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  Out went one length of chain, entwining a pair of legs, and Wulfgar gave a mighty jerk that sent the poor pirate flying to the deck. Out went the second length of chain, rolling about the shoulder of a man to Wulfgar's left, going completely around him to snap up and smack him in the chest. Wulfgar's tug took a considerable amount of skin from that one, and sent him into a fast-descending spin.

  “Run away!” came the cries before him. “Oh, but a demon he is!”

  Both his chains were entangled quickly enough, so Wulfgar dropped them and pulled a pair of small clubs from his belt. He leaped forward and cut fast to the side, catching one pirate, obviously the leader of the deck crew and the most heavily armored of the bunch, against the rail.

  The pirate slashed with a fine sword, but Wulfgar jumped back out of reach, then reversed stride with another roar.

  Up came a large, fine shield, and that should have been enough, but never before had this warrior faced the primal fury of Wulfgar.

  The barbarian's first smash against the shield numbed the pirate's arm. Wulfgar's second blow bent in the top of the shield and drove the blocking arm low. His third strike took the defense away all together, and his fourth, following so quickly his opponent hadn't even found the opportunity to bring his sword back in, smacked the pirate on the side of his helmet and staggered him to the side.

  Wulfgar bore in, raining a series of blows that left huge dents in the fine armor and that sent the pirate stumbling to the deck. He had barely hit the planking though, before Wulfgar grabbed him by the ankle and jerked him back up, feet first.

  A twist and a single stride had the mighty barbarian standing at the rail, the armored pirate hanging in midair over the side. Wulfgar held him there, with hardly any effort, it seemed, and with only one arm. The barbarian eyed the rest of the crew dangerously. Not a man approached, and not an archer lifted a bow against him.

  From the flying bridge, though, there did indeed come a challenge, and Wulfgar turned to see the pirate wizard, staring at him while in the throes of spellcasting.

  A flick of Wulfgar's wrist sent his remaining club spinning at the man, and the wizard had to dodge aside, interrupting his own spell.

  But now Wulfgar was unarmed, and the pirate crew seemed recovered from the initial shock of his overwhelming charge. The pirate captain appeared, promising a horde of treasure to the one who brought the barbarian giant down. The wizard was back into casting.

  The sea scum approached, murder in their eyes.

  And they stopped and stood straighter, and some dropped their weapons, as Sea Sprite glided alongside their ship right behind the barbarian, archers ready, boarding party ready.

  Robillard let fly another lightning bolt that smashed the distracted pirate wizard, driving him right over the far rail of the ship and into the cold sea.

  One pirate called for a charge, but was stopped short as a pair of arrows thudded into his chest.

  Sea Sprite's crew was too well trained, too disciplined, too experienced. The fight was over before it had even really begun.

  “You can probably bring him back over the rail,” Deudermont said to Wulfgar a short while later, with the barbarian still standing there, holding the armored pirate upside-down above the short expanse of water between the ships, though Wulfgar was now using two hands, at least.

  “Yes, do!” the embarrassed pirate demanded, lifting the cage visor of his expensive helm. “I am the Earl of Taskadale Manor! I demand—”

  “You are a pirate,” Deudermont said to him, simply.

  “A bit of adventure and nothing more,” the man replied haughtily. “Now please have your ogre friend put me down!”

  Before the captain could say a word, Wulfgar went into a half spin and sent the earl flying across the deck, to smack the mainmast with a great clang and roll right around it, crumbling down in a noisy lump.

  “Earl of Taskadale, whatever that might be,” Deudermont remarked.

  “Not impressed,” Wulfgar replied, and he started away, to the plank that would take him back to Sea Sprite.

  A fuming Robillard was waiting for him on the other side.

  “Who instructed you to board?” the furious wizard demanded. “They could have been taken with a single spell!”

  “Then cast your spell, wizard,” Wulfgar grumbled at him, striding right past, having no time to explain his emotions and impulses to another when he hadn't even sorted them out for himself.

  “Do not think that next time I shan't!” Robillard yelled at him, but Wulfgar just went on his way. “And pity Wulfgar when burning pieces of sail rain down upon his head, lighting his hair and curling his skin! Pity Wulfgar when—”

  “Rest easy,” Deudermont remarked, coming up behind the wizard. “The pirate is taken and not a crewman lost.”

  “As it would have been,” Robillard insisted, “with less chance. Their magical defenses were down, their sails exposed. I had—”

  “Enough, my friend,” Deudermont interrupted.

  “That one, Wulfgar, is a fool,” Robillard replied. “A barbarian indeed! A savage to his heart and soul, and with no better understanding of tactics and advantage than an orc might hold.”

  Deudermont, who had sailed with Wulfgar before and who knew well the dark elf who had trained this warrior, knew better. But he said nothing, just let the always-grumpy Robillard play out his frustration with a string of curses and protests.

  In truth, Captain Deudermont was beginning to rethink the decision to allow Wulfgar to join Sea Sprite's crew, though he certainly believed he owed that much to the man, out of friendship and respect. Wulfgar's apparent redemption had struck well the heart of Captain Deudermont, for he had seen the man at his lowest point, on trial before the vicious magistrates of Luskan for attempting to assassinate Deudermont.

  The captain hadn't believed the charge then—that was the only reason Wulfgar was still alive—though he had recognized that something terrible had happened to the noble warrior, that some unspeakable event had dropped Wulfgar to the bottom of the lowest gutter. Deudermont had been pleased indeed when Wulfgar had arrived at the dock in Waterdeep, asking to come aboard and join the crew, asking Deudermont to help him in retrieving the mighty warhammer that Bruenor Battlehammer had crafted for him.

  Now it was clear to the captain, though, that the scars of Wulfgar's pain had not yet fully healed. His charge back there had been reckless and foolish and could have endangered the entire crew. That, Captain Deudermont could not tolerate. He would have to speak with Wulfgar, and sternly.

  More than that, the captain decided then and there that he would make finding Sheila Kree and her elusive ship a priority, would get Wulfgar back Aegis-fang, and would put him back ashore in Waterdeep.

  To the benefit of all.

  Chapter 3 BELLS AND WHISTLES

  Great gargoyles leered down from twenty feet; a gigantic stone statue of a humanoid lizard warrior—a golem of some sorts, perhaps, but more likely just a carving—guarded the door, which was set between its wide-spread legs. Just inside that dark opening, a myriad of magical lights danced and floated about, some throwing sparks in a threatening manner.

  Le'lorinel was hardly impressed by any of it. The elf knew the schools of magic used by this one, studies that involved illusion and divination, and feared neither. No, E'kressa the Seer's guards and wards did not impress the seasoned warrior. They were more show than substance. Le'lorinel didn't even draw a sword and even removed a shining silver helmet when crossing through that darkened opening and into a circular corridor.

  “E'kressa diknomin tue?” the elf asked, using the tongue of the gnomes. Le'lorinel paused at the base of a ladder, waiting for a response.

  “E'kressa diknomin tue?” the elf asked again, louder and more insistently.

  A response drifted through the air on unseen breezes.

  “What adventures dark and fell, await the darker side of Le'lorinel?” came a high-pitched, but still gravelly voice, speaking in the common tongue. �
��When dark skin splashes blade with red, then shall insatiable hunger be fed? When Le'lorinel has noble drow dead, will he smile, his anger fled?”

  Le'lorinel did smile then, at the display of divination, and at the obvious errors.

  “May I—?” the elf started to ask.

  “Do come up,” came a quick interruption, the tone and abrupt manner telling Le'lorinel that E'kressa wanted to make it clear that the question had been foreseen.

  With a chuckle, Le'lorinel trotted up the stairs. At the top, the elf found a door of hanging blue beads, a soft glow coming from behind them. Pushing through brought Le'lorinel into E'kressa's main audience chamber, obviously, a place of many carpets and pillows for sitting, and with arcane runes and artifacts: a skull here, a gigantic bat wing there, a crystal ball set on a pedestal along the wall, a large mirror, its golden edges all of shaped and twisted design.

  Never had Le'lorinel seen so many trite wizardly items all piled together in one place, and after years of working with Mahskevic the elf knew indeed that they were minor things, window dressing and nothing more—except, perhaps, for the crystal ball.

  Le'lorinel hardly paid them any heed, though, for the elf was watching E'kressa. Dressed in robes of dark blue with red swirling patterns all about them, and a with a gigantic conical hat, the gnome seemed almost a caricature of the classic expectations of a wizard, except, of course, that instead of being tall and imposing, E'kressa barely topped three feet. A large gray beard and bushy eyebrows stuck out from under that hat, and E'kressa tilted his head back, face aimed in the general direction of Le'lorinel, but not as if looking at the elf.

  Two pure white orbs showed under those bushy eyebrows.

  Le'lorinel laughed out loud. “A blind seer? How perfectly typical.”

  “You doubt the powers of my magical sight?” E'kressa replied, raising his arms in threat like the wings of a crowning eagle.

  More than you could ever understand,” Le'lorinel casually replied.

  E'kressa held the pose for a long moment, but then, in the face of Le'lorinel's relaxed posture and ridiculing smirk, the gnome finally relented. With a shrug, E'kressa reached up and took the phony white lenses out of his sparkling gray eyes.

  “Works for the peasants,” the illusionist seer explained. “Amazes them, indeed! And they always seem more eager to drop an extra coin or two to a blind seer.”

  “Peasants are easily impressed,” said Le'lorinel. “I am not.”

  “And yet I knew of you, and your quest,” E'kressa was fast to point out.

  “And you know of Mahskevic, too,” the elf replied dryly.

  E'kressa stomped a booted foot and assumed a petulant posture that lasted all of four heartbeats. “You brought payment?” the seer asked indignantly.

  Le'lorinel tossed a bag of silver across the expanse to the eager gnome's waiting hands. “Why not just use your incredible powers of divination to get the count?” Le'lorinel asked, as the gnome started counting out the coins.

  E'kressa's eyes narrowed so that they were lost beneath the tremendous eyebrows. The gnome waved his hand over the bag, muttered a spell, then a moment later, nodded and put the bag aside. “I should charge you more for making me do that,” he remarked.

  “For counting your payment?” Le'lorinel asked skeptically.

  “For having to show you yet another feat of my great powers of seeing,” the gnome replied. “For not making you wait while I counted them out.”

  “It took little magic to know that the coins would all be there,” the elf responded. “Why would I come here if I had not the agreed upon price?”

  “Another test?” the gnome asked.

  Le'lorinel groaned.

  “Impatience is the folly of humans, not of elves,” E'kressa reminded. “I foresee that if you pursue your quest with such impatience, doom will befall you.”

  “Brilliant,” came the sarcastic reply.

  “You're not making this easy, you know,” the gnome said in deadpan tones.

  “And while I can assure you that I have all the patience I will need to be rid of Drizzt Do'Urden, I do not wish to waste my hours standing here,” said Le'lorinel. “Too many preparations yet await me, E'kressa.”

  The gnome considered that for a moment, then gave a simple shrug. “Indeed. Well, let us see what the crystal ball will show to us. The course of your pursuit, we hope, and perhaps whether Le'lorinel shall win or whether he shall lose.” He rambled down toward the center of the room, waddling like a duck, then veered to the crystal ball.

  “The course, and nothing more,” Le'lorinel corrected.

  E'kressa stopped short and turned about slowly to regard this curious creature. “Most would desire to know the outcome,” he said.

  “And yet, I know, as do you, that any such outcome is not predetermined,” Le'lorinel replied.

  “There is a probability. .”

  “And nothing more than that. And what am I to do, O great seer, if you tell me I shall win my encounter with Drizzt Do'Urden, that I shall slay him as he deserves to be slain and wipe my bloodstained sword upon his white hair?”

  “Rejoice?” E'kressa asked sarcastically.

  “And what am I to do, O great seer, if you tell me that I shall lose this fight?” Le'lorinel went on. “Abandon that which I can not abandon? Forsake my people and suffer the drow to live?”

  “Some people think he's a pretty nice guy.”

  “Illusions do fool some people, do they not?” Le'lorinel remarked.

  E'kressa started to respond, but then merely sighed and shrugged and continued on his waddling way to the crystal ball. “Tell me your thoughts of the road before you,” he instructed.

  “The extra payment insures confidentiality?” Le'lorinel asked.

  E'kressa regarded the elf as if that was a foolish question indeed. “Why would I inform this Drizzt character if ever I met him?” he asked. “And why would I ever meet him, with him being halfway across the world?”

  “Then you have already spied him out?”

  E'kressa picked up the cue that was the eagerness in the elf’s voice, and that anxious pitch made him straighten his shoulders and puff out his chest with pride. “Might that I have,” he said. “Might that I have.”

  Le'lorinel answered with a determined stride, moving to the crystal ball directly opposite the gnome. “Find him.”

  E'kressa began his casting. His little arms waved in high circles above his head while strange utterances in a language Le'lorinel did not know, and in a voice that hardly seemed familiar, came out of his mouth.

  The gray eyes popped open. E'kressa bent forward intently. “Drizzt Do'Urden,” he said quietly, but firmly. “The doomed drow, for there can be but one outcome of such tedious and careful planning.

  “Drizzt Do'Urden,” the gnome said again, the name running off his lips as rhythmically and enchantingly as had the arcane words of his spell. “I see … I see … I see. .”

  E'kressa paused and gave a “Hmm,” then stood straighter. “I see the distorted face of an overeager bald-headed ridiculously masked elf,” he explained, bending to peer around the crystal ball and into Le'lorinel's wide-eyed face. “Do you think you might step back a bit?”

  Le'lorinel's shoulders sagged, and a great sigh came forth, but the elf did as requested.

  E'kressa rubbed his plump little hands together and muttered a continuance of the spell, then bent back in. “I see,” he said again. “Winter blows and deep, deep snows, I hear wind. . yes, yes, I hear wind in my ears and the running hooves of deers.”

  “Deers?” Le'lorinel interrupted.

  E'kressa stood up straight and glared at the elf.

  “Deers?” Le'lorinel said again. “Rhymes with 'ears, right?”

  “You are a troublesome one.”

  “And you are somewhat annoying,” the elf replied. “Why must you speak in rhymes as soon as you fall into your divining? Is that a seer's rule, or something?”

  “Or a preference!” the flus
tered gnome answered, again stamping his hard boot on the carpeted floor.

  “I am no peasant to be impressed,” Le'lorinel explained. “Save yourself the trouble and the silly words, for you'll get no extra coins for atmosphere, visual or audible.”

  E'kressa muttered a couple of curses under his breath and bent back down.

  “Deers,” Le'lorinel said again, with a snort.

  “Mock me one more time and I will send you hunting Drizzt in the Abyss itself,” the gnome warned.

  “And from that place, too, I shall return, to repay you your favor,” Le'lorinel replied without missing a beat. “And I assure you, I know an illusion from an enemy, a guard of manipulated light from that of substance, and possess a manner of secrecy that will escape your eyes.”

  “Ah, but I see all, foolish son of a foolish son!” E'kressa protested.

  Le'lorinel merely laughed at that statement, and that proved to be as vigorous a response as any the elf might have offered, though E'kressa, of course, had no idea of the depth of irony in his boast.

  Both elf and gnome sighed then, equally tired of the useless exchange, and with a shrug the gnome bent forward and peered again into the crystal ball.

  “Word has been heard that Gandalug Battlehammer is not well,” Le'lorinel offered.

  E'kressa muttered some arcane phrases and waggled his little arms about the curve of the sphere.

  “To Mithral Hall seeing eyes go roaming, to throne and curtained bed, shrouded in gloaming,” the gnome began, but he stopped, hearing the impatient clearing of Le'lorinel's throat.

  E'kressa stood up straight and regarded the elf. “Gandalug lays ill,” the gnome confirmed, losing both the mysterious voice and the aggravating rhymes. “Aye, and dying at that.”

  “Priests in attendance?”

  “Dwarf priests, yes,” the gnome answered. “Which is to say, little of any healing powers that might be offered to the dying king. No gentle hands there.