Sojourn

by R. A. Salvatore

  There was only the darkness, the stones, and the wind.

  23. A Memory Come to Life

  The season’s first snow fell lazily over Icewind Dale, large flakes drifting down in mesmerizing zigzag dances, so different from the wind-whipped blizzards most common to the region. The young girl, Catti-brie, watched it with obvious enchantment from the doorway of her cavern home, the hue of her deep-blue eyes seeming even purer in the reflection of the ground’s white blanket.

  “Late in comin’, but hard when it gets here,” grumbled Bruenor Battlehammer, a red-bearded dwarf, as he came up behind Catti-brie, his adopted daughter. “Suren to be a hard season, as are all in this place for white dragons!”

  “Oh, me Daddy!” replied Catti-brie sternly. “Stop yer whining! Suren ‘tis a beautiful fall, and harmless enough without the wind to drive it.”

  “Humans,” huffed the dwarf derisively, still behind the girl. Catti-brie could not see his expression, tender toward her even as he grumbled, but she didn’t need to. Bruenor was nine parts bluster and one part grouch, by Catti-brie’s estimation.

  Catti-brie spun on the dwarf suddenly, her shoulder-length, auburn locks twirling about her face. “Can I go out to play?” she asked, a hopeful smile on her face. “Oh, please, me Daddy!”

  Bruenor forced on his best grimace. “Go out!” he roared. “None but a fool’d look for an Icewind Dale winter as a place for playin’! Show some sense, girl! The season’d freeze yer bones!”

  Catti-brie’s smile disappeared, but she refused to surrender so easily. “Well said for a dwarf,” she retorted, to Bruenor’s horror. “Ye’re well enough fit for the holes and the less ye see o’ the sky, the more ye’re smiling! But I’ve a long winter ahead, and this might be me last chance to see the sky. Please, Daddy?”

  Bruenor could not hold his snarling visage against his daughter’s charm, but he did not want her to go out. “I’m fearing there’s something prowlin’ out there,” he explained, trying to sound authoritative. “Sensed it on the climb a few nights back, though I never seen it. Mighten be a white lion, or a white bear. Best to… ” Bruenor never finished, for Catti-brie’s disheartened look more than destroyed the dwarf’s imagined fears.

  Catti-brie was no novice to the dangers of the region. She had lived with Bruenor and his dwarven clan for more than seven years. A raiding goblin band had killed Gatti-brie’s parents when she was only a toddler, and, though she was human, Bruenor had taken her in as his own.

  “Ye’re a hard one, me girl,” Bruenor said in answer to Catti-brie’s relentless, sorrow-filled expression. “Go out and find yer play, then, but don’t ye be goin’ too far! On yer word, ye spirited filly, keep the caves in sight and a sword and horn on yer belt.”

  Catti-brie rushed over and planted a wet kiss on Bruenor’s cheek, which the taciturn dwarf promptly wiped away, grumbling at the girl’s back as she disappeared into the tunnel. Bruenor was the leader of the clan, as tough as the stone they mined. But every time Catti-brie planted an appreciative kiss on his cheek, the dwarf realized he had given in to her.

  “Humans!” the dwarf growled again, and he stomped down the tunnel to the mine, thinking to batter a few pieces of iron, just to remind himself of his toughness.

  * * *

  It was easy for the spirited young girl to rationalize her disobedience when she looked back across the valley from the lower slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, more than three miles from Bruenor’s front door. Bruenor had told Catti-brie to keep the caves in sight, and they were, or at least the wider terrain around them was, from this high vantage point.

  But Catti-brie, happily sliding down one bumpy expanse, soon found a flaw in not heeding to her experienced father’s warnings. She had come to the bottom, a delightful ride, and was briskly rubbing the stinging chill out of her hands, when she heard a low and ominous growl.

  “White lion,” Catti-brie mouthed silently, remembering Bruenor’s suspicion. When she looked up, she saw that her father’s guess had not quite hit the mark. It was indeed a great feline the girl saw looking down at her from a bare, stony mound, but the cat was black, not white, and a huge panther, not a lion.

  Defiantly, Catti-brie pulled her knife from its sheath. “Keep yerself back, cat!” she said, only the slightest tremor in her voice, for she knew that fear invited attack from wild animals.

  Guenhwyvar flattened its ears and plopped to its belly, then issued a long and resounding roar that echoed throughout the stony region.

  Catti-brie could not respond to the power in that roar, or to the very long and abundant teeth the panther showed. She searched around for some escape but knew that no matter which way she ran she could not get beyond the panther’s first mighty spring.

  “Guenhwyvar!” came a call from above. Catti-brie looked back up the snowy expanse to see a slender, cloaked form picking a careful route toward her. “Guenhwyvar!” the newcomer called again. “Be gone from here!”

  The panther growled a throaty reply, then bounded away, leaping the snow-covered boulders and springing up small cliffs as easily as if it were running across a smooth and flat field.

  Despite her continuing fears, Catti-brie watched the departing panther with sincere admiration. She had always loved animals and had often studied them, but the interplay of Guenhwyvar’s sleek muscles was more majestic than anything she had ever imagined. When she at last came out of her trance, she realized that the slender figure was right behind her. She whirled about, knife still in hand.

  The blade dropped from her grasp and her breathing halted abruptly as soon as she looked upon the drow.

  Drizzt, too, found himself stunned by the encounter. He wanted to make certain that the girl was all right, but when he looked upon Catti-brie, all thoughts of his purpose faded away in a flood of memories.

  She was about the same age as the sandy-haired boy on the farm, Drizzt noted initially, and that thought inevitably brought back the agonizing memories of Maldobar. When Drizzt looked more closely, though, into Catti-brie’s eyes, his thoughts were sent flying back further into his past, to his days marching alongside his dark kin. Catti-brie’s eyes possessed that same joyful and innocent sparkle that Drizzt had seen in the eyes of an elven child, a girl he had rescued from the savage blades of his raiding kin. The memory overwhelmed Drizzt, sent him whirling back to that bloody glade in the elven wood, where his brother and fellow drow had brutally slaughtered an elven gathering. In the frenzy, Drizzt had almost killed the elven child, had almost put himself forever on that same dark road that his kin so willingly followed.

  Drizzt shook himself free of the recollection and reminded himself that this was a different child of a different race. He meant to speak a greeting, but the girl was gone.

  That damning word, “drizzit,” echoed in the drow’s thoughts several times as he made his way back to the cave he had set up as his home on the mountain’s northern face.

  * * *

  That same night, the onslaught of the season began in full. The cold eastern wind blowing off the Reghed Glacier drove the snow into high, impassable drifts.

  Catti-brie watched the snow forlornly, fearing that many weeks might pass before she could again go to Kelvin’s Cairn. She hadn’t told Bruenor or any of the other dwarves about the drow, for fear of punishment and that Bruenor would drive the drow away. Looking at the piling snow, Catti-brie wished that she had been braver, had remained and talked to the strange elf. Every howl of the wind heightened that wish and made the girl wonder if she had lost her only chance.

  “I’m off to Bryn Shander,” Bruenor announced one morning more than two months later. An unexpected break had come in Icewind Dale’s normal seven-month winter, a rare January thaw. Bruenor eyed his daughter suspiciously for a long moment. “Ye’re meanin’ to go out yerself this day?” he asked.

  “If I may,” Catti-brie answered. “The caves’re tight around me and the wind’s not so cold.”

  “I’ll get a dwarf or two to go with ye,” Bruenor
offered.

  Catti-brie, thinking that now might be her chance to go back to investigate the drow, balked at the notion. “They’re all for mendin’ their doors!” she retorted, more sharply than she intended. “Don’t ye be botherin’ them for the likes of meself!”

  Bruenor’s eyes narrowed. “Ye’ve too much stubbornness in ye.”

  “I get it from me dad,” Catti-brie said with a wink that shot down any more forthcoming arguments.

  “Take care, then,” Bruenor began, “and keep—”

  “… the caves in sight!” Catti-brie finished for him. Bruenor spun about and stomped out of the cave, grumbling helplessly and cursing the day he had ever taken a human in for a daughter. Catti-brie only laughed at the unending facade.

  Once again it was Guenhwyvar who first encountered the auburn-haired girl. Catti-brie had set straight out for the mountain and was making her way around its westernmost trails when she spotted the black panther above her, watching her from a rock spur.

  “Guenhwyvar,” the girl called, remembering the name the drow had used. The panther growled lowly and dropped from the spur, moving closer.

  “Guenhwyvar?” Catti-brie said again, less certain, for the panther was only a few dozen strides away. Guenhwyvar’s ears came up at the second mention of the name and the cat’s taut muscles visibly relaxed.

  Catti-brie approached slowly, one deliberate step at a time. “Where’s the dark elf, Guenhwyvar?” she asked quietly. “Can ye take me to him?”

  “And why would you want to go to him?” came a question from behind.

  Catti-brie froze in her tracks, remembering the smooth-toned, melodic voice, then turned slowly to face the drow. He was only three steps behind her, his lavender-eyed gaze locking onto hers as soon as they met. Catti-brie had no idea of what to say, and Drizzt, absorbed again by memories, stood quiet, watching and waiting.

  “Be ye a drow?” Catti-brie asked after the silence became unbearable. As soon as she heard her own words, she privately berated herself for asking such a stupid question.

  “I am,” Drizzt replied. “What does that mean to you?”

  Catti-brie shrugged at the strange response. “I’ve heard that drow be evil, but ye don’t seem so to me.”

  “Then you have taken a great risk in coming out here all by yourself,” Drizzt remarked. “But fear not,” he quickly added, seeing the girl’s sudden uneasiness, “for I am not evil and will bring no harm to you.” After the months alone in his comfortable but empty cave, Drizzt did not want this meeting to end quickly.

  Catti-brie nodded, believing his words. “Me name’s Catti-brie,” she said. “Me dad is Bruenor, King o’ Clan Battlehammer.”

  Drizzt cocked his head curiously.

  “The dwarves,” Catti-brie explained, pointing back to the valley. She understood Drizzt’s confusion as soon as she spoke the words. “He’s not me real dad,” she said. “Bruenor took me in when I was just a babe, when me real parents were… ”

  She couldn’t finish, and Drizzt didn’t need her to, understanding her pained expression.

  “I am Drizzt Do’Urden,” the drow interjected. “Well met, Catti-brie, daughter of Bruenor. It is good to have another to talk with. For all these weeks of winter, I have had only Guenhwyvar, there, when the cat is around, and my friend does not say much, of course!”

  Catti-brie’s smile nearly took in her ears. She glanced over her shoulder to the panther, now reclining lazily in the path. “She’s a beautiful cat,” Catti-brie remarked.

  Drizzt did not doubt the sincerity in the girl’s tone, or in the admiring gaze she dropped on Guenhwyvar. “Come here, Guenhwyvar” Drizzt said, and the panther stretched and slowly rose. Guenhwyvar walked right beside Catti-brie, and Drizzt nodded to answer her unspoken but obvious desire, Tentatively at first, but then firmly, Catti-brie stroked the panther’s sleek coat, feeling the beast’s power and perfection. Guenhwyvar accepted the petting without complaint, even bumped into Catti-brie’s side when she stopped for a moment, prodding her to continue.

  “Are you alone?” Drizzt asked.

  Catti-brie nodded. “Me dad said to keep the caves in sight.” She laughed. “I can see them well enough, by me thinkin’!”

  Drizzt looked back into the valley, to the far rock wall several miles away. “Your father would not be pleased. This land is not so tame. I have been on the mountain for only two months, and I have fought twice already shaggy white beasts I do not know.”

  “Tundra yeti,” Catti-brie replied. “Ye must be on the northern side. Tundra yeti don’t come around the mountain.”

  “Are you so certain?” Drizzt asked sarcastically.

  “I’ve not ever seen one,” Catti-brie replied, “but I’m not fearing them. I came to find yerself, and now I have.”

  “You have,” said Drizzt, “and now what?”

  Catti-brie shrugged and went back to petting Guenhwyvar’s sleek coat.

  “Come,” Drizzt offered. “Let us find a more comfortable place to talk. The glare off the snow stings my eyes.”

  “Ye’re used to the dark tunnels?” Catti-brie asked hopefully, eager to hear tales of lands beyond the borders of Ten-Towns, the only place Catti-brie had ever known.

  Drizzt and the girl spent a marvelous day together. Drizzt told Catti-brie of Menzoberranzan and Catti-brie answered his tales with stories of Icewind Dale, of her life with the dwarves. Drizzt was especially interested in hearing about Bruenor and his kin, since the dwarves were his closest, and most-feared, neighbors.

  “Bruenor talks rough as stone, but I’m knowin’ him better than all that!” Catti-brie assured the drow. “He’s a right fine one, and so’s the rest o’ the clan.”

  Drizzt was glad to hear it, and glad, too, that he had made this connection, both for the implications of having such a friend and even more so because he truly enjoyed the charming and spirited lass’s company. Catti-brie’s energy and zest for life verily bubbled over. In her presence, the drow could not recall his haunting memories, could only feel good about his decision to save the elven child those many years before. Catti-brie’s singsong voice and the careless way she flipped her flowing hair about her shoulders lifted the burden of guilt from Drizzt’s back as surely as a giant could have hoisted a rock.

  Their tales could have gone on all that day and night, and for many weeks afterward, but when Drizzt noticed the sun riding low along the western horizon, he realized that the time had come for the girl to head back to her home.

  “I will take you,” Drizzt offered.

  “No,” Catti-brie replied. “Ye best not. Bruenor’d not understand, and ye’d get me in a mountain o’ trouble. I can get back, don’t ye be worrying! I know these trails better’n yerself, Drizzt Do’Urden, and ye couldn’t keep up to me if ye tried!”

  Drizzt laughed at the boast but almost believed it. He and the girl set out at once, moving to the mountain’s southernmost spur and then saying their good-byes with promises that they would meet again during the next thaw, or in the spring if none came sooner.

  * * *

  Truly the girl was skipping lightly when she entered the dwarven complex, but one look at her surly father stole a measure of her delight. Bruenor had gone to Bryn Shander that morning on business with Cassius. The dwarf wasn’t thrilled to learn that a dark elf had made a home so close to his door, but he guessed that his curious—too curious-daughter would think it a grand thing.

  “Keep yerself away from the mountain,” Bruenor said as soon as he noticed Catti-brie, and then she was in despair.

  “But me Dad—” she tried to protest.

  “On yer word, girl!” the dwarf demanded. “Ye’ll not set foot on that mountain again without me permission! There’s a dark elf there, by Cassius’s telling. On yer word!”

  Catti-brie nodded helplessly, then followed Bruenor back to the dwarven complex, knowing she would have a hard time changing her father’s mind, but knowing, too, Bruenor held views far from justified where Drizzt Do�
�Urden was concerned.

  * * *

  Another thaw came a month later and Catti-brie heeded her promise. She never put one foot on Kelvin’s Cairn, but from the valley trails around it, she called out to Drizzt and to Guenhwyvar. Drizzt and the panther, looking for the girl with the break in the weather, were soon beside her, in the valley this time, sharing more tales and a picnic lunch that Catti-brie had packed.

  When Catti-brie got back to the dwarven mines that evening, Bruenor suspected much and asked her only once if she had kept her word. The dwarf had always trusted his daughter, but when Catti-brie answered that she had not been on Kelvin’s Cairn, his suspicions did not diminish.

  24. Revelations

  Bruenor ambled along the lower slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn for the better part of the morning. Most of the snow was melted now with spring thick in the air, but stubborn pockets still made the trails difficult. Axe in one hand and shield, emblazoned with the foaming mug standard of Clan Battlehammer, in the other, Bruenor trudged on, spitting curses at every slick spot, at every boulder obstacle, and at dark elves in general.

  He rounded the northwesternmost spur of the mountain, his long, pointed nose cherry-red from the biting wind and his breath coming hard. “Time for a rest,” the dwarf muttered, spotting a stone alcove sheltered by high walls from the relentless wind.

  Bruenor wasn’t the only one who had noticed the comfortable spot. Just before he reached the ten-foot-wide break in the rock wall, a sudden flap of leathery wings brought a huge, insectlike head rising up before him. The dwarf fell back, startled and wary. He recognized the beast as a remorhaz, a polar worm, and was not so eager to jump in against it.

  The remorhaz came out of the cubby in pursuit, its snakelike, forty-foot-long body rolling out like an ice-blue ribbon behind it. Multifaceted bug eyes, shining bright white, honed in on the dwarf. Short, leathery wings kept the creature’s front half reared and ready to strike while dozens of scrambling legs propelled the remainder of the long torso.