The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  He looked at Parson Glaive and wanted nothing more than to run over and dress the priest down, to tell him that it was all a joke, that Moradin played with them and ridiculed them, and laughed at their victories and failures equally!

  But he didn’t.

  And he knew what he wanted, above all: to be back in Iruladoon to bid farewell to Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar, to enter the pool and go to his earned rewards in Dwarfhome.

  But King Emerus couldn’t give that to him, and so another notion came to him suddenly.

  “To go to Mithral Hall,” he said. “That’s me wish.”

  King Emerus was smiling widely, and started to respond, but caught himself as he clearly digested the young dwarf’s demand, and just stared blankly at the hero of the night. The gathering in the hall around them went silent, with many shoulders lifting in a shrug.

  “Mithral Hall?” the king asked.

  “Aye,” Bruenor confirmed, and just to break the confusion, for indeed it was a surprising request, he added, “and a keg o’ this,” and held up his mug of Gutbuster.

  That was what the gathering had expected to hear, of course, and their confusion flew away in the burst of a great cheer.

  “Two wishes, then!” King Emerus declared. “And so it will be!” And the crowd cheered more, except for the Fellhammer sisters, Bruenor noted, who both seemed a bit disappointed.

  Bruenor continued to smile, and took a hefty gulp of Gutbuster, but it was all for show, designed to keep up the charade of his feigned identity. He was truly looking back inside his own thoughts, and weighing the emotional cost of fulfilling his request to return to Mithral Hall, where he had twice been king.

  His gut had told him to return there, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

  Spring came on in full and turned to summer, but Bruenor did not get his wish in those seasons, or in that year at all. Parson Glaive overruled him, insisting that the young dwarf’s injuries were too severe for him to make that always-dangerous and burdensome trip. Bruenor wanted to argue; now that he had proclaimed his plan to return to Mithral Hall, his desire to be on with it had only grown. But he could not, for Parson Glaive had told him, and told King Emerus, that Reginald could well prove a liability on such a trip.

  And so King Emerus had counseled patience, and Bruenor had agreed without complaint.

  In truth, what did a few months, even a year, matter?

  So he focused on getting healthy and strong once more, and was back to training by the end of the summer. He spent as much time as he could with Uween, as well, for her presence at the gathering had taught him something important: Perhaps he would never see himself as her son, as a Roundshield of Felbarr, but poor Uween could never see him as anything but. He had a responsibility to her, owed a debt to her, and he would not forsake it. For all of his anger at Moradin and the other gods, he would not show hostility or indifference to this dwarf woman who had offered him nothing but the unconditional love of a parent.

  By the turn of the winter of the Year of the Dark Circle, though, the darkness began to descend upon Bruenor once more, and when came the turn of Dalereckoning 1479, the Year of the Ageless One, the red-bearded dwarf’s patience had fully run out.

  Day after day, he prodded his elders on when the first caravan out from Citadel Felbarr to Mithral Hall would commence, and he confronted Parson Glaive many times to ensure that the priest would not reverse his recent determination that Reginald was ready for the road.

  In his whole life, this one and the previous, Bruenor had never felt himself more ready for the road.

  He knew that he was becoming more and more testy, his patience long gone. Fist and Fury began avoiding him.

  In a sparring match one day early in the second month, Alturiak, Bruenor nearly split the skull of his opponent, so hard was his chop with his practice weapon.

  “Ah, but that’s enough of ye,” Ragged Dain said a short while later, coming into the training grounds all red in the face, eyes wide and lips full of froth. He moved to the weapons rack and grabbed out a wooden axe, then stormed over to Bruenor.

  “Yerself and me, then,” he said.

  “My session is done,” Bruenor replied, and he turned away—and Ragged Dain whacked him across the back, sending him into a forward stagger.

  Bruenor straightened and took a deep breath. He noted all the other warriors moving to the side of the room, staring at him. He slowly turned around to face Ragged Dain.

  “Come on, then,” the old veteran demanded.

  Bruenor held his hands out wide, as if to ask why.

  “Ye been grumpin’ and spittin’ and kickin’ all the year!” Ragged Dain said. “Ye so durned determined to get out o’ here, are ye?” Bruenor rubbed his face and didn’t blink.

  Ragged Dain threw the axe and a round shield at Bruenor’s feet, then pulled a second set from the weapon rack.

  Bruenor looked at them, snorted, then glared up at Ragged Dain. “Clangeddin’s wantin’ this,” Ragged Dain assured him.

  Bruenor snorted again.

  And walked away.

  He didn’t say a word to Uween when he entered his home, just moved past her to his private chamber, where he began stuffing his clothing into a sack. He knew that there would likely be repercussions for his actions on the training grounds, but he knew enough of dwarf tradition to understand that they couldn’t stop him from his promised journey to Mithral Hall.

  “Clangeddin,” he spat, stuffing the bag. “Hope ye enjoyed the show, then!”

  “Are ye so determined to be away from me?” came Uween’s voice from his door, and Bruenor glanced over to see a sad face indeed.

  Bruenor closed his eyes and looked down, trying hard to separate his intense rage from his feelings for this gentle dwarf woman, to separate the pain of the false promises of Moradin and the other gods from those real joys involving innocent dwarves.

  “Not yerself,” he whispered, and he looked back at Uween, now with tears of his own rimming his gray eyes. He shook his head and dropped the sack, then rushed over to hug the woman. “Ye been all to me an’ more,” he said, and he held her for a long while, until her sobs subsided.

  “Mithral Hall?” she asked after she had composed herself. “What’s in yer head, then?”

  Bruenor tried to figure out what he might say to her—a task made all the more complicated because he wasn’t even sure of the truth of the matter. Why had he declared his wish as such? What was there for him but more painful reminders of the silly game that he and his people played seriously, as if anything at all actually mattered?

  “I heared stories o’ the place,” he replied. “Of a hero named Thibbledorf Pwent and the Gutbuster Brigade—finest in all dwarfdom.”

  “Thibbledorf Pwent?”

  “An old battlerager, long dead. Shield dwarf to King Bruenor Battlehammer hisself.”

  Uween shrugged and stared at him, clearly confused.

  “They train ’em differently at Mithral Hall,” Bruenor explained, improvising with every word. “Were ye proud o’ me when me group returned from the Rauvins?”

  “Ye saw me in the hall,” Uween replied. “Ye done yer Da well!”

  “Well, I mean to do him better,” Bruenor said. “I’ll be trainin’ with them Gutbusters if they’ll be havin’ me, and then I’ll come back to Felbarr and pass it on. Don’t ye worry, Reginald Roundshield’ll be takin’ his place at King Emerus’s side afore many more years’ve gone by!”

  That cheered her, and this time she threw a happy hug around Bruenor.

  Bruenor hugged her back and whispered more reassurances. It bothered him to lie to Uween, but he figured it would bother him more to wound her.

  He had no intention of ever returning to Citadel Felbarr.

  Not as Reginald Roundshield, at least.

  That he knew for sure, though he knew not what path might now be pulling him from this place.

  He had been quite ready to lift the weapons and battle Ragged Dain, relishing the thought of la
ying the old veteran low, confident that he could do so. For Bruenor had more battle experience than Ragged Dain, and he carried it in a body young and strong. Yes, he had initially thought the challenge a grand idea, but then his would-be opponent had invoked Clangeddin.

  Their fight would be nothing more, then, than yet another show for the pleasure of the dwarf gods.

  Nay, Bruenor would be no part of that. Indeed, if Clangeddin Silverbeard had shown up in that room, Bruenor would have picked up the wooden axe and swung it at Clangeddin’s face!

  Because there was no point.

  Because there was no truth.

  Because the dwarf gods did not reciprocate the loyalty of their foolish subjects.

  Because everything that had sustained King Bruenor throughout his centuries of life and his dedication to the tenets of his clan was a fraud, a game, a play without consequence.

  He realized that he was crushing Uween against him by then, but she didn’t understand that anger, not love, drove his muscles, albeit unintentionally. She didn’t seem to mind, however, so Bruenor held on, needing something, someone, solid and dependable.

  Alturiak became Ches, and by the end of that third month, the first caravan was organized for the journey to Mithral Hall.

  Reginald Roundshield was named as second guard of the fourth wagon, serving under none other than Ragged Dain.

  CHAPTER 17

  COMPLICATIONS

  The Year of the Grinning Halfling (1481 DR) Delthuntle

  THEY HAD BEEN AMONG THE BEST YEARS OF EITHER LIFE FOR REGIS, AND mostly because of this very dance, with this very opponent. The tip of the blade came at him in a series of rapid thrusts, Donnola’s lead foot tapping solidly on the matt as she strode and maintained perfect balance.

  Regis countered with an upraised blade, tapping each thrust off to the left, Donnola’s rapier turned only a couple of degrees, but enough to barely miss the mark.

  “Both ways!” she scolded, for she had warned Regis against falling into a dangerous parry rhythm, and to accentuate her point, she held her next thrust just an eye-blink longer, then stabbed in behind Regis’s waving rapier, her eyes and smile wide at her apparent kill.

  But up came Regis’s dirk, left arm rising behind his right, the small blade angling Donnola’s attack to the right. And in that movement, Regis began his rapier retraction, bringing it down and dropping his right shoulder back, throwing himself right around, right behind left, farther from Donnola’s turned blade.

  He came around with a devastating thrust that brought a yelp from his opponent, who nearly tripped over backward, so fast did she retreat.

  But Regis stayed up with her, thrusting high, thrusting low, and always maintaining his perfect fencing posture, with his back foot perpendicular to the line of battle, his front foot aiming the way forward.

  Donnola ducked off to the right, and as Regis turned to keep the pressure, she quickly skipped back to the left. This wasn’t the way she typically fought, and Regis understood that she was testing him, using techniques he would more likely see from an opponent with a heavier blade, or a slashing or bludgeoning weapon. She was moving him, turning him, to see if he could react without losing his posture.

  It went on for many strikes and parries, Regis gaining a clear and lasting advantage for the first time in their years of sparring.

  “Well done, but hold!” Donnola demanded, leaping back and lowering her blade.

  “Oh, fie!” Regis argued, for he had her. He knew it!

  “You have shown your agility and ability to hold your balance,” Donnola said. “But you could not close.”

  “I did not have to close,” Regis protested. “You use rapier and dirk, as do I!”

  “Close,” Donnola challenged, assuming a ready position once more. “You can never win without it. Do you think you’ll be fighting a halfling with a rapier? Nay, Spider, you’ll be battling an orc or a human, bigger and stronger, and able to smash your skull from afar!

  “Haha!” she added with a deft parry as Regis rushed ahead with a series of sudden, balanced steps, never crossing his trailing foot before his front, the perfect fencing “charge.”

  “You can’t win from there!” Donnola laughed, and when Regis came on more ferociously, the woman twirled away.

  “Oh, but here comes the club for your head!” she said, or started to say, for then she was rolling back and away once more as Regis kept up the pursuit. Now he moved her deliberately, cutting the room down, guiding her to a corner.

  She saw it, he knew.

  “Can’t catch me!” she declared, spinning out to the side, but Regis had anticipated it and moved even as she did, his rapier reaching out for her. She fended it brilliantly, as usual, with a rolling block and a riposte, but Regis was ready for that sudden turn of events, and he, too, rolled his blade, back up and over, then down under and suddenly up, lifting Donnola’s arm as he rushed in.

  He slammed against her, pressing her back into the wall, and they were so close, face-to-face, Donnola’s sword arm up over her head, pinned to the wall by Regis’s trapping blade.

  The tip of her dirk came against his ribs at the same moment his own found her ribs.

  He had taken her breath away, and lost his own in the process, for he could not draw any air so close to this beautiful creature.

  They stared at each other for a long moment.

  Donnola kissed him suddenly, passionately, and pressed out from the wall.

  Regis felt his knees go weak and it was all he could do to hold his balance. But then Donnola broke the kiss and he nearly overbalanced forward once more, and might have fallen on his face.

  Except that the woman’s rapier prodded into his chest in what would have been a clean kill.

  She laughed at him. “You will learn,” she said, and she spun away as gracefully as any butterfly and skipped out of the room.

  Regis just stood there, his blades lowered, feeling positively naked, his thoughts spinning helplessly. He tried to focus on the fight, on the flow that had garnered him such an advantage. He tried to learn from this moment, but that was a useless exercise with the heat of Donnola’s kiss so warm in his mind and body.

  To think that she had kissed him so!

  She was only eight years his senior, in her mid-twenties, and so smart and beautiful and brilliant with the blade, and brilliant in her diplomacy …

  Brilliant in her diplomacy?

  Regis shook his head to clear the cobwebs and looked at the door where Donnola had departed—had departed after disarming him with an unexpected kiss and defeating him in the match!

  Brilliant diplomacy?

  Pericolo’s index finger jabbed down onto the map spread wide on a table and a wry smile came over his face.

  Donnola looked at the map, a nautical chart of the Sea of Fallen Stars, and perhaps the most complete one in existence. For this had been a project Pericolo had been pursuing for years now, as long as Donnola could remember and more. The Grandfather had spent a small fortune on the detailed nautical chart, at one point offering any boat that went out a small bounty on soundings around the various reefs and shoals. And years earlier, Pericolo had hired the best known cartographer of this sea, and had brought him to Delthuntle, giving him a fine set of rooms and all the charts they could purchase to compile this one grand work.

  When Wigglefingers took Spider out for his morning dives, the wizard knew well where they were going and how deep the water would be.

  Donnola looked up from the map to regard the mage then, as he stood to the side passively, having obviously already received Pericolo’s big announcement, and when Donnola shifted her gaze to consider her Grandfather, she found there the most contented and satisfied grin she had ever seen from the man.

  And then she understood. “You found it,” she said breathlessly. Pericolo just kept grinning.

  “The Lichwreck,” Donnola whispered, looking back to the pointing finger, settled just south of Aglarond.

  “Ebonsoul,” Pe
ricolo added, referring to a powerful lich, reputedly sealed inside a silver coffin aboard his boat, Thepurl’s Diamond. According to legend, the ship had been sunk by pirates around the time of the Spellplague. It was rumored to hold crates stuffed with the great magical treasure hoard of Ebonsoul, taken from his lair in the Chondalwood.

  All around the southeastern stretches of the Sea of Fallen Stars, mariners whispered about the Lichwreck; it had been a topic of conversation at many of the parties Donnola had attended. She had always thought of it as rumor and legend, a source of intrigue and daydreams, and fantasies of great power and wealth. She had always considered the stories greatly exaggerated, a way for idle noblemen to puff up their peacock feathers with feigned adventure, but Donnola knew well that Pericolo truly believed in the stories of Thepurl’s Diamond’s treasure hoard. He hadn’t pursued his search for any gain of power or wealth even, but because he considered this to be his ultimate adventure.

  He would be the man who salvaged Ebonsoul’s treasures, and in doing so, Pericolo Topolino would forever etch his name among the legends of the Sea of Fallen Stars.

  “How do you know it’s …?” Donnola started to ask.

  “It is there,” Pericolo answered flatly. “Settled in a trench twelve leagues southwest of Aglarond’s southwestern-most point.”

  Donnola swallowed hard and stared back at the map. “How do you know?”

  “I have suspected it for a long time,” Pericolo answered.

  “I have summoned water elementals around the area to investigate for us,” Wigglefingers added. He stepped to the side of the room, to a hutch covered with astrolabes and rolled charts and a pair of spyglasses. From a drawer he produced an item covered in a black cloth and returned to the table.

  Donnola and Wigglefingers stared each other in the eye as the mage slowly removed the cloth, revealing a daggerlike shard of glass—no, not glass, Donnola realized, but a piece of a broken mirror. She tilted her head not sure what to make of the curious item.