Streams of Silver recap

Bruenor Battlehammer leads Drizzt, Wulfgar and Regis out of Icewind Dale to find Mithril Hall, the ancestral home of his clan, guided by nothing but childhood memories. Behind them, the assassin Artemis Entreri comes north for Regis and the stolen ruby pendant, taking Bruenor's daughter Catti-brie prisoner to follow the trail, and the Luskan wizard Dendybar sets his apprentice Sydney and a golem after the company to learn what Drizzt knows. The road takes the friends through hostile Luskan, the eccentric wizards of Longsaddle, a meeting outside Silverymoon with Lady Alustriel that finally gives Bruenor his bearings, and the troll-ridden Evermoors. They find Mithril Hall held by gray dwarves in the service of Shimmergloom, a shadow dragon. Cornered at Garumn's Gorge, Bruenor sets himself alight, leaps onto the dragon and falls with it into the chasm so the others can escape. Sydney dies and the wizard's expedition is destroyed. Entreri seizes Regis in the chaos and starts south for Calimport, and Drizzt, Wulfgar and Catti-brie follow him.

Previously: in Icewind Dale, the dark elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden, the dwarf king Bruenor Battlehammer, the halfling Regis and the young barbarian Wulfgar helped break the invasion of the wizard Akar Kessell, whose army was destroyed and who died buried beneath an avalanche along with the artifact that had made him. Wulfgar had come to Bruenor as a captive after an earlier barbarian raid and served five years, learning the forge from the dwarf and swordplay from Drizzt; Bruenor forged him the warhammer Aegis-fang, and by the war's end he was king of the tundra tribes. Bruenor, dug out of his own collapsed tunnels and expecting to die of it, told Drizzt about Mithril Hall, the lost ancestral home of Clan Battlehammer, from which his people were driven when he was a boy and whose location he cannot remember. He recovered and held himself to the search. Regis, who fled a thieves' guild in the southern city of Calimport years ago with a stolen ruby pendant, has learned that his old master has finally traced him, and prefers the road to waiting.

The four leave Ten-Towns in spring, heading south and west with almost nothing to navigate by: Bruenor recalls a valley, a mountain of four peaks and streams that ran silver, and no map in the north matches the description. Catti-brie stays behind in Icewind Dale. In Calimport, Pasha Pook loses patience with years of fruitless searching and sends his best assassin, Artemis Entreri, to bring back both the pendant and the halfling who took it. Entreri reaches Icewind Dale, works out who Regis was travelling with, and takes Catti-brie prisoner to use as a guide and a hostage, following the company's trail south.

The company reaches the port city of Luskan, where a dwarf, a barbarian, a halfling and a hooded figure attract exactly the attention they hoped to avoid. Dendybar the Mottled, a wizard of the Hosttower of the Arcane, has been trying for years to learn what actually destroyed Kessell's army, and when his informant Jierdan reports a dark elf in the city he sends his apprentice Sydney to take Drizzt alive. The attempt fails and the friends get out of Luskan, but the pursuit is now organized: Sydney continues south with the golem Bok on the trail, and Entreri, who cares nothing for the wizard's questions but a great deal about the tracking, attaches himself to the hunt.

At Longsaddle the company is taken in by the Harpells, a family of wizards whose hospitality is more dangerous than most ambushes, and Harkle Harpell decides the quest is exactly what he has been waiting for. At Silverymoon, Drizzt is turned away at the gates for being what he is, and Lady Alustriel comes out to meet him beyond the walls instead, treating him with a plain courtesy that unsettles him more than the refusal did. She gives Bruenor what the whole journey has lacked: a name and a direction, pointing him toward the Evermoors and the mountain called Fourthpeak. The friends turn east with a destination for the first time.

The road east is the worst of the journey. The town of Nesme, which lives on the edge of the troll country, meets them with open hostility and drives them off, and they cross the Evermoors under near-constant attack, fighting trolls and worse in country that heals its monsters faster than they can be killed. They fight through a pass held by orcs. Behind them Entreri, Sydney and the golem close the gap steadily, since Bok does not need to rest and Entreri does not choose to. Bruenor begins to recognize the shape of the land from his childhood, and finds the concealed door in the mountainside that opens onto Mithril Hall.

Inside, Mithril Hall is not empty. Gray dwarves hold the halls and the forges in the service of Shimmergloom, a shadow dragon that has lain in the mines beneath since Clan Battlehammer was driven out. Bruenor walks through the rooms of his childhood, finds the relics of his father's reign and takes up his family's arms, and the reunion with his past is short: the duergar discover the intruders and the halls fill with pursuit. Entreri's party gets inside the complex as well, and in the confusion Catti-brie breaks free of the assassin and finds her father and her friends, joining the running fight through the tunnels.

Pushed back toward Garumn's Gorge, the companions try to cross the bridge and escape the mountain, and Shimmergloom rises out of the chasm to cut them off. Bruenor douses himself in oil, sets himself alight and throws himself onto the dragon's back; the two fall together into the gorge, and the collapse that follows buys the others their way out. Sydney is killed and Dendybar's expedition destroyed with her. Entreri seizes Regis during the escape and starts south for Calimport, making his route obvious because he wants Drizzt to follow. Drizzt, Wulfgar and Catti-brie get clear of the mountain having found Mithril Hall and lost everything else: the halls still held, Bruenor gone into the gorge, Regis in an assassin's hands. With nothing they can do for Bruenor, they turn south after Entreri.

Driven toward Garumn's Gorge with the gray dwarves behind them, the companions try to cross the bridge and get out of the mountain. Shimmergloom comes up out of the chasm to stop them. Bruenor soaks himself in oil, sets himself alight and leaps onto the shadow dragon's back, and the two of them fall together into the gorge; the fight and the collapse that follows give the others the seconds they need to get clear. Sydney is killed and Dendybar's expedition destroyed with her, and the wizard himself does not survive the failure. In the confusion Entreri takes Regis and starts south for Calimport, making no secret of his route, because what he wants now is for the dark elf to follow him. Drizzt, Wulfgar and Catti-brie escape the mountain with nothing: Mithril Hall is found and still held by its occupiers, Bruenor is gone into a chasm no one could survive, and the friend they came out of Icewind Dale with is in an assassin's hands. Having nothing they can do for Bruenor, they turn south to do the one thing left, and set out for Calimport to take Regis back.