Drizzt - 12 - The Spine of the World

by R. A. Salvatore

  Temigast hadn't recognized the depth of those feelings until he realized his own doubt and dismissal of Lord Feringal's obvious feelings. What an old wretch he believed himself at that moment.

  He sat in a chair by the narrow window overlooking Auckney Harbor. The moon had long ago set, leaving the cold waters dark and showing dull Whitecaps under the starry sky. Temigast, like Priscilla, had never seen his young charge so animated and agitated, so full of fire and full of life. Feringal always had a dull humor about him, a sense of perpetual lethargy, but there had been nothing lethargic in the manner in which the young man had stormed down the stairs to proclaim his love for the peasant girl, nothing lethargic in the way in which Feringal had accosted his bullying older sister.

  That image brought a smile to Temigast's face. Perhaps Castle Auck needed such fire now; perhaps it was time to shake the place and all the fiefdom about it. Maybe a bit of spirit from the lord of Auckney would elevate the often overlooked village to the status of its more notable neighbors, Hundelstone and Fireshear. Never before had the lord of Auckney married one of the peasants of the village. There were simply too few people in that pool, most from families who had been in the village for centuries, and the possibility of bringing so many of the serfs into the ruling family, however distantly, was a definite argument against letting Feringal have his way. But the sheer energy the young lord had shown seemed as much an argument in favor of the union at that moment, and so he decided he would look into this matter very carefully, would find out who this peasant girl might be and see if something could be arranged.

  Chapter 3

  FINAL STRAW

  "He knew you," Morik dared to say after he had rejoined Wulfgar very late that same night following his venture to the seedy drinking hole. By the time the rogue had caught up to his friend on the docks the big man had drained almost all of the second bottle. "And you knew him."

  "He thought he knew me," Wulfgar corrected, slurring each word. He was hardly able to sit without wobbling, obviously more drunk than usual for so early an hour. He and Morik had split up outside the Cutlass, with Wulfgar taking the two bottles. Instead of going straight to the docks the barbarian had wandered the streets and soon found himself in the more exclusive section of Luskan, the area of respectable folk and merchants. No city guards had come to chase him off, for in that area of town stood the Prisoner's Carnival, a public platform where outlaws were openly punished. A thief was up on the stage this night, asked repeatedly by the torturer if he admitted his crime. When he did not, the torturer took out a pair of heavy shears and snipped off his little finger. The thief's answer to the repeated question brought howls of approval from the scores of people watching the daily spectacle. Of course, admitting to the crime was no easy way out for the poor man. He lost his whole hand, one finger at a time, the mob cheering and hooting with glee.

  But not Wulfgar. No, the sight had proven too much for the barbarian, had catapulted him back in time, back to Errtu's Abyss and the helpless agony. What tortures he had known there! He had been cut and whipped and beaten within an inch of his life, only to be restored by the healing magic of one of Errtu's foul minions. He'd had his fingers bitten off and put back again. The sight of the unfortunate thief brought all that back to him vividly now. The anvil. Yes, that was the worst of all, the most agonizing physical torture Errtu had devised for him, reserved for those moments when the great demon was in such a fit of rage that he could not take the time to devise a more subtle, more crushing, mental torture. The anvil. Cold it was, like a block of ice, so cold that it seemed like fire to Wulfgar's thighs when Errtu's mighty minions pulled him across it, forced him to straddle it, naked and stretched out on his back.

  Errtu would come to him then, slowly, menacingly, would walk right up before him, and in a single, sudden movement, smash a small mallet set with tiny needles down into Wulfgar's opened eyes, exploding them and washing waves of nausea and agony through the barbarian. And, of course, Errtu's minions would heal him, would make him whole again that their fun might be repeated.

  Even now, long fled from Errtu's abyssal home, Wulfgar often awoke, curled like a baby, clutching his eyes, feeling the agony. Wulfgar knew of only one escape from the pain. Thus, he had taken his bottles and run away, and only by swallowing the fiery liquid had he blurred that memory.

  " Thought he knew you?" Morik asked doubtfully.

  Wulfgar stared at him blankly.

  "The man in the Cutlass," Morik explained.

  "He was mistaken," Wulfgar slurred.

  Morik flashed him a skeptical look.

  "He know who I once was," the big man admitted. "Not who I am."

  "Deudermont," Morik reasoned.

  Now it was Wulfgar's turn to look surprised. Morik knew most of the folk of Luskan, of course-the rogue survived through information-but it surprised Wulfgar that he knew of an obscure sailor (which is what Wulfgar thought Deudermont to be) merely visiting the port.

  "Captain Deudermont of the Sea Sprite," Morik explained. "Much known and much feared by the pirates of the Sword Coast. He knew you, and you knew him."

  "I sailed with him once . . . a lifetime ago," Wulfgar admitted.

  "I have many friends, profiteers of the sea, who would pay handsomely to see that one eliminated," Morik remarked, bending low over the seated Wulfgar. "Perhaps we could use your familiarity with this man to some advantage."

  Even as the words left Morik's mouth, Wulfgar came up fast and hard, his hand going about Morik's throat. Staggering on unsteady legs, Wulfgar still had the strength in just that one arm to lift the rogue from the ground. A fast few strides, as much a fall as a run, brought them hard against the wall of a warehouse where Wulfgar pinned Morik the Rogue, whose feet dangled several inches above the ground.

  Morik's hand went into a deep pocket, closing on a nasty knife, one that he knew he could put into the drunken Wulfgar's heart in an instant. He held his thrust, though, for Wulfgar did not press in any longer, did not try to injure him. Besides, there remained those nagging memories of drow elves holding an interest in Wulfgar. How would Morik explain killing the man to them?

  What would happen to the rogue if he didn't manage to finish the job?

  "If ever you ask that of me again, I will-" Wulfgar left the threat unfinished, dropping Morik. He spun back to the sea, nearly overbalancing and tumbling from the pier in his drunken rush. Morik rubbed a hand across his bruised throat, momentarily stunned by the explosive outburst. When he thought about it, though, he merely nodded. He had touched on a painful wound, one opened by the unexpected appearance of Wulfgar's old companion, Deudermont. It was the classic struggle of past and present, Morik knew, for he had seen it tear men apart time and again as they went about their descent to the bottom of a bottle. The feelings brought on by the sight of the captain, the man with whom he had once sailed, were too raw for Wulfgar. The barbarian couldn't put his present state in accord with what he had once been. Morik smiled and let it go, recognizing clearly that the emotional fight, past against present, was far from finished for his large friend.

  Perhaps the present would win out, and Wulfgar would listen to Morik's potentially profitable proposition concerning Deudermont. Or, if not, maybe Morik would act independently and use Wulfgar's familiarity with the man to his own gain without Wulfgar's knowledge. Morik forgave Wulfgar for attacking him. This time. . . .

  "Would you like to sail with him again, then?" Morik asked, deliberately lightening his tone. Wulfgar plopped to a sitting position, then stared incredulously through blurry eyes at the rogue.

  "We must keep our purses full," Morik reminded him. "You do seem to be growing bored with Arumn and the Cutlass. Perhaps a few months at sea-"

  Wulfgar waved him to silence, then turned about and spat into the sea. A moment later, he bent low over the dock and vomited.

  Morik looked upon him with a mixture of pity, disgust, and anger. Yes, the rogue knew then and there he would get to Deudermont, whether Wulfgar w
ent along with the plan or not. The rogue would use his friend to find a weakness in the infamous captain of Sea Sprite. A pang of guilt hit Morik as he came to that realization. Wulfgar was his friend, after all, but this was the street, and a wise man would not pass up so obvious an opportunity to grab a pot of gold.

  *****

  "You stink Morik get done it?" the tattooed pirate, Tee-a-nicknick, asked first thing when he awoke in an alley.

  Next to him among the trash, Creeps Sharky looked over curiously, then deciphered the words. "Think, my friend, not stink," he corrected.

  "You stink him done it?"

  Propped on one elbow, Creeps snorted and looked away, his one-eyed gaze drifting about the fetid alley.

  With no answer apparently forthcoming, Tee-a-nicknick swatted Creeps Sharky hard across the back of his head.

  "What're you about?" the other pirate complained, trying to turn around but merely falling face down on the ground, then slowly rolling to his back to glare at his exotic half-qullan companion.

  "Morik done it?" Tee-a-nicknick asked. "Kill Deudermont?" Creeps coughed up a ball of phlegm and managed, with great effort, to move to a sitting position. "Bah," he snorted doubtfully. "Morik's a sneaky one, to be sure, but he's out of his pond with Deudermont. More likely the captain'll be taking that one down."

  "Ten thousand," Tee-a-nicknick said with great lament, for he and Creeps, in circulating the notion that Deudermont might be taken down before Sea Sprite ever left Luskan, had secured promises of nearly ten thousand gold pieces in bounty money, funds they knew the offering pirates would gladly pay for the completed deed. Creeps and Tee-a-nicknick had already decided that should Morik finish the task, they would pay him seven of the ten, keeping three for themselves.

  "I been thinking that maybe Morik'll set up Deudermont well enough," Creeps went on.

  "Might be that the little rat'll play a part without knowing he's playing it. If Deudermont's liking Morik's friend, then Deudermont might be letting down his guard a bit too much."

  "You stink we do it?" Tee-a-nicknick asked, sounding intrigued. Creeps eyed his friend. He chuckled at the half-qullan's continuing struggles with the language, though Tee-a-nicknick had been sailing with humans for most of his life, ever since he had been plucked from an island as a youth. His own people, the savage eight-foot-tall qullans were intolerant of mixed blood and had abandoned him as inferior.

  Tee-a-nicknick gave a quick blow, ending in a smile, and Creeps Sharky didn't miss the reference. No pirate in any sea could handle a certain weapon, a long hollow tube that the tattooed pirate called a blowgun, better than Tee-a-nicknick. Creeps had seen his friend shoot a fly from the rail from across a wide ship's deck. Tee-a-nicknick also had a substantial understanding of poisons, a legacy of his life with the exotic qullans, Creeps believed, to tip the cat's claws he sometimes used as blowgun missiles. Poisons human clerics could not understand and counter.

  One well-placed shot could make Creeps and Tee-a-nicknick wealthy men indeed, perhaps even wealthy enough to secure their own ship.

  "You got a particularly nasty poison for Mister Deudermont?" Creeps asked. The tattooed half-qullan smiled. "You stink we do it," he stated.

  *****

  Arumn Gardpeck sighed when he saw the damage done to the door leading to the guest wing of the Cutlass. The hinges had been twisted so that the door no longer stood straight within its jamb. Now it tilted and wouldn't even close properly.

  "A foul mood again," observed Josi Puddles, standing behind the tavernkeeper. "A foul mood today, a foul mood tomorrow. Always a foul mood for that one."

  Arumn ignored the man and moved along the hallway to the door of Delly Curtie's room. He put his ear against the wood and heard soft sobbing from within.

  "Pushed her out again," Josi spat. "Ah, the dog." Arumn glared at the little man, though his thoughts weren't far different. Josi's whining didn't shake the tavernkeeper in the least. He recognized that the man had developed a particular sore spot against Wulfgar, one based mostly on jealousy, the emotion that always seemed to rule Josi's actions. The sobs of Delly Curtie cut deeply into troubled Arumn, who had come to think of the girl as his own daughter. At first, he had been thrilled by the budding relationship between Delly and Wulfgar, despite the protests of Josi, who had been enamored of the girl for years. Now those protests seemed to hold a bit of truth in them, for Wulfgar's actions toward Delly of late had brought a bitter taste to Arumn's mouth.

  "He's costin' ye more than he's bringin' in," Josi went on, skipping to keep up with Arumn as the big man made his way determinedly toward Wulfgar's door at the end of the hall, "breakin' so much, and an honest fellow won't come into the Cutlass anymore. Too afraid to get his head busted."

  Arumn stopped at the door and turned pointedly on Josi. "Shut yer mouth," he instructed plainly and firmly. He turned back and lifted his hand as if to knock, but he changed his mind and pushed right through the door. Wulfgar lay sprawled on the bed, still in his clothes and smelling of liquor.

  "Always the drink," Arumn lamented. The sadness in his voice was indeed genuine, for despite all his anger at Wulfgar, Arumn couldn't dismiss his own responsibility in this situation. He had introduced the troubled barbarian to the bottle, but he hadn't recognized the depth of the big man's despair. The barkeep understood it now, the sheer desperation in Wulfgar to escape the agony of his recent past.

  "What're ye thinking to do?" Josi asked.

  Arumn ignored him and moved to the bed to give Wulfgar a rough shake. After a second, then a third shake the barbarian lifted his head and turned it to face Arumn, though his eyes were hardly open.

  "Ye're done here," Arumn said plainly and calmly, shaking Wulfgar again. "I cannot let ye do this to me place and me friends no more. Ye gather all yer things tonight and be on yer way, wherever that road might take ye, for I'm not wanting to see ye in the common room. I'll put a bag o' coins inside yer door to help ye get set up somewhere else. I'm owin' ye that much, at least."

  Wulfgar didn't respond.

  "Ye hearin' me?" Arumn asked.

  Wulfgar nodded and grumbled for Arumn to go away, a request heightened by a wave of the barbarian's arm, which, as sluggish as Wulfgar was, still easily and effectively pushed Arumn back from the bed.

  Another sigh, another shake of his head, and Arumn left. Josi Puddles spent a long moment studying the huge man on the bed and the room around him and particularly the magnificent warhammer resting against the wall in the far corner.

  *****

  "I owe it to him," Captain Deudermont said to Robillard, the two standing at the rail of the docked, nearly repaired Sea Sprite.

  "Because he once sailed with you?" the wizard asked skeptically.

  "More than sailed."

  "He performed a service for your vessel, true enough," Robillard reasoned, "but did you not reciprocate? You took him and his friends all the way to Memnon and back." Deudermont bowed his head in contemplation, then looked up at the wizard. "I owe it to him not out of any financial or business arrangement," he explained, "but because we became friends."

  "You hardly knew him."

  "But I know Drizzt Do'Urden and Catti-brie," Deudermont argued. "How many years did they sail with me? Do you deny our friendship?"

  "But-"

  "How can you so quickly deny my responsibility?" Deudermont asked.

  "He is neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie," Robillard replied.

  "No, but he is a dear friend of both and a man in great need."

  "Who doesn't want your help," finished the wizard.

  Deudermont bowed his head again, considering the words. They seemed true enough. Wulfgar had, indeed, denied his offers of help. Given the barbarian's state, the captain had to admit, privately, that chances were slim he could say or do anything to bring the big man from his downward spiral.

  "I must try," he said a moment later, not bothering to look up. Robillard didn't bother to argue the point. The wizard understood, from the captain's de
termined tone, that it was not his place to do so. He had been hired to protect Deudermont, and so he would do just that. Still, by his estimation, the sooner Sea Sprite was out of Luskan and far, far from this Wulfgar fellow, the better off they would all be.

  *****

  He was conscious of the sound of his breathing, gasping actually, for he was as scared as he had ever been. One slip, one inadvertent noise, would wake the giant, and he doubted any of the feeble explanations he'd concocted would save him then.

  Something greater than fear prodded Josi Puddles along. More than anything, he had come to hate this man. Wulfgar had taken Delly from him-from his fantasies, at least. Wulfgar had enamored himself of Arumn, replacing Josi at the tavernkeeper's side. Wulfgar could bring complete ruin to the Cutlass, the only home Josi Puddles had ever known. Josi didn't believe that the huge, wrathful barbarian would take Arumn's orders to leave without a fight, and Josi had seen enough of the brawling man to understand just how devastating that fight might become. Josi also understood that if it came to blows in the Cutlass, he would likely prove a prime target for Wulfgar's wrath.

  He cracked open the door. Wulfgar lay on the bed in almost exactly the same position as he had been when Josi and Arumn had come there two hours earlier.

  Aegis-fang leaned against the wall in the far corner. Josi shuddered at the sight, imagining the mighty warhammer spinning his way.

  The little man crept into the room and paused to consider the small bag of coins Arumn had left to the side of the door beside Wulfgar's bed. Drawing out a large knife, he put his fingertip to the barbarian's back, just under the shoulder-blade, feeling for a heartbeat, then replaced his fingertip with the tip of the knife. All he had to do was lean on it hard, he told himself. All he had to do was drive the knife through Wulfgar's heart, and his troubles would be at their end. The Cutlass would survive as it had before this demon had come to Luskan, and Delly Curtie would be his for the taking.