Robert Salvatore - Streams of Silver

“I understand,” Drizzt offered. “It seems that we shall indeed look upon Mithril Hall, and that raises a question we must soon answer.”

Bruenor looked at him curiously, though he knew well enough what Drizzt was getting at.

“So far we have concerned ourselves only with finding Mithril Hall, and little has been said of our plans beyond the entrance to the place.”

“By all that is right, I am King of the Hall,” Bruenor growled.

“Agreed,” said the drow, “but what of the darkness that may remain? A force that drove your entire clan from the mines. Are we four to defeat it?”

“It may have gone on its own, elf,” Bruenor replied in a surly tone, not wanting to face the possibilities. “For all our knowing, the halls may be clean.”

“Perhaps. But what plans have you if the darkness remains?”

Bruenor paused for a moment of thought. “Word’ll be sent to Icewind Dale,” he answered. “Me kin’ll be with us in the spring.”

“Barely a hundred strong!” Drizzt reminded him.

“Then I’ll call to Adbar if more be needed!” Bruenor snapped. “Harbromm’ll be glad to help, for a promise of treasure.”

Drizzt knew that Bruenor wouldn’t be so quick to make such a promise, but he decided to end the stream of disturbing but necessary questions. “Sleep well,” he bid the dwarf. “You shall find your answers when you must.”

The pace was no less frantic the morning of the next day. Mountains soon towered above them as they ran along, and another change came over the dwarf. He stopped suddenly, dizzied and fighting for his balance. Wulfgar and Drizzt were right beside him, propping him up.

“What is it?” Drizzt asked.

“Dwarvendarrow,” Bruenor answered in a voice that seemed far removed. He pointed to an outcropping of rock jutting from the base of the nearest mountain.

“You know the place?”

Bruenor didn’t answer. He started off again, stumbling, but rejecting any offers of help. His friends shrugged helplessly and followed.

An hour later, the structures came into view. Like giant houses of cards, great slabs of stone had been cunningly laid together to form dwellings, and though they had been deserted for more than a hundred years, the seasons and the wind had not reclaimed them. Only dwarves could have imbued such strength into the rock, could have laid the stones so perfectly that they would last as the mountains themselves lasted, beyond the generations and the tales of the bards, so that some future race would look upon them in awe and marvel at their construction without the slightest idea of who had created them.

Bruenor remembered. He wandered into the village as he had those many decades ago, a tear rimming his gray eye and his body trembling against the memories of the darkness that had swarmed over his clan.

His friends let him go about for a while, not wanting to interrupt the solemn emotions that had found their way through his thick hide. Finally, as afternoon waned, Drizzt moved over to him.

“Do you know the way?” he asked.

Bruenor looked up at a pass that climbed along the side of the nearest mountain. “Half a day,” he replied.

“Camp here?” Drizzt asked.

“It would do me good,” said Bruenor. “I’ve much to think over, elf. I’ll not forget the way, fear not.” His eyes narrowed in tight focus at the trail he had fled on the day of darkness, and he whispered, “I’ll never forget the way again.”

Bruenor’s driven pace proved fortunate for the friends, for Bok had easily continued along the drow’s trail outside of Silverymoon and had led its group with similar haste. Bypassing the Holdfast altogether—the tower’s magical wards would not have let them near it in any case—the golem’s party had made up considerable ground.

In a camp not far away, Entreri stood grinning his evil smile and staring at the dark horizon, and at the speck of light he knew to be the campfire of his victim.

Catti-brie saw it, too, and knew that the next day would bring her greatest challenge. She had spent most of her life with the battle-seasoned dwarves, under the tutelage of Bruenor himself. He had taught her both discipline and confidence. Not a facade of cockiness to hide deeper insecurities, but a true self-belief and measured evaluation of what she could and could not accomplish. Any trouble that she had finding sleep that night was more due to her eagerness to face this challenge than her fear of failure.

They broke camp early and arrived at the ruins just after dawn. No more anxious than Bruenor’s party, though, they found only the remnants of the companions’ campsite.

“An hour—perhaps two,” Entreri observed, bending low to feel the heat of the embers.

“Bok has already found the new trail,” said Sydney, pointing to the golem moving off toward the foothills of the closest mountain.

A smile filled Entreri’s face as the thrill of the chase swept over him. Catti-brie paid little attention to the assassin, though, more concerned with the revelations painted on Jierdan’s face.

The soldier seemed unsure of himself. He took up after them as soon as Sydney and Entreri started behind Bok, but with forced steps. He obviously wasn’t looking forward to the pending confrontation, as were Sydney and Entreri.

Catti-brie was pleased.

They charged ahead through the morning, dodging sharp ravines and boulders, and picking their way up the side of the mountains. Then, for the first time since he had begun his search more than two years before, Entreri saw his prey.

The assassin had come over a boulder-strewn mound and was slowing his strides to accommodate a sharp dip into a small dell thick with trees, when Bruenor and his friends broke clear of some brush and made their way across the facing of a steep slope far ahead. Entreri dropped into a crouch and signaled for the others to slow behind him.

“Stop the golem,” he called to Sydney, for Bok had already disappeared into the copse below him and would soon come crashing out of the other side and onto another barren mound of stone, in clear sight of the companions.

Sydney rushed up. “Bok, return to me!” she yelled as loudly as she dared, for while the companions were far in the distance, the echoes of noises on the mountainside seemed to carry forever.

Entreri pointed to the specks moving across the facing ahead of them. “We can catch them before they get around the side of the mountain,” he told Sydney. He jumped back to meet Jierdan and Catti-brie, and roughly bound Catti-brie’s hands behind her back. “If you cry out, you will watch your friends die,” he assured her. “And then your own end will be most unpleasant.”

Catti-brie painted her most frightened look across her face, all the while pleased that the assassin’s latest threat seemed quite hollow to her. She had risen above the level of terror that Entreri had played against her when they had first met back in Ten-Towns. She had convinced herself, against her instinctive revulsion of the passionless killer, that he was, after all, only a man.

Entreri pointed to the steep valley below the facing and the companions. “I will go through the ravine,” he explained to Sydney, “and make the first contact. You and the golem continue along the path and close in from behind.”

“And what of me?” Jierdan protested.

“Stay with the girl!” Entreri commanded, as absently as if he was speaking to a servant. He spun away and started off, refusing to hear any arguments.

Sydney did not even turn to look at Jierdan as she stood waiting for Bok’s return. She had no time for such squabbles and figured that if Jierdan could not speak for himself, he wasn’t worth her trouble.

“Act now,” Catti-brie whispered to Jierdan, “for yerself and not for me!” He looked at her, more curious than angry, and vulnerable to any suggestions that might help him from this uncomfortable position.