We've dug our holes and hallowed caves
Put goblin foes in shallow graves
This day our work is just begun
In the mines where silver rivers run
Beneath the stone the metal gleams
Torches shine on silver streams
Beyond the eyes of the spying sun
The hammers chime on Mithril pure
As dwarven mines in days of yore
A craftsman's work is never done
To dwarven gods we sing our praise
Put another orc in a shallow grave
We know our work has just begun
In the land where silver rivers run
As with everything I do,
To my wife, Diane
And to the most important people
in our lives
Bryan, Geno, and Caitlin
Prelude
Maps
Book 1: Searches
Chapter 1 A Dagger at Their Backs
Chapter 2 City of Sails
Chapter 3 Night Life
Chapter 4 The Conjuring
Chapter 5 The Crags
Chapter 6 Sky Ponies
Chapter 7 Dagger and Staff
Book 2: Allies
Chapter 8 To the Peril of Low-Flying Birds
Chapter 9 There is No Honor
Chapter 10 Bonds of Reputation
Chapter 11 Silverymoon
Chapter 12 The Trollmoors
Chapter 13 The Last Run
Chapter 14 Star Light, Star Bright
Chapter 15 The Golem's Eyes
Book 3: Trails Anew
Chapter 16 Days of Old
Chapter 17 The Challenge
Chapter 18 The Secret of Keeper's Dale
Chapter 19 Shadows
Chapter 20 End of a Dream
Chapter 21 Silver in the Shadows
Chapter 22 The Dragon of Darkness
Chapter 23 The Broken Helm
Chapter 24 Eulogy for Mithril Hall
Epilogue
About the Author
On a dark throne in a dark place perched the dragon of shadow: Not a
very large worm, but foulest of the foul, its mere presence, blackness; its
talons, swords worn from a thousand thousand kills; its maw ever warm with
the blood of victims; its black breath, despair.
A raven's coat was its tested scales, so rich in their blackness that
they shimmered in colors, a scintillating facade of beauty for a soulless
monster. Its minions named it Shimmergloom and paid it all honor.
Gathering its strength over the course of centuries, as dragons do,
Shimmergloom kept its wings folded back and moved not at all, except to
swallow a sacrifice or to punish an insolent underling. It had done its
part to secure this place, routing the bulk of the dwarven army that stood
to face its allies.
How well the dragon had eaten that day! The hides of dwarves were tough
and muscled, but a razor-toothed maw was well suited to such a meal.
And now the dragon's many slaves did all the work, bringing it food and
heeding to its every desire. The day would come when they would need the
power of the dragon again, and Shimmergloom would be ready. The huge mound
of plundered treasures beneath it fueled the dragon's strength, and in this
respect, Shimmergloom was surpassed by none of its kind, possessing a hoard
beyond the imagination of the richest kings.
And a host of loyal minions, willing slaves to the dragon of darkness.
* * * * *
The chill wind that gave Icewind Dale its name whistled across their
ears, its incessant groan eliminating the casual conversation the four
friends usually enjoyed. They moved west across the barren tundra, and the
wind, as always, came from the east, behind them, quickening their already
strong pace.
Their posture and the determined drive of their strides reflected the
eagerness of a newly begun quest, but the set of each adventurer's face
revealed a different perspective of the journey.
The dwarf, Bruenor Battlehammer, leaned forward from his waist, his
stocky legs pumping mightily beneath him, and his pointed nose, poking out
above the shag of his wagging red beard, led the way. He seemed set in
stone, apart from his legs and beard, with his many-notched axe held firmly
before him in his gnarled hands, his shield, emblazoned with the standard
of the foaming mug, strapped tightly on the back of his overstuffed pack,
and his head, adorned in a many-dented horned helm, never turning to either
side. Neither did his eyes deviate from the path and rarely did they blink.
Bruenor had initiated this journey to find the ancient homeland of Clan
Battlehammer, and though he fully realized that the silvery halls of his
childhood were hundreds of miles away, he stomped along with the fervor of
one whose long-awaited goal is clearly in sight.
Beside Bruenor, the huge barbarian, too, was anxious. Wulfgar loped
along smoothly, the great strides of his long legs easily matching the
dwarf's rolling pace. There was a sense of urgency about him, like a
spirited horse on a short rein. Fires hungry for adventure burned in his
pale eyes as clearly as in Bruenor's, but unlike the dwarf, Wulfgar's gaze
was not fixed upon the straight road before them. He was a young man out to
view the wide world for the first time and he continually looked about,
soaking up every sight and sensation that the landscape had to offer.
He had come along to aid his friends on their adventure, but he had
come, as well, to expand the horizons of his own world. The entirety of his
young life had been spent within the isolating natural boundaries of
lcewind Dale, limiting his experiences to the ancient ways of his fellow
barbarian tribesmen and the frontier peoples of Ten-Towns.
There was more out there, Wulfgar knew, and he was determined to grasp
as much of it as he possibly could.
Less interested was Drizzt Do'Urden, the cloaked figure trotting easily
beside Wulfgar. His floating gait showed him to be of elven heritage, but
the shadows of his low-pulled cowl suggested something else. Drizzt was a
drow, a black elf, denizen of the lightless underworld. He had spent
several years on the surface, denying his heritage, yet had found that he
could not escape the aversion to the sun inherent in his people.
And so he sunk low within the shadow of his cowl, his stride
nonchalant, even resigned, this trip being merely a continuation of his
existence, another adventure in a life-long string of adventures. Forsaking
his people in the dark city of Menzoberranzan, Drizzt Do'Urden had
willingly embarked upon the road of the nomad. He knew that he would never
be truly accepted anywhere on the surface; perceptions of his people were
too vile (and rightly so) for even the most tolerant of communities to take
him in. The road was his home now, he was always traveling to avoid the
inevitable heartache of being forced from a place that he might have come
to love.
Ten-Towns had been a temporary sanctuary. The forlorn wilderness
settlement housed a large proportion of rogues and outcasts and, though
Drizzt wasn't openly welcomed, his hard-earned reputation as a guardian of
the towns' borders had granted him a small measure of respect and tolerance
from many of the settlers. Bruenor named him a true friend, though, and
Drizzt had willingly set out beside the dwarf on the trek, despite his
apprehension that once he moved out beyond the influence of his reputation,
the treatment he received would be less than civil.
Every so often, Drizzt dropped back the dozen yards or so to check on
the fourth member of the party. Huffing and puffing, Regis the halfling
brought up the rear of the troupe (and not by choice) with a belly too
round for the road and legs too short to match the pumping strides of the
dwarf. Paying now for the months of luxury he had enjoyed in the palatial
house in Bryn Shander, Regis cursed the turn of luck that had forced him to
the road. His greatest love was comfort and he worked at perfecting the
arts of eating and sleeping as diligently as a young lad with dreams of
heroic deeds swung his first sword. His friends were truly surprised when
he joined them on the road, but they were happy to have him along, and even
Bruenor, so desperate to see his ancient homeland again, took care not to
set the pace too far beyond Regis's ability to keep up.
Certainly Regis pushed himself to his physical limits, and without his
customary complaining. Unlike his companions, though, whose eyes looked to
the road up ahead, he kept glancing back over his shoulder, back toward
Ten-Towns and the home he had so mysteriously abandoned to join in the
journey.
Drizzt noted this with some concern.
Regis was running away from something.
The companions kept their westerly course for several days. To their
south, the snow-capped peaks of the jagged mountains, the Spine of the
World, paralleled their journey. This range marked the southern boundary to
Icewind Dale and the companions kept an eye out for its end. When the
westernmost peaks died away to flat ground, they would turn south, down the
pass between the mountains and the sea, running out of the dale altogether
and down the last hundred mile stretch to the coastal city of Luskan.
Out on the trail each morning before the sun rose at their backs, they
continued running into the last pink lines of sunset, stopping to make camp
at the very last opportunity before the chill wind took on its icy
nighttime demeanor.
Then they were back on the trail again before dawn, each running within
the solitude of his own perspectives and fears.
A silent journey, save the endless murmur of the eastern wind.
Book 1:
Searches
1
A Dagger at Their Backs
He kept his cloak pulled tightly about him, though little light seeped
in through the curtained windows, for this was his existence, secretive and
alone. The way of the assassin.
While other people went about their lives basking in the pleasures of
the sunlight and the welcomed visibility of their neighbors, Artemis
Entreri kept to the shadows, the dilated orbs of his eyes focused on the
narrow path he must take to accomplish his latest mission.
He truly was a professional, possibly the finest in the entire realms
at his dark craft, and when he sniffed out the trail of his prey, the
victim never escaped. So the assassin was unbothered by the empty house
that he found in Bryn Shander, the principal city of the ten settlements in
the wasteland of Icewind Dale. Entreri had suspected that the halfling had
slipped out of Ten-Towns. But no matter; if this was indeed the same
halfling that he had sought all the way from Calimport, a thousand miles
and more to the south, he had made better progress than he ever could have
hoped. His mark had no more than a two-week head start and the trail would
be fresh indeed.
Entreri moved through the house silently and calmly, seeking hints of
the halfling's life here that would give him the edge in their inevitable
confrontation. Clutter greeted him in every room - the halfling had left in
a hurry, probably aware that the assassin was closing in. Entreri
considered this a good sign, further heightening his suspicions that this
halfling, Regis, was the same Regis who had served the Pasha Pook those
years ago in the distant southern city.
The assassin smiled evilly at the thought that the halfling knew he was
being stalked, adding to the challenge of the hunt as Entreri pitted his
stalking prowess against his intended victim's hiding ability. But the end
result was predictable, Entreri knew, for a frightened person invariably
made a fatal mistake.
The assassin found what he was looking for in a desk drawer in the
master bedroom. Fleeing in haste, Regis had neglected to take precautions
to conceal his true identity. Entreri held the small ring up before his
gleaming eyes, studying the inscription that clearly identified Regis as a
member of Pasha Pook's thieves' guild in Calimport. Entreri closed his fist
about the signet, the evil smile widening across his face.
"I have found you, little thief," he laughed into the emptiness of the
room. "Your fate is sealed. There is nowhere for you to run!"
His expression changed abruptly to one of alertness as the sound of a
key, in the palatial house's front door echoed up the hallway of the grand
staircase. He dropped the ring into his belt pouch and slipped, as silent
as death, to the shadows of the top posts of the stairway's heavy banister.
The large double doors swung open, and a man and a young woman stepped
in from the porch ahead of two dwarves. Entreri knew the man, Cassius, the
spokesman of Bryn Shander. This had been his home once, but he had
relinquished it several months earlier to Regis, after the halfling's
heroic actions in the town's battle against the evil wizard, Akar Kessell,
and his goblin minions.
Entreri had seen the other human before, as well, though he hadn't yet
discovered her connection to Regis. Beautiful women were a rarity in this
remote setting, and this young woman was indeed the exception. Shiny auburn
locks danced gaily about her shoulders, the intense sparkle of her dark
blue eyes enough to bind any man hopelessly within their depths.
Her name, the assassin had learned, was Catti-brie. She lived with the
dwarves in their valley north of the city, particularly with the leader of
the dwarven clan, Bruenor, who had adopted her as his own a dozen years
before when a goblin raid had left her orphaned.
This could prove a valuable meeting, Entreri mused. He cocked an ear
through the banister poles to hear the discussion below.
"He's been gone but a week!" Catti-brie argued.
"A week with no word," snapped Cassius, obviously upset. "With my
beautiful house empty and unguarded. Why, the front door was unlocked when
I came by a few days ago!"
"Ye gave the house to Regis," Catti-brie reminded the man.
"Loaned!" Cassius roared, though in truth the house had indeed been a
gift. The spokesman had quickly regretted turning over to Regis the key to
this palace, the grandest house north of Mirabar. In retrospect, Cassius
understood that he had been caught up in the fervor of that tremendous
victory over the goblins, and he suspected that Regis had lifted his
emotions even a step further by using the reputed hypnotic powers of the
ruby pendant.
Like others who had been duped by the persuasive halfling, Cassius had
come to a very different perspective on the events that had transpired, a
perspective that painted Regis unfavorably.
"No matter the name ye call it," Catti-brie conceded, "ye should not be
so hasty to decide that Regis has forsaken the house."
The spokesman's face reddened in fury. "Everything out today!" he
demanded. "You have my list. I want all of the halfling's belongings out of
my house! Any that remain when I return tommorrow shall become my own by
the rights of possession! And I warn you, I shall be compensated dearly if
any of my property is missing or damaged!" He turned on his heel and
stormed out the doors.
"He's got his hair up about this one," chuckled Fender Mallot, one of
the dwarves. "Never have I seen one whose friends swing from loyalty to
hatred more than Regis!"
Catti-brie nodded in agreement of Fender's observation. She knew that
Regis played with magical charms, and she figured that his paradoxical
relationships with those around him were an unfortunate side effect of his
dabblings.
"Do ye suppose he's off with Drizzt and Bruenor?" Fender asked. Up the
stairs, Entreri shifted anxiously.
"Not to doubt," Catti-brie answered. "All winter they've been asking
him to join in the quest for Mithril Hall, an' to be sure, Wulfgar's
joining added to the pressure."
"Then the little one's halfway to Luskan, or more," reasoned Fender.
"And Cassius is right in wantin' his house back."
"Then let us get to packing," said Catti-brie. "Cassius has enough o'
his own without adding to the hoard from Regis's goods."
Entreri leaned back against the banister. The name of Mithril Hall was
unknown to him, but he knew the way to Luskan well enough. He grinned
again, wondering if he might catch them before they ever reached the port
city.
First, though, he knew that there still might be some valuable
information to be garnered here. Catti-brie and the dwarves set about the
task of collecting the halfling's belongings, and as they moved from room
to room, the black shadow of Artemis Entreri, as silent as death, hovered
about them. They never suspected his presence, never would have guessed
that the gentle ripple in the drapes was anything more than a draft flowing
in from the edges of the window, or that the shadow behind a chair was
disproportionately long.
He managed to stay close enough to hear nearly all of their
conversation, and Catti-brie and the dwarves spoke of little else than the
four adventurers and their journey to Mithril Hall. But Entreri learned
little for his efforts. He already knew of the halfling's famed companions
- everyone in Ten-Towns spoke of them often: of Drizzt Do'Urden, the
renegade drow elf, who had forsaken his dark-skinned people in the bowels
of the Realms and roamed the borders of Ten-Towns as a solitary guardian
against the intrusions of the wilderness of Icewind Dale; of Bruenor
Battlehammer, the rowdy leader of the dwarven clan that lived in the valley
near Kelvin's Cairn; and most of all, of Wulfgar, the mighty barbarian, who
was captured and raised to adulthood by Bruenor, returned with the savage
tribes of the dale to defend Ten-Towns against the goblin army, then struck
up a truce between all the peoples of Icewind Dale. A bargain that had
salvaged, and promised to enrich, the lives of all involved.
"It seems that you have surrounded yourself with formidable allies,
halfling," Entreri mused, leaning against the back of a large chair, as
Catti-brie and the dwarves moved into an adjoining room. "Little help they
will offer. You are mine!"
Catti-brie and the dwarves worked for about an hour, filling two large
sacks, primarily with clothes. Catti-brie was astounded with the stock of
possessions Regis had collected since his reputed heroics against Kessell
and the goblins - mostly gifts from grateful citizens. Well aware of the
halfling's love of comfort, she could not understand what had possessed him
to run off down the road after the others. But what truly amazed her was
that Regis hadn't hired porters to bring along at least a few of his
belongings. And the more of his treasures that she discovered as she moved
through the palace, the more this whole scenario of haste and impulse
bothered her. It was too out of character for Regis. There had to be
another factor, some missing element, that she hadn't yet weighed.
"Well, we got more'n we can carry, and most o' the stuff anyway!"
declared Fender, hoisting a sack over his sturdy shoulder. "Leave the rest
for Cassius to sort, I say!"
"I would no' give Cassius the pleasure of claiming any of the things,"
Catti-brie retorted. "There may yet be valued items to be found. Two of ye
take the sacks back your rooms at the inn. I'll be finishing the work up
here."
"Ah, yer too good to Cassius," Fender grumbled. "Bruenor had him marked
right as a man taking too much pleasure in counting what he owns!"
"Be fair, Fender Mallot," Catti-brie retorted, though her agreeing
smile belied any harshness in her tone. "Cassius served the towns well in
the war and has been a fine leader for the people of Bryn Shander. Ye've
seen as well as meself that Regis has a talent for putting up a cat's fur!"
Fender chuckled in agreement. "For all his ways of gettin' what he
wants, the little one has left a row or two of ruffled victims!" He patted
the other dwarf on the shoulder and they headed for the main door.
"Don't ye be late, girl," Fender called back to Catti-brie. "We're to
the mines again. Tomorrow, no later!"
"Ye fret too much, Fender Mallot!" Catti-brie said, laughing.
Entreri considered the last exchange and again a smile widened across
his face. He knew well the wake of magical charms. The "ruffled victims"
that Fender had spoken of described exactly the people that Pasha Pook had
duped back in Calimport. People charmed by the ruby pendant.
The double doors closed with a bang. Catti-brie was alone in the big
house - or so she thought.
She was still pondering Regis's uncharacteristic disappearance. Her
contin...
Januszek66