"Get the wizard and get to them," Deudermont said to Drizzt. "And get the cat. We need you now, my friend!"
Drizzt started to move, but Harkle, spotting the light of a torch near to where Catti-brie had pointed out the cylinder, shouted out "no time!" and dove flat to the deck.
From on high, Catti-brie saw the torch, and with its light, she also saw the large sacks that Harkle had inquired about. She instinctively aimed for the torchbearer, thinking to slow the smokepowder crew, but then took a chance and agreed with Harkle, shifting her aim slightly and letting fly, straight for the pile of sacks on the pirate's decking.
Her arrow streaked in the instant before the man put the torch to the cannon, as the Sea Sprite was running practically parallel to the pirate ship. It was just an instant, but in that time, the torchbearer was foiled, was blown into the air as the streaking arrow sliced into the sacks of volatile smokepowder.
The pirate ship nearly stood straight up on end. The fireball was beyond anything Harkle, or even Robillard, had ever seen, and the sheer concussion and flying debris nearly cleaned the Sea Sprite's deck of standing crewmen, and tore many holes in the schooner's lateen sails.
The Sea Sprite lurched wildly, left and right, before Deudermont could regain his senses and steady the wheel. But she plowed on, leaving the trap behind.
"By the gods," Catti-brie muttered, truly horrified, for where the pirate square-rigger had been, there was now only flotsam and jetsam, splinters, charred wood, and floating bodies.
Drizzt, too, was stunned. Looking on the carnage, he thought he was previewing the end of the world. He had never seen such devastation, such complete carnage, not even from a powerful wizard. Enough smokepowder could flatten a mountain, or a city. Enough smokepowder could flatten all the world.
"Smokepowder?" he said to Harkle.
"From Gondish priests," the wizard replied.
"Damn them all," muttered Drizzt, and he walked away.
Later that day, as the crew worked to repair the tears in the sails, Drizzt and Catti-brie took a break and leaned on the rail of the schooner's bow, looking down at the empty water and considering the great distance they had yet to travel.
Finally Catti-brie couldn't stand the suspense any longer. "Did ye beat him?" she asked.
Drizzt looked at her curiously, as though he didn't understand.
"His tyrancy," Catti-brie explained.
"I brought the map," Drizzt replied, "and the chest, though it was lost."
"Ah, but Dunkin promised it whether ye won or lost," the young woman said slyly.
Drizzt looked at her. "The contest was never important," he said. "Not to me."
"Did ye win or lose?" Catti-brie pressed, not willing to let the drow slip out of this one.
"Sometimes it is better to allow so important a leader and valuable an ally to retain his pride and his reputation," Drizzt replied, looking back to the sea, then to the mizzenmast, where a crewman was calling for some assistance.
"Ye let him beat ye?" Catti-brie asked, not seeming pleased by that prospect.
"I never said that," Drizzt replied.
"So he beat ye on his own," the young woman reasoned.
Drizzt shrugged as he walked away toward the mizzenmast to help out the crewman. He passed by Harkle and Robillard, who were coming forward, apparently meaning to join Drizzt and Catti-brie at the rail.
Catti-brie continued to stare at the drow as the wizards walked up. The woman did not know what to make of Drizzt's cryptic answers. Drizzt had let Tarnheel win, she figured, or at least had allowed the man to fight him to a draw. For some reason the young woman did not understand, she didn't want to think that Tarnheel had actually beaten Drizzt; she didn't want to think that anyone could beat Drizzt.
Both Robillard and Harkle were smiling widely as they considered the young woman's expression.
"Drizzt beat him," Robillard said at last.
Startled, Catti-brie turned to the wizard.
"That is what you were wondering about," Robillard reasoned.
"We watched it all," Harkle said. "Oh, of course we did. A good match." Harkle went into a fighting crouch, his best imitation of Drizzt in combat, which of course seemed a mockery to Catti-brie. "He started left," Harkle began, making the move, "then ran to the right so quickly and smoothly that Tarnheel never realized it."
"Until he got hit," Robillard interjected. "His tyrancy was still swinging forward, attacking a ghost, I suppose."
That made sense to Catti-brie; the move they had just described was called "the ghost step."
"He learned better, he did!" howled Harkle.
"Suffice it to say that his tyrancy will not be sitting down anytime soon," Robillard finished, and the two wizards exploded into laughter, as animated as Catti-brie had ever seen Robillard.
The young woman went back to the rail as the two walked away, howling still. Catti-brie was smiling too. She now knew the truth of Drizzt's claims that the fight wasn't important to him. She'd make certain that she teased the drow about it in the days to come. She also was smiling because Drizzt had won.
For some reason, that was very important to Catti-brie.
Chapter 8 SEA TALK
Repairs continued on the Sea Sprite for two days, preventing her from putting up her sails in full. Even so, with the strong breeze rushing down from the north, the swift schooner made fine speed southward, her sails full of wind. In just over three days, she ran the four hundred miles from Mintarn to the southeasternmost point of the great Moonshae Isles, and Deudermont turned her to the west, due west, for the open sea, running just off the southern coast of the Moonshaes.
"We'll run for two days with the Moonshaes in sight," Deudermont informed the crew.
"Are you not making for Corwell?" Dunkin Tallmast, who always seemed to be asking questions, was quick to interrupt. "I think I should like to be let off at Corwell. A beautiful city, by all accounts." The little man's cavalier attitude was diminished considerably when he began tugging at his ear, that nervous tick that revealed his trepidation.
Deudermont ignored the pesty man. "If the wind holds, tomorrow, mid-morning, we'll pass a point called Dragon Head," he
explained. "Then we'll cross a wide harbor and put in at a village, Wyngate, for our last provisions. Then it's the open sea, twenty days out, I figure, twice that without the wind."
The seasoned crew understood it would be a difficult journey, but they bobbed their heads in accord, not a word of protest from the lot of them-with one exception.
"Wyngate?" Dunkin protested. "Why, I'll be a month in just getting out of the place!"
"Whoever said that you were leaving?" Deudermont asked him. "We shall put you off where we choose … after we return."
That shut the man up, or at least changed his train of thought, for before Deudermont could get three steps away, Dunkin shouted at him. "If you return, you mean!" he called. "You have lived along the Sword Coast all your stinking life. You know the rumors, Deudermont."
The captain turned slowly, ominously, to face the man. Both were quite conscious of the murmurs Dunkin's words had caused, a ripple of whispers all across the schooner's deck.
Dunkin did not look at Deudermont directly, but scanned the deck, his wry smile widening as he considered the suddenly nervous crew. "Ah," he moaned suspiciously. "You haven't told them."
Deudermont didn't blink.
"You wouldn't be leading them to an island of legend without telling them all of the legend?" Dunkin asked in sly tones.