R. Salvatore - The Companions

Bruenor’s eyes went wide. “So ye’ve lost the love o’ the fight, ye old dog?”

“Bah, but if ye say that again, I’ll pitch ye into the gorge, don’t ye doubt,” said Ragged Dain.

“Then what? Ye heared the rumors of orcs stirring as surely as I have. Ye know them orcs’re pushin’ for a fight.”

Ragged Dain glanced all around, as if ensuring that they were truly alone. “King Connerad …,” he said, shaking his head.

asked, and Catti-brie nodded.we, and he couldim“ A good dwarf, by all accounts, and son of a hero, King Banak,” said Bruenor.

“Aye, but with no reach,” Ragged Dain explained. “Not to his fault, but true nonetheless. When Bruenor talked, th’others o’ the Silver Marches listened. Proved in battle, he was, and oh, beyond anything anyone now might know! Even King Emerus would’no stand atop any pedestal higher than that one! King Connerad’s a good dwarf, as ye say, and his people love him, don’t ye doubt, but he ain’t no King Bruenor. Ain’t no King Bruenor nowhere, and if the Marches ain’t fightin’ as one, the legions o’ Many-Arrows’ll run us all down.”

Bruenor felt proud and overwhelmed all at once. The fleeting moment of pride held him up, but only briefly until the weight of the world descended upon his young and sturdy shoulders.

He didn’t know what to say, but knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to grab Ragged Dain by the collar and shout the truth into his face.

Or was that the plan of the gods all along, Bruenor suddenly wondered?

“What do ye know?” Ragged Dain asked.

The words jolted Bruenor and made him aware that he was gasping for air under the weight of emotions. “Wh-what?” he stammered back. “What do ye know?”

“Nothing,” Bruenor answered, and indeed, he was in no position to answer that or any other question at that moment, his mind spinning with the possibilities. He considered his anger toward the gods, toward Moradin in particular, for allowing him to be so manipulated by Catti-brie and Mielikki, for stealing the meaning and the reward of his life right out from under him.

But then he thought of Dumathoin, God of Secrets Under the Mountain, and it occurred to him that his step from Iruladoon, though facilitated by Mielikki, might not have been for Mielikki at all.

He looked again at the treaty, at his signature. His greatest achievement or his greatest folly? Indeed, that had ever been the question, and now, with the specter of war looming over the Silver Marches, the answer seemed clear before him.

Through the power of Mielikki, he had been given rebirth, but perhaps-yes, more than perhaps, he then convinced himself-through the power of Moradin, he had been delivered here, to this place in this time, with this crisis looming.

Mithral Hall, indeed the Silver Marches, needed a King Bruenor, so Ragged Dain had just declared.

Bruenor Battlehammer alone knew where to find one.

The party was on in full, as was customary whenever a large caravan from one of the three dwarf communities in the Silver Marches-Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar-prepared to head for home from one of the others. In addition, the train from Citadel Adbar had arrived the night before, giving the dwarves of Mithral Hall an added reason to break out the Gutbuster this fine day, and so they did.

They toasted to Citadel Felbarr. They toasted to Citadel Adbar. They toasted to Mithral Hall. They toasted to the Delzoun brotherhood. They toasted to the demise of Many-Arrows. They toasted to toasting!

Watching the merriment from the crowd proved to be a strange experience for Bruenor, so used to being upon the dais and leading the libations was he. He couldn’t help but smile as he considered the many times he had done that, Drizzt and Catti-brie, themselvesIreferenceon Regis and Nanfoodle, and of course, Thibbledorf Pwent by his side, filling his foaming mug, rapping him on the back with a hardy “huzzah!” with every call for a drink.

He recognized King Connerad, and remembered him as a good lad, and remembered his father as a great general and leader, and as brave a dwarf as he had ever known. Banak Brawnanvil had been instrumental in the defense of Mithral Hall against Obould’s minions in the days before the signing of the peace treaty.

As was customary in these gatherings, each of the departing Felbarr dwarves was able to climb onto the raised dais and tap tankards with the King of Mithral Hall. Bruenor fell in line right behind Ragged Dain.

“Ye know him?” he whispered to the veteran.

“King Connerad?”

“Aye.”

“Aye,” Ragged Dain replied. “Knowed him for a hunnerd years and more.”

“Introduce me afore ye leave then.”

“And tell him o’ yer glory?” the older dwarf asked sarcastically.

“Aye,” Bruenor answered without shame and without hesitation, and he held up the golden medal that hung from a mithral chain around his neck. “I’ll be askin’ him for a favor, and that’s suren to help me cause!”

“What?” Ragged Dain asked incredulously, turning around and fixing Bruenor with a curious stare.

Bruenor just waved him on, for it was then Ragged Dain’s turn to ascend to tap flagons with the king. And he did, and drank a hearty toast, then put his arm around King Connerad’s shoulder-they were indeed old battle companions. Ragged Dain turned the king to regard the young dwarf next in line.

“Little Arr Arr,” Ragged Dain explained.

“Arr Arr’s boy?”

“Aye, King Connerad, that there be Little Arr Arr, Reginald Roundshield the Younger, and a true scrapper! He come to Mithral Hall as part of his valor wish.”

“A valor wish, at his age, then?” King Connerad said, and Bruenor recognized that he was feigning surprise for the sake of flattery. “And the medal, indeed!” the dwarf king added.

“Aye, for ’twas Little Arr Arr that sliced the orcs and felled the mountain giant, and a bunch of us, meself included, would’ve been killed to death in the Rauvins were it not for Little Arr Arr!”

He spoke loudly and many heard, and so it was in the embrace of a chorus of cheers that Bruenor went to stand beside the king of Mithral Hall, beside the dwarf who was king because Bruenor himself had named his father as successor with full knowledge that the throne would fall to Connerad.

“I lift me tankard aside a hero, then!” King Connerad declared, tapping Bruenor’s drink.

He paused though, as the mugs clinked together, for Bruenor fixed him with a stare, and such a look that Connerad Brawnanvil had surely seen before from the dwarf who had been his king. A spark of recognition flickered in Connerad’s eyes, but it was overwhelmed by a look of confusion.

“Ah, but good King Connerad, ye might be doing me a higher honor than tappin’ yer cup with me own,” Bruenor said.

The crowd hushed quickly, caught by surprise at the forwardness of this obv a long while to realizejuBy the gods,imiously very young dwarf.

“Ah, so ye say, and do tell,” King Connerad prompted.

“I been hoping to go to the west, to Mirabar, might be, or all the way to Luskan,” Bruenor explained. “I been telled that Mithral Hall sends such caravans, and I’d be honored to serve aboard one.”

That brought more than a few gasps from around the dais, including from those dwarves Bruenor had accompanied to the hall from Citadel Felbarr.

“What are ye about, then, boy?” Ragged Dain demanded, coming forward, but King Connerad held up his hand to hold the old veteran back.

“I’m wantin’ to see the sea, good king,” Bruenor replied. “Ye send such trains, I been telled.”

“Aye, we do, but not so late in the year as this. Next’ll be out in the spring.”

“And I’d be honored to be aboard her.”