“If the marchion o’ Mirabar’s speakin’ one ill word of ye, or of me husband,” she said in her best Dwarvish accent, “then I’m turning him into a frog and squashing him flat on the floor, don’t ye doubt!”
She stormed ahead to the southwest, toward the distant city, and all the others were smiling widely as they trotted to catch up.
Drizzt was smiling, too, so glad to have this woman in his life. He grasped the unicorn pendant on the chain around his neck, thinking to call in Andahar, but paused as the rest of the entourage hustled to catch up to the principals.
Athrogate and Ambergris trotted side by side and very close to each other, often bumping and always laughing, and Drizzt was glad for that.
The sisters Fellhammer, Fist and Fury, seemed in a bit of a race to see who could get to Bruenor’s side first.
They had been doing that a lot along this march, Drizzt had noted, and he wondered then if his old friend would perhaps find something in this life that had somehow eluded him for most of his last existence.
When the ranger looked at Catti-brie, and considered his own good fortune, he hoped that to be the case.
Though from a long distance, Drizzt was visible to the two. However, even with the sun far behind them, lowering in the west, and even with some overcast dulling its brilliance, Tiago had to squint hard. He wasn’t enjoying the World Above as much now that Tsabrak’s Darkening was no more.
He and Doum’wielle crouched atop a hillock and looked back to the east at the vast dwarf army. And now they saw the unicorn, thundering past the ranks as the dwarves set up their encampment, riding out to the southeast toward the road.
“He goes to scout,” Tiago said, grinning with every word. “Perhaps it is time to claim my prize.” He went up to his hands and knees and began to crawl back from the lip of the hillock, taking great caution even though it would have been next to impossible for any of the enemy force to spot him among the trees at such a distance.
Doum’wielle noted that caution, and wisely mimicked it-wisely, because she saw the intensity of the look on Tiago’s face and knew that if she in any way compromised his plans, he would more likely murder her than simply beat her.
And yet, that is exactly what we will do, Khazid’hea whispered in her thoughts, in response to her fears.
“Quick to the road,” Tiago instructed. “We can intercept him.”
“Astride a great steed that will leap past us or trample us down,” Doum’wielle said, hustling to keep up.
“He’ll do no such thing to an elf of the Moonwood,” Tiago said slyly.
But Doum’wielle was shaking her head. “Drizzt knows me, and knows my mother well. No doubt he has seen much of her these past months of war, and she will surely have told him of her wayward Little Doe.”
Tiago’s eyes narrowed as if he wanted to strike out at her, and she was confident that he certainly did.
“You will intrigue him!” he said, a bit too desperately. “Disguise yourself as we go. Or tell him that you escaped the clutches of his foul kin. I am sure you could easily offer that lie. Just look into your heart.”
The last part had Doum’wielle slowing and staring hatefully at her vile companion, to the point where Tiago skidded to a stop and swung around to face her.
“Faster!” he demanded.
Doum’wielle didn’t dare disobey, but Tiago’s suggestions rang in her thoughts as a clear warning, and an offering that he knew how much she hated him. Thus, she knew, he was telling her rather clearly that she would not catch him off his guard.
Patience, Khazid’hea’s telepathic voice whispered soothingly.
Doum’wielle picked up her pace, running hard and closing in on Tiago. As she neared, though, the drow suddenly skidded to a stop again, and held up his hand to hold her back. She slowed and stopped, and followed Tiago’s gaze to the southwest. At first she saw nothing, but Tiago’s sniffing tipped her off.
Smoke.
There was a campfire down along the road.
They moved more cautiously, Tiago turning directly south to intercept the road. They hadn’t quite arrived there when they heard the passage of a horse-of a unicorn! Drizzt had passed them by.
Tiago continued, but slowly and cautiously. He held out one hand, fingers working in the silent drow language.
A flustered Doum’wielle, with only rudimentary knowledge of the hand language, couldn’t keep up, but she thought he was indicating that they’d lay in wait and catch the ranger on the way back.
A shout, then, from not so far to the west, a chorus of dwarf voices, made Doum’wielle doubt that.
They were all standing as he neared, close to fifty dwarves, weapons in hands, and all wearing an expression showing that he or she was more than ready to wield a sword, or pick, or battle-axe.“Far enough!” one barked.
Drizzt held up his hand and backed Andahar a couple short steps. He looked at the group curiously for a few moments, thinking that he recognized more than one.
“Icewind Dale,” he said.
“Ah, but it’s Drizzt Do’Urden!” said one, a round-bellied, sturdy fellow Drizzt knew to be Hominy Pestler.
“Aye, o’ House Do’Urden!” another chimed in, in unfriendly tones. “Wh-what?” Drizzt stammered and he looked from dwarf to dwarf, noting that few expressions had softened with the recognition. Something was wrong. These dwarves were a long way from home, and this was a sizable fraction of the clan settled under Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale.
And Stokely Silverstream was not among their ranks.
“Why are you here?” Drizzt asked.
“Might be askin’ yerself the same question, drow,” answered another, a yellow-bearded fellow with a long scar down one cheek and a blue eye dulled by the scrape of a blade, now filmy and barely functional.
Drizzt knew this one, as well. “I am here with King Bruenor, Master Ironbelt,” he replied. He swiveled in his seat and pointed back to the east. “With Bruenor and Emerus Warcrown, and four thousand shield dwarves. We have fought a war in the Silver Marches against hordes of orcs and giants, drow of my home city, and even a pair of white dragons.”
The dwarves seemed taken aback at that remark-clearly from their reactions, they had not heard of the war-and so another theory Drizzt held of why they might be this far from home was lost.
“Yerself’s been fightin?” Master Toivo Ironbelt asked.
“For a year,” Drizzt replied.
“We heared rumors in Waterdeep.”
“Waterdeep?”
“We had ourselfs a fight, too, elf,” Ironbelt said. “A fight with drow.
Drow sayin’ they come from House Do’Urden, saying they’re yer kin.” Drizzt slid off the side of Andahar to the ground and approached the dwarves. “They said the same here,” he admitted, holding out his hands, far from the hilts of his deadly blades. “If you think me complicit, then take me as your prisoner back to the west, to King Bruenor."
“We was heading to Mirabar,” Hominy chimed in. “To learn what we might o’ Mithral Hall.”
“Bruenor is there now, meeting with the marchion.” Drizzt held his arms out in front of him, crossed at the wrist, inviting a rope if Ironbelt so desired.
“Nah, put ’em back,” the dwarf said. “And well met to ye again, Master Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“You have a tale to tell,” Drizzt said thoughtfully.
“Aye, and not a good one.”
“How many of Clan Battlehammer remain in the shadows of Kelvin’s Cairn?” Drizzt asked, and he was afraid that he knew the answer. Still, when Ironbelt confirmed that these were the last of the Clan Battlehammer dwarves of Icewind Dale, save a score who had moved to Bryn Shander and a couple of the other towns, Drizzt found it hard to breathe.
An era had ended, brutally, he realized, as Ironbelt detailed the drow raid that had killed so many and taken so many more away into the Underdark. “We put together a force and followed ’em,” Ironbelt explained.