R. Salvatore - The Companions

Withending the con

The Year of the Reborn Hero (1463 DR) Citadel Felbarr

"Suren that the winter’s in me old bones,” King Emerus Warcrown said to Parson Glaive, his friend and advisor. King Emerus stretched his arms wide, his muscular shoulders flexing and bulging. He was past his two-hundredth birthday by many years, but still possessed a physique that would make a fifty-year-old jealous, and few of any age would wish to engage in combat with this proud old shield dwarf! He walked to the side of the room and grasped a large log in just one hand, easily hoisting it in his powerful grip and tossing it onto the flames.

“Aye, but she’s a rough one,” agreed Parson Glaive, the principle cleric in Citadel Felbarr, leader of the church, and the dwarf Emerus had recently appointed as Steward-in-Waiting should anything ill befall the king. “Snow’s piled high around the west Runegate. I’ve set a horde o’ shov’lers to work cleaning it afore the next caravan rolls through.”

“Won’t be rolling anytime soon!” Emerus said with a belly laugh. “Sledding, maybe, but not rollin’!”

“Aye,” said his black-bearded, bald-headed friend, and he joined in the laughter. For the dwarves of Citadel Felbarr, the turn of 1463 had brought with it a welcomed respite from the constant conflicts-orcs and highwaymen and other such annoyances-that had plagued the area throughout the previous year. Hammer, the first month, had been quite frigid, allowing little melt from the ending snows of 1462, and the second month, aptly nicknamed the Claw of Winter, had come in with a roar, dumping heavy snowfalls across the Silver Marches. Parson Glaive’s description of the situation at the Runegate was not an exaggeration, not in the least.

Emerus Warcrown clapped his hands together to get the wood chips and dirt from them, then ran them through his great beard, more gray than yellow now, but still as thick as any beard any dwarf had ever worn. “Can’t seem to get the chill from me old bones this day,” he said, and he tossed his friend an exaggerated wink. “Bit o’ brandy might be needed.”

“Aye, a good bit,” Parson Glaive happily replied.

Emerus went for his private stock, set in a sturdy decorated cabinet to the side of the comfortable room. He had just grasped the most decorated bottle of all, a thin-necked but wide-bodied flask of Mirabar’s best brandy, when the door of his private chamber burst open with a loud bang. Emerus Warcrown dOh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!

And s lookingropped the bottle and cried out, “What!” and only caught the bottle again as it crashed against the cabinet’s shelf, fortunately without breaking.

“What?” the dwarf king cried again, turning to the door to see a muscular, wild-eyed warrior dwarf jumping around and waving his arms, his face as red as his fiery beard. A myriad of terrible scenarios rushed through the king’s thoughts as he considered the newcomer, Reginald Roundshield, or “Arr Arr” as he was more commonly known, Citadel Felbarr’s Captain of the Guard.

But those imagined catastrophes faded away as Emerus calmed and considered Arr Arr more carefully, particularly the red-bearded dwarf’s supreme grin.

“What’d’ye know?” Emerus demanded.

“A son, me king!” Reginald answered.

“What ho!” cried Parson Glaive. “What ho! But I’ll be blessin’ that lad in the name o’ Clangeddin, or Arr Arr’s sure to be whining!”

“Clangeddin’s the choice,” Reginald confirmed. “Son o’ the captain.”

“Son o’ the line,” Emerus Warcrown agreed, and he set three large cups out and began pouring the celebratory brandy, liberally so!

“Me Da was the captain, me Grand Da was the captain, and his Da afore him,” Reginald said proudly. “And so’s me son to be!”

“Son o’ the son o’ the son o’ the son of a captain, then!” Parson Glaive congratulated, taking his cup from Emerus and hosting it immediately in toast.

“A strappin’ big one,” Reginald told the others, tapping their glasses hard. “And ‘e’s full o’ fight already, I tell ye!”

“Could’no be any other way,” Emerus Warcrown agreed. “Could’no be any other way!”

“And what’s his name to be? Same as yer own, then?”

“Aye, both halves, as me Da and his Da and his Da and his Da.”

“A little Arr Arr, then!” the king of Felbarr proclaimed, lifting his brandy for another toast, but then he reconsidered and pulled it back down.

Reginald Roundshield and Parson Glaive looked at him curiously.

“Gutbuster?” Emerus Warcrown asked slyly, referring to that most brutal and potent of dwarven beverages.

“What else’d be fittin’ for the birth of a Roundshield?” Parson Glaive replied.

The king nodded and looked at his guard commander somberly. “Ye just make sure that meself’s about when ye’re for givin’ little Arr Arr his first sip o’ the Gutbuster,” he said. “Ah, but I’m wantin’ to see the look on the tyke’s face!”

“It’ll be a look wantin’ more,” Reginald boasted, and the three laughed again as King Emerus went for his private stash of the potent liquid.

He wasn’t prepared for this. How could anyone be properly prepared for this?

Bruenor Battlehammer, twice King of Mithral Hall, lay in a cradle in a dark room in Citadel Felbarr, his baby arms waving, his baby legs in the tunnels around Mithral Hall, and paimonkicking, and little of that in his control. It was all too strange, all too weird. He could feel his limbs, was aware of his body, but only vaguely, distantly, as if it was not really his own, but a borrowed thing.

And was it, he wondered, in the few clips of time when he could keep his thoughts straight, for even his brain seemed only partially his to control!

Was this the way it was for babies, then? Were they all like this, strangers in their own forms, lacking more than simple coordination, but an actual path to find that dexterity, as if their little brains had not yet found a way to speak to their own limbs?

Or was it something more, the old baby dwarf feared. Was this a perversion, a theft of another’s body, and as such, might the act have damaged the corporeal coil? Would he be ever doomed to flail and gurgle?

A helpless stooge and a fool for leaving the forest as he had, for not continuing on to his just rewards at the side of Moradin!

Bruenor tried to focus, tried to concentrate deeply, calling to his arms to stop their incessant flailing. But he could not, and he knew that something was wrong.

Mielikki’s gift was a curse, then, he realized to his horror. This was no blessing, and now he’d suffer out his days-how many years? Two hundred? Three hundred? — as a bumbling fool, a curiosity.

He fought for control.

He failed.

He battled with all of his strength, the willpower of a dwarf king.

He failed.

He felt the frustration bubbling up inside of him, a primal terror that pushed forth a primal scream, and even in that shriek, Bruenor could not control his inflection or timber.

“Ah, me little Reggie,” he heard a comforting female voice, and a cherubic dwarf face peered over the edge of his cradle, her smile bright, her expression tired.

Giant hands reached in and so easily lifted Bruenor, guiding him toward a monstrous, huge breast …

“Ah, ye brought yer brat,” Emerus Warcrown said to his captain of the guard when Reginald Roundshield arrived in the war room, his child strapped into a dwarfling holster on his back.

Reginald grinned at his king. “Can’t be havin’ me boy layin’ about all day. He’s much to learn.”

“The boy’s been breathing for a month,” Parson Glaive remarked.