“I have a reputation to uphold,” Regis answered, and handed Drizzt back the purse he’d just lifted from the drow’s belt.
“Very good,” Drizzt congratulated. “You almost had it off my belt before I felt your hand.” As he took the purse, he handed Regis back the unicorn-headed mace he’d deftly slid from the halfling’s belt as the rogue was lifting his purse.
Regis shrugged innocently. “If we steal one-for-one, I will end up with the more valuable items of magic.”
Drizzt looked across the halfling and out to the north, leading Regis’s gaze to a huge black panther moving their way. Drizzt had summoned Guenhwyvar from her Astral home that afternoon and let her go to run a perimeter around them. He hadn’t brought the panther forth much of late, not needing her in the halls of King Bruenor and not wanting to spark some tragic incident with any of the orcs in Obould’s kingdom, who might react to such a sight as Guenhwyvar with a volley of spears and arrows.
“It’s good to be on the road again,” Regis declared as Guenhwyvar loped up beside him, opposite Drizzt. He ruffled the fur on the back of the great cat’s neck and Guenhwyvar tilted her head and her eyes narrowed to contented slits of approval.
“And you are complicated, as I said,” Drizzt remarked, viewing this rarely seen side of his comfort-loving friend.
“I believe I was the one to say that,” Regis corrected. “You just applied it to me. And it’s not that I’m a complicated sort. It’s just that I ever keep my enemies confused.”
“And your friends.”
“I use you for practice,” said the halfling, and as he gave a rather vigorous rub of Guenhwyvar’s neck, the panther let out a low growl of approval that resonated across the dales and widened the eyes of every deer within range.
The fields of tall grass and wild flowers gave way to cultivated land as the sun neared the horizon before them. In the waning twilight, with farmhouses and barns dotting both sides, the path had become a road. The companions spotted a familiar hill in the distance, one sporting the zigzagging silhouette of a house magnificent and curious, with many towers tall and thin, and many more short and squat. Lights burned in every window.
“Ah, but what mysteries might the Harpells have in store for us this visit?” Drizzt asked.
“Mysteries for themselves as well, no doubt,” said Regis. “If they haven’t all killed each other by accident by now.”
As lighthearted as the quip was meant to be, it held an undeniable ring of truth for them both. They’d known the eccentric family of wizards for many years, and never had visited, or been visited by, any of the clan, particularly one Harkle Harpell, without witnessing some strange occurrence. But the Harpells were good friends of Mithral Hall. They had come to the call of Bruenor when the drow of Menzoberranzan assaulted his kingdom, and had fought valiantly among the dwarven ranks. Their magic lacked predictability, to be sure, but there was no shortage of power behind it.
“We should go straight to the Ivy Mansion,” Drizzt said as darkness closed in on the small town of Longsaddle. Even as he finished speaking, almost in response, it seemed, a shout of anger erupted in the stillness, followed by an answering bellow and a cry of pain. Without hesitation, the drow and halfling turned and headed that way, Guenhwyvar trotting beside them. Drizzt’s hands stayed near his sheathed scimitars, but he didn’t draw them.
Another shout, words too distant to be decipherable, followed by a cheer, followed by a cacophony of shouted protests…
Drizzt sprinted out ahead of Regis. He scrambled down a long embankment, picking a careful route over fallen branches and between the tightly-packed trees. He broke out of the copse and skidded to a stop, surprised.
“What is it?” Regis asked, stumbling down past him, and the halfling would have gone headlong into a small pond had Drizzt not caught him by the shoulder and held him back.
“I don’t remember this pond,” Drizzt said, and glanced back in the general direction of the Ivy Mansion to try to get his bearings. “I don’t believe it was here the last time I came through, though it was only a couple of years back.”
“A couple of years is an eternity where the Harpells are concerned,” Regis reminded him. “Had we come here and found a deep hole where the town had once stood, would you have been surprised? Truly?”
Drizzt was only half listening. He moved to a clear, flat space and noted the dark outline of a forested island and the light of a larger fire showing through breaks in the thick foliage.
Another ruckus of arguing sounded from the island.
Cheers came from the right bank, the protests from the left, both groups hidden from Drizzt’s view by thick foliage, with only a few campfire lights twinkling through the leaves.
“What?” the perplexed Regis asked, a simple question that accurately reflected Drizzt’s confusion as well. The halfling poked Drizzt’s arm and pointed back to the left, to the outline of a boat dock with several craft bobbing nearby.
“Be gone, Guenhwyvar,” Drizzt commanded his panther companion. “But be ready to return to me.”
The cat began to pace in a tight circle, moving faster and faster, and dissipating into a thick gray smoke as she returned to her extraplanar home. Drizzt replaced her small onyx likeness in his belt pouch and rushed to join Regis at the dock. The halfling already had a small rowboat unmoored and was readying the oars.
“A spell gone awry?” Regis asked as yet another yell of pain sounded from the island.
Drizzt didn’t answer, but for some reason, didn’t think that to be the case. He motioned Regis aside and took up the oars himself, pulling strongly.
Then they heard more than bickering and screams. Whimpers filled in the gaps between the arguing, along with feral snarls that prompted Regis to ask, “Wolves?”
It was not a large lake and Regis soon spotted a dock at the island. Drizzt worked to keep the boat in line with it. They glided in unnoticed and scrambled onto the wharf. A path wound up from it between trees, rocks, and thick brush, which rustled almost constantly from some small animals rushing to and fro. Drizzt caught sight of a fluffy white rabbit hopping away.
He dismissed the animal with a shake of his head and pressed onward, and once over a short rise, he and Regis finally saw the source of the commotion.
And neither understood a bit of it.
A man, stripped to the waist, stood in a cage constructed of vertical posts wrapped with horizontal ropes. Three men dressed in blue robes sat behind him and to the left, with three in red robes similarly seated, only behind and to the right. Directly before the caged man stood a beast, half man and half wolf, he seemed, with a canine snout but eyes distinctly human. He jumped about, appearing on the very edge of control, snarling, growling, and chomping his fangs right in front of the wide eyes of the terrified prisoner.
“Bidderdoo?” Drizzt asked.
“Has to be,” said Regis, and he stepped forward—or tried to, for Drizzt held him back.
“No guards,” the drow warned. “The area is likely magically warded.”
The werewolf roared in the poor prisoner’s face, and the man recoiled and pleaded pathetically.
“You did!” the werewolf growled.
“He had to!” shouted one of the blue-robed men.
“Murderer!” argued one wearing red robes.
Bidderdoo whirled and howled, ending the conversation abruptly. The Harpell werewolf spun back to the prisoner and began chanting and waving his arms.
The man cried out in alarm and protest.
“What…?” Regis asked, but Drizzt had no answer.
The prisoner’s babbling began to twist into indecipherable grunts and groans, pain interspersed with protest. His body began to shake and quiver, his bones crackling.
“Bidderdoo!” Drizzt yelled, and all eyes save those of the squirming, tortured man and the concentrating Harpell wizard, snapped the drow’s way.