A long time later, King Emerus Warcrown opened his eyes. “Chan eagnaidth drasta,” he said.
“Tha,” Bruenor replied.
“What’re ye about, then?” Ragged Dain asked, looking to each in turn. “Aye, to what?”
“King Emerus is wiser now,” Bruenor explained.
“Tha,” Emerus added. “For I’m hearin’ the voice o’ Moradin."
“And learnin’ the tongue o’ Moradin, aye?” Ragged Dain asked. King Emerus smiled wide, then hopped off the throne, a spring in his step, and walked over to the pair. He nodded to his second and met the long gaze of Bruenor. Emerus lifted his hands and placed them solidly on his old friend’s shoulders, the two staring unblinkingly for a long time, sharing something they both now knew and understood, something divine and supernatural.
King Emerus couldn’t suppress his smile, and he began to nod. “Lord Moradin’s pleased by me choice,” he said, his voice a whisper, because if he tried to speak more loudly, his voice would surely break apart with sobs.
“You will go out to scout the upper halls?” Catti-brie asked Drizzt, the two off to the side of the entryway, just inside the throne room. They had watched Bruenor and Emerus’s solemn walk to the throne, had watched Emerus sit upon it.
“Bruenor stays my hand,” Drizzt replied. “The dwarves have decided to take the ground one finger at a time, fully secure that taken ground, then plod ahead to the next room. We’ll not leave this room until Bruenor and the other dwarf leaders are satisfied that the chamber outside the wall is secured, or that this hall, too, has proper defenses set in place.”
The sound of hammers and stones scraping across the floor lent credence to Drizzt’s claims, for work was already underway in the throne room. Sideslinger catapults were already assembled and in place on the walls of the tunnels leading to the mines, and in front of the back door, the main entrance into the formal Gauntlgrym complex, heavy work was underway in constructing defensive half-walls, behind which crossbowdwarves could keep a close watch on the narrow threshold.
“Are you eager for battle?” Catti-brie asked. “Against your own kind?"
“Eager? No. But I accept the journey before us. Bruenor will have Gauntlgrym, I believe, or he will surely die trying.”
“And Drizzt?”
“Owes his friend no less than that.”
“So you’ll die for Bruenor’s dream?”
“Did not Bruenor forsake his divine reward for my sake? He could have gone to his gods, justly rewarded for a life well lived, but his duty to a friend turned his course. Is that not the whole point of it? Of it all? If I offer my hand to another and he takes it, do I not also have his hand? We are stronger together, but only if the bond of friendship travels from both hands. I could no more forsake Bruenor in this quest than you could have remained from my side when you knew I needed you. Or Bruenor. This is our bond, our blood, our hands joined. I only wish that Regis and Wulfgar were here, that we five would walk. .”
He paused as he noted his wife’s bemused smile.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” Catti-brie said lightly. “Nothing of much importance. Only that I find it amusing when I consider that Wulfgar labels me as the preachy one.”
A flabbergasted Drizzt tried to respond, but his lips moved without making a sound.
“Oh, kiss me,” Catti-brie said and moved in close, and pecked Drizzt lightly before moving back with a laugh. “Do you know that I love you?” she asked. “Do you believe that I would rather be here beside you in this dark place, with danger all around and battle looming before us, than anywhere else in the world? Than in any garden Mielikki might fashion to my every sensual pleasure?”
She moved back in front of him again, right in front of him, her blue eyes locking his lavender orbs. “Do you know that?”
Drizzt nodded and kissed her again.
“And we will survive this,” Catti-brie insisted. “Our road will not end in Gauntlgrym. We will not allow it!”
“And then where?” The question carried more weight than Drizzt had intended, and the sound of the blunt words gave him pause as much as they stunned his wife. For so many years, in this life and Catti-brie’s last, Drizzt and Catti-brie had danced around this issue. They were adventurers, ever seeking the road and the wind in their faces.
But was there more for them?
“When Bruenor sits on Gauntlgrym’s throne, does Drizzt remain beside him?” Catti-brie asked.
Drizzt’s hesitance spoke more loudly than any words he might have said.
“I do not wish to live again in the halls of the dwarves,” Catti-brie bluntly added. “Nearby, surely, but this is not the place for me. I returned in the service of Mielikki, in the love of the open air, to feel the grass beneath my feet, to feel the wind and rain upon my face. I expect that I will spend many tendays in Gauntlgrym, beside my beloved Da, surely, but this is not to be my life.”
“Neverwinter?” Drizzt asked, and Catti-brie winced.
“Then where?”
“Penelope has invited us to reside at the Ivy Mansion, or anywhere in Longsaddle,” Catti-brie said. “It is not so long a journey for Andahar and my spectral steed.”
“And there you can continue your studies,” Drizzt reasoned. “No better place.”
“But what for Drizzt?”
“The Bidderdoos,” the drow ranger replied without the slightest hesitation, and with an honest lightness in his voice. “When we have found an enchantment to relieve them of their lycanthropy, someone will need to catch them and bring them in to receive their cure. Who better suited to such a task as that than a ranger of Mielikki?”
“Noble hunting,” Catti-brie agreed, her voice almost giddy with relief now that she had openly expressed her desires, and now that she had seen Drizzt’s sincere enthusiasm to share in her choice.
“I will be here, in Gauntlgrym, many tendays as well-many more than you, I expect,” Drizzt did say in warning. “The dwarves will not secure this place in Bruenor’s lifetime or my own. It will be contested ground by many, from the drow of Menzoberranzan to the Lords of Waterdeep, if Lord Neverember is any indication of the greed we can expect. I intend to stand beside Bruenor and Clan Battlehammer whenever they call, and even when they do not.”
“I would have it no other way,” Catti-brie agreed. “And I know the Harpells will remain vigilant beside Gauntlgrym.”
“Family,” Drizzt said.
“And what of your family?” Catti-brie asked.
Drizzt stared at her for a long while, caught off-guard, for he understood the implications of her tone.
“Your wife,” she clarified.
Drizzt nodded, but still wasn’t sure what to make of her remark.
“In the first fight for Mithral Hall, I was wounded and nearly killed,” Catti-brie reminded him.
“I remember it as clearly as you do.”
“And from those wounds, I was damaged,” Catti-brie said, and Drizzt nodded again. “My days as a warrior were ended. .”
“And so you turned to the Art.”
“My days as a mother would never be ended,” Catti-brie went on.
Drizzt swallowed hard.
“In this new life, I am not damaged,” Catti-brie explained. “My body is whole. I could take up a sword once more, if I so chose, though I do not.”
“Are you with child?”
The woman gave a slight smile. “No,” she said. “But if I were?”
Drizzt fell over her with a great hug and a kiss, suddenly wanting nothing more than to share a child with Catti-brie. He had put that thought out of his mind for so long-for in his love’s other life, it could not be, and in the decades after she was lost to him, he held no desire to father a child with any other. Certainly Dahlia was not the mother Drizzt would choose for his daughter or son. And there had been no other, no other Catti-brie.
Looking at her now, Drizzt knew that there could never be anyone else for him. Not Innovindil, not Dahlia.