Back on the dais, King Emerus signaled for Bruenor to take his seat, then called for the testimonials. One by one, starting with Ognun Leatherbelt, the other five members of the Rauvin scouting group stepped up to stand before the king and the hero, and offered to the gathering stirring tales of the battle. And each of those tales outdid the previous-clearly, they had rehearsed the roles each would play in this historical retelling. Ognun set the stage, then Tannabritches told of the opening volley, and of Arr Arr’s great courage in saving her. Mandarina came next, to confirm that “Fist” would have died if Arr Arr had chosen differently.
Magnus Leatherbelt brought out the “oos” and “ahs” with his description of the arrival of the giant, and the great behemoth surely sounded even bigger in his retelling than it had loomed on the field that day!
Last came Ragged Dain, the old warrior. He looked Bruenor in the eye, to offer a nod of respect and a wink of salute.
And then, with the sobriety of a veteran who had fought a hundred battles, the temperance of a dwarf who had seen many enemies killed, and the grim resolve of a dwarf who had fully expected to die in the foothills of the Rauvins, Ragged Dain showed himself to be as fine a bard as he was a warrior. He had the crowd hushed for a long while, hanging on his every word, and when he finished with, “And so I’m tellin’ ye here and tellin’ ye true, if not for Little Arr Arr …”
His dramatic pause right there brought an audible gasp from the crowd. “Nah,” he corrected. “Ain’t no ‘little’ left in that one.”
This pause brought the most raucous cheers of all.
“If not for Reginald-son o’ one o’ me dearest friends, Moradin keep him drunk! — then know that not one of us’d be standing with ye tonight, and ye’d not know that orcs and a giant prowled just to the north o’ Felbarr’s gates!”
The room exploded as Ragged Dain walked over to Bruenor and presented him with a flagon of Gutbuster, as sure a passage into adulthood as any dwarf could offer a teenager. He took Bruenor’s arm and coaxed him out of the chair, leading him to the center of the stage.
With a wink at Uween and a nod to Ragged Dain, then to King Emerus, Bruenor drained the flagon.
Up came Emerus, and from a pouch he produced a grand golden medal, fashioned in the shape of a round shield, and hung it around Reginald’s neck with a fine mithral chain.
“Grant a wish!” Mallabritches Fellhammer cried from the crowd, and the chant was taken up all across the hall.
“Grant a wish!”
King Emerus wore a surprised expression, but it was feigned, Bruenor could tell. The king had expected this, as Bruenor surely would have in one of the similar feasts of honor he had presided over in Mithral Hall. And indeed, Bruenor had granted more than a few such “wishes.”
The most common request, of course, would be for a tub of beer, a flask of brandy and the hand of a lovely lass for a dinner date, or a sturdy lad when a female was being so honored.?” she asked5N3 treasureesto
“Take the girl, Little Arr Arr!” someone yelled out from the back, and all started laughing at that.
“Ain’t so little if he takes the girl!” another cried.
“Fist!” yelled one.
“Fury!” argued another.
And so it went, with both Fellhammer lasses furiously blushing, and Bruenor wearing a little grin through it all.
“Might be the pair o’ them, if Fist ’n’ Fury’re meaning anything!” Ragged Dain shouted and the room exploded with laughter, King Emerus most of all.
Finally, Emerus quieted it all and put his arm around the hero. “Well there, Reginald,” he said. “It’s seemin’ that we’re all in agreement here. Ye’re deservin’ of a wish, be it a weapon or a suit o’ mithral or a tub o’ beer, as I can order. If it’s a girl yer wantin’ for a dance or a dinner, well, that’s for her to agree, course, and if it’s for the two o’ them Fellhammers, then I’m thinking their Da might have a word with ye.”
That brought more laughter, and even Bruenor joined in this time.
“But the wish is yers to ask and ourn to grant,” King Emerus proclaimed. “Ye name it. Moradin’s blessed ye and who’re ourselfs to argue?”
The smile left Bruenor’s face in the blink of an eye at that, replaced by a frozen expression as he tried to hide his grimace. Emerus’s words, “Moradin’s blessed ye,” bounced around in his head with the force of a giant-hurled boulder, assaulting his sensibilities, reminding him of the futility, the sad joke, that was the reality of Little Arr Arr.
A roiling anger twisted his belly and stabbed at his heart. Moradin’s blessed ye? It was all Bruenor could do to keep from cursing Moradin in front of all of them, then and there!
“Reginald?” King Emerus asked, and Bruenor only then realized that a long while had passed. He looked up from the king to the gathering, to Uween, then to Ragged Dain and Ognun and the others of the battle group, including Fist and Fury, standing side-by-side and smiling widely at him, their eyes sparkling with anticipation.
He looked at Parson Glaive and wanted nothing more than to run over and dress the priest down, to tell him that it was all a joke, that Moradin played with them and ridiculed them, and laughed at their victories and failures equally!
But he didn’t.
And he knew what he wanted, above alclass="underline" to be back in Iruladoon to bid farewell to Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar, to enter the pool and go to his earned rewards in Dwarfhome.
But King Emerus couldn’t give that to him, and so another notion came to him suddenly.
“To go to Mithral Hall,” he said. “That’s me wish.”
King Emerus was smiling widely, and started to respond, but caught himself as he clearly digested the young dwarf’s demand, and just stared blankly at the hero of the night. The gathering in the hall around them went silent, with many shoulders lifting in a shrug.
“Mithral Hall?” the king asked.
“Aye,” Bruenor confirmed, and just to break the confusion, for indeed it was a surprising request, he added, “and a keg o’ this,” and held led them at a great pace o hesitatedon up his mug of Gutbuster.
That was what the gathering had expected to hear, of course, and their confusion flew away in the burst of a great cheer.
“Two wishes, then!” King Emerus declared. “And so it will be!” And the crowd cheered more, except for the Fellhammer sisters, Bruenor noted, who both seemed a bit disappointed.
Bruenor continued to smile, and took a hefty gulp of Gutbuster, but it was all for show, designed to keep up the charade of his feigned identity. He was truly looking back inside his own thoughts, and weighing the emotional cost of fulfilling his request to return to Mithral Hall, where he had twice been king.
His gut had told him to return there, but he wasn’t quite sure why.
Spring came on in full and turned to summer, but Bruenor did not get his wish in those seasons, or in that year at all. Parson Glaive overruled him, insisting that the young dwarf’s injuries were too severe for him to make that always-dangerous and burdensome trip. Bruenor wanted to argue; now that he had proclaimed his plan to return to Mithral Hall, his desire to be on with it had only grown. But he could not, for Parson Glaive had told him, and told King Emerus, that Reginald could well prove a liability on such a trip.
And so King Emerus had counseled patience, and Bruenor had agreed without complaint.
In truth, what did a few months, even a year, matter?
So he focused on getting healthy and strong once more, and was back to training by the end of the summer. He spent as much time as he could with Uween, as well, for her presence at the gathering had taught him something important: Perhaps he would never see himself as her son, as a Roundshield of Felbarr, but poor Uween could never see him as anything but. He had a responsibility to her, owed a debt to her, and he would not forsake it. For all of his anger at Moradin and the other gods, he would not show hostility or indifference to this dwarf woman who had offered him nothing but the unconditional love of a parent.