“The roads will grow worse, for the melt is on, and the tundra mud is inevitable,” Drizzt explained. “Another tenday before us, likely, if the weather holds.”
The driver nodded. “Been this way many times,” he explained.
“My friends and I will escort you to Bryn Shander’s gates, but then I, at least, will turn away for Kelvin’s Cairn.”
“You will get your pay.”
Drizzt smiled. He hardly cared, and had only wanted to inform the caravan of his plans.
“The Battlehammer dwarves for you, then?” the driver added, and Drizzt nodded. “I heard you were friends o’ them.”
“Proud to be called such.”
“We’ve a wagon of goods bound for Stokely Silverstream’s boys,” the driver explained, and Drizzt was glad to hear that name again. “Might be two. I’ll begin splitting up the goods when we camp tonight, sorting them that’s for the dwarves, and you can guard those wagons to the mountain.”
Drizzt nodded again and moved up front with Afafrenfere. He paced Andahar a bit faster after that, his conversation making him anxious to walk the ways of Kelvin’s Cairn once more.
The next morning, soon after they were on the road again, the tip of that small mountain came into view, and Drizzt’s heart leaped.
Chapter 26
The beer, the ale, and the honey mead flowed freely in the ball-room hall of Clan Battlehammer, beneath the rocks of Kelvin’s Cairn. Dain Stokely Silverstream led the toasts, one after another, for Drizzt and the others of the drow’s band, and so ridiculously effusive were the compliments that it didn’t take long for the companions to recognize that they were as much an excuse as a reason for drinking.
Other than Drizzt, long a friend of the clan, Amber Gristle O’Maul got the bulk of the attention and praise, and truly, the female dwarf hadn’t felt so welcomed in a long, long while.
Nor had she often found herself among so many peers in matters of holding one’s liquor.
The celebration went on for many days, and both Drizzt and Dahlia were repeatedly pressed to recount their story of Gauntlgrym, describing the primordial, and most important of all, the fall of King Bruenor Battlehammer, patriarch and hero of the clan. The openness of Stokely and the others about the true identity of the dwarf who had gone by the name of Bonnego Battleaxe surprised Drizzt, and pleasantly so. The official story among the Battlehammer dwarves was that King Bruenor had died in Mithral Hall, decades before his actual demise, but this outpost of Battlehammers knew better, for they had been there, led by Thibbledorf Pwent, when King Bruenor, infused with the power of dwarf gods, had valiantly saved the day, heroically giving his own life in the process.
They knew the truth of Bonnego, and Mithral Hall almost surely knew as well-and thus, knew too that the cairn in Mithral Hall marking the grave of King Bruenor was an empty pile of rocks. But they’d never publicly admit it.
The absurdity of the open duplicity was surely not lost on Drizzt, but he found that he approved of the winks and nods, and that the Battlehammers celebrated the ultimate victory that had marked his dearest friend’s demise came as a sincere and warm comfort to him.
“So how long’re ye for the dale?” Stokely asked Drizzt a tenday later, when the two found a private moment outside the mining complex on the lower trails of Kelvin’s Cairn.
“Perhaps forever,” Drizzt answered, and he noted Stokely’s approving nod and grin. “I’ve nowhere else to go that I can fathom, for nowhere else feels so much like home.”
“Sure that meself’s one to understand that! But I’m not thinkin’ yer friends’re of like mind. Amber, likely, and that monk fellow, but not so much th’other three, mostly that broken fellow.”
“Are you so certain of that, or is it, perhaps, your own wishes to have Effron away?” Drizzt asked, and Stokely stiffened at the remark.
“Well, he is demon spawn, or devil spawn, or whatever durned tieflings be,” the dwarf said uncomfortably.
“And I am drow spawn,” Drizzt reminded.
Stokely could only shrug. “We ain’t for kickin’ him out,” he said.
Drizzt laughed. “We’ll not be staying here for long.”
“Ye just said forever.”
“Here at Kelvin’s Cairn,” Drizzt clarified. “Perhaps we’ll set up in Bryn Shander, or maybe Lonelywood would be more to our liking. Dahlia and Entreri aren’t overly comfortable with your tunnels.”
Stokely narrowed his eyes.
“Inviting as you’ve made them,” Drizzt quickly added, and he bowed to diffuse Stokely’s growing scowl. “Dahlia is an elf, after all, and Entreri-”
“Not always a friend of the Battlehammers, eh?” Stokely interjected.
“Though no longer an enemy, else I would never have brought him here. Indeed, were that the case, I would not be traveling with him.”
“Well, ye go where ye’re needin’ to go,” Stokely said. “But if ye’re staying in the dale, then ye best be visitin’ me and me boys.”
“Oftentimes,” Drizzt assured him.
Later that same day, Drizzt, Dahlia, and Entreri rode out from Kelvin’s Cairn for Bryn Shander, where the drow hoped they could begin to lay their longer-term plans. Afafrenfere saw them off, but remained behind to keep an eye on Ambergris and her unrelenting libations. Effron too, surprisingly, had declared that he would remain behind, and Drizzt discovered that Stokely had asked the tiefling to do so, that the two of them could spend some time alone and Effron could better explain his heritage. That notion struck Drizzt profoundly, and reminded him that Battlehammer dwarves were not nearly as xenophobic as many of the races of Faerun. An open-minded Bruenor had long-ago befriended a rogue dark elf, after all, and now Stokely was apparently trying to carry on that tradition.
Drizzt’s confidence that he had done well in leading his companions to this distant, seemingly-forlorn but ultimately-welcoming land only grew as he left the Clan Battlehammer complex.
Dahlia rode upon Andahar behind Drizzt, but the added weight did little to hinder the powerful steed and the trio made Bryn Shander that same day, though after the sun had set and the chilly wind began to blow more strongly. The city’s gates were closed at the late hour, but the guards recognized Drizzt Do’Urden and were more than happy to grant him and his companions entrance.
“When’s the caravan back to Luskan?” one asked as the strange and powerful mounts trotted between the western gate’s small guard towers.
Drizzt shrugged, neither knowing nor caring. He dismounted from Andahar, bade Dahlia do the same, then dismissed the unicorn as Entreri released his nightmare.
“Our best choice is to enlist as scouts for the leaders of the city,” Drizzt explained as the three made their way to the nearest tavern.
“How long do you plan on remaining here?” Entreri asked.
Drizzt stopped short and glanced around, ensuring that they were alone and would not be overheard.
“Jarlaxle recommended that we spend the rest of the season or more,” Drizzt admitted.
“Sounds like a good reason to turn around and leave,” Entreri replied.
“There are powerful forces seeking us-seeking me, at least-and they will find you, as well,” Drizzt admitted.
“Draygo Quick,” Dahlia reasoned.
“That is one.”
“What do you know?” Entreri insisted.
“The drow from Gauntlgrym,” Drizzt admitted. “They have come to realize my identity, I am told.”
“Wonderful,” Entreri muttered.
“What does this mean?” asked Dahlia.
“It means, welcome to your new home,” said the dour assassin.
“When the trail grows cold, Jarlaxle will inform us,” Drizzt said. “And there are worse places to live. Is there somewhere you would rather be?”
The pointed question elicited a curious response from Entreri: a shrug that came as an admission that indeed, this place was likely as good as any other.