“Perhaps that is what makes Port Llast attractive then,” said Drizzt. “A sense of loyalty and friendship and common cause. Community is no small thing.”
Dorwyllan grew serious as he explained, “It will take more than that to displace others that they might come to join in this community, don’t you think? The quarry, the reason for the founding of the city in the first place, is not nearly as rich now, with most of the valuable stones and metals already taken. It can supply some trade, likely, but not enough to support any sizable city.
“The tides no longer favor Port Llast,” he went on, and he nodded out to the west, to the sea. “The changes after the Spellplague have greatly reduced Port Llast’s position as a vibrant seaport, and with Neverwinter rebuilding and Luskan to the north, I do not see the advantage of trying to strengthen the port in any significant way.”
“Perhaps you should campaign to be chosen as mayor of the town,” Afafrenfere remarked sarcastically. “Your words have convinced me to stay.”
“Grim truth, spoken among those who have earned the truth,” Dorwyllan replied. “There is trade and some profit to be found in the sea, if we can drive off the minions of Umberlee. Plentiful food, and some considered delicacies, and rightly so. But Neverwinter and Luskan and Waterdeep can all claim the same, so I am at a loss to understand what might lure enough people to Port Llast to secure our land and attempt to return the city to any sort of prosperity.”
“For those who already have community, I would agree,” said Drizzt.
“If you are speaking of your troupe here, then know that—” Dorwyllan started to reply, but Dahlia cut him short.
“Stuyles,” she said, figuring it all out. “You’re talking about farmer Stuyles. And Meg, the woman on the farm outside of Luskan. And the fool butcher who almost cut off my foot!”
“He was trying to save you,” Drizzt quietly reminded her.
“Might be tasty,” Ambergris added lightheartedly, and Afafrenfere giggled.
Dorwyllan wore a perplexed expression.
“The castoffs,” Drizzt explained to the elf. “Those who farmed the regions outside of Luskan, and under the protection of Luskan before the City of Sails fell to disrepair.”
“That was a century ago,” Dorwyllan said.
“The rot was longer in spreading from Luskan’s walls,” Drizzt said. “The farms became less important to the pirates, and so Luskan grew more likely to send forth raiders than a protective militia. But some of the folk outside the city remain in their ancient homes, though they are sorely pressed, and with nowhere else to go.”
“And some are on the roads around your own village,” Dahlia added.
Drizzt glared at her, but that only made Dahlia grin.
“On the roads?” Dorwyllan asked, and his tone showed Drizzt that he had not missed the silent exchange between Drizzt and Dahlia. “Refugees? There are no refugees. Or do you mean highwaymen?”
“Given what you’re asking, they deserve the truth,” Dahlia stated before Drizzt could formulate an appropriately diplomatic response. Again he cast a glance her way, trying to look more disappointed this time.
“They live in the wilderness,” Drizzt explained. “They are not bad sorts, but surely desperate ones, former farmers, former craftsmen, cast to the wilds by the entrenched powers of the Sword Coast. Luskan used to protect these communities, but now the high captains view them with indifference at best, or even as enemies, and to these desperate folk, the high captains are regarded no more highly than orc bosses.”
“I cannot disagree with that assessment,” Dorwyllan remarked.
“Then you understand?”
“Highwaymen? I would shoot them dead if I encountered them on the road with little consequences of guilt.”
“So I thought of myself,” Drizzt said dryly. “And yet, when I had the chance to punish them, I did not, and when I did not, I came to understand the deeper truth behind this particular group of desperate folk.”
“They could have gone to Neverwinter, you understand?” Dorwyllan said. “The settlers of that town seek additional citizens almost as desperately as we do here in Port Llast.”
“The Shadovar were there, with the Thayans lurking around the forest.”
“Now you are merely making excuses.”
Drizzt nodded solemnly. “They are in need of a home, and you are in need of citizens. Capable citizens, which these folk have proven themselves to be by the mere fact that they and their families have survived the wilds of the Sword Coast without the benefits of walls and garrisons. Do I go to them, or not?”
“I don’t speak for Port Llast.”
“Don’t play such semantic games with me.”
Dorwyllan let his gaze drift to the right, overlooking the still mostly empty city, the new wall, and the threatening sea beyond.
“I will say nothing of this conversation,” the elf quietly remarked.
When Drizzt glanced at Dahlia this time, he was the one wearing the smile.
“Need I remind you that the last time we dealt with Farmer Stuyles, we wound up in a desperate battle in the forest against a legion devil and its minions?” Dahlia asked when Dorwyllan had departed.
“Ah, but that’s not soundin’ good,” Ambergris remarked.
Entreri snickered, drawing Drizzt’s gaze, and when he had it, the assassin pointedly shook his head and looked away.
“Stuyles and the others knew nothing about Hadencourt’s true identity,” Drizzt argued.
“You have to believe that, don’t you?” said Dahlia, and she snorted derisively.
The drow’s smile was no more, even though he believed his claims. These two, ever cynical, would not allow him to hold fast to hope. In their cynical view of the world, he was a foolish idealist, unable to face the harsh realities of life in the shadowy Realms.
It occurred to Drizzt that they could be right, of course. In fact, hadn’t that been the very weight he had been dragging along like a heavy chain around his ankles for years now, back far before Bruenor’s death, even?
“No,” he heard himself replying to Dahlia. He stood up from his seat, painted a determined expression on his face, and spoke clearly and loudly and with all confidence. “I say that because I know it to be almost certainly true.”
“Because the world is full of good people?”
Drizzt nodded. “Most,” he answered. “And forcing them into untenable choices is no way to measure morality. Stuyles and his band do not hunger for blood, but for food.”
“Unless there are more devils among them,” Dahlia interrupted. “Have you considered that possibility?”
“No,” Drizzt replied, but it wasn’t so much an admission as a denial of the entire premise.
Dahlia moved as if to respond, but chortled and looked to Entreri instead, and Drizzt, too, found himself turning to regard the assassin.
Entreri looked away from Dahlia and returned that look to Drizzt, and he nodded his support to Drizzt, albeit slightly.
“I could have killed you all,” Effron pointed out to the four battered and reeling highwaymen. “Be reasonable.”
“Ye put spiders under me skin!” said one man, the archer who had nearly killed Effron with the first shot.
Effron looked at him and grinned wickedly. “Are you sure you got them all out? Or are others even now laying their eggs?”
The man’s eyes widened in horror and he began scratching and rubbing his skin raw, as much as possible given the bindings Effron had placed upon all four, tying them together, back-to-back. The man’s frantic shuffling had his companion to either side shoving back with annoyance, to Effron’s great amusement.
“Not funny,” the woman insisted, wisps of black smoke still wafting from her clothing.
“You attacked me,” Effron replied. “Does that not matter? Am I to apologize for not allowing you to murder me?”
“We weren’t meaning to murder anyone!” the woman insisted.
Effron nodded at the frantic, w
hining archer. “His first shot would have slain me had I not come prepared with magical defenses.”
“He’s not so good a shot, then,” said one of the larger thugs.
“Just supposed to scare you,” the woman said.
“You would do well, then, to hire better archers. For this fool has surely doomed you.” Effron paused there and walked around to directly face the woman, who seemed the leader of the band, striking a pensive pose with the index finger of his good hand against his pursed lips. “Unless—” he teased.
“What do you want?” the woman demanded. “You already have our gear and our few coins.”
“Which I will happily give back,” the twisted warlock explained, “if you let me join your band.”
“Join?”
“Is that too difficult a concept for you to grasp?”
“You want to join in with us?”
Effron sighed profoundly.
“Why?”
“Why?” Effron echoed, then realized that he was acting much like the fool sitting before him. “I am without companionship in a land I do not know. I have no home and it is winter. I could have killed each of you—I still can do so, and quite easily—but to what gain? None to you, obviously, and merely a pleasurable diversion for me. Practically speaking, I am much better off with companions who know the lay of the land.”
“You’re a half-devil Shadovar, and a magic-user,” said the thug.
“Do you doubt my potential value?”
“But why?” asked the woman. “Surely you’ve got better opportunities before you.”
Effron laughed. “I don’t even know where I am. So take me in. You will find that my skills will help you with your little roadside endeavors, at the least.”
The woman started to answer, but bit back the response and looked past Effron, cueing him in to the new arrivals before one of them even spoke.
“It is not her call to make,” said a man’s voice.
Effron turned around to see a group moving into position all about, forming a semicircle around him and the captives.
“Ah, so you have friends,” he said to the woman.
“They’re going to kill ye to death!” the archer insisted.
Effron turned to him, grinned, and said, “The spiders will still be in there.”
The man whimpered and went back to his frantic scratching and jostling.
“You move away from them, then, and we’ll hear you out,” said the newcomer, a middle-aged man of considerable girth and a ruddy and grizzled appearance, stubbles of white and gray beard roughening up his heavily-jowled face.
Effron looked at the group and snorted, as if they hardly mattered to the equation.
“If you move aside from them, I guarantee your safety here,” the man said.
“Do you think that matters?” Effron replied. “I assure you that I’m not in any danger, whether I walk away from them or slay them where they sit.”
The man stared hard at him.
“But I’ll not slay them, of course! I did not come here to make enemies, but to find a place, for I fear that I have none. I admit it, I am an outlaw, banished from the Shadowfell because I do not much enjoy the workings of the Empire of Netheril,” he improvised, taking an educated guess that the Empire of Netheril wasn’t much appreciated by this band of highwaymen. “Had I remained, they would have probably killed me, or thrown me into a dungeon, and I found neither option appealing.” He looked over at the four prisoners. “Would you have me then?” he asked of the newcomers. “You heard my request of your companions. Do I not deserve at least a trial for the mercy I have shown this group? I would have been well within my rights by the law of this or any other land to slay them on the road and continue on my way, after all. They attacked me, not the other way around. And yet, look, they live.”
“Just kill him!” the thrashing archer said.
Effron laughed. “Next time, aim better!” he answered the man. “Either kill your foe or, if it is your intent to miss, then actually miss, that I might have seen your shot as a warning and not a lethal attack. And do quit scratching. There are no more spiders.”
The poor man didn’t know which way to turn, so it seemed, and still he squirmed and still he whimpered.
The grizzled leader and his companions conferred privately for a moment, then he came forward to Effron, his hand extended. “Stuyles, at your service,” he said. “You can put up your tent with us for the winter, at least. A sorry band of ne’er-do-wells we’d be to throw out one wandering the roads alone.”
Effron took the man’s hand and gave a weak shake. He started to offer his name, but bit it back. Only for a moment, though, as he realized that he had nothing to lose by offering his real name, since his unique appearance alone would surely scream out his identity to anyone learning of him.
“Farmer Stuyles!” Drizzt called every few strides. He rode down the path upon Andahar, the unicorn’s magical bell barding singing gaily and bringing some brightness to the overcast sky, clouds heavy with snow. Beside him rode Entreri, astride his nightmare. The assassin hadn’t said much in the two days since they’d left Port Llast, but neither had he complained, and to Drizzt, that alone spoke volumes. Entreri’s silent nod to him back in the city had been an affirmation of Drizzt’s plan.
Directly behind the pair rambled a wagon, borrowed from Port Llast and pulled by a pair of strong mules. Ambergris drove with Afafrenfere sitting beside her and Dahlia half sat, half stood on a pile of sacks full of seafood. They had come bearing gifts, but even in the cold weather, Drizzt feared that the food wouldn’t stay fresh long enough to be of use to anyone.
“Farmer Stuyles!” Drizzt yelled again. “Are you about, man? I come bearing—”
“Ye best be holdin’ right there!” a low, rumbling voice called back to him.
Drizzt and Entreri pulled up and Ambergris stopped the wagon.
“These your friends?” Entreri quietly asked.
Drizzt shrugged.
“Leave the wagon and your pretty mounts and start walkin’ back the way ye come,” the voice roared.
“I expect not, then,” said Entreri.
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, i
t 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.
The Last Threshold: Neverwinter Saga, Book IV Page 16
