“Drizzt is your friend.”
Wulfgar nodded. “As is Catti-brie,” he said with a wistful smile. “Two dear friends who have found love, at long last.”
Catti-brie mouthed, “I’m sorry,” but she couldn’t bring herself to actually speak the words aloud.
“I am happy for you both,” said Wulfgar. “Truly I am. You complement each other’s every movement, and I have never heard your laughter more full of contentment, nor Drizzt’s. But this was not as I had wanted it. I am happy for you—both, and truly. But I cannot stand around and watch it.”
The admission took the woman’s breath away. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” she said.
“Do not be sad!” Wulfgar roared. “Not for me! I know now where my home is, and where my destiny lies. I long for the song of Icewind Dale’s chill breeze, and for the freedom of my former life. I will hunt caribou along the shores of the Sea of Moving Ice. I will battle goblins and orcs without the restraints of political prudence. I am going home, to be among my own people, to pray at the graves of my ancestors, to find a wife and carry on the line of Beornegar.”
“It is too sudden.”
Again Wulfgar shook his head. “It is as deliberate as I have ever been.”
“You have to go back and talk to Bruenor,” Catti-brie said. “You owe him that.”
Wulfgar reached under his tunic, produced a scroll, and handed it to her. “You will tell him for me. My road is easier west from here than from Mithral Hall.”
“He will be outraged!”
“He will not even be in Mithral Hall,” Wulfgar reminded. “He is out to the west with Drizzt in search of Gauntlgrym.”
“Because he is in dire need of answers,” Catti-brie protested. “Would you desert Bruenor in these desperate days?”
Wulfgar chuckled and shook his head. “He is a dwarf king in a land of orcs. Every day will qualify as you describe. There will be no end to this, and if there is an end to Obould, another threat will rise from the depths of the halls, perhaps, or from Obould’s successor. This is the way of things, ever and always. I leave now or I wait until the situation is settled—and it will only be settled for me when I have crossed to Warrior’s Rest. You know the truth of it,” he said with a disarming grin, one that Catti-brie could not dismiss. “Obould today, the drow yesterday, and something—of course something—tomorrow. That is the way of it.”
“Wulfgar…”
“Bruenor will forgive me,” said the barbarian. “He is surrounded by fine warriors and friends, and the orcs will not likely try again to capture the hall. There is no good time for me to leave, and yet I know that I cannot stay. And every day that Colson is apart from her mother is a tragic day. I understand that now.”
“Meralda gave the girl to you,” Catti-brie reminded him. “She had no choice.”
“She was wrong. I know that now.”
“Because Delly is dead?”
“I am reminded that life is fragile, and often short.”
“It is not as dark as you believe. You have many here who support…”
Wulfgar shook his head emphatically, silencing her. “I loved you,” he said. “I loved you and lost you because I was a fool. It will always be the great regret of my life, the way I treated you before we were to be wed. I accept that we cannot go back, for even if you were able and willing, I know that I am not the same man. My time with Errtu left marks deep in my soul, scars I mean to erase in the winds of Icewind Dale, running beside my tribe, the Tribe of the Elk. I am content. I am at peace. And never have I been more certain of my road.”
Catti-brie shook her head with every word, in helpless and futile denial, and her blue eyes grew wet with tears. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. The five Companions of the Hall were together again, and they were supposed to stay that way for all their days.
“You said that you support me, and so I ask you to now,” said Wulfgar. “Trust in my judgment, in that I know what course I must follow. I take with me my love for you and for Drizzt and for Bruenor and for Regis. That is ever in the heart of Wulfgar. I will never let the image of you and the others fade from my thoughts, and never let the lessons I have learned from all of you escape me as I walk my road.”
“Your road so far away.”
Wulfgar nodded. “In the winds of Icewind Dale.”
CHAPTER 13
A CITY UNDWARVEN
The six companions stood just inside the opening they had carved through the stone, their mouths uniformly agape. They had their backs to the wall of a gigantic cavern that held a magnificent and very ancient city. Huge structures rose up all around them: a trio of stepped pyramids to their right and a beautifully crafted series of towers to their left, all interconnected with flying walkways, and every edge adorned with smaller spires, gargoyles, and minarets. A collection of smaller buildings sat before them, around an ancient pond that still held brackish water and many plants creeping up around its stone perimeter wall. The plants near the pool and scattered throughout the cavern, the common Underdark luminous fungi, provided a minimal light beyond the torches held by Torgar and Thibble dorf, and of course Regis, who would not let his go. The pool and surrounding architecture hardly held their attention at that moment, though, for beyond the buildings loomed the grandest structure of all, a domed building—a castle, cathedral, or palace. Many stone stairs led up to the front of the place, where giant columns stood in a line, supporting a heavy stone porch. In the shadowy recesses, the six could make out gigantic doors.
“Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor mouthed repeatedly, and his eyes were wet with tears.
Less willing to make such a pronouncement, Drizzt instead continued to survey the area. The ground was broken, but not excessively, and he could see that the entire area had been paved with flat stones, shaped and fitted to define specific avenues winding through the many buildings.
“The dwarves had different sensibilities then,” Regis remarked, and fittingly, Drizzt thought.
Indeed, the place was unlike any dwarven city he had known. No construction under Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale, or in Mirabar, Felbarr, or Mithral Hall, approached the height of even the smallest of the many grand structures around them, and the main building before them loomed larger even than the individual stalagmite-formed great houses of Menzoberranzan. That building was more suited to Waterdeep, he thought, or to Calimport and the marvelous palaces of the pashas.
As the overwhelming shock and awe faded a bit, the dwarves fanned out and moved away from the wall. Drizzt focused on Torgar, who went down to one knee and began scraping between the edges of two flagstones. He brought up a bit of dirt and tasted it then spat it aside, nodding his head and wearing an expression of concern.
Drizzt looked ahead to Bruenor, who seemed oblivious to his companions, walking zombielike toward the giant structure as if pulled by unseen forces.
And indeed the dwarf king was, Drizzt understood. He was tugged forward by pride and by hope, that it truly was Gauntlgrym, the fabulous city of his ancestors, glorious beyond his expectations, and that he would somehow find answers to the question of how to defeat Obould.
Thibble dorf Pwent walked behind Bruenor, while Cordio moved near to Torgar, the latter two striking up a quiet conversation.
One of doubt, Drizzt suspected.
“Is it Gauntlgrym?” Regis asked the drow.
“We will learn soon enough,” Drizzt replied and started after Bruenor.
But Regis grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to turn back around.
“It doesn’t sound like you believe it is,” the halfling said quietly.
Drizzt scanned the cavern, inviting Regis to follow his gaze. “Have you ever seen such structures as these?”