The Dark Elf Trilogy: Sojourn

 

"The panther found the drow," Dove concluded after she and her companions had spent some time inspecting the region near the rocky outcropping. Kellindil's arrow lay broken on the ground, at about the same spot where the panther tracks ended. "And then the panther disappeared."

"So it would seem," Gabriel agreed, scratching his head and looking down at the confusing trail.

"Hell cat," Roddy McGristle growled. "Gone back to its filthy home!"

Fret wanted to ask, "Your house?" but he wisely held the sarcastic thought to himself.

The others, too, let the mountain man's proclamation slip by. They had no answers to this riddle, and Roddy's guess was as good as any of them could manage. The wounded panther and the fresh blood trail were gone, but Roddy's dog soon had Drizzt's scent. Baying excitedly, the dog led them on, and Dove and Kellindil, both skilled trackers, often discovered other evidence that confirmed the direction.

The trail lay along the side of the mountain, dipped through some thickly packed trees, and continued on across an expanse of bare stone, ending abruptly at yet another ravine. Roddy's dog moved right to the lip and even down to the first step on a rocky and treacherous descent.

"Damned drow magic," Roddy grumbled. He looked around and bounced a fist off his thigh, guessing that it would take him many hours to circumvent the steep wall.

"The daylight wanes," Dove offered. "Let us set camp here and find our way down in the morn."

Gabriel and Fret nodded their accord, but Roddy disagreed. "The trail's fresh now!" the mountain man argued. "We should get the dog down there and back on it, at least, before we're taking to our beds."

"That could take hours... " Fret began to protest, but Dove hushed the tidy dwarf.

"Come " the ranger bade the others, and she walked off to the west, to where the ground sloped at a steep, but climbable decline.

Dove did not agree with Roddy's reasoning, but she wanted no further arguments with Maldobar's appointed representative.

At the bottom of the ravine they found only more riddles. Roddy spurred his dog off in every direction but could find no trace of the elusive drow. After many minutes of contemplation, the truth sparked in Dove's mind and her smile revealed everything to her other seasoned companions.

"He doubled us!" Gabriel laughed, guessing the source of Dove's mirth. "He led us right to the cliff, knowing we would assume he used some magic to get down!"

"What're ye talkin' about?" Roddy demanded angrily, though the experienced bounty hunter understood exactly what had happened.

"You mean that we have to climb all the way back up there?" Fret asked, his voice a whine.

Dove laughed again but sobered quickly as she looked to Roddy and said, "In the morning."

This time the mountain man offered no objections.

* * *

By the time the next dawn had broken, the group had hiked to the top of the ravine and Roddy had his dog back on Drizzt's scent, backtracking the trail in the direction of the rocky outcropping where they had first picked it up. The trick had been simple enough, but the same question nagged at all of the experienced trackers: how had the drow broken away from his track cleanly enough to so completely fool the dog? When they came again into the thickly packed trees, Dove knew that they had their answer.

She nodded to Kellindil, who was already dropping off his heavy pack. The nimble elf picked a low-hanging branch and swung up into the trees, searching for possible routes that the climbing drow might have followed. The branches of many trees twined together, so the options seemed many, but after a while, Kellindil correctly guided Roddy and his dog to the new trail, breaking off to the side of the copse and circling back down the side of the mountain, back in the direction of Maldobar.

"The town!" cried a distressed Fret, but the others didn't seem concerned.

"Not the town," offered Roddy, too intrigued to hold his angry edge. As a bounty hunter, Roddy always enjoyed a worthy opponent, at least during the chase. "The stream," Roddy explained, thinking that now he had figured out the drow's mind-set. "Drow's headed for the stream, to follow it along an' break off clean, back out to the wilder land."

"The drow is a crafty adversary," Darda remarked, wholeheartedly agreeing with Roddy's conclusions.

"And now he has at least a day's lead over us," Gabriel remarked.

After Fret's disgusted sigh finally died away, Dove offered the dwarf some hope. "Fear not," she said. "We are well stocked, but the drow is not. He must pause to hunt or forage, but we can continue on."

"We sleep only when need be!" Roddy put in, determined to not be slowed by the group's other members. "And only for short times!"

Fret sighed heavily again.

"And we begin rationing our supplies immediately," Dove added, both to placate Roddy and because she thought it prudent. "We shall be put to it hard enough just to close on the drow. I do not want any delays."

"Rationing" Fret mumbled under his breath. He sighed for the third time and placed a comforting hand on his belly. How badly the tidy dwarf wished that he could be back in his neat little room in Helm's castle in Sundabar!

* * *

Drizzt's every intention was to continue deeper into the mountains until the pursuing party had lost its heart for the chase. He kept up his misdirecting tactics, often doubling back and taking to the trees to begin a second trail in an entirely different direction. Many mountain streams provided further barriers to the scent, but Drizzt's pursuers were not novices, and Roddy's dog was as fine a hunting hound as had ever been bred. Not only did the party keep true to Drizzt's trail, but they actually closed the gap over the next few days.

Drizzt still believed that he could elude them, but their continuing proximity brought other, more subtle, concerns to the drow. He had done nothing to deserve such dogged pursuit; he had even avenged the deaths of the farming family. And, despite Drizzt's angry vow that he would go off alone, that he would bring no more danger to anyone, he had known loneliness as too close a companion for too many years. He could not help but look over his shoulder, out of curiosity and not fear, and the longing did not diminish.

At last, Drizzt could not deny his curiosity for the pursuing party. That curiosity, Drizzt realized as he studied the figures moving about the campfire one dark night, might prove to be his downfall. Still, the realization, and the second-guessing, came too late for the drow to do anything about it. His needs had dragged him back, and now the campsite of his pursuers loomed barely twenty yards away.

The banter between Dove, Fret, and Gabriel tugged at Drizzt's heartstrings, though he could not understand their words. Any desire the drow felt to walk into the camp was tempered, though, whenever Roddy and his mean-tempered dog strolled by the light. Those two would never pause to hear any explanations, Drizzt knew.

The party had set two guards, one an elf and one a tall human. Drizzt had sneaked past the human, guessing correctly that the man would not be as adept as the elf in the darkness. Now, though, the drow, again against all caution, picked his way around to the other side of the camp, toward the elven sentry.

Only once before had Drizzt encountered his surface cousins. It had been a disastrous occasion. The raiding party for which Drizzt was a scout had slaughtered every member of a surface elf gathering, except for a single elven girl, whom Drizzt had managed to conceal. Driven by those haunting memories, Drizzt needed to see an elf again, a living and vital elf.

The first indication Kellindil had that someone else was in the area came when a tiny dagger whistled past his chest, neatly severing his bowstring. The elf spun about immediately and looked into the drow's lavender eyes. Drizzt stood only a few paces away.

The red glow of Kellindil's eyes showed that he was viewing Drizzt in the infrared spectrum. The drow crossed his hands over his chest in an Underdark signal of peace.

"At last we have met, my dark cousin," Kellindil whispered harshly in the drow tongue, his voice edged in obvious anger and his glowing eyes narrowing dangerously. Quick as a cat, Kellindil snapped a finely crafted sword, its blade glowing in a fiery red flame, from his belt.

Drizzt was amazed and hopeful when he learned that the elf could speak his language, and in the simple fact that the elf had not spoken loudly enough to alert the camp. The surface elf was Drizzt's size and similary sharp-featured, but his eyes were narrower and his golden hair wasn't as long or thick as Drizzt's white mane.

"I am Drizzt Do'Urden," Drizzt began tentatively.

"I care nothing for what you are called!" Kellindil shot back. "You are drow. That is all I need to know! Come then, drow. Come and let us learn who is the stronger!"

Drizzt had not yet drawn his blade and had no intention of doing so. "I have no desire to battle with you... " Drizzt's voice trailed away, as he realized his words were futile against the intense hatred the surface elf held for him.

Drizzt wanted to explain everything to the elf, to tell his tale completely and be vindicated by some voice other than his own. If only another - particularly a surface elf - would learn of his trials and agree with his decisions, agree that he had acted properly through the course of his life in the face of such horrors, then the guilt would fly from Drizzt's shoulders. If only he could find acceptance among those who so hated - as he himself hated - the ways of his dark people, then Drizzt Do'Urden would be at peace.

But the elf's sword tip did not slip an inch toward the ground, nor did the grimace diminish on his fair elven face, a face more accustomed to smiles.

Drizzt would find no acceptance here, not now and probably not ever. Was he forever to be misjudged? he wondered. Or was he, perhaps, misjudging those around him, giving the humans and this elf more credit for fairness than they deserved?

Those were two disturbing notions that Drizzt would have to deal with another day, for Kellindil's patience had reached its end. The elf came at the drow with his sword tip leading the way.

Drizzt was not surprised - how could he have been? He hopped back, out of immediate reach, and called upon his innate magic, dropping a globe of impenetrable blackness over the advancing elf.

No novice to magic, Kellindil understood the drow's trick. The elf reversed direction, diving out the back side of the globe and coming up, sword at the ready.

The lavender eyes were gone.

"Drow!" Kellindil called out loudly, and those in the camp immediately exploded into motion. Roddy's dog started howling, and that excited and threatening yelp followed Drizzt back into the mountains, damning him to his continuing exile.

Kellindil leaned back against a tree, alert but not too concerned that the drow was still in the area. Drizzt could not know it at that time, but his words and ensuing actions�Dfleeing instead of fighting - had indeed put a bit of doubt in the kindly elf's not-so-closed mind.

* * *

"He will lose his advantage in the dawn's light," Dove said hopefully after several fruitless hours of trying to keep up with the drow. They were in a bowl-shaped, rocky vale now, and the drow's trail led up the far side in a high and fairly steep climb.

Fret, nearly stumbling with exhaustion at her side, was quick to reply. "Advantage?" The dwarf groaned. He looked at the next mountain wall and shook his head. "We shall all fall dead of weariness before we find this infernal drow!"

"If ye can't keep up, then fall an' die!" Roddy snarled. "We're not to be lettin' the stinking drow get away this time!"

It was not Fret, however, but another member of the troupe who unexpectedly went down. A large rock soared into the group suddenly, clipping Darda's shoulder with enough force to lift the man from the ground and spin him right over in the air. He never even got the chance to cry out before he fell facedown in the dust.

Dove grabbed Fret and rolled for a nearby boulder, Roddy and Gabriel doing likewise. Another stone, and then several more, thundered into the region.

"Avalanche?" the stunned dwarf asked when he recovered from the shock.

Dove, too concerned with Darda, didn't bother to answer, though she knew the truth of their situation and knew that it was no avalanche.

"He is alive," Gabriel called from behind his protective rock, a dozen feet across from Dove's. Another stone skipped through the area, narrowly missing Darda's head.

"Damn," Dove mumbled. She peeked up over the lip of her boulder, scanning both the mountainside and the lower crags at its base. "Now, Kellindil," she whispered to herself. "Get us some time."

As if in answer came the distant twang of the elf's re-strung bow, followed by an angry roar. Dove and Gabriel glanced over to each other and smiled grimly.

"Stone giants!" Roddy cried, recognizing the deep, grating timbre of the roaring voice.

Dove crouched and waited, her back to the boulder and her open pack in her hand. No more stones bounced into the area; rather, thunderous crashes began up ahead of them, near Kellindil's position. Dove rushed out to Darda and gently turned the man over.

"That hurt," Darda whispered, straining to smile at his obvious understatement.

"Do not speak," Dove replied, fumbling for a potion bottle in her pack. But the ranger ran out of time. The giants, seeing her out in the open, resumed their attack on the lower area.

"Get back to the stone!" Gabriel cried. Dove slipped her arm under the fallen man's shoulder to support Darda as, stumbling with every movement, he crawled for the rock.

"Hurry! Hurry!" Fret cried, watching them anxiously with his back flat against the large stone.

Dove leaned over Darda suddenly, flattening him down to the ground as another rock zipped by just above their ducking heads.

Fret started to bite his fingernails, then realized what he was doing and stopped, a disgusted look on his face. "Do hurry!" he cried again to his friends. Another rock bounced by, too close.

Just before Dove and Darda got to Fret, a stone landed squarely on the backside of the boulder. Fret, his back tight against the rock barrier, flew out wildly, easily clearing his crawling companions. Dove placed Darda down behind the boulder, then turned, thinking she would have to go out again and retrieve the fallen dwarf.

But Fret was already back up, cursing and grumbling, and more concerned with a new hole in his fine garment than in any bodily injury.

"Get back here!" Dove screamed at him.

"Drat and bebother these stupid giants!" was all that Fret replied, stomping purposefully back to the boulder, his fists clenched angrily against his hips.

The barrage continued, both up ahead of the pinned companions and in their area. Then Kellindil came diving in, slipping to the rock beside Roddy and his dog.

"Stone giants," the elf explained. "A dozen at the least." He pointed up to a ridge halfway up the mountainside.

"Drow set us up," Roddy growled, banging his fist on the stone. Kellindil wasn't convinced, but he held his tongue.

* * *

Up on the peak of the rocky rise, Drizzt watched the battle unfolding. He had passed through the lower paths an hour earlier, before the dawn. In the dark, the waiting giants had been no obstacle for the stealthy drow; Drizzt had slipped through their line with little trouble.

Now, squinting through the morning light, Drizzt wondered about his course of action. When he had passed the giants, he fully expected that his pursuers would fall into trouble. Should he have somehow tried to warn them? he wondered. Or should he have veered away from the region, leading the humans and the elf out of the giants' path?

Again Drizzt did not understand where he fit in with the ways of this strange and brutal world. "Let them fight among themselves," he said harshly, as though trying to convince himself. Drizzt purposefully recalled his encounter of the previous night. The elf had attacked despite his proclamation that he did not want to fight. He recalled, too, the arrow he had dug out of Guenhwyvar's flank.

"Let them all kill each other," Drizzt said and he turned to leave. He glanced back over his shoulder one final time and noticed that some of the giants were on the move. One group remained at the ridge, showering the valley floor with a seemingly endless supply of rocks while two other groups, one to the left and one to the right, had fanned out, moving to encircle the trapped party.

Drizzt knew then that his pursuers would not escape. Once the giants had them flanked, they would find no protection against the cross fire.

Something stirred within the drow at that moment, the same emotions that had set him into action against the gnoll band. He couldn't know for certain, but, as with the gnolls and their plans to attack the farmhouse, Drizzt suspected that the giants were the evil ones in this fight.

Other thoughts softened Drizzt's determined grimace, memories of the human children at play on the farm, of the sandy-haired boy going into the water trough.

Drizzt dropped the onyx figurine to the ground. "Come, Guenhwyvar," he commanded. "We are needed."

* * *

"We're being flanked!" Roddy McGristle snarled, seeing the giant bands moving along the higher trails.

Dove, Gabriel, and Kellindil all glanced around and to each other, searching for some way out. They had battled giants many times in their travels, together and with other parties. Always before, they had gone into the fight eagerly, happy to relieve the world of a few troublesome monsters. This time, though, they all suspected that the result might be different. Stone giants were reputably the best rock-throwers in all the realms and a single hit could kill the hardiest of men. Also, Darda, though alive, could not possibly run away, and none of the others had any intentions of leaving him behind.

"Flee, mountain man," Kellindil said to Roddy. "You owe us nothing."

Roddy looked at the archer incredulously. "I don't run away, elf," he growled. "Not from nothin'!"

Kellindil nodded and fitted an arrow to his bow.

"If they get to the side, we're doomed," Dove explained to Fret. "I beg your forgiveness, dear Fret. I should not have taken you from your home."

Fret shrugged the thought away. He reached under his robes and produced a small but sturdy silver hammer. Dove smiled at the sight, thinking how odd the hammer seemed in the dwarf's soft hands, more accustomed to holding a quill.

* * *

On the top ridge, Drizzt and Guenhwyvar shadowed the movements of the stone giant band circling to the trapped party's left flank. Drizzt was determined to help the humans, but he wasn't certain of how effective he could be against the likes of four armed giants. Still, he figured that with Guenhwyvar by his side, he could find some way to disrupt the giant group long enough for the trapped party to make a break.

The valley rolled out wider across the way and Drizzt realized that the giant band circling in the other direction, to the trapped party's right flank, was probably out of rock-throwing range.

"Come, my friend," Drizzt whispered to the panther, and he drew his scimitar and started down a descent of broken and jagged stone. A moment later, though, as soon as he noticed the terrain a short distance ahead of the giant band, Drizzt grabbed Guenhwyvar by the scruff and led the panther back up to the top ridge.

Here the ground was jagged and cracked but undeniably stable. Just ahead, however, great boulders and hundreds of loose smaller rocks lay strewn about the steeply sloping ground. Drizzt was not so experienced in the dynamics of a mountainside, but even he could see that the steep and loose landscape verged on collapse.

The drow and the cat rushed ahead, again getting above the giant band. The giants were nearly in position; some of them had even begun to launch rocks at the pinned party. Drizzt crept down to a large boulder and heaved against it, setting it into motion. Guenhwyvar's tactics were far less subtle. The panther charged down the mountainside, dislodging stones with every great stride, leaping onto the back side of rocks and springing away as they began tumbling.

Boulders bounced and bounded. Smaller rocks skipped between them, building the momentum. Drizzt, committed to the action, ran down into the midst of the budding avalanche, throwing stones, pushing against others - whatever he could do to add to the rush. Soon the very ground beneath the drow's feet was sliding and the whole section of the mountainside seemed to be coming down.

Guenhwyvar sped along ahead of the avalanche, a beacon of doom for the surprised giants. The panther sprang out over them, but they took note of the great cat only momentarily, as tons of bouncing rocks slammed into them.

Drizzt knew that he was in trouble; he was not nearly as quick and agile as Guenhwyvar and could not hope to outrun the slide, or to get out of its way. He leaped high into the air from the crest of a small ridge and called upon a levitation spell as he went.

Drizzt fought hard to hold his concentration on the effort. The spell had failed him twice before, and if he couldn't hold it now, if he dropped back into the rush of stones, he knew he would surely die.

Despite his determination, Drizzt felt increasingly heavy on the air. He waved his arms futilely, sought that magical energy within his drow body - but he was coming down.

* * *

"Th'only ones that can hit us are up in front!" Roddy cried as a thrown boulder bounced harmlessly short of the right flank. "The ones on the right're too far for throwing, and the ones on the left... !"

Dove followed Roddy's logic and his gaze to the rising dust cloud on their left flank. She stared hard and long at the cascading rocks, and at what might have been a dark-cloaked elven form. When she looked back at Gabriel, she knew that he, too, had seen the drow.

"We have to go now," Dove called to the elf.

Kellindil nodded and spun to the side of his barrier boulder, his bowstring taut.

"Quickly," Gabriel added, "before the group to the right gets back in range."

Kellindil's bow twanged once and then again. Ahead, a giant howled in pain.

"Stay here with Darda," Dove bade Fret, then she, Gabriel, and Roddy - holding his dog on a tight leash - darted out from their cover and charged the giants straight ahead. They rolled from rock to rock, cutting their course in confusing zigzags to prevent the giants from anticipating their movements. All the while, Kellindil's arrows soared above them, keeping the giants more concerned with ducking than with throwing.

Deep crags marked the mountainside's lower slopes, crags that offered cover but that also split the three fighters apart. Neither could they see the giants, but they knew the general direction and picked their separate ways as best they could.

Rounding a sharp bend between two walls of stone, Roddy came upon one of the giants. Immediately the mountain man freed his dog, and the vicious canine charged fearlessly and leaped high, barely reaching the twenty-foot-tall behemoth's waist.

Surprised by the sudden attack, the giant dropped its huge club and caught the dog in midflight. It would have crushed the troublesome mutt in an instant, except that Bleeder, Roddy's wicked axe, sliced into its thigh with all the force the burly mountain man could muster. The giant lurched and Roddy's dog squirmed loose, climbing and clawing, then snapping at the giant's face and neck. Below, Roddy hacked away, chopping the monster down as he would a tree.

* * *

Half-floating and half-dancing atop the bouncing stones, Drizzt rode the rock slide. He saw one giant emerge, stumbling, from the tumult, only to be met by Guenhwyvar. Wounded and stunned, the giant went down in a heap.

Drizzt had no time to savor his desperate plan's success. His levitation spell continued somewhat, keeping him light enough so that he could ride along. Even above the main slide, though, rocks bounced heavily into the drow and dust choked him and stung his sensitive eyes. Nearly blinded, he managed to spot a ridge that could provide some shelter, but the only way he could get to it would be to release his levitation spell and scramble.

Another rock nicked into Drizzt, nearly spinning him over in midair. He could sense the spell failing and knew that he had only that one chance. He regained his equilibrium, released his spell, and hit the ground running.

He rolled and scrambled, coming up in a dead run. A rock skipped into the knee of his already wounded leg, forcing him parallel to the ground. Drizzt was rolling again, trying however he could to get to the safety of the ridge.

His momentum ended far short. He came back up to his feet, meaning to thrust ahead over the final distance, but Drizzt's leg had no strength and it buckled immediately, leaving him stranded and exposed.

He felt the impact on his back and thought his life was at its end. A moment later, dazed, Drizzt realized only that he somehow had landed behind the ridge and that he was buried by something, but not by stones or dirt.

Guenhwyvar stayed on top of its master, shielding Drizzt until the last of the bouncing rocks had rolled to a stop.

* * *

As the crags gave way to more open ground, Dove and Gabriel came back in sight of each other. They noticed movement directly ahead, behind a loose-fitted wall of piled boulders a dozen feet high and about fifty feet long.

A giant appeared atop the wall, roaring in rage and holding a rock above its head, readied to throw. The monster had several arrows protruding from its neck and chest, but it seemed not to care.

Kellindil's next shot surely caught the giant's attention, though, for the elf put an arrow squarely into the monster's elbow. The giant howled and clutched at its arm, apparently forgetting about its rock, which promptly dropped with a thud upon its head. The giant stood very still, dazed, and two more arrows knocked into its face. It teetered for a moment, then crashed into the dust.

Dove and Gabriel exchanged quick smiles, sharing their appreciation for the skilled elven archer, then continued their charge, going for opposite ends of the wall.

Dove caught one giant by surprise just around her corner. The monster reached for its club, but Dove's sword beat it to the spot and cleanly severed its hand. Stone giants were formidable foes, with fists that could drive a person straight into the ground and a hide nearly as hard as the rock that gave them their name. But wounded, surprised, and without its cudgel, the giant was no match for the skilled ranger. She sprang atop the wall, which put her even with the giant's face, and set her sword to methodical work.

In two thrusts, the giant was blinded. The third, a deft, sidelong swipe, cut a smile into the monster's throat. Then Dove went on the defensive, neatly dodging and parrying the dying monster's last desperate swings.

Gabriel was not as lucky as his companion. The remaining giant was not close to the corner of the piled rock wall. Though Gabriel surprised the monster when he came charging around, the giant had enough time - and a stone in hand - to react.

Gabriel got his sword up to deflect the missile, and the act saved his life. The stone blew the fighter's sword from his hands and still came on with enough force to throw Gabriel to the ground. Gabriel was a seasoned veteran, and the primary reason he was still alive after so very many battles was the fact that he knew when to retreat. He forced himself through that moment of blurring pain and found his footing, then bolted back around the wall.

The giant, with its heavy club in hand, came right behind. An arrow greeted the monster as it turned into the open, but it brushed the pesky dart away as no more than an inconvenience and bore down on the fighter.

Gabriel soon ran out of room. He tried to make it back to the broken paths, but the giant cut him off, trapping him in a small box canyon of huge boulders. Gabriel drew his dagger and cursed his ill luck.

Dove had dispatched her giant by this time and rushed out around the stone wall, immediately catching sight of Gabriel and the giant.

Gabriel saw the ranger, too, but he only shrugged, almost apologetically, knowing that Dove couldn't possibly get to him in time to save him.

The snarling giant took a step in, meaning to finish the puny man, but then came a sharp crack! and the monster halted abruptly. Its eyes darted about weirdly for a moment or two, then it toppled at Gabriel's feet, quite dead.

Gabriel looked up to the side, to the top of the boulder wall, and nearly laughed out loud.

Fret's hammer was not a large weapon - its head being only two inches across - but it was a solid thing, and in a single swing, the dwarf had driven it clean through the stone giant's thick skull.

Dove approached, sheathing her sword, equally at a loss.

Looking upon their amazed expressions, Fret was not amused.

"I am a dwarf, after all!" he blurted at them, crossing his arms indignantly. The action brought the brain-stained hammer in contact with Fret's tunic, and the dwarf lost his bluster in a fit of panic. He licked his stubby fingers and wiped at the gruesome stain, then regarded the gore on his hand with even greater horror.

Dove and Gabriel did laugh aloud.

"Know that you are paying for the tunic!" Fret railed at Dove. "Oh, you most certainly are!"

A shout to the side brought them from their momentary relief. The four remaining giants, having seen one group of their companions buried in an avalanche and another group cut down so very efficiently, had lost interest in the ambush and had taken flight.

Right behind them went Roddy McGristle and his howling dog.

* * *

A single giant had escaped both the avalanche's thunder and the panther's terrible claws. It ran wildly now across the mountainside, seeking the top ridge.

Drizzt set Guenhwyvar in quick pursuit, then found a stick to use as a cane and managed to get to his feet. Bruised, dusty, and still nursing wounds from the barghest battle - and now a dozen more from his mountain ride - Drizzt started away. A movement at the bottom of the slope caught his attention and held him, though. He turned to face the elf and, more pointedly, the arrow nocked in the elf's drawn bow.

Drizzt looked around but had nowhere to duck. He could place a globe of darkness somewhere between himself and the elf, possibly, but he realized that the skilled archer, having drawn a bead on him, would not miss him even with that obstacle. Drizzt steadied his shoulders and turned about slowly, facing the elf squarely and proudly.

Kellindil eased his bowstring back and pulled the arrow from its nock. Kellindil, too, had seen the dark-cloaked form floating above the rock slide.

"The others are back with Darda," Dove said, coming upon the elf at that moment, "and McGristle is chasing..."

Kellindil neither answered nor looked to the ranger. He nodded curtly, leading Dove's gaze up the slope to the dark form, which moved again up the mountainside.

"Let him go," Dove offered. "That one was never our enemy."

"I fear to let a drow walk free," Kellindil replied.

"As do I," Dove answered, "but I fear the consequences more if McGristle finds the drow."

"We will return to Maldobar and rid ourselves of that man," Kellindil offered, "then you and the others may return to Sundabar for your appointment. I have kin in these mountains; together they and I will watch out for our dark-skinned friend and see that he causes no harm."

"Agreed," said Dove. She turned and started away, and Kellindil, needing no further convincing, turned to follow.

The elf paused and looked back one final time. He reached into his backpack and produced a flask, then laid it out in the open on the ground. Almost as an afterthought, Kellindil produced a second item, this one from his belt, and dropped it to the ground next to the flask. Satisfied, he turned and followed the ranger.

* * *

By the time Roddy McGristle returned from his wild, fruitless chase, Dove and the others had packed everything together and were prepared to leave.

"Back after the drow," Roddy proclaimed. "He's gained a bit o' time, but we'll close on him fast."

"The drow is gone," Dove said sharply. "We shall pursue him no more."

Roddy's face crinkled in disbelief and he seemed on the verge of exploding.

"Darda is badly in need of rest!" Dove growled at him, not backing down a bit. "Kellindil's arrows are nearly exhausted, as are our supplies."

"I'll not so easily forget the Thistledowns!" Roddy declared.

"Neither did the drow," Kellindil put in.

"The Thistledowns have already been avenged," Dove added, "and you know it is true, McGristle. The drow did not kill them, but he most definitely slew their killers!"

Roddy snarled and turned away. He was an experienced bounty hunter and, thus, an experienced investigator. He had, of course, figured out the truth long ago, but Roddy couldn't ignore the scar on his face or the loss of his ear - or the heavy bounty on the drow's head.

Dove anticipated and understood his silent reasoning. "The people of Maldobar will not be so anxious to see the drow brought in when they learn the truth of the massacre," she said, "and not so willing to pay, I would guess."

Roddy snapped a glare at her, but again he could not dispute her logic. When Dove's party set out on the trail back to Maldobar, Roddy McGristle went with them.

* * *

Drizzt came back down the mountainside later that day, searching for something that would tell him his pursuers' whereabouts. He found Kellindil's flask and approached it tentatively, then relaxed when he noticed the other item lying next to it, the tiny dagger he had taken from the sprite, the same one he had used to sever the elf's bowstring on their first meeting.

The liquid within the flask smelled sweet, and the drow, his throat still parched from the rock dust, gladly took a quaff. Tingling chills ran through Drizzt's body, refreshing him and revitalizing him. He had barely eaten for several days, but the strength that had seeped from his now-frail form came rushing back in a sudden burst. His torn leg went numb for a moment, and Drizzt felt that, too, grow stronger.

A wave of dizziness washed over Drizzt then, and he shuffled over to the shade of a nearby boulder and sat down to rest.

* * *

When he awoke, the sky was dark and filled with stars, and he felt much better. Even his leg, so torn in the ride down the avalanche, would once again support his weight. Drizzt knew who had left the flask and dagger for him, and now that he understood the nature of the healing potion, his confusion and indecision only grew.