"Course I ain't, ye durned fools!" he said, rather unconvincingly. "Me father's father's father's father's father spent his days here."
Despite his bluster, even Torgar could recognize the hint of doubt in his own statements, and that made him ask himself if he really was thinking of leaving Mirabar. He was as mad as a demon at Elastul, to be sure, but was there really a notion, deep in his head and deep in his heart, that it might be time for him to end the Hammerstriker dynasty in Mirabar?
He ran his hands through his thick hair again, and again, and ended up shouting, "Bah!" in the faces of those around him.
He stood up so forcefully that his chair skidded out behind him, and he stomped away, grabbing a flagon of ale from the bar as he passed and tossing back a coin to the obviously amused tavern keeper.
Out in the cavern that housed the cluster of buildings in the First Below -the highest section of Mirabar's Undercity-Torgar looked all around him, noting the structures and noting the striations of the stone that housed them, stone so familiar to him that he felt as if it was a part of him, and of his heritage.
"Stupid Elastul," he muttered under his breath. "Stupid all o' ye, not seem' King Bruenor and his boys for the friends they be."
He walked away, unaware that his last statements had been overheard by several others, including Shingles, all huddled near the open window of the tavern.
"He's meanin' it," another dwarf remarked.
"And I'm thinkin' that he's gonna go," said another.
"Bah, whaddya know aside from which drink ye're drinkin'?" Shingles blustered at them. "If ye're even knowin' which drink ye're drinkin'!"
"I'm knowing!" shouted another dwarf, from across the way. "So I'm thinkin' that I'm not drinkin' enough o' what I'm drinkin'!"
That brought a roar, and cries of rounds from several parts of the tavern.
Shingles McRuff just grinned at them all, though, and kept looking out the window, though Torgar, his old buddy and comrade at arms, was long out of sight.
Despite his disclaimer and Torgar's denial. Shingles could not disagree with the consensus that Torgar was indeed serious about leaving Mirabar. The arrival of King Bruenor and the boys from Mithral Hall had put a face on a previously faceless enemy, a face that Torgar and many others had come to see as a friend. A rival, perhaps, but certainly no enemy. The treatment Elastul and the other leaders, mostly human, had shown to Bruenor and to the Mirabarran dwarves who had gone to hear Bruenor's tales or buy the wares from Icewind Dale had not set well with Torgar or with many others.
For the first time since the incident, Shingles McRuff seriously considered the recent events and the wider implications of them.
He didn't much like where his thoughts were suddenly, and already, leading him.
"Guilt's a funny thing, now ain't it?" Delly Curtie playfully asked Wulfgar when he returned to her and Colson at their wagon.
"Guilt?" came the skeptical response. "Or an understanding of my responsibilities?"
"Guilt," Delly answered without the slightest hesitation.
"In taking on a family, I accepted the responsibility of protecting that family."
"And what do ye think will happen to me and Colson surrounded by two hundred friendly dwarves? Ye're not abandoning us out in the wilds, Wulfgar. We're going to safety. 'Tis yerself that's walking to danger!"
"And even in that, I am abandoning my respons-"
"Oh, don't ye start that again!" Delly interrupted, and loudly, drawing the attention of several nearby dwarves. "Ye do as ye must. Ye live the life ye were meant to live."
"You came all the way out here with me ..."
"Livin' the life I'm choosin' to live," Delly explained. "I'm not wanting to lose ye-not for a moment-but T know that if ye abandon yer heart to stand with me and Colson all the day, then I've already lost ye. Come to Mithral Hall if that's what's truly in yer heart, me love, but if not, then get yerself out on the road with Bruenor and th' others."
"And what if I die out there, away from you?"
It was not a question asked out of fear, for Wulfgar was not afraid of dying out on the road. He was an adventurer, a warrior, and as long as he could hold faith that he was following the true course of his life, then whatever was put before him would be acceptable.