Robert Salvatore - The Halfling’s Gem

“Remember, good friends,” the merchant said to them when they were perched upon their mounts. “What you need—”

“Sali Dalib got!” they all answered in unison. With one final flash of his gold-and-ivory smile, the merchant shuffled into the tent.

“He was more to bargaining, by me guess,” Catti-brie remarked as they headed tentatively on the stiff-legged camels toward the first signpost. “He could’ve gotten more for the beasts.”

“Stolen, o’ course!” Bruenor laughed, stating what he considered the obvious.

But Drizzt wasn’t so certain. “A merchant such as he would have sought the best price even for stolen goods,” he replied, “and by all my knowledge of the rules of bargaining, he most certainly should have counted the gold.”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted, fighting to keep his mount moving straight. “Ye probably gave him more than the things are worth!”

“What, then?” Catti-brie asked Drizzt, agreeing more with his reasoning.

“Where?” Wulfgar answered and asked all at once. “He sent his goblin sneak away with a message.”

“Ambush,” said Catti-brie.

Drizzt and Wulfgar nodded. “It would seem,” said the barbarian.

Bruenor considered the possibility. “Bah!” He snorted at the notion. “He didn’t have enough wits in his head to pull it off.”

“That observation might only make him more dangerous,” Drizzt remarked, looking back a final time toward Memnon.

“Turn back?” the dwarf asked, not so quick to dismiss the drow’s apparently serious concerns.

“If our suspicions prove wrong and we miss the caravan, …” Wulfgar reminded them ominously.

“Can Regis wait?” asked Catti-brie.

Bruenor and Drizzt looked to each other.

“Onward,” Drizzt said at length. “Let us learn what we may.”

“Nowhere might you learn more than in a land unlike your own,” Wulfgar remarked, echoing Drizzt’s thoughts of that morning.

When they had passed the first signpost, their suspicions did not diminish. A large board nailed to the post named their route in twenty languages, all reading the same way: “De bestest road.” Once again, the friends considered their options, and once again they found themselves trapped by the lack of time. They would continue on, they decided, for one hour. If they had found no signs of the caravan by then, they would return to Memnon and “discuss” the matter with Sali Dalib.

The next signpost read the same way, as did the one after that. By the time they passed the fifth, sweat drenched their clothes and stung their eyes, and the city was no longer in sight, lost somewhere in the dusty heat of the rising dunes. Their mounts didn’t make the journey any better. Camels were nasty beasts, and nastier still when driven by an inexperienced rider. Wulfgar’s, in particular, had a bad opinion of its rider, for camels preferred to pick their own route, and the barbarian, with his powerful legs and arms, kept forcing his mount through the motions he chose. Twice, the camel had arched its head back and launched a slobbery wad of spittle at Wulfgar’s face.

Wulfgar took it all in stride, but he spent more than a passing moment fantasizing of flattening the camel’s hump with his hammer.

“Hold!” Drizzt commanded as they moved down into a bowl between dunes. The drow extended his arm, leading the surprised glances skyward, where several buzzards had taken up a lazy, circular flight.

“There’s carrion about,” Bruenor noted.

“Or there is soon to be,” Drizzt replied grimly.

Even as he spoke, the lines of the dunes encircling them transformed suddenly from the hazy flat brown of hot sands to the ominous silhouettes of horsemen, curved swords raised and gleaming in the bright sunlight.

“Ambush,” Wulfgar stated flatly.

Not too surprised, Bruenor glanced around to take a quick measure of the odds. “Five to one,” he whispered to Drizzt.

“It always seems to be,” Drizzt answered. He slowly slid his bow from his shoulder and strung it.

The horsemen held their position for a long while, surveying their intended prey.

“Ye think they be wantin’ to talk?” Bruenor asked, trying to find some humor in the bleak situation.

“Nah,” the dwarf answered himself when none of the other three cracked a smile.

The leader of the horsemen barked a command, and the thunderous charge was on.

“Blast and bebother the whole damned world,” Catti-brie grumbled, pulling Taulmaril from her shoulder as she slid from her mount. “Everyone wants a fight.

“Come on, then!” she shouted at the horsemen. “But let’s get the fight a bit fairer!” She set the magical bow into action, sending one silver arrow after another streaking up the dunes into the horde, blasting rider after rider out of his saddle.

Bruenor gawked at his daughter, suddenly so grim-faced and savage. “The girl’s got it right!” he proclaimed, sliding down from his camel. “Can’t be fightin’ up on one of them things!” As soon as he hit the ground, the dwarf grabbed at his pack and pulled out two flasks of oil.

Wulfgar followed his mentor’s lead, using the side of his camel as a barricade. But the barbarian found his mount to be his first foe, for the ill-tempered beast turned back on him and clamped its flat teeth onto his forearm.

Drizzt’s bow joined in on Taulmaril’s deadly song, but as the horsemen closed in, the drow decided upon a different course of action. Playing on the terror of the reputation of his people, Drizzt tore off his mask and pulled back the cowl of his cloak, leaping to his feet atop the camel and straddling the beast with one foot on each hump. Those riders closing in on Drizzt pulled up short at the unnerving appearance of a drow elf.

The other three flanks collapsed quickly, though, as the horsemen closed in, still outnumbering the friends.

Wulfgar stared at his camel in disbelief, then slammed his huge fist between the wretched beast’s eyes. The dazed camel promptly let go of its hold and turned its woozy head away.

Wulfgar wasn’t finished with the treacherous beast. He noticed three riders bearing down on him, so he decided to pit one enemy against another. He stepped under the camel and lifted it clear off the ground, his muscles rippling as he heaved the thing into the charging pack. He just managed to dodge the tumbling mass of horses, riders, camels, and sand.

Then he had Aegis-fang in his hands, and he leaped into the jumble, crushing the bandits before they ever realized what had hit them.

Two riders found a channel through the riderless camels to get at Bruenor, but it was Drizzt, standing alone, who got in the first strike. Summoning his magical ability, the drow conjured a globe of darkness in front of the charging bandits. They tried to pull up short, but plunged in headlong.

That gave Bruenor all the time he needed. He struck a spark off his tinderbox onto the rags he had stuffed into the oil flasks, then tossed the flaming grenades into the ball of darkness.

Even the fiery lights of the ensuing explosions could not be seen within the globe of Drizzt’s spell, but from the screams that erupted inside, Bruenor knew he had hit the mark.

“Me thanks, elf!” the dwarf cried. “Glad to be with ye again!”

“Behind you!” was Drizzt’s reply, for even as Bruenor spoke, a third rider cut around the globe and galloped at the dwarf. Bruenor instinctively dropped into a ball, throwing his golden shield above him.

The horse trampled right over Bruenor and stumbled into the soft sand, throwing its rider.

The tough dwarf sprang to his feet and shook the sand out of his ears. That stomping would surely hurt when the adrenaline of battle died away, but, right now, all Bruenor felt was rage. He charged the rider—now also rising to his feet—with his mithril axe raised above his head.