“Greetings, good dwarf,” he said as politely as he could muster. “And Master Do’Urden,” he added quickly when he noticed Drizzt slipping in behind. “Were you not to be gone by this late hour?”
“We have time,” said Drizzt.
“And we’re not for leaving till we’ve seen to the safety of Rumblebelly,” Bruenor explained.
“Rumblebelly?” echoed LaValle.
“The halfling!” roared Bruenor. “Yer master.”
“Ah, yes, Master Regis,” said LaValle wistfully, his hands going together over his chest and his eyes taking on a distant, glossy look.
Drizzt shut the door and glared, suspicious, at him.
LaValle’s faraway trance faded back to normal when he considered the unblinking drow. He scratched his chin, looking for somewhere to run. He couldn’t fool the drow, he realized. The dwarf, perhaps, the halfling, certainly, but not this one. Those lavender eyes burned holes right through his facade. “You do not believe that your little friend has cast his enchantment over me,” he said.
“Wizards avoid wizards’ traps,” Drizzt replied.
“Fair enough,” said LaValle, slipping into a chair.
“Bah! Then ye’re a liar, too!” growled Bruenor, his hand going to the axe on his belt. Drizzt stopped him.
“If you doubt the enchantment,” said LaValle, “do not doubt my loyalty. I am a practical man who has served many masters in my long life. Pook was the greatest of these, but Pook is gone. LaValle lives on to serve again.”
“Or mighten be that he sees a chance to make the top,” Bruenor remarked, expecting an, angry response from LaValle.
Instead, the wizard laughed heartily. “I have my craft,” he said. “It is all that I care for. I live in comfort and am free to go as I please. I need not the challenges and dangers of a guildmaster.” He looked to Drizzt as the more reasonable of the two. “I will serve the halfling, and if Regis is thrown down, I will serve he that takes the halfling’s place.”
The logic satisfied Drizzt, and convinced him of the wizard’s loyalty beyond any enchantment the ruby could have induced. “Let us take our leave,” he said to Bruenor, and he started out the door.
Bruenor could trust Drizzt’s judgment, but he couldn’t resist one final threat. “Ye crossed me, wizard,” he growled from the doorway. “Ye nearen killed me girl. If me friend comes to a bad end, ye’ll pay with yer head.”
LaValle nodded but said nothing.
“Keep him well,” the dwarf finished with a wink, and he slammed the door with a bang.
“He hates my door,” the wizard lamented.
The troupe gathered inside the guildhouse’s main entrance an hour later, Drizzt, Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie outfitted again in their adventuring gear, and Drizzt with the magical mask hanging loose around his neck.
Regis, with attendants in tow, joined them. He would make the trip to the Sea Sprite beside his formidable friends. Let his enemies see his allies in all their splendor, the sly new guildmaster figured, particularly a drow elf!
“A final offer before we go,” Regis proclaimed.
“We’re not for staying,” Bruenor retorted.
“Not to you,” Regis said. He turned squarely to Drizzt. “To you.”
Drizzt waited patiently for the pitch as the halfling rubbed his eager hands together.
“Fifty thousand gold pieces,” Regis said at length, “for your cat.”
Drizzt’s eyes widened to double their size.
“Guenhwyvar will be well cared for, I assure—”
Catti-brie slapped Regis on the back of the head. “Find yer shame,” she scolded. “Ye know the drow better than that!”
Drizzt calmed her with a smile. “A treasure for a treasure?” he said to Regis. “You know I must decline. Guenhwyvar cannot be bought, however good your intentions may be.”
“Fifty thousand,” Bruenor huffed. “If we wanted it, we’d take it afore we left!”
Regis then realized the absurdity of the offer, and he blushed in embarrassment.
“Are you so certain that we came across the world to your aid?” Wulfgar asked him. Regis looked at the barbarian, confused.
“Perhaps ‘twas the cat we came after,” Wulfgar continued seriously.
The stunned look on Regis’s face proved more than any of them could bear, and a burst of laughter like none of them had enjoyed in many months erupted, infecting even Regis.
“Here,” Drizzt offered when things had quieted once again. “Take this instead,” He pulled the magical mask off his head and tossed it to the halfling.
“Should ye keep it until we get to the boat?” Bruenor asked.
Drizzt looked to Catti-brie for an answer, and her smile of approval and admiration cast away any remaining doubts he might have had.
“No,” he said. “Let the Calishites judge me for what they will.” He swung open the doors, allowing the morning sun to sparkle in his lavender eyes.
“Let the wide world judge me for what it will,” he said, his look one of genuine contentment as he dropped his gaze alternately into the eyes of each of his four friends.
“You know who I am.”
Epilogue
The Sea Sprite cut a difficult course northward up the Sword Coast, into the wintry winds, but Captain Deudermont and his grateful crew were determined to see the four friends safely and swiftly back to Waterdeep.
Stunned expressions from every face on the docks greeted the resilient vessel as it put into Waterdeep Harbor, dodging the breakers and the ice floes as it went. Mustering all the skill he had gained through years of experience, Deudermont docked the Sea Sprite safely.
The four friends had recovered much of their health, and their humor, during those two months at sea, despite the rough voyage. All had turned out well in the end—even Catti-brie’s wounds appeared as if they would fully heal.
But if the sea voyage back to the North was difficult, the trek across the frozen lands was even worse. Winter was on the wane but still thick in the land, and the friends could not afford to wait for the snows to melt. They said their goodbyes to Deudermont and the men of the Sea Sprite, tightened heavy cloaks and boots, and trudged off through Waterdeep’s gate along the Trade Way on the northeastern course to Longsaddle.
Blizzards and wolves reared up to stop them. The path of the road, its plentiful markings buried under a year’s worth of snow, became no more than the guess of a drow elf reading the stars and the sun.
Somehow they made it, though, and they stormed into Longsaddle, ready to retake Mithril Hall. Bruenor’s kin from Icewind Dale were there to greet them, along with five hundred of Wulfgar’s people. Less than two weeks later, General Dagnabit of Citadel Adbar led his eight thousand dwarven troops to Bruenor’s side.
Battle plans were drawn and redrawn. Drizzt and Bruenor put their memories of the undercity and mine caverns together to create models of the place and estimate the number of duergar the army would face.
Then, with spring defeating the last blows of winter, and only a few days before the army was to set out to the mountains, two more groups of allies came in, quite unexpectedly: contingents of archers from Silverymoon and Nesme. Bruenor at first wanted to turn the warriors from Nesme away, remembering the treatment he and his friends had received at the hands of a Nesme patrol on their initial journey to Mithril Hall, and also because the dwarf wondered how much of the show of allegiance was motivated in the hopes of friendship, and how much in the hopes of profit!
But, as usual, Bruenor’s friends kept him on a wise course. The dwarves would have to deal extensively with Nesme, the closest settlement to Mithril Hall, once the mines were reopened, and a smart leader would patch the bad feelings there and then.