Robert Salvatore: The Crystal Shard

Abruptly, Regis pulled the ruby pendant out from under his waistcoat and stared at the wondrous gem he had appropriated from his former master a thousand miles and more to the south, in Calimport.

“Ah, Pook,” he mused, “if only you could see me now.”

The elf went for the two scimitars sheathed on his hips, but the yetis closed quickly. Instinctively, Drizzt spun to his left, sacrificing his opposite flank to accept the rush of the closest monster. His right arm became helplessly pinned to his side as the yeti wrapped its great arms around him, but he managed to keep his left arm free enough to draw his second weapon. Ignoring the pain of the yeti’s squeeze, Drizzt set the hilt of the scimitar firmly against his hip and allowed the momentum of the second charging monster to impale it on the curving blade.

In its frenzied death throes, the second yeti pulled away, taking the scimitar with it.

The remaining monster bore Drizzt to the ground under its weight. The drow worked his free hand frantically to keep the deadly teeth from gaining a hold on his throat, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before his stronger foe finished him.

Suddenly Drizzt heard a sharp crack. The yeti shuddered violently. Its head contorted weirdly, and a gout of blood and brains poured over its face from above its forehead.

“Yer late, elf!” came the rough edge of a familiar voice. Bruenor Battlehammer walked up the back of his dead foe, disregarding the fact that the heavy monster lay on top of his elven friend. In spite of the added discomfort, the dwarf’s long, pointed, often-broken nose and gray-streaked, though still-fiery red beard came as a welcome sight to Drizzt. “Knew I’d find ye in trouble if I came out an’ looked for ye!”

Smiling in relief, and also at the mannerisms of the ever-amazing dwarf, Drizzt managed to wriggle out from under the monster while Bruenor worked to free his axe from the thick skull.

“Head’s as hard as frozen oak!” grumbled the dwarf. He planted his feet behind the yeti’s ears and pulled the axe free with a mighty jerk. “Where’s that kitten o’ yers, anyway?”

Drizzt fumbled around in his pack for a moment and produced a small onyx statue of a panther. “I’d hardly label Guenhwyvar a kitten,” he said with fond reverence. He turned the figurine over in his hands, feeling the intricate details of the work to ensure that it had not been damaged in the fall under the yeti.

“Bah, a cat’s a cat!” insisted the dwarf. “An’ why isn’t it here when ye needed it?”

“Even a magical animal needs its rest,” Drizzt explained.

“Bah,” Bruenor spouted again. “It’s sure to be a sorry day when a drow—and a ranger, what’s more—gets taken off ‘is guard on an open plain by two scab tundra yetis!” Bruenor licked his stained axe blade, then spat in disgust.

“Foul beasts!” he grumbled. “Can’t even eat the damn things!” He pounded the axe into the ground to clean the blade and stomped off toward Kelvin’s Cairn.

Drizzt put Guenhwyvar back into the pack and went to retrieve his scimitar from the other monster.

“Come on, elf,” scolded the dwarf. “We’ve five miles an more of road to go!”

Drizzt shook his head; and wiped the bloodstained blade on the felled monster’s fur: “Roll on, Bruenor Battlehammer,” he whispered under his smile. “And know to your pleasure that every monster along our trail will mark well your passing and keep its head safely hidden!”

Many miles north of Ten-Towns, across the trackless tundra to the northernmost edge of land in all the Realms, the frosts of winter had already hardened the ground in a white-tipped glaze. There were no mountains or trees to block the cold bite of the relentless eastern wind, carrying the frosty air from Reghed Glacier. The great bergs of the Sea of Moving Ice drifted slowly past, the wind howling off of their high-riding tips in a grim reminder of the coming season. And yet, the nomadic tribes who summered there with the reindeer had not journeyed with the herd’s migration southwest along the coast to the more hospitable sea on the south side of the peninsula.

The unwavering flatness of the horizon was broken in one small corner by a solitary encampment, the largest gathering of barbarians this far north in more than a century. To accomodate the leaders of the respective tribes, several deerskin tents had been laid out in a circular pattern, each encompassed in its own ring of campfires. In the center of this circle, a huge deerskin hall had been constructed, designed to hold every warrior of the tribes. The tribesmen called it Hengorot, “The Mead Hall,” and to the northern barbarians this was a place of reverence, where food and drink were shared in toasts to Tempos, the God of Battle.

The fires outside the hall burned low this night, for King Heafstaag and the Tribe of the Elk, the last to arrive, were expected in the camp before moonset. All of the barbarians already in the encampment had assembled in Hengorot and begun the pre-council festivities. Great flagons of mead dotted every table, and good-natured contests of strength sprang up with growing frequency. Though the tribes often warred with each other, in Hengorot all differences were put aside.

King Beorg, a robust man with tousled blond locks, a beard fading to white, and lines of experience etched deeply into his tanned face, stood solemnly at the head table. Representing his people, he stood tall and straight, his wide shoulders proudly squared. The barbarians of Icewind Dale stood a full head and more above the average inhabitant of Ten-Towns, sprouting as though to take advantage of the wide and roomy expanses of empty tundra.

They were indeed much akin to their land. Like the ground they roamed over, their oftenbearded faces were browned from the sun and cracked by the constant wind, giving them a leathery, toughened appearance, a foreboding, expressionless mask that did not welcome outsiders. They despised the people of Ten-Towns, whom they considered weak wealth-chasers possessed of no spiritual value whatsoever.

Yet one of those wealth-chasers stood among them now in their most revered hall of meeting. At Beorg’s side was deBernezan, the dark-haired southerner, the only man in the room who was not born and bred of the barbarian tribes. The mousey deBernezan kept his shoulders defensively hunched as he glanced nervously about the hall. He was well aware that the barbarians were not overly fond of outsiders and that any one of them, even the youngest attendant, could break him in half with a casual flick of his huge hands.

“Hold steady!” Beorg instructed the southerner. “Tonight you hoist mead flagons with the Tribe of the Wolf. If they sense your fear …” He left the rest unspoken, but deBernezan knew well how the barbarians dealt with weakness. The small man took a steadying deep breath and straightened his shoulders.

Yet Beorg, too, was nervous. King Heafstaag was his primary rival on the tundra, commanding a force as dedicated, disciplined, and numerous as his own. Unlike the customary barbarian raids, Beorg’s plan called for the total conquest of Ten-Towns, enslaving the surviving fishermen and living well off of the wealth they harvested from the lakes. Beorg saw an opportunity for his people to abandon their precarious nomadic existence and find a measure of luxury they had never known. Everything now hinged on the assent of Heafstaag, a brutal king interested only in personal glory and triumphant plunder. Even if the victory over Ten-Towns was achieved, Beorg knew that he would eventually have to deal with his rival, who would not easily abandon the fervent bloodlust that had put him in power. That was a bridge the King of the Tribe of the Wolf would have to cross later, the primary issue now was the initial conquest, and if Heafstaag refused to go along, the lesser tribes would split in their alliances among the two. War might be joined as early as the next morning. This would prove devastating to all their people, for even the barbarians who survived the initial battles would be in for a brutal struggle against winter: The reindeer had long since departed for the southern pastures, and the caves along the route had not been stocked in preparation. Heafstaag was a cunning leader; he knew that at this late date the tribes were committed to following the initial plan, but Beorg wondered what terms his rival would impose.