R. A. Salvatore

The Orc King

Transition, book 1

WELCOME TO MANY-ARROWS

…Toogwik Tuk said with a respectful bow. “The presence of Clan Karuck and its worthy leader makes us greater.”

Grguch let his gaze drift slowly across the three visitors then around the gathering to Hakuun. “You will learn the truth of your hopeful claim,” he said, his eyes turning back to Toogwik Tuk, “when I have the bones of dwarves and elves and ugly humans to crush beneath my boot.”

Dnark couldn’t suppress a grin as he looked to Ung-thol, who seemed similarly pleased. Despite their squeamishness at being so badly outnumbered among the fierce and unpredictable tribe, things were going quite well.

PRELUDE

Drizzt Do’Urden crouched in a crevice between a pair of boulders on the side of a mountain, looking down at a curious gathering. A human, an elf, and a trio of dwarves—at least a trio—stood and sat around three flat-bedded wagons that were parked in a triangle around a small campfire. Sacks and kegs dotted the perimeter of the camp, along with a cluster of tents, reminding Drizzt that there was more to the company than the five in his view. He looked past the wagons to a small, grassy meadow, where several draft horses grazed. Just to the side of them, he saw again that which had brought him to the edge of the camp: a pair of stakes capped with the severed heads of orcs.

The band and their missing fellows, then, were indeed members of Casin Cu Calas, the “Triple C,” an organization of vigilantes who took their name from the Elvish saying that meant “honor in battle.”

Given the reputation of Casin Cu Calas, whose favorite tactic was to storm orc homesteads in the dark of night and decapitate any males found inside, Drizzt found the name more than a little ironic, and more than a little distasteful.

“Cowards, one and all,” he whispered as he watched one man hold up a full-length black and red robe. The man flapped it clean of the night’s dirt and reverently folded it, bringing it to his lips to kiss it before he replaced it in the back of one wagon. He reached down and picked up the second tell-tale garment, a black hood. He moved to put that, too, in the wagon but hesitated, then slipped the hood over his head, adjusting it so that he could see through the two eye-holes. That drew the attention of the other four.

The other five, Drizzt noted as the fourth dwarf walked back around a corner of the wagon to regard the hooded man.

“Casin Cu Calas!” the man proclaimed, and held up both his arms, fists clenched, in an exaggerated victory pose. “Suffer no orc to live!”

“Death to the orcs!” the others cried in reply.

The hooded fool issued a barrage of insults and threats against the porcine-featured humanoids. Up on the side of the hill, Drizzt Do’Urden shook his head and deliberately slid his bow, Taulmaril, off his shoulder. He put it up, notched an arrow, and drew back in one fluid motion.

“Suffer no orc to live,” the hooded man said again—or started to, until a flash of lightning shot through the camp and drove into a keg of warm ale beside him. As the keg exploded, liquid flying, a sheet of dissipating electricity momentarily stole the darkness from the growing twilight.

All six of the companions fell back, shielding their eyes. When they regained their sight, one and all saw the lone figure of a lean dark elf standing atop one of their wagons.

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” gasped one of the dwarves, a fat fellow with an orange beard and an enormous temple-to-temple eyebrow.

A couple of the others nodded and mouthed their agreement, for there was no mistaking the dark elf standing before them, with his two scimitars belted at his hips and Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, again slung over one shoulder. The drow’s long, thick white hair blew in the late afternoon breeze, his cloak flapped out behind him, and even the dull light remaining could do little to diminish the shine of his silvery-white mithral-lined shirt.

Slowly pulling off his hood, the human glanced at the elf then back at Drizzt. “Your reputation precedes you, Master Do’Urden,” he said. “To what do we owe the honor of your presence?”

“‘Honor’ is a strange word,” Drizzt replied. “Stranger still coming from the lips of one who would wear the black hood.”

A dwarf to the side of the wagon bristled and even stepped forward, but was blocked by the arm of the orange-bearded fellow.

The human cleared his throat uncomfortably and tossed the hood into the wagon behind him. “That thing?” he asked. “Found along the road, of course. Do you assign it any significance?”

“No more so than the significance I assign the robe you so reverently folded and kissed.”

That brought another glance at the elf, who, Drizzt noticed, was sliding a bit more to the side—notably behind a line etched in the dirt, one glittering with shiny dust. When Drizzt brought his attention more fully back to the human, he noted the change in the man’s demeanor, a clear scowl replacing the feigned innocence.

“A robe you yourself should wear,” the man said boldly. “To honor King Bruenor Battlehammer, whose deeds—”

“Speak not his name,” Drizzt interrupted. “You know nothing of Bruenor, of his exploits and his judgments.”

“I know that he was no friend of—”

“You know nothing,” Drizzt said again, more forcefully.

“The tale of Shallows!” one of the dwarves roared.

“I was there,” Drizzt reminded him, silencing the fool.

The human spat upon the ground. “Once a hero, now gone soft,” he muttered. “On orcs, no less.”

“Perhaps,” Drizzt replied, and in the blink of an astonished eye, he brought his scimitars out in his black-skinned hands. “But I’ve not gone soft on highwaymen and murderers.”

“Murderers?” the human retorted incredulously. “Murderers of orcs?”

Even as he finished speaking, the dwarf at the side of the wagon pushed through his orange-bearded companion’s arm and thrust his hand forward, sending a hand-axe spinning at the drow.

Drizzt easily side-stepped the unsurprising move, but not content to let the missile harmlessly fly past, and seeing a second dwarf charging from over to the left, he snapped out his scimitar Icingdeath into the path of the axe. He drew the blade back as it contacted the missile, absorbing the impact. A twist of his wrist had the scimitar’s blade firmly up under the axe’s head. In a single fluid movement, Drizzt pivoted back the other way and whipped Icingdeath around, launching the axe at the charging dwarf.

The rumbling warrior brought his shield up high to block the awkwardly spinning axe, which clunked against the wooden buckler and bounced aside. But so too fell away that dwarf’s determined growl when he again lowered the shield, to find his intended target nowhere in sight.

For Drizzt, his speed enhanced by a pair of magical anklets, had timed his break perfectly with the rise of the dwarf’s shield. He had taken only a few steps, but enough, he knew, to confuse the determined dwarf. At the last moment, the dwarf noticed him and skidded to a stop, throwing out a weak, backhanded swipe with his warhammer.

But Drizzt was inside the arch of the hammer, and he smacked its handle with one blade, stealing the minimal momentum of the swing. He struck harder with his second blade, finding the crease between the dwarf’s heavy gauntlet and his metal-banded bracer. The hammer went flying, and the dwarf howled and grabbed at his bleeding, broken wrist.

Drizzt leaped atop his shoulder, kicked him in the face for good measure, and sprang away, charging at the orange-bearded dwarf and the axe thrower, both of whom were coming on fast.