Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (7 page)

Briza’s lips curled up in one of her typically ambiguous smiles; Dinin couldn’t be sure if she was agreeing with him or mocking him. “You think yourself wise enough to question the decisions of Matron Malice?” her fingers asked.

“No!” Dinin signaled back emphatically. “Matron Malice does as she must, and always for the welfare of House Do’Urden. But
I do not trust the displaced Hun’ett. SiNafay watched her house smashed into bits of heated rock by the judgment of the ruling council. All of her treasured children were slain; and most of her commoners as well. Can she truly be loyal to House Do’Urden after such a loss?”

“Foolish male,” Briza signaled in reply. “Priestesses understand that loyalty is owed only to Lolth. SiNafay’s house is no more, thus SiNafay is no more. She is Shi’nayne Do’Urden now, and by the order of the Spider Queen, she will fully accept all of the responsibilities that accompany the name.”

“I do not trust her,” Dinin reiterated. “Nor am I pleased to see my sisters, the true Do’Urdens, moved down the hierarchy to make room for her. Shi’nayne should have been placed beneath Maya, or housed among the commoners.”

Briza snarled at him, though she wholeheartedly agreed. “Shi’nayne’s rank in the family is of no concern to you. House Do’Urden is stronger for the addition of another high priestess. That is all a male need care about!”

Dinin nodded his acceptance of her logic and wisely sheathed his sword before beginning to rise from his knees. Briza likewise replaced the snake-whip on her belt but continued to watch her volatile brother out of the corner of her eye.

Dinin would be more careful around Briza now. He knew that his survival depended on his ability to walk beside his sister, for Malice would continue to send Briza out on these hunting patrols beside him. Briza was the strongest of the Do’Urden daughters, with the best chance of finding and capturing Drizzt. And Dinin, having been a patrol leader for the city for more than a decade, was the most familiar of anyone in the house with the tunnels beyond Menzoberranzan.

Dinin shrugged at his rotten luck and followed his sister back down the tunnels to the city. A short respite, no more than a day,
and they would be back on the march again, back on the prowl for their elusive and dangerous brother, whom Dinin truly had no desire to find.

Guenhwyvar’s head turned abruptly and the great panther froze perfectly still, one paw cocked and ready to move.

“You heard it, too,” Drizzt whispered, moving tightly to the panther’s side. “Come, my friend. Let us see what new enemy has entered our domain.”

They sped off together, equally silent, down corridors they knew so very well. Drizzt stopped suddenly, and Guenhwyvar did likewise, at the echo of a scuffle. It was made by a boot, Drizzt knew, and not by some natural monster of the Underdark. Drizzt pointed up to a broken pile of rubble overlooking a wide and many-tiered cavern on its other side. Guenhwyvar led him there, where they could find a better vantage point.

The drow patrol came into view only a few moments later, a group of seven, though they were too far away for Drizzt to make out any particulars. Drizzt was amazed that he had heard them so easily, for he remembered those days when he had taken the point position on such patrols. How alone he had felt then, up at the lead of more than a dozen dark elves, for they made not a whisper with their practiced movements and they kept to the shadows so well that even Drizzt’s keen eyes could not begin to locate them.

And yet, this hunter that Drizzt had become, this primal, instinctive self, had found this group easily.

Briza stopped suddenly and closed her eyes, concentrating on the emanations of her spell of location.

“What is it?” Dinin’s fingers asked her when she looked back to him. Her startled and obviously excited expression revealed much.

“Drizzt?” Dinin breathed aloud, hardly able to believe.

“Silence!” Briza’s hands cried out at him. She glanced around to survey her surroundings, then signaled to the patrol to follow her to the shadows of the wall in the immense, and exposed, cavern.

Briza nodded her confirmation to Dinin then, confident that their mission would at last be completed.

“Can you be sure it is Drizzt?” Dinin’s fingers asked. In his excitement, he could barely keep the movements precise enough to convey his thoughts. “Perhaps some scavenger—”

“We know that our brother lives,” Briza motioned quickly. “Matron Malice would no longer be out of Lolth’s favor if it were otherwise. And if Drizzt lives, then we can assume that he possesses the item!”

The sudden evasive movement of the patrol caught Drizzt by surprise. The group could not possibly have seen him under the cover of the jutting rocks, and he held faith in the silence of his footfalls, and of Guenhwyvar’s. Yet Drizzt felt certain that it was he the patrol was hiding from. Something felt out of place in this whole encounter. Dark elves were rare this far from Menzoberranzan. Perhaps it was no more than the paranoia necessary to survive in the wilds of the Underdark, Drizzt told himself. Still, he suspected that more than chance had brought this group to his domain.

“Go, Guenhwyvar,” he whispered to the cat. “View our guests and return to me.” The panther sped away through the shadows circumventing the large cavern. Drizzt sank low into the rubble, listened, and waited.

Guenhwyvar returned to him only a minute later, though it seemed an eternity to Drizzt.

“Did you know them?” Drizzt asked. The cat scratched a paw across the stone.

“Of our old patrol?” Drizzt wondered aloud. “The fighters you and I walked beside?”

Guenhwyvar seemed uncertain and made no definite movements.

“A Hun’ett then,” Drizzt said, thinking he had solved the riddle. House Hun’ett had at last come looking for him to repay him for the deaths of Alton and Masoj, the two Hun’ett wizards who had died trying to kill Drizzt. Or perhaps the Hun’etts had come in search of Guenhwyvar, the magical item that Masoj once had possessed.

When Drizzt took a moment from his pondering to study Guenhwyvar’s reaction, he realized that his assumptions were wrong. The panther had backed away from him a step and seemed agitated by his stream of suppositions.

“Then who?” Drizzt asked. Guenhwyvar reared up on its hind legs and straddled Drizzt’s shoulders, one great paw patting Drizzt’s neck-purse. Not understanding, Drizzt slipped the item off his neck and emptied its contents into a palm, revealing a few gold coins, a small gemstone, and the emblem of his house, a silvery token engraved with the initials of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, House Do’Urden. Drizzt realized at once what Guenhwyvar was hinting at.

“My family,” he whispered harshly. Guenhwyvar backed away from him and again scratched a paw excitedly across the stone.

A thousand memories flooded through Drizzt at that moment, but all of them, good and bad, led him inescapably to one possibility: Matron Malice had neither forgiven nor forgotten his actions on that fated day. Drizzt had abandoned her and the ways of the Spider Queen, and he knew well enough the ways of Lolth to realize that his actions had not left his mother in good standing.

Drizzt looked back into the gloom of the wide cavern. “Come,” he panted to Guenhwyvar, and he ran off down the tunnels. His decision to leave Menzoberranzan had been painful and uncertain, and now Drizzt had no desire to encounter his kin and rekindle all of the doubts and fears.

He and Guenhwyvar ran on for more than an hour, turning down secret passageways and crossing into the most confusing sections of the area’s tunnels. Drizzt knew the region intimately and felt certain that he could leave the patrol group far behind with little effort.

But when at last he paused to catch his breath, Drizzt sensed—and he only had to look at Guenhwyvar to confirm his suspicions—that the patrol was still on his trail, perhaps even closer than before.

Drizzt knew then that he was being magically tracked; there could be no other explanation. “But how?” he asked the panther. “I am hardly the drow they knew as a brother, in appearance or in thought. What could they be sensing that would be familiar enough for their magical spells to hold on to?” Drizzt surveyed himself quickly, his eyes first falling upon his crafted weapons.

The scimitars were indeed wondrous, but so were the majority of the drow weapons in Menzoberranzan. And these particular blades had not even been crafted in House Do’Urden and were not of any design favored by Drizzt’s family. His cloak then, he wondered? The
piwafwi
was a signpost of a house, bearing the
stitch patterns and designs of a single family.

But Drizzt’s
piwafwi
had been tattered and torn beyond recognition and he could hardly believe that a location spell would recognize it as belonging to House Do’Urden.

“Belonging to House Do’Urden,” Drizzt whispered aloud. He looked at Guenhwyvar and nodded suddenly—he had his answer. He again removed his neck pouch and took out the token, the emblem of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon. Created by magic, it possessed its own magic, a dweomer distinct to that one house. Only a noble of House Do’Urden would carry one.

Drizzt thought for a moment, then replaced the token and slipped the neck-purse over Guenhwyvar’s head. “Time for the hunted to become the hunter,” he purred to the great cat.

“He knows he is being followed,” Dinin’s hands flashed to Briza. Briza didn’t justify the statement with a reply. Of course Drizzt knew of the pursuit; it was obvious that he was trying to evade them. Briza remained unconcerned. Drizzt’s house emblem burned as a distinct directional beacon in her magically enhanced thoughts.

Briza stopped, though, when the party came to a fork in the passage. The signal came from beyond the fork, but not in any definitive way to either side. “Left,” Briza signaled to three of the commoner soldiers, then, “Right,” to the remaining two. She held her brother back, signaling that she and Dinin would hold their position at the fork to serve as a reserve for both groups.

High above the scattering patrol, hovering in the shadows of the stalactite-covered ceiling, Drizzt smiled at his cunning. The patrol might have kept pace with him, but it would have no chance at all of catching Guenhwyvar.

The plan had been executed and completed to perfection, for Drizzt had only meant to lead the patrol on until it was far from his domain and weary of the hopeless search. But as Drizzt floated there, looking down upon his brother and eldest sister, he found himself longing for something more. A few moments passed, and Drizzt was certain that the dispatched soldiers were a good distance away. He drew out his scimitars, thinking then that a meeting with his siblings might not be so bad after all.