Perhaps that was it, she pondered, though she would not tell Avelyere, of course, but deep inside, Catti-brie sensed that perhaps it was even something more. Her divinely inspired spells, which she still kept secret from Lady Avelyere and the others at the Coven, exercising her powers only on those occasions when she went to visit Niraj and Kavita, and even then, only in secluded places where she created gardens to honor Mielikki, allowed her formidable protection from the elements. In that advantage, she found fire especially appealing. She needn’t worry about unexpected blowback from a fireball with Mielikki’s protection wards glistening around her frame.
Besides, she found that she truly enjoyed the eruption of a fireball, the flash of warmth and brilliance back at her, the explosive and cleansing power. She smiled, even though it wasn’t an appropriate response to Lady Avelyere, for she was thinking of Bruenor, her adoptive father. In her true formative years, Catti-brie had been raised as a warrior, a woman of action who would not shy from, who would indeed charge into, battle. The power of a fireball enthralled her, for it wasn’t subtle and it wasn’t quiet. Not in nature, but in nurture, Catti-brie had more than a bit of the dwarf in her.
Lady Avelyere’s sigh brought her back to the present situation, to realize that the older woman was shaking her head in obvious disappointment.
“I had hoped for more sophistication from you, my young protege."
CHAPTER 16
The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR) Citadel Felbarr
Bruenor’s heavy eyelids eased open, leaving a fuzzy grayness where before there had been only darkness. Gradually, painfully, the air around began to take shape, images coming into view in the low firelight, including two wide-eyed faces leaning in close, looking back at him intently.
Bruenor noted an older dwarf male and a younger female, both dressed as clerics. The names Parson and Mandarina hovered around his thoughts, just out of reach. The two continued to study him, their expressions shifting from surprise to concern to, finally, relief and joy.
“Blessed by Moradin,” said the woman, and she bent low and kissed young Reginald Roundshield on the cheek. “I’d thought we’d lost ye.”
The other dwarf nodded his agreement. “And she’s been with ye since yer fall,” he explained to the dizzy and dazed dwarf lying on the cot in Citadel Felbarr. “Ain’t left yer side for a moment, that one.”
“Arr Arr saved us all out there, don’t ye doubt,” said the woman-yes, it was Mandarina Dobberbright. “What a sorry and ungrateful friend meself’d be if I left him with healing to be done!”
The other, Parson Glaive, nodded again. “Aye, but I thought ye’d be meetin’ yer father, me young friend.”
“Bangor?” the confused Bruenor whispered under his breath, his lips sticking together with dryness.
“Eh, what’s that then?” asked Parson Glaive, leaning forward.
Only then did Bruenor’s sensibilities begin to return to the present. He considered what the female cleric had called him, “Arr Arr,” and remembered then that he was not King Bruenor, son of Bangor, anymore.
At least, not yet.
That last thought bounced around in his head for a little while, slowly replaced by the returning details of the battle in the mountains, particularly those last few desperate moments when all had seemed lost in the shadow of a towering mountain giant.
“Been days,” Parson Glaive went on when no answer seemed forthcoming from the patient. “And Mandarina’s been at yer side the whole time, all the way back from the mountains.”
“The others?” Bruenor managed to whisper more audibly.
“Ye won the day,” Mandarina said, though it didn’t seem to Bruenor as if she was doing so in response to his question. “When that durned giant tumbled down, how the ground shook! And how them orcs turned tail and run away! Bwahaha, but ye should’ve seen ’em, I tell ye, fallin’ all over each other and screeching every step. And Ragged Dain, he weren’t about to let ’em go, but chased them a mile an’ more, choppin’ and kickin’ and bitin’ all the way!”
“Ognun Leatherbelt’s talked to King Emerus about ye,” Parson Glaive added. “Ye get yer rest, I tell ye, because ye’ve a party waitin’ in yer honor.”
Bruenor, still trying to sort out the fightAlpirs and UntarisI upon heron-he remembered throwing his axe and charging the giant, but what he recalled most of all was the explosive pain in his gut-tried to prop himself up on his elbows.
He realized immediately that that was a bad idea.
Waves of agony laid him low, replaced only gradually by waves of nausea. He began to cough and choke, and Mandarina and Parson Glaive were quick to roll him to his side so that he could safely throw up.
He looked at the puddle on the side of his bed with shock and even fear, for more than a little blood was mixed in with the bile.
“It’s all right, boy,” Parson Glaive said as they settled him onto his back. “Better than it’s been. Not to worry.”
“Aye, we’ll have ye up and about in a tenday or two, but we’ll hold yer party off for a month, I’m thinkin’,” added Mandarina.
“Aye, a month at least afore this one can drink the toasts he’ll be getting!” Parson Glaive agreed with great zest and a wide smile. He looked down at Little Arr Arr and nodded, then produced a small vial, which he moved to his patient’s lips. “Ye drink it, boy,” he coaxed, tipping the sweet-tasting liquid in.
It did not make Bruenor gag-quite the opposite-it felt warm and soft and steadying. And as the magical potion went down, so too did Bruenor’s eyelids, the darkness taking him to a land of confusing and troubled dreams.
Bruenor was the last to arrive of the six battle group members who had gone scouting in the Rauvin Mountains, and to the loudest cheers of all-of all the others combined, those in attendance understood. For this was Reginald Roundshield’s moment of glory, with hundreds of Felbarr tankards hoisted high as Parson Glaive led him into the Hall of Ceremony, a grand and high, partly natural, partly carved cavern. On one wall loomed a giant hearth, a bonfire blazing within, lighting all the place with great waves of orange glow, and to the side of it, far enough to avoid the blast of heat from the conflagration, sat King Emerus Warcrown on a great throne on a raised dais.
A second throne had been placed beside his own, less ornate, perhaps, but no less high in position or stature. To this second chair, Parson Glaive led the hero of the evening, and when Bruenor went to respectfully bow to the king, he found that Emerus dipped first.
The king then stood and turned the hero around to face the community, who raised mugs in toast and voices in a great “Huzzah!”
And there in the front row of that crowd, her face wet with tears, stood Uween Roundshield, nodding and sniffling.
Bruenor knew the decorum and ignored it. He wasn’t quite sure why Uween’s face touched him so at that particular moment, but he could not resist the urge. He broke from King Emerus’s grasp and leaped from the dais and across the way to wrap Uween in a tremendous embrace.
“For your Da,” she whispered to him amidst the thunderous applause.
Bruenor shed a tear, the first for his dead father. And he hugged Uween all the more and for a long, long while, lifting her from the floor and swaying her back and forth gently.
When he finally broke and turned back for the dais, a dozen hands reached for him, to pat him on the shoulder, and one voice lifted above the others to draw his attention.
“Ye sAlpirs and UntarisI upon heronaved me sister,” said Mallabritches Fellhammer. Bruenor locked gazes with her. “She telled ye to leave her, but ye would no’.” The tough warrior aptly nicknamed Fury had more than a little moisture in her eyes as she solemnly nodded her gratitude and approval.