Without the scars, at this point, of course, and without, he lamented, glancing at his new axe, the many notches he had earned in battle.
He brought the axe down before him, ignoring the continuing banter at his expense, and instead studying the clean and smooth curving blade of the weapon. He thought of his first notch in his previous existence, in the great ettin adventure in the tunnels around Mithral Hall, and realized that he had been much older in that fight than he was now. Reginald Roundshield’s fifteenth birthday was just three months behind him, which put him a decade and more short of Bruenor’s first true adventure in his former life. Indeed, Reginald Roundshield, Little Arr Arr, was much more accomplished among the soldiers of Citadel Felbarr atStaIes Lord Ulfbinder this age than a teenaged Bruenor had been among the fighters of Clan Battlehammer, even though all of Reginald’s exploits thus far had been on the training grounds. But of course, in counterbalance, in that previous life as the prince of Mithral Hall, Bruenor had been presented with great opportunities to do great things that he, as Reginald, would never know.
His memories swirled through the years, to the many battles-leaping upon the back of Shimmergloom, freeing Wulfgar from the demon Errtu, splitting the skull of Matron Baenre when the drow came a’calling, splitting the waves of Obould’s minions like a stone against the incoming tide in Keeper’s Dale-and Bruenor blew a profound and resigned sigh. Could he really live that journey again? Could he really begin over, not a scratch on his axe, and forge a name worthy of Clan Battlehammer?
And the most troubling question of all, to what end?
“So the gods can just wipe it clean and pretend it never happened, eh?” he mumbled.
“What’s that now, boy?” Ragged Dain asked. “Wipe it clean? Nah, that’s the real hair ye got there, yer beard comin’ in thick and red. No more Little Arr Arr then! Just Arr Arr, as was yer Da.”
“Reginald,” Bruenor calmly replied, and Ragged Dain burst out laughing, as did the other five dwarves on this scouting patrol. They’d never give in and stop the teasing, Bruenor knew.
Not that it bothered him. What did it matter? His name could be Moradin itself and that too would become bones and stones and nothing more.
He felt a snarl coming to his lips but he suppressed it.
“One day at a time, one step at a time,” he told himself, his growing litany against the whispering despair.
“Through the gate, we’re turnin’ north, lads and lasses,” Ognun told his battle group. “Into the Rauvins and Warcrown Trail. Been word o’ some goblinkin getting a bit too comfortable there.”
“Heigh-ho, then, for a fight!” said Tannabritches Fellhammer, the “Fist” of Fist and Fury.
“Heigh-ho!” Ragged Dain joined in the cheer, but in a mocking way. Every patrol that walked out of Felbarr was told to expect trouble, but, alas, trouble was rarely found.
“Now, don’t ye get all Mallabritches on me,” Ognun Leatherbelt said with a laugh, referring to Tannabritches’s twin, who was aptly nicknamed Fury. The two had been split up, and Mallabritches had been sent back for more training after she had punched a traveling human merchant in the nose when he laughed at her suggestion that he might be selling his wares to orcs.
Mallabritches’s demotion had given Bruenor his spot on the battle group, something that hadn’t sat well with Tannabritches, who was three years Bruenor’s senior, as she had reminded him often with the constant refrain of, “Don’t ye get yerself too comfortable, Little Arr Arr. Me sister’s to return and ye’re to be put back with yer own dwarfling friends.”
“Ah, but then might I tell them all again o’ how I whomped yer skinny butt, eh?” Bruenor always responded, and time and again, it had almost come to blows. Almost, for it became obvious that the blustering Tannabritches wanted no part of Little Arr Arr one-against-one.
“We’ll be half-a-tenday in the mountains,” Bruenor heard Ognun explain in the general direction, and palim as he focused back to the present conversation. “And we’ll be watchin’ all about us every heartbeat o’ them five days, don’t ye doubt. If them goblins are up there, we’re to make sure King Emerus knows it.”
“By bringing back their ears, then?” Tannabritches asked.
Ognun laughed. “Aye, if we’re finding the chance, I expect. But more likely we’ll find goblin sign-scat and prints. We find that and King Emerus is sure to send out a bigger fightin’ group, and …” He paused and patted his hand in the air, calming the ever-excited Tannabritches. “And aye,” he went on, “be sure that I’ll be askin’ for a leading place for us six in that battle group.”
“Heigh-ho!” Tannabritches Fellhammer cheered.
As the youngest members of the patrol, Bruenor and Tannabritches were given most of the menial tasks, like gathering kindling for the campfire. Winter had relinquished its grip on the Rauvin Mountains and all around the Silver Marches, but just barely. This high up above Citadel Felbarr’s gates, there were still some small patches of snow to be found, and the night wind could still send a thick-bearded dwarf’s teeth to chattering.
“Come along then,” Tannabritches scolded Bruenor as they circled around one bend in the trail, moving through a channel carved by centuries of melting mountain streams through the heart of a huge rocky ledge. “They’ve already got the flames started,” she added when she came through the pass, in sight of the camp in a wooded, boulder-strewn dell below.
“By the gods, Fist,” Bruenor replied, “but me legs’re aching and me belly’s grumblin’.”
“All the reason to walk faster then, ain’t it?” she called back over her shoulder, and she ended with a curious grunt that Bruenor took as a snort.
Until her armload of kindling fell to the ground and Tannabritches tumbled backward, a spear protruding from her chest.
Bruenor’s eyes went wide. He threw his own kindling aside and dived down to the ground-and not a heartbeat too soon, for a spear flew just above him, cracking off the stone across the channel.
Bruenor scrambled furiously on all fours to get to his fallen companion, and he winced at the severity of the wound, at the blood gushing around the spear shaft, deeply embedded just below her collarbone and not far above the poor girl’s heart. With a trembling hand, Bruenor tried to hold the spear shaft perfectly still, seeing that every vibration brought wracking pain coursing through poor Tannabritches.
“Get ye gone,” the fallen girl whispered, spitting blood with her words. “I’m for Dwarfhome. Warn th’ others!”
She coughed and started to curl up, and Bruenor, trying to comfort her, looked up suddenly, hearing the approach of enemies, certain from the sound of them that they would swamp the channel in mere moments.
“Go!” she pleaded.
Had he really been Little Arr Arr, had he really been an inexperienced dwarfling of merely fifteen winters, Bruenor would have likely taken her advice-even with his experience, he couldn’t deny the fear that was inside him, or the truth that he had a duty to warn Ognun and Ragged Dain and the others …he had returned to Faerunan off his guardim
But he wasn’t Little Arr Arr. He was Bruenor Battlehammer, who had learned through centuries to put loyalty above all else, who had passed through death itself and come back with a deep and pervading sense of outrage.
With a growl and a burst of strength he didn’t realize he possessed, he grasped the spear shaft in both hands and cleanly snapped it, leaving just a stub poking from the brutal wound. As one hand threw the broken shaft aside, the other grabbed Tannabritches by the collar, and he easily hoisted her across his shoulders, starting off in a run before she had even settled.
He heard the whoops behind him and imagined a volley of spears flying his way, and that only made the furious dwarf spin to face that missile barrage head on, to keep Tannabritches mostly behind him that he wouldn’t inadvertently use her as a shield.