She noticed Selune then, gliding overhead, trailed by her glittering tears, through a patch of broken clouds, and she thought it a beautiful thing.
Khazid'hea fell from her grasp, its sharp tip digging into the ground so that it stayed upright, waiting for a more worthy wielder to take it in its grasp.
The sword felt its connection with Delly Curtie break completely and knew itself to be an orphan.
But not for long.
25. GERTI'S AMUSEMENT
Drizzt watched the approach of two of Gerti's messengers from a sheltered dell a mile to the east of Shining White's entrance. The drow had quickly learned the limits of Gerti's trust, for he had been told explicitly that he could not remove Sunrise's harness, and he knew well that his every move was being carefully monitored. If he tried to run away, the giants would rain boulders upon him and the pegasus.
The drow believed that Gerti trusted him, though, for why would she not? Certainly his desire to do battle with Obould was honestly placed and stated! No, all the "precautions" Gerti was taking were more a show for her own people, he understood - or at least, he had to believe. He had been around a wise leader all his life, a dwarf who knew what to do and how to present it - two very different things - and he understood the politics of his current situation.
Of course, Gerti might just be using him to get a chance at killing Obould, with no intention of ever letting Drizzt and Sunrise go after the battle, whatever the outcome. So be it, Drizzt had to accept, for he had really found no options in that chamber in Shining White. All had been lost, then she'd offered at least a glimmer of hope.
The two giants entered Drizzt's dell and tossed a bag of food and a waterskin at his feet.
"A substantial force of orcs is moving east of here, along the border of the mountains to a high pass," said one, a giantess of no small beauty.
"Sent by King Obould to aid in the construction of a large city he plans in that defensible place," the other added. Muscular and wide-shouldered even by the standards of his huge race, the male's face was no less handsome than that of his female companion, with light blue skin and silvery eyebrows that turned into a V whenever he furrowed his brow.
"Dark Arrow Keep," said the giantess. "You would do well to remember that name and relay it to your allies should you escape all of this."
The implications of the report were not really surprising to Drizzt. On his journey north to Shining White, he had seen clear signs that the orc king intended to dig in and hold his conquered ground. The construction of a major city, and one in the defensible high ground of the Spine of the World - from which more and more orcs continued to rally to his cause - seemed a logical course to that end.
"Obould is not with the caravan, though," the giantess explained. "He is moving from mountain to mountain, overseeing the work on many lesser keeps, and reminding the orcs who they serve."
"With his shamans," added the other. "And likely a pair of dark elves serve as his wider eyes - are they known to you?"
Drizzt's expression was all the answer the giants needed.
"You killed a pair of those drow, we know," the giant went on. "These two are, or were, their companions. They were sent to the south with the troll army, but they will return. They will hold a grievance toward Drizzt Do'Urden, no doubt."
"Murder and warfare are so common among my people that they just as likely won't," Drizzt replied, and he shrugged as if it didn't matter, for of course it did not. If the two drow were with Obould, then they were already his enemies.
"We will move in the morning," the giantess said. "Gerti hopes to meet up with Obould within three days."
She wants him dead before his grand designs can take real shape, Drizzt thought, but did not reply.
Every added bit of information about Obould's movements reinforced Gerti's deal with him. The giantess saw a war coming beyond anything in her power to influence. Or, in the absence of that war, she saw her own position greatly diminishing before the rise of King Obould Many-Arrows.
Delivering Drizzt to Obould might prove a gamble to Gerti, Drizzt understood, for it was likely that Obould's stature would only