Archmage Page 4

  “And where’s yerself been this last year o’ fightin’?” Bruenor asked, suspicious.

  “In the mountains, in exile,” Lorgru answered.

  Drizzt looked at his red-bearded friend and nodded solemnly.

  “My kingdom was stolen from me,” Lorgru continued, “by factions determined to return to the warlike ways of the orcs. I reject those ways! She”—he pointed to Sinnafein—“is alive and free by my choice, though I could have ordered her killed, legally, even by your own laws, for intruding upon my kingdom.”

  All eyes went to Sinnafein.

  “King Lorgru speaks truly,” Sinnafein confirmed. “He would have been within his rights to execute me, but he did not.”

  “Are ye expectin’ cheers?” King Harnoth said with a growl, looking from Sinnafein to Lorgru.

  “I expect nothing,” Lorgru replied. “I ask for a truce.”

  “A truce? Now that we got yer dogs runnin’?” Harnoth argued. “A truce so that ye can put ’em all back together and come hunting dwarfs once more?”

  “Bruenor speaks for us, King Harnoth,” Emerus Warcrown said, an edge of anger coming into his tone. Harnoth returned his angry stare, but Connerad Brawnanvil was quick to back up King Emerus, as was Aleina Brightlance.

  “Bah, but I’m not needin’ ye,” Harnoth grumbled at length. “The boys o’ Adbar alone can finish the job.”

  “Aye, but ye won’t,” Bruenor said in a tone that brooked no debate. The red-bearded dwarf spun on Lorgru. “A truce, ye’re wanting?”

  The orc nodded.

  “Ye want us to leave yerself and yer boys alone in the mountains, do ye?”

  Another nod.

  “Well ye hear me good, then, King Lorgru, or Obould, or whate’er name ye mean to put on yer ugly face. Yerself and yers ain’t welcome in the Silver Marches anymore. There’s no Kingdom of Many-Arrows, and any o’ yer boys that come out o’ the mountains south of this ruined keep’s north wall, or in the Lands Against The Wall, or anywhere else in the Silver Marches’ll be counted as raiders and treated as such. We’ll be watching ye, don’t ye doubt, and first fight’s last fight, for don’t ye doubt that we’ll be coming in to find ye.”

  King Lorgru glanced around like a caged animal, a look that changed to unmistakably crestfallen, as if only then did he realize that the dreams of his ancestors were lost to him. There would be no resurrection of Dark Arrow Keep, no return to the relationships and treaties the orcs had known before the rise of Warlord Hartusk.

  He wanted to argue, they could all see, and even started to rebut. But he bit back his argument and accepted Bruenor’s terms with a nod.

  “Perhaps one day we will prove ourselves worthy of your trust,” he said.

  “I trust an orc corpse,” said King Harnoth. “So there’s a start to an understanding.”

  “Ye stay in yer holes,” Bruenor warned. “Ye stay clear o’ the Silver Marches. Or don’t ye doubt that we’ll hunt ye down, every one, and kill ye to death. Every one.”

  King Lorgru nodded and held forth his hand, but Bruenor didn’t take it, and indeed, it seemed to all looking on that it took every ounce of control the fiery dwarf could manage to stop him from leaping out and murdering Lorgru then and there.

  “What o’ yerself?” Bruenor demanded of the goblin.

  The diminutive creature glanced around nervously. “We are done the war!” it shrieked, and cowered.

  Bruenor’s gaze shifted to the frost giant, tall and proud, and clearly unbended by the weight of guilt or defeat.

  “I am Hengredda of Starshine,” he said in his beautiful and resonant voice. He gave a little chuckle. “It seems that I am all that is left of Starshine.”

  He shrugged, as if that was simply the accepted way of war, which to frost giants it surely was.

  “I wish to go to Shining White and Jarl Fimmel Orelson,” the giant explained. “I wish to tell him that the war is ended.”

  “And why would ye wish to do such a thing as that?” a skeptical Bruenor asked.

  “So that Jarl Orelson ends his preparations to continue the war,” Hengredda said with surprising candor.

  “Are ye sayin’ he’s meaning to come back with his boys?” Emerus Warcrown demanded.

  The frost giant shrugged. “If there is war, Jarl Orelson will fight. If there is war no more, he will not.”

  Bruenor turned back to regard the other dwarf kings before he responded, mostly seeking the approval of King Emerus, who was old and wise and had been through this many times before. When Emerus nodded, the red-bearded dwarf turned back to the frost giant.

  “Ye go and tell Jarl Orelson what I telled Lorgru here,” Bruenor instructed. “He stays away and we’ll leave him—we’ll leave ye all—be. But if a dwarf o’ the Silver Marches falls to the blade of a frost giant, then tell your Jarl Orelson that we’ll be melting Shining White to a puddle, aye, and one red with giant blood, don’t ye doubt.”

  “You boast loudly for such a little creature,” Hengredda remarked.

  Drizzt, Catti-brie, and all the dwarves around gasped at that, expecting Bruenor to spring upon the giant and throttle him. King Harnoth even started forward threateningly, but Bruenor swung out an arm and held him back.

  Bruenor just stood there and smiled, staring at Hengredda for a long, long while.

  “Nothin’ worth sayin’ to the like o’ yerself,” said Bruenor. “I telled ye what was what, so do what ye want with it. But take yerself a good look at the field behind us, giant. At the big holes we’re filling with dead enemies. Ye might want to tell yer Jarl Orelson about that.”

  The frost giant snorted derisively.

  “And if yer sense of honor, or whatever stupid thing’s driving ye makes ye think ye’re wantin’ to fight me, then go and deliver the message to Shining White and come back,” Bruenor offered. “We’ll fight it out, me and yerself—just me and yerself. And when we’re done, me boys’ll dig a hole and put ye in it.”

  “Brave words, dwarf,” the giant replied.

  “Not just any dwarf,” King Emerus said, stepping forward. “King Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth King of Mithral Hall, Tenth King of Mithral Hall, who slew Hartusk. So go and run yer errands, boy, and ye come back and play. Ye’ll get the chance to kill a legend, or think ye’ll get the chance, because we’re knowin’, and yerself should be too, that Bruenor’ll cut ye down bit by bit and spit in yer eye afore he finishes ye.”

  Through it all, Bruenor never blinked, never changed his expression, never seemed anything but calm.

  Hengredda, though, did blink. “Aye, I will! I will come back and kill a legend!” he said, but no one, not even Lorgru and the goblin standing beside him, believed him.

  “Ye don’t come back,” Bruenor warned Lorgru. “And ye don’t get too many o’ yer dogs all in one place, or we’ll find ye and break ye. Now get on. Go to yer holes and stay there.”

  Lorgru, looking thoroughly defeated, nodded his agreement and led the others away.

  “We’ll watch for the giant,” Connerad assured Bruenor.

  “He won’t be back,” Bruenor told him. He noted then the scowl of King Harnoth, off to the side and standing beside Emerus, so he moved over to the pair, with Connerad in tow.

  “Ah, but we erred in lettin’ that dog go,” Harnoth insisted. “He’s an orc king and they’ll swarm about him, and so we’re to be knowin’ war soon enough.”

  “No,” said Sinnafein, off to the side, and she, too, moved over to join the impromptu meeting. “Lorgru is not like Hartusk or the other war chiefs. He is the son of Obould, and traces his bloodline to the first Obould. He believes in that vision.”

  “Then he shouldn’t’ve let his dogs come huntin’,” was all that Bruenor would say.

  “KING HARNOTH WANTS to push into the mountains to hunt down the orcs,” Catti-brie explained to Drizzt, the two off to the side and watching the small gathering. “Bruenor won’t let him, and Emerus and Connerad back Bruenor. Harnoth may still go. He is outraged about the
death of his brother and will never rest easy knowing the orcs are so close.”

  Drizzt spent a long while staring at her, measuring her tone and the tenseness within her strong frame. “You agree with Harnoth,” he said.

  Catti-brie matched his stare but didn’t respond.

  “Because of the goddess,” Drizzt reasoned. “You think it our … your duty to hunt down and kill the orcs, one and all.”

  “We did not start this war.”

  “But we ended it,” Drizzt replied. “Lorgru won’t come back.”

  “What of his son?” Catti-brie asked. “Or his grandson? Or the next warlord who usurps the throne with visions of glory in his eyes?”

  “Do you mean to kill every orc in all the world?”

  Catti-brie just stared at him again, and Drizzt knew then that he and his wife would spend many hours on this topic in the coming days and months. Many unpleasant hours.

  Drizzt turned back to the dwarves and nodded at Bruenor. “Do you think he’s told them yet?”

  Even as he asked the question, King Harnoth cried out in dismay.

  “He has now,” Catti-brie dryly replied.

  Bruenor had confided his plans to the couple. He was going west with as many soldiers as the three dwarven citadels of the Silver Marches would afford him. Bruenor meant to reclaim Gauntlgrym from the drow and any other inhabitants who might have made the place a home.

  Across the way, Harnoth had become quite animated, waving his arms and stomping in circles. Drizzt and Catti-brie went over to lend support to their dwarf friend.

  “Why don’t ye just empty all the durned citadels and let the durned orcs come walking in?” Harnoth roared.

  “Never said I’d empty any,” Bruenor calmly replied.

  “Four thousand, he said,” King Emerus added solemnly, his demeanor cutting at Harnoth as much as his words. “We’ve twice that number and half again right here on the field. And we’ve all left worthy garrisons back behind us.”

  “Four thousand!” said Harnoth. “That orc swine ye just sent walking’s got ten times that number! Twenty times that number!”

  “And you’ve got Silverymoon and Everlund,” Aleina Brightlance remarked, all the dwarves turning to regard her with surprise—and in the case of all but fiery Harnoth, with gratitude.

  “We’ll not be abandoning you,” Aleina vowed. “And we will rebuild Sundabar, do not doubt. The alliance will be stronger than ever, if the three dwarven citadels and the Moonwood elves so desire it.”

  “Aye,” Bruenor, Emerus, and Connerad all said together, while Sinnafein nodded.

  “My people will serve as your eyes in the north,” Sinnafein added. “If the orcs begin to stir, we will know, and you will know, and any march they might make will be hampered by the sting of elven arrows, do not doubt.”

  “The dogs almost won this time,” King Harnoth warned. “And now we’d be down four thousand dwarves, and with Sundabar a shell o’ what she was, and with so many others dead—all o’ Nesmé dead! Who’ll stop ’em this time if they come calling?”

  “They didn’t get into the halls afore, and they won’t next time, if there’s e’er to be a next time,” Bruenor insisted. “And now we’re knowin’ the threat and there are ways we can better prepare.”

  “Some of us always knew, King Bruenor,” Harnoth said, and it was clearly meant as a jab at the dwarf who had signed the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge.

  “Are ye thinkin’ to drive us apart, King o’ Adbar?” King Emerus was quick to retort. “Cause aye, that’s what yer words’re doing now. And don’t ye doubt that Felbarr’ll be standin’ with Mithral Hall if ye keep on with it.”

  “As will the cities of Silverymoon and Everlund,” Aleina added with an equally grim tone.

  King Harnoth, young and full of pride, started to respond in an animated and angry fashion, but Oretheo Spikes put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, and when the young king snapped his head about to regard the Wilddwarf, Oretheo nodded and led him off to the side.

  “He’s a stubborn one,” Catti-brie remarked.

  “He lost his father not long ago, and his brother was slain in the war,” Drizzt reminded. “As were many of his most important advisers. He sits atop a throne now, alone and unsure. He knows that he erred many times in the last year, and that we saved him from certain doom.”

  “Then he might be offerin’ some gratitude and a dose o’ well-earned humility, eh?” asked Bruenor.

  Drizzt shrugged. “He will, but on his terms.”

  “If Adbar refuses our plan, then yerself and meself’ll raise the army we’re needin’ to get yer quest done, me friend,” King Emerus promised.

  “We’ll not be raising that number without Adbar,” Bruenor said.

  “So we’ll go to Mirabar and find more allies—should be thinkin’ that anyway,” said Emerus. “Them boys are Delzoun, and so’re yer boys in Icewind Dale. We’ll get back Gauntlgrym, don’t ye doubt!”

  “ ‘We’ll’?” Drizzt asked, catching on to Emerus’s hint.

  “Much to talk about,” was all the King of Citadel Felbarr would say on that subject at that time.

  Harnoth and Oretheo Spikes came back over then, the King of Adbar seeming much less animated.

  “Me friend here thinks Adbar’s holding strong with two thousand less,” Harnoth explained. “So half yer force’ll be marchin’ under the banner o’ Citadel Adbar, King Bruenor.”

  “No,” Bruenor immediately replied, even as the others began to smile and even cheer. All eyes turned sharply on the red-bearded dwarf with his surprising answer.

  “No banners for Adbar, Felbarr, or Mithral Hall,” Bruenor explained. “As in the war we just won, we’re walkin’ under the flag o’ our Delzoun blood, the flag o’ Gauntlgrym!”

  “Ain’t no flag o’ Gauntlgrym!” Harnoth protested.

  “Then let’s make one,” Emerus Warcrown said with a wide grin. He held up his hand to Harnoth, and after only a slight hesitation, the young King of Adbar took that hand firmly in his own.

  Bruenor, meanwhile, began producing flagons of ale from behind his magical shield, one for each of the four dwarf kings assembled on the field.

  And so they toasted, “To Gauntlgrym!”

  THE WORK AT the ruins of Dark Arrow Keep continued for several tendays, with the massive orc fortress being stripped down to a watch-post with only a couple of towers left standing. There had been a small debate about whether to dismantle the place or perhaps refit it more to accommodate dwarven sensibilities, but Bruenor had pointed out, rightly so, that leaving any semblance of Dark Arrow Keep intact might entice the orcs to try to reclaim it.

  Reclaiming it, after all, would be a lot easier than rebuilding it from rubble.

  So they ripped the rest of it down, except the meager watchtowers, and they carried the great logs to the river and floated them downstream where they could be caught at Mithral Hall and used as fuel for the hearths and forges.

  The docks, too, were dismantled, as were the surrounding orc villages, now abandoned, erasing all remnants of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows from the Silver Marches. As summer turned to fall, the dwarves and their allies marched for their respective homes, with the three citadels pledged to meet throughout the winter months to plan the spring march to the west.

  “What’s troubling you?” Catti-brie asked Regis on that journey to Mithral Hall. Regis had joined in the cheers and drinks and “huzzahs,” of course, but every passing day, Catti-brie had watched him, and had noted a cloud that often passed over his cherubic face.

  “I’m weary, that’s all,” he said, and she knew he was lying. “It’s been a long and difficult year.”

  “For all of us,” Catti-brie said. “But a year of victory, yes?”

  Regis looked over at her, his seat on his pony far below the tall shoulders of Catti-brie’s spectral unicorn. His smile was genuine, though, as he quietly offered, “Huzzah for King Bruenor.”

  But there was the cloud again, behind his eyes,
and as he turned back to the road in front of them, Catti-brie figured it out.

  “You’re not coming to Gauntlgrym with us,” she stated. In the shadows of his eyes, she didn’t have to ask.

  “I have said no such thing,” Regis replied, but he didn’t look at her when he spoke.

  “Nor did you deny it, even now.”

  She watched the halfling’s face tighten, though he still would not look over and up at her.

  “How long have you known?” Catti-brie asked a short while later, when it became apparent to her that Regis was simply not going to lead this conversation.

  “If Bruenor was marching to war in Gauntlgrym, and Drizzt was in Cormyr, or the Bloodstone Lands perhaps, what would you do?” Regis asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you accompany Bruenor on his quest, this latest quest in a perhaps unending line of quests, or would you desire to find Drizzt once more and resume your life beside him?”

  “Donnola Topolino,” Catti-brie realized then.

  “My love for her is no less than yours for Drizzt,” Regis explained. “I left her to fulfill my vow, and because I knew my friend Drizzt needed me. And so I traveled from Aglarond halfway across Faerûn to Icewind Dale, and stood with you and the others as we found our friend near death.”

  The woman nodded, her open, sympathetic, and inviting expression prompting him forward.

  “And this war we have just won,” Regis explained. “It was important, and in truth a continuation of that which we had started those decades ago. I served as Steward of Mithral Hall in the days of the first Obould.”

  “I remember well, and you served with great honor.”

  “And so I came back to finish what we started, to complete the circle,” the halfling explained. “In both of these duties, I nearly died—I’m not afraid to die. I never was, and certainly am not after my time in the enchanted forest of Mielikki.”

  “But you are afraid that you will never see your beloved Donnola again,” the woman reasoned.

  “This is a dwarf war, the quest of the Delzoun brotherhood,” Regis tried to explain. “I’m not a dwarf. Drizzt has said that taking Gauntlgrym from the drow could take years, and then holding it will likely prove to be a task that will stretch for decades. At what point …?” His voice trailed off, the question unasked.