Sea of Swords pod-4 Read online

  “Could it?” Jule asked doubtfully. “Tell me, then, did this dark elf’s panther companion make an appearance?”

  Again the two looked at each other.

  As if in response, a low growl reverberated through the encampment, resonating as if it was coming from the ground itself, running into the bodies of the three rogues. The horses at the side of the camp neighed and stomped and tossed their heads nervously.

  “I would guess that it did,” Jule answered her own question, and she gave a great sigh.

  A movement to the side, a flash of flying blackness, caught their attention, turning all three heads to regard the new arrival. It was a huge black cat, ten feet long at least, and with muscled shoulders as high as a tall man's chest.

  “Drow elf’s cat?” one of the dirty rogues asked.

  “They say her name is Guenhwyvar,” Jule confirmed.

  The other rogue was already backing away, staring at the cat all the while. He bumped into a wagon then edged around it, moving right before the nervous and sweating horses.

  “And so you ran right back to me,” Jule said to the other with obvious contempt. “You could not understand that the drow allowed you to escape?”

  “No, he was busy!” the remaining rogue protested.

  Jule just shook her head. She wasn't really surprised it had ended like this, after all. She supposed that she deserved it for taking up with a band of fools.

  Guenhwyvar roared and sprang into the middle of the camp, landing right between the pair. Jule, wiser than to even think of giving a fight against the mighty beast, just threw up her hands. She was about to instruct her companions to do the same when she heard one of them hit the ground. He'd fainted dead away.

  The remaining dirty rogue didn't even see Guenhwyvar's spring. He spun around and rushed through the break in the boulder ring, crashing through the brush, thinking to leave his friends behind to fight while he made his escape, as he had done back on the road. He came through, squinting against the slapping branches, and did notice a dark form standing to the side and did notice a pair of intense violet eyes regarding him—just an instant before the hilt of a scimitar rushed up and slammed him in the face, laying him low.

  Chapter 2 CONFLICTED

  The wind and salty spray felt good on his face, his long blond hair trailing out behind him, his crystal blue eyes squinting against the glare. Wulfgar's features remained strong, but boyish, despite the ruddiness of his skin from tendays at sea. To the more discerning observer, though, there loomed in Wulfgar's eyes a resonance that denied the youthful appearance, a sadness wrought of bitter experience.

  That melancholy was not with him now, though, for up there, on the prow of Sea Sprite, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, felt the same rush of adrenaline he'd known all those years growing up in Icewind Dale, all those years learning the ways of his people, and all those years fighting beside Drizzt. The exhilaration could not be denied; this was the way of the warrior, the proud and tingling anticipation before the onset of battle.

  And battle would soon be joined, the barbarian did not doubt, Far ahead, across the sparkling waters, Wulfgar saw the sails of the running pirate.

  Was this Bloody Keel, Sheila Kree's boat? Was his warhammer mighty Aegis-fang, the gift of his adoptive father, in the hands a pirate aboard that ship?

  Wulfgar winced as he considered the question, at the myriad of feelings that the mere thought of once again possessing Aegis-fang brought up inside him. He'd left Delly Curtie and Colson, the baby girl they'd taken in as their own daughter, back in Waterdeep. They were staying at Captain Deudermont's beautiful home while he had come out with Sea Sprite for the express purpose of regaining the warhammer. Yet, the thought of Aegis-fang, of what he might do once he had the weapon back in his grasp, was, at that time, still beyond Wulfgar's swirling sensibilities. What did the warhammer mean, really?

  That warhammer, a gift from Bruenor, had been meant as a symbol of the dwarf's love for him, of the dwarfs recognition that Wulfgar had risen above his stoic and brutal upbringing to become a better warrior, and more importantly, a better man. But had Wulfgar, really? Was he deserving of the warhammer, of Bruenor's love? Certainly the events since his return from the Abyss would argue against that. Over the past months Wulfgar hadn't done many things of which he was proud and had an entire list of accomplishments, beginning with his slapping Catti-brie's face, that he would rather forget.

  And so this pursuit of Aegis-fang had come to him as a welcome relief, a distraction that kept him busy, and positively employed for a good cause, while he continued to sort things out. But if Aegis-fang was on that boat ahead, or the next one in line, and Wulfgar retrieved it, where would it lead? Was his place still waiting for him in Icewind Dale among his former friends? Would he return to a life of adventure and wild battles, living on the edge of disaster with Drizzt and the others?

  Wulfgar's thoughts returned to Delly and the child. Given the new reality of his life, given those two, how could he return to that previous life? What did such a reversion mean regarding his responsibilities to his new family?

  The barbarian gave a laugh, recognizing that it was far more than responsibilities hindering him, though he didn't often admit it, even to himself. When he had first taken the child from Auckney, a minor kingdom nestled in the eastern reaches of the Spine of the World, it had been out of responsibility, it had been because the person he truly was (or wanted to be again!) demanded of him that he not let the child suffer the sins of the or the cowardice and stupidity of the father, had been responsibility that had taken him back to the Cutlass tavern in Luskan, a debt owed to his former friends, Arumn, Delly, and even Josi Puddles, whom he had surely let down with his drunken antics. Asking Delly to come along with him and the child had been yet another impulse wrought of responsibility—he had seen the opportunity to make some amends for his wretched treatment of the poor woman, and so he had offered her a new road to explore. In truth, Wulfgar hadn't given the decision to ask Delly along much thought at all, and even after her surprising acceptance, the barbarian had not understood how profoundly her choice would come to affect his life. Because now. . now his relationship with Delly and their adopted child had become something more. This child he had taken out of generosity—and, in truth, because Wulfgar had instinctively recognized that he needed the generosity more than the child ever would—had become to him his daughter, his own child. In every way. Much as he had long ago become the child of Bruenor Battlehammer. Never before had Wulfgar held even a hint of the level of vulnerability the new title, father, had brought to him. Never had he imagined that anyone could truly hurt him, in any real way. Now all he had to do was look into Colson's blue eyes, so much like her real mother's, and Wulfgar knew his entire world could be destroyed about him.

  Similarly, with Delly Curtie, the barbarian had come to understand that he'd taken on more than he'd bargained for. This woman he'd invited to join him, again in the spirit of generosity and as a denial of the thug he'd become, was now something much more important than a mere traveling companion. In the months since their departure from Luskan, Wulfgar had come to see Delly Curtie in a completely different light, had come to see the depth of her spirit and the wisdom that had been buried beneath the sarcastic and gruff exterior she'd been forced to assume in order to survive in her miserable existence.

  Delly had told him of the few glorious moments she had known—and none of those had been in the arms of one of her many lovers. She told him of the many hours she'd spent along the quiet wharves of Luskan before having to force herself to begin her nights at the Cutlass. There she'd sit and watch the sun sinking into the distant ocean, seeming to set all the water ablaze.

  Delly loved the dusk—the quiet hour, she called it—when the daytime folk of Luskan returned home to their families and the nighttime crowd had not yet awakened to the bustle of their adventurous but ultimately empty nights. In the months he'd known Delly at the Cutlass, in the nights they'd spent in each others'
arms, Wulfgar had never begun to imagine that there was so much more to her, that she was possessed of hopes and dreams, and that she held such a deep understanding of the people around her. When men bedded her, they often thought her an easy target, tossing a few words of compliment to get their prize.

  What Wulfgar came to understand about Delly was that none of those words, none of that game, had ever really meant anything to her. Her one measure of power on the streets was her body, and so she used it to gain favor, to gain knowledge, to gain security, in a place lacking in all three. How strange it seemed to Wulfgar to recognize that while all the men had believed they were taking advantage of Delly's ignorance, she was, in fact, taking advantage of their weakness in the face of lust.

  Yes, Delly Curtie could play the “using” game as well as any, and that was why this blossoming relationship seemed so amazing to him. Because Delly wasn't using him at all, he knew, and he wasn't using her. For the first time in all their history together, the two had merely been sharing each others' company, honestly and without pretense, without an agenda.

  And Wulfgar would be a liar indeed if he couldn't admit that he was enjoying it.

  A liar Wulfgar would be indeed, and a coward besides, if he couldn't admit that he'd fallen in love with Delly Curtie. Thus, the couple had married. Not formally, but in heart and soul, and Wulfgar knew that this woman, this unlikely companion, had completed him in ways he had never known possible.

  “Killer banner up!” came a call from the crow's nest, meaning that this was indeed a pirate vessel ahead of Sea Sprite, for in her arrogance, she was flying a recognized pirate pennant.

  With nothing but open water ahead, the ship had no chance of escape. No vessel on the Sword Coast could outrun Sea Sprite, especially with the powerful wizard Robillard sitting atop the back of the flying bridge, summoning gusts of wind repeatedly into the schooner's mainsail.

  Wulfgar took a deep breath, and another, but found little in them to help steady his nerves.

  / am a warrior! he reminded himself, but that other truth, that he was a husband and a father, would not be so easily put down.

  How strange this change in heart seemed to him. Just a few months before, he had been the terror of Luskan, throwing himself into fights with abandon, reckless to the point of self-destructive. But that was when he had nothing to lose, when he believed that death would take away the pain. Now, it was something even greater than those things he had to lose, it was the realization that if he perished out here, Delly and Colson would suffer.

  And for what? the barbarian had to ask himself. For a warhammer, a symbol of a past he wasn't even sure he wanted to recapture?

  Wulfgar grabbed tight to the line running back to the foremast, clenching it so tightly his knuckles whitened from the press, and again took in a deep and steadying breath, letting it out as a feral growl. Wulfgar shook the thoughts away, recognizing them as anathema to the heart of a true warrior. Charge in bravely, that was his mantra, his code, and indeed, that was the way a true warrior survived. Overwhelm your enemies, and quickly, and you will likely walk away. Hesitation only provided opportunity for the enemy to shoot you down with arrows and spears.

  Hesitation, cowardice, would destroy him.

  * * * * * * * * *

  Sea Sprite gained quickly on the vessel, and soon it could be seen clearly as a two-masted caravel. How fast that pirate insignia pennant came down when the ship recognized its pursuer!

  Sea Sprite's rear catapult and forward ballista both let fly, neither scoring a hit of any consequence, and the pirate responded with a catapult shot of its own, a meager thing that fell far short of the approaching hunter.

  “A second volley?” Captain Deudermont asked his ship's wizard. The captain was a tall and straight-backed man with a perfectly trimmed goatee that was still more brown than gray.

  “To coax?” Robillard replied. “Nay, if they've a wizard, he is too cagey to be baited, else he would have shown himself already. Move into true range and let fly, and so will I.”

  Deudermont nodded and lifted his spyglass to his eye to better see the pirate—and he could make out the individuals on the deck now, scrambling every which way.

  Sea Sprite closed with every passing second, her sails gathering up the wind greedily, her prow cutting walls of water high into the air.

  Deudermont looked behind, to his gunners manning the catapult on the poop deck. One used a spyglass much like the captain's own, lining up the vessel with a marked stick set before him. He lowered the glass to see the captain and nodded.

  “Let fly for mainsail,” Deudermont said to the crewman beside him, and the cry went out, gaining momentum and volume, and both catapult and ballista let fly again. This time, a ball of burning pitch clipped the sails and rigging of the pirate, who was bending hard into a desperate turn, and the ballista bolt, trailing chains, tore through a sail.

  A moment later came a brilliant flash, a streak of lightning from Robillard that smacked the pirate's hull at the water line, splintering wood.

  “Going defensive!” came Robillard's cry, and he enacted a semitranslucent globe about him and rushed to the prow, shoving past Wulfgar, who was moving amidships.

  A responding lightning bolt did come from the pirate, not nearly as searing and bright as Robillard's. Sea Sprite's wizard, considered among the very finest of sea-fighting mages in all Faerыn, had his shields in place to minimize the damage to no more than a black scar on the side of Sea Sprite's prow, one of many badges of honor the proud pirate hunter had earned in her years of service.

  The pirate continued its evasive turn, but Sea Sprite, more nimble by far, cut right inside her angle, closing even more rapidly.

  Deudermont smiled as he considered Robillard, the wizard nibbing his fingers together eagerly, ready to drop a series of spells to counter any defenses, followed by a devastating fireball that would consume rigging and sails, leaving the pirate dead in the water.

  The pirates would likely surrender soon after.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  A row of archers lined Sea Sprite's side rail, with several standing forward, as obvious targets, Robillard had placed enchantments on these few, making them impervious to unenchanted arrows, and so they were the brave ones inviting the shots.

  “Volley as we pass!” the group leader commanded, and every man and woman began checking their draw and their arrows, finding ones that would fly straight and true.

  Behind them, Wulfgar paced nervously, anxiously. He wanted this to be done—a perfectly reasonable and rational desire—and yet he cursed himself for those feelings.

  “A pop to steady yer hands?” one greasy crewman said to him, holding forth a small bottle of rum, which the boarding party had been passing around.

  Wulfgar stared at the bottle long and hard. For months he had hidden inside one of those seemingly transparent things. For months he had bottled up his fears and his horrible memories, a futile attempt to escape the truth of his life and his past.

  He shook his head and went back to pacing.

  A moment later came the sound of twenty bowstrings humming, the cries of many pirates, and of a couple from Sea Sprite's crew, hit by the exchange.

  Wulfgar knew he should be moving into position with the rest of the boarding party, and yet he found he could not. His legs would not walk past conjured images of Delly and Colson. How could he be doing this? How could he be out here, chasing a warhammer, while they waited back in Waterdeep?

  The questions sounded loudly and horribly in Wulfgar's mind. All he had once been screamed back at him. He heard the name of Tempus, the barbarian god of war, pounding in his head, telling him to deny his fears, telling him to remember who he was.

  With a roar that sent those men closest to him scurrying in fear, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, charged for the rail, and though no boarding party had been called and though Robillard was even then preparing his fiery blast and though the two ships were still a dozen feet apart, with Sea Sprite fast
passing, the furious barbarian leaped atop that rail and sprang forward.

  Cries of protest sounded behind him, cries of surprise and fear sounded before him.

  But the only cry Wulfgar heard was his own. “Tempus!” he bellowed, denying his fears and his hesitance.

  “Tempus!”

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Captain Deudermont rushed to Robillard and grabbed the skinny wizard, pinning his arms to his side and interrupting his spellcasting.

  “The fool!” Robillard shouted as soon as he opened his eyes, to see what had prompted the captain's interference.

  Not that the wizard was surprised, for Wulfgar had been a thorn in Robillard's side ever since he'd joined up with the crew. Unlike his old companions, Drizzt and Catti-brie, this barbarian simply did not seem to understand the subtleties of wizardly combat. And, to Robillard's thinking, wizardly combat was all-important, certainly far above the follies of meager warriors.

  Robillard pulled free of Deudermont. “I will be throwing the fireball soon enough,” he insisted. “When Wulfgar is dead!”

  Deudermont was hardly listening. He called out to his crew to bring Sea Sprite about and called to his archers to find angles for their shots that they might lend aid to the one-man boarding party.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Wulfgar clipped the rail as he went aboard the pirate ship, tripping forward onto the deck. On came pirate swordsmen, rolling like water to cover him—but he was up and roaring, a long length of chain held in each hand.

  The closest pirate slashed with a sword and scored a hit against the barbarian's shoulder, though Wulfgar quickly got his forearm up and pressed out, stopping the blade from doing more than a surface cut. The barbarian pumped out a right cross as he parried, hitting the man hard in the chest, lifting him from his feet and throwing him across the deck, where he lay broken on his back.

  Chains snapping and smashing, roaring to his god, the barbarian went into a rampage, scattering pirates before him. They had never seen anything like this before, a nearly seven-foot-tall wild man, and so most fled before his thunderous charge.