R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“Might that I should be introducin’ meself as Bonnego Battle-axe,” Bruenor said, and Stokely scrunched his face up with confusion and fell back a step.

And his face unwound as the blood drained from it, as his jaw began to inevitably drop open.

“I give to you, King Bruenor of Clan Battlehammer,” Drizzt said. “It can no’ be,” Stokely breathed.

“Ain’t ye seen enough craziness in yer life to believe a bit more craziness?” Bruenor asked with a great “harrumph” and a derisive snort.

Stokely moved up to stand before him, studying him closely. Stokely had never known King Bruenor at the age of this dwarf before him, of course, for Bruenor was much older than he, but poor flummoxed Stokely wasn’t wearing an expression of denial on his face.

“I seen ye die in Gauntlgrym,” Stokely said. “Put a stone on yer cairn meself.”

“And ye was in Mithral Hall when Gandalug come back after a thousand years of deadness.”

Stokely tried to respond, but flapped his lips indecipherably for several heartbeats. “But I seen ye die,” he tried to explain. “More personal this time.”

“Aye ye did, and now I’m back. Been back to Gauntlgrym, too, and goin’ that way again, don’t ye doubt. Any o’ yer boys been there since the fightin’?”

Stokely continued to stare at him and didn’t seem to register the question for many heartbeats. Then he cleared his throat nervously and shook his head. “No. Them halls be a long walk through the Underdark, and the way’s full o’ damned drow …” He paused and looked at Drizzt. “Word’s that them drow’ve taken over the lower tunnels.”

“Aye, they have,” said Bruenor.

“Ye meanin’ to do something about that?”

Bruenor nodded, but looked to Drizzt, who was shaking his head emphatically. “Might, in time,” Bruenor explained to Stokely.

“King Bruenor will rouse Clan Battlehammer, then?”

“Much to do. Much to do,” said Bruenor. “And I’m askin’ ye now not to be spreading word of me return.”

“If ye be who ye say ye be, more an order than an ask,” Stokely remarked.

“If I be who I say I be, and I do, then I’m askin’ as a friend and not tellin’ ye as yer king.”

The two exchanged a long look then, both slowly nodding. Then Bruenor stepped back to introduce the others, but before he even started, Stokely rattled off their names. Any dwarf of Clan Battlehammer needed no introductions to the Companions of the Hall.

“What a glorious day it be!” Stokely said soon after, as the shock began to wear off. “Ah, but why, I’m wantin’ to ask, but it’s not to matter! Only that it be, that King Bruenor’s back from Moradin’s Hall in Dwarfhome. A good day for Clan Battlehammer!”

Bruenor did well to hide his wince at the reference to Dwarfhome, enough so that Stokely didn’t catch it. Drizzt did, though he wasn’t sure what it meant. He looked to Catti-brie, who had similarly noted it, and she returned his inquisitive expression with a subtle shake of her head, telling him that this was neither the time nor the place for that particular discussion.

“Here’s to a hunnerd years o’ good days for Clan Battlehammer, then!” Bruenor said, managing a fair amount of bluster.

“So where’s yer road? Ye meaning to spend the summer with us here in the Dale, are ye?”

“Nah, got to be going,” Bruenor replied. “I just came here to gather me friends, and now we’ve a long road to walk.”

“Mithral Hall?”

“Soon.”

Stokely paused and pondered things for a moment. “And I can’t be tellin’ no one?”

“Not a one,” said Bruenor. “I’m asking ye.”

“Then why’d ye come here?” Stokely asked. “Why not just ride out to the south? Are ye needin’ something from me, then?”

“Not a thing.”

“Then why’d ye come here?”

Bruenor put his hands on his hips and pasted on a most solemn expression. “Because I owed it to ye,” he said in all seriousness. “If I’m livin’ another thousand years, if I’m back after that for another thousand more, I’ll not be forgettin’ the charge o’ Stokely and his boys in Gauntlgrym. Ah, but we were lost, all of us and all our hopes, and there ye were, Pwent beside ye. No king could ask for a better clan and no friend for better friends, I tell ye. And so I’m owin’ ye.”

“Then ye’re owing us all, living here under the mountain, for I didn’t go there alone,” said Stokely.

Bruenor looked at him curiously.

“Ye tell ’em who ye be,” Stokely said. “I’ll give ye a send-off-oh, and she’ll be one to fit the miracle that bringed ye back to us, don’t ye doubt. And ye’ll get up on the durned table and tell yer tale, to meself and to all me boys.”

“Telling the world presents … complications,” Drizzt interrupted.

“And ye tell all me boys what ye telled me, about keepin’ our mouths shut,” said Stokely.

“It would be better-” Drizzt started to say, but Bruenor, whose eyes remained locked with Stokely’s, cut him short.

“Ye bring many the keg,” Bruenor agreed, “for I’ve a long tale, and one beggin’ a huzzah and heigh-ho at every turn.”

He clapped Stokely on the shoulder, and the other dwarf smiled from ear-to-hairy-ear, and shouted out for the dwarves who waited on the other side of the door.

“Call all the boys in from the mines,” Stokely ordered. “And ye tell Fat Gorin to cook us a feast fit for a king!”

“Huzzah!” the dwarves cried, as dwarves always yelled when an excuse was offered for libations.

No dwarf in attendance that night of the celebration of the return of King Bruenor would ever forget it.

Dwarves prided themselves on their storytelling, of course, epic adventures laced with solemn songs of long-lost lands and hills of gold, heroic feats tinged ever with sadness and ever gleaming with the hopes that the next round-aye the next-would bring them to a better place.

So many were the songs of old, so many the tales of places lost, places waiting to be found again, that the celebration of King Bruenor that night in the smoky halls under the mountain in Icewind Dale started out as a typical celebration, with few understanding that this would fast become a special occasion.

Not to the height it became, at least.

For when he rose upon the table, the introductions of his friends still ringing in the air with the echoes of huzzah, King Bruenor took Stokely’s boys to a place they’d never been. His song was not of lament, not of kingdoms lost. Nay, not that night. That night, King Bruenor spoke of friendship eternal, of fidelity and fealty, of purpose greater than that of any one dwarf.

He spoke of Iruladoon and the curse that he meant to make a blessing. He openly admitted to his boys his mistake in not going on to Dwarfhome, and begged forgiveness, which came from every corner. He spoke of Mithral Hall and of Adbar and of Felbarr, of King Connerad and Emerus Warcrown, and Harbromme’s twins, who ruled in Adbar. He spoke of the Silver Marches and of an orc kingdom that should not be.

And he wound it all back to Gauntlgrym, to Delzoun, the heritage, to all that had been, and to all that must be again.

Not all that could be, but all that must be.

And he was King Bruenor, the living legend, and so when he said it, the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer believed it, and when he said it would be so, so they determined they would make it so.

And the flagons raised and the cheers echoed, and the flagons raised again.

“Ah, but the dwarves, always up for a toast,” Regis remarked, sitting in the corner at the back of the hall beside Wulfgar.

Wulfgar gave him a wry smile, and said with sly irony, “You only live once.”

“Twice,” Catti-brie corrected, and she slid into the chair between the two.