The Companions
Page 43
In that moment where Mielikki had taken back the rogue drow to her side.
The victorious drow, who had turned from the darkness.
Here then, in these friends huddled close, was his reward.
EPILOGUE
The Year of the Awakened Sleepers (1484 DR) Shade Enclave
BRILLIANT,” LORD PARISE ULFBINDER REMARKED, STARING INTO THE scrying pool, looking through Lady Avelyere’s divination magic to the unfolding scene atop the solitary mountain in Icewind Dale. “If we had any doubts regarding the divine inspiration of our dear little Ruqiah, they are surely dispelled.”
“Catti-brie,” Lady Avelyere corrected, and she gave a wistful, confirming nod, for there could be no doubt any longer. The two of them had spent most of the day studying the mountain, and to their great surprise, they had found Drizzt Do’Urden much earlier on, witnessing his confrontation with the curious elf woman wherein he had been so wounded.
“So many pieces moving around the puzzle board,” Parise remarked, shaking his head. “And yet, in the end, they all fit so well together, did they not? Perhaps there is value in having a goddess at your side after all!”
Lady Avelyere turned to regard the man, who seemed almost joyous, his motions near frivolity, by this point. Despite all of the troubles of the time, the great changes wrought by the end of the Spellplague, the drifting of Abeir away from Toril, indeed the realization of the prophecies of “Cherlrigo’s Darkness,” Lord Parise Ulfbinder had remained in a grand and elevated mood for some time now.
“Have you become so bored with life that you take joy in the chaos, any chaos, and even that which threatens the foundations of our existence?” she dared to ask.
Parise considered her strange question for a short while, then gave a great laugh. “We are witnessing the play of the gods,” he replied.
“Goddesses, apparently,” she corrected, and the man laughed again.
“This is beyond the boundaries of mere mortal comfort and safety,” Parise explained, and he grabbed his dear friend’s hands and brought them up to his lips to kiss them. “This speaks of eternity. With all that Ruqiah, this woman Catti-brie, told to you, are you not interested in watching the play of her tale?”
Lady Avelyere turned back to the scrying pool and considered the question for a long, long while. She watched the companions gathered together, all hugs and pats as they sat beside the wounded drow, their eyes lifted heavenward to the beautiful night sky.
“Do you think the battle will commence presently?” she asked, somewhat absently.
“I do believe that perhaps this drow, Drizzt, has already waged it,” Parise replied. “His fight with the elf girl—”
“You think her the champion of the Spider Queen?”
Parise shook his head and simply shrugged. “A path to Lady Lolth, perhaps. Surely, from all that we have learned, she and the others Drizzt left on the lower mountain trails definitively represented a darker road by far. Perhaps that was his trial, the battle between the goddesses.”
“One might expect more of such a battle,” Lady Avelyere replied dryly.
“Carnage?” Parise sarcastically replied. “Explosions of ground-shaking magic?” He laughed yet again. “Would not the more meaningful battle be one for the soul, quiet and internal?”
“You had thought to witness the struggle of gods. You don’t seem disappointed.”
“From all that I have learned of the Spider Queen, I suspect that this is hardly finished,” the laughing lord said. “Perhaps Drizzt won the quiet battle within, but where might that lead, given the vengeance of a demon queen?”
“So Mielikki has armored him with the flesh of friends of old.”
“Armored him? Or made him more vulnerable?”
With that intriguing thought in mind, the two turned back to the scrying pool, and a moment later, Parise pointed out another form, large and hulking, moving along the mountain trail for the bare rock where the others rested.
Lady Avelyere nodded. Her eyes narrowed in anticipation of a coming fight.
“Ah, me girl!” Bruenor cried, hugging and kissing Catti-brie, framing her beautiful face with his ruddy and dirty hands.
“I am dead, then,” Drizzt whispered, patting Bruenor’s sturdy shoulder then shifting his arm to grab at Regis and bring him in close.
“If only it were that simple, elf!” said Bruenor.
“Not dead,” Regis said. “Surely not dead!”
“There is so much to tell,” Catti-brie explained. “So many stories …”
“The forest,” Drizzt surprised them all by saying. “On the banks of Lac Dinneshire … Mielikki’s wood. Eighteen years gone …”
“So many stories,” Catti-brie said again, her voice stolen, her breath stolen, when Drizzt tugged her in close and kissed her deeply and passionately.
“Tales to tell,” Regis agreed. “And more to write.”
“Aye,” said Bruenor, “and many yet to write. I come back to ye, elf, to walk yer road aside ye. But don’t ye doubt, I’ve a road to walk o’ me own, and it’ll be good to have yer blades lifted for Mithral Hall once more!”
That announcement brought some curious glances from Catti-brie and Regis, but Drizzt was already nodding, and smiling widely.
Guenhwyvar stood up then, quickly, her fur ruffling, issuing a low growl as she stared at a figure on the trailhead.
Time mattered not to the ghostly form, drifting as a fog on the wintry winds.
Ebonsoul settled around four old graves set to the side of a tent marketplace on the eastern side of a great bridge.
These souls had touched the thief, the lich sensed, and from these spirits Ebonsoul would better discern his road ahead. The little clues had carried the lich far, across the Sea of Fallen Stars, through the Bloodstone Lands, and to the road outside of Suzail.
A long and meandering journey, but so be it.
Time mattered not to the lich.
It would find the halfling and retrieve its coveted dagger.
It would find the thief, the graverobber, and properly punish him.
“ ’Ere now, speak and be recognized!” Bruenor called as the shadowy, hulking form came into view along the trail just beyond the bare rock of Bruenor’s Climb. The dwarf hopped to stand before Regis and Catti-brie. Behind them sat Drizzt, hardly recovered enough for battle. He had his hands on his blades, but could barely lift them.
The lone form, huge and hulking, continued its steady approach.
Bruenor banged his axe against his shield, ready for a fight, and Guenhwyvar, standing beside him, growled a warning once more.
“A fine greeting,” said the approaching man, and he stepped into view, into the moonlight. Closer to seven feet in height than six, wearing the silvery coat of a winter wolf, the wolf’s head bouncing about his massive chest, and with a great and familiar hammer resting easily over his shoulder, the newcomer smiled widely.
Guenhwyvar bounded forward.
“Me boy,” whispered Bruenor, and his axe fell to the stone with a clang, and he nearly followed it down. “Wulfgar,” Regis breathed. “But ye went into the pond,” Bruenor said.
Wulfgar shook his head as he reached down to ruffle the panther’s thick fur, Guenhwyvar rubbing against him with enough force to shift him back a step.
“Tempus will wait, for what is a man’s lifetime in the counting of a god?” the barbarian replied. “My friends needed me, and what a sorry warrior I would be to ignore that call.”
“The Companions of the Hall,” said Drizzt, his voice breaking with every syllable, his dark cheeks streaked with tears of joy and renewed hope.
“Let Lady Lolth come!” they all would have said together, had they known that she was indeed.
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