Roddy nodded his assent. He had no real grudge against Mooshie and had no desire to face Kellindil’s kin.
They buried Kellindil and all of the supplies they couldn’t take with them, found Roddy’s dog, and set out later that same night for the wide lands to the west.
* * *
Back at Mooshie’s grove, the summer passed peacefully and productively, with Drizzt coming into the ways and methods of a ranger even more easily than optimistic Montolio had believed. Drizzt learned the name for every tree or bush in the region, and every animal, and more importantly, he learned how to learn, how to observe the clues that Mielikki gave him. When he came upon an animal that he had not encountered before, he found that simply by watching its movements and actions he could quickly discern its intent demeanor, and mood.
“Go and feel its coat,” Montolio whispered to him one day in the gray and blustery twilight. The old ranger pointed across a field, to the tree line and the white flicking of a deer’s tail. Even in the dim light, Drizzt had trouble seeing the deer, but he sensed its presence, as Montolio obviously had.
“Will it let me?” Drizzt whispered back. Montolio smiled and shrugged.
Drizzt crept out silently and carefully, following the shadows along the edge of the meadow. He chose a northern, downwind approach, but to get north of the deer, he had to come around from the east. He knew his error when he was still two dozen yards from the deer. It lifted its head suddenly, sniffed, and flicked its white tail.
Drizzt froze and waited for a long moment while the deer resumed its grazing. The skittish creature was on the alert now, and as soon as Drizzt took another measured step, the deer bolted away.
But not before Montolio, taking the southern approach, had gotten close enough to pat its rump as it ran past.
Drizzt blinked in amazement. “The wind favored me!” he protested to the smug ranger.
Montolio shook his head. “Only over the last twenty yards, when you came north of the deer,” he explained. “West was better than east until then.”
“But you could not get north of the deer from the west,” Drizzt said.
“I did not have to,” Montolio replied. “There is a high bluff back there,” he pointed to the south. “It cuts the wind at this angle—swirls it back around.”
“I did not know.”
“You have to know,” Montolio said lightly. “That is the trick of it. You have to see as a bird might and look down upon all the region before you choose your course.”
“I have not learned to fly,” Drizzt replied sarcastically.
“Nor have I!” roared the old ranger. “Look above you.”
Drizzt squinted as he turned his eyes to the gray sky. He made out a solitary form, gliding easily with great wings held wide to catch the breeze.
“A hawk,” the drow said.
“Rode the breeze from the south,” Montolio explained, “then banked west on the breaking currents around the bluff. If you had observed its flight, you might have suspected the change in terrain.”
“That is impossible,” Drizzt said helplessly.
“Is it?” Montolio asked, and he started away—to hide his smile. Of course the drow was correct; one could not tell the topography of the terrain by the flight patterns of a hawk. Montolio had learned of the shifting wind from a certain sneaky owl who had slipped in at the ranger’s bidding right after Drizzt had started out across the meadow, but Drizzt didn’t have to know that. Let the drow consider the fib for a while, the old ranger decided. The contemplation, recounting all he had learned, would be a valuable lesson.
“Hooter told you,” Drizzt said a half-hour later, on the trail back to the grove. “Hooter told you of the wind and told you of the hawk.”
“You seem sure of yourself.”
“I am,” Drizzt said firmly. “The hawk did not cry—I have become aware enough to know that. You could not see the bird, and I know that you did not hear the rush of wind over its wings, whatever you may say!”
Montolio’s laughter brought a smile of confirmation to the drow’s face.
“You have done well this day,” the old ranger said.
“I did not get near the deer,” Drizzt reminded him.
“That was not the test,” Montolio replied. “You trusted in your knowledge to dispute my claims. You are sure of the lessons you have learned. Now hear some more. Let me tell you a few tricks when approaching a skittish deer.”
They talked all the way back to the grove and far into the night after that. Drizzt listened eagerly, absorbing every word as he was let in on still more of the world’s wondrous secrets.
* * *
A week later, in a different field, Drizzt placed one hand on the rump of a doe, the other on the rump of its speckle-coated fawn. Both animals lit out at the unexpected touch, but Montolio “saw” Drizzt’s smile from a hundred yards away.
Drizzt’s lessons were far from complete when the summer waned, but Montolio no longer spent much time instructing the drow. Drizzt had learned enough to go out and learn on his own, listening and watching the quiet voices and subtle signs of the trees and the animals. So caught up was Drizzt in his unending revelations that he hardly noticed the profound changes in Montolio. The ranger felt much older now. His back would hardly straighten on chill mornings and his hands often went numb. Montolio remained stoic about it all, hardly one for self-pity and hardly lamenting what he knew was to come.
He had lived long and fully, had accomplished much, and had experienced life more vividly than most men ever would.
“What are your plans,” he said unexpectedly to Drizzt one night as they ate their dinner, a vegetable stew that Drizzt had concocted.
The question hit Drizzt hard. He had no plans beyond the present, and why should he, with life so easy and enjoyable—more so than it had ever been for the beleaguered drow renegade? Drizzt really didn’t want to think about the question, so he threw a biscuit at Guenhwyvar to change the subject. The panther was getting a bit too comfortable on Drizzt’s bedroll, wrapping up in the blankets to the point where Drizzt worried that the only way to get Guenhwyvar out of the tangle would be to send it back to the astral plane.
Montolio was persistent. “What are your plans, Drizzt Do’Urden?” the old ranger said again firmly. “Where and how will you live?”
“Are you throwing me out?” Drizzt asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then I will live with you,” Drizzt replied calmly.
“I mean after,” Montolio said, growing flustered.
“After what?” Drizzt asked, thinking that Mooshie knew something he did not.
Montolio’s laughter mocked his suspicions. “I am an old man,” the ranger explained, “and you are a young elf. I am older than you, but even if I were a babe, your years would far outdistance my own. Where will Drizzt Do’Urden go when Montolio DeBrouchee is no more?”
Drizzt turned away. “I do not… ” he began tentatively. “I will stay here.”
“No,” Montolio replied soberly. “You have much more before you than this, I hope. This life would not do.”
“It has suited you,” Drizzt snapped back, more forcefully than he had intended.
“For five years,” Montolio said calmly, taking no offense. “Five years after a life of adventure and excitement.”
“My life has not been so quiet,” Drizzt reminded him.
“But you are still a child,” Montolio said. “Five years is not five hundred, and five hundred is what you have remaining. Promise me now that you will reconsider your course when I am no more. There is a wide world out there, my friend, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth, and the latter makes the journey tolerable.
“Promise me now,” Montolio said, “that when Mooshie is no more, Drizzt will go and find his place.”
Drizzt wanted to argue, to ask the ranger how he was so certain that this grove was not Drizzt’s ‘place.’ A mental scale dipped and le
veled, then dipped again within Drizzt at that moment. He weighed the memories of Maldobar, the farmers’ deaths, and all the memories before that of the trials he had faced and the evils that had so persistently followed him. Against this, Drizzt considered his heartfelt desire to go back out in the world. How many other Mooshies might he find? How many friends? And how empty would be this grove when he and Guenhwyvar had it to themselves?
Montolio accepted the silence, knowing the drow’s confusion. “Promise me that when the time is upon you, you will at least consider what I have said.”
Trusting in Drizzt, Montolio did not have to see his friend’s affirming nod.
* * *
The first snow came early that year, just a light dusting from broken clouds that played hide-and-seek with a full moon. Drizzt, out with Guenhwyvar, reveled in the seasonal change, enjoyed the reaffirmation of the endless cycle. He was in high spirits when he bounded back to the grove, shaking the snow from the thick pine branches as he picked his way in.
The campfire burned low; Hooter sat still on a low branch and even the wind seemed not to make a sound. Drizzt looked to Guenhwyvar for some explanation, but the panther only sat by the fire, somber and still.
Dread is a strange emotion, a culmination of too-subtle clues that brings as much confusion as fear.
“Mooshie?” Drizzt called softly, approaching the old ranger’s den. He pushed aside the blanket and used it to screen the light from the embers of the dying campfire, letting his eyes slip into the infrared spectrum.
He remained there for a very long time, watching the last wisps of heat depart from the ranger’s body. But if Mooshie was cold, his contented smile emanated warmth.
Drizzt fought back many tears over the next few days, but whenever he remembered that last smile, the final peace that had come over the aged man, he reminded himself that the tears were for his own loss and not for Mooshie.
Drizzt buried the ranger in a cairn beside the grove, then spent the winter quietly, tending to his daily chores and wondering. Hooter came by less and less frequently, and on one occasion the departing look Hooter cast at Drizzt told the drow beyond doubt that the owl would never return to the grove.
* * *
In the spring, Drizzt came to understand Hooter’s sentiments. For more than a decade, he had been searching for a home, and he had found one with Montolio. But with the ranger gone, the grove no longer seemed so hospitable. This was Mooshie’s place, not Drizzt’s.
“As I promised,” Drizzt mumbled one morning. Montolio had asked him to consider his course carefully when the ranger was no more, and Drizzt now held to his word. He had become comfortable in the grove and was still accepted here, but the grove was no longer his home. His home was out there, he knew, out in that wide world that Montolio had assured him was “full of pain, but filled with joy as well.”
Drizzt packed a few items—practical supplies and some of the ranger’s more interesting books—belted on his scimitars, and slung the longbow over his shoulder. Then he took a final walk around the grove, viewing one last time the rope bridges, the armory, the brandy barrel and trough, the tree root where he had stopped the charging giant, the sheltered run where Mooshie had made his stand. He called Guenhwyvar, and the panther understood as soon as it arrived.
They never looked back as they moved down the mountain trail, toward the wide world of pains and joys.
Part 5.
Sojourn
How different the trail seemed as I departed Mooshie’s Grove from the road that had led me there. Again I was alone, except when Guenhwyvar came to my call. On this road, though, I was alone only in body. In my mind I carried a name, the embodiment of my valued principles. Mooshie had called Mielikki a goddess; to me she was a way of life.
She walked beside me always along the many surface roads I traversed. She led me out to safety and fought off my despair when I was chased away and then hunted by the dwarves of Citadel Adbar, a fortress northeast of Mooshie’s Grove. Mielikki, and my belief in my own value, gave me the courage to approach town after town throughout the northland. The receptions were always the same: shock and fear that quickly turned to anger. The more generous of those I encountered told me simply to go away; others chased me with weapons bared. On two occasions I was forced to fight, though I managed to escape without anyone being badly injured.
The minor nicks and scratches were a small price to pay. Mooshie had bidden me not to live as he had, and the old ranger’s perceptions, as always, proved true. On my journeys throughout the northland I retained something―hope—that I never would have held if I had remained a hermit in the evergreen grove. As each new village showed on the horizon, a tingle of anticipation quickened my steps. One day, I was determined, I would find acceptance and find my home.
It would happen suddenly, I imagined. I would approach a gate, speak a formal greeting, then reveal myself as a dark elf. Even my fantasy was tempered by reality, for the gate would not swing wide at my approach. Rather, I would be allowed guarded entry, a trial period much like the one I endured in Blingdenstone, the svirfneblin city. Suspicions would linger about me for many months, but in the end, principles would be seen and accepted for what they were; the character of the person would outweigh the color of his skin and the reputation of his heritage.
I replayed that fantasy countless times over the years. Every word of every meeting in my imagined town became a litany against the continued rejections. It would not have been enough, but always there was Guenhwyvar, and now there was Mielikki.
Drizzt Do’Urden
20. Years and Miles
The Harvest Inn in Westbridge was a favorite gathering place for travelers along the Long Road that stretched between the two great northern cities of Waterdeep and Mirabar. Aside from comfortable bedding at reasonable rates, the Harvest offered Derry’s Tavern and Eatery, a renowned story-swapping bar where on any night of any week a guest might find adventurers from regions as varied as Luskan and Sundabar. The hearth was bright and warm, the drinks were plentiful, and the yarns woven in Derry’s were ones that would be told and retold all across the realms.
Roddy kept the cowl of his worn traveling cloak pulled low about him, hiding his scarred face, as he tore into his mutton and biscuits. The old yellow dog sat on the floor beside him, growling, and every now and then Roddy absently dropped it a piece of meat.
The ravenous bounty hunter rarely lifted his head from the plate, but Roddy’s bloodshot eyes peered suspiciously from the shadows of his cowl. He knew some of the ruffians gathered in Derry’s this night, personally or by reputation, and he wouldn’t trust them any more than they, if they were wise, would trust him.
One tall man recognized Roddy’s dog as he passed the table and stopped, thinking to greet the bounty hunter. The tall man walked away silently, though, realizing that miserable McGristle wasn’t really worth the effort. No one knew exactly what had happened those years before in the mountains near Maldobar, but Roddy had come out of that region deeply scarred, physically and emotionally. Always a surly one, McGristle now spent more time growling than talking.
Roddy gnawed a bit longer then dropped the thick bone down to his dog and wiped his greasy hands on his cloak, inadvertently brushing back the side of his cowl that hid his gruesome scars. Roddy quickly pulled the cowl back down, his gaze darting about for anyone who might have noticed. A single disgusted glance had cost several men their lives where Roddy’s scars were concerned.
No one seemed to notice, though, not this time. Most of those who weren’t busily eating were over at the bar, arguing loudly.
“Never was it!” one man growled.
“I told you what I saw!” another shot back. “And I told you right!”
“To yer eyes!” the first shouted back, and still another put in, “Ye’d not know one if ye seen one!” Several of the men closed in, bumping chest to chest.
“Stand quiet!” came a voice. A man pushed out of the throng and pointed straight at Rodd
y, who, not recognizing the man, instinctively dropped his hand to Bleeder, his well-worn axe.
“Ask McGristle!” the man cried. “Roddy McGristle. He knows about dark elves better than any.”
A dozen conversations sprouted up at once as the whole group, looking like some amorphous rolling blob, slid over toward Roddy. Roddy’s hand was off Bleeder again, crossing fingers with the other one on the table in front of him.
“Ye’re McGristle, are ye?” the man asked Roddy, showing the bounty hunter a good measure of respect.
“Might that I am,” Roddy replied calmly, enjoying the attention. He hadn’t been surrounded by a group so interested in what he had to say since the Thistledown clan had been found murdered.
“Aw,” a disgruntled voice piped in from somewhere in the back, “what’s he know about dark elves.”
Roddy’s glare sent those in front back a step, and he noticed the movement. He liked the feeling, liked being important again, respected.
“Drow elf killed my dog,” he said gruffly. He reached down and yanked up the old yellow hound’s head, displaying the scar. “And dented this one’s head. Damned dark elf—” he said deliberately, easing the cowl back from his face—”gave me this.” Normally Roddy hid the hideous scars, but the crowd’s gasps and mumbles sounded immensely satisfying to the wretched bounty hunter. He turned to the side, gave them a full view, and savored the reaction for as long as he could.
“Black-skinned and white-haired?” asked a short, fat-bellied man, the one who had begun the debate back at the bar with his own tale of a dark elf.
“Would have to be if he was a dark elf,” Roddy huffed back. The man looked about triumphantly.
“That is what I tried to tell them,” he said to Roddy. “They claim that I saw a dirty elf, or an orc maybe, but I knew it was a drow!”
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