"How fortunate for you that those giants decided to join with you," Obould remarked to Urlgen when he caught up to his son at the rear of Urlgen's encampment. As he spoke, the orc king directed Urlgen's attention to the western ridgeline, where Gerti's frost giant warriors were busily reconstructing their catapults. "Good fortune that this group happened your way."

Neither Urlgen nor Gerti, who was standing beside Obould, missed the orc king's sarcasm, nor his clear inference that he knew Gerti and Urlgen had tried to circumvent his control of the situation.

"I did not refuse valuable help," Urlgen replied, glancing at Gerti for support more than once.

"Valuable in scoring a victory without Obould?" the orc king bluntly asked, and both Urlgen and Gerti bristled and shifted nervously. "And still, even with the assistance of, what - a score of frost giants? - the dwarves remain."

"I will drive them from the cliff!" Urlgen insisted.

"You will do as you are instructed!" Obould countered.

"You would deny me this victory?"

"I would deny you a minor victory when a greater one is within our grasp," Obould explained. "Have everything in place to drive the dwarves from the cliff. I will quietly double your forces, out of sight of the foolish dwarves. After that, Gerti and I will march southwest and attack the dale below from the west. Then you can drive the dwarves from the cliff. They will have nowhere to run."

He looked from Urlgen to Gerti, who was clearly angry and just as clearly perplexed as she surveyed the ridgeline to the west.

"This should have been ended long ago," the giantess admitted, addressing Urlgen more than Obould. "Explain this delay."

"Two days ago the catapults were ready to finish the task," Urlgen growled back at her. "But our enemies came against them, and your giants failed to defend the war engines. It will not happen again."

"But there are reports that the dwarves retook the tunnels beneath the catapults," Gerti reminded, for word of the recent battle had been filtering through the camp all the day long.

"True," Urlgen admitted. "They have lost dwarves in retaking tunnels that were not worth defending. By the time they can dig through the thick stone to attack the giants, the battle outside will be long over.

"But that doesn't even seem to be their intent," he went on. "They fill the tunnels with stink - too great a stink for us to counterattack, and so great that your giants complain of it. Look on them closely, and you will see that they wear veils over their faces to ward the stench."

"Will an odor drive them from the ridge?" Obould asked.

"It is an inconvenience and nothing more," Urlgen explained. "The dwarves have assured that we cannot attack them through those tunnels. They believe they have protected their flank, but it was not an attack we would make anyway. Their fight in the tunnels has brought them no relief, and no victory."

Obould squinted his bloodshot eyes and stared at the ridge. In any event, it seemed as if the catapults were nearly completed and that work was continuing on them at a steady pace.

"We have a ten-mile march to wage the fight west of the dale," Obould explained. "When battle sounds in the southwest, begin your drive against the dwarves. Engage them fully and to the end. Drive them from the cliff into my waiting army, and they will be destroyed, and Mithral Hall will never again realize its present glory."

Urlgen glanced again at Gerti and seemed more than a little shaken.

"All glory to Obould," the younger orc said, rather unconvincingly.

"Obould is Gruumsh," the orc king corrected. "All glory to Gruumsh!"

With that, and with a warning snarl at both his son and the giantess, King Obould walked away.

"His army has grown many times over," Gerti explained to Urlgen. "He will more than double your force. You'll not even need my warriors and the catapults."

"The smell of dwarven trickery will not force them from the ridge," Urlgen assured her. "Let the catapults throw their stones and crush the dwarves. Perhaps we can direct some throws over the cliff and near to Obould's march, eh?"

"Take care your words," Gerti warned.

But there was no hiding the smile that showed her to be somewhat entertained by the mere notion of "accidentally" squishing King Obould Many-Arrows beneath a giant boulder. She glanced over at the departing orc king, that arrogant little wretch who was so controlling the entirety of the campaign.

Her smile widened.

* * *

"His zeal is religious in nature," Innovindil explained to Drizzt after hours of nearly fruitless interrogation of the captured shaman. "He will tell us nothing. He fears not pain nor death - not if it is in the name of his cursed god-figure."

Drizzt leaned back against the cave wall and considered the truth of Innovin-dil's reasoning. He had learned that Obould had marched south - but he had all but figured that out previous to capturing the shaman, anyway. The only other tidbit that seemed even remotely useful was the admission by Arganth that it was Obould's own son, Urlgen, who had sacked Shallows and was pressing the dwarves in a fierce battle just north of Mithral Hall.

"Are you ready to go to the south?" Innovindil quietly asked the drow. "Are you ready to face the surviving dwarves of Mithral Hall and confirm your fears?"

Drizzt rubbed his hands over his face and pushed away the awful image of Withegroo's tumbling tower. He knew what he was going to hear when he went to Mithral Hall.

And he didn't want to hear it.

"Let us go south, then," the drow answered. "We have business with this King Obould and have a loyal pegasus depending upon our every move. I mean to get that mount back and mean to pay Obould back for his actions."

Innovindil was smiling then, and nodding. Drizzt glanced to the side, to the opening of the side chamber that held the shaman.

"What do we do with that one?" he asked. "He will surely slow us down."

Without saying a word, Innovindil stood, gathered up her bow, and walked to the entrance of the side chamber.

"Innovindil?" Drizzt asked.

She fitted an arrow to her bowstring.

"Innovindil?"

Drizzt jerked in shock as the elf drew back and let fly, and let fly again, and a third time.

"I show them more mercy than they would show to us, by making the kill swift and clean," the elf replied, her voice perfectly impassive.

She glanced at Drizzt, and they both heard a moan coming from the chamber. Without a word, Innovindil dropped her bow aside and drew out her slender sword, then stalked into the side chamber.

Her actions bothered Drizzt. He thought back briefly to a goblin he had once known, a misunderstood slave who had been wrongfully beaten and murdered by his human master.

But the drow shook that image away. The creature they had captured was not like that goblin. A fanatical follower of an evil god, the orc shaman had lived to destroy, to pillage, to burn, and to conquer. Drizzt knew that Innovindil's assessment of the situation, that she had shown more mercy than the orcs ever would, was perfectly correct.

He began gathering up their things, preparing to break camp. It was time to head south.

Past time, perhaps.

* * *

Regis sat in the dark, recalling old times with his friend Bruenor. How many days they had shared back in Icewind Dale. How many times Bruenor had found him on the banks of Maer Dualdon, casually fishing, or at least pretending to. Bruenor had berated him - Regis could hear the words in his ears even then.

"Bah, Rumblebelly! Ye do the laziest job ye can find, and ye don't even do that with any heart!"

A smile creased the halfling's face as he recalled that Bruenor would often then plop down beside him on the lakeside, to "show him how to do it."

A great way to enjoy those precious few warm days in Icewind Dale.

Bruenor was still alive. Regis suspected that Cordio and Stumpet were still going to him in the quiet night, casting their preserving healing spells upon him. They weren't going to follow his orders on that issue - they had made that fairly clear - and Regis's position as steward offered him little leverage against two of Mithral Hall's leading priests.

In a way, Regis was glad that they were making the choice for him. He didn't know if he could find the heart to once again demand that Bruenor be allowed to die.

But still, the halfling could not bring himself to fully agree with the assessment of the two stubborn clerics, that for the sake of Mithral Hall, Bruenor had to be kept alive. They argued the symbolism of Bruenor Battlehammer, but it seemed obvious to Regis that Bruenor wasn't a king to anyone then.

No king would lie there if he knew that all his minions were in dire battle, that so many were falling wounded or dead.

"There has to be an answer," Regis muttered softly in the dark room.

He rolled up to a sitting position and stared into the darkness. There had to be more options.

Regis straightened suddenly as his thoughts wound around and coalesced, drawing new patterns in his mind. He considered Cordio's words, and Stumpet's. He considered his old friend Bruenor and all the times they had once shared. He thought of the dwarf's stubbornness, of his pride, of his loyalty and generosity.

There in the darkness, Regis found the answer, found the joining of his heart and his mind.

With more determination and fire in his belly than the unsure halfling had known in a long, long time, Regis, Steward of Mithral Hall, stormed out of his room and across the dwarven complex to find Cordio Muffinhead.