the guildhouse, waiting for word of the drow elf - waiting for a second chance
to battle Drizzt Do'Urden.
The night passed lazily, and Drizzt, unmoving from his window, watched it
drift into dawn. Again, Bruenor was the first to his room.
"Ye ready, elf?" the eager dwarf asked, closing the door behind him as he
entered.
"Patience, good dwarf," Drizzt replied. "We cannot leave until the tide is
right, and Captain Deudermont assured me that we had the bulk of the morning to
wait."
Bruenor plopped down on the bed. "Better," he said at length. "Gives me more
time to speak with the little one."
"You fear for Regis," observed Drizzt.
"Ayuh," Bruenor admitted. "The little one's done well by me." He pointed to
the onyx statuette on the dressing table. "And by yerself. Rumblebelly said it
himself: There's wealth to be taken here. Pook's gone, and it's to be
grab-as-grab-can. And that Entreri's about - that's not to me likin'. And more
of them ratmen, not to doubt, looking to pay the little one back for their pain.
And that wizard! Rumblebelly says he's got him by the gemstones, if ye get me
meaning, but it seems off to me that a wizard's caught by such a charm."
"To me, as well," Drizzt agreed.
"I don't like him, and I don't trust him!" Bruenor declared. "Rumblebelly's
got him standing right by his side."
"Perhaps you and I should pay LaValle a visit this morning," Drizzt offered,
"that we might judge where he stands."
* * *
Bruenor's knocking technique shifted subtly when they arrived at the
wizard's door, from the gentle tapping he had laid on Drizzt's door, to a
battering-ram crescendo of heavy slugs. LaValle jumped from his bed and rushed
to see what was the matter, and who was beating upon his brand new door.
"Morning, wizard," Bruenor grumbled, pushing into the room as soon as the
door cracked open.
"So I guessed," muttered LaValle, looking to the hearth and beside it to the
pile of kindling that was once his old door.
"Greetings, good dwarf," he said as politely as he could muster. "And Master
Do'Urden," he added quickly when he noticed Drizzt slipping in behind. "Were you
not to be gone by this late hour?"
"We have time," said Drizzt.
"And we're not for leaving till we've seen to the safety of Rumblebelly,"
Bruenor explained.
"Rumblebelly?" echoed LaValle.
"The halfling!" roared Bruenor. "Yer master."
"Ah, yes, Master Regis," said LaValle wistfully, his hands going together
over his chest and his eyes taking on a distant, glossy look.
Drizzt shut the door and glared, suspicious, at him.
LaValle's faraway trance faded back to normal when he considered the
unblinking drow. He scratched his chin, looking for somewhere to run. He
couldn't fool the drow, he realized. The dwarf, perhaps, the halfling,
certainly, but not this one. Those lavender eyes burned holes right through his
facade. "You do not believe that your little friend has cast his enchantment
over me," he said.
"Wizards avoid wizards' traps," Drizzt replied.
"Fair enough," said LaValle, slipping into a chair.
"Bah! Then ye're a liar, too!" growled Bruenor, his hand going to the axe on
his belt. Drizzt stopped him.
"If you doubt the enchantment," said LaValle, "do not doubt my loyalty. I am
a practical man who has served many masters in my long life. Pook was the
greatest of these, but Pook is gone. LaValle lives on to serve again."
"Or mighten be that he sees a chance to make the top," Bruenor remarked,
expecting an, angry response from LaValle.
Instead, the wizard laughed heartily. "I have my craft," he said. "It is all
that I care for. I live in comfort and am free to go as I please. I need not the
challenges and dangers of a guildmaster." He looked to Drizzt as the more
reasonable of the two. "I will serve the halfling, and if Regis is thrown down,
I will serve he that takes the halfling's place."
The logic satisfied Drizzt, and convinced him of the wizard's loyalty beyond
any enchantment the ruby could have induced. "Let us take our leave," he said to
Bruenor, and he started out the door.
Bruenor could trust Drizzt's judgment, but he couldn't resist one final
threat. "Ye crossed me, wizard," he growled from the doorway. "Ye nearen killed
me girl. If me friend comes to a bad end, ye'll pay with yer head."
LaValle nodded but said nothing.
"Keep him well," the dwarf finished with a wink, and he slammed the door
with a bang.
"He hates my door," the wizard lamented.
* * *
The troupe gathered inside the guildhouse's main entrance an hour later,
Drizzt, Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie outfitted again in their adventuring
gear, and Drizzt with the magical mask hanging loose around his neck.
Regis, with attendants in tow, joined them. He would make the trip to the
Sea Sprite beside his formidable friends. Let his enemies see his allies in all
their splendor, the sly new guildmaster figured, particularly a drow elf!
"A final offer before we go," Regis proclaimed.
"We're not for staying," Bruenor retorted.
"Not to you," Regis said. He turned squarely to Drizzt. "To you."
Drizzt waited patiently for the pitch as the halfling rubbed his eager hands
together.
"Fifty thousand gold pieces," Regis said at length, "for your cat."
Drizzt's eyes widened to double their size.
"Guenhwyvar will be well cared for, I assure-"
Catti-brie slapped Regis on the back of the head. "Find yer shame," she
scolded. "Ye know the drow better than that!"
Drizzt calmed her with a smile. "A treasure for a treasure?" he said to
Regis. "You know I must decline. Guenhwyvar cannot be bought, however good your
intentions may be."
"Fifty thousand," Bruenor huffed. "If we wanted it, we'd take it afore we
left!"
Regis then realized the absurdity of the offer, and he blushed in
embarrassment.
"Are you so certain that we came across the world to your aid?" Wulfgar
asked him. Regis looked at the barbarian, confused.
"Perhaps 'twas the cat we came after," Wulfgar continued seriously.
The stunned look on Regis's face proved more than any of them could bear,
and a burst of laughter like none of them had enjoyed in many months erupted,
infecting even Regis.
"Here," Drizzt offered when things had quieted once again. "Take this
instead," He pulled the magical mask off his head and tossed it to the halfling.
"Should ye keep it until we get to the boat?" Bruenor asked.
Drizzt looked to Catti-brie for an answer, and her smile of approval and
admiration cast away any remaining doubts he might have had.
"No," he said. "Let the Calishites judge me for what they will." He swung
open the doors, allowing the morning sun to sparkle in his lavender eyes.
"Let the wide world judge me for what it will," he said, his look one of
genuine contentment as he dropped his gaze alternately into the eyes of each of
his four friends.
"You know who I am."
Epilogue
The Sea Sprite cut a difficult course northward up the Sword Coast, into the
wintry winds, but Captain Deudermont and his grateful crew were determined to
see the four friends safely and swiftly back to Waterdeep.
Stunned expressions from every face on the docks greeted the resilient
vessel as it put into Waterdeep Harbor, dodging the breakers and the ice floes
as it went. Mustering all the skill he had gained through years of experience,
Deudermont docked the Sea Sprite safely.
The four friends had recovered much of their health, and their humor, during
those two months at sea, despite the rough voyage. All had turned out well in
the end - even Catti-brie's wounds appeared as if they would fully heal.
But if the sea voyage back to the North was difficult, the trek across the
frozen lands was even worse. Winter was on the wane but still thick in the land,
and the friends could not afford to wait for the snows to melt. They said their
goodbyes to Deudermont and the men of the Sea Sprite, tightened heavy cloaks and
boots, and trudged off through Waterdeep's gate along the Trade Way on the
northeastern course to Longsaddle.
Blizzards and wolves reared up to stop them. The path of the road, its
plentiful markings buried under a year's worth of snow, became no more than the
guess of a drow elf reading the stars and the sun.
Somehow they made it, though, and they stormed into Longsaddle, ready to
retake Mithril Hall. Bruenor's kin from Icewind Dale were there to greet them,
along with five hundred of Wulfgar's people. Less than two weeks later, General
Dagnabit of Citadel Adbar led his eight thousand dwarven troops to Bruenor's
side.
Battle plans were drawn and redrawn. Drizzt and Bruenor put their memories
of the undercity and mine caverns together to create models of the place and
estimate the number of duergar the army would face.
Then, with spring defeating the last blows of winter, and only a few days
before the army was to set out to the mountains, two more groups of allies came
in, quite unexpectedly: contingents of archers from Silverymoon and Nesme.
Bruenor at first wanted to turn the warriors from Nesme away, remembering the
treatment he and his friends had received at the hands of a Nesme patrol on
their initial journey to Mithril Hall, and also because the dwarf wondered how
much of the show of allegiance was motivated in the hopes of friendship, and how
much in the hopes of profit!
But, as usual, Bruenor's friends kept him on a wise course. The dwarves
would have to deal extensively with Nesme, the closest settlement to Mithril
Hall, once the mines were reopened, and a smart leader would patch the bad
feelings there and then.
* * *
Their numbers were overwhelming, their determination unrivaled, and their
leaders magnificent. Bruenor and Dagnabit led the main assault force of
battle-hardened dwarves and wild barbarians, sweeping out room after room of the
duergar scum. Catti-brie, with her bow, the few Harpells who had made the
journey, and the archers from the two cities, cleared the side passages along
the main force's thrust.
Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Guenhwyvar, as they had so often in the past, forged
out alone, scouting the areas ahead of and below the army, taking out more than
their share of duergar along the way.
In three days, the top level was cleared. In two weeks, the undercity. By
the time spring had settled fully onto the northland, less than a month after
the army had set out from Longsaddle, the hammers of Clan Battlehammer began
their smithing song in the ancient halls once again.
And the rightful king took his throne.
* * *
Drizzt looked down from the mountains to the distant lights of the enchanted
city of Silverymoon. He had been turned away from that city once before - a
painful rejection - but not this time.
He could walk the land as he chose, now, with his head held high and the
cowl of his cloak thrown back. Most of the world did not treat him any
differently; few knew the name of Drizzt Do'Urden. But Drizzt knew now that he
owed no apologies, or excuses, for his black skin, and to those who placed
unfair judgment upon him, he offered none.
The weight of the world's prejudice would still fall upon him heavily, but
Drizzt had learned, by the insights of Catti-brie, to stand against it.
What a wonderful friend she was to him. Drizzt had watched her grow into a
special young woman, and he was warmed now by the knowledge that she had found
her home.
The thought of her with Wulfgar, and standing beside Bruenor, touched the
dark elf, who had never experienced the closeness of family.
"How much we all have changed," the drow whispered to the empty mountain
wind.
His words were not a lament.
* * *
The autumn saw the first crafted goods flow from Mithril Hall to
Silverymoon, and by the time winter turned again to spring, the trade was in
full force, with the barbarians from Icewind Dale working as market bearers for
the dwarven goods.
That spring, too, a carving was begun in the Hall of Kings: the likeness of
Bruenor Battlehammer.
To the dwarf who had wandered so far from his home and had seen so many
marvelous - and horrible - sights, the reopening of the mines, and even the
carving of his bust, seemed of minor importance when weighed against another
event planned for that year.
"I told ye he'd be back," Bruenor said to Wulfgar and Catti-brie, who both
sat beside him in his audience hall. "Th'elf'd not be missing such a thing as
yer wedding!"
General Dagnabit - who, with blessings from King Harbromme of Citadel Adbar,
had stayed on with two thousand other dwarves, swearing allegiance to Bruenor -
entered the room, escorting a figure who had become less and less noticeable in
Mithril Hall over the last few months.
