Robert Salvatore: The Legacy

"Stealth was never a dwarven strong point," Drizzt remarked dryly.

Regis let his stare linger for many moments on the departing host's crack formations, then turned the other way to regard the other group, bearing the beam, stone disks, and other items.

"If ye've not got the belly for it…" Bruenor began, interpreting the halfling's interest as fear.

"I am here, aren't I?" Regis came back sharply, rudely actually, and the uncustomary edge to his voice made his friends regard him curiously. But then, in a peculiarly Regislike movement, the halfling straightened his belt under his prominent paunch, squared his shoulders, and looked away.

The others managed a laugh at Regis's expense, but Drizzt continued to stare at him curiously. Regis was indeed "here," but why he had come, the drow did not know. To say that Regis was not fond of battle was as much an understatement as to say that the halfling was not fond of missing meals.

A few minutes later the hundred soldiers remaining behind their king entered the appointed chamber, coming in through a large archway onto a raised section of stone, several feet up from the wide floor of the huge main area, wherein stood the goblin host. Drizzt noted with more than passing curiosity that this particular raised section held no stalagmite mounds, which seemed to be common throughout the rest of the chamber. Many stalactites leered down from the not-too-high ceiling above Drizzt's head; why hadn't their drippings left the commonplace stone mounds?

Drizzt and Guenhwyvar moved to one side, out of the range of the torches, which the drow, with his exceptional vision, did not need. Slipping into the shadows of a grouping of low-hanging stalactites, the two seemed to disappear.

So did Regis, not far behind Drizzt.

"Gave up the high ground afore we ever started," Bruenor whispered to Wulfgar and Catti-brie. "Ye'd think even goblins'd be smarter than that!" That notion gave the dwarf pause, and he glanced around to the edges of the raised section, taking note that this slab of stone had been worked-worked with tools-to fit into this section of the cavern. His dark eyes narrowed with suspicion as Bruenor looked to the area where Drizzt had disappeared.

"I'm thinking that it's a good thing we're up high for the parley," Bruenor said, too loudly.

Drizzt understood.

"The whole section is trapped," Regis, right behind the drow, remarked.

Drizzt nearly jumped, amazed that the halfling had gotten so close to him and wondering what magical item Regis carried to make his movements so silent. Following the halfling's leading gaze, Drizzt regarded the nearest edge of the platform and a pillar half out from under the stone, a slender stalagmite that had been recently decapitated.

"A good hit would bring it down," Regis reasoned.

"Stay here," Drizzt instructed, agreeing with the crafty halfling's estimate. Perhaps the goblins had spent some time in preparing this battlefield. Drizzt moved out into view of the dwarves, gave Bruenor some signals to indicate that he would check it out, then slipped away, Guenhwyvar moving parallel to him, not far to the side.

All the dwarves had entered the chamber by then, with Bruenor cautiously keeping them back, lined end to end against the back edge of the semicircular platform.

Bruenor, with Wulfgar and Catti-brie flanking him, came out a few steps to regard the goblin host. There were well over a hundred-maybe two hundred-of the smelly things in the darker area of the chamber, judging from the many sets of red-shining eyes staring back at the dwarf.

"We came to talk," Bruenor called out in the guttural goblin tongue, "as agreed."

"Talk," came a goblin reply, surprisingly in the Common tongue. "Whats will dwarfses offer to Gar-yak and his thousands?"

"Thousands?" Wulfgar remarked.

"Goblins cannot count beyond their own fingers," Catti-brie reminded him.

"Get on yer toes," Bruenor whispered to them both.

"This group's looking for a fight. I can smell it."

Wulfgar gave Catti-brie a positively superior look, but his juvenile bluster was lost, for the young woman was paying him no heed.

Drizzt slipped from shadow to shadow, around boulders, and, finally, over the lip of the raised platform. As he and Regis had expected, this section, supported along its front end by several shortened stalagmite pillars, was not a solid piece, but a worked slab propped in place. And, as expected, the goblins planned to drop the front end of the platform and spill the dwarves. Great iron wedges had been driven partway through the front supporting line of pillars, waiting for a hammer to drive them through.

It was no goblin poised underneath the stone to spring the trap, however, but another two-headed giant, an ettin. Even lying flat, it was nearly as tall as Drizzt; he guessed it would tower at least twelve feet high if it ever got upright. Its arms, as thick as the drow's chest, were bare, it held a great spiked club in either hand, and its two huge heads stared at each other, apparently holding a conversation.

Drizzt didn't know whether the goblins intended to honestly parley, dropping the stone slab only if the dwarves made move to attack, but with the appearance of the dangerous giant, he wasn't willing to take any chances. Using the cover of the farthest pillar, he rolled under the lip and disappeared into the blackness behind and to the side of the waiting giant.

When a cat's green eyes stared back at Drizzt from across the breadth of the prone giant, he knew that Guenhwyvar, too, had moved silently into position.

A torch went up among the goblin ranks, and three of the four-foot-tall, yellow-skinned creatures ambled forward.

"Well," Bruenor grumbled, already tired of this meeting. "Which one of ye dogs is Gar-yak?"

"Gar-yak back with others," the tallest of the group answered, looking over his sloping shoulder to the main host.

"A sure sign there's to be trouble," Catti-brie muttered, unobtrusively slipping her great bow from her shoulder. "When the leader's safely back, the goblins mean to fight."

"Go tell yer Gar-yak that we don't have to kill ye," Bruenor said firmly. "Me name's Bruenor Battlehammer-"

"Battlehammer?" The goblin spat, apparently recognizing the name. "Yous is king dwarf?"

Bruenor's lips did not move as he mumbled to his companions, "Be ready." Catti-brie's hand came to rest on the quiver at her side.

Bruenor nodded.

"King!" the goblin hooted, looking back to the monster host and pointing excitedly Bruenor's way. The ready dwarves understood the cue for the onslaught faster than the stupid goblins, and the next calls from the chamber were dwarven battle cries.

Drizzt took the call to action faster than the dim-witted ettin. The creature swung its clubs back, then yelped in pain and surprise as the six-hundred-pound panther clamped onto one wrist and a wickedly edged scimitar dove into its armpit on the other side.

The monster's huge heads turned outward in a weird, synchronous movement, one to regard Drizzt, one toward Guenhwyvar.

Before the ettin ever knew what was happening, Drizzt's second scimitar slashed across its bulging eyes. The giant tried to squirm about to get to the stinging elf, but the agile Drizzt slipped under its arm and came in hard and fast at the monster's vulnerable heads.

Across the way, Guenhwyvar dug teeth into flesh and set claws into stone, holding fast the monster's arm.

"Drizzt got him!" Bruenor reasoned when the floor bucked beneath him. With the failure of the simple, if not clever, trap, the goblins had indeed surrendered the favorable high ground. The stupid creatures hooted and whooped and came on anyway, launching crude spears, most of which never reached their targets.

More effective was the dwarven response. Catti-brie led it, putting the Heartseeker up in an instant and loosing a magical, silver-shafted arrow that seemed to trail lightning in its deadly flight. It blasted a clean, smoking hole through one goblin, did likewise to a second farther back, and drove into the chest of a third. All three dropped to the floor.