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.”

“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.”