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.”

Drizzt held his doubts private and Catti-brie merely smiled and nodded. There was no reason to derail Bruenor’s optimism with an injection of sober reality.

“We know them Adbar and Felbarr boys’ll fight with us,” Bruenor went on, oblivious to the detachment of his audience. “If we’re getting the Moonwood and Silverymoon to join in, we’ll be puttin’ them orcs back in their holes in short order, don’t ye doubt!”

He rambled on sporadically for the next few moments, until at last Hralien was led into the chamber and formally introduced.

“Well met, King Bruenor,” the elf said after the list of his accomplishments and titles was read in full. “I come with news from the Moonwood.”

“Long ride if ye’ve come just to break bread,” said Bruenor.

“We have suffered an incursion from the orcs,” Hralien explained, talking right past Bruenor’s little jest. “A coordinated and cunning attack.”

“We know yer pain,” Bruenor replied, and Hralien bowed in appreciation.

“Several of my people were lost,” Hralien went on, “elves who should have known the birth and death of centuries to come.” He looked squarely at Drizzt as he continued, “Innovindil among them.”

Drizzt’s eyes widened and he gasped and slumped back, and Catti-brie brought her arm across his back to support him.

“And Sunset beneath her,” said Hralien, his voice less steady. “It would appear that the orcs had anticipated her arrival on the field, and were well prepared.”

Drizzt’s chest pumped with strong, gasping breaths. He looked as if he was about to say something, but no words came forth and he had the strength only to shake his head in denial. A great emptiness washed through him, a cold loss and callous reminder of the harsh immediacy of change, a sudden and irreversible reminder of mortality.

“I share your grief,” Hralien said. “Innovindil was my friend, beloved by all who knew her. And Sunrise is bereaved, do not doubt, for the loss of Innovindil and of Sunset, his companion for all these years.”

“Durned pig orcs,” Bruenor growled. “Are ye all still thinkin’ we should leave them to their gains? Are ye still o’ the mind that Obould’s kingdom should stand?”

“Orcs have attacked the Moonwood for years uncounted,” Hralien replied. “They come for wood and for mischief, and we kill them and send them running. But their attack was better this time—too much so for the simplistic race, we believe.” As he finished, he was again looking directly at Drizzt, so much so that he drew curious stares from Bruenor and Catti-brie in response.

“Tos’un Armgo,” Drizzt reasoned.

“We know him to be in the region, and he learned much of our ways in his time with Albondiel and Sinnafain,” Hralien explained.

Drizzt nodded, determination replacing his wounded expression. He had vowed to hunt down Tos’un when he and Innovindil had returned Ellifain’s body to the Moonwood. Suddenly that promise seemed all the more critical.

“A journey full o’ grief is a longer ride by ten, so the sayin’ goes,” said Bruenor. “Ye make yerself comfortable, Hralien o’ the Moon-wood. Me boys’ll see to yer every need, and ye stay as long as ye’re wantin’. Might be that I’ll have a story for ye soon enough—one that’ll put us all in better stead for ridding ourselves o’ the curse of Obould. A few days at the most, me friends’re tellin’ me.”