"She will understand," Drizzt said to Catti-brie, the two of them sitting on the edge of their bed early one morning, nearly two tendays after the drow's return to Mithral Hall.

"She won't, because she'll not have to," Catti-brie argued. "You told her that you would go, and so you shall. On your word."

"Innovindil will understand..." Drizzt started to argue, but his voice trailed off under Catti-brie's wilting stare. They had been over it several times already.

"You need to close that chapter of your life," Catti-brie said to him quietly, taking his hands in her own and lifting them up to her lips to kiss them. "Your scimitar cut into your own heart as deeply as it cut into Ellifain. You do not return to her for Innovindil. You owe Innovindil and her people nothing, so yes, they will understand. It's yourself that you owe. You need to return. To put Ellifain to rest and to put Drizzt at peace."

"How can I leave you now?"

"How can you not?" Catti-brie grinned at him. "I do not doubt that you'll return to me, even if your companion on your journey is a beautiful elf.

"Besides," the woman went on, "I'll not be here in any case. I have promised Wulfgar that I will journey with him to Silverymoon and beyond, if necessary."

Drizzt nodded his agreement with that last part. According to the dwarf ferry pilot, Delly Curtie did come near his craft before it set off for the eastern bank with the refugees from the north, and he did recall seeing the woman hand something, perhaps a baby, over to one of the other human women. He couldn't be certain who - they all looked alike to him, so he declared.

Wulfgar wasn't about to wait until spring to set off in pursuit of Colson, and Catti-brie wasn't about to let him go alone.

"You cannot go with us," Catti-brie said. "Your presence will cause too much a stir in those gossiping towns, and will tell whoever has the child that we're in pursuit. So you've your task to perform, and I've mine."

Drizzt didn't argue any longer.

"Regis is staying with Bruenor?" Drizzt asked.

"Someone's got to. He's all out of sorts since word that Obould, or an orc acting in Obould's stead, continues to hold our enemies in cohesion. Bruenor thought they would have begun their retreat by now, but all reports from the north show them continuing their work unabated."

"The Kingdom of Dark Arrows...." Drizzt mouthed, shaking his head. "And Alustriel and all the others will not go against it."

Catti-brie squeezed his hand tighter. "We'll find a way."

Sitting so close to her, Drizzt couldn't believe anything else, couldn't believe that every problem could not be solved.

Drizzt found Bruenor in his audience hall a short while later, Regis sitting beside him and the Bouldershoulder brothers, packed for the road, standing before him.

"Well met again, ye dark one," Ivan greeted the drow. "Me and me brother ..." Ivan paused.

"Me brudder!" said Pikel.

"Yeah, we're off for home to see if Cadderly can do something about me ... about Pikel's arm. Won't be much fighting to be found up here for a few tendays, at least. We're thinking to come back and kill a few more orcs." Ivan turned to Bruenor. "If ye'll have us, King Bruenor."

"Would any ruler be so foolish as to refuse the help of the Bouldershoulders?" Bruenor asked graciously, though Drizzt could hear the simmering anger behind Bruenor's every sound.

"Boom!" shouted Pikel.

"Yeah, boom," said Ivan. "Come on, ye green-bearded cousin o' Cadderly's pet squirrel. Get me home - and no small roots, ye hear?"

"Hee hee hee."

Drizzt watched the pair depart the hall, then turned to Bruenor and asked, "Will your kingdom ever be the same?"

"Good enough folk, them two," said Bruenor. "Green-bearded one scares me, though."

"Boom!" said Regis.

Bruenor eyed him threateningly. "First time ye say 'hee hee hee,' I'm pulling yer eyebrows out."

"The folk o' the towns're going to let them stay, elf," the dwarf said, turning back to Drizzt. "Durned fools're to let the stinking orcs have what they took."

"They see no way around it, and no reason to find one."

"And that's their folly. Obould, or whatever smelly pig-face that's taking his place, ain't to sit there and argue trade routes."

"I do not disagree."

"Can't let them stay."

"Nor can we hope to dislodge them without allies," Drizzt reminded the dwarf.

"And so we're to find them!" Bruenor declared. "Ye heading off with Invo ... Inno . .. that durned elf?"

"I promised to take her to Ellifain's body, that Ellifain might be properly returned to the Moonwood."

"Good enough then."

"You know that I will return to you."

Bruenor nodded. "Gauntlgrym," he said, and both Drizzt and Regis were caught off guard.

"Gauntlgrym," Bruenor said again. "We three. Me girl if she's ready and me boy if he's back from finding his little girl. We're to find our answers at Gauntlgrym."

"How do you know that?" Regis asked.

"I know that Moradin didn't let me come back to sign a treaty with any stinking, smelly, pig-faced orc," Bruenor replied. "I know that I can't fight him alone and that I ain't yet convinced enough to fight beside me."

"And you believe that you will find answers to your dilemma in a long-buried dwarven kingdom?" asked Drizzt.

"I know it's as good a place to start looking as any. Banak's ready to take control o' the hall in me absence. Already put it in place. Gauntlgrym in the spring, elf."

Drizzt eyed him curiously, not certain whether Bruenor was on to something, or if the dwarf was just typically responding to sitting still by finding a way to get back on the road to adventure. As he considered that, however, Drizzt realized that it didn't much matter which it might be. For he was no less determined than Bruenor to find again the wind on his face.

"Gauntlgrym in the spring," he agreed.

"We'll show them orcs what's what," Bruenor promised.

Beside him, Regis just sighed.

* * * * *

Tos'un Armgo had not been so alone and out of sorts since he had abandoned the Menzoberranzan army after their retreat from Mithral Hall. His three companions were all dead and he knew that if he stayed anywhere in the North, Obould would send him to join them soon enough.

He had found Kaer'lic's body earlier that morning, but it was stripped of anything that might be of use to him. Where was he to go?

He thought of the Underdark's winding ways, and realized that he couldn't likely go back to Menzoberranzan, even if that had been his choice. But neither could he stay on the surface among the orcs.

"Gerti," he decided after considering his course for much of that day, sitting on the same stone where Obould and Drizzt had battled. If he could get to Shining White, he might find allies, and perhaps a refuge.

But that was only if he could get there. He slipped down from the rock and started moving down the trail to lower ground, sheltered from the wind and from the eyes of any of Obould's many spies. He found a lower trail and moved along, making his way generally north.

Do not abandon me! he heard, and he stopped.

No, he hadn't actually heard the call, Tos'un realized, but rather he had felt it, deep in his thoughts. Curious, the drow moved around, attuning his senses to his surroundings.

Here! Left of you. Near the stone.

Following the instructions, Tos'un soon came upon the source, and he was grinning for the first time in many days when he lifted a fabulous sword in his hands.

Well met, imparted Khazid'hea.

"Indeed," said Tos'un, as he felt the weapon's extraordinary balance and noted its incredibly sharp blade.

He looked back to where he had found the sword and noted that he had just pulled it from a seam in Obould's supposedly impenetrable armor.

"Indeed. ..." he said again, thinking that perhaps not all of his adventure had been in vain.

Nor was Khazid'hea complaining, for it didn't take the sentient sword long to understand that it had at last found a wielder not only worthy, but of like mind.

* * * * *

On a clear and crisp winter's morning, Drizzt and Innovindil set out from Mithral Hall, moving southwest. They planned to pass near to Nesme to see how progress was going on fortifying the city, and cross north of the Trollmoors to the town of Longsaddle, home of the famed wizard family the Harpells. Long allies of King Bruenor, the Harpells would join in the fight, no doubt, when battle finally resumed. And so desperate was Bruenor to find allies - any allies - that he would gladly accept even the help of eccentric wizards who blew each other up nearly as often as they dispatched their enemies.

Drizzt and Innovindil planned to stay along a generally southwesterly route all the way to the sea, hoping for days when they could put their winged mounts up into the sky. Then they'd turn north, hopefully just as winter was loosening its icy grip, and travel back to the ravine and harbor where Ellifain had been laid to rest.

That same morning, the ferry made the difficult journey across the icy Surbrin, bearing Wulfgar and Catti-brie, two friends determined to find Wulfgar's lost girl.

Bruenor and Regis had seen both pairs off, then had returned to the dwarf king's private quarters to begin drawing up plans for their springtime journey.

"Gauntlgrym, Rumblebelly," Bruenor kept reciting, and Regis came to know that as the dwarf's litany against the awful truth of the orc invasion. The mere thought of the Kingdom of Dark Arrows covering the land to his very doorstep had Bruenor in a terrible tizzy.

It was his way of escaping that reality, Regis knew, his way of doing something, anything, to try to fight back.

Regis hadn't seen Bruenor so animated and eager for the road since the journey that had taken them out of Icewind Dale to find Mithral Hall, those many years ago.

They'd all be there, all five - six, counting Guenhwyvar. Perhaps Ivan and Pikel would return before the spring and adventure with them.

Bruenor was too busy with his maps and his lists of supplies to be paying any attention, and so he missed the sound completely when Regis mumbled, "Hee hee hee."