Gauntlgrym (10 page)

That previous life he knew he should forget.

That previous life he could not forget.

The sun was still high in the sky when he dismissed Andahar and entered the dwarven tunnels. Once the complex had been the home of Clan Battlehammer, and those few dozen dwarves who had remained there still considered themselves part of the clan. They knew of Drizzt, though only a couple had ever met the drow. They also knew of Pwent and the legendary Gutbuster Brigade, and glad they were to welcome travelers from Mithral Hall, including one who named himself as a distant cousin to the late King Bruenor Battlehammer himself.

“To King Connerad Brawnanvil Battlehammer!” the leader of the Kelvin’s Cairn Battlehammers, Stokely Silverstream, greeted Drizzt when he entered the main forge area. Stokely lifted a mug in toast and waved to a younger dwarf, who hustled to get Drizzt a drink.

“He fares well, I would hope,” Drizzt replied, not surprised that, four decades on, Connerad had succeeded his father, Banak. “Good blood.”

“Ye fought with his father.”

“Many the time,” Drizzt replied, accepting the mug and taking a welcomed swallow.

“And yer own salute?” Stokely asked.

“There can be only one,” Drizzt replied, and he lifted his mug high and waited until all the dwarves in the room turned to regard him.

“To King Bruenor Battlehammer!” Drizzt and Stokely said together, and a rousing cheer went up in the chamber. Every dwarf drank deep then scrambled to get their mugs refilled.

“I was but a dwarfling when me dad bringed us back to Icewind Dale,” Stokely explained. “But I’d’ve known him, and well, had I not been a fool and stayed so close to me home up here.”

“You served your own clan,” Drizzt replied. “Short are the times of respite in Icewind Dale. Could your father have fared as well, had you, and others with the wanderlust, traveled all the way to Mithral Hall?”

“Bah, but true enough! I’m guessin’ me and me boys’ll have to settle for yer tales, elf, and we’re holdin’ ye to that promise! Yerself and old Pwent and Bonnego Battle-axe, of the Adbar Battle-axes.”

“This very night,” Drizzt promised. He set his mug down and patted Stokely on the shoulder as he moved past him, heading for the lower tunnels, where he knew his friends to be.

“Well met, Bonnego,” he said to Bruenor when he entered the small side room, to find Bruenor, as always, spreading maps across the floor and taking notes.

“What do ye know, elf?” Bruenor replied a bit too hopefully.

Drizzt winced at the optimism, and let his expression convey the truth of the rumor.

“Just a few pines and a bit of scrag,” Bruenor said with a sigh and a shake of his head, for that was what they had heard of this supposedly enchanted forest from practically everyone in Icewind Dale they had asked.

“Ah, me king,” said Thibbledorf Pwent, limping into the room behind Drizzt.

“Shoosh, ye dolt!” Bruenor scolded.

“Perhaps there was once a forest there,” said Drizzt. “Perhaps enchanted in some way, and with a beautiful witch and halfling caretaker. The tale of Lathan mirrored that of Roundabout, and both I find credible.”

“Credible and wrong,” said Bruenor, “as I was knowin’ they’d be.”

“Ah, me king,” said Pwent.

“Ye quit calling me that!”

“Their words are no longer accurate,” Drizzt replied. “But that does not mean their memories are wrong. You saw the eyes of both men when they remembered
that time, that encounter. Few could wear such expressions falsely, and fewer still could tell tales so aligned, separated by miles and decades.”

“Ye think they saw her?”

“I think they saw something. Something interesting.”

Bruenor growled and shoved a table over onto its side. “I should’ve come here, elf! Those years ago, when first we lost me girl. We sent that rat Jarlaxle on the hunt, but it was me own road to be walkin’.”

“And even Jarlaxle, with resources beyond any we could imagine, found no trail at all,” Drizzt reminded him. “We know not the truth or fancy of this forest called Iruladoon, my friend, and could not have found it in time in any case. You did as your station demanded, through two wars that would have grown to engulf the whole of the Silver Marches had wise King Bruenor not been there to end them. The whole of the North owes you its gratitude. We have seen the world beyond that land we once called home, and it’s a dark place indeed.”

Bruenor considered the words for a few heartbeats then nodded. “Bah!” he snorted, just because. “And I’m for seeing Gauntlgrym afore me old bones surrender to the years.” He indicated some maps on the far side of the floor. “One o’ them, I’m thinking, elf. One o’ them.”

“When’re ye thinking to be on the road?” Thibbledorf Pwent asked, and there was something in his voice that caught Drizzt off guard.

“It has to be soon, very soon,” the drow replied, studying Pwent through every word.

Always before, the battlerager had shown eagerness, a fanatical need, even, to march beside his King Bruenor. On many occasions, particularly their infrequent visits to Luskan, Bruenor had looked for ways to avoid taking Pwent along. The dirty dwarf was always a sight, of course, and always drew attention, and in the pirate-run City of Sails, such notice was not always a welcomed thing.

But there was something else in Pwent’s eye, in his posture, and in the timbre of his voice when he asked the question.

“We’ll be going right this day, then,” said Bruenor and he began rolling a parchment to stuff it back into his oversized pack.

Drizzt nodded and moved to help, but again he watched the hesitating battlerager.

“What do ye know?” Bruenor finally asked Pwent, noticing that the dwarf didn’t move to help with the packing.

“Ah, me king …” Pwent replied, voice full of regret.

“I telled ye not to call me—“Bruenor started to scold him, but Drizzt put his hand on Bruenor’s shoulder.

The drow locked stares with Pwent for a long while, then silently nodded his understanding. “He’s not coming,” Drizzt explained.

“Eh? What’re ye saying?” Bruenor looked at Drizzt with puzzlement, but the drow deflected his gaze to Pwent.

“Ah, me king,” the battlerager said again. “I’m fearin’ that I can’no go. Me old knees.…” He sighed, his face long, like a dog that couldn’t head out on the hunt.

Thibbledorf Pwent wasn’t as old as ancient Bruenor Battlehammer, but the years, and thousands of particularly violent fights, had not been kind to the battlerager. The journey to Icewind Dale had taken a lot out of him, though of course Pwent had never complained. Pwent never complained at all, unless he was being excluded from a fight or an adventure, or told to take a bath.

Bruenor turned his stunned expression back to Drizzt, but the drow just nodded his agreement, for both knew that Thibbledorf Pwent would never have made such a claim unless he knew in his old heart that he simply couldn’t make the journey, that he had reached the end of his adventuring days.

“Bah, but ye’re just a child!” Bruenor said, more to boost the spirits of his friend than to try to change his mind.

“Ah, me king, forgive me,” Pwent said.

Bruenor considered him for a moment, then walked over and crushed Pwent in a great hug. “Ye been the best guard, the best friend an old dwarf could e’er know,” Bruenor said. “Ye been with me through it all, ye been, and how could ye even be thinking that ye’re needin’ me forgiving? I’m the one what’s should be asking! For all yer life—”

“No!” Pwent interrupted. “No! It’s been me joy, me king. It’s been me joy. And this isn’t how it’s supposed to end. Been waiting for that one great fight, that last fight. To die for me king …”

“Better in me own heart that ye
live
for me, ye dolt,” said Bruenor.

“So you mean to live out your days here in the dale?” Drizzt asked. “With Stokely and his clan?”

“Aye, if they’ll have me.”

“But they’d be fools not to, and Stokely ain’t no fool,” Bruenor assured him. He looked to Drizzt. “We go tomorrow, not today.”

The drow nodded.

“Today, tonight, we drink and talk o’ all the old times,” Bruenor said, looking back to Pwent. “Today, tonight, we toast every sip to Thibbledorf Pwent, the greatest warrior Mithral Hall’s e’er known!”

It may have been a bit of an exaggeration, for Mithral Hall had known many heroes of legend, not the least of whom was King Bruenor himself. But none who had ever battled Pwent would argue that claim, to be sure, what few who’d faced the rage of Thibbledorf Pwent were still around to argue anyway.

They spent all the day and night together, the three old friends, drinking and reminiscing. They talked of reclaiming Mithral Hall, of the coming of the drow, of their adventures on the road, to the dark days of Cadderly’s library, of the coming of Obould and three wars they had suffered and survived. They toasted to Wulfgar and Catti-brie and Regis, old friends lost, and to Nanfoodle and Jessa, new friends lost, and to a life well-lived and battles well-fought.

And most of all, Bruenor lifted his mug in toast to Thibbledorf Pwent, who, alongside Drizzt, had to be counted as his oldest and dearest friend. The old king was almost ashamed as he spoke words of gratitude and friendship, silently berating himself for all the times he had been embarrassed by the Gutbuster’s gruff demeanor and outrageous antics.

Under it all, Bruenor realized, none of that mattered. What mattered was the heart of Thibbledorf Pwent, a heart true and brave. Here was a dwarf who wouldn’t hesitate to leap in front of a ballista spear flying for a friend—
any
friend, not just his king. Here was a dwarf, Bruenor realized at long last, who truly understood what it was to be a dwarf, what it was to be of Clan Battlehammer.

He hugged his friend again the next morning, long and hard, and there was moisture in the eyes of King Bruenor as he and Drizzt walked out of Stokely Silverstream’s halls. And Pwent stood there at the exit, watching them go and quietly muttering, “Me king,” until they were long out of sight.

“A great dwarf is King Bruenor, eh?” Stokely Silverstream said, coming up to Pwent’s side.

The battlerager looked at him curiously, then widened his eyes in near panic as he feared that he’d just surrendered Bruenor’s identity with his foolish mumbling.

“I knowed from the moment ye arrived,” Stokely assured him. “What with Drizzt beside ye—could it be any but Bruenor himself?”

“Bruenor died many years ago,” Pwent said.

“Aye, and long live King Connerad!” Stokely replied, and he nodded and smiled. “And none need know otherwise, but don’t ye doubt, me new friend, that it does me heart good to know that he’s out there still, fightin’ the Battlehammer fight. Me only hope’s that we’ll see him again, that he’ll come back to Icewind Dale in his last days.”

Stokely put a hand on Pwent’s shoulder then, a shoulder bobbing with sobs.

SHADES OF GRAY

A
S HE WALKED PAST THE GLASS
, H
ERZGO
A
LEGNI COULDN’T HELP BUT
utter a soft growl. His skin had once been so beautifully red, a shining tribute to his devilish bloodline, but the gray pall of the Shadovar had dulled it. His eyes had escaped that change, though, he noted with some satisfaction. The red irises remained in all their hellish splendor.

Alegni accepted the trade-off, though. The dulling of his skin was a minor price to pay for the extended lifespan, and numerous other benefits his life among the Shadovar offered. And though they shared a xenophobic bias with so many of the other closed-minded races of Faerûn, he had found his own path within the ranks of his adopted people. In less than a decade, Herzgo Alegni had become a battle group leader, and barely a decade after that, he had been given the awesome responsibility of leading the Netherese expedition to Neverwinter Wood, in search of fallen Xinlenal Enclave.

He lingered in front of the mirror, admiring his new black weathercloak, its fabric satiny and shimmering, the interior of its stiff collar the most wondrous hue of bright red, matching the blade of his large sword and so beautifully complementing the long purple hair that flowed around his ramlike horns. The high collar diverted most of his hair so it wouldn’t hang down his back, but rather flow out around his neck and over his muscular chest. He kept his leather vest partially untied, of course, to emphasize the rippling muscles of his massive torso.