Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

Morik looked at the dark waters doubtfully. He wouldn't have much of a disguise left after crossing through that, if he even made it. Morik wasn't a strong swimmer and didn't know the sea or what monsters might lurk beneath the dark waves.

Morik realized then and there that his time with Wulfgar was at its end. He would go to the place of torture in the morning, he decided, but probably only to say farewell, for it was unlikely he could rescue the man there without jeopardizing himself.

No, he decided, he wouldn't even attend. "What good might it bring?" he muttered. It could even bring disaster for Morik if the wizard who had caught Wulfgar was there and recognized him. "Better that I remember Wulfgar from our times of freedom.

"Farewell, my big friend," Morik said aloud sadly. "I go now back to Luskan-"

Morik paused as the water churned at the base of the wall. A large, dark form began crawling from the surf. The rogue's hand went to his sword.

"Morik?" Wulfgar asked, his teeth chattering from the icy water. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you!" the rogue cried, delighted and astounded all at once. "I, of course, came to rescue you," the cocky rogue added, bending to take Wulfgar's arm and help pull the man up beside him. "This will require a lot of explaining, but come, let us be fast on our way."

Wulfgar wasn't about to argue.

*****

"I shall have every guard in this place executed!" Lord Feringal fumed when he learned of the escape the next morning, the morning he was planning to exact his revenge upon the barbarian.

The guard shrank back, fearing Lord Feringal would attack him then and there, and indeed, it seemed as if the young man would charge him from his chair. Meralda grabbed him by the arm, settling him. "Calm, my lord," she said.

"Calm?" Lord Feringal balked. "Who failed me?" he yelled at the guard. "Who shall pay in Wulfgar's stead?"

"None," Meralda answered before the stammering guard could begin to reply. Feringal looked at her incredulously. "Anyone you harm will be because of me," the woman explained. "I'll have no blood on my hands. You'd only be making things worse."

The young lord calmed somewhat and sat back, staring at his wife, at the woman he wanted, above all else, to protect.

After a moment's thought, a moment of looking into that beautiful, innocent face, Feringal nodded his agreement. "Search all the lands," he instructed the guard, "and the castle again from dungeon to parapet. Return him to me alive."

Beads of sweat on his forehead, the guard bowed and ran out of the room.

"Fear not, my love," Lord Feringal said to Meralda. "I shall recall the wizard and begin the search anew. The barbarian shall not escape."

"Please, my lord," Meralda begged. "Don't summon the wizard again, or any other." That raised a few eyebrows, including Priscilla's and Temigast's. "I'm wanting it all done," she explained. "It's done, I say, and on the road behind me. I'm not wanting to look back ever again. Let the man go and die in the mountains, and let us look ahead to our own life, to when you might be siring children of our own."

Feringal continued to stare, unblinking. Slowly, very slowly, his head nodded, and Meralda relaxed back in her chair.

*****

Steward Temigast watched it all with growing certainty. He knew, without doubt, that Meralda was the one who had freed the barbarian. The wise old man, suspicious since seeing the woman's reaction when Wulfgar had first been dragged before her, had little trouble in understanding why. He resolved to say nothing, for it was not his place to inflict unnecessary pain on his lord. In any event, the child would be put out of the way and in no line of ascension.

But Temigast was far from easy with it all, especially after he looked at Priscilla and saw her wearing an expression that might have been his own. She was always suspicious, that one, and Temigast feared she was harboring his same doubts about the child's heritage. Though Temigast felt it not his place to inflict unnecessary pain, Priscilla Auck seemed to revel in just that sort of thing. The road to which Meralda had referred was far from clear in either direction.

"This is our chance," Wulfgar explained to Morik. The pair were crouched behind a shielding wall of stone on a mountainside above one of the many small villages on the southern side of the Spine of the World.

Morik looked at his friend and shook his head, giving a less-than-enthusiastic sigh. Not only had Wulfgar refrained from the bottle in the three weeks since their return from Auckney, but had forbidden either of them to engage in any more highwayman activities. The season was getting late, turning toward winter, which meant a nearly constant stream of caravans as the last merchants returned from Icewind Dale. The seasonal occupants of the northern stretches left then as well, the men and women who went to Ten-Towns to fish for the summers then rolled their wagons back to Luskan when the season ended.

Wulfgar had made it clear to Morik that their thieving days were over. So here they were, overlooking a small, incredibly boring village they'd learned was expecting some sort of orc or goblin attack.

"They will not attack from below," Wulfgar remarked, pointing to a wide field east of the village on the same height as the higher buildings. "From there," Wulfgar explained.

"That's where they've constructed their wall and best defenses," Morik replied, as if that should settle it all. They believed that the coming band of monsters numbered less than a score, and while there weren't more than half that number in the town, Morik didn't see any real problems here.

"More may come down from above," Wulfgar reasoned. "The villagers might be sorely pressed if attacked from two sides."

"You're looking for an excuse," Morik accused. Wulfgar stared at him curiously. "An excuse to get into the fight," the rogue clarified, which brought a smile to Wulfgar's face. "Unless it's against merchants," Morik glumly added.

Wulfgar held his calm and contented expression. "I wish to battle deserving opponents," he said.

"I know many peasants who would argue that merchants are more deserving than goblinkind," Morik replied.

Wulfgar shook his head, in no mood and with no time to sit and ponder the philosophical points. They saw the movement beyond the village, the approach of monsters Wulfgar knew, of creatures the barbarian could cut down without remorse or regard. A score of orcs charged wildly across the field, rushing past the ineffective arrow volleys from the villagers.

"Go and be done with it," Morik said, starting to rise.

Wulfgar, a student of such attacks, held him down and turned his gaze up the slopes to where a huge boulder soared down, smashing the side of one building.

"There's a giant above," Wulfgar whispered, already starting his circle up the mountain. "Perhaps more."

"So that is where we shall go," Morik grumbled with resignation, though he obviously doubted the wisdom of such a course.

Another rock soared down, then a third.The giant was lifting a fourth when Wulfgar and Morik turned a bend in the trail and slipped between a pair of boulders, spotting the behemoth from behind.

Wulfgar's hand axe bit into the giant's arm, and it dropped the boulder onto its own head. The giant bellowed and spun about to where Morik stood shrugging, slender sword in hand. Bellowing, the giant came at him in one long stride. Morik yelped and turned to flee back through the boulders. The giant came on in swift pursuit, but as it reached the narrow pass Wulfgar leaped atop one of the boulders and brought his ordinary hammer in hard against the side of the behemoth's head, sending it staggering. By the time the dazed giant managed to look to the boulder Wulfgar was already gone. Back on the ground, the barbarian rushed at the giant's side to smash its kneecap hard, then dashed back into the boulders.