Excerpt
The Spine of the World: Dungeons & Dragons
1
Into Port
“I do so hate this place,” remarked Robillard, the robed wizard. He was speaking to Captain Deudermont of the
Sea Sprite as the three-masted schooner rounded a long jettie and came in sight of the harbor of the northern port of Luskan.
Deudermont, a tall and stately man, mannered as a lord and with a calm, pensive demeanor, merely nodded at his wizard’s proclamation. He had heard it all before, and many times. He looked to the city skyline and noted the distinctive structure of the Hosttower of the Arcane, the famed wizards’ guild of Luskan. That, Deudermont knew, was the source of Robillard’s sneering attitude concerning this port, though the wizard had been sketchy in his explanations, making a few offhand remarks about the “idiots” running the Hosttower and their inability to discern a true wizardly master from a conniving trickster. Deudermont suspected that Robillard had once been denied admission to the guild.
“Why Luskan?” the ship’s wizard complained. “Would not Waterdeep have better suited our needs? No harbor along the entire Sword Coast can compare with Waterdeep’s repair facilities.”
“Luskan was closer,” Deudermont reminded him.
“A couple of days, no more,” Robillard retorted.
“If a storm found us in those couple of days, the damaged hull might have split apart, and all our bodies would have been food for the crabs and the fishes,” said the captain. “It seemed a foolish gamble for the sake of one man’s pride.”
Robillard started to respond but caught the meaning of the captain’s last statement before he could embarrass himself further. A great frown shadowed his face. “The pirates would have had us had I not timed the blast perfectly,” the wizard muttered after he took a few moments to calm down.
Deudermont conceded the point. Indeed, Robillard’s work in the last pirate hunt had been nothing short of spectacular. Several years before, the
Sea Sprite—the new, bigger, faster, and stronger
Sea Sprite—had been commissioned by the lords of Waterdeep as a pirate hunter. No vessel had ever been as successful at the task, so much so that when the lookout spotted a pair of pirateers sailing the northern waters off the Sword Coast, so near to Luskan, where the
Sea Sprite often prowled, Deudermont could hardly believe it. The schooner’s reputation alone had kept those waters clear for many months.
These pirates had come looking for vengeance, not easy merchant ship prey, and they were well prepared for the fight, each of them armed with a small catapult, a fair contingent of archers, and a pair of wizards. Even so, they found themselves outmaneuvered by the skilled Deudermont and his experienced crew, and out-magicked by the mighty Robillard, who had been wielding his powerful dweomers in vessel-to-vessel warfare for well over a decade. One of Robillard’s illusions had given the appearance that the
Sea Sprite was dead in the water, her mainmast down across her deck, with dozens of dead men at the rails. Like hungry wolves, the pirates had circled, closer and closer, then had come in, one to port and one to starboard, to finish off the wounded ship.
In truth, the
Sea Sprite hadn’t been badly damaged at all, with Robillard countering the offensive magic of the enemy wizards. The small pirate catapults had little effect against the proud schooner’s armored sides.
Deudermont’s archers, brilliant bowmen all, had struck hard at the closing vessels, and the schooner went from battle sail to full sail with precision and efficiency, the prow of the ship verily leaping from the water as she scooted out between the surprised pirateers.
Robillard dropped a veil of silence upon the pirate ships, preventing their wizards from casting any defensive spells, then plopped three fireballs—
Boom! Boom! Boom!—in rapid succession, one atop each ship and one in between. Then came the conventional barrage from ballista and catapult, the
Sea Sprite’s gunners soaring lengths of chain to further destroy sails and rigging and balls of pitch to heighten the flames.
De-masted and drifting, fully ablaze, the two pirateers soon went down. So great was the conflagration that Deudermont and his crew managed to pluck only a few survivors from the cold ocean waters.
The
Sea Sprite hadn’t escaped unscathed, though. She was under the power of but one full sail now. Even more dangerous, she had a fair-sized crack just above the waterline. Deudermont had to keep nearly a third of his crew at work bailing, which was why he had steered for the nearest port—Luskan.
Deudermont considered it a fine choice, indeed. He preferred Luskan to the much larger port of Waterdeep, for while his financing had come from the southern city and he could find dinner at the house of any lord in town, Luskan was more hospitable to his common crew members, men without the standing, the manners, or the pretensions to dine at the table of nobility. Luskan, like Waterdeep, had its defined classes, but the bottom rungs on Luskan’s social ladder were still a few above the bottom of Waterdeep’s.
Calls of greeting came to them from every wharf as they neared the city, for the
Sea Sprite was well known here and well respected. The honest fishermen and merchant sailors of Luskan, of all the northern reaches of the Sword Coast, had long ago come to appreciate the work of Captain Deudermont and his swift schooner.
“A fine choice, I’d say,” the captain remarked.
“Better food, better women, and better entertainment in Waterdeep,” Robillard replied.
“But no finer wizards,” Deudermont couldn’t resist saying. “Surely the Hosttower is among the most respected of mage guilds in all the Realms.”
Robillard groaned and muttered a few curses, pointedly walking away.
Deudermont didn’t turn to watch him go, but he couldn’t miss the distinctive stomping of the wizard’s hard-soled boots.
“Just a short ride, then,” the woman cooed, twirling her dirty blonde hair in one hand and striking a pouting posture. “A quick one to take me jitters off before a night at the tables.”
The huge barbarian ran his tongue across his teeth, for his mouth felt as if it were full of fabric, and dirty cloth at that. After a night’s work in the tavern of the Cutlass, he had returned to the wharves with Morik for a night of harder drinking. As usual, the pair had stayed there until after dawn, then Wulfgar had crawled back to the Cutlass, his home and place of employment, and straight to his bed.
But this woman, Delly Curtie, a barmaid in the tavern and Wulfgar’s lover for the past few months, had come looking for him. Once, he had viewed her as a pleasurable distraction, the icing on his whisky cake, and even as a caring friend. Delly had nurtured Wulfgar through his first difficult days in Luskan. She had seen to his needs, emotional and physical, without question, without judgment, without asking anything in return. But of late the relationship had begun to shift, and not even subtly. Now that he had settled more comfortably into his new life, a life devoted almost entirely to fending off the remembered pain of his years with Errtu, Wulfgar had come to see a different picture of Delly Curtie.
Emotionally, she was a child, a needful little girl. Wulfgar, who was well into his twenties, was several years older than she. Now, suddenly, he had become the adult in their relationship, and Delly’s needs had begun to overshadow his own.
“Oh, but ye’ve got ten minutes for me, me Wulfgar,” she said, moving closer and rubbing her hand across his cheek.
Wulfgar grabbed her wrist and gently but firmly moved her hand away. “A long night,” he replied. “And I had hoped for more rest before beginning my duties for Arumn.”
“But I’ve got a tingling—”
“More rest,” Wulfgar repeated, emphasizing each word.
Delly pulled away from him, her seductive pouting pose becoming suddenly cold and indifferent. “Good enough for ye, then,” she said coarsely. “Ye think ye’re the only man wanting to share me bed?”
Wulfgar didn’t justify the rant with an answer. The only answer he could have given was to tell her he really didn’t care, that all of this—his drinking, his fighting—was a manner of hiding and nothing more. In truth, Wulfgar did like and respect Delly and considered her a friend—or would have if he honestly believed that he could be a friend. He didn’t mean to hurt her.
Delly stood in Wulfgar’s room, trembling and unsure. Suddenly, feeling very naked in her slight shift, she gathered her arms in front of her and ran out into the hall and to her own room, slamming the door hard.
