Page 8 (1/2)

Book 2

Allies

7 Stirrings

The first thing he noticed was the absence of the wind He had lain long hour after hour on his perch at the top of the chih it all, even in his se presence of the wind It had taken his mind back to Icewind Dale, his home for nearly two centuries But Bruenor had felt no coale’s forlorn moan, a continual reht he would ever hear

But it was no more Only the crackle of a nearby fire broke the quiet stillness Bruenor lifted a heavy eyelid and stared absently into the fla to discern his condition and his whereabouts He arhtly around his shoulders And he was indoors - the flames burned in a hearth, not in the open pit of a campfire

Bruenor’s eye drifted to the side of the hearth and focused on a neatly stacked pile of equipment

His equipment!

The one-horned helm, Drizzt’s sci shield And he was stretched out under the quilt, wearing only a silken nightshirt

Suddenly feeling very vulnerable, Bruenor pulled himself up to his elbows

A wave of blackness rolled over hi in nauseous circles He dropped heavily to his back

His vision returned for just a ister the for hair, gleaht, brushed across his face

"Spider’s poison," she said softly "Would have killed anything but a dwarf"

Then there was only the blackness

Bruenor awoke again a few hours later, stronger andany attention, he half-opened one eye and surveyed the area, glancing at the pile first Satisfied that all of his equipment was there, he slowly turned his head over

He was in a small chamber, apparently a one-roomed structure, for the only door seeh Bruenor wasn’t really sure until now if that i out the rooht sky beyond Her hair was indeed silver Bruenor could see that its hue was no trick of the firelight But not silver with the graying of age; this lustrous loith vibrant life

"Yer pardon, fair lady," the dwarf croaked, his voice cracking on every syllable The woht I be getting a bit o’ food?" asked Bruenor, never one to mix up his priorities

The woman floated across the rooain a wave of blackness swirled over the dwarf, but heit away

"Only a dwarf!" the woh his ordeal

Bruenor cocked his head up at her "I know ye, lady, though I cannot find yer nahts"

"It is not ih much, Bruenor Battlehammer" Bruenor cocked his head further and leaned away at the mention of his name, but the woman steadied him and continued "I attended to your wounds as best I could, though I feared that I had come upon you too late to mend the hurts of the spider’s poison"

Bruenor looked down at his bandaged forear those terrible iant spider "How long?"

"How long you lay atop the broken grate, I do not know," the woman answered "But here you have rested for three days and ! I will prepare soht her arm

"Where is this place?"

The lady’s srate I feared to move you"

Bruenor didn’t quite understand "Yer ho "A creation, and only teht if you feel able to travel"

The tie to nition "Ye’re the Lady of Silverymoon!" Bruenor spouted suddenly

"Clearreetings, noble King"

"King?" Bruenor echoed in disgust "Suren one to the scum"

"We shall see," said Alustriel

But Bruenor hts were not on Mithril Hall, but on Drizzt and Wulfgar and Regis, and especially on Catti-brie, the joy of his life "Me friends," he begged to the woman "Do ye know o’ me friends?"

"Rest easy," Alustriel answered "They escaped the halls, each of them"

"Even the drow?"

Alustriel nodded "Drizzt Do’Urden was not destined to die in the home of his dearest friend"

Alustriel’s faered another memory in the dwarf "Ye met him before," he said, "on our road to Mithril Hall Ye pointed the way for us And that is how ye knew me name"

"And knehere to search for you," Alustriel added "Your friends think you dead, to their ultirief But I am a wizard of so revelations When the specter of Morkai, an old associate who passed froe of a fallen dwarf, half out of a hole on the side of a mountain, I knew the truth of the fate of Bruenor Battlehammer I only hoped that I would not be too late"

"Bah! Fit as ever!" Bruenor huffed, thuing pain in his seat made him wince

"A crossbow quarrel," Alustriel explained

Bruenor thought for a h the ht froed and attributed it to the blindness of his battle-lust "So one o’ the gray scuot me" he started to say, but then he blushed and turned his eyes away at the thought of this wo the quarrel froh to change the subject "Dine and then rest," she instructed "Your friends are safefor the present"

"Where - "