Night of the Hunter by R. A. Salvatore
Gromph was not one to be surprised easily.
He left Gauntlgrym that day, with a word of warning to Tiago to be quick to Matron Mother Quenthel’s call, and another warning to him to keep the woman Dahlia alive. Unbeknownst to the Xorlarrins other than Berellip, whom he swore to secrecy, Gromph did not take his companion mind flayer with him. Methil still had work to do here.
Gromph did not expect to see Tiago marching back into the Baenre compound anytime soon, for of course the archmage had recognized that the sneaky little Ravel Xorlarrin had spied upon him and likely knew some of what Dahlia had divulged regarding the last place she had seen Drizzt Do’Urden. Almost certainly, Ravel was even then plotting with Tiago to go and confront the rogue.
So be it, Gromph decided, for this was not his play, but the game of Lolth and of Matron Mother Quenthel. He would play his role as directed, and nothing more.
He was barely back in his chambers in Sorcere, Dahlia barely back in her hanging cage in the Forge of Gauntlgrym, when the Xorlarrin strike force, led by Tiago, Ravel, Jearth, and Saribel, set out on the hunt through the tunnels to the north.
PART THREE
THE RHYME OF HISTORY
Even in this crazy world, where magic runs in wild cycles and wilder circles, where orcs appear suddenly by the tens of thousands and pirates become kings, there are moments of clarity and predictability, where the patterns align into expected outcomes. These I call the rhymes of history.
Regis came to us just ahead of pursuit, a dangerous foe indeed.
The rhyme of history, the comfort of predictability!
He is very different in this second life, this halfling friend of ours. Determined, skilled, practiced with the blade, Regis has lived his second life with purpose and focused on a clear goal. And when the lich arrived at our encampment that dark night in the wilderlands of the Crags, Regis did not flee. Nay, he called out for us to flee while he continued to try to battle the fearsome monster.
But for all of those alterations, the whole of the experience rang with the comfort of familiarity.
The rhyme of history.
I have heard this truth of reasoning beings mentioned often, particularly among the elves, and most particularly among the eldest of the elves, who have seen the sunrise and sunset of several centuries. Little surprises them, even the tumultuous events like the Time of Troubles and the Spellplague, for they have heard the rhyme many times. And this expected reality is so, particularly concerning the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. They follow a course, an optimistic climb, an ascent through the glories of possibility. Sometimes they get there, sparkling jewels in periods of near perfection—the height of Myth Drannor, the glory of Waterdeep, and yes, I would include the rebirth of Clan Battlehammer in Mithral Hall. This is the promise and the hope.
But the cycle wheels along and far too often, the fall is as predictable as the rise.
Is it the ambition or the weakness of sentient races, I wonder, that leads to this cycle, this rise and fall, of cultures and kingdoms? So many begin beneficent and with grand hopes. A new way, a new day, a bright sunrise, and a thousand other hopeful clichés …
And each and every one, it seems, falls to stagnation, and in that stagnation evil men rise, through greed or lust for power. Like canker buds, they find their way in any government, slipping through seams in the well-intended laws, coaxing the codes to their advantage, finding their treasures and securing their well-being at the expense of all others, and ever blaming the helpless, who have no voice and no recourse. To the laborers they cry, “Beware the leech!” and the leech is the infirm, the elderly, the downtrodden.
So do they deflect and distort reality itself to secure their wares, and yet, they are never secure, for this is the truest rhyme of history, that when the theft is complete, so will the whole collapse, and in that collapse will fall the downtrodden and the nobility alike.
And the misery and pain will feast in the fields and in the sea and in the forest, in the laborers and the farmers, the fishermen and the hunters, and in those who sow and those who eat.
For the rhyme of history is a sullen one, I fear, ringing as a klaxon of warning, and fading fast into distant memory, and even to fable, while the new cankers burst from their pods and feast.
It need not be like this, but too often it is. It was my hope for something new and better, and something lasting, that led to the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge, a path I am coming to lament.
And so I should be despondent.
But, nay, far from it, for I have witnessed divine justice now, and am blessed in the glories of those things most valuable: the truest friends and family anyone could know. With open eyes and open hearts we go, the Companions of the Hall, and well aware of the rhyme of history, and determined that those sad notes will give way to triumphant bars and soothing melodies of hope and justice. The world is chaos, but we are order.
The world is shadow, but we are determined to shine as light.
Once, not long ago, I had to coax my former companions to good deeds and selfless acts; now I am surrounded by those who drive me to the same.
For even the too-often dark truth of the rhyme of history cannot overwhelm the unceasing optimism that there is something more and better, a community for all, where the meek need not fear the strong.
We’ll find our way, and those lesser rhymes will find discordant notes, as with this lich Regis dragged upon us, this Ebonsoul creature who thought himself beyond us.
For this was part of the play, and a part expected had we looked more carefully at our halfling friend, had we remembered the truth of Rumblebelly—that same Regis who brought upon us one day long past the darkness that once was Artemis Entreri (once was, I say!).
And so we now look more carefully as we tread, for with Regis, there is something about him—an aura, a mannerism, perhaps, or a willingness to take a chance, often foolishly?—that throws a tow-rope to trouble.
So be it; perhaps, as the old saying goes, that is part of his charm.
He drags the shark to its doom, I say.
—Drizzt Do’Urden
CHAPTER 15
THE HOME OF HOMES
WELL, ELF, IF YE GOT ANY IDEAS, NOW’D BE THE TIME TO SPIT ’EM OUT,” Bruenor said to Drizzt as they stepped out of the mushroom cap boat onto the small muddy beach before the underground castle wall and open doorway of Gauntlgrym. The whole of this large cavern was dimly lit by natural lichen, and around the makeshift boat, even more so by a minor light spell Catti-brie had cast on a small stone that she had picked up before entering the long tunnel leading to this place.
Wulfgar held the craft steady with one strong arm, using his other as a railing to help his companions clamber out. As Bruenor moved to the front lip of the raft, the huge man easily lifted him over the remaining splash of water and deposited him on dry ground.
Shaking his hairy head, Bruenor glanced back at him. “As strong as ye was last time,” the dwarf muttered.
“When I saw Pwent, in a cave long ago, he was rational,” Drizzt replied to the dwarf. “Perhaps there remains enough of Thibbledorf Pwent for us to coax him along to a priest that will alleviate his pain.”
“Ain’t so sure o’ that,” said Bruenor. “Pwent was back and forth when I seen him, cheerin’ and snarlin’, sometimes the friend, sometimes the monster. He was keeping control, out o’ respect for me and the throne I’m guessin’, but just barely.”
“I have the scroll,” Catti-brie said as she, too, came onto the beach, guided and lifted by Wulfgar’s strong hand. “And Regis gave me this.” She held up a small sapphire.
“Not much of a prison, compared to the one ye caught the lich in,” said Bruenor.
“Will it work?” Drizzt asked.
“It’s the best I have,” Regis answered, pushing aside Wulfgar’s offered hand and hopping easily from the boat. He brushed the sand and water from his fine clothing, straightening his trousers as he went.
“Then if it needs to do, it n
The four continued to chatter as they moved along, but Wulfgar, taking up the rear, didn’t join in, and hardly listened. With his great strength, he dragged the giant mushroom cap raft from the water and up onto the beach, then hustled to catch up to his companions as they entered the grand upper hall of Gauntlgrym.
This place was not designed like Mithral Hall, Wulfgar noted immediately, for its first room was huge indeed, unlike the myriad tunnels that led to any significant chambers in Mithral Hall. Conversely, Drizzt had described this first hall as the crowning jewel of Gauntlgrym’s upper levels. Despite those obvious differences in architecture, the barbarian couldn’t escape the sense of déjà vu, a feeling as strong as any memory that he had been an actor in this play before. He remembered vividly that long-ago day when the troupe had first entered Mithral Hall, when Bruenor had gone home.
Wulfgar felt a twinge at the back of his knee, a pain of memory alone, he knew, for the troll’s clawed hand that had dug in there in that previous adventure had done so in an entirely different body.
But this place smelled the same to him, as if the ghosts of dead dwarves left a tangible scent, and his mind danced back across the decades and to that other place and time and body, even.
He shook the memories away, tuning back into the situation around him. Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Regis stood by the wall of the chamber just to the right of the door. Catti-brie had cast a greater magical light, illuminating the area more brightly, and Wulfgar noted an emaciated corpse, a woman’s shriveled body, stripped naked and brutally torn.
Catti-brie blessed it and sprinkled some holy water upon it, and only in witnessing that did Wulfgar remember Bruenor’s tale of his visit here, and the gruesome fate of the dwarf’s companions. Catti-brie was making sure that this one never could rise in undeath, it seemed, though many months had passed since the drow vampires had slain her.
Wulfgar’s gaze went to Bruenor, the dwarf moving slowly, almost as if in a trance, toward the great throne on the raised dais perhaps a score of long strides from the front wall. With a last glance at the other three and a cursory scan of the large chamber, the barbarian hustled to join his adoptive father.
“The Throne o’ the Dwarven Gods,” Bruenor explained when Wulfgar arrived. The dwarf was rubbing the burnished arm of the magnificent seat, stroking it as if it was a living being. “Thrice have I sat on it, twice to my blessing and once to be thrown aside.”
“Thrown aside?”
“Aye,” Bruenor admitted, looking back at him. “When I was thinkin’ of abandoning our quest and puttin’ aside me oath to me girl’s goddess. I wasn’t heading for Icewind Dale, boy, but heading home.”
“Abandoning Drizzt, you mean,” Wulfgar said as the other three walked up.
“Aye,” Bruenor said. “I forgot me word and convinced meself that I was thinkin’ right in turning aside the quest. ‘For Mithral Hall,’ I told meself! Bah, but didn’t that chair there tell me different!”
“The throne rejected you?” Catti-brie asked.
“Throwed me across the room!” Bruenor exclaimed. “Aye. Throwed me and reminded me o’ me place and me heart.”
“Take your place upon it now,” Wulfgar prompted, and Bruenor looked at him curiously.
“You believe your path to be true, to Pwent and then to your home,” Wulfgar explained. “Do you hold doubt?”
“Not a bit,” Bruenor replied without hesitation.
Wulfgar motioned to the throne.
“Are ye asking me to bother me gods so that I’m thinking I’m doing what’s right?” Bruenor asked. “Ain’t that supposed to be me own heart tellin’ me?”
Wulfgar smiled, not disagreeing, but he motioned to the chair once more, for he could tell that Bruenor was more than a little curious.
With a great “harrumph,” the dwarf swung around and hopped up onto the throne. He settled back almost immediately, and closed his gray eyes, and wore an expression of complete serenity.
Regis nudged Catti-brie, and when she turned to him, she saw that he was holding aloft another vial of holy water. “A dead halfling and a dead man, and a few slain drow vampires,” he reminded her. “We’ve work yet to do.”
“And all stripped naked,” the woman agreed. “This place was looted after the fight.”
That brought a large and audible swallow from Bruenor, who hopped down quickly. “Aye, and me grave and Pwent’s grave sit just on th’other side of the throne,” Bruenor told them, already heading that way. He stopped short as he came around the throne to views the cairns, however, and shakily stated, “Bless that old body o’ mine, girl! I beg ye.”
On that, Wulfgar moved around the chair to see the two cairns, both disturbed, obviously. He moved to the nearest, and grandest—Bruenor’s own—and fell to his knees. He began arranging the bones back in order, but he looked back, and couldn’t help but wince.
“What’d’ye know?” a concerned Bruenor asked. He hustled up to stand over the open cairn, then spun away with a snarl and stomped back to the throne.
The skull was missing, as well as the thick femurs.
Wulfgar went back to his work settling the remaining bones, then began replacing the stones. He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up to see Drizzt, smiling and nodding.
“Am I burying the past or securing the present?” Wulfgar asked.
“Or neither?” Drizzt asked back.
“Or merely honoring my father,” Wulfgar agreed and went back to his task.
Drizzt moved beside him and similarly dropped to his knees, beginning his work reconstructing the broken cairn of Thibbledorf Pwent, though that grave was, of course, quite empty.
“Feelin’ strange to see it again, even though I’m knowin’ in me head the truth of it all,” Bruenor admitted, walking up between the two of them. “That’s me own body there—don’t know that I’ll ever get past that one bit o’ truth!”
He growled. “What’s left of it, I mean,” he added.
Wulfgar glanced back at his adoptive father, and had never seen the dwarf so clearly flustered before. He thought of his own former body, turned to bone now out on the open tundra, no doubt, and wondered what he might think if he happened upon it. He made a mental note to do just that, to find the evidence of his former life and properly inter it.
Then he went back to his work on Bruenor’s skeleton and cairn, gently and lovingly.
“You looked at peace on the throne,” Wulfgar said absently as he went about his task.
“Aye, and ye named it right, boy,” Bruenor replied, though he still held a bit of consternation and irritation in his tone. “Me course is right and the gods agree. I could feel it, sittin’ there, I tell ye.”
“And it didn’t throw you across the room,” the barbarian quipped.
Bruenor put his hand on Wulfgar’s shoulder in response, and dropped his other hand on Drizzt’s shoulder. “Me course was for me friends,” he said quietly. “As a dwarf’s road has to be.”
They got the cairns back together, Catti-brie finished blessing the corpses strewn around the room, and then went to the graves to properly consecrate them.
“Put a glyph on it, too,” Bruenor bade her. “That way when them thieves come back, they’ll put their own bones next to what’s left o’ mine!”
Catti-brie bent low and kissed him on the cheek. “Probably just an animal,” she said. “It is the way of things.”
“Better be,” Bruenor muttered, and Catti-brie began her prayer.
“So where do we go from here?” Regis asked when that was done, the day slipping past.
They all looked to Bruenor, who simply shrugged. “I didn’t go deeper,” he admitted. “Pwent and his beasties came to me last time, but not now, seems. Might be that we’re showing respect, though—last time, he come to me to protect the graves.”
“That’s a good sign,” Regis remarked.
“Aye, but like I telled ye, up and down with him, edge of control,” said
“I’ve been lower into the complex,” said Drizzt. “All the way to the Forge, and to the primordial pit that fires it.”
“Had to bring that up, eh?” Bruenor quipped with a snort.
“I have been back since that ill-fated journey,” Drizzt clarified. “I know the way.”
“Drow down there, lots o’ them,” said Bruenor. “Pwent telled me so.” Drizzt nodded. “We go slowly and carefully, one room, one corridor at a time.”
“Our light will serve as a beacon for drow eyes,” Regis remarked, and he looked to Catti-brie, as did the others.
“I have nothing else to offer,” the woman said. “You do not need it, nor certainly do Bruenor or Drizzt, but Wulfgar and I …”
“I will take the lead, far in advance,” said Drizzt. “With Bruenor second and you three in a group behind.” He pulled out his onyx panther figurine and called to Guenhwyvar. “Bring forth some light, as dim as you can, and shield it. Guen will stay with you. Be at ease.”
The panther came in and the party started off, Drizzt taking the point position, far in the lead. He moved down one of the hallways leading from the grand entry hall, silent as a shadow, his lithe form pressed against every cranny and jag, and was out of sight before he moved out of range of Catti-brie’s minor candle spell.
Melkatka was not a noble of House Xorlarrin, but this particularly cruel drow had garnered great favor among the noble family. Jearth, the House weapons master, knew his name and spoke to him with clear interest, and spoke of him often, from what he had heard of those other male warriors higher up than he among the family ranks.