Regis had one of the torches lit. He threw it to Wulfgar and the barbarian set the writhing body of the fallen troll ablaze. Two other trolls that had come to the bottom of the ridge rushed back into the mist at the sight of the hated flames.
“Ah, ye pulled the trick too soon!” Bruenor groaned. “We’re naught to catch a one with the torches in plain sight!”
“If the torches keep them back, then the fires have served us well,” Drizzt insisted, though he knew better than to hope for such an occurrence.
Suddenly, as if the very moors had spit their venom at them, a huge host of trolls lined the entire base of the ridge. They came on tentatively, not thrilled by the presence of fire. But they came on relentlessly, stalking up the hill with drooling desire.
“Patience,” Drizzt told his companions, sensing their eagerness. “Keep them behind the firebreak, but let as many as will get within the rings of kindling.”
Wulfgar rushed out to the edge of the ring, waving his torch menacingly.
Bruenor stood back up, his last two flasks of oil in his hands, oil-soaked rags hanging from their spouts, and a wild smile across his face. “Season’s a bit green for burning,” he said to Drizzt with a wink. “Might need a little help in getting the thing going!”
Trolls swarmed on the ridge all around them, the slavering horde coming on determinedly, their ranks swelling with each step.
Drizzt moved first. Torch in hand, he ran to the kindling and set it burning. Wulfgar and Regis joined in right behind, putting as many fires as they could between them and the advancing trolls. Bruenor threw his torch over the first ranks of the monsters, hoping to get them in the middle of two blazes, then heaved his oil flasks into the most heavily concentrated groups.
Flames leaped up into the night sky, lightening the immediate area, but deepening the blackness beyond their influence. Crowded in so tightly, the trolls could not easily turn and flee, and the fire, as if it understood this, descended upon them methodically.
When one began to burn, its frenzied dance spread the light even farther down the ridge line.
All across the vast moors, creatures stopped their nightly actions and took notice of the growing pillar of flame and the wind-carried shrieks of dying trolls.
Huddled close at the top of the ridge, the companions found themselves nearly overcome by the great heat. But the fire peaked quickly with its feast of volatile troll flesh, and started to diminish, leaving a revulsive stench in the air and yet another blackened scar of carnage on the Evermoors.
The companions readied more torches for their flight from the ridge. Many trolls stood to do battle, even after the fire, and the friends could not hope to hold their ground with the fuel of their fires consumed. At Drizzt’s insistence, they awaited the first clear escape route down the eastern side of the ridge, and when it opened, they charged into the night, bursting through the initial groups of unsuspecting trolls with a sudden assault that scattered the monsters and left several burning.
Into the night they ran, blindly rushing through mud and bramble, hoping that luck alone would keep them from being sucked in by some bottomless bog. So complete was their surprise at the ridge that for many minutes they heard no signs of pursuit.
But it didn’t take the moors long to respond. Groans and shrieks soon echoed all about them.
Drizzt took the lead. Relying on his instincts as much as his vision, he swerved his friends left and right, through the areas of least apparent resistance, while keeping their course generally east. Hoping to play upon the monsters’ single fear, they torched anything that would burn as they passed.
They encountered nothing directly as the night wore on, but the groans and sucking footsteps just yards behind them did not relent. They soon began to suspect a collective intelligence working against them, for though they were obviously outdistancing the trolls that were behind them and to their sides, more were always waiting to take up the chase. Something evil permeated the land, as though the Evermoors themselves were the true enemies. Trolls were all about, and that was the immediate danger, but even if all the trolls and other denizens of the moors were slain or driven away, the friends suspected that this would remain a foul place.
Dawn broke, but it brought no relief. “We’ve angered the moors themselves!” Bruenor cried when he realized that the chase would not end as easily this time. “We be finding no rest until her foul borders are behind us!”
Onward they charged, seeing the lanky forms lurching out at them as they weaved their way, and those running parallel to them or right behind, grimly visible and just waiting for someone to trip up. Heavy fogs closed in on them, preventing them from holding their bearings, further evidence for their fears that the moors themselves had risen against them.
Past all thinking, past all hope, they kept on, pushing themselves beyond their physical and emotional limits for lack of any alternatives.
Barely conscious of his actions, Regis stumbled and went down. His torch rolled away, though he didn’t notice—he couldn’t even figure how to get back up, or that he was down at all! Hungry mouths descended toward him, a feast assured.
The ravenous monster was foiled, though, as Wulfgar came by and scooped the halfling into his great arms. The huge barbarian slammed into the troll, knocking it aside, but held his own footing and continued past.
Drizzt abandoned all tactics of finesse now, understanding the situation that was fast developing behind him. More than once he had to slow for Bruenor’s stumbling and he doubted Wulfgar’s ability to continue while carrying the halfling. The exhausted barbarian obviously couldn’t hope to raise Aegis-fang to defend himself. Their only chance was straight flight to the border. A wide bog would defeat them, a box gully would entrap them, and even if no natural barriers blocked their way, they had little hope of keeping free of the trolls for much longer. Drizzt feared the difficult decision he saw forthcoming: flee to his own safety, for he alone seemed to have the possibility of escape, or stand beside his doomed friends in a battle they could not win.
They continued on, and made solid progress for another hour, but time itself began to affect them. Drizzt heard Bruenor mumbling behind him, lost in some delusion of his childhood days in Mithril Hall. Wulfgar, with the unconscious halfling, ambled along behind, reciting a prayer to one of his gods, using the rhythm of his chants to keep his feet steadily pumping.
Then Bruenor fell, smacked down by a troll that had veered in on them uncontested.
The fateful decision came easily to Drizzt. He swung back around, scimitars ready. He couldn’t possibly carry the stout dwarf, nor could he defeat the horde of trolls that even now closed in. “And so our tale ends, Bruenor Battlehammer!” he cried out. “In battle, as it should!”
Wulfgar, dazed and gasping, did not consciously choose his next move. It was simply a reaction to the scene before him, a maneuver perpetrated by the stubborn instincts of a man who refused to surrender. He stumbled over to the fallen dwarf, who by this time had struggled back to his hands and knees, and scooped him up with his free arm. Two trolls had them trapped.
Drizzt Do’Urden was close by, and the young barbarian’s heroic act inspired the drow. Seething flames danced again within his lavender eyes, and his blades whirred into their own dance of death.
The two trolls reached out to claw their helpless prey, but after a single lightning pass by Drizzt, the monsters had no arms left with which to grab.
“Run on!” Drizzt called, guarding the party’s rear and spurring Wulfgar on with a constant stream of rousing words. All weariness flew from the drow in this final burst of battle lust. He leaped all about and shouted challenge to the trolls. Any that came too near found the sting of his blades.