Sinnafein’s expression did little to hide the fact that she was taken off-guard by the straightforwardness of Mickey’s response.
“Do you even understand the level of trust we have shown to you by simply revealing ourselves to you?” Mickey asked quietly.
Sinnafein looked at her carefully. The dwarf and monk had come to them first, and had then introduced a select few to the three curious elves, these two sisters and another, who had appeared at first as if he could have been of Sinnafein’s own clan, though Sinnafein suspected a disguising magic about him since he would not approach and spoke to them only from the shadows. Later, alone, this old friend of Mickey’s, whom Sinnafein suspected to be a drow, had revealed some startling details to Sinnafein. He knew of her, and had known her husband once upon a time. And he had hinted, too, that Tos’un had returned to Menzoberranzan, though he had said nothing directly and had promised Sinnafein that they would discuss the matter further once plans for the elves’ entry to the war had been set in place.
“I am going on to Mithral Hall, as we discussed,” Mickey declared, and she stepped away from the river toward the southwest, where Fourthpeak towered. “If you do not trust me, then the sled is yours. If you fear that one of your personal rank and title should not be a part of such a dangerous journey, then pray tell one of your archers to replace you on the journey. I care not either way.”
Sinnafein stepped right in front of her and looked long and hard into Mickey’s eyes, trying to read this strange elf.
Mickey’s responding smile proved truly disarming. If Sinnafein had been anything other than an elf, surely the charm would have fully ensnared her. Still, even without that magical enhancement, the lack of any real choice reverberated within Sinnafein, compounded by her continuing guilt.
She and her husband, Tos’un, had started this war, after all. Tos’un had betrayed Sinnafein, wounding her legs and leaving her helpless to die at the blades of the pursuing orcs. But leading that hunting orc band was Lorgru, son of Obould. Lorgru’s unexpected mercy in returning Sinnafein to her people had given rise and momentum to the hateful words of this terrible warlord, Hartusk.
With that truth hanging above her, Sinnafein found that she could not refuse this opportunity.
She motioned to the distant archers to stand down and started off with Mickey to the southwest.
They passed many signs of orcs, and saw great encampments on distant ridges. Sinnafein shook her head repeatedly.
“We cannot get there,” she told Mickey as the wind began to pick up around them.
Mickey laughed at her. “They are only orcs,” she replied.
Her carefree attitude struck the elf curiously, as did Mickey’s unwillingness to move from shadow to shadow. She was walking to the north door of Mithral Hall, a straight-line course with nothing but the blowing snow to obscure her, and it seemed to Sinnafein as if her companion would not have veered even if their path took them through the heart of a vast enemy encampment.
Somehow no enemies spotted them or walked up in front of them in the blowing snow, and the pair came to a ridgeline, looking down at a small dell, framed on the north by a rising wall of stone, and on the south by the foothills of Fourthpeak. Also to the south stood some worked columns, and Sinnafein knew them to mark the entry corridor to Mithral Hall’s northern door. A grouping of tents sat in front of those columns, half-buried in the drifting snow.
Mickey did pause then, and crouched, staring off toward the camp. Several huddled forms milled about, including one considerably larger than any orc.
“We will move down straight for the nearest column,” Mickey explained. “Once we get there, if the way beyond is clear, you run for the doors. Do not wait for me. They’ll not let you in, but when I join in, I have a spell that will walk us through.”
“We’ll be seen before we reach that column,” Sinnafein said, and Mickey nodded.
“There are likely dozens of orcs in that encampment,” Sinnafein warned, and Mickey nodded.
“And giants, perhaps?”
“Likely,” said Mickey.
Sinnafein drew out her sword, but Mickey shook her head. “When we reach the column, you go to the doors.”
“I am not some unskilled and coddled noblewoman,” Sinnafein protested.
“I never said you were. When we reach the column, you go to the doors.”
“Leaving you alone to face the swarm of enemies?”
Mickey started walking off toward the column, and a frustrated Sinnafein shook her head and sighed. It occurred to her then that the strange elf didn’t even have a weapon about her, with no sword belt over her furred coat, and none under it as far as Sinnafein could recall.
The Lady of the Glimmerwood sighed again and rushed out, hurrying to catch up with Mickey, who was walking easily, straight for the column, a course that would take her near to the tents. And she was making no effort at all to conceal herself.
Sinnafein drew her sword as she came up beside Mickey.
“Oh, put that silly thing away,” the other elf told her.
They neared the column. They heard the whoop of an orc sentry behind them.
“To the doors with you, and quickly,” Mickey said, and she grabbed Sinnafein by the arm and with supernatural strength sent the Lady of the Glimmerwood stumbling and skidding toward the doors. “And pray do knock!” By the time she collected herself and halted the momentum, Sinnafein was nearer the door than the column. She looked back at the clicking and clapping sound and noted some spears flying out of the haze of the blowing snow. She winced and fell back, for just by the missiles that had flown past Mickey’s position, Sinnafein realized that the elf had been beset by a barrage of deadly rain indeed.
She wanted to call out, but she stumbled to the great stone doors instead. She drew out her own weapon, but only to use the metal pommel to pound on the doors—and how meager did the sound seem against the unrelenting howl of the winter wind.
Behind her, Sinnafein heard a scream, then another, then a cacophony, a communal howling of, apparently, agony and terror. She noted some tumult but couldn’t make it out, and the screaming continued.
And Sinnafein continued pounding on the door, and now she, too, was screaming, calling for the dwarves to let her in.
She kept looking back, though, and she started and nearly jumped from the ground when a distinct form came into sight, that of Mickey casually walking toward her.
And a larger form—indeed, a gigantic humanoid form—rushed up behind Mickey.
“Giant!” Sinnafein cried, and started for the behemoth, and winced and screamed when she saw the frost giant’s huge hammer come swinging down for the top of Mickey’s head.
Up shot Mickey’s hand to intercept the hammer, and Sinnafein winced. The giant put all of its tremendous weight behind the blow, slamming the weapon down as if trying to drive the elf maiden into the ground like a tent stake. Sinnafein sucked in her breath, certain she was about to see Mickey crushed in front of her.
But the hammer stopped, caught by the lithe elf’s hand and held right there, hovering inches above her head. Faster than Sinnafein could follow, Mickey pivoted and rushed forward to snap off punches, one, two, straight into the giant’s knees. Each blow sounded like a huge tree limb breaking, and Sinnafein gasped again when one kneecap shattered and the other leg bent backward under the tremendous weight of the blow.
The frost giant pitched forward, tumbling onto Mickey, burying her where she resolutely stood.
But no, like the hammer in front of the behemoth, Mickey caught the brute, and Sinnafein could only stare wide-eyed and slack-jawed as this elf named Mickey, who was not even Sinnafein’s size, twirled the behemoth above her head and launched it back the way it had come, spinning through the air to crash into one of the columns at the entryway.
Still holding the giant’s huge warhammer, Mickey approached. “Have they not answered your call?” she asked.
Sinnafein just stared at her, and backed off a st
ep.
“No matter,” Mickey assured her, and began to cast a spell. A moment later, with a swirl of commotion beginning again behind them as the larger encampment of orcs and giants learned of the battle, Mickey opened a dimensional door and bade Sinnafein to lead the way in.
“Don’t ask,” Mickey added when Sinnafein just stood there gaping at her. She took Sinnafein by the shoulder and guided her into the dwarven complex. When the pair stepped through, they were assaulted again, this time by surprised dwarven sentries.
Fortunately, those bearded warriors recognized the two as elves and not orcs before any serious blows could fall.
“Pray tell your King Connerad that emissaries of the Glimmerwood have come to help you escape your”—Mickey paused and sniffed—“smelly hole, good dwarves.”
Noting the wide-eyed dwarves looking past her and her companion, Mickey turned and glanced back to see a horde of orcs charging for her dimensional door. At the moment, a barrage of spears led the way.
Mickey dismissed the magical portal with a snap of her fingers, and she and the others heard the rain of missiles tapping against the unyielding northern gates of Mithral Hall.
“They are stubborn beasts, aren’t they?” Mickey asked. She turned back to find a brigade of dwarven warriors, weapons bared, staring at her and her elf companion with expressions a long way short of confident.
“And Drizzt Do’Urden,” Mickey said to them. “He is here, of course. Tell him that friends of his have arrived to help him in his cause.”
“Ye think we’re walking the two o’ ye to the court of our king?” one dwarf asked.
“Just relay my messages,” Mickey instructed him. “Let your king and the others decide if we are to be admitted or not.”
“Aye, but for now ye drop yer weapons!” the dwarf demanded.
“I have no weapons,” Mickey answered as Sinnafein willingly surrendered her sword and a long dagger she kept holstered inside her boot.
The dwarves all looked at Mickey incredulously, which confused her until Sinnafein explained, “The warhammer.”
Mickey seemed, and indeed was, genuinely shocked to realize that yes, she was still holding a giant’s warhammer, one taller than she, and heavier, though she was holding it aloft with one delicate hand.
“Oh, but be sure that ye’ll tell us all we’re wantin’ to know,” Winko Battleblade said in a cruel warning, and the tough dwarf shoved his prisoner facedown to the stone floor, then kicked the ugly orc for good measure.
“Aye, and wouldn’t ye be better just spittin’ it out now and saving us the trouble o’ hearin’ yer screams?” asked Winko’s cousin Rollo, a young warrior barely into his twenties and barely finished his training. “For if ye do, might be that I’ll kill ye quick!”
The orc, which had been captured in the tunnels just outside of Mithral Hall, squirmed and covered its face.
“Take its fingernails, then its fingers,” said Rollo.
“Take me time, most of all,” Winko agreed with a wicked laugh, and all those around knew that the tough dwarf could surely back up his ferocious demeanor with action. Some of the dwarves shifted uncomfortably, but none spoke out.
There came a commotion then, however, and a dwarf up in front of the patrol band gave a yelp and fell to the side.
A huge black panther padded past the startled and frightened dwarf. Guenhwyvar came right up to the main group of dwarves and sniffed carefully at the orc, who cringed and curled even tighter in terror.
“Bah,” Winko Battleblade grumbled, fully expecting what was coming next as Drizzt Do’Urden appeared from around the bend in the corridor.
“Ye’re just in time for the fun,” Winko said, his tone less than inviting. “But the fun’s me own, don’t ye doubt.”
“Fun?” Drizzt asked, moving into the group and noting the captured orc.
“Aye, we’re taking its fingers … slowly,” young Rollo said with a grin—a grin that disappeared quickly under the weight of the ranger’s responding scowl.
“Do tell,” Drizzt prompted, his voice even, yet thick with warning.
“We caught the rat out in the tunnels,” explained another, a grizzled old veteran that Drizzt recognized from many years before, though he could not remember the fellow’s name.
“Aye, and now he’s goin’ to tell us what other rats are out in the tunnels,” said Winko. “One finger at a time.”
He reached down for the whimpering orc, but Drizzt interrupted him, grabbing Winko by the forearm. The dwarf roughly pulled away and fell back a step, staring threateningly at Drizzt.
“Here now, ye keep yer drow hands to yerself, Mister Drizzt Do’Urden,” he said with open contempt.
“And you keep your own off of this prisoner,” Drizzt replied. As the dwarf started to argue, Guenhwyvar interjected a timely growl.
“Hey now, we caught the dog,” Rollo complained.
“Ain’t much changed, ’ave ye?” asked the grizzled old veteran. “Aye, but I remember yerself, Drizzt Do’Urden, when ye come here them forty years ago and hunted down Battlehammer dwarfs and elfs alike what would fight back against them Many-Arrows orcs. And now yer House’s come a’callin’, don’t ye know, and here ye are, protecting orc scum yet again. Ye been thinkin’ on this war a long time, ain’t ye?”
“Here, but what’re ye sayin’?” an incredulous Winko asked the older dwarf. He nodded as he asked, though, clearly sorting out the veteran dwarf’s nefarious implications—that this war had been part of Drizzt’s plan all along.
Many sets of eyes, narrow and scrutinizing and threatening, fell over Drizzt then.
“Battlehammers don’t torture,” the drow said resolutely. “Clan Battlehammer is above that.”
“It’s an orc!” Winko said, and he kicked the sniveling prisoner.
“I care not!” Drizzt yelled at him. “And not again!” he warned, pointing down at Winko’s boot.
“Or what, drow?” Rollo demanded, coming forward—until Guenhwyvar’s roar sent him skipping backward.
“I speak for King Bruenor on this,” Drizzt stated.
“Bruenor ain’t king!”
“Bruenor was king, for many years, or have you forgotten?” Drizzt demanded.
“Aye, and take care yer words, Winko Battleblade,” said the old veteran. “I got no hackles for this one, be sure, but I’ll be defendin’ me king Bruenor from yer mouth, don’t ye doubt!”
“You cannot torture a prisoner,” Drizzt said. “This is not who you are, or who we are. Cage him in the dungeon, but treat him well—for your own sake!”
“Are ye threatening me then?”
“For your own sake, from the judgments of your own heart,” Drizzt calmly explained. “You do not want to carry the echoes of a prisoner’s screams for the rest of your days. I beg you, good dwarf, do not throw away that which elevates Clan Battlehammer. Do not throw away the righteousness that gives strength to our weapon arms.”
Winko stared at him for a long while, clearly at a loss.
“More o’ them dog orcs out there threatening the hall!” Rollo yelled for him. “Ye’re thinkin’ we’re to sit back and let ’em come? Do ye care at all, ye damned drow?”
“I’ve two friends out there in the tunnels beyond Mithral Hall, perhaps captured, likely dead,” Drizzt retorted, and he moved very near the upstart young Rollo, towering over him. “Two dear friends.”
“So take yer cuts on the orc and get it to squeal!” Rollo argued.
“No!” Drizzt shouted back in his face. “No!” He stepped back then, and calmed, his shoulders slumping a bit. “No. That is not the way. That cannot ever be the way.”
“Yerself ain’t no Battlehammer,” Winko said.
“Might not be, but I am,” came a voice behind, and Drizzt turned and the others looked past him to see Bruenor striding down the corridor. “Not a king no more, eh, Winko? But still a Battlehammer by blood and by deed. Any here thinkin’ to argue that?”
The dwarves respectfully bowed
their heads at Bruenor’s approach, and Winko even greeted him as King Bruenor.
“They mean to …” Drizzt started to say.
“I heared ye, elf,” Bruenor interrupted.
“I cannot allow it,” said Drizzt.
“Nor can I,” said Bruenor. “Go, boys,” he told the dwarves. “Bring yer prisoner to a sturdy cage, but don’t ye beat him. We’re Battlehammers, and Battlehammers don’t be doing that! And feed him.”
“We ain’t got enough food for ourselfs!” Winko argued, and others groaned and nodded their agreement.
“Then don’t be bringing back anymore o’ them alive!” Bruenor shouted in his face.
There followed some staring and a bit of grumbling, but Winko and the others gathered up the orc as ordered, and moved off down the tunnel.
“It is unlikely that the orc can tell us anything we don’t already know about the forces arrayed against us,” Drizzt told Bruenor when they were alone.
“The beast might have some word on me boy and Rumblebelly.”
“I’ve likely gained a bit of the orc’s trust already,” said Drizzt. “I will talk with him, repeatedly.”
“We can’t be takin’ prisoners, elf,” Bruenor said. “Winko weren’t lyin’.”
“I know, but we cannot be torturing prisoners either, Bruenor, even if they are orcs or goblins. Are we to cast aside all that makes us confident in our own righteousness? Are we to lose our very hearts?”
Bruenor didn’t respond, his expression showing nothing of where he stood on that particular issue.
“I’ll speak with the orc prisoner for as long as it takes,” Drizzt promised.
Bruenor nodded. “Lot o’ the boys got some doubts about ye, elf,” Bruenor admitted a moment later, and Drizzt nodded, unable to disagree. “What Tomnoddy Two-shoes said about forty years ago …”
Drizzt sighed. “When I returned here in the time of King Obould VI, in the last days of King Banak, I did join in the hunt for rogue dwarves and elves,” Drizzt admitted, “at the request of King Banak. His son, King Connerad, though he wasn’t king then, did not argue the matter with his father. They were lawbreakers, crossing into Many-Arrows land and murdering orcs in the dark of night. King Banak feared an all-out war if he could not control the growing anger among the folk of Mithral Hall. Lord Hralien of the Glimmerwood elves—”