Baldur's Gate (5 page)

The big, stinky man was so drunk he could barely stand. Abdel stared hard at him, and the world around him seemed to slip away into blurred, echoing inconsequence.

Abdel heard only the drunk, who said bluntly, “What.”

The sellsword’s dagger flashed across the room like a sliver from a lightning bolt, and Abdel’s blood rushed through his head at the heavy thunk of the wide silver blade burying itself in the drunk’s chest. The force of it knocked the man over, and though he twitched once, then a second time, he was dead before his head hit the floor.

Abdel smiled and let the ecstasy of the kill wash away the anger and tunnel vision. When he came out of whatever trance it was he’d found himself in, it was as if the inn had plunged into pandemonium.

Khalid pushed him from behind and said something like, “What have you done?”

Inn patrons scattered, and serving wenches dropped their trays, spattering ale and wine over the fleeing or stunned revelers. Strangely, the serving girls advanced on Abdel, and he thought for a moment that it might be true what they said—that the serving girls here were really golems in disguise. Abdel smiled broader still. He didn’t care.

“Wait!” called a familiar voice.

The gnome woman at the bar let out a shrill whistle, and the serving girls stopped. Even Abdel paused as he went for the sword at his back. The voice had been Montaron’s.

“Thief!” the halfling called again.

Montaron was kneeling over the body of the drunk and producing one purse after another from the dead man’s pants.

“He must have been picking pockets all ni—here’s mine!” Montaron said, his voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“Fortunate for you,” Khalid whispered to a still uncaring Abdel. “It would have been murder otherwise.”

Gooseflesh whispered up the backs of Abdel’s arms at the sound of that word: murder. He shook his head and approached the halfling, Khalid and Jaheira following closely.

“We’d better be goin’,” Montaron said when Abdel was close enough that only he could hear the halfling’s whisper.

“Aye,” Abdel said. “My dagger.”

Montaron smiled weakly and handed the wide-bladed knife to Abdel. No blood dripped from it, though Abdel didn’t even remember seeing Montaron pull it out of the man’s chest, let alone wipe the blood away. Even drunk, reeling from the kill, Abdel admired Montaron’s finesse.

The sellsword was only barely sober enough to realize he wouldn’t find work here now, even if the drunk was a thief, and he’d thrown his last three coppers to the crowd.

“Nashkel?” Abdel asked.

“Yes,” Khalid said, his voice edged with incredulity, “yes, Nashkel. Gorion knew that was where we were planning to go?”

Abdel turned to look down at the Amnian, then to the halfling who was regarding Khalid with a face like a stone mask. Khalid returned the stare with a questioning glance.

Xzar came out of nowhere and said, “Five, then? Who are they, these two?”

Inn patrons started making advances toward the purses now displayed against the bloody chest of the dead drunk, and Abdel let himself be both pulled and pushed out of the inn. He smiled, though he wanted to cry. For his sins, he would let himself be pulled and pushed all the way to Nashkel.

“We won’t be the only ones trying to help,” Jaheira told Abdel as they walked the seemingly endless miles to Nashkel.

“I’d say not,” Montaron piped in.

Jaheira spun on the stout halfling, obviously not appreciating this intrusion any more than she’d appreciated the numerous others from both Montaron and Xzar over the last seven and a half days.

Montaron only smiled at her and said, “Sun’s bright t’day, eh girl?”

Abdel pretended not to see the fire of warning in the halfling’s eyes. Abdel was confident that Montaron was smart enough to keep his hands off Jaheira.

“This iron shortage,” Jaheira continued, trying to ignore Montaron, “could well lead to war between my people and yours.”

Abdel stopped, and the others hesitated in their steps, but all except Jaheira continued on.

“My people?” Abdel asked. He turned to face Jaheira, and it was the first time in the days since they’d met at the Friendly Arms that he’d looked her in the eye. Abdel, unsure of himself in many ways, was nervous around this strong, beautiful woman, and it embarrassed him. They were traveling with her husband.

“Amn, and …” she stopped, realizing she wasn’t sure where he was from. “Gorion was from Candlekeep. He raised you as his son there, yes?”

“He did,” Abdel said, again embarrassed though he didn’t quite know why.

“Then perhaps …” she started again. “Well, a war between Amn and Baldur’s Gate, for one … with Candlekeep caught in the middle.”

“Candlekeep can take care of itself,” Abdel stated simply. He turned and started walking again, but slowly, allowing Jaheira to stay at his side.

They were several paces behind their companions now, and Abdel surveyed the unlikely crew. Xzar kept swatting at something though there were few if any insects about. The mage muttered to himself constantly, though since Jaheira had joined them, Abdel was distracted enough by her not to be troubled by Xzar. Montaron would glance back at them from time to time, apparently feeling left out or, for reasons known only to himself, afraid. Khalid walked purposefully onward and spoke little. When he had spoken over the last seven and a half days it was about what he called “the mission.”

Abdel, Montaron, and Xzar were headed for Nashkel to seek work guarding the iron mines there. For Jaheira and Khalid, there seemed to be some more noble cause, and as much as the woman tried to turn Abdel’s heart to it, he just couldn’t understand her urgency.

“Men fight,” he told her, ignoring her grunt of protest. “Amn and Baldur’s Gate, Amn and Tethyr, Tethyr and Tethyr… it is the way of things, the way I make a living.”

Jaheira sighed and said, “It doesn’t have to be.”

“It doesn’t have to be what?” He asked, smiling, “The way of things, or the way I make a living?”

Montaron laughed from in front of them, and Abdel realized the halfling could hear them. This made Abdel smile.

“Someone is deliberately sabotaging the iron supply at Nashkel and other mines,” Jaheira pressed, though something in her tone made it clear she’d say a little more, then let it rest until at least the next day. They were still more than half a tenday north of Nashkel.

Montaron stopped and, smiling, turned around. “An” what o’ that, fair Jaheira,” the halfling asked. “Let ‘em sabotage away, I say, an’ when we get there, we’ll find the culprit an’ turn ‘im in fer a great, ‘uge reward.”

Jaheira didn’t even acknowledge Montaron as she passed.

“Reward?” Abdel asked.

“Sure, lad,” Montaron said, clapping the big sellsword on the forearm, “what’d ye think we were walkin’ fer a tenday an’ three fer, justice?”

Jaheira spun on the halfling and spat, “What would you know of justice, thief?”

Montaron’s eyes hardened for just a fraction of a second, and Jaheira took a step back. As if sensing the confrontation, Khalid stopped and turned but made no move to approach. Abdel kept his eyes on the halfling.

“Easy, lass,” Montaron said, chuckling. “It’s all just business, ain’t it?”

“And what business are you in, Montaron?” she asked.

“If ye’re talkin’ about those purses at the Friendly Arms,” he said jovially, “maybe ye should thank me fer gettin’ the boy out o’ there.”

“Getting the boy out o’ there?” Khalid asked, his voice nearly lost to the breeze and a squawking crow.

Montaron looked at him and smiled.

“Sure,” he said, “an’ us all.”

“Sleep lightning,” Xzar suddenly shouted, “lightning sleep.”

Abdel, Montaron, Jaheira, and Khalid all looked in the direction of the babbling mage. Xzar was nearly fifty yards ahead of them now, obviously oblivious to the conversation. Abdel laughed first and Montaron, then Khalid joined him, but a silent Jaheira was the first to march off after Xzar.

“Thank you for that, by the way,” Abdel said to Montaron.

“Not at all, kid,” Montaron said, “ye’ll repay me, I’m sure.

They’d passed through Beregost on their way from the Friendly Arms, even slept in real beds at an inn Montaron insisted on paying for. Their stay there seemed all too short, even for Abdel, who was as used to sleeping under the stars as inside, and it was a relief for all of them when they finally entered the mining town of Nashkel.

Abdel didn’t know if it was good luck or bad that there seemed to be some kind of festival going on in a fallow field outside town. On their way south he’d heard nothing but bad news from Jaheira and Khalid — even from Montaron — that made him think Nashkel would have been some kind of ghost town by the time they got there. The image he’d formed of it in his mind had been one of desperate miners begging on the street, shops and other businesses closed, families loading carts to head for greener pastures, and the sort of morose drunkenness he’d seen in too many Sword Coast taverns.

Instead the small town was alive with color. Carts were set up in every available space, and traveling merchants were showing their wares. Three men in parti-colored clothes were juggling flaming torches, a gnome was playing a rousing tune on what looked like a cross between bagpipes and a caravan wagon, and healthy children were running everywhere, apparently no worse for wear. There were soldiers in the street, dressed in the colors of Amn.

Montaron nudged Abdel and drew the sellsword’s attention to a small group of young women the halfling apparently found attractive.

“I’d like to investigate their mines, eh kid?” the halfling joked, then nearly doubled over laughing.

Abdel was pretty sure he knew what the little thief meant, but he didn’t reply.

Jaheira grunted and said to the halfling, “When this town is overrun by soldiers, women like that will be very busy.”

“Women like that,” Montaron said, “are always busy.

Besides, not many more Amnian soldiers’ll waste their time here.”

“You sound like you’d be happy to see them march north, halfling,” Jaheira said. “Maybe you already know what is wrong here.”

Montaron laughed, but the sound had an edge to it that Abdel had been hearing more and more often in the last thirteen days.

“I know nothin’, girl,” Montaron told her, “less even than ye, if all this talk o’ war is true.”

“Someone wants blood to spill in Baldur’s Gate and Amn,” Jaheira said, “that I know.”

“An” what if it’s an Amnian wantin’ it, girl?” Montaron asked, a crafty look curling the side of his mouth. “Will ye be so dead set to stop it then?”

Jaheira inhaled sharply and was about to say something when she stopped abruptly and turned on Abdel. He was trying not to laugh, and it showed.

“This is very serious,” she said.

Abdel smiled and nodded.

“We should find an inn,” Khalid said, purposefully breaking into the deteriorating conversation. “We can get a good night’s sleep and head to the mines in the morning.”

Jaheira nodded and followed him into a crowd of festival goers. Abdel watched her walk away, and Montaron noticed him noticing her. The halfling disappeared into the crowd.

“We will go, son of Bhaal,” Xzar said, startling Abdel.

The sellsword turned on the wiry mage and said, “Go with Khalid, mage.”

Xzar hesitated, and Abdel reached for his arm.

“Touch me!” Xzar shrieked. “Don’t touch me!”

Two dozen or more people stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Abdel, though it was Xzar who was obviously insane. Abdel sighed, trying to breathe out his desire to kill the twitching mage, then just walked away.

Abdel knew where they all went, but he didn’t go with them to the inn. He’d worked and traveled with others before, some of whom he liked and some of whom he didn’t. He’d traveled with women before, but none who moved him like Jaheira. He’d met a thousand men like Khalid, he reckoned, quiet, serious types on a mission. Montaron, halfling or otherwise, was a dime a dozen on the Sword Coast; a crafty survivor who knew what was in every pocket and behind every locked door—or would know, eventually. Xzar was a puzzle. He’d met madmen before, too, he figured, but this one was mad and highly intelligent at the same time— delusional and capable of wielding magic.

He wandered the festival grounds and wondered what he was doing there. He’d followed two chance-met strangers—no, four chance-met strangers—on a mission he didn’t even understand and certainly wasn’t going to be paid for. Montaron seemed to be able to steal enough to keep them at inns and buy an ale or two, but that was not the way Abdel wanted to see the world. He was capable of working for his keep, and he wanted to do just that. Still, there was this problem in the mines—or was there?

At first the festival did a good job of masking the problems that were becoming more obvious to Abdel as he walked on. There were merchant carts, sure, and the people of Nashkel were stopping to look, but almost no one was buying. The men looked nervous and the women serious.

“They’re pourin’ ale,” Montaron said from behind Abdel, “are ye with me?”

Abdel turned, as amused as he was amazed at the halfling’s ability to appear and disappear at will in crowds. Abdel would never understand what it was like to be two feet shorter than everyone around him—his problem was just the opposite.

“There is something wrong, isn’t there?” Abdel asked.

“If ye mean with the iron mines,” Montaron answered, “aye.”

“So where is our employer? Who pays us to protect these mines?”

Montaron smiled and shrugged.

“We’ll go to the mines tomorrow an’ find out. In the meantime,” the halfling said, producing a worn leather pouch from a pocket inside his shirt, ” ‘ere’s a bit o’ coin. While away this festival a bit, then join me at the inn fer an ale er seven.”

“I can’t take that money.”

“It’s been feedin’ ye since the Friendly Arms,” Montaron reminded him, not expecting Abdel to feel guilty. “Take it an’ see what ye can find—fer the common good.”

The halfling nodded at a particular merchant’s cart, laughed, and disappeared into the crowd once more. Abdel studied the cart and its proprietor. The man was dressed like a Calishite, but his features were decidedly northern. He’d be from Waterdeep, maybe Luskan, Abdel guessed, and was selling a collection of glass and silver vials—perfumes maybe.