Robert Salvatore - The Halfling’s Gem

She clenched her hands and brought them to her mouth, whispering the enchantment into them. Then she flung the captured light out before her, crying out the final words of the dweomer, “Equine aflame!” A glowing ball of red struck the stone and burst into a shower of fire, forming almost instantly into a flaming chariot and two horses. Their images danced with the fire that gave them shape, but they did not burn the ground.

“Gather your things,” the lady instructed Bruenor. “It is time we leave.”

Bruenor stood motionless a moment longer. He had never come to appreciate magic, only the magic that strengthened weapons and armor, but neither did he ever deny its usefulness. He collected his equipment, not bothering to don armor or shield, and joined Alustriel behind the chariot. He followed her onto it, somewhat reluctantly, but it did not burn and it felt as tangible as wood.

Alustriel took a fiery rein in her slender hand and called to the team. A single bound lifted them into the morning sky, and they shot away, west around the bulk of the mountain and then south.

The stunned dwarf dropped his equipment to his feet—his chin to his chest—and clutched the side of the chariot. Mountains rolled out below him; he noted the ruins of Settlestone, the ancient dwarven city, now far below, and only a second later, far behind. The chariot roared over the open grassland and skimmed westward along the northern edge of the Trollmoors. Bruenor had relaxed enough to spit a curse as they soared over the town of Nesme, remembering the less-than-hospitable treatment he and his friends had received at the hands of a patrol from the place. They passed over the Dessarin River network, a shining snake writhing through the fields, and Bruenor saw a large encampment of barbarians far to the north.

Alustriel swung the fiery chariot south again, and only a few minutes later, the famed Ivy Mansion of Harpell Hill, Longsaddle, came into view.

A crowd of curious wizards gathered atop the hill to watch the chariot’s approach, cheering somberly—trying to maintain a distinguished air—as they always did when Lady Alustriel graced them with her presence. One face in the crowd blanched to white when the red beard, pointed nose, and one-horned helm of Bruenor Battlehammer came into view.

“But…you…uh…dead…fell,” stammered Harkle Harpell as Bruenor jumped from the back of the chariot.

“Nice to see yerself, too,” Bruenor replied, clad only in his nightshirt and helm. He scooped his equipment from the chariot and dropped the pile at Harkle’s feet. “Where’s me girl?”

“Yes, yes…the girl…Catti-brie…oh, where? Oh, there,” he rambled, the fingers of one hand nervously bouncing on his lower lip. “Do come, yes do!” He grabbed Bruenor’s hand and whisked the dwarf off to the Ivy Mansion.

They intercepted Catti-brie, barely out of bed and wearing a fluffy robe, shuffling down a long hall. The young woman’s eyes popped wide when she spotted Bruenor rushing at her, and she dropped the towel she was holding, her arms falling limply to her side. Bruenor buried his face into her, hugging her around the waist so tightly that he forced the air from her lungs. As soon as she recovered from her shock, she returned the hug tenfold.

“Me prayers,” she stammered, her voice quaking with sobs. “By the gods, I’d thought ye dead!”

Bruenor didn’t answer, trying to hold himself steady. His tears were soaking the front of Catti-brie’s robe, and he felt the eyes of a crowd of Harpells behind him. Embarrassed, he pushed open a door to his side, surprising a half-clad Harpell who stood naked to the waist.

“Excuse—” the wizard began, but Bruenor grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out into the hall, at the same time leading Catti-brie into the room. The door slammed in the wizard’s face as he turned back to his chamber. He looked helplessly to his gathered kin, but their wide smiles and erupting laughter told him that they would be of no assistance. With a shrug, the wizard moved on about his morning business as though nothing unusual had happened.

It was the first time Catti-brie had ever seen the stoic dwarf truly cry. Bruenor didn’t care and couldn’t have done a thing to prevent the scene anyway. “Me prayers, too,” he whispered to his beloved daughter, the human child he had taken in as his own more than a decade and a half before.

“If we’d have known,” Catti-brie began, but Bruenor put a gentle finger to her lips to silence her. It was not important; Bruenor knew that Catti-brie and the others would never have left him if they had even suspected that he might be alive.

“Suren I know not why I lived,” the dwarf replied. “None o’ the fire found me skin.” He shuddered at the memories of his weeks alone in the mines of Mithril Hall. “No more talk o’ the place,” he begged. “Behind me it is. Behind me to stay!”

Catti-brie, knowing of the approach of armies to reclaim the dwarven homeland, started to shake her head, but Bruenor didn’t catch the motion.

“Me friends?” he asked the young woman. “Drow eyes I saw as I fell.”

“Drizzt lives,” Catti-brie answered, “as does the assassin that chased Regis. He came up to the ledge just as ye fell and carried the little one away.”

“Rumblebelly?” Bruenor gasped.

“Aye, and the drow’s cat as well.”

“Not dead…”

“Nay, not to me guess,” Catti-brie was quick to respond. “Not yet. Drizzt and Wulfgar have chased the fiend to the south, knowing his goal to be Calimport.”

“A long run,” Bruenor muttered. He looked to Catti-brie, confused. “But I’d have thought ye’d be with them.”

“I have me own course,” Catti-brie replied, her face suddenly stern. “A debt for repaying.”

Bruenor understood at once. “Mithril Hall?” he choked out. “Ye figured to return, avengin’ meself?”

Catti-brie nodded, unblinking.

“Ye’re bats, girl!” Bruenor said. “And the drow would let ye go alone?”

“Alone?” Catti-brie echoed. It was time for the rightful king to know. “Nay, nor would I so foolishly end me life. A hundred kin make their way from the north and west,” she explained. “And a fair number of Wulfgar’s folk beside ‘em.”

“Not enough,” Bruenor replied. “An army of duergar scum holds the halls.”

“And eight-thousand more from Citadel Adbar to the north and east,” Catti-brie continued grimly, not slowing a beat. “King Harbromme of the dwarves of Adbar says he’ll see the halls free again! Even the Harpells have promised their aid.”

Bruenor drew a mental image of the approaching armies—wizards, barbarians, and a rolling wall of dwarves—and with Catti-brie at their lead. A thin smile cut the frown from his face. He looked upon his daughter with even more than the considerable respect he had always shown her, his eyes wet with tears once more.

“They wouldn’t beat me,” Catti-brie growled. “I meant to see yer face carved in the Hall of Kings, and meant to put yer name in its proper place o’ glory!”

Bruenor grabbed her close and squeezed with all his strength. Of all the mantles and laurels he had found in the years gone by, or might find in the years ahead, none fit as well or blessed him as much as “Father.”

Bruenor stood solemnly on the southern slope of Harpell Hill that evening, watching the last colors fade out of the western sky and the emptiness of the rolling plain to the south. His thoughts were on his friends, particularly Regis—Rumblebelly—the bothersome halfling that had undeniably found a soft corner in the dwarf’s stone heart.

Drizzt would be okay—Drizzt was always okay—and with mighty Wulfgar walking beside him, it would take an army to bring them down.