Baldur's Gate Read Online Free PDF Page B

with undisguised fury as he was dragged past. Montaron grabbed the chair when he saw Abdel jerk forward.
    “Leave ‘im,” the halfling said. “Looks like ‘e’s paid in full.”
    Abdel stood stock still and tried to let the anger pass, but it wouldn’t. He wanted to kill someone. Montaron was looking at him curiously.
    “See?” Xzar stage-whispered.
    The halfling pushed the mage away and pulled gently on the chair. Abdel let him take it.
    “Ye’ll be needin’ a drink,” he said, and Abdel nodded.
    A gnome woman climbed up on top of the bar and called to the room, “Next one throws a chair gets my fist in his danglies. This—” and she paused long enough to belch resoundingly— “is a classy establishment.”
    A cheer followed this warning, and the crowded room fell back into the general chaos of a night at the Friendly Arms.

    The ale was good, and after three pints of it Abdel was starting to relax. He sat at the bar and kept his head down, ignoring the tussle and bluster of the ever more crowded barroom. He’d not spoken since he’d been hit by the chair, and though his nose hadn’t bled much, he refused to wipe the blood away. The big sellsword was quite a sight. He’d been rude and sullen enough that Montaron soon left his side, disappearing quickly into a crowd that naturally towered over the little halfling. Xzar was easier to get rid of, the mage having found a dark booth, in a corner, in which to sit and mutter to himself.
    Abdel didn’t do much thinking, he just sat there and drank. He wasn’t one for self-pity, but it had been Nine Hells of a tenday. The thought of leaving again in the morning with the halfling and that damnable muttering mage didn’t appeal to him in the slightest. His purse was light, though, and not getting any heavier. The trip to Nashkel, if he took it, would be a lean one. He’d decided to let Montaron and Xzar go on their way without him. decided to look for some paying job here at the Friendly Arms, when he remembered why he’d come here in the first place. Gorion, with his dying breath, had sent him here to look for—and Abdel couldn’t remember the names.
    “Damn it all to the Abyss,” he mumbled to himself, “What does it matter anyway?”
    Abdel ordered a fourth pint from the pleasantly gruff gnome woman who was tending the bar. He’d paid her every time from a dwindling supply of coppers.
    “Nah,” the gnome told him when he slid another four copper pieces across the wet bar, “this one’s for the smack on the beak.”
    Abdel nodded, accepting the woman’s drink, then accepting the wet rag she held out to him. He wiped the blood off his face and allowed himself a short laugh when he realized the gnome woman hadn’t gone away but was just standing there staring at him.
    “You should put a window in that door,” he said, “so a guest can see what’s coming before he opens it.”
    The gnome laughed, said, “I’ll pass the suggestion along,” while waiting for him to finish the pint in one swallow, standing ready with a fifth pint. This time she took his copper.
    “Well met, good sir,” a richly Amnian-accented voice next to him said.
    Abdel turned slightly to his right and glared at the lean Amnian with a look that would give the man no illusions that his company was welcome. The Amnian flinched at the stare.
    “You are Abdel,” he said, “Abdel Adrian.”
    “Gods,” Abdel breathed, was this the man Gorion had come to see?
    “You are,” the Amnian said. “Where is Gorion?”
    “Dead,” Abdel said simply, then his throat caught, but he didn’t cry. “Who is this Adrian?”
    “You are not Abdel Adrian?” the Amnian asked.
    “I am Abdel, son of Gorion, but I go by no other name.”
    The Amnian’s response to this was simply a puzzled stare. The man was obviously a half-elf. His long, thin face and ears just barely too round to be called pointed would have been proof enough of that, but the bright violet of his eyes was a sure sign of