R. Salvatore - Archmage

“King Harnoth should be here,” Oretheo Spikes agreed.

“Good choice, that one, to lead the march,” the other Wilddwarf remarked, nodding to Connerad as the former King of Mithral Hall entered Gauntlgrym. “Good as any. I’m hearin’ whispers that he’ll make a play for the throne when all’s done, and I’m not for saying that King Connerad o’ Gauntlgrym’d be a bad choice.”

Above Emerus and Bruenor? Oretheo Spikes thought, but did not say, for even as the notion formulated, it didn’t seem all that outrageous to him. Certainly King Bruenor Battlehammer and King Emerus Warcrown remained as legends among the dwarves of Faerûn, and surely so in the Silver Marches. But who could deny the fine work of King Connerad Brawnanvil?

And now Emerus was looking old to all, and Bruenor?

Well, who might know of King Bruenor with his elf friend lying near to dead? Surely he seemed a broken dwarf at that time.

“How’s he restin’?” Emerus asked Catti-brie when he entered the small room they had set up as an infirmary. The woman sat on a chair beside Drizzt, who lay very still, his eyes closed.

“I done all I can,” she replied, and she almost laughed at herself as she heard the words spill forth, for it seemed that whenever she was speaking with dwarves now, she instinctively reverted to the brogue. “His cuts’re tied, but sure that he’s bled more than any should, and the shock of the hit. .” She paused and lowered her gaze.

Emerus rushed over to her and dropped a hand on her shoulder. “He’ll come back to ye, girl,” he said.

Catti-brie nodded. She did believe that, though she wasn’t sure of what might be left of Drizzt when he did. She recalled her own injuries from a giant’s rock in defending Mithral Hall. Never had she been the same, despite the tireless efforts of many dwarf clerics.

“Been talkin’ with the Harpell lass, Penelope,” Emerus said. “She’s tellin’ me yerself and her got something to show me and Bruenor.”

“Aye,” Catti-brie replied. “And the sooner the better.”

“Connerad’s taking the lead in the forward press. No better time than now.”

Catti-brie nodded and rose, then bent over and kissed Drizzt on the forehead. “Don’t ye leave me,” she whispered.

Emerus was at the room’s door, holding it open, and so the next ring of that solitary hammer carried to Catti-brie’s ears, reminding her that Drizzt wasn’t the only one in need of help. She went with the old dwarf king through the maze of corridors, following the lonely cadence of the solitary hammer.

They found Bruenor bent over a small forge, tapping away on the broken scimitar of his dearest friend.

“We got work to do, me friend,” Emerus said as they entered the small chamber.

Bruenor held up the rebuilt scimitar for the others to see. “Been workin’,” he replied.

“Ye fixed it!” Catti-brie said happily, but Bruenor merely shrugged.

“I put the blade back on, but can’no put the magic back in her,” he explained.

“When we get to the Forge o’ Gauntlgrym, then,” Catti-brie offered, and Bruenor shrugged again.

“Yer elf friend’s restin’ peacefully,” Emerus said.

“Still asleep,” Catti-brie was quick to add when she saw the sparkle of false hope ignite in Bruenor’s eyes.

Bruenor snorted helplessly.

“We found an ancient portal,” Catti-brie explained. “Meself and the Harpells. Ye’re needing to see it, me Da. It’s a great tool, but might be a great danger. For the sake of all who’ve come to Gauntlgrym, I ask ye to come with me and Emerus now to view the thing and judge what we’re to do with it.”

Bruenor looked at Twinkle, sighed, and nodded. Clearly, he’d done all he could with the scimitar. Catti-brie, who had spent so long trying to repair broken Drizzt, and possibly with the same partial effect, understood his pain.

Was the magic of Twinkle lost forever?

Was the magic of Drizzt lost forever?

Bruenor tossed his hammer on the table and sent his gloves onto it behind. He carried Twinkle to Catti-brie and bade her return it to Drizzt after they got back from wherever it was she intended to take them.

“Better for yerself to take it to him,” she replied and tried to hand back the scimitar.

Bruenor balked and shook his head and would not take the blade back. He had made it quite clear, with voice at first, but with his actions since, that he didn’t want to see Drizzt lying helpless and near death on a cot.

Catti-brie, however, wasn’t about to let this go. Not now. She pushed the blade out to Bruenor, and scowled at him when he began to shake his head once more.

Reluctantly, Bruenor took the repaired scimitar and slid it into a loop on his backpack.

“Lead on, then, and let’s be done with it,” he grumbled.

Catti-brie paused for a few heartbeats, staring at her adoptive father, at the pommel of Twinkle sticking up from behind his left shoulder. For some reason, that image resonated with her. Seeing that Bruenor had taken the blade, and so would return it to Drizzt, reassured her that her father, at least, would soon enough be all right.

Any victory seemed a major victory at that dark time.

Every patrol led back to this central corridor, one that ran to a great gap in the floor of the upper complex, and more important, ended in a thick door that opened to a landing set just below the ceiling of a vast cavern of the deeper levels.

In darkness and silence Bungalow Thump was down at the end of that corridor, lying flat on the landing floor and peering over the rim into the deep gloom below. Quietly, young King Connerad crept up beside him and similarly gazed into the vast darkness. The two dwarves exchanged looks and a shrug, then Connerad motioned Bungalow back.

They went a long way along the tunnel and down a side passage before they broke their silence.

“Get yer Harpell friends and put some light down there?” Bungalow Thump asked.

“She’s a vast one,” Connerad said. “Got to be a hunnerd ogre feet from here to the floor, if there’s even a floor to be found.” He considered Bungalow’s request for a bit, but couldn’t agree. “We drop a magic light down there and sure that every drow in the lower levels’ll be ready for us. Shinin’ bright in deep tunnels brings them all in for a what-to-do, and not sure I’m liking that with just this one way down. Ropes and slides and all we can put in are still to be leavin’ us hanging high and open if they’re waiting for us.”

“Aye, figured as much, but I had to ask,” said Bungalow Thump.

“Suren that yer duty’s to put it all out afore me, and for that, ye got me gratitude,” Connerad replied.

“Are we knowing where the stair’s at?”

“Right below and folded over in half,” Connerad replied. “That’s what Athrogate telled me o’ the place, at least. The durned drow’ve done a great job in building themselves a stair that can be taken down fast, but not so fast to put back up, so I’m hearin’. So no, me friend, we won’t be slippin’ a few fellows down to the stair and getting it set up for us, if that’s what ye were thinking.”

“All of us fast down on a slide rope then,” said Bungalow. “I’m not feelin’ good about puttin’ me boys on ropes to rappel a hunnerd feet and more to the dark floor. Not with a horde o’ damned drow below shootin’ at us all the way.”

“Silence and darkness and two set o’ three ropes abreast,” Connerad replied. “And know that I’ll be right beside ye.”

Bungalow Thump patted Connerad on the shoulder, never doubting for a heartbeat that his king wouldn’t send him and his boys into a danger that Connerad wouldn’t face right beside them. Connerad’s family name was Brawnanvil, but for all that he was Battlehammer, through and through.