Sea of Swords

Chapter 7 UNSEEMLY COMPANY

 
he guard blanched ridiculously, seeming as if he would simply fall over dead, when he noted the sylvan features and ebony skin of the visitor to Luskan's gate this rainy morning. He stuttered and stumbled, clenched his polearm so tightly in both hands that his knuckles turned as white as his face, and at last he managed to stammer out, "Halt!"
We're not moving," Catti-brie replied, looking at the man curiously. "Just standing here, watching yerself sweating."
The man gave what could have been either a growl or a whimper, then, as if finding his heart, called out for support and boldly stepped in front of the pair, presenting his polearm defensively. "Halt!" he said again, though neither of them had started moving.
"He figured out ye were a drow," Catti-brie said dryly.
"He does not recognize that even a high elf's skin might darken under the sun," Drizzt replied with a profound sigh. "The curse of fine summer weather."
The guard stared at him, perplexed by the foolish words. What do you want?" he demanded. "Why are you here?"
To enter Luskan," said Catti-brie. "Can't ye be guessing that much yerself?"
Enough of your ridicule!" cried the guard, and he thrust the polearm threateningly in Catti-brie's direction.
A black hand snapped out before the sentry could even register the movement, catching his weapon just below its metal head.
"There is no need of any of this," Drizzt remarked, striding next to the trapped weapon to better secure his hold. "I, we, are no strangers to Luskan, nor, can I assure you, have we ever been less than welcomed."
"Well, Drizzt Do'Urden, bless my eyes!" came a call behind the startled sentry, a cry from one of a pair of soldiers rushing up to answer the man's cry. "And Catti-brie, looking less like a dwarf than e'er before!"
"Oh, put your weapon away, you fool, before this pair puts it away for you, in a holder you'd not expect and not much enjoy!" said the other of the newcomers. "Have you not heard of this duo before? Why, they sailed with Sea Sprite for years and brought more pirates in for trial than we've soldiers to guard them!"
The first sentry swallowed hard and, as soon as Drizzt let go of the polearm, hastily retracted it and skittered out of the way. "Your pardon," he said with an awkward bow. "I did not know . . . the sight of a . . ." He stopped there, obviously mortified.
"And how might you know?" Drizzt generously returned. "We have not been here in more than a year."
"I have only served for three months," the relieved sentry answered.
"And a pity to have to bury one so quickly," one of the soldiers behind him remarked with a hearty laugh. "Threatening Drizzt and Catti-brie! O, but that will get you in the ground right quick and make yer wife a weeping widow!"
Drizzt and Catti-brie accepted the compliments with a slight grin and a nod, trying to get past it. For the dark elf, compliments sat as uncomfortably as insults, and one of the natural side-products of hunting with Deudermont was a bit of notoriety in the port towns along the northern Sword Coast.
"So what blesses Luskan with your presence?" one of the more knowledgeable soldiers asked. His demeanor made both Drizzt and Catti-brie think they should know the man.
"Looking for an old friend," Drizzt answered. "We have reason to believe he might be in Luskan."
"Many folks in Luskan," the other seasoned soldier answered.
"A barbarian," Catti-brie explained. "A foot and more taller than me, with blond hair. If you saw him, you'd not likely forget him."
The closest of the soldiers nodded, but then a cloud crossed his face and he turned about to regard his companion.
"What's his name?" the other asked. "Wulfgar?"
Drizzt's excitement at hearing the confirmation was shallowed by the expressions worn by both soldiers, grave looks that made him think immediately that something terrible had befallen his friend.
"You have seen him," the drow stated, holding his arm out to calm Catti-brie, who had likewise noted the guards' concern.
"You'd best come with me, Master Drizzt," the older of the soldiers remarked.
"Is he in trouble?" Drizzt asked.
"Is he dead?" Catti-brie asked, stating the truth of what was on Drizzt's mind.
"Was in trouble, and I'd not be surprised one bit if he's now dead," the soldier answered. "Come along and I'll lead you to someone who can offer more answers."
They followed the soldier along Luskan's winding avenues, moving toward the center of the city, and, finally, into one of the largest buildings in all the city, which housed both the jail and most of the city officials. The soldier, apparently a man of some importance, led the way without challenge from any of the many guards posted at nearly every corridor, up a couple of flights of stairs and into an area where every door marked the office of a magistrate.
He stopped in front of one that identified the office of Magistrate Bardoun, then, with a concerned look back at the pair, knocked loudly.
"Enter," came a commanding reply.
Two black-robed men were in the room, on opposite sides of a huge desk cluttered with papers. The closest, standing, looked every bit the part of one of Luskan's notorious justice-bringers, with hawkish features and narrow eyes all but hidden beneath long gray eyebrows. The man sitting behind the desk, Bardoun, obviously, was much younger than his counterpart, no more than thirty, certainly, with thick brown hair and matching eyes and a clean-shaven, boyish face.
"Begging your pardon, Magistrate," the soldier asked, his voice showing a nervous edge, "but I have here two heroes, Drizzt Do'Urden and Catti-brie, daughter of dwarf King Bruenor Battlehammer himself, come back to Luskan in search of an old friend."
"Do enter," Bardoun said in a friendly tone. His standing partner, though, put a scrutinizing glare over the two, particularly over the dark elf.
"Drizzt and Catti-brie sailed with Deudermont - " the soldier started to remark, but Bardoun stopped him with an upraised hand.
"Their exploits are well known to us," the magistrate said. "You may leave us."
The soldier bowed, offered a wink to the pair then exited, closing the door behind him.
"My associate, Magistrate Callanan," Bardoun introduced, and he stood up, motioning for the pair to come closer. "We will be of any help we may, of course," he said. "Though Deudermont has fallen on some disfavor among some of the magistrates, many of us greatly appreciate the work he and his brave crew have done in clearing the waters about our fair city of some dreadful pirates."
Drizzt glanced at Catti-brie, both of them surprised to hear that Captain Deudermont, as fine a man as ever sailed the Sword Coast, a man given a prized three-masted schooner by the Lords of Waterdeep to aid in his gallant work, had fallen upon any disfavor at all from officers of the law.
"Your soldier indicated that you might be able to help us in locating an old friend," Drizzt explained. "Wulfgar, by name. A large northman of fair complexion and light hair. We have reason to believe . .." The drow stopped in mid-sentence, caught by the cloud that crossed Bardoun's face and the scowl suddenly worn by Callanan.
"If you are friends of that one, then perhaps you should not be in Luskan," Callanan remarked with a derisive snort.
Bardoun composed himself and sat back down. "Wulfgar is well known to us indeed," he explained. "Too well known, perhaps."
He motioned for Drizzt and Catti-brie to take the seats along the side of the small office, then told them the story of Wulfgar's entanglement with Luskan's law, of how the barbarian had been accused and convicted of trying to murder Deudermont (which Catti-brie interrupted by saying, "Impossible!"), and had been facing execution at Prisoner's Carnival, barely moments from death, when Deudermont himself had pardoned the man.
"A foolish move by the good captain," Callanan added. "One that brought him disfavor. We do not enjoy seeing a guilty man walk free of the Carnival."
"I know what you enjoy," Drizzt said, more harshly than he had intended.
The drow was no fan of the brutal and sadistic Prisoner's Carnival, nor did he carry many kind words for the magistrates of Luskan. When he and Catti-brie had sailed with Deudermont and they had taken pirate prisoners on the high seas, the couple had always prompted the captain to turn for Waterdeep instead of Luskan, and Deudermont, no fan of the vicious Prisoner's Carnival himself, had often complied, even if the larger city was a longer sail.
Recognizing the harshness in his tone, Drizzt turned to the relatively gentle Bardoun and said, "Some of you, at least."
"You speak honestly," Bardoun returned. "I do respect that, even if I do not agree with you. Deudermont saved your friend from execution, but not from banishment. He, along with his little friend were cast out of Luskan, though rumor has it that Morik the Rogue has returned."
"And apparently with enough influence so that we are instructed not to go and bring him back to our dungeons for breaking the exile," Callanan said with obvious disgust.
"Morik the Rogue?" Catti-brie asked.
Bardoun waved his hand, indicating that this character was of no great importance. "A minor street thug," he explained.
"And he traveled with Wulfgar?"
"They were known associates, yes, and convicted together of the attempt upon Deudermont's life, along with a pair of pirates whose lives were not spared that day."
Callanan's wicked grin at Bardoun's remark was not lost on Drizzt, yet another confirmation to the dark elf of the barbarism that was Luskan's Prisoner's Carnival.
Drizzt and Catti-brie looked to each other again.
"Where can we find Morik?" the woman asked, her tone determined and offering no debate.
"In the gutter," Callanan answered. "Or the sewer, perhaps."
"You may try Half-Moon Street," Magistrate Bardoun added. "He has been known to frequent that area, particularly a tavern known as the Cutlass."
The name had a ring of familiarity to Drizzt, and he nodded as he remembered the place. He hadn't been there during his days with Deudermont, but well before that, he and Wulfgar had come through Luskan on their way to reclaim Mithral Hall. Together, they had gone into the Cutlass, where Wulfgar had started quite a brawl.
"That is where your friend Wulfgar made quite a reputation, as well," said Callanan.
Drizzt nodded, as did Catti-brie. "My thanks to you for the information," he said. "We will find our friend, I am sure." He bowed and started away, but stopped at the door as Bardoun called after him.
"If you do find Wulfgar, and in Luskan, do well by him and take him far, far away," the magistrate said. "Far away from here, and, for his own sake, far away from the rat, Morik the Rogue."
Drizzt turned and nodded, then left the room. He and Catti-brie went and got their own lodgings at a fine inn along one of the better avenues of Luskan, and spent the day walking about the city, reminiscing about old times and their previous journey through the city. The weather was fine for the season, with bright sun splashing about the leaves, beginning their autumnal color turn, and the city certainly had many places of great beauty. Together, then, walking and enjoying the sights and the weather, Drizzt and Catti-brie took no note of the gawks and the gasps, even the sight of several children running full speed away from the dark elf.
Drizzt couldn't be bothered by such things. Not with Catti-brie at his side.
The couple waited patiently for the fall of night, when they knew they had a better chance of finding someone like Morik the Rogue, and, it seemed, of finding someone like Wulfgar.
The Cutlass was not busy when the pair entered, soon after dusk, though it seemed to Drizzt as if a hundred sets of eyes had suddenly focused upon him, most notably, a glance both horrified and threatening from a skinny man seated at the bar, directly opposite the barkeep, whose rag stopped its movement completely as he, too, focused on the unexpected newcomer. When he had come into this place those years ago, Drizzt had remained off to the side, buried in the clamor and tumult of the busy, ill-lit tavern, his hood up and his head low.
Drizzt nodded to the barkeep and approached him directly. The skinny man gave a yelp and fell away, scrambling to the far end of the room.
"Greetings, good sir," Drizzt said to the barkeep. "I come here with no ill intentions, I assure you, despite the panic of your patron."
"Just Josi Puddles," the barkeep replied, though he, too, was obviously a bit shaken at the appearance of a dark elf in his establishment. "Don't pay him any attention." The man extended his hand, then retracted it quickly and wiped it on his apron before offering it again. "Arumn Gardpeck at your service."
"Drizzt Do'Urden," the drow replied, taking the hand in his own surprisingly strong grasp. "And my friend is Catti-brie."
Arumn looked at the pair curiously, his expression softening as if he came to truly recognize them.
"We seek someone," Drizzt started.
"Wulfgar," Arumn said with confidence, and he grinned at the wide-eyed expressions his response brought to the drow and the woman. "Aye, he told me of you. Both of you."
"Is he here?" Catti-brie asked.
"Been gone for a long time," the skinny man, Josi, said, daring to come forward. "Come back only once, to get Delly."
"Delly?"
"She worked here," Arumn explained. "Was always sweet on Wulfgar. He came back for her, and the three of them left Luskan - for Waterdeep, I'm guessing."
"Three?" Drizzt asked, thinking the third to be Morik.
"Wulfgar, Delly, and the baby," Josi explained.
"The baby?" both Drizzt and Catti-brie said together. They looked at each other incredulously. When they turned back to Arumn, he merely shrugged, having nothing to offer.
"That was months ago," Josi Puddles interjected. "Ain't heared a thing o' them since."
Drizzt paused, digesting it all. Apparently, Wulfgar would have quite a tale to tell when at last they found him - if he was still alive. "Actually, we came in here seeking one we were told might have information about Wulfgar," the drow explained. "A man named Morik."
There came a scuffle of scrambling feet from behind, and the pair turned to see a small, dark-cloaked figure moving swiftly out of the tavern.
"That'd be yer Morik," Arumn explained.
Drizzt and Catti-brie rushed outside, glancing up and down the nearly deserted Half-Moon Street, but Morik, obviously a master of shadows, was nowhere to be seen.
Drizzt bent down near the soft dirt just beyond the Cutlass's wooden porch, noting a boot print. He smiled at Catti-brie and pointed to the left, an easy trail for the skilled ranger to follow.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Ye're a pretty laddie, ain't ye?" the grimy old lech said. He pushed Le'lorinel up against the wall, putting his smelly face right up against the elf's.
Le'lorinel looked past him, to the other four old drunkards, all of them howling with laughter as the old fool started fiddling with the rope he used as a belt.
He stopped abruptly and slowly sank to the floor before the elf, moving his suddenly trembling hands lower, to where the knee had just connected.
Le'lorinel came out from the wall, drawing a sword, putting the flat of it against the old wretch's head, and none too gently pushing him over to the floor.
"I came in asking a simple question," the elf explained to the others, who were not laughing any longer.
The old wretches, former sailors, former pirates, glanced nervously from one to the other.
"Ye be a good laddie," one bald-headed man said, climbing to stand on severely bowed legs. "Tookie, there, he was just funning with ye."
"A simple question," Le'lorinel said again.
The elf had come into this dirty tavern along Luskan's docks showing the illusionary images E'kressa had prepared, asking about the significance of the mark.
"Not so simple, mayhaps," the bald-headed sea dog replied. "Ye're askin' about a mark, and many're wearin' marks."
"And most who are wearin' marks ain't looking to show 'em," another of the old men said.
Le'lorinel heard a movement to the side and saw the man, Tookie, rising fast from the floor and coming in hard. A sweep and turn, swinging the sword down to the side, not to slash the man - though Le'lorinel thought he surely deserved it - but to force him into an awkward, off-balance dodge, followed by a simple duck and step maneuver had the elf behind the attacker. A firm shove against Tookie's back had him diving forward to skid down hard to the floor.
But two of the others were there, one brandishing a curved knife used for scaling fish, another a short gaff hook.
Le'lorinel's right hand presented the sword defensively, while the elf s left hand went to the right hip, then snapped out.
The man with the gaff hook fell back, wailing and wheezing, a dagger deep in his chest.
Le'lorinel lunged forward, and the other attacker leaped back, presented his hands up before him in surrender, and let the curved knife fall to the floor.
"A simple question," the elf reiterated through gritted teeth, and the look in Le'lorinel's blue and gold eyes left no doubt among any in the room that this warrior would leave them all dead with hardly a thought.
"I ain't never seen it," the man who'd been holding the knife replied.
"But you are going to go and find out about it for me, correct?" Le'lorinel remarked. "All of you."
"Oh, yes, laddie, we'll get ye yer answers," another said.
The one still lying on the floor and facing away from Le'lorinel scrambled up suddenly and bolted for the door, bursting through and out into the twilight. Another rose to follow, but Le'lorinel stepped to the side, tore the dagger free from the dying man's chest and cocked it back, ready to throw.
"A simple question," Le'lorinel said yet again. "Find me my answer and I will reward you. Fail me and. . . ." The elf finished by turning to look at the man propped against the wall, laboring for breath now, obviously suffering in the last moments of his life.
Le'lorinel walked for the open door, pausing only long enough to wipe the dagger on the tunic of the man who'd attacked with the curved blade, finishing by sliding the knife up teasingly toward the man's throat, up and over his shoulder as the elf walked by.
* * * * * * * * * *
The small form came out of the alleyway in a blur of motion, spinning and swinging, a pair of silvery daggers in his hands.
His attack was nearly perfect, slicing in low at Drizzt's mid-section with his left, then stopping short with a feint and launching a wide-arching chopping left, coming down at the side of the drow's neck.
Nearly perfect.
Drizzt saw the feint for what it was, ignored the first attack, and focused on the second. The dark elf caught Morik's hand in his own and as he did he turned the rogue's hand in so that Drizzt's fingers covered those of the rogue.
Morik neatly adjusted to the block, trying instead to finish his first stab, but Drizzt was too quick and too balanced, skittering with blazing speed, his already brilliant footwork enhanced by magical anklets. The drow went right under Morik's upraised arm, turning as he moved, then running right behind the rogue, twisting that arm and maneuvering out of the reach of the other stabbing dagger.
Morik, too, started to turn, but then Drizzt merely cupped the ends of his fingers and squeezed, compressing the top knuckles of Morik's hand and causing excruciating pain. The dagger fell to the ground, and Morik too went down to one knee.
Catti-brie had the rogue's other hand caught and held before he could even think of trying to retaliate again.
"Oh, please don't kill me," the rogue pleaded. "I did get the jewels ... I told the assassin ... I did follow Wulfgar . . . everything you said!"
Drizzt stared up at Catti-brie in disbelief, and he lessened his pressure on the man's hand and yanked Morik back to his feet.
"I did not betray Jarlaxle," Morik cried. "Never that!"
"Jarlaxle?" Catti-brie asked incredulously. "Who does he think we are?"
"A good question," Drizzt asked, looking to Morik for an answer.
"You are not agents of Jarlaxle?" the rogue asked. A moment later, his face beamed with obvious relief and he gave a little embarrassed chuckle. "But then, who . . ." He stopped short, his smile going wide. "You're Wulfgar's friends," he said, his smile nearly taking in his ears.
Drizzt let him go, and so did Catti-brie, and the man retrieved his fallen dagger and replaced both in his belt. "Well met!" he said exuberantly, reaching his hand toward them. "Wulfgar told me so much about the both of you!"
"It would appear that you and Wulfgar have a few tales of your own to tell," Drizzt remarked.
Morik chuckled again and shook his head. When it became apparent that neither the drow nor the woman were going to take the offered handshake, Morik brought his hand back in and wiped it on his hip. "Too many tales to tell!" he explained. "Stories of battle and love all the way from Luskan to Auckney."
"How do you know Jarlaxle?" Catti-brie asked. "And where is Wulfgar?"
"Two completely unrelated events, I assure you," Morik replied. "At least, they were when last I saw my large friend. He left Luskan some time ago, with Delly Curtie and the child he took from the foppish lord of Auckney."
"Kidnapped?" Drizzt asked skeptically.
"Saved," Morik replied. "A bastard child of a frightened young lady, certain to be killed by the fop or his nasty sister." He gave a great sigh. "It is a long and complicated tale. Better that you hear it from Wulfgar."
"He is alive?"
"Last I heard," Morik replied. "Alive and heading for ... for Waterdeep, I believe. Trying to find Captain Deudermont, and hoping the captain would help him retrieve his lost warhammer."
Catti-brie blew a most profound and relieved sigh.
"How did he lose the warhammer?" Drizzt asked.
"The fool Josi Puddles stole it and sold it to Sheila Kree, a most disagreeable pirate," Morik answered. "Nasty sort, that pirate lady, but Wulfgar's found his heart again, I believe, and so I would not wish to be serving beside Sheila Kree!" He looked at Drizzt, who was staring at Catti-brie, and with both wearing their emotions in plain sight. "You thought he was dead," Morik stated.
"We found a highwayman, a highwaywoman, actually, wearing a brand that could only have come from Aegis-fang," Drizzt explained. "We know how dear that weapon was to Wulfgar and know that he was not in league with the bandit's former gang."
"Never did we think he'd have let the thing go, except from his dying grasp," Catti-brie admitted.
"I think we owe you a meal and a drink, at least," Drizzt said to Morik, whose face brightened at the prospect.
Together, the three walked back toward the Cutlass, Morik seeming quite pleased with himself.
"And you can tell us how you have come to know Jarlaxle," Drizzt remarked as they were entering, and Morik's shoulders visibly slumped.
The rogue did tell them of the coming of the dark elves to Luskan, of how he had been visited by henchmen of Jarlaxle and by the strange mercenary himself and told to shadow Wulfgar. He recounted his more recent adventures with the dark elves, after Wulfgar had departed Luskan and Morik's life, taking care to leave out the part about Jarlaxle's punishment once he had lost touch with the barbarian. Still, when he got to that particular part of the tale, Morik's hand went up reflexively for his face, which had been burned away by the nasty Rai-guy, a dark elf Morik despised with all his heart.
Catti-brie and Drizzt looked at each other throughout the tale with honest concern. If Jarlaxle was interested in their friend, perhaps Wulfgar was not so safe after all. Even more perplexing to them, though, was the question of why the dangerous Jarlaxle would be interested in Wulfgar in the first place.
Morik went on to assure the two that he'd had no dealings with Jarlaxle or his lieutenants in months and didn't expect to see any of them again. "Not since that human assassin showed up and told me to run away," Morik explained. "Which I did, and only recently came back. I'm smarter than to have that band after me, but I believe the human covered my trail well enough. He could not have gone back to them if they believed I was still alive, I would guess."
"Human assassin?" Drizzt asked, and he could guess easily enough who it might have been, though as to why Artemis Entreri would spare the life of anyone and risk the displeasure of mighty Bregan D'aerthe, the drow could not begin to guess. But that was a long tale, likely, and one that Drizzt hoped had nothing to do with Wulfgar.
"Where can we find Sheila Kree?" he asked, stopping Morik before he could really get going with his dark elf stories.
Morik stared at him for a few moments. "The high seas, perhaps," he answered. "She may have a favored and secret port - in fact, I believe I have heard rumors of one."
"You can find out for us?" Catti-brie asked.
"Such information will not come cheaply," Morik started to explain, but his words were lost in a great gulp when Drizzt, a friend of a rich dwarf king whose stake in Wulfgar's return was no less than his own, dropped a small bag bulging with coins on the table.
"Tomorrow night," the drow explained. "In here."
Morik took the purse, nodded, and went fast out of the Cutlass.
"Ye're thinking the rogue will return with information?" Catti-brie asked.
"He was an honest friend of Wulfgar's," Drizzt answered, "and he's too afraid of us to stay away."
"Sounds like our old friend got himself mixed up in a bit of trouble and adventure," Catti-brie remarked.
"Sounds like our old friend found his way out of the darkness," Drizzt countered, his smile beaming behind his dark features, his lavender eyes full of sparkling hope.