The Companions: The Sundering, Book I Read online

  And was it, he wondered, in the few clips of time when he could keep his thoughts straight, for even his brain seemed only partially his to control!

  Was this the way it was for babies, then? Were they all like this, strangers in their own forms, lacking more than simple coordination, but an actual path to find that dexterity, as if their little brains had not yet found a way to speak to their own limbs?

  Or was it something more, the old baby dwarf feared. Was this a perversion, a theft of another’s body, and as such, might the act have damaged the corporeal coil? Would he be ever doomed to flail and gurgle?

  A helpless stooge and a fool for leaving the forest as he had, for not continuing on to his just rewards at the side of Moradin!

  Bruenor tried to focus, tried to concentrate deeply, calling to his arms to stop their incessant flailing. But he could not, and he knew that something was wrong.

  Mielikki’s gift was a curse, then, he realized to his horror. This was no blessing, and now he’d suffer out his days—how many years? Two hundred? Three hundred?—as a bumbling fool, a curiosity.

  He fought for control.

  He failed.

  He battled with all of his strength, the willpower of a dwarf king.

  He failed.

  He felt the frustration bubbling up inside of him, a primal terror that pushed forth a primal scream, and even in that shriek, Bruenor could not control his inflection or timber.

  “Ah, me little Reggie,” he heard a comforting female voice, and a cherubic dwarf face peered over the edge of his cradle, her smile bright, her expression tired.

  Giant hands reached in and so easily lifted Bruenor, guiding him toward a monstrous, huge breast …

  “Ah, ye brought yer brat,” Emerus Warcrown said to his captain of the guard when Reginald Roundshield arrived in the war room, his child strapped into a dwarfling holster on his back.

  Reginald grinned at his king. “Can’t be havin’ me boy layin’ about all day. He’s much to learn.”

  “The boy’s been breathing for a month,” Parson Glaive remarked.

  “Aye, should have a sword in his hand by now, I’m thinkin’,” said Reginald, and they all laughed some more.

  Bouncing around on his father’s back, Bruenor was glad to be out of the nursery and the cradle, and his happiness at being brought along only increased when the three dwarves began discussing the political and security situation of the Runegates of Citadel Felbarr.

  Bruenor listened intently—for a few moments. But then he thought of eating, because his stomach growled. Then he thought of the itchiness around his backside.

  Then he looked at his hand, his chubby little dwarfling hand … and a “goo” sound came forth from his saliva-dripping lips.

  He tried to remind himself to focus, to listen to this conversation, for it would take him from the immediate needs that seemed so ever-pressing to him. But he found himself lamenting the indignities of his station. He, King Bruenor Battlehammer, was bouncing around helplessly on the back of a guard captain. He, the king of Mithral Hall, had to be fed and changed and bathed and …

  The baby let out a shriek, one that came from somewhere deep inside and simply bubbled out before Bruenor could even consider it. How he hated this!

  “ ’Ere now, ye keep yer brat quiet or drop him back on his Ma,” Parson Glaive said.

  “Bah, not for worryin’,” King Emerus said. “Them shrieks’ll be battle cries soon enough, and little Arr Arr’s got some orc heads to squish.”

  So they went on with their meeting, and Bruenor tried to listen, hoping to catch up on the events here in the Silver Marches.

  But he was hungry, and he was itchy, and his hand was so enticing …

  “And how long?” Uween Roundshield asked Parson Glaive when he arrived at her house one morning a couple of months later. The Roundshield home was a neat stone affair in the upper level of the Citadel Felbarr complex.

  Bruenor perked up his ears and tried to turn around on the blanket his mother Uween had set out on the floor for him. He wanted to get a better look at the speaker, but alas, his little body would barely move to his call and he had to settle for turning his too-big head hard to the side and staring at the cleric out of the very corner of his eye.

  “Hard to say,” Parson Glaive replied. “The passes’re open again, and the orcs been fast to fill ’em.”

  “Orcs, always orcs!” Uween grumbled. “Many-Arrows, many orcs!”

  Those words caused the child on the blanket to wince, and brought great discomfort to the confused sensibilities of Bruenor Battlehammer. Many-Arrows … the kingdom of orcs … set up by the beast Obould, its existence ratified in a treaty signed by Bruenor himself a century before. Bruenor had spent the rest of his life—his first life at least—wondering if he had erred in signing the peace with Obould. He had never been content with his decision, even though he had been given little choice in the matter. His forces of Mithral Hall could not have defeated Obould’s thousands, could not have begun to drive them from the land, and the other kingdoms of the Silver Marches, notably Sundabar and Silverymoon, and even the dwarven citadels of Felbarr and Adbar, had deferred from entering such a war. The price would have been too high, so they all had determined.

  And so the Kingdom of Many-Arrows had come to be, and peace had ensued … such as it was.

  For these were orcs, after all, and the constant incursions of rogue bands had plagued the land throughout the rest of Bruenor’s (first) life, and apparently, given the conversation before him now, continued to this day.

  “Arr Arr’ll put ’em back in their holes,” Parson Glaive assured Uween.

  “We should be marchin’ across the Surbrin, and put ’em down for the dogs they are,” Uween replied.

  “I’m not for arguin’,” said Parson Glaive. “And know that many’re grumbling that same song o’ late. Too many fights, too many raids. King Obould the Whatever’s been telled to put a rein on his underlings, and even Mithral Hall’s been sounding that warning.”

  “Good on Mithral Hall, then, that they might be fixin’ the mistake o’ their old king …,”

  Bruenor’s eyes grew moist at that, even when Parson Glaive cut Uween short. “Don’t ye be speakin’ such things,” he said. “A different time, a different world, and King Bruenor signed with the blessing o’ Emerus Warcrown himself. Might be that we were all wrong, then. Be sure that our king’s never been happy with that long-ago choice.”

  “Might be,” Uween agreed.

  Parson Glaive took his leave then, and Uween went about her chores (which included a fair amount of sword play as she put herself back into fighting condition), leaving Bruenor, Little Arr Arr, to his own amusement on the blanketed floor. Soon after, the baby fell asleep.

  Images of Garumn’s Gorge filled Bruenor’s dreams, a quill floating in the air before him, scratching his name on the treaty that bore the place’s name.

  A gnarled and wart-covered orc hand pulled the quill from the air and Obould—and how clearly Bruenor still pictured that ugly beast!—nearly broke the writing instrument’s tip when he dug his own name into the document. The great orc was clearly no more satisfied than Bruenor by this “peace” even though it had been his demand.

  Bruenor’s thoughts flew away from that place, to his old chambers in Mithral Hall, with Drizzt sitting beside him, assuring him that he had done right by his people and for his legacy.

  But had he? Even now, it seemed, a century removed, the doubts remained. Had he done anything more than give the filthy orcs a foothold from which thousands of rogue bands could launch their incessant ambushes?

  He tried to think it through, but he could not, for though he was nearly three months old, the pestering demands of a body he could hardly control gnawed at his sensibilities, pulling him from his dreams and then his contemplations to more immediate needs.

  “No!” the baby growled, and another memory came to him, washing through him as poignantly as the moment of the experienc
e. He sat on the throne of Gauntlgrym, and the wisdom of Moradin, the strength of Clangeddin, and the mysteries of Dumathoin all were revealed to him and imparted to him.

  He was up on his hands and knees then. He tried to curl his toes under to put his feet flat on the floor, but he toppled to the side.

  “Ah, but ye finally rolled, did ye?” he heard his mother say, and then she gasped as Bruenor stubbornly forced himself back to his hands and knees.

  “Oh, well done!” Uween congratulated. “Ain’t yerself the smart …”

  Her voice fell away, for this time, Bruenor did get his toes properly curled. He felt the power of the Throne coursing through his veins and he pulled himself upright, standing firmly on two feet.

  “But how’d ye do that?” Uween cried, and she seemed distressed, and only then did Bruenor realize that he was pushing it too far and too fast. He looked at her, and took care to paint a look of astonishment, even fear, upon his cherubic, beardless face, before falling over to the floor.

  Uween was there to grab him up, holding him before her and telling him what a smart and mighty little one he was.

  Bruenor almost formed a word then, to tell her that he was hungry, but he wisely remembered his place.

  Now he had his focus like never before. Now when he lay in the dark for a nap or the nighttime sleep, Bruenor narrowed his always-jumbled thoughts more keenly, remembering the Throne of the Gods, feeling again the blessing of the mighty three. He should have been lying still, perhaps twitching and half-rolling to get more comfortable, but instead, Bruenor worked his little fingers and his toes, bent his legs and straightened them repeatedly, and worked his jaw, forming words, remembering words, teaching this new body the patterns of speech.

  He tried to keep the lingering doubts regarding his previous choices far away, and tried not to even think about the responsibility and oath he had accepted in coming back to this place anew. There would be time for that, years hence. For now, he had to try to simply learn to control this strange body.

  Still, he was thrown back into those old doubts and the political morass of who he had once been one afternoon only a tenday later, when King Emerus Warcrown and Parson Glaive arrived at the Roundshield house, their expressions grave.

  Bruenor couldn’t hear the conversation, for they spoke low to Uween over by the door, but her sudden cry of denial said it all.

  King Emerus and Parson Glaive each grabbed her under an arm and helped her in to the table and to a seat.

  “He fought as a Roundshield ought,” King Emerus assured her. “The orcs were piled around him, breaked to bits.”

  “Aye, a great warrior was Arr Arr,” said Parson Glaive.

  “Reginald,” a now-composed Uween corrected. “Reginald Roundshield, o’ the Felbarr Roundshields, the son of a son of a son of a captain.”

  “Aye,” the other two agreed in unison, and all three turned to regard the baby on the floor, and Bruenor felt their sympathy keenly.

  “To Little Arr Arr, then,” he heard the king of Felbarr say, but distantly, for Bruenor’s thoughts were spinning back to Garumn’s Gorge, to his choice, to his doubts.

  “Son of a son of a son of a son of a captain,” Emerus Warcrown decreed. “For one day he’ll be leadin’ the guard o’ Felbarr, don’t ye doubt!”

  With the spinning jumble of unformed sensibilities, the overwhelming nature of everything in his newborn life, Bruenor felt the overwhelming urge to cry roaring up inside of him.

  But he went into his past, to the Throne of the Gods, and he denied that.

  He remembered then that he was the king.

  CHAPTER 5

  PLANETOUCHED

  The Year of the Reborn Hero (1463 DR) Delthuntle

  REGIS WALKED OUT OF IRULADOON AND INTO THE BLINDING LIGHT WITH sure and determined strides. His resolve was no less than that of Catti-brie, who took this journey as a matter of faith and devotion to her goddess, Mielikki.

  For Regis, it was the second chance that he dearly, desperately wanted. For so long had he been the tag-along, the one to be rescued instead of the heroic rescuer. He couldn’t help but believe that he had ever been the weak link in the chain that formed the Companions of the Hall.

  No more, he decided.

  Not this time around.

  He was holding Catti-brie’s hand, and then he was not. He was in the springtime forest, and then he was not.

  He was walking, and then he was floating.

  He was up among the stars, it seemed, with the world, all white and brown and so much blue turning below him, and he felt free, freer than he had ever been in his corporeal days, freer than anything he had ever known. At that moment, swallowed by the celestial spheres, Regis felt as if he could float and swim forevermore and be perfectly content.

  The world grew larger—that was how he perceived it until he realized that he was falling, diving back into the sphere of Toril, and he was not afraid. He saw the outlines of the great land of Faerûn, of the Sword Coast that he had sailed many times and knew well, of the lands of the Silver Marches and then an inland sea, a vast great lake, with jagged coastlines of jutting peninsulas and long harbors.

  Into the water he went, and it did not feel to him as if he was swimming, or submerged, but rather as if he had joined with the substance, had become as liquid himself, flowing breezily through the wash with barely an effort.

  He reveled in the journey, excited by the elemental domain. He guessed this to be another gift of Mielikki, because he was unaware of his genetic heritage, unaware that he was venturing the long roots of his rebirth. He expected that his two companions were similarly soaring, but he was wrong, for this was his journey alone, a particular added touch to the halfling he would become.

  Darkness enveloped him, dark and soft walls pressing against him tightly, holding his arms close to his chest. Still he felt as if he was deep within the liquid of the Inner Sea, and his own heartbeat reverberated in his ears.

  Ka-thump.

  No, not his own heartbeat, he realized to his horror and his comfort, all at once.

  He was in the womb.

  The heart was his mother’s heart—or would this female be considered his surrogate mother? He could not be sure, could not sort it out. Not then, not there, for there was only the impulse, the urge to struggle and twist until he was free. The walls worked around him, nudging him, twisting him, pushing him, bidding him to find his escape.

  The heartbeat grew more intense, louder and faster, louder and faster.

  He heard the calls of the outside world, a cry of pain, a plea from a deeper voice.

  “Don’t you go!”

  The flesh walls pressed in on him, squeezing him, urging him. He flailed and worked furiously, recognizing this as the moment of his birth, and knowing, instinctively and reflexively, that he had to get out.

  The heartbeat intensified. Another scream sounded from afar, followed by more frantic pleas and cries.

  Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

  The muscles pressed, squeezing him more tightly.

  Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

  He could sense that it was too tight, too intense, the cries too desperate.

  Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

  Another cry. Something was amiss, he sensed.

  Silence.

  Darkness.

  The flesh walls did not contort around him.

  He reached and clawed, unable to draw breath. He tried to squirm and fight, but he could not. He got one arm up high, over his head.

  He felt the bite of a blade, but he could not cry out, and his arm slid back before him, a coppery taste filling the watery tomb around him.

  But then it was opened, peeling apart before him at the edge of a sliding knife, and he was pulled free, hoisted from his womb, his tomb, and roughly spun around and thumped hard upon his back. He sputtered and gagged, then coughed and cried. He could not help but cry, terrified, confused.

  In that jumbled moment, he didn’t know, didn’t understand, that his new mother was dea
d.

  He felt the bugs crawling over him, but could not coordinate his little arms enough to swat at them.

  An annoyance, he told himself repeatedly though the days and dark nights, for these were merely bedbugs and cockroaches and the like, the same insects he had suffered in Calimport. In truth, the insects were the least troubling of the surroundings the baby Regis found. He couldn’t move much—even his head was too heavy for him to swivel it around while laying on his back—but he had noted enough of the ramshackle abode to realize that his new family, which seemed to be comprised of only himself and his father, was perfectly destitute.

  This wasn’t even a house, not even a shack, but merely a piling of sticks, a lean- to in a decrepit part of some dirty city. A wet nurse tended to his needs, but only arrived sparingly, twice a day by his count, leaving him to lie in his own waste, leaving his belly to growl with hunger, leaving the bugs to crawl around him.

  He could see the sky above through the openings in the hastily piled boards, and noted that it was almost always gray. Or perhaps that was a trick of his young eyes, still trying to find some focus and clarity.

  But it did rain quite often, he knew, the water dripping in upon him.

  If he had been wearing clothes, they would always have been wet.

  He lay there one morning, drizzle coating him so that his skin glistened in the diffused daylight, trying hard to get his hand to slap a particularly annoying gnat aside, when a loud crash alerted him that he was not alone.

  His father came up beside him, towering over him as he lay in his makeshift crib, which was no more than a piece of old wood with beams piled along its sides to prevent him from rolling off.

  Regis studied the man carefully, his dirty face, his missing teeth, his glassy eyes and scraggly hair. The years had broken this one, though he was not very old, the baby who was not a baby realized. He had seen this before, so many times, on the streets of Calimport in his first youth, some century-and-a-half removed. The constant struggle for basic needs, the helplessness, with no way to escape and no place to escape to; it was all there, etched indelibly on the face of this halfling standing over him, in lines of sadness and helpless frustration.