“The world goes on without my son,” said the dragon.
“Do you pretend to care? I know enough of your kind, and of you, to believe that such a claim is one of false appeal.”
The dragon chuckled, a low and rumbling sound that sounded as if a prelude to an earthquake, and, Gromph knew, often was. “You were rewarded well for your efforts in the war,” Gromph reminded the wyrm. “The treasures from Sundabar alone. .” He let the thought hang in the air, and shook his head.
“Then let us put that which is past behind us,” the wyrm agreed. “So why are you here, in this, my home?”
“You were not alone in your last battle of the war,” Gromph explained.
“Nor was your son. We have found the body of the noble drow killed with Aurbangras.”
“But not that of your impetuous and impudent nephew,” the dragon commented.
“Tiago, yes,” Gromph agreed. “A favored noble of the Matron Mother Baenre, though one who has grown tiresome to me.”
“He is not.”
“Digested?” Gromph asked dryly.
The dragon paused and spent a moment letting the quip register before offering an amused, rumbling chuckle in response.
“It is an honest question,” the archmage said.
“He is not here, nor has he been in my presence since the battle above the Surbrin Bridge,” the dragon replied.
“A battle in which he rode astride you?”
“Yes.”
“A battle from which you flew directly home?”
“Yes.”
“Must I follow all the possibilities?”
“Tiago was shot from my back in the fight, by a drow no less, with a bow that spat arrows of lightning.”
Gromph took a deep breath. Drizzt again.
“Drizzt slayed him in the midst of an aerial battle?”
“I did not say that.”
“You said. .” Gromph stopped and silently recounted the dragon’s exact words.
“The clever archer shot the cinch from the saddle, and so Tiago fell from his seat,” the dragon explained. “We were up by the roiling blackness of Lolth’s inspired spell, and so miles above the ground. You might search the lower ground north of the dwarven stronghold to see if you can locate a drow-shaped splatter upon the ground.”
Gromph nodded, though he was hardly listening, playing it all out in his thoughts. He, of course, knew of the magical House Baenre emblems, which could impart near weightlessness with but a touch.
So perhaps Tiago was not dead, and was down there still-and, likely, still hunting Drizzt.
“He is such a fool,” the archmage muttered under his breath, but not enough so to keep the words from the keen hearing of an ancient white dragon.
“Which?” Arauthator asked. “The archer or your nephew? Or are you, perhaps, speaking of me, in which case I find that I am suddenly hungry."
“Dragon, you bore me,” Gromph said, and waved his hand. With that movement, mighty Arauthator sprang to the attack, the great wyrm’s serpentine neck sweeping forward, the toothy maw snapping over Gromph.
Or the projected image of Gromph, for the archmage was far from that place, and farther still when the dragon’s killing jaws snapped, teleporting away almost instantly and leaving Arauthator defensively crouched and growling.
“They will leave on the first day of spring,” Doum’wielle told Tiago. “You are certain?”
Doum’wielle answered him with a stare. She wiped the mud and makeup from her face and began to unbraid her hair. She couldn’t travel about the region without some minor disguise. Some might well recognize her as the daughter of Sinnafein.
“The dwarves are all chattering about it,” she explained. “They’re thick about the wall they have constructed near to where Dark Arrow Keep once stood, convinced that Lorgru will return.”
“And will he?”
Doum’wielle shrugged.
“You should be more thorough in your scouting,iblith,” Tiago scolded. And I should kill you while you sleep, Doum’wielle wanted to reply, but did not.
“There has been no sign of the orcs since Bruenor sent them running,” she answered. “Even those dwarves skeptical about this march to the west have come to believe that it will be a good thing.”
“And what is in the west that is so enticing them?” Tiago remarked, walking out to the northeastern edge of the encampment, looking out at the campfires dotting the distant hills.
“Does it matter?”
Tiago spun around, his expression sharp.
“How long do you intend to play this game, Tiago?”
The drow inhaled, nostrils flaring, Doum’wielle thought, as if he meant to leap upon her and throttle her.
“Duke Tiago,” she obediently corrected, and she lowered her gaze. “Drizzt will be with them,” Doum’wielle said. “And the woman, Cattibrie. Do not underestimate her. They whisper that she is a Chosen of Mielikki, and her magical powers, both arcane and divine, are considerable."
“Then she can properly consecrate Drizzt’s grave,” Tiago said, turning back to the campfires. “Even without his head.”
Indeed, Khazid’hea said in Doum’wielle’s mind, and the woman chuckled. Tiago spun back again.
“You doubt me?” he said with a growl.
“The thought of a headless Drizzt amuses me,” Doum’wielle said, and she wasn’t lying.
“And you will amuse me,” Tiago said and started for her. “Now.” Doum’wielle lowered her gaze once more, and when Tiago pushed her down to the bedroll, she did not resist.
Patience, her magical sword told her repeatedly throughout her ordeal, the long-plotting sentient weapon assuring her over and over again that she would get her revenge, but in a more profound and satisfying way. A short while later, it was Doum’wielle’s turn to linger at the northeastern edge of the firelight, looking out over the rolling hills to the campfires of the distant dwarven encampments. Despite her resolve to suppress her wistful nature, her thoughts drifted farther to the east, and inevitably out across the river. She loved the Glimmerwood in the winter, when the pine branches bent low under the weight of new-fallen snow. She thought of sleigh rides she had taken along the paths between those trees, the heavy canopy creating an enchanting roof of bending branches and multiple skylights, the stars shining through to evoke wispy sparkles all about the snowpack.
She heard the elfsong in her mind, the many voices lifting to the starlit sky, past the natural canopy, calling to the patterns of twinkling lights they had named for this creature or that. The Rushing Crayfish had ever been Doum’wielle’s favorite, with a cluster of bright stars outlining one huge claw, dimmer stars showing the second as a smaller outline, as if the astral creature was reaching forward with that one claw, beckoning. And it was a call Doum’wielle wanted to answer, then and now. Her eyes drifted up to the heavens, to a million million stars twinkling in the cold night.
There were no stars in the Underdark, in Menzoberranzan. It had its own beauty, surely, with the faerie fire limning the stalactites and stalagmites. But it didn’t have stars.
And the elves of Menzoberranzan didn’t lift their voices as one to the heavens.
Patience, Little Doe, the woman heard in her mind. Images of great glory and greater power filled her thoughts, and she lost sight of the stars above as surely as if a heavy cloud front had swept in and stolen the eternal mystery. Two tendays later, Tiago and Doum’wielle were awakened one bright morning by the sound of drums. Remembering the significance of this day, the pair rushed to a high vantage point on a steep-sided hillock, and peered against the glare of the rising sun to the southeast. There marched the dwarves, under a banner of a living fire in humanoid form, its arms uplifted and holding a great anvil and throne. The leading troupe crossed to the south of Tiago and Doum’wielle’s position, their line stretching far back, with many pack mules, heavily laden.
And with a drow on a white unicorn trotting easily beside an auburnhaired woman astride a similar mount, but one that seemed made of the essence of light itself, spectral and sparkling.