The Thousand Orcs

When Thibbledorf Pwent and his small army of battleragers arrived in Icewind Dale with news that Gandalug Battlehammer, the First King and Ninth King of Mithral Hall, had died, I knew that Bruenor would have no choice but to return to his ancestral home and take again the mantle of leadership. His duties to the clan would demand no less, and for Bruenor, as with most dwarves, duties to king and clan usurp everything.

I recognized the sadness on Bruenor's face as he heard the news, though, and knew that little of it was in grieving for the former king. Gandalug had lived a long and amazing life, more so than any dwarf could ever hope. So while he was sad at losing this ancestor he had barely known, that wasn't the source of Bruenor's long look. No, what most troubled Bruenor, I knew, was the duty calling him to return to a settled existence.

I knew at once that I would accompany him, but I knew, too, that I would not remain for long in the safe confines of Mithral Hall. I am a creature of the road, of adventure. I came to know this after the battle against the drow, when Gandalug was returned to Clan Battlehammer. Finally, it seemed, peace had found our little troupe, but that, I knew so quickly, would prove a double-edged sword.

And so I found myself sailing the Sword Coast with Captain Deudermont and his pirate-chasing crew aboard Sea Sprite, with Catti-brie at my side.

It is strange, and somewhat unsettling, to come to the realization that no place will hold me for long, that no «home» will ever truly suffice. I wonder if I am running toward something or away from something. Am I driven, as were the misguided Entreri and Ellifain? These questions reverberate within my heart and soul. Why do I feel the need to keep moving? For what am I searching? Acceptance? Some wider reputation that will somehow grant me a renewed assurance that I had chosen well in leaving Menzoberranzan?

These questions rise up about me, and sometimes bring distress, but it is not a lasting thing. For in looking at them rationally, I understand their ridiculousness.

With Pwent s arrival in Icewind Dale, the prospect of settling in the security and comforts of Mithral Hall loomed before us all once more, and it is not a life I feel I can accept. My fear was for Catti-brie and the relationship we have forged. How would it change? Would Catti-brie desire to make a home and family of her own? Would she see the return to the dwarven stronghold as a signal that she had reached the end of her adventurous road?

And if so, then what would that mean for me?

Thus, we all took the news brought by Pwent with mixed feelings and more than a little trepidation.

Bruenor's conflicted attitude didn't hold for long, though. A young and fiery dwarf named Dagnabbit, one who had been instrumental in freeing Mithral Hall from the duergar those years ago, and son of the famous General Dagna, the esteemed commander of Mithral Hall's military arm, had accompanied Pwent to Icewind Dale. After Bruenor held a private meeting with Dagnabbit, my friend had come out as full of excitement as I had ever seen him, practically hopping with eagerness to be on the road home. And to the surprise of everyone, Bruenor had immediately put forth a special advisement—not a direct order, but a heavy-handed suggestion—that all of Mithral Hall's dwarves who had settled beneath the shadows of Kelvin s Cairn in Icewind Dale return with him.

When I asked Bruenor about this apparent change in attitude, he merely winked and assured me that I’d soon know "the greatest adventure of my life-no small promise!

He still won t talk about the specifics, or even the general goal he has in mind, and Dagnabbit is as tight-lipped as my irascible friend.

But in truth, the specifics are not so important to me. What is important is the assurance that my life will continue to hold adventure, purpose, and goals. That is the secret, I believe. To continually reach higher is to live; to always strive to be a better person or to make the world around you a better place or to enrich your life or the lives of those you love is the secret to that most elusive of goals: a sense of accomplishment.

For some, that can be achieved by creating order and security or a sense of home. For some, including many dwarves, it can be achieved by the accumulation of wealth or the crafting of a magnificent item.

For me, I’ll use my scimitars.

And so my feet were light when again we departed Icewind Dale, a hearty caravan of hundreds of dwarves, a grumbling (but far from miserable) halfling, an adventurous woman, a mighty barbarian warrior, along with his wife and child, and me, a pleasantly misguided dark elf who keeps a panther as a friend.

Let the snows fall deep, the rain drive down, and the wind buffet my cloak. I care not, for I've a road worth walking!

— Drizzt Do'Urden

CHAPTER 1 ALLIANCE

He wore his masterwork plated armor as if it was an extension of his tough skin. Not a piece of the interlocking black metal was flat and unadorned, with flowing designs and overlapping bas-reliefs. A pair of great curving spikes extended from each upper arm plate, and each joint cover had a sharpened and tri-pointed edge to it. The armor itself could be used as a weapon, though King Obould Many-Arrows preferred the greatsword he always kept strapped to his back, a magnificent weapon that could burst into flame at his command.

Yes, the strong and cunning ore loved fire, loved the way it indiscriminately ate everything in its path. He wore a black iron crown, set with four brilliant and enchanted rubies, each of which could bring about a mighty fireball.

He was a walking weapon, stout and strong, the kind of creature that one wouldn't punch, figuring that doing so would do more damage to the attacker than to the attacked. Many rivals had been slaughtered by Obould as they stood there, hesitating, pondering how in the world they might begin to hurt this king among orcs.

Of all his weapons, though, Obould’s greatest was his mind. He knew how to exploit a weakness. He knew how to shape a battlefield, and most of all, he knew how to inspire those serving him.

And so, unlike so many of his kin, Obould walked into Shining White, the ice and rock caverns of the mighty frost giantess, Gerti Orelsdottr, with his eyes up and straight, his head held high. He had come in as a potential partner, not as a lesser.

Taking his lead, Obould's entourage, including his most promising son Urlgen Threefist (so named because of the ridged headpiece he wore, which allowed him to head-butt as if he had a third fist), walked with a proud and confident gait, though the ceilings of Shining White were far from comfortably low, and many of the blue-skinned guards they passed were well more than twice their height and several times their weight.

Even Obould's indomitable nature took a bit of a hit, though, when the frost giant escort led him and his band through a huge set of iron-banded doors into a freezing chamber that was much more ice than stone. Against the wall to the right of the doors, before a throne fashioned of black stone and blue cloth, capped in blue ice, stood the giantess, the heir apparent of the Jarl, leader of the frost giant tribes of the Spine of the World.

Gerti was beautiful by the measure of almost any race. She stood more than a dozen feet tall, her blue-skinned body shapely and muscled. Her eyes, a darker shade of blue, focused sharp enough to cut ice, it seemed, and her long fingers appeared both delicate and sensitive, and strong enough to crush rock. She wore her golden hair long—as long as Obould was tall. Her cloak, fashioned of silver wolf fur, was held together by a gem-studded ring, large enough for a grown elf to wear as a belt, and a collar of huge, pointed teeth adorned her neck. She wore a dress of brown, distressed leather, covering her ample bosom, then cut to a small flap on one side to reveal her muscled belly, and slit up high on her shapely legs, giving her freedom of movement. Her boots were high and topped with the same silvery fur—and were also magical, or so said every tale. It was said they allowed the giantess to quicken her long strides and cover more ground across the mountainous terrain than any but avian creatures.

"Well met, Gerti," Obould said, speaking nearly flawless frost giant.

He bowed low, his plated armor creaking.

"You will address me as Dame Orelsdottr," the giantess replied curtly, her voice resonant and strong, echoing off the stone and ice.

"Dame Orelsdottr," Obould corrected with another bow. "You have heard of the success of our raid, yes?"

"You killed a few dwarves," Gerti said with a snicker, and her assembled guards responded in kind.

"I have brought you a gift of that significant victory."

"Significant?" the giantess said with dripping sarcasm.

"Significant not in the number of enemies slain, but in the first success of our joined peoples," Obould quickly explained.

Gerti's frown showed that she considered the description of them as "joined peoples" a bit premature, at least, which hardly surprised or dismayed Obould.

"The tactics work well," Obould went on, undaunted. He turned and motioned to Urlgen. The orc, taller than his father but not as thick of limb and torso, stepped forward and pulled a large sack off his back, bringing it around and spilling its gruesome contents onto the floor.

Five dwarf heads rolled out, including those of the brothers Stokkum and Bokkum, and Duggan McKnuckles.

Gerti crinkled her face and looked away.

"I would hardly call these gifts," she said.

"Symbols of victory," Obould replied, seeming a bit off-balance for the first time in the meeting.

"I have little interest in placing the heads of lesser races upon my walls as trophies," Gerti remarked. "I prefer objects of beauty, and dwarves hardly qualify."

Obould stared at her hard for a moment, understanding well that she could easily and honestly have included orcs in that last statement. He kept his wits about him, though, and motioned for his son to gather up the heads and put them back away.

"Bring me the head of Emerus Warcrown of Felbarr," Gerti said. "There is a trophy worthy of keeping."

Obould narrowed his eyes and bit back his response. Gerti was playing him and hard. King Obould Many Arrows had once ruled the former Citadel Felbarr, until a few years previous, when Emerus Warcrown had returned, expelling Obould and his clan. It remained a bitter loss to Obould, what he considered his greatest error, for he and his clan had been battling another orc tribe at the time, leaving Warcrown and his dwarves an opportunity to retake Felbarr.

Obould wanted Felbarr back, dearly so, but Felbarr's strength had grown considerably over the past few years, swelling to nearly seven thousand dwarves, and those in halls of stone fashioned for defense.

The orc king fought back his anger with tremendous discipline, not wanting Gerti to see the sting produced by her sharp words.

"Or bring me the head of the King of Mithral Hall," Gerti went on. "Whether Gandalug Battlehammer, or as rumors now say, the beast Bruenor once again. Or perhaps, the Marchion of Mirabar—yes. his fat head and fuzzy red beard would make a fine trophy! And bring me Mirabar's Sceptrana, as well. Isn't she a pretty thing?"

The giantess paused for a moment and looked around at her amused warriors, a wicked grin spreading wide on her fine-featured face.

"You wish to deliver a trophy suitable for Dame Orelsdottr?" she asked slyly. "Then fetch me the pretty head of Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon. Yes, Obould—"

"King Obould," the proud orc corrected, drawing a hush from the frost giant soldiers and a gasp from his sorely outpowered entourage.

Gerti looked at him hard then nodded her approval.

They let their banter go at that, for both understood the preposterous level it had reached. Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon was a target far beyond them. Neither would put her and her enchanted city off the extended list of potential enemies, though. Silverymoon was the jewel of the region.

Both Gerti Orelsdottr and Obould Many Arrows coveted jewels.

"I am planning the next assault," Obould said after the pause, again, speaking slowly in the strange language, forcing his diction and enunciation to perfection.

"Its scope?"

Obould shrugged and shook his head. "Nothing major. Caravan or a town. The scope will depend upon our escorting artillery," he ended with a sly grin.

"A handful of giants are worth a thousand orcs," Gerti replied, taking the cue a bit further than Obould would have preferred.

Still, the cunning orc allowed her that boast without refute, well aware of her superior attitude and not really concerned about it at that time. He needed the frost giants behind his soldiers for diplomatic reasons more than for practical gain.

"My warriors did enjoy plunking the dwarves with their boulders," Gerti admitted, and the giant to the side of the throne dais, who had been on the raid, nodded and smiled his agreement. "Very well, King Obould,

I will spare you four giants for the next fight. Send your emissary when you are ready for them."

Obould bowed, ducking his head as he did, not wanting Gerti to see his wide grin, not wanting her to know how important her additions would truly be to him and his cause.

He came up straight again and stomped his right boot, his signal to his entourage to form up behind him as he turned and left.

"They are your pawns," Donnia Soldou said to Gerti soon after Obould and his orc entourage had departed.

The female dark elf, dressed head to toe in deep shades of gray and black, moved easily among the frost giants, ignoring the threatening scowls many of them assumed whenever she was about. Donnia walked with the confidence of the dark elves, and with the knowledge that her subtle threats to Gerti concerning bringing an army to wipe out every living creature in the Spine of the World who opposed her had not fallen on deaf ears. Such were the often true tactics and pleasures of the dark elves.

Of course, Donnia had nothing at all to back up the claim. She was a rogue, part of a band that included only four members. So when she threw back her cowl and shook her long and thick white hair into its customary place, thrown to the side so that the tresses covered half her face, including her right eye, she did so with an air of absolute certainty.

Gerti didn't have to know that.

"They are orcs," Gerti Orelsdottr replied with obvious disdain. "They are pawns to any who need to make them so. It is not easy to resist the urge to squash Obould into the rock, simply for being so ugly, simply for being so stupid.. simply for the pleasure of it!"

"Obould's designs strengthen your own," Donnia said. "His minions are numerous. Numerous enough to wreak havoc among the dwarf and human communities of the region, but not so overwhelming as to engage the legions of the greater cities, like Silverymoon."

"He wants Felbarr, so that he can rename it the Citadel of Many Arrows. Do you believe that he can take so prosperous a stronghold and not invoke the wrath of Lady Alustriel?"

"Did Silverymoon get involved when Obould's kin sacked Felbarr the last time?" Donnia gave a chuckle. "The Lady and her advisors have enough to keep them concerned within their own borders. Felbarr will be isolated, eventually. Perhaps Mithral Hall or even Citadel Adbar will choose to send aid, but it will not be substantial if we create chaos in the neighboring mountain ranges and out of the Trollmoors."

"I have little desire to do battle with dwarves in their tiny tunnels," the frost giant remarked.

"That is why you have Obould and his thousands."

"The dwarves will slaughter them."

Donnia smiled and shrugged, as if that notion hardly bothered her.

Gerti started to respond, but just nodded her agreement.

Donnia held her smile, thinking that this was going quite well. Donnia and her companions had stumbled upon the situation at exactly the right time. The old Grayhand, Jarl Orel of the frost giants, was very near death, by all accounts, and his daughter was anxious to assume his mantle. Gerti was possessed of tremendous hubris, for herself and her race. She considered frost giants the greatest race of Faerun, destined to dominate. Her pride and racism exceeded even that Donnia had seen from the matron mothers of her home city, Ched Nasad.

That made Gerti an easy mark indeed.

"How fares the Grayhand?" Donnia asked, wanting to keep Gerti's appetite whetted.

"He cannot speak, nor would he make any sense if he did. His reign is at its end in all ways but formal."

"But you are ready," Donnia assured the already self-assured giantess. "You, Dame Gerti Orelsdottr, will bring your tribes to the pinnacle of their glory, and woe to all of those who stand against you."

Gerti finally sat down upon her carved throne, resting back, but with her chin thrust high and strong, a pose of supreme pride.

Donnia kept her smile to herself.

"I hate them damn giants as much as I hate them damn dwarves," Urlgen proclaimed when he and the others were out of Gerti's caves. "I'd spit in Gerti's face, if I could reach it!"

"You keeps you words to youself," Obould scolded. "You said them

giants helped in you's raid—didn't you like their bouncing boulders? Think it'll be easier like going after dwarf towers without those boulders softening them up?"

"Then why is we fighting the damn dwarves?" another of the group dared to ask.

Obould spun and punched him in the face, laying him low. So much for that debate.

"Well, let's see how much them giants'll be helping us then," Urlgen pressed. "Let's get them all out on a raid and flatten the buildings aboveground at Mirabar!"

A couple of the others bristled and nodded eagerly at that thought.

"Need I remind you of the course we have chosen?" came a voice from the side, very different from the guttural grunting of the orcs, more melodic and musical, though hardly less firm. The group turned to see Ad'non Kareese step out of the shadows, and many had to blink to even recognize how completely the drow had been hidden just a moment before.

"Well met, Sneak," said Obould.

Ad'non bowed, taking the compliment in stride.

"We met the big witch," Obould started to explain.

"So I heard." said the drow, and before Obould could begin to elaborate, Ad'non added, "All of it."

The orc king gave a chortle. "Course you's did. Sneak. Can get anywhere you wants, can't you?"

"Anywhere and anytime," the drow replied with all confidence.

Once he had been among the finest scouts of Ched Nasad, a thief and assassin with a growing reputation. Of course, that distinction had eventually led him to an ill-fated assassination attempt upon a rather powerful priestess, and the resulting fallout had put Ad'non on the road out of the city and out of the Underdark.

Over the past twenty years, he and his Ched Nasad associates, fellow assassin Donnia Soldou, the priestess Kaer'lic Suun Wett, and the newcomer, a clever fellow named Tos'un Armgo sent astray in the disastrous Menzoberranzan raid on Mithral Hall, had found more fun and games on the surface than ever they had known in their respective cities and more freedom.

In Ched Nasad and in Menzoberranzan, the four had been hire-ons and pawns for the greater powers, except for Kaer'lic who had been

fashioning a mighty reputation among the priestesses of the Spider Queen before disaster had blocked her path. Up among the lesser races, the four acted with impunity, ever with the threat that they were the advance for great drow armies, ready to sweep in and eliminate all foes. Even proud Obould and prouder Gerti Orelsdottr would shift uncomfortably in their respective seats at the slightest hint of that catastrophe.

"So we push up that course a bit," Urlgen argued against the drow. "Choice ain't you'ses. Sneak. Choice is Obould's."

"And Gerti's," the drow reminded.

"Bah, we can fool the witch easy enough!" Urlgen declared, and the others nodded and grunted their agreement.

"Fool her into bringing about complete destruction for her designs and for your father's," the drow calmly replied, ending the cheering session. Ad'non looked at Obould as he continued, "Small forays alone, for a long while. You asked my opinion, and I have not wavered on it for a moment. Small forays and with restraint. We draw them out, little by little." "That might be taking years!" Urlgen protested. Ad'non nodded, conceding the point.

"The minor skirmishes are expected and even accepted as an unavoidable byproduct of the environment by all the folk of the region," he explained, as he had so often in the past. "A caravan intercepted here, a village sacked there, and none will get overly excited, for none will understand the scope of it. You can tickle the gold sacks of the dwarves, but prod your spear too deeply, move them beyond a reasonable response, and you will unite the tribes."

He stared hard at Obould and continued, "You will awaken the beast. Think of the three dwarf strongholds joined in alliance, supplying each other with goods, weapons and even soldiers through their connecting tunnels. Think of the battle you will face in reclaiming the Citadel of Many Arrows if Adbar lends them several thousand shield dwarves and Mithral Hall outfits them all in the finest of metals. Why, Mithral Hall is the smallest of the three, yet she fended the army of Menzoberranzan!"

His emphasis on that last word, a name to strike terror into the hearts of any who were not of Menzoberranzan—and in the hearts of a good many who were of the city—had a couple of the orcs shuddering visibly.

"And through it all, we must take care, wise Obould, not to invoke the wrath of Silverymoon, whose Lady is a friend to Mithral Hall," the drow advisor went on. "And we must never allow an alliance to form between Mithral Hall and Mirabar."

"Bah, Mirabar hates them newcomers!"

"True enough, but they do not fear the newcomer dwarves in any but economic ways," Ad'non explained. "They will fear you and Gerti with their very lives, and such fear makes for unexpected alliances."

"Like the one between me and Gerti?"

Ad'non considered that for a moment, then shook his head.

"No, you and Gerti understand that you'll both move closer to your goals by allying. You are not afraid, of course."

"Course not!"

"Nor should you be. Play the game as we've discussed, as you and I have planned it all along, my friend Obould." He moved closer and whispered so that only the orc king could hear. "Show why you are above the others of your race, why you alone might gather a strong enough alliance to reclaim your rightful citadel."

Obould straightened and nodded, then turned to his kinfolk and recited the litany that Ad'non had taught him for months and months.

"Patience.."

"I'll not even bother to ask how your parlay with Obould progressed," priestess Kaer'lic Suun Wett remarked when Ad'non finally arrived at the comfortable, richly adorned chamber off a deep, deep tunnel below the southernmost spurs of the Spine of the World, not far from the caverns of Shining White, though much deeper.

Kaer'lic was the most striking member of the group. Heavyset, which was very unusual for a dark elf, and with broad shoulders, Kaer'lic had lost her right eye in a battle when she was a young priestess nearly a century before. Rather than have the orb magically restored, the stubborn Kaer'lic had replaced it with a black, many-chambered eye pried from the carcass of a giant spider. She claimed the orb was functional and allowed her to see things that others could not, but her three friends knew the truth of it. Many times, Ad'non and Donnia had sneaked up on Kaer'lic's right side, completely undetected, for no better reason than to tease her.

Still, the two assassins had gone along with Kaer'lic's ruse to their newest companion for many tendays. Spiders, after all, made quite an impact on dark elves from Menzoberranzan, and Tos'un Armgo had remained suitably impressed for a long time, until Ad'non had finally let him in on the ruse—and that, only after the three long-term friends had come to understand that Tos'un was one who could be trusted.

Ad'non shrugged in response to Kaer'lic's remarks, telling the other three that it had gone exactly as they would all expect when dealing with an orc. Indeed, Obould was more cunning than his kind, but that wasn't really saying much by drow standards.

"Dame Gerti holds the course, as well," Donnia added. "She believes it to be her destiny to rule the Spine of the World and will follow any course that may lead her to that place."

"She might be right," Tos'un put in. "Gerti Orelsdottr is a smart one, and between Obould's masses and the stirring trolls from the moors, enough chaos might be created for Gerti to step forward."

"And we will be ready to profit, in material and in pleasure, whatever the outcome," Donnia said with a wry grin, one that was matched by her three friends.

'It amazes me that I ever considered returning to Menzoberranzan," Tos'un Armgo remarked, and the others laughed.

Donnia and Ad'non were staring rather intently at each other when that laughter abated. The lovers had been apart for several days, after all, and both of them found such talk of conquest, chaos and profit quite stimulating.

They practically ran out of the chamber to their private room.

Kaer'lic howled with renewed laughter as they departed, shaking her head. She was always more pragmatic about such needs, never reducing them to overpowering levels, as the two assassins often did.

"They will die in each others' arms," she remarked to Tos'un, "coupling and oblivious to the threat."

"There are worse ways to go, I suppose," the son of House Barrison Del'Armgo replied, and Kaer'lic laughed again.

These two were part-time lovers as well, but only part time, and not for a long, long time. Kaer'lic wasn't really interested in a partner, in truth, far preferring a slave to use as a toy.

"We should expand these raids to the Moonwood," she remarked lewdly. "Perhaps we could convince Obould to capture us a couple of young moon elves."

"A couple?" Tos'un said skeptically. "A handful would be more fun."

Kaer'lic laughed yet again.

Tos'un leaned back into the thick furs of his divan, wondering again how he could have ever even considered returning to the dangers discomforts and subjugation that he, as a male, could not avoid, along the dark avenues of Menzoberranzan.

CHAPTER 2 NOT WELCOME

The wind howled down at them from the peaks to the north, the towering snow-capped Spine of the World Mountains. Just a bit farther to the south, along the roads out of Luskan, spring was in full bloom, fast approaching summer, but at the higher elevations, the wind was rarely warm, and the going rarely easy.

Yet it was precisely this course that Bruenor Battlehammer had chosen as the route back to Mithral Hall, walking east within the shadow of the mountains. They had left Icewind Dale without incident, for none of the highwaymen or solitary monsters that often roamed the treacherous roads would challenge an army of nearly five hundred dwarves! A storm had caught them in the pass through the mountains, but Bruenor's hearty people had trudged on, turning east even as Drizzt and his other unsuspecting friends were expecting to soon see the towers of Luskan in the south before them.

Drizzt had asked Bruenor about the unexpected course change, for though this was a more direct route, it certainly wouldn't be much quicker and certainly not less hazardous.

In reply to the logical question, Bruenor had merely snorted, "Ye'll see soon enough, elf!"

The days blended into tendays and the raucous hand put more than

a hundred and fifty difficult miles behind them. Their days were full of dwarven marching songs, their nights full of dwarven partying songs.

To the surprise of Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar, Bruenor moved Regis by his side soon after the eastward turn. The dwarf was constantly leaning in and talking to the halfling, while Regis bobbed his head in reply.

"What's the little one know that we don't?" Catti-brie asked the drow as they flanked the caravan to the north, looking back on the third wagon, Bruenor's wagon, to see Bruenor and Regis engaged in one such discussion.

Drizzt just shook his head, not really sure of how to read Regis at all anymore.

"Well, I'm thinking we should find out," Catti-brie added, seeing no response forthcoming.

"When Bruenor wants us to know all the details, he will tell us," Drizzt assured her, but her smirk made it fairly clear that she wasn't buying into that theory.

"We've turned the both of them from more than one ill-aimed scheme," she reminded. "Are ye hoping to find out right before the cataclysm?"

The logic was simple enough, and in considering the pair on the wagon, and the fact that raucous and none-too-brilliant Thibbledorf Pwent was also serving Bruenor in an advisory position, the drow could only chuckle.

"And what are we to do?"

"Well, hot pokers won't get Bruenor talking, even against a birthday surprise," Catti-brie reasoned, "but I'm thinking that Regis has a bit lower tolerance."

"For pain?" Drizzt asked incredulously.

"Or for tricks, or for drink, or for whatever else might work," the woman explained. "Think I'll be getting Wulfgar to carry the little rat to us when Bruenor's off about other business tonight."

Drizzt gave a helpless laugh, understanding well the perils that awaited poor Regis, and glad that Bruenor had taken the halfling into his confidence and not him.

As with most nights, Drizzt and Catti-brie set a camp off to the side of the gathering of dwarves, keeping watch, and even more than that, keeping a bit of their sanity aside from Thibbledorf Pwent's antics and the Gutbuster's training. Pwent did come over and join the pair this night, though, walking right in and plopping down on a boulder to the side of their fire.

He looked at Catti-brie, even reached up to touch her long auburn hair.

"Ah, ye're looking good, girl," he said, and he dropped a sack of some muddy compound at her feet, "Ye be putting that on yer face each night afore ye go to sleep."

Catti-brie looked down at the sack and its slimy contents, then up at Drizzt, who was sitting on a log and resting back against a rock facing, his hands tucked behind his head, brushing wide his thick shock of white hair so that it framed his black-skinned face and his purple eyes. Clearly, the battlerager amused him.

"On me face?" Catti-brie asked, and Pwent's head bobbed eagerly. "Let me guess. It will make me grow a beard."

"Good and thick one," said Pwent. "Red to match yer hair, I'm hoping. Oh, a fiery one ye'll be!"

Catti-brie's eyes narrowed as she looked over at Drizzt once more, to see him choking back a chuckle.

"Make sure ye're not putting it up too high on yer cheeks, girl," the battlerager went on, and now Drizzt did laugh out loud. "Ye'll look like that durned Harpell werewolf critter!"

As he finished the thought, Pwent sighed and rolled his eyes longingly. It was well known that the battlerager had begged Bidderdoo Harpell, the werewolf, to bite him so that he too might be afflicted by the ferocious disease. The Harpell had wisely refused.

Before the wild dwarf could continue, the trio heard a movement to the side, and a huge form appeared. It was Wulfgar the barbarian, nearly seven feet tall, with a broad and muscled chest. He was wearing a beard to match his blond hair, but it was neatly trimmed, showing the renewed signs of care that had given all the friends hope that Wulfgar had at last overcome his inner demons. Ho carried a large sack over one shoulder, and something inside of it was squirming.

"Hey, what'cha got there, boy?" Pwent howled, hopping up and bending in curiously.

"Dinner," Wulfgar replied. The creature in the sack moaned and squirmed more furiously.

Pwent rubbed his hands together eagerly and licked his lips.

"Only enough for us," Wulfgar said to him. "Sorry."

"Bah, ye can spare me a leg!"

"Just enough for us," Wulfgar said again, putting his hand on Pwent's forehead and pushing the dwarf back to arm's length. "And for me to bring some leftovers to my wife and child. You will have to go and dine with your kin, I fear."

"Bah!" the battlerager snorted. "Ye ain't even kilt it right!"

With that, he stepped up and balled his fist, retracting his arm for a devastating punch.

"No!" Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie all yelled together.

The woman and the drow leaped up and rushed in to intercept. Wulfgar, spinning aside, put himself between the battlerager and the sack. As he did, though, the sack swung out wide and bounced off the rock facing, drawing another groan from within.

"We're wanting it fresh," Catti-brie explained to the befuddled battlerager.

"Fresh? It's still kicking!"

Catti-brie rubbed her hands together eagerly and licked her lips, mimicking Pwent's initial reaction.

"It is indeed!" she said happily.

Pwent backed off a step and put his hands firmly on his hips, staring hard at the woman, then he exploded into laughter.

"Ye'll make a good dwarf, girl!" he howled.

He slapped his hands against his thighs and bounded away, back down the slope toward the main encampment.

As soon as he was gone, Wulfgar swung the sack over his shoulder and bent low, gently spilling its contents: one very irate, slightly overweight halfling dressed in fine traveling clothes, a red shirt, brown vest, and breeches.

Regis rolled on the ground, quickly regained his footing, and frantically brushed himself off.

"Your pardon," Wulfgar offered as graciously as he could while stifling a laugh.

Regis glared up at him then hopped over and kicked him hard in the shin—which of course hurt Regis's bare toes more than it affected the mighty barbarian.

"Relax, my friend," Drizzt bade him, stepping over and draping his arm over the halfling's shoulder. "We needed to speak with you, that is all."

"And asking is beyond your comprehension?" Regis was quick to point out.

Drizzt shrugged, "It had to be done secretly," he explained. Even as the words left his mouth Regis began to shrink back, apparently catching on.

"Ye been talking a lot with Bruenor of late," Catti-brie piped in, and Regis shrank back even more. "We're thinking that ye should be sharing some of his words with us."

"Oh, no," Regis replied, patting his hands in the air before him, warding them away. "Bruenor's got his plans spinning, and he will tell you when he wants you to know."

"Then there is something?" Drizzt reasoned.

"He is returning to Mithral Hall to become the king," the halfling replied. "That is something, indeed!"

"Something more than that," said Drizzt. "I see it clearly in his eyes, in the bounce of his step."

Regis shrugged. "He's glad to be going home."

"Oh, is that where we're going?" Catti-brie asked.

"You are. T am going farther," the halfling admitted. "To the Herald's Holdfast," he explained, referring to a renowned library tower located east of Mithral Hall and northwest of Silverymoon, a place the friends had visited years before, when they were trying to locate Mithral Hall so that Bruenor could reclaim the place. "Bruenor has asked me to gather some information for him."

"About what?" asked the drow.

"Gandalug and Gandalug's time, mostly," Regis answered, and while it seemed to the other three that he was speaking truthfully, they also sensed that he was speaking incompletely.

"And what might Bruenor be needing that for?" asked Catti-brie.

"I'm thinking that's a question ye should be asking Bruenor," came the gruff reply of a familiar voice, and all four turned to see Bruenor stride into the firelight. "Ye go grabbing Rumblebelly there, when all ye had to do was ask meself."

"And ye'd be telling us?" Catti-brie asked.

"No," said the dwarf, and three sets of eyes narrowed immediately. "Bah!" Bruenor recanted. "Hoping to surprise ye three is hoping for the impossible!"

"Surprise us with what?" asked Wulfgar.

"An adventure, boy!" the dwarf howled. "As great an adventure as ye've ever knowed."

"I've known a few," Drizzt warned, and Bruenor howled.

"Sit yerselfs down," the dwarf bade them, motioning to the fire, and all five sat in a circle about the blaze.

Bruenor pulled a bulging pack off his back. After dropping it to the ground he pulled it open to reveal packets of food and bottles of ale and wine.

"Though ye're fancying fresher food," he said with a wink to Catti-brie, "I was thinking this'd do for now."

They sorted out the meal, and Bruenor hardly waited for them to begin eating before he launched into his tale, telling them that he was truly glad they had pressed the issue, for it was a tale, a promise of adventure, that he desperately wanted to share.

"We'll be making the mouth o' the Valley of Khedrun tomorrow," he explained. "Then we're turning south across the vale, to the River Mirabar, and to Mirabar herself."

"Mirabar?" Catti-brie and Drizzt echoed in unison, and with equal skepticism.

It was hardly a secret that the mining city of Mirabar was no supporter of Mithral Hall, which threatened their business interests.

"Ye're knowing Dagnabbit?" Bruenor asked, and the friends all nodded. "Well, he's a few friends there who'll be giving us some information that we're wanting to hear."

The dwarf paused and hopped up, glancing all around into the darkness as if searching for spies

"Ye got yer cat about, elf?" the red-bearded dwarf asked.

Drizzt shook his head.

"Well, get her here, if ye can," Bruenor bade him. "Send her out about and tell her to drag in any who might overhear."

Drizzt looked to Catti-brie and to Wulfgar, then reached into his belt pouch and brought forth an onyx figurine of a panther.

"Guenhwyvar," he called softly. "Come to me, friend."

A gray mist began to swirl around the figurine, growing and thickening, gradually mirroring the shape of the idol. The mist solidified quickly, and the huge black panther Guenhwyvar stood there, quietly and patiently waiting for Drizzt's instructions.

The drow bent low and whispered into the panther's ear, and Guenhwyvar bounded away, disappearing into the blackness.

Bruenor nodded. "Them Mirabar boys're mad about Mithral Hall," he said, which wasn't news to any of them. "They're looking for a way to get back an advantage in the mining trade."

The dwarf looked around again, then bent in very close, motioning for a huddle.

"They're looking for Gauntlgrym," he whispered.

''What is that?" Wulfgar asked.

Catti-brie looked equally perplexed, though Drizzt was nodding as if it was all perfectly logical.

"The ancient stronghold of the dwarves," Bruenor explained. "Back afore Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar. Back when we were one big clan, back when we named ourselves the Delzoun."

"Gauntlgrym was lost centuries ago," Drizzt put in. "Many centuries ago. Beyond the memory of any living dwarves."

"True enough," Bruenor said with a wink. "Now that Gandalug's gone to the Halls of Moradin."

Drizzt's eyes widened — so did those of Catti-brie and Wulfgar.

"Gandalug knew of Gauntlgrym?" the drow asked.

"Never saw it, for it fell afore he was born," Bruenor explained.

"But," he added quickly, as the hopeful smiles began to fade, "when he was a lad the tales of Gauntlgrym were fresher in the mouths o' dwarves." He looked at each of his friends in turn, nodding knowingly. "Them Mirabar boys're looking for it under the Crags to the south. They're looking in the wrong place."

"How much did Gandalug know?" Catti-brie asked.

"Not much more than I knew about Mithral Hall when first we went a' lookin'," Bruenor admitted with a snort. "Less even. But it'll be an adventure worth making if we're finding the city. O, the treasures, I tell ye! And metal as good as anything ye've e'er seen!"

He went on and on about the legendary crafted pieces of the Gauntlgrym dwarves, about weapons of great power, armor that could turn any blade, and shields that could stop dragonfire.

Drizzt wasn't really listening to the specifics, though he was watching every movement from the fiery dwarf. By the drow's estimation, the adventure would be well worth the risks and hardships whether or not they ever found Gauntlgrym. He hadn't seen Bruenor this animated and excited in years, not since the first foray to find Mithral Hall.

As he looked around at the others, he saw the eager gleam in Catti-brie 's green eyes and the sparkle in Wulfgar's icy blue orbs—further confirmation to him that his barbarian friend was well on the road to recovery from the trauma of spending six years at the clawed hands of the demon Errtu. The fact that Wulfgar had taken on the responsibilities of husband and father, Delly and the baby never far from him even in their present camp, was all the more reassuring. Even Regis, who had no doubt heard this tale many times already along the road, leaned in, drawn to the dwarf's tales of dungeons deep and treasures magical.

It occurred to Drizzt that he should ask Bruenor why they all had to go to Mirabar, where they wouldn't likely be welcomed. Couldn't Dagnabbit go in alone or with a small group, less conspicuously? The drow held his thoughts, though, understanding it well enough. He hadn't been with Bruenor in Icewind Dale when the first reports of antagonism from Mirabar had been sent to him from King Gandalug. He and Catti-brie had been sailing the Sword Coast at that time, but when they had found Bruenor back in Icewind Dale, the dwarf had pointed it out more than once, a simmering source of anger.

Openly, the Council of Sparkling Stones, the ruling council of Mirabar, comprised of dwarves and men, spoke warmly of Mithral Hall, welcoming their brothers of Clan Battlehammer back to the region. Privately, though, Bruenor had heard over the years many reports of more subtle derogatory comments from sources close to the Council of Sparkling Stones and Elastul, the Marchion of Mirabar. Some of the plots that had caused Gandalug headaches had been traced back to Mirabar.

Bruenor was going there for no better reason than to look some of the folk of Mirabar straight in the eye, to make a proclamation that the Eighth King of Mithral Hall had returned as the Tenth King, and he was one a bit more clued in to the subterfuge of the present day politics of the wild north.

Drizzt just sat back and watched his friends' continuing huddle. The adventure had begun, it seemed, and it was one the drow believed he would truly enjoy.

Or would he?

For something else occurred to Drizzt then, a memory quite unexpected. He recalled his first visit to the surface, a supposed great adventure alongside his fellow dark elves. Images of the slaughter of the surface elves swirled through his thoughts, culminating in the memory of a little elf girl he had smeared with her own mother's blood, to make it appear as if she too had been mortally wounded. He had saved her that terrible day, and that massacre had, in truth, been the first real steps for Drizzt away from his vile kinfolk.

And, all these years later, he had killed that same elf child. He winced as he saw Ellifain again, across the room in the pirate cavern complex, mortally wounded and pleased by the thought that in sacrificing herself, she had taken Drizzt with her. On a logical level, the drow could surely understand that nothing that had happened that day was his fault, that he could not have foreseen the torment that would follow that rescued child all these decades.

But on another level, a deeper level, the fateful fight with the anguished Ellifain had struck a deep chord within Drizzt Do'Urden. He had left Icewind Dale full of anticipation for the open road, and indeed, he was glad to be with his friends, traveling the wilds, full of adventure and excitement.

But the keen edge of a purpose beyond material gain, beyond finding ancient kingdoms and ancient treasure, had been dulled. Drizzt had never fancied himself a major player in the events of the wider world. He had contented himself in the knowledge that his actions served those around him in a positive way. From his earliest days in Menzoberranzan, he had held an innate understand of the fundamental differences between good and evil, and he had always believed that he was a player for the side of justice and goodness.

But what of Ellifain?

He continued to listen to the excited talk around him and held fast his consenting smile, assuring himself that he would indeed enjoy this newest adventure.

He had to believe that.

There was nothing pretty about the open air city of Mirabar. Squat stone buildings and a few towers sat inside a square stone wall. Everything about the place spoke of efficiency and control, a no-nonsense approach to getting their work done.

To the sensibilities of a dwarf like Bruenor, that made Mirabar a place to be admired to a point, but to Drizzt and Catti-brie as they approached the city's northern gate, Mirabar seemed an unadorned blotch, uninteresting and unremarkable.

"Give me Silverymoon," Drizzt remarked to the woman as they walked along to the left of the dwarven caravan.

"Even Menzoberranzan's a prettier sight," Catti-brie replied, and Drizzt could only agree.

The guards at the north gate seemed an apt reflection of Mirabar's dour attitude. Four humans stood in pairs on opposite ends of sturdy metallic doors, halberds set on the ground and held vertically before them, silver armor gleaming in the early morning sun. Bruenor recognized the crest emblazoned on their tower shields, the royal badge of Mirabar, a deep red double-bladed axe with a pointed haft and a flaring, flat base, set on a black field. The approach of a huge caravan of dwarves, a veritable army, surely shook them all, but to their credit, they held their posture perfect, eyes straight ahead, faces impassive.

Bruenor brought his wagon around, moving to the front of the caravan, Pwent's Gutbusters running to keep their protective guard to either flank.

"Bring her right up afore 'em," Bruenor instructed his driver, Dagnabbit.

The younger, ye How-bearded dwarf gave a gap-toothed grin and urged his team on faster, but the Mirabar guards didn't blink.

The wagon skidded to a stop short of the closed doors and Bruenor stood up tall (relatively speaking) and put his hands on his hips.

"State your business. State your name," came a curt instruction from the inner guard on the right.

"Me business is with yer Council o' Sparkling Stones," Bruenor answered. "I'll be tellin' it to them alone."

"You will answer the appointed gate guard of Mirabar, visitor," the inner guard on the left hand side of the doors demanded.

"Ye think?" Bruenor asked. "And ye're wantin' me name? Bruenor Battlehammer's the name, ye durned fool. King Bruenor Battlehammer. Now ye go and run that name to yer council and we'll be seeing if they're to talk to me or not."

The guards tried to hold their posture and calm demeanor, but they did glance over at each other, hastily.

"Ye heared o' me?" Bruenor asked them. "Ye heared o' Mithral Hall?"

A moment later, one of the guards turned to the guard standing beside him and nodded, and that man produced a small horn from his belt and blew a series of short, sharp notes. A few moments later, a smaller hatch cunningly cut into the large portals, banged open and a tough-looking, many-scarred dwarf wearing a full suit of battered plate mail, ambled out. He too wore the badge of the city, emblazoned on his breastplate, as he carried no shield.

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere," Bruenor remarked. "And it does me old heart good to see that ye've a dwarf for a boss. Might be that ye' re not as stupid as ye look."

"Well met. King Bruenor," the dwarf said. "Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker at yer service." He bowed low. his black beard sweeping the ground.

"Well met, Torgar," Bruenor replied, offering a gracious bow of his own, something that he, as head of a nearby kingdom, was certainly not required to do. "Yer guards here serve ye well at blocking the way and better as fodder!"

"Trained 'em meself," Torgar responded.

Bruenor bowed again. "We're tired and dirty, though the last part ain't so bad, and looking for a night's stay. Might ye be opening the doors for us?"

Torgar leaned to one side and the other, taking a good look at the caravan, shaking his head doubtfully. His eyes went wide and he shook his head more vehemently when he glanced to his right, to see a human woman standing off to the side beside a drow elf.

"That ain't gonna happen!" the dwarf cried, pointing a stubby finger Drizzt's way.

"Bah, ye heared o' that one, and ye know ye have," Bruenor scolded. "The name Drizzt ringing any bells in yer thick skull?"

"It is or it ain't, and it ain't making no difference anyway," Torgar argued. "No damned drow elf's walkin' into me city. Not while I'm the Topside Commander of the Axe of Mirabar!"

Bruenor glanced over at Drizzt, who merely smiled and bowed deferentially.

"Not fair, but fair enough, so he's stayin' out," Bruenor agreed. "What

about me and me kin?"

"Where're we to put five hunnerd o' ye?" Torgar asked sincerely, correctly estimating the force's size. He held his large hands out helplessly to the side. "Could send a bunch to the mines, if we let anyone into the mines. And that we don't!"

"Fair enough," Bruenor replied. "How many can ye take?"

"Twenty, yerself included," Torgar answered.

"Then twenty it'll be." Bruenor glanced at Thibbledorf Pwent and nodded. "Just three o' yers," he ordered, "and me and Dagnabbit makes five, and we'll be adding Rumblebelly. ." He paused and looked at Torgar. "Ye got any arguing to do about me bringing a halfling?"

Torgar shrugged and shook his head.

"Then Rumblebelly makes six," Bruenor said to Dagnabbit and Pwent. "Tell th' others to pick fourteen merchants wanting to go in with some goods."

"Better to take me whole brigade," Pwent argued, but Bruenor was hearing none of it.

The last thing Bruenor wanted in this already tenuous circumstance was to turn a group of Gutbuster battleragers loose on Mirabar. In that event Mithral Hall and Mirabar would likely be at open war before the sun set.

"Ye pick the two goin' with ye, if ye're planning on going," Bruenor explained to Pwent, "and be quick about it."

A short while later, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker led the twenty dwarves through Mirabar s strong gate. Bruenor walked at the front of the column, right beside Torgar, looking every bit the road-wise, adventure-hardened King of Mithral Hall spoken of throughout the land. He kept his many-notched, single-bladed axe strapped on his back, but prominently displayed atop the foaming mug shield that was also strapped there. He wore his helmet, with one horn broken away, like a badge of courage. He was a king, but a dwarf king, a creature of pragmatism and action, not a flowered and prettily dressed ruler like those common among the humans and elves.

"So who's yer marchion these days?" he asked Torgar as they crossed into the city.

Torgar's eyes widened. "Elastul Raurym," he replied, "though it's no name ye need be thinking of."

"Ye tell him I'm wanting to talk with him," Bruenor explained, and Torgar's eyes widened even more.

"He's fillin' his meetings for the spring in the fall, for the summer in the winter," Torgar explained. "Ye can't just walk in and get an audience …"

Bruenor fixed the dwarf with a strong, stern gaze. "I'm not gettin' an audience," he corrected. "I'm granting one. Now, ye go and get a message to the marchion that I'm here for the talking if he's got anything worth hearing."

The sudden change in Bruenor's demeanor, now that the gates were behind him, clearly unsettled Torgar. His off-balance surprise fast shifted to a grim posture, eyes narrowing and staring hard at his fellow dwarf.

Bruenor matched that stare—more than matched it.

"Ye go an' tell him," he said calmly. "And ye tell yer council and that fool Sceptrana that I telled ye to tell him."

"Protocol. ."

"Is for humans, elves, and gnomes," Bruenor interrupted, his voice stern. "I ain't no human, I sure ain't no elf, and I'm no bearded gnome. Dwarf to dwarf, I'm talking here. If yerself came to me Mithral Hall and said ye needed to see me, ye'd be seeing me, don't ye doubt."

He finished with a nod, and dropped his hand hard on Torgar's shoulder. That little gesture, more than anything previous, seemed to put the sturdy warrior at ease. He nodded, his expression grim, as if he had just been reminded of something very important.

"I'll be telling him," he agreed, "or at least, Til be tellin' his Hammers to be tellin' him."

Bruenor smirked at that, and Torgar shuffled. Against the obvious disdain of the dwarf King of Mithral Hall, the inaccessibility of the Marchion of Mirabar to one of his trusted shield dwarf commanders did indeed seem a bit trite.

"I'll be tellin' him," Torgar said again, with a bit more conviction.

He led the twenty visitors away then to a place where they could stay the night, a large and unremarkable stone house with several sparsely furnished rooms.

"Ye can set up yer wagons and goods right outside," Torgar explained. "Many'll be comin' to see ye, I'm sure, 'specially for them little white trinkets ye got."

He pointed to one of the three wagons that had come in with the

visitors, its side panels tinkling with many trinkets as it bounced along the rough ground.

"Scrimshaw," Bruenor explained. "Carved from knucklehead trout. Me little friend here's good at it."

He motioned to Regis, who blushed and nodded.

"Ye make any of the stuff on the wagon?" Torgar asked the half ling, and the dwarf seemed genuinely interested.

"A few pieces."

"Ye show me in the morning," Torgar asked. "Might that I'll buy a few."

With that, he nodded and left them, heading off to deliver Bruenor's invitation to the marchion.

"You turned him over quite well," Regis remarked.

Bruenor looked at him.

"He was ready for a fight when we first arrived," the halfling observed. "Now I believe he's thinking of leaving with us when we go."

It was an exaggeration, of course, but not ridiculously so.

Bruenor just smiled. He had heard from Dagnabbit of many curses and threats being hurled against Mithral Hall from Mirabar, and surprisingly (or not so, when he thought about it), more seemed to be coming from the dwarves of Mirabar than from the humans. That was why Bruenor had insisted on coming to this city where so many of his kinfolk were living in conditions and climate much more fitting to human sensibilities than to a dwarf's. Let them see a true dwarf king, a legend of their people come to life. Let them hear the words and ways of Mithral Hall. Maybe then, many of Mirabar's dwarves would stop whispering curses against Mithral Hall. Maybe then, the dwarves of Mirabar would remember their heritage.

"It's troubling ye that they wouldn't let ye in," Catti-brie remarked to Drizzt a short time later, the two of them on a high bluff to the east of the remaining dwarves and the caravan, overlooking the city of Mirabar.

Drizzt turned to regard her curiously, and saw sympathy etched on his dear friend's face. He realized that Catti-brie was reacting to his own wistful expression.

"No," he assured her. "There are some things I know I can never change, and so I accept them as they are."

"Yer face is saying different."

Drizzt forced a smile. "Not so," he said—convincingly, he thought.

But Catti-brie's returning look showed him that she saw better. The woman stepped back and nodded, catching on.

"Ye're thinking of the elf," she reasoned.

Drizzt looked away, back toward Mirabar, and said, "I wish we could have saved her."

"We're all wishing that."

"I wish you had given the potion to her and not to me."

"Aye, and Bruenor would've killed me," Catti-brie said. She grabbed the drow and made him look back at her, a smile widening on her pretty face. "Is that what ye're hoping?"

Drizzt couldn't resist her charm and the much-needed levity.

"It is just difficult," he explained. "There are times when I so wish that things could be different, that tidy and acceptable endings could find every tale."

"So ye keep trying to make them endings acceptable," Catti-brie said to him. "It's all ye can do."

True enough, Drizzt admitted to himself. He gave a great sigh and looked back to Mirabar and thought again of Ellifain.

Dagnabbit went out later that afternoon, the sun setting and a cold wind kicking up through the streets of the city. He didn't return until right before the dawn, and spent the day inside with Bruenor, discussing the political intrigue of the city and the implications to Mithral Hall, while the merchants and Regis worked their wagons outside.

Not many came to those wagons — a few dwarves and fewer humans — and most of those who did bargained for deals so poor that the Clan Battlehammer dwarves ultimately refused. The lone exception arrived soon after highsun.

"Well, show me yer work, halfling," Torgar bade Regis.

A dozen heads, those of Torgar's friends, bobbed eagerly behind him.

"Regis," the halfling explained, extending his hand, which Torgar took in a firm and friendly shake.

"Show me, Regis," the dwarf said. "Me and me friends'll need a bit o' convincing to be spendin' our gold pieces on anything ye can't drink!"

That brought a laugh from all the dwarves, Battlehammer and Mirabarran alike, and from Regis. The halfling was wondering if he should consider using his enchanted ruby necklace, with its magical powers of persuasion, to «convince» the dwarves of a good deal. He dismissed that thought almost immediately, though, reminding himself of how stubborn some dwarves could be against any kind of magic. Regis also considered the implications on the relationship between Mithral Hall and Mirabar should he get caught.

Still, soon enough it became apparent to Regis that he wouldn't need the pendant's influence. The dwarves had come well stocked with coin, and many of their friends joined them. The goods on the wagons, Regis's work and many other items, began to disappear.

From the window of the house, Bruenor and Dagnabbit watched the bazaar with growing satisfaction as dozens and dozens of new patrons, almost exclusively dwarves, followed Torgar's lead. They also noted, with a mixture of apprehension and hope, the grim faces of those others nearby, humans mostly, looking upon the eager and animated trading with open disdain.

"I'm thinking that ye've knocked a wedge down the middle o' Mirabar by coming here," Dagnabbit observed. "Might be that fewer curses'll flow from the lips o' the dwarfs here when we're on the road out."

"And more curses than ever'll be flowing from the mouths o' the humans," Bruenor added, and he seemed quite pleased by that prospect.

Quite pleased indeed.

A short while later, Torgar, carrying a bag full of purchases, knocked on the door.

"Ye're coming to tell me that yer marchion's too busy," Bruenor said as he answered the knock, pulling the door open wide.

"He's got his own business, it seems," Torgar confirmed.

"Bet he didn't answer yer knock," Dagnabbit remarked from behind Bruenor.

Torgar shrugged helplessly.

"How about yerself?" Bruenor asked. "And yer boys? Ye got yer own business, or ye got time to come in and share some drink?"

"Got no coins left."

"Didn't ask for none."

Torgar chewed his lip a bit.

"I can't be speaking as a representative o' Mirabar," he explained.

"Who asked ye to?" Bruenor was quick to reply. "A good dwarf's putting more into his mouth than he's spilling out. Ye got some tales to tell that I ain't heared, to be sure. That's more than worth the price o' some ale."

And so, with Torgar's agreement, they had a party that night in the unremarkable stone house on the windswept streets of Mirabar. More than a hundred Mirabarran dwarves made an appearance, with most staying for some time, and many sleeping right there on the floor.

Bruenor wasn't surprised to find the house surrounded by armed, grim-faced soldiers — humans, not dwarves — when daylight broke.

It was lime for Bruenor and his friends to go.

Torgar and his buddies would find a bit of trouble over this, no doubt, but when Bruenor looked back at him with concern, the tough old veteran merely winked and grinned.

"Ye find yer way to Mithral Hall, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker!" Bruenor called back to him as the wagons began to roll back out the gates. "Ye bring all the friends ye want, and all the tales ye can tell! We'll find enough food and drink to make ye belch, and a warm bed for as long as ye want to warm yer butt in it!"

No one on the caravan from Icewind Dale missed the scowls the human guards offered at those dangerous remarks.

"You do like to cause trouble, don't you," Regis said to Bruenor.

"The marchion was too busy for me, eh?" Bruenor replied with a smirk. "He'll be wishing he met with me, don't ye doubt."

Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar linked up with Bruenor's wagon when it and the others had rejoined the bigger caravan outside the city gates.

"What happened in there?" the dark elf asked.

"A bit o' intrigue, a bit o' fun," Bruenor replied, "and a bit o' insurance that if Mirabar e'er decides to openly fight against Mithral Hall, they'll be missing a few hunnerd o' their shorter warriors!”

CHAPTER 3 RETREAT INTO VICTORY

"Ye gotta keep running!" Nikwillig scolded Tred.

The wounded dwarf was slumped against a boulder, sweat pouring down his forehead and cheek, a grimace of pain on his face as he favored his torn leg.

"Got me in the knee," Tred explained, gasping between every syllable. "She's not holding me up no more. Ye run on and I'll give them puppies reason to pause!"

Nikwillig nodded, not in agreement of the whole proposal, but in determination concerning the last part. "Ye can't run, then we'll stop and fight," he answered.

"Bah!" Tred snorted at him. "Bunch o' worgs coming."

"Bunch o' dead worgs, then," Nikwillig answered with as much grit and determination as Tred had ever witnessed from him.

Nikwillig was a merchant more than a warrior, but now he was "showing his dwarf," as the old expression went. And in viewing this transformation, despite their desperate situation, Tred couldn't help but smile. Certainly if the situation had been reversed, with Nikwillig favoring a torn leg, Tred would never have considered leaving him.

"We're needin' a plan, then," said Tred.

"One using fire," Nikwillig agreed, and as he finished, a not-so-distant howl split the air and was answered several times. Still, in that chorus, both dwarves found a bit of hope.

"They're not coming in all together," Tred reasoned.

"Scattered," Nikwillig agreed.

An hour later, with the howling much closer, Tred sat beside a roaring fire, his burly arms crossed before him, his single-bladed, pointy-tipped axe set across his lap. His leg was glad of the reprieve, and his tapping foot alone betrayed his patient posture as he waited for the first of the worgs to make its appearance.

Off to the side, in the shadows behind a pile of boulders, an occasional crackle sounded. Tred winced and bit his bottom lip, hoping the rope held long enough against the weight of the withered but not yet felled pine.

When the first red eyes appeared across the way, Tred began to whistle. He reached to the side and scooped up a large pail of water, dumping it over himself.

"Ye likin' yer meat wet, puppies?" he called to the worgs.

As the huge wolves leaped into sight, he kicked at the closest edge of the fire, sending sparks and burning brands their way, momentarily stopping them. The action brought a cry of pain from the dwarf, as well. His torn leg could not hold him as he kicked out with the good one, and he went tumbling down to the side.

The chopped, dead tree came tumbling too, along the line the cunning dwarves had planned. The dried out old pine fell into the blazing fire, the wind of its descent sending sparks and dry needles rushing out to the side. More than one stung poor Tred, even igniting his beard a bit. He slapped the flickers out, stubbornly growled against his agony, and forced himself into a defensive posture.

Across the way, the rushing flames bit at the handful of worgs that had stepped into the clearing, sending them yelping and scrambling away, biting at sparking bits of fur. More came on, some even getting bit by the frenzy of their companions.

The dried pine went up in a fiery blaze between Tred and the wolves. but not before several dark forms leaped across or circumvented it.

Hands low on the handle, Tred slashed his axe across, batting aside the first flying wolf and sending it spinning to the ground. He reversed quickly, sliding his lead hand up the axe handle and setting it against his belt. As the second wolf leaped at him, it skewered itself on the axe's pointy tip. Tred didn't even try to slow that momentum, just held the flying wolf up high, guiding it over him. He brought his axe back at once, a ferocious downward chop that got the third charging worg right atop the head, smashing and splitting its skull, driving its front end down to the stone with its forelegs splaying out wide.

Nikwillig was beside him, sword in hand. When the next two worgs approached, one from either side, the dwarves turned back to back and fended the attacks.

Frustrated, the worgs circled. Nikwillig pulled a dagger from his belt and sent it flying into one worg's flank. The creature yelped and rushed off into the shadows.

Its companion quickly followed.

"First round's ours," Tred said, shying back as the heat from the burning tree became more intense.

"That pack's not wanting more of a fight," Nikwillig reasoned, "but more'll be catching us, don't ye doubt!"

He started away, pulling Tred along. Just out of the clearing, though, Tred stood taller and held his companion back.

"Unless we're catching them first," Tred said into Nikwillig's puzzled expression, when the merchant turned back to regard him. "Orcs're guiding the worgs," Tred reasoned. "No more orcs, no more worgs."

Nikwillig considered his friend for a few moments, looking mostly at Tred's torn leg, a clear indication that the pair could not hope to outdistance their pursuit. That seemed to leave only two choices before them.

And the first, leaving Tred behind, simply was not an option.

"Let's go find us some orcs," Nikwillig offered.

His smile was genuine.

So was Tred's.

They moved along as swiftly as they could, backtracking in a roundabout manner through the dark trees and rocky outcroppings, scrambling over uneven ground when they could find no trail. More often than not. Nikwillig was practically carrying Tred, but neither dwarf complained. The sound of worgs echoed all around them, but their diversion had worked, it seemed, throwing the pursuit off the scent and making more than a few of the creatures think twice about continuing their pursuit.

Sometime later, from a high vantage point, the dwarves spotted a few

small campfires in the distance. Not one large encampment, it seemed, but several smaller groups.

"Their mistake," Tred remarked, and Nikwillig thoroughly agreed.

With a new goal in sight, the dwarves moved along at an even swifter pace. When his leg locked up on him, Tred merely hopped, and if he fell to the stone, which he often did, the tough dwarf merely pulled himself up, spat in his hand to clean off the new scrape, and scrambled forward. Down along one clear patch of ground, they encountered another wolf, but even as it bared its teeth and hunched its back in a threatening posture, Tred launched his axe into its flank, laying it low. Nikwillig was quick to the spot, finishing the beast before its yelps could alert the orc camp, which wasn't faraway.

Soon after, and with the eastern sky brightening in the first signs of dawn, the pair crept up a small dirt banking and peered through the gap between a tree trunk and a boulder. A small campfire burned beyond, with a trio of orcs sitting around it and several more sleeping nearby. A single, injured worg sat beside the trio, snarling, growling, licking its wounds, and turning a hateful eye upon one of the orcs whenever it offered a berating curse at the inability of the worg and its companions to catch the fleeing dwarves.

Nikwillig put a finger to his pursed lips and motioned for Tred to stay put. He slipped off to the side, taking full advantage of the obvious fact that the confident orcs weren't expecting any unannounced visitors.

Tred watched his progress with a nod and a grin as Nikwillig belly-crawled to the edge of the encampment, putting his knife to fast work on one, then a second, sleeping orc. The observant dwarf saw the worg's head come up fast, though, and so he knew the game was up. With all the strength he could muster, Tred pulled himself up between the boulder and the tree.

"Well, ye wanted me, and so ye found me!" he roared.

The trio of orcs, and the worg, leaped up and gave a shout. Their third sleeping companion similarly started, but Nikwillig was already beside it, laying it low before it could even begin to respond.

The closest orc brandished a huge axe and charged headlong at Tred, coming in with a fancy, spinning maneuver that showed the creature was no novice with the weapon. But neither was he a profound thinker, obviously, for when Tred lifted his hand and hurled the stone he had picked up when he had announced himself, the orc was caught completely by surprise, and taken right in the face. The stunned orc stumbled forward, and Tred's swinging battle-axe promptly swatted it aside.

The other two orcs glanced around, only then realizing the devious work of Nikwillig, and the presence of the second dwarf.

"Two against two," Nikwillig said to them in the grunting Orcish tongue.

"We got wolfie!" one started to respond, but the battered worg apparently didn't agree, for it darted out of the camp and ran yelping along the dark trails.

One of the orcs tried to take the same course, leaping off to the side. Tred didn't hesitate, launching his axe at the fleeing creature. The spinning weapon didn't miss, but neither did it fully connect, tripping up the orc and slowing it as the handle tangled between its legs, but not hurting it much at all.

The second orc, seeing the obviously wounded dwarf standing there, apparently unarmed, howled and lifted its jagged sword. It charged in hard.

Nikwillig knew he couldn't get to Tred in time, so he went for the fallen orc first. Leaping upon the creature even as it started to rise, he bore it to the ground beneath his heavy boots. Nikwillig stomped and stabbed with his sword, trading a stinging hit from the orc's spear as it came around in exchange for a clear opening at the creature's chest. Nikwillig's shoulder stung from the stab, to be sure, but his sword opened the orc from breast to belly.

He heard Tred crying out for his brother then, with grunts between each shout. Nikwillig turned, expecting to see his friend in dire straits.

He let his weapon slide low, for Tred had the situation, and the orc, well in hand. He gripped the orc by the wrists, holding the creature's arms up high and out wide, and after every cry for his lost brother, Tred snapped his head forward and yanked the orc's arms out wider, the pair connecting forehead to face with each jolt.

The first few belts sounded loud and solid, bone on bone, but each succeeding smash made a crunchier sound, as if Tred was driving his forehead into a pile of dry twigs.

"I think ye can put it down now," Nikwillig remarked dryly after a few more thumps, the orc having long gone limp.

Tred grabbed the battered, dying creature by the collar with one hand and slapped his other hand hard into the orc's groin. A heave and a twist had the orc high over the powerful dwarf's head. With another call for his lost brother, Tred launched the orc down the bank behind him, to crash hard against a rock below.

"Lots of supplies," Nikwillig remarked, hopping about the camp.

"Damn orc sticked me," Tred replied.

Only then did his companion notice a new wound on the sturdy dwarf, a bright line of blood running from the side of Tred's chest. Nikwillig started for his companion, but Tred waved him back.

"Ye gather the supplies and we'll get going," he explained. "I'll dress it meself."

He did just that, and the pair were on their way soon after, Tred grunting in pain with every step, but otherwise offering not the slightest complaint.

He had lost a bucket of blood or more, and every time his foot slipped on a loose rock, the resulting lurch opened his newest wound anew, moistening his side with fresh blood. Still Tred didn't complain, nor did he slow Nikwillig's brisk pace. Their turn and attack had daunted the pursuit, it seemed, for few howls came rolling out to them on the night winds, and none of those were very close.

When Tred and Nikwillig crested a high ridge and looked far down upon a distant village—just a cluster of houses, really — they looked to each other with concern.

"We go in there and we might bring a horde o' orcs and wolfies on 'em," Tred reasoned.

"And if we don't go in, ye're gonna slow, and slow some more," Nikwillig replied. "We'll not be making Mithral Hall anytime soon, if we can even find our way to the place."

"Ye think they're knowin' how to fight?" Tred asked, looking back to the village.

"They're living in the wild mountains, ain't they?"

Simple enough, and true enough, and so Tred just gave a shrug and followed Nikwillig along the descending trail.

A wall of piled stones as tall as a man surrounded the cluster of houses,

but it wasn't until the pair got very close that they noted any sentries. Even the two humans—a man and a women—who finally pecked over the wall to call out to them didn't seem as if they were formal sentries. It was as if they simply happened to be walking by and noticed the dwarves.

"What are you two about?" came the woman's call.

"We'd be about to fall, I'd be guessin'," Nikwillig answered. He propped Tred up a bit to accentuate his point. "Ye got a warm bed and a bit o' hot stew for me injured kinfolk here?"

As if all of his energy had been given in the march, and his stubborn mind finally allowed his body the chance to rest, Tred fell limp and collapsed to the ground. Nikwillig guided him down as softly as possible.

There was no gate on that side of the village, but the woman and man came right out, scrambling over the wall and rushing to the dwarves. They, particularly the woman, went to work inspecting the injured dwarf, but they also both looked past the two dwarves, as if they expected an army of enemies to be chasing the battered duo in.

"You from Mithral Hall?" the man asked.

"Felbarr," Nikwillig answered. "We was headin' for Shallows when we got hit."

"Shallows?" the woman echoed. "Long way."

"Long chase."

"What hit you? Ores?" asked the man.

"Orcs an' giants."

"Giants? Haven't seen any hill giants about in a long time."

"Not hill giants. Blue-skinned dogs. Lookin' pretty and hittin' ugly. Frost giants."

Both the man and woman looked up at him in concern, their eyes going wide. The folk of this region were not unfamiliar with trouble concerning frost giants. The old Grayhand, Jarl Orel, hadn't always kept his mighty people deep within the mountains over the decades, though thankfully, the frost giant forays hadn't been numerous. Still, any fight in any part of the area that included frost giants, perhaps the most formidable enemy in all the region next to the very occasional dragon, became news, dire news, the stuff of fireside tales and nightmares.

"Let's get him inside," the woman offered. "He's needing a bed and a hot meal. I can't believe he's even alive!"

"Bah, Tred's too ugly to die," Nikwillig remarked. Tred opened a weary eye and slowly lifted his hand toward his friend's face, as if to pat him thankfully.

But as he got close, he pressed his index finger under his thumb, and flicked Nikwillig under the nose. Nikwillig fell back, grabbing his nose, and Tred settled back down, closing his eyes, a slight smile spreading on his crusty, pale face.

The folk of the small village, Clicking Heels, multiplied their guarding duties many times over, with a third of the two hundred sturdy folk working at a time as sentries and scouts in eight hour shifts. After two days recuperating, Nikwillig joined in those duties, bolstering the line, and even helping to direct the construction of some additional fortification.

Tred, though, was in no position to take part in anything. The dwarf slept through the night and through the day. Even after a couple of days, he woke only long enough to devour a huge meal the good folk of Clicking Heels were kind enough to supply. There was one cleric in the town, as well, but he wasn't very skilled at the magical pan of his vocation and his healing skills, though he piled them on Tred, did little more good than the rest.

By the fifth day, Tred was up and about and starting to look and sound like his surly old self once more. By the end of a tenday, and still with no pursuit—giant, orc or worg—in sight, Tred was anxious to get moving.

"We're off to Mithral Hall," Nikwillig announced one morning, and the folk of Clicking Heels, humans all, seemed genuinely sorry to see the dwarves off. "We'll get King Gandalug to send some warriors up to check in on ye."

"King Bruenor, you mean," one of the villagers replied. "If he's returned to his folk from far off Icewind Dale."

"That right?"

"So we've heard."

Nikwillig nodded, offering a sigh for the loss of Gandalug before returning to his typically determined expression.

"King Bruenor then, as fair a dwarf as e'er there's been."

"I'm not sure he' II comply and send his soldiers, nor am! convinced that we need them," the man went on.

"Well, we'll tell him what's about and let him make up his own mind, then," Tred interjected. "That's why he's the king, after all."

That same morning, Tred and Nikwillig walked out of Clicking Heels, their steps strong once more, their packs full of supplies—good and tasty food and drink, not the slop they had stolen from the orcs. The folk had given them detailed directions to Mithral Hall as well, and so the dwarves were hopeful that they would find the end of this part of their journey soon enough. They intended to go to Mithral Hall, warn King Bruenor, or whomever it was leading their bearded kin, then get an escort from there through the connecting tunnels of the upper Underdark, back to their homes in Citadel Felbarr.

Even that wouldn't be the end of the road for Tred at least, for the tough dwarf had every intention of raising a band of warriors to head back out and avenge his brother and the others.

First things first, though, and that meant finding their way to Mithral Hall. Despite the directions, the dwarves found that no easy task in the winding and confusing mountain trails. A wrong turn along the narrow channels running through the stone often meant a long and difficult backtrack.

"It's the wrong damn stream," Tred grumbled one morning, the pair moving along steadily, but going south and east, whereas Mithral Hall was southwest of Clicking Heels.

"It'll wind back," Nikwillig assured him.

"Bah!" Tred snorted, shaking a fist at his companion.

They were lost and he knew it, and so did Nikwillig, whether he'd admit it or not. They didn't turn back, though. The road along the river had led them down a pair of very difficult descents that promised to be even more difficult climbs. To turn around after having gone so far seemed foolish.

They continued on, and when the stream took another unexpected dive over a waterfall, Tred grunted, grumbled, and climbed down the rocks to the side.

"Might be that it's time to think about going th' other way," Nikwillig offered.

"Bah!" was all that stubborn Tred would reply, and that grunt was exaggerated, for Tred hit an especially slick stone as he had waved his hand in a dismissive manner at Nikwillig.

He got down to the bottom faster at least.

They went on in silence after that and were looking about for a place to set camp when they crested one outcropping of huge cracked boulders to see the land fall away, wide and low before them, a huge valley running east and west.

"Big pass," Nikwillig remarked.

"One caravans might be using to get to Mithral Hall," Tred reasoned. "West it is!"

Nikwillig nodded, standing beside his companion, glad, as was Tred, to see that the going might be much easier the next day.

Of course, neither knew that they were standing on the northern rim of Fell Pass, the site of a great battle of old, where the very real and very dangerous ghosts of the vanquished lingered in great numbers.

CHAPTER 4 CONFLICTING LOYALTIES

The dwarf councilor, Agrathan Hardhammer, shifted uneasily in his seat as the volume around him increased along with the agitation of the others, all human, in the room.

"Perhaps you should have granted him an audience," said Shoudra Stargleam, the sceptrana of the city.

Shoudra's bright blue eyes flashed as she spoke, and she shook her head, as she always seemed to be doing, letting her long dark hair fly wide to either side. Her hair was often the subject of gossip among the women of the city, for though Shoudra was in her thirties and had lived for all her life in the harsh, windblown climate of Mirabar, it held the luster and shine that one might expect on the head of a girl half Shoudra's age. In all respects, the sceptrana was a beautiful creature, tall and lithe, yet with deceptively delicate features. Deceptive, because though she was ultimately feminine, Shoudra Stargleam was possessed of a solidity, a formidability, that rivaled the strongest of Mirabar's men.

The fat man sitting on the cushioned throne, the Marchion of Mirabar, smirked at her and waved his hands in disgust.

"I had, and have, more important matters to attend to than to see to the needs of an unannounced visitor," the marchion said, staring hard at Agrathan as he spoke, "even if that visitor is the King of Mithral Hall.

Besides, is it not your duty, and not mine own, to negotiate trade agreements?"

"King Bruenor did not come here for any such purpose, by any reports," Shoudra protested, drawing another wave of Marchion Elastul 's thick hands.

Elastul shook his head and looked about at his Hammers, his principal attendants, scarred old warriors all.

"Might that she should've met with Bruenor anyway," Djaffar, the leader of the group, remarked. He nudged the marchion's shoulder. "Shoudra's got a trick or two that could soften even a dwarf!"

The other three soldier-advisors and Marchion Elastul burst out in snickers at that. Shoudra Stargleam narrowed her blue eyes and assumed a defiant pose, crossing her arms over her chest.

To the side, Agrathan shifted again. He knew Shoudra could handle herself, and that she, like all the folk of Mirabar who had any access to Elastul, was used to the liberties of protocol often taken by the vulgar Hammers and by the marchion himself. His was an inherited position, unlike the elected councilors and sceptrana.

"He asked to see you, Marchion, not me and not the council," Shoudra reminded curtly, ending the snickers.

"And what am I to do with the likes of Bruenor Battlehammer?" Elastul replied. "Dine with him? Cater to him, and quietly explain to him that he will soon be irrelevant?"

Shoudra looked over at Agrathan plaintively, and the dwarf cleared his throat, drawing the marchion's attention.

"Ye wouldn't be doing well to underestimate Bruenor," Agrathan advised. "His boys're good at what they do."

"Irrelevant," Elastul said again, settling back comfortably. "That curiosity piece Gandalug is dead, may the stones powder his bones, and Bruenor is inheriting a kingdom on the decline."

Again, Shoudra looked over at Agrathan, this time wearing a doubting smirk, for she and the dwarf knew what was coming.

"More than two dozen metallurgists and alchemists." Elastul boasted. "I'm paying them well, and they'll be showing results soon enough!"

Agrathan lowered his eyes so that Elastul wouldn't see his doubting expression as the marchion went on to describe the most recent promises of those folks he had hired in an effort to strengthen the metal produced by Mirabar's mines. The metallurgists had been promising from the day they arrived, several years before, combinations of strength and flexibility beyond anything anyone in all the world could produce. Grand, and as far as Agrathan believed, empty claims all.

Agrathan hadn't worked the mines in over a century — since he had turned to the practice of preaching the word of Dumathoin—but as a priest of that dwarf god, a deity who was known as the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain, Agrathan firmly believed that the claims of the hired alchemists and metallurgists were not among those secrets. To Agrathan, if some magical way to enhance any metal wasn't among the secrets of Dumathoin, then it simply didn't exist.

The hired group was very good at what it did. What it did, as far as Agrathan was concerned, was keep the marchion curious and intrigued enough to keep the gold flowing, and that was all that was flowing. Mirabar boasted less than half the dwarves of Mithral Hall, just over two thousand, and several hundred of those were busy serving in the Axe. keeping the mines clear of monsters. The thousand who worked the mines could barely meet the quotas set out by the Council of Sparkling Stones each year and that from existing veins. Little exploration was being done at the deeper levels, where the dangers were greater, but so too were the true promises of better quality in the form of better ore.

The simple fact was that Mirabar couldn't afford to cut production long enough to seek out those better veins, so the marchion had fallen into the scam of these supposed specialists—with not a dwarf among them — who claimed to understand metals so well. Besides, to Agrathan's thinking, if there were such processes as the marchion believed, why hadn't they been put in practice centuries before? Why hadn't these metallurgists and alchemists reduced the dwarves of Mithral Hall, the dwarves of all the world, to positions of providing base material alone? They promised weapons, armor, and other metal goods strong enough to outshine anything Bruenor's folk might produce, and yet, if they knew of such secrets, if there were such secrets, then why weren't there weapons of legend that had been produced through such processes?

"Even if your specialists deliver their promises, we will still be far from making King Bruenor and Mithral Hall 'irrelevant'," Shoudra Stargleam replied, and Agrathan was glad that she was taking the lead. "They are out-producing us in volume more than three-to-two."

The marchion waved his hands at her. "There was nothing for me to say to Bruenor Battlehammer anyway. Why did he come here? Who invited him? Who asked. ." He ended with a derisive snort.

"Perhaps we should not have allowed him entrance," Shoudra remarked.

Agrathan looked up at Elastul, guessing correctly the dangerous glare the marchion would be offering to Shoudra at that moment. When word that King Bruenor was at Mirabar's gate had been passed along, it had been Elastul's decision to let Bruenor and the others in. None on the council, or the secptrana, had even been informed until the Clan Battlehammer dwarves had already set up their carts on Mirabar's streets.

"Yes, perhaps my faith in the loyalty of my citizens was misplaced," the marchion countered, harsh words aimed more at Agrathan, the dwarf knew, than at Shoudra. "I expected King Bruenor to find greater embarrassment than rejection by the ruler of the city. I expected the folk of Mirabar to know enough to not even bother with our guests."

Agrathan glanced over to see that the marchion was indeed staring directly at him as he spoke. No humans, after all, had gone to do business with Clan Battlehammer, only dwarves, and Agrathan was the highest-ranking dwarf in the city, the unofficial leader and voice of Mirabar's two thousand.

"Have you spoken with Master Hammerstriker?"

"What would ye have me say?" Agrathan asked.

While he was the accepted voice for the dwarves among the human leaders, that wasn't always the case among the Mirabarran dwarves themselves.

"I would have you remind Master Hammerstriker where his loyalties lie," the marchion replied. "Or where they should lie."

Agrathan worked hard to keep his expression placid, to hide the sudden storm welling inside of him. The loyalty of Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker could not be questioned. The crusty old warrior had served the marchion, and the marchion before him, and before him, and before him, and before him, and before him, for longer than any human in the city could remember, longer than the long dead parents of the dead parents of any human in the city could have remembered. Torgar had been among the leading soldiers charging along the tunnels of the upper Underdark against monsters more foul than anything any of the marchion's Hammers—those elite advisors selected supposedly because of their glorious veteran warrior status—had ever known. When the orc hordes attacked Mirabar, a hundred and seventeen years past, Torgar and a very few other dwarves had held the eastern wall strong against the assault, fending off the hordes while the bulk of Mirabar's warriors had been engaged on the western wall, against what had proven to be no more than a feint by the enemy. In scars, wounds, and cunning victories, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker had earned his position as a leader among the Axe.

But even to Agrathan the marchion's words rang with a bit of truth. It wasn't a question of loyalty, as far as Agrathan was concerned, but rather one of judgment. Torgar and his fellows had not understood the implications of trading with their rivals from Mithral Hall or from subsequently socializing with them.

With that, Agrathan and Shoudra left the agitated marchion, walking side by side along the outer corridors of the palace and out into the pale sunlight of the late afternoon. A chill breeze was blowing, a reminder to the pair that in Mirabar, winter was never far away.

"You will approach Torgar with a bit more gentleness than Marchion Elastul showed?" Shoudra asked the dwarf, her smile one of genuine amusement.

As sceptrana, Shoudra was involved in signing trade agreements. With the rise of Mithral Hall, she too had suffered, or at least her work had. Shoudra Stargleam had taken it more in stride than many others in the city, though, including many of the dwarves. To her, the way to beat Mithral Hall was to increase production and find better ore for better product. To her, the rise of a trading rival should be the catalyst to make Mirabar stronger.

"I'll tell Torgar and his boys what I can, but ye know that one, and know that not many can be telling Torgar anything."

"He is loyal to Mirabar," Shoudra stated, and though Agrathan nodded, the expression on his face showed that he wasn't so certain of that anymore.

Shoudra Stargleam caught that look and stopped, and put her hand on Agrathan's shoulder to stop him as well.

"Is he loyal to city or to race?" she asked. "Does he consider the marchion his true leader or King Bruenor of Mithral Hall?"

'Torgar's fought well for every marchion since before yer parents were born, girl," Agrathan reminded her.

Shoudra nodded, but like Torgar a moment earlier, she didn't seem overly convinced.

"They should not have gone to trade and drink with the visiting dwarves," Shoudra remarked.

She bustled her cloak in front of her and started on her way.

"Mighty temptations there. Good trade, good drink, and better stories. Are ye thinking that my folk aren't wanting to hear the Battle of Keeper's Dale? Are ye thinking that your own world would be a better place if the damn drow invaders had won at Mithral Hall?"

"Well, perhaps if" the dark elves had inflicted a bit more damage before they had been chased off…" Shoudra replied.

Agrathan snapped a scowl over her, but it was quickly defeated, for the woman was grinning mischievously even as she spoke the words.

"Bah!" Agrathan snorted.

"So by your reasoning, Mirabar owes a debt to Mithral Hall for their victory against the dark elves?" Shoudra asked.

Agrathan paused for a moment and thought long and hard on that one. In the end, he shrugged, not willing to make a commitment.

Shoudra grinned again and nodded, for it was obvious that the dwarf's heart was giving one answer and his pragmatic head, the part that owed loyalty to Marchion Elastul and Mirabar, was giving another. H wasn't a laughing matter, though. In fact, the notion that Agrathan, a major voice on the Council of Sparkling Stones, was apparently holding mixed feelings concerning Mithral Hall incited more than a little trepidation in the sceptrana. Agrathan had been one of the strongest voices of opposition to Mithral Hall, often relating the words of his more vocal dwarf constituents who wanted covert action to be taken against Clan Battlehammer. Agrathan had once outlined a plan for infiltrating the neighboring kingdom and slipping cooler-burning charcoal into their stores, weakening their smelting and shaping work.

Many times during council meetings Agrathan Hardhammer had himself exploded in tirades against the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer, but having seen them face-to-face, Shoudra was seeing the true depth of his, and his people's, resolve.

'Tell me, Agrathan, was that famous drow elf accompanying King

Bruenor's caravan?"

"Drizzt Do'Urden? Yes, he was there, but they didn't let him into the city."

Shoudra looked at him curiously. Drizzt had made quite a reputation for himself in the North, even before his actions against his own people when they had attacked Mithral Hall. By all accounts, he was a hero.

"The Axe weren't about to let a cursed dark elf walk the streets, whatever his name," Agrathan said firmly, "but he was there. Torgar and some others saw him and that human girl that Bruenor is calling his own, along with that human boy that Bruenor is calling his own, off to the side, watching it all."

"Was he as handsome as they say?" Shoudra asked.

Agrathan turned an even bigger scowl over her, twisted into an expression of skepticism.

"He's a drow, ye damned fool!"

Shoudra Stargleam merely laughed, and Agrathan shook his hairy head.

They stopped their walk then, for they had come to Undercity Square, an open area between three buildings, one of them a large sectioned building where Shoudra kept her apartment. In the center of the triangular area was a descending stairway, which led to the most heavily guarded room in all of" Mirabar, the main entrance to the Undercity—the real city as far as Agrathan and his kin were concerned — where the real work went on.

Shoudra bid the dwarf farewell and entered her house. Agrathan stood at the top of the stairway for a long, long while, more uncomfortable than he had ever been before entering the domain of Mirabar's two thousand dwarves. It was his solemn duty to go and deliver the marchion's message to Torgar and the others, but Agrathan knew his kin well enough to understand that the words would cause more than a little anger and division among the dwarves. Their emotions ran the gamut concerning Mithral Hall. Many of the Mirabarran dwarves had even called for confiscation of any Mithral Hall caravan moving west of Clan Battlehammer's domain, knowing full well that such an action might mean open warfare between the two cities. Others quietly remarked that their ancestors had lived in Mithral Hall with King Bruenor's predecessors, and that it had been a good life, as good a life as any dwarf could ever want.

Agrathan snorted—a "dwarven sigh," he called it—and thumped his way down the stairs, brushing past the many human guards in the upper chamber as he made his way to the lift. He waved away the attendant and worked the heavy ropes himself, lowering himself down hundreds of feet to a second well-guarded room, with all exits blocked by external portcullises and iron-bound doors. The guards there were all dwarves, some of the toughest of all the Axe.

"Ye go and put the word to all our kin in all the holes," Agrathan instructed them, "and to them working the walls up top. We're meeting after sunset in the Hall of All Fires, and I want every one of my boys there. Everyone!"

The guards opened one of the exits for Agrathan and he exited, head down and murmuring to himself, trying to discern the best way to handle this most delicate of situations.

Though he was more tactful than most, as was evidenced by his rank in a city that was dominated by humans, Agrathan was still a dwarf, and subtlety had never been his strong point.

The scene was never controlled and quiet in the Hall of All Fires when a significant number of Mirabar's dwarves were assembled, but that night, with nearly all of the city's two thousand in attendance and with the subject so controversial, the place was in absolute chaos.

"So now ye're to tell me whose story I can hear, and whose I can't?" Torgar Hammerstriker roared back at Agrathan. "It was a good bit o' ale, and a finer bit o' tales!

Many of the dwarves who had accompanied Torgar to the Icewind Dale bazaar and later to the Clan Battlehammer reception shouted their agreement. One or two held up beautiful pieces of scrimshaw they had purchased from the traders, wonderful pieces gotten at better prices.

"I can resell this in Nesme for ten times what I paid!" one industrious, red-bearded fellow declared. He jumped high onto a dark furnace, holding up his small statue—a scrimshaw depiction of a shapely barbarian woman—for all to see. "Ye tellin' me I can't be making good deals, priest?"

Agrathan slumped back a bit, not surprised by the reaction.

"I have come to deliver the words of Marchion Elastul, a reminder— and yes, a stern one—to us all that the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer are not friends to Mirabar. They take our trade—"

"Is there a one of us here who can rightly say that he's livin' better since they opened Mithral Hall again?" another dwarf cut the priest off. "Even wit' yer pretty statue, fat Bullwhip, ye're not to have a good year in the matter o' yer purse, now are ye?"

Many dwarves seconded that, cheering the agitated speaker on.

"We had better lives and bigger coins afore the damn Battlehammers came back in! And who invited them?"

"Bah! Ye're talking the part of a fool!" Torgar lashed out.

"Says the dwarf who looked to other councilors for a loan!" the fiery one shot back. "Ye needin' coin now, Torgar? Will King Bruenor's stories fill yer belly?"

Torgar climbed up to the raised area at the north end of the hall to stand beside Agrathan. He paused for a long while, looking to and fro, commanding everyone's attention.

"What I'm hearing here is jealous talk, plain and simple," he said, very calmly. "Ye're talking about Clan Battlehammer as if they've declared war upon us, when all they've done is open up mines that ve been there, and been theirs, since afore Mirabar was Mirabar. They've a right to their homeland and a right to make it work. We're sittin' here making plans to bring 'em down, when it's seemin' to me that we should be making plans to bring ourselfs up!"

"They been stealin' our business!" someone yelled from the crowd. "Ye forgetting that part?"

"They been beatin' us," Torgar pointedly, and immediately, corrected. "They got better mines an' better metal, and they built themselves a strong reputation one dead orc, duergar, and stinkin' drow elf at a time. Ye can't be blamin' King Bruenor and his boys for working hard and fighting harder!"

The shouts erupted from every corner, many in agreement and many in dissent. A couple of fistfights broke out in various corners of the hall.

Up on the raised platform, Torgar and Agrathan stared hard at each other, and though neither had fully embraced the other's viewpoint on this matter only a few days before, their respective visions were crystallizing.

There came a shout from somewhere in the crowd, "Hey priestie, ye taking the side o' the humans over that o' yer kinfolk dwarfs?"

Both Torgar and Agrathan turned at once, and many others did as well.

All the great meeting chamber went silent, dwarves stopping their fighting in mid-swing, for there it was, spelled out simply and to the point.

For Torgar, it was a moment of confusion and self-examination. Was it actually coming down to this, a choice between his dwarven kin of Mithral Hall and the joint community of Mirabar?

For Agrathan, leading member of the Council of Sparkling Stones, the choice was less fuzzy, for indeed, if that was the way that some of his kin chose to view things, then so be it. Agrathan's loyalties lay to Mirabar and to Mirabar alone, but when he looked at his counterpart, he saw that the marchion's remarks, which Agrathan had considered insulting, toward Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker were not without merit.

Agrathan's faith in his community was a bit shaken a moment later, when the great gates of the Hall of All Fires swung wide and a large contingent of the Axe of Mirabar swept in, wading into the confused throng in a wedge formation, then forcefully widening their stance so that a huge triangular area of the room was quickly secured. In marched the marchion and several of the more stern councilors, along with the sceptrana.

"This is not the behavior the human folk of Mirabar expects from their dwarf comrades," Elastul scolded.

He should have left it at that, a quiet and calm reminder that the city had enough enemies without to worry about such squabbles within.

"Accept that Torgar Hammerstriker and those who accompanied him to the carts of Clan Battlehammer, and to the liars. . er, the bards of the same clan erred, and badly, in their judgment," Elastul bluntly warned. "Beware, Master Hammerstriker, lest you lose your position in the Axe. For the rest of you, lured by ale and this creature, this false legend, who is Bruenor Battlehammer, remind yourselves where your loyalties lie, and remind yourselves as well that Clan Battlehammer threatens our city."

Elastul swiveled his head slowly, taking in all the gathering, trying to wilt them under his stern gaze. But these were dwarves, after all, and few wilted, and few of those who agreed with the marchion wagged their heads.

Many of those who disagreed stood a bit straighter and a bit taller, and in looking at his counterpart on the stage, Agrathan seriously wondered if Torgar was going to peel off his Axe insignia then and there and throw it at Elastul's feet.

"Disperse, I command you!" Marchion Elastul roared. "Back to your work, and back to your lives."

The dwarves did disperse then, and the marchion and his entourage, including the human soldiers, departed, with the sole exception of Shoudra Stargleam who stayed to speak with Agrathan.

"Well, ain't them the words of a true king," Torgar muttered as he walked past Agrathan, and he spat at the priest's feet.

"The marchion was ill-advised to be coming here like that now," Agrathan remarked to Shoudra when they were alone.

"Many of your peers on the council pressed him to action," Shoudra explained. "They feared that the visit of King Bruenor might be having an adverse affect on our dwarf citizens."

"It was," Agrathan said glumly, "and it is. Even more now."

Agrathan meant every word. He watched the remaining dwarves departing the hall or going back to stoke the furnaces that lined it. He noted their expressions, their deep-set scowls and angry eyes. Torgar's misjudgment had brought a rift in the clan, had put a wedge into the solid community.

Agrathan couldn't help but think that the marchion had just taken a sledge and smashed that wedge hard.

CHAPTER 5 WHERE GHOSTS ROAM

The troupe crossed the bridge to the south of Mirabar, then followed the River Mirar to the east of the city for a tenday of easy marching. South of them loomed the tall trees of Lurkwood, a forest known to harbor many orc tribes and other unpleasant neighbors. To the north stood the towering mountains of the Spine of the World, their tops holding defiantly white against the coming summer season.

The grass grew tall around them, and dandelions dotted the rolling fields of the Valley of Khedrun, but the ever-vigilant dwarves were not lulled by the peaceful season and scenery. This far to the north, anywhere outside of a city had to be considered untamed land, so they doubled their guard every night, circled their wagons, and kept Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar working the flanks. Guenhwyvar joined the trio in their scouting whenever Drizzt was able to summon her.

At the eastern end of the valley, with nearly a hundred miles between them and Mirabar, the River Mirar bent to the north, flowing from the foothills of the Spine of the World. The Lurkwood, meanwhile, also bent to the north, following the line of the river as if shadowing the water, several miles to the south.

"Ground's gonna get tougher," Bruenor warned them all as they set camp that night. "We'll be back in the foothills tomorrow by midday,

and moving tight under the shadows o' the forest."

He looked around at his clan, to see every head nodding stoically.

"Next days'll be tougher," Bruenor told them, and not a one batted an eye.

They broke their gathering, and went back to their posts.

"The road's not so bad, by my measuring Delly Curtie said to Wulfgar when he joined her and Colson, their young daughter, at the small lean-to Delly had set beside a wagon. "No meaner than Luskan's streets."

"We've been fortunate so far," Wulfgar replied, holding his arms out to take Colson, whom Delly gladly gave over.

Wulfgar looked down at the tiny girl, the daughter of Meralda Feringal, the Lady of Auckney, a small town nestled in the Spine of the World not far to the west of the pass that had brought the troupe out of Icewind Dale. Wulfgar had rescued Colson from the trials of Lord Feringal and his tyrannical sister, retribution against the bastard child since Colson was not Feringal's daughter. The Lord of Auckney had thought Wulfgar the father, for Meralda had concocted a lie to protect the man's honor, claiming that she had been raped on the road.

But Wulfgar was not the father, had never known Meralda in that manner. Looking at Colson, though, at the tiny creature who had become so precious to him, he wished that he was. He looked up from Colson to see Delly staring at him lovingly, and he knew that he was a lucky man indeed.

"Ye going out with Drizzt and Catti-brie tonight?" Delly asked.

Wulfgar shook his head. "We're too close to the Lurkwood. Drizzt and Catti-brie can keep the watch well enough without me."

"Ye're staying close because ye're afraid for me and Colson," Delly reasoned, and Wulfgar didn't disagree.

The woman reached to take the baby back, but Wulfgar rolled his shoulder to block her hands, grinning at her all the time.

"Ye cannot be forsaking yer duties for me own sake," Delly complained, and Wulfgar laughed at her.

"This," he said, presenting the baby, then pulling her back in close when Delly reached for her, "is my duty, first and foremost. Drizzt and Catti-brie know it, too. We are close to the Lurkwood now, and that means close to orcs. You might be thinking that Luskan's streets are meaner than the wilds because you've not yet truly seen the wilds. If the orcs come upon us in numbers, the blood will flow. Ore blood, mostly, but with dwarf blood mixed in. You've never witnessed a battle, my love, and I hope it stays like that, but out here. .»

He let it go at that, shaking his head.

"And if the orcs come for us, yell be there keeping them off me and Colson," Delly reasoned.

Wulfgar, determined, looked at her then down at Colson who was sleeping angelically in his arms. His smile widened.

"No orc, no giant, no dragon will harm you," he promised the babe, lifting his eyes to include Delly as well.

Delly started to respond, and Wulfgar was sure she meant to offer one of her typically sarcastic remarks, but she didn't. She stopped short and just stood there staring at him, even offering a little nod to show that she did not doubt him.

As Bruenor had warned, the traveling got much more difficult the next day, with grassy meadows giving way to boulder-strewn trails climbing into the foothills. The ground was flatter to the south, but veering there would have put the dwarves into the thick underbrush and dangerous shadows of the Lurkwood, home to many unfriendly beasts. With so many sturdy dwarves in the caravan, Bruenor decided to keep them out in the open, (o let any enemies understand the power of the force.

The dwarves did not complain, and when they came upon a gully or a particularly broken stretch over which the wagons could not roll, a host of dwarves moved up beside each cart, lifting it in their strong hands and carrying it across. That was their way, an attitude of logical stoicism and pragmatism that cut long tunnels through hard rock, one inch at a time.

Watching them at their march, Drizzt understood well the kind of determination and long-range thinking that had produced such beautiful and marvelous places as Mithral Hall. It was the same patience that had allowed one such as Bruenor to create Aegis-fang, to deliberately engrave perfect representations of the trio of dwarf gods on the hammer's head, where one errant scratch would have ruined the whole process.

Soon after the second day out of Khedrun Pass, with the trees of the Lurkwood so near that the group could hear birds singing in the boughs, a cry from the front confirmed Bruenor's other fear.

"Ores outta the woods!"

"Form yer battle groups!" Bruenor called.

"Group One Left, make yer wedge!" Dagnabbit shouted. "One Right, square up!"

To the left, farthest from the woods, Drizzt and Catti-brie watched the precision of the veteran dwarf warriors and saw the small band of orcs rushing out of the forest, making for the lead wagons.

The orcs hadn't scouted their intended target properly, it seemed, for once they cleared the brush and saw the scope of the force allayed before them, they skidded to a stop and fell all over each other in fast retreat.

How different were their movements from those of the calm, skilled dwarves — well, almost all of the dwarves. Ignoring the calls of Bruenor and Dagnabbit, Thibbledorf Pwent and his Gutbusters assembled into their own formation, unique to their tactics. They called it a charge, but to Drizzt and Catti-brie it more resembled an avalanche. Pwent and his boys whooped, hollered, and scrambled headlong into the darkness of the forest shadows in pursuit of the orcs, leaping through the first line of brush with gleeful abandon.

"The orcs may have set a trap," Catti-brie warned, "showing us but a small part o' their force to drag us into their webs."

Cries resounded within the boughs, just south of the caravan, and flora and fauna, and orc body parts, began to fly wildly all about the area the Gutbusters had entered.

"Stupid orcs, then," Drizzt replied.

He started down from the higher ground, Catti-brie in tow, to join Bruenor. When they reached the king, they found him standing on his wagon bench, hands on his hips, and with groups of properly arrayed dwarves in tight formations al I around him. One wedge of warriors passed skillfully by the defensive squares two others had assembled.

"Ain't ye going to join the fun?" Bruenor asked.

Drizzt looked back at the forest, at the continuing tumult, a volcano come to life, and shook his head.

"Too dangerous," the drow explained.

"Damn Pwent makes it hard to see the point o' discipline," Bruenor grumbled to his friends.

He winced, and so did Drizzt and Catti-Brie, and Regis who was standing near to Bruenor, when an orc came flying out of the underbrush to land face down on the clearer ground in front of the dwarves. Before any of Bruenor's boys could react, they heard a wild roar from back within the boughs, up high, and stared in blank amazement as Thibbledorf Pwent, high up in a tree, ran out to the end of one branch and leaped out long and far.

The orc was just beginning to rise when Pwent landed on its back, blasting it back down to the ground. Likely it was already dead, but the wild battlerager, with broken branches and leaves stuck all about his ridged armor, went into his devastating body shake, turning the orc into a bloody mess.

Pwent hopped up, then hopped all around.

"Yecan get 'em moving again, me king!" he yelled back to Bruenor. "We'll be done here soon enough."

"And the Lurkwood will never be the same," Drizzt mumbled.

"If I was a squirrel anywhere around here, I'd be thinking of making meself a new home," Catti-brie concurred.

"I'd pay a big bird to fly me far away," Regis added.

"Should we hold the positions?" Dagnabbit called to Bruenor.

"Nah, get the wagons moving," the dwarf king replied with a wave of his hand. "We stay here and we'll all get splattered."

Pwent and his boys, some hurt but hardly caring, rejoined their fellows a short while later, singing songs of victory and battle. Nothing serious emanated from this group. Their songs sounded more like the joyful rhymes of children at play.

"Watching Pwent makes me wonder if I wasted my youth with all that training," Drizzt said to Catti-brie later on, the pair patrolling with Guenhwyvar along the northern foothills again.

"Yeah, ye could've just whiled away the hours banging yer head against a stone wall, like Pwent and his boys did."

"Without a helmet?"

"Aye," the woman confirmed, keeping a straight face. "Though I'm thinking that Bruenor made him armor the poor wall. Protecting the structural integrity of the realm."

"Ah," said Drizzt, nodding, then just shaking his head helplessly.

No more orc bands made any appearances against the caravan throughout the rest of that day, nor over the next few. The going was difficult and slow, but still, not a dwarf complained, even when they had to spend the better part of a rainy day moving the remnants of an old rockslide from the trail.

As the days wore on, though, more and more rumbles began to filter through the line of wagons, for it became obvious to them all that Bruenor wasn't planning a turn to the south anytime soon.

"Ores," Catti-brie remarked, examining the partial footprint in the dirt of a high trail. The woman looked up and all around, as if gauging the wind and the air. "Few days, maybe."

"At least a few," replied Drizzt, who was a short distance away, leaning on a boulder with his arms crossed over his chest, scrutinizing the woman's work as if he knew something that she did not.

"What?" the woman asked, catching the non-verbal cue.

"Perhaps I have a wider picture of it," Drizzt answered.

Catti-brie narrowed her eyes as she stared hard at the drow, matching his mischievous grin with a thin-lipped one of her own. She started to say something less than complimentary, but then caught on that perhaps the drow was speaking literally. She stood up and stepped back, taking in the area of the footprint from a wider viewpoint. Only then did she realize that the orc print was beside the mark of a much larger boot.

Much larger.

"Ore was here first," she stated without hesitation.

"How do you know that?" Drizzt wasn't playing the part of instructor here, but rather, he seemed genuinely curious as to how the woman had come to that.

"Giant might be chasin' the orc, but I'm doubting that the orc's chasing the giant."

"How do you know they weren't traveling together?"

Catti-brie looked back to the tracks. "Not a hill giant," she explained, for it was well known that hill giants often allied with orcs. "Too big."

"Mountain giant, perhaps," said Drizzt. "Larger version of the same creature."

Catti-brie shook her head doubtfully. Most mountain giants typically didn't even wear boots, covering their feet with skin wraps, if at all. The sharp definitions of the giant heel print made her believe that this particular boot was well made. Even more telling, the foot was narrow, relatively speaking, whereas mountain giants were known to have huge, wide feet.

"Stone giants might be wearin' boots," the woman reasoned, "and frost giants always do."

"So you think the giant was chasing the orc?"

The woman looked over at Drizzt again and shrugged. With it put so plainly — Drizzt apparently wasn't questioning her—she realized just how shaky that theory truly was.

"Could be," she said, "or they might "ye just passed this way independent of each other. Or they might be workin' together."

"A frost giant and an orc?" came the skeptical question.

"A woman and a drow?" came the snide response, and Drizzt laughed.

The pair moved on without much concern. The tracks were not fresh, and even if it was an orc or a group of orcs, and a giant or two besides, they'd think twice before attacking an army of five hundred dwarves.

It was slow and it was hot and it was dry, but no more monsters showed themselves to the force as the dwarves stubbornly made their way to the east. They climbed up one dusty trail, the sun hot on their backs, but when they crested the ridge and started down the backside, all the world seemed to change.

A vast, rocky vale loomed before them, with towering mountains both north and south. Shadows dotted the valley, and even in those places where there seemed no obstacle to block the sunlight, the ground appeared dull, dour, and somehow mysterious. Wisps of fog flitted about the valley, though there was no obvious water source, and little dew-catching grass could be seen,

Bruenor, Regis, Dagnabbit, and Wulfgar and his family led the way down the backside of the ridge to find Drizzt and Catti-brie waiting for their wagon.

"Ye're not likin' what ye're seein' Bruenor asked Drizzt, noticing a disconcerted expression on the face of the normally cool drow.

Drizzt shook his head, as if he couldn't put it into words.

"A strange feeling," he explained, or tried to.

He looked back toward the gloomy vale and shook his head again.

"I'm feelin' it too," Catti-brie chimed in. "Like we're bein' looked at."

"Ye probably are," Bruenor said.

He cracked the whip and sent his team, which also seemed more than a little skittish, moving down the trail. The dwarf gave a laugh, but those around him didn't seem so comfortable, particularly Wulfgar, who kept looking back at Delly and Colson.

"Your wagon should not be in the front," Drizzt reminded Bruenor.

"As I been telling him," Dagnabbit agreed.

Bruenor only snorted and drove the team on, calling back to the next wagons in line and to the soldiers flanking them.

"Bah, they're all hesitating," Bruenor complained.

"Can ye not feel it?" Dagnabbit asked.

"Feel it? I'm swimmin' in it, shortbeard! We'll put up right down there," he conceded, pointing to a flat, open area just below, about a third of the way down the side of the ridge, "then ye get 'em all about and I’ll give them the tale."

"The tale?" Catti-brie asked, the same question that all the others were about to voice.

"The tale o' the pass," Bruenor explained. "The Fell Pass."

It was a name that meant little to Bruenor's Icewind Dale non-dwarf companions, but Dagnabbit blanched at the mention — as much as the others had ever seen a dwarf blanch. Still, Dagnabbit performed as instructed, and with typical efficiency, bringing the wagons in line from the ridge top to the plateau Bruenor had indicated. When the dwarves had finished their bustling and jostling, setting their teams in place and finding acceptable vantage points to hear the words of their leader, Bruenor climbed up on a wagon and called out to them all.

"Ye're smellin' ghosts, and that's what's got ye itching," he explained. "And ye should be smellin' ghosts, for the valley here is thick with them. Ghosts o' Delzoun dwarves, long dead, killed in battle by orcs." He swept his arm out to the east, to the wide pass opening before them. "And what a battle she was! Hunnerds o' yer ancestors died here, me boys, and thousands and thousands o' their enemies. But ye keep yerselfs strong in heart.

We won the Battle o' Fell Pass, and so if ye're seeing any o' them ghosts down there on our way through, ye taunt it if it's an orc and ye bow to it if it's a dwarf!"

The other friends from Icewind Dale watched Bruenor with sincere admiration, noting how he added just the right inflections to his voice, and emphasis on key words to hold his clan in deep attention. He was acknowledging that there might be supernatural things down in the reputedly haunted valley, yet if there was an ounce of fear in Bruenor Battlehammer, he did not show it.

"Now we could've gone further south," he went on. "Coulda swung along the northern edge o' the Trollmoors and into Nesme."

He paused and shook his head, then gave a great, "Bah!"

Drizzt and the others surveyed the audience, noting that many, many bearded heads were bobbing in agreement with that dismissive sentiment.

"But I knowed me boys'd have little trouble walking among the dead heroes of old," Bruenor finished. "Ye won't embarrass Clan Battlehammer. Now ye get yer teams moving. We'll bring the wagons in a tight double line across the pass, and if ye're seeing a dwarf of old, ye be remembering yer manners!"

The army swung into precise action, sorting the wagons and moving them along the trail, down to the floor of the wide pass. They tightened their ranks, as Bruenor had instructed, and rolled along two-by-two. Before the last of the wagons had even begun moving, one of the dwarves struck up a marching song, a heroic tale of an ancient battle not unlike the one that had taken place in Fell Pass. In moments, all the line had joined in the song, their voices strong and steady, defeating the chilling atmosphere of the haunted place.

"Even if there are ghosts about," Drizzt whispered to Catti-brie, "they'll be too afraid to come out and bother this group."

Just to the side of them, Delly was equally at ease with Wulfgar.

"And ye keep telling me how ugly the road can be," she scolded. "And here I was, all afraid."

Wulfgar gave her a concerned look.

"I never known a better place to be," Delly said to him. "And how ye could e'er have thought o' giving up this life for one in the miserable city, I'm not for knowing!"

"Nor are we," Catti-brie agreed, drawing a surprised look from the barbarian. She returned Wulfgar's stare with a disarming smile. "Nor are we."

The wind moaned—perhaps it was the wind, perhaps something else—but the sound seemed like a fitting accompaniment to the continuing song. Many white stones covered the area—or at least, the dwarves thought they were stones at first, until one of them looked closer and realized that they were bones. Ore bones and dwarf bones, skulls and femurs, some laying out in the open, others half-buried. Scattered about them were pieces of rusted metal, broken swords, and rotted armor. It seemed like the former owners, of both bones and armor, might still be about as well, for sometimes the wisps of strange fog seemed to take on definitive shapes—that of a dwarf, perhaps, or an orc.

Clan Battlehammer, lost in the rousing song and following their unshakable leader, merely saluted the former and sang all the louder, growled away the latter and sang all the louder.

They set their camp that night, wagons circled, nervous horses brought right into the center, with a ring of torches all around the tight perimeter. Still the dwarves sang, to ward off the ghosts that might be lurking nearby.

"Ye don't go out this night," Bruenor instructed Drizzt and Catti-brie, "and don't bring up yer stupid cat, elf."

That brought him a couple of puzzled expressions.

"No plane-shifting around here," Bruenor explained. "And that's what yer cat does."

"You fear that Guenhwyvar will open a portal that unwelcome visitors might also use?"

"Talked to me priests and we're all agreein' it's better not to find out."

Drizzt nodded and settled back.

"All the more reason for me and Drizzt to go out and keep a scouting perimeter," Catti-brie reasoned.

"I ain't suggesting that."

"Why?"

"What do you know, Bruenor?" Drizzt prompted.

He moved in closer, and so did Catti-brie, and so did Regis, who was nearby and eavesdropping.

"She's a haunted pass, to be sure," Bruenor confided, after taking a moment to look all around.

"Full o' yer ancestors," said Catti-brie.

"Full o' worse than that," said Bruenor. "We're to be fine—too many of us for even them ghosts to be playing with, I'm guessing."

"Guessing?" Regis echoed skeptically.

Bruenor only shrugged and turned back to Drizzt.

"We're needin' to get an idea o' all the land about," he explained.

"You think that Gauntlgrym is near?"

Another shrug. "Doubtin' that—it'd be more toward Mirabar—but we're likely to find some clues here. That fight them centuries ago was going the orcs' way—a bad time for me ancestors—but then the dwarves outsmarted them… not a tough thing to do! There's tunnels all about this pass, and deep caves, some natural, others cut by the Delzoun. Me ancient kin interlocked them all and used them to supply, to bind their wounds, and to fix their weapons — and for surprise, for the dwarfs lured them stupid orcs in on what looked like a small group, and when them ugly beasts came charging, their tongues flapping outside their ugly mouths, the Delzoun popped up from trapdoors all about them, within their ranks.

'Was still a fierce fight. Them orcs can hit hard, no one's doubting, and many, many o' me ancestors died here, but me kin won out. Killed most o' them orcs and sent the others running back to their holes in the deeper mountains. Them caves are likely still down there, holding secrets I mean to learn."

"And holding nasties of many shapes and sizes," Catti-brie added.

"Someone's gotta clear them nasties away," Bruenor agreed. "Might as well be me."

"You mean Hi-," Regis corrected.

Bruenor gave him a sly smile.

"You plan to find a way down there and take the army underground?" Drizzt asked.

"Nan. I'm plannin' on passing through, as I said. We'll go back to Mithral Hall and get through with the formalities, then we'll decide how many we should be bringing back out after the next winter blows past. We'll see what we can find."

"Then why go through here now?"

"Think about it, elf," Bruenor answered, looking around at the encampment, which seemed fairly calm and at ease, despite their location. "Ye look danger right in the face, at its worst—or what ye're thinking to be its worst—right up front, and ye're not to be caught off yer guard by fear no more."

Indeed, in looking around at the settled camp, Drizzt understood exactly what Bruenor was driving at.

The night was not completely restful, and more than once, a sentry team cried out, "Ghost!" and the dwarves and others scrambled.

There were sightings and shrieks from unseen sources out in the darkness. Despite their weariness from the road, the clan did not get a good night's sleep, but they were back on the move in the morning, singing their songs, denying fear as only a dwarf could.

"Dreadmont and Skyfire," Bruenor explained to his friends the next day, pointing out two mountains, one to the south and one to the north. "Markin' the pass. Ye take in every landmark, elf. I'll be needing yer ranger nose if we're finding a place worth a return visit."

That day went uneventfully, and the troupe passed another fitful, but not overly so, night and were back on the road before the dawn.

At mid-morning, they were rolling along at a brisk pace, singing their songs from front to back, the battleragers and other soldiers trotting along easily.

But then the wagon beside Bruenor's lurched suddenly, its back right wheel dropping, and its front left coming right off the ground. The horses reared and whinnied, and the poor drivers fought hard to hold it steady. Dwarves rushed in from the side, grabbing on, some trying to catch the cargo that was sliding off the back, sliding into a gaping hole that was opening in the ground like a hungry mouth.

Drizzt rushed across in front of Bruenor's wagon and darted back behind the frightened, rearing horses, who were being dragged back with the rest of the wagon. His scimitars flashed repeatedly, cutting loose the harness, saving the team.

Catti-brie ran past the drow, heading for the drivers, and Wulfgar leaped from Bruenor's wagon to join her.

The wagon fell backward into the hole, taking the two struggling dwarves and the woman who had rushed to rescue them into the darkness.

Without even hesitating, Wulfgar dived down to his chest at the lip of the hole and reached out, catching the remains of the horse harness in his powerful hands. The wagon wasn't falling free. If it had been, Wulfgar would have disappeared along with it. Rather, it was slipping down along a rocky shaft, and enough of its weight was supported from below so that Wulfgar somehow managed to tentatively secure it.

The growling barbarian nearly let go in shock when a diminutive figure ran past him and leaped headlong into the hole, and behind him, Drizzt did cry out for Regis. Then both noticed that the halfling was tethered, and with Bruenor standing secure on his wagon, holding the other end of the line.

"Got them!" came a cry from below.

Dagnabbit and several other dwarves joined Bruenor, taking up the line and locking it in place.

Catti-brie was the first to climb out along the lifeline, followed in short order by the two shaken and bruised but not badly hurt drivers.

"Rumblebelly?" Bruenor called when the other three were out with no sign of the halfling.

"Lots of tunnels down here!" came Regis cry, cut short by a shriek.

That was all the dwarf team had to hear, and they began pumping their powerful arms, hoisting a very shaken Regis from the hole. Wulfgar could hold the wagon no longer. It went crashing down, disappearing from view, until the clatter of its descent became a distant thing.

"What'd ye see?" Bruenor and many others yelled at Regis, who was as white as an autumn cloud.

Regis shook his head, his eyes wide and unblinking. "I thought it was you," he said to one of the drivers. "I… I went to hand you the rope. It went right through … I mean, it didn't touch … I mean."

"Easy, Rumblebelly," Bruenor said, patting the halfling on the shoulder. "Ye're safe enough here and now."

Regis nodded but didn't seem convinced.

Off to the side, Delly gave Wulfgar a huge hug and kiss.

"Ye done good," she whispered to him. "If ye hadn't caught the wagon, then all three would've crashed down to their deaths."

Wulfgar looked past her to Catti-brie, who was standing comfortably in Drizzt's embrace but was looking Wulfgar's way and nodding appreciatively.

Surveying the scene, recognizing that many were thoroughly shaken, Bruenor Battlehammer walked over to the edge of the hole, put his hands on his hips, and yelled down, "Hey, ye damned ghosties! Ye got nothing more about ye than a wisp of smoke?"

A chorus of moans rolled out of the hole, and dwarves scrambled away.

Not Bruenor, though. "Oo, ye got me shaking in me boots now!" he taunted. "Well, if ye got something to say, then get up here and say it. Otherwise, shut yer traps!"

The moans stopped, and for a short, uncomfortable moment, not a dwarf moved or made the slightest sound, all of them wondering if Bruenor's challenge was about to be met by a wave of attacking ghosts.

As the seconds slipped by and nothing ominous crawled out of the hole, the troupe settled back.

"Ye get Pwent and his boys tethered together on long lines and out in front, stomping the ground as they go," Bruenor instructed Dagnabbit. "Don't want to be losin' any more wagons."

The team went back into action, and Drizzt moved near his dwarf friend.

"Challenging the dead?" he asked.

"Bah, they don't mean nothing with their booing and floating about. Probably don't even know they're dead."

"True enough."

"Mark well this spot, elf," Bruenor instructed. "I'm thinking that it might be a good place to start our hunt for Gauntlgrym.

With that, the unshakable Bruenor moved back to his wagon, patted Regis on the shoulder one more time, then led the clan forward as if nothing had happened.

"Roll on. Bruenor Battlehammer," Drizzt whispered.

"Don't he always?" Catti-brie asked, moving beside the drow and wrapping her arm comfortably around his waist.

It took them three days to cross the broken ground of the Fell Pass. The ghosts hovered around them every step of the way and the wind did not cease its mournful song. Some areas were relatively clear, but others were thick with remnants of that long-ago battle. The signs weren't always physical, often just a general feeling of loss and pain, a thick, tangible aura of a land haunted by many lost souls.

Late that third day, up high on one ridge, Catti-brie spotted a distant, welcomed sight, a silvery river running through the land to the east like a giant snake.

"The Surbrin," Bruenor said with a smile when she told him, and all heads about began to bob in recognition, for the great River Surbrin passed only a few miles to the east of Mithral Hall, and the dwarves had actually opened an eastern gate right along its banks. "Couple o' days and we'll be home," the dwarf explained, and a great cheer went up for King Bruenor, who had conquered the Fell Pass.

"I'm still not figuring why ye took us this way, if ye're just meaning to go home anyway," Catti-brie confided to the dwarf as the excitement continued around them.

"Because I'm coming back out here, and so're yerself, the elf, Rumblebelly, and Wulfgar if he's wanting it. And so're Dagnabbit and some o' me best shield dwarves. Now we're knowing the ground, and we learned it under the protection of an army. Now we can start our looking."

"Ye think the leaders in Mithral Hall are to let ye go out and run free?" Catti-brie asked. "Ye're their king, ye might be remembering."

"Are they to let me? Well, I'm their king, ye might be remembering," Bruenor shot back. "I'm not thinking that I'm needing anyone's permission, girl, and so what makes ye think I'm to be askin'?"

There wasn't really much that Catti-brie could say against that.

"Ain't ye supposed to be out hunting with Drizzt?" Bruenor asked.

"He took Regis with him today," Catti-brie answered, and she looked to the north, as if she expected to spot the pair running along a distant ridgeline.

"The halfling howl about going?"

"No. He asked if he could go."

"Still wonderin' what's got into Rumblebelly," Bruenor admitted with a shake of his hairy head.

Regis, once the lover of comfort, did indeed seem transformed. He had pressed on through the bitter cold of winter in the Spine of the World without complaint, indeed even lending rousing words for his friends. In every action, the halfling had tried to get involved, to somehow help out, whereas the Regis of old seemed amazingly adept at finding an out of the way shadow.

The change was somehow unsettling to Bruenor and to all the others, a shifting of the sand beneath the world as they had known it. At least it seemed to be shifting in a positive direction.

Not so far away, Wulfgar came upon Delly as she watched Catti-brie

and Bruenor in their private discussion. The barbarian noted that his wife was focusing almost exclusively on Catti-brie, as if taking a measure of the woman. He walked up behind her and wrapped his huge arms around her waist.

"She is a fine companion," he said.

"I can see why ye loved her."

Wulfgar gently turned Delly around to face him. "I did not…"

"Oh, sure ye did, and stop trying to save me feelings!"

Wulfgar stammered over a couple of responses, not knowing how he should respond.

"She is a companion to me, on the road, in battle. ."

"And in all yer life," Delly finished.

"No," Wulfgar insisted. "Once I thought that I desired such a joining, but now I see the world differently. Now I see you, and Colson, and know that I am complete."

"Who said ye weren't?"

"You just said. ."

"I said that yer Catti-brie was a companion in all yer life, and so she is, and so ye're better off for it," Delly corrected. "Ye don't be pullin'her back from yerself for me own sake!"

"I do not wish to hurt you."

Delly turned around to regard Catti-brie.

"Nor does she. She's yer friend, and I'm liking it that way." She pulled away from Wulfgar but stood back and stared at him, a sincere smile wide on her pretty face. "To be sure, there's a part o' me fearing that ye'll want her for more than friendship. I can't be helping that, but I'm not to be giving in to it. I trust ye and trust in what me and ye have started here, but don't ye be putting Catti-brie away from yerself in trying to protect me, because that's not where she belongs. Most folks'd be glad to have a friend like her."

"And I am," Wulfgar admitted. He looked curiously at Delly. "Why are you saying this now?"

Delly couldn't suppress her telling grin.

"Bruenor's talking about coming back out here. He's hoping that ye'll be joining him."

"My place is with you and Colson."

Delly was shaking her head even as he started that predictable response.

"Yer place is with me and our girl when yer life permits. Yer place is on the road with Bruenor and Drizzt and Catti-brie and Regis. I'm knowing that, and it makes me love ye all the more!"

'Their road is a dangerous one," Wulfgar reminded.

"Then more the reason for ye to help them along it."

"They're dwarfs!" Nikwillig exclaimed, his voice breaking with excitement and relief.

Tred, who had not climbed the last part of the steep boulder tumble and so could not see the huge caravan rolling along the flat ground to the south, leaned back against a rock and put his head in his hands. His left leg was swollen and would not bend. He hadn't realized how badly it had been torn during their respite in the small village, and he knew that he would not be able to go on for much longer without some proper tending, maybe even some divine intervention, courtesy of a cleric.

Of course, Tred hadn't complained at all and had fought with every ounce of his strength to keep up with Nikwillig in their flight. It had been a strong and valiant run, but both dwarves knew they were nearing the end of their endurance. They needed a break, and apparently, one had found them.

"We can catch them if we angle out to the southeast," Nikwillig explained. "Ye up for one more run?"

"We need to make the run, we make the run," Tred said. "Ain't come this far to lay down and die."

Nikwillig nodded and turned around, gingerly beginning the steep descent. He stopped, though, freezing in place, his eyes locked across the way. Tred noted that look and followed that gaze to see a huge panther, black as the night sky, crouched on a ledge not so far away—not far enough away!

"Don't ye move," Nikwillig whispered.

Tred didn't even bother to answer, thinking exactly the same thing, though he understood that the great cat knew exactly where they were. He pondered what he might do if the cat sprang his way. How could he even begin to hurt that mass of muscle and claws?

Well, he decided, if it comes on, it goes away bloody.

The seconds slipped past, neither the cat nor the dwarves moving an inch.

With a growl that seemed a challenge, Tred pushed out from the wall to stand straight and strong and put his heavy axe up at the ready beside him.

The great panther looked his way but not threateningly. In fact, the cat seemed almost bored.

"Please don't throw that at her," came a voice from below and to the side, and the two dwarves glanced down to see a brown-haired halfling moving out onto an open, flat stone. "When Guenhwyvar gets an invitation to play, it's hard to stop her."

"That yer cat?" Tred asked.

"Not mine, no," the halfling answered. "She a friend and mastered by a friend, if you get my meaning."

Tred nodded. "Well, who are ye then?"

"I could be asking you the same question," the halfling answered. "In fact, I believe that I will."

"And ye'll be getting yer answer after we're getting ours."

The halfling bowed low. "Regis of Mithral Hall," he said. "Friend to King Bruenor Battlehammer, and scout for the caravan your friend sees below. Returning from Icewind Dale."

Tred relaxed, and so did Nikwillig.

"The King o' Mithral Hall keeps strange company," Tred remarked.

"Stranger than you would ever believe," Regis was quick to answer.

He glanced to the side, and so did both dwarves, to see a second dark figure, this one not feline, but a drow elf.

Tred nearly fell over. Above him, Nikwillig did slip a bit, barely catching a hold before he tumbled from the climb.

"You still have not told me your name," Regis reminded, "and I am guessing that you're not from around here if you've not heard of Drizzt Do'Urden and his panther Guenhwyvar."

"Wait, I heared o' him!" Nikwillig said from above Tred, and Tred looked up. "Bruenor's friend drow. Yeah, we heared o' that!"

"And pray tell us where you were when you heard," Drizzt prompted.

Nikwillig moved down fast, dropping beside Tred, and both dwarves set themselves more presentably, with Nikwillig brushing some of the road dust from his weathered tunic.

"Tred McKnuckles's me name," Tred announced, "and this's me friend Nikwillig, outta Citadel Felbarr and the kingdom o* Emerus Warcrown."

"Long way from home," Drizzt observed.

"Longer than ye're thinking," Tred answered. "Been a road o' orcs and giants, and one wrong trail leading to another wrong trail."

"A tale well worth hearing, I am sure," Drizzt replied, "but not here and not now. Let us get you down to Bruenor and the others."

"Bruenor's in that caravan?" Nikwillig asked.

"Returning from Icewind Dale to assume the throne of Mithral Hall, for word reached us that Gandalug Battlehammer is dead."

"Moradin put him to work at his anvil," said Tred, a customary blessing for dead dwarves.

Drizzt nodded. "Indeed. And may Moradin guide Bruenor well."

"And may Moradin, or whatever good god is listening, guide us well, back to the caravan," Regis reminded.

When Drizzt and the others regarded the halfling, they saw that he was looking around nervously, as if he expected that Tred and Nikwillig had led a host of giants to the ridge, giants that were preparing to rain stones on the five of them.

"Keep scouting, Guenhwyvar," Drizzt instructed, and he started toward the dwarves.

Both of the bearded fellows instinctively stiffened and the perceptive drow stopped his approach.

"Regis, you accompany them to Bruenor," Drizzt decided. "I will keep the perimeter with Guenhwyvar." He saluted the dwarves and slipped away, and both Tred and Nikwillig visibly relaxed.

"We're safe with Drizzt and Guenhwyvar flanking us," Regis assured the dwarves as he approached. "Safer than you can imagine."

Tred and Nikwillig looked at each other, then back at the halfling, and nodded, though neither seemed overly confident in Regis's words.

"Don't worry," the halfling said, offering an understanding wink. "You'll get used to him."

So

CHAPTER 6 SMARTER THAN AN ORC THOUGHT

The arrival of the two dwarves brought much excitement to the village of Clicking Heels, and that deep into the wilds of the Spine of the World, excitement was not usually welcomed. After the two dwarves had gone on their way, the villagers settled back from the initial fear that they would be attacked and began to savor the story. Excitement within a larger cocoon of safety was always welcomed.

Still, the villagers of Clicking Heels were seasoned enough to not fall too deeply into that cocoon. They limited their out-of-town travel over the next few days and doubled the daytime watch and tripled the nighttime watch.

All through the nights, at short, regular intervals, the sentries would call out, "All clear!" from one checkpoint to another. Everyone kept his eyes peeled to the cleared ground around the village walls with that special vigilance that could only be learned through harsh experience.

Even toward the end of the first tenday after the dwarves' departure, the watch held strong and steady, with no slacking, no sleeping or even dozing along the wall.

Carelman Twopennies, one of the sentries that particular night seven days after Nikwillig and Tred had gone on their way, was tired, and so he wouldn't even lean against a pole for fear that he would nod off. Every time

he heard the all clear call circling along the wall to his right, the man shook his head briskly and strained his eyes toward the dark field beyond his section of wall, ready for his turn to yell out.

Soon after midnight, the calls circling, Carelman did just that, and peering into the emptiness beyond, he was fairly certain that his impending call would be an honest one. When it came to his turn, he yelled out, or started to, "All clear!"

He heard a rush of air above him as the words began to leave his mouth, though, and was merely unfortunate enough to be standing in the way of the giant-thrown boulder, and so his "All clear!" came out as "All clea—ugh!"

He felt the explosion, for just an instant, then he was dead, lying on the ground beneath the rubble of the wooden parapet and the heavy stone.

Carelman Twopennies didn't hear the cries erupting around him or the subsequent explosions as heavy boulders smashed through the walls and buildings, softening the defenses of the small village. He didn't hear the shouts of alarm after that as a horde of orcs, many riding fierce worgs, swept down upon the battered town.

He didn't hear the deaths of his family, his friends, his home.

Marchion Elastul stroked his wild red whiskers, a movement that many dwarves took as a proud gesture, one used for showing off one's beard. Of course, Torgar wasn't overly impressed by the red whiskers of the human marchion, for no human could grow a beard to match the worst of dwarf beards.

"What am I to do with you, Torgar Hammerstriker?" Elastul asked.

Behind him, his four guardsmen, the Hammers, bristled and whispered amongst themselves.

"Didn't think ye was to do anything with me, your honorness," the dwarf answered. "Been going about me business in Mirabar since before ye was born and before yer daddy was born. I'm not needing ye to do much."

The marchion's sour look showed that he was not overly impressed with the statement or the not-so-subtle reminder that Torgar had been in service to Mirabar for a long, long time.

"It is just that heritage that brings me a quandary," Elastul explained.

"Quandary?" Torgar asked, and he scratched his own beard. "That a place where ye get both rocks and milk?"

The marchion's face screwed up with confusion.

"A dilemma," he explained.

"What is?" asked the dwarf.

Torgar worked hard to hide his grin. One thing he knew about humans was that they carried an internal superiority belief, and playing dumb was the easiest way a dwarf could deflect ire.

"What is what?" the marchion replied.

"Yeah, that."

"Enough!" the marchion cried. He was visibly trembling, to which Torgar only shrugged, as if he understood none of it. "Your actions present me with a dilemma."

"How's that?"

"The people of Mirabar look up to you. You're one of the most trusted commanders in the Axe, a dwarf of fine reputation and honor."

"Bah, Marchion Elastul, ye're bringing a blush to me bearded cheeks and to me other ones, as well." He finished the sentence by twisting to look over his shoulder. "Though I'm guessing them nether ones're becoming about as hairy as old age begins to set in."

Elastul looked as if he wanted to slap himself across the face, which pleased Torgar greatly.

The man gave a great sigh and started to respond, but the door to the audience chamber banged open and Sceptrana Shoudra Stargleam entered.

"Marchion," she greeted with a bow.

"We are discussing whether or not I should have you melt the Axe symbol off of Torgar's armor," the marchion replied, throwing aside Torgar's distracting remarks.

"We are?" the dwarf asked innocently.

"Enough!" Elastul scolded again. "You know well enough that we are, and you know well enough why I have summoned you here. To think that you, of all dwarves, would go consorting with our enemies."

Torgar held up his stubby-fingered hands, his expression going suddenly grim.

"Ye take care on who ye're calling our enemies," he warned Elastul.

"Need I remind you of the wealth that Bruenor Battlehammer and his dwarves have stolen from us?"

"Bah, they've stolen not a thing! I made me a couple o' pretty deals from where I'm looking."

"Not their caravan! Their mines to the cast. Need I remind you of the drop in business since Mithral Hall's forges began to burn once more? Ask Shoudra there. She above all others can tell you of the difficulty in renewing contracts and attracting new buyers."

"True enough," the woman added. "Since the return of Mithral Hall, my job has become far more difficult."

"As have all of our jobs," Torgar agreed. "And that'll make us better, from where I'm looking."

"Clan Battlehammer is no friend of Mirabar!" Elastul declared.

"Nor are they our enemy," Torgar replied, "and ye should be careful afore ye go callin' them such."

The marchion came forward in his chair so suddenly that Torgar reflexively brought a hand up by his right shoulder, near to the hilt of the large axe he always kept strapped across his back, and that movement, in turn, made the marchion and his four Hammers start and widen their eyes.

"King Bruenor came in as a friend," Torgar remarked when things had settled a bit. "He came here on his way through, as a friend, and he was let in as a friend."

"Or to take a measure of his greatest rivals," Shoudra remarked, but Torgar just shrugged that thought away.

"And if ye're letting a dwarf legend into yer city, then how can ye be sayin' the dwarves o' yer city can't go and sit with him?"

"Many of the dwarves of my city are among the loudest voices for espionage against King Bruenor's Mithral Hall," Elastul reminded. "You have heard their calls for spies to go into Mithral Hall and find some way to shut down the forges, or to flood some of the more promising tunnels, or to place cheaper goods in among the armor and weapons Clan Battlehammer is sending out to market."

Torgar couldn't deny the truth of the marchion's words, nor the fact that he, himself, had uttered similar curses against Mithral Hall in the past, but that seemed different to him than this personal visit, a rant against a faceless rival. Torgar might not wish Clan Battlehammer well with their merchandising, but if an enemy came against Bruenor and his clan, Torgar would gladly lead a charge to assist them.

"Ye ever think that we might be going against Clan Battlehammer in

the wrong way?" the dwarf asked. The marchion and Shoudra exchanged curious looks. "Ye ever think that we might be using their strengths and our own strength together to the benefit of us all?"

"What do you mean?" Elastul asked.

"They got the ore—better ore than we'll be findin' here if we dig a hunnerd miles down—and they got some great craftsmen, don't ye doubt, but so do we. Might that our best and their best could work with their good ore to make great pieces, while our apprentices and their apprentices, or a few who're too old to see it right or lift the hammer well enough, could work with the lesser ore in making the lesser pieces—railings and cart wheels instead o' swords and breastplates, if ye see me meaning."

The marchion's eyes went wide indeed, but not because he was the least bit intrigued by the suggestion of cooperation. Torgar saw that immediately and knew that he had crossed a line.

Trembling so badly that he seemed as if he might vibrate right out of his chair, Elastul forced himself, with great effort, to settle back. He shook his head, seeming too enraged to even speak a denial.

"Just a thought," Torgar remarked.

"A thought? Here is a thought—why don't we have Shoudra burn that axe from your breastplate? Why don't I have you dragged out and flogged publicly, perhaps even tried for treason against Mirabar? How dare you lead so many into the embrace of King Bruenor Battlehammer! How dare you bring comfort to our principle rival, a dwarf who leads a clan that has cost us piles of gold! How dare you represent any prospect of friendship between Mithral Hall and Mirabar, and how dare you suggest such a thing to me!"

Shoudra Stargleam came forward to the side of the marchion's throne. She put her hand on Elastul's arm, obviously trying to calm him. She looked to Torgar as she did and nodded toward the door to the room, motioning for him to make a fast exit.

But Torgar wasn't ready to leave just yet, not before he had the last word.

"Ye might be hatin' Bruenor and his boys, and ye might have reason," he said, "but I'm secin' it more as our own weakness than anything Bruenor and his boys did to us."

Marchion Elastul started to respond with another "how dare you," but Torgar kept on rolling.

"That's the way I'm secin' it," the dwarf stated flatly. "Ye want to take me Axe emblem, then take it, but if ye're thinking o7 flogging me, then ye should be looking more closely at me kin."

With that threat hanging in the air, Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker turned and stormed from the room.

"I will have his head on a pike!"

"Then you'll have two thousand shield dwarves running wild in Mirabar," Shoudra explained. She was still holding the man's arm and firmly. "I don't completely disagree with any of the things you say about Mithral Hall, good Elastul, but given the response from Torgar and many others, I wonder the wisdom of holding our present course of open animosity."

Elastul shot her an angry and threatening glower, the look alone reminding her that few on the Council of Sparkling Stones would side with her reasoning.

So Shoudra let him go and stepped back, bowing her head deferentially, while silently wondering how destabilizing King Bruenor's visit had truly been to Mirabar. If the marchion kept pushing this hard, the result could be disastrous for the ancient mining city.

Shoudra also silently applauded King Bruenor for his shrewd move of even showing up where he knew he would not be welcomed, but where he would neither be flatly rebuked. Yes, it was a cunning maneuver, and it seemed to the Sceptrana of Mirabar that her boss was playing right into Bruenor's hands.

"Prisoners?" Obould asked his son as they stood overlooking the ruins of Clicking Heels.

"Few left," Urlgen said with an evil grin.

"Ye're interrogating?"

Urlgen straightened, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him.

Obould gave a growl and slapped Urlgen on the back of his head.

"What we need to know?" the confused Urlgen asked.

"Whatever they can tell us to help us," Obould explained, speaking slowly and articulating each word carefully, as if he was addressing a toddler.

Urlgen snarled but didn't voice his displeasure. The insult had been earned, after all.

"Ye know how to interrogate?" Obould asked, and his son looked at him as if the question was purely ridiculous. "Just like torture," Obould explained anyway, "except ye ask them questions while ye play."

Urlgen's lips curled into a perfectly evil smile, and with a nod, he headed back into the village, where many of his warriors were already at play on the few unfortunate villagers who had not died in the attack.

An hour later, Urlgen caught up to his father, finding Obould at parlay with the giants who had helped in the raid, playing the political angles as always.

"Not all them dwarfs got killed when we hit them," Urlgen remarked, his tone a mixture of excitement for the chase, and disappointment.

"Dwarfs? There were dwarfs in that stupid little town?"

Urlgen seemed confused. "Not them dwarfs," he said. "Weren't none of them dwarfs."

Now Obould and the giants seemed confused.

"No dwarfs in the town," Urlgen stated clearly, trying to end the circular confusion. "When we hit them dwarfs a tenday ago, two got away."

It wasn't completely surprising to Obould, for they knew that some dwarves, at least, were running around the region. A band of orcs had been slaughtered not too far from this town, with tactics indicating a dwarven ambush.

"They come in there, and hurt," Urlgen explained.

"And they died in there?"

"Nope, kept runnin', looking for Mithral Hall, and were gone before we hit."

"How long?"

"Not long."

Obould wore an excited expression. "A fun hunt?" he asked the giants, and as one the great blue-skinned behemoths nodded.

But Obould's expression quickly changed as he remembered the warnings of Ad'non Kareese. "Small forays, and with restraint. We draw them out, little by little," the drow had said. Chasing these dwarves to the south would bring the force dangerously close to Mithral Hall, perhaps, and might incite a battle far beyond what Obould wanted.

"Nah, let em go," the orc king decided, and while the giants seemed to accept that readily enough, Urlgen's eyes popped open so wide that they seemed as if they would fall right out of his ugly head.

"Ye can't be. ." the younger and rasher orc started to argue,

"I can be," Obould interrupted. "Ye let 'em make the hall, with their tales o' death and destruction, and the dwarfs there'll send out a force to investigate. That'd be a bigger and better fight."

Urlgen's smile began to widen once more, and Obould let him in on the rest of the reasoning, just for prudence. After all, any mention of Mithral Hall might send the young warriors charging headlong to the south.

"We get too close and start that fight, and some o' them dwarfs might get back home, and all the stinkin' Mithral Hall'll empty out on us, and that's a fight we're not wantin'!"

Despite the nods of agreement, even from sour Urlgen, Obould felt obliged to add, "Not yet."

CHAPTER 7 THE TRAPPINGS OF

Bruenor purposely excluded Thibbledorf Pwent from the meeting with the two dwarves of Citadel Felbarr, knowing the gist of their story beforehand from Regis, and knowing that the battlerager would likely charge right off into the mountains to avenge their fallen Felbarr kin. And so Nikwillig and Tred recounted their adventures to a group that was comprised more of non-dwarves—Drizzt, Catti-brie, Wulfgar, and Regis—than dwarves.

"A fine escape," Bruenor congratulated when the pair had finished. "Ye done Emerus Warcrown proud."

Both Tred and Nikwillig puffed up a bit at the compliment from the dwarf king.

"What're ye thinking?" Bruenor asked, directing the question to Dagnabbit.

The younger dwarf considered the question carefully for a long while, then answered, "I'll take me a group o' warriors, including the Gutbuster Brigade, and backtrack the route to the Surbrin in the north. If we find the raiders, we'll crush 'em and come home. If not, we'll tack south along the river and meet up with ye in Mithral Hall."

Bruenor nodded throughout the recitation of the plan, expecting every word. Dagnabbit was good, but he was also predictable.

"I'd be likin' another shot at them killers," Tred interjected.

His words made Nikwillig, who obviously didn't share the sentiment, look more than a little uncomfortable.

"Forgettin' yer hurt leg?" Nikwillig remarked.

"Bah, Bruenor's priests done me good with their warm hands," Tred insisted, and to accentuate the point the dwarf stood up and began hopping around, and indeed, despite a wince or two, he seemed ready for the road.

Bruenor studied the pair for a moment.

"Well, we can't let ye both get killed, or yer tale'll not be told proper to Emerus Warcrown. So, ye can come on the hunt, Tred, and yerself, Nikwillig, will go back to Mithral Hall with the others."

"King Bruenor, yer words make ye sound like ye're headin' out on the hunt yerself," Dagnabbit remarked, drawing a hard stare from Bruenor.

Bruenor knew the expectations of those around him, particularly of Dagnabbit, who was sworn to secure his king's safety. He knew that the proper course for him, as King of Mithral Hall, would be to head south straightaway with the bulk of his force, back to the security of his kingdom, back where he could direct further counterstrikes in search of this marauding band of orcs and giants. That was what was expected of him, but the mere thought of it made Bruenor's gut churn.

He looked over at Drizzt with a pleading look, and the dark elf offered a slight, knowing nod in response.

"What're ye thinking, elf?" Bruenor asked.

"T would have an easier time finding the monsters than Pwent and his wild band," Drizzt replied. "An easier time even than good Dagnabbit here, though I doubt not his prowess at hunting orcs."

"Then ye come with me," Dagnabbit offered.

There was a slight crack in his voice, showing that he saw where this might be heading, and showing that he was not too pleased by the prospect.

"T will go," Drizzt agreed, "but with my friends around me. Those whom I have come to trust the most. Those who best recognize how to compliment my every move."

He nodded in turn to Catti-brie, to Wulfgar, and to Regis, then paused for a moment and turned directly to Bruenor—and nodded. A smile widened on the face of the dwarf king.

"No, no, no," Dagnabbit remarked immediately. "Ye cannot be taking me king into the wilds."

"I believe the choice is Bruenor's to make, my friend, not yours, and not mine," Drizzt replied. He returned Bruenor's grateful smile and asked the king, "One last hunt?"

"Who says it's the last?" came Bruenor's gruff reply.

The friends chuckled, then laughed all the harder when Dagnabbit stomped his heavy boot on the ground and exclaimed, "Dagnabbit!"

"Bah, but yerself can come along, ye dumb dwarf," Bruenor said to his young commander. "And yerself," he added, looking over at Tred, who nodded grimly.

"And ye bring some fighters with ye!" Dagnabbit insisted.

"Pwent and his boys," said Bruenor.

"No!" Dagnabbit shouted emphatically.

"But you just said. ."

"That was afore I thinked yerself was goin'."

Bruenor patted his hands in the air to calm the excited dwarf.

"Not Pwent, then," he said, understanding his young commander's concern. Pwent could start a fight with a rock, so it was said in Mithral Hall, and hurt himself and everyone around him badly before he won the scuffle. "Ye pick the group yerself. Twenty o' yer best—"

"Twenty-five," Dagnabbit argued.

"Well, get 'em ready soon," Bruenor said to Dagnabbit, and to all of them. "I'm wanting to be on the road this same day. We got orcs and giants to squish!"

The dwarf looked around at all his friends and noted that Wulfgar's grin was not as wide as those of Drizzt, Catti-brie, and even Regis. Bruenor nodded his understanding to his adopted son, his implied permission for Wulfgar, now a father and a husband, to opt out of the hunt if he saw fit to do so.

Wulfgar tightened his jaw in response, returned the nod, and strode away.

"Ye can't be thinkin' what I'm thinkin' ye're thinkin'!" said Shingles McRuff.

He was one of the toughest looking critters in all of Mirabar, a short and exceedingly stout dwarf whose nasty attitude was always clearly shown on his ruddy, weathered face. He was missing an eye, and simply never bothered to fill in the empty socket, just covered it with an eye patch. Half of his black beard was torn away, the right side of his face showing as one big scar.

"Well, I'm thinkin' what I'm thinkin'," Torgar Hammerstriker replied, "and I'm not knowin' what ye're thinkin' I'm thinkin'!"

"Well, I'm thinkin' that ye're thinkin o' leavin'," Shingles slated bluntly, and that got the attention of all the other dwarves in the crowded tavern in the highest subterranean level of the city. "Don't know what the marchion said to ye, bud, but I'm betting it ain't nothing next to what yer grandpa'd be sayin' to ye if yer grandpa was still here to be sayin’ things to ye."

Torgar threw up his hands and waved away the words, and the looks of all the others.

At least he tried to, for several other dwarves moved in close, pulling up chairs, and more than one started the same question: "Ye heading out o’ Mirabar, Torgar?"

Torgar ran his hands through his thick hair.

"Course I ain't, ye durned fools!" he said, rather unconvincingly. "Me father's father's father's father's father spent his days here."

Despite his bluster, even Torgar could recognize the hint of doubt in his own statements, and that made him ask himself if he really was thinking of leaving Mirabar. He was as mad as a demon at Elastul, to be sure, but was there really a notion, deep in his head and deep in his heart, that it might be time for him to end the Hammerstriker dynasty in Mirabar?

He ran his hands through his thick hair again, and again, and ended up shouting, "Bah!" in the faces of those around him.

He stood up so forcefully that his chair skidded out behind him, and he stomped away, grabbing a flagon of ale from the bar as he passed and tossing back a coin to the obviously amused tavern keeper.

Out in the cavern that housed the cluster of buildings in the First Below — the highest section of Mirabar's Undercity—Torgar looked all around him, noting the structures and noting the striations of the stone that housed them, stone so familiar to him that he felt as if it was a part of him, and of his heritage.

"Stupid Elastul," he muttered under his breath. "Stupid all o' ye, not seem' King Bruenor and his boys for the friends they be."

He walked away, unaware that his last statements had been overheard by several others, including Shingles, all huddled near the open window of the tavern.

"He's meanin' it," another dwarf remarked.

"And I'm thinkin' that he's gonna go," said another.

"Bah, whaddya know aside from which drink ye're drinkin'?" Shingles blustered at them. "If ye're even knowin' which drink ye're drinkin'!"

"I'm knowing!" shouted another dwarf, from across the way. "So I'm thinkin' that I'm not drinkin' enough o' what I'm drinkin'!"

That brought a roar, and cries of rounds from several parts of the tavern.

Shingles McRuff just grinned at them all, though, and kept looking out the window, though Torgar, his old buddy and comrade at arms, was long out of sight.

Despite his disclaimer and Torgar's denial. Shingles could not disagree with the consensus that Torgar was indeed serious about leaving Mirabar. The arrival of King Bruenor and the boys from Mithral Hall had put a face on a previously faceless enemy, a face that Torgar and many others had come to see as a friend. A rival, perhaps, but certainly no enemy. The treatment Elastul and the other leaders, mostly human, had shown to Bruenor and to the Mirabarran dwarves who had gone to hear Bruenor's tales or buy the wares from Icewind Dale had not set well with Torgar or with many others.

For the first time since the incident, Shingles McRuff seriously considered the recent events and the wider implications of them.

He didn't much like where his thoughts were suddenly, and already, leading him.

"Guilt's a funny thing, now ain't it?" Delly Curtie playfully asked Wulfgar when he returned to her and Colson at their wagon.

"Guilt?" came the skeptical response. "Or an understanding of my responsibilities?"

"Guilt," Delly answered without the slightest hesitation.

"In taking on a family, I accepted the responsibility of protecting that family."

"And what do ye think will happen to me and Colson surrounded by two hundred friendly dwarves? Ye're not abandoning us out in the wilds, Wulfgar. We're going to safety. 'Tis yerself that's walking to danger!"

"And even in that, I am abandoning my respons—"

"Oh, don't ye start that again!" Delly interrupted, and loudly, drawing the attention of several nearby dwarves. "Ye do as ye must. Ye live the life ye were meant to live."

"You came all the way out here with me …"

"Livin' the life I'm choosin to live," Delly explained. "I'm not wanting to lose ye—not for a moment—but T know that if ye abandon yer heart to stand with me and Colson all the day, then I've already lost ye. Come to Mithral Hall if that's what's truly in yer heart, me love, but if not, then get yerself out on the road with Bruenor and th' others."

"And what if I die out there, away from you?"

It was not a question asked out of fear, for Wulfgar was not afraid of dying out on the road. He was an adventurer, a warrior, and as long as he could hold faith that he was following the true course of his life, then whatever was put before him would be acceptable.

Of course, he wouldn't die on the road without a fight!

"I think about it all the time," Delly admitted, "because I'm knowin' that ye've got to be going. And if ye die on the road, then know that yer Colson will be proud o' her daddy. For a bit, I thinked about changing yer heart, about tricking ye into staying by me side, but that's not who ye are. I see it on yer face—a face that's smiling all the wider when the wild wind is blowin' across it. Me and Colson can accept whatever fate ye find at the end o' yer road, Wulfgar son of Beornegar, so long as ye're walking the road of yer heart."

She moved up close as she spoke, kneeling in front of the sitting Wulfgar and draping her arms over his shoulders.

"Just give an orc a good smack for me, will ya? "

Wulfgar was smiling then as he looked into her sparkling eyes— sparkling more than they ever had back in the days when Delly had worked in Arumn's tavern in the seedy bowels of Luskan. Something about the road, the fresh air, the adventure, the child, had gotten into the woman, and Delly seemed to grow more beautiful, more wholesome, more healthy with every passing day.

Wulfgar pulled her close and hugged her tightly. His thoughts went back to the day when Robillard had dropped him in the center of Luskan, presenting him with two choices: the road south and security beside Delly and Colson, or the road north, to join his friends in adventure. Hearing Delly's words, the sincerity in her voice, the love and admiration accompanying it, Wulfgar was never more glad of his choice, of that northward turn, and never more sure of himself.

And never more in love with this woman who had become his wife.

"I will give him two good smacks for you," Wulfgar answered, and he moved in to kiss his wife.

"Nah," Delly said, pulling back teasingly. "Yer first one'll send him flyin' far enough."

She didn't move away again as Wulfgar's lips found hers, in a long and leading kiss, gentle at first but then pressing more urgently. The barbarian started to stand, easily lifting the lithe Delly up with him, guiding her to the privacy of their covered wagon.

Colson woke up then and started to cry.

Wulfgar and Delly could only laugh.

Thibbledorf Pwent hopped around, uttering a series of sounds that amply reflected his frustration and disappointment, and kicking at every stone he passed, even those far too big to be kicked. Still, if the tough dwarf felt any pain, he didn't show it much, just an occasional grunt within the steady stream of curses, and an added hop here or there after a particularly vicious kick at a particularly stubborn rock.

Finally, after circling King Bruenor for many minutes of random cursing, Pwent hopped to a stop, and put his stubby hands on his hips.

"Ye're going for a fight, and a fight's where me and me boys belong!"

"We're going to pay back a small band o' orcs and a couple o' giants," Bruenor corrected. "Won't be much of a fight, and even less o' one if Pwent and his boys are there."

"It's what we do."

"And too well!" Bruenor cried.

Pwent's eyes widened.

"Huh?"

"Ye durned fool!" Bruenor scolded. "Don't ye see that this'll be me last time? When we get back to Mithral Hall, I'll be the king again, and what a boring title that is!"

"What're ye talkin' about? Ye're the best king. ."

Bruenor silenced him with a wave and an exaggerated look of disgust.

"Talkin' with lying emissaries, making pretty with fancy fool lords and fancier and more foolish ladies … Ye think I'll get to use me axe much in the next hunnerd years? Only if another army o' damned drow come a'knocking at our doors! So now I get the chance, one last chance, and ye're thinking to steal all me fun with yer killer band. And I thinked ye was me friend."

That set Pwent back on his heels, putting the whole situation in a light he had never begun to imagine.

"I am yer friend, King Bruenor," Pwent said somberly, as reserved as Bruenor or anyone else had ever seen him. "FU be takin' me boys back to Mithral Hall to get the place ready for yer arrival."

He paused and offered Bruenor a sly wink — well, it was intended to be sly, at least, but from Pwent it just came out as an exaggerated twitch.

"And I'm hopin' ye won't be back anytime soon," Pwent went on, with more comprehension than Bruenor had expected. "Might be just one small band that hit the boys from Felbarr, but might be that ye'll find a bunch o' other small bands betwixt here and that one, and a bunch more on yer way back home. Good fighting, King Bruenor. May ye notch yer axe a thousand more times afore ye see yer shining halls once more!"

With great cheering and fanfare, promises of death to the orcs and giants, and eternal friendship between Mithral Hall and Citadel Felbarr, the band of Bruenor and his dear friends, along with Dagnabbit, Tred, and twenty-five stout warriors, moved off from the main group, turning north into the mountains. Dwarves were not a bloodthirsty race, but they knew how to celebrate when the occasion was a war against goblinkind and giantkin, their most hated of foes.

As for the friends, as one (even Regis!) they felt energized and refreshed to be on the road to adventure once again, and so the only regrets that fine morning were felt by those who had not been chosen to go.

For the dark elf, it was old times and new times all rolled together, the same camaraderie that had so enriched his life of recent years, his old band

marching together into adventure in rugged lands, and yet, with a better understanding of each other and of their respective places in the world. The day was full of promise indeed!

What Drizzt Do'Urden did not understand was that he was walking headlong into the saddest day of his life.