Without a word of dissent, the wandering elves gathered the necessary supplies, mostly their great long bows and extra arrows. Just a few minutes later, they set off, running through the woods and across the mountain trails, making no more noise than a gentle breeze.

Drizzt awakened early in the afternoon to a startling sight. The day had darkened with gray clouds but still seemed bright to the drow as he crawled out of his den and stretched. High above him he saw the ranger, crawling about the top boughs of a tall pine. Drizzt’s curiosity turned to horror, when Montolio, howling like a wild wolf, leaped spread-eagled out of the tree.

Montolio wore a rope harness attached to the pine’s thin trunk. As he soared out, his momentum bent the tree, and the ranger came down lightly, bending the pine nearly in two. As soon as he hit the ground, he scrambled to his feet and set the rope harness around some thick roots.

As the scene fully unfolded to Drizzt, he realized that several pines had been bent this way, all pointing to the west and all tied by interconnected ropes. As he carefully picked his way over to Montolio, Drizzt passed a net, several trip wires, and one particularly nasty rope set with a dozen or more double-bladed knives. When the trap was sprung and the trees snapped back up, so would this rope, to the peril of any creatures standing beside it.

“Drizzt?” Montolio asked, hearing the light footsteps. “‘Ware your steps, now. I would not want to have to rebend all these trees, though I will admit it is a bit of fun.”

“You seem to have the preparations well under way,” Drizzt said as he came to stand near the ranger.

“I have been expecting this day for a long time,” Montolio replied. “I have played through this battle a hundred times in my mind and know the course it will take.” He crouched and drew an elongated oval on the ground, roughly the shape of the pine grove. “Let me show you,” he explained, and he proceeded to draw the landscape around the grove with such detail and accuracy that Drizzt shook his head and looked again to make sure the ranger was blind.

The grove consisted of several dozen trees, running north-south for about fifty yards and less than half that in width. The ground sloped at a gentle but noticeable incline, with the northern end of the grove being half a tree’s height lower than the southern end. Farther to the north the ground was broken and boulder-strewn, with scraggly patches of grass and sudden drops, and crossed by sharply twisting trails.

“Their main force will come from the west,” Montolio explained, pointing beyond the rock wall and across the small meadow to a pair of dense copses packed between the many rock ledges and cliff facings. “That is the only way they could come in together.”

Drizzt took a quick survey of the surrounding area and did not disagree. Across the grove to the east, the ground was rough and uneven. An army charging from that direction would come into the field of tall grass nearly single-file, straight between two high mounds of stone, and would make an easy target for Montolio’s deadly bow. South, beyond the grove, the incline grew steeper, a perfect place for orc spear-throwers and archers, except for the fact that just over the nearest ridge loomed a deep ravine with a nearly unclimbable wall.

“We’ll not see any trouble from the south,” Montolio piped in, almost as though he had read Drizzt’s thoughts. “And if they come from the north, they’ll be running uphill to get at us. I know Graul better than that. With such favorable odds, he will charge his host straight in from the west, trying to overrun us.”

“Thus the tress,” Drizzt remarked in admiration. “And the net and knife-set rope.”

“Cunning,” Montolio congratulated himself. “But remember, I have had five years to prepare for this. Come along now. The trees are just the beginning. I have duties for you while I finish with the tree trap.”

Montolio led Drizzt to another secret, blanket-shielded den. Inside hung lines of strange iron items, resembling animal jaws with a strong chain connected to their bases.

“Traps,” Montolio explained. “Pelt hunters set them in the mountains. Wicked things. I find them—Hooter is particularly skilled at spotting them—and take them away. I wish I had eyes to see the hunter scratching his head when he comes for them a week later!

“This one belonged to Roddy McGristle,” Montolio continued, pulling down the closest of the contraptions. The ranger set it on the ground and carefully maneuvered his feet to pull the jaws apart until they set. “This should slow an orc,” Montolio said, grabbing a nearby stick and patting around until he hit the plunger.

The trap’s iron jaws snapped shut, the force of the blow breaking the stick cleanly and wrenching the remaining half right out of Montolio’s hand. “I have collected more than a score of them,” Montolio said grimly, wincing at the evil sound of the iron jaws. “I never thought to put them to use—evil things—but against Graul and his clan the traps might just amend some of the damage they have wrought.”

Drizzt needed no further instructions. He brought the traps out into the western meadow, set and concealed them, and staked down the chains several feet away. He put a few just inside the rock wall, too, thinking that the pain they might cause to the first orcs coming over would surely slow those behind.

Montolio was done with the trees by this time; he had bent and tied off more than a dozen of them. Now the ranger was up on a rope bridge that ran north-south, fastening a line of crossbows along the western supports. Once set and loaded, either Montolio or Drizzt could merely trot down the line, firing as he went.

Drizzt planned to go and help, but first he had another trick in mind. He went back to the weapons cache and got the tall and heavy ranseur he had seen earlier. He found a sturdy root in the area where he planned to make his stand and dug a small hole out behind it. He laid the metal-shafted weapon down across this root, with only a foot or so of the butt sticking out over the hole, then covered the whole of it with grass and leaves.

He had just finished when the ranger called to him again.

“Here is the best yet,” Montolio said, flashing his sly smile. He brought Drizzt to a split log, hollowed and burned smooth, and pitched to seal any cracks. “Good boat for when the river is high and slow,” Montolio explained. “And good for holding Adbar brandy,” he added with another smile.

Drizzt, not understanding, eyed him curiously. Montolio had shown Drizzt his kegs of the strong drink more than a week before, a gift the ranger had received for warning a Sundabar caravan of Graul’s ambush intent, but the dark elf saw no purpose in pouring the drink into a hollowed log.

“Adbar brandy is powerful stuff,” Montolio explained. “It burns brighter than all but the finest oil.”

Now Drizzt understood. Together, he and Montolio carried the log out and placed it at the end of the only pass from the east. They poured in some brandy, then covered it with leaves and grass.

When they got back to the rope bridge, Drizzt saw that Montolio had already made the preparations on this end. A single crossbow was set facing east, its loaded quarrel headed by a wrapped, oil-soaked rag and a flint and steel resting nearby.

“You will have to sight it in,” Montolio explained. “Without Hooter, I cannot be sure, and even with the bird, sometimes the height of my aim is off.”

The daylight was almost fully gone now, and Drizzt’s keen night vision soon located the split log. Montolio had built the supports along the rope bridge quite well and with just this purpose in mind, and with a few minor adjustments, Drizzt had the weapon locked on its target.