Page 9 (1/2)
SMOTHERED BY A SECURITY BLANKET
Perhaps I&039;is said to Drizzt as they walked across a wide fields of grass "She&039;s not so great a city, not near the beauty of Mithral Hall - and surely not Silveryates, at least Folk are stubborn, but it gives me hope that they can learn"
"I was no more i a sidelong glance at his halfling friend "I had long heard of her wonders, but I agree they&039;re lacking beside Mithral Hall Or maybe it&039;s just that I like the folk who live in Mithral Hall better"
"It&039;s a war on down But still, you ed as though it didn&039;t matter, and of course, it didn&039;t Not to him, anyway; he could not deny his hope that Marchion Elastul would truly make peace with Mithral Hall and his lost dwarves That development could only bode well for the North, particularly with an orc kingdom settled on Mithral Hall&039;s northern border
"I&039;o to Obould&039;s aid for a cause of coe in the world"
"Or a teesture was acconation "Every day Obould holds the peace is a day of greater security than we could have expected When his hordes rushed down fro but war for years on end When they surrounded Mithral Hall, I feared ould be driven from the place forever more Even in the first months of stalemate, I, like everyone else, expected that it would surely descend into war and misery"
"I still expect it"
Drizzt&039;s sree "We stay vigilant for good reason But every passing day ood thing"
"Or is every passing day nothing more than another day Obould prepares to finish his conquest?" Regis asked
Drizzt draped his ar&039;s shoulders
"Ais asked
"If you are, then so a all through the Kingdo and bitter, full of treachery and war To think that all we&039;ve known to be true is not necessarily an absolute is unsettling and almost incomprehensible, and so to walk the road of acceptance and peace often takes e than the way of the warrior"
"It always is is asked with a wry grin "Like you, for exa friend of hts with afool with his left, and all the while es to keep his belly full"
"I have a reputation to uphold," Regis answered, and handed Drizzt back the purse he&039;d just lifted froratulated "You almost had it off my belt before I felt your hand" As he took the purse, he handed Regis back the unicorn-headed &039;s belt as the rogue was lifting his purse
Regis shrugged innocently "If we steal one-for-one, I will end up with the ic"
Drizzt looked across the halfling and out to the north, leading Regis&039;s gaze to a huge black panthertheir way Drizzt had summoned Guenhwyvar froo to run a periht the panther forthBruenor and not wanting to spark sodoht as Guenhwyvar with a volley of spears and arrows
"It&039;s good to be on the road again," Regis declared as Guenhwyvar loped up beside hireat cat&039;s neck and Guenhwyvar tilted her head and her eyes narrowed to contented slits of approval
"And you are co this rarely seen side of his co friend
"I believe I was the one to say that," Regis corrected "You just applied it to me And it&039;s not that I&039;m a complicated sort It&039;s just that I ever keep my enemies confused"
"And your friends"
"I use you for practice," said the halfling, and as he gave a rather vigorous rub of Guenhwyvar&039;s neck, the panther let out a lol of approval that resonated across the dales and widened the eyes of every deer within range
The fields of tall grass and wild flowers gave way to cultivated land as the sun neared the horizon before the both sides, the path had become a road The co the zigzagging silhouette of a house nificent and curious, with hts burned in every
"Ah, but what ht the Harpells have in store for us this visit?" Drizzt asked
"Mysteries for theis "If they haven&039;t all killed each other by accident by now"
As lighthearted as the quip wasof truth for them both They&039;d known the eccentric family of wizards for many years, and never had visited, or been visited by, any of the clan, particularly one Harkle Harpell, without witnessing soood friends of Mithral Hall They had come to the call of Bruenor when the drow of Menzoberranzan assaulted his kingdoic lacked predictability, to be sure, but there was no shortage of power behind it
"We should go straight to the Ivy Mansion," Drizzt said as darkness closed in on the s, aler erupted in the stillness, followed by an answering bellow and a cry of pain Without hesitation, the drow and halfling turned and headed that way, Guenhwyvar trotting beside them Drizzt&039;s hands stayed near his sheathed scimitars, but he didn&039;t draw them
Another shout, words too distant to be decipherable, followed by a cheer, followed by a cacophony of shouted protests
Drizzt sprinted out ahead of Regis He scra a careful route over fallen branches and between the tightly-packed trees He broke out of the copse and skidded to a stop, surprised
"What is it?" Regis asked, stuone headlong into a sht him by the shoulder and held him back
"I don&039;t reeneral direction of the Ivy Mansion to try to get his bearings "I don&039;t believe it was here the last tih it was only a couple of years back"
"A couple of years is an eternity where the Harpells are concerned," Regis reminded him "Had we come here and found a deep hole where the town had once stood, would you have been surprised? Truly?"
Drizzt was only half listening He moved to a clear, flat space and noted the dark outline of a forested island and the light of a larger fire showing through breaks in the thick foliage
Another ruckus of arguing sounded froht bank, the protests froroups hidden froe, with only a few cah the leaves
"What?" the perplexed Regis asked, a simple question that accurately reflected Drizzt&039;s confusion as well The halfling poked Drizzt&039;s arm and pointed back to the left, to the outline of a boat dock with several craft bobbing nearby
"Be gone, Guenhwyvar," Drizzt commanded his panther coan to pace in a tight circle, ray smoke as she returned to her extraplanar home Drizzt replaced her sis at the dock The halfling already had a sone awry?" Regis asked as yet another yell of pain sounded from the island
Drizzt didn&039;t answer, but for some reason, didn&039;t think that to be the case Hestrongly
Then they heard aps between the arguing, along with feral snarls that proe lake and Regis soon spotted a dock at the island Drizzt worked to keep the boat in line with it They glided in unnoticed and scrambled onto the wharf A path wound up from it between trees, rocks, and thick brush, which rustled al to and fro Drizzt caught sight of a fluffy white rabbit hopping away
He dismissed the animal with a shake of his head and pressed onward, and once over a short rise, he and Regis finally saw the source of the commotion
And neither understood a bit of it
A e constructed of vertical posts wrapped with horizontal ropes Three men dressed in blue robes sat behind him and to the left, with three in red robes siht Directly before the caged man stood a beast, half man and half wolf, he seemed, with a canine snout but eyes distinctly hue of control, snarling, growling, and choht in front of the wide eyes of the terrified prisoner
"Bidderdoo?" Drizzt asked
"Has to be," said Regis, and he stepped forward - or tried to, for Drizzt held hiuards," the droarned "The area is likely ically warded"
The olf roared in the poor prisoner&039;s face, and the man recoiled and pleaded pathetically
"You did!" the olf growled
"He had to!" shouted one of the blue-robedred robes
Bidderdoo whirled and howled, ending the conversation abruptly The Harpell olf spun back to the prisoner and began chanting and waving his aris asked, but Drizzt had no answer
The prisoner&039;s babbling began to twist into indecipherable grunts and groans, pain interspersed with protest His body began to shake and quiver, his bones crackling
"Bidderdoo!" Drizzt yelled, and all eyes save those of the squir Harpell wizard, snapped the drow&039;s way
"Dark elf!" yelled one of the blue-robed onlookers, and all of theht off his seat to land uncereround
"Drow! Drow!" they yelled
Drizzt hardly heard the open wide as he watched the prisoner cru
"No steill ever be the sais muttered helplessly, for no man remained in the wood and rope prison
The rabbit, white and fluffy, yipped and ya to form words that would not coh the wide ropes as it scurried for the safety of the underbrush
Spell completed, the olf snarled and howled as it spun on the intruders But the creature quickly calmed, and in a voice too cultured for such a hairy and wild o hois mumbled at Drizzt&039;s side
A war the comfort of the overstuffed chair and divan set before it, but Drizzt didn&039;t recline or even sit, and felt little of the room&039;s warmth
They had been ushered into the Ivy Mansion, acco bolts, searing the darkness with hot white light on either side of the pond below Shouts of protest dissipated under the ical explosions, and the howl of a lone wolf - a loneolf - silenced thesaddle had come to understand the dire implications of that howl, apparently
For sois paced or sat in the roo if they wanted erly nodded
"That seemed very un-Harpell-like," he mentioned to Drizzt between bites "I knew Bidderdoo was a fierce one - he killed Uthegental of House Barrison Del&039;Aro, after all - but that was simply tor - "
"Justice," interrupted a voice from the door, and the pair turned to see Bidderdoo Harpell enter froer looked the olf, but rather like a man who had seen much of life - too much, perhaps He stood in a lanky pose that made hiray, stood out wildly in every conceivable direction, giving the ier-brushed in a long, long tiis seemed to have no answer as he looked at Drizzt
"Harsher justice than ould expect to find at the hands of the goodly Harpells," Drizzt explained for him
"The prisoner meant to start a war," Bidderdoo explained "I prevented it"
Drizzt and Regis exchanged expressions full of doubt
"Fanaticism requires extre due to a badly botched polysaddle I have known," said Drizzt
"It changed quickly," Bidderdoo was fast to agree
"Longsaddle, or the Harpells?" Regis asked, crossing his ar his foot impatiently
The answer, "Both," ca couldn&039;t hold his dour posture and expression at the sound of the familiar voice "One after the other, of course," Harkle Harpell explained, bounding in through the door
The lanky wizard was dressed all in robes, three shades of blue, ruffled and wrinkled, with sleeves so long they covered his hands He wore a white beret topped by a blue button that matched the darkest hue of his robes, as did his dyed beard, which had groith eous proportions One long braid ran down from Harkle&039;s chin to his belt, flanked by two short, thick scruffs of wiry hair hanging below each jowl The hair on his head had gone gray, but his eyes held the saerness the friends had seen flash so ht before some Harkle-precipitated disaster had befallen theis remarked
"Of course!" said Harpell "You don&039;t think we enjoy this, do you?" He bounded over to Drizzt and took the drow&039;s hand in a great shake - or started to before wrapping Drizzt in a powerful erand to see you,companion!" Harkle boois said, cutting Harkle&039;s turn toward himent after so short a time?" Bidderdoo replied
"I knohat I saw," said the halfling, not backing down an inch
"What you saithout context, you lared at himent upon Harkle
"You understand, of course," Harkle said to Drizzt, seeking support But he found little in the drow&039;s rigid expression
Harkle rolled his eyes and sighed then nearly fell over as one of his orbs kept on rolling, over and over, in its socket After a few moments, the discombobulated wizard slapped himself hard on the side of the head, and the eye steadied into place
"My orbs have never been the same since I went to look in on Bruenor," he quipped with an exaggerated wink, referring, of course, to the time he&039;d accidentally teleported just his eyes to Mithral Hall to roll around on Bruenor&039;s audience chais, "and Bruenor bids you to never do so in such a ain"
Harkle looked at hi Apparently thinking the tension gone, the wizardstopped him with an upraised hand "We make peace with orcs while the Harpells torture humans"
"Justice, not torture," Harkle corrected "Torture? Hardly that!"
"I knohat I saw," said the halfling, "And I saith both ofaround in circles"
"There are a lot of rabbits on that small island," Drizzt added
"And do you knohat you would have seen if we hadn&039;t dealt harshly with is said together
"Aren&039;t they all and aren&039;t they always?" Bidderdoo answered with obvious disgust
"More than our share of thereed "We&039;re a tolerant bunch here in Longsaddle, as you know"