The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  Similarly, new buildings have arisen, while others have fallen. New boats replace those which have been surrendered to the three great lakes of the area.

  There is a reason and logic to the place and a wondrous harmony. In Icewind Dale, it all makes sense. The population of Ten-Towns grows and shrinks, but mostly remains stable to that which the region can support.

  This is an important concept in the valuation of the self, for far too many people seem oblivious to the implications of this most basic truth: The world continues outside of their personal experience. Oh, perhaps they do not consciously express such a doubt of this obvious truth, but I have met more than one who has postulated that this existence is a dream—his dream—and the rest of us, therefore, are mere components within the reality of his creation. Indeed, I have met many who act that way, whether they have thought it out to that level of detail or not.

  I speak, of course, of empathy, or in the cases stated, of the lack thereof. We are in constant struggle, the self and the community, where in our hearts we need to decide where one line ends and another begins. For some, this is a matter of religion, the unquestioned edicts of a professed god or gods, but for most, I would hope, it is a realization of the basic truth that the community, the society, is a needed component in the preservation of the self, both materially and spiritually.

  I have considered this many times before and professed my belief in community. Indeed, it was just that belief that stood me up again when I was beaten down with grief, when I led my newfound companions out of Neverwinter to serve the greater good of a worthy place called Port Llast. This, to me, is not a difficult choice; to serve the community is to serve the self. Even Artemis Entreri, that most cynical of creatures, could hardly disguise the sense of satisfaction he felt when we pushed the sea devils back under the surf for the good of the goodly folk of Port Llast.

  As I consider my own roots and the various cultures through which I have passed, however, there is a more complicated question: What is the role of the community to the self? And what of the smaller communities within the larger? What are their roles or their responsibilities?

  Surely common defense is paramount to the whole, but the very idea of community needs to go deeper than that. What farming community would survive if the children were not taught the ways of the fields and cattle? What dwarf homeland would thrive through the centuries if the dwarflings were not tutored in the ways of stone and metal? What band of elves could dance in the forest for centuries untold if not for the training given the children, the ways of the stars and the winds?

  And there remain many tasks too large for any one man, or woman, or family, critical to the prosperity and security of any town or city. No one man could build the wall around Luskan, or the docks of Baldur’s Gate, or the great archways and wide boulevards of Waterdeep, or the soaring cathedrals of Silverymoon. No one church, either, and so these smaller groupings within the larger societies need to contribute, for the good of all, whether citizens of their particular flock or group, or not.

  But what then of the concentration of power that might accompany the improvements and the hierarchical regimentation that may result within any given community? In societies such as a dwarf clan, this is settled through the bloodlines and proper heirs, but in a great city of mixed heritage and various cultures, the allocation of power is certainly less definitive. I have witnessed lords willing to allow their peasants to starve, while food rots in their own larders, piled deep and far too plentiful for one house to possibly consume. I have seen, as with Prisoner’s Carnival in Luskan, magistrates who use the law as a weapon for their own ends. And even in Waterdeep, whose lords are considered among the most beneficent in all the world, lavish palaces look down upon hovels and shanties, or orphaned children shivering in the street.

  Once again, and to my surprise, I look to Ten-Towns as my example, for in this place, where the population remains fairly steady, if the individuals constantly change, there is logical and reasoned continuity. Here the ten communities remain distinct and choose among them their respective leaders through various means, and those leaders have a voice at the common council.

  The irony of Icewind Dale is that these communities, full of solitary folk (often numbering among their citizens many who fled the law or some gang, using Ten-Towns as a last refuge), full of those who could not, supposedly, live among the civilized societies, are in truth among the most cooperative places I have ever known. The individual fishing boats on Maer Dualdon might vie fiercely for favored spots, but when the winter sets in, none in Ten-Towns starve while others feast heartily. None in Ten-Towns freeze in the empty street when there is room near a hearth—and there is always such room to be found. Likely it is the ferocity of the land, where all understand that numbers alone keep them safe from the yetis and the goblinkin and giantkind.

  And that is the point of community: common need and common good, the strength of numbers, the tenderness of a helping hand, the ability to work as one to attain greater heights for all, the widening of horizons beyond one’s own perspective and one’s own family, the enrichment of life itself.

  Oh, but there are many who would not agree with me, who view the responsibilities to the community, be it in tithe of food, wealth, or time, as too cumbersome or infringing upon their personal liberties … which I find too oft defined as personal desires and greed buried in the disguise of prettier words.

  To them I can only insist that the ultimate loss exceeds the perceived gain. What good is your gold if your friends will not lift you when you have fallen?

  How long lived our memory of you when you are gone? Because in the end, that is the only measure. In the end, when life’s last flickers fade, all that remains is memory. Richness, in the final measure, is not weighed in gold coins, but in the number of people you have touched, the tears of those who mourn your passing, and the fond remembrances of those who continue to celebrate your life.

  —Drizzt Do’Urden

  CHAPTER 7

  ARR ARR’S BOY

  The Year of the Third Circle (1472 DR) Citadel Felbarr

  MURGATROID “MUTTONCHOPS” STONEHAMMER SIGHED AND PULLED AT his thick black beard, tugging hard enough to flex the muscles in his large arm. He gritted his teeth and pulled his beard back the other way.

  It was not an uncommon gesture from the old fighter, who was indeed very old, the oldest dwarf in Citadel Felbarr as far as anyone could tell. Muttonchops had lived an adventurous life, had fought with King Emerus against Obould and the orcs, and had even been in Mithral Hall when King Bruenor had made his legendary return to the battlefield to meet the charge of Obould’s thousands in the valley known as Keeper’s Dale, beyond the complex’s western gate. For all his battles, though, the Stonehammer patriarch had never truly distinguished himself, and his greatest accomplishment, so it now seemed, was his longevity.

  Certainly he was respected among the denizens of Citadel Felbarr, as none would dispute, but this new job he had been given …

  Muttonchops served as a trainer now, typically considered a position of high respect and regard, except that his trainees included dwarflings, the oldest of this particular group being twelve. These elders in his charge invariably ended up the worst fighters of that age group.

  “Arr Arr’s boy’s not showin’ much,” remarked Rocky Warcrown, third cousin to the king, twice-removed.

  The old Stonehammer wanted to argue the point, but he could only sigh and tug his beard again, for across the room, little Arr Arr, who was just past his ninth birthday, engaged in battle with a lad from the Argut clan, a promising and powerful ten-year-old.

  Bryunn Argut swept his shield out far before him and off to the left, driving young Arr Arr back a step. Without missing a step, without the slightest hesitation, Bryunn leaped forward as he twisted around, sweeping his weapon, a wooden axe, across ferociously.

  Arr Arr ducked—just barely!—and stumbled backward a few steps. Bryunn Argut pursued with a series of chops and
swipes that kept the younger dwarfling off-balance all the way.

  “He’s a head taller than Little Arr Arr,” Muttonchops remarked, but Rocky’s snort made his excuse seem quite ridiculous.

  “A year older, too, then,” said Rocky. “Ye think that’s for makin’ any difference?”

  The concern in his tone struck Muttonchops profoundly, for many eyes were upon this dwarfling known to everyone in Felbarr as Little Arr Arr. For as long as anyone could remember, the Roundshields had served as captains of Citadel Felbarr’s garrison, a proud tradition of fearsome warriors and grand and loyal subjects to the Warcrowns. Reginald Roundshield, Arr Arr’s father, had been among the most popular and respected dwarves in all of Felbarr until his death at the hands of rogue orcs when Little Arr Arr was but a toddler.

  Everyone in Felbarr wanted Little Arr Arr to succeed, to step up in the tradition of his father and those grandfathers before him. This was the security of the clan, after all, the solid dependability of generational continuity, the son of a son of a son of a son of a captain.

  But Little Arr Arr wasn’t showing that kind of promise, and even King Emerus himself had noted as much on his last visit to Muttonchops’s training grounds.

  Rocky Warcrown sucked in his breath as a last-heartbeat twist brought Little Arr Arr’s shield up just in time to deflect an axe swipe that would surely have knocked the child silly.

  Muttonchops, too, winced, but he came out of it more quickly, his veteran eyes noting something here that he hadn’t before, and with a hunch in his gut speaking a different story to him than what his eyes were telling him.

  Young Reginald fought the urge to jab the tip of his own wooden axe into the exposed armpit of Bryunn Argut.

  How would a nine-year-old dwarfling respond? Bruenor kept asking himself, kept reminding himself. The awkwardness of the attacks—and not just those of Bryunn, who was quite formidable compared to most of the others in this class—constantly caught the old dwarf king in a young body off his guard.

  But they were only at the training grounds once a tenday, after all, and this was but rudimentary training. Muttonchops Stonehammer’s job was merely to acquaint the dwarflings with the sensation of giving and taking a hit, and to allow them their first opportunities of the rolling spin and slash, or the shield rush, or any of the other building blocks of straightforward, basic dwarf fighting.

  For Bruenor, though, as many times as he might remind himself of this, the whole experience proved mind-numbingly simple. He was well-acquainted with this new body he had been given, and had been for years.

  Bryunn Argut came forward with a powerful downward chop, but one that could only fall short, Bruenor recognized, and as he did, he knew the movement to be quite obviously a diversion for the coming shield rush.

  He was moving at the same time as Bryunn, cleverly disguising his dodge as a slip and stumble. As Bryunn came charging forward, Little Arr Arr “fell” forward and to the side, tucking his head under his lifting shield and rolling behind the approaching opponent.

  He resisted the urge to kick out Bryunn’s trailing foot and send the lad sprawling to the floor. He liked Bryunn, after all, thought him a promising dwarfling fighter, and didn’t want to embarrass him!

  “Bah, but good thing he tripped o’er his own feet, eh?” Rocky Warcrown remarked. “Or to be sure that th’Argut kid would’ve flap-jacked him!” Rocky laughed, obviously picturing the event, for the term “flap-jack” referred to pancakes, and a flap-jacked fighter was one laid out flat, sprawled under the crush of a shield rush, truly among the most comical outcomes to be found on the training grounds.

  “Aye,” Muttonchops replied, but without conviction, and he was nodding as he spoke, though surely not in agreement with his companion’s assessment.

  “Ah, but Uween’s to be heartbroken to learn that her one son, the heir to the Roundshield legacy, is just a flat-footed oaf,” Rocky said. “Poor old Arr Arr’s turnin’ in his grave, don’t ye doubt.”

  But the wily old veteran Muttonchops did doubt.

  “He’s bored,” he muttered.

  “Eh?” asked Rocky Warcrown, and he followed Muttonchops’s stare across the grounds just in time to see Bryunn Argut launch an endgame assault, what Muttonchops had taught the dwarflings to think of as “the killing frenzy.”

  Bryunn’s wooden axe swooped in with abandon, from the left, then right, overhead and stabbing straight forward, over and over again. He continually pressed and bulled ahead, purely offensive in design, keeping Arr Arr on his heels the whole time and almost hitting him—almost!—with every devastating strike.

  Almost … but never quite.

  Rocky sucked in his breath repeatedly, obviously expecting Little Arr Arr to take one on the chin in short order.

  Muttonchops suppressed a knowing laugh and nod and wasn’t the least bit surprised when Bryunn Argut finally relented and Arr Arr, still back on his heels, hadn’t actually been touched. The teacher slapped his fingers against the chimes hanging beside him, signaling the end of the matches, and soon after dismissed his twenty trainees.

  “He did well to keep his beardless head on his shoulders,” Rocky admitted. “But ne’er got close to hitting the Argut lad.”

  “Aye, Bryunn Argut’s a promisin’ one. He’ll find hisself in with the stubble group soon enough,” Muttonchops agreed, “the stubble group” referring to the dwarf teenagers, their little beards just beginning to sprout. The old veteran looked around, then settled his gaze on Rocky Warcrown. “Be a good friend, then,” he asked, “and see to getting them off to their homes. I got something what’s needin’ to be done.”

  “Stubble group’s coming in next, ain’t they?” Rocky asked. “Was hoping to see the Fellhammer sisters. Word’s that them two might be joining a battlerager brigade.”

  “Aye, and aye again, that they might,” Muttonchops replied. “Fist’n’Fury, I call ’em. Fist’n’Fury, and any I’m puttin’ against them ain’t the happiest o’ me students! Be a good friend then for me and send the little ones on their way. And might that ye start the next group to their strengthening exercises. I’ll not be gone long.”

  Rocky nodded and Muttonchops left in a hurry, the cagey old dwarf realizing that he’d have to be quick now.

  Bruenor walked along the quiet tunnels of Citadel Felbarr soon after, his practice axe swinging at the end of his right arm, shield still strapped on his left.

  Another day.

  Another wasted day.

  That was how he saw it, at least, for he had long ago acclimated to this new body—it was fully his own now, as surely as had been the muscled and scarred one his spirit had departed in the depths of Gauntlgrym. He even looked like himself, his old self, like Bruenor Battlehammer at the age of nine! That notion had surprised him when first he had realized the resemblance. He had wondered about it, of course, unsure of how Mielikki’s “gift” might affect such things. Might he have been a blue-bearded dwarf? Or even a female? Catti-brie hadn’t said, after all, explaining only that they would be reborn somewhere in Faerûn to parents of their own race. She hadn’t mentioned gender, or their expected appearance, at all.

  Wouldn’t Drizzt be in for a surprise if he met Catti-brie again, only to find her not a “her” at all, but a strapping young lad!

  Bruenor shook that discomforting thought out of his head. He felt like himself now—there was no other way to describe it. His reflection looked familiar to him; his hands were the young hands he had known as a Battlehammer dwarfling. And he was fully in control of this young body, more so even than he had been the first time around at a similar age. His private practice sessions showed him the truth: he could execute moves that a nine-year-old Bruenor had never imagined. His understanding of battle remained and all the centuries of training had followed him through the spirit world to this new physical form.

  He had to attend the classes of Murgatroid Stonehammer, of course, for they were not optional in Citadel Felbarr, but he feared that these sessions
were actually dulling his senses and unlearning the great lessons repetition and action had so deeply imbued within him.

  And of course, there was always the possibility that he would forget himself in one of these ridiculous training fights and accidentally humiliate, or even lay low, a fine young dwarf.

  The dwarf sighed and turned down a lonely lane in the quarter of the underground complex that housed the city soldiers. He brought his wooden axe up onto his shoulder and thought of another weapon, one many-notched …

  The attack came from the side, a heavy and squat form charging out at him, shield-rushing behind a thick oaken buckler. Hardly even thinking of the movement, indeed thinking of nothing but getting out of the way, the surprised Bruenor threw himself forward and down to the side, exactly as he had done with the Argut boy earlier. Up came his shield to cover his head and facilitate the roll, and he came around in perfect balance as the highwaydwarf, or whomever or whatever it might be, sped past.

  Unlike in the practice fight, however, Bruenor wasn’t about to let this one get past him so easily. He flung himself around, his wooden axe reaching out fast at the attacker’s trailing ankle. With a proper weapon, he might have severed the fool’s foot, but with the practice axe, he took a different tact, hooking the axe head around his attacker’s ankle and tugging hard. When that proved futile, given the difference in size, where Bruenor could not hope to pull this one’s feet out from under him, Bruenor instead scrabbled forward with all speed.

  He unhooked the axe as he crashed against the attacker’s leg and again, could barely budge the assailant, who had recovered his balance by then. Up went the practice axe’s tip, right between the attacker’s legs, prodding at his groin, and when Bruenor’s opponent predictably hopped up on his toes and rushed forward, Bruenor swatted the trailing foot so that it tripped up on the back of the suddenly retreating attacker’s forward ankle.