The Last Threshold (Neverwinter #4)(58)

Now he had Gromph’s blessing to do what he thought best, insulating him and Bregan D’aerthe from the potential wrath of the First House.





“Bah, but we didn’t kill the dogs, and that’s got to matter for something,” Ambergris said when the wagons unloaded their cargoes, refugees, and ten prisoners back in Port Llast a few days later.

Drizzt and the others, including the leaders of Port Llast and Farmer Stuyles, looked on with trepidation.

“We cannot let them go,” Dorwyllan remarked. “They will run right to the high captains with news of our renewal.”

“Nay, but we won’t!” one of the captured Luskar insisted.

“Nor can we keep them against their will,” said Drizzt. “They have done nothing against us.”

“They attacked the caravan, or meant to,” Ambergris reminded him. “We’d’ve been justified by law in killin’ them out on the road, and not an honest magister’d argue!”

Drizzt had to nod at that, but he calmly put in, “But you didn’t, and that is a good thing,” to try to squelch some of the more impassioned shouts bubbling up around him.

“Still could,” Ambergris replied, but with a smile, a growl at the prisoners who stood together near a wagon, and a wink back at Drizzt.

He shook his head to cut her short. She wasn’t helping.

“Luskan knows anyway,” Artemis Entreri put in, and his contribution surprised those who knew him well. “Just let the fools go, or put them on a boat and float them out to feed the sea devils. It matters not at all.”

Whispers arguing both points rose up from the growing crowd.

“Keep them,” Drizzt spoke over those, demanding the attention of all. “Keep them safe and keep them well. These are not our enemies. Artemis and I will go to Luskan.”

“And I,” Dahlia remarked.

“You two alone, then, and leave me out of it,” a surprised and annoyed Entreri muttered.

“Not so,” Drizzt corrected him. “You and I have business there anyway.”

That surprised Entreri, and he returned a suspicious look.

Drizzt put a hand to his right hip, the same location where Artemis Entreri used to wear his jeweled dagger, and nodded.

“Lead on,” said the assassin.

“I have anticipated this day,” Drizzt said to Dorwyllan and a few others near to him. “I have contacts in Luskan. Artemis Entreri is correct. They know something is happening here in the south, though perhaps remain ignorant that it is Port Llast and not just Neverwinter that is growing strong once more. They understand that those farmers departed the fields around Luskan in an exodus to the south and they will learn the truth soon enough. You might well see Luskar sails outside your harbor any day now.”

“They’ll not cross the wall into the city as enemies,” Dorwyllan decreed.

“Not at first, with a ship or two. But if it comes to blows.…” Drizzt left that thought hanging in the open. All in attendance understood that mighty Luskan could crush Port Llast with little effort if the City of Sails so desired.

“I will go and serve as emissary.”

“And if that fails?” asked Dovos Dothwintyl, the city’s current lord, but one who had been all but invisible through the reclamation efforts.

“Then perhaps we all go to Neverwinter, and seek the suffrage of Jelvus Grinch, who I am confident will welcome us warmly.”

Some of the group began to grumble about that—hadn’t they held on to their town through all these years, after all?

Dorwyllan calmed them. “It had to come to a climax,” he said in a matter-of-fact, yet soothing voice. “Our stalemate with the sea devils was a slow death. Our victory over them grants us Port Llast returned or full retreat. If Drizzt is not successful in Luskan, we shall appeal to Neverwinter and Waterdeep for protection against Luskan.”

“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary,” Drizzt said, and he nodded and started away, motioning for Entreri to follow. In truth, Drizzt didn’t think it would come to blows. He had made inroads into the ascendant Ship Kurth, after all.

Dahlia moved off with Drizzt and Entreri, but the drow blocked her. “We have two mounts, and must ride with all speed to beat any armada Luskan might launch at Port Llast. And I need you here.”

“I will ride with you, hardly slowing mighty Andahar,” she argued.

But Drizzt shook his head and would not be swayed. “I would have all of Luskan agreeing to leave us in peace, including Ship Rethnor,” he said bluntly, emphasizing those last three words to remind Dahlia that she had more than a little history, and not all of it favorable, with the powers of Luskan.

Dahlia narrowed her eyes, her face a mask of contempt and a warning to Drizzt that this, and his other inattentiveness of late, was not strengthening their relationship.

Surprisingly to Drizzt, that didn’t bother him profoundly. Indeed, hardly at all.

No matter how hard he tried, Beniago couldn’t look quite as uncomfortable as grizzled old Advisor Klutarch, shifting from foot to foot. They were, after all, in a cellar in Luskan surrounded by a handful of drow mercenaries.

“Thus we return,” Kimmuriel said. “We have renewed interest in the area, to the benefit of Ship Kurth and the others.”

“And ye’ve met with the others, then?” Klutarch asked.