Regis forced himself to calm down, remembering the two friends, Drizzt and Catti-brie, that he was fearing for. If Jule Pepper crossed paths with that pair, then woe to her, he figured, and he let it go at that.
“I must get to Bruenor,” he said to Cassius. Regis snapped the parchment up tight in his hand and rushed out of the elderman's house, sprinting across Brynn Shander in the hopes that he might catch up to a merchant caravan he knew to be leaving for the dwarven mines that very morning.
Luck was with him, and he talked his way into a ride on a wagon full of grain bags. He slept nearly all the way.
Bruenor was in a foul mood when Regis finally caught up to him late that same night—a mood that had been common with the dwarf since Drizzt and Catti-brie had left Ten-Towns.
“Ye're bringing up weak stone!” the red-bearded dwarf king howled at a pair of young miners, their faces and beards black with dirt and dust. Bruenor held up one of the rock samples he had proffered from their small cart and crumbled it in one hand. “Ye're thinking there's ore worth taking in that?” he asked incredulously.
“A tough dig,” remarked one of the younger dwarves, his black beard barely reaching the middle of his thick neck. “We're down the deepest hole, hanging upside down. .”
“Bah, but ye're mixing me up for one who's caring to hear yer whining!” Bruenor roared. The dwarf king gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and gave a great growl, trembling as if he was throwing all of the rage right out of his body.
“Me king!” the black-bearded dwarf exclaimed. “We'll go and get better stone!”
“Bah!” Bruenor snorted.
He turned and slammed his body hard against the laden cart, overturning it. As if that one explosion had released the tension, Bruenor stood there, staring at the overturned cart and the stones strewn about the corridor, stubby hands on hips. He closed his eyes.
“Ye're not needing to go back down there,” he said calmly to the pair. “Ye go get yerselves cleaned and get yerselves some food. Ain't a thing wrong with most o' that ore—it's yer king who's needing a bit o' toughening, by me own eyes and ears.”
“Yes, me king,” both young dwarves said in unison.
Regis came up from the other side, then, and nodded to the pair, who turned and trotted away, mumbling.
The halfling walked up and put his hand on Bruenor’s shoulder. The dwarf king nearly jumped out of his boots, spinning about, his face a mask of fury.
“Don't ye be doing that!” he roared, though he did calm somewhat when he saw that it was only Regis. “Ain't ye supposed to be in a council meeting?”
“They can get through it without me,” the halfling replied, managing a smile. “I think you might need me more.”
Bruenor looked at him curiously, so Regis just turned and led the dwarfs gaze down the corridor, to the departing pair. “Criminals?” the halfling asked sarcastically.
Bruenor kicked a stone, sending it flying against the wall, seeming again as if he was so full of rage and frustration that he would simply explode. The dark cloud passed quickly, though, replaced by a more general air of gloom, and the dwarfs shoulders slumped. He bowed his head and shook it slowly.
“I can't be losin' me boy again,” he admitted.
Regis was beside him in an instant, one hand comfortingly placed on Bruenor's shoulder. As soon as the dwarf looked up at his buddy, Regis offered a wide smile and held the parchment up before him. “From Drizzt,” the halfling explained.
The words had barely left Regis's mouth before Bruenor grabbed the parchment away and pulled it open.
“He and Catti-brie found me boy!” the dwarf howled, but he stopped short as he read on.
“No, but they found out how Wulfgar got separated from Aegis-fang,” Regis was quick to add, for that, after all, had been the primary source of their concern that the barbarian might be dead.
“We're goin',” Bruenor declared.
“Going?” Regis echoed. “Going where?”
“To find Drizzt and Catti-brie. To find me boy!” the dwarf roared. He stormed away down the corridor. “We're leaving tonight, Rumblebelly. Ye'd best get yerself ready.”
“But. .” Re'gis started to reply. He stuttered over the beginnings of a series of arguments, the primary of which was the fact that it was getting late in the season to be heading out of Ten-Towns. Autumn was fast on the wane, and Icewind Dale had never been known for especially long autumn seasons, with winter seeming ever hungry to descend upon the region.
“We'll get to Luskan, don't ye worry, Rumblebelly!” Bruenor howled.
“You should take dwarves with you,” Regis stammered, skittering to catch up. “Yes, sturdy dwarves who can brave the winter snows, and who can fight., .”
“Don't need me kin,” Bruenor assured him. “I've got yerself beside me, and I know ye wouldn't be missing the chance to help me find me boy.”
It wasn't so much what Bruenor had said as it was the manner in which he had said it, a flat declaration that left no hint at all that he would even listen to contrary arguments.
Regis sputtered out a few undecipherable sounds, then just huffed through a resigned sigh. “All of my supplies for the road are in Lonelywood,” the halfling did manage to complain.
“And anything ye'll be needin' is right here in me caves,” Bruenor explained. “We'll put through Brynn Shander on our way so ye can apologize to Cassius—he'll see to yer house and yer possessions.”
“Indeed,” Regis mumbled under his breath, and in purely sarcastic tones, for the last time he had left the region, as in all the times he had wandered out of Icewind Dale, he had returned to find that he had nothing left waiting for him. The folk of Ten-Towns were honest enough as neighbors, but perfectly vulture-like when it came to picking clean abandoned houses—even if they were only supposed to be abandoned for a short time.
True to Bruenor's word, the halfling and the dwarf were on the road that very night, rambling along under crystalline skies and a cold wind, following the distant lights to Brynn Shander. They arrived just before the dawn, and though Regis begged for patience Bruenor led the way straight to Cassius's house and banged hard on the door, calling out loudly enough to not only wake Cassius but a substantial number of his neighbors as well.
When a sleepy-eyed Cassius at last opened his door, the dwarf bellowed, “Ye got five minutes!” and shoved Regis through.
And when, by Bruenor's count, the appropriated time had passed, the dwarf barged through the door, collected the halfling by the scruff of his neck, offered a few insincere apologies to Cassius, and pulled Regis out the door. Bruenor prodded him along all the way across the city and out the western gate.
“Cassius informed me that the fishermen are expecting a gale,” Regis said repeatedly, but if Bruenor even heard him, the determined dwarf wasn't showing it. “The wind and rain will be bad enough, but if it turns to snow and sleet. . ”
“Just a storm,” Bruenor said with a derisive snort. “Ain't no storm to stop me, Rumblebelly, nor yerself. I'll get ye there!”
“The yetis are out in force this time of year,” Regis cautioned.
“Good enough for keeping me axe nice and sharp,” Bruenor countered. “Hard-headed beasts.”
The storm began that same night, a cold and biting, steady rain, pelting them more horizontally than vertically in the driving wind.
Thoroughly miserable and soaked to the bone, Regis complained continually, though he knew Bruenor, in the sheer volume of the wind, couldn't even hear him. The wind was directly behind them, at least, propelling them along at a great pace, which Bruenor pointed out often and with a wide smile.
But Regis knew better, and so did the dwarf. The storm was coming from the southeast, off the mountains, the most unlikely direction, and often the most ominous. In Icewind Dale, such storms, if they progressed as expected, were known as Nor'westers. If the gale made its way across the dale and to the sea, the cold northeasterly wind would hold it there, over the moving ice, sometimes for days on end,