The Spine of the World Read online

  “You are mistaken, good man,” he replied at last to Deudermont’s surprise. “About my name and about my past. It is time for you to leave.”

  “But Wulfgar,” Deudermont started to protest. He jumped in surprise to find another man, small and dark and ominous, standing right behind him, though he had heard not a footfall of approach. Wulfgar looked to the little man, then motioned to Arumn. The barkeep, after a moment’s hesitation, reached behind the bar and produced a bottle, tossing it across the way where sure-fingered Morik caught it easily.

  “Walk or fly?” Wulfgar asked Deudermont again. The sheer emptiness of his tone, not icy cold, but purely indifferent, struck Deudermont profoundly, told him that the man would make good on the promise to launch him out of the tavern without hesitation if he didn’t move immediately.

  “Sea Sprite is in port for another tenday at the least,” Deudermont explained, rising and heading for the door. “You are welcomed there as a guest or to join the crew, for I have not forgotten,” he finished firmly, the promise ringing in his wake as he slipped from the inn.

  “Who was that?” Morik asked Wulfgar after Deudermont had disappeared into the dark Luskan night.

  “A fool,” was all that the big man would answer. He went to the bar and pointedly pulled another bottle from the shelf. Turning his gaze from Arumn to Delly, the surly barbarian left with Morik.

  Captain Deudermont had a long walk ahead of him to the dock. The sights and sounds of Luskan’s nightlife washed over him—loud, slurred voices through open tavern windows, barking dogs, clandestine whispers in dark corners—but Deudermont scarcely heard them, engrossed as he was in his own thoughts.

  So Wulfgar was alive, and yet in worse condition than the captain could ever have imagined the heroic man. His offer to the barbarian to join the crew of Sea Sprite had been genuine, but he knew from the barbarian’s demeanor that Wulfgar would never take him up on it.

  What was Deudermont to do?

  He wanted to help Wulfgar, but Deudermont was experienced enough in the ways of trouble to understand that you couldn’t help a man who didn’t want help.

  “If you plan to leave a dinner engagement, kindly inform us of your whereabouts,” came a reproachful greeting as the captain approached his ship. He looked up to see both Robillard and Waillan Micanty staring down at him from the rail.

  “You shouldn’t be out alone,” Waillan Micanty scolded, but Deudermont merely waved away the notion.

  Robillard frowned his concern. “How many enemies have we made these last years?” the wizard demanded in all seriousness. “How many would pay sacks of gold for a mere chance at your head?”

  “That’s why I employ a wizard to watch over me,” Deudermont replied calmly, setting foot up the plank.

  Robillard snorted at the absurdity of the remark. “How am I to watch over you if I don’t even know where you are?”

  Deudermont stopped in his tracks, and a wide smile creased his face as he gazed up at his wizard. “If you can’t locate me magically, what faith should I hold that you could find those who wish me harm?”

  “But it is true, Captain,” Waillan interjected while Robillard flushed darkly. “Many would love to meet up with you unguarded in the streets.”

  “Am I to bottle up the whole crew, then?” Deudermont asked. “None shall leave, for fear of reprisals by friends of the pirates?”

  “Few would leave Sea Sprite alone,” Waillan argued.

  “Fewer still would be known enough to pirates to be targets!” Robillard spouted. “Our enemies would not attack a minor and easily replaced crewman, for to do so would incur the wrath of Deudermont and the lords of Waterdeep, but the price might be worth paying for the chance to eliminate the captain of Sea Sprite” The wizard blew a deep sigh and eyed the captain pointedly. “You should not be out alone,” he finished firmly.

  “I had to check on an old friend,” Deudermont explained.

  “Wulfgar, by name?” asked the perceptive wizard.

  “So I thought,” replied Deudermont sourly as he continued up the plank and by the two men, going to his quarters without another word.

  It was too small and nasty a place to even have a name, a gathering hole for the worst of Luskan’s wretches. They were sailors mostly, wanted by lords or angry families for heinous crimes. Their fears that walking openly down a street in whatever port their ship entered would get them arrested or murdered were justified. So they came to holes like this, back rooms in shanties conveniently stocked near to the docks.

  Morik the Rogue knew these places well, for he’d got his start on the streets working as lookout for one of the most dangerous of these establishments when he was but a young boy. He didn’t go into such holes often anymore. Among the more civilized establishments, he was highly respected and regarded, and feared, and that was probably the emotion Morik most enjoyed. In here, though, he was just another thug, a little thief in a nest of assassins.

  He couldn’t resist entering a hole this night, though, not with the captain of the famed Sea Sprite showing up to have a conversation with his new friend, Wulfgar.

  “How tall?” asked Creeps Sharky, one of the two thugs at Morik’s table. Creeps was a grizzled old sea dog with uneven clumps of dirty beard on his ruddy cheeks and one eye missing. “Cheap Creeps,” the patrons often called him, for the man was quick with his rusty old dagger and slow with his purse. So tight was Creeps with his booty that he wouldn’t even buy a proper patch for his missing eye. The dark edge of the empty socket stared out at Morik from beneath the lowest folds of the bandana Creeps had tied around his head.

  “Head and a half taller than me,” Morik answered. “Maybe two.”

  Creeps glanced to his pirate companion, an exotic specimen, indeed. The man had a thick topknot of black hair and tattoos all around his face, neck, and practically every other patch of exposed flesh—and since all he wore was a kilt of tiger skin, there was more than a little flesh exposed. Just following Creeps’s glance to the other sent a shudder along Morik’s spine, for while he didn’t know the specifics of Creeps’s companion, he had certainly heard the rumors about the “man,” Tee-a-nicknick. This pirate was only half human, the other half being qullan, some rare and ferocious warrior race.

  “Sea Sprite’s in port,” Creeps remarked to Morik. The rogue nodded, for he had seen the three-masted schooner on his way to this drinking hole.

  “He wore a beard just about the jawline,” Morik added, trying to give as complete a description as he could.

  “He sit straight?” the tattooed pirate asked.

  Morik looked at Tee-a-nicknick as if he did not understand.

  “Did he sit straight in his chair?” Creeps clarified, assuming a pose of perfect posture. “Lookin’ like he had a plank shoved up his arse all the way to his throat?”

  Morik smiled and nodded. “Straight and tall.”

  Again the two pirates shared a glance.

  “Soundin’ like Deudermont,” Creeps put in. “The dog. I’d give a purse o’ gold to put me knife across that one’s throat. Put many o’ me friends to the bottom, he has, and cost all o’ us prettily.”

  The tattooed pirate showed his agreement by hoisting a bulging purse of coins onto the table. Morik realized then that every other conversation in the hole had come to an abrupt halt and that all eyes were upon him and his two rakish companions.

  “Aye, Morik, but ye’re likin’ the sight,” Creeps remarked, indicating the purse. “Well, it’s yer own to have, and ten more like it, I’m guessin’.” Creeps jumped up suddenly, sending his chair skidding back across the floor. “What’re ye sayin’, lads?” he cried. “Who’s got a gold coin or ten for the head o’ Deudermont o’ Sea Sprite?”

  A great cheer went up throughout the rat hole, with many curses spoken against Deudermont and his pirate-killing crew.

  Morik hardly heard them, so focused was he on the purse of gold. Deudermont had come to see Wulfgar. Every man in the place, and a hundred more like t
hem, no doubt, would pitch in a few more coins. Deudermont knew Wulfgar well and trusted him. A thousand gold pieces. Ten thousand? Morik and Wulfgar could get to Deudermont, and easily. Morik’s greedy, thieving mind reeled at the possibilities.

  he came skipping down the lane, so much like a little girl, and yet so obviously a young woman. Shiny black hair bounced around her shoulders, and her green eyes flashed as brightly as the beaming smile upon her fair face.

  She had just spoken to him, to Jaka Sculi, with his soulful blue eyes and his curly brown hair, one strand hanging across the bridge of his nose. And just speaking to him made her skip where she might have walked, made her forget the mud that crept in through the holes in her old shoes or the tasteless food she would find in her wooden bowl at her parents’ table that night. None of that mattered, not the bugs, not the dirty water, nothing. She had spoken to Jaka, and that alone made her warm and tingly and scared and alive all at the same time.

  It went as one of life’s little unrealized ironies that the same spirit freed by her encounter with the brooding Jaka inspired the eyes of another to settle upon her happy form.

  Lord Feringal Auck had found his heart fluttering at the sight of many different women over his twenty-four years, mostly merchant’s daughters whose fathers were looking for another safe haven northwest of Luskan. The village was near to the most traveled pass through the Spine of the World where they might resupply and rest on the perilous journey to and from Ten-Towns in Icewind Dale.

  Never before had Feringal Auck found his breathing so hard to steady that he was practically gasping for air as he hung from the window of his decorated carriage.

  “Feri, the pines have begun sending their yellow dust throughout the winds,” came the voice of Priscilla, Feringal’s older sister. She, alone, called him Feri, to his everlasting irritation. “Do get inside the coach! The sneezing dust is thick about us. You know how terrible—”

  The woman paused and studied her brother more intently, particularly the way he was gawking. “Feri?” she asked, sliding over in her seat, close beside him and grabbing his elbow and giving it a shake. “Feri?”

  “Who is she?” the lord of Auckney asked, not even hearing his sister. “Who is that angelic creature, the avatar of the goddess of beauty, the image of man’s purest desires, the embodiment of temptation?”

  Priscilla shoved her brother aside and thrust her head out the carriage window. “What, that peasant girl?” she asked incredulously, a clear note of contempt sounding in her tone.

  “I must know,” Lord Feringal sang more than said. The side of his face sank against the edge of the carriage window, and his unblinking gaze locked on the skipping young woman. She slipped from his sight as the carriage sped around a bend in the curving road.

  “Feri!” Priscilla scolded. She moved as if to slap her younger brother but held up short of the mark.

  The lord of Auckney shook away his love-inspired lethargy long enough to eye his sister directly, even dangerously. “I shall know who she is,” he insisted.

  Priscilla Auck settled back in her seat and said no more, though she was truly taken aback by her younger brother’s uncharacteristic show of emotion. Feringal had always been a gentle, quiet soul easily manipulated by his shrewish sister, fifteen years his senior. Now nearing her fortieth birthday, Priscilla had never married. In truth, she had never had any interest in a man beyond fulfilling her physical needs. Their mother had died giving birth to Feringal, their father passed on five years later, which left Priscilla, along with her father’s counselor, Temigast, the stewardship of the fiefdom until Feringal grew old enough to rule. Priscilla had always enjoyed that arrangement, for even when Feringal had come of age, and even now, nearly a decade after that, her voice was substantial in the rulership of Auckney. She had never desired to bring another into the family, so she had assumed the same of Feri.

  Scowling, Pricilla glanced back one last time in the general direction of the young lass, though they were far out of sight now. Their carriage rambled along the little stone bridge that arched into the sheltered bay toward the tiny isle where Castle Auck stood.

  Like Auckney itself, a village of two hundred people that rarely showed up on any maps, the castle was of modest design. There were a dozen rooms for the family, and for Temigast, of course, and another five for the half-dozen servants and ten soldiers who served at the place. A pair of low and squat towers anchored the castle, barely topping fifteen feet, for the wind always blew strongly in Auckney. A common joke was, if the wind ever stopped blowing, all the villagers would fall over forward, so used were they to leaning as they walked.

  “I should get out of the castle more often,” Lord Feringal insisted as he and his sister moved through the foyer and into a sitting room, where old Steward Temigast sat painting another of his endless seascapes.

  “To the village proper, you mean?” Priscilla said with obvious sarcasm. “Or to the outlying peat farms? Either way, it is all mud and stone, and dirty.”

  “And in that mud, a jewel might shine all the brighter,” the love-struck lord insisted with a deep sigh.

  The steward cocked an eyebrow at the odd exchange and looked up from his painting. Temigast had lived in Waterdeep for most of his younger days, coming to Auckney as a middle-aged man some thirty years before. Worldly compared to the isolated Auckney citizens—including the ruling family—Temigast had had little trouble in endearing himself to the feudal lord, Tristan Auck, and in rising to the post of principal counselor, then steward. That worldliness served Temigast well now, for he recognized the motivation for Feringal’s sigh and understood its implications.

  “She was just a girl,” Priscilla complained. “A child, and a dirty one at that.” She looked to Temigast for support, seeing that he was intent upon their conversation. “Feringal is smitten, I fear,” she explained. “And with a peasant. The lord of Auckney desires a dirty, smelly peasant girl.”

  “Indeed,” replied Temigast, feigning horror. By his estimation, by the estimation of anyone who was not from Auckney, the “lord of Auckney” was barely above a peasant himself. There was history there. The castle had stood for more than six hundred years, built by the Dorgenasts who had ruled for the first two centuries. Then, through marriage, it had been assumed by the Aucks.

  But what, really, were they ruling? Auckney was on the very fringe of the trade routes, south of the westernmost spur of the Spine of the World. Most merchant caravans traveling between Ten-Towns and Luskan avoided the place all together, many taking the more direct pass through the mountains many miles to the east. Even those who dared not brave the wilds of that unguarded pass crossed east of Auckney, through another pass that harbored the town of Hundelstone, which had six times the population of Auckney and many more valuable supplies and craftsmen.

  Though a coastal village, Auckney was too far north for any shipping trade. Occasionally a ship—often a fisherman caught in a gale out of Fireshear to the south—would drift into the small harbor around Auckney, usually in need of repair. Some of those fishermen stayed on in the fiefdom, but the population here had remained fairly constant since the founding by the roguish Lord Dorgenast and his followers, refugees from a minor and failed power play among the secondary ruling families in Waterdeep. Nearing two hundred, the population was as large as it had ever been, mostly because of an influx of gnomes from Hundelstone, though on many occasions it was less than half of that. Most of the villagers were related, usually in more ways than one, except, of course, for the Aucks, who usually took their brides or husbands from outside stock.

  “Can’t you find a suitable wife from among the well-bred families of Luskan?” Priscilla asked. “Or in a favorable deal with a wealthy merchant? We could well use a large dowry, after all.”

  “Wife?” Temigast said with a chuckle. “Aren’t we being a bit premature?”

  “Not at all,” Lord Feringal insisted evenly. “I love her. I know that I do.”

  “Fool!” Priscilla w
ailed, but Temigast patted her shoulder to calm her, chuckling all the while.

  “Of course you do, my lord,” the steward said, “but the marriage of a nobleman is rarely about love, I fear. It is about station, political alliances, and wealth,” Temigast gently explained.

  Feringal’s eyes widened. “I love her!” the young lord insisted.

  “Then take her as a mistress,” Temigast suggested reasonably. “A plaything. Surely a man of your great station is deserving of at least one of those.”

  Hardly able to speak past the welling lump in his throat, Feringal ground his heel into the stone floor and stormed off to his private room.

  “Did you kiss him?” Tori, the younger of the Ganderlay sisters, asked, giggling at the thought of it. Tori was only eleven, and just beginning to realize the differences between boys and girls, an education fast accelerating since Meralda, her older sister by six years, had taken a fancy to Jaka Sculi, with his delicate features and long eyelashes and brooding blue eyes.

  “No, I surely did not,” Meralda replied, brushing back her long black hair from her olive-skinned face, the face of beauty, the face that had unknowingly captured the heart of the lord of Auckney.

  “But you wanted to,” Tori teased, bursting into laughter, and Meralda joined her, as sure an admission as she could give.

  “Oh, but I did,” the older sister said.

  “And you wanted to touch him,” her young sister teased on. “Oh, to hug him and kiss him! Dear, sweet Jaka.” Tori ended by making sloppy kissing noises and wrapping her arms around her chest, hands grabbing her shoulders as she turned around so that it looked as if someone was hugging her.

  “You stop that!” Meralda said, slapping her sister across the back playfully.

  “But you didn’t even kiss him,” Tori complained. “Why not, if you wanted to? Did he not want the same?”

  “To make him want it all the more,” the older girl explained. “To make him think about me all the time. To make him dream about me.”