Gauntlgrym Read Free

orcs were allowed into Mithral Hall at any given time, and those four were not allowed unfettered access. A host of dwarf guards, often Pwent’s own battleragers, were always available to escort their “guests.”
    But this slippery little priestess had gotten around that rule, so it seemed, and Pwent had expected as much.
    He thought about going over and kicking in the door, catching the rat orc openly that he might have her expelled from Mithral Hall once and for all, but even as he started to rise up, some rare insight told him to exercise patience. Despite himself and his bubbling outrage, Thibbledorf Pwent remained silent, and within a few moments Jessa reappeared in the corridor, looked both ways, and scampered off the way she had come.
    “What’s that about, gnome?” Pwent whispered, for none of it made any sense.
    Nanfoodle was no enemy of Mithral Hall, of course, and had proven himself a steadfast ally since the earliest days of his arrival some forty years before. Battlehammer dwarves still talked about Nanfoodle’s “Moment of Elminster,” when the gnome had used some ingenious piping to fill caverns with explosive gas that had then blown a mountain ridge, and the enemy giants atop it, to rubble.
    But then why was this friend of the hall cavorting with an orc priestess in such secrecy? Nanfoodle could have called for Jessa through the proper channels, through Pwent himself, and had her escorted to his door in short order.
    Pwent spent a long while mulling that over, so long, in fact, that Nanfoodle eventually appeared in the corridor and hustled away. Only then did the startled battlerager realize that it was time for the memorial celebration.
    “By Moradin’s stony arse,” Pwent muttered, pulling himself up from behind the kegs.
    He meant to go straightaway to Bruenor’s hall, but he paused at Nanfoodle’s door and glanced around, much as Jessa had done, then pushed his way in.
    Nothing seemed amiss. Some white liquid in the beakers on one workbench bubbled from the residual heat of recently doused braziers, but everything else seemed perfectly out of place—exactly the way the scatter-brained Nanfoodle always kept it.
    “Hmm,” Pwent mumbled and wandered about the chamber, trying to find some clues—maybe a cleared area where Nanfoodle and Jessa might have—
    No, Pwent couldn’t even let his mind take that tack.
    “Bah, ye’re a fool, Thibbledorf Pwent, and so’s yer brother, if ye had a brother!” the dwarf scolded himself.
    He started to leave, suddenly feeling like quite the terrible friend for even spying on Nanfoodle in such a way, when he noted something under the gnome’sdesk: a bedroll. Pwent’s mind went back to that dark place, conjuring a tryst between the gnome and the orc, but he shook that thought away as soon as he realized that the bedroll was tightly tied, and had been for some time. And behind it was a backpack with all manner of gear, from bandages to a climbing pick, tied around it.
    “Plannin’ a trip to Many-Arrows, little one?” Pwent asked aloud.
    He stood up and shrugged, considering the likely options. Pwent hoped that Nanfoodle would be smart enough to take along some guards if that was the case. King Bruenor had handled the transition of power from Obould to his son with great tact and had kept the tensions low enough, but orcs were orcs, after all, and no one really knew how trustworthy this son of Obould might turn out to be, or even if he had the charisma and sheer power to keep his wild minions in line, as had his mighty father.
    Pwent decided he would talk with Nanfoodle next time he had the gnome alone, friend to friend, but he had put all of it out of his mind by the time he slipped back out into the hallway. He was running late for a most important celebration, and knew that King Bruenor wouldn’t be quick to forgive such tardiness.

    “…   twenty-five years,” Bruenor was saying when Thibbledorf Pwent joined the gathering in the small audience