Two centuries of traveling beside someone, of fighting beside someone, often in desperate straits, tends to make such facts diminish.
"Come, me friend," old Gandalug bade. He had already said his farewells to his children, to Bruenor, the new King of Mithril Hall, and to all his clan. Now was the time for traveling again, with Crommower beside him, as it had been for so many years. "I go to expand the boundaries of Mithril Hall," Gandalug had proclaimed, "to seek greater riches for me clan." And so the dwarves had cheered, but more than one eye had been teary that day, for all the dwarves understood that Gandalug would not be coming home.
"Think we'll get a good fight or two outta this?" Crommower eagerly asked as he skittered along beside his beloved king, his armor squealing noisily every step of the way.
The old graybeard only laughed.
The two spent many days searching the tunnels directly below and west of the Mithril Hall complex. They found little in the way of the precious silvery mithril, though-certainly no hints of any veins to match the huge deposits back in the complex proper. Undaunted, the two wanderers then went lower, into caverns that seemed foreign even to their dwarven sensibilities, into corridors where the sheer pressure of thousands of tons of rock pushed crystals out in front of them in swirling arrays, into tunnels of beautiful colors, where strange lichen glowed eerie colors. Into the Underdark.
Long after their lamp oils had been exhausted, long after their torches had burned away, Crommower Pwent got his fight.
It started when the myriad of color patterns revealed by heat— sensing dwarven infravision blurred to gray and then disappeared altogether in a cloud of inky blackness.
"Me king!" Crommower called out wildly. "I've lost me sight!"
"As have I!" Gandalug assured the smelly battlerager, and, predictably, he heard the roar and the shuffle of anxious feet as Crommower sped off, looking for an enemy to skewer.
Gandalug ran in the noise of the battlerager's wake. He had seen enough magic to understand that some wizard or cleric had dropped a globe of darkness over them, and that, the old graybeard knew, was probably only the beginning of a more direct assault.
Crommower's grunts and crashes allowed Gandalug to get out of the darkened area with relatively few bruises. He caught a quick look at his adversary before yet another globe dropped over him.
"Drow, Crommower!" Gandalug cried, terror in his voice, for even back then, the reputation of the merciless dark elves sent shivers along the backbones of the hardiest surface dwellers.
"I seen 'em," came Crommower's surprisingly easy reply. "We oughtta kill about fifty o' the skinny things, lay 'em flat out with their hands above their heads, and use 'em for window blinds once they're stiffened!"
The sight of drow and the use of magic told Gandalug that he and the battlerager were in tight straits, but he laughed anyway, gaining confidence and strength from his friend's confident manner.
They came bouncing out of the second globe, and a third went over them, this one accompanied by the subtle clicking sound of hand-held crossbows firing.
"Will ye stop doing that?" Crommower complained to the mysterious enemies. "How am I supp-Ow! Why ye dirty sneak-sters! — supposed to skewer ye if I can't see ye?"
When they came out the other side of this globe, into a wider tunnel strewn with tall stalagmite mounds and hanging stalac tites, Gandalug saw Crommower yanking a small dart from the side of his neck.
The two slid to a stop; no darkened globe fell over them and no draw were in sight, though both seasoned warriors understood the many hiding places the stalagmite mounds might offer their enemies.
"Was it poisoned?" Gandalug asked with grave concern, knowing the sinister reputation of drow darts.
Crommower looked at the small quarrel curiously, then put its tip to his lips and sucked hard, furrowing his bushy eyebrows contemplatively and smacking his lips as he studied the taste.
"Yup," he announced and threw the dart over his shoulder.
"Our enemies are not far," Gandalug said, glancing all around.
"Bah, they probably runned away," snickered Crommower. "Too bad, too. Me helm's getting rusty. Could use a bit o' skinny elf blood to grease it proper. Ow!" The battlerager growled suddenly and grasped at a new dart, this one sticking from his shoulder, following its up-angled line, Gandalug understood the trap-draw elves were not hiding among the stalagmites, but were up above, levitating among the stalactites!
"Separate!" the battlerager cried. He grabbed Gandalug and heaved him away. Normally, dwarves would have stayed together, fought back-to-back, but Gandalug understood and agreed with Crommower's reasoning. More than one friendly dwarf had taken a glove nail or a knee spike when wild Crom mower went into his fighting frenzy.
Several of the dark elves descended swiftly, weapons drawn, and Crommower Pwent, with typical battlerager intensity, went berserk. He hopped all around, slamming elves and stalag mites, skewering one drow in the belly with his helmet spike, then cursing his luck as the dying drow got stuck. Bent over as he was, Crommower took several slashing hits across his back, but he only roared in rage, flexed his considerable muscles and straightened, taking the unfortunate, impaled draw along for the ride.
With Crommower's insanity occupying most of the enemy force, Gandalug did well initially. He faced off against two drow females. The old dwarf was quite taken with how
beautiful these evil creatures were, their features angled, but not sharp, their hair more lustrous than a well-groomed dwarven lady's beard, and their eyes so very intense. That observation didn't slow Gandalug's desire to gash the skin off the drow faces, though, and he whipped his battle-axe back and forth, battering aside shields and blocking weapons alike, forcing the females back.
But then Gandalug grimaced in pain, once, again, and then a third time, as some unseen missiles scorched into his back. Mag ical energy slipped through his fine plate armor and bit at his skin. A moment later, the old graybeard heard Crommower growl in rage and sputter, "Damn wizard!" He knew then that his friend had been similarly assaulted.
Crommower spotted the magic-thrower from under the dangling legs of the now-dead drow impaled on his helmet. "I hates wizards," he grumbled and began punching his way toward the distant drow.
The wizard said something in a language that Crommower could not understand, but he should have caught on when the six dark elves he was fighting suddenly parted ranks, opening a direct line between Crommower and the wizard.
Crommower was not in any rational state, though, consumed as he was by the battle rage, the bloodlust. Thinking to get a clear punch at the wizard, he charged ahead, the dead draw flopping atop his helm. The battlerager took no note of the wizard's chanting, no note of the metal rod the draw held out before him.
Then Crommower was flying, blinded by a sudden flash and hurled backward by the energy of a lightning bolt. He slammed a stalagmite hard and slid down to the seat of his pants.
"I hates wizards," the dwarf muttered a second time, and he heaved the dead drow off his head, leaped up, and charged again, smoking and fuming.
He dipped his head, put his helmet spike in line, and thrust forward furiously, bouncing off mounds, his armor scraping and squealing. The other dark elves he had been fighting came in at his sides, slashing with fine swords, banging with enchanted maces as the battlerager plowed through the gauntlet, and blood ran freely from several wounds.
Crommower's single cry continued without interruption; if he felt the wounds at all, he did not show it. Rage, focused directly on the draw wizard, consumed him.
The wizard realized then that his warriors would not be able to stop the insane creature. He called on his innate magic, hoping that these outrageous dwarf-things couldn't fly, and began to levitate from the floor.
Gandalug heard the commotion behind him and winced every time it sounded as though Crommower took a hit. But the old graybeard could do little to help his friend. These drow females were surprisingly good fighters, working in perfec
t concert and parrying all his attacks, even managing to get in a few hits of their own, one slashing with a cruelly edged sword, the other whipping a fiercely glowing mace. Gandalug bled in several places, though none of the wounds was serious.
As the three settled into a dancing rhythm, the mace-wielder stepped back from the fight and began an incantation.
"No, ye don't," Gandalug whispered, and he drove hard into the sword-wielder, forcing her into a clinch. The slender drow was no physical match for the tough dwarf's sheer strength, and Gandalug heaved her back, to collide with her companion and disrupt the spell.
On came the old graybeard, the First King of Mithril Hall, battering the two with his emblazoned shield, slamming them with the foaming mug standard of the clan he had founded.
Back down the corridor, Crommower turned to the side, virtually ran up a stalagmite, and leaped high, his helmet spike driving into the rising wizard's knee, splintering the kneecap and cutting right out the back of the leg.
The wizard screamed in agony. His levitation was strong enough to hold them both aloft, and in the blur of pain, the frightfully wounded drow couldn't think to release the spell. They hung weirdly in midair, the wizard clutching his leg, his hands weak with pain, and Crommower thrashing from side to side, destroying the leg and punching up with his glove nails. He smiled as he sank them deep into the drow's thighs.
A rain of warm blood descended over the battlerager, feeding his frenzy.
But the other drow were under Crommower, and he was not that high from the ground. He tried to tuck his legs under him as swords slashed his feet. He jerked then, and understood that this would be his final battle, as one drow produced a long lance and stuck it hard into the battlerager's kidney.
The mace-wielder fell back again, around a corner, and Gandalug closed quickly on the female with the sword. He moved as if he would shield rush again, close in tight, and heave her back as he had done before. The crafty old dwarf pulled up short, though, and felllow, his wicked axe coming across and sweeping the drow's feet out from under her. Gandalug fell over her in an instant, accepting one nasty stick from the sword, and dishing out a head-splitting chop in exchange.
He looked up just in time to see a magical hammer appear in midair before him and whack him across the face. Gandalug shifted his thick tongue about curiously, then spit out a tooth, staring incredulously at the young-and this drow was indeed young-female.
"Ye got to be kidding," the old graybeard remarked. He hardly noticed that the female had already launched a second spell, pulling the tooth to her waiting fingers with a magically conjured hand.
The magical hammer continued its assault, scoring a second hit on the side of Gandalug's head as he straightened over the drow. "Ye're dead," he promised the young female, smiling wickedly. His mirth was stolen, though, when a resounding scream split the air. Gandalug had seen many fierce battles; he knew a death cry when he heard it, and he knew that this one had come from a dwarf.
He spent an instant steadying himself, reminding himself that he and old Crommower had fully expected that this would be their last journey. When he focused ahead once more, he saw that the young female had retreated farther around the bend, and he heard her chanting softly. Gandalug knew that other dark elves would soon be at his back, but he determined then that they would find their two female companions dead. The stubborn dwarf stalked ahead, heedless of whatever magic the young drow might have waiting for him.
He spotted her, standing vulnerable in the middle of the pas sage, eyes closed, hands by her side, as he rounded the corner. In charged the old graybeard-to be intercepted by a sudden whirl wind, a vortex that encircled him, stopped him, and held him in place.
"What're ye about?" Gandalug roared. He fought wildly against the cunning magic, but could not break free of its stubborn grasp, could not even shuffle his feet toward the devious female.
Then Gandalug felt a horrid sensation deep within his breast. He could no longer feel the whipping of the cyclone, but its winds continued, as if they had somehow found a way to pass through his skin. Gandalug felt a tug at his soul, felt as though his insides were being ripped out.
"What're ye…?" he started to ask again, but his words disappeared into blabber as he lost control of his lips, lost control of all his body. He floated helplessly toward the drow, toward her extended hand and a curious item-what was it? he wondered. What was she holding?
His tooth.
Then there was only white emptiness. From a great distance Gandalug heard the chatter of dark elves, and he found one last view as he looked back. A body-his body! — lay dead on the floor, surrounded by several dark elves.
His body…
The dwarf ghost teetered weakly as he came out of the dream, the nightmare, that cruel Yvonnel Baenre, that devious young female, had once again forced upon him. Baenre knew that those recollections were the most horrid torture she could exact upon the stubborn dwarf, and she did so often.
Now Gandalug stared at her with utter hatred. Here they were, nearly two thousand years later, two thousand years of an empty white prison and terrible memories that poor Gandalug could not escape.
"When you left Mithril Hall, you gave the throne to your son," Baenre stated. She knew the story, had forced it out of her tormented prisoner many centuries before. "The new king of Mithril Hall is named Bruenor-that was your son's name, was it not?"
The spirit held steady, kept his gaze firm and determined.
Matron Baenre laughed at him. "Contained in your memories are the ways and defenses of Mithril Hall," she said, "not so different now from what they were then, if I properly understand the ways of dwarves. It is ironic, is it not, that you, great Gandalug, the founder of Mithril Hall, the patron of Clan Battlehammer, will aid in the end of the hall and the clan?"
The dwarf king howled with rage and grew in size, gigantic hands reaching out for Baenre's skinny, withered throat. The matron mother laughed at him again. She held out the tooth and the whirlwind came at her bidding, grabbing at Gandalug and banishing him back to his white prison.
"And so Drizzt Do'Urden has escaped," Matron Baenre purred, and she was not unhappy. "He is a fortunate excuse and nothing more!"
Epilogue
Drizzt Do'Urden sat in his private chambers, considering all that had transpired. Memories of Wulfgar dominated his thoughts, but they were not dark images, were not flashes of the alcove wherein Wulfgar had been buried. Drizzt remembered the many adventures, always exciting, often reckless, he had shared beside the towering man. Trusting in his faith, Drizzt placed Wulfgar in that same corner of his heart where he had tucked the memories of Zaknafein, his father. He could not deny his sadness at Wulfgar's loss, didn't want to deny it, but the many good memories of the straight-backed young barbarian could counter that sadness, bring a bittersweet smile to Drizzt Do'Urden's calm face. He knew that Catti-brie, too, would come to a similar, accepting mind-set. She was young and strong and filled with a lust for adventure, however dangerous, as great as that of Drizzt and of Wulfgar. Catti-brie would learn to smile along with the tears.
Drizzt's only fear was for Bruenor. The dwarf king was not so young, not so ready to look ahead to what was yet to come in his remaining years. But Bruenor had suffered many tragedies in his long and hardy life, and, generally speaking, it was the way of the stoic dwarves to accept death as a natural passing. Drizzt had to trust that Bruenor was strong enough to continue.
It wasn't until Drizzt focused on Regis that he considered the many other things that had occurred. Entreri, the evil man who had done grievous wrongs to so many, was gone. How many in the four corners of Faerun would rejoice at that news?
And House Do'Urden, Drizzt's tie to the dark world of his kin, was no more. Had Drizzt finally slipped beyond the grasp of Menzoberranzan? Could he, and Bruenor and Catti-brie and all the others of Mithril Hall, rest easier now that the drow threat had been eliminated?
Drizzt wished he could be sure. By all accounts of the battle
in which Wulfgar was killed, a yochlol, a hand maiden of Lloth, had appeared. If the raid to capture him had been inspired simply by Vierna's desperation, then what had brought so powerful a minion into their midst?
The thought did not sit well with Drizzt, and as he sat there in his room, he had to wonder if the drow threat was ended, if he might, at long last, finally know his peace with that city he had left behind.
"The emissaries from Settlestone are here," Catti-brie said to Bruenor, entering the dwarf's private chambers without even the courtesy of a knock.
"I'm not for caring," the dwarf king answered her gruffly.
Catti-brie moved over to him, grabbed him by his broad shoulder, and forced him to turn and look her in the eye. What passed between them was silent, a shared moment of grief and understanding that if they did not go on with their lives, did not forge ahead, then Wulfgar's death was all the more pointless.
What loss is death if life is not to be lived?
Bruenor grabbed his daughter around her slender waist and pulled her close in as crushing a hug as the dwarf had ever given. Catti-brie squeezed him back, tears rolling
from her deep blue eyes. So, too, did a smile widen on the vital young woman's face, and, though Bruenor's shoulders bobbed with unabashed sobs, she felt sure he soon would come to peace as well.
For all he had gone through, Bruenor remained the Eighth King of Mithril Hall, and, for all the adventures, joys, and sorrows Catti-brie had known, she had just passed her twentieth year.
GUENHWYVAR
R. A. Salvatore
Josidiah Starym skipped wistfully down the streets of Cormanthor, the usually stern and somber elf a bit giddy this day, both for the beautiful weather and the recent developments in his most precious and enchanted city. Josidiah was a bladesinger, a joining of sword and magic, protector of the elvish ways and the elvish folk. And in Cormanthor, in this year 253, many elves were in need of protecting. Gob-linkin were abundant, and even worse, the emotional turmoil within the city, the strife among the noble families—the Starym included—threatened to tear apart all that Coronal Eltargrim had put together, all that the elves had built in Cormanthor, greatest city in all the world.
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