after.
* * * * * * * * * *
A row of archers lined Sea Sprite's side rail, with several standing forward, as obvious targets, Robillard had placed enchantments on these few, making them impervious to unenchanted arrows, and so they were the brave ones inviting the shots.
"Volley as we pass!" the group leader commanded, and every man and woman began checking their draw and their arrows, finding ones that would fly straight and true.
Behind them, Wulfgar paced nervously, anxiously. He wanted this to be done - a perfectly reasonable and rational desire - and yet he cursed himself for those feelings.
"A pop to steady yer hands?" one greasy crewman said to him, holding forth a small bottle of rum, which the boarding party had been passing around.
Wulfgar stared at the bottle long and hard. For months he had hidden inside one of those seemingly transparent things. For months he had bottled up his fears and his horrible memories, a futile attempt to escape the truth of his life and his past.
He shook his head and went back to pacing.
A moment later came the sound of twenty bowstrings humming, the cries of many pirates, and of a couple from Sea Sprite's crew, hit by the exchange.
Wulfgar knew he should be moving into position with the rest of the boarding party, and yet he found he could not. His legs would not walk past conjured images of Delly and Colson. How could he be doing this? How could he be out here, chasing a warhammer, while they waited back in Waterdeep?
The questions sounded loudly and horribly in Wulfgar's mind. All he had once been screamed back at him. He heard the name of Tempus, the barbarian god of war, pounding in his head, telling him to deny his fears, telling him to remember who he was.
With a roar that sent those men closest to him scurrying in fear, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, charged for the rail, and though no boarding party had been called and though Robillard was even then preparing his fiery blast and though the two ships were still a dozen feet apart, with Sea Sprite fast passing, the furious barbarian leaped atop that rail and sprang forward.
Cries of protest sounded behind him, cries of surprise and fear sounded before him.
But the only cry Wulfgar heard was his own. "Tempus!" he bellowed, denying his fears and his hesitance.
"Tempus!"
* * * * * * * * * *
Captain Deudermont rushed to Robillard and grabbed the skinny wizard, pinning his arms to his side and interrupting his spellcasting.
"The fool!" Robillard shouted as soon as he opened his eyes, to see what had prompted the captain's interference.
Not that the wizard was surprised, for Wulfgar had been a thorn in Robillard's side ever since he'd joined up with the crew. Unlike his old companions, Drizzt and Catti-brie, this barbarian simply did not seem to understand the subtleties of wizardly combat. And, to Robillard's thinking, wizardly combat was all-important, certainly far above the follies of meager warriors.
Robillard pulled free of Deudermont. "I will be throwing the fireball soon enough," he insisted. "When Wulfgar is dead!"
Deudermont was hardly listening. He called out to his crew to bring Sea Sprite about and called to his archers to find angles for their shots that they might lend aid to the one-man boarding party.
* * * * * * * * * *
Wulfgar clipped the rail as he went aboard the pirate ship, tripping forward onto the deck. On came pirate swordsmen, rolling like water to cover him - but he was up and roaring, a long length of chain held in each hand.
The closest pirate slashed with a sword and scored a hit against the barbarian's shoulder, though Wulfgar quickly got his forearm up and pressed out, stopping the blade from doing more than a surface cut. The barbarian pumped out a right cross as he parried, hitting the man hard in the chest, lifting him from his feet and throwing him across the deck, where he lay broken on his back.
Chains snapping and smashing, roaring to his god, the barbarian went into a rampage, scattering pirates before him. They had never seen anything like this before, a nearly seven-foot-tall wild man, and so most fled before his thunderous charge.
Out went one length of chain, entwining a pair of legs, and Wulfgar gave a mighty jerk that sent the poor pirate flying to the deck. Out went the second length of chain, rolling about the shoulder of