Chapter 16 Chapter Thirteen The Last Run

Regis, who had reappeared from the dissipating dark ward, now clutching his log, looked like charcoal.He shook his head. "It's beyond our capabilities," he sighs. "We can't get out." "Be confident, glutton," Bruenor reassured, as he walked over to the halfling in the muddy water. "We are now creating legends so that we can tell our children's children, and let others tell us after we are gone!" "You mean today?" Regis said impatiently. "Or we might be alive today and not be alive tomorrow." Bruno smiled and grabbed the log to stop it. "Not yet, my friend," he assured Regis with a bold smile. "At least not until my business is done!"

Drizzt, who went to retrieve the arrow, noticed Wulfgar leaning heavily against the worm's corpse.From a distance, he thought the young barbarian was simply exhausted, but as the dark elf approached, he began to suspect that something more serious was afoot.Wulfgar was clearly weighted on one of his legs, as if he had injured his other leg or his lower back. When Wulfgar caught the dark elf's attention, he stood up straight. "Let's keep going," he suggested, walking over to Bruenor and Regis, doing his best to hide his limp. Drizzt didn't ask him about it.The young man seemed made of midwinter tundra tenacity, and he was too thoughtful and too proud to admit hurt when speaking out wouldn't help.His friends couldn't stop and wait for him to heal, and they certainly couldn't carry him on their backs, so he could only let the pain pass with a wry smile, and trudged on.

But Wulfgar was really hurt.He twisted his back badly when he jumped from the tree into the water.During the heat of the fight, his adrenaline was pumping, and he didn't feel the pain of a sprain.But now his every step is getting more and more difficult. Drizzt saw the desperation on Regis's normally smiling face, and the dwarf's exhausted swing of his ax despite his optimistic boasting, and he saw Wulfgar just as clearly.He looked around at the wasteland, which seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, and for the first time began to wonder if he and his companions were really doing more than they could do.

Guenhwyvar hadn't been hurt in the fight, just a little overexcited, but Drizzt saw the limits of the leopard's range of movement in the swamp and sent it back to his realm.At this juncture, he really wanted to keep the alert leopard with them.But the water here is too deep for the big cat, and the only way Guenhwyva can move forward is by jumping from tree to tree.Drizzt knew it wouldn't help; he and his friends had to go by themselves. Working deep down to strengthen their resolve, the group of friends continued with the work at hand.The Dark Elf watched the Worm's head carefully to retrieve every arrow he shot, knowing all too well that they would most likely be used again before reaching the end of the wasteland.The other three are recycling the remaining logs and food.

Before long, the group of friends drifted across the swamp with what little energy they had left, keeping watch for the dangerous environment every minute.But in the heat of the day (it was the hottest day so far), and with the logs gently swaying in the still water, everyone except Drizzt fell into a deep sleep one by one. The dark elves kept the makeshift boat going and kept watch; they couldn't afford delay or any mistakes.Fortunately, the current spread wide out of the lagoon, and there were no obstacles for Drizzt to deal with.After a while the swamp became a great blur to him, and his weary eyes registered no details but general outlines and sudden movements in the reeds.

Yet he was a fighter, with lightning-quick reflexes and exceptional self-control.The trolls in the water attacked again, and the faint flame of consciousness that Drizzt Do'Urden had been trying to maintain called him back to reality in time, preventing these monsters from taking advantage of the surprise attack. Wulfgar and Bruenor sprang from their slumber at his call, weapons in hand.This time only two trolls got up and came after them, while the three took them down in seconds. Regis was asleep throughout the incident. Cool nights came, mercifully dispelling the heat.Bruno decided he wanted to keep going, with two men taking turns pushing and the other two resting.

"Regis can't push," Drizzt deduced. "His legs are too short to reach the bottom of the swamp." "Then let him sit and look around while I push," Wulfgar said self-sacrificingly. "I don't need help." "Then you two go first," Bruno said. "Glutton slept through the day. He should have worked hard for at least an hour or two!" Drizzt climbed up the log for the first time of the day, resting his head on the pack.Yet he did not close his eyes.Bruno's plan to advance in turn sounded fair, but it was impossible to implement.Only he can guide the way in the dark and be alert to any kind of danger approaching.As Wulfgar and Regis advanced, the drow raised his head more than a few times to tell the halfling what was going on nearby, and to advise them on the best way to go.

Drizzt probably won't sleep again tonight.He had vowed to go to sleep in the morning, but when the dawn finally broke through the sky, he saw the trees and reeds bending over them again.Again the attention of the wasteland itself held them back, as if it were really a sentient being, watching and planning to hinder their progress. The wide waters are actually in their favor.Its weedy surface was easier to move than on foot, and after the second rout of the water trolls they encountered nothing hostile, if not counting the dangers lurking beneath.After days and nights of gliding, they figured they had covered most of the distance to the other side of the Evermoor when their line finally returned to the black ground.They sent Regis up the tallest tree they could find, since he was the only one light enough to stand on the tallest branch (especially after his round belly had gone down from the trip), Now their hopes were confirmed.Far away on the eastern horizon, but within a day or two of walking, Regis saw woods, not low birch groves or mossy trees in a swamp, but a dense mass of oak and elm. forest.

They resumed their brisk pace, despite their exhaustion.They stood on solid ground again, knowing they might have to camp one more time near the lurking hordes of trolls, but they also knew now that their ordeal in Evermoor was coming to an end.They don't want these evil inhabitants to defeat them at the last moment of their journey. "Let's not go any further today," Drizzt suggested, though there was just over an hour before the sun reached the western horizon.The dark elves had sensed something gathering nearby as the trolls awoke from their day's rest and smelled strangers in the wasteland. "We choose our camps carefully. The wasteland has not yet released us from its grasp."

"We'll lose more than an hour of travel," Bruno declared, intending to point out the shortcomings of the plan, not argue it.The dwarf remembered the horror of the battle on the hill all too well, and he had no intention of repeating the great toil of the last time. "We'll earn that time back tomorrow," Drizzt reasoned. "Our need now is to survive first." Wulfgar was all for it. "The smell of those monsters grows stronger with every step," he said, "from every direction. We cannot escape. Let us fight a good fight!" "But under conditions that are favorable to us," Drizzt added.

"There," Regis suggested, pointing to a long, high rise some distance to the left. "It's so wide open," Bruno said. "Trolls can climb up just as easily as we do, and we've got too many enemies to block at once!" "Yes, if there is no fire there." Regis had already calculated well, and he smiled furtively.His friends immediately agreed with this simple logic. They spent the rest of the day building fortifications.Wulfgar and Bruenor brought back as much wood as they could, placing them strategically to extend the diameter of the refuge, while Regis made a firebreak atop the plateau, and Drizzt built a Watch alertly.Their defense plan was simple, let the trolls get close to them, and then set the whole heights outside their camp on fire. Only Drizzt noticed the plan's weakness, and he had nothing better to suggest.He had fought trolls before he came to this wasteland, and he knew how tenacious these hideous monsters were.When the flames they had laid in an ambush finally died down, he and his friends would face the trolls swarming all around them, long before the dawn of the next day.All they could hope was that the carnage wrought by the flames would deter other enemies from approaching. Wulfgar and Bruenor wished they could do more, the memories of the hill were too vivid for them to do enough fortification of the wasteland.But when dusk came, it brought hungry eyes upon them.They joined Regis and Drizzt in camp atop the rise, crouching low in nervous waiting. An hour passed, and it seemed to them ten hours, and the night grew deeper and deeper. "Where are they?" Bruenor asked, slapping the ax nervously on his hand, showing impatience unlike his veteran counterpart. "Why don't they come?" Regis agreed, anxious to the point of panic. "Be patient and happy," Drizzt advised. "The later the fighting happens, the better our chances of seeing tomorrow's dawn. Maybe they haven't found us yet." "It's more likely that they're all gathering, ready to charge in one fell swoop," Bruno said gloomily. "That's fine," Wulfgar said, crouching comfortably and looking into the darkness. "Let our flames have enough of that disgusting blood!" Regis and Bruenor were reassured by Drizzt's noticing of the giant's strength and determination.The dwarf's ax stopped swinging nervously, and rested quietly beside Bruenor, preparing for the coming battle.Even Regis, the most reluctant of fighters, raised his little mace in a roar, his knuckles white with the grip. Another long hour passed. This delay did not let their guard down.They knew the danger was very near now, and they could smell the suffocation gathering in the fog and in the darkness beyond their vision. "Fire," Drizzt told Regis. "We'll let every monster for miles find us!" Bruno argued. "They've spotted us long ago," Drizzt replied, pointing down the plateau, though he knew his friends couldn't see the trolls yet. "The light of the torches will keep them out of here and give us more time." As he spoke, however, the first troll slowly made its way up to the high ground.Bruenor and Wulfgar crouched until the monster was almost at their side, then sprang out in a frenzy, a brutal flurry of axes and warhammers in place.The monster fell down immediately.Regis held one of the torches.He threw it at Wulfgar, and the barbarian set the fallen troll's twisted body on fire.The other two trolls had come under the high ground, saw the flame they hated, and hurried back into the mist. "Ah, you ordered too fast!" Bruno complained. "I don't see any of them on fire!" "As long as the fire can make them retreat and not come closer, it will be considered effective." Drizzt insisted, although he knew that it would be better if there was such a chance. Suddenly, as if the wastelands were pouring everything on them, an unimaginable number of trolls surrounded the entire base of the plateau.They tried to get closer, but were not frightened by the presence of the fire.They continued to approach unrelentingly, slowly up the hill. "Patience," Drizzt told his companions, feeling their hunger. "Don't let them go beyond the line of the firebreak, but let them into the fire circle, as many as possible." Wulfgar rushed to the edge of the circle, waving torches to scare them off. Bruno stood up straight, his last two bottles of oil in his hands, the soaked rag hanging over the mouth of the bottles, a wild smile spread across his face. "It's not quite ripe for burning," he said to Drizzt with a wink. "Maybe need a little help getting it to spread!" The trolls crowded the surrounding area of ​​the small plateau, and these coveted monsters approached without hesitation, and their ranks became stronger and stronger with every step. Drizzt was the first to act.Torch in hand, he ran to the firewood circle and set it alight.Wulfgar and Regis were right in the rear, putting as much fire as possible between them and the marching troll.Bruenor threw his torch over the heads of the first group of monsters, hoping to catch them between the flames at both ends, and then he hurled the oil bottle towards the densest concentration of enemies. The flames spewed upwards in the night sky, instantly lighting up the entire area, but making the night beyond the range of influence appear even darker.Because they were too crowded, they couldn't turn around and run away at once, and the fire seemed to understand this, and fell on them one by one. When a troll in Yiyi caught fire, it jumped wildly, causing the flames to extend far beyond the small plateau. In many parts of the vast wastelands, creatures pause their nocturnal activities to watch the ever-increasing pillars of fire, and the dying wailing of the trolls brought by the wind. Huddled together on the top of the little plateau, their companions found themselves almost overwhelmed by the heat.But the flames crested quickly while feasting on the flammable troll meat, and then began to die down, leaving behind a sickening smell in the air and the charred scars of another massacre in Evermoor. The group of companions prepared more torches for their escape.Even after the fire, many trolls still stood to fight, and there was no way the group of friends could expect to hold their ground after the fuel ran out.At Drizzt's insistence, they waited for the first escape route to the east to be cleared, and when it did, they charged into the night, with an onslaught that drove the trolls away and even burned a few of them, Passed through the first group of completely unexpected enemies. They run off into the night, blindly through the mud and brambles, hoping only luck will keep them from falling into the bottomless swamp.They were completely amazed that for several minutes there was no sign of pursuit. But the wasteland didn't take long to answer.Moans and howls soon began to echo around them. Drizzt took the lead.Relying on his intuition and vision at the same time, he directed his friends to left and right, crossing the area with the least obvious resistance, while maintaining their route roughly to the east.They hoped to take advantage of the monster's sheer fear, setting torches on anything that could burn as they passed by. As the night wore on, they encountered nothing directly, but the groaning and chirping of footsteps just a few yards behind them did not let up.They soon began to suspect that some kind of collective intelligence was working against them, as they were far from the trolls that were originally behind or beside them, but there were always more waiting to hunt them down.An evil pervades the land, as if the Evermoor itself were the real enemy.There were trolls everywhere, which was an immediate danger, but even if all the trolls and other residents were killed or driven out, the gang reckoned it must still be a terrible place. Dawn came, but that did not bring relaxation. "We've pissed off the Badlands itself!" Bruenor yelled when he realized the hunt wouldn't end easily now. "It's impossible to rest until we're out of this damn state!" They continued to run forward, and as they advanced, they saw slender figures staggering towards them, and the monsters running parallel with them or directly behind them could be vaguely seen, waiting for someone to trip over them.A thick fog fell on them, making it impossible for them to maintain their bearings, further confirming their fear that the moors would rise up against them themselves. They let those thoughts pass, let all hopes pass, push themselves to their physical and emotional limits because they have no other choice. Regis nearly lost consciousness of his actions and fell to the ground.His torch rolled aside, but he didn't notice, and he couldn't even think about getting up again, or that he had fallen, and he was almost sure to be a feast for so many hungry mouths. The ravenous monster was stopped, however, as Wulfgar came to him, scooped up Regis with one of his great arms.The huge savage slammed the troll and knocked it away, but he didn't relax on his feet and kept running. Drizzt gave up all scheming at the moment, knowing what was happening quickly behind him.More than once he had to slow down because of Bruenor's fall, and he doubted Wulfgar's ability to keep running while carrying a halfling on his back.There was no way the exhausted barbarian could be expected to raise the Fang of Aegis to protect himself.Their only chance is to escape directly beyond the realm.A wide swamp could overwhelm them, a box-shaped canyon could trap them, and even with no natural barriers in their way, they had little hope of continuing to escape the troll's grasp.Drizzt was terrified of the difficult choice he was about to face: fleeing on his own, since he seemed to have a good chance of escaping, or fighting an impossible battle alongside his doomed friend. They ran on, running solidly for another hour, but time itself was beginning to affect them.Drizzt heard Bruenor mumbling behind him, lost in some reverie about his childhood in Mithril Hall.Wulfgar walked slowly behind alone with the unconscious halfling, reciting a prayer to one of their gods, using the rhythm of his chanting to keep his steps steady. Bruno then fell, knocked out by a troll walking straight towards them. The choice of fate came easily to Drizzt.He turned around, and the scimitar was already out of its sheath.He might not be able to carry fat dwarves on his back, or defeat the hordes of trolls that were approaching now. "Our saga ends here, Bruenor Warhammer!" he shouted. "End in battle, this is the most suitable way to die for a soldier!" Dizzy and panting, Wulfgar didn't consciously choose his next move.It was just his simple reaction to the sight in front of him, the stubborn instinct of a man who refused to give in.He fell onto the dwarf, which was struggling to get up from the fall, and grabbed the dwarf with his free arm.Two trolls were already there waiting. Drizzt Do'Urden was nearby, inspired by the young barbarian's heroism.Fiery flames danced again in his lavender eyes, and his blades whirred in their own death dance. Both trolls reached out to grab their helpless prey, but after Drizzt's mere flick, the monsters had no arms to grab. "Keep running!" yelled Drizzt, who stayed behind and encouraged Wulfgar with a stream of words.All weariness vanished in the dark elf's ultimate outburst of fighting desire.He ran around, screaming and challenging all the trolls.Anyone who gets too close cannot escape his knife. Grunting with each painful step, eyes stinging with sweat, Wulfgar ran forward blindly.He didn't think about how long he could maintain this speed.He did not think of the sure and terrible shadows of death which hung over him on all sides and which might have cut off his path.He wasn't thinking about the twisting pain in his injured back, or the sharp new stabbing pain behind his knee.He just focused on putting one heavy boot in front of the other over and over again. They trod over some thorns, stooped through some that grew on them, and skirted others.Their hearts were all feeling uneasy, because in front of them, flickering, was the quiet forest that Regisley had seen, the end of the Evermoor.But between them and the forest a dense crowd of trolls was waiting, lined up in three rows. The grasp of Evermoor is not easily shaken off. "Go on," Drizzt told Wulfgar in a low whisper, as if he feared the Moor was listening. "I still have one trick left to play." Wulfgar saw the procession before him, but even in his present situation his trust in Drizzt overwhelmed any objections he might have based on common sense.He lifted Bruenor and Regis hard enough to make them more comfortable, lowered his head, and yelled at the monsters in a berserk rage. Drizzt was a few steps back when he almost touched them, and the drooling trolls huddled to hold them back when the dark elf played his last card. The flames of magic emanated from the barbarian.It didn't have the ability to burn Wulfgar or trolls, but for these monsters, the sight of a huge, wild man surrounded by flames charging at them shot fear into their normally fearless hearts. Drizzt casts his spell at perfect timing, giving the trolls just a second to react to their majestic foe.Like water ahead of a speeding ship, they parted, and Wulfgar nearly lost his balance as he rushed in unexpectedly, stumbling across, Drizzt following. By the time the trolls gathered again in pursuit, their prey had climbed the last slopes of the Evermoor into the forest, which was protected by the Arras and the valiant Knights of the Silvermoon. Drizzt turned under the branches of the first tree to watch for signs of pursuit?The fog rolled back into the wasteland, as if the treacherous land had closed its gates behind them.No troll can come over. The dark elf slid down against the tree trunk, he was too tired to even smile on his face.