The pirate ship nearly stood straight up on end. The fireball was beyond anything Harkle, or even Robillard, had ever seen, and the sheer concussion and flying debris nearly cleaned the Sea Sprite's deck of standing crewmen, and tore many holes in the schooner's lateen sails.
The Sea Sprite lurched wildly, left and right, before Deudermont could regain his senses and steady the wheel. But she plowed on, leaving the trap behind.
"By the gods," Catti-brie muttered, truly horrified, for where the pirate square-rigger had been, there was now only flotsam and jetsam, splinters, charred wood, and floating bodies.
Drizzt, too, was stunned. Looking on the carnage, he thought he was previewing the end of the world. He had never seen such devastation, such complete carnage, not even from a powerful wizard. Enough smokepowder could flatten a mountain, or a city. Enough smokepowder could flatten all the world.
"Smokepowder?" he said to Harkle.
"From Gondish priests," the wizard replied.
"Damn them all," muttered Drizzt, and he walked away.
Later that day, as the crew worked to repair the tears in the sails, Drizzt and Catti-brie took a break and leaned on the rail of the schooner's bow, looking down at the empty water and considering the great distance they had yet to travel.
Finally Catti-brie couldn't stand the suspense any longer. "Did ye beat him?" she asked.
Drizzt looked at her curiously, as though he didn't understand.
"His tyrancy," Catti-brie explained.
"I brought the map," Drizzt replied, "and the chest, though it was lost."
"Ah, but Dunkin promised it whether ye won or lost," the young woman said slyly.
Drizzt looked at her. "The contest was never important," he said. "Not to me."
"Did ye win or lose?" Catti-brie pressed, not willing to let the drow slip out of this one.
"Sometimes it is better to allow so important a leader and valuable an ally to retain his pride and his reputation," Drizzt replied, looking back to the sea, then to the mizzenmast, where a crewman was calling for some assistance.
"Ye let him beat ye?" Catti-brie asked, not seeming pleased by that prospect.
"I never said that," Drizzt replied.
"So he beat ye on his own," the young woman reasoned.
Drizzt shrugged as he walked away toward the mizzenmast to help out the crewman. He passed by Harkle and Robillard, who were coming forward, apparently meaning to join Drizzt and Catti-brie at the rail.
Catti-brie continued to stare at the drow as the wizards walked up. The woman did not know what to make of Drizzt's cryptic answers. Drizzt had let Tarnheel win, she figured, or at least had allowed the man to fight him to a draw. For some reason the young woman did not understand, she didn't want to think that Tarnheel had actually beaten Drizzt; she didn't want to think that anyone could beat Drizzt.
Both Robillard and Harkle were smiling widely as they considered the young woman's expression.
"Drizzt beat him," Robillard said at last.
Startled, Catti-brie turned to the wizard.
"That is what you were wondering about," Robillard reasoned.
"We watched it all," Harkle said. "Oh, of course we did. A good match." Harkle went into a fighting crouch, his best imitation of Drizzt in combat, which of course seemed a mockery to Catti-brie. "He started left," Harkle began, making the move, "then ran to the right so quickly and smoothly that Tarnheel never realized it."
"Until he got hit," Robillard interjected. "His tyrancy was still swinging forward, attacking a ghost, I suppose."
That made sense to Catti-brie; the move they had just described was called "the ghost step."
"He learned better, he did!" howled Harkle.
"Suffice it to say that his tyrancy will not be sitting down anytime soon," Robillard finished, and the two wizards exploded into laughter, as animated as Catti-brie had ever seen Robillard.
The young woman went back to the rail as the two walked away, howling still. Catti-brie was smiling too. She now knew the truth of Drizzt's claims that the fight wasn't important to him. She'd make certain that she teased the drow about it in the days to come. She also was smiling because Drizzt had won.
For some reason, that was very important to Catti-brie.
Chapter 8 SEA TALK
Repairs continued on the Sea Sprite for two days, preventing her from putting up her sails in full. Even so, with the strong breeze rushing down from the north, the swift schooner made fine speed southward, her sails full of wind. In just over three days, she ran the four hundred miles from Mintarn to the southeasternmost point of the great Moonshae Isles, and Deudermont turned her to the west, due west, for the open sea, running just off the southern coast of the Moonshaes.
"We'll run for two days with the Moonshaes in sight," Deudermont informed the crew.
"Are you not making for Corwell?" Dunkin Tallmast, who always seemed to be asking questions, was quick to interrupt. "I think I should like to be let off at Corwell. A beautiful city, by all accounts." The little man's cavalier attitude was diminished considerably when he began tugging at his ear, that nervous tick that revealed his trepidation.
Deudermont ignored the pesty man. "If the wind holds, tomorrow, mid-morning, we'll pass a point called Dragon Head," he
explained. "Then we'll cross a wide harbor and put in at a village, Wyngate, for our last provisions. Then it's the open sea, twenty days out, I figure, twice that without the wind."
The seasoned crew understood it would be a difficult journey, but they bobbed their heads in accord, not a word of protest from the lot of them-with one exception.
"Wyngate?" Dunkin protested. "Why, I'll be a month in just getting out of the place!"
"Whoever said that you were leaving?" Deudermont asked him. "We shall put you off where we choose … after we return."
That shut the man up, or at least changed his train of thought, for before Deudermont could get three steps away, Dunkin shouted at him. "If you return, you mean!" he called. "You have lived along the Sword Coast all your stinking life. You know the rumors, Deudermont."
The captain turned slowly, ominously, to face the man. Both were quite conscious of the murmurs Dunkin's words had caused, a ripple of whispers all across the schooner's deck.
Dunkin did not look at Deudermont directly, but scanned the deck, his wry smile widening as he considered the suddenly nervous crew. "Ah," he moaned suspiciously. "You haven't told them."
Deudermont didn't blink.
"You wouldn't be leading them to an island of legend without telling them all of the legend?" Dunkin asked in sly tones.
"The man enjoys intrigue," Catti-brie whispered to Drizzt.
"He enjoys trouble," Drizzt whispered back.
Deudermont spent a long moment studying Dunkin, the captain's stern gaze gradually stealing the little man's stupid grin. Then Deudermont looked to Drizzt-he always looked to Drizzt when he needed support-and to Catti-brie, and neither seemed to care much for Dunkin's ominous words. Bolstered by their confidence, the captain turned to Harkle, who seemed distracted, as usual, as though he hadn't even heard the conversation. The rest of the crew, at least those near to the wheel, had heard, and Deudermont noted more than one nervous movement among them.
"Tell us what?" Robillard asked bluntly. "What is the great mystery of Caerwich?"
"Ah, Captain Deudermont," Dunkin said with a disappointed sigh.
"Caerwich," Deudermont began calmly, "may be no more than a legend. Few claim to have been there, for it is far, far away from any civilized lands."
"That much, we already know," Robillard remarked. "But if it is just a legend and we sail empty waters until we are forced to return, then that bodes no ill for the Sea Sprite. What is it that this insignificant worm hints at?"
Deudermont looked hard at Dunkin, wanting at that moment to throttle the man. "Some of those who have been there," the captain began, choosing his words carefully, "claim that they witnessed unusual visions."
"Haunted!" Dunkin interrupted dramatically. "Caerwich is a haunted island," he proclaimed, dancing around to cast a wild-eyed stare at each of the crewmen near to him. "Ghost ships and witches!"
"Enough," Drizzt said to the man.
"Shut yer mouth," Catti-brie added.
Dunkin did shut up, but he returned the young woman's stare with a superior look, thinking he had won the day.
"They are rumors," Deudermont said loudly. "Rumors I would have told you when we reached Wyngate, but not before." The captain paused and looked around once more, this time his expression begging friendship and loyalty from the men who had been with him so very long. "I would have told you," he insisted, and everyone aboard, except perhaps for Dunkin, believed him.
"This sail is not for Waterdeep, nor against any pirates," Deudermont went on. "It is for me, something I must do because of the incident on Dock Street. Perhaps the Sea Sprite sails into trouble, perhaps to answers, but I must go, whatever the outcome. I would not force any of you to go along. You signed on to chase pirates, and in that regard, you have been the finest crew any captain could wish for."
Again came a pause, a long one, with the captain alternately meeting the gaze of each man, and of Catti-brie and Drizzt, last of all.
"Any who do not wish to sail to Caerwich may disembark at Wyngate," Deudermont offered. It was an extraordinary offer that widened the eyes of every crewman. "You will be paid for your time aboard the Sea Sprite, plus a bonus from my personal coffers. When we return. ."
"If you return," Dunkin put in, but Deudermont simply ignored the troublemaker.
"When we return," Deudermont said again, more firmly, "we will pick you up at Wyngate. There will be no questions of loyalty asked, and no retribution by any who voyaged to Caerwich."
Robillard snorted. "Is not every island haunted?" he asked with a laugh. "If a sailor were to believe every whispered rumor, he'd not dare sail the Sword Coast at all. Sea monsters off of Waterdeep! Coiled serpents of Ruathym! Pirates of the Nelanther!"
"That last one's true enough!" one sailor piped in, and everyone gave a hearty laugh.
"So it is!" Robillard replied. "Seems some of the rumors might be true."
"And if Caerwich is haunted?" another sailor asked.
"Then we'll dock in the morning," Waillan answered, hanging over the rail of the poop deck, "and put out in the afternoon."
"And leave the night for the ghosts!" yet another man finished, again to hearty laughter.
Deudermont was truly appreciative, especially to Robillard, from whom the captain had never expected such support. When the roll was subsequently called, not a single one of the Sea Sprite's crew meant to get off at Wyngate.
Dunkin listened to it all in sheer astonishment. He kept trying to put in some nasty flavoring to the rumors of haunted Caerwich, tales of decapitation and the like, but he was shouted or laughed down every time.
Neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie was surprised by the unanimous support for Deudermont. The Sea Sprite's crew, they both knew, had been together long enough to become true friends. These two companions had enough experience with friendship to understand loyalty.
"Well, I mean to get off at Wyngate," a flustered Dunkin said at last. "I'll not follow any man to haunted Caerwich."
"Who ever offered you such a choice?" Drizzt asked him.
"Captain Deudermont just said …" Dunkin started, turning to Deudermont and pointing an accusing finger the captain's way. The words stuck in his throat, though, for Deudermont's sour expression explained that the offer wasn't meant for him.
"You cannot keep me here!" Dunkin protested. "I am the emissary of his tyrancy. I should have been released in Mintarn."
"You would have been killed in Mintarn Harbor," Drizzt reminded him.
"You will be released in Mintarn," Deudermont promised.
Dunkin knew what that meant.
"When we might have a proper inquiry as to your part in the attempted ambush of the Sea Sprite," Deudermont went on.
"I did nothing!" Dunkin cried, tugging his ear.
"It is convenient that so soon after you informed me that Drizzt's presence aboard the Sea Sprite was preventing any pirate attacks, you arranged to take Drizzt from our decks," Deudermont said.
"I was almost killed by that very ambush!" Dunkin roared in protest. "If I had known that the scalawags were after you, I never would have rowed out into the harbor."
Deudermont looked to Drizzt.
"True enough," the drow admitted.
Deudermont paused a moment, then nodded. "I find you innocent," he said to Dunkin, "and agree to return you to Mintarn after our journey to Caerwich."
"You will pick me back up at Wyngate, then," Dunkin reasoned, but Deudermont shook his head.
"Too far," the captain replied. "None of my crew will disembark at Wyngate. And now that I must return to Mintarn, I will return from Caerwich by a northerly route, passing north of the Moonshaes."
"Then let me off at Wyngate and I'll find a way to meet you in a northern town of the Moonshaes," Dunkin offered.
"Which northern town?" Deudermont asked him.
Dunkin had no answers.
"If you wish to leave, you may get off at Wyngate," Deudermont offered. "But I cannot guarantee your passage back to Mintarn from there." With that, Deudermont turned and walked to his cabin. He entered without looking back, leaving a frustrated Dunkin standing droop-shouldered by the wheel.
"With your knowledge of Caerwich, you will be a great asset to us," Drizzt said to the man, patting him on the shoulder. "Your presence would be appreciated."
"Ah, come along then," Catti-brie added. "Ye'll find a bit o' adventure and a bit o' friendship. What more could ye be asking for?"
Drizzt and Catti-brie walked away, exchanging hopeful smiles.
"I am new to this, too," Harkle Harpell offered to Dunkin. "But I am sure that it will be fun." Smiling, bobbing his head stupidly, the dimpled wizard bounded away.
Dunkin moved to the rail, shaking his head. He did like the Sea Sprite, he had to admit. Orphaned at a young age, Dunkin had taken to sea as a boy and had subsequently spent the bulk of his next twenty years as a hand on pirate vessels, working among the most ruthless scalawags on the Sword Coast. Never had he seen a ship so full of comradery, and their escape from the pirate ambush in Mintarn had been positively thrilling.
He had been nothing but a complaining fool over the last few days, and Deudermont had to know of his past, or at least to suspect that Dunkin had done some pirating in his day. Yet the captain was not treating him as a prisoner, and, by the words of the dark elf, they actually wanted him to go along to Caerwich.
Dunkin leaned over the rail, took note of a school of bottle-nosed dolphins dancing in the prow waves and lost himself in thought.
* * * * *
"You're thinking about them again," came a voice behind the sullen dwarf. It was the voice of Regis, the voice of a friend.
Bruenor didn't answer. He stood on a high spot along the rim of the dwarven valley, four miles south of Kelvin's Cairn, a place known as Bruenor's Climb. This was the dwarf king's place of reflection. Though this column of piled stones was not high above the flat tundra, barely fifty feet up, every time he climbed the steep and narrow trail it seemed to Bruenor as though he was ascending to the very stars.
Regis huffed and puffed as he clambered up the last twenty feet to stand beside his bearded friend. "I do love it up here at night," the halfling remarked. "But there will not be much night in another month!" he continued happily, trying to bring a smile to Bruenor's face. His observation was true enough. Far, far in the north, Icewind Dale's summer days were long indeed, but only a few hours of sun graced the winter sky.
"Not a lot o' time up here," Bruenor agreed. "Time I'm wantin' to spend alone." He turned to Regis as he spoke, and even in the darkness, the halfling could make out the scowling visage.
Regis knew the truth of that expression. Bruenor was more bark than bite.
"You would not be happy up here alone," the halfling countered. "You would think of Drizzt and Catti-brie, and miss them as much as I miss them, and then you would be a veritable growling yeti in the morning. I cannot have that, of course," the half-ling said, waggling a finger in the air. "In fact, a dozen dwarves begged me to come out here and keep up your cheer."
Bruenor huffed, but had no reasonable response. He turned away from Regis, mostly because he did not want the halfling to see the hint of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. In the six years since Drizzt and Catti-brie had gone away, Regis had become Bruenor's closest friend, though a certain dwarven priestess named Stumpet Rakingclaw had been almost continually by Bruenor's side, particularly of late. Giggled whispers spoke of a closer bond growing between the dwarf king and the female.
But it was Regis who knew Bruenor best, Regis who had come out here when, Bruenor had to admit, he truly needed the company. Since the return to Icewind Dale, Drizzt and Catti-brie had been on the old dwarfs mind almost continually. The only things that had saved Bruenor from falling into a deep depression had been the sheer volume of work in trying to reopen the dwarven mines, and Regis, always there, always smiling, always assuring Bruenor that Drizzt and Catti-brie would return to him.
"Where do you think they are?" Regis asked after a long moment of silence.
Bruenor smiled and shrugged, looking to the south and west, and not at the halfling. "Out there," was all that he replied.
"Out there," Regis echoed. "Drizzt and Catti-brie. And you miss them, as do I." The halfling moved closer, put a hand on Bruenor's muscled shoulder. "And I know that you miss the cat," Regis said, once again drawing the dwarf from dark thoughts.
Bruenor looked at him and couldn't help but grin. The mention of Guenhwyvar reminded Bruenor not only of all the conflict between himself and the panther, but also that Drizzt and Catti-brie, his two dear friends, were not alone and were more than able to take care of themselves.
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