and put her head on Wulfgar's strong shoulder. She closed her eyes and let him carry her from the celebration.
* * * * *
Delly Curtie approached the audience chamber with good intent, determined to try to fit in, in the place that Wulfgar would always call home. She told herself with every step that she had followed Wulfgar out of Luskan of her own accord, with her eyes wide open. She reminded herself that her responsibilities went far beyond the issues surrounding her relationship with a man who seemed more at home beside the dwarves than with his own race. She reminded herself of Colson, and the girl's well-being.
She would have to strike a middle ground, she decided. She would take Wulfgar out of Mithral Hall as often as possible, and would stay with the folk of the neighboring and predominantly human communities for extended periods.
She caught a quick glimpse of someone coming the other way through the maze of anterooms, and from the size alone, she knew it had to be Wulfgar. Her step lightened. She would make the seemingly untenable situation work.
As she came through a half-door and moved around one of the huge vats the clerics used for their brewing, Delly caught sight of him again, more clearly.
He didn't see her, she knew, because he was looking at the woman he was carrying.
Delly's eyes widened and she threw herself behind the brew barrel, putting her back to it and closing her eyes tightly against the sudden sting. She heard Wulfgar and Catti-brie pass by on the other side, and watched them exit the small room and continue on their way.
The woman exhaled and felt as if she was simply melting into the floor.
* * * * *
Lady Alustriel did not need to wait for the ferries to be running in order to cross the Surbrin. The tall and beautiful woman, as accomplished in the magic arts and in the arena of politics as anyone in all the world, brought her fiery conjured chariot down on a flat stretch of ground just outside the opened eastern door of Mithral Hall, sending dwarves scrambling for cover and bringing a chorus of cheers and salutes from the Moonwood elves who held firm in their position on the mountain spur.
Alustriel stepped from the chariot and dismissed it into a puff of smoke with a wave of her hand. She straightened her dark robe and brushed her long silver hair into place, at the same time fixing a properly somber expression onto her delicate but determined features. It would be no easy visit, she knew, but it was one she owed to her friend Bruenor.
With purpose in every stride, Alustriel moved to the door. The dwarf guards fell aside, gladly admitting her, while one ran ahead to announce her to Bruenor.
She found the dwarf king with two other dwarves and an elf, drawing up plans for King Emerus Warcrown's arrival. The four stood up at her entrance, even Bruenor dipping into a low and polite bow.
"Good King Bruenor," Alustriel greeted. "It is uplifting to see you well. We had heard rumors of your demise, and truly a pall had befallen the lands of goodly folk."
"Bah, got to tease 'em a bit, ye know," Bruenor replied with a wink. "Makes my arrival all the more stunning and inspiring."
"I doubt that Bruenor Battlehammer needs aid in that manner."
"Always the kind one, ain't ye?"
Alustriel offered a quiet nod.
"I give ye Jackonray and Tred of Felbarr," Bruenor explained, pointing out the dwarves, who both nearly fell over themselves trying to bow before the great Lady of Silverymoon. "And this one's Hralien of the Moonwood. Never thought me and me boys'd be so grateful to see a bunch o' elves!"
"We stand together," Hralien answered. "Or surely we shall all of us fall before the darkness that is Obould."
"Aye, and glad I am that ye decided to come, good lady," Bruenor told Alustriel. "Torgar o' Mirabar just returned from yer victory over them stinking trolls, and he's telling a tale that yerself and Sundabar've decided to stay back."
"His words are true, I fear," Alustriel admitted.
"Aye, ye're thinking to wait out the winter, and I'm not for arguing that," Bruenor said. "But we'd be smart to set our plans for the spring soon as we can. We'll have a gnome's puzzling of it to get five armies working right." He paused when he noticed that Alustriel was shaking her head with his every word.