Even Passepout's usual vocal protestations of hunger, starvation, and gastric deprivation seemed to be held in abeyance by the presence of the newest member of their traveling party.
Shurleen, unfortunately, more than made up for his moony agreeableness with a continuous stream of protestations about her comfort, their destination, and the time it was taking getting there.
Volo himself began to consider the desirability of ditching her in one of Kara-Tur's numerous seaports, leaving her to find her own means of getting home from there. But then common sense would intervene, and he would have to dismiss such plans. He had no desire to get on the bad side of the Bleth family, nor did he wish to upset Passepout, who was lavishing an unseemly amount of unconditional acceptance of her bad behavior.
As they passed just to the north of Kara-Tur's famed Dragon wall, Volo mused to himself that it was just one less wall for Shurleen's whining to echo off.
Shurleen's cacophonous drone of complaints was interrupted by a question. "What's that smell?" she asked.
The travelers reined in their stallions and paused to evaluate.
"Smells like smoke," Curtis answered.
"And where there's smoke, there's fire," Passepout added, not wishing to be upstaged by the younger man.
Volo fingered his beard in contemplation. "It's fire and smoke, all right," he observed. "Bamboo, I think."
"It seems to be coming from over there," Shurleen added, pointing toward a nearby ridge that blocked a valley pass.
"We should proceed with caution," Passepout declared, trying to sound officious to conceal his own growing fear.
"Agreed," the master traveler answered. "Let's proceed on foot."
The four travelers dismounted in unison, Curtis taking the reins of Volo's and Passepout's mounts so that they could discreetly proceed ahead and do reconnaissance.
As the two traveling companions reached the ridge, Shurleen called, "Do you see anything yet?"
"Quiet!" Curtis hushed, none too sweetly.
"Why?" she pouted.
"We might not want to give our presence away!"
"Oh," she answered softly, for the first time really noticing that Curtis cut a fine figure for a young fellow of the itinerant classes.
Too bad he's not rich, she thought to herself, I really might be able to go for his type. Still, a dalliance on the road might not be too bad, provided no one finds out.
"Uh, Curtis," she said sweetly, "now that we're alone, I…"
"Quiet!" he hushed again, not paying attention to anything she had to say, only to the amount of noise she was making. "I told you to be quiet!"
Well that settles it, she fumed. Never in a million years, not even if he was the richest man in all Toril. I'd sooner marry that blimp of a thespian Passepout than keep intimate company with this young rogue. At least the fatso minds his manners.
"You know, I really think she likes me," Passepout commented, as he and Volo sauntered around the ridge.
"Quiet!" Volo snapped. "We might not want to give our presence away."
"Oh, yeah, right," the thespian agreed, dropping to a whisper, while falling into line behind the master traveler.
The smoke from smoldering bamboo was coming from the remnants of a small merchant caravan that apparently had been attacked by bandits. After they had finished ransacking it of all that was valuable, they had inexpertly set it on fire, which resulted in many clouds of pungent smoke but very little fire damage, as the flames quickly smoldered instead of spreading.
"Let's take a closer look," Volo suggested, immediately drawing closer to one of the overturned wagons.
"Do we have to?" protested the chubby thespian, who nevertheless followed the master traveler to the scene of carnage.
No fewer than ten bodies had been hacked to pieces at the attack site. Most of the victims were old men and women whose possessions were probably of little value to the raiding party of bandits.
It was apparent that in lieu of an expected windfall of booty, the thieves had chosen entertainment in its place, much to the misfortune of their innocent victims.
Volo shook his head in disgust. Once again he decided that no matter how wide his experience or far his travels or extensive his knowledge of the way of the world, he would never get used to the cruelty and inhumanity that man brings to bear on his fellow man.
"I guess we're too late to do any good here," Volo muttered in resignation.
"Good," Passepout answered out of relief. "I mean, yes, uh, too bad, a real shame."
The two travelers turned to rejoin the rest of their group on the other side of the ridge, when Volo swiveled back, cocking his ear to the wind.
"Wait," he instructed. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Passepout answered, anxious to rejoin Shurleen, and not trusting her alone with that arrogant beachcomber, Curtis.
A soft wailing seemed to be coming from the ambush site.
"That," Volo replied.
"It's probably just the wind," Passepout replied hopefully, adding, "We should be on our way."
"In a minute," Volo replied, and turned his attentions back to the site of the ambush.
The wailing grew louder as they approached one of the overturned wagons, which though light in construction nonetheless covered a large amount of the plain in its rubbled and wrecked form.
Volo began to pick through the rubble as the wailing persisted. Lifting up the remnants of two bamboo screens, he uncovered the bodies of two men, one of whom had been beheaded. The shifting of the screen further revealed the missing head, a face mask still in place.
"Obviously this guy put up a fight," Volo commented, gesturing to the intact body, "and managed to behead one of the bandits before the others managed to do him in. See here, in addition to killing him, they gave him a haircut."
"Why?" asked the slightly bewildered Passepout, who really wished that he was still back with the horses.
"They cut the topknot of his hair that indicates that he was a samurai."
"Strange souvenir."
"Sure was," Volo replied.
Passepout turned to leave and stumbled over another piece of the rubble. The wailing quickly changed to a loud crying.
"Quickly," Volo ordered. "Help me move this. I think something is trapped under here."
The two travelers pulled back the piles of bamboo screen, and uncovered the top of a cart that had been buried in the ground, and covered with the screens. The cart was bedecked with all sorts of throwing knives and swords, a veritable portable arsenal for a wandering samurai. In its center, completely at home among the weaponry but crying from the pangs of hunger from not eating for several hours was a very small child, probably less than two years old.
Carefully Volo and the chubby thespian extracted the child from its highly lethal bower of martial arts, and returned to Curtis and Shurleen, who were just beginning to get worried.
"A baby," Shurleen cooed. "Where did you find that?"
"He's the sole survivor of a bandit's ambush of a very poor merchant's caravan," Volo explained. "See how his hair is tied back into a knot. He is probably the son of the samurai who tried to defend the caravan and wound up giving up his life. We found his body back there, too."
"What are we going to do with him?" Curtis inquired.
"He's precious," Shurleen cooed, taking the child into her arms. "Look, he even has some toys tied to his belt."
"Those aren't toys," Volo replied. "They're throwing stars. Very pretty, but also very deadly."
"Sounds like a few women I know," Curtis jibed.
"Me, too," Passepout agreed, "present company excluded, of course."
"What will we do with this little angel?" Shurleen inquired.
A new voice joined the conversation, one that was very old and dry, with a touch of the whimsical.