Despite his obvious anger and disappointment at the course of the battle thus far and the resiliency of Shallows's defenders, Obould had brought several hundred more orcs with him. As he had gone about the caverns of the Spine of the World with news of the entrapment of the dwarf king of Mithral Hall, many tribes had been eager to join in the glory of the slaughter.
"The town is softened, and their dead lay thick about our own," Urlgen argued, his voice rising.
Obould shot Urlgen a threatening glare, then led his son's gaze to the three large orcs standing together off to the side, each a chief of his respective tribe.
"We think the wizard is dead," Urlgen went on. "Arock hit the top of his tower and he did nothing at the end of the battle."
"Then why did you run away?"
"Too many dead," Urlgen echoed sarcastically.
Obould's eyes narrowed into that particular look the orc king had, which told all standing near to him to dive for cover. Urlgen did no such thing, though. The young, strong upstart puffed out his chest.
"The town will not stand against the next attack," Urlgen insisted. "And now, with more warriors, we can finish them easily."
Obould was nodding with every word of the seemingly obvious assessment, but then he replied, "Not now."
"They are ripe!"
"Too many dead," said Obould. "Use the giants to knock down their walls with rocks. Use the giants to topple the tower. We chase them out or leave them nothing to hide behind. Then we kill them, every one."
"Half the giants are gone," Urlgen informed his father.
Obould's bloodshot eyes widened, his jaw going tight with trembling rage.
"Chasing a scout from the town," Urlgen quickly added.
"Half!"
"A dangerous scout," said Urlgen. "One who holds a black panther as a companion."
Urlgen's face eased almost immediately. Ad'non had warned them about Drizzt Do'Urden, as Donnia had warned the giants. Given everything the drow had told the orc king about this unusual dark elf, it seemed that having half the giants chasing him away might not be so bad a trade off.
"Tell the giants who remain to throw their stones," Obould instructed. "Big stones. And send arrows of fire into the town. Burn it and bash it! Stomp it down flat! And tighten the ranks around the enemy. No escape!"
Urlgen's tusky smile showed his complete agreement. The two orcs both looked back at the battered town with supreme confidence that Shallows would fall and that all within would soon enough be dead.
A boulder clipped the stone above him, bouncing wildly past and showering him with chips of broken stone.
Drizzt ducked his head against the stinging shower and doggedly went back to his work, tightening a belt around a twisted ankle. That done, he stood gingerly and shifted his weight to the wounded foot, nodding grimly when it would still support his weight.
Still, where to go?
The pursuit had been dogged, a handful of giants chasing him through the long night. He had used every trick he knew-backtracking and setting strategic globes of darkness, climbing one tree and rushing across its boughs to another and another, coming down far to the side and sprinting off in a completely different direction-but still the giants hounded him.
It occurred to Drizzt that someone was guiding them. Given his reception at the first giant camp, when they had thought him an ally of some unknown drow, he could render a guess as to who-or at least what-that someone might be.
As dawn broke over the eastern horizon, and with the unerring pursuit close behind, Drizzt realized that his greatest advantage was fast diminishing. He understood, too, that his companion needed to be sent away to her rest.
"Guen," he called softly.
A moment later the great panther leaped across the narrow channel above Drizzt, settling on a stone at his shoulder height, a few feet away.
"Rest easy and rest quickly," Drizzt bade the panther, willing her away. "I will need you again, and soon I fear."
The cat gave a low growl that blew away on the wind, as Guenhwyvar seemed to dissipate in the air, becoming less than substantial, becoming the grayish mist, then nothing tangible at all.
Loud voices from not too far behind told Drizzt that he had better get moving. He took some comfort in the fact that he had led so many giants away from the battle at Shallows, and indeed, he had taken them far to the northwest, to the rougher and higher rocky ground. Every once in a while, the drow came out on a high ridge that offered him a view of the distant, battered town, and each time he could only clutch at the hope that his friends were all right, that they had held strong, or perhaps even that they had found a way to slip out and make a run to the south.
A boulder skipped into the narrow channel then, followed by the roar of the giants, and Drizzt had no further time for contemplation. He darted off as quickly as his twisted ankle would allow, moving on all fours at times as he scaled the steep inclines.
He was tiring, though, and he knew it, and he knew, too, that giants did not tire as quickly as the smaller races. He couldn't keep up the run for much longer, if the pursuit remained so dogged, nor could he hope to turn and face his pursuers. If it was one giant, perhaps, or even two, he might try, but not this many. All his warrior skills wouldn't hold him for long against a handful of mighty frost giants.
He needed another solution, a different escape route, and he found it in the form of a dark opening among a tumble of boulders against one rocky cliff facing. At first he thought the cave within to be nothing more than the sheltered and darkened area formed by the formation of the rocks, but then he saw a deeper opening at the back of the alcove, a crack in the ground barely wide enough for him to slip through. He fell to his belly and peered in, breathed in. His Underdark senses told him that this was no little hole in the ground, but something large and deep.
Drizzt crawled back out and surveyed the area. Did he want to end the chase then and there? Could his friends afford for him to release the giants of their pursuit, when the behemoths would surely turn right back to their stone-throwing positions?
But what choice did he really have? This pursuit was going to end soon either way, he knew.
With a reluctant sigh, the drow slipped into the cave and moved a bit deeper into the darkness, then sat and listened, and let his eyes adjust to the dramatic shift of light.
Within minutes, he heard the giants milling around outside, and their grumbling told him that they knew exactly where he had gone. The light in the cave increased slightly as the boulder tumble outside was thrown away. After more angry grumbling, including a suggestion that they go and get some orcs or someone named Donnia-and Drizzt recognized that as a drow name-to pursue the drow into the cave, the hole was blocked by a giant's face. How Drizzt wished he had Catti-brie's bow in hand!
More roars of protest and grumbling ensued, but only briefly, and the cave went perfectly dark. The ground shook beneath Drizzt, as the giants piled stones over the opening, sealing him in.
"Wonderful," Drizzt whispered.
He wasn't really worried for himself, though, for he could tell from the feel of the air that he would find another way out of the cave. How long that might take, though, he could not guess.
He feared that by the time he got out and circled back to Shallows, there would be no town standing.
His left arm was all but useless. He knew that the bone had been shattered under the worg's tremendous bite, and the torn skin was taking on the unhealthy color of a dire infection, but he couldn't worry about that.
Regis pressed the charmed orc to urge the exhausted mount on faster, though he feared that he was pushing his luck more than pushing the obviously angry worg. With the limitations of their shared vocabulary, the halfling had somehow managed to convince the orc that he knew where they could find big treasure, and a horde of weapons for the other orcs, and so the dim-witted creature had beaten its worg into submission, and into letting go of Regis's shattered arm, and had forced the snarling and nipping creature to take a second rider on its broad back.
It certainly hadn't been a comfortable or comforting ride for Regis. Sitting before the big, smelly orc placed the halfling's dangling feet to the sides of the worg's neck-within nipping distance, he found out, whenever the great wolf slowed.
As they left the battlefield far behind that night and pressed on through the morning, the halfling had found the orc's resistance growing. He used his enchanted, mesmerizing ruby constantly on the orc, not ordering it but rather tempting it, again and again, with techniques the sneaky halfling had perfected on the streets of Calimport years before.
But even with the gemstone, Regis knew that he was on the edge of disaster. The worg could not be so tempted-certainly not as much as the taste of halfling flesh would tempt such a cruel creature-and the orc was not a patient thing. Even worse, several times, the halfling thought he would simply faint and fall off, for his shattered arm was shooting lines of burning, overwhelming, and disorienting pain through him.
He thought of his friends, and he knew that he could not falter, not for himself and not for them.
All Regis could think to do was to keep them running fast to the south and hope that some opportunity opened before him where he could kill the pair, or at least where he could slip away. And despite his trepidation, the halfling understood well that he could never have covered as much ground on foot as they had on the worg. When the dawn brightened the ground the next morning, they found that the mountains to the south, across the eastern stretches of Fell Pass, were much closer than those they had left behind.
The orc wanted to sleep, something that Regis knew he could not allow. The halfling was sure that as soon as the brute closed its eyes, the worg would make a meal of him.
"Into the mountains," he told it with his halting command of the Orcish language. "We camp here and dwarves will find us."
Grumbling, the orc pressed the overburdened worg on.
As they came into the foothills, Regis watched every turn and every ridge, looking desperately for a place where he could make his escape. A small cliff face, perhaps, where he could quietly slip over and disappear into the brush below, or a river that might wash him far enough away from these two wretched companions.
He saw a couple of promising spots but let them pass by, too afraid to make such a break. He tried to bolster his resolve by reminding himself of the predicament of his friends to the north, but still he saw nothing that offered more than a fleeting hope.
Still, from the tone of the orc's complaints, Regis understood that he would have to do something soon.
"We gonna camp," the orc informed him.
Regis's eyes went wide and he looked around desperately for a way out. His darting eyes looked down to his small mace, belted at his hip.
He thought of taking it out then and there and smashing the worg atop the head. He couldn't get his hand to move to it, though, whatever the logic, for he knew beyond doubt that he would have to be perfect, and that the blow would have to fell the creature, which he sincerely doubted it would. Even without the wound to his arm, Regis was no match for a worg, and he knew it. He couldn't begin to hurt the thing before those snapping jaws found his throat.
The only thing keeping him alive was the orc, the worg's master.
The halfling nearly fell over when the orc stopped the mount suddenly, on a small and level landing along the mountainside. Regis remembered to leap off the worg's back only when the snarling creature turned and nipped at his foot. He ran to the side and the worg turned and darted at him, but the orc intercepted and scolded it, kicking it in the rump as it turned around.
The worg retreated across the way, looking back at Regis with its hateful eyes, a stare that told him that as soon as the orc fell asleep, the great wolf would have him dead.
He found his solution in the fact that this particular clearing was surrounded by trees. Deathly exhausted and afraid, and terribly sore from his ordeal, Regis moved to an appropriate tree and started to climb.
"Where you's going?" the orc demanded.
"I'll keep the first watch," Regis replied.
"The dog will watch." The orc indicated the worg, which looked at Regis and bared its filthy fangs.
"As will I!" the halfling insisted.
He scrambled up the tree as fast as his broken arm would permit, moving well out of the orc's reach as quickly as he could manage.
He found a nook and settled his back against the trunk, his legs stretched out over a branch, and tried to secure himself as much as possible. He thought to go down and prod the orc into moving along, but in truth, he knew that they all needed rest, particularly the worg-though if the thing fell over dead of exhaustion, the halfling wouldn't shed a tear.
Every few seconds, Regis glanced back to the north, toward distant Shallows, and thought of his friends.
He could only hope they were still alive.
"Three buildings burning strong," Dagnabbit informed Catti-brie and Wulfgar as they kept a vigil at Bruenor's bedside.
They had set up the infirmary in the low workmen tunnels beneath Withegroo's tower, a series of connecting passageways that allowed for inspections at key points of the tower's supporting base structure. This was actually the strongest section of the town, even stronger than the tower above, for the dwarves Withegroo had hired to build his tower had fashioned the tunnels first, reinforcing them against weather and enemies alike, for they alone had provided shelter during the months of the tower's construction.
Still, the cramped tunnels were hardly suited for their present purposes as makeshift bunkers. The friends were in the largest room -the only place that could rightly be called a room-and Wulfgar couldn't even stand up straight. He had to belly crawl through a ten-foot passageway to get in.
"The buildings are stone," Catti-brie argued.
"With a lot of wood support," said the dwarf. He moved beside Bruenor and sat down. "Giants threw a few firepots, and the rocks are coming in fast now."
"It's an organized group," said Wulfgar.
"Aye," Dagnabbit agreed, "and they're blocking all the south. We got no way out." He looked at Bruenor, so pale and weak, his broad chest barely rising with each breath. "Exceptin' that way."
Bruenor surprised them all, then, by opening one eye and even managing to turn his head toward Dagnabbit.
"Then ye take a bunch o' stinkin' orcs along for yer ride," the dwarf said, and he sank back into his bed.
Catti-brie was there in an instant, hovering over him, but after a quick inspection she realized that he had slipped off into that semi-conscious state once again.
"Where's Rockbottom?" she asked, referring to the one cleric who had remained with their group of dwarves when the expeditionary force had split.
"Tending Withegroo, though I'm thinking the old mage's about finished," Dagnabbit answered. "Rockbottom says he's done all he can for Bruenor for now, and he's thinking like I'm thinking that we're gonna be needin' that wizard to have any chance o' getting outta here."
Catti-brie bit back her urge to scream at poor Dagnabbit, for she realized that despite his seemingly callous attitude toward Bruenor, he was as torn up as she was about the dwarf king's predicament. Dagnabbit was above all else pragmatic, though. He was the commander of Mithral Hall's forces, and always followed the road that promised the best chance of positive result, whatever the emotional burden. Catti-brie understood that he was as angry and frustrated as she at their helplessness, at having to sit there and watch the life ebb out of Bruenor.
Dagnabbit moved to the side of Bruenor's bed and gently lifted the signature one-horned helm off the dwarf king's head, rolling it about in his hands.
"Even if we find a way outta here, L don't know if we can take him with us," the dwarf said quietly.
Wulfgar was up in an instant, towering over Dagnabbit despite his necessary crouch.
"You would leave him?" he roared incredulously.
Dagnabbit didn't shrink from the barbarian's wild stare. He looked from Bruenor to Wulfgar, then back to his beloved king.
"If bringing him means throwing out all chance of us running by them, yeah," he admitted. "Bruenor'd not want to go if going meant getting them he loves slaughtered, and ye're knowing that."
"Get Rockbottom back in here to tend to him."
"Rockbottom can't do a thing for him, and ye heared it yerself when last he was here," said Dagnabbit. "Damned orc got him good. He'll be needin' a bigger priest than Rockbottom, might be even that he'll be needin' a whole bunch o' priests."
Wulfgar started toward Dagnabbit, but Catti-brie grabbed him by the arms and forced him to stop and look at her. He saw only sympathy there, a complete understanding of, and agreement with, his frustrations.