That confidence, of course, was boosted more than a little by a well-earned reputation, for few in Delthuntle would deign to cross Pericolo Topolino.
He feigned indifference, but in truth keenly registered every word spoken by his companions. He never returned their looks, however, focusing instead across the street to the teenage ruffians.
“Who is that one?” he asked at length, and the other four fell to abrupt silence, eagerly following his gesture to indicate the leader of the teenage gang.
“Bregnan Prus,” two answered in unison, the other two quickly agreeing.
“Aye, and his Ma serves at a lord’s palace as a handmaid and he lives on the grounds,” one added.
Pericolo tapped his stubby fingertips together before his chin, unblinking as he considered this arrogant young ruffian who was still shouting curses up at the empty roof line.
A young ruffian, he figured, who might be in need of a proper … education.
“We’re not to catch him that way,” complained Pater, one of the other boys.
Bregnan Prus turned a hateful glare his way, backing him down.
“Are we to stand here all day and yell at a wall?” another asked, coming to Pater’s defense, for without that show of solidarity, the infuriated Bregnan might have begun throwing his fists, as was often the case.
“I want that one,” Bregnan Prus said in a low, threatening tone.
“He’s just a child!” protested the elf lass, standing with her friends not far away.
“Let’s get out of here,” offered another of the boys.
Bregnan Prus took a moment to glower at the elf, but nodded his agreement and brought his returned whistle to his lips, blowing a sharp note to collect the members of his gang.
He cut that note short, however, and a curious expression came over his face, first a sour look, then one of confusion, and finally with his eyes widening in horror. His face contorted weirdly, and it took the others, both his immediate companions and the group of girls, a few moments to realize that no matter how hard Bregnan twisted his features, his lips would not come free of the whistle!
“Oyster glue!” Pater shouted in shock a long while to realize become inadvertentlyon, and all around gasped, and gasped again, then began to titter, then began to laugh.
For it was true enough. Spider, or whatever the little thief’s name might be, had sneakily coated the whistle with the substance found in a particular breed of Sea of Fallen Stars shellfish, a sticky and stubborn sealant known as oyster glue, an innocuous enough substance until it met with water, or in this case, with the moisture of Bregnan’s lips.
Bregnan Prus grunted repeatedly, issuing little toots from the stuck whistle in the process-and to the great amusement of all onlookers.
“So let’s get him,” Pater offered, though he couldn’t stop himself from giggling between words. “We’re not to do that standing here.”
Bregnan Prus punched him in the mouth, and tooted at him as he did, though whether for good measure or inadvertently, none around could tell.
A few days later, Regis put his back against the wall and took a deep breath. He had brought the conflict to this point on purpose, he reminded himself. This was a test he would not fail. In the days and nights that had passed since the theft and sabotage of the whistle, he had led Bregnan Prus’s band on a merry chase indeed, all around the shadows of Delthuntle’s streets.
But now that the moment of truth closed, dark wings of doubt fluttered up all around him. He was too young and too frail for this, perhaps. For all his training, his incessant exercise and practice, his body remained that of a child, and a halfling one at that!
He heard the approaching shouts; they had cornered him and there were no high rooftops in this poor district beside the great lake. Instinctively he looked around for an escape, and though he noted one distinct possibility, he shook the notion away.
He had purposely baited Bregnan Prus and the others and had led them to this point.
But he was merely a child, barely nine years old. Bregnan stood almost twice his height and easily carried twice his weight.
“You can do this,” Regis whispered and he thought of Drizzt and Catti-brie, of Wulfgar and Bruenor, and of the role he had ever played in that band. True, he had found moments of usefulness, usually by accident, but mostly he had been the tag-along, hiding in the shadows while his heroic friends had protected him.
It could not be like that again. He wouldn’t allow it.
A shout from beside the very warehouse where the young halfling sat, told him that his pursuers were close, so he stood up, dusted himself off, and stepped out around the corner to meet them.
Bregnan Prus, in the lead, skidded to a stop.
Regis didn’t blink.
“No walls to climb, Spider?” the boy asked, a bit of a lisp to his voice since he had torn his lips extracting the whistle.
Regis glanced left, then right, then shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“You think I’m to be easy on you, then, because you’re just a child?”
“Ah, but just punch him hard,” another of the group said. “Let’s all punch him hard!”
That brought a few nods and cheers from the group of five.
Regis held his nerve and wouldn’t let them see him shift nervously, or even let them hear him clear hi sure what to make o spellscarons throat.
Behind him, the halfling heard the other group rushing in, this one led by the elf girl.
Bregnan Prus stepped up to him, towering over him.
“Beg me not to kill you,” he said.
But Regis stared up at him, locking his gaze, unblinking, and the halfling even managed a bit of a wry smile.
“Last chance!” Bregnan Prus said, and grabbed Regis by the collar-or tried to, for the halfling’s hand flashed across, slapping Bregnan’s fingers aside.
“Little rat!” the boy cried, and he launched a wild left hook aimed for Regis’s head.
But the halfling, surely not caught by surprise, ducked and backed up a step. He knew the counter move he should then execute, had practiced it a thousand times before, but he found that he could not.
Bregnan Prus pursued, launching a barrage of punches, though clumsy hooks one and all, and Regis rolled away time and again.
“He’s just a boy!” he heard behind him, the elf girl. Regis liked that one, and for some reason, the sound of her voice emboldened him.
“One last warning,” Regis said loudly, suddenly, and all the chatter stopped, and Bregnan Prus stopped as well and stared at him incredulously. “It was all just a game until now,” Regis warned. “Walk away.”
“What?”
“You are a clumsy ogre,” Regis said. “I have embarrassed you once before your friends. Would you have me do so again?”
Bregnan Prus let out a strange garbled sound and leaped at Regis, fists flailing. But Regis moved, too, the maneuver he had practiced repeatedly, day and night. He dived at the teenager’s feet, curled and rolled, and the older boy, coming forward, tried to straddle him so that he did not get tripped up.
But that was the whole point, and as Bregnan Prus awkwardly slithered past the ball of halfling, one leg on either side, Regis rolled so that the back of his head and the back of his shoulders were planted squarely against the ground. With that brace, he kicked straight up with both feet, connecting solidly with the teenager’s groin.
Bregnan Prus gave a cry and a grunt, and tried to press past, but Regis began a furious pumping of his feet, left and right alternately, smashing one heel after the other into the older boy’s tender loins.
Bregnan Prus hopped weirdly and kept trying to sidle past. He brought his hands down for cover, yelping all the while. Too late, though, both he and his assailant realized, as Regis’s foot connected perfectly, driving the older boy to his tip-toes and even lifting him off the ground.
Regis tucked and rolled through, spinning around as he did to catch Bregnan Prus’s trailing foot as the gasping yo
ung man tried to stagger away. The sneaky little halfling had all the leverage here, and he drove in hard, pushing up and over Bregnan Prus’s other leg.
The teenager crashed to the ground.
Regis untangled himself and ran right up the back of the fallen lad’s thighs, leaping onto his back with a stunning knee drop.
He went for the lad’s hairy head and almost got there before being swept aside by a flying tackle. Now he rolled and punched, bit and scratched, but the boy atop him was too strong and too heavy for that. A balled fist came in at him and he got his hand up to b asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh inadvertentlyonlock-but the power of the punch drove right through and crushed Regis’s nose and sent him sprawling.
“He’s just a boy!” the elf girl yelled.
But in reply, Bregnan Prus ordered in a gasping and pained voice, “Kill him!”
Suddenly it wasn’t just a game, or a youthful play of dominance, for in that tone, Regis heard, unmistakably, a serious death sentence.
He had underestimated this group; he hadn’t realized just how tough the streets of Delthuntle might be.
He tried to get up and run, but got tackled again, and the next punch sent him spinning-or more accurately, the world around him spinning.
He felt himself lifted to his feet, then into the air, and a heavy slug, a punch by Bregnan Prus, took his breath away.
Pericolo Topolino tapped his ivory-tipped cane against the counter, drawing the fishmonger’s attention. She stood straight indeed when she recognized the halfling.
“Grandfather,” she said, dipping into an awkward bow. “You have quite the assortment of deepwater oysters,” the cultured halfling remarked.
“Y-yes, Grandfather,” she stammered. “Fresh, too. They were brought in just today.”
“The boats are out at the Sandy Banks, chasing the bass,” Pericolo said. He wasn’t surprised by the oysters, of course, nor did he doubt that they were fresh as stated. His informants had led him here, after all, and for precisely this reason.
The fishmonger stammered as if cornered.
“An independent diver, then,” Pericolo reasoned. “A good one, it would seem.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“You were here the other day, when there was such a commotion across the street?” Pericolo graciously asked. “The toot-tooting of the whistle?”
“Aye, yes,” she answered, and she nodded and managed a smile. “Was myself that extracted the instrument from Prus’s glued lips. Poor boy.”
“And the one he pursued?” Pericolo asked. “The one called Spider?”
The fishmonger looked at him curiously.
“Ah, yes, of course,” the halfling clarified. “It was myself who gave him that name, so you would not know him by it.”
“The halfling?”
“Yes, the halfling. The one who went up to the roof. You know him, I believe.”
The woman seemed very concerned suddenly, and she inadvertently glanced at the oysters, tipping her hand. Indeed, this little halfling, this Spider creature, was a valuable commodity to her, the astute Pericolo recognized.
“Tell me his name.”
“Spider, you said.”
“His real name,” Pericolo said, shifting his tone just enough to carry an undercurrent of a threat.
“I’m not for knowing,” she said with a gulp. “Don’t know that he’s even got one, for his Da’s not a man to be bothering with such things.”
asked, and Catti-brie nodded.igh inadvertentlyonPericolo narrowed his eyes.
“He’s Eiverbreen’s boy!” she blurted.
“Eiverbreen?”
“Eiverbreen Parrafin. His boy and Jolee’s, though she went and died when the little one was born.”
“Spider?”
“Aye.”
“And he is a deep diver, this one?”
“Aye, so it’d seem, and so was1d;
Pericolo Topolino nodded at her and looked away, considering the information, and though he wasn’t paying the fishmonger any heed, he heard her profound sigh of relief. He liked that he could do that to people.
Barely four feet tall and he could elicit such a response from almost everyone in Delthuntle, and in many other places in greater Aglarond, as well.
“Fill a basket with some oysters, then,” the halfling said cheerily, reaching for his pouch of coins. He paid the fishmonger well for the shellfish. That was Pericolo Topolino’s way, of course, eliciting a mixture of fear and gratitude, for he was a person to be feared and to be loved.
That was his way.
This wasn’t working out as he had planned. His maneuver with Bregnan Prus had been executed perfectly, and the older boy was still reeling, walking tentatively, as much on his toes as on the balls of his feet, and wincing with every step, barely able to keep from cupping his bruised groin.
But the boy hadn’t come alone, of course, and despite the protests of the elf girl, Regis found himself sorely overmatched. Worse, while he could accept the beating, this had progressed beyond that.
They weren’t trying to humiliate him.
They weren’t trying to hurt him.
Nay, they were trying to kill him.
Two boys held him up by the ankles, and despite his twisting and turning, they managed to get his legs apart just wide enough for Bregnan Prus to chop his hand down into Regis’s groin, taking the halfling’s breath away.
“That hurt, did it, little Spider?” the older boy taunted, and he hit the halfling child again.
Indeed, it had hurt, but not as badly as Regis had anticipated. He was still a child after all, and that particular area of vulnerability wasn’t yet as tender as it would become in future years.
That seemed of small comfort, though, given that the beating had only just begun.
Regis began to cry and just hung there limply, arms hanging low.
There would be no pity forthcoming, however, and Bregnan Prus stepped back and wound up for a great kick into the halfling’s face.
Regis waited and slyly watched, and as the older boy’s foot began to move, he threw his head backward, arching his back as far as he could.
Bregnan Prus missed, and Regis snapped himself back the other way, curling up at his waist, bringing his head up to look alternately into the faces of the two boys holding him by the ankles. Out went Regis’s hands, to either side, where he flicked the middle finger of each hard under the nose of his respective captors. One cried out and let go, cupping his stung proboscis.
Regis threw himself down the other way, and;}span.bigI inadvertentlyonturned violently as he went, and the second boy, caught off guard, overbalanced and with a stung nose of his own, couldn’t hold on.
The halfling executed a perfect flip, landing in a run and sprinting for all his life toward the nearby shoreline.
Bregnan Prus yelled from behind, and Regis soon heard the footsteps as the older boy and his friends closed upon him. He splashed into the water and dived forward, and almost got out of reach, but alas, a strong hand closed on the back of his collar.
He was pulled from the water, to stare into the hateful eyes of the teenager he had humiliated. With a little evil laugh, Bregnan Prus thrust him back under the water, and held him there.
Regis struggled mightily. At one point, he broke from the his mum.
CHAPTER 9
ZIBRIJA
The Year of the First Circle (1468 DR) Netheril
Silent as shadows, the owl drifted along, watching the two desai, Niraj and Kavita, shuffling across the dark plain through the desert night. The couple held each other close for support, clearly rattled by the startling revelations of the evening. They swayed and walked a swerving line.
But they held each other, and that was good, Catti-brie knew. Their family had been torn asunder and they would need each other in the coming days. The shapeshifting child set down upon the ground and reformed yet again, now taking the host body of a wolf.
The wolf loped along in the darkness, paralleling th
e couple, then moving ahead of them, making sure that the way was clear, that no animals or monsters would threaten these two, distracted as they were.
She noted that they were soon walking straighter and leaning less upon each other; there seemed to be a determination growing within them.
She broke off her shadowing when her parents, oblivious to her presence, came in sight of the Desai encampment, home again and safe-for now.
But what might happen when the Netherese came calling once more, looking for Ruqiah?
Catti-brie moved back out into the empty night, a child now, a girl, little Ruqiah. She, too, was reeling, she only then realized. For her home had been torn asunder. The security of her parents, even though they might be new parents and only through extraordinary circumstances, was gone now.
And the love was distant.
Yes, love, the girl realized. She had come to truly love Niraj and Kavita. Though she needed them far less than a true child of theirs might, she loved them both as dearly as any child could. She hadn’t planned on leaving them this early. Indeed, she had hoped to remain in their home until she set out for Icewind Dale, some fifteen years hence.
But now what could she do? She turned around and considered the imposing wasteland around her, this Empire of Netheril, formerly the great desert of Anauroch.
“Fear not for me, my parents,” she said again, replaying her parting words to the couple, but this time to bolster her own confidence. “I go with the goddess, and my road is well-known to me. We will meet again.”
Her voice sounded tiny in the empty plain, the whisper of a child. For Catti-brie understood that she was in trouble, out alone in the wilds of Netheril and with dangerous hunters of Shade Enclave eagerly pursuing her. She’d killed the two assassins at the tent. It was good fortune alone that had saved her at the tent. Before they’d arrived, she’d summoned the storm-a time-consuming spellcasting, indeed-to bring the washing rains. Had she not previously thought to br sure what to makece Fpur her fathering the storm clouds, she would never have had the devastating magic of the lightning at her fingertips.
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