“Where’s he at?” Bruenor asked Catti-brie when it was just the two of them, Drizzt, and Regis.
“You’re knowing well enough.”
“Ye found Colson, then?”
Catti-brie nodded.
“And he’s taking her home,” Bruenor stated.
Another nod. “I offered to journey with him,” Catti-brie explained, and she glanced at Drizzt and was relieved to see him smile at that news. “But he would not have me along.”
“Because the fool ain’t for coming back,” said Bruenor, and he spat and stalked off. “Durned fool son of an over-sized orc.”
Drizzt motioned to Regis to go with Bruenor, and the halfling nodded and trotted away.
“I think Bruenor is right,” Catti-brie said, and she shook her head in futile denial, then rushed over and wrapped Drizzt in a tight hug and kissed him deeply. She put her head on his shoulder, not relenting a bit in her embrace. She sniffed back tears.
“He knew that Wulfgar would not likely return,” Drizzt whispered.
Catti-brie pushed him back to arms’ length. “As did yourself, but you didn’t tell me,” she said.
“I honored Wulfgar’s wishes. He was not sure of where his road would lead, but he did not wish discussion of it all the way to Silvery-moon and beyond.”
“If I had known along our road, I might’ve been able to change his mind,” Catti-brie protested.
Drizzt gave her a helpless look. “More the reason to not tell you.”
“You agree with Wulfgar’s choice?”
“I think it is not my place to agree or to argue,” Drizzt said with a shrug.
“You think it’s his place to be deserting Bruenor at this time of—?”
“This time or any time.”
“How can you say that? Wulfgar is family to us, and he just left…”
“As you and I did those years ago, after the drow war when Wulfgar fell to the yochlol,” Drizzt reminded her. “We longed for the road and so we took to the road, and left Bruenor to his hall. For six years.”
That reminder seemed to deflate Catti-brie’s ire quite a bit. “But now Bruenor’s got an army of orcs on his doorstep,” she protested, but with far less enthusiasm.
“An army that will likely be there for years to come. Wulfgar told me that he could not see his future here. And truly, what is there for him here? No wife, no children.”
“And it pained him to look upon us.”
Drizzt nodded. “Likely.”
“He told me as much.”
“And so you wear a mantle of guilt?”
Catti-brie shrugged.
“It doesn’t suit you,” Drizzt said. He drew her in close once more, and gently pushed her head onto his shoulder. “Wulfgar’s road is Wulfgar’s own to choose. He has family in Icewind Dale, if that is where he decides to go. He has his people there. Would you deny him the chance to find love? Should he not sire children, who will follow his legacy of leadership among the tribes of Icewind Dale?”
Catti-brie didn’t respond for a long while then merely said, “I miss him already,” in a voice weak with sorrow.
“As do I. And so too for Bruenor and Regis, and all else who knew him. But he isn’t dead. He did not fall in battle, as we feared those years ago. He will follow his road, to bring Colson home, as he sees fit, and then perhaps to Icewind Dale. Or perhaps not. It might be that when he is away, Wulfgar will come to realize that Mithral Hall truly is his home, and turn again for Bruenor’s halls. Or perhaps he’ll take another wife, and return to us with her, full of love and free of pain.”
He pushed Catti-brie back again, his lavender eyes locking stares with her rich blue orbs. “You have to trust in Wulfgar. He has earned that from us all many times over. Allow him to walk whatever road he chooses, and hold confidence that you and I, and Bruenor and Regis, all go with him in his heart, as we carry him in ours. You carry with you guilt you do not deserve. Would you truly desire that Wulfgar not follow his road for the sake of mending your melancholy?”
Catti-brie considered the words for a few heartbeats, then managed a smile. “My heart is not empty,” she said, and she came forward and kissed Drizzt again, with urgency and passion.
“Whate’er ye’re needin’, ye’re gettin’,” Bruenor assured Nanfoodle as the gnome gently slid one of the parchment scrolls out of the sack. “Rumblebelly here is yer slave, and he’ll be running to meself and all me boys at the command o’ Nanfoodle.”
The gnome began to unroll the document, but winced and halted, hearing the fragile parchment crackle.
“I will have to brew oils of preservation,” he explained to Bruenor. “I dare not put this under bright light until it’s properly treated.”
“Whate’er ye need,” Bruenor assured him. “Ye just get it done, and get it done quick.”
“How quick?” The gnome seemed a bit unnerved by that request.
“Alustriel’s here now,” said Bruenor. “She’s to be working on the bridge for the next few days, and I’m thinkin’ that if them scrolls’re saying what I’m thinkin’ they’re saying, it might be good for Alustriel to go back to Silverymoon muttering and musing on the revelations.”
But Nanfoodle shook his head. “It will take me more than a day to prepare the potions—and that’s assuming that you have the ingredients I will require.” He looked to Regis. “Bat guano forms the base.”
“Wonderful,” the halfling muttered.
“We’ll have it or we’ll get it,” Bruenor promised him.
“It will take more than a day to brew anyway,” said Nanfoodle. “Then three days for it to set on the parchment—at least three. I’d rather it be five.”
“So four days total,” said Bruenor, and the gnome nodded.
“Just to prepare the parchments for examination,” Nanfoodle was quick to add. “It could take me tendays to decipher the ancient writing, even with my magic.”
“Bah, ye’ll be faster.”
“I cannot promise.”
“Ye’ll be faster,” Bruenor said again, in a tone less encouraging and more demanding. “Guano,” he said to Regis, and he turned and walked from the room.
“Guano,” Regis repeated, looking at Nanfoodle helplessly.
“And oil from the smiths,” said the gnome. He drew another scroll from the sack and placed it beside the first, then put his hands on his hips and heaved a great sigh. “If they understood the delicacy of the task, they would not be so impatient,” he said, more to himself than to the halfling.
“Bruenor is well past delicacy, I’m guessing,” said Regis. “Too many orcs about for delicacy.”
“Orcs and dwarves,” muttered the gnome. “Orcs and dwarves. How is an artist to do his work?” He heaved another sigh, as if to say “if I must,” and moved to the side of the room, to the cabinet where he kept his mortar and pestle, and assorted spoons and vials.
“Always rushing, always grumbling,” he griped. “Orcs and dwarves, indeed!”
The companions had barely settled into their chambers in the dwarven hall west of Garumn’s Gorge when word came that yet another unexpected visitor had arrived at the eastern gate. It wasn’t often that elves walked through King Bruenor’s door, but those gates were swung wide for Hralien of the Moonwood.
Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Bruenor waited impatiently in Bruenor’s audience chamber for the elf.
“Alustriel and now Hralien,” Bruenor said, nodding with every word. “It’s all coming together. Once we get the words from them scrolls, we’ll get both o’ them to agree that the time’s now for striking them smelly orcs.”