5
with weapons. When he ran from the city to live a life of exile in the wilds of the Underdark, he had placed his high priestess mother out of Lloth’s favor.
Thus, Matron Malice Do’Urden had raised the spirit of Zaknafein, the weapon master she had sacrificed to Lloth, and sent the undead thing after her son. Malice had miscalculated, though, for there remained enough of Zak’s soul within the body to deny the attack on Drizzt. In the instant that Zak managed to wrest control from Malice, he had cried out in triumph and leaped into the lake of acid.
“My father,” Drizzt whispered, drawing strength from the simple words. He had succeeded where Zaknafein had failed; he had forsaken the evil ways of the drow where Zak had been trapped for centuries, acting as a pawn in Matron Malice’s power games. From Zaknafein’s failure and ultimate demise, young Drizzt had found strength; from Zak’s victory in the acid cavern, Drizzt had found determination. Drizzt had ignored the web of lies his former teachers at the Academy in Menzoberranzan had tried to spin, and he had come to the surface to begin a new life.
Drizzt shuddered as he stepped into the icy stream. In the Underdark he had known fairly constant temperatures and unvarying darkness. Here, though, the world surprised him at every turn. Already he had noticed that the periods of daylight and darkness were not constant; the sun set earlier every day and the temperature–changing from hour to hour, it seemed–had steadily dipped during the last few weeks. Even within those periods of light and dark loomed inconsistencies. Some nights were visited by a silver-glowing orb and some days held a pall of gray instead of a dome of shining blue.
In spite of it all, Drizzt most often felt comfortable with his decision to come to this unknown world. Looking at his weapons and armor now, lying in the shadows a dozen feet from where he bathed, Drizzt had to admit that the surface, for all of its strangeness, offered more peace than anywhere in the Underdark ever could.
Drizzt was in the wilds now, despite his calm. He had spent four months on the surface and was still alone, except when he was able to summon his magical feline companion. Now, stripped bare except for his ragged pants, with his eyes stinging from the skunk spray, his sense of smell lost within the cloud of his own pungent aroma, and his keen sense of hearing dulled by the din of rushing water, the drow was indeed vulnerable.
“What a mess I must appear,” Drizzt mused, roughly running his slender fingers through the mat of his thick, white hair. When he glanced back to his equipment, though, the thought was washed quickly from Drizzt’s mind. Five hulking forms straddled his belongings and undoubtedly cared little for the dark elf’s ragged appearance.
Drizzt considered the grayish skin and dark muzzles of the dog-faced, seven-foot-tall humanoids, but more particularly, he watched the spears and swords that they now leveled his way. He knew this type of monster, for he had seen similar creatures serving as slaves back in Menzoberranzan. In this situation, however, the gnolls appeared much different, more ominous, than Drizzt remembered them.
He briefly considered a rush to his scimitars but dismissed the notion, knowing that a spear would skewer him before he ever got close. The largest of the gnoll band, an eight-foot giant with striking red hair, looked at Drizzt for a long moment, eyed the drow’s equipment, then looked back to him.
“What are you thinking?” Drizzt muttered under his breath. Drizzt really knew very little about gnolls. At Menzoberranzan’s Academy he had been taught that gnolls were of a goblinoid humans as well, though–and, he now realized, of nearly every race that was not drow. Drizzt almost race, evil, unpredictable, and quite dangerous. He had been told that of the surface elves and laughed aloud despite his predicament. Ironically, the race that most deserved that mantle of evil unpredictability was the drow themselves!
The gnolls made no other moves and uttered no commands. Drizzt understood their hesitancy at the sight of a dark elf, and he knew that he must seize that natural fear if he was to have any chance at all. Calling upon the innate abilities of his magical heritage, Drizzt waved his dark hand and outlined all five gnolls in harmless purple-glowing flames.
6
One of the beasts dropped immediately to the ground, as Drizzt had hoped, but the others halted at a signal from their more experienced leader’s outstretched hand. They looked around nervously, apparently wondering about the wisdom of continuing this meeting. The gnoll chieftain, though, had seen harmless faerie fire before, in a fight with an unfortunate–now deceased–ranger, and knew it for what it was.
Drizzt tensed in anticipation and tried to determine his next move.
The gnoll chieftain glanced around at its companions, as if studying how fully they were limned by the dancing flames. Judging by the completeness of the spell, this was no ordinary drow peasant standing in the stream–or so Drizzt hoped the chieftain was thinking.
Drizzt relaxed a bit as the leader dipped its spear and signaled for the others to do likewise. The gnoll then barked a jumble of words that sounded like gibberish to the drow. Seeing Drizzt’s obvious confusion, the gnoll called something in the guttural tongue of goblins.
Drizzt understood the goblin language, but the gnoll’s dialect was so very strange that he managed to decipher only a few words, “friend” and “leader” being among them.
Cautiously Drizzt took a step toward the bank. The gnolls gave ground, opening a path to his belongings. Drizzt took another tentative step, then grew more at ease when he noticed a black feline form crouched in the bushes a short distance away. At his command, Guenhwyvar, in one great spring, would come crashing into the gnoll band.
“You and I to walk together?” Drizzt asked the gnoll leader, using the goblin tongue and trying to simulate the creature’s dialect.
The gnoll replied in a hurried shout, and the only thing that Drizzt thought he understood was the last word of the question: “… ally?”
Drizzt nodded slowly, hoping he understood the creature’s full meaning.
“Ally!” the gnoll croaked, and all of its companions smiled and laughed in relief and patted each other on the back. Drizztreached his equipment then, and immediately strapped on his growth along the trail ahead. Swiftly and silently, Guenhwyvar took up a new position. No need to scimitars. Seeing the gnolls distracted, the drow glanced at Guenhwyvar and nodded to the thick give all of his secrets away, Drizzt figured, not until he truly understood his new companions’ intentions.
Drizzt walked along with the gnolls down the mountain’s lower, winding passes. The gnolls kept far to the drow’s sides, whether out of respect for Drizzt and the reputation of his race or for some other reason, he could not know. More likely, Drizzt suspected, they kept their distance simply because of his odor, which the bath had done little to diminish.
The gnoll leader addressed Drizzt every so often, accentuating its excited words with a sly wink or a sudden rub of its thick, padded hands. Drizzt had no idea of what the gnoll was talking about, but he assumed from the creature’s eager lip-smacking that it was leading him to some sort of feast.
Drizzt soon guessed the band’s destination, for he had often watched from jutting peaks high in the mountains, the lights of a small human farming community in the valley. Drizzt could only guess at the relationship between the gnolls and the human farmers, but he sensed that it was not a friendly one. When they neared the village, the gnolls dropped into defensive positions, followed lines of shrubs, and kept to the shadows as much as possible. Twilight was fast approaching as the troupe made its way around the village’s central area to look down upon a secluded farmhouse off to the west. understand. “One family,” it croaked. “Three men, two women…” The gnoll chieftain whispered to Drizzt, slowly rolling out each word so that the drow might
“One young woman,” another added eagerly.
The gnoll chieftain gave a snarl. “And three young males,” it concluded.
Drizzt thought he now understood the journey’s purpose, and the surprised and questioning look on his face prompted the gnoll to confirm it beyond doubt.
“Enemies,” the leader declared.
Drizzt, knowing next to nothing of the two races, was in a dilemma. The gnolls were raiders–