R. Salvatore: The Companions

The scout nodded. “Well, if you’ve the coin, I’d suggest One-Eyed Jax. Only safe inn in Luskan for one who’s not of Luskan. And you might find an affiliation. Ship Kurth’s the strongest of the lot, but the most demanding, and they might not let you go so easily in the spring.”

Bruenor waved his hand wildly, silencing the man. He had no intention of gaining any affiliation with one of the High Captains of Luskan, and indeed, after viewing the city on his quick pass through there, had no intention of going back into the place. He looked to the east instead, to the scattered cottages and farmhouses, some inhabited but many in ruins.

“One might put you up,” the lead driver said, following his gaze and reading his thoughts.

The dwarf hardly heard him, lost in thought. He knew that the pass would be closed through the rest of the year and into early 1484. Winter came early north of the Spine of the World, and when it set its grip, there was no way to press through.

The dwarf considered abandoning his present road. Mirabar wasn’t so far-he could likely get there before the snows settled deep down here south of the mountains. He mused that he could reveal himself to the leaders of that city, and perhaps they would offer him magical assistance into Icewind Dale.

He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to reveal himself. He knew his place now, as a Companion of the Hall and not as the king of Mithral Hall, and he wasn’t about to complicate, perhaps even compromise, the mission he had embarked upon when he had left Iruladoon by bringing such notice to himself.

But the spring equinox was less than six months away, and the passes were closed. They would remain so through the rest of the year, of course, and into the next. Travel in Icewind Dale in the first month of Hammer was always impossible, and so too for the first half of Alturiak at least, sometimes even into the third month, Ches. No caravans would head that way at least until the end of the fourth month, long past Bruenor’s appointed rendezvous.

But the snows would lessen in Alturiak, Bruenor thought, nodding. It was a treacherous time to be out and about in the dale, of course, with mud pits deeper than a hill giant, and water half-frozen or full-frozen-you wouldn’t know until you tried to venture across. And while the trail might seem clear on a bright morning, late winter storms often blew through with little warning, and sometimes dropped several feet of snow.

The dwarf shook his head and spat on the ground, then stomped off for the farmhouses to see if he could find lodging for the winter.

Regis pushed through the door with an armload of kindling, dropping the wood by the hearth and rushing back to secure the door against the blowing snow. Winter had come on in typical fury, and just getting to his woodshed and back had exhausted the halfling.

He turned back for the hearth, tossing his cloak aside, and nearly jumped out of his boots when he noticed the tall figure standing in the doorway in his previous existence momentBruenor didon to the kitchen.

“I’ve started a fine broth for you,” Catti-brie explained. “To warm your bones.”

“When did you return? How did you return?” Regis exclaimed in response. The woman had left him just a few days before the storm on her way to Brynn Shander.

“The goddess protects me,” Catti-brie said with a wink.

“Good, then you go get the wood from now on,” Regis replied.

“I can cast a spell to keep the cold from your bones,” Catti-brie promised.

“Too late.”

The woman matched Regis’s wide smile, but hers could not hold.

“What word?” Regis asked, for she had gone out scouting.

“No word,” she replied. “Drizzt has not been seen, and his name is spoken without affection.”

“That demon incident,” Regis remarked, for Catti-brie had told him the tale of the battle at Brynn Shander’s western gate. Apparently Drizzt and some companions had passed through the town and headed out to the east, not to be seen again. Soon after, a great demon had arrived at Bryn Shander, seeking Drizzt, had attacked the town, and only the heroics of another drow, Tiago by name, and his band of warriors and wizards and a few half-drow, half-spider creatures, had saved the day. The story was jumbled, for the incidents had occurred many years before, when Regis was just a toddler in Eiverbreen’s lean-to. Ten-Towns was a place where people came and went, and where more died than were born, and so few even remembered the fight at Bryn Shander’s gate, even with the plaque set out on the spot where the great demon had been destroyed.

As far as Catti-brie and Regis could guess, it had to have been Bregan D’aerthe following the monster to Bryn Shander, and in that line of thought, Regis wondered if he had done right in not revealing himself to Jarlaxle back in Luskan. Perhaps he and Catti-brie, and Bruenor if the dwarf ever arrived, would travel back that way and find Jarlaxle, hoping to learn the whereabouts of Drizzt.

“Well then, what do we do? Was it all for naught?” As he asked the question, Regis was already formulating his own answer. If Drizzt wasn’t to be found, then he would bid Catti-brie to return with him to Aglarond, to Donnola Pericolo, where she could help Morada Topolino battle the lich, if there remained a lich to battle.

And no, he told himself then, resolutely so, it had not been all for naught. Far from it. He, Spider Topolino, would forge a second life whatever fate brought before him, a life shaped in the lessons of the first.

“Hold faith,” Catti-brie told him. “Mielikki told us when to meet, and that day fast approaches.”

“Bruenor has not arrived, but winter has,” Regis reminded. “Your Da may well be dead again, gone to Dwarfhome and his rewards.”

The woman nodded, nothing in her posture or expression denying a word of what he said.

“We do the best we can, in the hope that our work will aid Mielikki and our friend,” she replied.

“If Drizzt is even still alive,” Regis mumbled, but he also nodded his agreement. He would climb Kelvin’s Cairn beside her on the night of the equinox. He feared that they two would be up there alone, however, and from that realizatline-height: IBruenor didonion, Regis came to wonder if perhaps Lady Lolth had already taken Drizzt. Was their mission to become a rescue, then? Were they, just the two of them, expected to go to the fabled Demonweb Pits to retrieve their captured friend of old?

Regis swallowed hard, thinking that a lich didn’t seem so formidable after all.

“Hold faith,” Catti-brie said again, and she moved to gather the pot of broth.

Regis nodded, but he could see the fear clearly stamped upon her pretty face. Drizzt was nowhere, by any accounts either of them had heard-and Catti-brie had been gathering such accounts for more than a year here in Icewind Dale. The drow had not been seen in these reaches for nearly two decades, if the stories about the battle of Brynn Shander’s eastern gate were to be believed.

And indeed, Drizzt had gone out of Ten-Towns in that long past year, to the east, not the west, onto the wild tundra.

He was almost assuredly dead, Regis knew, and so did Catti-brie, he realized.

And Bruenor?

“You went to Stokely on your return from Bryn Shander?” the halfling asked suddenly.

Catti-brie turned and nodded to him, then shook her head slowly, her expression grim.

Regis understood the implications. If Bruenor had returned to Icewind Dale, he would surely have gone there, to the place he had long called his home, to be with others of Clan Battlehammer.

Bruenor was not in Icewind Dale-not alive, at least.

“There was no promise,” Catti-brie said suddenly.

“What do you mean?”