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Drizzt held up his hand for the others to be quiet and he shifted in his seat, this way and that, trying to catch a glimpse of the would-be robber.
“We have come in search of Farmer Stuyles and his band of highwaymen,” Drizzt called. “Come as friends and not enemies. Come with gifts of food and good ale, and not to be stolen, but to be given. ”
“Well give ’em, then, and yer pretty horses too, and get yerself gone!”
“That won’t happen,” Drizzt assured the speaker, and he had determined by then that the ruffian was settled in a low rut to the right side of the trail, obscured by a small stand of aspen. “I wish to speak with Stuyles. Tell him that Drizzt Do’Urden has returned. ”
“Well enough, then,” came a voice from behind the wagon, and all five turned to see a trio of highwaymen step out of the brush and onto the road. Two held bows, but they were not drawn, and the third, between them, sheathed his sword and approached with a wide smile.
“Last chance to walk away, elf!” boomed the voice up ahead.
“Enough, Skinny!” called the swordsman behind the wagon. “These are friends, you fool!” He walked around the wagon, nodded to Dahlia with obvious recognition as he passed, and moved up beside Drizzt’s mount.
The drow dismounted, remembering the man from the campfire months before, when he had told his stories to Stuyles’s crew in exchange for some food, shelter, and companionship.
“Well met, again,” the man said, extending his hand.
Drizzt took the hand, but wore a perplexed and apologetic expression. “I do not remem—”
“Don’t know that I ever offered it,” the man interrupted. “Kale Denrigs at your service. ”
“Skinny?” they heard Entreri ask, and they turned as one to regard him, then followed his gaze along the road, where half a dozen others had convened, including, it seemed, the previous speaker, a man of gigantic height and girth, indeed one who more resembled a hill giant than a man.
“Half-ogre,” Kale explained. “But a good enough sort. ”
That brought a laugh from Ambergris on the wagon.
“Is Stuyles about?” Drizzt asked.
“Not far. ”
“We come bearing food and other supplies, and with news to benefit your band. ”
“Recompense for Hadencourt?” Kale Denrigs asked, and he assumed a clever look.
“You should be paying us for Hadencourt,” Dahlia called from the wagon.
“What’s a Hadencourt?” Afafrenfere asked.
“Nah, who,” Ambergris corrected.
“Both,” said Dahlia. “Hadencourt the legion devil, harbored by Farmer Stuyles’s band. ”
“Wonderful,” Entreri muttered.
“The what?” Kale asked.
“Legion devil,” Drizzt repeated. “He came after us in the forest, and he brought friends from the Nine Hells to make his case. ”
“And they’re all back in the Nine Hells where they belong,” Dahlia said.
“Hadencourt? Our Hadencourt, a legion devil? How can you—?”
“It was a painful realization, I assure you,” Drizzt said dryly. “If there are any remaining associates of his among your ranks …”
“None,” Kale Denrigs replied without hesitation, and the man truly seemed shaken by the revelations.
“Take us to Stuyles,” Drizzt bade the man. “I must speak with him, and quickly. ” He glanced up at the sky, where thick clouds were gathering.
Kale looked at him skeptically. “A tough road with the wagon, I fear. ”
“Then leave it here. My friends will stay with it and await my return. ”
Still with doubt clear on his face, Kale glanced at the mound of sacks in the back of the wagon, then started to motion to his team.
“Leave those as well,” Drizzt remarked.
“Have you baited us, then?”
“Let me speak with Stuyles,” Drizzt said. “Either way, the supplies will be yours, but you need not take them now. ”
“Explain. ”
But Drizzt had heard enough. He shook his head and told Kale to take him to Stuyles again.
Kale bade his band to remain with the wagon as well, and they gladly agreed when Ambergris broke out the ale and offered up drinks all around. With just him and Drizzt, the travel was quick, but over difficult terrain, and Drizzt understood the truth of the claim that it would have been no easy task to take the wagon, or even just the supplies, along.
Soon enough, though, they arrived in a wide campground of scores of tents—Stuyles’s band had grown in the months since Drizzt had last seen them—and Drizzt and Farmer Stuyles shared another warm handshake. With many coming out to view this strange visitor, Drizzt motioned back at the tent from which Stuyles had emerged.
They left many wide eyes behind as they entered. Among the onlookers stood a young tiefling warlock, his shoulders twisted from a fall off a cliff when he was but a babe.
Kale Denrigs, a lieutenant of the band, joined the pair inside, and explained the situation with Hadencourt to a wide-eyed Stuyles.
“A demon?” Stuyles asked incredulously.
“Devil,” Drizzt corrected. “It is my belief that he was a scout for Sylora Salm. ”
“The Thayan in Neverwinter Wood?”
“She is dead, her forces scattered, her Dread Ring diminished. ”
“By your hand?”
Drizzt nodded.
“I expect that Hadencourt was looking for me and for Dahlia, at the behest of Sylora. Among the Thayans were the Ashmadai, devil-worshiping zealots. ”
“We’ve had some unpleasant dealings with them,” Kale said.
“They’ll not be much trouble to you now,” Drizzt assured him.
“Then you come with good news and with supplies,” said Kale, and at the mention of supplies, Stuyles looked at Drizzt curiously.
“Supplies only if you decline my offer,” Drizzt said cryptically, a wry grin on his face.
“That seems a strange proposal,” said Kale, but Stuyles, obviously recognizing that Drizzt had something much more important in mind, held up his hand to cut the man short, and nodded for Drizzt to continue.
And so the drow laid it out before an incredulous Stuyles and Kale Denrigs, explaining the situation in Port Llast, a settlement in need of hearty settlers, and made his offer.
“It will be a home,” he said.
“Hardly a haven, though,” said Kale.
“I’ll not lie to you,” Drizzt replied. “The minions of Umberlee are stubborn and fierce. You will see battle, but take heart, for you will fight beside worthy comrades. ”
“Including yourself?” asked Stuyles.
Drizzt nodded. “For the time being, at least. Myself and my friends. We have already done battle beside the folk of Port Llast, and have driven the sahuagin—the sea devils—to the sea, though we hold little doubt that they will return. Winter has brought a respite, perhaps, but the citizens of Port Llast must remain ever vigilant. ”
“Truly, this is a memorable tenday,” Kale Denrigs said. When Drizzt regarded him, he added, “Full of memorable visitors. ”
Drizzt didn’t think much of that remark, until Kale looked to Stuyles and completed the thought, adding, “Among the companions our friend Drizzt left at his wagon were three who also showed some hints of the Shadowfell. ”
Drizzt eyed the man with interest.
“The gray man on the strange steed,” Kale quickly explained, and he held up his hands unthreateningly as if to indicate that he had meant no insult. “And the dwarf and man on the wagon. Not Shadovar, certainly, but tinged with the shadowstuff. ”
“You’ve a keen eye,” said Drizzt.
“For shades, yes indeed, and with good reason,” answered a clearly relieved Kale. “I’ve fought my share—”
“What did you mean when you said ‘also’?”
Kale looked to Stuyles.
“We found a shade,
a tiefling no less, along the road just a few days ago,” Stuyles explained. “A formidable creature, though he certainly doesn’t appear as such. Some … associates of mine waylai—err, encountered him along the road, but he soon gained the upper hand. He claimed himself an orphan of society, and so became the least expected member of our band since Skinny the half-ogre and his kin found their way to us not long after you had gone. ”
“Devils, ogres, tiefling Shadovar,” Drizzt remarked. “You should take care the company you keep. ” He was trying to figure a way to garner more information about this newcomer, when Stuyles volunteered all that Drizzt needed to hear.
“It is good that you didn’t have Effron along with you this day,” Stuyles said to Kale. “The encounter along the road might have gone much differently, and much more dangerously!”
He said it with a lighthearted flair, and was smiling quite widely, until he looked at the grim-faced drow.
“Effron the warlock,” Drizzt said. “Take care with that one, I beg. For your own sake. ”
“You know him?”
“Take me to him. ”
Stuyles started to talk again, to question the drow’s sudden change in demeanor, no doubt, but he swallowed hard and bade Kale to find the twisted warlock.
“What do you know?” Stuyles asked Drizzt when they were alone.
“I know that Effron Alegni is a troubled and angry young warlock. He carries a great burden upon his broken shoulders. ”
“Will they accept him in Port Llast, then, should we accept your generous offer?”
Drizzt shook his head. “It will not likely get to that point. ”
He moved to the tent flap and pulled it open, peering out. He didn’t want to get caught by surprise in an enclosed place against the likes of Effron. He noted immediately, though, that Kale stood perplexed, hands on hips, with many others around him, all shaking their heads and some pointing off into the woods.
“He saw my approach and likely fled,” Drizzt said, turning back to Stuyles.
“You and he are avowed enemies, then?”
Drizzt shook his head. “It is far more complicated than that, and trust me when I say that I would love nothing more than to find reconciliation with Effron, for myself and for—” he almost mentioned Dahlia, but decided not to go that far down the road.
He just blew a sigh instead. “It is a good offer for you and your band,” he said. “You will find community there, and a better way. ”
“Some might think we’re doing well as it is,” Stuyles said.
“You live in tents in the snowy forest in the Sword Coast winter. Surely the houses of—” He paused as Stuyles held up his hand.
“It is not as easy as that, I fear,” he explained. “For myself, the offer is tempting, but not all in my band are likely to be welcomed openly by the folk of—well, of any town. Some have found us because they quite simply have nowhere else left to go. ”
“They do now. ”
“You offer amnesty? Just like that?”
“Yes,” Drizzt said evenly. He wasn’t about to let this idea fall apart when he seemed so close to actually making a difference here. “A clean handshake, with no call to divulge any unseemly history. ” He paused on that for a moment and looked Stuyles directly in the eye. “So long as you can vouch for them, in that they will cause no mayhem in Port Llast. I’ll not insert more danger into the lives of those goodly folk. ”
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