Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(62)

Drizzt dismissed his magical mount and climbed aboard the jockey seat of the last wagon, Bruenor beside him. They would make Neverwinter by noon, so the boss informed them, and even though so many were weary, they wouldn’t stop the caravan.

“A fine, well-paying journey,” Drizzt remarked to Bruenor, speaking as much to keep himself alert as for any desire for conversation.

“Not that ye’re caring,” a sleepy Bruenor replied.

Drizzt cocked an eyebrow the dwarf’s way.

“Bah, but ye only did this for the fightin’!” Bruenor accused.

“We need the coin,” Drizzt replied.

“Ye’d do it for free. Anything to sing yer blades.”

“Our funds are not inexhaustible, my friend. You paid good gold for that last map you acquired.”

“An investment, I tell ye! Think o’ the treasures Gauntlgrym’ll give us!” Bruenor insisted.

“And that map will lead us there?”

“Not for knowing,” Bruenor admitted. “But one o’ them will.”

“That map, scrawled by a Calishite sailor, a pirate no less, will lead us to our destination, which a thousand-thousand dwarves have not found in a thousand years of searching?”

“Ah, shut yer mouth.”

Drizzt grinned at him.

“Ye hide in yer blades,” Bruenor said more seriously.

Drizzt didn’t answer, just looked straight ahead at the road and the wagons in front of them.

“Ye always did. I know,” the dwarf continued, “I seen it in Icewind Dale when first we met. I remember me boy shaking his head and callin’ ye crazy when ye took him into the lair o’ that giant, Biggrin. But never like this, elf. I’m thinking that if ye had a choice o’ two roads, one safe and one thick with monsters, ye’d take the thick one.”

“I didn’t pick this road, you did,” Drizzt replied.

“Nah, yerself signed us on as guards, ready for the fight.”

“We need the coin, O Great Cave Crawler.”

“Bah,” Bruenor grumbled, shaking his head.

They were indeed short of funds, but not destitute by any means, having taken a rather tidy sum along with them from Mithral Hall those many years ago, and really, other than Bruenor’s quest for maps and trinkets, they had little on which they needed to spend the coin.

The dwarf let it go at that, and drifted off to sleep, where he found comfortable dreams of yesteryear, of Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale, and the high perch upon it known as Bruenor’s Climb. Of running with the Companions of the Hall, him and the elf, and his boy and his girl and the halfling he so often found fishing on the banks of Maer Dualdon.

It had been a good life, Bruenor decided. Good and long, and full of fine friends and fine adventures.

They came in sight of Neverwinter soon after, and no one spoke a word of protest when the boss stopped the lead wagon on a high ridge overlooking the place, so that all could take in the sight. Once it had been a sprawling city, a great port, then, with the eruption of Mount Hotenow, it had been no more than a desolate, barren ruin of black stone and deep gray ash.

But the wounds in the land were healing, plants growing thick in the rich volcanic soil, and while many of the ruins of old Neverwinter were still visible, new structures had been built. Few in number, none approaching the grandeur of old Neverwinter as of yet, the small settlement seemed truly discordant. The most impressive structure to be seen, by far, was the old Winged Wyvern Bridge, which had briefly been called something else no one remembered. It had escaped the devastation nearly unscathed, with only one abutment taking any noticeable damage, and it had come to serve as the centerpiece, the promise, of what Neverwinter might become anew.

So entranced were Bruenor and Drizzt at the sight of the distant town, neither noticed the approach of the caravan boss.

“She’ll be rebuilt to all her glory,” the man said, drawing them from their personal contemplations. “Not to doubt the resilience of the folk of the Sword Coast. They’ll … we’ll make Neverwinter what she once was, and more.

“What do you say, lads and lasses?” he called, turning so all could hear. “Do you think we might convince the leaders of Neverwinter to name a bridge or some other new structure in honor of Drizzt Do’Urden or Bonnego Battle-axe?”

“O’ the Adbar Battle-axes, and don’t ye never forget it,” Bruenor shouted as cheers rose up.

“This caravan isn’t leaving Neverwinter until the spring, at least,” the boss informed the duo. “I’d be glad to have you along for that journey to Waterdeep.”

“If we’re about—” Drizzt started to reply.

“But we won’t be,” Bruenor cut in. “We got roads o’ our own to walk.”

“I understand,” the boss said. “The offer stands—at twice the pay.”

“It’s possible,” Drizzt said with a wry grin aimed at Bruenor. “My friend here has a fondness for maps … one that oft empties our purses.”

Bruenor’s responding look was not in jest, the dwarf upset with Drizzt for giving away so much information.

“Maps?” the boss asked. “We’ll be re-drawing the map of Neverwinter soon, to be sure, with such fine craftsmen and brave warriors who have come to rebuild and defend her. We’ll be battling the darkness, do not doubt, and in a way that will make all of Faer?n look to Neverwinter with hope.”