Sojourn

20. Years and Miles

The Harvest Inn in Westbridge was a favorite gathering place for travelers along the Long Road that stretched between the two great northern cities of Waterdeep and Mirabar. Aside from comfortable bedding at reasonable rates, the Harvest offered Derry’s Tavern and Eatery, a renowned story-swapping bar where on any night of any week a guest might find adventurers from regions as varied as Luskan and Sundabar. The hearth was bright and warm, the drinks were plentiful, and the yarns woven in Derry’s were ones that would be told and retold all across the realms.

Roddy kept the cowl of his worn traveling cloak pulled low about him, hiding his scarred face, as he tore into his mutton and biscuits. The old yellow dog sat on the floor beside him, growling, and every now and then Roddy absently dropped it a piece of meat.

The ravenous bounty hunter rarely lifted his head from the plate, but Roddy’s bloodshot eyes peered suspiciously from the shadows of his cowl. He knew some of the ruffians gathered in Derry’s this night, personally or by reputation, and he wouldn’t trust them any more than they, if they were wise, would trust him.

One tall man recognized Roddy’s dog as he passed the table and stopped, thinking to greet the bounty hunter. The tall man walked away silently, though, realizing that miserable McGristle wasn’t really worth the effort. No one knew exactly what had happened those years before in the mountains near Maldobar, but Roddy had come out of that region deeply scarred, physically and emotionally. Always a surly one, McGristle now spent more time growling than talking.

Roddy gnawed a bit longer then dropped the thick bone down to his dog and wiped his greasy hands on his cloak, inadvertently brushing back the side of his cowl that hid his gruesome scars. Roddy quickly pulled the cowl back down, his gaze darting about for anyone who might have noticed. A single disgusted glance had cost several men their lives where Roddy’s scars were concerned.

No one seemed to notice, though, not this time. Most of those who weren’t busily eating were over at the bar, arguing loudly.

“Never was it!” one man growled.

“I told you what I saw!” another shot back. “And I told you right!”

“To yer eyes!” the first shouted back, and still another put in, “Ye’d not know one if ye seen one!” Several of the men closed in, bumping chest to chest.

“Stand quiet!” came a voice. A man pushed out of the throng and pointed straight at Roddy, who, not recognizing the man, instinctively dropped his hand to Bleeder, his well-worn axe.

“Ask McGristle!” the man cried. “Roddy McGristle. He knows about dark elves better than any.”

A dozen conversations sprouted up at once as the whole group, looking like some amorphous rolling blob, slid over toward Roddy. Roddy’s hand was off Bleeder again, crossing fingers with the other one on the table in front of him.

“Ye’re McGristle, are ye?” the man asked Roddy, showing the bounty hunter a good measure of respect.

“Might that I am,” Roddy replied calmly, enjoying the attention. He hadn’t been surrounded by a group so interested in what he had to say since the Thistledown clan had been found murdered.

“Aw,” a disgruntled voice piped in from somewhere in the back, “what’s he know about dark elves.”

Roddy’s glare sent those in front back a step, and he noticed the movement. He liked the feeling, liked being important again, respected.

“Drow elf killed my dog,” he said gruffly. He reached down and yanked up the old yellow hound’s head, displaying the scar. “And dented this one’s head. Damned dark elf—” he said deliberately, easing the cowl back from his face—”gave me this.” Normally Roddy hid the hideous scars, but the crowd’s gasps and mumbles sounded immensely satisfying to the wretched bounty hunter. He turned to the side, gave them a full view, and savored the reaction for as long as he could.

“Black-skinned and white-haired?” asked a short, fat-bellied man, the one who had begun the debate back at the bar with his own tale of a dark elf.

“Would have to be if he was a dark elf,” Roddy huffed back. The man looked about triumphantly.

“That is what I tried to tell them,” he said to Roddy. “They claim that I saw a dirty elf, or an orc maybe, but I knew it was a drow!”

“If ye see a drow,” Roddy said grimly and deliberately, weighing every word with importance, “then ye know ye seen a drow. And ye’ll not forget that ye seen a drow! And let any man that doubts yer words go and find a drow for himself. He’ll come back to ye with a word of bein’ sorry!”

“Well, I seen a dark elf,” the man proclaimed. “I was camping in Lurkwood, north of Grunwald. Peaceful enough night, I thought, so I let the fire up a bit to beat the cold wind. Well, in walked this stranger without a warning, without a word!”

Every man in the group hung on the words now, hearing them in a different light now that the drow-scarred stranger had somewhat confirmed the tale.

“Without a word, or a bird call, or nothing!” the fat-bellied man went on. “He had his cloak pulled low, suspicious, so I said to him, ‘What are you about?’

“ ‘Searching for a place that my companions and I may camp the night,’ he answered, calm as you may. Seemed reasonable enough to me, but I still did not like that low cowl.

“ ‘Pull back your hood then,’ I told him. ‘I share nothing without seeing a man’s face.’ He considered my words a minute, then he moved his hands up, real slow,”—the man imitated the movement dramatically, glancing around to ensure that he had everyone’s attention.

“I needed to see nothing more!” the man cried suddenly, and everyone, though they had heard the same tale told the same way only a moment before, jumped back in surprise. “His hands were as black as coal and as slender as an elf’s. I knew then, but I know not how I knew so surely, that it was a drow before me. A drow, I say, and let any man who doubts my words go and find a dark elf for himself!”

Roddy nodded his approval as the fat-bellied man stared down his former doubters. “Seems I’ve heard too much about dark elves lately,” the bounty hunter grumbled.

“I’ve heared of just the one,” another man piped in. “Until we spoke to you, I mean, and heard of your battle. That makes two drow in six years.”

“As I said” Roddy remarked grimly, “seems I’ve heard too much about dark—” Roddy never finished as the group exploded into exaggerated laughter around him. It seemed like the grand old times to the bounty hunter, the days when everyone about him hung tense on his every word.

The only man who wasn’t laughing was the fat-bellied storyteller, too shook up from his own recounting of his meeting with the drow. “Still,” he said above the commotion, “when I think of those purple eyes staring out at me from under that cowl!”

Roddy’s smile disappeared in the blink of an eye. “Purple eyes?” he barely managed to gasp. Roddy had encountered many creatures that used infravision, the heat-sensing sight most common among denizens of the Underdark, and he knew that normally, such eyes showed as dots of red. Roddy still remembered vividly the purple eyes looking down at him when he was trapped under the maple tree. He knew then, and he knew now, that those strange-hued orbs were a rarity even among the dark elves.

Those in the group closest to Roddy stopped their laughing, thinking that Roddy’s question shed doubt on the truth of the man’s tale.

“They were purple,” the fat-bellied man insisted, though there was little conviction in his shaky voice. The men around him waited for Roddy’s agreement or rebuttal, not knowing whether or not to laugh at the storyteller.

“What weapons did the drow wield?” Roddy asked grimly, rising ominously to his feet.

The man thought for a moment. “Curved swords,” he blurted.

“Scimitars?”

“Scimitars,” the other agreed.

“Did the drow say his name?” Roddy asked, and when the man hesitated, Roddy grabbed him by the collar and pulled him over the table. “Did the drow say his name?” the bounty hunter said again, his breath hot on the fat-bellied man’s face.

“No… er, uh, Driz… ”

“Drizzit?”

The man shrugged helplessly, and Roddy threw him back to his feet. “Where?” the bounty hunter roared. “And when?”

“Lurkwood,” the quivering, full-bellied man said again. “Three weeks ago. Drow’s going to Mirabar with the Weeping Friars, I would guess.” Most of the crowd groaned at the mention of the fanatic religious group. The Weeping Friars were a ragged band of begging sufferers who believed—or claimed to believe—that there was a finite amount of pain in the world. The more suffering they took on themselves, the friars said, the less remained for the rest of world to endure. Nearly everyone scorned the order. Some were sincere, but some begged for trinkets, promising to suffer horribly for the good of the giver.

“Those were the drow’s companions,” the fat-bellied man continued. “They always go to Mirabar, go to find the cold, as winter comes on.”

“Long way,” someone remarked.

“Longer,” said another. “The Weeping Friars always take the tunnel route.”

“Three hundred miles,” the first man who had recognized Roddy put in, trying to calm the agitated bounty hunter. But Roddy never even heard him. His dog in tow, he spun away and stormed out of Berry’s, slamming the door behind him and leaving the whole group mumbling to each other in absolute surprise.

“It was Drizzit that took Roddy’s dog and ear,” the man went on, now turning his attention to the group. He had no previous knowledge of the strange drow’s name; he merely had made an assumption based on Roddy’s reaction. Now the group flowed around him, holding their collective breath for him to tell them of the tale of Roddy McGristle and the purple-eyed drow. Like any proper patron of Derry’s, the man didn’t let lack of real knowledge deter him from telling the tale. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and began, filling in the considerable blanks with whatever sounded appropriate.

A hundred more gasps and claps of appreciation and startled delight echoed on the street outside of Derry’s that night, but Roddy McGristle and his yellow dog, their wagon wheels already thick in the mud of the Long Road, heard none of them.

“Hey, what-are-you-doing?” came a weary complaint from a sack behind Roddy’s bench. Tephanis crawled out. “Why-are-we-leaving?”

Roddy twisted about and took a swipe, but Tephanis, even sleepy-eyed, had no trouble darting out of harm’s way.

“Ye lied to me, ye cousin to a kobold!” Roddy growled. “Ye telled me that the drow was dead. But he’s not! He’s on the road to Mirabar, and I mean to catch him!”

“Mirabar?” Tephanis cried. “Too-far, too-far!” The quickling and Roddy had passed through Mirabar the previous spring. Tephanis thought it a perfectly miserable place, full of grim-faced dwarves, sharp-eyed men, and a wind much too cold for his liking. “We-must-go-south-for-the-winter. South-where-it-is-warm!”

Roddy’s ensuing glare silenced the sprite. “I’ll forget what ye did to me,” he snarled, then he added an ominous warning, “if we get the drow.” He turned from Tephanis then, and the sprite crawled back into his sack, feeling miserable and wondering if Roddy McGristle was worth the trouble. Roddy drove through the night, bending low to urge his horse onward and muttering “Six years!” over and over.

Drizzt huddled close to the fire that roared out of an old ore barrel the group had found. This would be the drow’s seventh winter on the surface, but still he remained uncomfortable in the chill. He had spent decades, and his people had lived for many millennia, in the seasonless and warm Underdark. Although winter was still months away, its approach was evident in the chill winds blowing down from the Spine of the World Mountains. Drizzt wore only an old blanket, thin and torn, over his clothes, chain mail, and weapon belt.

The drow smiled when he noticed his companions fidgeting and huffing over who got the next draw on a bottle of wine they had begged and how much the last drinker had taken. Drizzt was alone at the barrel now; the Weeping Friars, while not actually shunning the drow, didn’t often go near him. Drizzt accepted this and knew that the fanatics appreciated his companionship for practical, if not aesthetic, reasons. Some of the band actually enjoyed attacks by the various monsters of the land, viewing them as opportunities for some true suffering, but the more pragmatic of the group appreciated having the armed and skilled drow around for protection.

The relationship was acceptable to Drizzt, if not fulfilling. He had left Mooshie’s Grove years ago filled with hope, but hope tempered by the realities of his existence. Time after time, Drizzt had approached a village only to be put out behind a wall of harsh words, curses, and drawn weapons. Every time, Drizzt shrugged away the snubbing. True to his ranger spirit—for Drizzt was indeed a ranger now, in training as well as in heart—he accepted his lot stoically.

The last rejection had shown Drizzt that his resolve was wearing thin, though. He had been turned away from Luskan, on the Sword Coast, but not by any guards, for he had never even approached the place. Drizzt’s own fears had kept him away, and that fact had frightened him more than any swords he had ever faced. On the road outside the city, Drizzt had met up with this handful of Weeping Friars, and the outcasts had tentatively accepted him, as much because they had no means to keep him out as because they were too full of their own wretchedness to care about any racial differences. Two of the group had even thrown themselves at Drizzt’s feet, begging him to unleash his “dark elf terrors” and make them suffer.

Through the spring and summer, the relationship had evolved with Drizzt serving as silent guardian while the friars went about their begging and suffering ways. All in all, it was quite distasteful, even sometimes deceitful, to the principled drow, but Drizzt had found no other options.

Drizzt stared into the leaping flames and considered his fate. He still had Guenhwyvar at his call and had put his scimitars and bow to gainful use many times. Every day he told himself that beside the somewhat helpless fanatics, he was serving Mielikki, and his own heart, well. Still, he did not hold the friars in high regard and did not call them friends. Watching the five men now, drunk and slobbering all over each other, Drizzt suspected that he never would.

“Beat me! Slash me!” one of the friars cried suddenly, and he ran over toward the barrel, stumbling into Drizzt. Drizzt caught him and steadied him, but only for a moment.

“Loosh your dwow whickedniss on me head!” the dirty, unshaven friar sputtered, and his lanky frame tumbled down in an angular heap.

Drizzt turned away, shook his head, and unconsciously dropped a hand into his pouch to feel the onyx figurine, needing the touch to remind him that he was not truly alone. He was surviving, fighting an endless and lonely battle, but was far from contented. He had found a place, perhaps, but not a home.

“Like the grove without Montolio,” the drow mused. “Never a home.”

“Did you say something?” asked a portly friar, Brother Mateus, coming over to collect his drunken companion. “Please excuse Brother Jankin, friend. He has imbibed too much, I fear.”

Drizzt’s helpless smile told that he had taken no offense, but his next words caught Brother Mateus, the leader and most rational member—if not the most honest—of the group, off guard.

“I will complete the trip to Mirabar with you,” Drizzt explained, “then I will leave.”

“Leave?” asked Mateus, concerned.

“This is not my place,” Drizzt explained.

“Ten-Towns ish the place!” Jankin blurted.

“If anyone has offended you… ” Mateus said to Drizzt, taking no heed of the drunken man.

“No one,” Drizzt said and smiled again. “There is more for me in this life, Brother Mateus. Do not be angry, I beg, but I am leaving. It was not a decision I came to lightly.”

Mateus took a moment to consider the words. “As you choose,” he said, “but might you at least escort us through the tunnel into Mirabar?”

“Ten-Towns!” Jankin insisted. “Thast the place fer’ suf-ferin’! Vou’d like it, too, drow. Land o’ rogues, where a rogue might find hish place!”

“Often there are rakes in the shadows who would prey on unarmed friars,” Mateus interrupted, giving Jankin a rough shake.

Drizzt paused a moment, transfixed on Jankin’s words. Jankin had collapsed, though, and the drow looked up to Mateus. “Is that not why you take the tunnel route into the city?” Drizzt asked the portly friar. The tunnel was normally reserved for mine carts, rolling down from the Spine of the World, but the friars always went through it, even in situations such as this, when they had to make a complete circuit of the city just to get to the long route’s entrance. “To fall victim and suffer?” Drizzt continued. “Surely the road is clear and more convenient with winter still months away.” Drizzt did not like the tunnel to Mirabar. Any wanderers they met on that road would be too close for the drow to hide his identity. Drizzt had been accosted there on both his previous trips through.

“The others insist that we go through the tunnel, though it is many miles out of our way,” replied Mateus, a sharp edge to his tone. “But I prefer more personal forms of suffering and would appreciate your company through to Mirabar.”

Drizzt wanted to scream at the phony friar. Mateus considered missing a single meal a harsh suffering and only used his facade because many gullible people handed coins to the cloaked fanatics, more often than not just to be rid of the smelly men.

Drizzt nodded and watched as Mateus hauled Jankin away. “Then I leave,” he whispered under his breath. He could tell himself over and over that he was serving his goddess and his heart by protecting the seemingly helpless band, but their behavior often flew in the face of those words.

“Dwow! Dwow!” Brother Jankin slobbered as Mateus dragged him back to the others.

21. Hephaestus

Tephanis watched the party of six—the five friars and Drizzt—make their slow way toward the tunnel on the western approach to Mirabar. Roddy had sent the quickling ahead to scout out the region, telling Tephanis to turn the drow, if he found the drow, back toward Roddy. “Bleeder’ll be taking care of that one,” Roddy had snarled, slapping his formidable axe across his palm.

Tephanis wasn’t so sure. The sprite had watched Ulgulu, a master arguably more powerful than Roddy McGristle, dispatched by the drow, and another mighty master, Caroak, had been torn apart by the drow’s black panther. If Roddy got his wish and met the drow in battle, Tephanis might soon be searching for yet another master.

“Not-this-time, drow,” the sprite whispered suddenly, an idea coming to mind. “This-time-I-get-you!” Tephanis knew the tunnel to Mirabar—he and Roddy had used it the winter before last, when snow had buried the western road—and had learned many of its secrets, including one that the sprite now planned to use to his advantage.

He made a wide circuit around the group, not wanting to alert the sharp-eared drow, and still made the tunnel entrance long before the others. A few minutes later, the sprite was more than a mile in, picking at an intricate lock, one that seemed clumsy to the skilled quickling, on a portcullis crank.

Brother Mateus led the way into the tunnel, with another friar at his side and the remaining three completing a shielding circle around Drizzt. Drizzt had requested this so that he could remain inconspicuous if anyone happened by. He kept his cloak pulled up tightly and his shoulders hunched. He stayed low in the middle of the group.

They met no other travelers and moved along the torch-lit passage at a steady pace. They came to an intersection and Mateus stopped abruptly, seeing the raised portcullis to a passage on the right side. A dozen steps in, an iron door swung wide, and the passage beyond that was pitch black, not torch-lit like the main tunnel.

“How curious,” Mateus remarked.

“Careless,” another corrected. “Let us pray that no other travelers, who might not know the way as well as we, happen by here and take the wrong path!”

“Perhaps we should close the door,” still another offered.

“No,” Mateus quickly interjected. “There may be some down there, merchants perhaps, who would not be so pleased if we followed that plan.”

“No!” Brother Jankin cried suddenly and ran to the front of the group. “It is a sign! A sign from God! We are beckoned, my brethren, to Phaestus, the ultimate suffering!”

Jankin turned to charge down the tunnel, but Mateus and one other, hardly surprised by Jankin’s customarily wild outburst, immediately sprang upon him and bore him to the ground.

“Phaestus!” Jankin cried wildly, his long and shaggy black hair flying all about his face. “I am coming!”

“What is it?” Drizzt had to ask, having no idea of what the friars were talking about, though he thought he recognized the reference. “Who, or what, is Phaestus?”

“Hephaestus,” Brother Mateus corrected.

Drizzt did know the name. One of the books he had taken from Mooshie’s Grove was of dragon lore, and Hephaestus, a venerable red dragon living in the mountains northwest of Mirabar, had an entry.

“That is not the dragon’s real name, of course,” Mateus went on between grunts as he struggled with Jankin. “I do not know that, nor does anyone else anymore.” Jankin twisted suddenly, throwing the other monk aside, and promptly stomped down on Mateus’s sandal.

“Hephaestus is an old red dragon who has lived in the caves west of Mirabar for as long as anyone, even the dwarves, can remember,” explained another friar, Brother Herschel, one less engaged than Mateus. “The city tolerates him because he is a lazy one and a stupid one, though I would not tell him so. Most cities, I presume, would choose to tolerate a red if it meant not fighting the thing! But Hephaestus is not much for pillaging—none can recall the last time he even came out of his hole—and he even does some ore-melting for hire, though the fee is steep.”

“Some pay it, though,” added Mateus, having Jankin back under control, “especially late in the season, looking to make the last caravan south. Nothing can separate metal like a red dragon’s breath!” His laughter disappeared quickly as Jankin slugged him, dropping him to the ground.

Jankin bolted free, for just a moment. Quicker than anyone could react, Drizzt threw off his cloak and rushed after the fleeing monk, catching him just inside the heavy iron door. A single step and twisting maneuver put Jankin down hard on his back and took the wild-eyed friar’s breath away.

“Let us get by this region at once,” the drow offered, staring down at the stunned friar. “I grow tired of Jankin’s antics—I might just allow him to run down to the dragon!”

Two of the others came over and gathered Jankin up, then the whole troupe turned to depart.

“Help!” came a cry from farther down the dark tunnel.

Drizzt’s scimitars came out in his hands. The friars all gathered around him, peering down into the gloom.

“Do you see anything?” Mateus asked the drow, knowing that Drizzt’s night vision was much keener than his own.

“No, but the tunnel turns a short way from here,” Drizzt replied.

“Help!” came the cry again. Behind the group, around the corner in the main tunnel, Tephanis had to suppress his laughter. Quicklings were adept ventriloquists, and the biggest problem Tephanis had in deceiving the group was keeping his cries slow enough to be understood.

Drizzt took a cautious step in, and the friars, even Jankin, sobered by the distress call, followed right behind. Drizzt motioned for them to go back, even as he suddenly realized the potential for a trap.

But Tephanis was too quick. The door slammed with a resounding thud and before the drow, two steps away, could push through the startled friars, the sprite already had the door locked. A moment later, Drizzt and the friars heard a second crash as the portcullis came down.

Tephanis was back out in the daylight a few minutes later, thinking himself quite clever and reminding himself to keep a puzzled expression when he explained to Roddy that the drow’s party was nowhere to be found.

The friars grew tired of yelling as soon as Drizzt reminded them that their screams might arouse the occupant at the other end of the tunnel. “Even if someone happens by the portcullis, he will not hear you through this door,” the drow said, inspecting the heavy portal with the single candle Mateus had lit. A combination of iron, stone, and leather, and perfectly fitted, the door had been crafted by dwarves. Drizzt tried pounding on it with the pommel of a scimitar, but that produced only a dull thud that went no farther than the screams.

“We are lost,” groaned Mateus. “We have no way out, and our stores are not too plentiful.”

“Another sign!” Jankin blurted suddenly, but two of the friars knocked him down and sat on him before he could run off toward the dragon’s den.

“Perhaps there is something to Brother Jankin’s thinking,” Drizzt said after a long pause.

Mateus looked at him suspiciously. “Are you thinking that our stores would last longer if Brother Jankin went to meet Hephaestus?” he asked.

Drizzt could not hold his laughter. “I have no intention of sacrificing anyone,” he said and looked at Jankin struggling under the friars. “No matter how willing! But we have only one way out, it would seem.”

Mateus followed Drizzt’s gaze down the dark tunnel. “If you plan no sacrifices, then you are looking the wrong way,” the portly friar huffed. “Surely you are not thinking to get past the dragon!”

“We shall see,” was all that the drow answered. He lit another candle from the first one and moved a short distance down the tunnel. Drizzt’s good sense argued against the undeniable excitement he felt at the prospect of facing Hephaestus, but it was an argument that he expected simple necessity to overrule. Montolio had fought a dragon, Drizzt remembered, had lost his eyes to a red. The ranger’s memories of the battle, aside from his wounds, were not so terrible. Drizzt was beginning to understand what the blind ranger had told him about the differences between survival and fulfillment. How valuable would be the five hundred years Drizzt might have left to live?

For the friar’s sake, Drizzt did hope that someone would come along and open the portcullis and door. The drow’s fingers tingled with promised thrills, though, when he reached into his sack and pulled out a book on dragon lore he had taken from the grove.

The drow’s sensitive eyes needed little light, and he could make out the script with only minor difficulty. As he suspected, there was an entry for the venerable red who lived west of Mirabar. The book confirmed that Hephaestus was not the dragon’s real name, rather the name given to it in reference to some obscure god of blacksmiths.

The entry was not extensive, mostly tales from the merchants who went in to hire the dragon for its breath, and other tales of merchants who apparently said the wrong thing or haggled too much about the cost—or perhaps the dragon was merely hungry or in a foul mood—for they never came back out. Most importantly to Drizzt, the entry confirmed the friar’s description of the beast as lazy and somewhat stupid. According to the notes, Hephaestus was overly proud, as dragons usually were, and able to speak the common tongue, but “lacking in the area of suspicious insight normally associated with the breed, particularly with venerable reds.”

“Brother Herschel is attempting to pick the lock,” Mateus said, coming over to Drizzt. “Your fingers are nimble. Would you give it a try?”

“Neither Herschel nor I could get through that lock,” Drizzt said absently, not looking up from the book.

“At least Herschel is trying,” Mateus growled, “and not huddled off by himself wasting candles and reading some worthless tome!”

“Not so worthless to any of us who mean to get out of here alive,” Drizzt said, still not looking up. He had the portly friar’s attention.

“What is it?” Mateus asked, leaning closely over Drizzt’s shoulder, even though he could not read.

“It tells of vanity,” Drizzt replied.

“Vanity? What does vanity have to do… ”

“Dragon vanity,” Drizzt explained. “A very important point, perhaps. All dragons possess it in excess, evil ones more than good ones.”

“Wielding claws as long as swords and breath that can melt a stone, well they should!” grumbled Mateus.

“Perhaps,” Drizzt conceded, “but vanity is a weakness—do not doubt—even to a dragon. Several heroes have exploited this trait to a dragon’s demise.”

“Now you’re thinking of killing the thing?” Mateus gawked.

“If I must,” Drizzt said, again absently. Mateus threw up his hands and walked away, shaking his head to answer the questioning stares of the others.

Drizzt smiled privately and returned to his reading. His plans were taking definite form now. He read the entire entry several times, committing every word of it to memory. Three candles later, Drizzt was still reading and the friars were growing impatient and hungry. They prodded Mateus, who stood, hiked his belt up over his belly, and strode toward Drizzt.

“More vanity?” he asked sarcastically.

“Done with that part,” Drizzt answered. He held up the book, showing Mateus a sketch of a huge black dragon curled up around several fallen trees in a thick swamp. “I am learning now of the dragon that may aid our cause.”

“Hephaestus is a red,” Mateus remarked scornfully, “not a black.”

“This is a different dragon,” Drizzt explained. “Mergandevinasander of Chult, possibly a visitor to converse with Hephaestus.”

Brother Mateus was at a complete loss. “Reds and blacks do not get on well,” he snipped, his skepticism obvious. “Every fool knows that.”

“Rarely do I listen to fools,” Drizzt replied, and again the friar turned and walked away, shaking his head.

“There is something more that you do not know, but Hephaestus most probably will,” Drizzt said quietly, too low for anyone to hear. “Mergandevinasander has purple eyes!” Drizzt closed the book, confident that it had given him enough understanding to make his attempt. If he had ever witnessed the terrible splendor of a venerable red before, he would not have been smiling at that moment. But both ignorance and memories of Montolio bred courage in the young drow warrior who had so little to lose, and Drizzt had no intention of giving in to starvation for fear of some unknown danger. He wouldn’t go forward either, not yet.

Not until he had time to practice his best dragon voice.

Of all the splendors Drizzt had seen in his adventurous life, none—not the great houses of Menzoberranzan, the cavern of the illithids, even the lake of acid—began to approach the awe-inspiring spectacle of the dragon’s lair. Mounds of gold and gems filled the huge chamber in rolling waves, like the wake of some giant ship on the sea. Weapons and armor, gleaming magnificently, were piled all about, and the abundance of crafted items—chalices, goblets and the like—could have fully stocked the treasure rooms of a hundred rich kings.

Drizzt had to remind himself to breathe when he looked upon the splendor. It wasn’t the riches that held him so—he cared little for material things—but the adventures that such wondrous items and wealth hinted at tugged Drizzt in a hundred different directions. Looking at the dragon’s lair belittled his simple survival on the road with the Weeping Friars and his simple desire to find a peaceful and quiet place to call his home. He thought again of Montolio’s dragon tale, and of all the other adventurous tales the blind ranger had told him. Suddenly he needed those adventures for himself.

Drizzt wanted a home, and he wanted to find acceptance, but he realized then, looking at the spoils, that he also desired a place in the books of the bards. He hoped to travel roads dangerous and exciting and even write his own tales.

The chamber itself was immense and uneven, rolling back around blind corners. The whole of it was dimly lit in a smoky, reddish golden glow. It was warm, uncomfortably so when Drizzt and the others took the time to consider the source of that heat.

Drizzt turned back to the waiting friars and winked, then pointed down to his left, to the single exit. “You know the signal,” he mouthed silently.

Mateus nodded tentatively, still wondering if it had been wise to trust the drow. Drizzt had been a valuable ally to the pragmatic friar on the road these last few months, but a dragon was a dragon.

Drizzt surveyed the room again, this time looking past the treasures. Between two piles of gold he spotted his target, and that was no less splendid than the jewels and gems. Lying in the valley of those mounds was a huge, scaled tail, red-gold like the hue of the light, swishing slightly and rhythmically back and forth, each swipe piling the gold deeper around it.

Drizzt had seen pictures of dragons before; one of the wizard masters in the Academy had even created illusions of the various dragon types for the students to inspect. Nothing, though, could have prepared the drow for this moment, his first view of a living dragon. In all the known realms there was nothing more impressive, and of all the dragon types, huge reds were perhaps the most imposing.

When Drizzt finally managed to tear his gaze from the tail, he sorted out his path into the chamber. The tunnel exited high on the side of a wall, but a clear trail led down to the floor. Drizzt studied this for a long moment, memorizing every step. Then he scooped two handfuls of dirt into his pockets, removed an arrow from his quiver, and placed a darkness spell over it. Carefully and quietly, Drizzt picked his blind steps down the trail, guided by the continuing swish of the scaly tail. He nearly stumbled when he reached the first pile of gems and heard the tail come to an abrupt stop.

“Adventure,” Drizzt reminded himself quietly, and he went on, concentrating on his mental image of his surroundings. He imagined the dragon rearing up before him, seeing through his darkness-globe disguise. He winced instinctively, expecting a burst of flame to engulf him and shrivel him where he stood. But he pressed on, and when he at last came over the gold pile, he was glad to hear the easy, thunderlike, breathing of the slumbering dragon.

Drizzt started up the second mound slowly, letting a spell of levitation form in his thoughts. He didn’t really expect the spell to work very well—it had been failing more completely each time he attempted it. Any help he could get would add to the effect of his deception. Halfway up the mound, Drizzt broke into a run, spraying coins and gems with every step. He heard the dragon rouse, but didn’t slow, drawing his bow as he went.

When he reached the ridge, he leaped out and enacted the levitation, hanging motionless in the air for a split second before the spell failed. Then Drizzt dropped, firing the bow and sending the darkness globe soaring across the chamber.

He never would have believed that a monster of such size could be so nimble, but when he crashed heavily onto a pile of goblets and jeweled trinkets, he found himself staring into the face of a very angry beast.

Those eyes! Like twin beams of damnation, their gaze latched onto Drizzt, bored right through him, impelled him to fall on his belly and grovel for mercy, and to reveal every deception, to confess every sin to Hephaestus, this god-thing. The dragon’s great, serpentine neck angled slightly to the side, but the gaze never let go of the drow, holding him as firmly as one of Bluster the bear’s hugs.

A voice sounded faintly but firmly in Drizzt’s thoughts, the voice of a blind ranger spinning tales of battle and heroism. At first, Drizzt hardly heard it, but it was an insistent voice, reminding Drizzt in its own special way that five other men depended on him now. If he failed, the friars would die.

This part of the plan was not too difficult for Drizzt, for he truly believed in his words. “Hephaestus!” he cried in the common tongue. “Can it be, at long last? Oh, most magnificent! More magnificent than the tales, by far!”

The dragon’s head rolled back a dozen feet from Drizzt, and a confused expression came into those all-knowing eyes, revealing the facade. “You know of me?” Hephaestus boomed, the dragon’s hot breath blowing Drizzt’s white mane behind him.

“All know of you, mighty Hephaestus!” Drizzt cried, scrambling to his knees but not daring to stand. “It was you whom I sought, and now I have found you and am not disappointed!”

The dragon’s terrible eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why would a dark elf seek Hephaestus, Destroyer of Cockleby, Devourer of Ten Thousand Cattle, He Who Crushed Angalander the Stupid Silver, He Who… ” It went on for many minutes, with Drizzt bearing the foul breath stoically, all the while feigning enchantment with the dragon’s listing of his many wicked accomplishments. When Hephaestus was done, Drizzt had to pause a moment to remember the initial question.

His real confusion only added to the deception at the time. “Dark elf?” he asked as if he didn’t understand. He looked up at the dragon and repeated the words, even more confused. “Dark elf?”

The dragon looked all around, his gaze falling like twin beacons across the treasure mounds, then lingering for some time on Drizzt’s blackness globe, halfway across the room. “I mean you!” Hephaestus roared suddenly, and the force of the yell knocked Drizzt over backward. “Dark elf!”

“Drow?” Drizzt said, recovering quickly and daring now to stand. “No, not I.” He surveyed himself and nodded in sudden recognition. “Yes, of course,” he said. “So often do I forget this mantle I wear!”

Hephaestus issued a long, low, increasingly impatient growl and Drizzt knew he had better move quickly.

“Not a drow,” he said. “Though soon I might be if Hephaestus cannot help me!” Drizzt could only hope that he had piqued the dragon’s curiosity. “You have heard of me, I am sure, mighty Hephaestus. I am, or was and hope to be again, Mergandevinasander of Chult, an old black of no small fame.”

“Mergandevin… ?” Hephaestus began, but the dragon let the word trail away. Hephaestus had heard of the black, of course; dragons knew the names of most of the other dragons in all the world. Hephaestus knew, too, as Drizzt had hoped he would, that Mergandevinasander had purple eyes.

To aid him through the explanation, Drizzt recalled his experiences with Clacker, the unfortunate pech who had been transformed by a wizard into the form of a hook horror. “A wizard defeated me,” he began somberly. “A party of adventurers entered my lair. Thieves! I got one of them, though, a paladin!”

Hephaestus seemed to like this little detail, and Drizzt, who had just thought of it, congratulated himself silently.

“How his silvery armor sizzled under the acid of my breath!”

“Pity to so waste him” Hephaestus interjected. “Paladins do make such fine meals!”

Drizzt smiled to hide his uneasiness at the thought. How would a dark elf taste? he could not help but wonder with the dragon’s mouth so very near. “I would have killed them all—and a fine treasure take it would have been—but for that wretched wizard! It was he that did this terrible thing to me!” Drizzt looked at his drow form reprovingly.

“Polymorph?” Hephaestus asked, and Drizzt noted a bit of sympathy—he prayed—in the voice.

Drizzt nodded solemnly. “An evil spell. Took my form, my wings, and my breath. Yet I remained Mergandevinasander in thought, though… ” Hephaestus widened his eyes at the pause, and the pitiful, confused look that Drizzt gave actually backed the dragon up.

“I have found this sudden affinity to spiders,” Drizzt muttered. “To pet them and kiss them… ” So that is what a disgusted red dragon looks like, Drizzt thought when he glanced back up at the beast. Coins and trinkets tinkled all throughout the room as an involuntary shudder coursed through the dragon’s spine.

The friars in the low tunnel couldn’t see the exchange, but they could make out the conversation well enough and understood what the drow had in mind. For the first time that any of them could recall, Brother Jankin was stricken speechless, but Mateus managed to whisper a few words, echoing their shared sentiments.

“He has got a measure of fortitude, that one!” The portly friar chuckled, and he slapped a hand across his own mouth, fearing that he had spoken too loudly.

“Why have you come to me?” Hephaestus roared angrily. Drizzt skidded backward under the force but managed to hold his balance this time.

“I beg, mighty Hephaestus!” Drizzt pleaded. “I have no choice. I traveled to Menzoberranzan, the city of drow, but this wizard’s spell was powerful, they told me, and they could do nothing to dispel it. So I come to you, great and powerful Hephaestus, renowned for your abilities with spells of transmutation. Perhaps one of my own kind… ”

“A black?” came the thunderous roar, and this time, Drizzt did fall. “Your own kind?”

“No, no, a dragon,” Drizzt said quickly, retracting the apparent insult and hopping back to his feet—thinking that he might be running soon. Hephaestus’s continuing growl told Drizzt that he needed a diversion, and he found it behind the dragon, in the deep scorch marks along the walls and back of a rectangular alcove. Drizzt figured this was where Hephaestus earned his considerable pay melting ores. The drow couldn’t help but shudder as he wondered how many unfortunate merchants or adventurers might have found their end between those blasted walls.

“What caused such a cataclysm?” Drizzt cried in awe. Hephaestus dared not turn away, suspecting treachery. A moment later, though, the dragon realized what the dark elf had noticed and the growl disappeared.

“What god has come down to you, mighty Hephaestus, and blessed you with such a spectacle of power? Nowhere in all the realms is there stone so torn! Not since the fires that formed the world… ”

“Enough!” Hephaestus boomed. “You who are so learned does not know the breath of a red?”

“Surely fire is the means of a red,” Drizzt replied, never taking his gaze from the alcove, “but how intense might the flames be? Surely not so as to wreak such devastation!”

“Would you like to see?” came the dragon’s answer in a sinister, smoking hiss.

“Yes!” Drizzt cried, then, “No!” he said, dropping into a fetal curl. He knew he was walking a tentative line here, but he knew it was a necessary gamble. “Truly I would desire to witness such a blast, but truly I fear to feel its heat.”

“Then watch, Mergandevinasander of Chult!” Hephaestus roared. “See your better!” The sharp intake of the dragon’s breath pulled Drizzt two steps forward, brought his white hair stinging around into his eyes, and nearly tore the blanket-cloak from his back. On the mound behind him, coins toppled forward in a noisy rush.

Then the dragon’s serpentine neck swung about in a long and wide arc, putting the great red’s head in line with the alcove.

The ensuing blast stole the air from the chamber; Drizzt’s lungs burned and his eyes stung, both from the heat and the brightness. He continued to watch, though, as the dragon fire consumed the alcove in a roaring, thunderous blaze. Drizzt noted, too, that Hephaestus closed his eyes tightly when he breathed his fire.

When the conflagration was finished, Hephaestus swung back triumphantly. Drizzt, still looking at the alcove, at the molten rock running down the walls and dripping from the ceiling, did not have to feign his awe.

“By the gods!” he whispered harshly. He managed to look back at the dragon’s smug expression. “By the gods,” he said again. “Mergandevinasander of Chult, who thought himself supreme, is humbled.”

“And well he should be!” Hephaestus boomed. “No black is the equal of a red! Know that now, Mergandevinasander. It is a fact that could save your life if ever a red comes to your door!”

“Indeed,” Drizzt promptly agreed. “But I fear that I shall have no door.” Again he looked down at his form and scowled with disdain. “No door beyond one in the city of dark elves!”

“That is your fate, not mine,” Hephaestus said. “But I shall take pity on you. I shall let you depart alive, though that is more than you deserve for disturbing my slumber!”

This was the critical moment, Drizzt knew. He could have taken Hephaestus up on the offer; at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be out of there. But his principles and Mooshie’s memory wouldn’t let him go. What of his companions in the tunnel? he reminded himself. And what of the adventures for the bards’ books?

“Devour me then,” he said to the dragon, though he could hardly believe the words as he spoke them. “I who have known the glory of dragonkind cannot be content with life as a dark elf.”

Hephaestus’s huge maw inched forward.

“Alas for all the dragonkind!” Drizzt wailed. “Our numbers ever decreasing, while the humans multiply like vermin. Alas for the treasures of dragons, to be stolen by wizards and paladins!” The way he spat that last word gave Hephaestus pause.

“And alas for Mergandevinasander,” Drizzt continued dramatically, “to be struck down thus by a human wizard whose power outshines even that of Hephaestus, mightiest of dragonkind!”

“Outshines!” Hephaestus cried, and the whole chamber trembled under the power of that roar.

“What am I to believe?” Drizzt yelled back, somewhat pitifully compared to the dragon’s volume. “Would Hephaestus not aid one of his own diminishing kind? Nay, that I cannot believe, that the world shall not believe!” Drizzt aimed a pointed finger at the ceiling above him, preaching for all he was worth. He did not have to be reminded of the price of failure. “They will say, one and all from all the wide realms, that Hephaestus dared not try to dispel the wizard’s magic, that the great red dared not reveal his weakness against so powerful a spell for fear that his weakness would invite that same wizard-led party to come north for another haul of dragon plunder!

“Ah!” Drizzt shouted, wide-eyed. “But will not Hephaestus’s perceived surrender also give the wizard and his nasty thieving friends hope of such plunder? And what dragon possesses more to steal than Hephaestus, the red of rich Mirabar?”

The dragon was at a loss. Hephaestus liked his way of life, sleeping on treasures ever-growing from high-paying merchants. He didn’t need the likes of heroic adventurers poking around in his lair! Those were the exact sentiments Drizzt had been counting on.

“Tomorrow!” the dragon roared. “This day I contemplate the spell and tomorrow Mergandevinasander shall be a black once more! Then he shall depart, his tail aflame, if he dares utter one more blasphemous word! Now I must take my rest to recall the spell. You shall not move, dragon in drow form. I smell you where you are and hear as well as anything in all the world. I am not as sound a sleeper as many thieves have wished!”

Drizzt did not doubt a word of it, of course, so while things had gone as well as he had hoped, he found himself in a bit of a mess. He couldn’t wait a day to resume his conversation with the red, nor could his friends. How would proud Hephaestus react, Drizzt wondered, when the dragon tried to counter a spell that didn’t even exist? And what, Drizzt told himself as he neared panic, would he do if Hephaestus actually did change him into a black dragon?

“Of course, the breath of a black has advantages over a red’s,” Drizzt blurted as Hephaestus swung away.

The red came back at him in a frightening flash and with frightening fury.

“Would you like to feel my breath?” Hephaestus snarled. “How great would come your boasts then, I must wonder?”

“No, not that” Drizzt replied, “Take no insult, mighty Hephaestus. Truly the spectacle of your fires stole my pride! But the breath of a black cannot be underestimated. It has qualities beyond even the power of a red’s fire!”

“How say you?”

“Acid, O Hephaestus the Incredible, Devourer of Ten Thousand Cattle,” Drizzt replied. “Acid clings to a knight’s armor, digs through in lasting torment.”

“As dripping metal might?” Hephaestus asked sarcastically. “Metal melted by a red’s fire?”

“Longer, I fear,” Drizzt admitted, dropping his gaze. “A red’s breath comes in a burst of destruction, but a black’s lingers, to the enemy’s dismay.”

“A burst?” Hephaestus growled. “How long can your breath last, pitiful black? Longer can I breath, I know!”

“But… ” Drizzt began, indicating the alcove. This time, the dragon’s sudden intake pulled Drizzt several steps forward and nearly whipped him from his feet. The drow kept his wits enough to cry out the appointed signal, “Fires of the Nine Hells!” as Hephaestus swung his head back in line with the alcove.

“The signal!” Mateus said above the tumult. “Run for your lives! Run!”

“Never!” cried the terrified Brother Herschel, and the others, except for Jankin, didn’t disagree.

“Oh, to suffer so!” the shaggy-haired fanatic wailed, stepping from the tunnel.

“We have to! On our lives!” Mateus reminded them, catching Jankin by the hair to keep him from going the wrong way.

They struggled at the tunnel exit for several seconds and then the other friars, realizing that perhaps their only hope soon would pass them by, burst out of the tunnel and the whole group tumbled out and down the sloping path from the wall. When they recovered, they were surely in a fix, and they danced about aimlessly, not sure of whether to climb back up to the tunnel or light out for the exit. Their desperate scrambling hardly made any headway up the slope, especially with Mateus still trying to rein in Jankin, so the exit was the only way. Tripping all over themselves, the friars fled across the room.

Even their terror did not prevent each of them, even Jankin, from scooping up a pocketful of baubles as he passed.

Never had there been such a blast of dragon fire! Hephaestus, eyes closed, roared on and on, disintegrating the stone in the alcove. Great gouts of flame burst out into the room—Drizzt was nearly overcome by the heat—but the angry dragon did not relent, determined to humble the annoying visitor once and for all.

The dragon peeked once, to witness the effects of his display. Dragons knew their treasure rooms better than anything in the world, and Hephaestus did not miss the image of five fleeting figures darting across the main chamber toward the exit.

The breath stopped abruptly and the dragon swung about. “Thieves!” he roared, splitting stone with his thunderous voice.

Drizzt knew that the game was up.

The great, spear-filled maw snapped at the drow. Drizzt stepped to the side and leaped, having nowhere else to go. He caught one of the dragon’s horns and rode up with the beast’s head. Drizzt managed to scramble on top of it and held on for all his life as the outraged dragon tried to shake him free. Drizzt reached for a scimitar but found a pocket instead, and he pulled out a handful of dirt. Without the slightest hesitation, the drow flung the dirt down into the dragon’s evil eye.

Hephaestus went berserk, snapping his head violently, up and down and all about. Drizzt held on stubbornly, and the devious dragon discerned a better method.

Drizzt understood Hephaestus’s intent as the head shot up into the air at full speed. The ceiling was not so high—not compared with Hephaestus’s serpentine neck. It was a long fall, but a preferable fate by far, and Drizzt dropped off just before the dragon’s head slammed into the rock.

Drizzt dizzily regained his feet as Hephaestus, hardly slowed by the crushing impact, sucked in his breath. Luck saved the drow, and not for the first or the last time, as a considerable chunk of stone fell from the battered ceiling and crashed into the dragon’s head. Hephaestus’s breath blurted out in a harmless puff and Drizzt darted with all speed over the treasure mound, diving down behind.

Hephaestus roared in rage and loosed the rest of his breath, without thinking, straight for the mound. Gold coins melted together; enormous gemstones cracked under the pressure. The mound was fully twenty feet thick and tightly packed, but Drizzt, against the opposite side, felt his back aflame. He jumped out from the pile, leaving his cloak smoking and meshed with molten gold.

Out came Drizzt, scimitars drawn, as the dragon reared. The drow rushed straight in bravely, stupidly, whacking away with all his strength. He stopped, stunned, after only two blows, both scimitars ringing painfully in his hands; he might as well have banged them against a stone wall!

Hephaestus, head high, had paid the attack no heed. “My gold!” the dragon wailed. Then the beast looked down, his lamplight gaze boring through the drow once more. “My gold!” Hephaestus said again, wickedly.

Drizzt shrugged sheepishly, then he ran.

Hephaestus snapped his tail about, slamming it into yet another mound of treasure and showering the room in flying gold and silver coins and gemstones. “My gold!” the dragon roared over and over as he slammed his way through the tight piles.

Drizzt fell behind another mound. “Help me, Guenhwyvar,” he begged, dropping the figurine.

“I smell you, thief!” The dragon purred—as if a thunderstorm could purr—not far from Drizzt’s mound.

In response, the panther came to the top of the mound, roared in defiance, then sprang away. Drizzt, down at the bottom, listened carefully, measuring the steps, as Hephaestus rushed forward.

“I shall chew you apart, shape-changer!” the dragon bellowed, and his gaping mouth snapped down at Guenhwyvar.

But teeth, even dragon teeth, had little effect on the insubstantial mist that Guenhwyvar suddenly became.

Drizzt managed to pocket a few baubles as he rushed out, his retreat covered by the din of the frustrated dragon’s tantrum. The chamber was large and Drizzt was not quite gone when Hephaestus recovered and spotted him. Confused but no less enraged, the dragon roared and started after Drizzt.

In the goblin tongue, knowing from the book that Hephaestus spoke it but hoping that the dragon wouldn’t know he knew, Drizzt yelled, “When the stupid beast follows me out, come out and get the rest!”

Hephaestus skidded to a stop and spun about, eyeing the low tunnel that led to the mines. The stupid dragon was in a frightful fit, wanting to munch on the imposing drow but fearing a robbery from behind. Hephaestus stalked over to the tunnel and slammed his scaly head into the wall above it, for good measure, then moved back to think things over.

The thieves had made the exit by now, the dragon knew; he would have to go out under the wide sky if he wanted to catch them—not a wise proposition at this time of year, considering the dragon’s lucrative business. In the end, Hephaestus settled the dilemma as he settled every problem: He vowed to thoroughly eat the next merchant party that came his way. His pride restored in that resolution, one that he undoubtedly would forget as soon as he returned to his sleep, the dragon moved back about his chamber, repiling the gold and salvaging what he could from the mounds he inadvertently had melted.

22. Homeward Bound

“You got us through!” Brother Herschel cried. All of the friars except Jankin threw a great hug on Drizzt as soon as the drow caught up to them in a rocky vale west of the dragon lair’s entrance.

“If ever there is a way that we can repay you… !”

Drizzt emptied his pockets in response, and five sets of eager eyes widened as gold trinkets and baubles rolled forth, glittering in the afternoon sun. One gem in particular, a two-inch ruby, promised wealth beyond anything the friars had ever known.

“For you,” Drizzt explained. “All of it. I have no need of treasures.”

The friars looked about guiltily, none of them willing to reveal the booty stored in his own pockets. “Perhaps you should keep a bit,” Mateus offered, “if you still plan to strike out on your own.”

“I do,” Drizzt said firmly.

“You cannot stay here,” reasoned Mateus. “Where will you go?”

Drizzt really hadn’t given it much thought. All he really knew was that his place was not among the Weeping Friars. He pondered a while, recalling the many dead-end roads he had traveled. A thought popped into his head.

“You said it,” Drizzt remarked to Jankin. “You named the place a week before we entered the tunnel.”

Jankin looked at him curiously, hardly remembering.

“Ten-Towns,” Drizzt said. “Land of rogues, where a rogue might find his place.”

“Ten-Towns?” Mateus balked. “Surely you should reconsider your course, friend. Icewind Dale is not a welcoming place, nor are the hardy killers of Ten-Towns.”

“The wind is ever blowing,” Jankin added with a wistful look in his dark and hollow eyes, “filled with stinging sand and an icy bite. I will go with you!”

“And the monsters!” added one of the others, slapping Jankin on the back of the head. “Tundra yeti and white bears, and fierce barbarians! No, I would not go to Ten-Towns if Hephaestus himself tried to chase me there!”

“Well the dragon might,” said Herschel, glancing nervously back toward the not-so-distant lair. “There are some farmhouses nearby. Perhaps we could stay there the night and get back to the tunnel tomorrow.”

“I’ll not go with you,” Drizzt said again. “You name Ten-Towns an unwelcoming place, but would I find any warmer reception in Mirabar?”

“We will go to the farmers this night,” Mateus replied, reconsidering his words. “We will buy you a horse there, and the supplies you will need. I do not wish you to go away at all,” he said, “but Ten-Towns seems a good choice—” He looked pointedly at Jankin—”for a drow. Many have found their place there. Truly it is a home for he who has none.”

Drizzt understood the sincerity in the friar’s voice and appreciated Mateus’s graciousness. “How do I find it?” he asked.

“Follow the mountains,” Mateus replied. “Keep them always at your right hand’s reach. When you get around the range, you have entered Icewind Dale. Only a single peak marks the flat land north of the Spine of the World. The towns are built around it. May they be all that you hope!”

With that, the friars prepared to leave. Drizzt clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back against the valley wall. It was indeed time for his parting with the friars, he knew, but he could not deny both the guilt and loneliness that the prospect offered. The small riches they had taken from the dragon’s lair would greatly change his companions’ lives, would give them shelter and all the necessities, but wealth could do nothing to alter the barriers that Drizzt faced.

Ten-Towns, the land that Jankin had named a house for the homeless, a gathering ground for those who had nowhere else to go, brought the drow a measure of hope. How many times had fate kicked him? How many gates had he approached hopefully only to be turned away at the tip of a spear? This time will be different, Drizzt told himself, for if he could not find a place in the land of rogues, where then might he turn?

For the beleaguered drow, who had spent so very long running from tragedy, guilt, and prejudices he could not escape, hope was not a comfortable emotion.

Drizzt camped in a small copse that night while the friars went into the small farming village. They returned the next morning leading a fine horse, but with one of their group conspicuously absent.

“Where is Jankin?” Drizzt asked, concerned.

“Tied up in a barn,” Mateus replied. “He tried to get away last night, to go back… ”

“To Hephaestus,” Drizzt finished for him.

“If he is still in a mind for it this day, we might just let him go,” added a disgusted Herschel.

“Here is your horse,” Mateus said, “if the night has not changed your mind.”

“And here is a new wrap,” offered Herschel. He handed Drizzt a fine, fur-lined cloak. Drizzt knew how uncharacteristically generous the friars were being, and he almost changed his mind. He could not dismiss his other needs, though, and he would not satisfy them among this group.

To display his resolve, the drow moved straight to the animal, meaning to climb right on. Drizzt had seen a horse before, but never so close. He was amazed by the beast’s sheer strength, the muscles rippling along the animal’s neck, and he was amazed, too, by the height of the animal’s back.

He spent a moment staring into the horse’s eyes, communicating his intent as best he could. Then, to everyone’s shock, even Drizzt’s, the horse bent low, allowing the drow to climb easily into the saddle.

“You have a way with horses,” remarked Mateus. “Never did you mention that you were a skilled rider.”

Drizzt only nodded and did his very best to remain in the saddle when the horse started into a trot. It took the drow many moments to figure out how to control the beast and he had circled far to the east—the wrong way—before he managed to turn about. Throughout the circuit, Drizzt tried hard to keep up his facade, and the friars, never ones for horses themselves, merely nodded and smiled.

Hours later, Drizzt was riding hard to the west, following the southern edge of the Spine of the World.

“The Weeping Friars,” Roddy McGristle whispered, looking down from a stony bluff at the band as they made their way back toward Mirabar’s tunnel later that same week.

“What?” Tephanis gawked, rushing from his sack to join Roddy, For the very first time, the sprite’s speed proved a liability. Before he even realized what he was saying, Tephanis blurted, “It-cannot-be! The-dragon… ”

Roddy’s glare fell over Tephanis like the shadow of a thundercloud.

“I-mean-I-assumed… ” Tephanis sputtered, but he realized that Roddy, who knew the tunnel better than he and knew, too, the sprite’s ways with locks, had pretty much guessed the indiscretion.

“Ye took it on yerself to kill the drow,” Roddy said calmly.

“Please, my-master,” Tephanis replied. “I-did-not-mean… I-feared-for-you. The-drow-is-a-devil, I-say! I-sent-them-down-the-dragon’s-tunnel. I-thought-that-you… ”

“Forget it,” Roddy growled. “Ye did what ye did, and no more about it. Now get in yer sack. Mighten that we can fix what ye done, if the drow’s not dead.”

Tephanis nodded, relieved, and zipped back into the sack. Roddy scooped it up and called his dog to his side.

“I’ll get the friars talking,” the bounty hunter vowed, “but first… ” Roddy whipped the sack about, slamming it into the stone wall.

“Master!” came the sprite’s muffled cry.

“Ye drow-stealin… ” Roddy huffed, and he beat the sack mercilessly against the unyielding stone. Tephanis squirmed for the first few whacks, even managed to begin a tear with his little dagger. But then the sack darkened with wetness and the sprite struggled no more.

“Drow-stealing mutant,” Roddy mumbled, tossing the gory package away. “Come on, dog. If the drow’s alive, the friars’ll know where to find him.”

The Weeping Friars were an order dedicated to suffering, and a couple of them, particularly Jankin, had indeed suffered much in their lives. None of them, though, had ever imagined the level of cruelty they found at the hands of wild-eyed Roddy McGristle, and before an hour had passed, Roddy, too, was driving hard to the west along the southern edge of the mountain range.

The cold eastern wind filled his ears with its endless song. Drizzt had heard it every second since he had rounded the western edge of the Spine of the World and turned north and then east, into the barren stretch of land named for this wind, Icewind Dale. He accepted the mournful groan and the wind’s freezing bite willingly, for to Drizzt the rush of air came as a gust of freedom.

Another symbol of that freedom, the sight of the wide sea, came as the drow rounded the mountain range. Drizzt had visited the shoreline once, on his passage to Luskan, and now he wanted to pause and go the few miles to its shores again. But the cold wind reminded him of the impending winter, and he understood the difficulty he would find in traveling the dale once the first snows had fallen.

Drizzt spotted Kelvin’s Cairn, the solitary mountain on the tundra north of the great range, the first day after he had turned into the dale. He made for it anxiously, visualizing its singular peak as the marking post to the land he would call home. Tentative hope filled him whenever he focused on that mountain.

He passed several small groups, solitary wagons or a handful of men on horseback, as he neared the region of Ten-Towns along the caravan route, a southwestern approach. The sun was low in the west and dim, and Drizzt kept the cowl of his fine cloak pulled low, hiding his ebony skin. He nodded curtly as each traveler passed.

Three lakes dominated the region, along with the peak of rocky Kelvin’s Cairn, which rose a thousand feet above the broken plain and was capped with snow even through the short summer. Of the ten towns that gave the area its name, only the principle city, Bryn Shander, stood apart from the lakes. It sat above the plain, on a short hill, its flag whipping defiantly against the stiff wind. The caravan route, Drizzt’s trail, led to this city, the region’s principle marketplace.

Drizzt could tell from the rising smoke of distant fires that several other communities were within a few miles of the city on the hill. He considered his course for a moment, wondering if he should go to one of these smaller, more secluded towns instead of continuing straight on to the principle city.

“No,” the drow said firmly, dropping a hand into his pouch to feel the onyx figurine. Drizzt kicked his horse ahead, up the hill to the walled city’s forbidding gates.

“Merchant?” asked one of the two guards standing bored before the iron-bound portal. “Ye’re a bit late in the year for trading.”

“No merchant,” Drizzt replied softly, losing a good measure of his nerve now that the hour was upon him. He reached up slowly to his hood, trying to keep his trembling hand moving.

“From what town, then?” the other guard asked. Drizzt dropped his hand back, his courage deflected by the blunt question.

“From Mirabar,” he answered honestly, and then, before he could stop himself and before the guards posed another distracting question, he reached up and pulled back his hood.

Four eyes popped wide and hands immediately dropped to belted swords.

“No!” Drizzt retorted suddenly. “No, please.” A weariness came into both his voice and his posture that the guards could not understand. Drizzt had no strength left for senseless battles of misunderstanding. Against a goblin horde or a marauding giant, the drow’s scimitars came easily into his hands, but against one who only battled him because of misperceptions, his blades weighed heavily indeed.

“I have come from Mirabar,” Drizzt continued, his voice growing steadier with each syllable, “to Ten-Towns to reside in peace.” He held his hands out wide, offering no threat.

The guards hardly knew how to react. Neither of them had ever seen a dark elf—though they knew beyond doubt that Drizzt was one—or knew more about the race than fireside tales of the ancient war that had split the elven peoples apart.

“Wait here,” one of the guards breathed to the other, who didn’t seem to appreciate the order. “I will go inform Spokesman Cassius.” He banged on the iron-bound gate and slipped inside as soon as it was opened wide enough to let him through. The remaining guard eyed Drizzt unblinking, his hand never leaving his sword hilt.

“If you kill me, a hundred crossbows will cut you down,” he declared, trying but utterly failing to sound confident.

“Why would I?” Drizzt asked innocently, keeping his hands wide apart and his posture unthreatening. This encounter had gone well so far, he believed. In every other village he had dared approach, those first seeing him had fled in terror or chased him with bared weapons.

The other guard returned a short time later with a small and slender man, clean-shaven and with bright blue eyes that scanned continuously, taking in every detail. He wore fine clothes, and from the respect the two guards showed the man, Drizzt knew at once that he was of high rank.

He studied Drizzt for a long while, considering every move and every feature. “I am Cassius,” he said at length, “Spokesman of Bryn Shander and Principle Spokesman of Ten-Towns’ Ruling Council.”

Drizzt dipped a short bow. “I am Drizzt Do’Urden,” he said, “of Mirabar and points beyond, now come to Ten-Towns.”

“Why?” Cassius asked sharply, trying to catch him off guard.

Drizzt shrugged. “Is a reason required?”

“For a dark elf, perhaps,” Cassius replied honestly. Drizzt’s accepting smile disarmed the spokesman and quieted the two guards, who now stood protectively close to his sides. “I can offer no reason for coming, beyond my desire to come,” Drizzt continued. “Long has been my road, Spokesman Cassius. I am weary and in need of rest. Ten-Towns is the place of rogues, I have been told, and do not doubt that a dark elf is a rogue among the dwellers of the surface.”

It seemed logical enough, and Drizzt’s sincerity came through clearly to the observant spokesman. Cassius dropped his chin in his palm and thought for a long while. He didn’t fear the drow, or doubt the elf’s words, but he had no intention of allowing the stir that a drow would cause in his city.

“Bryn Shander is not your place,” Cassius said bluntly, and Drizzt’s lavender eyes narrowed at the unfair proclamation. Undaunted, Cassius pointed to the north. “Go to Lonelywood, in the forest on the northern banks of Maer Dualdon,” he offered. He swung his gaze to the southeast. “Or to Good Mead or Dougan’s Hole on the southern lake, Redwaters. These are smaller towns, where you will cause less stir and find less trouble.”

“And when they refuse my entry?” Drizzt asked. “Where then, fair spokesman? Out in the wind to die on the empty plain?”

“You do not know—”

“I know,” Drizzt interrupted. “I have played this game many times. Who will welcome a drow, even one who has forsaken his people and their ways and who desires nothing more than peace?” Drizzt’s voice was stern and showed no self-pity, and Cassius again understood the words to be true.

Truly Cassius sympathized. He himself had been a rogue once and had been forced to the ends of the world, to forlorn Icewind Dale, to find a home. There were no ends farther than this; Icewind Dale was a rogue’s last stop. Another thought came to Cassius then, a possible solution to the dilemma that would not nag at his conscience.

“How long have you lived on the surface?” Cassius asked, sincerely interested.

Drizzt considered the question for a moment, wondering what point the spokesman meant to make. “Seven years,” he replied.

“In the northland?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you have found no home, no village to take you in,” Cassius said. “You have survived hostile winters and, doubtless, more direct enemies. Are you skilled with those blades you hang on your belt?”

“I am a ranger,” Drizzt said evenly.

“An unusual profession for a drow,” Cassius remarked.

“I am a ranger,” Drizzt said again, more forcefully, “well trained in the ways of nature and in the use of my weapons.”

“I do not doubt,” Cassius mused. He paused, then said, “There is a place offering shelter and seclusion.” The spokesman led Drizzt’s gaze to the north, to the rocky slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn. “Beyond the dwarven vale lies the mountain,” Cassius explained, “and beyond that the open tundra. It would do Ten-Towns well to have a scout on the mountain’s northern slopes. Danger always seems to come from that direction.”

“I came to find my home,” Drizzt interrupted. “You offer me a hole in a pile of rock and a duty to those whom I owe nothing.” In truth, the suggestion appealed to Drizzt’s ranger spirit.

“Would you have me tell you that things are different?” Cassius replied. “I’ll not let a wandering drow into Bryn Shander.”

“Would a man have to prove himself worthy?”

“A man does not carry so grim a reputation,” Cassius replied evenly, without hesitation. “If I were so magnanimous, if I welcomed you on your words alone and threw my gates wide, would you enter and find your home? We both know better than that, drow. Not everyone in Bryn Shander would be so open-hearted, I promise. You would cause an uproar wherever you went and, whatever your demeanor and intent, you would be forced into battles.

“It would be the same in any of the towns,” Cassius went on, guessing that his words had struck a chord of truth in the homeless drow. “I offer you a hole in a pile of rock, within the borders of Ten-Towns, where your actions, good or bad, will become your reputation beyond the color of your skin. Does rny offer seem so shallow now?”

“I shall need supplies,” Drizzt said, accepting the truth of Cassius’s words. “And what of my horse? I do not think the slopes of a mountain are a proper place for such a beast.”

“Trade your horse then,” Cassius offered. “My guard will get a fair price and return here with the supplies you will need.”

Drizzt thought about the suggestion for a moment, then handed the reins to Cassius.

The spokesman left then, thinking himself quite clever. Not only had he averted any immediate trouble, he had convinced Drizzt to guard his borders, all in a place where Bruenor Battlehammer and his clan of grim-faced dwarves could certainly keep the drow from causing any trouble.

Roddy McGristle pulled his wagon into a small village nestled in the shadows of the mountain range’s western end. Snow would come soon, the bounty hunter knew, and he had no desire to be caught halfway up the dale when it began. He’d stay here with the farmers and wait out the winter. Nothing could leave the dale without passing this area, and if Drizzt had gone there, as the friars had revealed, he had nowhere left to run.

Drizzt set out from the gates that night, preferring the darkness for his journey, despite the cold. His direct approach to the mountain took him along the eastern rim of the rocky gorge that the dwarves had claimed as their home. Drizzt took extra care to avoid any guards the bearded folk might have set. He had encountered dwarves only once before, when he had passed Citadel Adbar on his earliest wanderings out of Mooshie’s Grove, and it had not been a pleasant experience. Dwarven patrols had chased him off without waiting for any explanations, and they had dogged him through the mountains for many days.

For all his prudence in getting past the valley, though, Drizzt could not ignore a high mound of rocks he came upon, a climb with steps cut into the piled stones. He was less than halfway to the mountain, with several miles and hours of night still to go, but Drizzt moved up the detour, step over step, enchanted by the widening panorama of town lights about him.

The climb was not high, only fifty feet or so, but with the flat tundra and clear night Drizzt was afforded a view of five cities: two on the banks of the lake to the east, two to the west on the largest lake, and Bryn Shander, on its hillock a few miles to the south.

How many minutes passed Drizzt did not know, for the sights sparked too many hopes and fantasies for him to notice. He had been in Ten-Towns for barely a day, but already he was feeling comfortable with the sights, with knowing that thousands of people about the mountain would hear of him and possibly come to accept him.

A grumbling, gravelly voice shook Drizzt from his contemplations. He dropped into a defensive crouch and circled behind a rock. The stream of complaints marked the coming figure clearly. He was wide-shouldered and about a foot shorter than Drizzt, though obviously heavier than the drow. Drizzt knew it was a dwarf even before the figure paused to adjust its helmet—by slamming its head into a stone.

“Dagnaggit blasted,” the dwarf muttered, “adjusting” the helmet a second time.

Drizzt was certainly intrigued, but he was also smart enough to realize that a grumbling dwarf wouldn’t likely welcome an uninvited drow in the middle of a dark night. As the dwarf moved for yet another adjustment, Drizzt skipped off, running lightly and silently along the side of the trail. He passed close by the dwarf but then was gone with no more rustle than the shadow of a cloud.

“Eh?” the dwarf mumbled when he came back up, this time satisfied with his headgear’s fit. “Who’s that? What’re ye about?” He went into a series of short, spinning hops, eyes darting alertly all about.

There was only the darkness, the stones, and the wind.

23. A Memory Come to Life

The season’s first snow fell lazily over Icewind Dale, large flakes drifting down in mesmerizing zigzag dances, so different from the wind-whipped blizzards most common to the region. The young girl, Catti-brie, watched it with obvious enchantment from the doorway of her cavern home, the hue of her deep-blue eyes seeming even purer in the reflection of the ground’s white blanket.

“Late in comin’, but hard when it gets here,” grumbled Bruenor Battlehammer, a red-bearded dwarf, as he came up behind Catti-brie, his adopted daughter. “Suren to be a hard season, as are all in this place for white dragons!”

“Oh, me Daddy!” replied Catti-brie sternly. “Stop yer whining! Suren ‘tis a beautiful fall, and harmless enough without the wind to drive it.”

“Humans,” huffed the dwarf derisively, still behind the girl. Catti-brie could not see his expression, tender toward her even as he grumbled, but she didn’t need to. Bruenor was nine parts bluster and one part grouch, by Catti-brie’s estimation.

Catti-brie spun on the dwarf suddenly, her shoulder-length, auburn locks twirling about her face. “Can I go out to play?” she asked, a hopeful smile on her face. “Oh, please, me Daddy!”

Bruenor forced on his best grimace. “Go out!” he roared. “None but a fool’d look for an Icewind Dale winter as a place for playin’! Show some sense, girl! The season’d freeze yer bones!”

Catti-brie’s smile disappeared, but she refused to surrender so easily. “Well said for a dwarf,” she retorted, to Bruenor’s horror. “Ye’re well enough fit for the holes and the less ye see o’ the sky, the more ye’re smiling! But I’ve a long winter ahead, and this might be me last chance to see the sky. Please, Daddy?”

Bruenor could not hold his snarling visage against his daughter’s charm, but he did not want her to go out. “I’m fearing there’s something prowlin’ out there,” he explained, trying to sound authoritative. “Sensed it on the climb a few nights back, though I never seen it. Mighten be a white lion, or a white bear. Best to… ” Bruenor never finished, for Catti-brie’s disheartened look more than destroyed the dwarf’s imagined fears.

Catti-brie was no novice to the dangers of the region. She had lived with Bruenor and his dwarven clan for more than seven years. A raiding goblin band had killed Gatti-brie’s parents when she was only a toddler, and, though she was human, Bruenor had taken her in as his own.

“Ye’re a hard one, me girl,” Bruenor said in answer to Catti-brie’s relentless, sorrow-filled expression. “Go out and find yer play, then, but don’t ye be goin’ too far! On yer word, ye spirited filly, keep the caves in sight and a sword and horn on yer belt.”

Catti-brie rushed over and planted a wet kiss on Bruenor’s cheek, which the taciturn dwarf promptly wiped away, grumbling at the girl’s back as she disappeared into the tunnel. Bruenor was the leader of the clan, as tough as the stone they mined. But every time Catti-brie planted an appreciative kiss on his cheek, the dwarf realized he had given in to her.

“Humans!” the dwarf growled again, and he stomped down the tunnel to the mine, thinking to batter a few pieces of iron, just to remind himself of his toughness.

It was easy for the spirited young girl to rationalize her disobedience when she looked back across the valley from the lower slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, more than three miles from Bruenor’s front door. Bruenor had told Catti-brie to keep the caves in sight, and they were, or at least the wider terrain around them was, from this high vantage point.

But Catti-brie, happily sliding down one bumpy expanse, soon found a flaw in not heeding to her experienced father’s warnings. She had come to the bottom, a delightful ride, and was briskly rubbing the stinging chill out of her hands, when she heard a low and ominous growl.

“White lion,” Catti-brie mouthed silently, remembering Bruenor’s suspicion. When she looked up, she saw that her father’s guess had not quite hit the mark. It was indeed a great feline the girl saw looking down at her from a bare, stony mound, but the cat was black, not white, and a huge panther, not a lion.

Defiantly, Catti-brie pulled her knife from its sheath. “Keep yerself back, cat!” she said, only the slightest tremor in her voice, for she knew that fear invited attack from wild animals.

Guenhwyvar flattened its ears and plopped to its belly, then issued a long and resounding roar that echoed throughout the stony region.

Catti-brie could not respond to the power in that roar, or to the very long and abundant teeth the panther showed. She searched around for some escape but knew that no matter which way she ran she could not get beyond the panther’s first mighty spring.

“Guenhwyvar!” came a call from above. Catti-brie looked back up the snowy expanse to see a slender, cloaked form picking a careful route toward her. “Guenhwyvar!” the newcomer called again. “Be gone from here!”

The panther growled a throaty reply, then bounded away, leaping the snow-covered boulders and springing up small cliffs as easily as if it were running across a smooth and flat field.

Despite her continuing fears, Catti-brie watched the departing panther with sincere admiration. She had always loved animals and had often studied them, but the interplay of Guenhwyvar’s sleek muscles was more majestic than anything she had ever imagined. When she at last came out of her trance, she realized that the slender figure was right behind her. She whirled about, knife still in hand.

The blade dropped from her grasp and her breathing halted abruptly as soon as she looked upon the drow.

Drizzt, too, found himself stunned by the encounter. He wanted to make certain that the girl was all right, but when he looked upon Catti-brie, all thoughts of his purpose faded away in a flood of memories.

She was about the same age as the sandy-haired boy on the farm, Drizzt noted initially, and that thought inevitably brought back the agonizing memories of Maldobar. When Drizzt looked more closely, though, into Catti-brie’s eyes, his thoughts were sent flying back further into his past, to his days marching alongside his dark kin. Catti-brie’s eyes possessed that same joyful and innocent sparkle that Drizzt had seen in the eyes of an elven child, a girl he had rescued from the savage blades of his raiding kin. The memory overwhelmed Drizzt, sent him whirling back to that bloody glade in the elven wood, where his brother and fellow drow had brutally slaughtered an elven gathering. In the frenzy, Drizzt had almost killed the elven child, had almost put himself forever on that same dark road that his kin so willingly followed.

Drizzt shook himself free of the recollection and reminded himself that this was a different child of a different race. He meant to speak a greeting, but the girl was gone.

That damning word, “drizzit,” echoed in the drow’s thoughts several times as he made his way back to the cave he had set up as his home on the mountain’s northern face.

That same night, the onslaught of the season began in full. The cold eastern wind blowing off the Reghed Glacier drove the snow into high, impassable drifts.

Catti-brie watched the snow forlornly, fearing that many weeks might pass before she could again go to Kelvin’s Cairn. She hadn’t told Bruenor or any of the other dwarves about the drow, for fear of punishment and that Bruenor would drive the drow away. Looking at the piling snow, Catti-brie wished that she had been braver, had remained and talked to the strange elf. Every howl of the wind heightened that wish and made the girl wonder if she had lost her only chance.

“I’m off to Bryn Shander,” Bruenor announced one morning more than two months later. An unexpected break had come in Icewind Dale’s normal seven-month winter, a rare January thaw. Bruenor eyed his daughter suspiciously for a long moment. “Ye’re meanin’ to go out yerself this day?” he asked.

“If I may,” Catti-brie answered. “The caves’re tight around me and the wind’s not so cold.”

“I’ll get a dwarf or two to go with ye,” Bruenor offered.

Catti-brie, thinking that now might be her chance to go back to investigate the drow, balked at the notion. “They’re all for mendin’ their doors!” she retorted, more sharply than she intended. “Don’t ye be botherin’ them for the likes of meself!”

Bruenor’s eyes narrowed. “Ye’ve too much stubbornness in ye.”

“I get it from me dad,” Catti-brie said with a wink that shot down any more forthcoming arguments.

“Take care, then,” Bruenor began, “and keep—”

“… the caves in sight!” Catti-brie finished for him. Bruenor spun about and stomped out of the cave, grumbling helplessly and cursing the day he had ever taken a human in for a daughter. Catti-brie only laughed at the unending facade.

Once again it was Guenhwyvar who first encountered the auburn-haired girl. Catti-brie had set straight out for the mountain and was making her way around its westernmost trails when she spotted the black panther above her, watching her from a rock spur.

“Guenhwyvar,” the girl called, remembering the name the drow had used. The panther growled lowly and dropped from the spur, moving closer.

“Guenhwyvar?” Catti-brie said again, less certain, for the panther was only a few dozen strides away. Guenhwyvar’s ears came up at the second mention of the name and the cat’s taut muscles visibly relaxed.

Catti-brie approached slowly, one deliberate step at a time. “Where’s the dark elf, Guenhwyvar?” she asked quietly. “Can ye take me to him?”

“And why would you want to go to him?” came a question from behind.

Catti-brie froze in her tracks, remembering the smooth-toned, melodic voice, then turned slowly to face the drow. He was only three steps behind her, his lavender-eyed gaze locking onto hers as soon as they met. Catti-brie had no idea of what to say, and Drizzt, absorbed again by memories, stood quiet, watching and waiting.

“Be ye a drow?” Catti-brie asked after the silence became unbearable. As soon as she heard her own words, she privately berated herself for asking such a stupid question.

“I am,” Drizzt replied. “What does that mean to you?”

Catti-brie shrugged at the strange response. “I’ve heard that drow be evil, but ye don’t seem so to me.”

“Then you have taken a great risk in coming out here all by yourself,” Drizzt remarked. “But fear not,” he quickly added, seeing the girl’s sudden uneasiness, “for I am not evil and will bring no harm to you.” After the months alone in his comfortable but empty cave, Drizzt did not want this meeting to end quickly.

Catti-brie nodded, believing his words. “Me name’s Catti-brie,” she said. “Me dad is Bruenor, King o’ Clan Battlehammer.”

Drizzt cocked his head curiously.

“The dwarves,” Catti-brie explained, pointing back to the valley. She understood Drizzt’s confusion as soon as she spoke the words. “He’s not me real dad,” she said. “Bruenor took me in when I was just a babe, when me real parents were… ”

She couldn’t finish, and Drizzt didn’t need her to, understanding her pained expression.

“I am Drizzt Do’Urden,” the drow interjected. “Well met, Catti-brie, daughter of Bruenor. It is good to have another to talk with. For all these weeks of winter, I have had only Guenhwyvar, there, when the cat is around, and my friend does not say much, of course!”

Catti-brie’s smile nearly took in her ears. She glanced over her shoulder to the panther, now reclining lazily in the path. “She’s a beautiful cat,” Catti-brie remarked.

Drizzt did not doubt the sincerity in the girl’s tone, or in the admiring gaze she dropped on Guenhwyvar. “Come here, Guenhwyvar” Drizzt said, and the panther stretched and slowly rose. Guenhwyvar walked right beside Catti-brie, and Drizzt nodded to answer her unspoken but obvious desire, Tentatively at first, but then firmly, Catti-brie stroked the panther’s sleek coat, feeling the beast’s power and perfection. Guenhwyvar accepted the petting without complaint, even bumped into Catti-brie’s side when she stopped for a moment, prodding her to continue.

“Are you alone?” Drizzt asked.

Catti-brie nodded. “Me dad said to keep the caves in sight.” She laughed. “I can see them well enough, by me thinkin’!”

Drizzt looked back into the valley, to the far rock wall several miles away. “Your father would not be pleased. This land is not so tame. I have been on the mountain for only two months, and I have fought twice already shaggy white beasts I do not know.”

“Tundra yeti,” Catti-brie replied. “Ye must be on the northern side. Tundra yeti don’t come around the mountain.”

“Are you so certain?” Drizzt asked sarcastically.

“I’ve not ever seen one,” Catti-brie replied, “but I’m not fearing them. I came to find yerself, and now I have.”

“You have,” said Drizzt, “and now what?”

Catti-brie shrugged and went back to petting Guenhwyvar’s sleek coat.

“Come,” Drizzt offered. “Let us find a more comfortable place to talk. The glare off the snow stings my eyes.”

“Ye’re used to the dark tunnels?” Catti-brie asked hopefully, eager to hear tales of lands beyond the borders of Ten-Towns, the only place Catti-brie had ever known.

Drizzt and the girl spent a marvelous day together. Drizzt told Catti-brie of Menzoberranzan and Catti-brie answered his tales with stories of Icewind Dale, of her life with the dwarves. Drizzt was especially interested in hearing about Bruenor and his kin, since the dwarves were his closest, and most-feared, neighbors.

“Bruenor talks rough as stone, but I’m knowin’ him better than all that!” Catti-brie assured the drow. “He’s a right fine one, and so’s the rest o’ the clan.”

Drizzt was glad to hear it, and glad, too, that he had made this connection, both for the implications of having such a friend and even more so because he truly enjoyed the charming and spirited lass’s company. Catti-brie’s energy and zest for life verily bubbled over. In her presence, the drow could not recall his haunting memories, could only feel good about his decision to save the elven child those many years before. Catti-brie’s singsong voice and the careless way she flipped her flowing hair about her shoulders lifted the burden of guilt from Drizzt’s back as surely as a giant could have hoisted a rock.

Their tales could have gone on all that day and night, and for many weeks afterward, but when Drizzt noticed the sun riding low along the western horizon, he realized that the time had come for the girl to head back to her home.

“I will take you,” Drizzt offered.

“No,” Catti-brie replied. “Ye best not. Bruenor’d not understand, and ye’d get me in a mountain o’ trouble. I can get back, don’t ye be worrying! I know these trails better’n yerself, Drizzt Do’Urden, and ye couldn’t keep up to me if ye tried!”

Drizzt laughed at the boast but almost believed it. He and the girl set out at once, moving to the mountain’s southernmost spur and then saying their good-byes with promises that they would meet again during the next thaw, or in the spring if none came sooner.

Truly the girl was skipping lightly when she entered the dwarven complex, but one look at her surly father stole a measure of her delight. Bruenor had gone to Bryn Shander that morning on business with Cassius. The dwarf wasn’t thrilled to learn that a dark elf had made a home so close to his door, but he guessed that his curious—too curious-daughter would think it a grand thing.

“Keep yerself away from the mountain,” Bruenor said as soon as he noticed Catti-brie, and then she was in despair.

“But me Dad—” she tried to protest.

“On yer word, girl!” the dwarf demanded. “Ye’ll not set foot on that mountain again without me permission! There’s a dark elf there, by Cassius’s telling. On yer word!”

Catti-brie nodded helplessly, then followed Bruenor back to the dwarven complex, knowing she would have a hard time changing her father’s mind, but knowing, too, Bruenor held views far from justified where Drizzt Do’Urden was concerned.

Another thaw came a month later and Catti-brie heeded her promise. She never put one foot on Kelvin’s Cairn, but from the valley trails around it, she called out to Drizzt and to Guenhwyvar. Drizzt and the panther, looking for the girl with the break in the weather, were soon beside her, in the valley this time, sharing more tales and a picnic lunch that Catti-brie had packed.

When Catti-brie got back to the dwarven mines that evening, Bruenor suspected much and asked her only once if she had kept her word. The dwarf had always trusted his daughter, but when Catti-brie answered that she had not been on Kelvin’s Cairn, his suspicions did not diminish.

24. Revelations

Bruenor ambled along the lower slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn for the better part of the morning. Most of the snow was melted now with spring thick in the air, but stubborn pockets still made the trails difficult. Axe in one hand and shield, emblazoned with the foaming mug standard of Clan Battlehammer, in the other, Bruenor trudged on, spitting curses at every slick spot, at every boulder obstacle, and at dark elves in general.

He rounded the northwesternmost spur of the mountain, his long, pointed nose cherry-red from the biting wind and his breath coming hard. “Time for a rest,” the dwarf muttered, spotting a stone alcove sheltered by high walls from the relentless wind.

Bruenor wasn’t the only one who had noticed the comfortable spot. Just before he reached the ten-foot-wide break in the rock wall, a sudden flap of leathery wings brought a huge, insectlike head rising up before him. The dwarf fell back, startled and wary. He recognized the beast as a remorhaz, a polar worm, and was not so eager to jump in against it.

The remorhaz came out of the cubby in pursuit, its snakelike, forty-foot-long body rolling out like an ice-blue ribbon behind it. Multifaceted bug eyes, shining bright white, honed in on the dwarf. Short, leathery wings kept the creature’s front half reared and ready to strike while dozens of scrambling legs propelled the remainder of the long torso.

Bruenor felt the increasing heat as the agitated creature’s back began to glow, first to a dull brown, then brightening to red.

“That’ll stop the wind for a bit!” the dwarf chuckled, realizing that he could not outrun the beast. He stopped his retreat and waved his axe threateningly.

The remorhaz came straight in, its formidable maw, large enough to swallow the diminutive target whole, snapping down hungrily.

Bruenor jumped aside and angled his shield and body to keep the maw from snapping off his legs, while slamming his axe right between the monster’s horns.

The wings beat ferociously, lifting the head back up. The remorhaz, hardly injured, poised to strike again quickly, but Bruenor beat it to the spot. He snatched his bulky axe with his shield hand, drew a long dagger, and dove forward, right between the monster’s first set of legs.

The great head came down in a rush, but Bruenor had already slipped under the low belly, the beast’s most vulnerable spot. “Ye get me point?” Bruenor chided, driving the dagger up between the scale ridge.

Bruenor was too tough and too well armored to be seriously injured by the worm’s thrashing, but then the creature began to roll, meaning to put its glowing-hot back on the dwarf.

“No, ye don’t, ye confused dragon-worm-bird-bug!” Bruenor howled, scrambling to keep away from the heat. He came to the creature’s side and heaved with all his strength, tumbling the off-balance remorhaz right over.

Snow sputtered and sizzled when the fiery back touched down. Bruenor kicked and swatted his way past the thrashing legs to get to the vulnerable underside. The dwarf’s many-notched axe smashed in, opening a wide and deep gash.

The remorhaz coiled and snapped its long body to and fro, throwing Bruenor to the side. The dwarf was up in an instant, but not quickly enough, as the polar worm rolled at him. The searing back caught Bruenor on the thigh as he tried to leap away, and the dwarf came out limping, grabbing at his smoking leather leggings.

Then they faced off again, both showing considerably more respect for the other.

The maw gaped; with a quick snap, Bruenor’s axe took a tooth from it and deflected it aside. The dwarf’s wounded leg buckled with the blow, though, and a stumbling Bruenor could not get out of the way. A long horn hooked Bruenor under the arm and hurled him far to the side.

He crashed amid a small field of rocks, recovered, and purposely banged his head against a large stone to adjust his helmet and knock the dizziness away.

The remorhaz left a trail of blood, but it did not relent. The huge maw opened and the creature hissed, and Bruenor promptly chucked a stone down its gullet.

Guenhwyvar alerted Drizzt to the trouble down at the northwestern spur. The drow had never seen a polar worm before, but as soon as he spotted the combatants, from a ridge high above, he knew that the dwarf was in trouble. Lamenting that he had left his bow back in the cave, Drizzt drew his scimitars and followed the panther down the mountainside as quickly as the slippery trails would allow.

“Come on, then!” the stubborn dwarf roared at the remorhaz, and indeed the monster did charge. Bruenor braced himself, meaning to get in at least one good shot before becoming worm food.

The great head came down at him, but then the remorhaz, hearing a roar from behind, hesitated and looked away.

“Fool move!” the dwarf cried in glee, and Bruenor slashed with his axe at the monster’s lower jaw, splitting it cleanly between two great incisors. The remorhaz screeched in pain; its leathery wings flapped wildly, trying to get the head out of the wicked dwarf’s reach.

Bruenor hit it again, and then a third time, each blow cutting huge creases in the maw and driving the head down.

“Think ye’re to bite at me, eh?” the dwarf cried. He lashed out with his shield hand and grabbed at a horn as the remorhaz head began to rise again. A quick jerk turned the monster’s head at a vulnerable angle and the knotted muscles in Bruenor’s arm snapped viciously, cleaving his mighty axe into the polar worm’s skull.

The creature shuddered and thrashed for a second longer, then lay still, its back still glowing hotly.

A second roar from Guenhwyvar took the proud dwarf’s eyes from his kill. Bruenor, injured and tentative, looked up to see Drizzt and the panther fast approaching, the drow with both scimitars drawn.

“Come on!” Bruenor roared at them both, misunderstanding their charge. He banged his axe against his heavy shield. “Come on and feel me blade!”

Drizzt stopped abruptly and called for Guenhwyvar to do the same. The panther continued to stalk, though, ears flattened.

“Be gone, Guenhwyvar!” Drizzt commanded.

The panther growled indignantly one final time and sprang away.

Satisfied that the cat was gone, Bruenor snapped his glare on Drizzt, standing at the other end of the fallen polar worm.

“Yerself and me, then?” the dwarf spat. “Ye got the belly to face me axe, drow, or do little girls be more to yer likin?”

The obvious reference to Catti-brie brought an angry light to Drizzt’s eyes, and his grasp on his weapons tightened.

Bruenor swung his axe easily. “Come on,” he chided derisively. “Ye got the belly to come and play with a dwarf?”

Drizzt wanted to scream out for all the world to hear. He wanted to spring over the dead monster and smash the dwarf, deny the dwarf’s words with sheer and brutal force, but he couldn’t. Drizzt couldn’t deny Mielikki and couldn’t betray Mooshie. He had to sublimate his rage once again, had to take the insults stoically and with the realization that he, and his goddess, knew the truth of what lay in his heart.

The scimitars spun into their sheaths and Drizzt walked away, Guenhwyvar coming up beside him.

Bruenor watched the pair go curiously. At first he thought the drow a coward, but then, as the excitement of the battle gradually diminished, Bruenor came to wonder about the drow’s intent. Had he come down to finish off both combatants, as Bruenor had first assumed? Or had he, possibly, come down to Bruenor’s aid?

“Nah,” the dwarf muttered, dismissing the possibility. “Not a dark elf!”

The walk back was long for the limping dwarf, giving Bruenor many opportunities to replay the events around the northwestern spur. When he finally arrived back at the mines, the sun had long set and Catti-brie and several dwarves were gathered, ready to go out to look for him.

“Ye’re hurt,” one of the dwarves remarked. Catti-brie immediately imagined a fight between Drizzt and her father.

“Polar worm,” the dwarf explained casually. “Got him good, but got a bit of a burn for me effort.”

The other dwarves nodded admiringly at their leader’s battle prowess—a polar worm was no easy kill—and Catti-brie sighed audibly.

“I saw the drow!” Bruenor growled at her, suspecting the source of that sigh. The dwarf remained confused about his meeting with the dark elf, and confused, too, about where Catti-brie fit into all of this. Had Catti-brie actually met the dark elf? he wondered.

“I seen him, I did!” Bruenor continued, now speaking more to the other dwarves. “Drow and the biggest an’ blackest cat me eyes ever set on. He came down for me, just as I dropped the worm.”

“Drizzt would not!” Catti-brie interrupted, before her father could get into his customary story-telling roll.

“Drizzt?” Bruenor asked, and the girl turned away, realizing that her lie was up. Bruenor let it go—for the moment.

“He did, I say!” the dwarf continued. “Came in at me with both his blades drawn! I chased that one an’ the cat off.”

“We could hunt him down,” offered one of the dwarves. “Run him off the mountain!” The others nodded and mumbled their agreement, but Bruenor, still struggling with the drow’s intent, cut them short.

“He’s got the mountain,” Bruenor told them. “Cassius gave it to him, and we need no trouble with Bryn Shander. As long as the drow stays put and stays outa our way, we’ll leave him be.

“But,” Bruenor continued, eyeing Catti-brie directly, “ye’re not to speak to, ye’re not to go near, that one again!”

“But—” Catti-brie started futilely.

“Never!” Bruenor roared. “I’ll have yer word now, girl, or by Moradin, I’ll have that dark elf’s head!”

Catti-brie hesitated, horribly trapped.

“Tell me!” Bruenor demanded.

“Ye have me word,” the girl mumbled, and she fled back to the dark shelter of the cave.

“Cassius, Spokesman o’ Bryn Shander, sent me yer way,” the gruff man explained. “Says ye’d know the drow if any would.”

Bruenor glanced around his formal audience hall to the many other dwarves in attendance, none of them overly impressed by the rude stranger. Bruenor dropped his bearded chin into his palm and yawned widely, determined to remain outside this apparent conflict. He might have bluffed the crude man and his smelly dog out of the halls without further bother, but Catti-brie, sitting at her father’s side, shuffled uneasily.

Roddy McGristle did not miss her revealing movement. “Cassius says ye must’ve seen the drow, him bein’ so close.”

“If any of me people have,” Bruenor replied absently, “they’ve spoke not a bit of it. If yer drow’s about, he’s been no bother.”

Catti-brie looked curiously at her father and breathed easier.

“No bother?” Roddy muttered, a sly look coming into his eye. “Never is, that one.” Slowly and dramatically, the mountain man peeled back his hood, revealing his scars. “Never a bother, until ye don’t expect what ye get!”

“Drow give ye that?” Bruenor asked, not overly alarmed or impressed. “Fancy scars—better’n most I seen.”

“He killed my dog!” Roddy growled.

“Don’t look dead to me,” Bruenor quipped, drawing chuckles from every corner.

“My other dog,” Roddy snarled, understanding where he stood with this stubborn dwarf. “Ye care not a thing for me, and well ye shouldn’t. But it’s not for myself that I’m hunting this one, and not for any bounty on his head. Ye ever heared o’ Maldobar?”

Bruenor shrugged.

“North o’ Sundabar,” Roddy explained. “Small, peaceable place. Farmers all. One family, the Thistledowns, lived on the side o’ town, three generations in a single house, as good families will. Bartholemew Thistledown was a good man, I tell ye, as his pa afore him, an’ his children, four lads and a filly—much like yer own—standing tall and straight with a heart of spirit and a love o’ the world.”

Bruenor suspected where the burly man was leading, and by Catti-brie’s uncomfortable shifting beside him, he figured that his perceptive daughter knew as well.

“Good family,” Roddy mused, feigning a wispy, distant expression. “Nine in the house.” The mountain man’s visage hardened suddenly and he glared straight at Bruenor. “Nine died in the house,” he declared. “Hacked by yer drow, and one ate up by his devil cat!”

Catti-brie tried to respond, but her words came out in a garbled shriek. Bruenor was glad of her confusion, for if she had spoken clearly, her argument would have given the mountain man more than Bruenor wanted him to know. The dwarf laid a hand across his daughter’s shoulders, then answered Roddy calmly. “Ye’ve come to us with a dark tale. Ye shook me daughter, and I’m not for liking me daughter shook!”

“I beg yer forgivings kingly dwarf,” Roddy said with a bow, “but ye must be told of the danger on yer door. Brow’s a bad one, and so’s his devil cat! I want no repeating o’ the Maldobar tragedy.”

“And ye’ll get none in me halls,” Bruenor assured him. “We’re not simple farmers, take to yer heart. Drow won’t be botherin’ us any more’n ye’ve bothered us already.”

Roddy wasn’t surprised that Bruenor wouldn’t help him, but he knew well that the dwarf, or at least the girl, knew more about Drizzt’s whereabouts than they had let on. “If not for me, then for Bartholemew Thistledown, I beg ye, good dwarf, tell me if ye know where I might find the black demon. Or if ye don’t know, then give me some soldiers to help me sniff him out.”

“Me dwarves’ve much to do with the melt,” Bruenor explained. “Can’t be spared chasin’ another’s fiends.” Bruenor really didn’t care one way or another for Roddy’s gripe with the drow, but the mountain man’s story did confirm the dwarf’s belief that the dark elf should be avoided, particularly by his daughter. Bruenor actually might have helped Roddy and been done with it, more to get them both out of his valley than for any moral reasons, but he couldn’t ignore Catti-brie’s obvious distress.

Roddy unsuccessfully tried to hide his anger, looking for some other option. “Where would ye go if ye was runnin’, King Bruenor?” he asked. “Ye know the mountain better’n any living, so Cassius telled me. Where should I look?”

Bruenor found that he liked seeing the unpleasant human so distressed. “Big valley,” he said cryptically. “Wide mountain. Lot o’ holes.” He sat quiet for a long moment, shaking his head.

Roddy’s facade blew away altogether. “Ye’d help the murderin’ drow?” he roared. “Ye call yerself a king, but ye’d… ”

Bruenor leaped up from his stone throne, and Roddy backed away a cautious step and dropped a hand to Bleeder’s handle.

“I’ve the word o’ one rogue against another rogue!” Bruenor growled at him. “One’s as good—as bad!—as the other, by me guess!”

“Not by a Thistledown’s guess!” Roddy cried, and his dog, sensing his outrage, bared its teeth and growled menacingly.

Bruenor looked at the strange, yellow beast curiously. It was getting near dinnertime and arguments did so make Bruenor hungry! How might a yellow dog fill his belly? he wondered.

“Have ye nothing more to give to me?” Roddy demanded.

“I could give ye me boot,” Bruenor growled back. Several well-armed dwarven soldiers moved in close to make certain that the volatile human didn’t do anything foolish. “I’d offer ye supper,” Bruenor continued, “but ye smell too bad for me table, and ye don’t seem the type what’d be takin’ a bath.”

Roddy yanked his dog’s rope and stormed away, banging his heavy boots and slamming through each door he came upon. At Bruenor’s nod, four soldiers followed the mountain man to make certain that he left without any unfortunate incidents. In the formal audience hall, the others laughed and howled about the way their king had handled the human.

Catti-brie didn’t join in on the mirth, Bruenor noted, and the dwarf thought he knew why. Roddy’s tale, true or not, had instilled some doubts in the girl.

“So now ye have it,” Bruenor said to her roughly, trying to push her over the edge in their running argument. “The drow’s a hunted killer. Now ye’ll take me warnings to heart, girl!”

Catti-brie’s lips disappeared in a bitter bite. Drizzt had not told her much about his life on the surface, but she could not believe that this drow whom she had come to know would be capable of murder. Neither could Catti-brie deny the obvious: Drizzt was a dark elf, and to her more experienced father, at least, that fact alone gave credence to McGristle’s tale.

“Ye hear me, girl?” Bruenor growled.

“Ye’ve got to get them all together,” Catti-brie said suddenly. “The drow and Cassius, and ugly Roddy McGristle. Ye’ve got to—”

“Not me problem!” Bruenor roared, cutting her short. Tears came quickly to Catti-brie’s soft eyes in the face of her father’s sudden rage. All the world seemed to turn over before her. Drizzt was in danger, and more so was the truth about his past. Just as stinging to Catti-brie, her father, whom she had loved and admired for all her remembered life, seemed now to turn a deaf ear to the calls for justice.

In that horrible moment, Catti-brie did the only thing an eleven-year-old could do against such odds—she turned from Bruenor and fled.

Catti-brie didn’t really know what she meant to accomplish when she found herself running along the lower trails of Kelvin’s Cairn, breaking her promise to Bruenor. Catti-brie could not refuse her desire to come, though she had little to offer Drizzt beyond a warning that McGristle was looking for him.

She couldn’t sort through all the worries, but then she stood before the drow and understood the real reason she had ventured out. It was not for Drizzt that she had come, though she wanted him safe. It was for her own peace.

“Ye never speaked o’ the Thistledowns of Maldobar,” she said icily in greeting, stealing the drow’s smile. The dark expression that crossed Drizzt’s face clearly showed his pain.

Thinking that Drizzt, by his melancholy, had accepted blame for the tragedy, the wounded girl spun and tried to flee. Drizzt caught her by the shoulder, though, turned her about, and held her close. He would be a damned thing indeed if this girl, who had accepted him with all her heart, came to believe the lies.

“I killed no one,” Drizzt whispered above Catti-brie’s sobs, “except the monsters that slew the Thistledowns. On my word!” He recounted the tale then, in full, even telling of his flight from Dove Falconhand’s party.

“And now I am here,” he concluded, “wishing to put the experience behind me, though never, on my word, shall I ever forget it!”

“Ye weave two tales apart,” Catti-brie replied. “Yerself an’ McGristle, I mean.”

“McGristle?” Drizzt gasped as though his breath had been blasted from his body. Drizzt hadn’t seen the burly man in years and had thought Roddy to be a thing of his distant past.

“Came in today,” Catti-brie explained. “Big man with a yellow dog. He’s hunting ye.”

The confirmation overwhelmed Drizzt. Would he ever escape his past? he wondered. If not, how could he ever hope to find acceptance?

“McGristle said ye killed them,” Catti-brie continued.

“Then you have our words alone,” Drizzt reasoned, “and there is no evidence to prove either tale.” The ensuing silence seemed to go for hours.

“Never did like that ugly brute.” Catti-brie sniffed, and she managed her first smile since she had met McGristle.

The affirmation of their friendship struck Drizzt profoundly, but he could not forget the trouble that was now hovering all about him. He would have to fight Roddy, and maybe others if the bounty hunter could stir up resentment—not a difficult task considering Drizzt’s heritage. Or Drizzt would have to run away, again accept the road as his home.

“What’ll ye do?” Catti-brie asked, sensing his distress.

“Do not fear for me,” Drizzt assured her, and he gave her a hug as he spoke, one that he knew might be his way of saying good-bye. “The day grows long. You must get back to your home.”

“He’ll find ye,” Catti-brie replied grimly.

“No,” Drizzt said calmly. “Not soon anyway. With Guenhwyvar by my side, we will keep Roddy McGristle away until I can figure my best course. Now, be off! The night comes swiftly and I do not believe that your father would appreciate your coming here.”

The reminder that she would have to face Bruenor again set Catti-brie in motion. She bid Drizzt farewell and turned away, then rushed back up to the drow and threw a hug around him. Her step was lighter as she moved back down the mountain. She hadn’t resolved anything for Drizzt, at least as far as she knew, but the drow’s troubles seemed a distant second compared to her own relief that her friend was not the monster some claimed him to be.

The night would be dark indeed for Drizzt Do’Urden. He had thought McGristle a long-distant problem, but the menace was here now, and none save Catti-brie had jumped to his defense.

He would have to stand alone—again—if he meant to stand at all. He had no allies beyond Guenhwyvar and his own scimitars, and the prospects of battling McGristle—win or lose—did not appeal to him.

“This is no home,” Drizzt muttered to the frosty wind. He pulled out the onyx figurine and called to his panther companion. “Come, my friend,” he said to the cat. “Let us be away before our adversary is upon us.”

Guenhwyvar kept an alert guard while Drizzt packed up his possessions, while the road-weary drow emptied his home.

25. Dwarven Banter

Catti-brie heard the growling dog, but she had no time to react when the huge man leaped out from behind a boulder and grabbed her roughly by the arm. “I knowed ye knowed!” McGristle cried, putting his foul breath right in the girl’s face.

Catti-brie kicked him in the shin. “Ye let me go!” she retorted. Roddy was surprised that she had no trace of fear in her voice. He gave her a good shake when she tried to kick him again.

“Ye came to the mountain for a reason,” Roddy said evenly, not relaxing his grip. “Ye came to see the drow—I knowed that ye was friends with that one. Seen it in yer eyes!”

“Ye know not a thing!” Catti-brie spat in his face. “Ye talk in lies.”

“So the drow told ye his story o’ the Thistledowns, eh?” Roddy replied, easily guessing the girl’s meaning. Catti-brie knew then that she had erred in her anger, had given the wretch confirmation of her destination.

“The drow?” Catti-brie said absently. “I’m not for guessing what ye’re speaking about.”

Roddy’s laughter mocked her. “Ye been with the drow, girl. Ye’ve said it plain enough. And now ye’re goin’ to take me to see him.”

Catti-brie sneered at him, drawing another rough shake.

Roddy’s grimace softened then, suddenly, and Catti-brie liked even less the look that came into his eye. “Ye’re a spirited girl, ain’t ye?” Roddy purred, grabbing Catti-brie’s other shoulder and turning her to face him squarely. “Full o’ life, eh? Ye’ll take me to the drow, girl, don’t ye doubt. But mighten be there’s other things we can do first, things to show ye not to cross the likes o’ Roddy McGristle.” His caress on Catti-brie’s cheek seemed ridiculously grotesque, but horribly and undeniably threatening, and Catti-brie thought she would gag.

It took every bit of Catti-brie’s fortitude to face up to Roddy at that moment. She was only a young girl but had been raised among the grim-faced dwarves of Clan Battlehammer, a proud and rugged group. Bruenor was a fighter, and so was his daughter. Catti-brie’s knee found Roddy’s groin, and as his grip suddenly relaxed, the girl brought one hand up to claw at his face. She kneed him a second time, with less effect, but Roddy’s defensive twist allowed her to pull away, almost free.

Roddy’s iron grip tightened suddenly around her wrist, and they struggled for just a moment. Then Catti-brie felt an equally rough grab at her free hand, and before she could understand what had happened, she was pulled from Roddy’s grasp and a dark form stepped by her.

“So ye come to face yer fate,” Roddy snarled delightedly at Drizzt.

“Run off,” Drizzt told Catti-brie. “This is not your affair.” Catti-brie, shaken and terribly afraid, did not argue.

Roddy’s gnarled hands clenched Bleeder’s handle. The bounty hunter had faced the drow in battle before and had no intention of trying to keep up with that one’s agile steps and twists. With a nod, he loosed his dog.

The dog got halfway to Drizzt, was just about to leap at him, when Guenhwyvar buried it, rolling it far to the side. The dog came back to its feet, not seriously wounded but backing off several steps every time the panther roared in its face.

“Enough of this,” Drizzt said, suddenly serious. “You have pursued me through years and leagues. I salute your resilience, but your anger is misplaced, I tell you. I did not kill the Thistledowns. Never would I have raised a blade against them!”

“To Nine Hells with the Thistledowns!” Roddy roared back. “Ye think that’s what this is about?”

“My head would not bring you your bounty,” Drizzt retorted.

“To Nine Hells with the gold!” Roddy yelled. “Ye took my dog, drow, an’ my ear!” He banged a dirty finger against the side of his scarred face.

Drizzt wanted to argue, wanted to remind Roddy that it was he who had initiated the fight, and that his own axe swing had felled the tree that had torn his face. But Drizzt understood Roddy’s motivation and knew that mere words would not soothe. Drizzt had wounded Roddy’s pride, and to a man like Roddy that injury far outweighed any physical pain.

“I want no fight,” Drizzt offered firmly. “Take your dog and be gone, on your word alone that you’ll pursue me no longer.”

Roddy’s mocking laughter sent a shudder up Drizzt’s spine. “I’ll chase ye to the ends o’ the world, drow!” Roddy roared. “And I’ll find ye every time. No hole’s deep enough to keep me from ye. No sea’s wide enough! I’ll have ye, drow. I’ll have ye now or, if ye run, I’d have ye later!”

Roddy flashed a yellow-toothed smile and cautiously stalked toward Drizzt. “I’ll have ye drow,” the bounty hunter growled again quietly. A sudden rush brought him close and Bleeder swiped across wildly. Drizzt hopped back.

A second strike promised similar results, but Roddy, instead of following through, came with a deceptively quick backhand that glanced Drizzt’s chin.

He was on Drizzt in an instant, his axe whipping furiously every which way. “Stand still!” Roddy cried as Drizzt deftly sidestepped, hopped over, or ducked under each blow. Drizzt knew that he was taking a dangerous chance in not countering the wicked blows, but he hoped that if he could tire the burly man, he might still find a more peaceful solution.

Roddy was agile and quick for a big man, but Drizzt was far quicker, and the drow believed that he could play the game a good while longer.

Bleeder came in a side swipe, diving across at Drizzt’s chest. The attack was a feint, with Roddy wanting Drizzt to duck under so that he might kick the drow in the face.

Drizzt saw through the deception. He leaped instead of ducked, turned a somersault above the cutting axe, and came down lightly, even closer to Roddy. Now Drizzt did wade in, punching with both scimitar hilts straight into Roddy’s face. The bounty hunter staggered backward, feeling warm blood rolling out of his nose.

“Go away,” Drizzt said sincerely. “Take your dog back to Maldobar, or wherever it is that you call home.”

If Drizzt believed that Roddy would surrender in the face of further humiliation, he was badly mistaken. Roddy bellowed in rage and charged straight in, dipping his shoulder in an attempt to bury the drow.

Drizzt pounded his weapon hilts down onto Roddy’s dipped head and launched himself into a forward roll right over Roddy’s back. The bounty hunter went down hard but came quickly to his knees, drawing and firing a dagger at Drizzt even as the drow turned back.

Drizzt saw the silvery flicker at the last instant and snapped a blade down to deflect the weapon. Another dagger followed, and another after that, and each time, Roddy advanced a step on the distracted drow.

“I’m knowing yer tricks, drow,” Roddy said with an evil grin. Two quick steps brought him right up to Drizzt and Bleeder again sliced in.

Drizzt dove into a sidelong roll and came up a few feet away. Roddy’s continuing confidence began to unnerve Drizzt; he had hit the bounty hunter with blows that would have dropped most men, and he wondered how much damage the burly human could withstand. That thought led Drizzt to the inevitable conclusion that he might have to start hitting Roddy with more than his scimitar hilts.

Again Bleeder came from the side. This time, Drizzt did not dodge. He stepped within the arc of the axe blade and blocked with one weapon, leaving Roddy open for a strike with the other scimitar. Three quick right jabs closed one of Roddy’s eyes, but the bounty hunter only grinned and charged, catching hold of Drizzt and bearing the lighter combatant to the ground.

Drizzt squirmed and slapped, understanding that his conscience had betrayed him. In such close quarters, he could not match Roddy’s strength, and his limited movements destroyed his advantage of speed. Roddy held his position on top and maneuvered one arm to chop down with Bleeder.

A yelp from his yellow dog was the only warning he got, and that didn’t register enough for him to avoid the panther’s rush. Guenhwyvar bowled Roddy off Drizzt, slamming him to the ground. The burly man kept his wits enough to swipe at the panther as it continued past, nicking Guenhwyvar on the rear flank.

The stubborn dog came rushing in, but Guenhwyvar recovered, pivoted right around Roddy, and drove it away.

When Roddy turned back to Drizzt, he was met by a savage flurry of scimitar blows that he could not follow and could not counter. Drizzt had seen the strike on the panther and the fires in his lavender eyes no longer indicated compromise. A hilt smashed Roddy’s face, followed by the flat of the other blade. A foot kicked his stomach, his chest, and then his groin in what seemed a single motion. Impervious, Roddy accepted it all with a snarl, but the enraged drow pressed on. One scimitar caught again under the axe head, and Roddy moved to charge, thinking to bear Drizzt to the ground once more.

Drizzt’s second weapon struck first, though, slicing across Roddy’s forearm. The bounty hunter recoiled, grasping at his wounded limb as Bleeder fell to the ground.

Drizzt never slowed. His rush caught Roddy off guard and several kicks and punches left the man reeling. Drizzt then leaped high into the air and kicked straight out with both feet, connecting squarely on Roddy’s jaw and dropping him heavily to the ground. Still Roddy, shrugged it off and tried to rise, but this time, the bounty hunter felt the edges of two scimitars come to rest on opposite sides of his throat.

“I told you to be on your way,” Drizzt said grimly, not moving his blades an inch but letting Roddy feel the cold metal acutely.

“Kill me,” Roddy said calmly, sensing a weakness in his opponent, “if ye got the belly for it!”

Drizzt hesitated, but his scowl did not soften. “Be on your way,” he said with as much calm as he could muster, calm that denied the coming trial he knew he would face.

Roddy laughed at him. “Kill me, ye black-skinned devil!” he roared, bulling his way, though he remained on his knees, toward Drizzt. “Kill me or I’ll catch ye! Not for doubtin’, drow. I’ll hunt ye to the corners o’ the world and under it if need!”

Drizzt blanched and glanced at Guenhwyvar for support.

“Kill me!” Roddy cried, bordering on hysteria. He grabbed Drizzt’s wrists and pulled them forward. Lines of bright blood appeared on both sides of the man’s neck. “Kill me as ye killed my dog!”

Horrified, Drizzt tried to pull away, but Roddy’s grip was like iron.

“Ye got not the belly for it?” the bounty hunter bellowed. “Then I’ll help ye!” He jerked the wrists sharply against Drizzt’s pull, cutting deeper lines, and if the crazed man felt pain, it did not show through his unyielding grin.

Waves of jumbled emotions assaulted Drizzt. He wanted to kill Roddy at that moment, more out of stupefied frustration than vengeance, and yet he knew that he could not. As far as Drizzt knew, Roddy’s only crime was an unwarranted hunt against him and that was not reason enough. For all that he held dear, Drizzt had to respect a human life, even one as wretched as Roddy McGristle’s.

“Kill me!” Roddy shouted over and over, taking lewd pleasure in the drow’s growing disgust.

“No!” Drizzt screamed in Roddy’s face with enough force to silence the bounty hunter. Enraged to a point where he could not contain his trembling, Drizzt did not wait to see if Roddy would resume his insane cry. He drove a knee into Roddy’s chin, pulled his wrists free of Roddy’s grasp, then slammed his weapon hilts simultaneously into the bounty hunter’s temples.

Roddy’s eyes crossed, but he did not swoon, stubbornly shaking the blow away. Drizzt slammed him again and again, finally beating him down, horrified at his own actions and at the bounty hunter’s continuing defiance.

When the rage had played itself out, Drizzt stood over the burly man, trembling and with tears rimming his lavender eyes. “Drive that dog far away!” he yelled to Guenhwyvar. Then he dropped his bloodied blades in horror and bent down to make sure that Roddy was not dead.

Roddy awoke to find his yellow dog standing over him. Night was fast falling and the wind had picked up again. His head and arm ached, but he dismissed the pain, wanting only to resume his hunt, confident now that Drizzt would never find the strength to kill him. His dog caught the scent at once, leading back to the south, and they set off. Roddy’s nerve dissipated only a little when they came around a rocky outcropping and found a red-bearded dwarf and a girl waiting for him.

“Ye don’t be touchin’ me girl, McGristle,” Bruenor said evenly. “Ye just shouldn’t be touchin’ me girl.”

“She’s in league with the drow!” Roddy protested. “She told the murdering devil of my comin’!”

“Drizzt’s not a murderer!” Catti-brie yelled back. “He never did kill the farmers! He says ye’re saying that just so others’ll help ye to catch him!” Catti-brie realized suddenly that she had just admitted to her father that she had met with the drow. When Catti-brie had found Bruenor, she had told him only of McGristle’s rough handling.

“Ye went to him,” Bruenor said, obviously wounded. “Ye lied to me, an’ ye went to the drow! I telled ye not to. Ye said ye wouldn’t… ”

Bruenor’s lament stung Catti-brie profoundly, but she held fast to her beliefs. Bruenor had raised her to be honest, but that included being honest to what she knew was right. “Once ye said to me that everyone gets his due,” Catti-brie retorted. “Ye telled me that each is different and each should be seen for what he is. I’ve seen Drizzt, and seen him true, I tell ye. He’s no killer! And he’s—” She pointed accusingly at McGristle—”a liar! I take no pride in me own lie, but never could I let Drizzt get caught by this one!”

Bruenor considered her words for a moment, then wrapped one arm about her waist and hugged her tightly. His daughter’s deception still stung, but the dwarf was proud that his girl had stood up for what she believed. In truth, Bruenor had come out here, not looking for Catti-brie, whom he believed was sulking in the mines, but to find the drow. The more he recounted his fight with the remorhaz, the more Bruenor became convinced that Drizzt had come down to help him, not to fight him. Now, in light of recent events, few doubts remained.

“Drizzt came and pulled me free of that one,” Catti-brie went on. “He saved me.”

“Drow’s got her mixed,” Roddy said, sensing Bruenor’s growing attitude and wanting no fight with the dangerous dwarf. “He’s a murderin’ dog, I say, and so would Bartholemew Thistledown if a dead man could!”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Ye don’t know me girl or ye’d be thinking the better than to call her a liar. And I telled ye before, McGristle, that I don’t like me daughter shook! Me thinkin’s that ye should be gettin’ outa me valley. Me thinkin’s that ye should be goin’ now.”

Roddy growled and so did his dog, which sprung between the mountain man and the dwarf and bared its teeth at Bruenor. Bruenor shrugged, unconcerned, and growled back at the beast, provoking it further.

The dog lurched at the dwarf’s ankle, and Bruenor promptly put a heavy boot in its mouth and pinned its bottom jaw to the ground. “And take yer stinkin’ dog with ye!” Bruenor roared, though in admiring the dog’s meaty flank, he was thinking again that he might have better use for the surly beast.

“I go where I choose, dwarf!” Roddy retorted. “I’m gonna get me a drow, and if the drow’s in yer valley, then so am I!”

Bruenor recognized the clear frustration in the man’s voice, and he took closer note then of the bruises on Roddy’s face and the gash on his arm. “The drow got away from ye,” the dwarf said, and his chuckle stung Roddy acutely.

“Not for long,” Roddy promised. “And no dwarf’ll stand in my way!”

“Get along back to the mines,” Bruenor said to Catti-brie. “Tell the others I mighten be a bit late for dinner.” The axe came down from Bruenor’s shoulder.

“Get him good,” Catti-brie mumbled under her breath, not doubting her father’s prowess in the least. She kissed Bruenor atop his helmet, then rushed off happily. Her father had trusted her; nothing in all the world could be wrong.

Roddy McGristle and his three-legged dog left the valley a short while later. Roddy had seen a weakness in Drizzt and thought he could win against the drow, but he saw no such signs in Bruenor Battlehammer. When Bruenor had Roddy down, a feat that hadn’t taken very long, Roddy did not doubt for a second that if he had asked the dwarf to kill him, Bruenor gladly would have complied.

From the top of the southern climb, where he had gone for his last look at Ten-Towns, Drizzt watched the wagon roll out of the vale, suspecting that it was the bounty hunter’s. Not knowing what it all meant, but hardly believing that Roddy had undergone a change of heart, Drizzt looked down at his packed belongings and wondered where he should turn next.

The lights of the towns were coming on now, and Drizzt watched them with mixed emotions. He had been on this climb several times, enchanted by his surroundings and thinking he had found his home. How different now was this view! McGristle’s appearance had given Drizzt pause and reminded him that he was still an outcast, and ever to be one.

“Drizzit,” he mumbled to himself, a damning word indeed. At that moment, Drizzt did not believe he would ever find a home, did not believe that a drow who was not in heart a drow had a place in all the realms, surface or Underdark. The hope, ever fleeting in Drizzt’s weary heart, had flown altogether.

“Bruenor’s Climb, this place is called,” said a gruff voice behind Drizzt. He spun about, thinking to flee, but the red-bearded dwarf was too close for him to slip by. Guenhwyvar rushed to the drow’s side, teeth bared.

“Put yer pet away, elf,” Bruenor said. “If cat tastes as bad as dog, I’ll want none of it!

“My place, this is,” the dwarf went on, “me bein’ Bruenor and this bein’ Bruenor’s Climb!”

“I saw no sign of ownership,” Drizzt replied indignantly, his patience exhausted from the long road that now seemed to grow longer. “I know your claim now, and so I will leave. Take heart, dwarf. I shall not return.”

Bruenor put a hand up, both to silence the drow and to stop him from leaving. “Just a pile o’ rocks,” he said, as close to an apology as Bruenor had ever given. “I named it as me own, but does that make it so? Just a damned piled o’ rocks!”

Drizzt cocked his head at the dwarf’s unexpected rambling.

“Nothin’s what it seems, drow!” Bruenor declared. “Nothin’! Ye try to follow what ye know, ye know? But then ye find that ye know not what ye thought ye knowed! Thought a dog’d be tastin’ good—looked good enough—but now me belly’s cursing me every move!”

The second mention of the dog sparked a sudden revelation concerning Roddy McGristle’s departure. “You sent him away” Drizzt said, pointing down to the route out of the vale. “You drove McGristle off my trail.”

Bruenor hardily heard him, and certainly wouldn’t have admitted the kind-hearted deed, in any case. “Never trusted humans,” he said evenly. “Never know what one’s about, and when ye find out, too many’s the time it’s too late for fixin’! But always had me thoughts straight about other folks. An elf’s an elf, after all, and so’s a gnome. And orcs are straight-out stupid and ugly. Never knew one to be other-ways, an’ I known a few!” Bruenor patted his axe, and Drizzt did not miss his meaning.

“So was me thoughts about the drow,” Bruenor continued. “Never met one—never wanted to. Who would, I ask? Drow’re bad, mean-hearted, so I been telled by me dad an’ by me dad’s dad, an’ by any who’s ever telled me.” He looked out to the lights of Termalaine on Maer Dualdon in the west, shook his head, and kicked a stone. “Now I heared a drow’s prowlin’ about me valley, and what’s a king to do? Then me daughter goes to him!” A sudden fire came into Bruenor’s eyes, but it mellowed quickly, almost as if in embarrassment, as soon as he looked at Drizzt. “She lies in me face—never has she done that afore, and never again if she’s a smart one!”

“It was not her fault,” Drizzt began, but Bruenor waved his hands about wildly to dismiss the whole thing.

“Thought I knowed what I knowed,” Bruenor continued after a short pause, his voice almost a lament. “Had the world figured, sure enough. Easy to do when ye stay in yer own hole.”

He looked back to Drizzt, straight into the dim shine of the drow’s lavender eyes. “Bruenor’s Climb?” the dwarf asked with a resigned shrug. “What’s it mean, drow, to put a name on a pile o’ rocks? Thought I knowed, I did, an’ thought a dog’d taste good.” Bruenor rubbed a hand over his belly and frowned. “Call it a pile o’ rocks then, an’ I’ve no claim on it more’n yerself! Call it Drizzt’s Climb then, an’ ye’d be kicking me out!”

“I would not,” Drizzt replied quietly. “I do not know that I could if I wished to!”

“Call it what ye will!” Bruenor cried, suddenly distressed. “And call a dog a cow—that don’t change the way the thing’ll taste!” Bruenor threw up his hands, flustered, and turned away, stomping down the rock path, grumbling with every step.

“And ye be keepin’ yer eyes on me girl,” Drizzt heard Bruenor snarl above his general grumbles, “if she’s so orc-headed as to keep goin’ to the stinkin’ yeti an’ worm-filled mountain! Be knowin’ that I hold yerself… ” The rest faded away as Bruenor disappeared around a bend.

Drizzt couldn’t begin to dig his way through that rambling dialogue, but he didn’t need to put Bruenor’s speech in perfect order. He dropped a hand on Guenhwyvar, hoping that the panther shared the suddenly wondrous panoramic view. Drizzt knew then that he would sit up on the climb, Bruenor’s Climb, many times and watch the lights flicker to life, for, adding up all that the dwarf had said, Drizzt surmised one phrase clearly, words he had waited so many years to hear:

Welcome home.