* * ** * *
appearance of a dark elf. Up in a cave in the mountains, Ulgulu and Kempfana, too, spent a night of worry over the
“If he’s a drow, then he’s an experienced adventurer,” Kempfana offered to his larger brother. “Experienced enough, perhaps, to send Ulgulu into maturity.”
“And back to Gehenna!” Ulgulu finished for his conniving brother. “You do so dearly desire to see me depart.”
“You, too, hope for the day when you may return to the smoking rifts,” Kempfana reminded him.
Ulgulu snarled and did not reply. The appearance of a dark elf prompted many considerations and fears beyond Kempfana’s simple statement of logic. The barghests, like all intelligent creatures on nearly every plane of existence, knew of the drow and maintained a healthy respect for the race.
While one drow might not be too much of a problem, Ulgulu knew that a dark elf war party, perhaps even an army, could prove disastrous. The whelps were not invulnerable. The human village had provided easy pickings for the barghest whelps and might continue to do so for some time if Ulgulu and Kempfana were careful about their attacks. But if a band of dark elves showed up, those easy kills could disappear quite suddenly.
“This drow must be dealt with,” Kempfana remarked. “If he is a scout, then he must not return to report.”
Ulgulu snapped a cold glare on his brother, then called to his quickling. “Tephanis,” he cried, and the quickling was upon his shoulder before he had even finished the word. “You-need-me-to-go-and-kill-the-drow,
my-master,” the quickling replied.
“I-understand-what-you-need-me-to-do!”
“No!” Ulgulu shouted immediately, sensing that the quick-ling intended to go right out.
Tephanis was halfway to the door by the time Ulgulu finished the syllable, but the quickling returned to Ulgulu’s shoulder before the last note of the shout had died away.
“No,” Ulgulu said again, more easily. “There may be a gain in the drow’s appearance.”
Kempfana read Ulgulu’s evil grin and understood his brother’s intent. “A new enemy for the
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townspeople,” the smaller whelp reasoned. “A new enemy to cover Ulgulu’s murders?”
“All things can be turned to advantage,” the big, purple-skinned barghest replied wickedly, “even the appearance of a dark elf.” Ulgulu turned back to Tephanis.
“You-wish-to-learn-more-of-the-drow, my-master,” Tephanis spouted excitedly.
“Is he alone?” Ulgulu asked. “Is he a forward scout to a larger group, as we fear, or a lone warrior? What are his intentions toward the townspeople?”
“He-could-have-killed-the-children,” Tephanis reiterated. “I-guess-him-to-desire-friendship.”
“I know,” Ulgulu snarled. “You have made those points before. Go now and learn more! I need more than your guess, Tephanis, and by all accounts, a drow’s actions rarely hint at his true intent!”
“Indeed, dear Tephanis,” Ulgulu purred. “Do see if you can appropriate one of the drow’s Tephanis skipped down from Ulgulu’s shoulder and paused, expecting further instructions. weapons for me. It would prove usef–” Ulgulu stopped when he noticed the flutter in the heavy curtain blocking the entry room.
“An excitable little sprite,” Kempfana noted.
“But with his uses,” Ulgulu replied, and Kempfana had to nod in agreement.
* * ** * *
Drizzt saw them coming from a mile away. Ten armed farmers followed the young man he had met in the blueberry patch on the previous day. Though they talked and joked, the set of their stride was determined and their weapons were prominently displayed, obviously ready to be put to use. Even more insidious, walking to the side of the main band came a barrel-chested, grim-faced man wrapped in thick skins, brandishing a finely crafted axe and leading two large and snarling yellow dogs on thick chains. Drizzt wanted to make further contact with the villagers, wanted dearly to continue the events he had set in motion the previous day and learn if he might have, at long last, found a place he could call home, but this coming encounter, he realized, was not the place to make such gains. If the farmers found him, there would surely be trouble, and while Drizzt wasn’t too worried for his own safety against the ragged band, even considering the grim-faced fighter, he did fear that one of the farmers might get hurt.
Drizzt decided that his mission this day was to avoid the group and to deflect their curiosity. The drow knew the perfect diversion to accomplish those goals. He set the onyx figurine on the ground before him and called to Guenhwyvar.
A buzzing noise off to the side, followed by the sudden rustle of brush, distracted the drow for just a moment as the customary mist swirled around the figurine. Drizzt saw nothing ominous approaching, though, and quickly dismissed it. He had more pressing problems, he thought.
When Guenhwyvar arrived, Drizzt and the cat moved down the trail beyond the blueberry patch, where Drizzt guessed that the farmers would begin their hunt. His plan was simple: He would let the farmers mill about the area for a while, let the farmer’s son retell his story of the encounter. Guenhwyvar then would make an appearance along the edge of the patch and lead the group on a futile chase. The black-furred panther might cast some doubts on the farm boy’s tale; possibly the older men would assume that the children had encountered the cat and not a dark elf and that their Guenhwyvar would cast some doubts about the existence of the dark elf and would get this hunting imaginations had supplied the rest of the details. It was a gamble, Drizzt knew, but, at the very least, party away from Drizzt for a while.
The farmers arrived at the blueberry patch on schedule, a few grim-faced and battle-ready but the majority of the group talking casually in conversations filled with laughter. They found the discarded sword, and Drizzt watched, nodding his head, as the farmer’s son played through the events of the previous day. Drizzt noticed, too, that the large axe-wielder, listening to the story halfheartedly, circled the group with his dogs, pointing at various spots in the patch and coaxing the
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dogs to sniff about. Drizzt had no practical experience with dogs, but he knew that many creatures had superior senses and could be used to aid in a hunt.
“Go, Guenhwyvar,” the drow whispered, not waiting for the dogs to get a clear scent.
The great panther loped silently down the trail and took up a position in one of the trees in the same grove where the boys had hidden the previous day. Guenhwyvar’s sudden roar silenced the group’s growing conversation in an instant, all heads spinning to the trees.
The panther leaped out into the patch, shot right past the stunned humans, and darted across the rising rocks of the mountain slopes. The farmers hooted and took up pursuit, calling for the man with the dogs to take the lead. Soon the whole group, dogs baying wildly, moved off and Drizzt went down into the grove near the blueberry patch to consider the day’s events and his best course of action.
He thought that a buzzing noise followed him, but he passed it off as the hum of an insect.
* * ** * *
By his dogs’ confused actions, it didn’t take Roddy McGristle long to figure out that the panther was not the same creature that had left the scent in the blueberry patch. Furthermore, Roddy realized that his ragged companions, particularly the obese mayor, even with his aid, had little chance of catching the great cat; the panther could spring across ravines that would take the farmers many minutes to circumvent.
“Go on!” Roddy told the rest of the group. “Chase the thing along this course. I’ll take my dogs’n go far to the side and cut the thing off, turn it back to ye!” The farmers hooted their accord and bounded away, and Roddy pulled back the chains and turned his dogs aside.
The dogs, trained for the hunt, wanted to go on, but their master had another route in mind. Several thoughts bothered Roddy at that moment. He had been in these mountains for thirty years but had never seen, or even heard of, such a cat. Also, though the panther easily could have left its pursuers far behind, it always seemed to appear out in the open not too far away, as though it was leading the farmers on. Roddy knew a diversion when he saw it, and he had a good guess of where the perpetrator might be hiding. He muzzled the dogs to keep them silent and headed back the way he had come, back to the blueberry patch.
Drizzt rested against a tree in the shadows of the thick copse and wondered how he might further his exposure to the farmers without causing any more panic among them. In his days of watching the single farm family, Drizzt had become convinced that he could find a place among the humans, of this or of some other settlement, if only he could convince them that his intentions were not dangerous.
A buzz to Drizzt’s left brought him abruptly from his contemplations. Quickly he drew his scimitars, then something flashed by him, too fast for him to react. He cried out at a sudden pain in his wrist, and his scimitar was pulled from his grasp. Confused, Drizzt looked down to his wound, expecting to see an arrow or crossbow bolt stuck deep into his arm.
The wound was clean and empty. A high-pitched laughter spun Drizzt to the right. There stood the sprite, Drizzt’s scimitar casually slung over one shoulder, nearly touching the ground behind the diminutive creature, and a dagger, dripping blood, in his other hand.
Drizzt stayed very still, trying to guess the thing’s next move. He had never seen a quickling, advantage. Before the drow could form any plan to defeat the quickling, though, another nemesis or even heard of the uncommon creatures, but he already had a good idea of his speedy opponent’s showed itself.
Drizzt knew as soon as he heard the howl that his cry of pain had revealed him. The first of Roddy McGristle’s snarling hounds crashed through the brush, charging in low at the drow. The second, a few running strides behind the first, came in high, leaping toward Drizzt’s throat.
This time, though, Drizzt was the quicker. He slashed down with his remaining scimitar, cutting the first dog’s head and bashing its skull. Without hesitation, Drizzt threw himself