The Companions

CHAPTER 10

The Year of the Third Circle (1472 DR) Citadel Felbarr

The overhead chop came as predicted, painfully predictable to the sensibilities of the seasoned warrior.

Bruenor found himself disgusted with how pedestrian his opponent proved to be. This was the top student of Bruenor’s training group.

But still, Bruenor’s feint had been obvious, and the idea that the dwarfling had swallowed it so fully …

Bruenor easily turned aside to avoid the downward strike, sliding one hand up to the middle of his fighting stick-straight poles this day-and thrusting his arm out behind him, driving the weapon hilt into the ribs of the stumbling dwarfling. Bruenor’s continuing turn put him directly behind the gasping youth-and he in the general direction, then paBo her father remembered that it was, after all, just a child here, and that thought almost slowed his next merciless strike.

Almost.

His two-handed slash cracked his weapon across the dwarfling’s head and sent him flying to the side and to the floor, where he abandoned his weapon and grabbed at his head with both hands, tears flowing and cries of pain echoing.

Gasps came from all around the room, along with a call from Master Muttonchops Stonehammer to two other dwarflings.

Bruenor sighed and turned around to meet the charge of not one, but two students this time.

Fist and Fury, they were called, the powerful Fellhammer sisters, considered among the top students of the training class above Bruenor’s level. And Bruenor had to admit that by the way they were coming in at him, their coordination appeared sophisticated and correct.

He settled himself calmly, feet widespread, and easily defeated the twin thrusts with a sudden down-and-over, leftward sweep of his fighting stick, at the same time hopping out to the left to further exaggerate the miss.

The nearest of the twins, though, extracted herself almost immediately and with a quick two-step, launched herself at Bruenor, swinging with one hand, punching with the other.

He dived down low, shouldering her just above the knee and launching her into a somersault past him, to thump down hard on her back on the dirt floor of the chamber. The collision staggered Bruenor a bit, but he never lost his balance, and was already into his next move, sweeping a tremendous uppercut that froze the second sister in her tracks, and just barely missed taking the tip from her nose.

She charged in right behind the uppercut with a roar.

Bruenor had known that he would miss with his wild swing; the point of the attack was to give him just an eye-blink of time to reset his footing and to get his momentum going. As his stick lifted, he veered that momentum and threw himself into a rolling back flip over the stabbing stick of the female and over her arms, as well, landing only a step back to the right, but directly in front of her.

She was just a child, a girl child, he reminded himself. But with a growl, he slammed his forehead into her face anyway, and as she staggered backward under the blow, he leaped up, flattened out, and double-kicked her in the torso.

He landed on his side, bounced right back up and parried the incoming attack from the first of the sisters.

“Bungo’s Roll,” Emerus Warcrown said to Muttonchops at the side of the room, correctly naming the maneuver Bruenor had used on the second charging teenager. “When did ye start teachin’ the dwarflings to dance such a move as that?”

“Haven’t,” Muttonchops said with a shake of his head.

Emerus Warcrown turned his attention back to the fight, just in time to see one of the sisters go flipping head-over-heels to the right and to see the second cringe in pain as Little Arr Arr, working her hands, her weapon, and her attention up high, stomped down on her foot.

She cringed and started reflexively to double over, and a left hook sent her sprawling.

“His father’s sitting at Moradin’s side, laughin’ at us,” said the king. As he spoke, the other of the young sisters went somersaulting aside yet again, the victim of a beautifully appearanceI holding onbalanced parry, hook, and throw.

“I’m guessin’ that Arr Arr’s jaw’s hanging as open as yer own,” Muttonchops replied. “Moradin’s too.”

They came at him in a long line, a stream of attackers, sometimes two at once, and in the end, the last four together.

This wasn’t Little Arr Arr they were battling, but Bruenor Battlehammer, King of Mithral Hall, the great warrior who had held back Obould’s hordes in Keeper’s Dale beyond Mithral Hall’s western gate.

And it was Bruenor Battlehammer who had sat upon the throne of Gauntlgrym, who had heard the words of Moradin, the whispers of Dumathoin and the battle shouts of Clangeddin. Though he wore the frame of a child’s body, inferior to those of his older attackers, his understanding of balance and movement kept those attackers constantly turning and shifting, often right into each other, and always clumsily.

And whenever that happened, Bruenor’s fighting stick invariably and painfully cracked against an opponent’s skull.

In the very first moments of that last assault, four coming at him furiously, Bruenor had stopped their charge and tied them up with misdirection, feinting left, then right, then left again so smoothly that the edges of the foursome collapsed upon the middle.

He swept the legs out of the teenage dwarf the farthest to his left, half-turned and backhand stabbed the second in line, then pivoted the other way to parry and roll around the stabbing sticks of the remaining two. Running back out to the right afforded him a few moments of single combat with the one on that end of the line. He stabbed, pulled up short and swept across, taking his opponent’s weapon and her balance with him, then reversed suddenly and snapped his fighting stick across her chin, dazing her. In a one-on-one fight, Bruenor would have let it end there, but this opponent had three allies, after all, and so he leaped up and spun, lifting his stick over his head, and came around with a resounding chop that knocked the dwarfling girl senseless, and shattered Bruenor’s fighting stick in the process.

He dived to the floor, retrieving her stick-she wasn’t going to need it any longer, after all-and just managed to turn sidelong and brace the butt of the stick against his hip as the next in line leaped at him.

If it had been an actual spear instead of a blunt stick, that second dwarf would have surely impaled himself. The stick bowed but did not break. The flying dwarf bowed as well, doubling over the forward end, eyes going wide, breath blasted from him. He hung there for what seemed like an eternity, feet off the floor, until the momentum played out and Bruenor’s stick dipped, dropping him back to his feet.

He didn’t stay on his feet for long, however, grabbing at his belly, wailing in shock and pain, and tumbling to the side.

“Are ye having fun, then?” Bruenor roared, becoming disgusted with this whole ridiculous exercise. “Are ye, damned Moradin?”

The blasphemy drew more than a few gasps around the room, but Bruenor hardly heard them. Up again, he launched himself at the remaining two, his stick whirling with seeming abandon, though in truth, in perfectly timed and aimed angles and strikes. He cried out with every hit, his voice filling the air, and soon, so too did his two opponents cry out in pain and terror. They turned and fled … or tried to.

asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh holding onBruenor kicked the feet out from under the nearest, the same poor dwarf whose legs he had swept out at the beginning of the encounter. He ran right over the poor lad, stomping him flat. He couldn’t catch the other one, though, for she was older and faster, so he hoisted his fighting stick like a javelin and let fly.

The missile caught the poor girl right in the back of the neck and sent her sprawling to the floor in a cloud of dust.

“Are ye having fun, then?” an outraged Bruenor yelled at Muttonchops and King Emerus.

“Promote him at once to the town guard,” King Emerus mumbled to Muttonchops Stonehammer.

“But ’e’s just a laddie.”

“He’ll be trainin’ with the adults,” the king sharply replied. “Take him to new heights of prowess.” He paused and looked Muttonchops in the eye. “And humble him. Three gods as me witness, I’ll not again be hearin’ the son of Reginald Roundshield blaspheme Moradin.”

“Yes, me king,” Muttonchops said with a low bow.

And so began the next journey for Bruenor, where he would spend the next three years on the training grounds with the finest warriors of Citadel Felbarr-and where he would spend most of those brutal sessions on the floor, truth be told.

But for the angry young dwarf, that journey was not humbling.

Just infuriating.

The Year of the Final Stand (1475 DR) Citadel Felbarr

The young dwarf, Reginald Roundshield, had gained much notice in Citadel Felbarr. Every clan in the city buzzed about “Arr Arr’s tough son,” no longer referring to this teenager as “Arr Arr’s little boy.” For though he had seen no action outside of the city guard’s training grounds, his strength and battle prowess had been nothing short of amazing, given his tender age and his still small and underdeveloped body.

For the one named Reginald Roundshield, who had been named Bruenor Battlehammer in his previous existence, the whispers that followed him to the training grounds each morning and home again late each night did nothing to flatter him, and everything to remind him of how ridiculous this whole process had become.

Day after day, tenday after tenday, month after month, and now year after year, he had played the game and assumed the role: “child prod’gy,” they said.

“A fittin’ tribute to Arr Arr!” they whispered behind his solitary walks.

Even, “Clangeddin reborn!”

For a long while, the whispers bothered Bruenor, particularly the most outrageous, as if the dwarf gods had any part in the travesty that had put him back in Faerun instead of granting him his due to sit beside them in his well-earned place of honor. Now, though, he didn’t even hear the whispers or the applause, and when he did, he didn’t let the words sink in below a cursory level of awareness. He went to the training grounds and he fought, viciously, tirelessly, and fearlessly, and came home each night battered and bruised and exhausted.

Yes, exhausted most of all, because exhaustion was his defense against the restless sleep he too often fell into. Even his dreams proved disjointed and off-balance, interspersing the experiences of his previous life with those of this existon of a son of a son of a son of a captainan in any caseimence. And worse, those dreams, like his thoughts, too often contained a scowling image of Moradin.

He sat in his bedchamber one night, wrapping bandages around the newest wounds on one forearm-how had he missed such an easy parry?

“Nah, not missed,” he stubbornly told himself, for the block had been good, but his still immature muscles had not given him the strength to properly deflect the veteran warrior’s blow far enough from his exposed shield arm. But he had indeed erred in not anticipating that, he reminded himself. He had gone for the kill in the sparring match, trying a complicated cross-body deflection with his wooden axe instead of the safer block with his buckler. If he had been older and stronger, he would have properly pushed that striking wooden sword out wide enough, and left himself in perfect balance to smack the fool across the face with a “killing” backhand.

But he was not older and stronger, and so he had lost the match. “Keep tellin’ yerself that,” Bruenor counseled, for while little mattered to him in those dark days of his young second life, he wanted above all else to beat them all, to knock down these city guards one after another and stand atop the bleeding pile!

Why?

He came to this point of reasoning and questioning often, his anger driving his thoughts onward and onward until they reached that fantasy of seemingly pointless supreme victory.

What would he win?

“Ah, but ye got yerself a nasty one,” said Uween, his mother, stepping into the room. “I heared ye fought well against Priam Thickbelt, though, and he’s a good one, I know. Fought him meself …”

Her voice trailed off, and Bruenor knew it was because he hadn’t even afforded her the courtesy of looking at her while she rambled. He winced at the realization-Uween was not deserving of his disrespect.

But still, neither was she his mother. Not to his present thinking, and allowing her to continue along with the delusion truly insulted him and reminded him of how helpless he was in the face of his errant choice in Iruladoon.

A strong hand grabbed his ear and yanked his head around, to stare into the scowling face of Uween Roundshield.

“Ye look at me when I’m talkin’ to-!” Then her voice became a garbled grunt of surprise and pain as Bruenor, acting purely reflexively, acting as Bruenor Battlehammer and not Reginald Roundshield, slapped his arm back, catching her by the wrist, breaking her grasp and driving her arm down, twisting it to force her to lurch to the side.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, catching her breath when Bruenor let her go.

He looked away, embarrassed but still angry, and was not really surprised when Uween smacked him on the back of his head.

“Ye don’t disrespect yer Ma!” she scolded and she poked him in the side of the head. “And look at me!”

He did, his face a mask of anger.

“I come in here givin’ ye praise and ye slight me?” Uween asked incredulously.

“I’m not wantin’ yer praise or anyone else’s.”

“By the gods!” cried the exasperated woman.

“Damn the gods!” Bruenor exploded at her. Before he even realized his movements, he was on his feet, hoisting his wooden chair above his head appearanceI holding on. With a growl he threw it across the room, against the wall, shattering it to kindling.

“Oh, but get yer head, boy!” Uween scolded. “Ye don’t go cursin’ Moradin in me house!”

“Ah, but it’s all a stupid joke, don’t ye see?”

“What’s all?”

“All of it!” Bruenor insisted. “All a durned game for them to laugh about. All a puny try for puny glories that none’ll remember or care about. ‘Bones and stones,’ so me friend used to say. Bones n’ stones and nothing more. For all our cries o’ glory, for all our cheers to lost kin … bah, but ain’t it just a game then!” He kicked at some of the wood that rebounded near to his feet, and when he missed it, he scooped up the plank instead and snapped it in half, then threw both pieces, sending them spinning across the room.

“Stop it!” Uween demanded.

Bruenor froze, stared her hard in the eye, then calmly walked over and picked up another chair. With a look of supreme defiance at this dwarf who would be his mother, he lifted the chair up high and brought it crashing down on the floor, smashing it to kindling.

Uween wailed and fled the room.

Bruenor followed her only far enough to slam the bedchamber door behind her.

He went back to his original position, though the chair was gone, and picked up his bandage to continue his work. But then he snarled and growled and spat and threw it, too, across the room.

He glanced back at the door and only then fully realized what he had just done-and done to an undeserving and always supportive dwarf widow!

The shame overwhelmed him and sent him to his knees, where he threw his face into his hands and wept openly. Shoulders bobbing in sobs, Bruenor lay down on the stone and splintered wood.

He fell asleep right there, face wet with tears, and troubling dreams began to descend upon him, and flitter up like dark wings all around him. Dreams of Catti-brie lying dead, of Obould’s orcs drinking mead with tankards marked by the foaming mug, the standard of Mithral Hall-and indeed, drinking mead within Mithral Hall, and in a room littered with dwarf corpses!

The room’s door banged open, startling him awake, but it took him a long while, time he didn’t have, to determine if this was reality or another image in his dream.

He finally figured it out when King Emerus Warcrown lifted him roughly to his feet and slapped him across the face.

Behind the king, Parson Glaive stood solemnly, hands intertwined before him in prayer.

“What’re ye about, then?” the king demanded.

“Wh-what?” Bruenor stammered, not knowing where to begin.

“How dare ye dishonor yer Da!” Emerus shouted in his face. “How dare ye treat yer Ma as such?”

Bruenor shook his head, but could not begin to offer a response. Not verbally. Dishonor? The word screamed in his mind! Could these two even begin to understand the word? He had died a good dwarf’s death-he had earned his place at Moradin’s side, and it had been taken from him through guilt and a foolish choice!

Dishonor? That was dishonor, not some meaningless argument in a meaningless house in a meaningless citadel!

asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh holding onHis previous existence, his glorious tenure as King of Mithral Hall, had been ripped from relevance! Oh, and not by his own impulsive, foolishly emotional choice, but by the mere fact that he had been given that choice in the first place. What point this-any of it! — if a god’s whim could undo everything?

“Well, Little Arr … Reginald?” Emerus Warcrown growled in his face. “What do ye got to say?”

“What playthings we be,” Bruenor replied quietly, calmly.

The king looked at him curiously, then glanced back at Parson Glaive, who opened his eyes at the young dwarf’s curious words.

“Self-congratulating,” Bruenor went on undeterred. He gave a helpless chuckle. “And all our great deeds be tiny spots on the altars o’ the laughing gods.”

“His father,” Parson Glaive explained to the king, who nodded and turned back to Bruenor.

“Ye don’t know me father,” Bruenor snarled at him. “Nor his father afore him.”

He was sitting on the floor then, flying down at the end of a fist, with the room swimming around him in uneven turns.

“Yer time on the training grounds is done, Reginald,” Emerus Warcrown told him. “Ye go out and fight aside them that’s keeping Felbarr free o’ damned orcs, and then ye come back and tell me about yer playthings! If ye live to get back to me, I’m meanin’!”

They left abruptly, King Emerus first, and Bruenor caught a glimpse of him offering Uween a much-needed hug before Parson Glaive, with a profound and purposely loud sigh, closed the bedroom door.

Perhaps no section of Citadel Felbarr was more revered and less visited than this one, where rows and rows of piled stones stretched into the vast darkness of the huge cavern. The cemetery of Clan Warcrown encompassed many rooms, and a new one was always under construction.

Bruenor heard the solitary digger’s pick chipping at the stone when he entered the main chamber of the cemetery, the heartbeat-like cadence ringing somewhere far off in the distance to his left. He moved to his right, across the huge main room, the oldest room, and through one low tunnel into the next section. This room, too, he crossed, and another beyond the next tunnel and another beyond that.

He could no longer hear the lonely tap of the worker, who was digging out a chamber that would not be used for decades. As most of this solemn place was a testament to the past, to the fallen of the clan, so that dwarf excavator was the promise of the future. Citadel Felbarr would go on and she would bury her dead with reverence and tradition.

The thought nagged at Bruenor as he passed into the last chamber out here on the right flank of the centuries-old graveyard.

“A testament?” he heard himself muttering, with clear distaste.

He came to the cairn of Reginald Roundshield, his father.

He didn’t know what to feel concerning the dwarf. He had never really known him, though so many spoke highly of him. And surely, Uween’s character spoke highly of any dwarf who would take her as a wife.

He stared at the inscription that bore his father’s name, his name.

“No!” he said emphatically asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh holding on at the thought. Never his name! He was Bruenor Battlehammer of Clan Battlehammer, the Eighth King of Mithral Hall and the Tenth King of Mithral Hall.

And what did that mean?

“Ah, Reginald,” he said, for he felt as if he should say something. He had come out here, after all, to the cairn of a respected warrior. “Arr Arr, they called ye, and with great affection. Might be that yerself was Emerus’s Pwent, eh?”

The mention of his own trusted guard sent Bruenor’s thoughts spinning back to Gauntlgrym and that last fateful battle. All had been lost, so it had seemed, but then in had come the dwarves of Icewind Dale, led by Stokely Silverstream, and most importantly, with old Thibbledorf Pwent in tow-nay, not in tow, never in tow, but leading the charge!

As always, Pwent had been there, fighting beside Bruenor, propping Bruenor up, helping Bruenor along. Untiring, without surrender, ever with hope and ever full of the word of Moradin and the loyalty and glory of Clan Battlehammer, Pwent had carried Bruenor to the lever, had placed Bruenor’s hand upon it, and had helped Bruenor pull the lever, ending the threat of the primordial volcanic beast.

Now Bruenor was crying, but for Pwent and not for Reginald.

Nay, not for Pwent alone, he came to realize, but for them all. For traditions that seemed quaint to him so suddenly-silly, even. For homage to gods who did not deserve it.

That last thought slapped back at him profoundly.

He wanted to curse Moradin, but inevitably wound up cursing himself. “Ah, but what a fool I be,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He shook his head, a stream of curses escaping his lips. “A fool’s choice,” he ended. “I throwed it all away.”

He nodded as he spoke the words, as if trying to convince himself. For every image he conjured of his just reward at Moradin’s side, he found a complementary one of Catti-brie, or of Drizzt or Regis. Catti-brie, his adopted daughter … how could he abandon her in this time of her greatest need?

He would see her again in a few short years, so he hoped.

“Nay,” he heard himself saying, for those years would not be “short,” but interminable.

He focused on Drizzt. Had he ever known a better friend? One more loyal to him, including a willingness to tell him when he was wrong? Oh, Bruenor was beloved by many, and counted among his clan hundreds of loyal minions and scores of dear friends, like Thibbledorf Pwent. But Drizzt had known him on a deeper level, he understood, and Drizzt had not treated him with the deference afforded to a king, but rather, with the bluntness often needed from a friend.

“Them was me thoughts when I chose me path out o’ the forest,” a sitting Bruenor said to the cold cairn. “Me friends were needin amp;#ce, the softne