The Crystal Shard(The Icewind Dale Trilogy 1)(18)

"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 though clearing a confusing dream from his thoughts, as he rubbed his dried eyes. The spokesman from Targos couldn't seem to recall the last few moments, but the hafling'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 failsafe 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.




They 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 a further protection from the unwelcoming elements.

Given a choice, Regis would have been tucked away in the warmth of his own soft bed in Lonelywood, listening to the quiet moan of the swaying tree branches beyond 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.

"Go to Bruenor and Cassius, little friend," he said at length. "Tell them that the horde will reach Bremen's Run when the sun peaks tomorrow."

"Come with me," said Regis. "Surely they'll not put you out when you bear such urgent news."

"I have a more important task at hand," Drizzt answered. "Now be off! Tell Bruenor - and Bruenor alone - that I shall meet him on Bremen's Run at the first light of dawn." And with that, the drow padded off into the darkness. He had a long journey before him.