“He was once your leader.”
“Once.”
The simple answer set the halfling back on his heels.
“Wulfgar forgot the ways of Icewind Dale, the ways of our people,” Berkthgar said, addressing Drizzt directly and not even glancing down at the upset halfling. “Icewind Dale is unforgiving. Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, didn’t need to be told that. He offered no challenge.”
Drizzt nodded his understanding and acceptance.
“He left us in the first draw of light and dark,” the barbarian explained.
“The spring equinox,” Drizzt explained to Regis. “When day and night are equal.”
He turned to Berkthgar and asked directly, “Was it demanded of him that he leave?”
The chieftain shook his head. “Too long are the tales of Wulfgar. Great sorrow, it is, for us to know that he is of us no more.”
“He thought he was coming home,” said Regis.
“This was not his home.”
“Then where is he?” the halfling demanded, and Berkthgar shook his head solemnly, having no answer.
“He didn’t go back to Ten-Towns,” Regis said, growing more animated as he became more alarmed. “He didn’t go back to Luskan. He couldn’t have without stopping through Ten—”
“The Son of Beornegar is dead,” Berkthgar interrupted. “We’re not pleased that it came to this, but Icewind Dale wins over us all. Wulfgar forgot who he was, and forgot where he came from. Icewind Dale does not forgive. He left us in the first draw of light and dark, and we found signs of him for many tendays. But they are gone, and he is gone.”
“Are you certain?” Drizzt asked, trying to keep the tremor out of his pained voice.
Berkthgar slowly blinked. “Our words with the people of the three lakes are few,” he explained. “But when sign of Wulfgar faded from the tundra of Icewind Dale, we asked of him among them. The little one is right. Wulfgar did not go back to Ten-Towns.”
“Our mourning is passed,” came a voice from behind Berkthgar and the barbarian leader turned to regard the man who had disregarded custom by speaking out. A nod from Berkthgar showed forgiveness for that, and when they saw the speaker, Drizzt and Regis understood the sympathy, for Kierstaad, grown into a strong man, had ever been a devout champion of the son of Beornegar. No doubt for Kierstaad, the loss of Wulfgar was akin to the loss of his father. None of that pain showed in his voice or his stance, however. He had proclaimed the mourning of Wulfgar passed, and so it simply was.
“You don’t know that he’s dead,” Regis protested, and both Berkthgar and Kierstaad, and many others, scowled at him. Drizzt hushed him with a little tap on the shoulder.
“You know the comforts of a hearth and a bed of down,” Berkthgar said to Regis. “We know Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale does not forgive.”
Regis started to protest again, but Drizzt held him back, understanding well that resignation and acceptance was the way of the barbarians. They accepted death without remorse because death was all too near, always. Not a man or woman there had not known the specter of death—of a lover, a parent, a child, or a friend.
And so the drow tried to show the same stoicism when he and Regis took their leave of the Tribe of the Elk soon after, walking the same path that had brought them so far out from Ten-Towns. The facade couldn’t hold, though, and the drow couldn’t hide his wince of pain. He didn’t know where to turn, where to look, who to ask. Wulfgar was gone, lost to him, and the taste proved bitter indeed. Black wings of guilt fluttered around him as he walked, images of the look on Wulfgar’s face when first he’d learned that Catti-brie was lost to him, betrothed to the drow he called his best friend. It had been no one’s fault, not Drizzt’s nor Catti-brie’s, nor Wulfgar’s, for Wulfgar had been lost to them for years, trapped in the Abyss by the balor Errtu. In that time, Drizzt and Catti-brie had fallen in love, or had at last admitted the love they had known for years, but had muted because of their obvious differences.
When Wulfgar had returned from the dead, there was nothing they could do, though Catti-brie had surely tried.
And so it was circumstance that had driven Wulfgar from the Companions of the Hall. Blameless circumstance, Drizzt tried hard to tell himself as he and Regis walked without speaking through the continuing gentle snowfall. He wasn’t about to convince himself, but it hardly mattered anyway. All that mattered was that Wulfgar was lost to him forever, that his beloved friend was no more and his world had diminished.
Beside him, the muffling aspect of the snow and breeze did little to hide Regis’s sniffles.
CHAPTER 22
PARADISE…DELAYED
A h, but ye’re a thief!” the man accused, poking his finger into the chest of the one who he believed had just pocketed the wares.
“Speak on yer own!” the other shouted back. “The merchant here’s pointin’ to yer vest and not me own.”
“And he’s wrong, because yerself took it!”
“Says a fool!”
The first man retracted his finger, balled up his fist, and let fly a heavy punch for the second’s face.
The other was more than ready, though, dropping low beneath the awkward swing and coming up fast and hard to hit his opponent in the gut.
And not with just a fist.
The man staggered back, clutching at his spilling entrails. “Ah, but he sticked me!” he cried.
The knife-wielder came up straight and grinned, then stabbed his opponent again then a third time for good measure. Though screams erupted all across the open market of Luskan, with guards scrambling every which way, the attacker very calmly stepped over and wiped his blade on the shirt of the bent-over man.
“Fall down and die then, like a good fellow,” he said to his victim. “One less idiot walking the streets with the name of Captain Suljack on his sputtering lips.”
“Murderer!” a woman screamed at the knifeman as his victim fell to the street at his feet.
“Bah! But th’ other one struck first!” a man in the crowd shouted.
“Nay, but just a fist!” another one of Suljack’s men protested, and the shouting man replied by punching him in the face.
As if on cue, and indeed it was—though only those working for Baram and Taerl understood that cue—the market exploded into violent chaos. Fights broke out at every kiosk and wagon. Women screamed and children ran to better vantage points, so they could watch the fun.
From every corner, the city guards swooped in to restore order. Some shouted orders, but others countermanded those with opposing commands, and the fighting only widened. One furious guard captain ran into the midst of an opposing group, whose leader had just negated his call for a group of ruffians to stand down.
“And who are you with, then?” the leader of that group demanded of the guard captain.
“With Luskan, ye fool,” he retorted.
“Bah, there ain’t no Luskan,” the thug retorted. “Luskan’s dead—there’s just the Five Ships.”
“What nonsense escapes your flapping lips?” the guard captain demanded, but the man didn’t relent.
“Ye’re a Suljack man, ain’t ye?” he accused. The guard captain, who was indeed affiliated with Ship Suljack, stared at him incredulously.
The man slugged him in the chest, and before he could respond, two others pulled back his arms so that the thug could continue the beating uninterrupted.
The melee went on for a long while, until a sharp boom of thunder, a resounding and reverberating blast of explosive magic, drew everyone’s attention to the eastern edge of the market. There stood Governor Deudermont, with Robillard, who had thrown the lightning signal, right beside him. All the crew of Sea Sprite and the remainder of Lord Brambleberry’s men stood shoulder to shoulder behind them.