Archmage (19 page)

King Emerus couldn’t suppress his smile, and he began to nod. “Lord Moradin’s pleased by me choice,” he said, his voice a whisper, because if he tried to speak more loudly, his voice would surely break apart with sobs.

“You will go out to scout the upper halls?” Catti-brie asked Drizzt, the two off to the side of the entryway, just inside the throne room. They had watched Bruenor and Emerus’s solemn walk to the throne, had watched Emerus sit upon it.

“Bruenor stays my hand,” Drizzt replied. “The dwarves have decided to take the ground one finger at a time, fully secure that taken ground, then plod ahead to the next room. We’ll not leave this room until Bruenor and the other dwarf leaders are satisfied that the chamber outside the wall is secured, or that this hall, too, has proper defenses set in place.”

The sound of hammers and stones scraping across the floor lent credence to Drizzt’s claims, for work was already underway in the throne room. Sideslinger catapults were already assembled and in place on the walls of the tunnels leading to the mines, and in front of the back door, the main entrance into the formal Gauntlgrym complex, heavy work was underway in constructing defensive half-walls, behind which crossbowdwarves could keep a close watch on the narrow threshold.

“Are you eager for battle?” Catti-brie asked. “Against your own kind?"

“Eager? No. But I accept the journey before us. Bruenor will have Gauntlgrym, I believe, or he will surely die trying.”

“And Drizzt?”

“Owes his friend no less than that.”

“So you’ll die for Bruenor’s dream?”

“Did not Bruenor forsake his divine reward for my sake? He could have gone to his gods, justly rewarded for a life well lived, but his duty to a friend turned his course. Is that not the whole point of it? Of it all? If I offer my hand to another and he takes it, do I not also have his hand? We are stronger together, but only if the bond of friendship travels from both hands. I could no more forsake Bruenor in this quest than you could have remained from my side when you knew I needed you. Or Bruenor. This is our bond, our blood, our hands joined. I only wish that Regis and Wulfgar were here, that we five would walk . . .”

He paused as he noted his wife’s bemused smile.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Catti-brie said lightly. “Nothing of much importance. Only that I find it amusing when I consider that Wulfgar labels me as the preachy one.”

A flabbergasted Drizzt tried to respond, but his lips moved without making a sound.

“Oh, kiss me,” Catti-brie said and moved in close, and pecked Drizzt lightly before moving back with a laugh. “Do you know that I love you?” she asked. “Do you believe that I would rather be here beside you in this dark place, with danger all around and battle looming before us, than anywhere else in the world? Than in any garden Mielikki might fashion to my every sensual pleasure?”

She moved back in front of him again, right in front of him, her blue eyes locking his lavender orbs. “Do you know that?”

Drizzt nodded and kissed her again.

“And we will survive this,” Catti-brie insisted. “Our road will not end in Gauntlgrym. We will not allow it!”

“And then where?” The question carried more weight than Drizzt had intended, and the sound of the blunt words gave him pause as much as they stunned his wife. For so many years, in this life and Catti-brie’s last, Drizzt and Catti-brie had danced around this issue. They were adventurers, ever seeking the road and the wind in their faces.

But was there more for them?

“When Bruenor sits on Gauntlgrym’s throne, does Drizzt remain beside him?” Catti-brie asked.

Drizzt’s hesitance spoke more loudly than any words he might have said.

“I do not wish to live again in the halls of the dwarves,” Catti-brie bluntly added. “Nearby, surely, but this is not the place for me. I returned in the service of Mielikki, in the love of the open air, to feel the grass beneath my feet, to feel the wind and rain upon my face. I expect that I will spend many tendays in Gauntlgrym, beside my beloved Da, surely, but this is not to be my life.”

“Neverwinter?” Drizzt asked, and Catti-brie winced.

“Then where?”

“Penelope has invited us to reside at the Ivy Mansion, or anywhere in Longsaddle,” Catti-brie said. “It is not so long a journey for Andahar and my spectral steed.”

“And there you can continue your studies,” Drizzt reasoned. “No better place.”

“But what for Drizzt?”

“The Bidderdoos,” the drow ranger replied without the slightest hesitation, and with an honest lightness in his voice. “When we have found an enchantment to relieve them of their lycanthropy, someone will need to catch them and bring them in to receive their cure. Who better suited to such a task as that than a ranger of Mielikki?”

“Noble hunting,” Catti-brie agreed, her voice almost giddy with relief now that she had openly expressed her desires, and now that she had seen Drizzt’s sincere enthusiasm to share in her choice.

“I will be here, in Gauntlgrym, many tendays as well—many more than you, I expect,” Drizzt did say in warning. “The dwarves will not secure this place in Bruenor’s lifetime or my own. It will be contested ground by many, from the drow of Menzoberranzan to the Lords of Waterdeep, if Lord Neverember is any indication of the greed we can expect. I intend to stand beside Bruenor and Clan Battlehammer whenever they call, and even when they do not.”

“I would have it no other way,” Catti-brie agreed. “And I know the Harpells will remain vigilant beside Gauntlgrym.”

“Family,” Drizzt said.

“And what of your family?” Catti-brie asked.

Drizzt stared at her for a long while, caught off-guard, for he understood the implications of her tone.

“Your wife,” she clarified.

Drizzt nodded, but still wasn’t sure what to make of her remark.

“In the first fight for Mithral Hall, I was wounded and nearly killed,” Catti-brie reminded him.

“I remember it as clearly as you do.”

“And from those wounds, I was damaged,” Catti-brie said, and Drizzt nodded again. “My days as a warrior were ended . . .”

“And so you turned to the Art.”

“My days as a mother would never be ended,” Catti-brie went on.

Drizzt swallowed hard.

“In this new life, I am not damaged,” Catti-brie explained. “My body is whole. I could take up a sword once more, if I so chose, though I do not.”

“Are you with child?”

The woman gave a slight smile. “No,” she said. “But if I were?”

Drizzt fell over her with a great hug and a kiss, suddenly wanting nothing more than to share a child with Catti-brie. He had put that thought out of his mind for so long—for in his love’s other life, it could not be, and in the decades after she was lost to him, he held no desire to father a child with any other. Certainly Dahlia was not the mother Drizzt would choose for his daughter or son. And there had been no other, no other Catti-brie.

Looking at her now, Drizzt knew that there could never be anyone else for him. Not Innovindil, not Dahlia.

“We will build a wonderful life,” he promised her in a whisper.

“When we find the time,” she replied, somewhat sourly, but Drizzt put his finger over her lips to silence her.

“We will make the time,” he promised.

Bruenor reached behind his enchanted shield and pulled forth a flagon of ale.

“Bah, but ye’re to put the brewers out o’ their living,” Emerus said, taking the offered mug.

“Fine ale,” Connerad agreed.

“Ale, mead, beer,” Bruenor said with a hearty laugh.

“Fine shield, then!” said Connerad, offering a toast, and the three kings tapped their flagons together.

They were on the beach outside of the grand entry hall, the work buzzing around them. All of the dwarves had gained the cavern by then, filling the place and the entry hall. Already, construction on the bridge across the dark pond was well underway, with the buttresses growing tall and solid. The Harpells were out there assisting with the bridge, and old Kipper seemed to be having quite the time of it, easing the heavy burden of the laboring dwarves by magically lifting the heavy beams, which could then be easily shoved into place.

“We should send groups back up to the surface for more logs,” Connerad remarked. “Can’t have enough ballistae and catapults out.”

“Go see to it,” said Emerus. “Send some Mirabarrans. Tell them o’ the importance.”

Connerad looked at the old king curiously, for Connerad, too, was a dwarf king and was not used to being ordered about. But Emerus gave him a solemn nod and Connerad understood. He drained his flagon and handed it to Bruenor, who laughed and threw it over his shoulder to smash against the stone wall of Gauntlgrym. With a wink, Bruenor reached behind the shield yet again to produce another, full to the brim, which he gave to Connerad.

“Ye best be sendin’ some Gutbusters with the teams heading back to the sunlight,” Bruenor said. “Still might be monsters in the tunnels.”

“Ye chose well in fillin’ yer seat when ye gived up yer throne,” Emerus said when Connerad had gone. “A good dwarf is that one."

“His Da’s among the best Mithral Hall e’er knew,” Bruenor replied. “Ye miss it?” Emerus asked after a while.

“Mithral Hall?”

“Aye, and bein’ king.”

Bruenor snorted and took a big gulp of his ale. “Nah, can’t be sayin’ that. Don’t ye get me wrong, if some orcs or drow took the place, I’d go straight back and kick ’em out, don’t ye doubt, for the place’s is e’er me home. But I’m likin’ the road.”

“But now ye’re here to stay.”

“Moradin called me back.”

Emerus nodded, a most serene expression coming over his face. “Aye,” he said, several times, for when he had sat on the Throne of the Dwarf Gods, he, too, had felt the infusion of strength and wisdom and ancient secrets, and so he understood.

“All me life I had Felbarr,” he said quietly. “Obould took the place and so we kicked him out, and ye know well that he’d come back again to all our misery.”

“And all our hope,” Bruenor reminded his friend.

“It pained me to watch ye sign that damned treaty in Garumn’s Gorge,” Emerus admitted. “I know it pained yerself, too.”

“Yerself agreed with the treaty . . .” Bruenor began.

“Aye,” Emerus cut him short. “Had to be done. And we had to hope. We could’no’ve fought them damned orcs without the full backin’ o’ Silverymoon and Sundabar, and they wanted no part o’ war.” He paused to gulp a swallow of ale then spat upon the ground. “Then they come roarin’ back blamin’ Bruenor for the new war,” he said with a disgusted shake of his hairy head. “Cowards, the lot!”

“Worse,” said Bruenor. “Politicians.”

Emerus got a loud chuckle out of that.

“Ye done right, me friend,” Emerus said. “In the first fight with Obould, back there in Garumn’s Gorge, and now again in yer new life. Ye done yer Da and Grandda and all the line o’ Battlehammer proud, and know that the name o’ Bruenor will e’er be toasted with reverence in Citadel Felbarr.” He lifted his flagon and Bruenor tapped it with his own.

“And in Mithral Hall,” Emerus went on. “And here in Gauntlgrym, don’t ye doubt.”

“And yerself?” Bruenor asked. “Ye missing Felbarr?”

“Was me home all me life,” said Emerus. “But no, I’m not missin’ it now. Wishin’ Parson Glaive was with me, but glad he’s holdin’ the throne in me place. Nah, now,” he said, looking around at the grand construction, listening to the fall of mallet and the crank of the turnstiles, looking back at the ancient and solid wall of Gauntlgrym, “now me old heart’s tellin’ me that I’ve come home, me friend. Truly home.”

Bruenor understood, for he had felt the same way when first he had ventured into these hallowed halls, when first he had sat upon the Throne of the Dwarf Gods. There was something deeper here than even in Mithral Hall for him, some ancient murmur of magic that touched him to the core of his Delzoun soul. He recalled his elation when he had found Mithral Hall those decades and decades ago, marching in with the Companions of the Hall—indeed, culminating the adventure that gave the troupe its name. But this was different. Deeper and more solemn, and less parochial.This adventure to reclaim Gauntlgrym would be shared by all the Delzoun dwarves.

“We’re right to be here,” Emerus said with conviction.

“Ye didn’t see me kicking Connerad to the side and taking back me throne, did ye?” Bruenor agreed. “Aye, I’m knowin’ the same, me friend.”

Connerad came back over then, the look on his face showing that he had overheard that last comment.

“Bah, but who ye kickin’ where?” he asked.

“Yerself!”

“Weren’t yer throne to take back,” Connerad said. “Was me own to keep or to give.”

“Aye,” said Bruenor, and Emerus lifted his flagon and said, “King Connerad!” and Bruenor gladly joined in the toast.

“But I hear yer words,” Connerad said.

“Glad ye gived yer throne over?” Emerus asked, and Connerad smiled and nodded.

“Only wish me Da might’ve seen this place,” the young king said.

“Ye plannin’ to put yer butt on the throne?” Bruenor asked.

Connerad stared at him, seeming unsure.

“Aye, yerself’s more than worthy,” said Bruenor. “Ye’ll see. Go and look at it. Touch it and feel its power. But don’t ye sit on it until me and me friend Emerus come in and bear witness.”

“Ye’re sure?” Connerad asked.

“Sure that it’ll be akin to yer first time with a dwarf lass,” Emerus said with a laugh. “Ye’ll get off it a changed dwarf, and ye’ll know. Aye, but ye’ll know.

“Don’t tarry,” Connerad said, turning for the door.

“We’ll be right along,” said Bruenor.

“He’s a good lad,” Emerus noted as Connerad again left them. “Hard for me to call him that when he’s standing next to yerself, for ye’re the one looking so much like a dwarfling!”

“Aye, and good riddance to me old bones!” Bruenor said, toasting yet again, draining his flagon and throwing it, too, against the wall behind him.

Emerus did likewise, but grabbed Bruenor by the shoulder as the redbearded dwarf started to rise. “I’m jealous of ye, Bruenor Battlehammer,” Emerus told him. “Ye’ll be the First King o’ Gauntlgrym in the new age.”