Robert Salvatore - The Legacy

Catti-brie looked to Wulfgar for support, saw him staring her way with the same helpless expression Bruenor had placed over her.

The young woman looked away, having neither the time nor the inclination to berate the protective barbarian. She knew that Wulfgar continued to be worried more for her

than for himself-she could not chastise him for that-but Catti-brie, the fighter, knew, too, that if Wulfgar was looking out for her, his eyes would not be focused on the dangers ahead.

In this situation, she was a liability to the barbarian, not for any lack of fighting skills or survival talents, but because of Wulfgar's own weakness, his inability to view Catti-brie as an equal ally.

And with dark elves all about them, how badly they needed allies!

Using innate powers of levitation, the pursuing drow soldier eased himself out of the chute, his gaze immediately locking on the slumped form under the thick cloak across the corridor. He pulled out a heavy club and rushed across, crying out with joy for the rewards that certainly would come his way for recapturing Drizzt. The club came down, sounding unexpectedly sharp as it banged off the solid stone under Drizzt's cloak. As silent as death, Drizzt came down from his perch above the chute exit, right behind his adversary. The evil drow's eyes widened as he realized the deception, remembered then the stone lying opposite the chute. Drizzt's first instincts were to strike with the hilt of his scimitar; his heart asked him to honor his vow and take no more drow lives. A well-placed blow might drop this enemy and render him helpless. Drizzt could then bind him and strip him of his weapons.

If Drizzt were alone in these runnels, if it simply were a matter of his desire to escape Vierna and Entreri, he would have followed the cry of his merciful heart. He could not ignore his friends above, though, no doubt struggling against those enemies he had left behind. He could not chance that this soldier, recovered, would bring harm to Bruenor or Wulfgar or Catti-brie.

Twinkle came in point first, slicing through the doomed draw's backbone and heart, driving out the front of his chest, the blade's blue glow showing a reddish tint.

When he pulled the scimitar back out, Drizzt Do'Urden had more blood on his hands.

What turmoil I felt when first I broke my most solemn, principle-intentioned vow: that I would never again I take the life of one of my people. The pain, a sense of failure, a sense of loss, was acute when I realized what wicked work my scimitars had done.

The guilt faded quickly, though-not because I came to excuse myself for any failure, but because I came to realize that my true failure was in making the vow, not in breakingit. When I walked out of my homeland, I spoke the words out of innocence, the naivete of unworldly youth, and I meant them when I said them, truly. I came to know, though, that such a vow was unrealistic, that if I pursued a course in life as defender of those ideals I so cherished, I could not excuse myself from actions dictated by that course if ever the enemies showed themselves to be drow elves. Quite simply, adherence to my vow depended on situations completely beyond my control. If, after leaving Menzoberranzan, I had never again met a dark elf in battle, I never would have broken my vow. Rut that, in the end, would not have made me any more honorable. Fortunate circumstances do not equate la high principles.

When the situation arose, however, that dark elves threatened my dearest friends, precipitated a state of warfare against people who had done them no wrong, how could I, in good conscience, have kept my scimitars tucked away? What was my vow worth when weighed against the lives of Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie, or when weighed against the lives of any innocents, for that matter? If, in my travels, I happened upon a drow raid against surface elves, or against a small village, I know beyond any doubts that I would have joined in the fighting, battling the unlawful aggressors with all my strength.

In that event, no doubt, I would have felt the acute pangs of failure and soon wouldhave dismissed them, as I do now.

I do not, therefore, lament breaking my vow-though it pains me, as it always does, that I have had to kill. Nor do I regret mak ing the vow, for the declaration of my youthful folly caused no subsequent pain. If I had attempted to adhere to the uncondi tional words of that declaration, though, if I had held my blades in check for a sense of false pride, and if that inaction had subse quently resulted in injury to an innocent person, then the pain in Drizzt Do'Urden would have been more acute, never to leave.

There is one more point I have come to know concerning my declaration, one moretruth that I believe leads me farther along my chosen road in life.! said I would never again kill a drow elf. I made the assertion with little knowledge of the many other races of the wide world, surface and Underdark, with little understand ing that many of these myriad peoples even existed. I would never kill a drow, so I said, but what of the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes? Or the halflings, elves, or dwarves? And what of the humans?

I have had occasion to kill men, when Wulfgar's barbarian kin invaded Ten-Towns. To defend those innocents meant to battle, perhaps to kill, the aggressor humans. Yet thatact, unpleasant as it may have been, did not in any way affect my most solemn vow, despite the fact that the reputation of humankind far outshines that of the dark elves.

To say, then, that I would never again slay a drow, purely because they and I are ofthe same physical heritage, strikes me now as wrong, as simply racist. To place the measure of a living being's worth above that of another simply because that being wears the same color skin as I belittles my principles. The false values embodied in that long-ago vow have no place in my world, in the wide world of countless physical and cultural differences. It is these very differences that make my journeys exciting, these very differences that put new colors and shape in the universal concept of beauty.

I now make a new vow, one weighed in experience and proclaimed with my eyes open: I will not raise my scimitars except in defense: in defense of my principles, of my

life, or of others who cannot defend themselves. I will not do battle to further the causesof false prophets, to further the treasures of kings, or to avenge my own injured pride.

And to the many gold-wealthy mercenaries, religious and secular, who would look upon such a vow as unrealistic, impracti cal, even ridiculous, I cross my arms over mychest and declare with conviction: I am the richer by far!

— Drizzt Do'Urden

Silence! Vierna's delicate fingers signaled the command repeatedly in the intricate drow hand code.

Two handcrossbows clicked as their bow strings locked into a ready position. Their drow wielders crouched low, staring at the broken door.

From behind them, across the small chamber, there came a slight hiss as an arrow magically dissolved, releasing its dark elf victim, who slumped to the floor at the base of the wall. Dinin, the drider, shifted away from the fallen drow, his hard-skinned legs clacking against the stone, Silence!

Jarlaxle crawled to the edge of the blasted door, cocked an ear to the impenetrable blackness of the conjured globes. He heard a slight shuffling and drew out a dagger signaling to the crossbowmen to stand ready.

Jarlaxle stood them down when the figure, his scout, crawled out of the darkness and entered the room.

"They have gone," the scout explained as Vierna rushed over to join the mercenary leader. "A small group, and smaller still with one crushed under your most excellent wall." Both Jarlaxle and the guard bowed low in respect to Vierna, who smiled wickedly in spite of the sudden disaster.