The remaining five pirates froze as if paralyzed, their mouths hanging open in silent screams of terror.
Deudermont and the helmsman also jumped back in surprise and confusion, for with Drizzt absorbed in the concentration of battle, the magical mask had played a trick of its own. It had slipped from the drow’s face, revealing his dark heritage to all around.
“Even if ye flame the sails, the ship’ll get in,” Catti-brie observed, noting the short distance between the remaining pirate ship and the tangled ships at the entrance to the channel.
“The sails?” Bruenor laughed. “Suren I mean to get more than that!”
Catti-brie stood back from the dwarf, digesting his meaning. “Ye’re daft!” She gawked as Bruenor brought the chariot down to deck level.
“Bah! I’ll stop the dogs! Hang on, girl!”
“The demons, I will!” Catti-brie shouted back. She patted Bruenor on the head and went with an alternate plan, dropping from the back of the chariot and into the water.
“Smart girl,” Bruenor chuckled, watching her splash safely. Then his eyes went back to the pirates. The crew at the rear of the ship had seen him coming and were diving every which way to get clear.
Pinochet, at the front of the ship, looked back at the unexpected commotion just as Bruenor crashed in.
“Moradin!”
The dwarf’s war cry resounded to the decks of the Sea Sprite and the third pirate vessel, above all the din of battle. Pirates and sailors alike on the embattled ships glanced back at the explosion on Pinochet’s flagship, and Pinochet’s crew answered Bruenor’s cry with one of terror.
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.”
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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.
“No drow’s coming back to this ship!” one of Deudermont’s crewmen growled at Drizzt.
The man took a slap on the back of the head for his words, and then sheepishly moved aside as Deudermont stepped up to the boarding plank. The captain studied the expressions of his crewmen as they surveyed the drow who had been their companion for tendays.
“What’ll ye do with him?” one sailor dared to ask.
“We’ve men in the water,” the captain replied, deflecting the pointed question. “Get them out and dry, and throw the pirates in chains.” He waited a moment for his crewmen to disperse, but they held their positions, entranced by the drama of the dark elf.
“And get these ships untangled!” Deudermont roared.
He turned to face Drizzt and Wulfgar, now only a few feet from the plank. “Let us retire to my cabin,” he said calmly. “We should talk.”
Drizzt and Wulfgar did not answer. They went with the captain silently, absorbing the curious, fearful, and outraged stares that followed them.
Deudermont stopped halfway across the deck, joining a group of his crew as they looked to the south, past Pinochet’s burning ship, to a small rowboat pulling hard in their direction.
“The driver of the fiery chariot that rushed across the sky,” one of the crewman explained.
“He took down that ship!” another exclaimed, pointing to the wreckage of Pinochet’s flagship, now listing badly and soon to sink. “And sent the third one running!”
“Then a friend of ours, he is indeed!” the captain replied.
“And of ours,” Drizzt added, turning all eyes back upon him. Even Wulfgar looked curiously at his companion. He had heard the cry to Moradin, but had not dared to hope that it was indeed Bruenor Battlehammer rushing to their aid.
“A red-bearded dwarf, if my guess is correct,” Drizzt continued. “And with him, a young woman.”
Wulfgar’s jaw dropped open. “Bruenor?” he managed to whisper. “Catti-brie?”
Drizzt shrugged. “That is my guess.”
“We shall know soon enough,” Deudermont assured them. He instructed his crewmen to bring the passengers of the row-boat to his cabin as soon as they came aboard, then he led Drizzt and Wulfgar away, knowing that on the deck the drow would prove a distraction to his crew. And at this time, with the ships fouled, they had important work to complete.
“What do you mean to do with us?” Wulfgar demanded when Deudermont shut the cabin door. “We fought for—”
Deudermont stopped the growing tirade with a calming smile. “You certainly did,” he acknowledged. “I only wish that I had such mighty sailors on every voyage south. Surely then the pirates would flee whenever the Sea Sprite broke the horizon!”
Wulfgar eased back from his defensive posture.
“My deception was not intended to bring harm,” Drizzt said somberly. “And only my appearance was a lie. I require passage to the south to rescue a friend—that much remains true.”
Deudermont nodded, but before he could answer, a knock came on the door and a sailor peeked in. “Beggin’ yer pardon,” he began.
“What is it?” asked Deudermont.
“We follow yer every step, Captain, ye know that,” the sailor stammered. “But we thought we should let ye know our feelings on the elf.”
Deudermont considered the sailor, and then Drizzt, for a moment. He had always been proud of his crew; most of the men had been together for many years, but he seriously wondered how they would come through this dilemma.
“Go on,” he prompted, stubbornly holding his trust in his men.
“Well, we know he’s a drow,” the sailor began, “and we know what that means.” He paused, weighing his next words carefully. Drizzt held his breath in anticipation; he had been down this route before.
“But them two, they pulled us through a bad jam there,” the sailor blurted all of a sudden. “We wouldn’t a gotten through without ’em!”
“So you want them to remain aboard?” Deudermont asked, a smile growing across his face. His crew had come through once again.
“Aye!” the sailor replied heartily. “To a man! And we’re proud to have ’em!”
Another sailor, the one who had challenged Drizzt at the plank just a few minutes before, poked his head in. “I was scared, that’s all,” he apologized to Drizzt.
Overwhelmed, Drizzt hadn’t found his breath yet. He nodded his acceptance of the apology.
“See ye on deck, then,” said the second sailor, and he disappeared out the door.
“We just thought ye should know,” the first sailor told Deudermont, and then he, too, was gone.
“They are a fine crew,” Deudermont said to Drizzt and Wulfgar when the door had closed.
“And what are your thoughts?” Wulfgar had to ask.
“I judge a man—elf—by his character, not his appearance,” Deudermont declared. “And on that subject, keep the mask off, Drizzt Do’Urden. You are a far handsomer sort without it!”
“Not many would share that observation,” Drizzt replied.
“On the Sea Sprite, they would!” roared the captain. “Now, the battle is won, but there is much to be done. I suspect that your strength would be appreciated at the prow, mighty barbarian. We have to get these ships unfouled and moving before that third pirate comes back with more of his friends!
“And you,” he said to Drizzt with a sneaky smile. “I would think that no one could keep a shipload of prisoners in line better than you.”
Drizzt pulled the mask off his head and tucked it in his pack. “There are advantages to the color of my skin,” he agreed, shaking the gnarls out of his white locks. He turned with Wulfgar to leave, but the door burst in before them.
“Nice blade, elf!” said Bruenor Battlehammer, standing in a puddle of seawater. He tossed the magical scimitar to Drizzt. “Find a name for it, will ye? Blade like that be needing a name. Good for a cook at a pig roastin’!”
“Or a dwarf hunting dragons,” Drizzt remarked. He held the scimitar reverently, remembering again the first time he had seen it, lying in the dead dragon’s horde. Then he gave it a new home in the scabbard that had held his normal blade, thinking his old one a fitting companion for Twinkle.
Bruenor walked up to his drow friend and clasped his wrist firmly. “When I saw yer eyes lookin’ out at me from the gorge,” the dwarf began softly, fighting back a choke that threatened to break his voice apart, “suren then I knew that me other friends would be safe!”
br /> “But they are not,” Drizzt replied. “Regis is in dire peril.”
Bruenor winked. “We’ll get him back, elf! No stinkin’ assassin’s going to put an end to Rumblebelly!” He clenched the drow’s arm tightly one final time and turned to Wulfgar, the lad he had ushered into manhood.
Wulfgar wanted to speak but could find no path for the words beyond the lump in his throat. Unlike Drizzt, the barbarian had no idea that Bruenor might still be alive, and seeing his dear mentor, the dwarf who had become as a father to him, back from the grave and standing before him was simply too much for him to digest. He grabbed Bruenor by the shoulders just as the dwarf was about to say something, and hoisted him up, locking him in a great bear hug.
It took Bruenor a few seconds of wiggling to get loose enough to draw breath. “If ye’d squeezed the dragon like that,” the dwarf coughed, “I wouldn’t’ve had to ride it down the gorge!”
Catti-brie walked through the door, soaking wet, with her auburn hair matted to her neck and shoulders. Behind her came Pinochet, drenched and humbled.
Her eyes first found the gaze of Drizzt, locking the drow in a silent moment of emotion that went deeper than simple friendship. “Well met,” she whispered. “Good it is to look upon Drizzt Do’Urden again. Me heart’s been with ye all along.”
Drizzt cast her a casual smile and turned his lavender eyes away. “Somehow I knew that you would join our quest before it was through,” he said. “Well met, then, and welcome along.”
Catti-brie’s gaze drifted past the drow to Wulfgar. Twice she had been separated from the man, and both times when they again had met, Catti-brie was reminded how much she had come to love him.
Wulfgar saw her, too. Droplets of seawater sparkled on her face, but they paled next to the shine of her smile. The barbarian, his stare never leaving Catti-brie, eased Bruenor back to the floor.