The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  He looked into her blue eyes once more, and it seemed to him as if the years just melted away to nothingness, as if he and his dear friend had never been apart. He pulled her into his arms and crushed her in a hug.

  “My gratitude, my friend,” he whispered into her ear.

  “I have not forgotten how you tried to help me when I was wounded by the Spellplague,” Catti-brie whispered back. “So many things, I have not forgotten!”

  “Nor I!” Regis assured her, and he half broke the embrace and began to lead her off toward the woman lying by the trees.

  “My aim proved better than I expected,” Regis said when they arrived and he found a small quarrel sticking from the side of the woman’s neck. He bent low to retrieve the hand crossbow bolt, and half-turned the sleeping woman to her side. This one, too, Regis recognized from his encounter on Luskan’s bridge.

  “Or my luck,” the halfling added, and he could only shake his head. For he hadn’t even been aiming at the archer when he fired off his hand crossbow, and what a fine bit of luck this had been indeed.

  “Ah, Regis, ever the fortunate one!” Catti-brie said.

  “Lucky to have friends such as Catti-brie, I agree,” he replied.

  The drow watched from the shadows of the trees, not sure what to make of the scene before him. Where had this ally of the halfling come from, Braelin Janquay wondered? “Spellplague?” he silently mouthed as he considered the conversation between the two. He had been sent to Icewind Dale to watch over this curious halfling, who, it seemed to him now, had become more curious the more he watched.

  Braelin shook his head helplessly—after witnessing the display before him, the drow was fairly certain that little up here was as it seemed.

  “Regis,” he whispered, mouthing the name the woman had called the little one—who had traveled under the moniker of Spider Topolino back in Luskan.

  That name, Regis, seemed to ring a distant bell, but Braelin couldn’t place it. The halfling’s reply, however, the naming of the woman as Catti-brie, certainly held significance even to this young drow, who had only recently entered into the ranks of Bregan D’aerthe.

  Braelin Janquay nodded, thinking that Jarlaxle would be quite pleased with him when he delivered this surprising information. Hopefully, Jarlaxle would also approve of Braelin’s intervention in the fight, for it was a bolt from his hand crossbow, not some lucky shot by the embattled halfling, that had felled the pirate archer.

  CHAPTER 28

  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

  The Year of the Tasked Weasel (1483 DR) Icewind Dale

  THE FACIAL HAIR IS QUITE BECOMING,” CATTI-BRIE SAID TO REGIS AS THEY sat in his small house by the lake.

  Regis couldn’t contain his smile, beaming wide and framed by his neatly trimmed mustache and the small goatee. He could hardly believe that he was looking at her again, at his dear friend Catti-brie, his companion through his previous life and in the days of his “death.”

  “But I look the same, yes?” he asked.

  “Different decorations, but you are surely Regis, yes,” Catti-brie teased, tugging at his long locks.

  “I recognized you as soon as I heard your voice,” he replied. “And seeing you now … it puts me right back to the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn when we were both much younger.” As he spoke, he found that he was quite glad that they had come back to look like their previous incarnations. How strange it would have been to see Catti-brie in the body of another woman. But no, this was her, with her auburn hair, long and thick, and those unmistakable blue eyes.

  She paced before him to put another log on the fire. “Winter fast approaches,” she remarked.

  “The gown,” Regis said suddenly, and Catti-brie turned to regard him curiously.

  “The gown you wear,” he explained. “Isn’t that the same one you wore in Iruladoon? How could that …?”

  “Similar,” she admitted, twirling around and showing off the layered white dress. “I commissioned it from a dressmaker in Shade Enclave with that one from the forest in mind.”

  “Shade Enclave?” Regis asked. “The heart of the Empire of Netheril?”

  Catti-brie nodded.

  “It would seem that we both have tales to tell!” Regis said with a laugh.

  Catti-brie smiled in reply and gave a little twirl, holding the gown out wide at one hip. “When we were in Iruladoon, I was dressed by the goddess, was I not?”

  “It is reasonable,” Regis agreed, “and beautiful.”

  “Ever charming,” Catti-brie replied, and she did blush a bit, Regis noted. “You have done well, it would seem. The gems of your rapier, the design of your hand crossbow, the hat you wear—there is a tale to tell for each, I expect.”

  “Winter descends. I will have time to tell you many stories, and listen to yours, of course. And yes, my life was … exciting.” And will be again, he thought, but did not say.

  “Your dagger, though,” Catti-brie said haltingly. She had witnessed its dark magic, after all.

  “It is an item, a tool and nothing more,” Regis assured her.

  Catti-brie looked at him doubtfully, warily.

  “It is not Khazid’hea,” he assured her. “It has no sentience. It is a tool.”

  “A gruesome one, it would seem.”

  “And my fine rapier pokes holes in hearts, and your spells burn the flesh from enemies.”

  The woman smiled and seemed satisfied with that. Regis could understand her hesitance, of course, for he still hadn’t quite dismissed his own consternations regarding the dagger. Every time he used the garroting snakes and saw that cruel, undead specter, he found himself keenly reminded of the dirtiness of his actions, necessary or not.

  He thought of the lich Ebonsoul then, and wondered if he should tell Catti-brie that perhaps he was being pursued by a powerful enemy, but he quickly dismissed the notion. It had been years since his departure from Delthuntle, and while it was possible that Ebonsoul continued to search for him, it seemed unlikely that the lich would ever actually find him. The trail was long dead, or so he hoped.

  A commotion outside caught their attention, and they noted some men going past the house, the four Rethnor thugs in tow, and in chains. None had died, and Catti-brie had healed them all—even the one Regis had stabbed in the back was walking again.

  “Will they hang the thieves?” he asked.

  “They will put them to work, likely,” Catti-brie replied. “Hands are always needed up here, you remember.”

  Regis nodded. In Luskan, back in the days of old, these thieves would have been brought to Prisoner’s Carnival, publicly tortured and, quite likely, heinously executed. At the very least, they would have spent years in a dungeon cell, and with their hands severed. But up here in Ten-Towns, serious crimes were most often punished by hard labor.

  Regis smiled at the thought—in so many ways, this frontier region on the edge of the wilds seemed so much more civilized than the supposedly great cities of Faerûn. The hardships of pressing danger created a cleaner relationship between the folk here, where coin mattered less than assistance, gold less than food, and a helping hand more than a magistrate’s whip.

  It was good to be home.

  Bruenor leaned on the wagon, gazing anxiously to the mountains just north of his position, at the low clouds that covered their tops. It was the last caravan of the year destined for Icewind Dale, now sitting idle on the road just outside of Luskan. The dwarf had signed on as a guard, but the lead driver had offered him no coin.

  “Not sure we’re even to get through,” the driver had explained.

  Now, looking at the gray clouds obscuring the mountain tops, those words echoed keenly in Bruenor’s mind. He knew what those clouds meant. He felt the bite in the air. Elient, the ninth month, had given way to Marpenoth, and while that tenth month was also named “Leaffall” in much of the Realms, in Icewind Dale, the leaves of the few trees were surely long fallen and long dead, and soon to be, if not already, buried under the first snows of w
inter.

  “A rider!” he heard, drawing him back to the present scene. He moved out from the wagon and looked up the northern road to witness the approach of the scout the caravan’s lead driver had sent ahead.

  The man rode to the lead wagon and quietly conferred with a small group up there. One removed his hat and slapped it in anger against the wagon, and Bruenor knew then that he had missed his chance.

  The lead driver climbed up on the wagon and called for all to gather near. Bruenor went along, but he already knew what was coming, for he understood the ways of Icewind Dale as well as any man alive, understood the season and recognized those clouds.

  The window of time had been small for this last caravan. The window had closed.

  “Break them down!” the lead driver ordered.

  Amidst the groans and complaints, the workers went about their tasks, re-ordering the goods for the return to the stocks in Luskan, sorting the wagons of each High Captain affiliate and such. Through the din, Bruenor made his way to the lead driver, who was still conversing with the returned scout.

  “Ain’t no way through?” the dwarf asked.

  “Snow’s already waist deep to an ogre, and falling fast,” said the scout.

  “The pass is closed,” the lead driver agreed.

  “I got to get me to Ten-Towns,” said Bruenor.

  The two men just looked at him and shrugged.

  “You might find a wizard in Luskan to send you,” said the scout. “No mount, except one that’s flying, will carry you through.”

  The dwarf did well to hide his frustration—it wasn’t the fault of these two, after all, and the lead driver had been quite generous in allowing Bruenor to sign on after he had fully complemented the caravan guard.

  But what was Bruenor to do? He had no coin, and wizards certainly would not come cheap.

  “I got nowhere to go,” he muttered.

  “Most’ll put up at One-Eyed Jax,” said the scout. “What’s your captain affiliation?”

  “Me what?”

  “What Ship are you with?”

  “He’s not of Luskan,” the lead driver explained.

  The scout nodded. “Well, if you’ve the coin, I’d suggest One-Eyed Jax. Only safe inn in Luskan for one who’s not of Luskan. And you might find an affiliation. Ship Kurth’s the strongest of the lot, but the most demanding, and they might not let you go so easily in the spring.”

  Bruenor waved his hand wildly, silencing the man. He had no intention of gaining any affiliation with one of the High Captains of Luskan, and indeed, after viewing the city on his quick pass through there, had no intention of going back into the place. He looked to the east instead, to the scattered cottages and farmhouses, some inhabited but many in ruins.

  “One might put you up,” the lead driver said, following his gaze and reading his thoughts.

  The dwarf hardly heard him, lost in thought. He knew that the pass would be closed through the rest of the year and into early 1484. Winter came early north of the Spine of the World, and when it set its grip, there was no way to press through.

  The dwarf considered abandoning his present road. Mirabar wasn’t so far—he could likely get there before the snows settled deep down here south of the mountains. He mused that he could reveal himself to the leaders of that city, and perhaps they would offer him magical assistance into Icewind Dale.

  He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to reveal himself. He knew his place now, as a Companion of the Hall and not as the king of Mithral Hall, and he wasn’t about to complicate, perhaps even compromise, the mission he had embarked upon when he had left Iruladoon by bringing such notice to himself.

  But the spring equinox was less than six months away, and the passes were closed. They would remain so through the rest of the year, of course, and into the next. Travel in Icewind Dale in the first month of Hammer was always impossible, and so too for the first half of Alturiak at least, sometimes even into the third month, Ches. No caravans would head that way at least until the end of the fourth month, long past Bruenor’s appointed rendezvous.

  But the snows would lessen in Alturiak, Bruenor thought, nodding. It was a treacherous time to be out and about in the dale, of course, with mud pits deeper than a hill giant, and water half-frozen or full-frozen—you wouldn’t know until you tried to venture across. And while the trail might seem clear on a bright morning, late winter storms often blew through with little warning, and sometimes dropped several feet of snow.

  The dwarf shook his head and spat on the ground, then stomped off for the farmhouses to see if he could find lodging for the winter.

  Regis pushed through the door with an armload of kindling, dropping the wood by the hearth and rushing back to secure the door against the blowing snow. Winter had come on in typical fury, and just getting to his woodshed and back had exhausted the halfling.

  He turned back for the hearth, tossing his cloak aside, and nearly jumped out of his boots when he noticed the tall figure standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “I’ve started a fine broth for you,” Catti-brie explained. “To warm your bones.”

  “When did you return? How did you return?” Regis exclaimed in response. The woman had left him just a few days before the storm on her way to Brynn Shander.

  “The goddess protects me,” Catti-brie said with a wink.

  “Good, then you go get the wood from now on,” Regis replied.

  “I can cast a spell to keep the cold from your bones,” Catti-brie promised.

  “Too late.”

  The woman matched Regis’s wide smile, but hers could not hold.

  “What word?” Regis asked, for she had gone out scouting.

  “No word,” she replied. “Drizzt has not been seen, and his name is spoken without affection.”

  “That demon incident,” Regis remarked, for Catti-brie had told him the tale of the battle at Brynn Shander’s western gate. Apparently Drizzt and some companions had passed through the town and headed out to the east, not to be seen again. Soon after, a great demon had arrived at Bryn Shander, seeking Drizzt, had attacked the town, and only the heroics of another drow, Tiago by name, and his band of warriors and wizards and a few half-drow, half-spider creatures, had saved the day. The story was jumbled, for the incidents had occurred many years before, when Regis was just a toddler in Eiverbreen’s lean-to. Ten-Towns was a place where people came and went, and where more died than were born, and so few even remembered the fight at Bryn Shander’s gate, even with the plaque set out on the spot where the great demon had been destroyed.

  As far as Catti-brie and Regis could guess, it had to have been Bregan D’aerthe following the monster to Bryn Shander, and in that line of thought, Regis wondered if he had done right in not revealing himself to Jarlaxle back in Luskan. Perhaps he and Catti-brie, and Bruenor if the dwarf ever arrived, would travel back that way and find Jarlaxle, hoping to learn the whereabouts of Drizzt.

  “Well then, what do we do? Was it all for naught?” As he asked the question, Regis was already formulating his own answer. If Drizzt wasn’t to be found, then he would bid Catti-brie to return with him to Aglarond, to Donnola Pericolo, where she could help Morada Topolino battle the lich, if there remained a lich to battle.

  And no, he told himself then, resolutely so, it had not been all for naught. Far from it. He, Spider Topolino, would forge a second life whatever fate brought before him, a life shaped in the lessons of the first.

  “Hold faith,” Catti-brie told him. “Mielikki told us when to meet, and that day fast approaches.”

  “Bruenor has not arrived, but winter has,” Regis reminded. “Your Da may well be dead again, gone to Dwarfhome and his rewards.”

  The woman nodded, nothing in her posture or expression denying a word of what he said.

  “We do the best we can, in the hope that our work will aid Mielikki and our friend,” she replied.

  “If Drizzt is even still alive,” Regis mumbled, but he also nodded his agreement. H
e would climb Kelvin’s Cairn beside her on the night of the equinox. He feared that they two would be up there alone, however, and from that realization, Regis came to wonder if perhaps Lady Lolth had already taken Drizzt. Was their mission to become a rescue, then? Were they, just the two of them, expected to go to the fabled Demonweb Pits to retrieve their captured friend of old?

  Regis swallowed hard, thinking that a lich didn’t seem so formidable after all.

  “Hold faith,” Catti-brie said again, and she moved to gather the pot of broth.

  Regis nodded, but he could see the fear clearly stamped upon her pretty face. Drizzt was nowhere, by any accounts either of them had heard—and Catti-brie had been gathering such accounts for more than a year here in Icewind Dale. The drow had not been seen in these reaches for nearly two decades, if the stories about the battle of Brynn Shander’s eastern gate were to be believed.

  And indeed, Drizzt had gone out of Ten-Towns in that long past year, to the east, not the west, onto the wild tundra.

  He was almost assuredly dead, Regis knew, and so did Catti-brie, he realized.

  And Bruenor?

  “You went to Stokely on your return from Bryn Shander?” the halfling asked suddenly.

  Catti-brie turned and nodded to him, then shook her head slowly, her expression grim.

  Regis understood the implications. If Bruenor had returned to Icewind Dale, he would surely have gone there, to the place he had long called his home, to be with others of Clan Battlehammer.

  Bruenor was not in Icewind Dale—not alive, at least.

  “There was no promise,” Catti-brie said suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mielikki turned the prism of reality just a bit to offer a chance, yet her design was not a prophecy, but a hope.”

  Regis swallowed hard. “Twenty-one years is a long time,” he admitted. “I barely escaped death on several occasions, and my road remained long in doubt.”

  Catti-brie nodded.