nod, and dropped his hand hard on Torgar's shoulder. That little gesture, more than anything previous, seemed to put the sturdy warrior at ease. He nodded, his expression grim, as if he had just been reminded of something very important.
"I'll be telling him," he agreed, "or at least, Til be tellin' his Hammers to be tellin' him."
Bruenor smirked at that, and Torgar shuffled. Against the obvious disdain of the dwarf King of Mithral Hall, the inaccessibility of the Marchion of Mirabar to one of his trusted shield dwarf commanders did indeed seem a bit trite.
"I'll be tellin' him," Torgar said again, with a bit more conviction.
He led the twenty visitors away then to a place where they could stay the night, a large and unremarkable stone house with several sparsely furnished rooms.
"Ye can set up yer wagons and goods right outside," Torgar explained. "Many'll be comin' to see ye, I'm sure, 'specially for them little white trinkets ye got."
He pointed to one of the three wagons that had come in with the
visitors, its side panels tinkling with many trinkets as it bounced along the rough ground.
"Scrimshaw," Bruenor explained. "Carved from knucklehead trout. Me little friend here's good at it."
He motioned to Regis, who blushed and nodded.
"Ye make any of the stuff on the wagon?" Torgar asked the half ling, and the dwarf seemed genuinely interested.
"A few pieces."
"Ye show me in the morning," Torgar asked. "Might that I'll buy a few."
With that, he nodded and left them, heading off to deliver Bruenor's invitation to the marchion.
"You turned him over quite well," Regis remarked.
Bruenor looked at him.
"He was ready for a fight when we first arrived," the halfling observed. "Now I believe he's thinking of leaving with us when we go."
It was an exaggeration, of course, but not ridiculously so.
Bruenor just smiled. He had heard from Dagnabbit of many curses and threats being hurled against Mithral Hall from Mirabar, and surprisingly (or not so, when he thought about it), more seemed to be coming from the dwarves of Mirabar than from the humans. That was why Bruenor had insisted on coming to this city where so many of his kinfolk were living in conditions and climate much more fitting to human sensibilities than to a dwarf's. Let them see a true dwarf king, a legend of their people come to life. Let them hear the words and ways of Mithral Hall. Maybe then, many of Mirabar's dwarves would stop whispering curses against Mithral Hall. Maybe then, the dwarves of Mirabar would remember their heritage.
"It's troubling ye that they wouldn't let ye in," Catti-brie remarked to Drizzt a short time later, the two of them on a high bluff to the east of the remaining dwarves and the caravan, overlooking the city of Mirabar.
Drizzt turned to regard her curiously, and saw sympathy etched on his dear friend's face. He realized that Catti-brie was reacting to his own wistful expression.
"No," he assured her. "There are some things I know I can never change, and so I accept them as they are."
"Yer face is saying different."
Drizzt forced a smile. "Not so," he said-convincingly, he thought.
But Catti-brie's returning look showed him that she saw better. The woman stepped back and nodded, catching on.
"Ye're thinking of the elf," she reasoned.
Drizzt looked away, back toward Mirabar, and said, "I wish we could have saved her."
"We're all wishing that."
"I wish you had given the potion to her and not to me."
"Aye, and Bruenor would've killed me," Catti-brie said. She grabbed the drow and made him look back at her, a smile widening on her pretty face. "Is that what ye're hoping?"
Drizzt couldn't resist her charm and the much-needed levity.
"It is just difficult," he explained. "There are times when I so wish that things could be different, that tidy and acceptable endings could find every tale."
"So ye keep trying to make them endings acceptable," Catti-brie said to him. "It's all ye can do."
True enough, Drizzt admitted to himself. He gave a great sigh and looked back to Mirabar and thought again of Ellifain.
Dagnabbit went out later that afternoon, the sun setting and a cold wind kicking up through the streets of the city. He didn't return until right before the dawn, and spent the day inside with Bruenor, discussing the political intrigue of the city and the implications to Mithral Hall, while the merchants and Regis worked their wagons outside.
Not many came to those wagons -a few dwarves and fewer humans - and most of those who did bargained for