One went around and down low, and the orcs closest responded accordingly—except that the leading elf (and they were indeed surface elves, Drizzt recognized) simply rotated along past them, while his partner came in hard and high, above the set defenses. Orcs screamed and orcs fell, and more orcs tried to press in.
They fell, too.
The Hunter forced himself free of the amazing spectacle, a dance as graceful and perfect as anything he had ever before witnessed. He purposely put his back to the spinning pair, refusing to be distracted, and he charged into the nearest orcs, who suddenly and quite understandably seemed more intent upon running away.
He caught a few and slew them, and many more went howling in flight across the trails. The threat gone, and the battle won. He turned to face his unknown allies, offering a salute to them with one scimitar.
The male of the group, breathing heavily but wearing an easy smile, similarly saluted with his bloody sword.
And he nearly knocked the drow over with a simple statement, "Well met again, Drizzt Do'Urden."
CHAPTER 7 BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF TIME
"I have heard of your citadel," Nanfoodle said to Nikwillig.
The gnome was wandering the grounds outside of Mithral Hall's western gate when he came upon his fellow visitor to the Battlehammer stronghold sitting on a flat stone in Keeper's Dale. They could hear the fighting up above them in the north.
"Me kinsman Tred's up there now," Nikwillig remarked.
"You fear for him," reasoned the gnome.
"For Tred?" came the laughing response. "Nah, never that. Nikwillig's the name here, little one, and who might yerself be?"
"Nanfoodle Buswilligan at your service, good dwarf," the gnome answered with a polite bow. "A visitor to Mithral Hall, as are you."
"Ye come from Silverymoon?"
"Mirabar," Nanfoodle answered. "I serve as Marchion Elastul's Principal Alchemist."
'Alchemist?" Nikwillig echoed, and his tone clearly showed that he didn't hold much faith in that particular art. "Well, what's an alchemist doing out on the wider roads?"
That question set off warning bells in Nanfoodle's head and reminded him that perhaps he should not be so forthcoming, given his true mission. Certainly Torgar and the others from Mirabar knew the truth of his position in that city, but why make the information so readily available?
"Better that yer marchion sent a war advisor, I'm thinking," the dwarf added.
"Ah, but we did not know that Mithral Hall was at war," Nanfoodle answered, and coincidentally, at that moment, horns blew up above, followed by the rousing cheers of another dwarf charge. "I came with the sceptrana, following the exodus of many of Mirabar's dwarves."
"I heard about that," Nikwillig replied. He turned to the cliff behind him and nodded. "Torgar and his boys're up there now, from what I'm hearing."
"Doing Mirabar proud, though they are not of Mirabar any longer."
"Ye come to coax them back, did ye?"
Nanfoodle shook his head.
"To check on them," said the gnome. "Too see that their journey went well and that their reception here was appropriate. There are bridges to be rebuilt— animosity serves neither Mirabar nor Mithral Hall."
How Nanfoodle wished that he could believe in those words as he spoke them!
"Ah," Nikwillig mumbled. "Well, no worry then. No better hosts in all the world than King Bruenor and his kin, unless of course one goes to Citadel Fel-barr and the court of King Emerus Warcrown."
"They have treated you and your friend well?"
"How do ye think King Bruenor got himself knocked silly?" Nikwillig said. "He was hunting the band of orcs and giants that hit me and Tred. We paid them back, too, we did, though in the end too many of the stinking orcs came onto the field. Aye … no better friend than Bruenor Battlehammer."
"How will your king react to this attack?" Nanfoodle asked, genuinely curious.
The gnome had always recognized the bond between dwarves—and had been among the loudest voices warning Marchion Elastul and his advisors that he might be erring greatly in his treatment of Torgar Hammerstriker. It touched Nanfoodle to hear this dwarf of Citadel Felbarr, the closest dwarven stronghold to Mithral Hall and certainly a trading rival, speaking so highly of Bruenor and his kin.
The gnome glanced up the tall cliff, thinking that Tred was up there battling, risking his life for a kingdom that was not his own. And that Torgar was up there, and Shingles McRuff as well, no doubt fighting with all the fury they would muster in defending Mirabar herself.
Nanfoodle began to ask another question, but the dwarf perked up suddenly and looked past him. Nikwillig hopped down and pushed past the gnome to intercept a dwarf wearing long robes.
"What of King Bruenor then?" Nikwillig asked. "Ye been with him?"
The dwarf, young in appearance but looking quite weary and worn, straight-d jjjs shoulders and his robes and tucked his brown beard into the belt sash.
"Hello once again, Nikwillig of Citadel Felbarr," he said.
"This is me new friend, Nanfoodle," Nikwillig introduced, pulling the gnome forward.
"Of Mirabar, yes," the dwarf replied, and he gave Nanfoodle's small hand a solid grasp and shake. "Cordio Muffmhead at yer service."
"Priest of Moradin," the gnome observed, and Cordio bowed deeply.
"And yes, I've just come from the side of King Bruenor, where yet again today, meself and several others have exhausted our magical energies on his behalf."
"To gain?" Nikwillig asked.
"So we were thinking," the despondent cleric replied. "King Bruenor uttered some words earlier, and we thought he'd found his way back to us. But he was calling to his father and his father's father, warning them of the shadow."
"The shadow?" Nanfoodle asked.
"The shadow dragon, perhaps," Cordio added.
"King Bruenor was seeing in the past," Nikwillig explained. "Far in the past, before Clan Battlehammer got chased away from Mithral Hall, to wander and settle in Icewind Dale."
"Where I was born," Cordio said. "I never knew Mithral Hall until King Bruenor took it back. What a fight that was, I tell ye! I was there all the way, fighting right beside Dagnabbit, finest young warrior in all the clan."
"Dagnabbit fell at Shallows," Nikwillig explained to Nanfoodle, and the gnome offered a deferential nod at Cordio.
"Lost me a good friend that dark day," Cordio admitted. "But he died fight-ing orcs—no dwarf could ever be wanting a better way to go."
Cordio turned around and stepped away from the flat stone. Many other dwarves were in the area, ferrying supplies—both up the rope ladders to Banak Brawnanvil and his boys and out to the west where a force was digging in for the defense of Keeper's Dale. Other dwarves coming back from the wall in the north ferried the wounded and dead.
"Been a long and bloody history in these lands," Cordio remarked. "Lots o' dead dwarves."
"More dead orcs," Nanfoodle reminded. "And more dead goblins."
That brought a grin to the weary cleric, and Nikwillig clapped Cordio warmly on the shoulder.
"The most dwarves o' Mithral Hall that ever died in one place at one time, died right about where ye're sitting," Cordio explained to Nanfoodle.
"In the fight with the drow?" Nikwillig asked.
"Nah," answered the cleric. "Long before that. Way back afore me father's father's father's time. Way back when Gandalug was just a boy."
That news brought wide eyes from both of Cordio's listeners. Gandalug Battlehammer had become quite a legend in Mirabar and Citadel Felbarr, and everywhere else in the North. He had been the proud and revered King of Mithral Hall centuries before, but he had been magically imprisoned and wound up in the clutches of Matron Mother Baenre of Menzoberranzan. When the drow had come against Mithral Hall a decade before, Bruenor had slain Baenre and had freed Gandalug. And Bruenor had returned to Icewind Dale, which had been his home for centuries, giving Mithral Hall back to his returned ancestor.