in disgust and stood tapping one foot, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Bah!" Ivan snorted at him, and he started away.
He stopped, seeing an elf perched on a branch before and above him, bow drawn back.
"Pikel," the dwarf said quietly, hardly moving, and hardly moving his lips. "Ye think ye might talk to this tree afore me?"
"Uh oh," came Pikel's response.
Ivan glanced back, to see his brother standing perfectly still, hands in the air in a sign of surrender, with several grim-faced elves all around him, their bows ready for the kill.
All the forest came alive around the brothers, elf forms slipping from every shadow, from behind every tree.
With a shrug, Ivan dropped his heavy axe over his shoulder and to the ground.
Chapter 11 ON A FIELD OF THEIR CHOOSING
They seemed nervous as they moved along the trail, a single giant among the horde, with the other three inexplicably missing.
Watching them from the boughs of an evergreen, concealed at a height just above the giant, Drizzt Do'Urden recognized that level of alertness clearly and knew that he and his friends would have to be even more precise. The giant was the key to it all, the drow recognized, and had explained as much to Dagnabbit and Bruenor when they were setting out the forces. With that belief firmly in hand, Drizzt had taken a bit of his own initiative, moving up ahead of the concealed dwarves. He was ready, with his formidable panther ally, to make what he hoped would be the decisive first strike.
The trail was clearly defined as it moved through the copse of trees in the small, sheltered dell. Drizzt held his breath and tightened against the trunk of the pine when the orcs wisely sent lead runners in to inspect the area. He was glad that he had convinced Bruenor and Dagnabbit to set the ambush just past that place.
The orc scouts milled about down below, slipping in and out of the shadows, kicking through leafy piles. A pair took up defensive positions, while another pair headed back out the way they had entered, signaling for the approach.
On came the caravan, marching easily and without too much apparent concern.
The lead orcs passed below Drizzt's position. He looked across the trail, to Guenhwyvar, motioning for the cat to be calm, but be ready.
More and more orcs filtered below, then came the giant, walking alone and with a great scowl upon his face.
Drizzt set himself upon the branch he had specifically selected, drawing out his scimitars slowly and keeping them low, under the sides of his cloak so that their gleaming metal and magical glow would not give him away.
The giant marched through, one long stride after another, eyes straight ahead.
Drizzt leaped out, landing on the giant's huge shoulder, his scimitars slashing fast as he scrambled away, leaping off the other side and into the second pine as the giant reached up to grab at him. The drow ranger hadn't done much damage-he hadn't intended to-but he did turn the behemoth, just enough, and got its arms, eyes, and chin moving upward.
When Guenhwyvar leaped out the other way, she had an open path to the giant's throat, and there she lodged and dug in, tearing and biting.
The giant howled, or tried to, and snapped his huge hands onto the cat. Guenhwyvar didn't relent, digging deeper, biting harder, tearing and crushing the behemoth's windpipe, opening arteries.
Below, the orcs scrambled to get out of the way of stomping boots and breaking branches.
"What's it?" one orc yelled.
"A damned mountain cat!" another howled. "A great black one!"
The giant finally tugged stubborn Guenhwyvar free, not even realizing that he was taking a good portion of his own neck along with the cat. With another great effort, the giant brought the cat in close, under his huge arms, and began to crush her. Guenhwyvar gave a loud, pitiful wail.
Drizzt, wincing at the sound, dismissed her to her astral home. The giant folded a bit more tightly, the panther it had been squeezing turning to insubstantial mist.
The behemoth reached up to his neck, patting the spurting blood wildly, frantically. He stumbled to and fro, scattering terrified orcs, before finally staggering to his knees, then falling down, gasping, into the dirt.
"It kilt the cat!" one orc yelled. "Buried the damned thing right under it!"
A couple of orcs rushed to aid the giant, but the floundering, terrified behemoth slapped them aside. Scores of orcs had their attention squarely on the prone behemoth, wondering if it would rise