“Melted?” Drizzt asked, skeptical. “We could build a fire and heat some makeshift poker, but we’ve not the time to bring something to that temperature.”
“What’s behind it?” asked Dahlia.
“Our escape, if I’m readin’ their faces right,” Athrogate said.
Bruenor looked at the wall, and at Drizzt, who seemed just as perplexed as to how they might get through it. Back in the hall, more sounds echoed, their enemies obviously nearing the chamber.
“Mark it,” Drizzt instructed. He stepped away, and as he did, he revealed his plan as he slid Taulmaril from his shoulder.
Bruenor glanced around, and patted his pockets and his pack, trying to figure out how he might do that. He produced one of his maps and tore a piece from its corner, plopping it into his mouth. He rushed back to the spot in front of the wall and gently felt the surface again, chewing all the while. When he had the spot, he spat the wet parchment into his hand, pressed it into place, and stepped aside.
Drizzt already had an arrow fitted to the bowstring. He drew level and took careful and steady aim.
He fired, and a flash of lightning illuminated the room. The enchanted missile hit the mark. It melted the paper first then drilled right through the lead cover and right into the catch behind, ruining it forever. Both drow and dwarf knew it to be a risk, for in doing that, had Drizzt also forever sealed the secret door?
They heard rocks sliding somewhere behind the wall, though whether that was a promising sign or a portent of doom, they couldn’t be sure.
But then the stone groaned before them as the counterweights took hold in some unseen mechanism. The hatch fell in slightly, revealing the outline of a dwarf-sized doorway. Dust slipped from all edges and a musty smell, an old smell, filled their nostrils. With a great groan of protest, the secret door slid aside, disappearing into the right-hand wall.
“How did you know?” Dahlia asked, breathless.
“Damn smart throne, eh?” Athrogate said with a giggle.
“Onward, and quickly,” Jarlaxle bade them.
Drizzt started for the opening, but Bruenor held out a strong arm and kept the drow at bay.
The dwarf king led the way into the deeper, long-unused corridor, a tunnel that became a steep staircase only a few feet inside.
Last in was Athrogate, who shoved the heavy stone door back in place behind them.
Down they went, Bruenor making a swift pace on the treacherous stone stair. He didn’t think of the danger of falling. He knew what was coming.
The stairs spilled out into a narrow corridor, and the narrow corridor spilled out into a wider chamber, lit in orange: the Forge of Gauntlgrym.
Bruenor skidded to a stop, eyes wide, mouth agape. “Ye see it, elf?” he managed to whisper.
“I see it, Bruenor,” Drizzt replied in hushed and reverent tones.
One did not have to be a Delzoun dwarf to understand the solemn significance of the place, and the majesty of it. As if being pulled by unseen forces, Bruenor drifted toward the large central forge, and the dwarf seemed to grow with every stride, as ancient magic and ancient strength swelled his corporeal form.
He came to a stop right in front of the open forge, staring into the blazing fires, which were fully alive since the primordial had first been released. His face fast reddened under that heat, but he didn’t mind.
He stood there for a long, long while.
“Bruenor?” Drizzt dared ask after many heartbeats. “Bruenor, we must be quick.”
If the dwarf even heard him, he didn’t show it.
Drizzt moved around to gain Bruenor’s stare, but he couldn’t. The dwarf stood with his eyes closed. And when he opened them after a bit, he still felt far away and hardly noticed Drizzt and the others at all.
He lifted his axe and stepped toward the open forge.
“Bruenor?”
He pulled off his shield and laid it on the small ledge in front of the fires, then laid the axe upon it.
“Bruenor?”
Not even using an implement, the dwarf grabbed the iron-bound edge of the shield and slid it into the open forge, chanting in a language he knew none of the others would understand, a language Bruenor didn’t even understand himself.
“Bruenor!”
They must all have expected the shield, fashioned mostly of wood, to burst into flames, but it didn’t.
Bruenor kept up his chant for a short while then reached in and grasped the edge of the shield once more.
“Bruenor!” Drizzt went for him, perhaps thinking to push him aside. But the drow might as well have tried to move the forge itself. He hit Bruenor’s arm hard, his whole weight behind the charge, but didn’t move the dwarf’s arm at all. Bruenor hardly even noticed the collision. He just pulled out his shield, and on it, his many-notched axe.
He didn’t cool them in water, but just picked them up, sliding the shield into place and hoisting the axe. Then he stepped back and turned to the others, shaking his head, coming out of his trance.
“How are your arms not blistering to the bone?” Dahlia asked. “How is it the skin didn’t slough off your fingers like parchment?”
“Huh?” the dwarf replied. “What’re ye talking about?”
“The shield,” said Jarlaxle, and Athrogate began to giggle.
“Huh?” Bruenor asked again and he turned the shield to get a look.
The wood remained exactly as it had been, though perhaps a bit darker, burnished by the fires. The banding, though, once black iron, shone silver in hue, and showed not a dent, though it had been marked by many before. And most magnificent of all was the foaming mug set in the middle. It, too, shone silver, and the foam seemed almost real, white in hue and brilliant in design.
“The axe,” Jarlaxle added, and all had noticed that, for how could one miss the changes that had come over the weapon? The head gleamed silver, a sparkle running along its vicious edge. It still showed the notches of its many battles-no doubt, the dwarf gods would have thought it an insult to Bruenor to remove those badges of honor-but there was a strength about it that was visible to all, an inner power, glowing as if begging release.
“What have you done?” Jarlaxle asked.
Bruenor just muttered, “Talked to them what was,” and banged his axe against his shield.
A noise from the far end of the hall turned them all that way. Drizzt slid Taulmaril off his shoulder as Athrogate then Bruenor came up to flank him. Jarlaxle shrank back a few steps, drawing out a pair of wands.
“Here they come,” remarked Dahlia, standing right behind Drizzt. She used her staff to nudge him aside, and stepped up between him and Athrogate.
Drizzt looked over at Bruenor, who wore a curious expression. With only a cursory glance back at the drow, the dwarf put his axe in his shield hand and brought that shield arm out in front of him. Staring at the shield’s backing, he grew even more curious and he brought his free hand forward, as if reaching right inside the shield.
How all their eyes widened when Bruenor retracted that arm, for he held a flagon, a great foamy head spilling over its side. He looked back at the shield, eyes widening once more. He handed the flagon to Drizzt then reached in again and produced a second one.
“Here now, one for meself?” Athrogate demanded.
Drizzt handed the first to the dwarf, and turned back just in time to get the second from Bruenor, who already produced the third and gave it to Drizzt as the second went to Dahlia. The fourth he gave to Jarlaxle, and Bruenor took up the fifth and final mug.
“Now there’s a shield worth wearin’!” said Athrogate.
“We got us some good gods,” Bruenor remarked, and Athrogate grinned.
“What is it?” Dahlia asked.
“Gutbuster, I’m hopin’!” said Athrogate.
The two drow and the elf looked to each other and at the drinks uncertainly, but Bruenor and Athrogate didn’t hesitate, lifting their flagons in toast then taking great swallows.
And both seemed to swell with power. Athrogate brought forth his empty metal flagon and crushed it in his hand, then threw it aside and took up his morningstars.
“By Moradin’s bum and Clangeddin’s beard, who’d ever be seein’ such a sight?” he recited. “A party o’ five with weapons in hand and ready to take up the fight. But me gods are all posin’ and scratching and shakin’ and got to be questionin’ theirself, to think a royal would be sharin’ their spoils with the likes o’ two drows and an elf!”