Robert Salvatore - The Legacy

"Hope ye wasn't Bruenor's pet drow," the battlerager remarked, suddenly realizing that the whole incident might have been an honest mistake. "Oh, well, can't be helped now!"

Cobble, magically inspecting for traps ahead, instinctively winced as another arrow zipped past his shoulder, its silver shine diminishing into the brightly lit chamber beyond. The dwarven cleric forced himself back to his work, wanting to be done quickly, that he might loose the charge of Bruenor and the others.

A crossbow quarrel dove into his leg, but the cleric wasn't too concerned about its buglike sting or its poison, for he had placed enchantments upon himself to slow the drug's effects. Let the dark elves hit him with a dozen such bolts; it would be hours before Cobble fell to sleep.

His scan of the corridor complete, with no immediate traps discerned, Cobble called back to others, who were impatient and already moving toward him. When the cleric looked back, though, in the dim light emanating from the enemies' chamber, he noticed something curious across the floor: metallic shavings.

"Iron?" he whispered. Instinctively his hand went into his bulging pouch, filled with enchanted pebble bombs, and he went into a defensive crouch, holding his free hand out behind him to warn the others back.

When he focused within the general din of the sudden battle, he heard a female draw voice, chanting, spell-casting.

The dwarf's eyes widened in horror. He turned back, yelling for his friends to be gone, to run away. He, too, tried to run, his boots slipping across the smooth stone, so fast did his little legs begin to move.

He heard the drow spell-caster's crescendo.

The iron shavings immediately became an iron wall, unsupported and angled, and it fell over poor Cobble.

There came a great gush of wind, the great explosion of tons of iron slamming against the stone floor, and flying spurts of pressure-squeezed blood and gore whipped back into the faces of the three stunned companions. A hundred small explosions, a hundred tiny sparkling bursts, rang hollowly under the collapsed iron wall.

"Cobble," Catti-brie breathed helplessly.

The magical light in the distant chamber went away. A ball of darkness appeared just outside the chamber door, blocking the end of the passageway. A second ball of darkness came up, just ahead of the first, and a third after that, covering the back edge of the fallen iron wall.

"Get charging!" Thibbledorf Pwent cried at them, coming back into the corridor and rushing past his hesitating friends.

A ball of darkness appeared right in front of the battlerager, stopping him short. Hand crossbow after hand crossbow clicked unseen behind the blackness, sending stinging little darts whipping out.

"Back!" Bruenor cried. Catti-brie loosed another arrow; Pwent, hit a dozen times, began to slump to the stone. Wulfgar grabbed him by the helmet spike and started away after the red-bearded dwarf.

"Drizzt," Catti-brie moaned quietly. She dropped low to one knee, firing another arrow and another after that, hoping that her friend would not come running out of the room into danger's path.

A quarrel, oozing poison, clicked against her bow and bounced harmlessly wide.

She could not stay.

She fired one more time, then turned and ran after her father and the others, away from the friend she had come to rescue.

Drizzt fell a dozen feet, slammed against the sloping side of the chute, and careened along a winding and swiftly descending way. He held tightly to his scimitars; his greatest fear was that one of them would get away from him and wind up cutting him in half as he bounced along.

He did a complete loop, managed to somersault to put his feet out in front of him, but inadvertently got turned back around at the next vertical drop, the ending slam nearly knocking him unconscious.

Just as he thought he was gaining control, was about to turn himself about once more, the chute opened up diagonally into a lower passageway. Drizzt rifled out, though he kept the presence of mind to hurl his scimitars to their respective sides, clear of his tumbling body.

He hit the floor hard, rolled across, and slammed his lower back into a jutting boulder.

Drizzt Do'Urden lay very still.

He did not consider the pain-fast changing to numbness-in his legs; he did not inspect the many scrapes and bruises the tumbling ride had given him. He did not even think of Entreri, and at that agonizing moment, one notion overruled even the loyal dark elf's compelling fears for his friends.

He had broken his vow.

When young Drizzt had left Menzoberranzan, after killing Masoj Hun'ett, a fellow dark elf, he had vowed that he would never again kill a drow. That vow had held up, even when his family had come after him in the wilds of the Underdark, even when he had battled his eldest sister. Zaknafein's death had been fresh in his mind and his desire to kill

the wicked Briza as great as any desire he had ever felt. Half mad from grief, and from ten years of surviving in the merciless wilds, Drizzt still had managed to hold to his vow.

But not now. There could be no doubt that he had killed the guardsman at the top of the chute; his scimitars had cut fine lines, a perfect X across the dark elf's throat.

It had been a reaction, Drizzt reminded himself, a necessary move if he meant to be free of Vierna's gang. He had not precipitated the violence, had not asked for it in any way. He could not reasonably be blamed for taking whatever action necessary to escape from Vierna's unjust court, and to aid his friends, coming in against powerful adversaries.

Drizzt could not reasonably be blamed, but as he lay there, the feeling gradually returning to his bruised legs, Drizzt's conscience could not escape the simple truth of the matter.

He had broken his vow.

Bruenor led them blindly through the twisting maze of corridors, Wulfgar right behind and carrying the snoring Pwent (and getting a fair share of cuts from the battlerager's sharp-ridged armor!). Catti-brie slipped along at his side, pausing whenever pursuit seemed close behind to launch an arrow or two.

Soon the halls were quiet, save the group's own clamor — too quiet, by the frightened companions' estimation. They knew how silent Drizzt could move, knew that stealth was the dark elves' forte.

But where to run? They could hardly figure out where they were in this little known region, would have to stop and take time to get their bearings before they could make a reasonable guess on how to get back to familiar territory.

Finally, Bruenor came upon a small side passage that branched three ways, each fork branching again just a short way in. Following no predetermined course, the red-bearded dwarf led them in, left then right, and soon they came into a small chamber, goblin worked and with a large slab of stone just inside the low entryway. As soon as they at! were in, Wulfgar leaned the slab against the portal and fell back against it.

"Drow!" Catti-brie whispered in disbelief. "How did they come to Mithril Hall?"

"Why, not how," Bruenor corrected quietly. "Why are the elf's kin in me tunnels?

"And what?" Bruenor continued grimly. He looked to his daughter, his beloved Catti-brie, and to Wulfgar, the proud lad he had helped mold into so fine a man, a sincerely grave expression on the dwarf's bristling cheeks. "What have we landed ourself into this time?"

Catti-brie had no answer for him. Together the companions had battled many monsters, had overcome incredible obstacles, but these were dark elves, infamous drow, deadly, evil, and apparently with Drizzt in their clutches, if indeed he still drew breath. The mighty friends had gone in fast and strong to rescue Drizzt, had struck the dark elves by surprise. They had been simply overmatched, driven back without catching more than a fleeting glimpse of what might have been their lost friend.