For Bruenor, though, as many times as he might remind himself of this, the whole experience proved mind-numbingly simple. He was well-acquainted with this new body he had been given, and had been for years.
Bryunn Argut came forward with a powerful downward chop, but one that could only fall short, Bruenor recognized, and as he did, he knew the movement to be quite obviously a diversion for the coming shield rush.
He was moving at the same time as Bryunn, cleverly disguising his dodge as a slip and stumble. As Bryunn came charging forward, Little Arr Arr “fell” forward and to the side, tucking his head under his lifting shield and rolling behind the approaching opponent.
He resisted the urge to kick out Bryunn’s trailing foot and send the lad sprawling to the floor. He liked Bryunn, after all, thought him a promising dwarfling fighter, and didn’t want to embarrass him!
“Bah, but good thing he tripped o’er his own feet, eh?” Rocky Warcrown remarked. “Or to be sure that th’Argut kid would’ve flap-jacked him!” Rocky laughed, obviously picturing the event, for the term “flap-jack” referred to pancakes, and a flap-jacked fighter was one laid out flat, sprawled under the crush of a shield rush, truly among the most comical outcomes to be found on the training grounds.
“Aye,” Muttonchops replied, but without conviction, and he was nodding as he spoke, though surely not in agreement with his companion’s assessment.
“Ah, but Uween’s to be heartbroken to learn that her one son, the heir to the Roundshield legacy, is just a flat-footed oaf,” Rocky said. “Poor old Arr Arr’s turnin’ in his grave, don’t ye doubt.”
But the wily old veteran Muttonchops did doubt.
“He’s bored,” he muttered.
“Eh?” asked Rocky Warcrown, and he followed Muttonchops’s stare across the grounds just in time to see Bryunn Argut launch an endgame assault, what Muttonchops had taught the dwarflings to think of as “the killing frenzy.”
Bryunn’s wooden axe swooped in with abandon, from the left, then right, overhead and stabbing straight forward, over and over again. He continually pressed and bulled ahead, purely offensive in design, keeping Arr Arr on his heels the whole time and almost hitting him-almost! — with every devastating strike.
Almost … but never quite.
Rocky sucked in his breath repeatedly, obviously expecting Little Arr Arr to take one on the chin in short order.
Muttonchops suppressed a knowing laugh and nod and wasn’t the least bit surprised when Bryunn Argut finally relented and Arr Arr, still back on his heels, hadn’t actually been touched. The teacher slapped his fingers against the chimes hanging beside him, signaling the end of the matches, and soon after dismissed his twenty trainees.
“He did well to keep his beardless head on his shoulders,” Rocky admitted. “But ne’er got close to hitting the Argut lad.”
“Aye, Bryunn Argut’s a promisin’ one. He’ll find hisself in with the stubble group soon enough,” Muttonchops agreed, “the stubble group” referring a long while to realize become the olderon to the dwarf teenagers, their little beards just beginning to sprout. The old veteran looked around, then settled his gaze on Rocky Warcrown. “Be a good friend, then,” he asked, “and see to getting them off to their homes. I got something what’s needin’ to be done.”
“Stubble group’s coming in next, ain’t they?” Rocky asked. “Was hoping to see the Fellhammer sisters. Word’s that them two might be joining a battlerager brigade.”
“Aye, and aye again, that they might,” Muttonchops replied. “Fist’n’Fury, I call ’em. Fist’n’Fury, and any I’m puttin’ against them ain’t the happiest o’ me students! Be a good friend then for me and send the little ones on their way. And might that ye start the next group to their strengthening exercises. I’ll not be gone long.”
Rocky nodded and Muttonchops left in a hurry, the cagey old dwarf realizing that he’d have to be quick now.
Bruenor walked along the quiet tunnels of Citadel Felbarr soon after, his practice axe swinging at the end of his right arm, shield still strapped on his left.
Another day.
Another wasted day.
That was how he saw it, at least, for he had long ago acclimated to this new body-it was fully his own now, as surely as had been the muscled and scarred one his spirit had departed in the depths of Gauntlgrym. He even looked like himself, his old self, like Bruenor Battlehammer at the age of nine! That notion had surprised him when first he had realized the resemblance. He had wondered about it, of course, unsure of how Mielikki’s “gift” might affect such things. Might he have been a blue-bearded dwarf? Or even a female? Catti-brie hadn’t said, after all, explaining only that they would be reborn somewhere in Faerun to parents of their own race. She hadn’t mentioned gender, or their expected appearance, at all.
Wouldn’t Drizzt be in for a surprise if he met Catti-brie again, only to find her not a “her” at all, but a strapping young lad!
Bruenor shook that discomforting thought out of his head. He felt like himself now-there was no other way to describe it. His reflection looked familiar to him; his hands were the young hands he had known as a Battlehammer dwarfling. And he was fully in control of this young body, more so even than he had been the first time around at a similar age. His private practice sessions showed him the truth: he could execute moves that a nine-year-old Bruenor had never imagined. His understanding of battle remained and all the centuries of training had followed him through the spirit world to this new physical form.
He had to attend the classes of Murgatroid Stonehammer, of course, for they were not optional in Citadel Felbarr, but he feared that these sessions were actually dulling his senses and unlearning the great lessons repetition and action had so deeply imbued within him.
And of course, there was always the possibility that he would forget himself in one of these ridiculous training fights and accidentally humiliate, or even lay low, a fine young dwarf.
The dwarf sighed and turned down a lonely lane in the quarter of the underground complex that housed the city soldiers. He brought his wooden axe up onto his shoulder and thought of another weapon, one many-notched …
The attack came a long while to realize become the olderon from the side, a heavy and squat form charging out at him, shield-rushing behind a thick oaken buckler. Hardly even thinking of the movement, indeed thinking of nothing but getting out of the way, the surprised Bruenor threw himself forward and down to the side, exactly as he had done with the Argut boy earlier. Up came his shield to cover his head and facilitate the roll, and he came around in perfect balance as the highwaydwarf, or whomever or whatever it might be, sped past.
Unlike in the practice fight, however, Bruenor wasn’t about to let this one get past him so easily. He flung himself around, his wooden axe reaching out fast at the attacker’s trailing ankle. With a proper weapon, he might have severed the fool’s foot, but with the practice axe, he took a different tact, hooking the axe head around his attacker’s ankle and tugging hard. When that proved futile, given the difference in size, where Bruenor could not hope to pull this one’s feet out from under him, Bruenor instead scrabbled forward with all speed.
He unhooked the axe as he crashed against the attacker’s leg and again, could barely budge the assailant, who had recovered his balance by then. Up went the practice axe’s tip, right between the attacker’s legs, prodding at his groin, and when Bruenor’s opponent predictably hopped up on his toes and rushed forward, Bruenor swatted the trailing foot so that it tripped up on the back of the suddenly retreating attacker’s forward ankle.
Now the assailant staggered, and when he tried to put his feet back under him and swing around, he found a dwarfling flying upon him, crashing against him ferociously, climbing up him and rolling right over him, and so perfectly setting the wooden axe handle across the assailant’s throat as he did.