Chapter 26 Chapter 21 Common Faults of Thieves

The little creature scrambled over rock piles and jumped off cliffs, as if death itself were chasing it.An angry Worfja followed closely, roaring with him from the newly opened wound on his shoulder, and the goblin probably had no choice but to die. The trail ended at a fifteen-foot cliff, but the goblin's escape wasn't over—it jumped out without thinking.After a heavy "bang", the goblin buffered part of the damage after landing with a movement that could hardly be described as a roll. It was bloody, but it was still able to move. Wulfgar didn't follow, he couldn't move himself too far from the hole, where Morik was still fighting.The barbarian halted, trying to find a rock suitable enough to throw at the fleeing goblin.But the barbarian hadn't found it, and the goblin had gone too far, and the only thing Wulfgar was content with was that it probably wouldn't come back.He turned and ran quickly back to the cave.

Though it took only a short time to get back there, the savage found the battle over.Morik was sitting in a saddle-shaped pile of stones, panting and bearded and staring. "Those little mice run so fast," Morik described. Wulfgar nodded, and sat down on the ground.They had scouted the trade lane earlier, only to find a whole dozen goblins preparing to move in the cave as if it had been their own from the start.Twelve against two—the goblins didn't have a good chance. Only one goblin died, though, because Wulfgar had grabbed it by the throat in the beginning and strangled it alive.The others were fleeing now, and the owners of the two caves knew very well that none of these timid little creatures would return, at least not for a long, long time.

"I think I've got its purse, if it's not its heart." Morik lifted a small cloth bag from the corpse.He breathed in the palm of his hand to summon the god of luck (of course, the other reason is because the howling wind in the mountains is especially bitter today) and then emptied the cloth bag, the thief's eyes widened, and at the same time Wo Fuga also leaned over excitedly.Tumbling in the palm of his hand were two silver coins, a few copper coins, and three gleaming stones—not finely carved gems, just stones. "We've been lucky enough not to have encountered a single merchant," Wulfgar muttered sarcastically, "so this is by far the greatest fortune."

Morik threw the little "wealth" on the ground angrily. "We still had a chance to get some gold coins from those carriages from the west," he said. "I'm glad to hear you say such a fact," an unexpected voice suddenly fell from the sky.The two looked up from the Saddle Rock at the same time, and found a man wearing a blue robe fluttering in the wind and holding a long oak cane was standing on the high rock and staring at them condescendingly, "After all, I was still a little worried at first. Did I find the wrong thief?" "A mage!" Morik muttered with disgust and tension. "I hate mages."

The robed man raised his staff and began to chant.Wulfgar was much quicker than he was, and he quickly stooped to pick up a large boulder, then strode forward and threw it.The barbarian's target was very accurate. The stone hit the mage's chest hard, but it bounced away like a ball of cotton wool without causing any damage.The man didn't seem to notice the blow at all, he seemed all right. "I hate mages!" Morik yelled again, running away quickly.Wulfgar started to move too, but he was too slow for a bolt of lightning from the tip of his staff hit him, sending him flying high.

After landing, Wulfgar rolled and cursed, and when he got up tenaciously, he had already held a stone in each hand. "How much more can you hit?" he yelled at the mage, and the first stone narrowly missed the mark, while the second spun and hit the clearly happy mage's arm, and of course it bounced off. It looks like it hit a solid rock. "Can everyone in Faerun become a mage?" cried Morik, who had been trying to get to the top of the rock where the mage stood.The Rogue once believed that he could outwit or fight (especially with Wulfgar by his side) against any bounty hunter or mercenary of the lords of the area.However, the mage is a completely different way of fighting, and he has also learned too many painful experiences and lessons, especially in the experience of being captured on the streets of Luskan.

"How many more hits do you have?" Wulfgar roared again, before another stone missed. "Once!" the mage replied, "I can, but only once." "Then beat him!" Morik yelled at the barbarian. In fact, the rogue misunderstood the mage's meaning: he was not discussing how many times his magic skin could withstand attacks, but what the prisoners needed. The number of strikes performed.Almost as soon as Morik yelled, the robed man pointed his free hand at Wulfgar.A black tendril-like substance spread from the fingertips, snaked down the cliff at a terrifying speed, entangled the barbarian, and quickly pulled him to the caster.

"I won't leave anyone else alive!" the mage yelled as if no one else was around.He clenched his fists, the rings on his hands began to glisten, and he thumped his staff against the rock on which he was standing.After a blinding light and a puff of choking smoke, both Wulfgar and the caster were lost in the lightning, only the rumble still echoing from the top of the rock. "Mage!" Morik, who had only rushed halfway, turned around in front of the cliff top, but suddenly the rock under his feet collapsed because of the hands and feet imposed by the mage. When he recovered, he found himself in the drawing room of a castle.The wriggling black vines still continued to entwine tenaciously, wrapping around his body several times, all the while restricting the various struggles of his powerful arms.Wulfgar slammed down with his movable fist, but the soft thing only flexed slightly under the force, absorbing all the impact.The barbarian grabbed the vine and tried to pull it, trying to bend and tear it, but just as he started, the mage at the other end moved his fingers, directing the vine to wrap around Wulfgar's feet quickly, throwing him on the hard floor. on the floor.Wulfgar writhed and writhed ineffectively, and there was no doubt that he was caught.

The barbarian held back the vines from wrapping around his neck with his arms, and when he was finally convinced that the magical thing really couldn't hurt him any further, he turned more attention to the situation around him.The mage was standing in front of two chairs, on which sat a man and a woman, the man in his twenties, the woman looked younger, and undeniably beautiful - the woman Wulfgar knew very well passed. There was an old man standing beside them, and a fat lady in her forties was sitting on another chair beside them.Wulfgar also noticed that there were still a number of soldiers lined up in the hall, all grim-faced and heavily armed.

"As I promised," the mage said, bowing to the man in front of him, "Now, if you are willing, I hope to get the reward that is due to me." "You will find that the gold I promised is waiting for you where it should be," the man replied, "I have never doubted your ability, powerful mage. Your master Gewei has given you a very high opinion .” The mage bowed again, "Is there anything else you need?" he asked. "How long will that last?" the man asked, referring to the vines that bound Wulfgar. "A long time," the mage promised, "enough for you to interrogate him, exonerate him, and then, of course, drag him to your dungeon or kill him right where the guy lies."

"Then you can go. But would you like to dine with us?" "I'm afraid not, I still have some backlogs to deal with in Hestatt (the Wizards Guild of Luskan City, which is also the de facto ruler of the city--Translator's Note)," the mage replied, "Then Farewell, Lord Feringal." He bowed once more and walked out, giggling as he passed the fallen barbarian. To everyone's surprise, Wulfgar clenched the vine with both hands and roared, tore the restraints on his feet in two, and successfully escaped half of his body. At this time, several screams resounded around him, A dozen soldiers rushed up and greeted him with mailed fists and clubs.Wulfgar, still wrestling with the vines on his upper body, could only free one free hand, and sent one soldier flying with a punch, before grabbing another guy by the neck and pinning him face down to the floor.But, the mage was chanting again... Wulfgar fell dazedly to the ground again, feeling the crackling of fists and feet... when the mage magically dispelled the vines At that time, the barbarian's arms were tied behind his back with a big lock. "If it's just the two of us, mage, what can you do to stop me?" growled the stubborn Wulfgar. "I should have killed you in the mountains." The caster gritted his teeth, apparently still brooding over the failure of his spell. Wulfgar spat in the guy's face. "How many times are you going to kill?" he asked. The irritated mage started waving his fingers again, but before he could distance himself from Wulfgar, the barbarian broke free from the soldiers' grasp and slammed his shoulder into him so hard that the mage felt like the end of his staff. A slender bolt of lightning flew out like a shot.Almost immediately, the barbarian was pinned down again, but the terrified mage scrambled from the floor and ran out of the hall like a rabbit. "Impressive way of exiting," Lord Feringal said sarcastically, and then his face darkened. "Then should I applaud before I castrate you?" Those words caught Wulfgar's attention.He started to react a little, but one of the guards gave him a hard stick and silenced him. Lord Feringal looked at the young woman sitting beside him. "Is this the man?" he asked, spiteful in every word. Wulfgar looked hard at the woman, at the woman he'd rescued from Morik's clutches on the side of the road, at the woman who had escaped from him unharmed.In her deep green eyes the Savage saw something, something he didn't quite understand.Maybe it's... sad?But certainly not anger. "I... don't think so." The girl said and looked away. For a moment, Lord Feringal's eyes widened.The old man stood beside him panting heavily, and the lady on the other side looked the same. "Look again, Meralda," ordered Feringal hastily, "is it him?" There was no answer, and now Wulfgar could clearly see the pain in the girl's eyes. "Answer me!" cried the Lord of Orkney. "No!" The girl began to cry, refusing to stare at all around her. "Bring Lyan!" Lord Feringal yelled.A soldier behind Wulfgar rushed out of the hall, and returned a moment later with an old dwarf. "Oh, it must have been him," said the dwarf, who ran up to stare Wulfgar carefully. "You think I don't remember you?" he asked. It was you when the little mouse friend averted my gaze and knocked me off the wagon. I remember you, Dog Bandit, because I saw you before you knocked me out!" He turned to Lord Feringal, "Yes Yes," said the dwarf, "he's the one." Feringal stared at the girl beside him for a long, long time. "Are you sure?" he asked Ryan, his eyes still locked on Meralda. "It doesn't happen often to me, my lord," Lane replied. "When you entrust me with escorting your lady, you have appointed me the best warrior in Orkney. I have failed After your expectations, I don't feel easy to say that. He is that guy, this is what I want to say, and, oh, I really want to beat him hard, you can give you how much money, but I am, but I am You know, it's not fair to the way the guy is." He turned back to stare Wulfgar in the eye.Wulfgar responded bluntly, saying nothing even though he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would not be able to break the dwarf in two.Wulfgar could not escape the brutal fact that he had indeed hurt the little man. "Is there anything else you have to defend yourself?" Lord Feringal asked at Wulfgar, but before the barbarian could begin to answer, the young lord rushed forward, passing Llane to stand in front of him , very close to the ground. "I've prepared a dungeon for you," he whispered harshly, "a dark place filled with rubbish and the bones of former occupants. It's full of rats and biting spiders. Yes, fool , I have prepared such a place for you, you can stay there until I decide to kill you in the most terrible way and at the most suitable time." In fact, Wulfgar was already very familiar with this series of procedures, because this kind of encounter was not the first time in his life.The Savage sighed deeply before he had time.He was taken down quickly. In the corner of the drawing room, Butler Temigast watched everything in front of him very carefully, his experienced gaze shifted from Wulfgar to Meralda, and from Meralda back to Wulfgar.Then the old guy noticed that Priscilla was sitting there quietly, and it was undeniable that she saw what she saw too. When the hostess looked at Meralda, the butler found deep malice in it.Temigest thought: She must be guessing that the girl had been raped willingly by the savages.She must be thinking so, right?If so, it cannot be called rape. Through observation of the barbarians, Temigest could not agree with such a guess. Everything in that cell was exactly as Lord Feringal had promised, a filthy, dark, dank dungeon full of stinking corpses.Wulfgar couldn't see anything in this dark place, even if he put his hands within an inch of his eyes.He groped through the mud and worse, trying to find a dry spot to sit on, but found nothing but his hands cut by sharp bones.In the end, all he could do was tap and tap to remind his slippery neighbors, such as scurrying spiders, of the fact that they were about to receive a new meal of carrion. In comparison, this dungeon seemed to suffer a lot more than Luskan's prison sewers, in large part because of the sheer emptiness and loneliness it brought, but what Wulfgar feared was neither spiders nor Not rats.The horrors of his six-year experience were naturally more terrible than these, and here the Savage found that he could use the darkness to ward off those feelings a little bit. So the day went by like this.Sometime the next day, the savage was awakened by the light of a torch and the sound of a guard passing a plate of rotting food through a small opening.The gap was on the only half-wooden half-metal door in the dungeon, through which it could be seen that the door of the dungeon was a damp passage.Wulfgar took a bite at first, but spat it out immediately, finding it better to try catching a mouse and skinning it raw than eating the food. On this second day a restless mood took hold of the Savage.The main effect of this emotion was to make him hate the whole world.Perhaps that was the price he had to pay for his banditry - an explanation Wulfgar could accept - but his actions to Feringal's carriage were not all unforgivable. . Meanwhile, Wulfgar was angry with himself.Maybe Morik had been right all along.Maybe he didn't really try to live the life of a robber with his heart.A true robber would have killed the dwarf, or at least ended his life quickly.A true robber would play with the woman all he wanted, and then take her away, either as a slave or as a slave for himself. Wulfgar laughed loudly.So, in fact, Morik was right.The savage has no real desire to be a robber at all, to do any of these things.Now here he was, an unluckier-than-unhappiest fellow, a loser at the bottom of civilized society, a fool who couldn't be more of a robber. Wulfgar's mind spent the next hour not in his cell, but back at the Spine of the World, a dividing line, a dividing line between his past and his present, which, it seemed to him, was both Geographical boundaries, and sometimes psychological and spiritual boundaries, this huge wall that stands on the continent of Faerun was also an emotional wall that guarded his heart, protecting him from those memories from Errtu Eroded, hurt.But now he has lost it. In the eyes of the barbarian, he was no longer in this place. Wulfgar was sitting on the Spine of the World, overlooking Icewind Dale and the life he once knew so well. painful reality.He tried in vain to close his eyes, though it was practically impossible to see in the dark; he tried to ignore the filth that was attacking him, and the pain of being bitten by a spider through his own neglect. Later that same day, some loud sounds brought him out of the trance and back to reality.The barbarian opened his eyes and saw the light of the torch flickering outside the door. "Still alive?" An old man's voice. Wulfgar shuffled his knees to the door, constantly adjusting the position of his eyes to the light.After a while he recognized that the man holding the torch was the spectator Wulfgar had seen in the drawing room, a man whose appearance reminded Wulfgar of Luskan's Jackheld the magistrates. Wulfgar snorted and squeezed a hand out from the fence. "Take the torch away," he ordered, "and your schadenfreude, go back where you came from." "Still angry about being caught, I guess," replied the man named Temigast. "Wrong captivity! And twice!" Wulfgar replied. "Do you think that the imprisoned are all innocent if they say they are innocent," asked the butler. "The girl said it wasn't me." "The girl is hurt too badly," Temigest retorted. "Maybe she just can't face reality." "It's also possible that she's right." "No," Temigest shook his head immediately, "Lion remembered you clearly, and there was not a single mistake in what he said." Wulfgar snorted again. "Do you still deny that you are the thief who attacked the carriage?" Wulfgar stared at him unblinkingly, but his expression told the Steward all too plainly: he did not deny the fact that he was the attacker. "This thing can cost you a pair of hands and be locked up here for years, until Lord Feringal decides to kill you," Temigast explained, "or just the attack on the carriage." It could cost you your life." "Your coachman, Llane, he's hurt," Wulfgar replied, growling in his voice, "if it hadn't been for an occasional thought, I could have let him die on the road. But anyway, the The girl was not harmed." "Then why is she saying two completely different things?" asked Temigast coldly. "Didn't she say that?" Wulfgar stepped back, tilted his head and began to search for clues, gradually understanding why the young lord seemed so angry.After all, at first, he'd thought it was just anger at a man's failure to fully protect his wife—but now, looking back, there was something more primal about it.He recalled what Lord Feringal had said to him in the first place, a threat of castration. "I'll beg Lord Feringal to prepare you for a most unpleasant death, barbarian," said Temigast. "You can't possibly hurt him as much as your actions will cause him tomorrow. Also for Lady Meralda, and folks in Orkney. You scoundrel, bastard, justice will be done when you die, whether it's a public execution or just let you rot here. In the filth." "You came down here just to state these things?" Wulfgar sarcastically said.Temigast struck his hand with the lit end of the torch, forcing Wulfgar to snap his arm back. The old man turned and hurried away when he was done, leaving Wulfgar sitting alone in the dark, circling some ideas that took him very by surprise. Although his final moment of outbursts of rage was genuinely emotional, Temigast didn't walk away from putting it all together.He had gone to see Wulfgar because he had seen Meralda's reaction to the barbarian in the drawing room, because he had gradually grasped the truth.The truth now seemed inconceivable, why hadn't Meralda recognized Wulfgar, assuming she had recognized him then?Why didn't she speak out?The man was decidedly unusual, after all, looking a good seven feet tall with the broad shoulders of a juvenile giant. Priscilla should be wrong.Temigast knew this, for he thought the lady was thinking that Meralda had been raped willingly. "Ridiculous," the butler muttered, and that was how he felt about the idea, "absolute, utter nonsense." "But will Meralda protect her rapist?" He asked himself quietly in his heart. The answer to the question was revealed in a memory picture, which greatly shocked Temigast—the picture was: an idiot young man flew down from the cliff.