“Consider it the best investment of your life,” High Captain Kurth answered before Kensidan could. “No Ship lost more than my own.”
“I lost most of me guards,” Taerl put in. “Ye lost a hundred common folk and a score of houses, but I lost fighters. How many of yers marched alongside Deudermont?”
His bluster couldn’t hold, though, as Kurth fixed him with a perfectly vicious glare.
“Deudermont’s ascension was predictable and desirable,” Kensidan said to them all to get the meeting of the five back on track. “We survived the war. Our Ships remain intact, though battered, as Luskan herself is battered. That will mend, and this time, we will not have the smothering strength of the Hosttower holding us in check at every turn. Be at ease, my friends, for this has gone splendidly. True, we could not fully anticipate the devastation Greeth wrought, and true, we have many more dead than we expected, but the war was mercifully short and favorably concluded. We could not ask for a better stooge than Captain Deudermont to serve as the new puppet governor of Luskan.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” Kurth warned. “He is a hero to the people, even to those fighters who serve in our ranks.”
“Then we must make sure that the next few tendays shine a different light upon him,” said Kensidan. As he finished, he looked at his closest ally, Suljack, and saw the man frowning and shaking his head. Kensidan wasn’t quite sure what that might mean, for in truth, Suljack had lost the most soldiers in the battle, with nearly all of his Ship marching beside Deudermont and a good many of them killed at the Hosttower.
“Well enough to get out of bed, I would say,” a voice accosted Regis. He lay in his bed, half asleep, feeling perfectly miserable both emotionally and physically. He could deal with his wounds a lot easier than with the loss of Drizzt. How was he going to go back to Mithral Hall and face Bruenor? And Catti-brie!
“I feel better,” he lied.
“Then do sit up, little one,” the voice replied, and that gave Regis pause, for he didn’t recognize the speaker and saw no one when he looked around the room.
He sat up quickly then, and immediately focused on a darkened corner of the room.
Magically darkened, he knew.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“An old friend.”
Regis shook his head.
“Fare well on your journey….” the voice said and the last notes of the sentence faded away to nothingness, taking the magical darkness with it.
Leaving a revelation that had Regis gawking with surprise and trepidation.
He knew that he was nearing the end, and that there was no way out. Guenhwyvar, too, would perish, and Drizzt could only pray that her death on that alien plane, removed from the figurine, wouldn’t be permanent, that she would, as she had on the Prime Material Plane, simply revert to her Astral home.
The drow cursed himself for leaving the statuette behind.
And he fought, not for himself, for he knew that he was doomed, but for Guenhwyvar, his beloved friend. Perhaps she would find her way home through sheer exhaustion, as long as he could keep her alive long enough.
He didn’t know how many hours, days, had passed. He had found bitter nourishment in giant mushrooms and in the flesh of some of the strange beasts that had come against him, but both had left him sickly and weak.
He knew he was nearing the end, but the fighting was not.
He faced a six-armed monstrosity, every lumbering swing from its thick arms heavy enough to decapitate him. Drizzt was too quick for those swipes, of course, and had he been less weary, his foe would have been an easy kill. But the drow could hardly hold his scimitars aloft, and his focus kept slipping. Several times, he managed to duck away just in time to avoid a heavy punch.
“Come on, Guen,” he whispered under his breath, having set the fiendish beast up for a sidelong strike from the panther’s position on a rocky outcropping to the right. Drizzt heard a growl, and grinned, expecting Guenhwyvar to fly in for the kill.
But Drizzt got hit, and hard, instead, a flying tackle that flung him away from the beast and left him rolling in a tangle with another powerful creature.
He didn’t understand—it was all he could do to hold onto his scimitars, let alone try to bring them to bear.
But then the muddy ground beneath him became more solid, and a stinging light blinded him, and though his eyes could not adjust to see anything, he realized from another familiar growl that it was Guenhwyvar who had tackled him.
He heard a friendly voice, a welcomed voice, a cry of glee.
He got hit with another flying tackle almost as soon as he’d extricated himself from the jumble with Guen.
“How?” he asked Regis.
“I don’t know and I don’t care!” the halfling responded, hugging Drizzt all the tighter.
“Kurth is right,” High Captain Rethnor warned his son. “Underestimate Captain Deudermont…Governor Deudermont, at our peril. He is a man of actions, not words. You were never at sea, and so you don’t understand the horror that filled men’s eyes when the sails of Sea Sprite were spotted.”
“I have heard the tales, but this is not the sea,” Kensidan replied.
“You have it all figured out,” Rethnor said, his mocking tone unmistakable.
“I remain agile in my ability to adapt to whatever comes our way.”
“But for now?”
“For now, I allow Kurth to run rampant on Closeguard and Cutlass, and even in the market area. He and I will dominate the streets easily enough, with Suljack playing my fool.”
“Deudermont may disband Prisoner’s Carnival, but he will raise a strong militia to enforce the laws.”
“His laws,” Kensidan replied, “not Luskan’s.”
“They are one and the same now.”
“No, not yet, and not ever if we properly pressure the streets,” said Kensidan. “Turmoil is Deudermont’s enemy, and lack of order will eventually turn the people against him. If he pushes too hard, he will find all of Luskan against him, as Arklem Greeth realized.”
“It’s a fight you want?” Rethnor said after a contemplative pause.
“It’s a fight I insist upon,” his conniving son answered. “For now, Deudermont makes a fine target for the anger of others, while Ship Kurth and Ship Rethnor rule the streets. When the breaking point is reached, a second war will erupt in Luskan, and when it’s done…”
“A free port,” said Rethnor. “A sanctuary for…merchant ships.”
“With ready trade in exotic goods that will find their way to the homes of Waterdhavian lords and to the shops of Baldur’s Gate,” said Kensidan. “That alone will keep Waterdeep from organizing an invasion of the new Luskan, for the self-serving bastard nobles will not threaten their own playthings. We’ll have our port, our city, and all pretense of law and subservience to the lords of Waterdeep be damned.”
“Lofty goals,” said Rethnor.
“My father, I only seek to make you proud,” Kensidan said with such obvious sarcasm that old Rethnor could only laugh, and heartily.
“I’m not easy with this disembodied voice arriving in the darkness,” Deudermont said. “But pleased I am, beyond anything, to see you alive and well.”
“Well is a relative term,” the drow replied. “But I’m recovering—though if you ever happen to travel to the plane of my imprisonment, take care to avoid the mushrooms.”
Deudermont and Robillard laughed at that, as did Regis, who was standing at Drizzt’s side, both of them carrying their packs for the road.
“I have acquaintances on Luskan’s streets,” Drizzt reasoned. “Some not even of my knowing, but friends of a friend.”