The Crystal Shard (5 page)

“Bah, a cat’s a cat!” insisted the dwarf. “An’ why isn’t it here when ye needed it?”

“Even a magical animal needs its rest,” Drizzt explained.

“Bah,” Bruenor spouted again. “It’s sure to be a sorry day when a drow—and a ranger, what’s more—gets taken off ’is guard on an open plain by two scab tundra yetis!” Bruenor licked his stained axe blade, then spat in disgust.

“Foul beasts!” he grumbled. “Can’t even eat the damn things!” He pounded the axe into the ground to clean the blade and stomped off toward Kelvin’s Cairn.

Drizzt put Guenhwyvar back into the pack and went to retrieve his scimitar from the other monster.

“Come on, elf,” scolded the dwarf. “We’ve five miles an’ more of road to go!”

Drizzt shook his head and wiped the bloodstained blade on the felled monster’s fur. “Roll on, Bruenor Battlehammer,” he whispered under his smile. “And know to your pleasure that every monster along our trail will mark well your passing and keep its head safely hidden!”

any miles north of Ten-Towns, across the trackless tundra to the northernmost edge of land in all the Realms, the frosts of winter had already hardened the ground in a white-tipped glaze. There were no mountains or trees to block the cold bite of the relentless eastern wind, carrying the frosty air from Reghed Glacier. The great bergs of the Sea of Moving Ice drifted slowly past, the wind howling off of their high-riding tips in a grim reminder of the coming season. And yet, the nomadic tribes who summered there with the reindeer had not journeyed with the herd’s migration southwest along the coast to the more hospitable sea on the south side of the peninsula.

The unwavering flatness of the horizon was broken in one small corner by a solitary encampment, the largest gathering of barbarians this far north in more than a century. To accommodate the leaders of the respective tribes, several deerskin tents had been laid out in a circular pattern, each encompassed in its own ring of campfires. In the center of this circle, a huge deerskin hall had been constructed, designed to hold every warrior of the tribes. The tribesmen called
it Hengorot, “The Mead Hall,” and to the northern barbarians this was a place of reverence, where food and drink were shared in toasts to Tempus, the God of Battle.

The fires outside the hall burned low this night, for King Heafstaag and the Tribe of the Elk, the last to arrive, were expected in the camp before moonset. All the barbarians already in the encampment had assembled in Hengorot and begun the pre-council festivities. Great flagons of mead dotted every table, and good-natured contests of strength sprang up with growing frequency. Though the tribes often warred with each other, in Hengorot all differences were put aside.

King Beorg, a robust man with tousled blond locks, a beard fading to white, and lines of experience etched deeply into his tanned face, stood solemnly at the head table. Representing his people, he stood tall and straight, his wide shoulders proudly squared. The barbarians of Icewind Dale stood a full head and more above the average inhabitant of Ten-Towns, sprouting as though to take advantage of the wide and roomy expanses of empty tundra.

They were indeed much akin to their land. Like the ground they roamed over, their often-bearded faces were browned from the sun and cracked by the constant wind, giving them a leathery, toughened appearance, a foreboding, expressionless mask that did not welcome outsiders. They despised the people of Ten-Towns, whom they considered weak wealth-chasers possessed of no spiritual value whatsoever.

Yet one of those wealth-chasers stood among them now in their most revered hall of meeting. At Beorg’s side was deBernezan, the dark-haired southerner, the only man in the room who was not born and bred of the barbarian tribes. The mousey deBernezan kept his shoulders defensively hunched as he glanced nervously about the hall. He was well aware that the barbarians were not overly fond of outsiders and that any one of them, even the youngest attendant, could break him in half with a casual flick of his huge hands.

“Hold steady!” Beorg instructed the southerner. “Tonight you hoist mead flagons with the Tribe of the Wolf. If they sense your
fear.” He left the rest unspoken, but deBernezan knew well how the barbarians dealt with weakness. The small man took a steadying deep breath and straightened his shoulders.

Yet Beorg, too, was nervous. King Heafstaag was his primary rival on the tundra, commanding a force as dedicated, disciplined, and numerous as his own. Unlike the customary barbarian raids, Beorg’s plan called for the total conquest of Ten-Towns, enslaving the surviving fishermen and living well off of the wealth they harvested from the lakes. Beorg saw an opportunity for his people to abandon their precarious nomadic existence and find a measure of luxury they had never known. Everything now hinged on the assent of Heafstaag, a brutal king interested only in personal glory and triumphant plunder. Even if the victory over Ten-Towns was achieved, Beorg knew that he would eventually have to deal with his rival, who would not easily abandon the fervent bloodlust that had put him in power. That was a bridge the King of the Tribe of the Wolf would have to cross later; the primary issue now was the initial conquest, and if Heafstaag refused to go along, the lesser tribes would split in their alliances among the two. War might be joined as early as the next morning. This would prove devastating to all their people, for even the barbarians who survived the initial battles would be in for a brutal struggle against winter. The reindeer had long since departed for the southern pastures, and the caves along the route had not been stocked in preparation. Heafstaag was a cunning leader; he knew that at this late date the tribes were committed to following the initial plan, but Beorg wondered what terms his rival would impose.

Beorg took comfort in the fact that no major conflicts had broken out among the assembled tribes, and this night, when they all met in the common hall, the atmosphere was brotherly and jovial, with every beard in Hengorot lathered in foam. Beorg’s gamble had been that the tribes could be united by a common enemy and the promise of continued prosperity. All had gone well…so far.

But the brute, Heafstaag, remained the key to it all.

The heavy boots of Heafstaag’s column shook the ground beneath their determined march. The huge, one-eyed king himself led the procession, his great, swinging strides indicative of the nomads of the tundra. Intrigued by Beorg’s proposal and wary of winter’s early onset, the rugged king had chosen to march straight through the cold nights, stopping only for short periods of food and rest. Though primarily known for his ferocious proficiency in battle, Heafstaag was a leader who carefully weighed his every move. The impressive march would add to the initial respect given his people by the warriors of the other tribes, and Heafstaag was quick to pounce on any advantage he could get.

Not that he expected any trouble at Hengorot. He held Beorg in high respect. Twice before he had met the King of the Tribe of the Wolf on the field of honor with no victory to show for it. If Beorg’s plan was as promising as it initially seemed, Heafstaag would go along, insisting only on an equal share in the leadership with the blond king. He didn’t care for the notion that the tribesmen, once they had conquered the towns, could end their nomadic lifestyle and be contented with a new life trading knucklehead trout, but he was willing to allow Beorg his fantasies if they delivered to him the thrill of battle and easy victory. Let the plunder be taken and warmth secured for the long winter before he changed the original agreement and redistributed the booty.

When the lights of the campfires came into view, the column quickened its pace. “Sing, my proud warriors!” Heafstaag commanded. “Sing hearty and strong! Let those gathered tremble at the approach of the Tribe of the Elk.”

Beorg had an ear cocked for the sound of Heafstaag’s arrival. Knowing well the tactics of his rival, he was not surprised in the
least when the first notes of the Song of Tempos rolled in from the night. The blond king reacted at once, leaping onto a table and calling silence to the gathering. “Harken, men of the north!” he cried. “Behold the challenge of the song!”

Hengorot immediately burst into commotion as the men dashed from their seats and scrambled to join the assembling groups of their respective tribes. Every voice was lifted in the common refrain to the God of Battle, singing of deeds of valor and of glorious deaths on the field of honor. This verse was taught to every barbarian boy from the time he could speak his first words, for the Song of Tempos was actually considered a measure of a tribe’s strength. The only variance in the words from tribe to tribe was the refrain that identified the singers. Here the warriors sang at crescendo pitch, for the challenge of the song was to determine whose call to the God of Battle was most clearly heard by Tempos.

Heafstaag led his men right up to the entrance of Hengorot. Inside the hall the calls of the Tribe of the Wolf were obviously drowning out the others, but Heafstaag’s warriors matched the strength of Beorg’s men.

One by one, the lesser tribes fell silent under the dominance of the Wolf and the Elk. The challenge dragged on between the two remaining tribes for many more minutes, neither willing to relinquish superiority in the eyes of their deity. Inside the mead hall, men of the beaten tribes nervously put their hands to their weapons. More than one war had erupted on the plains because the challenge of the song could determine no clear winner.

Finally, the flap of the tent opened admitting Heafstaag’s standard bearer, a youth, tall and proud, with observing eyes that carefully weighed everything about him and belied his age. He put a whalebone horn to his lips and blew a clear note. Simultaneously, according to tradition, both tribes stopped their singing.

The standard bearer walked across the room toward the host king, his eyes never blinking or turning away from Beorg’s imposing visage, though Beorg could see that the youth marked the expressions that were upon him. Heafstaag had chosen his herald well, Beorg thought.

“Good King Beorg,” the standard bearer began when all commotion had ceased, “and other assembled kings. The Tribe of the Elk asks leave to enter Hengorot and share mead with you, that we might join together in toast to Tempos.”