Roddy just shrugged, taking no offense at Bartholemew’s tone. “Goblin, troll—might be a wood elf that’s seen too much o’ the sun.” His laughter, erupting after the last statement, rolled over the group, belittling their seriousness.
“Then how do we know for sure,” said Delmo.
“We find out by finding it,” Roddy offered. “Tomorrow mornin’,”—he pointed around at each man sitting at Bartholemew’s table—”we go out an’ see what we can see.” Considering the impromptu meeting at an end, Roddy slammed his hands down on the table and pushed himself to his feet. He looked back before he got to the farmhouse door, though, and cast an exaggerated wink and a nearly toothless smile back at the group. “And, boys,” he said, “don’t be forgettin’ yer weapons!”
Roddy’s cackle rolled back in on the group long after the rough-edged mountain man had departed.
“We could call in a ranger,” one of the other farmers offered hopefully as the dispirited group began to depart. “I heard there’s one in Sundabar, one of Lady Alustriel’s sisters.”
“A bit too early for that,” Mayor Delmo answered, defeating any optimistic smiles.
“Is it ever too early when drow are involved?” Bartholemew quickly put in.
The mayor shrugged. “Let us go with McGristle,” he replied. “If anyone can find some truth up in the mountains, it’s him.” He tactfully turned to Connor. “I believe your tale, Connor. Truly I do. But we’ve got to know for sure before we put out a call for such distinguished assistance as a sister of the Lady of Silverymoon.”
The mayor and the rest of the visiting farmers departed, leaving Bartholemew, his father, Markhe, and Connor alone in the Thistledown kitchen.
“Wasn’t no goblin or wood elf,” Connor said in a low tone that hinted at both anger and embarrassment.
Bartholemew patted his son on the back, never doubting him.
* * *
Up in a cave in the mountains, Ulgulu and Kempfana, too, spent a night of worry over the appearance of a dark elf.
“If he’s a drow, then he’s an experienced adventurer,” Kempfana offered to his larger brother. “Experienced enough, perhaps, to send Ulgulu into maturity.”
“And back to Gehenna!” Ulgulu finished for his conniving brother. “You do so dearly desire to see me depart.”
“You, too, hope for the day when you may return to the smoking rifts,” Kempfana reminded him.
Ulgulu snarled and did not reply. The appearance of a dark elf prompted many considerations and fears beyond Kempfana’s simple statement of logic. The barghests, like all intelligent creatures on nearly every plane of existence, knew of the drow and maintained a healthy respect for the race. While one drow might not be too much of a problem, Ulgulu knew that a dark elf war party, perhaps even an army, could prove disastrous. The whelps were not invulnerable. The human village had provided easy pickings for the barghest whelps and might continue to do so for some time if Ulgulu and Kempfana were careful about their attacks. But if a band of dark elves showed up, those easy kills could disappear quite suddenly.
“This drow must be dealt with,” Kempfana remarked. “If he is a scout, then he must not return to report.”
Ulgulu snapped a cold glare on his brother, then called to his quickling. “Tephanis,” he cried, and the quickling was upon his shoulder before he had even finished the word.
“You-need-me-to-go-and-kill-the-drow, my-master,” the quickling replied. “I-understand-what-you-need-me-to-do!”
“No!” Ulgulu shouted immediately, sensing that the quick-ling intended to go right out. Tephanis was halfway to the door by the time Ulgulu finished the syllable, but the quickling returned to Ulgulu’s shoulder before the last note of the shout had died away.
“No,” Ulgulu said again, more easily. “There may be a gain in the drow’s appearance.”
Kempfana read Ulgulu’s evil grin and understood his brother’s intent. “A new enemy for the townspeople,” the smaller whelp reasoned. “A new enemy to cover Ulgulu’s murders?”
“All things can be turned to advantage,” the big, purple-skinned barghest replied wickedly, “even the appearance of a dark elf.” Ulgulu turned back to Tephanis.
“You-wish-to-learn-more-of-the-drow, my-master,” Tephanis spouted excitedly.
“Is he alone?” Ulgulu asked. “Is he a forward scout to a larger group, as we fear, or a lone warrior? What are his intentions toward the townspeople?”
“He-could-have-killed-the-children,” Tephanis reiterated. “I-guess-him-to-desire-friendship.”
“I know,” Ulgulu snarled. “You have made those points before. Go now and learn more! I need more than your guess, Tephanis, and by all accounts, a drow’s actions rarely hint at his true intent!”
Tephanis skipped down from Ulgulu’s shoulder and paused, expecting further instructions.
“Indeed, dear Tephanis,” Ulgulu purred. “Do see if you can appropriate one of the drow’s weapons for me. It would prove usef—” Ulgulu stopped when he noticed the flutter in the heavy curtain blocking the entry room.
“An excitable little sprite,” Kempfana noted.
“But with his uses,” Ulgulu replied, and Kempfana had to nod in agreement.
* * *
Drizzt saw them coming from a mile away. Ten armed farmers followed the young man he had met in the blueberry patch on the previous day. Though they talked and joked, the set of their stride was determined and their weapons were prominently displayed, obviously ready to be put to use. Even more insidious, walking to the side of the main band came a barrel-chested, grim-faced man wrapped in thick skins, brandishing a finely crafted axe and leading two large and snarling yellow dogs on thick chains.
Drizzt wanted to make further contact with the villagers, wanted dearly to continue the events he had set in motion the previous day and learn if he might have, at long last, found a place he could call home, but this coming encounter, he realized, was not the place to make such gains. If the farmers found him, there would surely be trouble, and while Drizzt wasn’t too worried for his own safety against the ragged band, even considering the grim-faced fighter, he did fear that one of the farmers might get hurt.
Drizzt decided that his mission this day was to avoid the group and to deflect their curiosity. The drow knew the perfect diversion to accomplish those goals. He set the onyx figurine on the ground before him and called to Guenhwyvar.
A buzzing noise off to the side, followed by the sudden rustle of brush, distracted the drow for just a moment as the customary mist swirled around the figurine. Drizzt saw nothing ominous approaching, though, and quickly dismissed it. He had more pressing problems, he thought.
When Guenhwyvar arrived, Drizzt and the cat moved down the trail beyond the blueberry patch, where Drizzt guessed that the farmers would begin their hunt. His plan was simple: He would let the farmers mill about the area for a while, let the farmer’s son retell his story of the encounter. Guenhwyvar then would make an appearance along the edge of the patch and lead the group on a futile chase. The black-furred panther might cast some doubts on the farm boy’s tale; possibly the older men would assume that the children had encountered the cat and not a dark elf and that their imaginations had supplied the rest of the details. It was a gamble, Drizzt knew, but, at the very least, Guenhwyvar would cast some doubts about the existence of the dark elf and would get this hunting party away from Drizzt for a while.
The farmers arrived at the blueberry patch on schedule, a few grim-faced and battle-ready but the majority of the group talking casually in conversations filled with laughter. They found the discarded sword, and Drizzt watched, nodding his head, as the farmer’s son played through the events of the previous day. Drizzt noticed, too, that the large axe-wielder, listening to the story halfheartedly, circled the group with his dogs, pointing at various spots in the patch and coaxing the dogs to sniff about. Drizzt had no practical experience with dogs, but he knew that many creatures had superior senses and could be used
to aid in a hunt.
“Go, Guenhwyvar,” the drow whispered, not waiting for the dogs to get a clear scent.
The great panther loped silently down the trail and took up a position in one of the trees in the same grove where the boys had hidden the previous day. Guenhwyvar’s sudden roar silenced the group’s growing conversation in an instant, all heads spinning to the trees.
The panther leaped out into the patch, shot right past the stunned humans, and darted across the rising rocks of the mountain slopes. The farmers hooted and took up pursuit, calling for the man with the dogs to take the lead. Soon the whole group, dogs baying wildly, moved off and Drizzt went down into the grove near the blueberry patch to consider the day’s events and his best course of action.
He thought that a buzzing noise followed him, but he passed it off as the hum of an insect.
* * *
By his dogs’ confused actions, it didn’t take Roddy McGristle long to figure out that the panther was not the same creature that had left the scent in the blueberry patch. Furthermore, Roddy realized that his ragged companions, particularly the obese mayor, even with his aid, had little chance of catching the great cat; the panther could spring across ravines that would take the farmers many minutes to circumvent.
“Go on!” Roddy told the rest of the group. “Chase the thing along this course. I’ll take my dogs’n go far to the side and cut the thing off, turn it back to ye!” The farmers hooted their accord and bounded away, and Roddy pulled back the chains and turned his dogs aside.
The dogs, trained for the hunt, wanted to go on, but their master had another route in mind. Several thoughts bothered Roddy at that moment. He had been in these mountains for thirty years but had never seen, or even heard of, such a cat. Also, though the panther easily could have left its pursuers far behind, it always seemed to appear out in the open not too far away, as though it was leading the farmers on. Roddy knew a diversion when he saw it, and he had a good guess of where the perpetrator might be hiding. He muzzled the dogs to keep them silent and headed back the way he had come, back to the blueberry patch.
Drizzt rested against a tree in the shadows of the thick copse and wondered how he might further his exposure to the farmers without causing any more panic among them. In his days of watching the single farm family, Drizzt had become convinced that he could find a place among the humans, of this or of some other settlement, if only he could convince them that his intentions were not dangerous.
A buzz to Drizzt’s left brought him abruptly from his contemplations. Quickly he drew his scimitars, then something flashed by him, too fast for him to react. He cried out at a sudden pain in his wrist, and his scimitar was pulled from his grasp. Confused, Drizzt looked down to his wound, expecting to see an arrow or crossbow bolt stuck deep into his arm.
The wound was clean and empty. A high-pitched laughter spun Drizzt to the right. There stood the sprite, Drizzt’s scimitar casually slung over one shoulder, nearly touching the ground behind the diminutive creature, and a dagger, dripping blood, in his other hand.
Drizzt stayed very still, trying to guess the thing’s next move. He had never seen a quickling, or even heard of the uncommon creatures, but he already had a good idea of his speedy opponent’s advantage. Before the drow could form any plan to defeat the quickling, though, another nemesis showed itself.
Drizzt knew as soon as he heard the howl that his cry of pain had revealed him. The first of Roddy McGristle’s snarling hounds crashed through the brush, charging in low at the drow. The second, a few running strides behind the first, came in high, leaping toward Drizzt’s throat.
This time, though, Drizzt was the quicker. He slashed down with his remaining scimitar, cutting the first dog’s head and bashing its skull. Without hesitation, Drizzt threw himself backward, reversing his grip on the blade and bringing it up above his face, in line with the leaping dog. The scimitar’s hilt locked fast against the tree trunk, and the dog, unable to turn in its flight, drove hard into the set weapon’s other end, impaling itself through the throat and chest. The wrenching impact tore the scimitar from Drizzt’s hand, and dog and blade bounced away into some scrub to the side of the tree.
Drizzt had barely recovered when Roddy McGristle burst in.
“Ye killed my dogs!” the huge mountain man roared, chopping Bleeder, his large, battle-worn axe, down at the drow’s head. The cut came deceptively swiftly, but Drizzt managed to dodge to the side. The drow couldn’t understand a word of McGristle’s continuing stream of expletives, and he knew that the burly man would not understand a word of any explanations Drizzt might try to offer.
Wounded and unarmed, Drizzt’s only defense was to continue to dodge away. Another swipe nearly caught him, cutting through his gnoll cloak, but he sucked in his stomach, and the axe skipped off his fine chain mail. Drizzt danced to the side, toward a tight cluster of smaller trees, where he believed his greater agility might give him some advantage. He had to try to tire the enraged human, or at least make the man reconsider his brutal attack. McGristle’s ire did not lessen, though. He charged right after Drizzt, snarling and swinging with every step.
Drizzt now saw the shortcomings of his plan. While he might keep away from the large human’s bulky body in the tightly packed trees, McGristle’s axe could dive between them quite deftly.
The mighty weapon came in from the side at shoulder level. Drizzt dropped flat down on the ground desperately, narrowly avoiding death. McGristle couldn’t slow his swing in time, and the heavy—and heavily enscorceled—weapon smashed into the four-inch trunk of a young maple, felling the tree.
The tightening angle of the buckling trunk held Roddy’s axe fast. Roddy grunted and tried to tear the weapon free, and did not realize his peril until the last minute. He managed to jump away from the main weight of the trunk but was buried under the maple’s canopy. Branches ripped across his face and the side of his head forming a web around him and pinning him tightly to the ground. “Damn ye, drow!” McGristle roared, shaking futilely at his natural prison.
Drizzt crawled away, still clutching his wounded wrist. He found his remaining scimitar, buried to the hilt in the unfortunate dog. The sight pained Drizzt; he knew the value of animal companions. It took him several heartsick moments to pull the blade free, moments made even more dramatic by the other dog, which, merely stunned, was beginning to stir once again.
“Damn ye, drow!” McGristle roared again.
Drizzt understood the reference to his heritage, and he could guess the rest. He wanted to help the fallen man, thinking that he might make some inroads on opening some more civilized communication, but he didn’t think that the awakening dog would be so ready to lend a paw. With a final glance around for the sprite that had started this whole thing, Drizzt dragged himself out of the grove and fled into the mountains.
* * *
“We should’ve got the thing!” Bartholemew Thistledown grumbled as the troupe returned to the blueberry patch. “If McGristle had come in where he said he would, we’d’ve gotten the cat for sure! Where is that dog pack leader, anyhow?”
An ensuing roar of “Drow! Drow!” from the maple grove answered Bartholemew’s question. The farmers rushed over to find Roddy still helplessly pinned by the felled maple tree.
“Damned drow!” Roddy bellowed. “Killed my dog! Damned drow!” He reached for his left ear when his arm was free but found that the ear was no longer attached. “Damned drow!’ he roared again.
Connor Thistledown let everyone see the return of his pride at the confirmation of his oft-doubted tale, but the eldest Thistledown child was the only one pleased at Roddy’s unexpected proclamation. The other farmers were older than Connor; they realized the grim implications of having a dark elf haunting the region.
Benson Delmo, wiping sweat from his forehead, made little secret of how he stood on the news. He turned immediately to the farmer by his side, a younger man known for his prowess in raising and riding horses. “Get to Sundabar,” the
mayor ordered. “Find us a ranger straightaway!”
In a few minutes, Roddy was pulled free. By this time, his wounded dog had rejoined him, but the knowledge that one of his prized pets had survived did little to calm the rough man.
“Damned drow!” Roddy roared for perhaps the thousandth time, wiping the blood from his cheek. “I’m gonna get me a damned drow!” He emphasized his point by slamming Bleeder, one-handed, into the trunk of another nearby maple, nearly felling that one as well.
5. The Stalk of Doom
The goblin guards dove to the side as mighty Ulgulu tore through the curtain and exited the cave complex. The open, crisp air of the chill mountain night felt good to the barghest, better still when Ulgulu thought of the task before him. He looked to the scimitar that Tephanis had delivered, the crafted weapon appearing tiny in Ulgulu’s huge, dark-skinned hand.
Ulgulu unconsciously dropped the weapon to the ground. He didn’t want to use it this night; the barghest wanted to put his own deadly weapons—claws and teeth—to use, to taste his victims and devour their life essence so that he could become stronger. Ulgulu was an intelligent creature, though, and his rationale quickly overruled the base instincts that so desired the taste of blood. There was purpose in this night’s work, a method that promised greater gains and the elimination of the very real threat that the dark elf’s unexpected appearance posed.
With a guttural snarl, a small protest from Ulgulu’s base urges, the barghest grabbed the scimitar again and pounded down the mountainside, covering long distances with each stride. The beast stopped on the edge of a ravine, where a single narrow trail wound down along the sheer facing of the cliff. It would take him many minutes to scale down the dangerous trail.