Bruenor nodded at Drizzt and grinned. “We’ll hold ’em, elf!” he called.
That made Drizzt’s choice much easier, and with a last look and a wave to Catti-brie, he shouldered his bow and swung down from the parapet, landing comfortably in the saddle of mighty Andahar.
Off they went behind Jolen Firth and the Riders of Nesmé, not for the nearest gate but beyond it, across the city to the east, where the main gate was not contested.
Arm in arm, helping each other, hoisting each other, the three giants at last climbed out of the hole. Smoke wafted from their singed clothing, blue-white skin glowed red under the great rash of burns inflicted by the rain of fire upon them and from the pummeling fists of the fire elemental.
They turned for the wall, and another magical barrage assailed them, including one last fireball from Catti-brie, this one fully immolating the trio, head to toe.
But when the roiling flames cleared, the giants stood, and it was obvious to all looking on that the wizards had nearly exhausted their magical energies.
Two of the giants had seen enough of this fight, though, and started stumbling away, but the third scolded them and demanded they halt. Stubborn to the end, that brute advanced to the wall. It didn’t have its sack of rocks any longer—the sack had been burned away in the fiery hole—but it did have one remaining rock, jagged and dark, and it lifted it now like a bludgeon, and started for its tormentors.
Catti-brie hit it in the face with magic missiles.
But the behemoth walked through the barrage and on it continued, and like the giant, the woman would not back down. The behemoth was only a stride away, the rock lifted to smash her, when Catti-brie blasted it again.
But the brute didn’t fall.
The blue-robed wizard tried to pull her away, but the woman wouldn’t leave. Defiantly she stared at the behemoth.
“You have no place here,” she told it. “Be gone.”
The giant grimaced, then its head snapped hard to the side and the blue-robed wizard and several others gasped in surprise.
Not Catti-brie, though. She just smiled knowingly, for she had seen Wulfgar moving in fast and she knew well the nature of the missile that had so pulverized the giant’s face.
Perhaps the brute figured it out, too, for it glanced down at the warhammer lying on the ground at its feet.
Then, like a cut tree, the behemoth tilted to the side and simply kept going, crashing to the ground, landing with a great “harrumph” as the last breath it ever took blew free from the impact.
Its two companions stumbled off with all speed, and the specter of the mighty frost giants fleeing in terror broke the will of the lesser monsters. Goblins, orcs, and even ogres in that area were swept up by the gravity of the behemoth’s wake, and as that portion of the monstrous line broke apart, the infection of the retreat widened.
All along the wall, the monsters broke ranks and fled, and a wall of arrows chased them out.
And the horns of Nesmé blew loud and clear as the city’s main gates swung open. Bows in hand, lances strapped and ready, tips and pennants proudly high, the Riders of Nesmé thundered onto the field. In armor shining despite the dim light, Jolen Firth led them, but it was the riders just to the side of the First Speaker that brought a hopeful smile to the lips of Catti-brie.
She saw the unicorn, Andahar, the bells of the steed’s barding singing a sweet melody, and with the rider’s green cloak and long white hair trailing. Beside Drizzt roared the fiery little hell boar, the wild black-bearded dwarf bouncing along atop it, flails in hand, ball heads spinning at the end of adamantine chains.
Drizzt let Jolen Firth and his closest riders lead for a short while, but then he veered slightly, Athrogate in his wake. Catti-brie smiled. The drow had seen the retreating giants.
As soon as Drizzt loosened Andahar’s reins, the mighty unicorn leaped past the horses, churning the turf beneath his hooves with strides far longer than his mortal cousins could manage. Only one came close to pacing Drizzt and his mount, and the sight of Athrogate’s fire-spewing boar, little legs spinning in a blur, speeding past a shocked Jolen Firth, brought a laugh to Catti-brie’s lips.
“By the gods,” muttered the blue-robed wizard beside her.
“The little one’s riding an infernal beastie,” said the old woman with the marvelous dig spell. “Guess you’re to be running faster when you’re being chased around by demons and devils all the day.”
That brought a laugh all around, and indeed the day looked brighter.
“Conserve your spells now,” Catti-brie bade the others. “The first fight is ours—few of our enemies will escape. But more may come and we must be ready. Go now and rest.”
The other nodded. “And yourself,” said the blue-robed wizard.
But Catti-brie looked around at the many wounded within the city and shook her head. “I am a priestess of Mielikki,” she told them. “My work is only half done.”
She moved for the ladder and found Bruenor and Wulfgar waiting for her.
“Give us a horse, girl,” the dwarf said. “The fightin’s out there now.”
With a nod, Catti-brie began casting and a few heartbeats later, a large spectral steed materialized. Wulfgar leaped up and lowered his hand, easily hoisting Bruenor onto the magical horse behind him.
“Hurry up, boy,” the dwarf demanded. “Damned drow’s taking all our fun, I’m betting, or I’m a bearded gnome.”
Wulfgar set the mount galloping before Bruenor even finished, but Catti-brie heard the words, and that old phrase threw her back in time so fully that it took her a moment to steady herself, as the weight of all that had transpired—not just here but in the magical forest and the passing of a century, in the rebirth and second life—nearly laid her low. She fell back against the ladder for support, and closed her eyes.
And the weight of memory and the sheer unreality pressed upon her.
She shook it away, though, and forced her eyes open once more, scanning about for clusters of the wounded. She had much work left to do.
Lines of lightning arched out from Taulmaril as Andahar bore down on the pair of stumbling, retreating frost giants. Smoke still wafted from their burned clothing and singed hair; their skin verily glowed red, angry red, from the punishment of wizard fires and the embrace of Catti-brie’s elemental monster.
One staggered under the weight of Drizzt’s barrage. It tried to move along faster, and its friend tried to pull it along, but of course, the arrows from the Heartseeker sped faster still.
After one particularly painful stab, the battered giant threw up its arms in outrage and shoved aside its companion, swinging about to face its tormentor.
Drizzt sat astride Andahar, the unicorn slowing and stopping and stomping the ground anxiously.
The giant roared. Drizzt looked it in the eye and casually leveled his bow.
To the side, Athrogate and his hell boar rambled past, but neither the drow nor the giant paid him any heed, their eyes locked in a hateful exchange.
Then, as the trance shattered, the giant roared and flung its last rock, and charged in behind.
Drizzt’s arrow hit that spinning boulder, and with a thunderous retort, the rock broke in half, both pieces spinning aside harmlessly. And the drow let fly a second arrow, right behind the first.
It struck the giant in the face, and its angry roar became a pained scream. It slapped its huge hands over the wound and staggered.
Andahar charged and Drizzt lowered the bow and held on desperately.
To the side, the other giant rushed to support its friend, or started to, until it noticed the dwarf speeding in. With a growl, the behemoth lifted a foot, as if to stamp the dwarf and his strange mount flat, but that hell boar was having none of it, veering and springing at the last moment past the giant’s supporting leg.
And the dwarf had one of his glassteel flails spinning above his head, like a cattleman with a lariat. The boar flew past, the giant stomped at it futilely, and the dwarf sent the
weapon’s heavy head smashing against the giant’s knee.
The giant expected the hit and sucked in its breath, figuring it could withstand the blow as it turned.
But the giant did not understand the girdle-enhanced strength of this dwarf, Athrogate, nor the power of that morningstar, Whacker by name. Athrogate had called upon the enchanted weapon, and from the spikes on that balled head oozed magical liquid, oil of impact.
When the weapon struck the giant’s knee, the tremendous force bent the giant’s leg—sideways and to the ground.
The behemoth dropped, howling and grabbing at its shattered limb, and Snort landed and wheeled about for another pass, turning Athrogate just in time to witness the impact as Andahar, ivory horn lowered, crashed into the other giant’s chest. The horn disappeared fully into the behemoth, the power of the unicorn smashing it through flesh and muscle and bone. The length of the horn reappeared, covered in blood, as the giant fell away to the ground, one hand grabbing its blasted face, the other now trying to stem the blood spurting from the hole in its chest.
Drizzt, too, went to the ground, the impact knocking him from his seat atop the unicorn. For a moment, Athrogate winced, as it looked like his friend would crash down hard. But Drizzt neatly tucked his head and rolled over, coming to his feet with momentum carrying him to the giant and with both his scimitars, somehow, already in hand.
“Bwahaha!” the dwarf roared, and all the louder when he noted a group of monsters, goblins and a pair of ogres, coming his way.
They slowed with each step, as the scene before them came clearer, as they understood, apparently, that these giants weren’t going to help them.
They turned and ran away.
“Bah, ye cowardly dogs!” Athrogate cried after them, and he went to finish his giant, and quickly, for there were so many more things to hit!
From the back of the battlefield, Regis watched the slaughter unfolding before him. The Riders of Nesmé worked brilliantly, thin lines of cavalry weaving about the masses, carving out sections of the fleeing mob to slow them and turn them.
Arrows thinned each group as the stampeding charge thundered in, lances lowering to skewer and stab.
Some would escape, Regis understood. Indeed, many orcs neared his position even then, running for all their lives.
He had to stay in character, he knew, and he called to them, shouting orders as if to coordinate the retreat—though, once again as with the charge, any listening closely would have surmised that his blathering was more gibberish than anything else.
Mostly, he tried to stay out of the way—far out of the way, for these routed monsters were in a foul mood and any might decide to kill the shaman who had led them to this utter disaster.
Regis screamed orders and moved sidelong to a fallen log, then seemed to disappear, warp-stepping with his prism ring, and coming through the movement on his belly, crouched in tight against the wood.
Soon many more fleeing monsters passed him by, including a large contingent of ogres and ogrillon, some leaping atop the log and springing off, oblivious to him as they soared right over him.
One came down hard, crashing over the log, and Regis yelped, thinking it had dived for him!
But no, he realized when he saw the long arrow protruding from its back. Terrified, realizing that his allies were as likely to kill him as were the monsters, the halfling-turned-goblin pulled the orc the rest of the way over the log and covered himself with it.
Should he revert to his natural form? If he did so too soon, the monsters would cut him down. If he waited too long, an arrow would surely take him!
Farther back from Regis, much farther back and far to the side, a handful of orcs watched the disaster unfold. They saw the distant slaughter and the desperate retreat. They watched the Riders of Nesmé, in their shining mail, running down goblins and orcs. They saw ogres skewered by lances, then taken down under the press of armored horses.
And they saw the giants fall.
And with mouths agape, they watched the unicorn and the rider astride it, his skin black, his long white hair and green cape flying as he galloped his mount across the torn ground, his lightning bow dealing death with every shot.
“Are we betrayed?” one of them asked, for there could be no doubt here.
This was a drow.
With a suddenness that tore a shriek from his lips, the orc covering Regis flew aside, and a strong hand slapped down and grabbed him by the front of his shaman robes and hauled him into the air.
He had to stab his attacker, he knew. But it was too sudden, too unexpected. He had to fight fast, but he could not. And then his senses returned enough for him to realize the truth of his attacker, and he cried out denials, “Stop! Stop! It’s me.”
And only as he heard his own words did Regis realize that he was shouting in the goblin tongue!
His lips flapped as he was shaken hard.
“Hey elf!” Athrogate bellowed, and he gave Regis another jostle. “I’m thinkin’ I’ve found yer little rat friend! Bwahahaha!”
Regis nearly swooned, so overwhelmed with relief was he when he regained his senses enough to note the smile of Drizzt Do’Urden.
BOIL
IT ITCHES ON THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF A SOCIETY, NAGGING AND nattering, whispering unease.
The tiny bubbles of criticism appear, about the bottom of the pot at first, hanging on, secret.
Quiet.
They dart upward, roiling the surface, just a few, then a few more, then a cascade.
This is the critical moment, when the leaders must step forth as one to calm the brew, to lift the pot from the fire, but too often, I fear, it is the ambitious opposition to these leaders stoking the flames among the citizenry, poking the folk with one malicious whisper after another.
Veracity matters not; the emotional response takes hold and will not let go.
The bubbles become a boil, the heat flowing through the water and wafting up into the air on the souls of the many who will surely die in this symphony of hatred, this expression of rage seeking focus.
This war.
I have seen it over and over through the decades, in campaigns sometimes worthy, but most often involving nefarious designs beneath the lies and feigned purposes. And in that turmoil and misery and carnage, the warrior is held high and the flag is tightly wrapped—too tightly to allow for any questioning of purpose and method.
This is how society is convinced to plant the fireball beneath its own pot.
And when it is over, when the rubble replaces the homes and the graveyards overfill and still the bodies rot in the streets, do we look back and wonder how it came to this awful point.
That is the greatest tragedy, that the only time when questioning is allowed is when the ultimate failure of war has come to pass.
When the families are shattered.
When the innocent are slaughtered.
But what of war against monstrous intrusion, against the orcs and giantkind, would-be conquerors? Catti-brie, with Bruenor’s loud echo, insisted to me that this was different, that these races, on the word of Mielikki herself, could not be viewed through the prism we hold to measure the rational and goodly races—or even the rational and not-so-goodly societies like that of my own people. Orcs and giantkind are different, so they assert, in that their malicious ways are not the teachings of an aberrant society but a matter much deeper, to the very soul of the creatures.
Creatures?
How easily does that pejorative flow from my lips when I ponder the orcs and goblins of the world. Even with my experiences telling me differently, as with Nojheim the goblin, the slave.
It is all too confusing, and in the heat of that boiling pot, I desperately want to hold onto Catti-brie’s words. I want to believe that those I shoot down or cut down are unrepentant and foul, are ultimately intent on destruction and wholly irredeemable.
Else, how would I ever look in a mirror again?
I admit my relief upon entering the Silver Ma
rches to find the Kingdom of Many-Arrows marching to war.
My relief upon finding war …
Can there be a more discordant thought? How can war—any war—be seen as a relief? It is the tragic failure of better angels, the loss of reason to emotion, the surrender of the soul to the baser instincts.
And yet I was relieved to find that Many-Arrows had marched, and I would be lying to myself to deny it. I was relieved for Bruenor, for he would have started a war, I am confident, and so the inevitable misery would then have weighed more heavily upon his shoulders.
I am relieved for Catti-brie, so determined in her declaration, her epiphany, that there can be no redemption for orcs.
This is her interpretation of the song of the goddess.
Her interpretation shakes my faith in the goddess.
She is not as sure of herself as she claimed; her voice before we faced this truth of war held steadier than now, as we huddle against Nesmé’s wall awaiting the next charge, awaiting the next round of carnage. Her fireballs and fire pets have slain many these days, and have done so in gallant and correct defense of the city.
And still I see the perpetual wince in her fair face, the pain in her blue eyes, the frown beneath her mask of smile. She holds to Mielikki’s words, her own proclamations, and hurls her spells with deadly force. But each death within and without Nesmé’s walls takes from her, wounds her heart, crushes her hopes.
“It’s what it be,” Athrogate keeps saying as he stalks about the parapets.
Indeed, but “what it be” is not what Catti-brie wishes it could be, and so the battle pains her greatly and taxes her heart more than her body and mind.
For that I am glad. It is one of the reasons I so love her.
And so I can be relieved for my dear friends, for their hearts and the scars they will carry from this war—there are always scars from war—and still be dismayed by the carnage and brutality and the sheer stupidity of waging a war, this war, in the Silver Marches.