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

Lathan gripped the axe more tightly.

Spragan suffered no such reservations or uneasy feelings. He danced through the thick underbrush and among the many wildflowers, gathering twigs and small branches. It had been a long day and he was hungry. He licked his lips repeatedly, almost tasting the trout in anticipation.

He bent down to a shrub and picked up an old, dry, long-dead branch, eyes widening as he thought his job might be done with but one catch. He propped the branch against a tree and kicked at its center, breaking it in half, then bent to retrieve one of the pieces so he could break it again.

He froze halfway down, seeing that he was not alone.

She smiled at him as only a young girl could, bright and beaming, and with a shake of her head that sent her long auburn hair dancing over her girlish shoulders. Her dress, too, caught his attention, for it seemed so out of place, inadequate against the chill winds of Icewind Dale. White and full of ruffles, it seemed more a gown fitting for a grand ball in Bryn Shander than something one would wear into the forest. Even the black cloak tied around her shoulders appeared more fashionable than warm.

“What are you doing out … Who are you?” Spragan sputtered.

The girl smiled and stared at him.

“Do you live here?”

She giggled and dashed behind a tree.

Spragan dropped the branch and rushed to follow her, but when he went around the tree, she was nowhere to be seen.

She was behind him! He sensed it without turning. Spragan jumped forward a step and whirled around.

It was her, but it wasn’t her, the girl before him was his age, at least.

And she took his breath away. She had to be the older sister of the child he’d just seen, with her bright smile, flowing reddish-brown hair, and blue eyes-so blue he seemed to sink right into them as he stared at her. But it wasn’t her older sister, Spragan sensed. It was the same girl, only older, and dressed the same. Confused, the poor young man reached for her arm.

His hand went right through her as she vanished, just faded to nothingness.

A young girl’s giggle had him spinning back around, and there she was, right there, and no older than eight.

And she was gone again. A woman’s laughter turned him once more, and she was as old as his mother, though still incredibly beautiful.

A young girl again. A teenager, like him. A child once more. A woman, no more a girl. An old crone … One after another they appeared to him, all around him, laughing-laughing at him! — and turning him this way and that. Poor Spragan jumped around, then tried to sprint away, stumbling down the hillside.

Singing filled the air around him, sweet and melancholy, and peppering him with a range of emotions. He tried to pick up speed, but stumbled again then caught himself fast against one tree and skidded to an abrupt halt as he used it to turn around.

And she was there, right in front of him, a woman again, perhaps twenty-five years of age. She wasn’t singing anymore, and wasn’t smiling, her face tight, her eyes intense. Spragan shrank back from her, but his legs wouldn’t heed his command to run.

The woman breathed deeply, her arms lifting to her sides, her form blurring suddenly as the air around her shimmered with some unknown energy. Her hair blew back and fluttered wildly, though there was no wind, and her layered gown did likewise as she rose up tall before him-no, not tall, he realized to his horror! She floated in the air! And purple flames erupted all around her, and her eyes rolled up into her head, showing only white.

Spragan gave a cry of horror and hot winds buffeted him and flung him to the ground.

“Who are you?” he cried, scrambling to his knees.

The wind came on more furiously, carrying twigs that nicked at him as they flew past, and sand that stung his eyes and reddened his face. He rose against the blow and turned.

She was still there, floating in the air, flames dancing around her, hair flying wildly.

Then she was a little girl again, but no less ominous-indeed more threatening as her eyes rolled back to show blue, and her mouth opened wide in a sinister hiss.

Spragan ran past her, and he was half-running and half-flying as the wind gripped him and rushed him along. He cried out and tried to duck, but too late. Even though he managed to lift an arm, it served as little defense as he smashed into a low branch and was thrown onto his back.

The ground below him reverberated with music, like a heartbeat, and the air hummed with the woman’s song.

Words flitted through poor Spragan’s mind: “ghost” … “banshee” … But whatever it was, whatever she was, he knew beyond doubt that he was doomed. Though dazed, his nose broken, he tried to run on, blood filling his mouth, tears dulling his vision.

But she was there at every turn, young or old, and terribly beautiful.

So terribly beautiful.

Lathan set the axe between his feet, spat in both his hands, and gripped the handle tightly. He gave a growl as he lifted the axe back over his right shoulder, lining up his first strike on the young elm tree, but he had to pause when the axe brushed the branch of a nearby pine.

Lathan looked at it curiously, wondering how he hadn’t noticed it was so close. With a shrug, he shifted a step to the side and hoisted the axe once more.

A gust of wind hit him just as he began his swing, and the pine beside him swayed in the sudden breeze, and again his axe clipped through needled branches as it came forth, and before it could gain any momentum, it got hooked on one of those branches and held fast.

“What the-?” Lathan asked aloud as he turned to regard the tree.

Then the wind began to blow more furiously, and the pine danced as wildly as Lathan’s blond hair. Stubbornly he tugged at the axe, but the tree held it fast.

“No, you don’t!” he growled in defiance, and with a great tug, he tore the axe free. Before the wind could interfere again, he turned and swung at the elm.

But the tree was faster, bending low and to the side, sweeping past him with a great whoosh , and as Lathan tried to continue his swing, he found his legs pulled out from under him, throwing him facedown to the ground, the axe bouncing from his grasp. And still the tree wound back, pulling the caught Lathan with it, though he clawed desperately at the ground to stop his slide.

Finally he did stop, and he rolled, trying to free his foot.

The wind stopped as abruptly as it had come up, and that seemed a good thing to Lathan only as long as it took him to realize that he was caught in the branch of a rather tall pine tree that was bent low.

He managed to gasp before the rush of the tree’s return swing snatched him up and took his breath away, lifting him high and fast into the air, only to let him go at exactly the right moment.

Screaming, spinning, flailing wildly and helplessly, Lathan flew through the forest. Every instant, he cringed, thinking he was about to splatter against a tree or branch, but each time he somehow missed, as if the forest was getting out of his way.

On he flew, out of the forest, and below him, Roundabout looked up, mouth agape. Over the boat and the dock he went, out to the waters of Lac Dinneshere, where he landed with a great splash.

“Ashelia! Wizard!” Roundabout cried, sprinting to the boat to grab a rope or something to throw to the lad, who flailed in the water some thirty feet out from the dock.

The two came out of the cabin just as a second missile soared overhead, much higher and farther than Lathan. Easily a hundred feet out from the dock, the woodsman’s axe splashed into the waters of Lac Dinneshere.

Roundabout’s very first throw of the rope proved perfect, but still it took them some time to pull the shivering, terrified Lathan from the frigid water.