“We can’t be fightin’ them straight up,” Bruenor reasoned. “That’s the way o’ doom. Too many o’ the stinking things.” He paused and grinned, nodding his hairy head. “Unless they’re attacking us, and in bits and pieces. Like the group that went into the Moonwood and the one that come over me wall. If we were ready for them, then there’d be a lot o’ dead orcs.”

Hralien gave a slight bow in agreement.

“So Drizzt was right,” said Bruenor. “It’s all about the one on top. He tried to get rid of Obould, and almost did. That’d’ve been the answer, and still is. If we can just get rid o’ the durned Obould, we’ll be tearing it all down.”

“A difficult task,” said Hralien.

“It’s why Moradin gave me back to me boys,” said Bruenor. “We’re goin’ to kill him, elf.”

“‘We’re’?” asked Hralien. “Are you to spearhead an army to strike into the heart of Obould’s kingdom?”

“Nah, that’s just what the dog’s wantin’. We’ll do it the way Drizzt tried it. A small group, better’n…” He paused and a cloud passed over his face.

“Me girl won’t be going,” Bruenor explained. “Too hurt.”

“And Wulfgar has left for the west,” said Hralien, catching on to the source of Bruenor’s growing despair.

“They’d be helpin’, don’t ye doubt.”

“I do not doubt at all,” Hralien assured him. “Who, then?”

“Meself and yerself, if ye’re up for the fight.”

The elf gave a half-bow, seeming to agree but not fully committing, and Bruenor knew he’d have to be satisfied with that.

The dwarf looked over to Regis, who nodded with increased determination, his face as grim as his cherubic features would allow.

“And Rumblebelly there,” the dwarf said.

Regis took a step back, shifting uncomfortably as Hralien cast a doubtful look his way.

“He’s knowing how to find his place,” Bruenor assured the elf. “And he’s knowin’ me fightin’ ways, and them o’ Drizzt.”

“We will collect Drizzt on our road?”

“Can ye think o’ anyone ye’d want beside ye more than the drow?”

“Indeed, no, unless it was Lady Alustriel herself.”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Ye won’t be getting that one to agree. Meself and a few o’ me boys, yerself and Drizzt, and Rumblebelly.”

“To kill Obould.”

“Crush his thick skull,” said Bruenor. “Me and some o’ me best boys. We’ll be cuttin’ a quiet way, right to the head o’ th’ ugly beast, and then let it fall where it may.”

“He is formidable,” Hralien warned.

“Heared the same thing about Matron Baenre o’ Menzoberranzan,” Bruenor replied, referring to his own fateful strike that had decapitated the drow city and ended the assault on Mithral Hall. “And we got Moradin with us, don’t ye doubt. It’s why he sent me back.”

Hralien’s posture and expression didn’t show him to be completely convinced by any of it, but he nodded his agreement just the same.

“Ye help me find me drow friend,” Bruenor said to him, seeing that unspoken doubt. “Then ye make yer mind up.”

“Of course,” Hralien agreed.

Off to the side, Regis shifted nervously. He wasn’t afraid of adventuring beside Bruenor and Drizzt, even if it would be behind orc lines. But he did fear that Bruenor was reading it all wrong, and that their mission would turn out badly, for them perhaps, and for the world.

The gathering fell quiet when Banak Brawnanvil looked Bruenor in the eye and declared, “Ye’re bats!”

Bruenor, however, didn’t blink. “Obould’s the one,” he said evenly.

“Not doubtin’ that,” replied the irrepressible Banak, who seemed to tower over Bruenor at that moment despite the fact that he was confined to a sitting position because of his injury in the orc war. “So send Pwent and yer boys to go and get him, like ye’re wantin’.”

“It’s me own job.”

“Only because ye’re a thick-headed Battlehammer!”

A few gasps filtered about the room at that proclamation, but they were diffused by a couple of chortles, most notably from the priest Cordio. Bruenor turned on Cordio with a scowl, but it fast melted against the reality of Banak’s words. Truer words regarding the density of Bruenor’s skull, Cordio—and Bruenor—knew, had never been spoken.

“Was meself that went to Gauntlgrym,” Bruenor said. He snapped his head to Regis’s direction, as if expecting the halfling to argue that it wasn’t Gauntlgrym. Regis, though, wisely stayed silent. “Was meself that anchored the retreat from Keeper’s Dale. Was meself that battled Obould’s first attack in the north.” He was gaining speed and momentum, not to bang drums for meself, as the dwarven saying went, but to justify his decision that he would personally lead the mission. “Was meself that went to Calimport to bring back Rumblebelly. Was meself that cut the damned Baenre in half!”

“I drunk enough toasts to ye to appreciate the effort,” said Banak.

“And now I’m seeing one more task afore me.”

“The King o’ Mithral Hall’s plannin’ to march off behind an orc army and kill the orc king,” Banak remarked. “And if ye’re caught on the way? Won’t yer kin here be in fine straits then in trying to bargain with Obould?”

“If ye’re thinkin’ I’m to be caught livin’, then ye’re not knowing what it is to be a Battlehammer,” Bruenor retorted. “Besides, ain’t no different than if Drizzt got himself caught already, or any o’ the rest of us. Ye’re not for changing yer ways with orcs for meself any more than ye would for any of our boys.”

Banak started to respond, but really had no answer for that.

“Besides, besides,” Bruenor added, “once I’m walking out that gate, I’m not the king o’ Mithral Hall, which is the whole point in us being here, now ain’t it?”

“I’ll be yer steward, but no king is Banak,” the crippled Brawnanvil argued.

“Ye’ll be me steward, but if I’m not returning then yerself is the Ninth King o’ Mithral Hall and don’t ye be doubting it. And not a dwarf here would agree with ye if ye were.”

Bruenor turned and led Banak’s gaze around the room with his own, taking in the solemn nods of all the gathering, from Pwent and his Gutbusters to Cordio and the other priests to Torgar and the dwarves from Mirabar.

“This is why Moradin sent me back,” Bruenor insisted. “It’s me against Obould, and ye’re a fool betting if ye’re betting on Obould!”

That elicited a cheer around the room.

“Yerself and the drow?” Banak asked.

“Me and Drizzt,” Bruenor confirmed. “And Rumblebelly’s up for it, though me girl’s in no place for it.”

“Ye telled her that, have ye?” Banak asked with a snicker that was echoed around the room.

“Bah, but she can’t be running, if running we’re needing, and she’d not ever put her friends in a spot o’ staying behind to protect her,” said Bruenor.

“Then ye ain’t telled her,” said Banak, and again came the snorts.

“Bah!” Bruenor said, throwing up his hands.

“So yerself, Drizzt, and Regis,” said Banak. “And Thibble dorf Pwent?”

“Try to stop me,” Pwent replied, and the Gutbuster brigade cheered.

“And Pwent,” said Bruenor, and the Gutbusters cheered again. Nothing seemed to excite that group quite so much as the prospect of one of their own walking off on an apparent suicide mission.

“Begging yer pardon, King Bruenor,” Torgar Hammerstriker said from the other side of the room. “But me thinking is that the Mirabar boys should be represented on yer team, and me thinking’s that meself and Shingles here”—he reached to the side and pulled forward the scarred old warrior, Shingles McRuff—“be just the two to do Mirabar proud.”

As he finished, the other five Mirabarran dwarves in the room exploded into cheers for their mighty leader and the legendary Shingles.

“Make it seven, then,” Cordio Muffinhead added. “For ye can’t be goin’ on a march for Moradin without a priest o’ Moradin, and I’m that priest.”

“Eight, then,” Bruenor corrected, “for I’m thinking that Hralien o’ the Moonwood won’t be leaving us after we find Drizzt.”