'Caerwich?' he asked.
Deudermont eyed him directly. 'The doppleganger spoke of Caerwich, and so to Caerwich I must go.'
'And do ye not think ye'll be sailing right into a trap?' Catti-brie put in. 'Going right where they're wanting ye to go?'
'Who?' Deudermont asked.
'Whoever sent the doppleganger,' Catti-brie reasoned.
'Who?' Deudermont asked again.
Catti-brie shrugged. 'Pinochet?' she queried. 'Or mighten it be some other pirate that's had his fill o' the
Deudermont leaned back in his seat again, as did Drizzt, all three sitting in silence for several long moments. 'I cannot, nor do I believe that you can, continue to sail up and down the Sword Coast as though nothing at all has happened,' the captain explained. Drizzt closed his lavender eyes, expecting this answer and agreeing with the logic. 'Someone powerful, for doppleganger hirelings are neither common nor cheap, desires my demise and the end of the
'Not a one will go,' Catti-brie admitted.
'Yet we do not even know if Caerwich truly exists,' Drizzt remarked. 'Many claim to have been there, but these are the tales of seagoing men, tales too often exaggerated by drink or by bluster.'
'So we must find out,' Deudermont said with a tone of finality. Neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie, both willing to face trouble head-on, offered a word of disagreement. 'Perhaps it is not such a bad thing that your wizard friend arrived,' the captain went on. 'Another wizard knowledgeable in the mystical arts might help us to sort through this mystery.'
Catti-brie and Drizzt exchanged doubtful looks; Captain Deudermont obviously didn't know Harkle Harpell! They said no more about it, though, and finished the meal discussing more pertinent matters of the everyday handling of the ship and crew. Deudermont wanted to go to Mintarn, so Drizzt and Catti-brie would follow.
After the meal, the two friends strolled out onto the nearly-deserted deck of the schooner, walking under a canopy of brilliant stars.
'Ye were relieved at the captain's tale,' Catti-brie remarked.
After a moment of surprise, Drizzt nodded.
'Ye thought the attack in Waterdeep had to do with yerself, and not with Deudermont or the
The drow simply stood and listened, for, as usual, the perceptive young woman had hit his feelings exactly, had read him like an open book.
'Ye'll always be fearing that every danger comes from yer home,' Catti-brie said, moving to the rail and looking over at the reflection of the stars in the rolling waters.
'I have made many enemies,' Drizzt replied as he joined her.
'Ye've left them buried in yer tracks,' Catti-brie said with a laugh.
Drizzt shared in that chuckle, and had to admit that she was right. This time, he believed, it wasn't about him. For several years now, he had been a player in the larger drama of the world. The personal element of the danger that had followed him every step since his initial departure from Menzoberranzan seemed a thing of the past. Now, under the stars and with Catti-brie beside him, thousands of miles and many years from Menzoberranzan, Drizzt Do'Urden felt truly free, and carefree. He did not fear the trip to Mintarn, or to any mysterious island beyond that, whatever the rumors of haunts might be. Never did Drizzt Do'Urden fear danger. He lived on the edge willingly, and if Deudermont was in trouble, then Drizzt was more than ready to take up his scimitars.
As was Catti-brie, with her bow, Taulmaril, and the magnificent sword, Khazid'hea, always ready at her hip. As was Guenhwyvar, ever-faithful companion. Drizzt did not fear danger; only guilt could bend his stoic shoulders. This time, it seemed, he carried no guilt, no responsibility for the attack and for the
He and Catti-brie basked in the wind and the spray, watched the stars silently for hours.
Chapter 6 THE NOMADS
Kierstaad, son of Revjak, knelt on the soft turf, his knee pocking the ground. He was not tall by the standards of the Icewind Dale nomads, barely topping six feet, and was not as muscular as most. His hair was long and blond, his eyes the color of the sky on the brightest of days, and his smile, on those rare occasions that he displayed it, beamed from a warm soul.
Across the flat tundra Kierstaad could see the snow-capped top of Kelvin's Cairn. It was the lone mountain in the thousand square miles of the land called Icewind Dale, the windswept strip of tundra between the Sea of Moving Ice and the northwestern spur of the Spine of the World mountains. If he were to move but a few miles toward the mountain, Kierstaad knew that he would see the tips of the masts of the fishing ships sailing Lac Dinneshere, second largest of the three lakes in the region.
A few miles to a different world, Kierstaad realized. He was just a boy, really, having seen only seventeen winters. But in that time, Kierstaad had witnessed more of the Realms and of life than most in the world would ever know. He had traveled with
many warriors to the call of Wulfgar, from Icewind Dale to a place called Settlestone, far, far away. He'd celebrated his ninth birthday on the road, removed from his family. At the age of eleven, the young barbarian lad had battled goblins, kobolds, and drow elves, fighting beside Berkthgar the Bold, leader of Settle-stone. It was Berkthgar who had decided that the time had come for the barbarian peoples to return to Icewind Dale-their ancestral home-and the ways of their forebears.
Kierstaad had seen so much, had lived two different lives, it seemed, in two different worlds. Now he was a nomad, a hunter out on the open tundra, approaching his eighteenth birthday and his first solitary hunt. Looking at Kelvin's Cairn, though, and knowing of the fishing ships on Lac Dinneshere, on Maer Dualdon to the west, and on Redwaters to the south, Kierstaad realized how narrow his existence had truly become, and how much wider was the world-a world just a few short miles from where he now knelt. He could picture the markets in Bryn Shander, the largest of the ten towns surrounding the lakes. He could imagine the multicolored garments, the jewels, the excitement, as the merchant caravans rolled in with the spring, the southerners bartering for the fine scrimshaw carved from the head bone of the three lakes' abundant knucklehead trout.
Kierstaad's own garments were brown, like the tundra, like the reindeer he and his people hunted, like the tents they lived in.
Still, the young man's sigh was not a lament for what was lost to him, but rather a resignation that this was now his way, the way of his ancestors. There was a simple beauty to it, Kierstaad had to admit, a toughness, too, that hardened the body and the soul. Kierstaad was a young man, but he was wise beyond his years. A family trait, so it was said, for Kierstaad's father, Revjak, had led the unified tribes after Wulfgar's departure. Calm and always in control, Revjak hadn't left Icewind Dale to go to war in Mithril Hall, explaining that he was too old and set in his ways. Revjak had stayed on with the majority of the barbarian people, solidifying the alliance between the nomadic tribes, and also strengthening the ties with the folk of Ten-Towns.
Revjak hadn't been surprised, but was pleased at the return of Berkthgar, of Kierstaad-his youngest child- and of all the others. Still, with that return came many questions concerning the future of the nomadic tribes and the leadership of the barbarian people. 'More blood?' came a question, drawing the young man from his contemplations. Kierstaad turned to see the other hunters, Berkthgar among them, moving up behind him.
Kierstaad nodded and pointed to the red splotch on the brown ground. Berkthgar had speared a reindeer, a fine throw from a great distance, but only had wounded the beast, and it had taken flight. Always efficient, particularly when dealing with this animal that gave to them so very much, the hunters had rushed in pursuit. They would not wound an animal to let it die unclaimed. That was not their way. It was, according to Berkthgar, 'the wasting way of the men who lived in Ten-Towns, or who lived south of the Spine of the World.'
