With great effort, Tred stubbornly hung on to the axe handle, hanging off the back of the giant's head. He rode the behemoth down as it stumbled to its knees, then down to the ground.
Tred rose from the dead behemoth's back and swung around to join the fray against the remaining beast—or tried to, then got jerked back around by his axe, which remained firmly embedded.
He heard a groan, from the side and down, and only then realized — and he was the only one of the band to notice—that Dagnabbit had been in an unfortunate position as the giant had slumped down and was buried beneath the behemoth's great weight.
Drizzt started the counterattack, charging up the path at the furious female frost giant. He saw the giant raise her arm to throw, a large stone in hand, and responded by calling upon his innate drow abilities, summoning a globe of darkness before the creature's face. The drow dived aside, frantically, and the hurled rock clipped the stone where he had been standing. Its rebound sent it skipping fast, brushing Wulfgar in the shoulder and sending him flying, then just missing Catti-brie, taking Taulmaril from her hands and bloodying her fingers. She fell to her knees, clutching her hands, her face locked in a grimace of pain.
Drizzt came in hard at the giant. The behemoth kicked across at him, and the drow went into a leaping, rolling somersault right over the flying foot, landing gracefully and spinning about, his deadly scimitars cutting two deep lines in the back of the huge calf.
Bruenor came in next and hard, driving in against the giant's other shin with his axe. The giant swatted him aside with a brutal slap, but the dwarf just accepted the bouncing ride along the rocks, regained his footing, adjusted his one-horned helmet, and wagged a finger back at the behemoth.
"Now ye're makin' me mad, ye overfed orc!"
The giant kicked at Drizzt again, but he was too quick for that, skipping aside time and time again, and spinning about to cut a wicked slash whenever presented an opening.
Apparently realizing that it was overmatched, the behemoth kicked one last time, shortening the blow in an effort not to thump the drow, but to just keep him at bay. The giantess turned to the south and started to run along the broken ground instead of the path, where her long legs would give her an advantage.
Or she tried to.
Aegis-fang whipped in, smashing the ankle of the giantess's trailing foot, driving that foot behind the other ankle and tripping the behemoth up.
She fell hard to the stone, her breath blasted out by the impact.
She tried to rise but had no chance. Drizzt was there, running up her back. And Guenhwyvar was there, leaping onto her shoulders and biting hard at the back of her neck. And Catti-brie was there, holding Khazid'hea, her devilishly sharp sword, gingerly in her injured grasp. And Bruenor was there with his axe, with Wulfgar behind him with the mighty warhammer back in his grasp.
And Tred came in, escorting a shaken, but not too badly hurt Dagnabbit.
Up on the ledge behind them, Regis watched and cheered. He called out when he noticed that the first felled giant was moving again, albeit groggily, the behemoth struggling to rise. Wulfgar rushed back and put Aegis-fang to swift and deadly work on the creature's huge head.
"I never seen nothing like it," Tred admitted as the band made their way back toward the main force of waiting dwarves.
"It's all about shaping the battlefield," Bruenor explained.
"And none do it better 'n King Bruenor!" Dagnabbit added.
"None, unless it's him," Bruenor replied, nodding his chin toward Drizzt, who was tending Catti-brie's hands as they walked.
She had at least one broken finger but seemed more than ready to continue.
There would be no rest for the band that night. There was another battlefield to properly shape, in preparation for an even larger fight.
CHAPTER 10 NOT WELCOME
"Uh uh," Pikel said stubbornly, stamping his foot hard and standing before the wide oak, barring Ivan's way into the enchanted tree.
"What are ye saying?" Ivan shot back. "Ye openin' the door just to keep it blocked, ye dopey fool?"
Pikel pointed past his brother to the bear, which was sitting and watching, its expression forlorn.
"Ye ain't takin' the bear!" Ivan bellowed, and he came forward.
"Uh uh," Pikel said again, waggling his finger and shifting to fully block the way.
Nose to nose, Ivan glowered at his brother, but he heard the bear growling behind him soon enough and realized this next fight wouldn't be even.
"Ye can't be taking him," the yellow-bearded dwarf reasoned. "Ye might be breakin' up his bear family, and ye wouldn't want to be doing that!"
"Oooo," said Pikel, seeming caught off guard for just a second before his face brightened.
He came forward and whispered into Ivan's ear.
"How do ye know he ain't got no family?" Ivan roared in protest, and Pikel whispered some more.
"He telled ye?" Ivan bellowed in disbelief. "The stupid bear telled ye? And ye're believing him? Ye ever think that he might be fibbing? That he might be telling ye that just to get away from his… cow or his doe or his. . bearess, or whatever they're calling a she-bear?"
"Bearess, hee hee hee," said Pikel, and giggling, he whispered some more.
"He's a.she — bear?" Ivan asked, and he glanced back. "How're ye knowin' it's a … never mind, don't ye be telling me. It ain't no matter, anyway. He-bear or she-bear, he … she … it, ain't goin'."
Pikel's face seemed to sink, his bottom lip getting pressed forward in a most pitiful pout, but Ivan held his ground. He wasn't about to do this strange tree-walking, unsettling under the best of conditions, with a wild bear beside him.
"Nope, it ain't," he said calmly. "And when we're missin' Bruenor's coronation, ye can tell Cadderly why. And when the winter's finding us out here, and yer friend's gone to sleep, ye watch me skin her for some warm blankets! And when..»
Pikel's low moan stopped his fiery brother's tirade, for Ivan surely recognized the defeat in Pikel's tone.
The green-bearded Bouldershoulder walked past Ivan and over to his bear. He spent a long while grooming the back of the gentle animal's ears, scratching and pulling ticks, and gently placing the insects down on the ground.
Of course, whenever he put down a bloated one, Ivan made a point of picking it up, holding it high, and popping it between stubby fingers.
A few moments later, Pikel's bear ambled away, and though Pikel remarked that he thought the creature was quite sad, Ivan frankly saw no difference. The bear was going on its way, and any way would have likely been good enough for the bear.
Pikel walked past Ivan again. He took up his newest walking stick and knocked three times on the trunk, then bowed low and reverently as he asked the tree's permission to enter.
Ivan didn't hear anything, of course, but apparently his brother did, for Pikel half-turned and held his arm out Ivan's way, inviting the yellow-bearded brother to lead the way.
Ivan deferred and responded by motioning for Pikel to go ahead.
Pikel bowed again and motioned for Ivan to lead.
Ivan deferred again and motioned more emphatically.
Pikel bowed yet again, still with complete calm, and motioned for Ivan to lead.
Ivan started to motion back yet again but changed his mind in mid-swing, and shoved his brother through instead, then turned and charged the tree.
To smack face-first into the solid trunk.
With his pale, almost translucent skin, and blue eyes so rich in hue they seemed to reflect the colors around him, the elf Tarathiel seemed a tiny thing. Though not very tall, he was lean and seemed all the more so with his angular features and long pointed ears. That was all an errant vision, though, for the elf warrior was a formidable force indeed and certainly would be seen as no tiny thing to any enemy tasting the bite of his fiercely-sharp, slender sword.