement and his violet eyes widened indeed as he looked upon the hundreds and hundreds, the black swarm rolling for Nesmé’s wall.
He noted the ogres most of all, running together with practiced precision, outfitted in armor and as one hoisting huge iron spears.
The drow ducked and scrambled to the edge of the parapet.
“Move! Move!” he shouted down to the many gathered there. “Near to the wall. Press in. Take cover!”
And not a moment too soon did the riders in the courtyard heed the call, for a great volley of spears and small arrows, and even a trio of giant-hurled boulders arched over the wall, filling the air like a swarm of angry bees. One boulder clipped the wall, sending pieces of stone flying, and a pair of soldiers, shocked by the thunderous retort, went rolling from the battlement to the ground below.
The drow peeked back over the parapet to see the monsters closing the last dozen strides to the base of the wall. He noted the ladders then, coming up amid the clusters of goblins.
And the ogres—so many ogres. And Drizzt understood what Regis had earlier discerned: that these had been trained and outfitted by a greater power, likely the drow.
“Shoot for volume,” he told the archers. “Kill as many as you can, and quickly. For doom is upon us.”
Up went the defenders of Nesmé, a line of bows between the rising stone crenellations of the wall, and off went scores of arrows, driving down into the throngs swarming to the base—so thick a swarm that the archers could not have missed a mark without consciously trying!
And up went Drizzt and Taulmaril, and he let fly for the nearest ogre, the lightning-streaking arrow crashing into its metal breastplate with thunderous force and an explosive shower of sparks. The ogre staggered back several steps under the weight of the blow.
But it did not go down.
The second arrow was on the way before the brute took another step forward, with the third arrow shooting out right behind.
It took a fourth to drop the stubborn brute, and the others were so much closer by then, and Drizzt knew that he was running out of time. He noted the giants, down to his right. They had originally been marked as his intended targets, but he could not afford that now, he knew. Not with so many armored ogres so very close. It would often take more than one shot to down an armored ogre, he had just learned, but it would take more still to down a giant.
Drizzt looked down the length of the wall and caught the stare of Catti-brie. He offered a grim nod and emphatically waved three fingers, one for each giant.
He would have to trust in her.
“The giants,” Catti-brie whispered to the mages crouched about her. She looked to three in particular and asked, “Lightning?”
“Aye,” one said and the others nodded.
“Draw them to us, then,” Catti-brie whispered, and with a nod, she rose and looked out over the wall. Her heart almost failed her then, for she had not seen such a charge as this in her present lifetime. And the monsters were much closer than she had imagined. Arrows flew out all around her, monsters died by the dozens. She saw an ogre’s head explode within its metal helm as one of Drizzt’s devastating arrows drove through its faceplate.
But still the monsters came on, and responded with spears and arrows of their own, and the giants, so easy to spot hulking about the enemy lines, lifted huge rocks out of enormous sacks and sent them flying.
The sound of one of her fellow mages beginning his incantation spurred her and the other two to action, all casting the same spell, all holding forth tiny metal rods.
Lightning split the air, one burst. then three more in rapid succession. The timing, though partly inadvertent, proved perfect, for the first bolt stabbed out, drawing the attention of the monsters, and the remaining three confirmed the position of the mages to the giant enemies.
The nearest frost giant got stung by the first bolt, and then again, and its two hulking companions also each took a strike. Around them, goblins and orcs went squirming to the ground, teeth chattering, hair flying, limbs jerking in uncontrollable spasms. But frost giants were much hardier, of course, and the lightning stung them more than hurt them.
And angered them.
Catti-brie and her frie
nds had gotten their attention!
In flew the boulders, sailing for the wall, and the four magic-users dropped to the stone. The wall shook under the weight of the blows, solid hits—one so solid that it rattled the teeth of all around and sent one of the wizards tumbling into the courtyard off the other side of the parapet!
“We’ve got to hit them again,” cried the blue-robed mage, and he started up, only to catch an arrow in the face. Down he went, screaming in pain.
“Run away!” another cried.
“No, fight them,” Catti-brie insisted. “There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. For Nesmé, fight them, now!” She scrambled over to the fallen wizard, a spell already on her lips. Blue mist came out of her other long sleeve, snaking about her and the man as she eased the arrow from his face, the wound closing from the magic of her spell as the bolt pulled free.
The other wizards looked on curiously.
“Fight them, I beg,” Catti-brie said to them, and her actions had indeed spoken louder than her words. Up she jumped, the others climbing beside her, resolute.
Catti-brie dodged more than one arrow and spear as she cast the spell, and held her ground as a boulder soared in. It hit the wall just below her as her spell went off, a second lightning bolt erupting from her fingers to stab at the nearest giant—now barely three huge strides away—and send it staggering backward.
Catti-brie held her ground, just barely, under the weight of the boulder impact. She turned to the mages behind and about her. “Now!” she yelled at them. “With all force!”
They glanced to one another, uncertainty still clear in their expressions. This group was not battle-hardened, the woman knew.
Catti-brie turned to the old woman. “Your spell,” she prompted. “They converge. Show us your power, for all of Nesmé.”
Catti-brie turned around and sent off a volley of magical missiles, again at the nearest giant, trying to slow it.
She failed, but a trio of lightning bolts went out beside her, each slamming the behemoth and driving it back.
And the old woman was up beside her, furiously casting. The other giants rushed to their companion and the three moved as one for the mages, a trio of boulders leading the way, along with a host of spears and arrows from smaller humanoids running in support of their gigantic allies.
The old wizard woman almost broke in the face of that barrage, but Catti-brie enacted another spell, a shield before herself and her companion. Missiles sparked and deflected all around them, but Catti-brie held her ground and continually coaxed the old woman to finish her spell. And so she did, and the ground just out from the base of the wall erupted in sudden tumult, dirt and stones flying around, right out from under the feet of the surprised frost giants, who could only tumble down into the hole the old woman had magically dug.
“Shields and fire, you defenders of Nesmé!” Catti-brie called to the others, and all began casting, all trepidation flown from their strong voices. “Else they will breach the wall and the hordes will pour in. And they will murder everyone in the town. Every man, every woman, every child. You can stop that. Now!”
She threw herself into her next spell, spitting the chant determinedly, and the other wizards, perhaps shamed by their initial hesitance, perhaps reminded of the stakes, perhaps terrified by the reality of no escape—perhaps a bit of all three—joined in with their own full-throated wizard songs.
Heartbeats later, Catti-brie’s divine globe of fire appeared above the hole, roiling in the air. A moment later, a line of flames shot down at the brutes within.
A fireball exploded at the top of the hole, clearing goblins and orcs from the rim, and driving down the first giant as it tried to climb out.
A second fireball rent the air. Catti-brie began her own fireball spell, and as she wound through the chant, it felt different to her, and the words sounded different. She was well into her casting before she even realized that she was calling forth the spell using the language of the Plane of Fire, and that a great warmth was filling her, flowing through the ruby band on her finger. The fireball came forth, the most powerful of all, filling the top of the magical hole so beautifully that it almost appeared as if the hole was actually an erupting volcanic crater.
The flames rolled about and over each other, a brilliant dance, sensual and alive, and Catti-brie felt life within them indeed, and she reached out to them through her ring and called upon them.
Out of the mushrooming fires stepped forth a living beast, an elemental of fire, and on a nod from Catti-brie, it rolled over the edge of the pit like a lava flow, diving down at the three giants huddling on the bottom.
All eyes on the wall turned to Catti-brie, and the wizards shouted huzzahs at the display of power, and turned their cheers into action, spurred on to the heights of their own powers. And so it went, wizard after wizard throwing evocations of devastating power at, in, and around that hole, on and on, driving away the nearby goblins and orcs and ogres, or killing them outright, and keeping the giants trapped within the hole while the air about them seethed with magical fires.
From behind and from the side, goblin arrows did reach out at the wizard group, but like Catti-brie, most had enacted magical shields to ward such feeble missiles.
This part of the Nesmé wall had held, it seemed, and at the expense of the three frost giants trapped in a magical hole before the wall, as the wizards played out their wrath.
Death rained down from above, but in their bloodlust frenzy, the monsters did not break ranks. On they came, hoisting ladders, throwing spears, shooting bows. The ranks of archers atop Nesmé’s wall did thin, inevitably.
The archers were not alone, however. At Drizzt’s call, Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Athrogate scrambled up the ladders to the parapets and began running about the archery positions, swatting away ladders, or swatting away goblins that had managed to scramble up.
Drizzt continued to focus on the ogres—so many ogres. They did not need the ladders, he learned, as two turned and threw their backs against the wall, making a cradle by interlocking their fingers. In came a third, stepping onto their joined hands, and up they heaved, launching the brute to the wall top.
Drizzt was about to call out a warning as he furiously tried to set another arrow, but as the ogre landed on the wall, it was met by a swing of Aegis-fang. With all his strength behind it, Wulfgar sent the brute flying back down.
Drizzt laughed aloud at the sight, and lowered the angle of his bow, sending an arrow sizzling into the shoulder of the nearest ogre below.
He had to drop his bow and draw scimitars almost immediately, though, as an orc leaped in at him from behind. He fell away and spun to meet the charge, but the orc, almost to him, flew sidelong, smacking against the wall with a great grunt.
Only then did Drizzt notice one of the ball heads of Athrogate’s morningstars. The second looped up high and came crashing down on the stunned orc, smashing its skull and shattering the bones in its neck. It fell away, or started to, but the dwarf dropped one of his weapons to the stone, grabbed the orc up in one hand, and hoisted it up high. With strength beyond the natural bounds of his dwarf frame, Athrogate hurled the dead orc down upon another nearing the top of a nearby ladder.
“Bwahaha!” he shouted, grabbing up his glassteel flail once more. “So many to hit, elf! Bwahahaha!”
And off he rambled.
Looking past him, Drizzt spotted Bruenor, caught in the corner of a turn in the wall, it seemed, and with an orc pressing him on one side, an ogre on the other. Drizzt started that way, then thought to grab his bow, then calmed and realized that his friend had lost nothing of his battle prowess in his return from death.
A swing of Bruenor’s axe cut into the orc’s side and had the creature lurching in pain. Hardly slowing, Bruenor reversed the momentum and flipped the blade over as he went around with a powerful backhand, just beating the ogre to the strike, his axe driving up into its ribs and skipping up off of bone to hook into its armpit. Drizzt could not help but recall
the last time he had witnessed the dwarf in battle in Bruenor’s previous life, on a ledge in a primordial chamber.
Entangled with a pit fiend.
Bruenor then had been infused with the power of the dwarven gods, and so he seemed now, his powerful strike easily lifting the ogre back over the wall to tumble down outside of Nesmé. And back the other way went Bruenor, his powerful swing taking out the next charging orc—indeed, nearly cutting it in half—and continuing through to finish off the one he had already chopped.
And now Bruenor began his own charge, down the line at more monsters pouring over the wall. His axe dripped blood with every step, but more blood replaced that, it seemed, with every other step.
The monsters had breached the wall, perhaps, but with Drizzt and his friends supporting the Nesmé defenders, it would be a short-lived victory.
“Drow!” came a cry from below, inside the wall, a few moments later, and Drizzt noted Jolen Firth astride his mount. Some of the riders had dismounted, and were even then scrambling up the ladders to support the archers, but the First Speaker showed no such movement, nor did the dozens on their powerful armored horses about him.
“Too many losses,” Jolen Firth called up to Drizzt. “We must chase them from our walls, and quickly.”
Drizzt glanced around, and as much as it pained him to desert the wall and Catti-brie and the others, he found that he couldn’t disagree with that assessment.
He looked to the magical hole out before the wizard group, smoke pouring forth, and managed to put an arrow into the face of a giant as it tried yet again to climb out.
He called to Andahar, who waited nearby. He called to Bruenor and to Athrogate, who were side by side then. The dwarves exchanged some words and Athrogate howled happily and leaped down into the courtyard. He bounced to his feet and summoned Snort.