The sailor stopped, perplexed. "Many a time, we's to taking ones to the
south," he said, not understanding the reference to "courage."
"Yes, but considering the danger - though I am sure it is not great!" Regis
added quickly, giving the impression that he was trying not to emphasize this
unknown peril. "It is not important. Calimport will bring our cure." Then under
his breath but still loud enough for the sailor to hear, he said, "If we get
there alive."
"'Ere now, what do ye mean?" the sailor demanded, moving back over to Regis.
The smile was gone.
Regis squeaked and grabbed his forearm suddenly as if in pain. He grimaced
and pretended to battle against the agony, while deftly scratching the dried
patch of wax, and the scab beneath it, away. A small trickle of blood rolled out
from under his sleeve.
The sailor grabbed him on cue, pulling the sleeve up over Regis's elbow. He
looked at the wound curiously. "Burn?"
"Do not touch it!" Regis cried in a harsh whisper. "That is how it spreads -
I think."
The sailor pulled his hand away in terror, noticing several other scars. "I
seen no fire! How'd ye git a burn?"
Regis shrugged helplessly. "They just happen. From the inside." Now it was
the sailor's turn to pale. "But I will make it to Calimport," he stated
unconvincingly. "It takes a few months to eat you away. And most of my wounds
are recent." Regis looked down, then presented his scarred arm. "See?"
But when he looked back, the sailor was gone, rushing off toward the
captain's quarters.
"Take that, Artemis Entreri," Regis whispered.
3
Conyberry's Pride
"Those are the farms that Malchor spoke of," Wulfgar said as he and Drizzt
came around a spur of trees on the great forest's border. In the distance to the
south, a dozen or so houses sat in a cluster on the eastern edge of the forest,
surrounded on the other three sides by wide, rolling fields.
Wulfgar started his horse forward, but Drizzt abruptly stopped him.
"These are a simple folk," the drow explained. "Farmers living in the webs
of countless superstitions. They would not welcome a dark elf. Let us enter at
night."
"Perhaps we can find the path without their aid," Wulfgar offered, not
wanting to waste the remainder of yet another day.
"More likely we would get lost in the wood," Drizzt replied, dismounting.
"Rest, my friend. This night promises adventure."
"Her time, the night," Wulfgar remarked, remembering Malchor's words about
the banshee.
Drizzt's smile widened across his face. "Not this night," he whispered.
Wulfgar saw the familiar gleam in the drow's lavender eyes and obediently
dropped from his saddle. Drizzt was already preparing himself for the imminent
battle; already the drow's finely toned muscles twitched with excitement. But as
confident as Wulfgar was in his companion's prowess, he could not stop the
shudder running through his spine when he considered the undead monster that lay
before them.
In the night.
* * *
They passed the day in peaceful slumber, enjoying the calls and dances of
the birds and squirrels, already preparing for winter, and the wholesome
atmosphere of the forest. But when dusk crept over the land, Neverwinter Wood
took on a very different aura. Gloom settled all too comfortably under the
wood's thick boughs, and a sudden hush descended on the trees, the uneasy quiet
of poised danger.
Drizzt roused Wulfgar and led him off to the south at once, not even pausing
for a short meal. A few minutes later, they walked their horses to the nearest
farmhouse. Luckily the night was moonless, and only a close inspection would
reveal Drizzt's dark heritage.
"State yer business or be gone!" demanded a threatening voice from the low
rooftops before they got close enough to knock on the house's door.
Drizzt had expected as much. "We have come to settle a score," he said
without any hesitation.
"What enemies might the likes of yerselves have in Conyberry?" asked the
voice.
"In your fair town?" Drizzt balked. "Nay, our fight is with a foe common to
you."
Some shuffling came from above, and then two men, bows in hand, appeared at
the corner of the farmhouse. Both Drizzt and Wulfgar knew that still more sets
of eyes - and no doubt more bows - were trained upon them from the roof, and
possibly from their flanks. For simple farmers, these folk were apparently well
organized for defense.
"A common foe?" one of the men at the corner - the same who had spoken
earlier from the roof - asked Drizzt. "Surely we've seen none of yer likes
before, elf, nor of yer giant friend!"
Wulfgar brought Aegis-fang down from his shoulder, drawing some uneasy
shuffling from the roof. "Never have we come through your fair town," he replied
sternly, not thrilled with being called a giant.
Drizzt quickly interjected. "A friend of ours was slain near here, down a
dark path in the wood. We were told that you could guide us."
Suddenly the door of the farmhouse burst open and a wrinkled old woman
popped her head out. "Hey, then, what do ye want with the ghost in the wood?"
she snapped angrily. "Not fer to both'ring those that leaves her to peace!"
Drizzt and Wulfgar glanced at each other, perplexed by the old woman's
unexpected attitude. But the man at the corner apparently felt the same way.
"Yeah, leave Agatha be," he said.
"Go away!" added an unseen man from the roof.
Wulfgar, fearing that these people might be under some evil enchantment,
gripped his war hammer more tightly, but Drizzt sensed something else in their
voices.
"I had been told that the ghost, this Agatha, was an evil spirit," Drizzt
told them calmly. "Might I have heard wrong? For goodly folk defend her."
"Bah, evil! What be evil?" snapped the old woman, thrusting her wrinkled
face and shell of a body closer to Wulfgar. The barbarian took a prudent step
back, though the woman's bent frame barely reached his navel.
"The ghost defends her home," added the man at the corner. "And woe to those
who go there!"
"Woe!" screamed the old woman, pushing closer still and poking a bony finger
into Wulfgar's huge chest.
Wulfgar had heard enough. "Back!" he roared mightily at the woman. He
slapped Aegis-fang across his free hand, a sudden rush of blood swelling his
bulging arms and shoulders. The woman screamed and vanished into the house,
slamming the door in terror.
"A pity," Drizzt whispered, fully understanding what Wulfgar had set into
motion. The drow dove headlong to the side, turning into a roll, as an arrow
from the roof cracked into the ground where he had been standing.
Wulfgar, too, started into motion, expecting an arrow. Instead, he saw the
dark form of a man leaping down at him from the rooftop. With a single hand the
mighty barbarian caught the would-be assailant in midair and held him at bay,
his boots fully three feet off the ground.
At that same instant, Drizzt came out of his roll and into position in front
of the two men at the corner, a scimitar poised at each of their throats. They
hadn't even had time to draw their bowstrings back. To their further horror,
they now recognized Drizzt for what he was, but even if his skin had been as
pale as that of his surface cousins, the fire in his eyes would have taken their
strength from them.
A few long seconds passed, the only movement being the visible shaking of
the three trapped farmers.
"An unfortunate misunderstanding," Drizzt said to the men. He stepped back
and sheathed his scimitars. "Let him down," he said to Wulfgar. "Gently!" the
dark elf added quickly.
Wulfgar eased the man to the ground, but the terrified farmer fell to the
dirt anyway, looking up at the huge barbarian in awe and fear.
Wulfgar kept the grimace on his face - just to keep the farmer cowed.
The farmhouse door sprang open again, and the little old woman appeared,
this time sheepishly. "Ye won't be killing poor Agatha, will ye?" she pleaded.
"Sure that she's no harm beyond her own door," added the man at the corner,
his voice quaking with each syllable.
Drizzt looked to Wulfgar. "Nay," the barbarian said. "We shall visit Agatha
and settle our business with her. But be assured that we'll not harm her.
"Tell us the way," Drizzt asked.
The two men at the corner looked at each other and hesitated.
"Now!" Wulfgar roared at the man on the ground.
"To the tangle of birch!" the man replied immediately. "The path's right
there, running back to the east! Twists and turns, it does, but clear of brush!"
"Farewell, Conyberry," Drizzt said politely, bowing low. "Would that we
could remain a while and dispel your fears of us, but we have much to do and a
long road ahead." He and Wulfgar hopped into their saddles and spun their mounts
away.
"But wait!" the old woman called after them. Their mounts reared as Drizzt
and Wulfgar looked back over their shoulders. "Tell us, ye fearless - or ye
stupidwarriors," she implored them, "who might ye be?"
"Wulfgar, son of Beornegar!" the barbarian shouted back, trying to keep an
air of humility, though his chest puffed out in pride. "And Drizzt Do'Urden!"
"Names I have heard!" one of the farmers cried out in sudden recognition.
"And names you shall hear again!" Wulfgar promised. He paused a moment as
Drizzt moved on, then turned to catch his friend.
Drizzt wasn't sure that it was wise to be proclaiming their identities, and
consequently revealing their location, with Artemis Entreri looking back for
them. But when he saw the broad and proud smile on Wulfgar's face, he kept his
concerns to himself and let Wulfgar have his fun.
* * *
Soon after the lights of Conyberry had faded to dots behind them, Wulfgar
turned more serious. "They did not seem evil," he said to Drizzt, "yet they
protect the banshee, and have even named the thing! We may have left a darkness
behind us."
"Not a darkness," Drizzt replied. "Conyberry is as it appears: a humble
farming village of good and honest folk."
"But Agatha," Wulfgar protested.
"A hundred similar villages line this countryside," Drizzt explained. "Many
unnamed, and all unnoticed by the lords of the land. Yet all of the villages,
and even the Lords of Waterdeep, I would guess, have heard of Conyberry and the
ghost of Neverwinter Wood."
"Agatha brings them fame," Wulfgar concluded.
"And a measure of protection, no doubt," added Drizzt.
"For what bandit would lay out along the road to Conyberry with a ghost
haunting the land?" Wulfgar laughed. "Still, it seems a strange marriage."
"But not our business," Drizzt said, stopping his horse. "The tangle the man
spoke of." He pointed to a copse of twisted birch trees. Behind it, Neverwinter
Wood loomed dark and mysterious.
Wulfgar's horse flattened its ears. "We are close," the barbarian said,
slipping from the saddle. They tethered their mounts and started into the
tangle, Drizzt as silent as a cat, but Wulfgar, too big for the tightness of the
trees, crunching with every step.
"Do you mean to kill the thing?" he asked Drizzt.
"Only if we must," the drow replied. "We are here for the mask alone, and we
have given our word to the people of Conyberry."
"I do not believe that Agatha will willingly hand us her treasures," Wulfgar
reminded Drizzt. He broke through the last line of birch trees and stood beside
the drow at the dark entrance to the thick oaks of the forest.
"Be silent now," Drizzt whispered. He drew Twinkle and let its quiet blue
gleam lead them into the gloom.
The trees seemed to close in about them; the dead hush of the wood only made
them more concerned with the resounding noise of their own footfalls. Even
Drizzt, who had spent centuries in the deepest of caverns, felt the weight of
this darkest corner of Neverwinter on his shoulders. Evil brooded here, and if
either he or Wulfgar had any doubts about the legend of the banshee, they knew
better now. Drizzt pulled a thin candle from his belt pouch and broke it in
half, handing a piece to Wulfgar.
"Stuff your ears," he explained in a breathless whisper, reiterating
Malchor's warning. "To hear her keen is to die."
The path was easy to follow, even in the deep darkness, for the aura of evil
rolled down heavier on their shoulders with every step. A few hundred paces
brought the light of a fire into sight. Instinctively they both dropped to a
defensive crouch to survey the area.
Before them lay a dome of branches, a cave of trees that was the banshee's
lair. Its single entrance was a small hole, barely large enough for a man to
crawl through. The thought of going into the lighted area within while on their
hands and knees did not thrill either of them. Wulfgar held Aegis-fang before
