The Spine of the World - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,9

sure that's him?" the first asked. "That's the Wulfgar fellow?"

Even as he asked the question, Wulfgar brought Aegis-fang off of his back and placed it against a wall.

"Oh, by me own eyes, that's him," the second answered. "I'd not be forgettin' him or that hammer o' his. He can split a mast with the thing, I tell ye, and put it in a pirate's eye, left or right, at a hunnerd long strides."

Across the room, Wulfgar had a short argument with a patron. With one mighty hand the barbarian reached out and grabbed the man's throat and easily, so very easily, hoisted him from his seat and into the air. Wulfgar strode calmly across the inn to the door and tossed the drunk into the street.

"Strongest man I ever seen," the second sailor remarked, and his two companions weren't about to disagree. They drained their drinks and watched a bit longer before leaving the Cutlass for home, where they found themselves running anxiously to inform their captain of who they'd seen.

*****

Captain Deudermont rubbed his fingers pensively across his neatly trimmed beard, trying to digest the tale Waillan Micanty had just related to him. He was trying very hard, for it made no sense to him. When Drizzt and Catti-brie had sailed with him during those wonderful early years of chasing pirates along the Sword Coast, they had told him a sad tale of Wulfgar's demise. The story had had a profound effect on Deudermont, who had befriended the huge barbarian on that journey to Memnon years before.

Wulfgar was dead, so Drizzt and Catti-brie had claimed, and so Deudermont had believed. Yet here was one of Duedermont's trusted crewmen claiming that the barbarian was very much alive and well and working in the Cutlass, a tavern Deudermont had frequented.

The image brought Deudermont back to his first meeting with the barbarian and Drizzt in the Mermaid's Arms tavern in Waterdeep. Wulfgar had avoided a fight with a notorious brawler by the name of Bungo. What great things the barbarian and his companions had subsequently accomplished, from rescuing their little halfling friend from the clutches of a notorious pasha in Calimport to the reclamation of Mithral Hall for Clan Battlehammer. The thought, of Wulfgar working as a brawler in a seedy tavern in Luskan seemed preposterous.

Especially since, according to Drizzt and Catti-brie, Wulfgar was dead.

Deudermont thought of his last voyage with the duo when Sea Sprite had put onto a remote island far out at sea. A blind seer had accosted Drizzt with a riddle about one he thought he had lost. The last time Deudermont had seen Drizzt and Catti-brie was at their parting, on an inland lake, no less, where Sea Sprite had been inadvertently transported.

So might Wulfgar be alive? Captain Deudermont had seen too much to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

Still, it seemed likely to the captain that his crewmen had been mistaken. They had little experience with northern barbarians, all of whom seemed huge and blond and strong. One might look like another to them. The Cutlass had taken on a barbarian warrior as a bouncer, but it was not Wulfgar.

He thought no more of it, having many duties and engagements to attend at the more upscale homes and establishments in the city. Three days later, however, when dining at the table of one of Luskan's noble families, the conversation turned to the death of one of the city's most reknowned bullies.

"We're a lot better off without Tree Block Breaker," one of the guests insisted. "The purest form of trouble ever to enter our city."

"Just a thug and nothing more," another replied, "and not so tough."

"Bah, but he could take down a running horse by stepping in front of the thing," the first insisted. "I saw him do so!"

"But he couldn't take down Arumn Gardpeck's new boy," the other put in. "When he tried to fight that fellow, our Tree Block Breaker flew out of the Cutlass and brought the frame of a door with him."

Deudermont's ears perked up.

"Yeah, that one," the first agreed. "Too strong for any man, from the stories I am hearing, and that warhammer! Most beautiful weapon I've ever seen."

The mention of the hammer nearly made Deudermont choke on his food, for he remembered well the power of Aegis-fang. "What is his name?" the captain inquired.

"Who's name?"

"Arumn Gardpeck's new boy."

The two men looked at each other and shrugged. "Wolf-something, I believe," the first said.

When he left the noble's house, a couple of hours later,