The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  Now the assailant staggered, and when he tried to put his feet back under him and swing around, he found a dwarfling flying upon him, crashing against him ferociously, climbing up him and rolling right over him, and so perfectly setting the wooden axe handle across the assailant’s throat as he did.

  Bruenor threw himself over the shoulder, twisting as he went, gripping the handle down low with one hand, up high with the other, as if his very life depended upon it. For indeed, such seemed to be the case!

  The assailant gasped something indecipherable as he fell back with Bruenor tumbling atop him as they went down in a heap.

  Bruenor knew that he couldn’t hope to choke the life out of this one, or even to extract himself and get away. For all his skill, he couldn’t outfight an attacker so much heavier and stronger, and certainly not with a practice axe. So he bit the assailant’s ear instead, his jaw clamping down through the thick fabric of a veil or mask of some sort, and with a growl, he stubbornly took hold.

  His victim issued a stream of invectives, along with a long, grunt, “Arr!” And he pushed back against the chokehold and Bruenor couldn’t hope to counter the strength of this adult.

  Or could he?

  His thoughts swirled back to the throne of Gauntlgrym and he felt the power of Clangeddin coursing through his veins, tightening his muscles. He let go of the ear then and focused on the axe handle, bringing it in tight against his victim’s throat, pressing the assailant’s windpipe despite the desperate counter-push.

  But then from the memory of the throne came the wisdom of Moradin, reminding him that no dwarfling his age could possibly win out in a contest like this. He was revealing a great secret in holding fast against the stubborn pull of his frantic victim.

  Better that, he realized, than being murdered in an empty lane.

  The attacker growled again, so Bruenor thought, but then he realized that the “arr” was really “Arr Arr!” and in a voice that the old dwarf in a dwarfling’s body surely recognized.

  With a squeal, Bruenor gave up the fight and let the assailant, Muttonchops Stonehammer, wrest the wooden practice axe from his grasp. As Muttonchops came forward with the sudden release, Bruenor rolled out to the side, put his feet under him and scrambled away.

  “By the gods, ye little rat!” Muttonchops said, gasping and choking through each word. He rolled up to a sitting position and stared back at the young dwarfling, who was on his feet again, set in a defensive posture and ready to throw himself into the fray or to run away in the span of an eye-blink.

  “Ye near broke me neck,” the old dwarf said, rubbing his throat, his other hand going to his bleeding ear.

  “Why?” Bruenor demanded. “Master, why? Was I angerin’ ye, then?”

  Muttonchops began to laugh, though he found himself coughing repeatedly as he did.

  Bruenor didn’t know what to make of any of this.

  “I knew ye was cheatin’ in the fights!” Muttonchops declared as if in victory. “And cheatin’ against yerself, ye durned fool!” Bruenor shrugged, still not catching on.

  Muttonchops stood up and Bruenor inched aside, ready to flee, but the old dwarf tossed him his practice axe and seemed to relax then.

  “Ye ain’t for doin’ yer father proud in the fightin’ classes,” Muttonchops explained. “Yer father, ye know? Arr Arr, Captain o’ the Guard. As fierce a fighter as Felbarr’s e’er known.”

  Again Bruenor merely shrugged and held his hands up helplessly, at a loss.

  “And ye ain’t losing in yer fights because yer fightin’ yer betters, oh no,” Muttonchops accused. “Ye’re losin’ because ye ain’t tryin’ to win! I seen it and I knowed it!” He rubbed his bloody ear again and spat onto the cobblestones—and there was a bit of blood in his spittle, too, from his bruised throat. “And ye just proved it.”

  “B-Bryunn’s a tough one, then,” Bruenor stuttered, trying to find some out.

  “Bah! Ye could’ve put him down. Ye just put meself down!”

  Bruenor stammered over that dilemma. “Fighting for me, uh … life,” he tried to explain. “Ye scared me crazy.”

  “Ye’re always fightin’ for yer life, ye little fool!” Muttonchops scolded, coming forward and poking a twisted old finger Bruenor’s way. “Always! Ye win a hunnerd and lose but one, and ye’re dead, like yer Da.”

  Bruenor started to respond but thought better of it.

  “Ye’re only losin’ in the class because ye don’t care for winning—and what’s Uween to say, then? How’s she to tell Arr Arr to rest easy under the stone o’ his cairn when his only child’s a coward, then?”

  Bruenor’s eyes narrowed at that remark, and he had to call upon the wisdom and temperance of Moradin once more to stop from launching himself at the irreverent old warrior yet again. He didn’t know where to go with this. He couldn’t deny Muttonchops’s observations, though surely the old veteran couldn’t have been farther off regarding the motivation behind Bruenor’s half-hearted efforts. He held back not out of boredom, and surely not out of cowardice, but because he was hiding something, something he could not reveal. Not yet.

  “I seen ye now, Little Arr Arr,” Muttonchops said. “I seen what ye can do, and I’m not for lettin’ ye spend yer fights running away and pretendin’ with yer trips and yer stumbles. Ye do yer Da proud, I tell ye, or ye’re to feel the broad side o’ that axe o’ yers slapping about yer rump! Ye hear me, then?”

  Bruenor stared at him, not sure how to respond.

  “Ye hear me, then?” Muttonchops repeated emphatically. “Do ye, Little Arr Arr?”

  “Reginald,” Bruenor corrected. Yes, it was time to make a stand.

  “Eh?”

  “Reginald is me name. Reginald Roundshield.”

  “Little Arr Arr …”

  “Reginald,” Bruenor insisted.

  “Yer Da was Arr Arr …,” Muttonchops started to say, but Bruenor interrupted him.

  “Me Da’s dead and cold under the stones.”

  That stole Muttonchops’s voice, and the old dwarf stood staring blankly at the impudent whelp.

  “But meself’s here, and don’t ye ne’er think again that I ain’t to do him proud. Me name’s Reginald. Reginald Roundshield, o’ the Felbarr Roundshields. Ye wanted me to own it—that’s why ye jumped me in the dark—and so I’ll be ownin’ it, but on me own terms and with me own name!”

  “Ye little rat,” Muttonchops replied, but he seemed more surprised—and pleased—than angered.

  “So ye send ’em at me next tenday,” Bruenor insisted. “Start with Bryunn Argut and send ’em all, one after another, or two together if that’s yer choice, or three, or all together! And when I put ’em all down, one after another, then know that yer class ain’t teaching the son o’ Arr Arr nothing. Then ye move me along to the next class.”

  Muttonchops paused for a long while, staring at him, trying to gain a measure of him. “Young dwarf warriors, next class, and not dwarflings,” he warned.

  Bruenor didn’t blink, and matched Muttonchops’s stare with equal intensity and more. He was surprised by his own anger, deep and profound, and his discomfort and anger were about more than the boredom of basic martial training, or the indignity of being attacked in the dark by this old codger. On one level, Bruenor felt foolish for the path he had just taken, and yet he had no thought of turning back. Not in the least.

  “Ye got nothin’ to teach me with them dwarflings,” he said.

  Muttonchops assumed a less aggressive posture. “So ye think ye can put ’em all down, eh?”

  “All o’ them together, if that’s yer choice,” Bruenor replied.

  “Might be.”

  Bruenor didn’t flinch. Indeed, he merely shrugged, already growing bored with this conversation.

  “Ye best put a priest in the room,” he said in all sincerity. “Know that them others’re sure to need a bit of Dumathoin’s dweomers o’ healing.”

  Muttonchops started to respond, but instead reached up and touched his ble
eding ear once more, and then with a grunt that was half growl and half snort, he turned and walked out of the lane.

  Bruenor Battlehammer stood there alone in the dim light for a long, long while, considering the encounter, and the one sure to come. Most of all, though, he considered his anger, swirling within him. He was distinctly uneasy, and had been for as long as he could remember. This whole experience of his second chance at life hadn’t been as he had expected—the years moved more slowly than he could have imagined when he had walked out of Iruladoon.

  On that remote day, he had stepped from the forest to go to the aid of his old friend, Drizzt, a friend he had left, by his reckoning, only a couple of days before, though it had been years in the time as measured by the living. But now Bruenor had been away from Drizzt for nearly a decade by his own reckoning as well, and the energy and enthusiasm that had overcome him and allowed him to choose the return above a deserved rest in Dwarfhome had long faded.

  He was out of his time and out of his place, and terribly lonely and terribly agitated, and with more than a decade to go.

  He picked up his practice axe and set it over his shoulder, then headed for home. Muttonchops was going to try to punish him, he knew, and probably would send the whole class charging at him in one wild frenzy the next tenday.

  Should he back down, he wondered? Should he apologize to the old dwarf and explain his bluster away as a reaction to his lingering excitement and fear because of the ambush?

  The dwarfling let a wad of spit fly to the stone and stamped his booted foot on it as he stormed past. “Send ’em all together,” he muttered under his breath, and in that instant, Bruenor could well imagine a dozen dwarflings flying around like straws in a hurricane.

  No, he wasn’t about to back down, and maybe when he finished with his peers, he’d give Muttonchops a swat or ten just to make a point.

  He shouldered through the door of his house, startling Uween, who turned on him with a scowl.

  “So I be hearin’ that ye ain’t much for fightin’, are ye?” she scolded. “Ye thinkin’ to make yer Da hang his bearded head in shame at Moradin’s side, are ye?”

  “I’m thinkin’ I’d rather be killing orcs than playing tap-battle with a bunch o’ whinin’ brats!” Bruenor roared back and stormed past her, leaving her so flustered that she couldn’t even remember to swat him on the backside for his tone and back-talk.

  CHAPTER 8

  SPIDER

  The Year of the Third Circle (1472 DR) Delthuntle

  WHERE’D HE GO?” THE TEENAGER YELLED, SKIDDING TO A STOP. HE HAD come around the corner of the building in close pursuit, expecting to snare the child thief in a couple of strides. But the sneaky halfling had simply vanished.

  “Get him!” cried the teenager’s friend as he hustled past.

  Across the street, a group sitting at a table in front of a fishmonger’s mercantile laughed at the two, and at the others who came bobbing up behind them … and laughed all the louder at the other group of teens that came around the other side of the building, apparently to head off the little halfling.

  The first teenager, the leader of the gang, scowled at the group of diners, which only made them laugh all the louder, of course. One of them pointed upward. The leader of the teens leaped away from the building and looked up, and sure enough, there went his prey, moving easily and swiftly from ledge to ledge, already nearing the roof.

  “You rat!” the teenager yelled. He leaped to grab the ledge atop a window and began to hoist himself up.

  But this was no easy climb, and indeed, within a few heartbeats, he had reached an apparent dead end, as had his companion who was similarly trying to scale the wall.

  “How?” asked a third of the group, for the fleeing halfling was easily going over the roof’s edge, while the two older, taller, and stronger human boys—and even an elf girl at the other end—couldn’t begin to scale the tall building.

  The leader of the gang dropped back down to the ground and shouted up “You rat!” at the disappearing form.

  “More like a spider,” one of the men across the street called, and that group laughed all the harder at the foiled teenagers’ expense.

  “Spider,” agreed the lithe and pretty elf lass, who had also surrendered the seemingly impossible climb and moved back toward her friends. “That little one can climb anything.”

  “He’ll be climbing through the mud trying to get out from under my boot when I catch him,” the gang leader promised.

  “Ah, but let it be gone from your mind,” said the elf girl. She looked up toward the roof line, admiration clear on her face. “He’s just a child. Cannot be more than eight or nine years alive, and he’s a clever one.” She ended with a giggle.

  The boy stared at her, his lips moving this way and that, but no words coming forth.

  “I like him,” the elf stated flatly. “He makes it fun. And all he took was your whistle.”

  “The whistle my Da gave me!” the gang leader protested.

  On cue, that whistle sounded from up above, and all eyes turned that way just in time to see the stolen item fly over the edge of the roof, back down to the teenager’s waiting hands.

  “He only did it to prove he could, and only because you were mean to him,” said the elf girl, and she giggled again and walked off with her friends, pausing only to say again, “Let it be gone from your mind. You’ll not lessen your embarrassment by beating up a halfling child.”

  “Spider,” said the man at the table across the street. “An apt name for that one, I think.”

  “Aye, don’t think I’ve seen anyone climb the face of a building as capably,” another replied.

  “Or near as fast,” said another. “Course, he was running for his little life!”

  That brought some laughter and the conversation continued about this mysterious little Spider character. Delthuntle was a fair-sized city, though, and none knew the identity of the halfling, or where he might have come from or where he might be going. Throughout their talk, the four discussing the matter kept glancing toward the fifth of the group, one who had not spoken at all since the shouts had begun from the distant lane and the little halfling, Spider, had bounded into view.

  This fifth, unlike the other four at the table, was also a halfling. Dressed in the finest silks, with a fashionable golden sash belt and a fancy blue beret, its front edge tacked down with a large golden pin, Pericolo Topolino rested back in his seat with the easy confidence of competence and experience, and the wisdom of age.

  That confidence, of course, was boosted more than a little by a well-earned reputation, for few in Delthuntle would deign to cross Pericolo Topolino.

  He feigned indifference, but in truth keenly registered every word spoken by his companions. He never returned their looks, however, focusing instead across the street to the teenage ruffians.

  “Who is that one?” he asked at length, and the other four fell to abrupt silence, eagerly following his gesture to indicate the leader of the teenage gang.

  “Bregnan Prus,” two answered in unison, the other two quickly agreeing.

  “Aye, and his Ma serves at a lord’s palace as a handmaid and he lives on the grounds,” one added.

  Pericolo tapped his stubby fingertips together before his chin, unblinking as he considered this arrogant young ruffian who was still shouting curses up at the empty roof line.

  A young ruffian, he figured, who might be in need of a proper … education.

  “We’re not to catch him that way,” complained Pater, one of the other boys.

  Bregnan Prus turned a hateful glare his way, backing him down.

  “Are we to stand here all day and yell at a wall?” another asked, coming to Pater’s defense, for without that show of solidarity, the infuriated Bregnan might have begun throwing his fists, as was often the case.

  “I want that one,” Bregnan Prus said in a low, threatening tone.

  “He’s just a child!” protested the elf lass, standing with her
friends not far away.

  “Let’s get out of here,” offered another of the boys.

  Bregnan Prus took a moment to glower at the elf, but nodded his agreement and brought his returned whistle to his lips, blowing a sharp note to collect the members of his gang.

  He cut that note short, however, and a curious expression came over his face, first a sour look, then one of confusion, and finally with his eyes widening in horror. His face contorted weirdly, and it took the others, both his immediate companions and the group of girls, a few moments to realize that no matter how hard Bregnan twisted his features, his lips would not come free of the whistle!

  “Oyster glue!” Pater shouted in shock, and all around gasped, and gasped again, then began to titter, then began to laugh.

  For it was true enough. Spider, or whatever the little thief’s name might be, had sneakily coated the whistle with the substance found in a particular breed of Sea of Fallen Stars shellfish, a sticky and stubborn sealant known as oyster glue, an innocuous enough substance until it met with water, or in this case, with the moisture of Bregnan’s lips.

  Bregnan Prus grunted repeatedly, issuing little toots from the stuck whistle in the process—and to the great amusement of all onlookers.

  “So let’s get him,” Pater offered, though he couldn’t stop himself from giggling between words. “We’re not to do that standing here.”

  Bregnan Prus punched him in the mouth, and tooted at him as he did, though whether for good measure or inadvertently, none around could tell.

  A few days later, Regis put his back against the wall and took a deep breath. He had brought the conflict to this point on purpose, he reminded himself. This was a test he would not fail. In the days and nights that had passed since the theft and sabotage of the whistle, he had led Bregnan Prus’s band on a merry chase indeed, all around the shadows of Delthuntle’s streets.

  But now that the moment of truth closed, dark wings of doubt fluttered up all around him. He was too young and too frail for this, perhaps. For all his training, his incessant exercise and practice, his body remained that of a child, and a halfling one at that!