Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(117)

“Bruenor!”

They must all have expected the shield, fashioned mostly of wood, to burst into flames, but it didn’t.

Bruenor kept up his chant for a short while then reached in and grasped the edge of the shield once more.

“Bruenor!” Drizzt went for him, perhaps thinking to push him aside. But the drow might as well have tried to move the forge itself. He hit Bruenor’s arm hard, his whole weight behind the charge, but didn’t move the dwarf’s arm at all. Bruenor hardly even noticed the collision. He just pulled out his shield, and on it, his many-notched axe.

He didn’t cool them in water, but just picked them up, sliding the shield into place and hoisting the axe. Then he stepped back and turned to the others, shaking his head, coming out of his trance.

“How are your arms not blistering to the bone?” Dahlia asked. “How is it the skin didn’t slough off your fingers like parchment?”

“Huh?” the dwarf replied. “What’re ye talking about?”

“The shield,” said Jarlaxle, and Athrogate began to giggle.

“Huh?” Bruenor asked again and he turned the shield to get a look.

The wood remained exactly as it had been, though perhaps a bit darker, burnished by the fires. The banding, though, once black iron, shone silver in hue, and showed not a dent, though it had been marked by many before. And most magnificent of all was the foaming mug set in the middle. It, too, shone silver, and the foam seemed almost real, white in hue and brilliant in design.

“The axe,” Jarlaxle added, and all had noticed that, for how could one miss the changes that had come over the weapon? The head gleamed silver, a sparkle running along its vicious edge. It still showed the notches of its many battles—no doubt, the dwarf gods would have thought it an insult to Bruenor to remove those badges of honor—but there was a strength about it that was visible to all, an inner power, glowing as if begging release.

“What have you done?” Jarlaxle asked.

Bruenor just muttered, “Talked to them what was,” and banged his axe against his shield.

A noise from the far end of the hall turned them all that way. Drizzt slid Taulmaril off his shoulder as Athrogate then Bruenor came up to flank him. Jarlaxle shrank back a few steps, drawing out a pair of wands.

“Here they come,” remarked Dahlia, standing right behind Drizzt. She used her staff to nudge him aside, and stepped up between him and Athrogate.

Drizzt looked over at Bruenor, who wore a curious expression. With only a cursory glance back at the drow, the dwarf put his axe in his shield hand and brought that shield arm out in front of him. Staring at the shield’s backing, he grew even more curious and he brought his free hand forward, as if reaching right inside the shield.

How all their eyes widened when Bruenor retracted that arm, for he held a flagon, a great foamy head spilling over its side. He looked back at the shield, eyes widening once more. He handed the flagon to Drizzt then reached in again and produced a second one.

“Here now, one for meself?” Athrogate demanded.

Drizzt handed the first to the dwarf, and turned back just in time to get the second from Bruenor, who already produced the third and gave it to Drizzt as the second went to Dahlia. The fourth he gave to Jarlaxle, and Bruenor took up the fifth and final mug.

“Now there’s a shield worth wearin’!” said Athrogate.

“We got us some good gods,” Bruenor remarked, and Athrogate grinned.

“What is it?” Dahlia asked.

“Gutbuster, I’m hopin’!” said Athrogate.

The two drow and the elf looked to each other and at the drinks uncertainly, but Bruenor and Athrogate didn’t hesitate, lifting their flagons in toast then taking great swallows.

And both seemed to swell with power. Athrogate brought forth his empty metal flagon and crushed it in his hand, then threw it aside and took up his morningstars.

“By Moradin’s bum and Clangeddin’s beard, who’d ever be seein’ such a sight?” he recited. “A party o’ five with weapons in hand and ready to take up the fight. But me gods are all posin’ and scratching and shakin’ and got to be questionin’ theirself, to think a royal would be sharin’ their spoils with the likes o’ two drows and an elf!”

“Bwahaha!” It was Bruenor howling, not Athrogate.

“Drink it, ye fools!” Athrogate told the elves. “And feel the power o’ the dwarf gods flowing through yer limbs!”

Drizzt went first, taking a deep, deep gulp, and he looked to the others and nodded, then finished his drink and tossed the flagon aside.

Bruenor blinked. The room seemed clearer to him suddenly, more focused and crisp, and when he hefted his axe and shield, they seemed lighter in his hands.

“Some kind of potion,” Jarlaxle remarked. “What a remarkable shield.”

“Behold the Forge o’ Gauntlgrym,” said Bruenor. “Old magic. Good magic.”

“Dwarf magic,” said Athrogate.

More noise in the corridor across the way brought them back to the moment at hand.

“They have a dragon,” Drizzt reminded them. “We should spread out.”

“Stay by me side, elf,” Bruenor remarked as the others shifted out to either flank.

“No, we should send Bruenor straightaway to the lever,” said Jarlaxle.