Robert Salvatore: The Spine of the World

"Bah, but ye're lyin'," the skinny sailor started to protest.

"No, I heard the story," Waillan Micanty put in. "Heard it from the captain himself, and from Drizzt and Catti-brie."

That quieted the skinny man. All of them just sat and studied Wulfgar's movements a bit longer.

"Ye're sure that's him?" the first asked. "That's the Wulfgar fellow?"

Even as he asked the question, Wulfgar brought Aegis-fang off of his back and placed it against a wall.

"Oh, by me own eyes, that's him," the second answered. "I'd not be forgettin' him or that hammer o' his. He can split a mast with the thing, I tell ye, and put it in a pirate's eye, left or right, at a hunnerd long strides."

Across the room, Wulfgar had a short argument with a patron. With one mighty hand the barbarian reached out and grabbed the man's throat and easily, so very easily, hoisted him from his seat and into the air. Wulfgar strode calmly across the inn to the door and tossed the drunk into the street.

"Strongest man I ever seen," the second sailor remarked, and his two companions weren't about to disagree. They drained their drinks and watched a bit longer before leaving the Cutlass for home, where they found themselves running anxiously to inform their captain of who they'd seen.

*****

Captain Deudermont rubbed his fingers pensively across his neatly trimmed beard, trying to digest the tale Waillan Micanty had just related to him. He was trying very hard, for it made no sense to him. When Drizzt and Catti-brie had sailed with him during those wonderful early years of chasing pirates along the Sword Coast, they had told him a sad tale of Wulfgar's demise. The story had had a profound effect on Deudermont, who had befriended the huge barbarian on that journey to Memnon years before.

Wulfgar was dead, so Drizzt and Catti-brie had claimed, and so Deudermont had believed. Yet here was one of Duedermont's trusted crewmen claiming that the barbarian was very much alive and well and working in the Cutlass, a tavern Deudermont had frequented.

The image brought Deudermont back to his first meeting with the barbarian and Drizzt in the Mermaid's Arms tavern in Waterdeep. Wulfgar had avoided a fight with a notorious brawler by the name of Bungo. What great things the barbarian and his companions had subsequently accomplished, from rescuing their little halfling friend from the clutches of a notorious pasha in Calimport to the reclamation of Mithral Hall for Clan Battlehammer. The thought, of Wulfgar working as a brawler in a seedy tavern in Luskan seemed preposterous.

Especially since, according to Drizzt and Catti-brie, Wulfgar was dead.

Deudermont thought of his last voyage with the duo when Sea Sprite had put onto a remote island far out at sea. A blind seer had accosted Drizzt with a riddle about one he thought he had lost. The last time Deudermont had seen Drizzt and Catti-brie was at their parting, on an inland lake, no less, where Sea Sprite had been inadvertently transported.

So might Wulfgar be alive? Captain Deudermont had seen too much to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

Still, it seemed likely to the captain that his crewmen had been mistaken. They had little experience with northern barbarians, all of whom seemed huge and blond and strong. One might look like another to them. The Cutlass had taken on a barbarian warrior as a bouncer, but it was not Wulfgar.

He thought no more of it, having many duties and engagements to attend at the more upscale homes and establishments in the city. Three days later, however, when dining at the table of one of Luskan's noble families, the conversation turned to the death of one of the city's most reknowned bullies.

"We're a lot better off without Tree Block Breaker," one of the guests insisted. "The purest form of trouble ever to enter our city."

"Just a thug and nothing more," another replied, "and not so tough."

"Bah, but he could take down a running horse by stepping in front of the thing," the first insisted. "I saw him do so!"

"But he couldn't take down Arumn Gardpeck's new boy," the other put in. "When he tried to fight that fellow, our Tree Block Breaker flew out of the Cutlass and brought the frame of a door with him."

Deudermont's ears perked up.

"Yeah, that one," the first agreed. "Too strong for any man, from the stories I am hearing, and that warhammer! Most beautiful weapon I've ever seen."

The mention of the hammer nearly made Deudermont choke on his food, for he remembered well the power of Aegis-fang. "What is his name?" the captain inquired.

"Who's name?"

"Arumn Gardpeck's new boy."

The two men looked at each other and shrugged. "Wolf-something, I believe," the first said.

When he left the noble's house, a couple of hours later, Captain Deudermont found himself wandering not back to Sea Sprite , but along infamous Half-Moon Street, the toughest section of Luskan, the home of the Cutlass. He went in without hesitation, pulling up a chair at the first empty table. Duedermont spotted the big man before he even sat down. It was, without doubt, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar. The captain hadn't known Wulfgar very well and hadn't seen him in years, but there could be no question about it. The sheer size, the aura of strength, and the piercing blue eyes of the man gave him away. Oh, he was more haggard-looking now, with an unkempt beard and dirty clothes, but he was Wulfgar.

The big man met Duedermont's stare momentarily, but there was no recognition in the barbarian's eyes when he turned away. Deudermont became even more certain when he saw the magnificent warhammer, Aegis-fang, strapped across Wulfgar's broad back.

"Ye drinking or looking for a fight?"

Deudermont turned about to see a young woman standing beside his table, tray in hand.

"Well?"

"Looking for a fight?" the captain repeated dully, not understanding.

"The way ye're staring at him," the young woman responded, motioning toward Wulfgar. "Many's the ones who come in here looking for a fight. Many's the ones who get carried away from here. But good enough for ye if ye're wanting to fight him, and good enough for him if ye leave him dead in the street."

"I seek no fight," Deudermont assured her. "But, do tell me, what is his name?"

The woman snorted and shook her head, frustrated for some reason Deudermont could not fathom. "Wulfgar," she answered. "And better for us all if he never came in here." Without asking again if he wanted a drink, she merely walked away.

Deudermont paid her no further heed, staring again at the big man. How had Wulfgar wound up here? Why wasn't he dead? And where were Drizzt, and Catti-brie?

He sat patiently, watching the lay of the place as the hours passed, until dawn neared and all the patrons, save he and one skinny fellow at the bar, had drifted out.

"Time for leaving," the barkeep called to him. When Duerdermont made no move to respond or rise from his chair, the man's bouncer made his way over to the table.

Looming huge, Wulfgar glared down upon the seated captain. "You can walk out, or you can fly out," he explained gruffly. "The choice is yours to make."

"You have traveled far from your fight with pirates south of Baldur's Gate," the captain replied. "Though I question your direction."

Wulfgar cocked his head and studied the man more closely. A flicker of recognition, just a flicker, crossed his bearded face.

"Have you forgotten our voyage south?" Deudermont prompted him. "The fight with pirate Pinochet and the flaming chariot?"

Wulfgar's eyes widened. "What do you know of these things?"

"Know of them?" Deudermont echoed incredulously. "Why, Wulfgar, you sailed on my vessel to Memnon and back. Your friends, Drizzt and Catti-brie, sailed with me again not too long ago, though surely they thought you dead!"