Homeland de-1

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  His face the exultation of ecstacy, the drow warrior tore his sword free and sliced it across, taking the head from the elven female’s shoulders.

  "Vengeance!" he cried at Drizzt, his face contorted in furious glee, his eyes burning with a light that shone demonic to the stunned Drizzt. The warrior hacked at the lifeless body one more time, then spun away in search of another kill.

  Only a moment later, another elf, this one a young girl, broke free of the massacre and rushed in Drizzt’s direction, screaming a single word over and over. Her cry was in the tongue of the surface elves, a dialect foreign to Drizzt, but when he looked upon her fair face, streaked with tears, he understood what she was saying. Her eyes were on the mutilated corpse at his feet, her anguish outweighed even the terror of her own impending doom. She could only be crying, "Mother!"

  Rage, horror, anguish, and a dozen other emotions racked Drizzt at that horrible moment. He wanted to escape his feelings, to lose himself in the blind frenzy of his kin and accept the ugly reality. How easy it would have been to throw away the conscience that pained him so.

  The elven child rushed up before Drizzt but hardly saw him, her gaze locked upon her dead mother, the back of the child’s neck open to a single, clean blow. Drizzt raised his scimitar, unable to distinguish between mercy and murder.

  "Yes, my brother!" Dinin cried out to him, a call that cut through his comrades’ screams and whoops and echoed in Drizzt’s ears like an accusation. Drizzt looked up to see Dinin, covered from head to foot in blood and standing amid a hacked cluster of dead elves.

  "Today you know the glory it is to be a drow!" Dinin cried, and he punched a victorious fist into the air. "today we appease the Spider Queen!"

  Drizzt responded in kind, then snarled and reared back for a killing blow.

  He almost did it. In his unfocused outrage, Drizzt Do’Urden almost became as his kin. He almost stole the life from that beautiful child’s sparkling eyes.

  At the last moment, she looked up at him, her eyes shining as a dark mirror into Drizzt’s blackening heart. In that reflection, that reverse image of the rage that guided his hand, Drizzt Do’Urden found himself.

  He brought the scimitar down in a mighty sweep, watching Dinin out of the corner of his eye as it whisked harmlessly past the child. In the same motion, Drizzt followed with his other hand, catching the girl by the front of her tunic and pulling her face-down to the ground.

  She screamed, unharmed but terrified, and Drizzt saw Dinin thrust his fist into the air again and spin away.

  Drizzt had to work quickly the battle was almost at its gruesome end. He sliced his scimitars expertly above the huddled child’s back, cutting her clothing but not so much as scratching her tender skin. Then he used the blood of the headless corpse to mask the trick, taking grim satisfaction that the elven mother would be pleased to know that, in dying, she had saved the life of her daughter.

  "Stay down." he whispered in the child’s ear. Drizzt knew that she could not understand his language, but he tried to keep his tone comforting enough for her to guess at the deception. He could only hope he had done an adequate job a moment later, when Dinin and several others came over to him.

  "Well done!" Dinin said exuberantly, trembling with sheer excitement. "A score of the orc-bait dead and not a one of us even injured! The matrons of Menzoberranzan will be pleased indeed, though we’ll get no plunder from this pitiful lot!" He looked down at the pile at Drizzt’s feet, then clapped his brother on the shoulder.

  "Did they think they could get away?" Dinin roared.

  Drizzt fought hard to sublimate his disgust, but Dinin was so entranced by the bloodbath that he wouldn’t have noticed anyway.

  "Not with you here!" Dinin continued. "Two kills for Drizzt!"

  "One kill!" protested another, stepping beside Dinin.

  Drizzt set his hands firmly on the hilts of his weapons and gathered up his courage. If this approaching drow had guessed the deception, Drizzt would fight to save the elven child. He would kill his companions, even his brother, to save the little girl with the sparkling eyes, until he himself was slain. At least then Drizzt would not have to witness their slaughter of the child.

  Luckily, the problem never came up. "Drizzt got the child." the drow said to Dinin, "but I got the elder female. I put my sword right through her back before your brother ever brought his scimitars to bear!"

  It came as a reflex, an unconscious strike against the evil all about him. Drizzt didn’t even realize the act as it happened, but a moment later, he saw the boasting drow lying on his back, clutching at his face and groaning in agony. Only then did Drizzt notice the burning pain in his hand, and he looked down to see his knuckles, and the scimitar hilt they clutched, spattered with blood.

  "What are you about?" Dinin demanded.

  Thinking quickly, Drizzt did not even reply to his brother.

  He looked past Dinin, to the squirming form on the ground, and transferred all the rage in his heart into a curse that the others would accept and respect. "If ever you steal a kill from me again." he spat, sincerity dripping from his false words, "I will replace the head lost from its shoulders with your own!"

  Drizzt knew that the elven child at his feet, though doing her best, had begun a slight shudder of sobbing, and he decided not to press his luck. "Come, then." he growled. "Let us leave this place. The stench of the surface world fills my mouth with bile!"

  He stormed away, and the others, laughing, picked up their dazed comrade and followed.

  "Finally." Dinin whispered as he watched his brother’s tense strides. "Finally you have learned what it is to be a drow warrior!"

  Dinin, in his blindness, would never understand the irony of his words.

  "We have one more duty before we return home." the cleric explained to the group when it reached the cave’s entrance. She alone knew of the raid’s second purpose. "The matrons of Menzoberranzan have bid us to witness the ultimate horror of the surface world, that we might warn our kindred."

  Our kindred? Drizzt mused, his thoughts black with sarcasm. As far as he could see, the raiders had already witnessed the horror of the surface world, themselves!

  "There!" Dinin cried, pointing to the eastern horizon.

  The tiniest shading of light limned the dark outline of distant mountains. A surface dweller would not even have noticed it, but the dark elves saw it clearly, and all of them, even Drizzt, recoiled instinctively.

  "It is beautiful." Drizzt dared to remark after taking a moment to consider the spectacle.

  Dinin’s glare came at him icy cold, but no colder than the look the cleric cast Drizzt’s way.

  "Remove your cloaks and equipment, even your armor." she instructed the group."Quickly. Place them within the shadows of the cave so that they will not be affected by the light."

  When the task was completed, the cleric led them out into the growing light. "Watch." was her grim command.

  The eastern sky assumed a hue of purplish pink, then pink altogether, its brightening causing the dark elves to squint uncomfortably. Drizzt wanted to deny the event, to put it into the same pile of anger that denied the master of Lore’s words concerning the surface elves.

  Then it happened, the top rim of the sun crested the eastern horizon. The surface world awakened to its warmth, its life-giving energy. Those same rays assaulted the drow elves’ eyes with the fury of fire, tearing into orbs unaccustomed to such sights.

  "Watch!" the cleric cried at them. "Witness the depth of the horror!"

  One by one, the raiders cried out in pain and fell into the cave’s darkness, until Drizzt stood alone beside the cleric in the growing daylight. Truly the light assaulted Drizzt as keenly as it had his kin, but he basked in it, accepting it as his purgatory, exposing him for all to view while its stinging fires cleansed his soul.

  "Come." the cleric said to him at length, not understanding his actions. "We have borne witness. We may now return to our homeland."

  "Homeland?" Dri
zzt replied, subdued.

  "Menzoberranzan!" the cleric cried, thinking the male confused beyond reason. "Come, before the inferno burns the skin from your bones. Let our surface cousins suffer the flames, a fitting punishment for their evil hearts!" Drizzt chuckled hopelessly. A fitting punishment? He wished that he could pluck a thousand such suns from the sky and set them in every chapel in Menzoberranzan, to shine eternally.

  Then Drizzt could take the light no more. He scrambled dizzily back into the cave and donned his outfit. The cleric had the orb in hand, and Drizzt again was the first through the tiny crack. When all the group rejoined in the tunnel beyond, Drizzt took his position at the point and led them back into the descending path’s deepening gloom, back down into the darkness of their existence.

  Chapter 21

  May It Please The Goddess

  "Did you please the goddess?" Matron Malice asked, her question as much a threat as an inquiry. At her side, the other females of House Do’Urden, Briza, Vierna, and Maya, looked on impassively, hiding their jealousy.

  "Not a single drow was slain." Dinin replied, his voice thick with the sweetness of drow evil. "We cut them and slashed them!" He drooled as his recounting of the elven slaughter brought back the lust of the moment. "Bit them and ripped them!"

  "What of you?" the matron mother interrupted, more concerned with the consequences to her own family’s standing than with the raid’s general success.

  "Five." Dinin answered proudly. "I killed five, all of them females!"

  The matron’s smile thrilled Dinin. Then Malice scowled as she turned her gaze on Drizzt. "And him?" she inquired, not expecting to be pleased with the answer. Malice did not doubt her youngest son’s prowess with weapons, but she had come to suspect that Drizzt had too much of Zaknafein’s emotional makeup to ever be an attribute in such situations.

  Dinin’s smile confused her. He walked over to Drizzt and draped an arm comfortably across his brother’s shoulders.

  "Drizzt got only one kill." Dinin began, "but it was a female child."

  "Only one?" Malice growled.

  From the shadows off to the side, Zaknafein listened in dismay. He wanted to shut out the elderboy Do’Urden’s damning words, but they held Zak in their grip. Of all the evils Zak had ever encountered in Menzoberranzan, this surely had to be the most disappointing. Drizzt had killed a child.

  "But the way he did it!" Dinin exclaimed. "He hacked her apart, sent all of Lolth’s fury slicing into her twitching body! The Spider Queen must have treasured that kill above all the others."

  "Only one." Matron Malice said again, her scowl hardly softening.

  "He would have had two." Dinin continued. "Shar Nadal of House Maevret stole one from his blade, another female."

  "Then Lolth will look with favor on House Maevret." Briza reasoned.

  "No." Dinin replied. "Drizzt punished Shar Nadal for his actions. The son of House Maevret would not respond to the challenge."

  The memory stuck in Drizzt’s thoughts. He wished that Shar Nadal had come back at him, so he could have vented his rage more fully. Even that wish sent pangs of guilt coursing through Drizzt.

  "Well done, my children." Malice beamed, now satisfied that both of them had acted properly in the raid. "The Spider Queen will look upon House Do’Urden with favor for this event. She will guide us to victory over this unknown house that seeks to destroy us."

  Zaknafein left the audience hall with his eyes down and one hand nervously rubbing his sword’s hilt. Zak remembered the time he had deceived Drizzt with the light bomb, when he had Drizzt defenseless and beaten. He could have spared the young innocent from his horrid fate. He could have killed Drizzt then and there, mercifully, and released him from the inevitable circumstances of life in Menzoberranzan.

  Zak paused in the long corridor and turned back to watch the chamber. Drizzt and Dinin came out then, Drizzt casting Zak a single, accusatory look and pointedly turning away down a side passage.

  The gaze cut through the weapon master. "So it has come to this." Zak murmured to himself. "The youngest warrior of House Do’Urden, so full of the hate that embodies our race, has learned to despise me for what I am."

  Zak thought again of that moment in the training gym, that fateful second when Drizzt’s life teetered on the edge of a poised sword. It indeed would have been a merciful act to kill Drizzt at that time.

  With the sting of the young drow warrior’s gaze still cutting so keenly into his heart, Zak couldn’t decide whether the deed would have been more merciful to Drizzt or to himself.

  "Leave us." Matron SiNafay commanded as she swept into the small room lighted by a candle’s glow. Alton gawked at the request it was, after all, his personal room! Alton prudently reminded himself that SiNafay was the matron mother of the family, the absolute ruler of House Hun’ett. With a few awkward bows and apologies for his hesitation, he backed out of the room.

  Masoj watched his mother cautiously as she waited for Alton to move away. From SiNafay’s agitated tone, Masoj understood the significance of her visit. Had he done something to anger his mother? Or, more likely, had Alton? When SiNafay spun back on him, her face twisted in evil glee, Masoj realized that her agitation was really excitement.

  "House Do’Urden has erred!" she snarled. "It has lost the Spider Queen’s favor!"

  "How?" Masoj replied. He knew that Dinin and Drizzt had returned from a successful raid, an assault that all of the city was talking about in tones of high praise.

  "I do not know the details." Matron SiNafay replied, finding a measure of calmness in her voice. "One of them, perhaps one of the sons, did something to displease Lolth. This was told to me by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen. It must be true!"

  "Matron Malice will work quickly to correct the situation." Masoj reasoned. "How long do we have?"

  "Lolth’s displeasure will not be revealed to Matron Malice." SiNafay replied. "Not soon. The Spider Queen knows all. She knows that we plan to attack House Do’Urden, and only an unfortunate accident will inform Matron Malice of her desperate situation before her house is crushed!"

  "We must move quickly." Matron SiNafay went on. "Within ten cycles of Narbondei, the first strike must fall! The full battle will begin soon after, before House Do’Urden can link its loss to our wrongdoing."

  "What is to be their sudden loss?" Masoj prompted, thinking, hoping, he had already guessed the answer.

  His mother’s words were like sweet music to his ears.

  "Drizzt Do’Urden." she purred, "the favored son. Kill him". Masoj rested back and clasped his slender fingers behind his head, considering the command.

  "You will not fail me." SiNafay warned.

  "I will not." Masoj assured her. "Drizzt, though young, is already a powerful foe. His brother, a former master of Melee-Magthere, is never far from his side." He looked up at his matron mother, his eyes gleaming. "May I kill the brother, too?"

  "Be cautious, my son." SiNafay replied. "Drizzt Do’Urden is your target. Concentrate your efforts toward his death.

  "As you command." Masoj replied, bowing low. SiNafay liked the way her young son heeded to her desires without question. She started out of the room, confident in Masoj’s ability to perform the task.

  "If Dinin Do’Urden somehow gets in the way." she said, turning back to throw Masoj a gift for his obedience, "you may kill him, too."

  Masoj’s expression revealed too much eagerness for the second task.

  "You will not fail me!" SiNafay said again, this time in an open threat that stole some of the wind out of Masoj’s filling sails. "Drizzt Do’Urden must die within ten days!"

  Masoj forced any distracting thoughts of Dinin out of his mind. "Drizzt must die." he whispered over and over, long after his mother had gone. He already knew how he wanted to do it. He only had to hope that the opportunity would come soon.

  The awful memory of the surface raid followed Drizzt, haunted him, as he wandered the halls of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon. He had rushed from
the audience chamber as soon as Matron Malice had dismissed him, and had slipped away from his brother at the first opportunity, wanting only to be alone.

  The images remained, the broken sparkle in the young elven girl’s eyes as she knelt over her murdered mother’s corpse the elven woman’s horrified expression, twisting in agony as Ghar Nadal ripped the life from her body. The surface elves were there in Drizzt’s thoughts; he could not dismiss them. They walked beside Drizzt as he wandered, as real as they had been when Drizzt’s raiding group had descended upon their joyful song.

  Drizzt wondered if he would ever be alone again. Eyes down, consumed by his empty sense of loss, Drizzt did not mark the path before him. He jumped back, startled, when he turned a corner and bumped into somebody. He stood facing Zaknafein.

  "You are home." the weapon master said absently, his blank face revealing none of the tumultuous emotions swirling through his mind.

  Drizzt wondered if he could properly hide his own grimace. "For a day." he replied, equally nonchalant, though his rage with Zaknafein was no less intense. Now that Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of drow elves firsthand, Zak’s reputed deeds rang out to Drizzt as even more evil. "My patrol group goes back out at Narbondel’s first light."

  "So soon?" asked Zak, genuinely surprised.

  "We are summoned." Drizzt replied, starting past. Zak caught him by the arm.

  "General patrol?" he asked.

  "Focused." Drizzt replied. "Activity in the eastern tunnels."

  "So the heroes are summoned." chuckled Zak.

  Drizzt did not immediately respond. Was there sarcasm in Zak’s voice? Jealousy, perhaps, that Drizzt and Dinin were allowed to go out to fight, while Zak had to remain within the House Do’Urden’s confines to fulfill his role as the family’s fighting instructor? Was Zak’s hunger for blood so great that he could not accept the duties thrust upon them all?