“To me, Redeye,” he beckoned the grimy sailor who had first brought to his ears the rumor that the passengers were infected with a horrible disease—and who had obviously spread the tale to the other members of the crew. Redeye obeyed at once, following his captain through the parting mob to stand before Entreri and Regis.
The captain slowly took out his pipe and tamped down the weed, his eyes never releasing Entreri’s from a penetrating gaze.
“Send ‘em over!” came an occasional cry, but each time, the captain silenced the speaker with a wave of his hand. He wanted a full measure of these strangers before he acted, and he patiently let the moments pass as he lit the pipe and took a long drag.
Entreri never blinked and never looked away from the captain. He brought his cloak back behind the scabbards on his belt and crossed his arms, the calm and confident action conveniently putting each of his hands in position barely an inch from the hilts of his weapons.
“Ye should have told me, sir,” the captain said at length.
“Your words are as unexpected as the actions of your crew,” Entreri replied evenly.
“Indeed,” the captain answered, drawing another puff.
Some of the crew were not as patient as their skipper. One barrel-chested man, his arms heavily muscled and tattooed, grew weary of the drama. He boldly stepped behind the assassin, meaning to toss him overboard and be done with him.
Just as the sailor started to reach out for the assassin’s slender shoulders, Entreri exploded into motion, spinning and returning to his cross-armed pose so quickly that the sailors watching him tried to blink the sun out of their eyes and figure out whether he had moved at all.
The barrel-chested man slumped to his knees and fell face down on the deck, for in that blink of an eye, a heel had smashed his kneecap, and, even more insidious, a jeweled dagger had come out of its sheath, poked his heart, and returned to rest on the assassin’s hip.
“Your reputation precedes you,” the captain said, not flinching.
“I pray that I do it justice,” Entreri replied with a sarcastic bow.
“Indeed,” said the captain. He motioned to the fallen man. “Might his friends see to his aid?”
“He is already dead,” Entreri assured the captain. “If any of his friends truly wish to go to him, let them, too, step forward.”
“They are scared,” the captain explained. “They have witnessed many terrible diseases in ports up and down the Sword Coast.”
“Disease?” Entreri echoed.
“Your companion let on to it,” said the captain.
A smile widened across Entreri’s face as it all came clear to him. Lightning quick, he tore the cloak from Regis and caught the halfling’s bare wrist, pulling him up off his feet and shooting a glare into the halfling’s terror-filled eyes that promised a slow and painful death. Immediately Entreri noticed the scars on Regis’s arm.
“Burns?” He gawked.
“Aye, that’s how the little one says it happens,” Redeye shouted, sinking back behind his captain when Entreri’s glare settled upon him. “Burns from the inside, it does!”
“Burns from a candle, more likely,” Entreri retorted. “Inspect the wounds for yourself,” he said to the captain. “There is no disease here, just the desperate tricks of a cornered thief,” He dropped Regis to the deck with a thud.
Regis lay very still, not even daring to breathe. The situation had not evolved quite as he had hoped.
“Toss ‘em over!” cried an anonymous voice.
“Not fer chancin’!” yelled another.
“How many do you need to sail your ship?” Entreri asked the captain. “How many can you afford to lose?”
The captain, having seen the assassin in action and knowing the man’s reputation, did not for a moment consider the simple questions as idle threats. Furthermore, the stare Entreri now fixed upon him told him without doubt that he would be the initial target if his crew moved against the assassin.
“I will trust in your word,” he said commandingly, silencing the grumbles of his nervous crew. “No need to inspect the wounds. But, disease or no, our deal is ended.” He looked pointedly to his dead crewman.
“I do not mean to swim to Calimport,” Entreri said in a hiss.
“Indeed,” replied the captain. “We put in at Baldur’s Gate in two days. You shall find other passage there.”
“And you shall repay me,” Entreri said calmly, “every gold piece.”
The captain drew another long drag from his pipe. This was not a battle he would choose to fight. “Indeed,” he said with equal calm. He turned toward his cabin and ordered his crew back to their stations as he went.
He remembered the lazy summer days on the banks of Maer Dualdon in Icewind Dale. How many hours he had spent there, fishing for the elusive knucklehead trout, or just basking in the rare warmth of Icewind Dale’s summer sun. Looking back on his years in Ten-Towns, Regis could hardly believe the course fate had laid out for him.
He thought he had found his niche, a comfortable existence—more comfortable still with the aid of the stolen ruby pendant—in a lucrative career as a scrimshander, carving the ivorylike bone of the knucklehead into marvelous little trinkets. But then came that fateful day, when Artemis Entreri showed up in Bryn Shander, the town Regis had come to call home, and sent the halfling scampering down the road to adventure with his friends.
But even Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-brie, and Wulfgar had not been able to protect him from Entreri.
The memories provided small comfort to him as several grueling hours of solitude in the locked cabin slipped by. Regis would have liked to hide away in pleasant recollections of his past, but invariably his thoughts led back to the awful present, and he found himself wondering how he would be punished for his failed deception. Entreri had been composed, even amused, after the incident on the deck, leading Regis down to the cabin and then disappearing without a word.
Too composed, Regis thought.
But that was part of the assassin’s mystique. No man knew Artemis Entreri well enough to call him friend, and no enemy could figure the man out well enough to gain an even footing against him.
Regis shrank back against the wall when Entreri at last arrived, sweeping through the door and over to the room’s table without so much as a sidelong glance at the halfling. The assassin sat, brushing back his ink-black hair and eyeing the single candle burning on the table.
“A candle,” he muttered, obviously amused. He looked at Regis. “You have a trick or two, halfling,” he chuckled.
Regis was not smiling. No sudden warmth had come into Entreri’s heart, he knew, and he’d be damned if he let the assassin’s jovial facade take his guard down.
“A worthy ploy,” Entreri continued. “And effective. It may take us a week to gain passage south from Baldur’s Gate. An extra week for your friends to close the distance. I had not expected you to be so daring.”
The smile left his face suddenly, and his tone was noticeably more grim when he added, “I did not believe that you would be so ready to suffer the consequences.”
Regis cocked his head to study the man’s every movement. “Here it comes,” he whispered under his breath.
“Of course there are consequences, little fool. I commend your attempt—I hope you will give me more excitement on this tedious journey! But I cannot belay punishment. Doing so would take the dare, and thus the excitement, out of your trickery.”
He slipped up from his seat and started around the table. Regis sublimated his scream and closed his eyes; he knew that he had no escape.
The last thing he saw was the jeweled dagger turning over slowly in the assassin’s hand.
They made the River Chionthar the next afternoon and bucked the currents with a strong sea breeze filling their sails. By nightfall, the upper tiers of the city of Baldur’s Gate lined the eastern horizon, and when the last hints of daylight disappeared from the sky, the lights of the great port marked their course as a beacon. But the city did not allow access to the docks after sunset, and the ship dropped anchor a half-mile out.