The Companions

CHAPTER 19

The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Mithral Hall

The torchlight flickered, casting wild shadows in the vast empty chamber as the solitary in the general direction figure made his way along the narrow bridge. A massive drop to his left and right only accentuated the loneliness of the scene: a single dwarf, walking hesitantly, his torch only barely chasing away the darkness.

His step slowed even more as he approached the central platform on this great bridge that spanned the chasm known as Garumn’s Gorge. His footsteps echoed, hard boots on stone. The shuddering torchlight showed that he was trembling.

He paused at the front rim of the circular platform. Across from him, in the darkness, he heard the sound of water-Bruenor’s Falls-which marked the final run to the eastern gate of Mithral Hall.

For Bruenor, the return proved only bitter, not bittersweet.

He had come this way with the caravan only a tenday before, but hadn’t slowed and hadn’t even dared look at the podium on the northern side of this ceremonial platform. In his short time in Mithral Hall, he had not come back this way to the east, spending his days in the great Undercity, and even venturing to the western gate and to Keeper’s Dale beyond, arguably the place of his greatest triumph.

Keeper’s Dale was heavily guarded now, with fortified positions and war machines all around the higher peaks. Guarded against orcs, Bruenor … Reginald Roundshield of Citadel Felbarr … had been told, for the troublesome creatures had become very active of late.

Yet again.

How strange it had been for Bruenor to hear the discussions about him, questioning his own judgment as king that century before, when he had made peace with King Obould Many-Arrows. Back and forth went the arguments, and they sounded to Bruenor much like the same debates he had heard, and had been party to, in the days of the treaty!

Nothing had been resolved. The land had known relative peace, but to many of the current dwarves of Mithral Hall, it clearly seemed more the crouch of the tiger before the killing spring than any true and lasting alliance, partnership, or even tolerance between Mithral Hall and the orcs. And worse, they whispered, now the orcs had made inroads into the kingdoms all around their own land, and knew the defenses and, perhaps, how to exploit those defenses.

Bruenor’s gaze locked on the podium, on the parchment spread atop it, secured by a heavy piece of clear crystal. He swallowed hard and inched up.

He saw the signature, his signature, and the crude mark of King Obould.

“Did ye lead me wrong, elf?” he asked quietly, as if speaking to Drizzt, who had counseled him on this very important decision, who indeed had lobbied him strongly to sign the treaty.

“Ah, but I can’no know,” Bruenor whispered.

“What’s to know then, eh?” came a voice behind him, startling him-and all the more surprising because it was not accompanied by the light of a second torch. He turned around to see Ragged Dain, who had obviously followed him out here, secretly and stealthily.

“If this paper’ll hold in these times,” Bruenor replied.

“Bah, that treaty,” said the old warrior. “I remember when it was signed. Never did much like it.”

“King Bruenor was wrong, then?”

“Hush yer mouth, boy!” Ragged Dain scolded. “Ye don’t be talking ill o’ the king o’ them whose hall ye’re walking about!” in the general direction, and paouC3to

“It was a long time ago,” Bruenor replied.

Ragged Dain came up beside him and put his hand on the crystal mount, sliding his fingers slowly over the signatures of Bruenor and Obould. “Aye, it was, but be sure that I’m rememberin’, and so’s King Emerus Warcrown, don’t ye doubt, particularly now when these new orcs are in a fightin’ mood all across the Silver Marches.”

“Are ye thinking it was wrong for King Bruenor to sign the treaty?”

Ragged Dain didn’t answer for a bit, but just stared at the parchment. Then he shrugged. “Who can know? Meself was arguin’ against it, to be sure. Telled King Emerus that personally, though I was but a young fighter of little renown at the time.”

“King Emerus stood here for the signing,” Bruenor said, and he remembered well the look Emerus had given him before he had moved up to add his signature, an expression more of resignation than of antipathy.

“Aye, he did,” said Ragged Dain. “Weren’t his choice, mind ye.”

“He would have preferred war.”

“Most dwarves would’ve!”

“But not King Bruenor.” Bruenor purposely said it in a way that could be construed as accusatory, to gauge Ragged Dain’s expression.

The old veteran merely shrugged and wore no such agreeing scowl. “Alas for King Bruenor, then. He weren’t for findin’ any support for a war. Not from Silverymoon, not from Sundabar.” He paused and took a deep breath, and Bruenor knew well what was coming next. “Not even from Felbarr.”

“King Emerus wouldn’t stand with Mithral Hall?” Bruenor asked, trying to feign surprise.

Ragged Dain offered another shrug. “Without Sundabar and Silverymoon, we wouldn’t’ve been doin’ much again them orc thousands,” he said. “Tens of thousands! Tens of tens of thousands!”

“So you don’t blame Bruenor?”

Ragged Dain paused again and looked at the treaty for a long while. “If I’ve any anger, lad, know that it’s for the human kingdoms o’ the Silver Marches, and them elves o’ Silverymoon and the Moonwood. We could’ve put an army on the field that would’ve shaked the whole o’ the world! We could’ve chased that durned Obould back into his hole, ne’er to come out again!”

“I’ve heared the tales of what’s now what,” said Bruenor. “Might that we’ll be doin’ just that, in short order!”

Surprisingly this time, Ragged Dain offered another shrug, one halting and almost resigned.

Bruenor’s eyes went wide. “So ye’ve lost the love o’ the fight, ye old dog?”

“Bah, but if ye say that again, I’ll pitch ye into the gorge, don’t ye doubt,” said Ragged Dain.

“Then what? Ye heared the rumors of orcs stirring as surely as I have. Ye know them orcs’re pushin’ for a fight.”

Ragged Dain glanced all around, as if ensuring that they were truly alone. “King Connerad …,” he said, shaking his head.

asked, and Catti-brie nodded.we, and he couldim“ A good dwarf, by all accounts, and son of a hero, King Banak,” said Bruenor.

“Aye, but with no reach,” Ragged Dain explained. “Not to his fault, but true nonetheless. When Bruenor talked, th’others o’ the Silver Marches listened. Proved in battle, he was, and oh, beyond anything anyone now might know! Even King Emerus would’no stand atop any pedestal higher than that one! King Connerad’s a good dwarf, as ye say, and his people love him, don’t ye doubt, but he ain’t no King Bruenor. Ain’t no King Bruenor nowhere, and if the Marches ain’t fightin’ as one, the legions o’ Many-Arrows’ll run us all down.”

Bruenor felt proud and overwhelmed all at once. The fleeting moment of pride held him up, but only briefly until the weight of the world descended upon his young and sturdy shoulders.

He didn’t know what to say, but knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to grab Ragged Dain by the collar and shout the truth into his face.

Or was that the plan of the gods all along, Bruenor suddenly wondered?

“What do ye know?” Ragged Dain asked.

The words jolted Bruenor and made him aware that he was gasping for air under the weight of emotions. “Wh-what?” he stammered back. “What do ye know?”

“Nothing,” Bruenor answered, and indeed, he was in no position to answer that or any other question at that moment, his mind spinning with the possibilities. He considered his anger toward the gods, toward Moradin in particular, for allowing him to be so manipulated by Catti-brie and Mielikki, for stealing the meaning and the reward of his life right out from under him.

But then he thought of Dumathoin, God of Secrets Under the Mountain, and it occurred to him that his step from Iruladoon, though facilitated by Mielikki, might not have been for Mielikki at all.

He looked again at the treaty, at his signature. His greatest achievement or his greatest folly? Indeed, that had ever been the question, and now, with the specter of war looming over the Silver Marches, the answer seemed clear before him.

Through the power of Mielikki, he had been given rebirth, but perhaps-yes, more than perhaps, he then convinced himself-through the power of Moradin, he had been delivered here, to this place in this time, with this crisis looming.

Mithral Hall, indeed the Silver Marches, needed a King Bruenor, so Ragged Dain had just declared.

Bruenor Battlehammer alone knew where to find one.

The party was on in full, as was customary whenever a large caravan from one of the three dwarf communities in the Silver Marches-Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar-prepared to head for home from one of the others. In addition, the train from Citadel Adbar had arrived the night before, giving the dwarves of Mithral Hall an added reason to break out the Gutbuster this fine day, and so they did.

They toasted to Citadel Felbarr. They toasted to Citadel Adbar. They toasted to Mithral Hall. They toasted to the Delzoun brotherhood. They toasted to the demise of Many-Arrows. They toasted to toasting!

Watching the merriment from the crowd proved to be a strange experience for Bruenor, so used to being upon the dais and leading the libations was he. He couldn’t help but smile as he considered the many times he had done that, Drizzt and Catti-brie, themselvesIreferenceon Regis and Nanfoodle, and of course, Thibbledorf Pwent by his side, filling his foaming mug, rapping him on the back with a hardy “huzzah!” with every call for a drink.

He recognized King Connerad, and remembered him as a good lad, and remembered his father as a great general and leader, and as brave a dwarf as he had ever known. Banak Brawnanvil had been instrumental in the defense of Mithral Hall against Obould’s minions in the days before the signing of the peace treaty.

As was customary in these gatherings, each of the departing Felbarr dwarves was able to climb onto the raised dais and tap tankards with the King of Mithral Hall. Bruenor fell in line right behind Ragged Dain.

“Ye know him?” he whispered to the veteran.

“King Connerad?”

“Aye.”

“Aye,” Ragged Dain replied. “Knowed him for a hunnerd years and more.”

“Introduce me afore ye leave then.”

“And tell him o’ yer glory?” the older dwarf asked sarcastically.

“Aye,” Bruenor answered without shame and without hesitation, and he held up the golden medal that hung from a mithral chain around his neck. “I’ll be askin’ him for a favor, and that’s suren to help me cause!”

“What?” Ragged Dain asked incredulously, turning around and fixing Bruenor with a curious stare.

Bruenor just waved him on, for it was then Ragged Dain’s turn to ascend to tap flagons with the king. And he did, and drank a hearty toast, then put his arm around King Connerad’s shoulder-they were indeed old battle companions. Ragged Dain turned the king to regard the young dwarf next in line.

“Little Arr Arr,” Ragged Dain explained.

“Arr Arr’s boy?”

“Aye, King Connerad, that there be Little Arr Arr, Reginald Roundshield the Younger, and a true scrapper! He come to Mithral Hall as part of his valor wish.”

“A valor wish, at his age, then?” King Connerad said, and Bruenor recognized that he was feigning surprise for the sake of flattery. “And the medal, indeed!” the dwarf king added.

“Aye, for ’twas Little Arr Arr that sliced the orcs and felled the mountain giant, and a bunch of us, meself included, would’ve been killed to death in the Rauvins were it not for Little Arr Arr!”

He spoke loudly and many heard, and so it was in the embrace of a chorus of cheers that Bruenor went to stand beside the king of Mithral Hall, beside the dwarf who was king because Bruenor himself had named his father as successor with full knowledge that the throne would fall to Connerad.

“I lift me tankard aside a hero, then!” King Connerad declared, tapping Bruenor’s drink.

He paused though, as the mugs clinked together, for Bruenor fixed him with a stare, and such a look that Connerad Brawnanvil had surely seen before from the dwarf who had been his king. A spark of recognition flickered in Connerad’s eyes, but it was overwhelmed by a look of confusion.

“Ah, but good King Connerad, ye might be doing me a higher honor than tappin’ yer cup with me own,” Bruenor said.

The crowd hushed quickly, caught by surprise at the forwardness of this obv a long while to realizejuBy the gods,imiously very young dwarf.

“Ah, so ye say, and do tell,” King Connerad prompted.

“I been hoping to go to the west, to Mirabar, might be, or all the way to Luskan,” Bruenor explained. “I been telled that Mithral Hall sends such caravans, and I’d be honored to serve aboard one.”

That brought more than a few gasps from around the dais, including from those dwarves Bruenor had accompanied to the hall from Citadel Felbarr.

“What are ye about, then, boy?” Ragged Dain demanded, coming forward, but King Connerad held up his hand to hold the old veteran back.

“I’m wantin’ to see the sea, good king,” Bruenor replied. “Ye send such trains, I been telled.”

“Aye, we do, but not so late in the year as this. Next’ll be out in the spring.”

“And I’d be honored to be aboard her.”

“A long wait.”

“Then might I be asking ye a second favor?”

“Oh, the set o’ iron on this young one!” a dwarf yelled from the crowd, to rousing laughter and more than a few huzzahs.

“ ’E’ll be asking for the king’s daughter in his bed any time now!” another roared, and the laughter grew.

And King Connerad, too, seemed quite amused, and not at all insulted, as Bruenor, who knew him well, had fully expected.

“I been wantin’ to train with yer Gutbuster Brigade,” Bruenor explained. “For me Da, who always spoke well o’ the band, and of a dwarf by the name o’ Thibbledorf Pwent …”

“For the Pwent!” came a cry from the crowd-a cry that became a roar, that became the loudest toast of all, and how it did Bruenor’s heart good to hear such cheers for his dear old friend, who had died so heroically defending him, and helping him in concluding his most important mission in the faraway ancient kingdom known as Gauntlgrym.

“I would train in his name, and for his memory, to bring his strength back to Citadel Felbarr to best serve King Emerus,” Bruenor explained.

King Connerad glanced over at Ragged Dain, who wore a perplexed expression just a moment longer before nodding his agreement.

“So it is done!” the king proclaimed, hoisting his mug once more. “To Little Arr Arr o’ the Gutbusters!”

“Arg, but if he can take it,” snarled an ugly dwarf at the side of the dais, another one Bruenor recognized from a century before, though he could not recall his name. This one had served in the Gutbusters under Pwent, Bruenor recalled.

“Arg, yerself,” said Ragged Dain. “Little Arr Arr’ll teach ye all a thing or three!”

“Huzzah!” cried the visitors from Citadel Felbarr.

“Huzzah!” roared the hundreds from Mithral Hall.

And so it went, the boasting and the toasting-anything for a drink.

Bruenor woke up in that hall early the next morning, his head throbbing from a few too many huzzahs, and far too many heigh-ho’s. Barely sentient, he crawled to a nearby table, where eggs and bacon and muffins and berries had been pu a long while to realizejuBy the gods,imt out aplenty.

“Ye do us proud,” Ragged Dain said to him, crawling up beside him.

“Me thanks for yer blessin’ and yer help,” Bruenor replied.

“Bah, but I’m owin’ ye at least that much, eh? But don’t ye think me making light here, Little Arr Arr. Ye do Citadel Felbarr proud. Them Gutbusters’re called the finest battle group in all the land, and I’m not one to argue the point. King Emerus’ll be thinking well o’ ye when he hears o’ yer choice, but know that he’ll be a’fearing it too, for ye’re now to make us all proud, ye hear?”

“Aye, and aye,” Bruenor assured him.

“And are ye really meanin’ to go to the west, all the way to the sea?”

“Aye, again,” said Bruenor. “Something I’m needin’ to do.”

“Ye’ll be gone from Felbarr for two years and more, then!” Ragged Dain said.

“And I’ll still be a kid when I get back, in yer gray old eyes.”

Ragged Dain smiled, patted Bruenor on the shoulder, and promptly passed out, his face falling into a bowl of porridge.

Bruenor paused at the graves of Catti-brie and Regis, set in places of honor, side-by-side. Here, under piled stones, lay the cold mortal bodies of those two beloved friends. They would be decayed now to skeletons, perhaps even dust, Bruenor realized, for a hundred years had passed.

Bruenor had always believed that there was more to the soul than the body, that shedding the mortal form would not be the end of existence, but having it now laid out before him with such clarity was nonetheless jarring. He remembered the day he and Drizzt had buried them. He had kissed Catti-brie’s hand, one last time, and her skin had been cold on his lips. He remembered how he wanted to crawl between the rocks beside her, and breathe his warmth into her. He would have changed places with her, taking her cold and giving her his life, if that had been possible.