Robert Salvatore - The Pirate King

“Tell your staff and I will tell my crew,” Deudermont said with a laugh.

“I jest with you not at all,” Brambleberry replied. “Would that it were so simple. But we know it’s not, and I know that to follow in your footsteps will be a journey of deeds, not of birthright. And not of purchases. I would have the people speak of me, one day, as they now speak of Captain Deudermont.”

To Deudermont’s surprise, Brambleberry threw his wineglass against the hearth, shattering it.

“I have earned none of this, other than by the good fortune of my birth. And so you see, Captain, I’m determined to put this good fortune to work. Yes, I will purchase Argus Retch’s ship from you, to make three in my fleet, and I will sail them, crewed by mercenaries, to Luskan—beside you if you’ll join me—and deal such a blow to those pirates sailing the Sword Coast as they have never before known. And when we’re done, I will turn my fleet loose to the seas, hunting as Sea Sprite hunts, until the scourge of piracy is removed from the waters.”

Deudermont let the proclamation hang in the air for a long while, trying to wind his thoughts along the many potential paths, most of them seeming quite disastrous.

“If you mean to wage war on the Hosttower, you will be facing a formidable foe—and a foe no doubt supported by the five high captains of Luskan,” he finally replied. “Do you mean to start a war between Waterdeep and the City of Sails?”

“No, of course not,” said Brambleberry. “We can be quieter than that.”

“A small force to unseat Arklem Greeth and his overwizards?” Deudermont asked.

“Not just any small force,” Brambleberry promised. “Waterdeep knows no shortage of individuals of considerable personal power.”

Deudermont sat there staring as the heartbeats slipped past.

“Consider the possibilities, Captain Deudermont,” Brambleberry begged.

“Are you not being too anxious to make your coveted mark, my young friend?”

“Or am I offering you the opportunity to truly finish that which you started so many years ago?” Brambleberry countered. “To deal a blow such as this would ensure that all of your efforts these years were far more than a temporary alleviation of misery for the merchants sailing the Sword Coast.”

Captain Deudermont sat back in his chair and lifted his glass before him to drink. He paused, though, seeing the flickering fire in the hearth twisting through the facets of the crystal.

He couldn’t deny the sense of challenge, and the hope of true accomplishment.

I t was a prime example of the good that can come through cooperation,” Drizzt remarked, and his smirk told Regis that he was making the lofty statement more to irk Bruenor than to make any profound philosophical point.

“Bah, I had to choose between orcs and demons…”

“Devils,” the halfling corrected and Bruenor glared at him.

“Between orcs and devils,” the dwarf king conceded. “I picked the ones what smelled better.”

“You were bound to do so,” Regis dared say, and it was his turn to toss a clever wink Drizzt’s way.

“Bah, the Nine Hells I was!”

“Shall I retrieve the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge that we might review the responsibilities of the signatories?” Drizzt asked.

“Yerself winks at him and I put me fist into yer eye, then I toss Rumblebelly down the hallway,” Bruenor warned.

“You cannot blame them for being surprised that King Bruenor would go to the aid of an orc,” came a voice from the door, and the three turned as one to watch Catti-brie enter the room.

“Don’t ye join them,” Bruenor warned.

Catti-brie bowed with respect. “Fear not,” she said. “I’ve come for my husband, that he can see me on my way.”

“Back to Silverymoon for more lessons with Alustriel?” Regis asked.

“Beyond that,” Drizzt answered for her as he walked across to take her arm. “Lady Alustriel has promised Catti-brie a journey that will span half the continent and several planes of existence.” He looked at his wife and smiled with obvious envy.

“And how long’s that to take?” Bruenor demanded. He had made it no secret to Catti-brie that her prolonged absences from Mithral Hall had created extra work for him, though in truth, the woman and everyone else who had heard the dwarf’s grumbling had understood it to be his way of admitting that he sorely missed Catti-brie without actually saying the words.

“She gets to escape another Mithral Hall winter,” Regis said. “Have you room for a short but stout companion?”

“Only if she turns you into a toad,” Drizzt answered and led Catti-brie away.

Later that same day, Regis walked outside of Mithral Hall to the banks of the River Surbrin. His remark about winter had reminded him that the unfriendly season was not so far away, and indeed, though the day was glorious, the wind swept down from the north, blustery and cold, and the leaves on the many trees across the river were beginning to show the colors of autumn.

Something in the air that day, the wind or the smell of the changing season, reminded Regis of his old home in Icewind Dale. He had more to call his own in Mithral Hall, and security—for where could be safer than inside the dwarven hall? — but the things he’d gained did little to alleviate the halfling’s sense of loss for what had been. He had known a good life in Icewind Dale. He’d spent his days fishing for knucklehead trout from the banks of Maer Dualdon. The lake had given him all he needed and more, with water and food—he knew a hundred good recipes for cooking the delicious fish. And few could carve their skulls more wonderfully than Regis. His trinkets, statues, and paperweights had earned him a fine reputation among the local merchants.

Best of all, of course, was the fact that his “work” consisted mostly of lying on the banks of the lake, a fishing line tied to his toe.

With that in mind, Regis spent a long time walking along the riverbank, north of the bridge, in search of the perfect spot. He finally settled on a small patch of grass, somewhat sheltered from the north wind by a rounded gray stone, but one not high enough to shade him at all. He took great care in getting his line out to just the right spot, a quieter pool around the edge of a stony jut in the dark water. He used a heavy weight, but even that wouldn’t hold if he put the line into the main flow of the river; the strong currents would wash it far downstream.

He waited a few moments, and confident that his location would hold steady, he removed a shoe, looped the line around his big toe, and dropped his pack to use as a pillow. He had barely settled down and closed his eyes when a noise from the north startled him.

He recognized the source before he even sat up to look beyond the rounded stone.

Orcs.

Several young ones had gathered at the water’s edge. They argued noisily—why were orcs always so boisterous? — about fishing lines and fishing nets and where to cast and how to cast.

Regis almost laughed aloud at himself for his bubbling annoyance, for he understood his anger even as he felt it. They were orcs, and so he was angry. They were orcs, and so he was impatient. They were orcs, and so his first reaction had to be negative.

Old feelings died hard.

Regis thought back to another time and another place, recalling when a group of boys and girls had begun a noisy splash fight not far from where he had cast his line in Maer Dualdon. Regis had scolded them that day, but only briefly.

As he thought of it, he couldn’t help grin, remembering how he had then spent a wonderful afternoon showing those youngsters how to fish, how to play a hooked knucklehead, and how to skin a catch. Indeed, that long-ago night, the group of youngsters had arrived at Regis’s front door, at his invitation, to see some of his carvings and to enjoy a meal of trout prepared only as Regis knew how.