Neverwinter (Neverwinter #2)(16)

“Don’t hurt him!” came a shout from the crawl space, a woman’s voice. “Oh, please, good sir … err, good elf sir, don’t you hurt my boy!”

“Now why would I do that, good woman?” Drizzt calmly replied.

“Because it’s all she knows, you na?ve fool,” Dahlia said from behind. She stepped past Drizzt and offered her hand to the woman, and to another child, a girl. The older woman hesitated and the young girl shied away.

“Take my hand and come out or I’ll fill your hole with hay and toss in a torch,” Dahlia warned.

Drizzt wasn’t sure if Dahlia was bluffing. For an instant, he thought to shove Dahlia aside and reassure the woman in the crawl space, but he didn’t act at all. For not the first time, and surely not the last, Drizzt found himself perplexed and strangely intrigued by his new companion.

Whether bluff or honest threat, Dahlia’s words worked, and with surprising strength, she tugged the woman from the crawl space.

The woman wasn’t as old as she appeared, with her scraggly, thinning hair, tired eyes, and weathered skin. It occurred to Drizzt that she might be quite attractive, had she been among the aristocracy of Waterdeep or some other city. Life, not age, had taken the luster of her youth, for she was likely but a few years past thirty.

“Are those other children outside yours as well?” Dahlia asked, little tenderness in her voice.

The woman looked at her with suspicion.

“We are not here to harm you or your children, nor to rob you of anything, I promise,” said Drizzt. “In fact, quite the opposite.” He started to reach for a small pouch on his belt, but Dahlia intercepted him with her hand and when he looked at her, she scowled and shook her head.

Drizzt didn’t understand, but he could tell from Dahlia’s expression that she wasn’t preventing his charity out of any selfish reasons, so he held back.

“Your husband is …?” Dahlia asked.

The woman snorted and looked away, giving a quick shake of her head. She didn’t have to say any more for Drizzt and Dahlia to understand that he was long gone, murdered likely.

“Five children,” Dahlia said with a mocking tone. She reached for the woman’s hand and lifted it, turning it as she went so that Drizzt could clearly see the deep calluses, broken fingernails, and seemingly-permanent dirt stains.

Clearly embarrassed, the woman pulled her hand back. Dahlia laughed, shook her head, and walked back to the farm’s rickety door.

“I hope some of your children are old enough to help you around here,” Drizzt said, trying to put forth a better face. He flashed a stern scowl at Dahlia. She smirked.

“We get by,” the woman replied. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Drizzt answered. “We saw the garden, and were—”

“So you want my food, then? You’d take it from the mouths of children?”

“No, no,” Drizzt assured her. “We … I was surprised to see that someone was living here, nothing more. We’re traveling to Luskan, and I was curious as to the state of the farms.”

“Farms,” the woman snorted. “There are no farms.”

“Do you know a man, a farmer, named Stuyles?” Dahlia asked from the doorway.

“I knew someone named Stuyles. A few of them.”

“Oh, and pray tell us what has happened to them.”

Drizzt shot Dahlia another angry glance. He turned back just in time to see the woman shrug. “Those that could go, went,” she answered. “Some to sail with the pirates, no doubt. Some to their graves at the end of a blade, no doubt. Some to other lands, for good or ill.”

“And how many have stayed?” Dahlia asked. “How many like you, living off the land, hoping your garden isn’t raided by highwaymen or soldiers—or goblinkin or wild animals—so you go to sleep without your belly growling too loudly?”

The woman, embarrassed, looked away and didn’t answer.

“Leave them,” Dahlia said to Drizzt. “We’ve leagues to travel and I grow bored with this nonsense.”

Drizzt didn’t know where to turn. He felt more completely at a loss than he had for a long, long time. The world, even around the always wild Luskan, had devolved to such a miserable state. It shook the core beliefs and optimism that had guided him for more than a century.

And there seemed nothing he could do about it, and that was the most troubling and terrifying reality of all.

As he stood there in contemplation, Dahlia grabbed him roughly by the hand and tugged him toward the door. As they exited, the woman shouted after them, “Don’t you steal my melons!”

“If we did, there would be nothing you could do about it,” Dahlia snapped back.

Outside, though, Dahlia didn’t go for the garden, but straight to Andahar, offering only a cursory glance at the three children hiding—badly—nearby, gawking at the sight of the magnificent unicorn.

“Did you have to speak to her in such a manner?” Drizzt asked, climbing up on Andahar’s strong back.

“I was speaking to you,” Dahlia retorted. “I care nothing for her.”

“Perhaps that’s your problem,” said Drizzt.

“More likely it’s your folly,” said Dahlia.