ironic, given her own mid-sentence correction of her dwarven dialect.
"When do you think you'll be out of here?"
"I'll be out of bed in less than a tenday," Catti-brie answered. "I'll be fighting again in two - sooner if I find I'm needed, don't you doubt."
Regis looked at her skeptically. "Is that your guess or Cordio's?"
Catti-brie waved the question away and went back to eating, and so Regis understood that the priests had likely given estimates of at least a month.
As she finished with one piece of fruit, Catti-brie leaned over the opposite side of the bed, where a pail sat for the refuse. When she did, the movement caused the blanket to ride up on the side closest Regis, affording him a clear view of her torn hip and upper leg.
The woman settled back before the halfling could replace his pained expression.
"The rock hit you good," Regis said, knowing there was no way to avoid it.
Catti-brie tucked the blanket back down under her side. "I'm fortunate that it bounced off the ledge and the wall first," she admitted.
"How serious was the damage?"
Catti-brie's face went blank.
Regis met that stare and pressed on, "How far will you recover, do they say? That hip was crushed, the muscles torn through. Will you walk again?"
"Yes."
"Will you run?"
The woman paused a bit longer, her face growing tight. "Yes."
It was an answer more of determination than expectation, Regis knew. He let it go and stiffened his resolve against the wave of pity that wanted to flood out of him. He knew very well that Catti-brie would hear none of that.
"Word has come from the south," Regis said. "Lady Alustriel has joined the fight, albeit briefly."
"But Dagna has fallen," Catti-brie replied, surprising Regis.
"Word of such things passes quickly through a dwarven community," she explained.
Regis quieted for a few moments so that they could both offer a silent prayer for the soul of the fallen dwarf.
"Do you think it will ever be the same?" he asked.
"I don't," replied Catti-brie, and the halfling's head snapped up, for that was not precisely the answer he had expected and wanted from the normally optimistic woman. "As it was not the same when we drove the dark elves back underground. This fight's sure to leave a scar, my friend."
Regis considered that for a moment, then nodded his agreement. "Obould stuck it in deep, and stuck it hard," he said. "Bruenor will be glad when he has that one's head piked out beyond the western door."
"It is not all bad, these changes .. ." said Catti-brie.
"Torgar's here with his boys," Regis was quick to put in. "And we're talking with Felbarr as never before!"
"Aye," said the woman. "And sometimes tragedy is the catalyst for those who are left behind, to change in ways they knew they should, but never found the courage to grasp."
Something about her tone and the faraway look in her eye told the halfling that many things were stirring behind the blue eyes of Catti-brie, and not all of them in accordance to that which he and the others would normally expect of her.
"We're trying to get some scouts out and about, up through the chimneys," he said. "We're hoping for word from Drizzt."
Catti-brie's face twitched a bit at the mention of the drow. Not a grimace, but enough of a movement to tell Regis that he had hit a sensitive subject.
Again Regis quickly changed the topic. What use in speculating about Drizzt, after all, when none of them knew anything definite, though all of them held the same hopes? Instead Regis talked of better days to come, of the inevitable defeat of Obould and his stupid orcs and the good times they'd have with the brave dwarves of Mirabar, the newest members of the clan. He talked of Tred and Citadel Felbarr, and promises of allegiance that ran deep on both sides of the Underdark tunnels. He talked of Ivan and Pikel, and of the Spirit Soaring, their cathedral home set high in the Snowflake Mountains above the town of Carradoon on Impresk Lake. He would go and see that wondrous place, he prompted repeatedly, drawing smiles from Catti-brie, and finally coaxing her into talking about it, for she and Drizzt had once visited Cadderly and Danica.
After an hour or so, there came a sharp knock on the door, and Bruenor came bounding in.
"Word's in from Felbarr," he announced before he even bothered to say hello. "Jackonray's runners come back with the news that Emerus Warcrown's marching!"