The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  The dwarf focused on that throne as he made his way across the huge chamber. His three companions whispered impatiently behind him, but they did not cross before him.

  He neared the throne and slowed to a stop, coming into view of the two rocky cairns that had been erected beyond it. He remembered the claim of Catti-brie in the magical forest and knew at once what these were, and who might be interred within: one for Bruenor, one for Thibbledorf Pwent.

  The stones of one had been pushed aside, leaving an empty hole. Was that his grave, he wondered? Had his grave, his corpse, been desecrated and robbed? He swallowed hard in a moment of panic, at the notion that his entire purpose in coming here had just unraveled.

  So caught up was he that he hardly noticed Vestra, Deventry, and Whisper moving past him, toward the throne.

  “Keep yer hands off, for yer own sake!” Bruenor yelled in warning at the last moment, even as Whisper reached out to the burnished wood of the throne’s ornate arm.

  “You took us here to threaten us?” Deventry came back at him angrily. “If there are treasures to be had, then they are ours as much as your own, dwarf, even if I have to cut out your throat to get my due!”

  Bruenor stared hard at Deventry and moved past him. “A throne for dwarves, ye fool,” he said, and he marched up and sat down upon the great chair. Anticipations of enlightenment, assurance, and strength accompanied him, but they were shattered immediately when he felt the anger of the chair, a tangible emotional and physical rejection that launched him into the air, flying from the dais to land hard on the floor in a bouncing tumble.

  Horrified, King Bruenor rolled to a sitting position and stared back at the throne.

  Moradin had rejected him!

  His three companions laughed at him.

  “So it’s full of magic, then!” Vestra said. “Beneficent or malevolent, or more likely a bit of both.”

  “But not so fond of dwarves, it would seem,” said Deventry with a mocking laugh.

  Bruenor didn’t know how to respond. His thoughts spun around in confusing circles. Surely he had cursed Moradin and the others mightily in these twenty years of his second life, but that was behind him now. He had come to see the truth: that he had been returned to undo the wrongs of King Bruenor, that Mielikki had been but a pawn for a greater purpose. He had found the error of his ways, and had found contentment and purpose once more.

  But then why had the throne rejected him?

  Was it due to the physical changes, he wondered, the fact that his blood now was not that of a king, but of a guard captain? He looked like young Bruenor, to be sure, but the blood in his veins had come from Reginald Roundshield and Uween, and not the line of Gandalug.

  It seemed so trite, almost mocking the purpose of the gods and the throne. He was King Bruenor. He had seen the truth and mended his ways and had corrected his attitude toward the gods who gave power to that throne.

  “Ye mock me,” he whispered to his gods, dark thoughts climbing up from the floor around him where he sat, burying him in melancholy’s hopeless shadow. So lost was he that he almost didn’t notice his three companions standing around the throne in close discussion, drawing lots from a piece of broken straw bedding.

  Bruenor pulled himself to his feet and staggered toward them. “Don’t ye dare,” he said.

  “A throne for dwarves?” Deventry replied, turning around with a scowl. “It seems that the chair did not agree with your description.”

  Bruenor shook his head, trying to find the words to properly explain. He noted Whisper rubbing his little hands together eagerly, and Vestra pushing him toward the seat.

  “Don’t!” Bruenor warned.

  “We’re all to take our turns!” Deventry shouted back.

  The halfling leaped up into the seat and spun around, hands on the arms. His expression remained one of eagerness for a few heartbeats, but then turned to a confused look that quickly showed discomfort. He began to jerk spasmodically, as if bolts of energy were stabbing at him from behind, which indeed they were! He tried to cry out, his mouth twisting weirdly.

  “Get him off o’ there!” Bruenor yelled, staggering forward.

  Vestra spun back on Whisper and lunged for him, but as she did, the chair ejected the halfling—not as it had done with Bruenor, but much more forcefully, heaving poor Whisper through the air. He clipped Vestra as he launched, bloodying her face and spinning her around and down to the floor. Off he flew, high and far, ten long strides and more from the throne. He landed awkwardly, one leg extended below him, and the snap of bone echoed through the chamber. Whisper cracked his shoulder and the side of his head on the stone, and rolled long and hard into the stone wall, where he thrashed in agony. Oh how the supposedly mute halfling screamed!

  The other three ran to him, Vestra trying to turn him to his back, and from her own spasms it was clear that it was all she could manage to not vomit at the mere sight of the halfling’s wound. His shin had broken in half, the bones protruding through his ripped skin.

  “What did you do?” Deventry shouted in Bruenor’s face.

  “I telled ye to stop!” the dwarf yelled back.

  But Deventry shoved him, and Bruenor only took a step back to better balance himself as he retaliated with a fearsome right hook that sent the man flying sidelong to the ground.

  “Next time’ll be with me axe!” Bruenor warned.

  “What do you know?” Vestra demanded, standing up from the halfling and moving in front of Deventry to hold the man back.

  “I know that yer friend was thinkin’ o’ robbing this place, and he telled it to the throne that guards it, and he got what a thief deserves!”

  Deventry started to shout at him, Whisper continued to scream and wail, but Vestra spoke over the tumult, “No, Bonnego, there’s more!” she insisted. “What do you know, of that throne, of this place?”

  Bruenor swallowed hard. “Me name’s not Bonnego,” he said, but the others didn’t hear. He turned and motioned with his head for them to follow, then started off, angling to the right of the throne, toward the cairns.

  “What are we to do with him?” he heard Deventry say behind him.

  “Carry him along,” Vestra ordered.

  Despite his desperate need to inspect the graves, to see if it was his own or Pwent’s that had been desecrated, Bruenor turned around to regard the trio. They should let Whisper rest for a bit, should make a splint for his leg and pop his shoulder back into place, of course, before trying to move him.

  But Deventry wasn’t that smart, apparently, or compassionate. He moved to lift the halfling, who thrashed and screamed even louder. Whisper’s flailing hand poked the big man in the eye, and how Whisper screamed even more when Deventry dropped him back to the stone.

  “He’ll bring the whole place out against us!” Vestra cried. “Whisper, silence!”

  Deventry clutched at his eye, his face a mask of rage. His free hand grabbed at his sword and pulled it from his belt, and before Vestra could even yell at him, to call him back to his senses, the man brought the blade down hard and sure.

  And Whisper screamed no more.

  Bruenor trembled with disgust and anger at himself for bringing these three monsters into sacred Gauntlgrym. He looked at the throne—perhaps that was why it had rejected him.

  He started for his grave more determinedly, but heard Deventry’s call behind him, “Stand and be counted, dwarf!”

  He kept walking.

  “Bonnego!” Deventry called, sounding much closer now, and Bruenor spun around to meet the challenge, axe in hand. He found both Deventry and Vestra facing him, weapons drawn and ready.

  “Me name’s not Bonnego,” Bruenor said through gritted teeeth. “ ’Tis Bruenor, Bruenor Battlehammer. King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall. Might that ye’ve heared o’ me.”

  The two looked to each other and shrugged, clearly oblivious, then turned back to the dwarf, brandishing their blades.

  “And what will you offer in exchange for
your life?” Vestra asked. “As recompense for the death of Whisper?”

  “Ye should be asking yer big friend on that last part.”

  “Chair killed him!” Deventry retorted. “This place killed him, and was you that brought him here.”

  “Stupid killed him,” Bruenor corrected with a wry grin. “And ’tis yerself that’s stupid.”

  Deventry growled and lifted his blade, coming ahead with an overhand chop. Up came Bruenor’s round shield, easily intercepting. In the same movement, the dwarf slashed across with his axe, forcing Deventry to suck in his belly and throw himself backward. The man landed solidly, leaning forward, no doubt thinking to come right back at Bruenor behind the slash, but the dwarf was far too seasoned a warrior for such an obvious counter. Bruenor pulled his axe up short as it went across and turned his wrist over, breaking its momentum and sending it slashing back the other way as he stepped forward.

  Again Deventry retreated, but not quite enough this time, the axe blade scraping across his chain armor and tearing his shirt and skin below it, drawing a welt and a line of blood.

  “Circle right!” the grimacing Deventry called to Vestra. “Flank him.

  “Aye, flank me and give me the choice which o’ ye dogs I cut down first!” said Bruenor, and on he came with a ferocious routine, nearly overwhelming poor Deventry before the fight had even truly begun. The man fumbled with his sword, putting it out left to block the axe, then staggered backward as Bruenor’s round shield slammed against his ribs.

  “Vestra!” Deventry called, stumbling backward, and he managed to glance her way, and although Bruenor had the clear advantage and was certain to make quick work of Deventry, the shocked look on the man’s face gave Bruenor pause, and he too glanced at the elf.

  Vestra stood staring off into the distance, her face bloodless.

  She whispered one word, “Drow.”

  Bruenor heard it keenly and he swung around, for some reason thinking it had to be Drizzt come to his rescue—because hadn’t Drizzt always come to his rescue?

  He spotted the two figures immediately, moving in slowly, determined, arms extended, hands bent like claws, eyes glowing red.

  “More!” Deventry called, and Bruenor followed his voice, then his gaze, to see another pair walking in at them. Something was wrong, the dwarf knew, for these enemies were not moving with the grace and speed of dark elves. Far from it!

  He watched in astonishment as a large bat flew up beside the pair coming in at Deventry, rolled over itself in midair, and elongated as it did, coming out of the spin as another dark elf.

  “Vampires,” he heard Vestra say.

  He turned to look at her, but she wasn’t looking back. Torch in hand, she fled for the exit.

  “Aye, go!” the dwarf called, turning to Deventry, to see the man already engaged with two of the undead. Surprisingly swift, they dodged his wild attacks, and when one managed to get in behind an attack and swing its arm against the man’s shoulder, Deventry was lifted from the ground and thrown to the side by the sheeer force of the blow.

  Bruenor growled and started to charge to the big man’s aid, but he skidded to a stop, and called out a warning to Vestra as more large wings filled the air around her. She thrashed with her torch, first at bats, then at vampires, and the torch went flying to the floor as a trio of forms fell over the screaming elf woman, bearing her down.

  Bruenor didn’t know where to turn. He swung back for Deventry, but found the man flailing, a drow creature upon his back, biting him around the neck and head. Deventry swung around and thrashed and kicked, and managed to get his sword up and over his shoulder, driving it deeply into the creature, which fell away with an otherworldly shriek, but taking Deventry’s sword with it. The man started after, desperate to retrieve his weapon, but he had only gone a step before two more of the creatures tackled him, clawing and biting ravenously.

  Bruenor didn’t see that last part, for now he found another pair of undead dark elves coming in at him, reaching for him with cold, clawing hands.

  His axe hit one squarely and turned it aside, but he could not win. He knew that, particularly from the screams of Vestra, who was surely in the last moments of her life.

  Bruenor ran for the throne, calling to Moradin, demanding the strength he had known before.

  He couldn’t win and he couldn’t escape. Two pursued him, nipping at his heels.

  If he leaped upon the throne and was rejected, he would be killed before he ever regained his footing. He knew that.

  So he veered, around the throne toward the two graves, though he knew not why. The pursuit was too close!

  He stopped and turned, launching a heavy slash that caught the nearest creature in the side and buried the axe head halfway through it, sending it flying away. Bruenor barely held on to the weapon, and found himself turned and off-balance as the second vampire closed in hungrily.

  He caught himself, planted his foot, and pivoted back fast the other way, hardly thinking of the motion as he let fly the battle-axe, spinning it end over end.

  It hit the charging drow square in the chest with tremendous force and drove it backward into the darkness.

  Bruenor didn’t pursue, instead turning for the graves, for the unopened cairn.

  His grave, he hoped, and prayed too that his weapon would be in there. He slid down to the floor, grabbing the nearest cairn stone and rolling it aside. Vestra had gone silent by then, and Bruenor tried to block out the frantic calls of Deventry, tried to focus on his desperate, seemingly hopeless task.

  “They’re eating me!” the man screamed and Bruenor swallowed hard and tossed another stone aside.

  He heard scuffling behind him as he reached for the third rock, and instead of just pushing it off the cairn, he hoisted it, turned, and heaved it into the face of the charging vampire, knocking it aside.

  Bruenor spun and dropped to his knees, and understood that it was indeed his grave, for he saw a portion of the skeleton within then, its bone hands wrapped around the handle of a weapon he surely recognized.

  He dived for it, reaching desperately, confident that if he had that many-notched axe in hand once more, he would fight his way through this, leaving severed pieces of drow vampires in his wake.

  He almost had it!

  A heavy boot slammed down on his forearm, crushing his arm against the rocks, stopping his progress cold.

  And the vampires gathered around him, on all sides now, reaching for him, red eyes leering, white fangs shining even in the dim light.

  CHAPTER 23

  THE GRINNING HALFLING HERO

  The Year of the Grinning Halfling (1481 DR) Elturgard

  THE WAGON BOUNCED ALONG THE TRADE WAY, MORE THAN A HUNDRED miles northwest of the town of Triel, and five times that distance, still, from Waterdeep.

  Regis sat in the back, huddled under a heavy winter blanket, for the season grew late. His legs dangled off the tailgate, peeking out from under his cover and showing fabulous high black boots that had miraculously escaped the dirt of the road thus far.

  “Smoke in the west!” came the expected call from one of the riders flanking the merchant caravan, and the halfling nodded at the confirmation of their location. Regis had been this way before, though many decades had passed since then. By his estimate, they were approaching the river called Winding Water and the famous span known as the Boareskyr Bridge.

  The sun lowered before them, and looking back beyond the Forest of Wyrms and the Reaching Woods, Regis noted the aptly named glistening peaks of the Sunset Mountains, far in the distance. The halfling nodded again, taking measure of the journey that had begun on a dark late-summer’s night in Delthuntle.

  On the far side of those mountains in the distance, their eastern foothills reached down to the westernmost banks of the Sea of Fallen Stars, the great sea that had been in his sight for every day of his second life until this very journey. He had sailed from Delthuntle to Procampur in the kingdom of Impiltur on the northern banks of the sea, and
from there to the city of Suzail, seat of power for the great kingdom of Cormyr. Regis could only sigh now as he thought of that grand and bustling place, with its fine markets and the stirring parades of the armies of Purple Dragons. Thousands of people called Suzail home; truly Suzail stood among the greatest of Faerûn’s cities.

  And the palaces! Ah, but Regis could only smile and nod and pat his belt pouch, wherein rested his housebreaker harness, as he thought of those gilded mansions. He had seen the interior of many of them, though usually in the dark of night and without use of a torch.

  He nodded more confidently, assuring himself that he would return there someday. Indeed, Regis would not have left Suzail so abruptly, except that a particular lord of the city also happened to be an accomplished wizard. If only Regis had known that before paying a visit to the man’s house one night …

  Disguised as the gnome Nanfoodle—for indeed, his wondrous beret could even make him appear as a different race—a friend from another time and another life, Regis had departed the city by the end of the summer of the Year of the Grinning Halfling, buying passage on a caravan bound a hundred miles down the western road to Proskur and a hundred more after that on to the town of Irieabor, the very western edge of the kingdom of Cormyr.

  And there Nanfoodle had simply disappeared, and so had come into being the dwarf Cordio Muffinhead. Cordio had traveled the length of the kingdom of Elturgard, riding the Trade Way to Triel, where again, it had been time for a change of identity.

  And so, with the tip of a blue-speckled beret, Spider Pericolo Topolino, great nephew of the Pericolo Topolino of Aglarond, had been born.

  What a year it had been, Regis mused! What a journey, full of sights and sounds and smells and foods any traveler would envy. He had lived as a street orphan, a gnome potion-maker, a dwarf adventurer, and now a halfling dilettante, dabbling in artwork, overpaying for all, then, of course, retrieving his spent coins in the dark of night.