Kensidan was more than the son of Rethnor. He was the brains behind Rethnor’s captaincy. Too smart, too clever, too much the sava master. Imposing as he seemed when he sat, when he stood up and walked that awkward gait, his cloak collar up high, his black boots laced tightly halfway up his skinny shins, Kensidan appeared even more intimidating. It made no logical sense, but somehow that frailty played off as the exact opposite, an unfathomable and ultimately deadly strength.
Behind the chair, the dwarf stood quietly, picking at his teeth as if all was right in the world. Bellany didn’t like the dwarf, which was no surprise to Morik, who wondered if anyone had ever liked that particular dwarf.
“Dondom was a dangerous sort, by your own word,” the Crow answered in those quiet, even, too controlled tones that he had long-ago perfected—probably in the cradle, Morik mused. “Too loyal to Arklem Greeth and a dear friend to three of the tower’s four overwizards.”
“You feared that if Dondom allied with Arklem Greeth then his friends who might otherwise stay out of the way would intervene on behalf of the archmage arcane,” Morik reasoned, nodding then finally looking Kensidan in the eye.
To find a disapproving stare.
“You twist and turn into designs of which you have no knowledge, and no capacity to comprehend,” Kensidan said. “Do as you are bid, Morik the Rogue, and no more.”
“I’m not just some unthinking lackey.”
“Truly?”
Morik couldn’t match the stare and couldn’t hold the line of defiance, either. Even if he somehow summoned the courage to deny the terrible Crow and run free of him, there was the not-so-little matter of those other puppeteers….
“You have no one to blame for your discomfort but yourself,” Kensidan remarked, seeming quite amused by it all. “Was it not you who planted the seeds?”
Morik closed his eyes and cursed the day he’d ever met Wulfgar, son of Beornegar.
“And now your garden grows,” said Kensidan. “And if the fragrance is not to your liking…well, you cannot pull the flowers, for they have thorns. Thorns that make you sleep. Deadly thorns.”
Morik’s eyes darted to and fro as he scanned the room for an escape route. He didn’t like where the conversation was leading; he didn’t like the smile that had creased the face of the dangerous dwarf standing behind Kensidan.
“But you need not fear those thorns,” Kensidan said, startling the distracted rogue. “All you need to do is continue feeding them.”
“And they feast on information,” Morik managed to quip.
“Your lady Bellany is a fine chef,” Kensidan remarked. “She will enjoy her ascent when the garden is in full bloom.”
That put Morik a bit more at ease. He had been commanded to Kensidan’s court by one he dared not refuse, but the tasks he had been assigned the last few months had come with promises of great rewards. And it wasn’t so difficult a job, either. All he had to do was continue his love affair with Bellany, which was reward enough in itself.
“You need to protect her,” he blurted as his thoughts shifted to the woman. “Now, I mean.”
“She is not in jeopardy,” the Crow replied.
“You’ve used the information she passed to the detriment of several powerful wizards of the Hosttower.”
Kensidan considered that for a moment then smiled again, wickedly. “If you wish to describe being carried through a gate to the Abyss in the clutches of a glabrezu as ‘detrimental,’ so be it. I might have used a different word.”
“Without Bellany—” Morik started to say, but Kensidan finished for him.
“The end result would be a battle far more bloody and far more dangerous for everyone who lives in Luskan. Think not that you are instrumental to my designs, Morik the Rogue. You are a convenience, nothing more, and would do well to keep it that way.”
Morik started to reply several times, but found no proper retort, looking all the while, as he was, at the evilly grinning dwarf.
Kensidan waved him away and turned to an aide, striking up a conversation on an entirely different subject. He paused after only a few words, shot Morik a warning glare, and waved him away again.
Back out on the street, walking briskly and cursing under his breath, Morik the Rogue again damned the day he’d met the barbarian from Icewind Dale. All the while, though, he secretly hoped he would soon be blessing that day, for as terrified as he was of his masters, their promises of rewards were neither inconsequential nor hollow. Or so he hoped.
CHAPTER 6
EXPEDIENCE
B ruenor is still angry with him,” Regis said to Drizzt. Torgar and Shingles had moved out ahead of them to look for familiar trails, for the dwarves believed they were nearing their old home city of Mirabar.
“No.”
“He holds grudges for a long, long time.”
“And he loves his adopted children,” Drizzt reminded the halfling. “Both of them. True, he was angry when first he learned that Wulfgar had left, and at a time when the world seemed dark indeed.”
“We all were,” said Regis.
Drizzt nodded and didn’t disagree, though he knew the halfling was wrong. Wulfgar’s departure had saddened him, but hadn’t angered him, for he understood it all too well. Carrying the grief of a dead wife, one he had let down terribly by missing all her signs of misery, had bowed his shoulders. Following that, Wulfgar had to watch Catti-brie, the woman he had once dearly loved, wed his best friend. Circumstance had not been kind to Wulfgar, and had wounded him profoundly.
But not mortally, Drizzt knew, and he smiled despite the unpleasant memories. Wulfgar had come to accept the failures of his past and bore nothing but love for the other Companions of the Hall. But he had decided to look forward, to find his place, his wife, his family, among his ancient people.
So when Wulfgar departed for the east, Drizzt harbored no anger, and when word had arrived back in Mithral Hall that following autumn that Wulfgar was back in Icewind Dale, the news lifted Drizzt’s heart.
He couldn’t believe that four years had passed. It seemed like only a day, and yet, when he thought of Wulfgar, it seemed as though he hadn’t been beside his friend in a hundred years.
“I hope he is well,” Regis stated, and Drizzt nodded.
“I hope he is alive,” Regis added, and Drizzt patted his friend on the shoulder.
“Today,” Torgar Hammerstriker announced, coming up over a rocky rise. He pointed back behind him and to the left. “Two miles for a bird, four for a dwarf.” He paused and grinned. “Five for a fat halfling.”
“Who ate too much of last night’s rations,” Shingles McRuff added, moving up to join his old friend.
“Then let us be quick to the gates,” Drizzt remarked, stealing the mirth with his serious tone. “I wish to be long away before the fall of night if Marchion Elastul holds true to his former ways.”
The two dwarves exchanged concerned looks, their excitement at returning to their former home tempered by the grim reminder that they had left under less than ideal circumstances those years before. They, along with many of their kin, more than half the dwarves of Mirabar, had deserted Elastul and his city over a dispute concerning King Bruenor. Over the last three years, many more Mirabarran dwarves, Delzoundwarves, had come to Mithral Hall to join them, and not all of the hundreds formerly of Mirabar that called Bruenor their king had agreed with Torgar’s decision to trust the emissary and return.