Robert Salvatore - The Two Swords

She had orchestrated all of it, had set Drizzt in place within an easy and swift climb to the appointed spot, then had brought Obould out here alone for a parlay.

The orc didn't seem suspicious at all to Drizzt, he appeared at ease and supremely confident. Obould had been a bit on his guard when he and Gerti first arrived at the hilltop, but after a few minutes of pointing and talking, the orc visibly relaxed.

They were discussing the construction of defenses, Drizzt knew. All the way out there, a full four days of marching south from Shining White, Drizzt had witnessed the unveiling of King Obould's grand designs. Many hilltops and mountainsides were under construction in the north, with rock walls taking shape and the bases of large keeps already set in place. On an adjoining mound to the one where the two principals stood, a hundred orcs toiled at the stone, preparing strong defenses.

Those sights only heightened Drizzt's sense of urgency. He wanted to kill Obould for what the orc had done to his friends and to the innocents of the North; he needed to kill Obould for the sake of those remaining. It was not the behavior that Drizzt had come to expect from an orc. Many times, even back in Menzoberranzan, he had heard others remark that the only thing truly subjugating goblinkind to the other races was the lack of cohesion on their part. Even the superior minded matron mothers of Menzoberranzan had remained leery of their goblin and orc slaves, knowing that a unified force of the monsters, weak as they might be individually, could prove to be an overwhelming catastrophe.

If Obould truly was that unifying force, at least in the Spine of the World, he had to die.

Many minutes passed, and Drizzt subconsciously grasped at his scimitar hilts. He glanced nervously at the adjoining hilltop, where several other orcs— shamans, they appeared—kept a watch on their leader, often moving to the closest edge and peering across at the two figures. Their interest had faltered over the past few minutes, but Drizzt knew that would likely be a temporary thing.

"Hurry up, Gerti," he whispered.

The drow stepped back into the shadows, startled, for almost as if she had heard his plea, Gerti turned away from Obould and stormed off, moving down the mountainside with swift, long strides.

So surprised was he that Drizzt nearly missed the moment. Obould, apparently caught off his guard by Gerti's sudden retreat, stood there gaping at her, hands on his hips, eyes staring out from behind that curious skull-like helm with its oversized, glassy goggles.

The drow shook himself from his hesitation and bounded up the slope, moving fast and silently. He came atop the hillock just a few strides from the orc, and thought for a moment to rush in and stab his enemy before Obould even knew he was there.

But the orc king spun on him, and Drizzt had skidded to a stop anyway.

"I had thought you would never dare to stand without an ally," the drow said, and his scimitars appeared in his hands—almost magically, it seemed, so fast and fluid was his movement.

A low growl escaped Obould's lips as he regarded the drow.

"Drizzt Do'Urden?" he asked, the growling rumble continuing through every syllable.

"It is good that you know my name," Drizzt answered, and he began to stalk to the side, Obould turning to keep him squarely in line. "I want you to know. I want you to understand why you die this morning."

So sinister was Obould's chuckle that it hardly deviated from the continuing growl. He reached his right hand up slowly and deliberately over his left shoulder, grasped the large hilt of his greatsword, and slowly drew it up. The top edge of his scabbard was cut halfway up its length, so as soon as the sword tip broke free of the sheath, Obould snapped the sword straight up then down and across before him.

Drizzt heard a shout from the other hillock, but it didn't matter. Not to him, and not to Obould. Drizzt heard a larger commotion, and glanced to see several orcs running his way, and several others lifting bows, but Obould raised his hand out toward them and they skidded to a stop and lowered their weapons. The orc king wanted the fight as much as he did.

"For Bruenor, then," Drizzt said, and he didn't piece together the implications of the scowl that showed in Obould's bloodshot yellow eyes.

"For Shallows and all who died there."

He kept circling and Obould kept turning.

"For the Kingdom of Dark Arrows," Obould countered. "For the rise of the orcs and the glory of Gruumsh. For our turn in the sunlight that the dwarves, elves, and humans have too long claimed as their own!"

The words sent an instinctual shiver down Drizzt's spine, but the drow was too wrapped up in his anger to fully appreciate the orc's sentiment.

Drizzt was trying to take a complete measure of his enemy, trying to look over the orc's fabulous armor to find some weakness. But the drow found himself locked by the almost hypnotic stare of Obould, by the sheer intensity of the great leader's gaze. So held was he, that he was hardly aware that Obould had started to move. So frozen was Drizzt by those bloodshot eyes, that he only moved at the very last second, throwing his hips back to avoid being cut in half by the sidelong swipe of the monstrous sword.

Obould pressed forward, whipping a backhand slash, then pulling up short and stabbing once, twice, thrice, at the retreating drow.

Drizzt turned and dodged, his feet quick-stepping, keeping him in balance as he backed. He resisted the urge to intercept the stabbing and slashing sword with one of his own blades, realizing that Obould's strokes were too powerful to be parried with one hand. The drow was using the moments as Obould pressed his attack to fall into his own rhythm. As he sorted out his methods, he realized it would be better to hold complete separation. So he kept his scimitars out to the side, his arms out wide, his agility and feet alone keeping Obould's strikes from hitting home.

The orc king roared and pressed on even more furiously, almost recklessly. He stabbed and stepped ahead, whipped his sword out one way then rushed ahead in a short burst as he slashed across. But Drizzt was quicker moving backward than Obould was in coming forward, and the orc got nowhere close to connecting. And the seasoned drow warrior, his balance perfect as always, let the blade go by and reversed his momentum in the blink of a bloodshot eye.

He ran right past Obould, veering slightly as the orc tried to shoulder-block him. A double-stab drove both his scimitars against Obould's side, and when the armor stopped them, Drizzt went into a sudden half-turn, then back again, slashing higher, one blade after the other, both raking across the orc king's eye plate.

Obould came around with a howl, his greatsword cutting the air—but only the air, for Drizzt was well out of range.

The drow's smile was short-lived, however, when he saw that his strikes, four solid hits, had done nothing, had not even scratched the translucent eye plate of the skull-like helm.

And Obould was on him in a flash, forcing him to dive and dodge, and even to parry once. The sheer force of Obould's strike sent a numbing vibration humming through the drow's arm. Another opening presented itself and Drizzt charged in, Twinkle cutting hard at the grayish wrap Obould wore around his throat.

And Drizzt, scoring nothing substantial at all, nearly lost some of his hair as he dived forward, just under the tremendous cut of the heavy greatsword. It occurred to Drizzt as he came around to face yet another brutal assault that his openings had been purposefully offered, that Obould was baiting him in.

It made no sense to him, and as he threw his hips left and right and back, and even launched himself into a sidelong somersault at one point, he kept studying the brute and his armor, searching desperately for some opening. But even Obould's legs seemed fully entombed in the magnificent armor.