At the base of the great glacier, hidden off in a small dell where one of the ice spurs wound through broken rifts and boulders, was a place the barbarians called Evermelt. A hot spring fed a small pool, the warmed waters waging a relentless battle against ice floes and freezing temperatures. Tribesmen stranded inland by early snows, who could not find their way to the sea with the reindeer herd, often sought refuge at Evermelt, for even in the coldest months of winter, unfrozen, sustaining water could be found here. And the warming vapors of the pool made the temperatures of the immediate area bearable, if not comfortable.
Yet the warmth and drinking water were only a part of Evermelt’s worth. Beneath the opaque surface of the misty water lay a hoard of gems and jewels, gold and silver, that rivaled the treasure of any king in this entire region of the world. Every barbarian had heard of the legend of the white dragon, but most considered it to be just a fanciful tale recounted by self-important old men for the amusement of children. For the dragon hadn’t emerged from its hidden lair in many, many years.
Wulfgar knew better, though. In his youth his father had accidentally stumbled upon the entrance to the secret cave. When Beornegar later learned the legend of the dragon, he understood the potential value of his discovery and had spent years collecting all of the information he could find concerning dragons, especially white dragons, and Ingeloakastimizilian in particular.
Beornegar had been killed in a battle between tribes before he could make his attempt at the treasure, but living in a land where death was a common visitor, he had foreseen that grim possibility and had imparted his knowledge to his son. The secret did not die with him.
* * * * *
Wulfgar felled a deer with a throw of Aegis-fang and carried the beast the last few miles to Evermelt. He had been to this place twice before, but when he came upon it now, as always, its strange beauty stole his breath. The air above the pool was veiled in steam, and chunks of floating ice drifted through the misty waters like meandering ghost ships. The huge boulders surrounding the area were especially colorful, with varying hues of red and orange, and they were encapsulated in a thin layer of ice that caught the fire of the sun and reflected brilliant bursts of sparkling colors in startling contrast to the dull gray of the misted glacier ice. This was a silent place, sheltered from the mournful cry of the wind by walls of ice and rock, free of any distractions.
After his father was killed, Wulfgar had vowed, in tribute to the man, to make this journey and fulfil his father’s dream. Now he approached the pool reverently, and though other matters pressed in on him, he paused for reflection. Warriors of every tribe on the tundra had come to Evermelt with the same hopes as he. None had ever returned.
The young barbarian resolved to change that. He firmed his proud jaw and set to work skinning the deer. The first barrier that he had to overcome was the pool itself. Beneath its surface the waters were deceptively warm and comfortable, but anyone who emerged from the pool into the air would be frozen dead in minutes.
Wulfgar peeled away the hide of the animal and began scraping away the underlying layer of fat. He melted this over a small fire until it attained the consistency of thick paint, then smeared it over every inch of his body. Taking a deep breath to steady himself and focus his thoughts on the task at hand, he took hold of Aegis-fang and waded into Evermelt.
Under the deadening veil of mist, the waters appeared serene, but as soon as he moved away from the edges of the pool, Wulfgar could feel the strong, swirling currents of the hot stream. Using a jutting rock overhang as a guidepost, he approximated the exact center of the pool. Once there, he took a final breath and, confident of his father’s instructions, opened himself to the currents and let himself sink into the water. He descended for a moment, then was suddenly swept away by the main flow of the stream toward the north end of the pool. Even beneath the mist the water was cloudy, forcing Wulfgar to trust blindly that he would break free of the water before his breath ran out.
He was within a few feet of the ice wall at the pool’s edge before he could see the danger. He braced himself for the collision, but the current suddenly swirled, sending him deeper. The dimness darkened to blackness as he entered a hidden opening under the ice, barely wide enough for him to slip through, though the unceasing flow of the stream gave him no choice.
His lungs cried for air. He bit down on his lip to keep his mouth from bursting open and robbing him of the last wisps of precious oxygen.
Then he broke into a wider tunnel where the water flattened out and dropped below the level of his head. He hungrily gasped in air, but he was still sliding along helplessly in the rushing water.
One danger was past.
The slide twisted and turned, and the roar of a waterfall clearly sounded up ahead. Wulfgar tried to slow his ride, but couldn’t find a handhold or any kind of a brace, for the floor and walls were of ice smoothed under centuries of the flowing stream. The barbarian tossed wildly, Aegis-fang flying from his hands as he futilely tried to drive them into the solid ice. Then he came into a wide and deep cavern and saw the drop before him.
A few feet beyond the crest of the fall were several huge icicles that stretched from the domed ceiling down below Wulfgar’s line of sight. He saw his only chance. When he approached the lip of the drop, he sprang outward, wrapping his arms around an icicle. He dropped quickly as it tapered, but saw that it widened again as it neared the floor, as though a second icicle had grown up from the floor to meet this one.
Safe for a moment, he gazed around the strange cavern in awe. The waterfall captured his imagination. Steam rose from the chasm, adding a surrealistic flavor to the spectacle. The stream poured over the drop, most of it continuing on its way through a small chasm, barely a crack in the floor thirty feet below at the base of the fall. The droplets that cleared the chasm, though, solidified as they separated from the main flow of the stream and bounced away in all directions as they hit the cavern’s ice floor. Not yet completely hardened, the cubes stuck fast where they landed, and all about the base of the waterfall were strangely sculpted piles of broken ice.
Aegis-fang flew over the drop, easily clearing the small chasm to smash into one such sculpture, scattering shards of ice. Though his arms were numbed from the icicle slide, Wulfgar quickly rushed over to the hammer, already freezing fast where it had landed, and heaved it free of the ice’s hardening grip.
Under the glassy floor where the hammer had cracked away the top layers; the barbarian noticed a dark shadow. He examined it more closely, then backed away from the grizzly sight. Perfectly preserved, one of his predecessors had apparently gone over the long drop, dying in the deepening ice where he had landed. How many others, Wulfgar wondered, had met this same fate?
He didn’t have time to contemplate it further. One of his other concerns had been dispelled, for much of the cavern’s roof was only a few feet below the daylit surface and the sun found its way in through those parts that were purely ice. Even the smallest glow coming from the ceiling was reflected a thousand times on the glassy floors and walls, and the whole cavern virtually exploded in sparkling bursts of light.
Wulfgar felt the cold acutely, but the melted blubber had protected him sufficiently. He would survive the first dangers of this adventure.
But the spectre of the dragon loomed somewhere up ahead.
Several twisting tunnels led off of the main chamber, carved by the stream in long-past days when its waters ran high. Only one of these was large enough for a dragon, though. Wulfgar contemplated searching out the others first, to see if he might possibly find a less obvious way into the lair. But the glare and distortions of light and the countless icicles hanging from the ceiling like a predator’s teeth dizzied him, and he knew that if he got lost or wasted too much time, the night would fall over him, stealing his light and dropping the temperature below even his considerable tolerance.
So he banged Aegis-fang on the floor to clear away any remaining ice that clung to it and started straight ahead down the tunnel he believed would lead him to the lair of Ingeloakastimizilian.
* * * * *
The dragon slept soundly beside its treasure in the largest chamber of the ice caves, confident after many years of solitude that it would not be disturbed. Ingeloakastimizilian, more commonly known as Icingdeath, had made the same mistake that many of its kin, with their lairs in similar caves of ice, had made. The flowing stream that offered entrance to and escape from the caves had diminished over the years, leaving the dragon trapped in a crystalline tomb.
Icingdeath had enjoyed its years of hunting deer and humans. In the short time the beast had been active, it had earned quite a respectable reputation for havoc and terror. Yet dragons, especially white ones who are rarely active in their cold environments, can live many centuries without meat. Their selfish love of their treasure can sustain them indefinitely, and Icingdeath’s hoard, though small compared to the vast mounds of gold collected by the huge reds and blues that lived in more populated areas, was the largest of any of the tundra-dwelling dragons.
If the dragon had truly desired freedom, it could probably have broken through the cavern’s ice ceiling. But Icingdeath considered the risk too great, and so it slept, counting its coins and gems in dreams that dragons considered quite pleasant.
The slumbering worm didn’t fully realize, though, just how careless it had become. In its unbroken snooze, Icingdeath hadn’t moved in decades. A cold blanket of ice had crept over the long form, gradually thickening until the only clear spot was a hole in front of the great nostrils, where the rhythmic blasts of exhaled snores had kept the frost away.
And so Wulfgar, cautiously stalking the source of the resounding snores, came upon the beast.
Viewing Icingdeath’s splendor, enhanced by the crystalline ice blanket, Wulfgar looked upon the dragon with profound awe. Piles of gems and gold lay all about the cavern under similar blankets, but Wulfgar could not pull his eyes away. Never had he viewed such magnificence, such strength.
Confident that the beast was helplessly pinned, he dropped the hammer’s head down by his side. “Greetings, Ingeloakastimizilian,” he called, respectfully using the beast’s full name.
The pale blue orbs snapped open, their seething flames immediately apparent even under their icy veil. Wulfgar stopped short at their piercing glare.
After the initial shock, he regained his confidence. “Fear riot, mighty worm,” he said boldly. “I am a warrior of honor and shall not kill you under these unfair circumstances.” He smiled wryly. “My lust shall be appeased by simply taking your treasure!”
But the barbarian had made a critical mistake.
A more experienced fighter, even a knight of honor, would have looked beyond his chivalrous code, accepted his good fortune as a blessing, and slain the worm as it slept. Few adventurers, even whole parties of adventurers, had ever given an evil dragon of any color an even break and lived to boast of it.
Even Icingdeath, in the initial shock of its predicament, had thought itself helpless when it had first awakened to face the barbarian. The great muscles, atrophied from inactivity, could not resist the weight and grip of the ice prison. But when Wulfgar mentioned the treasure, a new surge of energy blew away the dragon’s lethargy.
Icingdeath found strength in anger, and with an explosion of power beyond anything the barbarian had ever imagined, the dragon snapped its cordlike muscles, sending great chunks of ice flying away. The entire cavern complex trembled violently, and Wulfgar, standing on the slippery floor, was thrown down on his back. He rolled aside at the very last moment to dodge the spearlike tip of a falling icicle dislodged by the tremor.
Wulfgar regained his feet quickly, but when he turned, he found himself facing a horned white head, leveled to meet his eyes. The dragon’s great wings flexed outward, shaking off the last remnants of its blanket, and the blue eyes bore into Wulfgar.
The barbarian desperately looked around for an escape. He pondered throwing Aegis-fang, but knew that he couldn’t possibly kill the monster with a single strike. And, inevitably, the killing breath would come.
Icingdeath considered its foe for a moment. If it breathed, it would have to settle for frozen flesh. It was a dragon, after all, a terrible worm, and it believed, probably rightly so, that no single human could ever defeat it. This huge man, however, and particularly the magical hammer, for the dragon could sense its might, disturbed the worm. Caution had kept Icingdeath alive through many centuries. It would not close to melee with this man.
The cold air gathered in its lungs.
Wulfgar heard the intake of air and reflexively dove to the side. He couldn’t fully escape the blast that followed, a frosting cone of unspeakable cold, but his agility, combined with the deer blubber, kept him alive. He landed behind a block of ice, his legs actually burned by the cold and his lungs aching. He needed a moment to recover, but he saw the white head lifting slowly into the air, taking away the angle of the meager barrier.
The barbarian could not survive a second breath.
Suddenly, a globe of darkness engulfed the dragon’s head and a black-shafted arrow, and then another, whirred by the barbarian and thudded unseen behind the blackness.
“Attack boy! Now!” cried Drizzt Do’Urden from the entrance to the chamber. The disciplined barbarian instinctively obeyed his teacher. Grimacing through the pain, he moved around the ice block and closed in on the thrashing worm.
Icingdeath swung its great head to and fro, trying to shake free of the dark elf’s spell. Hate consumed the beast as yet another stinging arrow found its mark. The dragon’s only desire was to kill. Even blinded, its senses were superior; it marked out the drow’s direction easily and breathed again.
But Drizzt was well-versed in dragon lore. He had gauged his distance from Icingdeath perfectly, and the strength of the deadly frost fell short.
The barbarian charged in on the distracted dragon’s side and slammed Aegis-fang with all of his great might against the white scales. The dragon winced in agony. The scales held under the blow, but the dragon had never felt such strength from a human and didn’t care to test its hide against a second strike. It turned to release a third blast of breath on the exposed barbarian.
But another arrow cracked home.
Wulfgar saw a great gob of dragon blood splatter on the floor beside him, and he watched the globe of darkness lurch away. The dragon roared in anger. Aegis-fang struck again, and a third time. One of the scales cracked and flaked away, and the sight of exposed flesh renewed Wulfgar’s hopes of victory.
Icingdeath had lived through many battles, though, and was far from finished. The dragon knew how vulnerable it was to the powerful hammer and kept its concentration focused enough to retaliate. The long tail circled over the scaly back and cracked into Wulfgar just as the barbarian had begun another swing. Instead of the satisfaction of feeling Aegis-fang crushing through dragon flesh, Wulfgar found himself slammed against a frozen mound of gold coins twenty feet away.
The cavern spun all about him, his watering eyes heightening the starred reflections of light and his consciousness slipping away. But he saw Drizzt, scimitars drawn, advancing boldly toward Icingdeath. He saw the dragon poised to breath again. He saw, with crystalline clarity, the immense icicle hanging from the ceiling above the dragon.
Drizzt walked forward. He had no strategy against such a formidable foe; he hoped that he would spot some weakness before the dragon killed him. He thought that Wulfgar was out of the battle, and probably dead, after the mighty slash of the tail, and was surprised when he saw sudden movement off to the side.
Icingdeath sensed the barbarian’s move as well and sent its long tail to squelch any further threat to its flank.
But Wulfgar had already played his hand. With the last burst of strength he could muster, he snapped up from the mound and launched Aegis-fang high into the air.
The dragon’s tail struck home and Wulfgar didn’t know if his desperate attempt was successful. He thought that he saw a lighter spot appear on the ceiling before he was thrown into blackness.
Drizzt bore witness to their victory. Mesmerized, the drow watched the silent descent of the huge icicle.
Icingdeath, blinded to the danger by the globe of darkness and thinking that the hammer had flown wildly, waved its wings. The clawed forelegs had just begun to lift up when the ice spear smashed into the dragon’s back, driving it back to the floor.
With the ball of darkness planted on its head, Drizzt couldn’t see the dragon’s dying expression.
But he heard the killing “crack” as the whiplike neck, launched by the sudden reversal of momentum, rolled upward and snapped.
The heat of a small fire brought Wulfgar back to consciousness. He came to his senses groggily and, at first, could not comprehend his surroundings as he wriggled out of a blanket that he did not remember bringing. Then he l recognized Icingdeath, lying dead just a few yards away, the huge icicle rooted firmly in the dragon’s back. The globe of darkness had dissipated, and Wulfgar gawked at how accurate the drow’s approximated bowshots had been. One arrow protruded from the dragon’s left eye, and the black shafts of two others stuck out from the mouth.
Wulfgar reached down to grasp the security of Aegisfang’s familiar handle. But the hammer was nowhere near him. Fighting the pervading numbness in his legs, the barbarian managed to stand up, searching around frantically for his weapon. And where, he wondered, was the drow?
Then he heard the tapping coming from a side chamber. Stiff-legged, he moved cautiously around a bend. There was Drizzt, standing atop a hill of coins, breaking away its icy covering with Wulfgar’s warhammer.
Drizzt noticed Wulfgar approaching and bowed low in greeting. “Well met, Dragon’s Bane!” he called.
“And to you, friend elf,” Wulfgar responded, thoroughly pleased to see the drow again. “You have followed me a long way.”
“Not too far,” Drizzt replied, chopping another chunk of ice off the treasure. “There was little excitement to be found in Ten-Towns, and I could not let you forge ahead in our competition of kills! Ten and one-half to ten and one-half,” he declared, smiling broadly, “and a dragon to split between us. I claim half the kill!”
“Yours and well earned,” Wulfgar agreed. “And claim to half the booty.”
Drizzt revealed a small pouch hanging on a fine silver chain around his neck. “A few baubles,” he explained. “I need no riches and doubt that I would be able to carry much out of here, anyway! A few baubles will suffice.”
He sifted through the portion of the pile he had just freed from the ice, uncovering a gem-encrusted sword pommel, its black adamantite hilt masterfully sculpted into the likeness of the toothed maw of a hunting cat. The lure of the intricate workmanship pulled at Drizzt, and with trembling fingers he slid the rest of the weapon out from under the gold.
A scimitar. Its curving blade was of silver, and diamond-edged. Drizzt raised it before him, marveling at its lightness and perfect balance.
“A few baubles . . . and this,” he corrected.
* * * * *
Even before he had encountered the dragon, Wulfgar wondered howe he would escape the underground caverns. “The current of the water is too strong and the ledge of the waterdrop too high to go back through Evermelt,” he said to Drizzt, though he knew that the drow would have surmised the same thing. “Even if we somehow find our way through those barriers, I have no more deer blubber to protect us from the cold when we leave the water.”
“I also have no mind to pass through the waters of Evermelt again,” Drizzt assured the barbarian. “Yet I rely on my considerable experience to bring me into such situations prepared! Thus the wood for the fire and the blanket that I put upon you, both wrapped in sealskin. And also this” He produced a three-pronged grapple and some light but strong cord from his belt. He had already discovered an escape route.
Drizzt pointed up to a small hole in the roof above them. The icicle that had been dislodged by Aegis-fang had taken part of the chamber’s ceiling with it. “I cannot hope to throw the hook so high, but your mighty arms should find the toss a minor challenge.”
“In better times, perhaps,” relied Wulfgar. “But I have no strength to make the attempt.” The barbarian had come closer to death than he realized when the dragon’s breath had descended upon him, and with the adrenelin of the fight now used up, he felt the pervading cold keenly. “I fear that my unfeeling hands could not even close upon the hook!”
“Then run!” yelled the drow. “Let your chilled body warm itself.”
Wulfgar was off at once, jogging around the wide chamber, forcing his blood to circulate through his numbed legs and fingers. In a short while, he began to feel the inner warmth of his own body returning.
It took him only two throws to put the grapple through the hole and get it to catch fast on some ice. Drizzt was the first to go, the agile elf veritably running up the cord.
Wulfgar finished his business in the cavern, collecting a bag of riches and some other items he knew he would need. He had much more difficulty than Drizzt in ascending the cord, but with the drow’s assistance from above, he managed to scramble onto the ice before the westering sun dipped below the horizon.
They camped beside Evermelt, feasting on venison and enjoying a much-needed and well-deserved rest in the comfort of the warming vapors.
Then they were off again before dawn, running west. They ran side by side for two days, matching the frenzied pace that had brought them so far east. When they came upon the trails of the gathering barbarian tribes, both of them knew that the time had come for them to part.
“Farewell, good friend,” said Wulfgar as he bent low to inspect the trails. “I shall never forget what you have done for me.”
“And to you, Wulfgar,” Drizzt replied somberly. “May your mighty warhammer terrorize your enemies for years to come!” He sped off, not looking back, but wondering if he would ever see his large companion alive again.
* * * * *
Wulfgar put aside the urgency of his mission to pause and ponder his emotions when he first viewed the large encampment of the assembled tribes. Five years before, proudly carrying the standard of the Tribe of the Elk, the younger Wulfgar had marched to a similar gathering, singing the Song of Tempos and sharing strong mead with men who would fight, and possibly die, beside him. He had viewed battle differently then, as a glorious test of a warrior. “Innocent savagery,” he mumbled, listening to the contradiction of the words as he recalled his ignorance in those days so long ago. But his perceptions had undergone a considerable change. Bruenor and Drizzt, by becoming his friends and teaching him the intricacies of their world, had personalized the people he had previously looked upon merely as enemies, forcing him to face the brutal consequences of his actions.
A bitter bile welled in Wulfgar’s throat at the thought of the tribes launching another raid against Ten-Towns. Even more repulsive, his proud people were marching to war alongside goblins and giants.
As he neared the perimeter, he saw that there was no Hengorot, no ceremonial Mead Hall, in all the camp. A series of small tents, each bearing the respective standards of the tribal kings, comprised the center of the assembly, surrounded by the open campfires of common soldiers. By reviewing the banners, Wulfgar could see that nearly all of the tribes were present, but their combined strength was little more than half the size of the assembly five years previous. Drizzt’s observations that the barbarians hadn’t yet recovered from the massacre on Bryn Shander’s slopes rang painfully true.
Two guardsmen came out to meet Wulfgar. He had made no attempt to conceal his approach, and now he placed Aegis-fang at his feet and raised his hands to show that his intentions were honorable.
“Who are you that comes unescorted and uninvited to the council of Heafstaag?” asked one of the guards. He sized up the stranger, greatly impressed by Wulfgar’s obvious strength and by the mighty weapon lying at his feet. “Surely you are no beggar, noble warrior, yet you are unknown to us.”
“I am known to you, Revjak, son of Jorn the Red,” Wulfgar replied, recognizing the man as a fellow tribesman. “I am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, warrior of the Tribe of the Elk. I was lost to you five years ago, when we marched upon Ten-Towns he explained, carefully choosing his phrases to avoid the subject of their defeat. Barbarians did not talk of such unpleasant memories.
Revjak studied the young man closely. He had been friends with Beornegar, and he remembered the boy, Wulfgar. He counted the years, comparing the boy’s age when he last saw him against the apparent age of this young man. He was soon satisfied that the similarities were more than coincidental. “Welcome home, young warrior!” he said warmly. “You have fared well!”
“I have indeed,” replied Wulfgar. “I have seen great and wondrous things and learned much wisdom. Many are the tales that I shall tell, but, in truth, I have not the time to idly converse. I have come to see Heafstaag.”
Revjak nodded and immediately began leading Wulfgar through the rows of firepits. “Heafstaag will be glad of your return.”
Too quietly to be heard Wulfgar replied, “Not so glad.”
* * * * *
A curious crowd gathered around the impressive young warrior as he neared the central tent of the encampment. Revjak went inside to announce Wulfgar to Heafstaag and returned immediately with the king’s permission for Wulfgar to enter.
Wulfgar hoisted Aegis-fang upon his shoulder, but did not move toward the flap that Revjak held open. “What I have to say shall be spoken openly and before all the people,” he said loudly enough for Heafstaag to hear. “Let Heafstaag come to me!”
Confused murmurs sprouted up all about him at these words of challenge, for the rumors that had been running throughout the crowd did not speak of Wulfgar, the son of Beornegar, as a descendant of royal bloodlines.
Heafstaag rushed out of the tent. He moved to within a few feet of the challenger, his chest puffed out and his one good eye glaring at Wulfgar. The crowd hushed, expecting the ruthless king to slay the impertinent youth at once.
But Wulfgar matched Heafstaag’s dangerous stare and did not back away an inch. “I am Wulfgar,” he proclaimed proudly, “son of Beornegar, son of Beorne before him; warrior of the Tribe of the Elk, who fought at the Battle of Bryn Shander; wielder of Aegis-fang, the Giant Foe,” he held the great hammer high before him, “friend to dwarven craftsmen and student to a ranger of Gwaeron Windstrom; giantkiller and lair-invader; slayer of the frost giant chieftain, Biggrin,” he paused for a moment, his eyes squinted by a spreading smile, heightening the anticipation of his next proclamation. When he was satisfied that he held the crowd’s fullest attention, he continued, “I am Wulfgar, Dragon’s bane!”
Heafstaag flinched. No living man on all the tundra had claim to such a lofty title.
“I claim the Right of Challenge,” Wulfgar growled in a low, threatening tone.
“I shall kill you,” Heafstaag replied with as much calm as he could muster. He feared no man, but was wary of Wulfgar’s huge shoulders and corded muscles. The king had no intention of risking his position at this time, on the brink of an apparent victory over the fishermen of Ten-Towns. If he could discredit the young warrior, then the people would never allow such a fight. They would force Wulfgar to relinquish his claim, or they would kill him at once. “By what birthright do you make such a claim?”
“You would lead our people at the beckon of a wizard,” Wulfgar retorted. He listened closely to the sounds of the crowd to measure their approval or disapproval of his accusation. “You would have them raise their swords in a common cause with goblins and orcs!” No one dared protest aloud, but Wulfgar could sense that many of the other warriors were secretly enraged about the coming battle. That would explain the absence of the Mead Hall, as well, for Heafstaag was wise enough to realize that simmering anger often exploded in the high emotions of such a celebration.
Revjak interposed before Heafstaag could reply-with words or with weapon. “Son of Beornegar,” Revjak said firmly, “you have as yet earned no right to question the orders of the king. You have declared an open challenge; the rules of tradition demand that you justify, by blood or by deed, your right to such a fight.”
Excitement revealed itself in Revjak’s words, and Wulfgar knew immediately that his father’s old friend had intervened to prevent the start of an unrecognized, and therefore unofficial, brawl. The older man obviously had faith that the impressive young warrior could comply with the demands. And Wulfgar further sensed that Revjak, and perhaps many others, hoped the challenge would be successfully carried through.
Wulfgar straightened his shoulders and grinned confidently at his opponent, gaining strength in the continuing proof that his people were following Heafstaag’s ignoble course simply because they were bound to the one-eyed king and could produce no suitable challengers to defeat him.
“By deed,” he said evenly. Without releasing Heafstaag from his stare, Wulfgar unstrapped the rolled blanket he carried on his back and produced two spearlike objects. He tossed them casually to the ground before the King. Those in the crowd who could clearly see the spectacle gasped in unison, and even unshakable Heafstaag paled and rocked back a step.
“The challenge cannot be denied!” cried Revjak.
The horns of Icingdeath.
* * * * *
The cold sweat on Heafstaag’s face revealed his tension as he buffed the last burrs from the head of his huge axe. “Dragon’s bane!” he huffed unconvincingly to his standar bearer, who had just entered the tent. “More likely that he stumbled upon a sleeping worm!”
“Your pardon, mighty king,” the young man said. “Revjak has sent me to tell you that the appointed time is upon us.”
“Good!” sneered Heafstaag, running his thumb across the shining edge of the axe. “I shall teach the son of Beornegar to respect his king!”
The warriors from the Tribe of the Elk formed a circle around the combatants. Though this was a private event for Heafstaag’s people, the other tribes watched with interest from a respectable distance. The winner would hold no formal authority over them, but he would be the king of the most powerful and dominant tribe on the tundra.
Revjak stepped within the circle and moved between the two opponents. “I proclaim Heafstaag!” he cried. “King of the Tribe of the Elk!” He went on to read the one-eyed king’s long list of heroic deeds.
Heafstaag’s confidence seemed to return during the reciting, though he was a bit confused and angry that Revjak had chosen to proclaim him first. He placed his hands on his wide hips and glared around threateningly at the closest onlookers, smiling as they backed away from him, one by one. He did the same to his opponent, but again his bullying tactics failed to intimidate Wulfgar.
“And I proclaim Wulfgar,” Revjak continued, “son of Beornegar and challenger to the throne of the Tribe of the Elk!” The reciting of Wulfgar’s list took much less time than Heafstaag’s, of course. But the final deed that Revjak proclaimed brought a degree of parity to the two.
“Dragon’s bane!” Revjak cried, and the crowd, respectfully silent up to this point, excitedly began recounting the numerous rumors that had begun concerning Wulfgar’s slaying of Icingdeath.
Revjak looked to the two combatants and stepped out of the circle.
The moment of honor was upon them.
They waded around the circle of battle, cautiously stalking and measuring each other for hints of weakness. Wulfgar noted the impatience on Heafstaag’s face, a common flaw among barbarian warriors. He would have been much the same were it not for the blunt lessons of Drizzt Do’Urden. A thousand humiliating slaps from the drow’s scimitars had taught Wulfgar that the first blow was not nearly as important as the last.
Finally, Heafstaag snorted and roared in. Wulfgar also growled aloud, moving as if he would meet the charge head on. But then-he sidestepped at the last moment and Heafstaag, pulled by the momentum of his heavy weapon, stumbled past his foe and into the first rank of onlookers.
The one-eyed king recovered quickly and charged back out, doubly enraged, or so Wulfgar believed. Heafstaag had been king for many years and had fought in countless battles. If he had never learned to adjust his fighting technique, he would have long ago been slain. He came at Wulfgar again, by all appearances more out of control than the first time. But when Wulfgar moved out of the path, he found Heafstaag’s great axe waiting for him. The one-eyed king, anticipating the dodge, swung his weapon sideways, gashing Wulfgar’s arm from shoulder to elbow.
Wulfgar reacted quickly, thrusting Aegis-fang out defensively to deter any follow-up attacks. He had little weight behind his swing, but its aim was true and the powerful hammer knocked Heafstaag back a step. Wulfgar took a moment to examine the blood on his arm.
He could continue the fight.
“You parry well,” Heafstaag growled as he squared off just a few steps from his challenger. “You would have served our people well in the ranks. A loss it is that I must kill you!” Again the axe arced in, raining blow after blow in a furious assault meant to end the fight quickly.
But compared to the whirring blades of Drizzt Do’Urden, Heafstaag’s axe seemed to move sluggishly. Wulfgar had no trouble deflecting the attacks, even countering now and then with a measured jab that thudded into Heafstaag’s broad chest.
Blood of frustration and weariness reddened the one-eyed king’s face. “A tiring opponent will often move with all of his strength at once,” Drizzt had explained to Wulfgar during the weeks of training. “But rarely will he move in the apparent direction, the direction that he thinks you think he is moving in!”
Wulfgar watched intently for the expected feint.
Resigned that he could not break through the skilled defenses of his younger and faster foe, the sweating king brought the great axe up over his head and lunged forward, yelling wildly to emphasize the attack.
But Wulfgar’s reflexes were honed to their finest fighting edge, and the over-emphasis that Heafstaag placed upon the attack told him to expect a change in direction. He raised Aegis-fang as if to block the feigned blow, but reversed his grip even as the axe dropped down off of Heafstaag’s shoulder and came in deceptively low in a sidelong swipe.
Trusting fully in his dwarven-crafted weapon, Wulfgar shifted his front foot back, turning to meet the oncoming blade with a similarly angled cut from Aegis-fang.
The heads of the two weapons slammed together with incredible force. Heafstaag’s axe shattered in his hands, and the violent vibrations knocked him backward to the ground.
Aegis-fang was unharmed. Wulfgar could have easily walked over and finished Heafstaag with a single blow.
Revjak clenched his fist in anticipation of Wulfgar’s imminent victory.
“Never confuse honor with stupidity!” Drizzt had scolded Wulfgar after his dangerous inaction with the dragon. But Wulfgar wanted more from this battle than to simply, win the leadership of his tribe; he wanted to leave a lasting impression on all of the witnesses. He dropped Aegis-fang to the ground and approached Heafstaag on even terms.
The barbarian king didn’t question his good fortune. He sprang at Wulfgar, wrapping his arms about the younger man in an attempt to drive him backward to the ground.
Wulfgar leaned forward to meet the attack, planting his mighty legs firmly, and stopped the heavier man in his tracks.
They grappled viciously, exchanging heavy blows before managing to lock each other close enough to render punches ineffective. Both combatants’ eyes were blue and puffy, bruises and cuts welled on face and chest alike.
Heafstaag was the wearier, though, his barrel chest heaving with each labored breath. He wrapped his arms around Wulfgar’s waist and tried again to twist his relentless opponent to the ground.
Then Wulfgar’s long fingers locked onto the sides of Heafstaag’s head. The younger man’s knuckles whitened, the huge muscles in his forearms and shoulders tightened. He began to squeeze.
Heafstaag knew at once that he was in trouble, for Wulfgar’s grip was mightier than a white bear’s. The king struggled wildly, his huge fists slugging into Wulfgar’s exposed ribs, hoping only to break Wulfgar’s deadly concentration.
This time one of Bruenor’s lessons spurred him on: “Think o’ the weasel, boy, take the minor hits, but never, never let ‘em go once yer on!” His neck and shoulder muscles bulged as he drove the one-eyed king to his knees.
Horrified at the power of the grip, Heafstaag pulled at the younger man’s iron-hard forearms, trying vainly to relieve the growing pressure.
Wulfgar realized that he was about to kill one of his own tribe.
“Yield!” he shouted at Heafstaag, seeking some more acceptable alternative.
The proud king answered with a final punch.
Wulfgar turned his eyes to the sky. “I am not like him!” he yelled helplessly, vindicating himself to any who would listen. But there was only one path left open to him.
The young barbarian’s huge shoulders reddened as the blood surged through them. He saw the terror in Heafstaag’s eye transcend into incomprehension. He heard the crack of bone, he felt the skull squash beneath his mighty hands.
Revjak should have then stepped into the circle and heralded the new King of the Tribe of the Elk.
But, like the other witnesses around him, he stood unblinking, his jaw hanging open.
* * * * *
Helped by the gusts of the cold wind at his back, Drizzt sped across the last miles to Ten-Towns. On the same night that he had split from Wulfgar, the snow-capped tip of Kelvin’s Cairn came into view. The sight of his home drove the drow onward even faster, yet a nagging hint on the edge of his senses told him that something was out of the ordinary. A human eye could never have caught it, but the keen night vision of the drow finally sorted it out, a growing pillar of blackness blotting out the horizon’s lowest stars south of the mountain. And a second, smaller column, south of the first.
Drizzt stopped short. He squinted his eyes to be sure of his guess. Then he started again, slowly, needing the time to sort through an alternate route that he could take.
Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval were burning.
Caer-Dineval’s fleet trolled the southernmost waters of Lac Dinneshere, taking advantage of the areas left open when the people of Easthaven fled to Bryn Shander.
Caer-Konig’s ships were fishing their familiar grounds by the lake’s northern banks. They were the first to see the coming doom.
Like an angry swarm of bees, Kessell’s foul army swept right around the northern bend of Lac Dinneshere and roared down Icewind Pass.
“Up anchor!” cried Schermont and many other ship’s captains as soon as they had recovered from the initial shock. But they knew even then that they could not get back in time.
The leading arm of the goblin army tore into Caer- Konig.
The men on the boats saw the flames leap up as buildings were put to the torch. They heard the blood-crazed hoots of the vile invaders.
They heard the dying screams of their kin.
The women, children, and old men who were in Caer-Konig had no thoughts of resistance. They ran. For their lives, they ran. And the goblins chased them and cut them down.
Giants and ogres rushed down to the docks, squashing the pitiful humans who beckoned helplessly to the returning fleet, or forcing them into the cold death of the lake’s waters.
The giants carried huge sacks, and as the brave fishermen rushed into port, their vessels were pummeled and crippled by hurled boulders.
Goblins continued to flow into the doomed city, yet the bulk of the vast army’s trailing edge flowed past and continued on toward the second town, Caer-Dineval. By this time, the people in Caer-Dineval had seen the smoke and heard the screams and were already in full flight to Bryn Shander, or out on the docks begging their sailors to come home.
But Caer-Dineval’s fleet, though they caught the strength of the east wind in their rush back across the lake, had miles of water before them. The fishermen saw the pillars of smoke growing over Caer-Konig, and many suspected what was happening and understood that their flight, even with their sails so full of wind, would be in vain. Still, groans of shock and disbelief could be heard on every deck when the black cloud began its ominous climb from the northernmost sections of Caer-Dineval.
Then Schermont made a gallant decision. Accepting that his own town was doomed, he offered his help to his neighbors. “We can not get in!” he cried to a captain of a nearby ship. “Pass the word: away south! Dineval’s docks are yet clear!”
* * * * *
From a parapet on Bryn Shander’s wall, Regis, Cassius, Agorwal, and Glensather watched in horror as the wicked force flowed down the stretch away from the two sacked cities, gaining on the fleeing people of Caer-Dineval.
“Open the gates, Cassius!” Agorwal cried. “We must go out to them! They have no chance of gaining the city unless we slow the pursuit!”
“Nay,” replied Cassius somberly, painfully aware of his greater responsibilities. “Every man is needed to defend the city. To go out onto the open plain against such overwhelming numbers would be futile. The towns on Lac Dinneshere are doomed!”
“They are helpless!” Agorwal shot back. “Who are we if we can not defend our kinfolk? What right do we have to stand watching from behind this wall while our people are slaughtered?”
Cassius shook his head, resolute in his decision to protect Bryn Shander.
But then other refugees came running down the second pass, Bremen’s Run, fleeing the open town of Termalaine in their hysteria when they saw the cities across the way put to the torch. More than a thousand refugees were now within sight of Bryn Shander. Judging their speed and the distance remaining, Cassius estimated that they would converge on the wide field just below the principle city’s northern gates.
Where the goblins would catch them.
“Go,” he told Agorwal. Bryn Shander couldn’t spare the men, but the field would soon run red with the blood of women and children.
Agorwal led his valiant men down the northeastern road in search of a defensible position where they could dig in. They chose a small ridge, actually more like a crest where the road dipped slightly. Entrenched and ready to fight and die, they waited as the last of the refugees ran past, terrified, screaming because they believed they had no chance of reaching the safety of the city before the goblins descended. upon them.
Smelling human blood, the fastest runners of the invading army were right behind the trailing people, mostly mothers clutching their babies. Intent on their easy victims, the lead monsters never even noticed Agorwal’s force until the waiting warriors were upon them.
By then it was too late.
The brave men of Termalaine caught the goblins in a crossfire of bows and then followed Agorwal into a fierce sword rush. They fought fearlessly, as men who had accepted what fate had dealt them. Dozens of monsters lay dead in their tracks and more fell with each passing minute as the enraged warriors pressed into their ranks.
But the line seemed endless. As one goblin fell, two replaced it. The men of Termalaine were soon engulfed in a sea of goblins.
Agorwal gained a high point and looked back toward the city. The fleeing women were a good distance across the field, but moving slowly. If his men broke their ranks and fled, they would overtake the refugees before the slopes of Bryn Shander. And the monsters would be right behind.
“We must go out and support Agorwal!” Glensather yelled at Cassius. But this time the spokesman from Bryn Shander remained resolute.
“Agorwal has accomplished his mission,” Cassius responded. “The refugees will make the wall. I’ll not send more men out to die! Even if the combined strength of all of Ten-Towns were on the field, it would not be able to defeat the foe before us!” Already the wise spokesman understood that they could not fight Kessell on even terms.
The kindly Glensather looked crestfallen. “Take some troops down the hill,” Cassius conceded. “Help the exhausted refugees up the final climb.”
Agorwal’s men were hard-pressed now. The spokesman from Termalaine looked back again and was appeased; the women and children were safe. He scanned up to the high wall, aware that Regis, Cassius, and the others could see him, a solitary figure on the small rise, though he could not pick them out among the throng of spectators that lined Bryn Shander’s parapets.
More goblins poured into the fray, now joined by ogres and verbeeg. Agorwal saluted his friends in the city. His contented smile was sincere as he spun around and charged back down the grade to join his victorious troops in their finest moment.
Then Regis and Cassius watched the black tide roll over every one of the brave men of Termalaine.
Below them, the heavy gates slammed shut. The last of the refugees were in.
* * * * *
While Agorwal’s men had won a victory of honor, the only force that actually battled Kessell’s army that day and survived were the dwarves. The clan from Mithril Hall had spent days in industrious preparation for this invasion, yet it nearly passed them by altogether. Held by the wizard’s compelling will into discipline unheard of among goblins, especially varied and rival tribes, Kessell’s army had definite and direct plans for what they had to accomplish in the initial surge. As of this point, the dwarves were not included. But Bruenor’s boys had other plans. They weren’t about to bury themselves in their mines without getting to lop off at least a few goblin heads, or without crushing the kneecaps of a giant or two.
Several of the bearded folk climbed to the southern tip of their valley. When the trailing edge of the evil army flowed past, the dwarves began to taunt them, shouting challenges and curses against their mothers. The insults weren’t even necessary. Orcs and goblins despise dwarves more than anything else alive, and Kessell’s straightforward plan flew from their minds at the mere sight of Bruenor and his kin. Ever hungry for dwarven blood, a substantial force broke away from the main army.
The dwarves let them close in, goading them with taunts until the monsters were nearly upon them. Then Bruenor and his kin slipped back over the rocky ledge and down the steep drop.
“Come an’ play, stupid dogs,” Bruenor chuckled wickedly as he disappeared from sight. He pulled a rope off of his back. There was one little trick he had thought up that he was anxious to try out.
The goblins charged into the rocky vale, outnumbering the dwarves four to one. And they were backed by a score of raging ogres.
The monsters didn’t have a chance.
The dwarves continued to coax them on, down the steepest part of the valley, to the narrow, sloping ledges on the cliff face that crossed in front of the numerous entrances to the dwarven caves. An obvious place for an ambush, but the stupid goblins, frenzied at the sight of their most-hated enemies, came on anyway, heedless of the danger.
When the majority of the monsters were on the ledges and the rest were making the initial descent into the vale, the first trap was sprung. Catti-brie, heavily armed but positioned in the back of the inner tunnels, pulled a lever, dropping a post on the vale’s upper crest. Tons of rocks and gravel tumbled down upon the tail of the monster’s line, and those who managed to keep their precarious balance and escape the brunt of the avalanche found the trails behind them buried and closed to any escape.
Crossbows twanged from concealed nooks, and a group of dwarves rushed out to meet the lead goblins.
Bruenor wasn’t with them. He had hidden himself further back on the trail and watched as the goblins, intent on the challenge up ahead, passed him by. He could have struck then, but he was after larger prey, waiting for the ogres to come into range. The rope had already been carefully measured and tied off. He slipped one of its looped ends around his waist and the other securely over a rock, then pulled two throwing axes from his belt. It was a risky ploy, perhaps the most dangerous the dwarf had ever tried, but the sheer thrill of it became obvious in the form of a wide grin across Bruenor’s face when he heard the lumbering ogres approaching. He could hardly contain his laughter when two of them crossed before him in the narrow trail. Leaping from his concealment, Bruenor charged at the surprised ogres and threw the axes at their heads. The ogres twisted and managed to deflect the half-hearted throws, but the hurled weapons were merely a diversion.
Bruenor’s body was the true weapon in this attack. Surprised, and dodging from the axes, the two ogres were put off-balance. The plan was falling into place perfectly; the ogres could hardly find their footing. Twitching the powerful muscles in his stubby legs, Bruenor launched himself into the air, crashing into the closest monster. It fell with him onto the other.
And they tumbled, all three, over the edge.
One of the ogres managed to lock its huge hand onto the dwarf’s face, but Bruenor promptly bit it, and the monster recoiled. For a moment, they were a falling jumble of flailing legs and arms, but then Bruenor’s rope reached its length and sorted them out.
“Have a nice landing, boys,” Bruenor called as he broke free of the fall. “Give the rocks a big kiss for me!”
The backswing on the rope dropped Bruenor into the entrance of a mineshaft on the next lowest ledge as his helpless victims dropped to their deaths. Several goblins in line behind the ogres had watched the spectacle in blank amazement. Now they recognized the opportunity of using the hanging cord as a shortcut to one of the caves, and one by one they climbed onto the rope and started down.
But Bruenor had anticipated this as well. The descending goblins couldn’t understand why the rope felt so slick in their hands.
When Bruenor appeared on the lower ledge, the end o’ the rope in one hand and a lighted torch in the other, they figured it out.
Flames leaped up the oiled twine. The topmost goblin managed to scramble back on the ledge, the rest took the same route as the unfortunate ogres before them. One nearly escaped the fatal fail, landing heavily on the lower ledge. Before he could even regain his feet, though, Bruenor kicked him over.
The dwarf nodded approvingly as he admired the successful results of his handiwork. That was one trick he intended to remember. He slapped his hands together and darted back down the shaft. It sloped upward farther back to join the higher tunnels.
On the upper ledge, the dwarves were fighting a retreating action. Their plan was not to clash in a death fight outsside, but to lure the monsters into the entrances of the tunnels. With the desire to kill blotting out any semblance of reason, the dimwitted invaders readily complied, assuming, that their greater numbers were pushing the dwarves back into a corner.
Several tunnels soon rang out with the clash of sword on sword. The dwarves continued to back away, leading the monsters completely into the final trap. Then, from somewhere deeper in the caves, a horn sounded. On cue, the dwarves broke away from the melee and fled down the tunnels.
The goblins and ogres, thinking that they had routed their enemies, paused only to whoop out victory cries, then surged after the dwarves.
But deeper in the tunnels several levers were pulled. The final trap was sprung, and all of the tunnel entrances simply collapsed. The ground shook violently under the weight of the rock drop, the entire face of the cliff came crashing down.
The only monsters that survived were the ones at the very front of the lines. And disoriented, battered by the force of the drop and dizzied by the blast of dust, they were immediately cut down by the waiting dwarves.
Even the people as far away as Bryn Shander were shaken by the tremendous avalanche. They flocked to the north wall to watch the rising cloud of dust, dismayed for they beieved that the dwarves had been destroyed.
Regis knew better. The halfling envied the dwarves, safely entombed in their long tunnels. He had realized the moment he saw the fires rising from Caer-Konig that his delay in the city, waiting for his friend from Lonelywood, had cost him his chance to escape.
Now he watched helplessly and hopelessly as the black mass advanced toward Bryn Shander.
* * * * *
The fleets on Maer Dualdon and Redwaters had put back to their home ports as soon as they realized what was happening. They found their families safe for the present time, except for the fishermen of Termalaine who sailed into a deserted town. All that the men of Termalaine could do as they reluctantly put back out to sea was hope that their kin had made it to Bryn Shander or some other sanctuary; for they saw the northern flank of Kessell’s army swarming across the field toward their doomed city.
Targos, the second strongest city and the only one other than Bryn Shander with any hope of holding out for any length of time against the vast army, extended an invitation for Termalaine’s ships to tie up at her docks. And the men of Termalaine, soon to be numbered among the homeless themselves, accepted the hospitality of their bitter enemies to the south. Their disputes with Kemp’s people seemed petty indeed against the weight of the disaster that had befallen the towns.
* * * * *
Back in the main battle, the goblin generals that led Kessell’s army were confident they could overrun Bryn Shander before nightfall. They obeyed their leader’s plan to the letter: The main body of the army veered away from Bryn Shander and moved down the swath of open ground between the principle city and Targos, thus cutting any possibility of the two powerful cities linking their forces.
Several of the goblin tribes had broken away from the main group and were bearing down on Termalaine intent on sacking their third city of the day. But when they found the place deserted, they abstained from burning the buildings. Part of Kessell’s army now had a ready-made camp where they could wait out the coming siege in comfort.
Like two great arms, thousands of monsters raced south from the main force. So vast was Kessell’s army that it filled the miles of field between Bryn Shander and Termalaine and still had enough numbers to encircle the hill of the principle city with thick ranks of troops.
Everything had happened so quickly that when the goblins finally stalled their frenzied charge, the change seemed overly dramatic. After a few minutes of breath-catching calm, Regis felt the tension growing once again.
“Why don’t they just get it over with?” he asked the two spokesmen standing beside him.
Cassius and Glensather, more knowledgable in the ways of warfare, understood exactly what was happening.
“They are in no hurry, little friend,” Cassius explained. “Tine favors them.”
Then Regis understood. During his many years in the more populated southlands, he had heard many vivid tales describing the terrible horrors of a siege.
The image of Agorwal’s final salute out in the distance came back to him then, the contented look on the spokesman’s face and his willingness to die valiantly. Regis had no desire to die in any way, but he could imagine what lay before him and the cornered people of Bryn Shander.
He found himself envying Agorwal.
Drizzt soon came upon the battered ground where the army had crossed. The tracks came as no surprise to the drow, for the smoke pillars had already told him much of what had transpired. His only remaining question was whether or not any of the towns had held out, and he trotted on toward the mountain wondering if he had a home to return to.
Then he sensed a presence, an otherworldly aura that strangely reminded him of the days of his youth. He bent to check the ground again. Some of the marks were fresh troll tracks, and a scarring on the ground that could not have been caused by any mortal being. Drizzt looked around nervously, but the only sound was the mourn of the wind and the only silhouettes on the horizons were the peaks of Kelvin’s Cairn before him and the Spine of the World far to the south. Drizzt paused to consider the presence for a few moments, trying to bring the familiarity he felt into better focus.
He moved on tentatively. He understood the source of his recollections now, though their exact details remained elusive. He knew what he was following.
A demon had come to Icewind Dale.
Kelvin’s Cairn loomed much larger before Drizzt caught up to the band.
His sensitivity to creatures of the lower planes, brought about by centuries of associating with them in Menzoberranzan, told him that he was nearing the demon before it came into sight.
And then he saw the distant forms, a half-dozen trolls marching in a tight rank, and in their midst, towering over them, was a huge monster of the Abyss. No minor mane or midge, Drizzt knew at once, but a major demon. Kessell must be mighty indeed if he held this formidable monster under his control!
Drizzt followed them at a cautious distance. The band was intent on their destination, though, and his caution was unnecessary. But Drizzt wasn’t about to take any chances at all, for he had many times witnessed the wrath of such demons. They were commonplace in the cities of the drow, further proof to Drizzt Do’Urden that the ways of his people were not for him.
He moved in closer; for something else had grabbed his attention. The demon was holding a small object which radiated such powerful magic that the drow, even at this distance, could sense it clearly. It was too masked by the demon’s own emanations for Drizzt to get any clear perspectives on it, so he backed off cautiously once again.
The lights of thousands of campfires came into view as the party, and Drizzt, approached the mountain. The goblins had set scouts in this very area, and Drizzt realized that he had gone as far south as he could. He broke off his pursuit and headed for the better vantage points up the mountain.
The time best suited to the drow’s underworld vision was the lightening hours just before sunrise, and though he was tired, Drizzt was determined to be in position by then. He quickly climbed up the rocks, gradually working his way around to the southern face of the mountain.
Then he saw the campfires encircling Bryn Shander. Further to the east, embers glowed in the rubble that had been Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval. Wild shouts rang out from Termalaine, and Drizzt knew that the city on Maer Dualdon was in the hands of the enemy.
And then predawn blued the night sky, and much more became apparent. Drizzt first looked to the south end of the dwarven valley and was comforted that the wall opposite him had collapsed. Bruenor’s people were safe at least, and Regis with them, the drow supposed.
But the sight of Bryn Shander was less comforting. Drizzt had heard the boasts of the captured orc and had seen the tracks of the army and their campfires, but he could never have imagined the vast assemblage that opened up before him when the light increased.
The sight staggered him.
“How many goblin tribes have you collected, Akar Kessell?” he gasped.
“And how many of the giants call you master?”
He knew that the people in Bryn Shander would survive only as long as Kessell let them. They could not hope to hold out against this force. Dismayed, he turned to seek out a hole where he could get some rest. He could be of no immediate help here, and exhaustion was heightening his hopelessness, preventing him from thinking constructively.
As he started away frown the mountain face, sudden activity on the distant field caught his attention. He couldn’t make out individuals at this great distance, the army seemed just a black mass, but he knew that the demon had come forth. He saw the blacker spot of its evil presence wade out to a cleared area only a few hundred yards below the gates of Bryn Shander. And he felt the supernatural aura of the powerful magic he had earlier sensed, like the living heart of some unknown life form, pulsating in the demon’s clawed hands.
Goblins gathered around to watch the spectacle, keeping a respectable distance between them and Kessell’s dangerously unpredictable captain.
“What is that?” asked Regis, crushed in among the watching throng on Bryn Shander’s wall.
“A demon,” Cassius answered. “A bag one.”
“It mocks our meager defenses!” Glensather cried. “How can we hope to stand against such a foe?”
The demon bent low, involved in the ritual to call out the dweomer of the crystalline object. It stood the crystal shard upright on the grass and stepped back, bellowing forth the obscure words of an ancient spell, rising to a crescendo as the sky began to brighten with the sun’s imminent appearance.
“A glass dagger?” Regis asked, puzzled by the pulsating object.
Then the first ray of dawn broke the horizon. The crystal sparkled and summoned the light, bending the sunbeam’s path and absorbing its energy.
The shard flared again. The pulsations intensified as more of the sun crept into the eastern sky, only to have its light sucked into the hungry image of Crenshinibon.
The spectators on the wall gaped in horror, wondering if Akar Kessell held power over the sun itself. Only Cassius had the presence of mind to connect the power of the shard with the light of the sun.
Then the crystal began to grow. It swelled as each pulse attained its peak, then shrank back a bit while the next throb grew. Everything around it remained in shadow, for it greedily consumed all of the sunlight. Slowly, but inevitably, its girth widened and its tip rose high into the air. The people on the wall and the monsters on the field had to avert their eyes from the brightened power of Cryshal-Tirith. Only the drow from his distant vantage point and the demon who was immune to such sights witnessed another image of Crenshinibon being raised. The third Cryshal-Tirith grew to life. The tower released its hold on the sun as the ritual was completed, and all the region was bathed in morning sunlight.
The demon roared at its successful spellcasting and strode proudly into the new tower’s mirrored doorway; followed by the trolls, the wizard’s personal guard.
The besieged inhabitants of Bryn Shander and Targos looked upon the incredible structure with a confused mixture of awe, appreciation, and terror. They could not resist the unearthly beauty of Cryshal-Tirith, but they knew the consequences of the tower’s appearance: Akar Kessell, master of goblins and giants, had come.
* * * * *
Goblins and orcs fell to their knees, and all the vast army took up the chant of “Kessell! Kessell!” paying homage to the wizard with a fanatical devotion that brought shivers to the human witnesses to the spectacle.
Drizzt, too, was unnerved by the extent of the influence and devotion the wizard exerted over the normally independent goblin tribes. The drow determined at that moment that the only chance for survival for the people of Ten-Towns lay in the death of Akar Kessell. He knew even before he had considered any of the possible options that he would try to get to the wizard. For now, though, he needed to rest. He found a shadowed hole just back from the face of Kelvin’s Cairn and let his exhaustion overtake him.
Cassius was also tired. The spokesman had stayed on the wall throughout the cold night, examining the campsites to determine how much of the natural enmity between the unruly tribes remained. He had seen some minor discord and name-calling, but nothing extreme enough to give him hope that the army would fall apart early into the siege. He couldn’t understand how the wizard had achieved such a dramatic unification of the arch foes. The appearance of the demon and the raising of Cryshal-Tirith had shown him the incredible power that Kessell commanded. He had soon drawn the same conclusions as the drow.
Unlike Drizzt, though, the spokesman from Bryn Shander did not retire when the field calmed again, despite the protests of Regis and Glensather, concerned for his health. On his shoulders, Cassius carried the responsibility for the several thousand terrified people that lay huddled within his city’s walls and there would be no rest for him. He needed information; he needed to find a weak link in the wizard’s seemingly impregnable armor.
And so the spokesman watched diligently and patiently throughout the first long, uneventful day of the siege, noting the boundaries that the goblin tribes staked out as their own, and the order of hierarchy that determined the distance of each group from the center spot of Cryshal-Tirith.
* * * * *
Away to the east, the fleets of Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval moored alongside the docks of the deserted city of Easthaven. Several crews had gone ashore to gather supplies, but most of the people had remained on the boats, unsure of how far east Kessell’s black arm extended.
Jensin Brent and his counterpart from Caer-Konig had taken full control of their immediate situation from the decks of the Mist Seeker; the flagship of Caer-Dineval. All disputes between the two cities had been called off, temporarily at least - though promises of continued friendship were heard on the decks of every ship on Lac Dinneshere. Both spokesmen were agreed that they would not yet leave the waters of the lake and flee, for they realized that they had nowhere to go. All of the ten towns were threatened by Kessell, and Luskan was fully four hundred miles away and across the path of Kessell’s army. The ill-equipped refugees couldn’t hope to reach it before the first of winter’s snows caught up with them.
The sailors that had disembarked soon returned to the docks with the welcomed news that Easthaven had not yet been touched by the darkness. More crews were ordered ashore to collect extra food and blankets, but Jensin Brent played it cautiously, thinking it wise to keep most of the refugees out on the water beyond Kessell’s reach.
More promising news came a short time later.
“Signals from Redwaters, Spokesman Brent!” the watchman atop the Mist Seeker’s crow’s nest called out. “The people of Good Mead and Dougan’s Hole are unharmed!” He held up his newsbearer, a small glasspiece crafted in Termalaine and designed to focus the light of the sun for signaling across the lakes, using intricate though limited signaling codes. “My calls have been answered!”
“Where are they, then?” Brent asked excitedly.
“On the eastern banks,” the watchman replied. “They sailed out of their villages, thinking them undefendable. None of the monsters have yet approached, but the spokesmen felt that the far side of the lake would be safer until the invaders have departed.”
“Keep the communication open,” Brent ordered. “Let me know when you have more news.”
“Until the invaders have departed?” Schermont echoed incredulously as he moved to Jensin Brent’s side.
“A foolishly hopeful assessment of the situation, I agree,” said Brent.
“But I am relieved that our cousins to the south yet live!”
“Do we go to them? Join our forces?”
“Not yet,” answered Brent. “I fear that we would be too vulnerable on the open ground between the lakes. We need more information before we can take any effective action. Let us keep the communications flowing between the two lakes. Gather volunteers to carry messages to Redwaters.”
“They shall be sent off immediately,” agreed Schermont as he headed away.
Brent nodded and looked back across the lake at the dying plume of smoke above his home. “More information,” he muttered to himself.
Other volunteers headed out later that day into the more treacherous west to scout out the situation in the principle city.
Brent and Schermont had done a masterful job in quelling the panic, but even with the substantial gains in organization, the initial shock of the sudden and deadly invasion had left most of the survivors of Caer-Kiong and Caer-Dineval in a state of utter despair. Jensin Brent was the glowing exception. The spokesman from Caer-Dineval was a courageous fighter who steadfastly refused to yield until the last breath had left his body. He sailed his proud flagship around the moorings of the others, rallying the people with his cries of promised revenge against Akar Kessell.
Now he watched and waited on the Mist Seeker for the critical news from the west. In mid-afternoon, he heard the call he had prayed for.
“She stands!” the watcher on the crow’s nest cried out ecstatically when the newsbearer’s signal flashed in. “Bryn Shander stands!”
Suddenly, Brent’s optimism took on credibility. The miserable band of homeless victims assumed an angry posture bent on vengeance. More messengers were dispatched at once to carry the news to Redwaters that Kessell hadn’t yet achieved complete victory.
On both lakes, the task of separating the warriors from the civillians soon began in earnest, with the women and children moving to the heaviest and least seaworthy boats, and the fighting men boarding the fastest vessels. The designated warships were then moved to the outbound moorings, where they could put out quickly across the lakes.
Their sails were checked and tightened in preparation for the wild run that would carry their brave crews to war.
Or, by Jensin Brent’s furious decree, “The run that would carry their brave crews to victory!”
* * * * *
Regis had rejoined Cassius on the wall when the newsbearer’s signal had been spotted on the southwestern banks of Lac Dinneshere. The halfling had slept for most of the night and day, figuring that he might as well die doing the thing he loved to do best. He was surprised when he awakened, expecting his slumber to last into eternity.
Cassius was beginning to view things a bit differently, though. He had compiled a long list of potential breakdowns in Akar Kessell’s unruly army; orcs bullying goblins and giants in turn bullying both. If he could only find a way for them to hold out long enough for the obvious hatred between the goblin races to take its toll on Kessell’s force ....
And then, the signal from Lac Dinneshere and subsequent reports of similar flashes on the far side of Redwaters had given the spokesman sincere hope that the siege might well disintegrate and Ten-Towns survive.
But then the wizard made his dramatic appearance and Cassius’s hopes were dashed.
It began as a pulse of red light circling within the glassy wall at the base of Cryshal-Tirith. Then a second pulse, this one blue, started up the tower, rotating in the opposite direction. Slowly they circled the diameter of the tower, blending into green as they converged, then separating and continuing on their way. All who could see the tantalizing show stared apprehensively, unsure of what would happen next, but convinced that a display of tremendous power was forthcoming.
The circling lights speeded up, their intensity increasing with their velocity. Soon the entire base of the tower was ringed in a green blur, so bright that the onlookers had to avert their eyes. And out of the blur stepped two hideous trolls, each bearing an ornate mirror.
The lights slowed and stopped altogether.
The mere sight of the disgusting trolls filled the people of Bryn Shander with revulsion, but intrigued, none would turn away. The monsters walked right to the base of the city’s sloping hill and stood facing each other, aiming their mirrors diagonally toward each other, but still catching the reflection of Cryshal-Tirith.
Twin beams of light shot down from the tower, each striking one of the mirrors and converging with the other halfway between the trolls. A sudden pulse from the tower, like the flash of a lightning stroke, left the area between the monsters veiled in smoke, and when it cleared, instead of the converging beams of light, stood a thin, crooked shell of a man in a red, satiny robe.
Goblins fell to their knees again and hid their faces in the ground.
Akar Kessell had come.
He looked up in the direction of Cassius on the wall, a cocky smile stretched across his thin lips. “Greetings spokesman of Bryn Shander!” he cackled. “Welcome to my fair city!” He laughed wryly.
Cassius had no doubt that the wizard had picked him out, though he had no recollection of ever seeing the man and didn’t understand how he had been recognized. He looked to Regis and Glensather for an explanation, but they both shrugged their shoulders.
“Yes, I know you, Cassius,” Kessell said. “And to you, good Spokesman Glensather, my greetings. I should have guessed that you would be here; ever were the people of Easthaven willing to join in a cause, no matter how hopeless!”
Now it was Glensather’s turn to stare dumbfounded at his companions.
But again, there were no explanations forthcoming.
“You know of us,” Cassius replied to the apparition, “yet you are unknown to us. It seems that you hold an unfair advantage.”
“Unfair?” protested the wizard. “I hold every advantage, foolish man!”
Again the laugh. “You know of me - at least Glensather does.”
The spokesman from Easthaven shrugged his shoulders again in reply to Cassius’s inquiring glance. The gesture seemed to anger Kessell.
“I spent several months living in Easthaven,” the wizard snapped. “In the guise of a wizard’s apprentice from Luskan! Clever, don’t you agree?”
“Do you remember him?” Cassius asked Glensather softly. “It could be of great import.”
“It is possible that he stayed in Easthaven,” Glensather replied in the same whispered tones, “though no group from the Hosttower has come into my city for several years. Yet we are an open city, and many foreigners arrive with every passing trading caravan. I tell you the truth, Cassius, I have no recollection of the man.”
Kessell was outraged. He stamped his foot impatiently, and the smile on his face was replaced by a pouting pucker. “Perhaps my return to Ten-Towns will prove more memorable, fools!” he snapped. He held his arms outstretched in self-important proclamation. “Behold Akar Kessell, the Tyrant of Icewind Dale!” he cried. “People of Ten-Towns, your master has come!”
“Your words are a bit premature -“ Cassius began, but Kessell cut him short with a frenzied scream.
“Never interrupt me!” the wizard shouted, the veins in his neck taut and bulging and his face turning as red as blood.
Then, as Cassius quieted in disbelief, Kessell seemed to regain a measure of his composure. “You shall learn better, proud Cassius,” he threatened. “You shall learn!”
He turned back to Cryshal-Tirith and uttered a simple word of command. The tower went black for a moment, as though it refused to release the reflections of the sun’s light. Then it began to glow, far within its depths, with a light that seemed more its own than a reflection of the day. With each passing second, the hue shifted and the light began to climb and circle the strange walls.
“Behold Akar Kessell!” the wizard proclaimed, still frowning. “Look upon the splendor of Crenshinibon and surrender all hope!”
More lights began flashing within the tower’s walls, climbing and dropping randomly and spinning about the structure in a frenzied dance that cried out for release. Gradually they were working their way up to the pointed pinnacle, and it began to flare as if on fire, shifting through the colors of the spectrum until its white flame rivaled the brightness of the sun itself.
Kessell cried out as a man in ecstacy.
The fire was released.
It shot out in a thin, searing line northward toward the unfortunate city of Targos. Many spectators lined Targos’s high wall, though the tower was much farther away from them than it was from Bryn Shander, and it appeared as no more than a flashing speck on the distant plain. They had little idea of what was happening beneath the principle city, though they did see the ray of fire coming toward them.
But by then it was too late.
The wrath of Akar Kessell roared into the proud city, cutting a swath of instant devastation. Fires sprouted all along its killing line. People caught in the direct path never even had a chance to cry out before they were simply vaporized. But those who survived the initial assault, women and children and tundra-toughened men alike, who had faced death a thousand times and more, did scream. And their wails carried out across the still lake to Lonelywood and Bremen, to the cheering goblins in Termalaine, and down the plain to the horrified witnesses in Bryn Shander.
Kessell waved his hand and slightly altered the angle of the release, thus arcing the destruction throughout Targos. Every major structure within the city was soon burning, and hundreds of people lay dead or dying, pitifully rolling about on the ground to extinguish the flames that engulfed their bodies or gasping helplessly in a desperate search for air in the heavy smoke.
Kessell reveled in the moment.
But then he felt an involuntary shudder wrack his spine. And the tower, too, seemed to quiver. The wizard clutched at the relic, still tucked under the folds of his robe. He understood that he had pushed the limits of Crenshinibon’s strength too far.
Back in the Spine of the World, the first tower that Kessell had raised crumbled into rubble. And far out on the open tundra, the second did likewise. The shard pulled in its borders, destroying the tower images that sapped away its strength.
Kessell, too, had been wearied by the effort, and the lights of the remaining Cryshal-Tirith began to calm and then to wane. The ray fluttered and died.
But it had finished its business.
When the invasion had first come, Kemp and the other proud leaders of Targos had promised their people that they would hold the city until the last man had fallen, but even the stubborn spokesman realized that they had no choice but to flee. Luckily, the city proper, which had taken the brunt of Kessell’s attack, was on high ground overlooking the sheltered bay area. The fleets remained unharmed. And the homeless fishermen of Termalaine were already on the docks, having stayed with their boats after they had docked in Targos. As soon as they had realized the unbelievable extent of the destruction that was occurring in the city proper, they began preparing for the imminent influx of the war’s latest refugees. Most of the boats of both cities sailed out within minutes of the attack, desperate to get their vulnerable sails safely away from the windblown sparks and debris. A few vessels remained behind, braving the growing hazards to rescue any later arrivals on the docks.
The people on Bryn Shander’s dock wept at the continued screams of the dying. Cassius, though, consumed by his quest to seek out and understand the apparent weakness that Kessell had just revealed, had no time for tears. In truth, the cries affected him as deeply as anyone, but, unwilling to let the lunatic Kessell view any hints of weakness from him, he transformed his visage from sorrow to an iron grimace of rage.
Kessell laughed at him. “Do not pout, poor Cassius,” the wizard taunted, “it is unbecoming.”
“You are a dog,” Glensather retorted. “And unruly dogs should be beaten!”
Cassius stayed his fellow spokesman with an outstretched hand. “Be calm, my friend,” he whispered. “Kessell will feed off of our panic. Let him talk-he reveals more to us than he believes.”
“Poor Cassius,” Kessell repeated sarcastically. Then suddenly, the wizard’s face twisted in outrage. Cassius noted the abrupt swing keenly, filing it away with the other information he had collected.
“Mark well what you have witnessed here, people of Bryn Shander!”
Kessell sneered. “Bow to your master, or the same fate shall befall you!
And there is no water behind you! You have nowhere to run!”
He laughed wildly again and looked all about the city’s hill, as though he was searching for something. “What are you to do?” he cackled. “You have no lake!”
“I have spoken, Cassius. Hear me well. You will deliver an emissary unto me tomorrow, an emissary to bear the news of your unconditional surrender! And if your pride prevents such an act, remember the cries of dying Targos! Look to the city on the banks of Maer Dualdon for guidance, pitiful Cassius. The fires shall not have died when the morrow dawns!”
Just then a courier raced up to the spokesman. “Many ships have been spotted moving out from under the blanket of smoke in Targos. Newsbearer signals have already begun coming in from the refugees.”
“And what of Kemp?” Cassius asked anxiously.
“He lives,” the courier answered. “And he has vowed revenge.”
Cassius breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t overly fond of his peer from Targos, but he knew that the battle-seasoned spokesman would prove a valuable asset to Ten-Towns’ cause before all was through.
Kessell heard the conversation and growled in disdain. “And where shall they run?” he asked Cassius.
The spokesman, intent on studying this unpredictable and unbalanced adversary, did not reply, but Kessell answered the question for him.
“To Bremen? But they cannot!” He snapped his fingers, beginning the chain of a prearranged message to his westernmost forces. At once, a large group of goblins broke rank and started out to the west.
Toward Bremen.
“You see? Bremen falls before the night is through, and yet another fleet will scurry out onto their precious lake. The scene shall be repeated in the town in the wood with predictable results. But what protection will the lakes offer these people when the merciless winter begins to fall?” he shouted. “How fast shall their ships sail away from me when the waters are frozen around them?”
He laughed again, but this time more seriously, more dangerously. “What protection do any of you have against Akar Kessell?”
Cassius and the wizard held each other in unyielding glares. The wizard barely mouthed the words, but Cassius heard him clearly.
“What protection?”
* * * * *
Out on Maer Dualdon, Kemp bit back his frustrated rage as he watched his city tumble in flames. Soot-blackened faces stared back to the burning ruins in horrified disbelief, shouting impossible denials and openly crying for their lost friends and kin.
But, like Cassius, Kemp converted his despair into constructive anger. As soon as he learned of the goblin force departing for Bremen, he dispatched his fastest ship to warn the people of that distant city and to inform them of the happenings across the lake. Then he sent a second ship toward Lonelywood to beg for food and bandages, and perhaps an invitation to dock.
Despite their obvious differences, the spokesmen of the ten towns were in many ways alike. Like Agorwal, who had been happy to sacrifice everything for the good of the people, and Jensin Brent, who refused to yield to despair, Kemp of Targos set about rallying his people for a retaliatory strike. He didn’t yet know how he would accomplish the feat, but he knew that he had not had his final say in the wizard’s war.
And poised upon the wall of Br yn Shander, Cassius knew it, too.
Drizzt crawled out of his hidden chamber as the last lights of the setting sun began fading away. He scanned the southern horizon and was again dismayed. He had needed to rest, but he couldn’t help feeling pangs of guilt when he saw the city of Targos burning, as though he had neglected his duty to bear witness to the suffering of Kessell’s helpless victims.
Yet the drow had not been idle even during the hours of the meditative trance the elves called sleep. He had journeyed back into the underworld of his distant memories in search of a particular sensation, the aura of a powerful presence he had once known. Though he had not gotten close enough for a good look at the demon he had followed the previous night, something about the creature had struck a familiar chord in his oldest recollections. A pervading, unnatural emanation surrounded creatures from the lower planes when they walked on the material world, an aura that the dark elves, moreso than any other race, had come to understand and recognize. Not only this type of demon, but this particular creature itself, was known to Drizzt. It had served his people in Menzoberranzan for many years.
“Errtu,” he whispered as he sorted through his dreams.
Drizzt knew the demon’s true name. It would come to his call.
* * * * *
The search to find an appropriate spot from which he could call the demon took Drizzt over an hour, and he spent several more preparing the area. His goal was to take away as many of Errtu’s advantages - size and flight in particular - as he could, though he sincerely hoped that their meeting would not involve combat. People who knew the drow considered him daring, sometimes even reckless, but that was against mortal enemies who would recoil from the stinging pain of his whirring blades. Demons, especially one of Errtu’s size and strength, were a different story altogether. Many times during his youth Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of such a monster. He had seen buildings thrown down, solid stone torn by the great clawed hands. He had seen mighty human warriors strike the monster with blows that would fell an ogre, only to find, in their dying horror, that their weapons were useless against such a powerful being from the lower planes.
His own people usually fared better against demons, actually receiving a measure of respect from them. Demons often allied with drow on even terms, or even served the dark elves outright, for they were wary of the powerful weapons and magic the drow possessed. But that was back in the underworld, where the strange emanations from the unique stone formations blessed the metals used by the drow craftsmen with mysterious and magical properties. Drizzt had none of the weapons from his homeland, for their strange magic could not withstand the light of day, though he had been careful to keep them protected from the sun, they became useless shortly after he moved to the surface. He doubted that the weapons he now carried would be able to harm Errtu at all. And even if they did, demons of Errtu’s stature could not be truly destroyed away from their native planes. If it came to blows, the most that Drizzt could hope to do was banish the creature from the Material Plane for one hundred years.
He had no intentions of fighting.
Yet he had to try something against the wizard who threatened the towns. His goal now was to gain some knowledge that might reveal a weakness in the wizard, and his method was deception and disguise, hoping that Errtu remembered enough about the dark elves to make his story credible, yet not too much to strip away the flimsy lies that would hold it together.
The place he had chosen for the meeting was a sheltered dell a few yards from the mountain’s cliff face. A pinnacled roof formed by converging walls covered half of the area, the other half was open to the sky, but the entire place was set back into the mountainside behind high walls, safely out of view of Cryshal-Tirith. Now Drizzt worked with a dagger, scraping runes of warding on the walls and floor in front of where he would sit. His mental image of these magical symbols had fuzzied over the many years, and he knew that their design was far from perfect. Yet he realized that he would need any possible protection that they might offer if Errtu turned on him.
When he was finished, he sat crosslegged under the roofed section, behind the protected area, and tossed out the small statuette that he carried in his pack. Guenhwyvar would be a good test for his warding inscriptions.
The great cat answered the summons. It appeared in the other side of the cubby, its keen eyes scanning the area for any potential danger that threatened its master. Then, sensing nothing, it turned a curious glance on Drizzt.
“Come to me,” Drizzt called, beckoning with his hand. The cat strode toward him, then stopped abruptly, as though it had walked into a wall. Drizzt sighed in relief when he saw that his runes held some measure of strength. His confidence was bolstered considerably, though he realized that Errtu would push the power of the runes to their absolute limits - and probably beyond.
Guenhwyvar lolled its huge head in an effort to understand what had deterred it. The resistance hadn’t really been very strong, but the mixed signals from its master, calling for it yet warding it away, had confused the cat. It considered gathering its strength and walking right through the feeble barrier, but its master seemed pleased that it had stopped. So the cat sat where it was and waited.
Drizzt was busy studying the area, searching out the optimum place for Guenhwyvar to spring from and surprise the demon. A deep ledge on one of the high walls just beyond the portion that converged into a roof seemed to offer the best concealment. He motioned the cat into position and instructed it not to attack until his signal. Then he sat back and tried to relax, intent on his final mental preparations before he called the demon.
* * * * *
Across the valley in the magical tower, Errtu crouched in a shadowy corner of Kessell’s harem room keeping its ever-vigilant guard over the evil wizard at play with his mindless girls. A seething fire of hatred burned in Errtu’s eyes as it looked upon the foolish Kessell. The wizard had nearly ruined everything with his show of power that afternoon and his refusal to tear down the vacated towers behind him, further draining Crenshinibon’s strength.
Errtu had been grimly satisfied when Kessell had come back into the Cryshal-Tirith and confirmed, through the use of scrying mirrors, that the other two towers had fallen to pieces. Errtu had warned Kessell against raising a third tower, but the wizard, frail of ego, had grown more stubborn with each passing day of the campaign, envisioning the demon’s, or even Crenshinibon’s, advice as a ploy to undermine his absolute control.
And so Errtu was quite receptive, even relieved, when it heard Drizzt’s call floating down the valley. At first it denied the possibility of such a summons, but the inflections of its true name being spoken aloud sent involuntary shudders running along the demon’s spine. More intrigued than angered at the impertinence of some mortal daring to utter its name, Errtu slipped away from the distracted wizard and moved outside Cryshal-Tirith.
Then the call came again, cutting through the harmony of the wind’s endless song like a whitecapped wave on a still pond.
Errtu spread its great wings and soared northward over the plain, speeding toward the summoner. Terrified goblins fled from the darkness of the demon’s passing shadow, for even in the faint glimmer of a thin moon, the creature of the Abyss left a wake of blackness that made the night seem bright in comparison.
Drizzt sucked in a tense breath. He sensed the unerring approach of the demon as it veered away from Bremen’s Run and swept upward over the lower slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn. Guenhwyvar lifted its head off of its paws and growled, also sensing the approach of the evil monster. The cat ducked to the very back of the deep ledge and lay flat and still, awaiting its master’s command, confident that its heightened abilities of stealth could protect it even against the high sensitivities of a demon.
Errtu’s leathery wings folded up tight as it alighted on the ledge. It immediately pinpointed the exact location of the summoner and, though it had to tuck its broad shoulders to pass through the narrow entrance to the dell, it charged straight in, intent on appeasing its curiosity and then killing the blasphemous fool that dared utter its name aloud.
Drizzt fought to hold his edge of control when the huge demon pushed in, its bulk filling the small area beyond his tiny sanctuary, blocking out the starlight before him. There could be no turning back from his dangerous course. He had no place to run.
The demon stopped suddenly in amazement. It had been centuries since Errtu had looked upon a drow, and it certainly never expected to find one on the surface, in the frozen wastelands of the farthest north.
Somehow Drizzt found his voice. “Greetings, master of chaos,” he said calmly, bowing low. “I am Drizzt Do’Urden, of the house of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, ninth family to the throne of Menzoberranzan. Welcome to my humble camp.”
“You are a long way from home, drow,” the demon said with obvious suspicion.
“As are thee, great demon of the Abyss,” Drizzt replied coolly. “And lured to this high corner of the world for similar reasons, unless I miss my guess.”
“I know why I am here,” answered Errtu. “The business of the drow has ever been outside my understanding - or caring!”
Drizzt stroked his slender chin and chuckled in feigned confidence. His stomach was tied in knots, and he felt the beginnings of a cold sweat coming on. He chuckled again and fought against the fear. If the demon sensed his unease, his credibility would be greatly diminished. “Ah, but this time, for the first time in many years, it seems that the roads of our business have crossed, mighty purveyor of destruction. My people have a curiosity, perhaps even a vested interest in the wizard that you apparently serve.”
Errtu squared its shoulders, the first flickers of a dangerous flame evident in its red eyes. “Serve?” it echoed incredulously, the even tone of its voice quivering, as though it bordered on the edge of an uncontrollable rage.
Drizzt was quick to qualify his observation. “By all appearances, guardian of chaotic intentions, the wizard holds some power over you. Surely you work alongside Akar Kessell.”
“I serve no human!” Errtu roared, shaking the cave’s very foundation with an emphatic stamp of its foot.
Drizzt wondered if the fight that he could not hope to win was about to begin. He considered calling out Guenhwyvar so that they could at least land the first blows.
But the demon suddenly calmed again. Convinced that it had half-guessed the reason for the unexpected presence of the drow, Errtu turned a scrutinizing eye on Drizzt. “Serve the wizard?” it laughed. “Akar Kessell is puny even by the low standards of humans! But you know this, drow, and do not dare to deny it. You are here, as I am here, for Crenshinibon, and Kessell be damned!”
The confused look on Drizzt’s face was genuine enough to throw Errtu off balance. The demon still believed that it had guessed correctly, but it couldn’t understand why the drow didn’t comprehend the name. “Crenshinibon,” it explained, sweeping its clawed hand to the south. “An ancient bastion of unspeakable power.”
“The tower?” Drizzt asked.
Errtu’s uncertainty bubbled up in the form of explosive fury. “Play no games of ignorance with me!” the demon bellowed. “The drow lords know well the power of Akar Kessell’s artifact, or else they would not have come to the surface to seek it out!”
“Very well, you’ve guessed at the truth,” Drizzt conceded. “Yet I had to be certain that the tower on the plain was indeed the ancient artifact that I seek. My masters show little mercy to careless spies.”
Errtu smiled wickedly as it remembered the unholy torture chambers of Menzoberranzan. Those years it had spent among the dark elves had been enjoyable indeed!
Drizzt quickly pressed the conversation in a direction that might reveal some weaknesses of Kessell or his tower: “One thing has kept me puzzled, awesome spector of unbridled evil,” he began, careful to continue his string of unduplicated compliments. “By what right does this wizard possess Crenshinibon?”
“None at all,” Errtu said. “Wizard, bah! Measured against your own people, he is barely an apprentice. His tongue twitches uneasily when he utters even the simplest of spells. But fate often plays such games. And more to the enjoyment, I say! Let Akar Kessell have his brief moment of triumph. Humans do not live a very long time!”
Drizzt knew that he was pursuing a dangerous line of questions, but he accepted the risk. Even with a major demon standing barely ten feet away, Drizzt figured that his chances for survival at this moment were better than those of his friends in Bryn Shander. “Still my masters are concerned that the tower may be harmed in the coming battle with the humans,” he bluffed.
Errtu took another moment to consider Drizzt. The appearance of the dark elves complicated the demon’s simple plan to inherit Crenshinibon from Kessell. If the mighty drow lords of the huge city of Menzoberranzan truly had designs upon the relic, the demon knew that they would get it. Certainly Kessell, even with the power of the shard behind him, could not withstand them. The mere presence of this drow changed the demon’s perceptions of its relationship with Crenshinibon. How Errtu wished that it could simply devour Kessell and flee with the relic before the dark elves were too involved!
Yet Errtu had never considered the drow as enemies, and the demon had come to despise the bumbling wizard. Perhaps an alliance with the dark elves could prove beneficial to both sides.
“Tell me, unequaled champion of darkness,” Drizzt pressed, “is Crenshinibon in peril?”
“Bah!” snorted Errtu. “Even the tower that is merely a reflection of Crenshinibon is impervious. It absorbs all attacks directed against its mirrored walls and reflects them back on their source! Only the pulsating crystal of strength, the very heart of Cryshal-Tirith, is vulnerable, and that is safely hidden away.”
“Inside?”
“Of course.”
“But if someone were to get into the tower,” Drizzt reasoned, “how well protected would he then find the heart?”
“An impossible task!” the demon replied. “Unless the simple fishermen of Ten-Towns have some spirit at their service. Or perhaps a high priest, or an arch-mage to weave spells of unveiling. Surely your masters know that Cryshal-Tirith’s door is invisible and undetectable to any beings inherent to the present plane the tower rests upon. No creature of this material world, your race included, could find its way in!”
“But. . .” Drizzt pressed anxiously.
Errtu cut him short. “Even if someone stumbled into the structure,” he growled, impatient with the relentless stream of impossible suppositions, “he would have to pass by me. And the limit of Kessell’s power within the tower is considerable indeed, for the wizard has become an extension of Crenshinibon itself, a living outlet for the crystal shard’s unfathomable strength! The heart lies beyond the very focal point of Kessell’s interaction with the tower, and up to the very tip . . .” The demon stopped, suddenly suspicious of Drizzt’s line of questioning. If the lore-wise drow lords were truly intent upon Crenshinibon, why weren’t they more aware of its strengths and weaknesses?
Errtu understood its mistake then. It examined Drizzt once again, but with a different focus. When it had first encountered the drow, stunned by the mere presence of a dark elf in this region, it had searched for deception in the physical attributes of Drizzt, himself, to determine if his drow features were an illusion, a clever yet simple shapealteration trick within the power of even a minor mage.
When Errtu was convinced that a true drow and no illusion stood before it, it had accepted the credibility of Drizzt’s story as consistent with the characteristics of the dark elves’ style.
Now, though, the demon scoured the peripheral clues beyond Drizzt’s black skin, noting the items he carried and the area he had staked out for their meeting. Nothing that Drizzt had upon his person, not even the weapons sheathed on his hips, emanated the distinct magical properties of the underworld. Perhaps the drow masters had outfitted their spies more appropriately for the surface world, Errtu reasoned. From what it had learned of the dark elves during its many years of service in Menzoberranzan, this drow’s presence was certainly not outrageous.
But creatures of chaos survived by trusting no one.
Errtu continued his scan for a clue of Drizzt’s authenticity. The only item the demon had spotted that reflected on Drizzt’s heritage was a thin silver chain strung around his slender neck, a piece of jewelry common among the dark elves for holding a small pouch of wealth. Concentrating upon this, Errtu discovered a second chain, finer than the first, weaving in and out of the other. The demon followed the almost imperceptible crease in Drizzt’s jerkin created by the long chain.
Unusual, it noted, and possibly revealing. Errtu pointed at the chain, spoke a command word, and raised its outstretched finger into the air.
Drizzt tensed when he felt the emblem slipping up from under his leather jerkin. It passed up over the neckline of the garment and dropped to the extent of the chain, hanging openly upon his chest.
Errtu’s evil grin widened along with its squinting eyes. “Unusual choice for a drow,” it hissed sarcastically. “I would have expected the symbol of Llolth, demon queen of your people. She would not be pleased!” From nowhere, it seemed, a many-thonged whip appeared in one of the demon’s hands and a jagged, cruelly notched blade in the other.
At first, Drizzt’s mind whirled down a hundred avenues, exploring the most feasible lies he could spin to get him out of this fix. But then he shook his head resolutely and pushed the lies away. He would not dishonor his deity.
At the end of the silver chain hung a gift from Regis, a carving the halfling had done from the bone of one of the few knuckleheads he had ever hooked. Drizzt had been deeply touched when Regis presented it to him, and he considered it the halfling’s finest work. It twirled around on the long chain, its gentle grades and shading giving it the depth of a true work of art.
It was a white unicorn head, the symbol of the goddess Mielikki.
“Who are you, drow?” Errtu demanded. The demon had already decided that it would have to kill Drizzt, but it was intigued by such an unusual meeting. A dark elf that followed the Lady of the Forest? And a surface dweller as well! Errtu had known many drow over the centuries, but had never even heard of one that had abandoned the drows wicked ways. Cold-hearted killers, one and all, that had taught even the great demon of chaos a trick or two concerning the methods of excruciating torture.
“I am Drizzt Do’Urden, that much is true,” Drizzt replied evenly. “He who forsook the House of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon.” All fear had flown from Drizzt when he accepted beyond any hope that he would have to battle the demon. Now he assumed the calm readiness of a seasoned fighter, prepared to seize any advantage that might fall his way. “A ranger humbly serving Gwaeron Windstrom, hero of the goddess Mielikki.” He bowed low in accordance with a proper introduction.
As he straightened, he drew his scimitars. “I must defeat you, scar of vileness,” he declared, “and send you back to the swirling clouds of the bottomless Abyss. There is no place in the sunlit world for one of your kind.”
“You are confused, elf,” the demon said. “You have lost the way of your heritage, and now you dare to presume that you aright defeat me!” Flames sprang to life from the stone all around Errtu. “I would have killed you mercifully, with one clean stroke, out of respect for your kin. But your pride distresses me; I shall teach you to desire death! Come, feel the sting of nay fire!”
Drizzt was already nearly overwhelmed by the heat of Errtu’s demon fire, and the brightness of the flames stung his sensitive eyes so that the bulk of the demon seemed only the dulled blur of a shadow. He saw the darkness extend to the demon’s right and knew that Errtu had raised its terrible sword. He moved to defend, but suddenly the demon lurched to the side and roared in surprise and outrage.
Guenhwyvar had latched firmly onto its upraised arm.
The huge demon held the panther at arm’s length, trying to pin the cat between its forearm and the rock wall to keep the tearing claws and teeth away from a vital area. Guenhwyvar gnawed and raked the massive arm, tearing demon-flesh and muscle.
Errtu winced away the vicious attack and determined to deal with the cat later. The demon’s main concern remained the drow, for it respected the potential power of any of the dark elves. Errtu had seen too many foes fall beneath one of the dark elves’ countless tricks.
The many-thonged whip lashed out at Drizzt’s legs, too quickly for the drow, still reeling from the sudden burst of brightness of the flames, to deflect the blow or dodge aside. Errtu jerked the handle as the thongs tangled about the slender legs and ankles, the demon’s great strength easily dropping Drizzt to his back.
Drizzt felt the stinging pain all through his legs, and he heard the rush of air pressed out of his lungs when he landed on the hard stone. He knew that he must react without delay, but the glare of the fire and Errtu’s sudden strike had left him disoriented. He felt himself being dragged along the stone, felt the intensity of the heat increasing. He managed to lift his head just in time to view his tangled feet entering the demon fire. “And so I die,” he stated flatly.
But his legs did not burn.
Drooling to hear the agonized screams of its helpless victim, Errtu gave a stronger tug on the whip and pulled Drizzt completely into the flames. Though he was totally immolated, the drow barely felt warmed by the fire.
And then, with a final hiss of protest, the hot flames suddenly died away.
Neither of the opponents understood what had happened, both assuming that the other had been responsible.
Errtu struck quickly again. Bringing a heavy foot down upon Drizzt’s chest, it began grinding him into the stone. The drow flailed out in desperation with one weapon, but it had no effect on the otherworldly monster.
Then Drizzt swung his other scimitar, the blade he had taken from the dragon’s hoard.
Hissing like water on fire, it entered Errtu’s knee joint. The hilt of the weapon heated up when the blade tore into the demon’s flesh, nearly burning Drizzt’s hand. Then it grew icy cold, as though dousing Errtu’s hot life force with a cold strength of its own. Drizzt understood then what had extinguished the fires.
The demon gaped in blank horror, then screamed in agony. Never had it felt such a sting! It leaped back and tossed about wildly, trying to escape the weapon’s terrible bite, dragging Drizzt, who could not let go of the hilt. Guenhwyvar was thrown in the violence of the demon’s rage, flying from the monster’s arm to crash heavily into a wall.
Drizzt eyed the wound incredulously as the demon backed away. Steam poured from the hole in Errtu’s knee, and the edges of the cut were iced over!
But Drizzt, too, had been weakened by the strike. In its struggle with the mighty demon, the scimitar had drawn upon its wielder’s life force, pulling Drizzt into the battle with the fiery monster.
Now the drow felt as though he hadn’t even the strength left to stand. But he found himself lunging forward, blade fully extended before him, as if pulled by the scimitar’s hunger.
The cubby entrance was too narrow. Errtu could neither dodge nor spring away.
The scimitar found the demon’s belly.
The explosive surge as the blade touched the core of Errtu’s life force drained away Drizzt’s strength, tossing him backward. He cracked against the stone wall and crumpled, but managed to keep himself alert enough to witness the titanic struggle still raging.
Errtu got out onto the ledge. The demon was staggering now, trying to spread its wings. But they drooped weakly. The scimitar glowed white with power as it continued its assault. The demon could not bear to grasp it and tear it free, though the embedded blade, its magic quelching the fires it had been wrought to destroy, was surely winning the conflict.
Errtu knew that it had been careless, overconfident in its ability to destroy any mortal in single combat. The demon hadn’t considered the possibility of such a wicked blade; it had never even heard of a weapon with such a sting!
Steam poured from Errtu’s exposed entrails and enveloped the combatants. “And so you have banished me, treacherous drow!” it spat.
Dazed, Drizzt watched in amazement as the white glow intensified and the black shadow diminished.
“A hundred years, drow!” Errtu howled. “Not such a long time for the likes of you or me!” The vapor thickened as the shadow seemed to melt away.
“A century, Drizzt Do’Urden!” came Errtu’s fading cry from somewhere far away. “Look over your shoulder then! Errtu shall not be far behind!”
The vapor wafted up into the air and was gone.
The last sound Drizzt heard was the clang of the metal scimitar falling to the stone ledge.
Wulfgar leaned back in his chair at the head of the main table in the hastily constructed Mead Hall, his foot tapping nervously at the long delays necessitated by the demands of proper tradition. He felt that his people should already be on the move, but it was the restoration of the traditional ceremonies and celebrations that had immediately separated, and placed him above, the tyrant Heafstaag in the eyes of the skeptical and ever-suspicious barbarians.
Wulfgar, after all, had walked into their midst after a five year absence and challenged their long-standing king. One day later, he had won the crown, and the day after that, he had been coronated King Wulfgar of the Tribe of the Elk.
And he was determined that his reign, short though he intended it to be, would not be marked by the threats and bullying tactics of his predecessor’s. He would ask the warriors of the assembled tribes to follow him into battle, not command them, for he knew that a barbarian warrior was a man driven almost exclusively by fierce pride. Stripped of their dignity, as Heafstaag had done by refusing to honor the sovereignty of each individual king, the tribesmen were no better in battle than ordinary men. Wulfgar knew that they would need to regain their proud edge if they were to have any chance at all against the wizard’s overwhelming numbers.
Thus Hengorot, the Mead Hall, had been raised and the Challenge of the Song initiated for the first time in nearl five years. It was a short, happy time of good-natured competition between tribes who had been suffocated under Heafstaag’s unrelenting domination.
The decision to raise the deerskin hall had been difficult for Wulfgar. Assuming that he still had time before Kessell’s army struck, he had weighed the benefits of regaining tradition against the pressing need of haste. He only hoped that in the frenzy of pre-battle preparations, Kessell would overlook the absence of the barbarian king, Heafstaag. If the wizard was at all sharp, it wasn’t likely.
Now he waited quietly and patiently, watching the fires return to the eyes of the tribesmen.
“Like old times?” Revjak asked, sitting next to him.
“Good times,” Wulfgar responded.
Satisfied, Revjak leaned back against the tent‘s deerskin wall, granting the new chief the solitude he obviously desired. And Wulfgar resumed his wait, seeking the best moment to unveil his proposition.
At the far end of the hall, an axe-throwing competition was beginning. Similar to the tactics Heafstaag and Beorg had used to seal a pact between the tribes at the last Hengorot, the challenge was to hurl an axe from as great a distance as possible and sink it deeply enough into a keg of mead to open a hole. The number of mugs that could be filled from the effort within a specified count determined the success of the throw.
Wulfgar saw his chance. He leaped from his stool and demanded, by rights of being the host, the first throw. The man who had been selected to judge the challenge acknowledged Wulfgar’s right and invited him to come down to the first selected distance.
“From here,” Wulfgar said, hoisting Aegis-fang to his shoulder.
Murmurs of disbelief and excitement arose from all corners of the hall.
The use of a warhammer in such a challenge was unprecedented, but none complained or cited rules. Every man who had heard the tales, but not witnessed firsthand the splitting of Heafstaag’s great axe, was anxious to see the weapon in action. A keg of mead was placed upon a stool at the back end of the hall.
“Another behind it!” Wulfgar demanded. “And another behind that” His concentration narrowed on the task at hand, and he didn’t take the time to sort out the whispers he heard all around him.
The kegs were readied, and the crowd backed out of the young king’s line of sight. Wulfgar grasped Aegis-fang tightly in his hands and sucked in a great breath, holding it in to keep himself steady. The unbelieving onlookers watched in amazement as the new king exploded into movement, hurling the mighty hammer with a fluid motion and strength unmatched among their ranks.
Aegis-fang tumbled, head over handle, the length of the long hall, blasting through the first keg, and then the second and beyond, taking out not only the three targets and their stools, but continuing on to tear a hole in the back of the Mead Hall. The closest warriors hurried to the opening to watch the remainder of its flight, but the hammer had disappeared into the night. They started out to retrieve it.
But Wulfgar stopped them. He sprang onto the table, lifting his arms before him. “Hear me, warriors of the northern plains!” he cried. Their mouths already agape at the unprecedented feat, some fell to their knees when Aegis-fang suddenly reappeared in the young king’s hands.
“I am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar and King of the Tribe of the Elk! Yet I speak to you now not as your king but as a kindred warrior, horrified at the dishonor Heafstaag tried to place upon us all!” Spurred on by the knowledge that he had gained their attention and respect, and by the confirmation that his assumptions of their true desires had not been in error, Wulfgar seized the moment. These people had cried out for deliverance from the tyrannical reign of the one-eyed king and, beaten almost to extinction in their last campaign and now about to fight beside goblins and giants, they longed for a hero to gain them back their lost pride.
“I am the dragonslayer!” he continued. “And by right of victory I possess the treasures of Icingdeath.”
Again the private conversations interrupted him, for the now unguarded treasure had become a subject for debate. Wulfgar let them continue their gossip for a long moment to heighten their interest in the dragon’s gold.
When they finally quieted, he went on. “The tribes of the tundra do not fight in a common cause with goblins and giants!” he decreed to rousing shouts of approval. “We fight against them!”
The crowd suddenly hushed. A guard rushed into the tent, but did not dare interrupt the new king.
“I leave with the dawn for Ten-Towns,” Wulfgar stated. “I shall battle against the wizard Kessell and the foul horde he has pulled from the holes of The Spine of the World!”
The crowd did not respond. They accepted the notion of battle against Kessell eagerly, but the thought of returning to Ten-Towns to help the people who had nearly destroyed them five years before had never occurred to them.
But the guard now intervened. “I fear that your quest shall be in vain, young king,” he said. Wulfgar turned a distressed eye upon the man, guessing the news he bore. “The smoke clouds from great fires are even now rising above the southern plain.”
Wulfgar considered the distressing news. He had thought that he would have more time. “Then I shall leave tonight!” he roared at the stunned assembly. “Come with me, my friends, my fellow warriors of the north! I shall show you the path to the lost glories of our past!”
The crowd seemed torn and uncertain. Wulfgar played his final card.
“To any man who will go with me, or to his surviving kin if he should fall, I offer an equal share of the dragon’s treasure!”
He had swept in like a mighty squall off the Sea of Moving Ice. He had captured the imagination and heart of every barbarian warrior and had promised them a return to the wealth and glory of their brightest days.
That very night, Wulfgar’s mercenary army charged out of their encampment and thundered across the open plain.
Not a single man remained behind.