“Without Bellany—” Morik started to say, but Kensidan finished for him.

“The end result would be a battle far more bloody and far more dangerous for everyone who lives in Luskan. Think not that you are instrumental to my designs, Morik the Rogue. You are a convenience, nothing more, and would do well to keep it that way.”

Morik started to reply several times, but found no proper retort, looking all the while, as he was, at the evilly grinning dwarf.

Kensidan waved him away and turned to an aide, striking up a conversation on an entirely different subject. He paused after only a few words, shot Morik a warning glare, and waved him away again.

Back out on the street, walking briskly and cursing under his breath, Morik the Rogue again damned the day he’d met the barbarian from Icewind Dale. All the while, though, he secretly hoped he would soon be blessing that day, for as terrified as he was of his masters, their promises of rewards were neither inconsequential nor hollow. Or so he hoped.

CHAPTER 6

EXPEDIENCE

B ruenor is still angry with him,” Regis said to Drizzt. Torgar and Shingles had moved out ahead of them to look for familiar trails, for the dwarves believed they were nearing their old home city of Mirabar.

“No.”

“He holds grudges for a long, long time.”

“And he loves his adopted children,” Drizzt reminded the halfling. “Both of them. True, he was angry when first he learned that Wulfgar had left, and at a time when the world seemed dark indeed.”

“We all were,” said Regis.

Drizzt nodded and didn’t disagree, though he knew the halfling was wrong. Wulfgar’s departure had saddened him, but hadn’t angered him, for he understood it all too well. Carrying the grief of a dead wife, one he had let down terribly by missing all her signs of misery, had bowed his shoulders. Following that, Wulfgar had to watch Catti-brie, the woman he had once dearly loved, wed his best friend. Circumstance had not been kind to Wulfgar, and had wounded him profoundly.

But not mortally, Drizzt knew, and he smiled despite the unpleasant memories. Wulfgar had come to accept the failures of his past and bore nothing but love for the other Companions of the Hall. But he had decided to look forward, to find his place, his wife, his family, among his ancient people.

So when Wulfgar departed for the east, Drizzt harbored no anger, and when word had arrived back in Mithral Hall that following autumn that Wulfgar was back in Icewind Dale, the news lifted Drizzt’s heart.

He couldn’t believe that four years had passed. It seemed like only a day, and yet, when he thought of Wulfgar, it seemed as though he hadn’t been beside his friend in a hundred years.

“I hope he is well,” Regis stated, and Drizzt nodded.

“I hope he is alive,” Regis added, and Drizzt patted his friend on the shoulder.

“Today,” Torgar Hammerstriker announced, coming up over a rocky rise. He pointed back behind him and to the left. “Two miles for a bird, four for a dwarf.” He paused and grinned. “Five for a fat halfling.”

“Who ate too much of last night’s rations,” Shingles McRuff added, moving up to join his old friend.

“Then let us be quick to the gates,” Drizzt remarked, stealing the mirth with his serious tone. “I wish to be long away before the fall of night if Marchion Elastul holds true to his former ways.”

The two dwarves exchanged concerned looks, their excitement at returning to their former home tempered by the grim reminder that they had left under less than ideal circumstances those years before. They, along with many of their kin, more than half the dwarves of Mirabar, had deserted Elastul and his city over a dispute concerning King Bruenor. Over the last three years, many more Mirabarran dwarves, Delzoundwarves, had come to Mithral Hall to join them, and not all of the hundreds formerly of Mirabar that called Bruenor their king had agreed with Torgar’s decision to trust the emissary and return.

More than one had warned that Elastul would throw Torgar and Shingles in chains.

“He won’t make ye walk away,” Torgar said with determination. “Elastul’s a stubborn one, but he’s no fool. He’s wanting his eastern trade route back. He never thinked that Silverymoon and Sundabar would side with Mithral Hall.”

“We shall see,” was all Drizzt would concede, and off they went at a swift pace.

They passed through the front gates of Mirabar soon after, hustled in by excited guards both dwarf and human. They were greeted by cheers—even Drizzt, who had been denied entrance just a few short years earlier when King Bruenor had returned to Mithral Hall. Before any of the companions could even digest the pleasant surprise the four found themselves before Elastul himself, a highly unusual circumstance.

“Torgar Hammerstriker, never did I expect to see you again,” the old marchion—and indeed, he seemed much, much older than when Torgar had left—said with a tone as warm as the dancing licks of faerie fire.

Torgar, ever mindful of his place, bowed low, as did Shingles. “We come to ye as emissaries of King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall, both in appreciation of your warning to us and in reply to yer request for an audience.”

“Yes, and I hear that went quite well,” said Elastul. “With the emissary of the Arcane Brotherhood, I mean.”

“Devil feathers all over the field,” Torgar assured him.

“You were there?” asked Elastul, and Torgar nodded. “Holding up the pride of Mirabar, I hope.”

“Don’t ye go there,” the dwarf replied, and Regis sucked in his breath. “Was one day I’d get me to the Nine Hells and back, singing for Mirabar all the while. Me axe’s for Bruenor now and Mithral Hall, and ye’re knowin’ as much and knowin’ it’s not to change.”

For a brief moment, Elastul seemed as if he were about to shout at Torgar, but he suppressed his anger. “Mirabar is not the city you left, my old friend,” he said instead, and again Drizzt sensed that the sweetness of his tone was tearing the old marchion apart behind his facade. “We have grown, in understanding if not in size. Witness your dark-skinned friend, here, standing before my very throne.”

Torgar snickered. “If ye was any more generous, Moradin himself’d drop down and kiss ye.”

Elastul’s expression soured at the dwarf’s sarcasm, but he worked hard to bring himself back to a neutral posture.

“I’m serious in my offer, Torgar Hammerstriker,” he said. “Full amnesty for you and any of the others who went over to Mithral Hall. You may return to your previous status—indeed, I will grant you a commendation and promotion within the ranks of the Shield of Mirabar, because it was your courageous determination that forced me to look beyond my own walls and beyond the limitations of a view too parochial.”

Torgar bowed again. “Then thank me and me boys by accepting what is, and what’s going to be,” he said. “I come for Bruenor, me king and me friend. And all hopes o’ Mithral Hall are that we’re both for lettin’ past…unpleasantness, pass. The orcs’re tamed well enough and the route’s an easy one for yer own trade east and ours back west.”

Elastul slumped back in his throne and seemed quite deflated, again on the verge of screaming. He looked at Drizzt instead and said, “Welcome to Mirabar, Drizzt Do’Urden. It’s far past time that you enjoyed the splendors of my most remarkable city.”

Drizzt bowed and replied, “I have heard of them often, and am honored.”

“You have unfettered access, of course,” Elastul said. “All of you. And I will prepare a treaty for King Bruenor that you may take and deliver before the blows of the northern winds bury those easy routes under deep snows.”

He motioned for them to go and they were more than happy to oblige, with Torgar muttering to Drizzt as they walked out of the audience chamber’s door, “He’s needing the trade…badly.”