The orc took three sudden and furious strides then leaped as only Obould could leap, a greater leap than any orc would even attempt, a leap that seemed more akin to magical flight.
Nyphithys didn’t anticipate it. Drizzt didn’t, either. And neither did Bruenor or Catti-brie, who was readying an arrow to try to finish off the devil. She quickly deduced that there was no need for it, when Obould cleared the remaining distance and went high enough to land beside Nyphithys. He delivered his answer by transferring all of his momentum into a swing of his powerful greatsword.
Drizzt winced, for he had seen that play before. He thought of Tarathiel, his fallen friend, and pictured the elf in Nyphithys’s place as she was shorn in half by the orc’s mighty, fiery blade.
The devil fell to the stone, in two pieces.
“By Moradin’s own mug,” said Thibbledorf Pwent, standing between Bruenor and Regis. “I’m knowin’ he’s an orc, but I’m likin’ this one.”
Bruenor smirked at his battlerager escort, but his gaze went right back to Obould, who seemed almost godlike standing up on that stone, his foe, vanquished, at his feet.
Realizing that he had to react, Bruenor stalked the orc’s way. “She’d have made a fine prisoner,” he reminded Obould.
“She makes a better trophy,” the orc king insisted, and he and Bruenor locked their typically angry stares, the two always seeming on the verge of battle.
“Don’t ye forget that we came to help ye,” said Bruenor.
“Don’t you forget that I let you,” Obould countered, and they continued to stare.
Over to the side, Drizzt found his way to Catti-brie. “Been four years,” the woman lamented, watching the two rival kings and their unending growling at each other. “I wonder if I will live long enough to see them change.”
“They’re staring, not fighting,” Drizzt replied. “You already have.”
CHAPTER 3
TO DARE TO DREAM
A few years earlier, Sea Sprite would have just sent Quelch’s Folly to the ocean floor and sailed on her way in search of more pirates. AndSea Sprite would have found other pirates to destroy before she needed to sail back into port. Sea Sprite could catch and destroy and hunt again with near impunity. She was faster, she was stronger, and she was possessed of tremendous advantages over those she hunted in terms of information.
A catch, though, was becoming increasingly rare, though pirates were plentiful.
A troubled Deudermont paced the deck of his beloved pirate hunter, occasionally glancing back at the damaged ship he had put in tow. He needed the assurance. Like an aging gladiator, Deudermont understood that time was fast passing him by, that his enemies had caught up to his tactics. The ship in tow alleviated those fears somewhat, of course, like a swordsman’s win in the arena. And it would bring a fine payoff in Waterdeep, he knew.
“For months now I have wondered….” Deudermont remarked to Robillard when he walked near the wizard, seated on his customary throne behind the mainmast, a dozen feet up from the deck. “Now I know.”
“Know what, my captain?” Robillard asked with obviously feigned interest.
“Why we don’t find them.”
“We found one.”
“Why we don’t more readily find them,” the captain retorted to his wizard’s unending dry humor.
“Pray tell.” As he spoke, Robillard apparently caught on to the intensity of Deudermont’s gaze, and he didn’t look away.
“I heard your conversation with Arabeth Raurym,” Deudermont said.
Robillard replaced his shock with an amused grin. “Indeed. She is an interesting little creature.”
“A pirate who escaped our grasp,” Deudermont remarked.
“You would have had me put her in chains?” the wizard asked. “You are aware of her lineage, I presume.”
Deudermont didn’t blink.
“And her power,” Robillard added. “She is an overwizard of the Hosttower of the Arcane. Had I tried to detain her, she would have blown the ship out from under our boarding party, yourself included.”
“Isn’t that exactly the circumstance for which you were hired?”
Robillard smirked and let the quip pass.
“I don’t like that she escaped,” Deudermont said. He paused and directed Robillard’s gaze to starboard.
The sun dipped below the ocean horizon, turning a distant line of clouds fiery orange, red, and pink. The sun was setting, but at least it was a beautiful sight. Deudermont couldn’t dismiss the symbolism of the sunset, given his feelings as he considered the relative inefficiency of Sea Sprite of late, those nagging suspicions that his tactics had been successfully countered by the many pirates running wild along the Sword Coast.
He stared at the sunset.
“The Arcane Brotherhood meddles where they should not,” he said quietly, as much to himself as to Robillard.
“You would expect differently?” came the wizard’s response.
Deudermont managed to tear his eyes from the natural spectacle to regard Robillard.
“They have always been meddlesome,” Robillard explained. “Some, at least. There are those—I counted myself among them—who simply wanted to be left alone to our studies and experiments. We viewed the Hosttower as a refuge for the brilliant. Sadly, others wish to use that brilliance for gain or for dominance.”
“This Arklem Greeth creature.”
“Creature? Yes, a fitting description.”
“You left the Hosttower before he arrived?” Deudermont asked.
“I was still among its members as he rose to prominence, sadly.”
“Do you count his rise among your reasons for leaving?”
Robillard considered that for a moment then shrugged. “I don’t believe Greeth alone was the catalyst for the changes in the tower, he was more a symptom. But perhaps the fatal blow to whatever honor remained at the Hosttower.”
“Now he supports the pirates.”
“Likely the least of his crimes. He is an indecent creature.”
Deudermont rubbed his tired eyes and looked back to the sunset.
Three days later, Sea Sprite and Quelch’s Folly—whose name had been purposely marred beyond recognition—put into Waterdeep Harbor. They were met by eager wharf hands and the harbormaster himself, who also served as auctioneer for the captured pirate ships Deudermont and a very few others brought in.
“Argus Retch’s ship,” he said to Deudermont when the captain walked down from Sea Sprite. “Tell me ye got him in yer hold, and me day’ll be brighter.”
Deudermont shook his head and looked past the harbormaster, to a young friend of his, Lord Brambleberry of the East Waterdeep nobility. The man moved swiftly, with a boyish spring still in his step. He had passed the age of twenty, but barely, and while Deudermont admired his youth and vigor, and indeed believed that he was looking at a kindred spirit—Brambleberry so reminded him of himself at that age—he sometimes found the young man too eager and anxious to make a name for himself. Such rushed ambition could lead to a premature visit to the Fugue Plane, Deudermont knew.
“Ye killed him, then, did ye?” the harbormaster asked.
“He was not aboard when we boarded,” Deudermont explained. “But we’ve a score of pirate prisoners for your gaolers.”
“Bah, but I’d trade the lot of them for Argus Retch’s ugly head,” the man said and spat. Deudermont nodded quickly and walked by him.
“I heard that your sails had been sighted, and was hoping that you would put in this day,” Lord Brambleberry said as the captain neared. He extended his hand, which Deudermont grasped in a firm shake.
“You wish to get in an early bid on Retch’s ship?” Deudermont asked.
“I may,” the young nobleman replied. He was taller than most men—as tall as Deudermont—with hair the color of wheat in a bright sun and eyes that darted to and fro with inquisitiveness and not wariness, as if there was too much of the world yet to be seen. He had thin and handsome features, again so much like Deudermont, and unblemished skin and clean fingernails bespeaking his noble birthright.