Archmage

CHAPTER 5

Her tempo increased, her movements becoming sharper and less fluid, but her strikes more deadly.

Doum’wielle couldn’t figure out exactly what the sword was trying to do. The sentient weapon was guiding her, telepathically prodding her-thrust, riposte, feint, parry.

Step back! she heard in her thoughts. She had not moved quickly enough for Khazid’hea’s liking. Then she sensed the great regret of the sword, as if she, as if they, had failed. Before she could inquire, though, the sword was prodding her once more, the same routine, but now slowly again, and adding in the step. Over and over, building muscle memory. Doum’wielle still did not question. She came to believe that this sentient weapon was preparing her for a fight with Tiago-or more to the point, she admitted to herself, she desperately wanted to believe that was Khazid’hea’s plan.

The Baenre fiend had taken her again the night before, in the forest by the road now beyond the Silver Marches, the violation all the more wretched because she knew it was not wrought out of any honest emotions he held for her-that would still be bad enough! — but simply to remind her that he could take her whenever he wanted, for whatever reason he wanted.

She would love to feel her sword violating his body. .

A jolt shocked Doum’wielle, startling her and jerking her upright, the weapon lowering as all strength seemed drawn from her arm.

You think in pedestrian terms, the sword scolded.

Doum’wielle took a deep breath and tried to steady herself.

Would you like to kill him?

Yes.

Do you think that would hurt him?

I would make it hurt.

She could feel the sword’s amusement, silent laughter mocking her.

Tiago Baenre does not fear death, the sword explained. But there is something else that he does fear.

Doum’wielle spurned the obvious question, and instead she considered all that she was doing here, and Khazid’hea’s grand plan. “Humiliation,” she said aloud, and she felt the sword’s agreement.

And she felt the call to get back to her work. Khazid’hea guided her again, thrust and parry, sharp and fast. She moved ahead, but only briefly, then quick-stepped back, holding balance, sword going out left-low and right-high in rapid succession. Though she was alone on the field, she could feel the parries as surely as if her weapon had actually struck steel.

Left and right.

And that clue, left and right, showed her the truth of this exercise. She understood clearly then that her sword wasn’t preparing her for any fight with Tiago, who fought with one sword. Khazid’hea was training her to battle a two-handed opponent: Drizzt Do’Urden.

And Khazid’hea knew that drow ranger well, and knew Drizzt’s companion Catti-brie even more intimately. She had wielded the sword, which she called Cutter, for a short time, long ago.

And Cutter had dominated her.

A question formed in Doum’wielle’s mind, but she blurted it, not wanting to give the sword the satisfaction of reading it from her thoughts.

“Why not return to Catti-brie?” she asked. “You can control her and easily strike Drizzt down.”

She felt the sword’s seething response.

Doum’wielle dared a little laugh at her pompous weapon’s expense.

“She is a Chosen of Mielikki now,” she taunted. “She has progressed, grown stronger. Too strong for you, for you are the same. You know this.”

Are you enjoying this? the sword asked. Do you believe that you, too, will grow beyond me? Do you believe that I will let you?

Doum’wielle swallowed hard. That was as direct a threat as Khazid’hea had ever given her.

Do you believe that you can grow beyond me, that you can succeed without me? the sword went on. Will you seek your friends, your mother, perhaps? Not your father, surely, for he is a rotting corpse.

To go along with the telepathic words, Khazid’hea imparted an image of Tos’un lying in the bloody snow, under the glaze of dragon’s breath. At first Doum’wielle thought it her own memory-and in a way, it surely was-but then her father began to rot, skin sliding away, maggots writhing. Wicked Khazid’hea had taken her memory and had perverted it.

One day. Doum’wielle reacted to Khazid’hea’s questions before she could think the better of it.

Khazid’hea quieted her thoughts, and she felt as if the sword was leaving her alone then, to reason her way through it all. She truly did not believe that she could survive now without executing the plan, and she could not hope to do that without Khazid’hea.

Perhaps the sword was subtly within her thoughts, but Doum’wielle didn’t believe so. She came to see her relationship with the powerful sentient weapon in a different light then, not as a matter of dominance and servitude, but each serving as a tool to help the other attain its desires.

Doum’wielle brought the sword up in front of her eyes, marveling at its workmanship and the sheer beauty of the fine-edged blade. The large flared crosspiece had been worked intricately and beautifully, set with a red gem in the center, like a wary eye.

Doum’wielle’s own eyes widened as the pommel became a unicorn’s head, then turned dark, the shape of a panther-Guenhwyvar!

Or was it transforming? Was it really, or was it making her see those images?

But it remained a panther. She ran her trembling hands over it and could feel the contours exactly as she saw them.

Her father had told her that when he had found the blade in a rocky valley, its pommel had been exactly this, a replica of Guenhwyvar’s feline face. She had thought it an exaggeration, but indeed, the resemblance was striking.

Before her eyes, under the touch of her fingers, the pommel changed again, in shape and in hue, and became white.

“Sunrise,” Doum’wielle breathed, and swayed, for now the sword’s pommel looked like a pegasus, snowy white save a hint of pink in her flowing manes, with feathery wings tucked in tight and head bowed as if in sleep. Doum’wielle had loved that creature dearly. When Sunrise had grown too old to take flight, Doum’wielle had tended her, and when Sunrise had died, peacefully, a dozen years before, young Doum’wielle had cried for many days.

“She is with Sunset now,” her mother had told her, referring to Sunrise’s mate, who had been slain in the war with Obould, shot from the sky by the orcs.

A twinge of anger shot through Doum’wielle. How could she have ever sided with the ugly orcs in the war?

The thought flew from her mind-she was too taken with the image to realize that Khazid’hea had forced it away-and she focused again on the image of the pommel.

“As if in death,” Doum’wielle whispered.

Peaceful sleep, Khazid’hea quietly whispered in her mind.

She felt contented as she continued to stare at the beautiful pommel- and truly no elf craftsman could have made a better likeness of the beloved pegasus. It was as if the image of Sunrise in her mind had itself formed the artwork now in front of her.

“As if,” she said with a self-deprecating snicker. She realized then that that was exactly what had happened. Khazid’hea had found that precious memory and had “seen” it as clearly as Doum’wielle could.

And now Khazid’hea replicated the beautiful pegasus on its malleable pommel.

On the pommel of Doum’wielle’s sword.

Her sword. Her partner.

She gave a little laugh as she considered her relationship with Tiago, who thought himself her lover, her master even.

But no. Her intimacy with Khazid’hea was a far greater thing, and one of mutual consent.

She knew that now. The sword would lead her to that which she desired. The sword would keep her alive. The sword would bring her to great glory.

Will you grow beyond me? Khazid’hea asked.

“I cannot,” she said, and the words were from Doum’wielle’s own heart then. “I will grow with you, and you with me.”

I will not dominate you, Little Doe, the sword promised.

Doum’wielle slowly shook her head. Nor I you, she thought, and she believed. She stroked the pegasus sculpture lovingly. “You know my heart.”

Soon after, they went back to their practice, and Doum’wielle’s movements came more easily and fluidly, and she fought better than she ever had before.

Khazid’hea was pleased.

Even by dwarf standards, the squat stone buildings tickling the skyline above the tall gray wall of the city of Mirabar could not be considered beautiful. They spoke of utility and efficiency, and that was no small bonus to the dwarf mind-set, but even Bruenor, glancing upon them again from afar, from the field beyond Mirabar’s closed gates, could not begin to feel the lift of his heart he might know when standing outside of the cross-walls and angled towers of Citadel Adbar. Even the city of Silverymoon, so reminiscent of elves, could stir a dwarf’s heart more than this block of boredom.

But that was Mirabar, where the marchion and the great lords hoarded wealth in personal coffers instead of financing any gaudy displays of aesthetic pleasure. Mirabar was the richest city north of Waterdeep, famously thick in the spoils of vast mining operations. The overcity, what they saw now peeking above the wall, was but a fraction of the marchion’s holdings, with a vast array of subterranean housing and mining operations.

“Bah, but we should no’ have come here,” Emerus said to Bruenor as they looked across the fields to the place-and could see already that the guards of Mirabar had grown animated, running all about.

“Are our brothers in there not Delzoun, then?” Bruenor answered calmly. “Mirabarran first, I’m thinking, and few friends in there o’ Clan Battlehammer and Mithral Hall,” said Emerus, and Bruenor knew it was true enough. The marchion and his city had not been thrilled when the mines of Mithral Hall had reopened, nor had they been the best of hosts when King Bruenor had passed through this place on his return to Mithral Hall with the news of King Gandalug’s death, more than a century before in 1370 DR.

Bruenor sighed as he thought of the good friends he had made here, though, of Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker and Shingles McRuff, who had led four hundred Mirabarran dwarves to the cause of Mithral Hall in the first war with King Obould. And the Mirabarran survivors of that war had stayed and pledged fealty to Clan Battlehammer. Many of their descendants-none of whom had ever returned to Mirabar-were on the road now with Bruenor. He thought of Shoudra Stargleam, the human woman, Sceptrana of Mirabar in those long-ago days, who had come to Mithral Hall to fight Obould, who had given her life for the cause.

He thought of Nanfoodle the gnome, and he could not hide his smile as the memories of his dear little friend flooded his thoughts. He remembered Nanfoodle blowing up the entire ridge north of Keeper’s Dale, launching frost giants and their war machines into the air in a blast that would have shown a bit of humility to Elminster himself.

Nanfoodle had gone on the road with Bruenor in his search for Gauntlgrym, and had served the dwarf as friend and ally throughout decades of dangerous searching. Many tears had slipped down the cheeks of Bruenor Battlehammer when he had knelt before the grave of Nanfoodle the gnome.

Nanfoodle of Mirabar.

“All them dwarfs o’ Mirabar who put their Delzoun blood afore Mirabar came to yer side in the Obould War,” Emerus said. “Them that stayed here stayed in fealty to the marchion o’ Mirabar.”

“That was a hunnerd years ago.”

“Aye, and so ye’re more removed from them than e’er,” said Emerus. “Mirabar’s ne’er been friend to the citadels o’ the Silver Marches. She’s held her love o’ trade with the Sword Coast above any loyalty to fellow dwarfs!”

“Bah, they were just knowin’ that our weapons and armor were better than they could be makin’,” said Bruenor. “And our mithral bars more pure. If them lords o’ Waterdeep got a gander o’ Adbar mail or Felbarr swords, or the purest mithral that gived me own hall her name, then Mirabar’d become no more than a trading post where east’d be meetin’ west!”

“Aye, me friend,” Emerus said, and he clapped Bruenor on the shoulder. His smile didn’t last, though, and he quickly grew more somber.

“They’ve not changed their song about ye,” he said. “We might still be turning aside, tellin’ ’em that our road’s to the north and Icewind Dale.”

“The dwarfs o’ Mirabar’re Delzoun,” Bruenor said. “They got a right to know. They got a right to come along and fight for our home, for the Throne o’ the Dwarf Gods and the ancient Forge that burns with the power of a primordial beast o’ fire. A fine Delzoun leader I’m being if I walk aside this place without leavin’ the truth!”

His mounting speech fell off when he noted the approach of Drizzt, Catti-brie, Ragged Dain, and Connerad Brawnanvil.

“If ye’re tellin’ the dwarfs o’ Mirabar, ye’re tellin’ the marchion and all the rest,” Emerus reminded. “Them humans in Mirabar ain’t much for likin’ Mithral Hall or yerself, even if they’re not believin’ ye’re who ye say ye be. They owe ye no loyalty and so ye should be expectin’ none.”

“I ain’t.”

“And where’re ye thinkin’ the news’ll go?” Emerus said.

“Right to the Sword Coast,” Drizzt interjected.

“Aye,” said Emerus. “To Waterdeep and to Neverwinter, and no doubt them dark elves in Gauntlgrym’ve got spies all about, and agents in Neverwinter. And so if ye go into Mirabar and tell the dwarfs the truth o’ yer-of our march, then ye’re likely tellin’ them drow that we’re coming for ’em!”

“Aye, and so be it,” said Bruenor, and he strode forward to step up a low bluff and better view the distant city. “We got four thousand Delzoun dwarfs standing behind us. Them drow’ll know we’re comin’ long afore we’re crossin’ the underground lake to Gauntlgrym’s top door. And so be it. Once we got the top floor and the throne, we’ll chase them into the Underdark.”

“It is one drow House,” Drizzt said to Emerus. “Powerful with magic, but not numerous.”

“How many?”

“They will have slaves to fight for them-goblins and. .”

“How many drow?” Emerus pressed. “Not much worried for goblins and the like.”

“I have not been to Menzoberranzan in more than a century, but from what I knew, perhaps two hundred drow in House Xorlarrin, perhaps three hundred. Many are wizards, though, and no minor practitioners of the Art.”

“Couple hundred,” Emerus mulled, and he looked to Ragged Dain and chuckled. “Go to Mirabar, Bruenor,” he said. “Come on then, I’ll be right aside ye.”

He waved to the others to follow, but Drizzt stepped back.

“Mirabar will not have him,” Catti-brie explained. “Or they would not when last he passed this way.”

“Bah, been a hunnerd years!” said Bruenor.

But Drizzt was shaking his head, for it had not been a hundred years since he had last futilely approached Mirabar’s imposing, and closed, gates. But it didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t about to put his pride and stubbornness ahead of the good of the expedition. “Better that I remain here,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll scout ahead along the western road while you finish your business.”

Bruenor and Drizzt shared a long look of complete understanding, both ways, the dwarf nodding his agreement, the drow responding in kind.

“I’ll go with you,” Catti-brie said, but Drizzt shook his head.

“Bruenor will need you.”

The woman agreed with a sigh. She missed Wulfgar and Regis then- they all did. She didn’t like having to leave Drizzt alone with the harsh reality of the prejudiced world lifting its dark wings once more, and she couldn’t argue the truth of his statement that Bruenor would need her.

“If the marchion o’ Mirabar’s speakin’ one ill word of ye, or of me husband,” she said in her best Dwarvish accent, “then I’m turning him into a frog and squashing him flat on the floor, don’t ye doubt!”

She stormed ahead to the southwest, toward the distant city, and all the others were smiling widely as they trotted to catch up.

Drizzt was smiling, too, so glad to have this woman in his life. He grasped the unicorn pendant on the chain around his neck, thinking to call in Andahar, but paused as the rest of the entourage hustled to catch up to the principals.

Athrogate and Ambergris trotted side by side and very close to each other, often bumping and always laughing, and Drizzt was glad for that.

The sisters Fellhammer, Fist and Fury, seemed in a bit of a race to see who could get to Bruenor’s side first.

They had been doing that a lot along this march, Drizzt had noted, and he wondered then if his old friend would perhaps find something in this life that had somehow eluded him for most of his last existence.

When the ranger looked at Catti-brie, and considered his own good fortune, he hoped that to be the case.

Though from a long distance, Drizzt was visible to the two. However, even with the sun far behind them, lowering in the west, and even with some overcast dulling its brilliance, Tiago had to squint hard. He wasn’t enjoying the World Above as much now that Tsabrak’s Darkening was no more.

He and Doum’wielle crouched atop a hillock and looked back to the east at the vast dwarf army. And now they saw the unicorn, thundering past the ranks as the dwarves set up their encampment, riding out to the southeast toward the road.

“He goes to scout,” Tiago said, grinning with every word. “Perhaps it is time to claim my prize.” He went up to his hands and knees and began to crawl back from the lip of the hillock, taking great caution even though it would have been next to impossible for any of the enemy force to spot him among the trees at such a distance.

Doum’wielle noted that caution, and wisely mimicked it-wisely, because she saw the intensity of the look on Tiago’s face and knew that if she in any way compromised his plans, he would more likely murder her than simply beat her.

And yet, that is exactly what we will do, Khazid’hea whispered in her thoughts, in response to her fears.

“Quick to the road,” Tiago instructed. “We can intercept him.”

“Astride a great steed that will leap past us or trample us down,” Doum’wielle said, hustling to keep up.

“He’ll do no such thing to an elf of the Moonwood,” Tiago said slyly.

But Doum’wielle was shaking her head. “Drizzt knows me, and knows my mother well. No doubt he has seen much of her these past months of war, and she will surely have told him of her wayward Little Doe.”

Tiago’s eyes narrowed as if he wanted to strike out at her, and she was confident that he certainly did.

“You will intrigue him!” he said, a bit too desperately. “Disguise yourself as we go. Or tell him that you escaped the clutches of his foul kin. I am sure you could easily offer that lie. Just look into your heart.”

The last part had Doum’wielle slowing and staring hatefully at her vile companion, to the point where Tiago skidded to a stop and swung around to face her.

“Faster!” he demanded.

Doum’wielle didn’t dare disobey, but Tiago’s suggestions rang in her thoughts as a clear warning, and an offering that he knew how much she hated him. Thus, she knew, he was telling her rather clearly that she would not catch him off his guard.

Patience, Khazid’hea’s telepathic voice whispered soothingly.

Doum’wielle picked up her pace, running hard and closing in on Tiago. As she neared, though, the drow suddenly skidded to a stop again, and held up his hand to hold her back. She slowed and stopped, and followed Tiago’s gaze to the southwest. At first she saw nothing, but Tiago’s sniffing tipped her off.

Smoke.

There was a campfire down along the road.

They moved more cautiously, Tiago turning directly south to intercept the road. They hadn’t quite arrived there when they heard the passage of a horse-of a unicorn! Drizzt had passed them by.

Tiago continued, but slowly and cautiously. He held out one hand, fingers working in the silent drow language.

A flustered Doum’wielle, with only rudimentary knowledge of the hand language, couldn’t keep up, but she thought he was indicating that they’d lay in wait and catch the ranger on the way back.

A shout, then, from not so far to the west, a chorus of dwarf voices, made Doum’wielle doubt that.

They were all standing as he neared, close to fifty dwarves, weapons in hands, and all wearing an expression showing that he or she was more than ready to wield a sword, or pick, or battle-axe.“Far enough!” one barked.

Drizzt held up his hand and backed Andahar a couple short steps. He looked at the group curiously for a few moments, thinking that he recognized more than one.

“Icewind Dale,” he said.

“Ah, but it’s Drizzt Do’Urden!” said one, a round-bellied, sturdy fellow Drizzt knew to be Hominy Pestler.

“Aye, o’ House Do’Urden!” another chimed in, in unfriendly tones. “Wh-what?” Drizzt stammered and he looked from dwarf to dwarf, noting that few expressions had softened with the recognition. Something was wrong. These dwarves were a long way from home, and this was a sizable fraction of the clan settled under Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale.

And Stokely Silverstream was not among their ranks.

“Why are you here?” Drizzt asked.

“Might be askin’ yerself the same question, drow,” answered another, a yellow-bearded fellow with a long scar down one cheek and a blue eye dulled by the scrape of a blade, now filmy and barely functional.

Drizzt knew this one, as well. “I am here with King Bruenor, Master Ironbelt,” he replied. He swiveled in his seat and pointed back to the east. “With Bruenor and Emerus Warcrown, and four thousand shield dwarves. We have fought a war in the Silver Marches against hordes of orcs and giants, drow of my home city, and even a pair of white dragons.”

The dwarves seemed taken aback at that remark-clearly from their reactions, they had not heard of the war-and so another theory Drizzt held of why they might be this far from home was lost.

“Yerself’s been fightin?” Master Toivo Ironbelt asked.

“For a year,” Drizzt replied.

“We heared rumors in Waterdeep.”

“Waterdeep?”

“We had ourselfs a fight, too, elf,” Ironbelt said. “A fight with drow.

Drow sayin’ they come from House Do’Urden, saying they’re yer kin.” Drizzt slid off the side of Andahar to the ground and approached the dwarves. “They said the same here,” he admitted, holding out his hands, far from the hilts of his deadly blades. “If you think me complicit, then take me as your prisoner back to the west, to King Bruenor."

“We was heading to Mirabar,” Hominy chimed in. “To learn what we might o’ Mithral Hall.”

“Bruenor is there now, meeting with the marchion.” Drizzt held his arms out in front of him, crossed at the wrist, inviting a rope if Ironbelt so desired.

“Nah, put ’em back,” the dwarf said. “And well met to ye again, Master Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“You have a tale to tell,” Drizzt said thoughtfully.

“Aye, and not a good one.”

“How many of Clan Battlehammer remain in the shadows of Kelvin’s Cairn?” Drizzt asked, and he was afraid that he knew the answer. Still, when Ironbelt confirmed that these were the last of the Clan Battlehammer dwarves of Icewind Dale, save a score who had moved to Bryn Shander and a couple of the other towns, Drizzt found it hard to breathe.

An era had ended, brutally, he realized, as Ironbelt detailed the drow raid that had killed so many and taken so many more away into the Underdark. “We put together a force and followed ’em,” Ironbelt explained.

“Aye, and the folk o’ Ten-Towns came out in force to help us. But there weren’t no trail.”

“They went back to Gauntlgrym,” Hominy added.

“Aye, and dropped the tunnels behind ’em, and we could’no find another way,” Ironbelt explained. “We spent a long time tryin’, don’t ye doubt."

“I do not doubt you at all, of course,” Drizzt replied. “And now you’ve deserted the tunnels beneath Kelvin’s Cairn? Seeking Bruenor, I would expect.”

“Aye, we went to Waterdeep, and there spent the winter,” Ironbelt answered. “We tried to find another way to get back to Gauntlgrym. ."

“This group alone? You would have been slaughtered to a dwarf.” Some of them bristled at that.

“A drow noble House has entrenched itself in the bowels of Gauntlgrym,”

Drizzt started to explain, but he was cut off by Hominy’s remark. “House Do’Urden!”

“No, House Xorlarrin, more grand and powerful by far than anything House Do’Urden had ever achieved,” Drizzt said. “Thick with magic and soldiers, and with many hundreds of goblin and kobold slaves."

“Don’t mean we wouldn’t try!” Toivo Ironbelt insisted.

“No, of course not, and I would expect no less from Clan Battlehammer.

But you’ll be trying with better odds, my friend. King Bruenor has assembled a mighty force, and Gauntlgrym is his goal. Come, I’ll take you to your kin, and you can tell your tale to Bruenor.”

“Curse the gods,” muttered Tiago, he and Doum’wielle on a bluff overlooking the road, where Drizzt had just passed with fifty dwarves in tow on his way back to the army.

“We know their destination now,” Doum’wielle said, for the dwarves had taken up a cheer of “Gauntlgrym!” right before they had broken camp.

“You didn’t know it all along? Fool. Why would such an army of three kingdoms, all fresh from a difficult war, begin such a march? Could there be any doubt?”

He raised his hand as if to strike her, but Doum’wielle shrank away quickly.

Tiago turned back to the road, and the now-distant Drizzt and company. He knew that duty called for him to flee back to Menzoberranzan and warn the city of the dwarves’ march on Q’Xorlarrin-but he had known that since first he had learned of the army assembled outside of Mithral Hall back in the Silver Marches.

It wouldn’t matter-the extra tendays Tiago might offer to the Xorlarrins and their allies to prepare paled beside the trophy that now rode away from him down the road. Drizzt was acting as a scout for the dwarves, so it seemed, and so Tiago decided to bide his time, to continue to shadow the force.

He’d get his chance at Drizzt before they reached Q’Xorlarrin, he hoped. And if not, he’d find his way inside the complex ahead of the dwarves and kill Drizzt in the tunnels.

He glanced back at Doum’wielle. His first instinct was to go over and take out his frustrations on her. But Tiago realized that he’d need her if Drizzt was out scouting on that magnificent unicorn he rode.

“Patience,” Tiago whispered to himself, much the way Khazid’hea had whispered to Doum’wielle.

Bruenor, who had experience with a similar marchion a century before, wasn’t much surprised by the cold shoulder offered him in Mirabar. Indeed, on that previous occasion, those dwarves who had left Mirabar to join in Clan Battlehammer’s war with the first Obould had done so as an act of treason against Mirabar, according to then-Marchion Elastul.

Nothing that had happened since those days had given Bruenor any reason to believe that the atmosphere of rivalry and ambivalence between Mirabar and Mithral Hall would be any bit improved.

“Every time a representative of Mithral Hall appears at our gates, it is to ask for help,” Marchion Devastul answered when Bruenor and King Emerus had explained their march, after an exhaustive introductory meeting that contained more niceties and nonsense than anything Bruenor had ever imagined possible. “You would have me offer free run to the dwarves of Mirabar to join in with your. . quest? The cost to Mirabar would be enormous, of course, and you understand that, of course. Are Citadel Felbarr, Citadel Adbar, and Mithral Hall offering to pay me to keep my coffers balanced while my loyal subjects are off playing war with an old king, a young whatever you are, and the soldiers of Adbar, whose ruler thinks so much of this expedition that he didn’t deign to join it himself?” The advisers around the marchion, including the city’s newest sceptrana, all had a good chuckle at the preposterous proposition Devastul had just outlined. Mirabar was a rich city, her lords and ladies well luxuriated, and in no small part because of their industrious dwarf workforce, nearly two thousand strong.

“Me kin here in Mirabar are Delzoun,” Bruenor said. “I’m thinkin’ ye’re to find a bit o’ wrath if ye’re to deny them the chance to march for their ancient home. The warmth o’ Gauntlgrym’s in the blood o’ every dwarf, the hope o’ findin’ it’s in the dreams of every dwarf. And now I found it, and so we’re to take it back.”“Of course, and you are the reincarnation of King Bruenor

Battlehammer,” the sceptrana said with obvious, and amused, skepticism. “Aye, and Gauntlgrym’s a choice for any dwarf that goes deeper than the place he’s now callin’ home,” Emerus added, and there was no mistaking the edge that had come into his voice. “I gived up me crown-or are ye doubtin’ me own name as well?”

“Your sanity, perhaps,” the sceptrana dared to remark, and Ragged Dain bristled at Emerus’s side.

“No, I know you, King Emerus, of course,” Marchion Devastul said.

“Though yes, I question the. . wisdom, of your choice. This seems a rather eccentric quest, particularly in this time so soon after war. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“What happened before’s not to matter,” said Emerus. “The road afore us is clear.”

“You leave your fortresses vulnerable-”

“Orcs’re gone and not coming back,” Bruenor interrupted, his voice reflecting his rising temper. “The Marches are blasted, but sure to mend, and there’re enough in all the dwarf homes to hold off anything that’s coming."

“And two kings, Emerus and Connerad, won’t be there to lead if something does come,” said the sceptrana.

“Two kings replaced,” Emerus replied. “And enough o’ yer snickerin’ and thin-veiled insults, good woman. We’re marchin’ to Gauntlgrym, and we’re not needin’ yer permission. We thinked to stop here that ye might be givin’ yer dwarfs the choice to join in-suren this is a quest that every Delzoun lad or lass should-”

“But you did not empty Felbarr, or Adbar, or Mithral Hall,” Marchion Devastul declared in a bold tone that stopped the conversation short. “We bringed four thousand,” Emerus replied after a few moments of silence.

“Why four? Why not the twenty thousand of Adbar, the seven thousand of Felbarr, the five thousand of Mithral Hall?” Devastul asked. “Those are the correct numbers, yes? You could have marched past Mirabar with thirty thousand dwarves, yet you arrive with four thousand-and you ask me to empty my city of the great value of craftsdwarves? Are the forges of Adbar cool? Are the hammers of Felbarr silent? Are the picks silent and untended in the mines of Mithral Hall? Is this a quest for Gauntlgrym, or a ruse to gain economic advantage over a rival city?”

“Bah, but ye really are the descendant of Elastul,” Bruenor snorted.

“Good to see the line’s only gotten stupider.”

Several fists banged on the table, and more than one of Devastul’s guards edged in closer, and for a few heartbeats, it seemed as if a fistfight was about to break out. But then came a calming voice, one that carried more than a bit of magical weight in its timbre.

“Even were all the dwarves of Mirabar to join us, the city would remain defended, the mines tended, and the forges hot,” Catti-brie interjected.

“What you speak of would be the abandonment of three established cities, something that would be foolish, of course. Adbar, Felbarr, and Mithral Hall have responsibilities to the other kingdoms of Luruar."

“The alliance of Luruar is in ruins,” the sceptrana snidely put in, but Catti-brie just talked over her.

“Sundabar has been reduced to rubble. But she will be rebuilt with no small help from the dwarves of the Silver Marches,” she said. “The orcs are chased away, but no doubt roaming bands will return to the south to cause mischief-and they will be met and defeated by the elves of the Glimmerwood and the dwarves of Delzoun long before they near the work at Sundabar, or the gates of Silverymoon, or the markets of Nesmé.” That last reference brought a bit of a wince to the marchion, and even to the sceptrana, Bruenor noticed, for while they could so flippantly insult the dwarven citadels, or any of the other kingdoms of the Silver Marches, that little town of Nesmé had become a critical trading post for Mirabar. It was quite clever of Catti-brie to bring the ruined city into the conversation, the dwarf realized.

“Yes, Nesmé,” she continued. “The city was flattened by the orcs, with eight of every ten citizens killed. But the survivors have vowed to rebuild, and principal among their backers are Silverymoon and Mithral Hall, even now, even after the march of the dwarves has depleted the numbers in Mithral Hall. You would be wise to help us in those efforts, Marchion of Mirabar, for surely you desire to see the markets of Nesmé opened soon, even this very season, in some manner.”

The man had no flippant replies this time, and even nodded slightly. “It is time to stand together, for all our sakes,” Catti-brie said. “Yet you run off to the Sword Coast,” the marchion replied. “To Gauntlgrym,” Catti-brie was fast to answer, before any of the dwarves could respond. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen the Forge, and have met the beast that fires it. Know, Marchion, that when Gauntlgrym is reclaimed and renewed, the weapons and armor, and all else that flows from the primordial forges will alter the balance of trade in Faerûn.” All on the Mirabar side of the table stiffened at that prospect, which surely seemed bleak to a city that had made its great wealth through its mining and crafting.

“The dwarves left behind in the Silver Marches are as important to the reclamation of Gauntlgrym as those marching with Bruenor and Emerus,” Catti-brie said. “They know it, and we had to hold lotteries to determine which of the volunteers would be granted a place on the march, and which disappointed dwarves would have to remain behind to hold down the homeland in the months or years of transition. Once Gauntlgrym is renewed, Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and Citadel Adbar will diminish greatly, will become outposts of the Delzoun mining empire.”

Not Adbar, Bruenor thought, but did not say. He was fairly certain that young King Harnoth would not soon swallow enough of his overblown pride-or perhaps it was just his enduring scars and grief-to subjugate his family’s accomplished citadel to the greater Delzoun alliance. Felbarr and Mithral Hall would indeed become satellite cities of Gauntlgrym. Queen Dagnabbet remained a loyal Battlehammer above all else. Bruenor was quite certain she would surrender the throne of Mithral Hall to him if he insisted. And the dwarves of Citadel Felbarr would never think of anyone but Emerus as their true king, so long as the old dwarf drew breath.

“Quite a claim,” Marchion Devastul retorted. “And will the Lords of Waterdeep bow to this empire? Will the great armies of Cormyr-?"

“Gauntlgrym will be no enemy of Waterdeep, or any of the other civilized kingdoms, and those in power will be glad to have the flow of greater goods in their markets,” Catti-brie said. “Will Mirabar?"

“We have our own-” the marchion started to somewhat timidly reply, but Catti-brie clearly had the advantage and wasn’t about to relinquish it. “Or will Mirabar now choose to allow her dwarves to partake in the glorious reclamation of Gauntlgrym?” Catti-brie cut him short. “And in so doing, claim her place as a great ally of the fledgling city of the Delzoun dwarves-a fortress that will become the principal buyer of Mirabar’s ore, likely, and one that will offer to the marchion fine deals on finer goods. For the memories of dwarves are long indeed, and your help now will not be forgotten in the centuries to come.”

She let it hang there, and the marchion said nothing for a long while.

Catti-brie had obviously given Devastul something to think about in an entirely new light. Finally, he announced, “I will take your offer to the Council of Sparkling Stones.”

And with that, the meeting adjourned.

Bruenor and Emerus exchanged knowing smiles, and as they left the chamber side by side, the former King of Felbarr whispered in Bruenor’s ear, “Yer girl’s deserving a beard.”

The group arrived back at the main encampment just before Drizzt rode in at the head of the fifty dwarves of Icewind Dale, who soon recounted their grim tale to Bruenor and the others.

That night, four thousand and fifty dwarf voices lifted in unison and carried across the hills and valleys, drifting over Mirabar’s high wall with such power that the stones reverberated in the melancholy. They sang for Stokely Silverstream and the Battlehammer dwarves of Icewind Dale, for the loss of Kelvin’s Cairn, and for the vengeance they would wreak upon the marauding dark elves.

Nearly two thousand dwarves lived in Mirabar. The next morning, more than half of them marched out of the city’s gate to join in the quest for Gauntlgrym.

Now more than five thousand strong, all well armed, well armored, and seasoned in battle, the army of Delzoun marched to the west, banging shields, clapping flagons, and singing songs of war.