Archmage by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online

the army we’re needin’ to get yer quest done, me friend,” King Emerus promised.
    “We’ll not be raising that number without Adbar,” Bruenor said.
    “So we’ll go to Mirabar and find more allies—should be thinkin’ that anyway,” said Emerus. “Them boys are Delzoun, and so’re yer boys in Icewind Dale. We’ll get back Gauntlgrym, don’t ye doubt!”
    “ ‘We’ll’?” Drizzt asked, catching on to Emerus’s hint.
    “Much to talk about,” was all the King of Citadel Felbarr would say on that subject at that time.
    Harnoth and Oretheo Spikes came back over then, the King of Adbar seeming much less animated.
    “Me friend here thinks Adbar’s holding strong with two thousand less,” Harnoth explained. “So half yer force’ll be marchin’ under the banner o’ Citadel Adbar, King Bruenor.”
    “No,” Bruenor immediately replied, even as the others began to smile and even cheer. All eyes turned sharply on the red-bearded dwarf with his surprising answer.
    “No banners for Adbar, Felbarr, or Mithral Hall,” Bruenor explained. “As in the war we just won, we’re walkin’ under the flag o’ our Delzoun blood, the flag o’ Gauntlgrym!”
    “Ain’t no flag o’ Gauntlgrym!” Harnoth protested.
    “Then let’s make one,” Emerus Warcrown said with a wide grin. He held up his hand to Harnoth, and after only a slight hesitation, the young King of Adbar took that hand firmly in his own.
    Bruenor, meanwhile, began producing flagons of ale from behind his magical shield, one for each of the four dwarf kings assembled on the field.
    And so they toasted, “To Gauntlgrym!”

    The work at the ruins of Dark Arrow Keep continued for several tendays, with the massive orc fortress being stripped down to a watchpost with only a couple of towers left standing. There had been a small debate about whether to dismantle the place or perhaps refit it more to accommodate dwarven sensibilities, but Bruenor had pointed out, rightly so, that leaving any semblance of Dark Arrow Keep intact might entice the orcs to try to reclaim it.
    Reclaiming it, after all, would be a lot easier than rebuilding it from rubble.
    So they ripped the rest of it down, except the meager watchtowers, and they carried the great logs to the river and floated them downstream where they could be caught at Mithral Hall and used as fuel for the hearths and forges.
    The docks, too, were dismantled, as were the surrounding orc villages, now abandoned, erasing all remnants of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows from the Silver Marches. As summer turned to fall, the dwarves and their allies marched for their respective homes, with the three citadels pledged to meet throughout the winter months to plan the spring march to the west.
    “What’s troubling you?” Catti-brie asked Regis on that journey to Mithral Hall. Regis had joined in the cheers and drinks and “huzzahs,” of course, but every passing day, Catti-brie had watched him, and had noted a cloud that often passed over his cherubic face.
    “I’m weary, that’s all,” he said, and she knew he was lying. “It’s been a long and difficult year.”
    “For all of us,” Catti-brie said. “But a year of victory, yes?”
    Regis looked over at her, his seat on his pony far below the tall shoulders of Catti-brie’s spectral unicorn. His smile was genuine, though, as he quietly offered, “Huzzah for King Bruenor.”
    But there was the cloud again, behind his eyes, and as he turned back to the road in front of them, Catti-brie figured it out.
    “You’re not coming to Gauntlgrym with us,” she stated. In the shadows of his eyes, she didn’t have to ask.
    “I have said no such thing,” Regis replied, but he didn’t look at her when he spoke.
    “Nor did you deny it, even now.”
    She watched the halfling’s face tighten, though he still would not look over and up at her.
    “How long have you known?” Catti-brie asked a short while later, when it became apparent to her that Regis was