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"With your knowledge of Caerwich, you will be a great asset to us," Drizzt said to thehim on the shoulder "Your presence would be appreciated"
"Ah, co then," Catti-brie added "Ye’ll find a bit o’ adventure and a bit o’ friendship Whatfor?"
Drizzt and Catti-brie walked away, exchanging hopeful smiles
"I am new to this, too," Harkle Harpell offered to Dunkin "But I a his head stupidly, the di his head He did like the Sea Sprite, he had to ade, Dunkin had taken to sea as a boy and had subsequently spent the bulk of his next twenty years as a hand on pirate vessels, working as on the Sword Coast Never had he seen a ship so full of comradery, and their escape fro
He had been nothing but a co fool over the last few days, and Deudermont had to know of his past, or at least to suspect that Dunkin had done so him as a prisoner, and, by the words of the dark elf, they actually wanted hi to Caerwich
Dunkin leaned over the rail, took note of a school of bottle-nosed dolphins dancing in the proaves and lost hiain," cais, the voice of a friend
Bruenor didn’t answer He stood on a high spot along the rim of the dwarven valley, four miles south of Kelvin’s Cairn, a place known as Bruenor’s Clih this coluh above the flat tundra, barely fifty feet up, every time he clih he was ascending to the very stars
Regis huffed and puffed as he clambered up the last twenty feet to stand beside his bearded friend "I do love it up here at night," the halfling reht in anothera sh Far, far in the north, Icewind Dale’s suraced the winter sky
"Not a lot o’ tireed "Tiis as he spoke, and even in the darkness, the halfling could is knew the truth of that expression Bruenor was more bark than bite
"You would not be happy up here alone," the halfling countered "You would think of Drizzt and Catti-brie, and miss therowling yeti in thesaid, waggling a finger in the air "In fact, a dozen dwarves begged me to come out here and keep up your cheer"
Bruenor huffed, but had no reasonable response He turned away fro to see the hint of a s up the corners of his one away, Regis had becoh a certain dwarven priestess naclaw had been almost continually by Bruenor’s side, particularly of late Giggled whispers spoke of a closer bond growing between the dwarf king and the feis who had come out here when, Bruenor had to admit, he truly needed the company Since the return to Icewind Dale, Drizzt and Catti-brie had been on the old dwarfs s that had saved Bruenor fro into a deep depression had been the sheer voluis, always there, always s Bruenor that Drizzt and Catti-brie would return to hito the south and west, and not at the halfling "Out there," was all that he replied
"Out there," Regis echoed "Drizzt and Catti-brie And youmoved closer, put a hand on Bruenor’s is said, once again drawing the dwarf frohts
Bruenor looked at hirin The mention of Guenhwyvar reminded Bruenor not only of all the conflict between himself and the panther, but also that Drizzt and Catti-brie, his two dear friends, were not alone and were more than able to take care of the ti to the endless wind that gave the dale its naathering of supplies ell at Wyngate and the Sea Sprite, fully provisioned and fully repaired, put out and soon left the Moonshaes far behind
The winds dih, just a day off the western coast of the Moonshaes They were out in the open ocean with no land in sight
The schooner could not be completely calmed, not with Robillard aboard But still, the wizard’s poere li, and settled for a continual fluttering thatslowly
Thus the days passed, uneventful and hot, the Sea Sprite rolling in the ocean swells, creaking and swaying Deuderate, asincidents of seasickness as to preserve the food stores At least the creasn’t worried about pirates Few other ships cao or h to keep a pirate happy
The only enemies were the seasickness, the sunburn, and the boredo but the flat water
They found some excitement on the fifth day out Drizzt, on the forward bea parallel to the schooner The drow yelled up to Waillan, as in the crow’s nest at the ti e point, he could reat fish
All of the crew cahts theythe fish dissolved into understandable fear, though, as Waillan continued to call down numbers, as they all came to realize that the shark was not alone The counts varied-many of the dorsal fins were hard to spot a water-but Waillan’s estimate, undoubtedly the most accurate, put the school at several hundred
Several hundred! And e as the one Drizzt had spotted Words of excitement were fast replaced by prayers
The shark school stayed with the Sea Sprite throughout the day and night Deuderured that the sharks did not knohat to h no one spoke the words, all were thinking along the sa that the voracious fish didn’t , the sharks were gone, as suddenly and inexplicably as they had co the rails of the ship, even cli up the one, just gone
"They’re not answering to us," Catti-brie re Drizzt as he came down the mast from one of his skyward jaunts "Never that Suren they’rein ways they know, but we cannot"
It struck Drizzt as a simple truth, a plain reminder of how unknown the world about him really was, even to those, like Deudermont, who had spent the bulk of their lives on the sea This watery world, and the great creatures that inhabited it, moved to rhythms that he could never truly understand That realization, along with the fact that the horizon fro but flat water, reminded Drizzt of how s nature could be
For all his training, for all his fine weapons, for all his warrior heart, the ranger was a tiny thing, a reen tapestry
Drizzt found that notion unsettling and conificant thing, a single s to the fish that had easily paced the Sea Sprite And yet, he was a part of soer than his iination could even comprehend
He draped an arm comfortably across Catti-brie’s shoulder, connected hiainst him
The winds picked up the next day, and the schooner rushed on, to the applause of every crewh The wizard had spells to tell of i weather, and he informed Deudermont that the neinds were the forerunners of a substantial storm
What could they do? There were no ports nearby, no land at all, and so Deuder battened down as hts of Catti-brie’s life It was as bad as any storm anyone aboard the schooner had ever suffered Deudermont and the forty crewmen huddled belowdecks as the Sea Sprite rode out the storoing over more than once
Robillard and Harkle worked frantically Robillard was on the deck forto take cover below and view the deck through a ical, disembodied eye All the while, he enacted spells to try and counter the fierce winds Harkle, with Guenhwyvar and a handful of crewmen beside hi rats and shifting crates of foodstuff as they inspected the hull The Harpell had a spell to keep the area well lit, and others that could enlarge wood to seal cracks The crewths of rope that they ha boards
Catti-brie was too sick to ot so bad at one point that many of the crew had to tie the each other Poor Dunkin got the worst of it In one particularly bad roll, the sth of rope, went flying head over heels and slammed into a beam so violently that he dislocated a shoulder and broke his wrist
There was no sleep that night aboard the Sea Sprite
The ship was listing badly to port the next , but she was still afloat and the storle loss of life The crew, those ere able, worked through the le sail
About midday, Catti-brie called down fro that the air was alive with birds to the north and west Deuderh of relief He had feared that the storm had blown them off course and that they would not be able to recover in time to put in at the Gull Rocks, the last charted islands on the way to Caerwich As it was, they ell to the south of their intended course, and had to work frantically, particularly poor Robillard and Harkle Both of the wizards had bluish bags under their eyes that showed their exhaustion froical strain
Soet to the rocks The place was aptly named The Gull Rocks were no more than a series of barren stones, h for only two or three men to stand upon A couple of the rocks were substantial, one nearly a ray, thick with guano As the Sea Sprite neared the cluster, thousands and thousands of seagulls, a veritable cloud of therily at the intrusion to this, their private domain
Deudermont found a little inlet where the water was more calm, where repairs could be done in peace, and where each of the crew could take turns off of the ship, to cal else
Later on that day, at the highest point on the Gull Rocks, perhaps fifty feet above sea level, Deuder south using the spyglass, though he obviously expected to find nothing but flat water
It had taken them nearly teeks to cover the five hundred miles from the westernmost spur of the Moonshaes to the Gull Rocks, nearly double the time Deudermont had expected Still, the captain remained confident that the provisions would hold and they would find their way to Caerwich Nothing much had been said about the island since the Sea Sprite had put out of Wyngate Nothing openly, at least, for Drizzt had overheard the nervous whispers of hosts and the like
"Five hundred behind us and five hundred to go," Deuderaze to the south and west "There is an island not far south of here where we ain more provisions"
"Do we need theood speed on the return," Deuder then?" Catti-brie asked
"I groeary of delays, and weary of the journey," Deudermont replied
"That’s because yer fearin’ what’s at its end," Catti-brie reasoned bluntly "Who’s for knowin’ e’ll find in Caerwich, if even there is a Caerwich?"
"She’s out there," the captain insisted
"We can always stop at this other island on our return," Drizzt offered "Certainly we’ve enough provisions to get to Caerwich"
Deuderht for Caerwich then, the last leg of their journey out The captain knew the stars-that was all he would have available to take him from the Gull Rocks to Caerwich He hoped that the map Tarnheel had provided was accurate
He hoped that Caerwich truly existed
And still, a part of him hoped that it did not