Several of the creatures, females, too, presented themselves in the next room, some cowering, but they would find no mercy from the giant. A trio of small spears flew at him, only one connecting, striking him right in the chest, right in the thick of the curious gray fur cape he wore. The spear hit bone—the skull of the creature from which the cape had been fashioned, an unrecognizable thing under a layer of ice and snow. The spear had not the weight, nor the weight behind the throw, to penetrate, and it hung there, stuck in the folds and slowing the enraged giant not at all.
He caught a goblin in his huge hand, lifted it easily, and flung it across the chamber. It smashed into stone and fell still.
Others tried to run away, and he caught one and threw it. Then another went flying. With their backs to the wall, a pair of goblins found courage and turned to meet him, thrusting their spears to fend him off.
The giant tugged the spear from his cape, brought it up and bit it mid-shaft, tearing it in two, and advanced. With his batons, he slapped aside the spears, furiously, wildly, with speed and agility that seemed out of place in a man of his size and strength.
Again and again, he pushed the spears aside and closed, and he moved suddenly, swiftly, bashing the spears out wide and reversing his hands as he lurched forward, stabbing the batons into the chest of the respective goblins. He rolled his hands under and lifted the squealing creatures on the end of those batons, and slammed them together once and again, as one fell squirming and shrieking to the floor.
The other, stabbed by the sharp end of the spear, hung there in agony and the giant dropped it low and suddenly reversed, shoving it straight up as the spear slid deeper into its chest. He tossed the dying thing aside and stomped down on its fallen companion.
He stalked off in pursuit of the chieftain, the champion.
It was larger than he, a verbeeg, a true giant and not a man. It carried a heavy, spiked club and he held nothing in his hands.
But he didn’t hesitate. He barreled right in, lowering his shoulder, accepting the hit of the club with the confidence that his charge would steal the energy from the swing.
His powerful legs drove on with fury, with the rage of the storm, the strength of Icewind Dale. He drove the verbeeg backward several strides and only the wall stopped his progress.
The spiked club fell aside and the verbeeg began slamming him with its mighty fists. One blew the air from his lungs, but he ignored the pain as he had ignored the bite of the cold wind.
The man leaped back and straightened, his balled fists exploding upward before him, slamming the verbeeg hard and breaking the grapple.
Giant and man reset immediately and crashed together like rutting caribou. The crack of bone against bone echoed through the cave and the few goblins who stayed around to watch, perplexed by the titanic battle, gasped to realize that had any of them been caught between those crashing behemoths, it would surely have been crushed to death.
Chins on shoulders, giant and man each clasped the other around the back and pressed with all his might. No punches or kicks mattered anymore. It was no contest of agility, but of sheer strength. And in that, the goblins took heart, and believed that their verbeeg leader could not be beaten.
Indeed, the giant, two feet taller, hundreds of pounds heavier, seemed to gain an advantage, and the man started to bend under the press, his legs began to tremble.
On the giant pushed, the timbre of its growl going from determination to victory as the mighty man bent.
But he was of the tundra, he was Icewind Dale. By birth and by heritage, he was Icewind Dale—indomitable, indefatigable, timeless, and unbending. His legs locked, as sturdy as young oaks, and the verbeeg could press no more.
“I…am…the…son…of…” he began, driving the giant back to even, and after a grunt and a renewed push that had him gaining more ground, he finished, “…Icewind…Dale!”
He roared and drove on. “I am the son of Icewind Dale!” he cried, and roared and roared and forced his arms downward, bending the stubborn verbeeg to a more upright, less powerful stance.
“I am the son of Icewind Dale!” he yelled again, and the goblins yelped and fled, and the verbeeg groaned.
He growled and pushed on with more fury and stunning strength. He bent the verbeeg awkwardly and it tried to twist away, but he had it and he pressed relentlessly. Bones started to crack.
“I am the son of Icewind Dale!” he cried, and his legs churned as he twisted and bent the giant. He had it down to its knees, bending it backward, shoulders leaning. A sudden and violent thrust and roar ended the resistance, shattering the verbeeg’s spine.
Still the man drove on. “I am the son of Icewind Dale!” he proclaimed again.
He stepped back and grabbed the groaning, dying giant by the throat and the crotch and lifted it above him as he stood, as easily as if it weighed no more than one of its goblin minions.
“I am the son of Beornegar!” the victor cried, and he threw the verbeeg against the wall.
CHAPTER 24
AN ADVISOR NO MORE
Y ou’re keeping Suljack alive?” old Rethnor asked Kensidan as they walked together along the decorated halls of the palace of Ship Rethnor.
“I gave him the dwarf,” Kensidan replied. “I was beginning to find the little beast annoying anyway. He was starting to speak in rhymes—something his former master warned me about.”
“Former master?” the old man said with a wry grin.
“Yes, father, I agree,” the Crow replied with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I trust them only because I know that our best interests converge and lead us to the same place.”
Rethnor nodded.
“But I cannot allow Baram and Taerl to kill Suljack—and I believe they want to do that very thing after seeing him on the dais with Deudermont.”
“Sitting behind Deudermont has angered them so?”
“No, but it has presented the two with an opportunity they shan’t pass up,” Kensidan explained. “Kurth has bottled up his forces on Closeguard Island, riding out the storm. I’ve no doubt that he is instigating many of the fights on the mainland, but he wants the corpse of Luskan a bit more dead before he swoops upon her like a hungry vulture. Baram and Taerl believe that I’m wounded at present, because I was so strongly in Deudermont’s court, and also, of course, because there has been no formal transition of power from you to me. To their thinking, the destruction of the Hosttower caused such devastation across the city that even my own followers are reeling and unsure, and so won’t follow my commands into battle.”
“Now why would Baram and Taerl think such a thing about the loyal foot-soldiers of Ship Rethnor?” the high captain asked.
“Why indeed?” replied the coy Kensidan, and Rethnor nodded again, smiling widely, the grin revealing that he thought his son played it perfectly.
“So you and Kurth have closed up,” Rethnor said. “You didn’t even appear at Deudermont’s inauguration. Any gains to be made on the street by the other three lesser high captains have to be made now, and quickly, before either of you two, or Deudermont, comes out and crushes it all. Just to add a bit of fire to that smokepowder, you put Suljack on the stage with Deudermont, all the excuse that Taerl and Baram need.”
“Something like that, yes.”
“But don’t let them get to him,” Rethnor warned. “You’ll be needing Suljack before this mess has ended. He’s a fool, but a useful one.”
“The dwarf will keep him safe. For now.”
They came to the intersection of hallways leading to their respective rooms then, and parted ways, but not before Rethnor leaned over and kissed Kensidan on the forehead, a sign of great respect.
The old man shuffled down the corridor and through his bedroom door. “My son,” he whispered, full of contentment.
He knew then, without doubt, that he had chosen right in turning Ship Rethnor over to Kensidan, instead of his other son, Bronwin, who was hardly ever in the city of late. Bronwin had been a disappointment to Rethnor, for he n
ever seemed to be able to look beyond his most immediate needs, for treasure or for women, nor did he show any capacity for patience in satiating his many hungers. But Kensidan, the one they called the Crow, had more than made up for Bronwin’s failings. Kensidan was every bit as cunning as his father, indeed, and probably even more so.
Rethnor lay down with that thought in mind, and it was a good last thought.
For he never awakened.
He hustled her along the rain-soaked dark streets, taking great pains to keep the large cloak wrapped about her. He constantly glanced around—left, right, behind them—and more than once put a hand to the dagger at his belt.
Lightning split the sky and revealed many other people out in the torrent, huddled in alleyways and under awnings, or, pathetically, in the jamb of a doorway, as if trying to draw comfort out of mere proximity to a house.
The couple finally got to the dock section, leaving the houses behind, but that was even more dangerous terrain, Morik knew, for though fewer potential assailants watched their passage, so too did fewer potential witnesses.
“He went out—all the boats went out to moor so they wouldn’t get cracked against the wharves,” Bellany said to him, her voice muffled by the wet cloak. “Stupid plan.”
“He didn’t, and he wouldn’t,” Morik replied. “He’s my coin and I’ve his word.”
“A pirate’s word.”
“An honorable man’s word,” Morik corrected, and he felt vindicated indeed when he and Bellany turned a corner of a rather large storehouse to see one ship still in tight against the docks, bucking the breakers that rolled in on the front of the gathering storm. One after another, those storms assaulted Luskan, a sure sign that the wind had changed and winter was soon to jump the Spine of the World and bring her fury to the City of Sails.
The couple hustled down to the wharves, resisting the urge to sprint in the open across the boardwalk. Morik kept them to the shadows until they reached the nearest point to Thrice Lucky’s berth.
They waited in the deep shadows of the inner harbor storehouses until another lightning strike creased the sky and lit the area, and they looked left and right. Seeing no one, Morik grabbed Bellany’s arm and sprinted straight for the ship, feeling vulnerable indeed as he and his beloved ran along the open pier.
When they got to the boarding plank, they found Captain Maimun himself, lantern in hand, waiting for them.
“Be quick, then,” he said. “We’re out now, or we’re riding it out against the dock.”
Morik let Bellany lead the way up the narrow wooden ramp, and went with her onto the deck and into Maimun’s personal quarters.
“A drink?” the captain asked, but Morik held up his hand, begging off.
“I haven’t the time.”
“You’re not coming out to mooring with us?”
“Kensidan won’t have it,” Morik explained. “I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s pulling us all into Ten Oaks this night.”
“You’d trust your beautiful lady to a rogue like me?” Maimun asked. “Should I be offended?” As he spoke of her, both he and Maimun turned to Bellany, and she fit that description indeed at that moment. Bathed in the light of many candles, her black hair soaked, her skin sparkling with raindrops, there was no other way to describe the woman as she pulled herself out of her heavy woolen weathercloak.
She tossed her wet hair out of her face casually, a movement that had both men fully entranced, and looked to them curiously, surprised to see them staring at her.
“Is there a problem?” she asked, and Maimun and Morik both laughed, which only confused the woman even more.
Maimun motioned toward her with the bottle and Bellany eagerly nodded.
“It must be very difficult out there if you’re willing to sit aboard a ship in a storm,” Maimun remarked as he handed her a glass of whiskey.
Bellany drained it in a single gulp and handed the glass back for a refill.
“I’m not with Deudermont and won’t be,” Bellany explained as Maimun poured. “Arabeth Raurym won the fight with Valindra, and Arabeth is no matron of mine.”
“And if a former inhabitant of the Hosttower of the Arcane is not with Deudermont, then she’s surely dead,” Morik added. “Some have found refuge with Kurth on Closeguard Island.”
“Mostly those who worked closely with him over the years, and I hardly know the man,” Bellany said.
“I thought Deudermont had granted amnesty to all who fought with Arklem Greeth?” Maimun asked.
“For what it’s worth, he did,” said Morik.
“And it’s worth a lot to the many attendants and non-practitioners who came out of the rubble of the Hosttower,” said Bellany. “But for we who wove spells under the direction of Arklem Greeth, who are seen as members of the Arcane Brotherhood and not just the Hosttower, there is no amnesty—not with the common Luskar, at least.”
Maimun handed her back her refilled glass, which she sipped instead of gulping. “Order has broken down across the city,” the young captain said. “This was the fear of many when Deudermont and Brambleberry’s intent became apparent. Arklem Greeth was a beast, and it was precisely that inhumanity and viciousness that kept the five high captains, and their men below them, in line. When the city rallied to Deudermont that day in the square, even I came to think that maybe, just maybe, the noble captain was strong enough of character and reputation to pull it off.”
“He’s running out of time,” said Morik. “You’ll find the murdered in every alley.”
“What of Rethnor?” Maimun asked. “You work for him.”
“Not by choice,” said Bellany, and Morik’s scowl at her was quite revealing to the perceptive young pirate captain.
“I’m not for knowing what Rethnor intends,” Morik admitted. “I do as I’m told to do, and don’t poke my nose into places it doesn’t belong.”
“That’s not the Morik I know and love,” said Maimun.
“Truth be told,” Bellany agreed.
But Morik continued to shake his head. “I know what Rethnor’s got behind him, and knowing that, I’m smart enough to just do as I’m told to do.”
A call from the deck informed them that the last lines were about to be cast off.
“And you were told to return to Ship Rethnor this night,” Maimun reminded Morik, leading him to the door. The rogue paused long enough to give Bellany a kiss and a hug.
“Maimun will keep you safe,” he promised her, and he looked at his friend, who nodded and held up his glass in response.
“And you?” Bellany replied. “Why don’t you just stay out here?”
“Because then Maimun couldn’t keep any of us safe,” Morik replied. “I’ll be all right. If there’s one thing I know as truth in all of this chaos, it’s that Ship Rethnor will survive, however the fates weigh on Captain Deudermont.”
He kissed her again, bundled up his cloak against the deepening storm, and rushed from Thrice Lucky. Morik waited at the docks just long enough to see the crew expertly push and row the ship far enough from the wharves to safely moor then he ran off into the rainy night. When he returned to Ship Rethnor Morik learned that the high captain had quietly passed away, and Kensidan the Crow was fully at the helm.
They entered from the continuing rain in a single and solemn line, moving through the entry rooms of Rethnor’s palace to the large ballroom where the high captain lay in state.
All of the remaining four high captains attended, with Suljack the first to arrive, Kurth the last, and Baram and Taerl, tellingly, entering together.
Kensidan had assembled them, all four, in his private audience chamber when word arrived that the governor of Luskan had come to pay his respects.
“Bring him,” Kensidan said to his attendant.
“He is not alone,” the woman replied.
“Robillard?”
“And some others of Sea Sprite’s crew,” the attendant explained.
Kensidan waved her away as if it didn’t matter.
“I tell you four now, before Deudermont joins us, that Ship Rethnor is mine. It was given to me before my father passed on, with all his blessings.”
“Ye changing the name, are ye? Ship Crow?” Baram joked, but Kensidan stared at him hard and elicited a nervous cough.
“Any of you who think that perhaps Ship Rethnor is vulnerable now would be wise to think otherwise,” Kensidan said, biting off the last word as the door opened and Governor Deudermont walked in, the ever-vigilant and ever-dangerous Robillard close behind. The others of Sea Sprite didn’t enter, but were likely very close nearby.
“You have met Luskan’s newest high captain?” Kurth asked him, motioning toward Kensidan.
“I didn’t know it to be an inherited position,” Deudermont said.
“It is,” was Kensidan’s curt response.
“So if the good Captain Deudermont passes on, I get Luskan then?” Robillard quipped, and he shrugged as Deudermont cast him an unappreciative look for the sentiment.
“Doubtin’ that,” said Baram.
“If you are to be the five high captains of Luskan, then so be it,” said Deudermont. “I care not how you manage the titles as of now. What I care about is Luskan, and her people, and I expect the same from you all, as well.”
The five men, unused to being spoken to in that manner and tone, all grew more attentive up, Baram and Taerl bristling openly.
“I ask for peace and calm, that the city can rebound from a trying struggle,” said Deudermont.
“One yerself started, and who asked ye?” Baram replied.
“The people asked me,” Deudermont retorted. “Your people among them—your people who marched with Lord Brambleberry and I to the gates of the Hosttower.”
Baram had no answer.
But Suljack did, enthusiastically. “Aye, and Captain Deudermont’s givin’ us a chance to make Luskan the envy of the Sword Coast,” he declared, surprising even Deudermont with his energy. But not surprising Kensidan, who had bid him to do that very thing, and not surprising Kurth, who offered a sly grin at Kensidan as the fool Suljack rambled on.
The Pirate King t-2 Page 27
