In truth, Bondalek's decision to force the discussion to continue in the drow language, even when Entreri was with them, was more a choice to keep the human assassin somewhat off-balance. 'It seems, from all you previously said that the halflings would be better suited and more easily convinced to perform the services you just put upon Quentin Bodeau.'
'I doubt not Dwahvel's loyalty,' Entreri replied in the human Calimport tongue, and he eyed Rai'gy with every word.
The wizard turned a curious and helpless look over Jarlaxle, and the mercenary, with a laugh at the pettiness of it all, produced an orb from an inside fold of his cloak, held it aloft, and spoke a word of command. Now they would all understand.
'To herself and her well-being, I mean,' Entreri said, again in the human tongue, though Rai'gy heard it in drow. 'She is no threat.'
'And pitiful Quentin Bodeau and his lackey wizard are?' Rai'gy asked incredulously, Jarlaxle's enchantment reversing the effect, so that, while the drow spoke in his native tongue, Entreri heard it in his own.
'Do not underestimate the power of Bodeau's guild,' Entreri warned. 'They are firmly entrenched, with eyes ever outward.'
'So you force his loyalty early,' Jarlaxle agreed, that he cannot later claim ignorance whatever the outcome.'
'And where from here?' Kimmuriel asked.
'We secure the Basadoni Guild,' Entreri explained. 'That then becomes our base of power, with both Dwahvel and Bodeau watching to make certain that the others aren't aligning against us.'
'And from there?' Kimmuriel pressed.
Entreri smiled and looked to Jarlaxle, and the mercenary leader recognized that Entreri understood that Kimmuriel was asking the questions as Jarlaxle had bade him to ask.
'From there we will see what opportunities present themselves,' Jarlaxle answered before Entreri could reply. 'Perhaps that base will prove solid enough. Perhaps not.'
Later on, after Entreri had left them, Jarlaxle, with some pride, turned to his two cohorts. 'Did I not choose well?' he asked.
'He thinks like a drow,' Rai'gy replied, offering as high a compliment as Jarlaxle had ever heard him give to a human or to anyone else who was not drow. 'Though I wish he would better learn our language and our sign language.'
Jarlaxle, so pleased with the progress, only laughed.
Chapter 14 REPUTATION
The man felt strange indeed. Alcohol dimmed his senses so that he could not register all the facts about his current situation. He felt light, floating, and felt a burning in his chest.
Wulfgar clenched his fist more tightly, grasping the front of the man's tunic and pulling chest hairs from their roots in the process. With just that one arm the barbarian easily held the two hundred pound man off the ground. Using his other arm to navigate the crowd in the Cutlass, he made his way for the door. He hated taking this roundabout route-previously he had merely tossed unruly drunks through a window or a wall-but Arumn Gardpeck had quickly reigned in that behavior, promising to take the cost of damages out of Wulfgar's pay.
Even a single window could cost the barbarian a few bottles, and if the frame went with it Wulfgar might not find any drink for a week.
The man, smiling stupidly, looked at Wulfgar and finally managed to find some focus. Recognition of the bouncer and of his present predicament at last showed on his face. 'Hey!' he complained, but then he was flying, flat out in the air, arms and legs flailing. He landed facedown in the muddy road, and there he stayed. Likely a wagon would have run him over had not a couple of passersby taken pity on the poor slob and dragged him into the gutter … taking the rest of his coins from him in the process.
'Fifteen feet,' Josi Puddles said to Arumn, estimating the length of the drunk's flight. 'And with just one arm.'
'I told ye he was a strong one,' Arumn replied, wiping the bar and pretending that he was hardly amazed. In the weeks since the barkeep had hired Wulfgar, the barbarian had made many such throws.
'Every man on Half Moon Street's talking about that,' Josi added, the tone of his voice somewhat grim. 'I been noticing that your crowd's a bit tougher every night this week.'
Arumn understood the perceptive man's less than subtle statement. There was a pecking order in Luskan's underbelly that resisted intrusion. As Wulfgar's reputation continued to grow, some of those higher on that pecking order would find their own reputations at stake and would filter in to mend the damage.
'You like the barbarian,' Josi stated as much as asked.
Arumn, staring hard at Wulfgar as the huge man filtered through the crowd once more, gave a resigned nod. Hiring Wulfgar had been a matter of business, not friendship, and Arumn usually took great pains to avoid any personal relationships with his bouncers— since many of those men, drifters by nature, either wandered away of their own accord or angered the wrong thug and wound up dead at Arumn's doorstep. With Wulfgar, though, the barkeep had lost some of that perspective. Their late nights together when the Cutlass was quiet, Wulfgar drinking at the bar, Arumn preparing the place for the next day's business, had become a pleasant routine. Arumn truly enjoyed Wulfgar's companionship. He discovered that once the drink was in the man, Wulfgar let down his cold and distant facade. Many nights they stayed together until the dawn, Arumn listening intently as Wulfgar wove tales of the frigid northland, of Icewind Dale, and of friends and enemies alike that made the barkeep's hair stand up on the back of his neck. Arumn had heard the story of Akar Kessel and the crystal shard so many times that he could almost picture the avalanche at Kelvin's Cairn that took down the wizard and buried the ancient and evil relic.
And every time Wulfgar recounted tales of the dark tunnels under the dwarven kingdom of Mithral Hall and the coming of the dark elves, Arumn later found himself shivering under his blankets, as he had when he was a child and his father had told him similarly dark stories by the hearth.
Indeed, Arumn Gardpeck had come to like his newest employee more than he should and less than he would.
'Then calm him,' Josi Puddles finished. 'He'll be bringing in Morik the Rogue and Tree Block Breaker anytime soon.'
Arumn shuddered at the thought and didn't disagree. Particularly concerning Tree Block. Morik the Rogue, he knew, would be a bit more cautious (and thus, would be much more dangerous), would spend weeks, even months, sizing up the new threat before making his move, but brash Tree Block, arguably the toughest human-if he even was human, for many stories said that he had more than a little ore, or even ogre, blood in him-ever to step into Luskan, would not be so patient.
'Wulfgar,' the barkeep called.
The big man sifted through the crowd to stand opposite Arumn.
'Did ye have to throw him out?' Arumn asked.
'He put his hand where it did not belong,' Wulfgar replied absently. 'Delly wanted him gone.'
Arumn followed Wulfgar's gaze across the room to Delly… Delenia Curtie. Though not yet past her twentieth birthday, she had worked in the Cutlass for several years. She was a wisp of a thing, barely five feet tall and so slender that many thought she had a bit of elven blood in her-though it was more the result of drinking elven spirits, Arumn knew. Her blond hair hung untrimmed and unkempt and often not very clean. Her brown eyes had long ago lost their soft innocence and taken on a harder edge, and her pale skin had not seen enough of the sun in years, nor proper nutrition, and was now dry and rough. Her step had replaced the bounce of youth with the caution of a woman often hunted. But still there remained a charm about Delly, a sensual wickedness that many of the patrons, particularly after a few drinks, found too tempting to resist.
'If ye're to be killing every man who's grabbing Delly's bottom, I'll have no patrons left within the week,' Arumn said dryly.
'Just push them out,' Arumn continued when Wulfgar offered no response, not even a change of
