R. Salvatore - The Collected Stories, The Legend of Drizzt

A second blast of wind came forth, buffeting the panther and stopping her momentum. But unlike Drizzt, Guenhwyvar was not blown aside, and instead landed before the dais, digging her claws into the wooden planking to resist the continuing, and then the next, blast of wind.

From the look on Thurgood’s face, Drizzt knew that the wizard understood that he was in dire trouble.

So did the rest of the pirates, even more so when one near the stairway lurched forward, his shoulder torn by an arrow that blasted past and slammed hard into the ceiling.

And up the stairs came Catti-brie, her bow thrown aside and Cutter, her sentient and vicious and incredibly sharp sword in hand.

Thurgood turned to flee.

Guenhwyvar buried him where he stood.

Those men near Catti-brie fell over her in a rush, her sword working furiously to fend.

Drizzt leaped at the nearest duo, downward parrying both their swords with his left-hand scimitar, but not following down with the blade, but rather, suddenly releasing his opponents’ weapons as his second scimitar came up under them, using his opponents’ own inclination to help them lift their blades high.

Too high, and Drizzt went down low, to his knees, the opening clear. Both his blades started for exposed mid-sections, the pirates unable to defend.

“Drizzt Do’Urden!”

The call froze him, froze everyone, and all eyes, even Guenhwyvar’s, even those of Thurgood, who was struggling under the cat, glanced to the side, to see a tall and neatly-groomed middle-aged man stride into the room. He wore a long-tailed surcoat, with large brass buttons, and a cutlass was strapped to one hip.

“Deudermont?” Drizzt asked incredulously, surely recognizing the Captain of Sea Sprite .

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” Captain Deudermont said again, smiling, and he turned to Drizzt’s companion and said, “Catti-brie!”

All weapons lowered. A pair of men, priests obviously, rushed into the room from behind Deudermont, running to tend to the wounded.

“You were using this front to trap pirates?” Catti-brie asked.

“As were you?” the Captain asked back.

“Get this flea-ridden beast off of me,” came a growling demand, and they all turned to see Thurgood, flat on his back, Guenhwyvar straddling him.

Except of course, it wasn’t Thurgood and wasn’t any pirate captain, and as soon as Guenhwyvar stepped aside, the man, looking thin now, and dressed in robes, his magical disguise dismissed, stood up and brushed himself off imperiously.

Drizzt recognized him then as Sea Sprite’s resident wizard.

“Robillard?”

“The same,” said Deudermont, dryly and not without a bit of teasing aimed at the proud wizard.

Robillard scowled, and that made Drizzt recognize and remember the dour man even more acutely.

Drizzt pulled off his eyepatch and brushed his hair back, revealing his tell-tale lavender eyes as all the room about him settled fast, with weapons going back into sheaths. Still, more than a few of the men held wary gazes turned Drizzt’s way, and two of them even kept their weapons in hand.

For Drizzt, a drow making his way on the surface world where his race was feared and hated, there was little surprise in that reaction.

“To what does Waterdeep owe this visit?” Captain Deudermont asked as he came over, Catti-brie moving beside him. “And how fares King Bruenor and Mithral Hall?”

“We came to find Sea Sprite ,” Drizzt explained. “To accept Captain Deudermont’s offer to sail with him in the chase for pirates.”

The Captain’s face brightened at that remark, though more than a few of the men at the sides bristled once more.

“It would seem we have much to discuss,” Deudermont said.

“Indeed,” Drizzt replied. “We had hoped to provide a dowery upon our arrival, but it seems as if our dowery was in fact your own crew.”

Deudermont turned slyly to Catti-brie. “Your doing, no doubt.”

The woman shrugged.

“Here now, don’t you be telling us that we’re to sail beside a drow elf,” one of the men still holding a sword dared to remark.

“This is not any drow elf,” Deudermont replied. “You are new to the crew, Mandar, and so you do not remember the times these two sailed with us.”

“That’s not to matter,” said the other man who stood holding a weapon, and he, too, had only joined with Sea Sprite recently. “Drow’s a drow.”

A third voice echoed that sentiment, and several other men by the wall began to nod.

Deudermont offered Drizzt a wink and a shrug, and as Drizzt began to remark that he accepted the judgment without complaint, the tall Captain silenced him with an upraised hand. “I offered Drizzt Do’Urden a place aboard Sea Sprite ,” Deudermont said to them all. “A place earned by deed and not dismissed by the reputation of his race.”

“You cannot blame them their concern,” Robillard said.

Deudermont paused and thought on those words for a long moment. He looked to Drizzt, who stood impassively, Guenhwyvar by his side. He looked to Catti-brie, standing on the other side, and seeming far less accepting of the prejudice. She stared hard back at him, and Deudermont realized that her scowl was the only thing holding back tears of frustration.

“Ah, but I can and do blame them, my friend Robillard,” the Captain stated, turning to sweep them all under his wilting gaze. “I say that Drizzt Do’Urden is a worthy shipmate, proven in deed, and not only aboard Sea Sprite . Many here witnessed his work-you yourself among them.”

“I did,” the wizard admitted.

Drizzt started to say something, for he saw where this was leading, and never had it been his intent to incite a mutiny of Sea Sprite’s fine crew. But again, Captain Deudermont turned to him and stopped him before he could really begin the remarks, this time with a genuine and unconcerned smile.

“Often do I try to measure the character of my crew,” the Captain said quietly to Drizzt and Catti-brie. “This moment I see as an opportunity to look into a man’s heart.”

He turned back to the crewmen. “Drizzt will sail with Sea Sprite , and glad am I to receive him, and glad will all be when we engage with the pirates to have his curved blades working beside us, and his great panther beside us, and the marvelous Catti-brie beside us!”

The murmurs of protest began, but Deudermont spoke over them.

“Any who cannot accept this are dismissed from the crew,” he said. “Without judgment and without shame, but without recourse.”

“And if ye lose the whole of Sea Sprite’s crew?” one tough-looking leather-faced sailor said from the side.

Deudermont shrugged as if it did not matter, and indeed, Drizzt understood the genuine intentions behind that dismissal. “I will not, for Robillard is too great a man to surrender to such prejudices.”

He looked to the wizard, who turned to scowl at the crew, then walked over to stand beside Drizzt and Catti-brie-opposite of Guenhwyvar, however.

A moment later, another man walked over, and then a pair more. Then came one of the priests, along with the man who had been clipped by Catti-brie’s arrow.

Within a minute, the only two not standing beside Drizzt were the first two who had questioned the decision, both of them still standing, weapons in hand. They looked to each other and one said, “I ain’t for sailing with no drow.”

The other slid his weapon away and held up his hands, then turned to join the others.

“What’re ye doing, Mandar?”

“Deudermont says he’s okay.”

“Bah!” the first snorted, and he spat upon the floor. He stuck his weapon in his belt and stomped toward the group.