Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

"No," Wulfgar said flatly.

"You don't understand the dangers, my friend," Morik said reasonably, hoping to pacify his large friend.

"Send them away!" Wulfgar yelled suddenly. Seeing he'd make no progress with Morik, he stormed up to Mickers. "Be gone from here and from this forest!"

Mickers looked past the big man. Morik gave a resigned shrug.

Mickers stood up. "I'll stay with him," he said, pointing to the rogue.

Wulfgar slapped the stew bowl from the gnoll's hand and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him up to his tiptoes. "One last chance to leave of your own accord," the big man growled as he shoved Mickers back several steps.

"Mister Morik?" Mickers complained.

"Oh, be gone," Morik said unhappily.

"And the rest of us, too?" asked another one of the humans of the bandit band, standing amidst a tumble of rocks on the edge of the field. He held a strung bow.

"Them or me, Morik," Wulfgar said, his tone leaving no room for debate. The barbarian and the rogue both glanced back to the archer to see that the man had put an arrow to his bowstring.

Wulfgar's eyes flared with simmering rage, and he started toward the archer. "One shot," he called steadily. "You will get one shot at me. Will you hit the mark?"

The archer lifted his bow.

"I don't think you will," Wulfgar said, smiling. "No, you will miss because you know."

"Know what?" the archer dared ask.

"Know that even if your arrow strikes me, it will not kill me," Wulfgar replied, and he continued his deliberate stalk. "Not right away, not before I get my hands around your throat."

The man drew his bowstring back, but Wulfgar only smiled more confidently and continued forward. The archer glanced around nervously, looking for support, but there was none to be found. Realizing he had taken on too great a foe, the man eased his string, turned, and ran off.

Wulfgar turned back. Mickers, too, had sprinted away.

"Now we'll have to watch out for them," Morik observed glumly when Wulfgar returned to him. "You cost us allies."

"I'll not ally myself with murdering thieves!" Wulfgar said simply.

Morik jumped back from him. "What am I, if not a thief?"

Wulfgar's expression softened. "Well, perhaps just one," he corrected with a chuckle.

Morik laughed uneasily. "Here, my big and not so smart friend," he said, reaching for another bottle. "A drink to the two of us. Highwaymen!"

"Will we find the same fate as our predecessors?" Wulfgar wondered aloud.

"Our predecessors were not so smart," Morik explained. "I knew where to find them because they were too predictable. A good highwayman strikes and runs on to the next target area. A good highwayman seems like ten separate bands, always one step ahead of the city guards, ahead of those who ride into the cities with information enough to find and defeat him."

"You sound as if you know the life well."

"I have done it from time to time," Morik admitted. "Just because we're on the wild road doesn't mean we must live like savages," the rogue repeated what was fast becoming his mantra. He held the bottle out toward Wulfgar.

It took all the willpower he could muster for Wulfgar to refuse that drink. His shoulder ached, and he was still agitated about the thugs. Retreat into a swirl of semiconsciousness was very inviting at that moment.

But he did refuse by walking away from a stunned Morik. Moving to the other end of the field, he scrambled up a tree, settled into a comfortable niche, and sat back to survey the outlying lands.

His gaze was drawn repeatedly to the mountains in the north, the Spine of the World, the barrier between him and that other world of Icewind Dale, that life he might have known and might still know. He thought of his friends again, mostly of Catti-brie. The barbarian fell asleep to dreams of her close in his arms, kissing him gently, a respite from the pains of the world.

Suddenly Catti-brie backed away, and as Wulfgar watched, small ivory horns sprouted from her forehead and great bat wings extended behind her. A succubus, a demon of the Abyss, tricking him again in the hell of Errtu's torments, assuming the guise of comfort to seduce him.

Wulfgar's eyes popped open wide, his breath coming in labored gasps. He tried to dismiss the horrible images, but they wouldn't let him go. Not this time. So poignant and distinct were they that the barbarian wondered if all of this, his last months of life, had been but a ruse by Errtu to bring him hope again so that the demon might stomp it. He saw the succubus, the horrid creature that had seduced him. .

"No!" Wulfgar growled, for it was too ugly a memory, too horrible for him to confront it yet again.

I stole your seed , the succubus said to his mind, and he could not deny it. They had done it to him several times in the years of his torment, had taken his seed and spawned alu-demons, Wulfgar's children. It was the first time Wulfgar had been able to consciously recall the memory since his return to the surface, the first time the horror of seeing his demonic offspring had forced itself through the mental barriers he had erected.

He saw them now, saw Errtu bring to him one such child, a crying infant, its mother succubus standing behind the demon. He saw Errtu present the infant high in the air, and then, right before Wulfgar's eyes, right before its howling mother's eyes, the great demon bit the child's head off. A spray of blood showered Wulfgar, who was unable to draw breath, unable to comprehend that Errtu had found a way to get at him yet again, the worst way of all.

Wulfgar half scrambled and half tumbled out of the tree, landing hard on his injured shoulder, reopening the wound. Ignoring the pain, he sprinted across the field and found Morik resting beside the wagon. Wulfgar went right to the crates and frantically tore one open.

His children! The offspring of his stolen seed!

The potent liquid burned all the way down, the heat of it spreading, spreading, dulling Wulfgar's senses, blurring the horrid images.

"You must give love time to blossom, my lord," Temigast whispered to Lord Feringal. He'd ushered the young lord to the far side of the garden, away from Meralda, who was staring out over the sea wall. The steward had discovered the amorous young man pressuring Meralda to marry him the very next week. The flustered woman was making polite excuse after polite excuse, with stubborn Feringal defeating each one.

"Time to blossom?" Feringal echoed incredulously. "I am going mad with desire. I can think of nothing but Meralda!"

He said the last loudly, and both men glanced to see a frowning Meralda looking back at them.

"As it should be," Steward Temigast whispered. "Let us discover if the feeling holds strong over the course of time. The duration of such feelings is the true meaning of love, my lord."

"You doubt me still?" a horrified Lord Feringal replied.

"No, my lord, not I," Temigast explained, "but the villagers must see your union to a woman of Meralda's station as true love and not infatuation. You must consider her reputation."

That last statement gave Lord Feringal pause. He glanced back at the woman, then at Temigast, obviously confused. "If she is married to me, then what harm could come to her reputation?"

"If the marriage is quickly brought, then the peasants will assume she used her womanly tricks to bewitch you," Temigast explained. "Better for her, by far, if you spend the weeks showing your honest and respectful love for her. Many will resent her in any case, my lord, out of jealousy. Now you must protect her, and the best way to do that is to take your time with the engagement."

"How much time?" the eager young lord asked.

"The spring equinox," Temigast offered, bringing another horrified look from Feringal. "It is only proper."