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Page 41

 

  She rushed out of the alley and down the garbage-strewn street toward the inn and her room, thinking then that her encounter had more likely been with an agent of Sylora.

  For the Thayan sorceress would ever test her, and never trust her, and woe to Dahlia if ever Sylora found her loyalty to be less than absolute.

  No matter how many times they approached Luskan from that direction, Drizzt and Bruenor always paused on the same hill south of the city’s southern gate to take in the view of the harbor. Though other ports like Waterdeep and Calimport had far larger docks, longer wharves, and always had more ships in port, nowhere was there to be found such a diversity of sailing vessels as in the so-called City of Sails. They might have been the dregs of the Sword Coast—pirates, smugglers, and only the most daring merchants—ruffians who outfitted their vessels ad-hoc, with sails of stitched clothing and maybe a catapult that had been designed for a castle’s tower strapped onto the aft deck for good measure.

  Coastrunners bobbed against the shallower docks, with rows of oars standing skyward. Single-mast schooners and square-sailed caravels dominated the second tier of docks, with many more open-moored farther out, and a trio of three-mast vessels, large and wide, were moored near the outermost docks.

  The City of Sails indeed—though Drizzt couldn’t help but note that though those ships were in port, there were fewer in all than he remembered.

  “Our friend better be here,” Bruenor grumbled, stealing the moment. “And better have me maps. Every one, and don’t ye think I’ll not know if even one’s missin’!”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” Drizzt promised.

  “We’ll know now,” Bruenor growled in reply.

  “Jarlaxle, tomorrow,” Drizzt promised, and started down the road toward the city. “The hour is late. Let us find an inn for the night and shake off the dirt of the road. ”

  Bruenor started to argue, but stopped short and shot Drizzt a glance and a grin. “The Cutlass?” the dwarf said, almost reverently, for what a grand history those two, particularly Drizzt, had with that establishment.

  It was in the Cutlass where Drizzt and Wulfgar had first met Captain Deudermont of Sea Sprite, one of the most legendary vessels ever to sail out of Luskan. The Cutlass was where a broken Wulfgar had gone when, returned from the Abyss, he found himself mired in the mud of self-pity and strong drink. Delly Curtie, for a while Wulfgar’s wife—and thus, Bruenor’s daughter-in-law—had been a barmaid there, working for the jovial and well-informed. …

  “Arumn Gardpeck,” Bruenor said, recalling the tavernkeeper’s name.

  “A good man with a fine tavern,” Drizzt agreed. “Aye, when the wealthy came to Luskan in the years before the pirates took hold, they stayed in the far fancier inns higher on the hills, but they would have found better lodging in Arumn Gardpeck’s beds. ”

  “Not to doubt,” said Bruenor. “And who was that skinny one, with the rat face? The one what stole me boy’s hammer?”

  Drizzt could easily picture that miscreant sitting on a stool at Arumn’s bar. He was always there, always talking, and he had an unusual name, Drizzt remembered, a silly one.

  But the drow couldn’t quite recall it, so he just shook his head.

  “Arumn’s kin still got the place, or so I hear,” Bruenor recalled. “What was that girl’s name, then? Shibanni?”

  Drizzt nodded. “Shivanni Gardpeck. Claims to be Arumn’s great-great-great grandniece, I believe. ”

  “Think it’s true?”

  Drizzt shrugged. All that mattered to him was that the Cutlass remained. Shivanni may or may not have been Arumn Gardpeck’s descendent, but if she wasn’t, she had to have come from a similar bloodline, and if she was, then fat Arumn would be glad to know it, and to know her.

  The pair crossed through the open gate, many eyes turning their way. There were only a scant few guards manning the walls and none visible on the towers. They might have been soldiers of one or another of the High Captains who ruled Luskan, but looked more like thugs serving themselves first—a ragtag band of knaves bound by no uniform, no code, and no notion of the common good of Luskan.

  The city gates were always open. If Luskan began discriminating about who they let in, they would probably find the city deserted in short order. Even the scurvy dogs who wandered in through the gates paled under the glow of angelic halos compared to the rats who crawled off the ships that put into port there.

  “ ’Ere now, a dwarf an’ a drow,” one man said to the pair as they passed under the gate.

  “Be ye more impressed by yer eyes, or by yer sharp mind that sorted such a sight?” Bruenor shot back.

  “Not a usual pairing, is all,” the man said with a chuckle.

  “Give him that much, Bruenor,” Drizzt said so only the dwarf could hear.

  “And what is the news in Luskan, good sir?” Drizzt asked the man.

  “Same news as any day,” the guard replied, and he seemed in good spirits. He stood and stretched, his back making cracking sounds with the effort, and took a step toward the pair. “Too many bodies cloggin’ the waterways, and too many rats blocking the streets. ”

  “And pray tell, what captain do you serve?” asked the drow.

  The man looked wounded, and put his hand over his heart. “Why, dark skin,” he replied, “I’m livin’ to serve the City o’ Sails, and nothin’ more!”

  Bruenor shot Drizzt a sour look, but the drow, far better versed in the ways of the chaotic and wild town, smiled and nodded, for he had expected no other answer.

  “And where’re ye off to?” the guard asked. “Might I be directin’ ye? Ye lookin’ for a boat er an inn in particular?”

  “No,” Bruenor said flatly, aiming it, obviously, at both questions.

  But to the dwarf’s wide-eyed surprise, Drizzt answered, “Passing through. For tonight, good lodging. For tomorrow, perhaps the road north. ” He saluted and started away, then said to Bruenor, and not quietly, “Come, Shivanni awaits. ”

  “Ah,” the guard said, turning them both back to regard him. “Good ale to be found in Luskan, to be sure. Boatload o’ Baldur’s Gate pale brew come through just two days ago. ”

  “To be sure,” Drizzt answered, and he led Bruenor away.

  “When’d ye get a waggin’ tongue, elf?”

  Drizzt shrugged as if he didn’t understand.

  “He might’ve knowed the name. ”

  Again, Drizzt shrugged. “If Jarlaxle wishes to find us, why would we make it difficult for him?”

  “And if he ain’t lookin’ for us?”

  “Then we would never have known it was a drow that raided our camp, and would never have found a trail so obvious leading us here. ”

  “Or the trail’s a fake. Leadin’ us here so we’re just thinking it’s Jarlaxle. ” Bruenor nodded repeatedly as he considered his own words, as if he had just had a moment of epiphany.

  “In that case, too, I would speak with Jarlaxle, for any so sending us in this direction surely concerns him as well. And a fine ally he will make, in that case. ”

  “Bah!” Bruenor snorted.

  “We have no enemies here that I know of,” the drow said. “We walked in openly, with nothing to hide and no ill intent. ”

  “Now ye’re friends to the High Captains, are ye?”

  “Assuming there are any left, I’d kill every one of them if the opportunity presented itself—if they in any way resemble those who defeated Captain Deudermont, decades ago,” Drizzt admitted.

  “I’m sure they’d be glad to hear that. ”

  “I don’t intend to tell them. ”

  “A dwarf an’ a drow, just like ye asked,” the guard said to the alluring woman who had hired him to watch for that very thing.

  The woman, an Ashmadai serving in Dahlia’s band, nodded. “This very day?”

  “Not an hour past. ”

  “You are certain?”

  “A dwarf an’ a drow,” the guard
deadpanned, for how could anyone get something like that wrong?

  The woman licked her lips and pulled out a small purse. She turned as she opened it, shielding its contents from the guard’s eye, then turned back to toss him two pieces of gold.

  “Which way did they go?”

  The guard shrugged. “Didn’t bother to watch ’em. ”

  The Ashmadai sighed and gave a little growl of frustration. With a disgusted look and a shake of her head, she started away.

  “Why would I, when I know right where they’re goin’?” the ruffian asked.

  The woman spun, hands on hips, glowering at the grinning man. She waited a few heartbeats, but he said nothing. “Well?” she prompted.

  “Ye paid me to watch the gate for a dwarf an’ a drow. I watched the gate and saw yer dwarf an’ drow. ”

  She narrowed her eyes threateningly, but the guard appeared unconcerned.

  With another sigh, the woman grabbed up her purse.

  “One piece o’ gold for the name o’ who they’re goin’ to see,” the guard said, grinning all the wider. “Two’ll get ye the name o’ the place. Three, how to get there. ”

  She tossed two gold coins at his feet. “All of it,” she said.

  The guard considered the coins, shrugged, and accepted the bargain.

  “The skinny one,” Bruenor prompted, leaning on the bar, his gray and orange beard lathered with foam.

  Shivanni Gardpeck stood opposite him with one hand on her hip and the other tapping at her chin. She was an attractive woman, nearing forty, full-bodied with considerable curves and long dark brown hair that bunched thickly at her shoulders. She didn’t remind Drizzt of her distant uncle Arumn in her appearance, but her mannerisms bespoke a family resemblance.

  “A long way removed, was Arumn,” she mumbled.

  “A long time ago,” Bruenor agreed. “But the tales came down through yer family?”

  “To be sure. ”

  “The tale o’ Wulfgar’s stolen hammer?”

  Shivanni nodded and chewed her bottom lip as if the forgotten name was right there, begging release.

  “Ah, by the beards o’ gnomes,” Bruenor lamented when the woman held up her hands in defeat. He lifted his flagon and drained it, belched for good measure, and nodded to Drizzt that he was ready to go to their room.

  Halfway up the stairs, the pair were stopped by Shivanni’s call. “I’ll remember it, don’t you doubt!” she said.

  “Rat-faced man with a hammer that weren’t his own,” Bruenor called back, a light tone in his voice as if the conversation had brought him back across the decades to a place he far preferred. Indeed, his voice was filled with relief, and he grinned widely and threw up his hands, as if all the world had been made right.

  Two hours later, Bruenor was deeply sunk into a chair and snoring loudly. Drizzt contemplated whether or not he should disturb his friend, but he knew that if he let Bruenor sleep, the dwarf would likely awaken him in the middle of the night, grumping about a grumbling belly.