R. Salvatore: Night of the Hunter

The darker-skinned drow at her side took a bite of an Underdark mushroom, then looked at it distastefully. “This is the path I took when I left my home,” he answered.

The young elf woman, half-drow, half-moon elf, leaned out a bit from the ledge and twirled the grapnel end of the rope, preparing to throw. She stopped mid-swing and stared at her companion incredulously.

“That was a hundred years ago,” she reminded. “How can you remember the path you took?”

He tossed the rest of the mushroom from the ledge, gingerly stood, one leg showing garish wounds, and wiped his hands on his breeches. “I always knew I would return some day.”

The woman spun the rope once more and let fly, the grapnel disappearing into the black hole of the tunnel entrance above.

“So I never let myself forget the way,” he said as she tested the grip of the grapnel. “Although the waterfall wasn’t here last time.”

“Well, that’s promising,” she quipped and began to climb.

Her father watched her with pride. He noted the sword she carried sheathed on her hip, his sword, Khazid’hea, the Cutter, a sentient and powerful blade known for driving its weaker wielders into savage madness. His daughter was gaining control of the bloodthirsty weapon. No small feat, he knew from painful personal experience.

She wasn’t halfway up to the tunnel when he jumped onto the fine, strong elven cord, his sinewy arms propelling him upward quickly behind her. He had nearly made the ledge as she rolled herself over it, turning to offer him a hand, which he took and scrambled over.

She said something to him, but he didn’t hear her. Not then. Not when he was looking at a line of approaching enemies, arms extended, hand crossbows leveled his way.

Standing in the mouth of the tunnel opposite the waterfall, the same course his prey had taken, Tsabrak Xorlarrin watched the pair ascend the cliff face from across the underground lake. He had found them quite easily, and with his considerable magical abilities, had trailed them closely, and indeed with a wide smile (though it could not be viewed, since he was under the enchantment of invisibility), for he was fairly certain that he knew this wayward drow.

He wondered what Berellip Xorlarrin would do when she discovered this one’s identity as a once-favored son of Menzoberranzan’s Second House, the greatest rival family of House Xorlarrin.

“Tread cautiously, witch,” he whispered, his words buried beneath the din of the waterfall. He could have used one of his spells to magically send a word of warning to Berellip’s ambush group, and indeed, he almost began the spell.

But he changed his mind and smiled wider, and wider still when he heard the female cry out and saw a flash of lightning just within the tunnel entrance.

As a precaution, Tsabrak moved to the base of the cliff, noting two solid anchor points, stalagmites, as he began to cast a spell.

Pops and crackles sounded above the rush of water as Doum’wielle’s lightning sheet intercepted the incoming hand crossbow bolts. Their momentum stolen, they fell harmlessly to the ground.

“To my side!” she cried to her father, but she needn’t have bothered, for the veteran warrior was already moving to that very spot, sliding in beside her up against the tunnel wall. Like her, he clearly had no desire to battle the incoming warriors with his back to a cliff ledge.

He drew out his two swords, she her one.

She only held one blade, for Khazid’hea would not allow a sister weapon, would not share in the glory of the kill.

Three drow males swept in before the pair. They kept their backs to the rushing river, with practiced coordination, one sliding, one leaping, another running in to defend his comrades, and all three with two swords drawn. The sliding drow popped right to his feet in front of Doum’wielle’s father with a double-up cross of his blades, driving his opponent’s swords up high.

The leaping, somersaulting drow landed beside him, and before the drow had even touched down, he stabbed one blade out toward Doum’wielle and one out at her father. And with the third drow coming in hard at her and demanding a double parry, Doum’wielle only barely avoided being stabbed in the face.

“Do not kill!” her father cried, though whether he was speaking to her, or imploring their enemies, she could not tell. Nor would she have followed the command in any case, her sword thirsting for blood, demanding blood … any blood. She swept Khazid’hea across with a powerful backhand, taking her attacker’s two swords aside. He rolled his trailing blade as she rolled Khazid’hea, both stabbing out.

Doum’wielle couldn’t retreat with the wall against her back. But her strike drove her opponent back so that his sword, too, could not reach her. One against one, and with Khazid’hea in hand, she was certain she could defeat this formidable warrior.

But she wasn’t one against one, and neither was her father. The drow centering the trio of enemies worked his blades independently, left and right, stabbing at both between the twirl of counters and parries.

No! Khazid’hea screamed in her thoughts as it sensed her intentions.

The demand of the sword carried little weight, though, for Doum’wielle’s movements were driven by desperate need, not choice. The young half-drow battle-mage stabbed straight ahead, swept her blade out to deflect a strike from the centering enemy, then stabbed ahead again, driving her immediate opponent back.

She timed his retreat perfectly with the release of magic, a spell that sent him skidding into the river on the slippery stones. He thrashed and cried out, and was caught by the current and washed past his companions and out over the ledge.

“No!” her father cried at her, but for far different reasons than had the sword she held. Khazid’hea’s cry was in denial of her use of magic, she understood, for the sword wanted all the glory and all the blood. Her father, however, apparently still thought that they could find the time to barter and diffuse the situation-a notion Doum’wielle thought all the more ridiculous because of the mocking response of Khazid’hea in her mind.

Noting that other enemies were near at hand and closing fast, Doum’wielle turned fast on the second drow in line, thinking to drive him into the enemy facing her father.

But this time, he proved the quicker, and as she advanced he leaped back and leaped high, one hand going to a brooch on his cloak tie, his House insignia. The magic of that jewelry brought forth a spell of levitation, and the drow floated out across the underground river.

Doum’wielle thought to pursue, but Khazid’hea drove her forward instead, sensing the vulnerability of the third in line, who was already entangled with her father. That enemy turned to meet her rush, and managed to partially deflect her leading strike.

Partially, but the devilish Khazid’hea got through, and so easily pierced his fine drow chain mail, and so beautifully slid into his skin. A look of delicious horror on his face, the drow threw himself backward, and flew from the ledge into the open air of the vast chamber beyond.

Doum’wielle turned with her father, side-by-side once more and facing into the tunnel, where four drow warriors, including the one who had levitated away across the river, stood in a line, lifting hand crossbows once more.

“And now we die,” her father said with resignation.

“Enough!” came a loud cry, volume clearly magically enhanced, from behind the enemy line. It was a call that would surely carry the weight of command among any raised in Menzoberranzan, for it had sounded in a female voice.

The drow line parted and between the warriors passed a female, dressed in fine black robes adorned with spider-shaped charms and elaborate designs. Even Doum’wielle, who had no experience with drow culture other than the teachings of her father, could not miss the significance. This was a priestess of the goddess Lolth, and one of great power.