R. Salvatore - Archmage

“Some of us always knew, King Bruenor,” Harnoth said, and it was clearly meant as a jab at the dwarf who had signed the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge.

“Are ye thinkin’ to drive us apart, King o’ Adbar?” King Emerus was quick to retort. “Cause aye, that’s what yer words’re doing now. And don’t ye doubt that Felbarr’ll be standin’ with Mithral Hall if ye keep on with it.”

“As will the cities of Silverymoon and Everlund,” Aleina added with an equally grim tone.

King Harnoth, young and full of pride, started to respond in an animated and angry fashion, but Oretheo Spikes put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, and when the young king snapped his head about to regard the Wilddwarf, Oretheo nodded and led him off to the side.

“He’s a stubborn one,” Catti-brie remarked.

“He lost his father not long ago, and his brother was slain in the war,” Drizzt reminded. “As were many of his most important advisers. He sits atop a throne now, alone and unsure. He knows that he erred many times in the last year, and that we saved him from certain doom.”

“Then he might be offerin’ some gratitude and a dose o’ well-earned humility, eh?” asked Bruenor.

Drizzt shrugged. “He will, but on his terms.”

“If Adbar refuses our plan, then yerself and meself’ll raise the army we’re needin’ to get yer quest done, me friend,” King Emerus promised.

“We’ll not be raising that number without Adbar,” Bruenor said.

“So we’ll go to Mirabar and find more allies-should be thinkin’ that anyway,” said Emerus. “Them boys are Delzoun, and so’re yer boys in Icewind Dale. We’ll get back Gauntlgrym, don’t ye doubt!”

“ ‘We’ll’?” Drizzt asked, catching on to Emerus’s hint.

“Much to talk about,” was all the King of Citadel Felbarr would say on that subject at that time.

Harnoth and Oretheo Spikes came back over then, the King of Adbar seeming much less animated.

“Me friend here thinks Adbar’s holding strong with two thousand less,” Harnoth explained. “So half yer force’ll be marchin’ under the banner o’ Citadel Adbar, King Bruenor.”

“No,” Bruenor immediately replied, even as the others began to smile and even cheer. All eyes turned sharply on the red-bearded dwarf with his surprising answer.

“No banners for Adbar, Felbarr, or Mithral Hall,” Bruenor explained. “As in the war we just won, we’re walkin’ under the flag o’ our Delzoun blood, the flag o’ Gauntlgrym!”

“Ain’t no flag o’ Gauntlgrym!” Harnoth protested.

“Then let’s make one,” Emerus Warcrown said with a wide grin. He held up his hand to Harnoth, and after only a slight hesitation, the young King of Adbar took that hand firmly in his own.

Bruenor, meanwhile, began producing flagons of ale from behind his magical shield, one for each of the four dwarf kings assembled on the field.

And so they toasted, “To Gauntlgrym!”

The work at the ruins of Dark Arrow Keep continued for several tendays, with the massive orc fortress being stripped down to a watchpost with only a couple of towers left standing. There had been a small debate about whether to dismantle the place or perhaps refit it more to accommodate dwarven sensibilities, but Bruenor had pointed out, rightly so, that leaving any semblance of Dark Arrow Keep intact might entice the orcs to try to reclaim it.

Reclaiming it, after all, would be a lot easier than rebuilding it from rubble.

So they ripped the rest of it down, except the meager watchtowers, and they carried the great logs to the river and floated them downstream where they could be caught at Mithral Hall and used as fuel for the hearths and forges.

The docks, too, were dismantled, as were the surrounding orc villages, now abandoned, erasing all remnants of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows from the Silver Marches. As summer turned to fall, the dwarves and their allies marched for their respective homes, with the three citadels pledged to meet throughout the winter months to plan the spring march to the west.

“What’s troubling you?” Catti-brie asked Regis on that journey to Mithral Hall. Regis had joined in the cheers and drinks and “huzzahs,” of course, but every passing day, Catti-brie had watched him, and had noted a cloud that often passed over his cherubic face.

“I’m weary, that’s all,” he said, and she knew he was lying. “It’s been a long and difficult year.”

“For all of us,” Catti-brie said. “But a year of victory, yes?”

Regis looked over at her, his seat on his pony far below the tall shoulders of Catti-brie’s spectral unicorn. His smile was genuine, though, as he quietly offered, “Huzzah for King Bruenor.”

But there was the cloud again, behind his eyes, and as he turned back to the road in front of them, Catti-brie figured it out.

“You’re not coming to Gauntlgrym with us,” she stated. In the shadows of his eyes, she didn’t have to ask.

“I have said no such thing,” Regis replied, but he didn’t look at her when he spoke.

“Nor did you deny it, even now.”

She watched the halfling’s face tighten, though he still would not look over and up at her.

“How long have you known?” Catti-brie asked a short while later, when it became apparent to her that Regis was simply not going to lead this conversation.

“If Bruenor was marching to war in Gauntlgrym, and Drizzt was in Cormyr, or the Bloodstone Lands perhaps, what would you do?” Regis asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Would you accompany Bruenor on his quest, this latest quest in a perhaps unending line of quests, or would you desire to find Drizzt once more and resume your life beside him?”

“Donnola Topolino,” Catti-brie realized then.

“My love for her is no less than yours for Drizzt,” Regis explained. “I left her to fulfill my vow, and because I knew my friend Drizzt needed me. And so I traveled from Aglarond halfway across Faerûn to Icewind Dale, and stood with you and the others as we found our friend near death.”

The woman nodded, her open, sympathetic, and inviting expression prompting him forward.

“And this war we have just won,” Regis explained. “It was important, and in truth a continuation of that which we had started those decades ago. I served as Steward of Mithral Hall in the days of the first Obould.”

“I remember well, and you served with great honor.”

“And so I came back to finish what we started, to complete the circle,” the halfling explained. “In both of these duties, I nearly died-I’m not afraid to die. I never was, and certainly am not after my time in the enchanted forest of Mielikki.”

“But you are afraid that you will never see your beloved Donnola again,” the woman reasoned.

“This is a dwarf war, the quest of the Delzoun brotherhood,” Regis tried to explain. “I’m not a dwarf. Drizzt has said that taking Gauntlgrym from the drow could take years, and then holding it will likely prove to be a task that will stretch for decades. At what point. .?” His voice trailed off, the question unasked.

“Have you finished your service?” Catti-brie finished for him, and Regis finally did look up at her, plaintively. Her smile was warm and disarming. “You have done more than any could ask, my friend. None will judge you for leaving now, though surely we all will miss you.”

“Brother Afafrenfere is only passing through Mithral Hall,” Regis explained, “then going south to Silverymoon and Everlund, and to the south road to Waterdeep.”

“He has explained as much, that his time here is at its end,” Catti-brie agreed. “All are grateful for his actions here, for indeed he is credited in no small part in killing the white dragon on the slopes of Fourthpeak. A great ally is Brother Afafrenfere.”