Robert Salvatore: Sojourn

Again Bleeder came from the side. This time, Drizzt did not dodge. He stepped within the arc of the axe blade and blocked with one weapon, leaving Roddy open for a strike with the other scimitar. Three quick right jabs closed one of Roddy’s eyes, but the bounty hunter only grinned and charged, catching hold of Drizzt and bearing the lighter combatant to the ground.

Drizzt squirmed and slapped, understanding that his conscience had betrayed him. In such close quarters, he could not match Roddy’s strength, and his limited movements destroyed his advantage of speed. Roddy held his position on top and maneuvered one arm to chop down with Bleeder.

A yelp from his yellow dog was the only warning he got, and that didn’t register enough for him to avoid the panther’s rush. Guenhwyvar bowled Roddy off Drizzt, slamming him to the ground. The burly man kept his wits enough to swipe at the panther as it continued past, nicking Guenhwyvar on the rear flank.

The stubborn dog came rushing in, but Guenhwyvar recovered, pivoted right around Roddy, and drove it away.

When Roddy turned back to Drizzt, he was met by a savage flurry of scimitar blows that he could not follow and could not counter. Drizzt had seen the strike on the panther and the fires in his lavender eyes no longer indicated compromise. A hilt smashed Roddy’s face, followed by the flat of the other blade. A foot kicked his stomach, his chest, and then his groin in what seemed a single motion. Impervious, Roddy accepted it all with a snarl, but the enraged drow pressed on. One scimitar caught again under the axe head, and Roddy moved to charge, thinking to bear Drizzt to the ground once more.

Drizzt’s second weapon struck first, though, slicing across Roddy’s forearm. The bounty hunter recoiled, grasping at his wounded limb as Bleeder fell to the ground.

Drizzt never slowed. His rush caught Roddy off guard and several kicks and punches left the man reeling. Drizzt then leaped high into the air and kicked straight out with both feet, connecting squarely on Roddy’s jaw and dropping him heavily to the ground. Still Roddy, shrugged it off and tried to rise, but this time, the bounty hunter felt the edges of two scimitars come to rest on opposite sides of his throat.

“I told you to be on your way,” Drizzt said grimly, not moving his blades an inch but letting Roddy feel the cold metal acutely.

“Kill me,” Roddy said calmly, sensing a weakness in his opponent, “if ye got the belly for it!”

Drizzt hesitated, but his scowl did not soften. “Be on your way,” he said with as much calm as he could muster, calm that denied the coming trial he knew he would face.

Roddy laughed at him. “Kill me, ye black-skinned devil!” he roared, bulling his way, though he remained on his knees, toward Drizzt. “Kill me or I’ll catch ye! Not for doubtin’, drow. I’ll hunt ye to the corners o’ the world and under it if need!”

Drizzt blanched and glanced at Guenhwyvar for support.

“Kill me!” Roddy cried, bordering on hysteria. He grabbed Drizzt’s wrists and pulled them forward. Lines of bright blood appeared on both sides of the man’s neck. “Kill me as ye killed my dog!”

Horrified, Drizzt tried to pull away, but Roddy’s grip was like iron.

“Ye got not the belly for it?” the bounty hunter bellowed. “Then I’ll help ye!” He jerked the wrists sharply against Drizzt’s pull, cutting deeper lines, and if the crazed man felt pain, it did not show through his unyielding grin.

Waves of jumbled emotions assaulted Drizzt. He wanted to kill Roddy at that moment, more out of stupefied frustration than vengeance, and yet he knew that he could not. As far as Drizzt knew, Roddy’s only crime was an unwarranted hunt against him and that was not reason enough. For all that he held dear, Drizzt had to respect a human life, even one as wretched as Roddy McGristle’s.

“Kill me!” Roddy shouted over and over, taking lewd pleasure in the drow’s growing disgust.

“No!” Drizzt screamed in Roddy’s face with enough force to silence the bounty hunter. Enraged to a point where he could not contain his trembling, Drizzt did not wait to see if Roddy would resume his insane cry. He drove a knee into Roddy’s chin, pulled his wrists free of Roddy’s grasp, then slammed his weapon hilts simultaneously into the bounty hunter’s temples.

Roddy’s eyes crossed, but he did not swoon, stubbornly shaking the blow away. Drizzt slammed him again and again, finally beating him down, horrified at his own actions and at the bounty hunter’s continuing defiance.

When the rage had played itself out, Drizzt stood over the burly man, trembling and with tears rimming his lavender eyes. “Drive that dog far away!” he yelled to Guenhwyvar. Then he dropped his bloodied blades in horror and bent down to make sure that Roddy was not dead.

Roddy awoke to find his yellow dog standing over him. Night was fast falling and the wind had picked up again. His head and arm ached, but he dismissed the pain, wanting only to resume his hunt, confident now that Drizzt would never find the strength to kill him. His dog caught the scent at once, leading back to the south, and they set off. Roddy’s nerve dissipated only a little when they came around a rocky outcropping and found a red-bearded dwarf and a girl waiting for him.

“Ye don’t be touchin’ me girl, McGristle,” Bruenor said evenly. “Ye just shouldn’t be touchin’ me girl.”

“She’s in league with the drow!” Roddy protested. “She told the murdering devil of my comin’!”

“Drizzt’s not a murderer!” Catti-brie yelled back. “He never did kill the farmers! He says ye’re saying that just so others’ll help ye to catch him!” Catti-brie realized suddenly that she had just admitted to her father that she had met with the drow. When Catti-brie had found Bruenor, she had told him only of McGristle’s rough handling.

“Ye went to him,” Bruenor said, obviously wounded. “Ye lied to me, an’ ye went to the drow! I telled ye not to. Ye said ye wouldn’t… ”

Bruenor’s lament stung Catti-brie profoundly, but she held fast to her beliefs. Bruenor had raised her to be honest, but that included being honest to what she knew was right. “Once ye said to me that everyone gets his due,” Catti-brie retorted. “Ye telled me that each is different and each should be seen for what he is. I’ve seen Drizzt, and seen him true, I tell ye. He’s no killer! And he’s—” She pointed accusingly at McGristle—”a liar! I take no pride in me own lie, but never could I let Drizzt get caught by this one!”

Bruenor considered her words for a moment, then wrapped one arm about her waist and hugged her tightly. His daughter’s deception still stung, but the dwarf was proud that his girl had stood up for what she believed. In truth, Bruenor had come out here, not looking for Catti-brie, whom he believed was sulking in the mines, but to find the drow. The more he recounted his fight with the remorhaz, the more Bruenor became convinced that Drizzt had come down to help him, not to fight him. Now, in light of recent events, few doubts remained.

“Drizzt came and pulled me free of that one,” Catti-brie went on. “He saved me.”

“Drow’s got her mixed,” Roddy said, sensing Bruenor’s growing attitude and wanting no fight with the dangerous dwarf. “He’s a murderin’ dog, I say, and so would Bartholemew Thistledown if a dead man could!”

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “Ye don’t know me girl or ye’d be thinking the better than to call her a liar. And I telled ye before, McGristle, that I don’t like me daughter shook! Me thinkin’s that ye should be gettin’ outa me valley. Me thinkin’s that ye should be goin’ now.”