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  He fell over her with a great, crushing hug, interrupting her words with kiss after kiss, lifting her with ease right from the ground and burying his face in that mane of brown hair, biting gently at her delicate—and now it seemed delicate and not just skinny—neck. How tiny Delly seemed in his arms, for Wulfgar stood a foot and a half taller than her and was nearly thrice her body weight.

  With hardly an effort, Wulfgar scooped her more comfortably into his arms, spinning her to the side and sliding one arm under her knees.

  He laughed, then, when he noted that she was barefoot, and even her feet looked prettier to him.

  “Are ye making fun o' me?” Delly asked, and Wulfgar noted that her peasant accent seemed less than he remembered, with the woman articulating the “g” on the end of the word “making.”

  “Making fun of you?” Wulfgar asked, and he laughed again, all the louder. “I am making love to you,” he corrected, and he kissed her again, then launched into a spinning dance, swinging her all about as he headed for the door of their private room.

  They almost got past the threshold before Colson started crying.

  The two did find some time alone together later that night, and made love again before the dawn. As the first slanted rays of morning shone through the eastern window of their room, Wulfgar lay on his side beside his lover, his hand gently tracing about her neck, face, and shoulders.

  “Sure that it's good to have ye home,” Delly said quietly, and she brought her small hand up to rub Wulfgar's muscular forearm. “Been a lonely time with ye out.”

  “Perhaps my days out with Deudermont are at their end,” Wulfgar replied.

  Delly looked at him curiously. “Did ye find yer hammer, then?” she asked. “And if ye did, then why'd ye wait for telling me?”

  Wulfgar was shaking his head before she ever finished. “No word of it or of Sheila Kree,” he answered. “For all I know, the pirate went to the bottom of the sea and took Aegis-fang with her.”

  “But ye're not knowing that.”

  Wulfgar fell to his back and rubbed both his hands over his face.

  “Then how can ye be saying ye're done with Deudermont?” Delly asked.

  “How can I not?” Wulfgar asked. “With you here, and Colson? This is my life now, and a fine one it is! Am I to risk it all in pursuit of a weapon I no longer need? No, if Deudermont and his crew hear of Sheila Kree, they'll hunt her down without my help, and I hold great faith that they will return the war-hammer to me.”

  Now it was Delly's turn to come upon her elbows, the smooth sheets falling from her naked torso. She gave a frustrated shake to toss her tangled brown hair out of her face, then fixed Wulfgar with a glare of severe disapproval.

  “What kind of a fool's words are spilling from yer mouth?” she asked.

  “You would prefer that I leave?” Wulfgar asked, a bit of suspicion showing on his square-jawed face.

  For so many years that face had held a boyish charm, an innocence that reflected in Wulfgar's sky blue eyes. No more, though. He had shaved all the stubble from his face before retiring with Delly, but somehow Wulfgar's face now seemed almost out of place without the blond beard. The lines and creases, physical manifestation of honest emotional turmoil, were not the markings of a young man, though Wulfgar was only in his twenties.

  “And more the fool do ye sound now!” Delly scolded. “Ye know I'm not wanting ye to go—ye know it! And ye know that no others are sharing me bed.

  “But ye must be going,” Delly continued solemnly, and she fell back on the bed. “What's to haunt ye, then, if Deudermont and his crew go out without ye and find the pirate and some o' them die trying to get yer hammer back? How're ye to feel when they bring ye the hammer and the news, and all the while, ye been sitting here safe while they did yer work for ye?”

  Wulfgar looked at Delly hard, studying her face and recognizing that she was indeed pained to be speaking to him so.

  “Stupid Josi Puddles for stealing the damn hammer and selling it out to the pirate,” the woman finished.

  “Some could die,” Wulfgar agreed. “Sheila Kree is known to be a fierce one, and by all accounts she has surrounded herself with a formidable crew. By your own reasoning, then, none of us, not Deudermont and not Wulfgar, should go out in search of her and Aegis-fang.”

  “Not me own reasoning at all,” Delly argued. “Deudermont and his crew're choosing the road of pirate hunting—that's not yer doing. It's their calling, and they'd be going after Sheila Kree even if she'd ne'er taken yer hammer.”

  “Then we are back where we started,” Wulfgar reasoned with a chuckle. “Let Deudermont and his fine crew go out and find the hammer if they—”

  “Not so!” Delly interrupted angrily. “Their calling is to go and hunt the pirates, to be sure, and yer own is to be with them until they're finding yer hammer. Yers is to find yer hammer and yerself, to get back where ye once were.”

  Wulfgar settled back on the bed and ran his huge, callused hands over his face again. “Perhaps I do not wish to be back there.”

  “Perhaps ye don't,” said Delly. “But that's not a choice for ye to make until ye do get back there. When ye've found out again who ye were, me love, only then will ye be able to tell yerself honestly where ye're wanting to go. Until ye get it to where all is for the taking, then ye'll always be wondering and wanting.”

  She went quiet then, and Wulfgar had no response. He sighed many times and started to repudiate her many times, but every avenue he tried to explore proved inevitably to be a dead end.

  “When did Delly Curtie become so wise in the course of life?” a defeated Wulfgar asked a short while later.

  Delly snickered and rolled to face him. “Might that I always been,” she answered playfully. “Or might not be at all. I'm just telling ye what I'm thinking, and what I'm thinking is that ye got to get back to a certain place afore ye can climb higher. Ye need to be getting yerself back to where ye once were, and ye'll find the road ye most want to walk, and not just the road ye're thinking ye have to walk.”

  “I was back to that place,” Wulfgar replied in all seriousness, and a cloud passed over his face. “I was with them in Icewind Dale again, as it had been before, and I left, of my own choice.”

  “Because of a better road calling?” Delly asked. “Or because ye weren't yet ready to be back? There's a bit o' difference there.”

  Wulfgar was out of answers, and he knew it. He wasn't sure that he agreed with Delly, but when the call from Deudermont and Sea Sprite came the next day, he answered it.

  Chapter 6 THE PATHS OF DOOM

  Le'lorinel worked defensively, as always, letting the opponent take the lead, his twin scimitars weaving a furious dance. The elf parried and backed, dodged easily and twirled aside, letting Tunevec's furious charge go right past.

  Tunevec stumbled, and cursed under his breath, thinking the fight lost, thinking Le'lorinel would surely complain and moan about his deficiencies. He closed his eyes, waiting for the slap of a sword across his back, or his rump if Le'lorinel was feeling particularly petty this day.

  No blow came.

  Tunevec turned about to see the bald elf leaning against the wall, weapons put away.

  “You do not even bother to finish the fight?” Tunevec asked.

  Le'lorinel regarded him absently, as if it didn't matter. The elf stared up at the lone window on this side of the tower, the one to Mahskevic's study. Behind that window, Le'lorinel knew, the wizard was getting some more answers.

  “Come!” Tunevec bade, and he clapped his scimitars in the air before him. “You paid me for one last fight, so let us fight!”

  Le'lorinel eventually got around to looking at the impatient warrior. “We are done, now and forever.”

  “You paid for the last fight, and the last fight is not finished,” Tunevec protested.

  “But it is. Take your coins and be gone. I have no further need of your services.”

  Tunevec stared at the elf in abject disbelief. They ha
d been sparring together for many months, and now to be dismissed so casually, so callously!

  “Keep the scimitars,” Le'lorinel remarked, not even looking at Tunevec anymore, but rather, staring up at that window.

  Tunevec stood there for a long while, staring at the elf incredulously. Finally, having sorted it all out, the reality of the dismissal leaving a foul taste in his mouth, he tossed the scimitars to the ground at Le'lorinel's feet, turned about, and stormed off, muttering curses.

  Le'lorinel didn't even bother to retrieve the scimitars or to glance Tunevec's way. The fighter had done his job—not very well, but he had served a useful purpose—and now that job was done.

  In a matter of moments, Le'lorinel stood before the door of Mahskevic's study, hand up to knock, but hesitating. Mahskevic wasn't pleased by all of this, Le'lorinel knew, and had seemed quite sullen since the elf s return from E'kressa.

  Before Le'lorinel could find the nerve to knock, the door swung open, as if of its own accord, affording the elf a view of Mahskevic sitting behind his desk, his tall and pointy blue wizard's cap bent halfway up and leaning to the left, several large tomes open on the oaken desk before him, including one penned by Talasay, the bard of Silverymoon, detailing the recent events of Mithral Hall, including the reclamation of the dwarves' homeland from the duergar and the shadow dragon Shimmergloom, the anointing of Bruenor as King, the coming of the dark elves bearing Gandalug Battlehammer—Bruenor's grandfather—and finally, after the great victory over the forces of the Underdark, Bruenor's abdication of the throne to Gandalug and his reputed return to Icewind Dale. Le'lorinel had paid dearly for that tome and knew every word in it very well.

  Between the books on the wizard's desk, and partially beneath one of them, was spread a parchment that Le'lorinel had written put for the wizard, recounting the exact words E'kressa had used in his divination.

  “I told you that I would call to you when I was done,” Mahskevic, who seemed very surly this day, remarked without looking up. “Can you not find a bit of patience after all of these years?”

  “Tunevec is gone,” Le'lorinel answered. “Dismissed and departed.”

  Now Mahskevic did look up, his face a mask of concern. “You did not kill him?” the wizard asked.

  Le'lorinel smiled. “Do you believe me to be such an evil creature?”

  “I believe that you are obsessed beyond reason,” the wizard answered bluntly. “Perhaps you fear to leave witnesses behind, that one might alert Drizzt Do'Urden of the pursuit.”

  “Then E'kressa would be dead, would he not?”

  Mahskevic considered the words for a moment, then shrugged in acceptance of the simple logic. “But Tunevec has left?”

  Le'lorinel nodded.

  “A pity. I was just growing fond of the young and able warrior. As were you, I had thought.”

  “Not so fine a fighter,” the elf answered, as if that was all that truly mattered.

  “Not up to the standards you demanded of your sparring partner who was meant to emulate this notable dark elf,” Mahskevic replied immediately. “But then, who would be?”

  “What have you learned?” Le'lorinel asked.

  “Intertwined symbols of Dumathoin, the Keeper of Secrets under the Mountain, and of Clangeddin, dwarf god of battle,” the wizard explained. “E'kressa was correct.”

  “The symbol of Bruenor Battlehammer,” Le'lorinel stated.

  “Not really,” Mahskevic answered. “A symbol used only once by Bruenor, as far as I can tell. He was quite an accomplished smith, you know.”

  As he spoke, he waved Le'lorinel over to his side, and when the elf arrived, he pointed out a few drawings in Talasay's work: unremarkable weapons and a breastplate.

  “Bruenor's work,” Mahskevic remarked, and indeed, the picture captions indicated that very thing. “Yet I see no marking similar to the one E'kressa gave to you. There,” he explained, pointing to a small mark on the bottom corner of the breastplate. “There is Bruenor's mark, the mark of Clan Battlehammer with Bruenor's double 'B' on the mug.”

  Le'lorinel bent in low to regard the drawing and saw the foaming mug standard of the dwarven clan and Bruenor's particular brand, as Mahskevic had declared. Of course, the elf had already reviewed all of this, though it seemed Mahskevic was drawing clues where Le'lorinel had not.

  “As far as I can tell, Bruenor used this common brand for all his work,” the wizard explained.

  “That is not what the seer told to me.”

  “Ah,” the wizard remarked, holding up one crooked and bony finger, “but then there is this.” As he finished, he flipped to a different page in the large tome, to another drawing, this one depicting in great detail a fabulous warhammer, Aegis-fang, set upon a pedestal.

  “The artist copying the image was remarkable,” Mahskevic explained. “Very detail-minded, that one!”

  He lifted a circular glass about four inches in diameter and laid it upon the image, magnifying the warhammer. There, unmistakably, was the mark E'kressa had given to Le'lorinel.

  “Aegis-fang,” the elf said quietly.

  “Made by Bruenor for one of his two adopted children,” Mahskevic remarked, and that declaration made E'kressa's cryptic remarks come into clearer focus and seemed to give credence to the overblown and showy seer.

  “Find the dwarf’s most prized creation of his hands to find the dwarf’s most prized creation of the flesh,” the gnome diviner had said, and he had admitted that he was referring to one of two creations of the flesh, or, it now seemed obvious, children.

  “Find Aegis-fang to find Wulfgar?” Le'lorinel asked skeptically, for as far as both of them knew, as far as the tome indicated, Wulfgar, the young man for whom Bruenor had created Aegis-fang, was dead, killed by a handmaiden of Lolth, a yochlol, when the drow elves had attacked Mithral Hall.

  “E'kressa did not name Wulfgar,” Mahskevic replied. “Perhaps he was referring to Catti-brie.”

  “Find the hammer to find Catti-brie, to find Bruenor Battle-hammer, to find Drizzt Do'Urden,” Le'lorinel said with a frustrated sigh.

  “Difficult crew to be fighting,” Mahskevic said, and he gave a sly smile. “I would enjoy your continued company,” he explained. “I have so much work yet to be done, and I am not a young man. I could use an apprentice, and you have shown remarkable insight and intelligence.”

  “Then you will have to wait until my business is finished,” the stubborn elf said sternly. “If I live to return.”

  “Remarkable intelligence in most matters,” the old wizard dryly clarified.

  Le'lorinel snickered and took no offense.

  “This group of friends surrounding Drizzt has earned quite a reputation,” Mahskevic stated.

  “I have no desire to fight Bruenor Battlehammer, or Catti-brie, or anyone else other than Drizzt Do'Urden,” said the elf. “Though perhaps there would be a measure of justice in killing Drizzt's friends.”

  Mahskevic gave a great growl and slammed Talasay's tome shut, then shoved back from the desk and stood tall, staring down hard at the elf. “And that would be an unconscionable act by every measure of the word,” he scolded. “Is your bitterness and hatred toward this dark elf so great that you would take innocent life to satisfy it?”

  Le'lorinel stared at him coldly, lips very thin.

  “If it is, then I beg you to reconsider your course even more seriously,” the wizard added. “You claim righteousness on your side in this inexplicable pursuit of yours, and yet nothing— nothing I say—would justify such unrelated murder! Do you hear me, boy? Do my words sink through that stubborn wall of hatred for Drizzt Do'Urden that you have, for some unexplained reason, erected?”

  “I was not serious in my remark concerning the woman or the dwarf,” Le'lorinel admitted, and the elf visibly relaxed, features softening, eyes glancing downward.

  “Can you not find a more constructive pursuit?” Mahskevic asked sincerely. “You are more a prisoner of your hatred for Drizzt than the dark elf could ever be.”<
br />
  “I am a prisoner because I know the truth,” Le'lorinel agreed in that melodic alto voice. “And to hear tales of his heroism, even this far from Mithral Hall or Ten-Towns stabs profoundly at my heart.”

  “You do not believe in redemption?”

  “Not for Drizzt, not for any dark elf.”

  “An uncompromising attitude,” Mahskevic remarked, stroking a hand knowingly over his fluffy beard. “And one that you will likely one day regret.”

  “Perhaps I already regret that I know the truth,” the elf replied. “Better to be ignorant, to sing bard songs of Drizzt the hero.”

  “Sarcasm is not becoming.”

  “Honesty is oft painful.”

  Mahskevic started to respond but just threw up his hands and gave a defeated laugh and a great shake of his shaggy head.

  “Enough,” he said. “Enough. This is a circular road we have ridden far too often. You know that I do not approve.”

  “Noted,” the uncompromising Le'lorinel said. “And dismissed.”

  “Perhaps I was wrong,” Mahskevic mused aloud. “Perhaps you do not have the qualities necessary to serve as an appropriate apprentice.”

  If his words were meant to wound Le'lorinel, they seemed to fail badly, for the elf merely turned around and calmly walked out of the room.

  Mahskevic gave a great sigh and dropped his palms that he could lean on his desk. He had come to like Le'lorinel over the years, had come to think of the elf as an apprentice, even as a son, but he found this self-destructive single-mindedness disconcerting and disheartening, a shattering reality against his hopes and wishes.

  Mahskevic had also spent more than a little effort in learning about this rogue drow that so possessed the elf's soul, and while information concerning Drizzt was scarce in these parts far to the east of Silverymoon, everything the wizard had heard marked the unusual dark elf as an honorable and decent sort. He wondered, then, if he should even allow Le'lorinel to begin this hunt, wondered if he would then be morally compromised through his inaction against what seemed a grave injustice.