Passage to Dawn tlotd-4

by Robert Salvatore

  The captain looked to the drow ranger, and Drizzt could offer only a shrug in reply. "Come, and I will show you," Deudermont said, leading the wizard toward his cabin. "And I will get you some proper clothes to wear until your robes have dried."

  When the two were gone, Catti-brie, walked back over to her friend. Robillard stood not so far away, glaring at them both.

  "Pray we find no more pirates to fight until we can be rid of our cargo," the wizard said.

  "Harkle will try to help," Catti-brie replied.

  "Pray hard," Robillard muttered and walked away.

  "You should be more careful of what you say," Drizzt remarked to Catti-brie.

  "Could have been yer own voice just as well as me own," the young woman shot back. "And besides, Harkle did try to help in the fight."

  "It could as easily have been us he engulfed, in stream or in fire," Drizzt promptly reminded her.

  Catti-brie sighed and had no words to reply. They turned to the door of Deudermont's cabin, where the captain stood with Harkle, about to enter.

  "So that was the fog of fate you cast at our pirate friends, eh?" Deudermont asked, trying to sound impressed.

  "Huh?" Harkle answered. "That? Oh, no, no, that was a fireball. I am good at casting those!" The Harpell paused and lowered his eyes, following Deudermont inside. "Except that I aimed too low," Harkle admitted quietly.

  Catti-brie and Drizzt looked to each other, then to Robillard. "Pray," all three whispered in unison.

  *****

  Drizzt and Catti-brie dined privately with Deudermont that night, the captain seeming more animated than he had since they had put out from Waterdeep. The two friends tried to apologize for Harkle's arrival several times, but Deudermont brushed such thoughts away, even hinted that he was not so upset about the Harpell's arrival.

  Finally Deudermont sat back in his chair, wiped his neatly-groomed goatee with a satin napkin and stared hard at the two friends, who fell silent, understanding that the captain had something important to tell them.

  "We are not in this area by chance," Deudermont admitted bluntly.

  "And not going to Baldur's Gate," reasoned Drizzt, who had suspected all along. The Sea Sprite was supposedly running to Baldur's Gate, but Deudermont hadn't been careful about staying close to the coast, the more direct route, the safer route, and the route most likely to allow them to find and capture pirates.

  Again there ensued a long pause, as though the captain had to settle things in his own mind before admitting them openly. "We're turning west for Mintarn," Deudermont said.

  Catti-brie's jaw dropped open.

  "A free port," Drizzt reminded, and warned. The island of Mintarn had a well-earned reputation as a haven for pirates and other fugitives, a rough and tumble place. How might the Sea Sprite, the hunter of justice, be received in such a port?

  "A free port," Deudermont agreed. "Free for pirates and free for the Sea Sprite, in need of information."

  Drizzt didn't openly question the captain, but his doubting expression spoke volumes.

  "The Lords of Waterdeep have given the Sea Sprite over to me completely," Deudermont said, somewhat harshly. "She's my ship, under my word alone. I can take her to Mintarn, to the Moonshaes, all the way to Ruathym, if I so please, and let no one question me!"

  Drizzt sat back in his seat, stung by the harsh words and surprised that Deudermont, who had professed to be his friend, had so treated him as a subordinate.

  The captain winced openly at the sight of the drow's disappointment. "My pardon," he said quietly.

  Drizzt came forward in his seat, leaning his elbows on the table to bring himself closer to Deudermont. "Caerwich?" he asked.

  Deudermont eyed him directly. "The doppleganger spoke of Caerwich, and so to Caerwich I must go."

  "And do ye not think ye'll be sailing right into a trap?" Catti-brie put in. "Going right where they're wanting ye to go?"

  "Who?" Deudermont asked.

  "Whoever sent the doppleganger," Catti-brie reasoned.

  "Who?" Deudermont asked again.

  Catti-brie shrugged. "Pinochet?" she queried. "Or mighten it be some other pirate that's had his fill o' the Sea Sprite?"

  Deudermont leaned back in his seat again, as did Drizzt, all three sitting in silence for several long moments. "I cannot, nor do I believe that you can, continue to sail up and down the Sword Coast as though nothing at all has happened," the captain explained. Drizzt closed his lavender eyes, expecting this answer and agreeing with the logic. "Someone powerful, for doppleganger hirelings are neither common nor cheap, desires my demise and the end of the Sea Sprite, and I intend to find out who it might be. I've never run from a fight, nor has my crew, and any who are not prepared to go to Caerwich may disembark in Mintarn and catch a sail back to Waterdeep, paid by my own coffers."

  "Not a one will go," Catti-brie admitted.

  "Yet we do not even know if Caerwich truly exists," Drizzt remarked. "Many claim to have been there, but these are the tales of seagoing men, tales too often exaggerated by drink or by bluster."

  "So we must find out," Deudermont said with a tone of finality. Neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie, both willing to face trouble head-on, offered a word of disagreement. "Perhaps it is not such a bad thing that your wizard friend arrived," the captain went on. "Another wizard knowledgeable in the mystical arts might help us to sort through this mystery."

  Catti-brie and Drizzt exchanged doubtful looks; Captain Deudermont obviously didn't know Harkle Harpell! They said no more about it, though, and finished the meal discussing more pertinent matters of the everyday handling of the ship and crew. Deudermont wanted to go to Mintarn, so Drizzt and Catti-brie would follow.

  After the meal, the two friends strolled out onto the nearly-deserted deck of the schooner, walking under a canopy of brilliant stars.

  "Ye were relieved at the captain's tale," Catti-brie remarked.

  After a moment of surprise, Drizzt nodded.

  "Ye thought the attack in Waterdeep had to do with yerself, and not with Deudermont or the Sea Sprite," Catti-brie went on.

  The drow simply stood and listened, for, as usual, the perceptive young woman had hit his feelings exactly, had read him like an open book.

  "Ye'll always be fearing that every danger comes from yer home," Catti-brie said, moving to the rail and looking over at the reflection of the stars in the rolling waters.

  "I have made many enemies," Drizzt replied as he joined her.

  "Ye've left them buried in yer tracks," Catti-brie said with a laugh.

  Drizzt shared in that chuckle, and had to admit that she was right. This time, he believed, it wasn't about him. For several years now, he had been a player in the larger drama of the world. The personal element of the danger that had followed him every step since his initial departure from Menzoberranzan seemed a thing of the past. Now, under the stars and with Catti-brie beside him, thousands of miles and many years from Menzoberranzan, Drizzt Do'Urden felt truly free, and carefree. He did not fear the trip to Mintarn, or to any mysterious island beyond that, whatever the rumors of haunts might be. Never did Drizzt Do'Urden fear danger. He lived on the edge willingly, and if Deudermont was in trouble, then Drizzt was more than ready to take up his scimitars.

  As was Catti-brie, with her bow, Taulmaril, and the magnificent sword, Khazid'hea, always ready at her hip. As was Guenhwyvar, ever-faithful companion. Drizzt did not fear danger; only guilt could bend his stoic shoulders. This time, it seemed, he carried no guilt, no responsibility for the attack and for the Sea Sprite's chosen course. He was a player in Deudermont's drama, a willing player.

  He and Catti-brie basked in the wind and the spray, watched the stars silently for hours.

  Chapter 6 THE NOMADS

  Kierstaad, son of Revjak, knelt on the soft turf, his knee pocking the ground. He was not tall by the standards of the Icewind Dale nomads, barely topping six feet, and was not as muscular as most. His hair was long and blond, his eyes the color of the
sky on the brightest of days, and his smile, on those rare occasions that he displayed it, beamed from a warm soul.

  Across the flat tundra Kierstaad could see the snow-capped top of Kelvin's Cairn. It was the lone mountain in the thousand square miles of the land called Icewind Dale, the windswept strip of tundra between the Sea of Moving Ice and the northwestern spur of the Spine of the World mountains. If he were to move but a few miles toward the mountain, Kierstaad knew that he would see the tips of the masts of the fishing ships sailing Lac Dinneshere, second largest of the three lakes in the region.

  A few miles to a different world, Kierstaad realized. He was just a boy, really, having seen only seventeen winters. But in that time, Kierstaad had witnessed more of the Realms and of life than most in the world would ever know. He had traveled with

  many warriors to the call of Wulfgar, from Icewind Dale to a place called Settlestone, far, far away. He'd celebrated his ninth birthday on the road, removed from his family. At the age of eleven, the young barbarian lad had battled goblins, kobolds, and drow elves, fighting beside Berkthgar the Bold, leader of Settle-stone. It was Berkthgar who had decided that the time had come for the barbarian peoples to return to Icewind Dale-their ancestral home-and the ways of their forebears.

  Kierstaad had seen so much, had lived two different lives, it seemed, in two different worlds. Now he was a nomad, a hunter out on the open tundra, approaching his eighteenth birthday and his first solitary hunt. Looking at Kelvin's Cairn, though, and knowing of the fishing ships on Lac Dinneshere, on Maer Dualdon to the west, and on Redwaters to the south, Kierstaad realized how narrow his existence had truly become, and how much wider was the world-a world just a few short miles from where he now knelt. He could picture the markets in Bryn Shander, the largest of the ten towns surrounding the lakes. He could imagine the multicolored garments, the jewels, the excitement, as the merchant caravans rolled in with the spring, the southerners bartering for the fine scrimshaw carved from the head bone of the three lakes' abundant knucklehead trout.

  Kierstaad's own garments were brown, like the tundra, like the reindeer he and his people hunted, like the tents they lived in.

  Still, the young man's sigh was not a lament for what was lost to him, but rather a resignation that this was now his way, the way of his ancestors. There was a simple beauty to it, Kierstaad had to admit, a toughness, too, that hardened the body and the soul. Kierstaad was a young man, but he was wise beyond his years. A family trait, so it was said, for Kierstaad's father, Revjak, had led the unified tribes after Wulfgar's departure. Calm and always in control, Revjak hadn't left Icewind Dale to go to war in Mithril Hall, explaining that he was too old and set in his ways. Revjak had stayed on with the majority of the barbarian people, solidifying the alliance between the nomadic tribes, and also strengthening the ties with the folk of Ten-Towns.

  Revjak hadn't been surprised, but was pleased at the return of Berkthgar, of Kierstaad-his youngest child-and of all the others. Still, with that return came many questions concerning the future of the nomadic tribes and the leadership of the barbarian people. "More blood?" came a question, drawing the young man from his contemplations. Kierstaad turned to see the other hunters, Berkthgar among them, moving up behind him.

  Kierstaad nodded and pointed to the red splotch on the brown ground. Berkthgar had speared a reindeer, a fine throw from a great distance, but only had wounded the beast, and it had taken flight. Always efficient, particularly when dealing with this animal that gave to them so very much, the hunters had rushed in pursuit. They would not wound an animal to let it die unclaimed. That was not their way. It was, according to Berkthgar, "the wasting way of the men who lived in Ten-Towns, or who lived south of the Spine of the World."

  Berkthgar walked up beside the kneeling young man, the tall leader locking his own stare on distant Kelvin's Cairn. "We must catch up to the beast soon," Berkthgar stated. "If it gets too close to the valley, the dwarves will steal it."

  There were a few nods of agreement and the hunting party started off at a swift pace. Kierstaad lagged behind this time, his steps weighed by his leader's words. Ever since they had left Settlestone, Berkthgar had spoken ill of the dwarves, the folk who had been their friends and allies, Bruenor's folk, who had fought in a war of good cause beside the barbarians. What had happened to the cheers of victory? His most vivid memory of the short couple of years in Settlestone was not of the drow war, but of the celebration that had followed, a time of great fellowship between the dwarves, the curious svirfneblin, and the warriors who had joined in the cause from several of the surrounding villages.

  How had that all changed so dramatically? Barely a week on the road out of Settlestone, the story of the barbarian existence there had begun to change. The good times were no longer spoken of, replaced by tales of tragedy and hardship, of the barbarians lowering their spirits to menial tasks not fit for the Tribe of the Elk, or the Tribe of the Bear, or any of the ancestral tribes. Such talk had continued all the way around the Spine of the World, all the way back to Icewind Dale, and then, gradually, it had died away.

  Now, with rumors that the several score of the dwarves had returned to Icewind Dale, Berkthgar's critical remarks had begun anew. Kierstaad understood the source. The rumors said that Bruenor Battlehammer himself, the Eighth King of Mithril Hall, had returned. Shortly after the drow war, Bruenor had given the throne back over to his ancestor, Gandalug, Patron of Clan Battlehammer, who had returned from centuries of magical imprisonment at the hands of the drow elves. Even at the height of their alliance, relations between Berkthgar and Bruenor had been strained, for Bruenor had been the adoptive father of Wulfgar, the man who stood tallest in the barbarians' legends. Bruenor had forged mighty Aegis-fang, the warhammer which, in the hands of Wulfgar, had become the most honored weapon of all the tribes.

  But then, with Wulfgar gone, Bruenor would not give Aegis-fang over to Berkthgar.

  Even after his heroic exploits in the battle of Keeper's Dale against the drow, Berkthgar had remained in Wulfgar's shadow. It seemed to perceptive Kierstaad, that the leader had embarked on a campaign to discredit Wulfgar, to convince his proud people that Wulfgar was wrong, that Wulfgar was not a strong leader, that he was even a traitor to his people and their gods. Their old life, so said Berkthgar, one of roaming the tundra and living free of any bonds, was the better way.

  Kierstaad liked his life on the tundra, and wasn't certain that he disagreed with Berkthgar's observations concerning which was the more honorable lifestyle. But the young man had grown up admiring Wulfgar, and Berkthgar's words about the dead leader did not sit well with him.

  Kierstaad looked to Kelvin's Cairn as he ran along the soft, spongy ground, and wondered if the rumors were true. Had the dwarves returned, and if so, was King Bruenor with them?

  And if he was, could it be possible that he brought with him Aegis-fang, that most powerful of warhammers?

  Kierstaad felt a tingle at that thought, but it was lost a moment later when Berkthgar spotted the wounded reindeer and the hunt was on in full.

  * * * * *

  "Rope!" Bruenor bellowed, hurling to the floor the twine the shopkeeper had offered him. "Thick as me arm, ye durned orc-brain! Ye thinking that I'm to hold up a tunnel with that?"

  The flustered shopkeeper scooped up the twine and rambled away, grumbling with every step.

  Standing at Bruenor's left, Regis gave the dwarf a scowl.

  "What?" demanded the red-bearded dwarf, leaping to face the portly halfling directly. There weren't many people that the four-and-a-half foot dwarf could look down on, but Regis was one of them.

  Regis ran both his plump hands through his curly brown hair and chuckled. "It is good that your coffers run deep," the halfling said, not afraid of blustery Bruenor in the least. "Otherwise Maboyo would throw you out into the street."

  "Bah!" the dwarf snorted, straightening his lopsided, one-horned helmet as he turned away. "He's needing the business. I got mines to reopen, an
d that's meaning gold for Maboyo."

  "Good thing," Regis muttered.

  "Keep flapping yer lips," Bruenor warned.

  Regis looked up curiously, his expression one of blank amazement.

  "What?" Bruenor insisted, turning to face him.

  "You saw me," Regis breathed. "And you just saw me again."

  Bruenor started to reply, but the words got caught in his throat. Regis was standing on Bruenor's left, and Bruenor had lost his left eye in a fight in Mithril Hall. After the war between Mithril Hall and Menzoberranzan, one of the most powerful priests of Silverymoon had cast healing spells over Bruenor's face, which was scarred from forehead, down diagonally across the eye, to the left side of his jaw. The wound was an old one by that point, and the cleric had predicted that his work would do little more than cosmetic repair. Indeed, it took several months for a new eye to appear, deep within the folds of the scar, and some time after that for the orb to grow to full size.

  Regis pulled Bruenor closer. Unexpectedly, the halfling covered Bruenor's right eye with one hand, pointed a finger of his other hand, and jabbed it at the dwarfs left eye.

  Bruenor jumped and caught the poking hand.

  "You can see!" the halfling exclaimed.

  Bruenor grabbed Regis in a tight hug, even swung him completely about. It was true, the dwarf's sight had returned in his left eye!

  Several other patrons in the store watched the emotional outburst, and as soon as Bruenor became aware of their stares, and even worse, their smiles, he dropped Regis roughly back to the floor.

  Maboyo arrived then, his arms full with a coil of heavy rope. "Will this meet your desires?" he asked.

  "It's a start," Bruenor roared at him, the dwarf turning suddenly sour again. "I need another thousand feet."

  Maboyo stared at him.

  "Now!" Bruenor roared. "Ye get me the rope or I'm out for Luskan with enough wagons to keep me and me kin supplied for a hunnerd years!"

  Maboyo stared a moment longer, then gave up and headed for his storeroom. He had known the dwarf meant to clean him out of many items as soon as Bruenor had entered his store with a heavy purse. Maboyo liked to dole out supplies slowly, over time, making each purchase seem precious and extracting as much gold from the customer as possible. Bruenor, the toughest bargainer this side of the mountains, didn't play that game.