The Wilddwarves on the bridge crew grunted and pressed with all their considerable strength, tugging and digging in their heels to twist the great center span back in alignment.
“Ah, but there ye go!” Oretheo cheered.
“Can’t none be sayin’ that them Adbar boys can’t build a bridge,” he heard behind him, and he turned to see the approach of Connerad. The two shared a hug and a heavy clap on the back. “All done but the pretty bas-reliefs!”
“Aye, we’ll have a full bridge by the end o’ the day,” Oretheo replied. “Might that yerself and meself’ll name her, eh? Got a fine handle o’ Baldur’s Gate Single I’m thinkin’ to drain, right there on the middle o’ the span!"
“Well lift one in toast to me, then,” Connerad replied.
Oretheo looked at him curiously.
“Ye heared o’ Bruenor?”
“Heared o’ Drizzt the elf,” said Oretheo. “Guessed as much about Bruenor afore I e’er heard. Sad day.”
“We’re nearin’ the under way,” said Connerad. “Bruenor’d almost got there.”
“Aye.”
Connerad paused and shrugged.
“Aye,” Oretheo said again, nodding as he figured it out. “So ye’re to be leading the way down, then.”
Connerad nodded.
“Well, let me get me boys,” said Oretheo. “We’ll follow ye to the Nine Hells, King Connerad o’ Mithral Hall, don’t ye doubt!”
“Ah, but I’m not for doubtin’ ye,” Connerad assured him, his tone comforting-too much so, and that brought a puzzled expression to the face of Oretheo Spikes.
“What’re ye sayin’?” the Wilddwarf leader demanded. “Ye’re off for the front and fightin’, but me and me boys’re stayin’ here? Guardin’ the backside?”
Connerad shrugged apologetically.
“Bah! But did we not go through deas-ghnaith inntrigidh with all our hearts, then?” Oretheo cried. “We gived ye three kings ar tariseachd, our dying fealty! Are me and me boys lesser, then? Is that our place fore’ermore in the tunnels o’ Gauntlgrym? And the Mirabarran dwarfs, too?” he added, sweeping his arm back across the cavern to the far end and the tunnels beyond, where the dwarves of Mirabar worked the defenses.
“Nay, and ye’re fealty’s a treasured thing, by meself and me fellows, Bruenor and Emerus.” Connerad put his hand on Oretheo’s sturdy shoulder. “Yerself and yer boys’re as much Delzoun as any here, don’t ye doubt. But ye’re knowing the defenses here in the entryway-ye built ’em! — and aye but they got to stay strong now.”
“Because ye’re pressin’ down to the drow.”
“Aye, and might that them trickster drow come slitherin’ up behind us, eh?”
Oretheo Spikes didn’t seem very convinced, but he did nod his agreement. “Wilddwarfs ain’t for guardin’. Not when there’s a road leadin’ straight to a real fight.”
“Not me call, me friend,” Connerad explained. “Bungalow’s got the lead group with his Gutbusters. Yerself was given the cavern, the boys o’ Mirabar the back end and the tunnels beyond, and aye, but ye’ve all been a blessin’ to us all with yer work.”
Oretheo Spikes heaved a great sigh.
Connerad nodded, not disagreeing, and certainly understanding.
“Then Moradin walk with ye, boy,” Oretheo Spikes said, and he clapped Connerad on the shoulder.
The young dwarf king replied with a similar movement before he turned and headed for the throne room to collect his entourage, and from there to the front lines, to the breach to the under way.
No sooner had the former King of Mithral Hall walked away when another of the Wilddwarf commanders came up to stand beside Oretheo.
“Ye heared?” Oretheo asked.
“I heared,” the other replied, his voice thick with anger.
“Don’t ye be aimin’ that ire at Connerad or the others,” Oretheo told him. “Can’t be blamin’ them for taking them they know to the fight. Were it King Harnoth leading that march, then we’d be flankin’ him.”
“Aye,” the other agreed. “And so I’m thinking me king choosed wrong, what.”
“King Harnoth should be here,” Oretheo Spikes agreed.
“Good choice, that one, to lead the march,” the other Wilddwarf remarked, nodding to Connerad as the former King of Mithral Hall entered Gauntlgrym. “Good as any. I’m hearin’ whispers that he’ll make a play for the throne when all’s done, and I’m not for saying that King Connerad o’ Gauntlgrym’d be a bad choice.”
Above Emerus and Bruenor? Oretheo Spikes thought, but did not say, for even as the notion formulated, it didn’t seem all that outrageous to him. Certainly King Bruenor Battlehammer and King Emerus Warcrown remained as legends among the dwarves of Faerûn, and surely so in the Silver Marches. But who could deny the fine work of King Connerad Brawnanvil?
And now Emerus was looking old to all, and Bruenor?
Well, who might know of King Bruenor with his elf friend lying near to dead? Surely he seemed a broken dwarf at that time.
“How’s he restin’?” Emerus asked Catti-brie when he entered the small room they had set up as an infirmary. The woman sat on a chair beside Drizzt, who lay very still, his eyes closed.
“I done all I can,” she replied, and she almost laughed at herself as she heard the words spill forth, for it seemed that whenever she was speaking with dwarves now, she instinctively reverted to the brogue. “His cuts’re tied, but sure that he’s bled more than any should, and the shock of the hit. .” She paused and lowered her gaze.
Emerus rushed over to her and dropped a hand on her shoulder. “He’ll come back to ye, girl,” he said.
Catti-brie nodded. She did believe that, though she wasn’t sure of what might be left of Drizzt when he did. She recalled her own injuries from a giant’s rock in defending Mithral Hall. Never had she been the same, despite the tireless efforts of many dwarf clerics.
“Been talkin’ with the Harpell lass, Penelope,” Emerus said. “She’s tellin’ me yerself and her got something to show me and Bruenor.”
“Aye,” Catti-brie replied. “And the sooner the better.”
“Connerad’s taking the lead in the forward press. No better time than now.”
Catti-brie nodded and rose, then bent over and kissed Drizzt on the forehead. “Don’t ye leave me,” she whispered.
Emerus was at the room’s door, holding it open, and so the next ring of that solitary hammer carried to Catti-brie’s ears, reminding her that Drizzt wasn’t the only one in need of help. She went with the old dwarf king through the maze of corridors, following the lonely cadence of the solitary hammer.
They found Bruenor bent over a small forge, tapping away on the broken scimitar of his dearest friend.
“We got work to do, me friend,” Emerus said as they entered the small chamber.
Bruenor held up the rebuilt scimitar for the others to see. “Been workin’,” he replied.
“Ye fixed it!” Catti-brie said happily, but Bruenor merely shrugged.
“I put the blade back on, but can’no put the magic back in her,” he explained.
“When we get to the Forge o’ Gauntlgrym, then,” Catti-brie offered, and Bruenor shrugged again.
“Yer elf friend’s restin’ peacefully,” Emerus said.
“Still asleep,” Catti-brie was quick to add when she saw the sparkle of false hope ignite in Bruenor’s eyes.
Bruenor snorted helplessly.
“We found an ancient portal,” Catti-brie explained. “Meself and the Harpells. Ye’re needing to see it, me Da. It’s a great tool, but might be a great danger. For the sake of all who’ve come to Gauntlgrym, I ask ye to come with me and Emerus now to view the thing and judge what we’re to do with it.”
Bruenor looked at Twinkle, sighed, and nodded. Clearly, he’d done all he could with the scimitar. Catti-brie, who had spent so long trying to repair broken Drizzt, and possibly with the same partial effect, understood his pain.
Was the magic of Twinkle lost forever?
Was the magic of Drizzt lost forever?
Bruenor tossed his hammer on the table and sent his gloves onto it behind. He carried Twinkle to Catti-brie and bade her return it to Drizzt after they got back from wherever it was she intended to take them.