Robert Salvatore: The Pirate King

The devil was ready for it, though, and she easily rolled her blade over the scimitar and thrust again for Drizzt’s belly as he continued his turn.

Drizzt was ready for her to be ready for it, though, and Icingdeath came up under the long sword, catching it with its curved back edge. The dark elf completed the upward movement, rotating his arm up and out, throwing Nyphithys’s blade far and high to his right.

Before the devil could extract her blade, Drizzt did a three-way movement of perfect coordination, bringing Twinkle snapping up and across to replace its companion blade in keeping the devil’s sword out of the way, stepping forward and snapping his right down and ahead, its edge coming in tight against the devil’s throat.

He had her helpless.

But she kept smiling.

And she was gone—just gone—vanished from his sight.

Drizzt whirled around and fell into a defensive roll, but relaxed somewhat when he spotted the devil, some thirty feet away on an island of rock a few feet up from his level.

“Fool drow,” she scolded. “Fools, all of you. My masters will melt your land to ash and molten stone!”

A movement to the side turned her, to see Obould stalking her way.

“And you are the biggest fool of all,” she roared at him. “We promised you power beyond anything you could ever imagine.”

The orc took three sudden and furious strides then leaped as only Obould could leap, a greater leap than any orc would even attempt, a leap that seemed more akin to magical flight.

Nyphithys didn’t anticipate it. Drizzt didn’t, either. And neither did Bruenor or Catti-brie, who was readying an arrow to try to finish off the devil. She quickly deduced that there was no need for it, when Obould cleared the remaining distance and went high enough to land beside Nyphithys. He delivered his answer by transferring all of his momentum into a swing of his powerful greatsword.

Drizzt winced, for he had seen that play before. He thought of Tarathiel, his fallen friend, and pictured the elf in Nyphithys’s place as she was shorn in half by the orc’s mighty, fiery blade.

The devil fell to the stone, in two pieces.

“By Moradin’s own mug,” said Thibbledorf Pwent, standing between Bruenor and Regis. “I’m knowin’ he’s an orc, but I’m likin’ this one.”

Bruenor smirked at his battlerager escort, but his gaze went right back to Obould, who seemed almost godlike standing up on that stone, his foe, vanquished, at his feet.

Realizing that he had to react, Bruenor stalked the orc’s way. “She’d have made a fine prisoner,” he reminded Obould.

“She makes a better trophy,” the orc king insisted, and he and Bruenor locked their typically angry stares, the two always seeming on the verge of battle.

“Don’t ye forget that we came to help ye,” said Bruenor.

“Don’t you forget that I let you,” Obould countered, and they continued to stare.

Over to the side, Drizzt found his way to Catti-brie. “Been four years,” the woman lamented, watching the two rival kings and their unending growling at each other. “I wonder if I will live long enough to see them change.”

“They’re staring, not fighting,” Drizzt replied. “You already have.”

A few years earlier, Sea Sprite would have just sent Quelch’s Folly to the ocean floor and sailed on her way in search of more pirates. And Sea Sprite would have found other pirates to destroy before she needed to sail back into port. Sea Sprite could catch and destroy and hunt again with near impunity. She was faster, she was stronger, and she was possessed of tremendous advantages over those she hunted in terms of information.

A catch, though, was becoming increasingly rare, though pirates were plentiful.

A troubled Deudermont paced the deck of his beloved pirate hunter, occasionally glancing back at the damaged ship he had put in tow. He needed the assurance. Like an aging gladiator, Deudermont understood that time was fast passing him by, that his enemies had caught up to his tactics. The ship in tow alleviated those fears somewhat, of course, like a swordsman’s win in the arena. And it would bring a fine payoff in Waterdeep, he knew.

“For months now I have wondered….” Deudermont remarked to Robillard when he walked near the wizard, seated on his customary throne behind the mainmast, a dozen feet up from the deck. “Now I know.”

“Know what, my captain?” Robillard asked with obviously feigned interest.

“Why we don’t find them.”

“We found one.”

“Why we don’t more readily find them,” the captain retorted to his wizard’s unending dry humor.

“Pray tell.” As he spoke, Robillard apparently caught on to the intensity of Deudermont’s gaze, and he didn’t look away.

“I heard your conversation with Arabeth Raurym,” Deudermont said.

Robillard replaced his shock with an amused grin. “Indeed. She is an interesting little creature.”

“A pirate who escaped our grasp,” Deudermont remarked.

“You would have had me put her in chains?” the wizard asked. “You are aware of her lineage, I presume.”

Deudermont didn’t blink.

“And her power,” Robillard added. “She is an overwizard of the Hosttower of the Arcane. Had I tried to detain her, she would have blown the ship out from under our boarding party, yourself included.”

“Isn’t that exactly the circumstance for which you were hired?”

Robillard smirked and let the quip pass.

“I don’t like that she escaped,” Deudermont said. He paused and directed Robillard’s gaze to starboard.

The sun dipped below the ocean horizon, turning a distant line of clouds fiery orange, red, and pink. The sun was setting, but at least it was a beautiful sight. Deudermont couldn’t dismiss the symbolism of the sunset, given his feelings as he considered the relative inefficiency of Sea Sprite of late, those nagging suspicions that his tactics had been successfully countered by the many pirates running wild along the Sword Coast.

He stared at the sunset.

“The Arcane Brotherhood meddles where they should not,” he said quietly, as much to himself as to Robillard.

“You would expect differently?” came the wizard’s response.

Deudermont managed to tear his eyes from the natural spectacle to regard Robillard.

“They have always been meddlesome,” Robillard explained. “Some, at least. There are those—I counted myself among them—who simply wanted to be left alone to our studies and experiments. We viewed the Hosttower as a refuge for the brilliant. Sadly, others wish to use that brilliance for gain or for dominance.”

“This Arklem Greeth creature.”

“Creature? Yes, a fitting description.”

“You left the Hosttower before he arrived?” Deudermont asked.

“I was still among its members as he rose to prominence, sadly.”

“Do you count his rise among your reasons for leaving?”

Robillard considered that for a moment then shrugged. “I don’t believe Greeth alone was the catalyst for the changes in the tower, he was more a symptom. But perhaps the fatal blow to whatever honor remained at the Hosttower.”

“Now he supports the pirates.”

“Likely the least of his crimes. He is an indecent creature.”

Deudermont rubbed his tired eyes and looked back to the sunset.

Three days later, Sea Sprite and Quelch’s Folly —whose name had been purposely marred beyond recognition—put into Waterdeep Harbor. They were met by eager wharf hands and the harbormaster himself, who also served as auctioneer for the captured pirate ships Deudermont and a very few others brought in.