Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(84)

It was in the Cutlass where Drizzt and Wulfgar had first met Captain Deudermont of Sea Sprite, one of the most legendary vessels ever to sail out of Luskan. The Cutlass was where a broken Wulfgar had gone when, returned from the Abyss, he found himself mired in the mud of self-pity and strong drink. Delly Curtie, for a while Wulfgar’s wife—and thus, Bruenor’s daughter-in-law—had been a barmaid there, working for the jovial and well-informed.…

“Arumn Gardpeck,” Bruenor said, recalling the tavernkeeper’s name.

“A good man with a fine tavern,” Drizzt agreed. “Aye, when the wealthy came to Luskan in the years before the pirates took hold, they stayed in the far fancier inns higher on the hills, but they would have found better lodging in Arumn Gardpeck’s beds.”

“Not to doubt,” said Bruenor. “And who was that skinny one, with the rat face? The one what stole me boy’s hammer?”

Drizzt could easily picture that miscreant sitting on a stool at Arumn’s bar. He was always there, always talking, and he had an unusual name, Drizzt remembered, a silly one.

But the drow couldn’t quite recall it, so he just shook his head.

“Arumn’s kin still got the place, or so I hear,” Bruenor recalled. “What was that girl’s name, then? Shibanni?”

Drizzt nodded. “Shivanni Gardpeck. Claims to be Arumn’s great-great-great grandniece, I believe.”

“Think it’s true?”

Drizzt shrugged. All that mattered to him was that the Cutlass remained. Shivanni may or may not have been Arumn Gardpeck’s descendent, but if she wasn’t, she had to have come from a similar bloodline, and if she was, then fat Arumn would be glad to know it, and to know her.

The pair crossed through the open gate, many eyes turning their way. There were only a scant few guards manning the walls and none visible on the towers. They might have been soldiers of one or another of the High Captains who ruled Luskan, but looked more like thugs serving themselves first—a ragtag band of knaves bound by no uniform, no code, and no notion of the common good of Luskan.

The city gates were always open. If Luskan began discriminating about who they let in, they would probably find the city deserted in short order. Even the scurvy dogs who wandered in through the gates paled under the glow of angelic halos compared to the rats who crawled off the ships that put into port there.

“ ’Ere now, a dwarf an’ a drow,” one man said to the pair as they passed under the gate.

“Be ye more impressed by yer eyes, or by yer sharp mind that sorted such a sight?” Bruenor shot back.

“Not a usual pairing, is all,” the man said with a chuckle.

“Give him that much, Bruenor,” Drizzt said so only the dwarf could hear.

“And what is the news in Luskan, good sir?” Drizzt asked the man.

“Same news as any day,” the guard replied, and he seemed in good spirits. He stood and stretched, his back making cracking sounds with the effort, and took a step toward the pair. “Too many bodies cloggin’ the waterways, and too many rats blocking the streets.”

“And pray tell, what captain do you serve?” asked the drow.

The man looked wounded, and put his hand over his heart. “Why, dark skin,” he replied, “I’m livin’ to serve the City o’ Sails, and nothin’ more!”

Bruenor shot Drizzt a sour look, but the drow, far better versed in the ways of the chaotic and wild town, smiled and nodded, for he had expected no other answer.

“And where’re ye off to?” the guard asked. “Might I be directin’ ye? Ye lookin’ for a boat er an inn in particular?”

“No,” Bruenor said flatly, aiming it, obviously, at both questions.

But to the dwarf’s wide-eyed surprise, Drizzt answered, “Passing through. For tonight, good lodging. For tomorrow, perhaps the road north.” He saluted and started away, then said to Bruenor, and not quietly, “Come, Shivanni awaits.”

“Ah,” the guard said, turning them both back to regard him. “Good ale to be found in Luskan, to be sure. Boatload o’ Baldur’s Gate pale brew come through just two days ago.”

“To be sure,” Drizzt answered, and he led Bruenor away.

“When’d ye get a waggin’ tongue, elf?”

Drizzt shrugged as if he didn’t understand.

“He might’ve knowed the name.”

Again, Drizzt shrugged. “If Jarlaxle wishes to find us, why would we make it difficult for him?”

“And if he ain’t lookin’ for us?”

“Then we would never have known it was a drow that raided our camp, and would never have found a trail so obvious leading us here.”

“Or the trail’s a fake. Leadin’ us here so we’re just thinking it’s Jarlaxle.” Bruenor nodded repeatedly as he considered his own words, as if he had just had a moment of epiphany.

“In that case, too, I would speak with Jarlaxle, for any so sending us in this direction surely concerns him as well. And a fine ally he will make, in that case.”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted.

“We have no enemies here that I know of,” the drow said. “We walked in openly, with nothing to hide and no ill intent.”

“Now ye’re friends to the High Captains, are ye?”