Robert Salvatore: The Spine of the World

The anvil. Cold it was, like a block of ice, so cold that it seemed like fire to Wulfgar's thighs when Errtu's mighty minions pulled him across it, forced him to straddle it, naked and stretched out on his back.

Errtu would come to him then, slowly, menacingly, would walk right up before him, and in a single, sudden movement, smash a small mallet set with tiny needles down into Wulfgar's opened eyes, exploding them and washing waves of nausea and agony through the barbarian.

And, of course, Errtu's minions would heal him, would make him whole again that their fun might be repeated.

Even now, long fled from Errtu's abyssal home, Wulfgar often awoke, curled like a baby, clutching his eyes, feeling the agony. Wulfgar knew of only one escape from the pain. Thus, he had taken his bottles and run away, and only by swallowing the fiery liquid had he blurred that memory.

" Thought he knew you?" Morik asked doubtfully.

Wulfgar stared at him blankly.

"The man in the Cutlass," Morik explained.

"He was mistaken," Wulfgar slurred.

Morik flashed him a skeptical look.

"He know who I once was," the big man admitted. "Not who I am."

"Deudermont," Morik reasoned.

Now it was Wulfgar's turn to look surprised. Morik knew most of the folk of Luskan, of course-the rogue survived through information-but it surprised Wulfgar that he knew of an obscure sailor (which is what Wulfgar thought Deudermont to be) merely visiting the port.

"Captain Deudermont of the Sea Sprite ," Morik explained. "Much known and much feared by the pirates of the Sword Coast. He knew you, and you knew him."

"I sailed with him once. . a lifetime ago," Wulfgar admitted.

"I have many friends, profiteers of the sea, who would pay handsomely to see that one eliminated," Morik remarked, bending low over the seated Wulfgar. "Perhaps we could use your familiarity with this man to some advantage."

Even as the words left Morik's mouth, Wulfgar came up fast and hard, his hand going about Morik's throat. Staggering on unsteady legs, Wulfgar still had the strength in just that one arm to lift the rogue from the ground. A fast few strides, as much a fall as a run, brought them hard against the wall of a warehouse where Wulfgar pinned Morik the Rogue, whose feet dangled several inches above the ground.

Morik's hand went into a deep pocket, closing on a nasty knife, one that he knew he could put into the drunken Wulfgar's heart in an instant. He held his thrust, though, for Wulfgar did not press in any longer, did not try to injure him. Besides, there remained those nagging memories of drow elves holding an interest in Wulfgar. How would Morik explain killing the man to them? What would happen to the rogue if he didn't manage to finish the job?

"If ever you ask that of me again, I will-" Wulfgar left the threat unfinished, dropping Morik. He spun back to the sea, nearly overbalancing and tumbling from the pier in his drunken rush.

Morik rubbed a hand across his bruised throat, momentarily stunned by the explosive outburst. When he thought about it, though, he merely nodded. He had touched on a painful wound, one opened by the unexpected appearance of Wulfgar's old companion, Deudermont. It was the classic struggle of past and present, Morik knew, for he had seen it tear men apart time and again as they went about their descent to the bottom of a bottle. The feelings brought on by the sight of the captain, the man with whom he had once sailed, were too raw for Wulfgar. The barbarian couldn't put his present state in accord with what he had once been. Morik smiled and let it go, recognizing clearly that the emotional fight, past against present, was far from finished for his large friend.

Perhaps the present would win out, and Wulfgar would listen to Morik's potentially profitable proposition concerning Deudermont. Or, if not, maybe Morik would act independently and use Wulfgar's familiarity with the man to his own gain without Wulfgar's knowledge.

Morik forgave Wulfgar for attacking him. This time. .

"Would you like to sail with him again, then?" Morik asked, deliberately lightening his tone.

Wulfgar plopped to a sitting position, then stared incredulously through blurry eyes at the rogue.

"We must keep our purses full," Morik reminded him. "You do seem to be growing bored with Arumn and the Cutlass. Perhaps a few months at sea-"

Wulfgar waved him to silence, then turned about and spat into the sea. A moment later, he bent low over the dock and vomited.

Morik looked upon him with a mixture of pity, disgust, and anger. Yes, the rogue knew then and there he would get to Deudermont, whether Wulfgar went along with the plan or not. The rogue would use his friend to find a weakness in the infamous captain of Sea Sprite . A pang of guilt hit Morik as he came to that realization. Wulfgar was his friend, after all, but this was the street, and a wise man would not pass up so obvious an opportunity to grab a pot of gold.

*****

"You stink Morik get done it?" the tattooed pirate, Tee-a-nicknick, asked first thing when he awoke in an alley.

Next to him among the trash, Creeps Sharky looked over curiously, then deciphered the words. "Think, my friend, not stink," he corrected.

"You stink him done it?"

Propped on one elbow, Creeps snorted and looked away, his one-eyed gaze drifting about the fetid alley.

With no answer apparently forthcoming, Tee-a-nicknick swatted Creeps Sharky hard across the back of his head.

"What're you about?" the other pirate complained, trying to turn around but merely falling face down on the ground, then slowly rolling to his back to glare at his exotic half-qullan companion.

"Morik done it?" Tee-a-nicknick asked. "Kill Deudermont?"

Creeps coughed up a ball of phlegm and managed, with great effort, to move to a sitting position. "Bah," he snorted doubtfully. "Morik's a sneaky one, to be sure, but he's out of his pond with Deudermont. More likely the captain'll be taking that one down."

"Ten thousand," Tee-a-nicknick said with great lament, for he and Creeps, in circulating the notion that Deudermont might be taken down before Sea Sprite ever left Luskan, had secured promises of nearly ten thousand gold pieces in bounty money, funds they knew the offering pirates would gladly pay for the completed deed. Creeps and Tee-a-nicknick had already decided that should Morik finish the task, they would pay him seven of the ten, keeping three for themselves.

"I been thinking that maybe Morik'll set up Deudermont well enough," Creeps went on. "Might be that the little rat'll play a part without knowing he's playing it. If Deudermont's liking Morik's friend, then Deudermont might be letting down his guard a bit too much."

"You stink we do it?" Tee-a-nicknick asked, sounding intrigued.

Creeps eyed his friend. He chuckled at the half-qullan's continuing struggles with the language, though Tee-a-nicknick had been sailing with humans for most of his life, ever since he had been plucked from an island as a youth. His own people, the savage eight-foot-tall qullans were intolerant of mixed blood and had abandoned him as inferior.

Tee-a-nicknick gave a quick blow, ending in a smile, and Creeps Sharky didn't miss the reference. No pirate in any sea could handle a certain weapon, a long hollow tube that the tattooed pirate called a blowgun, better than Tee-a-nicknick. Creeps had seen his friend shoot a fly from the rail from across a wide ship's deck. Tee-a-nicknick also had a substantial understanding of poisons, a legacy of his life with the exotic qullans, Creeps believed, to tip the cat's claws he sometimes used as blowgun missiles. Poisons human clerics could not understand and counter.

One well-placed shot could make Creeps and Tee-a-nicknick wealthy men indeed, perhaps even wealthy enough to secure their own ship.