The young drow mage’s wards would not stop Aegis-fang. The warhammer ignited a burst of purplish light, but was not turned, crashing in with bone-shattering force, and sending the young drow mage flying from his seat, twisted and broken, into the river.
Doum’wielle had only barely moved out from the southern bank by that point, just one stride of her unsteady horse onto a flat stone. Khazid’hea screamed out in her thoughts, hungry for blood, and so she drew the sword and urged her horse forward. But this was no agile worg or spectral lizard mount, and the poor nag couldn’t begin to find a path, stumbling and hesitating.
Khazid’hea, the hungry Cutter, would have none of it. Forward, to the fight! it demanded in Doum’wielle’s thoughts.
But the horse would not move.
Dominated by the sword, Doum’wielle slid down from the saddle and leaped to the next stone in line, trying to fashion a path forward. Far ahead, the battle had been joined, she saw, with orcs and their worg mounts interlocked with the larger horses and human riders—mostly humans, at least. To the side, a drow wizard threw a lightning bolt. A second held forth his hand and produced a small pea of flame, a fireball ready to throw.
Doum’wielle grinned, anticipating the blast as she scrambled forward to yet another stone. She nearly fell, though, and slipped down into the water to her waist. Pulling herself back to the rock, she looked forward once more for the fireball.
But the wizard still stood there, some fifty feet or so in front of her, his hand still outstretched, the small flame still burning on his uplifted palm.
Holding that pose, he simply fell over, splashing down into the river, which bubbled and flashed as the fireball exploded underwater. Where the wizard had been stood a diminutive figure, a halfling, holding a bloody rapier.
Doum’wielle blinked. Then it was no longer a halfling, but a drow there, looking much like the wizard who had just tumbled away.
She tried to sort it out, but Khazid’hea didn’t care and wouldn’t let her care, either, the sword screaming for battle. It drove her forward hungrily, swiftly, recklessly.
Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps more of an intended collision, but scrambling up over the top edge of one triangular stone, Doum’wielle was met not by the closing enemy, but by Ravel and his spectral mount, the drow wizard in full flight back to the southern bank. The crash sent the half-elf twisting over and back, tumbling, Khazid’hea flying from her hand to land in the river with a splash. She saw Ravel leap over her to the next stone to the south. Behind him came Saribel on her disc, and behind her, many of the drow in full retreat.
The river tugged at Doum’wielle, with just her arms on the rock, just her head and shoulders above it. Confused and bruised, she held there, her thoughts swirling and jumbling.
She wanted to cry out for help, for her father, but she could not.
She wanted to pull herself onto the stone, out of the cold water, but she could not.
Desperately, Doum’wielle looked for her sword. She could hear the fighting above, close, even on the rocky ford, she knew. She looked around for her weapon, but it was not there.
She wanted to cry out again, for her mother now, but she could not.
She wanted to cry out for her brother, but she could not.
Her thoughts swirled.
Or not, perhaps, she realized. Her thoughts began to unwind, streaming to clarity. She felt as if she was coming out of a daze, entering reality.
Reality?
Ugly, wretched reality, and she burst out in tears, and cursed herself and saw again the blood on her hands.
She could not bear it. She recoiled from it, retreated to a darker place. And there, Khazid’hea found her and called to her.
Doum’wielle, Little Doe, let go of the stone and ducked under the water, letting the current take her.
Back and forth the battle rolled, like the maw of some gigantic monster gnashing its huge teeth, grinding human, orc, worg, and drow to mush.
They had been outnumbered two to one, and that without counting the worg mounts, which fought with fury. Wulfgar stood on the northern bank of the ford, his horse long dead.
Orcs and worgs came at him, drow hand crossbows and magic spells reached out and slammed him, but the son of Beornegar, his body and face red with blood, would not move aside. He alone held the ford, bottlenecking the enemy force while his companions slaughtered those behind who had already crossed.
No, not alone, he understood, as he saw a drow come up beside an orc rider, saw the orc go flying away, garroted by a leering specter, saw the worg drop flat to the stepping stone, a rapier slid into its brain.
Wulfgar swatted aside the next worg leaping for him, but called out to Regis, seeing a pair of riders rushing in at him from behind. The barbarian thought to launch his warhammer, but he couldn’t as yet another orc jumped in at him, forcing him to defend. He did manage to glance back at his friend to see the halfling-turned-drow spinning around, some flask in his hand, which he threw out and down in front of him, between him and the charging orcs.
The explosion shook the stones of the ford, dislodging riders, and demanded a pause in the fighting even on the field behind Wulfgar. Regis’s oil of impact bomb had gone under a stone and blasted it from the river, throwing it and a host of other rocks into the faces of the charging monsters, blowing them away in a gout of smoke and spray.
Another orc came in from the side, but Regis brought forth a hand crossbow and shot the brute in the face.
Victim to the drow sleeping poison, the orc fell to sweet dreams a moment later. But it found those fancies while it slipped under the water.
Another followed, and flew away from the second living snake of the magical dagger, and the third orc coming in behind found itself face-to-face not with the drow that had been standing there, but with a furious halfling wearing a blue beret and holding a magnificent rapier, thin and faster than a striking snake. The orc lost its left eye before it realized that the halfling had struck, and still didn’t truly understand as it clutched its throat from the second stab of that beautiful blade.
Wulfgar focused on the orc in front of him, now tightly clenched with him. He twisted Aegis-fang left, bending the orc, then jerked it back to the right with such strength that his enemy went spinning head over heels to the right.
The barbarian called out to his halfling friend, and when Regis turned, Wulfgar saluted him, smiled, and nodded.
He thought to go out there, but he knew that Regis—that Spider Parrafin—did not need his help.
Sometime later, Doum’wielle pulled herself out of the river, Khazid’hea in hand. She gasped for breath, at the end of her endurance. The sword had called her, had dragged her down to retrieve it. Caught in the current, the half-elf had drifted far from the battle, almost to the Surbrin, and now, drenched and freezing, her lungs aching, she crawled onto the field and collapsed into cold darkness.
The drow had fled far to the south. Back to the east, across the Rauvin ford, their enemies had won.
Aleina collapsed into Wulfgar’s strong arms, practically falling off her horse into him. For a moment, he feared her dead or gravely wounded, but he felt her grab at him, a deep breath coming to her. She stood stronger then, gathering her thoughts and collecting her remaining strength.
“Four,” she said, offering a sly look. “Including a drow.”
Wulfgar looked at her curiously.
“How many kills do you claim?” she asked, trying to find some humor in the carnage around her, as if she needed to smile to stop herself from screaming in denial.
Looking around, where a score of their band lay dead and not one had come through unscathed, the barbarian said, “I didn’t count.”
“Ten,” said another, and both looked over to the eastern edge of the ford, where stood Regis, his bright eyes and white teeth shining out through a mask of blood.
Aleina turned to Wulfgar. “You killed ten?”
But the barbarian was shaking his head, still staring
at Regis. “Not I,” Wulfgar said, directing her gaze to his diminutive friend.
“And two dark elves,” Regis said with a bow.
Aleina hugged Wulfgar tighter, but glanced around at the devastation behind her on the field. “Our troupe is ended. Yet the fight at the Surbrin Bridge has only just begun.”
“We did our part,” Wulfgar assured her, his eyes drawn to the smoke and the distant sounds of battle. Drizzt was there, and Catti-brie and Bruenor.
The fate of the Silver Marches was in their hands.
CHAPTER 19
THE BATTLE OF THE SURBRIN BRIDGE
BRUENOR AND CATTI-BRIE STOOD ON THE BANK OF THE SURBRIN, watching the approach of a pair of dwarves, male and female, they hardly expected to see at this time and in this place.
“Bah, but ye didn’t think we’d be missin’ all the fun, did ye?” Athrogate asked when he bounded up to them beside Ambergris.
“Didn’t know what to think about yerself,” Bruenor replied. “Ain’t seen ye in a few days, eh? And yerself,” he said to Amber, “why aren’t ye with King Harnoth and yer monk friend?”
“Drizzt is with Brother Afafrenfere,” Amber answered. “Aye, and we’ll be seeing them soon, don’t ye doubt!”
Catti-brie and Bruenor exchanged curious looks.
“Aye, and yer boys Wulfgar and Regis been fighting already this day, south where the Surbrin catches the Rauvin,” Athrogate explained.
“How can you know that?” a concerned Catti-brie demanded, but she held up her hand, dismissing her own question, and reminding herself of this one’s associate, after all.
“So I’m hearin’ the plan and laughin’ all the while,” said Athrogate. “Connerad’s out and the smoke’s rising!”
“And King Emerus is across the river,” said Bruenor, pointing to the west and the main dwarf force from Citadel Felbarr, who were even then preparing their sweep to the south in support of the boys breaking free from Mithral Hall.
“And yerself and yer boys …” Athrogate started.
“And girls,” Ambergris put in, and she tossed a wink to Catti-brie.
“Aye, all o’ them,” Athrogate agreed. “Ye’re to cut the battle in half, are ye? And to hold that point?” He looked at Bruenor, smile beaming, and all of a sudden he began a riotous laugh. “Bwahaha!” he roared. “Durned if it ain’t the craziest plan I’ve e’er heared!”
“And yet, you are here,” Catti-brie said dryly.
“Wouldn’t miss it for all the ale in Waterdeep!” the black-bearded dwarf howled. “So ye got a place for Athrogate and Amber Gristle O’Maul on yer boat, good King Bruenor?”
Bruenor and Catti-brie looked to each other again, and shrugged. What did they have to lose, after all, for neither doubted the fighting prowess of this pair, particularly Athrogate and those devastating morningstars he swung around with such ease and aplomb. Their job here with this force of a hundred Gutbusters was to keep the orcs in the large encampment on the eastern side of the Surbrin Bridge from joining in the fight in front of Mithral Hall on the western bank. Who better to hold a choke point than Athrogate, a dwarf as strong as a giant and more ferocious than a cornered wolverine?
“There they go,” Amber said, drawing their attention back across the river, where King Emerus and his army began their charge.
“Then here we go,” said Bruenor, and he called to Bungalow Thump to begin their most unusual foray. With a determined nod, Bruenor led his three companions to the lead boat.
General Dagnabbet looked around hopefully at the progress her charges had made in breaking free of Mithral Hall. The diversion had worked perfectly, the fiery carts and bombs driving back the orcs and creating enough confusion for Dagnabbet to get most of her shield dwarves out of the choke point of Mithral Hall’s eastern gate and into some defensive formations at least.
They had broken free, but surely it was to be a temporary and costly thing.
“They’ll be here,” King Connerad said to her, moving to her side and nodding hopefully.
Dagnabbet nodded back, but her eyes remained on the front lines, where the orc force, so clearly superior to her own, was regrouping, and to the north, where the sounds of a second enemy force could be heard, roaring around the mountain.
And to the Surbrin Bridge, where, already, the lead orc runners from the vast encampments of the eastern bank were making their appearance on the field.
“They better be,” she said to her king and friend.
The lines wavered back and forth, dwarves and orcs falling to stone that was soaked under pools of blood.
Then came a roar from the north, and King Connerad, General Dagnabbet, and the other dwarves looked up the western bank of the Surbrin.
As did the orcs, and they were the ones who began to cheer at the sight of their reinforcing brethren.
But a second roar overwhelmed the first, drawing the attention of the combatants again, and this time, the dwarves of Mithral Hall were the ones who knew hope.
A second dwarven army had come, the shield dwarves charging down behind the orcs from the northern encampment, slicing into their ranks. The fight for the second front was on in full.
Dagnabbet and Connerad retreated to a higher vantage point where they could oversee the two fronts, and it didn’t take long for the general of Mithral Hall to inform King Connerad that the arrival of King Emerus and his boys wouldn’t be enough.
“That’s the one camp from the north,” she explained. “The small one. The bigger group’ll be along soon enough’s me guess.”
“If them orcs’re even needin’ it,” King Connerad said, looking then to the Surbrin Bridge, its wide lane thick with orc reinforcements swarming in from the east. Beyond the bridge in the eastern fields came a line of monsters that extended out of Connerad’s sight, with ogres and giants and goblins rushing eagerly for the battle. That line probably stretched all the way to Felbarr, he realized.
So Connerad was thinking that they would need to retreat back into Mithral Hall, and they were ready for that contingency. He looked to the fight in the north.
“Find us a way to bring them boys from Felbarr in aside us,” he instructed Dagnabbet, who was already doing exactly that. “King Bruenor’s got to be in that bunch, Moradin watch over him. We’ll put a sting on the dogs this day, don’t ye doubt, but we’re not to fight to the last.”
General Dagnabbet wanted to argue, but she could not. They wouldn’t win with the influx from the Surbrin Bridge, and if the much larger orc force they knew to be farther north came sweeping down, the dwarven force in the north would be quickly surrounded and obliterated.
She was about to suggest a clever strike to the north, to link with the dwarves up there and bring them fast to Mithral Hall, but her budding plan fell apart a moment later when still more horns began to blow, and a flotilla appeared in the river, a score of small boats, elven boats, sweeping downstream for the bridge.
On the center and lead boat of that flotilla stood King Bruenor Battlehammer, feet spread wide, hands on strong hips, chin tilted defiantly at the enemy standing on the Surbrin Bridge. Athrogate and Ambergris flanked him, with Catti-brie behind, her eyes already closed as she fell into her spellcasting, calling deep into the elemental powers of her magical ring, following the connection to a place of fire.
Bruenor stood rock solid at the prow even as the missiles began to rain down at them. He drew his axe and pulled his shield off his back, and banged his axe on his shield with a drumlike cadence while he sang an old dwarven battle song, one at once rousing and mournful:
We speak with hammer, axe, and maul
We call to gods in Mor’din’s Hall
We stand our ground, await our fall
For then we’ll know the grandest feast
With poking beard and upraised chin
For though we fall, the clan she’ll win
To die this day for kith and kin
But kill the ugly goblin beast
Pile heavy the stones
To warm me bones …
Spears and arrows reached for them from the river’s eastern bank, monsters running to pace them so they could continue their rain. The lines of orcs crossing the Surbrin Bridge paused in their charge for the fight at Mithral Hall’s door, and instead turned their war whoops and their sights on the flotilla of dwarves being delivered to them where they stood. They too bent back their bows and let fly their spears and javelins.
Those boats nearest the eastern bank took the brunt of the missile barrage, and dwarves growled and cried out, and dwarves fell writhing in pain, or fell into the cold waters to be swept away, or fell dead.
Behind Bruenor, Athrogate glanced over at Amber, neither of them smiling any longer. They still had a long way to go, and under this rain of missiles, would any be alive by the time they threw their grapnels?
But Bruenor held his place and sang all the louder, and many of the Gutbusters took up the cadence, clanging their spiked gauntlets together. Up came Bruenor’s shield, picking off an arrow aimed for his face, and a second arrow sank deeply into it as he brought it back in front of him.
The red-bearded dwarf didn’t blink.
Athrogate looked to Catti-brie. “Don’t ye miss, girl,” he whispered, though he was sure she couldn’t even hear him, so far into her trance was she.
“Wouldn’t that be the wreck of it?” Amber agreed, and Athrogate chuckled—or started to, until an ogre-thrown rock cracked him in the chest and sent him down hard in the boat.
Sitting, the black-bearded dwarf shook his head so fiercely that his lips flapped loudly. He jumped to his feet and hoisted the rock, then turned to the east and heaved it with all his considerable, magically-enhanced giant strength. The heavy missile flew faster and farther than the ogre’s throw, to the surprise and demise of one ugly orc, who went flying away under the heavy strike.