Toogwik Tuk’s face dropped into a sudden frown, and he looked down at the battlefield in near panic. “We have not even sorted out our forces…” he started to weakly protest.
“There is nothing to sort,” Grguch replied. “Our tactic is swarm fodder and nothing more.”
“Swarm fodder?” asked the shaman.
“A simple swarm to and through the wall,” said Grguch. “Darkness is our ally. Speed and surprise are our allies. We will hit them as a wave flattens the ridge of a boot print on a beach.”
“You know not the techniques of the many tribes who have come into the fold.”
“I don’t need to,” Grguch declared. “I don’t need to count my warriors. I don’t need to place them in lines and squares, to form reserves and ensure that our flanks are protected back far enough to prevent an end run by our enemies. That is the way of the dwarf.” He paused and looked around at the stupidly grinning warlords and the excited scout. “I see no dwarves in this room,” he said, and the others laughed.
Grguch looked back at Toogwik Tuk. His eyes went wide, as if in alarm, and he sniffed at the air a couple of times. “No,” he declared, looking again to his warlords. “I smell no dwarves in this room.”
The laughter that followed was much more pronounced, and despite his reservations, Toogwik Tuk was wise enough to join in.
“Tactics are for dwarves,” the chieftain explained. “Discipline is for elves. For orcs, there is only…” He looked directly at Toogwik Tuk.
“Swarm fodder?” the shaman asked, and a wry grin spread on Grguch’s ugly face.
“Chaos,” he confirmed. “Ferocity. Bloodlust and abandon. As soon as the sun has set, we begin our run. All the way to the wall. All the way to the Surbrin. All the way to the eastern doors of Mithral Hall. Half, perhaps more than half, of our warriors will find tonight the reward of glorious death.”
Toogwik Tuk winced at that, and silently berated himself. Was he beginning to think more like Obould?
Grguch reminded him of the words of Gruumsh One-eye. “They will die with joy,” the chieftain promised. “Their last cry will be of elation and not agony. And any who die otherwise, with regret or with sorrow or with fear, should have been slaughtered in sacrifice to Gruumsh before our attack commenced!”
The sudden volume and ferocity of his last proclamation set Toogwik Tuk back on his heels and had both the Clan Karuck warlords and guards at the perimeter of the room growling and gnashing their teeth. For a brief moment, Toogwik Tuk almost reconsidered his call to the deepest holes to rouse Chieftain Grguch.
Almost.
“There has been no sign from the dwarves that they know of our march,” Grguch told a great gathering later that day, when the sunlight began to wane. Toogwik Tuk noted the dangerous priest Hakuun standing at his side, and that gave the younger shaman pause. He got the feeling that Hakuun had been watching him all along.
“They do not see the doom that has come against them,” Grguch ordered. “Do not shout out, but run. Run fast to the wall, without delay, and whispering praise for Gruumsh with every stride.”
There were no lines or coordinated movements, just a wild charge begun miles from the goal. There were no torches to light the way, no magical lights conjured by Toogwik Tuk or the other priests of Gruumsh. They were orcs, after all, raised in the upper tunnels of the lightless Underdark.
The night was their ally, the dark their comfort.
Once, when he was a child, Hralien had found a large pile of sand down by one of the Moonwood’s two lakes. From a distance, that mound of light-colored sand had seemed discolored with streaks of red, and as he moved closer, young Hralien realized that the streaks weren’t discolored sand, but were actually moving upon the surface of the mound. Being young and inexperienced, he had at first feared that he had happened upon a tiny volcano, perhaps.
On closer inspection, though, the truth had come clear to him, for the pile of sand had been an ant mound, and the red streaks were lines of the six-legged creatures marching to and fro.
Hralien thought of that long-ago experience as he witnessed the charge of the orcs, swarming the small, rocky hills north of King Bruenor’s eastern defenses. Their movements seemed no less frenetic, and truly their march appeared no less determined. Given their speed and intensity, and the obstacle that awaited them barely two miles to the south, Hralien recognized their intent.
The elf bit his lip as he remembered his promise to Drizzt Do’Urden. He looked south, sorting out the landscape and recalling the trails that would most quickly return him to Mithral Hall.
Then he was running, and fearing that he could not keep his promise to his drow friend, for the orc line stretched ahead of him and the creatures had not far to travel. With great grace and agility, Hralien sprang from stone to stone. He leaped up and grabbed a low tree branch and swung out across a narrow chasm, landing lightly on the other side and in a full run. He moved with hardly a whisper of sound, unlike the orcs, whose heavy steps echoed in his keen elf’s ears.
He knew that he should be cautious, for he could ill afford the delay if he happened into a fight. But neither could he slow his run and carefully pick his path, for some of the orcs were ahead of him, and the dwarves would need every heartbeat of warning he could give them. So he ran on, leaping and scrambling over bluffs and through low dales, where the melting snow had streamed down and pooled in clear, cold pockets. Hralien tried to avoid those pools as much as possible, for they often concealed slick ice. But even with his great dexterity and sharp vision, he occasionally splashed through, cringing at the unavoidable sound.
At one point, he heard an orc cry out, and feared that he had been spotted. Many strides later, he realized that the creature was just calling to a companion, a stark reminder that the lead runners and scouts of the brutish force were all around him.
Finally he left the sounds of orcs behind, for though the brutes could move with great speed, they could not match the pace of a dexterous elf, even across such broken ground.
Soon after, coming up over a rocky rise, Hralien caught sight of squat stone towers in the south, running down from tall mountains to the silvery, moonlit snake that was the River Surbrin.
“Too soon,” the elf whispered in dismay, and he glanced back as if expecting Obould’s entire army to roll over him. He shook his head and winced, then sprinted off for the south.
“We will have it completed within the tenday,” Alustriel said to Catti-brie, the two sitting with some of the other Silverymoon wizards around a small campfire. One of the wizards, a robust human with thick salt and pepper hair and a tightly trimmed goatee, had conjured the flames and was playing with them, casting cantrips to change their color from orange to white to blue and red. A second wizard, a rather eccentric half-elf with shiny black hair magically streaked by a bloom of bright red locks, joined in and wove enchantments to make the red flames form into the shape of a small dragon. Seeing the challenge, the first wizard likewise formed blue flames, and the two spellcasters set their fiery pets into a proxy battle. Almost immediately, several other wizards began excitedly placing their bets.
Catti-brie watched with amusement and interest—more than she would have expected, and Alustriel’s words to her about dabbling in the dark arts flitted unbidden through her thoughts. Her experience with wizards was very limited, and mostly involved the unpredictable and dangerously foolish Harpell family from Longsaddle.
“Asa Havel will win,” Alustriel whispered to her, leaning in close and indicating the half-elf wizard who had manipulated the red flame. “Duzberyl is far more powerful at manipulating fire, but he has taxed his powers to their limit this day conjuring bright hot flames to seal the stone. And Asa Havel knows it.”