The Spine of the World - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,126
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.