"I'm wanting to be there before they start building. If they're to do it, then they're to do it right. Wulfgar deserves no less."
Bruenor 's one working eye seemed to mist over, taking on an even duller appearance, and the scarred dwarf turned away from Catti-brie, went back to his pointless fire poking, though he did manage one slight nod of halfhearted agreement. It was no secret in Mithril Hall that Bruenor didn't like talking of Wulfgar, he had even punched out one priest who insisted that Aegis fang could not, by dwarvish tradition, be given a place of honor in the Hall of Dumathoin, since a human, and no dwarf, had wielded it.
Catti-brie noticed then that Pwent's armor had ceased its squealing, and she turned about to regard the battlerager. He stood by the opened door, looking forlornly at her and at Bruenor's back. With a nod to the young woman, he quietly (for a rusty armored battlerager) left the room.
Apparently, Catti-brie was not the only one pained by the pitiful wretch Bruenor Battlehammer had become.
"Ye've got their sympathy, " she remarked to Bruenor, who seemed not to hear. "All in Mithril Hall speak kindly of their wounded king."
"Shut yer face, " Bruenor said out of the side of his mouth. He still sat squarely facing the low fire.
Catti-brie knew that the implied threat was lame, another reminder of Bruenor's fall. In days past, when Bruenor Battle hammer suggested that someone shut his face, he did, or Bruenor did it for him. But, since the fights with the priest and with the door, Bruenor 's fire, like the one in the hearth, had played itself to its end.
"Do ye mean to poke that fire the rest o' yer days?" Catti-brie asked, trying to incite a fight, to blow on the embers of Bruenor 's pride.
"If it pleases me, " the dwarf retaliated too calmly.
Catti-brie sighed again and pointedly hitched her cloak over the side of her hip, revealing the magical mask and Entreri's jeweled dagger. Even though the young woman was determined to under take her adventure alone, and did not want to explain any of it to Bruenor, she prayed that Bruenor would have life enough within him to notice.
Long minutes passed, quiet minutes, except for the occasional crackle of the embers and the hiss of the unseasoned wood.
"I'll return when I return!" the flustered woman barked, and she headed for the door. Bruenor absently waved her away over one shoulder, never bothering to look at her.
Catti-brie paused by the door, then opened it and quietly closed it, never leaving the room. She waited a few moments, not believing that Bruenor remained in front of the fire, poking it absently. Then she slipped across the room and through another doorway, to the dwarf's bedroom.
Catti-brie moved to Bruenor's large oaken desk, a gift from Wulfgar's people, its polished wood gleaming and designs of Aegis fang, the mighty warhammer that Bruenor had crafted, carved into its sides. Catti-brie paused a long while, despite her need to be out before Bruenor realized what she was doing, and looked at those designs, remembering Wulfgar. She would never get over that loss. She understood that, but she knew, too, that her time of grieving neared its end, that she had to get on with the business of living. Especially now, Catti-brie reminded herself, with another of her friends apparently walking into peril.
In a stone coffer atop the desk Catti-brie found what she was looking for: a small locket on a silver chain, a gift to Bruenor from Alustriel, the Lady of Silverymoon. Bruenor had been thought dead, lost in Mithril Hall on the friends' first passage through the place. He had escaped from the halls sometime later, avoiding the evil gray dwarves who had claimed Mithril Hall as their own, and with Alustriel's help, he found Catti-brie in Longsaddle, a village to the southwest. Drizzt and Wulfgar had left long before that, on their way south in pursuit of Regis, who had been captured by the assas sin Entreri.
Alustriel had then given Bruenor the magical locket. Inside was a tiny portrait of Drizzt, and with this device the dwarf could gener ally track the drow. Proper direction and distance from Drizzt could be determined by the degrees of magical warmth emanating from the locket.
The metal bauble was cool now, colder than the air of the room, and it seemed to Catti-brie that Drizzt was already