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

But Deudermont stopped him with an upraised hand. “You’ll not accept him. Not truly. And so I do not accept you. Come to Sea Sprite in the morning for your final pay, and then go where you will.”

“But …” he started to protest.

“Your heart is clear to me, and it is not acceptable. Be gone.”

The man spat again, turned and stormed away.

“He was willing to join us,” Mandar protested.

“In body, but not in heart,” explained Deudermont. “When we are out there, on the open waters, we have no one to depend upon but each other. If a pirate’s sword was about to slay Drizzt Do’Urden, would he have rushed to block it?”

“Would any?” Mandar remarked.

“Fare well, Mandar,” Deudermont said without the slightest hesitation. “You, too, may come to Sea Sprite in the morning for your final payment.”

Mandar stuttered and spat, then gave a little laugh and walked away.

Deudermont didn’t watch him go, but turned to his crew and said, “Any others?”

“We did not mean to cause such trouble,” Drizzt remarked when it was apparent that no one else would leave.

“Trouble?” Deudermont echoed. “For Sea Sprite , I judge a man’s worth by his blade. But that is second, for more important is his character, is his willingness to put all aside and serve in absolute unity with the rest of the crew. Any who cannot do that are not welcomed to sail with me.”

“I am drow. This is not a typical situation.”

“Indeed, it is one of those times when I can see more clearly into the heart of a man. Sea Sprite’s crew is stronger this day, and not just for the addition of two …” he looked down at Guenhwyvar and corrected, “of three valuable newcomers.”

Drizzt looked to Catti-brie, who was smiling widely, and he understood that her contentment was justified. This was Captain Deudermont, as they remembered him, and both had silently prayed that their memories had not stilted with the passage of time and their fervent hopes that had taken them across so many miles.

“Welcome aboard, Drizzt Do’Urden, Catti-brie and Guenhwyvar,” Deudermont said, warmly and honestly.

The words rang like music in the ears of the rogue drow elf.

Winter, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR)

He looked out at the night sky with an expression of complete derision, for the rogue drow, Tos’un Armgo, had hoped he would never again look upon the vast ceiling of the overworld. Years ago, during the drow raid on Mithral Hall, Tos’un had lost his companions and his House, preferring desertion to the continued insanity and deadly war that had gripped Menzoberranzan.

He had found friends, a group of similar dark elf renegades, and together the four had forged a fine life along the upper tunnels of the Underdark, and even among the surface dwellers-notably King Obould of the orcs. The four had played a major role in spurring the invasion that had taken Obould’s army to the gates of Mithral Hall. The drow instigators had covertly formed an alliance between Obould and the frost giants of the northern mountains, and they had goaded the orc king with visions of glory.

But Tos’un’s three drow companions were dead. The last to fall, the priestess Kaer’lic, had been slain before Tos’un’s eyes by King Obould himself. Only his speed and sheer luck had saved Tos’un from a similar fate.

So he was alone. No, not alone, he corrected himself as he dropped a hand onto the crafted hilt of Khazid’hea, a sentient sword he had found beneath the devastated site where Obould had battled Drizzt Do’Urden.

Wandering the trails of Obould’s newfound kingdom, with smelly, stupid orcs encamped all around him, Tos’un had reached the conclusion that the time had come for him to leave the World Above, to go back to the deep tunnels of the Underdark, perhaps even to find his way back to Menzoberranzan and his kin. A deep cave had brought him to a tunnel complex, and trails through the upper Underdark led him to familiar ground, back to the old abode he had shared with his three drow compatriots. From there, Tos’un knew his way to the deeper tunnels.

And so he walked, but with every step his doubts grew. Tos’un was no stranger to the Underdark; he had lived the first century of his life as a noble soldier in the ranks of House Barrison del’Armgo of Menzoberranzan. He had led drow scouting parties out into the tunnels, and had even twice guarded caravans bound for the trade city of Ched Nasad.

He knew the Underdark.

He knew, in his heart, that he could not survive those tunnels alone.

Each step came more slowly and deliberately than the previous. Doubts clouded his thoughts, and even the small voice in his head that he knew to be Khazid’hea’s empathetic communication urged him to turn back.

Out of the tunnel, the stars above him, the cold wind blowing in his face, Tos’un stood alone and confused.

We will find our place , Khazid’hea telepathically assured him. We are stronger than our enemies. We are more clever than our enemies .

Tos’un Armgo couldn’t help but wonder if the sentient sword had included Drizzt Do’Urden and King Obould in those estimations.

A campfire flared to life off in the distance, or a cooking fire, and the sight of it reminded the drow that he hadn’t eaten in more than a day.

“Let us go and find some well-supplied orcs,” he said to his growling stomach. “I am hungry.”

Khazid’hea agreed.

Khazid’hea was always hungry.

Sunlight glistened off the white-feathered wings of the equine creature as Drizzt Do’Urden brought the pegasus in a steep bank and turn. Astride her own pegasus to the north of the drow elf, the elf Innovindil caught the view in dramatic fashion, contrasted as it was by the great dark clouds hovering over the Trollmoors to the south. The pair had set out from Mithral Hall three days before, confident that the standoff between the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer and the invading orc army would hold throughout the brutal winter months. Drizzt and Innovindil had to go far to the west, all the way to the Sword Coast, to retrieve the body of Ellifain, a fallen moon elf and kin to Innovindil, slain at the hands of Drizzt in a tragic misunderstanding.

They had started out traveling south and southwest, thinking to pass over the city of Nesme on the northern banks of the dreaded Trollmoors to see how the rebuilding was commencing after the carnage of the previous summer. They had thought to cross over Nesme, skirting the Trollmoors so that they could catch a more southerly route to the west and the distant city of Luskan.

It was bitterly cold up in the sky with winter beginning to blow. Sunrise and Sunset, their pegasi mounts, didn’t complain, but Innovindil and Drizzt could only remain in the air for short periods of time, so cold was the wind on their faces. Bruenor had given both of them fine seal coats and cloaks, thick mittens and hoods, but the wind bit too hard at any and all exposed skin for the pair to remain aloft.

As Drizzt came around in his lazy turn, Innovindil began to motion for him to put down on a plateau directly west of his position. But the drow beat her to the movement, motioning west and a bit to the north instead-and not for her to descend, but only to look.

Her expression soured as soon as she turned that way, for she didn’t miss the drow’s target: a line of black specks-orcs, she knew-moving south along a narrow trail.

Sunrise flew under her mount as Drizzt began a slow, circling descent. He put a hand to one of his scimitars and drew it a bit from its sheath, then nodded, silently asking the elf if she was up for a fight.

Innovindil smiled back at him as she guided Sunset into Sunrise’s wake, following Drizzt’s descent.