Gauntlgrym Read Online Free Page B

“What’re ye doing out here, ye durned fool? Ye’re supposed to be by King Banak’s side.”
    “Not to be
King
Banak,” Pwent protested. “Not with King
Bruenor
alive and breathin’!”
    Bruenor stormed up to the battlerager and put his nose right against Pwent’s. “Now ye hear me good, dwarf, and don’t ye never make that mistake again. King Bruenor ain’t no more. King Bruenor’s for the ages, and King Banak’s got Mithral Hall!”
    “But … but … but me king,” Pwent replied. “But ye’re not dead!”
    Bruenor sighed.
    Behind him, Drizzt lifted his leg over the saddle and gracefully slid down to the ground. He patted Andahar’s strong neck, then lifted a unicorn-fashioned charm hanging on a silver chain around his neck and gently blew into the hollow horn, releasing the steed from his call.
    Andahar rose up on his hind legs, front hoofs slashing the air, and whinnied loudly then thundered away. With each stride, the horse somehow seemed as if he had covered a tremendous amount of ground, for he became half his size with a single stride, and half again with the next, and so on, until he was seen no more, though the air in his wake rippled with waves of magical energy.
    By that time, Pwent had composed himself somewhat, and he stood strong before Bruenor, hands on hips. “Ye was dead, me king,” he declared. “I
seen
ye dead, I
smelled
ye dead. Ye
was
dead.”
    “I had to be dead,” Bruenor replied, and he, too, squared up and put his hands on his hips. Once more pressing his nose against Pwent’s, he added very slowly and deliberately, “So I could get meself gone.”
    “Gone?” Pwent echoed, and he looked to Drizzt, who offered no hint, just a grin that showed he was enjoying the spectacle more than he should. Then Pwent looked to Nanfoodle, who merely shrugged. And he looked past the panther, Guenhwyvar, to Jessa, who laughed at him teasingly and waved her wand.
    “Oh, but yer thick skull’s making Dumathoin’s task a bit easier, ain’t it?” Bruenor scolded, referring to the dwarf god known more commonly as the Keeper of Secrets under the Mountain.
    Pwent scoffed, for the oft-heard remark was a rather impolite way of one dwarf calling another dwarf dumb.
    “Ye was dead,” the battlerager said.
    “Aye, and ’twas the little one there what killed me.”
    “The poison,” Nanfoodle explained. “Deadly, yes, but not in correct doses. As I used it, it just made Bruenor look dead, quite dead, to all but the cleverest priests—and those priests knew what we were doing.”
    “So ye could run away?” Pwent asked Bruenor as it started to come clear.
    “So I could give Banak the throne proper, and not have him stand as just a steward, with all the clan waiting for me return. Because there won’t be a return. Been done many the time before, Pwent. Suren ’tis a secret among the dwarf kings, a way to find the road to finish yer days when ye’ve done all the ruling ye might do. Me great-great-great-grandfather did the same, and it’s been done in Adbar, too, by two kings I know tell of. And there’re more, don’t ye doubt, or I’m a bearded gnome.”
    “Ye’ve run from the hall?”
    “Just said as much.”
    “Forevermore?”
    “Ain’t so long a time for an old dwarf like meself.”
    “Ye runned away. Ye runned away and ye didn’t tell me?” Pwent asked. He was trembling.
    Bruenor glanced back at Drizzt. When he heard the crash of Pwent’s breastplate hitting the ground, he turned back.
    “Ye telled a stinkin’ orc, but ye didn’t tell yer Gutbuster?” Pwent demanded. He pulled off one gauntlet and dropped it to the ground, then the other, then reached down and began unfastening his spiked greaves.
    “Ye’d do that to them what loved ye? Ye’d make us all cry for ye? Ye’d break our hearts? Me king!”
    Bruenor’s face grew tight, but he had no answer.
    “All me life for me king,” Pwent muttered.
    “I ain’t yer king no more,” said Bruenor.
    “Aye,