The Halfling's Gem
7. Stirrings

 
Book 2.
Allies
7. Stirrings
The first thing he noticed was the absence of the wind. He had lain long hour after hour on his perch at the top of the chimney, and through it all, even in his semiconscious state, there had been the unceasing presence of the wind. It had taken his mind back to Icewind Dale, his home for nearly two centuries. But Bruenor had felt no comfort in the gale's forlorn moan, a continual reminder of his predicament and the last sound he thought he would ever hear.
But it was no more. Only the crackle of a nearby fire broke the quiet stillness. Bruenor lifted a heavy eyelid and stared absently into the flames, trying to discern his condition and his whereabouts. He was warm and comfortable, with a heavy quilt pulled up tightly around his shoulders. And he was indoors - the flames burned in a hearth, not in the open pit of a campfire.
Bruenor's eye drifted to the side of the hearth and focused on a neatly stacked pile of equipment.
His equipment!
The one-horned helm, Drizzt's scimitar, the mithril armor, and his new battle-axe and shining shield. And he was stretched out under the quilt, wearing only a silken nightshirt.
Suddenly feeling very vulnerable, Bruenor pulled himself up to his elbows.
A wave of blackness rolled over him and sent his thoughts reeling in nauseous circles. He dropped heavily to his back.
His vision returned for just a moment, long enough to register the form of a tall and beautiful woman kneeling over him. Her long hair, gleaming silver in the firelight, brushed across his face.
"Spider's poison," she said softly. "Would have killed anything but a dwarf."
Then there was only the blackness.
* * *
Bruenor awoke again a few hours later, stronger and more alert. Trying not to stir and bring any attention, he half-opened one eye and surveyed the area, glancing at the pile first. Satisfied that all of his equipment was there, he slowly turned his head over.
He was in a small chamber, apparently a one-roomed structure, for the only door seemed to lead outside. The woman he had seen earlier - though Bruenor wasn't really sure until now if that image had been a dream - stood beside the door, staring out the room's single window to the night sky beyond. Her hair was indeed silver. Bruenor could see that its hue was no trick of the firelight. But not silver with the graying of age; this lustrous mane glowed with vibrant life.
"Yer pardon, fair lady," the dwarf croaked, his voice cracking on every syllable. The woman twirled and looked at him curiously.
"Might I be getting a bit o' food?" asked Bruenor, never one to mix up his priorities.
The woman floated across the room and helped Bruenor up into a sitting position. Again a wave of blackness swirled over the dwarf, but he managed to shrug it away.
"Only a dwarf!" the woman muttered, astonished that Bruenor had come through his ordeal.
Bruenor cocked his head up at her. "I know ye, lady, though I cannot find yer name in me thoughts."
"It is not important," the woman replied. "You have come through much, Bruenor Battlehammer." Bruenor cocked his head further and leaned away at the mention of his name, but the woman steadied him and continued. "I attended to your wounds as best I could, though I feared that I had come upon you too late to mend the hurts of the spider's poison."
Bruenor looked down at his bandaged forearm, reliving those terrible moments when he had first encountered the giant spider. "How long?"
"How long you lay atop the broken grate, I do not know," the woman answered. "But here you have rested for three days and more - too long for your stomach's liking! I will prepare some food." She started to rise, but Bruenor caught her arm.
"Where is this place?"
The lady's smile eased his grip. "In a clearing not far from the grate. I feared to move you."
Bruenor didn't quite understand. "Yer home?"
"Oh, no," the woman laughed, standing. "A creation, and only temporary. It will be gone with the dawn's light if you feel able to travel."
The tie to magic flickered recognition. "Ye're the Lady of Silverymoon!" Bruenor spouted suddenly.
"Clearmoon Alustriel," the woman said with a polite bow. "My greetings, noble King."
"King?" Bruenor echoed in disgust. "Suren me halls are gone to the scum."
"We shall see," said Alustriel.
But Bruenor missed the words altogether. His thoughts were not on Mithril Hall, but on Drizzt and Wulfgar and Regis, and especially on Catti-brie, the joy of his life. "Me friends," he begged to the woman. "Do ye know o' me friends?"
"Rest easy," Alustriel answered. "They escaped the halls, each of them."
"Even the drow?"
Alustriel nodded. "Drizzt Do'Urden was not destined to die in the home of his dearest friend."
Alustriel's familiarity with Drizzt triggered another memory in the dwarf. "Ye met him before," he said, "on our road to Mithril Hall. Ye pointed the way for us. And that is how ye knew me name."
"And knew where to search for you," Alustriel added. "Your friends think you dead, to their ultimate grief. But I am a wizard of some talent, and can speak to worlds that oft bring surprising revelations. When the specter of Morkai, an old associate who passed from this world a few years ago, imparted to me an image of a fallen dwarf, half out of a hole on the side of a mountain, I knew the truth of the fate of Bruenor Battlehammer. I only hoped that I would not be too late."
"Bah! Fit as ever!" Bruenor huffed, thumping a fist into his chest. As he shifted his weight, a stinging pain in his seat made him wince.
"A crossbow quarrel," Alustriel explained.
Bruenor thought for a moment. He had no recollection of being hit, though the memory of his flight from the undercity was perfectly clear. He shrugged and attributed it to the blindness of his battle-lust. "So one o' the gray scum got me..." he started to say, but then he blushed and turned his eyes away at the thought of this woman plucking the quarrel from his backside.
Alustriel was kind enough to change the subject. "Dine and then rest," she instructed. "Your friends are safe...for the present."
"Where - "
Alustriel cut him off with an outstretched palm. "My knowledge in this matter is not sufficient," she explained. "You shall find your answers soon enough. In the morning, I will take you to Longsaddle and Catti-brie. She can tell you more than I."
Bruenor wished that he could go right now to the human girl he had plucked from the ruins of a goblin raid and reared as his daughter, that he could crush her against him in his arms and tell her that everything was all right. But he reminded himself that he had never truly expected to see Catti-brie again, and he could suffer through one more night.
Any fears he had of anxious restlessness were washed away in the serenity of exhausted sleep only minutes after he had finished the meal. Alustriel watched over him until contented snores resounded throughout the magical shelter.
Satisfied that only a healthy sleeper could roar so loudly, the Lady of Silverymoon leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
It had been a long three days.
* * *
Bruenor watched in amazement as the structure faded around him with the first light of dawn, as if the dark of night had somehow lent the place the tangible material for its construction. He turned to say something to Alustriel but saw her in the midst of casting a spell, facing the pinkening sky and reaching out as though trying to grab the rays of light.
She clenched her hands and brought them to her mouth, whispering the enchantment into them. Then she flung the captured light out before her, crying out the final words of the dweomer, "Equine aflame!" A glowing ball of red struck the stone and burst into a shower of fire, forming almost instantly into a flaming chariot and two horses. Their images danced with the fire that gave them shape, but they did not burn the ground.
"Gather your things," the lady instructed Bruenor. "It is time we leave."
Bruenor stood motionless a moment longer. He had never come to appreciate magic, only the magic that strengthened weapons and armor, but neither did he ever deny its usefulness. He collected his equipment, not bothering to don armor or shield, and joined Alustriel behind the chariot. He followed her onto it, somewhat reluctantly, but it did not burn and it felt as tangible as wood.
Alustriel took a fiery rein in her slender hand and called to the team. A single bound lifted them into the morning sky, and they shot away, west around the bulk of the mountain and then south.
The stunned dwarf dropped his equipment to his feet - his chin to his chest - and clutched the side of the chariot. Mountains rolled out below him; he noted the ruins of Settlestone, the ancient dwarven city, now far below, and only a second later, far behind. The chariot roared over the open grassland and skimmed westward along the northern edge of the Trollmoors. Bruenor had relaxed enough to spit a curse as they soared over the town of Nesme, remembering the less-than-hospitable treatment he and his friends had received at the hands of a patrol from the place. They passed over the Dessarin River network, a shining snake writhing through the fields, and Bruenor saw a large encampment of barbarians far to the north.
Alustriel swung the fiery chariot south again, and only a few minutes later, the famed Ivy Mansion of Harpell Hill, Longsaddle, came into view.
A crowd of curious wizards gathered atop the hill to watch the chariot's approach, cheering somberly - trying to maintain a distinguished air - as they always did when Lady Alustriel graced them with her presence. One face in the crowd blanched to white when the red beard, pointed nose, and one-horned helm of Bruenor Battlehammer came into view.
"But...you...uh...dead...fell," stammered Harkle Harpell as Bruenor jumped from the back of the chariot.
"Nice to see yerself, too," Bruenor replied, clad only in his nightshirt and helm. He scooped his equipment from the chariot and dropped the pile at Harkle's feet. "Where's me girl?"
"Yes, yes...the girl...Catti-brie...oh, where? Oh, there," he rambled, the fingers of one hand nervously bouncing on his lower lip. "Do come, yes do!" He grabbed Bruenor's hand and whisked the dwarf off to the Ivy Mansion.
They intercepted Catti-brie, barely out of bed and wearing a fluffy robe, shuffling down a long hall. The young woman's eyes popped wide when she spotted Bruenor rushing at her, and she dropped the towel she was holding, her arms falling limply to her side. Bruenor buried his face into her, hugging her around the waist so tightly that he forced the air from her lungs. As soon as she recovered from her shock, she returned the hug tenfold.
"Me prayers," she stammered, her voice quaking with sobs. "By the gods, I'd thought ye dead!"
Bruenor didn't answer, trying to hold himself steady. His tears were soaking the front of Catti-brie's robe, and he felt the eyes of a crowd of Harpells behind him. Embarrassed, he pushed open a door to his side, surprising a half-clad Harpell who stood naked to the waist.
"Excuse - " the wizard began, but Bruenor grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out into the hall, at the same time leading Catti-brie into the room. The door slammed in the wizard's face as he turned back to his chamber. He looked helplessly to his gathered kin, but their wide smiles and erupting laughter told him that they would be of no assistance. With a shrug, the wizard moved on about his morning business as though nothing unusual had happened.
It was the first time Catti-brie had ever seen the stoic dwarf truly cry. Bruenor didn't care and couldn't have done a thing to prevent the scene anyway. "Me prayers, too," he whispered to his beloved daughter, the human child he had taken in as his own more than a decade and a half before.
"If we'd have known," Catti-brie began, but Bruenor put a gentle finger to her lips to silence her. It was not important; Bruenor knew that Catti-brie and the others would never have left him if they had even suspected that he might be alive.
"Suren I know not why I lived," the dwarf replied. "None o' the fire found me skin." He shuddered at the memories of his weeks alone in the mines of Mithril Hall. "No more talk o' the place," he begged. "Behind me it is. Behind me to stay!"
Catti-brie, knowing of the approach of armies to reclaim the dwarven homeland, started to shake her head, but Bruenor didn't catch the motion.
"Me friends?" he asked the young woman. "Drow eyes I saw as I fell."
"Drizzt lives," Catti-brie answered, "as does the assassin that chased Regis. He came up to the ledge just as ye fell and carried the little one away."
"Rumblebelly?" Bruenor gasped.
"Aye, and the drow's cat as well."
"Not dead..."
"Nay, not to me guess," Catti-brie was quick to respond. "Not yet. Drizzt and Wulfgar have chased the fiend to the south, knowing his goal to be Calimport."
"A long run," Bruenor muttered. He looked to Catti-brie, confused. "But I'd have thought ye'd be with them."
"I have me own course," Catti-brie replied, her face suddenly stern. "A debt for repaying."
Bruenor understood at once. "Mithril Hall?" he choked out. "Ye figured to return, avengin' meself?"
Catti-brie nodded, unblinking.
"Ye're bats, girl!" Bruenor said. "And the drow would let ye go alone?"
"Alone?" Catti-brie echoed. It was time for the rightful king to know. "Nay, nor would I so foolishly end me life. A hundred kin make their way from the north and west," she explained. "And a fair number of Wulfgar's folk beside 'em."
"Not enough," Bruenor replied. "An army of duergar scum holds the halls."
"And eight-thousand more from Citadel Adbar to the north and east," Catti-brie continued grimly, not slowing a beat. "King Harbromme of the dwarves of Adbar says he'll see the halls free again! Even the Harpells have promised their aid."
Bruenor drew a mental image of the approaching armies - wizards, barbarians, and a rolling wall of dwarves - and with Catti-brie at their lead. A thin smile cut the frown from his face. He looked upon his daughter with even more than the considerable respect he had always shown her, his eyes wet with tears once more.
"They wouldn't beat me," Catti-brie growled. "I meant to see yer face carved in the Hall of Kings, and meant to put yer name in its proper place o' glory!"
Bruenor grabbed her close and squeezed with all his strength. Of all the mantles and laurels he had found in the years gone by, or might find in the years ahead, none fit as well or blessed him as much as "Father."
* * *
Bruenor stood solemnly on the southern slope of Harpell Hill that evening, watching the last colors fade out of the western sky and the emptiness of the rolling plain to the south. His thoughts were on his friends, particularly Regis - Rumblebelly - the bothersome halfling that had undeniably found a soft corner in the dwarf's stone heart.
Drizzt would be okay - Drizzt was always okay - and with mighty Wulfgar walking beside him, it would take an army to bring them down.
But Regis.
Bruenor never had doubted that the halfling's carefree manner of living, stepping on toes with a half-apologetic and half-amused shrug, would eventually get him in mud too deep for his little legs to carry him through. Rumblebelly had been a fool to steal the guildmaster's ruby pendant.
But "just deserts" did nothing to dispel the dwarf's pity at his halfling friend's dilemma, nor Bruenor's anger at his own inability to help. By his station, his place was here, and he would lead the gathering armies to victory and glory, crushing the duergar and bringing a level of prosperity back to Mithril Hall. His new kingdom would be the envy of the North, with crafted items that rivaled the works of the ancient days flowing out into the trade routes all across the Realms.
It had been his dream, the goal of his life since that terrible day nearly two centuries before, when Clan Battlehammer had been nearly wiped out and those few who had survived, mostly children, had been chased out of their homeland to the meager mines of Icewind Dale.
Bruenor's lifelong dream was to return, but how hollow it seemed to him now, with his friends caught in a desperate chase across the southland.
The last light left the sky, and the stars blinked to life. Nighttime, Bruenor thought with a bit of comfort.
The time of the drow.
The first hints of his smile dissipated, though, as soon as they began, as Bruenor suddenly came to view the deepening gloom in a different perspective. "Nighttime," he whispered aloud.
The time of the assassin.