Robert Salvatore: Sojourn

Roddy wasn’t surprised that Bruenor wouldn’t help him, but he knew well that the dwarf, or at least the girl, knew more about Drizzt’s whereabouts than they had let on. “If not for me, then for Bartholemew Thistledown, I beg ye, good dwarf, tell me if ye know where I might find the black demon. Or if ye don’t know, then give me some soldiers to help me sniff him out.”

“Me dwarves’ve much to do with the melt,” Bruenor explained. “Can’t be spared chasin’ another’s fiends.” Bruenor really didn’t care one way or another for Roddy’s gripe with the drow, but the mountain man’s story did confirm the dwarf’s belief that the dark elf should be avoided, particularly by his daughter. Bruenor actually might have helped Roddy and been done with it, more to get them both out of his valley than for any moral reasons, but he couldn’t ignore Catti-brie’s obvious distress.

Roddy unsuccessfully tried to hide his anger, looking for some other option. “Where would ye go if ye was runnin’, King Bruenor?” he asked. “Ye know the mountain better’n any living, so Cassius telled me. Where should I look?”

Bruenor found that he liked seeing the unpleasant human so distressed. “Big valley,” he said cryptically. “Wide mountain. Lot o’ holes.” He sat quiet for a long moment, shaking his head.

Roddy’s facade blew away altogether. “Ye’d help the murderin’ drow?” he roared. “Ye call yerself a king, but ye’d… ”

Bruenor leaped up from his stone throne, and Roddy backed away a cautious step and dropped a hand to Bleeder’s handle.

“I’ve the word o’ one rogue against another rogue!” Bruenor growled at him. “One’s as good—as bad!—as the other, by me guess!”

“Not by a Thistledown’s guess!” Roddy cried, and his dog, sensing his outrage, bared its teeth and growled menacingly.

Bruenor looked at the strange, yellow beast curiously. It was getting near dinnertime and arguments did so make Bruenor hungry! How might a yellow dog fill his belly? he wondered.

“Have ye nothing more to give to me?” Roddy demanded.

“I could give ye me boot,” Bruenor growled back. Several well-armed dwarven soldiers moved in close to make certain that the volatile human didn’t do anything foolish. “I’d offer ye supper,” Bruenor continued, “but ye smell too bad for me table, and ye don’t seem the type what’d be takin’ a bath.”

Roddy yanked his dog’s rope and stormed away, banging his heavy boots and slamming through each door he came upon. At Bruenor’s nod, four soldiers followed the mountain man to make certain that he left without any unfortunate incidents. In the formal audience hall, the others laughed and howled about the way their king had handled the human.

Catti-brie didn’t join in on the mirth, Bruenor noted, and the dwarf thought he knew why. Roddy’s tale, true or not, had instilled some doubts in the girl.

“So now ye have it,” Bruenor said to her roughly, trying to push her over the edge in their running argument. “The drow’s a hunted killer. Now ye’ll take me warnings to heart, girl!”

Catti-brie’s lips disappeared in a bitter bite. Drizzt had not told her much about his life on the surface, but she could not believe that this drow whom she had come to know would be capable of murder. Neither could Catti-brie deny the obvious: Drizzt was a dark elf, and to her more experienced father, at least, that fact alone gave credence to McGristle’s tale.

“Ye hear me, girl?” Bruenor growled.

“Ye’ve got to get them all together,” Catti-brie said suddenly. “The drow and Cassius, and ugly Roddy McGristle. Ye’ve got to—”

“Not me problem!” Bruenor roared, cutting her short. Tears came quickly to Catti-brie’s soft eyes in the face of her father’s sudden rage. All the world seemed to turn over before her. Drizzt was in danger, and more so was the truth about his past. Just as stinging to Catti-brie, her father, whom she had loved and admired for all her remembered life, seemed now to turn a deaf ear to the calls for justice.

In that horrible moment, Catti-brie did the only thing an eleven-year-old could do against such odds—she turned from Bruenor and fled.

Catti-brie didn’t really know what she meant to accomplish when she found herself running along the lower trails of Kelvin’s Cairn, breaking her promise to Bruenor. Catti-brie could not refuse her desire to come, though she had little to offer Drizzt beyond a warning that McGristle was looking for him.

She couldn’t sort through all the worries, but then she stood before the drow and understood the real reason she had ventured out. It was not for Drizzt that she had come, though she wanted him safe. It was for her own peace.

“Ye never speaked o’ the Thistledowns of Maldobar,” she said icily in greeting, stealing the drow’s smile. The dark expression that crossed Drizzt’s face clearly showed his pain.

Thinking that Drizzt, by his melancholy, had accepted blame for the tragedy, the wounded girl spun and tried to flee. Drizzt caught her by the shoulder, though, turned her about, and held her close. He would be a damned thing indeed if this girl, who had accepted him with all her heart, came to believe the lies.

“I killed no one,” Drizzt whispered above Catti-brie’s sobs, “except the monsters that slew the Thistledowns. On my word!” He recounted the tale then, in full, even telling of his flight from Dove Falconhand’s party.

“And now I am here,” he concluded, “wishing to put the experience behind me, though never, on my word, shall I ever forget it!”

“Ye weave two tales apart,” Catti-brie replied. “Yerself an’ McGristle, I mean.”

“McGristle?” Drizzt gasped as though his breath had been blasted from his body. Drizzt hadn’t seen the burly man in years and had thought Roddy to be a thing of his distant past.

“Came in today,” Catti-brie explained. “Big man with a yellow dog. He’s hunting ye.”

The confirmation overwhelmed Drizzt. Would he ever escape his past? he wondered. If not, how could he ever hope to find acceptance?

“McGristle said ye killed them,” Catti-brie continued.

“Then you have our words alone,” Drizzt reasoned, “and there is no evidence to prove either tale.” The ensuing silence seemed to go for hours.

“Never did like that ugly brute.” Catti-brie sniffed, and she managed her first smile since she had met McGristle.

The affirmation of their friendship struck Drizzt profoundly, but he could not forget the trouble that was now hovering all about him. He would have to fight Roddy, and maybe others if the bounty hunter could stir up resentment—not a difficult task considering Drizzt’s heritage. Or Drizzt would have to run away, again accept the road as his home.

“What’ll ye do?” Catti-brie asked, sensing his distress.

“Do not fear for me,” Drizzt assured her, and he gave her a hug as he spoke, one that he knew might be his way of saying good-bye. “The day grows long. You must get back to your home.”

“He’ll find ye,” Catti-brie replied grimly.

“No,” Drizzt said calmly. “Not soon anyway. With Guenhwyvar by my side, we will keep Roddy McGristle away until I can figure my best course. Now, be off! The night comes swiftly and I do not believe that your father would appreciate your coming here.”

The reminder that she would have to face Bruenor again set Catti-brie in motion. She bid Drizzt farewell and turned away, then rushed back up to the drow and threw a hug around him. Her step was lighter as she moved back down the mountain. She hadn’t resolved anything for Drizzt, at least as far as she knew, but the drow’s troubles seemed a distant second compared to her own relief that her friend was not the monster some claimed him to be.