If that day had come, Montolio was confident that he would be ready.

Little could be done now, though—the defenses could not be put in place before Montolio was certain of Graul’s intent—and the ranger found the waiting interminable. Finally, Hooter informed Montolio that the drow was stirring.

“I will set off, then,” Drizzt remarked as soon as he found the ranger, noting the sun riding low in the west. “Let us learn what our unfriendly neighbors are planning.”

“Have a care, Drizzt,” Montolio said, and the genuine concern in his voice touched the drow. “Graul may be an orc, but he is a crafty one. He may well be expecting one of us to come and look in on him.”

Drizzt drew his still-unfamiliar scimitars and spun them about to gain confidence in their movement. Then he snapped them back to his belt and dropped a hand into his pocket, taking further comfort in the presence of the onyx figurine. With a final pat on the ranger’s back, the scout started off.

“Hooter will be about!” Montolio cried after him. “And other friends you might not expect. Give a shout if you find more trouble than you can handle!”

The orc camp was not difficult to locate, marked as it was by a huge bonfire blazing into the night sky. Drizzt saw the forms, including one of a giant, dancing around the flames, and he heard the snarls and yips of large wolves, worgs, Montolio had called them. The camp was in a small dale, in a clearing surrounded by huge maples and rock walls. Drizzt could hear the orc voices fairly well in the quiet night, so he decided not to get in too close. He selected one massive tree and focused on a lower branch, summoning his innate levitation ability to get him up.

The spell failed utterly, so Drizzt, hardly surprised, slipped his scimitars into his belt and climbed. The trunk branched several times, down low and as high as twenty feet. Drizzt made for the highest break and was just about to start out on a long and winding branch when he heard an intake of breath. Cautiously, Drizzt slipped his head around the large trunk.

On the side opposite him, nestled comfortably in the nook of the trunk and another branch, reclined an orc sentry with its hands clasped behind its head and a blank, bored expression on its face. Apparently the creature was oblivious to the silent-moving dark elf perched less than two feet away.

Drizzt grasped the hilt of a scimitar, then gaining confidence that the stupid creature was too comfortable to even look around, changed his mind and ignored the orc. He focused instead on the events down in the clearing.

The orc language was similar to the goblin tongue in structure and inflection, but Drizzt, no master even at goblin, could only make out a few scattered words. Orcs were ever a rather demonstrative race, though. Two models, effigies of a dark elf and a thin, moustached human, soon showed Drizzt the clan’s intent. The largest orc of the gathering, King Graul, probably, sputtered and cursed at the models. Then the orc soldiers and the worgs took turns tearing into them, to the glee of the frenzied onlookers, a glee that turned to sheer ecstacy when the stone giant walked over and flattened the fake dark elf to the ground.

It went on for hours, and Drizzt suspected it would continue until the dawn. Graul and several other large orcs moved away from the main host and began drawing in the dirt, apparently laying battle plans. Drizzt could not hope to get close enough to make out their huddled conversations and he had no intention of staying in the tree with the dawn’s revealing light fast approaching.

He considered the orc sentry on the other side of the trunk, now breathing deeply in slumber, before he started down. The orcs meant to attack Montolio’s home, Drizzt knew; shouldn’t he now strike the first blow?

Drizzt’s conscience betrayed him. He came down from the huge maple and fled from the camp, leaving the orc to its snooze in the comfortable nook.

Montolio, Hooter on his shoulder, sat on one of the rope bridges, waiting for Drizzt’s return. “They are coming for us,” the old ranger declared when the drow finally came in. “Graul has his neck up about something, probably a little incident at Rogee’s Bluff.” Montolio pointed to the west, toward the high ridge where he and Drizzt had met.

“Do you have a sanctuary secured for times such as this?” Drizzt asked. “The orcs will come this very night, I believe, nearly a hundred strong and with powerful allies.”

“Run?” Montolio cried. He grabbed a nearby rope and swung down to stand by the drow, Hooter clutching his tunic and rolling along for the ride. “Run from orcs? Did I not tell you that orcs are my special bane? Nothing in all the world sounds sweeter than a blade opening an orc’s belly!”

“Should I even bother to remind you of the odds?” Drizzt said, smiling in spite of his concern.

“You should remind Graul!” Montolio laughed. “The old orc has lost his wits, or grown an oversized set of fortitude, to come on when he is so obviously outnumbered!”

Drizzt’s only reply, the only possible reply to such an outrageous statement, came as a burst of laughter.

“But then,” Montolio continued, not slowing a beat, “I will wager a bucket of freshly caught trout and three fine stallions that old Graul won’t come along for the fight. He will stay back by the trees, watching and wringing his fat hands, and when we blast his forces apart, he will be the first to flee! He never did have the nerve for the real fighting, not since he became king anyway. He’s too comfortable, I would guess, with too much to lose. Well, we’ll take away a bit of his bluster!”

Again Drizzt could not find the words to reply, and he couldn’t have stopped laughing at the absurdity anyway. Still, Drizzt had to admit the rousing and comforting effect Montolio’s rambling imparted to him.

“You go and get some rest,” Montolio said, scratching his stubbly chin and turning all about, again considering his surroundings. “I will begin the preparations—you will be amazed, I promise—and rouse you in a few hours.”

The last mumblings the drow heard as he crawled into his blanket in a dark den put it all in perspective. “Yes, Hooter, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Montolio said excitedly, and Drizzt did not doubt a word of it.

It had been a peaceful spring for Kellindil and his elven kin. They were a nomadic group, ranging throughout the region and taking up shelter where they found it, in trees or in caves. Their love was the open world, dancing under the stars, singing in tune with rushing mountain rivers, hunting harts and wild boar in the thick trees of the mountainsides.

Kellindil recognized the dread, a rarely seen emotion among the carefree group, on his cousin’s face as soon as the other elf walked into camp late one night.

All the others gathered about.

“The orcs are stirring,” the elf explained.

“Graul has found a caravan?” Kellindil asked.

His cousin shook his head and seemed confused. “It is too early for the traders,” he replied. “Graul has other prey in mind.”

“The grove,” several of the elves said together. The whole group turned to Kellindil then, apparently considering the drow his responsibility.

“I do not believe that the drow was in league with Graul,” Kellindil answered their unspoken question. “With all of his scouts, Montolio would have known. If the drow is a friend to the ranger, then he is no enemy to us.”

“The grove is many miles from here,” one of the others offered. “If we wish to look more closely at the orc king’s stirrings, and to arrive in time to aid the old ranger, then we must start out at once.”