One of the beasts dropped immediately to the ground, as Drizzt had hoped, but the others halted at a signal from their more experienced leader’s outstretched hand. They looked around nervously, apparently wondering about the wisdom of continuing this meeting. The gnoll chieftain, though, had seen harmless faerie fire before, in a fight with an unfortunate—now deceased—ranger, and knew it for what it was.
Drizzt tensed in anticipation and tried to determine his next move.
The gnoll chieftain glanced around at its companions, as if studying how fully they were limned by the dancing flames. Judging by the completeness of the spell, this was no ordinary drow peasant standing in the stream—or so Drizzt hoped the chieftain was thinking.
Drizzt relaxed a bit as the leader dipped its spear and signaled for the others to do likewise. The gnoll then barked a jumble of words that sounded like gibberish to the drow. Seeing Drizzt’s obvious confusion, the gnoll called something in the guttural tongue of goblins.
Drizzt understood the goblin language, but the gnoll’s dialect was so very strange that he managed to decipher only a few words, “friend” and “leader” being among them.
Cautiously Drizzt took a step toward the bank. The gnolls gave ground, opening a path to his belongings. Drizzt took another tentative step, then grew more at ease when he noticed a black feline form crouched in the bushes a short distance away. At his command, Guenhwyvar, in one great spring, would come crashing into the gnoll band.
“You and I to walk together?” Drizzt asked the gnoll leader, using the goblin tongue and trying to simulate the creature’s dialect.
The gnoll replied in a hurried shout, and the only thing that Drizzt thought he understood was the last word of the question: “… ally?”
Drizzt nodded slowly, hoping he understood the creature’s full meaning.
“Ally!” the gnoll croaked, and all of its companions smiled and laughed in relief and patted each other on the back. Drizztreached his equipment then, and immediately strapped on his scimitars. Seeing the gnolls distracted, the drow glanced at Guenhwyvar and nodded to the thick growth along the trail ahead. Swiftly and silently, Guenhwyvar took up a new position. No need to give all of his secrets away, Drizzt figured, not until he truly understood his new companions’ intentions.
Drizzt walked along with the gnolls down the mountain’s lower, winding passes. The gnolls kept far to the drow’s sides, whether out of respect for Drizzt and the reputation of his race or for some other reason, he could not know. More likely, Drizzt suspected, they kept their distance simply because of his odor, which the bath had done little to diminish.
The gnoll leader addressed Drizzt every so often, accentuating its excited words with a sly wink or a sudden rub of its thick, padded hands. Drizzt had no idea of what the gnoll was talking about, but he assumed from the creature’s eager lip-smacking that it was leading him to some sort of feast.
Drizzt soon guessed the band’s destination, for he had often watched from jutting peaks high in the mountains, the lights of a small human farming community in the valley. Drizzt could only guess at the relationship between the gnolls and the human farmers, but he sensed that it was not a friendly one. When they neared the village, the gnolls dropped into defensive positions, followed lines of shrubs, and kept to the shadows as much as possible. Twilight was fast approaching as the troupe made its way around the village’s central area to look down upon a secluded farmhouse off to the west.
The gnoll chieftain whispered to Drizzt, slowly rolling out each word so that the drow might understand. “One family,” it croaked. “Three men, two women…”
“One young woman,” another added eagerly.
The gnoll chieftain gave a snarl. “And three young males,” it concluded.
Drizzt thought he now understood the journey’s purpose, and the surprised and questioning look on his face prompted the gnoll to confirm it beyond doubt.
“Enemies,” the leader declared.
Drizzt, knowing next to nothing of the two races, was in a dilemma. The gnolls were raiders—that much was clear—and they meant to swoop down upon the farmhouse as soon as the last daylight faded away. Drizzt had no intention of joining them in their fight until he had a lot more information concerning the nature of the conflict.
“Enemies?” he asked.
The gnoll leader crinkled its brow in apparent consternation. It spouted a line of gibberish in which Drizzt thought he heard “human… weakling… slave.” All the gnolls sensed the drow’s sudden uneasiness, and they began fingering their weapons and glancing to each other nervously.
“Three men,” Drizzt said.
The gnoll jabbed its spear savagely toward the ground. “Kill oldest! Catch two!”
“Women?”
The evil smile that spread over the gnoll’s face answered the question beyond doubt, and Drizzt was beginning to understand where he stood in the conflict.
“What of the children?” He eyed the gnoll leader squarely and spoke each word distinctly. There could be no misunderstanding. His final question confirmed it all, for while Drizzt could accept the typical savagery concerning mortal enemies, he could never forget the one time he had participated in such a raid. He had saved an elven child on that day, had hidden the girl under her mother’s body to keep her from the wrath of his drow companions. Of all the many evils Drizzt had ever witnessed, the murder of children had been the worst.
The gnoll thrust its spear toward the ground, its dog-face contorted in wicked glee.
“I think not,” Drizzt said simply, fires springing up in his lavender eyes. Somehow, the gnolls noticed, his scimitars had appeared in his hands.
Again the gnoll’s snout crinkled, this time in confusion. It tried to get its spear up in defense, not knowing what this strange drow would do next, but was too late.
Drizzt’s rush was too quick. Before the gnoll’s spear tip even moved, the drow waded in, scimitars leading. The other four gnolls watched in amazement as Drizzt’s blades snapped twice, tearing the throat from their powerful leader. The giant gnoll fell backward silently, grasping futilely at its throat.
A gnoll to the side reacted first, leveling its spear and charging at Drizzt. The agile drow easily deflected the straightforward attack but was careful not to slow the gnoll’s momentum. As the huge creature lumbered past, Drizzt rolled around beside it and kicked at its ankles. Off balance, the gnoll stumbled on, plunging its spear deep into the chest of a startled companion.
The gnoll tugged at the weapon, but it was firmly embedded, its barbed head hooked around the other gnoll’s backbone. The gnoll had no concern for its dying companion; all it wanted was its weapon. It tugged and twisted and cursed and spat into the agonized expressions crossing its companion’s face—until a scimitar bashed in the beast’s skull.
Another gnoll, seeing the drow distracted and thinking it wiser to engage the foe from a distance, raised its spear to throw. Its arm went up high, but before the weapon ever started forward, Guenhwyvar crashed in, and the gnoll and panther tumbled away. The gnoll smashed heavy punches into the panther’s muscled side, but Guenhwyvar’s raking claws were more effective by far. In the split second it took Drizzt to turn from the three dead gnolls at his feet, the fourth of the band lay dead beneath the great panther. The fifth had taken flight.
Guenhwyvar tore free of the dead gnoll’s stubborn grasp. The cat’s sleek muscles rippled anxiously as it awaited the expected command. Drizzt considered the carnage around him, the blood on his scimitars, and the horrible expressions on the faces of the dead. He wanted to let it end, for he realized that he had stepped into a situation beyond his experience, had crossed the paths of two races that he knew very little about. After a moment of consideration, though, the single notion that stood out in the drow’s mind was the gnoll leader’s gleeful promise of death to the human children. Too much was at stake.