The soldier backed, calling for help, but Shingles came in too fast, kicking the man in the shin, and snapping his forehead forward and down, connecting solidly — too solidly—on the man's codpiece. He doubled over and dropped to his knees, his eyes crossing. Shingles came back around wildly, charging for the second soldier.
But when that soldier dodged aside, the dwarf didn't pursue. Instead he continued ahead toward his true intended target: poor Councilor Agrathan.
Agrathan had never been a fighter of Shingles's caliber, nor were his fists near as hard from any recent battles as those of the surly miner. Even worse for Agrathan, his heart wasn't in his defense nearly as much as Shingles's was in his rage.
The councilor felt the first few blows keenly, a left hook, a right cross, a few quick jabs, and a roundhouse that dropped him to the ground. He felt the bottom of Shingles's boot as the dwarf, lifted right off the ground by a pair of pursuing guards, got one last kick in. Agrathan felt the hands of a human grabbing him under the arm and helping him to his feet, an assist the dwarf roughly pushed away.
Gnashing his teeth, wounded inside far more than he could ever be outside, Councilor Agrathan stormed back for the lifts.
He knew that he had to get to the marchion. He had no idea what he was going to say, had no idea even what he expected or wanted the marchion to do, but he knew that the time had come to confront the man more forcefully.
CHAPTER 19 MORTAL WINDS BLOWING
"In all the days of all my life, I have never felt so mortal," Catti-brie said to the whispering wind.
Behind and below her, the dwarves, Regis, and Wulfgar went about their business preparing supper and setting up the latest camp, but the woman had been excused from her duties so that she could be alone to sort through her emotions.
And it was a tumult of emotions beyond anything Catti-brie had ever known. Her last fight had not been the first time the woman had been in mortal peril, surely, and not even the first time she had been helpless before a hated enemy. Once before, she had been captured by the assassin, Artemis Entreri, and dragged along in his pursuit of Regis, but in that instance, as helpless as she had felt, Catti-brie had never really expected to die.
Never like she had felt when caught helpless on the ground at the feet of the encircling, vicious orcs. In that horrible moment Catti-brie had seen her own death, vividly, unavoidably. In that one horrible moment, all of her life's dreams and hopes had been washed away on a wave of…
Of what?
Regret?
Truly, she had lived as fully as anyone, running across the land on wild adventures, helping to defeat dragons and demons, fighting to reclaim Mithral Hall for her adoptive father and his clan, chasing pirates on the open seas. She had known love.
She looked back over her shoulder at Wulfgar as she considered this.
She had known sorrow, and perhaps she had found love again. Or was she just kidding herself? She was surrounded by the best friends that anyone could ever hope to know, by an unlikely crew that loved her as she loved them. Companions, friends. It had been more than that with Wulfgar, so she had believed, and with Drizzt. .
What?
She didn't know. She loved him dearly and always felt better when he was beside her, but were they meant to live as husband and wife? Was he to be the father of her children? Was that even possible?
The woman winced at the notion. One part of her rejoiced at the thought, and believed it would be something wonderful and beautiful. Another part of her, more pragmatic, recoiled at the thought, knowing that any such children would, by the mere nature of their heritage, remain as outcasts to any and all save those few who knew the truth of Drizzt Do'Urden.
Catti-brie closed her eyes and put her head down on her bent knees, curling up as she sat there, high on an exposed rock. She imagined herself as an older woman, far less mobile, and surely unable to run the mountainsides beside Drizzt Do'Urden, blessed as he was with the eternal youth of his people. She saw him on the trails every day, his smile wide as he basked in the adventure. That was his nature, after all, as it was hers. But it would only be hers for a few more years, she knew in her heart, and less than that if ever she was to become with child.
It was all too confusing, and all too painful. Those orcs circling her had shown her something about herself that she had never even realized, had shown her that her present life, as enjoyable as it was, as wild and full of adventure as it was, had to be (unless she was killed in the wilds) a prelude to something quite a bit different. Was she to be a mother? Or an emissary, perhaps, serving the court of her father, King Bruenor? Was this to be her last run through the wilds, her last great adventure?
"Doubt is expected after such a defeat," came a voice behind her, soft and familiar.
She opened her eyes and turned to see Wulfgar standing there, just a bit below her, his arms folded over the bent knee of his higher, lead leg.
Catti-brie gave him a curious look.
"I know what you are feeling," the barbarian said quietly, full of sincerity and compassion. "You faced death, and the looming specter warned you."
"Warned me?"
"Of your own mortality," Wulfgar explained.
Catti-brie's expression turned to incredulity. Wasn't Wulfgar stating the obvious?
"When I fell with the yochlol.. " the barbarian began, and his eyes closed a bit in obvious pain at the memory. He paused and settled, then opened his eyes wide and pressed on. "In the lair of Errtu, I came to know despair. I came to know defeat beyond anything I had ever imagined, and I came to know both doubt and regret. For all that I had accomplished in my years, in bringing my people together, and into harmony with the folk of Ten-Towns, in fighting beside you, my friends, to rescue Regis, to reclaim Mithral Hall, to. ."
"Save me from the yochlol," Catti-brie added, and Wulfgar smiled and accepted the gracious compliment with a slight nod.
"For all of that, in the lair of Errtu, I came to know an emptiness that I had not known to exist until that very moment," the barbarian explained. "As I looked upon what I believed to be the last moments of my existence, I felt strangely cold and dissatisfied with my lack of accomplishments."
"After all that you did accomplish?" the woman asked skeptically.
Wulfgar nodded "Because in so many other ways, I had failed," Wulfgar answered, looking up at her. "In my love for you, I failed. And in my own understanding of who I was, and who I wanted to be, and what I wanted and needed for a life that I might know when the windy trails were no longer my home … I had failed."
Catti-brie could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was as if Wulfgar was looking right through her, and pulling her own words out.
"And you found Colson and Delly," she said.
"A fine start, perhaps," Wulfgar replied.
His smile seemed sincere, and Catti-brie returned that smile, and they went quiet for a bit.
"Do you love him?" Wulfgar asked suddenly, unexpectedly.
Catti-brie started to answer with a question of her own, but the answer was self-evident as soon as she truly considered his words.
"Do you?" she asked instead.
"He is my brother, as true to me as any could ever be," Wulfgar answered without the slightest hesitation. "If a spear were aimed for Drizzt's chest, I would gladly leap in front of it, even should it cost me my own life, and I would die contented. Yes, I love him, as I love Bruenor, as I love Regis, as I love.."