“Wulfgar!” he yelled, and it echoed off the nearby stones, but died quickly under the muffling blanket of falling snow and howling wind.

“It was him!” Regis cried, and he, too, began shouting for their lost friend.

But no voice came back to them, save the echoes of their own.

Regis continued to shout for a while, until Drizzt, grinning knowingly, finally halted him.

“What?” the halfling asked.

“I know this place—I should have thought of this before.”

“Thought of what?”

“A cave, not so far away,” Drizzt explained. “A place where Wulfgar and I first fought side-by-side.”

“Against verbeegs,” Regis said, catching on as he looked back to the spear.

“Against verbeegs,” Drizzt confirmed.

“Looks like you didn’t kill them all.”

“Come along,” Drizzt bade him.

The drow found his bearings then called in Guenhwyvar and sent her off and running in search of the cave. Her roars led them through the mounting storm, and though the distance was not far, no more than a few hundred yards, it took the pair some time to at last come to the opening of a deep, dark cave. Drizzt moved just inside and spent a long while standing there staring into the deeper darkness, letting his eyes adjust. He replayed that long ago battle as he did, trying to remember the twists and turns of the tunnels of Biggrin’s Lair.

He took Regis by the hand and started in, for the halfling couldn’t see nearly as well as the drow in unlit caverns. At the first intersection, a turn down to their left, they saw that not all the caverns were unlit.

Drizzt motioned for Guenhwyvar to lead and for Regis to stay put, and drew his blades. He moved cautiously and silently, one slow, short step at a time. Ahead of him, Guenhwyvar reached the lit chamber, the fire within silhouetting her so clearly he saw her ears go up and her muscles relax as she trotted in, out of his view.

He picked up his pace, replacing his blades in their sheaths. At the chamber entrance, he had to squint against the bright flames.

He hardly recognized the man sitting on the far side of that fire, hardly recognized that it was a man at all at first, for with all the layers of furs, he surely could have passed for a giant himself.

Of course, such had often been said of Wulfgar, son of Beornegar.

Drizzt started in, but Regis rushed past him, crying, “Wulfgar!” with great joy.

The man managed a smile back through his thick blond beard at the exuberant halfling.

“We thought you were dead,” Regis gushed.

“I was,” Wulfgar answered. “Perhaps I still am, but I’m nearly back to life.” He pulled himself up straight but didn’t stand as Drizzt and Regis neared. The barbarian motioned to two furs he had set out for them to sit upon.

Regis looked curiously to Drizzt for some answers, and the drow, more versed in the way of the barbarians, seconded Wulfgar’s motion and took his own seat opposite the man.

“I have beaten three of the seasons,” Wulfgar explained. “But the most difficult now steps before me in challenge.”

Regis started to question the curious wording, but Drizzt stopped him with an upraised hand, and led by example as they waited for Wulfgar to tell his tale.

“Colson is back with her mother in Auckney,” Wulfgar began. “As it should be.”

“And her father, the foolish lord?” Drizzt asked.

“His foolishness has been tempered by the companionship of a fine woman, it seems,” Wulfgar answered.

“It must have pained you,” Regis remarked, and Wulfgar nodded slightly.

“When I traveled from Auckney to the main north-south trail, I didn’t know which way I would turn. I fear I have abandoned Bruenor, and that is no small thing.”

“He fares well,” Drizzt assured his friend. “He misses you dearly, but his kingdom is at peace.”

“At peace, with a host of orcs outside his northern door?” said Wulfgar, and it was Drizzt’s turn to nod.

“The peace will not hold, and Bruenor will know war again,” Wulfgar predicted.

“It’s possible,” the drow replied. “But because he showed patience and tolerance, any outbreak of war by the orcs will be met by Mithral Hall and a host of mighty allies. Had Bruenor continued the war against Obould, he would have fought it alone, but now, should it come to blows….”

“May the gods keep him, and all of you, safe,” Wulfgar said. “But what brought you here?”

“We journeyed to Mirabar as emissaries of Bruenor,” the drow explained.

“Since we were in your neighborhood….” Regis quipped, an assertion made funny by its ridiculousness—Mirabar was nowhere near Icewind Dale.

“We all wanted to know how you fared,” Drizzt said.

“All?’

“We two, Bruenor, and Catti-brie.” The drow paused to measure Wulfgar’s expression, but to his relief saw no pain there. “She is well,” he added, and Wulfgar smiled.

“Never did I doubt otherwise.”

“Your father will return here soon to visit you,” Regis assured the man. “Should he look for this cave?”

Wulfgar smiled at that. “Seek the banner of the elk,” he replied.

“They think you dead,” the halfling said.

“And so I was. But Tempus has been kind and has allowed me a rebirth in this place, his home.”

He paused, and his crystal blue eyes, so much like the autumn sky of Icewind Dale, flashed. Regis started to say something, but Drizzt held him back.

“I made errors upon my return—too many,” the barbarian said somberly a few heartbeats later. “Icewind Dale does not forgive, and does not often offer a second chance to correct a mistake. I had forgotten who I was and who my people were, and most of all, I had forgotten my home.”

He paused and stared into the flames for what seemed like an hour. “Icewind Dale challenged me,” he said quietly, as if speaking more to himself than to his friends. “Tempus dared me to remember who I was, and the price of failure would be—will be—my life.

“But I have won thus far,” he said, looking up at the pair. “I survived the bears and hunters of the spring, the bottomless bogs of the summer, and the last frenzy of feeding in the autumn. I made this my home and painted it with the blood of the goblinkind and giantkin who lived here.”

“We saw,” Regis said dryly, but his smile was not infectious—not to Wulfgar at least.

“I will defeat the winter, my quest will be at an end, and I will return to the Tribe of the Elk. I remember now. I am again the son of Icewind Dale, the son of Beornegar.”

“They will have you back,” Drizzt stated.

Wulfgar paused for a long while, and finally nodded his agreement, though slowly. “My people will forgive me.”

“You will claim leadership again?” Regis asked.

Wulfgar shook his head. “I will take a wife and have as many children as we can. I will hunt the caribou and kill the goblins. I will live as my father lived, and his father before him, as my children will live and their children after them. There is peace in that, Drizzt, and comfort and joy and endlessness.”

“There are many handsome women among your kin,” Drizzt said. “Who wouldn’t be proud to be the wife of Wulfgar, son of Beornegar?”

Regis scrunched up his face as he regarded the drow after that curious comment, but when he looked over at Wulfgar, he saw that Drizzt’s words had apparently been well-spoken.

“I would have married more than a year ago,” Wulfgar said. “There is one…” His voice trailed off with a little laugh. “I was not worthy.”

“Perhaps she is still available,” Drizzt offered, and Wulfgar smiled again, and nodded.

“But they think you dead,” Regis blurted, and Drizzt scowled at him.

“I was dead,” Wulfgar said. “On the day I left, I had never truly returned. Berkthgar knew it. They all knew it. Icewind Dale does not forgive.”

“You had to earn your way back to this life,” said Drizzt.

“I am again the son of Beornegar.”

“Of the Tribe of the Elk—after the winter,” said Drizzt, and he offered a sincere nod and smile of understanding.