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stone. “Aye, and be sure that meself’s wonderin’ who it was what’s orderin’ ye!” He ended by punching one metal-gloved fist into the other. “And don’t be doubtin’ that I’m meanin’ to find out, ye little rat.”
    He advanced and Nanfoodle retreated, dropping the bowl of stew to the ground.
    “Ye got nowhere to run, neither of ye,” Pwent assured them as he continued his advance. “Me legs’re long enough to chase ye, and me anger’s more’n enough to catch ye!”
    “What is this?” Jessa demanded, but Pwent fixed her with a hateful glare.
    “Ye’re still alive only because ye might have something I need to hear,” the vicious dwarf explained. “And if ye’re not yapping words that make me smile, know that ye’ll be finding a seat.” As he finished, he pointed at the large spike protruding from the top of his helm. And Jessa knew full well that more than one orc had shuddered through its death throes impaled on that spike.
    “Pwent, no!” Nanfoodle yelped, holding his hands up before him, motioning the dwarf to stop his steady approach. “You don’t understand.”
    “Oh, I’m knowin’ more than ye think I’m knowin’,” the battlerager promised. “Been in yer workshop, gnome.”
    Nanfoodle held up his hands. “I told King Banak that I would be leaving.”
    “Ye was leaving afore King Bruenor died,” Pwent accused. “Ye had yer bag all packed for the road.”
    “Well, yes, I have been considering it for a—”
    “All packed up and tucked right under the bench of
poison
ye brewed for me king!” Pwent yelled, and he leaped forward at Nanfoodle, who was nimble enough to skitter around the side of another stone, just out of Pwent’s murderous grasp.
    “Pwent, no!” Nanfoodle yelled.
    Jessa moved to intervene, but Pwent turned on her, balling his fists, which brought forth the retractable hand spikes from their sheaths on the backs of his gloves. “How much did ye pay the rat, ye dog’s arse-end?” he demanded.
    Jessa kept retreating, but when her back came against a stone, when she ran out of room, the orc’s demeanor changed immediately, and she snarled right back at Pwent as she drew forth a slender iron wand. “One more step.…” she warned, taking aim.
    “Pwent, no! Jessa, no!” Nanfoodle yelped.
    “Got a big burst o’ magic in that puny wand, do ye?” Pwent asked, unconcerned. “Good for ye, then. It’ll just make me angrier, which’ll make me hit ye all the harder!”
    On he came, or started to. Jessa began her incantation, aiming her explosive wand at the dwarf’s dirty face, but then both paused and Nanfoodle’s next shout caught in his throat as the sound of sweet bells filled the air, joyously tinkling and ringing.
    “Oh, but now ye’re goin’ to get yers,” Pwent said with a sly grin, for he knew those bells. Everyone in Mithral Hall knew the bells of Drizzt Do’Urden’s magical unicorn.
    Slender and graceful, but with lines of powerful muscles rippling along his shimmering white coat, ivory horn tipped with a golden point, blue eyes piercing the daylight as if mocking the sun itself, bell-covered barding announcing the arrival in joyous notes, Andahar trotted up to the edge of the boulder tumble and stomped the ground with his mighty hoof.
    “Good ye come, elf!” Pwent yelled to Drizzt, who sat staring at him with his jaw hanging open. “Was just about to put me fist into—”
    How Thibbledorf Pwent jumped back when he turned to regard Jessa and found himself confronted by six hundred pounds of snarling black panther!
    And how he jumped again when he caught his balance, just in time to see Bruenor Battlehammer hop down from his seat on the unicorn just behind Drizzt.
    “What in the Nine Hells?” Bruenor demanded, looking to Nanfoodle.
    The little gnome could only shrug helplessly in reply.
    “Me … king?” Pwent stammered. “Me king! Can it be me king? Me
king!”
    “Oh, by the pinch o’ Moradin’s bum,” Bruenor lamented.