Robert Salvatore: Siege of Darkness

"I am Berkthgar!" the barbarian leader bellowed.

"Berkthgar the Bold!" several of the man's advisors quickly piped in, and another chorus went up, a toast of mugs lifted high to the mighty chieftain of Settlestone.

"Bruenor would sooner deliver his own axe," Drizzt replied, thoroughly fed up with Berkthgar's glories. The drow understood

then that he and Catti-brie had been expected in Settlestone, for Berkthgar's little speech, and the reaction to it, had been carefully planned, even rehearsed.

"And I do not think you would enjoy the way he would deliver that axe," the drow finished quietly, when the roaring had died away. Again came the hush of expectation, for the drow's words could be taken as a challenge, and Berkthgar, blue eyes squinting dangerously, seemed more than ready to pick up the gauntlet.

"But Bruenor is not here," the barbarian leader said evenly. "Will Drizzt Do'Urden champion his cause?"

Drizzt straightened, trying to decide the best course.

Catti-brie's mind, too, was working fast. She held little doubt that Drizzt would accept the challenge and put Berkthgar down at once, and the men of Settlestone surely would not tolerate that kind of embarrassment.

"Wulfgar was to be my husband!" she yelled, rising from her chair just as Drizzt was about to respond. "And I am the daughter of Bruenor—by rights, the princess of Mithril Hall. If anyone here is to champion my father's cause—"

"You will name him," Berkthgar reasoned.

"I will be… her," Catti-brie replied grimly.

Roars went up again, all about the mead hall, and more than a few women at the back of the room tittered and nodded hopefully.

Drizzt didn't seem so pleased, and the look he put over Catti-brie was purely plaintive, begging her to calm this situation before things got fully out of hand. He didn't want a fight at all. Neither did Catti-brie, but the room was in a frenzy then, with more than half the voices crying for Berkthgar to "Fight the woman!" as though Catti-brie's challenge had already been launched.

The look that Berkthgar put over Catti-brie was one of pure outrage.

She understood and sympathized with his predicament. She had meant to go on and explain that she would be Bruenor's only champion, if there was to be a champion, but that she had not come here to fight. Events had swept her past that point, however.

"Never!" Berkthgar roared above the din, and the room

calmed somewhat, eager cries dying away to whispers. "Never have I battled a woman!"

That's an attitude Berkthgar had better overcome soon, Drizzt thought, for if the dark elves were indeed marching to Mithril Hall, there would be little room for such inhibitions. Females were typically the strongest of drow warriors, both magically and with weapons.

"Fight her!" cried one man, obviously very drunk, and he was laughing as he called, and so, too, were his fellows about him.

Berkthgar looked from the man to Catti-brie, his huge chest heaving as he tried to take in deep breaths to calm his rage.

He could not win, Catti-brie realized. If they fought, he could not win, even if he battered her. To the hardy men of Settlestone, even lifting a weapon against her would be considered cowardly.

Catti-brie climbed onto the table and gave a slight nod as she passed in front of Drizzt. Hands on hips—and her hip out to the side to accentuate her feminine figure—she gave a wistful smile to the barbarian leader. "Not with weapons, perhaps," she said. "But there are other ways a man and woman might compete.»

All the room exploded at that comment. Mugs were lifted so forcefully in toast that little mead remained in them as they came back down to the eager mouths of the men. Several in the back end of Hengorot took up a lewd song, clapping each other on the back at every crescendo.

Drizzt's lavender eyes grew so wide that they seemed as if they would simply roll out of their sockets. When Catti-brie took the moment to regard him, she feared he would draw his weapons and kill everyone in the room. For an instant, she was flattered, but that quickly passed, replaced by disappointment that the drow would think so little of her.

She gave him a look that said just that as she turned and jumped down from the table. A man nearby reached out to catch her, but she slapped his hands away and strode defiantly for the door.

"There's fire in that one!" she heard behind her.

"Alas for poor Berkthgar!" came another rowdy cry.

On the table, the stunned barbarian leader turned this way and that, purposely avoiding the dark elf's gaze. Berkthgar was at a loss; Bruenor's daughter, though a famed adventurer, was not

known for such antics. But Berkthgar was also more than a little intrigued. Every man in Settlestone considered Catti-brie, the princess of Mithril Hall, the fairest prize in all the region.

"Aegis-fang will be mine!" Berkthgar finally cried, and the roar behind him, and all about him, was deafening.

The barbarian leader was relieved to see that Drizzt was no longer facing him, was no longer anywhere in sight, when he turned back. One great leap had taken the dark elf from the table, and he strode eagerly for the door.

Outside Hengorot, in a quiet spot near an empty house, Drizzt took Catti-brie by the arm and turned her to face him. She expected him to shout at her, even expected him to slap her.

He laughed at her instead.

"Clever," Drizzt congratulated. "But can you take him?"

"How do ye know that I did not mean what I said?" Catti-brie snapped in reply.

"Because you have more respect for yourself than that," Drizzt answered without hesitation.

It was the perfect answer, the one Catti-brie needed to hear from her friend, and she did not press the point further.

"But can you take him?" the drow asked again, seriously. Catti-brie was good, and getting better with every lesson, but Berkthgar was huge and tremendously strong.

"He's drunk," Catti-brie replied. "And he's slow, like Wulfgar was before ye showed him the better way o' fighting." Her blue eyes, rich as the sky just before the dawn, sparkled. "Like ye showed me.»

Drizzt patted her on the shoulder lightly, understanding then that this fight would be as important to her as it was to Berkthgar. The barbarian came storming out of the tent then, leaving a horde of sputtering comrades leering out of the open flap.

"Taking him won't be half the trouble as figuring out how to let him keep his honor," Catti-brie whispered.

Drizzt nodded and patted her shoulder again, then walked away, going in a wide circuit about Berkthgar and back toward the tent. Catti-brie had taken things into hand, he decided, and he owed her the respect to let her see this through.

The barbarians fell back as the drow came into the tent and pointedly closed the flap, taking one last look at Catti-brie as he

did, to see her walking side by side with Berkthgar (and he so resembled huge Wulfgar from the back!) down the windswept lane.

For Drizzt Do'Urden, the image was not a pleasant one.

*****

"Ye're not surprised?" Catti-brie asked as she removed the practice padding from her backpack and began sliding it over the fine edge of her sword. She felt a twinge of emotion as she did so, a sudden feeling of disappointment, even anger, which she did not understand.

"I did not believe for a moment that you had brought me out here for the reason you hinted at," Berkthgar replied casually. "Though if you had—"

"Shut yer mouth," Catti-brie sharply interrupted.

Berkthgar's jaw went firm. He was not accustomed to being talked to in that manner, particularly not from a woman. "We of Settlestone do not cover our blades when we fight," he said boastfully.

Catti-brie returned the barbarian leader's determined look, and as she did, she slid the sword back out from its protective sheath. A sudden rush of elation washed over her. As with the earlier feeling, she did not understand it, and so she thought that perhaps her anger toward Berkthgar was more profound than she had dared to admit to herself.