Galen Firth was no fool. He did not doubt the story of Catti-brie and Wulfgar, and he had seen clearly the desperation on Cottie Cooperson’s face when he had left her in the barracks. That type of desperation was borne of knowing that she had no real claim, that the child was not hers.
For of course, Colson was not.
Galen Firth looked over his shoulder to his guards. “Go and fetch Cottie Cooperson and the girl,” he said.
Protests erupted around the room, with men shaking their fists in the air.
“The child is mine!” Wulfgar shouted at them, turning fiercely, and indeed, all of those in front stepped back. “Would any of you demand any less if she was yours?”
“Cottie is our friend,” one man replied, rather meekly. “She means the girl no harm.”
“Fetch your own child, then,” said Wulfgar. “Relinquish her, or him, to me in trade!”
“What foolish words are those?”
“Words to show you your own folly,” said the big man. “However good Cottie Cooperson’s heart, and I do not doubt your claim that she is worthy both as a friend and a mother, I cannot surrender to her a girl that is my own. I have come for Colson, and I will leave with Colson, and any man who stands in my way would do well to have made his peace with his god.”
He snapped his arm in the air before him and called to Aegis-fang, and the mighty warhammer appeared magically in his grasp. With a flick, Wulfgar rapped the hammer atop a nearby table, shattering all four legs and dropping the kindling to the floor.
Galen Firth gasped in protest, and the one guard behind him reached for his sword—and stared down the length of an arrow set on Catti-brie’s Taulmaril.
“Which of you will come forward and deny my claim to Colson?” Wulfgar asked the group, and not surprisingly, his challenge was met with silence.
“You will leave my town,” Galen Firth said.
“We will, on the same caravan that brought us in,” Catti-brie replied, easing her bow back to a rest position as the guard relinquished his grip on the sword and raised his hands before him. “As soon as we have Colson.”
“I intend to protest this to Lady Alustriel,” Galen Firth warned.
“When you do,” said Catti-brie, “be certain to explain to Lady Alustriel how you almost incited a riot and a tragedy by playing the drama out before the hot humors of men and women who came to your town seeking naught but refuge and a new home. Be certain to tell Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon of your discretion, Galen Firth, and we will do likewise with King Bruenor.”
“I grow tired of your threats,” Galen Firth said to her, but Catti-brie only smiled in reply.
“And I long ago tired of you,” Wulfgar said to the man.
Behind Galen Firth, the tavern door opened, and in came Cottie Cooperson holding Colson and pulled along by a guard. Outside the door two men jostled with another pair of guards, who would not let them enter.
The question of Wulfgar’s claim was answered the moment Colson came into the room. “Da!” the toddler cried, verily leaping out of Cottie’s grasp to get to the man she had known as her father for all her life. She squealed and squirmed and reached with both her arms for Wulfgar, calling for her “Da!” over and over again.
He rushed to her, dropping Aegis-fang to the ground, and took her in his arms then gently, but forcefully, removed her from Cottie’s desperate grasp. Colson made no movement back toward the woman at all, but crushed her da in a desperate hug.
Cottie began to tremble, to cry, and her desperation grew by the second. In a few moments, she went down to her knees, wailing.
And Wulfgar responded, dropping to one knee before her. With his free hand, he lifted her chin and brushed back her hair, then quieted her with soft words. “Colson has a mother who loves her as much as you loved your own children, dear woman,” he said.
Behind him, Catti-brie’s eyes widened with surprise.
“I can take care o’ her,” Cottie wailed.
Wulfgar smiled at her, brushed her hair back again, then rose. He called Aegis-fang to his free hand and stalked past Galen Firth, snickering in defiance of the man’s glare. As he went through the door, Cottie’s two companions, for all their verbal protests, parted before him, for few men in all the world would dare stand before Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, a warrior whose legend had been well earned.
“I will speak with our drivers,” Catti-brie informed Wulfgar when they exited the inn, with a chorus of shouts and protests echoing behind them. “We should be on our way as soon as possible.”
“Agreed,” said Wulfgar. “I will wait for the wagons to depart.”
Catti-brie nodded and started for the door of a different tavern, where she knew the lead driver to be. She stopped short, though, as she considered the curious answer, and turned back to regard Wulfgar.
“I will not be returning to Silverymoon,” Wulfgar confirmed.
“You can’t be thinking of going straight to Mithral Hall with the child. The terrain is too rough, and in the hands of orcs for much of the way. The safest road back to Mithral Hall is through Silverymoon.”
“It is, and so you must go to Silverymoon.”
Catti-brie stared at him hard. “Are you planning to stay here, that Cottie Cooperson can help with Colson?” she said with obvious and pointed sarcasm. To her ultimate frustration, she couldn’t read Wulfgar’s expression. “You’ve got family in the hall. I’ll be there for you and for the girl. I’m knowing that it will be difficult for you without Delly, but I won’t be on the road anytime soon, and be sure that the girl will be no burden to me.”
“I will not return to Mithral Hall,” Wulfgar stated bluntly, and a gust of wind would have likely knocked Catti-brie over at that moment. “Her place is with her mother,” Wulfgar went on. “Her real mother. Never should I have taken her, but I will correct that error now, in returning her where she belongs.”
“Auckney?”
Wulfgar nodded.
“That is halfway across the North.”
“A journey I have oft traveled and one not fraught with peril.”
“Colson has a home in Mithral Hall,” Catti-brie argued, and Wulfgar was shaking his head even as the predictable words left her mouth.
“Not one suitable for her.”
Catti-brie licked her lips and looked from the girl to Wulfgar, and she knew that he might as well have been speaking about himself at that moment.
“How long will you be gone from us?” the woman dared to ask.
Wulfgar’s pause spoke volumes.
“Ye cannot,” Catti-brie whispered, seeming very much like a little girl with a Dwarvish accent again.
“I have no choice before me,” Wulfgar replied. “This is not my place. Not now. Look at me!” He paused and swept his free hand dramatically from his head to his feet, encompassing his gigantic frame. “I was not born to crawl through dwarven tunnels. My place is the tundra. Icewind Dale, where my people roam.”
Catti-brie shook her head with every word, in helpless denial. “Bruenor is your father,” she whispered.
“I will love him to the end of my days,” Wulfgar admitted. “His place is there, but mine is not.”