The drow nodded, surprised at the recognition.

“Your name, too, has come down to Luskan with the tales frown Icewind Dale,” Jierdan explained. “Pardon our, surprise.” He bowed low. “We do not see many of your race at our gates.”

Drizzt nodded again, but did not answer, uncomfortable with this unusual attention. Never before had a gatekeeper bothered to ask him his name or his business. And the drow had quickly come to understand the advantage of avoiding gates altogether, silently slipping over a city’s wall in the darkness and seeking the seedier side, where he might at least have a chance of standing unnoticed in the dark corners with the other rogues. Had his name and heroics brought him a measure of respect even this far from Ten-Towns?

Bruenor turned to Drizzt and winked, his own anger dissipated by the fact that his friend had finally been given his due from a stranger.

But Drizzt wasn’t convinced. He didn’t dare hope for such a thing—it left him too vulnerable to feelings that he had fought hard to hide. He preferred to keep his suspicions and his guard as close to him as the dark cowl of his cloak. He cocked a curious ear as the two soldiers backed away to hold a private conversation.

“I care not of his name,” he heard the Nightkeeper whisper at Jierdan. “No drow elf shall pass my gate!”

“You err,” Jierdan retorted. “These are the heroes of Ten-Towns. The halfling is truly First Citizen of Bryn Shander, the drow a ranger with a deadly, but undeniably honorable, reputation, and the dwarf—note the foaming mug standard on his shield—is Bruenor Battlehammer, leader of his clan in the dale.”

“And what of the giant barbarian?” asked the Nightkeeper, using a sarcastic tone in an attempt to sound unimpressed, though he was obviously a bit nervous. “What rogue might he be?”

Jierdan shrugged. “His great size, his youth, and a measure of control beyond his years. It seems unlikely to me that he should be here, but he might be the young king of the tribes that the tale-tellers have spoken of. We should not turn these travelers away; the consequences may be grave.”

“What could Luskan possibly fear from the puny settlements in Icewind Dale?” the Nightkeeper balked.

“There are other trading ports,” Jierdan retorted. “Not every battle is fought with a sword. The loss of Ten-Towns’ scrimshaw would not be viewed favorably by our merchants, nor by the trading ships that put in each season.”

The Nightkeeper scrutinized the four strangers again. He didn’t trust them at all, despite his companion’s grand claims, and he didn’t want them in his city. But he knew, too, that if his suspicions were wrong and he did something to jeopardize the scrimshaw trade, his own future would be bleak. The soldiers of Luskan answered to the merchants, who were not quick to forgive errors that thinned their purses.

The Nightkeeper threw up his hands in defeat. “Go in, then,” he told the companions. “Keep to the wall and make your way down to the docks. The last lane holds the Cutlass, and you’ll be warm enough there!”

Drizzt studied the proud strides of his friends as they marched through the door, and he guessed that they had also overheard pieces of the conversation. Bruenor confirmed his suspicions when they had moved away from the guard towers, down the road along the wall.

“Here, elf,” the dwarf snorted, nudging Drizzt and being obviously pleased. “So the word’s gone beyond the dale and we’re heared of even this far south. What have ye to say o’ that?”

Drizzt shrugged again and Bruenor chuckled, assuming that his friend was merely embarrassed by the fame. Regis and Wulfgar, too, shared in Bruenor’s mirth, the big man giving the drow a good-hearted slap on the back as he slipped to the lead of the troupe.

But Drizzt’s discomfort stemmed from more than embarrassment. He had noted the grin on Jierdan’s face as they had passed, a smile that went beyond admiration. And while he had no doubts that some tales of the battle with Akar Kessell’s goblin army had reached the City of Sails, it struck Drizzt odd that a simple soldier knew so much about him and his friends, while the gatekeeper, solely responsible for determining who passed into the city, knew nothing.

Luskan’s streets were tightly packed with two– and three-story buildings, a reflection of the desperation of the people there to huddle within the safety of the city’s high wall, away from the ever-present dangers of the savage northland. An occasional tower, a guard post, perhaps, or a prominent citizen’s or guild’s way to show superiority, sprouted from the roofline. A wary city, Luskan survived, even flourished, in the dangerous frontier by holding fast to an attitude of alertness that often slipped over the line into paranoia. It was a city of shadows, and the four visitors this night keenly felt the curious and dangerous stares peeking out from every darkened hole as they made their way.

The docks harbored the roughest section of the city, where thieves, outlaws, and beggars abounded in their narrow alleys and shadowed crannies. A perpetual ground fog wafted in from the sea, blurring the already dim avenues into even more mysterious pathways.

Such was the lane the four friends found themselves turning down, the last lane before the piers themselves, a particularly decrepit run called Half-Moon Street. Regis, Drizzt, and Bruenor knew immediately that they had entered a collecting ground for vagabonds and ruffians, and each put a hand to his weapon. Wulfgar walked openly and without fear, although he, too, sensed the threatening atmosphere. Not understanding that the area was atypically foul, he was determined to approach his first experience with civilization with an open mind.

“There’s the place,” said Bruenor, indicating a small group, probably thieves, congregating before the doorway of a tavern. The weatherbeaten sign above the door named the place the Cutlass.

Regis swallowed hard, a frightening mixture of emotions welling within him. In his early days as a thief in Calimport, he had frequented many places like this, but his familiarity with the environment only added to his apprehension. The forbidden allure of business done in the shadows of a dangerous tavern, he knew, could be as deadly as the hidden knives of the rogues at every table. “You truly want to go in there?” he asked his friends squeamishly.

“No arguing from ye!” Bruenor snapped back. “Ye knew the road ahead when ye joined us in the dale. Don’t ye be whining now!”

“You are well guarded,” Drizzt put in to comfort Regis.

Overly proud in his inexperience, Wulfgar pressed the statement even further. “What cause would they have to do us harm? Surely we have done no wrong,” he demanded. Then he proclaimed loudly to challenge the shadows, “Fear not, little friend. My hammer shall sweep aside any who stand against us!”

“The pride o’ youth,” Bruenor grumbled as he, Regis, and Drizzt exchanged incredulous looks.

The atmosphere inside the Cutlass was in accord with the decay and rabble that marked the place outside. The tavern portion of the building was a single open room, with a long bar defensively positioned in the corner of the rear wall, directly across from the door. A staircase rose up from the side of the bar to the structure’s second level, a staircase more often used by painted, overperfumed women and their latest companions than by guests of the inn. Indeed, merchant sailors who put into Luskan usually came ashore only for brief periods of excitement and entertainment, returning to the safety of their vessels if they could manage it before the inevitable drunken sleep left them vulnerable.

More than anything else, though, the tavern at the Cutlass was a room of the senses, with myriad sounds and sights and smells. The aroma of alcohol, from strong ale and cheap wine to rarer and more powerful beverages, permeated every corner. A haze of smoke from exotic pipe-weeds, like the mist outside, blurred the harsh reality of the images into softer, dreamlike sensations.