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The sun beasaddle The companions, refreshed by their visit with the Harpells, rode at a strong pace, but still ed to enjoy the clear weather and the clear road The land was flat and unmarked, not a tree or hill anywhere near
"Three days to Nesis told them
"More to three if the weather holds," said Wulfgar
Drizzt shifted under his cowl However pleasant the ht seem to them, he knew they were still in the wilds Three days could prove to be a long ride indeed
"What do ye know of this place, Nesis
"Just what Harkle told us," Regis replied "A fair-sized city, trading folk But a careful place I have never been there, but tales of the brave people living on the edge of the Evermoors reach far across the northland"
"I aar "Harkle would say little of the place, just shake his head and shiver whenever I asked of it"
"Not to doubt, a place with a na, unimpressed by reputations "Could it be worse than the dale?"
Regis shrugged, not fully convinced by the dwarf’s arguiven to those lands,Every city in the north salutes the bravery of the people of Nes the Surbrin open in the face of such trials"
Bruenor laughed again "Might it be that the tales be coer than what they are?"
Regis did not argue
By the tih haze veiled the sunshine Away to the north, a black line of clouds had appeared, rushing their way Drizzt had expected as much In the wild, even the weather proved an enemy
That afternoon the squall line rolled over the sheets of rain and hailstones that clinked off of Bruenor’s dented hel sliced the darkened sky and the thunder nearly knocked the mud
"This is the true test of the road!" Drizzt yelled to the wind "Many more travelers are defeated by storers when they begin their journey!"
"Bah! A summer rain is all!" Bruenor snorted defiantly
As if in prideful reply, a lightning bolt exploded just a few yards to the side of the riders The horses ju split-legged into thethe stunned dwarf in its scraed to dive froot to his knees and wiped theall the while "Da’s laar steadied his own horse and tried to start after Regis’s bolting pony, but the hailstones, driven by the wind, pelted hiain he found hihtning bolt thundered in And another
Drizzt, whispering softly and covering his horse’s head with his cloak to calm it, ain, although Drizzt could barely hear him
Drizzt only shook his head helplessly and pointed to Bruenor’s axe
More lightning came, and another blast of wind Drizzt rolled to the side of his mount to shield hier
The hailstones began to co bullets
Drizzt’s terrified horse jerked hi to flee beyond the reach of the punishing storm
Drizzt was up quickly beside Bruenor, but any eht have had were iar stu - barely - leaning against the wind’s push, using it to hold hiht His eyes seemed droopy, his jaitched, and blood mixed with the rain on his cheek He looked at his friends blankly, as if he had no comprehension of what had happened to him
Then he fell, face down, into the h the blunt wall of wind, a singular point of hope against the storht it as he and Bruenor hoisted their young friend’s face from the muck So far away the whistle seemed, but Drizzt understood how storms could distort one’s perceptions
"What?" Bruenor asked of the noise, noticing the drow’s sudden reaction, for Bruenor had not heard the call
"Regis!" Drizzt answered He started dragging Wulfgar in the direction of the whistle, Bruenor following his lead They didn’t have tisaved the potential of squalls rolling down frois had crawled around in search of some shelter in the empty land He stue, an old wolf den perhaps, e the beacon of his whistles, Drizzt and Bruenor soon found him
"It’ll fill with the rain and we’ll be drowned!" Bruenor yelled, but he helped Drizzt drag Wulfgar inside and prop hiainst the rear wall of the cave, then took his place beside his friends as they worked to build a barrier of dirt and their reroan fro to his side
"He’s alive!" the halfling proclaimed "And his wounds don’t seeer in a corner," Bruenor remarked
Soon they had their den tolerable, if not co
"The true test of the road," Drizzt said again to Regis, trying to cheer up his thoroughly ht, the incessant boo of the hail a constant rein of safety
In reply, Regis poured a stream of water out of his boot
"How rumbled at Drizzt
"Ten, perhaps," the droered
"Teeks to Nes his arms across his chest
"The storm will pass," Drizzt offered hopefully, but the das no longer listening
The next day began without rain, though thick gray clouds hung low in the sky Wulfgar was fine by , but he still did not understand what had happened to hiis would have preferred that they remain in their hole until they were certain the storm had passed
"Most of the provisions are lost," Drizzt reht not find another meal beyond a pittance of dried bread until we reach Nesis was the first one out of the hole
Unbearable huround kept the pace slow, and the friends soon found their knees aching fro Their sodden clothes clung to thehed on their every step
They ca foris observed
The three looked at their barbarian friend, aar, too, stared in shock, realizing what had dropped hiher’n a badger!" Bruenor hailed again to Drizzt
Sunshine teasingly found a crack in the overcast now and then The sunlight was nothing substantial, though, and by noon, the day had actually grown darker Distant thunder foretold a dismal afternoon
The storht they found no shelter beyond their wet clothes, and whenever the crackle of lightning lit up the sky, four hunched for in the mud, their heads downcast as they accepted their fate in helpless resignation
For twolittle choice and nowhere to go but forward Wulfgar proved to be the savior of the party’s round, tossing the halfling easily onto his back, and explaining that he needed the extra weight for balance By sparing the halfling’s pride this way, the barbarian even ed to convince the surly dwarf to ride for a short ti, I tell you," he kept crying at the gray heavens "The storm keeps the insects and the orcs out of our faces! And how many months shall it be before ant for water?"
He worked hard to keep their spirits high At one point, he watched the lightning closely, ti thunder As they neared the blackened skeleton of a long-dead tree, the lightning flashed and Wulfgar pulled his trick Yelling "Tempus!" he heaved his warhammer so that it smashed into, and leveled, the trunk at precisely the moment the thunder exploded around them His a proud, arh they had personally answered his call
Drizzt, accepting this whole ordeal with his custoain, even ing hih tiuard despite the barbarian’s proclamation of safety
Finally, the storm was bloay by the saht sunshine and clear blue skies of the subsequent dawn lightened the coain of what lay ahead
Especially Bruenor The dwarf leaned forward in his pressing un their journey back in Icewind Dale
Red beard wagging with the intensity of his puain He fell back into the drea shadows of the torchlight against the silver-streamed walls and the wondrous artifacts of his people’s htened concentration on Mithril Hall over the last few months had sparked clearer, and new, memories in him, and on the road now he remembered, for the first time in more than a century, the Hall of Dumathoin
The dwarves of Mithril Hall hadin the trade of their crafted items, but they always kept their very finest pieces, and the ifts bestowed upon thee and decorated chaacy of Bruenor’s ancestors sat in open display, serving as inspiration for the clan’s future artists
Bruenor chuckled softly at the memory of the wondrous hall and the ar striding beside hihty warhaht have hung in the Hall of Dumathoin if Bruenor’s clan still ruled Mithril Hall, sealing Bruenor’s iacy of his people
But watching Wulfgar handling the ha his own arht ood news Shortly after they broke camp, the friends discovered that they had traveled farther than they had anticipated during the trials of the storh subtle but definite transforroith thin patches of scraggly weeds, a virtual sea of rasses and scattered copses of tall ele confirmed their suspicions, for before them lay the Dessarin Valley A fewh perch, the ar its southbound trek
The long winter dominated this land, but when they finally bloomed, the plants here made up for their short season with a vibrancy un surrounded the friends as they rass was so thick that they took off their boots and walked barefoot through the spongy softness The vitality here was truly obvious, and contagious
"Ye should see the halls," Bruenor remarked on sudden impulse "Veins of purest mithril wider than yer hand! Streams of silver, they be, and bested in beauty only by what a dwarf’s hand ht keeps our path running straight through the hardships," Drizzt replied
"Bah!" Bruenor snorted good-heartedly "Ye’re here because I tricked ye into being here, elf Ye had run outa reasons for holding back ar had to chuckle He had been in on the deception that had duped Drizzt into agreeing to reat battle in Ten-Toith Akar Kessell, Bruenor had feigned ed the drow to journey with hi the dwarf about to expire, Drizzt could not refuse