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  “Aye, to Shoudra and to all them what fell defending the halls of Clan Battlehammer,” Bruenor agreed, and he took a deep draw on his honey mead.

  Nanfoodle nodded and smiled, and hoped that Bruenor wouldn’t taste the somewhat bitter poison.

  “O woe to Mithral Hall, and let the calls go forth to all the lords, kings, and queens of the Silver Marches, that King Bruenor has fallen ill this night!” the criers yelled throughout the dwarven compound just a few hours after the memorial celebration.

  Filled were the chapels of the hall, and of all the towns of the North when word arrived, for King Bruenor was much beloved, and his strong voice had supported so much of the good changes that had come to the Silver Marches. Worries of war with the Kingdom of Many-Arrows filled every conversation, of course, at the prospect of the loss of both the signatories of the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge.

  The vigil in Mithral Hall was solemn, but not morbid. Bruenor had lived a good, long life, after all, and had surrounded himself by dwarves of tremendous character. The clan was the thing, and the clan would survive, and thrive, long beyond the days of great King Bruenor.

  But there were indeed many tears whenever one of Cordio’s priests announced that the king lay gravely ill, and Moradin had not answered their prayers.

  “We cannot help him,” Cordio announced to Drizzt and a few others on the third night of Bruenor’s fretful sleep. “He has fallen beyond us. ”

  He flashed a quiet, disapproving smirk Drizzt’s way, but the drow remained steadfast and solid.

  “Ah, me king,” Pwent moaned.

  “Woe to Mithral Hall,” said Banak Brawnanvil.

  “Not so,” Drizzt replied. “Bruenor has not been derelict in his responsibilities to the hall. His throne will be well filled. ”

  “Ye talk like he’s dead already, ye durned elf!” Pwent scolded.

  Drizzt had no answer against that, so he merely nodded an apology to the battlerager.

  They went in and sat by Bruenor’s bed. Drizzt held his friend’s hand, and just before dawn, King Bruenor breathed his last.

  “The king is dead, long live the king,” Drizzt said, turning to Banak.

  “So begins the reign of Banak Brawnanvil, Eleventh King of Mithral Hall,” said Cordio.

  “I be humbled, priest,” old Banak replied, his gaze low, his heart heavy. Behind his chair, his son patted him on the shoulder. “If half the king as Bruenor I be, then all the world’ll know me reign as a goodly one—nay, a great one. ”

  Thibbledorf Pwent stumbled over and fell to one knee before Banak. “Me … me life for ye, me … me king,” he stammered and stuttered, hardly getting the words out.

  “Blessed be me court,” Banak replied, patting Thibbledorf’s hairy head.

  The tough battlerager threw his forearm across his eyes, turned back, and fell over Bruenor to hug him tightly, then he tumbled back with a great wail and stumbled from the room.

  Bruenor’s tomb was built right beside those of Catti-brie and Regis, and it was the grandest mausoleum ever constructed in the ancient dwarven clanhold. One after another, the elders of the Clan Battlehammer came forth to give a long and rousing recounting of the many exploits of the long-lived and mighty King Bruenor, who had taken his people from the darkness of the ruined halls to a new home in Icewind Dale, and who had personally rediscovered their ancient home, and had then reclaimed it for the clan. In more tentative voices, they spoke of the diplomat Bruenor, who had so dramatically altered the landscape of the Silver Marches.

  On and on it went, through the day and night, for three full days, one tribute after another, all of them ending with a sincere toast to a most worthy successor, the great Banak Brawnanvil, who now formally added Battlehammer to his name: King Banak Brawnanvil Battlehammer.

  Emissaries came from every surrounding kingdom, and even the orcs of Many-Arrows had their say, the Priestess Jessa Dribble-Obould offering a lengthy eulogy that was nothing but complimentary to that most remarkable king, and expressing the hopes of her people that King Banak would be equally wise and well-tempered, and that Mithral Hall would prosper under his leadership. Truly there was nothing controversial, or anything but correct, in the young orc’s words, but still, more than a few of the thousands of dwarves listening to her grumbled and spat, a poignant reminder to Banak and all the other leaders that Bruenor’s work healing the orc-dwarf divide was far from completed.

  Exhausted, worn out, drained emotionally and physically, Drizzt, Nanfoodle, Cordio, Pwent, and Connerad fell into chairs around the hearth that had been Bruenor’s favorite spot. They offered a few more toasts to their friend and launched into private discussions of the many good and heroic memories they had shared with the remarkable dwarf.

  Pwent had the most stories to tell, all exaggerated, of course, but surprisingly, Drizzt Do’Urden said little.

  “I must apologize to your father,” Nanfoodle said to Connerad.

  “Apologize? Nay, gnome, he values your counsel as much as any other dwarf,” the young Prince of Mithral Hall replied.

  “And so I must apologize to him,” said Nanfoodle, and all in the room were listening. “I came here with Lady Shoudra, never meaning to stay, and yet I find that decades have passed. I’m not a young one anymore—in a month I’ll be celebrating my sixty-fifth year. ”

  “Hear hear,” Cordio interrupted, never missing a chance to toast, and they all drank to Nanfoodle’s continuing health.

  “Thank you all,” Nanfoodle said after the drink. “You’ve been as a family to me, to be sure, and my half-life here’s been no less a half than the years before. Or the years after, I am sure. ”

  “What are ye saying, little one?” asked Cordio.

  “I’ve another family,” the gnome replied. “One I’ve seen only in short visits, lo these last thirty-some years. It’s time for me to go, I fear. I wish to spend my last years in my old home in Mirabar. ”

  Those words seemed to suck all the noise from the room, as all sat in stunned silence.

  “Ye’ll owe me dad no apology, Nanfoodle of Mirabar,” Connerad eventually assured the gnome, and he lifted his mug in another toast. “Mithral Hall’ll ne’er forget the help of great Nanfoodle!”

  They all shared in that toast, heartily so, but something struck Thibbledorf Pwent as curious then, though, in his exhausted and overwhelmed state, he couldn’t sort it out.

  Not quite yet.

  Huffing and puffing, the gnome wriggled and squirmed his way through a tumble of boulders, great smooth gray stones lying about as if piled by a catapult crew of titans. Nanfoodle knew the area well, though—indeed, he had set the place for the rendezvous—and so he was not surprised when he pushed through a tightly twisting path between a trio of stones to find Jessa sitting on a smaller stone in a clearing, her midday meal spread on a blanket before her.

  “You need longer legs,” the orc greeted.

  “I need to be thirty years younger,” Nanfoodle replied. He let his heavy pack slide off his shoulders and took a seat on a stone opposite Jessa, reaching for a bowl of stew she’d set out for him.

  “It’s done? You’re certain?” Jessa asked.

  “Three days of mourning for the dead king … three and no more—they haven’t the time. So Banak is king at long last, a title he’s long deserved. ”

  “He steps into the boots of a giant. ”

  Nanfoodle waved the thought away. “The best work of King Bruenor was to ensure the orderliness of Mithral Hall. Banak will not falter, and even if he did, there are many wise voices around him. ” He paused and looked at the orc priestess more closely. Her gaze had drifted to the north, toward the still-young kingdom of her people. “King Banak will continue the work, as Obould II will honor the desires and vision of his predecessor,” Nanfoodle assured her.

  Jessa looked at him curiously, even incredulously. “You’re so calm,” she said. “You spend too much of your life in your books and
scrolls, and not nearly enough time looking into the faces of those around you. ”

  Nanfoodle looked at her with a curious expression.

  “How can you be so calm?” Jessa asked. “Don’t you realize what you’ve just done?”

  “I did only as I was ordered to do,” Nanfoodle protested, not catching on to the gravity in her voice.

  Jessa started to scold him again, meaning to school him on the weight of feelings, to remind him that not all the world could be described by logical theorems, that other factors had to be considered, but a commotion to the side, the scraping of metal on stone, stole her words.

  “What?” Nanfoodle, slurping his stew, asked as she rose to her feet.

  “What was ye ordered to do?” came the gruff voice of Thibbledorf Pwent, and Nanfoodle spun around just as the battlerager, arrayed in full armor, squeezed out from between the boulders, metal ridges screeching against the stone. “Aye, and be sure that meself’s wonderin’ who it was what’s orderin’ ye!” He ended by punching one metal-gloved fist into the other. “And don’t be doubtin’ that I’m meanin’ to find out, ye little rat. ”

  He advanced and Nanfoodle retreated, dropping the bowl of stew to the ground.

  “Ye got nowhere to run, neither of ye,” Pwent assured them as he continued his advance. “Me legs’re long enough to chase ye, and me anger’s more’n enough to catch ye!”

  “What is this?” Jessa demanded, but Pwent fixed her with a hateful glare.

  “Ye’re still alive only because ye might have something I need to hear,” the vicious dwarf explained. “And if ye’re not yapping words that make me smile, know that ye’ll be finding a seat. ” As he finished, he pointed at the large spike protruding from the top of his helm. And Jessa knew full well that more than one orc had shuddered through its death throes impaled on that spike.

  “Pwent, no!” Nanfoodle yelped, holding his hands up before him, motioning the dwarf to stop his steady approach. “You don’t understand. ”

  “Oh, I’m knowin’ more than ye think I’m knowin’,” the battlerager promised. “Been in yer workshop, gnome. ”

  Nanfoodle held up his hands. “I told King Banak that I would be leaving. ”

  “Ye was leaving afore King Bruenor died,” Pwent accused. “Ye had yer bag all packed for the road. ”

  “Well, yes, I have been considering it for a—”

  “All packed up and tucked right under the bench of poison ye brewed for me king!” Pwent yelled, and he leaped forward at Nanfoodle, who was nimble enough to skitter around the side of another stone, just out of Pwent’s murderous grasp.

  “Pwent, no!” Nanfoodle yelled.

  Jessa moved to intervene, but Pwent turned on her, balling his fists, which brought forth the retractable hand spikes from their sheaths on the backs of his gloves. “How much did ye pay the rat, ye dog’s arse-end?” he demanded.

  Jessa kept retreating, but when her back came against a stone, when she ran out of room, the orc’s demeanor changed immediately, and she snarled right back at Pwent as she drew forth a slender iron wand. “One more step. …” she warned, taking aim.