Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(8)

“Ye’ve run from the hall?”

“Just said as much.”

“Forevermore?”

“Ain’t so long a time for an old dwarf like meself.”

“Ye runned away. Ye runned away and ye didn’t tell me?” Pwent asked. He was trembling.

Bruenor glanced back at Drizzt. When he heard the crash of Pwent’s breastplate hitting the ground, he turned back.

“Ye telled a stinkin’ orc, but ye didn’t tell yer Gutbuster?” Pwent demanded. He pulled off one gauntlet and dropped it to the ground, then the other, then reached down and began unfastening his spiked greaves.

“Ye’d do that to them what loved ye? Ye’d make us all cry for ye? Ye’d break our hearts? Me king!”

Bruenor’s face grew tight, but he had no answer.

“All me life for me king,” Pwent muttered.

“I ain’t yer king no more,” said Bruenor.

“Aye, that’s what I be thinkin’,” said Pwent, and he put his fist into Bruenor’s eye. The orange-bearded dwarf staggered backward, his one-horned helm falling from his head, his many-notched axe dropping to the ground under the severe weight of the blow.

Pwent unbuckled his helmet and pulled it from his head. He had just started throwing it aside when Bruenor hit him with a flying tackle, driving him backward and to the ground, and over and over they rolled, flailing and punching.

“Been wanting to do this for a hunnerd years!” Pwent cried, his voice muffled at the end as Bruenor shoved his hand into his mouth.

“Aye, and I been wantin’ to give ye the chance!” Bruenor shouted back, his voice rising several octaves at the end of his claim, when Pwent bit down hard.

“Drizzt!” Nanfoodle yelled. “Stop them!”

“No, don’t!” Jessa cried, clapping in glee.

Drizzt’s expression told the gnome in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of jumping in between that pile of dwarven fury. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against a tall stone, and truly seemed more amused than concerned.

Around and around went the flailing duo, a stream of curses coming from each, interrupted only by the occasional grunt as one or the other landed a heavy blow.

“Bah, but ye’re the son of an orc!” Bruenor yelled.

“Bah, but I ain’t yer smelly son, ye damned orc!” Pwent yelled back.

As it happened, they rolled around just then, coming apart just enough to look straight at Jessa, her arms crossed, glaring at them from on high.

“Err … goblin,” both corrected together as they came to their feet side by side. Both shrugged a half-hearted apology Jessa’s way, and they went right back into it, wrestling and punching with abandon. They stumbled out of the boulder tumble and across a small patch of grass to the top of a small bluff, and there Bruenor gained a slight advantage, managing to pull Pwent’s arm behind his back. The battlerager let out a shriek as he looked down the other side of the bluff.

“And I been wanting ye to take a bath all them hunnerd years!” Bruenor declared.

He bulled Pwent down the hill into a short run, then threw the dwarf and flew after him right into the midst of a cold, clear mountain stream.

Pwent hopped up, and anyone watching would have thought the poor frantic dwarf had landed face down in acid. He stood in the stream shaking wildly, trying to get the water off. But the ploy had worked at least. He had no more fight left in him.

“Why’d ye do that, me king?” a heartbroken Pwent all but whispered.

“Because ye smell, and I ain’t yer king,” Bruenor replied, splashing his way to the bank.

“Why?” Pwent asked, his voice so full of confusion and pain that Bruenor stopped short, even though he was still in the cold water, and turned back to regard his loyal battlerager.

“Why?” Thibbledorf Pwent asked again.

Bruenor looked up at the other three—four, counting Guenhwyvar—who had come to the top of the bluff to watch. With a great sigh, the dead King of Mithral Hall turned back to his loyal battlerager and held out his hand.

“Was the only way,” Bruenor explained as he and Pwent started up the bluff. “Only fair way to Banak.”

“Banak didn’t need to be king,” said Pwent.

“Aye, but I couldn’t be king anymore. I’m done with it, me friend.”

That last word gave them both pause, and as the implications of it truly settled on both their shoulders, they each draped an arm across the other’s strong shoulders and walked together up the hill.

“Been too long with me bum in a throne,” Bruenor explained as they made their way past the others and back toward the boulder tumble. “Not for knowing how many years I got left, but there’s things I’m wanting to find, and I won’t be finding ’em in Mithral Hall.”

“Yer girl and the halfling runt?” Pwent reasoned.

“Ah, but don’t ye make me cry,” said Bruenor. “And Moradin willing, I’ll be doing that one day, if not in this life, then in his great halls. But no, there’s more.”

“What more?”

Bruenor put his hands on his hips again and looked out across the wide lands to the west, bordered by the towering mountains in the north and the still-impressive foothills in the south.