“We’ll stay with the river for a night more,” Brueror said. “Then southeast across the open ground. That’d clear us of the wood and lay open a straight path ‘fore us.”
“Perhaps it would be better if we traveled only by night for a few days,” Drizzt suggested. “We know not what eyes follow us out of the City of Sails.”
“Agreed,” replied Bruenor. “Let’s be off, then. A long road before us, and a longer one after that!”
“Too long,” murmured Regis, opening a lazy eye.
Bruenor shot him a dangerous glare. He was nervous about this trek and about bringing his friends on a dangerous road, and in an emotional defense, he took all complaints about the adventure personally.
“To walk, I mean,” Regis quickly explained. “There are farmhouses in this area, so there must be some horses about.”
“Horses’d bring too a high price in these parts,” replied Bruenor.
“Maybe…” said the halfling slyly, and his friends could easily guess what he was thinking. Their frowns reflected a general disapproval.
“The crags stand before us!” Regis argued. “Horses might outrun orcs, but without them, we shall surely fight for every mile of our hike! Besides, it would only be a loan. We could return the beasts when we were through with them.”
Drizzt and Bruenor did not approve of the halfling’s proposed trickery, but could not refute his logic. Horses would certainly aid them at this point of the journey.
“Wake the boy,” Bruenor growled.
“And about my plan?” asked Regis.
“We’ll make the choice when we find the opportunity!”
Regis was contented, confident that his friends would opt for the horses. He ate his fill, then scraped together the supper’s meager remnants and went to wake Wulfgar.
They were on the trail again soon after, and a short time after that, they saw the lights of a small settlement in the distance.
“Take us there,” Bruenor told Drizzt. “Mighten be that Rumblebelly’s plan’s worth a try.”
Wulfgar, having missed the conversation at the camp, didn’t understand, but offered no argument, or even questioned the dwarf. After the disaster at the Cutlass, he had resigned himself to a more passive role on the trip, letting the other three decide which trails they were to take. He would follow without complaint, keeping his hammer ready for when it became needed.
They moved inland away from the river for a few miles, then came upon several farms clustered together inside a stout wooden fence.
“There are dogs about,” Drizzt noted, sensing them with his exceptional hearing.
“Then Rumblebelly goes in alone,” said Bruenor.
Wulfgar’s face twisted in confusion, especially since the halfling’s look indicated that he wasn’t thrilled with the idea. “That I cannot allow,” the barbarian spouted. “If any among us needs protection, it is the little one. I’ll not hide here in the dark while he walks alone into danger!”
“He goes in alone,” Bruenor said again. “We’re here for no fight, boy. Rumblebelly’s to get us some horses.”
Regis smiled helplessly, caught fully in the trap that Bruenor had clearly set for him. Bruenor would allow him to appropriate the horses, as Regis had insisted, but with the grudging permission came a measure of responsibility and bravery on his part. It was the dwarf’s way, of absolving himself of involvement in the trickery.
Wulfgar remained steadfast in his determination to stand by the halfling, but Regis knew that the young warrior might inadvertently cause him problems in such delicate negotiations. “You stay with the others,” he explained to the barbarian. “I can handle this deal alone.”
Mustering up his nerve, he pulled his belt over the hang of his belly and strode off toward the small settlement.
The threatening snarls of several dogs greeted him as he approached the fence’s gate. He considered turning back—the ruby pendant probably wouldn’t do him much good against vicious dogs—but then he saw the silhouette of a man leave one of the farmhouses and start his way.
“What do you want?” the farmer demanded, standing defiantly on the other side of the gate and clutching an antique pole arm, probably passed down through his family’s generations.
“I am but a weary traveler,” Regis started to explain, trying to appear as pitiful as he could. It was a tale the farmer had heard far too often.
“Go away!” he ordered.
“But—”
“Get you gone!”
Over a ridge some distance away, the three companions watched the confrontation, though only Drizzt viewed the scene in the dim light well enough to understand what was happening. The drow could see the tenseness in the farmer by the way he gripped the halberd, and could judge the deep resolve in the man’s demands by the unbending scowl upon his face.
But then Regis pulled something out from under his jacket, and the farmer relaxed his grip upon the weapon almost immediately. A moment later, the gate swung open and Regis walked in.
The friends waited anxiously for several grueling hours with no further sign of Regis. They considered confronting the farmers themselves, worried that some foul treachery had befallen the halfling. Then finally, with the moon well past its peak, Regis emerged from the gate, leading two horses and two ponies. The farmers and their families waved good-bye to him as he left, making him promise to stop and visit if he ever passed their way again.
“Amazing,” laughed Drizzt. Bruenor and Wulfgar just shook their heads in disbelief.
For the first time since he had entered the settlement, Regis pondered that his delay might have caused his friends some distress. The farmer had insisted that he join in for supper before they sat down to discuss whatever business he had come about, and since Regis had to be polite (and since he had only eaten one supper that day) he agreed, though he kept the meal as short as possible and politely declined, when offered his fourth helping. Getting the horses proved easy enough after that. All he had to do was promise to leave them with the wizards in Longsaddle when he and his friends moved on from there.
Regis felt certain that his friends could not stay mad at him for very long. He had kept them waiting and worrying for half the night, but his endeavor would save them many days on a dangerous road. After an hour or two of feeling the wind rushing past them as they rode, they would forget any anger they held for him, he knew. Even if they didn’t so easily forgive, a good meal was always worth a little inconvenience to Regis.
Drizzt purposely kept the party moving more to the east than the southeast. He found no landmarks on Bruenor’s map that would let him approximate the straight course to Longsaddle. If he tried the direct route and missed the mark, no matter how slightly, they would come upon the main road from the northern city of Mirabar not knowing whether to turn north or south. By going directly east, the drow was assured that they would hit the road to the north of Longsaddle. His path would add a few miles, but perhaps save them several days of backtracking.
Their ride was clear and easy for the next day and night, and after that, Bruenor decided that they were far enough from Luskan to assume a more normal traveling schedule. “We can go by day, now,” he announced early in the afternoon of their second day with the horses.
“I prefer the night,” Drizzt said. He had just awakened and was brushing down his slender, well-muscled black stallion.
“Not me,” argued Regis. “Nights are for sleeping, and the horses are all but blind to holes and rocks that could lame them up.”
“The best for both then,” offered Wulfgar, stretching the last sleep out of his bones. “We can leave after the sun peaks, keeping it behind us for Drizzt, and ride long into the night.”
“Good thinking, lad,” laughed Bruenor. “Seems to be afternoon now, in fact. On the horses, then! Time’s for going!”