“Port Llast has little to offer,” Dorwyllan told Drizzt and the others when he found them gearing up for the road.
“Ye’re here,” Ambergris replied dryly.
“Why thank you, good dwarf,” the grinning elf said with an exaggerated bow.
“Not what I’m meanin’!” Ambergris insisted, but she couldn’t keep the toothy smile wholly off her face against Dorwyllan’s clever retort.
The elf tossed her a wink. “I am here out of loyalty to these people who have stood so fiercely for their homes and their place in the world. I have lived here for many decades. My friendships go back generations to some of the families of Port Llast. A sorry friend I would be indeed if I were to now desert them.”
“Perhaps that is what makes Port Llast attractive then,” said Drizzt. “A sense of loyalty and friendship and common cause. Community is no small thing.”
Dorwyllan grew serious as he explained, “It will take more than that to displace others that they might come to join in this community, don’t you think? The quarry, the reason for the founding of the city in the first place, is not nearly as rich now, with most of the valuable stones and metals already taken. It can supply some trade, likely, but not enough to support any sizable city.
“The tides no longer favor Port Llast,” he went on, and he nodded out to the west, to the sea. “The changes after the Spellplague have greatly reduced Port Llast’s position as a vibrant seaport, and with Neverwinter rebuilding and Luskan to the north, I do not see the advantage of trying to strengthen the port in any significant way.”
“Perhaps you should campaign to be chosen as mayor of the town,” Afafrenfere remarked sarcastically. “Your words have convinced me to stay.”
“Grim truth, spoken among those who have earned the truth,” Dorwyllan replied. “There is trade and some profit to be found in the sea, if we can drive off the minions of Umberlee. Plentiful food, and some considered delicacies, and rightly so. But Neverwinter and Luskan and Waterdeep can all claim the same, so I am at a loss to understand what might lure enough people to Port Llast to secure our land and attempt to return the city to any sort of prosperity.”
“For those who already have community, I would agree,” said Drizzt.
“If you are speaking of your troupe here, then know that—” Dorwyllan started to reply, but Dahlia cut him short.
“Stuyles,” she said, figuring it all out. “You’re talking about farmer Stuyles. And Meg, the woman on the farm outside of Luskan. And the fool butcher who almost cut off my foot!”
“He was trying to save you,” Drizzt quietly reminded her.
“Might be tasty,” Ambergris added lightheartedly, and Afafrenfere giggled.
Dorwyllan wore a perplexed expression.
“The castoffs,” Drizzt explained to the elf. “Those who farmed the regions outside of Luskan, and under the protection of Luskan before the City of Sails fell to disrepair.”
“That was a century ago,” Dorwyllan said.
“The rot was longer in spreading from Luskan’s walls,” Drizzt said. “The farms became less important to the pirates, and so Luskan grew more likely to send forth raiders than a protective militia. But some of the folk outside the city remain in their ancient homes, though they are sorely pressed, and with nowhere else to go.”
“And some are on the roads around your own village,” Dahlia added.
Drizzt glared at her, but that only made Dahlia grin.
“On the roads?” Dorwyllan asked, and his tone showed Drizzt that he had not missed the silent exchange between Drizzt and Dahlia. “Refugees? There are no refugees. Or do you mean highwaymen?”
“Given what you’re asking, they deserve the truth,” Dahlia stated before Drizzt could formulate an appropriately diplomatic response. Again he cast a glance her way, trying to look more disappointed this time.
“They live in the wilderness,” Drizzt explained. “They are not bad sorts, but surely desperate ones, former farmers, former craftsmen, cast to the wilds by the entrenched powers of the Sword Coast. Luskan used to protect these communities, but now the high captains view them with indifference at best, or even as enemies, and to these desperate folk, the high captains are regarded no more highly than orc bosses.”
“I cannot disagree with that assessment,” Dorwyllan remarked.
“Then you understand?”
“Highwaymen? I would shoot them dead if I encountered them on the road with little consequences of guilt.”
“So I thought of myself,” Drizzt said dryly. “And yet, when I had the chance to punish them, I did not, and when I did not, I came to understand the deeper truth behind this particular group of desperate folk.”
“They could have gone to Neverwinter, you understand?” Dorwyllan said. “The settlers of that town seek additional citizens almost as desperately as we do here in Port Llast.”
“The Shadovar were there, with the Thayans lurking around the forest.”
“Now you are merely making excuses.”
Drizzt nodded solemnly. “They are in need of a home, and you are in need of citizens. Capable citizens, which these folk have proven themselves to be by the mere fact that they and their families have survived the wilds of the Sword Coast without the benefits of walls and garrisons. Do I go to them, or not?”
“I don’t speak for Port Llast.”
“Don’t play such semantic games with me.”
Dorwyllan let his gaze drift to the right, overlooking the still mostly empty city, the new wall, and the threatening sea beyond.
“I will say nothing of this conversation,” the elf quietly remarked.
When Drizzt glanced at Dahlia this time, he was the one wearing the smile.
“Need I remind you that the last time we dealt with Farmer Stuyles, we wound up in a desperate battle in the forest against a legion devil and its minions?” Dahlia asked when Dorwyllan had departed.
“Ah, but that’s not soundin’ good,” Ambergris remarked.
Entreri snickered, drawing Drizzt’s gaze, and when he had it, the assassin pointedly shook his head and looked away.
“Stuyles and the others knew nothing about Hadencourt’s true identity,” Drizzt argued.
“You have to believe that, don’t you?” said Dahlia, and she snorted derisively.
The drow’s smile was no more, even though he believed his claims. These two, ever cynical, would not allow him to hold fast to hope. In their cynical view of the world, he was a foolish idealist, unable to face the harsh realities of life in the shadowy Realms.
It occurred to Drizzt that they could be right, of course. In fact, hadn’t that been the very weight he had been dragging along like a heavy chain around his ankles for years now, back far before Bruenor’s death, even?
“No,” he heard himself replying to Dahlia. He stood up from his seat, painted a determined expression on his face, and spoke clearly and loudly and with all confidence. “I say that because I know it to be almost certainly true.”
“Because the world is full of good people?”
Drizzt nodded. “Most,” he answered. “And forcing them into untenable choices is no way to measure morality. Stuyles and his band do not hunger for blood, but for food.”
“Unless there are more devils among them,” Dahlia interrupted. “Have you considered that possibility?”
“No,” Drizzt replied, but it wasn’t so much an admission as a denial of the entire premise.
Dahlia moved as if to respond, but chortled and looked to Entreri instead, and Drizzt, too, found himself turning to regard the assassin.
Entreri looked away from Dahlia and returned that look to Drizzt, and he nodded his support to Drizzt, albeit slightly.