The Crystal Shard - Book Three - Chapter Thirty

[kalinara]

So last time, a series of bullshit shenanigans led to Drizzt Do'Urden defeating a godlike artifact with a fucking flour sack and I'm still not quite over it.

I mean, it's not Shapechangers bad, at least. But it was still pretty bad.

Also Copperfyre pointed out to me that when Drizzt jumped in the mirror after Kessell, he left Regis behind in a collapsing tower. Dick move, dude.

So now, chapter thirty. "The Battle of Icewind Dale".



So we're back at Bryn Shander: Cassius and Glensather aren't quite sure what to make of the arrival of the barbarians. Cassius is pragmatic though, since they're killing orcs, they're friends.

Then the tower goes dark. Cassius attributes it to Regis, and I feel like maybe that's meant to be a comedic moment, since Drizzt got the heroic triumph. But it wouldn't have happened if Regis hadn't blown out the candle, so I think it's fair praise.

The monster army is horrified, while the Ten Towns folk are galvanized. They charge.

We then join Regis, who happily isn't dead! He's with Guenhwyvar. Guen's still pretty exhausted, so she's having a rough time fighting hell hounds. Regis wants to help, but can't get close. He wonders why Drizzt ran off.

Things start looking dark when a hellhound gets its jaws around Guenhwyvar's throat, but happily the tower going dark distracts the hound enough for Guen to get the upper hand. Then the tower starts to crumble around them.

Then we're back at Drizzt, who is falling. He's disoriented and has fallen into snow. He gets himself together long enough to realize that he's on Kelvin's Cairn.

Back to the townsfolk: Cassius and Glensather have come down from the wall and are leading the charge. They're trying to link up with Bruenor's forces and the barbarians as flanking support. Meanwhile, the goblins, having seen the tower fall, are making a run for it.

Back to Drizzt again. I might be getting whiplash from these rapid scene shifts. I suppose they're good for a sense of urgency. We definitely can feel these events happening at the same time. But it's almost moving too fast for a real reaction.

Anyway, Drizzt is trying to make his way through the snow, his magic scimitar glowing. Did Icingdeath glow before? I know that Drizzt eventually does get a glowing scimitar (the idiotically named Twinkle), but I don't think that's happened yet. But really I'm nit picking. Magic things glow. Okay.

Anyway, we're told that Drizzt's body really wants him to head down the mountain, but he's not doing that. Because he's heroic. And Kessell is up here. Drizzt demands Kessell's surrender, and Kessell laughs in his face, asking him if he truly believes he won the battle.

...yes? With a fucking flour sack. Also your tower is destroyed, dude.

Drizzt points that out. But Kessell still has the crystal shard. Kessell taunts Drizzt, declaring that the tower is just one of Crenshinibon's images. He taunts Drizzt with the idea that a sack of flour could defeat the most powerful relic in the world. And hey, look, I still think that's bullshit, Kessell. But it fucking worked. And it was more effective than you ever were. A bit of magic clears the sky, and they can see the battle below.

Anyway, Drizzt points out that it looks like the Ten Towns are winning. Kessell raises the shard up and attracts the attention of everyone below, this perks the monsters right up.

But we're told that Drizzt isn't paying attention. Oh no. Bullshit incoming. Whenever Drizzt isn't paying attention to an adversary, that seems to mean something deus ex machina is going to happen to win the day. And sure enough, we're told that Drizzt (who is now standing in puddles of water, where the snow is melting under the relic's warmth. I was going to bitch about this, but I went back and indeed, when Kessell found the shard, it did give off heat. Even so, I feel like this is contrived) can hear something above the distant fighting.

So here's a bit that infuriates me:

Drizzt realized that Kessell, in his arrogant disregard for the dangers growing around him, was making a flagrant mistake. All that he had to do was delay the wizard from taking any decisive actions for the next few moments.

This infuriates me for two reasons.

First: My gosh, Mr. Salvatore, you're telling me that this character who has never once shown any complexity of thought, self-awareness, or remote ability to conceive of anything beyond his immediate physical desires is making a mistake? I would never think it!

This isn't surprising. Kessell has no traits that could remotely be mistaken for competence, so it was inevitable that he'd bring about his own end. How is this a satisfying victory?

Imagine for a moment, an alternate universe where the Shard wielder actually was a clever, competent person. Imagine that this is someone who actually does have some idea of how to effectively wield power. Imagine that this is someone with a grasp of basic strategy. And Drizzt ends up getting him so worked up, so focused on the immediate impending victory, that he misses what's going on beneath his feet.

THAT would be satisfying. But this is like playing chess with a goldfish.

Second: Thank you for taking any and all sense of suspense out of this scene. I mean, sure, none of us really think you'd kill Drizzt off in this instance. But it'd be nice to have a moment to think our heroes and their friends might be in trouble. Instead, we're basically told everything is going to be fine. Hmph.

Anyway, Drizzt distracts Kessell by throwing a dagger at him. Drizzt knows that Kessell is "joined in some perverted symbiosis with Crenshinibon", hey dude, I don't judge your sex life. Yet. Anyway, because of that symbiosis, he knows the dagger will never get to him, but he wants to distract him from the battlefield.

This works, of course. Kessell decides to make Drizzt his first victim, and starts pointing his shard at him. Then he sinks knee deep into melting snow. And he hears the rumbling from the mountain. Drizzt runs for it, while Kessell is now chest level in the snow. He tries to call on the shard, but conveniently his concentration is wavering under the threat of impending doom.

Of course it is. Adrenaline isn't a thing, I guess?

Anyway, we're told that Kessell feels weak again for the first time in years. He's no longer the "Tyrant of Icewind Dale" but the bumbling apprentice who murdered his teacher. Kessell, you were never anything but that. Mr. Salvatore never let you be anything but that.

So finally, there's a big avalanche. Kessell tries to keep hold of the shard, but fails. It burns his hands, rejecting him for failing too many times. And kersplat goes the worst villain I've ever seen. Not sure why Crenshinibon couldn't have done that literally any time before, but fuck it. Good riddance. Enjoy your snow.

So back on the battlefield, Kessell's fall disheartens his forces yet again. The two surviving frost giants have taken command, but everyone's basically terrified and the giants are the only thing holding them together.

Bruenor and Wulfgar have a cute reunion, as they splatter goblin heads. Wulfgar notes the frost giants, and says "they are all that hold the tribes together." Thank you, Wulfgar. We just read that, like three paragraphs before. Is R. A. Salvatore channeling Jennifer Roberson now?

Anyway, Wulfgar takes out one of the giants with Aegis-Fang. Bruenor, for his part, disappears amidst the fray: using his size to disappear in a mass of ogres, targeting knees, hamstrings and groins.

Kemp and the fishing men finally get off the lake and join the fray too. It's more bittersweet for them though, many of them have already seen their cities burn. But they're still going to get bitter satisfaction from winning.

Credit where it's due, this is a really nice character beat. A nice reminder that while the heroes may have saved the day, it doesn't bring back what's already lost.

So anyway, lots of fighting here. There's no point to a full play by play, but suffice to say, the humans are winning. Cassius and Wulfgar are both concerned about their troops's ability to keep up the pace, because there are a lot of adversaries. Kemp's force is getting bogged down. The fishermen from the east are a welcome cavalry though. Eventually the humans and dwarves are able to close ranks. And the chapter ends with the goblins and orcs starting to realize that the battle hasn't gone like Kessell had promised them.

This wasn't a terrible chapter. I think the idea behind the rapid scene shifts was sound, it did provide that sense of simultaneity I mentioned. But the problem is that they were a little too frenetic. It felt like every time one group made a single move, the focus shifted to another, and that's a quick way to kill momentum and emotional involvement.

This should be the highest stakes part of the story. This is the ground warfare. We know Drizzt is going to make it out. Probably Wulfgar, Bruenor, and Regis. But the normal folk: Cassius, Glensather, even fucking Kemp. Any of them could still go the way of Agorwal. That's where there's a real sense of tension.

I also think the frenetic pace weakened the only real cliffhanger we have: Regis and Guen were in the tower when it fell. What happened to them? Granted, this isn't the sort of book where I'd expect a main character to die, so I think they'll make it out alive. But HOW?!

But that cliffhanger is buried beneath all of these scene shifts that by the end of the chapter, I genuinely couldn't remember if we'd seen Regis again.

And Kessell went out like a bitch. The annoying thing is, I actually like the idea of the avalanche in theory. It's a nice would be lesson that even a god needs to pay attention to his surroundings. But it only works if we're dealing with a competent god. This is the kind of ending you give to an enemy that is genuinely unstoppable and knows it. This is Tyrion shooting Tywin Lannister on the privy: a great villain taken out by a threat that he had discounted completely, one that all of his cleverness and force of will can't overcome.

Kessell was never that kind of villain. Kessell may have had the power of a god, but it was always clear that the heroes were going to outwit him in some way. And honestly, it makes Crenshinibon look ineffectual too. If it could reject Kessell all along, then why did it put up with his failure and incompetence for so long. Especially since it had alternatives! Errtu was RIGHT THERE!

This could have been amazing if Kessell had been even a half decent villain. But he wasn't. And there we have it.