Sojourn

11. Winter

Drizzt picked his way through the rocky, towering mountains for many days, putting as much ground between himself and the farm village—and the awful memories—as he could. The decision to flee had not been a conscious one; if Drizzt had been less out of sorts, he might have seen the charity in the elf’s gifts, the healing potion and the returned dagger, as a possible lead to a future relationship.

But the memories of Maldobar and the guilt that bowed the drow’s shoulders would not be so easily dismissed. The farming village had become simply one more stopover on the search to find a home, a search that he increasingly believed was futile. Drizzt wondered how he could even go down to the next village that he came upon. The potential for tragedy had been played out all too clearly for him. He didn’t stop to consider that the presence of the barghests might have been an unusual circumstance, and that, perhaps, in the absence of such fiends, his encounter might have turned out differently.

At this low point in his life, Drizzt’s entire thoughts focused around a single word that echoed interminably in his head and pierced him to his heart: “drizzit.”

Drizzt’s trail eventually led him to a wide pass in the mountains and to a steep and rocky gorge filled by the mist of some roaring river far below. The air had been getting colder, something that Drizzt did not understand, and the moist vapor felt good to the drow. He picked his way down the rocky cliff, a journey that took him the better part of the day, and found the bank of the cascading river.

Drizzt had seen rivers in the Underdark, but none to rival this. The Rauvin leaped across stones, throwing spray high into the air. It swarmed around great boulders, did a white-faced skip over fields of smaller stones, and dove suddenly into falls five times the drow’s height. Drizzt was enchanted by the sight and the sound, but, more than that, he also saw the possibilities of this place as a sanctuary. Many culverts edged the river, still pools where water had deflected from the pull of the main stream. Here, too, gathered the fish, resting from their struggles against the strong current.

The sight brought a grumble from Drizzt’s belly. He knelt down over one pool, his hand poised to strike. It took him many tries to understand the refraction of sunlight through the water, but the drow was quick enough and smart enough to learn this game. Drizzt’s hand plunged down suddenly and came back up firmly grasping a foot-long trout.

Drizzt tossed the fish away from the water, letting it bounce about on the stones, and soon had caught another. He would eat well this night, for the first time since he had fled the region of the farm village, and he had enough clear and cold water to satisfy any thirst.

This place was called Dead Orc Pass by those who knew the region. The title was somewhat of a misnomer, however, for while hundreds of orcs had indeed died in this rocky valley in numerous battles against human legions, thousands more lived here still, lurking in the many mountain caves, poised to strike against intruders. Few people came here, and none of them wisely.

To naive Drizzt, with the easy supply of food and water and the comfortable mist to battle the surprisingly chilling air, this gorge seemed the perfect retreat.

The drow spent his days huddled in the sheltering shadows of the many rocks and small caves, preferring to fish and forage in the dark hours of night. He didn’t view this nocturnal style as a reversion to anything he had once been. When he had first stepped out of the Underdark, he had determined that he would live among the surface dwellers as a surface dweller, and thus, he had taken great pains to acclimate himself to the daytime sun. Drizzt held no such illusions now. He chose the nights for his activities because they were less painful to his sensitive eyes and because he knew that the less exposure his scimitar had to the sun, the longer it would retain its edge of magic.

It didn’t take Drizzt very long, however, to understand why the surface dwellers seemed to prefer the daylight. Under the sun’s warming rays, the air was still tolerable, if a bit chill. During the night, Drizzt found that he often had to take shelter from the biting breeze that whipped down over the steep edges of the mist-filled gorge. Winter was fast approaching the northland, but the drow, raised in the seasonless world of the Underdark, couldn’t know that.

On one of these nights, with the wind driving a brutal northern blast that numbed the drow’s hands, Drizzt came to an important understanding. Even with Guenhwyvar beside him, huddled beneath a low overhang, Drizzt felt the severe pain growing in his extremities. Dawn was many hours away, and Drizzt seriously wondered if he would survive to see the sunrise.

“Too cold, Guenhwyvar,” he stuttered through his chattering teeth. “Too cold.”

He flexed his muscles and moved vigorously, trying to restore lost circulation. Then he mentally prepared himself, thinking of times past when he was warm, trying to defeat the despair and trick his own body into forgetting the cold. A single thought stood out clearly, a memory of the kitchens in Menzoberranzan’s Academy. In the everwarm Underdark, Drizzt had never even considered fire as a source of warmth. Always before, Drizzt had seen fire as merely a method of cooking, a means of producing light, and an offensive weapon. Now it took on even greater importance for the drow. As the winds continued to blow colder and colder, Drizzt realized, to his horror, that a fire’s heat alone could keep him alive.

He looked about for kindling. In the Underdark, he had burned mushroom stalks, but no mushrooms grew large enough on the surface. There were plants, though, trees that grew even larger than the Underdark’s fungus.

“Get me… limb,” Drizzt stuttered to Guenhwyvar, not knowing any words for wood or tree. The panther regarded him curiously.

“Fire,” Drizzt begged. He tried to rise but found his legs and feet numb.

Then the panther did understand. Guenhwyvar growled once and sprinted out into the night. The great cat nearly tripped over a pile of branches and twigs that had been set—by whom, Guenhwyvar did not know—just outside the doorway. Drizzt, too concerned with his survival at the time, did not even question the cat’s sudden return.

Drizzt tried unsuccessfully to strike a fire for many minutes, smacking his dagger against a stone. Finally he understood that the wind prevented the sparks from catching, so he moved the setup to a more sheltered area. His legs ached now, and his own saliva froze along his lips and chin.

Then a spark took hold in the dry pile. Drizzt carefully fanned the tiny flame, cupping his hands to prevent the wind from coming in too strongly.

“The flames are up,” an elf said to his companion.

Kellindil nodded gravely, still not certain if he and his fellow elves had done right in aiding the drow. Kellindil had come right back out from Maldobar, while Dove and the others had set off for Sundabar, and had met with a small elven family, kinfolk of his, who lived in the mountains near Dead Orc Pass. With their expert aid, the elf had little trouble locating the drow, and together he and his kin had watched, curiously, over the last few weeks.

Drizzt’s innocuous lifestyle had not dispelled all of the wary elf’s doubts, though. Drizzt was a drow, after all, dark-skinned to view and dark-hearted by reputation.

Still, Kellindil’s sigh was one of relief when he, too, noted the slight, distant glow. The drow would not freeze; Kellindil believed that this drow did not deserve such a fate.

After his meal later that night, Drizzt leaned on Guenhwyvar—and the panther gladly accepting the shared body heat—and looked up at the stars, twinkling brightly in the cold air. “Do you remember Menzoberranzan?” he asked the panther. “Do you remember when we first met?”

If Guenhwyvar understood him, the cat gave no indication. With a yawn, Guenhwyvar rolled against Drizzt and dropped its head between two outstretched paws.

Drizzt smiled and roughly rubbed the panther’s ear. He had met Guenhwyvar in Sorcere, the wizard school of the Academy, when the panther was in the possession of Masoj Hun’ett, the only drow that Drizzt had ever killed. Drizzt purposely tried not to think of that incident now; with the fire burning brightly, warming his toes, this was no night for unpleasant memories. Despite the many horrors he had faced in the city of his birth, Drizzt had found some pleasures there and had learned many useful lessons. Even Masoj had taught him things that now aided him more than he ever would have believed. Looking back to the crackling flames, Drizzt mused that if it had not been for his apprenticeship duties of lighting candles, he would not even have known how to build a fire. Undeniably, that knowledge had saved him from a chilling death.

Drizzt’s smile was short-lived as his thoughts continued along those lines. Not so many months after that particularly useful lesson, Drizzt had been forced to kill Masoj.

Drizzt lay back again and sighed. With neither danger nor confusing companionship apparently imminent, this was perhaps the most simple time of his life, but never had the complexities of his existence so fully overwhelmed him.

He was brought from his tranquility a moment later, when a large bird, an owl with tufted, hornlike feathers on its rounded head, rushed suddenly overhead. Drizzt laughed at his own inability to relax; in the second it had taken him to recognize the bird as no threat, he had leaped to his feet and drawn his scimitar and dagger. Guenhwyvar, too, had reacted to the startling bird, but in a far different manner. With Drizzt suddenly up and out of the way, the panther rolled closer to the heat of the fire, stretched languidly, and yawned again.

The owl drifted silently on unseen breezes, rising with the mist out of the river valley opposite the wall that Drizzt had originally descended. The bird rushed on through the night to a thick grove of evergreens on the side of a mountain, coming to rest on a wood-and-rope bridge constructed across the higher boughs of three of the trees. After a few moments preening itself, the bird rang a little silver bell, attached to the bridge for just such occasions,

A moment later, the bird rang the bell again.

“I am coming,” came a voice from below. “Patience, Hooter. Let a blind man move at a pace that best suits him!” As if it understood, and enjoyed, the game, the owl rang the bell a third time.

An old man with a huge and bristling gray mustache and white eyes appeared on the bridge. He hopped and skipped his way toward the bird. Montolio was formerly a ranger of great renown, who now lived out his final years—by his own choice—secluded in the mountains and surrounded by the creatures he loved best (and he did not consider humans, elves, dwarves, or any of the other intelligent races among them). Despite his considerable age, Montolio remained tall and straight, though the years had taken their toll on the hermit, crinkling one hand up so that it resembled the claw of the bird he now approached.

“Patience, Hooter,” he mumbled over and over. Anyone watching him nimbly pick his way across the somewhat treacherous bridge never would have guessed that he was blind, and those who knew Montolio certainly would not describe him that way. Rather, they might have said that his eyes did not function, but they quickly would have added that he did not need them to function. With his skills and knowledge, and with his many animal friends, the old ranger “saw” more of the world around him than most of those with normal sight.

Montolio held out his arm, and the great owl promptly hopped onto it, carefully finding its footing on the man’s heavy leather sleeve.

“You have seen the drow?” Montolio asked.

The owl responded with a whoo, then went off into a complicated series of chattering hoots and whoos. Montolio took it all in, weighing every detail. With the help of his friends, particularly this rather talkative owl, the ranger had monitored the drow for several days, curious as to why a dark elf had wandered into the valley. At first, Montolio had assumed that the drow was somehow connected to Graul, the chief orc of the region, but as time went on, the ranger began to suspect differently.

“A good sign,” Montolio remarked when the owl had assured him that the drow had not yet made contact with the orc tribes. Graul was bad enough without having any allies as powerful as dark elves!

Still, the ranger could not figure out why the orcs had not sought out the drow. Possibly they had not caught sight of him; the drow had gone out of his way to remain inconspicuous, setting no fires (before this very night) and only coming out after sunset. More likely, Montolio mused as he gave the matter more thought, the orcs had seen the drow but had not yet found the courage to make contact.

Either way, the whole episode was proving a welcome diversion for the ranger as he went about the daily routines of setting up his house for the coming winter. He did not fear the drow’s appearance—Montolio did not fear much of anything—and if the drow and the orcs were not allies, the resulting conflict might well be worth the watching.

“By my leave,” the ranger said to placate the complaining owl. “Go and hunt some mice!” The owl swooped off immediately, circled once under then back over the bridge, and headed out into the night.

“Just take care not to eat any of the mice I have set to watching the drow!” Montolio called after the bird, and then he chuckled, shook his wild-grown gray locks, and turned back toward the ladder at the end of the bridge. He vowed, as he descended, that he would soon strap on his sword and find out what business this particular dark elf might have in the region.

The old ranger made many such vows.

Autumn’s warning blasts gave way quickly to the onslaught of winter. It hadn’t taken Drizzt long to figure out the significance of gray clouds, but when the storm broke this time, in the form of snow instead of rain, the drow was truly amazed. He had seen the whiteness along the tops of the mountains but had never gone high enough to inspect it and had merely assumed that it was a coloration of the rocks. Now Drizzt watched the white flakes descend on the valley; they disappeared in the rush of the river but gathered on the rocks.

As the snow began to mount and the clouds hung ever lower in the sky, Drizzt came to a dreadful realization. Quickly he summoned Guenhwyvar to his side.

“We must find better shelter,” he explained to the weary panther. Guenhwyvar had only been released to its astral home the previous day. “And we must stock it with wood for our fires.”

Several caves dotted the valley wall on this side of the river. Drizzt found one, not only deep and dark but sheltered from the blowing wind by a high stone ridge. He entered, pausing just inside to let his eyes adapt from the snow’s glaring brightness.

The cave floor was uneven and its ceiling was not high. Large boulders were scattered randomly about, and off to the side, near one of these, Drizzt noticed a darker gloom, indicating a second chamber. He placed his armful of kindling down and started toward it, then halted suddenly, both he and Guenhwyvar sensing another presence.

Drizzt drew his scimitar, slipped to the boulder, and peered around it. With his infravision, the cave’s other inhabitant, a warm-glowing ball considerably larger than the drow, was not hard to spot. Drizzt knew at once what it was, though he had no name for it. He had seen this creature from afar several times, watching it as it deftly—and with amazing speed, considering its bulk—snatched fish from the river.

Whatever it might be called, Drizzt had no desire to fight with it over the cave; there were other holes in the area, more easily attainable.

The great brown bear, though, seemed to have different ideas. The creature stirred suddenly and came up to its rear legs, its avalanche growl echoing throughout the cave and its claws and teeth all too noticeable.

Guenhwyvar, the astral entity of the panther, knew the bear as an ancient rival, and one that wise cats took great care to avoid. Still the brave panther sprang right in front of Drizzt, willing to take on the larger creature so that its master might escape.

“No, Guenhwyvar!” Drizzt commanded, and he grabbed the cat and pulled himself back in front.

The bear, another of Montolio’s many friends, made no move to attack, but it held its position fiercely, not appreciating the interruption of its long-awaited slumber.

Drizzt sensed something here that he could not explain—not a friendship with the bear, but an eerie understanding of the creature’s viewpoint. He thought himself foolish as he sheathed his blade, yet he could not deny the empathy he felt, almost as though he was viewing the situation through the bear’s eyes.

Cautiously, Drizzt stepped closer, drawing the bear fully into his gaze. The bear seemed almost surprised, but gradually it lowered its claws and its snarling grimace became an expression that Drizzt understood as curiosity.

Drizzt slowly reached into his pouch and took out a fish I that he had been saving for his own supper. He tossed it over to the bear, which sniffed it once, then swallowed it down with hardly a chew.

Another long moment of staring ensued, but the tension was gone. The bear belched once, rolled back down, and was soon snoring contentedly.

Drizzt looked at Guenhwyvar and shrugged helplessly, having no idea of how he had just communicated so profoundly with the animal. The panther had apparently understood the connotations of the exchange, too, for Guenhwyvar’s fur was no longer ruffled.

For the rest of the time that Drizzt spent in that cave, he took care, whenever he had spare food, to drop a morsel by the slumbering bear. Sometimes, particularly if Drizzt had dropped fish, the bear sniffed and awakened just long enough to gobble the meal. More often, though, the animal ignored the food altogether, rhythmically snoring and dreaming about honey and berries and female bears, and whatever else sleeping bears dreamed about.

“He took up his home with Bluster?” Montolio gasped when he learned from Hooter that the drow and the ornery bear were sharing the two-chambered cave. Montolio nearly fell over—and would have if he hadn’t been so close to the supporting tree trunk. The old ranger leaned there, stunned, scratching at the stubble on his face and pulling at his moustache. He had known the bear for several years, and even he wasn’t certain that he would be willing to share quarters with it. Bluster was an easily riled creature, as many of Graul’s stupid orcs had learned over the years.

“I guess Bluster is too tired to argue,” Montolio rationalized, but he knew that something more was brewing here. If an orc or a goblin had gone into that cave, Bluster would have swatted it dead without a second thought. Yet the drow and his panther were in there, day after day, setting their fires in the outer chamber while Bluster snored contentedly in the inner.

As a ranger, and knowing many other rangers, Montolio had seen and heard of stranger things. Up to now, though, he had always considered that innate ability to mentally connect with wild animals the exclusive domain of those surface elves, sprites, halflings, gnomes, and humans who had trained in the woodland way.

“How would a dark elf know of a bear?” Montolio asked aloud, still scratching at his beard. The ranger considered two possibilities: Either there was more to the drow race than he knew, or this particular dark elf was not akin to his kin. Given the elf’s already strange behavior, Montolio assumed the latter, though he greatly wanted to find out for sure. His investigation would have to wait, though. The first snow had already fallen, and the ranger knew the second, and the third, and many more, would not be far behind. In the mountains around Dead Orc Pass, little moved once the snows had begun.

Guenhwyvar proved to be Drizzt’s salvation through the coming weeks. On those occasions when the panther walked the Material Plane, Guenhwyvar went out into the frigid, deep snows continually, hunting and, more importantly, bringing back wood for the life-giving fire.

Still, things were not easy for the displaced drow. Every day Drizzt had to go down to the river and break up the ice that formed in the slower pools, Drizzt’s fishing pools, along its bank. It was not a far walk, but the snow was soon deep and treacherous, often sliding down the slope behind Drizzt to bury him in a chilling embrace. Several times, Drizzt stumbled back to his cave, all feeling gone from his hands and legs. He learned quickly to get the fires blazing before he went out, for on his return, he had no strength to hold the dagger and stone to strike a spark.

Even when Drizzt’s belly was full and he was surrounded by the glow of the fire and Guenhwyvar’s fur, he was cold and utterly miserable. For the first time in many weeks, the drow questioned his decision to leave the Underdark, and as his desperation grew, he questioned his decision to leave Menzoberranzan.

“Surely I am a homeless wretch,” he often complained in those no-longer-so-rare moments of self-pity. “And surely I will die here, cold and alone.”

Drizzt had no idea of what was going on in the strange world around him. Would the warmth that he found when he first came to the surface world ever return to the land? Or was this some vile curse, perhaps aimed at him by his mighty enemies back in Menzoberranzan? This confusion led Drizzt to a troublesome dilemma: Should he remain in the cave and try to wait out the storm (for what else could he call the wintry season)? Or should he set out from the river valley and seek a warmer climate?

He would have left, and the trek through the mountains most assuredly would have killed him, but he noticed another event coinciding with the harsh weather. The hours of daylight had lessened and the hours of night had increased. Would the sun disappear completely, engulfing the surface in an eternal darkness and eternal cold? Drizzt doubted that possibility, so, using some sand and an empty flask that he had in his pack, he began measuring the time of light and of darkness.

His hopes sank every time his calculations showed an earlier sunset, and as the season deepened, so did Drizzt’s despair. His health diminished as well. He was a wretched thing indeed, thin and shivering, when he first noticed the seasonal turn-around, the winter solstice. He hardly believed his findings—his measurements were not so precise—but after the next few days, Drizzt could not deny what the falling sand told him. The days were growing longer.

Drizzt’s hope returned. He had suspected a seasonal variance since the first cool winds had begun to blow months before. He had watched the bear fishing more diligently as the weather worsened, and now he believed that the creature had anticipated the cold and had stored up its fat to sleep it out.

That belief, and his findings about the daylight, convinced Drizzt that this frozen desolation would not endure.

The solstice did not bring any immediate relief, though. The winds blew harder and the snow continued to pile. But Drizzt grew determined again, and more than a winter would be needed to defeat the indomitable drow.

Then it happened—almost overnight, it seemed. The snows lessened, the river ran freer of ice, and the wind shifted to bring in warmer air. Drizzt felt a surge of vitality and hope, a release from grief and from guilt that he could not explain. Drizzt could not realize what urges gripped him, had no name or concept for it, but he was as fully caught up in the timeless spring as all of the natural creatures of the surface world.

One morning, as Drizzt finished his meal and prepared for bed, his long-dormant roommate plodded out of the side chamber, noticeably more slender but still quite formidable. Drizzt watched the ambling bear carefully, wondering if he should summon Guenhwyvar or draw his scimitar. The bear paid him no heed, though. It shuffled right by him, stopped to sniff at and then lick the flat stone Drizzt had used as a plate, and then ambled out into the warm sunlight, stopping at the cave exit to give a yawn and a stretch so profound that Drizzt understood that its winter nap was at an end. Drizzt understood, too, that the cave would grow crowded very quickly with the dangerous animal up and about, and he decided that perhaps, with the more hospitable weather, the cave might not be worth fighting for.

Drizzt was gone before the bear returned, but, to the bear’s delight, he had left one final fish meal. Soon Drizzt was setting up in a more shallow and less protected cave a few hundred yards down the valley wall.

12. To Know Your Enemies

Winter gave way as quickly as it had come. The snows lessened daily and the southern wind brought air that had no chill. Drizzt soon settled into a comfortable routine; the biggest problem he faced was the daytime glare of the sun off the still snow-covered ground. The drow had adapted quite well to the sun in his first few months on the surface, moving about—even fighting—in the daylight. Now, though, with the white snow throwing the glaring reflection back in his face, Drizzt could hardly venture out.

He came out only at night and left the daytime to the bear and other such creatures. Drizzt was not too concerned; the snow would be gone soon, he believed, and he could return to the easy life that had marked the last days before winter.

Well fed, well rested, and under the soft light of a shining, alluring moon one night, Drizzt glanced across the river, to the far wall of the valley.

“What is up there?” the drow whispered to himself. Although the river ran strong with the spring melt, earlier that night Drizzt had found a possible way across it, a series of large and closely spaced rocks poking up above the rushing water.

The night was still young; the moon was not halfway up in the sky. Filled with the wanderlust and spirit so typical of the season, Drizzt decided to have a look. He skipped down to the riverbank and jumped lightly and nimbly out onto the stones. To a man or an orc—or most of the other races of the world—crossing on the wet, unevenly spaced, and often rounded stones might have seemed too difficult and treacherous to even make the attempt, but the agile drow managed it quite easily.

He came down on the other bank running, springing over or around the many rocks and crags without a thought or care. How different his demeanor might have been if he had known that he was now on the side of the valley belonging to Graul, the great orc chieftain!

An orc patrol spotted the prancing drow before he was halfway up the valley wall. The orcs had seen the drow before, on occasions when Drizzt was fishing out at the river. Fearful of dark elves, Graul had ordered its minions to keep their distance, thinking the snows would drive the intruder away. But the winter had passed and this lone drow remained, and now he had crossed the river.

Graul wrung his fat-fingered hands nervously when he was told the news. The big orc was comforted a bit by the belief that this drow was alone and not a member of a larger band. He might be a scout or a renegade; Graul could not know for sure, and the implications of either did not please the orc chieftain. If the drow was a scout, more dark elves might follow, and if the drow was a renegade, he might look upon the orcs as possible allies.

Graul had been chieftain for many years, an unusually long tenure for the chaotic orcs. The big orc had survived by taking no chances, and Graul meant to take none now. A dark elf could usurp the leadership of the tribe, a position Graul coveted dearly. This, Graul would not permit. Two orc patrols slipped out of dark holes shortly thereafter, with explicit orders to kill the drow.

A chill wind blew above the valley wall, and the snow was deeper up here, but Drizzt didn’t care. Great patches of evergreens rolled out before him, darkening the mountainous valleys and inviting him, after a winter cooped up in the cave, to come and explore.

He had put nearly a mile behind him when he first realized that he was being pursued. He never actually saw anything, except perhaps a fleeting shadow out of the corner of his eye, but those intangible warrior senses told Drizzt the truth beyond doubt. He moved up the side of a steep incline, climbed above a copse of thick trees, and sprinted for the high ridge. When he got there, he slipped behind a boulder and turned to watch.

Seven dark forms, six humanoid and one large canine, came out of the trees behind him, following his trail carefully and methodically. From this distance, Drizzt couldn’t tell their race, though he suspected that they were humans. He looked all about, searching for his best course of retreat, or the best defensible area.

Drizzt hardly noticed that his scimitar was in one hand, his dagger in the other. When he realized fully that he had drawn the weapons, and that the pursuing party was getting uncomfortably close, he paused and pondered.

He could face the pursuers right here and hit them as they scaled the last few treacherous feet of the slippery climb.

“No,” Drizzt growled, dismissing that possibility as soon as it came to him. He could attack, and probably win, but then what burden would he carry away from the encounter? Drizzt wanted no fight, nor did he desire any contact at all. He already carried all the guilt he could handle.

He heard his pursuers’ voices, guttural strains similar to the goblin tongue. “Orcs,” the drow mouthed silently, matching the language with the creatures’ human size.

The recognition did nothing to change the drow’s attitudes, though. Drizzt had no love for orcs—he had seen enough of the smelly things back in Menzoberranzan—but neither did he have any reason, any justification, for battling this band. He turned and picked a path and sped off into the night.

The pursuit was dogged; the orcs were too close behind for Drizzt to shake them. He saw a problem developing, for if the orcs were hostile, and, by their shouts and snarls, Drizzt believed that to be the case, then Drizzt had missed his opportunity to fight them on favorable ground. The moon had set long ago and the sky had taken on the blue tint of predawn. Orcs did not favor sunlight, but with the glare of the snow all about him, Drizzt would be nearly helpless in it.

Stubbornly the drow ignored the battle option and tried to outrun the pursuit, circling back toward the valley. Here Drizzt made his second error, for another orc band, this one accompanied by both a wolf and a much larger form, a stone giant, lay in wait.

The path ran fairly level, one side of it dropping steeply down a rocky slope to the drow’s left and the other climbing just as steeply and over ground just as rocky to his right. Drizzt knew his pursuers would have little trouble following him over such a predetermined course, but he relied solely on speed now, trying to get back to his defensible cave before the blinding sun came up.

A snarl warned him a moment before a huge bristle-haired wolf, called a worg, bounded around the boulders just above him and cut him off. The worg sprang at him, its jaws snapping for his head. Drizzt dipped low, under the assault, and his scimitar came out in a flash, slashing across to further widen the beast’s huge maw. The worg tumbled down heavily behind the turning drow, its tongue lapping wildly at its own gushing blood.

Drizzt whacked it again, dropping it, but the six orcs came rushing in, brandishing spears and clubs. Drizzt turned to flee, then ducked again, just in time, as a hurled boulder flew past, skipping down the rocky decline.

Without a second thought, Drizzt brought a globe of darkness down over his own head.

The four leading orcs plunged into the globe without realizing it. Their remaining two comrades held back, clutching spears and glancing nervously about. They could see nothing inside the magical darkness, but from the rushing thumps of blades and clubs and the wild shouting, it sounded as if an entire army battled in there. Then another sound issued from the darkness, a growling, feline sound.

The two orcs backed away, looking over their shoulders and wishing the stone giant would hurry up and get down to them. One of their orc comrades, and then another, came tearing out of the blackness, screaming in terror. The first sped past its startled kin, but the second never made it.

Guenhwyvar latched on to the unfortunate orc and drove it to the ground, tearing the life from it. The panther hardly slowed, leaping out and taking down one of the waiting two as it frantically stumbled to get away. Those remaining outside the globe scrambled and tripped over the rocks, and Guenhwyvar, having finished the second kill, leaped off in pursuit.

Drizzt came out the other side of the globe unscathed, with both his scimitar and dagger dripping orc blood. The giant, huge and square-shouldered, with legs as large as tree trunks, stepped out to face him, and Drizzt never hesitated. He sprang to a large stone, then leaped off, his scimitar leading the way.

His agility and speed surprised the stone giant; the monster never even got its club or its free hand up to block. But luck was not with the drow this time. His scimitar, enchanted in the magic of the Underdark, had seen too much of the surface light. It drove against the stonelike skin of the fifteen-foot giant, bent nearly in half, and snapped at the hilt.

Drizzt bounced back, betrayed for the first time by his trusted weapon.

The giant howled and lifted its club, grinning evilly until a black form soared over its intended victim and crashed into its chest, raking with four cruel claws.

Guenhwyvar had saved Drizzt again, but the giant was hardly finished. It clubbed and thrashed until the panther flew free. Guenhwyvar tried to pivot and come right back in, but the panther landed on the down slope and its momentum broke away the sheet of snow. The cat slid and tumbled, and finally broke free of the slide, unharmed, but far down the mountainside from Drizzt and the battle.

The giant offered no smile this time. Blood seeped from a dozen deep scratches across its chest and face. Behind it, down the trail, the other orc group, led by a second howling worg, was quickly closing.

Like any wise warrior so obviously outnumbered, Drizzt turned and ran.

If the two orcs who had fled from Guenhwyvar had come right back down the slope, they could have cut the drow off. Orcs had never been known for bravery, though, and those two had already crested the ridge of the slope and were still running, not even looking back.

Drizzt sped along the trail, searching for some way he might descend and rejoin the panther. Nowhere on the slope seemed promising, though, for he would have to pick his way slowly and carefully, and no doubt with a giant raining boulders down at him. Going up seemed just as futile with the monster so close behind, so the drow just ran on, along the trail, hoping it wouldn’t end anytime soon.

The sun peeked over the eastern horizon then, just another problem—suddenly one of many—for the desperate drow.

Understanding that fortune had turned against him, Drizzt somehow knew, even before he turned the trail’s latest sharp corner, that he had come to the end of the road. A rock slide had long ago blocked the trail. Drizzt skidded to a halt and pulled off his pack, knowing that time was against him.

The worg-led orc band caught up to the giant, both gaining confidence in the presence of the other. Together they charged on, with the vicious worg sprinting out to take the lead.

Around a sharp bend the creature sped, stumbling and trying to stop when it tangled suddenly in a looped rope. Worgs were not stupid creatures, but this one didn’t fully comprehend the terrible implications as the drow pushed a rounded stone over the ledge. The worg didn’t understand, that is, until the rope snapped taut and the stone pulled the beast, flying, down behind.

The simple trap had worked to perfection, but it was the only advantage Drizzt could hope to gain. Behind him, the trail was fully blocked, and, to the sides, the slopes climbed and dropped too abruptly for him to flee. When the orcs and the giant came around the corner, tentatively after watching their worg go for a rather bumpy ride, Drizzt stood to face them with only a dagger in his hand.

The drow tried to parlay, using the goblin tongue, but the orcs would hear nothing of it. Before the first word left Drizzt’s mouth, one of them had launched its spear.

The weapon came in a blur at the sun-blinded drow, but it was a curving shaft thrown by a clumsy creature. Drizzt easily sidestepped and then returned the throw with his dagger. The orc could see better than the drow, but it was not as quick. It caught the dagger cleanly, right in the throat. Gurgling, the orc went down, and its closest comrade grabbed at the knife and tore it free, not to save the other orc, but merely to get its hands on so fine a weapon.

Drizzt scooped up the crude spear and planted his feet firmly as the stone giant stalked in.

An owl swooped down above the giant suddenly and gave a hoot, hardly distracting the determined monster. A moment later, though, the giant jerked forward, moved by the weight of an arrow that had suddenly thudded into its back.

Drizzt saw the quivering, black-feathered shaft as the angry giant spun about. The drow didn’t question the unexpected aid. He drove his spear with all his strength right into the monster’s backside.

The giant would have turned to respond, but the owl swooped in again and hooted and, on cue, another arrow whistled in, this one digging into the giant’s chest. Another hoot, and another arrow found the mark.

The stunned orcs looked all about for the unseen assailant, but the glaring brightness of the morning sun on the snow offered little assistance to the nocturnal beasts. The giant, struck through the heart, only stood and stared blankly, not even realizing that its life was at an end. The drow drove his spear in again from behind, but that action only served to tumble the monster away from Drizzt.

The orcs looked to each other and all around, wondering which way they could flee.

The strange owl dove in again, this time above an orc, and gave a fourth hoot. The orc, understanding the implications, waved its arms and shrieked, then fell silent with an arrow protruding from its face.

The four remaining orcs broke ranks and fled, one up the slope, another running back the way it had come, and two rushing toward Drizzt.

A deft spin of the spear sent its butt end slamming into the face of one orc, then Drizzt fully completed the spinning motion to deflect the other orc’s spear tip toward the ground. The orc dropped the weapon, realizing that it could not get it back in line in time to stop the drow.

The orc climbing the slope understood its doom as the signaling owl closed on it. The terrified creature dove behind a rock upon hearing one hoot, but if it had been a smarter thing, it would have realized its error. By the angle of the shots that had felled the giant, the archer had to be somewhere up on this slope.

An arrow knocked into its thigh as it crouched, dropping it, writhing, to its back. With the orc’s growling and thrashing, the unseen and unseeing archer hardly needed the owl’s next hoot to place his second shot, this one catching the orc squarely in the chest and silencing it forever.

Drizzt reversed his direction immediately, clipping the second orc with the spear’s butt end. In the blink of an eye, the drow reversed his grip a third time and drove the spear tip into the creature’s throat, digging upward into its brain. The first orc that Drizzt had hit reeled and shook its head violently, trying to reorient itself to the battle. It felt the drow’s hands grab at the front of its dirty bearskin tunic, then it felt a rush of air as it flew out over the ledge, taking the same route as the previously trapped worg.

Hearing the screams of its dying companions, the orc on the trail put its head down and sped on, thinking itself quite clever in taking this route. It changed its mind abruptly, though, when it turned a bend and ran straight into the waiting paws of a huge black panther.

Drizzt leaned back, exhausted, against the stone, holding his spear ready for a throw as the strange owl floated back down the mountainside. The owl kept its distance, though, alighting on the outcropping that forced the trail’s sharp bend a dozen steps away.

Movement up above caught the drow’s attention. He could hardly see in the blinding light, but he did make out a humanlike form picking a careful path down toward him.

The owl set off again, circling above the drow and calling, and Drizzt crouched, alert and unnerved, as the man slipped down to a position behind the rocky spur. No arrow whistled out to the owl’s hooting, though. Instead came the archer.

He was tall, straight, and very old, with a huge gray moustache and wild gray hair. Most curious of all were his milky white and pupilless eyes. If Drizzt had not witnessed the man’s archery display, he would have believed the man blind. The old man’s limbs seemed quite frail, too, but Drizzt did not let appearances deceive him. The expert archer kept his heavy longbow bowed and ready, an arrow firmly nocked, with hardly any effort. The drow did not have to look far to see the deadly efficiency with which the human could put the powerful weapon to use.

The old man said something in a language that Drizzt could not understand, then in a second tongue, then in goblin, which Drizzt understood. “Who are you?”

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” the drow replied evenly, taking some hope in the fact that he could at least communicate with this adversary.

“Is that a name?” the old man asked. He chuckled and shrugged. “Whatever it is, and whoever you might be, and whyever you might be here, is of minor consequence.”

The owl, noticing movement, started hooting and swooping wildly, but it was too late for the old man. Behind him, Guenhwyvar slunk around the bend and closed to within an easy spring, ears flattened and teeth bared.

Seemingly oblivious to the peril, the old man finished his thought. “You are my prisoner now.”

Guenhwyvar issued a low, throaty growl and the drow grinned broadly.

“I think not,” Drizzt replied.

13. Montolio

“Friend of yours?” the old man asked calmly.

“Guenhwyvar,” Drizzt explained,

“Big cat?”

“Oh, yes,” Drizzt answered.

The old man eased his bowstring straight and let the arrow slowly slip, point down. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and seemed to fall within himself. A moment later, Drizzt noticed that Guenhwyvar’s ears came up suddenly, and the drow understood that this strange human was somehow making a telepathic link to the panther.

“Good cat, too,” the old man said a moment later. Guenhwyvar walked out from around the outcropping—sending the owl flapping away in a frenzy—and casually stalked past the old man, moving to stand beside Drizzt. Apparently, the panther had relinquished all concerns that the old man was an enemy.

Drizzt considered Guenhwyvar’s actions curious, viewing them in the same manner as he had his own empathic agreement with the bear in the cave a season ago.

“Good cat,” the old man said again.

Drizzt leaned back against the stone and relaxed his grip on the spear.

“I am Montolio,” the old man explained proudly, as though the name should carry some weight with the drow. “Montolio DeBrouchee.”

“Well met and fare well,” Drizzt said flatly. “If we are done with our meeting, then we may go our own ways.”

“We may,” Montolio agreed, “if we both choose to.”

“Am I to be your… prisoner… once more?” Drizzt asked with a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

The sincerity of Montolio’s ensuing laughter brought a smile to the drow’s face despite his cynicism. “Mine?” the old man asked incredulously. “No, no, I believe we have settled that issue. But you have killed some minions of Graul this day, a deed that the orc king will want punished. Let me offer you a room at my castle. The orcs will not approach the place.” He showed a wry smile and bent over toward Drizzt to whisper, as if to keep his next words a secret between them. “They will not come near me, you know.” Montolio pointed to his strange eyes. “They believe me to be bad magic because of my… ” Montolio struggled for the word that would convey the thought, but the guttural language was limited and he soon grew frustrated.

Drizzt silently recounted the course of the battle, then his jaw drooped open in undeniable amazement as he realized the truth of what had transpired. The old man was indeed blind! The owl, circling over enemies and hooting, had led his shots. Drizzt looked around at the slain giant and orc and his jaw did not close; the old man hadn’t missed.

“Will you come?” Montolio asked. “I would like to gain the”—Again he had to search for an appropriate term—”purposes… a dark elf would have to live a winter in a cave with Bluster the bear.”

Montolio cringed at his own inability to converse with the drow, but from the context, Drizzt could pretty much understand what the old man meant, even figuring out unfamiliar terms such as “winter” and “bear.”

“Orc king Graul has ten hundred more fighters to send against you,” Montolio remarked, sensing that the drow was having a difficult time considering the offer.

“I will not come with you,” Drizzt declared at length. The drow truly wanted to go, wanted to learn a few things about this remarkable man, but too many tragedies had befallen those who had crossed Drizzt’s path.

Guenhwyvar’s low growl told Drizzt that the panther did not approve of his decision.

“I bring trouble,” Drizzt tried to explain to the old man, to the panther, and to himself. “You would be better served, Montolio DeBrouchee, to keep away from me.”

“Is this a threat?”

“A warning,” Drizzt replied. “If you take me in, if you even allow me to remain near to you, then you will be doomed, as were the farmers in the village.”

Montolio perked his ears up at the mention of the distant farming village. He had heard that one family in Maldobar had been brutally killed and that a ranger, Dove Falconhand, had been called in to help.

“I do not fear doom,” Montolio said, forcing a smile. “I have lived through many… fights, Drizzt Do’Urden. I have fought in a dozen bloody wars and spent an entire winter trapped on the side of a mountain with a broken leg. I have killed a giant with only a dagger and… befriended… every animal for five thousand steps in any direction. Do not fear for me.” Again came that wry, knowing smile. “But, then,” Montolio said slowly, “It is not for me that you fear.”

Drizzt felt confused and a bit insulted.

“You fear for yourself,” Montolio continued, undaunted. “Self-pity? It does not fit one of your prowess. Dismiss it and come along with me.”

If Montolio had seen Drizzt’s scowl, he would have guessed the forthcoming answer. Guenhwyvar did notice it, and the panther bumped hard into Drizzt’s leg.

From Guenhwyvar’s reaction, Montolio understood the drow’s intent. “The cat wants you to come along,” he remarked. “It’ll be better than a cave,” he promised, “and better food than half-cooked fish.”

Drizzt looked down at Guenhwyvar and again the panther bumped him, this time voicing a louder and more insistent growl with the action.

Drizzt remained adamant, reminding himself pointedly by conjuring an image of carnage in a farmhouse far away. “I will not come,” he said firmly.

“Then I must name you as an enemy, and a prisoner!” Montolio roared, snapping his bow back to a ready position. “Your cat will not aid you this time, Drizzt Do’Urden!” Montolio leaned in and flashed his smile and whispered, “The cat agrees with me.”

It was too much for Drizzt. He knew that the old man wouldn’t shoot him, but Montolio’s flaky charm soon wore away the drow’s mental defenses, considerable though they were.

What Montolio had described as a castle turned out to be a series of wooden caves dug around the roots of huge and tightly packed evergreens. Lean-tos of woven sticks furthered the protection and somewhat linked the caves together, and a low wall of stacked rocks ringed the whole complex. As Drizzt neared the place, he noticed several rope-and-wood bridges crossing from tree to tree at various heights, with rope ladders leading up to them from the ground level and with crossbows securely mounted at fairly regular intervals.

The drow didn’t complain that the castle was of wood and dirt, though. Drizzt had spent three decades in Menzoberranzan living in a wondrous castle of stone and surrounded by many more breathtakingly beautiful structures, but none of them seemed as welcoming as Montolio’s home.

Birds chittered their welcome at the old ranger’s approach. Squirrels, even a raccoon, hopped excitedly among the tree branches to get near him—though they kept their distance when they noticed that a huge panther accompanied Montolio.

“I have many rooms,” Montolio explained to Drizzt. “Many blankets and much food.” Montolio hated the limited goblin tongue. He had so many things he wanted to say to the drow, and so many things he wanted to learn from the drow. This seemed impossible, if not overly tedious, in a language so base and negative in nature, not designed for complex thoughts or notions. The goblin tongue sported more than a hundred words for killing and for hatred, but not a one for higher emotions such as compassion. The goblin word for friendship could be translated to mean either a temporary military alliance or servitude to a stronger goblin, and neither definition fit Montolio’s intentions toward the lone dark elf.

The first task then, the ranger decided, was to teach this drow the common tongue.

“We cannot speak”—There was no word for “properly” in Goblin, so Montolio had to improvise—“…well… in this language,” he explained to Drizzt, “but it will serve us as I teach you the tongue of humans—if you wish to learn.”

Drizzt remained tentative in his acceptance. When he had walked away from the farming village, he had decided that his lot in life would be as a hermit, and thus far he had done pretty well—better than he had expected. The offer was tempting, though, and on a practical level, Drizzt knew that knowing the common language of the region might keep him out of trouble. Montolio’s smile nearly took in the ranger’s ears when the drow accepted.

Hooter, the owl, however, seemed not so pleased. With the drow—or, more particularly, with the drow’s panther—about, the owl would be spending less time in the comforts of the evergreens’ lower boughs.

“Cousin, Montolio DeBrouchee has taken the drow in!” an elf cried excitedly to Kellindil. All the group had been out searching for Drizzt’s trail since the winter had broken. With the drow gone from Dead Orc Pass, the elves, particularly Kellindil, had feared trouble, had feared that the drow had perhaps taken in with Graul and his orc minions.

Kellindil jumped to his feet, hardly able to grasp the startling news. He knew of Montolio, the legendary if somewhat eccentric ranger, and he knew, too, that Montolio, with all of his animal contacts, could judge intruders quite accurately.

“When? How?” Kellindil asked, barely knowing where to begin. If the drow had confused him through the previous months, the surface elf was thoroughly flustered now.

“A week ago,” the other elf answered. “I know not how it came about, but the drow now walks in Montolio’s grove, openly and with his panther beside him.”

“Is Montolio… ”

The other elf interrupted Kellindil, seeing where his line of concern was heading. “Montolio is unharmed and in control,” he assured Kellindil. “He has taken in the drow of his own accord, it would seem, and now it appears that the old ranger is teaching the dark elf the common tongue.”

“Amazing,” was all that Kellindil could reply.

“We could set a watch over Montolio’s grove,” the other elf offered. “If you fear for the old ranger’s safety—”

“No,” Kellindil replied. “No, the drow once again has proven himself no enemy. I have suspected his friendly intentions since I encountered him near Maldobar. Now I am satisfied. Let us get on with our business and leave the drow and the ranger to theirs.”

The other elf nodded his agreement, but a diminutive creature listening outside Kellindil’s tent was not so certain.

Tephanis came into the elven camp nightly, to steal food and other items that would make him more comfortable. The sprite had heard of the dark elf a few days earlier, when the elves had resumed their search for Drizzt, and he had taken great pains to listen to their conversation ever since, as curious as any about the whereabouts of the one who had destroyed Ulgulu and Kempfana.

Tephanis shook his floppy-eared head violently. “Drat-the-day-that-that-one-returned!” he whispered, sounding somewhat like an excited bumblebee. Then he ran off, his little feet barely touching the ground. Tephanis had made another connection in the months since Ulgulu’s demise, another powerful ally that he did not want to lose.

Within minutes he found Caroak, the great, silver-haired winter wolf, on the high peak that they called their home.

“The-drow-is-with-the-ranger,” Tephanis spouted, and the canine beast seemed to understand. “Beware-of-that-one-I-say! It-was-he-who-killed-my-former-masters. Dead!”

Caroak looked down the wide expanse to the mountain that held Montolio’s grove. The winter wolf knew that place well, and he knew well enough to stay away from it. Montolio DeBrouchee was friends with all sorts of animals, but winter wolves were more monster than animal, and no friend of rangers.

Tephanis, too, looked Montolio’s way, worried that he might again have to face the sneaky drow. The mere thought of encountering that one again made the little sprite’s head ache (and the bruise from the plowshare had never completely gone away).

As winter eased into spring over the next few weeks, so did Drizzt and Montolio ease into their friendship. The common tongue of the region was not so very different from the goblin tongue, more a shift of inflection than an alteration of complete words, and Drizzt caught on to it quickly, even learning how to read and write. Montolio proved a fine teacher, and by the third week, he spoke to Drizzt exclusively in the common tongue and scowled impatiently every time Drizzt reverted to using goblin to get a point across.

For Drizzt, this was a fun time, a time of easy living and shared pleasures. Montolio’s collection of books was extensive, and the drow found himself absorbed in adventures of the imagination, in dragon lore, and accounts of epic battles. Any doubts Drizzt might have had were long gone, as were his doubts about Montolio. The shelter in the evergreens was indeed a castle, and the old man as fine a host as Drizzt had ever known.

Drizzt learned many other things from Montolio during those first weeks, practical lessons that would aid him for the rest of his life. Montolio confirmed Drizzt’s suspicions about a seasonal weather change, and he even taught Drizzt how to anticipate the weather from day to day by watching the animals, the sky, and the wind.

In this, too, Drizzt caught on quickly, as Montolio had suspected he would. Montolio never would have believed it until he had witnessed it personally, but this unusual drow possessed the demeanor of a surface elf, perhaps even the heart of a ranger.

“How did you calm the bear?” Montolio asked one day, a question that had nagged at him since the very first day he had learned that Drizzt and Bluster were sharing a cave.

Drizzt honestly did not know how to answer, for he still did not understand what had transpired in that meeting. “The same way you calmed Guenhwyvar when first we met,” the drow offered at length.

Montolio’s grin told Drizzt that the old man understood better than he. “Heart of a ranger,” Montolio whispered as he turned away. With his exceptional ears, Drizzt heard the comment, but he didn’t fully comprehend.

Drizzt’s lessons came faster as the days rolled along. Now Montolio concentrated on the life around them, the animals and the plants. He showed Drizzt how to forage and how to understand the emotions of an animal simply by watching its movements. The first real test came soon after, when Drizzt, shifting the outward branches of a berry bush, found the entrance to a small den and was promptly confronted by an angry badger.

Hooter, in the sky above, issued a series of cries to alert Montolio, and the ranger’s first instinct was to go and help his drow friend. Badgers were possibly the meanest creatures in the region, even above the orcs, quicker to anger than Bluster the bear and quite willing to take the offensive against any opponent, no matter how large. Montolio stayed back, though, listening to Hooter’s continuing descriptions of the scene.

Drizzt’s first instinct sent his hand flashing to his dagger. The badger reared and showed its wicked teeth and claws, hissing and sputtering a thousand complaints.

Drizzt eased back, even put his dagger back in its sheath. Suddenly, he viewed the encounter from the badger’s point of view, knew that the animal felt overly threatened. Somehow, Drizzt then further realized that the badger had chosen this den as a place to raise its soon-coming litter of pups.

The badger seemed confused by the drow’s deliberate motions. Late in term, the expectant mother did not want a fight, and as Drizzt carefully slipped the berry bush back in place to conceal the den, the badger eased down to all fours, sniffed the air so that it could remember the dark elf’s scent, and went back into its hole.

When Drizzt turned around, he found Montolio smiling and clapping. “Even a ranger would be hard put to calm a riled badger,” the old man explained.

“The badger was with pups,” Drizzt replied. “She wanted to fight less than I.”

“How do you know that?” Montolio asked, though he did not doubt the drow’s perceptions.

Drizzt started to answer, then realized that he could not. He looked back to the berry bush, then to Montolio helplessly.

Montolio laughed loudly and returned to his work. He, who had followed the ways of the goddess Mielikki for so many years, knew what was happening, even if Drizzt did not.

“The badger could have ripped you, you do know,” the ranger said wryly when Drizzt moved beside him.

“She was with pups,” Drizzt reminded him, “and not so large a foe.”

Montolio’s laughter mocked him. “Not so large?” the ranger echoed. “Trust me, Drizzt, you would rather tangle with Bluster than with a mother badger!”

Drizzt only shrugged in response, having no arguments for the more experienced man.

“Do you really believe that puny knife would have been any defense against her?” Montolio asked, now wanting to take the discussion in a different direction.

Drizzt regarded the dagger, the one he had taken from the sprite. Again he could not argue; the knife was indeed puny. He laughed both to and at himself. “It is all that I have, I fear,” he replied.

“We shall see about that,” the ranger promised, then said no more about it. Montolio, for all his calm and confidence, knew well the dangers of the wild, mountainous region.

The ranger had come to trust in Drizzt without reservations.

Montolio roused Drizzt shortly before sunset and led the drow to a wide tree in the northern end of the grove. A large hole, almost a cave, lay at the base of the tree, cunningly concealed by shrubs and a blanket colored to resemble the tree trunk. As soon as Montolio pushed this aside, Drizzt understood the secrecy.

“An armory?” the drow asked in amazement.

“You fancy the scimitar,” Montolio replied, remembering the weapon Drizzt had broken on the stone giant. “I have a good one, too.” He crawled inside and fished about for a while, then returned with a fine, curving blade. Drizzt moved in to the hole to survey the marvelous display of weapons as the ranger exited. Montolio possessed a huge variety of weapons, from ornamental daggers to great bardiche axes to crossbows, light and heavy, all polished and cared for meticulously. Set against the back of the inner tree trunk, running right up into the tree, were a variety of spears, including one metal-shafted ranseur, a ten-foot-long pike with a long and pointed head and two smaller barbs sticking out to the sides near the tip.

“Do you prefer a shield, or perhaps a dirk, for your other hand?” Montolio asked when the drow, muttering to himself in sincere admiration, reappeared. “You may have any but those bearing the taloned owl. That shield, sword, and helmet are my own.”

Drizzt hesitated a moment, trying to imagine the blind ranger so outfitted for close melee. “A sword,” he said at length, “or another scimitar if you have one.”

Montolio looked at him curiously. “Two long blades for fighting,” he remarked. “You would likely tangle yourself up in them, I would guess.”

“It is not so uncommon a fighting style among the drow,” Drizzt said.

Montolio shrugged, not doubting, and went back in. “This one is more for show, I fear,” he said as he returned, bearing an overly ornamented blade. “You may use it if you choose, or take a sword. I’ve a number of those.”

Drizzt took the scimitar to measure its balance. It was a bit too light and perhaps a bit too fragile. The drow decided to keep it, though, thinking its curving blade a better compliment to his other scimitar than a straight and cumbersome sword.

“I will care for these as well as you have,” Drizzt promised, realizing how great a gift the human had given him. “And I will use them,” he added, knowing what Montolio truly wanted to hear, “only when I must.”

“Then pray that you may never need them, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Montolio replied. “I have seen peace and I have seen war, and I can tell you that I prefer the former! Come now, friend. There are so many more things I wish to show you.”

Drizzt regarded the scimitars one final time, then slipped them into the sheaths on his belt and followed Montolio.

With summer fast approaching and with such fine and exciting companionship, both the teacher and his unusual student were in high spirits, anticipating a season of valuable lessons and wondrous events.

How diminished their smiles would have been if they had known that a certain orc king, angered at the loss of ten soldiers, two worgs, and a valued giant ally, had its yellow, bloodshot eyes scanning the region, searching for the drow. The big orc was beginning to wonder if Drizzt had gone back to the Underdark or had taken in with some other group, perhaps with the small elven bands known to be in the region, or with the damnable blind ranger, Montolio.

If the drow was still in the area, Graul meant to find him. The orc chieftain took no chances, and the mere presence of the drow constituted a risk.

14. Montolio’s Test

“Well, I have waited long enough!” Montolio said sternly late one afternoon. He gave the drow another shake.

“Waited?” Drizzt asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“Are you a fighter or a wizard?” Montolio went on. “Or both? One of those multitalented types? The elves of the surface are known for that.”

Drizzt’s expression twisted in confusion. “I am no wizard,” he said with a laugh.

“Keeping secrets, are you?” Montolio scolded, though his continuing smirk lessened his gruff facade. He pointedly straightened himself outside of Drizzt’s bedroom hole and folded his arms over his chest. “That will not do. I have taken you in, and if you are a wizard, I must be told!”

“Why do you say that?” asked the perplexed drow. “Wherever did you—”

“Hooter told me!” Montolio blurted. Drizzt was truly confused. “In the fight when first we met,” Montolio explained, “you darkened the area around yourself and some orcs. Do not deny it, wizard. Hooter told me!”

“That was no wizard’s spell,” Drizzt protested helplessly, “and I am no wizard.”

“No spell?” echoed Montolio. “A device then? Well, let me see it!”

“Not a device,” Drizzt replied, “an ability. All drow, even the lowest ranking, can create globes of darkness. It is not such a difficult task.”

Montolio considered the revelation for a moment. He had no experience with dark elves before Drizzt had come into his life. “What other ‘abilities’ do you possess?”

“Faerie fire,” Drizzt replied. “It is a line of—”

“I know of the spell,” Montolio said to him. “It is commonly used by woodland priests. Can all drow create this as well?”

“I do not know,” Drizzt answered honestly. “Also, I am, or was—able to levitate. Only drow nobles can accomplish that feat. I fear that the power is lost to me, or soon shall be. That ability has begun to fail me since I came to the surface, as my piwafwi, my boots, and my drow-crafted scimitars have failed me.”

“Try it,” Montolio offered.

Drizzt concentrated for a long moment. He felt himself growing lighter, then he lifted off the ground. As soon as he got up, though, his weight returned and he settled back to his feet. He rose no more than three inches.

“Impressive,” Montolio muttered.

Drizzt only laughed and shook his white mane. “May I go back to sleep now?” he asked, turning back to his bedroll.

Montolio had other ideas. He had come to further feel out his companion, to find the limits of Drizzt’s abilities, wizardly and otherwise. A new plan came to the ranger, but he had to set it into motion before the sun went down.

“Wait,” he bade Drizzt. “You can rest later, after sunset. I need you now, and your ‘abilities.’ Could you summon a globe of darkness, or must you take time to contemplate the spell?”

“A few seconds,” Drizzt replied.

“Then get your armor and weapons,” Montolio said, “and come with me. Be quick about it. I do not want to lose the advantage of daylight.”

Drizzt shrugged and got dressed, then followed the ranger to the grove’s northern end, a little used section of the woodland complex.

Montolio dropped to his knees and pulled Drizzt down beside him, pointing out a small hole on the side of a grassy mound.

“A wild boar has taken to living in there,” the old ranger explained. “I do not wish to harm it, but I fear to get close enough to make contact with the thing. Boars are unpredictable at best.”

A long moment of silence passed. Drizzt wondered if Montolio simply meant to wait for the boar to emerge.

“Go ahead then,” the ranger prompted.

Drizzt turned on him incredulously, thinking that Montolio expected him to walk right up and greet their uninvited and unpredictable guest.

“Do it,” the ranger continued. “Enact your darkness globe—right in front of the hole—if you please.”

Drizzt understood, and his relieved sigh made Montolio bite his lip to hide his revealing chuckle. A moment later, the area before the grassy mound disappeared in blackness. Montolio motioned for Drizzt to wait behind and headed in.

Drizzt tensed, watching and listening. Several high-pitched squeals issued forth suddenly, then Montolio cried out in distress. Drizzt leaped up and charged in headlong, nearly tripping over his friend’s prostrate form.

The old ranger groaned and squirmed and did not answer any of the drow’s quiet calls. With no boar to be heard anywhere about, Drizzt dropped down to find out what had happened and recoiled when he found Montolio curled up, clutching at his chest.

“Montolio,” Drizzt breathed, thinking the old man seriously wounded. He leaned over to speak directly into the ranger’s face, then straightened quicker than he had intended as Montolio’s shield slammed into the side of his head.

“It is Drizzt!” the drow cried, rubbing his developing bruise. He heard Montolio jump up before him, then heard the ranger’s sword come out of its scabbard.

“Of course it is!” Montolio cackled.

“But what of the boar?”

“Boar?” Montolio echoed. “There is no boar, you silly drow. There never was one. We are the opponents here. The time has come for some fun!”

Now Drizzt fully understood. Montolio had manipulated him to use his darkness merely to take away his advantage of sight. Montolio was challenging him, on even terms. “Flat of the blade!” Drizzt replied, quite willing to play along. How Drizzt had loved such tests of skill back in Menzoberranzan with Zaknafein!

“For the sake of your life!” Montolio retorted with a laugh that came straight from his belly. The ranger sent his sword arcing in, and Drizzt’s scimitar drove it harmlessly wide.

Drizzt countered with two rapid and short strokes straight up the middle, an attack that would have defeated most foes but did no more than play a two-note tune on Montolio’s well-positioned shield. Certain of Drizzt’s location, the ranger shield-rushed straight ahead.

Drizzt was pushed back on his heels before he managed to get out of the way. Montolio’s sword came in again from the side, and Drizzt blocked it. The old man’s shield slammed straight ahead again, and Drizzt deflected its momentum, digging his heels in stubbornly.

The crafty old ranger thrust the shield up high then, taking one of Drizzt’s blades, and a good measure of the drow’s balance, along with it, then sent his sword screaming across at Drizzt’s midsection.

Drizzt somehow sensed the attack. He leaped back on his toes, sucked in his gut, and threw his rump out behind him. For all his desperation, he still felt the rush as the sword whisked past.

Drizzt went to the offensive, launching several cunning and intricate routines that he believed would end this contest. Montolio anticipated each one, though, for all of Drizzt’s efforts were rewarded with the same sound of scimitar on shield. The ranger came on then and Drizzt was sorely pressed. The drow was no novice to blind-fighting, but Montolio lived every hour of every day as a blind man and functioned as well and as easily as most men with perfect vision.

Soon Drizzt realized that he could not win in the globe. He thought of moving the ranger out of the spell’s area, but then the situation changed suddenly as the darkness expired. Thinking the game over, Drizzt backed up several steps, feeling his way with his feet up a rising tree root.

Montolio regarded his opponent curiously for a moment, noting the change in fighting attitude, then came on, hard and low.

Drizzt thought himself very clever as he dove headlong over the ranger, meaning to roll to his feet behind Montolio and come back in from one side or the other as the confused human spun about, disoriented.

Drizzt didn’t get what he expected, though. Montolio’s shield met the drow’s face as he was halfway over, and Drizzt groaned and fell heavily to the ground. By the time he shook the dizziness away, he became aware that Montolio was sitting comfortably on his back, sword resting across Drizzt’s shoulders.

“How… ” Drizzt started to ask.

Montolio’s voice was as sharp-edged as Drizzt had ever heard it. “You underestimated me, drow. You considered me blind and helpless. Never do that again!”

Drizzt honestly wondered, for just a split second, if Montolio meant to kill him, so angry was the ranger. He knew that his condescension had wounded the man, and he realized then that Montolio DeBrouchee, so confident and able, carried his own weight upon his old shoulders. For the first time since he had met the ranger, Drizzt considered how painful it must have been for the man to lose his sight. What else, Drizzt wondered, had Montolio lost?

“So obvious,” Montolio said after a short pause. His voice had softened again. “With me charging in low, as I did.”

“Obvious only if you sensed that the darkness spell had ended,” Drizzt replied, wondering how disabled Montolio truly was. “I would never have attempted the diving maneuver in the darkness, without my eyes to guide me, yet how could a blind man know that the spell was no more?”

“You told me yourself!” Montolio protested, still making no move to get off Drizzt’s back. “In attitude! The sudden shuffle of your feet—too lightly to be made in absolute blackness—and your sigh, drow! That sigh belied your relief, though you knew by then that you could not best me without your sight.”

Montolio got up from Drizzt, but the drow remained prone, digesting the revelations. He realized how little he knew about his companion, how much he had taken for granted where Montolio was concerned.

“Come along, then,” Montolio said. “This night’s first lesson is ended. It was a valuable one, but there are other things we must accomplish.”

“You said that I could sleep,” Driazt reminded him.

“I had thought you more competent,” Montolio replied immediately, casting a smirk the prone draw’s way.

While Drizzt eagerly absorbed the many lessons Montolio set out for him, that night and in the days that followed, the old ranger gathered his own information about the drow. Their work was most concerned with the present, Montolio teaching Drizzt about the world around him and, how to survive in it. Invariably one or the other, usually Drizzt, would slip in some comment about his past. It became almost a game between the two, remarking on some distant event, more to measure the shocked expression of the other than to make any relevant point. Montolio had some fine anecdotes about his many years on the road, tales of valorous battles against goblins and humorous pranks that the usually serious-minded rangers often played on one another. Drizzt remained a bit guarded about his own past, but still his tales of Menzoberranzan, of the sinister and insidious Academy and the savage wars pitting family against family, went far beyond anything Montolio had ever imagined.

As great as the drow’s tales were, though, Montolio knew that Drizzt was holding back, was carrying some great burden on his shoulders. The ranger didn’t press Drizzt at first. He kept his patience, satisfied that he and Drizzt shared principles and—as he came to know with the drastic improvement of Drizzt’s ranger skills—a similar way of viewing the world.

One night, beneath the moon’s silvery light, Drizzt and Montolio rested back in wooden chairs that the ranger had constructed high in the boughs of a large evergreen. The brightness of the waning moon, as it dipped and dodged behind fast-moving, scattered clouds, enchanted the drow.

Montolio couldn’t see the moon, of course, but the old ranger, with Guenhwyvar comfortably draped across his lap, enjoyed the brisk night no less. He rubbed a hand absently through the thick fur on Guenhwyvar’s muscled neck and listened to the many sounds carried on the breeze, the chatter of a thousand creatures that the drow never even noticed, even though Drizzt’s hearing was superior to Montolio’s. Montolio chuckled every now and again, once when he heard a field mouse squealing angrily at an owl—Hooter probably—for interrupting its meal and forcing it to flee into its hole.

Looking at the ranger and Guenhwyvar, so at ease and accepting of one another, Drizzt felt the pangs of friendship and guilt. “Perhaps I should never have come,” he whispered, turning his gaze back to the moon.

“Why?” Montolio asked quietly. “You do not like my food?” His smile disarmed Drizzt as the drow turned back to him somberly.

“To the surface, I mean,” Drizzt explained, managing a laugh in spite of his melancholy. “Sometimes I think my choice a selfish act.”

“Survival usually is,” Montolio replied. “I have felt that way myself on some occasions. I was once forced to drive my sword into a man’s heart. The harshness of the world brings great remorse, but mercifully it is a passing lament and certainly not one to carry into battle.”

“How I wish it would pass,” Drizzt remarked, more to himself or to the moon than to Montolio.

But the remark hit Montolio squarely. The closer he and Drizzt had become, the more the ranger shared Drizzt’s unknown burden. The drow was young by elf standards but was already world-wise and skilled in battle beyond most professional soldiers. Undeniably one of Drizzt’s dark heritage would find barriers in an unaccepting surface world. By Montolio’s estimation, though, Drizzt should be able to get through these prejudices and live a long and prosperous life, given his considerable talents. What was it, Montolio wondered, that so burdens this elf? Drizzt suffered more than he smiled and punished himself more than he should.

“Is yours an honest lament?” Montolio asked him. “Most are not, you know. Most self-imposed burdens are founded on misperceptions. We—at least we of sincere character―always judge ourselves by stricter standards than we expect others to abide by. It is a curse, I suppose, or a blessing, depending on how one views it.” He cast his sightless gaze Drizzt’s way. “Take it as a blessing, my friend, an inner calling that forces you to strive to unattainable heights.”

“A frustrating blessing” Drizzt replied casually.

“Only when you do not pause to consider the advances that the striving has brought to you,” Montolio was quick to reply, as though he had expected the drow’s words. “Those who aspire to less accomplish less. There can be no doubt. It is better, I think, to grab at the stars than to sit flustered because you know you cannot reach them.” He shot Drizzt his typical wry smile. “At least he who reaches will get a good stretch, a good view, and perhaps even a low-hanging apple for his effort!”

“And perhaps also a low-flying arrow fired by some unseen assailant,” Drizzt remarked sourly.

Montolio tilted his head helplessly against Drizzt’s unending stream of pessimism. It pained him deeply to see the good-hearted drow so scarred. “He might indeed,” Montolio said, a bit more harshly than he had intended, “but the loss of life is only great to those who chance to live it! Let your arrow come in low and catch the huddler on the ground, I say. His death would not be so tragic!”

Drizzt could not deny the logic, nor the comfort the old ranger gave to him. Over the last few weeks, Montolio’s offhanded philosophies and way of looking at the world—pragmatically yet heavily edged with youthful exuberance, put Drizzt more at ease than he had been since his earliest training days in Zaknafein’s gymnasium. But Drizzt also could not deny the inevitably short life span of that comfort. Words could soothe, but they could not erase the haunting memories of Drizzt’s past, the distant voices of dead Zaknafein, dead Clacker, and the dead farmers. A single mental echo of “drizzit” vanquished hours of Montolio’s well-intended advice.

“Enough of this cockeyed banter,” Montolio went on, seeming perturbed. “I call you friend, Drizzt Do’Urden, and I hope you call me the same. What sort of friend might I be against this weight that stoops your shoulders unless I know more of it? I am your friend, or I am not. The decision is yours, but if I am not, then I see no purpose in sharing nights as wondrous as this beside you. Tell me, Drizzt, or be gone from my home!”

Drizzt could hardly believe that Montolio, normally so patient and relaxed, had put him on such a spot. The drow’s first reaction was to recoil, to build a wall of anger in the face of the old man’s presumptions and cling to that which he considered personal. As the moments passed, though, and Drizzt got beyond his initial surprise and took the time to sift through Montolio’s statement, he came to understand one basic truth that excused those presumptions: He and Montolio had indeed become friends, mostly through the ranger’s efforts.

Montolio wanted to share in Drizzt’s past, so that he might better understand and comfort his new friend.

“Do you know of Menzoberranzan, the city of my birth and of my kin?” Drizzt asked softly. Even speaking the name pained him. “And do you know the ways of my people, or the Spider Queen’s edicts?”

Montolio’s voice was somber as he replied. “Tell me all of it, I beg,”

Drizzt nodded—Montolio sensed the motion even if he could not see it—and relaxed against the tree. He stared at the moon but actually looked right past it. His mind wandered back through his adventures, back down that road to Menzoberranzan, to the Academy, and to House Do’Urden. He held his thoughts there for a while, lingering on the complexities of drow family life and on the welcomed simplicity of his times in the training room with Zaknafein.

Montolio watched patiently, guessing that Drizzt was looking for a place to begin. From what he had learned from Drizzt’s passing remarks, Drizzt’s life had been filled with adventure and turbulent times, and Montolio knew that it would be no easy feat for Drizzt, with his still limited command of the common tongue, to accurately recount all of it. Also, given the burdens, the guilt and the sorrow, the drow obviously carried, Montolio suspected that Drizzt might be hesitant.

“I was born on an important day in the history of my family,” Drizzt began. “On that day, House Do’Urden eliminated House DeVir.”

“Eliminated?”

“Massacred,” Drizzt explained. Montolio’s blind eyes revealed nothing, but the ranger’s expression was clearly one of revulsion, as Drizzt had expected. Drizzt wanted his companion to understand the horrible depths of drow society, so he pointedly added, “And on that day, too, my brother Dinin drove his sword through the heart of our other brother, Nalfein.”

A shudder coursed up Montolio’s spine and he shook his head. He realized that he was only just beginning to understand the burdens Drizzt carried.

“It is the drow way,” Drizzt said calmly, matter-of-factly, trying to impart the dark elves’ casual attitude toward murder. “There is a strict structure of rank in Menzoberranzan. To climb it, to attain a higher rank, whether as an individual or a family, you simply eliminate those above you.”

A slight quiver in his voice betrayed Drizzt to the ranger. Montolio clearly understood that Drizzt did not accept the evil practices, and never had.

Drizzt went on with his story, telling it completely and accurately, at least for the more than forty years he had spent in the Underdark. He told of his days under the strict tutelage of his sister Vierna, cleaning the house chapel endlessly and learning of his innate powers and his place in drow society. Drizzt spent a long time explaining that peculiar social structure to Montolio, the hierarchies based on strict rank, and the hypocrisy of drow “law,” a cruel facade screening a city of utter chaos. The ranger cringed as he heard of the family wars. They were brutal conflicts that allowed for no noble survivors, not even children. Montolio cringed even more when Drizzt told him of drow “justice,” of the destruction wreaked upon a house that had failed in its attempt to eradicate another family.

The tale was less grim when Drizzt told of Zaknafein, his father and dearest friend. Of course, Drizzt’s happy memories of his father became only a short reprieve, a prelude to the horrors of Zaknafein’s demise. “My mother killed my father,” Drizzt explained soberly, his deep pain evident, “sacrificed him to Lloth for my crimes, then animated his corpse and sent it out to kill me, to punish me for betraying the family and the Spider Queen.”

It took a while for Drizzt to resume, but when he did, he again spoke truthfully, even revealing his own failures in his days alone in the wilds of the Underdark. “I feared that I had lost myself and my principles to some instinctive, savage monster,” Drizzt said, verging on despair. But then the emotional wave that had been his existence rose again, and a smile found his face as he recounted his time beside Belwar, the most honored svirfneblin burrow-warden, and Clacker, the pech who had been polymorphed into a hook horror. Expectedly, the smile proved short-lived, for Drizzt’s tale eventually led him to where Clacker fell to Matron Malice’s undead monster. Another friend had died on Drizzt’s behalf.

Appropriately, by the time Drizzt came to his exit from the Underdark, the dawn peeked through the eastern mountains. Now Drizzt picked his words more carefully, not ready to divulge the tragedy of the farming family for fear that Montolio would judge him and blame him, destroying their newfound bond. Rationally, Drizzt could remind himself that he had not killed the farmers, had even avenged their deaths, but guilt was rarely a rational emotion, and Drizzt simply could not find the words—not yet.

Montolio, aged and wise and with animal scouts throughout the region, knew that Drizzt was concealing something. When they had first met, the drow had mentioned a doomed farming family, and Montolio had heard of a family slaughtered in the village of Maldobar. Montolio didn’t believe for a minute that Drizzt could have done it, but he suspected that the drow was somehow involved. He didn’t press Drizzt, though. Drizzt had been more honest, and more complete, than Montolio had expected, and the ranger was confident that the drow would fill in the obvious holes in his own time.

“It is a good tale,” Montolio said at length. “You have been through more in your few decades than most elves will know in three hundred years. But the scars are few, and they will heal.”

Drizzt, not so certain, put a lamenting look upon him, and Montolio could only offer a comforting pat on the shoulder as he rose and headed off for bed.

Drizzt was still asleep when Montolio roused Hooter and tied a thick note to the owl’s leg. Hooter wasn’t so pleased at the ranger’s instructions; the journey could take a week, valuable and enjoyable time at this height of the mousing and mating season. For all its whining hoots, however, the owl would not disobey.

Hooter ruffled its feathers, caught the first gust of wind, and soared effortlessly across the snow-covered range to the passes that would take it to Maldobar—and beyond that to Sundabar, if need be. A certain ranger of no small fame, a sister of the Lady of Silverymoon, was still in the region, Montolio knew through his animal connections, and he charged Hooter with seeking her out.

“Will-there-be-no-end-to-it?” the sprite whined, watching the burly human pass along the trail. “First-the-nasty-drow-and-now-this-brute! Am-I-never-to-be-rid-of-these-trouble-makers?” Tephanis slapped his head and stamped his feet so rapidly that he dug himself a little hole.

Down on the trail, the big, scarred yellow dog growled and bared its teeth, and Tephanis, realizing that his pouting had been too loud, zipped in a wide semicircle, crossing the trail far behind the traveler and coming up on the other flank. The yellow dog, still looking in the opposite direction, cocked its head and whimpered in confusion.

15. A Shadow over Sanctuary

Drizzt and Montolio said nothing of the drow’s tale over the next couple of days. Drizzt brooded over painfully rekindled memories, and Montolio tactfully gave him the room he needed. They went about their daily business methodically, farther apart, and with less enthusiasm, but the distance was a passing thing, which they both realized.

Gradually they came closer together, leaving Drizzt with hopes that he had found a friend as true as Belwar or even Zaknafein. One morning, though, the drow was awakened by a voice that he recognized all too well, and Drizzt thought at once that his time with Montolio had come to a crashing end.

He crawled to the wooden wall that protected his dugout chamber and peered through.

“Drow elf, Mooshie,” Roddy McGristle was saying, holding a broken scimitar out for the old ranger to see. The burly mountain man, looming even larger in the many layers of furs he wore, sat atop a small but muscled horse just outside of the rock wall surrounding the grove. “Ye seen him?”

“Seen?” Montolio echoed sarcastically, giving an exaggerated wink of his milky-white eyes. Roddy was not amused.

“Ye know what I mean!” he growled. “Ye see more’n the rest of us, so don’t ye be playin’ dumb!” Roddy’s dog, showing a wicked scar from where Drizzt had struck it, caught a familiar scent then and started sniffing excitedly and darting back and forth along the paths of the grove.

Drizzt crouched at the ready, a scimitar in one hand and a look of dread and confusion on his face. He had no desire to fight—he did not even want to strike the dog again.

“Get your dog back to your side!” Montolio huffed.

McGristle’s curiosity was obvious. “Seen the dark elf, Mooshie?” he asked again, this time suspiciously.

“Might that I have,” Montolio replied. He turned and let out a shrill, barely audible whistle. Immediately, Roddy’s dog, hearing the ranger’s clear ire in no uncertain terms, dropped its tail between its legs and slunk back to stand beside its master’s horse.

“I’ve a brood of fox pups in there,” the ranger lied angrily. “If your dog sets on them… ” Montolio let the threat hang at that, and apparently Roddy was impressed. He dropped a noose down over the dog’s head and pulled it tight to his side.

“A drow, must be the same one, came through here before the first snows,” Montolio went on. “You will have a hard hunt for that one, bounty hunter.” He laughed. “He had some trouble with Graul, by my knowledge, then set out again, back for his dark home, I would guess. Do you mean to follow the drow down into the Underdark? Certainly your reputation would grow considerably, bounty hunter, though your very life might prove the cost!”

Drizzt relaxed at the words; Montolio had lied for him! He could see that the ranger did not hold McGristle in high regard, and that fact, too, brought comfort to Drizzt. Then Roddy came back forcefully, laying out the story of the tragedy in Maldobar in a blunt and warped way that put Drizzt and Montolio’s friendship to a tough test.

“The drow killed the Thistledowns!” Roddy roared at the ranger’s smug smile, which vanished in the blink of an eye. “Slaughtered them, and his panther ate one o’ them. Ye knew Bartholemew Thistledown, ranger. Shame on ye for talkin’ lightly on his murderer!”

“Drow killed them?” Montolio asked grimly.

Roddy held out the broken scimitar once more. “Cut ‘em down,” he growled. “There’s two thousand gold pieces on that one’s head—I’ll give ye back five hunnerd if ye can find out more for me.”

“I have no need of your gold,” Montolio quickly replied.

“But do ye have need to see the killer brought in?” Roddy shot back. “Do ye mourn for the deaths o’ the Thistledown clan, as fine a family as any?”

Montolio’s ensuing pause led Drizzt to believe that the ranger might turn him in. Drizzt decided then that he would not run, whatever Montolio’s decision. He could deny the bounty hunter’s anger, but not Montolio’s. If the ranger accused him, Drizzt would have to face him and be judged.

“Sad day,” Montolio muttered. “Fine family, indeed. Catch the drow, McGristle. It would be the best bounty you ever earned.”

“Where to start?” Roddy asked calmly, apparently thinking he had won Montolio over. Drizzt thought so, too, especially when Montolio turned and looked back toward the grove.

“You have heard of Morueme’s Cave?” Montolio asked.

Roddy’s expression visibly dropped at the question. Morueme’s Cave, on the edge of the great desert Anauroch, was so named for the family of blue dragons that lived there. “Hunnerd an’ fifty miles,” McGristle groaned. “Through the Nethers—a tough range.”

“The drow went there, or about there, early in the winter,” Montolio lied.

“Drow went to the dragons?” Roddy asked, surprised.

“More likely, the drow went to some other hole in that region,” Montolio replied. “The dragons of Morueme could possibly know of him. You should inquire there.”

“I’m not so quick to bargain with dragons,” Roddy said somberly. “To risky, and even goin’, well, it costs too much!”

“Then it seems that Roddy McGristle has missed his first catch,” Montolio said. “A good try, though, against the likes of a dark elf.”

Roddy reined in his horse and spun the beast about. “Don’t ye put yer bets against me, Mooshie!” he roared back over his shoulder. “I’ll not let this one get away, if I have to search every hole in the Nethers myself!”

“Seems a bit of trouble for two thousand gold,” Montolio remarked, not impressed.

“Drow took my dog, my ear, and give me this scar!” Roddy countered, pointing to his torn face. The bounty hunter realized the absurdity of his actions—of course, the blind ranger could not see him—and spun back, setting his horse charging out of the grove.

Montolio waved a hand disgustedly at McGristle’s back, then turned to find the drow. Drizzt met him on the edge of the grove, hardly knowing how to thank Montolio.

“Never liked that one,” Montolio explained.

“The Thistledown family was murdered,” Drizzt admitted bluntly.

Montolio nodded.

“You knew?”

“I knew before you came here,” the ranger answered. “Honestly, I wondered if you did it, at first.”

“I did not,” Drizzt said.

Again Montolio nodded.

The time had come for Drizzt to fill in the details of his first few months on the surface. All the guilt came back to him when he recounted his battle with the gnoll group, and all the pain came rushing back, focused on the word “drizzit,” when he told of the Thistledowns and his gruesome discovery. Montolio identified the speedy sprite as a quickling but was quite at a loss to explain the giant goblin and wolf creatures that Drizzt had battled in the cave.

“You did right in killing the gnolls,” Montolio said when Drizzt had finished. “Release your guilt for that act and let it fall to nothingness.”

“How could I know?” Drizzt asked honestly. “All of my learning ties to Menzoberranzan and still I have not sorted the truth from the lies.”

“It has been a confusing journey,” Montolio said, and his sincere smile relieved the tension considerably. “Come along, and let me tell you of the races, and of why your scimitars struck for justice when they felled the gnolls.”

As a ranger, Montolio had dedicated his life to the unending struggle between the good races—humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings being the most prominent members—and the evil goblinoids and giantkind, who lived only to destroy as a bane to the innocent.

“Orcs are my particular unfavorites,” Montolio explained. “So now I content myself with keeping an eye—an owl’s eye, that is—on Graul and his smelly kin.”

So much fell into perspective for Drizzt then. Comfort flooded through the drow, for Drizzt’s instincts had proven correct and he could now, for a while and to some measure at least, be free from the guilt.

“What of the bounty hunter and those like him?” Drizzt asked. “They do not seem to fit so well into your descriptions of the races.”

“There is good and bad in every race,” Montolio explained. “I spoke only of the general conduct, and do not doubt that the general conduct of goblinoids and giantkind is an evil one!”

“How can we know?” Drizzt pressed.

“Just watch the children,” Montolio answered. He went on to explain the not-so-subtle differences between children of the goodly races and children of the evil races. Drizzt heard him, but distantly, needing no clarification. Always it seemed to come down to the children. Drizzt had felt better concerning his actions against the gnolls when he had looked upon the Thistledown children at play. And back in Menzoberranzan, what seemed like only a day ago and a thousand years ago at the same time, Drizzt’s father had expressed similar beliefs. “Are all drow children evil?” Zaknafein had wondered, and through all of his beleaguered life, Zaknafein had been haunted by the screams of dying children, drow nobles caught in the fire between warring families.

A long, silent moment ensued when Montolio finished, both friends taking the time to digest the day’s many revelations. Montolio knew that Drizzt was comforted when the drow, quite unexpectedly, turned to him, smiled widely, and abruptly changed the grim subject.

“Mooshie?” Drizzt asked, recalling the name McGristle had tagged on Montolio at the rock wall.

“Montolio DeBrouchee.” The old ranger cackled, tossing a grotesque wink Drizzt’s way. “Mooshie, to my friends, and to those like McGristle, who struggle so with any words bigger than ‘spit,’ ‘bear,’ or ‘kill!’”

“Mooshie,” Drizzt mumbled under his breath, taking some mirth at Montolio’s expense.

“Have you no chores to do, Drizzit?” the old ranger huffed.

Drizzt nodded and started boisterously away. This time, the ring of “drizzit” did not sting so very badly.

“Morueme’s Cave,” Roddy griped. “Damned Morueme’s Cave!” A split second later, a small sprite sat atop Roddy’s horse, staring the stunned bounty hunter in the face. Tephanis had watched the exchange at Montolio’s grove and had cursed his luck when the ranger had turned the bounty hunter away. If Roddy could catch Drizzt, the quickling figured, they’d both be out of his way, a fact that did not alarm Tephanis.

“Surely-you-are-not-so-stupid-as-to-believe-that-old-liar?” Tephanis blurted.

“Here!” Roddy cried, grabbing clumsily at the sprite, who merely hopped down, darted back, past the startled dog, and climbed up to sit behind Roddy.

“What in the Nine Hells are you?” the bounty hunter roared. “And sit still!”

“I am a friend,” Tephanis said as slowly as he could.

Roddy eyed him cautiously over one shoulder.

“If-you-want-the-drow, you-are-going-the-wrong-way,” the sprite said smugly.

A short while later, Roddy crouched in the high bluffs south of Montolio’s grove and watched the ranger and his dark-skinned guest going about their chores.

“Good-hunting!” Tephanis offered, then he was gone, back to Caroak, the great wolf that smelled better than this particular human.

Roddy, his eyes fixed upon the distant scene, hardly noticed the quickling’s departure. “Ye’ll pay for yer lies, ranger,” he muttered under his breath. An evil smile spread over his face as he thought of a way to get at the companions. It would be a delicate feat. But then, dealing with Graul always was.

Montolio’s messenger returned two days later with a note from Dove Falconhand. Hooter tried to recount the ranger’s response, but the excitable owl was completely inept at conveying such long and intricate tales. Flustered and having no other option, Montolio handed the letter to Drizzt and told the drow to read it aloud, and quickly. Not yet a skilled reader, Drizzt was several lines through the creased paper before he realized what it was. The note detailed Dove’s accounts of what had happened in Maldobar and along the subsequent chase. Dove’s version struck near to the truth, vindicating Drizzt and naming the barghest whelps as the murderers.

Drizzt’s relief was so great that he could hardly utter the words as the letter went on to express Dove’s pleasure and gratitude that the “deserving drow” had taken in with the old ranger.

“You get your due in the end, my friend,” was all that Montolio needed to say.