“Ye be a good laddie,” one bald-headed man said, climbing to stand on severely bowed legs. “Tookie, there, he was just funning with ye.”
“A simple question,” Le'lorinel said again.
The elf had come into this dirty tavern along Luskan's docks showing the illusionary images E'kressa had prepared, asking about the significance of the mark.
“Not so simple, mayhaps,” the bald-headed sea dog replied. “Ye're askin' about a mark, and many're wearin' marks.”
“And most who are wearin' marks ain't looking to show 'em,” another of the old men said.
Le'lorinel heard a movement to the side and saw the man, Tookie, rising fast from the floor and coming in hard. A sweep and turn, swinging the sword down to the side, not to slash the man—though Le'lorinel thought he surely deserved it—but to force him into an awkward, off-balance dodge, followed by a simple duck and step maneuver had the elf behind the attacker. A firm shove against Tookie's back had him diving forward to skid down hard to the floor.
But two of the others were there, one brandishing a curved knife used for scaling fish, another a short gaff hook.
Le'lorinel's right hand presented the sword defensively, while the elf s left hand went to the right hip, then snapped out.
The man with the gaff hook fell back, wailing and wheezing, a dagger deep in his chest.
Le'lorinel lunged forward, and the other attacker leaped back, presented his hands up before him in surrender, and let the curved knife fall to the floor.
“A simple question,” the elf reiterated through gritted teeth, and the look in Le'lorinel's blue and gold eyes left no doubt among any in the room that this warrior would leave them all dead with hardly a thought.
“I ain't never seen it,” the man who'd been holding the knife replied.
“But you are going to go and find out about it for me, correct?” Le'lorinel remarked. “All of you.”
“Oh, yes, laddie, we'll get ye yer answers,” another said.
The one still lying on the floor and facing away from Le'lorinel scrambled up suddenly and bolted for the door, bursting through and out into the twilight. Another rose to follow, but Le'lorinel stepped to the side, tore the dagger free from the dying man's chest and cocked it back, ready to throw.
“A simple question,” Le'lorinel said yet again. “Find me my answer and I will reward you. Fail me and. . ” The elf finished by turning to look at the man propped against the wall, laboring for breath now, obviously suffering in the last moments of his life.
Le'lorinel walked for the open door, pausing only long enough to wipe the dagger on the tunic of the man who'd attacked with the curved blade, finishing by sliding the knife up teasingly toward the man's throat, up and over his shoulder as the elf walked by.
* * * * * * * * * *
The small form came out of the alleyway in a blur of motion, spinning and swinging, a pair of silvery daggers in his hands.
His attack was nearly perfect, slicing in low at Drizzt's mid-section with his left, then stopping short with a feint and launching a wide-arching chopping left, coming down at the side of the drow's neck.
Nearly perfect.
Drizzt saw the feint for what it was, ignored the first attack, and focused on the second. The dark elf caught Morik's hand in his own and as he did he turned the rogue's hand in so that Drizzt's fingers covered those of the rogue.
Morik neatly adjusted to the block, trying instead to finish his first stab, but Drizzt was too quick and too balanced, skittering with blazing speed, his already brilliant footwork enhanced by magical anklets. The drow went right under Morik's upraised arm, turning as he moved, then running right behind the rogue, twisting that arm and maneuvering out of the reach of the other stabbing dagger.
Morik, too, started to turn, but then Drizzt merely cupped the ends of his fingers and squeezed, compressing the top knuckles of Morik's hand and causing excruciating pain. The dagger fell to the ground, and Morik too went down to one knee.
Catti-brie had the rogue's other hand caught and held before he could even think of trying to retaliate again.
“Oh, please don't kill me,” the rogue pleaded. “I did get the jewels … I told the assassin … I did follow Wulfgar. . everything you said!”
Drizzt stared up at Catti-brie in disbelief, and he lessened his pressure on the man's hand and yanked Morik back to his feet.
“I did not betray Jarlaxle,” Morik cried. “Never that!”
“Jarlaxle?” Catti-brie asked incredulously. “Who does he think we are?”
“A good question,” Drizzt asked, looking to Morik for an answer.
“You are not agents of Jarlaxle?” the rogue asked. A moment later, his face beamed with obvious relief and he gave a little embarrassed chuckle. “But then, who. .” He stopped short, his smile going wide. “You're Wulfgar's friends,” he said, his smile nearly taking in his ears.
Drizzt let him go, and so did Catti-brie, and the man retrieved his fallen dagger and replaced both in his belt. “Well met!” he said exuberantly, reaching his hand toward them. “Wulfgar told me so much about the both of you!”
“It would appear that you and Wulfgar have a few tales of your own to tell,” Drizzt remarked.
Morik chuckled again and shook his head. When it became apparent that neither the drow nor the woman were going to take the offered handshake, Morik brought his hand back in and wiped it on his hip. “Too many tales to tell!” he explained. “Stories of battle and love all the way from Luskan to Auckney.”
“How do you know Jarlaxle?” Catti-brie asked. “And where is Wulfgar?”
“Two completely unrelated events, I assure you,” Morik replied. “At least, they were when last I saw my large friend. He left Luskan some time ago, with Delly Curtie and the child he took from the foppish lord of Auckney.”
“Kidnapped?” Drizzt asked skeptically.
“Saved,” Morik replied. “A bastard child of a frightened young lady, certain to be killed by the fop or his nasty sister.” He gave a great sigh. “It is a long and complicated tale. Better that you hear it from Wulfgar.”
“He is alive?”
“Last I heard,” Morik replied. “Alive and heading for … for Waterdeep, I believe. Trying to find Captain Deudermont, and hoping the captain would help him retrieve his lost warhammer.”
Catti-brie blew a most profound and relieved sigh.
“How did he lose the warhammer?” Drizzt asked.
“The fool Josi Puddles stole it and sold it to Sheila Kree, a most disagreeable pirate,” Morik answered. “Nasty sort, that pirate lady, but Wulfgar's found his heart again, I believe, and so I would not wish to be serving beside Sheila Kree!” He looked at Drizzt, who was staring at Catti-brie, and with both wearing their emotions in plain sight. “You thought he was dead,” Morik stated.
“We found a highwayman, a highwaywoman, actually, wearing a brand that could only have come from Aegis-fang,” Drizzt explained. “We know how dear that weapon was to Wulfgar and know that he was not in league with the bandit's former gang.”
“Never did we think he'd have let the thing go, except from his dying grasp,” Catti-brie admitted.
“I think we owe you a meal and a drink, at least,” Drizzt said to Morik, whose face brightened at the prospect.
Together, the three walked back toward the Cutlass, Morik seeming quite pleased with himself.
“And you can tell us how you have come to know Jarlaxle,” Drizzt remarked as they were entering, and Morik's shoulders visibly slumped.
The rogue did tell them of the coming of the dark elves to Luskan, of how he had been visited by henchmen of Jarlaxle and by the strange mercenary himself and told to shadow Wulfgar. He recounted his more recent adventures with the dark elves, after Wulfgar had departed Luskan and Morik's life, taking care to leave out the part about Jarlaxle's punishment once he had lost touch with the barbarian. Still, when he got to that particular part of the tale, Morik's hand went up reflexively for his face, which had been burned away by the nasty Rai-guy, a dark elf Morik despised with all his heart.