Though nearly half of the dwarves were fighting beside the Axe, and though many, many humans continued to filter down to quell the riot, it took hours to get the supporters of Torgar under control. Even then, the soldiers of the marchion were faced with the unenviable task of containing more than a hundred prisoners.
Hundreds more were watching them, they knew, and the first sign of mistreatment would likely ignite an even larger riot.
To Agrathan, who came late upon the scene, the destruction along the streets, the bloodied faces of so many of his kin, and even more than that the expressions of sheer outrage on so many, showed him the very danger of which he had warned the marchion laid bare. He went to the Axe commanders one by one, pressing for lenience and wise choices concerning the disposition of the prisoners, always with a grim warning that though the top was on the boiling kettle, the fire was still hot beneath it.
"Keep the peace as best ye can, but not a swing too far," Agrathan warned every commander.
After reciting that speech over and over, after pulling one angry guard after another off a prisoner, the exhausted councilor moved to the side of one avenue and plopped down on a stone bench.
"They got Torgar!" came a voice he could not ignore.
He looked up to see a bruised and battered Shingles, who seemed more than ready to break free of the two men who held him and start the row all over again.
"They dragged him from the road and beat him down!"
Agrathan looked hard at the old dwarf, gently patting his hands in the air to try to calm Shingles.
"Ye knew it!" Shingles roared. "Ye knew it all along, and ye're not for caring!"
"I care," Agrathan countered, leaping up from the bench.
"Bah! Ye're a short human, and not a thing more!"
As he shouted the insult, the guards holding Shingles gave a rough jerk, one letting go with one hand to slap the old dwarf across the face.
That was all the opening he needed. He accepted the slap with a growing grin then leaped around, breaking completely free of that one's grasp. Then, without hesitation, he launched his free fist hard into the gut of the soldier still holding him, doubling the man over and loosening his grasp. Shingles tore free completely, twisting and punching to avoid the grasp of the first man.
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 fr
iends, 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.."
He stopped there, and simply shrugged.
"As I, too, love them," Catti-brie answered.
"That is not what I mean," Wulfgar replied, not letting the dodge go past. "Do you love him? Do you see him as your partner, on the trails and in the home?"
Catti-brie looked at Wulfgar hard, trying to discern his intent. She saw no jealousy, no anger, and no signal of hopes, one way or the other. What she saw was Wulfgar, the true Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, a caring and loving companion.
"I do not know," she heard herself saying before she ever really considered the question.
The words caught her by surprise, hung in the air and in her thoughts, and she knew them to be true.
"I have felt your pain and your doubts," Wulfgar said, his voice going even softer, and he moved to her and braced her shoulders with his hands and lowered his forehead against hers. "We are all here for you, in any manner that you need. We, all of us, Drizzt included, are first your friends."
Catti-brie closed her eyes and let herself sink into that comforting moment, losing herself in the solidity of Wulfgar, in the understanding that he knew her pain, profoundly, that he had climbed from depths that she could hardly imagine. She found comfort in the knowledge that Wulfgar had returned from hell, that he had found his way, or at least, that he was walking a truer road.
She, too, would find that path, wherever it led.
"Bruenor told me," Drizzt said to Wulfgar when the drow returned from his extended scouting of the mountains to the northeast.
The drow dropped a hand onto his friend's shoulder and nodded.
"It was a rescue not unlike one of those Drizzt Do'Urden has perfected," Wulfgar replied, and he looked away.
"You have my thanks."
"I did not do it for you."
The simple statement, spoken simply, without obvious malice or anger, widened Drizzt's purple eyes.
"Of course not," he agreed.
The dark elf backed away, staring hard at Wulfgar, trying to find some clue as to where the barbarian's thoughts might be.
He saw only an impassive face, turned toward him.
"If we arc to go thanking each other every time one of us stays the weapon hand an enemy has aimed at another, then we will spend our days doing little else," Wulfgar said. "Catti-brie was in trouble, and I was fortunate enough — we were all fortunate enough — to have come upon her in time. Did I do any more or less than Drizzt Do'Urden might have done?"
The perplexed Drizzt said, "No."
"Did I do more, then, than Bruenor Battlehammer might have done, had he seen his daughter in such mortal peril?"
"No."
"Did I do more, then, than Regis would have done, or at least, would have tried to do?"
"I have taken your point," Drizzt said.
"Then hold it well," said Wulfgar, and he looked away once more.
It took Drizzt a few moments to finally catch on to what was happening. Wulfgar had seen his thanks as condescending, as if, somehow, he had done something beyond what the companions would expect of each other. That notion hadn't sat well on the big man's shoulders.
"I take back my offer of thanks," Drizzt said.
Wulfgar merely chuckled.
"Perhaps, instead, I offer you a warm welcome back," Drizzt added.
That turned Wulfgar to him, the barbarian throwing a puzzled expression his way.
Drizzt nodded and walked away, leaving Wulfgar with those words to consider. The drow turned his gaze to a rocky outcropping to the south of the encampment, where a solitary figure sat quietly.
"She's been up there all the day," Bruenor remarked, moving beside the drow. "Ever since he brought her back."
"Lying at the feet of outraged orcs can be an unsettling experience."
"Ye think?"
Drizzt looked over at his bearded friend.
"Ye gonna go to her, elf?" Bruenor asked.
Drizzt wasn't sure, and his confusion showed clearly on his face.
"Yeah, she might be needin' some time to herself," Bruenor remarked. He looked back at Wulfgar, drawing the drow's gaze with his own. "Not exactly the hero she'd expected, I'd be guessin'."
The words hit Drizzt hard, mostly because the implications were forcing him to emotional places to which he did not wish to venture. What was this about, after all? Was it about Wulfgar rescuing his former and Drizzt's present love? Or was it about one of the companions rescuing another, as had happened so many times on their long and trying road?
The latter, Drizzt decided. It had to be the latter, and all the rest of it was emotional baggage that had no place among them. Not out where an orc or giant seemed crouched behind every boulder, ready to kill them. Not out where such distractions could lead to incredible disaster. Drizzt nearly laughed aloud as he considered the swirl of thoughts churning within him, including those same protective feelings toward Catti-brie for which he had once scolded a younger Wulfgar.
He focused on the positive, then, on the fact that Catti-brie had survived without serious wounds, and on the fact that this stride Wulfgar had taken, this act of courage and strength and heroism, would likely move him further along his road back from the pits of Errtu's hell. Indeed, in looking at the barbarian then, moving with confidence and grace among the dwarves, a calm expression upon his face, it seemed to Drizzt as if the last edges of the smoke of the Abyss has washed clean of his features. Yes, Drizzt decided, it was a good day.
"I saw the tower of Shallows at midday," the drow told Bruenor, "but though I was close enough to see it clearly, even to make out the forms of the soldiers walking atop it, I believe we have a couple of days' march ahead of us. I was on the edge of a long ravine when I glimpsed it, one that will take days to move around."
"But the town was still standing?" the dwarf asked.
"Seemed a peaceful place, with pennants flying in the summer breeze."
"As it should be, elf. As it should be," Bruenor remarked. "We'll go in and tell 'em what's been what, and might that I'll leave a few dwarves with 'cm if they're needing the help, and—"
"And we go home," said Drizzt, studying Bruenor as he spoke, noting clearly that the dwarf wasn't hearing those words as any blessing.
"Might be other towns needin' us to check in on them," Bruenor
huffed.
"I am sure that we can find a few if we look hard enough."
Bruenor either missed the sarcastic grin on Drizzt's face or simply chose to ignore it.
"Yup," the dwarf king said, and he walked away.
Drizzt watched him go, but his gaze was inevitably drawn back up to the high outcropping, to the lone figure of Catti-brie.
He wanted to go to her—desperately wanted to go and put his arms around her and tell her that everything was all right.
For some reason, though, Drizzt thought that would be ultimately unfair. He sensed that she needed some space from him and from everyone else, that she needed to sort through all the emotions that her close encounter with her own mortality had brought bubbling within her.
What kind of a friend might he be if he did not allow her that space?
Wulfgar was with the main body of dwarves that next day on the road, helping to haul the supplies, but Regis remained outside the group, moving along the higher trails with Drizzt and Catti-brie. He spent little time scouting for enemies, though, for he was too busy watching his two friends, and noting, very definitely, the change that had come over them.
Drizzt was all business, as usual, signaling back directions and weaving around with a sureness of foot and a speed that the others, save Guenhwyvar who was not even there this day, could not hope to match. The drow was pretending as if nothing had happened, Regis saw clearly, but it was just that, a pretense.
His zigzagging routes were keeping him closer to Catti-brie, the halfling noted, constantly coming to vantage points that put him in sight of the woman. Truly, the drow's movements surprised Regis, for never before had he seen Drizzt so protective.
Was it protectiveness, the halfling had to wonder, or was it something else?
The change in Catti-brie was even more obvious. There was a coolness about her, particularly toward Drizzt. It wasn't anything overtly rude, it was just that she was speaking much less that day than normally, answering his directions with a simple nod or shrug. The incident with the orcs was weighing heavily on her mind, Regis supposed.
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