Robert Salvatore - The Thousand Orcs

Ad'non shrugged in response to Kaer'lic's remarks, telling the other three that it had gone exactly as they would all expect when dealing with an orc. Indeed, Obould was more cunning than his kind, but that wasn't really saying much by drow standards.

"Dame Gerti holds the course, as well," Donnia added. "She believes it to be her destiny to rule the Spine of the World and will follow any course that may lead her to that place."

"She might be right," Tos'un put in. "Gerti Orelsdottr is a smart one, and between Obould's masses and the stirring trolls from the moors, enough chaos might be created for Gerti to step forward."

"And we will be ready to profit, in material and in pleasure, whatever the outcome," Donnia said with a wry grin, one that was matched by her three friends.

'It amazes me that I ever considered returning to Menzoberranzan," Tos'un Armgo remarked, and the others laughed.

Donnia and Ad'non were staring rather intently at each other when that laughter abated. The lovers had been apart for several days, after all, and both of them found such talk of conquest, chaos and profit quite stimulating.

They practically ran out of the chamber to their private room.

Kaer'lic howled with renewed laughter as they departed, shaking her head. She was always more pragmatic about such needs, never reducing them to overpowering levels, as the two assassins often did.

"They will die in each others' arms," she remarked to Tos'un, "coupling and oblivious to the threat."

"There are worse ways to go, I suppose," the son of House Barrison Del'Armgo replied, and Kaer'lic laughed again.

These two were part-time lovers as well, but only part time, and not for a long, long time. Kaer'lic wasn't really interested in a partner, in truth, far preferring a slave to use as a toy.

"We should expand these raids to the Moonwood," she remarked lewdly. "Perhaps we could convince Obould to capture us a couple of young moon elves."

"A couple?" Tos'un said skeptically. "A handful would be more fun."

Kaer'lic laughed yet again.

Tos'un leaned back into the thick furs of his divan, wondering again how he could have ever even considered returning to the dangers discomforts and subjugation that he, as a male, could not avoid, along the dark avenues of Menzoberranzan.

The wind howled down at them from the peaks to the north, the towering snow-capped Spine of the World Mountains. Just a bit farther to the south, along the roads out of Luskan, spring was in full bloom, fast approaching summer, but at the higher elevations, the wind was rarely warm, and the going rarely easy.

Yet it was precisely this course that Bruenor Battlehammer had chosen as the route back to Mithral Hall, walking east within the shadow of the mountains. They had left Icewind Dale without incident, for none of the highwaymen or solitary monsters that often roamed the treacherous roads would challenge an army of nearly five hundred dwarves! A storm had caught them in the pass through the mountains, but Bruenor's hearty people had trudged on, turning east even as Drizzt and his other unsuspecting friends were expecting to soon see the towers of Luskan in the south before them.

Drizzt had asked Bruenor about the unexpected course change, for though this was a more direct route, it certainly wouldn't be much quicker and certainly not less hazardous.

In reply to the logical question, Bruenor had merely snorted, "Ye'll see soon enough, elf!"

The days blended into tendays and the raucous hand put more than

a hundred and fifty difficult miles behind them. Their days were full of dwarven marching songs, their nights full of dwarven partying songs.

To the surprise of Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar, Bruenor moved Regis by his side soon after the eastward turn. The dwarf was constantly leaning in and talking to the halfling, while Regis bobbed his head in reply.

"What's the little one know that we don't?" Catti-brie asked the drow as they flanked the caravan to the north, looking back on the third wagon, Bruenor's wagon, to see Bruenor and Regis engaged in one such discussion.

Drizzt just shook his head, not really sure of how to read Regis at all anymore.

"Well, I'm thinking we should find out," Catti-brie added, seeing no response forthcoming.

"When Bruenor wants us to know all the details, he will tell us," Drizzt assured her, but her smirk made it fairly clear that she wasn't buying into that theory.

"We've turned the both of them from more than one ill-aimed scheme," she reminded. "Are ye hoping to find out right before the cataclysm?"

The logic was simple enough, and in considering the pair on the wagon, and the fact that raucous and none-too-brilliant Thibbledorf Pwent was also serving Bruenor in an advisory position, the drow could only chuckle.

"And what are we to do?"

"Well, hot pokers won't get Bruenor talking, even against a birthday surprise," Catti-brie reasoned, "but I'm thinking that Regis has a bit lower tolerance."

"For pain?" Drizzt asked incredulously.

"Or for tricks, or for drink, or for whatever else might work," the woman explained. "Think I'll be getting Wulfgar to carry the little rat to us when Bruenor's off about other business tonight."

Drizzt gave a helpless laugh, understanding well the perils that awaited poor Regis, and glad that Bruenor had taken the halfling into his confidence and not him.

As with most nights, Drizzt and Catti-brie set a camp off to the side of the gathering of dwarves, keeping watch, and even more than that, keeping a bit of their sanity aside from Thibbledorf Pwent's antics and the Gutbuster's training. Pwent did come over and join the pair this night, though, walking right in and plopping down on a boulder to the side of their fire.

He looked at Catti-brie, even reached up to touch her long auburn hair.

"Ah, ye're looking good, girl," he said, and he dropped a sack of some muddy compound at her feet, "Ye be putting that on yer face each night afore ye go to sleep."

Catti-brie looked down at the sack and its slimy contents, then up at Drizzt, who was sitting on a log and resting back against a rock facing, his hands tucked behind his head, brushing wide his thick shock of white hair so that it framed his black-skinned face and his purple eyes. Clearly, the battlerager amused him.

"On me face?" Catti-brie asked, and Pwent's head bobbed eagerly. "Let me guess. It will make me grow a beard."

"Good and thick one," said Pwent. "Red to match yer hair, I'm hoping. Oh, a fiery one ye'll be!"

Catti-brie's eyes narrowed as she looked over at Drizzt once more, to see him choking back a chuckle.

"Make sure ye're not putting it up too high on yer cheeks, girl," the battlerager went on, and now Drizzt did laugh out loud. "Ye'll look like that durned Harpell werewolf critter!"

As he finished the thought, Pwent sighed and rolled his eyes longingly. It was well known that the battlerager had begged Bidderdoo Harpell, the werewolf, to bite him so that he too might be afflicted by the ferocious disease. The Harpell had wisely refused.

Before the wild dwarf could continue, the trio heard a movement to the side, and a huge form appeared. It was Wulfgar the barbarian, nearly seven feet tall, with a broad and muscled chest. He was wearing a beard to match his blond hair, but it was neatly trimmed, showing the renewed signs of care that had given all the friends hope that Wulfgar had at last overcome his inner demons. Ho carried a large sack over one shoulder, and something inside of it was squirming.

"Hey, what'cha got there, boy?" Pwent howled, hopping up and bending in curiously.

"Dinner," Wulfgar replied. The creature in the sack moaned and squirmed more furiously.

Pwent rubbed his hands together eagerly and licked his lips.