The Last Threshold
Page 67

“To the day, sir.”
“You will await our return in this very place.”
The captain nearly choked on that. He had agreed to, and been paid for, taking them out here, but even with the rough weather, he wanted a day of knucklehead fishing. Indeed, in weather such as this, knucklehead trout were more likely to bite.
“But—” he started to argue, but the drow fixed him with such a stare that he knew that any contrary word from him would likely get him murdered, then and there.
“You will await our return,” Tiago said again.
“H-how long?” the captain stammered.
“Until you die of old age, if need be,” said Tiago. “And then you will return us to Easthaven’s dock, or you will begin a circuitous ferry from that dock to this place as the rest of my force is brought forth.”
The notion that there were more of these dangerous folk around had the hairs on the back of the captain’s neck standing up. What had he stepped into here, he wondered and imagined a drow invasion force burning Easthaven to the ground!
Later that same day, the sun setting low, the captain breathed a sigh of relief when Tiago and the others stepped off his boat again, this time onto Easthaven’s docks. They had found no sign of Drizzt out in the east, and had quickly realized the fool’s errand of trying to pursue the rogue, who knew the region so much better than they, into the open tundra.
So instead, Tiago and a select few remained at the inn in Easthaven, with the bulk of their thirty-warrior force camped in an extra-dimensional space created by Ravel and the other spellspinners, ready for fast recall.
And they waited.
Another tenday passed. Tiago sent out tendrils—Saribel’s priestesses—to Bryn Shander, and hired indigenous scouts to widen his network to encompass the whole of Ten-Towns, including the Battlehammer contingent living under the lone mountain. Ravel and his spellspinners, meanwhile, utilized their divination magic, while Saribel and her kind called out to Lolth’s handmaidens for guidance in their search.
A month slipped by. Tiago hired locals to reach out to the barbarian tribes for word on the missing drow.
Another month passed, with no word of Drizzt, and indeed, even the extra-planar creatures the priestesses and now magic-users he had called upon could find no sign of the rogue. The season began its turn, where the mountain passes would fill with snow and cold, and Icewind Dale would again be isolated from the rest of Faerûn. By the time of the first snowstorm, no caravan moved along the single road connecting Icewind Dale to the lands south of the Spine of the World.
No caravan, perhaps, but the storm did not hinder the approach of a demonic balor, whose every monstrous stride turned the snowpack to steam.
A tremendous explosion rocked Bryn Shander’s gate, crumbling the stones and shattering the hinges of the great doors, which fell in and were fast consumed by the demonic fires. A guard to the side of the devastation lifted her spear and threw, crying out for Bryn Shander, for Ten-Towns. The missile disappeared into the smoky shroud around the demon, but whether it had any effect or not, the poor sentry would never know. For as her spear flew out, the demon’s long whip reached in, snapping around her torso. With a flick of his powerful wrist, Errtu yanked her from her feet and sent her flying from the wall, dragging her into the killing fires surrounding his great form.
He gave her not another thought, and waved forward three powerful minions, great glabrezu demons. Twice the height of a tall man, the bipedal, hulking creatures eagerly loped through the breach and into the city, each demon waving four massive arms. Two of those arms ended in giant pincers, powerful enough to cut a man in half, as one unfortunate Bryn Shander soldier discovered almost immediately.
“I will have the drow!” Errtu roared. “Send him to me now, or I will lay waste to your city!”
From a short distance south of the unfolding battle scene, Tiago and his minions, well-versed in demon lore, understood that the threat was not an idle one.
“A balor,” Saribel said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Hunting us?” a confused Ravel added.
“So it would seem,” said Tiago. “And though I truly enjoy the spectacle of carnage before us, perhaps we should discern what this beast might wish with us. Nothing good, I expect, and so perhaps we will have to destroy it. A pity, really.”
His casual attitude, so matter-of-fact and calm despite the formidable enemy on the field before them, had the others looking at the young Baenre with renewed respect, and inevitably nodding in agreement.
Tiago turned to Saribel. “Ward me from the demon flames,” he instructed. “Ward us all. Let us strip this balor of its primary weapon.”
While Saribel and her priestesses began the task, casting many magical protections over the group, Tiago gathered Ravel, Jearth, and Yerrininae to prepare the battlefield. Within a short while, Tiago rode Byok to the front of his column. He watched the huge balor follow the glabrezu into the city, a cacophony of screams echoing along Bryn Shander’s wall, then started forward. He pointed to the wall, some twenty feet south of the destroyed gate, and kicked Byok into a run. The drow warriors and Saribel’s priestesses followed quickly, Jearth guiding them. The mighty driders ran with the group for a short distance, but veered away to the west soon after, increasing their pace in a circuitous route that would take them north of the gate.
Ravel and his fellow spellspinners did not follow the others. They assumed their battle formation, with the noble drow serving as the hub of their “wheel.” As the other five began their long incantation, Ravel cast the first spell, opening a dimensional portal from just north of their position to the area immediately before Bryn Shander’s ruined gate. By the time he had finished that spell, the first sparks of mounting power began to crackle in the air around him.
Tiago Baenre guided his lizard mount at full speed to the base of Bryn Shander’s tall wall, then leaped onto the stones and ran up so quickly that an onlooker might have thought the wall an optical illusion, and no more than a gently-sloping hill at best. Tiago gained the top of the wall quickly and ran along a short distance, taking in the scene of carnage before him while Jearth and the others gathered at the base outside the wall.
The citizens of Bryn Shander had come out in force to meet the assault of the demons, and to their credit, they did not break ranks as the mighty balor and the vicious glabrezu decimated all who came against them. A dozen warriors all at once charged a single glabrezu, off to the side of the main fighting, some bursting out of doors, tossing spears and demanding the creature’s attention, while others leaped from the rooftops, throwing themselves atop the monster with flailing abandon.
A cloud of blood appeared almost instantly, and twelve warriors became ten, then six in short order. The glabrezu roared and struck hard, butting with its horns, biting with its canine maw, snapping with its deadly pincers. For all the damage it could cause, though, the sheer weight of the gallant citizens brought it to the ground, and the humans wet their spear tips and swords with demon blood.
“I will have you, drow!” the balor roared, and the greatest beast hardly seemed concerned by the fall of the one glabrezu. “Come forth or see them all destroyed! I have waited a hundred years!”
As it bellowed, the creature sent a wall of fire rushing down an alleyway, just as an arrow came forth. That arrow had little effect, and the poor archer’s screams filled the air as the wall of fire ate him.
“Who is this balor to demand an audience so emphatically?” Tiago cried out, in the tongue of demons and not the common surface language.
The balor stiffened at the sound of the words in the distinct Menzoberranyr accent, and wheeled around.
Tiago started to ask another question, but the creature was apparently in no mood to converse—not with a solitary drow warrior, at least—and it lifted its whip in a spin around its massive horned head. Out lashed the weapon, and Tiago ducked behind his shield, and the magnificent web that was Orbcress spiraled as he did, and grew in size to fully wall him from the deadly bite of Errtu’s whip.
“A hundred years is not so long a time, Drizzt Do’Urden!” Errtu roared, and threw a fireball Tiago’s way.
The drow was already moving, though, running Byok along the narrow walkway toward the ruined gate, then down the outside of the wall, back to the field before Bryn Shander. He had barely registered the demon’s words, barely begun to sort out that this creature was hunting not him, but Drizzt, when the beast charged back out of the city, its fiery whip snapping at Tiago once more.
At the same time, the great demon reached to the side with its sword hand, exuding a telekinetic power that lifted a boulder from the rubble of the broken gate.
Tiago blocked the snapping whip yet again, and started to call out, trying to strike up a conversation with this demon. But any thoughts he had of joining with the creature flew away from him as that boulder flew toward him!
He ducked behind the shield once more, and surely it saved his life, but the weight of the blow sent him flying from his mount with such force that it tore the saddle from Byok’s back and sent the powerful lizard tumbling over.
A glabrezu lifted a Bryn Shander warrior into the air between its great pincers. The man’s companion and dear friend cried out in denial, but to no avail.
The pincers closed and the poor warrior fell to the ground in two pieces.
“Drizzt did this!” the man screamed, throwing himself with abandon at the huge demon. He slashed and stabbed wildly with his sword, scoring a couple of solid hits before the creature backhanded him with the strength of a hill giant, launching him to the side.
Other warriors replaced him. From the balcony of a nearby building, a wizard lashed out with a lightning bolt, shocking and startling the glabrezu, weakening its preparedness as the other citizens came on.
To the side, the battered warrior cried out for his fallen friend, and loudly cursed the name of Drizzt Do’Urden.
Others joined in.
Tiago rolled a dozen times, trying to absorb the shock of the blow. He came around, his shield arm slumping low, his shoulder numb, just in time to see his prized lizard charging in fiercely at the balor.
“No!” Tiago screamed, but the lizard, as well-trained as it was, was hearing none of his commands. Byok leaped at the balor, forelegs raking, maw snapping.
But the balor’s whip connected first, wrapping around the powerful lizard, and with frightening strength, the great demon tugged hard and defeated the lizard’s momentum, sending Byok into a sudden spin to land hard amidst the flames at the balor’s feet.
Tiago charged, screaming for his prized pet. He saw Byok bite up at the balor, and catch the whip arm, tearing demon flesh, but then the balor’s greatsword swept down into the flames, and came up dripping lizard blood.
From the side charged Jearth and the others, a volley of javelins soaring in to sting the great demon. Two glabrezu came through the gate at the same moment, however, turning immediately to engage this new force.
Tiago winced with every strike as the battle in the flames continued before him. The balor stood up straight, towering above the flames, and lifted its whip arm, and Byok—grand and brave Byok!—was still attached, biting on ferociously. Ragged skin hung from the lizard’s powerful maw, and Byok shook his jaws and the balor howled in pain and Tiago’s heart leaped with hope.