Robert Salvatore: Sojourn

“You have a way with horses,” remarked Mateus. “Never did you mention that you were a skilled rider.”

Drizzt only nodded and did his very best to remain in the saddle when the horse started into a trot. It took the drow many moments to figure out how to control the beast and he had circled far to the east—the wrong way—before he managed to turn about. Throughout the circuit, Drizzt tried hard to keep up his facade, and the friars, never ones for horses themselves, merely nodded and smiled.

Hours later, Drizzt was riding hard to the west, following the southern edge of the Spine of the World.

“The Weeping Friars,” Roddy McGristle whispered, looking down from a stony bluff at the band as they made their way back toward Mirabar’s tunnel later that same week.

“What?” Tephanis gawked, rushing from his sack to join Roddy, For the very first time, the sprite’s speed proved a liability. Before he even realized what he was saying, Tephanis blurted, “It-cannot-be! The-dragon… ”

Roddy’s glare fell over Tephanis like the shadow of a thundercloud.

“I-mean-I-assumed… ” Tephanis sputtered, but he realized that Roddy, who knew the tunnel better than he and knew, too, the sprite’s ways with locks, had pretty much guessed the indiscretion.

“Ye took it on yerself to kill the drow,” Roddy said calmly.

“Please, my-master,” Tephanis replied. “I-did-not-mean… I-feared-for-you. The-drow-is-a-devil, I-say! I-sent-them-down-the-dragon’s-tunnel. I-thought-that-you… ”

“Forget it,” Roddy growled. “Ye did what ye did, and no more about it. Now get in yer sack. Mighten that we can fix what ye done, if the drow’s not dead.”

Tephanis nodded, relieved, and zipped back into the sack. Roddy scooped it up and called his dog to his side.

“I’ll get the friars talking,” the bounty hunter vowed, “but first… ” Roddy whipped the sack about, slamming it into the stone wall.

“Master!” came the sprite’s muffled cry.

“Ye drow-stealin… ” Roddy huffed, and he beat the sack mercilessly against the unyielding stone. Tephanis squirmed for the first few whacks, even managed to begin a tear with his little dagger. But then the sack darkened with wetness and the sprite struggled no more.

“Drow-stealing mutant,” Roddy mumbled, tossing the gory package away. “Come on, dog. If the drow’s alive, the friars’ll know where to find him.”

The Weeping Friars were an order dedicated to suffering, and a couple of them, particularly Jankin, had indeed suffered much in their lives. None of them, though, had ever imagined the level of cruelty they found at the hands of wild-eyed Roddy McGristle, and before an hour had passed, Roddy, too, was driving hard to the west along the southern edge of the mountain range.

The cold eastern wind filled his ears with its endless song. Drizzt had heard it every second since he had rounded the western edge of the Spine of the World and turned north and then east, into the barren stretch of land named for this wind, Icewind Dale. He accepted the mournful groan and the wind’s freezing bite willingly, for to Drizzt the rush of air came as a gust of freedom.

Another symbol of that freedom, the sight of the wide sea, came as the drow rounded the mountain range. Drizzt had visited the shoreline once, on his passage to Luskan, and now he wanted to pause and go the few miles to its shores again. But the cold wind reminded him of the impending winter, and he understood the difficulty he would find in traveling the dale once the first snows had fallen.

Drizzt spotted Kelvin’s Cairn, the solitary mountain on the tundra north of the great range, the first day after he had turned into the dale. He made for it anxiously, visualizing its singular peak as the marking post to the land he would call home. Tentative hope filled him whenever he focused on that mountain.

He passed several small groups, solitary wagons or a handful of men on horseback, as he neared the region of Ten-Towns along the caravan route, a southwestern approach. The sun was low in the west and dim, and Drizzt kept the cowl of his fine cloak pulled low, hiding his ebony skin. He nodded curtly as each traveler passed.

Three lakes dominated the region, along with the peak of rocky Kelvin’s Cairn, which rose a thousand feet above the broken plain and was capped with snow even through the short summer. Of the ten towns that gave the area its name, only the principle city, Bryn Shander, stood apart from the lakes. It sat above the plain, on a short hill, its flag whipping defiantly against the stiff wind. The caravan route, Drizzt’s trail, led to this city, the region’s principle marketplace.

Drizzt could tell from the rising smoke of distant fires that several other communities were within a few miles of the city on the hill. He considered his course for a moment, wondering if he should go to one of these smaller, more secluded towns instead of continuing straight on to the principle city.

“No,” the drow said firmly, dropping a hand into his pouch to feel the onyx figurine. Drizzt kicked his horse ahead, up the hill to the walled city’s forbidding gates.

“Merchant?” asked one of the two guards standing bored before the iron-bound portal. “Ye’re a bit late in the year for trading.”

“No merchant,” Drizzt replied softly, losing a good measure of his nerve now that the hour was upon him. He reached up slowly to his hood, trying to keep his trembling hand moving.

“From what town, then?” the other guard asked. Drizzt dropped his hand back, his courage deflected by the blunt question.

“From Mirabar,” he answered honestly, and then, before he could stop himself and before the guards posed another distracting question, he reached up and pulled back his hood.

Four eyes popped wide and hands immediately dropped to belted swords.

“No!” Drizzt retorted suddenly. “No, please.” A weariness came into both his voice and his posture that the guards could not understand. Drizzt had no strength left for senseless battles of misunderstanding. Against a goblin horde or a marauding giant, the drow’s scimitars came easily into his hands, but against one who only battled him because of misperceptions, his blades weighed heavily indeed.

“I have come from Mirabar,” Drizzt continued, his voice growing steadier with each syllable, “to Ten-Towns to reside in peace.” He held his hands out wide, offering no threat.

The guards hardly knew how to react. Neither of them had ever seen a dark elf—though they knew beyond doubt that Drizzt was one—or knew more about the race than fireside tales of the ancient war that had split the elven peoples apart.

“Wait here,” one of the guards breathed to the other, who didn’t seem to appreciate the order. “I will go inform Spokesman Cassius.” He banged on the iron-bound gate and slipped inside as soon as it was opened wide enough to let him through. The remaining guard eyed Drizzt unblinking, his hand never leaving his sword hilt.

“If you kill me, a hundred crossbows will cut you down,” he declared, trying but utterly failing to sound confident.

“Why would I?” Drizzt asked innocently, keeping his hands wide apart and his posture unthreatening. This encounter had gone well so far, he believed. In every other village he had dared approach, those first seeing him had fled in terror or chased him with bared weapons.

The other guard returned a short time later with a small and slender man, clean-shaven and with bright blue eyes that scanned continuously, taking in every detail. He wore fine clothes, and from the respect the two guards showed the man, Drizzt knew at once that he was of high rank.