Page 39 (1/2)

Sikkal couldn’t hold that stare, or the arain a bit of courage when he broke free of Afafrenfere’s glare and considered the crew around him

"Get below," he ordered Afafrenfere

In a low voice, so that only Sikkal could hear, Afafrenfere spelled it out more clearly "Only if that is where I am asked to move your corpse"

"Captain’s to hear of this!" Sikkal cried, but Afafrenfere wasn’t looking at hiain to the wharves, and to the dockhands, and just in time to see them toss their sack onto the distant scow and slither aboard

Sikkal rushed off for Cannavara’s cabin, but he hadn’t gone three steps before the htly on the dock

Sikkal called after him, and Afafrenfere resolved to rush back to the ship and crush the idiot’s windpipe if he persisted in raising a ruckus

But Sikkal didn’t, and thethe wharves fro his stealthy way to the old scow Near to the boat, he nestled behind a stack of kegs and listened intently

He heard so definitive He couldn’t ainst the wharf’s supporting posts and broke with a watery crash just a few steps from his position

Patience, Afafrenfere told hiht to deepen

With practiced stealth, Brother Afafrenfere slipped onto the deck of the scow and into the shadows beside theand wheezing, and he thought then, to his great disappointhtly retreat He remained anyway, for he had to be certain He didn’t know if these two had been involved in Dahlia’s disappearance, but A the to dissuade Afafrenfere fro these two to be a nefarious pair, and with soht be, he could not be sure

Thefor clues Everything seeht between the deck boards, la fro up in the Bloodstone Lands, Afafrenfere wasn’t versed in ship design, but he had been on a couple of boats similar to this one, and he didn’t think there was any way for the dockhands to get belowdecks from the cabin He slipped back to the cabin, and heard the pair still inside, with the younger seadog gru about the smell of the older one’s pipe weed

Across froht in the open on the deck, sat the bulkhead It wouldn’t be easy to get there unseen, the

"Get out on the deck, then, ye stinky fool!" he heard from inside the cabin

Alar open and the old gaffer ca his pipe, and indeed the stench was terrible, the wheezing old seadog ht under Afafrenfere, who had wrapped himself like a snake around the crossbea as it swung gently with the rocking boat Afafrenfere caught gli a afferout to sea

Afafrenfere slithered along the crossbealance to the other, to ensure that he was distracted, thetightly against the gaffer’s throat, his left hand co a handful of hair and an ear, and pressing thethe choke In a affer went lirasp, and the monk eased the unconscious fool down to the deck

Afafrenfere didn’t even pause at the cabin door, bursting in quickly, violently, and si hold Soon after, the tere seated in the cabin, tied and gagged back to back, as the monk moved quietly to the entry to the lower hold

Flat on his belly, Afafrenfere peered through the cracks in the old bulkhead He did well to stifle his gasp when he did, for there Dahlia was, bound and gagged in a chair across the way And there sat Effron, off to the side in a chair and staring at her

Dahlia couldn’t look the tiefling in the eye, Afafrenfere realized He tried to re warlock So he took his time here--besides, he wanted to knohat this was all about What was really going on between Effron and Dahlia? Why had he taken her, and given that, as he still here on Toril? He could shadowstep with her back to the Shadowfell, Afafrenfere knew

There was much more to this story, and Afafrenfere wanted to know it

So he waited as the night deepened around hiht before Effron finally stirred

The young tiefling

"They are all sleeping now, of course," Effron said "No one will hear you if you scream out--"

"I won’t scream out," Dahlia replied, and still she did not look at him

"I could make you"

Dahlia didn’t even lift her eyes Where was the firebrand Afafrenfere had come to know? If Drizzt or Entreri, or anyone else, had spoken to her like that in Port Llast, bound or not, she would have spat in his face

"Do you kno much I hate you?" Effron asked

"You should," Dahlia replied in barely a whisper, and with true hu warlock de "If the memory hurts you as much as you claim, then why?"