73.06 The Halfling's Gem by R. A. Salvatore

Author:R. A. Salvatore
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Assassins, Fantasy fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Fiction, Fantasy, General, Forgotten realms (Imaginary place), Drizzt Do'Urden (Fictitious character), Epic, Friendship, Good and evil
ISBN: 9780786942893
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2007-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

14

Dancing Snakes

Luck was with the damaged Sea Sprite and the captured pirate vessel, for the sea held calm and the wind blew steadily but gently. Still, the journey around the Tethyr Peninsula proved tedious and all too slow for the four anxious friends, for every time the two ships seemed to be making headway, one or the other would develop a new problem.

South of the peninsula, Deudermont took his ships through a wide stretch of water called the Race, so named for the common spectacle there of merchant vessels running from pirate pursuit. No other pirates bothered Deudermont or his crew, however. Even Pinochet's third ship never again showed its sails.

"Our journey nears its end," Deudermont told the four friends when the high coastline of the Purple Hills came into view early on the third morning. "Where the hills end, Calimshan begins."

Drizzt leaned over the forward rail and looked into the pale blue waters of the southern seas. He wondered again if they would get to Regis in time.

"There is a colony of your people farther inland," Deudermont said to him, drawing him out of his private thoughts, "in a dark wood called Mir." An involuntary shudder shook the captain. "The drow are not liked in this region; I would advise you to don your mask."

Without thinking, Drizzt drew the magical mask over his face, instantly assuming the features of a surface elf. The act bothered the drow less than it shook his three friends, who looked on in resigned disdain. Drizzt was only doing what he had to do, they reminded themselves, carrying on with the same uncomplaining stoicism that had guided his life since the day he had forsaken his people.

The drow's new identity did not fit in the eyes of Wulfgar and Catti-brie. Bruenor spat into the water, disgusted at a world too blinded by a cover to read the book inside.

By early afternoon, a hundred sails dotted the southern horizon and a vast line of docks appeared along the coast, with a sprawling city of low clay shacks and brightly colored tents rolling out behind them. But as vast as Memnon's docks were, the number of fishing and merchant vessels and warships of the growing Calimshan navy was greater still. The Sea Sprite and its captured ship were forced to drop anchor offshore and wait for appropriate landings to open – a wait, the harbormaster soon informed Deudermont, of possibly a week.

"We shall next be visited by Calimshan's navy," Deudermont explained as the harbormaster's launch headed away, "coming to inspect the pirate ship and interrogate Pinochet."

"They'll take care o' the dog?" Bruenor asked.

Deudermont shook his head. "Not likely. Pinochet and his men are my prisoners and my trouble. Calimshan desires an end to the pirate activities and is making bold strides toward that goal, but I doubt that it would yet dare to become entangled with one as powerful as Pinochet."

"What's for him, then?" Bruenor grumbled, trying to find some measure of backbone in all the political double talk.

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