R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

“King Obould saw a different way,” Drizzt reasoned. “A better way for his people, and by his strength …” He stopped in the face of Catti-brie’s scowl.

“That was the deception, to us and to Obould,” Catti-brie said. “He was granted great gifts by the magic of the shamans of Gruumsh One-eye, and indeed, by Gruumsh himself. Physical gifts, like his great strength-greater than any orc should know. But also, he was given wisdom and a vision of a better way for the orcs, and he believed it, and through his strength, so they have pursued that course.”

“Then your point does not hold!” Drizzt argued.

“Unless it was all a ruse,” Catti-brie continued, undaunted. “Through Obould, Gruumsh led the orcs into society, a sister-state to the kingdoms of the Silver Marches, but only because he believed they could better destroy that society from within. Even with the army he had constructed, Obould could not have conquered the Silver Marches. Tens of thousands of goodly folk would have died in that war, but the kingdoms of the Silver Marches would not have fallen. This time, it would seem that Gruumsh demanded more of his fodder minions.”

“And we gave it to him,” Bruenor said with great lament.

Drizzt looked at him in alarm, and then turned back to Catti-brie, whose eyes finally showed a bit more regret-some sympathy, perhaps, but not disagreement with the grim assessment.

“They are not people,” she said softly. “They are monsters. This is not true of the other races, not even of the tieflings, who claim demonic ancestry, for they, unlike goblinkin, have free will and reason in matters of conscience. Indeed, they have a conscience! True and full goblinkin do not, I say; Mielikki says. Were you to find a lion cub and raise it in your home, you would be safer than if you found and raised a goblin child, for the goblin child would surely murder you when it suited him, for gain, or even for the simple pleasure of the act.”

Drizzt felt as if the floor was shifting beneath his feet. He didn’t doubt Catti-brie’s words, and didn’t doubt her claim that they had been inspired by the song of Mielikki. Ever had this been an issue of great tribulation for the drow-the rogue drow who had found the heart to walk away from the wicked ways of the city of his kin. Was she correct in her assessment? In her assessment of him most of all?

Her words rang loudly in Drizzt’s thoughts. The burden you carry blurs your judgment . He didn’t want to believe it, wanted to find some logical counter to her reasoning. He thought of Montolio, his first mentor when he came to the surface, but a quick recollection of those days affirmed Catti-brie’s words, not his own heart in this, for Montolio had never offered him any advice about judging the content of the character of a goblin or orc. Drizzt considered Montolio Debrouchee to be as good a man as he had ever known-would Montolio have signed the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge?

Had Montolio ever suffered goblinkin to live?

Drizzt could not imagine that he had.

He looked plaintively at Catti-brie, but the woman loved him too much to offer him an easy out. He had to face the accusation she had just uttered-words that had come from the insights of Mielikki, from a common place in the hearts of Drizzt and Catti-brie.

He wanted to believe that Obould’s actions were wrought of noble intent. He wanted to believe that an orc, or a goblin like Nojheim, could rise above the reputation of their respective races, because if they could, then so could he, and so, conversely, if he could, then so could, or so should, they.

“The goblinkin are not people,” Catti-brie said. “Not human, not drow, nor any other race. You cannot judge them and cannot treat them by or from those perspectives.”

“Ye durned right,” Bruenor put in. “Dwarfs’ve knowed it for centuries!”

“Yet you signed the treaty,” Regis said, and all eyes flashed at the halfling, Bruenor’s scowl most prominent of all.

But that glare was met by a wide, teasing, and ultimately infectious smile.

“Bought yerself a bit more o’ the intestinal fortitude this time around, did ye?” Bruenor asked.

Regis winked and grinned. “Let’s go kill some orcs.”

Any anger Bruenor might have had about the comment washed away instantly at that invitation. “Bwahaha!” he roared and clapped Regis on the back.

“The trails will soon open, and we can navigate them in any case,” Catti-brie said. “To Mithral Hall, then?

“Aye,” said Bruenor, but as he spoke, he looked at Wulfgar. The barbarian had left the Companions of the Hall in the days of Obould, after all, returning to his first home and people on the tundra of Icewind Dale.

“Aye,” Wulfgar heartily replied.

“Ye got no mind to stay with yer folks, then?” Bruenor asked bluntly.

“I returned to fight beside Drizzt and the rest of you,” Wulfgar said, completely at ease. “For adventure. For battle. Let us play.”

Drizzt noted Catti-brie’s stare coming his way. He shared her surprise, and a pleasant surprise it was, for both of them.

“Mithral Hall,” Drizzt agreed.

“Not straight away,” Bruenor declared. “We got other business, then,” he explained, nodding with every word. “We got a friend in trouble, elf, one ye saw and left to die.”

Drizzt looked at him curiously.

Bruenor went to the side of the room, bent and reached under his cot and brought forth a familiar helmet, shield, and axe. The others were not surprised, but Drizzt, who had been too groggy and dazed that night on Kelvin’s Cairn to fully register Bruenor’s garb, surely was. For in light of the tales he had heard of his companions’ rebirth, he understood what they meant: Bruenor had visited his own grave!

“Except our old friend was already dead,” Bruenor explained, “and not as strong as he thinked himself.”

“Pwent,” Drizzt breathed, only then remembering the poor fellow. He had found Pwent outside of Neverwinter, outside of Gauntlgrym, inflicted with vampirism, and had left the dwarf in a cave, awaiting the sunrise to end his curse.

“What of him?” Catti-brie asked.

“He’s in Gauntlgrym, killing drow,” said Bruenor.

“That would make him happy,” Regis remarked, and then with surprise, breathlessly added, “Gauntlgrym?”

“Cursed as a vampire,” Drizzt explained.

“Aye, and I ain’t for leavin’ him,” said Bruenor.

“You mean to kill him?” Wulfgar asked.

Bruenor shrugged, but Drizzt turned to Catti-brie. “Is there another way?”

The woman matched Bruenor’s shrug with a helpless one of her own. She was a priestess, but surely no expert in the issues regarding undeath, a realm foreign to, and indeed contrary to, the tenets of Mielikki.

“Gauntlgrym?” Regis asked again.

“Aye, we found it,” said Bruenor. “In the Crags north o’ Neverwinter. Pwent’s there, lost and dead, and so’re some drow, and I ain’t much likin’ that thought o’ them folk with the Forge o’ me ancestors!”

“We’ll find our answers along the road, then,” said Catti-brie.

“Jarlaxle’s in Luskan,” Regis remarked, and the others perked up at that name.

But Catti-brie was thinking along other lines, Drizzt realized, for now she was shaking her head. She mouthed “Longsaddle.”

Drizzt couldn’t hide his astonishment, for the home of the Harpells was not a place that typically inspired confidence!

"And now you understand why I have never bothered to hunt Drizzt Do’Urden down and kill him,” Gromph said to Quenthel when they were back at the Baenre compound and the matron mother had recovered from the illithid’s attack.