That second day a turmoil of emotions found the barbarian. Mostly he was angry at all the world. Perhaps he deserved punishment for his highwayman activities-he could accept responsibility for that-but this went beyond justice concerning his actions on the road with Lord Feringal's coach.
Also, Wulfgar was angry at himself. Perhaps Morik had been right all along. Perhaps he did not have the heart for this life. A true highwayman would have let the gnome die or at least finished him quickly. A true highwayman would have taken his pleasures with the woman, then dragged her along either to be sold as a slave or kept as a slave of his own.
Wulfgar laughed aloud. Yes, indeed, Morik had been right. Wulfgar hadn't the heart for any of it. Now here he was, the wretch of wretches, a failure at the lowest level of civilized society, a fool too incompetent to even be a proper highwayman.
He spent the next hour not in his cell, but back in the Spine of the World, that great dividing line between who he once was and what he had become, that physical barrier that seemed such an appropriate symbol of the mental barrier within him, the wall he had thrown up like an emotional mountain range to hold back the painful memories of Errtu.
In his mind's eye he was there now, sitting on the Spine of the World, staring out over Icewind Dale and the life he once knew, then turning around to face south and the miserable existence he now suffered. He kept his eyes closed, though he wouldn't have seen much in the dark anyway, ignored the many crawling things assaulting him, and got more than a few painful spider bites for his inattentiveness.
Sometime later that day, a noise brought him from his trance. He opened his eyes to see the flickers of another torch in the tunnel beyond his door.
"Living still?" came a question from the voice of an old man.
Wulfgar shifted to his knees and crawled to the door, blinking repeatedly as his eyes adjusted to the light. After a few moments he recognized the man holding the torch as the advisor Wulfgar had seen in the audience hall, a man who physically reminded him of Magistrate Jharkheld of Luskan.
Wulfgar snorted and squeezed one hand through the bars. "Burn it with your torch," he offered. "Take your perverted pleasures where you will find them."
"Angry that you were caught, I suppose," the man called Temigast replied.
"Twice imprisoned wrongly," Wulfgar replied.
"Are not all prisoners imprisoned wrongly by their own recounting?" the steward asked.
"The woman said that it wasn't me."
"The woman suffered greatly," Temigast countered. "Perhaps she cannot face the truth."
"Or perhaps she spoke correctly."
"No," Temigast said immediately, shaking his head. "Liam remembered you clearly and would not be mistaken." Wulfgar snorted again. "You deny that you were the thief who knocked over the carriage?" Temigast asked bluntly.
Wulfgar stared at him unblinking, but his expression spoke clearly that he did not deny the words.
"That alone would cost you your hands and imprison you for as many years as Lord Feringal decided was just," Temigast explained. "Or that alone could cost you your life."
"Your driver, Liam, was injured," Wulfgar replied, his voice a growl. "Accidentally. I could have let him die on the road. The girl was not harmed in any way."
"Why would she say differently?" Temigast asked calmly.
"Did she?" Wulfgar came back, and he tilted his head, beginning to catch on, beginning to understand why the young lord had been so completely outraged. At first he had thought mere pride to be the source-the man had failed to properly protect his wife, after all-but now, in retrospect, Wulfgar began to suspect there had been something even deeper there, some primal outrage. He remembered Lord Feringal's first words to him, a threat of castration.
"I pray that Lord Feringal has a most unpleasant death prepared for you, barbarian," Temigast remarked. "You cannot know the agony you have brought to him, to Lady Meralda, or to the folk of Auckney. You are a scoundrel and a dog, and justice will be served when you die, whether in public execution or down here alone in the filth."
"You came down here just to deliver this news?" Wulfgar asked sarcastically. Temigast struck him in the hand with the lit torch, forcing Wulfgar to quickly retract his arm.
With that the old man turned and stormed away, leaving Wulfgar alone in the dark and with some very curious notions swirling about in his head.
*****
Despite his final outburst and genuine anger, Temigast didn't walk away with his mind made up about anything. He had gone to see the barbarian because of Meralda's reaction to the man in the audience hall, because he had to learn the truth. Now that truth, seemed fuzzier by far. Why wouldn't Meralda identify Wulfgar if she had, indeed, recognized him? How could she not? The man was remarkable, after all, being near to seven feet in height and with shoulders as broad as a young giant's.
Priscilla was wrong, Temigast knew, for he recognized that she was thinking that Meralda had enjoyed the rape. "Ridiculous," the steward muttered, verbalizing his thoughts that he might make some sense of them. "Purely and utterly ridiculous.
"But would Meralda protect her rapist?" he asked himself quietly.
The answer hit him as clearly as the image of an idiotic young man slipping off a cliff.
Chapter 22 GOOD LORD BRANDEBURG
"I hate wizards," Morik muttered, crawling out of the rubble of the slide, a dozen cuts and bruises decorating his body. "Not really a fair fight. I must learn this spellcasting business!"
The rogue spent a long while surveying the area, but of course, Wulfgar was nowhere to be found. The wizard's choice in taking Wulfgar seemed a bit odd to Morik. Likely the man thought Wulfgar the more dangerous of the two foes, probably the leader. But it had been Morik, and surely not Wulfgar, who had made an attempt at the lady in the carriage. Wulfgar was the one who had insisted that they let her go, and quickly enough to save the wounded driver. Obviously, the wizard had not come well informed.
Now where was Morik to turn? He went back to the cave first, tending his wounds and collecting the supplies he would need for the road. He didn't want to stay here, not with an angry band of goblins nearby and Wulfgar gone from his side. But where to go?
The choice seemed obvious after but a moment's serious thought-back to Luskan. Morik had always known he would venture back to the streets he knew so well. He'd concoct a new identity as far as most were concerned, but he'd remain very much the same intimidating rogue to those whose alliance he needed. The snag in his plans thus far had been Wulfgar. Morik couldn't walk into Luskan with the huge barbarian beside him and hope to maintain secrecy for any length of time.
Of course, there was also the not-so-little matter of dark elves.
Even that potential problem didn't hold up, though, for Morik had done his best to remain with Wulfgar, as he had been instructed. Now Wulfgar was gone, and the way was left open. Morik took the first steps out of the Spine of the World, heading back for the place he knew so well.
But something very strange happened just then to Morik's sensibilities. The rogue found himself taking two steps westward for every one south. It was no trick of the wizard but a spell cast by his own conscience, a spell of memory that whispered the demands Wulfgar had placed on Captain Deudermont at Prisoner's Carnival that Morik, too, must be set free. Bound by friendship for the first time in his miserable life, Morik the Rogue was soon trotting along the road, sorting out his plan.
He camped on the side of a mountain that night and spotted the campfire of a group of circled wagons. He wasn't far from the main northern pass. The wagons had come from Ten-Towns, no doubt, and were on the road to the south, thus wouldn't go anywhere near to the fiefdom in the west. It was unlikely these merchants had even heard of the place.