The Halfling’s Gem (24 page)

Wulfgar paused at the plea to the dwarven god, remembering a dear friend who used to shout such names at his enemies.

Drizzt only smiled.

As the chariot crashed to the deck, Bruenor rolled off the back and Alustriel’s dweomer came apart, transforming the chariot into a rolling ball of destruction. Flames swept across the deck, licked at the masts, and caught the bottoms of the sails.

Bruenor regained his feet, his mithral axe poised in one hand and shining golden shield strapped across his other. But no one cared to challenge him at that moment. Those pirates who had escaped the initial devastation were concerned only with escape.

Bruenor spat at them and shrugged. And then, to the amazement of those few who saw him, the crazy dwarf walked straight into the flames, heading forward to see if any of the pirates up front wanted to play.

Pinochet knew at once that his ship was lost. Not the first time, and probably not the last, he consoled himself as he calmly motioned his closest officer to help him loose a small rowboat. Two of his other crewmen had the same idea and were already untying the little boat when Pinochet got there.

But in this disaster, it was every man for himself, and Pinochet stabbed one of them in the back and chased the other away.

Bruenor emerged, unbothered by the flames, to find the front of the ship nearly deserted. He grinned happily when he saw the
little boat, and the pirate captain, touch down in the water. The other pirate was bent over the rail, untying the last of the lines.

And as the pirate hoisted one leg over the rail, Bruenor helped him along, putting a booted foot into his rear and launching him clear of the rail, and of the little rowboat.

“Turn yer back, will ye?” Bruenor grunted at the pirate captain as the dwarf dropped heavily into the rowboat. “I’ve a girl to pick out of the water!”

Pinochet gingerly slid his sword out of its sheath and peeked back over his shoulder.

“Will ye?” Bruenor asked again.

Pinochet swung about, chopping down viciously at the dwarf.

“Ye could’ve just said no,” Bruenor taunted, blocking the blow with his shield and launching a counter at the man’s knees.

Of all the disasters that had befallen the pirates that day, none horrified them more than when Wulfgar went on the attack. He had no need for a boarding plank; the mighty barbarian leaped the gap between the ships. He drove into the pirate ranks, scattering rogues with powerful sweeps of his warhammer.

From the central plank, Drizzt watched the spectacle. The drow had not noticed that his mask had slipped, and he wouldn’t have had time to do anything about it anyway. Meaning to join his friend, he rushed the five remaining pirates on the plank. They parted willingly, preferring the water below to the killing blades of a drow elf.

Then the two heroes, the two friends, were together, cutting a swath of destruction across the deck of the pirate ship. Deudermont and his crew, trained fighters themselves, soon cleared the
Sea Sprite
of pirates and had won over every boarding
plank. Now knowing victory to be at hand, they waited at the rail of the pirate ship, escorting the growing wave of willing prisoners back to the
Sea Sprite’s
hold while Drizzt and Wulfgar finished their task.

“You will die, bearded dog!” Pinochet roared, slashing with his sword.

Bruenor, trying to settle his feet on the rocking boat, let the man keep the offensive, holding his own strikes for the best moments.

One came unexpectedly as the pirate Bruenor had booted from the burning ship caught up to the drifting rowboat. Bruenor watched his approach out of the corner of his eye.

The man grabbed the side of the little boat and hoisted himself up—only to be met with a blow to the top of the head by Bruenor’s mithral axe.

The pirate dropped back down beside the rowboat, turning the water crimson.

“Friend o’ yers?” Bruenor taunted.

Pinochet came on even more furiously, as Bruenor had hoped. The man missed a wild swing, overbalancing to Bruenor’s right. The dwarf helped Pinochet along, shifting his weight to heighten the list of the boat and slamming his shield into the pirate captain’s back.

“On yer life,” Bruenor called as Pinochet bobbed back above the water a few feet away, “lose the sword!” The dwarf recognized the importance of the man, and he preferred to let someone else row.

With no options open to him, Pinochet complied and swam back to the little boat. Bruenor dragged him over the side and
plopped him down between the oars. “Turn ‘er back!” the dwarf roared. “And be pullin’ hard!”

“The mask is down,” Wulfgar whispered to Drizzt when their business was finished. The drow slipped behind a mast and replaced the magical disguise.

“Do you think they saw?” Drizzt asked when he returned to Wulfgar’s side. Even as he spoke, he noticed the
Sea Sprite’
s crew lining the deck of the pirate ship and eyeing him suspiciously, their weapons in hand.

“They saw,” Wulfgar remarked. “Come,” he bade Drizzt, heading back toward the boarding plank. “They will accept this!”

Drizzt wasn’t so certain. He remembered other times when he had rescued men, only to have them turn on him when they saw under the cowl of his cloak and learned the true color of his skin.

But this was the price of his choice to forsake his own people and come to the surface world.

Drizzt grabbed Wulfgar by the shoulder and stepped by him, resolutely leading the way back to the
Sea Sprite
. Looking back at his young friend, he winked and pulled the mask off his face. He sheathed his scimitars and turned to confront the crew.

“Let them know Drizzt Do’Urden,” Wulfgar growled softly behind him, lending Drizzt all the strength he would ever need.

ruenor found Catti-brie treading water beyond the carnage of Pinochet’s ship. Pinochet paid the young woman no attention, though. Far in the distance, the crew on his remaining ship, the bulky artillery vessel, had brought the fires under control, but had turned tail and sailed away with all the speed it could muster.

“I thought ye had forgot me,” Catti-brie said as the rowboat approached.

“Ye should’ve stayed by me side,” the dwarf laughed at her.

“I’ve not the kinship with fire as yerself,” Catti-brie retorted with a bit of suspicion.

Bruenor shrugged. “Been that way since the halls,” he replied. “Mighten be me father’s father’s armor.”

Catti-brie grabbed the side of the low-riding boat and started up, then paused in a sudden realization as she noticed the scimitar strapped across Bruenor’s back. “Ye’ve got the drow’s
blade!” she said, remembering the story Drizzt had told her of his battle with a fiery demon. The magic of the ice-forged scimitar had saved Drizzt from the fire that day. “Suren that’s yer salvation!”

“Good blade,” Bruenor muttered, looking at its hilt over his shoulder. “The elf should find it a name!”

“The boat will not hold the weight of three,” Pinochet interrupted.

Bruenor turned an angry glare on him and snapped, “Then swim!”

Pinochet’s face contorted, and he started to rise threateningly.

Bruenor recognized that he had taunted the proud pirate too far. Before the man could straighten, the dwarf slammed his forehead into Pinochet’s chest, butting him over the back of the rowboat. Without missing a beat, the dwarf grabbed Catti-brie’s wrist and hoisted her up by his side.

“Put yer bow on him, girl,” he said loudly enough for Pinochet, once again bobbing in the water, to hear. He threw the pirate the end of a rope. “If he don’t keep up, kill ’im!”

Catti-brie set a silver-shafted arrow to Taulmaril’s string and took a bead on Pinochet, playing through the threat, though she had no intention of finishing off the helpless man. “They call me bow the Heartseeker,” she warned “Suren ye’d be wise to swim.”

The proud pirate pulled the rope around him and paddled.