Robert Salvatore - The Legacy

"I'm glad Guenhwyvar would not die," Regis commented as Drizzt looked back to the entryway. "It would not do to lose so valuable a magical item."

Nothing Regis had said since his return from Calimport, nothing Regis had ever said to Drizzt, seemed so very out of place. No, it went further than that, Drizzt decided as he crouched there, stunned by his halfling companion's callous remark. Guenhwyvar and Regis had been more than companions, had been friends, for many years. Regis would never refer to Guenhwyvar as a magical item.

Suddenly, it all began to make sense to the dark elf: the halfling's references to Artemis Entreri now, back with the dead dwarves, and back when they had talked of what had happened in Calimport after Drizzt's departure. Now Drizzt understood the eager way in which Regis measured his responses to remarks about the assassin.

And Drizzt understood the viciousness of his fight with Wulfgar-hadn't the barbarian mentioned that it was Regis who had told him about Drizzt's meeting with Catti-brie outside Mithril Hall?

"What else did you tell Wulfgar?" Drizzt asked, not turning around, not flinching in the least. "What else did you convince him of with that ruby pendant that hangs about your neck?"

The little mace skipped noisily across the floor beside the drow, coming to rest several feet to the front and side of him. Then came another item, a mask that Drizzt himself had worn on his journey to the southern empires, a mask that had allowed Drizzt to alter his appearance to that of a surface elf.

Wulfgar eyed the outrageous dwarf curiously, not quite sure what to make of this unorthodox battlerager. Bruenor had introduced Pwent to the barbarian just a minute before, and Wulfgar had gotten the distinct impression that Bruenor wasn't overly fond of the black-bearded, smelly dwarf. The dwarf king, to take his seat between Cobble and Catti-brie, had then rushed across the audience hall, leaving Wulfgar awkwardly standing by the door.

Thibbledorf Pwent, though, seemed perfectly at ease.

"You are a warrior, then?" Wulfgar asked politely, hoping to find some common ground.

Pwent's burst of laughter mocked him. "Warrior?" the bawdy dwarf bellowed. "Ye mean, one who's for fighting with honor?"

Wulfgar shrugged, having no idea of where Pwent was leading.

"Is yerself a warrior, big boy?" Pwent asked.

Wulfgar puffed out his great chest. "I am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar…" he began somberly.

"I thinked as much," Pwent called across the room to the others. "And if ye was fighting another, and he tripped on his way in and dropped his weapon, ye'd stand back and let him pick it up, knowing that ye'd win the fight anyway," Pwent reasoned.

Wulfgar shrugged, the answer obvious.

"Ye realize Pwent will surely insult the boy," Cobble, leaning on the arm of Bruenor's chair, whispered to the dwarf king.

"Gold against silver on the boy, then," Bruenor offered quietly. "Pwent's good and wild, but he ain't got the strength to handle that one."

"Not a bet I'd take," Cobble replied, "but if Wulfgar lifts a hand against that one, he's to get stung, not to doubt."

"Good," Catti-brie put in unexpectedly. Both Bruenor and Cobble turned incredulous looks on the young woman. "Wulfgar's needing some stinging," she explained with uncharacteristic callousness.

"Well, there ye have it then!" Pwent roared in Wulfgar's face, leading the barbarian across the room as he spoke. "If I was fighting anyone, if I was fighting yerself, and ye dropped yer weapon, I'd let ye bend and pick it up."

Wulfgar nodded in agreement, but jumped back as Pwent snapped his dirty fingers right under Wulfgar's nose. "And then I'd put me spike right through the top o' yer thick head!" the battlerager finished. "I ain't no damned stupid warrior, ye damned fool! I'm a battlerager, the battlerager, and don't ye ever forget that the Pwent plays to win!" He snapped his fingers again Wulfgar's way, then stormed past the stunned barbarian, stomping over to stand before Bruenor.

"Ye got some outrageous friends, but I'm not surprised," Pwent roared at Bruenor. He regarded Catti-brie with his broken-toothed smile. "But yer girl'd be a cute one if ye could find a way to put some hair on her chin."

"Take it as a compliment," Cobble quietly offered to Catti-brie, who only shrugged and smiled with amusement.

"Battlehammers always kept a soft spot in their hearts for them that wasn't dwarf-kin," Pwent went on, directing his remarks at Wulfgar as the tall man moved beside him. "And we let 'em be our kings anyway. Never could figure that part out."

Bruenor's knuckles whitened under the strain as he grabbed hard on the arms of his chair, trying to control himself. Catti-brie dropped a hand over his, and when he looked at her tolerant eyes, the storm quickly passed.

"Speaking of that," Pwent went on, "there's an ugly rumor making the rounds that ye've got a drow elf standing beside ye. There be any truth o' that?"

Bruenor's first reaction was one of anger-always the dwarf had been defensive about his oft-maligned drow friend.

Catti-brie spoke first, though, her words directed more to her father than to Pwent, a reminder to Bruenor that Drizzt's skin had thickened and that he could take care of himself. "Ye'll be meeting the drow soon enough," she told the battlerager. "Suren that one's a warrior to fit yer description, if ever there was one."

Pwent roared in derisive laughter, but it faded as Catti-brie continued.

"If ye came at him to start a fight, but dropped yer pointy helm, he'd pick it up for ye and put it back on yer head," she explained. "Of course, then he'd take it back off and stuff it down the back of yer pants, and give ye a few boots, just so ye'd get 'the Pwent. "

The battlerager's lips seemed to tie themselves up in a neat knot. For the first time in many days, Wulfgar seemed to approve completely of Catti-brie's reasoning, and the nod of his head, and of Bruenor's and of Cobble's, was certainly appreciative when Pwent made no move to answer.

"How long will Drizzt be gone?" the barbarian asked, to change the subject before Pwent could find his irritating voice.

"The tunnels are long," Bruenor replied.

"He will return for the ceremony?" Wulfgar asked, and there seemed to Catti-brie to be some ambivalence in his tone, an uncertainty of which answer he would prefer.

"Be sure that he will," the young woman put in evenly. "For be sure that there'll be no wedding until Drizzt is back from the tunnels." She looked at Bruenor, thoroughly squashing his protests before he ever uttered them. "And I'm not for caring if all the kings and queens of the North are kept waiting a month!"

Wulfgar seemed on the verge of an explosion, but he was wise enough to direct his mounting anger away from volatile Catti-brie. "I should have gone with him!" he growled at Bruenor. "Why did you send Regis along? What good might the halfling do if enemies are found?"

The ferocity of the lad's tone caught Bruenor off his guard.

"He's right," Catti-brie snapped in her father's ear, not that she wanted to agree with Wulfgar on any point, but that she, like Wulfgar, saw the opportunity to vent her anger openly.

Bruenor sank back in his chair, his dark eyes darting from one to the other. "Dwarves're lost, is all," he said.

"Even if that is true, what will Regis do but slow down the drow?" Catti-brie reasoned.

"He said he'd find a way to fit in!" Bruenor protested.

"Who said?" Catti-brie demanded.

"Rumblebelly!" shouted her flustered father.

"He did not even wish to go!" Wulfgar shot back.

"Did too!" Bruenor roared, leaping up from his seat and pushing the leaning Wulfgar back two steps with a sturdy forearm slam to the lad's chest. "'Twas Rumblebelly that telled me to send him along with the drow, I tell ye!"