Robert Salvatore - The Legacy

"You meant to kill me," Drizzt replied coldly.

Again the mercenary shrugged, and a smile widened on his face. "Vierna would have killed me if she had won and I had not come to her aid," he explained calmly. "And, skilled as you may be, I thought she would win."

It seemed logical enough, and Drizzt knew well that pragmatism was a common trait among dark elves. "Lloth would reward you still for my death," Drizzt reasoned.

"I do not slave for the Spider Queen," Jarlaxle replied. "I am an opportunist."

"You make a threat?"

The mercenary laughed loudly, then winced again at the throb in his broken leg.

Bruenor rushed into the chamber from the side passage. He glanced at Drizzt, then focused on Jarlaxle, his rage not yet played out.

"Hold!" Drizzt commanded him as the dwarf started for the apparently helpless mercenary.

Bruenor skidded to a stop and put a cold stare on Drizzt, a look made more ominous by the dwarf's ripped face, his right eye badly gouged and a line of blood running from the top of his forehead to the bottom of his left cheek. "We're not for needing prisoners," Bruenor growled.

Drizzt considered the venom in Bruenor's voice and considered the fact that he had not seen Wulfgar anywhere in this fight. "Where are the others?"

"I'm right here," replied Catti-brie, coming into the chamber from the main tunnel, behind Drizzt.

Drizzt turned to regard her, her dirty face and incredibly grim expression revealing much. "Wulf…" he started to ask, but Catti-brie shook her head solemnly, as though she could not bear to hear the name spoken aloud. She walked near Drizzt and he winced, seeing the small crossbow quarrel still sticking from the side of her jaw.

Drizzt gently stroked Catti-brie's face, then took hold of the obscene dart and yanked it free. He brought his hand immediately to the young woman's shoulder, lending her support as waves of nausea and pain swept over her.

"I pray I did not harm the panther," Jarlaxle interrupted, "a magnificent beast indeed!"

Drizzt spun about, his lavender eyes flashing.

"He's baiting ye," Bruenor remarked, his fingers moving eagerly over the handle of his bloody axe, "begging for mercy without the begging."

Drizzt wasn't so sure. He knew the horrors of Men zoberranzan, knew the lengths that some drow would travel to survive. His own father, Zaknafein, the drow Drizzt had loved most dearly, had been a killer, had served as Matron Malice's assassin out of a simple will to survive. Might it be that this mercenary was of similar pragmatism?

Drizzt wanted to believe that. With Vierna dead at his feet, his family, his ties to his heritage, were no more, and he wanted to believe that he was not alone in the world.

"Kill the dog, or we drag him back," Bruenor growled, his patience exhausted.

"What would be your choice, Drizzt Do'Urden?" Jarlaxle asked calmly.

Drizzt considered Jarlaxle once more. This one was not so much like Zaknafein, he decided, for he remembered his father's rage when it was rumored that Drizzt had slain surface elves. There was indeed an undeniable difference between Zaknafein and Jarlaxle. Zaknafein killed only those he believed deserved death, only those serving Lloth or other evil minions. He would not have walked beside Vierna on this hunt.

The sudden rage that welled up in Drizzt almost sent him rushing at the mercenary. He fought the impulse back, though, remembering again the weight of Menzoberranzan, the burden of pervasive evil that bowed the backs of those few dark elves who were not of typical demeanor. Zaknafein had admitted to Drizzt that he had almost lost himself to the ways of Lloth many times, and in his own trek through the Underdark Drizzt Do'Urden often feared what he would, what he had, become.

How could he pass judgment on this dark elf? The scimitars went back into their sheaths.

"He killed me boy!" Bruenor roared, apparently understanding Drizzt's intentions. Drizzt shook his head resolutely.

"Mercy is a curious thing, Drizzt Do'Urden," Jarlaxle remarked. "Strength, or weakness?" "Strength," Drizzt answered quickly. "It can save your soul," Jarlaxle replied, "or damn your body." He tipped his wide-brimmed hat to Drizzt, then moved suddenly, his arm coming free of his cloak. Something small slammed the floor in front of Jarlaxle, exploding, filling that area of the chamber with opaque smoke.

"Damn him!" Catti-brie growled, and she snapped off a streaking shot that cut through the haze and thundered against the stone of the far wall. Bruenor rushed in, axe flailing wildly, but there was nothing there to hit. The mercenary was gone.

By the time Bruenor came out of the smoke, both Drizzt and Catti-brie were standing over the prone form of Thib bledorf Pwent.

"He dead?" the dwarf king asked.

Drizzt bent to the battlerager, remembered that Pwent had been hit viciously by Vierna's snake-headed whip. "No," he replied. "The whips are not designed to kill, just to paralyze."

His keen ears caught the words as Bruenor muttered, "Too bad," under his breath.

It took them a few moments to revive the battlerager. Pwent hopped up to his feet-and promptly fell over once more. He struggled back up, humbled until Drizzt made the mistake of thanking him for his valuable help.

In the main corridor, they found the five dead drow, one still hanging near the ceiling in the area where the globe of darkness had been. Catti-brie's explanation of where this small band had come from sent a shudder through Drizzt.

"Regis," he breathed, and he rushed off down the hall way, to the side passage where he had left the halfling.

There sat Regis, terrified, half-buried under a dead drow, holding the jeweled dagger tightly in his hand.

"Come on, my friend," the relieved Drizzt said to him. "It is time we went home."

The five beaten companions leaned on each other as they made their way slowly and quietly through the tun nels. Drizzt looked around at the ragged group, at Bruenor with his eye closed and Pwent still having trouble coordinating his muscles. Drizzt's own foot throbbed painfully. The realization of the wound became clearer as the adrena line rush of battle slowly ebbed. It was not the physical problems that most alarmed the drow ranger, though. The impact of Wulfgar's loss seemed to have fully sunk in for all those who had been his companions.

Would Catti-brie be able to call upon her rage once more, to ignore the emotional battering she had taken and fight with all her heart? Would Bruenor, so wickedly wounded that Drizzt was not certain he would make it back to Mithril Hall alive, be able to guide himself through yet another battle?

Drizzt couldn't be sure, and his sigh of relief was sincere when General Dagna, at the lead of the dwarven cavalry and its grunting mounts, rounded the bend in the tunnel far ahead.

Bruenor allowed himself to collapse at the sight, and the dwarves wasted little time in getting their injured king, and Regis, strapped to war pigs and ushered out of the untamed complex. Pwent went, too, accepting the reins of a pig, but Drizzt and Catti-brie did not take a direct route back to Mithril Hall. Accompanied by the three displaced dwarven riders, General Dagna included, the young woman led Drizzt to Wulfgar's fateful cave.

There could be no doubt, Drizzt realized as soon as he looked at the collapsed alcove, no doubt, no reprieve. His friend was gone forever.

Catti-brie recounted the details of the battle, had to stop for a long while before she mustered the voice to tell of Wulfgar's valiant end.

She finally looked to the pile of rubble, quietly said "Good-bye," and walked out of the room with the three dwarves.

Drizzt stood alone for many minutes, staring helplessly. He could hardly believe that mighty Wulfgar was under there. The moment seemed unreal to him, against his sen sibilities.