The Spine of the World - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,91

occupied.

The sun was up the next morning, shining bright in a blue sky, but that did little to change Morik's complaining mood. He grumbled and slapped at the dirt, then stripped off his clothes and washed them when the pair came across a clear mountain stream.

Wulfgar, too, washed his clothes and his dirty body. The icy water felt good against his injured shoulder. Lying on a sunny rock waiting for their clothes to dry, Wulfgar spotted some smoke drifting lazily into the air.

"More houses," the barbarian remarked. "Friendly folk to those who come as friends, no doubt."

"You never stop," Morik replied dryly, and he reached behind the rock and pulled out a bottle of wine he had cooling in the water. He took a drink and offered it to Wulfgar, who hesitated, then accepted.

Soon after, their clothes still wet, and both a bit lightheaded, the pair started off along the mountain trails. They couldn't take their wagon, so they stashed it under some brush and let the horses graze nearby, with Morik noting the irony of how easy it would be for someone to rob them.

"Then we would just have to steal them back," Wulfgar replied, and Morik started to laugh, missing the barbarian's sarcasm.

He stopped abruptly, though, noting the suddenly serious expression on his large friend's face. Following Wulfgar's gaze to the trail ahead, Morik began to understand, for he spotted a broken sapling, recently snapped just above the trunk. Wulfgar went to the spot and bent low, studying the ground around the sapling.

"What do you think broke the tree?" Morik asked from behind him.

Wulfgar motioned for the rogue to join him, then pointed out the heel print of a large, large boot.

"Giants?" Morik asked, and Wulfgar looked at him curiously. Already Wulfgar recognized the signs of Morik becoming unhinged, as the rogue had over the rat in the cage at Prisoner's Carnival.

"You don't like giants, either?" Wulfgar asked.

Morik shrugged. "I have never seen one," he admitted, "but who truly likes them?"

Wulfgar stared at him incredulously. Morik was a seasoned veteran, skilled as a thief and warrior. A significant portion of Wulfgar's own training had come at the expense of giants. To think one as skilled as Morik had never even seen one surprised the barbarian.

"I saw an ogre once," Morik said. "Of course, our gaoler friends had more than a bit of ogre blood in them."

"Bigger," Wulfgar said bluntly. "Giants are much bigger."

Morik blanched. "Let us return the way we came."

"If there are giants about, they'll very likely have a lair," Wulfgar explained. "Giants would not suffer rain and hot sun when there are comfortable caves in the region. Besides, they prefer their meals cooked, and they try not to advertise their presence with campfires under the open sky."

"Their meals," Morik echoed. "Are barbarians and thieves on their menu of cooked meals?"

"A delicacy," Wulfgar said earnestly, nodding.

"Let us go and speak with the farmers," said Morik, turning around.

"Coward," Wulfgar remarked quietly. The word had Morik spinning back to face him. "The trail is easy enough to follow," Wulfgar explained. "We don't even know how many there are. Never would I have expected Morik the Rogue to run from a fight."

"Morik the rogue fights with this," Morik countered, poking his finger against his temple.

"A giant would eat that."

"Then Morik the Rogue runs with his feet," the thief said.

"A giant would catch you," Wulfgar assured him. "Or it would throw a rock at you and squash you from afar."

"Pleasant choices," said Morik cynically. "Let us go and speak with the farmers."

Wulfgar settled back on his heels, studying his friend and making no move to follow. He couldn't help but contrast Morik to Drizzt at that moment. The rogue was turning to leave, while the drow would, and often had, eagerly rushed headlong into such adventure as a giant lair. Wulfgar recalled the time he and Drizzt had dispatched an entire lair of verbeeg, a long and brutal fight but one that Drizzt had entered laughing. Wulfgar thought of the last fight he had waged beside his ebon-skinned friend, against another band of giants. That time they'd chased them into the mountains after learning that the brutes had set their eyes on the road to Ten-Towns.

It seemed to Wulfgar that Morik and Drizzt were similar in so many way, but in the most important ways they were nothing alike. It was a contrast that continually nagged at Wulfgar, a reminder of the startling differences in his life now, the difference between