Streams Of Silver by R. A. Salvatore Page A

away!” Bruenor demanded.
    “Manners, good dwarf,” the drow shot back. “Remember that Guenhwyvar cleared our escape trail.”
    “Put her away!” Bruenor declared again, his axe swinging at the ready.
    Drizzt stroked the powerful cat’s muscled neck. “Do not heed his words, friend,” he said to the cat. “He is a dwarf, and cannot appreciate the finer magics!”
    “Bah!” Bruenor snarled, though he breathed a bit easier as Drizzt dismissed the cat and replaced the onyx statue in his pouch.
    The two came upon Half-Moon Street a short while later, stopping in a final alley to look for any signs of ambush. They knew at once that there had been trouble, for several injured men stumbled, or were carried, past the alley’s entrance.
    Then they saw the Cutlass, and two familiar forms sitting on the street out in front.
    “What’re ye doin’ out here?” Bruenor asked as they approached.
    “Seems our big friend answers insults with punches,” said Regis, who hadn’t been touched in the fray. Wulfgar’s face, though, was puffy and bruised, and he could barely open one eye. Dried blood, some of it his own, caked his fists and clothes.
    Drizzt and Bruenor looked at each other, not too surprised.
    “And our rooms?” Bruenor grumbled.
    Regis shook his head. “I doubt it.”
    “And my coins?”
    Again the halfling shook his bead.
    “Bah!” snorted Bruenor, and he stamped off toward the door of the Cutlass.
    “I wouldn’t …” Regis started, but then he shrugged and decided to let Bruenor find out for himself.
    Bruenor’s shock was complete when he opened the tavern door. Tables, glass, and unconscious patrons lay broken all about the floor. The innkeeper slumped over one part of the shattered bar, a barmaid wrapping his bloodied head in bandages. The man Wulfgar had implanted into the wall still hung limply by the back of his head, groaning softly, and Bruenor couldn’t help but chuckle at the handiwork of the mighty barbarian. Every now and then, one of the barmaids,passing by the man as she cleaned, gave him a little push, taking amusement at his swaying.
    “Good coins wasted,” Bruenor surmised, and he walked back out the door before the innkeeper noticed him and set the barmaids upon him.
    “Hell of a row!” he told Drizzt when he returned to his companions. “Everyone in on it?”
    “All but one,” Regis answered. “A soldier.”
    “A soldier of Luskan, down here?” asked Drizzt, surprised by the obvious inconsistency.
    Regis nodded. “And even more curious,” he continued, “it was the same guard, Jierdan, that let us into the city.”
    Drizzt and Bruenor exchanged concerned looks.
    “We’ve killers at our backs, a busted inn before us, and a soldier paying us more mind than he should,” said Bruenor.
    “Time to go,” Drizzt responded for the third time. Wulfgar looked at him incredulously. “How many men did you down tonight?” Drizzt asked him, putting the logical assumption of danger right out before him. “And how many of them would drool at the opportunity to put a blade in your back?”
    “Besides,” added Regis before Wulfgar could answer, “I’ve no desire to share a bed in an alley with a host of rats!”
    “Then to the gate,” said Bruenor.
    Drizzt shook his head. “Not with a guard so interested in us. Over the wall, and let none know of our passing.”
    An hour later, they were trotting easily across the open grass, feeling the wind again beyond the break of Luskan’s wall.
    Regis summed up their thoughts, saying, “Our first night in our first city, and we’ve betrayed killers, fought down a host of ruffians, and caught the attention of the city guard. An auspicious beginning to our journey!”
    “Aye, but we’ve got this!” cried Bruenor, fairly bursting withanticipation of finding his homeland now that the first obstacle, the map, had been overcome.
    Little did he or his friends know, however, that the map he clutched so clearly detailed several deadly