The Thousand Orcs
Chapter 24 WITH SURPRISING SKILL

 
Drizzt, Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and Regis sat around a rough map Regis had drawn of the town and the surrounding area and upon which Drizzt had added detail. The mood was dour and fearful -not for themselves, but for the townsfolk. First the orc prisoner had mentioned a huge army encircling the town, then a woman who had been out on patrol had come in, battered and terrified, and reporting that all the others were dead, wiped away by a powerful force of humanoids.
Though she was obviously unnerved, her words told of a well-coordinated group, a dangerous foe beyond the usual expectations.
None of the friends mentioned Clicking Heels that morning, but the images of that flattened town surely played upon all their minds. Shallows was larger than Clicking Heels and much better defended, with a wizard to help, but the signs were getting very dark.
Bruenor came in soon after, his face locked in a scowl.
"Stubborn bunch," the dwarf remarked, moving between Regis and Wulfgar and observing the map with an approving grunt.
"Withegroo cannot be dismissing the claims of the lone survivor," Drizzt came back. "They lost nearly one in ten this morning."
"Oh, he's believin' her, he is," Bruenor explained, "but him and the others're thinking that they're to pay back them that killed their kin.
The folk of Shallows are up for a fight."
"Even if that fight's against a foe they can't be beating?" Catti-brie asked.
"Don't know that they're thinking such a foe's about," came Bruenor's response.
The words had barely left his lips when Drizzt and Catti-brie rose up, the woman reaching for her bow, Drizzt going for his cloak.
"I'll go, too," Regis offered.
Wulfgar rose and picked up Aegis-fang.
"The two of ye take the short perimeter," Catti-brie said. "I'll take one round out from there, and let Drizzt do the deep scouting."
"Should we wait for the cover of night?" Regis asked.
"Orcs're better at night than in the day," Catti-brie remarked.
"And we might not have that much time to spare," Drizzt added. He looked to Bruenor and said, "The townsfolk have to agree to let the weak and infirm leave, at least."
"Got Dagnabbit putting together plans for a run even now," the dwarf confirmed, "but I'm not thinking that many o' Shallows's folk'll be wantin' to go out. This is their place, elf, their home and the place of security they've known for many years. They're trusting in Withegroo, and he's one to be trustin', I don't doubt."
"I fear that he might be wrong this time," Drizzt replied. "Every sign darkens the possibilities. If the force allied against Shallows is as strong as indications, then the folk of the town may all wish that they had gone out before too long."
"Go and see," Bruenor bade him. "I'll make 'em listen while ye're out. I'll get the horses ready and the wagons packed. I'll get me dwarfs in proper order and ready to roll out. I'll be talking with Withegroo again, right off, now that I can catch him alone and without them hollering fools wanting revenge here and now."
"Do ye think he'll hear ye?" Catti-brie asked.
Bruenor gave a shrug and an exaggerated wink, and said, "I'm the king, ain't I?"
On that lighter note, the four scouts rushed out of the building and out of the town. Wulfgar and Regis peeled away to high ground near to the town's walls. Catti-brie found a similar but more defensible vantage point a hundred yards farther out, and Drizzt rushed away from there.
Other scouting groups went out from Shallows as well, but none were nearly as organized, nor nearly as stealthy.
One such group, seven strong, passed Wulfgar and Regis just outside the town's southern gate.
"Well met again," the townsfolk greeted, pausing for just a moment.
"You would do well -better for your town-if you remained inside the walls, preparing defenses should the expected attack come," Wulfgar told the apparent leader: a young man, strong of limb and with a grim and angry expression locked upon his dark, strong features.
The man stopped, his six companions paused behind him, and he shot the barbarian a curious, somewhat angry look.
"We will discern the strength of our common enemy," Wulfgar explained, "and report fully to the town leaders. None can scout the trails better than Drizzt Do'Urden."
The man's look did not soften. It was almost as if he was taking Wulfgar's remarks as a personal affront.
"Every person out here is at risk," Wulfgar went on, not backing down an inch. "For Shallows to lose seven more able-bodied fighters now would not bode well."
The man's nostrils flared and his eyes widened, his expression intense indeed.
Regis motioned to him, bidding him to move off to the side.
"There are other considerations," the halfling remarked, and he offered a sidelong glance at Wulfgar as he spoke, even managing a little telling wink to his large friend.
The scout eyed the halfling suspiciously, but Regis only smiled innocently and turned, nodding for the man to follow. They held a short, private conversation off to the side, and the man from Shallows was smiling and nodding as he returned.
"Back to the town," he ordered his companions, sweeping past them and taking them up in his wake. "Our friends here are correct and we're splitting our forces apart before we even know what it is we're soon to fight."
There came some murmuring of dissent and confusion but the speaker was obviously the appointed and accepted leader, and the group started back the way they'd come.
"Do you never feel the slightest twinge of regret when employing your magical ruby?" Wulfgar asked Regis when the others had moved off.
"Not when it's for their own good," Regis replied, grinning from ear to car. "We both heard that group coming from fifty feet away. I think the orcs would have, as well." He turned and looked out to the south. "And if there are nearly as many as we've been led to believe, I likely just saved those seven from death this day."
"A temporary reprieve?" Wulfgar asked, the jarring question catching Regis off his guard and stealing the smile from his cherubic face.
He and the barbarian looked at each other, but then Wulfgar looked past him, the barbarian's blue eyes widening.
Regis spun around, looking to the south once more, and there he saw Catti-brie running flat out toward them, waving her arms and her bow in the air.
Regis winced. Wulfgar leaped ahead as the woman staggered suddenly, grasping at her shoulder. Only then did Regis and Wulfgar understand that she was being pursued by archers.
Regis spun around and saw the seven scouts from Shallows rushing back his way.
"To the town!" he yelled to them. "To the town and man the walls. Have the gate ready to swing wide for us!"
By the time the halfling turned back, Catti-brie and Wulfgar had joined up and were both running back toward him, with Wulfgar supporting the wounded woman.
Behind them, corning out of the brush and around the rocks, rushed a horde of orcs.
Regis paused and watched, measuring the distance, and only then did he realize that he wouldn't be doing Wulfgar and Catti-brie much good if they had to sweep him up in their wake.
He turned and ran, reaching the gate at about the same time as his two friends. They scrambled in and the gate was closed and secured behind them, and after a cursory look at Catti-brie's wound, which was superficial, the three rushed for the ladders and the wall parapets.
The orcs came on, a great number indeed, and horns blew throughout the town, with folk rushing all around.
The wave didn't approach, though, but rather swung around in a fierce charge, howling all the louder as they ran back to the south.
"That would be Drizzt," Regis remarked.
"Buying us lime," Catti-brie concurred.
She looked up at Wulfgar as she spoke, and he at her, both of them grim-faced and concerned.
The first boulder bounced across the stony ground and hit the town wall a few minutes after sunset. Surprisingly, it had come from the north, from across the narrow ravine.
Horns blew and the militiamen of Shallows rushed to their defensive positions, as did Dagnabbit's dwarves, and King Bruenor and his friends.
A second boulder bounced in, this time closer.
"Can't even see 'em!" Bruenor growled at his three friends as they stood along the northern wall, peering into the gloom.
"There!" Regis cried out, pointing to a boulder tumble.
The others squinted and could just make out the forms of giants across the way.
Catti-brie put her bow up immediately, taking aim, then lifting the angle to compensate for the great distance. She let fly, her arrow cutting a lightninglike line across the darkening sky.
She didn't hit a giant, but the flash at impact told her that she was in the general area at least. She lifted her bow, gritting her teeth against the pain in her fingers and shoulder, which had been creased by an orc's arrow. Before she let fly, though, she had to stop and grab onto Wulfgar, for all the wall was shaking then, hit by a thrown rock.
"Take cover!" came the cry from the lead sentry.
Catti-brie got her bow back up and fired off her second shot, but then she and all her friends were scrambling as one boulder smashed into the courtyard behind them and another landed short of the wall but skipped in hard. Another hit the wall squarely, and another hit the northeastern juncture then skipped along the eastern wall, clipping stones and soldiers.
"How many damned giants are there?" Bruenor asked as he and the others scrambled for cover.
"Too many," came Regis's answer.
"We gotta find a way to counter them," the dwarf king started to reason, but before he could gain any momentum for that thought, a cry from the southern wall told him and his friends that they had other more immediate problems.
By the time Bruenor, Wulfgar, Regis, and Catti-brie reached the southern wall to stand beside Dagnabbit and the other dwarves, the orcs' charge was on in full. The field before the city seemed black with the rushing horde, and the air reverberated with their high-pitched keening. Hundreds and hundreds came on, not slowing at all as the first barrage of arrows went out from Shallows's strong wall.
"This is gonna hurt," Bruenor remarked, looking to his friend and to Dagnabbit.
"Gonna hurt them orcs," Dagnabbit corrected with a grim nod. "We take the center!" he cried to his fifteen remaining warriors. "None come through that gate! None come over the wall!"
With cheers of "Mithral Hall!" and "King Bruenor!" Dagnabbit's well-drilled warriors clustered in the appointed area, the most vulnerable spot on Shallows's southern wall. As one, they took up their dwarven arrows and their well-balanced throwing hammers, and they crouched. The orcs were throwing spears and launching arrows of their own. The dwarves held their ground atop the wall until the last possible second, then leaped up and whipped their hammers into the leading edge of the orc throng, interrupting the charge.
Shallows's bowmen sent a volley out from the walls, and Catti-brie put the Heartseeker to devastating work, her streaks of arrow lightning cutting lines through the enemy ranks.
An agonized cry from behind told them all that one of the townsfolk had caught a giant-thrown rock, and the continuing explosions and ground-shaking made it clear that the giants hadn't let up their barrage in the least.
Dagnabbit's dwarves let fly a second volley before leaping from the wall into the courtyard to bolster the gate defenses, King Bruenor joining them. The bowmen and Catti-brie continued to drive into the orcs' ranks as the blackness closed.
Ropes and grapnels came up over the walls, many catching hold. The orcs, seemingly oblivious to the rain of death, leaped onto them and began scrambling up, while others below threw themselves al the gates, the sheer weight of the force bending the heavy locking bars.
"I wish Drizzt was here!" a terrified Regis cried.
"But he is not," Wulfgar countered, and the two shared a look.
With a growl of determination, Wulfgar nodded for the halfling to follow, and away they went, running along the parapet. The mighty barbarian grabbed grapnels and ropes, using his great strength to pull them free even if they were taut from the weight of orcs climbing on the other side.
At one point, an orc crested the wall just as Wulfgar reached for the supporting grapnel. The barbarian howled and spun. The orc roared and started to swing its heavy club.
And a silver-streaking arrow caught it in the armpit and blew it aside.
Wulfgar glanced back at Catti-brie for just a moment then pulled free the grapnel.
Another orc caught the wall-top as the barbarian tossed the rope back over. It started to pull itself up.
Regis's mace smashed it in the face once, then again.
"More to the east!" Wulfgar cried.
He rushed along to secure a breach where several orcs were even then coming over the wall, doing close battle with a group of Shallows's bowmen.
Regis started to follow but skidded to a stop as the reaching hands of another orc showed on the wall-top right before him. He lifted his mace, but he changed his mind and met the orc with a dazzling, spinning ruby instead.
The orc held in place, truly mesmerized by the spinning gem, its magic reaching out with promises and warm feelings. In a split second, the creature harbored no doubts that the halfling holding the amazing gemstone was its best friend.
"How strong are you?" Regis asked, but the orc didn't seem to understand.
"Strong?" the halfling said more forcefully, and he lifted one arm and made a muscle-not much of one, but a muscle nonetheless.
The orc smiled and grunted.
Regis motioned for it to slip back down, just a bit, and grab the rope again. The creature complied.
Then the halfling patted both his hands emphatically, gesturing for the orc to hold its place right there. Again it complied, and that one rope, at least, was blocked for the time being.
Regis glanced to the right to see Catti-brie staring at him in disbelief. He shrugged then turned back to the left, just in time to see Wulfgar lift an orc high overhead and throw it into a pair of others as they tried to get over the wall. All three fell back outside.
In other places the wall defense wasn't so secure, and orcs poured in, leaping down to the courtyard.
There, centering the defense, stood seventeen toughened dwarves - Dagnabbit and Bruenor among them. As the orcs came down, the dwarves swarmed over them, axes and hammers slashing and smashing.
Bruenor led that charge, hitting the first orc before it had even touched down from its leap. He caught it in the legs and sent it spinning right over, to land face down. Not bothering to finish the kill, the dwarf plowed on, shield-rushing a second orc as it hit the ground. The two of them came together with enough impact to rattle Bruenor's teeth.
The dwarf bounced back and shook his head fiercely, his lips wagging. He swung his axe reflexively across in front of him, thinking that the orc might even then be bearing down on him.
He hit only air, though, and when he recovered his wits a bit, he looked ahead to see that the orc hadn't taken the hit as well as he. The creature was sitting, leaning backward on stiffened arms, its head lolling side to side.
It hardly seemed fair to Bruenor, but war wasn't fair. He charged forward, past the orc, slowing only enough so that he could crease its skull with his heavy axe.
The sheer ferocity of the assault had caught Drizzt off his guard. Barely away from the group he had turned, the drow had been skipping down one descent when he had first caught sight of the charging orcs. Avoiding them had been easy enough, but by the time Drizzt had been able to scramble out of the bowl and head back toward Shallows, the leading edge of the assaulting force was far ahead of him. He saw his three friends in the distance, running back for the town. He saw Catti-brie get clipped by an arrow, and he breathed a great sigh of relief when she, escorted by Wulfgar and Regis, got behind the town's strong walls.
From the shadows of a tree, the drow watched the orc horde sweep past him. He knew he couldn't get back to the town to fight, and perhaps die, beside his friends.
A group of orcs passed below him, and he considered leaping in among them and slashing them down.
But he held his position in the tree, tight to the trunk. It occurred to him that these particular orcs he had chosen to avoid might be the ones who would slay one of his friends, but he dismissed that devastating thought at once, having no time for such distractions. The choices lay clear before him-he could either join in the battle, out there among the horde, or use the distraction of the battle to scout out the truth of their enemies.
The drow surveyed the sweeping lines of orcs, charging headlong for Shallows. How much could he really do out there? How many could he kill, and how much of an effect would a few less orcs really have on this fight?
No, Drizzt had to trust that his friends and the townsfolk would hold. He had to trust that this was likely an exploratory assault, the first rush, the test of defenses.
Shallows would be better off after that initial battle if they understood the true size and strength of their enemy, the location of the orc camps and their defenses.
As the last of the horde swept past beneath him, Drizzt dropped lightly from the tree and sprinted off, not back to the north and the town, but to the east, moving along behind the main bulk of the enemy force.
He could hardly lift his arms anymore, so many swings had he taken, so many orcs had he thrown, but Wulfgar pressed on with all the power he could muster, throwing himself against any and all who crested the southern wall.
Blood ran from a dozen wounds on Wulfgar, and on Regis, who fought valiantly, if less effectively, beside him, putting mace and gemstone to work. As one group of four orcs came over the wall simultaneously, Wulfgar looked back to his right, a silent plea for Catti-brie, but she was not there.
Panicked, the barbarian looked out over the wall, and the distraction as the orcs closed in nearly cost him dearly.
Nearly-but then an arrow sizzled down past him, clipping one orc and smashing into the stone with a blinding flash. Wulfgar glanced back over his shoulder, relief flooding through him as he noted Catti-brie in a new position at the top of the lone tower that so distinguished Shallows.
The woman let fly another arrow and nodded grimly at Wulfgar.
He turned back to meet the resumed charge, to sweep one orc away with his hammer, then he turned to Regis to help the halfling as another of the brutes bore down on him. The orc stopped suddenly, staring hard at a spinning ruby.
Wulfgar plowed ahead, shouldering the nearest orc back over the wall, but taking a stinging hit from the other's club. Grunting away the pain, Wulfgar took another hit-a solid blow to the forearm -but he rolled his arm around the weapon and pulled it in close, tucking it under his arm and moving nose to nose with the wretched orc.
The creature started to bite at him, or tried to, but Wulfgar snapped his forehead into the orc's face, flattening its nose and dazing it enough for him to shove it back from him. Knowing the creature was stunned, he released his hold on the club and grabbed the front of the orc's dirty leather armor instead. A quick turn and a heave had that orc flying out of the town.
Turning for the orc Regis had entranced, Wulfgar glanced back up at the tower, where Catti-brie and a couple of the town's archers were launching arrow after arrow into the throng beyond the wall.
Wulfgar paused, noting another presence up there. It was the old wizard Withegroo. The man was chanting and waving his arms.
"It's breaking in!" came a dwarf's cry from the courtyard below.
Wulfgar snapped his gaze that way to see Bruenor and his kin running roughshod over the orcs in the courtyard, scrambling back to reinforce the gate.
Out of the corner of his eye, though, he saw a small flare come out from above, a tiny ball of fire gracefully arcing out over the wall.
He felt a flash of heat as Withegroo's fireball exploded.
That shock snapped the orc standing before Regis out of its enchantment, and before the halfling could react, the creature stabbed straight out at him.
With a yelp, Regis fell back into the courtyard.
Wulfgar leaped upon the orc, bearing it down to the ground beneath him. Face down, the orc managed to push up to its elbows, but Wulfgar had it by the head then with both hands. With a roar of outrage, the barbarian drove the creature's head down to the stone parapet, again and again, even after the orc stopped fighting, even after the once solid skull became a misshapen, crushed, and bloody thing.
He was still bashing the orc down when a strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder.
Wulfgar spun frantically, angrily, but held back when he saw Bruenor staring down at him.
"They've run off, boy," the dwarf explained, "and I'm thinking that one's not to be causing us no more trouble."
Wulfgar rose, shoving the orc down one final time.
"Regis?" he asked breathlessly.
Bruenor nodded to the courtyard. The halfling was sitting up halfway, though he hardly seemed conscious of the events around him. Blood showed at his side and several dwarves tended him frantically.
"Bet that one hurt," Bruenor said grimly.