“Guess that's why we should be stickin' with our own kind, eh, elf?” Bruenor finished, looking slyly at Drizzt out of the corner of his eye.
Drizzt's expression went from sympathy to curiosity. Had Bruenor just warned him away from Catti-brie? That caught the drow off his guard, indeed! And rocked him right back in his seat, as he sat staring hard at Bruenor. Had he finally let himself see the truth of his feelings for Catti-brie just to encounter this dwarven roadblock? Or was Bruenor right, and was Drizzt being a fool?
The drow took a long, long moment to steady himself and collect his thoughts.
“Or perhaps those of us who hide from the pain will never know the joys that might lead to such profound pain,” Drizzt finally said. “Better to—”
“To what?” Bruenor interrupted. “To fall in love with one of them? To marry one, elf?”
Drizzt still didn't know what Bruenor was up to. Was he telling Drizzt to back off, calling the drow a fool for even thinking of falling in love with Catti-brie?
But then Bruenor tipped his hand.
“Yeah, fall in love with one,” he said with a derisive snort, but one Drizzt recognized that was equally aimed at himself. “Or maybe take one of 'em in to raise as yer own. Heck, maybe more than one!”
Bruenor glanced over at Drizzt, his toothy smile showing through his brilliant red whiskers. He lifted his mug toward Drizzt in a toast. “To the both of us, then, elf!” he boomed. “A pair o' fools, but smiling fools!”
Drizzt gladly answered that toast with a tap of his own glass. He understood then that Bruenor wasn't subtly trying to (in a dwarf sort of way) ward him off, but rather that the dwarf was merely making sure Drizzt understood the depth of what he had.
They went back to their drinking. Bruenor drained mug after mug, but Drizzt cradled that single glass of fine wine.
Many minutes passed before either spoke again, and it was Bruenor, cracking in a tone that seemed all seriousness, which made it all the funnier, “Hey, elf, me next grandkid won't be striped, will it?”
“As long as it doesn't have a red beard,” Drizzt replied without missing a beat.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“I heard you were traveling with a great barbarian warrior named Wulfgar,” Bellany said to Morik when the rogue finally woke up long after the following dawn.
“Wulfgar?” Morik echoed, rubbing the sleep from his dark eyes and running his fingers through his matted black hair. “I have not seen Wulfgar in many months.”
He didn't catch on to the telling manner in which Bellany was scrutinizing him.
“He went south, to find Deudermont, I think,” Morik went on, and he looked at Bellany curiously. “Am I not enough man for you?” he asked.
The dark-haired sorceress smirked in a neutral manner, pointedly not answering the rogue's question. “I ask only for a friend of mine,” she said.
Morik's smile was perfectly crude. “Two of you, eh?” he asked. “Am I not man enough?”
Bellany gave a great sigh and rolled to the side of the bed, gathering up the bedclothes about her and dragging them free as she rose.
Only then, upon the back of her naked shoulder, did Morik take note of the curious brand.
“So you have not spoken with Wulfgar in months?” the woman asked, moving to her clothing.
“Why do you ask?”
The suspicious nature of the question had the sorceress turning about to regard Morik, who was still reclining on the bed, lying on his side and-propped up on one elbow.
“A friend wishes to know of him,” Bellany said, rather curtly.
“Seems like a lot of people are suddenly wanting to know about him,” the rogue remarked. He fell to his back and threw one arm across his eyes.
“People like a dark elf?” Bellany asked.
Morik peeked out at her from under his arm, his expression answering the question clearly.
Wider went his eyes when the sorceress lifted the robe that was lying across one chair, and produced from beneath it a thin, black wand. Bellany didn't point it at him, but the threat was obvious.
“Get dressed, and quickly,” Bellany said. “My lady will speak with you.”
“Your lady?”
“I've not the time to explain things now,” Bellany replied. “We've a long road ahead of us, and though I have spells to speed us along our way, it would be better if we were gone from Luskan within the hour.”
Morik scoffed at her. “Gone to where?” he asked. “I have no plans to leave. .”
His voice trailed off as Bellany came back over to the edge of the bed, placing one knee up on it in a sexy pose, and lowered her face, putting one finger across her pouting lips.
“There are two ways we can do this, Morik,” she explained quietly and calmly—too calmly for the sensibilities of the poor, surprised rogue. “One will be quite pleasurable for you, I am sure, and will guarantee your safe return to Luskan, where your friends here will no doubt comment on the wideness and constancy of your smile.”
Morik regarded the enticing woman for a few moments. “Don't even bother to tell me the other way,” he agreed.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Arumn Gardpeck has not seen him,” Catti-brie reported, “nor have any of the other regulars at the Cutlass—and they see Morik the Rogue almost every day.”
Drizzt considered the words carefully. It was possible, of course, that the absence of Morik—he was not at his apartment, nor in any of his familiar haunts—was nothing more than coincidence. A man like Morik was constantly on the move, from one deal to another, from one theft to another.
But more than a day had passed since the four friends had begun their search for the rogue, using all the assets at their disposal, including the Luskan town guard, with no sign of the man. Given what had happened in Waterdeep with the agents of Sheila Kree, and given that Morik was a known associate of Wulfgar, Drizzt was not pleased by this disappearance.
“You put word in at the Hosttower?” Drizzt asked Regis.
“Robbers to a wizard,” the halfling replied. “But yes, they will send word to Sea Sprite's wizard, Robillard, as soon as they can locate him. It took more than half a bag of gold to persuade them to do the work.”
“I gived ye a whole bag to pay for the task,” Bruenor remarked dryly.
“Even with my ruby pendant, it took more than half a bag of gold to persuade them to do the work,” Regis clarified.
Bruenor just put his head down and shook it. “Well, that means ye got nearly half a bag o' me gold for safe-keeping, Rumblebelly,” he took care to state openly, and before witnesses.
“Did the wizards say anything about the fate of Sea Sprite?” Catti-brie asked. “Do they know if she's still afloat?”
“They said they've seen nothing to indicate anything different,” Regis answered. “They have contacts among the docks, including many pirates. If Sea Sprite went down anywhere near Luskan the celebration would be immediate and surely loud.”
It wasn't much of a confirmation, really, but the other three took the words with great hope.
“Which brings us back to Morik,” Drizzt said. “If the pirate Kree is trying to strike first to chase off Deudermont and Wulfgar, then perhaps Morik became a target.”
“What connection would Deudermont hold with that rogue?” Catti-brie asked, a perfectly logical question and one that had Drizzt obviously stumped.
“Perhaps Morik is in league with Sheila Kree,” Regis reasoned. “An informant?”
Drizzt was shaking his head before the halfling ever finished. From his brief meeting with Morik, he did not think that the man would do such a thing. Though, he had to admit, Morik was a man whose loyalties didn't seem hard to buy.
“What do we know of Kree?” the drow asked.
“We know she ain't nowhere near to here,” Bruenor answered impatiently. “And we know that we're wasting time here, that bein' the case!”
“True enough,” Catti-brie agreed.
�
�But the season is deepening up north,” Regis put in. “Perhaps we should begin our search to the south.”
“All signs are that Sheila Kree is put in up north,” Drizzt was quick to answer. “The rumors we have heard, from Morik and from Josi Puddles, place her somewhere up there.”
“Lotta coast between here and the Sea o' Moving Ice,” Bruenor put in.
“So we should wait?” Regis quickly followed.
“So we should get moving!” Bruenor retorted just as quickly, and since both Drizzt and Catti-brie agreed with the dwarfs reasoning the four friends departed Luskan later that same day, only hours after Morik and Bellany had left the city. But the latter, moving with the enhancements of many magical spells, and knowing where they were going, were soon enough far, far away.
Chapter 16 UNEXPECTED FRIENDSHIP
As usual, Wulfgar was the first one to debark Sea Sprite when the schooner glided into dock at one of Waterdeep's many long wharves. There was little spring in the barbarian's step this day, despite his excitement at the prospect of seeing Delly and Colson again. Deudermont's last real discussion with him, more than a tenday before, had put many things into perspective for Wulfgar, had forced him to look into a mirror. He did not like the reflection.
He knew Captain Deudermont was his friend, an honest friend and one who had spared his life despite evidence that he, along with Morik, had tried to murder the man. Deudermont had believed in Wulfgar when no others would. He'd rescued Wulfgar from Prisoner's Carnival without even a question, begging confirmation that Wulfgar had not been involved in any plot to kill. Deudermont had welcomed Wulfgar aboard Sea Sprite and had altered the course-of his pirate-hunting schooner many times in an effort to find the elusive Sheila Kree. Even with the anger bubbling within him from the image in the mirror Deudermont pointedly held up before his eyes on the return journey to their home port, Wulfgar could not dispute the honesty embodied in that image.
Deudermont had told him the truth of who he had become, with as much tact as was possible.
Wulfgar couldn't ignore that truth now. He knew his days sailing with Sea Sprite were at their end, at least for the season. If Sea Sprite was going south, as was her usual winter route—and in truth, the only available winter route—then there was little chance of encountering Kree. And if the ship wasn't going to find Kree, then what point would there be in having Wulfgar aboard, especially if the barbarian warrior and his impulsive tactics were a detriment to the crew?
That was the crux of it, Wulfgar knew. That was the truth in the mirror. Never before had the proud son of Beornegar considered himself anything less than a warrior. Many times in his life, Wulfgar had done things of which he was not proud—nothing more poignantly than the occasion on which he had slapped Catti-brie. But even then, Wulfgar had one thing he could hold onto. He was a fighter, among the greatest ever to come out of Icewind Dale, among the most legendary to ever come out of the Tribe of the Elk, or any of the other tribes. He was the warrior who had united the tribes with strength of arm and conviction, the barbarian who had hurled his warhammer high to shatter the cavern's hold on the great icicle, dropping the natural spear onto the back of the great white wyrm, Icingdeath. He was the warrior who had braved the Calimport sun and the assassins, tearing through the guildhouse of a notorious ruffian to save his halfling friend. He was, above all else, the companion of Drizzt Do'Urden, a Companion of the Hall, part of a team that had fostered the talk of legend wherever it had gone.
But not now. Now he could not rightly hold claim to that title of mighty warrior, not after his disastrous attempts to battle pirates aboard Sea Sprite. Now his friend Deudermont—an honest and compassionate friend—had looked him in the eye and showed to him the truth, and a diminishing truth it was. Would Wulfgar find again the courageous heart that had guided him through his emotional crises? Would he ever again be that proud warrior who had united the tribes of Ten-Towns, who had helped reclaim Mithral Hall, who had chased a notorious assassin across Toril too rescue his halfling friend?
Or had Errtu stolen that from him forever? Had the demon truly broken that spirit deep within the son of Beornegar? Had the demon altered his identity forever?
As he walked across the city of Waterdeep, turning to the hillock containing Deudermont's house, Wulfgar could not truly deny the possibility that the man he had once been, the warrior he had once been, was now lost to him forever. He wasn't sure what that meant, however.
Who was he?
His thoughts remained inward until he almost reached the front door of Captain Deudermont's mansion, when the sharp, unfamiliar voice ordered him to halt and be counted.
Wulfgar looked up, his crystal-blue eyes scanning all about, noting the many soldiers standing about the perimeter of the house, noting the lighter colors of the splintered wood near the lock of the front doors.
Wulfgar felt his gut churning, his warrior instincts telling him clearly that something was terribly amiss, his heart telling him that danger had come to Delly and Colson. With a growl that was half rage and half terror, Wulfgar sprinted straight ahead for the house, oblivious to the trio of soldiers who rushed to bar the way with their great halberds.
“Let him pass!” came a shout at the last second, right before Wulfgar crashed through the blocking soldiers. “It's Wulfgar returned! Sea Sprite is in!”
The soldiers parted, the rearmost wisely rushing back to push open the door or Wulfgar would have surely shattered it to pieces. The barbarian charged through.
He skidded to an abrupt stop just in side the foyer, though, spotting Delly coming down the main stairway, holding Colson tight in her arms.
She stared at him, managing a weak smile until she reached the bottom of the stairs—and there she broke down, tears flowing freely, and she rushed forward, falling into Wulfgar's waiting arms and tender hug.
Time seemed to stop for the couple as they stood there, clenched, needing each other's support. Wulfgar could have stayed like that for hours, indeed, but then he heard the voice of Captain Deudermont's surprise behind him, followed by a stream of curses from Robillard.
Wulfgar gently pushed Delly back, and turned about as the pair entered. The three stood there, looking about blankly, and their stares were no less incredulous when Delly at last inserted some sense into the surreal scene by saying, simply, “Sheila Kree.”
* * * * * * * * *
Deudermont caught up to Wulfgar later, alone, the barbarian staring out the window at the crashing waves far below. It was the same window through which Drizzt and Catti-brie had entered, to save Delly and Colson.
“Fine friends you left behind in Icewind Dale,” the captain remarked, moving to stand beside Wulfgar and staring out rather than looking at the huge man. When Wulfgar didn't answer, Deudermont did glance his way, and noted that his expression was pained.
“Do you believe you should have been here, protecting Delly and the child?” the captain said bluntly. He looked up as Wulfgar looked down upon him, not scowling, but not looking very happy, either.
“You apparently believe so,” the barbarian quipped.
“Why do you say that?” the captain asked. “Because I hinted that perhaps you should not take the next voyage out of Water-deep with Sea Sprite1? What would be the point? You joined with us to hunt Sheila Kree, and we'll not find her in the south, where surely we will go.”
“Even now?” Wulfgar asked, seeming a bit surprised. “After Kree launched this attack against your own house? After your two friends lay cold in the ground, murdered by her assassins?”
“We can not sail to the north with the winter winds beginning to blow,” Deudermont replied. “And thus, our course is south, where we will find many pirates the equal to Sheila Kree in their murders and mayhem. But do not think that I will forget this attack upon my house,” the captain added with a dangerous grimace. “When the warm spring winds blow, Sea Sprite will return and sail right into the Sea of Moving Ice, if necessary, to find Kree and pay her her due.”
Again Wulfgar winced, and looked back out to sea.
“The attack was nearly a month ago,” Deudermont went on. “Drizzt is likely far north of Luskan by now, already on the hunt.”
Wulfgar nodded, but didn't even blink at the proclamation, and the captain could see that the huge man was truly torn.
“I suspect the drow and Catti-brie would welcome the companionship of their old friend for this battle,” he dared to say.
“Would you so curse Drizzt as to wish that upon him?” Wulfgar asked in all seriousness. He turned an icy glare upon Deudermont as he spoke the damning words, a look that showed a combination of sarcasm, anger, and just a bit of resignation.
Deudermont matched that stare for just a few short moments, taking a measure of the man. Then he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “As you wish. But I must tell you, Wulfgar of Icewind Dale, self pity does not become you.”
With that, the captain turned and walked out of the room, leaving Wulfgar alone with some very unsettling thoughts.
* * * * * * * * * *
“The captain said we can stay as long as we wish,” Wulfgar explained to Delly that same night. “Through the winter and spring. I'll find some work — I am no stranger to a blacksmith's shop — and perhaps we can find our own home next year.”
“In Waterdeep?” the woman asked, seeming quite concerned.
“Perhaps. Or Luskan, or anywhere else you believe would be best for Colson to grow strong.”
“Icewind Dale?” the woman asked without hesitation, and Wulfgar's shoulders sagged.
“It is a difficult land, full of hardship,” Wulfgar answered, trying to remain matter-of-fact.
“Full o' strong men,” Delly added. “Full of heroes.”
Wulfgar's expression showed clearly that he was through playing this game. “Full of cutthroats and thieves,” he said sternly. “Full of thieves running from the honest lands, and no place for a girl to grow to a woman.”
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