"What of you?" the matron mother interrupted, more concerned with the consequences to her own family's standing than with the raid's general success.
"Five” Dinin answered proudly. "I killed five, all of them females!"
The matron's smile thrilled Dinin. Then Malice scowled as she turned her gaze on Drizzt. "And him?" she inquired, not expecting to be pleased with the answer. Malice did not doubt her youngest son's prowess with weapons, but she had come to suspect that Drizzt had too much of Zaknafein's emotional makeup to ever be an attribute in such situations.
Dinin's smile confused her. He walked over to Drizzt and draped an arm comfortably across his brother's shoulders.
"Drizzt got only one kill” Dinin began, "but it was a female child”
"Only one?" Malice growled.
From the shadows off to the side, Zaknafein listened in dismay. He wanted to shut out the elderboy Do'Urden's damning words, but they held Zak in their grip. Of all the evils Zak had ever encountered in Menzoberranzan, this surely had to be the most disappointing. Drizzt had killed a child.
"But the way he did it!" Dinin exclaimed. "He hacked her apart; sent all of Lloth's fury slicing into her twitching body! The Spider Queen must have treasured that kill above all the others”
"Only one” Matron Malice said again, her scowl hardly softening.
"He would have had two” Dinin continued. "Shar Nadal of House Maevret stole one from his blade-another female”
"Then Lloth will look with favor on House Maevret” Briza reasoned.
"No” Dinin replied. "Drizzt punished Shar Nadal for his actions. The son of House Maevret would not respond to the challenge”
The memory stuck in Drizzt's thoughts. He wished that Shar Nadal had come back at him, so he could have vented his rage more fully. Even that wish sent pangs of guilt coursing through Drizzt.
"Well done, my children” Malice beamed, now satisfied that both of them had acted properly in the raid. "The Spider Queen will look upon House Do'Urden with favor for this event. She will guide us to victory over this unknown house that seeks to destroy us”
Zaknafein left the audience hall with his eyes down and one hand nervously rubbing his sword's hilt. Zak remembered the time he had deceived Drizzt with the light bomb, when he had Drizzt defenseless and beaten. He could have spared the young innocent from his horrid fate. He could have killed Drizzt then and there, mercifully, and released him from the inevitable circumstances of life in Menzoberranzan.
Zak paused in the long corridor and turned back to watch the chamber. Drizzt and Dinin came out then, Drizzt casting Zak a single, accusatory look and pointedly turning away down a side passage.
The gaze cut through the weapon master. "So it has come to this” Zak murmured to himself. "The youngest warrior of House Do'Urden, so full of the hate that embodies our race, has learned to despise me for what I am”
Zak thought again of that moment in the training gym, that fateful second when Drizzt's life teetered on the edge of a poised sword. It indeed would have been a merciful act to kill Drizzt at that time.
With the sting of the young drow warrior's gaze still cutting so keenly into his heart, Zak couldn't decide whether the deed would have been more merciful to Drizzt or to himself.
"Leave us” Matron SiNafay commanded as she swept into the small room lighted by a candle's glow. Alton gawked at the request; it was, after all, his personal room! Alton prudently reminded himself that SiNafay was the matron mother of the family, the absolute ruler of House Hun'ett. With a few awkward bows and apologies for his hesitation, he backed out of the room.
Masoj watched his mother cautiously as she waited for Alton to move away. From SiNafay's agitated tone, Masoj understood the significance of her visit. Had he done something to anger his mother? Or, more likely, had Alton? When SiNafay spun back on him, her face twisted in evil glee, Masoj realized that her agitation was really excitement.
"House Do'Urden has erred!" she snarled. "It has lost the Spider Queen's favor!"
"How?" Masoj replied. He knew that Dinin and Drizzt had returned from a successful raid, an assault that all of the city was talking about in tones of high praise.
"I do not know the details” Matron SiNafay replied, finding a measure of calmness in her voice. "One of them, perhaps one of the sons, did something to displease Lloth. This was told to me by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen. It must be true!"
"Matron Malice will work quickly to correct the situation” Masoj reasoned. "How long do we have?"
"Lloth's displeasure will not be revealed to Matron Malice” SiNafay replied. "Not soon. The Spider Queen knows all. She knows that we plan to attack House Do'Urden, and only an unfortunate accident will inform Matron Malice of her desperate situation before her house is crushed!
"We must move quickly” Matron SiNafay went on. "Within ten cycles of Narbondei, the first strike must fall! The full battle will begin soon after, before House Do'Urden can link its loss to our wrongdoing”
"What is to be their sudden loss?" Masoj prompted, thinking, hoping, he had already guessed the answer.
His mother's words were like sweet music to his ears.
"Drizzt Do'Urden” she purred, "the favored son. Kill him Masoj rested back and clasped his slender fingers behind his head, considering the command.
"You will not fail me” SiNafay warned.
"I will not” Masoj assured her. "Drizzt, though young, is eady a powerful foe. His brother, a former master of Melee-Magthere, is never far from his side” He looked up at his matron mother, his eyes gleaming. "May I kill the brother, too?"
"Be cautious, my son” SiNafay replied. "Drizzt Do'Urden is your target. Concentrate your efforts toward his death.
"As you command” Masoj replied, bowing low. SiNafay liked the way her young son heeded to her desires without question. She started out of the room, confident in Masoj's ability to perform the task.
"If Dinin Do'Urden somehow gets in the way” she said, turning back to throw Masoj a gift for his obedience, "you may kill him, too”
Masoj's expression revealed too much eagerness for the second task.
"You will not fail me!" SiNafay said again, this time in an open threat that stole some of the wind out of Masoj's filling sails. "Drizzt Do'Urden must die within ten days!"
Masoj forced any distracting thoughts of Dinin out of his mind. "Drizzt must die” he whispered over and over, long after his mother had gone. He already knew how he wanted to do it. He only had to hope that the opportunity would come soon.
The awful memory of the surface raid followed Drizzt, haunted him, as he wandered the halls of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon. He had rushed from the audience chamber as soon as Matron Malice had dismissed him, and had slipped away from his brother at the first opportunity, wanting only to be alone.
The images remained: the broken sparkle in the young elven girl's eyes as she knelt over her murdered mother's corpse; the elven woman's horrified expression, twisting in agony as ghar Nadal ripped the life from her body. The surface elves were there in Drizzt's thoughts; he could not dis. miss them. They walked beside Drizzt as he wandered, as real as they had been when Drizzt's raiding group had de. scended upon their joyful song.
Drizzt wondered if he would ever be alone again. Eyes down, consumed by his empty sense of loss, Drizzt c did not mark the path before him. He jumped back, startled, when he turned a corner and bumped into somebody. He stood facing Zaknafein.
"You are home” the weapon master said absently, his blank face revealing none of the tumultuous emotions swirling through his mind.
Drizzt wondered if he could properly hide his own grimace. "For a day” he replied, equally nonchalant, though his rage with Zaknafein was no less intense. Now that Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of drow elves firsthand, Zak's reputed deeds rang out to Drizzt as even more evil. "My patrol group goes back out at Narbondel's first light.
"So soon?" asked Zak, genuinely surprised.
"We are summoned.
Drizzt replied, starting past. Zak caught him by the arm.
"General patrol?" he asked.
"Focused” Drizzt replied." Activity in the eastern tunnels”
"So the heroes are summoned” chuckled Zak.
Drizzt did not immediately respond. Was there sarcasm in Zak's voice? Jealousy, perhaps, that Drizzt and Dinin were allowed to go out to fight, while Zak had to remain within the House Do'Urden's confines to fulfill his role as the family's fighting instructor? Was Zak's hunger for blood so great that he could not accept the duties thrust upon them all?
Zak had trained Drizzt and Dinin, had he not? And hundreds of others; he'd transformed them into living weapons, into murderers.
"How long will you be out?" Zak pressed, more interested in Drizzt's whereabouts.
Drizzt shrugged. "A week at the longest”
"And then?"
"Home”
"That is good” said Zak. "I will be pleased to see you back within the walls of House Do'Orden” Drizzt didn't believe a word of it.
Zak then slapped him on the shoulder in a sudden, unexpected movement designed to test Drizzt's reflexes. More surprised than threatened, Drizzt accepted the pat without response, not sure of his uncle's intent.
"The gym, perhaps?" asked Zak. "You and I, as it once was.
Impossible! Drizzt wanted to shout. Never again would it be as it once was. Drizzt held those thoughts to himself and nodded his assent. "I would enjoy that” he replied, secretly wondering how much satisfaction he would gain by cutting Zaknafein down. Drizzt knew the truth of his people now, and knew that he was powerless to change anything. Maybe he could make a change in his private life, though. Maybe by destroying Zaknafein, his greatest disappointment, Drizzt could remove himself from the wrongness around him.
"As would I, Zak said, the friendliness of his tone hiding his private thoughts-thoughts identical to Drizzt's.
"In a week, then” Drizzt said, and he pulled away, unable to continue the encounter with the drow who once had been his dearest friend, and who, Drizzt had come to learn, was truly as devious and evil as the rest of his kin.
"Please, my matron” Alton whimpered, "it is my right. I beg of you!"
"Rest easy, foolish DeVir” SiNafay replied, and there was pity in her voice, an emotion seldom felt and almost never revealed.
"I have waited-"
"The time is almost upon you” SiNafay countered, her tone growing more threatening. "You have tried for this one before?'
Alton's grotesque gawk brought a smile to SiNafay's face.
Yes, she said, "I know of your bungled attempt on Drizzt Do'Urden's life. If Masoj had not arrived, the young warrior would probably have slain you?'
"I would have destroyed him!" Alton growled. SiNafay did not argue the point. "Perhaps you would have won” she said, "only to be exposed as a murderous imposter, with the wrath of all of Menzoberranzan hanging over your head!"
"I did not care?'
"You would have cared, I promise you!" Matron SiNafay sneered. "You would have forfeited your chance to claim a greater revenge. Trust in me, Alton DeVir. Your-our-victory is at hand?'
"Masoj will kill Drizzt, and maybe Dinin” Alton grumbled.
"There are other Do'Urdens awaiting the fell hand of Alton DeVir” Matron SiNafay promised. "High priestesses?' Alton could not dismiss the disappointment he felt at not being allowed to go after Drizzt. He badly wanted to kill that one. Drizzt had brought him embarrassment that day in his chambers at Sorcere; the young draw should have died quickly and quietly. Alton wanted to make up for that mistake.
Alton also could not ignore the promise that Matron SiNafay had just made to him. The thought of killing one or more of the high priestesses of House Do'Urden did not displease him at all.
The pillowy softness of the plush bed, so different from the rest of the hard stone world of Menzoberranzan, of. fered Drizzt no relief from the pain. Another ghost had reared up to overwhelm even the images of carnage on the surface: the specter of Zaknafein.
Dinin and Vierna had told Drizzt the truth of the weapon master, of Zak's role in the fall of House DeVir, and of how Zak so enjoyed slaughtering other drow-other drow who had done nothing to wrong him or deserve his wrath.
So Zaknafein, too, took part in this evil game of drow life, the endless quest to please the Spider Queer.
"As I so pleased her on the surface?" Drizzt couldn't help but mumble, the sarcasm of the spoken words bringing him some small measure of comfort.
The comfort Drizzt felt in saving the life of the elven child seemed such a minor act against the overwhelming wrongs his raiding group had exacted on her people. Matron Malice, his mother, had so enjoyed hearing the bloody recount. ing. Drizzt remembered the elven child's horror at the sight of her dead mother. Would he, or any dark elf, be so devastated if they looked upon such a sight. Unlikely, he thought.
Drizzt hardly shared a loving bond with Malice, and most draw would be too engaged in measuring the consequences of their mother's death to their own station to feel any sense of loss.
Would Malice have cared if either Drizzt or Dinin had fallen in the raid? Again Drizzt knew the answer. All that Malice cared about was how the raid affected her own base of power. She had reveled in the notion that her children had pleased her evil goddess.
What favor would Lloth show to House Do'Urden if she knew the truth of Drizzt's actions? Drizzt had no way to measure how much, if any, interest the Spider Queen had taken in the raid. Lloth remained a mystery to him, one he had no desire to explore. Would she be enraged if she knew the truth of the raid? Or if she knew the truth of Drizzt's thoughts at this moment?
Drizzt shuddered to think of the punishments he might be bringing upon himself, but he had already firmly decided upon his course of action, whatever the consequences. He would return to House Do'Urden in a week. He would go then to the practice gym for a reunion with his old teacher.
He would kill Zaknafein in a week.
Caught up in the emotions of a dangerous and heartfelt decision, Zaknafein hardly heard the biting scrape as he ran the whetstone along his sword's gleaming edge.
The weapon had to be perfect, with no jags or burrs. This deed had to be executed without malice or anger.
A clean blow, and Zak would rid himself of the demons of his own failures, hide himself once again within the sanctuary of his private chambers, his secret world. A clean blow, and he would do what he should have done a decade before.
"If only I had found the strength then; he lamented. "How much grief might I have spared Drizzt? How much pain did his days at the Academy bring to him, that he is so very changed?" The words rang hollow in the empty room. They were just words, useless now, for Zak had already decided that Drizzt was out of reason's reach. Drizzt was a drow warrior, with all of the wicked connotations carried in such a title.
The choice was gone to Zaknafein if he wished to hold any pretense of value to his wretched existence. This time, he could not stay his sword. He had to kill Drizzt.
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
"Five” Dinin answered proudly. "I killed five, all of them females!"
The matron's smile thrilled Dinin. Then Malice scowled as she turned her gaze on Drizzt. "And him?" she inquired, not expecting to be pleased with the answer. Malice did not doubt her youngest son's prowess with weapons, but she had come to suspect that Drizzt had too much of Zaknafein's emotional makeup to ever be an attribute in such situations.
Dinin's smile confused her. He walked over to Drizzt and draped an arm comfortably across his brother's shoulders.
"Drizzt got only one kill” Dinin began, "but it was a female child”
"Only one?" Malice growled.
From the shadows off to the side, Zaknafein listened in dismay. He wanted to shut out the elderboy Do'Urden's damning words, but they held Zak in their grip. Of all the evils Zak had ever encountered in Menzoberranzan, this surely had to be the most disappointing. Drizzt had killed a child.
"But the way he did it!" Dinin exclaimed. "He hacked her apart; sent all of Lloth's fury slicing into her twitching body! The Spider Queen must have treasured that kill above all the others”
"Only one” Matron Malice said again, her scowl hardly softening.
"He would have had two” Dinin continued. "Shar Nadal of House Maevret stole one from his blade-another female”
"Then Lloth will look with favor on House Maevret” Briza reasoned.
"No” Dinin replied. "Drizzt punished Shar Nadal for his actions. The son of House Maevret would not respond to the challenge”
The memory stuck in Drizzt's thoughts. He wished that Shar Nadal had come back at him, so he could have vented his rage more fully. Even that wish sent pangs of guilt coursing through Drizzt.
"Well done, my children” Malice beamed, now satisfied that both of them had acted properly in the raid. "The Spider Queen will look upon House Do'Urden with favor for this event. She will guide us to victory over this unknown house that seeks to destroy us”
Zaknafein left the audience hall with his eyes down and one hand nervously rubbing his sword's hilt. Zak remembered the time he had deceived Drizzt with the light bomb, when he had Drizzt defenseless and beaten. He could have spared the young innocent from his horrid fate. He could have killed Drizzt then and there, mercifully, and released him from the inevitable circumstances of life in Menzoberranzan.
Zak paused in the long corridor and turned back to watch the chamber. Drizzt and Dinin came out then, Drizzt casting Zak a single, accusatory look and pointedly turning away down a side passage.
The gaze cut through the weapon master. "So it has come to this” Zak murmured to himself. "The youngest warrior of House Do'Urden, so full of the hate that embodies our race, has learned to despise me for what I am”
Zak thought again of that moment in the training gym, that fateful second when Drizzt's life teetered on the edge of a poised sword. It indeed would have been a merciful act to kill Drizzt at that time.
With the sting of the young drow warrior's gaze still cutting so keenly into his heart, Zak couldn't decide whether the deed would have been more merciful to Drizzt or to himself.
"Leave us” Matron SiNafay commanded as she swept into the small room lighted by a candle's glow. Alton gawked at the request; it was, after all, his personal room! Alton prudently reminded himself that SiNafay was the matron mother of the family, the absolute ruler of House Hun'ett. With a few awkward bows and apologies for his hesitation, he backed out of the room.
Masoj watched his mother cautiously as she waited for Alton to move away. From SiNafay's agitated tone, Masoj understood the significance of her visit. Had he done something to anger his mother? Or, more likely, had Alton? When SiNafay spun back on him, her face twisted in evil glee, Masoj realized that her agitation was really excitement.
"House Do'Urden has erred!" she snarled. "It has lost the Spider Queen's favor!"
"How?" Masoj replied. He knew that Dinin and Drizzt had returned from a successful raid, an assault that all of the city was talking about in tones of high praise.
"I do not know the details” Matron SiNafay replied, finding a measure of calmness in her voice. "One of them, perhaps one of the sons, did something to displease Lloth. This was told to me by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen. It must be true!"
"Matron Malice will work quickly to correct the situation” Masoj reasoned. "How long do we have?"
"Lloth's displeasure will not be revealed to Matron Malice” SiNafay replied. "Not soon. The Spider Queen knows all. She knows that we plan to attack House Do'Urden, and only an unfortunate accident will inform Matron Malice of her desperate situation before her house is crushed!
"We must move quickly” Matron SiNafay went on. "Within ten cycles of Narbondei, the first strike must fall! The full battle will begin soon after, before House Do'Urden can link its loss to our wrongdoing”
"What is to be their sudden loss?" Masoj prompted, thinking, hoping, he had already guessed the answer.
His mother's words were like sweet music to his ears.
"Drizzt Do'Urden” she purred, "the favored son. Kill him Masoj rested back and clasped his slender fingers behind his head, considering the command.
"You will not fail me” SiNafay warned.
"I will not” Masoj assured her. "Drizzt, though young, is eady a powerful foe. His brother, a former master of Melee-Magthere, is never far from his side” He looked up at his matron mother, his eyes gleaming. "May I kill the brother, too?"
"Be cautious, my son” SiNafay replied. "Drizzt Do'Urden is your target. Concentrate your efforts toward his death.
"As you command” Masoj replied, bowing low. SiNafay liked the way her young son heeded to her desires without question. She started out of the room, confident in Masoj's ability to perform the task.
"If Dinin Do'Urden somehow gets in the way” she said, turning back to throw Masoj a gift for his obedience, "you may kill him, too”
Masoj's expression revealed too much eagerness for the second task.
"You will not fail me!" SiNafay said again, this time in an open threat that stole some of the wind out of Masoj's filling sails. "Drizzt Do'Urden must die within ten days!"
Masoj forced any distracting thoughts of Dinin out of his mind. "Drizzt must die” he whispered over and over, long after his mother had gone. He already knew how he wanted to do it. He only had to hope that the opportunity would come soon.
The awful memory of the surface raid followed Drizzt, haunted him, as he wandered the halls of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon. He had rushed from the audience chamber as soon as Matron Malice had dismissed him, and had slipped away from his brother at the first opportunity, wanting only to be alone.
The images remained: the broken sparkle in the young elven girl's eyes as she knelt over her murdered mother's corpse; the elven woman's horrified expression, twisting in agony as ghar Nadal ripped the life from her body. The surface elves were there in Drizzt's thoughts; he could not dis. miss them. They walked beside Drizzt as he wandered, as real as they had been when Drizzt's raiding group had de. scended upon their joyful song.
Drizzt wondered if he would ever be alone again. Eyes down, consumed by his empty sense of loss, Drizzt c did not mark the path before him. He jumped back, startled, when he turned a corner and bumped into somebody. He stood facing Zaknafein.
"You are home” the weapon master said absently, his blank face revealing none of the tumultuous emotions swirling through his mind.
Drizzt wondered if he could properly hide his own grimace. "For a day” he replied, equally nonchalant, though his rage with Zaknafein was no less intense. Now that Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of drow elves firsthand, Zak's reputed deeds rang out to Drizzt as even more evil. "My patrol group goes back out at Narbondel's first light.
"So soon?" asked Zak, genuinely surprised.
"We are summoned.
Drizzt replied, starting past. Zak caught him by the arm.
"General patrol?" he asked.
"Focused” Drizzt replied." Activity in the eastern tunnels”
"So the heroes are summoned” chuckled Zak.
Drizzt did not immediately respond. Was there sarcasm in Zak's voice? Jealousy, perhaps, that Drizzt and Dinin were allowed to go out to fight, while Zak had to remain within the House Do'Urden's confines to fulfill his role as the family's fighting instructor? Was Zak's hunger for blood so great that he could not accept the duties thrust upon them all?
Zak had trained Drizzt and Dinin, had he not? And hundreds of others; he'd transformed them into living weapons, into murderers.
"How long will you be out?" Zak pressed, more interested in Drizzt's whereabouts.
Drizzt shrugged. "A week at the longest”
"And then?"
"Home”
"That is good” said Zak. "I will be pleased to see you back within the walls of House Do'Orden” Drizzt didn't believe a word of it.
Zak then slapped him on the shoulder in a sudden, unexpected movement designed to test Drizzt's reflexes. More surprised than threatened, Drizzt accepted the pat without response, not sure of his uncle's intent.
"The gym, perhaps?" asked Zak. "You and I, as it once was.
Impossible! Drizzt wanted to shout. Never again would it be as it once was. Drizzt held those thoughts to himself and nodded his assent. "I would enjoy that” he replied, secretly wondering how much satisfaction he would gain by cutting Zaknafein down. Drizzt knew the truth of his people now, and knew that he was powerless to change anything. Maybe he could make a change in his private life, though. Maybe by destroying Zaknafein, his greatest disappointment, Drizzt could remove himself from the wrongness around him.
"As would I, Zak said, the friendliness of his tone hiding his private thoughts-thoughts identical to Drizzt's.
"In a week, then” Drizzt said, and he pulled away, unable to continue the encounter with the drow who once had been his dearest friend, and who, Drizzt had come to learn, was truly as devious and evil as the rest of his kin.
"Please, my matron” Alton whimpered, "it is my right. I beg of you!"
"Rest easy, foolish DeVir” SiNafay replied, and there was pity in her voice, an emotion seldom felt and almost never revealed.
"I have waited-"
"The time is almost upon you” SiNafay countered, her tone growing more threatening. "You have tried for this one before?'
Alton's grotesque gawk brought a smile to SiNafay's face.
Yes, she said, "I know of your bungled attempt on Drizzt Do'Urden's life. If Masoj had not arrived, the young warrior would probably have slain you?'
"I would have destroyed him!" Alton growled. SiNafay did not argue the point. "Perhaps you would have won” she said, "only to be exposed as a murderous imposter, with the wrath of all of Menzoberranzan hanging over your head!"
"I did not care?'
"You would have cared, I promise you!" Matron SiNafay sneered. "You would have forfeited your chance to claim a greater revenge. Trust in me, Alton DeVir. Your-our-victory is at hand?'
"Masoj will kill Drizzt, and maybe Dinin” Alton grumbled.
"There are other Do'Urdens awaiting the fell hand of Alton DeVir” Matron SiNafay promised. "High priestesses?' Alton could not dismiss the disappointment he felt at not being allowed to go after Drizzt. He badly wanted to kill that one. Drizzt had brought him embarrassment that day in his chambers at Sorcere; the young draw should have died quickly and quietly. Alton wanted to make up for that mistake.
Alton also could not ignore the promise that Matron SiNafay had just made to him. The thought of killing one or more of the high priestesses of House Do'Urden did not displease him at all.
The pillowy softness of the plush bed, so different from the rest of the hard stone world of Menzoberranzan, of. fered Drizzt no relief from the pain. Another ghost had reared up to overwhelm even the images of carnage on the surface: the specter of Zaknafein.
Dinin and Vierna had told Drizzt the truth of the weapon master, of Zak's role in the fall of House DeVir, and of how Zak so enjoyed slaughtering other drow-other drow who had done nothing to wrong him or deserve his wrath.
So Zaknafein, too, took part in this evil game of drow life, the endless quest to please the Spider Queer.
"As I so pleased her on the surface?" Drizzt couldn't help but mumble, the sarcasm of the spoken words bringing him some small measure of comfort.
The comfort Drizzt felt in saving the life of the elven child seemed such a minor act against the overwhelming wrongs his raiding group had exacted on her people. Matron Malice, his mother, had so enjoyed hearing the bloody recount. ing. Drizzt remembered the elven child's horror at the sight of her dead mother. Would he, or any dark elf, be so devastated if they looked upon such a sight. Unlikely, he thought.
Drizzt hardly shared a loving bond with Malice, and most draw would be too engaged in measuring the consequences of their mother's death to their own station to feel any sense of loss.
Would Malice have cared if either Drizzt or Dinin had fallen in the raid? Again Drizzt knew the answer. All that Malice cared about was how the raid affected her own base of power. She had reveled in the notion that her children had pleased her evil goddess.
What favor would Lloth show to House Do'Urden if she knew the truth of Drizzt's actions? Drizzt had no way to measure how much, if any, interest the Spider Queen had taken in the raid. Lloth remained a mystery to him, one he had no desire to explore. Would she be enraged if she knew the truth of the raid? Or if she knew the truth of Drizzt's thoughts at this moment?
Drizzt shuddered to think of the punishments he might be bringing upon himself, but he had already firmly decided upon his course of action, whatever the consequences. He would return to House Do'Urden in a week. He would go then to the practice gym for a reunion with his old teacher.
He would kill Zaknafein in a week.
Caught up in the emotions of a dangerous and heartfelt decision, Zaknafein hardly heard the biting scrape as he ran the whetstone along his sword's gleaming edge.
The weapon had to be perfect, with no jags or burrs. This deed had to be executed without malice or anger.
A clean blow, and Zak would rid himself of the demons of his own failures, hide himself once again within the sanctuary of his private chambers, his secret world. A clean blow, and he would do what he should have done a decade before.
"If only I had found the strength then; he lamented. "How much grief might I have spared Drizzt? How much pain did his days at the Academy bring to him, that he is so very changed?" The words rang hollow in the empty room. They were just words, useless now, for Zak had already decided that Drizzt was out of reason's reach. Drizzt was a drow warrior, with all of the wicked connotations carried in such a title.
The choice was gone to Zaknafein if he wished to hold any pretense of value to his wretched existence. This time, he could not stay his sword. He had to kill Drizzt.
Chapter 22
Gnomes,Wicked Gnomes
Among the twists and turns of the tunnel mazes of the Underdark, slipping about their silent way, went the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes. Neither kind nor evil, and so out of place in this world of pervading wickedness, the deep gnomes survived and thrived. Haughty fighters, skilled in crafting weapons and armor, and more in tune to the songs of the stone than even the evil gray dwarves, the svirfnebli continued their business of plucking gems and precious metals in spite of the perils awaiting them at every turn.
When the news came back to Blingdenstone, the cluster of tunnels and caverns that composed the deep gnomes' city, that a rich vein of gemstones had been discovered twenty miles to the eastas the rockworm, the thoqqua, burrowed-Burrow-warden Belwar Dissengulp had to climb over a dozen others of his rank to be awarded the privilege of leading the mining expedition. Belwar and all of the others knew well that forty miles east-as the rockworm burrowed-would put the expedition dangerously close to Menzoberranzan, and that even getting there would mean a week of hiking, probably through the territories of a hundred other enemies. Fear was no measure against the love svirfnebli had for gems, though, and every day in the Underdark was a risk.
When Belwar and his forty miners arrived in the small cavern described by the advance scouts and inscribed with the gnomes' mark of treasure, they found that the claims had not been exaggerated. The burrow-warden took care not to get overly excited, though. He knew that twenty thousand drow elves, the svirfnebli's most hated and feared enemy, lived fewer than five miles away.
Escape tunnels became the first order of business, winding constructions high enough for a three-foot gnome but not for a taller pursuer. All along the course of these the gnomes placed breaker walls, designed to deflect a lightning bolt or offer some protection from the expanding flames of a fireball.
Then, when the true mining at last began, Belwar kept fully a third of his crew on guard at all times and walked the area of the work with one hand always clutching the magical emerald, the summoning stone, he kept on a chain around his neck.
"Three full patrol groups” Drizzt remarked to Dinin when they arrived at the open "field" on the eastern side of Menzoberranzan. Few stalagmites lined this region of the city, but it did not seem so open now, with dozens of anxious drow milling about.
"Gnomes are not to be taken lightly” Dinin replied. "They are wicked and powerful-"
"As wicked as surface elves?" Drizzt had to interrupt, covering his sarcasm with false exuberance.
" Almost” his brother warned grimly, missing the connotations of Drizzt's question. Dinin pointed off to the side, where a contingent of female drow was coming in to join the group. "Clerics” he said, "and one of them a high priestess. The rumors of activity must have been confirmed”
A shudder coursed through Drizzt, a tingle of prebattle excitement. That excitement was altered and lessened, though, by fear, not of physical harm, or even of the gnomes. Drizzt feared that this encounter might be a repeat of the surface tragedy.
He shook the black thoughts away and reminded himself that this time, unlike the surface expedition, his home was being invaded. The gnomes had crossed the boundaries of the drow realm. If they were as evil as Dinin and all the others claimed, Menzoberranzan had no choice but to respond with force. If.
Drizzt's patrol, the most celebrated group among the males, was selected to lead, and Drizzt, as always, took the point position. Still unsure, he wasn't thrilled with the assignment, and as they started out, Drizzt even contemplated leading the group astray. Or perhaps, Drizzt thought, he could contact the gnomes privately before the others arrived and warn them to flee.
Drizzt realized the absurdity of the notion. He couldn't stop the wheels of Menzoberranzan from turning along their designated course, and he couldn't do anything to hinder the two score drow warriors, excited and impatient, at his back. Again he was trapped and on the edge of despair. Masoj Hun'ett appeared then and made everything better.
"Guenhwyvar!" the young wizard called, and the great panther came bounding. Masoj left the cat beside Drizzt and headed back toward his place in the line.
Guenhwyvar could no more hide its elation at seeing Drizzt than Drizzt could contain his own smile. With the interruption of the surface raid, and then his time back home, he hadn't seen Guenhwyvar in mere than a month.
Guenhwyvar thumped against Drizzt's side as it passed, nearly knocking the slender drow from his feet. Drizzt responded with a heavy pat, vigorously rubbing a hand over the cat's ear.
They both turned back together, suddenly conscious of the unhappy glare boring into them. There stood Masoj, arms crossed over his chest and a visible scowl heating up his face.
"I shan't use the cat to kill Drizzt” the young wizard muttered to himself. "I want the pleasure for myself Drizzt wondered if jealousy prompted that scowl. Jealousy of Drizzt and the cat, or of everything in general? Masoj had been left behind when Drizzt had gone to the surface. Masoj had been no more than a spectator when the victorious raiding party returned in glory. Drizzt backed away from Guenhwyvar, sensitive to the wizard's pain.
As soon as Masoj had moved away to take his position farther down the line, Drizzt dropped to one knee and threw a headlock on Guenhwyvar.
Drizzt found himself even gladder for Guenhwyvar's companionship when they passed beyond the familiar tunnels of the normal patrol routes. It was a saying in Menzoberranzan that "no one is as alone as the point of a drow patrol” and Drizzt had come to understand this keenly in the last few months. He stopped at the far end of a wide way and held perfectly still, focusing his ears and eyes to the trails behind him. He knew that more than forty drow were approaching his position, fully arrayed for battle and agitated. Still, not a sound could Drizzt detect, and not a mo. tion was discernable in the eerie shadows of cool stone. Drizzt looked down at Guenhwyvar, waiting patiently by his side, and started off again.
He could sense the hot presence of the war party at his back. That intangible sensation was the only thing that disproved Drizzt's feelings that he and Guenhwyvar were quite alone.
Near the end of that day, Drizzt heard the first signs of trouble. As he neared an intersection in the tunnel, cautiously pressed close to one wall, he felt a subtle vibration in the stone. It came again a second later, and then again, and Drizzt recognized it as the rhythmic tapping of a pick or hammer.
He took a magically heated sheet, a small square that fit into the palm of his hand, out of his pack. One side of the item was shielded in heavy leather, but the other shone brightly to eyes seeing in the infrared spectrum. Drizzt flashed it down the tunnel behind him, and a few seconds later, Dinin came up to his side.
"Hammer” Drizzt signaled in the silent code, pointing to the wall. Dinin pressed against the stone and nodded in confirmation.
"Fifty yards?" Dinin's hand motions asked.,
"Less than one hundred” Drizzt confirmed.
With his own prepared sheet, Dinin flashed the get-ready signal into the gloom behind him, then moved with Drizzt and Guenhwyvar around the intersection toward the tapping.
Only a moment later, Drizzt looked upon svirfnebli gnomes for the very first time. Gnome guards stood barely twenty feet away, chest-high to a drow and hairless, with skin strangely akin to the stone in both texture and heat radiations. The gnomes' eyes glowed brightly in the telltale red of infravision. One glance at those eyes reminded Drizzt and Dinin that deep gnomes were as much at home in the darkness as were the drow, and they both prudently ducked behind a rocky outcropping in the tunnel.
Dinin promptly signaled to the next drow in line, and so on, until the entire party was alerted. Then he crouched low and peeked out around the bottom of the outcropping. The tunnel continued another thirty feet beyond the gnome guards and around a slight bend, ending in some larger chamber. Dinin couldn't clearly see this area, but the glow of it, from the heat of the work and a cluster of bodies, spilled out into the corridor.
Again Dinin signaled back to his hidden comrades, and then he turned to Drizzt. "Stay here with the cat” he instructed, and he darted back down around the intersection to formulate plans with the other leaders.
Masoj a few places back in the line, noted Dinin's movement and wondered if the opportunity to deal with Drizzt had suddenly come upon him. If the patrol was discovered with Drizzt all alone up in front, was there some way Masoj could secretly blast the young Do'Urden? The opportunity, if ever it was truly there, passed quickly, though, as other drow soldiers came up beside the plotting wizard. Dinin soon returned from the back of the line and headed back to join his brother.
"The chamber has many exits” Dinin signaled to Drizzt when they were together. "The other patrols are moving into position around the gnomes"
"Might we parley with the gnomes?" Drizzt's hands asked in reply, almost subconsciously. He recognized the expression spreading across Dinin's face, but knew that he had already plunged in. "Send them away without conflict?" Dinin grabbed Drizzt by the front of his piwafwi and pulled him close, too close, to that terrible scowl. "I will forget that you asked that question” he whispered, and he dropped Drizzt back to the stone, considering the issue closed.
"You start the fight” Dinin signaled. "When you see the sign from behind, darken the corridor and rush past the guards. Get to the gnome leader; he is the key to their strength with the stone”
Drizzt didn't fully understand what gnomish power his brother hinted at, but the instructions seemed simple enough, if somewhat suicidal.
"Take the cat if the cat will go” Dinin continued. "The entire patrol will be by your side in moments. The remaining groups will corne in from the other passages” Guenhwyvar nuzzled up to Drizzt, more than ready to follow him into battle. Drizzt took comfort in that when Dinin departed, leaving him alone again at the front. Only a few seconds later carne the command to attack. Drizzt shook his head in disbelief when he saw the signal; how fast drow warriors found their positions!
He peeked around at the gnomish guards, still holding their silent vigil, completely unaware. Drizzt drew his blades and patted Guenhwyvar for luck, then called upon the innate magic of his race and dropped a globe of darkness in the corridor.
Squeals of alarm sounded throughout the tunnels, and Drizzt charged in, diving right into the darkness between the unseen guards and rolling back to his feet on the other side of his spell, only two running strides from the small chamber. He saw a dozen gnomes scrambling about, trying to prepare their defenses. Few of them paid Drizzt any attention, though, as the sounds of battle erupted from various side corridors.
One gnome chopped a heavy pick at Drizzt's shoulder.
Drizzt got a blade up to block the blow but was amazed at the strength in the diminutive gnome's arms. Still, Drizzt could then have killed his attacker with the other scimitar.
Too many doubts, and too many memories, though, haunted his actions. He brought a leg up into the gnome's belly, sending the little creature sprawling.
Belwar Dissengulp, next in line for Drizzt, noted how easily the young drow had dispatched one of his finest fighters and knew that the time had already come to use his most powerful magic. He pulled the emerald summoning stone from his neck and threw it to the ground at Drizzt's feet.
Drizzt jumped back, sensing the emanations of magic. Behind him, Drizzt heard the approach of his companions, overpowering the shocked gnome guards and rushing to join him in the chamber. Then Drizzt's attentions went squarely to the heat patterns of the stone floor in front of him. The grayish lines wavered and swam, as if the stone was somehow coming alive.
The other drow fighters roared in past Drizzt, bearing down on the gnome leader and his charges. Drizzt didn't follow, guessing that the event unfolding at his feet was more critical than the general battle now echoing through-out the complex.
Fifteen feet tall and seven wide, an angry, towering humanoid monster of living stone rose before Drizzt.
"Elemental" came a scream to the side. Drizzt glanced over to see Masoj, Guenhwyvar at his side, fumbling through a spellbook, apparently in search of some dweomer to battle this unexpected monster. To Drizzt's dismay, the frightened wizard mumbled a couple of words and vanished.
Drizzt set his feet under him, and took a measure of the monster, ready to spring aside in an instant. He could sense the thing's power, the raw strength of the earth embodied in living arms and legs.
A lumbering arm swung out in a wide arc, whooshing above Drizzt's ducking head and slamming into the cavern wall, crushing rocks into dust.
"Do not let it hit me” Drizzt instructed himself in a whisper that came out as a disbelieving gasp. As the elemental recoiled its arm, Drizzt poked a scimitar at it, chipping away a small chunk, barely a scratch. The elemental grimaced in painapparently Drizzt could indeed hurt it with his enchanted weapons.
Still standing in the same spot off to the side, the invisible Masoj held his next spell in check, watching the spectacle and waiting for the combatants to weaken each other. Perhaps the elemental would destroy Drizzt altogether. Invisible shoulders gave a resigned shrug. Masoj decided to let the gnomish power do his dirty work for him. The monster launched another blow, and another, and Drizzt dove forward and scrambled through the thing's stone pillar legs. The elemental reacted quickly and stomped heavily with one foot, barely missing the agile drow, and sending branching cracks in the floor for many feet in either direction.
Drizzt was up in a flash, slicing and thrusting with both his blades into the elemental's backside, then springing back out of reach as the monster swung about, leading with another ferocious blow.
The sounds of battle grew more distant. The gnomes had taken flight-those that were still alive-but the drow war. riors were in full pursuit, leaving Drizzt to face the elemental.
The monster stomped again, the thunder of its foot nearly knocking Drizzt from his feet, and then it came in hard, falling down at Drizzt, using the tonnage of its body as a weapon. If Drizzt had been even slightly surprised, or if his reflexes had not been honed to such perfection, he surely would have been crushed flat. He managed to get to the side of the monster's bulk, while taking only a glancing blow from a swinging arm.
Dust rushed up from the terrific impact; cavern walls and ceiling cracked and dropped flecks and stones to the floor.
As the elemental regained its feet, Drizzt backed away, overwhelmed by such unconquerable strength.
He was all alone against it, or so Drizzt thought. A sudden ball of hot fury enveloped the elemental's head, claws raking deep scratches into its face.
"Guenhwyvar" Drizzt and Masoj shouted in unison, Drizzt in elation that an ally had been found, and Masoj in rage. The wizard did not want Drizzt to survive this battle, and he dared not launch any magical attacks, at Drizzt or the elemental, with his precious Guenhwyvar in the way.
"Do something, wizard!" Drizzt cried, recognizing the shout and understanding now that Masoj was still around. The elemental bellowed in pain, its cry sounding as the rumble of huge boulders crashing down a rocky mountain. Even as Drizzt moved back in to help his feline friend, the monster spun, impossibly quick, and dove headfirst to the floor.
"No!" Drizzt cried, realizing that Guenhwyvar would be crushed. Then the cat and the elemental, instead of slamming against the stone, sank down into it!
The purple flames of faerie fire outlined the figures of the gnomes, showing the way for drow arrows and swords. The gnomes countered with magic of their own, illusionary tricks mostly. "Down here!" one drow soldier cried, only to slam face first into the stone of a wall that had appeared as the entrance to a corridor.
Even though the gnome magic managed to keep the dark elves somewhat confused, Belwar Dissengulp grew frightened. His elemental, his strongest magic and only hope, was taking too long with the single drow warrior far back in the main chamber. The burrow-warden wanted the monster by his side when the main combat began. He ordered his forces into tight defensive formations, hoping that they could hold out.
Then the drow warriors, detained no more by gnomish tricks, were upon them, and fury stole Belwar's fear. He lashed out with his heavy pickaxe, smiling grimly as he felt the mighty weapon bite into drow flesh.
All magic was aside now, all formations and carefully laid battle plans dissolved into the wild frenzy of the brawl. Nothing mattered, except to hit the enemy, to feel the pick head or blade sinking into flesh. Above all others, deep gnomes hated the drow, and in all the Underdark there was nothing a dark elf enjoyed more than slicing a svirfnebli into littler pieces.
Drizzt rushed to the spot, but only the unbroken section of floor remained. "Masoj?" he gasped, looking for some an. swers from the one schooled in such strange magic. Before the wizard could answer, the floor erupted behind Drizzt. He spun, weapons ready, to face the towering elemental.
Then Drizzt watched in helpless agony as the broken mist that was the great panther, his dearest companion, rolled off the elemental's shoulders and broke apart as it neared the floor.
Drizzt ducked another blow, though his eyes never left the dissipating dust-and-mist cloud. Was Guenhwyvar no more? Was his only friend gone from him forever? A new light grew in Drizzt lavender eyes, a primal rage that simmered throughout his body. He looked back to the elemental, unafraid.
"You are dead” he promised, and he walked in.
The elemental seemed confused, though of course it could not understand Drizzt's words. It dropped a heavy arm straight down to squash its foolish opponent. Drizzt did not even raise his blades to parry, knowing that every ounce of his strength could not possibly deflect such a blow. Just as the falling arm was about to reach him, he dashed forward, within its range.
The quickness of his move surprised the elemental, and the ensuing flurry of swordplay took Masoj's breath away. The wizard had never seen such grace in battle, such fluidity of motion. Drizzt climbed up and down the elemental's body, hacking and slashing, digging the points of his weapons home and flicking off pieces of the monster's stone skin.
The elemental howled its avalanche howl and spun in circles, trying to catch up to Drizzt and squash him once and for all. Blind anger brought new levels of expertise to the magnificent young swordsman, though, and the elemental caught nothing but air or its own stony body under its heavy slaps.
"Impossible” Masoj muttered when he found his breath. Could the young Do'Urden actually defeat an elemental? Masoj scanned the rest of the area. Several drow and many gnomes lay dead or grievously wounded, but the main fighting was moving even farther away as the gnomes found their tiny escape tunnels and the drow, enraged beyond good sense, followed them.
Guenhwyvar was gone. In this chamber, only Masoj, the elemental, and Drizzt remained as witnesses. The invisible wizard felt his mouth draw up in a smile. Now was the time to strike.
Drizzt had the elemental lurching to one side, nearly beaten, when the bolt roared in, a blast of lightning that blinded the young drow and sent him flying into the chamber's back wall. Drizzt watched the twitch of his hands, the wild dance of his stark white hair before his unmoving eyes. He felt nothing-no pain, no reviving draw of air into his lungs-and heard nothing, as if his life force had been some-how suspended.
The attack dispelled Masoj's dweomer of invisibility, and he came back in view, laughing wickedly. The elemental, down in a broken, crumbled mass, slowly slipped back into the security of the stone floor.
"Are you dead?" the wizard asked Drizzt, the voice breaking the hush of Drizzt's deafness in dramatic booms. Drizzt could not answer, didn't really know the answer anyway.
"Too easy” he heard Masoj say, and he suspected that the wizard was referring to him and not the elemental.
Then Drizzt felt a tingling in his fingers and bones and his lungs heaved suddenly, grabbing a volume of air. He gasped in rapid succession, then found control of his body and realized that he would survive.
Masoj glanced around for returning witnesses and saw none. "Good” he muttered as he watched Drizzt regain his senses. The wizard was truly glad that Drizzt's death had not been so very painless. He thought of another spell that would make the moment more fun.
A hand-a gigantic stone hand-reached out of the floor just then and grasped Masoj's leg, pulling his feet right into the stone.
The wizard's face twisted in a silent scream.
Drizzt's enemy saved his life. Drizzt snatched up one of the scimitars from the ground and hacked at the elemental's arm. The weapon sliced in, and the monster, its head reappearing between Drizzt and Masoj, howled in rage and pain and pulled the trapped wizard deeper into the stone.
With both hands on the scimitar's hilt, Drizzt struck as hard as he could, splitting the elemental's head right in half. This time the rubble did not sink back into its earthen plane; this time the elemental was destroyed.
"Get me out of here!" Masoj demanded. Drizzt looked at him, hardly believing that Masoi was still alive, for he was waist deep in solid stone.
"How?" Drizzt gasped. "You. . “ He couldn't even find the words to express his amazement.
"Just get me out!" the wizard cried. Drizzt fumbled about, not knowing where to begin.
"Elementals travel between planes” Masoj explained, knowing that he had to calm Drizzt down if he ever wanted to get out of the floor. Masoj knew, too, that the conversation could go a long way in deflecting Drizzt's obvious suspicions that the lightning bolt had been aimed at him. "The ground an earth elemental traverses becomes a gate between the Plane of Earth and our plane, the Material Plane.
The stone parted around me as the monster pulled me in, but it is quite uncomfortable” He twitched in pain as the stone tightened around one foot. "The gate is closing fast!"
"Then Guenhwyvar might be . . “ Drizzt started to reason.
He plucked the statuette right out of Masoj's front pocket and carefully inspected it for any flaws in its perfect design.
"Give me that!" Masoj demanded, embarrassed and angry. Reluctantly, Drizzt handed the figurine over. Masoj glanced at it quickly and dropped it back into the pocket.
"Is Guenhwyvar unharmed?" Drizzt had to ask.
"It is not your concern” Masoj snapped back. The wizard, too, was worried about the cat, but at this moment,
Guenhwyvar was the least of his troubles. "The gate is closing” he said again. "Go get the clerics!"
Before Drizzt could start off, a slab of stone in the wall be. hind him slid away, and the rock-hard fist of Belwar Dissengulp slammed into the back of his head.
When the news came back to Blingdenstone, the cluster of tunnels and caverns that composed the deep gnomes' city, that a rich vein of gemstones had been discovered twenty miles to the eastas the rockworm, the thoqqua, burrowed-Burrow-warden Belwar Dissengulp had to climb over a dozen others of his rank to be awarded the privilege of leading the mining expedition. Belwar and all of the others knew well that forty miles east-as the rockworm burrowed-would put the expedition dangerously close to Menzoberranzan, and that even getting there would mean a week of hiking, probably through the territories of a hundred other enemies. Fear was no measure against the love svirfnebli had for gems, though, and every day in the Underdark was a risk.
When Belwar and his forty miners arrived in the small cavern described by the advance scouts and inscribed with the gnomes' mark of treasure, they found that the claims had not been exaggerated. The burrow-warden took care not to get overly excited, though. He knew that twenty thousand drow elves, the svirfnebli's most hated and feared enemy, lived fewer than five miles away.
Escape tunnels became the first order of business, winding constructions high enough for a three-foot gnome but not for a taller pursuer. All along the course of these the gnomes placed breaker walls, designed to deflect a lightning bolt or offer some protection from the expanding flames of a fireball.
Then, when the true mining at last began, Belwar kept fully a third of his crew on guard at all times and walked the area of the work with one hand always clutching the magical emerald, the summoning stone, he kept on a chain around his neck.
"Three full patrol groups” Drizzt remarked to Dinin when they arrived at the open "field" on the eastern side of Menzoberranzan. Few stalagmites lined this region of the city, but it did not seem so open now, with dozens of anxious drow milling about.
"Gnomes are not to be taken lightly” Dinin replied. "They are wicked and powerful-"
"As wicked as surface elves?" Drizzt had to interrupt, covering his sarcasm with false exuberance.
" Almost” his brother warned grimly, missing the connotations of Drizzt's question. Dinin pointed off to the side, where a contingent of female drow was coming in to join the group. "Clerics” he said, "and one of them a high priestess. The rumors of activity must have been confirmed”
A shudder coursed through Drizzt, a tingle of prebattle excitement. That excitement was altered and lessened, though, by fear, not of physical harm, or even of the gnomes. Drizzt feared that this encounter might be a repeat of the surface tragedy.
He shook the black thoughts away and reminded himself that this time, unlike the surface expedition, his home was being invaded. The gnomes had crossed the boundaries of the drow realm. If they were as evil as Dinin and all the others claimed, Menzoberranzan had no choice but to respond with force. If.
Drizzt's patrol, the most celebrated group among the males, was selected to lead, and Drizzt, as always, took the point position. Still unsure, he wasn't thrilled with the assignment, and as they started out, Drizzt even contemplated leading the group astray. Or perhaps, Drizzt thought, he could contact the gnomes privately before the others arrived and warn them to flee.
Drizzt realized the absurdity of the notion. He couldn't stop the wheels of Menzoberranzan from turning along their designated course, and he couldn't do anything to hinder the two score drow warriors, excited and impatient, at his back. Again he was trapped and on the edge of despair. Masoj Hun'ett appeared then and made everything better.
"Guenhwyvar!" the young wizard called, and the great panther came bounding. Masoj left the cat beside Drizzt and headed back toward his place in the line.
Guenhwyvar could no more hide its elation at seeing Drizzt than Drizzt could contain his own smile. With the interruption of the surface raid, and then his time back home, he hadn't seen Guenhwyvar in mere than a month.
Guenhwyvar thumped against Drizzt's side as it passed, nearly knocking the slender drow from his feet. Drizzt responded with a heavy pat, vigorously rubbing a hand over the cat's ear.
They both turned back together, suddenly conscious of the unhappy glare boring into them. There stood Masoj, arms crossed over his chest and a visible scowl heating up his face.
"I shan't use the cat to kill Drizzt” the young wizard muttered to himself. "I want the pleasure for myself Drizzt wondered if jealousy prompted that scowl. Jealousy of Drizzt and the cat, or of everything in general? Masoj had been left behind when Drizzt had gone to the surface. Masoj had been no more than a spectator when the victorious raiding party returned in glory. Drizzt backed away from Guenhwyvar, sensitive to the wizard's pain.
As soon as Masoj had moved away to take his position farther down the line, Drizzt dropped to one knee and threw a headlock on Guenhwyvar.
Drizzt found himself even gladder for Guenhwyvar's companionship when they passed beyond the familiar tunnels of the normal patrol routes. It was a saying in Menzoberranzan that "no one is as alone as the point of a drow patrol” and Drizzt had come to understand this keenly in the last few months. He stopped at the far end of a wide way and held perfectly still, focusing his ears and eyes to the trails behind him. He knew that more than forty drow were approaching his position, fully arrayed for battle and agitated. Still, not a sound could Drizzt detect, and not a mo. tion was discernable in the eerie shadows of cool stone. Drizzt looked down at Guenhwyvar, waiting patiently by his side, and started off again.
He could sense the hot presence of the war party at his back. That intangible sensation was the only thing that disproved Drizzt's feelings that he and Guenhwyvar were quite alone.
Near the end of that day, Drizzt heard the first signs of trouble. As he neared an intersection in the tunnel, cautiously pressed close to one wall, he felt a subtle vibration in the stone. It came again a second later, and then again, and Drizzt recognized it as the rhythmic tapping of a pick or hammer.
He took a magically heated sheet, a small square that fit into the palm of his hand, out of his pack. One side of the item was shielded in heavy leather, but the other shone brightly to eyes seeing in the infrared spectrum. Drizzt flashed it down the tunnel behind him, and a few seconds later, Dinin came up to his side.
"Hammer” Drizzt signaled in the silent code, pointing to the wall. Dinin pressed against the stone and nodded in confirmation.
"Fifty yards?" Dinin's hand motions asked.,
"Less than one hundred” Drizzt confirmed.
With his own prepared sheet, Dinin flashed the get-ready signal into the gloom behind him, then moved with Drizzt and Guenhwyvar around the intersection toward the tapping.
Only a moment later, Drizzt looked upon svirfnebli gnomes for the very first time. Gnome guards stood barely twenty feet away, chest-high to a drow and hairless, with skin strangely akin to the stone in both texture and heat radiations. The gnomes' eyes glowed brightly in the telltale red of infravision. One glance at those eyes reminded Drizzt and Dinin that deep gnomes were as much at home in the darkness as were the drow, and they both prudently ducked behind a rocky outcropping in the tunnel.
Dinin promptly signaled to the next drow in line, and so on, until the entire party was alerted. Then he crouched low and peeked out around the bottom of the outcropping. The tunnel continued another thirty feet beyond the gnome guards and around a slight bend, ending in some larger chamber. Dinin couldn't clearly see this area, but the glow of it, from the heat of the work and a cluster of bodies, spilled out into the corridor.
Again Dinin signaled back to his hidden comrades, and then he turned to Drizzt. "Stay here with the cat” he instructed, and he darted back down around the intersection to formulate plans with the other leaders.
Masoj a few places back in the line, noted Dinin's movement and wondered if the opportunity to deal with Drizzt had suddenly come upon him. If the patrol was discovered with Drizzt all alone up in front, was there some way Masoj could secretly blast the young Do'Urden? The opportunity, if ever it was truly there, passed quickly, though, as other drow soldiers came up beside the plotting wizard. Dinin soon returned from the back of the line and headed back to join his brother.
"The chamber has many exits” Dinin signaled to Drizzt when they were together. "The other patrols are moving into position around the gnomes"
"Might we parley with the gnomes?" Drizzt's hands asked in reply, almost subconsciously. He recognized the expression spreading across Dinin's face, but knew that he had already plunged in. "Send them away without conflict?" Dinin grabbed Drizzt by the front of his piwafwi and pulled him close, too close, to that terrible scowl. "I will forget that you asked that question” he whispered, and he dropped Drizzt back to the stone, considering the issue closed.
"You start the fight” Dinin signaled. "When you see the sign from behind, darken the corridor and rush past the guards. Get to the gnome leader; he is the key to their strength with the stone”
Drizzt didn't fully understand what gnomish power his brother hinted at, but the instructions seemed simple enough, if somewhat suicidal.
"Take the cat if the cat will go” Dinin continued. "The entire patrol will be by your side in moments. The remaining groups will corne in from the other passages” Guenhwyvar nuzzled up to Drizzt, more than ready to follow him into battle. Drizzt took comfort in that when Dinin departed, leaving him alone again at the front. Only a few seconds later carne the command to attack. Drizzt shook his head in disbelief when he saw the signal; how fast drow warriors found their positions!
He peeked around at the gnomish guards, still holding their silent vigil, completely unaware. Drizzt drew his blades and patted Guenhwyvar for luck, then called upon the innate magic of his race and dropped a globe of darkness in the corridor.
Squeals of alarm sounded throughout the tunnels, and Drizzt charged in, diving right into the darkness between the unseen guards and rolling back to his feet on the other side of his spell, only two running strides from the small chamber. He saw a dozen gnomes scrambling about, trying to prepare their defenses. Few of them paid Drizzt any attention, though, as the sounds of battle erupted from various side corridors.
One gnome chopped a heavy pick at Drizzt's shoulder.
Drizzt got a blade up to block the blow but was amazed at the strength in the diminutive gnome's arms. Still, Drizzt could then have killed his attacker with the other scimitar.
Too many doubts, and too many memories, though, haunted his actions. He brought a leg up into the gnome's belly, sending the little creature sprawling.
Belwar Dissengulp, next in line for Drizzt, noted how easily the young drow had dispatched one of his finest fighters and knew that the time had already come to use his most powerful magic. He pulled the emerald summoning stone from his neck and threw it to the ground at Drizzt's feet.
Drizzt jumped back, sensing the emanations of magic. Behind him, Drizzt heard the approach of his companions, overpowering the shocked gnome guards and rushing to join him in the chamber. Then Drizzt's attentions went squarely to the heat patterns of the stone floor in front of him. The grayish lines wavered and swam, as if the stone was somehow coming alive.
The other drow fighters roared in past Drizzt, bearing down on the gnome leader and his charges. Drizzt didn't follow, guessing that the event unfolding at his feet was more critical than the general battle now echoing through-out the complex.
Fifteen feet tall and seven wide, an angry, towering humanoid monster of living stone rose before Drizzt.
"Elemental" came a scream to the side. Drizzt glanced over to see Masoj, Guenhwyvar at his side, fumbling through a spellbook, apparently in search of some dweomer to battle this unexpected monster. To Drizzt's dismay, the frightened wizard mumbled a couple of words and vanished.
Drizzt set his feet under him, and took a measure of the monster, ready to spring aside in an instant. He could sense the thing's power, the raw strength of the earth embodied in living arms and legs.
A lumbering arm swung out in a wide arc, whooshing above Drizzt's ducking head and slamming into the cavern wall, crushing rocks into dust.
"Do not let it hit me” Drizzt instructed himself in a whisper that came out as a disbelieving gasp. As the elemental recoiled its arm, Drizzt poked a scimitar at it, chipping away a small chunk, barely a scratch. The elemental grimaced in painapparently Drizzt could indeed hurt it with his enchanted weapons.
Still standing in the same spot off to the side, the invisible Masoj held his next spell in check, watching the spectacle and waiting for the combatants to weaken each other. Perhaps the elemental would destroy Drizzt altogether. Invisible shoulders gave a resigned shrug. Masoj decided to let the gnomish power do his dirty work for him. The monster launched another blow, and another, and Drizzt dove forward and scrambled through the thing's stone pillar legs. The elemental reacted quickly and stomped heavily with one foot, barely missing the agile drow, and sending branching cracks in the floor for many feet in either direction.
Drizzt was up in a flash, slicing and thrusting with both his blades into the elemental's backside, then springing back out of reach as the monster swung about, leading with another ferocious blow.
The sounds of battle grew more distant. The gnomes had taken flight-those that were still alive-but the drow war. riors were in full pursuit, leaving Drizzt to face the elemental.
The monster stomped again, the thunder of its foot nearly knocking Drizzt from his feet, and then it came in hard, falling down at Drizzt, using the tonnage of its body as a weapon. If Drizzt had been even slightly surprised, or if his reflexes had not been honed to such perfection, he surely would have been crushed flat. He managed to get to the side of the monster's bulk, while taking only a glancing blow from a swinging arm.
Dust rushed up from the terrific impact; cavern walls and ceiling cracked and dropped flecks and stones to the floor.
As the elemental regained its feet, Drizzt backed away, overwhelmed by such unconquerable strength.
He was all alone against it, or so Drizzt thought. A sudden ball of hot fury enveloped the elemental's head, claws raking deep scratches into its face.
"Guenhwyvar" Drizzt and Masoj shouted in unison, Drizzt in elation that an ally had been found, and Masoj in rage. The wizard did not want Drizzt to survive this battle, and he dared not launch any magical attacks, at Drizzt or the elemental, with his precious Guenhwyvar in the way.
"Do something, wizard!" Drizzt cried, recognizing the shout and understanding now that Masoj was still around. The elemental bellowed in pain, its cry sounding as the rumble of huge boulders crashing down a rocky mountain. Even as Drizzt moved back in to help his feline friend, the monster spun, impossibly quick, and dove headfirst to the floor.
"No!" Drizzt cried, realizing that Guenhwyvar would be crushed. Then the cat and the elemental, instead of slamming against the stone, sank down into it!
The purple flames of faerie fire outlined the figures of the gnomes, showing the way for drow arrows and swords. The gnomes countered with magic of their own, illusionary tricks mostly. "Down here!" one drow soldier cried, only to slam face first into the stone of a wall that had appeared as the entrance to a corridor.
Even though the gnome magic managed to keep the dark elves somewhat confused, Belwar Dissengulp grew frightened. His elemental, his strongest magic and only hope, was taking too long with the single drow warrior far back in the main chamber. The burrow-warden wanted the monster by his side when the main combat began. He ordered his forces into tight defensive formations, hoping that they could hold out.
Then the drow warriors, detained no more by gnomish tricks, were upon them, and fury stole Belwar's fear. He lashed out with his heavy pickaxe, smiling grimly as he felt the mighty weapon bite into drow flesh.
All magic was aside now, all formations and carefully laid battle plans dissolved into the wild frenzy of the brawl. Nothing mattered, except to hit the enemy, to feel the pick head or blade sinking into flesh. Above all others, deep gnomes hated the drow, and in all the Underdark there was nothing a dark elf enjoyed more than slicing a svirfnebli into littler pieces.
Drizzt rushed to the spot, but only the unbroken section of floor remained. "Masoj?" he gasped, looking for some an. swers from the one schooled in such strange magic. Before the wizard could answer, the floor erupted behind Drizzt. He spun, weapons ready, to face the towering elemental.
Then Drizzt watched in helpless agony as the broken mist that was the great panther, his dearest companion, rolled off the elemental's shoulders and broke apart as it neared the floor.
Drizzt ducked another blow, though his eyes never left the dissipating dust-and-mist cloud. Was Guenhwyvar no more? Was his only friend gone from him forever? A new light grew in Drizzt lavender eyes, a primal rage that simmered throughout his body. He looked back to the elemental, unafraid.
"You are dead” he promised, and he walked in.
The elemental seemed confused, though of course it could not understand Drizzt's words. It dropped a heavy arm straight down to squash its foolish opponent. Drizzt did not even raise his blades to parry, knowing that every ounce of his strength could not possibly deflect such a blow. Just as the falling arm was about to reach him, he dashed forward, within its range.
The quickness of his move surprised the elemental, and the ensuing flurry of swordplay took Masoj's breath away. The wizard had never seen such grace in battle, such fluidity of motion. Drizzt climbed up and down the elemental's body, hacking and slashing, digging the points of his weapons home and flicking off pieces of the monster's stone skin.
The elemental howled its avalanche howl and spun in circles, trying to catch up to Drizzt and squash him once and for all. Blind anger brought new levels of expertise to the magnificent young swordsman, though, and the elemental caught nothing but air or its own stony body under its heavy slaps.
"Impossible” Masoj muttered when he found his breath. Could the young Do'Urden actually defeat an elemental? Masoj scanned the rest of the area. Several drow and many gnomes lay dead or grievously wounded, but the main fighting was moving even farther away as the gnomes found their tiny escape tunnels and the drow, enraged beyond good sense, followed them.
Guenhwyvar was gone. In this chamber, only Masoj, the elemental, and Drizzt remained as witnesses. The invisible wizard felt his mouth draw up in a smile. Now was the time to strike.
Drizzt had the elemental lurching to one side, nearly beaten, when the bolt roared in, a blast of lightning that blinded the young drow and sent him flying into the chamber's back wall. Drizzt watched the twitch of his hands, the wild dance of his stark white hair before his unmoving eyes. He felt nothing-no pain, no reviving draw of air into his lungs-and heard nothing, as if his life force had been some-how suspended.
The attack dispelled Masoj's dweomer of invisibility, and he came back in view, laughing wickedly. The elemental, down in a broken, crumbled mass, slowly slipped back into the security of the stone floor.
"Are you dead?" the wizard asked Drizzt, the voice breaking the hush of Drizzt's deafness in dramatic booms. Drizzt could not answer, didn't really know the answer anyway.
"Too easy” he heard Masoj say, and he suspected that the wizard was referring to him and not the elemental.
Then Drizzt felt a tingling in his fingers and bones and his lungs heaved suddenly, grabbing a volume of air. He gasped in rapid succession, then found control of his body and realized that he would survive.
Masoj glanced around for returning witnesses and saw none. "Good” he muttered as he watched Drizzt regain his senses. The wizard was truly glad that Drizzt's death had not been so very painless. He thought of another spell that would make the moment more fun.
A hand-a gigantic stone hand-reached out of the floor just then and grasped Masoj's leg, pulling his feet right into the stone.
The wizard's face twisted in a silent scream.
Drizzt's enemy saved his life. Drizzt snatched up one of the scimitars from the ground and hacked at the elemental's arm. The weapon sliced in, and the monster, its head reappearing between Drizzt and Masoj, howled in rage and pain and pulled the trapped wizard deeper into the stone.
With both hands on the scimitar's hilt, Drizzt struck as hard as he could, splitting the elemental's head right in half. This time the rubble did not sink back into its earthen plane; this time the elemental was destroyed.
"Get me out of here!" Masoj demanded. Drizzt looked at him, hardly believing that Masoi was still alive, for he was waist deep in solid stone.
"How?" Drizzt gasped. "You. . “ He couldn't even find the words to express his amazement.
"Just get me out!" the wizard cried. Drizzt fumbled about, not knowing where to begin.
"Elementals travel between planes” Masoj explained, knowing that he had to calm Drizzt down if he ever wanted to get out of the floor. Masoj knew, too, that the conversation could go a long way in deflecting Drizzt's obvious suspicions that the lightning bolt had been aimed at him. "The ground an earth elemental traverses becomes a gate between the Plane of Earth and our plane, the Material Plane.
The stone parted around me as the monster pulled me in, but it is quite uncomfortable” He twitched in pain as the stone tightened around one foot. "The gate is closing fast!"
"Then Guenhwyvar might be . . “ Drizzt started to reason.
He plucked the statuette right out of Masoj's front pocket and carefully inspected it for any flaws in its perfect design.
"Give me that!" Masoj demanded, embarrassed and angry. Reluctantly, Drizzt handed the figurine over. Masoj glanced at it quickly and dropped it back into the pocket.
"Is Guenhwyvar unharmed?" Drizzt had to ask.
"It is not your concern” Masoj snapped back. The wizard, too, was worried about the cat, but at this moment,
Guenhwyvar was the least of his troubles. "The gate is closing” he said again. "Go get the clerics!"
Before Drizzt could start off, a slab of stone in the wall be. hind him slid away, and the rock-hard fist of Belwar Dissengulp slammed into the back of his head.
Chapter 23
A Single Clean Blow
"The gnomes took him” Masoj said to Dinin when the patrol leader returned to the cavern. The wizard lifted his arms over his head to give the high priestess and her assistants a better view of his predicament.
"Where?" Dinin demanded. "Why did they let you live?"
Masoj shrugged. "A secret door” he explained, "somewhere on the wall behind you. I suspect that they would have taken me as well, except. . “ Masoj looked down at the floor, still holding him tightly up to the waist. "The gnomes would have killed me, but for your arrival”
"You are fortunate, wizard” the high priestess said to Masoj. "I have memorized a spell this day that will release the stone's hold on you” She whispered some instructions to her assistants and they took out water skins and pouches of clay and began tracing a ten foot square on the floor around the trapped wizard. The high priestess moved over to the wall of the chamber and prepared for her prayers.
"Some have escaped” Dinin said to her.
The high priestess understood. She whispered a quick detection spell and studied the wall. "Right there” she said. Dinin and another male rushed over to the spot and soon found the almost imperceptible outline to the secret door.
As the high priestess began her incantation, one of her cleric assistants threw the end of a rope to Masoj. "Hold on” the assistant teased, "and hold your breath!"
"Wait -" Masoj began, but the stone floor all around him transformed into mud and the wizard slipped under.
The clerics, laughing, pulled Masoj out a moment later.
"Nice spell” the wizard remarked, spitting mud.
"It has its purposes” replied the high priestess. "Especially when we fight against the gnomes and their tricks with the stone. I carried it as a safeguard against earth elementals” She looked at a piece of rubble at her feet, unmistakably one eye and the nose of such a creature. "I see that my spell was not needed in that manner”
"I destroyed that one” Masoj lied.
"Indeed” said the high priestess, unconvinced. She could tell by the cut of the rubble that a blade had made the wound. She let the issue drop when the scrape of sliding stone turned them all to the wall.
"A maze” moaned the fighter beside Dinin when he peered into the tunnel. "How will we find them?" Dinin thought for a moment, then spun on Masoj. "They have my brother” he said, an idea coming to mind. "Where is your cat?"
"About” Masoj stalled, guessing Dinin's plan and not really wanting Drizzt rescued.
"Bring it to me” Dinin ordered. "The cat can smell Drizzt”
"I cannot. . . I mean” Masoj stuttered.
"Now, wizard!" Dinin commanded. "Unless you wish me to tell the ruling council that some of the gnomes escaped because you refused to help!"
Masoj tossed the figurine to the ground and called for Guenhwyvar, not really knowing what would happen next. Had the earth elemental really destroyed Guenhwyvar? The mist appeared, in seconds transforming into the panther's corporeal body.
"Well” Dinin prompted, indicating the tunnel.
"Go find Drizzt!" Masoj commanded the cat. Guenhwyvar sniffed around the area for a moment, then bounded off down the small tunnel, the drow patrol in silent pursuit.
"Where. . “ Drizzt started when he finally began the long climb from the depths of unconsciousness. He understood that he was sitting, and knew, too, that his hands were bound in front of him.
A small but undeniably strong hand caught him by the back of the hair and pulled his head back roughly.
"Quiet!" Belwar whispered harshly, and Drizzt was surprised that the creature could speak his language. Belwar let go of Drizzt and turned to join other svirfnebli.
From the chamber's low height and the gnomes' nervous movements, Drizzt realized that this group had taken flight.
The gnomes began a quiet conversation in their own tongue, which Drizzt could not begin to understand. One of them asked the gnome who had ordered Drizzt to be quiet, apparently the leader, a heated question. Another grunted his accord and spoke some harsh words, turning on Drizzt with a dangerous look in his eyes.
The leader slapped the other gnome hard on the back and sent him off through one of the two low exits in the chamber, then put the others into defensive positions. He walked over to Drizzt. "You come with us to Blingdenstone” he said in hesitant words.
"Then?" Drizzt asked.
Belwar shrugged. "The king'll decide. If you cause me no trouble, I'll tell him to let you go”
Drizzt laughed cynically.
"Well, then” said Belwar, "if the king says to kill you, I'll make sure it comes in a single clean blow” Again Drizzt laughed. "Do you believe that I believe?" he asked. "Torture me now and have your fun. That is your evil way!"
Belwar started to slap him but held his hand in check.
"Svirfnebli don't torture!" he declared, louder than he should have. "Drow elves torture!" He turned away but spun back, reiterating his promise." A single clean blow”
"Where?" Dinin demanded. "Why did they let you live?"
Masoj shrugged. "A secret door” he explained, "somewhere on the wall behind you. I suspect that they would have taken me as well, except. . “ Masoj looked down at the floor, still holding him tightly up to the waist. "The gnomes would have killed me, but for your arrival”
"You are fortunate, wizard” the high priestess said to Masoj. "I have memorized a spell this day that will release the stone's hold on you” She whispered some instructions to her assistants and they took out water skins and pouches of clay and began tracing a ten foot square on the floor around the trapped wizard. The high priestess moved over to the wall of the chamber and prepared for her prayers.
"Some have escaped” Dinin said to her.
The high priestess understood. She whispered a quick detection spell and studied the wall. "Right there” she said. Dinin and another male rushed over to the spot and soon found the almost imperceptible outline to the secret door.
As the high priestess began her incantation, one of her cleric assistants threw the end of a rope to Masoj. "Hold on” the assistant teased, "and hold your breath!"
"Wait -" Masoj began, but the stone floor all around him transformed into mud and the wizard slipped under.
The clerics, laughing, pulled Masoj out a moment later.
"Nice spell” the wizard remarked, spitting mud.
"It has its purposes” replied the high priestess. "Especially when we fight against the gnomes and their tricks with the stone. I carried it as a safeguard against earth elementals” She looked at a piece of rubble at her feet, unmistakably one eye and the nose of such a creature. "I see that my spell was not needed in that manner”
"I destroyed that one” Masoj lied.
"Indeed” said the high priestess, unconvinced. She could tell by the cut of the rubble that a blade had made the wound. She let the issue drop when the scrape of sliding stone turned them all to the wall.
"A maze” moaned the fighter beside Dinin when he peered into the tunnel. "How will we find them?" Dinin thought for a moment, then spun on Masoj. "They have my brother” he said, an idea coming to mind. "Where is your cat?"
"About” Masoj stalled, guessing Dinin's plan and not really wanting Drizzt rescued.
"Bring it to me” Dinin ordered. "The cat can smell Drizzt”
"I cannot. . . I mean” Masoj stuttered.
"Now, wizard!" Dinin commanded. "Unless you wish me to tell the ruling council that some of the gnomes escaped because you refused to help!"
Masoj tossed the figurine to the ground and called for Guenhwyvar, not really knowing what would happen next. Had the earth elemental really destroyed Guenhwyvar? The mist appeared, in seconds transforming into the panther's corporeal body.
"Well” Dinin prompted, indicating the tunnel.
"Go find Drizzt!" Masoj commanded the cat. Guenhwyvar sniffed around the area for a moment, then bounded off down the small tunnel, the drow patrol in silent pursuit.
"Where. . “ Drizzt started when he finally began the long climb from the depths of unconsciousness. He understood that he was sitting, and knew, too, that his hands were bound in front of him.
A small but undeniably strong hand caught him by the back of the hair and pulled his head back roughly.
"Quiet!" Belwar whispered harshly, and Drizzt was surprised that the creature could speak his language. Belwar let go of Drizzt and turned to join other svirfnebli.
From the chamber's low height and the gnomes' nervous movements, Drizzt realized that this group had taken flight.
The gnomes began a quiet conversation in their own tongue, which Drizzt could not begin to understand. One of them asked the gnome who had ordered Drizzt to be quiet, apparently the leader, a heated question. Another grunted his accord and spoke some harsh words, turning on Drizzt with a dangerous look in his eyes.
The leader slapped the other gnome hard on the back and sent him off through one of the two low exits in the chamber, then put the others into defensive positions. He walked over to Drizzt. "You come with us to Blingdenstone” he said in hesitant words.
"Then?" Drizzt asked.
Belwar shrugged. "The king'll decide. If you cause me no trouble, I'll tell him to let you go”
Drizzt laughed cynically.
"Well, then” said Belwar, "if the king says to kill you, I'll make sure it comes in a single clean blow” Again Drizzt laughed. "Do you believe that I believe?" he asked. "Torture me now and have your fun. That is your evil way!"
Belwar started to slap him but held his hand in check.
"Svirfnebli don't torture!" he declared, louder than he should have. "Drow elves torture!" He turned away but spun back, reiterating his promise." A single clean blow”