They were frontiersmen, hunters and by brutal experience, warriors. Not a man or woman of Shallows was unfamiliar with the use of a blade, nor were any inexperienced in killing. Ores and goblins were all too common in the wilds.
The folk of Shallows knew well the habits of the creatures from the dark mountain holes, knew well the tendencies and the tricks of the wretched orc-kin.
Too well.
The scouting party out of Shallows was not too wary that night, despite the warnings from King Bruenor and his friends, and the tale of the disaster at Clicking Heels. Even as Drizzt was returning with the captured orc, a force of a dozen strong warriors was departing Shallows's southern gate, moving fast along ground comfortably familiar.
They spotted orc-sign soon after and agreed that it was two or three of the creatures at the most. Eager for some sport, the band deserted their information gathering mission and went on the hunt instead, coming down one fairly steep trail into a shallow, boulder-strewn dell. They knew they were close. Every sword, axe, and spear came out at the ready.
The point woman motioned back for the main group to hold fast, then she fell to her belly and started to crawl about a pair of boulders. A wide rin was on her face, for she expected the duo or trio of orcs to be waiting on the other side of that very rock, oblivious to the fact that they were about to die.
Her grin disappeared as she came around the far side to see not two, not three, but a score of the humanoid creatures, standing ready, weapons drawn.
Confident that she had not been seen but knowing well that her band had been spotted long before-likely as they were descending into the dell-the woman edged back around the boulders and turned into a sitting position. She was thinking to ward her friends away, or at least to assemble them in some kind of defensive position. She started to motion for them to do just that, swinging her arm up from pointing at them to showing the ridge behind.
She froze. Her face, gone stern from its previous smile, slipped into an expression of sheer dread. There, up on the ridge behind her fellows, the woman saw the unmistakable forms of many, many enemies.
A cry from back there, from the trailing human scout, confirmed the horror, and the other members of the party swung around. A horde of orcs came down fast, howling with every step. The woman started to scramble up to go and join her companions, but she fell back at the sound of footsteps rushing around and coming over the boulders. The score of orcs went right past her, bearing down on their prey, and the woman knew that her friends were doomed to a man. Too many enemies, she knew. Too many.
She fell back, recoiling instinctively from the horrible screams of agony that began to erupt all over the bloody battlefield. She saw one man go up several feet into the air at the end of a trio of orc spears. Howling and kicking, he somehow managed to fall back to his feet and somehow hold his balance, though he was surely mortally wounded.
He stood determinedly-until a group of orcs leaped atop him, smashing him down.
The woman melted back, crawling between the paired boulders, squeezing into the dark place underneath their abutting overhangs. She tried to control her breathing, tried to stifle the shrieks welling up within her. From under the stones she could not see the battlefield, but she could hear it well enough. Too well.
She lay there in the dark, terrified, for a long, long while after the cries had abated. She knew that at least one man had been dragged off as a prisoner.
But there was nothing she could do.
She lay there, praying every minute that some orc wouldn't happen by and notice her, and she held back her tears as the long night passed.
Overwhelmed and trembling, sheer exhaustion overcame her.
The sound of birds awakened her the next morning. Still terrified, it took every ounce of willpower she could muster to crawl out of that small cubby-hole. Coming out the way she had gone in, but feet first, was no easy task, physically or emotionally. Every inch that she moved out made her feel more vulnerable, and she almost expected a spear to be thrust into her belly at any time.
When she had to blink away the bright sunlight she gradually managed to sit up.
There she saw the bodies of her companions, hacked apart-an arm here, a head lying over there. The orcs had slaughtered them, had mutilated them.
Gasping for breath, the woman tried to turn to her side and stand, but stopped halfway and fell I to her knees, falling forward to all fours and vomiting.
It took her a long time to manage to stand, and a long time to wander past the carnage of those who had been her companions, her hunting partners, her friends. She didn't pause to reassemble any corpses, to look for lost limbs or lost heads, to count the bodies to try to determine how many, if any, had been taken off as prisoners.
It didn't seem to matter then, for she knew beyond doubt that any who had been dragged away were already dead.
Or wished they were.
She came up out of the dell slowly, cautiously, but no sign of the orc ambush group was to be found. The first step over that lip came hard to her, as did the second, but each subsequent stride moved more quickly, more determinedly, until she was running flat out across the mile of ground she needed to cover to get back to her home.
"It ain't right, I tell ye!" yelled one dwarf, who was a bit too full of the mead. The feisty fellow stood up on his chair and pounded his fist on the table in frustration. "Ye just can't be forgetting all the years! All the damned years! More'n any o' yerselfs'll e'er know!"
He ended by wagging an accusing finger at a group of humans seated at a nearby table in the crowded tavern.
Over at the bar, Shingles watched the spectacle with resignation, and he even gave a knowing nod of what was soon to come, when one the humans wagged a finger back at the drunk dwarf and told him to "sit down and shut his hairy mouth."
Was there anyone in Mirabar whose knuckles were not bruised from recent fights?
"Not another one, I pray," came a quiet voice to the side. Shingles turned to regard the dwarf who had taken the stool beside him. The old dwarf nodded and lifted his mug to second the sentiment, but he stopped before the mug even lifted from the bar. "Agrathan?" Shingles asked in surprise.
Councilor Agrathan, dirty and disguised, put a finger to pursed lips, motioning for old Shingles to calm down.
"Aye," he said quietly, looking around to make certain that none were watching. "I heard that trouble was brewing on the streets."
"Trouble's been brewing since yer fool marchion hauled Torgar Hammerstriker back from the road," Shingles pointed out. "Been a dozen fights every day and every night, and now the fool humans arc coming down here, and doin' nothing but causing more trouble."
"Those in the city above have come to view this as a test of loyalty," the councilor explained. "To blood or to town?"
"To town, which to them is of utmost importance." "Ye're speakin' like a human again," Shingles warned. "I'm just telling ye the truth of it," Agrathan protested. "If ye don't want to be hearing that truth, then don't be asking!"
"Bah!" Shingles snorted. He buried his face with the mug, swallowing half its contents in one big gulp. "What about the loyalty of the marchion to the folk o' Mirabar? Ain't that countin' for nothing?"
"Elastul's thinking that he did right by the folk of Mirabar by preventing Torgar from going to Mithral Hall, taking our secrets along with him," Agrathan replied, an argument that Shingles and all the others had heard countless times since Torgar's imprisonment.
"More years than ye'll know from the time yer mother dropped ye to the time they plant ye in the ground!" the drunk dwarf at the table shouted even more loudly and more vehemently.
He was wagging a fist at the men, not just a finger. He threw back his chair and staggered toward the men, who rose as one, along with many other humans in the establishment-and along with many, many dwarves, including the drunk's companions, who rushed to hold the drunk back.
"And more years than the marchion's to rule and to live, and more than the ten marchions before him and a good number yet to come," Shingles added privately to Agrathan. "Torgar and his kin been serving since Mirabar's been Mirabar. Ye just can't be throwing a fellow like that in yer jail and not expecting to stir the folk."
"Elastul remains firm that he did the right thing," Agrathan answered.
For just a moment, Shingles thought he caught a look of regret cross the councilor's face.
"I hope ye're telling him that he's a fool, then," Shingles bluntly replied.
Agrathan's expression went to a stem look.
"Ye should be watching your words concerning our leader," the councilor warned. "I took an oath of loyalty to Mirabar and one to Elastul when I took my place at the table of the Sparkling Stones."
"Are ye threatening me, Agrathan?" Shingles quietly and calmly asked.
"I'm advising you," Agrathan corrected. "Many ears are out and about, don't doubt. Marchion Elastul's well aware that there might be trouble."
"More trouble than Mirabar would e'er've knowed if he just let Torgar alone," Shingles grumbled.
Agrathan gave a great sigh. "I come to you to ask ye to help me calm things down a bit. The place is on the edge of a fall. I can smell it."
Even as he finished, the drunken dwarf broke free of his comrades and launched himself at the humans, beginning a brawl that quickly escalated.
"Well?" Agrathan yelled at Shingles as the place began to erupt. "Are you with me or against me?"
Shingles sat calmly, despite the tornado exploding into fury all around him. So there it was, presented calmly, a choice that he had been mulling over for a month. He looked around at the growing fight, man against dwarf and dwarf against dwarf. Of late, Shingles had been playing the part of the calming voice in these nightly brawls, had been taking a diplomatic route in the hopes that Elastul's imprisonment of Torgar would prove a temporary thing, maybe even that Elastul would come to see that he had erred in capturing Torgar in the first place.
"I'm with ye if ye can tell me truly that Elastul'll be lettin' Torgar out soon," he answered.
"The condition hasn't changed," Agrathan replied. "When Torgar denounces his road, Torgar walks free."
"Won't happen."
"Then he won't walk free. Elastul's not moving on this one."
A body came crashing past, flopping over the bar between the pair so quickly that neither was really sure if it had been a human or a dwarf.
"Are you with me or against me?" Agrathan asked again, for the fight was at the critical moment, obviously, just about to get out of control.
"Thought I gived ye me answer three tendays ago," Shingles replied.
As a reminder, he balled up his fist and laid Agrathan low with a single heavy punch.
For all the like-minded dwarves in the tavern that night, those on the line of divided loyalties, Shingles's action came as a signal to fight. For all those, human and dwarf, of the opposite mind, the punch thrown by this leader of Torgar's supporters was a call to arms.
Within seconds, everyone in the tavern was into it, and it began to spill onto the streets. Out there, of course, more were drawn in, mostly dwarves, and more on Shingles's side than opposing.
As the fight tilted Shingles's way, the Axe of Mirabar arrived in force, brandishing weapons and telling the dwarves to disperse. This time, unlike all the previous, the dwarf supporters of Torgar Hammerstriker were ready to take their case to a higher authority.
Many ran off at the first sign of the Axe, only to return in full battle gear, wearing mail and with weapons drawn, in numbers far greater than the ranks of the policing Axe. In the ensuing standoff, more and more of Shingles's allies ran to get their gear, as well, and many of those dwarves opposing Shingles threw insults freely, or warned against the action.
But surprisingly few would go to that next level and take up arms against their kin.
The standoff held for a long time, but as the dwarves' numbers increased-one hundred, two hundred, four hundred-the predominantly human soldiers of the Axe began to shrink back toward the lifts that would take them back to the overcity.
"Ye're not wanting this fight," Shingles called to them. He had taken his position at the front center of the mob of dwarves. "Not over that one dwarf ye got jailed."
"The marchion's word . . ." the leader of the Axe contingent yelled back.
"Won't be much good if ye're all dead, now will it?" Shingles interrupted.
He could hardly believe he was speaking those words aloud, could hardly believe that he, and those following him, were taking this road. It was a path that would lead to the overcity, certainly, and likely right out of the city. This wasn't like the initial riot, which was based solely on shock and sheer emotion. The tone was different. This was a revolt more than a riot.
"Seems ye got yer choice, boys," Shingles bellowed. "Ye want to fight us, then fight us, but one way or th' other, we're gettin' Torgar back among them where he's belongin'!"
As Shingles finished, he noticed the bloodied Agrathan standing off to the side, looking at him plaintively, a desperate expression begging him to reconsider this most dangerous course.
As he finished, the dwarves behind him, hundreds strong, gave out a round of wild cheers and began to move inexorably forward, like a great, unstoppable wave.
The doubt was easily recognizable on the faces of the Mirabarran soldiers, as clear as was the resolve stamped upon the grim face of every dwarf marching behind Shingles.
It wasn't much of a battle, there in the Undercity, in the great corridor just off the lift area. A few hits were traded, a couple of them serious, but the Axe gave way, running back to the room with all the lifting platforms and barring the doors. Shingles's dwarves pounded on them for a bit, but in an orderly fashion, they followed their leader down another side corridor, one that would get them to the surface along a winding, sloping tunnel.
Agrathan, his face bloody and bruised, stood before them, alone.
"Do not do this," the councilor pleaded.
"Get outta our way, Agrathan," Shingles told him, firmly but with a measure of respect. "Ye tried yer way in getting Torgar out-I know ye did-but Elastul's not for listening to ye. Well, he'll be listening to us!"
The cheers behind Shingles drowned out Agrathan's responses and told the councilor beyond all doubt that the dwarves would not be deterred. He turned and ran along the tunnel ahead of the marching mob, who took up an ancient war song, one that had rung out from Mirabar's walls many times over the millennia.
That sound, as much as anything else, nearly broke Agrathan's heart.