A shrill whistle cut through the blunt wall of wind, a singular point of hope against the storm’s mounting power. Drizzt’s keen ears caught it as he and Bruenor hoisted their young friend’s face from the muck. So far away the whistle seemed, but Drizzt understood how storms could distort one’s perceptions.
“What?” Bruenor asked of the noise, noticing the drow’s sudden reaction, for Bruenor had not heard the call.
“Regis!” Drizzt answered. He started dragging Wulfgar in the direction of the whistle, Bruenor following his lead. They didn’t have time to discern if the young man was even alive.
The quick-thinking halfling saved them that day. Fully aware of the killing potential of squalls rolling down from the Spine of the World, Regis had crawled around in search of some shelter in the empty land. He stumbled across a hole in the side of a small ridge, an old wolf den perhaps, empty now.
Following the beacon of his whistles, Drizzt and Bruenor soon found him.
“It’ll fill with the rain and we’ll be drowned!” Bruenor yelled, but he helped Drizzt drag Wulfgar inside and prop him up against the rear wall of the cave, then took his place beside his friends as they worked to build a barrier of dirt and their remaining packs against the feared flood.
A groan from Wulfgar sent Regis scurrying to his side.
“He’s alive!” the halfling proclaimed. “And his wounds don’t seem too bad!”
“Tougher’n a badger in a corner,” Bruenor remarked.
Soon they had their den tolerable, if not comfortable, and even Bruenor stopped his complaining.
“The true test of the road,” Drizzt said again to Regis, trying to cheer up his thoroughly miserable friend as they sat in the mud and rode out the night, the incessant booming of the thunder and pounding of the hail a constant reminder of the small margin of safety.
In reply, Regis poured a stream of water out of his boot.
“How many miles do ye reckon we made?” Bruenor grumbled at Drizzt.
“Ten, perhaps,” the drow answered.
“Two weeks to Nesme, at this rate!” Bruenor muttered, folding his arms across his chest.
“The storm will pass,” Drizzt offered hopefully, but the dwarf was no longer listening.
The next day began without rain, though thick gray clouds hung low in the sky. Wulfgar was fine by morning, but he still did not understand what had happened to him. Bruenor insisted that they start out at once, though Regis would have preferred that they remain in their hole until they were certain the storm had passed.
“Most of the provisions are lost,” Drizzt reminded the halfling. “You might not find another meal beyond a pittance of dried bread until we reach Nesme.”
Regis was the first one out of the hole.
Unbearable humidity and muddy ground kept the pace slow, and the friends soon found their knees aching from the constant twisting and sloshing. Their sodden clothes clung to them uncomfortably and weighed on their every step.
They came upon Wulfgar’s horse, a burned and smoking form half-buried in the mud. “Lightning,” Regis observed.
The three looked at their barbarian friend, amazed that he could have survived such a hit. Wulfgar, too, stared in shock, realizing what had dropped him from his mount in the night.
“Tougher’n a badger!” Bruenor hailed again to Drizzt.
Sunshine teasingly found a crack in the overcast now and then. The sunlight was nothing substantial, though, and by noon, the day had actually grown darker. Distant thunder foretold a dismal afternoon.
The storm had already spent its killing might, but that night they found no shelter beyond their wet clothes, and whenever the crackle of lightning lit up the sky, four hunched forms could be seen sitting in the mud, their heads downcast as they accepted their fate in helpless resignation.
For two more days they lumbered on through the rain and wind, having little choice and nowhere to go but forward. Wulfgar proved to be the savior of the party’s morale at this low time. He scooped Regis up from the sodden ground, tossing the halfling easily onto his back, and explaining that he needed the extra weight for balance. By sparing the halfling’s pride this way, the barbarian even managed to convince the surly dwarf to ride for a short time. And always, Wulfgar was indomitable. “A blessing, I tell you,” he kept crying at the gray heavens. “The storm keeps the insects and the orcs out of our faces! And how many months shall it be before we want for water?”
He worked hard to keep their spirits high. At one point, he watched the lightning closely, timing the delay between the flash and the ensuing thunder. As they neared the blackened skeleton of a long-dead tree, the lightning flashed and Wulfgar pulled his trick. Yelling “Tempus!” he heaved his warhammer so that it smashed into, and leveled, the trunk at precisely the moment the thunder exploded around them. His amused friends looked back to him only to find him standing proud, arms and eyes uplifted to the gods as though they had personally answered his call.
Drizzt, accepting this whole ordeal with his customary stoicism, silently applauded his young friend and knew again, even more than before, that they had made a wise decision in bringing him along. The drow understood that his own duty in these rough times was to continue his role as sentry, keeping his diligent guard despite the barbarian’s proclamation of safety.
Finally, the storm was blown away by the same brisk wind that had ushered it in. The bright sunshine and clear blue skies of the subsequent dawn lightened the companions’ mood immeasurably and allowed them to think again of what lay ahead.
Especially Bruenor. The dwarf leaned forward in his pressing march, just as he had when they had first begun their journey back in Icewind Dale.
Red beard wagging with the intensity of his pumping stride, Bruenor found his narrow focus once again. He fell back into the dreams of his homeland, seeing the flickering shadows of the torchlight against the silver-streamed walls and the wondrous artifacts of his people’s meticulous labors. His heightened concentration on Mithril Hall over the last few months had sparked clearer, and new, memories in him, and on the road now he remembered, for the first time in more than a century, the Hall of Dumathoin.
The dwarves of Mithril Hall had made a fine living in the trade of their crafted items, but they always kept their very finest pieces, and the most precious gifts bestowed upon them from outsiders, to themselves. In a large and decorated chamber that opened wide the eyes of every visitor, the legacy of Bruenor’s ancestors sat in open display, serving as inspiration for the clan’s future artists.
Bruenor chuckled softly at the memory of the wondrous hall and the marvelous pieces, mostly weapons and armor. He looked at Wulfgar striding beside him, and at the mighty warhammer he had crafted the year before. Aegis-fang might have hung in the Hall of Dumathoin if Bruenor’s clan still ruled Mithril Hall, sealing Bruenor’s immortality in the legacy of his people.
But watching Wulfgar handling the hammer, swinging it as easily as he would swing his own arm, Bruenor had no regrets.
The next day brought more good news. Shortly after they broke camp, the friends discovered that they had traveled farther than they had anticipated during the trials of the storm, for as they marched, the landscape around them went through subtle but definite transformations. Where before the ground had been sparsely overgrown with thin patches of scraggly weeds, a virtual sea of mud under the torrent of rain, they now found lush grasses and scattered copses of tall elms. Cresting a final ridge confirmed their suspicions, for before them lay the Dessarin Valley. A few miles ahead, swollen from the spring melt and the recent storm, and clearly visible from their high perch, the arm of the great river rolled steadily along its southbound trek.
The long winter dominated this land, but when they finally bloomed, the plants here made up for their short season with a vibrancy unmatched in all the world. Rich colors of spring surrounded the friends as they made their way down the slope to the river. The carpet of grass was so thick that they took off their boots and walked barefoot through the spongy softness. The vitality here was truly obvious, and contagious.