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, whining 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 a
nd 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, it 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.
“Leave those as well,” Drizzt remarked.
“Have you baited us, then?”
“Let me speak with Stuyles,” Drizzt said. “Either way, the supplies will be yours, but you need not take them now.”
“Explain.”
But Drizzt had heard enough. He shook his head and told Kale to take him to Stuyles again.
Kale bade his band to remain with the wagon as well, and they gladly agreed when Ambergris broke out the ale and offered up drinks all around. With just him and Drizzt, the travel was quick, but over difficult terrain, and Drizzt understood the truth of the claim that it would have been no easy task to take the wagon, or even just the supplies, along.
Soon enough, though, they arrived in a wide campground of scores of tents-Stuyles’s band had grown in the months since Drizzt had last seen them-and Drizzt and Farmer Stuyles shared another warm handshake. With many coming out to view this strange visitor, Drizzt motioned back at the tent from which Stuyles had emerged.
They left many wide eyes behind as they entered. Among the onlookers stood a young tiefling warlock, his shoulders twisted from a fall off a cliff when he was but a babe.
Kale Denrigs, a lieutenant of the band, joined the pair inside, and explained the situation with Hadencourt to a wide-eyed Stuyles.
“A demon?” Stuyles asked incredulously.
“Devil,” Drizzt corrected. “It is my belief that he was a scout for Sylora Salm.”
“The Thayan in Neverwinter Wood?”
“She is dead, her forces scattered, her Dread Ring diminished.”
“By your hand?”
Drizzt nodded.
“I expect that Hadencourt was looking for me and for Dahlia, at the behest of Sylora. Among the Thayans were the Ashmadai, devil-worshiping zealots.”
“We’ve had some unpleasant dealings with them,” Kale said.
“They’ll not be much trouble to you now,” Drizzt assured him.
“Then you come with good news and with supplies,” said Kale, and at the mention of supplies, Stuyles looked at Drizzt curiously.
“Supplies only if you decline my offer,” Drizzt said cryptically, a wry grin on his face.
“That seems a strange proposal,” said Kale, but Stuyles, obviously recognizing that Drizzt had something much more important in mind, held up his hand to cut the man short, and nodded for Drizzt to continue.
And so the drow laid it out before an incredulous Stuyles and Kale Denrigs, explaining the situation in Port Llast, a settlement in need of hearty settlers, and made his offer.
“It will be a home,” he said.
“Hardly a haven, though,” said Kale.
“I’ll not lie to you,” Drizzt replied. “The minions of Umberlee are stubborn and fierce. You will see battle, but take heart, for you will fight beside worthy comrades.”
“Including yourself?” asked Stuyles.
Drizzt nodded. “For the time being, at least. Myself and my friends. We have already done battle beside the folk of Port Llast, and have driven the sahuagin-the sea devils-to the sea, though we hold little doubt that they will return. Winter has brought a respite, perhaps, but the citizens of Port Llast must remain ever vigilant.”
“Truly, this is a memorable tenday,” Kale Denrigs said. When Drizzt regarded him, he added, “Full of memorable visitors.”
Drizzt didn’t think much of that remark, until Kale looked to Stuyles and completed the thought, adding, “Among the companions our friend Drizzt left at his wagon were three who also showed some hints of the Shadowfell.”
Drizzt eyed the man with interest.
“The gray man on the strange steed,” Kale quickly explained, and he held up his hands unthreateningly as if to indicate that he had meant no insult. “And the dwarf and man on the wagon. Not Shadovar, certainly, but tinged with the shadowstuff.”
“You’ve a keen eye,” said Drizzt.
“For shades, yes indeed, and
with good reason,” answered a clearly relieved Kale. “I’ve fought my share-”
“What did you mean when you said ‘also’?”
Kale looked to Stuyles.
“We found a shade, a tiefling no less, along the road just a few days ago,” Stuyles explained. “A formidable creature, though he certainly doesn’t appear as such. Some … associates of mine waylai-err, encountered him along the road, but he soon gained the upper hand. He claimed himself an orphan of society, and so became the least expected member of our band since Skinny the half-ogre and his kin found their way to us not long after you had gone.”
“Devils, ogres, tiefling Shadovar,” Drizzt remarked. “You should take care the company you keep.” He was trying to figure a way to garner more information about this newcomer, when Stuyles volunteered all that Drizzt needed to hear.
“It is good that you didn’t have Effron along with you this day,” Stuyles said to Kale. “The encounter along the road might have gone much differently, and much more dangerously!”
He said it with a lighthearted flair, and was smiling quite widely, until he looked at the grim-faced drow.
“Effron the warlock,” Drizzt said. “Take care with that one, I beg. For your own sake.”
“You know him?”
“Take me to him.”
Stuyles started to talk again, to question the drow’s sudden change in demeanor, no doubt, but he swallowed hard and bade Kale to find the twisted warlock.
“What do you know?” Stuyles asked Drizzt when they were alone.
“I know that Effron Alegni is a troubled and angry young warlock. He carries a great burden upon his broken shoulders.”
“Will they accept him in Port Llast, then, should we accept your generous offer?”
Drizzt shook his head. “It will not likely get to that point.”
He moved to the tent flap and pulled it open, peering out. He didn’t want to get caught by surprise in an enclosed place against the likes of Effron. He noted immediately, though, that Kale stood perplexed, hands on hips, with many others around him, all shaking their heads and some pointing off into the woods.
“He saw my approach and likely fled,” Drizzt said, turning back to Stuyles.
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