Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

And so it went for several days, with Meralda believing that things were on a steady course. There were a few rough spots, particularly in the bedroom, where she had to constantly assuage her husband's pride, insisting that the barbarian who had savaged her had given her no pleasure at all. She even went to the extent of claiming that she was practically unconscious throughout the ordeal and wasn't even sure it had happened until she came to realize that she was with child.

Then one day, Meralda encountered an unexpected problem with her plan.

"Highwaymen do not travel far," she heard Lord Feringal tell Temigast as she joined the two in the drawing room.

"Certainly the scoundrels are nowhere near Auckney," the steward replied.

"Close enough," Feringal insisted. "The merchant Galway has a powerful wizard for hire."

"Even wizards must know what to look for," Temigast remarked.

"I don't remember his face," Meralda blurted, hurrying to join them.

"But Liam Woodgate does," said Feringal, wearing the smug smile of one who intended to find his revenge.

Meralda worked very hard to not appear distressed.

The little creature scrambled over the rocks, descending the steep slope as if death itself were chasing it. With an outraged Wulfgar close behind, roaring in pain from his reopened shoulder wound, the goblin would've had better odds against death.

The trail ended at a fifteen-foot drop, but the goblin's run didn't end there as it leaped with hardly a thought. Landing with a thump and a rather sorry attempt at a roll, it got back up, bloody but still moving.

Wulfgar didn't follow; he couldn't afford to take himself so far from the cave entrance where Morik was still battling. The barbarian skidded to a stop and searched about for a rock. Snatching one up, he heaved it at the fleeing goblin. He missed, the goblin too far away, but satisfied that it wouldn't return, Wulfgar turned and sprinted back to the cave.

Long before he arrived there, though, he saw that the battle had ended. Morik was perched on a rock at the base of a jagged spur of stones, huffing and puffing. "The little rats run fast," Morik remarked.

Wulfgar nodded and fell into a sitting position on the ground. They had gone out to scout the pass earlier. Upon returning, they'd found a dozen goblins determined to take the cave home as their own. Twelve against two-the goblins hadn't had a chance.

Only one of the goblins was dead, one Wulfgar had caught first by the throat and squeezed. The others had been sent running to the four winds, and both men knew that none of the cowardly creatures would return for a long, long time.

"I did get its purse, if not its heart," Morik remarked holding up a little leather bag. He blew into his empty hand for luck (and also because the mountain wind whistled chilly this day) then emptied the bag, his eyes wide. Wulfgar, too, leaned in eagerly. A pair of silver pieces, several copper, and three shiny stones-not gemstones, just stones-tumbled out.

"Our luck that we did not encounter a merchant on the path," Wulfgar muttered sarcastically, "for this is a richer haul by far."

Morik flung the meager treasure to the ground. "We still have plenty of gold from the raid on the coach in the west," he remarked.

"So nice to hear you admit it," came an unexpected voice from above. The pair looked up the rocky spur to see a man in flowing blue robes and holding a tall oaken staff staring down at them. "I would hate to believe I'd found the wrong thieves, after all."

"A wizard," Morik muttered with disgust, tensing. "I hate wizards."

The robed man lifted his staff and began chanting. Wulfgar moved quicker, skidding down to scoop a fair-sized stone, then coming up fast and launching it. His aim proved perfect. The rock crashed against the wizard's chest, though it harmlessly bounced away. If the man even noticed it, he showed no sign.

"I hate wizards!" Morik yelled again, diving out of the way. Wulfgar started to move, but he was too late, for the lightning bolt firing from the staff clipped him and sent him flying.

Up came Wulfgar, rolling and cursing, a rock in each hand. "How many hits can you take?" he cried to the wizard, letting fly one that narrowly missed. The second one went spinning into the obviously amused wizard's blocking arm and bounced away as surely as if it had hit solid stone.

"Does everybody in all of Faerыn have access to a wizard?"

Morik cried, picking his trail from cover to cover as he tried to ascend the spur. Morik believed he could get away from, outwit, or outfight (particularly with Wulfgar beside him) any bounty hunter or warrior lord in the area. However, wizards were an entirely different manner, as he had learned so many painful times before, most recently in his capture on the streets of Luskan.

"How many can you take?" Wulfgar yelled again, hurling another stone that also missed its mark.

"One!" the wizard replied. "I can take but one."

"Then hit him!" Morik yelled to Wulfgar, misunderstanding. The wizard was not talking about taking hits on his magical stoneskin, but about taking prisoners. Even as Morik cried out, the robed man pointed at Wulfgar with his free hand. A black tendril shot from his extended fingers, snaking down the spur at tremendous speed to wrap around Wulfgar, binding him fast to the mage.

"I'll not leave the other unscathed!" the wizard cried to no one present. He clenched his fist, his ring sparkled, and he stamped his staff on the stone. A blinding light, a puff of smoke, and Wulfgar and the mage were gone amid a thunder ous rumble along the spur.

"Wizards," Morik spat with utter contempt, just before the spur, with Morik halfway up it, collapsed.

*****

He was in the audience hall of a castle. The incessant black tendril continued to wrap him stubbornly in its grip, looping his torso several times, trying to pin his powerful arms. Wulfgar punched at it, but it was a pliable thing, and it merely bent under the blows, absorbing all the energy. He grabbed at the tendril, tried to twist and tear it, but even as his hands worked one area, the long end of the tendril, released from the wizard's hand, looped his legs and tripped him up, bringing him crashing to the hard floor. Wulfgar rolled and squirmed and wriggled to no avail. He was caught.

The barbarian used his arms to keep the thing from wrapping his neck, and when he was at last sure that it could not harm him, he turned his attention more fully to the area around him. There stood the wizard before a pair of chairs, wherein sat a man in his mid-twenties and a younger, undeniably beautiful woman-a woman Wulfgar recognized all too well.

Beside them stood an old man, and in a chair to the side sat a plump woman of perhaps forty winters. Wulfgar also noted that several soldiers lined the room, grim-faced and wellarmed.

"As I promised," the wizard said, bowing before the man on the throne. "Now, if you please, there is the small matter of my payment."

"You will find the gold awaiting you in the quarters I provided," the man replied. "I never doubted you, good sir. Your merchant mentor Galway recommended you most highly."

The wizard bowed again. "Are my services further required?" he asked.

"How long will it last?" the man asked, indicating the tendril holding Wulfgar.

"A long time," the wizard promised. "Long enough for you to question and condemn him, certainly, then to drag him down to your dungeon or kill him where he lies."

"Then you may go. Will you dine with us this night?"

"I fear that I have pressing business at the Hosttower," the wizard replied. "Well met, Lord Feringal." He bowed again and walked out, chuckling as he passed the prone barbarian.

To everyone's surprise, Wulfgar growled and grabbed the tendril in both hands and tore it apart. He had just managed to gain his feet, many voices screaming about him, when a dozen soldiers descended, pounding him with mailed fists and heavy clubs. Still fighting against the tendril, Wulfgar managed to free his hand for one punch, sending a soldier flying, and to grab another by the neck and slam him facedown on the floor. Wulfgar went down, dazed and battered. As the wizard magically dispelled the remnants of the tendril, the barbarian's arms were brought behind him and looped with heavy chains.