one, Jarlaxle agreed. Too beauti ful. He cast one final, plaintive look at the marvelous diamonds on the arms of Baenre's throne, then sighed deeply and followed the two females out of House Baenre's great stronghold.
Chapter 4 THE FIRE IN HER EYES
Catti-brie pulled her gray cloak about her to hide the dagger and mask she had taken from Regis. Mixed feel ings assaulted her as she neared Bruenor's private chambers; she hoped both that the dwarf would be there, and that he would not.
How could she leave without seeing Bruenor, her father, one more time? And yet, the dwarf now seemed to Catti-brie a shell of his former self, a wallowing old dwarf waiting to die. She didn't want to see him like that, didn't want to take that image of Bruenor with her into the Underdark.
She lifted her hand to knock on the door to Bruenor's sitting room, then gently cracked the door open instead and peeked in. She saw a dwarf standing off to the side of the burning hearth, but it wasn't Bruenor. Thibbledorf Pwent, the battlerager, hopped about in circles, apparently trying to catch a pesky fly. He wore his sharp ridged armor (as always), complete with glove nails and knee and elbow spikes, and other deadly points protruding from every plau sible angle. The armor squealed as the dwarf spun and jumped, an irritating sound if Catti-brie had ever heard one. Pwent's open faced gray helm rested in the chair beside him, its top spike half as tall as the dwarf. Without it, Catti-brie could see, the battlerager was almost bald, his remaining thin black strands of hair matted greasily to the sides of his head, then giving way to an enormous, bushy black beard.
Catti-brie pushed the door a little farther and saw Bruenor sit ting before the low burning fire, absently trying to flip a log so that its embers would flare to life again. His halfhearted poke against the glowing log made Catti-brie wince. She remembered the days not so long ago, when the boisterous king would have simply reached into the hearth and smacked the stubborn log with his bare hand.
With a look to Pwent (who was eating something that Catti-brie sincerely hoped was not a fly), the young woman entered the room, checking her cloak as she came in to see that the items were prop erly concealed.
"Hey, there!" Pwent howled between crunchy bites. Even more than her disgust at the thought that he was eating a fly, Catti-brie was amazed that he could be getting so much chewing out of it!
"Ye should get a beard!" the battlerager called, his customary greeting. From their first meeting, the dirty dwarf had told Catti brie that she'd be a handsome woman indeed if she could only grow a beard.
"I'm working at it, " Catti-brie replied, honestly glad for the lev ity. "Ye've got me promise that I haven't shaved me face since the day we met." She patted the battlerager atop the head, then regret ted it when she felt the greasy film on her hand.
"There's a good girl, " Pwent replied. He spotted another flitting insect and hopped away in pursuit.
"Where ye going?" Bruenor demanded sharply before Catti-brie could even say hello.
Catti-brie sighed in the face of her father's scowl. How she longed to see Bruenor smile again! Catti-brie noted the bruise on Bruenor 's forehead, the scraped portion finally scabbing over. He had reportedly gone into a tirade a few nights before, and had actu ally smashed down a heavy wooden door with his head while two frantic younger dwarves tried to hold him back. The bruise com bined with Bruenor 's garish scar, which ran from his forehead to the side of his jaw, across one socket where his eye had once been, made the old dwarf seem battered indeed!
"Where ye going?" Bruenor asked again, angrily.
"Settlestone, " the young woman lied, referring to the town of barbarians, Wulfgar's people, down the mountain from Mithril Hall's eastern exit. "The tribe's building a cairn to honor Wulfgar's memory." Catti-brie was somewhat surprised at how easily the lie came to her; she had always been able to charm Bruenor, often using half truths and semantic games to get around the blunt truth, but she had never so boldly lied to him.
Reminding herself of the importance behind it all, she looked the red bearded dwarf in the eye as she continued.