And a hundred years from now, when there remains only dust, will anyone care?
I wonder what fuels the fires that burn images of glorious battle into the hearts of so many of the sentient races, my own paramount among them. I look at the carnage on the slope and I see the inevitable sight of emptiness. I imagine the cries of pain. I hear in my head the calls for loved ones when the dying warrior knows his last moment is upon him. I see a tower fall with my dearest friend atop it. Surely the tangible remnants, the rubble and the bones, are hardly worth the moment of battle, but is there, I wonder, something less tangible here, something of a greater place? Or is there, perhaps—and this is my fear—something of a delusion to it all that drives us to war, again and again?
Along that latter line of thought, is it within us all, when the memories of war have faded, to so want to be a part of something great that we throw aside the quiet, the calm, the mundane, the peace itself? Do we collectively come to equate peace with boredom and complacency? Perhaps we hold these embers of war within us, dulled only by sharp memories of the pain and the loss, and when that smothering blanket dissipates with the passage of healing time, those fires flare again to life. I saw this within myself, to a smaller extent, when I realized and admitted to myself that I was not a being of comfort and complacency, that only by the wind on my face, the trails beneath my feet, and the adventure along the road could I truly be happy.
I'll walk those trails indeed, but it seems to me that it is another thing all together to carry an army along beside me, as Obould has done. For there is the consideration of a larger morality here, shown so starkly in the bones among the stones. We rush to the call of arms, to the rally, to the glory, but what of those caught in the path of this thirst for greatness?
Who will remember those who died here, and what have they gained to compensate for all that they, on both sides, lost?
Whenever we lose a loved one, we resolve, inevitably, to never forget, to remember that dear person for all our living days. But we the living contend with the present, and the present often commands all of our attention. And so as the years pass, we do not remember those who have gone before us every day, or even every tenday. Then comes the guilt, for if I am not remembering Zaknafein my father, my mentor, who sacrificed himself for me, then who is? And if no one is, then perhaps he really is gone. As the years pass, the guilt will lessen, because we forget more consistently and the pendulum turns in our self-serving thoughts to applaud ourselves on those increasingly rare occasions when we do remember! There is always the guilt, perhaps, because we are self-centered creatures to the last. It is the truth of individuality that cannot be denied. In the end, we, all of us, see the world through our own, personal eyes.
I have heard parents express their fears of their own mortality soon after the birth of a child. It is a fear that stays with a parent, to a great extent, through the first dozen years of a child's life. It is not for the child that they fear, should they die-though surely there is that worry, as well-but rather for themselves. What father would accept his death before his child was truly old enough to remember him?
For who better to put a face to the bones among the stones? Who better to remember the sparkle in an eye before the crow comes a'calling?
I wish the crows would circle and the wind would carry them away, and the faces would remain forever to remind us of the pain. When the clarion call to glory sounds, before the armies anew trample the bones among the stones, let the faces of the dead remind us of the cost.
It is a sobering sight before me, the red-splashed stones.
It is a striking warning in my ears, the cawing of the crows.
– Drizzt Do'Urden
CHAPTER 1 FOR THE LOVE OF ME SON
"We must be quicker!" the human commented, for the hundredth time that morning, it seemed to the more than two-score dwarves moving in a line all around him. Galen Firth appeared quite out of place in the torchlit, smoky tunnels. Tall even for a human, he stood more than head and shoulders above the short and sturdy bearded folk.
"I got me scouts up ahead, working as fast as scouts can work," replied General Dagna, a venerable warrior of many battles.
The old dwarf stretched and straightened his still-broad shoulders, and tucked his dirty yellow beard into his thick leather girdle, then considered Galen with eyes still sharp, a scrutinizing gaze that had kept the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer ducking defensively out of sight for many, many decades. Dagna had been a well-respected warcommander for as long as anyone could remember, longer than Bruenor had been king, and before Shimmergloom the shadow dragon and his duergar minions had conquered Mithral Hall. Dagna had climbed to power through deed, as a warrior and field commander, and no one questioned his prowess in leading dwarves through difficult conflicts. Many had expected Dagna to lead the defense of the cliff face above Keeper's Dale, even ahead of venerable Banak Brawn-anvil. When that had not come to pass, it was assumed Dagna would be named as Steward of the Hall while Bruenor lay near death.
Indeed, both of those opportunities had been presented to Dagna, and by those in a position to make either happen. But he had refused.
"Ye wouldn't have me tell me scouts to run along swifter and maybe give themselves away to trolls and the like, now would ye?" Dagna asked.
Galen Firth rocked back on his heels a bit at that, but he didn't blink and he didn't stand down. "I would have you move this column as swiftly as is possible," he replied. "My town is sorely pressed, perhaps overrun, and in the south, out of these infernal tunnels, many people may now be in dire jeopardy. I would hope that such would prove an impetus to the dwarves who claim to be our neighbors."
"I claim nothing," Dagna was fast to reply. "I do what me steward and me king're telling me to do."
"And you care not at all for the fallen?"
Galen's blunt question caused several of the nearby dwarves to suck in their breath, aimed as it was at Dagna, the proud dwarf who had lost his only son only a few tendays earlier. Dagna stared long and hard at the man, burying the sting that prompted him to an angry response, remembering his place and his duty.
"We're going as fast as we're going, and if ye're wanting to be going faster, then ye're welcome to run up ahead. I'll tell me scouts to let ye pass without hindrance. Might even be that I'll keep me march going over your dead body when we find yerself troll-eaten in the corridors ahead. Might even be that yer Nesme kin, if any're still about, will get rescued without ye." Dagna paused and let his glare linger a moment longer, a silent assurance to Galen Firth that he was hardly bluffing. "Then again, might not be."
That seemed to take some of the steam from Galen, and the man gave a great «harrumph» and turned back to the tunnel ahead, stomping forward deliberately.
Dagna was beside him in an instant, grabbing him hard by the arm.
"Pout if ye want to pout," the dwarf agreed, "but ye be doing it quietly."
Galen pulled himself away from the dwarf's vicelike grasp, and matched Dagna's stare with his own glower.
Several nearby dwarves rolled their eyes at that and wondered if Dagna would leave the fool squirming on the floor with a busted nose. Galen hadn't been like that until very recently. The fifty dwarves had accompanied him out of Mithral Hall many days before, with orders from Steward Regis to do what they could to aid the beleaguered folk of Nesme. Their journey had been steady and straightforward until they had been attacked in the tunnels by a group of trolls. That fight had sent them running, a long way to the south and out into the open air on the edges of the great swamp, the Trollmoors, but too far to the east, by Galen Firth's reckoning. So they had started west, and had found more tunnels. Against Galen's protests, Dagna had decided that his group would be better served under cover of the westward-leading underground corridors. More dirt than stone, with roots from trees and brush dangling over their heads and with crawly things wriggling in the black dirt all around them, the tunnels weren't like those they'd used to come south from Mithral Hall. That only made Galen all the more miserable. The tunnels were tighter, lower, and not as wide, which the dwarves thought a good thing, particularly with huge and ugly trolls chasing them, but which only made Galen spend half his time walking bent over.