Robert Salvatore - The Thousand Orcs

The massacre became a fight soon after, but even then the orcs were outmatched. Many were running, caught by surprise, and as was typical for any goblinkin, ranks broke apart at the first sign of retreat.

The dwarven ranks stayed tight and strong and swept toward the town, with groups breaking away at the slightest sign of pursuit to chase off the orcs.

"Ye Battlehammers was always known for yer timing!" Tred McKnuckles cried, then he yelped and leaped aside as a great rock smashed down and bounced past.

"Damn giants again!" the dwarf cried.

Catti-brie ran to the remnants of the northern wall and lifted her bow.

"Move as you shoot!" Wulfgar warned, and indeed, as soon as the first arrow made its way out across the ravine, a volley of great stones came in at the position where the arrow had been fired.

It did Drizzt Do'Urden's heart good to see those telltale arrows sailing across the ravine, but even that good news—that Catti-brie was apparently still fighting—did not distract him from his course. The giants had started their bombardment in full force again, and that, he knew, he could not allow. He called Guenhwyvar into action, then scrambled up to the side of the giants position himself., moving high up on a pile of boulders unnoticed by the behemoths.

The drow advanced without a sound, leaping out and crossing behind one giant, his scimitars slashing hard. He hit the ground running, executing a perfect double stab at the back of another's knee, and kept right on going, around the rocks on the other side.

Giants turned to follow, and one lifted its arms to throw a stone at the fleeing drow.

Instead of executing the throw, the giant caught a flying panther in its face—all six hundred pounds of raking claws. Guenhwyvar went for the eyes, not the kill, and scraped them deep, blinding the giant before leaping aside.

All the giants were scrambling, but Drizzt held no illusions that he and Guenhwyvar could keep them occupied for long. Nor did he think that he could possibly kill many, even any, of them, but maybe he and the panther could blind a few or get a few to chase them away.

He came back around the rocks the same way he had gone in and did indeed catch the closest giant off its guard, managing another few nasty stabs before scrambling the other way. The pursuit was better this time, though—was too good — with giants flanking both ways and another pair pursuing directly.

Drizzt moved to put his back to a wall, ready to make a final, desperate stand.

The nearest giant charged in.

Before it got to Drizzt, though, the behemoth winced and grabbed at its neck. As it spun around, the dark elf clearly saw the feathered fletching of a pair of arrows buried in the giant's neck. Drizzt's jaw dropped open when the brute moved just a bit to the side.

There, up above him to the north, sat a pair of elves astride flying horses.

The giants scrambled.

Drizzt rushed out to the side, stabbed yet another, then kept on running, leaping past some boulders. Few giants paid him any heed, though. A couple off to the side were still futilely trying to keep up with Guenhwyvar as the panther leaped all around them. Several of the others were moving fast for more rocks — to throw at the elves, obviously.

Drizzt couldn't let them get organized. He moved to the rock pile on the west. When one giant stooped and reached for a stone, he leaped out, slashing the behemoth hard across its fingers. The giant retracted the hand, and it, and a companion, gave chase on the drow.

This time Drizzt didn't turn and didn't slow, leading the giants off and yelling for Guenhwyvar to do the same across the way. The drow ranger saw a stone go flying into the air and heard the shriek of a pegasus a moment later, though when he looked to the north, both elves were still up there, flying around and firing their bows.

Drizzt sprinted out across some open ground, often glancing back at the destroyed town, hoping to catch some sign of his friends.

He saw nothing definitive, just a swarm of orcs charging for the town. Drizzt had to turn away, running to the north with a pair of giants close behind him.

"We got no time!" Thibbledorf Pwent cried, charging into Shallows. "Gather up yer things and yer wounded and follow me to the wagon!"

"We need a cleric!" Wulfgar yelled at him. "At once! We've wounded too badly hurt to be moved!"

"Then ye might need to leave "em!" Pwent yelled back..

"One of them is Bruenor Battlehammer!" Wulfgar yelled back.

" Cleric! " yelled Pwent. "And get the one on the wagon with the green beard," the battlerager cried to another dwarf. "He's got more tricks than a den o' drunken wizards."

"Get 'em moving!" another dwarf cried. "Get the wounded on the wagon and get all the dead dwarfs ye can up there with 'em. We're not for leaving Battlehammers behind for the buzzards or the orcs!"

"How did ye find us so fast?" Catti-brie started to ask Pwent, but she stopped and smiled when she saw the obvious source of the daring rescue. The second driver, the little one, whom she recognized clearly once his cowl was pulled back. "Regis," the woman said.

With her heart busting, she moved to hug him but backed away quickly when she saw him wince as she put pressure against his arm.

"Someone had to feed the wolf," the halfling said with a sheepish shrug.

Catti-brie bent low and kissed him on the head, and Regis blushed deeply.

And they were moving, a whirlwind of scrambling dwarf warriors buzzing like a swarm of angry bees around the exhausted defenders of Shallows, a ragtag group. Of the hundred humans and twenty-six dwarves who had begun the defense of the town, less than a score were leaving of their own strength, and only another ten, Bruenor among them, were still drawing breath at all.

Hardly a victory.

They ran in flanking lines left and right of the main wagons. Others pulled hard at the largest wagon—the orc god statue discarded—that bore the wounded, including King Bruenor Battlehammer. On the cart with him rode Regis, who was too injured to do much of anything else, and Pikel Bouldershoulder, the doo-dad, who used his enchanted berries and roots on Bruenor's wounds.

"He'll draw out the sickness," Ivan assured Wulfgar and Tred as they ran along behind that wagon. "Me brother's got some tricks, he does."

Wulfgar nodded grimly and took heart in the words, for Catti-brie had told him a short while before that Bruenor did seem to be resting more easily.

"Ain't that that's worrying me," Tred put in. "We're seeing orc sign all about, and if they come on now. .»

"They will be without their giant friends, who were left on the other side of the ravine," Wulfgar insisted.

"True enough," Tred admitted, though his dour expression did not brighten, "but I'm thinking we'll be finding a tougher fight with them orcs, even with yer boys from Mithral Hall here, when them orcs ain't so surprised that yer boys from Mithral Hall're here!"

There really wasn't much that Wulfgar could say against such logic.

He had seen the orc force, and he knew that those legions, despite being scattered and with many slaughtered outside of Shallows, would still prove overwhelming to this contingent in a level fight. Even as they had begun the run the previous day, they had all known that their only real hope was that the orcs had been too scattered to regroup in time to catch them before they reached the safety of Mithral Hall, or at least before they met up with the dwarven army rolling out of that fortress.

But already the signs were showing their hopes to be in vain. All through the night—in which the dwarves, utilizing more of Pikel's wondrous berries, had kept moving—they had heard the calls of worgs, left and right, shadowing them. Earlier the second day, they had caught sight of a dust cloud rising in the north, not so far behind, and they knew that they were being pursued.