Regis and Drizzt had made some assumptions about alliances when they had planned the halfling's actions at this council. They knew that Easthaven, founded and thriving on the principle of brotherhood among the communities of Ten-Towns, would openly embrace the concept of a common defense against the barbarian horde. Likewise Termalaine and Lonelywood, the two most accessible and raided towns of the ten, would gladly accept any offers of help.
Yet even Spokesman Agorwal of Termalaine, who had so much to gain from a defensive alliance, would hedge and hold his silence if Kemp of Targos refused to accept the plan.
Targos was the largest and mightiest of the nine fishing villages, with a fleet more than twice the size of Termalaine's, the second largest.
"Fellow members of the council," Kemp began, leaning forward over the table to loom larger in the eyes of his peers. "Let us learn more of the halfling's tale before we begin to worry. We have fought off barbarian invaders and worse enough times to be confident that the defenses of even the smallest of our towns are adequate."
Regis felt his tension growing as Kemp rolled into his speech, building on points designed to destroy the halfling's credibility. Drizzt had decided early on in their planning that Kemp of Targos was the key, but Regis knew the spokesman better than the drow and knew that Kemp would not be easily manipulated. Kemp illustrated the tactics of the powerful town of Targos in his own mannerisms. He was large and bullying, often taking to sudden fits of violent rage that intimidated even Cassius. Regis had tried to steer Drizzt away from this part of their plan, but the drow was adamant.
"If Targos agrees to accept the alliance with Lonelywood," Drizzt had reasoned,
"Termalaine will gladly join and Bremen, being the only other village on the lake, will have no choice but to go along. Bryn Shander will certainly not oppose a unified alliance of the four towns on the largest and most prosperous lake, and Easthaven will make six in the pact, a clear majority."
The rest would then have no choice but to join in the effort. Drizzt had believed that Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig, fearing that Easthaven would receive special consideration in future councils, would put on a blusterous show of loyalty, hoping themselves to gain favor in the eyes of Cassius. Good Mead and Dougan's Hole, the two towns on Redwaters, though relatively safe from an invasion from the north, would not dare to stand apart from the other eight communities.
But all of this was merely hopeful speculation, as Regis clearly realized when he saw Kemp glaring at him from across the table. Drizzt had conceded the point that the greatest obstacle in forming the alliance would be Targos. In its arrogance, the powerful town might believe that it could withstand any barbarian raid. And if it did manage to survive, the destruction of some of its competitors might actually prove profitable.
"You say only that you have learned of an invasion," Kemp began. "Where could you have gathered this valuable and, no doubt, hard to find information?"
Regis felt sweat beading on his temples. He knew where Kemp's question would lead, but there was no way that he could avoid the truth. "From a friend who often travels the tundra," he answered honestly.
"The drow?" Kemp asked.
With his neck bent up and Kemp towering over him, Regis found himself quickly placed on the defensive. The halfling's father had once warned him that he would always be at a disadvantage when dealing with humans because they physically had to look down when speaking to him, as they would to their own children. At times like this, the words of his father rang painfully true to Regis. He wiped a bead of moisture from his upper lip.
"I cannot speak for the rest of you," Kemp continued, adding a chuckle to place the halfling's grave warning in an absurd light, "but I have too much serious work to do to go into hiding on the words of a drow elf!" Again the burly spokesman laughed, and this time he was not alone.
Agorwal of Termalaine offered some unexpected assistance to the halfling's failing cause.
"Perhaps we should let the spokesman from Lonelywood continue. If his words are true…"
"His words are the echoes of a drow's lies!" Kemp snarled. "Pay them no heed. We have fought off the barbarians before, and -"
But then Kemp, too, was cut short as Regis suddenly sprang up on the council table. This was the most precarious part of Drizzt's plan. The drow had shown faith in it, describing it matter-of-factly, as though it would pose no problems. But Regis felt impending disaster hovering all about him. He clasped his hands behind his back and tried to appear in control so that Cassius wouldn't take any immediate actions against his unusual tactics.
During Agorwal's diversion, Regis had slipped the ruby pendant out from under his waistcoat. It sparkled on his chest as he walked up and down, treating the table as though his personal stage.
"What do you know of the drow to jest of him so?" he demanded of the others, pointedly Kemp. "Can any of you name a single person that he has harmed? No! You chastise him for the crimes of his race, yet have none of you ever considered that Drizzt Do'Urden walks among us because he has rejected the ways of his people?" The silence in the hall convinced Regis that he had either been impressive or absurd. In any case, he was not so arrogant or foolish to think his little speech sufficient to accomplish the task.
He walked over to face Kemp. This time he was the one looking down, but the spokesman from Targos seemed on the verge of exploding into laughter.
Regis had to act quickly. He bent down slightly and raise his hand to his chin, by appearance to scratch an itch though in truth to set the ruby pendant spinning, tapping with his arm as it passed. He then held the silence of the moment patiently and counted as Drizzt had instructed. Ten-seconds passed and Kemp had not blinked. Drizzt had said that this would be enough, but Regis, surprised and apprehensive at the ease with which he had accomplished the task, let another ten go by before he dared begin testing the drow's beliefs.
"Surely you can see the wisdom of preparing for an attack," Regis suggested calmly. Then in a whisper that only Kemp could hear he added, "These people look to you for guidance, great Kemp. A military alliance would only enhance your stature and influence."
The effect was dazzling.
"Perhaps there is more to the halfling's words than we first believed," Kemp said mechanically, his glazed eyes never leaving the ruby.
Stunned, Regis straightened up and quickly slipped the stone back under his waistcoat.
Kemp shook his head though clearing a confusing dream from his thoughts, as he rubbed his dried eyes. The spokesman from Targos couldn't seem to recall the last few moments, but the hafling's suggestion was planted deeply into his mind. Kemp found, to his own amazement, that his attitudes had changed.
"We should hear well the words of Regis," he declared loudly. "For we shall be none the worse from forming such an alliance, yet the consequences of doing nothing may prove to be grave, indeed!"
Quick to seize an advantage, Jensin Brent leaped up from his chair. "Spokesman Kemp speaks wisely," he said. "Number the people of Caer-Dineval, ever proponents of the united efforts of Ten-Towns, among the army that shall repel the horde!"
The rest of the spokesmen lined up behind Kemp as Drizzt had expected, with Dorim Lugar making an even bigger show of loyalty than Brent's.
Regis had much to be proud of when he left the council hall later that day, and his hopes for the survival of Ten-Towns had returned. Yet the halfling found his thoughts consumed by the implications of the power he had discovered in his ruby. He worked to figure the most failsafe way in which he could turn this new-found power of inducing cooperation into profit and comfort.
"So nice of the Pasha Pook to give me this one!" he told himself as he walked through the front gate of Bryn Shander and headed for the appointed spot where he would meet with Drizzt and Bruenor.
7
The Coming Storm
They started at dawn, charging across the tundra like an angry whirlwind. Animals and monsters alike, even the ferocious yetis, fled before them in terror. The frozen ground cracked beneath the stamp of their heavy boots, and the murmur of the endless tundra wind was buried under the strength of their song, the song to the God of Battle.
They marched long into the night and were off again before the first rays of dawn, more than two thousand barbarian warriors hungry for blood and victory.
*****
Drizzt Do'Urden sat nearly halfway up on the northern face of Kelvin's Cairn, has cloak pulled tight against the Bitter wind that howled through the boulders of the mountain. The drow had spent every night up here since the council in Bryn Shander, his violet eyes scanning the blackness of the plain for the first signs of the coming storm. At Drizzt's request, Bruenor had arranged for Regis to sit beside him. With the wind nipping at him like an invisible animal, the halfling squeezed in between two boulders a further protection from the unwelcoming elements.
Given a choice, Regis would have been tucked away in the warmth of his own soft bed in Lonelywood, listening to the quiet moan of the swaying tree branches beyond warm walls.
But he understood that as a spokesman everyone expected him to help carry out the course of action he had suggested at the council. It quickly became obvious to the other spokesmen and to Bruenor, who had joined in the subsequent strategy meetings as the representative of the dwarves, that the halfling wouldn't be much help in organizing the forces or drawing any battle plans, so when Drizzt told Bruenor that he would need a courier to sit watch with him, the dwarf was quick to volunteer Regis.
Now the halfling was thoroughly miserable. His feet and fingers were numbed from the cold, and his back ached from sitting against the hard stone. This was the third night out, and Regis grumbled and complained constantly, punctuating his discomfort with an occasional sneeze. Through it all, Drizzt sat unmoving and oblivious to the conditions, his stoic dedication to duty overriding any personal distress.
"How many more nights do we have to wait?" Regis whined. "One morning, I'm sure-maybe even tomorrow they'll find us up here, dead and frozen to this cursed mountain!"
"Fear not, little friend," Drizzt answered with a smile. "The wind speaks of winter. The barbarians will come all too soon, determined to beat the first snows." Even as he spoke, the drow caught the tiniest flicker of light in the corner of his eye. He rose from his crouch suddenly, startling the halfling, and turned toward the direction of the flicker,. his muscles tensed with reflexive wariness, his eyes straining to spot a confirming sign.
"What's-" Regis began, but Drizzt silenced him with an outstretched palm. A second dot of fire flashed on the edge of the horizon.
"You have gotten your wish," Drizzt said with certainty.
"Are they out there?" Regis whispered. His vision wasn't nearly as keen as the drow's in the night.
Drizzt stood silently in concentration for a few moments, mentally trying to measure the distance of the campfires and calculate the time it would take the barbarians to complete their journey.
"Go to Bruenor and Cassius, little friend," he said at length. "Tell them that the horde will reach Bremen's Run when the sun peaks tomorrow."
"Come with me," said Regis. "Surely they'll not put you out when you bear such urgent news."
"I have a more important task at hand," Drizzt answered. "Now be off! Tell Bruenor – and Bruenor alone – that I shall meet him on Bremen's Run at the first light of dawn." And with that, the drow padded off into the darkness. He had a long journey before him.
"Where are you going?" Regis called after him.
"To find the horizon's horizon!" carne a cry from the black night.
And then there was only the murmur of the wind.
*****
The barbarians had finished setting up their encampment shortly before Drizzt reached its outer perimeter. This close to Ten-Towns, the invaders were on their guard; the first thing Drizzt noticed was that they had set many men on watch. But alert as they were, their campfires burned low and this was the night, the time of the drow. The normally effective watchmen were outmatched by an elf from a world that knew no light, one who could conjure a magical darkness that even the keenest eyes could not penetrate and carry it beside him like a tangible cloak. Invisible as a shadow in the darkness, with footfalls as silent as a stalking cat's, Drizzt passed by the guards and entered the inner rings of the camp.
Just an hour earlier, the barbarians had been singing and talking of the battle they would fight the next day. Yet even the adrenalin and bloodlust that pumped through their veins could not dispel the exhaustion from their hard march. Most of the men slept soundly, their heavy, rhythmic breathing comforting Drizzt as he picked his way among them in search of their leaders, who would no doubt be finalizing the battle plans.
Several tents were grouped together within the encampment. Only one, though, had guards posted outside its entrance. The flap was closed, but Drizzt could see the glow of candles within, and he could hear gruff voices, often raised in anger. The drow slipped around to the back. Luckily, no warriors had been permitted to make their beds close to the tent, so Drizzt was fairly secluded. As a precaution, he pulled the panther figurine out of his pack. Then, taking out a slender dagger, he poked a tiny hole in the deerskin tent and peeked in.
There were eight men inside, the seven barbarian chiefs and a smaller dark-haired man that Drizzt knew could not have been from northern stock. The chiefs sat on the ground in a semicircle around the standing southerner, asking him questions about the terrain and forces they would encounter the next day.
"We should destroy the town in the wood first," insisted the largest man in the room, possibly the largest man Drizzt had ever seen, who bore the symbol of the Elk. "Then we can follow your plan to the town called Bryn Shander."
The smaller man appeared absolutely flustered and outraged, though Drizzt could see that fear of the huge barbarian king would temper his response. "Great King Heafstaag," he answered tentatively, "if the fishing fleets sight trouble and land before we get to Bryn Shander, we shall find an army that outnumbers our own waiting for us within the solid walls of that city."
"They are only weakly southerners!" growled Heafstaag, thrusting out his barrel chest in pride.
"Mighty king, I assure you that my plan will satisfy your hunger for southern blood," said the dark-haired man.
"Then speak, deBernezan of Ten-Towns. Prove your worth to my people."
Drizzt could see that the last statement rattled the one called deBernezan, for the undertones of the barbarian king's demand clearly showed his contempt for the southerner.
Knowing how barbarians generally felt about outsiders, the drow realized that the slightest error during any part of this campaign would probably cost the little man his life. deBernezan reached down into the side of his boot and produced a scroll. He unrolled it and held it out for the barbarian kings to see. It was a poor map, roughly drawn, its lines further blurred by the slight tremble of the southern man's hand, but Drizzt Could clearly make out many of the distinctive features that marked Ten-Towns on the otherwise featureless plain.
"To the west of Kelvin's Cairn," deBernezan explained, running his finger along the western bank of the largest lake on the map, "there is a clear stretch of high ground called Bremen's Run that goes south between the mountain and Maer Dualdon. From our location, this is the most direct route to Bryn Shander and the path that I believe we should take."
"The town on the banks of the lake," Heafstaag reasoned, "should then be the first that we crush!"
"That is Termalaine," replied deBernezan. "All of its men are fishermen and will be out on the lake as we pass. You would not find good sport there."
"We will not leave an enemy alive behind us!" Heafstaag roared, and several other kings cried out their agreement.
"No, of course not," said deBernezan. "But it will not take many men to defeat Termalaine when the boats are out. Let King Haalfdane and the Tribe of the Bear sack the town while the rest of the force, led by yourself and King Beorg, presses on to Bryn Shander. The fires of the burning town should bring the entire fleet, even the ships from the other towns of Maer Dualdon, into Termalaine where King Haalfdane can destroy them on the docks. It is important that we keep them away from the stronghold of Targos. The people of Bryn Shander will receive no aid from the other lakes in time to support them and will have to stand alone against your charge. The Tribe of the Elk will flank around the base of the hill below the city and cut off any possible escape or any last-minute reinforcements."
Drizzt watched closely as deBernezan described this second division of the barbarian forces on his map. Already the drow's calculating mind was formulating initial defense plans. Bryn Shander's hill wasn't very high but its base was thick, and the barbarians who were to swing around the back of the hill would be a long way from the main force.
A long way from reinforcements.
"The city will fall before sunset!" deBernezan declared triumphantly. "And your men will feast on the finest booty in all of Ten-Towns!" A sudden cheer went up on cue from the seated kings at the southerner's declaration of victory.
Drizzt put his back to the tent and considered what he had heard. This dark-haired man named deBernezan knew the towns well and understood their strengths and weaknesses. If Bryn Shander fell, no organized resistance could be formed to drive off the invaders. Indeed, once they held the fortified city, the barbarians would be able to strike at their leisure at any of the other towns.
"Again you have shown me your worth," Drizzt heard Heafstaag tell the southerner, and the ensuing of conversations told the drow that the plans had been accepted as final. Drizzt then focused his keen senses on the encampment around him, seeking the best path for his escape. He noticed suddenly that two guards were walking his way and talking. Though they were too far away for their human eyes to see him as anything but a shadow on the side of the tent, he knew that any movement on his part would surely alert them.
Acting immediately, Drizzt dropped the black figurine to the ground. "Guenhwyvar," he called softly. "Come to me, my shadow."
*****
Somewhere in a corner of the vast astral plane, the entity of the panther moved in sudden, subtle steps as it stalked the entity of the deer. The beasts of this natural world had played out this scenario countless times, following the harmonious order that guided the lives of their descendents. The panther crouched low for the final spring, sensing the sweetness of the upcoming kill. This strike was the harmony of natural order; the purpose of the panther's existence, and the meat its reward.
It stopped at once, though, when it heard the call of its true name, compelled above any other directives to heed the call of its master.
The great cat's spirit rushed down the long, darkened corridor that marked the void between the planes, seeking the the solitary speck of light that was its life on the material plane. And then it was beside the dark elf, its soulmate and master, crouching in the shadows by the hanging skins of a human dwelling.
It understood the urgency of its master's call and quickly opened its mind to the drow's instructions.
The two barbarian guards approached cautiously, trying to make out the dark forms that stood beside their kings' tent. Suddenly Guenhwyvar sprang toward them and soared in a mighty leap past their drawn swords. The guards swung the weapons futilely and charged off after the cat, screaming an alert to the rest of the camp.
In the excitement of the diversion, Drizzt moved calmly and stealthily away in a different direction. He heard the shouts of alarm as Guenhwyvar darted through the campsites of the sleeping warriors and couldn't help but smile when the cat crossed through one particular group. Upon sighting this feline, who moved with so much grace and speed that it appeared as no more than a cat's spirit, the Tribe of the Tiger, instead of giving chase, fell to their knees and raised their hands and voices in thanks to Tempos.
Drizzt had little trouble escaping the perimeter of the camp, as all of the sentries were rushing off in the direction of the commotion. When the drow gained the blackness of the open tundra, he turned south toward Kelvin's Cairn and sped off across the lonely plain in full flight, all the while concentrating on finalizing a deadly counter-plan of defense. The stars told him that there were less than three hours left before dawn, and he knew that he mustn't be late for his meeting with Bruenor if the ambush were to be properly set.