The Halfling’s Gem by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online

Do’Urden!”
    “Names I have heard!” one of the farmers cried out in sudden recognition.
    “And names you shall hear again!” Wulfgar promised. He paused a moment as Drizzt moved on, then turned to catch his friend.
    Drizzt wasn’t sure that it was wise to be proclaiming their identities, and consequently revealing their location, with Artemis Entreri looking back for them. But when he saw the broad and proud smile on Wulfgar’s face, he kept his concerns to himself and let Wulfgar have his fun.

    Soon after the lights of Conyberry had faded to dots behind them, Wulfgar turned more serious “They did not seem evil,” he said to Drizzt, “yet they protect the banshee, and have even named the thing! We may have left a darkness behind us!”
    “Not a darkness,” Drizzt replied. “Conyberry is as it appears: a humble farming village of good and honest folk.”
    “But Agatha,” Wulfgar protested.
    “A hundred similar villages line this countryside,” Drizzt explained. “Many unnamed, and all unnoticed by the lords of the land. Yet all of the villages, and even the Lords of Waterdeep, I would guess, have heard of Conyberry and the ghost of Neverwinter Wood.”
    “Agatha brings them fame,” WuIfgar concluded.
    “And a measure of protection, no doubt,” added Drizzt.
    “For what bandit would lay out along the road to Conyberry with a ghost haunting the land?” Wulfgar laughed. “Still,it seems a strange marriage.”
    “But not our business,” Drizzt said, stopping his horse. “The tangle the man spoke of.” He pointed to a copse of twisted birch trees. Behind it, Neverwinter Wood loomed dark and mysterious.
    Wulfgar’s horse flattened its ears. “We are close,” the barbarian said, slipping from the saddle. They tethered their mounts and started into the tangle, Drizzt as silent as a cat, but Wulfgar, too big for the tightness of the trees, crunching with every step.
    “Do you mean to kill the thing?” he asked Drizzt.
    “Only if we must,” the drow replied. “We are here for the mask alone, and we have given our word to the people of Conyberry.”
    “I do not believe that Agatha will willingly hand us her treasures,” Wulfgar reminded Drizzt. He broke through the last line of birch trees and stood beside the drow at the dark entrance to the thick oaks of the forest.
    “Be silent now,” Drizzt whispered. He drew Twinkle and let its quiet blue gleam lead them into the gloom.
    The trees seemed to close in about them; the dead hush of the wood only made them more concerned with the resounding noise of their own footfalls. Even Drizzt, who had spent centuries in the deepest of caverns, felt the weight of this darkest corner of Neverwinter on his shoulders. Evil brooded here, and if either he or Wulfgar had any doubts about the legend of the banshee, they knew better now. Drizzt pulled a thin candle from his belt pouch and broke it in half, handing a piece to Wulfgar.
    “Stuff your ears,” he explained in a breathless whisper, reiterating Malchor’s warning. “To hear her keen is to die.”
    The path was easy to follow, even in the deep darkness, for the aura of evil rolled down heavier on their shoulders with everystep. A few hundred paces brought the light of a fire into sight. Instinctively they both dropped to a defensive crouch to survey the area.
    Before them lay a dome of branches, a cave of trees that was the banshee’s lair. Its single entrance was a small hole, barely large enough for a man to crawl through. The thought of going into the lighted area within while on their hands and knees did not thrill either of them. Wulfgar held Aegis-fang before him and indicated that he would open a bigger door. Boldly he strode toward the dome.
    Drizzt crept up beside him, uncertain of the practicality of Wulfgar’s idea. Drizzt had the feeling that a creature who had survived so successfully for so very long would be protected against such obvious tactics. But the drow didn’t have any