Catti-brie ran a hand through her sticky hair and gave a helpless sigh.
"Never thought I'd admit to being sick of killing orcs and goblins," she said. "And no matter how many we kill, seems there're a dozen more to take the place of each."
Wulfgar just nodded and gazed back across the valley.
"Regis has given the order to all the clerics now that Bruenor is not to be tended," Catti-brie reminded.
"Should we be there when he dies?" Wulfgar asked, and it was all he could do to keep his voice from breaking apart.
He heard the woman's approach but did not turn to her, afraid that if he looked into her eyes at that moment he would burst out in sobs. And that was something he could not do, something none of them could afford.
"No," Catti-brie said, and she dropped a comforting and familiar hand on Wulfgar's broad shoulder, then moved in closer to hug his head against her breast. "He's already lost to us," she whispered. "We witnessed his fall in Shallows. That was when our Bruenor died, and not when his body takes its last breath. The priests have been keeping him breathing for our own sake, and not for Bruenor's. Bruenor's long gone already, sitting around a table with Gandalug and Dagnabbit, likely, and grumbling about us and our crying."
Wulfgar put his own huge hand over Catti-brie's and turned to look at her, silently thanking her for her calming words. He still wasn't sure about all of it, feeling almost as if he was betraying Bruenor by not being by his side when he passed over to the other world. But how could Banak and the others spare him and Catti-brie at that point, for surely the efforts of the pair were doing much to bolster the cause?
And wouldn't Bruenor slap him across the head if he ever heard of such a thing?
"I can hardly say my farewells to him," Wulfgar admitted.
"When we thought you dead, taken by the yochlol, Bruenor fretted about for tendays and tendays," Catti-brie explained. "His heart was ripped out from his chest like never before." She moved around, placing one hand on either side of Wulfgar's face and staring at him intently. "But he did go on. And in those first days, with the murdering dark elves still thick about us, he let his anger lead the way. No time for mourning, he kept muttering, when he thought none were about to hear him."
"And we must be equally strong," Wulfgar agreed.
They had been over it all before, of course, saying many of the same words and with the same determination. Wulfgar understood that the need he and Catti-brie had to repeat the conversation came from deep-seeded doubts and fears, from a situation that had so quickly spun out of their control.
"Bruenor Battlehammer's rest with his ancestors," he continued, "will be easier indeed if he knows that Mithral Hall is safe and that his friends and family fought on in his name and for his cause."
Catti-brie kissed him on the forehead and hugged him close, and with a deep breath, Wulfgar let go of his pain—temporarily, he knew. All the world had changed for him, and all the world would change again, and not for the better, when they buried King Bruenor beside his ancestors. Catti-brie's words made sense, and Wulfgar understood that Bruenor had died gloriously, as a dwarf ought to die, as Bruenor would have chosen to die, in the fight at Shallows.
That realization did make it a little easier.
Just a little.
"And what of you?" Wulfgar asked the woman. "You are so concerned with how everyone else might be feeling, and yet I see a great pain in your blue eyes, my friend."
"What creature would I be if losing the dwarf who raised me as his own child didn't wound me heart?" Catti-brie replied.
Wulfgar reached up and grabbed her firmly by the forearms.
"I mean about Drizzt," he said quietly.
"I do not think he's dead," came the emphatic reply.
Wulfgar shook his head with every word, agreeing wholeheartedly.
"Orcs and giants?" he said. "No, Drizzt is alive and well and likely killing as many of our enemies as this whole army of us are killing here."
Catti-brie's responding expression was more grit than smile as she nodded.
"But that is not what I meant," Wulfgar went on. "I know the confusion that you now endure, for it is clear to all who know you and love you."
"You're talking silliness," Catti-brie answered, and in a telling gesture, she tried to pull away.
Wulfgar held her firm and steady.
"Do you love him?" he asked.
"I could ask the same of Wulfgar, and get the same answer, I'm sure."
"You know what I mean," Wulfgar pressed. "Of course you love Drizzt as a friend, as I do, as Regis does, as Bruenor does. I knew that I would find my way from the drink and from my torment when I returned to you four, my friends. My true friends and family. And you understand that which I now ask. Do you love him?"
He let go of Catti-brie, and she did step back, though she didn't turn her eyes from his crystalline blue gaze and did not even blink.
"When you were gone …" she started to reply.
Wulfgar laughed at her obvious attempt to spare his feelings.
"This has nothing to do with me!" he insisted. "Except in the manner that I am to you a friend. Someone who cares very deeply for you. Please, for your own sake, do not avoid this. Do you love him?"
Catti-brie gave a deep sigh, and she did look down.
"Drizzt," she said, "is special to me in ways beyond that of the others of our group."
"And are you lovers?"
The blunt and personal question had the woman snapping her gaze back up at the barbarian. There was nothing but true compassion in his eyes, though, and so Catti-brie did not lash out.
"We spent years together," she said quietly. "When ye fell and were lost to us, me and Drizzt spent years together, riding and sailing with Deudermont."
Wulfgar smiled at her and held up his hand, gently telling her that he had heard enough, that he understood well her meaning.
"Was it love or friendship that guided your way through those years and those roads?" Wulfgar asked.
Catti-brie pondered that for a bit, glancing off into the distance.
"There was always friendship," she said. "We two never let go of that. Friendship and companionship above all else sustained me and Drizzt on the road."
"And now you're pained because it was more than that for you," Wulfgar reasoned. "And when you thought you were dead with those orcs, the sting was all the more because you've all the more to lose."
Catti-brie stood staring at him and making no move to answer.
"So tell me, my dear friend, are you ready to surrender that road?" Wulfgar asked. "Are you ready to forsake the adventures?"
"No more than Bruenor ever was!" Catti-brie snapped at him without the slightest bit of hesitation.
Wulfgar smiled widely, for it was all sorting out for him then, and he believed that he might be able to actually help his friend when she needed him.
"Do you wish to have children?" he asked.
Catti-brie stared at him incredulously.
"What kind of question is that for you to be asking me?"
"The kind a friend would ask," said Wulfgar, and he asked it again.
Catti-brie's stern gaze dissipated, and it was obvious to Wulfgar that she was really looking inward then, honestly asking herself that very same question for perhaps the first time.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I always thought it'd be an easy choice, and of course, I'd want to have some of me own. But I'm not so sure of meself, though I'm guessing that I'm running out of time to decide."
"And do you wish to have Drizzt's children?"
A look of panic came over the woman, her eyes going wide with apparent horror, but then softening quickly. She was torn, Wulfgar could clearly see, and had certainly expected. For this was the crux of it all, the rough rub in their relationship. Drizzt was a drow, and could Catti-brie honestly go down that path? Could she honestly have children who were half-drow in heritage?
Certainly the answer here was twofold, a heartfelt yes and a logi
cal no, and both were emphatic.
Wulfgar began to chuckle.
"You're mocking me," Catti-brie said to him, and Wulfgar noted that as she became agitated, she seemed to sound more like a dwarf!
"No, no," Wulfgar assured her, and he held up his hands defensively. "I was considering the irony of it all, and it amuses me that you are even listening to my words of advice. I, who have taken a wife from the most unlikeliest of places and who am raising a child that is neither mine nor that of my unlikely wife."
As that message sank in, a smile widened over Catti-brie's face as well.
"And we of a family with a dwarf father who raises two human children as his own," she replied.
"And should I begin to list the ironies of Drizzt Do'Urden?" Wulfgar asked.
Catti-brie's laughter had her holding her sides then.
"Can we be saying," she said, "that Regis is the most normal among us?"
"Then be afraid!" Wulfgar replied dramatically, and Catti-brie laughed all the harder. "Perhaps it is just those ironies about us that drive us on along this road we so often choose."
Catti-brie sobered a bit at that remark, then stopped her giggling, her expression going suddenly more grim—and Wulfgar understood that the conversation had led her right back to where they had started, right back to the state of Bruenor Battlehammer.
"Perhaps," the woman agreed. "Until now, with Bruenor gone and Drizzt out there alone."
"No!" Wulfgar insisted, and he came up from the rock, standing tall before her. "Still!"
Catti-brie sighed and started to reply, but Wulfgar cut her short.
"I think of my wife and child back in Mithral Hall," the warrior said. "Every time I walk out of there, I know that I might not see Delly and Colson again. And yet I go, because the road beckons me—as you yourself just admitted it so beckons you. Bruenor is gone, so we must accept, and Drizzt… well, who can know where the drow now runs? Who can know if an orc spear has found his heart and quieted him forever? Not I, and not you, though we both hold fast to our prayers that he is all right and will return to us soon.
"But even should he not, and even if Regis accepts a permanent position of steward, or counselor, perhaps, if Banak Brawnanvil becomes King of Mithral Hall, I will not forsake the road. This is my life, with the wind upon my face and the stars as my ceiling. This is my lot, to wage battle against the orcs and the giants and all others who threaten the good folk of the land. I embrace that lot and revel in it, and I shall until I am too old to run about the mountain trails or until an enemy blade lays me low.
"Delly knows this. My wife accepts that I will spend little time in Mithral Hall beside her." The barbarian gave a self-deprecating chortle and asked, "Can I really call her my wife? And Colson my child?"
"You're a good husband to her and a fine father to the little one."
Wulfgar gave a nod of thanks to the woman for those words.
"But still I will not forsake the road," he said, "and Delly Curtie would not have me forsake the road. That is what I have come to love most about her. That is why I trust that she will raise Colson in my absence, should I be killed, to be true to whomever it is that Colson is meant to be."
"True to her nature?"
"Independence is what matters," Wulfgar explained. "And it is more difficult by far to be independent of our own inner shackles than it is of the shackles that others might place upon us."
The simple words nearly knocked Catti-brie over. "I said the same thing to a friend of ours, once," she said.
"Drizzt?"
The woman nodded.
"Then heed your own words," Wulfgar advised her. "You love him and you love the road. Why does there need to be more than that?"
"If I'm wanting to have children of me own…."
"Then you will come to know that, and so you will redirect the road of your life appropriately," Wulfgar told her. "Or it might be that fate intervenes, against all care, and you get that which you're not sure you want."
Catti-brie sucked in her breath.
"And would it truly be such a bad thing?" Wulfgar asked her. "To mother the child of Drizzt Do'Urden? If the babe was possessed of half his skills and but a tenth of his heart, it would be among the greatest of all the folk of the northland."
Catti-brie sighed again and brought a hand up to wipe her eyes.
"If Bruenor can raise a couple of human brats as troublesome as us. . " Wulfgar remarked with a smirk, and he let the thought hang in the air.
Catti-brie laughed and smiled at him, with warmth and gratitude.
"Take your love and your pleasure as you find it," Wulfgar advised. "Do not Worry so much of the future that you let today pass you by. You are happy beside Drizzt. Need you know more than that?"
"You sound just like him," Catti-brie answered. "Only not when he was advising me, but when he was advising himself. You're asking me to go to the same place that Drizzt found, the same enjoyment in the moment and all the rest be damned."
"And as soon as Drizzt found that place, you began to doubt," Wulfgar said with a coy smile. "When he found the place of comfort and acceptance, all obstacles were removed, and so you put one up—your fears—to hold it all in stasis."
Catti-brie was shaking her head, but Wulfgar could tell that she wasn't disagreeing with him in the least.
"Follow your heart," the big man said quietly. "Minute by minute and day by day. Let the course of the river run as it will, instead of tying yourself up in fears that you may never realize."
Catti-brie looked up at him, her head beginning to nod. Glad that he had brought her some comfort and some good advice, Wulfgar bent over and kissed his friend on the forehead.
That elicited a wide and warm smile from Catti-brie, and she seemed to him, for the first time in a long time, to be at peace with herself. He had forced her emotions back into the present, he knew, and had released her from the fears that had taken hold. Why would she sacrifice her present joys—the wild road, the companionship of her friends, and the love of Drizzt—for fear of some uncertain future wishes?
He watched her continue to visibly relax, watched her smile become more and more genuine and enduring. He could see her emotional shackles falling away.
"When'd you get so smart?" she asked him.
"In Hell and out of it," Wulfgar replied. "In a hell of Errtu's making, and in a hell of Wulfgar's making."
Catti-brie tilted her head and stared at him hard.
"And are you free?" she asked. "Are you really free?"
Wulfgar's smile matched her own, even exceeded it, his boyish grin so wide and so sincere, so warm and, yes, so free.
"Let's go kill some orcs," he remarked, words that were truly comforting music to the ears of Catti-brie.
CHAPTER 12 SUBTERFUGE
They swept across the vale between Shallows and the mountains north of Keeper's Dale like a massive earthbound storm, a great darkness and swirling tempest. Led by Obould-who-was-Gruumsh and anchored by a horde of frost giants greater than any that had been assembled in centuries, the orc swarm trampled the brush and sent the animals small and large fleeing before it.
For the first time in tendays, King Obould Many-Arrows met up with his son, Urlgen, in a sheltered ravine north of the sloping battleground where the dwarves had entrenched.
Urlgen entered the meeting full of fury, ready to demand more troops so that he could push the dwarves over the cliff and back into their holes. Fearing that Obould and Gerti would blame him for his lack of a definitive victory, Urlgen was ready to go on the offensive, to chastise his father for not giving him enough force to unseat the dwarves from the high ground.
As soon as he entered his father's tent, though, the younger ore's bluster melted away in confusion. For he knew, upon his very first glance, that the brutish leader sitting before him was not his father as he had known him, but was something more. Something greater.
A shaman that Urlgen did not know sat in place before, below, and to the side of Obould, dress
ed in a feathered headdress and a bright red robe. To the side, against the left-hand edge of the tent, sat Gerti Orelsdottr, and she seemed to the younger orc leader not so pleased.
Mostly though, Urlgen focused on Obould, for the brash young orc was barely able to take his eyes off his father, off the bulging muscles of the intense ore's powerful arms, or the fierce set of Obould's face, seeming on the verge of an explosion. That was not so uncommon a thing with Obould, but Urlgen understood that the danger of Obould was somehow greater than ever before.
"You have not pushed them back into Mithral Hall," Obould stated.
Urlgen could not tell if the statement was meant as a mere recitation of the obvious or an indictment of his leadership.
"They are a difficult foe," Urlgen admitted. "They reached the high ground before we caught up to them and immediately set about preparing their defenses."
"And those defenses are now entrenched?"
"No!" Urlgen said with some confidence. "We have struck at them too often. They continue to work, but with arms weary from battle."
"Then strike at them again, and again after that," Obould demanded, coming forward suddenly and powerfully. "Let them die of exhaustion if not at the end of an orc spear. Let them grow so weary of battle that they retreat to their dark hole!"
"I need more warriors."
"You need nothing more!" Obould screamed right back at Urlgen, and he came right out of his seat then and put his face just an inch from his son's. "Fight them and stab them! Crush them and grind them into the stone!"
Urlgen tried hard to match his father's stare, but to no avail, for more than anger was driving the younger orc then. Obould had marched in with a force ten times the size of his own, and with a horde of giants beside him. One concentrated attack would force the dwarves into complete retreat, would chase them all the way back into Mithral Hall.
"I go east," Obould announced. "To seal the dwarves' gate along the Sur-brin and chase them underground. There I will meet with the troll Proffit, who has overrun Nesmй, and I will arrange for him to begin the underground press upon our dwarf enemies."
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