"Then the farmers would know of us," Morik said by way of explanation, the same answer he had given each time Wulfgar had brought up the possibility. "If or when we have someone looking for us, our trail would be easier to follow."
A bolt of lightning split a tree a hundred yards away, bringing a startled cry from Morik.
"You act as though you expect half the militias of the region to be chasing us before long," Wulfgar replied.
"I have made many enemies," Morik admitted, "as have you, my friend, including one of the leading magistrates of Luskan."
Wulfgar shrugged; he hardly cared.
"We'll make more, I assure you," Morik went on.
"Because of the life you have chosen for us."
The rogue cocked an eyebrow. "Are we to live as farmers, tilling dirt?"
"Would that be so terrible?"
Morik snorted, and Wulfgar only chuckled again helplessly.
"We need a base," Morik announced suddenly as another rivulet found its way to his bottom. "A house. . or a cave."
"There are many caves in the mountains," Wulfgar offered. The look on Morik's face, both hopeful and fearful, told him he needn't speak the thought: mountain caves were almost always occupied.
The sun was up the next morning, shining bright in a blue sky, but that did little to change Morik's complaining mood. He grumbled and slapped at the dirt, then stripped off his clothes and washed them when the pair came across a clear mountain stream.
Wulfgar, too, washed his clothes and his dirty body. The icy water felt good against his injured shoulder. Lying on a sunny rock waiting for their clothes to dry, Wulfgar spotted some smoke drifting lazily into the air.
"More houses," the barbarian remarked. "Friendly folk to those who come as friends, no doubt."
"You never stop," Morik replied dryly, and he reached behind the rock and pulled out a bottle of wine he had cooling in the water. He took a drink and offered it to Wulfgar, who hesitated, then accepted.
Soon after, their clothes still wet, and both a bit lightheaded, the pair started off along the mountain trails. They couldn't take their wagon, so they stashed it under some brush and let the horses graze nearby, with Morik noting the irony of how easy it would be for someone to rob them.
"Then we would just have to steal them back," Wulfgar replied, and Morik started to laugh, missing the barbarian's sarcasm.
He stopped abruptly, though, noting the suddenly serious expression on his large friend's face. Following Wulfgar's gaze to the trail ahead, Morik began to understand, for he spotted a broken sapling, recently snapped just above the trunk. Wulfgar went to the spot and bent low, studying the ground around the sapling.
"What do you think broke the tree?" Morik asked from behind him.
Wulfgar motioned for the rogue to join him, then pointed out the heel print of a large, large boot.
"Giants?" Morik asked, and Wulfgar looked at him curiously. Already Wulfgar recognized the signs of Morik becoming unhinged, as the rogue had over the rat in the cage at Prisoner's Carnival.
"You don't like giants, either?" Wulfgar asked.
Morik shrugged. "I have never seen one," he admitted, "but who truly likes them?"
Wulfgar stared at him incredulously. Morik was a seasoned veteran, skilled as a thief and warrior. A significant portion of Wulfgar's own training had come at the expense of giants. To think one as skilled as Morik had never even seen one surprised the barbarian.
"I saw an ogre once," Morik said. "Of course, our gaoler friends had more than a bit of ogre blood in them."
"Bigger," Wulfgar said bluntly. "Giants are much bigger."
Morik blanched. "Let us return the way we came."
"If there are giants about, they'll very likely have a lair," Wulfgar explained. "Giants would not suffer rain and hot sun when there are comfortable caves in the region. Besides, they prefer their meals cooked, and they try not to advertise their presence with campfires under the open sky."
"Their meals," Morik echoed. "Are barbarians and thieves on their menu of cooked meals?"
"A delicacy," Wulfgar said earnestly, nodding.
"Let us go and speak with the farmers," said Morik, turning around.
"Coward," Wulfgar remarked quietly. The word had Morik spinning back to face him. "The trail is easy enough to follow," Wulfgar explained. "We don't even know how many there are. Never would I have expected Morik the Rogue to run from a fight."
"Morik the rogue fights with this," Morik countered, poking his finger against his temple.
"A giant would eat that."
"Then Morik the Rogue runs with his feet," the thief said.
"A giant would catch you," Wulfgar assured him. "Or it would throw a rock at you and squash you from afar."
"Pleasant choices," said Morik cynically. "Let us go and speak with the farmers."
Wulfgar settled back on his heels, studying his friend and making no move to follow. He couldn't help but contrast Morik to Drizzt at that moment. The rogue was turning to leave, while the drow would, and often had, eagerly rushed headlong into such adventure as a giant lair. Wulfgar recalled the time he and Drizzt had dispatched an entire lair of verbeeg, a long and brutal fight but one that Drizzt had entered laughing. Wulfgar thought of the last fight he had waged beside his ebon-skinned friend, against another band of giants. That time they'd chased them into the mountains after learning that the brutes had set their eyes on the road to Ten-Towns.
It seemed to Wulfgar that Morik and Drizzt were similar in so many way, but in the most important ways they were nothing alike. It was a contrast that continually nagged at Wulfgar, a reminder of the startling differences in his life now, the difference between that world north of the Spine of the World and this world south of it.
"There may only be a couple of giants," Wulfgar suggested. "They rarely gather in large numbers."
Morik pulled out his slender sword and his dagger. "A hundred hits to fell one?" he asked. "Two hundred? And all the time I spend sticking the behemoth two hundred times, I'll be comforted by the thought that one strike from the giant will crush me flat."
Wulfgar's grin widened. "That's the fun of it," he offered. The barbarian hoisted the headman's axe over one shoulder and started after the giant, having little trouble in discerning the trail.
Crouching on the backside of a wide boulder by mid-afternoon, Wulfgar and Morik had the giants and their lair in sight. Even Morik had to admit that the location was perfect: an out-of-the-way cave nestled among rocky crests, yet less than half a day's march to one of two primary mountain passes, the easternmost of the pair, separating Icewind Dale from the southlands.
They watched for a long while and noted only a pair of giants, then a third appeared. Even so, Wulfgar was not impressed.
"Hill giants," he remarked disparagingly, "and only a trio. I have battled a single mountain giant who could fell all three."
"Well, let us see if we can find that mountain giant and prompt him to come and evict this group," said Morik.
"That mountain giant is dead," Wulfgar replied. "As these three shall soon be." He took up the huge axe in hand and glanced about, finally deciding on a roundabout trail that would bring him to the lair.
"I have no idea of how to fight them," Morik whispered.
"Watch and learn," Wulfgar replied, and off he went.
Morik didn't know whether he should follow or not, so he stayed put on the rock, noting his friend's progress, watching the trio of giants disappear into the cave. Wulfgar crept up to that dark entrance soon after, slipping to the edge and peering in. Glancing back Morik's way, he went spinning into the gloom.
"You don't even know if there are others inside," Morik muttered to himself, shaking his head. He wondered if coming out here with Wulfgar had been a wise idea after all. The rogue could get back into Luskan easily, he knew, with a new identity as far as the authorities were concerned, but with the same old position of respect on the streets. Of course, there remained the not-so-little matter of the dark elves who had come calling.