Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf Read online

  “Felbarr?” King Emerus said, obviously caught by surprise. He looked to Parson Glaive, who could only shrug in confusion.

  “I be so much older than I’m lookin’,” Athrogate admitted. “Was here when Obould took the place. Didn’t e’er return.”

  The Felbarr dwarves all glanced around, exchanging doubtful looks indeed.

  “Not for mattering,” Athrogate said. “Ain’t called Felbarr me home in two dwarves’ lifetimes. Just Athrogate now. Just Athrogate.”

  “We will talk, yerself and meself,” King Emerus said, and Athrogate looked back over his shoulder and cast a sour glance at Drizzt, who just patted him on the shoulder again.

  “Athrogate was a hero of Nesmé,” Drizzt said, and he moved to stand behind Catti-brie, dropping his hands on her strong shoulders. “As was this woman, my wife.”

  “Ye seem to be favorin’ human lasses with that fire hair, what ho!” Ragged Dain declared, and he lifted his tankard in toast to the woman.

  “Indeed,” Drizzt agreed. “And that will be explained shortly, I expect. Perhaps even by the fourth of my party who joins us this day.” He stepped to the side of Catti-brie and leaned over the table, nodding down the other end of the Battlehammer line to his dear friend, who nodded back.

  “Little Arr Arr?” King Emerus asked with surprise. “So ye’re with this one now, then, and not with the Battlehammers?”

  “With both,” Bruenor replied.

  Emerus gave a snort and shook his head.

  “Tale’s already got me head spinnin’,” Oretheo Spikes said from the Adbar side.

  “Oh, but ye ain’t heared nothin’ yet,” King Connerad assured him, assured all of them, and he lifted his pack from the floor and plopped it on the table in front of him, then reverently opened it to reveal a peculiar one-horned helmet.

  “Ye e’er seen one akin to it?” he asked King Emerus.

  “Looks like Bruenor’s own,” the king of Felbarr replied.

  Connerad nodded, then suddenly slid the fabled item along the table to his right, past Dagnabbet and Bungalow Thump to the waiting hands of Little Arr Arr.

  “Eh?” King Emerus and several others asked together.

  Little Arr Arr lifted the one-horned helm in his strong hands and rolled it around, looking it over from every angle. Then, looking straight at Emerus, he plopped the helm, the old crown of Mithral Hall, atop his head.

  “ ’Ere now, what’re ye about?” King Emerus demanded.

  “Ye’re not knowin’ me, then?” Bruenor asked slyly. “After all we been through together?”

  Emerus wore a curious expression and turned to Connerad for an answer.

  “That one there, the one ye were knowin’ as Little Arr Arr, son o’ Reginald Roundshield and Uween,” Connerad began, and he paused and collected his breath, even shaking his head as if he, too, could hardly believe what he was about to declare.

  “Me name’s Bruenor,” the young dwarf in the one-horned helm interjected. “Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth King and Tenth King o’ Mithral Hall. Son o’ Bangor, me Da, who ye knowed well, me friend Emerus. Aye, son o’ Bangor, that’d be me!”

  “Ye dishonor yer Ma!” Ragged Dain scolded and came forward over the table threateningly. But Bruenor didn’t blink.

  “And so too son o’ Reginald Roundshield,” he said. “And born again of Uween, me Ma, and she’s a fine one, don’t ye doubt.”

  “Delusion!” Ragged Dain insisted.

  “Blasphemy!” added Oretheo Spikes.

  “Truth in tellin’!” Bruenor spat at both of them. “Bruenor’s me name, the one gived me by me Da, Bangor!”

  “Ye canno’ believe this,” King Emerus said to Connerad. He turned fast to Drizzt, though, as he spoke. “Surely yerself’s knowin’ better!”

  “Bruenor,” Drizzt said slowly and deliberately, nodding. “It is.”

  “Don’t you know him, then, King Emerus?” asked the woman beside Drizzt. “And don’t you recognize me?”

  “Now, how might I be doing that?” Emerus asked, or almost asked. The last word caught in his throat as he took a closer look at this auburnhaired young woman sitting beside the dark elf.

  “By the gods,” he muttered.

  “Catti-brie?” Ragged Dain added, just as breathlessly.

  “Aye, by the gods,” the woman answered. “By Mielikki, most of all.”

  “And with the blessings o’ Moradin, Dumathoin, and Clangeddin, don’t ye doubt,” Bruenor added. “I been to their throne in Gauntlgrym, I tell ye. Thought I’d be drinking at their hall, but they had other plans.”

  “And so we’re here, in this time of need,” Catti-brie added.

  The others started to cheer, but King Emerus cut that short. “No, canno’ be,” he said. “No, but I knowed ye when ye were here, I did! Little Arr Arr! I went to yer Ma and saw ye schooled in the fightin’ …”

  The King of Citadel Felbarr paused there, the memory catching him by surprise. He looked to Parson Glaive and Ragged Dain, and they each smiled and nodded, also recalling the way this young dwarf, the son of Reginald Roundshield, had toyed with dwarflings years beyond his age.

  “No, but it couldn’t be all a lie,” Emerus insisted. “Ye was right under me eyes! Yer Da was me friend, captain o’ me guard! Ye canno’ dishonor him now in such a way!”

  “Ain’t no dishonor,” Bruenor insisted, shaking his head. “I done what needed doin’. I could no’ tell ye, though don’t ye doubt but I wanted to!”

  “Blasphemy!” Emerus shouted.

  “Wait,” Ragged Dain interrupted, and it seemed a fortunate coincidence that the old dwarf picked that time to slow down the momentum of King Emerus. Ragged Dain turned to Emerus and nodded an apology, and when the king bade him continue, he spun back on Bruenor. “Then ye’re sayin’ it was King Bruenor who threw himself at that giant in the Rauvins? King Bruenor who gived all but his life so that his fellows could get away?”

  “Seen a giant, sticked a giant,” Bruenor said matter-of-factly and with a shrug, though he did wince a bit at the painful memory. “And aye, Mandarina Dobberbright?” he asked, looking to Emerus. “Know that she saved me, as did yer second there, good Parson Glaive.”

  Ragged Dain, King Emerus, and Bruenor looked to the high priest of Felbarr together, finding Parson Glaive standing and staring dumbfounded then, his jaw hanging open. “It’s true,” he whispered breathlessly.

  “Aye, so I said,” Bruenor replied. “Mandarina tended me, and Dain and the boys bringed me back, though I’m not for rememberin’ much o’ that part!”

  “No,” Parson Glaive said. “Yerself … ye’re Bruenor, and ye were Bruenor then.”

  “Always been,” Bruenor answered, but King Emerus waved him to silence.

  “What’d’ye know?” the king demanded of his high priest.

  “When ye waked up after the fight in the Rauvins, back in Felbarr,” Parson Glaive said to Bruenor, “I telled ye that ye might’ve been goin’ to meet yer Da, and I was meanin’ Arr Arr, course, as he went off to the table o’ Moradin. But ye were half out o’ yer wits, and ye said …”

  “Bangor,” Bruenor replied.

  King Emerus blinked repeatedly, turning from Parson Glaive to Bruenor and back again.

  “Even then, ye knowed,” Ragged Dain whispered.

  “Always knowed, from the day o’ me birth.”

  “Always knowed? And ye didn’t tell me?” Emerus demanded.

  Bruenor stood and bowed. “Weren’t yer worry,” was all he offered.

  “And was yerself that got yerself to Mithral Hall, to train with them Gutbusters, so ye said,” Ragged Dain added.

  “Heigh ho!” Bungalow Thump had to put in.

  The three from Citadel Felbarr exchanged looks, and Parson Glaive said with complete confidence, “By the gods, but it’s him.”

  “By the gods!” Oretheo Spikes and the rest of the Adbar contingent, King Emerus and Ragged Dain all shouted together, and they came to their feet as one, shaking their hairy h
eads, clapping each other on the back and crying, “Huzzah to King Bruenor!”

  “Aye, but the hopes just brightened and the dark sky ain’t so dark!” King Emerus proclaimed. “Bruenor, me old friend, but how is it so?” He crawled across the table to offer a firm handshake, then pushed in closer and wrapped King Bruenor in a great hug.

  “Drinks! Drinks!” he yelled to the attendants. “Oh, but we’ll be puttin’ ’em back for a tenday and more. Huzzah for Bruenor!”

  And the cheering began anew, and the attendants came rushing in, foam flying, and the somber council quickly became a cacophony of toasts and cheers. Bruenor let the celebration go on for a while, but finally begged them all to take their seats once more.

  “Not much to be cheerin’ if the Silver Marches’re to fall,” he warned.

  “And ye’re King o’ Mithral Hall again?” Emerus asked Bruenor as soon as they had all settled back into their seats. The King of Citadel Felbarr looked to Connerad as he spoke the dangerous question.

  Bruenor, too, glanced over at Connerad, who nodded. In that moment, it looked to all that Connerad would go along with whatever Bruenor decided. That subservience was not lost on King Emerus and Ragged Dain, both of whom gasped at the sight.

  “Nah,” said Bruenor. “Best choice meself ever made as king was giving me crown to Banak Brawnanvil, and him, to his boy Connerad. Mithral Hall’s got a king, and as fine a king as she’s e’er known. An ungrateful wretch I’d be if I called for me throne back now!”

  “Then what?” asked Emerus.

  “I been to Nesmé, and left Nesmé right afore she fell, so ye’re sayin’,” Bruenor answered. “Me and me friends’ve come to tell ye to get out o’ yer holes. Now’s the time, or there’s no time to be found! The land’s crawling with orcs, and they ain’t meanin’ to go back to their holes. Nah, they’re taking it all, I tell ye.”

  “We’ve heared as much from the couriers of the Knights in Silver,” Connerad added.

  “Bah! But what’d’we care for them human lands?” King Emerus spouted. “Layin’ all the blame at our feet—at yer own feet, if ye’re who ye claim to be and who we think ye to be!”

  “I am, and so they will, and so I won’t be caring!” Bruenor declared. “I’m knowin’ better. Me name’s on that damned treaty, aye, but was th’ other kingdoms what put it there a hunnerd years ago, and yerself’s knowin’ the truth o’ that, me friend.”

  King Emerus nodded.

  “But now’s no time for blamin’,” Bruenor went on. “We got thousands o’ orcs to kill, me boys! Tens o’ thousands! All o’ Luruar stands together, or all o’ Luruar’s sure to fall!”

  “Ain’t no Luruar,” said Oretheo Spikes. He rose up from his seat and slowly walked around the sharp-angled corner of the table, moving deliberately for Bruenor. “Just a bunch o’ elves and humans dancing about three dwarf forts. Aye, and they’re to fall,” he said when he got right up to Bruenor, and he began carefully looking over the strange dwarf. “All of ’em, and there ain’t a durned thing we can do to stop it.”

  “We put our three as one and hammer them orcs …” Bruenor started.

  “We canno’ get out,” Oretheo Spikes explained, and still he looked the strange dwarf up and down, once again looking for some sign that the dwarf was an imposter, it seemed.

  And who could blame him?

  Into the midst of a besieged and battered trio of citadels comes a young dwarf claiming to be a long-dead king, and telling the dwarves to come out of their impregnable fortresses.

  “Oh, but we tried,” Oretheo went on, and he started back for his seat. “King Harnoth won’t stay in his hall, so full o’ grief is he for his brother, Bromm, who got himself murdered to death in the Cold Vale. I seen that murder, aye, me king frozen to death by the blow of a white dragon! Aye, a true dragon, I tell ye, and then me dear king got his head cut away by th’ ugliest orc, Warlord Hartusk of Dark Arrow Keep. Oh, aye, young Bruenor, if that’s to be yer name,” he added and looked past Bruenor to Drizzt, “and riding the wyrm was a drow elf, much akin to the one ye bringed in with ye.”

  He turned his eye squarely on Bruenor. “We’d lose half our dwarves and more tryin’ to get out o’ Adbar. Damned orcs canno’ get in, but me boys canno’ get out—and I ain’t for losing half o’ them trying. Or might that be what ye’re lookin’ to see?”

  The thick suspicion in Oretheo’s voice was not lost on Bruenor or any of the others from Mithral Hall.

  And again, who could blame him?

  “I’m hearin’ ye,” Bruenor assured him, nodding solemnly. “And me old heart’s breaking for yer King Bromm. A good one, I hear, though I knowed his Da better, to be sure.”

  With a glance at Connerad, Bruenor leaped upon the table and stood to address them all. “And I ain’t sayin’, and let none be sayin’, that we’re to crawl out and lose half our boys. Not for the Silver Marches, nay. But we’re better off by far in saving what’s left o’ the place and not giving all the land above us to them damned orcs.”

  “How, then?” asked Oretheo Spikes. “Adbar canno’ get out, and the rings about Felbarr and Mithral Hall ain’t any thinner.”

  “One’s got to lead,” Bruenor said. “One to break out and go to help the next in line. If we’re talkin’ smart back and forth, we can coax th’ orcs off the next and smash ’em from both sides.”

  “Then two free go to the third—Adbar’d be me guess—and we’re out an’ runnin’,” said King Emerus.

  Bruenor nodded.

  “Aye, but who, then?” asked Oretheo Spikes. “Who’s first out? For sure that hall’s to suffer like none’ve been punched since Obould first came down from the Spine o’ the World!”

  Emerus nodded grimly at Oretheo’s reasoning, then slowly swung around to regard Bruenor.

  “It’ll be the boys from Mithral Hall,” Connerad answered before Bruenor could, and all three turned to him with surprise.

  “Aye,” Connerad said, nodding. “I know none o’ ye’re blamin’ Mithral Hall and me friend Bruenor for what’s come crashin’ down on us, but it’s right that me and me boys find our way out—out and over to Felbarr is me guess.”

  Emerus looked to Bruenor, who shrugged and deferred back to the rightful king of Mithral Hall.

  “We’ll find a way,” Connerad insisted, “or I’m a bearded gnome!”

  Bruenor started to agree, but that last remark, once his trademark vow, caught him off guard so completely that he nearly toppled off the table. He stared at Connerad, who offered him a grin and a wink in explanation.

  “Well, huzzah and heigh-ho to Mithral Hall then,” said King Emerus. “And if ye’re findin’ yer way out and across the Surbrin, know that Felbarr’ll be itchin’ to get out and join ye in the slaughter.”

  “Ye’re talkin’ months,” Oretheo Spikes reminded them all, “for winter’s soon to be deep about us.”

  “Then yerself’s to keep the way from Adbar to Felbarr open,” King Emerus told him. “And Felbarr’ll keep the way clear to Mithral Hall while Connerad and his boys get ready to break them orcs.

  “So there ye have our answer, King Bruenor, me old friend,” Emerus went on. “I got no love for the folk o’ Silverymoon or Everlund, nor am I losin’ much sleep for the folk o’ Sundabar. Aye, but they’ve treated yer memory with disrespect, and called me own boys cowards for the slaughter at the Redrun, and now I wouldn’t lose a boy to save a one o’ them towns! But aye, ye’re right in that we’re better with them orcs chased off and killed to death. Ye get yerselves out and we’ll watch for ye.”

  He shifted his gaze to take in Connerad as well. “But if ye canno’ get out, ye won’t be findin’ Felbarr leading the way up.”

  “Nor Adbar,” Oretheo Spikes warned.

  Bruenor and Connerad exchanged concerned glances, then Bruenor looked over to Drizzt, who nodded.

  They really couldn’t have asked for more than that.

  None were happy after leaving that meeting that day in Citadel Felbarr, but th
e whispering echoed in every hall in Felbarr soon after, as word that their own Little Arr Arr had returned with his spectacular announcement.

  King Bruenor? Could it be?

  Uween Roundshield was hard at work at her blacksmithing when she heard the whispers. She wasted no time in closing down her forge and heading back to her home. Overwhelmed and confused, she didn’t want to discuss the startling news. She really had no idea how she actually felt about it. If the whispers were true, she was the Queen Mother of Mithral Hall, a place she had never even visited and of which she knew almost nothing.

  Whatever excitement that strange and unexpected title might inspire was surely tempered, though: If this was King Bruenor, then what of her Little Arr Arr? What of the child she had nurtured? For eighteen years, he had been her boy—not without trials, certainly, but not without love, either.

  But how much of it was a lie?

  She thought of the last month he had been in her home, itching to be on the road to Mithral Hall. So he knew then, she realized. Possibly, he had known for all his life.

  And he hadn’t told her.

  She dropped her thick apron on the counter in her entry hall and plopped down heavily on a chair at her dining table, feeling much older than her hundred and ten years. How she missed her husband in this difficult moment. She needed someone to lean on, someone to help her sort through this … insanity.

  “I come home, Ma,” came a familiar voice from the hallway behind her.

  Uween froze in place, her thoughts whirling.

  “I hope ye’re to forgive me for going to King Emerus first, but I seen the war, and it’s no pretty thing,” Bruenor said, moving slowly toward the woman.

  Uween didn’t—couldn’t—look over at him. She kept her head bowed into her hands, trying to clear her mind, trying to throw aside her fears and grief and simply let her heart guide her. She heard her boy approaching, and couldn’t deny the flutter in her heart.

  “Ma?” Bruenor said, dropping a hand on her shoulder.

  Uween spun on him and leaped up from her seat, and even in the motion, she wasn’t sure whether she’d punch him or hug him. She went with the hug, crushing her boy tight against her.