Drizzt sprinted out across some open ground, often glancing back at the destroyed town, hoping to catch some sign of his friends.
He saw nothing definitive, just a swarm of orcs charging for the town. Drizzt had to turn away, running to the north with a pair of giants close behind him.
"We got no time!" Thibbledorf Pwent cried, charging into Shallows. "Gather up yer things and yer wounded and follow me to the wagon!"
"We need a cleric!" Wulfgar yelled at him. "At once! We've wounded too badly hurt to be moved!"
"Then ye might need to leave "em!" Pwent yelled back..
"One of them is Bruenor Battlehammer!" Wulfgar yelled back.
"Cleric! " yelled Pwent. "And get the one on the wagon with the green beard," the battlerager cried to another dwarf. "He's got more tricks than a den o' drunken wizards."
"Get 'em moving!" another dwarf cried. "Get the wounded on the wagon and get all the dead dwarfs ye can up there with 'em. We're not for leaving Battlehammers behind for the buzzards or the orcs!"
"How did ye find us so fast?" Catti-brie started to ask Pwent, but she stopped and smiled when she saw the obvious source of the daring rescue. The second driver, the little one, whom she recognized clearly once his cowl was pulled back. "Regis," the woman said.
With her heart busting, she moved to hug him but backed away quickly when she saw him wince as she put pressure against his arm.
"Someone had to feed the wolf," the halfling said with a sheepish shrug.
Catti-brie bent low and kissed him on the head, and Regis blushed deeply.
And they were moving, a whirlwind of scrambling dwarf warriors buzzing like a swarm of angry bees around the exhausted defenders of Shallows, a ragtag group. Of the hundred humans and twenty-six dwarves who had begun the defense of the town, less than a score were leaving of their own strength, and only another ten, Bruenor among them, were still drawing breath at all.
Hardly a victory.
CHAPTER 29 WHERE ROADS MEET AND ROADS DIVERGE
They ran in flanking lines left and right of the main wagons. Others pulled hard at the largest wagon—the orc god statue discarded—that bore the wounded, including King Bruenor Battlehammer. On the cart with him rode Regis, who was too injured to do much of anything else, and Pikel Bouldershoulder, the doo-dad, who used his enchanted berries and roots on Bruenor's wounds.
"He'll draw out the sickness," Ivan assured Wulfgar and Tred as they ran along behind that wagon. "Me brother's got some tricks, he does."
Wulfgar nodded grimly and took heart in the words, for Catti-brie had told him a short while before that Bruenor did seem to be resting more easily.
"Ain't that that's worrying me," Tred put in. "We're seeing orc sign all about, and if they come on now. .»
"They will be without their giant friends, who were left on the other side of the ravine," Wulfgar insisted.
"True enough," Tred admitted, though his dour expression did not brighten, "but I'm thinking we'll be finding a tougher fight with them orcs, even with yer boys from Mithral Hall here, when them orcs ain't so surprised that yer boys from Mithral Hall're here!"
There really wasn't much that Wulfgar could say against such logic.
He had seen the orc force, and he knew that those legions, despite being scattered and with many slaughtered outside of Shallows, would still prove overwhelming to this contingent in a level fight. Even as they had begun the run the previous day, they had all known that their only real hope was that the orcs had been too scattered to regroup in time to catch them before they reached the safety of Mithral Hall, or at least before they met up with the dwarven army rolling out of that fortress.
But already the signs were showing their hopes to be in vain. All through the night—in which the dwarves, utilizing more of Pikel's wondrous berries, had kept moving—they had heard the calls of worgs, left and right, shadowing them. Earlier the second day, they had caught sight of a dust cloud rising in the north, not so far behind, and they knew that they were being pursued.
Pwent had proposed a possible scenario to them that morning. The battlerager figured that the orc worg-riders would flank and circle in front of the dwarves, trying to slow their run, thus giving the pursuing main force time to catch up and overwhelm them. The dwarves had decided that if such a blockade had been formed, they would lower their heads and blast straight through it.
Wulfgar could only hope that it didn't come to that. They barely had enough to take turns pulling the wagon of wounded, and Pwent and his boys were reaching the end of their tolerance. Pikel's berries were amazing indeed, but they did not provide magical strength. They merely allowed the body to draw on its deeper resources. After the run to the north, the desperate fight, and the beginning of the run back to the south, Wulfgar could plainly see that those reserves were reaching their end. Even worse, those who had come from the prolonged defense of Shallows, himself included, were all carrying grievous wounds.
Another fight would likely be the end of all of them and at the least would eliminate any hope Wulfgar had of getting his beloved father back to Mithral Hall alive.
And so that afternoon, when scouts reported a growing cloud of dust to the west, the barbarian moved to the wagon to join Catti-brie, Regis, and Bruenor.
"That'll mark the end of it," Catti-brie remarked, staring out at the cloud.
Her demeanor, so removed from the ever-optimistic presence that Wulfgar had always known, caught him off guard and surprised Regis as well.
"We'll fight them and beat them!" Regis replied. "And if more catch us, we'll fight them, too!"
"Indeed," Wulfgar agreed. "I would not see Aegis-fang in the hands of an orc, even if that means I must kill every orc in all the North. And I will see Bruenor back to Mithral Hall, where he will find his strength anew and resume the throne that is so rightfully his."
The words were empowering to both Regis and Catti-brie, and their appreciative looks to Wulfgar became grins and even laughter when Pikel Bouldershoulder chimed in with an enthusiastic "Oo oi!"
The dwarves closed ranks around the wagons, though they maintained their swift pace. Pwent began directing his charges, moving his most seasoned fighters to the delicate areas of defense, and calling out to his boys to be ready. At one point, he moved beside the wagon.
"There'll be a few hunnerd of 'em, judging by what me scouts're seeing," the battlerager explained. He added with an exaggerated wink, "Nothing me and me boys can't handle."
Wulfgar nodded, as did the others, but they all knew the truth of the matter. Being intercepted by several hundred orcs would be bad enough, but even if they could indeed win out against such odds, they would find themselves caught by an equal or larger group from behind because of the inevitable delay.
"Take up your bow," Wulfgar bade Catti-brie as he handed her Taulmaril. "Shoot well."
"Perhaps T could go out under a flag of truce and speak with them," Regis offered, pointedly pulling the enchanted ruby pendant over his shirt collar.
Wulfgar shook his head.
"They'd have ye dead even if ye managed to snare a few o' them with yer lies," Catti-brie remarked.
"Promises, not lies," Regis corrected.
He shrugged helplessly and looked down at the ruby then tucked it away.
The dwarven ranks tightened. It was obvious that they had been spotted by the intercepting force, and their choices were few. A turn to the east would likely put them into another group of orcs, and to stop and try to form some semblance of defense might bring the pursuing orcs upon them as well.
They plowed ahead, gripping weapons in one hand, wagon yokes in the other.