branch overheard or an unseen bird called out to the night.
The dark elves' was a silent world, far different from the
chattering life of a springtime forest, and in the Underdark,
nearly every living thing could, and most certainly would,
try to harm anything invading its lair. Even a cricket's chirp
sounded ominous to the alert ears of the drow.
Dinin's course was true, and soon the faerie song
drowned out every other sound and the light of a fire be-
came visible through the boughs. Surface elves were the
most alert of the races, and a human-or even a sneaky
halfling-would have had little chance of catching them un-
awares.
The raiders this night were drow, more skilled in stealth
than the most proficient alley thief. Their footfalls went un-
heard, even across beds of dry, fallen leaves, and their
crafted armor, shaped perfectly to the contours of their
slender bodies, bent with their movements without a rustle.
Unnoticed, they lined the perimeter of the small glade,
where a score of faeries danced and sang.
Transfixed by the sheer joy of the elves' play, Drizzt
hardly noticed the commands his brother issued then in the
silent code. Several children danced among the gathering,
marked only by the size of their bodies, and were no freer
in spirit than the adults they accompanied. So innocent they
all seemed, so full of life and wistfulness, and obviously
bonded to each other by friendship more profound than
Drizzt had ever known in Menzoberranzan. So unlike the
stories Hatch'net had spun of them, tales of vile, hating
wretches.
Drizzt sensed more than saw that his group was on the
move, fanning out to gain a greater advantage. Still he did
not take his eyes from the spectacle before him. Dinin
tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the small cross-
bow that hung from his belt, then slipped off into position in
the brush off to the side.
Drizzt wanted to stop his brother and the others, wanted
to make them wait and observe the surface elves that they
were so quick to name enemies. Drizzt found his feet rooted
to the earth and his tongue weighted heavily in the sudden
dryness that had come into his mouth. He looked to Dinin
and could only hope that his brother mistakenly thought his
labored breaths the exultations of battle-lust. .
Then Drizzt's keen ears heard the soft thrum of a dozen
tiny bowstrings. The elven song carried on a moment
longer, until several of the group dropped to the earth.
"Not" Drizzt screamed in protest, the words torn from his
body by a profound rage even he did not understand. The
denial sounded like just another war cry to the drow raid-
ers, and before the surface elves could even begin to react,
Dinin and the others were upon them.
Drizzt, too, leaped into the glade's lighted ring, his weap-
ons in hand, though he had given no thought to his next
move. He wanted only to stop the battle, to put an end to the
scene unfolding before him.
Quite at ease in their woodland home, the surface elves
weren't even armed. The drow warriors sliced through
their ranks mercilessly, cutting them down and hacking at
their bodies long after the light of life had flown from their
eyes.
One terrified female, dodging this way and that, came be-
fore Drizzt. He dipped the tips of his weapons to the earth,
searching for some way to give a measure of comfort.
The female then jerked straight as a sword dove into her
back, its tip thrusting right through her slender form.
Drizzt watched, mesmerized and horrified, as the drow
warrior behind her grasped the weapon hilt in both hands
and twisted it savagely. The female elf looked straight at
Drizzt in the last fleeting seconds of her life, her eyes crying
for mercy. Her voice was no more than the sickening gurgle
of blood.
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 furi-
ous 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 mu-
tilated corpse at his feet; her anguish outweighed even the
terror of her own impending doom. She could only be cry-
ing, "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 ac-
cept 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 ap-
pease 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'Ur-
den 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 re-
flection, that reverse image of the rage that guided his hand,
Drizzt Do'Urden found himself.
He brought the scimitar down in a mighty sweep, watch-
ing Dinin out of the corner of his eye as it whisked harm-
lessly past the child- In the same motion, Drizzt followed
with his other hand, catching the girl by the front of her tu-
nic 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 de-
ception. 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 no-
ticed anyway.
"Not with you here!" Dinin continued. "1Wo 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 hap-
pened, 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 de-
cided 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 en-
trance. She alone knew of the raid's second purpose. "The
matrons of Menzoberranzan have bid us to witness the ulti-
mate horror of the surface world, that we might warn our
kindred”
Our kindred? Drizzt mused, his thoughts black with sar-
casm. As far as he could see, the raiders had already wit-
nessed 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 dis-
tant mountains. A surface dweller would not even have no-
ticed 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 mo-
ment 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 east-
ern 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 unaccus-
tomed 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. lruly 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?" Drizzt 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 be-
yond, 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
