Robert Salvatore - The Ghost King

“What’re ye about, dwarf?” Bruenor asked. Beside Bruenor, Pwent stood flexing his knees, ready to fight.

A growl from the side turned them all to look that way, and up on a branch in the lone tree overlooking the road perched Guenhwyvar, tamping her paws as if she meant to spring down upon the dwarf.

“Peace, good king,” Athrogate said, patting his hands calmly in the air before him. “I ain’t no enemy.”

“Nor are you Stuttgard of the Stone Hills,” came a call from farther along the road, behind Athrogate and ahead of the wagon.

Bruenor and Pwent looked past Stuttgard and nodded, though they couldn’t see their drow companion. Stuttgard glanced over his shoulder, knowing it to be Drizzt, though the drow was too concealed in the brush to be seen.

“I should have recognized you at Bruenor’s court,” Drizzt called.

“It’s me morningstars,” Stuttgard explained. “I’m lookin’ bigger with them, so I’m told. Bwahaha! Been a lot o’ years since we crossed weapons, eh Drizzt Do’Urden?”

“Who is he?” Bruenor called to Drizzt, then he looked straight at the dwarf in the road and said, “Who are ye?”

“Where is he?” Drizzt called out in answer, drawing looks of surprise from both Bruenor and Pwent.

“He’s right in front o’ us, ye blind elf!” Pwent called out.

“Not him,” Drizzt replied. “Not … Stuttgard.”

“Ah, but suren me heart’s to fall, for me worthy drow me name can’t recall,” said the dwarf in the road.

“Where is who?” Bruenor demanded of Drizzt, anger and impatience mounting

“He means me,” another voice answered. On the side of the road opposite Guenhwyvar stood Jarlaxle.

“Oh, by Moradin’s itchy arse,” grumbled Bruenor. “Scratched it, he did, and this one fell out.”

“A pleasure to see you again as well, King Bruenor,” Jarlaxle said with a bow.

Drizzt came out of the brush then, moving toward the group. The drow had no weapons drawn—indeed, he leaned his bow over his shoulder as he went.

“What is it, me king?” Pwent asked, glancing nervously from the dwarf to Jarlaxle. “What?”

“Not a fight,” Bruenor assured him and disappointed him at the same time. “Not yet a fight.”

“Never that,” Jarlaxle added as he moved beside his companion.

“Bah!” Pwent snorted.

“What’s this about?” Bruenor demanded.

Athrogate grumbled as Drizzt walked by, and gave a lamenting shake of his head, his braided beard rattling as its small beads bounced.

“Athrogate,” Drizzt whispered as he passed, and the dwarf howled in laughter.

“Ye’re knowin’ him?” asked Bruenor.

“I told you about him. From Luskan.” He looked at Jarlaxle. “Eight years ago.”

The drow mercenary bowed. “A sad day for many.”

“But not for you and yours.”

“I told you then and I tell you now, Drizzt Do’Urden. The fall of Luskan, and of Captain Deudermont, was not the doing of Bregan D’aerthe. I would have been as happy dealing with him—”

“He never would have dealt with the likes of you and your mercenaries,” Drizzt interrupted.

Jarlaxle didn’t finish his thought, just held his hands out wide, conceding the point.

“And what’s this about?” Bruenor demanded again. “We heard of your plight—of Catti-brie’s,” Jarlaxle explained. “The right road is to Cadderly, so I had my friend here go in—”

“And lie to us,” said Drizzt.

“It seemed prudent in the moment,” Jarlaxle admitted. “But the right road is to Cadderly. You know that.”

“I don’t know anything where Jarlaxle is concerned,” Drizzt shot back, even as Bruenor nodded. “If this is all you claim, then why would you meet us out here on the road?”

“Needin’ a ride, not to doubt,” Pwent said, and his bracers screeched as they slid together when he crossed his burly arms over his chest.

“Hardly that,” the drow replied, “though I would welcome the company.” He paused and looked at the mules then, obviously surprised at how fresh they appeared, given that they had already traveled farther than most teams would go in two days.

“Magical hooves,” Drizzt remarked. “They can cover six days in one.”

Jarlaxle nodded.

“Now he’s wanting a ride,” Pwent remarked, and Jarlaxle did laugh at that, but shook his head.

“Nay, good dwarf, not a ride,” the drow explained. “But there is something I would ask of you.”

“Surprising,” Drizzt said dryly.

“I am in need of Cadderly, too, for an entirely different reason,” Jarlaxle explained. “And he will be in need of me, or will be glad that I am there, when he learns of it. Unfortunately, my last visit with the mighty priest did not fare so well, and he requested that I not return.”

“And ye’re thinking that he’ll let ye in if ye’re with us,” Bruenor reasoned, and Jarlaxle bowed.

“Bah!” snorted the dwarf king. “Ye better have more to say than that.”

“Much more,” Jarlaxle replied, looking more at Drizzt than Bruenor. “And I will tell you all of it. But it is a long tale, and we should not tarry, for the sake of your wife.”

“Don’t ye be pretendin’ that ye care about me girl!” Bruenor shouted, and Jarlaxle retreated a step.

Drizzt saw something then, though Bruenor was too upset to catch it. True pain flashed in Jarlaxle’s dark eyes; he did care. Drizzt thought back to the time Jarlaxle had allowed him, with Catti-brie and Artemis Entreri, to escape from Menzoberranzan, one of the many times Jarlaxle had let him walk away. Drizzt tried to put it all in the context of the current situation, to reveal the possible motives behind Jarlaxle’s actions. Was he lying, or was he speaking the truth?

Drizzt felt it the latter, and that realization surprised him. “What’re ye thinking, elf?” Bruenor asked him.

“I would like to hear the story,” Drizzt replied, his gaze never leaving Jarlaxle. “But hear it as we travel along the road.”

Jarlaxle nudged Athrogate, and the dwarf produced his boar figurine at the same time that Jarlaxle reached into his pouch for the obsidian nightmare. A moment later, their mounts materialized and Bruenor’s mules flattened their ears and backed nervously away.

“What in the Nine Hells?” Bruenor muttered, working hard to control the team.

On a signal from Jarlaxle, Athrogate guided his boar to the side of the wagon, to take up a position in the rear.

“I want one o’ them!” Thibbledorf Pwent said, his eyes wide with adoration as the fiery demon boar trotted past. “Oh, me king!”

Jarlaxle reined his nightmare aside and moved it to walk beside the wagon. Drizzt scrambled over that side to sit on the rail nearest him. Then he called to Guenhwyvar.

The panther knew her place. She leaped down from the tree, took a few running strides past Athrogate, and leaped into the wagon bed, curling up defensively around the seated Catti-brie.

“It is a long road,” Drizzt remarked.

“It is a long tale,” Jarlaxle replied.

“Tell it slowly then, and fully.”

The wagon wasn’t moving, and both Drizzt and Jarlaxle looked at Bruenor, the dwarf staring back at them with dark eyes full of doubt.

“Ye sure about this, elf?” he asked Drizzt.

“No,” Drizzt answered, but then he looked at Jarlaxle, shook his head, and changed his mind. “To Spirit Soaring,” he said.

“With hope,” Jarlaxle added.

Drizzt turned his gaze to Catti-brie, who sat calmly, fully withdrawn from the world around her.

This is futile!” cried Wanabrick Prestocovin, a spirited young wizard from Baldur’s Gate. He shoved his palms forward on the table before him, ruffling a pile of parchment.