The four companions, wearing layers of fur and with blood thickened from years of living in the harshness of Icewind Dale, were not overly bothered by the wintry conditions they found waiting for them not so far north of Luskan. The snow was deep in some places, the trails icy in others, but the group plodded along. Bruenor led Catti-brie and Regis, plowing a trail with his stout body, with Drizzt guiding them from along the side.
Their progress was wonderful, given the season and the difficult terrain, but of course Bruenor found a reason to grumble. "Damn twinkly elf don't even break the crust!" he muttered, crunching through one snow drift that was more than waist high, while Drizzt skipped along on the crusty surface of the snow, half-skating, half-running. "Gotta get him to eat more and put some meat on them skinny limbs!"
Behind the dwarf, Catti-brie merely smiled. She knew, and so did Bruenor, that Drizzt's grace was more a measure of balance than of weight. The drow knew how to distribute his weight perfectly, and because he was always balanced, he could shift that weight to his other foot immediately if he felt the snow collapsing beneath him. Catti-brie was about Drizzt's height and was even a bit lighter than him, but there was no way she could possibly move as he did.
Because he was atop the snow instead of plowing through it, Drizzt was afforded a fine vantage point of the rolling white lands all around. He noted a trail not far to the side - a recent one, where someone or something had plodded along, much as Bruenor was doing now.
"Hold!" the drow called. Even as he spoke, Drizzt noted another curious sight, that of smoke up ahead, some distance away, rising in a thin line as if from a chimney. He considered it for just a moment, then glanced back to the trail, which seemed to be going in that general direction. He wondered if the two were somehow connected. A trapper's house, perhaps, or a hermit.
Figuring that the friends could all use a bit of rest, Drizzt 'made good speed for the trail. They had been out from Luskan for nearly a tenday, finding good shelter only twice, once with a farmer the first night and another night spent in a cave.
Drizzt wasn't as hopeful for shelter when he arrived at the line in the snow and saw footprints more than twice the size of his own.
"What'd'ye got, elf?" Bruenor called.
Drizzt motioned for the group to be quiet and for them to come and join him.
"Big orcs, perhaps," he remarked when they were all there. "Or small ogres."
"Or barbarians," Bruenor remarked. "Them folk got the biggest feet I ever seen on a human."
Drizzt examined one clear print more carefully, bending over to put his eyes only a few inches from it. He shook his head. "These are too heavy, and those who made them wore hard boots, not the doeskin Wulfgar's people would wear," he explained.
"Ogres, then," said Catti-brie. "Or big orcs."
"Plenty of those in these mountains," Regis put in.
"And heading for that line of smoke," Drizzt explained, pointing ahead to the thin plume.
"Might be their kinfolk making the smoke," Bruenor reasoned. With a wry grin, the dwarf turned to Regis. "Get to it, Rumblebelly."
Regis branched, thinking then that perhaps he had done too well with that last orc camp, when he and Bruenor were making their way to Luskan. The halfling wasn't going to shy from his responsibilities, but if these were ogres, he'd be sorely overmatched. And Regis knew that ogres favored halfling as one of their most desired meals.
When Regis came out of his contemplation, he noted that Drizzt was looking at him, smiling knowingly, as if he'd read the halfling's every thought.
"This is no job for Regis," the dark elf said.
"He done it on the way to Luskan," Bruenor protested. "Done it well, too."
"But not in this snow," Drizzt replied. "No thief would be able to find appropriate shadows in this white-out. No, let us go in together to see what friends or enemies we might find."
"And if they are ogres?" Catti-brie asked. "Ye thinking we're overdue for a fight?"
Drizzt's expression showed clearly that the notion was not an unpleasant one, but he shook his head. "If they do not concern us, then better that we do not concern them," he said. "But let us learn what we might - it may be that we will find shelter and good food for the night."
Drizzt moved off to the side and a little ahead, and Bruenor led the way along the carved trail. The dwarf brought out his large axe, slapping its handle across his shield hand, and set his one-horned helmet firmly on his head, more than ready for a fight. Behind him, Catti-brie set an arrow to Taulmaril and tested the pull.
If these were ogres or orcs and they happened to have a decent shelter constructed, then Catti-brie fully expected to be occupying that shelter long before nightfall. She knew Bruenor Battle-hammer too well to think that the dwarf would ever walk away from a fight with either of those beasts.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Yer turn to get the firewood," Donbago snarled at his younger brother, Jeddith. He pushed the young man toward the tower door. "We'll all be frozen by morning if ye don't bring it!"
"Yeah, I know," the younger soldier grumbled, running a hand through his greasy hair and scratching at some lice. "Damn weather. Shouldn't be this cold yet."
The other two soldiers in the stone tower grumbled their agreement. Winter had come early, and with vigor, to the Spine of the World, sweeping down on an icy wind that cut right through the stones of the simple tower fortress to bite at the soldiers. They did have a fire burning in the hearth, but it was getting thin, and they didn't have enough wood to get through the night. There was plenty to be found, though, so none of them were worried.
"If ye help me, we'll bring enough to get it blazing," Jeddith observed, but Donbago grumbled about taking his turn on the tower top watch, and headed for the stairs even as Jeddith started for the outside door.
A breeze whistling in through the opened door pushed Donbago along as he made the landing to the second floor, to find the other two soldiers of the remote outpost.
"Well, who's up top?" Donbago scolded.
"No one," answered one of the pair, scaling the ladder running up from the center of the circular floor to the center of the ceiling. "The trapdoor's frozen stuck."
Donbago grumbled and moved to the base of the ladder, watching as his companion for the sentry duty banged at the metal trapdoor. It took them some time to break through the ice, and so Donbago wasn't on the rooftop and didn't have to watch helplessly as Jeddith, some thirty feet from the tower door, bent over to retrieve some deadwood, oblivious to the hulking ogre that stepped out from behind a tree and crushed his skull with a single blow from a heavy club.
Jeddith went down without a sound, and the marauder dragged him out of sight.
The brute working at the back of the tower was noisier, throwing a grapnel attached to a heavy rope at the tower's top lip, but its tumult was covered by the banging on the metal trapdoor.
Before Donbago and his companion had the door unstuck, the half-ogre grabbed the knotted rope in its powerful hands and walked itself right up the nearly thirty feet of the tower wall, heaving itself to the roof.
The brute turned about, reaching for a large axe it had strapped across its back, even as the door banged open and Donbago climbed through.
With a roar, the half-ogre leaped at him, but it wound up just bowling the man aside. Fortune was with Donbago, and the half-ogre's axe got hooked on the heavy strapping. Still, the man went flying down hard against the tower crenellation, his breath blasting away.
Gasping, Donbago couldn't even cry out a warning as his companion climbed onto the roof. The half-ogre tore its axe free.
Donbago winced and grimaced as the brute cut his companion nearly in half. Donbago drew his sword and forced himself to his feet and into a charge. He let his rage be his guide as he closed on the brute, saw his companion, his friend, half out of the trapdoor, squirming in the last moments of his life. A seasoned warrior, Donbago didn't let the image force him into any rash movements. He came in fast and furiously, but in a tempered manner, launching what looked like a wild swing then retracting the sword just enough so that the brute's powerful parry whistled past without hitting anything.
Now Donbago came forward with a stab, and another, driving the brute back and opening its gut.
The half-ogre wailed and tried to retreat, but lost its footing on the slippery stone and went down hard.
On came Donbago, leaping forward with a tremendous slash, but even as his sword descended, the half-ogre's great leg kicked up, connecting solidly and launching the man into a head-over-heels somersault. His blow still landed, though, and the ragged half-ogre had to work hard to regain its footing.
Donbago was up before it, stabbing and slashing. He kept looking from his target to his dead friend, letting the rage drive him on. Even as the ogre attacked he scored a deep strike. Still, in his offensive stance, he couldn't get aside, and he took a glancing blow from that awful axe. Then he took a heavy punch in the face, one that shattered his nose, cracked the bones in both his cheeks, and sent him skidding back hard into the wall.
He slumped there, telling himself that he had to shake the black spots out of his eyes, had to get up and in a defensive posture, telling himself that the brute was falling over him even then, and that he would be crushed and chopped apart.
With a growl that came from deep in his belly, the dazed and bleeding Donbago forced himself to his feet, his sword before him in a pitiful attempt to ward what he knew would be a killing blow.
But the half-ogre wasn't there. It stood, or rather knelt on one knee by the open trapdoor, clutching at its belly, holding in its entrails, the look on its ugly face one of pure incredulity and pure horror.
Not wanting to wait until the beast decided if the wound was mortal or not, Donbago rushed across the tower top and smashed his sword repeatedly on the half-ogre's upraised arm. When that arm was at last knocked aside, the man continued to bash with every ounce of strength and energy, again spurred on by the sight of his dead companion and by the sudden fear that his brother -
His brother!
Donbago cried out and bashed away, cracking the beast's skull, knocking it flat to the stone. He bashed away some more, long after the half-ogre stopped moving, turning its ugly head to pulp.
Then he got up and staggered to the open hatch, trying to pull his torn friend all the way through. When that didn't work, Donbago pushed the man inside instead, holding him as low as he could so that the fall wouldn't be too jarring to the torn corpse.
Sniffling away the horror and the tears, Donbago called out for the others to secure the tower, called out for someone to go and find his brother.
But he heard the fighting from below and knew that no one was hearing him.
Without the strength to rush down to join them, Donbago considered his other options and worried, too, that other brutes might be climbing up behind him.
He started to turn away from the trapdoor and the spectacle of his dead friend in the room below, but stopped as he saw another of the soldiers rush up the stairs to make the landing at the side of the second level.
"Ogres!" the man cried, stumbling for the ladder. He made it to the base, almost, but then a half-ogre appeared on the landing behind him and launched a grapnel secured to a chain. It hooked over the man's shoulder even as he grabbed the ladder.
Donbago yelled out and started to go down after him, but with a single mighty jerk, an inhumanly powerful tug, the half-ogre tore the man from the ladder, so instantly, so brutally, that Donbago had to blink away the illusion that the man had simply disappeared.
Or part of him had, at least, for still holding the ladder below him was the man's severed arm.
Donbago looked over to the landing just in time to see the man's last moments as the half-ogre pummeled him down to the stone floor. Then the brute looked up at Donbago, smiling wickedly.
The battered Donbago rolled away from the trapdoor and quickly turned the metal portal over and closed it, then rolled on top of it using his body as a locking bar.
A glance at the dead ogre on the tower top reminded him of his vulnerability up there. Hearing no noise from below other than the distant fighting, Donbago leaped up and ran to the back lip of the tower, pulling free the grapnel. He took it with him as he dived back to cover the trapdoor, pulling the rope up the tower's side from there.
A few moment's later, he felt the first jarring blow from beneath him, a thunderous report that shook the teeth in his mouth.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Drizzt noted that the tower door was ajar, and noted, too, the crimson stain on the snow near some trees not far away. Then he heard the shout from the tower top.
He motioned for his friends to be alert and ready, then sprinted off to the side, flanking the tower, trying to get a measure of what was happening and where he would best fit into the battle.
Catti-brie and Bruenor stayed on the ogre trail, but moved more cautiously then, motioning to Drizzt. To the drow's surprise, Regis did not remain with the pair. The halfling ran off to the left, flanking the tower the other way. He plowed through the snow, then finally reached a patch of wind-blown stone and sprinted off from shadow to shadow, keeping low and moving swiftly, heading around the back.
Drizzt couldn't suppress a grin, thinking that Regis was typically trying to find an out-of-the-way hiding spot.
That smile went away almost immediately, though, as the drow came to understand that the threat was imminent, that indeed battle was already underway. He saw a man, his tunic and face bloody, sprint out of the open tower door and rush off to the side, screaming for help.
A hulking form, a large and ugly ogre, chased after him in close pursuit, its already bloody club raised high.
The man had a few step lead, but that wouldn't last in the deep snow, Drizzt knew. The ogre's longer and stronger legs would close the gap fast, and that club. . . .
Drizzt turned away from the tower in pursuit of the pair. He managed to offer a quick hand signal to Bruenor and Catti-brie, showing them his intent and indicating that they should continue on to the tower. He ran on, his light steps keeping him atop the snow pack.
At first Drizzt feared that the ogre would get to the fleeing man first, but the man put on a burst of speed and dived headlong over the side of a ridge, tumbling away in the snow.
The ogre stopped at the ridge, and Drizzt yelled out. The brute seemed more than happy to spin about and fight this newest challenger. Of course, the eager gleam in the ogre's eye melted away, and the stupid grin became an expression of surprise indeed when the ogre recognized that this newest challenger was not another human, but a drow elf.
Drizzt went in hard, scimitars whirling, hoping to make a quick kill. Then he could see to the wounded man, and he could get back to the tower and help his friends.
But this brute was no ordinary ogre. This was a seasoned warrior, nine feet of muscle and bone with the agility to maneuver its heavy spiked club with surprising deftness.
Drizzt's eagerness nearly cost him dearly, for as he came ahead, scimitars twirling in oppositional arcs, the quick-footed ogre stepped back just out of range and brought its club across with a tremendous sweep, taking one scimitar along with it. Drizzt was barely able to keep a grip on the weapon. If he'd dropped it, he might never find it in the deep snow.
Drizzt managed not only to get his second blade, in his right hand, out of the way of the blow, but he got in a stab that bloodied the ogre's trailing forearm. The brute accepted the sting, though, in exchange for slipping through its real attack. Lifting its heavy leg and following the sweep of the club with a mighty kick, it caught Drizzt on the shoulder and launched him a dozen spinning feet through the air to crash down into the snow.
The drow recognized his error, then, and was only glad that he had made the error out in the open, where he could fast recover. If he had gotten kicked like that inside the tower, he figured he'd now be little more than a red stain on the stone wall.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
They saw the drow's signal, but neither Bruenor nor Catti-brie were about to abandon Drizzt as he chased off after the ogre - until they heard the cry for help, as pitiful a wail as either had ever heard, coming from inside the tower.
"Ye keep yer damned shots higher than me head!" Bruenor yelled to his girl, and the dwarf bent his shoulders low and rambled on for the tower door, gaining speed, momentum, and fury.
Catti-brie worked hard to keep up, just a few feet behind, Taulmaril in hand, leveled and ready.
There was nothing subtle or quiet about the dwarfs charge, and predictably, Bruenor was met at the doorway by another hulking form. The dwarf's axe chopped hard. Catti-brie's arrow slammed the brute in the chest. Those two blows, combined with the sturdy dwarf's momentum, got Bruenor crashing into the main area of the tower's lowest floor.
This opponent, a half-ogre and a tough one at that, wasn't finished. It managed a counterstrike with its club, bouncing a mighty hit off Bruenor's shoulder.
"Ye got to do better than that!" the dwarf bellowed, though in truth, the blow hurt.
Smiling in spite of the pain, Bruenor swiped his axe across. The half-ogre stumbled out of reach but came back forward for a counter too soon. Bruenor's backhand caught it flat against the ribs, stealing its momentum and its intended attack.
The half-ogre staggered, giving Bruenor the time to set his feet properly and begin again. The next hit wasn't with the flat of the axe, but with the jagged, many-notched head, a swipe that cut a slice right down the battered brute's chest.
Before Bruenor could begin to celebrate the apparent victory, though, a second half-ogre leaped out from the stairway, slamming into its mortally wounded companion and taking both of them crashing over Bruenor, burying the dwarf beneath nearly a ton of flesh and bone.
The dwarf needed Catti-brie sorely at that point, but a call from above told him that, perhaps, so did someone else.
At the back of the tower, in close to the base of the wall and listening intently, Regis heard Bruenor's charge. He didn't have any great urge to go around with the dwarf, though, for Bruenor's tactics were straightforward, muscle against muscle, trading punch for punch.
Joining in that strategy against ogres, Regis wouldn't last beyond the first blow.
A cry from above jarred the halfling. He started to climb hand over hand, picking holds in the cold, cracked stone. By the time he was halfway up, his poor fingers were scraped and bleeding, but he kept going, moving with deceiving swiftness, picking his holds expertly and nearing the top.
He heard a yell and a crash, then some heavy scuffling. Up he went with all speed, and he nearly slipped and fell, catching himself at the very last moment - and with more than a little luck.
Finally he put his hand on the lip of the tower top and peeked over. What he saw almost made him want to leap right off.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Poor Donbago, crying out repeatedly, only wanted to hold the I portal shut, to close his eyes and will all of this horror away. He was a seasoned fighter and had seen many battles and had lost many friends.
But not his brother.
He knew in his heart that Jeddith was down, and likely dead.
He knew in his heart that the tower was lost, and that there would be no escape. Perhaps if he just lay there long enough, using his body to block the trapdoor, the brutes would go away. He knew, after all, that ogres were not known for persistence or for cunning.
Most were not, at least.
Donbago hardly noticed the warmth at first, though he did smell the burning leather. He didn't understand - until a sharp pain erupted in his back. Reflexively, the man rolled, but he stopped at once, realizing that he had to hold the door shut.
He tried going back, but the metal was hot - so hot!
The ogres below must have been heating it with torches.
Donbago jumped atop the door, hoping his boots would insulate him from the heat. He heard a scream as one of his companions exited the tower, and, a few moments later, a roar from below, by the front door.
He was hopping, his boots smoking. He looked around frantically, searching for something he could use to place over the door, a loose stone in the crenellation, perhaps.
He went flying away as an ogre below leveled a tremendous blow to the door. A second strike, before Donbago could scramble back, had the portal bouncing open. A brute came through with amazing speed, obviously boosted to the roof by a companion.
Donbago, waves of pain still spreading from his broken face, leaped into the fray immediately and furiously, thinking of his brother with every mad strike. He scored a couple of hits on the ogre, which seemed truly surprised by his ferocity, but then its companion was up beside it. Two heavy clubs swatted at him, back and forth.
He ducked, he dodged, he didn't even try to parry the too-powerful blows, and his desperate offensive posture allowed him to manage another serious stab at the first brute, sending it sprawling to the stone.
Donbago got hit, knocked to his back, his sword flying, and before he even realized what had happened, the valiant soldier felt a strong hand grab his ankle.
In an instant, he was scooped aloft, hanging upside down at the end of a mighty ogre's arm.