Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf

  He lifted the spear beside his right ear and leveled it. He closed his eyes. He didn’t need them—indeed, they would likely distract him. He smelled the orc ahead and sensed it in ways he didn’t even understand, whether it was a formerly imperceptible sound or some sixth sense screaming at him to beware.

  He waited, letting the signals and sounds come to him.

  A slight rustle and he turned the spear tip out just a bit.

  He didn’t throw the spear at the orc, at least not in his thoughts. He saw the spear as an extension of the target, as if it belonged there all along and he was just allowing it to return to its rightful place.

  The orc sentry tumbled out of the brush up ahead, the spear through it, back to front. It struggled and whimpered, but Afafrenfere passed it as he continued on his way and stomped a heavy foot upon its throat, ending its misery.

  The monk glanced up at the mountain peak to his right, judging his distance from it and the one to his left, and picturing in his mind where the dragon Ilnezhara had told him to go. Reflexively, he reached into his belt pouch, running his fingers over the small, smooth stone she had given him. He could feel the pulsing magic within the stone.

  Look deeper, a voice inside Afafrenfere’s head implored him.

  He clutched the stone more tightly, brought it from his pouch and up to his heart. He closed his eyes and let himself fall within the smoothness of the stone, deeper and deeper.

  He saw the dragon eye looking back at him, felt the approval, and knew that Ilnezhara had “watched” him kill the orcs.

  Afafrenfere replaced the stone in his pouch and went on his way.

  Silent.

  Deadly.

  Bruenor shook his head. “Should’ve been Felbarr,” he whispered. “Ain’t likin’ this, elf.”

  “Hartusk is mustering his forces about Sundabar, too near to Citadel Felbarr,” Sinnafein explained. “Were we caught in a pitched battle there, the orcs would likely reinforce, and with greater numbers than we could possibly defeat.”

  “Y’ever been to Citadel Adbar?” Bruenor asked her. “Ah, but she’s a fortress to see! She’s got rings of defense pits, walls and bridges crisscrossin’ all about. If them orcs’re using the outer rings as their own now, we’ll not get near the place.”

  “But we shall,” Sinnafein replied. “For the Haunted King is about. And now the beasts of Many-Arrows have had enough of his raids and have laid a trap at last.”

  “The Haunted King?” Catti-brie asked.

  “King o’ Adbar,” explained Amber. “Ain’t been right in the head since his brother got himself killed.”

  “These foothills are thick with orcs,” Drizzt said, and as he did, he looked up to the northeast, where several campfires could be seen on the southern slope of a low mountain trail. He pointed it out to Bruenor and Catti-brie, who nodded.

  “More than we can defeat, likely,” Sinnafein admitted. “But with their eyes turned northward all, looking toward Adbar. My archers are in the low forests—”

  “As is me monk,” said Amber with a grin. “And a bit farther, I’m guessin’.”

  “—blinding the sentries,” Sinnafein finished.

  “Forevermore,” Amber explained.

  Drizzt’s hand reflexively went to Taulmaril. He wanted to be out there hunting, but they had arrived too late for that.

  Reports came filtering back to the group soon after, elves sketching topographical maps of the area and indicating the location and strength of the orc positions. The most troubling report came from Myriel when she at last returned, long after midnight, to describe a position of scores of frost giants.

  Bruenor cast an uneasy look at Sinnafein at that revelation. “Felbarr …” he muttered. “We should’ve gone to King Emerus.”

  “They were not here just a few days ago,” the elf replied. “We had no reports of any giants about at all. Nor should they have passed this way as they went in answer to Hartusk’s muster.”

  “Might be that them orcs’re wantin’ to put down the Haunted King afore they begin their march south,” Amber reasoned. “He’s been stinging ’em, so ’tis said, and might that he’s stinged ’em too many times.”

  Sinnafein looked around, clearly unsure.

  “We come this far,” Bruenor put in. “Ain’t for lettin’ a few giants stop us now, are we? I bringed Bungalow Thump and his Gutbuster boys along just for the party, and the party’s all the better with giant knees needing to be crushed.”

  The world made no sense to him any longer. All had been well. Even after the death of his father, who had lived a long and prosperous and battle-filled and glory-filled life. Harnoth and Bromm had been pained when putting the stones on old King Harbromm’s cairn, of course, for what loyal and loving son would not? But there was a sense of rightness about that passing, a feeling that this was the inevitability of life, and the proper passing of the torch, generation to generation.

  Now, though, the world made no sense to Harnoth. Bromm had been taken from him so quickly, so unexpectedly.

  They were supposed to grow old together, raising their own broods and passing the torch as they each went to join their Da in the Halls of Moradin. They were supposed to share decades together in battle and in leadership, leaning on each other, propping each other through the trials of ruling mighty Citadel Adbar, the Armory of Luruar.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But Bromm was gone, and Harnoth could do nothing about it. He should have been there beside his brother, he thought every night since the tragedy in the Cold Vale.

  He should have been there to save Bromm, or to die beside him. But he wasn’t, and all the “should haves” and “might have beens” meant nothing.

  Nothing.

  Because Bromm was dead and gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

  And the world made no sense to Harnoth, the sole king of Citadel Adbar, and made even less sense to him when the hordes had come to surround his proud fortress, and the dark elves had come to hide in the shadows of the tunnels, killing his kin.

  And he could do nothing.

  He could not bring back his brother.

  He could not make sense of the world.

  So King Harnoth—the Haunted King, they now whispered—could discern only one acceptable course: he would fight.

  Even through the deep of winter, he went out, oftentimes alone, but sometimes, as with this expedition, surrounded by his fiercest and most fiercely loyal fellows, hunting the vermin who had slain his brother.

  Oretheo Spikes was there beside him this time, and when he looked upon his dear friend, it occurred to Harnoth that the Wilddwarf battlerager was becoming as haunted as he. Perhaps it was the lack of food. Rations were meager indeed in Citadel Adbar, and many had succumbed. Oretheo’s eyes were as hollow as Harnoth’s own.

  But it might not be the short rations, too. Oretheo had been there for the Battle of the Cold Vale—indeed, he was the only dwarf to return to Adbar from that slaughter—and he had seen King Bromm’s cruel death, had seen Warlord Hartusk with Bromm’s severed head in hand.

  King Harnoth glanced back at the exit channel that had led them from Citadel Adbar, and his mind’s eye went farther, back to the fortress itself.

  To the pile of dwarf bodies, stacked in the mausoleum as neatly as firewood, awaiting the coffin masons.

  He looked back to the exit channel and thought back to Citadel Adbar, and thought, too, that today would be a good day to die.

  “Here,” Mickey said, pointing to the detailed map of the region southwest of Citadel Adbar. She indicated a long valley between two mountain spurs.

  Sinnafein glanced at the other leaders, particularly at Bruenor, who shook his head doubtfully.

  “They got giants,” the dwarf explained. “Giants to put up in them hills on both sides, to rain stones upon hairy heads.”

  “It will be seen to,” Mickey replied. “This is the place.”

  “I ain’t thinkin’ it is,” said Bruenor.

  “Then y
our brothers of Adbar will die there without you,” Mickey answered.

  Bruenor and his friends, Sinnafein too, fixed the copper-haired elf with angry stares.

  “This is the place,” was all that Mickey would say to those doubting looks, ending any further arguments. “Be quick.”

  “I’ll take the lead,” Drizzt offered, but Mickey’s sister appeared then, shaking her head pointedly at the drow.

  “The monk is in position?” Mickey asked.

  “Awaiting King Harnoth, and Drizzt,” replied the other, who called herself Lady Z.

  “Awaiting th’ elf?” Bruenor asked.

  “Come, drow,” Lady Z bade Drizzt. “We have a most important task for you.”

  Drizzt looked to his friends, mostly to Catti-brie, who wore her suspicions clearly on her face.

  Mickey walked over and took Drizzt by the hand and pulled him off to the side. He instinctively tried to resist, but quickly realized that he might as well be trying to hold back an avalanche. It was easier to follow her.

  “Go with my sister,” Mickey explained to him privately. “She will send you to Afafrenfere’s side, and he will guide you to King Harnoth.”

  Drizzt stared at her skeptically, not catching on.

  “Ilnezhara—Lady Z—will explain in more detail.”

  The drow’s expression did not change. “My friends and allies are here.”

  “This goes beyond them,” Mickey explained. “It is our mutual friend’s idea, one to gauge the reputation of Drizzt Do’Urden more clearly among the folk of the Silver Marches, and one, perhaps, to begin repairing that reputation.”

  She let go of Drizzt’s hand and motioned him toward Ilnezhara, but the drow still hesitated.

  “Our friend is long-sighted and clever,” Mickey reminded him. “Perhaps as much so as any of the lesser beings I have ever known.”

  “Lesser beings?” Drizzt echoed, thinking that a rather curious, and rather telling, way of putting it. He thought of some of Jarlaxle’s previous associates and wondered if he might again be dealing with a mind flayer.

  “Go, or do not,” Mickey said a bit more sharply. “But be quick in any case because the monk cannot wait for much longer.”

  Drizzt nodded before he crossed over to Catti-brie, gave her a kiss for luck, and promised that he would see her soon. “Watch over her,” he said to Bruenor and Athrogate, “and you watch over them,” he added to Catti-brie.

  He sprinted off to catch up to Ilnezhara, who was moving off.

  “What’s that about, then?” Bruenor demanded when Mickey walked back over to join them.

  “It is about positioning the pieces on the sava board for a quicker kill,” she replied, and turned to Sinnafein. “You know the place, and the way?”

  The elf nodded.

  “Be quick!” Mickey said sharply, and with that, the strange elf turned and leaped away, and what a leap it was, lifting her high and far to disappear into a copse of trees some thirty strides away.

  “By Moradin’s hairy bum,” Bruenor muttered.

  “She threw a giant,” Sinnafein dryly reminded them, and off they went.

  In tight ranks, the war band followed, some three hundred Clan Moonwood elves supported by Bruenor’s two hundred shield dwarves, half of them Gutbusters. With speed and discipline they churned up the field, arrows set to bowstrings, heavy hammers, axes, and swords drawn and ready.

  To their credit, the Adbar dwarves maintained a fairly tight defensive formation. But they were in full flight, running from a rain of giant boulders that had wounded several and left three dead.

  Their deaths were on him, King Harnoth knew. He shouldn’t have come out this far with his twoscore loyal minions.

  They had been baited, bit by bit, over the last two tendays. Harnoth had come out, sometimes with a small group, other times, like this day, with a powerful force, but the orcs had been falling back. Each day King Harnoth had to go a bit farther from Adbar’s defensive channels to find enemies to slaughter.

  This day, too far, perhaps. They had rounded a mountain spur to discover a line of giants behind and above them, and the heavy rain of huge stones had driven the dwarves farther still.

  “We can make Twin Pine Valley and run back to the north,” Oretheo Spikes told the young king.

  “We’re not for knowin’ what’s in Twin Pine,” Harnoth replied. He settled his gaze firmly on the Wilddwarf leader. Oretheo Spikes had not come out often. His duties had kept him securing the lower levels of Citadel Adbar, but since few drow had been seen about those tunnels of late, he had joined his king.

  “Well, I’m knowin’ what’s behind, and it canno’ be worse than what’s ahead,” Oretheo Spikes replied, and Harnoth had to shrug and nod his agreement.

  On they ranged, sending scouts out to the left and right flanks, and word soon came back that they were being shadowed by large orc contingents.

  They were in for a brutal fight this day, King Harnoth knew. Too brutal. He thought of his brother, and fully expected that he’d be seeing Bromm again very soon.

  Likely this very day.

  He had known all along that it would eventually come to this, where the orcs had seen enough of his excursions and so had set him up for the big fall.

  He’d kill ten or more before he fell, he vowed to himself, and he was more than willing, and more than ready, to go to Dwarfhome and the table of Moradin.

  Ah, but for the others!

  That thought nagged at him and haunted him, particularly since Oretheo Spikes was along this day. Oretheo, the dwarf Harnoth would choose as his successor. The young dwarf king could accept his own fate—indeed, would welcome it—but to think that he was going to take forty others with him wounded him profoundly. Taking his chosen successor with him wounded Harnoth even more.

  And for what? What had Citadel Adbar gained with these excursions, with these exercises in angry vengeance?

  Or perhaps they would make Twin Pines Valley and so run back to the north and freedom.

  “Double-time!” Harnoth ordered his minions. “We can outrun a few ugly orcs!”

  But no sooner had he issued the command than the line ahead of him skidded to an abrupt halt, dwarves in the front ranks locking shields, those in the second ranks leveling spears and crossbows.

  “Square!” King Harnoth and Oretheo Spikes both ordered at the same time, and the dwarves hustled to a tighter defensive position.

  “I am no enemy!” came a call, and Harnoth took some hope as those dwarves in the front seemed to relax just a bit, a few standing taller. The young king pushed his way through the ranks to come up between a pair of shield dwarves.

  “Nor am I,” said a second voice, and Harnoth’s eyes widened when he saw the speaker: a dark elf moving up beside a human.

  “I am a friend to Mithral Hall, a friend to Adbar, once a friend to King Harbromm,” the drow said. “My name is known to you, and that name is Drizzt Do’Urden.”

  Dwarves bristled, and the spears leveled once more, and more than one stubby finger squeezed a bit tighter on a crossbow trigger.

  “We seek King Harnoth,” said the human beside Drizzt. “Please be quick, for your position is tenuous indeed, with enemies all about.”

  “Adbar names no drow as friend!” King Harnoth cried. “And trusts no drow!”

  “Then let me prove my fealty,” Drizzt replied. He came forward, hands empty and up high. The human followed him with a similar posture.

  They walked right to the shield line.

  “You are Harnoth, King of Adbar?” Drizzt asked.

  “No, he ain’t!” came a rough and grumbling voice from the side, and a stocky fellow in ridged armor shouldered Harnoth aside. “Yer meanin’ to speak to Adbar, ye speak to me, drow!”

  “Well met again, Oretheo Spikes,” Drizzt said.

  King Harnoth and all the other dwarves looked to the Wilddwarf for an explanation.

  “We met at King Emerus’s table,” the drow explained, pointedly looking at King Har
noth. “Introduced by King Bruenor, who has returned to aid in the war with Many-Arrows.”

  “So I been told,” said Harnoth, and he shouldered past the shield dwarves to stand immediately in front of the drow.

  “And so it is true,” said Drizzt. “Now, pray be quick. I have been sent to lead you to Sourpuss Gap.” He pointed to the southeast, to a valley between two peaks not far away.

  “Giants on Horngar’s Horn,” King Harnoth said, shaking his head, and indicating the mountain on the northeastern side of the indicated valley.

  “That is the only way,” the man beside Drizzt told him. “Every other trail is thick with orcs. They will slow you and catch you with forces far beyond your own.”

  “ ’Ere now, ye watch how ye’re speaking to me king,” said Oretheo Spikes, but Harnoth held his hand up to keep the Wilddwarf back and silent.

  “All the region is thick with orcs, and even now their noose tightens about you,” Drizzt explained. “I am Drizzt, friend of Bruenor, as your shield dwarf Oretheo Spikes can confirm. I beg that you trust in me now, and quickly, for we are running out of time.”

  “I knowed what ye said ye was,” was all Oretheo Spikes would offer.

  “We’re runnin’ our own way,” King Harnoth started to say, but Drizzt cut him short.

  “If you stay, you will perish. They are too many, and they were waiting for you. You’ll not make the valley in the north, if that is your plan, for surely that’s the way the orcs expected your retreat.”

  “Retreat?” Oretheo Spikes roared. “Bah, tactical flank!”

  “They were waiting for you, King Harnoth,” Drizzt said. “Surely you knew this would happen soon enough.”

  “Waiting because a drow elf telled ’em we was coming?” asked a suspicious Oretheo Spikes.

  “Possibly,” Drizzt replied, deflecting the accusation. “Though my friend and I have seen no other drow about.”

  “Was speakin’—”

  “Enough, good Oretheo!” Drizzt snapped at him. “I’ve no time, nor do you. Sourpuss Gap, with all speed, or know that none of you will return to Citadel Adbar this day.” He looked to the human, and they shared a nod, and both ran off to the southeast.