The Crystal Shard (10 page)

Regis and Drizzt had made some assumptions about alliances when they had planned the halfling’s actions at this council. They knew that Easthaven, founded and thriving on the principle of brotherhood among the communities of Ten-Towns, would openly embrace the concept of a common defense against the barbarian horde. Likewise Termalaine and Lonelywood, the two most accessible and raided towns of the ten, would gladly accept any offers of help.

Yet even Spokesman Agorwal of Termalaine, who had so much to gain from a defensive alliance, would hedge and hold his silence if Kemp of Targos refused to accept the plan. Targos was the largest and mightiest of the nine fishing villages, with a fleet more than twice the size of the second largest.

“Fellow members of the council,” Kemp began, leaning forward over the table to loom larger in the eyes of his peers. “Let us learn more of the halfling’s tale before we begin to worry. We have fought off barbarian invaders and worse enough times to be confident that the defenses of even the smallest of our towns are adequate.”

Regis felt his tension growing as Kemp rolled into his speech, building on points designed to destroy the halfling’s credibility. Drizzt had decided early on in their planning that Kemp of Targos was the key, but Regis knew the spokesman better than the drow and knew that Kemp would not be easily manipulated. Kemp illustrated the tactics of the powerful town of Targos in his own mannerisms. He was large and bullying, often taking to sudden fits of violent rage that intimidated even Cassius. Regis had tried to steer Drizzt away from this part of their plan, but the drow was adamant.

“If Targos agrees to accept the alliance with Lonelywood,” Drizzt had reasoned, “Termalaine will gladly join and Bremen, being the only other village on the lake, will have no choice but to go along. Bryn Shander will certainly not oppose a unified alliance of the four towns on the largest and most prosperous lake, and Easthaven will make six in the pact, a clear majority.”

The rest would then have no choice but to join in the effort. Drizzt had believed that Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig, fearing that Easthaven would receive special consideration in future councils, would put on a blusterous show of loyalty, hoping themselves to gain favor in the eyes of Cassius. Good Mead and Dougan’s Hole, the two towns on Redwaters, though relatively safe from an invasion from the north, would not dare to stand apart from the other eight communities.

But all of this was merely hopeful speculation, as Regis clearly realized when he saw Kemp glaring at him from across the table.
Drizzt had conceded the point that the greatest obstacle in forming the alliance would be Targos. In its arrogance, the powerful town might believe that it could withstand any barbarian raid. And if it did manage to survive, the destruction of some of its competitors might actually prove profitable.

“You say only that you have learned of an invasion,” Kemp began. “Where could you have gathered this valuable and no doubt, hard to find information?”

Regis felt sweat beading on his temples. He knew where Kemp’s question would lead, but there was no way that he could avoid the truth. “From a friend who often travels the tundra,” he answered honestly.

“The drow?” Kemp asked.

With his neck bent up and Kemp towering over him, Regis found himself quickly placed on the defensive. The halfling’s father had once warned him that he would always be at a disadvantage when dealing with humans because they physically had to look down when speaking to him, as they would to their own children. At times like this, the words of his father rang painfully true to Regis. He wiped a bead of moisture from his upper lip.

“I cannot speak for the rest of you,” Kemp continued, adding a chuckle to place the halfling’s grave warning in an absurd light, “but I have too much serious work to do to go into hiding on the words of a drow elf!” Again the burly spokesman laughed, and this time he was not alone.

Agorwal of Termalaine offered some unexpected assistance to the halfling’s failing cause. “Perhaps we should let the spokesman from Lonelywood continue. If his words are true—”

“His words are the echoes of a drow’s lies!” Kemp snarled. “Pay them no heed. We have fought off the barbarians before, and—”

But then Kemp, too, was cut short as Regis suddenly sprang up on the council table. This was the most precarious part of Drizzt’s plan. The drow had shown faith in it, describing it matter-of-factly, as though it would pose no problems. But Regis felt impending disaster hovering all about him. He clasped his hands behind his
back and tried to appear in control so that Cassius wouldn’t take any immediate actions against his unusual tactics.

During Agorwal’s diversion, Regis had slipped the ruby pendant out from under his waistcoat. It sparkled on his chest as he walked up and down, treating the table as though it were his personal stage.

“What do you know of the drow to jest of him so?” he demanded of the others, pointedly Kemp. “Can any of you name a single person that he has harmed? No! You chastise him for the crimes of his race, yet have none of you ever considered that Drizzt Do’Urden walks among us because he has rejected the ways of his people?” The silence in the hall convinced Regis that he had either been impressive or absurd. In any case, he was not so arrogant or foolish to think his little speech sufficient to accomplish the task.

He walked over to face Kemp. This time he was the one looking down, but the spokesman from Targos seemed on the verge of exploding into laughter.

Regis had to act quickly. He bent down slightly and raised his hand to his chin, by appearance to scratch an itch though in truth to set the ruby pendant spinning, tapping it with his arm as it passed. He then held the silence of the moment patiently and counted as Drizzt had instructed. Ten seconds passed and Kemp had not blinked. Drizzt had said that this would be enough, but Regis, surprised and apprehensive at the ease with which he had accomplished the task, let another ten go by before he dared begin testing the drow’s beliefs.

“Surely you can see the wisdom of preparing for an attack,” Regis suggested calmly. Then in a whisper that only Kemp could hear he added, “These people look to you for guidance, great Kemp. A military alliance would only enhance your stature and influence.”

The effect was dazzling.

“Perhaps there is more to the halfling’s words than we first believed,” Kemp said mechanically, his glazed eyes never leaving the ruby.

Stunned, Regis straightened up and quickly slipped the stone back under his waistcoat. Kemp shook his head as though clearing
a confusing dream from his thoughts, and he rubbed his dried eyes. The spokesman from Targos couldn’t seem to recall the last few moments, but the halfling’s suggestion was planted deeply into his mind. Kemp found, to his own amazement, that his attitudes had changed.

“We should hear well the words of Regis,” he declared loudly. “For we shall be none the worse from forming such an alliance, yet the consequences of doing nothing may prove to be grave, indeed!”

Quick to seize an advantage, Jensin Brent leaped up from his chair. “Spokesman Kemp speaks wisely,” he said. “Number the people of Caer-Dineval, ever proponents of the united efforts of Ten-Towns, among the army that shall repel the horde!”

The rest of the spokesmen lined up behind Kemp as Drizzt had expected, with Dorim Lugar making an even bigger show of loyalty than Brent’s.

Regis had much to be proud of when he left the council hall later that day, and his hopes for the survival of Ten-Towns had returned. Yet the halfling found his thoughts consumed by the implications of the power he had discovered in his ruby. He worked to figure the most fail-safe way in which he could turn this new-found power of inducing cooperation into profit and comfort.

“So nice of the Pasha Pook to give me this one!” he told himself as he walked through the front gate of Bryn Shander and headed for the appointed spot where he would meet with Drizzt and Bruenor.

hey started at dawn, charging across the tundra like an angry whirlwind. Animals and monsters alike, even the ferocious yetis, fled before them in terror. The frozen ground cracked beneath the stamp of their heavy boots, and the murmur of the endless tundra wind was buried under the strength of their song, the song to the God of Battle.

They marched long into the night and were off again before the first rays of dawn, more than two thousand barbarian warriors hungry for blood and victory.

Drizzt Do’Urden sat nearly halfway up on the northern face of Kelvin’s Cairn, his cloak pulled tight against the bitter wind that howled through the boulders of the mountain. The drow had spent every night up here since the council in Bryn Shander, his violet eyes scanning the blackness of the plain for the first signs of the coming storm. At Drizzt’s request, Bruenor had arranged for Regis to sit
beside him. With the wind nipping at him like an invisible animal, the halfling squeezed in between two boulders as further protection from the unwelcoming elements.

Given a choice, Regis would have been tucked away into the warmth of his own soft bed in Lonelywood, listening to the quiet moan of the swaying tree branches beyond his warm walls. But he understood that as a spokesman everyone expected him to help carry out the course of action he had suggested at the council. It quickly became obvious to the other spokesmen and to Bruenor, who had joined in the subsequent strategy meetings as the representative of the dwarves, that the halfling wouldn’t be much help in organizing the forces or drawing any battle plans, so when Drizzt told Bruenor that he would need a courier to sit watch with him, the dwarf was quick to volunteer Regis.

Now the halfling was thoroughly miserable. His feet and fingers were numbed from the cold, and his back ached from sitting against the hard stone. This was the third night out, and Regis grumbled and complained constantly, punctuating his discomfort with an occasional sneeze. Through it all, Drizzt sat unmoving and oblivious to the conditions, his stoic dedication to duty overriding any personal distress.

“How many more nights do we have to wait?” Regis whined. “One morning, I’m sure—maybe even tomorrow—they’ll find us up here, dead and frozen to this cursed mountain!”

“Fear not, little friend,” Drizzt answered with a smile. “The wind speaks of winter. The barbarians will come all too soon, determined to beat the first snows.” Even as he spoke, the drow caught the tiniest flicker of light in the corner of his eye. He rose from his crouch suddenly, startling the halfling, and turned toward the direction of the flicker, his muscles tensed with reflexive wariness, his eyes straining to spot a confirming sign.

“What’s—” Regis began, but Drizzt silenced him with an outstretched palm. A second dot of fire flashed on the edge of the horizon.

“You have gotten your wish,” Drizzt said with certainty.

“Are they out there?” Regis whispered. His vision wasn’t nearly as keen as the drow’s in the night.

Drizzt stood silently in concentration for a few moments, mentally trying to measure the distance of the campfires and calculate the time it would take the barbarians to complete their journey.