The Spine of the World

We think we understand those around us. The people we have come to know reveal patterns of behavior, and as our expectations of that behavior are fulfilled time and again we begin to believe that we know the person's heart and soul.

I consider that to be an arrogant perception, for one cannot truly understand the heart and soul of another, one cannot truly appreciate the perceptions another might hold toward similar or recounted experiences. We all search for truth, particularly within our own sphere of existence, the home we have carved and those friends with whom we choose to share it. But truth, I fear, is not always evident where individuals, so complex and changing, are concerned.

If ever I believe that the foundations of my world are rooted in stone, I think of Jarlaxle and I am humbled. I have always recognized that there is more to the mercenary than a simple quest for personal gain-he let me and Catti-brie walk away from Menzoberranzan, after all, and at a time when our heads would have brought him a fine price, indeed. When Catti-brie was his prisoner and completely under his power, he did not take advantage of her, though he has admitted, through actions if not words, that he thinks her quite attractive. So always have I seen a level of character beneath the cold mercenary clothing, but despite that knowledge my last encounter with Jarlaxle has shown me that he is far more complex, and certainly more compassionate, than ever I could have guessed. Beyond that, he called himself a friend of Zaknafein, and though I initially recoiled at such a notion, now I consider it to be not only believable, but likely.

Do I now understand the truth of Jarlaxle? And is it the same truth that those around him, within Bregan D'aerthe, perceive? Certainly not, and though I believe my current assessment to be correct, I'll not be as arrogant as to claim certainty, nor do I even begin to believe that I know more of him than my surface reasoning.

What about Wulfgar, then? Which Wulfgar is the true Wulfgar? Is he the proud and honorable man Bruenor raised, the man who fought beside me against Biggrin and in so many subsequent battles? The man who saved the barbarian tribes from certain extermination and the folk of Ten-Towns from future disasters by uniting the groups diplomatically? The man who ran across Faerun for the sake of his imprisoned friend? The man who helped Bruenor reclaim his lost kingdom?

Or is Wulfgar the man who harmed Catti-brie, the haunted man who seems destined, in the end, to fail utterly?

He is both, I believe, a compilation of his experiences, feelings and perceptions, as are we all. It is the second of that composite trio, feelings, brought on by experiences beyond his ability to cope, that control Wulfgar now. The raw emotion of those feelings alter his perceptions to the negative. Given that reality, who is Wulfgar now, and more importantly, if he survives this troubled time, who will he become?

How I long to know. How I wish that I could walk beside him on this perilous journey, could speak with him and influence him, perhaps. That I could remind him of who he was, or at least, who we perceived him to be.

But I cannot, for it is the heart and soul of Wulfgar, ultimately, and not his particular daily actions, that will surface in the end. And I, and anyone else, could no more influence that heart and soul as I could influence the sun itself.

Curiously, it is in the daily rising of that celestial body that I take my comfort now when thinking about Wulfgar. Why watch the dawn? Why then, why that particular time, instead of any other hour of daylight?

Because at dawn the sun is more brilliant by far. Because at dawn, we see the resurgence after the darkness. There is my hope, for as with the sun, so it can be true of people. Those who fall can climb back up, then brighter will they shine in the eyes of those around them.

I watch the dawn and think of the man I thought I knew, and pray that my perceptions were correct.

– Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 20 THE LAST GREAT ACT OF SELFISHNESS

He kicked at the ground, splashing mud, then jammed his toe hard against an unyielding buried rock that showed only one-hundredth of its actual size. Jaka didn't even feel the pain, for the tear in his heart-no, not in his heart, but in his pride-was worse by far. A thousand times worse.

The wedding would take place at the turn of the season, the end of this very week. Lord Feringal would have Meralda, would have Jaka's own child.

"What justice, this?" he cried. Reaching down to pick up the rock he learned the truth of its buried size. Jaka grabbed another and came back up throwing, narrowly missing a pair of older farmers leaning on their hoes.

The pair, including the old long-nosed dwarf, came storming over, spitting curses, but Jaka was too distracted by his own problems, not understanding that he had just made another problem, and didn't even notice them.

Until, that is, he spun around to find them standing right behind him. The surly dwarf leaped up and launched a balled fist right into Jaka's face, laying him low.

"Damn stupid boy," the dwarf grumbled, then turned to walk away.

Humiliated and hardly thinking, Jaka kicked at his ankles, tripping him up.

In an instant, the slender young man was hauled to his feet by the other farmer. "Are you looking to die then?" the man asked, giving him a good shake.

"Perhaps I am," Jaka came back with a great, dramatic sigh. "Yes, all joy has flown from this coil."

"Boy's daft," the farmer holding Jaka said to his companion. The dwarf was coming back over, fists clenched, jaw set firm under his thick beard. As he finished, the man whipped Jaka around and shoved him backward toward the other farmer. The dwarf didn't catch Jaka but instead shoved him back the other way, high up on the back so that the young man went face down in the dirt. The dwarf stepped on the small of Jaka's back, pressing down with his hard-soled boots.

"You watch where you're throwing stones," he said, grinding down suddenly and for just an instant, blowing the breath out of Jaka.

"The boy's daft," the other farmer said as he and his companion walked away.

Jaka lay on the ground and cried.

*****

"All that good food at the castle," remarked Madam Prinkle, an old, gray woman with a smiling face. The woman's skin, hanging in wrinkled folds, seemed too loose for her bones. She grabbed Meralda's waist and gave a pinch. "If you change your size every week, how's my dress ever to fit you? Why, girl, you're three fingers bigger."

Meralda blushed and looked away, not wanting to meet the stare of Priscilla, who was standing off to the side, watching and listening intently.

"Truly I've been hungry lately," Meralda replied. "Been eating everything I can get into my mouth. A bit on the jitters, I am." She looked anxiously at Priscilla, who had been working hard with her to help her lose her peasant accent.

Priscilla nodded, but hardly seemed convinced.

"Well, you best find a different way for calming," Madam Prinkle replied, "or you'll split the dress apart walking to Lord Feringal's side." She laughed riotously then, one big, bobbing ball of too-loose skin. Meralda and Priscilla both laughed selfconsciously as well, though neither seemed the least bit amused.

"Can you alter it correctly?" Priscilla asked.

"Oh, not to fear," replied Madam Prinkle. "I'll have the girl all beautiful for her day." She began to gather up her thread and sewing tools. Priscilla moved to help her while Meralda quickly removed the dress, gathered up her own things, and rushed out of the room.

Away from the other two, the woman put her hand on her undeniably larger belly. It was over two and a half months now since her encounter with Jaka in the starlit field, and though she doubted that the baby was large enough to be pushing her belly out so, she certainly had been eating volumes of late. Perhaps it was nerves, perhaps it was because she was nourishing two, but whatever the cause, she would have to be careful for the rest of the week so as not to draw more attention to herself.

"She will have the dress back to us on the morrow," Priscilla said behind her, and the young woman nearly jumped out of her boots. "Is something wrong, Meralda?" the woman asked, moving beside her and dropping a hand on her shoulder.

"Would you not be scared if you were marrying a lord?"

Priscilla arched a finely plucked brow. "I would not be frightened, because I would not be in such a situation," she replied.

"But if ye-you, were?" Meralda pressed. "If you were born a peasant, and the lord-"

"Preposterous," the woman interrupted. "If I had been born a peasant, I would not be who I am, and so your whole question makes little sense."

Meralda stared at her, obviously confused.

"I am not a peasant because I've not the soul nor blood of a peasant," Priscilla explained. "You people think it an accident that you were born of your family, and we of nobility born of ours, but that is not the case, my dear. Station comes from within, not without."

"So you're better, then?" Meralda asked bluntly.

Priscilla smiled. "Not better, dear," she answered condescendingly. "Different. We each have our place."

"And mine's not with your brother," the younger woman posited.

"I do not approve of mixing blood," Priscilla stated, and the two stared at each other for a long and uncomfortable while.

Then you should marry him yourself, Meralda thought, but bit back.

"However, I shall honor my brother's choice," Priscilla went on in that same denigrating tone. "It is his own life to ruin as he pleases. I will do what I may do to bring you as close to his level as possible. I do like you, my dear," she added, reaching out to pat Meralda's shoulder.

You'd let me clean your commode then, Meralda silently fumed. She wanted to speak back against Priscilla's reasoning, truly she did, but she wasn't feeling particularly brave at that moment. No, given the child, Jaka's child, growing within her womb, she was vulnerable now, and feeling no match for the likes of vicious Priscilla Auck.

*****

It was late in the morning when Meralda awoke. She could tell from the height of the sun beaming through her window. Worried, she scrambled out of bed. Why hadn't her father awakened her earlier for chores? Where was her mother?

She pushed through the curtain into the common room and calmed immediately, for there sat her family, gathered about the table. Her mother's chair was pulled back, and the woman sat facing the ceiling. A curious man, dressed in what seemed to be religious garments, chanted softly and patted her forehead with sweet-smelling oil.

"Da?" she started to ask, but the man held his hand up to quiet her, motioning her to move near him.

"Watcher Beribold," he explained. "From the Temple of Helm in Luskan. Lord Feringal sent him to get your ma up and strong for the wedding."

Meralda's mouth dropped open. "You can heal her then?"

"A difficult disease," Watcher Beribold replied. "Your mother is strong to have fought on with such resilience." Meralda started to press him, but he answered her with a reassuring smile. "Your mother will be on the mend and free of the wilting before I and High Watcher Risten depart Auckney," he promised.

Tori squealed, and Meralda's heart leaped with joy. She felt her father's strong arm go around her waist, pulling her in close. She could hardly believe the good news. She had known that Lord Feringal would heal her mother, but never had she imagined that the man would see to it before the wedding. Her mother's illness was like a huge sword Feringal had hanging over her head, and yet he was removing it.

She considered the faith Lord Feringal was showing in her to send a healer unbidden to her family door. Jaka would never have relinquished such an obvious advantage. Not for her, not for anyone. Yet here was Feringal-and the man was no fool-holding enough faith in Meralda to take the sword away.

The realization brought a smile to Meralda's face. For so long, she had considered the courtship with Feringal to be a sacrifice for her family, but now, suddenly, she was recognizing the truth of it all. He was a good man, a handsome man, a man of means who loved her honestly. The only reason she'd been unable to return his feeling was because of her unhealthy infatuation with a selfish boy. Strange, but she, too, had been cured of her affliction by the arrival of Feringal's healer.

The young woman went back into her room to dress for the day. She could hardly wait for her next visit with Lord Feringal, for she suspected-no, she knew-that she would see the man a bit differently now.

She was with him that very afternoon for what would be their last meeting before the wedding. Feringal, excited about the arrangements and the guest list, said nothing at all about the healer's visit to Meralda's house.

"You sent your healer to my house today," she blurted, unable to contain the thoughts any longer. "Before the wedding. With my ma sick and you alone the power to heal her, you could have made me your slave."

Feringal looked as if he simply couldn't digest her meaning.

"Why would I desire such a thing?"

That honest and innocent question confirmed that which she had already known. A smile wreathed her beautiful face, and she leaped up impulsively to plant a huge kiss on Feringal's cheek. "Thank you for healing my ma, for healing my family."

Her thanks filled his heart and face with joy. When she tried to kiss him again on the cheek, he turned so that his lips met hers. She returned it tenfold, confident that her life with this kind and wonderful man would be more than tolerable. Far more.

Pondering the scene on the ride back to her home, Meralda's emotions took a downward swing as her thoughts shifted back to the baby and the lie she would have to tell for the rest of her days. How much more awful her actions seemed now! Meralda believed she was guilty of nothing more than poor judgment, but the reality would make it much more than that, would elevate her errant longing for one night of love to the status of treason.

And so it was with fear and hope and joy combined that Meralda stepped into the garden early the next morning to where every one of Auckney's nobles and important witnesses, her own family, Lord Feringal's sister and Steward Temigast included, stood smiling and staring at her. There was Liam Woodgate dressed in his finery, holding the door and beaming from ear to ear, and at the opposite end of the garden from her stood High Watcher Kalorc Risten, a more senior priest of Helm, Feringal's chosen god, in his shining armor and plumed, open-faced helmet.

What a day and what a setting for such an event! Priscilla had replaced her summer flowers with autumn-blooming mums, kaphts, and marigolds, and though they weren't as brilliant as the previous batch, the woman had supplemented their hues with bright banners. It had rained before the dawn, but the clouds had flown, leaving a clean smell in the air. Puddles atop the low wall and droplets on petals caught the morning sunlight in a sparkling display. Even the wind off the ocean smelled clean this day.

Meralda's mood brightened. About to be married, she couldn't be vulnerable any longer. She was not afraid of anything more than tripping over her own feet as she made her way to the ceremonial stand, a small podium bedecked on top by a war gauntlet and with a tapestry depicting a blue eye set on its front. That confidence was only bolstered when Meralda looked upon the shining face of her mother, for Kalorc Risten's young assistant had, indeed, worked a miracle upon the woman. Meralda had feared that her mother would not be healthy enough to attend the ceremony, but now her face was aglow, her eyes sparkling with health she had not enjoyed in years.

Beaming herself, all fears about her secret put away, the young woman began her walk to the podium. She didn't trip. Far from it. Those watching thought Meralda seemed to float along the garden path, the perfect bride, and if she was a bit thicker in the middle, they all believed it a sign that the young woman was at last eating well.

Standing beside the prefect, Meralda turned to watch Lord Feringal's entrance. He stepped out in his full Auckney Castle Guard Commander's uniform, a shining suit of mail crossed in gold brocade, a plumed helmet on his head, and a great sword belted to his hip. Many in the crowd gasped, women tittered, and Meralda thought again that her union with the man might not be such a bad thing. How handsome Feringal seemed to her, even more so now because she knew the truth of his gentle heart. His dashing soldiery outfit was little more than show, but he did cut a grand and impressive figure.

All smiles, Feringal joined her beside the High Watcher. The clergyman began the ceremony, solemnly appointing all gathered as witnesses to the sacred joining. Meralda focused her gaze not on Lord Feringal but on her family. She scarcely heard Kalorc Risten as he preached through the ceremony. At one point she was given a chalice of wine to sip, then to hand to Lord Feringal.

The birds were singing around them, the flowers were spectacular, the couple handsome and happy-it was the wedding that all the women of Auckney envied. Everyone not in attendance at the ceremony was invited to greet the couple afterward outside the castle's front gate. To those of lesser fortune, the spectacle evoked vicarious pleasure. Except from one person.

"Meralda!»

The cry cut the morning air and sent a flock of gulls rushing out from the cliffs east of the castle. All eyes turned toward the voice from high on a cliff. There stood a lone figure, the unmistakable, saggy-shouldered silhouette of Jaka Sculi.

"Meralda!" the foolish young man cried again, as if the name had been torn from his heart.

Meralda looked to her parents, to her fretting father, then to the face of her soon-to-be husband.

"Who is that?" Lord Feringal asked in obvious agitation.

Meralda sputtered and shook her head, her expression one of honest disgust. "A fool," she finally managed to say.

"You cannot marry Lord Feringal! Run away with me, I beg you, Meralda!" Jaka took a step precariously close to edge of the cliff.

Lord Feringal, and everyone else, it seemed, stared hard at Meralda.

"A childhood friendship," she explained hastily. "A fool, I tell you, a little boy, and nothing to be concerned with." Seeing that her words were having little effect, she put her hand on Feringal's forearm and moved very close. "I'm here to marry you because we found a love I never dreamed possible," she said, trying desperately to reassure him.

"Meralda! " Jaka wailed.

Lord Feringal scowled up at the cliff. "Someone shut the fool up," he demanded. He looked to High Watcher Risten. "Drop a globe of silence on his foolish head."

"Too far," Risten replied, shaking his head, though in truth, he hadn't even prepared such a spell.

At the other end of the garden, Steward Temigast feared where this interruption could lead, so he hustled guards off to silence the loudmouthed young man.

Like Temigast, Meralda was truly afraid, wondering how stupid Jaka would prove to be. Would the idiot say something that could cost Meralda the wedding, that might cost them both their reputations and perhaps their very lives?

"Run away with me, Meralda," Jaka yelled. "I am your true love."

"Who is that bastard?" Lord Feringal demanded again, past agitated.

"A field worker who thinks he is in love with me," she whispered while the crowd watched the couple. Meralda recognized the danger here, the volatile fires simmering in Feringal's eyes. She looked at him directly and stated flatly, without room for debate, "If you and I were not to be married, if we hadn't found love together, I'd still have nothing to do with that fool."

Lord Feringal stared at her a while longer, but he couldn't stay angry after hearing Meralda's honest assessment.

"Shall I continue, my lord?" High Watcher Risten asked.

Lord Feringal held up his hand. "When the fool is dragged away," he replied.

"Meralda! If you do not come out to me, I shall throw myself to the rocks below!" Jaka yelled suddenly, and he stepped forward to the rim of the cliff.

Several people in the garden gasped, but not Meralda. She stood eyeing Jaka coldly, so angry that she cared little if the fool went through with his threat, because she was certain he wouldn't. He hadn't the courage to kill himself. He wanted only to torture and humiliate her publicly to show up Lord Feringal. This was petty revenge, not love.

"Hold!" cried a guard, fast approaching Jaka on the cliff.

The young man spun around at the call, but as he did so his foot slipped out from under him, dropping him to his belly. He clawed with his hands but slid farther out so that he was hanging in air from the chest down, a hundred-foot drop to jagged rocks below him.

The guard lunged for him, but he was too late.

"Meralda! " came Jaka's last cry, a desperate, wailing howl as he dropped from sight.

Stunned as she was by the sudden, dramatic turn, Meralda was torn between disbelieving grief for Jaka and awareness that Feringal's scrutinizing gaze was upon her, watching and measuring her every reaction. She immediately understood that any failure on her part now would be held against her when the truth of her condition became evident.

"By the gods!" she gasped, slapping her hand over her mouth. "Oh, the poor fool!" She turned to Lord Feringal and shook her head, seeming very much at a loss.

And surely she was, her heart a jumble of hatred, horror, and remembered passion. She hated Jaka-how she hated him-for his reaction to the knowledge that she was pregnant, and hated him even more for his stupidity on this day. Still, she could not deny those remembered feelings, the way the mere sight of Jaka had put such a spring in her skip just a few short months before. Meralda knew that Jaka's last cry would haunt her for the rest of her life.

She hid all of that and reacted as those around her did to the gruesome sight-with shock and horror.

They postponed the wedding. Three days later they would complete the ceremony on a gray and thickly overcast morning. It seemed fitting.

*****

Meralda felt the hesitance in her husband's movements for the rest of the day during the grand celebration that was open to all of Auckney. She tried to approach Feringal about it, but he would not reveal himself. Meralda understood he was afraid. And why wouldn't Feringal be afraid? Jaka had died crying out to Feringal's wife-to-be.

But still, as the wine flowed and the merriment continued, Lord Feringal managed more than a few smiles. How those smiles widened when Meralda whispered into his ear that and could hardly wait for their first night together, the consummation of their love.

In truth, the young woman was excited by the prospect, if not a bit fearful. He would recognize, of course, that her virginity wasn't intact, but that was not such an uncommon thing among women living in the harsh farming environment, working hard, often riding horses, and could be explained away. She wondered if perhaps it might be better to reveal the truth of her condition and the lie she had concocted to explain it.

No, she decided, even as she and her husband ascended the staircase to their private quarters. No, the man had been through enough turmoil in the last few days. This would be a night for his pleasure, not his pain.

She would see to that.

*****

It was a grand first week of marriage, full of love and smiles, and those of Biaste Ganderlay touched Meralda most of all. Her family had not come to live with her at Castle Auck. She wouldn't dare suggest such a thing to Priscilla, not yet, but High Watcher Risten had worked tirelessly with Meralda's mother and had declared the woman completely cured. Meralda could see the truth of it painted clearly on Biaste's beaming face.

She could see, too, that though still shaken by Jaka's act upon the cliff, Feringal would get by the event. The man loved her, of that she was sure, and he fawned over her constantly.

Meralda had come to terms with her own feelings for Jaka. She was sorry for what had happened, but she carried no guilt for the man's death. Jaka had done it to himself, and for himself and surely not for her. Meralda understood now that Jaka had done everything for himself. There would always be a tiny place in her heart for the young man, for the fantasies that would never be, but it was more than compensated for by the knowledge that her family would be better off than any of them could ever have hoped. Eventually, she'd move Biaste and Dohni into the castle or a proper estate of their own, and she'd help Tori find a suitable husband, a wealthy merchant perhaps, when the girl was ready.

There remained only one problem. Meralda feared that Priscilla was catching on to her condition, for the woman, though outwardly pleasant, had cast her a few unmistakable glances. Suspicious glances, like those of Steward Temigast. They knew of her condition or suspected it. In any case they would all know soon enough, which brought a measure of desperation creeping into Meralda's otherwise perfect existence.

Meralda had even thought of going to High Watcher Risten to see if there was some magic that might rid her of the child. She had dismissed that thought almost immediately, however, and not for any fears that Risten would betray her. While she wanted no part of Jaka Sculi, she couldn't bring herself to destroy the life that was growing within her.

By the end of the first week of her marriage, Meralda had determined the only course open to her, and by end of the second week she had mustered the courage to initiate her plan. She asked the cook to prepare eggs for breakfast and waited at the table with Feringal, Priscilla, and Temigast. Better to get it over with all of them at once.

Even before the cook came out with the eggs the smell of the food drifted in to Meralda and brought that usual queasy feeling to her. She bent over and clutched at her belly.

"Meralda?" Feringal asked with concern.

"Are you all right, child?" Temigast added.

Meralda looked across the table to Priscilla and saw suspicion there.

She came up fast with a wail and began crying immediately. It was not hard for Meralda to bring forth those tears.

"No, I am not all right!" she cried.

"What is it, dearest?" Lord Feringal asked, leaping up and running to her side.

"On the road," Meralda explained between sobs, "to Madam Prinkle's. ."

"When you were attacked?" Steward Temigast supplied gently.

"The man, the big one," Meralda wailed. "He ravished me!"

Lord Feringal fell back as if struck.

"Why did you not tell us?" Temigast demanded after a hesitation that seemed to hit all three of them. Indeed, the cook, entering with Meralda's breakfast plate, dropped it to the floor in shock.

"I feared to tell you," Meralda wailed, looking to her husband. "I feared you'd hate me."

"Never!" Feringal insisted, but he was obviously shaken to the core, and he made no move to come back to his wife's side.

"And you're telling us now because. .?" Priscilla's tone and Temigast's wounded expression revealed to the young woman that they both knew the answer.

"Because I'm with child, I fear," Meralda blurted. Overwhelmed by her own words and the smell of those damned eggs, she leaned to the side and vomited. Meralda heard Feringal's cry of despair through her own coughs, and it truly hurt the woman to wound him so.

Then there came only silence.

Meralda, finished with the sickness, feared to sit up straight, feared to face the three. She didn't know what they would do, though she had heard of a village woman who had become pregnant through rape. That woman had not been held to blame.

A comforting hand gripped her shoulder and eased her out of the chair. Priscilla hugged Meralda close and whispered softly into her ear that it would be all right.

"What am I to do?" Lord Feringal stuttered, hardly able to speak through the bile in his throat. His tone made Meralda think that he might banish her from the castle, from his life, then and there.

Steward Temigast moved to support the young man. "This is not, without precedence, my lord," the old man explained. "Even in your own kingdom." All three stared at the steward.

"There is no betrayal here, of course," Temigast went on. "Except that Meralda did not immediately tell us. For that, you may punish her as you see fit, though I pray you will be generous toward the frightened girl."

Feringal looked at Meralda hard, but he nodded just a bit.

"As for the child," Temigast went on, "it must be announced openly and soon. It will be made clear and binding that this child will not be heir to your throne."

"I will slay the babe as it is born!" Lord Feringal said with a growl. Meralda wailed, as did Priscilla, to Meralda's absolute surprise.

"My lord," said Steward Temigast. Feringal punched his fists against the sides of his legs in utter frustration. Meralda noted his every movement then, and recognized that his claim of murder was pure bluster.

Steward Temigast just shook his head and walked over to pat Lord Feringal's shoulder. "Better to give the babe to another," he said. "Let it be gone from your sight and from your lives."

Feringal stared questioningly at his wife.

"I'm not wanting it," Meralda answered that look with an honest answer. "I'm not wanting to think at all of that night, er, time." She bit her lip as she finished, hoping that her slip of the tongue had not been detected.

To her relief and continued surprise it was Priscilla who stayed close to her, who escorted her to her room. Even when they were out of earshot of Temigast and Lord Feringal, the older woman's gentle demeanor did not waver in the least.

"I cannot guess your pain," Priscilla said.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

Priscilla patted her cheek. "It must have been too painful," she offered, "but you did nothing wrong. My brother was still your first lover, the first man to whom you gave yourself willingly, and a husband can ask no more than that."

Meralda swallowed the guilt she felt, swallowed it and pushed it aside with the justification that Feringal was, indeed, her first true lover, the first man she'd lain with who had honest feelings for her.

"Perhaps we will come to some agreement when the child is born," Priscilla said unexpectedly.

Meralda looked at her strangely, not quite catching on.

"I was thinking that perhaps it would be better if I found another place to live," Priscilla explained. "Or took a wing of the castle for myself, perhaps, and made it my own."

Meralda squinted in puzzlement, then it hit her. She was so shocked that her previous peasant dialect came rushing back. "Ye're thinking o' taking the babe for yerself," she blurted.

"Perhaps, if we could agree," Priscilla said hesitantly.

Meralda had no idea of how to respond but suspected she wouldn't know until after the child was born. Would she be able to have the baby anywhere near her? Or would she find that she could not part with an infant that was hers, after all?

No, she decided, not that. She would not, could not, keep the child, however she might feel after its birth.

"We plan too far ahead," Priscilla remarked as if reading Meralda's mind. "For now we must make sure you eat well. You are my brother's wife now and will give him heirs to the throne of Auckney. We must keep you healthy until then."

Meralda could hardly believe the words, the genuine concern. She had never expected this level of success with her plan, which only made her feel even more guilty about it all.

And so it went for several days, with Meralda believing that things were on a steady course. There were a few rough spots, particularly in the bedroom, where she had to constantly assuage her husband's pride, insisting that the barbarian who had savaged her had given her no pleasure at all. She even went to the extent of claiming that she was practically unconscious throughout the ordeal and wasn't even sure it had happened until she came to realize that she was with child.

Then one day, Meralda encountered an unexpected problem with her plan.

"Highwaymen do not travel far," she heard Lord Feringal tell Temigast as she joined the two in the drawing room.

"Certainly the scoundrels are nowhere near Auckney," the steward replied.

"Close enough," Feringal insisted. "The merchant Galway has a powerful wizard for hire."

"Even wizards must know what to look for," Temigast remarked.

"I don't remember his face," Meralda blurted, hurrying to join them.

"But Liam Woodgate does," said Feringal, wearing the smug smile of one who intended to find his revenge.

Meralda worked very hard to not appear distressed.

Chapter 21 THE BANE OF ANY THIEF

The little creature scrambled over the rocks, descending the steep slope as if death itself were chasing it. With an outraged Wulfgar close behind, roaring in pain from his reopened shoulder wound, the goblin would've had better odds against death.

The trail ended at a fifteen-foot drop, but the goblin's run didn't end there as it leaped with hardly a thought. Landing with a thump and a rather sorry attempt at a roll, it got back up, bloody but still moving.

Wulfgar didn't follow; he couldn't afford to take himself so far from the cave entrance where Morik was still battling. The barbarian skidded to a stop and searched about for a rock. Snatching one up, he heaved it at the fleeing goblin. He missed, the goblin too far away, but satisfied that it wouldn't return, Wulfgar turned and sprinted back to the cave.

Long before he arrived there, though, he saw that the battle had ended. Morik was perched on a rock at the base of a jagged spur of stones, huffing and puffing. "The little rats run fast," Morik remarked.

Wulfgar nodded and fell into a sitting position on the ground. They had gone out to scout the pass earlier. Upon returning, they'd found a dozen goblins determined to take the cave home as their own. Twelve against two-the goblins hadn't had a chance.

Only one of the goblins was dead, one Wulfgar had caught first by the throat and squeezed. The others had been sent running to the four winds, and both men knew that none of the cowardly creatures would return for a long, long time.

"I did get its purse, if not its heart," Morik remarked holding up a little leather bag. He blew into his empty hand for luck (and also because the mountain wind whistled chilly this day) then emptied the bag, his eyes wide. Wulfgar, too, leaned in eagerly. A pair of silver pieces, several copper, and three shiny stones-not gemstones, just stones-tumbled out.

"Our luck that we did not encounter a merchant on the path," Wulfgar muttered sarcastically, "for this is a richer haul by far."

Morik flung the meager treasure to the ground. "We still have plenty of gold from the raid on the coach in the west," he remarked.

"So nice to hear you admit it," came an unexpected voice from above. The pair looked up the rocky spur to see a man in flowing blue robes and holding a tall oaken staff staring down at them. "I would hate to believe I'd found the wrong thieves, after all."

"A wizard," Morik muttered with disgust, tensing. "I hate wizards."

The robed man lifted his staff and began chanting. Wulfgar moved quicker, skidding down to scoop a fair-sized stone, then coming up fast and launching it. His aim proved perfect. The rock crashed against the wizard's chest, though it harmlessly bounced away. If the man even noticed it, he showed no sign.

"I hate wizards!" Morik yelled again, diving out of the way. Wulfgar started to move, but he was too late, for the lightning bolt firing from the staff clipped him and sent him flying.

Up came Wulfgar, rolling and cursing, a rock in each hand. "How many hits can you take?" he cried to the wizard, letting fly one that narrowly missed. The second one went spinning into the obviously amused wizard's blocking arm and bounced away as surely as if it had hit solid stone.

"Does everybody in all of Faerыn have access to a wizard?"

Morik cried, picking his trail from cover to cover as he tried to ascend the spur. Morik believed he could get away from, outwit, or outfight (particularly with Wulfgar beside him) any bounty hunter or warrior lord in the area. However, wizards were an entirely different manner, as he had learned so many painful times before, most recently in his capture on the streets of Luskan.

"How many can you take?" Wulfgar yelled again, hurling another stone that also missed its mark.

"One!" the wizard replied. "I can take but one."

"Then hit him!" Morik yelled to Wulfgar, misunderstanding. The wizard was not talking about taking hits on his magical stoneskin, but about taking prisoners. Even as Morik cried out, the robed man pointed at Wulfgar with his free hand. A black tendril shot from his extended fingers, snaking down the spur at tremendous speed to wrap around Wulfgar, binding him fast to the mage.

"I'll not leave the other unscathed!" the wizard cried to no one present. He clenched his fist, his ring sparkled, and he stamped his staff on the stone. A blinding light, a puff of smoke, and Wulfgar and the mage were gone amid a thunder ous rumble along the spur.

"Wizards," Morik spat with utter contempt, just before the spur, with Morik halfway up it, collapsed.

*****

He was in the audience hall of a castle. The incessant black tendril continued to wrap him stubbornly in its grip, looping his torso several times, trying to pin his powerful arms. Wulfgar punched at it, but it was a pliable thing, and it merely bent under the blows, absorbing all the energy. He grabbed at the tendril, tried to twist and tear it, but even as his hands worked one area, the long end of the tendril, released from the wizard's hand, looped his legs and tripped him up, bringing him crashing to the hard floor. Wulfgar rolled and squirmed and wriggled to no avail. He was caught.

The barbarian used his arms to keep the thing from wrapping his neck, and when he was at last sure that it could not harm him, he turned his attention more fully to the area around him. There stood the wizard before a pair of chairs, wherein sat a man in his mid-twenties and a younger, undeniably beautiful woman-a woman Wulfgar recognized all too well.

Beside them stood an old man, and in a chair to the side sat a plump woman of perhaps forty winters. Wulfgar also noted that several soldiers lined the room, grim-faced and wellarmed.

"As I promised," the wizard said, bowing before the man on the throne. "Now, if you please, there is the small matter of my payment."

"You will find the gold awaiting you in the quarters I provided," the man replied. "I never doubted you, good sir. Your merchant mentor Galway recommended you most highly."

The wizard bowed again. "Are my services further required?" he asked.

"How long will it last?" the man asked, indicating the tendril holding Wulfgar.

"A long time," the wizard promised. "Long enough for you to question and condemn him, certainly, then to drag him down to your dungeon or kill him where he lies."

"Then you may go. Will you dine with us this night?"

"I fear that I have pressing business at the Hosttower," the wizard replied. "Well met, Lord Feringal." He bowed again and walked out, chuckling as he passed the prone barbarian.

To everyone's surprise, Wulfgar growled and grabbed the tendril in both hands and tore it apart. He had just managed to gain his feet, many voices screaming about him, when a dozen soldiers descended, pounding him with mailed fists and heavy clubs. Still fighting against the tendril, Wulfgar managed to free his hand for one punch, sending a soldier flying, and to grab another by the neck and slam him facedown on the floor. Wulfgar went down, dazed and battered. As the wizard magically dispelled the remnants of the tendril, the barbarian's arms were brought behind him and looped with heavy chains.

"If it were just me and you, wizard, would you have anything left with which to stop me?" the stubborn barbarian growled.

"I would have killed you out in the mountains," snapped the mage, obviously embarrassed by the failure of his magic.

Wulfgar launched a ball of spit that struck the man in the face. "How many can you take?" he asked.

The enraged wizard began waggling his fingers, but before he could get far Wulfgar plowed through the ring of soldiers and shoulder-slammed the man, sending him flying away. The barbarian was subdued again almost immediately, but the shaken wizard climbed up from the floor and skittered out of the room.

"Impressive display," Lord Feringal said sarcastically, scowling. "Am I to applaud you before I castrate you?"

That got Wulfgar's attention. He started to respond, but a guard slugged him to keep him quiet.

Lord Feringal looked to the young woman seated beside him. "Is this the man?" he asked, venom in every word.

Wulfgar stared hard at the woman, at the woman he had stopped Morik from harming on the road, at the woman he had released unscathed. He saw something there in her rich, green eyes, some emotion he could not quite fathom. Sorrow, perhaps? Certainly not anger.

"I … don't think so," the woman said and looked away.

Lord Feringal's eyes widened, indeed. The old man standing beside him gasped openly, as did the other woman.

"Look again, Meralda," Feringal commanded sharply. "Is it him?"

No answer, and Wulfgar could clearly see the pain in the woman's eyes.

"Answer me!" the lord of Auckney demanded.

"No!" the woman cried, refusing to meet any gaze.

"Fetch Liam," Lord Feringal yelled. Behind Wulfgar, a soldier rushed out of the room, returning a moment later with an old gnome.

"Oh, be sure it is," the gnome said, coming around to stare Wulfgar right in the eye. "You thinking I won't know you?" he asked. "You got me good, with your little rat friend distracting my eyes and you swinging down. I know you, thieving dog, for I seen you afore you hit me!" He turned to Lord Feringal. "Aye," he said. "He's the one."

Feringal eyed the woman beside him for a long, long time. "You are certain?" he asked Liam, his eyes still on the woman.

"I've not been bested often, my lord," Liam replied. "You've named me as the finest fighter in Auckney, which's why you entrusted me with your lady. I failed you, and I'm not taking that lightly. He's the one, I say, and oh, but what I'd pay you to let me fight him fairly."

He turned back and glared into Wulfgar's eyes. Wulfgar matched that stare, and though he had no doubt he could snap this gnome in half with hardly an effort, he said nothing. Wulfgar couldn't escape the fact that he had wronged the diminutive fellow.

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" Lord Feringal asked Wulfgar. Before the barbarian could begin to reply, the young lord rushed forward, brushing Liam aside to stand very close. "I have a dungeon for you," he whispered harshly. "A dark place, filled with the waste and bones of the previous occupants. Filled with rats and biting spiders. Yes, fool, I have a place for you to fill until I decide the time has come to kill you most horribly."

Wulfgar knew the procedure well by this point in his life and merely heaved a heavy sigh. He was promptly dragged away.

*****

In the corner of the audience hall, Steward Temigast watched it all very carefully, shifting his gaze from Wulfgar to Meralda and back again. He noted Priscilla, sitting quietly, no doubt taking it all in, as well.

He noted the venom on Priscilla's face as she regarded Meralda. She was thinking that the woman had enjoyed being ravished by the barbarian, Temigast realized. She was thinking that, perhaps, it hadn't really been a rape.

Given the size of the man, Temigast couldn't agree with that assessment.

*****

The cell was everything Lord Feringal had promised, a wretched, dark and damp place filled with the awful stench of death. Wulfgar couldn't see a thing, not his own hand if he held it an inch in front of his face. He scrabbled around in the mud and worse, pushing past sharp bones in a futile attempt to find some piece of dry ground upon which he might sit. And all the while he slapped at the spiders and other crawling things that scurried in to learn what new meal had been delivered to them.

To most, this dungeon would have seemed worse than Luskan's prison tunnels, mostly because of its purest sense of emptiness and solitude, but Wulfgar feared neither rats nor spiders. His terrors ran much deeper than that. Here in the dark he found he was somewhat able to fend off those horrors.

And so the day passed. Sometime during the next one, the barbarian awoke to torchlight and the sound of a guard slipping a plate of rotten food through the small slit in the half-barred, half-metal hatch that sealed the filthy burrow cell from the wet tunnels beyond. Wulfgar started to eat but spat it out, thinking he might be better off trying to catch and skin a rat.

That second day a turmoil of emotions found the barbarian. Mostly he was angry at all the world. Perhaps he deserved punishment for his highwayman activities-he could accept responsibility for that-but this went beyond justice concerning his actions on the road with Lord Feringal's coach.

Also, Wulfgar was angry at himself. Perhaps Morik had been right all along. Perhaps he did not have the heart for this life. A true highwayman would have let the gnome die or at least finished him quickly. A true highwayman would have taken his pleasures with the woman, then dragged her along either to be sold as a slave or kept as a slave of his own.

Wulfgar laughed aloud. Yes, indeed, Morik had been right. Wulfgar hadn't the heart for any of it. Now here he was, the wretch of wretches, a failure at the lowest level of civilized society, a fool too incompetent to even be a proper highwayman.

He spent the next hour not in his cell, but back in the Spine of the World, that great dividing line between who he once was and what he had become, that physical barrier that seemed such an appropriate symbol of the mental barrier within him, the wall he had thrown up like an emotional mountain range to hold back the painful memories of Errtu.

In his mind's eye he was there now, sitting on the Spine of the World, staring out over Icewind Dale and the life he once knew, then turning around to face south and the miserable existence he now suffered. He kept his eyes closed, though he wouldn't have seen much in the dark anyway, ignored the many crawling things assaulting him, and got more than a few painful spider bites for his inattentiveness.

Sometime later that day, a noise brought him from his trance. He opened his eyes to see the flickers of another torch in the tunnel beyond his door.

"Living still?" came a question from the voice of an old man.

Wulfgar shifted to his knees and crawled to the door, blinking repeatedly as his eyes adjusted to the light. After a few moments he recognized the man holding the torch as the advisor Wulfgar had seen in the audience hall, a man who physically reminded him of Magistrate Jharkheld of Luskan.

Wulfgar snorted and squeezed one hand through the bars. "Burn it with your torch," he offered. "Take your perverted pleasures where you will find them."

"Angry that you were caught, I suppose," the man called Temigast replied.

"Twice imprisoned wrongly," Wulfgar replied.

"Are not all prisoners imprisoned wrongly by their own recounting?" the steward asked.

"The woman said that it wasn't me."

"The woman suffered greatly," Temigast countered. "Perhaps she cannot face the truth."

"Or perhaps she spoke correctly."

"No," Temigast said immediately, shaking his head. "Liam remembered you clearly and would not be mistaken." Wulfgar snorted again. "You deny that you were the thief who knocked over the carriage?" Temigast asked bluntly.

Wulfgar stared at him unblinking, but his expression spoke clearly that he did not deny the words.

"That alone would cost you your hands and imprison you for as many years as Lord Feringal decided was just," Temigast explained. "Or that alone could cost you your life."

"Your driver, Liam, was injured," Wulfgar replied, his voice a growl. "Accidentally. I could have let him die on the road. The girl was not harmed in any way."

"Why would she say differently?" Temigast asked calmly.

"Did she?" Wulfgar came back, and he tilted his head, beginning to catch on, beginning to understand why the young lord had been so completely outraged. At first he had thought mere pride to be the source-the man had failed to properly protect his wife, after all-but now, in retrospect, Wulfgar began to suspect there had been something even deeper there, some primal outrage. He remembered Lord Feringal's first words to him, a threat of castration.

"I pray that Lord Feringal has a most unpleasant death prepared for you, barbarian," Temigast remarked. "You cannot know the agony you have brought to him, to Lady Meralda, or to the folk of Auckney. You are a scoundrel and a dog, and justice will be served when you die, whether in public execution or down here alone in the filth."

"You came down here just to deliver this news?" Wulfgar asked sarcastically. Temigast struck him in the hand with the lit torch, forcing Wulfgar to quickly retract his arm.

With that the old man turned and stormed away, leaving Wulfgar alone in the dark and with some very curious notions swirling about in his head.

*****

Despite his final outburst and genuine anger, Temigast didn't walk away with his mind made up about anything. He had gone to see the barbarian because of Meralda's reaction to the man in the audience hall, because he had to learn the truth. Now that truth, seemed fuzzier by far. Why wouldn't Meralda identify Wulfgar if she had, indeed, recognized him? How could she not? The man was remarkable, after all, being near to seven feet in height and with shoulders as broad as a young giant's.

Priscilla was wrong, Temigast knew, for he recognized that she was thinking that Meralda had enjoyed the rape. "Ridiculous," the steward muttered, verbalizing his thoughts that he might make some sense of them. "Purely and utterly ridiculous.

"But would Meralda protect her rapist?" he asked himself quietly.

The answer hit him as clearly as the image of an idiotic young man slipping off a cliff.

Chapter 22 GOOD LORD BRANDEBURG

"I hate wizards," Morik muttered, crawling out of the rubble of the slide, a dozen cuts and bruises decorating his body. "Not really a fair fight. I must learn this spellcasting business!"

The rogue spent a long while surveying the area, but of course, Wulfgar was nowhere to be found. The wizard's choice in taking Wulfgar seemed a bit odd to Morik. Likely the man thought Wulfgar the more dangerous of the two foes, probably the leader. But it had been Morik, and surely not Wulfgar, who had made an attempt at the lady in the carriage. Wulfgar was the one who had insisted that they let her go, and quickly enough to save the wounded driver. Obviously, the wizard had not come well informed.

Now where was Morik to turn? He went back to the cave first, tending his wounds and collecting the supplies he would need for the road. He didn't want to stay here, not with an angry band of goblins nearby and Wulfgar gone from his side. But where to go?

The choice seemed obvious after but a moment's serious thought-back to Luskan. Morik had always known he would venture back to the streets he knew so well. He'd concoct a new identity as far as most were concerned, but he'd remain very much the same intimidating rogue to those whose alliance he needed. The snag in his plans thus far had been Wulfgar. Morik couldn't walk into Luskan with the huge barbarian beside him and hope to maintain secrecy for any length of time.

Of course, there was also the not-so-little matter of dark elves.

Even that potential problem didn't hold up, though, for Morik had done his best to remain with Wulfgar, as he had been instructed. Now Wulfgar was gone, and the way was left open. Morik took the first steps out of the Spine of the World, heading back for the place he knew so well.

But something very strange happened just then to Morik's sensibilities. The rogue found himself taking two steps westward for every one south. It was no trick of the wizard but a spell cast by his own conscience, a spell of memory that whispered the demands Wulfgar had placed on Captain Deudermont at Prisoner's Carnival that Morik, too, must be set free. Bound by friendship for the first time in his miserable life, Morik the Rogue was soon trotting along the road, sorting out his plan.

He camped on the side of a mountain that night and spotted the campfire of a group of circled wagons. He wasn't far from the main northern pass. The wagons had come from Ten-Towns, no doubt, and were on the road to the south, thus wouldn't go anywhere near to the fiefdom in the west. It was unlikely these merchants had even heard of the place.

"Greetings!" Morik called to the lone sentry later that night.

"Stand fast!" the man called back. Behind him, the others scrambled.

"I am no enemy," Morik explained. "I'm a wayward adventurer separated from my group, wounded a bit, but more angry than hurt."

After a short discussion, which Morik could not hear, another voice announced that he could approach, but it warned that a dozen archers were trained on his heart and he would be wise to keep his palms showing empty.

Wanting no part of a fight, Morik did just that, walking through twin lines of armed men into the firelight to stand before two middle-aged merchants, one a great bear of a man, the other leaner, but still quite sturdy.

"I am Lord Brandeburg of Waterdeep," Morik began, "returning to Ten-Towns, to Maer Dualdon, where I hope to find some remaining sport fishing for knucklehead. Fun business that!"

"You are a long way from anywhere, Lord Brandeburg," the heavier merchant replied.

"Late in the year to be out on Maer Dualdon," the other replied, suspicious.

"Yet that is where I am going, if I find my playful, wandering friends," Morik replied with a laugh. "Perchance have you seen them? A dwarf, Bruenor Battlehammer by name, his human daughter Catti-brie-oh, but the sun itself bows before her beauty! — a rather fat halfling, and. ." Morik hesitated and appeared somewhat nervous suddenly, though the smiles of recognition on the faces of the merchants were exactly what he had hoped to see.

"And a dark elf," the heavy man finished for him. "Go ahead and speak openly of Drizzt Do'Urden, Lord Brandeburg. Well known, he is, and no enemy of any merchant crossing into the dale."

Morik sighed with feigned relief and silently thanked Wulfgar for telling him so much of his former friends during their drinking binges over the last few days.

"Well met, I say to you," the heavy man continued. "I am Petters, and my associate Goodman Dawinkle." On a motion from Petters, the guards behind Morik relaxed, and the trio settled into seats around the fire, where Morik was handed a bowl of thick stew.

"Back to Icewind Dale, you say?" Dawinkle asked. "How have you lost that group? No trouble, I pray."

"More a game," Morik answered. "I joined them many miles to the south, and perhaps in my ignorance I got a little forward with Catti-brie." Both merchants scowled darkly "Nothing serious, I assure you," Morik quickly added. "I was unaware that her heart was for another, an absent friend, nor did I realize that grumbling Bruenor was her father. I merely requested a social exchange, but that, I fear was enough to make Bruenor wish to pay me back."

The merchants and guards laughed now. They had heard of surly and overprotective Bruenor Battlehammer, as had anyone who spent time in Icewind Dale.

"I fear that I bragged of some tracking, some ranger skills," Morik continued, "and so Bruenor decided to test me. They took my horse, my fine clothes, and disappeared from the road-so well into the brush, led by Drizzt, that one not understanding the dark elf's skills would think they had magical aid." The merchants bobbed their heads, laughing still.

"So now I must find them, though I know they are already nearing Icewind Dale." He chuckled at himself. "I'm sure they'll laugh when I arrive on foot, wearing soiled and tattered clothing."

"You look as if you've had a fight," Dawinkle remarked, noticing the signs of the landslide and the goblin battle.

"A row with a few goblins and a single ogre, nothing serious," the rogue replied nonchallantly. The men raised their eyebrows, but not in doubt-never that for someone who had traveled with those powerful companions. Morik's charm and skill was such that he understood how to weave tales beneath tales beneath tales, that the basic premise became quickly accepted as fact.

"You are welcome to spend the night, good sir," merchant Petters offered, "or as many nights as you choose. We are returning to Luskan, though, the opposite direction from your intended path."

"I will accept the bed this night," Morik replied, "and perhaps. ." He let the words hang in the air, bringing his fingers to his lips in a pensive pose.

Both Petters and Dawinkle leaned forward in anticipation.

"Would you know where I might purchase a horse, a fine riding horse?" Morik asked. "Perhaps a fine set of clothing as well. My friends have left the easy road, and so I might still beat them to Ten-Towns. What wondrous expressions I might paint on their faces when they enter Lonelywood to find me waiting and looking grand, indeed."

The men about him howled.

"Why, we have both, horse and clothing," Petters roared, sliding over to slap Morik on the shoulder, which made him wince because he had been battered there by rocks. "A fine price we shall offer to Lord Brandeburg!"

They ate, they exchanged stories, and they laughed. By the time he finished with the group, Morik had procured their strongest riding horse and a wondrous set of clothing, two-toned green of the finest material with gold brocade, for a mere pittance, a fraction of the cost in any shop in Luskan.

He stayed with them through the night but left at first light, riding north and singing a song of adventure. When the caravan was out of sight he turned to the west and charged on, thinking that he should further alter his appearance before he, Lord Brandeburg of Waterdeep, arrived in the small fiefdom.

He hoped the wizard wouldn't be around. Morik hated wizards.

*****

Errtu found him. There, in the darkness of his dungeon cell, Wulfgar could not escape the haunting memories, the emotional agony, twisted into his very being by the years of torment at the clawed hands of Errtu and his demonic minions.

The demon found him once again and held him, taunted him with alluring mistresses to tempt and destroy him, to destroy, too, the fruit of his seed.

He saw it all again so vividly, the demon standing before him, the babe-Wulfgar's child-in its powerful arms. He had been revulsed at the thought that he had sired such a creature, an alu-demon, but he remembered, too, his recognition of that child-innocent child? — as his own.

Errtu had opened wide his drooling maw, showing those awful canine teeth. The demon's face moved lower, pointed teeth hovering an inch above the head of Wulfgar's child, jaws wide enough to fit the babe's head inside. Errtu moved lower. .

Wulfgar felt the succubi fingers tickling his body, and he woke with a start. He screamed, kicked, and batted, slapping away several spiders but taking bites from more. The barbarian scrambled to his feet and ran full out in the pitch darkness of his cell, nearly knocking himself unconscious as ho barreled into the unyielding door.

He fell back to the dirt floor, sobbing, face buried in his hands, full of anger and frustration. Then he understood what had so startled him from his nightmare-filled sleep, for he heard footsteps out in the corridor. When he looked up he saw the flickers of a torch approaching his door.

Wulfgar moved back and sat up straight, trying to regain some measure of his dignity. He recalled that doomed men were often granted one last request. His would be a bottle of potent drink, a fiery liquid that would burn those memories from his mind for the last time.

The light appeared right outside his cell, and Lord Feringal's face stared in at him. "Are you prepared to admit your crime, dog?" he asked.

Wulfgar stared at him for a long, long moment.

"Very well, then," the unshaken lord continued. "You have been identified by my trusted driver, so by law I need only tell you your crime and punishment."

Still no response.

"For the robbery on the road, I shall take your hands," Lord Feringal explained matter-of-factly. "One at a time and slowly. For your worse crime-" He hesitated, and it seemed to Wulfgar, even in that meager light, as if the man was suddenly pained.

"My lord," prompted old Temigast behind him.

"For your worse crime," Lord Feringal began again, his voice was stronger, "for the ravishing of Lady Meralda you shall be publicly castrated, then chained for public spectacle for one day. And then, dog Wulfgar, you shall be burned at the stake."

Wulfgar's face screwed up incredulously at the reading of the last crime. He had saved the woman from such a fate! He wanted to yell that in Lord Feringal's face, to scream at the man and tear the door from its fitting. He wanted to do all of that, and yet, he did nothing, just sat there quietly, accepting the injustice.

Or was it injustice? Wulfgar asked himself. Did he not deserve such a fate? Did it even matter?

That was it, Wulfgar decided. It mattered to him not at all. He would find freedom in death. Let Lord Feringal kill him and be done with it, doing them both a favor. The woman had falsely accused him, and he could not understand why, but. . no matter.

"Have you nothing to say?" Lord Feringal demanded.

"Will you grant a final request?"

The young man trembled visibly at the absurd notion. "I would give you nothing! " he screamed. "Nothing more than a night, hungry and wretched, to consider your horrid fate."

"My lord," Temigast said again to calm him. "Guard, lead Lord Feringal back to his chambers." The young man scowled one last time at Wulfgar through the opening in the door, then let himself be led away.

Temigast stayed, though, taking one of the torches and waving the remaining guards away. He stood at the cell door for a long while, staring at Wulfgar.

"Go away, old man," the barbarian said.

"You did not deny the last charge," Temigast said, "though you protested your innocence to me."

Wulfgar shrugged, but said nothing and did not meet the man's gaze. "What would be the point of repeating myself? You've already condemned me."

"You did not deny the rape," Temigast stated again.

Wulfgar's head swung up to return Temigast's stare. "Nor did you speak up for me," he replied.

Temigast looked at him as if slapped. "Nor shall I."

"So you would let an innocent man die."

Temigast snorted aloud. "Innocent?" he declared. "You are a thief and a dog, and I'll do nothing against Lady Meralda, nor against Lord Feringal, for your miserable sake."

Wulfgar laughed at him, at the ridiculousness of it all.

"But I offer you this," Temigast went on. "Say not a word against Lady Meralda, and I will ensure that your death will be quick. That is the best I can offer."

Wulfgar stopped laughing and stared hard at the complicated steward.

"Or else," Temigast warned, "I promise to drag the spectacle of your torture out for the length of a day and more, shall make you beg for your death a thousand thousand times before setting you free of the agony."

"Of the agony?" Wulfgar echoed hollowly. "Old man, you know nothing of agony."

"We shall see," Temigast growled, and he turned away, leaving Wulfgar along in the dark. . until Errtu returned to him, as the demon always did.

*****

Morik rode as fast as his horse would take him, for as long as the poor beast would last. He crossed along the same road where he and Wulfgar had encountered the carriage, past the same spot where Wulfgar had overturned the thing.

He came into Auckney late one afternoon to the stares of many peasants. "Pray tell me the name of your lord, good sir," he called to one, accentuating his request with a tossed gold piece.

"Lord Feringal Auck," the man supplied quickly. "He lives with his new bride in Castle Auck, there," he finished, pointing a gnarly finger toward the coast.

"Many thanks!" Morik bowed his head, tossed another couple of silver coins, then kicked his horse's flanks, trotting down the last few hundred yards of road to the small bridge leading to Castle Auck. He found the gate open with a pair of bored-looking guards standing to either side.

"I am Lord Brandeburg of Waterdeep," he said to them, bringing his steed to a stop. "Pray announce me to your lord, for I've a long road behind me and a longer one ahead."

With that, the rogue dismounted and brushed off his fine pantaloons, going so far as to draw his slender sword from his belt, wiping clean the blade as he brought it forth, then launching into a sudden, dazzling display of swordsmanship before replacing it on his hip. He had impressed them, he realized, as one ran off for the castle and the other moved to tend his horse.

Within the span of a few minutes, Morik, Lord Brandeburg, stood before Lord Feringal in the audience hall of Castle Auck, He dipped a low bow and introduced himself as a traveler who had lost his companions to a band of giants in the Spine of the World. He could see from Feringal's eyes that the minor nobleman was thrilled and proud to be visited by a lord of the great city of Waterdeep and would drop his guard in his efforts to please.

"I believe that one or two of my friends escaped," Morik finished his tale, "though on my word not a giant can say the same."

"How far away was this?" asked Lord Feringal. The man seemed somewhat distracted, but Morik's tale obviously alarmed him.

"Many miles, my lord," Morik supplied, "and no threat to your quiet kingdom. As I said, the giants are all dead." He looked around and smiled. "A pity it would be for such monsters to descend on such a quiet and safe place as this."

Lord Feringal took the bait. "Not so quiet, and not so safe," he growled through clenched teeth.

"Danger, here?" he said incredulously. "Pirates, perhaps?" Morik appeared surprised and looked to the old steward standing beside the throne. The man shook his head imperceptively, which Morik took to mean he should not press the issue, but that was exactly the point.

"Highwaymen," Lord Feringal snarled.

Morik started to respond but held his tongue, and his breath, as a woman whom Morik surely recognized entered the room.

"My wife," Lord Feringal introduced her distractedly. "Lady Meralda Auck."

Morik bowed low, took her hand in his, and lifted it to his lips, pointedly staring her right in the eyes as he did. To his ultimate relief, and pride at his own clever disguise, he detected no flicker of recognition there.

"A most beautiful wife," Morik stated. "You have my envy, Lord Feringal."

That brought a smile at last to Feringal's face, but it quickly turned into a frown. "My wife was in the coach attacked by these highwaymen."

Morik gasped. "I would find them, Lord Feringal," he saw "Find them and slay them on the road. Or bring them back to you, if you would prefer."

Lord Feringal waved his hands, quieting the man. "I have the one I desire," he said. "The other was buried under a rock-slide."

Morik's lips pursed at the painful thought. "A fitting fate," he said.

"More fitting is the fate I have planned for the captured barbarian," Feringal grimly replied. "A most horrible death, I assure you. You may witness it if you will stay in Auckney for the night."

"Of course, I shall," Morik said. "What have you planned for the scoundrel?"

"First, castration," Lord Feringal explained. "The barbarian will be killed properly two mornings hence."

Morik assumed a pensive pose. "A barbarian, you say?"

"A huge northerner, yes," Feringal replied.

"Strong of arm?"

"As strong as any man I have ever seen," the lord of Auckney replied. "It took a powerful wizard to bring him to justice, and even that man would have fallen to him had not my guards surrounded him and beat him down."

Morik almost choked over the mention of the wizard, but he held his calm.

"Killing a highwayman is surely an appropriate ending," Morik said, "but perhaps you would be better served in another manner." He waited, watching carefully as Lord Feringal eyed him closely.

"Perhaps I might purchase the man," Morik explained. "I am a man of no small means, I assure you, and could surely use a strong slave at my side as I begin the search for my missing companions."

"Not a chance," Feringal replied rather sharply.

"But if he is familiar with these parts. ." Morik started to reason.

"He is going to die horribly for the harm he brought to my wife," Lord Feringal retorted.

"Ah, yes, my lord," Morik said. "The incident has distressed her."

"The incident has left her with child!" Feringal yelled, grabbing the arms of his chair so forcefully that his knuckles whitened.

"My lord!" the steward cried at the unwise announcement, and Meralda gasped. Morik was glad for their shock, as it covered his own.

Lord Feringal calmed quickly, forcing himself back into his seat and mumbling an apology to Meralda. "Lord Brandeburg, I beg your forgiveness," he said. "You understand my anger."

"I will castrate the dog for you," Morik replied, drawing forth his sword. "I assure you that I am skilled at such arts."

That broke the tension in the room somewhat. Even Lord Feringal managed a smile. "We will take care of the unpleasantries," he replied, "but I would, indeed, enjoy your company at the execution of sentence. Will you stay as my guest for the two days?"

Morik bowed very low. "I am at your service, my lord."

Soon after, Morik was brought to an inn just beyond the castle bridge. He wasn't thrilled to learn that Lord Feringal kept guests outside the castle walls. That would make it all the harder for him to get near Wulfgar. He did learn from the escort, though, that Wulfgar was being kept in a dungeon beneath the castle.

Morik had to get to his friend, and fast, for, given the false accusations placed against Wulfgar, Lord Feringal would surely and horribly kill the man. A daring rescue had never been a part of Morik's plan. Many thieves were sold to adventuring lords, and so he had hoped Lord Feringal would part with this one for a handsome sum-and the lord's own gold, at that-but rapists, particularly men who ravished noblewomen, found only one, horrible fate.

Morik stared out the window of his small room, looking to Castle Auck and the dark waters beyond. He would try to find some way to get to Wulfgar, but he feared he would be returning to Luskan alone.

Chapter 23 THE SECOND ATTEMPTED JUSTICE

"Here's your last meal, dog," said one of the two guards standing outside Wulfgar's cell. The man spat on the food and slipped the tray in through the slot.

Wulfgar ignored them and made no move for the food. He could hardly believe that he had escaped execution in Luskan, only to be killed in some nondescript fiefdom. It struck him, then, that perhaps he had earned this. No, he hadn't harmed the woman, of course, but his actions of the last months, since he had left Drizzt and the others in Icewind Dale-since ho had slapped Catti-brie across the face-were not those of a man undeserving of such a grim fate. Hadn't Wulfgar and Drizzt killed monsters for the same crimes that Wulfgar had committed? Had the pair not gone into the Spine of the World in pursuit of a giant band that had been scouting out the trail, obviously planning to waylay merchant wagons? What mercy had they shown the giants? What mercy, then, did Wulfgar deserve?

Still, it bothered the big man more than a little, shook what little confidence he had left in justice and humanity, that both in Luskan and in Auckney he had been convicted of crimes for which he was innocent. It made no sense to him. If they wanted to kill him so badly, why not just do it for those crimes he had committed? There were plenty of those from which to chose.

He caught the last snatches of the guards' conversation as they walked away down the tunnel. "A wretched child it'll be, coming from such loins as that."

"It'll tear Lady Meralda apart, with its da so big!"

That gave Wulfgar pause. He sat in the dark for a long while, his mouth hanging open. Now it began to make a little more sense to him as he put the pieces of the puzzle together. He knew from the guards' previous conversations that Lord Feringal and Lady Meralda were only recently married, and now she was with child, but not by Lord Feringal.

Wulfgar nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of it all. He had become a convenient excuse for an adulterous noblewoman, a balm against Lord Feringal's cuckolding.

"What luck," he muttered, but he understood that more than bad luck had caused his current predicament. A series of bad choices on his part had landed him here in the dark with the spiders and the stench and the visits of the demon.

Yes, he deserved this, he believed. Not for the crimes accused, but for those committed.

*****

She couldn't sleep, couldn't even begin to close her eyes. Feringal had left her early and returned to his own room, for she had claimed discomfort and begged him to give her a reprieve from his constant amorous advances. It wasn't that she minded the man's attention. In fact, her lovemaking with Feringal was certainly pleasant, and were it not for the child and the thought of the poor man in the dungeon, it would go far beyond pleasant.

Meralda had come to know that her change of heart concerning Feringal was well founded, that he was a gentle and decent man. She had little trouble looking at Feringal in a I fresh way, recognizing his handsome features and his charm, though that was somewhat buried by his years under the influences of his shrewish sister. Meralda could unearth that charm, she knew, could bring out the best in Feringal and live in bliss with the good man.

However, the woman found that she could not tolerate herself. How her foolishness had come back to haunt her in the form of the baby in her womb, in the simmering anger within her husband. Perhaps the most bitter blow of all to Meralda was the forthcoming execution of an innocent man, a man who had saved her from the very crime for which he was to be horribly killed.

After Wulfgar had been dragged away, Meralda tried to rationalize the sentence, reminding herself that the man was, indeed, a highwayman, going so far as to tell herself that the barbarian had victimized others, perhaps even raped other women.

But those arguments hadn't held water, for Meralda knew better. Though he had robbed her carriage, she'd gotten a fair glimpse into the man's character. Her lie had caused this. Her lie would bring the brutal execution to a man undeserving.

Meralda lay late into the night, thinking herself the most horrible person in all the world. She hardly realized that she was moving sometime later, padding barefoot along the castle's cold stone floor with the guiding light of a single candle. She went to Temigast's room, pausing at the door to hear the reassuring sounds of the old man's snoring, and in she crept. As the steward, Temigast kept the keys to every door in the castle on a large wrought iron ring.

Meralda found the ring on a hook above the steward's Dresser, and she took it quietly, glancing nervously at Temigast with every little noise. Somehow she got out of the room without, waking the man, then skittered across the audience hall, past the servant's quarters, and into the kitchen. There she found the trap door leading to the levels below, bolted and barred so strongly that no man, not even a giant, could hope to open it. Unless he had the keys.

Meralda fumbled with them, trying each until she had finally thrown every lock and shifted every bar aside. She paused, collecting herself, trying to form a more complete plan. She heard the guards then, laughing in a side room, and paced over to peer inside. They were playing bones.

Meralda went to the larder door, a hatch really, that led to the outside wall of the castle. There wasn't much room among the rocks out there, especially if the tide was in, which it was, but it would have to do. Unlocking it as well, the woman went to the trap door and gently pulled it open. Slipping down to the dirty tunnels, she walked barefoot in the slop, hiking her dressing gown up so that it would carry no revealing stains.

Wulfgar awoke to sounds of a key in the lock of his cell door, and a thin, flickering light outside in the corridor. Having lost all track of time in the dark, he thought the morning of his torture had arrived. How surprised he was to find Lady Meralda staring in at him though the bars of his locked cell.

"Can you forgive me?" she whispered, glancing over her shoulder nervously.

Wulfgar just gaped at her.

"I didn't know he'd come after you," the woman explained. "I thought he'd let it go, and I'd be-"

"Safe," he finished for her. "You thought that your child would be safe." Now it was Meralda's turn for an incredulous stare. "Why have you come?" Wulfgar asked.

"You could've killed us," she replied. "Me and Liam on the road, I mean. Or done as they said you done."

"As you said I did," Wulfgar reminded.

"You could've let your friend have his way on the road, could've let Liam die," Meralda went on. "I'm owing you this much at least." To Wulfgar's astonishment she turned the key in the lock. "Up the ladder and to the left, then through the larder," she explained. "The way's clear." She lit another candle and left it for him, then turned and ran off.

Wulfgar gave her a lead, not wanting to catch up to her, for he didn't want her implicated if he were caught. Outside his cell, he pulled a metal sconce from the wall and used it to batter the lock as quietly as he could to make it look as though he had broken out of his own accord. Then he moved down the corridors to the ladder and up into the kitchen.

He, too, heard the guards arguing and rolling bones in a nearby room, so he couldn't similarly destroy the locks and bars up here. He re-locked and barred the trap door. Let them think he'd found some magical assistance. Going straight through the larder, as Meralda had bade him, Wulfgar squeezed through the small door, a tight fit indeed, and found a precarious perch on wet rocks outside at the base of the castle. The stones were worn and smooth. Wulfgar couldn't hope to scale it, nor was there any apparent way around the corner, for the tide was crashing in.

Wulfgar leaped into the cold water.

*****

Hiding in the kitchen, Meralda nodded as Wulfgar heightened her ruse by securing the trap door. She similarly locked the larder, washed all signs of her subterranean adventure from her feet, and padded quietly back to return the keys to Steward Temigast's room without further incident.

Meralda was back in her bed soon after, the terrible demons of guilt-some of them, at least-banished at last.

*****

The breeze off the water was chill, but Morik was still sweating under the heavy folds of his latest disguise as an old washerwoman. He stood behind a stone wall near the entrance to the short bridge leading to Castle Auck.

"Why did they put the thing on an island?" the rogue muttered disgustedly, but of course, his own current troubles answered the question. A lone guard leaned on the wall above the huge castle gate. The man was very likely half asleep, but Morik could see no way to get near to him. The bridge was well lit, torches burning all the night long from what he had heard, and it offered no cover whatsoever. He would have to swim to the castle.

Morik looked at the dark waters doubtfully. He wouldn't have much of a disguise left after crossing through that, if he even made it. Morik wasn't a strong swimmer and didn't know the sea or what monsters might lurk beneath the dark waves.

Morik realized then and there that his time with Wulfgar was at its end. He would go to the place of torture in the morning, he decided, but probably only to say farewell, for it was unlikely he could rescue the man there without jeopardizing himself.

No, he decided, he wouldn't even attend. "What good might it bring?" he muttered. It could even bring disaster for Morik if the wizard who had caught Wulfgar was there and recognized him. "Better that I remember Wulfgar from our times of freedom.

"Farewell, my big friend," Morik said aloud sadly. "I go now back to Luskan-"

Morik paused as the water churned at the base of the wall. A large, dark form began crawling from the surf. The rogue's hand went to his sword.

"Morik?" Wulfgar asked, his teeth chattering from the icy water. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you!" the rogue cried, delighted and astounded all at once. "I, of course, came to rescue you," the cocky rogue added, bending to take Wulfgar's arm and help pull the man up beside him. "This will require a lot of explaining, but come, let us be fast on our way."

Wulfgar wasn't about to argue.

*****

"I shall have every guard in this place executed!" Lord Feringal fumed when he learned of the escape the next morning, the morning he was planning to exact his revenge upon the barbarian.

The guard shrank back, fearing Lord Feringal would attack him then and there, and indeed, it seemed as if the young man would charge him from his chair. Meralda grabbed him by the arm, settling him. "Calm, my lord," she said.

"Calm?" Lord Feringal balked. "Who failed me?" he yelled at the guard. "Who shall pay in Wulfgar's stead?"

"None," Meralda answered before the stammering guard could begin to reply. Feringal looked at her incredulously. "Anyone you harm will be because of me," the woman explained. "I'll have no blood on my hands. You'd only be making things worse."

The young lord calmed somewhat and sat back, staring at his wife, at the woman he wanted, above all else, to protect.

After a moment's thought, a moment of looking into that beautiful, innocent face, Feringal nodded his agreement. "Search all the lands," he instructed the guard, "and the castle again from dungeon to parapet. Return him to me alive."

Beads of sweat on his forehead, the guard bowed and ran out of the room.

"Fear not, my love," Lord Feringal said to Meralda. "I shall recall the wizard and begin the search anew. The barbarian shall not escape."

"Please, my lord," Meralda begged. "Don't summon the wizard again, or any other." That raised a few eyebrows, including Priscilla's and Temigast's. "I'm wanting it all done," she explained. "It's done, I say, and on the road behind me. I'm not wanting to look back ever again. Let the man go and die in the mountains, and let us look ahead to our own life, to when you might be siring children of our own."

Feringal continued to stare, unblinking. Slowly, very slowly, his head nodded, and Meralda relaxed back in her chair.

*****

Steward Temigast watched it all with growing certainty. He knew, without doubt, that Meralda was the one who had freed the barbarian. The wise old man, suspicious since seeing the woman's reaction when Wulfgar had first been dragged before her, had little trouble in understanding why. He resolved to say nothing, for it was not his place to inflict unnecessary pain on his lord. In any event, the child would be put out of the way and in no line of ascension.

But Temigast was far from easy with it all, especially after he looked at Priscilla and saw her wearing an expression that might have been his own. She was always suspicious, that one, and Temigast feared she was harboring his same doubts about the child's heritage. Though Temigast felt it not his place to inflict unnecessary pain, Priscilla Auck seemed to revel in just that sort of thing. The road to which Meralda had referred was far from clear in either direction.

Chapter 24 WINTER'S PAUSE

"This is our chance," Wulfgar explained to Morik. The pair were crouched behind a shielding wall of stone on a mountainside above one of the many small villages on the southern side of the Spine of the World.

Morik looked at his friend and shook his head, giving a less-than-enthusiastic sigh. Not only had Wulfgar refrained from the bottle in the three weeks since their return from Auckney, but had forbidden either of them to engage in any more highwayman activities. The season was getting late, turning toward winter, which meant a nearly constant stream of caravans as the last merchants returned from Icewind Dale. The seasonal occupants of the northern stretches left then as well, the men and women who went to Ten-Towns to fish for the summers then rolled their wagons back to Luskan when the season ended.

Wulfgar had made it clear to Morik that their thieving days were over. So here they were, overlooking a small, incredibly boring village they'd learned was expecting some sort of orc or goblin attack.

"They will not attack from below," Wulfgar remarked, pointing to a wide field east of the village on the same height as the higher buildings. "From there," Wulfgar explained.

"That's where they've constructed their wall and best defenses," Morik replied, as if that should settle it all. They believed that the coming band of monsters numbered less than a score, and while there weren't more than half that number in the town, Morik didn't see any real problems here.

"More may come down from above," Wulfgar reasoned. "The villagers might be sorely pressed if attacked from two sides."

"You're looking for an excuse," Morik accused. Wulfgar stared at him curiously. "An excuse to get into the fight," the rogue clarified, which brought a smile to Wulfgar's face. "Unless it's against merchants," Morik glumly added.

Wulfgar held his calm and contented expression. "I wish to battle deserving opponents," he said.

"I know many peasants who would argue that merchants are more deserving than goblinkind," Morik replied.

Wulfgar shook his head, in no mood and with no time to sit and ponder the philosophical points. They saw the movement beyond the village, the approach of monsters Wulfgar knew, of creatures the barbarian could cut down without remorse or regard. A score of orcs charged wildly across the field, rushing past the ineffective arrow volleys from the villagers.

"Go and be done with it," Morik said, starting to rise.

Wulfgar, a student of such attacks, held him down and turned his gaze up the slopes to where a huge boulder soared down, smashing the side of one building.

"There's a giant above," Wulfgar whispered, already starting his circle up the mountain. "Perhaps more."

"So that is where we shall go," Morik grumbled with resignation, though he obviously doubted the wisdom of such a course.

Another rock soared down, then a third.The giant was lifting a fourth when Wulfgar and Morik turned a bend in the trail and slipped between a pair of boulders, spotting the behemoth from behind.

Wulfgar's hand axe bit into the giant's arm, and it dropped the boulder onto its own head. The giant bellowed and spun about to where Morik stood shrugging, slender sword in hand. Bellowing, the giant came at him in one long stride. Morik yelped and turned to flee back through the boulders. The giant came on in swift pursuit, but as it reached the narrow pass Wulfgar leaped atop one of the boulders and brought his ordinary hammer in hard against the side of the behemoth's head, sending it staggering. By the time the dazed giant managed to look to the boulder Wulfgar was already gone. Back on the ground, the barbarian rushed at the giant's side to smash its kneecap hard, then dashed back into the boulders.

The giant ran in pursuit, clutching its bruised head, then its aching knee, then looking at the axe deep into its forearm. It changed direction suddenly, having had enough of this fight, and ran up the mountainside instead, back into the wilds of the Spine of the World.

Morik stepped from the boulders and offered his hand to Wulfgar. "A job well done," he congratulated him.

Wulfgar ignored the hand. "A job just begun," he corrected, sprinting down the mountainside toward the village and the battle being waged at the eastern barricade.

"You do love the fighting," Morik commented dryly after his friend. Sighing, he loped behind.

Below, the battle at the barricade was practically at a standoff, with no orcs yet breaching the shielding wall, but few had taken any solid hits, either. That changed abruptly when Wulfgar came down from on high, running full out across the field, howling at the top of his lungs. Leaping, soaring, arms outstretched, he crashed into four of the creatures, bearing them all to the ground. A frenzy of clubbing and stabbing, punching and kicking ensued. More orcs moved to join the fight but in the end, bloody, battered, but smiling widely, Wulfgar was the only one to emerge alive.

Rallied by his amazing assault and by the appearance of Morik, who had struck down another orc on his way down the slope, the villagers poured into the remaining raiding party. The routed creatures, the dozen who still could run, fled back the way they had come.

By the time Morik got near Wulfgar, the barbarian was surrounded by villagers, patting him, cheering him, promising eternal friendship, offering him a place to live for the coming winter.

"You see," Wulfgar said to Morik with a happy smile. "Easier than any work at the pass."

Wiping off his blade, the rogue eyed his friend skeptically. The fight had been easy, even more so than an optimistic Wulfgar had predicted. Morik, too, was quickly surrounded by appreciative villagers, including a couple of young and attractive women. A quiet winter of relaxation in front of a blazing hearth might not be so bad a thing. Perhaps he would hold off on his plans to return to Luskan after all.

*****

Meralda's first three months of married life had been wonderful. Not blissful, but wonderful, as she watched her mother grow strong and healthy for the first time in years. Even life at the castle was not as bad as she had feared. Priscilla was there, of course, never more than casually friendly and often glowering, but she'd made no move against Meralda. How could she with her brother so obviously enamored of his wife?

She, too, had grown to love her husband. That combined with the sight of her healthy mother had made it a lovely autumn for the young woman, a time of things new, a time of comfort, a time of hope.

But as winter deepened about Auckney, ghosts of the past began to creep into the castle.

Jaka's child growing large and kicking reminded Meralda in no uncertain terms of her terrible lie. She found herself thinking more and more about Jaka Sculi, of her own moments of foolishness regarding him, and there had been many. She pondered the last moments of Jaka's life when he had cried out her name, had risked his entire existence for her. At the time, Meralda had convinced herself that it was out of jealousy for Lord Feringal and not love. Now, with Jaka's child kicking in her womb and the inevitable haze brought by the passage of time, she wasn't so sure. Perhaps Jaka had loved her in the end. Perhaps the tingling they'd felt on their night of passion had also planted the seeds of deeper emotions that had only needed time to find their way through the harsh reality of a peasant's existence.

More likely her mood was just the result of winter's gloom playing on her thoughts, and on her new husband's as well. It didn't help that their lovemaking decreased dramatically as Meralda's belly increased in size. He came to her one morning when the snow was deep about the castle and the wind howled through the cracks in the stone. Even as he began kissing her, he stopped and stared hard at her, then he'd asked her an unthinkable question.

What had it been like with the barbarian?

If he had kicked her in the head, it would not have hurt so much, yet Meralda was not angry at her husband, could surely understand his doubts and fears given her distant mood and the tangible evidence that she had been with another man.

The woman told herself repeatedly that once the child was born and taken away, she and Feringal would settle into a normal existence. In that time when the obvious pressures were gone, they would come to love each other deeply. She could only hope that it all would not disintegrate in the months she had left carrying the child.

Of course, as the tension grew between Feringal and Meralda, so too did the scowls Priscilla shot Meralda's way. Power wrought of having Lord Feringal wrapped around her little finger had given Meralda the upper hand in the constant silent war Priscilla waged against her. Growing thick with another man's child, she found that power waning.

She didn't understand it, though, considering Priscilla's initial response to learning that she had been raped. Priscilla had even mentioned taking the child as her own, to raise away from the castle, as was often done in such situations.

"You are uncommonly large for so early in the pregnancy," Priscilla remarked to her on the same winter day that Feringal had asked her about Wulfgar. It occurred to Meralda that the shrewish woman had obviously sensed the palpable tension between the couple. Priscilla's voice was uncommonly thick with suspicion and venom, which told Meralda that her sister-in-law was keeping close track of the passage of time. There would be trouble, indeed, when Meralda delivered a healthy, full-term baby only seven months after the incident on the road. Yes, Priscilla would have questions.

Meralda deflected the conversation by sharing her fears about the barbarian's size, that perhaps the child would tear her apart. That had silenced Priscilla briefly, but Meralda knew the truce wouldn't last and the questions would return.

Indeed, as winter waned and Meralda's belly swelled, the whispers began throughout Auckney. Whispers about the child's due date. Whispers about the incident on the road. Whispers about the tragic death of Jaka Sculi. No fool, Meralda saw people counting on their fingers, saw the tension in her mother's face, though the woman wouldn't openly ask for the truth.

When the inevitable happened, predictably, Priscilla proved the source of it.

"You will birth the child in the month of Ches," the woman said rather sharply as she and Meralda dined with Steward Temigast one cold afternoon. The equinox was fast approaching, but winter hadn't released its grip on the land yet, a howling blizzard whipping the snow deep around the castle walls. Meralda looked at her skeptically.

"Mid-Ches," Priscilla remarked. "Or perhaps late in the month, or even early in the Month of the Storms."

"Do you sense a problem with the pregnancy?" Steward Temigast intervened.

Once again Meralda recognized that the man was her ally. He too knew, or at least he suspected as much as Priscilla, yet he'd shown no hostility toward Meralda. She'd begun to regard Temigast as a father figure, but the comparison seemed even more appropriate when she thought back to the morning after her night with Jaka, when Dohni Ganderlay had suspected the truth but had forgiven it in light of the larger sacrifice, the larger good.

"I sense a problem, all right," Priscilla replied brittly, somehow managing to convey through her tone that she meant no problem with the physical aspects of the pregnancy. Priscilla looked at Meralda and huffed, then threw down her napkin and rushed away, heading right up the stairs.

"What's she about?" Meralda asked Temigast, her eyes fearful. Before he could respond, she had her answer, when shouts rang out from upstairs. Neither of them could make out any distinct words, but it was obvious Priscilla had gone to speak with her brother.

"What should I do-" Meralda started to say, but Temigast hushed her.

"Eat, my lady," he said calmly. "You must remain strong, for you've trials ahead." Meralda understood the double meaning in those words. "I'm certain you'll come through them as long as you keep your wits about you," the old steward added with a comforting wink. "When it is all past, you will find the life you desire."

Meralda wanted to run over and bury her head on the man's shoulder, or to run out of the castle altogether, down the road to the warm and comfortable house Lord Feringal had given to her family and bury her face on her father's shoulder. Instead, she took a deep breath to steady herself, then did as Temigast suggested and ate her meal.

*****

The snow came early and deep that year. Morik would have preferred Luskan, but he'd come to see Wulfgar's point in bringing them to this village refuge. There was plenty of work to do, particularly after snowfalls when the grounds had to be cleared and defensible berms built, but Morik managed to avoid most of it by feigning an injury from the battle that had brought them here.

Wulfgar, though, went at the work with relish, using it to keep his body so occupied he hadn't time to think or dream. Still, Errtu found him in that village as he had in every place Wulfgar went, every place he would ever go. Now, instead of hiding in a bottle from the demon, the barbarian met those memories head-on, replayed the events, however horrible, and forced himself to admit that it had happened, all of it, and that he had faced moments of weakness and failure. Many times Wulfgar sat alone in the dark corner of the room he had been given, trembling, wet with cold sweat, and with tears he could hold back no longer. Many times he wanted to run to Morik's inexhaustible supply of potent liquor, but he did not.

He growled and he cried out, and yet he held fast his resolve to accept the past for what it was and to somehow move beyond it. Wulfgar didn't know where he had found the strength and determination, but he suspected it had laid dormant within him, summoned when he'd witnessed the courage Meralda had displayed to free him. She'd had so much more to lose than he, and yet she had rejuvenated his faith in the world. He knew now that his fight with Errtu would continue until he had honestly won, that he could hide in a bottle, but not forever.

They fought another battle around the turn of the year, a minor skirmish with another band of orcs. The villagers had seen the attack coming and had prepared the battlefield, pouring melted snow over the field of approach. When the orcs arrived they came skidding in on sheets of ice that left them floundering in the open while archers picked them off.

The unexpected appearance of a group of Luskan soldiers who had lost their way on patrol did more to distress Wulfgar and Morik and shatter their idyllic existence than that battle. Wulfgar was certain at least one of the soldiers recognized the pair from Prisoner's Carnival, but either the soldiers said nothing to the villagers or the villagers simply didn't care. The pair heard no tremors of unrest after the soldiers departed.

In the end, it was the quietest winter Wulfgar and Morik had ever known, a needed respite. The season turned to spring, though the snow remained thick, and the pair began to lay their future plans.

"No more highwaymen," Wulfgar reminded Morik one quiet night halfway through the month of Ches.

"No," the rogue agreed. "I don't miss the life."

"What, then, for Morik?"

"Back to Luskan, I'm afraid," the rogue said. "My home. Ever my home."

"And your disguise will keep you safe?" Wulfgar asked with genuine concern.

Morik smiled. "The folk have short memories, my friend," he explained, silently adding that he hoped that drow had short memories, as well, for returning to Luskan meant abandoning his mission to watch over Wulfgar. "Since we were. . exported they have no doubt sated their bloodthirst on a hundred unfortunates at Prisoner's Carnival. My disguise will protect me from the authorities, and my true identity will again grant me the respect needed on the streets."

Wulfgar nodded, not doubting Morik in the least. Out here in the wilds the rogue was not nearly as impressive as on the streets of Luskan, where few could match his wiles.

"And what for Wulfgar?" Morik asked, surprised by the honest concern on his own voice. "Icewind Dale?" Morik asked. "Friends of old?"

The barbarian shook his head, for he simply didn't know the road ahead of him. He would have dismissed that possibility with hardly a thought, but he considered it now. Was he ready to return to the side of the companions of the hall, as he, Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-brie, Guenhwyvar and Regis had once been called? Had he escaped the demon and the demon bottle? Had he come to terms with Errtu and the truth of his imprisonment?

"No," he answered, and left it at that, wondering if he would ever again meet the gazes of his former friends.

Morik nodded, though a bit dismayed for his own reasons. He didn't want Wulfgar to return to Luskan with him. Disguising the huge man would be difficult enough, but it was more than that. Morik didn't want Wulfgar to be caught by the dark elves.

*****

"She is playing you for a fool, and all of Auckney knows it, Feri!" Priscilla screamed at her brother "Don't call me that!" he snapped, pushing past her, looking for distraction from the subject. "You know I hate it."

Priscilla would not let it go. "Can you deny the stage of her pregnancy?" she pressed. "She will give birth within two weeks."

"The barbarian was a large man," Feringal growled. "The child will be large, and that is what is deceiving you."

"The child will be average," Priscilla retorted, "as you shall learn within the month." Her brother started to walk away. "I'll wager he'll be a pretty thing with the curly brown hair of his father." That brought Feringal spinning about, glaring at her. "His dead father," the woman finished, not backing down an inch.

Lord Feringal crossed the few feet separating them in one stride and slapped his sister hard across the face. Horrified by his own actions, he fell back, holding his face in his hands.

"My poor cuckolded brother," Priscilla replied to that slap, glaring at him above the hand she had brought to her bruise. "You will learn." With that, she stalked from the room.

Lord Feringal stood there, motionless for a long, long time, trying hard to steady his breathing.

*****

Three days after their discussion, the weather had warmed enough to bring about a thaw, allowing Morik and Wulfgar to depart the village. The villagers were unhappy to see them go, especially because the thaw signaled the time of renewed monster attacks. The pair, particularly impatient Morik, would hear none of their pleas.

"Perhaps I will return to you," Wulfgar remarked, and he was thinking that he might indeed, once he and Morik had gone their own ways outside of Luskan. Where else might the barbarian go, after all?

The road out of the foothills was slow and so muddy and treacherous that the pair often had to walk, leading their horses carefully. Once the mountains gave way to the flatter plain just north of Luskan they found the going relatively easy.

"You still have the wagon and the supplies we left at the cave," Morik remarked.

Wulfgar realized the rogue was beginning to feel a pang of guilt about leaving him. "The cave did not remain empty throughout the winter I'm sure," the barbarian remarked. "Not so many supplies left, I would guess."

"Then take the belongings of the present occupants," Morik replied with a wink. "Giants, perhaps, nothing for Wulfgar to fear." That brought a smile to both their faces, but they didn't hold.

"You should have stayed in the village," Morik reasoned. "You can't go back to Luskan with me, so the village seems as good a place as any while you decide your course."

They'd come to a fork in the road. One path headed south to Luskan, the other to the west. When Morik turned to regard Wulfgar, he found the man staring out that second course, back toward the small fiefdom where he had been imprisoned, where Morik (to hear Morik tell it) had rescued him from a torturous death.

"Plotting revenge?" the rogue asked.

Wulfgar looked at him curiously, then caught on. "Hardly," he replied. "I am wondering the fate of the lady of the castle."

"The one who wrongly accused you of raping her?" Morik asked.

Wulfgar shrugged, as if not wanting to concede that point. "She was with child," he explained, "and very much afraid."

"You believe she cuckolded her husband?" Morik asked.

Wulfgar wrinkled his lips and nodded.

"So she offered your head to protect her reputation," Morik said derisively. "Typical noble lady."

Wulfgar didn't reply, but he wasn't seeing things quite that way. The barbarian understood that she had never intended for him to be caught, but rather, that he should remain a distant and mysterious solution to her personal problems. It was understandable, if not honorable.

"She must have had the babe by now," he mumbled to himself. "I wonder how she faired when they saw it and realized the child couldn't be mine."

Morik recognized Wulfgar's tone, and it worried him. "I'll not have to wonder your fate if you go back to determine hers," Morik dryly remarked. "You couldn't get into that town without being recognized."

Wulfgar nodded, not disagreeing, but he was smiling all the while, a look that was not lost on Morik. "But you could," he said.

Morik spent a long while studying his friend. "If my road was not Luskan," he replied.

"A road of your own making, and with no appointments needing prompt attention," said Wulfgar.

"Winter is not yet gone. We took a chance in coming down from the foothills. Another storm might descend at any time, burying us deep." Morik continued to protest, but Wulfgar could tell by the rogue's tone that he was considering it.

"The storms are not so bad south of the mountains."

Morik scoffed.

"This last favor?" Wulfgar asked.

"Why do you care?" Morik argued. "The woman nearly had you killed, and in a manner horrible enough to have satisfied the crowd at Prisoner's Carnival."

Wulfgar shrugged, not honestly sure of that answer himself, but he wasn't about to back down. "A last act of friendship between us two," he prodded, "that we might properly part in the hopes of seeing each other again."

Morik scoffed again. "One last fight with me at your side is all you're after," he said half humorously. "Admit it, you're nothing as a fighter without me!" Even Wulfgar had to laugh at Morik's irony, but he followed it up with a plaintive expression.

"Oh, lead on," Morik grumbled, conceding as Wulfgar knew he would. "I will play the part of Lord Brandeburg yet again. I only hope that Brandeburg was not connected with your escape and that our common departure times were seen by Feringal as pure coincidence."

"If captured, I will honestly tell Lord Feringal that you played no part in my escape," Wulfgar said, a crooked smile showing under his thick winter beard.

"You have no idea how the promise comforts me," Morik said wryly as he pushed his friend ahead of him toward the west, toward trouble in Auckney.

Chapter 25 EPIPHANY

Two days later, Morik's predicted snowstorm did come on, but its fury was somewhat tempered by the late season, leaving the road passable. The two riders plodded along, taking care to stay on the trail. They made good time, despite the foul weather, with Wulfgar driving them hard. Soon they came to a region of scattered farmhouses and stone cottages. Now the storm proved to be their ally, for few curious faces showed in the heavily curtained windows, and through the snow, wrapped in thick skins, the pair were hardly recognizable.

Soon after, Wulfgar waited in a sheltered overhang along the foothills, while Morik, Lord Brandeburg of Waterdeep, rode down into the village. The day turned late, the storm continued, but Morik didn't return. Wulfgar left his shelter to move to a vantage point that would afford him a view of Castle Auck. He wondered if Morik had been discovered. If so, should he rush down to find some way to aid his friend?

Wulfgar gave a chuckle. It was more likely that Morik had stayed on at the castle for a fine meal and was warming himself before the hearth at that very moment. The barbarian retreated again to his shelter to brush down his horse, telling himself to be patient.

Finally Morik did return, wearing a grim expression indeed. "I was not met with friendly hugs," he explained.

"Your disguise did not hold?"

"It's not that," said the rogue. "They thought me Lord Brandeburg, but just as I feared they considered it a bit odd that I disappeared at the same time you did."

Wulfgar nodded. They had discussed that very possibility. "Why did they let you leave if they were suspicious?"

"I convinced them it was but a coincidence," he reported, "else why would I return to Auckney? Of course, I had to share a large meal to persuade them."

"Of course," Wulfgar agreed archly, his tone dry. "What of Lady Meralda and her child? Did you see her?" the barbarian prompted.

Morik pulled the saddle from his horse and began brushing his own beast down, as if preparing again for the road. "It is time for us to be gone," he replied flatly. "Far from here."

"What news?" Wulfgar pressed, now truly concerned.

"We have no allies here, and no acquaintances even, in any mood to entertain visitors," Morik replied. "Better for all that Wulfgar, Morik, and Lord Brandeburg, put this wretched little pretend fiefdom far behind their horses' tails."

Wulfgar leaned over and grabbed the rogue's shoulder, roughly turning him from his work on the horse. "The Lady Meralda?" he demanded.

"She birthed a child late last night," Morik admitted reluctantly. Wulfgar's eyes grew wide with trepidation. "Both survived," Morik quickly added, "for now." Pulling away, the rogue went back to his work with renewed vigor.

Feeling Wulfgar's eyes on him expectantly, Morik sighed and turned back. "Look, she told them that you had ravished her," he reminded his friend. "It seems likely that she was covering an affair," Morik reasoned. "She lied, condemning you, to hide her own betrayal of the young lord." Again, the knowing nod, for this was no news to Wulfgar.

Morik looked at him hard, surprised that he was not shaken somewhat by the blunt expression of all that had occurred, surprised that he was showing no anger at all despite the fact that, because of the woman, he had been beaten and nearly brutally executed.

"Well, now there is doubt concerning the heritage of the child," Morik explained. "The birth was too soon, considering our encounter with the girl on the road, and there are those within the village and castle who do not believe her tale."

Wulfgar gave a profound sigh. "I suspected as much would happen."

"I heard some talk of a young man who fell to his death on the day of the wedding between Lord Feringal and Meralda, a man who died crying out for her."

"Lord Feringal believes he's the one who cuckolded him?" Wulfgar asked.

"Not specifically," Morik replied. "Since the child was surely conceived before the wedding-even if it had been your child, that would have been so-but he knows, of course, that his wife once lay with another, and now he may be thinking that it was of her own volition and not something forced upon her on a wild road."

"A ravished woman is without blame," Wulfgar put in, for it all made sense.

"While a cheating woman. . " Morik added ominously.

Wulfgar gave another sigh and walked out of the shelter, staring again at the castle. "What will happen to her?" he called back to Morik.

"The marriage will be declared invalid, surely," Morik answered, having lived in human cities long enough to understand such things.

"And the Lady Meralda will be sent from the castle," the barbarian said hopefully.

"If she's fortunate, she'll be banished from Feringal Auck's domain with neither money nor title," Morik replied.

"And if she's un fortunate?" Wulfgar asked.

Morik winced. "Noblemen's wives have been put to death for such offenses," the worldly rogue replied.

"What of the child?" an increasingly agitated Wulfgar demanded. The images of his own horrible past experiences began edging in at the corners of his consciousness.

"If fortunate, banished," Morik replied, "though I fear such an action will take more good fortune than the banishment of the woman. It is very complicated. The child is a threat to Auck's domain, but also to his pride."

"They would kill a child, a helpless babe?" Wulfgar asked, his teeth clenched tightly as those awful memories began to creep ever closer.

"The rage of a betrayed lord cannot be underestimated," Morik answered grimly. "Lord Feringal cannot show weakness, else risk the loss of the respect of his people and the loss of his lands. Complicated and unpleasant business, all. Now let us be gone from this place."

Wulfgar was indeed gone, storming out from under the overhang and stalking down the trails. Morik was quick to catch him.

"What will you do?" the rogue demanded, recognizing Wulfgar's resolve.

"I don't know, but I've got to do something," Wulfgar said, increasing his pace with the level of his agitation while Morik struggled to keep up. As they entered the village, the storm again proved an ally, for no peasants were about. Wulfgar's eyes were set on the bridge leading to Castle Auck.

*****

"Give the child away, as you planned," Steward Temigast suggested to the pacing Lord Feringal.

"It is different now," the young man stammered, slapping his fists helplessly at his sides. He glanced over at Priscilla. His sister was sitting comfortably, her smug smile a reminder that she'd warned him against marrying a peasant in the first place.

"We don't know that anything has changed," Temigast said, always the voice of reason.

Priscilla snorted. "Can you not count?" she asked.

"The child could be early," Temigast protested.

"As well-formed a babe as ever I've seen," said Priscilla. "She was not early, Temigast, and you know it." Priscilla looked straight at her brother, reiterating the talk that had been buzzing about Castle Auck all day. "The child was conceived mid-summer," she said, "before the supposed attack on the road."

"How can I know for sure?" Lord Feringal wailed. His hands tore at the sides of his pants, an accurate reflection of the rending going on inside his mind.

"How can you not know?" Priscilla shot back. "You've been made a fool to the mirth of all the village. Will you compound that now with weakness?"

"You still love her," Steward Temigast cut in.

"Do I?" Lord Feringal said, so obviously torn and confused. "I don't know anymore."

"Send her away, then," the steward offered. "Banish her with the child."

"That would make the villagers laugh all the harder," Priscilla observed sourly. "Do you want the child to return in a score of years and take your kingdom from you? How many times have we heard of such tales?"

Temigast glared at the woman. Such things had occurred, but they were far from common.

"What am I to do, then?" Lord Feringal demanded of his sister.

"A trial of treason for the whore," Priscilla answered matter-of-factly, "and a swift and just removal of the result of her infidelity."

"Removal?" Feringal echoed skeptically.

"She wants you to kill the child," Temigast explained archly.

"Throw it to the waves," Priscilla supplied feverishly, coming right out of her chair. "If you show no weakness now, the folk will still respect you."

"They will hate you more if you murder an innocent child," Temigast said angrily, more to Priscilla than Lord Feringal.

"Innocent?" Priscilla balked as if the notion were preposterous.

"Let them hate you," she said to Lord Feringal, moving her face to within an inch of his. "Better that than to laugh at you. Would you suffer the bastard to live? A reminder, then, of he who lay with Meralda before you?"

"Shut your mouth!" Lord Feringal demanded, pushing her back.

Priscilla didn't back down. "Oh, but how she purred in the arms of Jaka Sculi," she said, and her brother was trembling so much that he couldn't even speak through his grinding teeth. "I'll wager she arched that pretty back of hers for him," Priscilla finished lewdly.

Feral, sputtering sounds escaped the young lord. He grabbed his sister by the shoulders with both hands and flung her aside. She was smiling the whole time, satisfied, for the enraged lord shoved past Temigast and ran for the stairs. The stairs that led to Meralda and her bastard child.

*****

"It's guarded, you know," Morik reminded him, yelling though his voice sounded thin in the howling wind.

Wulfgar wouldn't have heeded the warning anyway. His eyes were set on Castle Auck, and his line to the bridge didn't waver. He pictured the mounds of snow as the Spine of the World, as that barrier between the man he had been and the victim he had become. Now, his mind free at last of all influence of potent liquor, his strength of will granting him armor against those awful images of his imprisonment, Wulfgar saw the choices clearly before him. He could turn back to the life he had found or he could press on, could cross that emotional barrier, could fight and claw his way back to the man he once was.

The barbarian growled and pressed on against the storm. He even picked up speed as he reached the bridge, a fast walk, a trot, then a full run as he picked his course, veering to the right, where the snow had drifted along the railing and the castle's front wall. Up the drift Wulfgar went, crunching into snow past his knees, but growling and plowing on, maintaining his momentum. He leaped from the top of the drift, reaching with an outstretched arm to hook his hammer's head atop the wall. Wulfgar heard a startled call from above as it caught loudly against the stone, but he hardly slowed, great muscles cording and tugging, propelling him upward, where he rolled around, slipping right over the crenelated barrier. He landed nimbly on his feet on the parapet within, right between two dumbfounded guards, neither of them holding a weapon as they tried to keep their hands warm.

Morik rushed up the same path as Wulfgar, using agile moves to scale the wall nearly as fast as his friend had done with brute strength. Still, by the time he got to the parapet Wulfgar was already down in the courtyard, storming for the main keep. Both guards were down, too, lying on the ground and groaning, one holding his jaw, the other curled up and clutching his belly.

"Secure the door!" one of the guards managed to cry out.

The main door cracked open then, a man peeking out. Seeing Wulfgar bearing in, he tried to close it fast. Wulfgar got there just before it slammed, pushing back with all his strength. He heard the man calling frantically for help, felt the greater push as another guard joined the first, both leaning heavily.

"I'm coming, too," Morik called, "though only the gods know why!"

His thoughts far away, in a dark and smoky place where his child's last terrified cry rent the air, Wulfgar didn't hear his friend, didn't need him. Bellowing, he shoved with all his strength until the door flew in, tossing the two guards like children against the back wall of the foyer.

"Where is she?" Wulfgar demanded, and even as he spoke the foyer's other door swung open. Liam Woodgate appeared, rushing in with sword in hand.

"Now you pay, dog!" the coachman cried, coming in fast and hard, stabbing, a feint. Pulling the blade back in, he sent it into a sudden twirl, then feigned a sidelong slice, turning it over again and coming straight in with a deadly thrust.

Liam was good, the best fighter in all of Auckney, and he knew it. That's why it was difficult to understand how Wulfgar's hammer came out so fast to hook over Liam's blade and take it safely wide of the mark. How could the huge barbarian turn so nimbly on his feet to get within reach of Liam's sword? How was he able to come around perfectly, sending his thick arm spiking up under Liam's sword arm? Liam knew his own skill, and so it was even harder for him to understand how his clever attack had been turned against him so completely. Liam knew only that his face was suddenly pressed against the stone wall, his arms pulled tight behind his back, and the snarling barbarian's breath was on his neck.

"Lady Meralda and the child," Wulfgar asked. "Where are they?"

"I'd die afore I'd tell you!" Liam declared. Wulfgar pressed in. The poor old gnome thought he surely would die, but Liam held his determined tongue and growled against the pain.

Wulfgar spun him around and slammed him once, then slammed him again when he managed somehow to hold his feet, launching him over to the floor. Liam nearly tripped up Morik, who skipped right on by through the other door and into the castle proper.

Wulfgar was right behind him. They heard voices, and Morik led the way, crashing through a set of double doors and into a comfortable sitting room.

"Lord Brandeburg?" Lady Priscilla asked.

She squealed in fright and fell back in her chair as Wulfgar followed the rogue into the room. "Where is Lady Meralda and the child?" he roared.

"Haven't you caused enough harm?" Steward Temigast demanded, moving to stand boldly before the huge man.

Wulfgar looked him right in the eye. "Too much," he admitted, "but none here."

That set Temigast back on his heels.

"Where are they?" Wulfgar demanded, rushing up to Priscilla.

"Thieves! Murderers!" Priscilla cried, swooning.

Wulfgar locked stares with Temigast. To Wulfgar's surprise, the old steward nodded and motioned toward the staircase.

Even as he did, Priscilla Auck ran full-out up the staircase.

*****

"Do you have any idea what you've done to me?" Feringal asked Meralda, standing by the edge of her bed, the infant girl lying warm beside her. "To us? To Auckney?"

"I beg you to try to understand, my lord," the woman pleaded.

Feringal winced, pounding his fists into his eyes. His visage steeled, and he reached down and plucked the babe from her side. Meralda started up toward him, but she hadn't the strength and fell back on the bed. "What're you about?"

Feringal strode over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. "My sister says I should toss it to the waves upon the rocks," he said through teeth locked in a tight grimace, "to rid myself of the evidence of your betrayal."

"Please, Feringal, do not-" Meralda began.

"It's what they're all saying, you know," Feringal said as if she hadn't spoken. He blinked his eyes and wiped his nose with his sleeve. "The child of Jaka Sculi."

"My lord!" she cried, her red-rimmed eyes fearful.

"How could you?" Feringal yelled, then looked from the baby in his hands to the open window. Meralda started to cry.

"The cuckold, and now the murderer," Feringal muttered to himself as he moved closer to the window. "You have damned me, Meralda!" he cursed. Holding out his arms, he moved the crying baby to the opening, then he looked down at the innocent little girl and pulled her back close, his tears mixing with the baby's. "Damned me, I say!" he cried, and the breath came in labored, forced gasps.

Suddenly the door to the room flew open, and Lady Priscilla burst in. She slammed it shut and secured the bolt behind her. Surveying the scene quickly, she ran to her brother, her voice shrill. "Give it to me!"

Lord Feringal rolled his shoulder between the child and Priscilla's grasping hands.

"Give it to me!" the woman shrieked again, and a tussle for the baby ensued.

*****

Wulfgar went in fast pursuit, taking the curving staircase four steps at a stride. He came to a long hallway lined with rich tapestries where he ran into yet another bumbling castle guard. The barbarian slapped the prone man's sword away, caught him by the throat, and lifted him into the air.

Morik skittered past him, going from door to door, ear cocked, then he stopped abruptly at one. "They're in here," he announced. He grabbed the handle only to find it locked.

"The key?" Wulfgar demanded, giving the guard a shake.

The man grabbed the barbarian's iron arm. "No key," he gasped breathlessly. Wulfgar looked about to strangle him, but the thief intervened.

"Don't bother, I'll pick the lock," he said, going fast to his belt pouch.

"Don't bother, I have a key," Wulfgar cried. Morik looked up to see the barbarian bearing down on him, the guard still dangling at the end of one arm. Seeing his intent, Morik skittered out of the way as Wulfgar hurled the hapless man through the wooden door. "A key," the barbarian explained.

"Well thrown," Morik commented.

"I have had practice," explained Wulfgar, thundering past the dazed guard to leap into the room.

Meralda sat up on the bed, sobbing, while Lord Feringal and his sister stood by the open window, the babe in Feringal's arms. He was leaning toward the opening as if he meant to throw the child out. Both siblings and Meralda turned stunned expressions Wulfgar's way, and their eyes widened even more when Morik crashed in behind the barbarian.

"Lord Brandeburg!" Feringal cried.

Lady Priscilla shouted at her brother, "Do it now, before they ruin every-"

"The child is mine!" Wulfgar declared. Priscilla bit off the end of her sentence in surprise. Feringal froze as if turned to stone.

"What?" the young lord gasped.

"What?" Lady Priscilla gasped.

"What?" gasped Morik, at the same time.

"What?" gasped Meralda, quietly, and she coughed quickly to cover her surprise.

"The child is mine," Wulfgar repeated firmly, "and if you throw her out the window, then you shall follow so quickly that you'll pass her by and your broken body will pad her fall."

"You are so eloquent in emergencies," Morik remarked. To Lord Feringal, he added, "The window is small, yes, but I'll wager that my big friend can squeeze you through it. And your plump sister, as well."

"You can't be the father," Lord Feringal declared, trembling so violently that it seemed as if his legs would just buckle beneath him. He looked to Priscilla for an answer, to his sister who was always hovering above him with all of the answers. "What trick is this?"

"Give it to me!" Priscilla demanded. Taking advantage of her brother's paralyzing confusion, she moved quickly and tore the child from Feringal's grasp. Meralda cried out, the baby cried, and Wulfgar started forward, knowing that he could never get there in time, knowing that the innocent was surely doomed.

Even as Priscilla turned for the window, her brother leaped before her and slugged her in the face. Stunned, she staggered back a step. Feringal snatched the child from her arms and shoved her again, sending his sister stumbling to the floor.

Wulfgar eyed the man for a long and telling moment, understanding then beyond any doubt that despite his obvious anger and revulsion, Feringal would not hurt the child. The barbarian strode across the room, secure in his observations, confident that the young man would take no action against the babe.

"The child is mine," the barbarian said with a growl, reaching over to gently pull the wailing baby from Feringal's weakening grasp. "I meant to wait another month before returning," he explained, turning to face Meralda. "But it's good you delivered early. A child of mine come to full term would likely have killed you in birthing."

"Wulfgar!" Morik cried suddenly.

Lord Feringal, apparently recovering some of his nerve and most of his rage, produced a dagger from his belt and came in hard at the barbarian. Morik needn't have worried, though, for Wulfgar heard the movement. Lifting the babe high with one arm to keep her from harm's way, he spun and slapped the dagger aside with his free hand. As Feringal came in close, Wulfgar brought his knee up hard into the man's groin. Down Lord Feringal went, curling into a mewling heap on the floor.

"I think my large friend can make it so that you never have children of your own," Morik remarked with a wink to Meralda.

Meralda didn't even hear the words, staring dumbfounded at Wulfgar, at the child he had proclaimed as his own.

"For my actions on the road, I truly apologize, Lady Meralda," the barbarian said, and he was playing to a full audience now, as Liam Woodgate, Steward Temigast and the remaining half dozen castle guards appeared at the door, staring in wide-eyed disbelief. On the floor before Wulfgar, Lady Priscilla looked up at him, confusion and unbridled anger simmering in her eyes.

"It was the bottle and your beauty that took me," Wulfgar explained. He turned his attention to the child, his smile wide as he lifted the infant girl into the air for his sparkling blue eyes to behold. "But I'll not apologize for the result of that crime," he said. "Never that."

"I will kill you," Lord Feringal growled, struggling to his knees.

Wulfgar reached down with one hand and grabbed him by the collar. Helping him up with a powerful jerk, he spun the lord around into a choke hold. "You will forget me, and the child," Wulfgar whispered into his ear. "Else the combined tribes of Icewind Dale will sack you and your wretched little village."

Wulfgar pushed the young lord, spinning him into Morik's waiting grasp. Staring at Liam and the other dangerous guards, the rogue wasted no time in putting a sharp dagger to the man's throat.

"Secure us supplies for the road," Wulfgar instructed. "We need wrappings and food for the babe." Everyone in the room, save Wulfgar and the baby, wore incredulous expressions. "Do it!" the barbarian roared. Frowning, Morik pushed toward the door with Lord Feringal, waving a scrambling Priscilla out ahead of him.

"Fetch!" the rogue instructed Liam and Priscilla. He glanced back and saw Wulfgar moving toward Meralda then, so he pushed out even further, backing them all away.

"What made you do such a thing?" Meralda asked when she was alone with Wulfgar and the child.

"Your problem was not hard to discern," Wulfgar explained.

"I falsely accused you."

"Understandably so," Wulfgar replied. "You were trapped and scared, but in the end you risked everything to free me from prison. I could not let that deed go unpaid."

Meralda shook her head, too overwhelmed to even begin to sort this out. So many thoughts and emotions whirled in her mind. She had seen the look of despair on Feringal's face, had thought he would, indeed, drop the baby to the rocks. Yet, in the end he hadn't been able to do it, hadn't let his sister do it. She did love this man-how could she not? And yet, she could hardly deny her unexpected feelings for her child, though she knew that never, ever, could she keep her.

"I am taking the babe far from here," Wulfgar said determinedly, as if he had read her mind. "You are welcome to come with us."

Meralda laughed softly, without humor, because she knew she would be crying soon enough. "I can't," she explained, her voice a whisper. "I've a duty to my husband, if he'll still have me, and to my family. My folks would be branded if I went with you."

"Duty? Is that the only reason you're staying?" Wulfgar asked her, apparently sensing something more.

"I love him, you know," Meralda replied, tears streaming down her beautiful face. "I know what you must think of me, but truly, the babe was made before I ever-"

Wulfgar held up his hand. "You owe me no explanation," he said, "for I am hardly in a position to judge you or anyone else. I came to understand your. . problem, and so I returned to repay your generosity, that is all." He looked to the door through which Morik held Lord Feringal. "He does love you," he said. "His eyes and the depth of his pain showed that clearly."

"You think I'm right in staying?"

Wulfgar shrugged, again refusing to offer any judgments.

"I can't leave him," Meralda said, and she reached up and tenderly stroked the child's face, "but I cannot keep her, either. Feringal would never accept her," she admitted, her tone empty and hollow, for she realized her time with her daughter was nearing its end. "But perhaps he'd give her over to another family in Auckney now that he's thinking I didn't betray him," she suggested faintly.

"A reminder to him of his pain, and to you of your lie," Wulfgar said softly, not accusing the woman, but surely reminding her of the truth. "And within the reach of his shrewish sister."

Meralda lowered her gaze and accepted the bitter truth. The baby was not safe in Auckney.

"Who better to raise her than me?" Wulfgar asked suddenly, resolve in his voice. He looked down at the little girl, and his mouth turned up into a warm smile.

"You'd do that?"

Wulfgar nodded. "Happily."

"You'd keep her safe?" Meralda pressed. "Tell her of her ma?"

Wulfgar nodded. "I don't know where my road now leads," he explained, "but I suspect I'll not venture too far from here. Perhaps someday I will return, or at least she will, to glimpse her ma."

Meralda was shaking with sobs, her face gleaming with tears. Wulfgar glanced to the doorway to make sure that he was not being watched, then bent down and kissed her on the cheek. "I think it best," he said quietly. "Do you agree?"

After she studied the man for a moment, this man who had risked everything to save her and her child though they had done nothing to deserve his heroism, Meralda nodded.

The tears continued to flow freely. Wulfgar could appreciate the pain she was feeling, the depth of her sacrifice. He leaned in, allowing Meralda to stroke and kiss her baby girl one last time, but when she moved to take her away, Wulfgar pulled back. Meralda's smile of understanding was bittersweet.

"Fairwell, little one," she said through her sobs and looked away. Wulfgar bowed to Meralda one last time, then, with the baby cradled in his big arms, he turned and left the room.

He found Morik in the hallway, barking commands for plenty of food and clothing-and gold, for they'd need gold to properly situate the child in warm and comfortable inns. Barbarian, baby, and thief, made their way through the castle, and no one made a move to stop them. It seemed as if Lord Feringal had cleared their path, wanting the two thieves and the bastard child out of his castle and out of his life as swiftly as possible.

Priscilla, however, was a different issue. They ran into her on the first floor, where she came up to Wulfgar and tried to take the baby, glaring at him defiantly all the while. The barbarian held her at bay, his expression making it clear that he would break her in half if she tried to harm the child. Priscilla huffed her disgust, threw a thick wool wrap at him, and with a final growl of protest, turned on her heel.

"Stupid cow," Morik muttered under his breath.

Chuckling, Wulfgar tenderly wrapped the baby in the warm blanket, finally silencing her crying. Outside, the daylight was fast on the wane, but the storm had faded, the last clouds breaking apart and rushing across the sky on swift winds. The gate was lowered. Across the bridge they saw Steward Temigast waiting for them with a pair of horses, Lord Feringal at his side.

Feringal stood staring at Wulfgar and the baby for a long moment. "If you ever come back. ." he started to say.

"Why would I?" the barbarian interrupted. "I have my child now, and she will grow up to be a queen in Icewind Dale. Entertain no thoughts of coming after me, Lord Feringal, to the ruin of all your world."

"Why would I?" Feringal returned in the same grim tone, facing up to Wulfgar boldly. "I have my wife, my beautiful wife. My innocent wife, who gives herself to me willingly. I do not have to force myself upon her."

That last statement, a recapture of some measure of manly pride, told Wulfgar that Feringal had forgiven Meralda, or that he soon enough would. Wulfgar's desperate, unconsidered and purely improvised plan had somehow, miraculously, worked. He bit back any semblance of a chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all, let Feringal have his needed moment. He didn't even blink as the lord of Auckney composed himself, squared his shoulders, and walked back across the bridge through the lowered gate to his home and his wife.

Steward Temigast handed the reins to the pair. "She isn't yours," the steward said unexpectedly. Starting to pull himself and the babe up into the saddle, Wulfgar pretended not to hear him.

"Fear not, for I'll not tell, nor will Meralda, whose life you have truly saved this day," the steward went on. "You are a fine man, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, of the Tribe of the Elk of Icewind Dale." Wulfgar blinked in amazement, both at the compliment and at the simple fact that the man knew so much of him.

"The wizard who caught you told him," Morik reasoned. "I hate wizards."

"There will be no pursuit," said Temigast. "On my word."

And that word held true, for Morik and Wulfgar rode without incident back to the overhang, where they retrieved their own horses, then continued down the east road and out of Auckney for good.

"What is it?" Wulfgar asked Morik later that night, seeing the rogue's amused expression. They were huddled about a blazing fire, keeping the child warm. Morik smiled and held up a pair of bottles, one with warm goat's milk for the child, the other with their favored potent drink. Wulfgar took the one with the goat's milk.

"I will never understand you, my friend," Morik remarked.

Wulfgar smiled, but did not respond. Morik could never truly know of Wulfgar's past, of the good times with Drizzt and the others, and of the very worst times with Errtu and the offspring of his stolen seed.

"There are easier ways to make gold," Morik remarked, and that brought Wulfgar's steely gaze over him. "You mean to sell the child, of course," Morik reasoned.

Wulfgar scoffed.

"A fine price," Morik argued, taking a healthy swig from the bottle.

"Not fine enough," said Wulfgar, turning back to the babe. The little girl wriggled and cooed.

"You cannot plan to keep her!" Morik argued. "What place has she with us? With you, wherever you plan to go? Have you lost all sensibility?"

Scowling, Wulfgar spun on him, slapped the bottle from his hands, then shoved him back to the ground, as determined an answer as Morik the Rogue had ever heard.

"She's not even yours!" Morik reminded him.

The rogue could not have been more wrong.