The Crystal Shard (23 page)

"The challenge cannot be denied!" cried Revjak.

The horns of Icingdeath.

*****

The cold sweat on Heafstaag's face revealed his tension as he buffed the last burrs from the head of his huge axe. "Dragon's bane!" he huffed unconvincingly to his standar bearer, who had just entered the tent. "More likely that he stumbled upon a sleeping worm!"

"Your pardon, mighty king," the young man said. "Revjak has sent me to tell you that the appointed time is upon us."

"Good!" sneered Heafstaag, running his thumb across the shining edge of the axe. "I shall teach the son of Beornegar to respect his king!"

The warriors from the Tribe of the Elk formed a circle around the combatants. Though this was a private event for Heafstaag's people, the other tribes watched with interest from a respectable distance. The winner would hold no formal authority over them, but he would be the king of the most powerful and dominant tribe on the tundra.

Revjak stepped within the circle and moved between the two opponents. "I proclaim Heafstaag!" he cried. "King of the Tribe of the Elk!" He went on to read the one-eyed king's long list of heroic deeds.

Heafstaag's confidence seemed to return during the reciting, though he was a bit confused and angry that Revjak had chosen to proclaim him first. He placed his hands on his wide hips and glared around threateningly at the closest onlookers, smiling as they backed away from him, one by one. He did the same to his opponent, but again his bullying tactics failed to intimidate Wulfgar.

"And I proclaim Wulfgar," Revjak continued, "son of Beornegar and challenger to the throne of the Tribe of the Elk!" The reciting of Wulfgar's list took much less time than Heafstaag's, of course. But the final deed that Revjak proclaimed brought a degree of parity to the two.

"Dragon's bane!" Revjak cried, and the crowd, respectfully silent up to this point, excitedly began recounting the numerous rumors that had begun concerning Wulfgar's slaying of Icingdeath.

Revjak looked to the two combatants and stepped out of the circle.

The moment of honor was upon them.

They waded around the circle of battle, cautiously stalking and measuring each other for hints of weakness. Wulfgar noted the impatience on Heafstaag's face, a common flaw among barbarian warriors. He would have been much the same were it not for the blunt lessons of Drizzt Do'Urden. A thousand humiliating slaps from the drow's scimitars had taught Wulfgar that the first blow was not nearly as important as the last.

Finally, Heafstaag snorted and roared in. Wulfgar also growled aloud, moving as if he would meet the charge head on. But then-he sidestepped at the last moment and Heafstaag, pulled by the momentum of his heavy weapon, stumbled past his foe and into the first rank of onlookers.

The one-eyed king recovered quickly and charged back out, doubly enraged, or so Wulfgar believed. Heafstaag had been king for many years and had fought in countless battles. If he had never learned to adjust his fighting technique, he would have long ago been slain. He came at Wulfgar again, by all appearances more out of control than the first time.

But when Wulfgar moved out of the path, he found Heafstaag's great axe waiting for him.

The one-eyed king, anticipating the dodge, swung his weapon sideways, gashing Wulfgar's arm from shoulder to elbow.

Wulfgar reacted quickly, thrusting Aegis-fang out defensively to deter any follow-up attacks. He had little weight behind his swing, but its aim was true and the powerful hammer knocked Heafstaag back a step. Wulfgar took a moment to examine the blood on his arm.

He could continue the fight.

"You parry well," Heafstaag growled as he squared off just a few steps from his challenger. "You would have served our people well in the ranks. A loss it is that I must kill you!" Again the axe arced in, raining blow after blow in a furious assault meant to end the fight quickly.

But compared to the whirring blades of Drizzt Do'Urden, Heafstaag's axe seemed to move sluggishly. Wulfgar had no trouble deflecting the attacks, even countering now and then with a measured jab that thudded into Heafstaag's broad chest.

Blood of frustration and weariness reddened the one-eyed king's face. "A tiring opponent will often move with all of his strength at once," Drizzt had explained to Wulfgar during the weeks of training. "But rarely will he move in the apparent direction, the direction that he thinks you think he is moving in!"

Wulfgar watched intently for the expected feint.

Resigned that he could not break through the skilled defenses of his younger and faster foe, the sweating king brought the great axe up over his head and lunged forward, yelling wildly to emphasize the attack.

But Wulfgar's reflexes were honed to their finest fighting edge, and the over-emphasis that Heafstaag placed upon the attack told him to expect a change in direction. He raised Aegis-fang as if to block the feigned blow, but reversed his grip even as the axe dropped down off of Heafstaag's shoulder and came in deceptively low in a sidelong swipe.

Trusting fully in his dwarven-crafted weapon, Wulfgar shifted his front foot back, turning to meet the oncoming blade with a similarly angled cut from Aegis-fang.

The heads of the two weapons slammed together with incredible force. Heafstaag's axe shattered in his hands, and the violent vibrations knocked him backward to the ground.

Aegis-fang was unharmed. Wulfgar could have easily walked over and finished Heafstaag with a single blow.

Revjak clenched his fist in anticipation of Wulfgar's imminent victory.

"Never confuse honor with stupidity!" Drizzt had scolded Wulfgar after his dangerous inaction with the dragon. But Wulfgar wanted more from this battle than to simply, win the leadership of his tribe; he wanted to leave a lasting impression on all of the witnesses. He dropped Aegis-fang to the ground and approached Heafstaag on even terms.

The barbarian king didn't question his good fortune. He sprang at Wulfgar, wrapping his arms about the younger man in an attempt to drive him backward to the ground.

Wulfgar leaned forward to meet the attack, planting his mighty legs firmly, and stopped the heavier man in his tracks.

They grappled viciously, exchanging heavy blows before managing to lock each other close enough to render punches ineffective. Both combatants' eyes were blue and puffy, bruises and cuts welled on face and chest alike.

Heafstaag was the wearier, though, his barrel chest heaving with each labored breath. He wrapped his arms around Wulfgar's waist and tried again to twist his relentless opponent to the ground.

Then Wulfgar's long fingers locked onto the sides of Heafstaag's head. The younger man's knuckles whitened, the huge muscles in his forearms and shoulders tightened. He began to squeeze.

Heafstaag knew at once that he was in trouble, for Wulfgar's grip was mightier than a white bear's. The king struggled wildly, his huge fists slugging into Wulfgar's exposed ribs, hoping only to break Wulfgar's deadly concentration.

This time one of Bruenor's lessons spurred him on: "Think o' the weasel, boy, take the minor hits, but never, never let 'em go once yer on!" His neck and shoulder muscles bulged as he drove the one-eyed king to his knees.

Horrified at the power of the grip, Heafstaag pulled at the younger man's iron-hard forearms, trying vainly to relieve the growing pressure.

Wulfgar realized that he was about to kill one of his own tribe. "Yield!" he shouted at Heafstaag, seeking some more acceptable alternative.

The proud king answered with a final punch.

Wulfgar turned his eyes to the sky. "I am not like him!" he yelled helplessly, vindicating himself to any who would listen. But there was only one path left open to him.

The young barbarian's huge shoulders reddened as the blood surged through them. He saw the terror in Heafstaag's eye transcend into incomprehension. He heard the crack of bone, he felt the skull squash beneath his mighty hands.

Revjak should have then stepped into the circle and heralded the new King of the Tribe of the Elk.

But, like the other witnesses around him, he stood unblinking, his jaw hanging open.

*****

Helped by the gusts of the cold wind at his back, Drizzt sped across the last miles to Ten-Towns. On the same night that he had split from Wulfgar, the snow-capped tip of Kelvin's Cairn came into view. The sight of his home drove the drow onward even faster, yet a nagging hint on the edge of his senses told him that something was out of the ordinary. A human eye could never have caught it, but the keen night vision of the drow finally sorted it out, a growing pillar of blackness blotting out the horizon's lowest stars south of the mountain. And a second, smaller column, south of the first.

Drizzt stopped short. He squinted his eyes to be sure of his guess. Then he started again, slowly, needing the time to sort through an alternate route that he could take.

Caer-Konig and Caer-Dineval were burning.

23

Besieged

Caer-Dineval's fleet trolled the southernmost waters of Lac Dinneshere, taking advantage of the areas left open when the people of Easthaven fled to Bryn Shander.

Caer-Konig's ships were fishing their familiar grounds by the lake's northern banks. They were the first to see the coming doom.

Like an angry swarm of bees, Kessell's foul army swept right around the northern bend of Lac Dinneshere and roared down Icewind Pass.

"Up anchor!" cried Schermont and many other ship's captains as soon as they had recovered from the initial shock. But they knew even then that they could not get back in time.

The leading arm of the goblin army tore into Caer- Konig.

The men on the boats saw the flames leap up as buildings were put to the torch. They heard the blood-crazed hoots of the vile invaders.

They heard the dying screams of their kin.

The women, children, and old men who were in Caer-Konig had no thoughts of resistance.

They ran. For their lives, they ran. And the goblins chased them and cut them down.

Giants and ogres rushed down to the docks, squashing the pitiful humans who beckoned helplessly to the returning fleet, or forcing them into the cold death of the lake's waters.

The giants carried huge sacks, and as the brave fishermen rushed into port, their vessels were pummeled and crippled by hurled boulders.

Goblins continued to flow into the doomed city, yet the bulk of the vast army's trailing edge flowed past and continued on toward the second town, Caer-Dineval. By this time, the people in Caer-Dineval had seen the smoke and heard the screams and were already in full flight to Bryn Shander, or out on the docks begging their sailors to come home.

But Caer-Dineval's fleet, though they caught the strength of the east wind in their rush back across the lake, had miles of water before them. The fishermen saw the pillars of smoke growing over Caer-Konig, and many suspected what was happening and understood that their flight, even with their sails so full of wind, would be in vain. Still, groans of shock and disbelief could be heard on every deck when the black cloud began its ominous climb from the northernmost sections of Caer-Dineval.

Then Schermont made a gallant decision. Accepting that his own town was doomed, he offered his help to his neighbors. "We can not get in!" he cried to a captain of a nearby ship.

"Pass the word: away south! Dineval's docks are yet clear!"

*****

From a parapet on Bryn Shander's wall, Regis, Cassius, Agorwal, and Glensather watched in horror as the wicked force flowed down the stretch away from the two sacked cities, gaining on the fleeing people of Caer-Dineval.

"Open the gates, Cassius!" Agorwal cried. "We must go out to them! They have no chance of gaining the city unless we slow the pursuit!"

"Nay," replied Cassius somberly, painfully aware of his greater responsibilities. "Every man is needed to defend the city. To go out onto the open plain against such overwhelming numbers would be futile. The towns on Lac Dinneshere are doomed!"

"They are helpless!" Agorwal shot back. "Who are we if we can not defend our kinfolk?

What right do we have to stand watching from behind this wall while our people are slaughtered?"

Cassius shook his head, resolute in his decision to protect Bryn Shander.

But then other refugees came running down the second pass, Bremen's Run, fleeing the open town of Termalaine in their hysteria when they saw the cities across the way put to the torch. More than a thousand refugees were now within sight of Bryn Shander. Judging their speed and the distance remaining, Cassius estimated that they would converge on the wide field just below the principle city's northern gates.

Where the goblins would catch them.

"Go," he told Agorwal. Bryn Shander couldn't spare the men, but the field would soon run red with the blood of women and children.

Agorwal led his valiant men down the northeastern road in search of a defensible position where they could dig in. They chose a small ridge, actually more like a crest where the road dipped slightly. Entrenched and ready to fight and die, they waited as the last of the refugees ran past, terrified, screaming because they believed they had no chance of reaching the safety of the city before the goblins descended. upon them.

Smelling human blood, the fastest runners of the invading army were right behind the trailing people, mostly mothers clutching their babies. Intent on their easy victims, the lead monsters never even noticed Agorwal's force until the waiting warriors were upon them.

By then it was too late.

The brave men of Termalaine caught the goblins in a crossfire of bows and then followed Agorwal into a fierce sword rush. They fought fearlessly, as men who had accepted what fate had dealt them. Dozens of monsters lay dead in their tracks and more fell with each passing minute as the enraged warriors pressed into their ranks.

But the line seemed endless. As one goblin fell, two replaced it. The men of Termalaine were soon engulfed in a sea of goblins.

Agorwal gained a high point and looked back toward the city. The fleeing women were a good distance across the field, but moving slowly. If his men broke their ranks and fled, they would overtake the refugees before the slopes of Bryn Shander. And the monsters would be right behind.

"We must go out and support Agorwal!" Glensather yelled at Cassius. But this time the spokesman from Bryn Shander remained resolute.

"Agorwal has accomplished his mission," Cassius responded. "The refugees will make the wall. I'll not send more men out to die! Even if the combined strength of all of Ten-Towns were on the field, it would not be able to defeat the foe before us!" Already the wise spokesman understood that they could not fight Kessell on even terms.

The kindly Glensather looked crestfallen. "Take some troops down the hill," Cassius conceded. "Help the exhausted refugees up the final climb."

Agorwal's men were hard-pressed now. The spokesman from Termalaine looked back again and was appeased; the women and children were safe. He scanned up to the high wall, aware that Regis, Cassius, and the others could see him, a solitary figure on the small rise, though he could not pick them out among the throng of spectators that lined Bryn Shander's parapets.

More goblins poured into the fray, now joined by ogres and verbeeg. Agorwal saluted his friends in the city. His contented smile was sincere as he spun around and charged back down the grade to join his victorious troops in their finest moment.

Then Regis and Cassius watched the black tide roll over every one of the brave men of Termalaine.

Below them, the heavy gates slammed shut. The last of the refugees were in.

*****

While Agorwal's men had won a victory of honor, the only force that actually battled Kessell's army that day and survived were the dwarves. The clan from Mithril Hall had spent days in industrious preparation for this invasion, yet it nearly passed them by altogether.

Held by the wizard's compelling will into discipline unheard of among goblins, especially varied and rival tribes, Kessell's army had definite and direct plans for what they had to accomplish in the initial surge. As of this point, the dwarves were not included. But Bruenor's boys had other plans. They weren't about to bury themselves in their mines without getting to lop off at least a few goblin heads, or without crushing the kneecaps of a giant or two.

Several of the bearded folk climbed to the southern tip of their valley. When the trailing edge of the evil army flowed past, the dwarves began to taunt them, shouting challenges and curses against their mothers. The insults weren't even necessary. Orcs and goblins despise dwarves more than anything else alive, and Kessell's straightforward plan flew from their minds at the mere sight of Bruenor and his kin. Ever hungry for dwarven blood, a substantial force broke away from the main army.

The dwarves let them close in, goading them with taunts until the monsters were nearly upon them. Then Bruenor and his kin slipped back over the rocky ledge and down the steep drop.

"Come an' play, stupid dogs," Bruenor chuckled wickedly as he disappeared from sight.

He pulled a rope off of his back. There was one little trick he had thought up that he was anxious to try out.

The goblins charged into the rocky vale, outnumbering the dwarves four to one. And they were backed by a score of raging ogres.

The monsters didn't have a chance.

The dwarves continued to coax them on, down the steepest part of the valley, to the narrow, sloping ledges on the cliff face that crossed in front of the numerous entrances to the dwarven caves. An obvious place for an ambush, but the stupid goblins, frenzied at the sight of their most-hated enemies, came on anyway, heedless of the danger.

When the majority of the monsters were on the ledges and the rest were making the initial descent into the vale, the first trap was sprung. Catti-brie, heavily armed but positioned in the back of the inner tunnels, pulled a lever, dropping a post on the vale's upper crest. Tons of rocks and gravel tumbled down upon the tail of the monster's line, and those who managed to keep their precarious balance and escape the brunt of the avalanche found the trails behind them buried and closed to any escape.

Crossbows twanged from concealed nooks, and a group of dwarves rushed out to meet the lead goblins.

Bruenor wasn't with them. He had hidden himself further back on the trail and watched as the goblins, intent on the challenge up ahead, passed him by. He could have struck then, but he was after larger prey, waiting for the ogres to come into range. The rope had already been carefully measured and tied off. He slipped one of its looped ends around his waist and the other securely over a rock, then pulled two throwing axes from his belt. It was a risky ploy, perhaps the most dangerous the dwarf had ever tried, but the sheer thrill of it became obvious in the form of a wide grin across Bruenor's face when he heard the lumbering ogres approaching. He could hardly contain his laughter when two of them crossed before him in the narrow trail. Leaping from his concealment, Bruenor charged at the surprised ogres and threw the axes at their heads. The ogres twisted and managed to deflect the half-hearted throws, but the hurled weapons were merely a diversion.

Bruenor's body was the true weapon in this attack. Surprised, and dodging from the axes, the two ogres were put off-balance. The plan was falling into place perfectly; the ogres could hardly find their footing. Twitching the powerful muscles in his stubby legs, Bruenor launched himself into the air, crashing into the closest monster. It fell with him onto the other.

And they tumbled, all three, over the edge.

One of the ogres managed to lock its huge hand onto the dwarf's face, but Bruenor promptly bit it, and the monster recoiled. For a moment, they were a falling jumble of flailing legs and arms, but then Bruenor's rope reached its length and sorted them out.

"Have a nice landing, boys," Bruenor called as he broke free of the fall. "Give the rocks a big kiss for me!"

The backswing on the rope dropped Bruenor into the entrance of a mineshaft on the next lowest ledge as his helpless victims dropped to their deaths. Several goblins in line behind the ogres had watched the spectacle in blank amazement. Now they recognized the opportunity of using the hanging cord as a shortcut to one of the caves, and one by one they climbed onto the rope and started down.

But Bruenor had anticipated this as well. The descending goblins couldn't understand why the rope felt so slick in their hands.

When Bruenor appeared on the lower ledge, the end o' the rope in one hand and a lighted torch in the other, they figured it out.

Flames leaped up the oiled twine. The topmost goblin managed to scramble back on the ledge, the rest took the same route as the unfortunate ogres before them. One nearly escaped the fatal fail, landing heavily on the lower ledge. Before he could even regain his feet, though, Bruenor kicked him over.

The dwarf nodded approvingly as he admired the successful results of his handiwork. That was one trick he intended to remember. He slapped his hands together and darted back down the shaft. It sloped upward farther back to join the higher tunnels.

On the upper ledge, the dwarves were fighting a retreating action. Their plan was not to clash in a death fight outsside, but to lure the monsters into the entrances of the tunnels. With the desire to kill blotting out any semblance of reason, the dimwitted invaders readily complied, assuming, that their greater numbers were pushing the dwarves back into a corner.