I Read What?!

So last time, we got our chronological first appearances of Bruenor Battlehammer and Catti-brie, as well as the first seeds of friendship between Drizzt and the latter. It's quite sweet really, and surprisingly not creepy.



Pardon the cut text, that's a reference to something very far in the future.

Anyway, we start the chapter with Bruenor Battlehammer. He's ambling down Kelvin's Cairn, apparently looking for Drizzt. Apparently his nose is long and pointed. That's interesting to me, as I usually imagine dwarves with broader or more beaky noses. Anyway, he's spotted a sheltered alcove and decides to take a moment to rest.

This turns out to be a bad idea, as someone else notices the alcove at the same time: Just before he reached the ten-foot-wide break in the rock wall, a sudden flap of leathery wings brought a huge, insectlike head rising up before him.

Bruenor identifies this thing as a remorhaz, a "polar worm", though nothing of that description really seems worm like to me. He decides, wisely, not to go in. Unfortunately, the remorhaz decides to come out and play. It does have a snake like, forty-foot long body. So that part is worm like, I guess. Still though, wings?

It also has legs! Dozens of them! HOW IS THAT WORMLIKE???

Sorry, I get caught on semantics sometimes. Bruenor, by nature, is something of a glass half full guy apparently, as his reaction to feeling the increasing heat from the creature's glowing back is to joke that it'll stop the wind for a bit.

Anyway, Bruenor realizes that he can't run for it, so he fights instead. A usual Salvatore fight scene ensues. Fun to read, pretty easy to follow, utterly boring to recap. Suffice to say, Bruenor's tough, the worm is tricky, and Bruenor gives some good one-liners in the process.

There is a point where it gets pretty dicey though, when the worm manages to hook Bruenor under the arm and hurl him into a field of rocks. Bruenor, showing a unique approach to tactics, purposefully bangs his head against a large stone to adjust his helmet and knock the dizziness away.

Can you defeat a concussion with a bigger concussion?

Anyway, we scene shift just enough to show us Guen alerting Drizzt to trouble. Drizzt doesn't have his bow, but does have his scimitars, and he follows down to help.

Back with Bruenor, he's doing pretty well. In fact, he ends up winning, cleaving the polar worm's skull with his axe. Woo! He's not in great shape though, and when he catches sight of a roaring panther and a drow elf come to say hello, he misunderstands.

Drizzt sends Guen away, and Bruenor mouths off in traditional injured dwarf defiance:

Satisfied that the cat was gone, Bruenor snapped his glare on Drizzt, standing at the other end of the fallen polar worm.

“Yerself and me, then?” the dwarf spat. “Ye got the belly to face me axe, drow, or do little girls be more to yer likin?”

The obvious reference to Catti-brie brought an angry light to Drizzt’s eyes, and his grasp on his weapons tightened.

Bruenor swung his axe easily. “Come on” he chided derisively. “Ye got the belly to come and play with a dwarf?”

Drizzt wanted to scream out for all the world to hear. He wanted to spring over the dead monster and smash the dwarf, deny the dwarfs words with sheer and brutal force, but he couldn’t. Drizzt couldnt deny Mielikki and couldn’t betray Mooshie. He had to sublimate his rage once again, had to take the insults stoically and with the realization that he, and his goddess, knew the truth of what lay in his heart.

Drizzt, really? The dude is alone and injured and basically lying on top of a monster. I get that the instant fear and hatred is hard to deal with, but you could give him a second.

Also, I feel like maybe some of my irritation when it comes to Drizzt's martyrdom comes from paragraphs like that last one. Yes, you shouldn't attack an injured man for hurting your feelings. But there are options in between attacking the guy and just silently absorbing the insults. You could say, for example, "shut the fuck up, man."

It's not like Bruenor's in a position to attack right now. So why not try to talk? You KNOW that the dwarves are your neighbors, after all.

Instead:

The scimitars spun into their sheaths and Drizzt walked away, Guenhwyvar coming up beside him.

...you know, if Bruenor's more injured than he looks, you could be leaving him to die.

I suppose that's not a fair criticism, but I'm annoyed at Drizzt for wasting this opportunity. Maybe Cassius was right! If he'd settled in town, but acted like this, then it'd probably take a long time to make friends!

I shouldn't judge the guy for having poor social skills though. I like plenty of other characters who would do the exact same thing. Maybe a bit less piously though.

Anyway, Bruenor does note this behavior:

Bruenor watched the pair go curiously. At first he thought the drow a coward, but then, as the excitement of the battle gradually diminished, Bruenor came to wonder about the drow’s intent. Had he come down to finish off both combatants, as Bruenor had first assumed? Or had he, possibly, come down to Bruenor’s aid?

“Nah,” the dwarf muttered, dismissing the possibility. “Not a dark elf!”

Not to beat a dead horse, but do you know what this sounds like? It SOUNDS like Bruenor did, for a moment, consider that Drizzt might have had a non-malicious intent. So if Drizzt had taken a moment to try to talk...

Oh well. Bruenor limps home to find Catti-brie and several dwarves. There's no mention of female dwarves, I notice again, and that bugs me. I know Bruenor is perpetually single (I haven't read the books set more recently, so maybe his reincarnated version has a wife? Or is Bruenor gay? That would be a fun reveal!) but are there no mothers or elderly wise women among his people?

Bruenor just seems like the kind of king who'd have a council of advisors, including grandmothers who would tut disapprovingly at him.

Anyway, Bruenor tells them of the polar worm, which impresses them, then:

“I saw the drow!” Bruenor growled at her, suspecting the source of that sigh. The dwarf remained confused about his meeting with the dark elf, and confused, too, about where Catti-brie fit into all of this. Had Catti-brie actually met the dark elf? he wondered.

“I seen him, I did!” Bruenor continued, now speaking more to the other dwarves. “Drow and the biggest an’ blackest cat me eyes ever set on. He came down for me, just as I dropped the worm.”

“Drizzt would not!” Catti-brie interrupted before her father could get into his customary story-telling role.

Oops, the jig is up. Bruenor insists that Drizzt attacked, and he chased him and the cat off. I'm not sure if he's lying, or if that's just what it seemed like to him. I'm inclined to think the latter. Bruenor boasts, but he doesn't need to lie.

The dwarves offer to hunt Drizzt down, but Bruenor has a sense of fair play, noting that Cassius gave the mountain to Drizzt, and he doesn't want trouble with Bryn Shander. If Drizzt stays put and out of their way, they'll leave him alone.

That's...actually a lot more reasonable than I expected.

He does however forbid Catti-brie from seeing Drizzt again, wanting her sworn word or he'll have Drizzt's head. Reluctantly, Catti-brie gives it.

So the next scene seems to take place a while later, but the transition is unclear. Brueor's in his audience hall, with Catti-brie with him. He has a visitor: a gruff man with a dog. Apparently, Cassius had sent him Bruenor's way, asking about the drow.

Bruenor glanced around his formal audience hall to the many other dwarves in attendance, none of them overly impressed by the rude stranger. Bruenor dropped his bearded chin into his palm and yawned widely, determined to remain outside this apparent conflict. He might have bluffed the crude man and his smelly dog out of the halls without further bother, but Catti-brie, sitting at her father’s side, shuffled uneasily.

Oops. Roddy, not being an idiot, does catch that movement.

Bruenor sticks with his bluff though, saying that if his folk saw the drow, none reported it to him. If the drow's around, he's not been a bother.

Roddy tries his old tavern trick:

“No bother?” Roddy muttered, a sly took coining into his eye. “Never is, that one.” Slowly and dramatically, the mountain man peeled back his hood, revealing his scars. “Never a bother, until ye don’t expect what ye get!”

“Drow give ye that?” Bruenor asked, not overly alarmed or impressed. “Fancy scars-better’n most I seen.”

“He killed my dog!” Roddy growled.

“Don’t look dead to me,” Bruenor quipped, drawing chuckles from every corner.

Hah.

So Roddy goes another route. He starts talking about the Thistledowns, embellishing dramatically:

“Good family,” Roddy mused, feigning a wispy, distant expression. “Nine in the house.” The mountain man’s visage hardened suddenly and he glared straight at Bruenor. “Nine died in the house,” he declared. “Hacked by yer drow, and one ate up by his devil cat!”

Catti-brie tried to respond, but her words came out in a garbled shriek. Bruenor was glad of her confusion, for if she had spoken clearly, her argument would have given the mountain man more than Bruenor wanted him to know. The dwarf laid a hand across his daughter’s shoulders, then answered Roddy calmly. “Ye’ve come to us with a dark tale.

“Ye shook me daughter, and I’m not for liking me daughter shook!”

This part's interesting. Not just for Bruenor as a protective dad, which is nice to see. But as much as Bruenor distrusts Drizzt at this time, he's clearly got no intention of giving him up to this asshole.

He does make a point of thinking that if Catti-brie wasn't so obviously distressed, he might have helped Roddy just to get him out of his hair. I'm not sure I believe him though.

Roddy can tell he's not winning this audience. He can also tell that Catti-brie knows more than she's saying. He tries one last tactic: asking where someone would hide if they wanted.

Bruenor enjoys upsetting assholes and says that it's a big mountain, lots of holes. This causes Roddy to explode, unsurprisingly. It's maybe not a great idea to insult the king of dwarves in his own hall though, and he's encouraged to leave. Not before Bruenor wonders whether a yellow dog might be edible. Hah.

Catti-brie's still upset, and Bruenor, dadlike, decides to use Roddy's tale to try to discourage her from seeing Drizzt. Catti-brie wants him to get Drizzt, Cassius and Roddy together to find out the truth. But Bruenor would rather stay out of it.

We actually get an age for Catti-brie here: she's eleven. She flees in distress and ends up breaking her promise to Bruenor. She confronts him about the Thistledowns. I'm not sure how I feel about this bit here:

Thinking that Drizzt, by his melancholy, had accepted blame for the tragedy, the wounded girl spun and tried to flee. Drizzt caught her by the shoulder, though, turned her about, and held her close. He would be a damned thing indeed if this girl, who had accepted him with all her heart, came to believe the lies.

Hands off the kid, Drizzt.

He tells her the full story, even running away from Dove Falconhand. He swears he didn't kill them.

Catti-brie notes that he and McGristle tell different stories. Drizzt is upset to hear that his old adversary is here, and says that basically she has their words alone to choose who to believe.

Catti-brie of course chooses Drizzt. (“Never did like that ugly brute.” Catti-brie sniffed, and she managed her first smile since she had met McGristle.)

Drizzt is happy about that, but distressed too. He's probably going to have to fight Roddy. Maybe others. Then he might have to leave again. He urges Catti-brie to head back home, and reassures her that he and Guen will make sure Roddy can't find them until he figures out his next move.

Drizzt does get a hug out of the deal.

That said, once she's gone, Drizzt looks around. He'd rather not fight Roddy and this really hasn't been much of a home. So he starts packing to go. The chapter ends here.