He looked up at her, meeting her gaze, and tears streamed from his eyes.
Mallabritches shook her head, overwhelmed.
“I can’t be lettin’ her go,” Bruenor gasped, and surely he was overwhelmed then, with Tannabritches lying here and Drizzt in the room next door. He was as surprised by his reaction as was Mallabritches, for the depth of his pain cut straight to his heart. He really could not stand the thought of losing Tannabritches now!
When Emerus had given over the Fellhammer sisters to serve as part of Bruenor’s elite guard, the red-bearded dwarf’s heart had leaped- more than he had truly understood. But now, seeing Tannabritches lying there, so pale and near to death, he did understand, and surely his heart broke as he came to believe that she was slipping away from him forever.
“Ye got yer Gutbusters,” Mallabritches said, but in a leading way that told Bruenor she was fishing deeper. “King Bruenor’s to be surrounded by fighters, eh?”
“Not about that!” Bruenor snapped. He sucked in his breath to steady himself, shook his head ferociously, and leaned forward, staring at the wounded lass, silently imploring her to live. “Not about fightin’,” he said. “About needin’ her aside me when the fightin’s done.”
“When ye take the throne, ye mean?”
The shock of Mallabritches’ words jolted Bruenor upright, and he turned to regard her curiously.
“It’ll be yerself,” she said. “Aye, but ye’re the proper choice, I’m sayin’. The great Emerus is so old, and even if ye gived him the throne, he’d not hold it for long. We’ll be rid o’ the damned drow, don’t ye doubt, and Bruenor’ll be King o’ Gauntlgrym one day not far along.”
Bruenor didn’t respond, but neither did he blink.
“Ye’re thinkin’ her yer queen, ain’t ye?” the Fellhammer girl asked.
Again, her words shocked Bruenor, for he hadn’t carried his thoughts and his pain that far along. His initial reaction was to shake his head in denial. The whole proposition sounded ridiculous to him. He was a long way from claiming Gauntlgrym’s throne, after all.
But as he considered Mallabritches’s question, which sounded more like an accusation, Bruenor’s biggest surprise was that he came to recognize that she wasn’t wrong. He stammered something undecipherable under his breath and his head swiveled back to consider the poor lass lying on the bed.
“Do ye love her, Arr Arr?” Mallabritches asked.
“Aye,” Bruenor said, surprised by his honest answer.
“And yer heart’s breaking in seein’ her in the bed like that, eh?”
“Aye,” he weakly answered.
Mallabritches grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him around, forcing him to look her in the eye once more. “And ye tell me true, me friend, what if it was meself in that bed, and me sister sittin’ here with ye? Where might Arr Arr. . where might Bruenor Battlehammer be then, I’m askin’?”
Bruenor’s face started to twist up in confusion, but his answer came from a place of clarity when he said, “Same place.”
His gray eyes opened wide as the weight of his words sank in, as he came to realize that he had just professed his love to Mallabritches-and to her sister.
Mallabritches yanked him closer then, and put her arm around his shoulders, lifting her hand to press Bruenor’s head onto her own strong shoulder for support.
“Don’t ye be worried, me friend,” she whispered in his ear. “Fist ain’t leavin’ us. She just ain’t.”
“I done all I could,” Bungalow Thump pleaded to the two dwarf kings and the others gathered in the throne room.
Word of the disaster in the lower chambers had preceded him, but few details had come forth, other than the deaths of a hundred Battlehammer warriors. . and the Twelfth King of Mithral Hall.
Bungalow Thump, himself wounded and battered, had come to the throne room to offer a full recounting to the leaders. Toliver Harpell stood behind him, head bowed respectfully, with Penelope and Kipper beside him.
Bungalow Thump didn’t leave out any details. He glanced back at Toliver Harpell and offered an apologetic shrug before he told of the failure of the Field of Feather Fall, as he described poor dwarves bouncing onto the stone floor, or onto the bodies of their fallen comrades.
The dwarf’s voice soared as he recounted the heroics of those trapped on the ground, and again, he didn’t exclude the Harpells, taking great pains to accurately describe Kenneally’s brilliant improvisation.
“Aye, but she saved the lot of us,” Bungalow Thump said. “And gived her own life in doin’ it!”
“Huzzah for Kenneally Harpell, then!” Ragged Dain offered, drawing a stern look from Bruenor-but one that didn’t hold, and indeed, Bruenor joined in the cheer for Kenneally.
“It seems as if it was more demon than drow opposin’ ye,” Emerus Warcrown offered at that break.
“More demons and hordes o’ goblins and orcs,” Bungalow Thump confirmed. “Saw a drow or two from the shadows and throwing spells, but none other.”
“Goblins and orcs,” Bruenor muttered, for surely he had seen his fill of the wretched orcs in recent months. “Slaves o’ the damned drow!” As he said that aloud, he realized that much of it was likely true for the War of the Silver Marches, as well. His thoughts careened to Lorgru, of the line of Obould, and those orcs who once more rallied around that name and their professed desire to live in peace.
Might the treaty of Garumn’s Gorge have held if not for the damned drow?
Bruenor shook the thought away.
“And them demons?” Oretheo Spikes offered. “Demons in the entry hall, demons in the mines! Durned Gauntlgrym’s more full o’ demons than dwarfs and drow together!”
“I ain’t seeing much difference between demons and drow, meself,” Emerus growled.
“Aye, to the Abyss with ’em all!” Ragged Dain added, and a great cheer went up all around the throne room, one rolling from bravado to a muted confusion, it seemed.
The starkly mixed results of the three battles fought this same day had them all off balance. They had won in the entry hall, slaughtering demons by the score. Every defense had held strong and every plan had been executed to near perfection, and the hero of that battle, Oretheo Spikes, deserved every cheer and honor offered to him.
And Connerad Brawnanvil, too, would garner much of the credit for that battle in the entry cavern, for the defenses of that hall were his doing, offered with insight he had gained on the Throne of the Dwarf Gods.
But they had been defeated badly in the lower chamber, and it simply could not continue that each side could hold its own ground. For the drow had the Great Forge.
That could not stand!
As the cheering died away, Bruenor rose and approached the throne, nodding, but with his expression grave.
“Ropes, I say!” Emerus called. “Yerselves should’ve used the rappel to the cavern floor and not some wild magic!”
“You cannot lay the blame with. .” Penelope Harpell started to protest, but Bungalow Thump held up his hand to silence her, and did it for her.
“Nay, King Emerus, and sure to know that I’m yer loyal servant here, pledged in fealty and acceptin’ o’ yer judgments,” he said. “But I can’no agree-nay, for the plan was a good one, and oh, but we were hitting the floor in full charge.”
“Until the magic fell away,” Emerus reminded.
“Aye, but we could no’ know the power o’ the enemies below us,” Bungalow Thump replied. “Ah, but they were thick with wizards and thick with demons. Big demons by the score. By rope or by Harpell magic, we’d’ve lost many of our boys today, and we’d’ve ne’er gained the lower hall.”
“Well said, Master Thump, and I’d not expect less o’ ye than that,” Bruenor replied before Emerus could-and with almost exactly the same words Emerus would have used.
All eyes went to Bruenor and many bushy eyebrows, Emerus’s included, lifted in surprise to see him sitting on the throne once more, hands solidly on the burnished arms of the great chair, eyes closed, and his whole body slowly swaying back and forth.