Robert Salvatore - The Lone Drow

Obould snarled and tossed the dead messenger aside.

His son was dead. His son had failed. The orc king glanced around to measure the reaction of those cowering orcs nearby.

A few images of Urlgen flashed through Obould's thoughts, and a slight wave of regret found its way through the crust of the vicious ore's heart, but all of that quickly passed. All of that was fast buried under the weight of necessity, of the immediate needs of the moment.

Urlgen was dead. Given that, Obould knew that he had to focus on the positive aspects of the day, on the fact that the dwarves had been dislodged from the cliff and forced back into Mithral Hall. It was a critical moment for his forces and the course of their conquest, he understood. He had his kingdom overrun, from the Spine of the World to Mithral Hall, from the Surbrin to Fell Pass. Little resistance remained.

He had to maintain his force's enthusiasm, though, for the inevitable coun-terstrike. How he wished that Arganth was there, proclaiming him to be Gruumsh.

Soon after, though, Obould learned that Arganth was dead, killed by an elf and a drow.

"This is unacceptable!" Gerti growled at the orc king as night encompassed the land and the weary army continued its work of reorganizing.

"Nineteen of yours fell, but thousands of mine," the orc countered.

"Twenty," said Gerti.

"Then twenty," Obould agreed, as if it didn't matter.

Gerti scowled at him and asked, "What weapon did they use? What magic so sundered that mountain arm? How did your son let this happen?"

Obould didn't blink, didn't shrink in the least under the giantess's imposing stare. He turned and walked away.

He heard the telltale noise of a sword sliding free of its sheath and moved completely on instinct, drawing forth his own greatsword as he swung around, bringing his blade across to parry the swipe of Gerti's huge weapon.

With a roar, the giantess came on, trying to overwhelm the orc king with her sheer size and strength. But Obould brought his sword to flaming life and slashed it across at Gerti's knees. She avoided the cut, turning sidelong and lifting her leg away from the fires.

Obould barreled in, dipping his shoulder against her thigh and driving on with supernatural strength.

To Gerti's complete surprise, to the amazement of all in attendance—orc, goblin, and giant alike—the orc king muscled Gerti right off the ground. With a great heave, he sent her flopping through the air to land hard and unceremoniously on the ground, face down.

She started to rise but wisely stopped short, feeling the heat of a fiery great-sword hovering above the back of her neck.

"All that is left here are the dwarven tunnels," Obould told her. "Go and defend the Surbrin or take your dead and retreat to Shining White." Obould bent low and whispered, so that only Gerti could hear, "But if you forsake our road now, know that I will visit you when Mithral Hall is mine."

He backed away then and allowed Gerti to scramble back to her feet, where she stood staring down at him with open hatred.

"Enough of this foolishness, giantess," Obould said loudly, so that those few astonished onlookers could hear. "We are both angered and sorrowful. My own son lies among the dead.

"But we have won a great victory this day!" the orc king proclaimed to the throng. "The cowardly dwarves have run away and will not soon return!"

That brought cheering.

Obould walked around, his arms raised in victory, his flaming sword serving as a focus of their collective glory. Every so often, though, the orc did glance back at Gerti, letting her alone see the continuing hatred and threat in his jaundiced and bloodshot eyes.

For Gerti, there was only uncertainty.

* * *

From a distance, another watched the celebration of the victorious orcs and saw that flaming sword lifted high in glory. Satisfied that he had done his duty well and that his work had been of a great benefit to the retreating dwarves, Nikwillig of Citadel Felbarr settled back against the cold stone and considered the distant glow of the setting sun.

His vantage point had allowed him a view of the general course of the battle not only up there, but down in Keeper's Dale, and he knew that the dwarves had been driven underground.

He knew that he had nowhere to run.

He knew that he would soon have nowhere to hide.

But so be it, the dwarf honestly told himself. He had done his duty. He had helped his kin.

"He will know that his son is dead by now," Drizzt remarked.

He was brushing Sunset, paying particular care to the many scratches the pegasus had suffered in the flight from the orc army.

"Then perhaps he will come to us," the elf replied, "and save us the trouble of hunting him down."

Drizzt's concern at Innovindil's grim tone washed away when he considered her wide grin. He watched her walking toward him—he couldn't pull his eyes away. She had taken off her battle gear and was dressed in a simple light blue gown of thin, nearly sheer material that rested smoothly against her every curve. Behind her, the last rays of day leaped forth from the horizon, backlighting the elf in a heavenly glow, surrounding her beautiful hair in soft yellow hues.

"You brought forth my anger," Innovindil reminded him.

"I have found a place of… concentration," Drizzt tried to explain, shaking himself from the spectacle of the elf. "A state of mind that is clearer. When I left my homeland, I traveled alone through the dark ways of the Underdark. For ten years, I wandered, mostly alone." He gave a grin and produced the onyx figurine. "Except for Guenhwyvar."

"If the Underdark is as I have heard, then you should not have survived."

"Nor would I have, even with Guen, had I not found the Hunter."

"The Hunter?"

"That place of concentration," Drizzt explained. "A place within my heart and mind where rage transforms into focus."

"Most would argue that rage is blinding."

"And so it can be," Drizzt agreed. "If it is not in control."

"And so you become this creature of focus and rage..»

"And the cost is heavy, I have come to know," Drizzt added. "The cost is joy and hope. The cost is …"

"Love?"

"I do not know," Drizzt admitted. "Perhaps there is room within for all that I must be."

"Room for Drizzt, and for the Hunter?"

The drow merely shrugged.

"We have much to do," Innovindil told him. "With the dwarves' retreat, all the North is imperiled. Who will rouse the forces of the land against Obould if not Drizzt and Innovindil?"

Drizzt nodded in agreement and added in all seriousness, "Should we rouse the world against him before or after we kill him?"

The thought brought a grim smile to Innovindil's fair face, creating a most amazing paradox to the lavender eyes of the drow. Beautiful and terrible all at once, she seemed, the warmest of friends and the deadliest of enemies.

* * *

"We gotta get back," Dagna grumbled. "Them trolls're heading for the halls, not to doubt!"

"We cannot!" Galen Firth shouted. "Not now! My people are nearby— somewhere."

He stopped and looked around, as did many of the others, at the muddy landscape, the few scraggly trees and the ground torn by battle and the march of many great trolls, as Galen Firth had warned upon his arrival to Mithral Hall. The band had been near to the southern tunnel exits when they'd realized the truth of the Nesmй rider's words, when a band of ugly and smelly trolls had struck hard at them.

Quick thinking and quicker feet had gotten the dwarves away, the band scrambling down a tunnel that was too low for the large trolls to pursue. That long tunnel, first completely of stone and rising and turning to stone and earth, had taken them to the edge of the Trollmoors and somewhere to the east of Nesmй, by Galen Firth's reckoning.