The Companions

CHAPTER 7

The Year of the Third Circle (1472 DR) Citadel Felbarr

"Murgatroid “ "Muttonchops” Stonehammer sighed and pulled at his thick black beard, tugging hard enough to flex the muscles in his large arm. He gritted his teeth and pulled his beard back the other way.

It was not an uncommon gesture from the old fighter, who was indeed very old, the oldest dwarf in Citadel Felbarr as far as anyone could tell. Muttonchops had lived an adventurous life, had fought with King Emerus against Obould and the orcs, and had even been in Mithral Hall when King Bruenor had made his legendary return to the battlefield to meet the charge of Obould’s thousands in the valley known as Keeper’s Dale, beyond the complex’s western gate. For all his battles, though, the Stonehammer patriarch had never truly distinguished himself, and his greatest accomplishment, so it now seemed, was his longevity.

Certainly he was respected among the denizens of Citadel Felbarr, as none would dispute, but this new job he had been given …

Muttonchops served as a trainer now, typically considered a position of high respect sure what to makece Fes,to and regard, except that his trainees included dwarflings, the oldest of this particular group being twelve. These elders in his charge invariably ended up the worst fighters of that age group.

“Arr Arr’s boy’s not showin’ much,” remarked Rocky Warcrown, third cousin to the king, twice-removed.

The old Stonehammer wanted to argue the point, but he could only sigh and tug his beard again, for across the room, little Arr Arr, who was just past his ninth birthday, engaged in battle with a lad from the Argut clan, a promising and powerful ten-year-old.

Bryunn Argut swept his shield out far before him and off to the left, driving young Arr Arr back a step. Without missing a step, without the slightest hesitation, Bryunn leaped forward as he twisted around, sweeping his weapon, a wooden axe, across ferociously.

Arr Arr ducked-just barely! — and stumbled backward a few steps. Bryunn Argut pursued with a series of chops and swipes that kept the younger dwarfling off-balance all the way.

“He’s a head taller than Little Arr Arr,” Muttonchops remarked, but Rocky’s snort made his excuse seem quite ridiculous.

“A year older, too, then,” said Rocky. “Ye think that’s for makin’ any difference?”

The concern in his tone struck Muttonchops profoundly, for many eyes were upon this dwarfling known to everyone in Felbarr as Little Arr Arr. For as long as anyone could remember, the Roundshields had served as captains of Citadel Felbarr’s garrison, a proud tradition of fearsome warriors and grand and loyal subjects to the Warcrowns. Reginald Roundshield, Arr Arr’s father, had been among the most popular and respected dwarves in all of Felbarr until his death at the hands of rogue orcs when Little Arr Arr was but a toddler.

Everyone in Felbarr wanted Little Arr Arr to succeed, to step up in the tradition of his father and those grandfathers before him. This was the security of the clan, after all, the solid dependability of generational continuity, the son of a son of a son of a son of a captain.

But Little Arr Arr wasn’t showing that kind of promise, and even King Emerus himself had noted as much on his last visit to Muttonchops’s training grounds.

Rocky Warcrown sucked in his breath as a last-heartbeat twist brought Little Arr Arr’s shield up just in time to deflect an axe swipe that would surely have knocked the child silly.

Muttonchops, too, winced, but he came out of it more quickly, his veteran eyes noting something here that he hadn’t before, and with a hunch in his gut speaking a different story to him than what his eyes were telling him.

Young Reginald fought the urge to jab the tip of his own wooden axe into the exposed armpit of Bryunn Argut.

How would a nine-year-old dwarfling respond? Bruenor kept asking himself, kept reminding himself. The awkwardness of the attacks-and not just those of Bryunn, who was quite formidable compared to most of the others in this class-constantly caught the old dwarf king in a young body off his guard.

But they were only at the training grounds once a tenday, after all, and this was but rudimentary training. Muttonchops Stonehammer’s job was merely to acquaint the dwarflings with the sensation of giving and taking a hit, and to allow them their first opportunities of the rolling spin and slash, or the shield asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh the olderon rush, or any of the other building blocks of straightforward, basic dwarf fighting.

For Bruenor, though, as many times as he might remind himself of this, the whole experience proved mind-numbingly simple. He was well-acquainted with this new body he had been given, and had been for years.

Bryunn Argut came forward with a powerful downward chop, but one that could only fall short, Bruenor recognized, and as he did, he knew the movement to be quite obviously a diversion for the coming shield rush.

He was moving at the same time as Bryunn, cleverly disguising his dodge as a slip and stumble. As Bryunn came charging forward, Little Arr Arr “fell” forward and to the side, tucking his head under his lifting shield and rolling behind the approaching opponent.

He resisted the urge to kick out Bryunn’s trailing foot and send the lad sprawling to the floor. He liked Bryunn, after all, thought him a promising dwarfling fighter, and didn’t want to embarrass him!

“Bah, but good thing he tripped o’er his own feet, eh?” Rocky Warcrown remarked. “Or to be sure that th’Argut kid would’ve flap-jacked him!” Rocky laughed, obviously picturing the event, for the term “flap-jack” referred to pancakes, and a flap-jacked fighter was one laid out flat, sprawled under the crush of a shield rush, truly among the most comical outcomes to be found on the training grounds.

“Aye,” Muttonchops replied, but without conviction, and he was nodding as he spoke, though surely not in agreement with his companion’s assessment.

“Ah, but Uween’s to be heartbroken to learn that her one son, the heir to the Roundshield legacy, is just a flat-footed oaf,” Rocky said. “Poor old Arr Arr’s turnin’ in his grave, don’t ye doubt.”

But the wily old veteran Muttonchops did doubt.

“He’s bored,” he muttered.

“Eh?” asked Rocky Warcrown, and he followed Muttonchops’s stare across the grounds just in time to see Bryunn Argut launch an endgame assault, what Muttonchops had taught the dwarflings to think of as “the killing frenzy.”

Bryunn’s wooden axe swooped in with abandon, from the left, then right, overhead and stabbing straight forward, over and over again. He continually pressed and bulled ahead, purely offensive in design, keeping Arr Arr on his heels the whole time and almost hitting him-almost! — with every devastating strike.

Almost … but never quite.

Rocky sucked in his breath repeatedly, obviously expecting Little Arr Arr to take one on the chin in short order.

Muttonchops suppressed a knowing laugh and nod and wasn’t the least bit surprised when Bryunn Argut finally relented and Arr Arr, still back on his heels, hadn’t actually been touched. The teacher slapped his fingers against the chimes hanging beside him, signaling the end of the matches, and soon after dismissed his twenty trainees.

“He did well to keep his beardless head on his shoulders,” Rocky admitted. “But ne’er got close to hitting the Argut lad.”

“Aye, Bryunn Argut’s a promisin’ one. He’ll find hisself in with the stubble group soon enough,” Muttonchops agreed, “the stubble group” referring a long while to realize become the olderon to the dwarf teenagers, their little beards just beginning to sprout. The old veteran looked around, then settled his gaze on Rocky Warcrown. “Be a good friend, then,” he asked, “and see to getting them off to their homes. I got something what’s needin’ to be done.”

“Stubble group’s coming in next, ain’t they?” Rocky asked. “Was hoping to see the Fellhammer sisters. Word’s that them two might be joining a battlerager brigade.”

“Aye, and aye again, that they might,” Muttonchops replied. “Fist’n’Fury, I call ’em. Fist’n’Fury, and any I’m puttin’ against them ain’t the happiest o’ me students! Be a good friend then for me and send the little ones on their way. And might that ye start the next group to their strengthening exercises. I’ll not be gone long.”

Rocky nodded and Muttonchops left in a hurry, the cagey old dwarf realizing that he’d have to be quick now.

Bruenor walked along the quiet tunnels of Citadel Felbarr soon after, his practice axe swinging at the end of his right arm, shield still strapped on his left.

Another day.

Another wasted day.

That was how he saw it, at least, for he had long ago acclimated to this new body-it was fully his own now, as surely as had been the muscled and scarred one his spirit had departed in the depths of Gauntlgrym. He even looked like himself, his old self, like Bruenor Battlehammer at the age of nine! That notion had surprised him when first he had realized the resemblance. He had wondered about it, of course, unsure of how Mielikki’s “gift” might affect such things. Might he have been a blue-bearded dwarf? Or even a female? Catti-brie hadn’t said, after all, explaining only that they would be reborn somewhere in Faerun to parents of their own race. She hadn’t mentioned gender, or their expected appearance, at all.

Wouldn’t Drizzt be in for a surprise if he met Catti-brie again, only to find her not a “her” at all, but a strapping young lad!

Bruenor shook that discomforting thought out of his head. He felt like himself now-there was no other way to describe it. His reflection looked familiar to him; his hands were the young hands he had known as a Battlehammer dwarfling. And he was fully in control of this young body, more so even than he had been the first time around at a similar age. His private practice sessions showed him the truth: he could execute moves that a nine-year-old Bruenor had never imagined. His understanding of battle remained and all the centuries of training had followed him through the spirit world to this new physical form.

He had to attend the classes of Murgatroid Stonehammer, of course, for they were not optional in Citadel Felbarr, but he feared that these sessions were actually dulling his senses and unlearning the great lessons repetition and action had so deeply imbued within him.

And of course, there was always the possibility that he would forget himself in one of these ridiculous training fights and accidentally humiliate, or even lay low, a fine young dwarf.

The dwarf sighed and turned down a lonely lane in the quarter of the underground complex that housed the city soldiers. He brought his wooden axe up onto his shoulder and thought of another weapon, one many-notched …

The attack came a long while to realize become the olderon from the side, a heavy and squat form charging out at him, shield-rushing behind a thick oaken buckler. Hardly even thinking of the movement, indeed thinking of nothing but getting out of the way, the surprised Bruenor threw himself forward and down to the side, exactly as he had done with the Argut boy earlier. Up came his shield to cover his head and facilitate the roll, and he came around in perfect balance as the highwaydwarf, or whomever or whatever it might be, sped past.

Unlike in the practice fight, however, Bruenor wasn’t about to let this one get past him so easily. He flung himself around, his wooden axe reaching out fast at the attacker’s trailing ankle. With a proper weapon, he might have severed the fool’s foot, but with the practice axe, he took a different tact, hooking the axe head around his attacker’s ankle and tugging hard. When that proved futile, given the difference in size, where Bruenor could not hope to pull this one’s feet out from under him, Bruenor instead scrabbled forward with all speed.

He unhooked the axe as he crashed against the attacker’s leg and again, could barely budge the assailant, who had recovered his balance by then. Up went the practice axe’s tip, right between the attacker’s legs, prodding at his groin, and when Bruenor’s opponent predictably hopped up on his toes and rushed forward, Bruenor swatted the trailing foot so that it tripped up on the back of the suddenly retreating attacker’s forward ankle.

Now the assailant staggered, and when he tried to put his feet back under him and swing around, he found a dwarfling flying upon him, crashing against him ferociously, climbing up him and rolling right over him, and so perfectly setting the wooden axe handle across the assailant’s throat as he did.

Bruenor threw himself over the shoulder, twisting as he went, gripping the handle down low with one hand, up high with the other, as if his very life depended upon it. For indeed, such seemed to be the case!

The assailant gasped something indecipherable as he fell back with Bruenor tumbling atop him as they went down in a heap.

Bruenor knew that he couldn’t hope to choke the life out of this one, or even to extract himself and get away. For all his skill, he couldn’t outfight an attacker so much heavier and stronger, and certainly not with a practice axe. So he bit the assailant’s ear instead, his jaw clamping down through the thick fabric of a veil or mask of some sort, and with a growl, he stubbornly took hold.

His victim issued a stream of invectives, along with a long, grunt, “Arr!” And he pushed back against the chokehold and Bruenor couldn’t hope to counter the strength of this adult.

Or could he?

His thoughts swirled back to the throne of Gauntlgrym and he felt the power of Clangeddin coursing through his veins, tightening his muscles. He let go of the ear then and focused on the axe handle, bringing it in tight against his victim’s throat, pressing the assailant’s windpipe despite the desperate counter-push.

But then from the memory of the throne came the wisdom of Moradin, reminding him that no dwarfling his age could possibly win out in a contest like this. He was revealing a great secret in holding fast against the stubborn pull of his frantic victim.

Better that, he realized, than being murdered in an empty lane.

The attacker growled again, so Bruenor thought, but then he realized that the “arr” was really “Arr Arr!” and in a voice that the old dwarf in a dwarfling’s body;}span.bigI the olderon surely recognized.

With a squeal, Bruenor gave up the fight and let the assailant, Muttonchops Stonehammer, wrest the wooden practice axe from his grasp. As Muttonchops came forward with the sudden release, Bruenor rolled out to the side, put his feet under him and scrambled away.

“By the gods, ye little rat!” Muttonchops said, gasping and choking through each word. He rolled up to a sitting position and stared back at the young dwarfling, who was on his feet again, set in a defensive posture and ready to throw himself into the fray or to run away in the span of an eye-blink.

“Ye near broke me neck,” the old dwarf said, rubbing his throat, his other hand going to his bleeding ear.

“Why?” Bruenor demanded. “Master, why? Was I angerin’ ye, then?”

Muttonchops began to laugh, though he found himself coughing repeatedly as he did.

Bruenor didn’t know what to make of any of this.

“I knew ye was cheatin’ in the fights!” Muttonchops declared as if in victory. “And cheatin’ against yerself, ye durned fool!” Bruenor shrugged, still not catching on.

Muttonchops stood up and Bruenor inched aside, ready to flee, but the old dwarf tossed him his practice axe and seemed to relax then.

“Ye ain’t for doin’ yer father proud in the fightin’ classes,” Muttonchops explained. “Yer father, ye know? Arr Arr, Captain o’ the Guard. As fierce a fighter as Felbarr’s e’er known.”

Again Bruenor merely shrugged and held his hands up helplessly, at a loss.

“And ye ain’t losing in yer fights because yer fightin’ yer betters, oh no,” Muttonchops accused. “Ye’re losin’ because ye ain’t tryin’ to win! I seen it and I knowed it!” He rubbed his bloody ear again and spat onto the cobblestones-and there was a bit of blood in his spittle, too, from his bruised throat. “And ye just proved it.”

“B-Bryunn’s a tough one, then,” Bruenor stuttered, trying to find some out.

“Bah! Ye could’ve put him down. Ye just put meself down!”

Bruenor stammered over that dilemma. “Fighting for me, uh … life,” he tried to explain. “Ye scared me crazy.”

“Ye’re always fightin’ for yer life, ye little fool!” Muttonchops scolded, coming forward and poking a twisted old finger Bruenor’s way. “Always! Ye win a hunnerd and lose but one, and ye’re dead, like yer Da.”

Bruenor started to respond but thought better of it.

“Ye’re only losin’ in the class because ye don’t care for winning-and what’s Uween to say, then? How’s she to tell Arr Arr to rest easy under the stone o’ his cairn when his only child’s a coward, then?”

Bruenor’s eyes narrowed at that remark, and he had to call upon the wisdom and temperance of Moradin once more to stop from launching himself at the irreverent old warrior yet again. He didn’t know where to go with this. He couldn’t deny Muttonchops’s observations, though surely the old veteran couldn’t have been farther off regarding the motivation behind Bruenor’s half-hearted efforts. He held back not out of boredom, and s;}span.bigI the olderonurely not out of cowardice, but because he was hiding something, something he could not reveal. Not yet.

“I seen ye now, Little Arr Arr,” Muttonchops said. “I seen what ye can do, and I’m not for lettin’ ye spend yer fights running away and pretendin’ with yer trips and yer stumbles. Ye do yer Da proud, I tell ye, or ye’re to feel the broad side o’ that axe o’ yers slapping about yer rump! Ye hear me, then?”

Bruenor stared at him, not sure how to respond.

“Ye hear me, then?” Muttonchops repeated emphatically. “Do ye, Little Arr Arr?”

“Reginald,” Bruenor corrected. Yes, it was time to make a stand.

“Eh?”

“Reginald is me name. Reginald Roundshield.”

“Little Arr Arr …”

“Reginald,” Bruenor insisted.

“Yer Da was Arr Arr …,” Muttonchops started to say, but Bruenor interrupted him.

“Me Da’s dead and cold under the stones.”

That stole Muttonchops’s voice, and the old dwarf stood staring blankly at the impudent whelp.

“But meself’s here, and don’t ye ne’er think again that I ain’t to do him proud. Me name’s Reginald. Reginald Roundshield, o’ the Felbarr Roundshields. Ye wanted me to own it-that’s why ye jumped me in the dark-and so I’ll be ownin’ it, but on me own terms and with me own name!”

“Ye little rat,” Muttonchops replied, but he seemed more surprised-and pleased-than angered.

“So ye send ’em at me next tenday,” Bruenor insisted. “Start with Bryunn Argut and send ’em all, one after another, or two together if that’s yer choice, or three, or all together! And when I put ’em all down, one after another, then know that yer class ain’t teaching the son o’ Arr Arr nothing. Then ye move me along to the next class.”

Muttonchops paused for a long while, staring at him, trying to gain a measure of him. “Young dwarf warriors, next class, and not dwarflings,” he warned.

Bruenor didn’t blink, and matched Muttonchops’s stare with equal intensity and more. He was surprised by his own anger, deep and profound, and his discomfort and anger were about more than the boredom of basic martial training, or the indignity of being attacked in the dark by this old codger. On one level, Bruenor felt foolish for the path he had just taken, and yet he had no thought of turning back. Not in the least.

“Ye got nothin’ to teach me with them dwarflings,” he said.

Muttonchops assumed a less aggressive posture. “So ye think ye can put ’em all down, eh?”

“All o’ them together, if that’s yer choice,” Bruenor replied.

“Might be.”

Bruenor didn’t flinch. Indeed, he merely shrugged, already growing bored with this conversation.

“Ye best put a priest in the room,” he said in all sincerity. “Know that them others’re sure to need a bit of Dumathoin’s dweomers o’ healing.”

Muttonchops started to respond, but instead reached up and touched his bleeding ear once more, and then with a grunt that was half growl and half snort, he turned and walked out of the lane.

Bruenor Battlehammer stood there alone in the dim light for a long, long while, considering the encounter, and the one sure to come. Most who could not,