Sojourn - [Book 3 of the Dark Elf Trilogy]

by R. A. Salvatore

  "And this gown," Dove whispered in exasperation, knowing that the impractical garment would split in six or seven places if she had occasion to swing her sword while wearing it, let alone inhaled too abruptly.

  Fret looked up at her, wounded.

  "This gown is surely the most beautiful ... " Dove stuttered, careful not to send the tidy dwarf into a tantrum. "Truly I can find no words suitable to my gratitude, dear Fret."

  The dwarf's gray eyes shone brightly, though he wasn't sure that he believed a word of it. Either way, Fret figured that Dove cared enough about him to go along with his suggestions, and that fact was all that really mattered to him.

  "I beg a thousand pardons, my lady," came a voice from behind. The whole entourage turned to see the captain of the night watch, a farmer by his side, trotting down the somber hallway.

  "Good captain!" Fret protested at the violation of protocol. "If you desire an audience with the lady, you must make an introduction in the hall. Then, and only then, and only if the master allows, you may ... "

  Dove dropped a hand on the dwarf's shoulder to silence him. She recognized the urgency etched onto the men's faces, a look the adventuring heroine had seen many times. "Do go on, Captain," she prompted. To placate Fret, she added, "We have a few moments before our audience is set to begin. Master Helm will not be kept waiting."

  The farmer stepped forward boldly. "A thousand pardons for myself, my lady," he began, fingering his cap nervously in his hands. "I am but a farmer from Maldobar, a small village north ... "

  "I know of Maldobar," Dove assured him. "Many times I have viewed the place from the mountains. A fine and sturdy community." The farmer brightened at her description. "No harm has befallen Maldobar, I pray."

  "Not as yet, my lady," the farmer replied, "but we've sighted trouble, we're not to doubting." He paused and looked to the captain for support. "Drow."

  Dove's eyes widened at the news. Even Fret, tapping his foot impatiently throughout the conversation, stopped and took note.

  "How many?" Dove asked.

  "Only one, as we have seen. We're fearing he's a scout or spy, and up to no good."

  Dove nodded her agreement. "Who has seen the drow?"

  "Children first," the farmer replied, drawing a sigh from Fret and setting the dwarf's foot impatiently tapping once again.

  "Children?" the dwarf huffed.

  The farmer's determination did not waver. "Then McGristle saw him," he said, eyeing Dove directly, "and McGristle's seen a lot!"

  "What is a McGristle?" Fret huffed.

  "Roddy McGristle," Dove answered, somewhat sourly, before the farmer could explain. "A noted bounty hunter and fur trapper."

  "The drow killed one of Roddy's dogs!" the farmer put in excitedly, "and nearly cut down Roddy! Dropped a tree right on him! He's lost an ear for the experience."

  Dove didn't quite understand what the farmer was talking about, but she really didn't need to. A dark elf had been seen and confirmed in the region, and that fact alone set the ranger into motion. She flipped off her fancy shoes and handed them to Fret, then told one of the attendants to go straight off and find her traveling companions and told the other to deliver her regrets to the Master of Sundabar.

  "But Lady Falconhand!" Fret cried.

  "No time for pleasantries," Dove replied, and Fret could tell by her obvious excitement that she was not too disappointed at canceling her audience with Helm. Already she was wiggling about, trying to open the catch on the back of her magnificent gown.

  "Your sister will not be pleased." Fret growled loudly over the tapping of his boot.

  "My sister hung up her backpack long ago," Dove retorted, "but mine still wears the fresh dirt of the road!"

  "Indeed," the dwarf mumbled, not in a complimentary way.

  "Ye mean to come, then?" the farmer asked hopefully.

  "Of course," Dove replied. "No reputable ranger could ignore the sighting of a dark elf! My three companions and I will set out for Maldobar this very night, though I beg that you remain here, good farmer. You have ridden hard—it is obvious—and need sleep." Dove glanced around curiously for a moment, then put a finger to her pursed lips.

  "What?" the annoyed dwarf asked her.

  Dove's face brightened as her gaze dropped down to Fret. "I have little experience with dark elves," she began, "and my companions, to my knowledge, have never dealt with one," Her widening smile set Fret back on his heels.

  "Come, dear Fret," Dove purred at the dwarf. Her bare feet slapping conspicuously on the tiled floor, she led Fret, the captain, and the farmer from Maldobar down the hallway to Helm's audience room.

  Fret was confused—and hopeful—for a moment by Dove's sudden change of direction. As soon as Dove began talking to Helm, Fret's master, apologizing for the unexpected inconvenience and asking Helm to send along one who might aid in the mission to Maldobar, the dwarf began to understand.

  * * * * *

  By the time the sun found its way above the eastern horizon the next morning, Dove's party, which included an elven archer and two powerful human fighters, had ridden more than ten miles from Sundabar's heavy gate.

  "Ugh!" Fret groaned when the light increased. He rode a sturdy Adbar pony at Dove's side. "See how the mud has soiled my fine clothes! Surely it will be the end of us all! To die filthy on a gods-forsaken road!"

  "Pen a song about it," Dove suggested, returning the widening smiles of her other three companions. "The Ballad of the Five Choked Adventurers, it shall be named."

  Fret's angry glare lasted only the moment it took Dove to remind him that Helm Dwarf-friend, the Master of Sundabar himself, had commissioned Fret to travel along.

  7

  Simmering Rage

  On the same morning that Dove's party left on the road to Maldobar, Drizzt set out on a journey of his own. The initial horror of his gruesome discovery the previous night had not diminished, and the drow feared that it never would, but another emotion had also entered Drizzt's thinking. He could do nothing for the innocent farmers and their children, nothing except avenge their deaths. That thought was not so pleasing to Drizzt; he had left the Underdark behind, and the savagery as well, he had hoped. With the images of the carnage still so horribly clear in his mind, and all alone as he was, Drizzt could look only to his scimitar for justice.

  Drizzt took two precautions before he set out on the murderer's trail. First, he crept back down to the farmyard, to the back of the house, where the farmers had placed a broken plowshare. The metal blade was heavy, but the determined drow hoisted it and carried it away without a thought to the discomfort.

  Drizzt then called Guenhwyvar. As soon as the panther arrived and took note of Drizzt's scowl, it dropped into an alert crouch. Guenhwyvar had been around Drizzt long enough to recognize that expression and to believe that they would see battle before it returned to its astral home.

  They moved off before dawn, Guenhwyvar easily following the barghest's clear trail, as Ulgulu had hoped. Their pace was slow, with Drizzt hindered by the plowshare, but steady, and as soon as Drizzt caught the sound of a distant buzzing noise, he knew he had done right in collecting the cumbersome item.

  Still, the remainder of the morning passed without incident. The trail led the companions into a rocky ravine and to the base of a high, uneven cliff. Drizzt feared that he might have to scale the cliff face—and leave the plowshare behind—but soon he spotted a single narrow trail winding up along the wall. The ascending path remained smooth as it wound around sheer bends in the cliff face, blind and dangerous turns. Wanting to use the terrain to his advantage, Drizzt sent Guenhwyvar far ahead and moved along by himself, dragging the plowshare and feeling vulnerable on the open cliff.

  That feeling did nothing to quench the simmering fires in Drizzt's lavender eyes, though, which burned clearly from under the low-pulled cowl of his oversized gnoll cloak. If the sight of the ravine looming just to the side unnerved the drow, he needed only to remember the farmers. A short while
later, when Drizzt heard the expected buzzing noise from somewhere lower on the narrow trail, he only smiled.

  The buzz quickly closed from behind. Drizzt fell back against the cliff wall and snapped out his scimitar, carefully monitoring the time it took the sprite to close.

  Tephanis flashed beside the drow, the quickling's little dagger darting and prodding for an opening in the defensive twists of the waving scimitar. The sprite was gone in an instant, moving up ahead of Drizzt, but Tephanis had scored a hit, nicking Drizzt on one shoulder.

  Drizzt inspected the wound and nodded gravely, accepting it as a minor inconvenience. He knew he could not defeat the blinding attack, and he knew, too, that allowing this first strike had been necessary for his ultimate victory. A growl on the path up ahead put Drizzt quickly back on alert. Guenhwyvar had met the sprite, and the panther, with flashing paws that could match the quickling's speed, no doubt had turned the thing back around.

  Again Drizzt put his back to the wall, monitoring the buzzing approach. Just as the sprite came around the corner, Drizzt jumped out onto the narrow path, his scimitar at the ready. The drow's other hand was less conspicuous and held steady a metal object, ready to tilt it out to block the opening.

  The speeding sprite cut back in toward the wall, easily able, as Drizzt realized, to avoid the scimitar. But in his narrow focus on his target, the sprite failed to notice Drizzt's other hand.

  Drizzt hardly registered the sprite's movements, but the sudden "Bong!" and the sharp vibrations in his hand as the creature smacked into the plowshare brought a satisfied grin to his lips. He let the plowshare drop and scooped up the unconscious sprite by the throat, holding it clear of the ground. Guenhwyvar bounded around the bend about the same time the sprite shook the dizziness from his sharp-featured head, his long and pointed ears nearly flopping right over the other side of his head with each movement.

  "What creature are you?" Drizzt asked in the goblin tongue, the language that had worked for him with the gnoll band. To his surprise, he found that the sprite understood, though his high-pitched, blurred response came too quickly for Drizzt to even begin to understand.

  He gave the sprite a quick jerk to silence him, then growled, "One word at a time! What is your name?"

  "Tephanis," the sprite said indignantly. Tephanis could move his legs a hundred times a second, but they didn't do him much good while he was suspended in the air. The sprite glanced down to the narrow ledge and saw his small dagger lying next to the dented plowshare.

  Drizzt's scimitar moved in dangerously. "Did you kill the farmers?" he asked bluntly. He almost struck in response to the sprite's ensuing chuckle.

  "No," Tephanis said quickly.

  "Who did?"

  "Ulgulu!" the sprite proclaimed. Tephanis pointed up the path and blurted out a stream of excited words. Drizzt managed to make out a few, "Ulgulu ... waiting ... dinner," being the most disturbing of them.

  Drizzt really didn't know what he would do with the captured sprite. Tephanis was simply too fast for Drizzt to safely handle. He looked to Guenhwyvar, sitting casually a few feet up the path, but the panther only yawned and stretched.

  Drizzt was about to come back with another question, to try to figure out where Tephanis fit into the whole scenario, but the cocky sprite decided that he had suffered enough of the encounter. His hands moving too fast for Drizzt to react, Tephanis reached down into his boot, produced another knife, and slashed at Drizzt's already injured wrist.

  This time, the cocky sprite had underestimated his opponent. Drizzt could not match the sprite's speed, could not even follow the tiny, darting dagger. As painful as the wounds were, though, Drizzt was too filled with rage to take note. He only tightened his grip on the sprite's collar and thrust his scimitar ahead. Even with such limited mobility, Tephanis was quick enough and nimble enough to dodge, laughing wildly all the while.

  The sprite struck back, digging a deeper cut into Drizzt's forearm. Finally Drizzt chose a tactic that Tephanis could not counter, one that took the sprite's advantage away. He slammed Tephanis into the wall, then tossed the stunned creature off the cliff.

  * * * * *

  Some time later, Drizzt and Guenhwyvar crouched in the brush at the base of a steep, rocky slope. At the top, behind carefully placed bushes and branches, lay a cave, and, every so often, goblin voices rolled out.

  Beside the cave, to the side of the sloping ground was a steep drop. Beyond the cave, the mountain climbed on at an even greater angle. The tracks, though they were sometimes scarce on the bare stone, had led Drizzt and Guenhwyvar to this spot; there could be no doubt that the monster who slaughtered the farmers was in the cave.

  Drizzt again fought with his decision to avenge the farmers' deaths. He would have preferred a more civilized justice, a lawful court, but what was he to do? He certainly could not go to the human villagers with his suspicions, nor to anyone else. Crouching in the bush, Drizzt thought again of the farmers, of the sandy-haired boy, of the pretty girl, barely a woman, and of the young man he had disarmed in the blueberry patch. Drizzt fought hard to keep his breathing steady. In the wild Underdark he had sometimes given in to his instinctive urges, a darker side of himself that fought with brutal and deadly efficiency, and Drizzt could feel that alter-ego welling within him once again. At first, he tried to sublimate the rage, but then he remembered the lessons he had learned. This darker side was a part of him, a tool for survival, and was not altogether evil.

  It was necessary.

  Drizzt understood his disadvantage in the situation, however. He had no idea how many enemies he would encounter, or even what type of monsters they might be. He heard goblins, but the carnage at the farmhouse indicated that something much more powerful was involved. Drizzt's good judgment told him to sit and watch, to learn more of his enemies.

  Another fleeting instant of remembrance, the scene at the farmhouse, threw that good judgment aside. Scimitar in one hand, the sprite's dagger in another, Drizzt stalked up the stony hill. He didn't slow when he neared the cave, but merely ripped the brush aside and walked straight in.

  Guenhwyvar hesitated and watched from behind, confused by the drow's straightforward tactics.

  * * * * *

  Tephanis felt cool air brushing by his face and thought for a moment that he was enjoying some pleasant dream. The sprite came out of his delusion quickly, though, and realized that he was fast approaching the ground. Fortunately, Tephanis was not far from the cliff. He send his hands and feet spinning rapidly enough to produce a constant humming sound and clawed and kicked at the cliff in an effort to slow his descent. In the meantime, he began the incantations to a levitation spell, possibly the only thing that could save him.

  A few agonizingly slow seconds passed before the sprite felt his body buoyed by the spell. He still hit the ground hard, but he realized that his wounds were minor.

  Tephanis stood relatively slowly and dusted himself off. His first thought was to go and warn Ulgulu of the approaching drow, but he reconsidered at once. He could not levitate up to the cave complex in time to warn the barghest, and there was only one path up the cliff face—which the drow was on.

  Tephanis had no desire to face that one again.

  * * * * *

  Ulgulu had not tried to cover his tracks at all. The dark elf had served the barghest's needs; now he planned to make a meal of Drizzt, one that might bring him into maturity and allow him to return to Gehenna.

  Ulgulu's two goblin guards were not too surprised at Drizzt's entrance. Ulgulu had told them to expect the drow and to simply delay him out in the entry room until the barghest could come and attend to him. The goblins halted their conversation abruptly, dropped their spears in a blocking cross over the curtain, and puffed out their scrawny chests, foolishly following their boss's instructions as Drizzt approached.

  "None can go in—" one of them began, but then, in a single swipe of Drizzt's scimitar, both the goblin and its companion staggered down, clutching at their opened
throats. The spear barrier fell away and Drizzt never even slowed as he stalked through the curtain.

  In the middle of the inner room, the drow saw his enemy. Scarlet-skinned and giant-sized, the barghest waited with crossed arms and a wicked, confident grin.

  Drizzt threw the dagger and charged right in behind it. That throw saved the drow's life, for when the dagger passed harmlessly through his enemy's body, Drizzt recognized the trap. He came in anyway, unable to break his momentum, and his scimitar entered the image without finding anything tangible to cut into.

  The real barghest was behind the stone throne at the back of the room. Using another power of his considerable magical repertoire, Kempfana had sent an image of himself into the middle of the room to hold the drow in place.

  Immediately Drizzt's instincts told him that he had been set up. This was no real monster he faced but an apparition meant to keep him in the open and vulnerable. The room was sparsely furnished; nothing nearby offered any cover.

  Ulgulu, levitating above the drow, came down quickly, lighting softly behind him. The plan was perfect and the target was right in place.

  Drizzt, his reflexes and muscles trained and honed to fighting perfection, sensed the presence and dove forward into the image as Ulgulu launched a heavy blow. The barghest's huge hand only clipped Drizzt's flowing hair, but that alone nearly ripped the drow's head to the side.

  Drizzt half-turned his body as he dove, rolling back to his feet facing Ulgulu. He met a monster even larger than the giant image, but that fact did nothing to intimidate the enraged drow. Like a stretched cord, Drizzt snapped straight back at the barghest. By the time Ulgulu even recovered from his unexpected miss, Drizzt's lone scimitar had poked him three times in the belly and had dug a neat little hole under his chin.

  The barghest roared in rage but was not too badly hurt, for Drizzt's drow-made weapon had lost most of its magic in the drow's time on the surface and only magical weapons—such as Guenhwyvar's claws and teeth—could truly harm a creature from Gehenna's rifts.