Gauntlgrym

“Impressive,” Drizzt said. He flipped his scimitars over in his hands, aligning them perfectly with their sheaths, and slid them away. “And you decry my lack of mercy?”

“Look at them!” an angry Jarlaxle shouted at Drizzt, presenting the bloodless blades before him.

“How did you know?” Drizzt asked.

“I know everything that goes on in Luskan.”

“Then ye’re knowing where me maps might be,” said Bruenor, coming back in through the door.

Jarlaxle acknowledged him with a nod then looked around at the fallen Ashmadai, some of whom were squirming and kneeling, and with more than one watching the trio at the door.

“We have a lot to discuss,” the drow mercenary said. “But not here.”

“I would know the fate of Shivanni Gardpeck before I leave,” Drizzt replied.

“She’s safe,” Jarlaxle assured him. “And will return soon with a host of soldiers.” He paused and eyed Drizzt. “And priests to tend to the wounded.”

“She knew there would be such a battle in her tavern this night?” Drizzt asked, looking around at the devastation.

“And with enough payment for her troubles to put things right, I promise,” said Jarlaxle.

“Put things right?” Drizzt retorted with a snicker to show how ridiculous he found that notion. He led Jarlaxle’s gaze across the room, over the destruction, the carnage, the wounded, and the dead.

The two drow locked stares then, each trying to scrutinize the other, each seemingly trying to make sense out of the nonsensical.

“Can coin unwind time?” Drizzt whispered.

Jarlaxle’s gaze became the more judgmental, a look of frustration and disappointment, even anger on his face—one that only heightened as Drizzt remained so stoic and unblinking.

“Damned bird’s chasin’ ’em right to the docks and into the water!” Athrogate announced then, breaking the moment. The two turned to see the dwarf bobbing up beside Bruenor at the Cutlass’s door.

“Come,” Jarlaxle bade them all. “We have much to discuss.”

He snapped his wrists up instead of down, and his swords became daggers, which he flipped up into the air. They hit the ceiling and stuck fast.

“What about her?” Bruenor asked, motioning to the blob on the wall.

“We shall see,” Jarlaxle replied.

With Athrogate leading, the four rushed away, sprinting down the street and turning into an alley. The shouts and calls of guards soon followed them. Jarlaxle flipped a portable hole from his hat and flattened it against the wall at the alley’s end.

Athrogate jumped through, and when Bruenor hesitated, the other dwarf reached back from the blackness, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him through as well. Drizzt jumped nimbly through after his friend, with Jarlaxle following, and from the other side, he pulled the hole from the wall, leaving it impassable, as it had been before.

So ended the pursuit, but the four kept up a swift, though not desperate pace back to Jarlaxle’s apartment.

“Ye give me back me maps!” Bruenor insisted as they came to the door.

Just inside the small but lavishly furnished flat, Jarlaxle reached to a side table and tossed Bruenor his stolen pack.

“All but one are in there,” Jarlaxle explained. “Perhaps they will lead to great treasures and mysterious places—adventures for another day.”

“All but one?” Bruenor growled.

“All but this one, good dwarf,” the drow explained, reaching into a drawer and producing a tightly rolled and tied parchment. “This one, which will lead to that which you most desire. Yes, King Bruenor, I speak of Gauntlgrym. I have been there, and though I cannot retrace my steps since the explosion collapsed the tunnels, I know where Gauntlgrym lies.” He brought the map up in front of him. “And this is the way.”

Bruenor fumbled for words. He looked to Drizzt, who just returned his shrug with a like movement.

The dwarf king looked back to Jarlaxle, licking his lips, which had gone dry. “I’m not for playin’ yer games on this,” he warned.

“No game,” Jarlaxle replied in all seriousness. “Gauntlgrym.”

“Gauntlgrym,” Athrogate said from the side, and Bruenor turned to regard him. “I been there. I seen the forge. I seen the throne. I seen the ghosts.”

That last proclamation had Bruenor, who had so recently met those very ghosts, sucking in his breath in a futile attempt to steady himself.

Drizzt looked at Bruenor with a look of some satisfaction then, but also an unsettling detachment.

Jarlaxle didn’t miss that last part, and he found to his surprise that it bothered him profoundly.

Chapter 17 - Desperate Time, Desperate Plan

BRUENOR ALMOST DISAPPEARED INTO THE OVERSTUFFED CHAIR, HAVING sunk just a bit deeper with Jarlaxle’s every word. The drow explained his plan to retake Gauntlgrym, and if Bruenor had thought it a daunting task in the abstract, it sounded positively horrifying in plain language.

“So the beast didn’t let the volcano blow,” Bruenor said, his voice barely a whisper. “The beast is the volcano?” He looked at Drizzt as he asked that question, remembering their flippant discussions about stopping a volcano.

“A primordial of fire, as old as the gods,” Jarlaxle replied.

“And as strong,” said Bruenor, but Jarlaxle shook his head.

“But without a god’s mind. It is catastrophe, devoid of malice. It is power, without intellect.”

“It won’t raise an army of fanatical cultists,” Drizzt added.

Jarlaxle’s expression on that point was less than reassuring.

Bruenor glanced over at the table that held the magical bowls they were to use to summon the water elementals, bowls they hoped would hold the monsters long enough for them to re-open the tendrils of the Hosttower of the Arcane, thus setting the old cage back in place. Bowls they had to place precisely, though they knew not precisely where.…

“King Bruenor, it is an adventure!” Jarlaxle said, excited, bouncing from foot to foot. “King Bruenor, this is the way to Gauntlgrym! The real Gauntlgrym! Is that not what you sought when you abdicated the throne of Mithral Hall?”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted and waved the drow away.

Jarlaxle grinned and tossed a wink at Drizzt. “We may have more options, more allies,” he said, taking up his wide-brimmed hat and plopping it on his head. “I will return presently.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving the three of them sitting in the apartment.

“Ye needed me maps,” Bruenor said to Athrogate.

The black-bearded dwarf shrugged and nodded. “The tunnels we walked to Gauntlgrym collapsed. Can’t go back that way.”

Bruenor turned a concerned look to Drizzt.

“Those tunnels carried these … tendrils, of the Hosttower, to the ancient dwarven city,” the drow added.

“Aye, that’s how we found the place.”

“And if those tendrils are damaged?”

Athrogate blew a heavy sigh, then looked directly at Bruenor, his expression very serious. “If ye ain’t for goin’, I ain’t for blamin’ ye. It’s all crazy, and sure that we’re to die—more sure than anything good, I mean. But for meself, there’s no choice to be found.” He sucked in his breath and visibly steadied himself in his chair. “’Twas meself, King Bruenor,” Athrogate admitted. “Jarlaxle didn’t tell ye that, bein’ me friend. But ’twas meself what pulled the lever and shut the tendrils’ flow, shut the tendrils’ magic, and freed the elementals what were holding the beast in its pit o’ lava. It was Athrogate that let the primordial roar. It was Athrogate that wrecked Gauntlgrym, and Athrogate that killed Neverwinter.”

Bruenor’s eyes opened wide and he turned to Drizzt to find the same incredulous expression on the face of the drow.

“It weren’t what I expected,” Athrogate went on, lowering his eyes in shame after his open admission. “I thinked meself to be re-firing the forge, and bringing the city back to life.”

“That is an incredibly daring move to take when you were not certain,” Drizzt remarked.

“Wasn’t in me own head,” the dwarf muttered. “Or more to the point, there was others in me head beside me! A vampire, for one, and that Thayan witch.”

“The one in the Cutlass, who somehow fled from under Jarlaxle’s glue?”

“Her boss. The one with the Dread Ring. I was tricked and I was pushed.” He paused and blew another sigh. “And I was weak.”

Bruenor looked to Drizzt again, who nodded back at him.

“So be it,” Bruenor said to Athrogate, his voice firm but in no way accusatory. “Ye can’t be changin’ what happened, but it might be that we can fix it now.”

“I got to try,” said Athrogate.

“So do we,” Bruenor agreed. “And not just try, but to do it. And know that any who get in me way’ll be feelin’ the bite o’ me axe!”

“Aye, but not afore they feel the thump o’ me morningstars!” Athrogate said.

He seemed rejuvenated by Bruenor’s cheer. Both dwarves looked at Drizzt, who just offered a wry little grin in response. He didn’t have to say it, because both dwarves knew already: Any enemies they encountered would feel the cut of Drizzt’s scimitars before either Bruenor’s axe or Athrogate’s morningstars.

Out on the balcony later on, alone with his thoughts, Bruenor Battlehammer considered what lay before him. He would see Gauntlgrym. His quest would be fulfilled, his vision confirmed, his dream realized. Then what? What road would inspire his steps after that? What would lend strength to his tired old limbs?

Or was this his last road, with the end in sight?

He was mulling that over, coming to accept the likelihood, when he spied a familiar face on the street below.

Shivanni Gardpeck hustled along and was met by Jarlaxle, who seemed to come out of nowhere. They exchanged words Bruenor could not hear, and Jarlaxle gave the woman a fairly hefty purse, as he had promised in the Cutlass earlier.

When Shivanni broke away, heading off into the night, and Jarlaxle turned toward Bruenor, the dwarf noticed more than a bit of concern and puzzlement on the dark elf’s face.

Jarlaxle came up the stairs to find Bruenor waiting for him.

“Has our friend crossed the line?” asked the drow.

The question caught Bruenor off guard and he crinkled his nose as he stared back at Jarlaxle.

“Drizzt,” the drow clarified, though of course that wasn’t what confused Bruenor.

“What line are ye talking about?”

“He fights with more … fury than I recall,” Jarlaxle said.

“Aye, been that way for a long time now.”

“Since the loss of Catti-brie and Regis.”

“Are ye blamin’ him?

Jarlaxle shook his head, and looked to the apartment’s closed door. “But has he crossed over that line?” he asked again, turning back to Bruenor. “Has he started a fight he shouldn’t have started? Has he shown no mercy to one deserving? Has he allowed his rage instead of his conscience to control his blades?”