Robert Salvatore - The Two Swords

Drizzt leaped up high as the greatsword cut across below him. He landed lightly and charged forward at his foe, and Obould instinctively reacted by throwing his sword across in front of him.

The greatsword burst into flame, but the startled Drizzt reacted perfectly, slapping Icingdeath across it.

The magic of the scimitar overruled the fires of the greatsword, extinguishing them in a puff of angry gray smoke, and it was Obould, suddenly, who was caught by surprise, just as he had started forward to overwhelm the drow. His hesitation gave Drizzt yet another opening, and the drow took a different tact, diving low and wedging himself between the orc's legs, thinking to spin and twist and send Obould tumbling away.

How might the armored turtle fight while lying on its back?

That clever thought met with the treelike solidity of King Obould's legs, for though Drizzt hit the orc full force, Obould's foot did not slip back a single inch.

Though dazed, the drow knew he had to move at once, before Obould could bring the sword around and skewer him where he crouched. He started to go, and realized he was quick enough to escape that blade.

But so did Obould, and so the orc did not focus on his sword, but rather kicked out hard. His armored foot crunched into the drow's chest and sent Drizzt flying back ten feet to land hard on his back. Gasping for breath that would not come, Drizzt rolled aside just as Obould's sword came down, smashing the stone where he'd just been lying.

The drow moved with all speed, twisting and turning, putting his feet under him, and throwing himself aside to barely avoid another great slash.

He couldn't fully avoid a second kick as the orc went completely on the offensive. The clip, glancing at it was, sent him tumbling once more. The drow finally straightened out enough to throw himself into a backward roll that put him on his feet once more, squarely facing the charging orc.

Drizzt yelled and charged, but only a single step before he burst out to the side.

He couldn't win, so he ran.

Down the side of the stony hill he went, the shouts of the orcs form the other hill and the taunts of Obould chasing him every step. He cut a fast turn around a jag in the stone, wanting to get out of sight of the archers, then cut again onto a straight descending path. His heart leaped when he saw Sunrise waiting for him, pawing the ground. As he neared, he realized that the pegasus was no longer wearing the harness.

Sunrise started running even as Drizzt leaped astride, and only a few steps off, the horse leaped into the air and spread his great wings, taking flight.

* * * * *

Gerti led the barrage, launching a stone that soared high into the air, not far behind the flying horse and drow rider. Her dozen escorting giants let fly as well, filling the air with boulders.

Not one scored a hit on the drow, though, for Gerti's instructions had been quite clear. As the pegasus banked, the giantess managed to catch the drow's attention, and his slight nod confirmed everything between them.

"He failed us, so why not kill him?" the giant beside Gerti asked.

"His hatred for Obould will only grow," the giantess explained. "He will try again. His role in this drama is not yet done."

She looked back to the hillock as she spoke, to see Obould standing imperiously, his greatsword raised in defiance, and behind him, the shamans and other orcs howled for him, and for Gruumsh.

Gerti looked back to Drizzt and hoped her prediction would prove correct.

"Find a way to kill him, Drizzt Do'Urden," she whispered, and she recognized the desperation in her own voice and was not pleased.

There is a balance to be found in life between the self and the community, between the present and the future. The world has seen too much of tyrants interested in the former, selfish men and women who revel in the present at the expense of the future. In theoretical terms, we applaud the one who places community first, and looks to the betterment of the future.

After my experiences in the Underdark, alone and so involved in simple survival that the future meant nothing more than the next day, I have tried to move myself toward that latter, seemingly desirable goal. As I gained friends and learned what friendship truly was, I came to view and appreciate the strength of community over the needs of the self. And as I came to learn of cultures that have progressed in strength, character, and community, I came to try to view all of my choices as an historian might centuries from now. The long-term goal was placed above the short-term gain, and that goal was based always on the needs of the community over the needs of the self.

After my experiences with Innovindil, after seeing the truth of friends lost and love never realized, I understand that I have only been half right.

"To be an elf is to find your distances of time. To be an elf is to live several shorter life spans." I have learned this to be true, but there is something more. To be an elf is to be alive, to experience the joy of the moment within the context of long-term desires. There must be more than distant hopes to sustain the joy of life.

Seize the moment and seize the day. Revel in the joy and fight all the harder against despair.

I had something so wonderful for the last years of my life. I had with me a woman whom I loved, and who was my best of friends. Someone who understood my every mood, and who accepted the bad with the good. Someone who did not judge, except in encouraging me to find my own answers. I found a safe place for my face in her thick hair. I found a reflection of my own soul in the light in her blue eyes. I found the last piece of this puzzle that is Drizzt Do'Urden in the fit of our bodies.

Then I lost her, lost it all.

And only in losing Catti-brie did I come to see the foolishness of my hesitance. I feared rejection. I feared disrupting that which we had. I feared the reactions of Bruenor and later, when he returned from the Abyss, of Wulfgar.

I feared and I feared and I feared, and that fear held back my actions, time and again.

How often do we all do this? How often do we allow often irrational fears to paralyze us in our movements. Not in battle, for me, for never have I shied from locking swords with a foe. But in love and in friendship, where, I know, the wounds can cut deeper than any blade.

Innovindil escaped the frost giant lair, and now I, too, am free. I will find her. I will find her and I will hold onto this new friendship we have forged, and if it becomes something more, I will not be paralyzed by fear.

Because when it is gone, when I lay at death's door or when she is taken from me by circumstance or by a monster, I will have no regrets.

That is the lesson of Shallows.

When first I saw Bruenor fall, when first I learned of the loss of my friends, I retreated into the shell of the Hunter, into the instinctual fury that denied pain. Innovindil and Tarathiel moved me past that destructive, self-destructive state, and now I understand that for me, the greatest tragedy of Shallows lies in the lost years that came before the fall.

I will not make that mistake again. The community remains above the self; the good of the future outweighs the immediate desires. But not so much, perhaps. There is a balance to be found, I know now, for utter selflessness can be as great a fault as utter selfishness, and a life of complete sacrifice, without joy, is, at the end, a lonely and empty existence.

– Drizzt Do'Urden

He knew that Innovindil had escaped, of course, but Drizzt could not deny his soaring heart one clear and calm afternoon, when he first spotted the large creature in the distance flying above the rocky plain. He put Sunrise into swift pursuit, and the pegasus, seeming no less excited than he, flew off after the target with all speed. Just a few seconds later, Drizzt knew that he, too, had been spotted, for his counterparts turned his way and Sunset's wings beat the air with no less fervor than those of Sunrise.