With the eye of a trained tactician, which she, as the adopted daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, most certainly was, she looked for advantageous assault points. Bottlenecks in the trail, high ground where dwarves could send rocks and hammers spinning down at their enemies. .
Despite her many duties, the woman was the first of the four to return to the rendezvous point. Wulfgar returned soon after her with Bruenor, Dagnabbit, and Tred McKnuckles at his side.
"They have encamped almost directly north of this point," the woman explained.
"How many?" Bruenor asked.
Catti-brie gave a shrug. "Drizzt will know. I was searching the ground ahead to see where and how we might strike tomorrow."
"Ye find any good killin' spots?"
Catti-brie answered with a wicked smile, and Bruenor eagerly rubbed his hands together, then looked over at Tred and offered a nudge and a wink.
"Ye'll get yer payback, friend," the dwarf king promised.
As so often in the past, luck alone saved Regis. He skittered behind a convenient rock without notice from the group of orcs, who were engaged in an argument over some loot they had pilfered, probably from the sacked village.
They argued, pushed and shouted at each other, and deciding to divide the loot up privately amongst themselves, they suddenly quieted. Instead of continuing along the trail to join up with the larger band, they plopped themselves down right there, sending a couple ahead to fetch some food.
That afforded Regis a lovely eavesdropping position while they rambled on about all sorts of things, answering many questions for the halfling and leading him to ask many, many more.
Drizzt could not have been in a more disadvantageous situation, lying face down between a rise of stone and a boulder, peering over a ledge and with someone, something—likely an orc—moving up behind him. He ducked his head and shrugged the cowl of his cloak up a bit higher, hoping the creature would miss him in the dim light, but when the footsteps closed, the drow knew that he had to take a different course.
He shoved up to his knees and gracefully leaped to his feet from there, spinning around and drawing his scimitars, moving them as quickly as possible into a defensive position, trying to anticipate the attacker's thrust. If the creature had come straight on, Drizzt would have been caught back on his heels from the outset.
But the orc, and it was an orc, hadn't charged, and didn't charge. It stood back, hands upraised and waving frantically, having dropped its weapon to the ground at its feet.
It said something that Drizzt didn't completely comprehend, though the language was close enough to the goblin tongue, which the drow did know, for him to understand that there was some recognition there, spoken in an almost apologetic tone. It seemed as if the orc, recognizing a drow elf, feared that it was intruding.
The obvious fear didn't surprise Drizzt, for the goblinkin were usually terrified of the drow—as were most reasoning races — but this went beyond that, he sensed. The orc wasn't surprised, as if the appearance of a drow elf near to this force was not unexpected.
He wanted to question the creature further but saw a black flash to the side of the orc and knew his opportunity had passed.
Guenhwyvar came across hard and fast, in a great leap that put the panther about chest level with the orc.
"Guen, no!" Drizzt cried as the cat flew past.
The orc's throat erupted in blood and the creature went flying down to the stone. Drizzt rushed to it, turning it over, thinking to stem the flow of blood from its throat.
Then he realized that the orc had no throat left at all.
Frustrated that an opportunity had flitted away, but grateful that Guenhwyvar had seen the danger from afar and come rushing in to rescue him, Drizzt could only shake his head.
He hid the dead orc as well as possible in a crevice, and with Guenhwyvar at his side, he started back to the rendezvous, having discovered more questions than answers.
"Plenty of ground to shape to our liking," Catti-brie assured them all when they had reassembled on the plateau below the enemy's position. "We'll get the fight we want."
None disagreed, but Bruenor wore a concerned expression.
'Too many giants," he explained when all the others had focused on him. "Four'd make a good enough fight by themselves. I'm thinking we got to hit them afore the morning. Trim the numbers."
"Not an easy thing to do, if we're still wanting surprise tomorrow," Catti-brie added.
They bounced a few ideas back and forth, possible plans to lure out the giants, and potential areas where they could hit at the brutes away from the main force. There seemed no shortage of these, but getting them out wouldn't be an easy task.
"There may be a way. ." Drizzt offered, the first words he had contributed to the planning.
Replaying the scene with the orc, the reactions of the creature toward him, Drizzt wondered if his heritage might serve him well.
They agreed on a place, and the six and Guenhwyvar, minus Drizzt, started away, while the drow moved back toward his last position overlooking the encampment. He stayed there for just a few moments, his keen eyes cutting the night and discerning an approach route toward the separate giant camp, and he was gone, slipping away as silently as a shadow.
"He'll bring 'em down from the right," Bruenor said when they reached the appointed ambush area.
The dwarf was facing a high cliff, with a rocky, broken trail running left and right in front of it before him.
"Can ye get up there, Rumblebelly?"
Regis, standing at the base of the cliff, was already picking his course. He had discerned a few routes already to the ledge he was hoping to reach, but he wanted an easier one for a companion who was not quite as nimble as he.
"You want to get in on the kill?" he asked Tred McKnuckles, who was standing beside him and looking more than a little overwhelmed by the frantic planning and implementation of the seasoned companions.
"What d'ya think?" the dwarf shot back.
"I think you should put that weapon on your back and follow me up," Regis replied with a wry grin, and without further ado, the halfling began his climb.
"I ain't no damn spider!" Tred yelled back.
"Do you want the kill or not?"
It was the last thing Regis meant to say, and the last thing he had to say, for Tred, grumbling and growling to make a robbed dwarf proud, began his ascent, following the exact course of footholds and handholds Regis had taken. It took him a long time to get to the ledge, and by the time he arrived, Regis was already sitting comfortably with his back against the wall, twenty-five feet above the ground.
"See if you can break off a large chunk of that rock," the halfling remarked, nodding to the side, where a fair-sized boulder had lodged itself on the ledge.
Tred looked at the solid stone, a thousand pounds of granite, doubtfully.
"Ye think ye can drop it off?" came a call from below from Catti-brie.
Regis moved forward to regard her, and Tred looked on even more doubtfully.
Catti-brie didn't wait for an answer but moved to the side to confer with Wulfgar. The barbarian rushed away, returning a few moments later with a long and thick broken branch. He positioned himself below the ledge, then reached up as far as he could, and when it was apparent that he still couldn't reach his companions with the branch, he tossed it up.
Regis caught it and pulled it up beside him. Smiling, he handed it to the bewildered Tred.
"You'll see," the halfling promised.
To the side, on another ledge at about the same height as Regis and Tred's, Guenhwyvar gave a low growl, and poor Tred seemed more unsettled than ever.
Regis just grinned and moved back into position to watch the trail behind.
When he heard them talking in a language that was close enough to Common to be understood, Drizzt's hopes for his plans climbed a bit. He was on the fringes of the encampment, out in the shadows behind a large rock. Neither the orcs nor the giants had set any guards, obviously secure in their victory.