"Well, what're you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that you sound less like a dwarf every day," he answered with a wry grin. "In accent, I mean, but you sound more like a dwarf every day in spirit. It's Bruenor who's cursed us both, I see. Perhaps we are both too pragmatic for our own good."
"How can you say that?"
"Six years beside a man you love and you're not lovers?"
"He's not a man, and there's the rub."
"Only if your dwarven practicality makes it a rub."
Catti-brie couldn't deny his tone or his smile, and it infected her soon enough. The two shared a laugh, then, self-deprecating for both.
"We've got to find him," Wulfgar said at length. "For all our sakes, Drizzt must come back to us."
"I'll be up and about soon enough, and out we'll go," Catti-brie agreed, and as she spoke, she glanced across the way at her belongings, at the weathered traveling cloak and the dark wood of Taulmaril peeking our from under it.
At the scabbard that once held Khazid'hea.
"What is it?" Wulfgar asked, noticing the sudden frown that crossed the woman's face.
Catti-brie led his gaze with a pointing finger. "My sword," she whispered.
Wulfgar rose and crossed to the pile, pulling off the cloak and quickly confirming that, indeed, the sword was gone,
"Who could have taken it?" he asked. "Who would have?"
While Wulfgar's look was one of confusion and curiosity, Catti-brie's expression was much more grave. For she understood the power of the sentient sword, and she knew that the person who pulled Khazid'hea free of its scabbard had gotten more than he'd bargained for.
Much more.
"We have to find it, and we have to find it quickly," she said.
* * * * *
It is not for you, came the voice in Delly's head as she moved toward the waiting ferry. All around her dwarves worked the stone, smoothing the path from the door to the river and building their defenses up on the mountain spur. Most of the human refugees were already aboard the ferry, though the dwarf pilot had made it quite clear that the raft wouldn't put out for another few minutes.
Delly didn't know how to answer that voice in her head, a voice she thought her own.
"Not for me?" she asked aloud, quietly enough to not draw too much attention. She masked the ridiculous conversation even more by turning to Colson and acting as if she was speaking to the toddler.
Are ye daft enough to think ye should go back into the mines and live yer life with the dwarfs, then? Delly asked herself.
The world is wider than Mithral Hall and the lands across the Surbrin, came an unexpected answer.
Delly moved off to the side, behind the screen of a lean-to one of the dwarves had put together for the workers to take breaks out of the cold wind. She set Colson on a chair and started to set her pack down—when she realized that the second voice wasn't coming from in her head at all, but from the pack. Gingerly, Delly unwrapped Khazid'hea and once the bare metal of the hilt was in her hand that voice rang all the more clearly.
We are not crossing the river. We go north.
"So the sword's got a mind of its own, does it?" Delly asked, seeming more amused than concerned. "Oh, but ye'll bring me a pretty bit o' coin in Silverymoon, won't ye?"
Her smile went away as her arm came out, drifting slowly and inexorably forward so that Khazid'hea's tip slid toward Colson.
Delly tried to scream, but found that she could not, found that her throat had suddenly constricted. Her horror melted almost immediately, however, and she began to see the beauty of it all. Yes, with a flick of her hand she could take the life from Colson. With a mere movement, she could play as a god might.
A wicked smile crossed Delly's face. Colson looked at her curiously, then reached up for the blade.
The girl nicked her finger on that wickedly sharp tip, and began to cry, but Delly hardly heard her.
Neither did Delly strike, though she had more than a little notion to do just that. But an image before her, the bit of Colson's bright red blood on the sword, on her sword, held her in place.
It would be so easy to kill the girl. You cannot deny me.
"Cursed blade," Delly breathed.
Speak aloud again and the girl loses her throat, the sentient sword promised. We go north.
"You—" Delly started to say, but she bit the word off in horror. You would have me try to get out of here to the north with a child in tow? she silently asked. We'd not get past the perimeter.
Leave the child.
Delly gasped.
Move! the sword demanded, and never in all her life had Delly Curtie heard such a dominating command. Rationally, she knew that she could just throw the sword to the ground and run away, and yet, she couldn't do it. She didn't know why, she just could not do it.
She found her breathing hard to come by. A multitude of pleas swirled through her thoughts, but they wound in on themselves, for she had no real answer to the commands of Khazid'hea. She was shaking her head in denial, but she was indeed stepping away from Colson.
A nearby voice broke her from her torment momentarily, and Delly surely recognized that particular wail. She spun to see Cottie Cooperson moving toward the ferry, where the pilot was barking for everyone to hurry aboard.
We cannot leave her, Delly pleaded with the sword.
Her throat… so tender… Khazid'hea teased.
They will find the child and come for us. They will know that I did not cross the Surbrin.
When no rebuttal came back at her, Delly knew she had the evil sword's attention. She didn't really form any cogent sentences then, just rambled through a series of images and thoughts so that the weapon would get the general idea.
A moment later, Khazid'hea wrapped and tucked under her arm, Delly ran for the ferry. She didn't explain much to Cottie when she arrived and handed Colson to the troubled woman, but then she really didn't have to explain anything to Cottie, who was too wrapped up in the feel and smell of Colson to hear her anyway.
Delly waited right there, until the pilot finally shouted down at her, "Away we go, woman. Get yerself aboard!"
"What're ye about?" asked one of the other passengers, a man who often sat beside Cottie.
Delly looked at Colson, tears welling in her eyes.
She had a fleeting thought to tear out the toddler's throat.
She looked up at the pilot and shook her head, and as the dwarf tossed the ferry ropes aside, freeing the craft into the river, Delly stumbled off the other way, glancing back often.
But ten steps away, she didn't bother to even look back again, for her eyes were forward, to the north and the promises that Khazid'hea silently imparted, promises that had no shape and no definition, just a general feeling of elation.
So caught was Delly Curtie by the power of Khazid'hea that she gave Colson not another thought as she worked her way through the workers and the guards, stone by stone, until she was running free north along the riverbank.
* * * * *
"Halt!" cried an elf, and a dwarf sentry beside him echoed the shout. "Stop yer running and be counted!" the dwarf cried.
More than one elf lifted a bow toward the fleeing figure, and dwarven crossbows went up as well. More shouts ensued, but the figure was out of range by then, and gradually the bows began to lower.
"What do ye know?" Ivan Bouldershoulder asked the dwarf sentry who had shouted out. Behind him, Pikel lifted his hand to the sky and began to chatter excitedly. The dwarf sentry pointed far to the north along the riverbank, where the figure continued to run away.