THE DEEP SKIRMISHES 1 page

THE GRIMY LITTLE FINGERS CREPT SLOWLY ACROSS THE TABLE TOWARD

fourth such excursion for the light-fingered goblin hand.

He had drawn a curious look from one of the others, he had noted on the third theft, and so perhaps this one was ill-advised.

Or maybe he was just sick of it all.

He retracted just in time, as a cleaver crashed down upon the table, a cut that would have severed his hand at the wrist. He fell back a step to regard the orc butcher, hulking and ugly, its chest heaving in its angry gasps.

?One!? it growled at the little goblin. ?You gets one! Maybe I put your arm on that plate, eh?? Others moved closer, no doubt thinking they might soon be involved in a goblin dismemberment, which ranked as one of the best pastimes of all for the orcs serving in these inhospitable Underdark passageways.

?I ate one,? the goblin replied. ?And tried to steal another!?

?I have to feed my pet!? the goblin explained.

That gave the orc pause, and it stared at the goblin curiously.

?And he eats a lot,? the goblin said, nodding in an exaggerated manner, big lips flapping. ?So I took a second, third, and fourth, too! And would have stolen a fifth if your cleaver hadn?t fallen.?

The boast had the orc staring down at him dumbfounded, jaw hanging slack, and the other orcs and goblins around could hardly believe what they were hearing. This little goblin had just asked to be executed, so it seemed.

And as the cleaver came up, a growl issuing from the orc boss, they all thought they were about so see exactly that.

?My pet has to be fed,? the goblin pleaded. ?We mustn?t anger him.? ?What pet?? the orc demanded.

?There,? the goblin squeaked, pointing to a dark alcove behind the orc. ?There!?

The orc stared at him skeptically, glancing back once or twice toward the indicated spot. It began to back away from the goblin, never taking its eyes off the thief until it stood right in front of the depressed alcove. Then it glanced in, just in time to see the mithral head of a fabulous warhammer come diving down out of the darkness.

The orc registered that for just an instant, just long enough for its yellow eyes to widen in horror.

Then the orc detected the slightest moment of pain, and nothing more, as the hammer drove into its skull with such force that the beast?s head simply exploded, sending a shower of blood and brains and flecks of bone all around the nearest onlookers.

An orc on the other side of the goblin yelped, and yelped again when the goblin produced, as if from nowhere, a magnificent rapier, and with a sudden step and thrust, drove the fine tip through the yelping orc?s throat. As it fell away, out came the goblin?s other hand, now

holding a hand crossbow.

A second orc fell away, a quarrel in its eye.

And where the hand crossbow had been was now a beautiful three-bladed dagger, its side catch-blades shaped like delicate and deadly serpents, and the goblin wasn?t a goblin any longer, but a halfling, dirty and disheveled, perhaps, but still looking rather dapper in a blue-flecked beret, white shirt, and black leather vest.

The warhammer spun past the halfling, taking out an orc and a goblin in its devastating flight. And on came the goblin-turned-halfling?s pet, a huge human with golden hair, a full beard, and crystalline fire in his blue eyes.

Eyes that shined in the torchlight. Eyes that shined with eagerness as he waded into battle, even unarmed. He hoisted a goblin and used it as a club before throwing it at the feet of a trio of orcs rushing in at him.

They stumbled around, tangling up, and by the time they straightened, that hammer had somehow reappeared in the large man?s hand.

A single sidelong swipe of the magnificent weapon threw the three of them aside.

Near him, circling fast, spinning and dancing, the halfling engaged and parried, turned aside a club, turned low a sword, snapping it in half with his dirk, and took a dagger from the hand of a third goblin, that fine rapier driving right through the creature?s hand.

The pair worked with practiced precision, the halfling darting all around in defense, scoring hits often, but always minor ones. He hadn?t the time to finish off any enemies, moving to the next instead, protecting the huge human?s back and flanks.

That one, monstrously strong and deceptively quick, went for the kill, always the kill, sweeping orcs and goblins aside with abandon. A hit from his hammer shattered bones into dust and tore the victims apart under the ferocious weight of sheer power. At one point, he let the hammer fly, smashing it into an ogre who had just entered the room, and indeed, knocking it back through the doorway and into the corridor beyond.

An orc seized the opportunity and leaped in, smashing at him with its club. He blocked with his forearm, accepting the stinging hit, and before the orc could pull back for a second attack, the man rolled his arm over the club and continued up and under, catching it in his hand and yanking hard, throwing the orc sidelong.

The man?s free hand clamped over the orc?s face, and he pressed immediately, driving the ugly thing over and back.

?Regis!? he cried as other orcs leaped in at him, and as the ogre came back through the door. He pressed the orc backward and down with all his amazing strength?too much strength for the powerful orc to resist, and over and down it sank, its spine crunching and crackling under the relentless strain. It didn?t even think about holding its weapon, both its hands going to claw at that pressing arm.

The man flung the club at the incoming orcs, and his hammer was back then, landing neatly in his free hand.

And the halfling went by him in a blur, leaping into the approaching orcs. His hand flicked once, then twice, and a moment later, two of the four brutes went flying backward and to the floor, tugged down by a leering specter that appeared behind them, holding the living snakes that had become as garrotes around their throats.

Now with a single-bladed dirk and that magnificent rapier, the halfling engaged the two

remaining orcs. He went at them sidelong, rapier arm extended in front of him, dagger arm trailing behind. Subtle shifts of his forward blade turned an orc sword, then a thrusting spear.

His weight went to his trailing foot, and the halfling leaned away. On came an orc, eagerly, thinking him in retreat.

But the halfling fencer stepped forward instead, his weight going forward, his body leaning forward, his arm suddenly extending.

So suddenly. Too suddenly.

Then back he went, then forward again. And a third time with sudden, definitive steps. And he was alone against a single orc so quickly, in the blink of an eye it seemed, as the

orc?s companion slumped to the ground, trembling hands grasping at the three holes the halfling had put into its chest, all of them in the area of the creature?s heart, two of them having pierced the organ.

Behind him came the definitive crack of bone, and the barbarian dropped the shattered orc to the floor and leaped past the halfling to the side. He landed and stopped abruptly, swinging around with uncanny awareness, his hammer leading.

That mighty weapon, that mighty swing, tore the head from the pursuing goblin.

And when that head went flying free, the other orcs and goblins back there changed their direction.

?Go! Go!? the halfling cried to the big man, and the barbarian spun back and let fly his hammer into the chest of the approaching ogre, knocking it backward yet again.

The halfling?s rapier rolled in a mesmerizing dance around the extended spear, the orc futilely trying to bat at the fine blade, but never quite catching up. For several rotations, the beast seemed fixated on that twirling weapon, but then, suddenly, it roared and charged ahead with a vicious thrust instead.

Exactly as the halfling had anticipated. A slight parry from the rapier and a sudden pirouette out and away from the thrusting spear rolled him right along the spear shaft toward the orc.

The orc opened wide its mouth and bit at the halfling?s face. The orc ate the blade of a dagger instead.

It leaped away, screaming horribly, thrashing and flailing down to the floor, insane with pain. The halfling rushed by and started to lower his rapier at the fallen creature to finish it off.

But he smiled wickedly instead and retracted the blade, and let the miserable creature suffer.

?Go!? the huge human yelled, and he jabbed the head of his warhammer straight out, forcing the ogre back a step, demanding its attention. Up and back over his shoulder went the warhammer, as if to begin an overhead chop.

But the halfling ran by, past the big man and right at the ogre. And right through the ogre?s legs and out into the corridor.

The dimwitted behemoth followed the halfling?s movements, bending forward, grabbing at him, but too slow.

And that warhammer did not reverse and come forward in an overhead chop, but continued down and around and under and back up again in a tremendous uppercut, timed

perfectly to meet the bending ogre?s presented face.

How the beast straightened back up to its ten-foot height!

The man dived through its legs, rolling out into the hall, and didn?t even look back as the ground shook under the weight of the tumbling ogre.

?A lot of effort for four eels,? the halfling said as the two sped along the tunnels.

?The growl in my stomach thinks it worthwhile,? the big man answered, but he grunted as he finished the words. The flush of battle was wearing away then, and he had to catch his warhammer in his right hand as his left fell open and weak.

He sucked in his breath, and so did the halfling as he turned to consider the sounds, then to consider the wound.

The big man?s forearm, discolored and swollen, dripped blood.

It was not the first blood these two had left in the corridors of the Upperdark over the last few tendays.

And surely it would not be the last.

Many dwarven fists raised in celebration as the rout continued, the warriors of Citadel Adbar charging along the tunnels, bowling over the goblin and orc resistance, killing the monsters by the score.

?No mercy!? King Harnoth cried. ?Run them through! Leave them squirming on the floor! Bah, the dogs!?

Every southern passage out of Adbar was thick with dwarves, tight in their devastating battle groups, shield dwarves in the front rank, their interlocking great shields forming a wall of metal in front of them. Those large, flat-bottomed shields were notched to support the halberds of the spearmen in the second rank, poking and stabbing at any enemy that got too close.

In the third rank came swordsmen, their blades inevitably pointed downward to stab at the squirming and trampled goblinkin that littered the floor.

Then the priests and the crossbowmen, sending their stinging bolts out before the march. Harnoth?s group came into a large chamber, the Rundberg, they had named it, vast and

nearly circular and full of precious metals. Stalagmites and stalactites filled the area like so many dragon?s teeth, all glittering in the torchlight with flecks of mica and veins of silvery metals.

King Harnoth nodded as they entered, glad to be back here. Citadel Adbar had been working on properly securing and laying rail in the tunnels to this very place before the upheaval, as their miners sought areas to exploit beyond the thinning veins nearer the citadel.

?Ah, but it?s good that we got ?ere so quick, me king,? remarked Dondago Bloodyfist, who was in command of the Wilddwarf Brigade with Oretheo Spikes off in the south at the meeting in Citadel Felbarr?a departure King Harnoth had not sanctioned, and one that was not sitting well with him now, as Uktar turned to Nightal, the last month of 1484 Dalereckoning.

?I been thinkin? them orcs?d stand taller nearer the halls!? Dondago added.

King Harnoth couldn?t disagree with that assessment. He had led his dwarves out in nearly

full force into the Upperdark. They couldn?t break the siege aboveground, it seemed, but they needed to do so down here. For all her redundant and impregnable defenses, Citadel Adbar could not withstand this siege. Her young kings, Harnoth and Bromm, had become too reliant on trade.

That sad error was only now becoming evident as winter deepened and the tunnels out of Adbar were clogged with enemies. Citadel Adbar was the armory of Luruar, and normally the ninth month of the year would see a grand caravan traveling the tunnel ways to the granaries of Sundabar, trading the season?s supply of crossbow bolts, ballista spears, and a bevy of weapons, armor, and other metalworks for enough food to keep the whole of Adbar?s dwarves fat and happy through the gloom of winter.

Not this year though, with Sundabar besieged through the summer and finally falling to Many-Arrows.

They had become too dependent on their trade with the great city. Harnoth?s food stores had already begun to dwindle, and before the year had even turned. He had already started the rationing, and already ordered his own farmers to reclaim large sections of the Undercity and begin their mushroom gardens. But if they could not get through now, could not reopen the ways to the south, to Felbarr and to Mithral Hall, particularly, it was going to be a thin and difficult winter.

Beside him, Dondago began ordering the widening of the front ranks, which would now fold back on both flanks as they crossed the wider ways of Rundberg. ?And watch the pillars!? he yelled up and down the line. ?Damned ogre could hide against one o? them and step out in the middle of us!?

King Harnoth nodded, but something seemed out of place to him, and the hairs on the back of his neck began to tingle. Dondago?s first words, he realized.

They hadn?t fought their way out here to Rundberg, the orcs had baited them!

?No, hold the line!? he countermanded the order. ?That mound to that mound,? he instructed the front rank, indicating a pair of large stalagmites, reaching floor to ceiling some twoscore strides out from the entry tunnel, and fifty dwarves apart from one another. ?Anchor yer line at those stony mounds,? Harnoth ordered, ?and more shields back to the wall from each!?

?Ye heared yer king!? Dondago cried. ?Square up!?

The dwarves hustled to get into formation, and Harnoth sent a pair of runners back the way they had come, to venture east and west along the side passages and halt the other legions. The king didn?t trust this, and wanted to secure the ground all the way back to Adbar.

Part of him did at least. Another part, a very large part, wanted orc blood and ogre blood, wanted to avenge his dead brother. He had to wince when giving the order to slow the march. He would have preferred a headlong charge across the cavern of Rundberg, enemies be damned, and enemies be slain.

But Harnoth?s caution saved his life, and those of most of his forces that day. Barely had the dwarves formed their square, anchored by the stalagmites, when the enemy came roaring across the cavern. Orcs centered the charge, driving goblin fodder in front of them, and with scores of ogres and ogrillons coming in behind them.

The wall of monsters hit the dwarven shield wall like an avalanche. Long halberds impaled the leading monsters, and sometimes another enemy behind the first, but when the press

became too great, those polearms began to snap, and in such rapid succession that the echoes off the walls of Rundberg sounded like a forest of tree limbs snapping under the weight of an ice storm.

Despite the crushing weight of the horde, despite the fury of the press, the shield wall held, shield dwarves supporting each other bravely, interlocking arms as they hooked together shields, and trusting in their fellows behind to drive aside the swords that came in at them over the metal barrier.

King Harnoth?s voice roared above the tumult, calling orders to his kin, concentrating crossbow fire whenever an ogre, who could reach over the front line and destroy its integrity, got too close.

They were holding. The goblinkin were dying so thick their bodies began to bolster the shield wall. And reinforcements were not far behind, so claimed the returning runners.

Then darkness fell, so complete a blackness that many of the dwarves cried out that they had been stricken blind.

When the first fireball erupted among them?unseen flames, though surely not unfelt?the dwarves knew the truth: the drow had come.

As the shouts and screams of agony made clear the magical barrage, King Harnoth wasted no time with indecision, ordering his forces into retreat, back from Rundberg and into the tunnel, back the way they had come.

Magical drow lightning slashed at the departing ranks. The frenzy of orcs and ogres continued to fight, blindly, in the darkness, as often striking an ally as an enemy.

Still, too often striking a dwarf.

The corridor beyond the cavern had not been magically darkened, and there the dwarves reformed into tighter, retreating ranks. For more than a full day, those tunnels south of Adbar became a blood-filled battleground. Hundreds of monsters died, but nearly a hundred of Adbar?s finest dwarves would not make their way back home.

And back home they went, chased into their citadel, and even as the lower door of Adbar slammed shut, a lightning bolt scored it, the retort echoing within the dwarven halls and within the heart of King Harnoth.

The noose had tightened, and the larders grew thin.

And so began a series of battles in the Upperdark that would come to be known about the Silver Marches as the Deep Skirmishes. Stubbornly the dwarves sent their legions forth, trying to break out, and ever were they chased back into their fortress by the horde and the drow, for indeed, the dark elves had learned the region around Adbar well, and every tunnel was well watched, and with monsters ready to flood in and seal off any escapes.

The dwarves of Adbar took heart two tendays later, when Oretheo Spikes and his boys somehow managed to slip back into Adbar through the monster-filled tunnels, most alive, but many wounded.

King Harnoth took no heart in that, though. As glad as he was that his dear and trusted friend Spikes had survived, the dwarf?s grim words about their enemy?s position confirmed King Harnoth?s worst fears.

The big man sat against the wall in the darkness, his right hand clamped tightly around his left forearm as his halfling friend tried to properly wrap the battered limb with a cloth soaked in a healing salve.

?A potion would be better,? Wulfgar muttered as the tight cloth pressed in on his muscles. ?I have none to spare,? Regis replied. He knelt in front of Wulfgar, pulling another long strip of soaked cloth from a pot set on the floor beside them. ?Just the two potions of healing

remaining, and they will be saved for when it becomes a matter of life or death.?

?We have no time for this,? Wulfgar warned, his voice rolling through an octave shift as Regis pulled hard to secure the bandage. ?The drow grow thick about the area?word of us travels to more dangerous enemies.?

?The drow have been thick about the area from the beginning,? Regis replied, but unconvincingly. He too had noted fewer targets of late, and he and Wulfgar tried hard to stay away from any groups that contained dark elves. Ambushing a few orcs and goblins was one thing, even if the occasional ogre joined in, but the pair wanted no part of any fight with drow.

?Then we should already be long gone from here,? Wulfgar said.

Regis leaned back to regard his friend. Wulfgar?s face was more in shadow than light, the scattered glowing lichen in the region barely casting enough of a glow to show the man?s features. Regis knew him well enough to understand the heaviness in his voice, though, and surely the halfling shared that weariness anyway. They had spent a month or perhaps even more?both had long ago lost track of the days?battling and sneaking around the Upperdark, seeking opportunities to get near to Mithral Hall. Their food had run out days ago, and so now they had to add raiding goblin and orc camps to their list of necessary tasks.

They fought almost every day, and Regis spent every night back in whatever hole they were using as a hiding spot cleaning and dressing the inevitable wounds.

?We?ll go back to the lower tunnels,? Regis offered. ?I?ll find more fungus and brew more healing potions ??

He stopped, seeing Wulfgar?s shadowy head slowly shaking back and forth. ?Our friends are in there,? he scolded the barbarian.

?We hope,? Wulfgar reminded him, for though they had heard snippets of the escape of Drizzt and the others into Mithral Hall, they really couldn?t be sure. Indeed, even if their companions had managed to get in to the hall, that was tendays ago?might they already be back out on the surface at the head of Bruenor?s army?

?I am out of answers,? Regis admitted with a long and profound sigh. ?East,? Wulfgar decided.

?East is the river.?

?Under the river, and to the east some more,? the barbarian explained. ?And let us hope that Citadel Felbarr is not as encircled as Mithral Hall.?

Regis fell back a bit farther, his head turning to glance over his left shoulder, to the north, they believed, and toward Mithral Hall. The thought of leaving galled him, and the thought of striking out in an entirely new direction, through tunnels they did not know and a place neither of them had been, terrified him.

?Which way is east?? he asked. ?Do we even know?? ?We came from the south.?

?And we don?t even know how to get back the way we came!? Regis replied, too loudly, drawing a ?shh!? from Wulfgar as he clamped his hand over his own mouth.

?We can guess,? the large man whispered a few moments later. ?And so we?ll wander the Underdark aimlessly if we guess wrong.?

?And so we?ll be caught and killed if we remain in this region, thick with orcs and drow,? said Wulfgar. ?That much is certain.?

Regis didn?t reply. He didn?t have to. They both understood the unsaid part of Wulfgar?s reasoning: that they?d likely be caught and killed in the tunnels they traveled to the east, as well.

If it was even the east. They could hardly see down here?in many places, Wulfgar was fully blind?let alone determine direction.

?How deep will we have to travel to get under the Surbrin?? Regis asked.

?How deep are we now?? Wulfgar replied, and Regis could see the crease of his teasing grin in the dim light as he asked the question, for it was one, both of them knew, that neither of them could begin to answer.

CHAPTER 3

RAIDING THE GARDEN

KRUGER STONESHIELD GAVE A GREAT YAWN AND TRIED TO RUB THE cobwebs of sleep from his weary

eyes. He stood on a small ledge in a tiny alcove, peering through a long tube that poked through the side of the mountain called Fourthpeak, which housed his homeland of Mithral Hall.

A few days before, Kruger had seen the dragon flying around?the huge white wing had flashed right before his startled eyes. It was his report that had explained the sudden troubles with several of the chimneys down in the Undercity.

Since that time, though, the view had been as settled as the winter snows. Kruger reminded himself to be vigilant. His people were counting on him. King Connerad was counting on him.

King Bruenor was counting on him!

?Aye, King Bruenor,? he mumbled, gathering up the end of the spyglass and lifting it to his eye. King Bruenor was back, and wouldn?t them orcs be a sorry lot afore long.

That thought brought a grin and chuckle to Kruger. He imagined a swarm of orcs in full flight in front of the dwarven brigades. He wanted to be on those front lines, chasing the pig-faced dogs all the way back to their holes in the Spine of the World.

He got his visual bearings when he noted the southern rim of Keeper?s Dale through the spyglass, the high sun gleaming brilliantly off the long icicles jabbing down from the ledges. Like dragon?s teeth, he thought.

He stood up taller, lifting the back end of the hanging scope, moving his line of sight down, down, into the bowl and the vast orc encampment therein.

For a moment, he noted the activity superficially, hardly registering the many movements of the small dark forms around the new-fallen snow. For a moment, he just figured that the orcs were clearing off their tents and weapons racks and such from the foot of snow that had fallen the night before. But as the patterns began to truly register, Kruger?s eye popped open wide, and he even pulled back from the spyglass and rubbed that orb again, trying to make sense out of what he had just seen.

He went right back to the scope and began moving it methodically around the vast encampment. And then he knew. There could be no doubt, particularly given the already long train exiting the western side of Keeper?s Dale ?

The orcs were leaving.

Hands trembling, Kruger slid his field of vision over to the northern end of the dale, then climbed up the north wall. His breath fell away when he saw the partially deconstructed catapults and ballistae.

The giants, too, were pulling back.

Had this last snowstorm broken the siege, at long last? Had events in other parts of the Silver Marches, about Felbarr or Silverymoon, perhaps, demanded reinforcements?

Almost giddy with anticipation, Kruger Stoneshield hooked his boot on the metal pole on the outside of the ladder. Like all of Mithral Hall?s mountain scouts, he wore shoes with a semicircular spur made of strong mithral that he could clip onto the ladder, one side and the

other, so he could slide down the thirty feet to the lower chamber?the reporting chamber, as it was called, a chamber designed for messages and set with a desk, inkwell, parchment, and smooth scroll tubes. One wall was fitted with a long pipe that wound down to sentries in deeper caverns still. A scout could write a report, stuff it into a scroll tube, and send it sliding down to the waiting hands below.

With a quick last look at the giants and another scan at the departing orcs and goblins along the valley floor, Kruger let go of the spyglass and bent low to grab the ladder, clipping his second boot in place as he did. He almost began his swift descent, but only then did the last image of the frost giants truly register to him. Many of the war machines were already dismantled, or nearly so, but the last group ?

Were they taking apart that huge catapult? Or turning it?

Kruger scrambled back up and grabbed the spyglass, twisting it around until he locked in once more on the group in question.

?Turnin? it?? he asked, then added, ?Loadin? it!?

Date: 2016-06-13; view: 138